The Government Shutdown on the Web • Hacker News Board

Re: The Government Shutdown on the Web

#21

Post by BrokenEnso » Fri, Oct 04, 2013, 2:21 AM UTC

adelevie wrote: post #18

bradleyjg wrote: post #16

We shouldn't treat the law as some sort of obscure documents that can only be understood by high priests. Here's the relevant parts of the anti-deficiency statute: 31 USC § 1341 - Limitations on expending and obligating amounts (a) (1) An officer or employee of the United States Government or of the District of Columbia government may not— (A) make or authorize an expenditure or obligation exceeding an amount availab…

This is all nice and good, but can you point to any government/federal agency sources that are citing the Anti-Deficiency Act as rationale for the web shutdowns? Seriously, I'd like to know, since OP just tosses the idea out there at the end of the article without much discussion. If the Anti-Deficiency Act is not used as justification, then your interpretation of the law, as applied to the web shutdowns, is moot.

From my understanding most if not all federal agencies had to weigh the Anti-Deficiency Act with there decision. There is also what qualifies as essential vs. non-essential and how contracts that support those services are structured with a dash of Solicitor and management interpretation of those things. And all that had to be done for all IT, not just web sites, in a given Department in about a week. So, my guess is everyone did a mad-dash-scramble do something they couldn't believe would happen.

Re: The Government Shutdown on the Web

#22

Post by bradleyjg » Fri, Oct 04, 2013, 2:22 AM UTC

adelevie wrote: post #18

bradleyjg wrote: post #16

We shouldn't treat the law as some sort of obscure documents that can only be understood by high priests. Here's the relevant parts of the anti-deficiency statute: 31 USC § 1341 - Limitations on expending and obligating amounts (a) (1) An officer or employee of the United States Government or of the District of Columbia government may not— (A) make or authorize an expenditure or obligation exceeding an amount availab…

This is all nice and good, but can you point to any government/federal agency sources that are citing the Anti-Deficiency Act as rationale for the web shutdowns? Seriously, I'd like to know, since OP just tosses the idea out there at the end of the article without much discussion. If the Anti-Deficiency Act is not used as justification, then your interpretation of the law, as applied to the web shutdowns, is moot.

The Anti-Deficiency Act, and opinions interpreting it from Attorneys General dating back to the Carter administration, is the basis for OMB Memo M-13-22[1] which provides guidelines to heads of Executive Departments and Agencies on how to plan for a lapse in appropriations. Pages 13 and 14 deal with websites and other IT concerns and specifically reference the Anti-Deficiency Act.

Here's question 5 from page 14:

Q5: What if the cost of shutting down a website exceeds the cost of maintaining services?

A5: The determination of which services continue during an appropriations lapse is not affected by whether the costs of shutdown exceed the costs of maintaining services.

[1] http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/memoranda/...

Re: The Government Shutdown on the Web

#23

Post by SolarNet » Fri, Oct 04, 2013, 2:23 AM UTC

adelevie wrote: post #18

bradleyjg wrote: post #16

We shouldn't treat the law as some sort of obscure documents that can only be understood by high priests. Here's the relevant parts of the anti-deficiency statute: 31 USC § 1341 - Limitations on expending and obligating amounts (a) (1) An officer or employee of the United States Government or of the District of Columbia government may not— (A) make or authorize an expenditure or obligation exceeding an amount availab…

This is all nice and good, but can you point to any government/federal agency sources that are citing the Anti-Deficiency Act as rationale for the web shutdowns? Seriously, I'd like to know, since OP just tosses the idea out there at the end of the article without much discussion. If the Anti-Deficiency Act is not used as justification, then your interpretation of the law, as applied to the web shutdowns, is moot.

They don't have to use it as justification. It's the law! If they use something else as justification, but not this, then you can say that. But if they just say "This website unavailable due to shutdown" they can be talking about any law, including this one.

Re: The Government Shutdown on the Web

#24

Post by simple10 » Fri, Oct 04, 2013, 2:24 AM UTC

In China, the government removes non-government websites to punish the people. In the USA, the government just removes itself. Maybe they should just hide Healthcare.gov at Silk Road's onion address to really make an obfuscated political statement.

