Undue Influence (53 page)

Loyalties die hard.

On September 21, 1992, the following article appeared in Newsweek: A
CONFEDERACY
OF
GLITCHES
,
UNCLE
SAM
IS
JUST
ANOTHER
COMPUTER
ILLITERATE
“When Charles Hayes bid $45 for two truckloads of used government computer equipment in June 1990, he knew he was getting a lot for his money. He didn’t know how much, though, until the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Lexington, Ky., called in a panic. The computer storage devices held lists of confidential informants compiled by the U.S. Justice Department for federal criminal investigations. The computers also contained the names of people in the federal witness-protection program, people whose lives depend on their whereabouts not falling into the wrong hands. By the time the Justice Department attorneys called, Hayes had already sold the computers again. It seems the government computer technician who prepared the machines for sale tried to scramble all the files using a magnet that was too weak.

The End.