Thank
you very much. Good afternoon, and
thank you very much, Kathleen, for
that wonderful welcome. I must say
it's great to be back here in the
Bay area and wonderful to be back
on such a lovely campus as Stanford.
I am tremendously honored to be with
you this evening. Many of our nation's
most prominent leaders and jurists
have strolled the grounds of this
magnificent law school and this magnificent
campus. Chief Justice William Rehnquist
and Sandra Day O'Connor, both members
of the Stanford Law School Class of
1952, for instance, are joining you
this weekend.
I also should start off by saying
that all of you know that the President
Emeritus of Stanford University is
a gentleman named Donald Kennedy.
What you may not know is that there
was another Donald Kennedy who attended
Stanford undergraduate, as well as
Stanford Law School. He was the first
FBI Special Agent to graduate from
Stanford and its law school. Special
Agent Kennedy earned his bachelor's
degree in 1932 here at Stanford and
his law degree in 1936. In 1937, showing
eminent good judgment, he joined the
Bureau. He came to the FBI at a time
when the annual salary for a Special
Agent was $3,200 a year -- about what
a newly minted Stanford lawyer now
makes in a week. I see some law students
here, and while I'm not necessarily
here on a recruiting mission, I do
want to tell you that even though
I can't promise you great wealth should
you join the Bureau, we have increased
the salary of the new Agents rather
significantly since the time Donald
Kennedy walked these halls.
Dean Sullivan, I want to thank you
for the honor of receiving the Jackson
Ralston Prize. As you pointed out,
Mr. Ralston was a noted, distinguished
international lawyer, and not only
am I honored by being a recipient
of this award, I am also tremendously
honored to be in the company of previous
winners such as Warren Christopher
and Jimmy Carter. It makes you wonder
whether you really deserve to be included
among such individuals. I feel a little
bit like the late Jack Benny. When
he was being honored some years ago,
he said, "I'm not sure if I deserve
this award, but on the other hand,
I have arthritis, and I don't really
deserve that either."
Since I'm on the campus of such a
distinguished law school and such
a distinguished college, I want to
spend a few moments this evening talking
about a topic that is certainly on
my mind, but a topic that is very
much on the minds of all of us here
in this auditorium tonight and very
much on the minds of the American
people. That topic is terrorism.
As you may know, I took over as Director
a week before the September 11th attacks.
Global terrorism, and the FBI's response
to what happened on that day, is something
that I and almost everyone in the
Bureau thinks about for the better
part of every day.
I would like to use this forum to
continue what I believe is a critical
discourse in our country. As part
of this discourse, I would like to
reflect with you this evening on three
issues. They are: first, the difficult
challenges we face in addressing terrorism;
secondly, being somewhat parochial,
the FBI's response to what occurred
on September 11th; and, thirdly, and
perhaps most importantly, the very
delicate balance we must strike as
a society to protect both our homeland,
on the one hand, and our civil liberties
on the other.
Let me speak for a moment about the
challenges we face in addressing terrorism.
The tragedy of September 11th unfolded
before our eyes on television, and
yet it is I think sometimes difficult
for us to fully comprehend the magnitude
of the destruction and the terror
of that awful day. Certainly, if you
were in Washington, D.C., or in New
York City, you had a more deeply felt
comprehension of what occurred on
September 11th. But I think we all
must recognize that terrorism, and
the war against it, did not start
on September 11th and nor will it
end any time soon. And the issues
we discuss today, when we contemplate
this war, are issues that many of
you out here in the audience will
grapple with as lawyers, educators,
and leaders.
Our recent history in this country
reflects growing threats from a variety
of groups and individuals. Certainly,
religious extremists associated with
al Qaeda have attacked American targets
for almost a decade, including the
1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.
But al Qaeda has not been the only
threat. Prior to September 11th, Hizballah
had killed more Americans than any
other terrorist group. Other terrorist
organizations have launched strikes
like the one we saw on Khobar Towers
in Saudi Arabia in 1996. And when
we discuss terrorism, we cannot forget
domestic terrorism and domestic terrorist
groups who operate in our own country.
These groups, espousing racial supremacy
principles and anti-government rhetoric,
are a serious menace, as we came to
understand by the April 1995 bombing
in Oklahoma City.
