Plenty of Dots (and Blame) to go AroundCaptain V. is the nom de cyber-plume of a former intelligence officer who worked in a variety of intelligence disciplines and served at a number of different agencies in the US Intelligence Community. He is neither syndicated nor a member of a think tank (though wouldn’t that be sweet?). His opinions are his own.
On the odd chance that you haven’t been following the story: The Army undertook a data mining project called ABLE DANGER. The project identified and connected a variety of dots that pointed to Atta as a member of al-Qaida. Army squirreliness about sharing “intel” data with “law enforcement” or even other elements of the IC apparently stopped any potentially productive information sharing effort.
One gig (demerit) for the Army.
After a day or two, a fresh round of criticism emerged. Initially the target was the Army for allegedly keeping the ABLE DANGER findings from the 9/11 Commission, which claimed rightly that had this information been known prior to the conclusion of the Commission’s investigation, the “truth” about 9/11 might very well read differently.
We now know that this second round of criticism was misplaced. The 9/11 Commission now confesses that it did indeed know about the Atta connection discovered by ABLE DANGER, but apparently disregarded the Army’s findings because it didn’t jibe with all the other data they had collected on the topic.
When this kind of thinking is discovered by commissions investigating intelligence professionals, it is called a “lack of imagination” or “group think” or labeled a by-product of the ill-conceived consensus-building nature of how intelligence assessments are developed. Such thinking is held up by commissions as one of the many ills that affect the IC today, though apparently it isn’t a problem when conducted by commissions themselves.
Two gigs for the 9/11 Commission: one for ignoring the data and one for lying about it.
Like any good conspiracy theory, the motivations that led to the creation of the Gorelick “wall” – the policy that precluded effective sharing of data between intelligence and law enforcement - are varied and exciting to think about. However, the blame for this disconnect doesn’t rest solely on the shoulders of one former Clinton administration official who was really just throwing logs on a long-smoldering legal fire.
If we’re going to dump a truck load of blame, let’s spread it around more appropriately. There are two primary perpetrators that deserve our attention: the legal community that serves the intelligence community, and the intelligence professionals that don’t bother to understand the law.
The only time anyone in the IC tends to see an agency General Counsel (GC) is when something bad has happened and it is time to circle the wagons. Like any good lawyer should, each agency GC tends to interpret the law in a fashion that protects their client (the agency and its director), even if that decision could have serious consequences for the consumers that client is charged with serving. GCs are all about the letter of the law, not about the spirit.
One gig for GCs.
Intelligence officers receive briefings on legal issues that pertain to their work once a year. They are almost always done via computer-based training, and take about ten minutes to complete even after the post-lunch blahs. Every intelligence officer remembers just enough intelligence law to make them, and the way they do business, dangerous.
For example, everyone in military intelligence (like those that ran ABLE DANGER) will tell you, you can never collect anything on a “US Person” much less save that data for further analysis. Unfortunately, everyone is playing at being a TV lawyer. You wouldn’t try to defend yourself against a criminal charge because you are a faithful viewer of Law & Order, yet every day intelligence officers go about their business thinking that they’re Jack McCoy.
One gig for intelligence officers.
During peace time, when something goes horribly wrong in the military (e.g. a rash of fatal accidents), the affected service calls a halt to all non-essential activities and makes everyone sit down and figure out how to deal with the situation that caused the problems. This sort of safety ‘stand down’ is designed to make people realize that the problems being addressed are not flukes, but systemic and severely detrimental to the mission.
The IC could benefit by having its own ‘stand down’ to interpret (aggressively I hope) existing intelligence law, clarify ambiguities, debunk legal myths, and promulgate said interpretations to the IC workforce in easy to understand language. Most intelligence officers have a college degree or two, so a picture book isn’t necessary, but narrative examples would be helpful.
If we’re going to operate our intelligence apparatus as a “community” then community standards need to be put in place. The sooner everyone understands and operates under the same rules, the sooner we can remove the self-imposed road blocks that could adversely impact our ability to defeat the next terrorist attack.
"Two gigs for the 9/11 Commission: one for ignoring the data and one for lying about it."
Captain V's advice is valid for all non-compromised intel agencies and government commissions.
However, Captain V's advice is invalid for those commissions and intel agencies that are *actively* subverting the U.S.
For the 9/11 Congressional Commission, for instance, not only was it caught lying that it "didn't know" about Able Danger, but it was caught lying that it was only 2 Military Intel agents whose Able Danger information was disregarded "because it didn't align with any other data."
Because not only did the 2 military intel officers tell the 9/11 Commission about the 4 known (prior to 9/11 via Able Danger) hijackers, but Richard Clarke himself told the 9/11 Commission that the FBI knew of 2 of the 19 9/11 hijackers operating in the U.S. prior to 9/11/2001.
So the 9/11 Commission LIED about "not knowing," lied about why they dismissed the intel from the 2 officers, and then lied again about Richard Clarke's ***public*** testimony to their Congressional panel!
Gorelick knew. The 9/11 Commission knew. They tried to spike hijacker revelation from the 2 different sources (Richard Clarke and the intel officers).
That's not innocent behavior. That's not merely a procedural problem or an institutional problem or groupthink.
That's active subversion.
And it's active subversion that just adds to the subversion hoisted upon us via the Gorelick Wall.
Lets also not forget all of the public leaks that our intel agencies keep springing.
Lets remember that National Security Advisor Berger was caught shredding classified documents.
Lets remember that Valerie Plame was actively scheming to bring down our President by rigging up left-wing-insider "intel" gathering in Niger.
Lets remember that our intel agencies tried to trick our President into using the French-forged Niger WMD documents.
This is all treason. This is WHY our intel agencies are being cleaned up by Porter Goss and John Negroponte, and it is why the Left is scrambling and screaming thusly.