SECRET -· MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD Event Interview 04 ____ Type of Event Interview Date December 29 -2003 Special Access Issues None Prepared by Caroline Barnes Team number 6 Location FBI Headquarters SIOC Participants Non-Commission DOJ Assistant General Counsel Randy Boyle Participants- Commission Caroline Barnes Mike Jacobson and Len Hawley • 9 11 Background I has been a Reports Utt1cer since 1981 1 Classified Information I She - 9 11 Classified Information I She wanted to help the FBI with its dissemination issues I 9 11 Classified Information I She said she had no idea of the enormity ofthejob Terrorism Re orts and Re uirements Section 9 11 Classified Information 9 11 Classified Information - - The CT Division would like to have reports officers in all of the Legal Attache offices and proposed this in its most recent FY 2005 b d et ro osal There is • a lot involved in creatin new positions but that is the olan 9 11 Classified Information SECRET SECRET • 9 11 Classified Information TRRS has received no negative feedback to this point about its efforts Terrorism Reporting c feels that terrorism reporting is different from other • intelligence reporting due to th¢ duty to warn and the corresponding need to sanitize certain reporting the no double standard policy threat information that is specific credible and cannot be countered ' must be shared with the general public not just held by the US Government and the complexities of handling threat information Having been at the CTC she is more com ortable than some with the audience the data and the urgency i e the need to get the da' ta out There is a lot of crap reported in the terrorism area but if it cannot be di proved it must be disseminated By definition the quality of terrorism reporting is not high as that of other specialties The FBI is not putting out just anything but it is pµtting out a lot of reporting that could be better A lot of the information the FBI gets comes from walk-ins and write-ins and information obtained that way is usually of lower q·µality TRRS needs to manage the collection process more and be more proactive they are working toward that anf The FBI is a domestic organization but t rrorism is globaq lioesn 't think of terrorism as exclusively domestic and mqst of the Section 'is reporting is coming out of the international terrorism units rather th the domestic t lTorism units General Impressions of the FBI I l t6 ld us that in h r view the concept of an intelligence culture is new to the FBI it n ds better infonnation technology tools and better administrative support She said that _'' verything i hard to do here The hiring process is cumbersome there are more rules• t·l follow and more lawsuits it took her a month to get computer access etc In short v erything t ok five times as long as it should have · Information Technology The FBI's infonnati n techn¢logy situation is improving She sees that analysts now have access to the h1 gh side' ' system for example The • 2 SECRET 9 11 Closed by Statute _ --····1 9 11 Classified Information SEC t • Role of Office of Intelligence Witl _regard to the cre tion of --n ew career category for Intelligence Research Specialists_ arid Reports Officerst she thinks··the Office of Intelligence is doing a decentjob The Office has bro4ght tremend ·u weight to the effort - it will take time qu it's happenin The Office oflntelli ence- ow is taking on the dissemination poli y'responsibility which is also a good thing The of Intelligence a so IS mvo ve - - - - - nsuring that field reports officers are utilized appropriately The Office has the macro responsibility in the collections management area generally although TRRS plays a key role here see Collections Management section below ffice I Role of Reports Officer A reports officer manages the collection evaluation and dissemination of intelligence information on a range of topics They need to have substantive expertise in the areas they cover as they are a bridge between collectors and consumers Reports officers must know the a sin the consumers' knowled e as this is what drives collection re uireIJlg'j t Classified Information __ _ _ t IS not Just a cut and paste job Reports officers must be aware of all-source reporting so they are not disseminating something that someone else has already disseminated Reports officers deal with raw intelligence reporting such as what sources actually said etc Intelligence analysts must have access to the raw reporting as well as theirjob is to put it all together and assess what it all means producing a finished product Reports officer production usually consists ofraw unevaluated intelligence disseminated via IIRs I • ___ ________________ 9 11 Classified Information I This would necessitate that L ----- ' --- --- the reports officer position go to the GS-15 level which it does not currently She thinks that the FBI promotes quickly and often automatically At the FBI one can go from a GS-7 to a GS-12 in a three year period She said it's hard to do all this with no infrastructure in place She tells her reports officers that they need to make it better for the next wave of reports officers Reports officers must always be thinking about who needs the information and how to get it to them even if it is unclassified information She is not interested in dumping data but wants to get useful information to those who need it Those entities represented on the Joint Terrorism Task Forces JTTFs should be seeing FBI reporting already I • Role of Intelligence Analyst ees the three analyst work roles reports officer all-source analyst and operations speda ist and three distinct positions requiring different skill sets They are not interch geable For example a reports officer doesn't need to know how to put a FISA package iqgether typically the job of an operations specialist but she fears they may need to team She implied that this due tt the Office of Intelligence's conception of the work _roles as interchangeable _ ould like to see analysts leading the Field Intelligenc·e Groups one day wi SECRET 3 9 11 Closed by Statute 9 ll Closed by Statute SECRET Hiring of Reports Officers The Administrative Services Division has a ways to go in this area The FBI advertised for 80 reports officers in the Field The vacancy announcement closed at the end of July 2003 and the FBI just finished interviewing the candidates Teams of analysts and managers conducted the interviews Applicants had trouble writing the KSAs Knowledge Skills and Abilities portion of the application 1 1 so several who were ualifi ake the cut 9 11 Classified Informatio n r hnlhhr ' Tr ining of Reports Officers The Counterintelligence Division asked the field to desiW 1ate an existing employee as a reports officer and provided one and one-half days of training The CT Division in contrast is hiring reports officers and has a contract with SAIC to provide two weeks oftrainingl 9 11 Classified Information _______________ _ • • ITime at Headquarters gives them a better appreciation of the US ir telligence community She'd like to send some of her Headquarters reports offi'e ers out to the field as well However the need for reports officers really is in the fiel and having them all do a stint at Headquarters is a luxury they cannot afford right now Field Use of Reports Officer J---lmagines that each field office will handle the reports officer function differently She would place a reports officer with each squad but there won't be enough of them to do this The plan is for the reports officers to be part of the Field Intelligence Groups FIGs They will need to ensure that reports officers in the field are doing their jobs and not just answering phones She thinks that field usage of reports officers should be standardized but human nature being what it is field managers likely will use them as they want to some extent Both FBI and CIA field managers Special Agents in Charge and Chiefs of Station detennine how to use their resources but Headquarters needs to have input and provide guidance If field reports officers are trained and given the wherewithal to get the information then we will see far more information than we are seeing now The Office of Intelligence will do what it can to ensure that reports officers are used in the right way but each field office will be a little different Her vision of the FBI reports officers is different now than it was when she anived FBI Information Sharing She does think that things are improving and the culture is changing She thinks people are now understanding what she is trying to do and what they need to do but it will take a generation for this to truly take hold She feels the FBI needs to introduce the reporting concept at the Basic New Agents course and thinks they are doing that Many of the agents don't understand the need to share infonnation SECRET 4 -- _ 9 11 Closed by Statute SECRF T · • quickly and effectively She thinks t9aft the past ag· nts thought we gave it to the CIA isn't that good enough l ley relied on the C A to disseminate their information and cannot do that anymore __ one is withholding '1nfonnation rather sharing is not the first thing they think of Th'e instinct to share is th re but not the requirement to produce an intelligence repo11 ---She has seen a lack of und¢'rstanding of and appreciation for the role and mission_ of'other agencies in the intelligence community Many agents believes IIRs will b _sorrie automatic leaks and will thus_ md up revealing sources No __ b' d that she believes the FBI was shari Ag information before but it was more haphazard There was no one whose job ifwas to write the reports so it was not an organized well-thought-out effort Intellig nce Operations Specialists would do it but they had 100 other responsibilities too She wants to disseminate more of the F' 's analytical products There is no direct mechanism for prov ling IIRs to state and local law enforcement counterparts but they have other rep rting mechanisms like LEO and NLETS The Office of Intelligence is working on this issue Much of the reporting the FBI puts out comes from the Field so often stat locals especially those on the JTTFs will know it already before Headquarters report it • There is a genera feeling at the FBI that they don't want to disseminate information to DIA because DIA is known to ind it out too broadly She is sympathetic to this viewpoint but feels DIA needf to have the information The FBI sometimes provid7·'reporting to foreign governments through the Legats I Accomplishments J aid she arrived assuming that simply getting the reports out would be very hard and it is but other things she thought would take a while to accomplish have not For example after the Riyadh bombings she asked if a reports officer could accompany agents there and that was approved Therefore the FBI was able to disseminate a lot of reporting that would otherwise have sat in files n Also now that FBI personnel are on their third rotation in Baghdad a reports officer is among them for the first time on a 60 day temporary duty assignment and has roduced 34 IlRs Finally the New York Office asked for a reports office __ _ _ _ _ _ __ The third reports officer has actually been in the room with e agent an t e source asking questions and adding value She thinks this should be t fie FBI' s standard operating procedure SOP - a reports officer should go overseas each time the FBI does 9 11 Classified Information • SECRET 5 9 11 Classified Information SECRET • 9 11 Classified Information • Dissemination Process at the FBI r-7 said it takes 28 steps to get something disseminated by the FBI Documenfs'Fiave't o be on yellow paper hand carried to the Communications Center etc It's appalling This situation is being addressed however and by the end of2004 things shou d be different She thinks that the implementation of the new Virtual Case File VCF System will vastly improve the situation but in order for it to succeed field of ices must make the information available 9 11 Classified Information • i w i sponsibility'' in owever she enh y customers' collection SECRET 9 11 Closed by Statute 6 ·9 11 Classified Information 9 11 Closed by Statute SECRET requirements and sources' capabilities She'd like to see re orts officers send requirements out to the field and this is easier to do wheri reports officers have actual _ ccounts and substantive expertise in key areas T·h field has been receptive thus far to the idea of establish ng 6pllection requirements but 'when asked how Headquarters would ' _'e n fo r c e th e im -· i l - l IIIIIM li li - - was the best word to describe the rocess 9 11 Classified Information t reports officers have c_o_n ' ta-c ' 't-e - i _--- -- -- - ' '- q-u_e_s t1_o_n_s 'llt _e_y _ c_o uld of sources ·1 Laid that analy _ts would be the ones to identify intelligenc gaps a ·- ould operations managers R eports officers should also be able to identify gaps they become more experienci t _ Legal Issues With regard t6- the US person issue TRRS consults w ith FBI OG C lawyers when reporting contaih these references They include the qames when they are relevant to a particular case Wh _n a terrorist group is seen as part of larger rel gious organization that raises civil liberH s issues · ' ' • Benchmarks for Measuring Succe ' r7offered several benchmadc s by which e FBI could measure its success in this a r e number of IIRs issued -broken down ·i y field office there have been 2200 issued sincel l ugust 2002 _ 2 the number of reports officers in the field and at HO and are they used _ ately 3 the impact of the IIR sl L____J She plans to suggest to the Office oflntelligence that TRRS do this 4 the number of FBI IIRs appearing in the Threat Matrix 5 the involvement of reports officers in cases once they develop substantive expertise and in source meetings and 6 retention rates of reports officers I 9 11 Classified Information • SECRET 7