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Congress is going to have plenty of angry questions for the FBI this time. Why did it take so long to catch Hanssen? Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Richard Shelby wants to know, "Why didn't someone finger him in some way?" Why does the FBI have less stringent standards for checking up on its people than other agencies have? The CIA has long employed routine polygraph tests to "flutter" agents every five years to search out misbehavior. Those tests are controversial, and Freeh has resisted using them, despite pressure from his own National Security Division managers to do so ever since the 1994 debacle. There must be "a happy medium," says former CIA chief Jim Woolsey, between overzealous, career-destroying tests and the FBI's lax ways. Why wasn't Hanssen caught even when he regularly ran his own name and particulars through CBI computers? "That should have triggered something," declares Shelby, echoing the concerns of many on Capitol Hill.
Meanwhile, there are no days off in the back room. Neither the FBI nor the CIA can rule out the possibility that there are other moles burrowed away inside its institution, learning from the mistakes that brought down Ames and now, if the charges are proved, Hanssen. That means the next case may be even worse.
--Reported by Massimo Calabresi and Elaine Shannon/Washington and Maggie Sieger/Chicago