Inspector General Glenn A. Fine (photo by Ryan J. Reilly / Main Justice)

A sense of complacency about potential terrorist attacks involving weapons of mass destruction has developed in the federal government following the Sept. 11 attacks, Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine told members of Congress Wednesday.

An Inspector General’s report issued last month found that most DOJ agencies were unprepared to respond to a WMD attack and only the Federal Bureau of Investigation has taken appropriate steps to prepare for a potential attack. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) had been in charge of coordinating the department’s response, but many other parts of DOJ were not even aware that ATF was supposed to lead the effort.

“Our report identified significant deficiencies in the department’s preparations to respond to a WMD attack,” Fine told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday. “These deficiencies could have disastrous consequences because the use of a weapon of mass destruction poses a serious potential threat to the United States.”

Sen. Benjamin Cardin (D- Md.), who chaired the hearing, called the findings for the Inspector General’s report disturbing.

“We know that terrorists are training every day to launch another attack in the United States, and [the] first line of defense must be to disrupt and prevent a successful terrorist attack,” Cardin said. “But we also have to make sure we are ready and prepared [for] a terrorist attack at home, whether it is from a chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapon.”

Cardin said he was concerned that the ATF — the lead agency on DOJ’s WMD response — had made so little progress in preparing for an attack. The hearing came the same day at a new name emerged as a possible candidate to take over ATF.

“There’s a lot of things going on in the Department of Justice,” said Cardin. “But I really want to focus in on how we’re going to implement this.”

Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) — the only other senator to attend the hearing — said the depth of the department’s commitment to the issue was “highly questionable.”

Fine said he believes the Justice Department is taking the report’s findings seriously and taking steps to remedy the deficiencies.

Associate Deputy Attorney General James A. Baker. (C-SPAN)

Associate Deputy Attorney General James A. Baker, who also testified Wednesday, called Fine “dogged”and said he expects the Inspector General’s office will hold DOJ’s feet to the fire.

Baker said Acting Deputy Attorney General Gary Grindler and others in DOJ leadership were not happy to read the results of the report and had prioritized the issue.

“The Acting Deputy Attorney General has been clear: The crush of other business is no excuse. The Department must review and resolve the issues identified by the Inspector General,” Baker testified.

Grindler established the Emergency Preparedness Committee, which Baker chairs. That committee, said Baker, has been meeting all summer and will issue a final report by Oct. 10.

Attorney General Eric Holder said shortly after the report was issued that the Justice Department would deal with the issue “very quickly.”

Responsibility for the government’s WMD response is dispersed among too many agencies, said Randall J. Larsen, chief executive officer of the WMD Center, a non-profit research organization he founded with former Sens. Bob Graham (D-Fl.) and Jim Talent (R-Mo.).

He noted that more than two dozen officials had a piece of the WMD puzzle. Larsen suggested that the Vice President should be designated as the point person for coordinating the government’s response.

“There’s no head coach,” Larsen said. “Nobody is in charge.”

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has significantly reallocated its personnel over the last eight years to put more agents to work on its highest national priorities, including counterterrorism, counterintelligence, cyber crime, and civil rights, according to a report released Monday by the Justice Department’s Inspector General.

And, according to Inspector General Glenn A. Fine, the number of agents actually devoted to that work is generally in line with the manpower allocated.

However, the FBI used fewer agents than it allocated to address its relatively low priority efforts to deal with gangs and criminal enterprises, white collar crime and violent crime.

The report shows a dramatic shift of resources between fiscal 2001 and 2009. The percentage of field agents working on counterterrorism efforts doubled from 13 percent to 26 percent while the percentage focused on criminal matters dropped from 72 percent to 51 percent.

The number of active cases the FBI had open between fiscal 2005 and 2009 dropped in the areas of violent crime, counterterrorism, counterintelligence and white collar crime, while it increased the number of active cyber crime, public corruption, civil rights and criminal enterprise cases.

