 One of the real advantages to the investigator in using Epic is that while he may have access to the databases of his agency and can make that check, if he were to contact Epic and make an inquiry here as he's developing his case, it would be like a one-stop shopping center. He would be able to do a multi-database check all at one time. I would like to verify security claims status. In my opinion, any FBI agent involved in the investigation of narcotics today would be absolutely foolish not to use Epic as an investigative tool or an adjunct to their primary investigation. This is the Montgomery County Air Park in Gaithersburg, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, D.C. Here on a recent Sunday afternoon, agents made three arrests, confiscated a quantity of drugs and seized a Cessna and a pickup truck. All this activity was made possible because a unique facility, half a continent away from Gaithersburg, was doing a very special job and doing it well. That facility, the El Paso Intelligence Center, better known as Epic, is an indispensable resource in the increasingly difficult war against the trafficking of illegal drugs, aliens, and weapons. It's an indispensable resource that needs to be used. Epic, housed in this unpretentious building in Central El Paso, was established by the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Immigration and Naturalization Service in 1974. Its goal at that time was to help combat the thriving traffic and illicit drugs along the U.S.-Mexico border. Epic met that goal so successfully that its scope was expanded. And no longer would it serve only the Southwest, its innovative contribution to law enforcement would be available throughout the world. El Paso Intelligence Center. Yes, sir? Your name? Oh, give me control name. El Paso Intelligence Center. Either by telephone or teletype, Epic takes hundreds of inquiries daily. In a sense, these inquiries, which come from all over the world, activate the center, operating 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Epic is designed to collect, to process, and disseminate information concerning largely drug trafficking. Epic is also responsible for providing tactical intelligence to federal and state law enforcement agencies. A select group of people meets that responsibility. They're drawn from Epic's lead agency, DEA, as well as the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Coast Guard, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and the Custom Service. Now taken together, these people make up an interagency task force uniquely qualified to handle Epic's major functions. The provision of complete and accurate intelligence on drug movement by land, sea and air throughout the world, as it relates to the United States, tactical support through the exchange of time-sensitive information dealing principally with drug movement, and support through the intelligence process of other programs dealing with problems such as alien smuggling and weapons trafficking, important to Epic's participating agencies. In dealing with the aliens that apply for entry into the El Paso port of entry, we encounter a lot of aliens from the Central American countries, Colombia, Guatemala and so forth. And to actually find out any existing records, we find that Epic is the best and the only source that we can make inquiries that give us a definite answer. Our records are limited in immigration, therefore Epic is actually a tool that we can hardly do without. The person who runs Epic is known as the special agent in charge. Among other things, the SAC must see to it that the center's two main components, the watch section and the analysis section, are working well, both individually and as a team. Epic is broken down into two primary sections. One is our operations section, the other is our analysis section. Our operations section is the 24-hour-a-day, 7-day-a-week action-oriented part of Epic. This is where the inquiries are phoned into or sent into by hard copy and our people answer those requests, do some research, check databases and get back to the investigator making a query in a real-time fashion. Our analysis section, on the other hand, looks at all of the data that comes into Epic, makes determinations on what of that data should go into our databases in support of the operations section. In addition, our analysis section works with special products, special assessments and evaluations, and trend assessments. Requests coming into Epic are received by watch personnel and recorded on an inquiry sheet. Date and time are noted, as are the source of the request, the requester's phone number, the case number, and the file title if it's known. There are five major categories of subject information recorded on the inquiry sheet. Individual, aircraft, pilot, vessel, and vehicle. Yes, sir? Your name, sir? And your agency? Where are you located, sir? And your FTS number? Yes, sir, and what can I do for you? Do you have an aircraft? Special operations handles a high volume of very unique intelligence information that we collect from various DEA foreign resources as well as from other agencies. We collect this information, which is DEA-sensitive and in some instances classified. Our objectives in