By Eric Barger

March 30, 1999 - The day the Clinton administration claimed victory over the Y2K "Millennium Bug." Mark it down. We may look back at this event as one of the most tragic in the series of half-truths and misinformation the U.S. government has or will participated in concerning Y2K. The tragedy is that the vast majority of the public will slip back into a coma thinking that all is well…no big deal…Y2K is whipped. Well, hang on. It’s simply more smoke and mirrors folks. I hope I’m wrong but here’s why I believe I’m right.

I hate always being the one asking the nagging questions but who is verifying this supposed Y2K victory anyway? Of the 24 Federal agencies under the Executive Branch who reported at the President’s March 30 deadline, only 13 say they are 100% ready. Curiously, John Koskinen, White House Y2K "czar", announced at the same time that the Federal Government is now a total of 92% Y2K compliant in their "mission-critical" systems (needed to sustain services and our standard of living at current levels). Herein lies the problem. It is the agencies themselves that claim they are ready! Oh I can just hear the skeptics sniping now; "What Eric, you mean you really think they would be untruthful in self-reporting of Y2K compliance?" Now, let me ask, do you really think this administration has been truthful about much so far? And further, if they really do think they are indeed Y2K ready one has to ask, what does that mean? That is what we need to explore here.

Perhaps the most telling factor concerning the federal government’s efforts toward Y2K compliance is the fact that the White House has procured a media public relations firm to help them defray public concern about Y2K glitches and the need for preparedness.¹ We are told to believe that this effort is meant to help folks stay calm and to reduce panic but the result could prove to be absolute disaster due to the false sense of security it is already fostering.

There is no doubt among Y2K bug watchers that the public is not as concerned with physical preparedness as they were just two months ago. Most attribute this growing apathy to the media’s treatment of the issues after we passed into the new year without an outrageous amount of Y2K "look ahead" function failures. This false sense of security is sure to increase as the media picks up any allegedly positive news (which, if true, we would all welcome).

Another example of the media manipulation came as a result of the N.E.R.C. (The North American Electric Reliability Council) test that was conducted on April 9. The press coverage of the test gave the public an "all clear" about the electric utilities and proclaimed them "ready". In fact however, according to documents from inside N.E.R.C. the test was secretly and purposely constructed to softball the lagging problems of the electric industry in hopes of garnering glowing press reports presenting the illusion that N.E.R.C. has conquered Y2K. Though the N.E.R.C. exercise appeared to prove that the power grid will stay up on January 1, the real mission of the test was to misinform the public while N.E.R.C. continues to merely hope it can be ready for the 21^st century in time.²

This, and other positive press, is bound to please a President who, by all accounts, may intend to execute Executive Orders he has penned which are designed to bring him into total dictatorial control in a Y2K induced crisis.³ However, it should concern and anger patriotic citizens who grasp the scope of the Y2K problem and who understand the depth that this administration can sink to in bringing about their ends. While their phony test and P.R. spin have permanently compromised N.E.R.C.’s reliability, Americans have learned to rely on the Administration to be anything but forthcoming and trustworthy. How tragic.

As with the April N.E.R.C. test, it appears that the books are being cooked across the board in government and industry to make it appear that Y2K is a non-issue. Though anything that has cost hundreds of billions of dollars to fix could be referred to as trivial, the public is being fed misleading, slanted and even outright false information to purposely deceive them into thinking that the Millennium Bug has been swatted and is now reeling toward it’s grave. Once again, I’d love to believe it’s true but the facts must remain our plum line though they have been discarded by many in government, business and the press.