According to the report, domestic terrorism cases comprised only a small amount of the FBI’s overall counterterrorism workload. In addition, the number of active counterterrorism cases decreased by 25 percent between fiscal 2005 and May 2009, according to the FBI report.

But overall the FBI improved its ability to monitor and evaluate its allocations and utilization of resources over the past five years, according to the OIG report. Overall, the report found that the FBI has made process in developing procedures to make personnel allocations that match the bureau’s priorities.

The IG’s office did, however have a number of recommendations for further improvement such as putting additional mechanisms in place to make sure that separate divisions are consistent in measuring their allocation of resources.

In a statement, the FBI said that it concurred with 10 management recommendations of the Inspector General and has already implemented several of the recommendations.

The report is embedded below.

FBI

Republicans and Democrats who sit on the House Judiciary Committee reached a rare moment of agreement on Wednesday — members of both parties expressed outrage about violations of the law by the FBI described in a Justice Department report earlier this year.

FBI General Counsel Valerie Caproni and Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine (photo by Ryan J. Reilly).

A Justice Department Inspector General report first released in January concluded that the FBI went around the requirements of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act and internal guidelines to obtain phone records for several years under the guise of emergencies, via the use of so-called “exigent letters.”

The FBI obtained so-called “toll-booth” phone records through requests by e-mail, post-it notes, by telephone and by what the FBI referred to as “sneak peeksâ€� — all informal approaches that the inspector general found were improper.

According to the report (PDF), telephone companies stationed employees in FBI offices who felt they were part of the FBI team and were too comfortable with one another. Phone company employees stationed within the Communications Analysis Unit attended office happy hours, were given FBI e-mail accounts — and one phone company employee created a shared folder named “Team USA.”

FBI General Counsel Valerie Caproni said Wednesday at a hearing before the Judiciary panel’s subcommittee on the Constitution, civil rights and civil liberties that the report served as “a wake up call.”

Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) was one of the primary authors of the original Patriot Act in 2001. (photo by Ryan J. Reilly / Main Justice)

Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) said he was frustrated by the FBI’s actions, which he said showed the agency wanted to get around the restrictions that Congress put in place under the Patriot Act. Sensenbrenner said it was especially frustrating because as the author of the Patriot Act, he worked closely with the FBI to ensure the agency had all the tools it needed and has taken a lot of criticism from Democrats over the law.

“I came to this whole issue as your friends and I feel betrayed,” said Sensenbrenner. ”I don’t think you’re getting the message.”

Exigent letters were never approved by Congress, said both Republicans and Democrats, calling “exigent letters” a term that the FBI invented.

Sensenbrenner said he was concerned about this type of evasion and insisted on requiring, by law, annual Inspector General reports because he ”was afraid of having the fox guard the chicken coop down the street was going to end up with activities that were going to end up embarrassing the government.”

“Every time we tried to patch up a hole in what the FBI was doing you figured out how to put another hole in the dike, and this little Dutch boy has only got 10 fingers to put in the dike,” said Sensenbrenner.

Caproni noted that the FBI’s informal access to telephone records ended three and a half years ago. She said the FBI has implemented procedures to make sure that it doesn’t happen again.

“I’ve gotten the message and I’ve gotten the message for several years,” said Caproni. ”This was a massive failure beyond our control.”

“I am outraged that somebody in the FBI would invent the term [exigent] letters,” said Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.). “It’s not in the Patriot Act.” He called for further investigation, and said there may be grounds for the removal of Caproni.

Inspector General Glenn A. Fine said he believed that the FBI was taking his recommendations seriously. He said that he had no indication that FBI Director Robert Mueller knew about the violations until the Inspector General investigation surfaced.

Caproni said that her office was aware of the problem but said nothing was done because the attorney in charge of oversight for that section wasn’t aware of scope of the problem.

“This is actually a much more complicated issue than I think some would like to recognize,” said Caproni.

