Thank you very
much. Good afternoon, and thank you very much, Kathleen, for that
wonderful welcome. I must say it's great to be back here in the
Bay area and wonderful to be back on such a lovely campus as Stanford.
I am tremendously
honored to be with you this evening. Many of our nation's most prominent
leaders and jurists have strolled the grounds of this magnificent
law school and this magnificent campus. Chief Justice William Rehnquist
and Sandra Day O'Connor, both members of the Stanford Law School
Class of 1952, for instance, are joining you this weekend.
I also should
start off by saying that all of you know that the President Emeritus
of Stanford University is a gentleman named Donald Kennedy. What
you may not know is that there was another Donald Kennedy who attended
Stanford undergraduate, as well as Stanford Law School. He was the
first FBI Special Agent to graduate from Stanford and its law school.
Special Agent Kennedy earned his bachelor's degree in 1932 here
at Stanford and his law degree in 1936. In 1937, showing eminent
good judgment, he joined the Bureau. He came to the FBI at a time
when the annual salary for a Special Agent was $3,200 a year --
about what a newly minted Stanford lawyer now makes in a week. I
see some law students here, and while I'm not necessarily here on
a recruiting mission, I do want to tell you that even though I can't
promise you great wealth should you join the Bureau, we have increased
the salary of the new Agents rather significantly since the time
Donald Kennedy walked these halls.
Dean Sullivan,
I want to thank you for the honor of receiving the Jackson Ralston
Prize. As you pointed out, Mr. Ralston was a noted, distinguished
international lawyer, and not only am I honored by being a recipient
of this award, I am also tremendously honored to be in the company
of previous winners such as Warren Christopher and Jimmy Carter.
It makes you wonder whether you really deserve to be included among
such individuals. I feel a little bit like the late Jack Benny.
When he was being honored some years ago, he said, "I'm not
sure if I deserve this award, but on the other hand, I have arthritis,
and I don't really deserve that either."
Since I'm
on the campus of such a distinguished law school and such a distinguished
college, I want to spend a few moments this evening talking about
a topic that is certainly on my mind, but a topic that is very much
on the minds of all of us here in this auditorium tonight and very
much on the minds of the American people. That topic is terrorism.
As you may
know, I took over as Director a week before the September 11th attacks.
Global terrorism, and the FBI's response to what happened on that
day, is something that I and almost everyone in the Bureau thinks
about for the better part of every day.
I would like
to use this forum to continue what I believe is a critical discourse
in our country. As part of this discourse, I would like to reflect
with you this evening on three issues. They are: first, the difficult
challenges we face in addressing terrorism; secondly, being somewhat
parochial, the FBI's response to what occurred on September 11th;
and, thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, the very delicate balance
we must strike as a society to protect both our homeland, on the
one hand, and our civil liberties on the other.
Let me speak
for a moment about the challenges we face in addressing terrorism.
The tragedy
of September 11th unfolded before our eyes on television, and yet
it is I think sometimes difficult for us to fully comprehend the
magnitude of the destruction and the terror of that awful day. Certainly,
if you were in Washington, D.C., or in New York City, you had a
more deeply felt comprehension of what occurred on September 11th.
But I think we all must recognize that terrorism, and the war against
it, did not start on September 11th and nor will it end any time
soon. And the issues we discuss today, when we contemplate this
war, are issues that many of you out here in the audience will grapple
with as lawyers, educators, and leaders.
Our recent
history in this country reflects growing threats from a variety
of groups and individuals. Certainly, religious extremists associated
with al Qaeda have attacked American targets for almost a decade,
including the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. But al Qaeda
has not been the only threat. Prior to September 11th, Hizballah
had killed more Americans than any other terrorist group. Other
terrorist organizations have launched strikes like the one we saw
on Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996. And when we discuss terrorism,
we cannot forget domestic terrorism and domestic terrorist groups
who operate in our own country. These groups, espousing racial supremacy
principles and anti-government rhetoric, are a serious menace, as
we came to understand by the April 1995 bombing in Oklahoma City.
