Thursday, January 30, 2003

"The C.I.A. uses every dirty trick in the book to accomplish its mission overseas," said Timothy Edgar, a legislative council for the A.C.L.U. "To allow those methods to govern intelligence gathering on American soil is an invitation for disaster."


Security Officials Considering Plan to Combine Terror Forces
Representative Jane Harman of California, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said it was "frustrating" that the Bush administration was proposing such a major intelligence restructuring months after the Department of Homeland Security was initiated and the F.B.I. began its own internal reforms.

"There are a lot of unanswered questions about how this new center would interact with ongoing analytic efforts of the C.I.A., F.B.I., and Department of Homeland Security," Ms. Harman said.

While Bush administration officials said the new terrorism center's role would be to analyze threats as they develop, outside national security specialists in intelligence matters said that the crucial test would be whether the new operation would guide the intelligence gathering as well.

James Bamford, a best-selling author on national security affairs, said in an interview that if the new center was merely a repository for analyzing threats, it would largely duplicate the C.I.A.'s existing counterterrorism center. "You're basically just renaming it," Mr. Bamford said. "That's what they already do."

But if the C.I.A. began influencing domestic intelligence decisions at the F.B.I., he said, "that would be a major power shift."

The line of responsibility between the agencies has become somewhat blurred in recent months, and officials at the American Civil Liberties Union said they were worried that Mr. Bush's plan could mean significant new powers for the C.I.A.

"The C.I.A. uses every dirty trick in the book to accomplish its mission overseas," said Timothy Edgar, a legislative council for the A.C.L.U. "To allow those methods to govern intelligence gathering on American soil is an invitation for disaster."

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/30/politics/30TERR.html

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