|
Fbi terror search { June 3 2002 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49196-2002Jun2.htmlhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49196-2002Jun2.html
FBI Search Warrant Policy Changed for Terror Cases
By Steve Fainaru and Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, June 3, 2002; Page A01
MINNEAPOLIS -- The director of the FBI will personally review all applications for search warrants related to terrorism investigations under a policy change quietly put into effect weeks ago in response to the furor over obstacles that hindered agents here investigating Zacarias Moussaoui, the alleged "20th hijacker."
The new policy has not been announced. But it shows how the Moussaoui case reverberated through FBI headquarters long before the chief legal counsel of the Minneapolis division, Coleen Rowley, outlined the bureau's problems securing a search warrant in her now-famous May 21 letter to FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III.
Federal and local officials familiar with the new policy said search warrants sought under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) will be quickly routed to Dale Watson, the FBI's chief of counterterrorism and counterintelligence, and to Mueller if the application is rejected by a mid-level supervisor. Rowley complained that a middle manager had stymied her division's efforts in the Moussaoui investigation.
In the past, the director reviewed FISA applications only if they had been approved at a lower level.
"I look at this as good news for us," said Patrick D. McGowan, whose Hennepin County Sheriff's Office is part of a joint terrorism task force headed by the FBI's Minneapolis field office. "They're changing the way they're doing business."
Rowley's impact on the FBI is sure to be on display this week as she prepares to testify, along with Mueller, before the Senate Judiciary Committee's hearing reviewing problems at the FBI. She will not discuss the Moussaoui case in detail because of concerns about compromising national security and Moussaoui's prosecution.
Although Mueller praised Rowley last week for her criticism, people close to the situation said the atmosphere inside the field office here remains tense. Coincidentally, the Minneapolis division is scheduled to undergo its biennial inspection by headquarters this week.
The exhaustive two-week inspection had been scheduled and is unrelated to Moussaoui. A congressional source said, however, that the Judiciary Committee is aware of the inspection and will be watching closely to ensure that it is not used by FBI officials to pressure Rowley or punish her in any way.
The inspection will inevitably include the Moussaoui case and inspectors will have to take a hard look at how the case was handled, said people knowledgeable about the review.
"There's no way the Moussaoui case can be avoided," said Dag Sohlberg, who retired as an agent in the Minneapolis division in 1998. "It's like the elephant in the living room."
Moussaoui, 33, a French citizen of Moroccan descent, was arrested Aug. 16 for overstaying his visa after arousing suspicions while taking flight training in Eagan, Minn., a Twin Cities suburb. In her memo to Mueller, obtained by Time magazine, Rowley wrote that Minneapolis agents tried desperately to gain a warrant to search Moussaoui's laptop computer and personal belongings but were undermined by headquarters officials, who declined to seek FISA or criminal search warrants.
Moussaoui is charged with conspiring in the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon. He faces the death penalty if convicted.
Rowleyhas received more than 100 messages of support from FBI agents across the country. Her husband, Ross, said at the family's home in Apple Valley last week that he and Rowley could not comment. A spokesman for the FBI's Minneapolis division also declined to comment.
As described by former colleagues, Rowley, 47, is a highly credible critic: a 21-year FBI veteran who supports her husband and four children. Larry C. Brubaker, a retired agent who worked in the Minneapolis division for 21 years, said Rowley studied Sicilianand used it as an agent on Mafia cases in the New York field office.
She moved to the Minneapolis office, where she applied her law degree from the University of Iowa to serve as legal counsel. She was also the office's spokeswoman.
Sohlberg said that three times a week, Rowley, a triathlete and distance runner, would combine lunch breaks with the three hours a week the FBI allots for physical training to take long runs around Lake of the Isles.
"Her lunches last about 10 minutes and usually she's on the phone," said John Payne, who retired last fall as an agent with the Minneapolis division.
Brubaker said Rowley would sometimes go "nose to nose" with colleagues "because she always takes the cautious side of things. She always wanted to make sure the t's were crossed and the i's were dotted. She was very careful to make sure that things were done correctly."
"Coleen's not a liar; she's probably one of the most principled people I've ever known in my life," said Payne, who worked with Rowley in New York and Minneapolis. "If she says something, it's true."
Rowley's memo is stunning in its bluntness. The edited version contains 15 exclamation points, often used to punctuate sentences of utter incredulity. At one point she notes that Mueller, after first saying that warnings might have prevented the attacks, had reversed himself to say that although warnings such as the Moussaoui case did in fact exist, they still would not have been enough to prevent the tragedy.
"With all due respect, this statement is as bad as the first!" Rowley, a Grade 14 supervisor, wrote to the FBI director. "I don't know how you or anyone at FBI Headquarters, no matter how much genius or prescience you may possess, could so blithely make this affirmation without anything to back the opinion up[other] than your stature as FBI director."
Mueller changed his statement again last week, acknowledging for the first time that all the information in the FBI's possession, if put together more adeptly, might have led investigators to at least some of the hijackers.
The FBI's policy change on FISA warrants appears to address one of Rowley's most serious criticisms: that supervisors at headquarters were able to "throw out roadblocks and undermine" efforts to search Moussaoui's laptop and belongings. The memo suggests that a supervisory special agent and a unit chief at headquarters effectively suppressed the FISA request, an investigative tool used mostly in espionage and terrorism cases.
FISA warrants are approved by a special court of rotating judges that sits in Washington. Previously, the FBI director signed off on all FISA warrant applications but did not review applications rejected inside headquarters.
McGowan, the Hennepin County sheriff, said he learned of the frustration in the Minneapolis field office over a month ago. That was during a briefing with Rowley, Anthony Cervantes, a supervisory special agent in charge of the local Joint Terrorism Task Force, and M. Chris Briese, an assistant special agent who oversees counterterrorism here.
Although Rowley expressed some of the same concerns she later detailed in her memo, Briese "did most of the talking," McGowan said. One of the field office's main frustrations, he said, was that after supervisors at headquarters had decided there was insufficient evidence to push for the warrant, "that's where the decision was left. They couldn't crack that barrier."
Two days later, McGowan said, he brought up the issue directly with Mueller at a meeting in Washington of the State and Local Advisory Group, which includes representatives of six national law enforcement associations. He said Mueller acknowledged the problems with the Moussaoui case and outlined the new policy ofreviewing all applications at the FBI's highest levels.
A federal law enforcement official confirmed the change and said it came in direct response to problems that surfaced during the Moussaoui case.
It remains unclear how much of the internal strife that surrounded Moussaoui will surface during the Senate hearings. There is some question about whether Rowley's reluctance to discuss the Moussaoui case would prevent her from naming the FBI officials who she says hindered the Minnesota FBI investigation.
Law enforcement officials have identified the supervisory agent Rowley accused of "consistently, almost deliberately thwarting" Minnesota FBI efforts as Michael Maltbie. Maltbie recently transferred out of counterterrorism to the Cleveland field office.
Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) said in an interview that he planned to ask Rowley to name the officials: "Getting the names of the people that stonewalled, I don't see how that in any way compromises national security or hurts the case."
But Grassley later said he "will probably seek the advice of my counsel before pursuing that line of questioning."
Eggen reported from Washington. Staff researcher Madonna Leibling contributed to this report.
© 2002 The Washington Post Company
|
|
