Testimony
of Marion E. (Spike) Bowman, Deputy General Counsel, FBI
Before
the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
July 31, 2002
"Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act"
Mr. Chairman
and members of the Committee, thank you for inviting me here
today to testify on the legislative proposals concerning the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Holding this
hearing demonstrates your collective and individual commitment
to improving the security of our Nation. The Federal Bureau
of Investigation greatly appreciates your leadership, and
that of your colleagues in other committees on this very important
topic.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was written more
than two decades ago. When adopted, the Act brought a degree
of closure to fifty years of discussion concerning constitutional
limits on the President's power to order electronic surveillance
for national security purposes. A subsequent amendment brought
physical search under the Act. In keeping with our standards
of public governance, the proposals for the Act were publicly
debated over a substantial period of time, compromises were
reached and a statute eventually adopted. In the final analysis
the standards governing when and how foreign intelligence
surveillance or search would be conducted was a political
one because it involved weighing of important public policy
concerns surrounding both personal liberty and national security.
That is how it should be.
In the intervening years FISA has proved its worth on countless
occasions in preventing the occurrence or the continuation
of harm to the national security. It has been a very effective
tool and time has proved that this cooperative effort of the
three branches of government can serve to protect the public
without eroding civil liberties. Indeed, the legislative history
shows that Congress intended that the Executive Branch keep
a focus on civil liberties by giving great care and scrutiny
every application before it is presented to a judge. We believe
that intent has been fulfilled. The fact that an Article III
judge is the final arbiter of compliance serves to give additional
confidence to the public that the intent of the statute is
fulfilled.
When FISA was enacted, terrorism was very different from what
we see today. In the 1970s, terrorism more often targeted
individuals, often carefully selected. This was the usual
pattern of the Japanese Red Army, the Red Brigades and similar
organizations listed by name in the legislative history of
FISA. Today we see terrorism as far more lethal and far more
indiscriminate than could have been imagined in 1978. It takes
only the events of September 11, 2001 to fully comprehend
the difference of a couple of decades. But there is another
difference as well. Where we once saw terrorism formed solely
around organized groups, today we often see individuals willing
to commit indiscriminate acts of terror. It may be that these
individuals are affiliated with groups we do not see, but
it may be that they are simply radicals who desire to bring
about destruction. That brings us to the legislation being
considered today.
The FBI uses investigative tools to try to prevent acts of
terrorism wherever we can, but particularly to prevent terrorism
directed at Americans or American interests. Most of our investigations
occur within the United States and, for the most part, focus
on individuals. Historically, terrorism subjects of FBI investigation
have been associated with terrorist organizations. As a result,
FBI has usually been able to associate an individual with
a terrorist organization pled, for FISA purposes, as a foreign
power. To a substantial extent, that remains true today. However,
we are increasingly seeing terrorist suspects who appear to
operate at a distance from these organizations. In perhaps
an oversimplification, but illustrative nevertheless, what
we see today are (1) agents of foreign powers in the traditional
sense who are associated with some organization or discernible
group, (2) individuals who appear to have connections with
multiple terrorist organizations but who do not appear to
owe allegiance to any one of them, but rather owe allegiance
to the International Jihad movement and (3) individuals who
appear to be personally oriented toward terrorism but with
whom there is no known connection to a foreign power.
This phenomenon, which we have seen to be growing for the
past two or three years, appears to stem from a social movement
that began at some imprecise time, but certainly more than
a decade ago. It is a global phenomenon which the FBI refers
to as the International Jihad Movement. By way of background
we believe we can see the contemporary development of this
movement, and its focus on terrorism, rooted in the Soviet
invasion of Afghanistan.
Background
During the decade-long Soviet/Afghan conflict, anywhere from
10,000 to 25,000 Muslim fighters representing some forty-three
countries put aside substantial cultural differences to fight
alongside each other in Afghanistan. The force drawing them
together was the Islamic concept of "umma" or Muslim
community. In this concept, nationalism is secondary to the
Muslim community as a whole. As a result, Muslims from disparate
cultures trained together, formed relationships, sometimes
assembled in groups that otherwise would have been at odds
with one another and acquired common ideologies. They were
also influenced by radical spiritual and temporal leaders,
one of whom has gained prominence on a global scale
Usama Bin Laden.
Following the withdrawal of the Soviet forces from Afghanistan,
many of these fighters returned to their homelands, but they
returned with new skills and dangerous ideas. They now had
newly-acquired terrorist training as guerrilla warfare was
the only way they could combat the more advanced Soviet forces.
They also returned with new concepts of community that had
little to do with nationalism. Those concepts of community
fed naturally into opposition to the adoption, and toleration,
of western culture. As a result, many of the Arab-Afghan returnees
united, or reunited, with indigenous radical Islamic groups
they had left behind when they went to Afghanistan. These
Arab-Afghan mujahedin, equipped with extensive weapons and
explosives training, infused radicals and already established
terrorist groups, resulting in the creation of significantly
better trained and more highly motivated cells dedicated to
jihad.
