Yuyun Lusiyani
The Trump administration has enacted significant changes to long-standing protocols governing the sharing of law enforcement intelligence with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and other U.S. intelligence agencies, officials have confirmed. These adjustments effectively override controls established decades ago to safeguard the privacy of American citizens, sparking widespread concern among civil liberties advocates, former intelligence officials, and members of Congress. The shifts could grant intelligence agencies unprecedented access to a vast database containing hundreds of millions of sensitive documents, ranging from FBI case files and banking records to criminal investigations of labor unions, much of which pertains to the activities of law-abiding Americans.
Erosion of the "Wall" and Post-9/11 Shifts
The foundational separation between domestic law enforcement and foreign intelligence gathering in the United States emerged as a direct response to revelations of widespread surveillance abuses during the 1960s and 1970s. Investigations by the Church and Pike Committees in the mid-1970s exposed instances where intelligence agencies like the CIA (under operations such as CHAOS and MHCHAOS) were illegally spying on American anti-war and civil rights activists, while the FBI conducted politically motivated investigations through its COINTELPRO program. This era fostered deep public distrust and led to landmark reforms, including the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978 and executive orders designed to explicitly prohibit intelligence agencies from collecting information on the domestic activities of U.S. citizens unless directly related to foreign intelligence investigations and approved by the Attorney General and Director of National Intelligence. These reforms were intended to erect a robust "wall" preventing the specter of a secret police monitoring its own populace.
The landscape of intelligence sharing began to shift significantly after the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. The attacks exposed critical failures in inter-agency communication, particularly the CIA’s inability to share vital intelligence with the FBI about Al Qaeda operatives entering the United States. This led to a series of legislative and executive actions aimed at improving information flow to combat terrorism. The Patriot Act of 2001 expanded law enforcement’s surveillance powers, and the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 created the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC). The NCTC was specifically mandated to collect and analyze intelligence on foreign terrorist groups, with its founding statutes explicitly prohibiting it from gathering information on domestic terror threats. The intent was to enhance national security by fostering collaboration, but always within carefully delineated boundaries to protect civil liberties and the constitutional rights of Americans. Debates over the balance between security and privacy intensified throughout the post-9/11 era, particularly concerning the National Security Agency’s (NSA) broader surveillance authorities for foreign intelligence, which allowed for the interception of communications between people inside the U.S. and terror suspects abroad without the probable cause or judicial warrants typically required for domestic law enforcement.
The Trump Administration’s Aggressive Expansion of Information Sharing
The current administration’s actions represent a dramatic acceleration and expansion of information sharing, pushing past the cautious deliberation that characterized previous administrations. Officials involved in the process expressed alarm at the speed and lack of transparency surrounding these changes, noting a marked absence of high-level discussions or comprehensive legal debate among government lawyers. "None of this has been thought through very carefully – which is shocking," one intelligence official commented anonymously, adding, "There are a lot of privacy concerns out there, and nobody really wants to deal with them."
A spokesperson for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Olivia Coleman, declined to address specific questions regarding the expanded information sharing or its legal underpinning. Instead, she referred to public statements by senior administration officials, including National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard, who emphasized the importance of "making sure that we have seamless two-way push communications with our law enforcement partners to facilitate that bi-directional sharing of information." This general endorsement of information flow, critics argue, glosses over the critical privacy implications.
The administration’s justification for these sweeping changes largely hinges on its reclassification of certain transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) as terrorist entities. President Donald Trump has declared his intention to improve information-sharing across the government, signing an executive order to eliminate "information silos" of unclassified information. More consequentially, he has branded more than a dozen Latin American drug mafias and criminal gangs, such as the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, as terrorist organizations.