And when we
talk about those attacks that were successful, we should not overlook
the fact that many attacks have also been prevented. These have
largely been forgotten. Successful strikes generally get more attention
than preventions. But how many thousands of Americans would have
died if anti-government extremists had blown up two large propane
fuel tanks in Sacramento three years ago, as had been planned? How
many would have died if international terrorists had not been stopped
from blowing up a series of New York landmarks in 1993? How many
would have died if Ahmed Ressam had succeeded in bombing Los Angeles
International Airport on New Year's Eve in 1999?
These attacks,
both those that have been prevented and those that have not, are
testimony to the difficult challenges that face our country.
Now let me
spend a moment talking to you a little bit about the events of September
11th and what we came to find out about the individuals responsible
for those events.
In the weeks
and months immediately after September 11th, after we had addressed
the initial concern about whether or not there was another wave
of terrorists out there anxious and ready to take over planes, after
we had satisfied ourselves that we had put into place reasonable
security to protect the airlines, our investigation looked to identifying
those 19 individuals who were responsible for hijacking these planes
and running them into the World Trade Center buildings in New York,
the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and that field in Pennsylvania.
What we found
was that the hijackers operated, paradoxically, hidden in plain
view. Those that took over the four planes that day were 19 in number.
There were 15 from Saudi Arabia, two from the United Arab Emirates,
and one each from Egypt and Lebanon. Their plans were conceived,
developed, and approved by al Qaeda leadership out of Hamburg, Germany;
in meetings in Malaysia; and certainly with the approval of the
al Qaeda leadership at meetings in Afghanistan.
In the months
that preceded September 11th, each of these 19 hijackers entered
the country with lawful visas. They used our schools -- particularly
the flight schools -- motels, restaurants, and transportation systems
as they hatched the plans to launch their assault.
None of them
had computers. They all used Kinkos or public-access opportunities
to get on the Internet to communicate, and when their communications
were not on the Internet, they were personal. They used a total
of 133 prepaid calling cards to make telephone calls from kiosks
and other buildings. They shopped at Wal-Mart. They ate at Pizza
Hut.
In many ways,
they turned the liberties we most cherish in this nation against
us. And the hijackers of September 11th, and the other terrorists
we are currently confronting, present a new challenge to us. Unlike
the enemies of the past, these terrorists do not wear uniforms and
do not operate within defined borders. What is perhaps most chilling
is that they will stop at nothing to further their goals, whether
that means sacrificing innocent lives or even their own.
To meet this
new challenge, we in the FBI have had to dramatically reorient our
mission and our resources.
Shortly after
the planes hit on September 11th, more than half of our 11,500 Agents
suddenly found themselves investigating terrorism matters. Today,
we have twice the number of Agents permanently assigned to the war
on terrorism as we did prior to September 11th.
Of course,
we will continue to investigate criminal cases and are proud of
our work in such areas as violent crime, organized crime, financial
fraud, civil rights, and public corruption. But in the wake of September
11th, our first and abiding priority, plain and simple, is counterterrorism.
That priority is to stop another attack like we saw on September
11th. To do that, we have to enter into an age of preventive investigation.
At the heart of our attack on counterterrorism is this massive redeployment
of Agents from other programs.
Let me talk
for a moment about another aspect of the battle on terrorism, and
it's being waged on the intelligence side of the house. We are often
called a law enforcement agency, but we are called upon, in addressing
terrorism, to be an intelligence agency as well and to develop ties
with other intelligence agencies in this country and our counterparts,
both here and overseas.
Every morning
since September 11th, I, along with George Tenet, brief the President
on what has happened in the last 24 hours in this country with regard
to the war on terrorism. The President does not ask and has not
asked, how many indictments have you returned or how many people
have been arrested? He asks both George and I, what has been done
in the last 24 hours to protect this country against terrorism?
And so for
us as an institution, and for the CIA, it comes from the top. Our
mission is to prevent another terrorist attack. And critical to
our response is our ability to share essential information throughout
the FBI and throughout the rest of the government, including the
CIA, the DIA, other federal agencies, as well as state and local
law enforcement agencies.
I will say
that the thought of regularly sharing Bureau information is something
that J. Edgar Hoover would likely have resisted, and he may well
be turning around in his grave to understand the extent to which,
since September 11th, there has been the interchange of information
between ourselves and the CIA.
