Deadline questioned for long-awaited upgrades to FBI computer system

FBI Director Robert Mueller told Congress on Tuesday that portions of a beleaguered initiative to upgrade his agency's computer system is on track for completion next month, but the Justice Department's inspector general testified that the deadline could slip again.

"I believe that we are now on the right track, and we are closing in on the goal of completion," Mueller told the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that oversees the agency. He added that the information technology for the program, dubbed Trilogy, should be completed by April.

But Inspector General Glenn Fine said he gleaned from interviews with senior FBI officials that the deadline is an open question because "the schedule is ambitious and there is no slack time."

Since 2000, Congress has appropriated millions of dollars for Trilogy, which was estimated to take three years and cost $379.8 million. After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, deadlines for the project were moved up one year earlier. In February 2002, lawmakers provided an additional $78 million to the FBI in response to its request to accelerate the process. The promised deadlines, however, slipped from summer 2002 to fall 2002 to spring 2003.

Subcommittee Chairman Judd Gregg, R-N.H., pressured Mueller to specifically give the panel a deadline for the project this year, as well as a plan for future IT architectures. "This panel has dedicated massive amount of dollars and time to working with the FBI" on the project, Gregg said. "It's now 2 million over budget and ... years behind schedule."

Mueller said that after the terrorist attacks, the FBI revised the Trilogy project in order to meet its new objectives regarding terrorism, and that caused price increases and more delays. Problems with contractors also caused delays.

However, the director said the additional funding "is money well spent" because Trilogy will "change how we've done business for 95 years." He also said the agency "in the last few days" signed a contract to develop its long-term IT architecture.

On another front, Fine said his office launched an audit last week to examine the FBI's efforts to consolidate a dozen watch lists of suspected terrorists. The deadline for a unified database also has slipped several times, but Mueller reiterated previous statements that it would be completed this summer. He said that extracting from the lists the names of people who are not suspected terrorists is a "substantial process" and that the agency is "halfway through that process."

Mueller also said the FBI currently is working with other agencies and foreign counterparts to create an international database of explosive devices.

Gregg asked the director to submit a report to the panel on its efforts, along with the Homeland Security and State departments, to have a border database with illegal immigrants' names that "talk to" the FBI's criminal database.

"I'm concerned we're wasting resources, time and money," Gregg said.