THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume VI, Issue # 91, May 6, 2004
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
LAW ENFORCEMENT, INTELLIGENCE, & COUNTERTERRORISM:
THE WORK OF THE TERRORIST THREAT INTEGRATION CENTER
By John O. Brennan
FULL STORY:
I welcome the opportunity to join my colleagues from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA), and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to discuss intelligence and law enforcement efforts to
prevent terrorist attacks against U.S. interests. It is also a privilege for me to represent the many men and women from
throughout the U.S. government who have joined forces in an unprecedented manner in the new Terrorist Threat Integration
Center (TTIC).
As members of the 9-11 Commission and the American public well know, the scourge of international terrorism poses a serious
threat to U.S. interests, both at home and abroad. Since the devastating attacks of September 11, 2001, hundreds of
innocent lives have been lost in terrorist attacks in Tunisia, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Turkey, and Spain. More
attacks are in the planning stages, and U.S. lives and property are being actively targeted by Al-Qa’ida and other terrorist
organizations that have death and destruction as their principal goals.
We learned some painful lessons on September 11, 2001. We learned that while we had developed a wide array of U.S.
government counterterrorism capabilities and accrued a vast amount of information about those who would do us harm, we
lacked a government-wide ability to integrate knowledge, data systems, expertise, mission and capabilities, which are the
critical weapons in the fight against terrorism. It is only through such integration of effort that we will be able to prevent
future 9-11s.
As we strive, as a nation, to create such a framework, a key objective of the U.S. government’s counterterrorism strategy
today is to ensure that all agencies and departments involved in the fight against terrorism share threat information and
finished analysis that can be used to prevent terrorist attacks. At the direction of the President, TTIC began its mission
May 1, 2003, specifically to achieve this objective for counterterrorism analysis.
TTIC represents a new way of optimizing the U.S. government’s knowledge and formidable capabilities in the fight against
terrorism. For the first time in our history, a multi-agency entity has access to information systems and databases spanning
the intelligence, law enforcement, homeland security, diplomatic, and military communities that contain information related to
the threat of international terrorism. In fact, TTIC has direct-access connectivity with 14 separate U.S. government networks
-- with connectivity to another 10 networks planned -- enabling information sharing as never before in the U.S. government.
This unprecedented access to information allows us to gain a comprehensive understanding of terrorist threats to U.S.
interests at home and abroad and, most importantly, to provide this information and related analysis to those responsible for
detecting, disrupting, deterring, and defending against terrorist attacks.
A key objective of TTIC is to develop an integrated information technology architecture so that sophisticated analytic tools
and federated search capabilities can be applied to the many terabytes of data available to the federal government. We
must be able to cross check these different data sets, which are collected by departments and agencies statutorily authorized
to do so, in a manner that allows us to identify terrorists and their supporters before they reach our shores or when they
emerge within our midst. Simply put, we need to create new knowledge from existing information. We can do this, with
complete respect for the privacy rights of U.S. citizens and subjects and in accordance with the U.S. Constitution, as we work
together in a collaborative and integrated manner.
There exists within the TTIC “joint venture” real-time collaboration among analysts from a broad array of agencies and
departments who sit side-by-side, sharing information and connecting the scattered pieces of the terrorism puzzle. These
partners include not only the FBI, CIA, and the Departments of State, Defense, and Homeland Security, but also other
federal agencies and departments, currently including the Capitol Police, the Department of Energy, and the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission. Other federal departments and agencies have been invited to join.
As envisioned by the President, this physical integration of expertise and sharing of information enables and empowers the
key organizations involved in the fight against terrorism. Collectively, they are fulfilling their shared responsibilities in a fused
environment, “doing business” jointly as TTIC. This fusion and synergy will be further enhanced when TTIC and most of
CIA’s Counterterrorist Center and FBI’s Counterterrorism Division collocate at a state-of-the-art facility this Summer.
This integrated business model not only capitalizes on our respective and cumulative expertise, but it also optimizes analytic
resources in a manner that allows us to cover more effectively and comprehensively the vast expanse of terrorist threats that
will face the American homeland and U.S. interests worldwide for the foreseeable future.
In simple terms, we are closing the seams among U.S. government entities engaged in the identification and analysis of
terrorism information.
The integration of perspectives from multiple agencies and departments represented in TTIC is serving as a force multiplier in
the fight against terrorism. On a strategic level, TTIC provides the President and key Cabinet officials a daily analytic product
on the most serious terrorist threats and related terrorism information that serves as a common foundation for
decision-making regarding the actions necessary to disrupt terrorist plans. Rather than multiple threat assessments and
disparate information flows on the same subject matter being forwarded separately to senior policymakers, information and
finished analysis are now fused in a multi-agency environment so that an integrated and comprehensive threat picture is
provided. If there are analytic differences on the nature or seriousness of a particular threat, they are incorporated into the
analysis.
