http://www.dailybulletin.com/news/ci_3470520

Border safety alerts indicate problem
Communication among agencies can be complex
By Mason Stockstill, Staff Writer
Inland Valley Daily Bulletin

In December, the FBI was worried that Border Patrol agents' lives were in danger. But many of those officers never got the memo.
Instead, agents say, they first learned of the threat -- that smugglers planned to hire gang members to murder Border Patrol agents -- when a Daily Bulletin reporter called to ask for their opinions.

The fact that many officers didn't know about the threat, described in an "Officer Safety Alert" disseminated by the Department of Homeland Security, shows how poor communication among law enforcement agencies can be.

The warning is "proof that we're being targeted," said a Border Patrol officer who spoke on condition of anonymity. "Our government is abandoning us, and in some ways, abandoning the American people."

Sharing information among different agencies was supposed to improve in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The obstacles impeding communication between the FBI and the CIA, between local police and U.S. Customs, between all levels of law enforcement and intelligence in the country, would all disappear.


Sheriffs in the dark


The reality, however, is that while the situation has improved since 9/11, there's still a long way to go -- and nowhere is that fact more clear than along the 1,951 miles of dusty border between the United States and Mexico.

"There is a lot of information that the (federal officials) never tell us," said Sheriff Leo Samaniego, of El Paso County, which hugs the Rio Grande, the river border in Texas. "Of course, when we find out the information second-hand, the feds say it wasn't important enough to notify us."

Border Patrol officers and others who work the region say Washington hasn't done enough to secure the border against the threat of terrorism. Though no known al-Qaida operatives have been caught crossing into the United States through Mexico, individuals with links to other terrorist groups, such as Hezbollah, have.

Threats such as those, and the growing level of violence from drug cartels and their smuggling operations, prompted Samaniego and officials from 15 other sheriff's departments to form the Texas Sheriffs Border Coalition in 2004.

"Prior to our formation, each one of us was trying to deal individually with the problem of drug smugglers, incursions and other crimes along our counties' borders with Mexico," said Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez of Zapata County. "Washington didn't seem to care one bit."

The coalition has received $6 million in funding from the state of Texas, though the group grumbles that the federal government should be responsible for maintaining border security.

"We realized that the federal government was not doing a thing to protect the country from the open border," Gonzalez said. "We realized somebody had to do it."

Poor communication goes beyond possible threats. Though the Border Patrol has logged more than 200 apparent "incursions" into the United States by Mexican military or law enforcement in the past 10 years, a Border Patrol agent in Texas told the San Antonio News-Express this month he'd never heard of the incidents.


Plans for improvement


It wasn't supposed to be this way. After the 2001 terrorist attacks, the nation's intelligence and law enforcement agencies were supposed to work out a better way to coordinate and share information.

Improving that communication was at the top of the list of changes the 9/11 Commission sought for the future of the U.S. intelligence and law enforcement apparatus. Dozens of witnesses had told the commission there were too many obstacles in the way of sharing information across different agencies, creating a tangled web of uncertain authority and missed opportunities.

"We learned some painful lessons on Sept. 11, 2001," John O. Brennan, a former counterterrorism analyst for the CIA, testified in 2004. "We learned that while we had developed a wide array of U.S. government counterterrorism capabilities and accrued a vast amount of information about those who would do us harm, we lacked a governmentwide ability to integrate knowledge, data systems, expertise, mission, and capabilities -- which are the critical weapons in the fight against terrorism."

Indeed, the overarching theme of law enforcement since then has been to consolidate disparate departments -- the Department of Homeland Security itself once was 22 separate programs and agencies -- and to share information through increased partnerships.

Yet some of those efforts haven't gotten off the ground. In January 2003, President Bush created the Terrorist Threat Integration Center, which was intended to "fuse and analyze all-source information related to terrorism." Less than two years later, the center was dissolved and replaced by the National Counterterrorism Center, which now has many of the same goals.

Additionally, the Department of Homeland Security has failed to come up with a plan for improving communications among law enforcement agencies along the border, as required by the REAL ID Act, passed by Congress eight months ago.

"Our intention is to integrate the infrastructure, the technology, and personnel in order to gain control of that border," said Department of Homeland Security spokesman Michael Friel. "We have begun a process toward reaching out to private industries in order to achieve a solution for border security."


Working toward a solution


Though the problems are serious, no one is suggesting there's no inter-agency cooperation. On the contrary -- there are seemingly countless task forces, partnerships, alliances and joint working groups that link local law enforcement, prosecutors and federal investigators.

The Office of National Drug Control Policy, based in the White House, maintains five regional partnerships along the border to help police identify High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas. Its South Texas group, for example, includes representatives from 51 separate agencies -- ranging from the San Antonio Police Department to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

There's even a San Diego Tunnel Task Force, which consists of representatives from several different agencies who work to identify and shut down tunnels underneath the U.S.-Mexico border used by drug smugglers.

Officials with the task force were called in last week, when officers discovered a giant tunnel running 75 feet below the ground outside of Tijuana. "The task force is working tirelessly to bring those responsible for this audacious crime to justice," said Miguel Unzueta of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in San Diego.

But miscommunication continues, even at the top level of the government. After the Daily Bulletin reported last month that the Department of Homeland Security and Office of National Drug Control Policy were aware of hundreds of cross-border incursions since 1996, several members of Congress called for an investigation into the reports.

"We need to know why this is happening, and we need to know now," said Rep. Mike Rogers, a Republican from Alabama and member of the House Homeland Security Committee's subcommittee on investigations.

Yet the reports were no secret. Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., said he'd been told as early as 2002 by Border Patrol officials that the incursions were taking place. He even supplied reporters with a map showing where the incidents had taken place in 2001 -- the same document this newspaper had received from another source.

But the congressman's efforts to raise awareness of the issue and spur action in Washington that year went nowhere, he said.

"The State Department said, "Yeah, we know about it, but we're working with them,'" Tancredo said. "That was it, of course."

Homeland Security officials defended the department's ability to communicate both internally and with other agencies. Friel, the spokesman, acknowledged there was room to grow but said that agents and officers are kept informed as much as they need to be.

"Communication is constant. We provide our information to our agents up and down the chain of command," he said. "Information gets passed depending on the situation."

Samaniego is waiting for when that means his department will get information as well.

"In El Paso, we take pride in the relationship we have with federal agencies, but sometimes we are left out of the loop," he said. "Everything was supposed to change after Sept. 11. But in all honesty, nothing really has."

Staff Writers Sara A. Carter and Wendy Leung contributed to this report.


Mason Stockstill can be reached by e-mail at mason.stockstill@dailybulletin.com , or by phone at (909) 483-9354.