And when we talk about those attacks
that were successful, we should not
overlook the fact that many attacks
have also been prevented. These have
largely been forgotten. Successful
strikes generally get more attention
than preventions. But how many thousands
of Americans would have died if anti-government
extremists had blown up two large
propane fuel tanks in Sacramento three
years ago, as had been planned? How
many would have died if international
terrorists had not been stopped from
blowing up a series of New York landmarks
in 1993? How many would have died
if Ahmed Ressam had succeeded in bombing
Los Angeles International Airport
on New Year's Eve in 1999?
These attacks, both those that have
been prevented and those that have
not, are testimony to the difficult
challenges that face our country.
Now let me spend a moment talking
to you a little bit about the events
of September 11th and what we came
to find out about the individuals
responsible for those events.
In the weeks and months immediately
after September 11th, after we had
addressed the initial concern about
whether or not there was another wave
of terrorists out there anxious and
ready to take over planes, after we
had satisfied ourselves that we had
put into place reasonable security
to protect the airlines, our investigation
looked to identifying those 19 individuals
who were responsible for hijacking
these planes and running them into
the World Trade Center buildings in
New York, the Pentagon in Washington,
D.C., and that field in Pennsylvania.
What we found was that the hijackers
operated, paradoxically, hidden in
plain view. Those that took over the
four planes that day were 19 in number.
There were 15 from Saudi Arabia, two
from the United Arab Emirates, and
one each from Egypt and Lebanon. Their
plans were conceived, developed, and
approved by al Qaeda leadership out
of Hamburg, Germany; in meetings in
Malaysia; and certainly with the approval
of the al Qaeda leadership at meetings
in Afghanistan.
In the months that preceded September
11th, each of these 19 hijackers entered
the country with lawful visas. They
used our schools -- particularly the
flight schools -- motels, restaurants,
and transportation systems as they
hatched the plans to launch their
assault.
None of them had computers. They all
used Kinkos or public-access opportunities
to get on the Internet to communicate,
and when their communications were
not on the Internet, they were personal.
They used a total of 133 prepaid calling
cards to make telephone calls from
kiosks and other buildings. They shopped
at Wal-Mart. They ate at Pizza Hut.
In many ways, they turned the liberties
we most cherish in this nation against
us. And the hijackers of September
11th, and the other terrorists we
are currently confronting, present
a new challenge to us. Unlike the
enemies of the past, these terrorists
do not wear uniforms and do not operate
within defined borders. What is perhaps
most chilling is that they will stop
at nothing to further their goals,
whether that means sacrificing innocent
lives or even their own.
To meet this new challenge, we in
the FBI have had to dramatically reorient
our mission and our resources.
Shortly after the planes hit on September
11th, more than half of our 11,500
Agents suddenly found themselves investigating
terrorism matters. Today, we have
twice the number of Agents permanently
assigned to the war on terrorism as
we did prior to September 11th.
Of course, we will continue to investigate
criminal cases and are proud of our
work in such areas as violent crime,
organized crime, financial fraud,
civil rights, and public corruption.
But in the wake of September 11th,
our first and abiding priority, plain
and simple, is counterterrorism. That
priority is to stop another attack
like we saw on September 11th. To
do that, we have to enter into an
age of preventive investigation. At
the heart of our attack on counterterrorism
is this massive redeployment of Agents
from other programs.
Let me talk for a moment about another
aspect of the battle on terrorism,
and it's being waged on the intelligence
side of the house. We are often called
a law enforcement agency, but we are
called upon, in addressing terrorism,
to be an intelligence agency as well
and to develop ties with other intelligence
agencies in this country and our counterparts,
both here and overseas.
Every morning since September 11th,
I, along with George Tenet, brief
the President on what has happened
in the last 24 hours in this country
with regard to the war on terrorism.
The President does not ask and has
not asked, how many indictments have
you returned or how many people have
been arrested? He asks both George
and I, what has been done in the last
24 hours to protect this country against
terrorism?
And so for us as an institution, and
for the CIA, it comes from the top.
Our mission is to prevent another
terrorist attack. And critical to
our response is our ability to share
essential information throughout the
FBI and throughout the rest of the
government, including the CIA, the
DIA, other federal agencies, as well
as state and local law enforcement
agencies.
I will say that the thought of regularly
sharing Bureau information is something
that J. Edgar Hoover would likely
have resisted, and he may well be
turning around in his grave to understand
the extent to which, since September
11th, there has been the interchange
of information between ourselves and
the CIA.
