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TEN YEARS AFTER: THE 9/11 ESSAYS / SEPTEMBER 2011 / LEAVE A COMMENT

By Erik Dahl

Domestic Intelligence Today: More Security but Less Liberty?

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ABSTRACT: Erik Dahl discusses the reshaping of the U.S. intelligence system over the past ten years and argues, “that even though we as a

nation decided not to establish a domestic intelligence organization, we have in recent years done just that…” His overview concludes that

while progress has been made, “… the development of a vast domestic intelligence structure since 9/11 has moved the balance [between

security and liberty] quite �rmly in the direction of more security, but less liberty.”

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Dahl, Erik. “Domestic Intelligence Today: More Security but Less Liberty?.” Homeland Security A�airs 7, 10 Years

After: The 9/11 Essays (September 2011). https://www.hsaj.org/articles/67

One of the most important questions about intelligence reform after the 9/11 attacks was whether the United States should establish a

new domestic intelligence agency – an American equivalent of the British MI-5, some suggested. Supporters of the idea argued that only a

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completely new organization would be able to provide the fresh thinking and strength of focus that was needed, and they pointed out that

the US was the only Western country without such an organization. Critics said the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was already well

on its way to reinventing itself as just the sort of intelligence-driven agency the country needed and that establishing a new domestic

intelligence agency would require the creation of a costly new bureaucracy to duplicate capabilities that already existed.

That debate was eventually settled in the negative. Although a number of major reforms were made to American intelligence – including,

most notably, the establishment of the position of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) – no central domestic intelligence agency has

been created. Instead, the intelligence functions of the FBI have been beefed up and several new organizations have been created,

including the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC). Although occasionally the argument is still heard that the US needs a domestic

intelligence service, in general most intelligence professionals and outside observers appear to agree that no new domestic intelligence

organization is necessary.

But this essay argues that even though we as a nation decided not to establish a domestic intelligence organization, we have in recent

years done just that: we have created a vast domestic intelligence establishment, one which few Americans understand and which does

not receive the oversight and scrutiny it deserves. There is good news here: this domestic intelligence system appears to have been

successful in increasing security within the US, as demonstrated by numerous foiled terrorist plots and the lack of another major

successful attack on American soil since 9/11. But there is also bad news: these gains are coming at the cost of increasing domestic

surveillance and at the risk of civil liberties.

This essay begins by reviewing the debate over whether a domestic intelligence agency was needed after 9/11. It then describes the

current system of homeland security intelligence within the US, including the growth of new intelligence organizations at the state and

local level, and argues that this constitutes a de facto domestic intelligence organization. Next it demonstrates that the development of

this domestic intelligence structure has moved the balance between security and liberty quite �rmly in the direction of more security, but

less liberty. The essay concludes by arguing that even though these developments might very well be acceptable to the American people,

we cannot know whether they are acceptable or not without a better-informed national discussion about domestic intelligence.

The Debate over a Domestic Intelligence Agency

One aspect of the debate over intelligence reform following the 9/11 attacks was the question of whether the United States should

establish a new domestic intelligence agency. Although the question was often framed in terms of whether the US should create an

organization modeled on the British MI-5, several options were widely discussed.

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The change supported by many experts was to form an independent intelligence service within the FBI. The FBI already had the lead on

most domestic intelligence issues and since 9/11 had been increasing its focus on intelligence, so forming such an organization within the

FBI appeared to be the simplest option, involving few changes to the rest of the intelligence community. A group of six experienced

intelligence and national security experts, writing in The Economist, argued for this approach. The WMD Commission Report also

supported such a change, proposing that the counter-terrorism, counter-intelligence, and intelligence services of the FBI be combined to

create a new National Security Service.

Critics, however, argued either that such a change was unnecessary because the FBI was already transforming itself into an intelligence-

driven agency, or that it would be a dangerous move because the FBI was likely to remain primarily a law enforcement organization,

unsuited to the intelligence mission and inclined to use its increasing intelligence and surveillance powers at the risk of civil liberties.

