The US State Department has been banning the use of the Open Sauce browser Firefox because it feels it is too expensive in comparison to Internet Exploder.

A recent meeting between Secretary Clinton and one of her staffers showed the level of ignorance between senior staffers and the great unwashed. According to Boing Boing, it all started when an unnamed State Department apparat asked Clinton to let him use Firefox.

To a round of applause from fellow staffers he said he just moved to the State Department from the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency and was surprised that State forbids the use this browser. It was approved for the entire intelligence community, so I don't understand why State can't use it. It's a much safer program.

Clinton asked one of her minions to explain why and was told by Under secretary Kennedy that it was a question of expense. Under secretary was just about to go on for five minutes about budget cuts when the questioner interrupted and said that Firebadger was free.

Not one to be deterred by tricky questions, Undersecretary Kennedy said nothing was free. At the moment there was no resources to manage multiple systems. He said the State Department might be able to afford to allow Firefox in the next budget run.

“Yes, you’re correct; it’s free, but it has to be administered, the patches have to be loaded. It may seem small, but when you’re running a worldwide operation and trying to push, as the Secretary rightly said, out FOBs and other devices, you’re caught in the terrible bind of triage of trying to get the most out that you can, but knowing you can’t do everything at once,” he said.

Odd really. Been running it for years an neither me, nor my employer has ever had to allocate resources to it. (Nor would we. sub.ed.)