This designation has been used to rationalize more aggressive measures, including missile strikes against at least 148 suspected drug smugglers in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific since last year, actions many legal experts contend violate international law. Administration lawyers argue these terror designations entitle intelligence agencies to access all law enforcement case files related to these groups. However, a key criterion for such designations is that a group must "be a foreign organization." Unlike Islamist terror groups, Latin American drug mafias and gangs like MS-13 have a significant and complex presence within the United States, with many members being U.S. citizens who live and operate domestically. This blurs the lines, potentially allowing intelligence agencies, traditionally focused on foreign threats, to monitor American citizens without typical law enforcement constraints.
Adding to these concerns, the Trump administration also designated the loosely organized antifascist political movement, Antifa, as a terrorist group on September 22, despite the absence of any federal law authorizing such a domestic designation. Weeks later, four European militant groups reportedly aligned with Antifa were added to the government’s list of foreign terrorist organizations. These steps have been interpreted by some intelligence experts as potentially opening the door for the CIA and other agencies to monitor Americans who support Antifa, thereby infringing upon their free speech rights. This approach eerily echoes justifications used by Presidents Johnson and Nixon for domestic spying by the CIA, under the pretext of investigating whether government critics were supported by foreign governments.
The Battle for the Compass Database
A major flashpoint in this policy shift is the fate of the "Compass" database. The wider sharing of law enforcement case files is significantly driven by the administration’s abrupt decision to disband the Justice Department’s Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) on September 30. For decades, OCDETF coordinated the work of over 20 different agencies on major drug trafficking and organized crime cases, and its crown jewel was Compass – a centralized, searchable repository of some 770 million records. These records include State Department visa records, U.S. Postal Service inspector files, years of suspicious transaction reports from the Treasury Department, Bureau of Prisons call records, and sensitive investigative files from the FBI and DEA. Such files often contain information on witnesses, associates of suspects, and individuals who have committed no crimes.
"You have witness information, target information, bank account information," stated Thomas Padden, a former OCDETF director. "I can’t think of a dataset that would not be a concern if it were shared without some controls. You need checks and balances, and it’s not clear to me that those are in place.”
Until now, access to Compass records was governed by elaborate rules agreed upon by all contributing agencies, designed to ensure cooperation while protecting sensitive case files and U.S. citizens’ privacy. While viewed by some as cumbersome, this system offered crucial safeguards. The Trump administration has replaced OCDETF with a new network of Homeland Security Task Forces (HSTFs), designed by White House homeland security adviser Stephen Miller. These new task forces are intended to refocus federal law enforcement on what Miller and other officials portray as an alarming nexus of immigration and transnational crime, granting the White House and Department of Homeland Security new authority over transnational crime investigations, effectively subordinating agencies like the DEA and federal prosecutors.
The HSTFs have taken possession of the Compass system, but the administration is still determining how the database will operate. Crucially, intelligence agencies and the Defense Department have already taken technical steps to connect their networks to Compass, positioning themselves to access its information if permitted. The White House press office did not respond to questions regarding the management of the Compass database or its control by the HSTFs.
The National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), under its new director Joe Kent, has been particularly aggressive in seeking to manage the Compass system. Kent, a former Army Special Forces and CIA paramilitary officer and top aide to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, has pushed for greater access. FBI, DEA, and other law enforcement agencies have strongly opposed the NCTC’s efforts, arguing that it is inappropriate for an intelligence agency to manage sensitive law enforcement information. "The NCTC has taken a very aggressive stance," one official noted. "They think the agencies should be sharing everything with them, and it should be up to them to decide what is relevant and what U.S. citizen information they shouldn’t keep.”
Despite the Trump administration’s expanded definition of terrorist activity, officials confirm that terror-related information constitutes only a small fraction of the records within Compass. NCTC officials insist they are only interested in terror-related data and possess electronic systems to filter out information on U.S. persons. However, law enforcement agencies challenge these claims, contending that the NCTC’s proposal would almost inevitably breach privacy laws and imperil sensitive case information without necessarily enhancing the fight against transnational criminals.
