In this post, I compare what Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell revealed yesterday about why Democratic bills amending FISA were unacceptable with the content of those bills. The comparison shows that DNI McConnell found it unacceptable to require the government to:

• List what the minimization procedures were that protect data collected from Americans
  
• Allow either a FISA judge or Congress to review its compliance with its own minimization procedures

In short, the government promises it will protect American persons’ data, but it refused to allow any meaningful oversight of that promise.

McConnell Reveals that Democratic Requirements on Minimization Are Too Harsh

Along with blabbing about the fictional "surgical" precision of the Administration’s warrantless wiretap program yesterday, Mike McConnell also revealed why the Administration found the Democrats’ bills to amend FISA unacceptable: because of some restrictions their bills made on minimization procedures.

So I walked over to the chamber and as I walkedinto the office just off the chamber, it’s the vice president’s office,somebody gave me a copy. So I looked at the version and said, ‘Can’t doit. The same language was back in there.’

Q: What was it?

A: Just let me leave it, not too much detail, there were things withregard to our authorities some language around minimization.

Minimization refers to what the Administration does with information that they collect on people in the United States when they get that information incidentally while tapping someone purportedly outside of the US. This matters to you, because it determines how the Administration will ensure that, if they collect your end of the phone call when you call Pakistan, they don’t get to keep or use any part of your end of the phone call that isn’t absolutely necessary for the spooks to interpret the wiretap.

McConnell Tries to Deny Withdrawing Support from the House Bill

Helpfully, McConnell also specified how he responded to the bills the Democrats and Republicans proposed leading up to August 4. McConnell is basically trying to dismiss Democratic claims that he reneged on his support for their bill and in the end sided with the Administration’s harsher bill.

So we kept going back and forth, so we sent up aversion like Monday, we sent up a version on Wednesday, we sent up aversion on Thursday. The House leadership, or the Democratic leadershipon Thursday took that bill and we talked about it. And my response wasthere are some things I can’t live with in this bill and they saidalright we’re going to fix them. Now, here’s the issue. I never thenhad a chance to read it for the fix because, again, it’s so complex, ifyou change a word or phrase, or even a paragraph reference, you cancause unintended …

Q: You have to make sure it’s all consistent?

A: Right. So I can’t agree to it until it’s in writing and my 20lawyers, who have been doing this for two years, can work through it.So in the final analysis, I was put in the position of making a call onsomething I hadn’t read. So when it came down to crunch time, we got acopy and it had some of the offending language back in it. So I said,’I can’t support it.’ And it played out in the House the way it playedout in the House. Meantime on the Senate side, there were two versionsbeing looked at. The Wednesday version and the Thursday version. Andone side took one version and the other side took the other version.The Thursday version, we had some help, and I didn’t get a chance toreview it. So now, it’s Friday night, the Senate’s voting. They werehaving their debate and I still had not had a chance to review it. So,I walked over, I was up visiting some senators trying to explain someof the background. So I walked over to the chamber and as I walked intothe office just off the chamber, it’s the vice president’s office,somebody gave me a copy. So I looked at the version and said, ‘Can’t doit. The same language was back in there.’

Q: What was it?

A: Just let me leave it, not too much detail, there were things withregard to our authorities some language around minimization. So it putus in an untenable position. So then I had another version to take alook at, which was our Wednesday version, which basically wasunchanged. So I said, well certainly, I’m going to support thatWednesday version. So that’s what I said and the vote happened in theSenate and that was on Friday. So now it rolled to the House onSaturday.

McConnell talks about three bills:

• The House version, which failed as H3356.
• The Thursday Senate version, S2911.
• The Wednesday version, which eventually passed as S1927.

From McConnell’s description, we know that he found several things about H3356 unacceptable, probably minimization and some other things. And we know that his primary complaint with S2911 was its requirements on minimization. By comparing what each of these bills require in terms of minimization, we can figure out what was unacceptable to the Administration–and therefore what we can presume they’re doing with data on US citizens and permanent residents.

I pointed out yesterday that Mike McConnell admitted that the Senate Judiciary Committee did not receive a briefing on the warrantless wiretapping program, in spite of the fact that the Committee has been working on the issue for well over a year.

