After several setbacks, FBI sees progress in high-tech

The FBI is making progress on the high-tech front after years of delays, big budget outlays and intense scrutiny by Congress and the GAO, the bureau's chief told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.

The agency is more than halfway through the six-year, $451 million Sentinel project to replace its paper-based systems for supporting intelligence analysis and case management activities. The long-promised program is "on time and on target," FBI Director Robert Mueller said, and top brass meet every two weeks to discuss it. Mueller thinks 2009 is "the year we get over the mountain."

Phase I was deployed in June 2007. The agency is working with Lockheed Martin Corp. to implement Phase II in increments, with a target completion date of the fall. Phases III and IV are scheduled to be delivered in early spring 2010 and summer 2010, respectively.

"I'm not going to declare victory until Sentinel is in and everybody has it," he said.

The FBI has handed out 24,000 secure BlackBerrys and has wired 30,000 of its 36,000 office computers for the Internet, Mueller said. That process required different pipelines for unclassified, secret and classified information, he said. The 6,000 employees who don't have Internet access at their desks will soon move to new facilities, Mueller said, noting that it would have cost too much to wire the current buildings.

"You inherited one of the most backward [IT] systems in the federal government," Senate Majority Whip Durbin told Mueller, who then-President George W. Bush appointed for a 10-year term shortly before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

"At the time of 9/11, computer capacity was not as proficient as you might find off the shelf at a Radio Shack at a shopping center," Durbin said. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., called the FBI's high-tech legacy "troubling."

On the topic of cybersecurity, Mueller told the committee the agency will be adding more than 30 agents to work on high-tech crimes, thanks to funding in the FY09 omnibus spending bill. He said the boost was appreciated, but noted cybercrime is "growing by leaps and bounds" and that it is hard to stay ahead of sophisticated Web criminals.

Mueller said a 60-day review of federal cybersecurity efforts requested by President Obama will shed new light on the issue.