[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 13 (Thursday, February 5, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S603-S608]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               THE NEED FOR INTELLIGENCE REFORM, PART III

  Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. Mr. President, during this week, I have 
spoken--and this will be the third statement--about the need to reform 
our Nation's intelligence agencies. I have suggested that the horrific 
acts of September 11, 2001--acts which killed nearly 3,000 Americans in 
New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania--could have been avoided if our 
intelligence agencies had been more organized and more focused in 
dealing with the threat of international terrorism. These conclusions 
were largely the result of the work of the House-Senate joint inquiry 
on September 11, 2001. This bicameral, bipartisan committee finished 
its investigation on December 20, 2002, and filed its report. In that 
report, it concluded there were a number of problems with our existing 
intelligence networks and it made 19 recommendations of how to fix 
those problems.

  Repairing the flaws in our intelligence community is a matter of 
national security, a matter of the highest importance and urgency. As 
we are now learning in the context of the war with Iraq and Saddam 
Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, policymakers cannot make wise 
decisions affecting the security of American people without timely, 
accurate, credible information, and tough-minded, independent analysis, 
and will use that information to shape the judgments of the President 
and other decisionmakers, not to validate previously held opinions. If 
we fail to accurately perceive future threats, we will be poorly 
prepared to respond to them. If we do not perceive current threats 
accurately, then our response may be either inadequate or excessive.
  Whether restraining the development of proliferation of weapons of 
mass destruction or interdicting terrorists, now, more than ever, 
intelligence matters. If there is another terrorist attack on American 
soil, the American people will demand to know what the Congress, what 
the President, what other governmental institutions learned from the 
September 11 attacks, and now the prewar intelligence in Iraq, and how 
that information was used to protect them. There will be no avoidance 
of accountability for the next attack, either for Congress or the 
President. We must take our responsibility seriously.
  Further, we must recognize that every day needed intelligence reforms 
are delayed is a day of unnecessary risk for the American people. 
Unfortunately, with regard to the recommendations of the joint inquiry 
committee, very little has been accomplished to date. In my two 
previous statements, I discussed the status of these recommendations 
dealing with the intelligence community reform and specific responses 
to terrorism. I particularly commend Senator Dianne Feinstein for her 
leading role in the area of reorganization of the intelligence 
community.
  Today I will turn to two additional areas of particular concern: the 
Federal Bureau of Investigation and the application of the Foreign 
Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, which governs the use of 
electronic eavesdropping on foreign nationals in the United States. 
Here, I particularly recognize the contributions of Senators DeWine, 
Durbin, Edwards, and Kyl to this section of our report.
  We know now the FBI did not have or did not give adequate attention 
and resources to the problem of terrorism prior to September 11, 2001. 
For the FBI, terrorism was a lesser priority and its personnel did not 
understand the FISA and therefore did not use effectively its available 
investigative authority. Important information was not shared with 
other agencies, was not shared even within the various branches of the 
FBI itself. During the summer of 2001, separate parts of the FBI had 
information that could have been used to disrupt or destroy al-Qaida's 
hijacking plot, but that information was never collectively analyzed.
  For example, what agents in Minnesota knew about Zacaria Moussaoui, 
the so-called twentieth hijacker who was taken into custody in August 
of that year, is he was studying to fly commercial airlines but was 
disinterested in either taking them off or landing them. Meanwhile, a 
Phoenix field agent of the FBI had become suspicious of radical 
Islamists who were also learning to fly airplanes. An agent in San 
Diego was working with an informant who knew at least two of the 
hijackers. The informant was aware that one of the future hijackers was 
moving to Arizona with a fellow terrorist--again to attend flight 
school.

  If these agents had been aware of each other's activities or if the 
analysts at FBI headquarters had connected these geographically 
separate events, portions of the September 11 plot might well have been 
uncovered and disrupted. Unfortunately, the FBI lacked the sufficient 
number of analysts to process all the relevant information, and 
barriers to sharing information prevented agents from learning about 
each other's activities, even though both the Phoenix memo which 
expressed concern that bin Laden was sending young recruits to the 
United States for pilot training and the

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Moussaoui investigation were handled by the same unit at FBI 
headquarters.
  Furthermore, although existing laws gave FBI agents the authority to 
pursue these leads, individual agents were in some cases unaware of 
their powers under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and this 
confusion prevented them from pursuing aggressively potentially helpful 
lines of investigation.
  With these facts in mind, the joint inquiry made four recommendations 
related to the FBI and FISA which I will now discuss.
  Recommendation No. 6 calls for the FBI to improve its domestic 
intelligence capability as fully and as quickly as possible and to 
establish clear counterterrorism priorities for the agency to follow. 
Specific areas for improvement are mentioned, including the need to 
improve analytical capability, the need to disseminate intelligence 
information within the FBI and among Government agencies, the need to 
improve knowledge of national security laws, the need to hire more 
personnel with linguistic skills, and the need to fix persistent 
information technology problems.
