[Infowarrior] - FBI grapples with out-of-date computers

Fri Jul 14 08:37:42 EDT 2006

FBI grapples with out-of-date computers

By Anne Broache
http://news.com.com/FBI+grapples+with+out-of-date+computers/2100-1028_3-6094
070.html

Story last modified Fri Jul 14 04:00:05 PDT 2006

Four years ago, a former FBI project manager lamented the state of the
agency's primitive electronic case-management system.

"There's no mouse; there's no icon," the official told the U.S. Senate
Judiciary Committee in July 2002, according to a recent government report.
"There's no year 2000 look to it. It's all very keyboard-intensive."

Not much has changed since then. According to recent reports, a string of
managerial blunders, financial indiscretions and assorted snags have
accompanied efforts to modernize the agency's computer systems.

A former government contractor assigned to an earlier incarnation of the
upgrades was sentenced Thursday to three years of probation, six months'
home detention and $20,000 in restitution after pleading guilty in March to
"exceeding authorized access" to FBI records, the agency said. According to
court filings, he abused his network administrator privileges and used free
hacking software that's readily available on the Internet to crack 30,000
agency user names and passwords.

Despite that latest embarrassment, the FBI says a turnaround is near.

The bureau in March sealed a six-year, $305 million deal with prominent
defense contractor Lockheed Martin to start over. For the upcoming year,
it's requesting $100 million from Congress to launch the four-phase,
42-month overhaul, known as Sentinel, with the target completion date set
for 2009.

"In the past few years we have struggled with our information technology
programs," FBI Director Robert Mueller told a Senate committee in May.
"However, we have learned hard lessons from our missteps, and we are doing
things very differently this time."

For now, Sentinel "appears to be on the right track," with a new crop of
management and oversight processes already in place, Justice Department
Inspector General Glenn Fine assured the senators in May. But his office has
already flagged potential obstacles, such as incomplete staffing, the
agency's ability to track and control the project's costs, and the
possibility that systems won't be compatible with those of other
investigative agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security.
"The bureau's effectiveness hangs in the balance, and the American people
cannot afford another fiasco."
--Sen. Patrick Leahy

With that in mind, auditors plan to "aggressively monitor" the project as it
proceeds, Fine added.

Critics aren't convinced yet. Sen. Patrick Leahy, the Judiciary Committee's
Democratic co-chairman, said at the May hearing that he remained "very
concerned" about progress on what he called an "essential task."

"The bureau's effectiveness hangs in the balance," he said, "and the
American people cannot afford another fiasco."

There are plenty of skeptics off Capitol Hill as well. Jim Harper, director
of information policy studies at the Cato Institute, said he didn't see any
reason to believe the Sentinel project will be better managed than its
predecessors.

"The problem is institutional; when an organization's membership doesn't
enjoy feast or famine based on the success of the organization, very little
can bring it into focus and create success," he said in an e-mail interview
with CNET News.com. "Congressional and public oversight is a weak, weak
substitute for competitive pressure."

Computer blamed
The push for computer upgrades at the FBI picked up after the Sept. 11
attacks. Critics, including former Attorney General John Ashcroft, blamed
neglected, incompatible systems for possibly hindering investigators'
ability to gather and share intelligence on terrorists.

Those scathing assessments have already led to some changes.
FBI's aging computer woes

In 2001, the FBI launched a massive computer overhaul and has successfully
upgraded its network and IT hardware. But the more difficult goal of
upgrading its case-management software remains elusive.

By April 2004, the FBI completed the first two components of a now-defunct
project called Trilogy. After forking over $337 million--nearly $100 million
more than originally projected--the agency replaced its employees' desktop
computers, more than 13,000 of which were already between 4 and 8 years old
during the late 1990s.

The bureau also scrapped an even older network, bearing speeds roughly
equivalent to those of a 56Kbps (kilobits per second) modem, and deployed a
new "wide area network" that it said enhances the ability of FBI offices and
other law enforcement organizations to communicate.

"Without getting into sensitive and classified information," Mueller told
senators at a February 2005 hearing, "I can assure you that our ability to
intercept and decipher communications and to otherwise monitor criminal
activity and gather intelligence is among the best in the world."

But agents continue to struggle with day-to-day tasks related to managing
case files and records through a mainframe system that dates to the 1980s.
Officials and auditors have called that Automated Case Support, or ACS,
system cumbersome, ineffective, "severely outdated" and insufficiently
user-friendly.

The ACS system is essentially a repository of hard-copy documents, manually
scanned and uploaded for electronic viewing. Information is not readily
searchable, and "agents and analysts cannot easily acquire and link
information across the FBI," said an Inspector General's report from March.

On average, it takes 13 keystrokes just to bring up a single document, FBI
Chief Information Officer Zalmai Azmi said in a phone interview. With single
case files containing as many as 100,000 separate documents and pieces of
evidence, that's bound to be a serious shortcoming, auditors have said.

"You have to put commands in there; you have to do everything manually,"
Azmi said, acknowledging that "we don't have any mouse interaction with that
version."
The first phase of Sentinel, according to planning documents, is supposed to
yield a Web-based portal that will allow investigators a more streamlined
way of accessing and entering data in the existing case-management system.

Later, the agency plans to begin a transition to a fully paperless process
and to install a more sophisticated database designed to allow agents to
"connect the dots" among cases. The final goal is to retire the ACS system
in favor of an entirely new--and exclusively electronic--case management
system that eradicates the need for paper files.

That objective is not unlike that of the failed Virtual Case File, or VCF,
project, which the FBI discontinued last year after three years of
development, expenditures of $104.5 million and harsh criticism from
auditors. Although VCF and Sentinel have seemingly similar aims--namely, a
Web-based, ultimately paperless interface--the Inspector General's March
report said it was unclear how much of the investment in VCF could be
directly applied to Sentinel.

The FBI, for its part, has made a concerted effort to distance Sentinel from
its predecessors.

Speaking before senators in May, Mueller said he expected the new project to
offer "greater capabilities" and said he wanted "to emphasize that the
Sentinel program is not a reincarnation of the Virtual Case File."

Keeping costs in check has not been the FBI's strong suit, according to
auditors of its activities.

Earlier this year, the Government Accountability Office issued a report that
faulted the FBI for squandering $10.1 million on "questionable contractor
costs," including customized ink pens and highlighters for training
sessions, and misplacing more than $7 million in equipment related to the
Trilogy project.

The agency said it's determined not to repeat those mistakes with the
Sentinel program. Among its plans are frequent meetings with the
contractors, biweekly updates on the variations in the intended project
schedule, financial incentives for meeting performance standards, and a new
program office slated to include 76 staffers dedicated exclusively to the
project.

The goal, CIO Azmi said, is to reverse previous pitfalls "so there are no
rogue operations and there are no ad hoc developments within the bureau."

CNET News.com's Declan McCullagh contributed to this report.