The FBI has had all sorts of embarrassing infrastructure issues, in recent years: G-men without e-mail, computers gone missing, crook-catching database projects falling apart. The latest insult comes from a Senate Appropriations Committee report, which notes that the Bureau's headquarters "does not meet the... criteria for a secure Federal facility capable of handling intelligence and other sensitive information."
The FBI "has the lead responsibility for domestic surveillance of foreign intelligence and suspected terrorist targets. So it seems like a rather crippling defect that the J. Edgar Hoover
Building... cannot satisfy government standards for storage and use of classified intelligence records," Secrecy News' Steven Aftergood observes, ever-so-dryly.
The Commitee wants the Government Accountability Office (GAO) "to review the Hoover Building and associated off-site locations, and provide a analysis of the FBI's ability to fulfill its mission and security requirements under the present circumstances." Given the Bureau's less-than-stellar track record of cooperating with the GAO, such an investigation may take a long, long time.
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