Important responsibilities of the FBI's Baltimore Division are foreign counterintelligence and counter terrorism within the United States, economic espionage, and the ANSIR (Awareness of National Security Issues and Response) Program. Special Agents working these programs strive to detect and thwart the intelligence collection activities of foreign powers and their agents, and take aggressive measures to reduce the vulnerabilities of the United States to terrorism.
Detection and Neutralization of Espionage
The detection and neutralization of espionage is a principal responsibility of the FBI. The FBI's effort to detect and neutralize acts of espionage is dependent upon a robust and multifaceted counterintelligence effort, which includes information provided by the public sector.
Counterterrorism
The FBI is responsible for countering and investigating terrorist acts inside the United States and against U.S. interests abroad. The FBI defines terrorism as, "the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segments thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives."
Economic Espionage
The Economic Espionage Act of 1996 made espionage a federal felony punishable by 15 years imprisonment for anyone who delivers or steals a trade secret on behalf of a foreign power. A second felony was created by the statute that makes the commercial theft of trade secrets in cases not involving foreign powers a criminal act. Under the statute, a trade secret can be defined as reasonably protected proprietary information that has independent value to its rightful possessor.
National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC)
On May 22, 1998, President Clinton announced a new directive designed to protect the Nation's critical infrastructures against terrorism called Presidential Decision Directive 63 or PDD-63. The FBI has traditionally been involved with terrorist threats to physical infrastructures including such areas as the banking, telecommunication and transportation industries. However, recent advances in computer hardware and software, and communications technologies have made these infrastructures highly automated, and potentially more vulnerable to disruption or incapacitation from a cyber perspective. The National Infrastructure Protection Center, or NIPC, was founded to address these issues and investigate potential cyber and physical threats against those areas outlined in PDD-63.6
Federal Computer Crime
Computer intrusion investigations address cyber threats and incidents that target or compromise the confidentiality, integrity and availability of computers and information systems, especially those associated with critical infrastructures. Title 18 U.S.C. Section 1030 outlines the offenses related to federal computer crimes. The primary elements are as follows:
1. The computer involved must be identified as having "federal interest" where inter-state operations apply as in banking and finance or transportation.
2. The person knowingly uses a computer without authority, or in excess of authority, to obtain classified information and subsequently performing some unauthorized communication.
3. The person intentionally, and without, authorization, accessing any non-public computer of a department or agency of, or used by the Government of the United States.
4. The person knowingly and with intent to defraud, accessing a protected computer without authorization, or exceeding authorized access. A protected computer is defined as a computer, either exclusively or not exclusively, used by a financial institution or the United States Government.
In a 1998 Computer Security Institute/FBI Study, 64% of companies polled reported information system security breaches - a 16% increase from 1997. The total financial loss from 241 organizations was $136.8 million - a 36% increase from 1997. The FBI knows this is not just a government problem and needs the cooperation from those in the private sector to successfully fight computer intrusion crime.
The Baltimore Division has an ANSIR coordinator, who is the "public voice" and educational medium for communicating foreign threat information, to include information concerning economic espionage, to the private sector. Anyone having information concerning any of the above programs may visit the Maryland Metropolitan Office at Calverton, 11700 Beltsville Drive, Suite 200, Calverton, MD. 20705, or call (301) 572-5400.