In June, you held an FBI oversight hearing, saying that "the image of the FBI in the minds of too many Americans is that this agency has become unmanageable, unaccountable and unreliable. Its much-vaunted independence has transformed for some into an image of insular arrogance." This came after a bunch of high-profile bungles -- the arrest of Russian spy Robert Hanssen, or the last-minute discovery of more than 4,000 documents that had been withheld from Timothy McVeigh and his attorneys. You were going to hold another hearing after Labor Day, but obviously Sept. 11 postponed that. Do you think that the problems within the FBI may have hindered its agents from preventing the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks?
That's one of the things we have to find out. One of the problems is that the Congress got in the habit of not having real oversight over the FBI. There was a feeling that, in a number of areas where the FBI had problems, that [former FBI director] Louis Freeh had corrected them. And indeed he had; after Ruby Ridge and some other problems he greatly improved a lot in the FBI. But there's also a reluctance, for whatever reason -- whether it goes back to the days of J. Edgar Hoover, I don't know -- to have responsible oversight.
But I said I would have no such reluctance. And when I became chairman, I said it would be one of the first priorities. It was an ideal time to do it; we had a new director coming in, and a new attorney general. And early on the attorney general and I talked, and we said let's look at this anew. Let's look at where there have been problems in the past and correct them in the future. One very obvious problem is that the FBI's computer systems and communication systems are antiquated. And that's been a problem in their ability to manage the flow of critical information. They've also had a lack of translators to handle the materials they were picking up.
I've felt this -- I've said it publicly for years -- that we need to have more of an emphasis on terrorism. I've felt that way as a member of the defense appropriations subcommittee. I've said it so many times I'm almost tired of hearing it: I'm not concerned about someone marching an enemy against us, or flying an air force against us, or sending a barrage of ICBMs against us because we're far, far too powerful. The reaction and retaliation of the United States would be massive. I'm far more concerned about terrorists, who are dedicated and have state-sponsored financing and training, driving into one of our major cities with a U-Haul truck containing weapons of mass destruction -- it could be chemical or nuclear or a dirty bomb, any number of things. The only way to stop something like that is before it happens. And the only way to do that is with good intelligence.
Are we doing enough now?
Well, I think we're doing more. But a lot of these things don't get put in place over night. To get a cadre of people who can translate languages other than fairly common languages. To put into place the connections -- sometimes which are diplomatic as much as anything else -- to get a heads-up. To realize that there are people -- and always will be people -- who want to damage the United States for whatever reason, whether because of our freedoms, our technology, our advanced wealth or power, whether it's done out of envy or ideology, if they're moved to attack us it's the same.
It sure doesn't feel like we've done enough.
In the past 10 years, with different FBI directors, different directors of the CIA, different attorneys general -- I'm talking about both Republican and Democrat -- we've had a number of successes. Most of which have not been publicized. I've been briefed about times when we've stopped an attack, and there hasn't been lot of press conferences about it for obvious reasons; we hope they won't do it again.
But we defend ourselves by defending ourselves -- not by taking away all our freedoms. I'm constantly encouraged by a quote attributed to Ben Franklin at a time when he literally faced the hangman's noose if he'd been unsuccessful. He said, "People who would trade their liberty for security deserve neither."
What's your take on the thousand or so individuals who have been detained by the FBI in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks? Apparently 600 or so of them are still in police custody. Does that concern you?
It concerns me because I think it was done very, very quickly. It's been more reactive than proactive. It's too easy to say, "We're only holding people who are out of status on their visas." But there could be people [in custody] from a lot more countries than the ones who were targeted. It's a better thing to say, "Let's have a better way of tracking those with visas in the United States." But it seems that there are probably better checks and balances now. Though I'm not absolutely certain that there are as many as there should be. Look at the number of people whose lives have been disrupted. It seems to me that a better job could be made in determining why someone has been picked up and detained.
Last week, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer took you to task, on the president's behalf and probably behest, for not confirming enough of his judicial nominees. "There are more vacancies in the federal judiciary now than when President Bush came into office," Fleischer said. "The Senate has failed to act on 37 of the President's nominees to the bench. The failure to confirm qualified individuals in the judiciary hurts the American people." Fair criticism?
We're actually moving a lot faster than the Republicans did during the six years they were in charge, but I'm not using them as a touchstone in any way. Look, I've only been here since mid-July as the chairman of the full committee. It hasn't been quite six months, and we've had to get organized. We're moving very, very fast. We've gotten more judges through than either the first year of the first Bush's term or the first year of Clinton's first term, I forget which it is. And in between we've had a few distractions. There was Sept. 11, the anti-terrorism bill, staffs of 50 senators were forced out of their offices because of anthrax. Two anthrax letters were sent here to the Senate, including to my office. I think we've done pretty darn well.
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