When the legislature returns to Raleigh in January, the Senate will take a bold technological leap into 1992.

For the first time, senators will be allowed to have laptops at their desks. They won't have e-mail or access to the Internet, but they can have laptops. The computers would allow Senators access to the information available on the legislature's Web site. Senate leader Marc Basnight changed a long-standing rule banning electronic devices.

"There's been some discussion for a while of allowing access to information by computer," said Schorr Johnson, a spokesman for Basnight. "There has also been the concern of the tradition of the Senate session and any disruption. This represents a compromise."

The laptops would allow Senators to find a statute or bill quickly. But they won't have much else (sorry, no Minesweeper or solitaire). Senators will have to request the machines, which will stay in the chamber. The computers will be refurbished from older laptops the legislature already owns, so the rule change won't cost taxpayers anything, Johnson said. The plan also means senators will likely be wrestling with computers that are long past their prime.

The House has no rule banning computers and laptops are common in the chamber. As far as Dome knows, there have been no reports of House members reading Perez Hilton during sessions.

Nearly 4,000 agency laptops have been loaded with security software to protect confidential information, the state Department of Health and Human Services says.

The agency had been under pressure to meet state security standards after a laptop theft in late October exposed tens of thousands of residents to identity theft.

The agency laptop had residents' Social Security numbers on it when it was stolen from an employee who had it on a training trip in Atlanta. The laptop had not been loaded with software that makes data incomprehensible to unauthorized users.

The state's chief information officer said the agency had violated state security standards.

Nearly all laptops assigned to employees are now loaded with the encryption software, Karen Tomczak, DHHS chief information officer said in a Wednesday letter to Ann Garrett, the state's chief information security officer.

It cost $101,085 to encrypt 3,829 machines. About 273 laptops that are not being used have not been encrypted. They do not contain any personal or confidential information, Tomczak wrote.

Two laptops assigned to visually-impaired employees have not been encrypted because they need a different kind of software, Tomczak wrote. Those computers contain no personal information.

The state is paying for fraud alerts for residents whose information was on the stolen laptop.

Another laptop was stolen from a DHHS employee's home last weekend. The laptop was encrypted and contained no personal information, a spokesman said.

Top administrators at the state Department of Health and Human Services said at a meeting today that laptops must be loaded with encryption software by Thursday.

"Nothing will leave the building until these computers are encrypted," said Tom Lawrence, DHHS spokesman.

DHHS Secretary Dempsey Benton and deputy Dan Stewart talked about the encryption requirement, Lawrence said. They will have a report Thursday on how many laptops meet the requirement, Lynn Bonner reports.

The focus on security comes because an agency laptop stolen in Atlanta last month, a machine that contained Social Security numbers for tens of thousands of Division of Aging and Adult Services clients, did not meet state security standards and left residents exposed to potential identity thieves. Encryption makes computer data unintelligible to unauthorized users.

The division has said that the stolen laptop was scheduled to have the encryption software installed at the same time the employee had it in Atlanta.