The Sept. 11 commission concluded that there had been serious lapses in coordination of U.S. intelligence leading up to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and that the current director of central intelligence, who also runs the CIA, is too focused on agency operations and does not exercise the authority needed to coordinate operations throughout the government.
Among the other provisions, the bill establishes an intelligence directorate at the FBI, and mandates training of a cadre of FBI agents dedicated to domestic intelligence. That idea is meant to address the fact that most FBI agents are trained to gather evidence relevant to making criminal cases, rather than information that might lead to uncovering terrorist plans.
 
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The legislation also funds a package of homeland security measures to bolster transportation safety and border security. For example, the bill calls for developing guidance for a biometric identification technology to screen foreign passengers and mandates a new airline passenger screening system.
It also mandates that the federal government -- in most cases the State Department -- undertake a host of measures to address the causes of terrorism abroad. Those measures will include creating a "democracy caucus" at the United Nations, increasing funding for rule-of-law and educational training in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and expanding exchanges with the Muslim world.
Senior intelligence officials and even some legislators who supported the legislation are not sure how the long-delayed measure would work in practice.
"It's a black hole we're looking into," one U.S. intelligence official said.
"There are a lot of questions, and they are inevitably going to be resolved in practice," said a senior administration official who will be involved in melding the old and the new structures.
To ensure a separation from the CIA, the bill permits only the intelligence director to share space at the agency's Langley headquarters, now called the George H.W. Bush Center for Intelligence, until October 2008, when the current president's term is almost up.
