http://www.russiatoday.com/news.php3?id=246010
Clinton Orders Retooling of Counterintelligence
Washington
Jan 6, 2001 -- (Reuters) President Bill Clinton, in his waning days in
office, has ordered a retooling of the country's counterintelligence efforts
to take account of new espionage threats and protect the private sector, the
White House said on Friday.
The order will establish a new top government position -- a national
counterintelligence executive charged with overseeing activities between the
FBI, CIA and other agencies, and making sure they have enough money.
White House National Security Council spokesman P.J. Crowley said Clinton
signed the order in late December with a view toward addressing a changing
espionage environment in which computer hackers can steal government and
corporate secrets.
"Before, you were worried about foreign intelligence services that might be
operational out of embassies here in the United States. Now you have to worry
about getting hacked by someone who is trying to glean information that we
need to protect," he said.
Clinton leaves office on Jan. 20. President-elect George W. Bush's spokesman,
Ari Fleischer, declined to comment on the order, which Bush could decide to
change after taking office.
The national executive job is similar to that of the national drug control
policy director, which coordinates anti-drug activities among various
agencies and lobbies for funding for the effort on Capitol Hill.
Crowley said the executive would work not only within the government but with
the private sector "to make sure we understand potential threats to
technology and infrastructure."
The executive, unlikely to be named before Clinton leaves office, would have
no role in investigations.
U.S. officials have long worried about the possibility of a terrorist attack
on the country's electricity grid or telephone systems. Protecting company
research and development secrets has increasingly been viewed as a priority
in the government.
DEFINE CROWN JEWELS
A key goal of the new office would be to identify the most precious items for
the protection of U.S. national security, that if stolen or tampered with
could be disastrous.
"The first element will be understanding what is truly the crown jewel rather
than costume jewelry," a senior U.S. intelligence official told Reuters on
condition of anonymity.
For example it could be the sophisticated W-88 nuclear warhead, a secret
policy stating the "real intentions" of the United States in some realm, and
disruption of the Middle East peace process, the official said.
In the private sector it could be the need to maintain U.S. dominance in the
world of information technology, he added.
"It's a much broader concept than simply what are hostile intelligence
services doing to us?" the official said. "What is so important to us that it
must not be damaged?"
The government last year drew fire for its handling of Taiwanese-born Los
Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee, who was never charged with spying and was freed
from jail in September 2000 after pleading guilty to one count of downloading
nuclear weapons design secrets to a non-secure computer.
The new office was not created in response to Lee or past espionage cases,
but rather to shift from a predominant focus on hostile nations which "in
today's world ... is going to miss more than it's going to get," the
intelligence official said.
"The FBI surveilling the Russian embassy is a good thing, we ought to keep
doing it, but to think that that was 98 percent of your defense is crazy," he
said.
For example in the 1999 case of the Russian diplomat accused of monitoring an
eavesdropping device planted in the State Department, the new
counterintelligence executive might have checked to see whether the U.S.
military or another agency had some interest in feeding him information
before arresting him, the official said.
The new counterintelligence executive's office would replace the National
Counterintelligence Center, which was instituted after the 1994 arrest of a
CIA officer, Aldrich Ames, who was later convicted of spying for Moscow.
(Additional reporting by Tabassum Zakaria)
