Rob:  David, in recent history, we’ve really seen three major domestic acts of terrorism, ’93 World Trade Center, ’95 Murrah here in Oklahoma City, and then of course 9/11.  How have they impacted law enforcement?
David Cid:  The major acts of terrorism have really changed the entire dynamic of law enforcement.  You can almost say they went through a sea change, a deep, profound and lasting change where we came to the realization that existing law enforcement policies and procedures were insufficient to prevent major acts of terrorism.  Prior to that, we had presumed that they were sufficient, and even after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, despite the fact that we had not prevented it, the rapid evolution of events and resolution of that investigation gave people the impression that the existing system was adequate, when in fact it was not.  We realized that after the Murrah building bombing, and certainly again after 9/11.  And that has resulted in some changes that have made significant differences in the way law enforcement operates in this country.
Rob:  Have we been guilty in the past of like, generals fight the last war, maybe fighting the last act of terror?
Cid:  We have, and it is a thinking flaw or analytic pitfall called, vividness.  And what that means is that our personal experience has such a great impact upon us, and has such weight in our thinking that it suggests to us that the empirical data may not be as important.  Perhaps I can give you an example.
Rob:  Please.
Cid:  If I fly from Oklahoma City to Chicago to Washington, and I’m delayed in Chicago twice, consecutively, and you ask me, David, should I go through Chicago or Dallas to get to Washington.  I might have a tendency to say based on that unpleasant experience, don’t fly through Chicago, it’s delayed, and delayed, and delayed.  When in fact, empirical data might suggest Chicago does as well as Dallas.  So our personal experience has a great affect on our thinking.  The vividness of the attacks ’91, ’93 and ’95, focus us upon those acts, as really the defining threat from terrorism.  So after, the first World Trade Center bombing, we were looking for Jihadists, foreign terrorists, attacking large buildings and cities.  After the Murrah building bombing, we were looking for domestic terrorists attacking Midwestern cities, government facilities, and we were looking in the wrong places.  We have to look at the empirical data that is the intelligence, and take it where it leads us; and if we do that relentlessly, and focusing on fact, we will have fewer unpleasant surprises.  
Rob:  But when we look at empirical data, does the fact not remain that the people that commit these crimes, they’re constantly changing as well?
Cid:  They are, they are constantly changing, and that’s why we have to have a good, clear view of the intelligence landscape.  And this is what I mean by that.  We have to have some sense of what those who advocate violence are doing and planning.  We have to have a sense of the presence of foreign terrorist groups and operatives in this country.  And we have to maintain our vigilance.  I call it separating the dangerous from the merely silly.  For example, you take your group of men, typically they are men, they call themselves the militia, they all dress in camouflage fatigues, they crawl through the woods, they shoot at pictures of, used to be Janet Reno, now it’s probably Barrack Obama, they talk about the government as being the threat, they talk about themselves being the only true patriots, and they anticipate an attack upon themselves.  Now none of what they are doing is illegal.  But as a rational society we need to be concerned about this, and we have to examine groups like this that advocate violence or speak using violent rhetoric to see if they’re actually posing a threat to act in some fashion.  That’s what good intelligence can tell you.  So it’s important for us to have a clear view of what’s going on, and that way we’ll have a better chance at preventing, preempting and intervening before an act of terrorism.
Rob:  So, how far should we go, what do you have to say to those that would believe that when we are fighting terror, we also sometimes are trampling on civil liberties?
Cid:  We have always, as a nation, been able to set and re-set the balance between freedom and security.  During the Second World War, we did things, I think, that would probably make people run screaming from the room today.  But we are in the fight of our lives.  We have a vigorous debate about that.  We set the balance between freedom and security and re-set it all the time.  We’ve let it go towards security, because we feel there’s a legitimate threat.  And we’ll re-set it again when it’s appropriate.  But one cannot have absolute freedom and absolute security certainly, so they have to be, we have to make judgements as to what we’re going to allow law enforcement to do.  We put certain inefficiencies in their way.  We make them get warrants so they just can’t come into David Cid’s home and search it; they need a warrant.  We make them go to the courts for a variety of things.  We, they have congressional oversight.  We have an adversarial system of trial.  We have oversight of judges during trial.  All those things are inefficiencies we place in the way of law enforcement.  We do that to protect our liberty.  A perfectly efficient police organization was the Gestapo, and we don’t want that.  But if we put too many inefficiencies in the way of law enforcement, they will miss something; they will fail to do their jobs; and people will die.  So that’s why we have to strike that balance intelligently, effectively and well.  
