A sampling of editorials from NC newspapers

From News & Observer of Raleigh, Nov. 18

DHHS must safeguard citizens' personal information from identity theft

It's a good thing the state Department of Health and Human Services doesn't run the prisons. DHHS just might hand the inmates the keys to the cellblock doors.

The DHHS is not on prison duty, fortunately. It has, nonetheless, managed to create a security problem all its own.

By failing to safeguard its laptop computers, the agency, and some of its employees, have handed potential data thieves a key to stealing Social Security numbers and other personal information. This has happened even though DHHS was warned of the danger and pledged to make its laptops secure.

Instead, encryption technology that would protect Social Security numbers stored on DHHS laptops has yet to be installed on all of them (officials yesterday pledged action by Thursday). In recent months, employees have taken unencrypted laptops out of DHHS offices, exposing them to loss or theft.

The lack of encryption is particularly inexcusable because the agency admits that a dozen DHHS laptops have been lost or stolen so far this year. With the computers themselves so alarmingly insecure, it should be mandatory that the information stored on them is not.

Also, employees who take unencrypted state-owned computers out of the office after they've been told not to should be disciplined or dismissed.

Here's why: The most recently stolen laptop (taken from a Division of Aging and Adult Services employee traveling in Atlanta) contained data on about 85,000 people, including thousands of Social Security numbers.

The computer had a password, but those can be broken. Because its files were not encrypted (using software that makes them unintelligible to unauthorized users, even if the password is hacked) those numbers could be extracted and sold to criminals.

The result could be wholesale identity theft, with financial misfortune and seemingly endless hassles for the innocent people involved.

Although that probably won't happen — most laptop thieves are after a quick resale on the street — it could. So the state will pay more than $25,000 to arrange credit fraud alerts for citizens whose private data was in the laptop.

Costly insurance, and an embarrassment. The DHHS had agreed back in April that it would comply with encryption standards for state agencies. After the recent theft in Atlanta it conceded that it hasn't fully done so, citing cost and logistical difficulties.

Commenting on that theft, the state's chief information officer, George Bakolia, says flatly that "Failure to encrypt the hard drive on the laptop was a violation of state security standards."

To put it mildly, there's been insufficient follow-through on a matter of basic, computer-age public safety. This may not rank with opening the prison doors, but it comes close. The DHHS and all other state agencies that store vulnerable information on laptops need to lock that data up tight, right now.

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From News & Record of Greensboro, Nov. 14

Teachers' Facebook postings deserve severe punishment

Some good advice: Don't put in electronic form anything you wouldn't want to be viewed by millions of people.

Doing so can be hazardous, even fatal, to your career. Take, for example, the five Charlotte-Mecklenburg schoolteachers, whose postings on Facebook showed what a school official correctly called "poor judgment and poor taste."

As a result, the one who said she's "teaching chitlins in the ghetto of Charlotte" has been fired. The others, whose offenses included posting pictures of themselves in sexually suggestive poses, were suspended.

Such impaired judgment — no, stupidity — deserves severe sanctions. In a classic understatement, the school official said, "When you're in a professional position, especially where you're interacting with children and parents, you need to be above reproach."

Anyone choosing the Facebook or MySpace route should realize that such sites aren't private unless they're so programmed. And increasingly, employers, potential employers and college recruiters routinely monitor them. Unflattering personal Web sites can leave a damning electronic paper trail that can have unwanted repercussions for years to come.

It's not a free-speech issue. No matter the forum, people must accept the consequences for what they say and do. So, there's no excuse for the teachers in question to have widely disseminated clearly inappropriate material.

Whether they were guilty of a temporary lapse, carelessness or a calculated attempt to embarrass Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools, they must now pay the price. Unfortunately, careers will be derailed and families needlessly embarrassed.

But the resulting diminished credibility makes it impossible to turn back the clock. Simply put, such inexplicably bad judgment and immature behavior cannot be condoned.

It is a painful lesson the rest of us would do well to remember.

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From The Herald-Sun of Durham, Nov. 17.

Low gas prices must not lull consumers into returning to energy-wasting ways

On Nov. 14, the average price for a gallon of regular unleaded gas in North Carolina was $2.16, one cent higher than the national average, according to AAA Carolinas.

Here in Durham, AAA tells us that the average price per gallon on Nov. 14 was $2.18, which was three cents less than it was on Nov. 13. In fact, as AAA spokesperson Carol Gifford pointed out, gas prices have been decreasing for more than 55 consecutive days now. Last year at this time, the average price of gas was at least $1 per gallon higher.

So while prices are rising for other goods, and the economy seems unhinged in general, at least in this one area the economic news is positive.

(As an aside to Durham motorists who get angry when they see cheaper gas in nearby counties, such as $1.99 at stations off I-40 in Mebane, Gifford offered an explanation. As individual stations set prices, they are working with two factors: how much gas costs them, and how much their competition is charging. Some stations are locked into contracts that have them stuck paying higher prices even as gas prices fall. Other stations may be buying gas for less, but see no need to drop prices too low until their competitors do. According to the GasBuddy.com Web site, the cheapest gas to be had in Durham on Nov. 14 was $2.09 at the Hess at the corner of Geer and Miami. If you owned the business, would you drop to $1.99 when you could sell for $2.09 and still be the cheapest gas in town?)

In any event, we hope consumers have learned the most important, hard-earned lesson about gas prices. Like the weather, the only thing constant about gas prices is change. And just as surely as prices are falling now, they will rise again. When or how high is really not in our control.

We can't make the same mistake we have in the past, which was to let low gas prices lull us into returning to energy-wasting ways. One of the big reasons for the decline in gas prices is that U.S. consumers are using less. That's a good thing, and it shows that the one area we can control to some extent is our consumption.

Despite this temporary respite, the nation must continue to push for fuel-efficient vehicles, alternative fuels and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Only then will we stop being puppets of the oil producers and take back control of our energy future.

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From Rocky Mount Telegram, Nov. 16

Citizens must help those affected by recent storm

In a year in which economic disasters have wrecked lives and fortunes all over the world, nature reminded Eastern North Carolina residents Nov. 15 of what real fury looks like.

The tornado that ripped through Nash, Wilson and Johnston counties damaged or destroyed 21 homes and took at least two lives. Nash County suffered the least in the storm, and our hearts go out to our neighbors.

Gov. Mike Easley already has declared the site a disaster after touring the area Nov. 16. That declaration will result in emergency assistance money for people affected worst by the storm.

The rest of us can help, too, by donating food, blankets and toiletries to agencies such as the Frederick E. Turnage Chapter of the American Red Cross. Red Cross volunteers will work to make sure those supplies get to the people who need them most.

This year's holiday season is going to try many of us on an economic level, but most of us can be thankful for the roofs over our heads and the clothes on our backs.

Let's keep in mind folks who don't have even that much. Nov. 15 drove home the point — all too clearly.

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