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4 DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
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11 JANET RENO'S SPEECH AT THE NATIONAL TROOPERS
COALITION CONFERENCE
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16 Tyson's Corner, Virginia
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18 Thursday, May 14, 1998
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1 P R O C E E D I N G S
2 MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. At this
3 time I would like to ask Johnnie Hughes to
4 come to the podium and introduce our next
5 speaker.
6 MR. HUGHES: Good afternoon.
7 In 1993 when we learned that Janet Reno was a
8 candidate for the United States Attorney
9 General, we contacted our good friend Patsy
10 Tangelo of the Florida Highway Patrol and
11 former Florida PBA president.
12 Like Janet Reno, Pat worked and
13 resided in the Miami area. Pat said that
14 Janet Reno was a lady of character and
15 integrity as the state's attorney for Dade
16 County. She was an avid backer and supporter
17 of police officers. As a matter of fact, she
18 participated in ride alongs in arrest
19 operations.
20 We immediately placed our support
21 behind Janet Reno, submitting letters of
22 endorsement to key members of Congress and
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1 the Senate Judiciary Committee. We attended
2 the Senate Judiciary Confirmation Hearings
3 testifying in support of Janet Reno.
4 Janet Reno was confirmed and sworn
5 in as the nation's 78th Attorney General by
6 President Clinton on March 12, 1993.
7 From 1978 until the time of her appointment
8 Ms. Reno served as State's Attorney with Dade
9 County, Florida.
10 She was initially appointed to the
11 position by the Governor of Florida and was
12 subsequently elected to the office five
13 times. Ms. Reno was a partner in the Miami
14 based law firm of Steele, Hector & Davis
15 from '76 to '78. Before that she served as
16 assistant state's attorney and as staff
17 director of the Florida House of
18 Representatives Judiciary Committee after
19 starting her legal career in private
20 practice.
21 Ms. Reno was born and raised in
22 Miami, Florida where she attended Dade County
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1 public schools. She received her AB in
2 chemistry from Cornell University in 1960 and
3 her LLB degree from Harvard Law School
4 in '63.
5 Shortly after General Reno took
6 office she and her top staff started working
7 very closely with the National Troopers
8 Coalition. She continues to do this today on
9 both criminal justice and labor issues.
10 As this nation's top cop, Janet
11 Reno was made an honorary trooper by the
12 National Troopers Coalition in September '93
13 and presented with the official troopers
14 stetson hat which she proudly displays in her
15 office.
16 Janet Reno has been tried and
17 tested by many over the last five years.
18 She's a lady of class and integrity, and has
19 the right stuff. She's been at the candle
20 light visual and at the reef laying ceremony
21 during National Police Week every since she's
22 been in office.
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1 Her heart's in the right place.
2 We're extremely fortunate to have Janet Reno
3 as our Attorney General. General Reno.
4 MS. RENO: Thank you, Johnnie
5 Hughes for that warm introduction. Now, I
6 now how I got here. I'm so very proud to be
7 an honorary trooper because I have watched
8 troopers in the State of Florida make a
9 difference in the life of a person with whom
10 they come in contact.
11 The young person seeing his first
12 law enforcement officer being stopped for the
13 first time by the troopers tone of voice and
14 manner, that young man instead of resenting
15 law enforcement came to respect them a little
16 better.
17 That lady that was getting a
18 divorce didn't do anything drastic, went home
19 and started to get herself straightened out
20 because a trooper was kind and understanding
21 and didn't put her down.
22 I just have the highest respect for
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1 the Florida Highway Patrol. Now having seen
2 so many of your colleagues from around the
3 nation I share that respect for the rest.
4 But your heritage may be in
5 patrolling the highways. Today so many of
6 you are becoming the face of modern law
7 enforcement. You are taking us into the next
8 century in terms of technology. Your scope
9 of responsibility in many instances staggers
10 the imagination from investigations in rural
11 areas to drug task forces, to air wings, and
12 intelligence units and so much more.
13 Mr. Chairman, you should be very,
14 very proud of your accomplishments in
15 assuring that state police organizations are
16 their professional best in providing for the
17 men and women who serve, the respect and
18 decent wages and benefits which they deserve.
