Archives: Document Shows CIA Officers Work Inside FBI Seattle Field Office
A 2007 Washington State Patrol presentation obtained by HardPressed states that "Central Intelligence Agency Reports Officers" are "located in the same building, in the same office," as the Federal Bureau of Investigation in downtown Seattle.
The document was obtained directly from the public collections of the Washington State Archives.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Seattle Division told HardPressed that "the FBI does not comment on the content of files that may have been released through a public records disclosure, including documents that may have been created by another agency, organizational structure, or personnel of other agencies."
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The 17 page presentation appears to have been created as an overview of Washington State's nascent Fusion Center program, then known as the Washington Joint Analytic Center, or WAJAC.
Notes for the presentation, show that Washington State's fusion center was "held as the 'Model' information sharing approach in the United States."
Another slide from the fusion center presentation shows that the purpose of the state's fusion center is to "prevent terror attacks" and also "to mitigate the effects of civil disobedience or rioting," apparently with intelligence sharing pathways that could stretch all the way up to the CIA.
One slide within the presentation shows that CIA Reports Officers are integrated within the FBI Seattle's Field Intelligence Group (FIG). Each FBI Division across the country has their own FIG.
In 2002, the Washington Post reported that the CIA was placing agents "with nearly all of the FBI's 56 terrorism task forces in U.S. cities." Five years later, in 2007, the Washington State Fusion Center presentation appears to show how CIA officers were integrated into the FBI's intelligence collection apparatus outside of the Joint Terrorism Task Forces.
A separate intelligence sharing network diagram produced in 2008 also shows a direct information sharing pathway between the FBI FIG, which is co-located with the Washington State Fusion Center, and the CIA. This diagram was also obtained from the Washington State Archives.
Network diagram of intelligence sharing relationships in Washington State. The CIA can be seen sharing information with the FBI Field Intelligence Group (FIG) in the center right of the diagram. Source Document: Washington State Fusion Center Inventory Assessment, and strategic roadmap. Prepared by CPD Consultants LLC, June 15 2008. Source: Washington State Archives.
CIA Scrutiny
In Seattle specifically, the CIA came under scrutiny after research material connected to a lawsuit against the agency was stolen from the University of Washington's Center for Human Rights in 2015. To resolve that lawsuit, the CIA agreed to release 139 formerly secret documents.
Earlier this year, Oregon Senator Ron Wyden sent a classified letter to the Director of the CIA expressing "deep concerns about CIA activities."
In reaction to Wyden's letter, veteran national security reporter Spencer Ackerman wrote that "whatever he means here may not be known for years. But I have never known Wyden to point to smoke that doesn't emerge from a five-alarm fire."