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Interview: City Terror Czar Speaks
by INDEPENDENT STAFF
September 2004
N. LIBERTIES, Phila.—Joseph O'Connor, head of the Philadelphia Police Department Counter-Terrorism Bureau, is running late. By the time the chief inspector arrived at Finnegan's Wake, clad in a beige mock turtleneck sweater, crisply pleated slacks and an olive green blazer adorned with a tasteful, black 9/11 memorial pin, I had finished half my beer. It seemed that another inspector had accidentally walked off with his car keys after a meeting. Luckily, his driver had managed to rustle up a spare set.
On the phone, O'Connor likes to chat and sometimes rambles. In person, he makes a very convincing chief. His graying hair, gently spiked, defies the deep rings beneath his eyes. He wears a gold ring commemorating the twelve weeks he spent at the FBI Academy in 1993, where he studied budgeting, forensics, fingerprinted, community policing, and press relations. He is a former competitive weightlifter who smokes Pall Malls and runs three miles a day.
O'Connor served seven years in the Army before taking a job as a file clerk at the Internal Revenue Service. While waiting to be promoted to tax examiner, he saw an advertisement for police officers in the newspaper. Thirty-one years later, in 2002, after stints in organized crime intelligence, tactics and hostage negotiation, he was asked to lead a new bureau dedicated to keeping Philadelphia's 135 square miles of homeland secure.
O'Connor is very conscientious with regards to safety. When we parted, he asked if I was carrying mace and reminded me that criminals might consider a single woman alone on a bicycle to be a vulnerable target.
Christine Smallwood: Do you think there are any political motivations behind the fear of terrorism?
Joseph O'Connor: No, I don't.
CS: What do you think of Kerry and Bush? Will things change if Kerry wins the election?
JO: I don't think so. I don't think the country will be any better off if Kerry's elected; I don't think the country will be any worse off if Kerry's elected.
CS: In terms of terrorism?
JO: In terms of anything!
CS: Do you identify with a party?
JO: I'm a Democrat. I'm a rowhouse Catholic, that's what I am. I'm a Franklin Roosevelt Democrat. Do I think the Democratic party is on line with what has to be done? It's like anything. I think that once they become privy to the information that the guy in the White House has, they're going to have to respond in a similar fashion. Many people say, “Geez, I'm glad Gore wasn't in office when this happened.” But I don't think Gore could have responded any differently than the way this president responded.
CS: Including what's happened with Iraq?
JO: I don't know enough about Iraq, but in terms of 9/11, with regard to striking Afghanistan, I don't think we had a choice. With regard to Iraq, again—I'm one of those people, I believe in the government. Do I think that people sometimes lie? Yeah, I do. But do I think that he just wanted to go into Iraq for …? No. I think that he had what he felt was credible information to do what he had to do. The problem, as it turns out, the information wasn't as credible as he thought it was. It didn't have the credibility that maybe should have been a standard before he did anything. I'm not the president. I don't know what information he got that prompted him to do that. I don't believe that it's a big conspiracy, I don't believe they did it for oil.
CS: What kinds of standards does the police force use to make sure the information you're getting is credible?
JO: Well, we take all information, whether it's credible or not. So you have reliability factors. If you're building a group of informants, you may get one that's going to give you excellent information. And based on that excellent information you're able to develop something, whether it's a base, an alert, identification of a certain entry point for whatever it might be, narcotics, unpacked cigarettes. Now, once you've done that, once you've got that, this guy has given you credible information. “Your standard of reliability might be first unknown, if you're using him for the first time. But if you've used him maybe three times, and it's proven to be valid information …
CS: How do you go about preventing terrorism on a daily basis?
JO: Well, I don't prevent it. My job is to oversee the day-to-day activities of our detectives, and to liaison with the FBI, state police and other agencies, law enforcement types. I also oversee the outreach program to the business community at large. We talk to community groups and civic groups with regard to terrorism and the identification of factors that could lead a person to think that they might be seeing something that might be terrorist-related. We work closely with the Secret Service to protect dignitaries that come in. And we work organized crime, the traditional people: biker gangs, black organizations that have started up with regards to illegal activities, things along those lines.
