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An American MI5 Is The Wrong Approach Ronald Kessler WASHINGTON -- Great Britain's successful disruption of a plot to blow up airliners flying to the U.S. has spawned a new round of calls for the creation of an American intelligence agency similar to the British MI5.
These proposals to set up a domestic spy agency separate from the FBI come from critics who have never conducted a terrorism investigation and have no first-hand knowledge of how the FBI runs its counterterrorism program. The latest such suggestion comes from Richard A. Posner, a U.S. appeals court judge who wrote a book on intelligence. In an op-ed in the Washington Post, he claimed that the FBI, which is responsible for counterterrorism investigations in the U.S., is oriented toward "arrest and prosecution rather than toward the patient gathering of intelligence with a view to understanding and penetrating a terrorist network."
That could not be further from the truth. Over the years, the FBI has successfully arrested more than 100 spies and broken the Mafia by patiently gathering intelligence—a fancy word for information. In the six years prior to 9/11, the FBI rolled up 40 terrorist plots by penetrating them, often with informants who are patiently recruited.
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Since 9/11, the FBI has greatly expanded its efforts to recruit informants in the terrorism arena to pro-actively sniff out plots. It has monitored secure chat rooms to pick up leads that have led to arrests. It has added more than 1,000 intelligence analysts to help agents connect the dots. It has doubled the number of agents assigned to counterterrorism and other national security investigations.
Contrary to the myth that FBI agents and CIA officers don't talk to each other, at the National Counterterrorism Center, FBI and CIA personnel sit side by side all day along. They discuss with each other the dozens of threats that flow into the NCTC every day and suggest leads that could be pursued by the appropriate agency. The FBI details FBI agents to the CIA and appoints CIA officers to top jobs in the FBI.
Because of the Patriot Act, FBI agents pursuing intelligence and those making cases leading to arrests can now talk to each other as well. Breaking down the so-called "wall" between those pursuits allowed agents to work together to dismantle the Portland Seven terror cell and to arrest individuals in the Virginia Jihad case, both investigations involving sensitive intelligence information.
While the FBI has made dozens of terrorist arrests by penetrating networks, it has also chosen to arrest suspects for minor violations like cigarette smuggling in order to avoid revealing sensitive intelligence leads in court. Thus, dozens of potential plots have been disrupted before they were hatched.
Under the aggressive leadership of FBI Director Robert S. Mueller, the bureau has become prevention-oriented, meaning it will do whatever it takes, within the law, to prevent the next attack. Before 9/11, many terrorism leads were not pursued. Now every lead is pursued, and the FBI has 10,000 ongoing terrorism cases.
"Today, we have an 8 a.m. sharing-of-threats meeting among the agencies," Joe Billy, Jr., the FBI's chief of counterterrorism, told me. "You have the White House hosting meetings two or three times a week, where we go up and lay everything out, and we discuss back and forth, what are you doing about it, what other agencies can help. I think the public would be very confident at the way their government is working this terrorism issue. It's not advertised, it's not publicized, but it's a long, detailed look every single day, seven days a week."
The worst blow to the war on terror would be the establishment of a separate domestic intelligence agency similar to MI5. The proposal would mean that a new agency would pursue terrorism leads but would not have law enforcement powers. In Great Britain, when an arrest must be made, the MI5 presents the case to a police agency such as Scotland Yard. It then has the task of trying to persuade that agency to pursue it. Thus, rather than tearing down walls that impede cooperation and sharing of information, an MI5 would create a new wall.
Even more important, without law enforcement powers, MI5 cannot use the threat of prosecution to try to elicit cooperation and recruit informants. Because terrorists often finance their activities by smuggling cigarettes, selling stolen designer clothing, or dealing in drugs, the FBI's structure makes it easy for the bureau to pass along leads from agents pursuing these cases to agents focused on counterterrorism.
During creation of a new agency, the country would be vulnerable to attack as investigators are recruited and trained. The chaos at the Department of Homeland Security is an illustration of what can happen initially when a new agency is created.
The beauty of the FBI is that its focus on violations of criminal laws keeps FBI agents from violating civil liberties. Without that framework, agents might begin to stray into investigating political beliefs or dissent, as they did when J. Edgar Hoover was FBI director. In doing so, they would lose their compass, forgetting what their target is and botching investigations because of a lack of proper focus.
"The FBI model of combining intelligence and law enforcement responsibility is the envy of allied services, including the British," according to John L. Martin, who as chief of the U.S. Justice Department's counter-espionage section had extensive dealings with MI5. "Indeed, MI5 is constantly impeded by its inability to quickly translate intelligence operations into arrests and prosecutions. Setting up an MI5 in the United States would create a significant and unnecessary barrier to fighting terrorism at a time when this country needs to enhance its communications among agencies and to quickly react to terrorist threats."
The fact that we have not been attacked in almost five years is no accident. It is because of the work of the FBI, the CIA, and the military in rolling up terrorists. They have been successful despite the media's disclosure of programs that tip our hand to the bad guys.
Improving intelligence-gathering is still a work in progress, but simplistic, wrong-headed solutions do not help. The fact is we can be proud of the FBI and the American intelligence community. Their hard work, focus, ingenuity, and determination account for the relative safety we enjoy today. Ronald Kessler is Chief Washington Correspondent of NewsMax.com. Get his dispatches FREE sent you via e-mail – Click Here Now.
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