FBI Director Robert Mueller III

The director of the FBI, Robert Mueller, addressed our class today.  We had been studying the efforts they have made to reform the FBI following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.  Creating change in a large Federal bureaucracy like the FBI is an extraordinarily difficult task.  We had a frank Q/A session with the director following his presentation, in which Mueller discussed what has worked and what is not working in their reform efforts.

He said that following 9/11, he established ten priorities for the FBI:

1) combat terrorism

2) counter intelligence

3) cyber security

4) public corruption

5) (he was talking too fast and I didn't catch 5-8)

6)

7)

8)

9) white collar crime

10) violent crime

So, if you are going to commit a crime, make it a violent one, since the FBI has it on the bottom of the list!

Seriously, Director Mueller said that most of his agents would rather catch bank robbers than fight terrorism, and he has fought this by creating the priority list and making performance reviews based on individual's performance on the priorities.  He also has a standing weekly videoconference with area directors to review these priorities.

Another difficulty in fighting terrorism is metrics.  It is easy to measure criminals caught and convicted, but it is hard to measure terrorist acts prevented.

One dramatic move he made was to insist that field office directors be rotated after five year of service.  In order to get champions for change, he has forced his leadership to change. 

When asked about his cooperation with China and Russia, he said, "we know they spy on us, and they might suspect that there is a possibility that we may be spying on them, but we don't talk about that.  We just share information where it is in our common interest."

He felt confident in the superiority of the U.S. intelligence system.  One area in which he envied China:  they have 1.2 million intelligence agents, whereas the US only has 13,000.