  Our joint inquiry report gives a thorough explanation of why each of 
these improvements is necessary. In the years leading up to September 
11, the FBI was faced with a shortage of counterterrorism personnel 
partly due to a lack of overall resources, partly because 
counterterrorism priorities were not clearly established or followed. 
In particular, the number of qualified intelligence analysts was at a 
critically low level. This is the reason the memo from the FBI agent in 
the Phoenix field office did not generate any further discussion or 
analysis and is also the reason no one at the FBI headquarters was able 
to connect the dots and see that information collected by the FBI in 
California, in Minnesota, in Arizona was all related to a larger 
terrorist plot. The analyst shortage was compounded by outdated 
information technologies and the lack of a good counterterrorism 
database which made it difficult for analysts to assess and organize 
crucial information.
  Prior to September 11, the FBI also had a severe shortage of 
linguists. For example, 35 percent of all materials collected by the 
FBI in the Arabic language were not even reviewed because there were 
not enough persons within the FBI to translate that material. This one 
fact may have deprived the Bureau of potentially valuable terrorist-
related intelligence which could have avoided September 11. Even in 
those cases where the Bureau did collect and identify information on 
terrorist activity, it failed to share that information with other 
agencies, both inside and outside the intelligence community.
  For example, if the Federal Aviation Authority had been told in 
August of 2001 that the FBI had identified a potential airline suicide 
hijacker in Minnesota, the FAA would have had at least the opportunity 
to increase security precautions on domestic flights such as by 
reinforcing the doors between the cockpit and the passenger cabin. 
Tragically, this did not happen.
  I am pleased to report some improvement has been made in these 
problem areas. In 2003, the Bureau developed a strategic plan outlining 
its top counterterrorism priorities. It has also increased hiring and 
training and many agents have been permanently reassigned to high 
priority areas. However, while hiring and training have increased, the 
General Accounting Office has suggested the FBI continues to lack fully 
adequate analytical capability and that the Bureau continues to face a 
shortage of linguists and information technology personnel as well as 
administrative staff.
  Even more troubling is the fact that officials in Federal agencies, 
State governments, and local levels continue to report they do not 
consider the current information-sharing system to be effective. With 
few exceptions, these individuals say they are not receiving all the 
information they need to fulfill their responsibilities as the front 
line of our war against terrorism.
  In some cases this is because information is simply not available. 
But too often it is because of institutional practices that prevent 
important information from being shared. Even when information is 
disseminated, officials at all three levels report that it is 
frequently inaccurate, irrelevant, and not received in a timely 
fashion.
  This situation is made worse by the fact that none of these problems 
are new. In the year 2000, two separate commissions on national 
security pointed to these same weaknesses within the FBI and urged that 
they be corrected.
  The National Commission on Terrorism, also known as the Bremer 
commission, issued its report in June of 2000, and the Advisory Panel 
to Assess Domestic Response Capabilities for Terrorism Involving 
Weapons of Mass Destruction, known as the Gilmore commission, issued 
its second report the following December.
  Both commissions stated that the FBI needed to improve its analytical 
capability and disseminate information in a more timely manner inside 
and outside the Bureau.
  The two commissions also suggested that FISA gave the FBI more 
investigative powers than were currently being used, and the Gilmore 
commission suggested that this was due to misunderstanding and 
confusion regarding the law. The Bremer commission also called 
attention to the shortage of skilled linguists within the agency, which 
is a problem that we still face today.
  Since September 11, FBI Director Mueller has initiated a serious and 
sustained effort to reform and reshape the FBI to fight terrorism. 
Progress has been made. However, much is left to be done.
  One particular area of concern is the information technology systems 
at the FBI. The computer and communication systems at the FBI have been 
notoriously outdated.
  I recall a meeting at one of our CIA stations in the Middle East 
during which the agency personnel pleaded with the Members of Congress 
who were present to push the FBI toward adopting computer systems that 
would be compatible with the CIA's so that basic information could be 
shared.
  A recent report by the General Accounting Office on this subject is 
highly critical of the FBI's attempts to improve its information 
technology systems. As we saw in our investigation of the September 11 
attacks, the best work of skilled agents is wasted if they cannot 
communicate it to those who will use it. We cannot rest until we are 
certain the FBI has made all the changes it so desperately needs.
  Recommendation No. 7 advises the Congress and the administration to 
evaluate and consider changes to the domestic intelligence sector.
  In the short term, our national security interests are best served by 
taking actions to improve the capabilities of the FBI. However, over 
the long term, we must decide on the best way to organize our domestic 
intelligence agencies and consider serious restructuring if we conclude 
that the current structure is inadequate to serve our national security 
interests.
  The joint inquiry recommended that FISA be included in this review. 
This recommendation reflects concerns that the FBI, which is primarily 
a law enforcement organization, is inherently ill-suited to the 
challenge of domestic intelligence gathering.
