[Senate Hearing 107-989]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 107-989
FBI COMPUTERS: 1992 HARDWARE--2002 PROBLEMS
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ADMINISTRATIVE OVERSIGHT AND THE COURTS
of the
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JULY 16, 2002
__________
Serial No. J-107-93
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
87-062 U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
WASHINGTON : 2003
____________________________________________________________________________
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COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont, Chairman
EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah
JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Jr., Delaware STROM THURMOND, South Carolina
HERBERT KOHL, Wisconsin CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa
DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania
RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin JON KYL, Arizona
CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York MIKE DeWINE, Ohio
RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama
MARIA CANTWELL, Washington SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas
JOHN EDWARDS, North Carolina MITCH McCONNELL, Kentucky
Bruce A. Cohen, Majority Chief Counsel and Staff Director
Sharon Prost, Minority Chief Counsel
Makan Delrahim, Minority Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts
CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York, Chairman
PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama
EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts STROM THURMOND, South Carolina
RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa
RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania
Benjamin Lawsky, Majority Chief Counsel
Ed Haden, Minority Chief Counsel
C O N T E N T S
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STATEMENTS OF COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Page
Durbin, Hon. Richard J., a U.S. Senator from the State of
Illinois....................................................... 15
Hatch, Hon. Orrin G., a U.S. Senator from the State of Utah,
prepared statement............................................. 41
Schumer, Hon. Charles E., a U.S. Senator from the State of New
York........................................................... 1
Sessions, Hon. Jeff, a U.S. Senator from the State of Alabama.... 4
WITNESS
Higgins, Sherry, Project Management Executive, Office of the
Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Washington, D.C.,
Accompanied by Mark Tanner, Deputy Chief Information Officer... 5
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
Responses of Sherry Higgins to questions submitted by Senator
Grassley....................................................... 21
Responses of Sherry Higgins to questions submitted by Senator
Schumer........................................................ 26
SUBMISSION FOR THE RECORD
Higgins, Sherry, Project Management Executive, Office of the
Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Washington, D.C.,
prepared statement............................................. 42
FBI COMPUTERS: 1992 HARDWARE--2002 PROBLEMS
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TUESDAY, JULY 16, 2002
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on Administrative
Oversight and the Courts,
Committee on the Judiciary,
Washington, D.C.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:29 p.m., in
room SD-226, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Charles E.
Schumer (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Senators Schumer, Durbin, and Sessions.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. CHARLES E. SCHUMER, A U.S. SENATOR
FROM THE STATE OF NEW YORK
Chairman Schumer. The hearing will come to order, and I
apologize to my colleague Jeff Sessions and to all the
witnesses; I was here and forgot something and so had to go all
the way back.
So let me begin and thank all of you for being here and
thank Jeff again for his patience. He is more patient with me
than I am with him, which I appreciate.
Anyway, the events of September 11 have lit a fire under
Congress, the administration, and most of our Federal agencies,
especially those on the front lines in the war on terrorism.
We all agree that the problems with the FBI's technology
infrastructure have taken on a new urgency since September 11.
But these problems, as we know, have been around for a long
time. In fact, the only difference now is that we have
witnessed firsthand the horrors of terrorism. In the past,
terrorism was something that mostly happened to people in other
countries. We know now just how costly that attitude can be.
Over a year ago, I introduced legislation that would have
established a review commission to examine the systemic and
structural problems at the FBI as well as the Bureau's
relationship with other law enforcement entities.
I also held a hearing in April of this year that focused on
how technology and cultural issues were acting as barriers to
information-sharing between our law enforcement agencies. I
heard from the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the INS, who
all readily and forthrightly, to their credit, acknowledge the
problems they face.
The Senate Judiciary Committee has held 11 oversight
hearings since June 2001 on the FBI and the Justice Department,
focusing on problematic issues from technology to security to
personnel. I say all this to underscore the fact that no one
should think that the challenges the FBI is facing today are
new ones in any way.
There are a number of new signs that the FBI is headed down
the right path. In public testimony and in private meetings,
Director Mueller has been blunt about the hurdles the Bureau
has to clear in order to become an agency with state-of-the-art
technology and with personnel who not only know how to turn on
their computers but can also type, maneuver the mouse, and who
can successfully use top-of-the-line hardware and software.
In reading Ms. Higgins' testimony, I was impressed by her
honesty about the difficult days ahead. Ms. Higgins, your
frankness and that of the Director is refreshing.
I am also happy to report that we received Ms. Higgins'
testimony yesterday over email, in contrast to how we received
FBI testimony 3 months ago, when the FBI had to personally
deliver it on a disk, making it impossible to circulate and
store it online.
For a long time, the FBI's data base warehouse was like
Medusa, with over 40 data bases with separate functions
operating out of the same body but totally disconnected from
one another. Here are a couple of quick visuals to give you an
idea of what we are talking about.
The first visual shows you the FBI's five major
investigative data bases and how they look now--disconnected
and disparate. The second visual shows you how the data bases
will look in a post-Trilogy world--they will be interconnected
and accessible.
The Trilogy system takes an enormous step forward, not only
in connecting these five major investigative data bases, but
also in ensuring that every agent has a desktop computer to
use, that every agent knows how to use it, and that every
analyst can manipulate the resources of information available
at their fingertips in real time.
I do not think I have to spell out in too much depth why
connecting these networks is so important for the future of law
enforcement. We know now more than ever that the backbone of
homeland defense is a good information-sharing and coordination
system between Federal law enforcement and intelligence
agencies.
If an agency cannot coordinate information and make it
easily accessible, the entire house of cards will fall. We all
felt the effects of this scenario on September 11, and I pray
to God that we never feel it again. But if we do not fix our
communication and technological woes, we could.
Dinosaur-era technology, like the painstaking process it
takes for an agent to use the automated case system where an
FBI agent has to make her way through 12 different functions
just to store a document must be transformed into efficient,
accessible, streamlined technology.
Another example of a fossil technology is the FBI's
inability to search across different data bases by plugging in
a couple of key words. For example, if an agent wanted to find
any information available on suicide bombers, say, in the
United States, he could just type in ``suicide'' or ``bomber''
or a related phase like ``homicide bomber'' and come up with
the relevant information.
Also, the agent should be able to type in different
versions of a name--that is, take my own name. If I were to
spell out S-c-h-u-m-e-r, the search engine should be able to
find my name regardless of whether it has been misspelled,
which believe me happens all the time.
The point here is that the FBI needs technology of the new
millennium--technology that has some kind of artificial
intelligence so the agency does not have to pull teeth to get
one piece of information.
Glenn Fine, the Inspector General of the Justice
Department, said in his testimony to the committee few months
ago, and I quote: ``DOJ concluded that the FBI's troubled
information systems are likely to have a continuing negative
impact on its ability to properly investigate crimes and
analyze information throughout the FBI.''
According to the FBI, Trilogy gives the Bureau a
technological foundation upon which it can build. The other
components of a state-of-the-art system cannot be implemented
without first implementing the critical parts of Trilogy.
My sincere hope is that under the leadership of Ms. Higgins
and Director Mueller, Trilogy will be implemented soon and will
fulfill its given function. If not, I fear that Inspector
General Fine's prediction will prove true--and, if true,
possible disastrous.
Before I close, I want to recognize a different sort of
brass tacks. The FBI saw an increase in funding of
approximately 127 percent from fiscal year 2001 to fiscal year
2002 for information management, automation, and
telecommunication, IMAT, which includes all Trilogy-related
functions. Congress appropriated approximately $223 million in
fiscal year 2001 and $507 million in fiscal year 2002. This was
an enormous increase, a jump that we all understand and deem
necessary.
In addition, the Senate Appropriations Committee has
recommended an appropriation of $30 million for the FBI's
Information Resources Division to help implement Phase II of
Trilogy in the fiscal year 2002 supplemental. The FBI has
requested an additional $48 million for fiscal year 2003 for
IMAT, and I expect that as Congress considers this new request,
we will want to know a detailed plan for additional funding and
why it is needed.
