Hurdle No. 3

After 9/11, the FBI's top priority becomes terrorism, so the bureau starts a new data warehouse project that overlaps with Trilogy.

The fix: Synchronize your projects.

One technology project that Mueller counts as a success is the FBI's new Investigative Data Warehouse, which allows agents to search and create relationships among data collected from over 47 sources.

"As the years went on and we saw what the Virtual Case File was, we saw a number of capabilities we needed that we didn't anticipate prior to 9/11," Mueller told a House Appropriations subcommittee on March 8.

The Government Accountability Office, in a report issued in September 2004, said the data warehouse overlaps VCF and that the bureau needs to work on integrating the planning of its technology projects.

The FBI also is still working on expanding access to the data warehouse, Mueller told the House subcommittee. Former agent Ed Stroz, now managing partner of Stroz Friedberg LLC, says the FBI should be careful to let all agents get the same information wherever possible. "If they're creating a cocoon of excellence to get away from the mediocrity of the rest of it, what does that tell you?" he asks. "You can't have two classes of agents or investigative power."