  While the agency has done a commendable job carrying out its law 
enforcement missions, preventing attacks before they occur requires an 
approach very different from finding and punishing criminals after they 
have acted. Throughout its history, the FBI's focus has been on 
investigating crime and arresting criminals rather than preventing 
crime.

  The lapses that preceded 9/11 may therefore be in part the 
consequence of requiring the same agency to carry out two very 
different functions. One example of this tendency of the FBI is how it 
defines investigatory targets. It tends to do so in terms of those that 
are likely to result in a prosecution as opposed to those that pose the 
greatest threat.
  I recall during one of our Senate Intelligence Committee hearings a 
senior FBI official was asked to provide an estimate of the number of 
suspected terrorists within a specific region of the country. He 
responded by giving us the number of open investigative files at a 
certain field office--clearly a law enforcement methodology rather than 
the approach that an intelligence agency would take. I would note that 
none of the 19 hijackers of September 11 had an open FBI file that 
would have

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marked them as a suspected terrorist in our midst.
  Our recommendations on the FBI consisted of three parts: First, we 
said in the short term we should do everything possible to strengthen 
the capability of the FBI to fight the war on terror. The FBI is all we 
have at the present time, and we need to make it as effective as 
possible.
  Second, we need to conduct an open debate on the type of domestic 
intelligence that we as a nation want and need. We can look to other 
nations for models which are based on the perceived threat within the 
borders of each of those nations. They range from the extremely high 
level of surveillance that the Israeli Government exercises to protect 
its citizens from internal terrorist threats to the resistance to 
scrutiny of private citizens in certain regions of Germany.
  Third, we need to evaluate the enhanced capability of the FBI against 
the model that we establish as our desired end state, and then 
determine if our security needs could be better met by creating a 
separate domestic intelligence agency, leaving the FBI to focus on law 
enforcement priorities. That model exists in Great Britain, where 
Scotland Yard, like the FBI, handles national domestic law enforcement 
matters, but there is a separate agency, the MI5, which performs 
domestic intelligence gathering.
  To date, no changes have been made to FISA since we issued our 
report, nor has the larger debate regarding the structure of our 
domestic intelligence community taken place.
  Our joint committee called for Congress to request a report from the 
administration regarding the structure of our domestic intelligence 
program. So far, no action has been taken on this recommendation.
  Recommendation No. 8 calls for the Attorney General and the FBI to 
assure that the FBI uses its powers effectively and disseminates 
information quickly. In particular, it calls for FBI personnel to 
receive in-depth training on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act 
and to implement a plan to use FISA to assess the threat of terrorist 
groups within the United States. It specifically refers to the need to 
identify whether and how any of these groups receive funding or support 
from foreign governments.
  The need for clearer guidelines and better training regarding the 
FISA was made abundantly clear during the FBI's investigation of 
Zacharias Moussaoui. Agents in Minnesota correctly suspected that he 
was involved in a hijacking plot, but even after he was detained by the 
Immigration and Naturalization Service, the agents concluded that FISA 
did not give them the authority to search his belongings since it was 
not established that Moussaoui was acting as an agent of a foreign 
power.
  This conclusion was incorrect under the FISA law. It demonstrates the 
significant confusion and ambiguity that has developed surrounding the 
use of FISA and that reform is important and urgent.
  FISA is also one of the best tools we have for tracking terrorist 
funding. However, it is not always used to its fullest potential. For 
example, the chief of the FBI's Financial Crimes Section told our 
committee that if asked, he would have been able to locate hijackers 
Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mindhar by tracking credit card and 
banking transactions. These same powers could have been used by the FBI 
to track foreign sources of terrorist funding, with the aim of cutting 
off funds for terrorists and attacking these sources of funding 
directly.
  The FBI has made significant progress in increasing awareness and 
knowledge of FISA. The Attorney General has issued new guidelines 
regarding terrorist investigations, and both current personnel and new 
hires are now receiving training on these guidelines.
  Unfortunately, the Bureau has not made very good progress identifying 
foreign sources of funding for terrorist groups within the United 
States.
  As an example, as I emphasized in my previous statements, the joint 
inquiry uncovered significant evidence of foreign government 
involvement in the 9/11 attacks, and raised the possibility that 
foreign governments continue to provide support to terrorist groups 
within the United States.
  In spite of this alarming assessment, the FBI has not even developed 
an effective plan to assess the threat of foreign funding for terrorist 
groups, let alone combat this threat.
  The USA PATRIOT Act and subsequent modifications have given the 
Bureau expanded access to banking and financial records, but it has 
been widely noted that terrorist groups use alternative methods of 
collecting, moving, and storing their money.
  These methods include illegal drugs and other contraband; shipment of 
gems and other commodities; informal financial networks, such as the 
hawala system; and nontransparent organizations, such as charities and 
religious organizations.