Finally, in preparation for this hearing, I spoke with many
private sector groups and what they have to say about their
past dealings with the FBI in terms of lack of policy guidance,
a heavy bureaucracy, and a general feeling of apathy toward the
need for the latest technology. I believe that things are
changing at the Bureau. I have met with some of the people here
and many others. And I would like to propose the idea of
forming an advisory group made up of representatives from the
private sector to work with the FBI on their technology
development. Perhaps this group could work in conjunction with
Ms. Higgins' Office of Programs Management, and hopefully, Ms.
Higgins, we can discuss that idea in today's hearing.
When Director Mueller testified before the Judiciary
Committee a few months ago, he stated that it would take 2 to 3
years from now for the Trilogy system to be up-to-snuff. To me,
that is unacceptable. I, and I believe the American people, do
not need another 9/11 to prove how far behind our law
enforcement agencies are in their communications and
technological development.
I find it impossible to believe that we cannot, for the
safety of our Nation, implement Trilogy any faster. So I will
be asking you some questions on this issue later in the
hearing. If Trilogy is indeed the foundation upon which the
FBI's technology is built, then, we need it not today and not
tomorrow--we really needed it yesterday.
Again I thank the witnesses for being here, apologize for
my tardiness, and call on my patient colleague, the junior
Senator from Alabama.
STATEMENT OF HON. JEFF SESSIONS, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE
OF ALABAMA
Senator Sessions. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you
for your interest in this important issue.
Things do happen around here often so fast that it can
happen to anybody that you do have a conflict that you just
cannot balance, so I certainly understand that, and I think
everybody else does, too.
I will just say a few things about this subject. I remember
when I was United States Attorney that an effort was made to
have a computerized system for the FBI that was going to solve
everybody's problems, that you could be in court and punch in
the questions, and it would appear for you and all that. And I
think it was done. I do not know how many millions of dollars
were spent on it, but that was done.
There is a tendency today to blame errors on the computer.
The computer will not work if the information is not put in. It
will not work if people are not following up. So I do not know
how to make vague documents for all missed; I think some of
that was just a failure to read the email that was sent out and
to followup in each and every field office, who probably
thought they did not have anything to do with the case.
I am concerned about the money, and I am glad that you
mentioned that, Mr. Chairman. This is a huge increase in money.
I think we have 60-some field offices in America, and we are
talking about nearly $400 million for this program. That is a
lot of money for a field office. I trust that we can justify
that kind of system.
We are rushing fast, we are trying to do a lot of things at
once, and we have simply got to watch our expenditures in
Congress. I am getting troubled by the fact that we seem to be
losing discipline.
One more thing. I do believe that you should be sure to
listen to agents in the field who do the daily work and will be
inputting the data into this system. They have got to feel
comfortable with it, it has got to meet their needs, they have
got to feel comfortable relying on it, or it will not be as
effective as we would like to see it. I think that is
important, and in any review that you do, I want to ask about
that.
Finally, I think the most dangerous thing in all of this is
security. I just believe very, very strongly that any system
that allows broad-based access to security information is
subject to being penetrated. You have in every FBI office in
America clerks and staff people and agents. We had a Hansen,
for that matter, a special agent for the FBI, who was not
proven reliable and betrayed his country.
So I want to know that if we make an error, it will be to
keep this material contained more closely than some might like
and keep it contained in a way that is very difficult for
anyone to penetrate.
Thank you for having this hearing, Mr. Chairman. If we do
this thing right, I think you are correct that enemy agents
could be identified quicker than we ever thought possible on
occasion.
Thank you.
Chairman Schumer. Thank you, Jeff.
Chairman Schumer. Now let me call our single witness here
today, one witness but a very important one and we believe
worth a whole hearing.
Sherry Higgins is new. I had the pleasure of meeting her
when I asked Director Mueller how are we going to straighten
this thing out, he had a few-words answer, but among the words
he mentioned were ``Sherry Higgins.''
She is the project management executive in the Office of
the Director at the FBI. She began her career in 1971 with
AT&T. She was then assigned to Lucent Technologies after AT&T
split.
Ms. Higgins has held several positions with both AT&T and
Lucent, including both the Lucent Chief Information Officer and
Chief Technical Officer of the Global Program and of Project
Management. Most recently, she was an instructor of project
management with the International Institute for Learning, and
she also supported the Technology Command Center at the 2002
Salt Lake Olympic Games.
She has been industry-certified as a project management
professional through the Project Management Institute since
1991. She holds master's certificates in both commercial and
international project management--this biography is a
mouthful--and was inducted into the International Who's Who of
Professionals in 2000 and was featured in the August 2000
edition of CIO magazine.
Ms. Higgins, your entire statement will be included in the
record. Please proceed as you wish.
STATEMENT OF SHERRY HIGGINS, PROJECT MANAGEMENT EXECUTIVE,
OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR, FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION,
WASHINGTON, D.C., ACCOMPANIED BY MARK TANNER, DEPUTY CHIEF
INFORMATION OFFICER
Ms. Higgins. Thank you.
First of all, I want to thank you for inviting me up here.
I too think it is a very important issue.
I want to thank you for inviting me and for your support
and for what I know will be your continued support.
I can tell from your charts that both of you have had a lot
of discussion about Trilogy, and there have been a lot of
things that you have heard in the past about Trilogy.
I have been with the FBI for 4 months, and I too have heard
an awful lot about Trilogy. What I have said, though, and what
I have instituted within the organization and the teams that I
have been working with on the Trilogy project is I have been
given a lot of reasons for why the FBI is where they are right
now, and what I have asked people to do, though, is not to give
me a history of excuses, but I will take history as lessons
learned. We will figure out how not to do things in the wrong
way or the way that they have been done in the past, but
improve and move forward.
Presently on the Trilogy Project, I am not sure how much
you understand about the way the project is actually divided,
but it is between a part that they call TNC/IPC and a part that
they call UAC. One thing that I probably did not put in my
testimony is that surprise I had when I came to the FBI--I
thought that the communications industry had a lock on
acronyms, but I found out that the FBI has more than that.
The TNC/IPC side is what I call the network and the
hardware, the actual PC side of it. And the UAC side is the
applications side. The TNC/IPC side is projected to be
completed over a year ahead of schedule. The original intent
was for the program to be a 36-month schedule, and it was 36
months from the time the contract was awarded, which would have
put us completing the network and the hardware side sometime in
May of 2004. The projection for the network side is to complete
by the first fiscal quarter of 2003, no later than the second
quarter of 2003.
The UAC side, or the virtual case file side, the
application side, is projected to complete on schedule.
Contract was awarded in June of 2001, and 36 months from that
would be June 2004.
The solution that we are implementing now, that we are
designing now, that we are developing now, is significantly
different from what was projected from the very beginning. So
there are things in my testimony that explain that and some
things that I am going to show you on a powerpoint presentation
to demonstrate that.
Communications is improving within the Trilogy Project and
other programs within the FBI. We are not there yet, but we are
cross-pollinating information to make sure that we are
partnering on all the programs that we have within the FBI.
We are focusing on the right solution, not just the fastest
solution. We have a constant eye on the schedule to make sure
that as we are moving down this road and we are putting in the
right solution that we are looking for anywhere that we can get
efficiencies and gain a faster schedule.
The future is bright; I agree with that. And the people who
are surrounding the Trilogy program feel that the future is
bright, and they resonate with the Director's view that the
future is bright, that we are moving ahead.
On your point, Senator Sessions, one of the things that I
totally align with is that we do have to have the agents' buy-
in. In developing the UAC or virtual case file component, part
of that is using what we call a ``joint application design.''
That is made up of agents, analysts and support people to look
at not how do you do your jobs with the tools that are
existing, but what tools do you need to do your job. So that in
reality, what we have gotten is buy-in from the beginning. We
are asking, and we have recognized that they are the ones who
are going to be using these tools.
