Omnibus bill drops spending cap for FBI computer upgrade

The FBI computer upgrade known as Trilogy escaped a budgetary cap suggested by Senate appropriators when House and Senate lawmakers earlier this month finalized an omnibus appropriations bill for fiscal 2005. But the conference report to the measure recommends that the FBI commission another independent study of Trilogy to assess its progress.

Negotiators also suggested that the study establish a timeline for completing the computer upgrade, a new estimate of deployment costs and an outline of the benefits of making the FBI's Virtual Case File available as soon as possible.

The Senate Appropriations Committee's report on legislation to fund the Commerce, Justice and State departments noted that "Trilogy has been plagued by cost growth, scheduling delays, management turnover and changes, and slow technical progress," and it sought to cap the modernization process to impose some fiscal discipline on the program.

Senate appropriators initially suggested a $600 million cap. The omnibus bill, which includes the funding for Commerce, Justice, State and several other departments, would not allot a specific dollar amount for completing Trilogy.

Trilogy includes an overhaul of the FBI's information systems, which involve the deployment of 500 network servers, 1,600 scanners and thousands of desktop computers to FBI field offices, as well as the consolidation of several internal FBI networks. One component of the overhaul is the implementation of its Virtual Case File, which is expected to be completed sometime next month.

The system is supposed to provide FBI agents a streamlined method to track cases and share information. According to the conference report for the omnibus bill, when completed, the system will let users import all document types, manage their workflow and upload information to the automated case-support system.

Trilogy already has been the subject of numerous reports detailing flaws in the handling of the project. In May, the National Research Council issued a report that said the FBI should build a completely new system designed to help agents work on anti-terrorism cases.

The administration's ongoing effort to build infrastructural safeguards to track terrorists also is providing a spending boost for Justice's information technology projects. For example, the conference report to the omnibus bill would direct Justice's chief information officer to evaluate "commercially proven enterprise data warehousing and analytic systems" and report on its applicability to counter-terrorism efforts by March 31.

The omnibus bill also would provide $5 million for Justice to administer an automated and integrated biometric identification system. The conference report expresses concern about the delay in linking the FBI's fingerprint databases with the biometrics ID systems for customs and immigration, and it orders the Homeland Security, Justice and State departments to coordinate their efforts and issue a status report and funding request within three months of the bill's enactment.

Justice's share of the omnibus bill also would provide:

• million more and 188 positions for cyber investigations, including $3 million for the "Innocent Images" initiative aimed at using emerging technologies to prosecute Internet crimes against children;
• $47 million and 65 additional positions for information and physical security improvements at the FBI;
• $4.2 million for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to hire contractors to convert thousands of records from firearms dealers into digital images so agents could more quickly search the National Tracing Center;
• And another $20 million for other departmental technology investments.