Who is Randall Larsen, you ask?
Two days after 9-11, when VP Cheney wanted a briefing on the threat of bio terrorism, he called Randy Larsen.
During the anthrax crisis of Oct 2001, Larry King needed an expert; he called Randy Larsen-6 nights in a row.
”America’s leading expert on homeland security!”, says Congressman Chris Cox, Chairman of House Homeland Security Committee.
In addition to a videotape based on the book “Our Own Worst Enemy,” he has an earlier video program titled “Bioterrorism: Myth or Reality?”
errata re above - As indicated in the first two words of the book, I meant “Nine days after”... It was two days after the 9/18 anthrax letter postmark.
FBI Reorganizes Effort to Uncover Terror Groups’ Global Ties
By John Solomon
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 26, 2007; Page A05
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/25/AR2007092502291_2.html
Borrowing from its mob-busting strategies in the 1980s, the bureau will encourage counterterrorism agents to forgo immediate arrests when an imminent threat is not present, allowing the surveillance of terrorism suspects to last longer. The aim is to identify collaborators, facilitators and sympathizers who increasingly span across multiple groups and countries, Billy said.
***
The changes have been driven partly by a growing number of FBI cases involving self-styled terrorist cells inside the United States that were inspired by al-Qaeda and bin Laden but receive support, advice or encouragement from disparate sympathizers across the globe, making group allegiances far less important.
“You don’t want to limit yourself to just assuming that one person who is a member of a certain terrorist group won’t particularly try to recruit or bring into the fold others overseas,” Billy said.
***
The effort required diplomacy with cooperating countries that became concerned that the terrorist cells might be moving toward an operational phase. A meeting was held last winter among international law enforcement agencies to decide when arrests should be made in each country and how to keep surveillance going, officials said.
***
But Laufman, who is now in private practice, cautioned that the FBI reorganization must “overcome the agent culture of the bureau” and allow intelligence analysts to drive the case agents, much like MI5’s domestic intelligence, which drives the investigations of Scotland Yard in Britain.
“The key to making this successful is to build a first-class analytical cadre, give counterterrorism analysts equivalent stature to agents in the FBI’s counterterrorism culture, and create an environment where analysts and agents continuously and seamlessly work together to identify relationships, sources of funding and operational plotting,” Laufman said.
Experts said the bureau’s future success also depends on attracting more Arabic speakers and intelligence analysts, and keeping them long enough to develop deep subject expertise.