    [Senate Hearing 108-54]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                                                             S. Hrg. 108-54

                      CONSOLIDATING INTELLIGENCE ANALYSIS:
                      A REVIEW OF THE PRESIDENT'S PROPOSAL
                          TO CREATE A TERRORIST THREAT
                               INTEGRATION CENTER

    =======================================================================

                                    HEARINGS

                                   before the

                                  COMMITTEE ON
                              GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
                              UNITED STATES SENATE

                          ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

                                 FIRST SESSION

                                   __________

                            FEBRUARY 14 AND 26, 2003

                                   __________

          Printed for the use of the Committee on Governmental Affairs

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                                WASHINGTON : 2003
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                       COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS

                       SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine, Chairman
    TED STEVENS, Alaska                  JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut
    GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio            CARL LEVIN, Michigan
    NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota              DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii
    ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania          RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois
    ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah              THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware
    PETER G. FITZGERALD, Illinois        MARK DAYTON, Minnesota
    JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire        FRANK LAUTENBERG, New Jersey
    RICHARD C. SHELBY, Alabama           MARK PRYOR, Arkansas

               Michael D. Bopp, Staff Director and Chief Counsel
                   David A. Kass, Chief Investigative Counsel
         Joyce Rechtschaffen, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel
            Michael A. Alexander, Minority Professional Staff Member
                         Darla D. Cassell, Chief Clerk

                                C O N T E N T S

                                     ------
    Opening statements:
                                                                       Page
        Senator Collins.............................................. 1, 45
        Senator Lieberman............................................     3
        Senator Sununu...............................................     5
        Senator Lautenberg...........................................    20
        Senator Pryor................................................    23
        Senator Akaka............................................... 26, 56
        Senator Coleman..............................................    47
    Prepared statement:
        Senator Shelby...............................................    74

                                   WITNESSES
                           Friday, February 14, 2003

    Hon. Warren B. Rudman, Co-Chair, U.S. Commission on National
      Security/21st Century..........................................     7
    Hon. James S. Gilmore, III, Chairman, Advisory Panel to Assess
      the Capabilities for Domestic Response to Terrorism Involving
      Weapons of Mass Destruction....................................     9
    James B. Steinberg, Vice President and Director of Foreign Policy
      Studies, The Brookings Institution.............................    30
    Jeffrey H. Smith, Former General Counsel (1995-1996), Central
      Intelligence Agency (CIA)......................................    33

                          Wednesday, February 26, 2003

    Winston P. Wiley, Associate Director of Central Intelligence for
      Homeland Security and Chair, Senior Steering Group.............    48
    Pasquale J. D'Amuro, Executive Assistant Director for
      Counterterrorism/Counterintelligence, Federal Bureau of
      Investigation (FBI)............................................    52
    Hon. Gordon England, Deputy Secretary, Department of Homeland
      Security.......................................................    53

                         Alphabetical List of Witnesses

    D'Amuro, Pasquale J.:
        Testimony....................................................    52
        Prepared statement...........................................   117
    England, Hon. Gordon:
        Testimony....................................................    53
    Gilmore, Hon. James S., III:
        Testimony....................................................     9
        Prepared statement...........................................    76
    Rudman, Hon. Warren B.:
        Testimony....................................................     7
    Smith, Jeffrey H.:
        Testimony....................................................    33
        Prepared statement...........................................   100
    Steinberg, James B.:
        Testimony....................................................    30
        Prepared statement...........................................    95
    Wiley, Winston P.:
        Testimony....................................................    48
        Prepared statement...........................................   113

                                    Appendix

    Response to Senators Levin and Collins transcript request from
      Mr. Wiley referred to on page 69...............................    73
    Chart entitled ``Primary Agencies Handling Terrorist-Related
      Intelligence (With Terrorist Threat Integration Center),''
      submitted by Senator Collins...................................   119
    Responses to Post-Hearing Questions for the Record from Senator
      Akaka for:
        Mr. Wiley....................................................   120
    Responses to Post-Hearing Questions for the Record from Senator
      Shelby for:
        Mr. Wiley....................................................   127
        Hon. England.................................................   133

                      CONSOLIDATING INTELLIGENCE ANALYSIS:
                      A REVIEW OF THE PRESIDENT'S PROPOSAL
                          TO CREATE A TERRORIST THREAT
                               INTEGRATION CENTER

                                  ----------

                           FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2003

                                           U.S. Senate,
                             Committee on Governmental Affairs,
                                                        Washington, DC.
        The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:32 a.m., in
    room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Susan M.
    Collins, Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
        Present: Senators Collins, Coleman, Sununu, Lieberman,
    Akaka, Lautenberg, and Pryor.

                 OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN COLLINS

        Chairman Collins. The Committee will come to order.
        Good morning. Today the Committee on Governmental Affairs
    will review the President's recent proposal to create a new
    Terrorist Threat Integration Center. The President's
    announcement of this new center is the latest in the series of
    actions taken by the administration and by Congress to address
    the government's serious failure to analyze and act upon the
    intelligence it gathers related to terrorism.
        Some of these failures have become well known. For example,
    in January 2000 the CIA learned of a meeting of al Qaeda
    operatives that was taking place in Malaysia. The CIA knew that
    one of the participants in this meeting, Khalid al-Midhar, had
    a visa to enter the United States. It failed, however, to list
    his name on the terrorist watch list and he entered the country
    just 2 weeks later. Al-Midhar returned to Saudi Arabia and in
    June 2001 he received yet another U.S. visa. Although 1\1/2\
    years had passed, his name was still not on the watch list.
        The CIA did not conduct a review of the Malaysian meeting
    until August 2001. Following that review it finally placed al-
    Midhar on the terrorist watch list. By then, of course, it was
    too late. He was already in the United States and within weeks
    would participate in the September 11 attacks on our Nation.
        Failures such as these were not unique to the CIA. In July
    2001, an FBI agent in the Phoenix field office warned his
    superiors that Osama bin Laden appeared to be sending some of
    his operatives to the United States for flight training. The
    agent recommended a number of actions the Bureau should
    undertake, but his recommendations were ignored.
        One month later, agents in the FBI's Minneapolis field
    office detained Zacarias Moussaoui, a former student pilot,
    based on suspicions that he was involved in a hijacking plot.
    FBI headquarters denied the Minneapolis agents permission to
    apply for a court order to search Moussaoui's belongings.
    According to the joint inquiry conducted by the Senate and the
    House Intelligence Committees, this decision was based on a
    faulty understanding of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
    Act.
        These are only a few of the most publicized and notable
    examples of the government's failure to analyze, share, or act
    on critical intelligence information. The Joint Congressional
    inquiry into the September 11 attacks lamented that the U.S.
    Government does not presently bring together in one place all
    terrorism related information from all sources. While the
    Counter Terrorist Center does manage overseas operations and
    has access to most intelligence community information, it does
    not collect terrorism related information from all sources
    domestic and foreign.
        In addition, the Congressional inquiry found that
    information was not sufficiently shared not only between
    different intelligence community agencies but also within
    individual agencies, and between intelligence and law
    enforcement agencies.
        Now some steps have been taken to address these problems.
    The FBI has begun to place greater emphasis on developing its
    analytical capability. It has expanded its joint terrorism task
    forces and it is attempting to improve its relationship and
    communication with the CIA. More FBI personnel have been
    assigned to the CIA's Counter Terrorist Center and more CIA
    agents now work at the FBI's Counterterrorism Division.
        In addition, Congress took significant action aimed at
    improving the analysis and flow of intelligence information by
    creating the new Department of Homeland Security. One of the
    Department's directorates will be devoted to information
    analysis and infrastructure protection.
        In addition to these steps, the President has announced
    that he believes a new independent entity is needed. The
    proposal advanced by the President would create a Terrorist
    Threat Integration Center that is the focus of our hearing
    today. The center would ensure that intelligence information
    from all sources is shared, integrated, and analyzed seamlessly
    and then acted upon quickly, to quote the President. The new
    center would include staff from the Department of Homeland
    Security, the FBI, the CIA, and the Department of Defense.
        As of yet, however, we know few details about the proposed
    integration center. We have many questions regarding its
    structure, the scope of its authority, how it will interact
    with other agencies in the intelligence community as well as
    law-enforcement agencies, and even where it should be located,
    in which department?
        I believe that there are three principles that should guide
    the center's creation. First, the integration center should not
    be duplicative. Many government agencies currently conduct
    intelligence analyses. We should be working to combine these
    efforts, not duplicate them.
        Second, emphasis must be placed on sharing the integration
    center's analytical product. Good intelligence collection and
    analysis currently exists. Too often, however, the information
    does not get to those people who need it in a timely manner or
    in a form that is useful. The integration center needs to focus
    on sharing its product with other Federal agencies and, equally
    important, with appropriate State and local agencies.
        Third, the integration center must be structured in a way
    that breaks through the bureaucratic barriers that exist still
    among intelligence agencies and not hide behind them.
        I hope that today's hearing will help the President achieve
    those goals. We will review what we now know about the
    integration center, and we will ask our very distinguished
    witnesses today to discuss the elements that are necessary for
    this new entity to be the successful and efficient center that
    our President envisions and our country needs.
        I would now like to turn to the distinguished Ranking
    Member of the Committee, Senator Lieberman, for any opening
    remarks that he might have.

                 OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LIEBERMAN

        Senator Lieberman. Thank you, Madam Chairman, for holding
    this hearing, and also for your excellent opening statement.
        I consider the topic of the hearing to be one of the more
    important offensives, if I can put it that way, in the war
    against terrorism, which is the consolidation of information
    and intelligence regarding the threats that are received daily
    from an array of sources available to our government. The
    intelligence disconnect, some of which you described in your
    opening statement, Madam Chairman, that in part led to the
    September 11 terrorist attacks are an embarrassment that should
    never have happened in the first place and we must never allow
    to happen again. I appreciate your leadership here in calling
    this hearing, the first, I believe, on the President's State of
    the Union proposal to overcome some of our intelligence
    failures which is, of course, a matter of urgency.
        I also want to join you in welcoming our witnesses, Senator
    Rudman, particularly, our colleague, our never-ending source of
    wisdom, even good humor, who has proven, as my wife keeps
    telling me, that one has ample opportunities outside of public
    service to continue to serve the public and he has done it
    really well.
        Governor Gilmore, thank you for being here again. Mr. Smith
    and Mr. Steinberg, the same.
        I am disappointed that we are not going to hear from an
    administration representative today. I gather they could not
    make it today, but I am hopeful that we will have the
    opportunity soon because we have a lot of questions for them.
        We are now in the midst of a Code Orange, as everyone
    knows, a high terror alert. That combined with warnings from
    the directors of the FBI and CIA that another terrorist attack
    might be imminent, perhaps as early as this week, along with
    official suggestions that citizens create safe rooms in their
    homes and stockpile food and water, has understandably created
    widespread anxiety throughout our country. We must take this
    moment to allay the fear, but also to galvanize our government
    and to motivate all Americans to help make our country safe
    again. Creation of an effective intelligence analysis center is
    a vital step in that direction.
        The disastrous disconnects among our intelligence agencies,
    the culture of rivalry rather than cooperation, turf battles
    rather than teamwork that have plagued the intelligence
    community have been well-documented elsewhere. For some time, a
    large number of people inside and outside of Congress have been
    advocates for a central location in our government where all
    the intelligence collected by the various agencies that make up
    the intelligence community, as well as open source information
    and information collected by Federal, State, and local law
    enforcement agencies can be brought together and analyzed,
    synthesized, and shared.
        The idea is, in the familiar metaphor, to connect all the
    dots to create a full picture so that we have a kind of early
    warning on what our adversaries are up to, where they are
    planning to strike so that we can stop them before their plans
    are carried out.
        Last year, as part of the debate on the Homeland Security
    bill this Committee approved the creation of such an office. We
    were greatly aided in our work by Senator Arlen Specter and by
    the co-chairs of the Senate Intelligence Committees, Senator
    Richard Shelby and Senator Bob Graham. In fact after
    investigating the September 11 attacks, the Senate and House
    Intelligence Committees called on Congress and the
    administration to use the authority provided in the Homeland
    Security Act to establish an all-sources intelligence division
    within the Homeland Security Department. And the Intelligence
    Committee went on to lay out several criteria for this analysis
    center which I will include in the record, Madam Chairman,
    rather than reciting here.
        We had a bit of a debate during the last session on this.
    Our Committee originally proposed something very similar to
    what the Intelligence Committee was asking. The administration
    originally argued that the Department of Homeland Security's
    role here should be limited to analyzing intelligence primarily
    to protect critical infrastructure. The final legislation
    created a division within the new department that would be a
    central location for all threat information. Now I take the
    administration's proposal to have created a broad consensus and
    common ground that many have been fighting for all along, which
    is to create an all-sources intelligence analysis center.
        There remains a matter of structural disagreement, which I
    hope this Committee can consider and shed some light on, and
    hopefully extend the consensus. The President, obviously, would
    have the new center report to the Director of Central
    Intelligence rather than the Secretary of Homeland Security. I
    would like, in the weeks ahead for the administration to tell
    us how they think, if they do, that this center that they are
    proposing differs from the one created by the Homeland Security
    Act and why they have chosen to move in this direction rather
    than implementing that provision of the act.
        It needs to tell us how the so-called TTIC--as an entity
    reporting to the Director of Central Intelligence--will
    overcome the institutional rivalries to information sharing
    that has already hindered the Counter Terrorist Center at the
    CIA, and other agencies in the intelligence community--from
    becoming truly all-source intelligence analysis centers.
        It must answer questions about the center's role, if any,
    in the collection of domestic intelligence, and about the
    wisdom of expanding the role of the Director of Central
    Intelligence in domestic intelligence.
        The administration needs to let the Congress know why the
    center's director should not be confirmed by the Senate. I am
    also interested in understanding what the center's role will be
    with respect to disseminating intelligence analysis to other
    Federal agencies and to State and local law enforcement, and
    how it proposes to collect information from them.
        As the witnesses and my colleagues on the panel know,
    States local officials complain to each of us that they have
    not, up until this time, been kept in the loop by Federal law
    enforcement and intelligence agencies. And there are many
    questions about the proposed budget of the TTIC; the number of
    analysts it will have and the administration's timetable for
    getting it up and running.
        I know that we have extraordinary witnesses, very able and
    experienced who can help us illuminate and answer some of these
    questions and as I say, Madam Chairman, I look forward to
    discussing them directly with the administration's
    representatives at the earliest possible date. But for now I
    thank you for holding this hearing and for moving as
    expeditiously as you have to examine what is clearly one of the
    most important issues we face in the near term in shoring up
    our homeland defenses. Thank you.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you, Senator Lieberman. We will be
    having a second hearing at which administration witnesses will
    be called to testify. I, like you, look forward to hearing more
    from them on the details and the answers to the many important
    questions that your statement raised.
        We are now going to move to our first panel. We are
    fortunate this morning to have two extraordinary public
    servants who have given a great deal of their time and energy
    and thought to analyzing our Nation's intelligence needs. We
    are very fortunate to be joined by former Senator Warren
    Rudman, and former Governor James Gilmore. I am fighting with
    Senator Sununu for the honor of introducing Senator Rudman. I,
    too, consider him to be a constituent since he does have a home
    in Maine. But I think that your claim, Senator Sununu, probably
    goes back further so I will yield to you to introduce Senator
    Rudman.

                  OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR SUNUNU

        Senator Sununu. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman. It is
    an honor to serve in the Senate, and despite having served in
    the House for 6 years, as a new member of the Senate you come
    with some deal of trepidation. We all know that we walk in the
    shadows of our predecessors and we are prepared to deal with
    that, but it does not change the fact that sitting here in this
    Committee room for our first hearing I was a little bit
    surprised to hear Senator Rudman's name invoked a half a dozen
    times before I even got a chance to talk. And now we have a
    hearing scheduled, and of course he's here to provide his
    perspective on such an important topic.
        But rather than be discomfited by this, I fully understand
    the reason. It is an honor to serve in his footsteps but it is
    also an honor to be a part of this Committee and to be able to
    bring him forward to provide his wealth of experience.
        He has served as a Korean War veteran, as Attorney General
    for the State of New Hampshire, as a U.S. Senator, and as a
    leader of this Committee during an important time in dealing
    with questions of intelligence, oversight, and foreign policy,
    that being the hearings on Iran-Contra.
        He has remained dedicated to public service even, as
    Senator Lieberman has pointed out, after leaving the U.S.
    Senate. He has been a member of the President's Intelligence
    Advisory Board, a winner of the Presidential Gold Medal for his
    service, in particular in acting as an adviser and a resource
    on questions of intelligence. The reason his perspective has
    been so important in that regard is because he has worked with
    local law enforcement in the process of gathering and providing
    intelligence from that grass roots level.
        He has, of course, worked in a great capacity in the U.S.
    Senate dealing with Congressional oversight and our role in
    understanding how intelligence is gathered and used to provide
    for national security. He has served in the executive capacity
    as well, offering advice on the consolidation, use of
    intelligence, and sharing of intelligence.
        I cannot imagine someone who is more qualified to provide
    an important perspective on the challenge we now face, but I
    also cannot think of a challenge that is greater for the new
    Department of Homeland Security. Consolidating our intelligence
    resources, breaking down some of the cultural barriers that
    have existed to effective intelligence sharing in the past has
    been identified by this Committee and by others looking at the
    new Department of Homeland Security as one of the premier
    challenges this organization will face.
        Being able to rely on the expert perspective of Governor
    Gilmore and my friend Warren Rudman is essential to us doing
    this right the first time. Warren Rudman has been a great
    friend to me and a great friend to my family. There is always a
    wealth of pride that comes from that kind of a long-standing
    personal relationship, but in New Hampshire he is also regarded
    as a great citizen and a great public servant and that is why
    it is really a pleasure to be able to introduce him here today.
    Welcome, Senator Rudman.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you, Senator Sununu.
        Our other panelist, James S. Gilmore, served as Governor of
    Virginia from 1998 to 2002. Since 1999, he has been the
    chairman of the Congressional advisory commission on terrorism
    and weapons of mass destruction, which everyone calls the
    Gilmore Commission. In December 2002, the Gilmore Commission
    issued its fourth report which focused in part on the creation
    of an intelligence fusion center. The Gilmore Commission
    recommended the creation of a national Counter Terrorist Center
    as a stand-alone agency outside of the FBI, CIA, and DHS. It
    also recommended that this entity be an independent agency with
    a leader appointed by the President and confirmed by the
    Senate.
        Gentlemen, I am very grateful to have you join us this
    morning. I look forward to hearing your opening statements. I
    would ask that you limit them to about 10 minutes and your
    longer written statement, if any, will be submitted for the
    record without objection.
        Senator Rudman, we will start with you. Again, thank you
    for being here.

     TESTIMONY OF HON. WARREN B. RUDMAN, CO-CHAIR, U.S. COMMISSION
                   ON NATIONAL SECURITY/21ST CENTURY

        Mr. Rudman. Good morning, Madam Chairman, Senator
    Lieberman. First, let me thank my friend John Sununu for that
    very gracious introduction. I must tell you, though it is very
    elevating to be back in this hearing room where I spent so much
    time, it is a bit depressing to look at Senator Sununu and
    realize that he was 16 years of age when he and his father and
    I campaigned against each other in a Republican primary for the
    U.S. Senate. That tells me how young he is and how old I am,
    and that is a bit depressing.
        I am also delighted to see my old friend, Senator
    Lautenberg, and glad to meet for the first time, Senator
    Coleman.
        Madam Chairman, you and the Ranking Member have really
    asked a number of questions that are the questions that have to
    be answered. I doubt very much either Governor Gilmore and I
    can answer all of those questions because, although I am very
    familiar with this proposal and how it has come to be, it is
    still very much an embryonic proposal. I think one of the
    reasons you do not have administration witnesses here today is
    they wanted to be prepared to answer those very searching
    questions which I think are key.
        I think maybe the most important question that you both
    referred to in your opening statements is simply this: We are
    all very familiar with the Homeland Security Act. Senator Hart
    and our commission proposed that department and testified many
    times here before the House and the Senate. It finally evolved
    in pretty much the shape that we had hoped it would, but I have
    never really quite understood how the intelligence function
    within the Department of Homeland Security will be discharged.
    I am even confounded more with the creation of this new
    department, or this new joint venture if you will, which I
    fully support, but there has to be some sort of sharp
    delineation between the mission of the intelligence unit
    mandated by the Congress within the Department of Homeland
    Security and this new threat integration center which will be
    an all-source, all-agency unit.
        If you are not careful you will start having some crosstalk
    here between these two agencies, and the last thing you need in
    either collection or analysis is not only competition but
    confusion. So I hope that when the administration comes here,
    and I am sure they will, they will set out for you precisely
    what that is. I tried to find out for the last several days by
    talking to some of my friends and, frankly, I do not think that
    has clearly evolved, and that is understandable. This proposal
    was only evolved about a month or so ago, presented by the
    President in the State of the Union. I think when you finally
    have those witnesses here you will probably get a clear
    understanding. But I think that is one of the most important
    questions.
        When I look back at my 9 years on the President's Foreign
    Intelligence Advisory Board and chairing the board and looking
    at all sorts of all-source, raw, sophisticated, non-
    sophisticated, signals and human intel, two things occur to me.
    That the massive intelligence that is received by both U.S.
    foreign intelligence agencies and the FBI and domestic
    intelligence is daunting. The amount of reporting--I sometimes
    think we have too much reporting, not not enough.
        A good example, for those of you that have had experience
    on the Intelligence Committee, or in the Armed Services
    Committee, is the amount of information received by the
    National Security Agency. The amount of signal intel received
    there, and how it gets analyzed, and how it get
    compartmentalized, and how it gets separated is truly a
    daunting task. Now we are faced with a new issue, which is why
    I think this proposal has been made.
        We have two distinctly different kinds of intelligence that
    this government receives. One, foreign intelligence based on
    threats that are non-terrorist, that are state-sponsored as
    opposed to non-governmental organizations which are terrorist
    organizations such as al Qaeda, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and many
    others. It is very easy, or easier, to target state-sponsored
    terrorism, or if you will, state-sponsored military action,
    which is what the CIA and the NSA and all the other agencies
    have done well over a long period of time.
        It is far more difficult to try to direct intelligence,
    both signals and human intel, against people who you do not
    know who they are sometimes. They do not have an address. We do
    not know where they live. We do not know how they are
    organized. So first you have to figure that out before you know
    how to collect.
        So what they are now going to do, from what I understand,
    is to take and put together a joint venture, to put it in
    corporate terms. This is not going to be a new department or a
    new agency. It is going to be a joint venture of the CIA, the
    FBI, the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security,
    and all of the Defense Department intelligence agencies, from
    the NSA to the NRO, and all of them. They will be all located
    together and their job will be not collection--they will have
    nothing to do with collection. They will depend on traditional
    collection, foreign from CIA and all of the DOD agencies;
    domestic from the FBI, and all of their resources around the
    country. What they will do is to analyze in one place and
    collect in one place all the reporting on terrorism as opposed
    to the myriad of other things that the CIA does.
        Now one thing that has to be clearly understood by the
    public is that there seems to be an attitude out there that the
    CIA and the FBI are only concerned now with terrorism. That is
    hardly the case. There are a lot of issues in this world
    involving Asia, Europe, involving the Middle East that the CIA
    must report to policymakers on important intelligence. So this
    is not the only thing they have to do. The problem we have had
    is that it has all been amalgamated in one place even though
    the Director of the CIA and the Director of the FBI have
    labored mightily through the creation of Counter Terrorist
    Centers and joint terrorism centers to try to get it
    consolidated. Although that has worked, it probably has not
    worked well enough, so this proposal is before you.
        As I understand this proposal will be a group of
    individuals that will be solely charged with being the focal
    point for gathering collection, both foreign and domestic, on
    all matters of terrorism. Now curiously, although the number is
    classified I can tell you this, that the overwhelming amount of
    collection on domestic terrorism is collected overseas, which I
    think, Madam Chairman and Senator Lieberman, is probably the
    reason that the administration has decided, and I think wisely,
    that the Director of the CIA should be the person to whom the
    head of this new joint venture reports, because they will be
    dealing in the main with foreign intelligence. The domestic
    intelligence will be collected by the FBI, but since most of
    our adversaries in the area of terrorism are located overseas,
    although we certainly have some of them in this country, it is
    not surprising that the overwhelming amount of intelligence
    that is gathered on domestic terrorism is not gathered within
    the continental United States, Hawaii, or Alaska. It is
    collected in other places.
        So I think the structure is good. The problem will be, as
    someone once said, the devil is in the details, and I do not
    think any of us have enough detail now to be able to comment
    with any real accuracy on how it is all going to come together.
    My sense is that they have staged it about right. They are
    going to start small, and they believe they have anywhere from
    a 2 to a 4-year time line to get it fully functional, although
    it will be functioning as early as later this year. It will
    have representatives from the Bureau, from the Agency, State,
    and all of the DOD agencies. Their information technology will
    be unique in that it will connect with everyone else that is in
    this business. The Department of Homeland Security will do some
    collection through the Coast Guard, through the INS, or through
    the Border Patrol. It will also, I expect, report in to this
    unit.
        So I think that all I will say in this opening statement is
    that there are more questions right now than there are answers.
    I think the concept is very sound. I think we need a single
    place, not located at the FBI or the CIA, but a group of people
    from various parts of this government who form a team to
    analyze the kind of information that the Chairman referred to,
    which may have slipped through the cracks in the past. I think
    it is a sound proposal and I support it, but there are a lot of
    questions you are going to have to ask when you get the
    administration before you.
        Thank you.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you, Senator Rudman. Governor
    Gilmore.

