Terminal Compromise Part 100

"I really doubt it," Tyrone said. "But that's off the record.

He's been a Southern racist from day one, a real Hoover man.

During the riots, in the early '60's, he was not exactly a propo- nent of civil rights. In fact that slime ball made Wallace look like Martin Luther King." Tyrone sounded bitter and derisive in his description of Rickfield. "He has no concept what civil rights are. He makes it a black white issue instead of one of const.i.tutional law. Stupid bigots are the worst kind." The derision in Ty's voice was unmistakable.

"Sounds like you're a big fan."

"I'll be a fan when he hangs high. Besides my personal and racial beliefs about Rickfield, he really is a low life. He, and a few of his cronies are one on the biggest threats to personal freedom the country faces. He thinks that the Bill of Rights should be edited from time to time and now's the time. He scares me. Especially since there's more like him."

It was eminently clear that Tyrone Duncan had no place in this life for Merrill Rickfield.

"I know enough about him to dislike him, but on a crowded subway he'd just be another ugly face. Excuse my ignorance . . ." Then it hit him. Rickfield. His name had been in those papers he had received so long ago. What had he done, or what was he accused of doing? d.a.m.n, d.a.m.n, what is it? There were so many. Yes, it was Rickfield, but what was the tie-in?

"I think you should be there, at the hearings," Tyrone suggested.

"Tomorrow? Are you out of your mind? No way," Scott loudly protested. "I'm 3000 miles and 8 hours away and it's the middle of the night here," Scott b.i.t.c.hed and moaned. "Besides, I only have to work one more day and then I get the weekend to myself . . . aw, s.h.i.+t."

Tyrone ignored Scott's infantile objections. He attributed them to jet lag and an understandable urge to stay in Sin City for a couple more days. "Hollister and Adams will be there, and a whole bunch of white s.h.i.+rts in black hats, and Troubleaux . . ."

"Troubleaux did you say?"

"Yeah, that's what it says here . . ."

"If he's there, then it becomes my concern, too."

"Good, glad you thought of it," joked Tyrone. "If you catch an early flight, you could be in D.C. by noon." He was right, thought Scott. The time difference works in your favor in that direction.

"You know," said Scott, "with what I've found out here, today alone, maybe. "Jeeeeeesus," Scott said cringing in indecision.

"Hey! Get your a.s.s back here, boy. p.r.o.nto." Tyrone's friendly authority was persuasive. "You know you don't have any choice."

The guilt trip.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah."

Scott called his office and asked for Doug. He got the voice mail instead, and debated about calling him at home. Nah, He thought, I'll just leave a message. This way I'll just get yelled at once.

"Hi, Doug? Scott here. Change in plans. Heard about EMP-T. I'm headed to Was.h.i.+ngton tomorrow. The story here is better than I thought and dovetails right into why I'm coming back early. I expect to be in D.C. until next Tuesday, maybe Wednesday. I'll call when I have a place. Oh, yeah, I learned a limerick here you might like. The Spook says the kids around here say it all the time. 'Mary had a little lamb, its fleece was white as snow.

And everywhere that Mary went, the lamb was sure to go. It followed her to school one day and a big black dog f.u.c.ked it.'

That's Amsterdam. Bye."

Chapter 20

Friday, January 8 Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C.

The New Senate Office Building is a moderately impressive struc- ture on the edge of one of the worst sections of Was.h.i.+ngton.

Visitors find it a perpetual paradox that the power seat of the Western World is located within a virtual shooting gallery of drugs and weapons. Scott arrived at the NSOB near the capitol, just before lunchtime. His press identification got him instant access to the hearing room and into the privileged locations where the media congregated. The hearings were in progress and as solemn as he remembered other hearings broadcast on late night C-SPAN.

He caught the last words of wisdom from a government employee who worked for NIST, the National Inst.i.tute of Standards and Technol- ogy. The agency was formerly known as NBS, National Bureau of Standards, and no one could adequately explain the change.

