The National Counterterrorism Center
(NCTC)—Responsibilities and Potential
Congressional Concerns
Richard A. Best Jr.
Specialist in National Defense
February 1, 2011
Congressional Research Service
7-5700
www.crs.gov
R41022
CRS Report for Congress
P
repared for Members and Committees of Congress
The National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC)
Summary
The National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) was established in 2004 to ensure that information
from any source about potential terrorist acts against the U.S. could be made available to analysts
and that appropriate responses could be planned. Investigations of the 9/11 attacks had
demonstrated that information possessed by different agencies had not been shared and thus that
disparate indications of the looming threat had not been connected and warning had not been
provided. As a component of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the NCTC is
composed of analysts with backgrounds in many government agencies and has access to various
agency databases. It prepares studies ranging from strategic assessments of potential terrorist
threats to daily briefings and situation reports. It is also responsible, directly to the President, for
planning (but not directing) counterterrorism efforts. The NCTC received a statutory charter in
the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (P.L. 108-458); it currently
operates with a staff of more than 500 personnel from its headquarters in northern Virginia. The
NCTC Director is appointed with the advice and consent of the Senate.
Although there have been a number of arrests of individuals suspected of planning terrorist
attacks in the U.S., two incidents in 2009—the assassination by an Army Major of some 13
individuals at Fort Hood Army Base on November 5, 2009, and the failed attempt to trigger a
bomb on an airliner approaching Detroit on December 25, 2009—contributed to increased
concern about counterterrorism capabilities domestically and internationally. An Executive
Branch assessment of the December 2009 bombing attempt concluded that, whereas information
sharing had been adequate, analysts had failed to “connect the dots” and achieve an
understanding of an ongoing plot. Attention has focused on the NCTC which is responsible for
ensuring both the sharing of information and for all-source analysis of terrorist issues.
A review by the Senate Intelligence Committee released in May 2010 found there were systemic
failures across the Intelligence Community and, in particular, that the NCTC was inadequately
organized and resourced for its missions. In addition, the committee concluded that intelligence
analysts (not only those in NCTC) tended to focus more on threats to U.S. interests in Yemen than
on domestic threats.
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Contents
Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 1
Background ................................................................................................................................ 1
Current NCTC Charter ................................................................................................................ 4
Ongoing Activities ...................................................................................................................... 5
Assessments of NCTC ................................................................................................................ 7
Two Incidents ............................................................................................................................. 7
Congressional Concerns .............................................................................................................. 8
Contacts
Author Contact Information ...................................................................................................... 10
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The National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC)
Introduction
The attempted attack on a U.S.-bound airliner on December 25, 2009, and the earlier shootings at
Fort Hood Army Base in November 2009 and various other incidents have led to increased
concerns about the effectiveness of the laws, regulations, and organizational relationships created
in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks to prevent future terrorist attacks. Although no system is
infallible and the possibility of human errors has to be assumed, recent attacks appear to
demonstrate specific failures by the Intelligence Community to “connect the dots,” to bring
together disparate pieces of information to provide clear warning of an impending attack. In
regard to the December 2009 attack, President Obama stated that, “this was not a failure to collect
intelligence; it was a failure to integrate and understand the intelligence that we already had.”1
Within the sprawling U.S. Intelligence Community, the National Counterterrorism Center
(NCTC) was specifically established in 2004 to bring together all available information on
terrorism, analyze the information, and provide warning of potential attacks on the U.S. Some
observers argue that the failed December aircraft plot as well as other incidents raise questions
about the NCTC’s ability to carry out its responsibilities. The challenges involved in sifting
through mountains of data on a daily or even an hourly basis are acknowledged and supporters
point out many unpublicized successes by NCTC working with its sister agencies. Nevertheless,
questions exist about the roles and missions of NCTC and whether it is fulfilling its statutory
responsibilities. Potentially, there are also concerns about the relationship between NCTC and the
Counterterrorism Center of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) which, prior to the
establishment of NCTC, was responsible for performing much of NCTC’s current mission.
Background
A central lesson that Congress and the Executive Branch drew from the 9/11 attacks was that
there had been inadequate interagency coordination partially as a result of separate statutory
missions and administrative barriers. A series of investigative and legislative initiatives followed.
