Concerns Raised Over FBI Computer Upgrade
WASHINGTON — Having bungled its first attempt, the FBI is proposing to build a computer system that is as much as three times more expensive than its ill-fated predecessor and might not allow the bureau to communicate with other agencies, a Justice Department watchdog said Monday.
The bureau is proposing to spend $400 million to $500 million on the network, code-named Sentinel, and expects to name a contractor to oversee the project soon, Glenn A. Fine, the department’s inspector general, said in a 70-page audit report.
A group led by Lockheed Martin Corp. of Bethesda, Md., is the leading contender to get the job, said people close to the contracting process who declined to be identified because of the ongoing negotiations.
An upgrade of its creaky computer network has been on the bureau’s most-wanted list since before the Sept. 11 attacks, but the process has been rife with cost overruns and mismanagement. A year ago, the bureau scrapped its first attempted upgrade, called the Virtual Case File, which cost about $170 million.
In his report, Fine said that the bureau had made a number of advances since then, including ending a cycle of rampant turnover among top managers in its technology division.
Yet he expressed concern that the project manager for Sentinel, not identified in the report, was a CIA employee on loan to the FBI for two years with the possibility of a one-year extension. He said problems could result if the official decided to return to the CIA before Sentinel was fully installed.
Fine also cited several concerns about implementing the Sentinel project, which is expected to take four years, including the bureau’s ability to track and control costs.
FBI officials have been close-mouthed about the program and have declined to estimate its cost. Fine said he obtained cost estimates from congressional aides who had been briefed on the program.
Among his chief concerns, Fine raised questions about the ability of users of the new system to share information with other intelligence and law enforcement agencies.
“The FBI has not yet adequately examined or discussed Sentinel’s ability to connect with external systems” -- including those in other offices in the Justice Department, the Department of Homeland Security and other intelligence agencies -- Fine wrote.
He said the Drug Enforcement Administration, part of the Justice Department, planned to deploy its own new case management system this year and that it is not compatible with Sentinel as currently designed.
The FBI would not formally comment on the report. But a Justice official said the bureau was sensitive to the need for Sentinel to work with other agency computers and that sharing information remained a priority.
The official said the added costs reflected in part “operations and maintenance” expenses that the earlier contract did not include. The official said the new system also had more functions.
Fine also expressed concern that the FBI planned to finance the computer upgrade by borrowing funds from other FBI programs -- including ones to fight terrorism -- that previously had been appropriated by Congress. The bureau obtained permission to use $97 million from its fiscal 2005 budget for the Sentinel program, including about $29 million from its counter-terrorism division, intelligence-related activities and its cyber division.
“Diverting substantial funds from such mission-critical areas could begin eroding the FBI’s operational effectiveness,” Fine said.
He said that although top FBI officials had expressed confidence that the bureau could withstand the diversion of $97 million to Sentinel, the same officials expressed concern that plans for a second shift of funds “would damage their ability to fulfill their mission.”
The costly mishandling and subsequent demise of the Virtual Case File program has been a lighting rod for congressional criticism, and has been a blotch on the nearly five-year tenure of FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III. The bureau’s lack of technological prowess was among the most forceful criticisms of the bureau by the bipartisan commission that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks.
Technology is viewed as central to the ability of government investigators across a spectrum of agencies to share information about terrorist threats. The FBI’s new software is aimed at both facilitating the management of cases and automating the process of opening and completing a vast number of FBI documents and forms.
Fine did not address in detail the reason for the cost increase. FBI officials had previously indicated that they expected to save money on the project by using off-the-shelf software to design it. The Virtual Case File project, by comparison, was designed from scratch, using a proprietary computer code for security reasons. But the code never worked.
