To understand the American Intelligence Community (I.C.), we must first define it. According to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s website, the “U.S. Intelligence Community is a federation of executive branch agencies and organizations that work separately and together to conduct intelligence activities necessary for the conduct of foreign relations and the protection of the national security of the United States. The I.C. remains focused on the missions of cyber intelligence, counterterrorism, counterproliferation, counterintelligence, and on the threats posed by state and non-state actors challenging U.S. national security and interests worldwide.” Its customers include the President, National Security Council, Heads of Departments and Agencies of the Executive Branch, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and senior military commanders, and the Congress.
The overall mission of these entities is to be an agile, integrated whole working together while reflecting America’s values operating under the rule of law (ODNI). The entities use various means of intelligence collection to achieve these means. There are six basic collection disciplines: Signals Intelligence (SIGINT), Imagery Intelligence (IMINT), Measurement and Signals Intelligence (MASINT), Human Intelligence (HUMINT), Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT), and Geospatial Intelligence (GEOINT). These resources attempt to provide unbiased information to those with a need to know.
The intelligence collected protects us against terrorism, the spread of nuclear weapons (proliferation), chemical/biological warfare, information infrastructure (internet) attacks, and narcotics trafficking. Seventeen federal organizations are tasked with these significant goals. The information provided to policymakers must be timely and pertinent; it is a difficult task at best. The manner and means of informing those that require the information change often as presidents come and go and their working styles change.
The Intelligence Community has changed dramatically since the failures that lead to 9/11. The community moved from a ‘need to know’ to a ‘responsibility to share’ format with policymakers. 9/11 offered us many lessons on facing down threats of terror. It showed us that policymakers and intelligence must work together to provide for American interests and not simply respond to the world after the fact. Since the changes were brought about, there have been many anti-terror successes; one such controversial win was the “Lackawanna Six.”
In 2002, the FBI arrested six American men of Yemeni descent in upstate New York (five were born and raised in Lackawanna, NY). The press called them the Lackawanna Six. The men, recruited by al-Qaeda “closer” Juma al-Dorsi, claimed they were going to Pakistan to attend a religious camp but had attended an al-Qaeda training facility in Afghanistan. Seven men had left for the jihad training, which included a weapons course in Al Farooq and meetings with Osama bin Laden in Kandahar; six returned to the United States and showed no plotting during the following months. The Lackawanna Six never told any U.S. authorities what they had learned before 9/11 (they each heard bin Laden discuss 40 operatives who were en route for a critical suicide mission–the suicide hijackings of 9/11).
In June 2001, the FBI’s Buffalo, N.Y. field office received an anonymous letter stating that the group had left to meet with bin Laden and stayed in an al-Qaeda training camp. The sole FBI agent working on counterterrorism gets the letter. He runs a background check on the individuals named and is skeptical they would be involved with al-Qaeda, but he sends the letter up the chain of command and opens an investigation. Authorities stop three men returning from Pakistan at JFK because they are now on the FBI’s watch list; they are questioned and released.
In November 2001, al Dorsi (the man who recruited the men and ‘closed’ the deal) was captured in Afghanistan and transferred to Guantanamo. During interrogation, he reveals several aliases and his recruiting efforts in Lackawanna, NY. The Intelligence Community realizes they have already intercepted communications between bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders based on the aliases. The FBI received this information in May of 2002, and they resumed monitoring the six men. In September, Bush administration officials meet to discuss what to do with the six men. Some officials in the cabinet wanted to lock them up indefinitely as “enemy combatants, while others wanted to pursue legal means. Attorney General John Ashcroft won out by bringing a criminal case of providing “material support” to al-Qaeda. The six are charged, and all pleaded guilty in 2003; they received between seven and ten-year sentences.
The USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 afforded the government Intelligence Community new tools for investigative and intelligence gathering. An essential part of the Act allowed for the sharing of information between criminal and national security investigations. In the Lackawanna Six case, the anonymous letter detailed a potential terrorist plot and criminal activity. The FBI pursued it as a single investigation rather than two (one criminal, one national security). Whether the Lackawanna Six would have ever used the knowledge they gained in Afghanistan for the terrorist activity will never be known. Thankfully, members of the Intelligence Community foiled the plot for which the Six possibly trained, which alone is of great significance to the American people.
Lawyair On The Run 