Reflections of an FBI Analyst
For my last post, I asked intelligence officials to share their thoughts about the state of intelligence reform today. This response came from an FBI analyst. It left me both heartened and depressed, and reminded me why I spent the past six years researching intelligence adaptation failures.
"I would like people to know that the intel analysts in the Bureau are well qualified, well educated, hardworking, smart, patriotic, and work every day to protect them. They feel frustrated that the system and the culture do not allow them the power to make the changes needed to help make the country more secure. Not to overstate the analysts' importance, but we are the ones who "connect the dots" and define/understand the existential threats to this country. As an American I feel frustrated and angry that 6 years after 9/11, we aren't able to focus solely on protection of the nation and are required to do double duty as janitors and receptionists....I'd ask the American people whether that's acceptable to them because as an American it is unacceptable to me.I'd also like to ask whether policymakers have sufficiently considered the implications of how long it will take to transition the FBI into a successful domestic intelligence agency. It has been 6 years and 2 months since 9/11 and while some progress has been made, we have a long way to go. At this pace, it will take another 15-20 years at least to fully transform the Bureau and everyone knows we don't have that much time. There isn't enough focus on the slow pace of reform efforts."
Washington, are you listening?
Okay, this is just crud and if this is the way our FBI agents think than the whole agency needs to be overhauled before any agent is given any additional power.
There's a "we know what's best for America" attitude here that can swiftly turn into abuse. The first goal of any reform should be more transparency and oversight of the agency. The focus needs to be on the preservation of civil liberties before well meaning but ultimately power hungry FBI agents abuse their positions (even unwittingly).
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
November 9, 2007 6:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
A friend of mine in the agency described being required to do the same work twice and even encouraged to work at a snail's pace. The reason? You get more money out of the budget that way for your operation.
This is the way government operates, folks. Why is anyone suprised? As long as incompetent agents (and even more incompetent supervisors) are allowed to do their jobs with no consequence of getting fired, unless they very publicly screw up, nothing will change. The competent and industrious agents just give up and give in after a while out of frustration.
What we need is a sweeping overhaul of the rules that govern employment with the federal government and especially intelligence agencies.
November 9, 2007 7:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
Well, J.Edgar was able to have all the dirt on anybody who was anybody with a file card system.
Sorry, I don't have much respect for the F...B...I (Clarisse). Not because they didn't/couldn't connect dots, not because they blew 120 million on a computer system that could barely boot up, but because of the attitude reflected in this whine.
The System? The Culture? What has changed in the system and the culture since the 70's when when snooping, illegal wiretapping, informant/provocateurs were de rigueur ....
Oh, yeah. Now those things are legal.
So next time you connect the dots with some pizza delivery guys in New Jersey by pushing them with your informant to buy your automatic weapons and then popping them as a big time terror bust, think about your role in that enterprise.
The "I" in FBI stands for investigation. After the fact understanding of things that have happened. When the "I" morphs to intelligence, ie: providing realtime knowledge of what's happening in the domestic population, you just become an agent of social control.
We got enough black leather clad skinheads with badges these days.
Alphonse ( Al ) Kada
Iranians are fighting the Americans in Iraq so they don't have to fight them on the streets of Tehran
November 9, 2007 7:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well said destor. I want to know what he means by "the power to make the changes neccesary..." I think they have more power than they need or is good for them and with the misuse of NSL's by the FBI I believe they've shown reason enough to not be trusted. I want my privacy back.
November 9, 2007 7:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not willing to say there should be no domestic intelligence capability for specific purposes, such as counterintelligence/counterespionage, counterterror, and multinational crime. Some of these categories do not lend themselves to conventional law enforcement models. For example, if a counterintelligence program finds a spy, it may be more useful, to the US, to either feed that spy with misleading information, or double him against his own service.
I would note that the CIA is responsible, outside the US, for what is variously called offensive counterintelligence, or counterespionage. They can liaise (in theory) with the FBI on cases inside the US.
If arrests can stop a terror attack, great. In some cases, however, it may be better to leave the terrorist support in place but monitored, to help lead to actual operatives that are going to do something. The operatives can be arrested or blocked from delivering an attack.
Other democracies have dealt with this in different ways. Britain, for example, separated their domestic intelligence function (i.e., the Security Service, commonly called MI5) from the specialized police function needed here (i.e., the former Special Branch, now part of [police] Counterterrorism Command.