19 One of the points that I will long
20 remember as Attorney General is the
21 opportunity to in effect represent you in the
22 Supreme Court and have my first argument in
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1 the Supreme Court involve a Hughes, and
2 involve the troopers. I can't think of
3 anything that was more appropriate.
4 This may well be Police Week. But
5 my mother had a theory about Mother's Day.
6 She said I don't want it celebrated for every
7 day is Mother's Day. I feel the same way
8 about Police Week, every day, every week in
9 America ought to be police day and Police
10 Week.
11 We should never forget the job that
12 you do and the price that someone had to pay.
13 You all know it too well. I think about you
14 and I am so glad that you're here. To see it
15 with somebody you know and people that you
16 know and to understand how close it comes,
17 and then sometimes it happens.
18 This week really should be
19 celebrated every week, so that we don't
20 forget and that we support our police in
21 every way we possibly can. I can't tell you
22 how proud I am and how touched I am that
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1 you've chosen to honor the Department of
2 Justice prosecutors and assistant United
3 States Attorney and a trial attorney from the
4 criminal division who prosecuted the case
5 involving Johnny's son.
6 I'm proud of Laura Parsky and James
7 Trump just as I'm proud of all the men and
8 women in the Department of Justice. I have a
9 new mission in life. That's to let the
10 people of the United States know how many
11 dedicated men and women work with them and
12 for them in the Department of Justice.
13 We sometimes fuss about Federal law
14 enforcement in this land. But I am here to
15 tell you that they are some great and
16 wonderful prosecutors, great and wonderful
17 agents, and I am just very proud to serve
18 with them.
19 I want to address you today on
20 three interconnected issues, issues that are
21 extremely important to you. I'd like to ask
22 you a question up front and I'd like you to
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1 be thinking of the answer and I'd like to
2 save time for the answers.
3 If you were the Attorney General of
4 the United States how would you improve
5 support for troopers across the land and for
6 your organizations across the land, be
7 thinking of that.
8 But I'd like to share three efforts
9 with you that I think are very important.
10 First, the need for collaborative training
11 and the sharing of expertise. Secondly, the
12 need for an adequate first respond or
13 response to terrorism, including training and
14 equipment necessary, and coordination and
15 exchange of information in the intelligence.
16 Third, the need to assure that law
17 enforcement fire and rescue services have
18 adequate access to the wireless spectrum.
19 Recently when I was in Los Angeles
20 a senior local law enforcement officer
21 suggested to me that we really need to plan
22 and train together so that we're prepared to
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1 handle different situations that arise. It
2 may not be just a first response to an act of
3 bio- terrorism, it may be civil disobedience
4 in a massive act. Are we prepared? Are we
5 prepared for another Miami, are we prepared
6 for another Los Angeles?
7 Just as with all other law
8 enforcement our first and foremost duty must
9 be to prevent bad things from happening and
10 to plan up front so that we have control of
11 the situation. I have been there before, and
12 in situations where precautions were not
13 taken and mass disorder started.
14 The next time the case was about to
15 come down and the jury was about to announce
16 its verdict, everybody was prepared. I'd
17 like to make sure that we share experiences,
18 that we train and that we develop a common
19 understanding as to how to address such
20 issues.
21 I'd like to involve the community
22 relations service. Most of all, I'd like to
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1 operate on the view of partnership, not us
2 telling you what to do but talking together,
3 sharing best practices, sharing information
4 as to how we can address this issue.
5 I want to build on these
6 experiences and make sure that communities
7 are prepared. Law enforcement, the medical
8 community, schools, churches and the public
9 need to think about this up front. But
10 whatever our plan is there will be a law
11 enforcement component that should involve
12 collaboration between state and federal
13 officers.
14 But it is not just with respect to
15 such instances of mass disorder. There are
16 also other issues. We are moving into a new
17 era of law enforcement, an era in which the
18 gun may seen obsolete compared to the
19 criminals ability to use cyber tools to hack
20 and intrude and steal and engage in all sorts
21 of other criminal conduct.
22 Are we going to be prepared? If
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1 suddenly your emergency system starts out and
2 there are intrusions and the system is jammed
3 and it can not be used, are we all equipped
4 to respond to track that intruder, track that
5 intruder half way around the world and take
6 appropriate steps to ensure enforcement
7 action?