In October 2001, provisions encouraging the exchange of law enforcement and intelligence
information were included in the USA Patriot Act (P.L. 107-56), sometimes described as
“breaking down the wall” between intelligence and law enforcement. In February 2002 the two
congressional intelligence committees established a Joint Inquiry into the activities of the U.S.
Intelligence Community in connection with the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. By the
following December, the Joint Inquiry concluded that, “for a variety of reasons, the Intelligence
Community failed to capitalize on both the individual and collective significance of available
information that appears relevant to the events of September 11.”2 The two intelligence
committees recommended the establishment (within the newly created Department of Homeland
Security (DHS))
of an effective all-source terrorism information fusion center that will dramatically improve
the focus and quality of counterterrorism analysis and facilitate the timely dissemination of
1 President Barack Obama, “The Urgency of Getting This Right,” January 5, 2010.
2 U.S. Congress, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Joint
Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001, committee
print, 107th Cong., December 2002, S.Rept. 107-351, H.Rept. 107-792, p. xv.
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relevant intelligence information, both within and beyond the boundaries of the Intelligence
Community. Congress and the Administration should ensure that this fusion center has all
the authority and the resources needed to:
• have full and timely access to all counterterrorism-related intelligence information,
including ‘raw’ supporting data as needed;
• have the ability to participate fully in the existing requirements process for tasking the
Intelligence Community to gather information on foreign individuals, entities and
threats;
• integrate such information in order to identify and assess the nature and scope of
terrorist threats to the United States in light of actual and potential vulnerabilities;
• implement and fully utilize data mining and other advanced analytical tools, consistent
with applicable law;
• retain a permanent staff of experienced and highly skilled analysts, supplemented on a
regular basis by personnel on ‘joint tours’ from the various Intelligence Community
agencies;
• institute a reporting mechanism that enables analysts at all the intelligence and law
enforcement agencies to post lead information for use by analysts at other agencies
without waiting for dissemination of a formal report;
• maintain excellence and creativity in staff analytic skills through regular use of analysis
and language training programs; and
• establish and sustain effective channels for the exchange of counterterrorism-related
information with federal agencies outside the Intelligence Community as well as with
state and local authorities.3
At approximately the same time Congress, in the Homeland Security Act (P.L. 107-296), enacted
on November 25, 2002, provided the new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) with a
specific mandate for an Under Secretary for Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection in
DHS. The mission of this office was
To access, receive, and analyze law enforcement. information, intelligence information, and
other information from agencies of the Federal Government, State and local government
agencies (including law enforcement agencies), and private sector entities, and to integrate
such information in order to—
(A) identify and assess the nature and scope of terrorist threats to the homeland;
(B) detect and identify threats of terrorism against the United States; and
(C) understand such threats in light of actual and potential vulnerabilities of the
homeland.
[and]
3Printed in S.Rept. 107-351/H.Rept. 107-792, Errata Print, pp. 5-6.
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To integrate relevant information, analyses, and vulnerability assessments (whether such
information, analyses, or assessments are provided or produced by the Department or others)
in order to identify priorities for protective and support measures by the Department, other
agencies of the Federal Government, State and local government agencies and authorities,
the private sector, and other entities.
