FBI KEEPING UP WITH OTHER CASES DESPITE ANTI-TERRORISM DEMANDS

Agents In N.C. Still Involved In Drug, Robbery Investigations

The FBI is still working with state and local authorities to investigate
such cases as drug trafficking, bank robberies and white-collar crime even
though a third of its agents are tracking leads on suspected terrorists, an
FBI official said yesterday.

"We have had to stretch our resources to a certain extent," said Paul
Bresson, a FBI spokesman in Washington. "But we haven't been stretched to a
point where we have turned our backs on investigations that we are
responsible for."

Attorney General John Ashcroft has directed the 56 FBI field offices,
including one in Greensboro, to implement the anti-terrorism legislation
that gives agents new authority in intelligence gathering, criminal
procedure and immigration violations.

Of 11,500 FBI agents, 4,000 are investigating terrorist activities
exclusively, and a total of 7,000 employees out of 25,000 are assigned to
that investigation.

The Bush administration is discussing proposals to reorganize the FBI,
shifting its focus to counterterrorism and away from crime fighting, senior
officials told reporters last month.

However, the U.S. Department of Justice hasn't adopted any policies that
would change the mission of the FBI.

Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the FBI has worked with state and
local authorities to track down suspected terrorists and investigate the
anthrax scares across the country.

The FBI is devoting many of its resources to those investigations, but the
agency is assisting local and state authorities on bank robberies, drug
trafficking, gang violence, credit-card fraud and other cases, Bresson said.

Historically, the FBI has focused its attention on drugs and organized
crime, violent crimes, white-collar crimes, counterterrorism and foreign
counterintelligence.

Local investigations of bank robberies and drug trafficking have not been
affected by the FBI's efforts to track down suspected terrorists, said Lt.
Randy Weavil of the Winston-Salem Police Department.

"We know that they have been real busy," Weavil said.

Some support a shift in the FBI's focus.

The FBI should be preventing future terrorist attacks and not solving
street crimes, said Richard Rosen, a law professor at the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

"Sept. 11 has changed our reality," Rosen said. "If there is the
possibility of another terrorist attack, then we would want the FBI looking
for those people of instead of following a truck with a load of marijuana
down Interstate 85."

The FBI may have more flexibility to divert its agents because of
decreasing crime rates.

FBI statistics show slight decreases in the total number of murders,
robberies, assaults and burglaries in 2000.

The FBI crime report marked the nation's ninth consecutive year of fewer
reported crimes and a 22percent decrease since 1991.

Despite that trend, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Greensboro filed slightly
more criminal cases in fiscal 2001, which ended Sept. 30, than in 2000.

Federal prosecutors handled the cases of 572 defendants - a 3.8 percent
increase from the previous year, said Lynne Klauer, a spokeswoman for the
U.S. Attorney's Office.