FBI to NY Agents: No E-Mail for You

According to a New York Daily News report yesterday, the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s New York office is so strapped for cash that it can’t provide all of its agents and analysts with an FBI.gov e-mail address.

The New York location is the bureau’s largest office outside of Washington, D.C., according to the Daily News, and it is home to the nation’s leading anti-terrorism squad.

“As ridiculous as this might sound, we have real money issues right now, and the government is reluctant to give all agents and analysts dot-gov accounts,” Mark Mershon, director of the bureau’s 2,000-person New York office, told the Daily News.

Mershon also told the Daily News that only 100 of the bureau’s New York office employees have BlackBerrys. Funding for the FBI’s BlackBerry pilot program is being cut, according to the Daily News. That program was designed to facilitate better communication between the FBI and state and local law enforcement entities, the Daily News reports.

According to Zalmai Azmi, the FBI’s chief information officer, all agents will have e-mail addresses by the end of this year as part of the bureau’s $425 million computer overhaul project, Sentinel. For more, read FBI Outlines $425M Computer Overhaul.

For related content, read Why the G-Men Aren’t IT Men.

For related news coverage, check out FBI Computer Overhaul Faces Cost Hurdles.

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