  The FBI, which is responsible for leading these investigations into 
terrorist financing, has acknowledged it does not systematically 
collect and analyze data on alternative financing mechanisms. Unless 
al-Qaida develops a policy of transferring money entirely by ATMs, the 
FBI's current investigatory methods are unlikely to be very effective.
  The final recommendation of this report is No. 9, which urges the 
House and Senate Intelligence and Judiciary Committees to evaluate the 
FISA, and all modifying legislation, such as the USA PATRIOT Act, to 
ensure that our legal system adequately addresses current and future 
terrorist threats. These House and Senate committees have effectively 
begun to follow through on this task, and I am confident they will 
continue to do so.
  This last report is one bright spot on an otherwise disappointing 
report card.
  In evaluating the status of the joint inquiry's recommendations, I 
have tried to give due attention to those areas in which progress has 
been made. However, we must not ignore those shortcomings that remain, 
particularly when so many of them are of such a serious nature. We must 
overcome bureaucratic inertia and organizational difficulties to fix 
these problems in an effective and expeditious manner. We must not 
continue to be a slave to the status quo. Our national security and the 
well-being of the American people demand nothing less, as does the 
memory of nearly 3,000 innocent American lives lost on September 11, 
2001.
  I ask unanimous consent that the recommendations of the Joint Inquiry 
Committee, as adopted on December 10, 2002, be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                   Recommendations--December 10, 2002

       Since the National Security Act's establishment of the 
     Director of Central Intelligence and the Central Intelligence 
     Agency in 1947, numerous independent commissions, experts, 
     and legislative initiatives have examined the growth and 
     performance of the U.S. Intelligence Community. While those 
     efforts generated numerous proposals for reform over the 
     years, some of the most significant proposals have not been 
     implemented, particularly in the areas of organization and 
     structure. These Committees believe that the cataclysmic 
     events of September 11, 2001 provide a unique and compelling 
     mandate for strong leadership and constructive change 
     throughout the Intelligence Community. With that in mind, and 
     based on the work of this Joint Inquiry, the committees 
     recommend the following:
       1. Congress should amend the National Security Act of 1947 
     to create and sufficiently staff a statutory Director of 
     National Intelligence who shall be the President's principal 
     advisor on intelligence and shall have the full range of 
     management, budgetary and personnel responsibilities needed 
     to make the entire U.S. Intelligence Community operate as a 
     coherent whole. These responsibilities should include: 
     Establishment and enforcement of consistent priorities for 
     the collection, analysis, and dissemination of intelligence 
     throughout the Intelligence Community; setting of policy and 
     the ability to move personnel between elements of the 
     Intelligence Community; review, approval, modification, and 
     primary management and oversight of the execution of 
     Intelligence Community budgets; review, approval 
     modification, and primary management and oversight of the 
     execution of Intelligence Community personnel and resource 
     allocations; review, approval, modification, and primary 
     management and oversight of the execution of Intelligence 
     Community research and development efforts; review, approval, 
     and coordination of relationships between the Intelligence 
     Community agencies and foreign intelligence and law 
     enforcement services; and exercise of statutory authority to 
     insure that Intelligence Community agencies and components 
     fully comply with Community-wide policy, management, 
     spending, and administrative guidance and priorities.
       The Director of National Intelligence should be a Cabinet 
     level position, appointed

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     by the President and subject to Senate confirmation. Congress 
     and the President should also work to insure that the 
     Director of National Intelligence effectively exercises these 
     authorities.
       To insure focused and consistent Intelligence Community 
     leadership, Congress should require that no person may 
     simultaneously serve as both the Director of National 
     Intelligence and the Director of the Central Intelligence 
     Agency, or as the director of any other specific intelligence 
     agency.
       2. Current efforts by the National Security Council to 
     examine and revamp existing intelligence priorities should be 
     expedited, given the immediate need for clear guidance in 
     intelligence and counterterrorism efforts. The President 
     should take action to ensure that clear, consistent, and 
     current priorities are established and enforced throughout 
     the Intelligence Community. Once established, these 
     priorities should be reviewed and updated on at least an 
     annual basis to ensure that the allocation of Intelligence 
     Community resources reflects and effectively addresses the 
     continually evolving threat environment. Finally, the 
     establishment of Intelligence Community priorities, and 
     the justification for such priorities, should be reported 
     to both the House and Senate Intelligence Committees on an 
     annual basis.
       3. The National Security Council, in conjunction with the 
     Director of National Intelligence, and in consultation with 
     the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, the 
     Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense, should prepare, 
     for the President's approval, a U.S. government-wide strategy 
     for combating terrorism, both at home and abroad, including 
     the growing terrorism threat posed by the proliferation of 
     weapons of mass destruction and associated technologies. This 
     strategy should identify and full engage those foreign 
     policy, economic, military, intelligence, and law enforcement 
     elements that are critical to a comprehensive blueprint for 
     success in the war against terrorism.
