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LAW ENFORCEMENT: ARE FEDERAL, STATE, AND

LOCAL AGENCIES WORKING TOGETHER EFFECTIVELY?

JOINT HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE, DRUG

POLICY AND HUMAN RESOURCES

THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY,

FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT AND

INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS

AND THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY,

VETERANS AFFAIRS AND INTERNATIONAL

RELATIONS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

NOVEMBER 13, 2001

Serial No. 107–116

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York

CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

STEPHEN HORN, California

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

BOB BARR, Georgia

DAN MILLER, Florida

DOUG OSE, California

RON LEWIS, Kentucky

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

DAVE WELDON, Florida

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida

C.L. ‘‘BUTCH’’ OTTER, Idaho

EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

——— ———

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,

DC

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

JIM TURNER, Texas

THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

KEVIN BINGER, Staff Director

DANIEL R. MOLL, Deputy Staff Director

JAMES C. WILSON, Chief Counsel

ROBERT A. BRIGGS, Chief Clerk

PHIL SCHILIRO, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE, DRUG POLICY AND HUMAN RESOURCES

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana, Chairman

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN L. MICA, Florida,

BOB BARR, Georgia

DAN MILLER, Florida

DOUG OSE, California

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia

DAVE WELDON, Florida

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JIM TURNER, Texas

THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois

EX OFFICIO

DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

CHRISTOPHER DONESA, Staff Director and Chief Counsel

AMY HORTON, Professional Staff Member

CONN CARROLL, Clerk

DAVID MCMILLEN, Minority Professional Staff Member

(III)

SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY, FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT AND

INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS

STEPHEN HORN, California, Chairman

RON LEWIS, Kentucky

DAN MILLER, Florida

DOUG OSE, California

ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

EX OFFICIO

DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

J. RUSSELL GEORGE, Staff Director and Chief Counsel

BONNIE HEALD, Professional Staff Member

MARK JOHNSON, Clerk

DAVID MCMILLEN, Minority Professional Staff Member

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, VETERANS AFFAIRS AND INTERNATIONAL

RELATIONS

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut, Chairman

ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

RON LEWIS, Kentucky

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

DAVE WELDON, Florida

C.L. ‘‘BUTCH’’ OTTER, Idaho

EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine

TOM LANTOS, California

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

EX OFFICIO

DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

LAWRENCE J. HALLORAN, Staff Director and Counsel

R. NICHOLAS PALARINO, Professional Staff Member

JASON CHUNG, Clerk

DAVID MCMILLEN, Minority Professional Staff Member

(V)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on November 13, 2001 ...................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Dwyer, William, chief of police, Farmington Hills, MI .................................. 49

Greene, Joseph R., Acting Deputy Executive Associate Commissioner for

Field Operations, Immigration and Naturalization Service ...................... 92

Hutchinson, Asa, Administrator, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration . 13

King, Scott L., mayor, city of Gary, IN ........................................................... 28

McChesney, Kathleen L., Assistant Director, Training Division, Federal

Bureau of Investigation, accompanied by David Walchak, Deputy Assistant Director, Criminal Justice Information Services Division, Federal Bureau of Investigation; and Lynne Hunt, Special Agent in

Charge, Baltimore Field Office, Federal Bureau of Investigation ............ 68

Nedelkoff, Richard R., Director, Bureau of Justice Assistance, Office of

Justice Programs, Department of Justice ................................................... 55

Norris, Edward T., commissioner, Baltimore Police Department ................ 37

Ramsey, Charles H., chief, Metropolitan Police Department ....................... 43

Timoney, John F., commissioner, Philadelphia Police Department ............. 39

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Cummings, Hon. Elijah E., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Maryland, prepared statement of ............................................................ 10

Dwyer, William, chief of police, Farmington Hills, MI, prepared statement

of ..................................................................................................................... 51

Greene, Joseph R., Acting Deputy Executive Associate Commissioner for

Field Operations, Immigration and Naturalization Service, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 94

Horn, Hon. Stephen, a Representative in Congress from the State of

California, prepared statement of ................................................................ 3

Hutchinson, Hon. Asa, a Representative in Congress from the State of

Arkansas, prepared statement of ................................................................ 16

King, Scott L., mayor, city of Gary, IN, prepared statement of ................... 30

McChesney, Kathleen L., Assistant Director, Training Division, Federal

Bureau of Investigation, prepared statement of ......................................... 70

Mueller, Robert S., Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 137

Nedelkoff, Richard R., Director, Bureau of Justice Assistance, Office of

Justice Programs, Department of Justice, prepared statement of ............ 57

Ramsey, Charles H., chief, Metropolitan Police Department, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 45

Shays, Hon. Christopher, a Representative in Congress from the State

of Connecticut, prepared statement of ........................................................ 6

Timoney, John F., commissioner, Philadelphia Police Department, prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 41

(1)

LAW ENFORCEMENT: ARE FEDERAL, STATE,

AND LOCAL AGENCIES WORKING TOGETHER EFFECTIVELY?

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2001

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE, DRUG POLICY AND HUMAN RESOURCES,

JOINT WITH THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY, FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT AND INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS, AND THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, VETERANS AFFAIRS AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT

REFORM,

Washington, DC.

The subcommittees met, pursuant to notice, at 9:30 a.m., in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Stephen Horn (chairman of the Subcommittee on Government Efficiency, Financial

Management and Intergovernmental Relations) presiding.

Present for the Subcommittee on Government Efficiency, Financial Management and Intergovernmental Relations: Representatives Horn, Schakowsky and Maloney.

Present for the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy

and Human Resources: Representative Cummings.

Present for the Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans Affairs and International Relations: Representatives Shays and

Schakowsky.

Also present: Representative Watson.

Staff present: J. Russell George, staff director and chief counsel;

Bonnie Heald, deputy staff director; Mark Johnson, clerk; Jim

Holmes, intern, Subcommittee on Government Efficiency, Financial

Management and Intergovernmental Relations; Chris Donesa, staff

director; Amy Horton, professional staff member; Conn Carroll,

clerk, Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human

Resources; Lawrence Halloran, staff director; Jason Chung, clerk,

Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans Affairs and International Relations; David McMillen, minority professional staff

member; and Jean Gosa, minority clerk.

Mr. HORN. A quorum being present, this joint hearing of the Subcommittee on Government Efficiency, Financial Management and

Intergovernmental Relations and the Subcommittee on Criminal

Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources, and the Subcommittee

on National Security, Veterans Affairs and International Relations

will come to order. We are here today to discuss the efficiency and

effectiveness of the flow of information between Federal, State, and

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local law enforcement agencies. Interagency cooperation has always

been an important factor in protecting the safety and security of

this Nation, but the unimaginable events of September 11th and

the ensuing biological attacks involving anthrax have drawn unparalleled attention to the need for a timely interchange of meaningful law enforcement information.

On October 5th of this year, the Subcommittee on Government

Efficiency, Financial Management and Intergovernmental Relations, which I chair, held a hearing on bioterrorism. During that

hearing, Baltimore Police Commissioner, Edward T. Norris testified

that following the September 11th attacks, neither his Department

nor any other that was aware had been asked to contribute manpower toward following up on thousands of leads. In fact, weeks

passed by before the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s watchlist

provided adequate descriptions of those who were suspected of participating in the devastating attacks.

Following the October 5th hearing, FBI Director Robert S.

Mueller pledged to increase the role of non-Federal law enforcement agencies and to share more information with State and local

agencies. We are interested to hear about the FBI’s progress in attaining these important goals.

Commissioner Norris is with us again today and will update us

on the progress. Commissioner, thank you for coming. We also

want to examine the broader issue of effective law enforcement

communication. Federal agencies such as the Immigration and

Naturalization Service, the Drug Enforcement Agency, and the Department of Justice, the Bureau of Investigations of the FBI, control massive data banks of information. But how accessible is that

information to the 650,000 police officers who protect our neighborhoods and roadways? Should we be doing more? September 11th

reprioritized the agenda of this Nation and its Congress. The need

for shared intelligence must rise above parochial interest at all levels of law enforcement. We cannot afford to do otherwise.

I’m pleased to note that one of our former colleagues, DEA Administrator Asa Hutchinson, will lead off with our panel of witnesses after the various subcommittee chairs will have their opening statements.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Stephen Horn follows:]

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Mr. HORN. I now yield to Mr. Shays for his opening statement.

The gentleman from Connecticut.

Mr. SHAYS. Good morning, gentlemen. Good morning witnesses

and guests. For many Federal law enforcement and intelligence

agencies, intergovernmental cooperation has been becoming a self

defeating game of ‘‘I’ve Got a Secret,’’ in which critical facts and

leads are hidden from those who most need to know. The quaint,

insular habits of the past have proven inadequate to prevent the

tragic events of the last 2 months. Protecting national security

against dispersed global and deadly threats requires interagency

cooperation and coordination on an unprecedented scale. Before the

terrorists acquired the means to inflict catastrophic losses on our

Nation and our people, we need to be assured of our first lines of

defense.

The eyes and ears of the intelligence community and law enforcement at all levels are seeing and hearing the same things. Critical

data sharing between Federal, State, and local agencies today is

often the product of good luck and the happenstance of personal relationships. Our current peril demands a more systematic collection

and dissemination of the information needed to identify suspects or

prevent known terrorists from entering the United States. Tripartite joint hearing demonstrates—this tripartite joint hearing

demonstrates our commitment to unprecedented data sharing and

the willingness to overcome artificial jurisdictional barriers. We

look to our witnesses today to describe how they are overcoming

current barriers to effective intergovernmental communication. I

appreciate their being here.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate your having this hearing, and I look

forward to hearing from our witnesses.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Christopher Shays follows:]

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Mr. HORN. I thank the gentleman and now yield to the acting

member for the minority, Mrs. Maloney, and we’re delighted to

have you with us. It’s like old times.

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I, first of all, I

want very much to welcome my colleague, Asa Hutchinson and congratulate him on his new post. You served with great honor in our

body and we wish you all the best, and certainly to welcome all of

the distinguished panelists and thank them for coming, and we

have all personally changed since September 11th, personally and

as a Nation. Legislatively we’ve made improvements through the

Patriot Act; however, I believe we need to maintain the current momentum and continue to improve our Nation to function at its absolute best.

During the events of September 11th and the current threat of

anthrax, we heard complaints regarding the lack of communication

and information shared among law enforcement. I am here today

to tell you that we must create a free flow of information in both

directions. During a recent hearing of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence held in New York City, Mayor Giuliani

pointed out that there are 600,000 sworn law enforcement in our

country. We need to activate that immense local resource to work

in concert with Federal law enforcement to be the on-the-street

eyes and ears.

Mayor Giuliani also praised the use of joint terrorism task forces

[JTTF’s]. The first JTTF was implemented in New York City.

Mayor Giuliani stated that the JTTF provides an avenue of information sharing. But I believe that more importantly, it allows the

multiple law enforcement jurisdictions to learn how each operates

and the limitations that each are faced with. We have seen by the

evidence of September 11th that the individuals who intend to

harm our great country and citizens are the lowest of cowards. But

they are also, unfortunately, very intelligent and very persistent.

The other thing we know is that their attacks are spread out, not

only geographically, but spatially.

The attack in Africa occurred in August 1998. The U.S.S. Cole

was attacked on October 13, 2000, and the attack on America occurred on September 11, 2001. Every event was carefully planned

and carefully executed. We know that criminals and terrorists have

also advanced in their use of technology using e-mail and multiple

cell phone carriers.

In the recently enacted Patriot Act, we have attempted to give

law enforcement the tools they need. Now I am proposing that we

ask law enforcement to organize and ban together to fight terrorism. I will soon introduce legislation that would increase the number of JTTF’s in the country. We currently have 56 FBI field officers with 35 JTTF’s. We’re almost halfway there, but we need one

in almost every single field office and we need to provide the resources to local government so that they can have ample representation on the JTTF’s.

One of the things that I think we should do is see if we could

deputize more people at the local law enforcement to have the powers to arrest INS violations, which seems to be a tremendous problem now and to also give the INS better computer capability so

that local governments could tap into the INS computers. And I

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know from New York City that local law enforcement is stretched

to its absolute fullest capabilities. We, the Federal Government,

provide them with the needed resources. We need to give them

more. We must deploy the 600,000 eyes and ears. Our country’s

safety must be paramount. Thank you and I yield back.

Mr. HORN. I thank the gentlewoman and Mr. Souder will not be

with us. He is the other subcommittee chair that’s very important

with his drug and other situations.

Mr. Cummings, do you have an opening statement?

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. HORN. We’re going to go pretty fast.

Mr. CUMMINGS. That’s no problem but I did request this hearing

and I want to thank the chairman for granting this hearing and

I just will be very brief, but I do want to have a statement. Again

I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing on the

actions required to increase our Nation’s security against terrorist

attacks. The Government Reform Committee and its subcommittees have held several hearings addressing the various dimensions

of the new war on terrorism, the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources, the Subcommittee on Government Efficiency, Financial Management and Intergovernmental

Relations, and the Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans

Affairs and International Relations. In the Criminal Justice, Drug

Policy and Human Resources Subcommittee we have already heard

from a number of Federal law enforcement agencies on the new

challenges that they face both internally and in terms of working

cooperatively with one another. In recent weeks we have seen the

creation of an Office of Homeland Security in the Executive Office

of the President. Tom Ridge, Director of that new office, has an

enormous challenge on his hands as do the Federal agencies whose

antiterrorism efforts his office will coordinate. I am convinced that

the effectiveness of these protective efforts will depend in large

part upon expanded and more effective Federal cooperation with

the nearly 650,000 State and local law enforcement officers in this

country. On October 5, 2001, the Subcommittee on Government Efficiency, Financial Management and Intergovernmental Relations

held a hearing entitled, ‘‘A Silent War: Are Federal, State and

Local Governments Prepared for Biological and Chemical Attacks?’’

Among the witnesses testifying at that hearing were the mayor of

Baltimore and my friend, mayor, Martin O’Malley, and the Baltimore city police commissioner, Edward T. Norris, who will testify

here today, along with many other law enforcement officers. During

their October 5th testimony—and this is what why I requested this

hearing—both Mayor O’Malley and Commissioner Norris discussed

the challenges that law enforcement officers have faced in coordinating their anti-terrorism efforts with those of Federal law enforcement and other emergency preparedness agencies. Mayor

O’Malley and Commissioner Norris to their credit emphasized the

critical roles that local law enforcement can and must play in securing our Nation against terrorist attacks. However, they also

alerted us to serious shortcomings in the current willingness or

ability of Federal agencies to share crucial information with local

law enforcement. To their credit since September 11th of this year,

leading Federal and local officials have expressed their collective

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determination to work together more closely and more effectively

than ever before. For example, during his remarks last Thursday

on the planned restructuring of the Justice Department to better

address the threat of terrorism, Attorney General John Ashcroft acknowledged that the Department of Justice cannot win this battle

alone. We must forge new relationships of cooperation and trust

with our partners in State and local law enforcement. The Attorney

General declared bureaucratic turf battles must cease when terrorists threaten the very ground beneath or feet. And so Mr. Chairman, I thank you very much for this calling this hearing. I was

with Chairman Souder overseas but I got back here early because

I wanted to be a part of this and I want to thank all of our witnesses for being with us today.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Elijah E. Cummings follows:]

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Mr. HORN. Thank you very much. You’ve spent a lot of time on

this and we are glad to have you with us.

We are now going to swear in the witnesses. This is an investigative Committee of Government Reform; so if you will stand and

raise your right hands. I might add that if your staff is going to

help you on that just to have them raise their right hand and the

clerk will take the note of all of you and the staff.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. HORN. The clerk will note that all of the witnesses have affirmed the oath, and we will now start with a colleague that is having a wonderful time, I’m sure, in this tough environment, and

that’s the Honorable Asa Hutchinson, Administrator of the Drug

Enforcement Agency, and he was a reformer in Congress and we

expect you to be a reformer in the executive branch.

STATEMENT OF ASA HUTCHINSON, ADMINISTRATOR, U.S.

DRUG ENFORCEMENT ADMINISTRATION

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Thank you Mr. Chairman, Mr. Shays, Mrs.

