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Massachusetts CIO Calls It Quits
by Michael Martinez
Massachusetts Chief Information Officer Louis Gutierrez announced his resignation Tuesday after only 10 months on the job.
In a letter to Administration and Finance Secretary Thomas Trimarco, Gutierrez said he had grown frustrated by the state's reluctance to fund necessary information technology projects. He said he was particularly dismayed by the failure of the legislature to renew the state IT department's budget this past session and to act on a request for a $250 million IT bond.
"I'm presiding over the dismantling of an IT investment program -- over a decade in the evolution -- that the legislature leadership appears unwilling to salvage at this time," he said.
Gutierrez took over the position in January after former CIO Peter Quinn left late last year. Upon his departure, Quinn had become critical of the politics behind an initiative to switch the state's computers to an "open document" format. Gov. Mitt Romney last November launched a review into a series of out-of-state trips that Quinn made to research the benefits of such a system.
In his letter to Trimarco, Gutierrez said that he does not expect lawmakers will act anytime soon to address the lapse in funding and that IT innovation in the Bay State "lost a lot of steam" when lawmakers adjourned this summer without any action on the issue.
"It is my hope through this resignation to provide one additional window onto the situation, which I trust will someday be resolved but which stands to set the state's IT investment program back many steps the longer the lapse persists," he said.
North Dakota Gets Online Crime Unit
North Dakota Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem on Tuesday announced the formation of a statewide law enforcement unit that will specialize in identifying, apprehending and prosecuting online sexual predators.
The Internet Luring Unit, as it has been dubbed, will be headed by the state Bureau of Criminal Investigation. It has received a $55,000 grant to purchase specialized equipment for investigators and for forensics training. The unit will conduct undercover operations, as well as assist local agencies with their investigations of Internet crimes.
"Children often form Internet friendships quickly, and even Internet-savvy teenagers will drop their guard when they think they are chatting with a friend," Stenehjem said in a press release. "The Internet is a wonderful tool, but it is also an open door through which a sexual predator can easily enter."
Stenehjem said part of the unit's focus will be to deploy technology that allows investigators to capture and preserve evidence of online crimes. In the past, he said sting operations often have been dead-ended because chat-room logs and other evidence were not retained.
"Propositioning a minor for purposes of a sexual act is a crime, whether it is done on the phone, over the Internet or in person," he said. "Pedophiles should beware. They won't know whether they are chatting with a child or an undercover agent because we will be out there waiting for them."
The Portland Press Herald, meanwhile, reports that lawmakers in Maine this week advanced proposals to change the state's sex-offender registry to make more information about dangerous offenders publicly available, while providing less about others who pose less of a risk.
Maine's sex-offender database was linked to a high-profile double murder and a suicide in April. A man used the registry to obtain the addresses of two offenders listed in the registry and then killed them, according to police. He later took his own life in Boston.
At a committee hearing Tuesday, state Sen. Bill Diamond said the current system needs to be changed because it does not provide the public with adequate information about the different levels of risk that offenders in the database pose.
The Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee approved three separate proposals to modify the registry, including one to require the state's Department of Corrections to assess sex offenders when they leave incarceration or probation to determine the risk they pose to the public. The information then would be added to the appropriate entries in the database.
"Communities lack confidence that the existing laws protect them, and they wonder if anyone in Augusta understands," said committee Chairman Diamond in a reference to the state capital. "We need to do something sooner rather than later."
Court Moves To Correct Purge Of Ky. Voter Data
A court in Kentucky on Tuesday ruled that the records of more than 8,100 voters were wrongfully purged from the state's electronic voter-registration database.
The Franklin Circuit Court ruled that Secretary of State Trey Greyson mistakenly eliminated names from the registry 35 days before the spring primary election. State Attorney General Gregory Stumbo later filed a lawsuit to challenge the deletion of the names.
According to Judge Thomas Wingate, Greyson violated state law by entering into a test program with South Carolina and Tennessee to identify voters registered in multiple states and to terminate voters from databases by matching them with earlier registration dates. Wingate cited a 10 percent error rate in the state's first attempt to match interstate data with is own voter rolls.
"This 'match' is not a 'request of the voter,'" Wingate said. "Therefore, the state Board of Elections and the secretary of state must conduct future purges of voter rolls based on such database matching according to the dictates of [state law]."
Wingate said that an injunction ordering further compliance in the administration of the database would "not only be unnecessary but also patronizing." He said he is confident that election officials will act accordingly to ensure that the system is repaired before Election Day.
"We have full confidence that the respondents will conform their future behavior to what the law requires now that the law regarding how to conduct a purgation of voters based on database matching has been clarified," he said.
In a statement, Stumbo said he was relieved that the court was able to rectify mistakes that could have resulted in the disenfranchisement of hundreds of voters this fall.
"I am very pleased that the court has recognized the fundamental right of every Kentucky voter to cast a ballot," he said. "As a direct result of the actions of the secretary of state's office, over 250 eligible voters could have been disenfranchised during the primary election and perhaps hundreds more during the general election had we not filed suit to clarify the law."
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