       As part of that effort, the Director of National 
     Intelligence shall develop the Intelligence Community 
     component of the strategy, identifying specific programs and 
     budgets and including plans to address the threats posed by 
     Usama Bin Ladin and al Qa'ida, Hezbollah, Hamas, and other 
     significant terrorist groups. Consistent with applicable law, 
     the strategy should effectively employ and integrate all 
     capabilities available to the Intelligence Community against 
     those threats and should encompass specific efforts to: 
     Develop human sources to penetrate terrorist organizations 
     and networks both overseas and within the United States; 
     fully utilize existing and future technologies to better 
     exploit terrorist communications; to improve and expand the 
     use of data mining and other cutting edge analytical tools; 
     and to develop a multi-level security capability to 
     facilitate the timely and complete sharing of relevant 
     intelligence information both within the Intelligence 
     Community and with other appropriate federal, state, and 
     local authorities; enhance the depth and quality of domestic 
     intelligence collection and analysis by, for example, 
     modernizing current intelligence reporting formats through 
     the use of existing information technology to emphasize the 
     existence and the significance of links between new and 
     previously acquired information; maximize the effective use 
     of covert action in counterterrorist efforts; develop 
     programs to deal with financial support for international 
     terrorism; and facilitate the ability of CIA paramilitary 
     units and military special operations forces to conduct joint 
     operations against terrorist targets.
       4. The position of National Intelligence Officer for 
     Terrorism should be created on the National Intelligence 
     Council and a highly qualified individual appointed to 
     prepare intelligence estimates on terrorism for the use of 
     Congress and policymakers in the Executive Branch and to 
     assist the Intelligence Community in developing a program for 
     strategic analysis and assessments.
       5. Congress and the Administration should ensure the full 
     development within the Department of Homeland Security of an 
     effective all-source terrorism information fusion center that 
     will dramatically improve the focus and quality of 
     counterterrorism analysis and facilitate the timely 
     dissemination of relevant intelligence information, both 
     within and beyond the boundaries of the Intelligence 
     Community. Congress and the Administration should ensure that 
     this fusion center has all the authority and the resources 
     needed to: Have full and timely access to all 
     counterterrorism-related intelligence information, including 
     ``raw'' supporting data as needed; have the ability to 
     participate fully in the existing requirements process for 
     tasking the Intelligence Community to gather information on 
     foreign individuals, entities and threats; integrate such 
     information in order to identify and assess the nature and 
     scope of terrorist threats to the United States in light 
     of actual and potential vulnerabilities; implement and 
     fully utilize data mining and other advanced analytical 
     tools, consistent with applicable law; retain a permanent 
     staff of experienced and highly skilled analysts, 
     supplemented on a regular basis by personnel on ``joint 
     tours'' from the various Intelligence Community agencies; 
     institute a reporting mechanism that enables analysts at 
     all the intelligence and law enforcement agencies to post 
     lead information for use by analysts at other agencies 
     without waiting for dissemination of a formal report; 
     maintain excellence and creativity in staff analytic 
     skills through regular use of analysis and language 
     training programs; and establish and sustain effective 
     channels for the exchange of counterterrorism-related 
     information with federal agencies outside the Intelligence 
     Community as well as with state and local authorities.
       6. Given the FBI's history of repeated shortcomings within 
     its current responsibility for domestic intelligence, and in 
     the face of grave and immediate threats to our homeland, the 
     FBI should strengthen and improve its domestic capability as 
     fully and expeditiously as possible by immediately 
     instituting measures to: Strengthen counterterrorism as a 
     national FBI program by clearly designating national 
     counterterrorism priorities and enforcing field office 
     adherence to those priorities; establish and sustain 
     independent career tracks within the FBI that recognize and 
     provide incentives for demonstrated skills and performance of 
     counterterrorism agents and analysts; significantly improve 
     strategic analytical capabilities by assuring the 
     qualification, training, and independence of analysts, 
     coupled with sufficient access to necessary information and 
     resources; establish a strong reports officer cadre at FBI 
     Headquarters and field offices to facilitate timely 
     dissemination of intelligence from agents to analysts within 
     the FBI and other agencies within the Intelligence Community; 
     implement training for agents in the effective use of 
     analysts and analysis in their work; expand and sustain the 
     recruitment of agents and analysts with the linguistic skills 
     needed in counterterrorism efforts; increase substantially 
     efforts to penetrate terrorist organizations operating in the 
     United States through all available means of collection; 
     improve the national security law training of FBI personnel; 
     implement mechanisms to maximize the exchange of 
     counterterrorism-related information between the FBI and 
     other federal, state and local agencies; and finally solve 
     the FBI's persistent and incapacitating information 
     technology problems.