Maloney, Mr. Cummings. It’s certainly good to be back with you

and I’m grateful for each of your leadership on this particular issue

of cooperation. The Drug Enforcement Administration is totally dependent upon cooperation and intelligence sharing. To illustrate

this point, the DEA has 4,500 agents worldwide. The Los Angeles

Police Department has over two times that number to cover one

city. The DEA covers the entire United States with less than one

half the officers in most large cities.

So how do we do this effectively? We do it through intelligence,

intelligence sharing, and cooperation. The cooperation and sharing

that is the subject of this hearing is an ongoing goal in law enforcement. It’s certainly not perfect in today’s environment, but we have

made enormous progress during the last two decades. The 1980’s,

when I was the U.S. attorney in a western District of Arkansas, we

started, under that administration, the Law Enforcement Coordinating Committee, and for the first time, State and local law enforcement officials met with their Federal counterparts and worked

on law enforcement initiatives.

Today our tools of cooperation and intelligence sharing are much

more developed, much more integrated than two decades ago. I understand that the focus of this hearing is primarily

counterterrorism, but I believe that our counterterrorism efforts

can learn much from our cooperative experience in counternarcotics. And let me briefly cover the cooperative and intelligence

sharing efforts from the DEA’s perspectives. There’s two primary

tools that are used in this arena.

First of all would be the task forces that we participate in with

our State and local counterparts; and second, the data bases that

are maintained and the extent that they are shared. First of all,

in reference to the task forces, we’ve had task forces going since the

1960’s, but they really got kicked into gear in the 1980’s. At that

time, the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces were

started [OCDETF’s] as they are referred to today, in which all the

agencies, Federal, State and local, are combined to attack organized crime and drug trafficking.

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So that is a task force that’s operational really under the auspices of the U.S. Attorney’s Office; and second you have your traditional task forces, and these have been going on since the 1960’s,

the first one in New York City. But today we have only over 1,300

special agents of the DEA assigned to work with 1,900 State and

local law enforcement officers in over 200 task forces across the

country.

Why is this important? I’ll illustrate this by the fact that I went

last week to Norfolk, VA, actually it was Jo Ann Davis’s District,

and I visited with the DEA employees. We call them all-hands

meeting, and as I go in there to meet with the employees, I learned

that there are numerous task force officers there, and they’re there

because they work alongside, shoulder to shoulder with the DEA

officers. Their detective, Kevin Gavin, of the Portsmouth Police Department, Detective James Thomas of the Virginia Beach Police

Department, and Captain Dorothy Banks of the Portsmouth Sheriff’s office. All were present there, and they had one question for

me, and that was, they just wanted to be able to participate in

more training, but they consider themselves equivalent to the DEA

in every respect, and the key thing is that every task force officer

there has access to all the information of the DEA.

And so if the local chief needed some information on a particular

issue, you contact your task force officer, who has access to all of

our data bases. And so all of the data bases in the DEA are available through our task forces as well as the general intelligence information that we have. This is expanded in the HIDTA, the High

Intensity Drug Traffic Areas where we have over 45 task forces

that are funded through the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

They work in a similar fashion, and so through those task forces,

that is the primary means in which we cooperate, we work alongside our State and local counterparts in a very much of a team

fashion with equal access to intelligence information. We learn

from them; they learn from us. One of the key data bases that we

have that is accessed through the task forces from a drug enforcement standpoint is the NADDIS, Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs

Information System, and here 1,980 task force officers can access

all of the information on drug offenses that the DEA has maintained and is an essential tool to anyone who is engaged in drug

enforcement.

Beyond the task forces, law enforcement agencies have access in

two primary ways to the data bases. The hub for sharing information to all the State and local agencies is the El Paso Intelligence

Center. EPIC is the hub that is the clearinghouse for gathering the

intelligence information and sharing it with our State and local

counterparts. An illustration of this, if you will, is the State trooper

in Maryland makes a routine traffic stop on I–95. During the encounter, there’s suspicious wonderment about some answers, but

not enough to create a warrant for further action, and so the driver

is given a citation and he moves on, but if that same trooper had

done a computer check of the vehicle and checked with the EPIC,

El Paso Intelligence Center, we would learn within minutes that

the driver’s prior conviction—had a prior conviction in California

for trafficking, and the fact that the vehicle entered the United

States just 2 days before across the border in Mexico, from Mexico

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to Texas, but the driver told the trooper he has been traveling

cross-country from Chicago with no mention of Mexico. This alerts

the trooper to the suspicious activity. Its suspicion—probable cause

for the canine unit to come and this is the way that the EPIC— the information, the data base there is accessed by our local law

enforcement and they’re able to gain the same information that we

have and to benefit from it.

Another data base that is helpful is the National Drug Pointer

Index which is really a deconfliction system where that if you’ve

got a narcotics officer for the local police department starting an

investigation, he checks with this index to see if anyone else is running the same type of case, and if you find out that there’s a positive hit, then you can check with another officer in another city and

compare notes as to that investigation. And so the DEA works

through the task force concept in which we share information, we

gain information, we, to the largest extent possible, try to make our

data bases available to local law enforcement to aid them in the effort.

Finally, I just would want to emphasize how essential it is, it is

essential for accomplishing our mission that we have this type of

shared information and it is certainly essential for the wise use of

tax dollars. In reference to the future, a number of you made reference to the fact we have to have information going in a shared

fashion. The local law enforcement are the ears that are trained

and in counterterrorism. It very well could be a traffic stop that

will give us some key information if we’re attuned to what is happening. We can have better tuned ears if we have information flowing going back to the local law enforcement so they know in a larger sense what the picture is, what they’re looking for, and they

could be of a greater aid to the joint terrorism task forces that are

being discussed today. Thank you for your leadership on this issue,

and at the conclusion, I’ll be happy to answer any questions.

Mr. HORN. Well, thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hutchinson follows:]

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Mr. HORN. As you know, the way we operate is all the witnesses

give their presentation, and then all the Members get 5 minutes

and alternate between the Democrats and the Republicans. So we

now have Honorable Scott L. King, mayor, city of Gary. He’s representing the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

Mr. King.

STATEMENT OF SCOTT L. KING, MAYOR, CITY OF GARY, IN

Mr. KING. Since September 11th at the request of our President,

Mayor Marc Morial of New Orleans, I, along with Mayor Jeff Griffin of Reno and Mayor Martin O’Malley of Baltimore, have cochaired a task force on Federal local law enforcement. We met in

New Orleans on October 15th along with several police chiefs and

public safety directors. Recommendations occurring during that

meeting were then carried to the Department of Justice in a meeting that Mayor O’Malley and myself had on October 17th. On October 23rd through 25th, the Conference of Mayors sponsored the

Mayors Emergency Safety and Security Summit here in Washington, and it was attended by over 200 mayors, police chiefs, fire

chiefs, and emergency managers.

During that summit, we presented recommendations to Homeland Security Director Ridge, Attorney General Ashcroft, FBI Director Mueller, HHS Secretary Thompson, FAA administrator Jane

Garvey, and other top officials. The recommendations covered

issues related to Federal/local law enforcement, emergency preparedness, transportation security, and economic security. I have

attached the initial report released during the course of that summit, and the more detailed report will be released soon and forwarded to the subcommittee. In addition, last week, November 7,

Mayor Morial, myself, Mayor O’Malley and several other mayors

met with former Governor Ridge in the White House to discuss in

some detail the recommendations that we put together during the

summit. Those recommendations include the following: That mayors of the largest cities in each metropolitan area in the country

should be included in the Federal District law enforcement task

forces convened by the U.S. attorneys per the direction of the Attorney General, otherwise known as ATTF’s or Anti-Terrorism Task

Forces. Those mayors could then convene all appropriate representatives of cities within their metropolitan areas and serve as the

critical link to the existing coordinated Federal response within

that District. Mayors and police chiefs must be permitted to receive

any security clearances needed to obtain appropriate intelligence.

Existing restrictions on local law enforcement access to the NCIC

data system for criminal records checks must be modified. It should

be updated with as much information as possible including photographs, visa information, driver’s license information, and last

known addresses. Federal and local intelligence data bases should

be merged wherever possible. INS warrant information with photographs sought by Federal authorities should be provided to local

law enforcement agencies. The Nation’s 650,000 local police officers

should be allowed to assist the FBI in tracking down and following

up on at least a portion of the tips received and to be received in

the future.

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As provided in the recently enacted USA Patriot Act of 2001, institutional barriers to greater intelligence sharing between Federal

and local law enforcement agencies should be addressed. We’re

happy to report that there has been some response to this. On November 1, Senators Schumer, Clinton, Leahy, and Hatch introduced the Federal-Local Information Sharing Partnership Act of

2001, Senate bill 1615. We also understand as a conference that

companion legislation is expected here in the House.

The Conference of Mayors strongly supports this legislation. It is

our hope that Congress will move the legislation quickly through

the process and on to the President for his signature. Unlike most

other industrialized countries, it is local government, not the Federal Government, which has primary responsibility for homeland

defense in the United States. It is primarily our police who are responding to the continuing calls from the Attorney General for a

heightened state of alert to guard our public infrastructure, places

of gathering, and population centers in general. It is our police at

the local level, fire and EMS personnel who are responding to the

thousands of new 911 calls related to possible anthrax attacks or

other terrorism-related public concerns.

Simply stated, there is no Federal fire department. 911 does not

ring in either the Nation’s or the State’s capitals. They ring in the

city halls, police stations, and fire stations of this country. It is also

important to note that of the approximately $10 billion in Federal

anti-terrorism dollars identified by OMB, only 4.9 percent is allocated to a combination of State and local first response activities,

and of this limited amount, most is provided to the States, bypassing America’s cities and major population centers. Also on this

issue of funding, it is ill-advised that the conferees on the Commerce Justice State Appropriations Bill, House Resolution 2500,

decided last Thursday to reduce the local law enforcement block

grant program from $522 million to $400 million, a 24 percent cut.

At a time when our Nation is at war and local law enforcement

is leading the home front fight, it’s bad enough we’re not getting

enough in prospective financing, but to cut us on funds we already

rely upon is, in our view, unconscionable. We urge the Congress,

we urge the Congress to have impact and input and turn around

that decision made last Thursday by the conference committee.

I want to thank the chairman, the ranking members, and all

Members that are here on these subcommittees for this chance to

testify. The Mayors of the United States are committed to the continuing fight against terrorism and we look forward to working

closely with Congress on what must be the Nation’s top priority,

defending our homeland and maintaining public safety. Thank you.

Mr. HORN. Thank you very much. You had a very presentable

situation, and I would hope that the mayors would go and talk to

the conference in both the Senate and the House to solve this. We

listen to mayors.

[The prepared statement of Mr. King follows:]

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Mr. HORN. So we will now move to Edward T. Norris, the commissioner of the Baltimore Police Department. We’re glad to see

you back here, Mr. Norris, and thank you very much for coming.

STATEMENT OF EDWARD T. NORRIS, COMMISSIONER,

BALTIMORE POLICE DEPARTMENT

Chief NORRIS. Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee,

thank you for giving me the opportunity to return to Washington

to discuss with you progress achieved today in developing well integrated Federal, State, and local defense against future acts of terrorism in this country. As I testified on October 5th, all levels of

law enforcement must do a better job, dramatically better job, of

collecting and sharing intelligence, but at this time it’s important

to note, and as I thanked the FBI Director, Robert Mueller, for listening to what I had to say on that day and in subsequent conversations, I asked for watchlist names to be placed on a nationwide computer, and he did just that.

However, while progress has been made, the level of Federal and

strategic collaboration with local law enforcement remains weak.

Last month he gave me a forum to identify the problem. Today, I

return with some concrete solutions that will result in a level of

competent, coordinated law enforcement the American people deserve. It is addressed to the Department of Justice leadership on

November 8.

Attorney General Ashcroft stated we are engaged in an aggressive arrest and detention campaign of law breakers with a single

objective, to get terrorists off the street before they can harm more

Americans. The 645,000 law enforcement professionals in the

United States stand ready to join the campaign today. They’ll offer

specific strategy to utilize all available law enforcement agencies in

a way that complements rather than drains resources and abilities.

Because the cost of this war has been tremendous, resources must

be combined in an efficient manner.

At the local level we can’t wait for Federal funding programs to

start the engineering of law enforcement’s response. The plan I

propose requires little or no additional funding, but would provide

dramatic results. Since October, the FBI has taken a certain step

of placing its watchlist of 230 names in NCIC. NCIC, of course, is

the computer system that allows State and local law enforcement

officers to conduct checks for Federal, State and local warrants.

These checks are done thousands of times a day by local officers

across the country. That’s how we caught Timothy McVeigh.

In agreeing to include their watchlist in NCI—IC, the FBI has

increased its search capacity from 11,000 agents to additional

645,000 law enforcement professionals. But this isn’t enough. The

Federal Government goes a step further by releasing photographs

of these 230 individuals. The names can easily be changed or altered, their appearances cannot. INS must also get involved by

placing all out-of-status subjects in NCIC. Currently, verification of

an alien status can only be done through direct contact with the

regional INS. This is extremely limiting, because there are only 24

INS agents in Maryland. I understand that 250,000 illegal aliens

have been ordered deported, yet are now missing and cannot be

found by INS. A new way of doing business is in order.

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By placing this information in NCIC, the INS will experience the

same force-multiplying effect as the FBI did when it placed its

watchlist in NCIC. A natural liaison exists at the State and local

level to assist the FBI and INS with the backlog of investigations.

Baltimore Police Department, like most large police departments in

this country, has an intelligence unit. These units existed long before September 11th, and they worked to develop intelligence on

gangs, terrorists, and other criminal organizations.

If the FBI provided security clearances to the 26 detectives in my

unit and the INS was willing to deputize these same detectives,

they could work the informational leads with the FBI and INS.

These deputized detectives would then send the appropriate information to Baltimore’s 3,000 patrol officers, who in turn, will use all

available technology and investigative skills to work on some of the

FBI’s 500,000 open tips and track down out-of-status aliens working and living in Baltimore. If this was done across the country,

the Federal Government would add thousands to its investigative

pool. The further value to this action is that by deputizing local law

enforcement, Federal investigations would happen at the grassroots level in neighborhoods and communities in which suspected

terrorists live. All this cooperative assistance is provided without

additional cost to the Federal Government.

The Attorney General has instructed the Department of Justice

to put an end to bureaucratic turf battles. He announced the wartime reorganization and mobilization effort and submitted to Congress a strategic plan which will assist the Department of Justice

in meeting its new anti-terrorism mission.

I therefore urge four essential actions: Require the Federal Government to provide photographs for those on the watchlist; require

INS to place the names of out-of-status aliens in NCIC; require the

Department of Justice to engage in active substantive discussions

with local and State law enforcement leaders to develop a strategy

that would effectively deploy 645,000 law enforcement officers to

support Federal anti-terrorism efforts. Such a strategy should include Federal deputization of local law enforcement intelligence officers and the strategy should be developed and implemented within 30 days.

I welcome the opportunity to pilot any such efforts in my city.

And last, require the Department of Justice to develop an accountability program like Philadelphia, Baltimore, New York and

many other cities uses, COMPSTAT. Since New York launched this

method, crime went down 70 percent and the Department of Justice, to share information on a timely basis with other law enforcement agencies through a COMPSTAT-like form and investigate accordingly.

In conducting these meetings both in New York and Baltimore,

dramatic results have occurred. The first step of this method, called

COMPSTAT, is a collection of accurate and timely intelligence, exactly what we’re asking for today. In May, Attorney General

Ashcroft testified before Congress regarding the efforts to combat

terrorism to the United States. He said within our borders, the Department’s counterterrorism efforts require close coordination with

not only with other Federal agencies, but also with State and local

agencies. Simply put, no one agency can effectively address terrorVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:10 Oct 21, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00044 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\82174.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ism on its own, pointing out, however, we can make great strides

to protecting our Nation and its citizens from terrorists. These are

powerful words.

Now let’s put it into action. I understand the difficulties of

changing the culture of an organization. I spent the first 20 years

of my law enforcement career with the New York City Police Department. An agency as deeply rooted in tradition as any Federal

agency and four times the size of the FBI. The culture of the NYPD

changed because deeply committed men and women were willing to

change the system that desperately needed it. The world events of

the past 2 months have dramatically changed the way local law enforcement works. Federal law enforcement must make changes as

well. Thank you.

