I realize that people are a little annoyed at this tact, and think it is melodramatic. But consider:
* The servers may be hosted on a cloud system, and there is now no way to pay for them. (Even if the bill is due in 4 days, the employees can't do the work 4 days from now, they have to do it now.)
* Some of the information may be time sensitive, and the submission of forums may rely on employee feedback. These services may not be easy enough to remove in the time they have available to shut-down.
* Even if hosted in house, if the systems break, or are hacked into, then nothing can be done fix them. Better to deploy a hardened static page now than be infected with malware running massive botnets when they get back.
* They may have to turn off the utilities to their server farm, so they can't support anything but a simple static page.
* They have 4 hours to do all that, fill out some paperwork, and still make a backup, and whatever other responsibilities they have (like internal servers).
The USDA in specific also handles dynamic data from across the country, so more than some, they have worries about being hacked and having their data screwed with.
Also consider that who is furloughed depends on whether the relevant department has classified them as "excepted/essential" or "not-excepted/non-essential". Many departments are sending IT and security personnel home because it is much harder to justify employees (like support, IT, etc) considered ancillary to the department's primary function.
Depending on the requirements and scope of a cabinet website, and without necessary support personnel, it could be considered a risk to leave services running, especially if it's an agency like the USDA that relies primarily on discretionary funding, versus something like the NSA with is funded with mandatory spending and therefore has much more flexibility.
I'm not sure I understand. Let's say there's a need to have people be on call for the site 24/7 - for many sites it's not the case but let's assume they need it. But these people don't need to be paid hourly. They most probably get salary at the end of the payroll period (monthly or bi-weekly) as everybody else. And even if shutdown would continue that long, they'd just get paid at the next pay period. Now, it may be possible that some people would say "we won't work if we don't know we'd be paid in time" - but they don't know that either way, and their salary probably is not contingent on specific work.
Same with cloud hosting and any other expense - I have hard time believing it is billed hourly. Most probably it is billed monthly - and by the time this months' bill arrives shutdown would be long over. And even if it isn't, I've worked in the past with govt organizations, and not all of them always were the most accurate payers - but I rarely seen any contractor refusing govt job because of that. Everybody knows eventually it will be paid.
So I don't see the reason for the drama. It's not like US government suddenly has no money at all. It's a temporary technical issue with administering cash flows, and everybody knows it is temporary and everybody knows the bills will eventually be paid.
It's not like US government suddenly has no money at all. It's a temporary technical issue with administering cash flows, and everybody knows it is temporary and everybody knows the bills will eventually be paid.
Sure, it may be temporary. But the most recent federal government shutdown (in '96) lasted 21 days. Which is certainly enough time for issues/vulnerabilities to appear. It's unlikely this one will last as long, but regardless, I don't find it beyond reason that an IT team being furloughed could determine that allowing an un-maintained, un-monitored, site to remain publicly accessible could pose a security risk, or provide out-of-date information that otherwise appears to be authoritative.
What you mean "may be"? Do you seriously entertain a possibility that US government as of today has ceased to exist and US government bills will never be paid?
You must have misunderstood what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that there's absolutely no need to wait for 21 days for issues to appear, because the same people may do the same maintenance as always and there's absolutely no need to leave the site un-maintained. Of course, staff can be reduced - no new developments, no updates, no proofreaders, no marketing, no answering emails, etc. - to avoid taking too much un-budgeted obligations. But no one doubts there obligations will be repaid, so I don't see the issue here.
>> provide out-of-date information that otherwise appears to be authoritative.
This is easily solved by putting one line on top of the page that says "All information is as available by 10.01.2013 and can be out of date". I admit, it's much less drama, but it's possible.
The US government is not being billed in 4 days. They're on a massive contract that is likely paid quarterly. Or likely a net 60 or 90 by purchase order. It isn't like they're on Heroku and the credit card expired.
They aren't necessarily pre-paying for services, and there's no guarantee that they will retroactively receive monies for the days that the government is shut down. So while they may see the bill later, they may not receive the funding to pay the bill for that period
All of this is true, but the lights are still on, and the T1 line is still piped into their building (not confirmed by visual evidence but it would cost more to shut it down and restart it barring a crisis causing shutdown >1month). Either they think the shutdown is lasting a while or their CTO/CWhateverO has a sense of humor.
They have to prepare for an uncertain amount of time. I think the botnet/hacking concerns are more notable. Especially since the USDA collects information from across the country.
Comments
I realize that people are a little annoyed at this tact, and think it is melodramatic. But consider:
* The servers may be hosted on a cloud system, and there is now no way to pay for them. (Even if the bill is due in 4 days, the employees can't do the work 4 days from now, they have to do it now.)
* Some of the information may be time sensitive, and the submission of forums may rely on employee feedback. These services may not be easy enough to remove in the time they have available to shut-down.
