While the Daily News might be ridiculed for being a zany tab, Gothamist has credit them with their editorial board meetings. Because how else would we know that many FBI agents and analysts in New York City don't have official FBI email addresses? According to the assistant director of the NYC office, Mark Mershon, "And as ridiculous as this might sound, we have real money issues right now, and the government is reluctant to give all agents and analysts dot-gov accounts. We just don't have the money, and that is an endless stream of complaints that come from the field." Holy cow, does this mean all the spam we delete from people claiming to be with the FBI, but comes from random email addresses, might have been legitimate? (There was also an outcry over a Blackberry program for agents being cut, but funding for 100 Blackberries has been resolved.) And we thought regular office IT departments could be slow with setting up company email! Let's hope these FBI agents at least have ID badges - we're sure their business cards with their Yahoo or Gmail accounts aren't very convincing.
And the News has an editorial imploring readers to email their congressmen (and women) about getting NYC FBI agents email addresses and proper technology. Oh, no - is the FBI on dial-up still?