    TESTIMONY OF HON. JAMES S. GILMORE, III,\1\ CHAIRMAN, ADVISORY
       PANEL TO ASSESS THE CAPABILITIES FOR DOMESTIC RESPONSE TO
            TERRORISM INVOLVING WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION

        Mr. Gilmore. Thank you, Madam Chairman, Senator Lieberman,
    and Members of the U.S. Senate. Thank you for the opportunity
    to be here to carry out our advisory function on your behalf.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Gilmore appears in the Appendix
    on page 76.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        I am the chairman of the advisory panel to assess domestic
    response capabilities with terrorism involving weapons of mass
    destruction. This is a panel that was created by law, by
    statute of the U.S. Congress at the initiation of the U.S.
    Congress.
        It was initiated by Congressman Curt Weldon, who saw the
    need for this, and then it was concurred with by the U.S.
    Senate as we moved forward. This discussion went forward at the
    end of 1998. The commission was stood up in January 1999. I was
    approached as Governor of Virginia and asked whether I would
    chair the commission. It is staffed by the Rand Corporation.
    The commission is now and has been in the past made up not by
    people from inside the Beltway, but instead the Congress in its
    wisdom decided to set up a committee that was different. The
    advisory panel that we have is heavy on fire, police, rescue,
    emergency services, health care, epidemiologists, including
    retired general officers and people from the intelligence
    community. So it is a bit of a different mix.
        In the first year that we met, in the year 1999 we did a
    threat assessment, and by statute every year we report on
    December 15 every year to the Congress and to the President. In
    that year, December 15, 1999, our first report was a threat
    assessment. We assessed the question of a genuine threat of
    weapons of mass destruction in the United States, and considerd
    at the end of the day that it was much less likely that those
    weapons could be acquired and delivered in the homeland than a
    conventional attack. We believed that a conventional attack of
    major proportions was much more probable.
        But we also refused to rule out the possibility of weapons
    of mass destruction as we had basically a 3-year commission and
    wanted to explore it further. We did say that we thought there
    was a need for a national strategy.
        In the second year when we reported in December 15, 2000 we
    did probably our most important policy work. At that time we
    reminded all authorities there needed to be a national
    strategy. We proposed the creation of a national office in the
    Office of the President to create such a national strategy. We
    defined that national strategy as not being Federal, but
    instead being Federal, State, and local all together.
        We were concerned about the issues of intelligence. At that
    time we recommended tossing out the rule that said that the CIA
    could not recruit bad guys overseas as being a fairly
    ridiculous rule. We recommended and pointed out the concern
    about stovepiping and the fact that intelligence was not being
    shared laterally across Federal agencies, and was absolutely
    not being shared vertically between Federal, State, and local
    authorities.
        In the third year, our closing year, we focused on certain
    areas where we thought the national strategy could be furthered
    by the work of the advisory panel, and that included health
    care, the concern about border controls, the use of Federal and
    locals, the use of the military and areas like that.
        Now we were basically done about the first week of
    September and sent the report off to the printer and got ready
    to go out of business a little early in October when the
    September 11 attack occurred. At the time, the Congress
    extended our commission 2 years. So we have finished our fourth
    report in December 15 of this year. This is our fourth report
    which we have submitted to the members of the Congress, the
    Senate and the House, and to the President.
        In this fourth report we go over a number of key issues. My
    admonition to the panel has been to try to stay ahead of this
    debate so that we could be of useful advice to the Senate and
    to the House. I think we have done that. I think we have stayed
    ahead of the debate as we have gone along.
        I might point out several crosscutting issues in the fourth
    report that I want to emphasize. Of all of our analysis, the
    crosscutting issues we have tried to emphasize is the
    importance of the civil liberties of the American people,
    because we are deeply concerned that we will overreact and fix
    problems structurally in such a way that we will imply dangers
    to the civil liberties of the American people.
        The second is the importance and the value of the State and
    local authorities, their need for funding, financing,
    strategizing, and exercising.
        The third is the implications of the private sector and the
    fact that most critical infrastructure is in the hands of the
    private sector, and the need to find a method by which the
    private sector is drawn in.
        And then fourth, intelligence, and the concern of all these
    crosscutting issues.
        Senators and Madam Chairman, the fourth report focuses on a
    broad range of areas. These are comprehensive reports, each of
    them that have come forward. They are extensive and detailed in
    a broad range of areas as I have laid out. The fourth report--I
    will just focus for a moment on the National Counter Terrorist
    Center that we proposed.
        On the intelligence section of this commission's report we
    expressed and focused our attention on the intelligence area.
    We saw a need for a fusion center. We have recommended it as
    the National Counter Terrorist Center. We called it the NCTC.
    Everybody in Washington has acronyms. That was ours. We
    recommended December 15 of this past year that there needed to
    be a fusion center to draw together information.
        The President announced in his State of the Union address
    the Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC), which seems to
    be a parallel concept. We congratulate the President on his
    initiative. We believed in our recommendation that it needs to
    be a stand-alone agency. We spent the better part of the year
    discussing the issue of whether it should be in the Department
    of Homeland Security or in another agency. We recommended that
    it be in no other agency or department; that it be a stand-
    alone agency, an independent agency like the EPA or FEMA or the
    General Services Administration.
        We recommended that the head of it be with the advice and
    the consent of the Senate. This parallels the recommendation
    that we had on the Office of Homeland Security in the year 2000
    where we recommended that it be at the advice and consent of
    the Senate in order to make the national legislature a full
    partner in all of these processes in the Executive Branch.
        We recommend that it not be in the Department of Homeland
    Security because the customers of this new agency, this new
    fusion center will not just be the Department of Homeland
    Security, but in addition, the Department of Justice, the
    Health and Human Services, Departments of Defense, State, and
    Agriculture. We believed that this structure of independence
    would make it a better and honest broker than having it in one
    particular department.
        We see the need for the States and localities to be tied
    in, and that this creates a vehicle for the fusion of
    information with the States and locals also, which is, by the
    way, where a broad mass of the information on law enforcement
    issues across this country is located. The Federal Government
    is poorer if they do not have the benefit of that information,
    and the States and locals are surely poorer if they do not have
    the benefit of the national collection information that is at
    the Federal level.
        The information we have is that it is still not a two-way
    street in terms of information going up and down the line
    between Federal, States, and locals but it is improving. In
    fact I had a meeting with Admiral Abbott, the President's
    homeland security adviser and they are instituting processes to
    facilitate that type of information.
        Ladies and gentlemen of the Senate, within our commission
    this is not controversial. This was, other than the fact that
    we debated some of the structural issues, the creation of a
    fusion center was easy; not a controversial proposal. I will
    not dwell on it, but I will point out that our commission, on
    the other hand, addressed the issue of the collection function,
    the gathering of counterintelligence information in the
    homeland. This was highly controversial within our commission.
    That debate is set out in its entirety in the report.
        There was a strong debate about whether or not to rely on
    the FBI to continue this counterintelligence function or
    whether a new organization should be set up. The debate was
    quite intense, quite a long discussion. I personally believe
    that we should require the FBI to carry out this function in
    its most effective way and hold them strictly accountable and
    build on their processes. That view was rejected by the
    commission. The commission has instead recommended very
    strongly that there be a new agency for the collection function
    here in the United States; a separate organization. I can
    discuss that in more detail as necessary, though it is not
    strictly, Madam Chairman, the subject of your discussion today.
        We did in our report recommend that the Congress must
    concentrate its oversight function. That it is too disparate.
    We have been saying it for years and continue to say it. We
    believe that the oversight function for this fusion center
    should be concentrated in the Intelligence Committees of the
    two houses.
        We do see this as different from some of the other
    proposals that are similar that have come forward. Senators
    Graham and Edwards have each suggested a fusion center also,
    although I believe they place it within the Department of
    Justice. Also there have been some suggestions that the
    intelligence gathering organization would look like the British
    MI5. We believe that while it is a similar concept, the
    American system probably would not tolerate a British
    organization quite like that.
        We believe the Department of Homeland Security should have
    the authority to directly levee intelligence requirements on
    this new fusion center. That is our recommendation. And we
    recommend that the Senate and House strongly urge or require
    the Attorney General to gather together all legal authorities
    in this country, which at this point are disparate and confused
    and misunderstood in broad measure, in order to make sure that
    everybody knows what everybody is doing and what they should
    and should not do, so we make sure that we protect the
    liberties of the American people.
        That I think, Senator, sums up your official advisory
    panel's recommendations. We are here at all times, naturally,
    at your disposal to continue to provide advice and counsel.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you very much, Governor.
        I was very pleased to hear your emphasis on protecting the
    civil liberties of the American people as we seek to have that
    organizational structure that will allow us to do a better job
    of connecting the dots. The administration is not planning to
    submit legislation to create the new center. Do you think it
    would be advisable for Congress to legislatively create the
    center in order to have the kinds of legal protections to
    ensure that civil liberties are not infringed upon?
        Mr. Gilmore. It would depend upon the way that the Senate
    and the House decided that they wished to define this. It is
    clear the administration believes that they have the
    administrative authority to, as Senator Rudman says, to create
    a joint venture and bring these organizations together. I
    suspect that what is at work here is an effort to try and
    experiment with this, and to draw together the people into one
    located place, as opposed to going into a legislative process
    at the beginning, which then at that point involves a great
    deal of bureaucracy and setting structures into place by
    statute. My suspicion at this point and belief is that the
    administration thinks that they would like to try it
    administratively, see how well it works. Then I would think at
    that point the option would be open to the President and the
    Congress to more institutionalize it by statute.
        Chairman Collins. You mentioned in your testimony that you
    did not think that this new entity should be part of the
    Department of Homeland Security because DHS will be a customer
    of it. You also said the commission recommended that it be a
    separate entity. What do you think of the President's plan to
    have the entity reporting directly to the CIA Director.
        Mr. Gilmore. That is a very interesting concept. I have
    been trying to analyze that as I have thought about it and I am
    aware of the Senate's concern about it.
        I believe that the commission's feeling would be that we
    strongly approve of the separation of the CIA's function and to
    not try to turn them into a domestic intelligence gathering
    organization. I do not know though that the reporting to the
    Director of Central Intelligence, who I think at the inception
    of his position was designed to be a gatherer of information in
    one place, would necessarily cross that line. Just because the
    Director of Central Intelligence is aware or is in a
    supervisory capacity for the fusion center does not necessarily
    mean that would then implicate the CIA with activities within
    the homeland.
        But there is, of course, this outstanding issue of how do
    you gather counterintelligence information in the homeland. But
    I do not think there is any proposal that the CIA should cross
    that line, but I do not think that reporting to the Director of
    Central Intelligence would cross that line.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you.
        Senator Rudman, you are very familiar with the Counter
    Terrorist Center that already exists within the CIA, and
    indeed, last year at a hearing Director Tenet described the
    Counter Terrorist Center as being created to ``enable the
    fusion of all sources of information in a single action-
    oriented unit.'' Do you see the President's proposal for a
    Terrorist Threat Integration Center as duplicating the work
    that is already being done at the Counter Terrorist Center at
    the CIA, or do you see it as adding value and an improvement
    over what we have?
        Mr. Rudman. Madam Chairman, I think it is a broadening of
    that concept by bringing more people into it in larger numbers.
    That is essentially, as I understand it, unless it has changed
    in the last year, FBI, CIA, and a few other people. This
    involves a lot more than that. This involves those two agencies
    plus a number of other places such as State, such as all of the
    DOD agencies which are not all contained there now. So I think
    it is a broadening.
        My understanding is that they are going to try to co-locate
    that with this new TTIC. That is my understanding, because they
    believe that the functions will be complementary. I agree with
    Governor Gilmore when he said that they are working their way
    through to find out how this will finally look. It well may be
    that a year or two from now you might want to create a whole
    separate unit.
        I think right now the administration feels, because of the
    criticality of the information we are trying to put together,
    that we ought to take the corporate model and have a joint
    venture, or if you will, take the model of DOD when they have
    got an action that is going to take place in a place that
    requires Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force and put
    together a joint task force to accomplish a particular mission.
    I think that is the concept here. So, no, I do not think it is
    a duplication. I think it is a broadening and probably an
    improvement.
        I want to make just one comment that is kind of tangential
    to your question. I understand the Gilmore Commission's
    position. It is a terrific report and I have followed their
    work very closely. I think you have got to think long and hard
    when you start separating collection from analysis. That's the
    problem I had with their proposal. There have been debates
    within the Gilmore Commission about that. I do not know how Jim
    personally feels about that, but as we go down the line here we
    know that the TTIC will do no collection. We know collection
    will stay exactly where it is now.
        The question then becomes, if you were to legislate and
    create a separate unit with a Cabinet-confirmed officer for a
    national threat integration department, the problem I have with
    that is, and knowing this government as I know it, at that
    point they are separated from the people who do their
    collection. I just wonder, knowing what we know over the last
    20 years, how much attention the FBI and the CIA pay to people,
    who even though they are mandated by law to do a particular
    job, are not part of their own team. The advantage of the joint
    venture is that you have got everyone there in line authority
    to the people who run the key agency.
        So it is an interesting proposal. I think you would have to
    give a lot of thought to separating collection.
        I also agree totally, we ought not to change the law upon
    the CIA's authority and its lack of authority in terms of
    collecting against U.S. citizens. We ought to keep that just
    the way it is.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you, both. We are doing 6-minute
    rounds and my time has expired so I will call on Senator
    Lieberman.
        Senator Lieberman. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Thanks again
    to both of you.
        Let me read you both a statement from the New York Times
    which I believe was on the day after the President made this
    proposal. The Times article quoted an unnamed administration
    official as stating that while the information sharing between
    the FBI, CIA, and other intelligence agencies has gotten
    better--and here is the quote--``it has been by brute force.''
        You both have had some experience in this and maybe the
    first question seems like a naive one but I think we ought to
    put it on the table. What is the problem here? Why do the
    intelligence and law enforcement communities have trouble
    cooperating in something so critical? And apparently even still
    after the horror of September 11, why do we need brute force to
    get them to do it?
        I hesitate to repeat rumors you read in the media but one
    of the news magazines published a story that the original plan
    for the Terrorism Threat Integration Center was to announce
    that there would be co-location of FBI and CIA personnel,
    apparently out at Langley. And then both objected. So for now
    that has been--I do not know if that is true--held in abeyance.
    But talk to us a little bit about the human--not the human
    intelligence but the human problems, the cultural problems that
    we face to get this job done, because it is so critical.
    Senator Rudman.
        Mr. Rudman. That is an excellent question, Senator
    Lieberman, and the answer is fairly complicated. Let me say
    what it is not. I do not believe from my experience, now which
    goes over a 20-year period dealing very intimately with these
    two groups of people, that this is a matter of obstinacy or
    stubbornness or turf. I think these people are patriotic, hard-
    working Americans who are trying to get their job done.
        Senator Lieberman. Agreed.
        Mr. Rudman. So I do not think that they are saying, I am
    not going to share this with the FBI because I won't get credit
    for it or vice versa.
        I think the problem is far more significant, and no one has
    yet figured out how to deal with it, although I think this new
    agency, this joint venture if you will, might help.
        The FBI and the CIA have total different missions. Until
    September 11, if you were to do a pie chart of the
    responsibilities of the FBI you would have a narrow sliver that
    would be counterterrorism or counterespionage, which they did
    very well during World War II. The big part of it would be law
    enforcement. Several thousand statutes comprise the U.S.
    criminal code, passed by this Congress, and the FBI is the
    primary enforcer of those laws. So their mission, in their own
    minds until that date was to investigate, go before grand
    juries with U.S. Attorneys, get indictments, and help in
    prosecution. When you look at all the corporate scandal over
    the last 2 years, who is it that is doing all the
    investigating? It is the FBI, and well they should. So that is
    their mindset.
        The CIA, on the other hand, has a far different mindset.
    Their mindset is, even if they are aware of crimes being
    committed, their job is not to go out and ``prevent crime in
    the short-term.'' Sometimes that would be counterproductive to
    getting the kind of the intelligence you want by connecting the
    dots, if you will, and connecting the people. So the agency
    would prefer to take a lot of time to get off the information
    to help protect infrastructure and people, whereas the FBI as
    soon as they have got enough information they want to go to a
    grand jury and get an indictment. So that is a very basic
    difference.
        Now I think equally important, part of the problem has been
    the inability of these two agencies, which I have personal
    knowledge of, to share information. My point being that if the
    information is in drawer A at the FBI and drawer B at the CIA
    and information ought to come together, the information
    technology has not allowed it to come together. With all due
    respect, I would say to the Chairman that although I fully
    agree there were oversights, I would like someone to go back
    and look at the reporting for the month before and the month--
    for 2 months before, 60-days reporting on terrorism at the FBI
    and the CIA. I would be willing to hazard a guess, Madam
    Chairman, there were thousands of reports. The problem was, how
    do you pick out the right ones. I mean, 20/20 hindsight is
    great. Now we look afterwards and we say, sure, they should
    have looked at it. But what were they looking at? How much
    paper were they looking at?
        Senator Lieberman. I think this may be one of the more
    interesting activities and findings of the September 11
    commission.
        Mr. Rudman. I think it is key and I hope they will look at
    that. But I would answer your collective question that if
    anything will help, this will help. They will all be together.
    They will be sharing the same information from their respective
    agencies. So that would be my answer.
        Senator Lieberman. Governor Gilmore, my time is running
    out. I would just like to ask you a related question based on
    your experience here which is, particularly in light of the
    proposal for the new Terrorism Threat Integration Center under
    the DCI, whether you think it is time to separate the Director
    of Central Intelligence from the Central Intelligence Agency?
    In other words, to create a separate DCI and then a separate
    head of CIA under that person? Whether that will, in any
    measure, contribute to the evenhandedness of the DCI, or the
    perception of it, which will help to bring these two
    communities together better.
        Mr. Gilmore. We know, Senator, there has been some
    suggestion of there being an intelligence czar actually set
    aside and put in the Cabinet separately. We have not, in our
    commission, addressed the issue of whether the Director of
    Central Intelligence should be separated out from the CIA. I
    think that would be a dramatic change which I do not think that
    certainly as an individual would want to recommend or that the
    commission would want to recommend.
        I do want to rifle-shot in on your question to Senator
    Rudman. You basically suggested that by brute force some of
    these people have come together. I do want to share with you
    several things. The commission has spent a lot of time on that
    topic, and we do believe that it is primarily cultural. It is
    based upon the long-standing tradition that knowledge is power.
    If you have got it, you have more influence than if you do not.
    That there is a fear of the violation of security, and in fact
    serious legal problems if there is a violation of security.
        I was asked a few moments ago what I thought the
    administration was doing and I answered that. But that is not
    the same thing as what the commission has recommended. The
    commission has recommended there be a separate agency
    established, a separate agency institutionalized in order to be
    a fusion center.
        We think also that there is good faith by all people but we
    do believe absolutely that there are turf battles and that
    there are cultural challenges back and forth between people
    fundamentally. We believe that there are cultural, historical
    difficulties that have been set up that we are trying to find
    an institutionalized way of overcoming. We think the fusion
    center is a clear way of doing that.
        Senator Lieberman. Thank you, both. Thanks, Madam Chairman.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you. Senator Sununu.
        Senator Sununu. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
        I want to talk a little bit more about the practical
    limitations, the practical hurdles in not just setting up this
    organization but overcoming some of the obstacles that Senator
    Lieberman just spoke about in getting information shared.
        I want to talk about the personnel, the practical question
    of who these people are, and where they come from. There are a
    number of different options but one is obviously to staff the
    integration center with personnel from FBI counterterrorism,
    from CIA counterterrorism. The other choice would be to have an
    independent staff that works only for the integration center
    and doesn't rotate back and forth between intelligence
    organizations and the integration center. I would like each of
    you to talk a little bit about which kind of an approach you
    think might be better: Permanent staff or a rotating staff, and
    why. Senator Rudman.
        Mr. Rudman. The current plan, of course, is to bring in
    people from their current positions at all of these agencies
    who have the analytical skills and experience to analyze data.
    Now frankly, it takes so long to get someone to know how to do
    that and to do it well that I do not think there is much
    choice. There is no other place in the government.
        Now as to the real--underlying your question is the issue
    of independence and I think that is a very interesting
    question. Over the long run, if you could evolve into a group
    of analysts who essentially resided there for their entire
    careers that would probably be, in my view, much better. But
    you cannot do that right away, but maybe over a 5- or 10-year
    period you can.
        If they are going to get this thing stood up in the next
    year to at least have some function they are going to have to
    get some fairly experienced analysts from the Bureau, from
    State, mainly from the Agency, who are used to looking at
    masses of data, correlating it, and being able to reach
    intelligence conclusions.
        Senator Sununu. You want a system though where those
    individuals, even after a long period of time, 5 or 10 years,
    at some point return back to the Bureau or to Central
    Intelligence. Does that foster a stronger relationship, or do
    you simply want them to spend their career at the integration
    center knowing full well that you have got to work to make sure
    that the ties, and relationships between the integration center
    and the collection organizations remain strong?
        Mr. Rudman. My personal view is that there is a certain
    advantage to have people come from their parent agency and go
    spend a few years doing something else at another place, or
    similar work in another place, then go back to their agency. I
    think it tends to give people a better idea--a good example
    would be the Congressional fellows you have here. I know I had
    several that spent several years up here from various agencies.
    They went back to their agency with a far better understanding
    of the U.S. Congress and we had a better understanding of what
    they did. So I think there are advantages to that.
        Senator Sununu. Governor Gilmore.
        Mr. Gilmore. The position of the commission is it should be
    a separate agency. That it should have its own analysts. They
    should be employees of the new agency and that is where their
    institution should be. There is a big challenge here, a
    cultural challenge that the commission has devoted all of its 4
    years to trying to address. This particular function that we
    are describing here, intelligence analysts on the
    counterterrorism side, has not been the historic career path in
    the FBI. This has been very influential in the thinking of the
    commission, particularly this year as it has gone on. It is a
    big challenge to try to break the institutional boundaries. To
    loan them would not be our recommendation.
        To devote them, to send them over there is our
    recommendation. The question we addressed as a practical matter
    is, how do you set something like this up on day one? How do
    you do that? You do not just do a standing start and bring in
    analysts and train them from the very beginning. You go to the
    places where the analysts exist and they have been trained,
    particularly the CIA which has made in fact its profession to
    do this work through its history. But to bring people from the
    other agencies as well, and to form them into one place, but to
    not loan them, but to make them part of that new permanent
    staff.
        Senator Sununu. Thank you. A second area that concerns me
    is a practical argument, I think a very practical one, that has
    been made against or raised as a concern when setting up new
    intelligence organizations, but also a concern that has been
    put forward when the question of sharing information comes up.
    Senator Rudman, you talked about the two drawers, information
    systems. You need a system or a process, whether it is
    technology-based or not, to actually get people to share that
    information.
        But in some cases there is an argument raised, we are
    concerned about providing this package of information to
    another independent group because they may then go out and
    compromise methods or sources, or share that information with
    someone that we as a different organization might not want them
    to share. They might provide it to local law enforcement when
    that is not really an appropriate consumer of this information.
    That can be willful. You can have organizations that are prone
    to leaks. But it could also be a lack of understanding of the
    sensitivities.
        My question is, in your experience where do those problems
    most often occur, are they well-founded, and are there
    different parts of an organization that are more likely to leak
    information, unfortunately willfully, or simply misapply
    information or share information with the wrong customer? Where
    might those problems occur in the chain?
        Mr. Rudman. The major problem on information sharing over
    the years has been the Bureau's deep concern that criminal
    investigations would be compromised by furnishing information
    outside of the Bureau. And the CIA's great concern, that by
    sharing information with the Bureau it might get somehow into
    hands inadvertently that would compromise sources and methods.
    So there have been cultural reasons. When Jim uses the word
    cultural, I agree, but the culture has got some basis in
    reality. These are people that have been burned on a number of
    occasions.
        Now you did something here in the Congress that I thought
    was very good last year in the USA Patriot Act. As you probably
    recall, the CIA was barred until very recently from keeping
    files on Americans. Not only could they not collect on American
    citizens, they could not even have access to the information on
    Americans. That, thankfully, has been changed. That might have
    been fine 30 or 40 years ago but it is not fine now. So now at
    least people have access to the same kind of information--this
    is on terrorism I am speaking of. But I think the cultures, as
    Governor Gilmore points out, they have prevented it. But there
    has been a basis for it.
        My problem with the fusion, and we have a friendly
    disagreement on this, my problem with that is how in the devil
    are they going to get the FBI and the CIA to give them all the
    information they ought to be giving them when they are not part
    of the same organization? You are talking about, I think, a
    very steep hill to climb.
        Senator Sununu. I see that my time is up but Governor
    Gilmore if you want to address the same question, and again in
    particular how we set up this organization so that the concern
    of the FBI about compromising criminal investigations and the
    concern of the CIA regarding sources and methods are best
    addressed?
        Mr. Gilmore. Warren is right in his analysis of what the
    concerns of the FBI and the CIA have been over the years and
    remain, in my judgment, to this day. The fusion center is
    something new. It is a new device. There is today no formal
    coordination body in existence. There are efforts between the
    different agencies to find some vehicle by which they share--
    they sit in each other's meetings and so on like that.
        This is an effort though to break through some of these
    bureaucratic boundaries, create a fusion center, and now I want
    to come to the main things here. You have got to write the
    rules. The rules have to be defined. Everybody has to
    understand what the rules of the game are. And then you have to
    hold people accountable for whether they are going to do it or
    not. There is going to have to be an understanding that
    information of this type of sensitive nature is going to have
    to be shared. If it is not shared, then there should be
    penalties connected with the non-sharing. And if it does not
    share and then information does not get fused and as a result
    Americans are injured, then there must be penalties or
    sanctions connected with all that. The rules have got to be
    written.
        And furthermore, we have not even talked about the major
    barrier, and that is the supreme and total distrust of the
    Federal Government authorities for the States and locals. The
    idea of sharing sensitive information with a police chief of a
    major jurisdiction or the governor of a State is anathema. It
    has to be broken through. So far efforts are being made to do
    that. Progress is being made, but they are trying to break a
    cultural barrier and it is going to require dramatic leadership
    at the Executive and Congressional level to make that happen.
        Mr. Rudman. Madam Chairman, I want to add, I agree with
    Governor Gilmore. One of the things that I would look at if I
    were still on this Committee, I know the administration said
    lawyers from Justice and the CIA and DOD have all looked at all
    of the statutes and say that everything is OK, this will work.
    I would want to maybe have a very intensive study done of all
    of the statutes that involve the CIA and the FBI on privacy
    issues, on sharing issues and other issues, to make sure that
    this new center operates under not only the rules, which will
    be written, but the laws that exist.
        Now it may well be that they are right, that they do not
    have a problem with the current laws, but I surely would want
    to take another look at that.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you. Senator Lautenberg.

                OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LAUTENBERG

        Senator Lautenberg. Thank you, Madam Chairman, and to my
    friend. Senator Rudman said old friend. I would say friend of
    long-standing because the rest is apparent. It's nice to see
    Governor Gilmore here. We met on TV a couple of times, had some
    fun.
        Senator Rudman comes with a remarkable record of confidence
    building and leadership from his years in the Senate.
    Universally respected and sought after by Senators regardless
    of party. The work that you did on your budget initiative
    helped us finally get to a point where we had a balanced budget
    in 1999.
        Mr. Rudman. For a little while anyway.
        Senator Lautenberg. A little while felt awful good, but
    that is what happens at times. When you sit down and you have a
    meal, it feels good and you know later on, maybe we should not
    have quite done it that way. But it is a pleasure to see you
    here, both of you, having left office formally and being called
    upon.
        Now I was never called upon to add my service so I decided
    I better run again and here I am, and glad to be here and to
    try and help solve some of the problems that we are having. The
    enormity of problems has grown in these couple years and I do
    not think it has anything to do with my departure from regular
    service, but the fact is that matters and life have become far
    more complicated. The horrible benchmark of September 11 has
    left a permanent impact almost no matter what we do.
        I wonder, Senator Rudman talked about, described a joint
    venture. When I was a CEO of a pretty good-sized company I
    liked joint ventures as long as we owned the joint. I think we
    have somewhat that problem here in government. To me, the best
    way to get an understanding of effective participation with an
    agency is the simplest way. I think you have talked about it,
    Governor. The fact is that you have to reach into these sources
    of trained people. Frankly, I would have hoped that between the
    FBI and the CIA that a task force of sorts could have been
    created with the authorities as delineated, to get the job
    done. Because one of the things that seems to be happening is
    we are adding--I do not want to sound critical, but we are
    adding acronyms because we are adding organizations and yet we
    still have that feeling of discomfort.
        I can tell you this, that the kaleidoscope of color that we
    use to warn people is just scaring the hell out of a lot of
    people. And yet we have an obligation to say, life is not
    exactly as it was and you have to be especially careful. But
    that muddle of things really worries me because there is no
    confidence yet.
        I respect the President's initiative here, and to think
    that this problem could be solved immediately and create this
    giant department, jurisdictions overlapping all of that kind of
    thing. I am very involved with the Coast Guard and I was on
    Intelligence after Senator Rudman left, and Defense
    Subcommittee on Appropriations. There is conscientious
    leadership there, but the fact of the matter is that to have
    this large safety net with the holes in it that we ultimately
    saw is a shocking thing. We cannot go back retroactively to
    pre-September 11 and say, should have, could have, would have,
    I think that is a dangerous and insignificant review.
        But where we are now, still with people wondering who is
    where--the fact is that I hear from local law enforcement
    people, they are groping for information, searching for ways to
    be included in the loop. That has got to be a large part of the
    solution to the problem. That is to be able to get this data
    out to the communities out to the States so that they feel like
    they can do something significant if an alert does come.
        So I supported the idea of the integration center, the
    fusion as you call it, Governor Gilmore, center where the data
    are collected in one place. But I for the life of me still have
    a problem trying to figure why we cannot, within the existing
    structure, create the mechanism to solve the problem. Should
    this be a direct NSA report or something like that? How does it
    get to the President? Does the President have at his daily
    briefings a review of terrorist activity? Or is it immersed in
    this whole melange of things that he has to be concerned about?
        So I am not offering much by way of advice except to say
    that if we could only get this housed, done within the
    structure that we have, trained people, people who have
    knowledge and have a place out gathering data, and do it that
    way instead of creating a whole new structure because we cannot
    get through the bureaucracy.
        [The prepared statement of Senator Lautenberg follows:]

                    PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR LAUTENBERG

        Madam Chairman, I'm glad you recognize the importance of holding a
    hearing on the ``Terrorist Threat Integration Center'' (TTIC) the
    President has proposed.
        Let me first welcome and thank the witnesses for coming today, and
    giving us the benefit of their expertise on this issue. Senator Rudman
    and Governor Gilmore have provided a great service to the nation. Their
    efforts to identify and alert us to terrorist threats and provide
    solutions to the vexing problem of defending ourselves from terrorist
    attacks are much appreciated.
        Jeff Smith and James Steinberg have wide experience in dealing with
    our national security agencies and I look forward to hearing their
    insights on what this new Terrorist Threat Integration Center's role
    should be.
        Madam Chairman, I'm disappointed the administration did not send a
    representative to inform us about its plans for this new Center. We
    need clarity and leadership from the administration on this question
    and, with all due respect to the President and Governor Ridge, we are
    not getting it.
        What do I mean by this?
        In the wake of September 11, it rapidly became apparent that an
    inability or an unwillingness of the intelligence community to share
    information played a role in our inability to prevent the attacks.
        There was a reality that there wasn't any single agency responsible
    for gathering, analyzing, and disseminating the information in a way to
    prevent and counter terrorist attacks.
        Many felt the creation of the Homeland Security Department would
    solve this problem. The notion was that the President would be briefed
    on potential terrorist attacks by the Secretary of the Homeland
    Security Department.
        Well, we have created the Homeland Security Department. But we
    still have the CIA's Counter-Terrorism Center. We have the FBI
    improving its intelligence capability. And now we have this new
    Terrorist Threat Integration Center.
        I think that the responsibility for determining the terrorist
    intelligence picture is becoming murkier, not clearer. Rather than
    reducing the number of agencies and bureaucracies with responsibility
    for this problem, they are proliferating: CIA, FBI, CTC, DHS, TTIC,
    etc. and so on.
        We are not ``connecting the dots,'' we are multiplying them.
        I must also express some wonderment about how this whole process is
    unfolding. This new Center has been created by the President outside
    the Homeland Security law. It would have seemed more logical for the
    President just to create this Center or something similar within a
    short period following September 11. If this has been an urgent
    problem, why did we wait for well over a year to create it? If the only
    question involving improving our intelligence processes was to beef up
    the CIA's ability to do so, which could have been done shortly after
    the September 11 attacks, why did we go through all the trouble and
    disruption of creating a new Department of Homeland Security?
        Between the proliferating number of agencies and the kaleidoscopic
    color scheme of threats, I worry that we are spreading fear and near
    panic in the country without materially advancing the protection of the
    nation from a terrorist attack or raising the comfort level of our
    citizens.
        We now have the Homeland Security Department and the TTIC. Since I
    doubt we will dis-establish either, we must find a way to make them
    work together.
        I look forward to hearing from these distinguished witnesses. I
    hope they will be able to indicate to us that things are getting better
    on this front--and, if they are not getting better, what can we do to
    improve the situation.
        Thank you, Madam Chairman.

        Mr. Rudman. Senator Lautenberg, let me just respond this
    way. I think that is what the administration is attempting to
    do. Now people may disagree with the form, but what they are
    essentially doing is saying we have had analysis of terrorism
    within the FBI, we have got analysis within the CIA. Most of
    the information that we get is foreign so the CIA is tasked
    with evaluating it and doing the analysis. But we have got all
    these other parts of the government that pick up bits and
    pieces, so rather than try to exhort people within the current
    boxes to do what they are doing, put together a joint venture,
    if you will, and have it report to the Director of the CIA,
    which answers your question, how does the President get
    informed? That is how he gets informed. He meets with the
    Director of the CIA, I am sure you know, mostly every day. This
    will be a major part of his reporting.
        Now under Governor Gilmore's plan it would certainly work.
    The difference would be that the director of that fusion center
    would have a separate reporting line to the President. We do
    not have to argue that here, but the concept--the only
    difference between the two ideas is one is independent and one
    is not. The basic reasoning and the need we all agree on. The
    administration has chosen to do it in a so-called joint
    venture. My view is that it is better to do that way than to
    try to do it within the current structure of the CIA and the
    current structure of the FBI, to try to move all of the people
    dealing with domestic terrorism based on foreign and domestic
    intelligence into one place. That is what the fusion center
    proposal was, so we do not really disagree on the need. We only
    disagree about the modality.
        From your comments, I would think you would probably oppose
    the creation of a new department. That is their proposal, and
    it is a very sound proposal. But there is room for reasonable
    people to disagree.
        Mr. Gilmore. A new agency. We did not even recommend the
    Department of Homeland Security.
        But with respect to, I think the answer that I would want
    to provide to you, Senator is this. You have got to identify
    the problem. We have taken a lot of time to try to think
    through what the problem is, under no pressure from anyone. We
    have tried to think about this. The problem is that you just
    cannot find a vehicle in the present structure of government in
    our Federal system that is in a position to gather together
    Federal overseas information, domestic information, human
    intelligence, signal intelligence, State, locals, private
    people, private enterprise. There just is no vehicle for that.
    There is a vehicle for intelligence to be gathered and the
    President certainly receives his daily briefing every morning.
    There is no doubt about that.
        But then as you analyze the problem that we saw in the
    past, it is not only that there is no vehicle for gathering up
    all that information, but that there are institutional and
    cultural barriers to the complete sharing. This is designed to
    be a vehicle to overcome those problems. It does not solve all
    problems, and it even creates new ones with additional
    bureaucracies. But this is the best solution that we can come
    up with balancing all the different pressures.
        Senator Lautenberg. I thank you both. Madam Chairman, we
    are developing our mandate here, and that is, as you said,
    write the rules and decide how it ought to be. This is a very
    helpful discourse and I thank you.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you. Senator Pryor.

                   OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PRYOR

        Senator Pryor. Madam Chairman, thank you. I want the record
    to reflect that my father never ran against Senator Rudman. I
    am glad he did not. He is glad he did not, but he does send his
    greetings. It is good to see you again.
        Mr. Rudman. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.
        Senator Pryor. Let me ask both of you a couple of big
    picture questions. How many employees are we talking about
    being necessary once the Center is fully operational?
        Mr. Rudman. I think it is a better question when you have
    the administration witnesses. My understanding is it is going
    to be started in phase one with probably under 100, mainly
    analytical. They will stage it on the basis, if you grow it too
    fast it will not grow as efficiently as it should. My sense is
    you are talking hundreds rather than thousands when they
    finally get to the final stage of where they want to get, which
    on my information is probably 3 to 4 years out.
        Senator Pryor. Do you agree with that, Governor?
        Mr. Gilmore. Our commission has attempted to lay out what
    we think the issues are, the challenges are, and the best
    solution. To then place ourselves of the administrative people
    who would design the specific number of hirees to do the job,
    we have not presumed to do. So the short answer is that we
    believe there needs to be a fusion center to gather this
    information together, and I am sure that the appropriate
    Executive Branch people who would come forward with a proposal
    to the Congress would lay out how many people they think they
    need to get the job done.
        Senator Pryor. Will this joint venture have its own budget
    or will the personnel, location, and overhead, be absorbed in
    other agencies' budgets?
        Mr. Gilmore. We recommend that it has its own budget in
    order to continue to provide that type of independence,
    Senator. But the question of how you would actually fund it is
    an appropriations issue; a proposal from the Executive Branch
    and an appropriations issue from the Senate. We would not be
    surprised if you were to move funding for the analysis function
    from the different agencies into the new agency in order to
    begin its funding. But since it is an independent agency we
    believe it should have its independent appropriation.
        Mr. Rudman. Senator Pryor, the administration's proposal as
    I understand it does not require a separate budget because it
    is not doing what the Gilmore Commission has recommended with
    an agency. It is essentially going to take people who are
    currently on the payroll of these various other agencies, co-
    locate them in one place, and make contributions to overhead.
        Now as a practical matter, although many of them will be
    moving to a different location doing the same job and getting
    paid the same amount of money, inevitably there will be more
    money involved and I assume that will appear in the budget for
    the respective agencies who will make a contribution. That is
    the way the appropriation process normally works.
        Mr. Gilmore. It does however raise an issue. If you co-
    locate people in that manner one might ask the analyst who he
    works for. I think his answer would be what everybody in the
    world would answer, the guy who writes my paycheck is my boss.
    Therefore, the fusion center will really not have employees
    under this proposal. That will create a management challenge,
    but I believe that there is a sense that once identified that
    the heads of the CIA and the FBI will be in a position to
    provide that management. But I think I have identified the
    management challenge to you.
        Senator Pryor. I agree, I think it is a challenge. However,
    I think we can overcome it. It seems like something we can work
    through and work out and come up with a very positive
    management structure and accomplish the mission.
        I am aware you have a joint venture here where the
    employees come from different agencies. I am assuming that the
    creation of this center does not relieve the other agencies
    from doing their own analysis and making their own
    determinations. In other words, they do not cede their
    responsibility to this new joint venture. But it is a little
    bit redundant, and redundancy in this case may not be a bad
    idea because theoretically this new center may be in a superior
    position to analyze data coming from a lot of different
    sources. Is that the way you understand it, Governor?
        Mr. Gilmore. That is a very complicated point. It could
    create redundancies. I think that the sense of our commission
    is that the primary function for this type of analysis ought to
    rest in the fusion center. Now I guess that administratively it
    probably does not make sense to deprive the individual agencies
    of all ability to analyze information, otherwise how do they
    know what to give, and how do they know how to understand what
    they are getting. So I think I see that administrative point
    and I think that we would concur with that.
        But I think we should guard against co-locating equal
    amounts of analysis capacity in both places because then the
    individual agencies I think would have a tendency to say, who
    needs that?
        Mr. Rudman. Senator Pryor, that gets back to the Chairman's
    position on duplication. My sense is that, although obviously
    both the Bureau and the Agency will retain some analytical
    ability in the area of terrorism, I think the overwhelming
    amount of analysis is going to be done at this new joint
    venture, whether it be a joint venture or whether it be a
    fusion center. It just seems to me that is what is going to
    happen, because you do not have, unfortunately, that many
    people who are all that well-trained in this area. You are
    going to have to take a lot of them over the next several years
    and move them into this new co-located position.
        Now you have a practical matter, knowing the way these
    places work, since the collection is coming through the eyes
    and ears of either the CIA or the FBI, it would be to me almost
    incredible if that would not be looked at, put in a sealed
    envelope and sent across the city electronically or otherwise.
    Obviously, people are going to be aware of it and contribute
    some analysis to it.
        But that is not really your question. Your question is, is
    there going to be major analytical capability still at these
    places? I would hope not because then you get into duplication
    and then you get into some competition. I would hope this would
    be the place where the threat of terrorism and all intelligence
    thereto is analyzed.
        Mr. Gilmore. Madam Chairman, may I add a point on that?
        Chairman Collins. Certainly.
        Mr. Gilmore. Because I want to address this issue of
    duplication which has emerged. I think that it is important to
    keep your eye on the ball. Focus on the issue. The issue is,
    what is the problem here? How do we share information? How do
    we get this information co-located in such a way that we share
    the dots. So that something significant from CIA combined with
    something from FBI suddenly has meaning where in the two pieces
    it may not. That is the issue.
        The fusion center, the President's proposal, all these
    things are very much the same proposal. It is just a matter of
    administratively how you are going to shape it. They are
    intended to address that issue. Therefore, the question is does
    duplication become a disqualification of the solution? It does
    not. It merely becomes a challenge that has to be worked
    through and minimized.
        Senator Pryor. I agree with you. I can live with some
    duplication if we accomplish the goal we are setting out to
    accomplish. The question is always how to do it in the most
    efficiently, and effectively manor possible. That is a
    challenge that we all wrestle with here every day and I know
    you will too.
        Thank you, Madam Chairman.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you, Senator. Senator Akaka.

                   OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR AKAKA

        Senator Akaka. Thank you, very much, Madam Chairman. I
    thank you for this opportunity and I welcome Senator Rudman and
    Governor Gilmore. Senator Rudman, I knew you when I was in the
    House, and I know of your work in the Senate and you have
    really served our country well as a Senator, and even after the
    Senate.
        My concerns have been that we may have too many centers.
    The President in his State of the Union speech did add a new
    key component though which he called a Terrorist Threat
    Integration Center. I can see his intent there, and especially
    when we think that we have many centers. Yesterday I met with
    Dr. Cambone. He was nominated to a new position in the Defense
    Department and that position is undersecretary of intelligence.
    Now here is another effort in facing the threats of our
    country, not only domestic but foreign threats. So my concern
    is there may be too many centers trying to do the same thing.
        [The prepared statement of Senator Akaka follows:]

                      PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR AKAKA
        Thank you Madam Chairman for organizing today's hearing. I am
    pleased that the Committee is continuing to focus on critical issues
    relating to our national security.
        I am disappointed that the administration could not be with us
    today. The President's proposal to establish a Terrorist Threat
    Integration Center was one of the key components of his State of the
    Union address and the administration has issued several briefing papers
    on the concept.
        Yesterday I had the opportunity to meet with Dr. Steve Cambone who
    has been nominated to the Defense Department position of Undersecretary
    for Intelligence. This is a new position at Defense is one of many
    additional efforts underway to improve intelligence management.
        I am concerned that there may be too many centers being created to
    respond to the same threat. For example, the CIA has its Counter
    Terrorism Center--the Defense Intelligence Agency has its counter
    terrorism center--the new Department of Homeland Security will have an
    Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection Directorate--the
    Army has an Information Dominance Center--DOD is developing a Total
    Information Awareness program--and the FBI has a Counter Terrorism
    Division. Now the President proposes a new Terrorist Threat Integration
    Center.
        When this Committee marked up the Homeland Security bill, I worked
    with Senators Lieberman, Levin, and Thompson to craft an intelligence
    division to ensure the Department received sufficient information
    concerning domestic threats and had the capability of responding to
    those threats. Unfortunately, that proposal was later rejected by the
    administration. My concern then--and now--was that there would be
    duplication of effort in the intelligence arena.
        There can be only so many cooks in a kitchen.I think we have
    already reached our limit when it comes to analyzing intelligence
    information. We have a limited number of qualified intelligence
    analysts and a limited number of agents in the field developing
    information. Creating numerous centers in Washington--all looking at
    the same information--does not mean we will be better prepared for
    countering terrorist threats.
        We have an esteemed group of experts this morning, including our
    former colleague, Senator Rudman. I look forward to their comments on
    this subject and I commend our Chairman for holding this hearing.