Rob:  In August, the Obama administration quietly moved away from the words, the war on terror.  Is terror something that is best handled by law enforcement rather than military?
Cid:  It really depends.  You know, considering the use of the term, the war on terror, I always thought it was a useful rhetorical device, simply to capture the urgency of the problem and to preclude us going through a long laundry list of the people who wish us ill.  But I can understand why some people feel that it is not nuanced enough.  I mean, terrorism is a tactic; you don’t make war on a tactic; you make war on an adversary who uses that tactic.  So I can understand the distinctions that people would like to draw in that regard; and I agree with them.  But again, from the bully pulpit as a useful rhetorical device, the war on terror, it’s not a bad one.  Those of us in the business, those people who are responsible for protecting you and I, have to have a more nuanced view of it, and I’m sure that they do.
Rob:  Since 9/11, has the threat to our country, and while we may become more aware of terror, but has the threat of terror, has it grown or has it diminished?
Cid:  I think that the likelihood of us being attacked again has increased since 9/11, and let me explain why.  First of all, to remain relevant, these groups have to do a major act of terrorism every two or three years, otherwise people forget about them, and they become irrelevant and they go away.  The other thing that’s at work here is that immediately after 9/11, we instituted a lot of security measures quickly.  And what we did was we created a hostile operational environment for the terrorist.  We created what the military calls operational friction for them; it makes it very difficult for them to business here.  We have reached our tolerance as a society for security measures; so, we’ve stopped.  The terrorist has not.  They’ve had years to adapt to this new security environment.  They feel the pressure to do something within the United States, and to do it decisively, and I think that they are planning that, and I think because of that the likelihood goes up.  Now within our borders we definitely want terrorism to be handled as a law enforcement problem.  We don’t want to handle it as a military problem, because again, of civil liberties issues and so on.  And I think law enforcement has done a remarkable job, when you consider we’ve had no major acts of terrorism since 9/11.  Outside our borders, I think it’s quite different.  I reflect on my experience with Khobar Towers.  When I was in the FBI, we were desperately trying to interview witnesses and so on.  The Saudis would not allow us to do that.  When you go abroad as law enforcement, you are limited by what the host government will allow you to do.  And if they don’t want you to investigate, or they simply want to create the impression you’re investigating, they can do so.  The thing that I think we have to keep in mind is that by dealing with terrorism militarily abroad and domestically through law enforcement, which I think is appropriate, we are giving the terrorists a fairly clear choice, operate outside our borders and face military action, operate within our borders and face law enforcement.  So if you’re in Pakistan in a cave somewhere, and we’re after you, at two o’clock in the morning on a moonless night a helicopter will put down eight or ten young men at the peak of their physical powers, armed with the best weapons in the world who are coming in to do one thing, and one thing only, find you and kill you.  If you’re in the United States, you get this.  (Knocks thrice and says) David Cid, I have a warrant for your arrest.  My point is I think we may make it an irresistible option for them to operate here.  They enjoy all the civil liberties we all do.  All those inefficiencies we place in the front of law enforcement our military do not have.  So I am concerned about a major act of terrorism in the United States.  I’m also concerned about small, repetitive acts of terrorism.  
Rob:  Give me an example of that.
