Who's responsible for the Computer Date Crisis?

--Eric Campbell/Everything 2000

 

The world of information technology doesn't spawn many political issues, but then it hasn't had to deal with a millennium challenge before, either. While it has been described as "politically unsexy," the Year 2000 issue already has made the agenda of a political campaign in the United States ö and with 2000 an election year, it likely will be mentioned by more candidates. U.S. state and federal government officials seem aware they will be held responsible by taxpayers if conversions are not completed in time to maintain the delivery of services after 1999.

 

The Y2K conversion and its potential impact on New York City's computer system were raised by both incumbent and challenger in the November 1997 election for the city council seat representing a district in the borough of Manhattan. What effect the issue may have had on the incumbent's close victory is impossible to judge ö after all, he also wrote legislation that bans panhandling near automatic teller machines and outlawed reckless rollerblading. But, nonetheless, Y2K no longer is a campaign topic in waiting.

 

In the state of Washington, Chief Operating Officer Joe Dear clearly understands the political implications of the Y2K issue. "This is a big deal," said Dear, who is Gov. Gary Locke's chief of staff, speaking to hundreds of government and business leaders gathered for a July executive leadership forum. "This is one of those issues where you lie awake at night·and you think '2000·governor's running {for re-election}'." An executive at that same Seattle event quipped that government officials who fail to complete their agencies' conversions on time and on budget will be looking to enter the equivalent of a witness protection program.

 

Later that month an official from the in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, speaking to an audience at the National Governors' Association annual meeting, also stressed government's level of accountability for Y2K conversion. The Year 2000 is "much more than a technical fix. It is a matter of economic survival," said Larry Olson, deputy secretary for information technology. The problem "cannot be ignored. There will be no silver bullet. No magical software fix. Our future viability, and our public responsibility, demand that we all take immediate action to meet this challenge."

 

Government recognition of the American public's interest in the Year 2000 is reflected by the fact that 20 states have Y2K pages on the Internet, each containing a mixture of background, the respective state's activities and Y2K-related links. Other countries have made their millennium conversion activities similarly public. In Canada, the minister of industry created a Task Force Year 2000, which is concerned with both public- and private-sector conversions. "This is an enterprise problem," wrote the task force chairman. "It is not simply an issue for your IT department. It has become a core business issue, full of financial and legal ramifications. It is an issue that requires executive attention. It can no longer be delegated."

 

U.S. President Bill Clinton expressed similar concern in August 1997 at the White House "Millennium Event," which addressed a broad range of activities the U.S. will be involved in before or by 2000. One of those is the Y2K conversion. "I want to assure the American people that the federal government, in cooperation with state and local government and the private sector, is taking steps to prevent any interruption in government services that rely on the proper functioning of federal computer systems," said Clinton. "We can't have the American people looking to a new century and a new millennium with their computers -- the very symbol of modernity and the modern age -- holding them back, and we're determined to see that it doesn't happen."

 

In Clinton's home state, Arkansas, the Year 2000 project office's newsletter "The Alarm Clock" makes the same point: people are waiting to see how government performs. "This is an extremely big problem, folks. If every there was potential for disaster in the arena of information systems, this is it," wrote editor Keith Leathers in the November 1997 issue. "With fewer than 14 months remaining·we are definitely sitting smack dab in the middle of the red zone. The citizens of Arkansas are counting on us to do what is necessary now to solve this problem before the deadline."

 

New York's governor in mid-1997 declared that his state government's top technology priority is Year 2000 compliance and directed agencies to suspend technology initiatives not essential to achieving that compliance. The director of Alaska's government information services division wrote at about the same time that his state "needs to continue providing services in the professional manner Alaskans have come to expect. The millennium will only present a problem if the state fails to prepare for it."