SECTION II -- CONTEXT AND PRECEDENCE

JUSTICE DEPARTMENT REPORT ON FBI TRAITOR HANSSEN -- The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) of the Department of Justice (DOJ) on 14 August released an unclassified report entitled "A Review of the FBI's Performance in Deterring, Detecting, and Investigating the Espionage Activities of Robert Philip Hanssen." It examines the performance of the FBI in deterring, detecting, and investigating the espionage of Robert Philip Hanssen, a former FBI Supervisory Special Agent. Hanssen's espionage began in November 1979 - three years after he joined the FBI -- and continued intermittently in three phases for over 20 years until his arrest in February 2001, just two months before his mandatory retirement date. The FBI is the lead agency for detecting and investigating espionage committed in the United States. The report paints a painful picture of our Cold War FBI counter-espionage posture.

          The OIG report comes in three versions. The full 674-page report is classified at the Top Secret/Codeword level because it contains extremely sensitive classified information regarding sources involved in the Hanssen case and FBI counterintelligence activities. There also is a 383-page report, classified at the Secret level, which does not contain the detailed information on the sensitive sources that is included in the Top Secret/Codeword version. In addition, a 31-page unclassified executive summary was prepared to provide a public summary of the main findings in the more extensive classified reports. The Inspector General previously provided a copy of all three versions of the report to the FBI for its comments on their factual accuracy and classification, and made changes where appropriate.

          Selected excerpts from the OIG report follow. "The FBI's penetration efforts in the late 1970s and 1980s suffered from a lack of cooperation with the CIA and from inattention on the part of senior management. In 1985 and 1986, the CIA and FBI lost nearly every significant human asset then operating against the Soviet Union. These losses were unprecedented in scope, quantity, significance, and timing, yet the FBI undertook no sustained effort to determine their cause. Senior management was almost entirely unaware of the scope and significance of these losses, and throughout the 1980s the FBI failed to work cooperatively with the CIA to resolve the cause of these losses or to thoroughly investigate whether an FBI mole could be responsible for these setbacks. We now know that Hanssen compromised many of the assets and operations lost during the mid-1980s.

          The early 1990s saw significant improvement in FBI/CIA cooperation, with the two agencies undertaking a joint investigation concerning the cause of the 1985-86 asset losses. The FBI drastically increased the number of squads and personnel devoted to espionage investigations, and the FBI's senior management took a much more active role in supervising penetration investigations. The energized penetration efforts led to successful espionage prosecutions of CIA officers Aldrich Ames and Harold Nicholson, FBI Special Agent Earl Pitts, and NSA detailee David Boone. While the FBI worked closely with the CIA's Special Investigations Unit (SIU) on most of these cases, the SIU was not an equal partner. The FBI's failure to keep the CIA apprised of information concerning non-CIA espionage investigations -- such as the case involving FBI agent Earl Pitts -- undermined the effort to identify Hanssen.

          In attempting to identify the mole who turned out to be Hanssen, the FBI intensively pursued a CIA suspect. This investigation culminated in the submission of a report to the Justice Department that appeared to seek the prosecution of that CIA suspect, despite the fact that some senior FBI managers had serious reservations about the conclusions of the report and doubted whether the officer -- who has since been exonerated by the FBI -- was the correct target.

          Although the FBI pursued penetration leads in the 1990s that we now know related to Hanssen, he received no investigative scrutiny until late 2000. Indeed, the FBI never opened even a preliminary inquiry on any FBI employee in connection with the search for the mole ultimately identified as Hanssen. This was true even though the FBI had access to information suggesting that the mole might be an FBI employee, and believed that the mole had compromised certain FBI assets and operations.

          Longstanding systemic problems in the FBI's counterintelligence program played an important role in the FBI's failure to uncover Hanssen. Most importantly, the FBI demonstrated a reluctance to consider itself as a possible source for a penetration in the absence of leads identifying a specific FBI target. Thus, the FBI maintained a focus on the CIA as the mole's employer despite information indicating that the mole might be an FBI employee.