Today, we have an Office of Intelligence
within the FBI to ensure that our
information is shared not only throughout
the Bureau, but throughout the rest
of the government. We have a number
of employees assigned to the CIA Counterterrorism
Center, and the CIA has eight managers
and dozens of analysts assigned to
FBI's Counterterrorism Division. Each
of those individuals has unfettered
access to the computer databases and
communication systems of the other
agency. Speaking for what we do at
the FBI, I have a CIA official who
joins me at the two briefing sessions
I get each day on what has happened
in the last 24 hours, not only in
the United States, but also around
the country in the war on terror.
As I mentioned, we are also sharing
information with local law enforcement
officers. We are doing this generally
through one of 56 joint terrorism
task forces throughout the country,
where we have FBI Agents sitting down
with DEA Agents, sitting down with
local police officers and state troopers.
We sit shoulder-to-shoulder in the
communities of each of those 56 field
offices and talk about the latest
reports, how we address them, and
what information is coming from overseas
so that whenever we have a threat,
we are addressing that threat together.
The timely sharing of that intelligence
is absolutely critical to our counterterrorism
mission, and one of the things we
have done in order to expand on this
joint terrorism task force concept
is to produce a weekly FBI Intelligence
Bulletin. We have, in the United States,
over 17,000 law enforcement agencies
and 60 separate federal agencies.
This bulletin we put out provides
information about terrorist issues
and threats of terrorism that come
from overseas or within the United
States. These contacts, as you can
well imagine, often lead to intelligence
about terrorist threats and, indeed,
it was the initial information from
local police officers that led to
the indictments and arrests in Buffalo,
New York, and Portland, Oregon, that
we heard about over the last several
weeks.
Finally, as part of our response to
this new mission, we have embarked
on a comprehensive overhaul and revitalization
of our information technology infrastructure.
Our technological problems are deep-seated
and somewhat complex. On the one hand,
we are on the cutting edge of technology
when it comes to addressing attacks
on computers -- whether it be worms
or viruses, denial of service attacks,
or hacking attacks. But we are not
on the cutting edge of giving each
of our Agents the computer support,
the access to databases that we need
to do a better job in pulling together
the intelligence, analyzing the intelligence,
and then disseminating the intelligence
that we bring in across the country
and across the world. We are currently
undertaking a massive overhaul and
restructuring of our information technology
so that it will facilitate that intelligence
analysis, which is the key to identifying,
predicting, and preventing terrorist
attacks.
Now, I want to talk for a moment about
the balance we must strike to protect
our national security and our civil
liberties as we address the threat
of terrorism.
Jackson Ralston, later in his life,
as Kathleen pointed out, served as
the Chairman of the ACLU in Northern
California, and I would venture to
say he might have been surprised that
an award bearing his name is being
given to the Director of the FBI,
particularly at a time in our nation's
history when the tension between our
civil liberties, on the one hand,
and our national security, on the
other, has been thrust to the forefront.
I do believe, though, that Mr. Ralston
would be rather pleased by the fact
that we are here today talking about
these issues, both this evening and
earlier today in various seminars,
and also I think he would believe
that there is that capability of supporting
civil liberties and assuring the national
security of the United States. I do
believe that they are not mutually
exclusive.
I will say at the outset, as we all
know, our nation does not have an
unblemished record of protecting constitutional
freedoms during times of crisis. In
1919, in the midst of a "Red
Scare," and following the detonation
of bombs in eight American cities,
President Wilson's Attorney General,
Alexander Palmer, arrested thousands
of "leftists" and "radicals,"
during what was called the "Palmer
Raids."
During World War II, thousands of
Japanese Americans, based solely on
their ancestry, were confined in relocation
camps. In 1944, the Supreme Court
in the Korematsu case, as we all know,
ruled that all members of a single
ethnic group could be confined, even
without individualized evidence, because
some members of that group might be
disloyal and pose a threat to the
nation.
And for the FBI, as recently as the
1960s and the '70s, we were found
to have run a counterintelligence
program, infamously known as COINTELPRO,
that targeted persons involved in
civil disobedience with investigative
measures that crossed the line.
We live in perilous times, but as
these examples illustrate, we are
not the first generation of Americans
to face threats to our security. And
like those before us, we will be judged
by future generations on how we react
to this crisis. And by that I mean
not just whether we win the war on
terrorism, because I believe we will,
but also whether, as we fight that
war, we safeguard for our citizens
those liberties for which we are fighting.