Reactions and Legal Challenges
The administration’s moves have been met with alarm from civil liberties advocates and some lawmakers. Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, a senior Democrat on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, issued a strong statement: “The Intelligence Community operates with broad authorities, constant secrecy and little-to-no judicial oversight because it is meant to focus on foreign threats.” He warned that giving intelligence agencies wider access to information on U.S. citizens not suspected of any crime "puts Americans’ freedoms at risk," adding, "The potential for abuse of that information is staggering.”
Many current and former officials interviewed spoke anonymously, fearing retaliation for criticizing the administration. While largely supportive of effective information sharing, they stressed the necessity of protecting sensitive investigations and citizens’ privacy. They contrasted the current administration’s approach with previous Republican and Democratic administrations, which weighed these considerations deliberately, making little headway with reforms due to the inherent complexities. "There will always be those who simply want to turn on a spigot and comingle all available information, but you can’t just flip a switch – at least not if you want the government to uphold the rule of law," said Russell Travers, a former acting director of the National Counterterrorism Center.
The administration argues that such information sharing is authorized by the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 and the Patriot Act of 2001. However, the NCTC’s central role in collecting and analyzing terrorism information specifically excludes "intelligence pertaining exclusively to domestic terrorists and domestic counterterrorism." Critics argue that Director Kent and Director Gabbard are stepping over "red lines" their predecessors carefully avoided.
Evidence of this aggressive stance emerged when, in October, Kent drew sharp criticism from the FBI after examining files from the bureau’s ongoing investigation into the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, an incident first reported by The New York Times. Last month, Director Gabbard reportedly appeared to lead a raid where the FBI seized truckloads of 2020 presidential voting records from an election center in Fulton County, Georgia, though officials later clarified she was sent by Trump but did not oversee the operation. These incidents highlight the blurring of lines and potential for politicization of intelligence and law enforcement functions.
In previous years, officials said, the possibility of crossing established legal boundaries on citizens’ privacy would have triggered extensive high-level meetings, legal opinions, and policy memos involving lawyers, civil liberties experts, and operational security personnel. This internal discussion, crucial for ensuring responsible stewardship of information, has largely been absent.
The abrupt closure of OCDETF and its replacement by the HSTFs further illustrates this lack of careful consideration. Agencies that contributed records to OCDETF were reportedly ordered to sign over their information to the new task forces without clear assurances that the system’s new custodians would adhere to the original conditions for sharing. While larger agencies like the FBI and DEA have objected to these changes, smaller contributing agencies have been "reluctant to push back too hard," according to one official.
Broader Implications and Precedents
The NCTC, facing budget cuts during the previous administration, has been particularly keen to service the new Homeland Security Task Forces. It established a new fusion center to promote "two-way intelligence sharing of actionable information between the intelligence community and law enforcement," as described by Gabbard. The Pentagon’s new Joint Interagency Task Force-Counter Cartel in Tucson, Arizona, also aims to facilitate expanded intelligence sharing between the Department of Defense, law enforcement, and the Intelligence Community.
Notably, a similar proposal by then-DEA administrator Anne Milgram during the final months of the Biden administration, involving DEA, CIA, and other agencies pooling information on Mexican drug trafficking groups, faced strong objections from the Defense Department’s counternarcotics office. An official there warned that sharing such law enforcement information with the intelligence community could violate laws prohibiting the CIA from gathering intelligence on Americans inside the United States, and that the Pentagon would not participate in such a plan. This stark contrast underscores the Trump administration’s willingness to override such concerns.
The administration’s actions set a concerning precedent. By blurring the lines between foreign terrorism and domestic criminal activity, and by designating domestic political movements as terrorist groups, it risks expanding the reach of intelligence agencies into areas traditionally protected by constitutional safeguards. The potential for surveillance overreach, the chilling effect on free speech, and the erosion of checks and balances designed to protect American privacy are significant. Without robust public debate, congressional oversight, and clear legal frameworks, the shift toward "seamless two-way push communications" risks dismantling the carefully constructed protections against government intrusion into the lives of its citizens.
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