GOVERNMENT

"This is a testament to the innovative technology professionals we have in state government that worked so hard to make our site the model for the country," said Governor Jennifer M. Granholm. "We set a goal to make state government more accessible for citizens and friendlier for businesses and this award shows the great progress we have made."

Wireless interoperability allows different jurisdictions and levels of government to exchange information when and where it is needed, even when disparate communications and information systems are involved.

What the report doesn’t say, continues the release, is that such a system is already in place in the private sector in the form of "IPN," the Incident Page Network.

The government will soon be pinging cell phones and posting on Web sites to warn Americans of impending disasters as it updates its Cold War-era emergency alert system.

"This state-of-the-art communications network gives us an unprecedented ability to share information and create a more efficient system to respond to emergency situations,"

States should employ a variety of information-technology tools to strengthen their homeland-security strategies, according to a new issue brief from the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices.

The State Department confirmed that attacks last month on some of its computer systems originated in the East Asia-Pacific region, targeting U.S. embassies there, and worked their way toward State’s headquarters in Washington.

The 11 states with breach notification laws that don’t apply to government agencies are Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Maine, Minnesota, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Texas and Utah.

The home of the derby and Mint Julips is now the center of a national debate over what Internet content employees should be able to access. In Kentucky, however, the argument has taken on political tones.

Dick Clark, the state’s top computer official, said he agreed with the report, and outlined a series of aggressive changes he hopes to have in place by the end of the October.