The
Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General (OIG)
disclosed in a redacted December 2009 report that the Lockheed Martin
system "encountered significant challenges." As of August 2009, "the FBI
and Lockheed Martin agreed to revise the project's schedule, increase
Lockheed Martin's cost to develop Phase 2 to $155 million, and update
the remaining costs for Phases 3 and 4."
Sound familiar?
"Consequently" the OIG reported, "the overall project completion date has been extended to September 2010, 3 months later than we previously reported and 9 months later than originally planned." In a new report released in late March, Department of Justice auditors revised their previous analysis. It wasn't a pretty picture.
According to the OIG, "As of March 2010, the FBI does not have official cost or schedule estimates for completing Sentinel. The remaining budget, schedule, and work to be performed on Sentinel are currently being renegotiated between the FBI and Lockheed Martin. While the FBI does not yet have official estimates, FBI officials have acknowledged that the project will cost more than its latest revised estimate of $451 million and will likely not be completed until 2011." That can only be music to Lockheed Martin's ears!
As
the Times reported, work on the project has ground to a halt. This was
confirmed by the OIG. "On March 3, 2010, because of significant issues
regarding Phase 2 Segment 4's usability, performance, and quality
delivered by Lockheed Martin, the FBI issued a partial stop-work order
to Lockheed Martin for portions of Phase 3 and all of Phase 4."
The latest set-back to taxpayers mean that the Bureau's "stop-work order returned Phase 2 Segment 4 of the project from operations and maintenance activities to the development phase."
In other words, after four years and nearly $500 million, its back to the drawing board!
After beating out their rivals for work on a program considerably more costly than SAIC's failed VCF, the OIG revealed that multiple issues and problems plague the system designed by the defense giant.
"First, there were significant problems with the usability of electronic forms that were developed for Sentinel." The forms are supposedly the heart of the system and the tools through which FBI repressors "manage" case-related information deployed across the Bureau, particularly when agents add or subtract data gleaned from the FBI's massive Investigative Data Warehouse (IDW).
Last year,Antifascist Calling reported on the Bureau's spooky "Library of Babel," IDW, that does yeoman's work as a virtual Department of Precrime.
A massive project, IDW already holds more than a billion unique, searchable records on American citizens and legal residents that the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) said would be used to "data-mine ... using unproven science in an attempt to predict future crimes from past behavior."
The IDW is one of the data-mining projects that Sentinel will directly tap into, allowing the migration of data currently held in the FBI's antiquated Automated Case Support (ACS) system.
The OIG report revealed, "there were 26 critical issues related to the functionality of Sentinel that required resolution before deployment" and that "Lockheed Martin had deviated from accepted systems engineering processes in developing the software code for Sentinel."
According to a review of the program by the shadowy MITRE Corporation, more than 10,000 "inefficiencies" in the software code may collectively result in the diminished performance of the "product."
Do these problems pose a "challenge" to either the Bureau or Lockheed Martin executives? Hardly! The OIG disclosed that "FBI officials have stated that in order to meet any increased funding requirements, the FBI plans to request congressional approval to redistribute funds from other FBI information technology programs to Sentinel."
How's that for creative accounting!
Sound familiar?
"Consequently" the OIG reported, "the overall project completion date has been extended to September 2010, 3 months later than we previously reported and 9 months later than originally planned." In a new report released in late March, Department of Justice auditors revised their previous analysis. It wasn't a pretty picture.
According to the OIG, "As of March 2010, the FBI does not have official cost or schedule estimates for completing Sentinel. The remaining budget, schedule, and work to be performed on Sentinel are currently being renegotiated between the FBI and Lockheed Martin. While the FBI does not yet have official estimates, FBI officials have acknowledged that the project will cost more than its latest revised estimate of $451 million and will likely not be completed until 2011." That can only be music to Lockheed Martin's ears!
The latest set-back to taxpayers mean that the Bureau's "stop-work order returned Phase 2 Segment 4 of the project from operations and maintenance activities to the development phase."
In other words, after four years and nearly $500 million, its back to the drawing board!
After beating out their rivals for work on a program considerably more costly than SAIC's failed VCF, the OIG revealed that multiple issues and problems plague the system designed by the defense giant.
"First, there were significant problems with the usability of electronic forms that were developed for Sentinel." The forms are supposedly the heart of the system and the tools through which FBI repressors "manage" case-related information deployed across the Bureau, particularly when agents add or subtract data gleaned from the FBI's massive Investigative Data Warehouse (IDW).
Last year,Antifascist Calling reported on the Bureau's spooky "Library of Babel," IDW, that does yeoman's work as a virtual Department of Precrime.
A massive project, IDW already holds more than a billion unique, searchable records on American citizens and legal residents that the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) said would be used to "data-mine ... using unproven science in an attempt to predict future crimes from past behavior."
The IDW is one of the data-mining projects that Sentinel will directly tap into, allowing the migration of data currently held in the FBI's antiquated Automated Case Support (ACS) system.
The OIG report revealed, "there were 26 critical issues related to the functionality of Sentinel that required resolution before deployment" and that "Lockheed Martin had deviated from accepted systems engineering processes in developing the software code for Sentinel."
According to a review of the program by the shadowy MITRE Corporation, more than 10,000 "inefficiencies" in the software code may collectively result in the diminished performance of the "product."
Do these problems pose a "challenge" to either the Bureau or Lockheed Martin executives? Hardly! The OIG disclosed that "FBI officials have stated that in order to meet any increased funding requirements, the FBI plans to request congressional approval to redistribute funds from other FBI information technology programs to Sentinel."
How's that for creative accounting!
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