(4) To ensure, pursuant to section 202, the timely and efficient access by the Department to
all information necessary to discharge the responsibilities under this section, including
obtaining such information from other agencies of the Federal Government.4
The placement of this analysis center within DHS was not questioned prior to the signing of the
Homeland Security Act in late November 2002, but there was, however, apparently considerable
concern that DHS, as a new agency and not a longtime member of the Intelligence Community,
would not be the best place for the integration of highly sensitive information from multiple
government agencies. In the 2003 State of the Union address, President Bush revealed his
instructions to “the leaders of the FBI, the CIA, the Homeland Security and the Department of
Defense to develop a Terrorist Threat Integration Center, to merge and analyze all threat
information in a single location.”5 Despite the statutory responsibilities of DHS for threat
integration, in May 2003 the Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC) was established (without
a statutory mandate) to merge all threat information in a single location. Some members of
Congress expressed concerns about the possibility that the roles of the DHS intelligence analysis
office and TTIC might be confused,6 but DHS was a partner in TTIC and gradually came to
concentrate on serving as a bridge between the national intelligence community and state, local,
and tribal law enforcement agencies that had never been components of the national Intelligence
Community.7
A year later, in July 2004, the 9/11 Commission (the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks
Upon the United States), noting the existence of a number of various centers in different parts of
the government assigned to combine disparate pieces of intelligence, called for the establishment
of a National Counterterrorism Center built on the foundation of TTIC but having a responsibility
for joint planning for responding to terrorist plots in addition to assessing intelligence from all
sources. The NCTC would, according to the 9/11 Commission, compile all-source information on
terrorism but also undertake planning of counterterrorism activities, assigning operational
responsibilities to lead agencies throughout the Government.8
In August 2004 shortly after publication of the 9/11 Commission Report, President Bush issued
Executive Order 13354, based on constitutional and statutory authorities, that established the
National Counterterrorism Center as a follow-on to TTIC. The NCTC was to serve as the primary
organization of the Federal Government for analyzing and integrating all intelligence possessed
4 P.L. 107-296, sec. 201.
5 U.S. President, State of the Union Address, January 28, 2003. See also George Tenet with Bill Harlow, At the Center
of the Storm: My Years at the CIA (New York: Harper Collins, 2007), p. 452.
6 See U.S. Congress, 108th Congress, 1st session, House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary and the Select
Committee on Homeland Security, Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC) and Its Relationship with the
Departments of Justice and Homeland Security, Joint Hearing, July 22, 2003, Serial No. 64, Committee on the
Judiciary; Serial No. 108-19, Select Committee on Homeland Security.
7For recent intelligence efforts of DHS, see CRS Report R40602, The Department of Homeland Security Intelligence
Enterprise: Operational Overview and Oversight Challenges for Congress, by Mark A. Randol.
8 See National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report (Washington:
Government Printing Office, 2004, especially pp. 400-406.
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or acquired pertaining to terrorism or counterterrorism (except purely domestic terrorism) and
serve as the central and shared knowledge bank on known and suspected terrorists. The NCTC
would not just have the analytical responsibilities TTIC had possessed; it would also assign
operational responsibilities to lead agencies for counterterrorism activities, but NCTC would not
direct the execution of operations. The Director of the NCTC would be appointed by the Director
of Central Intelligence (DCI) with the approval of the President.
Some members of Congress, however, remained concerned about the status of NCTC, the
likelihood that Congress would have no role in the appointment of its leadership, and the
possibility that an interagency entity might not be responsive to congressional oversight
committees. In December 2004 the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act (P.L. 108-
458), implemented many of the 9/11 Commission’s recommendations. The act established the
position of Director of National Intelligence (DNI) along with the Office of the DNI (ODNI) and
it created an NCTC with a statutory charter and placed it within the ODNI.
In accordance with the 2004 Intelligence Reform Act and Terrorism Prevention Act, the Director
of the NCTC was henceforth to be appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the
Senate. The position of the NCTC Director is unusual, if not unique, in government; he reports to
the DNI for analyzing and integrating information pertaining to terrorism (except domestic
terrorism), for NCTC budget and programs; for planning and progress of joint counterterrorism
operations (other than intelligence operations) he reports directly to the President. In practice, the
NCTC Director works through the National Security Council and its staff in the White House.
Current NCTC Charter
For the first time, NCTC had a statutory charter. P.L. 108-458 sets forth the duties and
responsibilities of the NCTC Director:
• to serve as principal adviser to the DNI on intelligence operations relating to
terrorism;
• to provide strategic operational plans for military and civilian counterterrorism
efforts and for effective integration of counterterrorism intelligence and
operations across agency boundaries within and outside the United States;
• to advise the DNI on counterterrorism programs recommendations and budget
proposals;
• to disseminate terrorism information, including current terrorism threat analysis,
to the President and other senior officials of the Executive Branch and to
appropriate committees of Congress;
• to support the efforts of the Justice and Homeland Security Departments and
other appropriate agencies in disseminating terrorism information to State and
local entities and coordinate dissemination of terrorism information to foreign
governments;
• to develop a strategy for combining terrorist travel intelligence operations and
law enforcement planning and operations;
• to have primary responsibility within the Government for conducting net
assessments of terrorist threats; and
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• consistent with presidential and DNI guidance, to establish requirements for the
Intelligence Community in collecting terrorist information.9
The NCTC is to contain a “Directorate of Intelligence which shall have primary responsibility
within the United States Government for analysis of terrorism and terrorist organizations (except
for purely domestic terrorism and domestic terrorist organizations) from all sources of
intelligence, whether collected inside or outside the United States.”10 The Intelligence Reform Act
and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 also tasked the NCTC Director with undertaking strategic
operational planning for counterterrorism operations. The statute specifies that strategic planning
is to include the mission, objectives to be obtained, tasks to be performed, interagency
coordination of operational activities, and the assignment of roles and responsibilities.11 However,
NCTC may not direct the execution of such operations.12 In carrying out these planning
responsibilities the NCTC Director is responsible statutorily to the President rather than the DNI.
