Senators call for changes at FBI to prevent spying

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The chairman of a Senate committee that will investigate the case of a 25-year veteran of the FBI charged with espionage said Sunday he wants to find out why it took investigators so long to uncover the alleged misdeeds, and he called for reforms within the agency to guard against the possibility of having moles within its ranks.

"The question is, what took so long?" said Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Alabama, speaking on "Fox News Sunday." "Why did they not have some leads? Or, if they had them, did they ignore them?"

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Espionage case

Sen. John Kerry, D-Massachusetts, also expressed frustration that an apparent mole went undetected for 15 years.

Robert Philip Hanssen was arrested a week ago on charges that he spied for the Soviet Union and later Russia over a period of 15 years.

"I don't understand, I really don't understand, how in the most sensitive areas of your counterespionage, et cetera, you don't have better procedures in place to be making certain that people are living up to the highest standards and that this has gone on as long as it has," he said on CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer." "I'm shocked. I'm really surprised by it. I think most Americans are ... I think somebody has to be held accountable."

Kerry suggested that somebody ought to step down because of the disclosures, but he did not elaborate.

"We don't seem to hold people accountable the way one used to," Kerry said. "People would resign over something like this in the past."

Shelby, the chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said there have to be changes within the FBI to guard against any spy activity. The committee is scheduled to hold a closed-door hearing Wednesday at which CIA Director George Tenet, FBI Director Louis Freeh and Attorney General John Ashcroft are expected to testify.

Shelby noted that Hanssen had been involved with counterintelligence operations for most of his career and suggested that kind of tenure might be unhealthy.

"What do you gain by leaving someone in a very sensitive position for so many years?" Shelby asked on "Fox News Sunday." "Sometimes you gain complacency and people get in trouble. I think the FBI, in my opinion, is going to have to change some management practices there, but we're waiting to hear from Louis Freeh."

If convicted, Hanssen could face the death penalty or life in prison. He is scheduled to appear in federal court March 5 in Alexandria, Va., for a preliminary hearing.

Sen. Bob Graham, a Florida Democrat who sits on the intelligence panel, said the FBI should have picked up warning signs sooner.

"There were some lifestyle issues of Hanssen that raised questions," Graham told Fox. "Apparently he had six children, several, if not all, of whom were attending expensive private schools. And the question is, how did he afford to pay that? Those would have been questions raised if the FBI had had regulation financial audits of its sensitive personnel."

Graham said the FBI needs to conduct periodic polygraph tests and scrutinize the financial records of those employees in sensitive positions.

The FBI and CIA are determining the scope of the security damage allegedly caused by Hanssen, but have described it as serious and extensive.

Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Nebraska, said a thorough review of domestic intelligence operations is needed.

"I think we're going to have to open up all the windows and the doors, and take a new look at our entire intelligence apparatus -- the people, the process, the procedures," he said on CNN. "We've become way too complacent and sanguine here over the last few years ... That cannot stand."

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