Government Computer News
Senators fume as FBI admits Trilogy foul-ups
After years of touting its Virtual Case File system as the pinnacle of case management software, the FBI yesterday told the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, State and the Judiciary that the project probably has failed and the bureau has wasted $104 million.
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The hearing featured tense exchanges between FBI director Robert Mueller, committee chairman Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) and Democrats Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Barbara Mikulski of Maryland.
Mueller took some of the responsibility for the VCF catastrophe. He attempted to assign the rest of the blame to vendor Science Applications International Corp., which strongly defended its work.
Gregg adjourned the hearing before the subcommittee could hear testimony from SAIC executives and two organizations that unveiled detailed and damning reports on the project: the Justice Department’s Inspector General Office and FBI contractor Aerospace Corp.
“I wish this hearing was not being held and I know the director wishes this hearing was not being held,” Gregg said. “My disappointment with the extreme waste of taxpayer dollars—over $100 million—is surpassed only by my frustration over the fact that we now do not know when the FBI will have this critical case management system in place.”
Gregg added, “This could be a systemic issue across agencies. Maybe we should have an independent executive team with expertise [to oversee systems projects] that is consistent and technologically current. Is the FBI ever going to get out of the trees and be able to look at the forest?”
Mueller and bureau CIO Zalmai Azmi said the FBI now is evaluating the results of a VCF pilot known as VCF Initial Operational Capability. Mueller said that the results of that evaluation would be available in two months.
Leahy confronted Mueller forcefully, saying, “Apoplectic would be too mild a description of my reaction to the unraveling of the Trilogy project—or the Tragedy project, as some FBI agents have taken to calling it.”
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