That's what happened on October 2. When GSA officials realized that the Transportation Authority of Marin site -- at www.tam.ca.gov -- had been compromised and was redirecting visitors to porn sites, it moved to cut off access to the entire ca.gov domain. That sent state officials scrambling to repair the damage.

Jim Hanacek, acting deputy director for the state I.T. department's policy and planning division, said the GSA not only shut down the domain, but also didn't notify his office or even alert the right person after the fact. The GSA sent e-mail to a staffer who handles normal -- not critical communications -- and that person didn't see the e-mail for more than 24 hours.

GSA Apologizes

"We apologize for any inconvenience to the citizens of California. ... The potential exposure of pornographic material to the citizens -- and tens of thousands of children -- in California was a primary motivator for GSA to request immediate corrective action," the agency said in a statement.

The GSA has revised its policies to find more targeted ways to dealing with corrupt sites, the agency said. "GSA recognizes there must be a balance between protecting citizens while not, at the same time, adversely affecting government's ability to serve citizens via the Internet. We have therefore revised our policies to now include more internal checks and balances before a site is shut down and to find better ways to more precisely eliminate offending government sites without having to shut down the primary site."

Alex Eckelberry, CEO of Sunbelt Software, said in an e-mail that while GSA shouldn't have shut down ca.gov, "I was privately quite happy to see it done, because our level of frustration with seeing these constant attacks is quite high. At least something was done, even if it was throwing out the baby with the bathwater."

While it's appropriate for GSA to take time to investigate these events, Eckelberry said, "it's also good for them to have the flexibility to take fast action in the event of something serious, such as a massive worm outbreak or terrorist threat." The GSA should continue to have the flexibility to "shut things off," he added. (continued...)

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