We submitted the bill in April, had an open hearing1 May, we had a closed hearing in May, I don’t remember the exact date.Chairman (U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas) had two hearings and Ihad a chance to brief the judiciary committee in the house, theintelligence committee in the house and I just mentioned the Senate,did not brief the full judiciary committee in the Senate, but I didmeet with Sen. (Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.) and Sen. (Arlen Specter, R-Pa.),and I did have an opportunity on the Senate side, they have a traditionthere of every quarter they invite the director of nationalintelligence in to talk to them update them on topics of interest. Andthat happened in (June 27). [my emphasis]

McConnelldid not give a private briefing to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Andif his description is accurate, he didn’t give one to the SenateIntelligence Committee, either. The former, of course, has beenreviewing these issues for a year and a half and has subpoenaeddocuments from the Administration on precisely this program,only to be denied. The notion that McConnell didn’t brief them (was heafraid they’d demand subpoenas?)–and that Leahy didn’t demand that hebrief them–is a ridiculous affront to the legislative process. And tothink Cheney would tell such a good ally as Leahy to go fuck himself.

But what I didn’t remember is when McConnell gave his briefing to Specter (and presumably Leahy):

Specter, who was given his first briefing on the NSA program and its history Monday afternoon in an 80-minute meeting with Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, declined to comment afterward.

On Monday, July 30, the Ranking Member on the Senate Judiciary Committee received his first briefing on a program that he had been conducting oversight on for over a year–leading up to legislation that McConnell complained should have been passed back in May.

Okay, that’s not precisely the conclusion the new NIE in Iraq draws. But it is the logical outcome of the key judgments its gives. Here are some key points, taken totally out of the context of the report, but which are otherwise direct quotes:

• The IC assesses that the emergence of “bottom-up” security initiatives, principally among Sunni Arabs and focused on combating AQI, represent the best prospect for improved security over the next six to 12 months, but we judge these initiatives will only translate into widespread political accommodation and enduring stability if the Iraqi Government accepts and supports them. A multi-stage process involving the Iraqi Government providing support and legitimacy for such initiatives could foster over the longer term political reconciliation between the participating Sunni Arabs and the national government. We also assess that under some conditions “bottom-up initiatives” could pose risks to the Iraqi Government.
• Such initiatives, if not fully exploited by the Iraqi Government, could over time also shift greater power to the regions, undermine efforts to impose central authority, and reinvigorate armed opposition to the Baghdad government.
• The polarization of communities is most evident in Baghdad, where the Shia are a clear majority in more than half of all neighborhoods and Sunni areas have become surrounded by predominately Shia districts. Where population displacements have led to significant sectarian separation, conflict levels have diminished to some extent because warring communities find it more difficult to penetrate communal enclaves.
• Kurdish leaders remain focused on protecting the autonomy of the Kurdish region and reluctant to compromise on key issues.

Or, to translate, the area where the surge has been most successful is in its "bottom-up" work in Sunni provinces, which has made the Sunnis more capable of resisting the Al Qaeda in Iraq groups. But by making Sunnis more self-sufficient, the surge has also made it increasingly unlikely that the Iraqi government will assert control over these regions. This is most clear in Kurdish areas, where Kurdish leaders have been actively working to establish an autonomous Kurdish state. Yet even in Baghdad–the area that, because of its previous diversity, really weighed against the possibility of a three-state split in Iraq–the sects are becoming homogeneous enough that violence has diminished.

In other words–the country is getting closer and closer to a de facto split, even if that’s not the intent of US policies.

Which means I’d make a different conclusion about the NIE’s description of how Iraq’s troubles will affect the region.

Population displacement resulting from sectarian violence continues, imposing burdens on provincial governments and some neighboring states and increasing the danger of destabilizing influences spreading across Iraq’s borders over the next six to 12 months.

[snip]

The IC assesses that Iraq’s neighbors will continue to focus on improving their leverage in Iraq in anticipation of a Coalition drawdown. Assistance to armed groups, especially from Iran, exacerbates the violence inside Iraq, and the reluctance of the Sunni states that are generally supportive of US regional goals to offer support to the Iraqi Government probably bolsters Iraqi Sunni Arabs’ rejection of the government’s legitimacy.

(The NIE also includes specific details about Iranian and Turkish involvement in the country.)