       7. Congress and the Administration should carefully 
     consider how best to structure and manage U.S. domestic 
     intelligence responsibilities. Congress should review the 
     scope of domestic intelligence authorities to determine their 
     adequacy in pursuing counterterrorism at home and ensuring 
     the protection of privacy and other rights guaranteed under 
     the Constitution. This review should include, for example, 
     such questions as whether the range of persons subject to 
     searches and surveillances authorized under the Foreign 
     Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) should be expanded.
       Based on their oversight responsibilities, the Intelligence 
     and Judiciary Committees of the Congress, as appropriate, 
     should consider promptly, in consultation with the 
     Administration, whether the FBI should continue to perform 
     the domestic intelligence functions of the United States 
     Government or whether legislation is necessary to remedy this 
     problem, including the possibility of creating a new agency 
     to perform those functions.
       Congress should require that the new Director of National 
     Intelligence, the Attorney General, and the Secretary of the 
     Department of Homeland Security report to the President and 
     the Congress on a date certain concerning: The FBI's progress 
     since September 11, 2001 in implementing the reforms required 
     to conduct an effective domestic intelligence program, 
     including the measures recommended above; the experience of 
     other democratic nations in organizing the conduct of 
     domestic intelligence; the specific manner in which a new 
     domestic intelligence service could be established in the 
     United States, recognizing the need to enhance national 
     security while fully protecting civil liberties; and their 
     recommendations on how to best fulfill the nation's need for 
     an effective domestic intelligence capability, including 
     necessary legislation.
       8. The Attorney General and the Director of the FBI should 
     take action necessary to ensure that: The office of 
     Intelligence Policy and Review and other Department of 
     Justice components provide in-depth training to the FBI and 
     other members of the Intelligence Community regarding the use 
     of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to 
     address terrorist threats to the United States; the FBI 
     disseminates results of searches and surveillances authorized 
     under FISA to appropriate personnel within the FBI and the 
     Intelligence Community on a timely basis so they may be used 
     for analysis and operations that address terrorist threats to 
     the United States; and the FBI develops and implements a plan 
     to use authorities provided by FISA to assess the threat of 
     international terrorist groups within the United States 
     fully, including the extent to which such groups are funded 
     or otherwise supported by foreign governments.
       9. The House and Senate Intelligence and Judiciary 
     Committees should continue to examine the Foreign 
     Intelligence Surveillance Act and its implementation 
     thoroughly, particularly with respect to changes made as a 
     result of the USA PATRIOT Act and the subsequent decision of 
     the United States Foreign Intelligence Court of Review, to 
     determine whether its provisions adequately address present 
     and emerging terrorist threats to the United States. 
     Legislation should be proposed by those Committees to remedy 
     any deficiencies identified as a result of that review.
       10. The Director of the National Security Agency should 
     present to the Director of National Intelligence and the 
     Secretary of Defense by June 30, 2003, and report to the

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     House and Senate Intelligence Committees, a detailed plan 
     that: Describes solutions for the technological challenges 
     for signals intelligence; requires a review, on a quarterly 
     basis, of the goals, products to be delivered, funding levels 
     and schedules for every technology development program; 
     ensures strict accounting for program expenditures; within 
     their jurisdiction as established by current law, makes NSA a 
     full collaborating partner with the Central Intelligence 
     Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the war on 
     terrorism, including fully integrating the collection and 
     analytic capabilities of NSA, CIA, and the FBI; and makes 
     recommendations for legislation needed to facilitate these 
     goals.
       In evaluating the plan, the Committees should also consider 
     issues pertaining to whether civilians should be appointed to 
     the position of Director of the National Security Agency and 
     whether the term of service for the position should be longer 
     than it has been in the recent past.
       11. Recognizing that the Intelligence Community's employees 
     remain its greatest resource, the Director of National 
     Intelligence should require that measures be implemented to 
     greatly enhance the recruitment and development of a 
     workforce with the intelligence skills and expertise needed 
     for success in counterterrorist efforts, including: The 
     agencies of the Intelligence Community should act promptly to 
     expand and improve counterterrorism training programs within 
     the Community, insuring coverage of such critical areas as 
     information sharing among law enforcement and intelligence 
     personnel; language capabilities; the use of the Foreign 
     Intelligence Surveillance Act; and watchlisting; the 
     Intelligence Community should build on the provisions of the 
     Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2003 regarding 
     the development of language capabilities, including the Act's 
     requirement for a report on the feasibility of establishing a 
     Civilian Linguist Reserve Corps, and implement expeditiously 
     measures to identify and recruit linguists outside the 
     Community whose abilities are relevant to the needs of 
     counterterrorism; the existing Intelligence Community Reserve 
     Corps should be expanded to ensure the use of relevant 
     personnel and expertise from outside the Community as special 
     needs arise; Congress should consider enacting legislation, 
     modeled on the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986, to instill the 
     concept of ``jointness'' throughout the Intelligence 
     Community. By emphasizing such things as joint education, a 
     joint career specialty, increased authority for regional 
     commanders, and joint exercises, that Act greatly enhanced 
     the joint warfighting capabilities of the individual military 
     services. Legislation to instill similar concepts throughout 
     the Intelligence Community could help improve management of 
     Community resources and priorities and insure a far more 
     effective ``team'' effort by all the intelligence agencies. 