We are not just rebuilding old applications. We are looking
at a new application and pulling the best information from
those five investigative applications.
Trilogy is an enterprise solution. Enterprise solutions
create and facilitate change, so we are recognizing that. Part
of the joint application design will be eliminating some old
business process that are no longer required.
We have a positive future in our sights where we already
have a plan in place to not allow Trilogy to get old and
outdated; we have a plan to change that out as technology
changes so that it stays current.
We are assessing the impact of not only those five
applications but other applicants that we look at and determine
whether those need to be included or they need to be
eliminated.
The Director has established the Office of Programs
Management for us to have a disciplined approach on not only
the Trilogy Project but any other highly critical, high-dollar,
visible project that we have is critical and will support the
FBI's mission and strategy.
We as an Office of Programs Management, managing these
major programs, will be accountable to you as our stakeholders
and to our other stakeholders, including the end-users. We will
be developing repeatable processes, we will build in quality,
and we are set for the future. Trilogy is setting the standard;
it is the base for us to be able to do all the things that are
in our vision moving forward.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Higgins appears as a
submissions for the record.]
Senator Sessions. Mr. Chairman, maybe Ms. Higgins can move
to the Department of Homeland Security after this.
Chairman Schumer. Yes. When you finish this one, we are
going to move you over to Homeland.
Did you have a presentation?
Ms. Higgins. Yes, I do have a quick presentation where I
would like to show you the difference between today's
environment and our national view--and I have been coached
several times to make sure that I do not leave here without you
knowing that this is a national view. And my point in saying
that is----
Chairman Schumer. Excuse me. Could you just explain what a
``notional view'' is?
Ms. Higgins. I am getting ready to.
Chairman Schumer. OK.
Ms. Higgins. A notional view is when you have a contract,
or you bring a contractor in who is also one of the people in
the JAD, that joint application development session, you tell
them what you need--you do not design the solution for them.
Chairman Schumer. I see.
Ms. Higgins. So that what you are going to be seeing is a
view of how the agents and support people would like it to
look. It will still have the same functions, but it may not
look exactly like what you are going to see here.
Chairman Schumer. OK.
Ms. Higgins. The first thing we are going to do is show
you--you alluded, Senator Schumer, to the 12 screens--I am just
going to show you very quickly, going into FBINET, Automated
Case Support, and Electronic Case File, all the things that you
have to use just to upload one document.
Here are the first five screens that every agent has to go
through. Anything they are going to want to do in ACS, they
have to go through every, single one of these screens. Those
are five mandatory screens, and they are all function key-
driven; there is no mouse, no icon, no year 2000 look to it. It
is all very keyboard-intensive-driven.
To actually upload a document, you then have these six
additional screens that you have to go through. The very last
screen, just to make one more point, is a screen that says you
now have to print the document after you have uploaded, so it
can go into the official system of record, because ACS is not
used as a system of record.
Chairman Schumer. Do you then have to get out of your seat
and do a backflip? [Laughter.]
Ms. Higgins. Yes, sir. [Laughter.]
Our future planned solution--what I am going to show you is
the difference between Virtual Case File and ACS and explain
the workload to you.
Here is the same thing, showing how you would enter a
document into the system, be able to submit it and have it
approved all in one step. An agent will submit information--for
instance, an intake form--he takes down the information on the
victim, the victim complaint, he submits the information, the
supervisor approves it, and then it automatically goes into the
electronic file. At that point, it is then able to be shared by
other FBI agents or analysts who can look at that information
that has just been submitted.
Over top of that, there will be a Data Mining Application--
--
Senator Sessions. In other words, they could do the
interview and actually enter the data instead of taking notes,
and it is immediately in the system?
Ms. Higgins. Absolutely, absolutely. And it can be done
both ways. It can be done by not being in front of the
computer, writing it down, and then, it is a lot easier to just
immediately go into the system.
We will have the Data Mining Application, which I believe
both of you alluded to, which will allow the agent to not only
get information from the virtual case file, but those other
stovepipe applications, and also be able to go out and mine
information from other agencies.
What they are going to be able to do then is what the agent
calls ``mining for gold.'' They will go out and grab a bunch of
the information, put it together in their analytical work box,
and in that analytical work box, they are able to say, ``Now I
have something.'' They will submit that, it is approved, and it
goes into the electronic case file, and it is ready to be
viewed or collaborated or shared with other people within the
FBI.
Chairman Schumer. What is the process for someone else in
the FBI seeing that file under this new system?
Ms. Higgins. Depending on the----
Chairman Schumer. Do they have to get separate approval or
anything like that?
Ms. Higgins. If they are within the FBI and they have the
same level of security, their job title will drive how much of
the information they will be able to see.
Chairman Schumer. So if I am an agent in Minneapolis, I
could get hold of a file, let us say, to take another place in
Phoenix?
Ms. Higgins. Right.
Chairman Schumer. Right away?
Ms. Higgins. Right.
Chairman Schumer. OK--which could not happen before, I take
it.
Ms. Higgins. Exactly.
Chairman Schumer. Before, you had to get 16 different
approvals, and you would virtually never get it.
Ms. Higgins. Exactly. And to speak to your issue of Hansen,
we will have audits built into this so that you will be able to
see who has been looking at my case, what other people have
done what to this case, so we have audit trail there.
Senator Sessions. Is this the time to ask a question?
Chairman Schumer. Yes, why not?
Senator Sessions. All right. Would the memorandum from
Arizona be immediately available for review by a person in
Minnesota who had a similar type situation, or would the
computer simply register that there was relevant information of
some kind? In other words, would a memo such as the one written
in Arizona and/or the one written in Minnesota--to me, both of
those were pretty sensitive information, and there are a lot of
people who have access to computers--FBI offices are open 24
hours; you have clerks in there and other people. I think it
would be pretty easy, if you were determined over a period of
time, to get somebody in there who knew how to penetrate the
system.
Is there any limit on that?
Ms. Higgins. The first question that I think you are asking
me is about being able to actually do a collaboration--will the
document be there so that other agents can see that
information. And yes, out of that virtual work box, the
analytical work box that I explained in our earlier screen, it
will be immediately available to other agents in the field.
As far as being able to hack into the system or be able to
bypass security regulations, we are working with the security
program--they are part of our project team--to make sure that
we have built in the security as opposed to bolting it on.
So we are using industry practices and using input from the
security department. We also have people from security who have
come over from different agencies. So we are implementing that
as we go.
Senator Sessions. I am just thinking about--Mr. Chairman,
let us say there are people in your city--and I know how deeply
you care about this and how real it is to the people of New
York; it is not academic, it is very, very real--but we are out
interviewing people right now, people are getting information
on a confidential basis. There has been abuse over the years in
my view by police and FBI agents saying, ``My informant's
information is so secret, I do not ever tell anybody,'' which
is an overreaction in one way. But at the same time, they would
be dead--there are people living in the community who are
providing information this day, and if that information goes
into the system and somebody identifies who they are, they will
disappear tomorrow. So this is really serious about our
security, not counting the potential danger in a lot of other
ways.
Chairman Schumer. It is an interesting--Senator Sessions is
right. I asked Director Mueller why things were so backward. It
is my view that the FBI system, at least as of 9/11, was more
rudimentary than the system that I bought my 7th grade daughter
for $1,400. He said there are two reasons. One, he said the FBI
always had the attitude that ``We can do it better,'' instead
of relying on all the geniuses in Silicon Valley and everybody
else, they invented their own system, and they were not too
good at it.
But the second reason, which is the one you bring up, is
security. Obviously, you do not want a system that is simply
open to everybody because of classified information, because of
investigative problems, et cetera. And I guess the balance you
face is to make it as accessible and as open as possible so an
enterprising agent in Minnesota can get to see a lot of
information that other agents have had, and at the same time,
not having such information, certain sensitive information, be
too accessible.
