WASHINGTON — The head of the House Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence said Wednesday the government has repeatedly dropped the ball in sharing vital terrorist-risk information with everyone from Congress to state and local law-enforcement officials.
Chairman Peter King, R-N.Y., used a subcommittee hearing meant to address threats posed to the U.S. by al-Qaida activity in Iran and Syria to voice his concerns about what he called a four-year “pattern” of communication mishaps involving homeland security risks.
According to King’s opening statement, New York state and local police weren’t briefed about the foiled terrorist plot in Canada in April to attack a New-York bound Amtrak train.
Further, he stated, his subcommittee’s parent organization — the House Committee on Homeland Security — was left out of the loop, too.
“As far as the Canadian plot, apparently this was being investigated for a year,” King said in a post-hearing interview. “We’re the committee of jurisdiction — we meet every, at least every two weeks, with all the top federal officials on any potential plot in the U.S., never mind a real plot… and we were never told about this.”
King criticized the federal government, saying that this type of “information sharing was urged by the 9/11 Commission and ordered by the Homeland Security and Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Acts.”
He used the government’s decision against informing the Boston Police Department of Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s questioning by Russian authorities and against telling the city of New York about Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s warning about a future attempt to attack Time Square as “glaring examples” of recent information-sharing slip-ups with implications for national security.
King said that this kind of behavior impedes Congress’ ability to do its job.
King lobbied for earlier threat notifications from the FBI to local law enforcement authorities.
“Whether it’s Boston or whether it’s Canada, the FBI should as early as possible notify the local police of the potential threat,” King said.
“If we’re gonna win the war against terrorism, there has to be total cooperation among all law-enforcement and intelligence agencies and also the Congress,” King said.