Fo B5 Public Hearing 4-13-04 Fdr- Tab 4- Suggested Questions For Janet Reno 741

SUGGESTED QUESTIONS FOR JANET RENO Designated Commissioners: Slade Gorton and Tim Roemer

1. Your understanding of and response to the growing foreign terrorist threat. During your eight years as Attorney General the nature and scope of the terrorist threat to the United States changed significantly. The United States suffered a dramatic series of terrorist attacks against this country, beginning with the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, continuing through the 1996 Khobar Towers attack, the 1998 East African embassy bombings, and the October 2000 attack on the U.S.S. Cole. When did you recognize that the nature of the terrorist threat had changed? What did you perceive to be the nature of that change? What policy and operational steps did you take at the Department of Justice to respond to that change? Did you redirect investigative and law enforcement resources to respond to the terrorist threat? How? Were those efforts effective? Are there things that you now wish you had done differently? What was your role in overseeing the FBI's and the Department's counterterrorism efforts? How often did you meet with senior FBI officials to monitor the FBI's counterterrorism program? To what extent did you interact with U.S. Attorneys on counterterrorism matters? Did you direct Louis Freeh to make changes at the FBI in response to the growing terrorist threat? When? What did you ask him to do? Were your directives implemented? Did you see a role for the Immigration and Naturalization Service in the effort to prevent terrorism? What was it? Did the nature of the Department of Justice's interaction with other government agencies with responsibility for counterterrorism, such as the CIA and the NSC, change in response to the terrorist threat? When? How? In your efforts to prevent and prosecute terrorist acts, did you get the support you needed from the White House? From Congress?

2. Your approach to counterterrorism - prosecution vs. prevention. We have heard much discussion recently about a shift at the Department of Justice and the FBI away from a reactive, prosecution-oriented approach to terrorism and toward a proactive, prevention-oriented approach.

Was your approach to terrorism, or the response of the Justice Department to terrorism during your tenure, focused more on prosecution than prevention? As a matter of policy in the 1990s, did our government as a whole - including the Justice Department, the White House, and the U.S. Intelligence Community take too much of a law enforcement approach to international terrorism? During your tenure much of the Justice Department's response to international terrorism - and particularly Usama bin Laden and al Qaeda - seems to have been centered in the Southern District of New York U.S. Attorney's Office. To what do you attribute this concentration of resources and expertise in a single office? Was it too much? Should there have been more involvement and direction by Main Justice in the counterterrorism mission of the FBI as the Department's understanding of the threat from al Qaida grew? Should there have been more focus on prevention of future attacks, and less focus on other priorities? Was there an assumption within the Department of Justice that terrorist attacks were more likely to occur against U.S. interests overseas and that attacks here in this country were much less likely? How did you and your colleagues at the Department of Justice and the FBI assess the relative risks of overseas and domestic attacks during the 1990s? Did that assessment change over time? 3. Resources and capabilities at the FBI. (Reno told us that when Freeh complained he did not have enough counterterrorism personnel she suggested he shift personnel from the violent crime area, and he was not willing to do so.) A major issue facing the Commission is whether the FBI has the right structure and sufficient resources to be the primary domestic counterterrorism investigative and intelligence collection agency. The Commission is also aware that the FBI has significant responsibilities for non-terrorism law enforcement and investigation. There were significant problems at the FBI during your tenure - did those problems cause you to question the FBI's ability to investigate terrorism? During your tenure as Attorney General did the FBI devote sufficient resources and attention to international terrorism? Should the FBI have shifted personnel and resources from other areas to counterterrorism? Were you confident that FBI field managers appreciated the extent and importance of the terrorist threat?

What more, if anything, could the FBI have done during the 1990s to respond to the growing international terrorist threat? What priority did you understand the FBI to be giving to the threat of international terrorism in 2000? Did the FBI have a clear set of priorities in place that communicated to the field how resources and attention should be allocated? Did you believe the FBI had enough translators in Arabic and Middle Eastern languages? Did the FBI have enough analysts working on counterterrorism? 4. FBI Information Sharing Issues. You sent three written directives to FBI Director Louis Freeh in early 2000 that strongly urged immediate action to improve information sharing by the FBI: Your February 29,2000 memorandum to Freeh directed him to "develop and implement a system to insure the linkage and sharing of intelligence, evidence and other relevant information" among all components of the FBI and stating that you wanted "the system in place by October 1,2000." What concerns prompted you to send this memorandum? What progress was made in accomplishing this goal before you left office? You stated in your memorandum that "this effort can be greatly enhanced by automation, but I do not think we can afford to wait until automation is in place." Why did you add the reference to not waiting for automation? What was the FBI's automation capability at that time? Your March 8, 2000 letter to Freeh expressed concerns regarding counterintelligence issues and stated: "The bottom line is that we must develop a capacity within the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in all fields to identify relevant information and share it internally, and then share it securely with other agencies as authorized by law and the Attorney General Guidelines." What concerns did you have about the FBI's ability to identify relevant information and share it internally and with other agencies? What steps had been taken to address those concerns when you left office? Your May 2,2000 memorandum to Freeh states that you believed it to be "imperative that the FBI immediately develop the capacity to fully assimilate and utilize intelligence information currently collected and contained in FBI files and use that knowledge to work proactively to identify and protect against emerging national security threats."

