State Department apparat asks Clinton to let him use Firefox

Last week’s Clinton town-hall with the State Department featured an apparat begging to be allowed to use Firefox:

MS. GREENBERG: Okay. Our next question comes from Jim Finkle:
Can you please let the staff use an alternative web browser called Firefox? I just – (applause) – I just moved to the State Department from the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency and was surprised that State doesn’t use this browser. It was approved for the entire intelligence community, so I don’t understand why State can’t use it. It’s a much safer program. Thank you. (Applause.)
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, apparently, there’s a lot of support for this suggestion. (Laughter.) I don’t know the answer. Pat, do you know the answer? (Laughter.)
UNDER SECRETARY KENNEDY: The answer is at the moment, it’s an expense question. We can –
QUESTION: It’s free. (Laughter.)

Boing Boing cuts it off there but Under Secretary Kennedy continues.

UNDER SECRETARY KENNEDY: Nothing is free. (Laughter.) It’s a question of the resources to manage multiple systems. It is something we’re looking at. And thanks to the Secretary, there is a significant increase in the 2010 budget request that’s pending for what is called the Capital Investment Fund, by which we fund our information technology operations. With the Secretary’s continuing pushing, we’re hoping to get that increase in the Capital Investment Fund. And with those additional resources, we will be able to add multiple programs to it.
Yes, you’re correct; it’s free, but it has to be administered, the patches have to be loaded. It may seem small, but when you’re running a worldwide operation and trying to push, as the Secretary rightly said, out FOBs and other devices, you’re caught in the terrible bind of triage of trying to get the most out that you can, but knowing you can’t do everything at once.

I just want to say that he is full of crap!  Since this was a job that I had while in the Army, I know full well how the government applies patches to the computers they use.  We all receive a salary based paycheck and in times where more work is needed to be done than normal they simply say “make it happen” and we do just that.

To install Firefox it would require someone to visit each computer and install it, as long as its not a vital security measure we take our time.  I actually preferred doing this because it meant that I got to drag my feet from one office to the next taking as many breaks as I wanted along the way.  My supervisors would be back in the office taking care of other regular maintenance issues.  The only major issue is those back in the office would have to pick up the slack.  In short that just meant fewer paper airplane contests.  Considering the number of computers we were responsible for a install for something like this would take about a month, if it were vital though we could have it done within a week, less if we wanted.

Patches get sent through the network and very rarely do we have to do many changes that would take much time.  The changes to these network patches are nothing more than someone adding them too the list.  One guy, a couple hours at most, paid a monthly salary.  So maybe Under Secretary Kennedy is right about “nothing is free”, but its a fee they are already paying.  Our salary!

[Via Boing Boing]