The Center for Public Integrity

The Department of Justice announced late Monday that gun dealers in states along the Southwest border will now have to report multiple sales of certain semi-automatic rifles, a controversial regulation that has been sought for months by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.  

The rule applies only to semi-automatic rifles greater than .22 caliber and able to accept a detachable magazine, and only to multiple sales of those guns to the same person within a five –day period. Furthermore, the requirement is limited to four border states — Arizona, New Mexico, California and Texas. Federal authorities assert these types of guns are favorites of Mexican drug cartels, and say the cartels are buying them in bulk at U.S. gun stores just over the border. A similar law requiring dealers to report multiple handgun sales nationwide has been in effect for years.  

“This new reporting measure,” Deputy Attorney General James Cole said in a statement, “will improve the ability of [ATF] to detect and disrupt the illegal weapons trafficking networks responsible for diverting firearms from lawful commerce to criminals and criminal organizations.”

ATF had long fought for such a rule. The Justice Department inspector general noted in a report last fall that the “lack of a reporting requirement for multiple sales of long guns…hinders ATF’s ability to disrupt the flow of illegal weapons into Mexico.” Last December the ATF proposed the rule on an emergency basis, but in February the White House’s Office of Management and Budget nixed the effort to expedite the rule. Days after the OMB ruling, the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to try to kill the proposed rule.

The Department of Homeland Security might not be fast enough in responding to security threats if it doesn’t improve information sharing among the agencies it oversees, according to a report released by the agency’s inspector general.

When then President George W. Bush announced creation of the department in 2001, its first priority was to “take the strongest possible precautions against terrorism by bringing together the best information and intelligence.”

Nearly 10 years later, there is no department-wide policy about sharing information, which has led to confusion among some of the department’s agencies—including the Secret Service, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Transportation Security Administration and Immigration and Customs Enforcement—about what they can share with each other.

The department’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis is responsible for “establishing a unified, coordinated, and integrated intelligence program for the department,” according to the report. While the office has convened councils, boards and a task force to gather agency heads for discussions of information sharing, it has not yet developed an overarching policy.

The report also indicates that a lack of oversight from the office has led agencies to create their own systems for individual missions that are not necessarily compatible with systems created by other agencies.

Beyond a policy on sharing information with each other, agencies say they’d like the office to serve as a central clearinghouse for intelligence information that analysts could turn to when making decisions.

The report’s recommendations, which are heavily redacted, include calls for a policy that clearly delineates the role of the office and the creation of improved intelligence systems for better sharing of information.

Customs and Border Protection Agent Brian Terry was such a well-organized ex-Marine that even after he was gunned down Dec. 15 outside Rio Rico, Ariz., gifts he had mailed to his family in Michigan arrived in time for Christmas.

Complicating his death in the line of duty is the fact that two guns found at the murder scene were purchased by suspects as part of a controversial federal gun-running investigation that purposely allowed guns to “walk” into the hands of suspected drug traffickers.

Terry was killed by an AK-47 variant similar to the guns recovered, but the murder weapon has not been found. However, a separate weapon that was initially purchased on the same day as the other two matches the forensic profile of the murder weapon. 

Testimony from Terry’s family about the Christmas gifts and other details was the most emotional part of a hearing Wednesday that is part of an ongoing House Oversight Committee investigation of the so-called Fast and Furious operation that knowingly let illegally purchased firearms go.The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives hoped that the guns would eventually lead agents to bigger cases against kingpins in Mexican drug cartels.

"Brian did ultimately come home that Christmas; we buried him not far from the house that he was raised in just prior to Christmas day," Terry's cousin told the hearing, flanked by the slain agent's mother and sister. "We ask that if a government official made a wrong decision that they admit their error and take responsibility for his or her actions."

A proposed rule aimed at helping to curb gun smuggling into Mexico has survived a battle in Congress and could go into effect within two months.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is seeking a pilot program to require gun dealers in California, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona to report multiple sales of certain types of rifles within any five-day span.

The rule is similar to a federal law requiring dealers to report multiple handgun sales nationwide. Authorities hope that they can use the multiple-sale data to track attempts by Mexican drug cartels to smuggle firearms across the border. A Justice Department inspector general’s report last fall said the “lack of a reporting requirement for multiple sales of long guns … hinders ATF’s ability to disrupt the flow of illegal weapons into Mexico.”

The firearms bureau proposed the rule on an emergency basis within days of border patrol agent Brian Terry being shot and killed near the border in Arizona on Dec. 16. The White House’s Office of Management and Budget in February nixed the effort to expedite the rule. Shortly after the OMB ruling, the House of Representatives voted to kill the rule as part of an appropriations bill, but that version of the bill died and the House action on the proposed rule died with it. A Justice Department spokesperson said in March that “we expect this is something that will ultimately be approved.”

The proposal is now in a comment period before it can become final, but sentiment is running strongly in favor of the idea. The ATF says it received 12,700 comments on the proposed rule as of February, with nearly 9,000 of them supporting the idea. Those in support said it was a tool to stop illegal trafficking, the ATF asserted. Those against said it was a waste of time and a burden for gun shops. A spokesman for the ATF said it appears that there were letter-writing campaigns in support of the proposal.

