State Department officials envision new intelligence role
PHILADELPHIA - The State Department will play a new leading role gathering intelligence on foreigners who could be potential terrorists, according to agency officials who spoke at a homeland security conference Monday.
Diplomats aren't usually thought of as intelligence agents, but with more than 257 embassies, consulates and other official posts in about 180 countries, no federal agency can match the department's overseas presence, said Hunter Ledbetter, State's coordinator for intelligence, resources and planning.
From the most senior diplomats to consular officers stamping passports, State personnel living and working abroad are often the first point of contact with would-be terrorists, soaking up information from personal interviews or articles in local newspapers that might go unnoticed otherwise, Ledbetter said.
About 125 State posts worldwide are already connected to a classified Defense Department network known as SIPRNET (Secret Internet Protocol Router Network), Ledbetter said. The network allows Defense personnel to access classified applications and databases and lets users send secure messages to one another. Being connected means State already is linked with other SIPRNET users, which include Defense and intelligence agencies, Ledbetter said, adding that officials can share valuable intelligence. Over the next few years, as diplomats get more access to information sharing technologies that operate on the Web, Ledbetter said State will exert a major influence over how agencies collaborate in their counterterrorism efforts.
State already produces intelligence analyses through its Bureau of Intelligence and Research, but intelligence agencies often view those reports as too academic and of little value. But Ledbetter said that soon the department will be able to share visa data with homeland security agencies that could be disseminated as far along the governmental chain as state and local law enforcement officers.
David McKee, State's deputy director for intelligence, resources and planning, said agencies shouldn't give up their own data networks, which might contain valuable information on counterterrorism, but rather look for ways to mesh their systems with those of other agencies, effectively creating "an interconnected U.S. government network."
President Bush's homeland security strategy also calls upon agencies in the new Homeland Security Department to create such a collaborative system, but so far administration officials laying the groundwork for the new department haven't focused much on how it would share intelligence information with other agencies.
Many of the speakers at the conference, which ends Wednesday, are senior officials from federal intelligence agencies, including the CIA and the Defense Department, both of which have previously prohibited such public discussions of intelligence operations.