        Senator Akaka. Under the administration's plan, and I would
    like to direct this to the Governor, the Director of the CIA
    will inform the President about threats, but who is responsible
    for ensuring domestic investigation of threats that take place,
    and State and local enforcement are kept in the picture?
    Governor Gilmore, am I correct in thinking there is currently a
    disconnect?
        Mr. Gilmore. Yes, Senator, there is a disconnect. I think
    that most people have understood that since September 11 as
    they have tried to analyze the problem and are trying to find
    ways to address that.
        Just to touch on your Department of Defense comment just as
    a potential for more and more centers trying to do the same
    thing. It certainly is contemplated, I think, that this fusion
    center, this integration center, or however it is defined or
    structured would include people from the Defense Intelligence
    Agency, from the Department of Defense as well as from the CIA
    and the FBI and hopefully a place also for State and local
    people. It is a desire to begin to combine things in a way that
    structurally we have never done before.
        I might point out, by the way, that I have spoken to some
    leaders in law enforcement from some of the major
    municipalities of the country and they have indicated that the
    FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Forces are doing some more of that
    communication and that they do feel like they are having an
    opportunity to work on the same team with that program. So that
    seems to be a program that is making some progress in terms of
    the collection efforts, in terms of the team for gathering
    information.
        But at the end of the day I think there is a near virtual
    consensus everywhere that there needs to be some type of
    integration center or fusion center so that everybody has a
    centrally located place to learn all the information gathered
    from all the disparate areas as you have described.
        Senator Akaka. Senator Rudman, I know because of your
    background and experience as a Senator and your participation
    in security matters as well, I ask for your assessment and also
    your thinking about--and if you can explain to me what you know
    about the Terrorist Threat Integration Center that the
    President is proposing and whether that would answer my
    question, which officially is in charge of bringing together
    all foreign intelligence concerning threats inside the United
    States and the domestic law enforcement information about
    domestic threats and ensuring first that this information is
    thoroughly evaluated and that a timely investigation takes
    place?
        And second, who ensures that local officials who might be
    affected by a threat are kept in the picture? I am hoping that
    the President's proposal on integration will bring that about.
    I was thinking of it in terms of the interagency coordinating
    group that would do this. Can you give me your views on that?
        Mr. Rudman. I will, Senator Akaka. Thank you for your
    gracious comments. I enjoyed our service together.
        Let me tell you that I do not think that I necessarily know
    the answer to that and I think that is a better question for
    the administration witnesses. But I think I know what the
    answer will probably be, so on that basis I will tell you what
    I believe the answer is but I just do not know for certain.
        I am sure that this new threat analysis center will carry
    out the function that you are speaking of. I think theirs is
    purely analysis. The question then becomes, what happens to
    their product? Let us assume that their product produces a
    specific threat to Honolulu. The question is, how does the
    chief of police of Honolulu and the Governor of Hawaii get to
    know this information? That is really your question.
        I think there are two answers to that question, or at least
    there should be. It is, I believe, now the primary
    responsibility of the FBI and the Department of Homeland
    Security to coordinate with local communities to make sure that
    the kind of information they have not been getting they will be
    getting.
        It is my understanding that there is currently a program
    underway in which the police authorities of major cities are
    getting Federal security clearances, which is a very unique new
    program. It is not a classified program. It is known. It was
    spoken about publicly at a meeting I was at yesterday. So that
    there is more ease of passing on that information to people.
        For instance, it is hard to believe that when Governor
    Gilmore was Governor of Virginia it would have been a Federal
    crime for an agent to share certain classified information with
    him because he did not have the clearance. Now it certainly
    seems to me that the mayor and the chief of police of New York
    ought to be able to get classified information. So I think they
    are working in that direction but not through this center. I
    think those questions are better directed at the FBI and
    Governor Ridge to see if they are upping their efforts to get
    clearances and find ways----
        And finally let me say just one other thing that was
    inherently contained in your question. I have long believed
    that the balance between protecting sources and methods and
    protecting the American people from great harm has to be
    rationalized in some way. Where I come out on it is simply
    this. I believe that if we have a specific threat, as opposed
    to what we have right now, a specific threat based on good
    information of a major terrorist action against a particular
    city during a particular time frame, that sources and methods
    ought to be compromised if necessary to protect that population
    from that injury. That is a debate you will have to have within
    the community.
        Senator Akaka. Governor Gilmore.
        Mr. Gilmore. Senator, if I may just add, in my discussions
    with Admiral Abbott he has indicated that they in fact are
    starting a program where they are beginning to go through the
    process of clearing the governors and clearing of major law
    enforcement key personnel in the respective States. Then you
    begin to put in all the safeguarding rules, all the penalties
    for violation of that, all of the training that goes along with
    that. I think that it can work and should work.
        I think that if a politician in a State, the same thing as
    a politician at the Federal level--politicians are politicians,
    if they reveal information in order to gain some type of
    political advantage and so on, there ought to be penalties
    involved with that. I think once you set up this kind of
    structure then everybody is going to understand what the rules
    are and how they are supposed to adhere to them.
        Senator Akaka. Thank you so much for your responses. Thank
    you, Madam Chairman.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you, Senator.
        Before I let this distinguished panel go I just want to
    follow up on the issue of how the new center would interact
    with State and local law enforcement officials, which both of
    you have talked about as well as several of the members of this
    panel. Recently in Portland, Maine, for example, the local
    police detained a foreign national who was visiting on a
    tourist visa who was spotted photographing an oil tank farm on
    the Portland waterfront, obviously an action of some concern.
    The local police, however, had an extremely difficult time
    getting information from the FBI about whether or not this
    individual was on any watch list or if his actions were a
    matter of concern. So I think we still have long ways to go as
    far as information sharing and developing the trust among
    various agencies at various levels of government.
        Do you think that State and local law enforcement officials
    should have direct access to this new center or a way to
    somehow tap into information directly? Senator Rudman.
        Mr. Rudman. I do not, Senator Collins. I think that the
    nature of the information they will be having to compile, their
    analysis product based on foreign and domestic intelligence,
    cannot be shared on a demand basis. What I do believe is what
    you intended in the Department of Homeland Security
    legislation. I believe that DHS primarily is going to become
    responsible for liaison, both information technology and
    verbally, with local law enforcement. I believe that they ought
    to be on the front line, and I expect they will have people in
    this new center who can pass on to the chief of police of
    Portland, Maine that this person is on a watch list and do it
    in real time.
        But I think that is the way it ought to be done. I think
    you have got to limit access to this product. Not limit access
    to those who need it, but limit general access to it. Then you
    get into some issues that I think would cause a lot of
    problems.
        Chairman Collins. Governor Gilmore.
        Mr. Gilmore. If I understand Senator Rudman, I think that
    our commission would disagree. We believe that there ought to
    be co-located people, representative people from States and
    local organizations to begin to understand the nature of what
    is going on in the States. There is a serious cultural problem
    here. We identified it years ago. It remains to this day. It is
    the inherent feeling of Federal law enforcement authorities
    that they are superior.
        The reason that they think they are superior is because
    they are better funded by the Congress than local law
    enforcement agencies are able to be. They have, therefore,
    access to more people and more resources. Therefore they think
    they are superior.
        But that is balanced by the fact that local law enforcement
    people are in more places, seeing more things across this
    Nation each and every day. Therefore, the Federal authorities
    are not superior. They are just different. Therefore,
    culturally, things have got to work out in a way that can
    harmonize these two things together. I think the recommendation
    of our commission would be that the fusion center creates a
    vehicle for the gathering together of all the different
    organizations. There even should be some facility or some
    ability to have an open channel of communication with private
    enterprise.
        Chairman Collins. I want to thank both of you very much for
    your testimony this morning. Both of you have been extremely
    generous with your time and your experience and we very much
    appreciate your appearing this morning. So thank you, both.
        I now would like to call forth our second panel of
    witnesses this morning. James Steinberg is the vice president
    and director of foreign policy studies at the Brookings
    Institution. He served as deputy national security adviser in
    the Clinton Administration as well as director of policy
    planning staff and deputy assistant secretary for the Bureau of
    Intelligence and Research at the Department of State.
        Jeffrey Smith is a formal general counsel of the CIA and
    formal general counsel of the Senate Armed Services Committee
    under Senator Nunn. He is now a partner at Arnold and Porter.
        We welcome you both here this morning. We very much
    appreciate your taking the time to appear. Mr. Steinberg, we
    are going to begin with you.

    TESTIMONY OF JAMES B. STEINBERG,\1\ VICE PRESIDENT AND DIRECTOR
          OF FOREIGN POLICY STUDIES, THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION

        Mr. Steinberg. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman. I very
    much appreciate the opportunity to be here, and I commend you
    and the Committee on having these hearings because I think this
    is one of the most critical topics that we as a Nation face. As
    you pointed out, although a number of actions have been taken
    concerning homeland security, one area that has not gotten the
    degree of attention that I think it deserves is the
    organization of our intelligence efforts, so I think this is
    very welcome.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Steinberg appears in the Appendix
    on page 95.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        I have a longer statement for the record and I will just
    summarize a few points for you. As you heard from the previous
    panel I think there is a general agreement that there is a need
    for greater integration of our efforts to analyze the threat
    and the nature of the challenges that we face in the area of
    counterterrorism. Where I differ from my distinguished
    colleagues who you heard from in the previous panel is that I
    believe that this effort should be focused in the Department of
    Homeland Security, and I think that is consistent with the
    intention of the Congress when it created the department, and
    particularly the Office of Intelligence Analysis and
    Infrastructure Protection.
        As you stated in your opening statement, the House and
    Senate joint inquiry into the attacks of September 11 really
    demonstrated the problem that we have in terms of bringing
    together and sharing information. I will not repeat the quote
    that you gave because I think it is exactly to the point of the
    challenge that we faced. Before I discuss the specific ways of
    how we should respond, it is important to spend a minute
    discussing the nature of the intelligence challenge that we
    face in dealing with counterterrorism, because only by
    understanding the dimensions of the problem can we develop an
    appropriate architecture or organizational structure that is
    appropriate to the task.
        The intelligence challenge in counterterrorism has four key
    components. First we need to collect timely, relevant, and in
    the best case, actionable information. Second, we need to
    collate or bring together the information from the full
    spectrum of sources. Third, we need to analyze the information;
    as others have said, connect the dots. And finally, we need to
    disseminate that information to those who need to act on it,
    policymakers, law enforcement officials, the private sector,
    and the public in a form that allows them to use that
    information to accomplish their mission.
        In the fight against terrorism these tasks are far more
    difficult in many ways than the intelligence challenge we faced
    during the Cold War. Today, terrorists threaten us at home and
    abroad. As Senator Rudman observed, they have no fixed
    addresses and we only occasionally know their identities or
    their targets. Technology and globalization have made it easier
    for would-be terrorists to bring dangerous people and weapons
    into the United States, and to conceal their activities.
        Key information that we need to detect and prevent
    terrorist attacks lie in the private sector, at airlines and
    flight schools, with operators of chemical plants, and high-
    rise buildings, with local police and community doctors, and we
    must increasingly count on the private sector and State and
    local governments to take the actions necessary to prevent
    attacks or deal with their consequences. We need to adopt our
    intelligence efforts and the organization of our intelligence
    community to meet this radically different challenge.
        In your opening statement you identified a number of the
    small steps that have been taken today and these are welcome.
    But I think that is true that as many of the witnesses and the
    Members of the Committee have noticed, that there is a tendency
    to focus primarily on the role of the Federal Government in
    carrying out these tasks, but in reality we see that there are
    a wide variety of actors who are crucial: Foreign governments,
    State and local officials, business, and private citizens. They
    all have access to information that may be relevant to the
    terrorist threat. They have expertise that can help us
    transform this raw information into meaningful intelligence.
    And perhaps most important, they are the key players who need
    to act on this intelligence, to apprehend a suspect, to prepare
    public health facilities in the event of an attack, to secure
    critical infrastructures, etc.
        Now the reason I have stressed the importance of
    understanding these different functions is because they provide
    key guidance for the critical question of how we should
    organize the intelligence efforts. The necessary elements, in
    my view are, first, we need a strategy for identifying the
    kinds of information we need to collect on threats and
    vulnerabilities.
        Second, we need a network, a decentralized network designed
    to permit sharing of information among the widest possible
    group of collectors, analysts, and implementers at all levels
    of government, and between government and the private sector.
        Third, we need a focal point for bringing all the
    information together to be integrated and analyzed.
        And fourth, and I think this is extremely important, we
    need an accountable organization that assures that the right
    information is being collected and the results of collection
    and analysis are shared in a timely, usable way with those who
    need to act on it.
        Judged by these tests, the administration's proposed
    Terrorist Threat Integration Center represents a partial step
    forward in helping to build a network bringing together foreign
    and domestic intelligence collection and a place where this
    information can be integrated. But it fails to meet the other
    key tests, particularly in developing a structure that will
    increase the chances that we will collect the right information
    and that will link the collection and analysis to those who are
    responsible for taking the necessary actions to prevent
    attacks, protect our people and critical infrastructure, and
    mitigate the consequences of any attack that might take place.
        I think, therefore, in this respect that the Terrorist
    Threat Integration Center is a step backwards from the approach
    that you adopted in the Homeland Security Act of 2002 creating
    the Department of Homeland Security. Yes, we have closed the
    seam between foreign and domestic intelligence, and it does
    recognize the need to draw on broad expertise. But by placing
    the TTIC under the direction of the Director of Central
    Intelligence rather than the Secretary of Homeland Security,
    and disconnecting it from those with direct responsibility for
    safeguarding homeland security, the administration fails to
    develop an effective and integrated approach to countering the
    terrorist threat to the United States, and risks, as many of
    the members of the panel have suggested, creating more
    duplication that could harm the homeland security effort.
        After all, the Department of Homeland Security was created
    to be the hub of our homeland security efforts. Unlike any
    other official, the Secretary of Homeland Security's sole
    responsibility is to see that the necessary actions are taken
    to secure our borders, to protect critical infrastructure, to
    defend against biological, chemical, nuclear, and radiological
    attacks, and to respond to emergencies that do occur.
        Importantly, the statute specifically gives the Secretary
    responsibility for coordinating with State and local officials
    and with the private sector. So in order to carry out the
    functions that you gave him in the statute, he has got to be
    able to link the decisions about what information we collect
    and what information we share with his responsibility to take
    the necessary actions. I think that is the important difference
    between locating this effort in the Department of Homeland
    Security and making it a separate entity, whether a joint
    venture or an independent effort.
        I think the importance of this linkage is most clear in the
    case of protecting our critical infrastructures. Only by
    matching analysis of the threat against the analysis of
    vulnerabilities that the department is responsible for can we
    know how to prioritize both what intelligence we collect and
    what protective measures we must take. The synergy created by
    linking intelligence and collection analysis and operational
    responsibility can lead to better quality intelligence, more
    actionable intelligence, and greater incentives for the
    intelligence to flow to those who need it in a form that they
    can use.
        By taking these functions away from the Department of
    Homeland Security we risk having a secretary and department who
    have accountability for homeland security but no authority to
    assure it. In my judgment, this has been the consistent problem
    in dealing with threats to the homeland with responsibility
    widely dispersed throughout the Federal Government and that has
    seriously hampered our efforts.
        I think there is an important question about maintaining
    the independence of this analysis. Therefore this fusion center
    in the Department of Homeland Security should also have the
    general oversight of the Director of Central Intelligence just
    as he has oversight over the Department of Intelligence
    Research at the State Department, the Defense Intelligence
    Agency, etc.
        But along with this authority that I would give to the
    Secretary of Homeland Security there is also a responsibility
    to make sure that this information is collected consistent with
    fundamental civil liberties, because the homeland security
    challenge will rely heavily on information collected from the
    private sector, and from a wide range of domestic activities.
        Moreover, to carry out the homeland security challenge,
    vital information will need to be widely disseminated. It will
    be, therefore, all the more important to develop clear, public
    guidelines for the acquisition, retention, and dissemination of
    information, particularly personally identifiable information.
        Whether the new threat integration center is placed under
    the authority of the DCI, or as I have suggested under the
    Secretary of Homeland Security, the long-term acceptability to
    the American people of our heightened intelligence effort will
    depend on our ability to demonstrate that we are undertaking
    these new tasks with due regard for privacy and individual
    liberty. Formal guidelines subject to public comment and
    Congressional oversight, and accountable mechanisms to make
    sure those guidelines are adhered to, are essential to this
    goal.
        Thank you for the opportunity to appear today. I look
    forward to your questions.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you, Mr. Steinberg. Mr. Smith.

    TESTIMONY OF JEFFREY H. SMITH,\1\ FORMER GENERAL COUNSEL (1995-
                1996), CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (CIA)

