Free Republic

WASHINGTON - FBI Director Robert Mueller told lawmakers Tuesday he still doesn't know how much it will cost to complete the bureau's computer overhaul, already well over budget and behind schedule. He also refused to state publicly the cost of the initial phase of the Sentinel system, the planned successor to a failed project that was supposed to greatly improve management of terrorism and other criminal cases. "There are certain sensitivities involved," Mueller told the Senate Appropriations Committee's Commerce, Justice and Science subcommittee, explaining that the FBI soon would invite contractors to compete for the work. The FBI has yet...

WASHINGTON — Some homeland security experts and lawmakers are wondering how a post-Sept. 11 promise to improve the nation’s intelligence-gathering capabilities hit a monumental snag this month as the FBI announced it is scrapping a $170 million computer overhaul after nearly four years in the making. "If you can't get the simple things right and on time, what does that say about your ability to deal with the larger problem of defending the country against terrorists?" asked Charles Pena, director of defense policy studies at the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C. The FBI said it plans to scrap the multi-million...

WASHINGTON – "San Diego defense contractor SAIC said Thursday it had fixed flaws in heavily criticized software it developed for the FBI as part of a $170 million contract to help the agency track terrorists and manage criminal cases. "We fully conformed to the contract we have and gave the taxpayers real value for their money," said Arnold L. Punaro, executive vice president of SAIC. He blamed the FBI for the initial problems, saying the agency had a parade of program managers and demanded too many design changes. During 15 months that SAIC worked on the program, 19 different government...

The FBI's failure to roll out an expanded computer system that would help agents investigate criminals and terrorists is the latest in a series of costly technology blunders by government over more than a decade. Experts blame poor planning, rapid industry advances and the massive scope of some complex projects whose price tags can run into billions of dollars at U.S. agencies with tens of thousands of employees. "There are very few success stories," said Paul Brubaker, former deputy chief information officer at the Pentagon. "Failures are very common, and they've been common for a long time." The FBI said...