These unusual dual reporting responsibilities might lead to a situation in which the NCTC
director could recommend policies to the President specifically opposed by the DNI.
The extent of NCTC’s planning responsibilities are unclear. The legislation did not repeal the
authorities of other agencies to collect counterterrorism intelligence or prepare for
counterterrorism operations. NCTC can prepare and obtain approval for counterterrorism plans,
but it cannot ensure implementation. Some observers have expressed concern that DOD’s own
planning responsibilities under Title X of the U.S. Code could be complicated by the NCTC role.
Ongoing Activities
The official NCTC website, summarizes the organization’s understanding of its responsibilities:
Lead our nation’s effort to combat terrorism at home and abroad by analyzing the threat,
sharing that information with our partners, and integrating all instruments of national power
to ensure unity of effort.
The website further states:
By law NCTC serves as the USG’s [U.S. Government’s]central and shared knowledge bank
on known and suspected terrorists and international terror groups. NCTC also provides USG
agencies with the terrorism analysis and other information they need to fulfill their missions.
NCTC collocates more than 30 intelligence, military, law enforcement and homeland
security networks under one roof to facilitate robust information sharing. NCTC is a model
of interagency information sharing.
. . .
NCTC also provides the CT [counterterrorism] community with 24/7 situational awareness,
terrorism threat reporting, and incident information tracking. NCTC hosts three daily secure
9 P.L. 108-458, sec. 1021, 118 Stat. 3674; 50 USC 404o(f).
10 50 USC 404o(i).
11 50 USC 404o(j).
12 50 USC404o(g).
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video teleconferences (SVTC) and maintains constant voice and electronic contact with
major intelligence and CT Community players and foreign partners.13
With the approval of P.L. 108-458 in December 2004 the NCTC was established in law. The first
Director, retired Navy Admiral John Redd, was confirmed by the Senate in July 2005. Redd was
succeeded by Michael E. Leiter who was confirmed in June 2008 and currently heads the Center.
NCTC is housed in suburban Virginia and has a staff of more than 500 officials of which some 60
percent are on detail from other agencies.14
According to publicly available information, NCTC provides intelligence in a number of ways—
items for the President’s Daily Brief and the National Terrorism Bulletin both of which are
classified. NCTC claims to provide the Intelligence Community with 24/7 situational awareness,
terrorism threat reporting and tracking. According to one media report, “agency-integrated teams
[are] assigned by subject matter and geography [to] turn out reports disseminated to thousands of
policy and intelligence officials across the government. Agency representatives sit around a table
three times daily—at 8 a.m., 3 p.m, and 1 a.m.—to update the nation’s threat matrix.”15
NCTC maintains databases of information on international terrorist identities (in a system known
as the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE)) to support the Government’s watch-
listing system designed to identify potential terrorists. NCTC products are available to some 75
government agencies and other working groups and facilitates information sharing with state,
local, tribal, and private partners.
NCTC has also established Intelligence Community-wide working groups—a Radicalization and
Extremist Messaging Group and a Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear Counterterrorism
Group and a working group for alternative analysis as part of an effort to improve the rigor and
quality of terrorism analysis. NCTC also coordinates the DNI Homeland Threat Task Force that
examines threats to the United States from al Qaeda, other groups and homegrown violent
extremists.