        Mr. Smith. Thank you, Madam Chairman, for inviting me to
    appear. As with Mr. Steinberg, I have a longer statement that I
    would like to submit for the record that I will summarize very
    quickly and we can get to questions.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Smith appears in the Appendix on
    page 100.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        This is an extremely important issues. There have been a
    lot of changes, so I think we might begin by listing a few
    principles that ought to govern the collection and analysis of
    intelligence for domestic security.
        First, there should be a unity of effort and unity of
    command.
        Second, there must be clear channels among collectors,
    analysts, operators, and consumers--the linkages that Jim spoke
    of. This has to be a two-way channel with information flowing
    up and down.
        Third, there has to be a smooth flow of information among
    other sources of information and between State, local and
    Federal officials.
        Fourth, we should avoid overlap between intelligence
    agencies. The boundaries should be clear but not impervious or
    rigid, and some competition, as Senator Pryor suggested, can be
    helpful.
        Fifth, intelligence analysts must be independent. Indeed,
    that is why the CIA was created in the first place.
        Sixth, the analysts and indeed all intelligence activities
    must be accountable to the political leadership of this country
    and to the Congress.
        Seventh, we must take all measures to protect the civil
    liberties of American citizens.
        Eighth, any organizational structure can be made to work
    even if it looks dysfunctional on paper. The keys to success,
    in my judgment, are good people, strong leadership, and
    stability. In that regard I am reminded of Norm Augustine's
    wisdom that sometimes we check on the health of a plant by
    pulling it up to look at the roots, and that is not a good
    thing.
        Finally, an analytical organization is only as good as the
    information it has to analyze. There was much criticism after
    September 11 that we had not connected the dots. The major
    problem is, we just do not have enough dots. I think a renewed
    emphasis must be placed on collecting more intelligence,
    especially human intelligence.
        Now let me turn to a few of the specifics of the
    President's proposal. It is a good idea and I support both the
    concept and the proposed implementation of it. However, I
    believe it is only a first step toward what I believe we
    ultimately need, which is a viable domestic intelligence
    service. The Department of Homeland Security clearly needs an
    intelligence function. I agree with everything that Jim has
    said about the need to have it linked to ultimately the
    responsibilities of the Secretary. However, I think for the
    moment I would leave it under the Director of Central
    Intelligence until ultimately it would be moved, in my
    judgment, to a domestic security service that would be part of
    the Department of Homeland Security.
        Indeed, as Governor Gilmore said, many people believed
    after Congress passed the homeland security bill that this
    function would be housed in the directorate of infrastructure
    security at Homeland Security. However, the President has
    decided that it ought to be under the DCI. As I understand the
    plans of the administration it is to create the TTIC as a
    fusion center that will ultimately combine the databanks of
    several agencies including the FBI. It will be a joint venture
    that will build on the strengths of the current organizations.
    People will remain employees of their agencies but will be
    secunded to this center.
        The recent changes in the Patriot Act now permit wider
    exchange of information between law enforcement and
    intelligence agencies and that should make it possible to
    permit a common database so that the chief of police in
    Portland could call this center either directly or through
    Homeland Security. But they have to have access to that
    information, you are absolutely right. And they ought to
    produce a common watch list that is available to everybody in
    the country who needs it.
        The President's desire, as I understand it, is to try to
    build on what is already working. The officers who are assigned
    to this center will be able or are encouraged to have strong
    ties back to their home agencies including, I am told, even the
    right to have access to operational traffic within their
    agency, which is a very important element.
        At the same time, there will be much confusion as the
    center is being created. The FBI has been trying to do this,
    the Department of Homeland Security has been trying to do it,
    and now we have yet a new center. There will clearly be some
    confusion and Congress needs to keep an eye on it. I
    understand, for example, in the President's budget that he has
    just submitted contains $829 million for DHS's information
    analysis and infrastructure directorate. Is that money then to
    stay in Homeland Security or does that somehow get shifted to
    the intelligence community for this function?
        Jim and I agree, the intelligence element of homeland
    security should report directly to the Secretary, and he went
    through the functions that they need to perform with which I
    agree and I will not talk about that.
        Let me talk about a couple of specific questions the
    Committee has asked me to address. First, I do not believe that
    there are any unique legal or privacy concerns raised merely
    because the DCI will now be responsible for the analysis of
    domestic intelligence.
        However, I would like to point out to the Committee that
    under current law the DCI, ``in his capacity as head of the CIA
    shall have no police, subpoena, or law enforcement powers or
    internal security functions.'' Two aspects of this are worth
    dwelling on for just a moment.
        First, the law draws a distinction between the DCI's role
    as head of the CIA and as head of the broader intelligence
    community. This suggests that Congress recognized that as head
    of the intelligence community he would inevitably have some
    role in domestic intelligence and law enforcement matters.
    However, Congress was rightly concerned about the creation of a
    domestic secret police, and thus barred CIA from having any
    police or internal security functions.
        The second clause of this provision, ``shall have no
    internal security functions'' is also worth a moment's
    discussion. I have always understood it to mean that the CIA
    may not play any role in domestic law enforcement other than
    the collection and analysis of foreign intelligence that may
    relate to law enforcement or domestic security. Indeed, CIA has
    done that since its establishment.
        For example, it collects information relating to espionage
    directed against the United States, collects information
    relating to narcotics trafficking, money laundering, and so on.
    However, as this center is established it would be well to
    consider carefully the limits of what the DCI and the TTIC will
    do to be certain that we are comfortable with their roles. Some
    additional guidelines may be necessary to determine where the
    line is between intelligence relating to domestic terrorism,
    which would be legitimate areas for the center to address, and
    intelligence relating to purely domestic political groups which
    should be left with the FBI.
        The center should not, for example, be used to analyze
    information on domestic political groups such as right wing
    militia or hate groups. It must continue to follow the existing
    Attorney General guidelines on such matters as the collection
    and dissemination of information. I, for one, am comfortable
    with the President's proposal but I believe vigorous
    Congressional oversight is needed and perhaps some new
    guidelines.
        Finally, Madam Chairman, as this Committee knows, I have
    been an advocate for some time for creating a domestic security
    service and I think this is the first step in that direction. I
    know Senator Edwards introduced a bill yesterday to this
    effect, Senator Graham has talked about the same thing. I think
    it is time to seriously give that consideration. Thank you.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you very much, Mr. Smith.
        Why don't we start with the point you made last and I would
    like to ask Mr. Steinberg your judgment on whether or not we
    should create a domestic intelligence agency? Many of us have
    concerns about the civil liberties implications of that and I
    would welcome your judgment.
        Mr. Steinberg. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I think that the
    civil liberties issues that we face exist irrespective of where
    the domestic collection takes place. We have civil liberties
    issues if the FBI remains the principle domestic security
    organization or if we have an organization that is separate. On
    balance, I agree with Jeff Smith that we would be better off
    with a separate organization. First, because I do believe that
    a domestic security operation is a very different function than
    law enforcement. We heard earlier from the early panel about
    the cultural problems. I think in some respects that if we try
    to turn the FBI into something which it has not been, we will
    not get the benefit of what the FBI does well, which is an
    important law enforcement function, and will begin a new role
    from a place where they are affected by their traditions.
        So I think we need a fresh start. I think we need to look
    at this question, and I think that the advantage of having a
    separate organization is that we can have a public debate about
    what the rules are that should govern it. If we were to create
    such an organization we would be able to have decisions in the
    statute that created it providing clear guidelines on civil
    liberties measures, on accountability and the like, and it
    would allow us to have a fresh debate that I fear we will not
    have if we simply move the FBI into the domestic security
    function and away from law enforcement.
        I think we do have to remember the difficulties that the
    FBI had in the past when it did play a bigger role in domestic
    security. So I do not feel that just simply by keeping it in
    the FBI that we can necessarily address those problems. I think
    by creating an organization that is focused on the domestic
    security function you will have an organization that defines
    its mission as protecting the American people and is organized
    to do that in the most effective way.
        Chairman Collins. Mr. Smith, based on your experience at
    the CIA do you see duplication between the CIA's Counter
    Terrorist Center and the proposed new integration center? How
    do they differ? It was my understanding that the Counter
    Terrorist Center was supposed to conduct all-source analysis
    and in fact Director Tenet just last year said that it was
    created to enable the fusion of all courses, the same kind of
    language that is being used now to justify the creation of the
    new integration center.
        Mr. Smith. I agree, Madam Chairman, and I think what will
    happen here or what should happen is that the current CTC
    should get much smaller and it should probably focus very much
    on overseas collection of intelligence and overseas operations.
    The analytical function currently being done by the CTC should
    be moved to this new center and combined with the analytical
    functions of the Bureau, because I do think unless that shift
    is made there will continue to be overlap and confusion.
        Chairman Collins. Mr. Steinberg, do you have any thoughts
    on that?
        Mr. Steinberg. I think it is a very good question, Madam
    Chairman, because we have to ask ourselves the question why the
    CTC has not been as successful as we want it to be, and whether
    creating an organization which sounds very much like what the
    CTC was supposed to be would solve the problem.
        I think that there are two reasons why the CTC has not been
    successful. First is, as you explored at length with the first
    panel, there is a problem with joint ventures.
        There is a question of what is the principal set of
    responsibilities of the people who work there, how do they
    think about the problem? I think it is a lesson we learned from
    the Goldwater-Nickles Act in the military context. That if you
    do not give a sense of jointness, of being on the same mission
    to the people who are taking on this task together, they will
    still feel they belong to the domestic equivalent of the Army,
    Navy, Marines, and the like, that you are not going to get the
    kind of coherence and integrated approach that you want. I
    think that has been one reason why the CTC has not been as
    successful as it should be, and that I think will be replicated
    in the new proposal for the TTIC.
        Second, I think you have the problem that there is a
    disconnect between those people who have operational
    responsibility and the analyst. That there is still a lack of
    understanding by the analyst of what is needed by the people
    who are out there in the field to do their job. Under this
    approach, we have lost the sense of connection between
    understanding what a border policeman needs to know, what a
    State and local official needs to know, what a fireman, what a
    doctor needs to know to carry out their job in homeland
    security.
        The analysts exist in some respects in a vacuum from the
    mission. I think that has been a problem. We have used this
    device to assure independence but it has also created a
    disconnect. I think there are other ways to get the
    independence and the check on the quality of the intelligence
    without creating the sense of isolation of the analyst from the
    broader mission.
        Chairman Collins. Mr. Steinberg, do you think that the new
    center, if it does come into existence which I believe it will,
    should be able to direct the collection of data?
        Mr. Steinberg. Irrespective of where it is located, I think
    that it is precisely the people who are trying to understand
    the problem who can help think about where do they want to fill
    in the holes? What are the problems that they see that are not
    being attended to? They have a unique ability to see what the
    requirements are.
        But again, when you think about it in those terms, the
    analysts are one set of the community of people who understand
    what the requirements are, but so are the users. That is,
    again, another reason why I would like to see the connection to
    the users because that way you have the full community of
    analysts and users together thinking about what the
    requirements are, and getting a more focused collection.
        Because, for example, in the area of critical
    infrastructure, we will now have in the department people who
    are looking at the questions of, what are the attacks we are
    most worried about? What are the greatest vulnerabilities we
    have?
        We then need to be able to have them go to the collectors
    and say, we are worried about whether the terrorists can attack
    a chemical plant, or cause damage at a nuclear facility. They
    will understand the problem that needs to be addressed and they
    can focus the direction of the collectors to that end.
        Chairman Collins. Mr. Smith, what is your view on that?
    Should the new center be able to direct the collection of data
    or just be a recipient and analysis----
        Mr. Smith. I do not believe they should be able to direct
    it directly. By that, I mean they should have a key role, and
    indeed the leading role, in suggesting what needs to be
    collected, but that ultimately the DCI has to decide what are
    the priorities of collection. In the intelligence business
    there is a lot of competition for scarce assets.
        For example, how does one decide how the satellites are
    targeted? You cannot have the DCI telling a satellite to
    collect on something and have the head of the center telling
    that same satellite to collect on something different. That is
    the DCI's role.
        On the other hand with respect to issues related to
    homeland security, clearly this center has to have a very
    strong voice.
        One other point I think is extremely important. Whether the
    center is under the DCI or ultimately moved to Homeland
    Security, it is also imperative that the center be able to send
    essentially tasking directives to State and local government.
    The British model, the MI5 is very good on this. They work with
    State and local--in their case all local municipalities, very
    directly to say, here are the issues that we are concerned
    about. Here are the people we are concerned about. Here are the
    organizations we are concerned about. So that the bobby on the
    beat in London or Manchester knows what it is that he is
    supposed to be looking for. That is something that we do not do
    now and that is something that homeland security needs to do in
    the future.
        Chairman Collins. Senator Pryor.
        Senator Pryor. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I just have a few
    short questions. This is a fascinating discussion because it
    gives us the opportunity to establish something new that
    theoretically we could do an extremely good job of setting up
    and that could be very beneficial to this country and to the
    world. In the discussions and proposals where do the two of you
    see major points of weakness in any proposal?
        In other words, we talk a lot about who has control over
    this and what is the job description of this entity. But what
    do the two of you see as the major point of weakness, the one
    thing that we need to make sure that we get right, or the one
    thing that we will need to work on the most to make sure this
    is an effective organization?
        Mr. Steinberg. If I could start, I think that in many ways
    the challenge we face on homeland security is a little bit like
    the challenge we faced at the beginning of the Cold War, at the
    end of World War II, when we really had to rethink our national
    strategy. That meant both the substance of our strategy--we
    developed the doctrine of containment and it had a powerful
    impact on the organization of our government and how we----
        Senator Pryor. I agree with you on that. I think that is a
    good point.
        Mr. Steinberg. There is a tremendous temptation to do this
    in a piecemeal fashion. It is hard to make big change in
    government. You know that, this is the Governmental Affairs
    Committee. So the temptation is to make incremental changes. To
    say, the FBI should do a little more here, the CIA will do a
    little bit more here. There is always resistance. There is
    always inertia. There are always costs to change.
        I think that what the Congress has done in this area has
    really pushed the administration both on the strategy and the
    organization to say, think about this as a fresh problem.
    Recognize that we really have never thought about the
    vulnerability of the United States as a core part of what we
    do. It affects our military. It affects our police. It affects
    the relationships between State and local government, the
    private sector and government. These are profound changes and
    we need to have a vision and a strategy that is equal to the
    profundity of this change.
        Mr. Smith. I agree completely. I mentioned the British a
    moment ago. We do not need to necessarily adopt MI5 as the
    perfect model but they start and are charged by the Prime
    Minister with that very question, what are the threats to the
    United Kingdom, whether they originate within the United
    Kingdom or outside of the United Kingdom, that will ultimately
    manifest themselves within the United Kingdom? It is their
    responsibility to figure what to do about them. They collect,
    they analyze, and ultimately work with law enforcement
    officials to act. The strategy is vitally important.
        Another issue that I worry about is confusion and who is in
    charge. The issue of the unity of command that I mentioned at
    the outset, Mr. Steinberg mentioned Goldwater-Nickles. Congress
    made an enormous step forward in linking authority with
    responsibility with resources, and that is very important. A
    Marine general one time put it more bluntly which is, I want a
    designated neck, by which he meant a neck around which I can
    get my hands. That is a very useful concept, and as we organize
    ourselves we ought to designate necks that the President and
    the Congress can get their hands around when things go wrong.
        Senator Pryor. Let us talk about MI5 for just a second. I
    will be the first to admit that I do not know a lot about MI5,
    but you have mentioned it. My perception of MI5, and maybe I am
    wrong, is that it is much more integrated than the U.S.
    counterpart. Obviously there are differences in Great Britain
    and the United States. They have a much smaller geographical
    area, a smaller population, and they do not have the
    Constitution and the Bill of Rights like we do. So there are
    clearly some differences.
        But you have mentioned MI5 a couple of times. Is my
    perception correct that they are more integrated and, as you
    said earlier, the agent on the corner is much more in touch
    with the central office than anybody here in the United States?
    And is that a good model, and is that what we should shoot for?
        Mr. Smith. Let me talk about that for a moment. It has been
    my privilege to work with the British over the years so I have
    some acquaintance with it. As I say, they begin with this
    fundamental question. They report, by the way, to the Home
    Secretary so in that sense they fit ultimately with having this
    whole function report to the Secretary of Homeland Security.
    They develop criteria for collection, they participate in the
    process of what is it that British intelligence agencies should
    collect, MI5, the military services and so on.
        They do not have arrest authority. They are purely a
    collection and analytical body. Nor do I think any of us who
    favor a domestic security service here, none of us want this
    new service to have arrest authority.
        Senator Pryor. Right, but then they collect and analyze,
    but they also have the authority to disseminate to the proper--
    --
        Mr. Smith. Absolutely. That is a key point. I do not know
    what happened yesterday at Heathrow but my guess is that MI5
    was very directly involved in the decisions involving the
    security around Heathrow.
        They have in each local municipality in the United Kingdom
    designated police officers who work with them. They are given
    clearances. They are given secure communications. They are
    brought to London periodically for briefings on what is going
    on. There is a flow of information back and forth between
    London and the local police forces with respect to what it is
    that MI5 is interested in. So literally then, the bobby on the
    beat is informed in turn by this core of people in Manchester
    or wherever, Glasgow, on what it is that MI5 is worried about.
    He does not have a clearance but he knows what they are looking
    for, and he knows then how to report it. He reports it back to
    that group which then reports it back to London. It is a two-
    way street and it works quite well.
        Ultimately then they are very closely tied to the Special
    Branch and Scotland Yard, who actually do the police work,
    carry out the arrests and ultimately testify in court if need
    be. It is not a perfect model and there certainly are frictions
    and there are problems there as well, and it cannot be imported
    directly here, but I do believe it is worth looking at. As I
    say, I am very pleased that there are now serious proposals
    here in Congress to consider this.
        Senator Pryor. May I ask one more question?
        Chairman Collins. Certainly.
        Senator Pryor. That is, are both of you advocating that
    this joint venture be housed in the Department of Homeland
    Security?
        Mr. Steinberg. I certainly am. I think it is really
    consistent with the idea of, as Jeff said, creating a
    responsible authority. I think that the Secretary of Homeland
    Security ought to have that role. I am very concerned that we
    are having a diffusion of authority. We have a Secretary of
    Homeland Security, we have an Office of Homeland Security in
    the White House which also has responsibilities in this area.
    We are now giving the DCI new responsibilities in this area. It
    is the diffusion that concerns me.
        Mr. Smith. Senator, I differ with Mr. Steinberg only on
    that point. It may be a temporal disagreement. I think for the
    moment it does belong under the DCI, in part because he has got
    the experience, he has got the manpower to do it, and I think
    it makes a lot of sense there. It will be independent and so
    on.
        I also worry a great deal about the confusion that is
    associated with the start-up of Homeland Security. I think we
    may be underestimating how difficult this is going to be to do.
    So I would leave it there for the moment and, as I say, it may
    ultimately be wise to move it to Homeland Security but I think
    for the moment it belongs where it is.
        Senator Pryor. Thank you.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you, Senator.
        Mr. Steinberg, just to follow up on the issue of where the
    center should be located. That is an issue on which we have
    heard diverse opinions today and I have not yet reached a
    conclusion. One of the arguments that I have heard against
    locating it in the Department of Homeland Security is that the
    department's role is focused on security within the borders of
    United States and the center's role is going to be broader than
    that. It would be collecting information about terrorist
    threats against our embassies or forces abroad, for example.
        What is your response to those who would argue that it does
    not make sense to put it within the Department of Homeland
    Security because the center's focus is so much broader?
        Mr. Steinberg. I think that you have to look at the overall
    structure of what everyone will be doing in this effort. The
    CIA is going to be focused on events abroad and terrorist
    threats not only to the United States but terrorist threats to
    friendly countries, to stability of countries that are not
    friendly, so there will continue to be within the CIA a
    responsibility to look at what is going on overseas.
        The question is where do you bring it all together, and is
    the better balance to bring it together in the context of the
    DCI, who is mostly looking overseas, or importing that
    information that is being developed by the CIA and other
    overseas collectors into an agency who is trying to link that
    aspect of the terrorist threat to domestic rules?
        So for example, at least for the moment, we do not believe
    that Hamas is a threat to the United States. It does not have a
    history of either targeting Americans or the United States. We
    are still going to have somebody in the CIA who is collecting
    on them. But if we keep the responsibility for homeland
    security at the CIA, as I believe it will be under this joint
    venture, then I think that there is a danger that too much of
    this will be focused away from the homeland mission and not
    sensitive enough to the needs of the people who are actually
    carrying out the mission.
        So inevitably you are going to have to make a choice as to
    where the balance goes because this will need to be an all-
    source center. I think the question is, who is going to pull
    out that part of the foreign terrorist intelligence that is
    directly related to the homeland and understand best how to
    take that foreign intelligence and relate it to threats here?
        I believe that on balance, though obviously there is no
    perfect answer to this, that the right division is to say, of
    course the CIA will still be looking at terrorism abroad but
    this new center will still be involved in tasking. I agree with
    Jeff, that, when I say that the new domestic security agency
    should be involved in tasking, I do not mean that they should
    have their hands on the satellite apertures but they should be
    tasking the foreign collectors to look into, what al Qaeda is
    doing in Afghanistan that may be relevant to the United States.
    But I think that the weight of where their focus should be is
    to be able to look at the foreign intelligence and see how it
    affects threats against us here at home.
        Chairman Collins. Mr. Smith, in addition to the argument
    that Mr. Steinberg just made, an argument has been made against
    locating the new center under the control of the CIA director,
    that then the center will just once again become a creature of
    the CIA. That you will lose the whole intent of this center.
    What is your response to that?
        Mr. Smith. It is very much a function of leadership. It is
    a question of who is put in charge. It is a question of the
    quality of people who are assigned there. There is a risk if it
    is housed at Langley that it will take on the character of a
    foreign intelligence center.
        I think, however, that there will be--the people who are
    assigned there from the Bureau or from Homeland Security, or
    Customs or Immigration, wherever, will have as their
    responsibility to worry about their home agencies. There is no
    doubt that George Tenet is personally focused on this to make
    it work and to make it work to support Governor Ridge. I think
    that as long as that is the case there is some, but not much
    risk, that it will be captured by the intrigue of foreign
    intelligence. In my judgment, it will remain focused.
        Mr. Steinberg. If I could just add, Madam Chairman, I think
    obviously there are trade-offs here. The other risk in placing
    responsibility under the DCI, is that, as several Members of
    the Committee pointed out, as serious as the threat to the
    homeland is, we have other things we have to worry about. We
    have to worry about weapons of mass destruction. We have to
    worry about turmoil abroad. Director Tenet has a lot of
    responsibilities, so he cannot afford to wake up every day and
    only worry about the homeland.
        The advantage of what you have done by creating a Secretary
    of Homeland Security is that somebody who can wake up every day
    and only think about it. That I think is my worry. I have the
    same worry about the FBI. That while I am sure they will try to
    do a good job as they move into this area, the question is, do
    you want somebody who has to wake up and worry about all of
    these things or is this such a central function that you really
    do want one person who organizes everything around that
    mission?
        Chairman Collins. Thank you, both.
        Senator Pryor, do you have any further questions you would
    like to ask?
        Senator Pryor. I do not. Thank you.
        Chairman Collins. I want to thank both of you for
    testifying before us today. I think this hearing has been very
    helpful to hear a variety of views on the new center. We look
    forward to also having a second hearing at which administration
    witnesses will be testifying as well.
        I want to also thank my staff for putting together this
    hearing. It is the first hearing on the concept that the
    President revealed during his State of the Union address. So
    thank you for your assistance and this hearing is now
    adjourned.
        [Whereupon, at 11:51 a.m., the Committee was adjourned.]

                      CONSOLIDATING INTELLIGENCE ANALYSIS:
                      A REVIEW OF THE PRESIDENT'S PROPOSAL
                          TO CREATE A TERRORIST THREAT
                               INTEGRATION CENTER

                                  ----------

                          WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2003

                                           U.S. Senate,
                             Committee on Governmental Affairs,
                                                        Washington, DC.
        The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:02 a.m., in
    room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Susan M.
    Collins, Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
        Present: Senators Collins, Coleman, Levin, and Akaka.

                 OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN COLLINS

        Chairman Collins. Good morning. The Committee will come to
    order. First I want to disclaim any responsibility for the
    weather. Even though I am from Maine, I did not bring this
    weather with me in any way and I just wanted to make that clear
    while we have all these intelligence experts in the room.
        Today the Governmental Affairs Committee is holding its
    second hearing on the President's proposal to create a
    Terrorist Threat Integration Center. We are very pleased to
    have a distinguished panel of administration witnesses to
    answer the many questions about the mission, structure, and
    responsibilities of the new center.
        The sharing of intelligence among Federal agencies was a
    serious problem long before the horrific attacks of September
    11. But it was the terrorist attacks that focused attention on
    the serious consequence of inadequate communication and
    interagency rivalries. As the lead Federal law enforcement
    agency responsible for collecting domestic intelligence,
    including terrorism related intelligence, the FBI historically
    has focused on investigating and developing criminal cases. At
    times the FBI has failed to share critical domestic
    intelligence because of concerns that the disclosure of such
    information could jeopardize its criminal cases.
        As the primary Federal agency responsible for collecting
    foreign intelligence related to terrorism, the CIA also has
    been hesitant to share information because of concerns that
    such disclosures would jeopardize its methods and sources.
        The result of these barriers has been that far too often
    critical intelligence has not reached those who really need it.
    After September 11 it became readily apparent that government
    agencies must do a better job analyzing and sharing terrorism
    related intelligence. Congress moved toward that goal in 2001
    by passing legislation to facilitate the sharing of
    intelligence information, and then last year by approving the
    Homeland Security Act.
        The administration has also taken a number of positive
    steps since September 11. The FBI and the CIA have expanded
    both their analytical capabilities and their cooperation. But
    these changes have not gone far enough. Administration
    representatives have stated that information sharing between
    the FBI and the CIA still is too often achieved through ``brute
    force.'' The President is attempting to address these
    impediments to the timely sharing of critical information by
    creating the Terrorist Threat Integration Center. Nevertheless,
    there are many questions that remain about the implementation
    of the administration's plan.
        The first and perhaps most fundamental question is, how
    will the integration center be an improvement over the existing
    intelligence structure? We currently have a Counter Terrorist
    Center within the CIA that has access to all government
    intelligence relating to terrorism. As CIA Director George
    Tenet has noted, the center ``was created to enable the fusion
    of all sources of information in a single action-oriented
    unit.'' Frankly, that sounds a lot like the proposed
    integration center, which raises the obvious question of how
    the new center will improve the sharing of intelligence
    information among agencies.
        A second key question is, what is being done to ensure that
    the integration center will streamline and consolidate
    intelligence analysis rather than create duplication and
    mission confusion. I have prepared a chart \1\ that shows some
    of the agencies that are now responsible for collecting and
    analyzing terrorism-related intelligence. As you can see, it is
    a very confusing picture. Including the integration center in
    the chart does not make the picture any less complex. It simply
    adds another box. We need to understand how this additional box
    will improve the flow of information to the agencies and
    individuals that need it.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ The chart entitled ``Primary Agencies Handling Terrorist-
    Related Intelligence (With Terrorist Threat Integration Center)''
    appears in the Appendix on page 119.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        A third question concerns the proper location of the new
    center. Some experts believe that the Department of Homeland
    Security should be the hub of all homeland security activities
    including intelligence analysis. By reading the Homeland
    Security Act, one could make a compelling case that the new
    department was meant to be the fusion center for the analysis
    of intelligence relating to homeland security. Should the
    integration center therefore be under the control and the
    direction of the Secretary of Homeland Security rather than the
    Director of Central Intelligence? We would like to obtain a
    better understanding of the reasoning behind the
    administration's decision and how the integration center will
    interact with the new Department of Homeland Security.
        Another important question is, how will the center share
    appropriate information with State and local authorities, our
    front line troops in the war against terrorism? It is one thing
    to analyze intelligence information well, but if the people who
    need the intelligence do not receive it, then the effort has
    been of little use.
        Still another key issue is the center's ability to overcome
    historic agency resistance to change. There have already been
    news reports indicating opposition to the integration center in
    both the CIA and the FBI. What is being done to overcome agency
    resistance so that it does not undermine the center's core
    mission?
        Finally, will the integration center adequately address and
    safeguard privacy and other legal concerns? The President's
    proposal places the Director of the Central Intelligence in
    charge of the integration center. In that position he will be
    responsible for the analysis of domestic as well as foreign
    intelligence. I understand that the administration has reviewed
    the legal issues carefully but I want to ensure that the
    center's activities will not infringe on the Constitutional
    rights of law-abiding Americans.
        At last week's hearing we did not hear of any opposition to
    the concept of a Terrorist Threat Integration Center, but a
    number of questions were raised by Members of this Committee
    and by our witnesses concerning the implementation of this
    plan. It is my hope that our expert administration witnesses
    will help us fully answer those questions today. If the
    administration can achieve its stated goals by the creation of
    this new center, I believe that the integration center will
    usher in important new capabilities in the way that our
    government analyzes intelligence and shares it with those who
    are responsible for protecting our people and our Nation. But
    its success will depend on overcoming formidable historic
    barriers to information sharing and cooperation.
        I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today. At this
    time I would like to ask the Senator from Minnesota if he has
    any opening comments that he would like to make.