Re: The Government Shutdown on the Web

#25

Post by rietta » Fri, Oct 04, 2013, 2:25 AM UTC

16s wrote: post #12

The FCC is down. As a radio operator, I find this extremely disappointing: http://www.fcc.gov

I saw that on QRZ. The radio spectrum still works fine while the FCC is on break though. I am not too worried about it.

Re: The Government Shutdown on the Web

#26

Post by SolarNet » Fri, Oct 04, 2013, 2:26 AM UTC

coldcode wrote: post #11

Healthcare.gov however is still running (sort of, signups are dead today due to the crush of traffic). It's ironic that the site at the center of the shutdown is running but many of the other gov sites are shutdown.

That's because it's not funded by the budget bill that's not being passed. Kind of stupid isn't it.

Re: The Government Shutdown on the Web

#27

Post by darkstar999 » Fri, Oct 04, 2013, 2:37 AM UTC

rietta wrote: post #19

olefoo wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That just means that now is the time for all those Software Defined Radio experiments we've been putting off. Spread spectrum mesh networks encrypted so NSA can't spy on them... for the win.

That is an idea! It would be fun to run SSH over packet radio while no one is around to enforce Part 97!

Off topic, but what's the reasoning behind the rule against encrypted traffic on amateur bands?

Re: The Government Shutdown on the Web

#28

Post by 001sky » Fri, Oct 04, 2013, 2:37 AM UTC

bradleyjg wrote: post #22

adelevie wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is all nice and good, but can you point to any government/federal agency sources that are citing the Anti-Deficiency Act as rationale for the web shutdowns? Seriously, I'd like to know, since OP just tosses the idea out there at the end of the article without much discussion. If the Anti-Deficiency Act is not used as justification, then your interpretation of the law, as applied to the web shutdowns, is moot.

The Anti-Deficiency Act, and opinions interpreting it from Attorneys General dating back to the Carter administration, is the basis for OMB Memo M-13-22[1] which provides guidelines to heads of Executive Departments and Agencies on how to plan for a lapse in appropriations. Pages 13 and 14 deal with websites and other IT concerns and specifically reference the Anti-Deficiency Act. Here's question 5 from page 14: Q5:…

How do they pay the cost of shut down, if they "can't pay" the cost of operation? Just curious. Math, and all that.

Re: The Government Shutdown on the Web

#29

Post by zenocon » Fri, Oct 04, 2013, 2:46 AM UTC

adelevie wrote: post #8

The author seems to take a one-dimensional approach to these determinations. There's much more at play than raw dollar amounts for running servers. While some commenters might see these web shutdowns as part of a larger strategy to win a political fight, they're overlooking some very basic and practical reasons. Agencies are responsible for the content of their websites. If the agency is shut down, there is legally-s…

And that's all well and good, but the OP also points out the inconsistency in policy -- e.g. front page shutdown but many other subdomain sites still running.

I guess in the end one may chalk it up to pure inefficiency. I'm sure there are probably multiple groups of people responsible for multiple servers under one domain, but still, it seems a little childish at this point to shut down one server if you're doing it for liability reasons, and yet leave up a whole slew of others on the same domain. I mean nasa.gov -- really? Was it necessary to redirect that?

Re: The Government Shutdown on the Web

#30

Post by runamok » Fri, Oct 04, 2013, 2:59 AM UTC

adelevie wrote: post #15

runamok wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. Bosses in the government are not any more amused by these legislative shenanigans than we the people are. The more things that are broken, the louder people will complain and the quicker the bosses will get their funding back.

This is a rather simplistic view of "bosses in the government." Sure agency heads and managing directors might have their own opinions on the shutdown, especially since they were nominated by President Obama (or appointed by someone who was). But they have their own responsibilities as stewards of an agency. One responsibility is ensuring the agency acts within the law and shields itself from liability. Shutting down…

That's a fair point I suppose but I suppose it depends on the website. In general rules and regulations change at a pretty glacial pace. It would seem easy enough to place a disclaimer at the top of every page stating something to the effect of "No email will be answered and the validity of this information may in some cases not be up to date due to the government shutdown". A government website is a public resource that we paid to put into place so as far as I'm concerned it's not really acceptable to shut if off when it takes almost no money and more importantly staff to simply keep it up.