Thank
you Senator Roberts and President Wefald. Thank
you faculty and students, patrons, and alumni. I
am indeed honored to be here. It was pointed out
to me that I am the first FBI Director to speak
at the Alfred Landon Lecture Series. While that
may be the case, I want to point out that it is
not the first time the FBI has been here.
I
recall one historical visit in 1968, when the FBI
was here to protect Senator Robert Kennedy. The
former Attorney General had just announced his candidacy
for President. Prior to his speech, Kennedy received
threatening letters. And the FBI was called upon
to provide added protection at that event.
The
FBI's role in protecting Americans has changed with
the times. Usually it changes in response to an
emerging threat or a major incident.
As
it happens, one of these incidents occurred in nearby
Kansas City on June 17, 1933, when FBI special agents
and police officers were waiting outside the train
station to pick up a prisoner on his way to the
penitentiary in Leavenworth.
Friends of the prisoner had an escape plan and called
on "Pretty Boy" Floyd for help. At about
7:20 in the morning, Floyd and his cohorts began
shooting. In about 30 seconds it was over. Two lawmen
were wounded. Four, as well as the prisoner, were
dead. The attacks became known as the "Kansas
City Massacre."
This
incident caused an uproar in the political and law
enforcement communities. It changed American attitudes
about crime and law enforcement. It also dramatically
influenced the evolution of the FBI as an organization.
Until then, the FBI had been a small agency composed
of investigators who were not permitted to carry
firearms or to make arrests.
That
was about to change. Less than a year later, President
Roosevelt signed into law several statutes increasing
the Bureau's jurisdiction. The FBI would lead the
fight against gangsters, earning Special Agents
the name of government-men or "G-men."
Throughout
its history, the FBI has always changed to meet
new threats. Although, probably at no time in history
has the FBI changed on such a large scale as in
the past two-and-a-half years.
Today,
I want to give you a broad look at these changes.
I will explain why change was needed, describe these
changes, and show what the FBI has accomplished
by its efforts to protect Americans.
To
look at "why" the FBI needed to change,
think back to when it was established. Nearly a
century ago, the FBI was created to investigate
criminal activity that had begun to cross county
and state lines. As America's crime problem evolved,
so did the Bureau. Its mission grew and changed
through the gangster era and into the Cold War,
when national security and espionage threats came
to the forefront.
Today,
criminal and terrorist threats increasingly have
an international dimension. Jet travel, cell phones
and the Internet have made it the rare case that
does not cross international boundaries.
We
recently had a case in Antarctica, where a U.S.
scientific research station reported to us that
their systems had been hacked into and their data
corrupted. They asked for our help. Antarctica was
frozen over and aircraft would not be allowed to
land there for another six months.
But in Washington, our investigators were able to
trace the source of the intrusion to a server in
a trucking company outside Pittsburgh. Soon after,
we identified two suspects in Romania, and - with
the help of the Romanian authorities - they were
arrested and are currently being prosecuted. Today,
cases with an international nexus have become the
rule rather than the exception.
By
September 11, 2001, we knew the world was changing.
The world was growing smaller and more interconnected
in an evolving crime landscape. In the wake of September
11th, it became clear that the FBI needed to change
even more than had been anticipated.
Immediately
following 9/11, the FBI's number one priority became
the prevention of terrorist attacks. This required
a systematic approach examining all aspects of Bureau
operations. Everything from how we communicate inside
the FBI to how we communicate outside to other agencies;
how we refocus on terrorism, but continue to uphold
our other responsibilities; how we disseminate our
intelligence information, yet protect it from foreign
spies who want to know what we know.
Our
review was comprehensive. For the sake of explanation,
let me approach it the way an agent approaches a
case. The first questions an agent asks are who,
what, where, when, why, and how. I will address
each one - although necessarily not in that order.
Given
the evolution of threats, we can see "why"
the FBI needed to change. The next question is "what"
the FBI needed to do to successfully carry out its
new mission. Let me begin by offering you a look
at the problem from where we stand. I want to give
you four hypothetical scenarios. See if you can
remember them, because I will come back to them
later.
o One, a home is raided, and containers found inside
test positive for ricin - a deadly poison.
o Two, a police officer pulls over an individual
for exceeding the speed limit on I-70 and runs a
background check which indicates that the man may
be a known or suspected terrorist.
o Three, an unattended briefcase is found on a train
headed to Washington, D.C.
o Four, in Abu Dhabi, a U.S. citizen is reported
by her family to be missing, possibly kidnapped.
Any one of these diverse incidents could be harmless.
Or any one of these could be related to terrorism.
They are the kind of situations that confront the
FBI each and every day. Although this list is incomplete,
it does give you an idea of the range of matters
the FBI is asked to resolve.
In
order to emphasize our mission of prevention, we
first had to look at "what" we were doing.
As a result, we restructured our priorities into
three areas: national security, criminal, and support.