Mr. HORN. Thank you very much, Commissioner. We now turn

to John F. Timoney, commissioner of the Philadelphia Police Department. We’re working our way up the coast.

STATEMENT OF JOHN F. TIMONEY, COMMISSIONER,

PHILADELPHIA POLICE DEPARTMENT

Chief TIMONEY. Good morning, sir, and thank you for the opportunity to testify before your committee. I have submitted as part

of the testimony, an op-ed piece I wrote for the Philadelphia Inquirer basically an open letter to Governor Ridge upon taking his

new job.

Let me say, post-September 11th America has changed and the

way we police America has also changed, and probably forever, but

there are three areas I’d like to discuss quickly today that I think

need addressing by Congress. One of them is in the area of intelligence sharing. As I said, the biggest lie in law enforcement is that

we work well together and share information. We don’t, under a

whole variety of reasons. There’s institutional reasons, cultural,

traditional reasons, legal reasons.

The FBI or others will tell you we’d like to tell you, but we’ll fit— and because of 6-E, if a grand jury’s impaneled, but the one I found

more offensive is the issue, we’d like to share it with you, but you

don’t have top secret clearance. I spent 29 years in New York City

Police Department retiring as the No. 2, and the last 4 years as

the Philadelphia police commissioner. I can guarantee you I protected more Presidents than most of the people that wrote those

guidelines, and so I find them personally insulting.

The second area, as I mentioned here, the idea of mobilizing local

law enforcement, and I understand there are 18,000 local law enforcement, but there is a method already established where you can

get this mobilization to take effect, if you will, through an institution known as the major city chiefs, the 55 major city chiefs should

be passed with the responsibility of mobilizing the smaller communities surrounding the major metropolitan areas.

Again, as was referenced here, it wasn’t the FBI that locked up

the most notorious terrorists tried on September 11th. It was the

local law enforcement officer pulling over Timothy McVeigh for a

bad license. As I said, the organization already exists. On the

major city chiefs in Philadelphia, we began about a year and a half

ago the idea of not just crime mapping the city of Philadelphia but

regional crime mapping, and at our COMPSTAT meetings, the

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chiefs from the surrounding areas come in and attend those meetings also, and so there’s a perfect mechanism of instituting the

sharing or the mobilizing of law enforcement officers in this fight

against terrorism.

And finally the costs, they’ve been mentioned here but there are

huge costs that have been attached already since September 11th.

But my sense is listening to the Defense Department and other

Federal officials who indicate that this effort will take at least a

year and a half, maybe two or even longer, most big cities, I don’t

think, can afford the drain on our resources. I know we’ve spent upwards of $2 million so far just in the city of Philadelphia, and

so there’s a real need to get some resources to offset the direct costs

and as has been mentioned, the local law enforcement block grant

has already been cut 24 percent.

We’ve been expecting that money upwards of a year ago. There

are also indirect costs that are associated with it, and that of

course is the opportunity cost. If we have officers doing task A,

they can’t be involved in additional tasks of fighting crime and protecting the neighborhoods.

So I think there’s a real need for Congress to get actively involved to pass some legislation to force the sharing of intelligence

to take the leadership in mobilizing local law enforcement, and

then realistically dealing with the costs that are attendant to the

vast majority of local law enforcement across America. Mr. Chairman, I thank you for the opportunity for sharing my thoughts with

this committee.

Mr. HORN. Thank you very much, Commissioner. We appreciate

your being here.

[The prepared statement of Chief Timoney follows:]

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Mr. HORN. We now have Charles H. Ramsey, the chief of police

in the District of Columbia, the city of Washington. Glad to have

you here, Chief.

STATEMENT OF CHARLES H. RAMSEY, CHIEF, METROPOLITAN

POLICE DEPARTMENT

Chief RAMSEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the

subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you

today concerning the state of our preparedness in the wake of the

September 11th attacks and the recent biochemical attacks, and

any future threat that we may face here in Washington, DC.

Obviously September 11th was the ultimate example of events

that never could have been anticipated, neither the acts nor the

magnitude of those acts. Yet even with the depth of the events that

unfolded that horrific morning, the Metropolitan Police Department

was able to respond without delay. We very quickly recalled all of

our officers and essential civilian personnel, canceled days off, put

our sworn members on 12-hour shifts. We also put officers at critical intersections throughout the city both to enhance our visibility

and to help direct traffic to the extent possible.

I think we all recognize the herculean task the District faced in

trying to maneuver that many people out of the city at one time,

and the fact that we did so is really a testament to our police officers and other traffic safety personnel. But even as we dealt with

staffing issues, we recognize the importance of pulling together

Federal, State, and local officials in a coordinated response to what

was taking place. We have a brand new Joint-Operations Command Center, and even before the plane struck the Pentagon, we

were able to get that center up and running with representatives

from a variety of Federal and local law enforcement agencies so we

could learn what was taking place and be in a better position to

defend our city.

I do have a prepared text, Mr. Chairman, which obviously can be

entered into the——

Mr. HORN. All of those fine papers automatically go into the

hearing record——

Chief RAMSEY. Yes, sir.

Mr. HORN [continuing]. The minute we say ‘‘hi.’’

Chief RAMSEY. But what I would like to do, sir, is just kind of

comment on a couple of things that my colleagues in Baltimore and

Philadelphia said about the level of cooperation. It is essential that

there be open lines of communication between all law enforcement

agencies if we’re going to be able to deal with this threat effectively. Here in Washington, DC, we’re in a unique position because

we are the Nation’s Capital.

We have regular ongoing communication with all the Federal

agencies, and I would describe our relations with those agencies as

being good overall. I think the history that we have of working together through a variety of events has really paid off during these

particular times; however, there are still some issues that need to

be addressed, and that is the sharing of information critical to our

knowing how to deploy our resources, especially in a city like

Washington, to be effective against this threat of terrorism. I’ll give

you an example. Police chiefs across this country do not have secret

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or top secret clearances; so there’s a limit to the amount of information that can be given. I participate in the Joint Terrorism Task

Force. I have officers that are assigned. They’ve been given these

clearances, but there is even some information our own officers

can’t carry back to us because of the restrictions in that area, and

that’s something that certainly needs to be looked at. The different

threat levels that are constantly coming out in public from different

offices at the Federal level, whether it being the Attorney General’s

Office or the Office of Homeland Security, and just what that does

to us as local law enforcement agencies when we’re told to go on

a highest state of alert, yet there’s no concrete information at all

that can be shared if there’s some available to tell us why and

what to do.

I’ve had conversations with Mr. Mueller. He actually stopped by

my office 2 weeks ago and we spent a good hour talking about

these issues, and I felt very good afterwards that he certainly was

willing to do whatever it took to enhance communications between

local and Federal law enforcement agencies, but it just adds to the

confusion that’s out there already when we’re told to go to a highest state of alert, which, quite frankly, we’ve been on since September 11th. And I don’t know how much higher we can get unless we

have real specific information.

I think the danger is it can desensitize the public to the real

threat if we go to these levels too often and nothing happens, and

there’s no real concrete information when we do have something

and we need to have people pay attention to us, they may indeed

not listen. Our own officers can get burned out when we constantly

tell them to be at this heightened state of readiness, yet we cannot

give them anything concrete to sink their teeth into.

So again, if there is information that is available at the FBI or

somewhere else that’s not being passed along, it would certainly go

a long way if we were able to share that information. I agree with

what Ed Norris said about various steps that could be taken in

terms of sharing information, not only with the FBI, but INS and

other law enforcement agencies. I think this is something that we

can very—all of us are more than willing or able to overcome in

terms of any strain that’s been placed on any relationships in the

past. We’re all professionals. We’re all looking forward to working

together to keep America safe and secure, but there are some steps

that are going to have to be taken in terms of information sharing

to put us all on the same page, to share the information, to form

the trust that’s necessary if we’re truly going to be law enforcement

partners and work together in order to be successful.

So with that, I’d like to end my comments and thank you very

much for allowing us to speak this morning.

Mr. HORN. Thank you very much, Chief.

[The prepared statement of Chief Ramsey follows:]

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Mr. HORN. We now have William Dwyer, the chief of the Farmington Hills Police Department in the State of Michigan, and he is

representing the Police Chiefs Association of Michigan. Glad to

have you here.

STATEMENT OF WILLIAM DWYER, CHIEF OF POLICE,

FARMINGTON HILLS, MI

Chief DWYER. Subcommittee Chairmen Horn, Shays, and subcommittee members, good morning. I was invited to present a candid perspective on the state of relations and cooperation between

local and Federal law enforcement agencies. As president of the

Michigan Association of Chiefs of Police and chief of police for the

Detroit suburb of Farmington Hills, I speak for local law enforcement in the State of Michigan. Previous to my current position, I

served the Detroit Police Department, retiring at the rank of commander.

During my 40-year career in law enforcement, I’ve had extensive

interaction with Federal law enforcement agencies. In September I

attended conference of the International Association of Chiefs of

Police in Toronto where a message was shared from U.S. Attorney

General John Ashcroft. The U.S. Attorney sent a directive to 94

U.S. attorneys to form a national network on anti-terrorism task

forces. His message unites local and State agencies working in

partnership with representatives of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Immigration and Naturalization Service, Federal Marshals Service, and Secret Service. At the same conference I was encouraged to see FBI Director Robert Mueller meet with law enforcement organizations to walk through issues, address misconceptions and explore ways to improve local and Federal law enforcement relationships. The personal relationships I have with Federal

officials are excellent. The investigative assistance and training

support my department receives is outstanding. My entire executive command staff and I are graduates of the FBI National Academy.

When it comes to investigative support, I find that relationships

with Federal agencies are continuously improving. Just last week,

the FBI issued Federal charges against a murder suspect who fled

from Michigan through several States into Mexico and our special

agent in charge of the Detroit office, Mr. John Bell, has done just

an outstanding job with his ASAC, Kevin Kendrickson. They work

daily with all law enforcement in the State of Michigan. We routinely turn our credit and fraud and counterfeit money complaints

over to the Secret Service.

The ATF routinely assists us with explosive and firearm cases.

Just recently that agency helped us convict a man who attempted

to commit a workplace massacre at a local software company. The

DEA recently sent the special assistant to the administrator to

meet with us to address a task force management issue, and we

regularly work with Federal immigration and border officials to

identify suspects and deport criminals, convicted criminals. Still,

the reality of law enforcement cooperation is an elusive concept.

Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t, which is not to say we

don’t all want it to work.

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I firmly believe every law enforcement executive in this country

would support the ideal of law enforcement cooperation. The reality, however, is different from the ideal. Today we have many impediments to sharing critical law enforcement information in real

time. For example, different grand jury rules, agency competition,

national security information classification rules, and the battle for

scarce law enforcement dollars.

In many cases, these stumbling blocks lead to an illusion of cooperation compared with a reality of fragmentation. How do we improve the situation? I believe there needs to be a national security

information clearinghouse that ensures that critical information

gets to the appropriate law enforcement executive at the local,

county or State level. This, perhaps, should be a logical function of

the Office of Homeland Security. This clearinghouse is the only

way to guarantee that the information gathered by Federal law enforcement is not only disseminated vertically in an administrative

chimney, but that it is disseminated horizontally to those agencies

that need it.

At the local level, the Joint Terrorism Task Forces that are being

established need to be co-chaired, and I say ‘‘need to be co-chaired,’’ by a local law enforcement executive and a Federal official.

Our country is at war. While our Armed Services fight in Afghanistan, local and Federal law enforcement officers are fighting

terrorism at home. Federal officials have new powers to help local

officials gather intelligence, track suspects, and subpoena evidence,

but we need to go further and address the barriers to sharing critical information that I mentioned earlier. The combined resources,

expertise, and ideas of U.S. law enforcement have the potential to

transform our collective agencies into something far greater than

the sum of their parts. To realize this potential, however, we need

to break down barriers, abandon turf wars, take some courageous

new steps, and keep our eyes on the greater good of our country.

Thank you for inviting me here today. May God bless you as you

serve our country during these troubled times.

[The prepared statement of Chief Dwyer follows:]

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Mr. HORN. Thank you very much for your testimony, and the

next three witnesses are Federal officials, and we will start with

the Honorable Richard R. Nedelkoff, Director, Bureau of Justice

Assistance, Office of Justice Programs, Department of Justice. Glad

to have you here, Mr. Nedelkoff.

STATEMENT OF RICHARD R. NEDELKOFF, DIRECTOR, BUREAU

OF JUSTICE ASSISTANCE, OFFICE OF JUSTICE PROGRAMS,

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

Mr. NEDELKOFF. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I’m very

pleased to be here today to discuss Federal, State, local intelligence

sharing in the context of the criminal justice system. Later today,

the Attorney General will be announcing further efforts to improve

coordination with our partners in State and local law enforcement.

The Office of Justice Programs looks forward to participation in

this initiative and supports the Attorney General’s goal to create

a seamless communication system with the State and local law enforcement entities. As Director of the Bureau of Justice Assistance

in the Office of Justice Programs, I am well positioned to see how

Federal funds and leadership can support the work of our State,

local and tribal partners. The sharing of criminal justice information directly impacts the safety of every citizen in the United

States. With the advent of the Internet and other emerging technologies, the public has every right to not only expect, but to demand that information from one part of the criminal justice system

is available to the others.

We must work to ensure that we have appropriate and effective

information sharing at the Federal, State, and local levels. The

electronic exchange of information is one of the most powerful tools

available to protect our communities from crime and terrorist activities. The Office of Justice Programs [OJP], has been supporting

the development of systems to enable sharing of justice information. Our information technology initiative has been helping local,

State, and tribal governments with identifying cost-effective, information technology standards and processes. Assisting our partners

with sharing criminal justice information is not a new responsibility for us.

In fact, this Federal initiative began in 1974. Because of the success of our first regional center was enjoying, membership quickly

expanded, and over the next several years, five other regional centers were created. By 1981, all 50 States were covered by one of

six regional intelligence centers in the RISS program, which stands

for Regional Information Sharing System. A decade ago, there were

3,000 participating agencies. Today, the RISS program has over

6,000 Federal, State and local agencies. Attached to my statement

is a list of the centers and the States that they serve. RISS has

responded to the law enforcement’s need to share criminal justice

intelligence around the country. Over the years, RISS has adapted

to provide additional services, including criminal intelligence analysis and other activities that complement and support the communication and exchange of criminal intelligence. In this way, RISS

supports multijurisdictional investigations and prosecutions. RISS

is not operational. It exists solely to house and share information.

RISS is governed by its local, State, and Federal law enforcement

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member agencies. Each RISS intelligence center has the board of

directors drawn up from its membership. The Bureau of Justice assistance provides approximately $25 million annual funding and

overall program oversight and management.

Over the past decade we have been working to make the criminal

justice information more accessible to RISS members. In 1997,

RISS and BJA, ahead of schedule and under budget, completed

RISS.NET, a Web-based nationwide secure network for communications and sharing of criminal intelligence information. The secure network links six centers and their member agencies.

The RISS Program created a private network that provides

encryption software and authentication protocols using a smart

card technology. Today RISS.NET is the only secure nationwide

network serving law enforcement for the exchange of sensitive

criminal justice intelligence information.

RISS.NET also provides secured e-mail services to agencies nationwide. During calendar year 2000, RISS centers began electronically integrating with other law enforcement information systems,

such as the High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas [HIDTAs] and

the National Drug Intelligence Center and other State and regional

systems.

On September 11th, the FBI asked the RISS centers to assist in

staffing a command center to serve as a link to RISS.NET for secure exchange of information on terrorism. Additionally RISS created a special section on the secure electronic bulletin board site

on posting current sensitive intelligence regarding this tragedy.

Following the September 11th attacks, the RISS Program also implemented a terrorism data base at one of the centers for use by

the FBI Inland Northwest Regional Terrorism Task Force.

At no time in our history has the sharing of information among

law enforcement agencies been more important. With RISS, we

have a proven successful capability that we hope will assist law enforcement communities for years to come.

That concludes my formal statement. Thank you very much.

Mr. HORN. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Nedelkoff follows:]

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Mr. HORN. We now have Kathleen L. McChesney, Assistant Director, Training Division, Federal Bureau of Investigation of the

Department of Justice. Glad to have you here.