For whatever reason, the FBI has been incredibly slow to implement the technology that would let sensitive information be shared, so that the CIA, in accordance with the restrictions in its charter, need not operate domestically. With the disclaimer that my source is a Justice Dept. Inspector General report several years ago, the FBI, after several years and much money, was not able to implement a local area network (LAN) connected to the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications (JWICS), which would let them do things as basic as email at the highest security levels, as well as secure web servers.
I can only say that I personally got a JWICS LAN working, for the US Y2K Information Center in 1999, in less than two months from receiving the internal request.
There is a National Counterterror Center for warning, jointly operated (legally) by the CIA and FBI. I don't know if the FBI has been managing to stop attacks, or if terrorist groups are not targeting things in the US.
There is enough concern about whether the FBI should be doing domestic security that the issue needs to be examined. Choices range from:
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
November 9, 2007 8:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
It does kind of matter who's running things. Section managers that chase budget-puffing techniques should get replaced. There are of course some institutional tendencies, and avoiding budget cuts is expected. This occurs in business, too.
But it is too simpifying to blame "government" instead of those in charge. If the FBI is stodgy and inefficent, the first responsible party is Robert Mueller. It is entrenched process hurdles to blame, Mueller changes things or asks Congress to mandate change.
There is accountability in government, when those in charge choose to exercise it. More typically pols avoid difficult personnel issues to avoid pissing off allies. But don't blame "government" and we might be less quick to blame "business" for the failings of individuals.
November 9, 2007 8:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
Howard,
My aim with that post was to point out that there are so many new agencies, directorates, departments, Centers- a dizzying array of resources now available to this government that the idea of "transforming" the FBI to duplicate those now in place just seems silly.
The FBI has well respected and solid investigative techniques and analysis of events. One would think an agency that can identify the active ingredients in DIEDs (domestic improvised explosive devices..TM) would be able to monitor in real time the movement of those precursor agents, rather than hanging around the Quaker meetings or sneekin' and peekin' on the local anti-war group.
With regard to stopping attacks-
They just can't have it both ways. If their actions with national security letters and other abuses lead to terror plots uncovered, fine. Then tell us about what you've done. But don't publicize the pizza man plot on one hand (for political convenience) and deny that you can explain the nature of the NSL abuses on the other.
Alphonse ( Al ) Kada
Iranians are fighting the Americans in Iraq so they don't have to fight them on the streets of Tehran
November 9, 2007 9:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
This is one of those times when my memory fails me, but not completely.
After the attack on 9/11, FBI head Robert Mueller testified before Congress on the attack and the FBI's role. As I watched this testimony it was deja vu all over again, it was almost the same testimony Mueller gave after the 1993 attack on the WTC. Due to lack of memory, I think I realized this deja vu due to C-SPAN re-running Mueller's testimony after the first attack. It was all cover your ass BS, where they failed, evidence they ignored, how much work there is yet to do, babblings about the enemy.
I'm sure the transcripts are available somewhere, but I can't find them.
Bottom line, after two attacks on the WTC, why is Mueller still heading the FBI?
November 9, 2007 9:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
One of the reasons that Britain, for example, separates the domestic intelligence/counterterror agency from the police agency is the latter has final authority on what is legal. Obviously, with working together over time, there might be, in Pythonesque terms, a wink-wink-nudge-nudge quality, but checks and balances are intended.
It is not a trivial task to monitor, in real time, all ingredients in DIEDs. While I don't think there's any of one chemical in the solid form I'd want it (I know there is in liquid), I could go over to a home center and get one common chemical, which, mixed with another common household chemical, put in a sealed pipe, and heated, would explode. It wouldn't be the size of the Oklahoma City blast, but, in a vulnerable place such as a pipeline or chemical tank, it could cause quite a bit of uproar. Realistically, the best we can do -- and it would involve the Department of Transportation, the EPA, possibly Homeland Security, and a few other agencies such as NIOSH and CDC, is monitor large shipments.
That being said, the use of NSLs for general law enforcement is an abuse of power. Whether the FBI can get its act together, so that this never happens again, is an open issue. There's a strong "don't embarrass the Bureau" culture there, established by J. Edgar Hoover, and if NSL abuse could be institutionalized as embarrassing the Bureau, that could work.