Public information on NCTC’s planning responsibilities is limited. One press account describes a
National Implementation Plan for the National Strategy for Combating Terrorism prepared in
June 2006. The Plan identified major objectives with more than 500 discrete counterterrorism
tasks to be carried out by designated agencies. The objectives included disrupting terrorist groups,
protecting and defending the homeland, and containing violent extremism.16 Observers suggest
that the primary benefit of such generalized planning is requiring agencies to coordinate their
initiatives and providing an opportunity to reduce duplication of effort and ensure that specific
tasks are not neglected. The 2006 implementation plan has reportedly been updated but no details
have been made public.
13 http://www.nctc.gov/aboutus/about_nctc.html
14 “NCTC is staffed by more than 500 personnel from more than 16 departments and agencies (approximately 60
percent of whom are detailed to NCTC). “ “About the National Counterterrorism Center,”
http://www.nctc.gov/about_us/about_nctc.html.
15 Karen DeYoung, “After Attempted Airline Bombing, Effectiveness of Intelligence Reforms Questioned,”
Washington Post, January 7, 2010, p. A1.
16 See Karen DeYoung, “A Fight Against Terrorism—and Disorganization,” Washington Post, August 9, 2006; cited in
Eric Rosenbach, “The Incisive Fight: Recommendations for Improving Counterterrorism Intelligence,” Annals of the
American Academy of Political and Social Science, July 2008, p. 138.
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Assessments of NCTC
From information available on the public record, NCTC appears to reflect the mission it was
assigned by the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act and other legislation. NCTC’s
organization reflects the determination to create, within the Intelligence Community, an office
that could gather information from all government agencies and from open sources, analyze the
data, and provide policymakers with greater situational awareness and warning of planned
attacks. According to all available reports, NCTC has access to the databases of all intelligence
agencies and it can draw upon analytical resources throughout the government to supplement its
own files, but it is unclear to what extent the disparate databases are technically compatible or
whether they are, or can be, linked in ways that permit simultaneous searching.
One assessment of the NCTC undertaken by a student at the Army War college in 2007 concluded
that “More than two years since its inception, however, the NCTC has arguably achieved neither
an acceptable level of effectiveness nor efficiency in performing its intended role.” The author,
Army Col. Brian R. Reinwald, argued that in focusing on consolidating information from other
agencies, the NCTC demonstrated “a seeming unwillingness to take a bold implementation
approach and a preference to avoid bureaucratic conflict.” Its “vision statement inauspiciously
paints a picture of a non-confrontational think tank that identified issues, and attempts to merely
influence the greater governmental efforts against counterterrorism.” In sum, Reinwald argued
that NCTC’s approach “does not capture the literal roles and mission assigned by Congress, to
plan, to integrate, delineate responsibility, and monitor.” Moreover, the large percentage of
detailees from other agencies in NCTC “sustains an environment that fosters continued loyalty of
NCTC employees to their parent agencies rather than the NCTC itself.” The author, taking an
expansive view of the NCTC’s role argues that “The U.S. requires a single federal entity focused
on GWOT [Global War on Terror] counterterrorism strategy with the necessary authorities to
integrate intelligence, conduct comprehensive interagency planning, compel specific action when
required, and coordinate and synchronize the elements of national power for successful
operations.”17
Two Incidents
For NCTC as for the Intelligence Community as a whole, in many cases the successes go
unreported while the failures are trumpeted. However, two incidents in late 2009 led to
widespread publicity about information sharing and counterterrorism analysis that led to
significant congressional interest. Reports of the multiple assassinations that occurred in Fort
Hood Army Base in Texas on November 5, 2009, led to expressions of concern about the
Government’s counterterrorism capabilities. The extent of NCTC’s role, if any, in gathering
information about Major Nidal M. Hasan prior to the incident has not been made available
publicly. As Major Hasan was both a U.S. citizen and a commissioned officer much relevant
information would have come from internal DOD information that would not necessarily be
shared with NCTC. Press reports indicate, however, that he had been in contact with a known
terrorist living in Yemen18. This type of information might have come to the attention of law
17 Brian R. Reinwald, “Assessing the National Counterterrorism Center’s Effectiveness in the Global War on Terror,”
U.S. Army War College Strategy Research Project, March 20, 2007.
