Martin, Kate. "Domestic Intelligence and Civil Liberties." SAIS Review 24, no. 1 (Winter-Spring 2004): 7-21. Martin, Kate. "Domestic Intelligence and Civil Liberties." SAIS Review 24, no. 1 (Winter-Spring 2004): 7-21.
The author argues that for domestic intelligence purposes, a "law enforcement" paradigm, as opposed to an "intelligence" (data-mining) paradigm "is both more effective and much less threatening to individual privacy and liberty."
Masse, Todd. Domestic Intelligence in the United Kingdom: Applicability of the MI-5 Model to the United States. Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, 19 May 2003.
Clark comment: This CRS report is recommended for anyone wanting to discuss the issue of how to organize U.S. domestic security. It does not answer the question (which is not CRS' job), but it offers well-thought out perspective.
"While there may be lessons to be learned from the British experience with domestic intelligence, there are also important differences between U.S. and British governmental, legal, cultural and political norms.... This paper summarizes pending legislation relating to domestic intelligence, briefly explains the jurisdiction and functions of MI-5, and describes some of the factors that may be relevant to a discussion regarding the applicability of the MI-5 domestic intelligence model to the United States."
Moss, Michael, and Ford Fessenden. "New Tools for Domestic Spying, and Qualms." New York Times, 10 Dec. 2002. [http://www.nytimes.com]
O'Harrow, Robert, Jr. "Centers Tap Into Personal Databases: State Groups Were Formed After 9/11." Washington Post, 2 Apr. 2008, A1. [http://www.washingtonpost.com]
According to a document obtained by the Washington Post, state-run intelligence centers, known as fusion centers, "have access to personal information about millions of Americans, including unlisted cellphone numbers, insurance claims, driver's license photographs and credit reports.... Government watchdogs, along with some police and intelligence officials, said they worry that the fusion centers do not have enough oversight and are not open enough with the public, in part because they operate under various state rules."
O'Harrow, Robert, Jr. No Place to Hide: Behind the Scenes of Our Emerging Surveillance Society. New York: Free Press, 2005.
According to Stone, Washington Post, 20 Feb, 2005, the author "unveils a modern world riddled with seemingly innocuous private businesses, government agencies and software programs ... [that] are relentlessly compiling information" about all aspects of our lives. In a "chilling narrative, O'Harrow identifies the risks [posed by our more convenient, more secure society] and vividly illustrates them with powerful real-life stories."
Posner, Richard A. Countering Terrorism: Blurred Focus, Halting Steps. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007.
Peake, Studies 52.1 (Mar. 2008) and Intelligencer 16.1 (Spring 2008), finds that the author "is convinced that creating a new MI5-like organization with only a security and counterintelligence mission is necessary to achieve effective domestic counterterrorism efforts. However, Posner does not consider "the level of personal and organizational disruption that creating another new intelligence organization would entail and the time required for it to become proficient." This work merits "very serious consideration."
Posner, Richard A. "Our Domestic Intelligence Crisis." Washington Post, 21 Dec. 2005, A31. [http://www.washingtonpost.com]
In this OpEd piece Judge Posner, U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, comments that the domestic surveillance activities of Defense Department components, such as , the National Security Agency and the Counterintelligence Field Activity "are criticized as grave threats to civil liberties. They are not. Their significance is in flagging the existence of gaps in our defenses against terrorism. The Defense Department is rushing to fill those gaps, though there may be better ways....
"The Pentagon's rush to fill gaps in domestic intelligence reflects the disarray in this vital yet neglected area of national security. The principal domestic intelligence agency is the FBI, but it is primarily a criminal investigation agency that has been struggling, so far with limited success, to transform itself.... [The United States has] no official with sole and comprehensive responsibility for domestic intelligence. It is no surprise that gaps in domestic intelligence are being filled by ad hoc initiatives."
Posner, Richard A.
1. Remaking Domestic Intelligence. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 2005.
From publisher: The author "reveals all the dangerous weaknesses undermining our domestic intelligence in the United States and offers a new solution: a domestic intelligence agency modeled on the ... Canadian Security Intelligence Service.... He also shows how a new U.S. domestic intelligence agency might offer additional advantages over our current structure even in terms of civil liberties."
2. Remaking Domestic Intelligence. Hoover Institution Weekly Essays. 16 Jun. 2005. Downloadable PDF file at: http://www.hoover.org/pubaffairs/we/2005/posner06.html.
"This is a special web-only essay that takes up where Posner's Hoover Studies book, Preventing Surprise Attacks: Intelligence Reform in the Wake of 9/11, leaves off."
From Abstract: "The magnitude of the terrorist threat..., coupled with the lack of coordination among our domestic intelligence agencies and the failure of the lead agency, the FBI, to develop an adequate domestic intelligence capability, argues compellingly for reform. Because the FBI’s failure is systemic, being rooted in the incompatibility of criminal law enforcement (the FBI's principal mission) with national-security intelligence, the reform must have a structural dimension. The WMD (Robb-Silberman) Commission’s proposal ... is to create a domestic intelligence agency within the FBI by fusion of its three units that at present share intelligence responsibility. Such a fusion may or not be a good idea; but clearly it is not enough. The Director of National Intelligence should take the coordination and command of domestic intelligence firmly into his hands by appointing a deputy for domestic intelligence, while the President should by executive order create outside of (but not in derogation of) the FBI a domestic intelligence agency, modeled on such foreign agencies as the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, that would have no law enforcement functions. The agency could be lodged in the Department of Homeland Security."
Clark comment: As much as I admire the clarity of Judge Posner's reasoning (especially his critique of the 9/11 Commission's work), the very thought of lodging another agency in the DHS gives me cold shivers.
Posner, Richard A. "We Need Our Own MI5." Washington Post, 15 Aug. 2006, A13. [http://www.washingtonpost.com]
Judge Posner's argument is clearly stated in the title to this Op-ed piece. The United States lacks "a counterpart to MI5. This is a serious gap in our defenses. Primary responsibility for national security intelligence has been given to the FBI. The bureau is a criminal investigation agency. Its orientation is toward arrest and prosecution rather than toward the patient gathering of intelligence with a view to understanding and penetrating a terrorist network."
Schulhofer, Stephen. The Enemy Within: Intelligence Gathering, Law Enforcement, and Civil Liberties in the Wake of September 11. New York: Century Foundation, 2002.
Shane, Scott. "Report Questions Legality of Briefings on Surveillance." New York Times, 19 Jan. 2006. [http://www.nytimes.com]
"A legal analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service [CRS] concludes that the Bush administration's limited briefings for Congress on the National Security Agency's domestic eavesdropping without warrants are 'inconsistent with the law.'" The CRS memorandum "explores the requirement in the National Security Act of 1947 that the committees be kept 'fully and currently informed' of intelligence activities. It notes that the law specifically allows notification of 'covert actions'" to the Republican and Democratic leaders of the House and Senate and of the Intelligence Committees, (the so-called Gang of Eight), "but says the security agency's program does not appear to be a covert action program."
See Alfred Cumming, "Memorandum: Statutory Procedures Under Which Congress Is To Be Informed of U.S. Intelligence Activities, Including Covert Actions" (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 18 Jan. 2006). [Available at: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/intel/m011806.pdf.]
Tumulty, Karen. "Inside Bush's Secret Spy Net." Time, 22 May 2006, 32-36.
"Your phone records have been enlisted in the war on terrorism. Should that make you worry more or less?"
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