Placing phone company employees within FBI offices, said Caproni, “had huge benefits in terms of the speed, had an extreme downside in that it broke own our controls.”

UPDATED:

“It has become painfully clear that unchecked Patriot Act power will inevitably lead to abuse, and National Security Letters are a poignant example,” Laura W. Murphy, director of the American Civil Liberties Washington Legislative Office, said in a statement. To ensure that our privacy and free speech rights are protected, there must be clear oversight and strict guidelines tied to their use. Innocent Americans have been swept into investigations and recipients have been barred from speaking about it publicly.”

“Not only that, report after report from the FBI’s own Inspector General illustrates the blatant and systemic abuse of national security letters,” she continued. “Congress has less than a year before it must address the Patriot Act again. NSL reform must be made a priority this year instead of being kicked further down the road.”

The J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building (photo by Ryan J. Reilly).

A man who threatened to blow up the J. Edger Hoover FBI building in Washington D.C. as well as CIA and the Justice Department building, was found guilty of sending a threatening communication in interstate commerce on Thursday.

Jeff Henry Williamson, 45, of Jackson, Miss., left voicemail messages at a U.S. Attorney’s Office claiming he was being harassed by the government and would shoot up the office with a submachine gun if it continued. He also sent e-mail messages to the Department of Justice Inspector General Glenn A. Fine and the House Select Intelligence Committee about his plan to blow up FBI, CIA and DOJ buildings in the Washington, D.C. area.

FBI agents arrested Williamson on July 30, 2008, as he stood outside of FBI Headquarters  in D.C. He claimed he was waiting for FBI Director Robert Mueller.

A jury found Williamson guilty after he represented himself during the trial. He will be sentenced on June 2, 2010, and faces up to five years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine.

On one of Williamson’s Web sites, he claims that “If the American people found out the truth-the dangerous game going on in WASHINGTON DC-they would tear it down brick by brick.”

“Several times a week the pyschopath intelligence agents seek to attempt to frame me such as a drug user by placing drug paraphernalia in my hotel rooms; attempting to portray me as a drug dealer sending morons to ask for a cigarette or change while video taping; staging computer crimes at the library; sending underage teenage girls and a wide rage of dirty government tricks,” writes Williamson.

DOJ news release below:

Houston Jury Convicts Mississippi Man of Sending Threat to Blow Up FBI, DOJ, and CIA

HOUSTON—A federal jury has found Jeff Henry Williamson, 45, of Jackson, Miss., guilty of sending a threatening communication in interstate commerce, United States Attorney José Angel Moreno announced today. The jury returned its verdict finding Williamson guilty of the sole count of an indictment this afternoon. United States District Judge David Hittner presided over the four-day trial.

During the trial, the jury heard testimony that a series of messages had been left by Williamson on the U.S. Attorney’s Office voicemail system claiming he was being harassed by the government. He said he would shoot up the U.S. Attorney’s Office with a submachine gun if the harassment continued. The FBI traced one of the phone calls to the Houston Public Library downtown and on June 11, 2008, FBI agents encountered Williamson in the library. After admitted to making the phone calls, Williamson was admonished by FBI agents not to threaten to harm individuals in the government.

A few weeks later, on June 27, 2008, Williamson sent an e-mail from the Houston Public Library public access computers to the United States Attorney’s Office in downtown Houston stating in part, “Please advise FBI Director Mueller I will take justice into my hands and blow the front of the J Edger Hoover building off to get everyone’s attention—then the CIA HQ and DOJ.� The e-mail was also sent to the Department of Justice Inspector General and the House Select Intelligence Committee. The e-mail also directed the recipients to Williamson’s political websites that expressed views about the government harassing him.