8 As new tools are developed almost
9 every day, do we have throughout this nation
10 at every level of law enforcement the
11 capacity to use the latest tools to match
12 whits with the dangerous cyber criminal?
13 What about our entire information
14 infrastructure?
15 This nation today is more reliant
16 on its information technology and on its
17 information infrastructure than any other
18 nation in the world. That gives us
19 extraordinary opportunity but it also makes
20 us very vulnerable. Are we prepared?
21 We would like to reach out to state
22 and local law enforcement across the land and
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1 make sure that we share expertise in an
2 orderly way and that we share equipment in an
3 orderly way.
4 If there is a significant piece of
5 equipment that is very expensive, 50 states
6 shouldn't have to buy it. We ought to
7 develop the capacity to use it on a regional
8 basis or in the sense of very specialized and
9 very expensive equipment on a national basis.
10 But we ought to develop the capacity to share
11 expertise, to exchange training, and share
12 equipment.
13 Unfortunately, we all live in an
14 age when terrorists, domestic and foreign,
15 think they can forward their own agendas by
16 wrecking havoc in our cities and laying waste
17 to innocent lives.
18 Only a partnership between the
19 local state and federal law enforcement
20 communities can truly manage this treat. It
21 is my hope that we build further on the
22 foundations that we have begun to lay on
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1 effective partnership.
2 We must never forget that it was an
3 Oklahoma highway patrol officer who arrested
4 Timothy McVeigh after that terrible day over
5 three years ago in Oklahoma City. It was a
6 local Oklahoma City police officer who found
7 the truck axle with the part number which
8 linked McVeigh to the truck which contained
9 the bomb.
10 We must never forget in those
11 terrible days which followed the bombing when
12 we faced the growing reality that those who
13 had not been found had been killed, that
14 local, county, state, and federal officers
15 worked together as never before to make sure
16 that those who committed that crime were
17 brought to justice, and they succeeded.
18 One of the things that we have
19 learned is that the first responders role is
20 absolutely critical. You and your colleagues
21 in state and local law enforcement are
22 inevitably going to be the first responder in
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1 most every occasion.
2 We want to make sure that we do
3 everything we can to ensure that you have the
4 equipment necessary, that you have the
5 information necessary, and a two-way exchange
6 of information and that we share together.
7 I've asked our Office of Justice
8 Programs to administer our first responder
9 training initiative, an initiative that
10 recognizes in any terrorist or emergency
11 incident and which seeks to provide the
12 training and technical assistance necessary
13 to perform your critical missions.
14 In addition we're working with the
15 Department of Defense which has authority
16 under the Nunn - Lugar Amendmednt to provide
17 first responder initiatives in 120 cities.
18 We would like your suggestions as to how we
19 can improve based on your experience our
20 efforts with the Department of Defense and
21 our direct efforts with you.
22 I'd like you to think about that
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1 question again. If you were the attorney
2 general, what would you do to improve this
3 effort. But none of this will work if we
4 can't communicate together. I know I'm
5 preaching to the choir in this room about the
6 need to really focus on the development of
7 our use of the spectrum to ensure
8 communication.
9 With the sale of spectrum bans
10 we're going to have to develop the capacity
11 expensive in some instances to narrow ban and
12 to use the narrow ban. We're going to have
13 to make sure that state and local law
14 enforcement has the equipment. I don't know
15 whether Congress is going to respond but
16 we're going to have to make sure that we have
17 the frequencies available to communicate with
18 each other.
19 It is so frustrating to watch
20 police agencies serving generally the same
21 jurisdiction not be able to communicate as a
22 high speed chase develops. It is so
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1 frustrating to look back on Oklahoma City and
2 see the frustrations that existed with
3 respect to communication there.
4 Congress has directed the FCC to
5 allocate more spectrum to the public safety
6 community. But this is just the first step.
7 We're still unsure whether all of our
8 communities will benefit from this additional
9 space on the dial for public safety purposes.
