COMPUTER scientists and IT specialists are on the FBI's most-wanted list as it seeks to hire 900 new special agents this year. Following September 11, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation wants to recruit staff with special skills - particularly in information technology. The FBI has also admitted its IT infrastructure needs a major overhaul, having had no "meaningful improvement" in six years. "Criminals have begun to exploit technology advances, while the FBI cannot," assistant director Bob Dies said. The bureau will invest in "correcting basic IT problems", starting with the Trilogy Program to give agents IT tools and capabilities similar to those available to business users. Trilogy will initially provide a secure intranet for FBI offices with email and web browsers. Automation of investigative applications will improve sharing of information. The FBI has also launched a Joint Cybercrime and Infrastructure Protection Task Force. Imagine for a moment that as ordinary citizens were watching the evening news, they see an act by a government employee or officeholder that they feel violates their rights, abuses the public's trust, or misuses the powers that they feel should be limited. A person whose actions are so abusive or improper that the citizenry shouldn't have to tolerate it. What if they could go to their computers, type in the miscreant's name, and select a dollar amount: The amount they, themselves, would be willing to pay to anyone who "predicts" that officeholder's death. That donation would be sent, encrypted and anonymously, to a central registry organization, and be totaled, with the total amount available within seconds to any interested individual. If only 0.1% of the population, or one person in a thousand, was willing to pay $1 to see some government slimeball dead, that would be, in effect, a $250,000 bounty on his head.
