The FBI's office in New York is supposed to be on the front line of America's defences against terrorism, but it is so strapped for cash it cannot afford email accounts for its agents, according to a news report yesterday."As ridiculous as this might sound, we have real money issues right now, and the government is reluctant to give all agents and analysts dotgov accounts," Mark Mershon, the assistant director of the New York city office told the Daily News.
Chuck Schumer, a Democratic New York senator, said: "FBI agents not having email or internet access is much too much a pre-9/11 mentality." The FBI's headquarters said the issue was not one of money but bureaucracy. A spokeswoman said email addresses were still being assigned and all New York agents should be online by the end of the year.
| Not a big surprise, I'll bet the majority of their IT budget continues to be sucked up by this monster: |
Two of those companies, CACI and Computer Sciences Corp., are part of the Lockheed Martin Corp. team that last week won a six-year, $305 million contract to build and run the FBI's Sentinel computerized case management system. The total value of the Sentinel project is $425 million. FBI officials said they were applying the lessons learned in the Trilogy computer upgrade, including keeping tighter reins on their contractors. Sentinel is the replacement for the failed project that was to have been the final piece of Trilogy.
| What's the over/under for Sentinal failing as well? |
| Fred, you really need to get a piece of this |
El Segundo, Calif.-based Computer Sciences, or CSC, was the principal contractor in the effort to put in place a high-speed, secure computer network and 30,000 new desktop computers for the FBI. CACI of Arlington, Va., essentially reported to CSC. Auditors identified a $456,211 invoice from CACI for which CSC never received sufficient evidence, but paid anyway. "It's not what we asked for but at this point it doesn't really matter. Approve it," one CSC employee wrote another in an e-mail exchange that was included in the GAO report.
In another bill from CSC to the FBI, all but $44,000 of a $1.95 million invoice was listed as "other direct costs" with no additional explanation provided.
Auditors also identified as excessive the $52,000 CACI spent on 60,000 pens that were custom-made for FBI computer training sessions.
| That's only 86 cents a pen. |
CSC spokesman Chuck Taylor said his company complied with its contract, using first-class travel only to accommodate last-minute schedule changes when lower fares were not available. CSC's billings were within approved limits, Taylor said. CACI did not immediately comment Monday.
A separate report last week from Justice Department inspector general Glenn A. Fine warned that costs could again get out of hand unless the FBI puts strong controls in place. Bureau officials have said they are doing just that. "The lessons learned from the Trilogy program are guiding us, and the FBI continues to strengthen our internal controls," said FBI spokeswoman Cathy Milhoan.
The CSC unit that worked on Trilogy will not be part of the Sentinel project, Milhoan said. CACI will provide training for new system, as it did for Trilogy, she said.
The FBI has since accounted for more than 1,000 of the missing desktop and laptop computers, printers and servers, she said. The bureau also will seek repayment of inappropriate charges identified by a final audit of Trilogy that has yet to be finished, Milhoan said.