Mfr Nara- T6- Team 6 Meeting- 12-2-03- 01070

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Meeting of Team 6: Chris Healey, Peter Rundlet and Caroline Barnes with Chril _:) Kojm and Vice-Chairman Hamilton December 2, 2003

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Notes Taken by Ben Rhodes: Progress: Lee began by asking about the status of the Team's work. Chris Healey said the Team is aiming to meet the February 1 deadline for monographs, but it is challenging. The Team has conducted about 178 interviews, almost all outside of Washington, and has about 40 more to do, mostly in Washington. They are now getting to senior officials - Attorney Generals Reno and Ashcroft will be interviewed this month; Directors Freeh and Mueller will be interviewed next month. The Team is exploring ways to get more personnel to assist their work. Lee said the Team will have to proceed under the assumption that the Commission will not extend its deadline. Lee asked about document access. Chris Healey said a subpoena is not necessary. The FBI has been helpful and forthcoming General Impressions: Lee asked what the Team's general impressions are. Peter Rundlet said the Team is looking at where the FBI was pre-9/ll; what changes have been made; and whether they can handle the job, or whether domestic intelligence should be separated. Much of the Team's work thus far has been at field offices around the country. There are pockets of talent in the offices and people are saying the right things. But the information infrastructure is still terrible - people cannot share information. The sense in the field is that they are moving in the right direction, but aren't quite there. Headquarters and Field: Peter Rundlet said a problem is that field offices seem to have a different understanding than Headquarters. Many agents do not even know the name of Maureen Baginski, the Director of the Office of Intelligence. Chris Healey said there is a lack of standardization. Caroline Barnes said she feels the problem varies office to office. Headquarters says it has a plan, but it isn't getting the message across. Baginski has been in place for six months but hasn't gotten out into the field to change minds. Lee asked if Director Mueller's priorities are getting across - is this a problem of implementation? Mueller won't be there forever and the culture has to change. Caroline Barnes said there are pockets of expertise in counter-terrorism and analysis, but people in the past have been promoted beyond where they should be. Lee said the Team will have to give guidance on the key question: does the FBI need further reform, or do we need to build a new agency? He will look to the Team for guidance on this. Peter Rundlet said the Team should be able to make an initial assessment on this question after the interviews at Headquarters. Information-Sharing: Lee asked how the FBI is sharing information with other agencies. Caroline Barnes said it is improving, but couldn't get much worse. There are signs of frustration at the local level, as some states are banding together to form their own intelligence units. Lee noted that the Commission had heard a better assessment at the New Jersey hearing. Peter Rundlet said the problem of sharing is often at the ground level.

Lee asked if there is a recognition within the FBI that they failed pre-9Ill. Chris Healey said yes, there was an admission from the Senior level on down that the FBI was not the right kind of organization pre-9/ll. Caroline Barnes said some CT agents were frustrated they feel they did good work, but there was nobody to provide strategic analysis, to paint the big picture. Peter Rundlet agreed that the good ones feel they didn't get support. FBI Priorities: Lee asked if terrorism is the appropriate top priority. Resources are finite. For instance, we need sophisticated law-enforcement to pursue something Iike Enron. CT works as a top priority in the context of 9111, but is it best for the Nation? Why is the FBI fighting drugs when DEA could do it? Is CT distracting from other law-enforcement issues? TTIC: Lee asked about TTIC. Chris Healy said this is a joint subject with other teams. TTIC currently has 150 people at Langley but will get its own space. There is some confusion as to who's job is what. Director Brennan reports to the DCI; there is no collection capacity; authority comes from home organizations; TIIC disseminates to federal agencies but not state and local authorities. Caroline Barnes said there are complaints that TTIC is not value-added: it is either duplicative or alters analysis. Lee said the Team - and Commission - will have to give a sharp analysis ofTTIC. Legal Authority: Lee asked if the FBI has enough legal authority, or perhaps too much. Peter Rundlet said the PATRIOT Act provides for more information-sharing, surveillance and searches. Chris Healey said the FBI will always say they need more, but many people feel they have too much - certainly not much more is needed. Caroline Barnes said agents always want administrative subpoena power so that field offices can do things in-house. Chris Healey said this depends upon what information is being sought - some administrative power is already in the field offices. Lee said the Team should look at legal authority - where does the FBI need more, where is there too much? Civil Liberties: Lee said he is personally concerned about civil liberties. Chief Justice Reinhquist has said the pendulum naturally swings toward security during war, but always swings back. Lee is not so sanguine. The war on terror is open-ended by nature: Congress has punted, and the courts have not been much better. In the current environment, the security people never lose an argument: what is the long-term impact of this? In Lee's view, the Commission should address this question: How do you preserve civil liberties in an environment of terrorism? Often the FBI will have a long list of things they want done which then get passed after a major event (eg. 9/11). Conversely, an argument for keeping domestic intelligence in the FBI is that they do generally have sensitivity to the rule of law (depending upon the Director). Chris Healey commented that most civil liberties groups would prefer to keep domestic intelligence in the FBI for that reason. Lee said the Lawyers Committee on Human Rights report was the best study he has seen on the issue of liberties. Lee said he isn't sure the extent to which the Commission will get into certain issues on the horizon. For instance, highly intrusive new technologies. The American people need to be prepared for what is coming - the Commission can help do that. Peter Rundlet said the key evaluation is what security is gained from liberties lost. It is a cost-benefit issue.

