To protect civil liberties and better prevent terrorism, the United States' intelligence agencies must change their operational culture and do a better job of analyzing and disseminating the information they gather, former FBI and Justice Department counter-terrorism expert Michael Vatis said.
Vatis, the director of Dartmouth's Institute for Security Technology Studies and former director of the National Infrastructure Protection Center, did not propose any specific reforms, but said that "structural and cultural changes" in the FBI and other agencies are important.
"Our principal shortcomings lie not in our ability to collect the information" domestically, he said, but rather in the interpretation and timely distribution of relevant and accurate data.
The analysis of collected data turns new information into knowledge, Vatis said, adding that most of the intelligence errors that failed to forewarn of the Sept. 11 terror attacks resulted from insufficient and tardy analysis.
Additionally, the nature of the reports generated by intelligence agencies has changed since the Cold War, Vatis said, since they need to rapidly disseminate this information to a wider audience than before.
Instead of making reports for internal government use only, the FBI is now issuing warnings of terror threats to state and local agencies and the private owners of important infrastructure. The information must be precise, however, and there is increased risk of information leaks because of the number of people and groups involved.
The final criticism Vatis made was of the culture at the FBI which he said puts more emphasis on field operations. By contrast, the CIA "places much more value in analysis."
Vatis denounced calls by some politicians to lift restrictions on the FBI in order to allow for faster results.
Vatis said that though the elimination of data analysis allows investigators to "ensure we can get our target before they get away," it can lead to costly mistakes. He cited the example of the armed drones used by the military in Afghanistan, which were responsible for a number of civilian deaths after the removal of protocols for ensuring accurate targeting.
"When you remove analysis from the loop," he said, "you lose a lot of the certainty of what you're going after."
Critics of current regulations claim that with greater powers to collect information, the FBI might have been able to search the documents of suspected hijacking accomplice Zacarias Moussaoui last August, though Vatis was unsure such reforms will be beneficial.
"If we move the bar in that direction, there will be costs" to civil liberties, Vatis said. "Perhaps we are willing to pay these costs, perhaps we can do it through democratic process."
Vatis agreed with former CIA agent and fellow 2002 Montgomery speaker Reuel Marc Gerecht's analysis of the basic problem facing the intelligence community. "Intelligence depends on absolute secrecy," he said, while "democracy depends on openness so the government can be held accountable."
The Church Committee hearings in Congress in 1975-76 revealed many abuses of secret domestic intelligence gathering by the FBI, including the monitoring of political dissidents like civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
The Committee's findings led to passage in 1978 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allows -- with the approval of a secret Supreme Court-appointed tribunal -- for the secret surveillance of those suspected of working for foreign entities or groups, while ending unregulated spying on private citizens.
The act represents an effective manner of balancing the interests of secrecy and democracy, he said.
He added, however, that few Americans are aware of FISA, and a quick survey he conducted of the audience revealed that only four of the more than 120 in attendance knew of its existence.
"There are no easy solutions to these problems" facing U.S. intelligence agencies, he said. "These are incredibly difficult problems."
Speaking yesterday before a packed crowd in Filene Auditorium, Vatis is the fifth of six speakers sponsored by the Montgomery Endowment in their series on "American Intelligence in the Twenty-First Century."