But I take it that with passwords and certain codes, you
can sort of have an open system with certain blockages that you
need special clearance to get to and so on.
Am I wrong about that?
Ms. Higgins. No; you are right.
Senator Sessions. I just think this has got to be given
attention, because if every agent can access and input into the
system, and you have one bad agent, the whole system is drained
of intelligence in an exceedingly bad event.
Chairman Schumer. Yes; a very good point.
What do you say to that? I mean, the advantage of the
internet is a two-edged sword, as we learned about 9/11. What
do you say to the fact that if you get a high-up person in the
system, they might be able to get every bit of information on
that system and give it to an enemy? How do we deal with that?
That is a very serious and good question.
Ms. Higgins. There are several items that I want to bring
up in response to that. One is that, again, we have audits
built into the system so that we can get flags, know that
someone who is not at the level of a certain case to be able to
work on that case--we know that someone else has been working
in it.
We are also regulated so that not all information is shared
so that you can protect the individuals, too. I am not going to
profess to know what all of those laws and regulations are. I
just know that they are there, and I am digging deep into them
to try to make sure that we are making the system as flexible
but as secure as it possibly can be.
As far as sharing the information or the amount of
information being able to be shared or be released or someone
getting into the system, technology can provide the solution,
and I totally agree with you that the system is only as good as
the human being who designed that system. On the other side of
that, you can only protect the system--you have to look at what
level of risk you are willing to assume, and that is what we
are up against right now, looking at what level of risk we are
willing to assume--not that there is not a solution to give all
that information or to block all the information. You do not
want to do one or the other. You have got to figure out that
level of risk. And that is what we are working on.
Chairman Schumer. The fact of the matter is that a foreign
agent high up in the FBI could do a lot more damage in terms of
retrieving and sending information under our new system than
under the old one. That is something that we have to be aware
of. Is that fair to say?
Ms. Higgins. I think we have more control.
Chairman Schumer. You do?
Ms. Higgins. Yes, I do.
Chairman Schumer. It is freer and it has more controls.
Ms. Higgins. Yes, yes.
Chairman Schumer. Let us hope.
Ms. Higgins. And it is going to be easier to use--and we
have had agents' input.
Senator Sessions. Well, we know that wars have been ended
quickly and terminated one way or the other because of breaches
in intelligence. The code-breakers in World War II and other
wars have literally made the difference in who won key battles.
I just do not think you can put too much emphasis on that.
Frankly, I would say that the most sensitive things that are
being done at the Intelligence Center of the FBI probably
should be on an entirely different system in my view and should
not be accessible to people around the country.
In other words, that team in my vision has always been--the
team in Washington or wherever it is located will be the one to
spot the patterns, spot the duplications, and give notice to
the agents in the field, rather than allowing them to
necessarily peruse everything that is in the system. It just
looks for hot points.
Chairman Schumer. Do you want to keep going? Did you finish
your presentation?
Ms. Higgins. Do you want me to just show you a couple of
other things within the notional view----
Chairman Schumer. Yes, and then I have a few questions, and
maybe Senator Durbin does.
Ms. Higgins. OK. Again, this is the notional view of the
virtual case file. This would be the work space or the actual
home page of an agent. When they walk in in the morning, they
will see this. On the left-hand side are the items that are
what they do every day, the frequently used activity, if you
are familiar with work space on your daughter's PC.
What I want to do is show you that same intake form that we
were talking about earlier and show that the information would
be inputted into a screen like this, it will be mouse-driven,
it will have pull-down screens so you do not have to type
everything in. It gives you the capability to put in free-form
comments at the bottom. What would happen here is the agent
would input the information and would then submit the
information to the supervisor, and the supervisor can then,
from another screen, assign it to one of the agents within
their squad.
What they will have there on notional view again is a list
of agents within their squad, so it is a simple case of just
clicking and being able to pick a particular agent and assign
the work to him. What the agent will then see is their activity
within their caseload. They will be alerted to new information
within their toolbox, within their caseload.
In this particular case, if you look at the very first
item, they can drill down on that information to see what new
has been added to their toolbox. In this particular case, they
see that it is one of the last items, and there were pictures
that were uploaded into the virtual case file.
Chairman Schumer. And that happens automatically--any time
on some case, some other agent has added new information, they
will get a ``tickle'' that says go look at it.
Ms. Higgins. Right. One of the things that is significant
here, too, is that it is given the capability to put multimedia
into the case file. Another thing that is significant about
this is that the information stays resident with the file as
opposed to staying in another locked are or another system of
record; it is now resident with the case.
So the whole thing that I was showing you there goes back
to the discussion that I was talking about business processes
changing. if you look here, that is the intake form. It serves
the functions in the middle, but what it is actually doing is
replacing at least five different forms, handwritten
information, and a printed copy that goes into an actual system
of record.
Our work is investigative by nature. This shows that they
are able to put in their information, and it is one of the
other forms that will tell you, when you ask ``What is it that
I want to document?'' you will be able to----
Chairman Schumer. This looks like pretty standard stuff.
Ms. Higgins [continuing]. Exactly--and you will be able to
click on it, and instead of bring you up a screen, like NACS,
where you have 12 screens, depending on the activity that you
want to do, it is only going to bring up those screens. So it
is a productivity tool.
Chairman Schumer. Let me ask you a couple of other
questions if I could, Ms. Higgins. How about the problem--we
have talked with Trilogy about getting the FBI system to talk
to one another. What preparation is being made to get the FBI
systems to talk to other Federal Government computer system,
whether it be INS or CIA or Social Security or Border Patrol,
et cetera? Is the system that you are building done with that
in mind, or not? Tell me a little about that.
Ms. Higgins. Yes, it is. As I said before, we are setting
the enterprise architecture standard for the FBI that will
allow us in the future to share information with other
agencies. We are making sure that we are using the actual
technology that will allow us to integrate and share
information with Department of Justice or the Department of
Defense, CIA, whoever it is--so that we have the same type of
technology, the same products, that we have data warehouses,
and in some cases, we are even using the same vendor so that we
will be complementary to each other.
Chairman Schumer. So that when this is finished in the
second quarter of 2003, at least the hardware will be able, let
us say, to talk to INS' computer system?
Ms. Higgins. We will be able to lay the plan. We are laying
the foundation. The plans to be able to do that would be
another program. Trilogy is laying the foundation for the
enterprise architecture.
Chairman Schumer. I see. So you will have the hardware to
do it, you will have the underlying method of doing it, but you
have still got to work out the deal with each of the different
agencies.
Ms. Higgins. Absolutely.
Chairman Schumer. OK. And what about similarly with our
allies internationally--clearly, you are going to have more of
a need to talk to them. Let me give you one example.
As you know, when it comes to fingerprints, there are two
types--flat and rolled. And many of our allies have created
civil fingerprint systems for travel visas and other purposes
that use the flat print. INS, as I understand it, also uses the
flat print.
Because of the Patriot Act, the Border Security Act, we are
going to have to start running these flat prints of foreign
travelers against your system for homeland security
protections, the FBI system.
But from what I understand, the FBI's current finger print
analysis system has something like a 40 percent error rate when
it processes flat prints because it is set up to handle rolled
prints which are used for criminal investigations. So batting
600 may get you into the Hall of Fame, but it is not good
enough when it comes to fighting terrorism.
That is just one example of the hundreds of problems that
you face, but how are we dealing with that problem?
Ms. Higgins. I wish I could answer that question for you.
As far as the program that you are talking about and being part
of that data base, the fingerprint system that you are talking
about is not part of Trilogy. So what I can do is get back to
you with an answer to that, but I cannot personally answer it.
Chairman Schumer. Does anyone else have an answer here?
Mr. Tanner. I am Mark Tanner. I am the Deputy CIO, so I
have information about all of our FBI systems.
I do know something about the fingerprint system, that is
the IAFIS, the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Information
System. It is a 10-print system. It is a rolled fingerprint
system that is used for identification of people. It is not
wholly compatible with the flat fingerprint technologies, but
there is a lot of research being undertaken to make those
systems more compatible.