* Even if hosted in house, if the systems break, or are hacked into, then nothing can be done fix them. Better to deploy a hardened static page now than be infected with malware running massive botnets when they get back.
* They may have to turn off the utilities to their server farm, so they can't support anything but a simple static page.
* They have 4 hours to do all that, fill out some paperwork, and still make a backup, and whatever other responsibilities they have (like internal servers).
The USDA in specific also handles dynamic data from across the country, so more than some, they have worries about being hacked and having their data screwed with.
Also consider that who is furloughed depends on whether the relevant department has classified them as "excepted/essential" or "not-excepted/non-essential". Many departments are sending IT and security personnel home because it is much harder to justify employees (like support, IT, etc) considered ancillary to the department's primary function.
Depending on the requirements and scope of a cabinet website, and without necessary support personnel, it could be considered a risk to leave services running, especially if it's an agency like the USDA that relies primarily on discretionary funding, versus something like the NSA with is funded with mandatory spending and therefore has much more flexibility.
Pretty much this. Note that other government websites are also shut off or otherwise not updating, e.g.:
http://www.aoc.gov/
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/
http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2013/13-A06.html
I'm not sure I understand. Let's say there's a need to have people be on call for the site 24/7 - for many sites it's not the case but let's assume they need it. But these people don't need to be paid hourly. They most probably get salary at the end of the payroll period (monthly or bi-weekly) as everybody else. And even if shutdown would continue that long, they'd just get paid at the next pay period. Now, it may be possible that some people would say "we won't work if we don't know we'd be paid in time" - but they don't know that either way, and their salary probably is not contingent on specific work.
Same with cloud hosting and any other expense - I have hard time believing it is billed hourly. Most probably it is billed monthly - and by the time this months' bill arrives shutdown would be long over. And even if it isn't, I've worked in the past with govt organizations, and not all of them always were the most accurate payers - but I rarely seen any contractor refusing govt job because of that. Everybody knows eventually it will be paid.
So I don't see the reason for the drama. It's not like US government suddenly has no money at all. It's a temporary technical issue with administering cash flows, and everybody knows it is temporary and everybody knows the bills will eventually be paid.
Sure, it may be temporary. But the most recent federal government shutdown (in '96) lasted 21 days. Which is certainly enough time for issues/vulnerabilities to appear. It's unlikely this one will last as long, but regardless, I don't find it beyond reason that an IT team being furloughed could determine that allowing an un-maintained, un-monitored, site to remain publicly accessible could pose a security risk, or provide out-of-date information that otherwise appears to be authoritative.
What you mean "may be"? Do you seriously entertain a possibility that US government as of today has ceased to exist and US government bills will never be paid?
You must have misunderstood what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that there's absolutely no need to wait for 21 days for issues to appear, because the same people may do the same maintenance as always and there's absolutely no need to leave the site un-maintained. Of course, staff can be reduced - no new developments, no updates, no proofreaders, no marketing, no answering emails, etc. - to avoid taking too much un-budgeted obligations. But no one doubts there obligations will be repaid, so I don't see the issue here.
This is easily solved by putting one line on top of the page that says "All information is as available by 10.01.2013 and can be out of date". I admit, it's much less drama, but it's possible.
Besides the fact that it is illegal (http://www.bsnlawfirm.com/newsletter/OP0413_Natter.pdf) employees are NOT guaranteed to get their money. In the past congress has sometimes not provided backpay.
Also, if the website gets hacked, without sys-admins to fix it, the server's data could be corrupted or stolen, backdoors installed, ect.
That's a good point. USDA data influences the financial markets in a big way all around the globe.
It's completely reasonable for them to not want to run such a critical site without anyone minding the store.
It's illegal for a government employee to work (re: volunteer their time) while on furlough.
The US government is not being billed in 4 days. They're on a massive contract that is likely paid quarterly. Or likely a net 60 or 90 by purchase order. It isn't like they're on Heroku and the credit card expired.
They aren't necessarily pre-paying for services, and there's no guarantee that they will retroactively receive monies for the days that the government is shut down. So while they may see the bill later, they may not receive the funding to pay the bill for that period
All of this is true, but the lights are still on, and the T1 line is still piped into their building (not confirmed by visual evidence but it would cost more to shut it down and restart it barring a crisis causing shutdown >1month). Either they think the shutdown is lasting a while or their CTO/CWhateverO has a sense of humor.
They have to prepare for an uncertain amount of time. I think the botnet/hacking concerns are more notable. Especially since the USDA collects information from across the country.
True, and good on them for prepping, but last time it came to a midnight vote no one closed their sites. This might indicate a longer shutdown.
This is 4 hours after the midnight vote (remember east coast time), and the current climate does not seem to include a resolution tonight.