I lose things all the time. Last month I lost my wallet. Once a week I lose my car keys. Every day I lose the TV remote.
Thankfully, I’ve never lost a computer.
The Department of Homeland Sercurity (DHS), on the other hand, cannot say the same.
New documents show that component agencies of DHS, specifically Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) combined to lose no less than 985 computers in fiscal year 2008. Along with other component agencies in DHS, well over 1,000 computers were lost.
But the inventories of lost stolen and damaged equipment don’t stop with just computers. They include radiation detectors, night vision scopes (hundreds of them), night vision goggles, lost vehicles, lost blackberries, computer servers, expensive radios and radio repeaters.
CBP maintains that the computer losses were within acceptable standards for asset management, saying the losses only represented about .5% of their total computer inventory.
Also, CBP categorically stated that no sensitive information was on any of the 500-plus lost computers from their component agency. If that’s true, it makes you wonder what exactly they use their computers for. Shouldn’t one expect that a CBP computer maintains plans, databases, maps, anything at all, that relates to the securing of the nation’s borders?