18 Carrie Johnson, Spencer S. Hsu, and Ellen Nakashima, “Hasan Had Intensified Contact with Cleric,” Washington
(continued...)
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enforcement and intelligence agencies and could have been available to NCTC. Whether NCTC
did access such information and whether it notified the Army or other DOD elements is unknown.
Ongoing investigations will probably provide more background on NCTC’s role, but Congress
may move to undertake its own assessment.
The December 25, 2009, incident in which a Nigerian traveler, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab,
attempted to set off an incendiary device onboard an aircraft approaching Detroit was a more
straightforward foreign intelligence problem. It did not involve a U.S. citizen nor was he an
employee of the U.S. Government. In this case, according to the Obama Administration, it was
not the availability or the interagency sharing of data that was the problem; there were no major
difficulties in collecting or sharing information (as had been the case prior to 9/11). The problem
in December 2009 was inadequate analysis. Despite the information “available to all-source
analysts at the CIA and the NCTC prior to the attempted attack, the dots were never connected
and, as a result, the problem appears to be more about a component failure to ‘connect the dots,’
rather than a lack of information sharing.”19 The Administration has pointed to several specific
failures by the counterterrorism community generally and NCTC in particular: “NCTC and CIA
personnel who are responsible for watchlisting did not search all available databases to uncover
additional derogatory information that could have been correlated with Mr. Abdulmutallab.”
Further, “A series of human errors occurred—delayed dissemination of a finished intelligence
report and what appears to be incomplete/faulty database searches on Mr. Abdulmutallab’s name
and identifying information.” There was not a process for tracking reports and actions taken in
response and there appears to have been a greater concern with the threat posed to American
interests in Yemen than to the possibility of an attack by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula
(AQAP) on the U.S. Homeland. The extent to which such failings belong solely or even
significantly to NCTC as opposed to other agencies is as yet undetermined.
Congressional Concerns
The Executive Branch has undertaken several overall investigations of the Fort Hood shooting
and the December 25 airline attack.20 The Senate Intelligence Committee reviewed the Christmas
bombing with specific focus on the intelligence on the alleged perpetration Abdulmutallab held
by various agencies. According to the published unclassified summary of the report, the
committee found “systemic failures across the Intelligence Community.”21 Despite the
responsibilities assigned to NCTC, the “Committee found that no one agency saw itself as being
responsible for tracking and identifying all terrorism threats.”22 Specifically, the Senate
Intelligence Committee found that NCTC’s Directorate of Intelligence failed to connect reporting
on Abdulmutallab; it was neither adequately organized or resourced for this effort. “Like other
analysts in the Intelligence Community, NCTC’s analysts were primarily focused on Yemen-
(...continued)
Post, November 21, 2009.
19 White House, “Summary of the White House Review of the December 25, 2009, Attempted Terrorist Act,” January
7, 2010.
20 See especially U.S., Department of Defense, Report of the the DOD Independent Review, Protecting the Force:
Lessons from Fort Hood, January 2010.
21 U.S. Congress, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Attempted Terrorist Attack on Northwest Flight 253, 111th
Cong., 2nd sess., May 24, 2010, S.Rept. 111-199 (Washington: GPO, 2010), p. 1.
22 Ibid.
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based AQAP-related threats.”23 Furthermore, NCTC’s Watchlisting Office did not connect key
intelligence reporting with other relevant reporting.24 The Committee made a number of
recommendations for NCTC and other intelligence agencies to improve their performance.
Beyond the recommendations coming out of these investigations, there may also be a more
general interest in an assessment of the role of various agencies and how they work together. In
particular, Congress may act to review the statutory framework that created the NCTC in 2004
and how the Center has functioned in the years since. In particular, Congress may wish to satisfy
itself that the NCTC has access to all appropriate information and intelligence. It may wish to
assure itself that detaillees to the NCTC from other agencies are highly qualified and committed
to the Center’s mission and do not see their role as protecting their agency’s bureaucratic equities.
Congress may wish to assess the availability of adequate technologies at NCTC for accessing and
sharing information.