We are a nation of laws, and every
Special Agent of the FBI is sworn
to uphold and protect those laws.
The men and women who serve in the
FBI do just that every working day
of their lives. But we are also aggressive,
and we do not -- and I do not -- shy
from using every arrow that Congress
has put in our quiver.
In the wake of the September 11th
attacks, Congress granted us new and
enhanced authority to investigate
terrorism. The USA Patriot Act, passed
in October of 2001, tore down many
of the walls that formerly inhibited
information sharing between law enforcement
and the intelligence community, and
I welcomed those changes. And we use
the Patriot Act to our fullest advantage,
but not at the expense of the constitutional
rights of our citizens.
Still, questions abound. At the heart
of these questions is this: How do
you prevent, how do you deter, or
how do you disrupt terrorist attacks
before they have been initiated? How
aggressively should the FBI investigate
suspicious activity that might be
related to terrorism? When is surveillance
or a wire tap necessary or warranted?
These are not always easy questions
to answer, particularly when the prevailing
terrorist threat originates from,
and therefore our primary investigative
focus is directed at, a group of terrorists
who generally share a common ethnic
and religious background.
In that regard, let me start with
the premise that I believe firmly,
and that is the overwhelming majority
of Muslims, whether in this country
or overseas, are peaceful, law-abiding
citizens. However, a small number
of Muslims are members of radical
fundamentalist sects sworn to the
destruction of the United States,
and this presents a dilemma for those
charged with protecting against the
next attack, raising very difficult
investigative issues for which there
often is no clear answer.
An example, when, if ever, would it
be appropriate to put leaders of Muslim
mosques under surveillance? Are calls
to kill Americans in strident sermons
a lawful exercise of free speech or
something more, warranting not only
investigation, but also court-approved
electronic surveillance?
The answer to these and many similar
questions, I believe, in part, is
to assure that for us there is an
adequate predication for each step
of an investigation. We do not target
individuals or groups by reason of
their country of origin or nationality.
Rather, we take investigative steps
when there is a factual basis justifying
that step.
Can we be too aggressive? Or in the
post-September 11th world, is there
such a thing as too aggressive? I
would say, yes, I believe there is.
But by assuring that there is adequate
predication for each step of an investigation,
we protect against over aggressiveness
and avoid the excesses of the past.
These are issues that we wrestle with
every day in the FBI, whether it be
Agents in the field or personnel back
at headquarters. I should point out
we are not the policy makers, and
some of the questions and debates,
and probably questions perhaps that
I will get this evening, are beyond
our purview. What we in the FBI must
concentrate upon is obtaining the
facts and then presenting them in
an objective, unbiased manner to other
decision makers, whether they be the
prosecutors at the Justice Department
or the policy makers in the National
Security Council, or even the President.
I must say, in the same breath, however,
that in seeking those facts, the FBI
must use the tools that Congress gives
us, all of the tools consonant with
our obligation to protect the citizens
of the United States and the Constitution.
For either, without the other, is
of little value. We must not shy away
from investigating aggressively any
real threat. And because there are
no perfect answers to any of these
difficult questions posed in the course
of these counterterrorism investigations,
we have but one option, and that is
to investigate vigorously any threat
to the citizens and interests of this
nation, whether at home or abroad,
while carefully observing the constitutional
rights of all.
For the FBI and for the United States,
the war on terrorism is a complex
and perplexing issue. It is as complex
and perplexing as any threat this
country has ever faced. Whether the
threat comes in the form of anthrax-laced
letters or the deadly sniper attacks
in the neighborhoods around the nation's
capital or in the form of a devastating
bomb blast in faraway Bali, it is
imperative that we use the full weight
of the law, every arrow in our quiver,
to bring these terrorists to justice.
I know we will be judged by history,
not just on how we disrupt and deter
terrorism, but also on how we protect
the civil liberties and the constitutional
rights of all Americans, including
those Americans who wish us ill. We
must do both of these things, and
we must do them exceptionally well.
I must say I am humbled by the honor
that you have bestowed upon me this
evening. I hope I can live up to that
honor, and I thank you for being a
continuing part of this exceptionally
important and ongoing debate.
Thank you, and God bless you.