special operations is to identify and the identification of and location of suspect drug-laden aircraft and suspect drug-laden vessels. We'll take this information, this tactical intelligence information and pass it immediately to the interdiction forces of the United States Custom Service and United States Coast Guard for tactical interdiction purposes. One particular case which comes to mind was the seizure of 1900 pounds of cocaine from a small yacht that was put on lookout by my office. The information was received by the Bananquilla Resident Office and passed to the El Paso Intelligence Center, who in turn passed it to the U.S. Coast Guard as a lookout. About one week following the initial issuance of the lookout, the U.S. Coast Guard located the vessel, boarded it, but were unable to locate the cocaine. Later, the Coast Guard called Epic who in turn called me to verify through our source that in fact the cocaine was on board. I did so, returned the call to the El Paso Intelligence Center who in turn recontacted the Coast Guard who in turn re-boarded the vessel, decided that they would seize the vessel and take it to the Guantanamo Naval Base where they would conduct a further search, a more thorough search. In Guantanamo Bay, they searched the vessel and discovered the 1900 pounds of cocaine and arrested the three people on board, one of which was a DEA fugitive. When an inquiry is made to our operations section, the person taking that inquiry will fill out what we call a watch inquiry sheet. On that inquiry sheet, we ask such questions as what intelligence do you have on this individual so that we can better identify that person and also to build the databases at Epic. When that watch inquiry sheet is completed, we send that down to our analysis section who reviews the information on the watch inquiry sheet, compares that with what we may already have in our databases, and inputs it into the computer system here. We then are able, in the future, if another call comes in the next day or two days later, we're able to advise the new inquirer of the previous request and maybe put the two agents together to help build an investigation. One of the most important things we do here at Epic is put officers together from different areas and different agencies who are interested in the same criminal case. We do this by asking each officer who calls to Epic the reason for his inquiry. This inquiry is then taken and put into our criminal data banks. Words available for use by the next inquiring officer. We do this dozens of times every day, putting officers together in the field who have a mutual interest in a particular criminal enterprise. Once databases have been researched and information found, the watch officer responds. In most cases, the response is made directly to the requester. Naturally, accuracy is vital here, and Epic's hit rate is above 35% in general and above 65% with regard to suspect aircraft. Both are remarkable figures, but if accuracy is important here, so is speed, especially when the inquiry has to do with kinds of transportation. If requested, the watch section will place a law enforcement alert with Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Coast Guard, or Customs on a particular suspect, vessel, vehicle, or aircraft. In fact, it was just such an alert that led to those Sunday arrests and seizures at the Montgomery County Airport. Epic received a call from a DEA agent in Brownsville, Texas. Giving the make of the plane its tail number and time of departure, he requested that it be tracked. Its destination, however, was unknown. A database scan quickly revealed registration, ownership, and any previous involvement in trafficking. It also revealed Rockville, Maryland as a possible destination. Agents immediately contacted the Federal Aviation Administration. An aircraft lookout was initiated for the southern and eastern United States. Also, DEA agents in the Baltimore Regional Office were alerted that the plane might be headed toward their area. Six hours after it departed Brownsville, the aircraft called the Macomb, Mississippi Flight Service Center. Its pilot asked for the weather in Washington and Baltimore. Macomb was aware of the lookout and contacted Epic. With the plane's approximate position known, FAA radar in Houston was able to locate, to identify, and to begin tracking it. Soon after, Atlanta radar picked it up. And soon after that, it landed for refueling in Knoxville. Now, there it was given weather conditions for Gaithersburg. Now, Epic had a probable destination. That destination became certain when Atlanta radar handed the plane off to Washington. The Center immediately notified the Baltimore DEA agents who arrived in Gaithersburg as the plane landed. When it did, they made three arrests. The Gaithersburg Cates was an excellent example of how things can work at Epic. An individual has come in with information that has led us to place a lookout on a particular aircraft. That lookout went out across the country to all the interested agencies that could, in fact, take enforcement action against it if located. And then we saw the aircraft located and the action was taken and it turned out to be a successful operation. These kinds of lookouts are being