The IAFIS does, though, establish a standard for
fingerprint minutiae and identification purposes which is
shared with the international partners----
Chairman Schumer. Right, but it has a pretty high error
rate, doesn't it?
Mr. Tanner. No. IAFIS, with the rolled fingerprint, has a
very low error rate. It was designed to give us a 2-hour
turnaround on a criminal fingerprint identification and a 24-
hour civil print identification, and it is meeting those
expectations. But a flat print may provide you a candidate list
of persons, but it will have to go through a visual inspection
to make the actual identification.
Chairman Schumer. It will take a lot longer, I imagine.
Mr. Tanner. It will take longer. But it is a technology
that can mature.
Chairman Schumer. If you could, Ms. Higgins, in writing
just get back to us as to how we are dealing with that issue.
Now, what about what I mentioned at the beginning--getting
this private sector advisory board on board. We have just
looked at corporate responsibility here, and what we found is
that it is good for the accountants to have somebody else
looking over their shoulder, giving them advice, to make sure
they are not just in their own world, et cetera, particularly
given what the old FBI mentality was, at least according to
Mueller--``We can do it better, and we will do it our own
way''--which did not lead to too much good.
What about the idea of some kind of private sector advisory
board composed of top-level people who would really work
closely with you--may even lend you people on a full-time basis
for a period of time to help give suggestions for improvements.
My guess is that some of these people will have come up against
similar problems that you have had. Obviously, the emphasis on
security is higher for the FBI than for most other places. But
tell me what you think of that.
Ms. Higgins. I totally support it, and I know the Director
supports it, too. There are plans to look at just that. We have
looked at how we would do that. So I know the Director supports
it, and I also support that.
Chairman Schumer. Could we talk about--and I will call on
Senator Durbin in a minute; I have been here a long time on
these questions--my constituents in New York have a personal
interest in this, and when Director Mueller said it would take
3 years to get everything up and working, we said, gee whiz, we
do not want to risk another horrible attack. Nobody in
America--nobody in the world--does.
Now the timetable has moved up a little bit, but what are
the barriers--what are the barriers to moving up the timetable
further? Is it fiscal? Is it that you do not have the right
personnel? Boil it down to its brass tacks. Given that this
should be one of the highest priorities that America has, it is
still going to take us a couple of years before both the
hardware and then the application of the hardware is really
working, up and available.
Did you say 2004?
Ms. Higgins. Yes. June 2004 will be its completion.
Chairman Schumer. That seems like an awfully long time
given how important this is. What are the barriers, and what if
anything can be done to move that timetable up?
Ms. Higgins. The right solution takes a longer time than
just to get a solution. Let me backstep. We recognize the fact
that June 2004 for the final completion date of this project is
an extremely long time. There is nobody within the FBI who does
not have that focus of wanting to get something into the hands
of the agents as quickly as possible.
When you are looking at what it is that needs to be done as
far as what is the right tool, that in itself takes time. And
looking at old systems that do not have a lot of
documentation--it takes time to recreate documentation just to
be able to implement the new system to make sure that you have
a lot of that information that is out there.
Chairman Schumer. But isn't that a personnel--you could
hire more people to take the old documentation and update it;
right?
Ms. Higgins. Part of it is resources, part of it is
knowledge of what is existing out there to make sure that it is
in there. But it is also making sure we have the right solution
in place. We have people who are very focused on putting in the
right solution from a standpoint of bringing in other resources
that are from outside industry--that might help in some cases--
but what you have really got to focus on is the right tool for
the agents, so you will need to use the FBI resources and the
FBI intelligence. There are very many bright people within the
FBI, but this is a new solution.
Chairman Schumer. So it is a learning curve issue more than
just about anything else?
Ms. Higgins. Well, it is a combination of things. It is a
learning curve; it is the fact that we do not have the
documentation to be able to implement the solution--for
instance, to take ACS and say we know everything that is there,
so only take these parts. There is documentation that is
missing, so you have got to identify where the parts are.
One of the things that I was going to say, though, is that
between now and June of 2004, we are looking at ways to relieve
the pain so that the agents are not in pain until the first
delivery in December of 2003. We are looking at putting search
engines out there that will be faster and more efficient and
more robust. We are looking at putting fixes--not fixes, but
pain relievers, what I keep calling pain relievers--into the
system to do things like be able to monitor when someone is in
your cases.
We are looking at every way that we can while we are
implementing the right solution to provide pain relievers along
the way.
Chairman Schumer. I have a written question for you which I
will not ask you to answer now, and then I will turn to Senator
Durbin. But if I were the Director of the FBI, and I said,
``You have a mandate to cut 6 months off that timetable
deadline,'' what would you do?
I am not asking you for an answer now, but I am going to
ask you that in writing, and maybe you can give us some
answers.
Ms. Higgins. I appreciate you not asking me that, and I
will explain later why.
Chairman Schumer. That Southern charm gets me every time.
[Laughter.]
Chairman Schumer. Senator Durbin?
Senator Durbin. Southern Brooklyn.
Chairman Schumer. Southern Brooklyn--he knows; he has been
there.
STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD J. DURBIN, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE
STATE OF ILLINOIS
Senator Durbin. Thank you, Ms. Higgins, for joining us
today. I am going to ask a series of questions, but first let
me relate for a moment to a question asked by Senator Schumer.
I am serving on this Committee on the Judiciary,
Governmental Affairs, and Intelligence, so I hear about this
issue from many different angles, and it strikes me that there
is one thing that we are overlooking, and it was raised by
Senator Schumer, and that is that I think it is a great idea--
and I applaud the idea--to bring in the experts to the FBI to
take a look at it--can we do this better and faster, can we
create something that can grow with the agency's needs. But for
lack of a better word, the interoperability with other agencies
is also critical.
We are considering the creation of another agency which
will collect, maybe generate, intelligence data--the Department
of Homeland Security--which will join four or five other
agencies. The question is whether each of these agencies is
designing its computers in a way that they can ultimately work
together. I do not believe that any successful business would
consider having separate branches with totally different
computer systems that cannot communicate.
One of the things that I have thought about and that I am
going to propose as part of the Department of Homeland Security
is something like a Manhattan Project, where someone in the
White House has the authority to take a look at the whole
picture and say here is how the CIA and the FBI and the INS and
all of the different agencies will have a computer system that
can ultimately merge data into an effective use.
In the frustration of the arrest of Mr. Moussaoui in
Minneapolis, the FBI agent who testified said, ``We even
thought at one point that we would break the rules and go to
the CIA for information'' to find out what was going on. That
was considered out of line, I guess, but from where I am
sitting, she did the right thing, or at least the people
involved did the right thing.
So what is being talked about in terms of coordinating all
of these agencies so that there is some interoperability of the
computer systems?
Ms. Higgins. We are having conversations with the other
agencies to see how their architecture is set up. We are taking
lessons learned from other agencies. We are making sure that
the architecture that we are building is going to be robust and
be able to--at some point in the future; the plans are not
laid, the plans are not in effect yet--but the plan is to be
able to do just exactly what you are talking about, that is, to
make sure that we have the technology and the architecture in
place that will allow us to share information.
There is a data mining/data warehousing program within the
FBI that Ken Richard is program manager for. The Trilogy
program is working in lockstep with both data mining and data
warehousing, which gives you the capability to look at
information both from within the FBI and other agencies.
Senator Durbin. The reason I raise that--I think that has
to be done, and I think there has to be someone at the highest
level, perhaps at the White House, who really does have this
Manhattan Project type--we are looking for a new word--but a
Manhattan Project type approach----
Chairman Schumer. How about the Brooklyn Project?
[Laughter.]
Senator Durbin [continuing]. Well, the Brooklyn Project--
you heard it here, folks--but the idea is to come up with
something that coordinates these things.
