Bush to Create New Unit in F.B.I. for Intelligence
30 June 2005, Douglas Jehl, New York Times
excerpts:
The White House left it to Mr. Negroponte to carry out the overhaul, which will almost certainly be met with reluctance within the F.B.I. and the 14 other agencies he oversees.
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Frances Fragos Townsend, the White House homeland security adviser, said the changes would allow Mr. Negroponte to wield influence and seek information down to the level of each of the F.B.I.'s field offices, though she noted that the attorney general, Alberto R. Gonzales, would remain responsible for ensuring that intelligence activities in the United States did not violate American law. (!)
Bush Approves Spy Agency Changes
30 June 2005, Dan Eggen & Walter Pincus, Washington Post
excerpts:
"Spies and cops play different roles and operate under different rules for a reason," said Timothy Edgar, national security counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. "The FBI is effectively being taken over by a spymaster who reports directly to the White House. . . . It's alarming that the same person who oversees foreign spying will now oversee domestic spying, too."
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Under Bush's memo, the FBI will create a National Security Service by bringing together its counterintelligence, counterterrorism and intelligence divisions under one umbrella. The head of the new service will be hired by the FBI director and the attorney general, but with the "concurrence" of Negroponte, who will fund the FBI's intelligence activities. The memo said that Negroponte, "through the head of the FBI's National Security Service, can effectively communicate with the FBI's field offices, resident agencies and any other personnel in the National Security Service."
Across Pennsylvania Avenue at the Justice Department, Gonzales will also pull together several intelligence and counterterrorism operations to form a new national security division, and Bush will ask Congress to allow the hiring of a new assistant attorney general to run it.
Is anyone really surprised by this development? Appalled, maybe- but surprised?
- glassfrequency
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