re: "Write or wrong?"

Steve at Dead Men Working had some sharp criticism of "We Meant Well" author/blogger and FSO Peter Van Buren.

Money quote(s):

"We have been following with interest the blogs and descriptions of the case of Peter Van Buren's book, and we must say, we are becoming increasingly disappointed.

When the case first arose, it seemed open and shut. Mr. Van Buren had written a book, sought Department of State approval, complied with the written procedures, then, after there was no objection during the mandatory time period, submitted it for publication. Months later, after the book was published, the State Department had decided to object, and had contacted the publisher behind Mr. Van Buren's back to accuse him of wrongdoing and ask that the book be recalled.

The State Department clearly looked to be in the wrong. The case raised a number of important issues about how the system worked - or did not. Van Buren looked like a person who had been wronged, and against whom there was a risk of illegal retaliation."

So Van Buren looked like the wronged party up to that point, and DS the black hats.

"Since the story broke, however, Mr. Van Buren has been blogging up a storm, using the media exposure to flog his book. And seizing, it would appear, every opportunity to, at the very least, push further the edge of the already-bursting envelope.

In doing so, he has raised real questions about his behavior and suitability, that have nothing to do with his book.

He has blogged, for example, about his improper refusal to participate fully in the investigation of which he is the subject, and about his refusal to identify his contacts - a requirement of all holders of government clearances.

And he has, apparently knowingly, published links to information which the government, for smart reasons or stupid ones, has toldemployees not to access.

And about how, now that his clearance is suspended (temporarily - while under investigation), he is will be frequenting that andother sites that publish classified materials. "

Brother Van Buren hasn't demonstrated much in the way of being a shy, retiring sort of fellow, nor, perhaps should he. After two tours in the sandbox, working on PRTs, he wrote his book, submitted it per procedures, and was being persecuted, perhaps, for his views despite the Department's failure to use its own publication clearance process in a timely manner.

And he's been howling, essentially, from the rooftops about it, he's that mad/angry.

So might you, perhaps.

CAA thinks Brother Van Buren has gone a bit overboard (for a serving FSO) more than once, such as his unnecessarily offensive characterizations of Sec. Clinton, but then, if they aren't going to treat him like a serving FSO, maybe that's to be expected.

Be sure to read Peter Van Buren's comments at the post cited above.

10/19

Leave Donations Requested

As noted by Steve at Dead Men Walking, AFSA's (and our) own Daniel Hirsch put the arm out to the American diploblogosphere to rally the (figurative) troops around one-of-our-own who needs-our-help.

The ever-knowledgable Domani Spero at Diplopundit shared a video and a link to the story at the new-to-the-diploblogosphere (but already in the Washington Post) Jennifer Santiago.

(And a tip-o'-the-blog-hat to Ms. Santiago for making lemonade out of lemons on behalf of your classmate.)

See also Cupcake Diplomacy, one of my must-read FS family web logs. As she put it:

"I have a friend at work named Hannah. She is one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met and pretty much from day one I admired her ability to charm and disarm an entire room full of people without saying a word. She has an utterly infectious laugh, she is brilliant, and she is driven. She is also suffering from what is called a thymoma, a rare type
of tumor in her chest. In her case the tumor is rather large, which is
especially bad since she’s a pretty small person.

After 6 grueling weeks of chemotherapy, Hannah found out last week that the tumor did not respond to the chemo…it actually got bigger. In spite of the bad news from her doctor, she is still smiling, perky, and motivated to kick this thing to the curb.

Here’s where (some) of you folks come in. I know that a pretty large number of you are federal employees and luckily for Hannah, the federal government has a government-wide leave donation program. Today, I’m asking you all to please consider donating some leave to Hannah so she can get the surgery and treatment she needs without losing
pay. I know the summer holidays are coming up and many of you have plans for your leave, but I’m going to climb up on my soap box for a minute and appeal to your good conscience, your kindness, and your compassion. Please help my friend."

Her A-100 class, the 162nd, is digging deep into its Annual Leave pockets but, being junior officers, those pockets are pretty shallow so far.

Here's how to donate leave (swiped, without apologies, from Diplopundit):

State Department Employees:

Email, fax, or mail form DS-1862 (found via intranet) to the address found in the leave donation request announcement found here. [Note: you must be able to access DoS intranet for this link to work]

Employees of other federal agencies:

Fill out form OPM 630b and then have someone from your agency’s HR sign and date the bottom part of the form. You’ll need the name of the State Department contact in HR as well as some info about Hannah, but I’d rather not have that just floating around the internet so please email me at cupcakediplomacy AT gmail DOT com and I will get you the necessary info ASAP.

re: "Welcome to the 21st Century!"

Steve at Dead Men Working shares his evaluation.

Money quote(s):

"(O)f course, the fact that this person was able to gather so many documents indicates a lack of attention to the real first line of defense in the modern world: barriers to limit access to information to those who have a real need to know it, and tripwires to call attention to the kind of broad gathering of information that the perpetrator, Pfc. Bradley Manning, engaged in. SIPRNet, of course, has such barriers and such tripwires. But they were relaxed in Iraq, and apparently poorly monitored, and clearly, they failed."

re: "Veterans Day, 2009"

Steve at Dead Men Working re-posted an article you should read.

re: "A storm for a storm? Hope not!"

Thanks to Steve at Dead Men Working ("we are the zombies of the State Department, the dead men (and women) working") for the link.

Money quote(s):

"On Thursday afternoon, Washington time, an email storm brought the State Department's unclassified email servers to their collective knees, effectively cutting off email service to most State Department employees. It was caused by replies to a seemingly innocuous email wishing the entire global access list a happy new year. Each reply in turn went to the entire global access list, and soon thousands of copies of a more-than-a-megabyte-and-growing email were queued up in the system. Many employees received a hundred or more such replies, overloading mailboxes and further jamming the system.

This was almost certainly the intended consequence of a deliberate attack on the State Department system. Allegedly, the email contained hidden code which caused it to reply-all even if a reply was intended to be sent only to one person."

"(H)is team protects State against an estimated 5,100 viral attacks and some two million questionable probes each day. It is a huge job, and the fact that two or three attacks per year are successful (seriously affect the whole system) means that only a tiny fraction of one percent of all attacks do what they were intended to do. Not ideal in the best of all possible worlds. But still, it should be seen in perspective."

&

"The fact that service was restored within hours means that the procedures described in Reid's 2007 testimony seem to be working. The Department acted well to contain the damage and restore service.

The incident was embarrassing, and like all such events, was something of a wake-up call, but it showed that the controls in place are working as they should. "