# Presentation: 704631

## Records and Risk:Records of the FBI

- (Or, when we screw up, we _really_ screw up! And everyone knows about it!)

- RACO 2004, May 11, 2004

## Records and Risk:Records of the FBI

- Inspector Bob Garrity
- Deputy Assistant Director
- Records Management Division, FBI
- E-mail:  rgarrity@fbi.gov

- RACO 2004, May 11, 2004

## FBI Gives Files to McVeigh Lawyers

**Defense Weighs Its Response To Withheld Records  **
*The Washington Post *
- By Lois Romano and Dan Eggen
- May 11, 2001
- OKLAHOMA CITY, OK -- Six days before Timothy McVeigh is scheduled to be executed for the Oklahoma City bombing, the Justice Department yesterday gave his attorneys thousands of pages of FBI documents that it said were mistakenly withheld before McVeigh's 1997 trial.

- RACO 2004, May 11, 2004

## Ashcroft Delays Execution of McVeigh By A Month

*The Washington Post*
- By Lois Romano and Paul Duggan
- May 12, 2001
- WASHINGTON, DC -- Attorney General John D. Ashcroft yesterday postponed the execution of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh until June 11 and ordered a Justice Department investigation into how the FBI failed to give McVeigh's defense team thousands of pages of investigative files before his 1997 trial.

- RACO 2004, May 11, 2004

## Government’s Duty to Disclose

- The failure of the Government to disclose favorable evidence that is material on the issue of guilt, or material on the issue of punishment, can violate due process.
- Exculpatory evidence must be disclosed by the Government to the defendant.
*Brady v. Maryland*, 373 U.S. 83 (1963)

- RACO 2004, May 11, 2004

## Government’s Duty to Disclose

- In U.S. v. Timothy McVeigh, the Government agreed, in pretrial negotiations, to disclose to the defendant ALL evidence, not just the exculpatory evidence.
- This was a standard different from the normal course of business for the FBI, and was affected by our normal investigative reporting mediums.

- RACO 2004, May 11, 2004

## OKBOMB Investigation

- Involved the FBI’s entire organizational structure.
- FBI Headquarters, most of 56 Field Offices, many of the 400 Resident Agencies, some of the 45 Legal Attachés.
- Thousands of employees and task force officers, e.g., ATF, FEMA, OSP, OCPD, OCFD.
- Tens of thousands of investigative reports.
- More than one million records.
- Investigation of tens of thousands of leads.
- At that time, the largest investigation ever undertaken by the FBI.

- RACO 2004, May 11, 2004

## FBI Investigative Files

- _Active_ files in FBI Headquarters, 56 Field Offices, and many of the larger 400 RAs
- One office is designated the Office of Origin.
- All supporting offices are referred to as Auxiliary Offices.
- Auxiliary Offices are to ensure all original records are forwarded to the Office of Origin.
- _Inactive_, closed files, are stored in 265 locations worldwide.

- RACO 2004, May 11, 2004

## FBI Investigative Files

- 1995 – Advent of Automated Case Support system, an elementary, 1980’s vintage, electronic recordkeeping system.
- ACS cannot accept images and was never approved by NARA as a system of records.
- Consequently, the only files “uploaded” and available electronically are FBI-generated.
- The paper-based file remained the official FBI record.

- RACO 2004, May 11, 2004

## FBI’s Report of Investigation

- FD-302 – form for reporting information that may become testimony.
- Insert – form for reporting “negative information” that will not likely become testimony, e.g., the names and addresses of all homeowners canvassed in a neighborhood.
- Electronic Communication (EC) – used as a cover communication to “transport” an FD-302 or Insert.
- Teletype – when urgency was necessary, but should be followed by either an FD-302 or Insert.

- RACO 2004, May 11, 2004

## Inspector General’s Findings

- The FBI has not spent enough time, money, and attention on document management. (It is not the glamorous part of the mission.)
- Found a wide variety of flaws in the FBI’s information systems.
- Although the FBI knew about many of these flaws, little was done to remedy the problems.
- Even six years later, on September 11, 2001, the FBI’s document management process remained generally unchanged.

- RACO 2004, May 11, 2004

## I.  Information Management

- Commitment to Automation and Focus on Information Management
- Simplification of Record Keeping
- A User Friendly and Reliable System
- Tracking Information
- Retrieving Information
- Integrated Databases

- RACO 2004, May 11, 2004

## A.  	Commitment to Automation and	Focus on Information Management

- The FBI must commit a significant effort into planning a true information management system that:
- Can be used to _*track*_* *information;
- Can be used to _*search*_ for information; and,
- Can eliminate the need for independent databases.