Feeding the radical element was the social fact that this
occurred in nations where there was widespread poverty and
unemployment. The success of the Arab intervention in Afghanistan
was readily apparent, so when the Arab-Afghan returnees came
home they discovered populations of young Muslims who increasingly
were ready and even eager to view radical Islam as the only
viable means of improving conditions in their countries. Seizing
on widespread dissatisfaction with regimes that were brimming
with un-Islamic ways, regimes that hosted foreign business
and foreign military, many young Muslim males became eager
to adopt the successful terrorist-related activities that
had been successfully used in Afghanistan in the name of Islam.
It was only a matter of time before these young Muslim males
began to seek out the military and explosives training that
the Arab-Afghan returnees possessed.
Usama
bin Laden
Usama
bin Laden gained prominence during the Afghan war in large
measure for his logistical support to the resistence. He financed
recruitment, transportation and training of Arab nationals
who volunteered to fight alongside the Afghan mujahedin. The
Afghan war was clearly a defining experience in his life.
In a May, 1996 interview with Time Magazine, UBL stated: "in
our religion there is a special place in the hereafter for
those who participate in jihad. One day in Afghanistan was
like 1,000 days in an ordinary mosque."
Although bin Laden was merely one leader among many during
the Soviet-Afghan conflict, he was a wealthy Saudi who fought
alongside the mujahedin. In consequence, his stature with
the fighters was high during the war and he continued to rise
in prominence such that, by 1998, he was able to announce
a "fatwa" (religious ruling) that would be respected
by far-flung Islamic radicals. In short, he stated that it
is the duty of all Muslims to kill Americans: "in compliance
with God's order, we issue the following fatwa to all Muslims:
the ruling to kill the Americans and their allies, including
civilians and military, is the individual duty for every Muslim
who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do
it."
Bin Laden was not alone in issuing this fatwa. It was signed
as well by a coalition of leading Islamic militants to include
Ayman Al-Zawahiri (at the time the leader of the Egyptian
Islamic Jihad), Abu Yasr Rifa'i Ahmad Taha (Islamic Group
leader) and Sheikh Fazl Ur Rahman (Harakat Ul Ansar leader).
The fatwa was issued under the name of the International Islamic
Front for Jihad on the Jews and Christians. This fatwa was
significant as it was the first public call for attacks on
Americans, both civilian and military, and because it reflected
a unified position among recognized leaders in the radical
Sunni Islamic community. In essence, the fatwa reflected the
globalization of radical Islam.
There is a terrorist network of extremists that has been evolving
in the murky terrain of Southwest Asia that uses its extremist
views of Islam to justify terrorism. His organization, al
Qaeda is but one example of this network.
Al
Qaeda
Although
Al-Qaeda functions independently of other terrorist organizations,
it also functions through some of the terrorist organizations
that operate under its umbrella or with its support, including:
the Al-Jihad, the Al-Gamma Al-Islamiyya (Islamic Group - led
by Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and later by Ahmed Refai Taha,
a/k/a "Abu Yasser al Masri,"), Egyptian Islamic
Jihad, and a number of jihad groups in other countries, including
the Sudan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti,
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bosnia, Croatia, Albania, Algeria,
Tunisia, Lebanon, the Philippines, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan,
the Kashmiri region of India, and the Chechen region of Russia.
Al-Qaeda also maintained cells and personnel in a number of
countries to facilitate its activities, including in Kenya,
Tanzania, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States.
By banding together, Al-Qaeda proposed to work together against
the perceived common enemies in the West - particularly the
United States which Al-Qaeda regards as an "infidel"
state which provides essential support for other "infidel"
governments. Al-Qaeda responded to the presence of United
States armed forces in the Gulf and the arrest, conviction
and imprisonment in the United States of persons belonging
to Al-Qaeda by issuing fatwas indicating that attacks against
U.S. interests, domestic and foreign, civilian and military,
were both proper and necessary. Those fatwas resulted in attacks
against US nationals in locations around the world including
Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, Yemen, and now in the United States.
Since 1993, thousands of people have died in those attacks.
The
Training Camps
With
the globalization of radical Islam now well begun, the next
task was to gain adherents and promote international jihad.
A major tool selected for this purpose was the promotion of
terrorism training camps that had long been established in
Afghanistan. It is important to note, that while terrorist
adherents to what we have come to know as al Qaeda trained
in the camps, many others did as well. For example, according
to the convicted terrorist Ahmed Ressam, representatives of
the Algerian Armed Islamic Group (GIA) and its off-shoot the
Salafi Groups for Call and Combat (GSPC), HAMAS, Hizballah,
the Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) and various other terrorists
trained at the camps.
