Comment 30 for bug 59946

Tom,
Clearly the upgrade didn't add user "tom" to the admin group, or possibly even create one.

Workaround:
1. run "gksudo users-admin"
2. Click manage groups
3. Click add Group
4. Put "admin" as the name of the group, and put whatever users you want to allow to change system wide settings such as networking.
5. Close the users-admin program and reboot.

But thank you for clarifying that this persists from at original installs of breezy, possibly dapper installs.