If, as this NIE suggests, Iraq is getting increasingly homogenized into sectarian regions, then that increases the chance that Iraq’s neighbors will intervene to ensure the resulting split benefits their own country. So while decreasing violence in Baghdad may be the results of a lot of ugly sectarian violence, that doesn’t mean that splitting into three regions would diminish the violence in the region–because it would significantly increase the stakes for Iraq’s neighbors.

Finally, here’s a little tidbit I’ve got questions about:

Coalition forces, working with Iraqi forces, tribal elements, and some Sunni insurgents, have reduced al-Qa’ida in Iraq’s (AQI) capabilities, restricted its freedom of movement, and denied it grassroots support in some areas. [my emphasis]

Does this say what I think it says? That coalition forces are working with "some Sunni insurgents"? How are we going to win a counter-insurgency if we’re fighting with insurgents?

I thought it worth mentioning that the Administration has twice made claims in the last week that their website refuted. First came Senator Leahy, who noted that Cheney’s claims not to be part of the Executive Office of the President were disproved by the White House website.

The Administration’s response today also claims that the Office of the Vice President is not part of the Executive Office of the President.  That is wrong.  Both the United States Code and even the White House’s own web site say so – at least it did as recently as this morning.

Then yesterday, CREW pointed out that the White House website disproved White House claims that the Office of Administration was not subject to FOIA.

After learning that the Bush administration claimedthat the Office of Administration wasn’t subject to Freedom ofInformation Act requests, CREW did some research. Seems the White Housewebsite, which is an official voice of the Bush administration, statesotherwise:

In fact, evidence that the Office of Administration is subject to FOIA requests is made here and here and here and here on the White House website and even once on the Department of Justice site here.

Rather than wait for the next ridiculous White House claim to be disproved by its own website, I say we try to anticipate it. What assertion, made on the White House website, do you think we should just ignore as a mirage invented by some over-imaginative White House webmaster? Some of my nominations include this whole section of the website, particularly this one. We ought to assume this, this, this, and this simply aren’t true. And while we’re at it, I’m just going to presume that this never happened–since it’s on the White House website, it must not be true.

See how much fun you can have simply ignoring things you don’t like that appear on the White House website?

This is our Director of National Intelligence, talking about the threat of Al Qaeda growing stronger in an area nominally controlled by our ally Pakistan:

After the 31st of May we were in extremis becausenow we have significantly less capability. And meantime, the community,before I came back, had been working on a National IntelligenceEstimate on terrorist threat to the homeland. And the key elements ofthe terrorist threat to the homeland, there were four key elements, aresilient determined adversary with senior leadership willing to diefor the cause, requiring a place to train and develop, think of it assafe haven, they had discovered that in the border area betweenPakistan and Afghanistan. Now the Pakistani government is pushing andpressing and attempting to do something about it, but by and large theyhave areas of safe haven. So leadership that can adapt, safe haven,intermediate leadership, these are think of them as trainers,facilitators, operational control guys. And the fourth part isrecruits. They have them, they’ve taken them. This area is referred toas the FATA, federally administered tribal areas, they have therecruits and now the objective is to get them into the United Statesfor mass casualties to conduct terrorist operations to achieve masscasualties. All of those four parts have been carried out except thefourth. They have em, but they haven’t been successful. One of themajor tools for us to keep them out is the FISA program, a significanttool and we’re going the wrong direction. [my emphasis]

This is the urgent new reason McConnell gave to Congress for refusing to allow the FISC to oversee the minimization procedures on wiretapping done in the United States.

Now, first of all, Al Qaeda didn’t just "now" "discover" the tribal lands, though we may have when we let Bin Laden escape to them. Al Qaeda and the Taliban knew and used it, well before they retreated to it as their primary safe haven … over five years ago.

More importantly, is anyone as concerned as I am that our Director of National Intelligence says, "one of the major tools for us to keep them out is the FISA program"? After all, this is a guy who oversees all aspects of intelligence, including human intelligence, satellite sigint (after all, there are oh so many fiber optic cables laid in the tribal lands), and covert operations. Not to mention data collection from international air travel, military intelligence, and financial operations. But DNI McConnell is relying on needle-in-a-haystack wiretapping to keep us safe?