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Foreign/Doemstic: Lee asked about the interface between foreign and domestic intelligence. Peter Rundlet said it is not great in the field offices, with the exception of Phoenix. Chris Healey said it is getting better in Washington with TTIC, electronic links, and relations between Mueller and Tenet. This gets back to the issue of liberties - there is a . question as to the statutory line between foreign and domestic intelligence. Lee said he has never detected much of a sensitivity to civil liberties in the CIA. Oversight: Lee said he has never been impressed with Congressional oversight of the FBI, or the intelligence community as a whole. They take punches on the Hill and then they get what they want, if not more - what kind of message does that send? You need robust oversight in the Congress, since the Executive Branch won't do it. Foreign Governments: Lee asked how the FBI is working with foreign governments this is enormously important. Caroline Barnes said most of this is through foreign legal attaches. There is an impression that there is effective sharing. There are some peculiar conflicts - for instance the FBI is not happy that NYPD has some of its own people abroad. Lee said a problem is that we always have a surplus of people in London and Paris. Noone wants to go to Islamabad. Detainees: Peter Rundlet raised detainees - there are questions about cross-jurisdiction and international law. Lee feels we have done an awful job on this; his personal opinion is that we need a new framework. So far we have avoided Constitutional questions. Detainees need some rights - counsel, witnesses. There needs to be some rudimentary elements of due process. He feels there is a broader recognition of this and the system is beginning to right itself. He is interested in the issue but is not sure if it grows out of the Commission's mandate. Chris Kojm said that since this has risen to such a large problem for American foreign policy, there are areas where it could be addressed by the Commission. Report: Chris Kojm said this is a forward-looking team. The Joint Inquiry did work on how the FBI performed and the Team is building on that. In assessing the FBI's performance, the Kuala Lumpur case study being coordinated by Barbara Grewe and Lloyd Salvetti will be important in looking back. Lee said the Team will have to look at pre-9/11 - what did we do right, what did we do wrong; post-9/11 - what have we done (FBI reform and TTIC), what is working, what isn't. The report should be straight-forward. Recommendations: Lee said he is interested in hearing recommendations that are in the ballpark. He has heard some sympathy on the Hill for separating the intelligence function of the FBI. The Commission doesn't want a slew of recommendations - the Team should identify the 2,3, or 4 most important issues. More extensive recommendations can be in the extended monograph. Most policymakers and the general public will just read the Executive Summary, so it rises in importance. Peter Rundlet asked if each Team would have its own Executive Summary, or if there would just be one "master" Executive Summary. Chris Kojm said this had not been determined.

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Priorities: Lee returned to the issue of priorities for the Team. They will have to assess: whether counter-terrorism is the right priority for the FBI; FBI reforms and the Office of Intelligence; state and local cooperation with the FBI; TTIC; legal authority and the PATRIOT Act; and the technological upgrades being implemented by the FBI. Key issues are the organization of our domestic intelligence and law enforcement; our capacity for information-sharing; civil liberties; and the culture of the FBI - can it perform the functions of domestic intelligence and counter-terrorism? Changing structures is exceedingly difficult Setting things up would be an immense challenge. Conversely, Secretary Schlesinger testified that we should just leave things alone, but Lee is not comfortable with that.

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