A few monks, some quills, and some carrier pigeons...

Gee, these FBI guys make me feel safe. 8,000 of 30,000 employees can't get email. Five percent of 2000 agents in New York have Blackberries, and headquarters moved to dispose of those.

The FBI's stars are the guys who chase down leads in the field, not the ones keeping servers from crashing. Former Director Louis Freeh reportedly had his PC taken off of his desk. Some agents proudly declared their inability to type.

In November 2001, the bureau named ex-IBM executive Bob Dies its first chief information officer. But Dies had virtually no authority over the FBI's technology budget, which was divided up among the various offices and divisions. He quit in May 2002. In the 19 months that followed, the FBI went through four more CIOs, and 15 key managers rotated through the Trilogy project.

Noah Schachtman reports in Slate.It's short and well worth reading. As I recall, the FBI office in Florida had to FedEx photos of a 9-11 suspect to headquarters in DC because the office did not have the capability to email pics. Sounds like things haven't changed much.