DOJ kills wireless network in budget request

The Justice Department has made it official -- the Integrated Wireless Network program is over and there is no funding requested for it in the next fiscal year.

The department’s fiscal 2013 budget request released on Feb. 13 gives a stark view of the final years of support for the ambitious wireless network program that started in 2004: From $193 million two years ago, to $122 million this fiscal year, to zero next year. The termination of the wireless network is just one of dozens of relatively small cuts being proposed for an array of smaller programs in the department. While the major agency budgets in the department budget remain relatively intact, there are small shifts in funding, both up and down, proposed for information-sharing and intelligence technologies and programs.