Beverley Lumpkin: Halls of Justice

W A S H I N G T O N, April 5 -- The much-awaited report from William Webster's Commission for the Review of FBI Security Programs was delivered Thursday, and — mirabile dictu — there are actually a few interesting points that have not been previously leaked.

The bureau's attitude was basically summed up in the wry remark of one top official: "We have the same problem with this one as we had with Fine's report: It's accurate!"

The reference, of course, was to Inspector General Glenn Fine's report from two weeks ago on the FBI's multiple failures that led to the belated discovery of OKBOMB documents, which delayed Timothy McVeigh's execution. Now it was the turn of Webster, a former judge, former FBI director, and former CIA director, to explain how the bureau's deplorable lack of security permitted "possibly the worst intelligence disaster in U.S. history."

The most fundamental reason for the FBI's security failures, Webster found, is that "[a] law-enforcement culture grounded in shared information is radically different from an intelligence culture grounded in secrecy."

The law enforcement culture focuses on solving cases and values the free flow and sharing of information. "In a criminal investigation, rules restricting information are perceived as cumbersome, inefficient, and a bar to success," he said.

But when criminal information is compromised, only a single prosecution is at risk. "In sharp contrast, when an intelligence program is compromised, as [former agent Robert Philip] Hanssen's case demonstrates, our country's ability to defend itself against hostile forces can be put at risk."

One top FBI official agrees that the toughest job facing FBI Director Robert Mueller in the security realm is changing this culture. He said, "We're such a mission-oriented agency that we require a continual, constant, educational barrage" to remind us of the importance of these seemingly mindless and annoying security procedures.

Webster wisely notes that the way of the world is such that "[u]nfortunately, security reform usually occurs in an agency only after it has been severely compromised." After apparent losses of nuclear designs, the Energy Department cleaned up its act. After Aldrich Ames's espionage, the CIA got religion. The State Department was chastened after several security compromises. But Webster notes rather sadly that the intelligence community as a whole, and individual agencies, have never learned from each other's bad experiences.

The most startling new information is that as recently as last fall, even with supposedly new security systems in place in the wake of Hanssen, restrictions that had been placed on the Bureau's Automated Case Support System were deliberately removed in order to facilitate the free flow of information about the Sept. 11 attacks.

Webster sums up the situation: "In the wake of the terrorist attacks in Sept. 2001, FBI senior management significantly altered bureau policy on ACS case file restrictions. This decision may have extraordinary importance for national security and the bureau's ability to construct cases that can be prosecuted. The manner in which the decision was made also confirms that, within the FBI, operational imperatives often trump security needs, which played no apparent role in the decisional calculus."