                  OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COLEMAN

        Senator Coleman. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I think your
    opening statement did a tremendous job of summarizing areas of
    concern for a number of us. Just looking at the chart up there
    I think the question is, is it going to work, and can you make
    it work? And can you make it work, by the way, not just for
    those at the top levels but for those at the local level who
    have to deal with it at the frontline. I come from the
    perspective of a local citizen.
        Second, Madam Chairman, let me reiterate the other concern
    that you raised in that you have to, we have to make it work,
    and you have to make it work in a way that does not infringe
    upon the rights and Constitutional protections of privacy of
    law-abiding American citizens. So I think those are the
    challenges. We need to make this work. We need to work together
    to make this work and I look forward to the testimony today.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you very much, Senator Coleman.
    Your perspective as a mayor will be very helpful as we sort
    through how this new center should interact with State and
    local law enforcement officials. That is often a challenge
    because they do not have security clearances in most cases and
    because we do not want to overwhelm the center with responding
    to local inquiries, but at the same time there needs to be some
    kind of system for sharing essential information and we look
    forward to your insights in that regard.
        I am very pleased to welcome our distinguished panel of
    administration representatives today from the FBI, the CIA, and
    the Department of Homeland Security. They are leading their
    respective agency's efforts to create the new Terrorist Threat
    Integration Center. We understand that the President's proposal
    is still under development but we very much appreciate your
    sharing your preliminary insights with us today. We are pleased
    to be joined by the Hon. Gordon England who is Deputy Secretary
    of the Department of Homeland Security, the first deputy
    secretary. He previously served as Secretary of the Navy, and
    before that had a distinguished career in the private sector at
    General Dynamics Corporation.
        Pasquale D'Amuro is the Executive Assistant Director for
    Counter Terrorism at the FBI. He was appointed by the Director
    to be the Executive Assistant Director for Counter Terrorism
    and Counter Intelligence in November of last year. He is the
    lead FBI official on counterterrorism issues and has had a
    distinguished career with the FBI since 1979.
        Our third panelist is Winston Wiley, who became the
    Associate Director of Central Intelligence for Homeland
    Security in May 2002. In this capacity Mr. Wiley is tasked with
    ensuring the efficient and timely flow of intelligence in
    support of the homeland security effort. He is also the acting
    chair of the Terrorist Threat Integration Center Steering
    Committee. So I very much appreciate his being with us as well.
        I am going to start with Mr. Wiley. I understand that
    Secretary England does not have a formal statement; is that
    correct, Mr. Secretary?
        Mr. England. Yes.
        Chairman Collins. So we will start with Mr. Wiley. Thank
    you, you may proceed.

    STATEMENT OF WINSTON P. WILEY,\1\ ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL
     INTELLIGENCE FOR HOMELAND SECURITY AND CHAIR, SENIOR STEERING
                                 GROUP

        Mr. Wiley. Thank you, Madam Chairman and Senator Coleman.
    Let me begin by saying that the statement that I have and that
    I have submitted for the record is not just my statement. It is
    a joint statement that we have all participated in pulling
    together. Indeed, the effort to put together a response to the
    President's charge to come up with a threat integration center
    was, from the beginning, seen as a joint effort. The senior
    steering group, the members of whom are at the table and
    sitting behind me, saw this as a joint effort and have created
    an institution that we think represents that. So as I go
    through these remarks do not think of them just as coming from
    the Director of Central Intelligence. They, in fact, represent
    the views of all of us in this effort.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Wiley appears in the Appendix on
    page 113.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Turning to that, let me say a little bit about how we got
    here. When the Director charged us with going forward with
    putting some real meat on the bones of the proposal we knew
    that the key agencies needed to be involved, and that was the
    CIA, the FBI, and the Department of Homeland Security. But the
    Department of Defense, the Department of State, and the Office
    of Management and Budget would also need to play a role. So
    they represented the core steering group and all of those are
    here. You have introduced those at the table. John Brennan is
    the Deputy Executive Director from the Central Intelligence
    Agency. He represented the CIA while I represented the Director
    in his community capacity. Cofer Black is the Ambassador at
    Large and Special Assistant to Secretary Powell for
    counterterrorism at the Department of State. And Rich Haver
    from the Department of Defense is with us, and Steve McMillan
    from OMB.
        Again, integration and partnership in the sense of joint
    venture is what we had in mind from the beginning. The hard
    work of putting together the proposal was done by subject
    matter experts from all these agencies and beyond. They
    reported back to us, and we proposed formally up through the
    DCI and our respective principals to the President, and that
    was accepted.
        Let me go through some of the points that are in the
    statement that we have prepared without going actually to the
    trouble of reading it all into the record. The first has to do
    with the mission and structure and gets at one of the questions
    that you had. The goal really is the full integration of U.S.
    Government terrorist threat-related information and analysis.
    Bringing together both the foreign intelligence that is
    collected overseas and what we call the foreign intelligence
    that is collected domestically by the Bureau and others, so
    that it is fused and looked at in a comprehensive fashion.
        The structure is designed to ensure rapid and unfettered
    sharing of relevant information across department lines. We
    keep using the term joint venture because we feel the TTIC
    needs to be an institution that has parts of all of the holders
    of information in that component. The objective is to create
    value added efficiencies in analyzing the full array of
    terrorist threat-related information.
        You used the term brute force earlier, which is a fair
    characterization. But what we have to acknowledge is that brute
    force is exercised every day, and very diligently and carefully
    by officers of the Central Intelligence Agency, other parts of
    the TTIC, and the members of the FBI. We do make it work, but
    we need to make it work better and we need to institutionalize
    some of the things that are today being done simply because
    people are so diligent and careful to get them done.
        TTIC, the Terrorist Threat Integration Center, will be
    composed of elements from the Department of Homeland Security,
    from the FBI's counter terrorist division, from the Counter
    Terrorist Center at CIA, as well as elements of the Department
    of Defense, DIA, JITF-CT, NSA, NIMA, and other agencies that
    have a stake in what TTIC will do. The State Department is a
    good example of that. TTIC will combine the terrorist threat-
    related information in a way to provide a more focused and
    comprehensive government counterterrorist intelligence effort
    in defining the threat.
        I have mentioned that among the most important features for
    TTIC is unfettered access to all information, all intelligence
    information, whether it is from raw reports to finished
    analytic assessments. That is essential in order to be able to
    pull the work together and has been clearly reflected in the
    discussions that led up to the Homeland Security Act as well as
    the other discussions post-September 11. TTIC will need to
    provide all-source threat assessments both to the national
    leadership and, as Senator Coleman said, to the broader
    homeland security community which certainly includes State and
    local as well as private sector officials, and finding the ways
    to do that in the appropriate formats is one of the key
    missions.
        TTIC will also oversee a national counterterrorism tasking
    and requirements system. Intelligence, in order to work,
    fundamentally has to begin with a requirements process that
    identifies the key questions that collectors have to go collect
    against. That information is brought back, assessed, analyzed,
    distributed and then balanced against those requirements. We
    talk about an intelligence cycle, but it begins at its heart
    with a requirements system and TTIC will play a key role in
    organizing that on the counterterrorist homeland security side.
        Finally, another key responsibility will be to maintain a
    database of known and suspected terrorists that is accessible
    at the Federal and non-Federal level with appropriate controls
    and security clearances, and bringing the various databases
    that exist today in various places together into a centralized
    capability.
        The principal objective, and again it gets back to your
    first question is that TTIC needs to close the gaps that
    separate the analysis of foreign source and domestic source
    terrorist threat information and ensure optimum support of the
    wide range of customers for homeland security information,
    those at the Federal level as well as those in the State, local
    and private sectors.
        Let me turn to a second point that is addressed in the
    statement. TTIC cannot reach its full end-state capabilities
    overnight. We need, obviously, to grow and we need to grow as
    quickly as we can. But we also need to grow in a way that does
    not smother the effort by being over-ambitious in its initial
    days. Stand-up will occur by May 1. It will focus on
    integrating terrorist threat-related information and pick up
    some of the responsibilities that are today exercised jointly
    between the FBI and the CTC. One of those is the preparation of
    a daily threat matrix that you have heard about. Situation
    reports, updates on threats, and interagency terrorist threat
    warnings, picking up those responsibilities from the various
    government agencies is critical.
        As soon as possible thereafter, TTIC should become the
    principal gateway for policymaker requests for assessments
    about terrorist threats. As it grows in capability, and what we
    see is an incremental growth as we move towards its ultimate
    full strength that I will talk about, TTIC would stock and
    maintain the database of known and suspected terrorists that I
    talked about. It will be producing the current intelligence and
    terrorist threat-related assessment, drawing on resources not
    just in TTIC but in the various agencies that are contributors
    to TTIC but are maintaining some inherent capability of their
    own. TTIC will be able to reach back into its parent agencies
    to provide it with an instantaneous surge capability that draws
    on the strength of a wide range of agencies.
        What we are trying to do is make sure that we build on what
    works. We do not want to undo things that are working well, and
    that is especially true when it comes to the integration of the
    work of collectors of information and the analysts, whether
    that is at the CIA or in the Intelligence Community or at the
    FBI. That is happening today. We want to build on that and make
    sure that there is a better fusing across the domestic and
    foreign side.
        When TTIC reaches its full end-strength capability it will
    be collocated with the CIA--the DCI's--Counter Terrorist Center
    and with the FBI's Counter Terrorism Division in a building
    that has yet to be acquired but that we are actively working
    on. Prior to that, TTIC--while it is not a CIA organization, it
    is an organization that reports to the DCI in his capacity as
    Director of Central Intelligence--will be located on the CIA
    compound, as are other independent Intelligence Community
    entities today. So we are sensitive to not creating it as a CIA
    organization, but the smartest place to build the interim
    capability is in space that we have at the CIA.
        Let me talk about the command structure quickly. The
    director of TTIC needs to be a senior, very senior U.S.
    Government official who reports directly to the DCI in his
    statutory capacity as head of the Intelligence Community. He
    would be appointed by the director in consultation with the
    other partners in pulling together the TTIC. The director of
    TTIC will have the final review and approval authority for all
    of the intelligence that is prepared by TTIC. For national
    level analysis that is produced outside of TTIC, our
    expectation is that the director of TTIC will play a role in
    coordinating that, recognizing that agencies may do some
    departmental work just as is done today across the Intelligence
    Community.
        I mentioned information access and the criticality of that.
    TTIC as an organization must have access to the full array of
    terrorist threat-related information within the U.S.
    Government. We can do that consistent with all the necessary
    protections and working smart by making sure that individual
    members of TTIC have access to information they need to do
    their work while the organization as a whole, and the
    leadership of the organization, have access to information that
    is comparable to what the head of CTC at CIA and the head of
    the Counter Terrorist Division at FBI has. So we think we can
    work both the necessary sharing within the organization and do
    the necessary work of protecting the most sensitive
    information.
        Critical to making this work is a robust information
    technology base, one that will be particularly vigorous in the
    collocated end-state when CTC, CTD, and TTIC are located
    together. They all need to be able to draw on their own
    information bases, but we need to be able to bring that
    information together in the TTIC environment and share it in
    ways that allow us to do the most detailed analysis, use the
    most modern tools, and have the most aggressive sharing
    mechanisms available to us.
        I would close with a thought about the work of TTIC just as
    you did. It is a work in progress. In fact if we do it right,
    TTIC will always be work in progress. It needs to start small.
    It needs to grow quickly. But we need not to be locked into
    particular institutional solutions. Rather with our eye on the
    ball, what we are trying to do is make sure that we have the
    best mechanisms in place to provide threat information to our
    national leadership and to the American people. We will be
    making adjustments as we go along based on what we think works
    rather than tell you today that we have the perfect plan that
    takes us from here out to the year 2010.
        With those thoughts, let me close and I think my friend Pat
    D'Amuro has some comments that he may want to share.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you, Mr. Wiley. Mr. D'Amuro.

       STATEMENT OF PASQUALE J. D'AMURO,\1\ EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT
      DIRECTOR FOR COUNTERTERRORISM/COUNTERINTELLIGENCE, FEDERAL
                     BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (FBI)

        Mr. D'Amuro. Thank you, Madam Chairman and Senator Coleman.
    Thank you for the opportunity to add just a few short comments
    from the statement I have with respect to Mr. Wiley's efforts
    with the steering committee.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. D'Amuro appears in the Appendix
    on page 117.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        As we know, President Bush recently emphasized during a
    speech at FBI headquarters that the FBI has no greater mission,
    no greater priority than preventing the next terrorist act in
    America. We strongly support the formation of the TTIC and we
    are proud to be a partner with both the CIA, Homeland Security,
    and all the other participating agencies.
        The FBI's experience in conducting complex criminal and
    terrorist investigations has shown that analysts are most
    effective when they are in constant and close communication
    with the investigators. For this reason we strongly support and
    look forward to the expeditious implementation of plans to
    collocate not only the TTIC but the FBI Counter Terrorism
    Division and the CIA Counterterrorism Center along with the
    Department of Homeland Security.
        As you know, the FBI has established 66 joint terrorist
    task forces in the field offices around the country as well as
    a national joint terrorism center at FBI headquarters. The
    JTTF's partner FBI personnel with hundreds of investigators
    from Federal, State, and local agencies. These partnerships
    provide an effective and efficient mechanism to collect
    domestic intelligence crucial to preventing the next attack
    domestically. The fusion of this domestic and international
    threat intelligence is critically important for the FBI to
    complete its mission of preventing the next and future attacks
    domestically.
        The FBI views the TTIC as an important resource. The TTIC
    will not only provide all-source integrated analysis to the FBI
    but also to the officials in State and local law enforcement
    who are essential partners in the fight against terrorism. We
    recognize that the two-way flow of information between Federal
    and local law enforcement is necessary to continuously sharpen
    both the collection and the analysis of threat-related
    information. Once again, the 66 JTTFs across the country
    provide an effective channel to share the TTIC analytical
    products with our partners in State and local law enforcement.
    We are committed to working with the Department of Homeland
    Security to push information and analysis out of the TTIC to
    all Federal, State, and local agencies.
        We are expanding our ability to collect, analyze, and
    disseminate intelligence. The centerpiece of the director's
    efforts is the establishment of an executive assistant director
    for intelligence who will have direct authority and
    responsibility for the FBI's national intelligence program.
    Specifically, the EAD for intelligence will be responsible for
    ensuring that the TTIC's reporting requirements are met by all
    the field offices.
        Our support of the TTIC will not change our mission,
    priorities, or operations. In fact, the TTIC will only
    strengthen our capabilities. The Bureau is uniquely positioned
    to bring both national security and law enforcement authorities
    to bear in the war against terrorism. Recently, the ability to
    develop intelligence on terrorist activities and use law
    enforcement powers to disrupt them was exemplified in Buffalo,
    New York where seven al-Qaeda associates and sympathizers were
    indicted in September 2002 for providing material support to
    terrorism.
        Every FBI agent is trained to recognize that along with
    these broad authorities comes the responsibility to implement
    them fairly and in accordance with the protections provided by
    the Constitution. It is important to note that the Bureau's
    role, and the roles of all TTIC participants, must and will
    remain consistent with the protections provided by privacy
    laws, executive orders, Attorney General guidelines, and other
    relevant legal authorities under the protection of the
    Constitution to safeguard the civil liberties of the citizens
    of this country.
        Again, I will keep this statement short because I know you
    have a lot of questions, but thank you for allowing me to
    appear today.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you very much.
        Secretary England, do you have anything you would like to
    add to your colleagues?

    STATEMENT OF HON. GORDON ENGLAND, DEPUTY SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT
                          OF HOMELAND SECURITY

        Mr. England. Let me just make a comment, Madam Chairman.
    First of all, I thank Mr. Wiley for all his work with chairing
    this group that we put together. I will tell you that the TTIC
    is vitally important to the Department of Homeland Security. We
    have been part of the effort to create this structure in
    response to the President's initiative. This is vitally
    important for us to do our job in the Department of Homeland
    Security, so you will find us a very significant proponent of
    this approach; very supportive, and we will work very closely
    with all the other agencies to make this very successful. In my
    judgment, this is very important for America, so it has the
    full support of the Department of Homeland Security and we will
    be happy to work with you as we fully develop this concept in
    the coming weeks and months ahead.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you.
        Mr. Wiley and Mr. D'Amuro, our government already has a
    Counter Terrorist Center which is under the supervision of the
    Director of Central Intelligence, and when you look at the
    details of the current Counter Terrorist Center and the
    proposed Terrorist Threat Integration Center they seem, at
    first analysis, to be quite similar. I quoted Director Tenet's
    comments that it was supposed to be all sources of intelligence
    would be analyzed. Both do have access to all sources of
    government information about terrorism. Both are under the
    supervision of the Director of Central Intelligence. I believe
    both have staff from a number of agencies conducting
    intelligence analysis. In light of those similarities I have
    two questions.
        First, in practical terms how will the proposed Terrorist
    Threat Integration Center be different from the Counter
    Terrorist Center that already exists on the organization chart
    \1\ that I showed you?
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ The chart entitled ``Primary Agencies Handling Terrorist-
    Related Intelligence (With Terrorist Threat Integration Center)''
    appears in the Appendix on page 119.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Second, given the fact that at least at first blush they
    appear very similar, how will the new center address problems
    that have plagued our analytical efforts so far? They seem so
    similar that I am concerned about duplication. And if they are
    structured in similar ways, how will the new center be an
    improvement over what we have?
        I am going to ask a similar question to Mr. D'Amuro.
        Mr. Wiley. Thank you, Senator. I think that at first blush
    it is possible to say that the TTIC bears a similarity to the
    Counter Terrorist Center. But I think that you have to go a
    step beyond that first level of analysis. I think that what you
    have in TTIC is a much more vigorous presence of Intelligence
    Community and law enforcement and DHS employees in a common
    environment, with reachback capability to their respective
    agencies, in which all of that information is brought together.
        CTC does have, and has long had, and will continue to have
    detailees from other agencies in it. But what we envision in
    TTIC is a more robust presence and a more explicit set of
    responsibilities for integrating that flow of domestically
    collected foreign intelligence, which is growing. The TTIC by
    itself is not the only change that is going on. The change in
    collection philosophy and dissemination philosophy--what is
    going on at the Bureau--Pat D'Amuro can talk about--is
    instrumental in helping to make TTIC a success. It will
    increase the amount of domestically collected information about
    foreign terrorist groups that can be fused. And by bringing the
    analysts together, having them work literally in a common
    environment, I think that is a significant step up from where
    we are today.
        Chairman Collins. Mr. D'Amuro, the FBI has a
    counterterrorism division. It is my understanding that is still
    going to exist when the new center is created. How can we avoid
    duplication?
        Mr. D'Amuro. I think that it is important to understand
    that the TTIC is being created for the fusion of an analytical
    product with respect to threat information. It is not an
    operational entity. The counterterrorism division at the FBI
    headquarters will still maintain its operational role
    throughout the country as being the lead agency domestically
    with respect to counterterrorism investigations.
        If I could just add a few comments to Mr. Wiley's--it is
    the fusion of that intelligence and the production of one
    analytical product that I see extremely critically important
    that we'll be able, through the JTTFs, to disseminate that
    product to all State and local law enforcement authorities that
    are part of the JTTF. There is also a program underway at the
    Bureau to reach out for all the State and local entities that
    are not members of the JTTF so that we can make sure, not only
    do we provide them with one fused analytical product, but also
    tap into their ability to collect information and intelligence
    which would be critical to preventing the next terrorist act.
        So while the TTIC is being formed for the fusion of the
    intelligence product, both CTC will maintain its operational
    responsibility as well as the FBI maintaining its
    responsibility for the conduct of intelligence and criminal
    investigations with respect to counterterrorism.
        Chairman Collins. Let me follow up on the use of sharing
    information with State and local law enforcement. You have
    described a system under which the joint terrorism task force,
    I guess, would act as an intermediary to distribute
    information; is that correct?
        Mr. D'Amuro. What the plan is, is that through the national
    JTTF at FBI headquarters, that would be the distribution
    mechanism for the fused analytical product out to all the
    JTTFs, the 66 JTTFs that are now in existence across the
    country. In addition to that, we are going to be reaching out
    to all State and local entities even if they are not permanent
    members of the JTTFs. So, yes, it will be the mechanism for
    distribution of that product.
        Chairman Collins. But what is going to happen in the other
    direction? The complaints that I hear from police chiefs of our
    major cities in Maine is that when they are in a state of high
    alert, as we are now, and they have reason to be concerned--and
    this happened recently in Portland, Maine where a foreign
    national was taking photographs of our oil tank farms on the
    Portland waterfront, and when the police chief tried to get
    information from the FBI about whether this individual was on
    the watch list, he had a very difficult time in getting an
    answer from the FBI.
        What are we doing in the other direction? I understand when
    you have a product or information that needs to be shared it
    will go through the joint terrorism task force. But what does a
    police chief in Portland, Maine who is concerned about the
    vulnerabilities of our ports and sees something suspicious, or
    certainly raising concern, how do we improve the flow of
    information in the other direction?
        Mr. D'Amuro. That is the main purpose of the creation of
    the Office of Intelligence for the Bureau. What the Office of
    Intelligence will do and what the Bureau has not done in the
    past is establish intelligence requirements. It will ensure
    that the field offices are out collecting the intelligence
    necessary for the protection of this country. Providing
    information and intelligence with respect to vulnerabilities of
    various seaports and other infrastructure protection matters
    will be the mission of Homeland Security. We will provide that
    information through the executive assistant director, setting
    those requirements, make sure those requirements are met, and
    making sure that intelligence is collected in the field.
        I am unaware of the situation that you mention but that
    police chief should have been able to get information from the
    joint terrorism task force, which in that case would have been
    out of Boston and I believe a resident agency in Portland. That
    is the way it is supposed to work. That is the vision of how we
    plan to collect that intelligence and making sure that it gets
    to the different agencies that it needs to go to. That
    establishment of the requirements will not be the only
    mechanism for the Office of Executive Assistant Director for
    Intelligence. We are also changing the metrics by how we judge
    our field offices and how we judge and promote executives into
    the Bureau. They will have requirements for the collection of
    that intelligence that will be used in their performance
    appraisals.
        Chairman Collins. Senator Akaka.

                   OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR AKAKA

        Senator Akaka. Thank you. Thank you very much, Madam
    Chairman. I am pleased that you are holding this hearing today.
    We have had a hearing before this that raised some issues and I
    think we came out of that one being concerned about maybe
    having too many or creating too many intelligence centers.
    Senator Rudman at that time expressed concern about confusion
    in our intelligence analysis and collection. So this hearing
    will certainly help us, I am sure, to learn more about what we
    need to do.
        As I hear your concerns too, the difference between the
    former structure and the one that we have now is that we have
    added TTIC to it. Hopefully TTIC will resolve some of these
    problems. So I am glad that we are having this and may I ask
    that my statement be placed in the record?
        Chairman Collins. Without objection.
        [The prepared statement of Senator Akaka follows:]

                      PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR AKAKA
        Madam Chairman, the issues raised in the first hearing on the
    President's proposal to create a Terrorist Threat Integration Center
    (TTIC) were important ones. I am pleased that you are holding this
    hearing with the administration.
        At our last hearing, Senator Rudman, one of the witnesses, made the
    point that we need to be careful to limit the confusion in our
    intelligence analysis and collection. As I mentioned at that last
    hearing, I am concerned that we may be creating too many intelligence
    centers to evaluate the same information and respond to the same
    threats.
        For example, the CIA has its Counter Terrorism Center--the Defense
    Intelligence Agency has its counter terrorism center--the new
    Department of Homeland Security will have an Information Analysis and
    Infrastructure Protection Directorate--the Army has an Information
    Dominance Center--DOD is developing a Total Information Awareness
    program--and the FBI has a Counter Terrorism Division. Now the
    President proposes a new Terrorist Threat Integration Center which
    apparently will include representatives from all these different
    centers.
        Mr. Wiley, in his testimony, will suggest that TTIC is going to
    have all the information, including raw reports, that other agencies
    are producing and that it will maintain a database of terrorists
    accessible to some non-federal officials and entities. This library of
    terrorist reports will be useful only if it contains accurate
    information and is available to the people who may need it the most--
    local police forces and other first responders.
        I am concerned that there still appears to be a disconnect between
    information and the people who need it at the local level. All the
    reports in the world will not be of any value if no one who needs to
    know can find them.
        I am also worried that this system does not provide a mechanism for
    ensuring investigations are fully carried out. There were numerous
    times prior to 9-11 when FBI agents reported suspicious activities
    which have subsequently been linked to those attacks but those reports
    were not followed up on. I want to know--the American public wants to
    know--who is responsible? Who is in charge of ensuring that all the
    intelligence reports are acted upon?
        Will this new intelligence center resolve that problem or only add
    to the problem?
        I look forward to the testimony and hope these questions will
    finally be resolved.