And, while it’s not McConnell’s fault (it’s Dick Cheney’s), tell me how it makes you feel that our DNI is saying, of an ostensible ally, that, "Now the Pakistani government is pushing andpressing and attempting to do something about it, but by and large theyhave areas of safe haven." Because I sure have a vague memory of saying over and over that our first task in the war on terror is to get Pakistan right. Heck, the non-serious left and people like Richard Clarke have been saying, for even longer, that Pakistan and Afghanistan should have taken precedence over Iraq. But here our DNI is, telling us about this urgent everything-old-is-new-again threat in Pakistan, pinpointing the source of any terrorist threat to our country.

And he basically shrugs it off.

Wow. I’m with Spencer Ackerman. If transparency is going to kill Americans, Mike McConnell just killed a lot more Americans blabbing to the El Paso Times than a Congressional debate with marginal transparency ever will. Consider this example, where McConnell tries to convince the reporter that the Administration is not data-mining on a massive scale:

Now there’s a sense that we’re doing massive datamining. In fact, what we’re doing is surgical. A telephone number issurgical. So, if you know what number, you can select it out. Sothat’s, we’ve got a lot of territory to make up with people believingthat we’re doing things we’re not doing.

It’s not a detail we’ve had before, now we have it. And note his disingenuousness. The claim of opponents is not that the Administration is now doing massive data-mining (well, not through the NSA–they’ve just moved that program to the FBI). The claim is that they were doing massive data-mining up until March 2004, when Comey and much of DOJ balked. Which kind of explains the reason why there’s deep distrust.

And here’s another reason for that distrust.

Now the second part of the issue was under thepresident’s program, the terrorist surveillance program, the privatesector had assisted us. Because if you’re going to get access you’vegot to have a partner and they were being sued. Now if you play out thesuits at the value they’re claimed, it would bankrupt these companies.So my position was we have to provide liability protection to theseprivate sector entities.

What McConnell all but admits is that those lawsuits have merit–that there is a real possibility that having cooperated in the Administration’s ill-conceived spying program will bankrupt big telecom. Again, if those suits have merit, there’s a reason for the deep distrust–it’s because BushCo encouraged the telecoms to violate the privacy of their customers on a massive scale.

And finally, one more reason for the distrust.

We submitted the bill in April, had an open hearing1 May, we had a closed hearing in May, I don’t remember the exact date.Chairman (U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas) had two hearings and Ihad a chance to brief the judiciary committee in the house, theintelligence committee in the house and I just mentioned the Senate,did not brief the full judiciary committee in the Senate, but I didmeet with Sen. (Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.) and Sen. (Arlen Specter, R-Pa.),and I did have an opportunity on the Senate side, they have a traditionthere of every quarter they invite the director of nationalintelligence in to talk to them update them on topics of interest. Andthat happened in (June 27). [my emphasis]

McConnell did not give a private briefing to the Senate Judiciary Committee. And if his description is accurate, he didn’t give one to the Senate Intelligence Committee, either. The former, of course, has been reviewing these issues for a year and a half and has subpoenaed documents from the Administration on precisely this program, only to be denied. The notion that McConnell didn’t brief them (was he afraid they’d demand subpoenas?)–and that Leahy didn’t demand that he brief them–is a ridiculous affront to the legislative process. And to think Cheney would tell such a good ally as Leahy to go fuck himself.

Finally, one last reason for distrust. McConnell also revealed the reason the Administration refused the Democratic bill: because it provided a real mechanism to the minimization procedures (which are what ensure your side of the conversation is not kept when you’re calling to Pakistan).

So I walked over to the chamber and as I walkedinto the office just off the chamber, it’s the vice president’s office,somebody gave me a copy. So I looked at the version and said, ‘Can’t doit. The same language was back in there.’

Q: What was it?

A: Just let me leave it, not too much detail, there were things withregard to our authorities some language around minimization.

The Administration refused the Democratic bill because it required the someone besides McConnell and Alberto Gonzales to review the minimization procedures of the taps themselves, rather than just buying off on the minimization procedures as a general plan. And the Administration refused that minimum level of oversight.

And note–the decision that the Democratic bill was unacceptable occurred in Cheney’s Senate office.

Ever since Ed Gillespie became Bush’s replacement for Dan Bartlett (and after that, for Rove), I’ve been trying to track the clients of Quinn Gillespie–the firm that Gillespie co-founded. After all, Gillespie is a guy who, up until days before he took on one of the most powerful advisory roles at the White House, was a big-time lobbyist, with a broad clientele. And Gillespie has declined to recuse himself automatically from matters concerning his former clients.