Although significant efforts have been made to remove the “wall” between law enforcement and
intelligence, there may be residual barriers especially those resulting from separate bureaucratic
cultures. As in the case of Major Hassan the natural tendency to avoid over-involvement in law
enforcement or the personnel policies of a cabinet department may have influenced the handling
of information relating to contacts between a U.S. person and a suspected terrorist in another
country. Concern has also been expressed that NCTC might rely on authorities available to
foreign intelligence agencies that do not encompass the restrictions on domestic intelligence
gathering and law enforcement operations and that this approach may jeopardize privacy rights.25
Congress might seek additional information on NCTC policies regarding privacy rights of U.S.
persons. It has become clear that the question of “home-grown” terrorists, U.S. persons who
become radicalized through contacts with foreign terrorists is especially challenging in this
regard.26
Congress exerts its greatest influence through authorization and appropriations legislation.
However, NCTC is not a large collection agency and its relatively small budget goes mainly for
personnel expenses. Some in Congress may find the number of NCTC personnel either excessive
or inadequate, but changes in the number of positions would affect the NCTC budget but in
relatively small amounts in comparison to the $53+ billion budget for all national intelligence
programs. Some observers have argued that NCTC’s information technology capabilities need to
be enhanced, but it is unlikely that the budgetary implications would be dramatic.
There will undoubtedly be varying assessments of NCTC’s analytical products; observers argue,
however, that judging the overall quality of analytical efforts can be challenging. Analysis is an
intellectual exercise that incorporates education and training, experience, insight, determination
and occasionally elements of luck. Simply replacing current officials with those with greater
23 Ibid., p. 7.
24 Ibid. Two members of the Committee, Senators Chambliss and Burr set forth additional views: “NCTC staff stated to
staff that it focused primarily on providing strategic, or high level, terrorism assessments, and providing support to
senior policymakers. No one at NCTC was given responsibility for tracking all terrorist threats thoroughly or searching
for additional intelligence related to a threat.” Ibid., p. 11.
25 See Hon. Bennie G. Thompson, “The National Counterterrorism Center: Foreign and Domestic Intelligence Fusion
and the Potential Threat to Privacy,” University of Pittsburgh Journal of Technology Law & Policy, Spring 2006, p. 6.
26See CRS Report R41416, American Jihadist Terrorism: Combating a Complex Threat, by Jerome P. Bjelopera and
Mark A. Randol.
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education, or paying them more or giving them more (or less) supervision will not guarantee
better results. Some argue that the best approach is to build and maintain a culture of excellence.
The unusual dual mission of the NCTC and the different reporting responsibilities of the NCTC
Director to the DNI and the President may be a source of congressional interest. Are there
contradictions between the two missions? Has the NCTC Director’s direct link to the President
caused difficulties with his relationship with the DNI? Does the NCTC monitor the responses of
other agencies to analytical information it provides?
What role does the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center currently have and how do the two entities
interact? Does the NCTC become involved in planning covert actions? Is there beneficial or
counterproductive competition between the two centers?
In general, how has NCTC’s strategic analysis of the overall terrorist threat evolved in recent
years? Is the relationship between strategic analyses and operational planning been carefully
reviewed? What is the NCTC’s current role in dealing with different agency approaches to
specific terrorist threats? To what extent does the NCTC Director choose options and to what
extent are different proposals forwarded to the National Security Council staff?
Arguably most important, however, is the capability of ensuring that analysts are integrated into
the counterterrorism effort, that operational planning is shared with analytical offices so that
particular reactions or threats can be anticipated and assessed. The most important “wall” may not
be the one that existed between law enforcement and intelligence agencies prior to 2001, but the
one that often persists between analysts and operators. The latter may lack the time and
opportunity to integrate analytical efforts into their ongoing work, but if the country is aiming for
a “zero defects” approach to terrorism, close attention to intelligence is a prerequisite. Some
experienced observers maintain that “zero defects” is unrealizable, some failures are inevitable
and argue that it is more responsible to minimize failures and limit their effects. The use of
intelligence by policymakers and military commanders is in largest measure the responsibility of
the Executive Branch, but some observers argue that the quality of analysis may be enhanced
when analytical efforts are regularly reviewed by congressional committees and hearings are
conducted to ensure that they are properly prepared and fully used.
Author Contact Information
Richard A. Best Jr.
Specialist in National Defense
rbest@crs.loc.gov, 7-7607
Congressional Research Service
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