What's the CIA doing at NYPD? Three months ago, one of the CIA's most experienced clandestine operatives started work inside the New York Police Department. His title is special assistant to the deputy commissioner of intelligence.


WASHINGTON (AP) — Three months ago, one of the CIA's most experienced clandestine operatives started work inside the New York Police Department. His title is special assistant to the deputy commissioner of intelligence. On that much, everyone agrees.

Exactly what he's doing there, however, is much less clear.

Since The Associated Press revealed the assignment in August, federal and city officials have offered differing explanations for why this CIA officer — a seasoned operative who handled foreign agents and ran complex operations in Jordan and Pakistan — was assigned to a municipal police department. The CIA is prohibited from spying domestically, and its unusual partnership with the NYPD has troubled top lawmakers and prompted an internal investigation.

His role is important because the last time a CIA officer worked so closely with the NYPD, beginning in the months after the 9/11 attacks, he became the architect of aggressive police programs that monitored Muslim neighborhoods. With the earlier help from this CIA official, the police put entire communities under the microscope based on ethnicity rather allegations of wrongdoing, according to the AP investigation.

It was an extraordinary collaboration that at times troubled some senior CIA officials and may have stretched the bounds of how the CIA is legally allowed to operate in the United States.

The arrangement surrounding the newly arrived CIA officer has been portrayed differently than that of his predecessor. When first asked by the AP, a senior U.S. official described the posting as a sabbatical, a program aimed at giving the man in New York more management training.

Testifying at City Hall recently, New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said the CIA operative provides his officers "with information, usually coming from perhaps overseas." He said the CIA operative provides "technical information" to the NYPD but "doesn't have access to any of our investigative files."

CIA Director David Petraeus has described him as an adviser, someone who could ensure that information was being shared.

But the CIA already has someone with that job.

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