What concerns did you have about the FBI's ability to assimilate and utilize intelligence information in its own files? What particular incidents had prompted those concerns? What steps had been taken to address those concerns when you left office? These three directives seem to indicate a lack of confidence in the FBI's systems and procedures for information sharing - how serious did you perceive the problem to be? Did you take steps to address these problems in addition to sending these three directives? To what extent had the FBI addressed its information sharing problems by the time you left office? 5. FBI Cultural Issues. Some suggest that the FBI will never be able to transform itself because of "cultural issues." Are there "cultural issues" at the FBI that need to be addressed to increase its ability to investigate and prevent terrorism? Do you think the FBI has a law enforcement focus that makes it difficult for it to collect and share intelligence? FBI agents are usually generalists who rotate through different squads and assignments — do you think this aspect of the FBI's culture provides sufficient opportunity for agents to develop expertise in counterterrorism? The FBI is largely divided between agents and support personnel. Some support personnel, particularly analysts and translators, play a crucial role in counterterrorism. Are internal changes needed to recognize the importance of those roles and to attract and retain the best people for those critical roles? 7. FBI Legal Authorities Issues. Some suggest laws and regulations imposed on the FBI since the Church Committee have hindered FBI's national security mission. Did the FBI seek new legal authorities or investigative powers during your tenure? If so, in what areas? Were you aware of any dissatisfaction at the FBI with respect to the Attorney General's Guidelines governing FBI investigative activities? Did the FBI request changes in those guidelines? Were any such requests denied?

8. FISA and "the Wall." One of the changes made by the USA PATRIOT Act was the elimination of the so-called "wall" between intelligence collection under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 ("FISA") and criminal prosecutors. The degree of separation that was required seems to have increased during your tenure. Why did you and others at the Department of Justice believe that FISA required a high "wall" between FBI intelligence agents and criminal prosecutors? Was this a requirement of the FISA Court or the Department of Justice or both? What role did the Justice Department's Office of Intelligence Policy and Review ("OIPR") play in creating and maintaining the so-called "wall"? How closely were you involved in those issues? Did you have any concerns that the "wall" was impairing the government's ability to fight terrorism? You implemented new Attorney General Guidelines in 1995 to address information sharing and the "wall" - what changes were those new Guidelines intended to implement? Were they successful? Did you have any perception that the "wall" requirement was not being properly administered or was misunderstood in thefield- particularly at the FBI - during your tenure? Were you surprised by the 2002 opinion of the FISA Court of Review which basically concluded that both the Department of Justice and the lower FISA Court had been misapplying the FISA law for years and that the "wall" was not required under that law? How could there have been such a longstanding misinterpretation of the law? The provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act that eliminated the "wall" requirement [sections 218 and 504] will "sunset" in 2005 [see section 224]. Should Congress act to make those provisions permanent?

9. Interaction with the U.S. Intelligence Community. Since the 9/11 attacks the government has focused a great deal of attention and effort on improving the working relationships of the various agencies that have counterterrorism responsibilities. During your tenure as Attorney General did you perceive that there were problems with cooperation and information sharing between the Department of Justice and the rest of the Intelligence Community? Was the Department of Justice fully integrated into the U.S. Government's counterterrorism policy development structure in the 1990s? In the counterterrorism area, what was your working relationship with the Director of Central Intelligence in the 1990s? Were you effective partners in the fight against terrorism? Did interagency rivalries or bureaucratic struggles

interfere with your agencies' ability to work together? Do you think such problems exist now, or have they been addressed? Were there problems with cooperation and information sharing between the FBI and the CIA? Did you have any concerns that the structure and systems in place at the time were not adequate to protect against the growing international terrorist threat? 10. The Millennium Threat. At the end of 1999 there was a great deal of concern within the U.S. Government about potential terrorist attacks at year-end. We have heard that during the Millennium threat period extraordinary measures were taken to prevent terrorist attacks and to protect the public. Can you describe your personal role in the Millennium threat response efforts? How often did the Principals of the National Security Council meet on the threat during December 1999? How often were you in contact with the National Security Advisor? What did you expect from the FBI during the Millennium threat period? Did you observe any differences in the way the FBI was functioning during that period? Were any of the policy or operational changes that were implemented during that period made permanent? Are there some changes that were not made but should have been?

11. Transition to the Bush Administration. At the end of the Clinton Administration, you had served as Attorney General for eight years and had directed the Department of Justice's responses to a wide variety of terrorist attacks. Did you brief incoming Attorney General Ashcroft on the terrorism threat? What advice did you give him? Did you identify particular groups or kinds of terrorists as particularly dangerous threats? Did you talk with him about al Qaeda or bin Laden? Did you give incoming Attorney General Ashcroft any advice about the FBI or the counterterrorism-related units at the Department of Justice, such as the Office of Intelligence Policy Review? Were there any areas of "unfinished business" relating to terrorism that you identified for incoming Attorney General Ashcroft as a priority for the Department of Justice?

Did you express any concerns to him about ongoing issues, such as the FISA process and "the wall" or the capabilities of the FBI? Did you identify any needed new legal authorities to fight terrorism? Did he discuss with you his plans or intentions for new priorities or policies at the Department of Justice? Did he ask you for advice or suggestions related to terrorism?

13. The MI-5 question. We have heard prior testimony about the option of creating a new domestic intelligence agency. Some refer to the United Kingdom MI-5 model as one that should be considered. What are your views on the advantages and disadvantages of assigning our domestic intelligence counterterrorism function to a new agency that does not have law enforcement authority and arrest power? What do you think about the idea of creating a separate entity - but still within the Department of Justice and subordinate to the Attorney General - with responsibility for the counterterrorism and domestic intelligence mission currently assigned to the FBI? What do you think of the proposal for creating a "service within a service" at the FBI with a separate career track and chain of command for personnel working on counterterrorism?