Only Cops should have guns  3:52PM PDT, Jul 17, 2001

Breaking news:

http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/fbi010717.html

The FBI just LOST 449 guns. . . .

Yup. . . I trust them with guns.

Quoted:
Ah our ever so competent security forces.

From the ABC message board.

Quoted:
In that news report they also said there was at least one case where one of the weapons had been used in a criminal offense.  Can I sue them for stupidity.  

F amous

B ut

I ncompetent

Quoted:
screw the worn out smooth-bore guns

Senators Decry Loss of FBI Equipment  

By Deborah Zabarenko
Reuters

WASHINGTON (July 18) - The FBI got a bipartisan drubbing on Wednesday from the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, a day after the agency announced that 449 of its weapons and 184 of its laptop computers were stolen or lost.

FBI officials said at least one and possibly four of the missing computers contained classified information. The misplaced weapons ranged from pistols to sub-machine guns and one stolen firearm was used in a homicide, they added.

The relatively small number of misplaced materials over 11 years belies a larger problem, said committee chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy.

''What bothers me is that some of the computers were supposed to be containing classified information and you would think after the total fiasco of the FBI's handling of the (Robert) Hanssen matter, they would learn from this matter,'' said Leahy, a Vermont Democrat.

The Hanssen case, in which an FBI veteran spied for Russia, undetected, for some 15 years, was in the judicial process as the FBI disclosed it had not turned over thousands of pages of documents to defense lawyers in the Oklahoma City bombing case of Timothy McVeigh.

Leahy and others in Congress also noted with displeasure the FBI's handling of the case involving Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee, who after months of investigation pleaded guilty to a single felony count of mishandling nuclear data, and the fatal law enforcement shootouts in Waco, Texas, and Ruby Ridge, Idaho.

U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, who on Tuesday ordered a Justice Department review of the FBI over the missing weapons and computers, called the situation ''serious'' at a news conference on Wednesday.

Ashcroft, who has oversight responsibility for the FBI,  declined to speculate whether the missing guns and laptop computers were symptomatic of a larger problem at the agency.

But Leahy, who chairs the Judiciary Committee, took aim at what he saw as systemic problems at the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

''A perception that credible allegations of misconduct are being whitewashed, or that a double standard of discipline is being applied in which senior supervisors get lighter punishment than line agents for the same offenses will erode public confidence and demoralize the agency's own employees,'' Leahy said.

'GOOD OLD BOY' NETWORK

Leahy said a ''good old boy'' network protected entrenched FBI bureaucrats, went ''by the book'' when punishing lower-level agents and worked to discourage critics inside the agency.

Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, the committee's ranking Republican, commended departing FBI Director Louis Freeh but criticized the agency's latest gaffe as ''simply inexcusable.''

''Lax administrative controls over sensitive materials like these cannot be tolerated,'' Hatch said.

He and others looked to Robert Mueller, whom President Bush's formally nominated on Wednesday to head the FBI, to improve performance. Mueller has to be confirmed by the Senate before taking over from Freeh.

Sen. Richard Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, said there was a ''wall between the Justice Department and the FBI'' that hindered communication and investigation, and that FBI officials often tried to gloss over problems with ''a nod of a head and a furrowed brow'' -- but little action.

Beyond management problems, technical difficulties loom large at the FBI, according to the agency's assistant director for information resources, Bob Dies.

''It's really a nightmare to come in from the outside to help them,'' said Dies, a 30-year IBM veteran who came to the FBI a year ago.

More than half the agency's desktop computers, about 13,000, are four to eight years old, Dies said, and many lack such standard features as a point-and-click mouse.

There has been no meaningful improvement in FBI information technology for over six years, which means agents cannot electronically store material such as photographs, graphical and tabular data on investigative databases, Dies said.

In the U.S. House of Representatives, Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, a Wisconsin Republican, said the missing laptops and guns show the need for a special Justice Department inspector general solely for the FBI.

''Large FBI foul-ups used to be extraordinary events, yet now they appear to be deteriorating into regular occurrences,'' Sensenbrenner said in a statement.  

  Reuter 16:23 07-18-01