10 So, I ask you to join me in another
11 partnership to speak out, to make sure that
12 Congress hears the concerns of the public
13 safety community loud and clear. I want to
14 do everything I can to be a partner to you in
15 Washington.
16 I don't want to be one of those
17 Feds that comes to town and tells you what to
18 do. I want to be responsive. I want to try
19 to serve you and the American people whom you
20 serve so valiantly. I'd like to close now
21 with reiterating the question, if you were
22 the Attorney General of the United States,
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1 what would you do to more effectively support
2 troopers across this country in the vital,
3 important and great work that you do? With
4 that, I've got my pen and paper ready to go.
5 SPEAKER: Let me preface my remarks
6 by saying whether you know it or not General
7 I actually worked for you on detail over at
8 the Interpol office. It's been very much an
9 educational experience for me in my capacity
10 of representing state and local law
11 enforcement efforts on an international
12 scale.
13 One of the things I've learned
14 since I've been there is that fugitives have
15 a way of getting out of this country.
16 Unfortunately prosecutors do not have the
17 expenses necessary to sign off on extradition
18 papers to be able to afford to bring those
19 fugitives back.
20 I'm looking at the newly introduced
21 International Crime Control Act of 1998 and
22 wondering if there might be a mechanism to
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1 bolster the funding for the marshal service
2 to agree to return those fugitives at Federal
3 Government expense in order to support state
4 and local prosecutions of fugitives who flee.
5 MS. RENO: Let me explore that. I
6 think that probably the most effective --
7 that's a very interesting concept. Your
8 thought would be that the marshal for any
9 overseas or any out of the country expedition
10 that the marshals would pay for it?
11 SPEAKER: I've run into examples.
12 I've inquired as to some homicide cases and
13 received the response back that the
14 prosecutor simply does not have the money in
15 his budget to go after this individual.
16 Even though he may be residing in a
17 country with which we have a bilateral
18 expedition treaty, they simply does not have
19 the money in the budget to go after the
20 individual and he may not qualify to be
21 brought back to this country under an
22 unlawful flight to -- prosecutor charge.
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1 MS. RENO: Here's what I would like
2 to do, I'd like to call Director Gonzales
3 with whom I worked in Dade County and who is
4 very sensitive to these issues. Perhaps we
5 could put together a small group Mr. Chairman
6 to look at it, maybe get somebody from the
7 National District Attorney's Association.
8 Because what I have come to realize
9 is that crime is going to become
10 international in its consequences when
11 somebody can sit in the kitchen in St.
12 Petersburg, Russia and steal from a bank in
13 New York, we know we're going to have
14 problems. More and more people are fleeing.
15 One of the first steps that I've
16 tried to take is to make sure that we try to
17 do everything we can to ensure the
18 extradition of nationals from other
19 countries. This is one of the most
20 frustrating things for me.
21 My argument to countries around the
22 world is look, everybody agrees that the best
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1 place for a case to be prosecuted generally
2 speaking is in the place where the crime was
3 committed and the people are best equipped
4 with witnesses, victims and everybody else to
5 handle the crime there.
6 Historically, perhaps you disagreed
7 with that because you felt that we were
8 prejudice and that we didn't respect your
9 sovereignty. Well, we respect your
10 sovereignty just fine. We just don't want
11 criminals to think they have a safe place to
12 hide.
13 If a national from another country
14 comes to our country, molests and sexually
15 abuses a small child and you're suggesting to
16 me that I should take that small child to
17 your country, a strange country, and they're
18 beginning to get the message.
19 We're trying to do everything we
20 can to support our Office of International
21 Affairs. I have just signed a letter this
22 afternoon to all district attorneys alerting
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1 them to the existence to the Office of
2 International Affairs. So, you idea ties
3 right into it.
4 What I'd like to find is, I know it
5 was not a problem for me in South Florida.
6 We've figured out how to do it. I think
7 Eddie's experience with Metro Dade will be
8 very effective there. But if I may, I'll get
9 your card, follow-up, and see if we can't put
10 together a small working group on it.
11 MR. JAMISON: Madam Attorney
12 General, Patrick Jamison from the Maryland
13 State Police. You hit the nail on the head
14 on the crucial problem we have in Maryland.
15 We don't have a radio communication system in
16 the State Police that we can communicate with
17 the surrounding jurisdictions.
18 Here we are right out of
19 Washington, D.C., and we can't communicate
20 with the local and county jurisdictions. The
21 price tag for our new radio system is $350
22 million. Obviously, that's a big chunk of
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1 change for a state government.
