Department of Justice, U.S.

The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) is the country's primary law enforcement agency that addresses domestic terrorism and terrorist threats. Through the office of the attorney general, the DOJ is responsible for bringing terrorists to trial.

In 1968, President Lyndon Johnson signed Executive Order No. 11396; this order directed and authorized the U.S. attorney general to coordinate the law enforcement and crime prevention activities of all federal agencies. Thus, the DOJ is significantly involved in the domestic surveillance, arrest, detention, and trial of suspected terrorists. The prosecution of terrorists who have committed acts within the United States has, for the most part, been successful. In fact, prosecution is considered one of the most important and exercised tools to counter terrorism and has long played a vital role in U.S. counterterrorism policy.

Much like prosecutions for other crimes, the prosecution of terrorists has several goals. Conviction means the terrorist remains imprisoned and is thus unable to commit further attacks. Conviction can also have a deterrent effect—the threat of imprisonment keeps others from committing terrorist acts. Indictments alert terrorists at large that they are wanted; thus, they may go into hiding and curtail future terrorist activities. The general publicity surrounding a trial can also stir public support for counterterrorism initiatives and influence other governments to follow suit.

In many cases, however, these supposed deterrents and checks on action do not work. For the suicide bombers of the most recent era of terrorism, issues of conviction and deterrence are irrelevant. In many cases, the prosecutions of the “underlings” who commit terrorist acts leave the masterminds, such as Osama bin Laden, at large. For acts committed against U.S. citizens by foreign groups on foreign soil, an entirely different set of problems, most often related to arrest and surveillance procedures, presents itself. One of the primary difficulties in bringing terrorists to justice, however, lies in the tensions between law enforcement and national security. The FBI, under the auspices of the DOJ, is expected to conduct investigations and make arrests that will hold up under appeal. This means minimizing the possibility of terrorists going free because of poorly executed procedures, for example, illegal search and seizure or failure to read Miranda rights. Meanwhile, intelligence agencies, such as the CIA, are unlikely to offer evidence that might jeopardize sources or intelligence strategies; what is uncovered in a trial is a matter of public record. Once arrests are made, prosecution becomes the highest priority for the DOJ.

Trials of terrorists have brought to light significant information about the inner workings of terrorist organizations. A recent example is the trial of Ahmed Ressam, who was found guilty of the Y2K plot to bomb Los Angeles International Airport on New Year's Eve 1999. Ressam's testimony, offered in exchange for a reduced sentence, gave an inside view of bin Laden's terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and will be used to help try other suspected terrorists, including Abu Zubaydah, bin Laden's alleged chief of operations, who was captured in Pakistan in March 2002. Similarly, the trial of the terrorists who bombed the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania made the Al Qaeda terrorist training manual public. That trial, the trials for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and the related conspiracy trial involving Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman were held in the New York Southern District. The prosecutor was U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White, the preeminent prosecutor of international terrorists. Before her resignation at the end of 2001, she had prosecuted 30 terrorists in six trials. The information brought out at these trials has provided a substantial part of our information about bin Laden and Al Qaeda.

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