Undercover

When Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., thinks about the FBI's repeated failures to overhaul its computer systems,

"Time and again, [the FBI's technology overhaul] has fallen victim to escalating costs and implementation concerns, mismanagement and so on," Leahy told FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in February. To make matters worse, Leahy said, Congress, which signed the checks that paid for those failures, was often among the last to be told when things went awry.

In no instance was this truer than with Virtual case File, the FBI's star-crossed attempt to transfer its paper investigative file system into a networked, computerized system, billed as the linchpin of the bureau's modernization efforts. Now it's dj vu all over again for Leahy, ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. As the FBI moves forward with Sentinel, a new attempt that would sew together a host of off-the-shelf applications, it is refusing to share with Congress pertinent details-for example, how much it might cost.