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Potomac Institute Writes Key Congressional Members 5 May, 2004 News Release Contact: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Potomac Institute Writes Key Congressional Members- Arlington, Va. —On May 3, 2004, Dr. Dennis McBride, President of the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, addressed letters to several dozen key Senators and Representatives urging them to take action to correct intelligence failures identified by the 9/11 Commission. The letter highlights the limitations of the current intelligence paradigm and proposes that to truly arm the nation against terrorism, we will have to develop a new paradigm for the acquisition, analysis, and distribution of information related to the terrorist threat. Congress should play a pivotal role in the development of such a system, not only because of the precedent set in the 1970s with the Church and Pike Commissions that shaped the current intelligence regime, but also because the public needs to feel confident that their interests are well represented in determining the nature of statutes that must be carefully crafted to preserve American citizens’ civil liberties. The Potomac Institute is well informed of the civil liberties and national security issues that are relevant to the War on Terrorism, particularly as they relate to the deployment of new information technologies, due to its formation of Project GUARDIAN. GUARDIAN is an ongoing Potomac Institute study, led by Senior Research Fellow, Dan Gallington, designed to provide a forum for discussion relating to privacy issues and the use of new information technologies in the War on Terrorism. Since November 2002, GUARDIAN has sponsored almost a dozen seminars and produced several papers exploring the tension between civil liberties and more efficient information acquisition, analysis, and dissemination. In June 2003, and based on its preliminary study and analysis, the Institute proposed a new U.S. policy for the management of terrorist threat related information. Dr. McBride offered the Project GUARDIAN proposal as a starting point for developing the new paradigm. The essentials of the Potomac proposal are that: The government be required to identify, with some reasonable specificity, current categories of information it determines to be relevant to the current terrorist threat; Together, these defined categories of information would be called “Terrorist Threat Information,” a new term; Categories that included “U.S. Person” information would be protected by anonymous coding, required at “first intake” of the data; “Terrorist Threat Information” would be “red teamed”, to develop “Current Threat Models,” which would periodically reviewed and approved at high level; “Terrorist Threat Information,” as pertaining to “Current Threat Models” would be shared with Federal, state, and local departments, agencies, and officials that were specifically identified and approved in advance; Release of “U.S. Person” related information would be subject to specific approvals; and, The entire management and operational structure for “Terrorist Threat Information,” especially that related to “U.S. Person” information, would be subject to strict internal Executive Department and Congressional reporting and oversight. In sum, the Project GUARDIAN proposal offers an objective way to improve the acquisition of information critical to stopping terrorists, to integrate all information relevant to the threat for analysis, and to distribute that analysis to those on the front lines against terrorism. A record of Project GUARDIAN’s events and publications, as well as the letters to Congress, are available on the Institute’s website at Project Guardian News . _________________________________________________________________________________ The Potomac Institute for Policy Studies is an independent, 501(c)(3), not-for-profit public policy research institute, and is dedicated to the development and implementation of policies that advocate and manage the increasing role of science and technology in our evolving world. The Potomac Institute fiercely maintains objectivity and credibility, remaining independent of any federal or state agency, and owing no special allegiance to any single political party or private concern. ### |
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