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FBI Boosts Servers For Faster Criminal Searches

Posted by Zonk on from the we're-all-thrilled-for-them dept.

coondoggie writes "The Federal Bureau of Investigation's Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Division has awarded Lockheed Martin a $16 million contract to upgrade its central repository for criminal justice information services. 'The CJIS division operates national-level crime data systems that furnish name checks, fingerprints, criminal history data and other information to law enforcement officials. Keeping its systems on the leading edge should help CJIS with its goal of delivering getting timely and relevant criminal justice information to the FBI and all others in the law enforcement community. The new and upgraded servers will be part of the FBI's Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System.'"

6 of 90 comments (clear)

  1. News? by moehoward · · Score: 4, Insightful


    Is a lousy $16 million contract news? Give me a break. Most big companies sneeze $16 million in IT expenses every day.

    Cut the political and "big-brother-gonna-get-ya" crap, editors. This is a complete non-story. They are upgrading. Gosh. Nobody ever does that. And how many Slashdot stories ridiculed the FBI for spending billions on their failed IT re-alignment?

    Stop the Boogey-Man stories and let's talk Nerd.

    Moe

    --
    "If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
  2. Not a bad thing ... by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Not everyone can access FBI records directly, so this won't increase non-governmental background checks (which typically use data collected by private sources). But it WILL cause innocent people being held under suspicion of being a fugitive to be released faster. The data is being accessed anyway -- may as well do it quickly to minimally inconvenience those who shouldn't be inconvenienced.

    1. Re:Not a bad thing ... by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 2, Insightful

      But even in the US, the majority of severe crimes are done by people without records. The solution isn't to expand the records until they include everyone. AFIS, at least, isn't about expanding at all. As far as I know, there hasn't been a significant expansion of finger-print collecting practices other than the aliens-entering-the-us BS, which in terms of raw numbers, hasn't been that big of a deal.

      This contract announcement is really a non-event. This AFIS system has been running for 10 years now and has had one round of hardware upgrades in that time. This is the second round because, in part, the hardware they are running on is going to move off HP's support list in another year or two.

      The new hardware is both cheaper and faster than the old hardware so they get a performance boost out of it too. Really nothing to see here unless you are HP, Lockmart or one of their subcontractors who get a piece of this pie.
      --
      When information is power, privacy is freedom.
  3. Re:Lockheed Martin? by bombastinator · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Nope. Not really.

    Furthermore they specialize in hand building purposed hardware. This is not at all what the FBI needs.

    If they said sun took the contract I wouldn't be surprised, but Lockheed? I suspect their getting this contract had more to do with their experience with acquiring government contracts than it does with them actually being the right people for the job.

  4. Re:Try over $500M in total by ScrewMaster · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The FBI is an agency that desperately needs to have a president come in and clean house

    I don't know why this guy got modded Troll ... what he's saying is largely correct (I know some FBI types who would agree with him), although realistically you can apply that principle to virtually any major Federal agency.

    --
    The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
  5. Re:law enforcement by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 2, Insightful
    It allows us to convict criminals more readily whether they be senators who solicit sex in bathrooms or football players who kill dogs.

    You don't WANT criminal conviction to be easy. And plea bargaining has another unintended effect: it causes people to plead guilty to stuff that they didn't do. Let's say if you were falsely arrested for murder, and didn't have money for an attorney other than a public defender. "You can either cop to manslaughter and get 10 years, or we try you for murder and there's a chance you'll fry." Which choice would you take? Sure? Even if you weren't too educated and considered yourself powerless against the State? Plea bargaining is often used as a way to bully people into pleading guilty for something, and therefore the prosecutors can be seen to be closing cases, even if the wrong person is convicted.

    Also, plea bargaining, as I said before, encourages higher (and generally unfair) initial charges. If DAs knew that the higher charges would go to trial and generally not stick, they'd be less likely to levy them. Remember, even if a felony charge gets dropped, it can stay on your record as an arrest.

    I may add that juries should be allowed three verdicts: guilty, not guilty, and malicious prosecution -- under which a higher court would have the option of investigating the conduct of the arrest and trial.

    -b.