The FBI and the CIA plan to share intelligence information with the proposed homeland security department, the directors of the two agencies told the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee yesterday (see GSN, June 25)

CIA Director George Tenet and FBI Director Robert Mueller said they would share information reports — and most raw intelligence data — with the proposed department when it is created (see GSN, June 26).

“I am committed to assuring that the new department receives all of the relevant terrorist-related intelligence available,” Tenet said.

The CIA would try to classify terrorism-related intelligence at the “lowest possible level” so that it could be shared with the proposed department and even with state and local officials, Tenet said.  The only information the CIA would withhold from the proposed department would be information on its sources and intelligence-gathering techniques, he added.

The recent U.S.A. Patriot Act has allowed the FBI to share information on terrorism with grand jury investigations, and the legislation should also be able to apply to the proposed department, Mueller said (see GSN, October 26, 2001).  Homeland security department officials would probably be included in the FBI’s planned joint terrorism task forces, he said (James Risen, New York Times, June 28).

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