Under national security we have reorganized so that
counterterrorism is the overarching priority. Every
terrorism lead is addressed, even if it requires
a diversion of resources from other areas.
Our
second priority is counterintelligence. Spies from
other countries want to steal our secrets. They
have seen our successes in Afghanistan and Iraq
with laser guided weapons, command and control communications.
These countries want this technology without having
to develop it themselves. We must protect our national
secrets.
The
last national security priority is preventing cyber
attacks on our computers, financial institutions
and infrastructure. Needless to say this is a growth
industry.
Next
are our criminal priorities. Those are public corruption,
protection of civil rights, transnational and national
criminal enterprises, major white collar crimes
and significant violent crimes.
Lastly,
the two support priorities are important to us because
they help us to accomplish the operational priorities
I have just mentioned. The first one is the development
of partnerships with state and local law enforcement
and our counterparts overseas. The second is completing
the upgrade of our information technology.
On
top of the "what" that helped us re-order
our priorities, we had to look at "where"
we would shift FBI resources to ensure that we could
accomplish our goals. To confront an enemy as cunning
as Al Qaeda, it was clear that the FBI would have
to become more flexible, more agile, and more mobile.
First, we needed more manpower. Since September
11th, we have doubled the number of Special Agents
and analysts in counterterrorism and added approximately
450 translators.
We
also established specialized operational units that
give us new capabilities to address the terrorist
threat. One focuses on terrorist financing, and
another exploits evidence found overseas. Yet another
conducts background checks on individuals seeking
biological agents here in the United States. One
special task force is dedicated solely to finding
terrorists overseas and keeping them out of the
United States, while multiple "Fly Teams"
travel wherever and whenever they are needed to
lend their counterterrorism expertise.
Remember
the hypothetical scenario with the ricin found in
a person's home? Our Bioterrorism Risk Assessment
Group, one of our new initiatives, determines that
the suspect does have access to toxins because of
his job at a university, but represents a low risk
for terrorism. We put that issue to rest.
Aside
from where we put our resources, we also needed
to question "how" we were operating. There
are three important ways the FBI has changed how
we do our work. The first is that, in the past,
the investigation of terrorism threats was generally
focused in the field office where they originated
- along with all the information and records pertaining
to that case. This made it difficult to see connections
and patterns. Now the FBI operates under centralized
management of our counterterrorism program. The
result is better coordination within the FBI, and
between the FBI and our law enforcement and intelligence
counterparts.
The
second change is directed at upgrading our technology.
Today more than ever, the FBI must rely on integrated
information technology systems. We have made significant
progress in upgrading our information technology
to improve our ability to search for information,
analyze it, draw connections, and share it both
inside the Bureau and outside with our partners.
This year, we will implement software that will,
for the first time, move the FBI from being a paper-driven
organization to a digital organization.
The
adoption of intelligence technology has already
improved our capabilities. During the Super Bowl
in Houston this year, we were able to conduct over
65,000 queries in three days. In the past, an analyst
worked three months to do the equivalent.
The
third change is in how we support our operations.
An administrative re-engineering is making the FBI
more efficient and more responsive. We have also
strengthened our recruiting and hiring to attract
persons with the skills we need to carry out our
counterterrorism and our intelligence missions,
such as backgrounds in computer sciences, Middle-Eastern
studies, or foreign languages.
And
perhaps this is a good time for me to put in a recruiting
plug to those of you who might be interested in
coming to work for us. At the FBI, we have many
different types of jobs. We have experts in fields
from martial arts to graphic arts. So if you are
interested in law enforcement or if you simply want
to serve your country, give us a call. We always
need more good people.
Aside
from our aggressive recruitment efforts, we have
developed better training and new leadership initiatives
to keep our employees learning and growing throughout
their careers. And as a final administrative change,
we have built up our internal security to protect
us from spies.
After
"how" we do business, the next element
in the FBI's transformation is one of the most important.
It is also an area to which Senator Roberts has
focused much of his time and effort. It is the need
for better intelligence information. And with regard
to intelligence, timing is everything. Today's intelligence
is tomorrow's old news, which is why we needed to
address the question of "when." We need
to have the information we need "when"
we need it.
Essential
to predicting and preventing future terrorist attacks
is improving our intelligence analysis. The FBI
has always used intelligence to solve cases. It
is how we pursued Nazi spies during World War II
and La Cosa Nostra in the seventies and eighties.
Over the years, the FBI has developed sophisticated
intelligence-gathering capabilities.
To
improve these capabilities, we increased the number
of intelligence analysts. We expanded their career
path, set performance standards, and developed training
that will be ongoing for their entire career.
The
goal is to integrate intelligence into all of our
operations to produce a seamless, predictive, analytical
capability. But intelligence can only help if it
is shared. Today, we produce daily intelligence
reports and bulletins to share with the intelligence
community as well as with our state and local partners.