CS: What is it like to work in a preventative capacity? How is preventing an attack different from solving a crime that's already occurred?
JO: The whole purpose of prevention is to have the community alert our uniformed patrol with regards to specific indicators that might tell us that there may be something afoot. Information gives us the tools to further conduct an investigation, and based on those findings, identify whether or not organizations or groups of people are financing terrorist groups, and also whether or not they're proselytizing with regards to anti-western sentiment and things along those lines.
CS: Does that mean that you depend heavily on citizens?
JO: Oh, absolutely.
CS: How many calls do you get?
JO: It depends on what might be going on and the awareness level of the public at large. Shortly after the attack on 9/11, there were numerous calls.
CS: How many is numerous?
JO: Oh, you'd get anywhere from 100 to 150 a day with regard to terrorists. But then, like anything, complacency sets in. I don't want people to panic, but I think people should be concerned, I think people should report anything they see in their day to day that's unusual or suspicious.
CS: How many calls a day do you get now?
JO: Uh … it varies. There aren't a lot. As far as tips and phone calls from the citizenry at large, they've dwindled. But we still continue to get tips.
CS: Is the information usually useful or is it a lot of bunk?
JO: You have to understand, any information, regardless of how non-specific it might be, once it's conjoined up with other information that not just necessarily my bureau has, but certainly the JTTF, the Joint Terrorism Task Force has, it may provide a key with regard to a puzzle. Any information that people see of an unusual or a suspicious nature they give us, we follow up to a logical conclusion. We take it as far as it can go.
CS: I'm an average Philadelphian. How can I help prevent terrorism?
JO: What you can do is be conscious and alert to your surroundings, and anything of a suspicious or unusual nature that you see. Don't be fearful or think that somebody will think you're goofy for calling it in. Always call it in.
CS: How can I know if it's suspicious or not?
JO: Well, it's not up to me. I don't live in the neighborhoods. I don't ride the bus down Broad Street, so I don't know what people riding that bus down Broad Street might see that's unusual.
CS: What do you make of the complaints that some of the measures the government has taken since September 11th are excessive?
JO: That's one of the human cries that goes up with regard to anything that's done with regard to anybody from the Middle East. Now, you could be flip or you could be curt and say, well, wasn't it excessive that the twin towers were hit by two planes? Wasn't it excessive that Nick Berg's head was chopped off? Wasn't it excessive that Daniel Pearl's head was chopped off? With regard to excessive, I'm not saying that all Muslims are that extreme, but people from that part of the world are that extreme with regard to what excessive is. Regardless of whether that person turns out to be a terrorist, it's nowhere near as excessive as it would be if the positions were reversed. When it comes down to it, I don't believe that the Constitution is a death pact. I believe that the Constitution should be adhered to as much as possible, and the freedoms that we enjoy and that we extend to others who are not even citizens—in order for us to survive in this day and age, there has to be a point where we say, okay, these are guarantees afforded under the Constitution. However, public safety and life and the destruction of our way of life have to be addressed appropriately. Otherwise we can all be holding hands, talking about rights. People from that segment of the religion Islam, they don't believe in human rights as we do. They believe that everything stems from the holy Koran and that's how it should be throughout the world, not just their part. Their goal is to convert.
Now, let's say our terrorists were all Irish Catholics. And they were moving out from Belfast and we figured they wanted to take over New York City. Now, would we be stopping Middle Easterns? African Americans? No. People that have Irish surnames and looked Irish? Sure we would. And that's not to say that we only do Middle Eastern people, because their recruiting has moved on. They recruit people from North Africa, Hispanics, white Americans.
CS: What's the future of the Counter-Terrorism Bureau? Are we going to have it forever?
JO: I think it will be a permanent part of the police department. I think we're going to live under this threat of attack for many years to come, and I think that the federal and state funding for such a unit is there. The biggest enemy that this country could have would be complacency with regards to a stalled attack. People from that part of the world, their idea of time is completely different from the Western idea of time. Whether it's one year, ten years, they don't care.
