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Fbi converts from fighting crime to terrorism { March 10 2005 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0503100314mar10,1,6513293.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hedhttp://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0503100314mar10,1,6513293.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed
Report cites FBI's `striking advances'
But computer woes seen as big liability in fight against terror
By Andrew Zajac
Washington Bureau
Published March 10, 2005
WASHINGTON -- The FBI is making progress transforming itself from a crime-fighting agency into the nation's main anti-terrorism organization, but it remains hobbled by computer woes that impede efforts to manage information and share data with other security and intelligence groups, according to the latest evaluation of the bureau's makeover effort.
Overall, the FBI received good marks for strengthening its counterterrorism and intelligence capabilities and for "striking advances" in its willingness to cooperate with other law-enforcement and intelligence agencies.
The report by the National Academy of Public Administration, a non-partisan organization devoted to improving management and administration in government, urged the FBI to establish personnel policies that will allow it to recruit and retain the many agents, analysts, linguists and technologists needed to fight terrorism.
But the report also pointed out deficiencies in information sharing, including a lack of a single watch list of known or suspected terrorists for use by law-enforcement authorities, airlines and the Transportation Safety Administration.
It also highlighted the longstanding difficulty the FBI has had in designing a technology infrastructure for managing the information it collects.
The public administration academy's report was released the day after FBI Director Robert Mueller told the House Appropriations Committee that the bureau's troubled $170 million Virtual Case File computer system cannot be salvaged, and that it will take more than three years to develop a new case-management system.
Virtual Case File was considered vital to the FBI's ability to probe terrorism threats.
"Clearly, the lag in information technology is adversely affecting management functions and the pace of transformation," the academy report said.
As a new computer network is developed, the report said, it should provide for access by state and local law-enforcement.
The report also cautioned against turf battles as security agencies position themselves to combat the threat of terrorism.
In improving its anti-terror capabilities, the FBI has begun a push to expand intelligence gathering overseas, something that has raised fears of a collision with the CIA and its intelligence-gathering operations.
The report counseled against overlap, recommending that "the FBI rely on American intelligence agencies operating abroad to meet their covert foreign intelligence needs and that those agencies rely on the domestic intelligence capabilities of the FBI, rather than develop redundant capabilities."
The 123-page report is one of a series of evaluations of FBI operations Congress ordered in 2003, after the bureau began the transformation of its mission dictated by the Sept. 11 attacks. The reviews are being conducted by an academy panel headed by former Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh.
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