We are being told by the government and by many in industry that they are ready for Y2K. We have a right to expect honesty but concerning Y2K remediation what we are getting is double speak. After all, can you imagine calling up your local utility or phone company, asking about Y2K compliance and hearing anything except a positive response - no matter how dismal the actual outlook might be? Of course not. Now with that in mind does any rational person really believe that "self-verification" of Y2K readiness from government and business is reliable and trustworthy? This is why, to their credit, the FDIC is independently and stringently verifying banks for Y2K readiness. However, most government and corporate officials are not about to say anything that might bring them lawsuits or the threat of loss of position until it is blatantly obvious that they were indeed, not ready for Y2K. It’s a case of "smile and act casual, even though the ship is full of water and the life boats have holes in them". Let’s be reminded once again that if that is the case it will be woefully to late for the average uninformed citizen to do anything about it - like prepare. I wonder how they will attempt to "spin" things then?

So I guess we can just trust the Clinton administration at this point, right? They are Y2K compliant aren’t they? Afraid not. There is hardly a track record to help us believe this bunch is there? So let’s get beyond that and realize that this crew are masters at shaving the truth to into unrecognizable pieces and then claiming they are always up front and forthcoming. Let me illustrate just one way they may have done this in claiming to be Y2K "ready" in March of 1999.

In mid-March the U.S. Office of Management and Budget reported that the 24 agencies in question (Dept. of Defense, State, Commerce, Labor, etc.) were only 80% Y2K compliant. How did they gain 12% in just two weeks? It’s easy. Just suddenly proclaim that 3,000 of the systems previously deemed as "mission-critical" are no longer such and you get a 12% jump in supposed compliance⁴. Gee, 92% sure sounds better than 80% doesn’t it? I wonder which systems suddenly lost their importance? I imagine those 3,000 systems that have now been placed on the "non-mission-critical" list are critical to somebody!

Congressman Dick Armey (R-TX) saw through the administration’s attempt at "spinning" this issue.

But setting that aside, I believe there is perhaps a more important question to raise again. Though admittedly the government does seem to be further along in addressing Y2K than most researchers thought they would be, the largest task is still ahead. That is TESTING. And no one seems to be talking about it in plain, simple terms.

As with many companies and corporations, government officials have learned that most of the populace cannot discern exactly what "ready", "compliant", "fixed" or "remediated" mean. Let me make it crystal clear. Y2K problems are not fixed until the code has been altered, or the chips have been changed and every single facet of operation which the computer system is expected to perform has been 100% tested. Period. Anything short of this means that they are still merely working on the problem but without testing there is NO assurance that any given system will function come the year 2000.

During private conversations over the past few weeks more than one programmer has conveyed to me that in some programs, such as the widely used and adaptable Cobol language, bringing the programs up to speed is a long and laborious process. It appears that on average for every ten lines of code that is updated at least one new error or problem is introduced that must be caught by testing and then the fix be tested again, etc. Compounding the task of getting each individual system to work correctly after remediation, thousands of computers and systems are also expected to be able to interact, exchange data and communicate properly with one another after having undergone monumental individual changes. Call me a pessimist but the truth is that the chances of systems working as they are supposed to and properly communicating with each other - without testing, testing and testing again - are slim to none⁶.

In the April 1, 1999 edition CIO Magazine printed information on how each state is doing in addressing Y2K, when they started work on it, their proposed deadlines for completion, how far along they are now and the estimated total costs⁷. As I read through the list the first thing that I wanted to know was did the figures included testing?

As Mr. Baldwin points out in his letter to me definitions of "ready" are varied and many. I am afraid that this is also the same confusion that pervades virtually all circles when this topic is discussed. "Ready" in the eyes of a public relations spokesman for a corporation or government agency trying to save face publicly may not mean "ready" in reality. To say it loud and clear again - if Y2K fixes haven’t been tested completely then they are not fixed.

Here are three prime examples to help illustrate the absolute need for testing Y2K fixes before proclaiming that all is well.

* Over the weekend of March 20-21, 1999 welfare recipients in New Jersey got a welcome unexpected surprise. Due to Y2K testing that went awry, 23,000 people began to receive April’s food stamps early on Monday March 22. Though the error was caught and corrected it amounted to an estimated $5 million dollar mistake.