Apropos of that culture, a colleague, who had access to a number of the FISA Court hearings, said that the FBI warrant requests were approved not because the Court was a rubber stamp, but the FBI culture was such that they wouldn't request a warrant without all the i's dotted and T's crossed. NSLs not needing outside review avoids this pressure not to be seen as in error.
By "tell us what you've done", would it be acceptable to you if the full disclosure went to a Congressional function? By "function", I'm trying to avoid the "Big 8" briefings, which I consider a totally broken mechanism. What I mean is something that would have staff experts that could assist the Members with specialized legal and technical advice.
For that matter, there's an interesting proposal from Paul Pillar, who was National Intelligence Officer for the Middle East from 2000 to 2005, and dealt, among other things, with the documents provided to the Congress. He is frustrated that they usually were no more than scanned. He proposes a Congressional agency for intelligence review be created, something like a smaller version of GAO, and with a nonpolitical professional staff. I could see this reviewing NSLs and the like as well as intelligence analysis.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
November 9, 2007 9:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not willing to pay the cost, in loss of constitutional rights, required to change our criminal justice system to one that catches "criminals" before they commit crimes instead of after they commit them. That is what we are discussing here. Our whole justice system, starting with the Constitution, is based on catching and convicting those who commit a crime, not on predicting who might commit a crime and convicting him for having those thoughts.
"Terrorism" is a criminal enterprise, not a military one. It can only be treated as such if we are to keep our present justice system. I would much more willingly accept the occasional 9/11 type event, than give up our rights in an effort to avoid every single such event.
That lament by an FBI person is a lament that we are unwilling to give up our rights.
Hoppy in Sacramento
November 9, 2007 10:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
I would like people to know that the intel analysts in the Bureau are well qualified, well educated, hardworking, smart, patriotic, and work every day to protect them. They feel frustrated that the system and the culture do not allow them the power to make the changes needed to help make the country more secure. Not to overstate the analysts' importance, but we are the ones who "connect the dots" and define/understand the existential threats to this country.
Therein part of the problem. The bunker culture of we know better when "they" don't know enough to know what they don't know, what they need to know, to what degree needs are necessarily fluid and sometimes incompatible, why blaming the system only confirms an inability to adapt when now, more than ever, open source material is readily, often easily available to self-starters equipped -- not waiting to be spoonfed -- with those skills and tools necessary to "connect the dots." This, I suspect, is truer of traditional DCA types (than nascent CTI at FBI).
What am I getting at?
(Generally) Here for example - Intelligence Secrecy and Transparency: Finding the Proper Balance from the War of Independence to the War on Terror, Strategic Insights, Volume VI, Issue 3, May 2007, Center for Contemporary Conflict, Naval Postgraduate School.
This for another: Basic Principles for Homeland Security: Testimony presented before the House Appropriations Committee, Subcommittee on Homeland Security on January 30, 2007, Brian Michael Jenkins, RAND, Senior Advisor to the President of the RAND Corporation.
November 9, 2007 10:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
While there certainly are people who will give up any number of rights in exchange for a nebulous state of "security", and there are people involved in intelligence operations who want a free hand do do whatever they want, I don't believe either is a majority in the public or the intelligence community. Unfortunately, we have an Administration that counts itself in the "we should be able to do whatever we want" camp.
I believe one of the more urgent debates is not so much what should or should not be banned, but what oversight is appropriate and feasible to balance privacy and security needs. The FISA Court was one attempt to do so, but it is being ignored by the Administration, and no one has yet gotten a complete view as to why.
Even if the FISA Court were used by every surveillance requester, I doubt it is the mechanism that will provide an overall balance. By definition, a court reviews what is brought before it. It may be that precedent, the doctrine of stare decisis could guide the court in finding a balance, but the responsibility for defining the balance is a matter of law and policy. Establishing laws under the Constitution, and verifying compliance with the associated policies, is the role of the Congress.
The Congress, however, is not treating establishing this balance as a high priority. It has not set up mechanisms for monitoring the programs in progress, and really depends on the Administration to inform it of what is being done. Even when that information is provided, it may be provided to a small number of members, without the technical background in law enforcement, intelligence, or privacy enforcement to judge if various programs are using scalpels or meataxes.