     The Director of National Intelligence should require more 
     extensive use of ``joint tours'' for intelligence and 
     appropriate law enforcement personnel to broaden their 
     experience and help bridge existing organizational and 
     cultural divides through service in other agencies. These 
     joint tours should include not only service at Intelligence 
     Community agencies, but also service in those agencies that 
     are users or consumers of intelligence products. Serious 
     incentives for joint service should be established throughout 
     the Intelligence Community and personnel should be rewarded 
     for joint service with career advancement credit at 
     individual agencies. The Director of National Intelligence 
     should also require Intelligence Community agencies to 
     participate in joint exercises; Congress should expand and 
     improve existing educational grant programs focused on 
     intelligence-related fields, similar to military 
     scholarship programs and others that provide financial 
     assistance in return for a commitment to serve in the 
     Intelligence Community; and the Intelligence Community 
     should enhance recruitment of a more ethnically and 
     culturally diverse workforce and devise a strategy to 
     capitalize upon the unique cultural and linguistic 
     capabilities of first-generation Americans, a strategy 
     designed to utilize their skills to the greatest practical 
     effect while recognizing the potential counterintelligence 
     challenges such hiring decisions might pose.
       12. Steps should be taken to increase and ensure the 
     greatest return on this nation's substantial investment in 
     intelligence, including: The President should submit budget 
     recommendations, and Congress should enact budget authority, 
     for sustained, long-term investment in counterterrorism 
     capabilities that avoid dependence on repeated stop-gap 
     supplemental appropriations; in making such budget 
     recommendations, the President should provide for the 
     consideration of a separate classified Intelligence Community 
     budget; long-term counterterrorism investment should be 
     accompanied by sufficient flexibility, subject to 
     congressional oversight, to enable the Intelligence Community 
     to rapidly respond to altered or unanticipated needs; the 
     Director of National Intelligence should insure that 
     Intelligence Community budgeting practices and procedures are 
     revised to better identify the levels and nature of 
     counterterrorism funding within the Community; 
     counterterrorism funding should be allocated in accordance 
     with the program requirements of the national 
     counterterrorism strategy; and due consideration should be 
     given to directing an outside agency or entity to conduct a 
     thorough and rigorous cost-benefit analysis of the resources 
     spent on intelligence.
       13. The State Department, in consultation with the 
     Department of Justice, should review and report to the 
     President and the Congress by June 30, 2003 on the extent to 
     which revisions in bilateral and multilateral agreements, 
     including extradition and mutual assistance treaties, would 
     strengthen U.S. counterterrorism efforts. The review should 
     address the degree to which current categories of 
     extraditable offenses should be expanded to cover offenses, 
     such as visa and immigration fraud, which may be particularly 
     useful against terrorists and those who support them.
       14. Recognizing the importance of intelligence in this 
     nation's struggle against terrorism, Congress should maintain 
     vigorous, informed, and constructive oversight of the 
     Intelligence Community. To best achieve that goal, the 
     National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United 
     States should study and make recommendations concerning how 
     Congress may improve its oversight of the Intelligence 
     Community, including consideration of such areas as: Changes 
     in the budgetary process; changes in the rules regarding 
     membership on the oversight committees; whether oversight 
     responsibility should be vested in a joint House-Senate 
     Committee or, as currently exists, in separate Committees 
     in each house; the extent to which classification 
     decisions impair congressional oversight; and how 
     Congressional oversight can best contribute to the 
     continuing need of the Intelligence Community to evolve 
     and adapt to changes in the subject matter of intelligence 
     and the needs of policy makers.
       15. The President should review and consider amendments to 
     the Executive Orders, policies and procedures that govern the 
     national security classification of intelligence information, 
     in an effort to expand access to relevant information for 
     federal agencies outside the Intelligence Community, for 
     state and local authorities, which are critical to the fight 
     against terrorism, and for the American public. In addition, 
     the President and the heads of federal agencies should ensure 
     that the policies and procedures to protect against the 
     unauthorized disclosure of classified intelligence 
     information are well understood, fully implemented and 
     vigorously enforced.
       Congress should also review the statutes, policies and 
     procedures that govern the national security classification 
     of intelligence information and its protection from 
     unauthorized disclosure. Among other matters, Congress should 
     consider the degree to which excessive classification has 
     been used in the past and the extent to which the emerging 
     threat environment has greatly increased the need for real-
     time sharing of sensitive information. The Director of 
     National Intelligence, in consultation with the Secretary of 
     Defense, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Homeland 
     Security, and the Attorney General, should review and report 
     to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees on proposals 
     for a new and more realistic approach to the processes and 
     structures that have governed the designation of sensitive 
     and classified information. The report should include 
     proposals to protect against the use of the classification 
     process as a shield to protect agency self-interest.