STATEMENT OF KATHLEEN L. McCHESNEY, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, TRAINING DIVISION, FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION, ACCOMPANIED BY DAVID WALCHAK, DEPUTY ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, CRIMINAL JUSTICE INFORMATION SERVICES DIVISION, FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION; AND

LYNNE HUNT, SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE, BALTIMORE

FIELD OFFICE, FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

Ms. MCCHESNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning.

Good morning, members of the committee. Also with me is Mr.

David Walchak, who is Deputy Assistant Director of the Criminal

Justice Information Services Division, and Special Agent in Charge

Lynne Hunt of our Baltimore field office.

The FBI is aware of the concerns of law enforcement officers regarding their need for information to help them do their jobs safely,

efficiently and completely. Recently Director Robert S. Mueller

asked me to assist him in making improvements in the way we coordinate investigations with and communicate information to our

law enforcement partners at the State and local levels. The manner

in which we intend to do that is to first solicit the guidance and

input of the law enforcement community as we have in the past in

other endeavors.

In order to adequately respond to acts of terrorism as well as to

potential threats, the law enforcement community generally works

through established joint terrorism task forces, regional task forces

or counterterrorism working groups. These task forces have been in

existence since 1980, the first being in New York City. This has

been the most successful way to address terrorism problems. The

counterterrorism successes achieved by the joint terrorism task

forces are due in large part to the promotion of an atmosphere of

enhanced coordination—this immediate transparency between the

FBI and its law enforcement partners.

There are currently 36 joint terrorism task forces in operation,

to which there are more than 620 FBI special agent participants

and 584 full-time and part-time officers from other Federal, State

and local agencies. Our plan is to ensure that each of the FBI’s 56

field offices has a joint terrorism task force and are covered

through a regional terrorism task force.

Proposed fiscal year 2002 expansion includes establishing additional task forces in Baltimore, Honolulu, Milwaukee, Norfolk,

Omaha, St. Louis, Kansas City and Little Rock. Our ability to establish and sustain task force operations nationwide is dependent

on additional funding, however.

Director Mueller has also reached out to key law enforcement

leaders throughout the United States and asked them to educate

him on their issues and concerns. He held a series of meetings with

representatives from the International Association of Chiefs of Police, major city chiefs and the National Sheriff’s Association. These

meetings have led to some new initiatives which we are following

through. One initiative is to explore the feasibility of creating a

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ment executives to identify and address current issues that impact

on our relationships. One specific goal of this group is to suggest

categories of threat advisories that will assist public safety and Office of Homeland Security officials in providing the appropriate

level of response to the various types of information obtained by

the FBI or other sources. Our first meeting of this group is scheduled for November 16, 2001.

It is also apparent that much more needs to be done in the area

of training. Hundreds of thousands of officers throughout the country can provide valuable information about criminal activity and offenders. Similarly, it is important to educate officers on how the

FBI obtains information regarding potential terrorist acts, how it

is evaluated, and the laws which regulate its use and transmission.

The FBI is in the process of preparing training materials that will

be disseminated to these officers so that we may use the force-multiplier effect in identifying wrongdoers.

Working through existing law enforcement academies, our local

field offices and learning structures, we will also provide more

training of the type that we have provided in the past to our joint

terrorism task force members. We will utilize existing and future

technologies such as Law Enforcement Online [LEO], which is the

information highway for law enforcement, criminal justice and public safety information. We will also use NLETS, the National Law

Enforcement Telecommunication Systems, which we have used in

the past and has been very successful in getting information out to

18,000 member agencies.

These are some of the ways in which the FBI is working with

its local partners. We realize there are other things that can be

done, and with the new assignment that the Director has given me,

I hope that I will be able to work with the members not only at

this panel here, but our counterparts throughout the United States.

Thank you very much.

Mr. HORN. Thank you very much. We appreciate your coming

here, and you have a very distinguished career here.

[The prepared statement of Ms. McChesney follows:]

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Mr. HORN. And our last Federal speaker is Joseph R. Greene, the

Acting Deputy Executive Associate Commissioner for Field Operations, Immigration and Naturalization Service. You have a few

million clients here and there at borders and in ships. So, Mr.

Greene, we are glad to have you here.

STATEMENT OF JOSEPH R. GREENE, ACTING DEPUTY EXECUTIVE ASSOCIATE COMMISSIONER FOR FIELD OPERATIONS,

IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION SERVICE

Mr. GREENE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And, Mr. Chairman and

members of the subcommittee, I thank you for the opportunity

today to testify concerning the Immigration and Naturalization

Service’s work with local and State law enforcement agencies.

The INS has always maintained a close working partnership of

local law enforcement officials, and a number of initiatives have

greatly enhanced these partnerships and have strengthened our

mutual effectiveness in protecting public safety and security.

The first initiative I would like to highlight is section 287(g) of

the Immigration and Nationality Act, which authorizes the Attorney General to delegate immigration enforcement functions to

State and local law enforcement officials. Although the INS has in

the past encountered problems in attempts to implement this authority, we stand ready to work with any local political jurisdiction

on this issue. Since September 11th, we have received two such requests.

Meanwhile, we have worked with our State and local partners in

law enforcement to better coordinate our respective law enforcement authorities to improve public service, and in this regard, we

at the INS look forward to participating in the Attorney General’s

initiative to be announced later today. We fully support his goal for

the Department to have a seamless relationship between State and

local law enforcement agencies.

A major initiative to better improve the coordination between

State and local law enforcement agencies and the INS is our Law

Enforcement Support Center. This was established in 1994 as a

pilot project and currently is deployed in 46 States. The LESC allows local law enforcement officials to make online inquiries regarding foreign-born persons under arrest during the time that the

law enforcement agent processes them. These queries are checked

at our support center against eight separate INS data bases, and

if it is determined that the subject is in the United States illegally,

the support center will lodge a detainer.

During fiscal year 2001, the LESC handled almost a quarter million inquiries, including 221,507 from State and local law enforcement agencies. In addition, in 1998, the Congress established the

Quick Response Teams in 46 locations across the United States.

These are teams of special agents designed to respond to local law

enforcement officials in locations that have had little INS coverage

in the past. By means of these teams, INS has been able to improve its response to local law enforcement. During the first three

quarters of fiscal year 2001, QRTs responded to 7,608 requests for

assistance, resulting in almost 11,000 arrests. In addition, 847

cases were presented to U.S. Attorney’s Offices for prosecution,

mostly for smuggling charges.

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INS also participates with State and local law enforcement partners in major task force operations across the United States. Some

of them we have talked about here at the table today. The Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force, the OCDETF task

force, which our colleagues from the DEA have mentioned, represent a significant contribution from the INS. We are involved in

the High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Area effort, the Violent Gang

Task Force in a number of major cities, and we are proud to play

an important role in the Joint Terrorism Task Force. By the end

of this fiscal year, INS will have more than 70 full-time agents assigned to JTTF; however, since September 11th, easily half of all

of our special agent personnel have been dedicated to supporting

the FBI counterterrorism investigations.

In addition, INS agents participate in at least 50 local task forces

covering such broad areas as border safety, document and practitioner fraud. These are task forces that involve INS and other Federal agencies as well as State and local law enforcement officials.

Let me close with a word about training. During fiscal year 2001,

INS trained over 8,000 State and local law enforcement officials in

such areas as immigration law, policy and record systems, as well

as joint efforts to address mutual law enforcement problems. For

the second year in a row, INS has partnered with the International

Association of Chiefs of Police to present its Responding to Alien

Crimes seminar to as many local agencies as can participate.

INS recognizes the crucial role played by State and local law enforcement officials in establishing our mutual responsibilities to ensure public safety and security. We remain open and committed to

doing whatever we can to improve our efforts in this regard.

Thank you for the opportunity, and I will be happy to take any

questions.

Mr. HORN. Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Greene follows:]

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Mr. HORN. And I am now going to lead the Chair to Mr. Shays,

the gentleman from Connecticut, who is one of the key people in

the major subcommittee of the Government Reform, and we will go

at 10 minutes each as we alternate between the majority and the

minority. So, Mr. Shays, 10.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you and Mr. Souder and the

ranking members for agreeing to this tripart hearing here, and I

want to thank our witnesses. I think I counted nine, and it is kind

of tough to be at one end or the other and listen to all your colleagues speak. And so that is why we are leaving 10 minutes a side

so some of you can jump in when you choose to.

I think this is a very important hearing, and I appreciate the fact

that our Federal folks are agreeing to participate in the same panel

because we want the interaction between Federal and our State

and local. It seems to me we all pretty much agree. The local folks

want the information, and the Federal folks think they should have

it, but it is not happening. So my questions are going to be to try

to figure out why.

I am going to state for the record what I choose to state whenever I have the opportunity. I believe we are in a race with the terrorists to shut them down before they have a better delivery system for bio and chemical weapons, before they get nuclear waste

material and explode it in a conventional bomb, and before, heaven

forbid, they get a nuclear device, which I have to say is a possibility. If there was a nuclear explosion in the United States, I would

have to say to anyone who asked, I am not surprised. That is kind

of scary to think of, but that is a fact. So that’s why it’s a war, that

is why we are in a race, and that is why there is no excuse for not

having this system work where you all on the local level get this

information.

And I also would say to you I wouldn’t be surprised if six or more

planes in one event in one morning are exploded because we don’t

check for explosives in the belly of an aircraft. That’s the truth.

That’s the reality. You know it, I know it, and the public should

be aware of it. And, certainly, the terrorists know it.

My theory is this: Whatever the terrorists know, we should be

willing to have the public understand. So some of this stuff that

we basically say is such privileged information is not, because the

people we don’t want to have it know it. The only people who don’t

know it are the public.

Sorry for the long explanation. Let me get right to it. I want to

first have the FBI explain to me—and this is not meant in an accusatory way—but have me understand why information on certain

individuals was not shared with the INS and the State Department

when we talked about visas, and why was it necessary in the Patriot Act to pass legislation to require this information to be

shared?

Ms. MCCHESNEY. I want to make sure I understand your question correctly. You are talking about two specific individuals or individuals in general?

Mr. SHAYS. About individuals in general. There is data that the

FBI had that the INS was not able to access and the State Department was not able to access, and because they weren’t able to acVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:10 Oct 21, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00113 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\82174.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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cess it, we let people come to this country we shouldn’t have. In

the Patriot Act, we require that information to be shared.

Ms. MCCHESNEY. There still is not—I don’t want to overuse this

word—seamless technology between all the Federal agencies. I

think a lot of people are under the impression that State Department and INS and Customs can talk to each other technically. We

can’t do that. So the way we have tried to go around that is

through our working groups and task forces so you have people

who sit in the same room and have access to the same computers.

That is not the total answer. It would be a lot more effective if

everybody had the appropriate technology, and hopefully I think

that is where we are going.

Mr. SHAYS. But the bottom line is this information hasn’t been

shared, and why was Congress required to step in and solve this

or mandate this information be shared? That is what I am having

a hard time understanding.

Ms. MCCHESNEY. I think there was a need for more probably accountability with regard to the information-sharing, which may

have motivated that. And I am not familiar with all the background with regard to legislation, so I don’t want to say something

I am not aware of.

Mr. SHAYS. With DOJ, in your testimony, Mr. Nedelkoff, you

stated there were 6,000 Federal, State and local and tribal agencies

or—that are members of RISS Program. There are 17,000 potential

participants. What explains why we are still 11,000 short, not that

everyone would have to, but why wouldn’t we have more?

Mr. NEDELKOFF. I think there are a couple different reasons.

Each governing board of a RISS center wants to ensure that law

enforcement agencies who are partners are credible agencies and

have a certain level of confidence in these agencies sharing information. So the process is somewhat selective. Also, I think over the

last decade, particularly the last 5 years, there has been somewhat

of a growth in the member of Federal agencies that are partners.

Right now there are about 12 percent, which represents about 600

different Federal entities that are partners. The RISS centers sort

of began years ago as entities who were concerned with maybe focuses like organized crime or drug trafficking and the means for information-sharing. There has been growth. There is room for more

growth, particularly at the Federal level, and we want to encourage

other Federal partners to become members.

Mr. SHAYS. I would like to ask my former colleague Asa Hutchinson, you clearly have the advantage of being on this side and now

where you are now. If you were to list the biggest impediments to

the sharing of information, is it first the need to—a security need,

or is it a technology challenge like with the FBI saying to us, we

don’t have the capabilities to share?

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Congressman Shays——

Mr. SHAYS. I mean, we all want it, so why don’t we just see it

happen?

Mr. HUTCHINSON. I think there is a couple of reasons that we are

not in an ideal world there. We’ve made enormous progress, but we

have further to go, and I think part of it, as our FBI colleague indicated, was technology, that there could be better systems where we

can speak to each other.

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But I think it goes beyond that, that there has historically been

a culture in law enforcement that we, you know, have a case we

are operating. It is our responsibility to get it done. You have to

overcome that inherent sense of a case, and I believe we’ve done

this in our organized crime, our drug enforcement task forces and

our narcotics effort. I believe we, to a very, very large extent, are

sharing information, depending upon each other, but I don’t think

we moved that into other arenas.

And finally, I think there are some legal impediments. I mean,

I look at the classified material that comes across my desk, you

know, the Secret, and I’m thinking this is something that would be

appropriate to share perhaps, but you can’t do that, you know, and

follow the law. And I appreciate—I believe, as Mr. Dwyer was talking about, how Homeland Security—in maybe having a role in having a clearinghouse to make sure information gets to where it belongs. But there are some of those legal impediments that perhaps

Congress should look at as well.

Mr. SHAYS. Let me ask our local folks, we can’t—there is clearly

information that the more people who know, the less likely it is to

be secure. In fact, that is the reason why some of us sometimes

choose not to be briefed because we don’t need to know it. And I

don’t want to take the chance of having the opportunity to communicate with my constituents and then telling a Member that part

of the information I learned at a classified briefing, and this part

I can share.

But how can we—I guess it would lead to this. Should the local

police chiefs be given the same kind of clearance that I would

have—the difference is that I get elected, and I have the clearance.

But in other words, should there be a right of every chief of police

to be given sensitive Federal data, or should there be someone else

designated within the police force, for instance, to receive that? Obviously, it couldn’t be everyone. It strikes me it couldn’t be everyone. How can we get sensitive information shared on the local

level?

Chief TIMONEY. I think I pointed out, it is pretty insulting. I

have membership on the terrorist task force. My detectives get information that work on the terrorist task force, get information

that they can’t share with me that is top secret. I mean, that is

ridiculous on the face of it. And I’m running the Philadelphia Police

Department. I should know about all things that are going to affect

Philadelphia.

Mr. SHAYS. You are saying your own people can’t share information with you?

Chief TIMONEY. Certainly there is some information that comes

across, but if it’s top clearance, it’s going to be shared with those

folks that have top clearance. And also insulting part is the hurdles

you must go through. In 1997, I was a member of the Defense

Science Board for the Defense Department over the summer. I actually quit after 8 weeks because I had to leave the various meetings where you had to have super duper clearance. I didn’t want

to be. I was invited down, but it took weeks and weeks to get this

clearance through.

Mr. SHAYS. I’m sorry I missed this part when you were testifying.

Your basic point is people that within—is my turn up?

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Mr. HORN. You have about 30 seconds. We can go back to it.

Mr. SHAYS. I will just come back. Thank you.

Mr. HORN. We now yield to the ranking member, Ms.

Schakowsky from Illinois, and we are glad to have you here.

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate all of

the testimony today, but I want to give a special welcome to Chief

Ramsey. I am from Chicago. I know that you spent about 30 years

almost in the Chicago Police Department. And also Mayor King, a

neighbor of ours in Chicago.

These are really difficult questions when you get down to the

issue of sharing, it seems to me, and one of the tools that we put

in the hands of law enforcement, and whose hands exactly are they

in. It seems to me that one of the things that we have been struggling with since September 11th is that balance between giving law

enforcement the tools it needs and still protecting what are so precious about the United States, and that is our civil liberties.

Chief Ramsey—I guess you were in Chicago when we had the

Red Squad. In the 1970’s, I was part housewife, part of a community organization that it turns out was spied upon secretly by a

unit of the Chicago Police Department. So I come to this with a

kind of heightened sensitivity to the potentials for overreaching.

