As the nation's tax collector the IRS has more access to the Americans' personally identifiable information than any civilian agency outside of the Social Security Administration. That's why this report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration highlighting weaknesses in the agency's phone screening procedures is sure to cause outcry from privacy advocates, especially given the federal government's mixed record on protecting citizens' private information.

According to the report IRS employees answering the agency's toll-free tax assistance hotline during fiscal 2009 repeatedly did not fully verify callers' identities before assisting them, failing to do so in 16 percent of the calls reviewed. Assistors also failed to put callers on hold 27 percent of the time, leading to numerous instances where callers were able to hear other people's personally identifiable information.

From the release:

IRS guidelines require assistors to fully authenticate callers before assisting them. Assistors are not always authenticating taxpayers who call the IRS’ toll-free telephone number for tax account information.

...

TIGTA auditors were able to hear parts of assistors’ conversations with other callers in 48 of the 180 sampled calls. This happened because assistors did not put callers on hold when they were researching the taxpayers’ accounts. For 26 calls, assistors repeated the Social Security Number back to the caller on the telephone.

"As the telephone continues to be one of the primary tools taxpayers use to communicate with the IRS, taxpayers need to be assured that the IRS is taking every precaution to protect their personal information from inadvertent disclosure," said J. Russell George, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.

The report is also a sobering reminder that the failure to properly implement established security policies is the cause of most significant cyber security breaches. While it's certainly encouraging to see the wave of proposed legislation and rules aimed at securing the nation's networks, none of those rules will have any chance to succeed without first educating workers about and raising awareness of the threat to the public's privacy.

Once again, the human element is always the last and most important link in any secure network.

TOP STORIES ON HILLICON VALLEY:
Rep. Stearns trying to block FCC on broadband regulation - The Hill
Coburn, others hope to create online earmark database - The Hill
FCC's Clyburn: New broadband rules not backdoor for net neutrality - The Hill
Lawmaker's letter in support for FCC not drafted by Free Press - The Hill

AROUND THE TECH BLOGOSPHERE:
Dorgan pushes back against FCC critics - Juliana Gruenwald, Tech Daily Dose
FCC weighs alerts for mounting cell phone charges - Cecilia Kang, Post Tech
Patent office upholds I4i patent in Microsoft dispute - Nancy Gohring, PC World
Hearing on Gizmodo iPhone warrant scheduled - Declan McCullagh, CNet
Console makers fight back against piracy - David Kushner, Wired
Drifting satellite threatens U.S. cable programming - Michael Weissenstein, AP
IBM to boost tech donations to non-profits - AP

A coalition of House and Senate lawmakers is now pushing legislation that would heed the president's call for a searchable, online database of congressional pet projects.

Led by Sens. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.) in the upper chamber and Reps. Steve Speier (D-Calif.) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.) in the House, the legislation would require online disclosure of every lawmaker requesting earmark funds, how much he or she sought and how much each member of Congress ultimately received.

That information would be housed on websites managed by the clerk of the House and the secretary of the Senate, according to Coburn's office. And each earmark request would have to be disclosed and published online before lawmakers could vote on the legislation to which it is attached, the bill's sponsors noted.

The effort would address what many agree is rampant inconsistency in how both chambers of Congress manage earmarks. While the House and Senate Appropriations Committees do already require disclosure, the information lawmakers must provide, as well as the duration for which they must publish those documents, varies considerably.

The bill also follows President Barack Obama's calls that lawmakers tighten spending and rein in congressional earmark.

“I’m also calling on Congress to continue down the path of earmark reform," Obama said in his January State of the Union address, before imploring lawmakers to create the earmark database. "Democrats and Republicans. You've trimmed some of this spending, you've embraced some meaningful change. But restoring the public trust demands more."

Coburn on Tuesday noted that lawmakers' legislation ultimately "answers the challenge made by President Obama during the State of the Union earlier this year."

"If we do not put these increased disclosure provisions into law, earmarks will continue to be the currency of big government, utilized by powerful lawmakers to bribe members into voting for bills they may otherwise oppose," Coburn added.

Today President Obama released his long-awaited plan for revamping the federal hiring process with the aim of streamlining the application and making it easier for agencies to compete with the private sector for the best applicants. The announcement is welcome news for thousands of would-be federal workers frustrated by a process that can take up to a year before candidates are finally brought on board.

The government's inability to quickly identify and locate promising applicants is especially harmful in the tech sector, where contractors and other private sector firms can offer better compensation and are usually able to make a decision months before their government counterparts. As a result agencies are facing as many as 20,000 open technology jobs in the next two years, with that number only expected to rise as the Obama Administration seeks to increase the government's use of technology to increase efficiency and reduce costs.