Today, we
have an Office of Intelligence within the FBI to ensure that our
information is shared not only throughout the Bureau, but throughout
the rest of the government. We have a number of employees assigned
to the CIA Counterterrorism Center, and the CIA has eight managers
and dozens of analysts assigned to FBI's Counterterrorism Division.
Each of those individuals has unfettered access to the computer
databases and communication systems of the other agency. Speaking
for what we do at the FBI, I have a CIA official who joins me at
the two briefing sessions I get each day on what has happened in
the last 24 hours, not only in the United States, but also around
the country in the war on terror.
As I mentioned,
we are also sharing information with local law enforcement officers.
We are doing this generally through one of 56 joint terrorism task
forces throughout the country, where we have FBI Agents sitting
down with DEA Agents, sitting down with local police officers and
state troopers. We sit shoulder-to-shoulder in the communities of
each of those 56 field offices and talk about the latest reports,
how we address them, and what information is coming from overseas
so that whenever we have a threat, we are addressing that threat
together.
The timely
sharing of that intelligence is absolutely critical to our counterterrorism
mission, and one of the things we have done in order to expand on
this joint terrorism task force concept is to produce a weekly FBI
Intelligence Bulletin. We have, in the United States, over 17,000
law enforcement agencies and 60 separate federal agencies. This
bulletin we put out provides information about terrorist issues
and threats of terrorism that come from overseas or within the United
States. These contacts, as you can well imagine, often lead to intelligence
about terrorist threats and, indeed, it was the initial information
from local police officers that led to the indictments and arrests
in Buffalo, New York, and Portland, Oregon, that we heard about
over the last several weeks.
Finally, as
part of our response to this new mission, we have embarked on a
comprehensive overhaul and revitalization of our information technology
infrastructure. Our technological problems are deep-seated and somewhat
complex. On the one hand, we are on the cutting edge of technology
when it comes to addressing attacks on computers -- whether it be
worms or viruses, denial of service attacks, or hacking attacks.
But we are not on the cutting edge of giving each of our Agents
the computer support, the access to databases that we need to do
a better job in pulling together the intelligence, analyzing the
intelligence, and then disseminating the intelligence that we bring
in across the country and across the world. We are currently undertaking
a massive overhaul and restructuring of our information technology
so that it will facilitate that intelligence analysis, which is
the key to identifying, predicting, and preventing terrorist attacks.
Now, I want
to talk for a moment about the balance we must strike to protect
our national security and our civil liberties as we address the
threat of terrorism.
Jackson Ralston,
later in his life, as Kathleen pointed out, served as the Chairman
of the ACLU in Northern California, and I would venture to say he
might have been surprised that an award bearing his name is being
given to the Director of the FBI, particularly at a time in our
nation's history when the tension between our civil liberties, on
the one hand, and our national security, on the other, has been
thrust to the forefront. I do believe, though, that Mr. Ralston
would be rather pleased by the fact that we are here today talking
about these issues, both this evening and earlier today in various
seminars, and also I think he would believe that there is that capability
of supporting civil liberties and assuring the national security
of the United States. I do believe that they are not mutually exclusive.
I will say
at the outset, as we all know, our nation does not have an unblemished
record of protecting constitutional freedoms during times of crisis.
In 1919, in the midst of a "Red Scare," and following
the detonation of bombs in eight American cities, President Wilson's
Attorney General, Alexander Palmer, arrested thousands of "leftists"
and "radicals," during what was called the "Palmer
Raids."
During World
War II, thousands of Japanese Americans, based solely on their ancestry,
were confined in relocation camps. In 1944, the Supreme Court in
the Korematsu case, as we all know, ruled that all members of a
single ethnic group could be confined, even without individualized
evidence, because some members of that group might be disloyal and
pose a threat to the nation.
And for the
FBI, as recently as the 1960s and the '70s, we were found to have
run a counterintelligence program, infamously known as COINTELPRO,
that targeted persons involved in civil disobedience with investigative
measures that crossed the line.
We live in
perilous times, but as these examples illustrate, we are not the
first generation of Americans to face threats to our security. And
like those before us, we will be judged by future generations on
how we react to this crisis. And by that I mean not just whether
we win the war on terrorism, because I believe we will, but also
whether, as we fight that war, we safeguard for our citizens those
liberties for which we are fighting.