Now
go back to the scenario with the suspicious man
who was pulled over by the police officer. There,
a call is made to the Terrorist Screening Center.
An analyst runs a check on the name and indicates
that the man who has been stopped is not the terrorist
suspect for whom we were looking. The individual
is allowed to continue on his way.
The
final question we had to address was "who."
We cannot defeat terrorists without strong partnerships
throughout the law enforcement, the intelligence
and the international communities. Knowing this,
we have focused on improving the level of coordination
and information sharing with state and local law
enforcement. Our 84 Joint Terrorism Task Forces
put federal, state, and local law enforcement together
to investigate threats and share information. In
communities across the country, they are the eyes
and ears in the fight against terrorism.
Remember
our scenario with the briefcase left on a train?
Here a call goes out to the local FBI office, and
members of the Joint Terrorism Task Force coordinate
the response and determine it was inadvertently
left behind by a passenger.
The
age of global threats has moved the Bureau into
an age of global partnerships. The clear-cut divisions
of responsibility and jurisdictions that once existed
between agencies - and between countries - are becoming
less and less relevant. How can we defeat international
terrorism without the help of countries such as
Great Britain, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia
and Kenya?
That
is why the FBI, like many institutions, has gone
global. Our first international office was established
in 1940. Today, we have 46 of these "Legal
Attaché" offices in embassies around
the world.
To
help strengthen our partnerships at all levels,
the FBI provides training to state, local and international
law enforcement. We offer FBI academies in Budapest
and Dubai, where the FBI trains officers from other
countries. Amongst those trained were officers from
Saudi Arabia. When the FBI responded to the bombings
in Riyadh last year, the Saudi's told us: "We
trained together, now we can work together."
Remember
the scenario with the missing United States citizen?
Thanks to our new Legal Attaché office in
Abu Dhabi, we are able to work cooperatively with
local law enforcement. They find the woman, who
was sick and had simply been out of touch for a
few days.
You
will note that all four of our scenarios were found
not to be terrorism-related. In each case, the FBI
employed methods that are either new or improved
since September 11th. While many more threats exist
in the world, these examples give you an idea how
many stones must be overturned in the fight against
terrorism. It is an extremely difficult challenge,
but we are making progress.
This
is merely a broad overview of how the FBI has been
changing over the past two-and-one-half years. By
describing these changes, as well as some of the
thinking behind them, it is my hope to give you
a better idea of how the FBI is working to protect
you and your families.
When
Robert Kennedy spoke here that day in 1968, guarded
by FBI Agents, he said, "We are in a time of
unprecedented turbulence, of danger, of questioning."
His statement was true then, and it is also true
today.
The
examples I used today show the enormity of the task
we face in turning over every stone - and how many
searches, thankfully, turn up nothing at all. It
can be difficult to measure what you do not find.
But I can say that our counterterrorism efforts
have produced significant results. Since September
11, 2001, the FBI has worked with our partners to
disrupt a number of terrorist operations both here
and overseas.
Our
partners in the CIA and the military have removed
the sanctuary of Afghanistan and, together, we have
captured thousands of Al Qaeda operatives around
the world, including much of their leadership.
We have conducted more than 70 investigations into
terrorist money trails and frozen more than $125
million in assets.
We have made steady progress in the war against
terrorism, but our work is not yet finished. As
evidenced by the March 11 attacks in Spain, terrorists
remain capable of organizing large-scale attacks.
In the midst of these organizational changes, let
me state that there are some things in the FBI that
should not change and, indeed, I hope will never
change.
One
thing we did not have to question after 9/11 is
our core values. These values include strict adherence
to the Constitution. The FBI is committed to protecting
civil liberties. Because years from now we will
be judged not only on whether we defeat terrorism,
but also by how well we uphold our cherished civil
liberties. These rights must not now- not ever -
be taken for granted.
Another
constant is the outstanding devotion to duty of
FBI employees. The culture of the FBI has always
been a culture of hard work, integrity, and dedication
to protecting the United States. I see this culture
every day, in every FBI office, and in every FBI
employee.
Our
transformation is succeeding, but it has been demanding.
For the changes we have made, one must give full
credit to the men and women of the FBI. Many of
them have consistently sacrificed, placing duty
to our country over their own self-interest as they
undertook these new challenges.
They
do this because in their hearts they know the FBI's
primary responsibility is to protect the citizens
of the United States, to secure freedom and to preserve
justice for all Americans. The FBI has always answered
this call with fidelity, bravery, and integrity.
It is our motto. It is our fundamental creed.
We
in the FBI have come a long way since the days of
the Kansas City Massacre, since the days when Bobby
Kennedy was here speaking. We in the FBI have committed
ourselves to making the fundamental changes necessary
to combat evolving threats that target our country.
We have made progress, and we will continue to meet
- and to defeat - all threats against the security
of our nation and its citizens.
Thank
you for having me today. I am happy to take your
questions.