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From Government Executive:

The Homeland Security Department has appointed an official who is under federal investigation to a key position overseeing a program worth hundreds of millions of dollars to secure computer networks across the federal government.

The Feb. 1 appointment of Scott Charbo, Homeland Security’s chief information officer, to be deputy undersecretary for the national protection and programs directorate, drew immediate criticism from House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., who was familiar with Charbo’s past.

In a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, Thompson said an investigation conducted by his committee last year showed Charbo failed to properly address computer security breaches within agencies housed at department headquarters, along with incompetent and possibly illegal activity by private contractor Unisys.

The incidents included the exfiltration of information from Homeland Security Department networks to a Web-hosting service that connects Chinese Web sites, according to Thompson’s investigation.

The security breaches that occurred under Charbo’s watch and the work by Unisys are now under investigation by the FBI and the Homeland Security Department inspector general, according to Thompson and congressional aides.

We can just hope that the individual that takes over next January (provided Bush doesn’t declare martial law before then) strives to just be a little less inept and corrupt than the current leader of the weakest currency in the civilized world.

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