~9/11 Law Enforcement Privacy

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Law Enforcement Sensitive

::,\ \,\,\, "<::- MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD

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.. \\E~ent: Spe~i~t4g~~ .... ..~TTF Coordinator, Phoenix FBI Field Office

\t,yPe of event: Interview
b~t~';" October 21, ~O'b3:""
Sp~~iAccess Issues: Nci~~ .
Prepared '~y: Caroline Barnes "<>"
TeamN~mb~r: 6 ' '., -,

Location; ...'~,~6,~nixFBI Field Office , -: -.

Participants ~\N6n-Commission: FBI AssistantGeneral Counsel Robert Sinton
.. Participants"; ~lTIijlission: Caroline Barnes andB~;:lxIra Grewe .

Background. \~A1 ' Iwas in the Marine Corp~"fu~''se~en years prior to

becoming a lawyer in 19.,90. He was in private practice for five 'years, then clerked for a

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Federal judge and.joinedthe .FBI in 1996.at age 37. He was asSi~~,"', elemarketing
Fraud Task Force on the White Collar Cnme squad for 15 months: "'" hen
: ' transferred to SquadS, thenthe only International Terrorism (IT) oreign<.
\ \ Counterintelligence (,feI) squad in the Phoenix Office. There was a separate'pomestic
\ \ Terrorism (DT) squad-at that time due primarily to the Oklahoma City bombing: .. I_............
\ \ feeling regarding DT isthat you either have a great deal of work or nothing. Currently,
\ \there are only two agents, workingD'I matters full time. The Attorney General
\ Guidelines are more restrictive in th~ DT area and it currently is not the priority for the
\ FBI. He said that the ITIDTIFCI work was referred to then as "the dark side" because it
\ was a small, specialty area that dealt largely with classified information. Pre-9ft 1, the
\ FeIIIT area was considered largely a "dead wood" area and not a good career path.
r---reels that the FCI and rt"technique~ ...are similar, so it works well to have them
~. on the same squad or atleast on the-same floor. During this period he worked
mostly 111 land SSA Jim" George was his Squad Supervisor.
: ; ", ...

In iate 2000 or earlY 2001 the Squ~q was split irito two, one covering IT and Dr (Squad
16 ~ ~urr~t squad) and the "~ther Fcr (5)-\ There was a great deal of unaddressed
work and the Office had a lot of new p,eopie, so it ~,~ to divide the squads The
majority of the ag9n~s on the squad~ wefe new SAs.l----1~ontinued wor~.~pgJ~ __ ..
on Squad 16, supervised by SSA BIll Kurtz. . ."'-

In December 2000 most of the Office's r~urces were devote((i~ a ~ajor arson
investigation. In/Mayor June 2001 the ars6,pist was .arrested. During this time period the

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IT side of the hops~ was virtually shut ~o~~;f---'.v~s a relief supervisor and was the
one who actuallyl SIgned out SA Ken.......WI-lham~mx EC." On 9111, SSA Kurtz was

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"<:~e?~~mp?rary du:y assi~ent to ~Q because he had been on the UBL Squad there
an~agaln filled In as relief supervisor.

In 200'j Ibecame the JTTF Coordinator. There were no state and local
representatives on the JTTF then, just six representatives from other Federal agencies.
There were approximately 20 members total on the JTTF at that time.

JTTF. There are now 82 JTTFs in the United States versus 10 (of which Phoenix was
one) pre-9/1!' There are approximately 85 people on the Phoenix JTTF, 35 of them non-
FBI (including state and local representatives). There are also representatives of other
agencies on the JTTF who perform primarily a liaison function. The JTTF budget is now
approximately $2 million, which pays mainly for state and local overtime. In early 2001
the budget was $2,060.

The JTTF receives a great deal more information now than it used to from FBI HQ, the
National JTTF, etc. Law Enforcement Online (LEO) is one vehicle through which they
receive this information. The LEO system used to be cumbersome but now works more
smoothly. The information flow between federal and state/locallaw enforcement is
much better now. All of the state and local representatives on the JTTF have access to
their home agencies' data on site, and there are 20 PACE terminals at the Office.

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Prior to 9/11, the FBI invited the state and locals to join the JTTF but many Police
Departments (PDs) were more concerned with the issue of the day and declined .
Immediately post 9/11, 10 agencies that had not previously participated sent
representatives to the JTTF. Then, other agencies heard that the non-FBI representatives
on the JTTF were being treated like FBI SAs and came on board as well. PDs are
chronically short of people so it is hard to get full-time bodies from them, so other JTTFs
may only be able to get local PDs to dedicate resources on a part-time liaison basis. Also,
as time goes by, more and more PDs are pulling some of their representatives back. He
hasn't seen that there is a problem with PD managers being willing to obtain clearances.
As the JTTF Coordinator, he tries to stay in close touch with all of them and can send a
strong message as to the importance of clearances. The previous SAC in Phoenix was
, unpopular which also was a factor.

