[Infowarrior] - State Dept. workers beg Clinton for Firefox

[Richard Forno]

US State Dept. workers beg Clinton for Firefox

By Cade Metz • Get more from this author
Posted in Government, 13th July 2009 20:11 GMT

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/13/firefox_and_us_state_department/

US State Department workers have begged Secretary of State Hillary  
Clinton to let them use Firefox.

"Can you please let the staff use an alternative web browser called  
Firefox?" worker bee Jim Finkle asked Clinton during Friday's State  
Department town hall meeting.

"I just moved to the State Department from the National Geospatial  
Intelligence Agency and was surprised that State doesn’t use this  
browser. It was approved for the entire intelligence community, so I  
don’t understand why State can’t use it. It’s a much safer program."

Presumably, the State Department is using Microsoft's Internet  
Explorer. And we wouldn't be surprised if it's still mired in the  
eight-year-old IE6. The only thing that moves slower than Orange is a  
US government agency. But the State Department has yet to respond to  
our questions about its Firefox-less browsing mandate.

Finkle's fellow workers responded to his Firefox request with  
applause. While Clinton responded with bewilderment. "Well,  
apparently, there’s a lot of support for this suggestion. I don’t know  
the answer. Pat, do you know the answer?" she said, turning to under  
Secretary Pat Kennedy.

"The answer is, at the moment: It’s an expense question," Kennedy  
said. Then someone in the audience pointed out that Firefox is free.

"Nothing is free," Kennedy responded. "It’s a question of the  
resources to manage multiple systems. It is something we’re looking  
at...It has to be administered. The patches have to be loaded. It may  
seem small, but when you’re running a worldwide operation and trying  
to push, as the Secretary rightly said, out FOBs [for remote log-ins]  
and other devices, you’re caught in the terrible bind of triage of  
trying to get the most out that you can, but knowing you can’t do  
everything at once."

Clinton then told her staff to have a look through their closets. "The  
more money we can save on stuff that is not cutting edge, the more  
resources we’ll have to shift to do things that will give us more  
tools," she said.

"[That reminds] me of what I occasionally sometimes do, which I call  
shopping in my closet, which means opening doors and seeing what I  
actually already have, which I really suggest to everybody, because  
it’s quite enlightening. And so when you go to the store and you buy,  
let’s say, peanut butter and you don’t realize you’ve got two jars  
already at the back of the shelf – I mean, that sounds simplistic, but  
help us save money on stuff that we shouldn’t be wasting money on, and  
give us the chance to manage our resources to do more things like  
Firefox, okay?"

If the State Department buys less peanut butter, Clinton may even let  
them use Facebook. During a state department town hall meeting earlier  
this year, a bigwig at the US embassy in Mexico City told Clinton that  
the social networking site is a great way to prevent solipsistic  
stupid people from entering the country.

"Facebook, MySpace, and other web 2.0 social networking technologies  
will significantly enhance the Department’s diplomacy efforts and  
business goals," he said. "For example, an astute consular officer in  
Hermosillo recently used Facebook to determine a visa applicant’s  
ineligibility based on information contained on the applicant’s  
Facebook page, proving its value as an anti-fraud tool."

And Clinton seemed to like the idea. "We’ve got to figure out how  
we’re going to be smarter about using technology. So I think that’s a  
great example, the Facebook example. And you know, we might want to  
follow up on that example, checking out Facebook. For everybody who is  
applying for a visa, you just should know that the State Department is  
on the watch here for Facebook."

No doubt, the State Department will officially adopt Facebook at about  
the same time the revenue-challenged site follows Friendster into  
social networking oblivion. ®