E-gov fails, succeeds in tragedy’s wake

Electronic government efforts both failed and succeeded in the wake of Tuesday's terrorist attacks As Tuesday's events unfolded, federal employees could not access the Web site of the Office of Personnel Management, the main federal human resources information Web site. At the same time, communication by telephone and cell phone was spotty. Most federal workers in the Washington area left their offices, fearful of further terror from the skies. And in the absence of the Web site, a series of questions remained: What about tomorrow? Should they go to work? Stay home? OPM had shut down its site, fearing acts of information terrorism would accompany the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. Yet no attacks came from the ether of cyberspace. Spokesmen for the U.S. Space Command, the command that monitors military networks, reported no rise in malicious or nuisance network activity on Tuesday and Wednesday. An alert sent by the Computer Emergency Response Team Coordination Center at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pa., said the organization "is not seeing any significant increases in incident activity on the Internet." OPM shut down its site as a precautionary measure, said Vivian Mackey, the manager of the site. "We felt we had to take precautions with our Web site to be as secure as possible," she said. OPM brought the site back online about 8:00 p.m. Tuesday without activating any links. The site simply bore the answer to one of the prime questions on the minds of federal employees: The federal government in Washington would be open with the opportunity for employees to take unscheduled leave. The site has since been returned to normal activity. On Wednesday, OPM added a new site, "Guidance for Human Resources Professionals," to help HR executives provide information to agencies on topics such as donating blood and emergency closure and dismissal procedures. Some executives believe OPM should have stayed online. "OPM has a role to serve in the federal government and is a necessary information source," said John Gilligan, deputy chief information officer of the Air Force and co-chair of the CIO Council's committee on security, privacy and critical infrastructure protection. "Its most valuable contribution is helping to provide guidance and reassurance." Other agencies stepped up to the plate. The Federal Emergency Management Agency kept its site operating Tuesday and worked through the night to update it with the most current information. "We treat the site as a key communications tool," said FEMA spokesman Marc Wolfson. "We give it a lot of attention during emergencies. We know from our statistics that when disaster hits people tend to turn to our Web site for information." Wolfson said 500,000 people typically visit the FEMA Web site in a day. On Tuesday, however, that number spiked to more than 2.3 million. As of midday Thursday, the site displayed 11 articles on subjects ranging from how to help the victims of the terrorist attacks to advice on how to talk to children about the incidents. FEMA also provided a live Webcast of its press conference Wednesday that is archived for replay. The FBI debuted a new site for tips about the terrorist attacks, https://www.ifccfbi.gov/complaint/terrorist.asp. Its main page linked to a form created Tuesday by the bureau's Internet Fraud Complaint Center. FBI spokesman Bill Carter said the site enables the center to take in tips over the Internet and rout them to the appropriate field office for followup. As of midday Thursday, agencies such as the Central Intelligence Agency and the General Services Administration made no mention of the terrorist attacks on their Web sites. However, the Defense Department's official site DefenseLink, presented numerous stories and sites with information about the attack on the Pentagon and photos of the damage. Late Wednesday, the federal government's official Web portal, FirstGov, posted a page devoted to every aspect of the federal government's emergency response: www.firstgov.gov/featured/usgresponse.html. The page featured a prominent display of toll-free numbers and links to key Web sites. The federal government offered little online support to the thousands of stranded air travelers Wednesday. The Federal Aviation Administration site was offline for most of the day. And when it came back online, it contained only limited information.