Don't mix drugs and spies.

After reading "Spying Trouble" (August), I felt compelled to comment on one point. Overall, I found the entire article very interesting and well done, not to mention on point. I only wish some of those you spoke with would have allowed you to use their names and/or positions so that their comments could be put into clearer perspective.

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In the subsection entitled "Another player," it is noted that the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) entered the intelligence community (IC) in February as the result of joint efforts by the director of National Intelligence (DNI) and the attorney general (AG). The story mentions that a former CIA analyst sees this move as a benefit to the IC because of DEA's strong human intelligence (HUMINT) capabilities, but he does not think the inherent conflict in the missions and operations of investigative and intelligence agencies will be a significant drawback. While I agree with him on the former, I believe that his assessment of the latter is Utopian at best.

The story goes on to quote an unnamed longtime DEA agent. He acknowledges that there may be differences on how DEA and FBI investigators handle their HUMINT resources, but suggests that DEA be prepared to pass off its "contacts" to CIA when appropriate. The anonymous agent does not suggest when and who would decide when it was appropriate or what is meant by "contacts." In the IC, DEA would have but one vote among other purely intelligence organizations, save FBI. Moreover, the DNI and possibly the AG--to whom the DEA reports--would have even stronger leverage on the decision.

I am a 25-year veteran of DEA, with overseas tours in Southeast Asia and Europe; at the time of retirement, I was DEA's director of international operations, responsible for some 72 offices in 52 countries around the world. Based on my own experience, I believe that placing DEA in the IC will, over time, degrade DEA's ability to maintain its high degree of HUMINT as well as raise questions with its law enforcement counterparts around the world as to DEA's real mission in their countries.

For decades DEA had to convince its counterparts that it was not a U.S. government intelligence asset and that it had a single mission--drug law enforcement. DEA personnel stationed abroad did this by focusing on the primary mission and building relationships based on trust and transparency.

In many instances, DEA found itself hindered by other conflicting U.S. government interests, but overall DEA's counterparts recognized that it was a law enforcement agency with no foreign counterintelligence mission or other sub rosa agenda. This was DEA's strength, which allowed it to build that HUMINT and operational capability at home and overseas resulting in successful prosecutions in the U.S. and sometimes foreign courts aimed at the highest level of the domestic and international drug traffic.

DEA at times did come across information or sources that could be of interest to other components of the U.S. government and it made that information or those sources available to other agencies. It did not, however, seek out sources or otherwise move in those areas that were clearly outside of its principal law enforcement mission. DEA is principally a domestic law enforcement agency whose core mission requires it to operate overseas in the source and transit areas for illicit drug trafficking that impacts the U.S.

As an IC member, DEA can now be tasked by the community to undertake activities that may be consistent with the missions of others in the IC but that may be far afield of DEA's primary mission, operations, and the training of its personnel. Its known membership and role in the IC will, in my opinion, taint DEA's well-known and respected ability to create productive relationships with many of its international law enforcement counterparts, many of which are with national police agencies that also have national and foreign counterintelligence components.

Anyone wishing to look at this issue from a different but corresponding perspective can read Stewart A. Baker's prescient article entitled "Should Spies be Cops?" (Foreign Policy, 1994). The author makes a case for having clear lines of demarcation when intelligence agencies work with investigative agencies so that the intelligence agencies do not expose themselves to the rules that investigative agencies are subject to and to avoid combining domestic and foreign intelligence that "... creates the possibility that domestic law enforcement will be infected by the secrecy, deception, and ruthlessness that international espionage requires."

In summary, DEA entering the IC may be a good thing for the IC but it has a greater negative potential for DEA's mission internationally. And that mixed mission will likely become a standard discovery point for the criminal defense bar in the U.S. and elsewhere on any DEA case with overseas involvement.

Matthew J. Maher, CPP 

Security Consultant

Rehoboth Beach, Delaware 

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