Ressam also reports that cells were formed, dependent, in
part, on the timing of the arrival of the trainees, rather
than on any cohesive or pre-existing organizational structure.
As part of the training, clerics and other authority figures
advised the cells of the targets that are deemed valid and
proper. The training they received included placing bombs
in airports, attacks against US military installations, US
warships, embassies and business interests of the United States
and Israel. Specifically included were hotels holding conferences
of VIPs, military barracks, petroleum targets and information/technology
centers. As part of the training, scenarios were developed
that included all of these targets.
Ressam, who was not a member of al Qaeda, has stated that
the cells were independent, but were given lists of the types
of targets that were approved and were initiated into the
doctrine of the international Jihad. Ressam explicitly noted
that his own terrorism attack did not have bin Laden's blessing
or his money, but he believed it would have been given had
he asked for it. He did state that bin Laden urged more operations
within the United States.
The
International Jihad
We believe
the suicide hijackers of September 11, 2001 acted in support
of the 1998 fatwa which, in turn describes what we believe
is the international jihad. During 1997 UBL described the
"international jihad" as follows:
"The
influence of the Afghan jihad on the Islamic world was so
great and it necessitates that people should rise above many
of their differences and unite their efforts against their
enemy. Today, the nation is interacting well by uniting their
efforts through jihad against the US which has in collaboration
with the Israeli government led the ferocious campaign against
the Islamic world in occupying the holy sites of the Muslims.
. . .[A]ny act of aggression against any of this land
of a span of the hand measure makes it a duty for Muslims
to send a sufficient number of their sons to fight off that
aggression."
In May
of 1988, UBL gave an interview in which he stated "God
willing, you will see our work on the news. . . ." The
following August the East African embassy bombings occurred.
That was bin Laden speaking, but it should be remembered that
the call to harm America is not limited to al Qaeda. Shortly
after September 11 Mullah Omar said "the plan [to destroy
America] is going ahead and God willing it is being implemented.
. . ." Sheikh Ikrama Sabri, a Palestinian Mufti, said
in a radio sermon in 1997, "Oh Allah, destroy America,
her agents, and her allies! Cast them into their own traps,
and cover the White House with black!" Ali Khameine'i,
in 1998, said "The American regime is the enemy of [Iran's]
Islamic government and our revolution." There are many
other examples, but the lesson to be drawn is that al Qaeda
is but one faction of a larger and very amorphous radical
anti-western network that uses al Qaeda members as well as
others sympathetic to al Qaeda's ideas or that share common
hatreds.
Information from a variety of sources repeatedly carries the
theme from Islamic radicals that expresses the opinion that
we just don't get it. Terrorists world-wide speak of jihad
and wonder why the western world is focused on groups rather
than on the concepts that make them a community. One place
to look at the phenomenon of the "international jihad"
is the web. Like many other groups, Muslim extremists have
found the Internet to be a convenient tool for spreading propaganda
and helpful hints for their followers around the world. Web
sites calling for jihad, or holy war, against the West are
not uncommon.
One of the larger jihad-related Internet offers primers including
"How Can I Train Myself for Jihad." Traffic on this
site, which is available in more than a dozen languages, increased
10-fold following the attacks, according to a spokesman for
the site.
The lesson to be taken from this is that al Qaeda is far less
a large organization than a facilitator, sometimes orchestrator,
of Islamic militants around the globe. These militants are
linked by ideas and goals, not by organizational structure.
The intent is establishment of a state, or states ruled by
Islamic law and free of western influence. Bin Laden's contribution
to the Islamic jihad is a creature of the modern world. He
has spawned a global network of individuals with common, radical
ideas, kept alive through modern communications and sustained
through forged documents and money laundering activities on
a global scale. While some may consider extremist Islam to
be in retreat at the moment, its roots run deep and exceedingly
wide. Those roots take many forms, one of which is the focus
of this hearing.
In the final analysis, the International Jihad movement is
comprised of dedicated individuals committed to establishing
the umma through terrorist means. Many of these are persons
who attended university together, trained in the camps together,
traveled together. Al Qaeda and the international terrorists
remain focused on the United States as their primary target.
The United States and its allies, to include law enforcement
and intelligence components world-wide have had an impact
on the terrorists, but they are adapting to changing circumstances.
Speaking solely from an operational perspective, investigation
of these individuals who have no clear connection to organized
terrorism, or tenuous ties to multiple organizations, is becoming
increasingly difficult.
The current FISA statute has served the nation well, but the
International Jihad Movement demonstrates the need to consider
whether a different formulation is needed to address the contemporary
terrorism problem. While I cannot discuss specific cases in
a public hearing, the FBI has encountered individuals who
cannot be sufficiently linked to a terrorist group or organization
as required by FISA. The FBI greatly appreciates the Committee's
consideration of this issue and looks forward to working with
the Committee to find the best approach for appropriate investigation
of such individuals.
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