Metro Briefs

MARYLAND

BALTIMORE

C-SPAN viewers irkedby baseball bump

Political junkies are crying foul over the bumping of the C-SPAN 2 cable channel in favor of the Baltimore Orioles and Washington Nationals when the two teams play at the same time.

Comcast has one channel slotted for the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network (MASN), which carries broadcasts of the two teams. When both play at the same time, Comcast uses the channel normally devoted to C-SPAN 2, which provides gavel-to-gavel coverage of the U.S. Senate.

C-SPAN said viewers have been sending e-mails to protest the decision, which affects Comcast subscribers who receive MASN in the Baltimore and Washington areas as well as parts of Virginia, Pennsylvania and Delaware.

Comcast said it selected C-SPAN 2 for the overflow channel because the Senate conducts much of its business during the day, while most baseball games are at night.

C-SPAN 2 is available without interruption on the cable service’s digital channel. Comcast officials said they will provide one digital converter to analog customers who request them.

BALTIMORE

Ex-NSA employeegets probation

A former National Security Agency (NSA) employee was sentenced Friday to two years probation for awarding more than $770,000 in contracts to companies in which he and his wife had financial interests.

Wayne Schepens, 37, of Severna Park, had faced up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine after pleading guilty to a conflict-of-interest charge. U.S. District Judge Catherine C. Blake also ordered Schepens to serve the first six months in home detention with electronic monitoring.

The contracts related to a Cyber Defense Exercise, which Schepens created for the NSA. The annual competition involved teams from participating military academies who tried to protect their computer networks from attacks by teams of hackers, generally NSA employees and military reservists.

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