Bid protest may delay Justice data-sharing network

The Justice Department's plans to install a departmentwide data network may be delayed temporarily, after a company that bid for the work contested the award to one of its biggest competitors.

Sprint Communications Co. filed an official protest of Justice's award of the Unified Telecommunications Network, or JutNet, to AT&T Corp. The company lodged its complaint on March 24 with the General Accounting Office, which arbitrates contract disputes. A Sprint spokesman declined to reveal details of the protest, but said it was made in light of Justice's "evaluation of the award" to AT&T. Sprint and GAO declined to release copies of the filing.

An individual close to the proceedings, who asked not to be identified, said Justice officials had filed a motion to dismiss the protest, arguing that GAO lacked jurisdiction in the matter. GAO wouldn't confirm whether a motion had been filed, and Justice officials didn't respond to requests for comment on Tuesday.

JutNet is meant to replace seven disparate Justice networks. It would allow agencies across the department, including the FBI, the U.S. Attorney's offices and the Federal Bureau of Prisons, to share data and images.

The effort to link Justice organizations under a single network would go a long way toward improving information sharing, a deficiency that was highlighted in part by various Justice agencies' failure to share terrorist-related data before the September 11 attacks. Long-standing legal and bureaucratic barriers were also blamed for the dearth of sharing.

The department had planned to award two contracts, one for a primary telecommunications carrier and another to a subcontractor. It was not immediately clear when GAO might settle the matter. The agency also would have to rule on any motion to dismiss the protest.

Meanwhile, the FBI announced Monday that it had chosen a new contractor to run an operations center for its imperiled Trilogy program to replace aging computers and networks. The FBI awarded a $7.6 million contract in March to an unnamed company. The FBI's new choice, Digital Net Inc., is based in Herndon, Va., and reportedly has other contracts with Justice totaling more than $50 million.

Trilogy is almost two years behind schedule and will cost the FBI an additional $200 million, on top of almost $380 million that already has been spent. FBI director Robert Mueller told senators last month that the agency would impose financial penalties on contractors who fail to meet project goals and deadlines. In 1992, the FBI awarded Trilogy contracts to Computer Sciences Corp. and Science Applications International Corp.

A statement Tuesday by the national commission investigating the September 11 terrorist attacks recounted the FBI's tortured history trying to upgrade its infrastructure. In 2000, then-FBI director Louis Freeh hired a 30-year IBM executive, Robert Dies, to manage the project. Dies told commission staff that "given the enormity of the task at hand, his goal was merely to 'get the car out of the ditch,' " according to a commission statement.

As of September 2001, the month of the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, the Trilogy project was still nowhere near full implementation, the statement said.