While the Obama Administration's elevation of technology issues has enthused many in the tech sector, without adequate personnel to implement and maintain the many new systems and public-facing databases being proposed progress may still be years away. For years the government's inability to attract and retain the top IT talent has resulted in its systems lagging behind the private sector as well as other developed nations. If the Administration is serious about rebuilding the nation's economy through increased technological output, raising the level of expertise within the government itself is paramount.

To that end, reforming the hiring process so applicants receive a definitive response within 90 days is a crucial step. While it may not be as obviously tech-related as the debate over net neutrality or broadband expansion, if successful the reforms will help attract a new generation of technology-savvy federal workers who will in turn lay the groundwork for the infrastructure necessary to power the country's economy into the 21st century.

The FCC on Tuesday began the process of establishing a voluntary cybersecurity certification program for Internet and other communication providers.

The commission announced its plans in this morning's Federal Register, noting it would solicit comments on its tentative cybersecurity ideas until Sept. 8. The voluntary certification program was first proposed as part of the agency's National Broadband Plan, the comprehensive agenda the FCC released in March.

Chiefly motivating the FCC's new cybersecurity certification program are reports that hacks and cyberattacks grew exponentially in 2009. One firm told the commission that the total number of malware samples archived in its database last year reached 40 million -- its highest point in 20 years.

At the same time, however, the FCC noted an independent review that found 47 percent of all enterprises studied in 2009 actually reduced their information-security budgets.

"The security of the core communications infrastructure--the plumbing of cyberspace--is believed to be robust," the FCC noted in the register. "Yet recent trends suggest that the networks and the platforms on which Internet users rely are becoming increasingly susceptible to operator error and malicious cyber attack.

The FCC envisions its system as completely voluntary, "but that by agreeing to participate, such communications providers would be bound by the program's rules." It seeks comment on that approach, as well as a proposal that it would collect fees from those companies that choose to participate.

A Republican congressman on Tuesday introduced legislation that would essentially block the FCC from enacting its new rules to regulate Internet providers.

Days after Chairman Julius Genachowski revealed his plan to apply to broadband companies a series of rules that already govern phone providers, Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) debuted legislation that he hopes will alert lawmakers to the FCC's "partisan maneuver to regulate the Internet.”

Read more...

FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn stressed Tuesday that the agency's plans to rein in high-speed Internet providers is not solely an attempt to institute tough net neutrality rules.

While Clyburn said she actively supports open Internet, she described Chairman Julius Genachowski's newly proposed regulations on broadband companies as the only way to enact widely supported measures in the National Broadband Plan, which were cast in jeopardy following an April court ruling.

Read more...

It seems haste was to blame for reports that one Democratic congressman used a letter last week drafted by a lobbyist to drum up support for the FCC's plans to regulate Internet companies.

An industry source first notified Hillicon Valley on Friday that Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) had borrowed a "Dear Colleague" template from the public-interest group Free Press, which supports the FCC's plan to apply to broadband providers a series of rules that govern phone companies.

The source pointed to the document's meta-data -- viewable by clicking "properties" in Microsoft Word -- which showed its author was Ben Scott, the executive director for Free Press.

Free Press did not return a request for comment last week. But Inslee's office told Hillicon Valley on Tuesday that Scott did not, in fact, draft the letter on behalf of the congressman. Rather, as Inslee's staff scrambled to put out something last week in support of the FCC's goals, it consulted old documents and industry talking points for ideas. A staff member ultimately typed the new letter on top of the Word document that Free Press previously sent Inslee -- the date of which was May 7 -- meaning the meta-data still reflected Scott as its author.

"Yep, that’s it, in our haste we typed over a word document with someone else’s meta tag," said communications director Robert Kellar. "There is no plot and we created the letter."

(Updated at 12:37 p.m. with letter's timestamp)

FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn on Tuesday said she believed her colleagues should hold public hearings on the proposed NBC-Comcast mega-merger.

At an event hosted by Free Press, Clyburn described field hearings as the only way for the "commission to interact and see up close how Americans feel" about the deal, which the FCC still must approve.

"Obviously, we do not have the resources to travel the country, getting individual views from every city and town," the commissioner said. "But we do have the resources to hold more than one hearing in places where people are affected..."

So far, the FCC has not yet signaled whether it will include public hearings as part of its merger review. That process is still in its early stages, as the FCC's request in April Comcast provide detailed information about the merger's economic effects has extended the public comment period until at least July.

Still, Clyburn's signal of support for public hearings follows a similar request aired last week by Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and 45 other lawmakers, many of whom belong to the Congressional Black Caucus.

“I have been concerned about media consolidation and a lack of programming and ownership diversity in media for years,” Rep Waters said after she delivered the letter to the FCC, which contained about six pagers' worth of questions for the two companies.

“Comcast is the nation’s largest provider of cable and internet services, so the merger’s impact will affect virtually every American," she continued. "My colleagues and I want the FCC to conduct a thorough review of the Comcast-NBC merger, including public hearings, and to have our questions answered in a timely and substantive manner.”