Testimony of Bob E. Dies, Assistant Director, Information
Resources Division, FBI
Before the Senate
Judiciary Committee
July 18, 2001
"Information Technology
and the FBI"
Good Morning,
Chairman Leahy, Senator Hatch and other members of the
Committee. My name is Bob Dies. And I have just completed
one year with the FBI, after a career in the private sector.
Former Director Freeh understood that the FBI infrastructure
was not modern, and he asked me to join the Bureau to
review the problems, prioritize the requirements, and
begin implementing the necessary changes in an orderly
fashion.
In the past
decade, the Bureau has made significant investments in
technology for programs in support of state and local
law enforcement agencies, such as fingerprint identifications
(known as IAFIS), the National Crime Information Center
(known as NCIC 2000) and national gun checks (known as
NICS). The FBI has also invested in technology for specific
programs of national priority, such as crimes against
children (known as Innocent Images), DNA databases for
violent offender identification (known as CODIS), and
the protection of our economic and physical infrastructure
(known as the National Infrastructure Protection Center,
or NIPC). What we need to do now is invest in the tools
and support to satisfy the basic investigative needs of
all our Special Agents and all their support personnel.
Overview
Let me provide
you a quick overview of what I will be testifying to this
morning:
- The FBI knew that its
Information Technology (IT) needed repair.
- This past year we have
initiated some changes in programs and management
to begin correcting the basic IT problems and to position
the FBI for the future. Our effort has as its foundation
a program we have named Trilogy.
- The Congress has supported
us in this Trilogy effort, both with funding and with
the active, thoughtful attention by this committee
as well as others, for which, as someone new to government
service, I am personally grateful.
- We are on schedule
and within costs to implement the Trilogy program
improvements you authorized.
- In light of recent
events, we need to improve the FBI security operations
and other areas, such as document management.
- For security, we have
created a single point of accountability, reporting
to the Deputy Director and recruited a career security
executive, Ken Senser, to run it. He has identified
specific security enhancement initiatives needed to
improve our security. He will speak more fully about
security after my statement.
While we have
taken steps to begin repairing our IT systems, these systems
are in need of further modernization beyond that of Trilogy.
And so again, we are in need of your good counsel and
your support.
Current
Situation
The FBI's job
is investigating. Technology and computers are supposed
to be tools the FBI uses to accomplish its job. The Bureau's
future ability to deter and prevent crimes requires the
use of modern information technology.
For a variety
of reasons, the FBI information technology has had no
meaningful improvements in over six years. Some parts
of our system are much older:
- More than 13,000 of
our desktops are four to eight years old. They cannot
run today's basic software. This means that many Agents
accessing basic FBI data cannot use basic "ease
of use" features that your teenagers have enjoy
for years, such as using a mouse to move around the
screen. The productivity loss and frustration that
result are enormous.
- The majority of our
smaller offices are connected to our internal network
at speeds equivalent to a 56KB modem -- a speed less
than many individual Internet users have at their
homes.
- Agents are unable to
electronically store much of investigative information
into our primary investigative databases, including
photographs, graphical and tabular data.
Fundamentally,
at the dawn of the 21st century, the FBI is asking its
Agents and support personnel to do their jobs without
the tools other companies use or that you may use at home
on your system.
What Trilogy
Is
The Trilogy
program you approved is the FBI's foundational 36-month
program to upgrade the infrastructure technologies throughout
the FBI. It consists of three components:
- Network. High-speed connections linking the offices of the FBI.
- Information Presentation. Hardware and software within each office to
link each employee at their desk to the entire FBI.
- User Applications. Several user-specific software tools to enhance
each Special Agent's ability to organize, access and
analyze information.
Trilogy is
structured to enhance the investigative ability of Agents
and support personnel. It will provide the basic resources
and fundamental tools the FBI needs to support investigations.
Trilogy will provide basic relief for the shortcomings
I just mentioned. Trilogy is a necessary foundation upon
which other technology can be added.
We have awarded
contracts to implement both parts of our Trilogy program,
and all of us are anxious to begin seeing the results.
What Trilogy
Is Not
The Trilogy
Program enables the FBI to have workable system of information
technology resources. Trilogy will not by itself give
the FBI a world-class, state-of-the-art system.
Trilogy gives the FBI a foundation
upon which it can build. Trilogy is the necessary first step
toward state-of-the-art. The other components of a state-of-the-art
system cannot be implemented without first implementing critical
parts of Trilogy. You cannot build a house without first pouring
the foundation. Trilogy is that foundation. As that foundation
is being built, we can and should begin work on the follow-on
components necessary to get the FBI more competitive.
Improved Security
We have much more to do than
just Trilogy. We need to provide our investigative teams collaborative
tools, better communications with other law enforcement agencies,
and the means to know the collective experiences of the whole
FBI, so they can always use the best practices of the FBI.
We also need to work on the
basic "plumbing," the financial, accounting and
personnel systems that we first put in place in the 1980s.
However, our most pressing
need has come to light as a result of the investigative work
done to bring about the arrest of Robert Hanssen. Our security
operations must be strengthened Improved security is the most
pressing need and a major focus area since the arrest of Robert
Hanssen. The FBI has been active in improving its security.
The Director created a taskforce last March of Assistant Directors
to review FBI policies and procedures, and make recommendations.
It made four recommendations in April:
-
This taskforce
recommended establishing overall accountibility for
security in one place, having a single function responsible
for knowing all the pieces to the security puzzle. This
has been done. The Security Program reports directly
to the Deputy Director. Ken Senser, a career security
executive from the CIA, has been recruited to take on
this responsibility.
-
Security
encompasses more than the technology it uses. Given
the establishment of a overall single accountibility
function, it is time to tighten the security policy
management system. The foundation for a good security
program is to have sound policies in place, and to enforce
them. Policy and procedures must be established, against
which technology can be introduced to enforce and monitor.
-
This taskforce
recommended immediate investment in training and education
on security throughout the Bureau.
-
This taskforce
recommended it assist the Security Program in prioritizing
the areas necessary to get us where we should be on
security. Ken Senser has identified several areas of
attention for improvements. Ken will discuss these in
a few minutes.
The information used for these
policies and procedures will be developed as rapidly as possible,
within the constraint of first getting it right. Any proposed
solutions will be structured to incorporate additional recommendations
that may come from the Webster Commission. However, we are
not waiting for those recommendations before taking meaningful
actions to enhance FBI data security.
Summary
Today, our IT infrastructure
is in need of repair and our approach to IT planning and funding
has been less than adequate. Our IT infrastructure upgrade
program, "Trilogy," represents the significant step
in what we believe should be a continuing effort to keep pace
with technology changes and to stay ahead of increasingly
IT-sophisticated criminals.
Recent public events clearly
indicate a need to quickly go beyond Trilogy's infrastructure
plan to incorporate a state-of-the-art IT security process
and a world-class records management system. Those would be
our first two priorities. We can then turn our attention to
modernizing and integrating the Bureau's remaining investigative,
administrative and financial systems. Those needs for those
systems indicate that we should prioritize first on other
investigative systems followed by the administrative and financial
systems.
Such an effort requires a continual
commitment to change that has been difficult for the FBI culture
in the past; although I am new; I believe the Bureau is up
to this challenge. Such an effort also requires a continual
commitment from Congress to support and encourage the changes.
Mr. Chairman, I appreciate
the opportunity to address this Committee. I look forward
to your continued interest in our efforts, and your thoughtful
advice on how we can best improve the technology systems in
the FBI. Thank you.
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