We are a nation
of laws, and every Special Agent of the FBI is sworn to uphold and
protect those laws. The men and women who serve in the FBI do just
that every working day of their lives. But we are also aggressive,
and we do not -- and I do not -- shy from using every arrow that
Congress has put in our quiver.
In the wake
of the September 11th attacks, Congress granted us new and enhanced
authority to investigate terrorism. The USA Patriot Act, passed
in October of 2001, tore down many of the walls that formerly inhibited
information sharing between law enforcement and the intelligence
community, and I welcomed those changes. And we use the Patriot
Act to our fullest advantage, but not at the expense of the constitutional
rights of our citizens.
Still, questions
abound. At the heart of these questions is this: How do you prevent,
how do you deter, or how do you disrupt terrorist attacks before
they have been initiated? How aggressively should the FBI investigate
suspicious activity that might be related to terrorism? When is
surveillance or a wire tap necessary or warranted? These are not
always easy questions to answer, particularly when the prevailing
terrorist threat originates from, and therefore our primary investigative
focus is directed at, a group of terrorists who generally share
a common ethnic and religious background.
In that regard,
let me start with the premise that I believe firmly, and that is
the overwhelming majority of Muslims, whether in this country or
overseas, are peaceful, law-abiding citizens. However, a small number
of Muslims are members of radical fundamentalist sects sworn to
the destruction of the United States, and this presents a dilemma
for those charged with protecting against the next attack, raising
very difficult investigative issues for which there often is no
clear answer.
An example,
when, if ever, would it be appropriate to put leaders of Muslim
mosques under surveillance? Are calls to kill Americans in strident
sermons a lawful exercise of free speech or something more, warranting
not only investigation, but also court-approved electronic surveillance?
The answer
to these and many similar questions, I believe, in part, is to assure
that for us there is an adequate predication for each step of an
investigation. We do not target individuals or groups by reason
of their country of origin or nationality. Rather, we take investigative
steps when there is a factual basis justifying that step.
Can we be
too aggressive? Or in the post-September 11th world, is there such
a thing as too aggressive? I would say, yes, I believe there is.
But by assuring that there is adequate predication for each step
of an investigation, we protect against over aggressiveness and
avoid the excesses of the past.
These are
issues that we wrestle with every day in the FBI, whether it be
Agents in the field or personnel back at headquarters. I should
point out we are not the policy makers, and some of the questions
and debates, and probably questions perhaps that I will get this
evening, are beyond our purview. What we in the FBI must concentrate
upon is obtaining the facts and then presenting them in an objective,
unbiased manner to other decision makers, whether they be the prosecutors
at the Justice Department or the policy makers in the National Security
Council, or even the President.
I must say,
in the same breath, however, that in seeking those facts, the FBI
must use the tools that Congress gives us, all of the tools consonant
with our obligation to protect the citizens of the United States
and the Constitution. For either, without the other, is of little
value. We must not shy away from investigating aggressively any
real threat. And because there are no perfect answers to any of
these difficult questions posed in the course of these counterterrorism
investigations, we have but one option, and that is to investigate
vigorously any threat to the citizens and interests of this nation,
whether at home or abroad, while carefully observing the constitutional
rights of all.
For the FBI
and for the United States, the war on terrorism is a complex and
perplexing issue. It is as complex and perplexing as any threat
this country has ever faced. Whether the threat comes in the form
of anthrax-laced letters or the deadly sniper attacks in the neighborhoods
around the nation's capital or in the form of a devastating bomb
blast in faraway Bali, it is imperative that we use the full weight
of the law, every arrow in our quiver, to bring these terrorists
to justice.
I know we
will be judged by history, not just on how we disrupt and deter
terrorism, but also on how we protect the civil liberties and the
constitutional rights of all Americans, including those Americans
who wish us ill. We must do both of these things, and we must do
them exceptionally well.
I must say
I am humbled by the honor that you have bestowed upon me this evening.
I hope I can live up to that honor, and I thank you for being a
continuing part of this exceptionally important and ongoing debate.
Thank you,
and God bless you.
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