Los Angeles Times Wednesday, February 21, 2001
Review Is Ordered of FBI Procedures
Secrets: Ashcroft calls on ex-intelligence director William H. Webster to direct a panel to study agency operations. But experts say security is already tight.
WASHINGTON
Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft said he had asked William H. Webster, former
head of the FBI and the CIA, to undertake a "comprehensive independent
review of FBI procedures" used to prevent other nations from gathering
U.S. secrets.
Former U.S. government officials and other experts said that the
government already uses a variety of means--including regular polygraph
testing, financial disclosure requirements and background
investigations--to check for loyalty.
Yet potential traitors working within the counterintelligence
apparatus start out with an edge: They typically know a lot about how to
avoid detection, and they often can find out whether the government
suspects them of spying.
Moreover, the federal government doesn't want to go too far in
intruding on the liberties of its employees--even those working in
top-secret areas such as counterintelligence. That's why the government
has, again and again in recent decades, decided not to implement security
measures that have been recommended by previous counterintelligence study
panels, experts said.
"They'll tighten up around the edges," predicted Milt Bearden, a
former CIA station chief. "But they won't go too far. You've got to find
a balance between security and our American concept of liberties."
"I really don't expect any changes," said Melvin Goodman, a former CIA
analyst who is now a senior fellow with the Center for International
Security, a Washington think tank, and a professor of international
security at the National War College.
Analysts said the FBI's counterintelligence officials already face
some of the tightest security restrictions of any U.S. employees.
They are required to undergo periodic polygraph tests. They must
regularly disclose their income and financial holdings--to enable the
government to see whether they have gained any sudden wealth that appears
suspicious. And they are subject to investigations in which security
personnel interview their friends and neighbors.
Security Measures Far From Foolproof
Security rules have been tightened further since 1994, when CIA
official Aldrich H. Ames was discovered to have spied for the Russians
for nine years.
But these measures are far from foolproof.
Ames' spying, for example, went undetected by polygraph tests, experts
noted.
Financial assets can be concealed. According to the FBI, the newest
suspect, Robert Philip Hanssen--accused of spying for Moscow for the last
15 years--used overseas bank accounts and was also apparently paid in
diamonds.
It has also become increasingly easy to conceal the origins of money
by "laundering" it overseas--especially because some nations, such as
Panama, are using American dollars as their currency.
And the Hanssen case shows how counterintelligence operatives can stay
one step ahead of the law, officials said. Hanssen apparently never met
with his alleged Russian contacts; indeed, they apparently did not know
who he was until his arrest Tuesday.
And unlike Ames, authorities said, Hanssen was smart enough to conceal
the fact that he was receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars from the
Russian government. He lived in a modest split-level home in Vienna, Va.,
a suburb of Washington.
"These people tend to know what they're doing," said John Pike,
director of GlobalSecurity.org, a Washington-based security policy
organization.
In addition, as FBI Director Louis J. Freeh noted, technology has made
the job of plugging leaks of information much tougher.
Easier to Walk Away With Data
As recently as the mid-1980s, Jonathan Jay Pollard, the Navy analyst
who spied for the Israelis, needed to take thick piles of documents, Pike
noted.
Today, a spy with access to an intelligence agency's computers could
theoretically "walk away with the whole place on one disk, in one day,"
Pike said.
Pike said that in the area of computer security, the panel in fact may
decide that there are productive steps to be taken.
Some analysts contend that the idea of imposing tight security runs
counter to the natural inclinations of many officials, even at the top
levels of government.
Ken Degraffenreid, a former intelligence director of the National
Security Council, said that for four decades, study groups have looked at
the problem and come up with "hundreds of solid, workaday things" the
government could do to step up security. These include such mundane ideas
as monitoring access to documents, locking safes and rooms and preventing
the removal of files.
But he said that officials--even senior ones--find it simply too
difficult to follow the rules.
Degraffenreid noted that even John M. Deutsch, a former director of
central intelligence, was found to have flouted security rules with an
unsecured computer at his home.
Degraffenreid said the bigger challenge was to find out what motivates
American spies.
"The problem is, we don't know what makes these guys want to do it,"
he said.
Copyright 2001 Los Angeles Times
