Homeland security and Three C’s

This week, Congress is expected to send to the president landmark legislation for a new era: a bill designed to bring the full resources of the federal government to bear in our war against terrorism. One of the most critical elements of this anti-terrorism package – which also includes expanded authority to hunt down and identify terrorist activity within our own borders – addresses the “Three C’s” that have been lacking among those federal agencies that are integral to preventing terrorism: coordination, communication and cooperation.

Incredibly, there is no provision of current law that mandates State Department access to sources such as the FBI’s National Crime Information Center (NCIC). This system, which maintains arrest and criminal information from a wide variety of federal, state, and local sources as well as from Canada, will be used by the State Department to deny visas to dangerous aliens. Similar to legislation I introduced in 1993, the bill pending in conference will finally make such information-sharing a requirement, and when combined with the new Office of Homeland Security should help ensure that our federal agencies are as united in the effort against terrorism as the American people. I urged conferees to further strengthen this requirement, so both State and the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) have access to the full range of information gathered by U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies.

During my 12 years as ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs International Operations Subcommittee and Chair of the subcommittee’s Senate counterpart, I saw firsthand why removing impediments to a cooperative federal effort is a national imperative. Perhaps the most egregious example came to light in our investigations into the comings-and-goings of radical Egyptian cleric Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

Astoundingly, we found that in the period since 1987 when Sheik Rahman was placed on the State Department lookout list, he entered and exited the United States five times totally unimpeded. Even after the State Department formally revoked his visa, INS granted him permanent residence status. When he was finally caught on July 31, 1991, reentering the United States, he was immediately released back into U.S. society to allow him to pursue a multi-year appeal process.

Just as unbelievable is the fact that, even after the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, membership in a terrorist organization in and of itself – with the exception of the PLO – was not sufficient grounds for visa denial. Rather, the Immigration Act of 1990 required the government to prove that an individual either was personally involved in a terrorist act, or planning one. This absurd threshold made it almost impossible to block individuals, such as Sheik Rahman, from entering the country legally. Legislation I introduced in 1993 removed that bureaucratic and legal obstacle – yet it took nearly three more years to enact it as part of the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996.

Further, to respond to the trail of errors we uncovered, provisions from my bill were enacted in a year later, in 1994, requiring modernization in the State Department’s antiquated microfiche “lookout” system to keep dangerous aliens from entering the United States.

Recognizing the need to mate these new technologies with the need for the most comprehensive, current and reliable information, the bill also attempted to address the issue of access. Tellingly, after the State Department lost free access to the NCIC because of a 1990 Justice Department ruling that the State Department was not a “law enforcement agency,” the visa denial rate for past criminal activities plunged a remarkable 45 percent.

Therefore, my 1993 bill also designated the State Department a “law enforcement agency” for purposes of accessing the NCIC as well as other FBI criminal records when processing any visa application, whether immigrant or nonimmigrant. Unfortunately, a revised provision also enacted in 1994 provided the State Department with free access to these FBI resources only for purposes of processing immigrant visas – dropping my requirement for non-immigrant visas eventually used by all 19 of the suspected hijackers. Even that limited law was allowed to expire, despite my legislation enacted in 1996 repealing the requirement that visa applicants be informed of the reason for a denial – a provision that law enforcement agencies legitimately believed could impede ongoing investigations, or reveal sources and methods.

Having introduced my own legislation after the attacks to mandate information sharing among all agencies such as the FBI, CIA, DEA, Customs, INS and the State Department, I would have preferred that the recently-passed anti-terrorism bill go even further. Nevertheless, re-instating State Department access to the NCIC for both types of visas is a critical step in ensuring that information sharing will no longer be voluntary and ad hoc.

To further fortify our front-line defenses against terrorism and turn back terrorists at their point of origin, I also proposed mandating information sharing by establishing Terrorist Lookout Committees, comprised of the head of the political section of each embassy and senior representatives of all U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies. The committees would be required to meet on a monthly basis to review and submit names to the State Department for inclusion in the visa lookout system. Unfortunately, Senators did not reach agreement on amendments that could be added to the anti-terrorism bill, so the package was ultimately passed with no modifications. Consequently, I will continue to work to pass this important measure separately.

Clearly, the catastrophic events of Sept. 11 have catapulted us into a different era, and everything is forever changed. We must move heaven and earth to remove the impediments that keep us from maximizing our defense against terrorism, and that means changing the prevailing system and culture by re-focusing on the Three C’s of coordination, communication and cooperation. The bottom line is, if knowledge is power, we are only as strong as the weakest link in our information network – therefore, we must ensure that the only “turf war” will be the one to protect American turf. In our fight against terrorism, we can do no less.

Olympia J. Snowe, Maine’s senior senator, served as Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on International Operations from 1985-1994, and Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on International Operations from 1995-1996.