{"id":4689,"date":"2009-06-26T16:57:00","date_gmt":"2009-06-26T22:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/06\/secretary-of-states-computer-systems-knocked-out\/"},"modified":"2009-06-26T16:57:00","modified_gmt":"2009-06-26T22:57:00","slug":"secretary-of-states-computer-systems-knocked-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/06\/secretary-of-states-computer-systems-knocked-out\/","title":{"rendered":"Secretary of state’s computer systems knocked out"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Problems center on new campaign finance and disclosure system; official says IT employee placed on leave but isn\u2019t under suspicion<\/span><\/p>\n

By Heath Haussamen and Trip Jennings<\/span><\/p>\n

A week after a leaked link allowed a handful of people to preview the secretary of state\u2019s new campaign finance and disclosure system on its Web site, officials now say problems have knocked out that and other systems that are necessary for the office to function.<\/p>\n

Officials are working furiously to restore the office\u2019s computer systems and Web site<\/a> and are trying to figure out how much work must be done to recover the database for the new campaign finance and disclosure system.<\/p>\n

Systems that are necessary for the public to do all sorts of business, from accessing campaign and lobbyist information to registering trademarks and other dealings between businesses and state government, are down.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now we are having IT issues at the SOS,\u201d Deputy Secretary of State Don Francisco Trujillo II said today. \u201cEverything is down. All of our systems are currently down.\u201d<\/p>\n

IT experts converged on the secretary of state\u2019s office this week to examine the breadth and depth of the problems, Trujillo said. The concerns came to the surface during a test of the new database\u2019s security.<\/p>\n

Trujillo said there appears to be a problem in the new database\u2019s coding, but said the data that was stored in the new system was backed up and is also stored in the existing database, so it is not lost.<\/p>\n

Trujillo did not elaborate on how the problems with the new system relate to the office\u2019s problems with its other IT systems and Web site.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the secretary of state\u2019s office placed the in-house developer who has been working on the new database for the past year on paid administrative leave this week through next Friday, Trujillo confirmed. He said there\u2019s no suspicion surrounding that employee, Brad Allen.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile they\u2019re doing the security assessment, it\u2019s part of the protocol,\u201d Trujillo said. \u201cIt\u2019s just to ensure that nobody is on the system while they are doing a security assessment of the system.\u201d<\/p>\n

Allen wrote in an e-mail that he is \u201cappalled\u201d and \u201cdismayed\u201d that the secretary of state\u2019s office \u201chas released the details of what in my understanding was a confidential matter.\u201d He said it is \u201calmost certain that I will be terminated if I speak in my defense.\u201d<\/p>\n

A long-delayed system<\/span><\/p>\n

The new problems are the latest chapter in the state\u2019s long-delayed efforts<\/a> to give the public a searchable database of reports filed by political candidates, elected officials, lobbyists and other public officials. The new database was supposed to have been a vast improvement over the current system.<\/p>\n

Currently, the public cannot sift through data in the state\u2019s campaign finance reporting system but must pull up reports and then manually find data.<\/p>\n

The new database would have allowed the public to sort information. For example, the system could determine what political candidates a person had given to just by typing a contributor\u2019s name into the system. Currently, a member of the public must go from report to report adding up the contributions.<\/p>\n

Though the secretary of state\u2019s office was not publicizing the under-construction system, I was among several who were sent a link to the new site<\/a> late last week. The new site was simpler and more user-friendly than the existing system.<\/p>\n

But on Sunday the new site went down, and that\u2019s when other areas of the secretary of state\u2019s Web site began experiencing problems.<\/p>\n

On Monday, State Elections Director A.J. Salazar, who has been overseeing development of the new project, said the new site was taken down because of the security test. At the time, he didn\u2019t indicate that his office was aware of the problems Trujillo described today. Salazar said Monday that he hopes the new site is ready for testing sometime this summer and ready to go live later this summer, or, at least, before the next candidate reporting deadline in October.<\/p>\n

Today, Trujillo gave no time line for when the secretary of state\u2019s Web site and IT systems might come back online but said the experts will be working through the weekend on the problems.<\/p>\n

\u2018Where is the backup server?\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

But the more immediate concern of some is with the secretary of state\u2019s Web site and its existing IT systems, which are necessary for the public to do all sorts of business with state government.<\/p>\n

State Rep. Janice Arnold-Jones<\/a>, R-Albuquerque, who also previewed the new site last week and has been asking questions about the problems this week, said there\u2019s no excuse for the Web site and existing systems not being operable. She said she\u2019s been told by the office that the cause is \u201cnetwork maintenance\u201d but officials have not answered her questions about why systems are down or when they\u2019ll be back up.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a state agency that provides daily business services to our state, I appreciate that there are issues, but where is the backup server that would allow you to reroute this site so you can continue to do work while you do network maintenance? That\u2019s a service I expect,\u201d said Arnold-Jones, who works for an IT company that does contract work at Sandia National Laboratories.<\/p>\n

Such a backup would allow the office to reroute its Web site and keep systems functioning, regardless of any problems that exist, so the public could continue to do its business, Arnold-Jones said. At the very least, she said, there should be a backup system that would reroute people who attempt to visit the Web site to a note about the site being down.<\/p>\n

Instead, currently the page simply fails to load.<\/p>\n

In addition to running this site, Haussamen writes for the New Mexico Independent<\/a>. Jennings also writes for the Independent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Problems center on new campaign finance and disclosure system; official says IT employee placed on leave but isn\u2019t under suspicion By Heath Haussamen and Trip Jennings A week after a leaked link allowed a handful of people to preview the secretary of state\u2019s new campaign finance and disclosure system on its Web site, officials now […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4689\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}