In brief: Neglect blamed for hack of federal agency

WASHINGTON – The agency that allowed hackers linked to China to steal private information about nearly every federal employee – and detailed personal histories of military and intelligence workers with security clearances – failed for years to take basic steps to secure its computer networks, officials acknowledged to Congress on Tuesday.

Democrats and Republicans on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee spoke in unison to describe their outrage over what they called gross negligence by the Office of Personnel Management. The agency’s data was breached last year in two massive cyberattacks only recently revealed.

The criticism came from within, as well. Michael Esser, the agency’s assistant inspector general for audit, detailed a yearslong failure by OPM to adhere to reasonable cybersecurity practices, and he said that for a long time, the people running the agency’s information technology had no expertise.

Last year, he said, an inspector general’s audit recommended that the agency shut down some of its networks because they were so vulnerable. The director, Katherine Archuleta, declined, saying it would interfere with the agency’s mission.

The hackers were already inside her networks, she later acknowledged.

“You failed utterly and totally,” said committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, a Utah Republican. “They recommended it was so bad that you shut it down and you didn’t.”

Chaffetz said the two breaches “may be the most devastating cyberattack in our nation’s history,” and said OPM’s security policy was akin to leaving its doors and windows unlocked and expecting nothing to be stolen.

Vet gets prison for White House intrusion

WASHINGTON – An Army veteran with mental health issues who got over the White House fence and inside the executive mansion was sentenced Tuesday to 17 months in prison, and a judge said that means he’s likely to be released before Christmas.

Omar Gonzalez’s arrest in September was an embarrassment to the Secret Service in particular because officers weren’t able to stop him until he was inside the East Room of the home.

Gonzalez, 43, was found carrying a folding knife in his pants pocket, and investigators found hundreds of rounds of ammunition, a machete, knives and several tomahawks in his car, which was parked nearby. Gonzalez told a Secret Service agent after his arrest that he wanted to tell the president that the atmosphere was collapsing.

Church leader says no same-sex unions

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – The president of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination on Tuesday vowed never to officiate at a same-sex union, and the Southern Baptist Convention called on the U.S. Supreme Court not to declare a constitutional right to same-sex marriage.

Pastor Ronnie Floyd was speaking to delegates at the convention’s annual meeting in Columbus, Ohio. But he said his message was also for the U.S. Supreme Court – which is expected to rule within days on same-sex marriage – and for all of America.

Floyd said he has compassion for people whom he described as struggling with same-sex attraction, but he said it would be wrong to remain silent on the issue.

“America: We stand believing that marriage is the uniting of one man and one woman in a covenant commitment for a lifetime,” Floyd said to a standing ovation from the 5,000 people in attendance. “We do not need to redefine what God himself has defined already.”