        Senator Akaka. Thank you. I am so glad to have our panel
    this morning, and especially Secretary England. Good to see
    you, and always good to be with you.
        Mr. England. Senator, good to be with you. I wish I was
    with you in your home State today, however. [Laughter.]
        Senator Akaka. One hundred percent agreement.
        Secretary England, at our last hearing on this subject
    Governor Gilmore pointed to the institutional and cultural
    barriers to intelligence sharing, especially with State and
    local officials as mentioned by the Chairman. Although I share
    his concern, I worry that we are creating a multitude of
    intelligence agencies, all of them performing important
    functions including sharing information with this new agency
    TTIC. However, it is still not clear who is responsible for
    ensuring the proper response to a terrorist threat. So let me
    pose a scenario to my question.
        The CIA receives information about a foreign terrorist
    group that is thinking about targeting cruise ships. The FBI
    gets information about foreigners with seafaring backgrounds
    entering the United States for some illegal purpose. The
    Honolulu Police Department receives reports about suspicious
    people loitering about or around the port.
        Question, who is responsible for putting all these bits of
    information together, instigating an investigation, alerting
    local officials, and telling the public what it should do? Is
    it the Director of the CIA, the FBI, or the Secretary for
    Homeland Security? As you can see, some of the confusion that
    has resulted, especially from the periodic announcements that
    we are on high terrorist alert, comes because the public is not
    certain who is in charge of dealing with these threats. So my
    question then is, who is responsible for putting all of these
    bits together?
        Mr. England. Senator, I believe that is clear to me. With
    this new Terrorist Threat Integration Center, all the data
    would come into this one center. The nice thing about this--
    this is not a new agency, by the way. This is a center. This is
    an integration of existing capability that we put together so
    we can collaborate and exchange data and analyze data jointly
    to get a best answer from the data sources that we have. So all
    the data would go into this center.
        We, the Department of Homeland Security, will have analysts
    and we will have assessment people in this center. So this is
    part of Homeland Security. Our responsibility is to relate
    these threats to our infrastructure. So we will have assessment
    capability, unique assessment capability that when we see these
    threats, our people will be aware of critical infrastructure,
    public and private, throughout America and throughout our
    territories, etc. That will be our job and our obligation to
    make those connects, to alert the appropriate people and to put
    protective measures in place, or respond if we have to. But
    that will clearly be a responsibility of the Department of
    Homeland Security working as part of the TTIC with the CIA, the
    FBI, and the other intelligence agencies.
        So I believe that the TTIC will provide a capability to do
    that kind of assessment and to make those kinds of connections.
        Senator Akaka. Thank you. I see more the need of TTIC as
    you explain it.
        Mr. Wiley, you are deputy chief of the CIA's Counter
    Terrorist Center and I understand that there is discussion
    about collocating the Terrorist Threat Integration Center with
    the CIA's Counter Terrorist Center. As you know, the CTC is
    unique. Operations officers are brought together with an
    analyst as an integral part of the targeting operation and
    analytical functions of counterterrorism efforts. The TTIC is
    not supposed to have an operational function.
        First, how are you going to maintain operational security
    with CIA operation staff working together with TTIC personnel?
        And second, what is the rationale for involving TTIC
    directly in operations as is now the case in the CIA's CTC?
        Mr. Wiley. Senator, the Counter Terrorist Center today, as
    it was when I was in charge of it through December 1997, is an
    integrated environment that involves our operations officers,
    technical collection officers from other agencies, and analysts
    from the Directorate of Intelligence as well as some analysts
    from other parts of the Intelligence Community. Operational
    security there has been maintained from the early days of the
    Center back in the mid-1980's through today by making sure that
    all those in the Center have access to the information they
    need to conduct their work, what we call horizontal
    compartmentalization rather than isolating--the analysts are
    going to have this slice of information and operators have that
    slice of information.
        I believe that same philosophy can and should be extended
    to TTIC. TTIC itself does not have an operational role and it
    is important for legal and privacy and chain of command reasons
    to separate the two. But it is perfectly possible for them to
    work together in a secure environment with appropriate caveats
    for access to information. We have done that. We have a 15, 20-
    year track record now of having done that and I think it can be
    extended to the TTIC. I think that the same applies in the work
    that we have seen with the FBI.
        So I am always concerned about operational security, but I
    believe we have the experience for dealing with this.
        Senator Akaka. I am glad we are raising these questions
    because, if need be, I am sure we will find an answer to some
    of these questions.
        Mr. D'Amuro, in your testimony you have indicated that
    there are now 66 FBI joint terrorism task forces around the
    country. Are these all up and running, and are they all fully
    staffed? Do they also include local officials?
        Mr. D'Amuro. Yes, Senator, I believe--the JTTF is not a new
    concept to the Bureau. It was created 23 years ago in New York
    City. At the time a lot of people thought that this was not
    going to work. It turned out to be visionary. It turned out to
    be a very effective tool, and the reason it is so effective is
    by including other Federal, State, and local agencies on the
    JTTFs. So the 66 JTTFs that I have identified in my testimony
    are up and running. What we are trying to do is get some
    critically needed training for them so that they know how all
    of these JTTFs are supposed to operate.
        We had, at the time of September 11, I believe it was
    approximately 26 JTTFs across the country. So by expanding to
    66 now you can see the need for training those JTTFs and making
    sure they understand how they are supposed to operate. They do
    include State and local participants. We have received over
    1,200 requests for security clearances. As of this date I
    believe we have 936 approved at the secret level and we are
    working to try to resolve the rest of them.
        So they are the shining star, the critical piece of the
    Bureau's counterterrorism mission. It is how we not only fuse
    intelligence but it also gives us the ability to go out and act
    upon that intelligence, to be able to disrupt or prevent
    terrorist acts as you saw, as I mentioned earlier, in Buffalo.
        Senator Akaka. Thank you. My time has expired. May I just
    ask a question of Secretary England?
        Chairman Collins. Certainly.
        Senator Akaka. Because I mentioned cruise ships, are cruise
    ships considered part of the critical infrastructure?
        Mr. England. Senator, I am not sure they are critical
    infrastructure. They are certainly important in terms of
    protection. But what we will do as part of our department--keep
    in mind we have only been in place for a month so far, but one
    of our functions will be to identify the most critical
    infrastructure in the country and to prioritize. So that has
    worked under the Office of Homeland Security, but that will
    expand greatly under the Department of Homeland Security. So it
    will be part of the total infrastructure. It will be studied,
    examined, and prioritized.
        Senator Akaka. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you very much. Senator Coleman.
        Senator Coleman. Thank you, Madam Chairman. First, a
    comment directed to Mr. D'Amuro. As a former local elected
    official I appreciate the work of the JTTFs and believe that
    they really are a wonderful model and work very well. But my
    concern is this and I hope you will reflect on it. I think they
    do a very good job of collecting. You talked about that, of
    collecting data. I still think there are real challenges in
    terms of--it is the question that Madam Chairman raised about
    information getting back to those at the local level.
        In addition to chiefs of police, there are mayors who are
    held responsible for knowing what is going on and there is a
    question about whether they are contained in the security link.
    Do they have the relevant clearances? What can they be told? So
    much of what we are talking about depends upon public
    confidence, and the mayor at the local level is the one who is
    supposed to know what is going on. If you have a lack of
    understanding, of someone in the dark at the local level, it
    undermines public confidence and I think has a very
    debilitating effect on folks that--moms and dads in our
    community.
        So I do hope that we can go back and you can look at how we
    do a better job connecting with mayors, with folks at the local
    level, not just in the receipt of the information which we do a
    very good job now, I believe, of integrating local law
    enforcement with Federal authorities at the JTTFs. But it is
    getting it back, and that is still, I think, an honest concern
    and I would hope that you would reflect on it and figure out
    some way to deal with it.
        Secretary England, I appreciate your clarifying so we all
    understand the TTIC, they are not an agency. It is a center. My
    question for you was, and I think I heard you respond somewhat,
    does Homeland Security expect to create its own operational
    intelligence unit? If it does, how do you then deal with this
    issue again of duplication? We have the FBI that focuses on the
    local level. They have an operational unit. We have CIA--have
    operational units. Are we creating another operational unit in
    government that will then work with TTIC?
        Mr. England. Senator, I am not quite sure what you mean by
    an operational unit. We will have a separate analysis center to
    interpret the data that takes place outside in the TTIC. So the
    purpose of the TTIC, I mean, the benefit to us is that we
    rapidly stand up to a capability where we are part of the TTIC,
    so we participate. Think of it as part of the Department of
    Homeland Security, just like it is a part of all the other
    agencies working together with access to all the data. So we
    will have all the access that all the other agencies have to
    intelligence data.
        We will have some additional analysis people and assessment
    people that are not in the TTIC that help relate that data to
    our infrastructure and also, frankly, to be able to discuss it
    with myself, Secretary Ridge, and other people.
        Also, by the way, the question about dissemination of data,
    we do have to have processes in place to make sure that we do
    disseminate data to State and local first responders, and we
    are working with FBI in that regard right now. That is a very
    critical part of this also, to understand what data needs to be
    passed down throughout America.
        Senator Coleman. Again, while I strongly support and
    understand the importance of trying to make sure we have a more
    efficient sharing of information and analysis of information, I
    would just again then raise the question, we have FBI out
    there. They do the analysis. We have CIA out there. Please,
    please, please let us make sure that we do not create another
    layer of intelligence analysis. Certainly you and Secretary
    Ridge need to have information analyzed brought to you so you
    can respond, but I just raise that concern again.
        Mr. England. You are absolutely right, sir. I can assure
    you that--the intent is just the opposite, to make sure we take
    full utilization of the TTIC.
        Senator Coleman. Following up then again with the
    responsibility that you and Secretary Ridge have to analyze--to
    receive information of the threat analysis and then articulate
    that to the public, is it the sense that--I am trying to
    understand its function here. Is the TTIC the agency then that
    will provide the underlying information and you then take that
    information and then come to a conclusion that we are at yellow
    or at orange and here is where we go from here?
        Mr. England. That will be one of the fundamental analysis
    base that we will use to assess the threats; that is correct,
    Senator. So that is the all-source data that will be available
    to us, and again, to the other agencies. So we will analyze
    that data, have full access to that data, and we will help
    assess that data along with the other agencies.
        We will analyze, but largely we will assess. That is, what
    is the effect of that data on infrastructure and across
    America? What is the effect of that data? So when people talk
    about an analysis center, in my judgment it is really both
    analysis and assessment. We will do more assessment, less
    analysis, but we will have analysis people located within the
    center.
        Senator Coleman. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Finally, we are
    entering--these are works in progress. We have entered a
    strange new world, unfortunately, post-September 11. Though we
    always like to take pride in our ability to do things the best,
    and I believe that is true about America, there are certainly
    other countries that have been dealing with these types of
    situations longer than we have. For us so often it was looking
    at foreign terrorist threats and now we have to understand and
    reflect upon the domestic terrorist threats, and the
    integration of foreign sources and domestic sources. Are there
    other models out there? Are there folks, Israel, or some other
    places that have dealt with this before, that are helping us
    shape this, or is this simply kind of a whole cloth concept
    that we have put together? Mr. Wiley from the CIA or anybody on
    the panel?
        Mr. Wiley. Senator, there certainly are models and Israel,
    the United Kingdom, our partners in Western Europe to one
    degree or another have attempted to do this. No one, I think,
    has faced quite the challenge that we do in terms of scale; the
    size, the openness of our society are all things that
    contribute to a different environment. But both through the
    Intelligence Community, and I know the law enforcement
    community, my friend Ambassador Black in his exchanges, we are
    very much interested in drawing lessons from others and
    incorporating that in all facets of it, and I am sure the same
    is true for the Department of Homeland Security.
        Mr. D'Amuro. I will just add to that, if I could, Senator.
    We have a very robust liaison program with a lot of different
    intelligence and law enforcement services across the world. The
    United States poses a unique situation as Winston has said. We
    have a Constitution. We operate within the Constitution. I
    think the beauty of the system that we have, in particular
    talking about the FBI, is that we have both the intelligence
    tools and the law enforcement tools in the same bag.
        I do not mean to go back to Buffalo again but it is a prime
    example of how we are able--that was a pure intelligence
    collection operation. When we learned that one individual was
    overseas, we were able to dispatch individuals to interview
    this person. And when we learned through that interview that
    there were legal statements, legal problems with some of the
    statements that he made, that actual crimes had taken place,
    the Buffalo division within 24 hours was able to act very
    quickly and round up those individuals that we had under our
    intelligence investigation, and get them off the street and
    prevent a possible terrorist event.
        So the beauty of having both the intelligence tools and the
    law enforcement tools in an organization that has operated
    within the Constitution, I think, is one of the benefits of our
    systems.
        Senator Coleman. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you, Senator Coleman. Senator
    Levin.
        Senator Levin. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
        My major concern has been and continues to be, where will
    the principal responsibility for analyzing foreign intelligence
    rest? This has been a subject that Senator Coleman and I think
    others have made reference to today, and I believe our
    Chairman, as a matter of fact, specifically asked that question
    about the relationship between the CTC and TTIC. I am not
    satisfied with what I understand the answers were. I am sorry I
    could not be here to hear them in person but the report of
    those answers leaves me very unsatisfied.
        It is a huge problem. There is a lot of information that we
    received prior to September 11 that was not analyzed, that fell
    through cracks. If we are going to diffuse responsibility
    instead of fuse it, we are going to have confusion instead of
    focused responsibility to analyze--and I use that word
    precisely--foreign intelligence. Not domestic intelligence yet.
    I want to talk about intelligence.
        Now on January 17--and by the way, one other thing: We will
    be lucky if we do this well once. We have got 17,000 pieces of
    intelligence coming into the CTC a week; 17,000 pieces of
    intelligence. The CTC produces 300 outgoing intelligence
    products a month, and they have got almost 300 analysts.
        We have got to understand precisely the relationship
    between TTIC and CTC. We cannot blur that responsibility. We
    have got to focus it so that we can hold folks accountable if
    there are failures. Otherwise, CTC will say that was a TTIC
    responsibility, and TTIC will say that was a CTC
    responsibility, and we cannot have that situation.
        I asked Secretary Ridge, on January 17 when he was before
    the Committee, the following question, will the principal
    responsibility to analyze foreign intelligence from all sources
    remain in the CTC? His answer was, that is correct.
        Now I think the statute itself is unclear on that issue.
    The homeland security statute is unclear because it creates a
    new Undersecretary for Information Analysis and Infrastructure
    Protection inside the Homeland Security Department and gives
    that Undersecretary the responsibility to assess, which is what
    Deputy Secretary England just made reference to, receive, and
    analyze law enforcement information, intelligence information
    and other information from agencies of the Federal Government,
    State and local government agencies, and to integrate such
    information in order to identify and assess the nature and
    scope of the terrorist threats.
        Given that language, I asked Secretary Ridge whether or not
    there is then confusion. Where is the principal responsibility
    to analyze those 17,000 pieces of foreign intelligence that
    come in every week? Is it going to be CTC or is it going to be
    Homeland Security? Now I ask the same question about TTIC
    because now we not only have a CTC which apparently is going to
    proceed unencumbered that is supposed to analyze all foreign
    intelligence from all sources, and has FBI sitting there, and
    has the Coast Guard sitting there, and all the other agencies
    at the CTC. And now we are going to have Homeland Security that
    has a statutory responsibility to analyze and now a TTIC
    responsibility, apparently in the CIA, to analyze what seems to
    me to be the same information coming from all sources as the
    CTC is analyzing.
        We have got to be clear in statute and in practice where
    this responsibility lies and I repeat what I said, if we do
    this well once we will be very lucky. This is a huge challenge
    to put together 17,000 pieces of intelligence a month that come
    in, and to analyze it, and to connect the dots. The idea that
    we might do it twice or three times to me is wrong in terms of
    accountability and it is wrong in terms of responsibility and
    it is wrong in terms of practicality.
        Now let me start with you, Deputy Secretary England. Is the
    principal responsibility to analyze foreign intelligence going
    to remain in the CTC?
        Mr. England. Yes, sir.
        Senator Levin. Then how is that different from the
    responsibility which we are giving to TTIC to do the analysis
    of all intelligence, foreign and domestic apparently? How is
    that different?
        Mr. England. Senator, we will basically collate resources
    so that all the data is available in one place.
        Senator Levin. Is that TTIC or CTC?
        Mr. England. The TTIC itself will have access to all the
    source data.
        Senator Levin. I know they will have access. Who is
    responsible to analyze all this intelligence coming in? Will it
    be TTIC or CTC?
        Mr. England. My judgment is it will be CTC for the foreign
    intelligence. For domestic intelligence it will be the FBI. But
    in this facility we will then have people available with access
    to this data, access to conclusions that we can then analyze
    further, if necessary, because of data we may know in terms of
    homeland security, threats to America, whatever. So we would
    have in that facility access to ask additional questions,
    understand further, make additional assessments, etc. So it is
    a resource available for our analysts to be part of it, and
    also our people to assess that----
        Senator Levin. Wait a minute. For our analyst to be--who is
    our?
        Mr. England. Department of Homeland Security will have some
    analysts in this facility, so we can understand the data in
    terms of our mission, which is to assess that data relative to
    threats to America.
        Senator Levin. I understand the assessment and where it
    belongs and where it is. I just want to be real clear. What you
    just said is, principal responsibility to analyze information,
    intelligence relative to foreign intelligence will remain in
    the CTC; domestic intelligence will remain in the FBI. The
    reports from both of those entities will come to TTIC to do
    whatever it wants to do with the reports that come in from both
    CTC and from FBI; is that correct?
        Mr. England. That is correct. That is my understanding.
        Senator Levin. I think that is fine if it is clear, but I
    think we all have to be real clear now on where that
    responsibility lies and I would like to see either an executive
    order, or I would like to see a decision by the agencies
    involved, a joint decision placing the principal responsibility
    exactly where you said. And if it is not there, where is it? We
    cannot have unfocused location of the analysis responsibility
    of foreign intelligence and domestic intelligence. We cannot
    blur it. We cannot duplicate it. We will be making a tragic
    error if we do. Instead of fusing we will be confusing, and I
    think that is----
        Mr. England. Senator, you and I agree on this. This is not
    an issue at all. I concur completely with your approach. I
    believe my colleagues do also. That is the approach that we are
    using for TTIC, so I do not believe we have any disagreement
    here at all.
        Senator Levin. TTIC becomes a customer essentially. It has
    got the ability to do additional analysis, I understand, and it
    has a right to access anything it wants, I understand. But it
    is basically a customer of CTC and FBI when it takes the
    reports of foreign intelligence from CTC, domestic intelligence
    from FBI, fuses those reports, does whatever it wants with
    those reports, and then makes its own assessments. If it wants
    additional analysis it has the power to do additional analysis
    on its own. It can, I presume, task FBI or CTC to do additional
    analysis.
        Mr. England. Yes.
        Senator Levin. But the principal responsibility is where
    you just identified. Is that your understanding as well, Mr.
    D'Amuro?
        Mr. D'Amuro. Yes, Senator, it is. I will try to explain it
    real quickly and I know Mr. Wiley may want to jump in on this.
    The mission of the TTIC is to fuse threat information--to
    provide one-stop analytical products for threat analysis to law
    enforcement, the Intelligence Community, everyone. It is an
    interagency function. All the agencies are at the table to
    include DOD, Homeland Security, the FBI, and the CIA. They will
    fuse that product and provide an analytical product with
    respect to threat analysis.
        Mr. Wiley. I think Mr. D'Amuro has it exactly right,
    Senator. I think that, Senator, before you came in I said that
    one of the things about TTIC is that our intention is to build
    on those things that have been working well. The close
    collaboration between collectors and analysts, both within the
    agency at CIA and between CIA and the FBI, because I think that
    is one of the things that has been working well. We want to do
    precisely what you are talking about, is bring the analysis of
    foreign intelligence, whether it is collected overseas or
    collected inside the United States, together in a seamless
    fashion, just as you are saying. TTIC will be in a position--by
    virtue of having CIA people, FBI people, other Intelligence
    Community people, DHS people together--in a position to do
    that. But I cannot be all things on day one, and will have to--
    --
        Senator Levin. No, not on day one. Is its goal to duplicate
    CTC?
        Mr. Wiley. Its goal is not to duplicate CTC.
        Senator Levin. It is to take the product of CTC and FBI and
    to then act--to put those products----
        Mr. Wiley. Over time, Senator, I believe that a TTIC, if we
    make it work right, will absorb some of those analytic
    production responsibilities from CTC and from the FBI to create
    that single fused product that we have been talking about.
        Senator Levin. Is that the ultimate goal?
        Mr. Wiley. Yes, sir, I believe so.
        Senator Levin. That is different then from what I was just
    told.
        Mr. Wiley. I think it should be.
        Senator Levin. I am not saying it should not. By the way,
    it is fine with me, so long as it is clear. But now that is
    very different from what Secretary England said.
        Mr. England. Senator, it is going to take time for this to
    evolve. This is still--I mean, we now have, I believe, a
    working concept, a structure of how we can go forward, greatly
    improve from where we are today. How this evolves I think is
    another question. We are a long way to get to that
    ``evolutionary stage'' and we are going to have--it takes a
    period of time just to stand up this capability. So while Mr.
    Wiley may be right, I think there is a lot of discussion before
    we ever get to that point in time.
        Mr. Wiley. I agree.
        Senator Levin. Is TTIC going to be represented at the CTC?
        Mr. Wiley. It will be cheek by jowl with----
        Senator Levin. Will it be sitting at that analytical table
    with the CTC? We have FBI there. We have Coast Guard there. We
    have all these agencies, part of CTC, sitting at the table. My
    specific question is, will Homeland Security and--first, will
    TTIC be at that table?
        Mr. Wiley. Yes, sir.
        Senator Levin. Will Homeland Security be at that table?
        Mr. Wiley. Yes, sir. And vice versa. The point is that we
    want to----
        Senator Levin. That is fine.
        Thanks, Madam Chairman.
        Chairman Collins. You are welcome, Senator Levin. I want to
    follow up on the issues that Senator Levin just raised.
        Secretary England, I am trying to get a better sense of
    what the role of the Information Analysis and Infrastructure
    Protection Directorate will be once TTIC is created. Will it
    conduct any analysis of raw intelligence or will it merely be a
    consumer of analysis that is produced by the new center, the
    FBI, and the CIA?
        Mr. England. The IA organization, part of the IA
    organization, information analysis, will physically be located
    in the TTIC. We will have a separate analysis center. An
    analysis center will be in the TTIC, and it will have access to
    all the data available in the TTIC. Now we will also, in
    addition to people who are located in the TTIC, we will have
    some number of people who will also do analysis, for the
    understanding of the Secretary, myself, etc. I mean, we are not
    there. How do you interpret the data, etc.? But we will also
    have an assessment group and the assessment group will
    determine what the effect of that analysis is, what that means
    in terms of our infrastructure; to assess that it in terms of
    what you do across America in terms of protection.
        So it is both analysis and assessment. But we will have a
    separate analysis group, per se. We will also rely on the TTIC
    and our representation in TTIC.
        Chairman Collins. A related issue here which I raised in my
    opening statement is where the new center should be located.
    Many would argue that when Congress created the new Information
    Analysis Directorate at the Department of Homeland Security it
    did so to try to create an intelligence fusion center. One of
    the witnesses at our hearing last week, James Steinberg,
    recommended that the new center be located at the Department of
    Homeland Security. He said the new department is supposed to be
    the hub of all homeland defense efforts and that it is the
    natural place where the fusion of terrorist analysis should
    take place. It is also the one department responsible for
    protecting our borders and our critical infrastructure.
        I guess I will ask Mr. Wiley this question first and then
    go to Secretary England. Why was the decision made to locate
    the new center under the supervision of the Director of Central
    Intelligence rather than the Secretary of Homeland Security?
        Mr. Wiley. Senator, I think that the key feature of having
    the threat integration center report directly to the Director
    of Central Intelligence is that it is doing precisely the
    fusion of intelligence, whether it is foreign intelligence or
    domestically collected foreign intelligence and law enforcement
    information. The Director of Central Intelligence has a
    responsibility for assessment of foreign intelligence, and the
    Intelligence Community has the overwhelming share of people
    with experience in doing that.
        With due respect to Mr. Steinberg, I think that doing the
    analysis and assessment part under the leadership of the
    Director of Central Intelligence and providing that to the
    Department of Homeland Security to merge with the vulnerability
    assessments and to have a responsibility for taking action is
    the right model. I think that asking the Department also to
    take on the intelligence assessment capability as well as the
    vulnerability work is asking it to do more than it needs to. I
    think that that is the rationale between the two.
        Chairman Collins. My concern is, how are we going to
    prevent the new center from just becoming a creature of the
    CIA? The House Intelligence Committee issued a staff report
    that found that oftentimes the DCI intelligence centers,
    including the Counter Terrorist Center, become solely CIA
    centers. Whenever you locate an agency or a new entity on the
    grounds of the CIA, which is the initial plan, and report to
    the CIA Director, how is that going to overcome the cultural
    differences that have impeded the relationship between the CIA
    and the FBI? If it were located in the new Department of
    Homeland Security, would that not send the right signal as far
    as overcoming these historic barriers?
        And if I could just add one thing. In your comments you
    referred to the brute force approach to sharing and said it is
    working, but it still is requiring brute force.
        Mr. Wiley. Just on the brute force issue, whether a new
    department is located at DHS, at the CIA, at the FBI, or
    anyplace else, if you are collocating people and you are
    institutionalizing a process, it will reduce the amount of
    brute force that is required. So I do not think the location,
    the particular location makes a difference on the issue of
    brute force.
        I think on the issue of its physical location, in order to
    get started quickly you really needed to be, I believe, in one
    of two places where there is already a framework of analysts
    working the counterterrorism problem to support that. That, in
    my view, left it to either the CIA compound or the FBI building
    downtown. There you have a framework to be able to get started
    quickly.
        Institutionally, this chart that you provided us reflects
    that the TTIC does not report to the Director in his capacity
    as head of the CIA but in his capacity as the head of the
    Intelligence Community, as I do, frankly. That itself sets it
    apart from CIA. CTC is a center that reports to the DCI through
    the Directorate of Operations. This is a direct-report to the
    DCI.
        Its physical location at the CIA headquarters compound
    cannot be denied, but it will not be collocated with CTC, and
    there are other non-CIA elements that are resident in that
    building: The National Intelligence Council, the Community
    Management Staff, large portions of NIMA, the imagery and
    mapping agency, are located in that building. Certainly the
    majority of the building is a CIA building, but it is not
    exclusively a CIA building. While it presents a challenge, I
    think strong leadership and the commitment of all of the
    partners to put people and contribute to the leadership will
    mitigate against that. In the long run, the point of
    collocation where CTC, the FBI's Counter Terrorism Division,
    and TTIC are collocated in an off-site facility I think
    mitigates that problem completely.
        Chairman Collins. Secretary England, what is your response
    to those experts who believe that this new center would be most
    effective if it were located within the new Department of
    Homeland Security?
        Mr. England. Senator, I would not recommend that. My own
    experience with large organizations--first of all, TTIC is for
    threat data, so this is threat analysis and the expertise of
    threat analysis lies with other agencies, not with the
    Department of Homeland Security. We will not be the dominant
    organization in the TTIC. We will have equal representation
    there.
        So while we will be able to participate in some of the
    source threat analysis, that is not our key mission. Our key
    mission is to make sure that the threats are analyzed
    appropriately, that data is available to us, that we can then
    do additional analysis if we have to, want to, etc. But it is
    to do vulnerability analysis, understand the infrastructure and
    how those threats may relate to vulnerability of our
    infrastructure and our people across the country.
        So I, frankly, think it would be very difficult for the
    Department of Homeland Security to take on a task as large as
    threat analysis that would come into this center and be able to
    assess all that appropriately. That would be a very large
    organizational step for us to take, particularly at this time
    and probably for years to come. So I, frankly, do not feel that
    would be appropriate for us today. I was delighted with this
    approach to have this fusion center put in place because it
    does enable us to do our mission much better.
        So again, as I said in my first comment to you, we endorse
    this approach. It makes us an equal player in this arena of
    threat analysis. But I certainly do not feel like we could
    actually manage that operation.
        Chairman Collins. Senator Coleman.
        Senator Coleman. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I wanted to
    follow up on the questions raised by Madam Chairman and the
    distinguished Senator from Michigan.
        Secretary England--and by the way, we are all in agreement
    here. We want this to work. We want it to be effective. We
    understand it is a work in progress. We have got to keep coming
    back to that, it is a work in progress, so we are going to need
    some flexibility here. But I would question--I understand that
    your principal mission is not threat analysis, but I suspect in
    Homeland Security that you are going to be taking a lot of
    information that is not going to be yours--you are not creating
    it. That is why I asked the question about whether you created
    an intelligence analyst unit. The answer was, not creating; you
    have some folks who will do that but you are not going to
    duplicate the work that is done by CTC, you are not going to
    duplicate the work that is done by the FBI.
        But if your principal function is to fuse this--to take the
    information that has been fused, that has come together, and
    then to articulate that, take threat analysis, and then to work
    with the American public on that to make sure that we are
    prepared, that we understand, I would suggest that it would
    make sense. My sense is that it would make sense for the
    Department of Homeland Security, again not to create a new
    analysis, not to say that is your principal function, but to
    have the kind of direct access from this unit to then figure
    out what you have got to do with it.
        If you look at the chart that Madam Chairman established,
    laid out before you, I mean organizationally what you have is
    TTIC then reporting to the head of the CIA--so there is a step
    between all that information that is gathered, at least
    structurally, and the Department of Homeland Security. It would
    appear to me that there should be a much more direct connection
    between you and TTIC.
        Mr. England. Senator, we are a full partner in TTIC. TTIC
    is part of the Department of Homeland Security, the same as it
    is part of all the other agencies. So we are part of TTIC. Some
    of our people will physically reside in TTIC. So data does not
    go up and across and down. Our information analysis people are
    part of TTIC, so we reside in that location. So this is--in
    fact, we call this a joint partnership and that is what it is.
    It is a joint partnership.
        My view is, as long as this partnership works effectively,
    and I believe it can work effectively and will work
    effectively, who it reports to is not very important frankly.
    To take existing structure in place and build it is much easier
    than the Department of Homeland Security trying to build a
    whole new structure. So this is a partnership. We do have
    direct access to all the information and we will be able to do
    our job appropriately.
        Senator Coleman. Secretary England, again I want to get
    back to this concept of work in progress. I appreciate the
    comment of who it reports to right now on paper. I do not think
    that is very important either, if it does not interfere with
    the most effective operation of TTIC and what it is supposed to
    do in terms of assessing threats to our country and dealing
    with those threats.
        I would hope then as we go about our work of bringing these
    pieces together and we are doing--again, we are living in this
    new world. As we do that, for it to have the flexibility along
    the way to say this may work a little better and then to come
    back to us at another point in time and say, we figured out a
    better way to do it, and this is what we are going to do. So I
    want you to have that flexibility. I support that concept and
    would hope that you keep that in mind, that you are not tied to
    a structure that has been put together very quickly, under
    difficult circumstances, and in the end we have got to do the
    right thing rather than what we may have thought the right
    thing was at another point in time.
        Thank you, Madam Chairman.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you, Senator. Senator Levin.
        Senator Levin. Just one question, Secretary England. You
    said that TTIC is part of Homeland Security?
        Mr. England. I say it is, I guess, rhetorically. We are
    part of--it is a partnership. So when I say it is part of it, I
    mean we are there. It is also part of the FBI, it is part of
    all the agencies that make it up. It was merely to emphasize
    that our people are there along with all the other people who
    make this up. So it is indeed a partnership.
        Senator Levin. But the head of TTIC is appointed by the
    Director of Central Intelligence; is that correct?
        Mr. England. Right, with the advice----
        Senator Levin. With the advice and so forth of the other
    agencies. But it is appointed by the Director of Central
    Intelligence, is located at Central Intelligence, and has
    people represented from all the other agencies including yours.
        Mr. England. Yes.
        Senator Levin. That is very much like CTC. It is part of
    the CIA, appointed by the Director of the CIA, has
    representatives from the Department of Homeland Security, the
    FBI, Coast Guard, you name it. It sounds to me that this is
    very similar in terms of its structure to the CTC. So I like
    the idea of things evolving. That is fine, and it may be over
    time that it belongs in a different place. I am less interested
    as to where it is, frankly, than that its responsibility is
    clear. That to me is the most important thing, and that is my
    concern, is that it be clear right off the get-go as to what
    its responsibility is, regardless of where it is or where it
    ends up 2, 5, or 10 years from now.
        I just think there is a lot of work that need to be done to
    identify that responsibility to analyze intelligence as to
    where that is, because right now statutorily it is in three
    places. The analytical responsibility is in three places on
    foreign intelligence; CTC, Homeland Security, and now TTIC. I
    do not think that is healthy. I think it allows people to, as
    we saw before September 11, it will allow people to duck
    accountability. There was enough ducking of accountability, in
    my judgment, for the failures that existed before September 11.
        So I would just ask you--I cannot do this on behalf of the
    Committee. Obviously, the Chairman has that exclusive
    responsibility, but at least this one Senator would be a lot
    more comfortable if somehow or other there was a statement as
    to the primary responsibility for analysis of foreign
    intelligence, domestic intelligence, as to where that is going
    to rest, and what is the relationship of TTIC to those
    analyses--and that be in writing.\1\ I just think that there is
    some fuzziness here which could be unhealthy.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ The response from Mr. Wiley appears in the Appendix on page 73.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Chairman Collins. I would second, as the Chairman of the
    Committee, Senator Levin's request in this regard. I do think
    we need more definition on who is going to do what. The
    Department of Homeland Security's underlying law calls for it
    to analyze. That is part of the law. So I do believe we need
    more definition. I do recognize that the Center is a work in
    progress, but I would ask the witnesses to come back to us with
    a document that would define with more specificity the
    responsibilities of the components and the existing--the
    Counter Terrorism Division at the FBI, the Counter Terrorism
    Center at the CIA, the Information Analysis Directorate at
    Homeland Security. I would like to see more definition in
    defining the responsibilities of those three units and how the
    new center interacts. The goal is fusion not confusion. But
    when I look at the chart and plot the new center in, I am
    concerned about duplication, accountability, and
    responsibility. So I hope as you further work out the details
    of the center you would get back to us.
        Senator Levin, did you have something more on that?
        Senator Levin. No.
        Chairman Collins. Senator Coleman.
        Senator Coleman. No.
        Chairman Collins. Before I adjourn the hearing I just want
    to bring up one final issue that I alluded to in my opening
    statement, and that is the dangers to privacy rights of
    combining law enforcement functions with intelligence gathering
    and analysis. Several, or some of our witnesses at our previous
    hearing raised the issue of whether this new center poses a
    threat to privacy rights. We have seen the controversy over the
    total information awareness program at the Department of
    Defense. The new center potentially will have access to huge
    databases of its component agencies--the good news is, for the
    first time we will be bringing all this information together.
    The bad news is, for the first time we will be bringing all
    this information together.
        Mr. Wiley, as the chair of this working group, how is the
    group going to ensure that the creation of this new center with
    its access to unprecedented amounts of information will not
    infringe upon the privacy rights of law-abiding citizens?
        Mr. Wiley. Madam Chairman, from the beginning the concerns
    you have expressed were an explicit part of our discussions in
    making sure that the lines of responsibility, lines of
    authority, the separate authority for conducting collection
    operations, whether overseas or domestic, remain separate from
    the authorities vested in the TTIC. I can only tell you that
    from day-one, we will continue at the Agency, at the Bureau, at
    Homeland Security to make sure that the structures we put
    together are in compliance with the laws, the executive orders,
    and sensitive to the issues of making sure that privacy rights
    and civil rights of law-abiding citizens are not violated. It
    is a fundamental concern right from the beginning and the very
    structure of the Center recognizes that by separating it from
    the operational components of both the FBI and the CIA.
        Chairman Collins. Mr. D'Amuro.
        Mr. D'Amuro. Senator, Winston is correct. This is not--the
    TTIC is focal point for the analysis of information that has
    been collected. The information that we will be collecting
    domestically will be overseen by the inspector general from the
    Department of Justice, it will be overseen by the FISA court.
    We have numerous Attorney General guidelines and directions
    that protect the civil liberties of the citizens of this
    country. The collection process will not change. We will use
    those guidelines, we will use those laws for our collection
    domestically. The role of the TTIC is simply the analysis of
    that collection. It is not an instrument that will go out
    operationally and collect on its own.
        Chairman Collins. There is no new collection authority; is
    that correct?
        Mr. D'Amuro. That is correct.
        Chairman Collins. Secretary England.
        Mr. England. In addition, Senator, let me add, Madam
    Chairman, that we also have a statutory obligation in terms of
    privacy. We do have, will have a privacy officer as part of
    this. That privacy officer will have a role, so we will have at
    least some degree of oversight to allay those concerns. But I
    do not believe that there will be a real concern there, but
    nonetheless, we will have that oversight function within the
    Department of Homeland Security.
        If I could add one more thing before we leave?
        Chairman Collins. Certainly.
        Mr. England. I know you have a very complex chart here but
    I would like to comment that there is actually more arrows that
    belong on this chart, Senator, only because of your comment. It
    turns out that the source data is available here at the
    information analysis. It goes directly--the analysis charts. So
    rather than linking here at the Secretary level, it really does
    link the IA/IP organization directly with the TTIC. I think
    perhaps that will clarify some of the issues we discussed
    earlier.
        Chairman Collins. Thank you. I want to thank our witnesses
    for appearing today. Your contributions are very valuable. We
    look forward to hearing back from you as you continue to refine
    the President's plan.
        The record will remain open for 15 days for the submission
    of any additional questions. I want to thank my staff for its
    hard work on this series of hearings. This hearing is now
    adjourned.
        [Whereupon, at 11:38 a.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
                                A P P E N D I X

