It seems as if every Manhattan prep schooler has one, but many of New York’s FBI agents are fighting crime and terrorists without an Internet-ready phone or even an e-mail account, the New York Daily News has learned. Mark Mershon, the assistant director in charge of the FBI’s 2,000-employee city office, blamed the technology gap on Washington budget constraints.
He said there’s a cost attached to assigning an agent or analyst an e-mail address with the official domain name _ ic.fbi.gov. “And 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,” he said when asked about the gap at a News editorial board meeting.
“We just don’t have the money, and that is an endless stream of complaints that come from the field.” Mershon also revealed that only about 100 agents in New York have BlackBerry devices, which allow users to send and receive e-mail and access the internet from their phone. And just a few weeks ago, the New York office was notified that funding for its BlackBerry pilot program designed to help the FBI better communicate with city, state and federal law enforcement was being cut. [...] [Source]
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