For Immediate Release
November 11, 1999

Washington D.C.
FBI National Press Office

FBI Director Louis J. Freeh today announced a major restructuring of FBI Headquarters, which will establish two new divisions and reconfigure two others. These changes respond to the changing threats from espionage and terrorism; the need to enhance analytical capacities, especially across program lines; and to make more effective use of existing resources. This restructuring also further implements the FBI's Strategic Plan.

The new Counterterrorism Division will consolidate all FBI counterrorism initiatives under a single person. Counterterrorism was formerly the responsibility of the National Security Division, which continues to handle counterintelligence matters. The new Investigative Services Division will coordinate the FBI's international activities, integrate and substantially strengthen its analytic capacities, and oversee the Bureau's crisis management functions, which in the past were part of the Criminal Investigative Division. Both new Divisions will be run by Assistant Directors, who are now being selected.

Director Freeh said that: "Protecting America from terrorism and ensuring our national security are the FBI's highest priorities. The FBI's responsibilities in both of these areas have grown significantly in the last six years. Given the complexity and difficulty of these threats, I have decided that counterterrorism and national security should be handled separately. I also believe that our operational support functions -- such as our international and analytical programs, as well as our crisis management team -- would benefit by grouping them together in an independent entity instead of operating as parts of other divisions. The Attorney General, the Office of Management and Budget, and the appropriate Committees of Congress agreed with this assessment." The reorganization was approved by Congress during the week of October 29, 1999.

"The FBI's new structure will help enable the Bureau to face the challenges of the next millennium," said Attorney General Janet Reno. "The plan reorganizes and appropriately prepares us for the types of threats facing our nation. I commend the Director and his staff for the hard work that went into creating this new plan."

In proposing the reorganization, Director Freeh noted that "the FBI must respond to changing threats and needs that involve foreign counterintelligence, espionage, terrorism, domestic preparedness, and infrastructure protection. Especially, we must improve our ability to identify emergent trends and national security concerns by extracting and analyzing existing information from field office files and other records. Our international responsibilities, which affect an increasingly wide spectrum of policy issues, require central coordination. These imperatives underlie my initiative for a new structure at FBI Headquarters. I appreciate the support of the Attorney General and Congress as we continue to implement the changes necessary for the FBI to meet emerging challenges."

The reorganization is a direct outgrowth of the FBI's Strategic Plan, which was adopted in 1998. The Plan identifies counterterrorism and national security as top FBI priorities; it focuses on the need to improve the FBI's capacity for information analysis; and it stresses the importance of active Headquarters management in core concerns, such as espionage and criminal programs. In reorganizing its Headquarters operation, the FBI is giving effect to the principles underlying the Strategic Plan.

For example, the FBI has significantly expanded the number and scope of its counterterrorism efforts in recent years. Before the reorganization, the National Security Division oversaw all of those programs, together with the National Infrastructure Protection Center, the national domestic preparedness initiative, and the Bureau's counterintelligence and counterespionage operations. Although the dramatic increase in resources for counterterrorism programs was consistent with the serious threat that terrorists pose to the safety and property of Americans at home and abroad, the buildup strained the capacity of the National Security Division to adequately support and oversee both the counterterrorism and counterintelligence/espionage programs. Additionally, increased attention to terrorism, while clearly warranted, had the effect of diluting senior management oversight given to the very real, systemic threat posed by espionage to our national security and our technological leadership. In assigning counterterrorism responsibilities to a new division, the FBI will effectively increase the resources applied to managing the FBI's counterintelligence and counterespionage programs. The FBI's national foreign counterintelligence/espionage program will receive the undivided attention of the Assistant Director for the National Security Division. This move is necessary given the growing extent and diversity of traditional and economic espionage threats.

The reorganization will assign the National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC) and the recently approved National Domestic Preparedness Office to the new Counterterrorism Division. Although incidents involving weapons of mass destruction or attacks on our critical infrastructure have not, to date, originated with terrorist organizations, our contingency planning has identified the threat from terrorism as having the potential for posing the gravest risk to our communities and our infrastructure. Preparing to prevent or control worst case scenarios in the context of counterterrorism has therefore become necessary. The reorganization will place the critical assets involved in potential terrorist events under the operational command of one Assistant Director.

The Investigative Services Division will house a new Information, Analysis and Assessments Branch, drawing on existing components that were previously part of the National Security Division and the Criminal Investigative Division. The new branch will broaden the perspective of its predecessors, extracting information from case files and other existing sources to identify future trends and means of preventing crime and threats to national security. The FBI intends to increase its reliance on information analysts and to devote additional efforts to recruiting highly qualified persons to perform this function. Recent events have demonstrated the need for enhanced analytical capabilities that extend across program lines. This new structure is designed both to maximize the use of existing information for prediction and preventive purposes and to ensure that senior FBI officials are fully cognizant of information critical to fulfilling mission requirements. This will not change any applicable policies, guidelines or laws pertaining to the collection of information, and it preserves all privacy protections presently in place.

The FBI regularly reassesses its capacity to deal with current and future crime, terrorism, espionage, and national security problems. As new challenges arise, we are compelled to reconfigure the resources at our disposal to ensure their best and most efficient use. For example, in 1961 we created a Special Investigations Division to concentrate on organized crime. That division, which remained in existence for 16 years, worked closely with the Department of Justice to dismantle the major organized crime families in America. Its establishment reflected a considered judgement by the FBI that the threat to American society from organized crime merited high-level attention. Based on our assessment of the potential harm from terrorism and foreign intelligence activities, and of our need for improved analytical and international support for our operational divisions, we have concluded that it is essential to establish these two new divisions at FBI Headquarters.