FBI's Slow Embrace of IT

The FBI is testing a computer system that will allow agents to share information on informants -- those individuals who provide evidence on what's going on inside a crime organization, NPR reports today.

The protected system, called Delta, gives agents access to a database of information from informants as well as the names of informants whom agents can scan in hopes that they could be helpful in solving other cases. In the future, Delta will offer ratings on informants on how reliable and helpful they are. In the past, agents had been protective of informants and the information they provided, fearful that cases may be compromised. The FBI is testing the system "in a handful of FBI field offices," according to NPR.

What's striking for someone on the outside looking in is that the FBI hadn't developed Delta and other systems like it long ago. It was just last month that FBI launched the first phase of its Sentinel system, which allows agents to better manage cases and share information on cases nationwide. The FBI, like most law enforcement agencies, operates in a hold-everything-close-to-the-chest culture, in which agents distrust sharing. That may help explain FBI's slow adoption of information technology.

But that explanation goes just so far. The real problem may be at the top. For decades, executives at the bureau have had no interest in using information technology as a strategic tool. Louis Freeh, who served as FBI director from 1993 to 2001, had the computer removed from his desk when he took over the bureau.

Is the culture changing? It's slow. When Robert Mueller took over as director after Freeh, he identified as one of his top 10 goals upgrading the bureau's technology. But six years later, the bureau is still testing and building systems that it hopes will lead to solving and preventing more crimes.