Director Testifies on Global Threats and our Response
The National Security Landscape 2005
Director Testifies on Worldwide Threats and our Global Response
02/16/05
It’s long—nearly 10,000 words—and, at times, unsettling.
Still, we strongly encourage you to read Director Mueller’s prepared statement on 2/16 before the Senate Select on Intelligence.
Why? It paints a detailed picture of the major national security and criminal threats facing the U.S. today—from al-Qa’ida’s growing push to obtain “dirty bombs” and other potent weapons to the rising strength and reach of violent American street gangs.
Among the things you’ll learn:
- Al-Qa’ida main targets for attack in the U.S.;
- Its most fertile grounds for recruiting and breeding future terrorists in this country;
- International terrorist groups besides al-Qa’ida that have a presence here and capability to launch attacks;
- The domestic terrorist group that believes in armed conflict to abolish our nation’s prisons, legal system, and capitalist state.
- Secrets that foreign spies are most interested in today ... and the new and clever disguises and strategies they’re using to find them out; and
- Why we’re worried about the growing number of hackers-for-hire.
Just as importantly, the Director’s statement spells out the primary strategies we’re using to protect the nation from these threats—intelligence, partnerships, and information technology—and the tangible results they’ve produced.
In particular, we call your attention to:
- Proactive initiatives we’ve launched over the last year to disrupt potential and predicted terrorist plots;
- Our National Strategy for Counterintelligence and its effectiveness in responding to current and emerging intelligence threats;
- Our progress in becoming an intelligence-driven organization, including specifics on improvements in our analytic and translation capacities;
- Our new National Gang Strategy, which includes a new $10 million National Gang Intelligence Center, 29 more Safe Streets Task Forces, and a newly created task force focusing exclusively on the dangerous gang Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13); and
- The new investigative tools we’re putting at the fingertips of our agents and analysts.
Final words from the Director: “Our adversaries will keep evolving, national security and criminal threats will further converge, and old jurisdictional boundaries will become less and less relevant ... [yet] I am confident that we will out-network, out-think, and ultimately defeat our adversaries.”