For example, 6 weeks ago, I believe it was, the Attorney
General announced that he had a plan to fingerprint and
photograph visa-holders coming into the United States. He did
not specify the number of people involved, but it is my
impression that it could range as high as some 30 million visa-
holders who are in the United States during the course of a
year. I thought at the time that that raised an interesting
Constitutional question, an interesting profiling question, an
interesting law enforcement question, but it is almost
laughable from a technology viewpoint to think that we have the
capability to collect, process, share, evaluate millions of
pieces of information about visa-holders coming in on a regular
basis.
Do you think we have that capability at the FBI and the INS
today?
Ms. Higgins. Well, first of all, are you saying INS within
FBI?
Senator Durbin. Yes.
Ms. Higgins. With the systems that we have right now, with
just this year's photographs, I do not think we have the
capability for it to be retrievable. That kind of data
collection and being able to be retrievable is what we are
moving to. The architecture that we are building is scalable.
Senator Durbin. That is the way that I feel. I think that
is an honest answer. And it really raises a question about why
we announce something like this when we know it is over the
moon--it is not going to happen.
If I am not mistaken--and maybe you or one of your
colleagues can answer this--2 or 3 years ago, Congress said to
the INS and to the FBI, We want you to merge your fingerprint
data bases, because both collect them, and in a merged data
base, we would be able to come up with a lot more usable
information.
The Inspector General for the Department of Justice told us
just a few weeks ago that they are still not even close to that
happening. Are you familiar with that Congressional mandate and
the progress on that merger at the data bases?
Ms. Higgins. No, I am not.
Mark, do you know anything about that? I am not familiar
with IAFIS and the fingerprinting systems, and Mark obviously
has some knowledge.
Mr. Tanner. I am familiar with it. It is mainly a different
operational posture that we take. INS does a two-print check,
and we do a 10-print check, so there are differences in the
technologies that support those two operational postures. There
has been a lot of work done to figure out how those things can
be integrated. Right now, off the top of my head, I do not have
the details of where we are on that.
Senator Durbin. I will not put you on the spot, but it is
another illustration that when we have an announcement from the
Department of Justice about potentially collecting tens of
millions of fingerprints and photographs of visa-holders coming
into the United States, and we take a look at the real world,
technology world, that you live in, we realize that it is
impossible. We do not have it.
I asked someone on the Intelligence Committee at a higher
level, and he said the only option is to contract this out. We
cannot do this.
I think we just went through a contracting out debate over
security at airports, so we would have to face that issue, too,
as we get into it.
Let me ask you this, Ms. Higgins. As you take a look at the
computer capabilities at the FBI today and compare it to the
computer capabilities of AT&T or Lucent where you used to work,
what are the most obvious things that a worker at Lucent would
walk in and look at the FBI system and say, ``Wait a minute--
you do not have''--fill in the blank. What is missing at the
FBI today?
Ms. Higgins. First of all, the PC technology, which we are
changing out. A part of Trilogy is upgrading the laptop or the
work station environment.
Another is what I alluded to about the green screen
environment as opposed to a gooey-based or a mouse-driven
application that people use.
One of the other glaring things is email, lack of email. We
are looking at that as far as being able to do intra email.
Right now, the FBI does have an email package, but when we are
looking at what we will be implementing and what someone like
myself coming in from the outside, if I were to look at it, I
would be expecting at least a more state-of-the-art email
package.
It is those kinds of things that you would see as a
layman--or, not a layman--but someone from a communications
company coming in.
Senator Durbin. Do FBI computers have access to the
internet?
[Pause.]
Senator Durbin. It is taking you too long to answer.
Ms. Higgins. FBINET--the information that we have within
the FBI--is not accessible through the internet. We are
looking----
Senator Durbin. Of course, that is good. Now, how about the
other way?
Ms. Higgins. And it is not accessible the other way, the
way that we have it planned.
Senator Durbin. So an FBI agent working at a computer who
wants to access the internet for some information in an
investigation cannot do it?
Ms. Higgins. That is not true, that is not true. I am
sorry.
Senator Durbin. What is true?
Ms. Higgins. Another part that is being planned outside of
the Trilogy Project is what we are calling an internet cafe.
That is where they will have the capability to search for
information, but because of legal ramifications, they will not
be doing case information on the internet. They will be able to
mine for information and then stake it and use it----
Senator Durbin. But today, that does not exist.
Ms. Higgins. In some of the field offices where we have
already implemented, they have some of that capability.
Senator Durbin. All right. So it does not exist throughout
the agency.
Senator Schumer asked Director Mueller at an earlier
hearing about word search, and I believe the answer was that
they could search for the name of a person in a file, but they
could not search for a phrase like ``flight training schools''.
Is this true?
Ms. Higgins. You can put multiple word searches into ACS,
and that is the system that I had put before. I know that there
were some questions--there are some issues within ACS and some
of the systems, and the fact that you have to go into each
system to do multiple searches. But because it is an older
system, and because it does not ahve the robust search engine
in there, there is the ability to make a mistake and not get
the information back.
You can put in ``flight school'' and other information. I
believe Mr. Collingwood explained in more detail some of the
issues about how you could go down through ACS in itself and
further refine your search, so you could put ``flight school''
or you could put ``Minnesota flight school''.
Senator Durbin. The Wall Street Journal piece that was
written back in July by Messrs. David Rogers and John Wolke
went into some of the Bureau's case numbering systems. Does the
Bureau still hand out this little blue or yellow booklet with
J. Edgar Hoover's case numbering system?
Ms. Higgins. Right.
Senator Durbin. And is that still being followed in the
computer programs that you are constructing?
Ms. Higgins. As it stands today, they are, but we do not
have the final system yet. We are looking at all the business
processes.
Senator Durbin. Just to show you how archaic it is, the
Wall Street Journal writes that: ``The system issued to every
FBI agent still includes offenses relating to prohibition,
white slaver, and sedition.'' That is not encouraging.
I have two final questions, and I will make them as fast as
I can. It seems to me that if you were starting a corporation
with the data challenge that we have today, and you said we
will not be operational until the middle of 2004 that your
investors would say, ``That does not compute. If you cannot be
operational in a faster period of time, then you are not going
to serve our needs'' and in this case, serve the needs of
national security.
Mr. Dies, who testified here a couple of times, brought to
my attention problems with procurement and the procurement laws
of the Federal Government. I will not go into the long history
about how I got involved in this, but my question to you
directly is this. Are there procurement laws in the Federal
Code that are stopping or slowing you from doing what you would
do in the private sector to cutoff 6 months, a year, or 2 years
and move more quickly into a modern system that would serve the
FBI's needs?
Ms. Higgins. I would say yes, and I would say that things
that we have had to do because of that will tie our hands in
cases of putting in a faster way to procure the funds or to
acquire the funds, and in one case, tie our hands in being able
to deal directly with the vendors that we have.
Senator Durbin. So if you brought in Oracle and said,
``Design the system,'' they would be disqualified from bidding
on the system.
Ms. Higgins. Right.
Senator Durbin. I will tell you--I might as well put it on
the record--that I went all the way up the chain from Director
Muller, Attorney General Ashcroft, Vice President Cheney, to
the President, and said I am prepared to put in language to
waive the procurement laws. Let us get beyond this, and I will
take the heat if I am wrong, but we have got to bring in the
new system. And I was stopped by--who would stop me--OMB. OMB
stopped me last Decmeber and said, ``No. We want you to follow
procruement laws, and the people at the FBI just do not
understand them.''
Now, I am going to give to you the same challenge that I
gave to Mr. Dies. I want to bring you in with OMB and sit down
and go through this again, beacuse time has passed, and we
cannot afford anymore delay here. And if this is being caught
up in some red tape and bureaucracy, it is time to put an end
to it. We need to have a modern computer system.
Mr. Chairman, you have been kind to give me extra time, and
I yield back.
Chairman Schumer. Great job.