Now, on the other hand, I am really aware—was it the mayor

who said there is no national 911? And so clearly, you, at the local

level, need to have more tools. To the extent that it’s organizational

systems that are failing, we have to improve that. To the extent

that it’s technology that doesn’t allow for information-sharing, we

have to fix it. To the extent that it’s cultural issues, where we just

don’t want to share, that may happen, or a sense of disdain or disrespect that some of you seem to be saying at the local level that

you feel.

But I am trying to understand, is there ever a reason that information that is held by the DEA, the FBI, the Justice Department,

the INS, is there a reason why it should not be shared, or, if it is

shared, that we make—is it with everybody? And I think Representative Shays was trying to get at that. Who shares? Who can

plug into a RISS system or a LEO system and still make sure that

this information is treated in the sensitive way that it should be?

So like as Mr. Shays, help me out here. There’s got to be a balance somewhere. Let me ask maybe first the FBI in terms of this

information. I think a lot of what we have been hearing is that the

FBI isn’t sharing.

Ms. MCCHESNEY. Thank you. One of your questions is who can

plug into the RISS system, who can plug into LEO. All of law enforcement throughout the country can do that. Members of duly

constituted law enforcement agencies can do that.

With regard to is there some information that should not be

shared, the information that is so classified that you have to have

the appropriate clearance, it does need to be shared only with people who have the clearance, and the chief is correct. In some cities

where there are joint terrorism task forces, the task force members

have the clearances, but their chiefs and superintendents do not

necessarily have the clearances. They can ask for the clearances,

and we can provide them. This is an onerous process, no doubt

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about that, because those are the things—standards set forth by

the executive branch for that.

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. You can see on the face of that would create

difficulties at the local level. I mean, it would seem to me, as Mr.

Timoney said, how do you run a police department if people who

work for you have information that they can’t tell you?

Ms. MCCHESNEY. I think it would be a very good thing for the

chiefs to have that—chiefs or someone they would designate,

whether it be a commander of the detectives’ division or somebody

besides those members within their task forces who tend to be patrolmen, detectives and sometimes sergeants and lieutenants. But

they are not the chief, because that person does not have time to

participate in the task force.

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Yes, Mr. Dwyer?

Chief DWYER. I just wanted to add that any chief that has someone assigned to any type of a task force should have—be able to

receive that information. I mean, how can you assign personnel

from your department and not be aware of what they are working

on? I mean, it comes right down to trust. Is there so much mistrust—and as I indicate in my testimony, our relationships continuously improve, but the perception is if a chief cannot receive information when he has some people or personnel assigned to that task

force, then it is a real concern and a problem, and that’s why some

chiefs may pull out of some of these task forces for that reason.

And that’s why I indicated on the anti-terrorism task forces that

they should be chaired by both the Federal and local law enforcement executive, and I think there would be great improvement that

way as far as the perception of mistrust.

But I still have to say that the relationships between the Federal

and the State and the local authorities are really improving at a

very rapid pace in the last several months, in particular since September 11th.

Yes, Mayor.

Mr. KING. I have had the experience while mayor and before becoming mayor, I headed—you heard reference to the Organized

Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force. I headed that from the U.S.

Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of Indiana 15 years ago.

So I have seen task forces work effectively, and I have also seen

them fail. That was one at the time. It may have improved since

I was there, but I was in a room of adults arguing which Federal

agency would get their initials first on a form to start a prosecution. So you have at its essence in my view, you have a management problem.

You have a circumstance today where—and I heard

Congressperson Maloney talk about working off this JTTF model.

Well, that’s what the FBI wants. Your Attorney General wants

ATTF. And they are distinctions with differences. The Justice Department is not yet together on what the form is going to be. Before we even get to the integration of these local resources, you

have before you, in my view—and this has been expressed to the

Attorney General by the U.S. Conference of Mayors, and been expressed to Governor Ridge—you have a classic management problem. You have a problem for which you never had a structure. Beginning in the 20th century, we didn’t have standardized time.

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Why did we get it? Because trains kept running into each other.

Noon was wherever it was above your head wherever you happened

to be. And then it finally dawned on us, gee, a lot of people dying.

We better fix this. We better get a system.

And that’s where the problem is. I think first federally, choose,

pick. You want an ATTF model, you want a JTTF model. Personally the mayors support the ATTF. We think it is better jurisdictionally. But whatever it is, pick it. Then get rid some of these rule

6(e)s and other encumbrances that are addressed in the SchumerClinton Senate bill. Remove those obstacles in terms of the information-sharing. At the end of the day, these police chiefs are every

bit as trustworthy, and that is at its root—every bit as trustworthy.

And that is at its root. They’re every bit as trustworthy as any Federal law enforcement official.

You have to add to that mix mayors and Governors. We’re the

many commanders in chief, and we may rely on law enforcement

information and know it implicates a public health, a fire safety or

other.

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Let me just ask you there, so do you think

those security clearances are automatic—should be automatic with

the job?

Mr. KING. I think the language in the Senate bill 1615 is if you

are chief law enforcement official within a particular area, metropolitan area, if you are the chief elected official with appointing authority—some mayors do, some mayors don’t—I do, for example,

appoint my police chief—and a Governor who appoints the chief

law enforcement authority for the State, which would also be the

case, I think, in Indiana, automatically under the language of that

Senate bill, yes, they are authorized to receive where necessary

rule 6(e) and other information. It doesn’t mean you get everything

happening in a Federal grand jury. It’s where it’s necessary to address a particularized problem or threat.

I think that language works, but the structure—we don’t have

the structure, and that’s why a lot of well-intentioned people at

every level of government are kind of running around here. I don’t

think it is because there’s animosity. I think everybody wants to

fix this. We have never had this before, and we need a protocol

that we replicate throughout the country. We have a classic management problem that lacks a system.

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Thank you.

Mr. HORN. I am going to start some time and then give the rest

to Mr. Shays, but I want to know the release on photographs by

the FBI watch list, what are the standards on that, and what happens, because it’s clear that, let’s say, our friends in Canada, they

are helping us a lot in terms of the borders, the friends in some

parts of the border, the Southwest, Southeast. So I’d be curious

what releases there are, Ms. McChesney?

Ms. MCCHESNEY. If I understand your question correctly, can we

be releasing the photographs of individuals on the watch list? Certainly, we can where we have them. Some of the individuals that

have shown up on the watch list are name only information, and

we can’t verify that. What we found is in some cases stolen identity. So we might be putting up the photograph with the wrong person.

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So we need to be very, very careful about that sort of thing, but

it is an excellent idea. And the technology has come along to where

we can do some of that through NCIC.

Mr. HORN. What about it, Mr. Greene, in terms of the Immigration and Naturalization Service?

Mr. GREENE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We experience this

same problem that the FBI does in terms of having named and

identifying biographical information, but on many occasions not

having a photograph. Recently, we are getting some assistance in

that regard by working with the Department of State. Of course,

when they do non-immigrant visa applications at consular offices

overseas, a photograph is part of that package, and we are working

with the Department of State to deploy data bases to our ports of

entry so that we will be able to access photos in addition to the biographical information that we currently have.

Mr. HORN. What do you have with the containers that come in— I’ve got two of the major ports in my constituency, and they only

do about 1 percent, maybe 2 percent of the containers to take a

look at it. And what are you planning to do? And Customs has the

same thing here.

Mr. GREENE. Yes, sir. Customs, of course, has primary jurisdiction over cargo and containers as they come in.

Mr. HORN. Some come in, you know, and some of them have died

in the containers at sea.

Mr. GREENE. I will tell you since the 11th, we have been working

very closely with Customs to, first of all, to significantly augment

our staff along the borders, especially at land ports and at airports.

Along the land borders specifically, we have—and we thank the

Governors of a number of States who have given us National

Guard support. We’ve deployed additional Border Patrol assets to

the Northern border to free up our inspectors to do the more thorough investigation in primary and secondary at the land ports in

order to avoid precisely those kinds of problems with smuggling as

we have seen in the past.

Mr. HORN. What I would like to know is how difficult would it

be to deputize local police detectives, give top officers security

clearances, because the FBI certainly would do the search, I would

think. And the joint task forces cochaired, chaired by local law enforcement representatives seems to me to be absolutely needed if

they are going to do this on either in the drug field or the smuggling and all the rest. Believe me, it’s a lot of it.

Mr. GREENE. Yes, sir. The delegational authority is a very complex issue, as we found out on the two occasions when we worked

with local jurisdictions to try to bring it to pass. There is a wide

range of authorities that—law enforcement authorities that immigration officials, special agents and Border Patrol agents have from

making simple arrests based on warrants to multiple arrests without warrant, from determining whether a person is a derivative citizen, to the particular kind of visa that they have.

Local jurisdictions have been daunted sometimes with complexities of the immigration law, but most specifically, local law enforcement officials have been concerned about the impact that their

officers having immigration law enforcement authority might have

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ice doesn’t have the greatest representation in some of the communities where detectives and uniformed officers have to work, and

some jurisdictions have been concerned about the chilling effect

that having delegated immigration authority might have on people

from the community coming forward to complain about other

crimes.

Nevertheless, we are open to working with any jurisdiction that

is asking for it. We are open to identifying the specific kinds of authority that they can have. The law allows us great flexibility with

respect to the sorts of authority that can be delegated, the kinds

of training we can provide, and the specific language of the formal

agreement.

So I think it’s a work in progress. It is one that we are certainly

not closed to, and we intend to move forward with the two requests

that we have already received since September 11th.

Mr. HORN. Now, on the deputizing of the local police, when did

that go where they can’t do it, it’s got to be turned over automatically to the Border Patrol or what? Was that a legal ruling or what,

if we get rid of it or put a law on it?

Mr. GREENE. It goes back, sir, to interpretations by the courts as

to control of immigration being an exclusive Federal responsibility,

and it was only in the amendment to 287(g) that the Congress

acted to delegate that authority or have the potential to delegate

that authority to local law enforcement officials.

Mr. HORN. We need to pursue that.

And, Mr. Shays, gentleman from Connecticut, take the rest of my

time here.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask our chief from Baltimore, just

as an example—first I want to say—actually I want to ask Chief

Ramsey a question. Do you feel you received total cooperation from

the Federal Government in sharing information, given that this is

the Nation’s Capital?

Chief RAMSEY. I believe I’m getting the information they’re allowed to give me. That doesn’t mean I’m getting all the information

I need, and there is a difference, and I think that has been the

basis of this discussion. There is some limits on the information.

And in response to a question asked earlier, is there some information that perhaps we don’t need, I would say yes. I don’t need

to know the source, for example, the name of an informant. I don’t

need to know that. I just need to know if it’s credible. But I need

to know the information.

So there are some things that need to be worked out, and I am

confident if we sat down and really talked through these issues,

that we’d be able to do that. But there’s always some information

that is being withheld simply because of this issue of clearances,

and that simply can’t be allowed to continue.

Mr. SHAYS. You have a very unique problem given that you are

in charge of the Nation’s Capital, and it seems to me we should be

working overtime to try to solve in the short run that problem. I’d

be happy to have some of my committee staff sit down with you.

If you had specific suggestions to make to the staff, I’d be happy

to——

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Chief RAMSEY. The other part of this for our local police chiefs,

I am willing to do anything that I need to do to keep our city and

Nation safe and secure, but I have another responsibility for patrolling the neighborhoods, and when I have to take resources to protect certain areas of the city, there is blowback from that in our

neighborhoods. And if I don’t even have the information to justify

why it’s being done—I’m doing it because I’m asked to do it—that

just creates another problem where it makes it very, very difficult

to justify the use of resources to protect some Federal parts of the

city as opposed to using all of my resources out in the neighborhoods of D.C.

Mr. SHAYS. Commissioner Norris, we have used as an example

that you don’t need weapons of mass destruction in the typical biological sense or a nuclear device. You could simply explode, detonate, a chemical agent, say, through the Baltimore tunnel. What

kind of cooperation do you need from the Federal Government to

make that less likely?

Chief NORRIS. If you are referring to the train wreck, that still

has not been determined if that was an accident or a terrorist act

this summer, and this is our concern. And the cooperation we

need—besides, I think we need fencing. Philadelphia is in the same

boat. Many East companies have a lot of chemicals stored right in

the urban center, and there needs to fencing and some security

done by the railroad that would help us.

But more than anything, if there is a going to be a nuclear attack, biological or bombs and bullets, it is still going to be delivered

by people, and what we need and what we are asking for is human

intelligence. That is the only way we are going to deter this. If they

are going to hijack a plane, detonate a nuclear device, it’s still

going to be done by human beings. And this is what is so important

to the police of America. When we have these discussions, you are

looking at the homeland defense. It’s us. It’s not the military. We,

the police of America, are the ones that are going to protect this

country from the next terrorist attack. And the fact that—Commissioner Timoney said that is insulting. It usually is just insulting.

Now it’s dangerous. We need this information. We need it now. We

can’t wait any longer. We can’t have discussions 2 years from now.

The police chiefs of America need to have this. We can’t have detectives who have classified information, who can’t tell their chiefs—

I think he has 7,000 cops in Philly. He doesn’t know where to put

them.

You know, this is what we are talking about, and I am trying to

stress this at every hearing. More than anything we need—all this

other stuff is great. Technology, when it comes, will be just wonderful. Right now we are taking on a sheet of paper. I will take any

pictures they have on Polaroids. This is all we need. We just need

the information. The technology will catch up. We are in a race

with the terrorists, and if we don’t act now, we are going to be in

deep trouble. We need human intelligence. The only thing I would

like to come out of this hearing with more than anything else is

we need to get going on exactly what all of us have spoken about,

is a much more free information flow back and forth.

Mr. SHAYS. I would like before this hearing ends—and I will

come back to it—but I would like you to give me your top two

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things that you would want to see come out of this hearing. But

I would like to, when I have my next turn, just literally go down

the row here. But I think what you would agree with, and perhaps

maybe not, and I need to have you tell me, if we have so many

chiefs around the country, there are some that don’t need information, there are some that do. How do we determine which chiefs

need information?

Chief NORRIS. You are never going to know who needs it, sir. If

you’re looking at some big cities here—but the chief of Portland,

ME, had them in his town. We’re not going to know where it’s

going to come from. So police chiefs around America need to be

cleared. If they don’t pass their background check, they don’t pass

their background check, and then you deal with it that way. But

right now, we all need the potential to be told. And the example

I can give—my counterpart is here from the FBI. We got information—it is not a secret, it was on the news—but she was able to

relay information to me that we acted upon. I didn’t need to know

the source. I didn’t need to know where she got it from, but there

was going to be an anthrax attack in Baltimore on a certain day

and time. By getting me this information, we were able to act upon

it and protect our city. I didn’t ask her where it came from. I didn’t

ask what the CI’s name was. I don’t care. I don’t care today. But

by doing this, she protected the people of my city, and this is what

we are asking for nationwide.

The problem is we don’t know what is going to happen next. It

could be in one of the major cities you’re looking at, but it could

be in some small town, and this is the problem.

Mr. SHAYS. What I would love to have explained to me, which

I’m still uncertain about—how much time do I have left—I am unclear as to how some parts of your department are clear and some

parts aren’t. And I guess, Chief, you were—— Chief TIMONEY. Well, whether it’s Philadelphia or New York, we

would assign a detective or detectives, but it would take anywhere

from 6 weeks to 10 weeks for them to get their clearance. They

would be assigned over there, but they would be given routine work

until that clearance came through.

Mr. SHAYS. So the people that have clearance are actually assigned to details and operations done by the Federal Government?

Chief TIMONEY. They work over at the terrorist task force which

is situated within the local FBI office.

Mr. SHAYS. But they are in a sense basically working in conjunction with the FBI, and the FBI is basically enabling them to have

that information, but it stops just with the people who are working

with them?

Chief TIMONEY. Correct. To be fair, you do get—there’s certain

information that you do get that can be shared that doesn’t come

back with the tag ‘‘top classification.’’ But if it comes back with the

tag ‘‘top classification,’’ then by law it can’t be shared, or if it comes

from the CIA to the FBI terrorist task force and says, you can’t discuss it, it’s only top clearance, then they can’t discuss it. And if you

have private conversations off the record with the FBI agents or

the ASACs, they will tell you the exact same thing.