Another idea was to create a new intelligence agency under the newly created Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Federal Judge

Richard Posner, for example, argued for such an organization, to be called the Security Intelligence Service, with the head of this agency to

be dual-hatted as the DNI’s deputy for domestic intelligence.

The idea that was most often talked about was to create a wholly new, independent organization, possibly modeled on the British MI-5

(which is o�cially known as the Security Service). Supporters of the idea noted that most Western countries have some sort of domestic

intelligence agency. In Britain MI-5 collects and analyzes domestic intelligence, but it has no police power or arrest authority; foreign

intelligence in the British system is handled by MI-6, the Secret Intelligence Service. Critics argued that the MI-5 model was unlikely to be

applicable to the US because Britain is a much smaller, more centralized country with fewer local police forces and a powerful Home

O�ce, while the US is much larger and decentralized, with thousands of independent local police and sheri�’s departments.

Experts also examined domestic intelligence models from other countries, including Australia, India, France, and Germany. Other than

MI-5, the model most often pointed to as appropriate for the US was the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). The CSIS was

established relatively recently (1984), after the Canadian national police force (the Royal Canadian Mounted Police) was found to have

broken the law and violated civil liberties in dealing with Quebec separatist groups and other internal threats.

Support for a new domestic intelligence agency was never as strong as it had been for other major reforms such as the establishment of a

Director of National Intelligence. The 9/11 Commission recommended against creating such a new agency, and although discussion

continues about whether or not the nation’s domestic intelligence structure is adequately organized, there seems to be little impetus for

setting up a US version of MI-5.

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The most extensive study of the question was conducted by RAND, at the request of the Department of Homeland Security, and resulted

in three volumes of reports. RAND was speci�cally not asked by DHS to o�er recommendations, but these reports can hardly be seen as

ringing endorsements for the idea of a new domestic agency. When the RAND researchers surveyed a group of experts, most expressed

the view that the current organization for domestic intelligence wasn’t very good; but they also said they did not think that any

reorganization was likely to improve the situation. Gregory Treverton summed up the study this way: “Caution and deliberations are the

watchwords for this study’s conclusions.”

Current Domestic Intelligence Organization

In its analysis for DHS, RAND outlined what it called the “domestic intelligence enterprise.” This enterprise encompasses a complex

system that includes counterterrorism organizations led by the NCTC; other federal-level organizations and e�orts, including those within

the FBI, DHS, and Department of Defense; and state, local, and private sector activities. Some of the experts consulted by RAND saw this

domestic intelligence enterprise as problematic because it was uncoordinated and thus potentially ine�ective; one described domestic

intelligence as “a pickup ballgame without a real structure, leadership, management, or output.” But even though our domestic

intelligence system may not have a centralized structure, it is more coordinated and also more e�ective than most Americans realize, and

constitutes a de facto – but little understood – domestic intelligence system.

It is di�cult, if not impossible, for the American public to accurately gauge the size of the country’s domestic intelligence e�ort. Much of

that e�ort is deservedly kept secret, as is the overall scope of America’s intelligence activities at home and abroad. The size of the national

intelligence community is not precisely known, but in 2009 then-Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair described it as a 200,000-

person, $75 billion per year enterprise. By the next year the intelligence budget had grown to $80.1 billion. That number is believed to be

twice what it was in 2001, and it is considerably more than the $53 billion spent on the Department of Homeland Security in 2010.

An investigation into the country’s intelligence and counterterrorism structure by The Washington Post described what it called “a Top

Secret America hidden from public view and lacking in thorough oversight.” The Post found that some 854,000 people hold top secret

security clearances, and that at least 263 government agencies and organizations had been created or reorganized as a response to 9/11.

