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Database errors discredit Justice's counterterrorism statistcs, auditors say.
The misguided use of technologyby Justice Department officials ispartially responsible for flaws in the statisticsthat track federal counterterrorismactivities, department auditorsfound during an extensive analysis ofthe numbers.Auditors with the Office of the InspectorGeneral evaluated the methods usedby three major Justice agencies to gather,process and report critical statisticsabout their counterterrorism work.The indexes included terrorism-relatedconvictions, the number of prisonsentences resulting from terrorismprosecutions, the production of terrorismintelligence reports, the number ofterrorism threats tracked and the outputof threat assessments. The IG's stafffound that some of the statistics wereunderstated and others overstated, withno consistent pattern.Meanwhile, officials of three Justiceagencies that gather and report counterterrorismstatistics varied in their responsesto the IG's analysis of their dataand statistics practices.The FBI generally concurred with theauditors' findings and described systemupgrades and procedure changes thatofficials will use to improve the bureau'sinternal controls.In contrast, officials in the ExecutiveOffice of U.S. Attorneys flatly rejectedmany of the auditors' findings,calling the findings inaccurate ormisleading.The department's Criminal Divisionalso found fault with the report andcalled for substantial corrections.The report, titled 'The Departmentof Justice's Internal Controls Over TerrorismReporting,' took asits starting point a groupof 209 terrorism-relatedstatistics that Justice andits components reported602 times between October2000 and September2005. Some of the report'sanalysis continued into2006.From the initial group of209 statistics, the auditorseliminated 17 indexes thatagencies outside Justicehad generated.In reviewing the remaining192 statistics by interviewingJustice officials,the auditors found that'the collection and reportingof terrorism-relatedstatistics within the departmentis decentralizedand haphazard.'The auditors found severalcauses for the inaccuracyof Justice's counterterrorismstatistics, includingfaulty technology,internal controls and documentation.Some of the technologyproblems resulted fromimproper use of spreadsheetapplications thatprocess terrorism statistics.The auditors found that 'the statisticsreported by the Criminal Divisionwere inaccurate primarily because thedatabase used to track the statisticswas incomplete and not kept up-todate.'The Criminal Division had failedto properly train the database usersand neglected to validate the informationgenerated by the system, the reportstates.In its response, the FBI cited its projectto create a new central-managementinformation system called Compass,which is designed to centralizestatistical controls and furnish managementdata to senior officials.The bureau said its massive systemsupgrade project, now called Sentinel,which consists largely of an investigativecase management system, hasbeen tweaked so it will provide additionalmanagement information andcontrols, partly to track the FBI'scounterterrorism work.The FBI described a system calledGuardian that it launched in July2004 to centralize management controls.The bureau started using an upgradecalled Guardian Version 2.0 in autumn2006, with improved metrics and betterterrorism threat tracking, the FBItold the IG.
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