ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, April 9, 1997 TAG: 9704090059
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
Scant success in catching IRS snoopers
WASHINGTON - Despite its proclaimed policy of ``zero tolerance,'' the IRS has made scant progress in cracking down on electronic snooping by its employees in confidential taxpayer files, an internal assessment and a report by the General Accounting Office disclosed Tuesday.
The agency said it investigated 1,515 such cases in the last two years among the roughly 60,000 staff members, but that only 23 employees had been discharged. Two-thirds of the cases resulted in ``counseling'' or no action at all.
``It's not getting better; if anything, it's getting worse,'' said an aide to Sen. John Glenn, D-Ohio, who brought the browsing problem to light in 1993 when he was chairman of the Governmental Affairs Committee.
Investigators found that much snooping still goes undetected, that the adequacy of the IRS surveillance programs cannot even be judged and that the agency has failed to impress its work force with the seriousness of the offense.
Glenn reintroduced a bill Tuesday calling for fines and imprisonment for any unauthorized browsing.
-THE NEW YORK TIMES
Ill. man walks into court, hurls firebomb at judge
URBANA, Ill. - With no guards to stop him, a hooded man walked into court and hurled a firebomb at the judge Tuesday, igniting a blaze that gutted the room but caused no serious injuries.
The man fled after the attack, which came during testimony in a medical malpractice case.
Three people were slightly hurt as jurors and others in the courtroom rushed toward the only exit, and Circuit Judge George Miller suffered a cut on the scalp diving under the bench.
``Everybody left the jury box screaming,'' said juror Abra Bonnell.
``He didn't say a word,'' said another juror, David Chambers. ``He came in, looked around, grabbed the bottle out, lit it and then threw it. I looked back, and the judge's bench was on fire, and it went up the back wall of the courtroom.''
Workers at the Champaign County Courthouse detained a man in a black, hooded sweat shirt shortly after the firebombing in the third-floor courtroom. But after he was shown to witnesses, investigators decided he was not the man who lit the rag-filled bottle containing an amber liquid.
``We have no other suspects,'' Sheriff Dave Madigan said.
The incident spotlighted concerns about security at the 96-year-old courthouse, which has at least four entrances, no metal detectors and five unarmed guards.
-ASSOCIATED PRESS
Space shuttle Columbia returns home safely
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Flying on only two-thirds power, space shuttle Columbia returned safely to Earth on Tuesday after a research flight that was cut to just four days because of a dangerously defective generator.
NASA brought the seven astronauts back 12 days early.
Commander James Halsell Jr. guided the 235,500-pound shuttle - the heaviest ever because of all the unused fuel - to a neat landing on the concrete runway. The two remaining generators evidently worked fine.
It was only the third time in 16 years of space shuttle flight that NASA brought astronauts home early because of equipment failure.
Minutes after touchdown, however, Kennedy Space Center director Roy Bridges Jr. said Columbia might return to orbit with the same crew and the same experiments in July.
-ASSOCIATED PRESS
Briefly ...
Homicides, robberies and auto thefts have declined sharply just one month after District of Columbia police launched a new crime-fighting effort, the city's police chief said Tuesday. The overall crime rate was down 26 percent, with 16 murders this February compared with 26 in February 1996. Robberies fell from 690 to 529, burglaries dropped from 986 to 673, and auto theft was down from 987 to 586.
States would have to come up with ways to verify that inmates aren't counted as members of households when officials are determining their families' eligibility for food stamps under a bill approved 409-0 by the House Tuesday. Federal, state and county inmates cannot participate in the food stamp program.
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