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News From Sen. Patrick Leahy and
Sen. Charles Grassley
Thur., April 25, 2002
David Carle (w/Leahy), 202-224-3693
Jill Kozeny (w/Grassley), 202-224-3744
SENATE PANEL APPROVES
LEAHY-GRASSLEY FBI REFORM ACT
WASHINGTON - The Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday unanimously
approved the Leahy-Grassley FBI Reform Act, which its authors intend
to help the FBI better meet the challenges of 21st Century
terrorism and security concerns.
The bill, S. 1974, was written by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.),
chairman of the committee, and by Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), a
senior member of the panel and a longtime champion of FBI reform.
"September 11 has added even greater urgency and pertinence to
solving the FBI's problems," said Leahy. "The FBI is our front line of
domestic defense against terrorists. The men and women of the FBI,
under the leadership of Director Mueller and his team, have performed
with great professionalism, determination and courage. But much of the
institutional machinery they must work with has become, over many
years and in many ways, rusty and unresponsive. It was time to examine
the FBI with fresh eyes, and the committee has been doing that with
our series of oversight hearings. This bill is one of the early
results of our examination. We want the FBI to be as skilled and as
strong as America needs the FBI to be."
"The FBI has a lot of changes to make in order to meet the
challenges brought by September 11. This legislation will
contribute to a new way of doing business, where the FBI's top
management rewards what FBI agents do best, and that is seek the truth
and let the truth convict. It will improve accountability within
the FBI by giving the inspector general the authority to oversee
wrongdoing within the FBI, and it will protect whistleblowers for
telling the truth," Grassley said.
The reforms are based on a series of bipartisan FBI oversight
hearings that Leahy launched last summer which revealed institutional
problems at the FBI that require congressional action.
The hearings explored (1) a double standard in disciplinary actions
for senior FBI management causing morale problems within the Bureau;
(2) record and information management problems and communications
breakdowns between field offices and headquarters that contributed to
the belated production of documents in the Oklahoma City bombing case;
(3) a dire need to modernize FBI computer systems, despite significant
budget increases granted the FBI over the last five years; (4) lax FBI
security and personnel procedures that allowed FBI supervisor Robert
Hanssen to sell critical secrets to the Russians undetected for years,
without ever getting a polygraph; and (5) no fewer than15 different
areas of security at the FBI that need fixing.
Leahy said, "The 'hands off' approach to the FBI that Congress has
taken in the past is no longer an option at this critical juncture.
This FBI reform bill is part of our new 'hands on' approach to FBI
oversight."
"Director Mueller obviously plays the leading role in bringing
about fundamental changes to the way the FBI operates, but Congress
has a responsibility as well," said Grassley. "This legislative
proposal is part of what we need to do to prompt reforms along with
sustained and credible oversight of the nation's largest law
enforcement agency."
Leahy praised Grassley for his sustained work and contributions to
the legislation and also commended FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III
for forging a constructive partnership with the committee and for the
management changes already underway at the FBI.
The FBI Reform Act targets three goals: Improving accountability
and oversight of the FBI, enhancing the security both inside and
outside of the FBI, and preparing the FBI for the missions it faces in
the 21st Century.
The bill improves accountability through three reforms:
(1) expanding the Justice Department Inspector General's
authority to investigate all allegations of misconduct at the FBI
- not just those referred by the FBI's office of Professional
Responsibility;
(2) strengthening whistleblower protections for FBI employees
who report misconduct; and
(3) ending the "double standard" in the FBI, where senior
management officials are not disciplined as harshly for misconduct
as line agents are and we do that by ending statutory restrictions
on discipline for SES employees.
The bill improves security both inside and outside the FBI in four
ways that implement key recommendations of the Webster Commission:
(1) creating a Career Security Program in the FBI, to ensure
that the FBI has a trained professional cadre of people who can
protect against future Hanssen cases;
(2) establishing a polygraph program to increase security at
the same time as protecting employee rights;
(3) formalizing the FBI police, so that the most qualified
people can be retained to protect some of the most sensitive
terrorist targets in our nation; and
(4) strengthening Justice Department security to protect sensitive
FBI information
shared with Justice, including Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Act information.
The bill prepares the FBI for the 21st Century in three
ways:
(1) requiring a report on the statutory authorities and core
mission of the FBI;
(2) requiring a specific 10-point plan to modernize the FBI's
Information Technology systems to improve information flow and
proper sharing; and
(3) requiring a GAO report on the compilation and use of
duplicative case statistics by the FBI and other federal law
enforcement.
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