Markle press release on report -- Task Force Says FBI Should Not Be Lead Agency For Domestic Information to Prevent Terrorism; Report Calls for National Network of Information Sharing According to Guidelines

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Markle Foundation Task Force Says FBI Should Not Be Lead Agency For Domestic
Information to Prevent Terrorism; Report Calls for National Network of
Information Sharing According to Guidelines

October 7, 2002 - Washington, DC -- A new report released today by the
Markle Foundation Task Force on National Security in the Information Age
recommends that a new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) rather than the
FBI should take the lead in shaping domestic information and intelligence
priorities to inform policymakers.

The report calls for a networked information technology system that
effectively shares information among local, state, regional and federal
agencies and the private sector, and sets forth a blueprint for how such a
system can be established under a set of Presidential guidelines.

"Today's information technology allows us to use the power of widely
distributed information to protect Americans against terrorist threats,"
Task Force co-chairs Zoe Baird and James Barksdale said. "America will make
a mistake if we create a centralized 'mainframe' information architecture
focused on the nation's capital when the intelligence and other information
critical to homeland security need to be shared and coordinated across the
country and around the world."

As the 9/11 stories illustrate, most information gathering is done by people
who are far removed from Washington. The people on the frontlines are at the
local level: the police officer hearing a complaint from a landlord; an
airport official who hears about a plane a pilot trainee left on a runway;
an FBI agent puzzled by an odd flight school student in Arizona;, or an
emergency room resident treating a strange ailment. The report argues that
because of the nature of new terrorist threats, it is necessary to create a
more horizontal, cooperative, and fluid process for intelligence collection,
sharing and analysis.

"The U.S. has to develop a sophisticated and integrated information network
to protect Americans from attacks at home," said Philip Zelikow, Executive
Director of The Task Force, which included experts who had served in the
Carter, Reagan, Bush and Clinton administrations and leaders from the
private sector and the academy. "We need a new national strategy that
transforms intelligence institutions, uses guidelines to balance privacy
with security, and uses the best practices from the private sector."

The Task Force, composed of leading experts in national security,
information technology, and legal and privacy issues, argues that the
Department of Justice and its FBI should be the lead agencies for law
enforcement, exercising the power to investigate crimes, charge people with
crimes, and prepare cases for trial and appeal. The report argues that DHS
should be the lead agency shaping domestic information to inform
policymakers and set broad priorities for collecting information.

The Task Force notes that criminal investigation (and counterintelligence)
often overlaps with intelligence work, and that overlap will enhance our
knowledge. But it concludes that the case for a fundamental separation of
law enforcement from the responsibility of providing information to
policymakers is strong.

The report argues that those running criminal investigations and who hold
the arrest power-the greatest power to deprive someone of his or her
liberties-should not be the same people who will be seeking all kinds of
domestic information from local officials and business firms throughout the
nation and using that information in databases. Nor should the intelligence
analysts be the people who will be preparing cases prosecutors must present
in court-the very problem recently cited by the federal court that oversees
FBI foreign intelligence surveillance wiretaps.

Under the scenario outlined in the report, the FBI would continue to have
responsibility for managing clandestine collection operations inside the
United States, like FISA wiretaps or the recruitment of undercover agents,
under the supervision of the Attorney General.

The Task Force report, entitled Protecting America's Freedom in the
Information Age, offers specific recommendations on how the government can
develop information collection and analysis capabilities while also
protecting the civil liberties of our citizens.

The Task Force examined highly successful regional initiatives from around
the county, for example in Utah, Texas and California, where local and state
homeland security efforts provide models for a national system.

According to the report, the federal government is planning to spend $40
billion annually to protect the homeland, much of which will be used for new
information technologies. Yet not enough of these dollars have been
allocated to share and analyze information.

Striking a balance between privacy and security is also a major concern of
the Task Force. In using watch-out lists and other public and private
databases, the Task Force calls on the President to create guidelines that
could be used by agencies-from federal to local-as a guide on how to balance
privacy and security. The report calls for the authorization of the scope of
domestic information collection and analysis to be carefully defined.

The report found that one idea that would prove helpful to national security
is the concept of a "gate" with a virtual watch-out list. The report did not
recommend merging all of the 12 or more watch-out lists that are currently
maintained by the federal government, but it did recommend the creation of
"virtual" consolidated watch-out lists. The Department of Homeland Security,
or an agency with its functions, the report said, should be able to pass
names across the various lists to check for "hits" without actually building
a data warehouse of its own.

Additionally, the report found that research and development in information
technology within government has been insufficiently productive. It endorsed
a proposal by the National Academy of Sciences' committee on technology and
terrorism to create an Institute or similar institution that would provide
government with advice and assistance on a range of issues from private
sector experts. Such a Homeland Security Research Institute would have the
ability to provide a wide variety of R & D needs and would be
interdisciplinary in scope.

Chairmen 

Zoë Baird
Markle Foundation

James L. Barksdale
The Barksdale Group

Executive Director 

Philip Zelikow
Miller Center of Public Affairs
University of Virginia

Members 

Alexander Aleinikoff
Georgetown University Law Center

Robert D. Atkinson
Progressive Policy Institute

Stewart A. Baker
Steptoe & Johnson

Eric Benhamou
3Com and Palm

Jerry Berman
Center for Democracy and Technology

Robert M. Bryant
National Insurance Crime Bureau

Ashton Carter
Harvard University

Wesley Clark
Stephens Group, Inc.

Wayne Clough
Georgia Institute of Technology

William P. Crowell
Cylink Corporation

Sidney D. Drell
Stanford University

Esther Dyson
EDventure Holdings

Amitai Etzioni
The George Washington University

David J. Farber
University of Pennsylvania

John Gage
Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Slade Gorton
Preston Gates & Ellis

Morton H. Halperin
Council on Foreign Relations

Margaret A. Hamburg
Nuclear Threat Initiative

John J. Hamre 
Center for Strategic and International Studies

Eric Holder
Covington & Burling

Arnold Kanter
The Scowcroft Group

Robert Kimmitt
AOL Time Warner Inc.

Michael O. Leavitt
Governor of Utah

Tara Lemmey
Project LENS

Judith A. Miller
Williams & Connolly

James H. Morris 
Carnegie Mellon University

Craig Mundie
Microsoft

Jeffrey H. Smith
Arnold & Porter

Abraham D. Sofaer 
Hoover Institution

James B. Steinberg
The Brookings Institution

Paul Schott Stevens
Dechert

Rick White
TechNet

Staff    

Ryan Coonerty
Legislative Counsel

Mary McKinley
Associate Director

Laura Rozen
Senior Researcher

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