The office of an assistant attorney general  in March 2010 approved a wiretap request for a federal  gunrunning  probe in which agents purposely allowed gun sales to go to straw buyers with the hope that they would uncover criminal activity across the border in Mexico, documents released Wednesday by congressional investigators show.

The approval memo from the office of Lanny Breuer, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s criminal division, marks the highest-level Justice Department involvement identified to date in a gun case that President Barack Obama himself has said might have been flawed. The memo says it came from Breuer, but it was actually signed by one of his deputies.

The Center for Public Integrity reported in March that federal agents, with the blessing of federal prosecutors, allowed more than 1,700 weapons to be sold from federal dealers in Arizona to suspected straw buyers for Mexican drug and gun gangs.  More than 300 of those guns were ultimately recovered in criminal activity on both sides of the border.

The revelation has stirred controversy in Mexico and the United States, in part because some front-line agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives opposed letting the weapons “walk” because of fears that might be used in crimes or used to attack U.S. border agents. Some of the gun dealers who continued to sell the weapons had similar concerns. Two guns linked to the investigation, known as “Fast and Furious,” were found near  the scene  of the murder of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry last December, though ATF says they were not the murder weapons.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder clashed heatedly with California Republican Darrell Issa Tuesday as a House hearing raised questions about whether a  federal gun trafficking probe that ultimately allowed U.S. - bought guns to reach Mexican cartels might bear some responsibility for the deaths of U.S. agents.  

Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee,  has subpoenaed records from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives regarding the agency’s so-called Fast and Furious gun smuggling investigation.  ATF is a component of the Justice Department.  ATF acknowledges that more than 1,700 firearms were purchased by suspected agents of Mexican drug cartels during the operation.  At least 195 of those guns were later recovered at Mexican crime scenes. ATF said the investigation went on for more than a year in hopes of snaring high-level cartel operatives,  but some front-line bureau agents have gone to Congress to complain about the investigation’s  strategy. 

That strategy  has been especially controversial in part because two guns bought during the investigation were recovered near the scene of the murder of border patrol agent Brian Terry in Arizona last December;  ATF has said that the murder weapon was not a gun from the sting operation.  The agency has also stated that a gun used to kill another border agent – Jaime Zapata – in Mexico in March was not part of the Fast and Furious investigation.

But discussion of the two agents’ deaths engendered an emotional exchange between Issa and Holder. Issa asked whether the House had the right to investigate “whether the Justice Department is basically guilty of allowing weapons to kill Americans” to be sold.

A full decade after the deadly 9/11 attacks, the FBI is still struggling to become an intelligence-driven agency able to identify and act on potential threats.

The FBI's biggest problem remains “the extent to which intelligence has been integrated into FBI operations to support its counterterrorism mission,” according to a new report by the Congressional Research Service. In typically understated CRS language, the April 27 report cloaks its critiques as suggested areas for further “congressional inquiry.”

As the lead agency for investigating the federal crime of terrorism, the FBI came under heavy criticism after 9/11, which many labeled a major failure by U.S. security, law enforcement and intelligence. In the decade since, the FBI has initiated reforms to change its focus from a law enforcement agency focused on criminal investigations to an intelligence-driven agency that can prevent terrorist attacks.

The FBI increased the numbers of its Joint Terrorism Task Forces, investigative units led by the Justice Department and the FBI which include analysts, linguists, and Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) experts. In 1999, there were 26 terrorism task forces throughout the country; today there are over 100.

The FBI has also staffed up its counterterrorism operations. Before the 9/11 terror attacks, FBI Director Robert Mueller estimated about 30 percent of the FBI's 10,000 agents were assigned to national security issues, and the rest focused on criminal investigations. During the past decade, the agency added 4,000 agents, half focused on terrorism. And it nearly tripled the number of FBI intelligence analysts to about 3,000 today.

But the cultural change hasn’t been smooth – and it’s not finished, the CRS report hints.

FBI efforts to combat cyber intrusion threats are weakened by poor information sharing with other agencies and a lack of training, according to a report from the Justice Department’s inspector general.

The watchdog interviewed FBI cyber investigation squads at 10 field offices throughout the United States. While the bureau was given passing marks for meeting interim goals for establishing and operating the National Cyber Investigative Joint Task Force (NCIJTF), it is falling short in key areas.

“The [FBI] was not always sharing information about cyber threats among the partner agencies participating in the (NCIJTF),” said the watchdog report, which bears some redactions.

One problem: The FBI has issued a Memorandum of Understanding for inter-agency information sharing that is too restrictive. As well, it hasn’t been signed by all the partners. At times, some task force members have been asked to leave threat focus meetings to protect secrecy, said the report.

“Because the NCIJTF is an interagency task force, we believe it is vital that all of the partner agencies have common understandings about information sharing,” said the inspector general’s report.

Investigators also found problems with training.

Of 36 agents interviewed, nearly two-thirds said they had the know-how to do their jobs. “The remaining 36 percent of these field agents reported that they lacked the networking and counterintelligence expertise to investigate national security intrusion cases.” Five of the agents felt they weren’t qualified at all, the report found.

As well, the inspector general found that the FBI’s policy of rotating agents among offices weakens enforcement and that the field offices don’t have adequate forensic and analytical capabilities “to support national security intrusion investigations.”