                                  ----------

      RESPONSE TO SENATORS LEVIN AND COLLINS TRANSCRIPT REQUEST FROM MR.
                          WILEY REFERRED TO ON PAGE 69
        The Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC) is currently working
    collaboratively across the Federal Government to integrate terrorism
    information and analysis to provide a comprehensive, all-source-based
    picture of potential terrorist threats to U.S. interests. In this
    regard, TTIC works closely with the FBI's Counterterrorism Division,
    DHS's Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection directorate,
    the DCI's Counterterrorism Center, and the Defense Intelligence
    Agency's Joint Intelligence Task Force--Counterterrorism, among others.
    In fact, all of these organizations are represented in TTIC and work
    together, on a daily business, to carry out the mission of their parent
    organization as well as that assigned to TTIC by the President: to
    enable the full integration of U.S. Government terrorist threat-related
    information and analysis, collected domestically or abroad.
        As a relatively new entity, and one that is unique in the Federal
    constellation, misperceptions are still common. One common
    misperception is that TTIC is a part of the Central Intelligence
    Agency. In actual fact, TTIC does not belong to any department or
    agency. It is a multi-agency joint venture composed of partner
    organizations including the Departments of Justice/Federal Bureau of
    Investigation, Homeland Security, Defense, and State, and the Central
    Intelligence Agency. TTIC reports to the Director of Central
    Intelligence, but in his statutory capacity as the head of the
    Intelligence Community. TTIC does not engage in any collection
    activities and it does not engage in operations of any kind. Unlike the
    FBI's Counterterrorism Division, the DCI's Counterterrorism Center, and
    the Department of Homeland Security, all of which have an operational
    or collection element, TTIC is focused on integrating and analyzing
    terrorist threat-related information collected domestically or abroad.
    We defer to these other organizations to provide you a full explanation
    of their roles and responsibilities.
        While TTIC is still in its infancy, there is tangible evidence of
    the value of ``jointness,'' as embodied in the TTIC construct, and TTIC
    is making a difference in the war against terrorism. For example, TTIC
    analysis has contributed to informed decision making within DHS about
    the appropriate threat level for the nation. The TTIC-maintained
    terrorist identities database informs the national watchlisting process
    and according to the Homeland Security Presidential Directive-6, will
    soon serve as the single source of international terrorist identities
    information for the newly established Terrorist Screening Center. In
    addition, the TTIC-hosted joint information sharing program office is
    actively implementing the Information Sharing Memorandum of
    Understanding signed in March 2003 by Attorney General Ashcroft,
    Secretary Ridge, and the Director of Central Intelligence. Under the
    auspices of this program office, business processes are being re-
    engineered to facilitate the flow of information throughout the Federal
    Government, but in particular, to the Department of Homeland Security.
    Specific issues being addressed at this time include establishing
    standards for tear lines, reaching out to non-Intelligence Community
    Federal departments and agencies, and rethinking reporting standards.
        As the national approach to combating terrorism and protecting the
    homeland evolves, TTIC will continue to carry out the mission assigned
    to it by the President: to enable the full integration of U.S.
    Government terrorist threat-related information and analysis, collected
    domestically and abroad--and TTIC will fulfill its mission in full
    coordination with partner organizations including the Department of
    Homeland Security, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central
    Intelligence Agency, the Department of Defense, and the Department of
    State. We will keep you informed of our progress.

                      PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR SHELBY

        Thank you Madam Chairman for calling this hearing today to examine
    the President's proposal to form the Terrorist Threat Information
    Center (TTIC). I also thank our panel for appearing before the
    Committee today. As a long time member of Senate Select Committee on
    Intelligence, I am particularly interested in the subject matter of
    this hearing.
        Madam Chairman, as you know, I worked closely last year with the
    Governmental Affairs Committee to help draft the provisions of the
    Homeland Security Act crating an intelligence fusion center within the
    Department of Homeland Security. While the eventual fusion center
    language signed into law represented a compromise, I felt confident at
    that time that the United States government had the statutory tools it
    needed to make our country a safer place.
        One of the main reasons for this belief is the placement of the
    fusion center within DHS itself. I have said many times before that the
    failure of the Central Intelligence Agency and others in the
    Intelligence Community (IC) to share intelligence information
    contributed significantly to the government's lack of preparedness for
    the September 11 attacks. I supported the formation of the independent
    fusion center located outside of the IC because I believed it would
    challenge the community's reluctance to share information. Creating a
    new and improved fusion center within the IC is a good think--because
    improvements are clearly needed--but I am concerned that if this is all
    that happens, it may allow the IC's institutional allergy to
    information sharing to remain unchallenged and the President's vision
    of a truly ``all-source'' fusion center to remain unfulfilled.
        If TTIC does not challenge the institutional and cultural barriers
    to intelligence sharing within the IC, our country will not be safer
    from the threat of terrorism. During the Homeland Security debate, I
    and my colleagues spent a considerable amount of time developing the
    idea of an intelligence fusion center for all government information on
    terrorist threats. I hope that the intelligence bureaucracies--whose
    job it will be to implement the President's vision for TTIC--permit the
    new center to develop into such an organization.
        Madam Chairman, unfortunately, we have heard little in the way of
    specific information from the administration about why TTIC is
    necessary and how it will result in a safer country. Only three months
    ago, the President signed into law legislation creating the Homeland
    Security Department, which will house the nation's first truly all-
    source, government-wide intelligence fusion center. It is unclear to me
    then why the administration is pushing for the creation of a second
    intelligence fusion center before the DHS fusion center has even begun
    operations and had a chance to be evaluated. The new TTIC, I should
    emphasize, is by no means a bad idea. But I am concerned that, in
    practice, it will represent not the fulfillment of our broad vision of
    a ``one-stop shopping'' fusion center, but rather its co-opting by
    agencies who see real innovations in this regard as a threat to their
    bureaucratic ``turf.''
        The TTIC proposal raises a number of questions. For example, DHS's
    website states that the department ``will serve as a central hub of
    intelligence analysis and dissemination, working with agencies
    throughout the federal government such as the FBI, CIA, NSA, DEA, the
    Department of Defense and other key intelligence sources.'' How does
    this mission differ from TTIC's mission? Will the responsibilities of
    DHS and TTIC overlap? If so, is this the most efficient way to protect
    our country from terrorism or will it result in needless and wasteful
    duplication? Also, if TTIC is to be our nation's premier terrorist
    threat fusion center, how will DHS be able to attract and hire
    qualified information analysts? Moreover, if TTIC is really supposed to
    be the center for evaluation all U.S. Government information relevant
    to terrorist threats, how will it--as part of the Intelligence
    Community--fulfill this role within the IC's current rules regarding
    the handling of information related to ``United States persons''?
        Last, I would be remiss if I did not express my concerns about the
    President's decision to place TTIC under the supervision of the
    Director of Central Intelligence (DCI). As I have said many times
    before, I believe Director Tenet has played no small role in worsening
    the bureaucratic problems--including a powerful institutional
    resistance to information-sharing--that have long kept our Intelligence
    Community from being as capable and prepared as Americans desperately
    need it to be. I question whether the President's vision of a powerful
    and effective TTIC will be well served by putting this DCI in charge of
    the premier terrorist threat fusion center in the U.S. Government.
        Madam Chairman, while I have a number of concerns about TTIC, it
    should be noted that I am not necessarily opposed to it at this time. I
    do believe, though, that Congress needs more information in order to
    evaluate TTIC. It is my understanding that it is the administration's
    position that Congressional approval is not needed to create TTIC.
    While this may be legally true, Congress will be involved with TTIC
    through its oversight responsibilities of the Intelligence Community.
    Nothing, moreover, prevents Congress from stepping in to structure TTIC
    by statute, as occurred with the Department of Homeland Security
    itself. I therefore strongly urge the administration to keep an open
    line of communication with the relevant congressional communities.
        I thank you Madam Chairman for the opportunity to address the
    Committee today and look forward to hearing from our panel.

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