FAS | Intelligence | News | 2004 ||||

April 2004 Intelligence News

• White House Announces Appointment of Frances Fragos Townsend as Homeland Security Advisor, White House news release, April 30.
• State Dept Designates More Terrorist Organizations, Federal Register, State Dept news release, April 29.
• What's With Our 15 Intel Agencies? by Eric Umansky, Slate, April 26. "The CIA, we know. But what are the other 14?"
• FinCen Blasts Unauthorized Disclosures of Financial Data, Financial Crimes Enforcement Network news release, April 20. "The unauthorized disclosure of suspicious activity reports (SARs), as detailed in recent press reports, is a violation of federal criminal law and is being reviewed by the appropriate law enforcement authorities."
• Fact Sheet on President's Call for Renewal of the USA Patriot Act, White House release, April 19. "The President called for Congress to renew all parts of the USA PATRIOT Act that are scheduled to expire next year."
• Panel Hits FBI Terror Strategy by Guy Taylor, Washington Times, April 14. "The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States said the FBI's counterterrorism efforts were deficient in the years before the attacks, raising questions about where the bureau was channeling its energies during the 1990s."
• Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC): Counterterrorism Responsibilities, letter from Tom Ridge, George Tenet, Robert Mueller and John O. Brennan to Senators Collins and Levin, April 13. "TTIC has the primary responsibility in the US Government for terrorism analysis...."
• Officials: Pre-9/11 Memo Excluded Data by John Solomon, Associated Press, April 13. "The Aug. 7, 2001, Senior Executive Intelligence Brief didn't mention the 70 FBI investigations into possible al-Qaida activity that the president had been told of a day earlier in a top-secret memo titled "Bin Laden Determined To Strike in U.S."
• White House Background Briefing on the Declassified President's Daily Brief, April 10. "Let me go into the substance of the PDB, and then we'll take your questions."
• White House Fact Sheet on the Declassified President's Daily Brief, news release, April 10. "Did the PDB item include any warning of the 9-11 attack? No."
• Politics Can Get in the Way of Keeping Papers Secret by Robert Pear, New York Times, April 10. "If President Bush decides to release a secret document describing omens of a catastrophic terrorist attack in 2001, it would be the latest example of how political imperatives sometimes force officials to set aside the government's normal procedures for classifying and declassifying national security information."
• NSA poised to hire 7,500 people by Ariel Sabar, Baltimore Sun, April 10. "The National Security Agency is launching its largest recruitment drive since the Cold War, with plans to hire 7,500 workers over the next five years as it adapts to a new array of global security threats."
• National Security Agency To Hire 1,500 People by September 2004, NSA news release, April 7. "The National Security Agency intends to hire approximately 1,500 people by September 2004 in an effort to meet the increasing needs of the ever-changing Intelligence Community."
• Intel Aide's Ties Draw Scrutiny by Damon Chappie, Roll Call, April 1. "Stopher�s involvement in creating and championing a foundation funded by the very same contractors who support the national security efforts he is supposed to watch over from his position on the oversight committee has alarmed individuals both inside and outside government..."