The o�ce of the DNI is itself a large entity, with some 1,800 employees as of 2010, and has come to be considered one of the seventeen

top-level agencies of the intelligence community. Within the Department of Homeland Security there are at least nine separate

intelligence elements, including the O�ce of Intelligence and Analysis and intelligence organizations of six separate DHS components:

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Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Citizenship and Immigration Services, Transportation Security

Administration, the Coast Guard, and the Secret Service.

Since 9/11 the FBI has greatly increased the priority it gives to intelligence and counter-terrorism, setting up a new National Security

Branch, increasing the number and status of its intelligence analysts, and establishing Field Intelligence Groups in each of its �fty-six �eld

o�ces. The FBI has also been busy developing new networks of informants within the United States: its 2008 budget request said that it

“recruits new CHS [con�dential human sources] every day,” and needed more money to do it, with apparently 15,000 sources needing to

be validated.

Some elements of national and military intelligence have become more involved in domestic surveillance since 9/11. The National Security

Agency (NSA), for example, which was revealed in 2005 to have been involved in what was called the Terrorist Surveillance Program,

reportedly continues to conduct a signi�cant amount of domestic intelligence collection. As an indication of the growth in the NSA’s

business – although presumably much of the growth is in foreign intelligence – the agency is building a new data storage center in Utah

that will reportedly cost $1.7 billion and occupy as much as one million square feet of space, larger than the US Capitol building.

Some domestic counterintelligence activities of the Department of Defense have drawn criticism since 9/11, in particular the now-defunct

Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA). But in general, military and other national security intelligence capabilities have not been utilized

domestically to any great degree, because of civil liberties concerns as well as Posse Comitatus restrictions on the use of military

personnel for law enforcement. For example, an e�ort to establish a National Applications O�ce (NAO) to coordinate the domestic use of

reconnaissance satellites failed after members of Congress opposed it. And the US Northern Command, established after the 9/11

attacks to coordinate US military support for homeland defense and security, has been careful to focus most of its intelligence e�orts

toward homeland defense – focusing on threats from outside the US – and takes a very limited role in domestic intelligence and

surveillance (such as helping to coordinate reconnaissance assets when needed to support state and federal authorities following

emergencies such as the Gulf oil spill and Hurricane Katrina).

Another area where military capabilities have not seen widespread domestic use is with unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAV. Although UAV

have become a mainstay of US military operations overseas, they are little used within the US, even by civilian authorities. United States

Customs and Border Protection does operate small numbers of UAV along the country’s northern and southern borders, and a few local

law enforcement agencies have experimented with the technology, but they remain an underutilized capability.

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A growth area for intelligence since 9/11 has been in the development of national intelligence centers, combining and coordinating e�orts

of a wide variety of organizations on speci�c problems. In some cases these centers are new, such as the National Counterterrorism

Center and the National Counterproliferation Center. In other cases already existing intelligence organizations have been redesignated as

national centers, such as the National Maritime Intelligence Center at Suitland, Maryland, and the National Center for Medical Intelligence

at Fort Detrick, Maryland.

There are a number of other new or growing federal intelligence agencies and organizations, including the El Paso Intelligence Center

(EPIC), a multi-agency counter drug center run jointly by the DEA and DHS, and the interagency National Gang Intelligence Center. There

are also operational organizations that are signi�cant users of intelligence, including the 106 FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Forces that are

critical tools in combating domestic terrorism, and High Intensity Drug Tra�cking Area (HIDTA) Intelligence and Investigative Support

Centers, which are counter-drug e�orts sponsored by the O�ce of National Drug Control Policy. There are also two Joint Interagency

Task Forces (JIATFs), one in Hawaii and the other in Key West, Florida, which are interagency counter-drug organizations nominally under

Department of Defense control.

At the next level down from the federal level of intelligence is a network of seventy-two state and local intelligence fusion centers. These

centers receive DHS funding and support, and many of them have a DHS intelligence liaison o�cer assigned to them full time, providing

analytical support and reach-back capability to DHS headquarters. These fusion centers are not widely known, but they have had some

notable successes in helping to prevent terrorist attacks and assisting law enforcement agencies in capturing criminals.

