I challenge the idea that FBI agents are less effective because of limited Internet access. This does NOT mean that they do not get the information necessary to do their job. I must remind you that the vast bulk of Internet material is unofficial and has no legal merit.

Further, just what is the venue of investigation? Is it sitting at a desk, or working in the field?

Where I work, a Federal contractor, we have a problem (my unofficial opinion, though I am prepared to cite instances) in that people are expected to pursue their profession with computer aids without the first moment of training on the relevant applications. I suggest that this would also be wasteful if duplicated by the FBI.

The real thing to consider is this: what material would agents gain? CNN? Sports Illustrated? Advicegoddess.com? All nice, but of no legal utility.

>>>>The real thing to consider is this: what material would agents gain? CNN? Sports Illustrated? Advicegoddess.com? All nice, but of no legal utility.

Who said we want legal utility? How about a database of the location of jihadist urls, and then a few air strikes on such? I don't want legal utility, I want the bad guys afraid of us.

>>>>Government intelligence has been reorganized into the massive bureaucracy...

That pretty well sums it up. One way to solve a problem is to build a massive bureaucracy and then pretend the problem is solved. Just spend more money.

If Internet access makes people smarter, why is Matt Damon asking if Palin thinks dinosaurs were created 4,000 years ago?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaZn1_ZrDPI

Smart people will use the Internet responsibly, and stupid people will believe any old thing that comforts them. Same as it ever was.

DOJ employee here, and I can tell you that most folks at the FBI, from agents to personnel specialists, don't have internet access. It isn't for lack of funding. FBI does okay in the annual budget wars. It is primarily attributable to FBI's massive paranoia about its own security. We have internal, encrypted e-mail systems here at DOJ that allow us to send messages to anyone at DOJ, in any office, at any time. That includes the U.S. Marshals Service, DEA, ATF and all federal prisons. Anyone EXCEPT those employed at the FBI because they have so many firewalls built into their system that nothing can permeate them. As far as the FBI is concerned, there is no system which is perfectly safe, so it is best to just shut out the world and function in a technological bubble.

This attitude has made FBI the pain in the ass of every IT and technology project which has come down the pike at DOJ in the past decade. Every project, even those which have been mandated for all federal agencies, has ground to a halt while FBI decides how it wants to proceed and what it can allow. Many times, projects have had to move forward without FBI's participation, rather than dither around for months, waiting for them to come up with solutions which typically involve twice as much effort and paper.

So sure, it seems a little absurd that FBI agents don't have ready access to the Internet at their desks. But much of the responsibility can be placed on the shoulders of the FBI management hunkered down in the J. Edgar Hoover Building.

Of course the upside is that, if the FBI ever tries to track me down, they're SOL -- most of my time being spent on the Internet.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Palin isn't a member of Congress, so she can only request funds, she can't introduce her own earmarks into a bill. Biden can. So can Obama. So can McCain for that matter. So who has the easiest access to earmarks? Don't think it's Palin. So once again, the Dems get a pass, and the Republicans get asked the hard questions. Nice.

Also, Biden introduced more in earmark requests than Palin requested, but no questions being directed at him or Obama on this. And the leftist media wonders why readership/viewership is dropping....maybe because you aren't impartial and just reporting the news anymore.

> Thanks so much Ms. Gandhi.

Yes, great comment. And now...

We can presume things are the same over at Langley & Fort Meade, right?

And I don't see anyway around it. What we got here is an ouroboro-type sitch. There are two inflexible practical needs: To be well-informed, but resist the intrusion of bad actors.

So let's call the whole thing off!

Fuck the spooks. Close the CIA, and shutter the NSA. Fire those people. Their buildings could be used as data centers for Myspace or Eharmony or someone (those guys really need more East coast presence, anyway.)

I promise, we'll never miss 'em.

What we find so often is not so much that it's hard to make a secure system. Rather it is hard to make a secure person. You allow a subc-ntractor to bring in a thumbdrive to lo$alamos and suddenly, things are being sold to pay for meth. In theory the layers of management in between are supposed to checke every layer below them, but this too is a human failing. Once the person isn't under your direct control, you have to take it on faith that all the layers and proceedures take care of it.

The easiest way to do that is to keep the computer off the desk, or make it face inward. If that seems like overkill and so-forth, it probably is, in some ways. But the D0J has data spill, just like the VA does. Just like anyone does. Odds are it will happen, and when it does, what will be done? My understanding is that the C1A has an OK system, but their specs are quite different.

The other problem is procurement. Large fed agencies are required to put this in as a system, not just ones and twos. Large systems take a long time, are expensive, and are also prone to messiness, ESPECIALLY since they are often bid by subs who aren't cleared. So then you have to have oversight for that too, and if you want everyone cleared, that costs an astounding amount.

Really this is far from simple... even if you deploy desktops at a fortune 50, the complexity is astounding. Getting all the software to work together too. Dealing with Vista-from-hades as an operating system, and keeping it patched. Making sure the hard drives that you got sources from China don't have trojans pre-installed on them...

This seems simple. It isn't. I'd MUCH rather have FAA ATC on new systems, and that is going poorly, but affects more people every single day.
External access isn't totally necessary to make the job happen, and I'd wager there are some internal systems that we know nothing of. The biggest issue with something like their Arab1c name database, is that it was bought commercial-off-the-shelf, to save money, but doesn't live up to it's specs, because it was overpromised.

Computers aren't the answer to every problem... I could regale you for hours on places where they replaced perfectly good systems with pen and paper, and the people who were the resources to those systems.

I'd start with Monster.com... An experienced person knows that C, C++, and Java are inter-related. A search string in monster doesn't. the assistant who is told to find a Java programmer may also not know that, but they saved a lot of money replacing the hiring manager with an admin. assistant with access to monster. Which they used to hire consultants to fill in for the employees they cannot reliably find, because they are not searching the right terms...

OK.

Do you want the FBI to do overseas work? How about the CIA operating in the USA? The TSA "no-fly" database?

Aren't these the same people being complained about for violating privacy by collecting telephone records?

I can't help but think there's an awful lot of ego driving complaints about this. If you, yourself had to put together a legal case to put someone away, just what Internet sources do you admit in court?

Are the latest KH-11 satellite photos on the Web?
How about the dentition-impaired thief who stole Amy's money and ID?

I'll ask an agent before I state they need the distraction.

And remember this: Federal systems are set up by Feds. At SRS, we now have a "Warning" message which is not only functionally illiterate, but legally and factually wrong - and the "house" staff can't fix it because we would fail the DOE audit!

There's an intelligent way to go about modernizing anything. Don't get "gee-whiz disease" - the fever for pretty computers, with all their support staff and the headache of maintenance.