Despite the potential for conflicts of interest, Gillespie won’t be forced inhis new role to recuse himself from all matters related to the companies he haslobbied for, said Ken Gross, a Washington-based attorney and former associategeneral counsel with the Federal Election Commission.

Instead, Gillespie will have to decide on a case-by-case basis if hisactivities could violate federal ethics standards.

So, when Bush pushes back S-CHIP eligibility to prevent S-CHIP from becoming a cornerstone to a universal, government-provided health care program, I think it relevant to consider that, until recently, Bush’s counselor was representing the interests of the Coalition to Advance Healthcare Reform–a corporate group pushing privately-funded healthcare. And as Bush prepares to veto a bill reforming the corrupt student loan process, I think it relevant to consider that Gillespie was also, until very recently, representing Nelnet, one of the student loan companies most deeply mired in the scandal. And as Bush commands Congress to enact a bill giving telecommunications companies immunity for their past illegal actions associated with the warrantless wiretapping program, you might want to remember that until recently, Gillespie was representing the interests of AT&T, Verizon, and the US Telecom Association.

But I have to admit, even I was surprised by the remarkable timing of Quinn Gillespie’s most recent (at least thus far recorded in the database) client acquisition.

You see, the rumor that Gillespie would replace Bartlett was reported at least as early as June 3. Bush made it official on June 13. And on June 15, Quinn Gillespie started working for a new client. A pretty significant one, as it turns out.

Just in time to work with Gillespie’s now incredibly wired former colleagues–but late enough to avoid any requirement that he recuse himself, the US Chamber of Commerce jumped in bed with Gillespie’s close associates. In the first two weeks Gillespie was working at the White House, the US Chamber of Commerce paid his former colleagues $40,000 to lobby Congress on banking issues, immigration, trade policy, and energy policy.

But I’m sure–now that Gillespie is taking over Bartlett’s role and Rove’s role–Gillespie won’t have anything to do with those policy issues.

Perhaps the most amusing aspect of Hayes’ retelling of the Plame story in his biography on Cheney is his description of the events of fall 2003.

Before I explain it, I should note that Hayes has a problem with time. He frequently alters the chronology of events so he can screw with the causality. For example, he depicts Tenet’s July 11 statement–released at the end of the day in DC–as occurring before Condi’s earlier statement on Air Force One pretty much forcing Tenet’s hand to take the fall. I presume he does this to minimize the viciousness of Condi’s attack on Tenet–or some such thing.

Something similar happens with Hayes’ depiction of the announcement of the investigation. Hayes–and therefore I presume Cheney–claims the investigation would never have happened if it weren’t for Andrea Mitchell’s story on the investigation on September 26, 2003.

Then, on September 26, 2003, Andrea Mitchell of NBC News and Alex Johnson of MSNBC broke a big story on the MSNBC Web site. "The CIA has asked the Justice Department to investigate allegations that the White House broke federal laws by revealing the identity of one of its undercover employees in retaliation against the woman’s husband, a former ambassador who publicly criticized President Bush’s since-discredited claims that Iraq had sought weapons-grade uranium from Africa, NBC News has learned.

The same day, the Justice Department ordered the FBI to begin an investigation into the leak.

[snip]

White House officials and those close to Cheney believe that the referral was made public as a result of a deliberate leak from the CIA, part of the broader war between the CIA and the Bush Administration. It embarrassed the White House and put pressure on the Justice Department to appoint a special prosecutor.

See the weird timing claimed in this narrative? The CIA request was first submitted in July; then again on September 5. The CIA more formally requested an investigation on September 16. Had the CIA wanted to leak to increase the pressure for an investigation, that leak would have occurred around September 5, or September 16 at the latest. But Hayes (and Cheney) are arguing that a CIA leak on September 26 forced the issue of the investigation, which started on September 26.

Moreover, Mitchell reported this on Friday night. Yet even Hayes agrees that the investigation started on the 26. So how did Mitchell’s article affect the decision that occurred, presumably, before close of business on the 26?

The story is more interesting for what it says about the paranoiawithin OVP than for its truthiness value. It suggests Cheney believedeverything was taken care of–there would be no investigation. And then when whatever plan he had to prevent an investigation failed, he had to blame it once again on his paranoid perceptions about the CIA, rather than the merit of the case.

