Report zeroes in on homegrown terror threat

WASHINGTON -- The heads of America's intelligence agencies rolledout their annual National Threat Assessment on Thursday, warningmembers of Congress about the increasing danger that homegrownterrorists pose to the country.

"Absolutely our No. 1 priority" is identifying Americans intenton doing harm to their own country, Michael Leiter, the director ofthe National Counterterrorism Center, told the House IntelligenceCommittee.

The panel of intelligence officials also cited the devastatingpotential for cyberattacks and defended the performance of U.S.intelligence-gatherers in the Middle East, who have been widelycriticized for failing to predict the showdown on streets of Egypt.

Although homegrown terrorists represent a "numerically small"segment of the threat, they have disproportionate access to U.S.facilities, noted Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.He said that he remains "especially focused on al-Qaida's resolve totarget Americans for recruitment."

This focus is the result of the damage that U.S. forces have doneto al-Qaida in places like Pakistan, officials argue. U.S. successin targeting insurgent operatives abroad has in turn encouraged al-Qaida to look for alternate methods to harm America -- specifically,recruiting Americans to take part in terrorist attacks on their homesoil, they say.

"They are now resorting to other ways to go after this country,"said CIA Director Leon Panetta. "That's the nature of the kind ofthreats that we are now dealing with." While these potential attacksare likely to be less sophisticated, he added, Americans who mighttake part in them are "tougher to find."

Leiter warned that these Americans are also increasingly linkingup with each other through such Internet forums as Facebook. Thechallenge, he added, is identifying these people while stillprotecting civil liberties.

At the same time, the nation's intelligence agencies aregrappling mightily with cyberattacks, which are growing in frequencyand in effectiveness. Clapper estimates that there are about 60,000new malicious programs and viruses "identified each day." The lossof intellectual property to cybercrime has cost businesses worldwide"approximately $1 trillion," he said.

These cyberattacks, FBI Director Robert Mueller said, have thepotential of "bringing down pieces of infrastructure if notadequately protected."

Kristen Lord, vice president of the Center for a New AmericanSecurity, said, "The incredible loss of U.S. intellectual propertythrough cyberespionage is something that could sap American powernot just in the long term but in the medium term."

"It's something that companies we talked to are very worriedabout," said Lord, whose think tank is in the midst of acybersecurity research project. "Often, their systems have beenpenetrated, and they aren't even aware of it."