Comments on: How to Rob a State

By: listing starboard

listing starboard — Thu, 07 May 2009 13:21:29 +0000

Just imagine what will happen when ALL health records are on line and in government control. It is a disaster in the making.

By: Peggy Sue

Peggy Sue — Wed, 06 May 2009 17:08:32 +0000

Wow. This WVA Auditor is certainly doing gymnastics. We seem to living in a “pass the buck [and responsibility for anything and everything] down the road. On the other hand, I would imagine that 2 million dollars is a real hit for WVA. It’s a beautiful state but one with a lot of poverty. As things get tighter and tighter, we’ll probably be hearing about more “creative” heists like this one.

I think I’d feel better knowing we had competent people in high and low places. Our standards have really fallen off over the last few decades.

Thanks for the info, Eastan.

By: Eastan McNeal

Eastan McNeal — Wed, 06 May 2009 15:34:28 +0000

I thought is was quite “Sonic” of you. I wonder if these scammers are pulling anything like this on the feds.

By: Sonic Ninja Kitty

Sonic Ninja Kitty — Wed, 06 May 2009 15:18:43 +0000

I think the more local government gets, the better chance people have at actually halting corruption (although it will never completely disappear). Look at all the corruption we see on a large scale–who is bringing suits? I sure don’t know–’someone else’ is taking care of it. It’s classic psychology–diffusion of responsibility allows tyranny to take hold. Less federal gov, more local gov–it’s the way our founding fathers intended, and just for this reason. Go libertarian!

(Whew, mini rant to the world done for the day–lol.)

By: Eastan McNeal

Eastan McNeal — Wed, 06 May 2009 15:10:57 +0000

UPDATE. I do not have news from other states. In WV the Auditor just asked the Governor for one extra staffer to double check request for payment changes. He warns, however, that it may slow down payments to vendors. One of the companies, BTW, is Deloitte. $2 Million may not seem a lot compared to the trillions being stolen in DC but, if this is going on in multiple states then.. Let’s put it this way. There are a lot of needy programs in states that are going un-funded.

By: tek

tek — Wed, 06 May 2009 14:48:06 +0000

Eastan: good article. This actually happened at an archives (state) where I worked. A curator had been sending himself mail from the archives for years. One of the letters got inadvertently diverted, and an intern opened it and found valuable documents addressed to the curator. The curator resigned, but was never prosecuted. During the tenure of the next curator, valuable documents turned up missing on a regular basis. No investigation, no prosecution, the archives just told the press they weren’t sure if the documents were really missing, needed to do a thorough inventory and they didn’t have the manpower to do it.

So, if you want make a fortune embezzling at work…

By: Tom Cat "wodie j" Jefferson Esq

Tom Cat "wodie j" Jefferson Esq — Wed, 06 May 2009 14:45:56 +0000

I am sure that they do not get such an enormous amount of requests for this that they couldn’t make a quick phone call to check the validity. They could designate one employee for this alone. Pay them a reasonable salary and problem solved. It would be a lot cheaper than losing $1-2 million dollars! For cryin’ out loud, I can’t believe how STUPID people are.

By: Eastan McNeal

Eastan McNeal — Wed, 06 May 2009 14:26:09 +0000

Looking at the Larry Doyle stories and others here I don’t know what is worse: Crooks at the helm (feds) or dopes at the door (states). There are a lot of people out there, with our money in their hands, mumbling: gvmnt bin very good to me.

By: Sonic Ninja Kitty

Sonic Ninja Kitty — Wed, 06 May 2009 14:10:00 +0000

Easton, I really like your profound scientific response.

Is there any doubt that turning MORE things over to the government is a disastrous mistake?

By: bart

bart — Wed, 06 May 2009 14:09:19 +0000

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2009/05/hackers_break_into_virginia_he.html

Have you see this? According to the Washington Post:

Hackers Break Into Virginia Health Professions Database, Demand Ransom

Hackers last week broke into a Virginia state Web site used by pharmacists to track prescription drug abuse. They deleted records on more than 8 million patients and replaced the site’s homepage with a ransom note demanding $10 million for the return of the records, according to a posting on Wikileaks.org, an online clearinghouse for leaked documents.

By: SiliconDoc

SiliconDoc — Wed, 06 May 2009 13:41:00 +0000

More secure than our federal monies were (and are)when the clown congress conjured up their magical recipe by handing over all the money and then some to the very head fraudsters reassigned to take it to cover their former joint criminal conspiracies.
Which is to say in the latter case, not at all.
I just hope the many states in such dire positions of financial woe, don’t catch on too quickly – or maybe we’re already past that hope – as they colluded with congress and cover – the banks and pension and other such bailout goodies knocking on their door, exploding into view in all their glory.
I guess more secure requires more analysis.