* US West Telecommunications Corp. has spent over $200 million on fixing it’s Y2K bugs utilizing over 300 full time workers. When they first tested their billing software fixes it was discovered that anyone making a long distance call that bridged the century date change would have been charged for a 99+ year long phone call! I’ve always wondered, "What was the per minute rate again?"!

* A new Y2K-compliant financial management computer system was installed in the Office of the Secretary of the U.S. Senate last October (1998), and since that time individual Senate offices have been dealing with fiscal chaos. The Disbursement Office has been unable to process payments for Senate expenses. Overdue bills have piled up for state office rents, credit cards, staffers’ travel expenses, cell phones, and pagers. Some Senate staffers are facing eviction from their state offices because of grossly past-due rent payments. The Secretary of the Senate, Gary Sisco, says the problems are not the result of specific Year 2000 issues, but rather "problems associated with conversion of a system." In other words, the fix that was supposed to work didn’t. The FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) is going through similar problems, first in trying to convert their ancient IBM 3083 mainframes (which track all long range air traffic in the US) and now with the new computers that were to have solved the problem!

Considering it has taken some federal agencies years to get this far in addressing the problem and also considering that the federal government begins fiscal year 2000 on October 1st it would appear that the time to accurately and efficiently test the corrections made for Y2K is nearly gone. It would also appear that the government spin-doctors want us to assume that somehow every line of code and every new embedded chip are going to function correctly just because they have been tinkered with. Actually, they are just counting on the public not being able to connect the dots in their doublespeak.

Contingency planning would be the prudent thing to do - both for governments, for business and for you and I. What will we do if crucial, "mission-critical" computers and systems cause major delays, shortages, outages, societal breakdowns and alter our way of life for a few days, a few weeks or longer? The wise will recognize this and prepare accordingly (see Proverbs 22:3).

Footnotes:

1 - "Feds Plan Y2K Spin Control", Wired News, 1/26/1999  http://www.wired.com/news/news/politics/story/17527.html

"Media Role Seen Key in Preventing Y2K Panic", Reuters, 4/5/1999  http://dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/tc/story.html?s=v/nm/19990405/tc/yk_media_1.html

"In The Shadow of Y2K: Preventing Panic", Computerworld, 3/1/1999  http://www.computerworld.com/home/print.nsf/all/9903019326

2 - "Power Utilities Prepare Wide-Scale Drill", Worldnetdaily.com, 4/8/1999  http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_bresnahan/19990408_xex_power_utilit.shtml

3 - For details and a list of Clinton’s Executive Orders see "Stop Clinton’s Executive Orders" at  http://ericbarger.com/ExecutiveOrders.htm

4 - "52 Questions about 92%", Y2K Newswire, 4/1/1999  http://y2knewswire.com/19990401.htm

5 - Associated Press, 4/1/1999

6 - CIO Magazine, 4/1/1999 For the state by state survey see http://www2.cio.com/archive/040199_y2k_sorted.cfm?what=state

7 - In my study on Cobol it may be interesting to note how many Internet websites are now using the phrase "contingency planning for Y2K" and "risk management for Y2K". See http://www.infogoal.com/cbd/cbdy2k.htm for just one example.

9 - See Rep. Horn's Y2K website (Government Management, Information and Technology) http://www.house.gov/reform/gmit/y2k/index.htm

"Agencies miss deadlines on Y2K fixes", CNET 3/31/1999   http://www.news.com/SpecialFeatures/0,5,34315,00.html?st.ne.fd.gif.h

"Feds Plan Y2K Spin Control", Wired News 1/26/1999  http://www.wired.com/news/news/politics/story/17527.html

"Media Role Seen Key in Preventing Y2K Panic", Reuters, 4/5/1999  http://dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/tc/story.html?s=v/nm/19990405/tc/yk_media_1.html

For more about the "Spin-Doctors" before they were called such, see my 1993 article "Shaping The New World Order: Deceptions of the Secular Press" at   http://199.227.52.59/articles/Media.html

copyright 1999, Eric Barger

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