|
 We
urge you to read Director
Mueller's March 17 testimony, which outlines
the FBI's FY 05 budget request. Every American
taxpayer should scrutinize the programs and the
reasoning that go into government agency budgets.
For us, in fact, this budget represents the largest
request the FBI has ever made.
Why?
In Director Mueller's words from his opening statement,
"Over the past two and a half years, the
FBI has moved from an organization that primarily
focused on traditional criminal investigations
to one that actively investigates and disrupts
terrorist operations. Our mission has changed
dramatically, and our budget reflects this change."
What
are the top budget priorities? As you'd
expect, we continue to strengthen and support
our top operational priorities: counterterrorism,
counterintelligence, cyber, and major criminal
programs. But this year we have a priority that
tops even these–one that relates and interrelates
to all of them.
What
is it? Again in Director Mueller's words, "My
primary focus, and a top priority in the FY 2005
budget, is the FBI's Intelligence Program...strengthening
it, improving interagency coordination of intelligence,
and expanding our overseas presence."
Why
such emphasis on intelligence? Again, because
it is key to ALL our investigations. Only by piecing
the universe of criminal and terrorist information
together, distilling it into intelligence, and
sharing that intelligence appropriately across
the world can terrorist plans be foiled and investigations
come to speedy conclusions.
Please
read in the testimony the strides we have made
in our Intelligence Program–our network
of intelligence groups stood up in field offices
and at headquarters, headed by a career Intelligence
executive with a tightly articulated concept of
operations...our participation in the Terrorist
Threat Integration Center...and our leadership
in the Terrorist Screening Center. Please read
about our operational programs, our forensic programs,
and progress in strengthening our information
technology infrastructure. We encourage you to
do so.
Final
words of Director Mueller: "We have
made great progress. But our work is not yet finished."
In fact, it never will be so long as we are "dedicated
to protecting the United States, securing freedom,
and preserving justice for all Americans."
Link:
Full
testimony
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