US State Dept. Loses Anti-Terrorist Program Laptops

Stony Stevenson writes "It has surfaced that the US State Department can't account for up to about 1,000 laptops, perhaps as many as 400 of which belonged to the department's Anti-Terrorism Assistance Program. Internal auditors found that the department lost track of $30 million worth of computer equipment, 'the vast majority of which... perhaps as much as 99 percent,' were laptops, according to one official. Another official calculated that the average State Department laptop costs US$3,000 and figured that meant as many as 1,000 laptops might be astray — not 10,000 laptops as the US$30 million figure suggests. They're obviously not very good at maths."

Blame Iran

[Trigun]

They're using them and a bunch of XBoxes to create a supercomputer possible of calculating what wacky thing the president is going to do next.

Why don't they handcuff the laptops to the users?

[pembo13]

Seems like that is the most effective thing right now.

eBay?

[VincenzoRomano]

I would give eBay a try to find them out!

Math issues resolved

[Qzukk]

Obviously the problem is in assuming that all of the laptops were "worth" the same. Actually, there were 999 laptops that the government paid about $1,000 each for, which had important documents containing SSNs, medical and employment records, etc of every single person in the united states who was not a member of the Department of Homeland Security, as well as various secret anti-terrorist initiatives, identities of government moles working within terrorist groups and so on, totaling a value of about $999,000.

The other $29,001,000 is due to the loss of one laptop containing the SSN and medical records of the director of the Department of Homeland Security.

Clearly there's only one thing left to do...

[Starturtle]

Call in Jack Bauer, I'm sure he'll have them back within 24 hours.

Filed away accidentally?

[Aeonite]

Were they MacBook Airs? Perhaps they're stuck inside some manila envelopes.

Government accounting

[athloi]

Cost of laptop: $3000

Cost of personnel to procure it, insurance, shipping, paperwork, legislation, research, etc on a per-item basis: $8000

Total cost in taxes, per laptop, to you: $11000

Cost of laptop, out of back of 10-year-old SUV with motor running, on street, from some guy named Joey with methamphetamine acne: $400

We need new Math Textbooks

[captainjamie]

They're obviously not very good at maths

9/11 changed everything... even multiplication.

Re:eBay?

[Anonymous Coward]

"0 items found for: laptop anti-terror"

damn

Re:Government accounting

[Archangel Michael]

They are obviously ordering the laptops from the wrong vendor.

Re:Government accounting

[Mr_Reaper]

you forgot the lobster dinners for all the managers & vendors...

Re:$3000 for a laptop??

[rujholla]

Ya but we feel confident that they can do a good job with health care!!

Re:Blame Iran

[MarkGriz]

They're using them and a bunch of XBoxes to create a supercomputer possible of calculating what wacky thing the president is going to do next.

I think the word is spelled "stuporcomputer"

Re:Blame Iran

[stuporglue]

Whos president, theirs or ours?

In Soviet America

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Anti-terror laptops lose U.S.!

Maths

[Anonymous Coward]

They're obviously not very good at maths

And somebody is obviously not very good at englishes.

The 'sensitive data'...

[Tatsh]

will end up on Wikileaks! I will wait patiently.

Re:Filed away accidentally?

[Anonymous Coward]

They keep sending them to each other in interoffice mail, how could you resist.