Cid:  Certainly; suicide bombings in shopping malls.  There is a quote in the Hamas training manual that says, “It is foolish to hunt a tiger when there are plenty of sheep to be had.”  What they mean is that you can go after hard targets, but soft targets are easier and better.  So if I’m a suicide bomber and I put on my vest and I decide I want to go into a nuclear power plant and I want to get into the control room and kill everyone who knows anything about it, destroy the equipment, cause a release of radioactive material and kill a million infidels, I can try that.  I might get up to the door, that’s as far as I’m getting and as the guards are descending on me, I detonate myself against the concrete wall, and I become nothing but a custodial problem.  I take that same suicide bomber, in the shopping mall, the food court, on a Sunday afternoon, that’s target displacement.  And because there are so many soft targets, I am concerned about small, repetitive acts of terrorism.  And I am also concerned that if we put too many impediments on the use of intelligence, we will miss these things coming, and again, people will die.
Rob:  So how does one protect themselves against that?  Because you’ve been in Israel, they have guards out at every store, every restaurant, yet people are still killed when someone walks in and they detonate a bomb.
Cid:  It is impossible of course; you make a very good point.  As a society, we have to accept certain risks in exchange for liberty, and those risks are substantial.  The way we prevent that, or try and prevent it is through the use of intelligence; that is, identifying people who are planning to do this, and arresting them before they do.  But your point, again, is well taken.  Israel is the most militarized democracy in the world.  And they have repetitive suicide bombings.  And that’s what concerns me.  
Rob:  So, what more can we do from a law enforcement perspective, domestically?
Cid:  I think we have to focus relentlessly on the collection and use of actionable intelligence.  Because there are too many soft targets to protect using physical security, we have to use intelligence to do so.  We have to give law enforcement the authority and the power that they need to collect and use intelligence well.  They have to concentrate on developing human sources, or informants, which are, despite their problems and unreliability and tendency to commit crimes, the most powerful collection mechanism that we can employ within the context of putting people inside an organization.  We have to make sure that the 850,000 uniformed officers in this country are part of our counter terrorism cadre.  That’s like ten Marine divisions; they’re out there every day and every night, 24/7, driving around looking for things.   We have to make sure they know what to look for, they know how to report it, and they know how to follow up on it.  Those are the kinds of things that we can do.
Rob:  So how can the Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism, how can it help law enforcement, today’s law enforcement?
Cid:  We have become a counter terrorism training center.  And we are focusing on that 850,000 uniformed officer cadre, to improve their intelligence collection skills.  And we have a quartet of courses, we have a series of four courses, we call In-COP, which is Information Collection On Patrol.  What we do is we train the entire department in two weeks.  By doing so, we create a culture of information sharing you don’t get by training people episodically.  We train them at shift change, so that it doesn’t disrupt normal policing operations.  It’s a two-hour intensive course.  We do not take two hours of information and cram it into three days like many training sessions do.  We customize it to the department by using a forty-seven question assessment guide.  It’s focused on their emerging threats, their crime problems, their terrorism problems.  Because we focus on basic skills it improves policing overall.  Police chiefs like it.  We have requests we cannot fill, because we have inadequate funding.  TSA called us recently to do some work for them.  My belief, it is the new training model for police training, going to the department, doing it at shift change, training large numbers of people over short periods of time.  Again, you create a culture within the department you don’t get through episodic training, or small numbers, by training small numbers of people.  That’s what the MIPT is doing.
Rob:  And while life does go on, as everyday citizens, terror doesn’t, isn’t always at the top of our mind, but our world has changed.  Has it not?
Cid:  Yes, it has.  I remember when The Wall came down, in Berlin.  And I remember some very intelligent people saying, we probably don’t need the CIA anymore, and we certainly don’t need the FBI running all over the globe.  The days of the Cold War seem relatively calm compared to what’s going on today.  We have unstable nations.  We have emerging threats that we haven’t identified fully.  We have transnational terrorist groups.  The world is infinitely more complex than it was before The Wall came down; despite all the benefits that, that wall’s removal gave to millions of people.  It’s a complex world.  It’s a dangerous world.  We have to stay attuned to it.  And we have to stay focused and alert.  And we do that through the use of intelligence.  And what the average person can do is to be aware of their surroundings, and if they see something unusual, report it.  In New York they say this, they say, “see something, say something.”  If you see something that’s unusual, report it to the police.  Let them sort it out.  
Rob:  Thank you, Mr Cid.
Cid:  You’re welcome.