       16. Assured standards of accountability are critical to 
     developing the personal responsibility, urgency, and 
     diligence which our counterterrorism responsibility requires. 
     Given the absence of any substantial efforts within the 
     Intelligence Community to impose accountability in relation 
     to the events of September 11, 2001, the Director of Central 
     Intelligence and the heads of Intelligence Community agencies 
     should require that measures designed to ensure 
     accountability are implemented throughout the Community. To 
     underscore the need for accountability: The Director of 
     Central Intelligence should report to the House and Senate 
     Intelligence Committees no later than June 30, 2003 as to the 
     steps taken to implement a system of accountability 
     throughout the Intelligence Community, to include processes 
     for identifying poor performance and affixing responsibility 
     for it, and for recognizing and rewarding excellence in 
     performance; as part of the confirmation process for 
     Intelligence Community officials, Congress should require 
     from those officials an affirmative commitment to the 
     implementation and use of strong accountability mechanisms 
     throughout the Intelligence Community; and the Inspectors 
     General at the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of 
     Defense, the Department of Justice, and the Department of 
     State should review the factual findings and the record of 
     this Inquiry and conduct investigations and reviews as 
     necessary to determine whether and to what extent personnel 
     at all levels should be held accountable for any omission, 
     commission, or failure to meet professional standards in 
     regard to the identification, prevention, or disruption of 
     terrorist attacks, including the events of September 11, 
     2001. These reviews should also address those individuals who 
     performed in a stellar or exceptional manner, and the degree 
     to which the quality of their performance was rewarded or 
     otherwise impacted their careers. Based on those 
     investigations and reviews, agency heads should 
     take appropriate disciplinary and other action and the 
     President and the House and Senate Intelligence Committees 
     should be advised of such action.
       17. The Administration should review and report to the 
     House and Senate Intelligence Committees by June 30, 2003 
     regarding what

[[Page S608]]

     progress has been made in reducing the inappropriate and 
     obsolete barriers among intelligence and law enforcement 
     agencies engaged in counterterrorism, what remains to be done 
     to reduce those barriers, and what legislative actions may be 
     advisable in that regard. In particular, this report should 
     address what steps are being taken to insure that perceptions 
     within the Intelligence Community about the scope and limits 
     of current law and policy with respect to restrictions on 
     collection and information sharing are, in fact, accurate and 
     well-founded.
       18. Congress and the Administration should ensure the full 
     development of a national watchlist center that will be 
     responsible for coordinating and integrating all terrorist-
     related watchlist systems; promoting awareness and use of the 
     center by all relevant government agencies and elements of 
     the private sector; and ensuring a consistent and 
     comprehensive flow of terrorist names into the center from 
     all relevant points of collection.
       19. The Intelligence Community, and particularly the FBI 
     and the CIA, should aggressively address the possibility that 
     foreign governments are providing support to or are involved 
     in terrorist activity targeting the United States and U.S. 
     interests. State-sponsored terrorism substantially increases 
     the likelihood of successful and more lethal attacks within 
     the United States. This issue must be addressed from a 
     national standpoint and should not be limited in focus by the 
     geographical and factual boundaries of individual cases. The 
     FBI and CIA should aggressively and thoroughly pursue related 
     matters developed through this Joint Inquiry that have been 
     referred to them for further investigation by these 
     Committees.
       The Intelligence Community should fully inform the House 
     and Senate Intelligence Committees of significant 
     developments in these efforts, through regular reports and 
     additional communications as necessary, and the Committees 
     should, in turn, exercise vigorous and continuing oversight 
     of the Community's work in this critically important area.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time? The Senator from Kansas is 
recognized.
  Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. President, if I could have the attention of the 
Senator from Florida, I thank him for his presentation. Essentially, I 
think what the Senator suggested was the Intelligence Committee, which 
is the appropriate committee of jurisdiction, have hearings and take a 
look at the recommendations he just outlined as a result of the 
investigation by the House and Senate on the 9/11 tragedy. As I have 
indicated to the Senator before--and he has written me a letter--both 
Senator Rockefeller and I think that is most appropriate, and we intend 
to hold hearings just as soon as we can get our current inquiry on the 
prewar intelligence in Iraq out in a situation where we can present it 
to the public. I think the Senator has provided a valuable service.
  One of the important aspects when discussing intelligence is not only 
to find out the accuracy and timeliness of the prewar intelligence but 
also to really get into the recommendations on how we fix things. The 
Senator has done us a good service. We will have hearings on these 
recommendations.
  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I thank the Senator for his comments. I 
particularly appreciate his sense of urgency to move forward on these 
issues and present to the Senate and the American people a set of 
reforms that will give them greater security.

                          ____________________