The NIST employee droned on about how seriously the government, and more specifically, his agency cared about privacy and infor- mation security, and that ". . .the government was doing all it could to provide the requisite amount of security commensurate with the perceived risk of disclosure and sensitivity of the information in question." Scott ran into a couple of fellow reporters who told him he was lucky to show up late. All morn- ing, the government paraded witnesses to read prepared statements about how they were protecting the interests of the Government.

It was an intensive lobbying effort, they told Scott, to sh.o.r.e up whatever attacks might be made on the government's inefficient bungling in distinction to its efficient bungling. To a man, the witnesses a.s.sured the Senate committee that they were committed to guaranteeing privacy of information and unconvincingly a.s.sur- ing them that only appropriate authorized people have access to sensitive and cla.s.sified data.

Seven sequential propagandized statements went unchallenged by the three senior committee members throughout the morning, and Senator Rickfield went out of his way to thank the speakers for their time, adding that he was personally convinced the Govern- ment was indeed doing more than necessary to obviate such con- cerns.

The underadvertised Senate Select Sub Committee on Privacy and Technology Protection convened in Hearing Room 3 on the second floor of the NSOB. About 400 could be accommodated in the huge light wood paneled room on both the main floor and in the balcony that wrapped around half of the room. The starkness of the room was emphasized by the glare of arc and fluorescent lighting.

Scott found an empty seat on a wooden bench directly behind the tables from which the witnesses would speak to the raised wooden dais. He noticed that the attendance was extraordinarily low; by both the public and the press. Probably due to the total lack of exposure.

As the session broke for lunch, Scott asked why the TV cameras?

He thought this hearing was a deep dark secret. A couple of fellow journalists agreed, and the only reason they had found out about the Rickfield hearings was because the CNN producer called them asking if they knew anything about them. Apparently, Scott was told, CNN received an anonymous call, urging them to be part of a blockbuster announcement. When CNN called Rickfield's office, his staffers told CNN that there was no big deal, and that they shouldn't waste their time. In the news business, that kind of statement from a Congressional power broker is a sure sign that it is worth being there. Just in case. So CNN a.s.signed a novice producer and a small crew to the first day of the hear- ings. As promised, the morning session was an exercise in termi- nal boredom.

The afternoon session was to begin at 1:30, but Senator Rickfield was nowhere to be found, so the a.s.sistant Chairperson of the committee, Junior Senator Nancy Deere a.s.sumed control. She was a 44 year old grandmother of two from New England who had never considered entering politics. Nancy Deere was the consummate wife, supporter and stalwart of her husband Morgan Deere, an up and coming national politician who had the unique mixture of honesty, appeal and potential. She had spent full time on the campaign trail with Morgan as he attempted to make the transition from state politics to Was.h.i.+ngton. Morgan Deere was heavily favored to win after the three term inc.u.mbent was named a co- conspirator in the rigging of a Defense contract. Despite the pending indictments, the race continued with constant pleadings by the inc.u.mbent that the trumped up charges would shortly be dismissed. In the first week after the Grand Jury was convened, the voter polls indicated that Deere led with a 70% support factor.

Then came the accident. On his way home from a fund raising dinner, Morgan Deere's limousine was run off an icy winter road by a drunk driver. Deere's resulting injuries made it impossible for him to continue the campaign or even be sure that he would ever be able to regain enough strength to withstand the brutality of Was.h.i.+ngton politics.

Within days of the accident, Deere's campaign manager announced that Nancy Deere would replace her husband. Due to Morgan's local popularity, and the fact that the state was so small that everyone knew everyone else's business, and that the inc.u.mbent was going to jail, and that the elections were less than two weeks away, there was barely a spike in the projections. No one seemed to care that Nancy Deere had no experience in politics; they just liked her.

What remained of the campaign was run on her part with impeccable style. Unlike her opponent who spent vast sums to besmirch her on television, Nancy's campaign was largely waged on news and national talk shows. Her husband was popular, as was she, and the general interest in her as a woman outweighed the interest in her politics. The state's const.i.tuency overwhelmingly endorsed her with their votes and Senator Nancy Deere, one of the few woman ever to reach that level as an elected official, was on her way to Was.h.i.+ngton.