Mr. SHAYS. It is easy for me to visualize why you as a chief—

if your people are involved, why you as a chief should be involved.

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But the terrorists are basically operating with an intent to get this

information as well. It would strike me that they could basically infiltrate a very small community, be in a position of sensitivity, just

as organized crime does the same thing, and then gain access to

information that can be very destructive. So you can be incensed,

Commissioner, that this isn’t fair, but I could also say it would be

pretty stupid to share it with the enemy. I am trying to know

where we kind of draw the line.

Chief NORRIS. Maybe we misunderstand each other. We deal

with this information every day in a different way. I mean, we all

deal with confidential informants, life-and-death situations, and we

have to weigh decisions every single day. And we act on information we get to prevent a murder perhaps; is that going to blow the

informant’s cover. But the fact is by withholding information, is

that solving the problem?

No matter who—Hansen had a clearance, Ames had a clearance—they leaked information. Everyone has got their problems.

There are a millions reasons to say no. We have to find a reason

to say yes and start moving this forward. I have 3,500 police officers. They don’t all need this information, but I certainly need it.

I mean, just the top people in the agencies need it, with a select

few others, and that’s all we are asking for.

Mr. SHAYS. I would agree that the chiefs would need it. And does

every chief in the entire country get it, or do we draw a line somewhere with those departments that are actually working with Justice?

Chief NORRIS. I would say no. The problem is there are 18,000

police agencies in America. Some have seven police officers. But I

think Commissioner Timoney’s recommendation was you start with

the 52 largest law enforcement agencies in America. That compromises 60 percent. We could help the smaller agencies. But there

are 52 American agencies that you may want to start with.

Mr. SHAYS. My time is running out. I’ll be happy to work on legislation and try to put this on a fast track with my colleagues on

both sides of the aisle.

Chief TIMONEY. If I could give you one example. Both in 1993,

when I was up there when the first bomb went in the World Trade

Center, and the last one, 14 or 15 of those 19 guys lived in and

around the New York City area. A local cop could have very easily

pulled them over and stopped them for a variety of reasons, a missing license plate or something like that. There’s a need to get that

information out there.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. HORN. I yield 10 minutes to the gentlewoman from New

York Mrs. Maloney.

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to tell

you on behalf of my constituents in the city that I represent, we

all appreciate very much what you have done, what your counterparts have done. I tell you what you said earlier, the 911 goes into

the police department, the fire department, the emergency medical

responders, and they perform brilliantly. And there’s really a limited amount that you can do in the Federal Government but support the localities in their efforts in fighting crime.

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I believe Mr. Norris spoke about, or Mr. King, my comments on

trying to support the JTTFs, which basically is an antiterrorism

unit, both domestic and international, that right now gives security

clearance to the members of that organization, and it is supposed

to be working with the local groups to share the information that

we are talking about. And I am not wedded to any particular form,

but it’s just one that’s been—I believe the first one was in New

York City, and it seems to be working well.

Ashcroft came out with another antiterrorism task force, but it’s

my understanding that it is just Federal, but we don’t need to have

two. You should decide which is the one you are going to support,

and I personally believe that the Federal Government should pay

the salaries of people who participate in it. Every time you take a

police officer off the streets in New York, that’s a cost to our people

in protecting our people, and they need protection. And we are constantly having crises. And I think INS should be—their staffs

should be paid, and resources should go into—whether it’s the

Ashcroft model or JTTF model, we have to get down to the local

governments sharing the information on a local level.

I would like to put in the record an article that was in the New

York Times yesterday in which local officials accused the FBI of

not cooperating.

Earlier, Mr. Norris, you were given examples of how they gave

you information, and you were able to respond. Our own Mayor

Giuliani was particularly disturbed about he believed the FBI

knew about anthrax attacks—that he learned about it in the press.

And I would like to ask Ms. McChesney to respond and give your

point of view. And you are quoted in the article, and you said, we

are fighting the terrorists, not each other, and you are talking

about how they are cooperating. But we have the example of the

mayor of Reno saying that he learned from local television that

there was an anthrax attack on a Microsoft office, and he claims

the FBI knew about it.

And then the classic example at the end is one that was referred

to earlier where they were out in—the Afghan man was under FBI

surveillance for weeks, and the chief said, I don’t have to know

what’s going on in L.A., but I think I am entitled to know what’s

going on in Portland. And I would like her to respond that.

Very briefly, I had an experience of my own when I was a member of the city council, probably when I felt the most ineffective in

my life. There was a drug den on West 107th Street. I complained

to the police over and over and over again, wrote letters, called

them, and they didn’t do anything. I was furious. I felt very ineffective, and my constituents were extremely upset. And I couldn’t

even go near the street that people didn’t run up and try to sell

drugs to me as a member of the city council.

And about 6 months later the police commissioner called me

about 12 midnight and said, Maloney, we are busting them tonight.

We had a 6-month undercover operation, and we are going to go

in there and clean up the street. And they went in, and they had

filmed everybody, put them all in jail, and we turned the street

into a playground. And it was a great community story, but I felt

very much like the police officers feel right now in why didn’t you

tell me. I was so furious. I was so angry. And he said, we had no

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need to tell you, and you may have told a constituent as they were

pressuring you, don’t worry, the police are doing an undercover,

and it might have gotten out. And I just give that as an example

of the very delicate balance.

I believe Mr. Norris mentioned Mr. Ames and Mr. Hansen. Probably the most important asset we have is human intelligence and

the need to protect it. We in Congress have doubled our budget for

human intelligence. We are weakening it, and I think that we do

need a balance. But our heroes, which are police officers, our mayors and people on the front lines really need to know this information.

So I would like to give Ms. McChesney the opportunity to respond to this article that is highly critical of the FBI withholding

photographs, withholding information on anthrax. I am wondering

did you even know about it? Maybe they think you are smarter

than you are. But it is a serious allegation that valuable information could be withheld from people that could get out there and

help people.

Ms. MCCHESNEY. Just to step back a minute to your suggestion

relative to the salaries for task force members of those representatives from local law enforcement, right now what we do with regard

to the joint terrorism task forces is there is overtime payment

made by the Federal Government. Their automobiles are provided.

The computers are provided. The space is provided. The cell phones

and the communications devices are provided to those members.

Now, that doesn’t take care of their salaries.

One of the things that we have seen is that some police departments have been reluctant to provide members to task forces because they have their own resource problems, and because sometimes a task force—I will use Chicago as an example—the members of our task force there would be working on things that occurred in the city of Chicago. And some of the suburban police departments did not feel it was cost-effective to send an officer even

on a part-time basis into the city limits of Chicago to work with

the joint terrorism task force because they didn’t see a direct connection between a particular suburb and Chicago. So I did want to

mention that.

With regard to the article, local law enforcement should not learn

from television something that’s going on, nor should we in the

FBI. There are times we don’t have the information that people

think we do have. There are times that we do have information relative to sources, and where the sources are protected or that come

from foreign governments, we can’t provide that information. However, we can and always have provided information that relates to

planned criminal activity that we are aware of. We find ways to do

that under 6(e) that’s been allowed; that if information has come

forward to a grand jury about other criminal activity, that can be

provided, and it has been provided.

Now, I can’t guarantee you that each and every case that it has.

That’s a training issue. We need to make certain that we train our

agents and our analysts that protecting information first—that’s

what we teach them on day 1—but when it is appropriate to share

and how you do that.

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And the other point is making sure that the right officials and

the major city chiefs—and our Director has met with them as recently as 2 weeks ago—have the appropriate clearances; that it’s

not an easy thing to do, but it’s not a difficult thing to do in the

sense that we can do that. And I think it’s an excellent idea.

Mrs. MALONEY. OK. I would like if you could comment on the recent press conference on an incident in the Chicago airport regarding an individual who was discovered to be carrying several knives.

And it’s my understanding that the local law enforcement released

the individual prior to contacting the Federal law enforcement. And

could you explain to me the procedure which is in place and what,

in fact, occurred in that incident?

Ms. MCCHESNEY. I am not aware of all the details of that incident, and I can get them for you if you would like. The procedures

and my knowledge of that particular incident, having talked to the

FBI agent involved, the FBI agent involved was with the local police, so I am not certain as to the accuracy of the article that you’re

seeing.

Mrs. MALONEY. And it’s my understanding that some of the information the FBI has is not necessarily their information, and

therefore they do not control the ability to pass the information.

And could you explain how, in fact, it works?

Ms. MCCHESNEY. That’s correct. There is information that we do

receive from other sources, some information that we’ve received

from FISA sources, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, from

technical means, that because we didn’t generate the information,

because the source wasn’t ours, the person who originates the information or actually gathers it has control over how it’s disseminated. They may give it to us, but they may not allow us to further

provide it. But as I said, if it pertains to criminal activity that’s

planned that we can specifically provide to our law enforcement

partners, that’s what we are to do.

Mrs. MALONEY. There’s been some reference before to this legislation that will, quote, allow the sharing of information, but many

people talk about turf. If the turf is there, the sharing is not going

to take place. And I’d like all of the officials to respond to that legislation. Will it in fact make a difference? Right now, cannot the

FBI declassify information or you can sensitize the information? So

how in the world is that changing the situation? That’s what I’m

saying, you know.

Ms. MCCHESNEY. We can—if we are the originator of this, the information, we can change its classification. But what we have often

done through our national threat warning system, which has been

work being quite effectively for the last 5 or 6 years, is to provide

communications through telecommunications networks which actually have a terror line and the information which is provided below

that can be disseminated to any law enforcement source.

Mrs. MALONEY. Very briefly, I’d like to ask Asa Hutchinson,

we’ve all heard about the opium trade in Afghanistan. First of all,

are you a member of the JTTFs, the DEA, and are you sharing the

information that you’re finding out about Afghanistan and the drug

trade.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Thank you, Congresswoman Maloney.

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The answer is that the Attorney General set up the task force

within the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and the DEA is a part of that

and participating in it.

Mrs. MALONEY. So you are in the Ashcroft task force but not the

JTTF on the local level?

Mr. HUTCHINSON. I believe that is a correct statement. If the

FBI——

Ms. MCCHESNEY. Let me explain that. The antiterrorism task

force was a directive of the Attorney General, and I believe it was

dated September 13th or 14th. Prior to that, the JTTF’s been in existence for a number of years. What the questions were from all the

agents in charge of the field—FBI field offices, and I was one at

that particular time—was how are—how do you marry these two

terrorism task forces? Are you creating a duplicative effort in some

cities?

So we went back to the Department of Justice for guidance on

that, and that was that the antiterrorism task forces where there

are JTTFs would be an overlay to those, but where there are not

task forces around the country, that the U.S. Attorney makes certain that all the players have a seat at the table and have access

to the issues and discussion and information that they would need.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Could I—— Mrs. MALONEY. OK. So you’re not with the JTTFs but you’re

with Ashcroft and the Ashcroft task forces? I’m trying to understand the structure.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. That’s correct, Mrs. Maloney.

Mrs. MALONEY. Does the Ashcroft structure include the local police?

Mr. HUTCHINSON. I believe that is available to the U.S. Attorneys

to bring in the local police. I think that it was set up with that

kind of flexibility, and that’s my understanding.

But let me come back, if I might, to the larger point that you’re

making. I do believe that the DEA has a very important role to

play in any counterterrorism task force because of the human intelligence that we’re able to bring to the table when we’re working

with drug informants. Whenever we see cells that operate—that

engage in drug trafficking but also send money to terrorist organizations, that is information that can tie into a counterterrorism

task force. So I’m delighted that the Attorney General did include

us in that, and I think it would be mistaken if we didn’t recognize

the nexus that exists between the narcotics trafficking and many

terrorist groups that are operating out there.

Mrs. MALONEY. Are you sharing your information from the Afghanistan investigation?

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Absolutely. And that’s another point that you

were addressing, is the sharing of intelligence information, and historically we’ve been able—any information that we get in terms of

terrorist activity to pass along immediately to the FBI. We have

passed along scores if not hundreds of leads to them both in foreign

arenas as well as here in the United States, and we’ll continue to

do that.

I think the legislation that’s passed will continue to break down

those barriers and allow us not just to get information from the intelligence sources that might relate to law enforcement activities

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but any information we get, even if it’s protected 6(e) that pertains

to terrorist activities, we’ll be able to pass along; and that is a very,

very important part of the effort that we all want to engage in.

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you very much. My time has expired.

Mr. HORN. The gentleman from Connecticut and then Mr.

Cummings. OK. Mr. Cummings.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank

you, Mr. Shays.

You know, as I’m sitting here listening to all of you—first of all,

I want to thank you all for being here, all of you. I believe with

all my heart that everybody, all of us, are in a situation that we’ve

never been in before and it’s very unique. September 11th set a

whole new tone for law enforcement and the things that law enforcement—that we have to deal with. I think just the mere fact

that September 11th happened has caused us to kind of have to

look differently at how law enforcement is done in this country,

and I think that’s part of the problem.

One of the things that a reporter asked me a few minutes ago,

he says, well, what effect will this hearing have? Will it make a difference? And I had to tell him that I think that it’s already making

a difference. I think that the October 5th hearing where our Commissioner Norris testified and Mayor O’Malley testified, it’s already

making a difference. But I’m not sure, and let me tell you why I

say that, say that I think it’s making a difference.

It sounds like the Attorney General is, according to Mr.

Nedelkoff, supposed to be making some announcements this afternoon. I don’t know what they’ll be, but it’s something, as he said,

will help the Federal Government work more effectively with law

enforcement.

Ms. McChesney, I don’t know when you were appointed, but the

idea that you’re in the position that you’re in, that says something.

Somebody’s listening. And the fact that the Mayors—National Conference of Mayors did what they did, that’s had some effect.

So I guess the question becomes, are we moving fast enough and

are we moving in a way—and one of the things that we talk about

in the Congress is that we want taxpayers’ dollars to be spent effectively and efficiently. So it seems to me that we will want to

maximize cooperation so we can have the most effectiveness.

Now, you all haven’t talked about this a lot, but one of the things

that I’ll tell you—to our mayors and police chiefs, I’ll tell you one

of the things that worries me as an elected official and as a citizen

and a resident of Baltimore is I see our commissioner—I see what

he has been effectively been able to do, done a great job, stretching

resources to the nth degree before September 11th. Now we find

ourselves in a situation where we’ve got policemen that have to

work overtime, we’ve got all kinds of extra things that we would

not normally have to deal with, and so what I’m moving toward is

this.

When I listened to you, Ms. McChesney, talk about the Joint

Task Force on Terrorism, I was wondering what Commissioner

Norris’s reaction would be to that and does that really help, for example, the city of Baltimore? I mean, our resources are already

being stretched and how does that help us or does it?

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Chief NORRIS. I believe it would help us because if we’re—if we

were going to ask for intelligence if we create this task force, what

it would allow us to do is have better access to the very information

we would need to protect the city. So it might be—if I gave a couple

of police officers a task force, it would be a good investment as far

as I’m concerned.

But I think what we’re not asking for, because we don’t want to

come in with a big—you know, down on the table with a big wish

list, but, when we do, it was very expensive. I mean, the first pay

period after the attack was $2 million—not for the city of Baltimore, just in overtime. And that’s—our usual expenditure is about $400,000. And Philadelphia had the same thing.

So I mean this is a very, very expensive proposition for us; and,

as I said before, we are the homeland defense; and I think the people in the government have to start thinking that way and providing funding for the police of America in every city. And mayors and

police chiefs in this country aren’t going to be able to do it without

some additional funding.

Mr. CUMMINGS. One of the things that I remember when we had

the hearing on October 5th, a local elected official who had dealt

a lot with the FBI called me and said, you know, the problem probably is that the FBI doesn’t necessarily trust the local police, and

that’s been said here. Commissioner Timoney, you know, I think

I’ve got to get a feeling of what happens a lot of time. I don’t know

whether it’s distrust—and this doesn’t even apply to just law enforcement. I think a lot of times what people do is they have their

own turf and anybody else that sort of treads on that turf, they feel

a little bit uncomfortable.

Then I think an extra element is added in law enforcement in

that you’re dealing with such sensitive issues. And, like you said,

Commissioner Norris and Commissioner Ramsey, Chief Ramsey,

you’re dealing with things that are really life and death. So I’m trying to figure out—I mean, you’ve heard from Ms. McChesney to our

mayors and police commissioners, I mean, do you feel, first of all,

that we’re moving fast enough? And, second of all, do you think

that we can truly get past that turf trust problem? Commissioner

Timoney.

