Had his office not done that work, Lyle said, computer systems throughout the White House may have faced catastrophic failures on Jan. 1, 2000.

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Compounding the problem, many of these computer systems were bespoke ones, built in the 1970s by in-house teams.

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He said his office computer and phone systems were disconnected during his investigations and that people had been watching his house once he was suspended.

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In it the White House's former counterterrorism chief, Richard Clarke, urged a wholesale reboot of government computer systems and new security rules for electric utilities and Internet access providers.

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