I want to thank you, Ms. Higgins. We have these written
questions, and we hope to now have our Chief Information
Officer, as soon as he is i office, come before us for more
questions, and we are going to keep pursuing this until things
get up to snuff.
We thank you.
Ms. Higgins. Thank you.
Chairman Schumer. I ask unanimous consent that statements
of Senators Hatch and Cantwell be read into the record. Without
objection.
Chairman Schumer. The hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:32 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
[Questions and answers and submissions for the record
follow.]
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Prepared Statement of Ms. Sherry Higgins Project Management Executive,
Office of the Director Federal Bureau of Investigation
Good morning. I'm Sherry Higgins, the FBI's Project Management
Executive for the Office of the Director. I have been asked to talk to
you about how the FBI is fixing old problems and building a
collaborative information infrastructure to better support our mission.
I have also been asked to share with you some personal perspectives on
how the FBI differs from the private sector in developing our computing
infrastructure.
Today, we live in a dangerous world, where criminals and terrorists
exploit advances in technology to perpetrate crimes against United
States citizens and our national interests. High-speed digital and
wireless communications, including the Internet, are the ``tools of
choice.'' Instant global communication has expanded traditional
organized crime and allowed terrorists to operate from the remotest of
areas.
These kinds of abilities helped facilitate the 9/11 attacks. In
response, Director Mueller is restructuring and reshaping the FBI to
better fit a new mission with different priorities and to put in place
the analytical and information sharing capabilities needed in the post-
9/11 environment.
A component is the information infrastructure necessary to enhance
our ability to collect, store, search, retrieve, analyze and share
information. Prior testimony before Congress has described the problems
the FBI is experiencing because of outdated technology. Thanks to
support from Congress, the FBI has embarked on the information
infrastructure revitalization that I will describe today and that is
well under way. A word of caution, however. The FBI's problems with
information technology didn't occur over night and they won't be fixed
over night either. That is because it is more important to get it right
and know that we have the systems and capabilities that precisely fit
our mission as well as cure past problems.
The first major step in this direction is our Trilogy Program. The
Trilogy Program was designed as a 36-month effort to enhance our
effectiveness through technologies that facilitate better organization,
access and analysis of information.
The overall direction of the Trilogy Program is to provide all FBI
offices with improved network communications, a common and current set
of office automation tools, and easy-to-use, re-engineered, web-based
applications. Our Trilogy system consists of 3 components:
Information Presentation Component (IPC). Hardware and software
within each office to provide each employee with a current ``desk top''
environment and equipment.
Transportation Network Component (TNC). High-speed connections
linking the offices of the FBI.
User Applications Component (UAC). Five user-specific software
applications to enhance each employee's ability to access, organize and
analyze information.
The Information Presentation Component relies primarily on
commercial-off-the shelf (COTS) hardware and software products that
provide a modern desktop environment and connectivity, thus
facilitating employees' ability to input, retrieve, manipulate and
present information in text, image, audio and video formats. The
Information Presentation Component is replacing our antiquated computer
workstations, providing an updated e-mail capability, and includes
simple things like additional printers and scanners that increase
productivity. This component is nearing completion.
The Transportation Network Component is simply the
telecommunications network consisting of high-speed connections linking
the offices of the FBI, and the hardware, software and new workstations
within each office to link at high speeds the entire FBI. It will
provide connectivity between FBI facilities (via a WAN) and within FBI
facilities (via a LAN), so that investigative information and analysis
may be shared among agents and analysts easily, accurately, rapidly and
securely, and at the high data volumes our new applications support.
This is nearing completion as well.
The User Application Component is replacement of user applications
that will enhance our ability to access, organize and analyze
information. Specifically, the Trilogy Program will migrate five
investigative applications into a ``Virtual Case File'' (VCF), to
provide user-friendly, web browser access to mission critical
information. A web-based interface will enable our users to have a
graphical interface with investigative information. It will eliminate
the cumbersome aspects of our current system, greatly enhance our
collaborative environment and go a long way towards eliminating the
problems obvious from Hanssen and McVeigh.
Under the FBI's old legacy investigative information system, the
Automated Case Support (ACS), users navigate with the function keys
instead of the point and click method common to web based applications.
Simple tasks, such as storing an electronic version of a document
today, require a user to perform twelve separate functions, in a
``green screen'' environment. That will soon change with Trilogy.
Automated workflow will allow for a streamlined process to complete
tasking. Storing a document for the record will occur with a click of
the mouse button. This will make investigative and intelligence
information immediately available to all personnel with appropriate
security.
Enhanced ad hoc reporting, online information sharing and state-of-
the-art analytical tools will permit those conducting investigations
and analyzing data to easily organize and filter events and trends.
Representatives from our field offices who are defining the VCF user
needs are also challenging current FBI business practices to improving
workflow and to ensure that archaic business rules are not automated.
Multimedia functionality will allow for the storage of information
in its original form. Under the old system, agents cannot store non-
compatible forms of digital evidence in an electronic format, instead
having to describe the evidence and indicate where the evidence is
stored in a control room. Multimedia functionality will facilitate
electronic storage of digital evidence and media to the investigative
case file, allowing access to the information from the desktop.
Trilogy also includes an Enterprise Management System (EMS), that
supports all three of the components of the Trilogy Program. The EMS
will allow the FBI to configure, monitor and administer information
systems and components through a central Enterprise Operations Center
(EOC), with local Field Office visibility into the status of equipment
at their location. The EMS will gather and provide appropriate IT
system metrics for Trilogy from the operations center. EMS functions
include mandatory and optional capabilities for fault, configuration,
accounting, performance, and security management.
The original plan for Trilogy was development and deployment over
36 months from the date of the contract awards for the infrastructure
and applications development, May and June 2001, respectively. The
events of September 11, 2001 impacted many aspects of the FBI,
including the Trilogy Program. The urgent need for improved information
technologies prompted the Director to request that Trilogy
implementation be accelerated, with emphasis on those capabilities most
urgently needed to support the FBI's priority cases.
In response, Congress provided additional funding and Trilogy's
network and desktop infrastructure improvements were accelerated. The
resulting improvements are significant.
Infrastructure enhancements are being deployed in two phases.The
first phase, called ``Fast Track'', is installation of Trilogy
architecture at our 56 Field Office locations and as many of our
Resident Agencies as can be completed before the second phase begins.
This consists of new network printers, color scanners, local area
network upgrades, desktop workstations, and Microsoft Office
applications. By the end of April 2002, deployment at all 56 FBI Field
Offices and two Information Technology Centers (ITCs) was completed.
Fast Track is continuing to deploy this infrastructure to our Resident
Agencies.
The second phase of infrastructure deployment is called ``Full Site
Capability,'' representing the complete infrastructure upgrade. The
full upgrade will provide the wide area network connectivity together
with new encryption devices to protect our data, new operating systems
and servers, and new and improved e-mail capability. The WAN design
also has been enhanced to eliminate possible single points of failure.
Completion of this phase was moved from the accelerated date of July
2002 to March 2003 to allow additional time to test and deploy a
secure, operational system.
The Enterprise Operations Center (EOC) facilities, circuit and bulk
fiber installations, electronic key management system, and installation
of encryptors are all on schedule.
User training on the new desktop office automation software has
begun and a new training management system deployed.
The UAC component is scheduled to be delivered by January 2004, or
four months ahead of the original schedule. And although the Trilogy
Program is accelerating the network and desktop infrastructure ahead of
applications development, there are significant benefits to modernizing
the infrastructure before the upgraded applications are available.
Infrastructure enhancement will immediately provide FBI field offices
the high-speed connections to link with one another (and within each
office) and share investigative and administrative information
currently available in their legacy systems. It will provide nearly
every FBI employee a modern desktop, and applications and database
productivity tools, which will significantly enhance work productivity.