\ Initially, most state and local representatives were assigned to Squad 17, the ReactivelDT
'Squad, and representatives from other federal agencies were assigned to Squad 16. Most
state and local representatives have no CT background so it has seemed better to assign
them to DT/criminal matters and they are more comfortable working that area. Now
they're more focused on spreading out the resources. After al1, a lot of the IT "bad guys"
a~e committing crimes - "it's just Ali instead of AI."

I~I ~iew, all agents should work IT matters at some point so that the learning
curve IS not that steep if we have another attack. Being proactive instead of reactive

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requires a cultural/mind shift as does the shift from law enforcement to intelligence .

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\ '\.'~~\."'" AIizQ~a Department of Pub~ic S~fety;1 Ictescribed the Arizona DPS as a
• . \\"\. . "medusa," Pre-9/11, once they were given any information, "everyone" knew it. Now
\. \::\,,\,'. ....-.that all information must be shared, the DPS is a good ally. The DPS Intelligence
\\:.. \. 'Division is comprised of analysts only. The DPS representatives on the JTTF can access
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.. \" D~S's central information system. Arizona is such a large state that many of it's smaller
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outposts must rely on DPS, for analysis and information.
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·:::'\·'hlfor~a~ion Technology. 'fiiercarf no tjng pools anymore because all FBI
\.:<::: personnelhave their own computers'; eels that as a result the agents spend too
\ ~·lU6tl time typing and not enough time on t e street, and the Bureau needs more support
\{i~rso~el who ..can take dictation. Recruiting sources takes a lot of time (e.g., drinking
A!~bi6 ...~offee a(~. am).

The J;iF. trains

T~~:i:~i~·~~. the local PDs on what they are looking for in the CT area.
Spe~i·~.cali'y, the primary function of the WMD and SEMU (Special Events Management
Unit) ..specialists on the JTTF is to make- presentations on those topics to other law
enforcement entities. \"

'1 .~:)~\gely~elf-trained·iri··0e CT area, he's read a great deal on his own.

DOmeSti~'1~~~lIig~i!.ce Structur~:'1 thinks that there should be only one federal law

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enforcemerit ..a~.~ncy:·-~
. ow all agencies have their own separate agendas .

The FBI's problems are...

being mitigated due to the influx of new personnel who are
familiar only ~iil:i'\this new proactive posture. The young SAs who have been in Phoenix
only since 9/11"'~r~'~~~~at work. Also, Director Mueller has cleaned house at the
highest levels whjc~inks has been good, but the organization is still so huge.
Fonner Phoenix s,Ac Lupe used to refer to IT as "mumbo jumbo," so the fact that SACs
no longer have as ~u~h autonomy is a good thing. He thinks if the former SAC had
made CT a higher priority, Phoenix would have known more about their terrorism
situation. The Phoenix"BC was Written as a result of frustration at the lack of interest in
CT at the highest levels. \'" \'"

Performance Evaluath)n':'C]thl'h)cS that performance statistics need to be done

away with. There is no statistic that captures a successful IT interdiction. The
supervisors need more leeway to assess people's performance - they cannot quantify
everything. \.. \"

Analysis. The FBI doesn't

personnel than they do agents.
~hr enour analysts. At this point they need more support
works a'.good bit with FBI analysts and has found
several lOSs at HQ very valuable (he mentione1 ' ~ an lOS assigned to the
NJTTF - specifically). He believes analysts should be encouraged to become experts in
certain areas. He hasn't seen much analytical reporting from Phoenix analysts, but most

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of them are new to CT. He receives information from the NJTTF and the Department of
Homeland Security (DRS) daily, but it's hard to find time to read everything .

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6.

Office of Intelligence. Maureen Baginski spoke at the NJTTf. conference. What he's
heard about the Office of Intelligence sounds good but he's unclear-,as to how it will work
in reality. ....

9/11. Phoenix set up a 24/7 command post on 9/11 with an IT agent on each ~·hi·ftl.. _
worked the night shift. He would determine what calls were followed up on and who
covered the 1000s of leads. Around Thanksgiving, they went to one 12-14 hour shift per
day. They continued pursuing 9/1 I-related leads well into 2002. Now, the DT squad is
responsible for triaging incoming leads. They must run down even the seemingly crazy
ones. Someone from one of the JTTF squads is on-call 24/7 each week, each one for one
week at a time.

315 Classification. There has been no practical change yet, and not much guidance from
HQ on exactly what the change means. People are not certain if each 315 will have a
classified subtile. Prior to the creation of the 315 classification, there had to be a 199
case to go with every 265 case and the two were handled on separate squads. It didn't
really matter because the three JTTF squads are like one unit, but located on different
floors. They are looking for space now to re-Iocate the entire JTTF to an existing PD call
center. Often internal Bureau policy is more restrictive than the law, so even though the
waH is down legally, it won't be down practically speaking until it's clear to people how
to do the 315 paperwork.

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