These fusion centers, however, have also generated controversy. The American Civil Liberties Union argues that:

The federal government’s increasing e�orts to formalize, standardize, and network these state, local, and regional intelligence centers –

and plug them directly into the intelligence community’s Information Sharing Environment – are the functional equivalent of creating a

new national domestic intelligence agency that deputizes a broad range of personnel from all levels of government, the private sector, and

the military to spy on their fellow Americans.

Bruce Fein, a lawyer and former federal o�cial who is a frequent government critic, testi�ed before the House Homeland Security

Committee that the US “should abandon fusion centers that engage 800,000 state and local law enforcement o�cers in the business of

gathering and sharing allegedly domestic or international terrorism intelligence.”

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The best known of these state and local organizations is actually not part of the national fusion center network: the New York Police

Department’s intelligence division. The NYPD intelligence e�ort includes liaison o�cers in some eleven countries overseas, analysts who

reportedly speak more languages than can be found in the New York o�ce of the FBI, and even a program that takes police recruits out of

the police academy and places them in undercover positions, in some cases conducting investigations inside mosques in the New York

City area.

Balancing Security and Liberty

The 9/11 Commission argued that we should not have to trade security for liberty, calling the choice between the two a “false choice.”

But it seems that the balance and the tradeo� are very real today. There is nothing new in this: as a RAND study notes, “Throughout US

history, in times of national security crisis, civil liberties have been curtailed in exchange for perceived greater security, the balance

between liberties and security generally being restored after each crisis.” What is new today, ten years after the 9/11 attacks, is that the

balance has not yet been restored, and in some ways the balance continues to shift toward greater governmental power.

In some cases, this increased government authority is obvious: more intrusive screening at airports, for example, continues the tilt toward

greater security at the expense of liberty (and occasionally, dignity). In other cases, the greater powers of government are less evident. As

an example, there is a great deal of attention paid today to the previously little-known Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), which

is empowered to issue warrants for domestic searches and surveillance under the Foreign Intelligence and Surveillance Act (FISA). But

while fewer than �fty FISA orders were issued in 2006, during that same year the FBI issued more than 28,000 of what are called National

Security Letters (NSLs), which can authorize search or surveillance of US persons but do not require review by a court or judge. In 2010

the FBI made 24,287 NSL requests pertaining to US persons, but only 1,579 applications to the FISC for surveillance and search authority.

The FBI is expanding its domestic intelligence and surveillance operations in other ways, as well. It is changing its own internal rules to give

its agents more leeway to conduct investigations and surveillance, such as by searching databases or sorting through a person’s trash.

And it appears to be making greater use of undercover informants in intelligence investigations, leading in some cases to successful

arrests and prosecutions, but in others to controversy.

One of the most controversial aspects of domestic intelligence after 9/11 was the Patriot Act, which signi�cantly expanded the ability of

government authorities to collect information within the US and lowered the “wall” separating criminal investigation from foreign

intelligence gathering. In the years since it was �rst passed several of the Patriot Act’s provisions have been renewed, adding tighter

controls of government activity. But in general the government has retained its increased authorities. Several of these provisions, which

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had been scheduled to “sunset,” or expire, were renewed in May 2011, with the renewal receiving as much attention for the way it

happened – President Obama, who was in Europe, authorized the use of an autopen machine to sign the bill into law – as for the fact that

it occurred at all.

Because so much of intelligence work – including domestic intelligence – needs to be hidden from view, a considerable amount of secrecy

might be acceptable as long as the American public could be con�dent that its legislators or others were watching out for the public. As

Gregory Treverton writes, “The public doesn’t need to know the details of what is being done in its name. It does need to know that some

body independent of an administration does know and does approve.” The problem is that Congressional oversight of intelligence

matters is widely regarded as weak, and much of the day-to-day supervision of intelligence agencies is conducted by organizations such as

the National Security Council, the O�ce of Management and Budget, and agency inspectors general. Such oversight is often useful, but it

still means the Executive Branch is supervising itself.

