Daily News (New York) March 31, 2005
W Panel Wants Intell Big To Control Parts
By James Gordon Meek
WASHINGTON - President Bush's commission on intelligence today will propose giving more authority to his new intel czar over parts of the FBI, sources told the Daily News.
The recommendation by Bush's panel probing U.S. intel failures goes further than any previously, including by Congress, and alarms FBI officials who fear returning to the days when bureau agents spied on dissident Americans, including protesters and civil rights leaders.
A commission official confirmed the report argues that the director of national intelligence - John Negroponte, if he's confirmed by the Senate - should have more power over information flowing to decision-makers.
Today's report has caused much hand-wringing among the nation's many intelligence agencies. At the Pentagon, for instance, some worried that they'd lose human intelligence collection to the CIA.
But the FBI has expressed the most concern, with bureau Director Bob Mueller opposed to having his agents who are investigating national security cases subordinate to anyone other than the attorney general.
The commissioners want three FBI divisions - intelligence, espionage and counterterrorism - placed under the command of an FBI executive who would report to Negroponte as well as Mueller. The idea is to make sure there are no communication lapses, as happened before Sept. 11, 2001.
Besides turf protection, FBI complaints are motivated by fears the panel is laying the groundwork for an American secret police that could easily violate civil liberties - as they did in the bad old days of former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover.
"It doesn't take long for good intentions to go awry," warned one senior U.S. official after reading the panel's final report.
Putting a top intelligence official in charge of thousands of law enforcers at the FBI could lead to abuses, agreed intelligence expert John Pike of GlobalSecurity.org.
"It depends on whether [Negroponte] thinks there's a useful separation between intelligence and law enforcement," he said.
Law enforcers say that spies operate by different rules than police, often doing things that would not be allowed in an investigation by a court of law.
© Copyright 2005, Daily News
