Workplace privacy and other issues : Even the White House don't get it

We may like to think our political masters know it all when it comes to email and privacy security issues but, of course, we'd be wrong. As pointed out in ZD Net's 'Between the Lines' a trip to the White House can expose the sheer dumbness of those in charge. As Phil Windley points out:

"This isn't a problem of stupid politicians, it's really a lack of an enterprise approach to security and privacy. Each congressional office is acting as an independent entity and consequently, they're making security and privacy decisions on their own, with no system support for the work they want to do. So, they use email as a workflow tool. This isn't a government IT problem. You can experience this problem in lots of organizations in one form or another.

"Moreover, I don't think there's anything odd about using the SSN. The SSN is useful here for the same reason it's interesting to criminals: it's the key to lots of other data. I suspect that the congressional office sends the SSN off to Capitol Police or some other law enforcement agency and they use it, the name, and the date of birth as the basis for a search of a criminal justice network. Works great."