2 We've been trying to get a new
3 radio system for approximately eleven years.
4 We're in the process now of pushing it again.
5 It comes so piece meal the state's unable to
6 fund it. It's a humongous expenditure and
7 the leader or the general in charge of the
8 National Guards said that's his number one
9 priority communications but the price tag is
10 so large the legislature doesn't act on it.
11 So, that's where need help in Maryland.
12 MS. RENO: I think you have put
13 your finger on it. Because even if we solve
14 all the technical problems with respect to
15 the spectrum, the price tag is enormous. It
16 becomes more enormous in more rural areas. I
17 imagine as you get over to Western Maryland
18 and to the mountains it becomes a real
19 problem. I don't know how we're going to
20 work this out. This is a time that's
21 propitious though because many states have
22 some budget surpluses and things look rosier.
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1 It's not going to last very long.
2 One of the things that I think
3 we've got to do to address this issue, and
4 I'm talking in simplistic terms first, is
5 show everybody that we have developed the
6 most cost effective means of communicating
7 possible.
8 One of the things that distresses
9 me is when I go through the country I'll see
10 an aerial tower. Well, whose tower is
11 that, well that's the border control's tower.
12 Well, whose tower is this, well,
13 that's the FBI's tower or DEA's tower. I
14 look at just within the Department of Justice
15 some of the duplication that doesn't have to
16 exist. That's not going to be the answer.
17 I mean we're going to have to
18 figure whether it be in cyber technology,
19 cyber forensics and the latest DNA forensics
20 doing things we never dreamed could be done.
21 In all of these areas we're going to have to
22 understand the technology and reduce it to
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1 its least expensive terms. But it's
2 something that I am dedicated to doing or
3 otherwise where we're going to be worst off
4 in ten years. Other ideas.
5 SPEAKER: Attorney General Reno,
6 Doug McFalt from the Auto State Police. It
7 was funny you mentioned communications as one
8 of your concerns. I was making notes here
9 when you asked that question earlier on, when
10 you started talking about that.
11 We use the teletype system everyday
12 for drivers license checks, vehicle
13 registration checks. But unfortunately I've
14 got to have something that tees me off if I
15 want to check the person or vehicle through
16 Epic or one of the other services.
17 I know some of the services are
18 consolidated but it would be nice if when we
19 ran a driver's check or when we ran a vehicle
20 registration check that we were getting a
21 blanket check of all services, like the
22 registration or driver's information from all
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1 states.
2 Of course, the NCIC, that is
3 consolidated, but checks, but also
4 criminal history checks, operational
5 information and also checks through Epic
6 which INSBA and the FBI would give them, we
7 could do one check you know and get
8 everything with one check it would really --
9 MS. RENO: We're trying to do two
10 things that I think may be of interest.
11 First of all, the Vice President has
12 designated the Department of Justice as the
13 agency responsible for developing a global
14 information network for law enforcement.
15 We've got to start in our own house
16 first because we are not inter-operable
17 between DEA and the FBI. You know, I came
18 into government thinking we might talk to
19 each other. We're making some progress but
20 we're also reaching out to state and local
21 law enforcement to make sure that we uphold
22 our responsibility to do it globally, and
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1 we're making progress.
2 Mr. Chairman, I want to make sure
3 that the troopers are represented in that
4 effort. So, would you make sure that Steve
5 has talked with --
6 MR. HUGHES: I will.
7 MS. RENO: Nick's right behind you.
8 I wasn't asking you Johnnie. The second
9 thing is if you get into a major drug
10 investigation of some kind you get frustrated
11 because you just know there's a wealth of
12 information out there that may just not be
13 the standard registration or the like.
14 The question is how do you exchange
15 information. Assuring security and assuring
16 that we maintain the integrity of the
17 information, we're engaged in a review of the
18 entire drug intelligence architecture.
19 I'm bound and determined to try to
20 overcome turf battles and develop a good
21 mechanism that state and locals can share. I
22 don't know how successful we're going to be.
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1 I keep sometimes running into a
2 stone wall on that but I'm not going to give
3 up. But we'll put you in touch on the issue
4 of the network. Nick, if you can get his
5 card, we'll follow-up.