Chief TIMONEY. Yes. There are obstacles, and that’s clearly one

of—the whole idea of turf based, and we’ve dealt with that. I dealt

with that my entire career in New York and Philadelphia, and it’s

understandable. You know, you want to make the pinch, you want

to lock up the drug dealer, the organized crime figure, and that’s

all well and good, but this is different. This is war, and it’s not who

gets the headlines, you know, who gets to march the guy out in

handcuffs. This is war. And so we need to put aside our egos and,

you know—and really cooperate and coordinate for the better good,

and that includes sharing intelligence.

So they’ll say yes to that, but then they’ll look under our legal

obstacles, and there are these high security obstacles, and there

are far too many obstacles and far too many excuses.

To get to the crux of the matter, no, we’re not dealing—moving

fast enough. Here we are now. It’s more than 2 months—and I’m

dead serious about this. The next piece of information I get will be

the first piece.

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Mr. CUMMINGS. Commissioner Norris.

Chief NORRIS. I agree. I mean, again, and I want to stress when

people—as we’ve gone forward and testified in the media, people

try to make this that, you know, it’s a local—you don’t get along

with your particular count—that’s nonsense. I get along with my

particular—the Baltimore ASAC. We get information that she’s allowed to give us. We speak almost every day. Our relationship is

fine.

The problem is, as Commissioner Timoney just said, the rules

have got to change for this. You know, we are at war. Things are

different. And the impediments that are before us now, be they

legal, be they security clearance, whatever, these rules are made by

people that can change these. These rules can be changed tomorrow.

What kind of frightened me, as I was hearing before, is a lot of

stuff is, well, we work well together, we have this in place. We had

all of these things in place before September 11th. Obviously, they

didn’t work. We need to change radically and rapidly. We need this

information now, and the few things we’re asking for need to be

done quickly.

So, in short, no, we’re not moving fast enough, but again it’s from

the very top. It’s got to be changed at the agency head level, Attorney General, Congress. This is where the decisions have to be made

to change this for us.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Anybody else? Mayor King.

Mr. KING. I think something else has to be factored in pretty

quickly. Information is a two-way street. We keep thinking about

everything, you know, emanating from the Feds to the locals. Part

of the problem is we don’t have a protocol in place for the locals

to, in a systematic way, get information they develop at the street

level to factor into decisions being made more globally in law enforcement as well. That’s why having a protocol in the system is

important.

The problem so far has been what they’re not getting, what have

we lost in terms of information being generated on America’s street

corners and getting that factored into a national system. Again,

against this backdrop, it’s ridiculous to be cutting local law enforcement block grant dollars. That’s one of the Federal programs we

can use as mayors, police commissioners to pay overtime to these

police officers.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Now that information flow going from the locals

to Feds that you just talked about, would that—do you think these

Joint Terrorism Task Forces, would that solve that problem?

Mr. KING. Well, again, pick one or the other. I mean, the fact

that the DEA is not even at the table in a Joint Terrorism Task

Force is frightening to me. I mean, I don’t get it. I really don’t get

it. But pick one, whatever it is, so you have the table set for the

local, the Federal, the State people that need to be there, whatever

geographic division you use.

One of the problems with the JTTF is you have fewer FBI field

offices than you do judicial districts and so—in my circumstance,

the northern half of the State of Indiana is a judicial district, but

the field office for the State of Indiana is the entire State, and it

just—you start running into some, you know, geographic, times,

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etc., difficulties. But the mayor’s position is pick one, have local at

it, and ATTF was modified. The first version, no local. A letter

came out about 10 days thereafter—I’m going to say September

28th and there was reference made to local, but I talked to my U.S.

attorney who was sworn in I think September 24th, and he—you

know, he’s saying well, my goodness, what am I going to do? Have

every local law enforcement person in the northern half of Indiana

in a meeting with me? How do I do this?

And that’s some of my—in my testimony some of the suggestions—that’s all it is—suggestions to solve this management problem.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much.

Mr. HORN. I thank the gentleman; and now I’m delighted to give

10 minutes to our new Member in the House, Diane Watson, the

gentlewoman from Los Angeles, CA. Glad to have you here.

Ms. WATSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I’m hearing and listening and learning from all of you who are

on the front line of the first responders. What is troubling me now

is it looks like we’re duplicating assignments. We’re talking here

about a Joint Task Force on Terrorism, and we have Tom Ridge,

the Chief of Homeland Security, and I take it it’s very meaningful,

the fact that you’re homeland security.

What’s really troubling is that here’s a person who was—who left

the Governorship to come here, and apparently his assignment is

not that clear. He is without resources and without the authority.

Would not a joint task force be duplicating what he should be

doing? So what I’d like to hear from you is what you think the duties are and how you would relate to the Chief of Homeland Security.

I’ve got to tell you an anecdote, because I’m sitting here saying

why is it we’re so troubled over sharing information? Because as

I went through my Ambassador training, I remember they took us

in a C–130 out to a huge, desolate area. There was one building

there, and it looked like something from Galactica 3000. We went

into the building, and there were two guards standing by a door

that was very thick. We were to go in that room with no windows,

and the commander was in there, and each one of us had a red

folder saying ‘‘highly classified.’’ We went into that room, we read

the information in that folder, we gave it back to the commander,

and when we got back the spouses wanted to know what was said.

We can tell you, but we’ll have to kill you. So we never related the

information there because we knew how sensitive it was.

And I cannot understand why we couldn’t share highly sensitive

undercover information with those of you who are responsible for

enforcing our laws and tell you, if you tell, we’ll have to kill you.

You know, in jest I say that, but have we lost confidence in each

other along the way? Have we protected our turf in such a way

that we are isolationist and those of you who could really help us

in the field have no clue?

So could you respond to how you see yourselves relating to the

Chief of Homeland Security and what you think about that position?

Chief NORRIS. The one thing we did bring up to the FBI Director,

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garding homeland security, the way we think we should relate to

homeland security is, much discussion has gone on to create the office, kind of unclear what he’s going to be responsible for, but what

we haven’t seen as a group is any talk of local police chiefs being

hired, either current or retired, as part of the cabinet for homeland

defense. And, once again, local police in America are the homeland

defense. So how are they going to structure whatever’s going to

come without the input of people who know how it operates?

It seems like they have gone back to the same drawer and taken

out Federal people for military people and not had police people at

the front end, which is part of what our concern was; and that was

put forth by the FBI Director to bring up to the Vice President and

the Homeland Defense Director. But we share the same concerns

because maybe—we hope it’s not another office that’s just been created.

You know, I’d like to see Governor Ridge be given real authority

to question and to push, much the same way we do in our own police departments between bureaus. Because, believe me, this culture of not sharing goes on within agencies where detectives and

police departments don’t talk to the uniformed people who don’t

talk to narcotics people unless you force them. You make them talk

to each other, and you ask them pointed questions because you’re

their boss, and that’s much what we are looking for from the Office

of Homeland Defense.

If he were able to ask all of us, including the police, the FBI,

DEA, ATF, INS, whoever sits at that table, what are you doing?

What happened with this lead? What did you do with this? When

was the last time you went out on this lead? What were your results? You question this person? What was the followup? What do

you know about this to the other agencies. That’s what we envision. Whether it happens or not is another story, but the people

don’t know and the public doesn’t know that’s how we run our police departments now.

There’s been a sea change in law enforcement in the last 8 years,

and we’ve broken down cultural barriers within our own departments, and we’d very much like to see this happen at the Federal

level and certainly be willing to help Governor Ridge in his new

job.

Mr. KING. Congresswoman, the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ position has been articulated in writing and is recommending that Governor Ridge be given budget and budget authority in order to have

what we have believed to be the wherewithal necessary to perform

his function which I think is a tad broader. As essential as the law

enforcement piece is of homeland security, homeland security in

our view is a tad broader than law enforcement. It incorporates

public health response, it incorporates, of course, the fire and the

EMT, which is not a law enforcement piece. So we do see some

value in it.

I would also like to state, at our meeting of November 7 last

week, Mayor O’Malley, myself, McCory from North Carolina, Bost

from New Jersey, and our president, Marc Morial from New Orleans, we met for about an hour and 15 minutes. We discussed the

same agenda as presented here today by the conference, and we

were very gratified at the response, and he’s made public stateVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:10 Oct 21, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00132 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\82174.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ments the same. So I think we need to be supportive, but he does,

in our view, need budgetary authority to get it done to accomplish

his objective of coordination.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Congresswoman Watson, if I might add, I

think these comments are very, very appropriate under the circumstances. I do believe that Governor Ridge has an extraordinarily important role in coordinating the Federal functions, and

many of the issues that are raised here I think he’ll have to grab

ahold of and sort through, but I don’t believe it’s any substitute for

the Joint Terrorism Task Forces and the operational task forces

that are out there. And even though we have Governor Ridge and

his huge responsibilities, we certainly need those task forces to put

the things into place at the local level, because that’s more operational, similar to the drug enforcement task forces that are existing in so many different jurisdictions. They do not substitute for

what even our drug czar will be doing at the national level.

So the task forces are very important, even though Governor

Ridge is doing very, very important work in the national coordination.

Ms. WATSON. How would you suggest the relationship be between the task force and Governor Ridge’s office?

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Well, I mean I think that the task forces again

are operational in the sense that you have all the participating

agencies that are working a particular case. You’ve got them, what,

in 30—36 different areas of the country, and so they’re doing the

nitty-gritty work. I see Governor Ridge’s responsibility as to making sure that we’ve got the Coast Guard doing what it’s supposed

to be doing, the DEA, FBI, all the intelligence-gathering agencies

doing what they’re supposed to be doing, making sure we’re investing adequate budget resources as well as making sure—and the

point that everybody’s made here is that the local law enforcement

of the States is a very important part of this homeland defense.

Ms. WATSON. Would the task force in your opinion work under

the aegis of Governor Ridge or would they be a separate entity?

Who would they report to? Would Governor Ridge be on the team?

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Well—and the FBI might want to jump in on

this since they take the lead in counterterrorism—but certainly I

think in terms of policy Governor Ridge and his office would have

a significant amount to say as to the jurisdiction, the implementation, the work of the task forces. But at an operational level again

they would be handled by the separate agencies and the agencies

that participate in that task force.

Ms. WATSON. Every day something occurs, and we really are

moving by the seat of our pants. We’re creating, you know, the

process as we go along, the legislation. We’ve never done this before. So your input would be very valuable to all of us. Those of

you who have been out there as first responders can really help us

as we, I would hope, have a Cabinet position assigned to the Chief

of Homeland Security. You know, we need to continue this forever.

It ought to be part of our structure. So this will be very, very helpful as we try to design and as we all learn how to do this. Chief.

Chief RAMSEY. Ma’am, I think part of the problem is that there’s

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cally, but I don’t know if we’ve really thought through exactly what

it is we want these various agencies to do.

I agree with Director Hutchinson that a large part of homeland

security would be coordinative in nature, but that not only means

law enforcement. Because we’ve learned from our recent experiences that first responders are sometimes health care professionals,

and we need to be able to coordinate public safety in the broadest

sense to know exactly what it is we’re doing, why we’re doing it,

what we need—all those kinds of things need to come together.

Right now, there is no one single place that really coordinates all

these various aspects of this terrorist threat that we’re facing, and

that in itself is an awesome responsibility to carry out and—but I

think it would be appropriate for an office like the Office of Homeland Security to be able to do it, but if they’re going to be charged

with that responsibility then he needs to have the authority that

goes along with it.

Because there are turf battles that are fought every single day.

Someone’s got to be the referee in those turf battles and make the

decisions so that the best interest of this country is always foremost in everyone’s mind. And if he is not given the authority to be

able to actually force agencies to do what it is that needs to be

done, then, quite frankly, the office will be fairly useless and just

add another layer of complexity and confusion that we already

have, and I don’t think we need that. That’s like adding another

task force to task forces that we already have.

I mean, if—whether you call it JTTF or ATTF, call it something,

but it ought to be one of them, and it ought to cover everything

that needs to be covered. I need another meeting to go to like I

need a hole in the head. So, I mean, we just don’t need this. So

someone needs to sit down and talk this through and really decide

what is it we need to do, what resources do we need, and let’s just

do it.

Ms. WATSON. In light of bioterrorism and the potential of germ

warfare, certainly public health has to be part of the team, and, as

I said, you know, by the seat our pants these things are being created. It’s you who I think have an obligation to help us as we create. We don’t want to create a monster that has to be destroyed

by us later on. What we want to do is create a position that can

be effective and can be far-reaching and comprehensive and as secretive as it needs to be, as confidential as it needs to be, with all

of you on the team understanding what classified information is.

You know, I remember—I was a little baby—but a slip of the lip

can sink a ship. And you know, we’ve got to understand what this

war arena is that we’re in now. So I think everyone takes an oath,

you know, to be able to hold back information, not make it public

if we’re going to fight this war and succeed.

So I think this kind of discussion to me is very healthy, Mr.

Chair, and I think as a result of this hearing we might want to

suggest to the President and to the Governor these are some ideas

that came out of this hearing and from the people who are on the

first line.

I thank you very much, and anyone who has any more to say,

you can get in on someone else’s time if you can, but thank you.

This has been very informative to me.

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Mr. HORN. Thank you.

Let me just clarify some of the administrative side of this.

Governor Ridge, one, was a Governor. No. 2, he’s a very close

friend of the President and was a possibility for Vice President of

the United States. When the President announced his appointment

in the Chamber of the House of Representatives, it was the greatest applause I have ever seen here, whether it be Presidents or

Prime Ministers or what. He got a standing ovation.

So he comes there with knowledge of the House, he’s been a chief

executive, and he’s in the Cabinet because the President put him

there, and I think that’s a very useful operation. And woe betide

to other people in the Cabinet, Ridge will have the ear of the President.

So I would hope that the Attorney General, that the Secretary

of State—because they’ve got a major problem here in terms of

photos and all the rest. So I would think Mr. Ridge doesn’t have

to have a lot of people running around, but all he has to do as

chief—this is what we need to do, bang, sign it. And that’s what

he’ll do, and I think he’s an outstanding person, and now is the

time to be helpful and to get on his wagon, and I think that’s one

of the things.

I’m going to ask my colleague, who’s a very able questioner, to

give most of the questions, and we might have one or two, but let’s

see the gentleman from Connecticut.

Mr. SHAYS. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I’d just like to start with you, Commissioner Timoney, and just

give me your two things that you would like to come out of this

hearing, and if there’s duplication, that’s fine. That just reinforces

what we need to do.

Chief TIMONEY. Yeah. I would think the two things, one, the

whole issue of commit to a system where there is better sharing

of intelligence, that’s No. 1, and breaking down some of the barriers that are much more I think excuses than anything else.

That’s No. 1.

No. 2, I think there’s a real need to recognize and acknowledge

that we are, in fact, the homeland defense and that there’s an obligation on the part of the Federal Government, specifically the Department of Defense, to allocate some kind of funding to help offset

the enormous costs so far. And it’s the sense I get from Washington

that this is going to be a long-term project, 2, 3 or 4 years. I don’t

think most major cities can sustain themselves.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

Mr. KING. A structure that facilitates an ongoing two-way sharing of information between Federal and local law enforcement and,

second, a funding source directed to local government in order to

pay for doing what we have to do in order to be, in fact, the front

line of homeland defense.

Chief NORRIS. Security clearances for the major city chiefs and

designated detectives within their intelligence divisions so we can

share information from both FBI and INS, and again the funding.

If this is going to be several years, there’s no way our city or other

cities can sustain this level of policing without help from the Federal Government.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

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Chief RAMSEY. Clearly defining roles and responsibilities of all

those charged with some responsibility in dealing with this terrorist threat I think is the single thing that, if that’s done, would solve

many of the other problems that we’ve been talking about. Because

with that comes a clearer understanding as to what information

needs to be shared, who needs to be a part of that, and all the

things that go along with it. That includes the kind of equipment

and the budget issues. All those things would begin to kind of fall

in line if someone were able to kind of oversee the big picture and

clearly coordinate everyone’s efforts in that regard.