Concerns over oversight of the national intelligence community are heightened when the focus shifts to state and local intelligence e�orts.

Although most local fusion centers receive federal funds and receive operating guidelines from DHS and the Department of Justice, they

are under state or local control and as such are not subject to any strong, centralized oversight. And programs such as the Nationwide

Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative, which is being implemented in cities and states around the country, show great potential for

helping to prevent terrorist attacks and detect other criminal activity, but they also raise questions about civil liberties.

Critics argue that in the past ten years the balance between security and liberty his shifted far too much toward security, leading to a great

increase in government power. In the words of Laura Murphy of the ACLU, “It feels as though scissors have cut out whole portions of our

liberties in the name of �ghting the war on terrorism.” This may be an overstatement, but it does seem clear that the development of a

vast domestic intelligence structure since 9/11 has moved the balance quite �rmly in the direction of more security, and less liberty.

Conclusion: Where to From Here?

By its very nature, domestic and homeland security intelligence is intrusive and risks infringing on civil liberties. As then-Secretary of

Homeland Security Michael Cherto� put it:

Intelligence, as you know, is not only about spies and satellites. Intelligence is about the thousands and thousands of routine, everyday

observations and activities. Surveillances, interactions – each of which may be taken in isolation as not a particularly meaningful piece of

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information, but when fused together, gives us a sense of the patterns and the �ow that really is at the core of what intelligence analysis is

really about.

These thousands and thousands of observations are largely observations about people and events in America, and in the years since 9/11

America has created a domestic intelligence system to collect them. In some cases the people are terrorists or other types of criminals,

and the intelligence collected has helped to prevent bad events from happening. But in many cases these observations, this intelligence, is

about routine activities undertaken by ordinary Americans and others who do not intend to cause harm.

Unless the threat situation changes dramatically, we are not likely to see a new American domestic intelligence agency anytime soon. In

the place of an “American MI-5,” however, a huge and expensive domestic intelligence system has been constructed. This system has thus

far succeeded in keeping America safer than most experts would have predicted ten years ago, but it has also reduced civil liberties in

ways that many Americans fail to understand. Precisely because it was unplanned and is decentralized, this domestic intelligence system

has not received the oversight it deserves. In the long run, American liberty as well as security will gain from a fuller discussion of the

bene�ts and risks of homeland security intelligence.

About the Author

Erik J. Dahl is assistant professor of national security a�airs at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, and a faculty

member of the Center for Homeland Defense and Security. His research focuses on intelligence, terrorism, and international and

homeland security, and he is currently writing a book titled Preventing Surprise Attack: Intelligence Failure and Success from Pearl Harbor

to the Present.

1. See for example James Burch, “Intelligence and Homeland Security,” in Loch K. Johnson and James J. Wirtz, eds., Intelligence: The Secret

World of Spies, An Anthology, 3rd ed. (NY: Oxford University Press, 2011), 499-516.↵ 2. Although this essay focuses on domestic intelligence, the debate over the balance between security and liberty touches on many other

issues including the proper handling and treatment of terrorism suspects, enhanced interrogation and torture, and overseas military

operations such as targeted killings. For discussion of some of these broader issues, see the hearing on “Civil Liberties and National

Security” before the House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties, December 9, 2010,

http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/hear_101209.html.↵ 3. “America Needs More Spies,” The Economist, July 12, 2003.↵

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4. Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction (the Silberman-Robb

Commission), Report to the President of the United States (March 31, 2005), 465, http://www.fas.org/irp/o�docs/wmd_chapter10.pdf.↵ 5. Posner is a proli�c writer on intelligence (and other topics). See for example his “Remaking Domestic Intelligence,” American Enterprise

Institute working paper #111, June 20, 2005, http://www.aei.org/docLib/20050621_DomesticIntelligence3.pdf.↵ 6. For background on MI-5 see Todd Masse, Domestic Intelligence in the United Kingdom: Applicability of the MI-5 Model to the United

