FBI technology upgrade more than a year away

FBI agents won't have user-friendly, integrated computer programs to manage their investigations until December 2003, FBI Director Robert Mueller said Friday. Mueller said the bureau will have the basic building blocks of a modern technology system in place by the end of this year, when FBI offices throughout the country should have new computers and monitors and can be connected to each other by fast networks. It will take another year to integrate and modernize the 36 software programs that FBI agents use to conduct their investigations-including the automated case support system, which is supposed to be a central system for managing cases but is so hard to use that agents try to avoid it. Technology specialists at the bureau have convinced Mueller that the bureau's modernization project, nicknamed Trilogy, can't move any faster, though they have acknowledged that most people have better computers at home than FBI agents have at work. "I have to be a little more patient than I normally am," Mueller told the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice and State. Originally conceived as a three-year program to replace and upgrade aging data networks, desktop computers and servers and to give agents access to e-mail and the Internet, Trilogy is now expected to cost the bureau $379 million. The Sept. 11 attacks and subsequent revelations about the archaic state of the FBI's technology prompted Mueller to try to speed up the project, which was launched in May of last year. The long timeline for modernization puts a damper on the bureau's ability to connect its data to the data of other federal agencies, Mueller said, telling members of Congress that the bureau must first get its data into data warehouses that would allow for better information sharing. Mueller said he has spent the past two months interviewing potential chief information officers and has selected a CIO from the private sector who has a strong vision for the FBI's technology infrastructure. But Rep. Harold Rogers, R-Ky., said members of Congress are wary of the FBI's ability to wisely spend money on technology modernization. He said Congress has appropriated about $1.7 billion for technology modernization since 1993. "I've heard director after director say to us, 'Give us that money and we'll modernize this computer system,'" Rogers said. Mueller noted that much of the money that the bureau has spent over the past decade has led to systems that work well, such as the FBI's fingerprinting system and its criminal information database. But he acknowledged that the bureau has not managed technology well in the past and emphasized his appreciation for computers as a reason he will be able to turn technology management around. "I love computers," Mueller said. "My wife wants me off the computer half of the time." Mueller's comments about the bureau's technology plans came at a hearing aimed at assessing the bureau's plans to reorganize and modernize. Former Attorney General Richard Thornburgh, for whom Mueller worked during the first Bush administration, headed up a National Academy of Public Administration panel that assessed the bureau's plans. Mueller announced plans on May 29 to devote more of the bureau's agents to investigating terrorism, spend less time investigating drug trafficking and create a new Office of Intelligence to analyze information about potential terrorist attacks. Thornburgh, who had only two weeks to assess the bureau's plans, said Mueller is taking the bureau in the right direction. On the technology issue, Thornburgh warned that the chain of command for information technology is not clear. The chief information officer and the head of the Trilogy project each report directly to the FBI director. The CIO has no direct control over the bureau's technology budget, and systems are operated by several different divisions.

"The panel is concerned with the apparent fragmentation of management control over IT resources," Thornburgh said.

Thornburgh also noted that Mueller's proposed reorganization actually affects less than 5 percent of the FBI's total resources and personnel. For example, only 2,000 of the agency's 11,500 agents will be devoted to counterterrorism full time, an increase of about 500 agents. Despite plans to reduce the effort spent investigating drug-related crimes, 1,000 agents will still be involved primarily in narcotics investigations, Thornburgh said. In other developments at the hearing:

• Mueller said the Bush administration is not planning to move the entire National Infrastructure Protection Center out of the bureau and into the new Department of Homeland Security, as was suggested in the administration's original plan. Now one section, which handles computer investigations and operations, will remain in the bureau, while the sections on analysis and outreach will move to the new department.
• Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., questioned Mueller about the National Domestic Preparedness Office, which is slated to move from the FBI to the new department. Mueller said that the number of people in the office now "may well be zero," since the functions of the office were recently handed over to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The Clinton administration created the office to help improve coordination among federal agencies that deal with first responders to emergencies.

Shane Harris contributed to this article.