          Ineffective oversight by FBI management and poor coordination with the Justice Department also contributed to the length of the FBI's investigation of the wrong suspect and the failure to pursue alternative avenues. The FBI managers with supervisory authority over the investigation often deferred to line personnel -- even when the managers harbored serious doubts about the progress of the investigation -- resulting in a tacit endorsement of erroneous analysis and conclusions. This problem was compounded by the FBI's poor coordination with the Justice Department components responsible for overseeing intelligence investigations -- the Office of Intelligence Policy and Review (OIPR) and the Criminal Division's Internal Security Section (ISS). Because the FBI did not provide the Justice Department with complete information about its investigation -- omitting crucial information about weaknesses in proof and investigative setbacks -- the Justice Department could not properly evaluate the strength of the FBI's case against the CIA suspect.

          Although Hanssen escaped detection for more than 20 years, this was not because he was a "master spy." While Hanssen took some important steps to maintain his security -- such as refusing to reveal his identity to his Russian handlers -- and used his knowledge of the FBI's counterintelligence practices and poor internal security to his advantage, much of Hanssen's conduct when committing espionage was reckless. For example, Hanssen (1) set up an FBI camera on a drop site he used for exchanges with the GRU during his first period of espionage; (2) used an FBI telephone line and answering machine for communications with the KGB in 1986; (3) deposited much of the KGB's cash directly into a passbook savings account in his name in the late 1980s; (4) suggested to his Russian handlers in 1991 that they attempt to recruit Jack Hoschouer, his best friend; (5) directly approached a GRU officer in 1993 and revealed that he was an FBI agent who had previously committed espionage for the KGB -- an approach that led to a diplomatic protest from the Russians and an FBI investigation that could have identified Hanssen as a mole; and (6) searched the FBI's computer system, during his last period of espionage, for references to his own name, address, and drop and signal sites -- conduct that would have been difficult to explain if the FBI had utilized the computer system's audit feature. In sum, Hanssen escaped detection not because he was extraordinarily clever and crafty, but because of longstanding systemic problems in the FBI's counterintelligence program and a deeply flawed FBI internal security program."

          The report of this long-running espionage and treason-from-within is disturbing reading.  It confirms my own suspicion, based on career observations, of the security (or systemic insecurity) of some HUMINT assets, even if never imagined in this proportion and magnitude. The report shows the damage from leadership feuds and bureaucratic turf protection, such as between the Justice Department and the FBI, which possibly colors this DoJ/OIG report on the FBI to some extent. It highlights systemic shortcomings. The 21 OIG recommendations (omitted from this article), many of which can be viewed from the outside as useful, are hopefully already accepted and put into place. Ultimately we must and can rely on the integrity of our government personnel and on our constitutional system of checks and balances, and that confidence can be restored (if needed, as in this case) and reinforced by constructive critique and correction. One may remember that anyone can be made to look bad with perfect hindsight. The betrayal by Hanssen was counter-intuitive to his personal profile and uncharacteristic of the general FBI agent profile or departmental esprit. The FBI (and other departments and corporations) internal CI system must adapt to this insight, without going overboard. This is an interesting report, worth reading in full. (Jonkers) (Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 14 August 2003 //Glenn A. Fine, Inspector General, & 9-member investigative team). (HTML version: http://www.usdoj.gov/oig/special/03-08/index.htm) (PDF version:  http://www.usdoj.gov/oig/special/03-08/final.pdf)

BIO-TECHNOLOGY THREAT -- The speed of biotechnology development is outpacing the ability of nations to legislate on it, and leaves the door open to accidents, mis-judgments, and exploitation by terrorists, leaving individual safety at risk.  The biotechnology industry is said to be well aware of the potential threats. It has made many recent contributions (for good or ill) in the areas of public health, the food industry, and agriculture and the environment, but it is becoming a borderless global industry, and risks abound. (Jonkers) (CNS ChemBio-WMD Terrorism News, Business Wwire 14 Aug 03

(http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/cb_headline.cgi?&story_file=bw.081403/23)