FBI Tracks NY Terror Threats

[Guest Patriot Games]

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2007/7/16/223105.shtml?s=us

 

FBI Tracks N.Y. Terror Threats

NewsMax.com Wires Tuesday, July 17, 2007

 

It's 11 o'clock on a Monday morning in early July. Coffee cup in hand, Joe

Demarest is standing before a packed conference room deep in the heart of

our New York office in Manhattan . Glancing quickly at the bullet points

he's made in his green, government-issue notebook, he looks up and says,

"All right everybody. Let's get started."

 

It's the regular weekly meeting of our New York Joint Terrorism Task Force.

Filling the room are a hundred or so major players and agency reps on the

task force, the oldest and largest of its kind in the nation. Beyond poking

fun at himself and sharing an occasional laugh, Demarest is serious and

straightforward while he leads the meeting, asking probing questions and

expecting everyone to know their stuff.

 

Demarest's intensity is driven by the task force's daunting daily task:

protecting the Big Apple, one of the country's penultimate terrorist

targets, from possible attack by global jihadists and by homegrown radicals

inspired by their ideology. Since 9/11, to be sure, there has been no

shortage of threats to run to ground-from a plan to bomb the Herald Square

subway station a few years back to the recently disrupted plot to blow up

major fuel tanks at J.F.K. airport.

 

To do its job, the task force pulls together some 500 investigators,

analysts, and other experts from 44 different government agencies in the

region. Represented are officials from law enforcement, homeland security,

the military, and the intelligence community. They each bring to the table

their own skills and perspectives; at the same time, they are tethers to the

information pools of their larger agencies, which range from Amtrak to the

Yonkers Police. Nearly half of the task force members hail from outside the

Bureau. The lion's share-more than 130 in all-are supplied by the New York

City Police Department, our partner on the terror task force for more than a

quarter century.

 

Demarest begins the meeting by briefing the contingent on the FBI's latest

investigations and initiatives, turning the floor over to his case agents

and analysts for the telling details. He then goes around the room, agency

rep by agency rep, calling on each to share what they know and what they

have going on in the week ahead.

 

"This is one important way of making sure nothing falls through the cracks,

of keeping everyone up to speed and in sync," says Demarest, a nearly

20-year veteran of the Bureau who worked international terrorism operations

at FBI Headquarters for several years after 9/11 before returning two years

ago to the city where he has spent most of his career. "We all have to be

transparent. Our success depends on it."

 

This growing transparency has helped the task force gel into a virtually

seamless operation, says Demarest. "We're so intertwined that where you're

from doesn't much matter anymore," he points out. "We think and act as a

team."

 

In the days ahead, we'll talk in more detail about how this team operates-in

particular, how it is synthesizing and acting on intelligence in new and

important ways. Stay tuned.