We could lose this. It won't matter to me, because I'll be dead. It's not anything that's going to happen in the next twenty years. But over a period of time, we could all be converted to Islam or end up paying some sort of a tax, as is done in that part of the world, if you're not a Muslim.
CS: This last month the Department of Homeland Security briefly changed the threat level from yellow to orange. What do you do differently when that happens? Does your job change?
JO: The FBI—with whom we enjoy a very strong and very open relationship—they made it a point to contact me directly and let me know there was no specific threat to Philadelphia. And that's important, because in the past when they elevated it to orange, the strain on city finances to appropriately address that level was staggering.
CS: Malia Brink, an ACLU attorney, told me that since 9/11, the police and the district attorneys have been prosecuting offenses that were previously not being prosecuted, in an attempt to get people out of the country who may or may not pose a threat. Is that true?
JO: There are crimes that were once considered maybe under the wire that are now being pursued and prosecuted. The most common are the coupon scams and baby formula scams. There are food scams, where they buy food that's outdated or they steal it out of warehouses where it's to be destroyed, and they distribute it in various stores, changing the mark-ups on them. These are crimes that are considered to be low level. These crimes do seem not heinous at all, but they are in fact providing funds for terrorist groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah and Al Qaeda.
CS: So I've been reading about Mohamed Ghorab, the Egyptian imam in East Frankford who's been detained. Would the IRS have cared about his taxes if he weren't a Muslim cleric?
JO: I believe they would have, yes. But you have to understand it's a very difficult line when you start looking at religious institutions. And you have to bear in mind that unlike Judaism and Christian sects, Islam has no hierarchy. The exception would be, of course, Shiites, who do have a hierarchy. But the Sunni Muslims—if I'm a learned person and I know the Koran, I can become an imam and we can set a mosque up in a rowhome. It's only a matter of how many come to pray and who leads the prayers. All an imam is—he's not a priest, he's not considered a Rabbi.
CS: That's very democratic.
JO: It's democratic to the point where they do not believe in the secularization of government. They believe that all governments, and all life, should be based on the law of the Koran. Their basic premise is that we have the Koran, and it's the word of God; all law should be based upon that. As a people, as an area of the world, they were never exposed to the Western thought processes with regard to Reformation, with regard to Enlightenment and things along those lines. In a sense, their development along those lines is similar to children. That occurred because in those countries, social services were provided by the religious. And along with those social services came a period of indoctrination with regard to the Koran. This religious indoctrination carried through into their formative years, and they are true believers. They believe those things.
CS: It must be a very difficult thing to battle, when you're dealing with someone's faith.
JO: What's difficult is you have people who have come up from early childhood, and at your age I'm sure you can remember many of your formative years with regards to your religious teachings or principles that you were brought up in. The difference lies in, as time evolves, you were probably encouraged to think independently. As a people, in that part of the world, they're not encouraged to do that.
CS: Can you give me any examples of the JTTF preventing an attack in Philadelphia?
JO: No, I can't.
CS: Is that because it's classified or because nothing has been prevented?
JO: We've had what I consider to be Philadelphia mentioned on two specific occasions. And our answer to that was to implement necessary safeguards to show that we were aware of the specificity towards Philadelphia. Now whether or not we allayed an attack, I have no way of knowing. But what I do know is that on two different occasions, Philadelphia was specifically mentioned.
CS: You mean on Al Qaeda tapes, or …?
JO: From intelligence that was forwarded to us through channels that would not be local.
CS: Do you have cases of vigilantism in the community? Locals who are overhelpful or taking matters into their own hands?
JO: Vigilantism is a bad term. You have people that are concerned and they will call you with things that they see, things that they observe in their neighborhood. And should be. And many times, those things lead to other things where you can identify illegal activity.
CS: Is it hard to get a suspected terrorist to the station?
JO: You're talking about resisting?
CS: Yeah.
