THREE-POINT PLAN: TERRORISM CHANGES THE FACE OF CRIME-FIGHTING

This year has given the U.S. both encouraging progress regarding violent
crime and a rude awakening about the changing nature of crime.

Crime trended upward in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In Virginia, from
1987-92, for instance, murders increased 20 percent, rapes 22 percent,
robberies 33 percent, and aggravated assaults 43 percent.

But now the United States is experiencing the most significant reduction in
crime rates since the early 1960s. Violent crime declined 31 percent
between 1992 and 1999. In Richmond, for example, 160 murders in 1994
dropped to 94 in 1998, a 41-percent reduction. Property crime also dropped,
by 27 percent.

Criminologists identify several reasons:

- - The most "crime-prone" age group (ages 15-24) has declined in size.

- - Prosperity in the 1990s brought jobs, making a life of crime less attractive.

- - Drug-related crime fell as crack cocaine's popularity waned.

- - Fewer homicides were committed with guns, and the number of handgun
purchases dropped. With its one-gun-per-month purchase limit, Virginia is
no longer the East Coast's leading source of illegal handguns.

- - Violent offenders are serving longer sentences. Under Virginia's new
sentencing guidelines, sentences for violent offenders increased from 200
to 700 percent.

WE SHOULD feel safer because of these developments. Instead, we are more
fearful. The massacre at Columbine High School, the bombing in Oklahoma
City, and now the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon show
that no one is immune from danger.

Although each death from these events is recorded as "one" murder in the
FBI's Uniform Crime Reports, these crimes have a larger significance. They
target innocent people - usually in groups, not individuals; they are often
committed in the name of a cause or belief; they kill large numbers of victims.

These are terrorist crimes, where preventing a repeat has a higher priority
than prosecution.

In response to September 11, many Americans demonstrated a determination to
eliminate terrorism. But others responded in fear. Fear cannot be
eliminated just by saying everything will be okay. However, it can be
replaced by confidence when there is a well-understood plan of action.

MY PLAN IS summed up in three words: Pray, Prevent, and Pursue.

All of us can pray for the victims. Through prayer, we acknowledge that In
God We Trust, and we give comfort to those who hear our words.

Prevention and pursuit of terrorism are the government's job - particularly
the FBI and the police. They are guided by an elusive definition of
terrorist activity: politically motivated, unexpected violence against
civilians designed to create fear and thereby change behavior or policy.

Both prevention and pursuit of terrorism start with information-gathering:
discovering the identities, plans, activities, and locations of terrorist
actors. Usually such evidence is gathered after a crime is committed.
However, before-the-fact knowledge is needed to prevent terrorism.

In a change of focus, the FBI recently made prevention, rather than
prosecution, its top priority when it comes to terrorism. Thus, we can
expect to see greater use of laws permitting pre-crime
intelligence-gathering, more frequent detention and interrogation of
illegal immigrants, increased activity by undercover agents both at home
and abroad, and psychological analyses of suspected terrorists. The FBI's
"Carnivore" Internet wiretapping system will be used extensively to search
out and record the e-mails of suspects engaging in international terrorism
or "activities in preparation therefor."

LEARNING THE identities of suspected terrorists - foreign or domestic - may
be difficult. Not only may they be hard to pick out of a crowd, but also
information about their origins, affiliations, and past activities may not
be retrieved in time to make arrests. To meet these challenges, the FBI
will look to new technologies, including biometric identification such as
DNA, retinal scans, voice recognition, and fingerprints; face-recognition
computer-based cameras; and computer-assisted passenger screening based on
behavioral profiles.

On the horizon is a uniform personal-identification system. Since 2000,
applicants in every state must produce two forms of identification to
obtain drivers' license. Soon a security-conscious public is likely to
begin voluntary use of identification "smart cards" containing electronic
personal data to avoid delay in boarding airplanes or entering restricted
buildings. If the benefits of such "electronic passports" become
widespread, America may gain a national identification system as ubiquitous
as Social Security numbers.

To be used effectively, intelligence information needs to be shared among
agencies with different jurisdictions, including state and local
authorities. Yet sharing is anathema to law-enforcement agencies, whose
culture protects evidence from premature disclosure and compromise of an
investigation. "It's mind-boggling that information exists in the U.S.,
even in the FBI, and it's not being used to protect people," laments
Michael Chertoff, Assistant Attorney General. In addition, the global
nature of terrorism makes international sharing both necessary and challenging.

Both the 2001 federal anti-terrorism law and the FBI's new "wartime
reorganization and mobilization plan" authorize and legitimize sharing
information from criminal investigations, including grand jury proceedings,
with the CIA, the INS, and other agencies when the target is terrorist
activities. But experience shows that new funding is usually necessary to
break down cultural barriers to inter-agency sharing.

NEW STRATEGIES to prevent and pursue terrorism do raise concerns about
infringement of civil liberties. "With terrorism, our only defense might be
infiltration and surveillance, so we're going to have to choose between
security and privacy," commented Walter Dellinger, former Solicitor General
of the United States. Nevertheless, U.S. citizens continue to enjoy Bill of
Rights protections, rights not extended to non-citizen members of foreign
terrorist organizations.

Courts will eventually set limits on the government's ability to look into
private lives in the name of reducing the risk of terrorism. Meanwhile,
most Americans will willingly accept less privacy as the price for
effective prevention and pursuit.

Americans are placing their faith in police - heroes of September 11 - to
prevent and pursue terrorism. They have a plan for this mission and know
how to execute it. That should give us confidence to set fear aside and
return to a more normal life.

Randy Rollins was Virginia's Secretary of Public Safety during the Wilder
administration.