The good news is that losses are dropping. The bad news is that they're still happening, and the FBI doesn't know if secure information is entering the wild. Completed in 2002, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG, part of the Department of Justice) did an initial audit of the Bureau's losses and found the FBI was losing 3.82 functional weapons, 5.07 training weapons and 10.71 laptops a month. The findings caused the OIG to do a follow-up audit, the results of which have just been released: 1.09 functional weapons, 0.41 training weapons and 2.64 laptops lost each month.
The OIG applauds the Bureau's improvement, but questions the FBI's procedures for handling such events and also notes that the FBI doesn't even know which of its computers contain classified information. "Perhaps most troubling, the FBI could not determine in many cases whether the lost or stolen laptop computers contained sensitive or classified information. Such information may include case information, personal identifying information, or classified information on FBI operations." The substantial progress made by the Bureau is encouraging, but the OIG still claims that the FBI "has not taken sufficient corrective action on several recommendations contained in our 2002 audit report."
News source: Ars Technica
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