The Judiciary Report - United States Government Accountibility Office To The FBI: You Stink

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United States Government Accountability Office to the FBI: You Stink!
FBI to the United States Government Accountability Office: We Know!

May 26. 2007

Boy, the FBI just held up a big Hack Here sign this week via getting slammed by the United States Government Accountability Office for lack of computer security. Hey, no big deal, right - what are a few thousand national secrets.

Are we really surprised at this. Mueller's camp claims they already know about the problems and that they are not new. Ok, then. That's a good excuse - not. That means you need to fix it then.

For a year now, beginning last June, I've been writing in my Sound Off Column that under FBI Director Robert Mueller the computer system is a mess - and just about everything else. He has destroyed the FBI's name.

The FBI is in drastic need of a serious makeover and Mueller is not the dude to do it. He's proven that. He's been on the job 6 years and really hasn't accomplished squat.

When you read through all the speeches and red tape, essentially, there's nothing there of merit. He constantly talks about all this stuff he's doing, but nothing significant has materialized.

And this kind of unmitigated incompetence only sends the message to the country's enemies: DROP BOMB HERE.

While he's chasing his tail, other countries are looking on with their best wow-can-they-really-be-this-bumbling face. Doesn't exactly enhance the world's image of U.S. intelligence. People are making jokes about it.

Think about it objectively. If you were working in foreign intelligence for another country that is an enemy and saw all this dude's screw ups, how would you interpret it - or think of it this way, if you were working in US intelligence and saw another country's intelligence unit, that is an enemy, headed by an idiot, do all the following and let all the following transpire, what would you think:

1. Their worst terrorist attack happened.

2. Went in public and declared the names of the terrorists in their worst terrorist attack only for the BBC, a news outlet, to correct them that some of the people they named are alive and well and holding respectable jobs in Europe and the Middle East.

3. Slate magazine revealed that they lied to their country about what they knew about their worst terrorist attack to date.

4. There were many warning signs regarding their worst terrorist attack that were not heeded and still have not been heeded by their investigative bureau.

5. Misidentified a terrorist bomber in a high profile terrorist attack in another country that is an ally, defaming an innocent fellow citizen, who sued them and won a truckload of cash (yes, that villa in the South of France became a reality for somebody).

5. Has wasted a little over 1 BILLION DOLLARS of their taxpayers' money on a computer system, that should have cost only about $70,000,000 and when it bothers to actually show up, will be 3 years old and behind technology.

6. By his own admission, is not computer or electronics savvy.

7. Spied on just about every citizen in his country and international citizen under the sun he felt like, in just about every way he felt like, from emails to telephone calls to bank account scanning, abusing a judiciary granted Act that was to help protect the country.

8. Retaliated and discriminated against his own agents and whistleblowers that had the nerve to say, “Hey, something isn’t right here. This doesn’t look very legal.”

9. Went into the governing body and embarrassingly asked for investigative powers he was already granted a year ago. Looks like somebody needs some NoDoze (I do not endorse NoDoze).

10. “Illegally interrogated anti-war activists in flagrant civil liberties violations” according to a syndicated article in a well known newspaper.

11. Has clogged up the investigative arm of his country with so many task forces and initiatives that there is no way under the sun the agents who work for it are gonna get all that work done.

12. Wasted resources in $250,000 of taxpayer money and a couple dozen agents and anthropologists tearing down a barn, scouring a farm for a person, who, is, well, dead.

13. Has created a massive backlog for background checks, destroying the ability of legal residents, some of whom are married to citizens born in his country, to continue working and feeding their families, rather than going on the dole.

14. But has time to waste resources on power trips like roughing up and shaking down a 14 year old girl, behind her parents back, who exercised her right to free speech on the internet.

15. Contradicted his boss on national TV regarding the arrest of the Miami 7.

16. Via his speech, continues to isolate his country in the world by making statements about world dominance, during a time of war, that most countries do not approve of, because it was misrepresented to his country and the world.

17. Based on his bio, has no background in international intelligence gathering or diplomacy, as he was a government attorney (who the Attorney General should have fired), not an ambassador or experienced operative for his country.

I ask Mueller, think how it would look to you and your co-workers if the investigative branch of another country that you consider an enemy did all that was mentioned above. You wouldn't think much of that agency would you or their ability to protect their country.

When you do this, Mueller, you make every agent that actually tried to do his or her's job with heart, look bad to everyone. They aren't gonna differentiate. They aren't gonna say Mueller did this. They are going to say the FBI did this.

Someone needs to give Mueller a checklist and say, "Complete this by this date or I'm going to burn your butt."

You may say that's harsh. But I ask you, how harsh is it gonna be if through his failures the country sustains a terrible terrorist attack...again.

The only reason the FBI continues to fail under Mueller is because it is allowed to continue to fail. Full stop. They've got the money and the manpower. There is no excuse for this.

I don't care what it is - if it is a country, a company or a sports team anywhere in this world - if it has poor leadership, it will fail. You could have Einstein on a scientific team and it would sink if the team leader is running amok.

GAO slams FBI on network security

Published: May 25, 2007 at 3:43 PM

WASHINGTON, May 25 (UPI) -- The FBI's internal network is not properly secured from unauthorized users, an assessment by the U.S. Government Accountability Office found.

Inadequate security mechanisms make the internal network used by the FBI exchange and transfer of sensitive information vulnerable to misuse or interruption, the GAO found, warning that the FBI's work could be compromised.

The FBI responded to the allegations on Thursday, saying that little in the GAO's report was new.

"The report omitted the fact that the FBI already has corrective action plans in place that proactively and aggressively address information security issues," a statement from the FBI said.

Among its report, the GAO found specifically that the FBI did not consistently configure security devices to identify and prevent unauthorized users from accessing the system or protect sensitive data on the networks; did not enforce the concept of "least privilege" to verify that authorized access was necessary; and did not protect the physical security of its internal network.
The GAO permits audited organizations to file a response to the allegations before the report is published, and comments from the FBI were included in the published report.

The FBI Chief Information Officer agreed with many of the GAO's recommendations, but said that "the bureau did not believe that it has placed sensitive information at an unacceptable risk."

The officer highlighted steps already in place to address the concerns "previously identified by the FBI through our own audits and internal controls," such as raising the number of its major systems that are accredited from 8 percent in 2002 to 100 percent today.

Asked by United Press International how long the FBI has been aware of these concerns about internal network security, spokesman Paul Bresson said, "We're always concerned about information security because of the nature of our work with criminal and terrorism investigations. It is critical for us to have robust safeguards in place to protect our information."

http://www.upi.com/Security_Terrorism/Briefing/2007/05/25/