States (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, May 19, 2003).↵ 7. Burch, “Intelligence and Homeland Security”; Brian A. Jackson, ed., Considering the Creation of a Domestic Intelligence Agency in the

United States: Lessons from the Experiences of Australia, Canada, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom (Santa Monica, CA: RAND,

2009).↵ 8. Gregory F. Treverton, Intelligence for an Age of Terror (NY: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 127. Richard Posner also sees value in

the CSIS model; see his “Remaking Domestic Intelligence,” cited above.↵ 9. An example of the continuing discussion about domestic intelligence is Eric Rosenbach and Aki Peritz, “Domestic Intelligence,” Belfer

Center for Science and International A�airs Memorandum, Harvard Kennedy School, July 2009, at

http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/19152/domestic_intelligence.html.↵ 10. Brian A. Jackson, ed., The Challenge of Domestic Intelligence in a Free Society (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2009); Jackson, Considering the

Creation of a Domestic Intelligence Agency in the United States; and Gregory F. Treverton, Reorganizing U.S. Domestic Intelligence:

Assessing the Options (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2008).↵ 11. Treverton, Reorganizing U.S. Domestic Intelligence, chap. 5.↵ 12. Treverton, Reorganizing U.S. Domestic Intelligence, 101.↵ 13. Jackson, The Challenge of Domestic Intelligence, Figure 3.1, p. 52.↵ 14. Ibid., note 14, p. 72.↵ 15. Siobhan Gorman, “Spy Chief Says U.S. Hunting al Qaeda More E�ectively,” The Wall Street Journal, September 17, 2009.↵ 16. Ken Dilanian, “U.S. Reveals Skyrocketing Cost of Intelligence Gathering Since 9/11 Attacks,” Los Angeles Times, October 28, 2010.↵ 17. Dana Priest and William M. Arkin, “A Hidden World, Growing Beyond Control,” The Washington Post, July 19, 2010.↵ 18. The personnel �gures were noted in a speech by David R. Shedd, the Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Policy, Plans, and

Requirements, in April 2010: http://www.dni.gov/speeches/20100406_2_speech.pdf. It should be noted that the current DNI, James

Clapper, has said he intends to streamline the o�ce.↵ 19. Mark A. Randol, “The Department of Homeland Security Intelligence Enterprise: Operational Overview and Oversight Challenges for

Congress,” Congressional Research Service, March 19, 2010.↵ 20. Federal Bureau of Investigation, FY 2008 Authorization and Budget Request to Congress, 4-23 and 4-24, at

http://www.justice.gov/jmd/2008justi�cation/pdf/33_fbi_se.pdf. See also the Federation of American Scientists Secrecy News Blog, “The

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FBI as an Intelligence Organization,” August 27, 2007, http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2007/08/the_fbi_as_an_intelligence_org.html.↵ 21. Siobhan Gorman, “NSA’s Domestic Spying Grows as Agency Sweeps Up Data,” Wall Street Journal, March 10, 2008.↵ 22. Je�rey T. Richelson, “The O�ce That Never Was: The Failed Creation of the National Applications O�ce,” International Journal of

Intelligence and Counterintelligence 24, no. 1 (2011): 68-118.↵ 23. Chad C. Haddal and Jeremiah Gertler, Homeland Security: Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and Border Surveillance (Washington, DC;

Congressional Research Service, July 8, 2010); Peter Finn, “Domestic Use of Aerial Drones by Law Enforcement Likely to Prompt Privacy

Debate,” The Washington Post, January 23, 2011.↵ 24. The HIDTA program is a combined e�ort of federal, state, and local law enforcement authorities covering at least part of forty-�ve

states. As of 2010, there were thirty-two Intelligence and Investigative Support Centers in the program. See O�ce of National Drug

