The Federal Bureau of Investigation has new top priorities, and they include preventing terrorism, cyber-based attacks, and high-tech crime. Getting there will require a major overhaul of the bureau's IT infrastructure to support improved communications, analysis, and collaboration. As he unveiled the bureau's reorganization last week, FBI director Robert Mueller acknowledged that the agency is "years behind" in developing a state-of-the-art technology infrastructure. That situation may have hobbled the FBI's ability to piece together critical intelligence before Sept. 11.

The bureau's reorganization followed bruising revelations from field agents that their memos about suspicious enrollments of Middle Eastern men at flight-training schools and requests to investigate Zacarias Moussaoui, the alleged 20th hijacker, were overlooked. Critics can't hold Mueller accountable for those intelligence failures-he became FBI director on Sept. 3. But he's the point man now.

To combat terrorism, the director says, the FBI will expand its use of data mining and financial-record and communication-analysis tools. He envisions the day when artificial-intelligence systems match data points to identify possible terrorist activity. In its March budget request, the bureau sought close to $70 million to consolidate its investigative data warehouses, develop a secure network to share data with other intelligence and law-enforcement agencies, and implement new analytical and visualization software.

"That's the type of technology we need to enhance," Mueller said, noting that he'll provide details on the FBI's IT initiatives when he testifies before congressional budget writers this month.

The bureau has a long way to go. FBI assistant director Bob Dies told a Senate Judiciary Committee last summer that the bureau's information technology has had no meaningful improvements in more than six years. More than 13,000 of the FBI's PCs were 4 to 8 years old and couldn't run basic software. Most smaller offices still were connected to the FBI's internal network at 56 Kbps-significantly slower than the digital subscriber line or cable modems many consumers use to connect to the Internet. And agents couldn't electronically store significant information in the bureau's primary investigative databases, including graphical, photographic, and tabular data.

"Technology and computers are supposed to be tools the FBI uses to accomplish its job," Dies said at the time. "The bureau's future ability to deter and prevent crimes requires the use of modern information technology."

The FBI is "years behind" in developing a state-of-the-art technology infrastructure, acknowledges director Mueller (right, with Attorney General Ashcroft).

Congress last year authorized $480 million for major computer upgrades, but change is coming slowly. "Like most parts of the government, we have room to improve in making [the bureau's computer infrastructure] easier to use and faster," says Mary Trotman, supervisor of the computer crimes division at the Cleveland field office, which received new PCs in February. However, the FBI hasn't upgraded any other elements of the Cleveland office's computer or networking systems, or made it easier for agents to access data from their PCs.

"These guys are living in the Eliot Ness age," says Michael Erbschloe, research VP at Computer Economics, an IT strategy research firm, and a member of the High Technology Crime Investigation Association. The FBI is about a decade behind the private sector in IT use, he says, employing technology primarily for case management and record-keeping rather than as an investigative tool.

The FBI currently maintains five investigative applications, each with its own database. Had the various communications from FBI field agents that contained clues about pre-Sept. 11 terrorist activity been put together in a single database with text-search capabilities, Erbschloe suggests, someone might have realized the significance of the threat.

Mueller laid the groundwork for the IT plans he disclosed last week in testimony about the FBI's proposed fiscal year 2003 budget before Congress in March. The idea of creating a consolidated investigative database makes sense, says Herb Edelstein, president of Two Crows Corp., a data warehousing and data-mining consulting firm-but developing the expertise to use that information is just as critical. "Data mining doesn't solve questions that you don't know enough to ask," Edelstein says. "If they think that software is going to connect the dots for them, they've got another thing coming."

What's needed are multidisciplinary teams of analysts, including those with specific knowledge about terrorists and terrorist activities, data managers, data analysts who can manipulate data, and statisticians, Edelstein says.

Some of that may be in the works. As part of the FBI's reorganization, the agency plans to hire 900 new special agents, including computer scientists and networking experts. The FBI usually recruits from the legal and accounting professions and the military. "It makes sense to have [IT] skills when investigating cybercrimes," says Chris Kelly, who works with the bureau and is a VP and IT consultant at management advisers Booz Allen Hamilton.

The bureau also plans to make better use of the Internet. With the blessing of Attorney General John Ashcroft, the FBI last week did away with old guidelines that prevented agents from searching Web sites, online chat rooms, and other sources of public data for leads on terrorism and criminal activities.

No one is downplaying the challenge that lies ahead. Observers say the FBI is undertaking a multiyear project. "It's like trying to refurbish your car while you're driving it," Kelly says. "You've got the day-to-day operational mission to deliver at the same time you're modernizing IT. It's an extreme mission."

As with most major government efforts, politics will play a part, predicts Two Crows' Edelstein-particularly if authorities want to gather data from other agencies, such as the Internal Revenue Service, and even from private-sector sources, such as airlines.

The FBI also has to contend with its culture of "keeping data close to the chest," says Rock Regan, CIO for the state of Connecticut. "The right hand doesn't know what the left hand does." Regan is president of the National Association of State CIOs and is working with the FBI on technology for homeland security. Regan sees Mueller leading the bureau in a new, more-collaborative direction and says technology can play a role in helping the FBI exploit information in a way it didn't in the past. But the culture must change, he says, so that the agency can use those tools effectively.

Mueller seems to grasp the need for culture change. "Headquarters has to assume responsibility," he said, "for assuring that information comes in, that information is analyzed, and that information is disseminated." -with Rick Whiting and John Rendleman