Nancy Deere found that many of the professional politicians preferred to ignore her; they were convinced she was bound to be a one termer once the GOP got someone to run against her. Others found her to be a genuine pain in the b.u.t.t. Not due to her naivete, far from that, she adeptly acclimated to the culture and the system. Rather, she was a woman and she broke the rules. She said what she felt; she echoed the sentiments of her const.i.tuency which were largely unpopular politically. Nancy Deere didn't care what official Was.h.i.+ngton thought; her state was behind her with an almost unanimous approval and it was her sworn duty to represent them honestly and without compromise. She had nothing to lose by being herself. After more than a year in Was.h.i.+ngton, she learned how the ma.s.sive Was.h.i.+ngton machinery functioned and why it crawled with a hurry up and wait engine.

In Rickfield's absence, at 1:40 P.M., Senator Nancy Deere called the session to order. Her administrative demeanor gave no one pause to question her authority. Even the other sole Congres- sional representative on the sub-committee fell into step.

While Senator Stanley Paglusi technically had seniority, he sat on the committee at Rickfield's request and held no specific interest in the subject matter they were investigating. He accepted the seat to mollify Rickfield and to add to his own political resume.

"Come to order, please," she announced over the ample sound system. The voluminous hearing room reacted promptly to the authoritative command that issued forth from the pet.i.te auburn haired Nancy Deere who would have been just as comfortable auc- tioning donated goods at her church. She noticed that unlike the morning session, the afternoon session was packed. The press pool was nearly full and several people were forced to stand. What had changed, she asked herself.

After the procedural formalities were completed, she again thanked those who had spoken to the committee in the morning, and then promised an equally informative afternoon. Nancy, as she liked to be called on all but the most formal of occasions intro- duced the committee's first afternoon witness.

"Our next speaker is Ted Hammacher, a recognized expert on the subject of computer and information security. During 17 years with the Government, Mr. Hammacher worked with the Defense Inves- tigatory Agency and the National Security Agency as a DoD liai- son. He is currently a security consultant to industry and the government and is the author of hundreds of articles on the subject." As was required, Nancy Deere outlined Hammacher's qualifications as an expert, and then invited him to give his opening statement.

The television in Rickfield's office was tuned to C-SPAN which was broadcasting the hearings as he spoke into the phone.

"Only a couple more and then I'm off to spend my days in the company of luscious maidens on the island of my choice," he bragged into the phone. The Senator listened intently to the response. "Yes, I am aware of that, but it doesn't change the fact that I'm calling it quits. I cannot, I will not, continue this charade." He listened quietly for several minutes before interjecting.

"Listen, General, we've both made enough money to keep us in style for the rest of our lives, and I will not jeopardize that for anything. Got it?" Again he listened. "I don't know about you, but I do not relish the idea of doing ten to twenty regard- less of how much of a country club the prison is. It is still a prison." He listened further.

"That's it, I've had it! Don't make me use that file to impli- cate you, the guys over at State and our Import . . .hey!" Rick- field turned to Ken Boyers. "Who started the afternoon session?"

He pointed at the TV.

"It looks like Senator Deere," Ken said.

"Deere? Where does that G.o.dd.a.m.ned b.i.t.c.h get off . . ?" He remem- bered the phone. "General? I have to go, I've got a suffragette usurping a little power, and I have to put her back in her place.

You understand. But, on that other matter, I'm out. Done. Fini- to. Do what you want, but keep me the f.u.c.k out of it." Rick- field hung up abruptly and stared at the broadcast. "Some house- broken homemaker is not going to make me look bad. G.o.dd.a.m.n it, Ken," Rickfield said as he stood up quickly. "Let's get back out there."

"Thank you, Senator Deere, and committee members. I am honored to have a chance to speak to you here today. As a preface to my remarks, I think that a brief history of security and privacy from a government perspective may be in order. One of the reasons we are here today is due to a succession of events that since the introduction of the computer have shaped an ad hoc anarchism, a laissez-faire att.i.tude toward privacy and security. Rather than a comprehensive national policy, despite the valiant efforts of a few able Congressmen, the United States of America has allowed itself to be lulled into technical complacency and indifference.

Therefore, I will, if the committee agrees, provide a brief chronological record."