Examples from elsewhere in the world may give hints. Canada has far less restriction on domestic surveillance than the US, but it also has a Privacy Commissioner with wide-ranging authority. Britain finds it useful to separate the domestic intelligence and police functions; they are also experimental animals for understanding the widespread use of video surveillance. Both countries, for want of a better term, have a sense of propriety that we do not have, which may not be a real lack.
Since Britain dealt with real terrorism by the IRA and similar groups, and has had recent attacks by Islamic radicals, it may also be useful to examining if they are moving to a police state, and, if not, what prevents it.
I find that public health is more useful for developing an approach to terrorism than either law enforcement or military models. All three, interestingly enough, borrow mini-models from one another, as with mandatory quarantines, or with detention orders for mandatory treatment. The key to the public health model is that it does not fundamentally expect to eradicate all incidents of a given threat; smallpox is the glowing exception, although a few others may be in reach.
Public health moves on two fronts: reducing the incidence of a threat, and mitigating the virulence of a threat when it occurs. Public health considers accidents as well as disease, and one example of the two fronts is both building safer highways, but having air bags to reduce the virulence of a crash.
Public health also has its own set of surveillance techniques. These balance two principles: sensitivity and selectivity. The more sensitive a test, the more likely it is not to have false negatives; the more selective a test, which usually is a second step after a sensitive test has detected a possible incident, the less likely it is to have a false positive.
When we look at security measures, some of which may be "security theater" to look as if the government is Doing Something, these principles apply. Airport screening is one measure that has become quite invasive, yet, even on 9/11, the procedures in place were sensitive enough to detect several of the hijackers, but not selective enough to identify them. With the increase in airport measures, waiting times increase, yet the clandestine air marshals are incensed that inflexible procedures are making them obvious and avoidable. We also seem to be ignoring the changes in passenger and crew behavior, as with the "shoe bomber" who promptly was overwhelmed.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
November 9, 2007 12:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why is the world should we wish to see the FBI become a more efficient investigatory agency. They use those resources to spy on us you know. Left wing organizations and labor unions have been targeted by them since the 1920's. Think of how many thousands of hours of FBI man hours were spent trying to destroy MLK. Of the few FBI agents I met (consulted once in forensic DNA analysis) they seemed very right wing and barely disguised racists.
November 9, 2007 1:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, I don't know that they are used to spy on us. The effort to destroy MLK was specifically driven by J. Edgar Hoover, a man who once was a force for good, but, due to the lack of review, stayed on until he was politically untouchable.
I have not said that I want to make the FBI "more efficient" in its present form. I have said that it is inefficient in its present form, at least with respect to counterintelligence, counterespionage, and counterterrorism, which all are related, but have distinct aspects.
My inclination is that the British system may be a better idea, but understand that I do not consider terrorism to be a pure law enforcement problem. Aspects of dealing with it certainly are, and detention should under a sworn law enforcement organization.
One of the basic things that makes law enforcement a bad culture for counterintelligence and counterespionage is that the usual law enforcement approach is to arrest as soon as a case has been made. In the murky world of counterespionage, it may be much better to know who the agents are, both to feed them misleading information and to identify the rest of the organization.
As the FBI itself has disclosed, it was totally inappropriate to use National Security Letters in routine law enforcement. The rules of law enforcement are not always a perfect fit to counterintelligence or counterterror. The FBI, in particular, has a management model that simply won't work; it's too decentralized.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
November 9, 2007 2:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
<SNARK><B> Politically untouchable, yes, but not "untouchable" to Clyde Tolson. Seeing J. Edna in heels and garter belts was too much for even a steel-jawed G-Man to resist...</B></SNARK>
Alphonse ( Al ) Kada
Iranians are fighting the Americans in Iraq so they don't have to fight them on the streets of Tehran
November 9, 2007 7:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
But, when I lived in Chicago (60's and 70's) the police were always very good at these sorts of counterintelligence and counterespionage things. And regardless of which side of the law they were on, too!
Kevin Russell Cook
November 9, 2007 9:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Re: is Washington listening?
I was upset to see former FBI agent (& whistleblower on the Moussaoui case) Coleen Rowley lose her run for Congress in 2008. I got to know some of her opinions on finer points of reform in exchanges on another forum similar to this one, and I think she could have been a great asset on this front in Congress.
November 9, 2007 11:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's an interesting question, if there is ever an intelligence review arm of Congress, of whether such people as Rowley could be effective in it. I honestly don't know.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
November 10, 2007 10:07 AM | Reply | Permalink