FBI Pushes to Expand Domain Into CIA's Intelligence Gathering

Common Ground Not Yet Reached on Agency Roles in U.S.

The FBI is dramatically expanding its intelligence role in the United States and is seeking control over the CIA's domestic activities, according to current and former intelligence and law enforcement officials.

At stake is control over a pool of U.S.-based intelligence assets and information that has been invaluable in the past to understanding the intentions of foreign nations and groups.

FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III is pushing to rewrite the rules under which the CIA and FBI have operated domestically for decades and to assert what he views as the FBI's proper authority over all domestic intelligence gathering as part of a vast, but slow-going, restructuring of the bureau to focus on counterterrorism.

But for decades, the CIA has been allowed under U.S. law to recruit foreign officials, business executives and students living in or visiting the United States to spy for the agency when they return home. CIA case officers working in the National Resources Division, which has stations in major U.S. cities, routinely debrief, on a voluntary basis, U.S. business executives and others who work overseas.

The CIA is generally viewed across the U.S. intelligence community as more experienced and skilled at handling foreign assets, who eventually return abroad, where the CIA leads in intelligence gathering and operations.

Under an executive order signed in 1981, the CIA is prohibited from spying on or conducting operations against U.S. citizens in the United States.

FBI and CIA counterterrorism and counterintelligence officials have been in heated debates the past few weeks, trying to hash out a new "memorandum of understanding" on domestic intelligence gathering. Mueller had endorsed a draft memo in December that was rejected by CIA Director Porter J. Goss as too far-reaching. The meetings were first reported by the Los Angeles Times.

So far, the two sides, which are officially portraying the discussions as an effort to better coordinate domestic intelligence, have made little progress, said intelligence and law enforcement officials. Mueller and Goss plan to meet on the matter soon, administration officials said.

"We're trying to put some coordinated structure to it so we don't trip over each other or expose one another's assets," one FBI official said.

"We believe that neither agency should have complete responsibility for domestic collection," a CIA official said. "Instead, responsibility should be divided in a way that takes advantage of each agencies' strengths."

In the past year, the CIA and FBI have sought to vastly expand the use of multinational corporations to recruit Americans willing to share information from their trips abroad. The CIA is also making a big push to embed its spies in U.S. companies doing business overseas, but only with a company's knowledge and permission.

The agencies are seeking to deepen their outreach to U.S. research and academic institutes, and subcontractors for major government contracts.