In this post I trace the tangled web in which Tom Davis is investigating Scott Bloch (head of the Office of Special Counsel) at the same time as Bloch may be investigating Tom Davis. The short logic goes like this:

• Tom Davis is investigating Scott Bloch (and collecting all Bloch emails that refer to any legislator)
• The WaPo story on Sunday looks like it was based primarily on leaks from OSC
• It included details that extend back to the time Davis worked with Rove on these issues
• This suggests Bloch may include Davis among his targets
• But Waxman, when he sent out a fresh request for this information today, did not request documents that might incriminate Davis

The Leaks to WaPo Appear to Come from OSC

I said on Sunday that someone on the Government Reform Committee might be a source for the material in the WaPo’s story on Rove’s asset deployment teams. But today, Waxman cites that story as a preface to his request for more documents from the agencies that were part of the program.

On Sunday, The Washington Post reported that these politicalbriefings were part of a systematic and coordinated effort by WhiteHouse officials to leverage the resources of the federal government “toensure the maximum promotion of Bush’s reelection agenda and theRepublicans in Congress who supported him.” The Post reportedthat Karl Rove, the President’s political advisor, organized an “assetdeployment team” that enabled the White House “to coordinate the travelof Cabinet secretaries and senior agency officials, the announcement ofgrant money, and personnel and policy decisions” with the chief WhiteHouse liaison from each Cabinet agency. According to the Post, the meetings of the asset deployment team occurred sometimes as often as once a month.

In today’s letter, Waxman cites one letter that may be one of the ones cited in the WaPo. Here’s Waxman:

According to the documents, the White House invited 18 federal agencies, including yours, to asset deployment meetings in 2003.

And here’s the WaPo:

Several people noted the announcement that DOD was shutting down the TALON database, wondering if the database was just going to be renamed down the line, as TIA seems to have morphed. Apparently they missed this detail:

It will be closed on Sept. 17 and information collected subsequently on potential terror or security threats to Defense Departmentfacilities or personnel will be sent by Pentagon officials to an FBIdatabase known as Guardian, according to Army Col. Gary Keck, aPentagon spokesman.

Give credit to William Arkin, who actually listed this database when he appeared on Democracy Now to talk about the Talon database:

AMY GOODMAN: Does this concern you?

WILLIAM ARKIN: What do you think? Of course, itconcerns me. I mean, I think that this is just one tiny picture of theactual amount of information which is collected by the F.B.I. and theintelligence community. We know that there are dozens of thesedatabases, Cornerstone, TALON, [inaudible], the Coast Guard ICCdatabase, the F.B.I. Guardian database, the F.B.I. TRRS database, theJoint Intelligence Task Force Counterterrorism Homeland Defensedatabase, the SSOMB database, the BTS summary, the C.I.A. TD database,the NSA traffic database called Criss-Cross. I mean, we know that thesedatabases are out there and that they all deal with domestic issues.

What is particularly worrisome right now is that the NationalCounterterrorism Center, which was set up as part of the Office of theDirector of National Intelligence, is now working to conglomerate allof these databases and that the Counterintelligence Field Activities,CIFA of the Department of Defense, is working to ensure that themilitary gains access to all of these databases, as well. So each ofthese, which goes into the creation of various watch lists and varioustip-offs for the military or the intelligence community to surveilcertain people, that determine the key words that the NSA or the F.B.I.then uses in its surveillance to catch certain emails or certaintelephone conversations or certain international communications, all ofthese are now becoming more and more efficiently employed, the notionbeing that somehow we’re going to catch the next Mohammed Atta, but thereality being that huge numbers of innocent, non-threatening Americancitizens are being sweeped up in this gigantic swirl.

So while this particular database is out of control of CIFA and under control of the FBI (anyone thinking of how well FBI managed the National Security Letters), that may just mean the data is now accessible to more people. And like the TALON database, the Guardian database is apparently not very well-suited to perform its function (or at least wasn’t, last year).

While the FBI has created the Guardian Threat Tracking System(Guardian) to manage the resolution of threats and suspiciousincidents, this system is neither easily searchable nor a useful toolfor identifying trends in types of incidents. As a result, during ouraudit the FBI could not identify the number of maritime-related threatsfrom 2002 to the present.

I can’t decide which is worse. That they have these databases. Or that they can’t build them to be effective.