THE DAILY FED
FBI Under Surveillance
Members of Congress have increased their criticism of the FBI's top brass as allegations of mismanagement and misconduct at the agency mount, The Washington Post reported Sunday.
Congressional leaders who head the committees charged with overseeing the FBI's operations have said recently they are becoming increasingly skeptical and losing their trust in the leadership of the nation's top law enforcement agency.
"I think the leadership of the FBI has brought the entire organization into question, and you are the leader," House Appropriations Chairman Bob Livingston, R-La., told FBI Director Louis Freeh at a recent hearing.
Critics charge the FBI has, among other things, poorly handled modernization of two giant technology projects. The cost of upgrading the FBI's central criminal records database has soared from an original estimate of $73 million to at least $183 million--a 151 percent hike. The FBI's high-tech fingerprint identification project, the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System, is 15 months behind schedule and almost 25 percent over budget.
Last summer the Senate temporarily cut off funding for a $500 million FBI wiretap initiative, citing the agency's "poor track record of delivering high-tech contracts on-time and on-budget."
Non-technological controversies, including the widely-derided interrogation of former Olympic Park bombing suspect Richard Jewell and recent controversies involving the relationship between the White House and the FBI have further eroded the confidence of many members of Congress in the nation's top law-enforcement bureau.
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