Control Policy, High Intensity Drug Tra�cking Areas Program Report to Congress (June 2010),

http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/pdf/hidta_2010.pdf.↵ 25. The Colorado Information and Analysis Center (CIAC), for example, was recognized as the Fusion Center of the Year in February 2010

for its support to the Najibullah Zazi terrorism investigation, and more recently it provided information that helped lead to the arrest of

a bombing suspect; see “Fusion Centers: Empowering State and Local Partners to Address Homeland Security Issues,” DHS blog July 18,

2011, http://blog.dhs.gov/2011/07/fusion-centers-empowering-state-and.html.↵ 26. Ken Dilanian, “Fusion Centers Gather Terrorism Intelligence—and Much More,” Los Angeles Times, November 15, 2010.↵ 27. Mike German and Jay Stanley, “Fusion Center Update,” American Civil Liberties Union, July 2008,

http://www.aclu.org/pdfs/privacy/fusion_update_20080729.pdf.↵ 28. Bruce Fein, statement before the Subcommittee on Intelligence Sharing and Terrorism Risk Assessment, House Committee on

Homeland Security, hearing on “The Future of Fusion Centers: Potential Promise and Dangers,” April 1, 2009, http://hsc-

democrats.house.gov/hearings/index.asp?ID=186.↵ 29. Alan Feuer, “The Terror Translators,” New York Times, September 17, 2010.↵ 30. Tom Hays, “FBI No-show in NYC Terror Probe Raises Questions,” Associated Press, May 14, 2011.↵ 31. The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report, authorized ed. (New York: Norton,

2004), 395.↵ 32. Genevieve Lester, “Societal Acceptability of Domestic Intelligence,” in Jackson, The Challenge of Domestic Intelligence in a Free Society,

90.↵ 33. U.S. Department of Justice O�ce of the Inspector General, A Review of the FBI’s Use of National Security Letters: Assessment of

Corrective Actions and Examinations of NSL Usage in 2006, 108, http://www.justice.gov/oig/special/s0803b/�nal.pdf). See also Edward

C. Liu, Amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Extended Until June 1, 2015 (Washington, DC; Congressional

Research Service, June 16, 2011).↵

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34. See “Domestic Intelligence Surveillance Grew in 2010,” entry in the Federation of American Scientists Secrecy News blog,

http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2011/05/2010_�sa.html.↵ 35. Charlie Savage, “F.B.I. Agents Get Leeway to Push Privacy Bounds,” New York Times, June 13, 2011.↵ 36. Jerry Markon, “Tension Grows Between Calif. Muslims, FBI after Informant In�ltrates Mosque,” Washington Post, December 5, 2010.↵ 37. The three provisions were technically amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA); two had been originally enacted

as part of the Patriot Act, and one had been included in the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004. For background

see Liu, Amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.↵ 38. Gregory Treverton, “Intelligence Test,” Democracy 11 (Winter 2009): 65, http://www.democracyjournal.org/11/6667.php.↵ 39. John Farmer, Jr., “How to Spot a Terrorist,” New York Times, September 28, 2010.↵ 40. Laura W. Murphy, “Stopping the Flow of Power to the Executive Branch,” testimony before the Subcommittee on the Constitutions, Civil

Rights and Civil Liberties, Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. House of Representatives, December 9, 2010.↵ 41. “Remarks by the Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Cherto�,” Bureau of Justice Assistance, March 14, 2006, at

http://www.dhs.gov/xnews/speeches/speech_0273.shtm.↵

This article was originally published at the URLs https://www.hsaj.org/?article=7.2.8 and https://www.hsaj.org/?fullarticle=7.2.8.

Copyright © 2011 by the author(s). Homeland Security A�airs is an academic journal available free of charge to individuals and institutions.

Because the purpose of this publication is the widest possible dissemination of knowledge, copies of this journal and the articles

contained herein may be printed or downloaded and redistributed for personal, research or educational purposes free of charge and

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article. Homeland Security A�airs is the online journal of the Naval Postgraduate School Center for Homeland Defense and Security

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Homeland Security Affairs