White House Electronic Files Open to Abuse, GAO Audit Finds

The White House’s electronic files on 200,000 Americans, denounced by Republicans as a political use of taxpayer funds, lack technical controls to guard against abuse, congressional auditors said Tuesday.

A review by the General Accounting Office, Congress’ watchdog agency, found that although the White House had taken steps to prevent abuse of the database, more needed to be done.

GAO official Jack Brock said the database lacked an electronic “audit trail” that would closely monitor who used the system and what each person did with it.

White House officials told Brock and his team that activating such an audit trail would slow down the computer system considerably, he told a House subcommittee.

A sort of giant electronic Rolodex, the system is used mainly to make invitation and Christmas card lists.

It raised suspicions among Republicans that the Clinton administration was collecting background information on political foes.

But White House spokesman Barry Toiv said in a telephone interview that Republicans “are just looking for a problem that doesn’t exist.”