I think I'm joking about that -- or maybe not. There have been a lot of strange lapses at the FBI during Mueller's tenure (starting with the anthrax attacks), and Mueller himself previously had some sort of association with the bCCI coverup.
There are certainly more questions than answers here, but the names I saw floated for Mueller's successor don't inspire confidence either.
For that matter, neither does the seemingly permanent failure to upgrade the FBI's computers. That billion-dollar boondoggle has been dragging on for close to a decade without doing anything more than line SAIC's and Lockheed Martin's pockets.
I don't know if they're actually trying to hide stuff or just being corrupt and incompetent -- but if you did want to keep the lid on something explosive, the FBI would be a great place to start.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/17/AR2006081701485.htmlAugust 18, 2006
As far as Zalmai Azmi was concerned, the FBI's technological revolution was only weeks away.
It was late 2003, and a contractor, Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC), had spent months writing 730,000 lines of computer code for the Virtual Case File (VCF), a networked system for tracking criminal cases that was designed to replace the bureau's antiquated paper files and, finally, shove J. Edgar Hoover's FBI into the 21st century.
It appeared to work beautifully. Until Azmi, now the FBI's technology chief, asked about the error rate.
Software problem reports, or SPRs, numbered in the hundreds, Azmi recalled in an interview. The problems were multiplying as engineers continued to run tests. Scores of basic functions had yet to be analyzed.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20060315/0232250.shtmlMar 15th 2006
It's been nearly two years since the FBI admitted that the new computer system they'd spent hundreds of millions of dollars and three years building wasn't just late and over-budget, but also useless at fighting terrorism. Of course, like any good bureaucracy, the FBI then sat around for seven months before deciding that maybe it should scrap the system and start again from scratch. Sounds like a plan, right? Well, it's been well over a year since then, and the FBI has just now gotten around to picking a vendor for the new system, while admitting that this time, it should cost about $500 million and take another four years to fully implement.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-10-20/fbi-computer-system-behind-schedule-over-budget.htmlOctober 20, 2010
A new FBI computer system for managing cases is $100 million over budget and two years behind schedule, according to a report by the U.S. Justice Department’s inspector general.
As of August, after spending about $405 million of the $451 million budgeted for the program, only two of the four phases of the project had been completed, according to the report released today.
The case management system, called Sentinel, hasn’t delivered much of what was intended, though it has provided some improvements, according to the report. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is assuming direct management of Sentinel, reducing the role of contractor Lockheed Martin Corp., based in Bethesda, Maryland.
“Because the FBI has not finished the third and fourth phases of Sentinel, FBI agents and analysts do not have the planned expanded capabilities to search the FBI’s case files,” according to the report. “Nor can they use Sentinel to manage evidence, as originally intended.”