Freeh himself, despite his pro-technology rhetoric, booted the computer out of his office on day one and, incredibly, never used e-mail during his tenure as Director.

...

A December 2002 audit by the Justice Department’s Inspector General complained of the bureau’s "inability to effectively complete IT projects within budget and schedule," which had "reduced the FBI's credibility in the eyes of Congress."

Just how bad did it get? Many of the FBI’s computer systems not even have the technology to incorporate a mouse. "To store a single document on the Automated Case Support system required twelve separate computer commands," Kessler writes. "On these green screened machines, the FBI could search for the word ‘flight’ or the word ‘schools’ " retrieving millions of documents each time " but not for ‘flight schools.’ The CIA, in contrast, had been able to perform searches for ‘flight schools’ on its computers since 1958."

In that testimony two years before September 11 -- and three years after he believed Osama bin Laden had "declared war" --Freeh said that the United States had "little credible intelligence at this time indicating that international or domestic terrorists are planning to attack United States interests domestically." Instead, he insisted Americans were more threatened by "extremist splinter elements of right-wing groups."

Among these domestic terrorists, Freeh included "militias," "white-separatist groups, " "anti-government groups" (like Rush Limbaugh listeners), the "anti-abortion" (the overwhelmingly church-going, pro-life) movement, and "tax protestors." That is, Freeh and Clinton were wary of being attacked by the "vast right-wing conspiracy."