USA TODAY International Edition
Fighting terror: How 9/ 11 changed FBI
Sting operations help it deal with growing caseload
“You’ve got to get the people who understand the information and act on it.” Tom Kean, chairman of the 9/ 11 Commission
Five times during a short car ride with the two men he thought were his confederates, James Medina left little doubt about his resolve to bomb a South Florida synagogue as a bloody expression of his support for the Islamic State.
“You know,” the 40- year- old Hollywood, Fla., man allegedly said earlier this year. “It’s my call of duty. ... And whatever happens, it’s for the glory of Allah!”
The subsequent criminal complaint outlined a now- familiar plot line in which government informant and undercover agent infiltrate an alleged criminal network and win the confidence of a suspected terrorist whose journey now ends more often than not in shackles.
Sting operations always have been a staple of FBI criminal investigations.
But their broad and controversial application in terror inquiries is the manifestation of a daunting directive issued in the aftermath of the 9/ 11 attacks and a reflection of the evolving threat.
Pondering the very existence of the FBI in the post- 2001 world, the 9/ 11 Commission, created by Congress after the catastrophic attack, urged the bureau to find its way into the unfamiliar culture of a new enemy embracing radical Islam that continues to represent an unparalleled threat.
“The FBI needs to be able to direct its thousands of agents and other employees to collect intelligence in America’s cities and towns — interviewing informants, conducting surveillance and searches, tracking individuals,’’ the panel recommended in its 2004 report. “The FBI’s job in the streets of the United States would thus be a domestic equivalent, operating under the U. S. Constitution and quite different laws and rules, to the job of the CIA’s operations officers abroad.’’
More than 12 years after the commission’s highly critical re-
port was issued, panel chairman Tom Kean said the aggressive use of informants in a steady stream of terror cases since represents the bureau’s transformation to the intelligence- driven agency envisioned by the commission.
“The bureau was always good at collecting information,” Kean said. “Our push was that you’ve got to get the people who understand the information and act on it.”
The challenge posed by an evolving adversary, current and former federal officials said, required a dramatic shift in resources and thinking that more than a decade later still is rippling throughout the bureau’s 56 field divisions and offices abroad.
Indeed, FBI Director James Comey has frequently referred in recent months to the volume of potential terror cases — there are about 1,000 open investigations into potential terror operatives and violent extremists — that now occupy every field office in the country. During the next five years at least, Comey said Thursday during a panel discussion, even more extensive use of “sources and undercovers” will be required to meet investigative challenges posed by digital encryption and the “hundreds of hardened fighters” who likely will stream from the “crush of the ( ISIL) caliphate” in Syria.
For defense lawyers and civil rights advocates who have been monitoring the FBI’s counterterrorism activities, the aggressive tactics have raised concerns about the possible entrapment of suspects whose willingness or ability to carry out alleged plots may not have been possible without the FBI’s involvement.
In Medina’s case, a federal judge has ordered a mental evaluation of the suspect after an neuropsychologist’s review arranged by Medina’s defense team found that he was “not competent.”
While not commenting on the pending case, Michael Steinbach, chief of the FBI’s National Security Branch, said authorities “absolutely” take into account suspects’ mental health. Yet, he said, the twisted ideology promulgated by the Islamic State and other groups has proved “very receptive” to the disaffected, while some emotionally disturbed — the Newtown, Conn., school shooter and the gunman in the Virginia Tech massacre — have lashed out with no formal terror connection.
“We have seen that you can be mentally disturbed and carry out deadly attacks,” Steinbach said.