placed at Epic on a regular basis. In fact, we probably are placing nearly 7,000 lookouts a year. State agencies have been utilizing Epic for several years now. One of the primary things that we first learned was the ease of access that state and local officers had in making inquiries and placing information into Epic. We were extremely satisfied with the response time of our inquiries and the information that we received back of primary interest to state and local officers was information provided by Epic on a timely basis of other investigations which were being conducted throughout the United States on organizations which we may have small bits of information on. If the watch section is the heart of Epic, the analysis section is its soul. Here, all watch activity, and it is prodigious, is integrated into all investigative reporting done by participating law enforcement agencies. This sort of ongoing integration creates what could be called an up-to-the-minute motion picture of intelligence assessments. The analysis section at Epic operates in three broad areas of responsibility. The first is in intelligence production. We research and prepare a variety of publications at Epic, including the Epic Brief, Epic Special Reports, and Epic Reference Documents. In addition, the production people provide a number of specially tailored products for specific users that are not generally produced in volume. The second area of responsibility is in the maintenance of our databases. There is a tremendous volume and variety of intelligence that arrives at Epic by teletype, by report of investigation from our member agencies, and by inquiries of those member agencies in our watch section. All of this intelligence must be reviewed for accuracy, completeness, and to see how it fits with other pieces that we have in our data systems. The third area in which we operate is in support of special interdiction operations. We may provide to sacks or area commanders assessments of drug smuggling threats in their area in order that they may provide special operations for intercepting aircraft or vessels moving toward this country. We can, during the course of these operations, maintain stats, seizures, arrests, and so on, and finally provide a post-operational assessment at the completion of the operation. One of the primary functions within the analysis section is the maintenance and quality control of the 20-plus databases within the Internal Intelligence Terminal, or IT. This database maintenance or quality control is conducted by a number of analysts and intelligence aides from the various agencies assigned to the analysis section. The Intelligence Terminal, which is an in-house computer consisting of well over 20 databases, consists of all the information that's reported to Epic, either through the watch, by phone call, by teletype, coming into Epic via the mail, by DEA6s, by Customs MYRs, by Border Patrol reports, or coming into the analysis section over the telephone. All the information arriving at Epic is reviewed and processed and entered into one of these databases, as well as all replies from Epic back out to the field on the information within our files. It's important to know that the IT is broken down into three major components. The Maritime Intelligence Databases, the Private Aircraft Intelligence Databases, and the General Databases, which consists of individuals in identified organizations. Briefly, each of these major components has a primary database. For instance, in the Maritime section, the primary database is the suspect vessel file. This file contains all information reported to Epic or vessels that are suspected of being involved in illegal activity, vessels associated with that particular vessel, and the names of companies, crew members, and other vessels, as well as a chronology of all intelligence reported to Epic or inquiries about the vessel, lookouts that have been placed on the vessel, boarding, seizures, and so forth. Epic truly is a multi-agency facility. Each agency has a program coordinator assigned here who is not part of Epic management. That program coordinator reports directly back to his headquarters and is responsible for ensuring that that agency's programs and needs are met by Epic, and at the same time to act as liaison with us to ensure that we get the support from those agencies. This building that you see here, it's not all that impressive, but I think you'll agree that what goes on inside it is impressive. In there, people representing the Drug Enforcement Administration and eight other law enforcement agencies work to make your job easier to support your efforts against illegal drugs, weapons, and aliens. They deal in intelligence in making sense of bits of information in putting together pieces of a puzzle in developing useful pictures in giving you answers. Their work is a study in interagency cooperation, but for all that cooperation, Epic needs you to call on them to make use of their unique capabilities. Many of you already have to great success. Now more of you have to avail yourselves of Epic because you're in a difficult war. And in such a war, the El Paso Intelligence Center is an enormously important and easy to use weapon, an indispensable resource.