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Home » About Norwich » SGS Today »
Brig Barker in Freetown, Sierra Leone, where the FBI attache office was opened in 2006 [photo courtesy of Brig Barker].
MJA research strengthens FBI agent's philosophy on law, safety enforcement
by Gary E. Frank, correspondent
© Mar. 6, 2009 Norwich University Office of Communications
According to Brig Barker, the key to preventing a terrorist attack or apprehending a suspect lies with local law enforcement, not the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), intelligence agencies or even the military.
"A perfect example is Tim McVeigh," said Barker, a special agent with the FBI and 2007 graduate of the Master of Justice Administration (MJA) program at Norwich University School of Graduate Studies. "A state trooper being observant led to his arrest."
An Army veteran who served in northern Iraq in 1991, Barker has been with the FBI for 13 years and is a highly regarded counterterrorism expert within the bureau. Proficient in Arabic, with conversational knowledge of Farsi and German, Barker's duties have taken him to the Middle East and Africa several times in the past 10 years.
Barker can cite at least two more examples where action by local law enforcement led to the arrest of terrorist suspects.
In 2005, Torrance, Calif., police arrested two suspects in several local bank robberies. The arrests sparked a lengthy investigation by the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force, which led to the arrest of a four-man terrorist cell in Southern California. Three of the suspects, who are American, are serving time in federal prison. The fourth, a Pakistani national, was found incompetent to stand trial and has been hospitalized.
During a routine traffic stop near Goose Creek, S.C., in 2007, a police officer noticed one man disconnecting wires from a laptop computer before tossing it into the back seat. Two Egyptians in the car consented to a search, and potassium nitrate, PVC pipe and nearly 20 feet of safety fuse were found in the trunk. After their arrest, a video on how to build a detonation device was found on the home computer of one suspect. One of the men was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison and the other is under house arrest awaiting trial.
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“I was attracted to the flexibility of the program, the fact that it was online, so I could work at my own pace, within my schedule.” |
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According to Barker, local law enforcement agencies have a "steep learning curve" when it comes to counterterrorism — to learn the warning flags that indicate further investigation is warranted during routine situations like the Goose Creek traffic stop.
Barker spent two years as an instructor at the FBI National Academy, located at the U.S. Marine Corps base in Quantico, Va., teaching those flags to law enforcement officers. He also taught interview and interrogation techniques. At the same time, he enrolled in Norwich's MJA program.
"I was attracted to the flexibility of the program, the fact that it was online, so I could work at my own pace, within my schedule," said Barker. "I knew the school had a good reputation because I knew a Norwich grad when I was in the Army."
Barker focused the majority of his MJA papers on terrorism. Many of the papers were published in industry journals, trade publications, and textbooks. At the same time, he continued teaching police officers at the academy.
"The confluence was like the perfect storm for me. As I was researching [for MJA] the challenges that a police department faces, I was having my National Academy students research how to better fight terrorism in their jurisdictions. I ended up writing an all-encompassing paper outside of class that was published in a [textbook at West Point's Combating Terrorism Center]."
"He saw the value of the program as an academic way to better prepare himself for the world of law enforcement and international terrorism," said Donal Hartman, director of the MJA program. "That's the way Brig looks at it. All of his articles deal with international terrorism and trying to understand the roots and causes of terrorism."
Hartman is particularly impressed by Barker's understanding of the "nuanced issues" for those tasked with fighting terrorism.
"You have to understand some of the challenges about collecting intelligence. You have to understand the cultural barriers. You have to understand the politics of the region. You have to understand the history of the region," said Hartman.
Barker's knowledge of his subject matter and his field experience make him an excellent instructor, said Peter Magnetto, a 2006 graduate of the Master of Arts in Diplomacy (MDY) program at Norwich. Magnetto learned interview and interrogation techniques from Barker at the FBI Academy.
"He would go above and beyond the course curriculum and teach us little things about a particular culture and its customs, how to deal with them, how to be respectful, and how to use that knowledge in interrogations," said Magnetto.
"We look upon him as a guy who is going to make the connections between the principles taught in the classroom with his own subject matter expertise in the world of the FBI," said Hartman. "He's going to be a leader in the FBI, there's no question about that."
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