JO: It depends. I think they're kind of shocked and baffled that we've identified them. They certainly make a lot of noise verbally. You were talking about the Wakeling Street job [the raid on Mohamed Ghorab]. I thought it was very interesting how she [Meriem Moumen, who wed Ghorab in a religious ceremony] got on the bandwagon about how they [the officers and agents] did this and they did that and they did this. I'm not going to presume to know the outcome of that. But I can say one thing with a level of confidence. When people such as the IRS, the ATF, the FBI, and the Joint Terrorism Task Force put together a network of information and communicate to the degree that they are now, there's something there. Now, whether it materializes into a prosecutable case that's going to render a verdict of guilty, that's another matter. But there's something there. We don't have the time to be fooling around because we don't like somebody. We don't have that kind of time anymore. That's not afforded. So there has to be something there, whether it's financing, proselytizing … and again, free speech defends a lot of things, up to a point. And the difficulty with regards to this aspect of policing is identifying whether the mosque itself is a subversive group with criminal intentions, or whether it's an element within the mosque that's a subversive group with potential criminal intention. That's the difficulty that lies ahead for law enforcement today, because we have freedom of religion and freedom of speech.
CS: What do you think that point is with freedom of speech? What's the line?
JO: The line that you find many of the proselytizers crossing is direct financing. An imam or any kind of person has the freedom to speak their political views, but you have to find out whether they are financing something criminal. Are they financing? We know they're recruiting. We know they're recruiting actively. But are they financing? Are they giving direct support?
CS: But it's not actually illegal to speak against the United States, right?
JO: [Nods.]
CS: Is the Liberty Bell a real target?
JO: The Liberty Bell is a symbolic target. And I was very apprehensive during the Karzai visit, when Hamid Karzai came for the Freedom Medal.
CS: I was concerned, too.
JO: I was extremely concerned. And I think those concerns were founded. And I think that people in similar positions, both federal and state, had similar concerns. It spoke volumes that we were able to, as a country, get him in, do his presentation, and get him safely back to his home country. Karzai is Al Qaeda's number two target.
CS: What did you do to keep him safe?
JO: We did what you see happening in New York City right now. We had to extend the perimeter, the inner perimeter.
CS: So you prepared a certain zone that would be safe, a buffer zone.
JO: To ensure that we'd have a route that we can safely bring him in. And once inside, the other precautionary measures with regard to vehicles that are being placed underground, the department had it, and we can call in assistance from the state police, because it's very tiring for bomb dogs to work. They're only good for a certain period of time and then they have to rest.
CS: So can we expect that something will eventually happen in Philadelphia?
JO: I won't say that we can expect something will happen in Philadelphia. I think we should be prepared, and part of my job is to ensure that our officers have sufficient training to respond, that there's sufficient communication between the first responders, and that we have the contacts to get the state and federal resources that we need should such an attack occur. And do I expect one in six months, a year? Anything can happen. And again, I don't say that in a cavalier manner, but I believe that we have established in Philadelphia sufficient safeguards to interdict, and sufficient intelligence resources that we'll be able to identify those that might have that plan down the road.
CS: Can you estimate how many people have been detained as suspicious in the past couple of years?
JO: I really can't. We've detained a number, we've interviewed many. We've had a number of incidents where they had all the earmarks of preliminary surveillance. Their planning can go on for years. I have a very hard time believing that people just want to videotape traffic patterns. If you're asking me, I think they're all involved. Even though they may be innocent. Let's say that you're on vacation in Philadelphia. And you're a college student or a housewife or just a single person who's out to see the sights. What's to prevent me as a terrorist from approaching you and saying, “Listen, Christine, I would like to get some pictures of the Liberty Bell. I would like to get some of the traffic patterns in and around City Hall. And I'm going to give you a video camera and some videotapes, and here's a couple hundred dollars, too.”
CS: Does that happen?
JO: How do we know? I think it will happen. You're asking me if it's happened? I can't point to one specific instance and say that it has happened, but I think that we would be kidding ourselves if we didn't think that it did happen.
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