State Department Internet down again
Looks like the State Department hasn’t solved its Internet problems yet; the Foggy Bottom headquarters is experiencing another major systems failure today. "IRM IT teams report internet connectivity has been lost at numerous Washington D.C. metro locations and at overseas posts," read a memo sent to all State Department employees on Monday morning by Ronnie ...
Looks like the State Department hasn’t solved its Internet problems yet; the Foggy Bottom headquarters is experiencing another major systems failure today.
"IRM IT teams report internet connectivity has been lost at numerous Washington D.C. metro locations and at overseas posts," read a memo sent to all State Department employees on Monday morning by Ronnie Hartwell at the Information Resource Management (IRM) bureau. "IRM’s firewall management staff is aware of the outage, and is working on the issue."
This is the State Department’s second massive Internet SNAFU in as many months. In early September, many diplomats and bureaucrats were left without connectivity for most of a day when several bureaus and a chunk of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton‘s staff were cut off from their State Department e-mail accounts.
We’re told that e-mail and internet outages have been a problem for a while now, but have been increasing in recent weeks.
State Department spokespeople didn’t respond to e-mails seeking comment, for obvious reasons, and phone calls seeking comment have also not been returned.
UPDATE 3:30 PM: Apparently the problems have now been resolved and according to a new note to employees, "all users are able to access the internet."
Josh Rogin covers national security and foreign policy and writes the daily Web column The Cable. His column appears bi-weekly in the print edition of The Washington Post. He can be reached for comments or tips at josh.rogin@foreignpolicy.com.
Previously, Josh covered defense and foreign policy as a staff writer for Congressional Quarterly, writing extensively on Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantánamo Bay, U.S.-Asia relations, defense budgeting and appropriations, and the defense lobbying and contracting industries. Prior to that, he covered military modernization, cyber warfare, space, and missile defense for Federal Computer Week Magazine. He has also served as Pentagon Staff Reporter for the Asahi Shimbun, Japan's leading daily newspaper, in its Washington, D.C., bureau, where he reported on U.S.-Japan relations, Chinese military modernization, the North Korean nuclear crisis, and more.
A graduate of George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs, Josh lived in Yokohama, Japan, and studied at Tokyo's Sophia University. He speaks conversational Japanese and has reported from the region. He has also worked at the House International Relations Committee, the Embassy of Japan, and the Brookings Institution.
Josh's reporting has been featured on CNN, MSNBC, C-Span, CBS, ABC, NPR, WTOP, and several other outlets. He was a 2008-2009 National Press Foundation's Paul Miller Washington Reporting Fellow, 2009 military reporting fellow with the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism and the 2011 recipient of the InterAction Award for Excellence in International Reporting. He hails from Philadelphia and lives in Washington, D.C. Twitter: @joshrogin
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