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Highlights of the Article:

(...) "The country is much better served by making the existing agencies do what they're supposed to do," said Harry B. "Skip" Brandon, a former senior FBI counterintelligence official who now runs his own security consulting firm, Smith Brandon International. "It would be a new bureaucracy, new people. It's hard to start a new agency. I'm not sure in the middle of the crisis we should try to reinvent ourselves." (...)

For the full article see below.

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The phrase "British intelligence" conjures up images of trench-coated agents ferreting out Russian spies in the London fog. Now, some members of Congress and security experts say the United States needs its own domestic intelligence service.

Two senators are working on legislation that would create an agency devoted to pursuing enemy spies and saboteurs inside the country. But their idea faces high hurdles: civil libertarians who see a domestic intelligence agency as a threat to constitutional rights, and FBI and CIA officials who view a new security service as a threat to their franchises in the war against terrorism.

Sen. John Edwards, N.C., a possible candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004, has proposed a domestic intelligence agency modeled on Britain's MI5. Bob Graham, D-Fla., chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, has a similar idea.

Sources working on the joint House-Senate investigation of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks say a new security agency is likely to be one of the key suggestions in the committees' final report due early next year.

Creation of a domestic intelligence agency could fundamentally alter how the government gathers information for domestic security.

Current law gives the FBI the lead role in neutralizing foreign agents in the United States. But with few exceptions, the FBI has not developed long-term counterintelligence operations to plant spies in an enemy's espionage operation or in terror organizations. That is the kind of role envisioned for a new domestic spy agency like that proposed by Edwards and Graham.

"This issue is starting to coalesce," an Edwards spokesman said. "There are folks on the Hill and in the intelligence community thinking along the same lines."

In an Oct. 7 speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Edwards said the FBI "doesn't have the right skills, strengths, or staff to be a successful intelligence agency."

The CIA declined to comment on proposals for a domestic counterpart. An FBI spokesman said the bureau is working on a position paper to be released in the coming months. Former officials of the agencies disagree over whether a domestic intelligence service is needed.

Advocates say such an agency would allow the FBI to focus on law enforcement. A new agency, they say, might be able to infiltrate terrorist cells without having to worry about whether criminal charges would result from the investigation.

"If you review some of what we've learned about how the FBI and CIA functioned [before Sept. 11], you realize a new culture and new ethos is needed," said Paul Joyal, a former FBI agent and Soviet specialist who is now president of Intercon International USA, which publishes a newsletter on Russia, among other products. "The FBI is a law enforcement agency, and it's more reactive to situations. An intelligence service would be more proactive."

Opponents raise civil liberties questions, worrying that a domestic intelligence service would lead to more wiretaps, infiltration of domestic groups and spying on religious organizations. Such efforts, taken for granted in foreign intelligence operations, are strictly limited within the United States except in criminal investigations.

A spokesman for Graham said prohibitions against violations of civil liberties would be part of the charter of any new domestic intelligence service.

"This agency could be restricted to surveillance of foreign citizens in this country, and not U.S. citizens," said Graham spokesman Paul Anderson. "We would have to recognize the constitutional protection of civil liberties."

Some experts remain skeptical that a new espionage agency would eliminate problems that limited the effectiveness of the FBI and CIA before the Sept. 11 attacks, particularly the mutual suspicion that prevented them from sharing information.

"The country is much better served by making the existing agencies do what they're supposed to do," said Harry B. "Skip" Brandon, a former senior FBI counterintelligence official who now runs his own security consulting firm, Smith Brandon International. "It would be a new bureaucracy, new people. It's hard to start a new agency. I'm not sure in the middle of the crisis we should try to reinvent ourselves."

Once legislation is introduced in the next Congress, lawmakers are likely to see heavy behind-the-scenes lobbying against the proposals by the CIA and FBI.

"There would be significant institutional resistance," a Senate source said. "Publicly they say 'We're cooperating and we're doing a good job.' Privately. they say there's still politics and turf battles."

How Would It Work?

Advocates say a new organization, like Great Britain's MI5, would have no arrest or prosecutorial power but could infiltrate suspicious groups or spy on individuals inside the United States.

Jeff Smith, a former CIA general counsel and former counsel to the Senate Armed Services Committee, cited the recent arrests of members of an alleged terrorist cell in Lackawanna, N.Y., to explain how a domestic intelligence service could have done the job differently.

An intelligence agency might have infiltrated the group, "flipped" one or more of its members into double agents, then used them to get closer to higher levels of al Qaeda, Smith said. Instead, the individuals accused of being part of al Qaeda were arrested and charged in Buffalo in a highly publicized case.

"There is enormous pressure to prosecute these guys," said Smith, now a senior partner in public policy practice at the Washington office of Arnold and Porter. "I have reluctantly come to the view that it just doesn't work to have intelligence and law enforcement within the same agency."

Most U.S. allies have domestic intelligence operations. Canada has the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service, and Japan, Germany and Italy have similar agencies.

"There are obvious civil liberties implications, but Britain has been a good model for balancing security while maintaining civil liberties," said former CIA Director James Woolsey, now a vice president at Booz Allen Hamilton. "I don't necessarily support creating a new agency, but I do support looking at it."

The discussion is likely to heat up in January, when the Intelligence committees release their report.

"I think we have to be very careful," said Richard C. Shelby, R-Ala., ranking Republican on the Senate panel. "We're not the U.K. We have a Constitution, they don't. We believe that individual rights are very, very, very important and that the Constitution is pre-eminent."

This story originally appeared in CQ Homeland Security.

Source: CQ Daily Monitor
Round-the-clock coverage of news from Capitol Hill.
Copyright 2002 Congressional Quarterly Inc. All Rights Reserved.