Further, during the interim while Trilogy UAC is under development,
the FBI is enhancing some of our existing legacy systems to enable web
access to certain applications. So, for example, two new capabilities
are the Case Control system and Global Index Application. The Case
Control system was delivered in April 2002; the Global Index
Application was delivered in April 2001. The Case Control System keeps
track of the location of each Counter-terrorism related hard copy file,
as it is routed to our field divisions and nine scanning centers; this
ensures that all files are scanned and accurate file locations
maintained. The Global Index Application allows the user to search for
a name, date of birth, address, and/or phone number, against four of
our main investigative applications systems (ACS, IIIA, CLEA, and TA),
with one query, returning basic case information.
The User Application development is now planned in two increments.
The initial VCF release will migrate data from the current Automated
Case Support (ACS) and IntelPlus to the VCF. VCF Release One has a
targeted completion date of December 2003. This release will allow
different types of users, such as agents, analysts, and supervisors, to
access information from a ``dashboard'' that is specific to their
individual needs. This VCF release will also enhance our capability to
set and track case leads, index case information, and move document
drafts more quickly through the approval process, with digital
signatures.
The second release will migrate the Criminal Law Enforcement
Application (CLEA), Integrated Intelligence Information Application
(IIIA), and Telephone Application (TA) into the VCF. VCF Release Two
has a targeted completion date estimated for June 2004. It will provide
Audio/Video Streaming capability and provide our agents with ``content
management'' capability. This will help them access information from
our data warehouse, regardless of where in the system the information
was entered. For the first time we will have a ``one query does it
all'' capability.
The VCF Team is currently using an industry-standard process called
Joint Application Development (JAD) planning, to define and prioritize
the users' operational requirements. By joining the application
developers with the users (agents, analyst, and support personnel),
applications will be built that will reflect the items needed by these
individuals to perform their jobs. This approach differs from the old
way of doing business: figuring out how to do your job with the tools
you already have. JAD is not a rebuild of the old system. It has
brought users, designers, future systems operators together to develop
applications that are operationally sound and maintainable. JAD
sessions started at the end of January this year and are expected to
conclude next week. Additional JAD sessions will take place as part of
the process for VCF Release Two.
As with any automation project, a number of risks must be managed
to a have a successful Trilogy Program deployment. The top three are
all related to our aggressive deployment schedule. I believe all are
manageable. They are: INC/PC and UAC test and acceptance; the
enterprise operations center; and legacy system interoperability.
Before we deploy our Full Site Capability infrastructure to the
field, we need to test the desktops, servers, and networks to ensure
that there are no problems with our final configuration. Our current
schedule allows a tight allocation of time for testing, which leaves
little room for resolving potential problems. To mitigate this risk,
the test team is prioritizing requirements and developing a common
understanding of system acceptance test coverage, conditions, and
criteria. Once identified, the plan is to test the most critical
aspects of the system first, and, if necessary, continue testing the
non-critical areas during initial deployments.
Our aggressive schedule also leaves little time for EOC
preparations in support of the deployed infrastructure. To mitigate
this risk, current available EOC staff will be trained to support the
Trilogy infrastructure and additional external resources will be
identified for full operational support at the start of FSC deployment.
Finally, contractor personnel will be utilized to supplement government
staff for network services, central systems, security and the data
center.
Interoperability with legacy applications is another risk area.
There is currently a lack of documentation in place that captures the
old legacy system functions and operations. Therefore, the UAC team is
still identifying new interfaces and modifications to existing
interfaces. Our schedule allocation for engineering and testing may not
be adequate for successful integration infrastructure deployment with
the current applications and servers. To mitigate this risk, the test
team is also prioritizing these test requirements and developing a
common understanding of system acceptance test coverage, conditions and
criteria.
Once we catch up to a standard PC environment, the future looks
very positive. We are planning for a technology refreshment program
(TRP) which will replace Trilogy network and workstation hardware,
network data storage, server hardware, and embedded software on a
periodic basis to prevent system performance degradation and rising O&M
costs due to obsolescence. The TRP also envisions the incorporation of
new technology as it becomes available in the private sector and the
study of emerging technologies to evaluate potential future uses and
benefits and to better anticipate future resource needs. In essence, a
viable infrastructure technology refreshment plan is essential to
maintain the benefits of the Trilogy investment, the efficiency and
capabilities of FBI investigative support systems and to better plan
and budget for out year expenditures.
I have been asked to provide my personal perspective on what I have
changed since reporting to the FBI this March, and how the FBI
contrasts with my experience in the private sector.
Before my arrival at the FBI, the Trilogy Program was overly
focused on achieving an accelerated schedule. Although the Trilogy
Program will still be brought in ahead of its original schedule, we
have begun allowing for more test time to ensure we deliver a quality
product to the field. Industry best practices recommend ``building in
quality'', instead of ``inspecting it in''. Using quality standards and
compliance up front will allow us to identify and prevent mistakes that
would require expensive fixes later on down the line.
Effective communications within and without the Trilogy Program is
also essential to our success. I am in the process of developing a
Trilogy Communications Plan that will promote effective communications
across our business enterprise, so that valuable development
information is not retained in pockets.
I am also developing an integrated master schedule for the Trilogy
Program, which will reflect the program's critical path, dependencies
and integration tasks between our three components. We will constantly
review this schedule to capitalize on efficiencies and schedule
improvement opportunities.
One of the striking differences between the private sector and the
FBI is the Bureau's lack of a dedicated corps of acquisition
specialists with which to plan, develop and manage large projects. The
FBI has many talented people with some of these requisite skills; we
have pockets of expertise in program management disciplines, such as
financial analysis, budgeting, contract management and system
engineering, residing in different divisions. However, the FBI has
operated for too long without an organization responsible for proper
development business practices, which would ensure that FBI systems
under development are responsive to our users' requirements.
Private industry and most government agencies recognize the
advantages of instituting a project management executive with a project
management office to manage complex, expensive, high-risk development
efforts. According to the Gartner Group, ``enterprises utilizing a
project office to manage the growing complexity involved with creating
or acquiring and then implementing and managing these applications have
a distinct advantage over those that do not.''. Perhaps the most
frustrating experience I have had since coming to the FBI from private
industry is trying to work information technology issues that cut
across the FBI's organization. ``Stove piped'' communications internal
to the FBI prevents information and communications flow that is
required to be responsive to our users and oversight. Successful
project development and implementation at the FBI requires constant and
accurate communications across our entire business enterprise.
To make this a reality, I have recommended, and Director Mueller
has approved of the establishment of an Office of Programs Management.
This office will develop, manage, and deploy high-priority, complex and
high-risk projects of high dollar value, to successfully support the
FBI's operational mission. The office will have a staff of subject
matter experts in key program management functions, matrixed to
development project managers. These project managers will be ``loaned''
from their sponsoring divisions to the Office of Program Management
during the development of the project, from the concept phase until the
project is ready to be transitioned to operations.
In addition, the Office of Program Management will be charged with
using repeatable processes for these efforts; in other words, we will
implement a business approach to our large acquisition efforts, by
instituting core program management disciplines from a project's
concept phase until it is transitioned to operations and maintenance.
We will train a skilled corps of FBI PM subject matter experts, and
advise the FBI Director on program management and acquisition-planning
related organizational issues, proposals, and strategies.
Because of its user/management orientation, the Office of Program
Management will be in a position to make the most informed
recommendations concerning trade-offs between performance, schedule,
and costs of projects, to determine the best course for return on the
FBI's investment in IT. This office will also gauge the impacts of
delays of delivered functionality for the field divisions and
headquarters, and develop budget justifications for the acquisition of
required resources to support approved systems projects.
In summary, Trilogy gives the FBI workable standards and a base it
can build upon. Trilogy is being built to allow for interchanges with
different systems, internal and external, so that the historical
problem of ``not putting the pieces together'' is no longer an issue.
Trilogy will provide the resources and tools the FBI needs to support
investigations and the critical building blocks for future
improvements. The Trilogy Program is focused on getting these critical
resources to our Special Agents and field support personnel as quickly
as possible.