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FBI Slow to Adopt New Methods, Official Says
Five years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the FBI continues to struggle to improve its intelligence gathering methods, the New York Times reported today (see GSN, July 27). Remembering domestic spying abuses of the 1960s and 1970s, many bureau officials have been wary of adopting methods that could butt against civil rights protections, according to the Times. That concern, however, has led agents to make some terrorism arrests too soon, before gaining more knowledge about the suspect’s connections and plans, said one FBI official trying to modify the bureau’s strategy. “I don’t want to take [a suspect] down too quickly,” said Philip Mudd, second in command of the FBI’s National Security Branch. “I want to understand what we know and what we don’t know. If we’re focused solely on [individual] cases, I can’t have confidence that we know what’s going on.” Changing the rapid arrest tactic could be difficult, however, because solving specific cases has historically been the key to career success in the bureau, according to a former FBI official. “Supervisors will say, ‘Why don’t you have any cases?’,” said Christopher Hamilton, who retired recently after 22 years with the bureau. “Cases are good for getting resources, good for publicity and good for morale.” Mudd acknowledged that producing change could be a long-term process. “There [are] 31,000 employees in this organization and we’re undergoing a sea-change,” he said. “It’s going to take a while for what is a high-end national security program to sink down to every officer.” Some officials said traditionalists might nevertheless win the day by delaying change until reformers such as Mudd move on to new jobs. “They’ll just wait him out,” said one counterterrorism official (Shane/Bergman, New York Times, Oct. 10).
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