Similar mechanisms transform threat information and analysis into alerts and advisories in order to better prepare the
American nation as well as to warn targets of potential terrorist attacks.
For example, TTIC issued a terrorist threat alert at 11:00 p.m. on December 20 of last year, which triggered senior-level
discussions and a subsequent decision before noon the following day to raise the national threat condition level to “orange.”
TTIC’s analytic assessments also have had an impact overseas. TTIC advisories, warnings, and alerts about threats to U.S.
interests in the Middle East, Europe, and Southeast Asia have prompted reviews and adjustments of security postures and
procedures at various locations over the past year.
As part of this warning and analytic orchestration role, TTIC has been designated by the Director of Central Intelligence to
lead an integrated Intelligence Community analytic effort focusing on the potential terrorist threat to the 2004 Summer
Olympics in Greece.
In addition to connecting the proverbial intelligence “dots” and doing analytic assessments, TTIC also is actively working to
ensure that terrorist threat information and finished analysis are disseminated to those who play a role in protecting U.S.
interests at home and abroad. For example, TTIC sponsors a top secret website, TTIC Online, that has in excess of 3 ½
million terrorism-related documents at various levels of classification from the intelligence, law enforcement, homeland
security, diplomatic, and military communities.
TTIC Online currently is available to over 2,600 users in every major federal department and agency involved in
counterterrorism activities.
In the coming months, TTIC Online will be replicated at lower classification levels that will enhance the ability of the DHS and
FBI to make more terrorism-related material available to state and local government officials, law enforcement entities, and the
private sector.
In addition, a joint information-sharing program office of TTIC partner agencies is currently focused on addressing key
impediments to the free flow of terrorism-related information.
The Intelligence Community traditionally has used a marking called “ORCON,” or “Originator Control," which limits the
dissemination of intelligence reports. The Intelligence Community has reduced the percentage of terrorism-related ORCON
documents by about half since the latter part of 2001, from approximately 11 percent then to 6 percent now.
In addition, significant progress has been made by the Intelligence Community on the use of “tear-line” reporting -- reporting
where sensitive sources and methods information has been removed so the information can be disseminated in a timely
manner to a broader audience. The availability and use of tear-lines has increased nearly 70 percent since 2001.
Under Homeland Security Presidential Directive 6 of September, 2003, TTIC is also responsible for integrating and maintaining
a single repository of all U.S. government international terrorist identities information in support of a streamlined
government-wide system for “watchlisting” and terrorist screening activities. To date, TTIC has approximately 100,000
known or suspected international terrorist identities catalogued. This information is provided to the FBI-administered
Terrorist Screening Center, which ensures that front line law enforcement officers, consular officials, and immigration and
border personnel have the capability to rapidly screen individuals known or suspected to be terrorists, screening them before
they enter the United States.
I cannot tell you that all of these efforts have enjoyed smooth sailing, as there are many challenges associated with what is,
in essence, the crafting of a new national terrorism analysis and information-sharing framework to better protect this nation.
We need to implement this revolutionary concept in a thoughtful and evolutionary fashion, as my colleagues on this panel are
actively engaged in fighting a global war against terrorism, and I believe that we cannot afford to adversely affect these
activities by dislocations associated with organizational change or abrupt shifts in analytic responsibility. In particular, this
new national framework for the cross-government integration of information systems, expertise, and analytic missions should
not come at the expense of operational, collection, covert action, and investigative activities of our Intelligence, Law
Enforcement, and Homeland Security Communities.
As we continue in what is destined to be a multiyear battle against the deadly forces of international terrorism, my colleagues
and I have a special obligation to learn from the painful lessons of 9-11 and to continue the task of implementing a national
counterterrorism system and strategy that maximizes the security and safety of all Americans, wherever they live or work.
In my personal opinion, the organizational and information-sharing status quo that existed on September 11, 2001 was
inadequate to safeguard America. While significant progress has been made since then, I believe that we, as a government
and as a nation, are not yet optimally configured to deal with the terrorist threat. The 9-11 Commission, with its studied and
comprehensive review of the events and factors that resulted in the tragedies in New York, the Pentagon and the fields of
Pennsylvania, is ideally suited to take a fresh look at how all the eclectic parts of the national counterterrorism effort fit
together and whether we need to adopt new and better ways to organize ourselves. It is only by enhancing the security of
Americans everywhere that we will truly honor the lives and the sacrifice of those who died more than two-and-a-half years
ago.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
U.S. Intelligence & America's National Security
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
War & Peace in the Real World
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Terrorism & U.S. Homeland Security
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
U.S. National Security Strategy
John O. Brennan, Director of the U.S. government's Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC), presented the foregoing statement,
on April 14, 2004, as testimony at the hearings of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States (9-11
Commission).
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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