White House considers MI-5-type security division

New York Times | March 25 2005

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration is considering a major restructuring of the Justice Department that would create a powerful new national security division in an effort to better consolidate and coordinate terrorism and espionage investigations, officials say.

The concept, still preliminary, reflects concerns among some administration officials that national security cases handled by Justice Department lawyers and investigators remain fragmented at times because of bureaucratic divisions, despite structural changes made since the Sept. 11 attacks.

Proponents say a major reorganization, after the creation of the Department of Homeland Security in 2003 and the post of director of national intelligence last year, would represent another important step in streamlining cases involving terrorism, foreign spying, economic espionage and other national security matters and could give the department more flexibility to predict and prevent terrorist attacks.

The concept has been compared by some to the MI-5 domestic intelligence service in Britain, with training, investigation, surveillance and prosecution in national security cases consolidated in one division. It also would be a natural extension of the Justice Department's dismantling of the so-called wall that separated law enforcement and intelligence operations and hindered the sharing of information before the Sept. 11 attacks, proponents say.

But the idea of creating what amounts to a super-division at the Justice Department, with even broader power to combat terrorism, is also likely to stir concerns from civil rights advocates and conservative libertarians, who assert that the national anti-terrorism law, the USA Patriot Act, has already given the Justice Department too much power to track terrorism suspects without reasonable cause.

Some officials acknowledged that a single national security division could have the potential to curtail checks and balances now in place.

Administration officials said that the recent discussions of the idea at the White House and the Justice Department were preliminary and that it was unclear when any decision might be made on whether to pursue it through either a presidential directive or congressional action.

Although some senior administration officials are said to support the idea, the attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, has not presented a formal recommendation, officials said.

"It's under discussion," an administration official said, "but it's not a done deal, and until it's ready to roll out, it's really still at the concept stage."

White House and Justice Department officials had mixed opinions about the proposal. Because of the nature of the preliminary discussions, they did not want to be identified by name.

White House officials declined to comment, but Dana Perino, a White House spokeswoman, said, "President Bush has said repeatedly that he welcomes all efforts and good ideas to fight the war on terrorism."

David Kris, who was a senior official at the Justice Department and who worked extensively on intelligence and counterterrorism matters after the Sept. 11 attacks, said the idea is worth considering.

"The advantage of an idea like this is that it would bring together under one roof all of the Justice Department's national security elements, and right now those elements are spread all over the place, willy-nilly," said Kris, now a lawyer in private practice.

Under the current Justice Department structure, the criminal division has primary responsibility for all counterterrorism prosecutions. But lawyers at a separate, top-secret intelligence unit are the gatekeepers for foreign intelligence warrants authorizing wiretaps and other surveillance. Lawyers handling immigration, civil rights and civil litigation in separate divisions can also become involved in national security matters on a regular basis.

Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the Justice Department has worked to respond more quickly and aggressively in pre-empting and disrupting terrorist plots, rather than investigating and prosecuting acts of terrorism after they have occurred.

Internal communication and coordination problems have played a part in some embarrassing courtroom setbacks for the Justice Department, including the collapse of the case against a so-called sleeper cell in Detroit, the mistaken arrest of a Portland lawyer in connection with the Madrid train bombings, and the long-stalled case against Zacarias Moussaoui in the Sept. 11 attacks.