- RACO 2004, May 11, 2004

## Commitment to Automation andFocus on Information Management

- Rather than aggressively trying to remedy its automation problems, the FBI has *tolerated the development of duplicative systems*: one paper and one automated.
- The FBI is simply *too big and the cases too large to continue to rely on paper* as the chief information management tool.
- Because the FBI has *continued the reliance on paper* as an alternative system, the FBI’s *automation systems have suffered*.

- RACO 2004, May 11, 2004

## B.  Simplification of Record Keeping

- The primary cause of the belated documents was the difficulty of moving, without error, thousands of documents through the many procedural steps and physical locations required by the FBI’s document management system.
- Reduce the number of record-keeping formats, all of which require different procedures.
- Reduce the mind-boggling variety of forms utilized by the FBI, e.g., FD-302s v.s. investigative inserts.

- RACO 2004, May 11, 2004

## C.  User Friendly and Reliable System

- ACS was brought on-line in October 1995   (six months after Oklahoma City bombing).
- Universal dislike (non-acceptance) by supervisors, agents and support personnel.
- Employees complained the system was too difficult to use.
- IG agreed the system is not user-friendly.  Relatively simple tasks require numerous steps.  The system freezes or crashes often.

- RACO 2004, May 11, 2004

## D.  Tracking Information

- Universal serialization was an improvement over the previous system, but it does not guarantee that every item in the files can be accounted for.
- Only FBI-generated documents can be uploaded.
- Does not accept scanned images.
- Still the potential for documents to be lost, misfiled or misplaced.
- Uploading documents from a word processing system adds an extra step.

- RACO 2004, May 11, 2004

## E.  Retrieving Information

- Although ACS allows full-text retrieval, it is not an effective case management tool.
- Performing searches for documents is too time consuming.
- Any new system should have easy-to-use search capabilities so that separate systems, such as ZyIndex, can be eliminated.

- RACO 2004, May 11, 2004

## F.  Integrated Databases

- For major cases and crisis situations, Rapid Start and ZyIndex are used to compensate for ACS’s deficiencies.
- The FBI should work toward eliminating crisis management software, and build document management and lead tracking systems that are expandable to meet every situation.
- Training must be refreshed because of infrequency of use.
- Hard copies and disks are sent, reducing efficiency and increasing chances for items to be lost.

- RACO 2004, May 11, 2004

## IG’s Prediction of New System

- Will meet the same fate as ACS, unless FBI managers commit to using it and enforce it’s use throughout the FBI.
- The FBI must commit to relying on automation as the primary means for accessing, retaining, and transferring information.
- All employees must be extensively and properly trained.
- Efficient use of automation must become part of the basic job requirements.

- RACO 2004, May 11, 2004

##   Virtual Case File

- VCF is the primary application designed to replace ACS.
- Design sessions focused on topics such as workflow, simplifying business practices, bottlenecks and redundancies caused by an archaic information management system and business rules.
- Also focused on basic processes associated with Field Office operations, case and program management.

- RACO 2004, May 11, 2004

##   Virtual Case File

- Universal Intake - One versatile Web interface to open routine cases, and to document crisis information.
- Consolidation of Investigative/Intelligence reporting into one Web interface with fielded indexed data for easier indexing, searching, query, and analysis.
- Simpler workflow and interfaces for ELSUR, Evidence, Assets and Informants.

- RACO 2004, May 11, 2004

## Records Management Division

- In 1993 reorganization, historic RMD merged with the Technical Services Division to become the Information Resources Division.
- Records management staff and expertise atrophied in favor of more computer specialists.
- Records components were “jettisoned” to four other divisions.  No central management or accountability.
- RMD re-commissioned, in February 2002, following McVeigh debacle.

- RACO 2004, May 11, 2004

## Information Integrity

- “Sound records management and document accountability are at the heart of the FBI's ability to support investigations and prosecutions with information integrity.  There can be no doubt about the accuracy, completeness and proper disclosure of the records we compile during our investigations and used by prosecutors in support of prosecutions.”

- RACO 2004, May 11, 2004

## Mission Critical Ability

- “The ability to maintain, access and retrieve documents is critical to our mission and equally critical to our ability to protect the rights of those charged with crimes.  It also is fundamental to robust analytical and information sharing capacities, both functions that we are rapidly enhancing.”

- RACO 2004, May 11, 2004

## RMD Organization

- Established six Senior Executive Service positions, and hired five outside experts:
- SES-6 Assistant Director & Records Officer
- SES-5 Deputy Assistant Director
- Four SES-4 Section Chiefs
- 25 Units, each to be headed by a GS-15.
- A total workforce of 857 employees
- We made a commitment to hire the best records management talent we could afford, i.e., “we put our money where our mouth was.”

- RACO 2004, May 11, 2004

- Perhaps, Winston Churchill said it best:
*"This is not the end.  It is not even the beginning of the end.  But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."**** ***
- Speech given at the Lord Mayor's Luncheon, Mansion House, London, November 10, 1942.

- RACO 2004, May 11, 2004