[an error occurred while processing this directive]
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
Guest Commentary: October 5, 2001
Upgrade FBI's Archaic Computer Capabilities The Honorable Richard Durbin
As a member of the Judiciary and Intelligence Committees, we have had a number of requests from the administration for new authority to collect information to fight terrorism. You will find that the vast majority of requests by the administration will be honored in the bill we will consider this week or next.
We will say to FBI and the CIA, other law enforcement agencies: Here are new tools for you to fight terrorism.
We should give to it them because we need to provide them what is necessary to protect our Nation. Certainly we need to keep our laws up to pace with the changes in technology so that when communications are moving by e-mail or through the use of cell telephones, we give to law enforcement the authority and the opportunity to make certain they have access to them.
I am concerned, as are many on the Judiciary Committee, that it isn't just a question of the new authority to collect information but a more fundamental question: Do these agencies of law enforcement have the infrastructure and the capacity to collect, process, evaluate, and distribute this information?
It was only a few weeks ago that the Senate Judiciary Committee had its first oversight hearing in 20 years on the FBI.
The information that came to us suggests that FBI computer capabilities are archaic, that no successful business in America could operate with the computers we have given to the premier law enforcement agency in America. Is there any doubt in anyone's mind that computer capability is as important, if not more important, than additional authorization in the law to collect information?
Things are being done. A man by the name of Bob Dies left the IBM Corporation and came to the Department of Justice to modernize their computer systems. I trust him. I believe he has a good mind. He can help us out of this terrible situation into modern computer technology.
When I sat down with Mr. Dies [on Wednesday] and asked him the problems he ran into, he gave me an example. We know there is software available that would allow us to see the coordinates of any location in America, cross streets in the city of Boston or the city of Chicago, and then with this software, with concentric circles, see all of the important surrounding structures, the buildings, the hospitals, whether there is any type of nuclear facilities or electric substations, all within that region. Think of how valuable that is when we are fighting terrorism.
If they receive a notice at the FBI that there has been an explosion at a certain location, by using this software they can immediately see before them all of the potential targets and all of the worrisome areas around that explosion. That seems to be an obvious tool. Wouldn't you assume the FBI already had it? They don't. They don't have access to it because when Mr. Dies said he wanted to buy this software for the FBI -- and they were excited about receiving it -- he was told: First you have to draw up, under Federal procurement laws, a request with specific elements in it as to what you want in this software, and then we have to have it put out for bid. We think in about a year we can get it for you.
The average American can go right now and buy the software off the shelf. It is absolutely unforgivable that that basic tool and so many others are being denied to the FBI and other law enforcement agencies because of the bureaucratic mess we have in procurement in this Nation.
I am working at this moment on legislation that will allow an exception to our procurement laws in areas of national need and national emergency. We should have a certification process that will allow us to step back from this morass of bureaucracy and get to the point of bringing modern computers into the FBI so that all the names and all the tips and all the information collected can be processed, formulated, evaluated, and distributed so that the names of suspects can be given to the Federal Aviation Administration and, in turn, given to all of the airlines so that they can do their job when people apply for a ticket.
I hope that during the course of considering antiterrorism legislation we don't stop short of giving new authority to collect information but also give to the FBI, CIA, and other Federal law enforcement agencies the infrastructure to use that information.
We need to create an extraordinary process for extraordinary times.
Note: The above commentary has been adapted from a speech Sen. Durbin delivered on the floor of the Senate, October 4, 2001.