6 If I can get your card, too, please
7 because I want to follow-up and make sure
8 that you're kept advised on the spectrum
9 issue. Any, yes.
10 MR. SANDLER: My name is Dale
11 Sandler from the New Hampshire State Police.
12 One of the concerns that I had and I've
13 talked to a lot of individuals that they also
14 had is there's been a nice step up from the
15 Federal government to hire new people and get
16 some additional law enforcement personnel out
17 there.
18 One of the things that the new
19 people are getting access to is some type of
20 assistance pertaining to their education that
21 they've already received; subsidizing of
22 loans, or repayment of loans through their
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1 commitment to a law enforcement after they
2 get out of school.
3 The thing that strikes us is that
4 the people that are coming out of school
5 presently are going to be trained by those
6 individuals with five or ten or fifteen years
7 worth of law enforcement experience.
8 The need for up-to-date education
9 whether it be in information technologies, or
10 management leadership, anything to assist
11 from bringing us into the 20th century also
12 with our educations is something that we
13 really could use, whereas education is very
14 expensive as you know.
15 I was wondering if we could do
16 something to bring back like the federal
17 program that used to help pay for college or
18 whatever.
19 MS. RENO: I don't know what we're
20 going to be able to do on that because with
21 the police corps we tried to address that
22 issue and we're not successful in Congress as
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1 I recall. Nick.
2 What I think is going to be vital
3 for us is to make sure, and this was the
4 point I was trying to make with respect to
5 training whether it was how you handle mass
6 disorders, how you handle cyber issues.
7 We are at a moment in time where
8 technology threatens to outstrip man's
9 ability to deal with it unless we get quickly
10 trained up to handle the ever changing
11 developments in technology.
12 I think we're going to have to do
13 that with common training. I don't have all
14 the answers for you yet. We're trying to
15 plan through the Department with the FBI and
16 others to figure out how we do it. My dream
17 is that you have say the labs at Quantico and
18 the training facility at Quantico or at
19 Glynco, the two major federal training and
20 lab sites that we then may have, and that's
21 where the really specialized equipment would
22 be located.
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1 Then you might have regional areas
2 that have the next level of equipment and the
3 next level of expertise and the next level of
4 training that could be provided. We share
5 from federal, to region, to state and local.
6 That's my dream.
7 I don't know whether we're going to
8 be able to persuade Congress to accept it.
9 But where people are listening and hopefully
10 we can do something in that regard.
11 Meanwhile, one of the things, and I would be
12 interested because I always found that at
13 roll calls if somebody got up and just yakked
14 a lot it wasn't very helpful and the officers
15 wanted to get out on the road and they wished
16 these people would stop talking.
17 If I found a teacher, an instructor
18 who was good and who really thought out his
19 or her material, I found that they could be
20 very effective. So I started developing some
21 video tapes for roll calls that were really
22 professionally done, kept people's interest,
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1 the people obviously knew what they were
2 talking about.
3 Just with respect to one example,
4 stolen motor vehicles, we'd been getting a
5 whole bunch of arrests where the officer had
6 not made any inquiry. He could not prove
7 that they knew it was stolen and the courts
8 were throwing them out if we didn't no action
9 them.
10 We did a tape, just a ten minute
11 tape on what could be done to illicit
12 knowledge of the fact that the car was stolen
13 inconsistence statements or the like, enough
14 to hold under Florida law. The no action
15 rate went down significantly.
16 So, we're exploring some critical
17 tapes. That certainly won't be the answer
18 but we want to get your ideas. The idea of
19 something like, I call it ROTC type
20 scholarships that give us the opportunity to
21 get educations, to advance our education, and
22 to continue to serve. So, I can't promise
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1 you anything except I can't agree with you
2 more. Hopefully we can get something
3 developed. Thank you. Yes.
4 MR. VIRGIN: Can I make one last
5 comment, General Reno.
6 MS. RENO: Sure.
7 MR. VIRGIN: My name is Mike Virgin
8 from Indiana. The comment is not a
9 questions, it's to compliment you on your
10 efforts that you've already initiated. In
11 Indiana we have a new superintendent that has
12 started implementing integrative law
13 enforcement communications.
14 He's let his guard down, he's
15 solicited help from all of our different
16 factions or groups, also all sheriff's
17 departments and police departments. I'm sure
18 he took his directions from you.
