Civic Economics - Page A1
March 21, 1997
CLINTON WHITE HOUSE SPENT $640,000 ON POLITICAL DATABASE
William Heartstone, Staff Investigative JournalistWASHINGTON BUREAU - The Clinton administration ordered a $640,000 computer database installed in the White House. Now, the massive computerized database has been junked because the White House says it was inadequate and incomplete.
But, Congress has been examining the computer system and its investigators say the White House has wasted another $1.15 million on the staff needed to run the database which was being used by the Clinton-Gore Campaign in connection with improper or illegal fund raising.
The database cost figures are buried in more than 32,000 pages of documents the White House was forced to turn- over to the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee.
The White House' documentation showed that for fiscal years 1994-1996, the Clinton administration spent $545,000 on the computers, software and tech support needed to install the new system as well as another $96,500 on outside tech consultants.
The Clinton White House allocated the cost of in-house staff members who worked on the database at $1.15 million for 1994-1996, bringing the total cost for the computer and database system, through the end of fiscal 1996, to nearly $1.8 million.
Clinton officials contend the computer database was never used for political purposes.'This database, as far as we know, was used only for official purposes,' said White House spokesman Barry Toiv.
However, that contention has been refuted by Democrat Party official, Truman Arnold ,who said information obtained from the computer database was used during President Clinton's re-election campaign. Arnold, the DNC finance chairman - later retracted his admission.
An Arkansas Democrat Gazette newspaper story on Monday identified Marsha Scott as the person credited with creation and coordination of the White House computer database. Scott, an Arkansas native and senior aide now works in the White House personnel office. According to the Gazette she oversaw the planning and implementation of the system, which contains names and other information about more than 355,000 political names and financial details.
White House officials contend the computer database, which went into operation in August 1995, was just used as a computerized Rolodex to keep track of such things as Christmas card mailing lists and invitations to social events.
However, the computer system according to Truman Arnold's original statement, was actually used to keep track of political supporters - an activity that would constitute a criminal violation of Title 16 of the United States Code.
Meanwhile, the General Accounting Office, has now reviewed the purchase and design of the Clinton White House computer and its database and found it 'inadequate' and that it had no security safeguards installed on it to protect the data from being compromised. Congress' investigative arm, told members of a Government Reform and Oversight subcommittee chaired by Rep. David McIntosh(R) that they were not impressed by the system.
Jack Brock, the General Accounting Office's director of information management resources, testified during a September hearing that the White House system did not have adequate safeguards to prevent unauthorized use.
He was joined by other members of his staff who had examined the database and interviewed White House employees who used it.
Brock also said it did not even have any rudimentary auditing function installed that would create a history of who used the database and for what purposes because it would make the complex system too slow for practical use.
As a result of these problems, Brock told the House panel, the database was not the type of system that the government is expected to get for $545,000 of taxpayer money.
'In this case, the system is inadequate, and as a result, I would give it a grade of incomplete,' he testified.
Brock acknowledged that his staff had not examined the cost of the database. But if the price tag was indeed $545,000, he said, 'I don't think the bang for the buck is there.'
The Clinton White House originally issued a cover-story telling taxpayers that the computer database was needed to replace a patchwork of incompatible computer systems with an efficient and complete database.
Congressional investigators told reporters they been concerned about why the Clinton administration had not followed established government procedures, why the contract to Marsha Scott had not gone to bid, and whether taxpayers were getting their money's worth, and whether or not, the system was improperly and or illegally used by the Clinton administration for partisan political purposes by the Democrat Party and the Clinton-Gore Campaign.
COMMENT
Click Here For Free Subscription!
Copyright © 1994-97 HTML Graphics by The Daily Republican Newspaper.
All rights reserved.