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02/20/2006:
"Yet Another Agency in Charge of Domestic Intelligence?"
...Up until now, they only had to worry about DHS and the FBI, who fight like parents in front of the kids. (Can anybody forget that morning in 2004 when John Ashcroft was proclaiming a dire new al Qaeda threat and going Orange while Tom Ridge was on the Today Show pooh-poohing it?)Now there’s a new Assistant Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Homeland Security and Law Enforcement to add to their speed dialers. Who gets top billing now between the DHS, DNI and FBI?
Let’s leave out the CIA, the National Counterterrorism Center, the 87 regional Joint Terrorism Task Forces, the new regional intelligence fusion centers, the Pentagon’s Northern Command and myriad military intelligence agencies, for now.
It’s a “three-way battle,” says an intelligence expert with intimate knowledge of the federal intelligence agencies involved, as well as with the thinking of state and local police.
“I detect a new tension,” says this person, whose views are shared by multiple congressional sources, “between the information sharing office at DNI, which has the responsibility for policy development and implementation, and . . . the intelligence shop of DHS.”
“So once again we have these new offices, new bureaus and new legislation, but also new layers. And they’re still kind of wondering, out in the homeland, who the hell’s in charge of what and who’s telling us what and when and are we speaking with one voice?”
cq.com