19 He's also started with the cyber
20 training, we are implementing that,
21 undergoing that. Everything that is being
22 directed our way he is trying to implement
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1 because he knows that you need that
2 assistance and help to keep things going.
3 Right now it looks like the FBI --
4 MS. RENO: I bet I'd give him all
5 the credit.
6 MR. VIRGIN: Thank you. I'll relay
7 your feelings. Currently the FBI has given
8 us the appearance or the mind set that they
9 are going to be on board and we are going to
10 have better cooperation. We're not going to
11 know until year 2,000 whether or not this is
12 actually going to be 100 percent effective.
13 November we'll have our bids on our
14 communications assessments. Indiana thanks
15 you for what you started in Indiana for us.
16 MS. RENO: Well, I look at people
17 around the country, Indiana, Michigan; six
18 heads of law enforcements came to meet with
19 me. You all are doing it. I mean it's you
20 that's given me the idea so I can't really
21 claim the credit.
22 All I can tell you is I want to
35
1 continue to try to help and support you in
2 every way that I can because you are on the
3 front line and you do one great job for the
4 people you serve. Thank you.
5 MR. CHAIRMAN: I would just like to
6 make another comment something like Mike has
7 done. Yeah, sit down. Some of the things
8 that the Attorney General has already said as
9 far as what the Federal Government is looking
10 at doing, I can just give an example as to
11 last week.
12 I had an FBI agent come to me in
13 position as investigator in my district and
14 ask if we had any information on domestic
15 terrorism. In past experiences we haven't
16 had a lot of federal intercommunication with
17 us in the field, the actual field, not in the
18 administrative side.
19 But I think we're seeing a little
20 different change in that attitude out there,
21 at least in my state I can say that. I think
22 the step that you're taking in as far as the
36
1 National Trooper's Coalition you know
2 information Is invaluable, dissemination of
3 information in invaluable.
4 If there's anyway I can disseminate
5 the information because of the number of
6 associations that we have and the people we
7 represent whether it be through e-mail or
8 internet or by letter, I would be more than
9 glad to do that. Because as an association
10 sometimes we don't see everything that the
11 administrations have.
12 MS. RENO: Let me just point out,
13 Nick, I'd like to make sure that we follow up
14 with David Jones and the National
15 Infrastructure Protection Center and the
16 Terrorism Center. I know full well that the
17 Bureau sometimes it's just been a one-way
18 street. They would come in to me as a local
19 prosecutor and say they wanted everything and
20 then trying to find out what happened was
21 very difficult.
22 Clearly in this area, when I look
37
1 at some of the cases that have been made
2 recently and some things that had been
3 prevented, it was because of the work of
4 troopers, troopers who knew the people in the
5 community, knew who to trust, the community
6 trusted them and came to them with
7 information that was vital to avoiding
8 tragedy to the future.
9 So, it's very important that we
10 have that exchange of information. Director
11 Free, I think is committed to making sure
12 that his SACs across the country reach out in
13 a comprehensive way to state emergency,
14 prepare his people, state troopers, state law
15 enforcement, local law enforcement
16 identifying -- I think it's going to be very
17 important that we identify key assets and
18 places likely to be the site of terrorists
19 activities.
20 There is so much that we can do if
21 we plan up front. Then I think it's also
22 going to be important for us to do at least
38
1 some table tops if nothing more just so we
2 know how to react on an attack, for example,
3 on the information infrastructure. But you
4 all are at the heart of it and I can't take
5 too much of the credit.
6 MR. CHAIRMAN: On behalf of the
7 National Troopers Coalition this is a special
8 accommodation award presented to Janet Reno,
9 United States Attorney General in gratitude
10 for your leadership and dedication to this
11 nation's law enforcement officers. You are
12 truly a unique individual and have earned the
13 respect and admiration of America's state
14 police and highway patrol personnel.
15 MS. RENO: Thank you.
16 MR. CHAIRMAN: On behalf of the
17 National Troopers Coalition I want to present
18 this to you.
19 MS. RENO: Thank you very much.
20 (Whereupon, at 2:28 p.m., the
21 PROCEEDINGS were adjourned.)
22 * * * * *