FBI agents executed a federal arrest warrant on July 30, 2008, and arrested Williamson as he stood outside of FBI Headquarters Building in Washington, D.C. The arrest warrant had issued after the filing of a criminal complaint in the Southern District of Texas charging him with sending threatening communications relating to the June 27th threat. Williamson told agents that he was waiting for FBI Director Mueller. After he was arrested, agents found a piece of paper in his bag with the e-mail address for the House Select Intelligence Committee scribbled on it. The jury heard testimony that the e-mail came from Williamson’s Yahoo.com e-mail account and that similar content was found on Williamson’s political websites. Williamson’s Yahoo.com e-mail account also contained similar political messages about government harassment.

A few months earlier, in February 2008, Williamson had sent a similar message while in Reno, Nev., to the FBI in Washington D.C. The message was sent from the Washoe County Law Library using the FBI’s tip page from one of the library’s public access computers. In that message, Williamson threatened to kill FBI agents. FBI agents traced the tip back to the law library using the library’s IP address. When they arrived at the library they interviewed Williamson, who claimed he was on a “smoke break� during the time in which the tip was sent.

Williamson, who represented himself during trial, unsuccessfully attempted to convince the jury he was being framed by the FBI. The jury returned its guilty verdict after a short period of deliberation.

Williamson faces a sentence of up to five years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine his conviction. Judge Hittner has set sentencing for June 2, 2010. Williamson is in custody.

The investigation leading to the charges was conducted by the FBI. Assistant United States Attorneys Jay Hileman and Ryan D. McConnell tried the case.
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Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine told members of Congress Wednesday that the FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms were not coordinating efforts with the agencies’ explosives investigators racing to the scene of an incident in the hopes of calling dibs on a case. As some agents acknowledged to Fine, they believed “possession is nine-tenths of the law.”

Inspector General Glenn Fine, Margaret Gulotta of the FBI and Jennifer Shasky Calvery of the DAG's Office at a hearing on Wednesday (photo by Ryan J. Reilly).

The Inspector General audit report issued in October found that the FBI and the ATF management of their coordinated efforts was ineffective.

Testifying before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security, Fine reported that conflicts over which agency should lead investigations continue to occur even though the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms was transferred from the Treasury Department in 2003.

According to the report, 33 percent of ATF specialists and 40 percent of FBI bomb technicians who responded to the Inspector General’s survey reported having disputes with their counterparts at explosives incidents in fiscal years 2007 and 2008.

Jennifer Shasky Calvery, senior counsel to the Deputy Attorney General, told the committee that the Justice Department had already implemented several of Fine’s recommendations and had formed working groups to resolve the issues raised in the report.

Fine and other DOJ officials also testified on a separate Inspector General report, also issued in October, on the FBI’s foreign language translation program.

Jennifer Shasky Calvery, senior counsel to the Deputy Attorney General, testifies before the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security on Wednesday (photo by Ryan J. Reilly).

That report found that the FBI lacks a consolidated, accurate collection and statistical reporting evaluation system for the foreign language material it collects. It also found that the FBI continues to have significant amounts of unreviewed audio and electronic files it collected for its counterterrorism, counterintelligence and criminal investigations between fiscal year 2006 and 2008.

Margaret Gulotta , section chief of the Language Services Section of the FBI, said that the FBI continues to struggle to find qualified staff for the section.

The audit found that the number of linguists performing translations for the FBI has decreased from 1,388 in March 2005 to 1,298 in Sept. 2008, and that the FBI had not reached its hiring goals.

The audit found that it took the FBI approximately 19 months to hire a contract linguist, an increase from the 16 month period it took in 2005. Fine said that one of the reasons that it was so difficult for the FBI to add staff was because it is currently taking 14 months to complete a background investigation.

“You don’t think terrorists would be willing to wait fourteen months if they know we’ve got this problem?” said Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), ranking member of the subcommittee. “They don’t wait fourteen months, they take advantage of our weaknesses.”

Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.)  said the panel would discuss the Inspector General report regarding the FBI’s use of informal requests for phone records at an upcoming hearing.