If you picked up the Times yesterday, you were greeted by the following headline
Rest easy, America, one day before the clean up of Ground Zero is complete, the cleanup of the FBI is beginning. Unfortunately, this cleanup is going to make the herculean efforts in Downtown Manhattan look like a cakewalk.
OTP has received the following second-hand account of the frustrations of one of the FBI's computer experts who was finally allowed to search Moussaoui's computer after 9/11.
The biggest problem he ran into was a complete lack of understanding of technology. His supervisors were basically unaware that they could track the transactions for plane tickets and connect them to credit cards, account numbers, etc.
You'd hope that this has been addressed by now, but never underestimate the ability of a beaucracy to defy common sense and protect mediocrity. Memo to Director Mueller - pass around a test, and demote/fire everyone who fails. That should get technological awareness up rather quickly.
Well, in today's FBI reform news, agents have been freed to surf the net. Under new Justice Department rules, agents are now allowed to "conduct 'general topical research' and 'pure surfing' designed to find Web sites, chat rooms or Internet bulletin boards with information about terror, bomb-making instructions, child pornography or stolen credit cards." This action brought a howl of protest from the ACLU, who its seems is zealously defending the heretofore non-existent right to keep the government ignorant of public information. (Could someone please direct them back to a real civil liberties problem - I don't know, maybe secret detentions and the newly expanded material witness statute).
FBI Reform - keep watching, or it won't happen at all.
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