The Philadelphia Inquirer examines how the FBI does its counterterrorism work behind the scenes, where roughly 85 men and women work largely in the shadows alongside CIA analysts, expanding a local network of informants, developing intelligence, investigating threats, passing tips to counterparts on criminal squads, listening to national security wiretaps and, on occasion, performing that oh-so-traditional duty – making arrests.
“What you’re seeing is a transformation of the FBI, from how it’s operated for the last century,” said U.S. Rep. Patrick L. Meehan, the senior federal prosecutor in Philadelphia from 2001 to 2008 and now chair of the House Homeland Security subcommittee on counterterrorism and intelligence. “The FBI is engaged in a new challenge – identifying a potential act before it’s committed and preventing it from happening.” The shift from law enforcement to intelligence means that the local FBI office has an agent assigned to help protect the region’s colleges but also to collect information from them. It means that there are more squads assigned to combat al-Qaeda in Philadelphia than public corruption.