Mr. SHAYS. Is that one?

Chief RAMSEY. That’s actually—that’s a big one.

Mr. SHAYS. So you’re going to go for a big one that has many

parts?

Chief RAMSEY. One that has many parts. Because I think that

without that the rest of this is done in a very fragmented way that

really is not real helpful.

Mr. SHAYS. I’m just going to pursue this a second. If we define

roles, you think a lot of good things will happen. But then give me

your list of two things that you want once a role is defined.

Chief RAMSEY. The necessary clearances so that information can

be shared, dissemination of information, and the equipment that

we need in order to be able to be—we’ll carry out whatever mission

we’re given.

Mr. SHAYS. So equipment I’ll put down——

Chief RAMSEY. Yeah.

Mr. SHAYS. Asa.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Thank you, Congressman.

Two things I would mention out of this hearing is, one, I hope

we do not forget the drug nexus to terrorism. I think that we’re

rightfully focused on preventing terrorism and obtaining all the information we can in that arena, but I think there will be a growing

picture of drugs funding part of the terrorism that takes place, has

taken place around the world.

Second, we certainly need to expand the opportunity to bring in

the hundreds of thousands of law enforcement at the State and

local level into our counterterrorism effort. That’s been expressed

here. Obviously, information needs to be provided at different levels to help them do their job.

Please remember that, as we do more background checks, we

have to have more resources. Right now, it takes a significant number of months—I won’t tell you how many because it would depress

you—to bring on an agent or a secretary in the DEA.

Mr. SHAYS. We’ve had hearings on this. It’s one of the crucial elements of this. It can take years, literally.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. And if we’re going to, and rightfully so, expand

the number of people that have access to information, please don’t

forget we have to have resources to do those background checks.

Mr. SHAYS. I’m going to basically put down as one that you want

the clearances to be done more quickly.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Well, I—no. I’d like you to put down two. The

first one is the drug nexus.

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Mr. SHAYS. I have that. I have that. Very clearly, the terrorists

are using drugs to fund their activities to the Taliban and so on.

Is that your point?

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Yes.

Mr. SHAYS. OK.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Thank you.

Chief DWYER. Congressman, as I indicated earlier in my testimony, I firmly believe that the anti-terrorism task forces should be

co-chaired by the Federal authorities and also a local executive. I

feel strongly that there should be a clearinghouse to guarantee that

information that’s scattered by the Federal authorities, that does

not continue to be fragmented, that this clearinghouse is set up,

the information is then horizontally disseminated to local authorities.

I’m just outside Detroit. I was with the Detroit Police Department for 23 years. It’s important to me, being the largest suburb

in Oakland County, MI, that I receive information that relates to

my city quickly and not several days later. And I think that if we

set up a system of clearinghouse and we disseminate that information quickly to the local cities that need that information, that

would be a great improvement.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

Mr. NEDELKOFF. I would say first is to identify the acceptable vehicles and/or mechanisms for the exchange of intelligence information, particularly—— Mr. SHAYS. Say that again? I’m sorry. Do what?

Mr. NEDELKOFF. Actually identifying the vehicle to communicate,

especially locally. We’ve talked about task forces and different technology and so forth. Even if it varies among community perhaps,

but identifying that vehicle for the sharing of information.

Second, as someone who’s spent the vast majority of his career

at the local level, I understand the local needs, and I have heard

the officials representing local government talk about that they’ve

received all the information that they’re allowed to receive. So I

would say to reevaluate the rules that are prohibiting the sharing

of information between Federal and State and local.

Mr. SHAYS. OK.

Ms. MCCHESNEY. Trust, technology, and training. I know that’s

three. But trust, we talked about that before. That was one of the

questions.

Having been a police officer for 7 years before I joined the FBI,

I know what the perception is among many law enforcement officers out there that the FBI is withholding information. Being able

to see it from both sides, I was able to see that the FBI probably

didn’t know quite as much as local law enforcement thought that

we knew.

That being said, we do know some things that we’re sworn to

protect, but, as I said before, where it relates to important issues

regarding criminal activity it would provide that.

The second part is technology. Some of you may not be aware

that, as agent in charge of a field office as I was, I could not communicate with the U.S. Attorney’s Office via e-mail or with DEA

or with my other Federal counterparts. We just didn’t have those

capabilities, and we still don’t. Likewise, I couldn’t send an e-mail

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to the chief of police in various locations. It just—that technology

didn’t exist.

We do have law enforcement on line that does need to be funded,

continually funded. I think in order to at least stay state-of-the-art

that’s a $7.5 million bill for the next year.

Finally, training, which is something that we recognized early

on, is we have this forced multiplier effect of 600,000, 700,000 officers throughout the country, but do they know what it is that

you’re looking for relative to some of these terrorists? Is it the same

sort of suspect as a drug dealer or bank robber? Not necessarily.

And so I think it’s incumbent on us, the FBI, to make sure that

we get that training out there through whatever vehicles we have,

whether it’s e-based learning, satellite training, actually holding

classes and having interactive learning.

Thank you.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

Mr. GREENE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I think it’s important, No. 1, in any system that we set up for

information and intelligence sharing to ensure that the loop is circular, that it’s not going one way from the Federal Government to

the local law enforcement agencies but that we do establish a system that feeds on itself and that builds on the joint expertise and

the intelligence of the two components.

I think I’ll yield my—— Mr. SHAYS. Can I just ask you, is it possible to have that kind

of system and feel confident and secure?

Mr. GREENE. I think we have some good examples of that within

the framework already with HIDTA and OCDETF.

Mr. SHAYS. HIDTA and OCDETF?

Mr. GREENE. Yes, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. Those sound like Middle East names to me here.

Mr. GREENE. Those are the drug task forces that Director Hutchinson referred to earlier. There are some good lessons there in

terms of how it can be—how we can build on the flow of information.

I would say that my second number is one that I would like to

yield to my colleague from the FBI since she took three.

Mr. SHAYS. Very good. Thank you. I like that cooperation and coordination. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. HORN. I don’t want you to name the ones that I’m going to

ask, but I am hopeful that the FBI and related agencies have good

linkage with our various number of allies, especially in this situation of western civilization making a proper way to deal this work

together or it won’t be successful, like Canada, Scotland Yard and

so forth. So give us a little hope here that you’re doing the best you

can to do that because, as I remember, you have people in every

Embassy.

Ms. MCCHESNEY. We do. We have people in about 40 different

locations around the world, including those places that you’ve just

mentioned. Our legal attache program—and we kind of followed on

the heels of DEA with regard to that because they have people in

various foreign countries as well—has been absolutely essential

since September 11th. We’ve had people in various countries

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who’ve not had a day off, who’ve been working 12-hour days over

there because we only have small numbers of people there. So any

support that we could have with regard to enhancing those numbers would be greatly appreciated.

Mr. HORN. Have you got the computer work that would get

those—either photos or age or whatever—so that’s going I hope

across the Atlantic and the Pacific and everything else in order to

get that fast? Because we’re in a time where it’s going to be very

fast. If that nut over there is talking about a nuclear weapon, all

of us ought to be alert.

Ms. MCCHESNEY. We’ve been able to use some technologies to be

able to transmit photographs very quickly. Some of it’s very basic

technology facsimiles, but we’re getting there.

Mr. HORN. Now, do you feel—and you don’t have to name the

names now, but we could get them privately. Do you feel that agencies in the rest of the executive branch, either military or civilian,

are they sharing properly with the FBI? Because we’ve heard a lot

about, well, gee, the FBI doesn’t agree with it. Well, what about

the other ones? Do they put into the FBI data base?

Ms. MCCHESNEY. I haven’t become aware of any particular issues

or complaints with regard to that. As I indicated before, as agent

in charge of the FBI Chicago field office and with regard to our

Joint Terrorism Task Force, we had input from other Federal agencies. They were part of the task force as well. So the information

flowed there. But where it disconnected with higher level police executives, as the issue was pointed out, that needs to be corrected.

Mr. HORN. I’m going to yield 1 minute for Mrs. Maloney. She has

a last question.

Mrs. MALONEY. A lot of the problems were the INS. A lot of the

terrorists were in violation of the immigrant status. I’d like to ask

Mr. Greene, what you think is the INS’s weakest point, and I’d like

to ask the law enforcement people to respond also to this question.

I’m considering dropping a bill later this week which would address

deputizing local law enforcement via a memorandum of understanding, and it would allow the local law enforcement to be granted the arrest powers to take an individual into custody who has an

outstanding INS violation, and I’d like everyone to respond to that.

Also, I understand that the INS computer system of those in violation is not available to local law enforcement, and I’d like to

know if you think having access to that would help you.

Then, last, to Mr. Hutchinson who talked so eloquently about

being part of this joint task force on the local level, I understand

that DEA has been invited to join every joint task force but often

turns it down because they don’t have the resources. So how do we

get over that? Should we fund the joint task forces and have them

pay the salary of the police officers and the people who participate

to guarantee their participation?

Finally, a very important point that Mr. Dwyer has raised eloquently throughout this hearing is having a co-chair. You obviously

need a Federal co-chair, or chair at least, to guarantee the Federal

communication but then to honor the importance of the 670,000 police officers who are the eyes and ears who are really the effective

arm of making this work.

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I’d like to ask Ms. McChesney, what you think of Mr. Dwyer’s

idea, but I’d like first to start with the INS because that appears

to me to be the weakest link in this whole deal and how do we address it?

I open it up to everyone to throw in their comments and to particularly respond to the computer access and the ability to make

arrests with the local people for INS violations.

Mr. GREENE. Thank you, Congresswoman Maloney. I really appreciate the opportunity to deal with these issues.

Of the 19 hijackers we have identified, only 2 who are in illegal

status in the United States, and so all of them—our records also

reflect that all of them entered the United States legally with visas

that they had obtained legally from U.S. consulates overseas. So in

terms of the vulnerabilities the obvious point to be drawn or the

obvious conclusion to be drawn is that front loading the screening

process is important. It starts overseas with the information that

is available to consular officers when they do the examinations and

make the determinations as to who’s going to get visas into this

country.

The question of the data systems and the number of people who

are outside of—who are in violation of immigration law that have

access to State and local law enforcement officials, we feel that the

law enforcement support center does a very good job in terms of allowing local law enforcement officials access to the INS data bases.

That is simply a matter of using a screen that already exists and

is available to local law enforcement officials in 46 of the 50 States,

by means of technical adjustments to the screens in the remaining

four States. Those States can have access to that data base as well.

That checks a variety of INS systems, and it has proven itself to

be successful in terms of identifying criminal aliens or identifying

people who are here in illegal status.

We also have assisted in the National Crime Information Computer System of all of the prior deported felons, which also allow

local law enforcement official access to that data.

The training issue is important, and we believe that before we

embark on a process of identifying and delegating immigration authorities we need to dialog with local law enforcement as to specifically the types of authorities that are involved. Because training

requirements are important. It is—the amount of training that’s required to pick up someone, identify and arrest someone who already has an outstanding order of deportation as compared to the

amount of training involved to determine whether a person is illegally in the United States—and let me give you an example.

A person who comes to the United States on a tourist visa, who

then marries a U.S. citizen, who then applies for a permanent residence status in the United States, who may have U.S. citizen children already here, these are training situations that need to be

gone over with officers to whom we delegate authority, and those

are in some ways some of the simplest of the problems that we

face.

So as we embark down the road—and the INS, as I said, is open

to dealing with and enforcing the provisions of the law that would

allow the Attorney General to delegate such authority. As we go

down that road, we need to be very methodical about the kinds of

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authorities that we’re talking about and the kinds of training that

will be involved.

Mrs. MALONEY. Anyone else in law enforcement would like to

comment on that idea?

Mr. HORN. Are you done—— Mrs. MALONEY. No. I want him—OK. Let him.

Chief TIMONEY. Just on your suggestion, your second

question—— Mr. HORN. Yes and no to Mrs. Maloney. Because you say you’re

putting in a bill in—— Mrs. MALONEY. I want to know what they think about it, what

they think about INS—— Mr. HORN. Yes or no. Go down the line.

Chief TIMONEY. I had a separate comment.

Mrs. MALONEY. OK.

Chief NORRIS. We would be in favor of it in Baltimore. Just by

deputizing our intelligence division, you more than double the INS

agents in the State of Maryland. So we would very much like to

help.

Chief RAMSEY. I couldn’t give a yes or no. I’d have to see the bill.

I would have some reservations. Many of my communities, it would

be very sensitive for us if we served in that capacity, particularly

our Latino community, Asian community and others. So I would

argue that we need to be very careful in terms of what we really

do as local law enforcement officers in just checking—randomly

checking status of individuals which is different from having access

to information of people who perhaps are wanted. So if you ran a

name check, you could determine it.

Chief DWYER. I would be in favor, I believe, with the stipulation

that you specialize the training. I think the training is necessary.

You wouldn’t have to train every officer. You’d train a cadre of officers from various departments to be able to specialize in that area.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. In response to your question—did I interrupt

somebody—Mrs. Maloney, on the DEA and the terrorism task

force, I’m not aware of any instance where we’ve turned our participation down. Certainly I don’t think that’s appropriate. We’re

spread thin, as you mentioned, but we’ll make the commitment

necessary in this great national effort. And I do think it’s important to recognize the role again that I spoke of. Thank you.

Mr. HORN. Some have wanted for years to separate the INS, to

have services versus enforcement. What is the feeling within the

organization itself?

Mr. GREENE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The Commissioner has a proposal that he is reviewing with the

Department that we believe reflects the concerns that many, many

Members on the Hill have had about the confusion sometimes that

results from the current structure; and I think it is the intention

of the administration to present that soon.

Mr. HORN. Thank you.

Mrs. MALONEY. Could Mrs. McChesney answer my question

about the co-chair—— Ms. MCCHESNEY. Yes. The recommendation was that there be a

co-chair of the Joint Terrorism Task Forces. The task forces really

aren’t boards per se. They’re investigative entities that are govVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:10 Oct 21, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00141 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\82174.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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erned, if you will, by memorandum of understanding between the

participating agencies; and, because of that, the heads of the agencies that sign into that all have a say on what goes on. That exists

currently.

Another thing that exists in the larger terrorism task forces such

as New York and Los Angeles is that executive level or management officers participate with management responsibilities depending on the size of the task force. So you do have some oversight

there that’s already in place.

Mrs. MALONEY. And you also have the question of resources. In

a city like New York anytime you take anyone off the street, it’s

a resource drain.

Commissioner Dwyer——

Chief DWYER. I’m not sure if I would was support it or not by

the response. I’m still looking for a response in a positive sense as

far as a co-chairing of the Federal authority and a local executive.

Mr. HORN. Any last word from anybody? If not, I will return to

the gentleman from Connecticut, and then I want to read out the

staff we have from the three subcommittees who spent a lot of time

and will be spending a lot more time when they write the report

from all the help.

I was really impressed by each of you where you really—Mr.

Norris in particular, where you’ve gone through it very wonderfully, I think, and we need more of that to get things running.

So let me just thank the staff: J. Russell George, staff director

and chief counsel for Subcommittee on Government Efficiency, Financial Management and Intergovernmental Relations; Chris

Donesa, staff director, Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug

Policy and Human Resources; Lawrence Halloran, staff director

and counsel for Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans Affairs and International Relations, Mr. Shays’ subcommittee; Bonnie

Heald to my left, deputy staff director for the Subcommittee on

Government Efficiency, Financial Management and Intergovernmental Relations; Amy Horton, professional staff member for Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources,

Mr. Souder’s; Mark Johnson, clerk for Subcommittee on Government Efficiency, Financial Management and Intergovernmental Relations; Conn Carroll, clerk, Subcommittee on Criminal Justice,

Drug Policy and Human Resources; Jason Chung, clerk, Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans Affairs and International

Relations; Jim Holmes, intern, Subcommittee on Government Efficiency, Financial Management and Intergovernmental Relations.

On the minority staff, for Ms. Schakowsky and Mrs. Maloney,

David McMillen, professional staff member; Jean Gosa, minority

clerk; and the two court reporters, Lori Chetakian and Nancy

O’Rourke.

With that, we thank you all for coming.

[Whereupon, at 12:27 p.m., the subcommittees were adjourned.]

[The prepared statement of Mr. Mueller and additional information submitted for the hearing record follow:]

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