American Notes Whistle

Outraged by what they perceived to be a history of insubordination, Alvin Frost's bosses in the District of Columbia municipal government tossed the Harvard-trained cash-management analyst out of his office and changed the locks last week. But Frost was prepared: he had changed the seven-letter computer password to the district's cash-management system, electronically locking financial officials out of key data. All he would say about the new password was that it concerned the Declaration of Independence.

Frost, 38, touched off a whistle-blowing donnybrook about a year ago by advising supervisors not to place $100 million in district funds with a shaky New Jersey securities firm. When the company collapsed, Frost embarrassed Mayor Marion Barry's administration with an "I told you so" city council appearance. Earlier this month someone gained access to Frost's computer data, extracted a letter he had written to Barry charging the city's top financial managers with "incompetence, mismanagement . . . intimidation and indifference," and leaked it to local newspapers. After Frost's electronic lockout, his superiors announced they had bypassed his new password. Insisting that was impossible, Frost declared that he would insert clues to his password in newspaper classified columns and award prizes for solutions.