Federal Bureau of Investigation - Congressional Statements

Good morning Mr. Chairman, Senator Hollings, and members of the Subcommittee. Before I provide a few opening remarks, I want to take a moment to thank you for your leadership and strong support of the FBI. The funding you have provided has been critical to our mission and our efforts to transform the FBI. Our mission has changed dramatically and our budget reflects this change.

Today, as you have requested, I will focus on the FBI's training, our management, and our information technology.

Training

Relevant, timely and effective training is essential for each FBI employee. Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the new Agents curriculum has been completely revised. Counter-terrorism and counterintelligence training is now woven into every facet of our New Agents Training. In fact, an additional week of training has been added in order to accommodate the expanded curriculum.

Our Counterterrorism modules now include financial investigative techniques, source development strategies, terrorist groups, and domestic terrorism. We have also developed a number of practical problems that have greatly enhanced our counterterrorism training. For example, we have developed white-collar practical problems focusing on terrorist fundraising that enables New Agent trainees to experience one of the means of identifying and dismantling terrorist networks before they strike. Of course, we also include practical problems where the trainees must respond to a terrorist event such as the release of cyanide or anthrax. In the past, our practical exercises focused exclusively on criminal applications, such as bank robberies and kidnappings. While these remain an important part of our program, we have refocused our training efforts to address our number one priority of protecting the United States against terrorist attack.

We have also expanded legal instruction to include application of the U.S. Patriot Act, Attorney General Guidelines, FISA law, and the impact of the 4th and 5th Amendments in the context of overseas investigations. We now provide cultural diversity training including a block of instruction on Middle Eastern culture and values.

Working with our partners in the Intelligence Community, we developed a curriculum to provide relevant training for our analysts. In fiscal year 2003, the FBI's College of Analytical Studies provided training to approximately 880 analysts during 90 analytical training sessions -- a substantial increase from the 193 analysts and 10 courses provided in fiscal year 2002.

And, in the past year, working with the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, we indoctrinated our executive staff on the FBI's intelligence mission. To date, over 250 FBI executives and senior managers have received management training at the Kellogg School.

FBI Management

I am aware that this Subcommittee has concerns about the FBI's ability to adapt to change. It has been my experience, Mr. Chairman, that the FBI has always risen to the challenge and adjusted to meet the intelligence and law enforcement needs of the American people. From organized crime to civil rights, from the Savings & Loan crisis to espionage, from the war on drugs to the war on terror -- the men and women of the FBI have demonstrated the strength, flexibility and enthusiasm to get the job done.

The September 11th terrorist attacks further defined the need for the FBI to remain flexible, agile, and mobile in the face of the threats to the homeland. As a result, we refocused our mission and shifted priorities; we realigned our workforce to address our new priorities; we restructured management responsibilities at FBI Headquarters; and, we developed projects to reengineer our internal business practices and processes. Mr. Chairman, the FBI's commitment to hard work, integrity and dedication to protecting the United States is precisely the attribute a workforce needs to embrace and implement the transformation demanded of it. This is especially true in today's FBI where crimes as diverse as terrorism, corporate fraud, identity theft, human trafficking, illegal weapons trade and money laundering reach across global boundaries.

Information Technology

As this Subcommittee is well aware, providing appropriate training and workforce flexibility are only part of the solution. Today more than ever, the FBI's successes rely upon having integrated information technology systems. This past year we improved our data warehousing technology to dramatically reduce stove-piping and cut down on man-hours that used to be devoted to manual searches. As an example, during the Super Bowl earlier this year, data warehousing tools were used to conduct over 65,000 queries in three days --- equal to 1,160 plus man hours. In the past an analyst would have worked three months to accomplish this task.