John Russack, the program manager for the administration's counter-terrorism Information Sharing Environment, appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday, his first testimony since his appointment by President Bush in April.

He warned that panel that there were important legal and policy impediments to information sharing that would have to be confronted by Congress and the administration as they moved towards a vision of real-time, seamless data exchange between intelligence, law enforcement, emergency response and other agencies of federal, state local and other governments.

"Most of the low-hanging fruit has been plucked," he said. "What is left to be done is really hard."

Russack told the panel in his opening statement that he had already begun work. "I will be assisted," he added, "by a very small staff of approximately 25 people," 20 of whom would be "detailees from other parts of our government."

"I'm advised by counsel that you don't have any employees," the committee's Chairman Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Penn., told him.

"Well, I have one," Russack replied, "I have one, and I have two contractors ... So we're making progress, Mr. Chairman."

Specter seemed unconvinced. "Sufficient progress?" he asked Lee Hamilton, the former congressman and Sept. 11 commissioner also giving evidence Wednesday.

"It's not even close," replied Hamilton.

Russack earlier said his appointment would run out after two years, but that the law which created the office -- last year's intelligence reform legislation -- contained "a caveat that says it could actually expire sooner if I don't do a good job."

"Is that sufficient progress, inspector general?" Specter asked the Justice Department's internal watchdog, Glenn Fine, of Russack's hiring record.

"We're going to take a vote here, Mr. Russack," the senator added. You may lose your office sooner."

The exchange came at the end of a marathon four-hour oversight hearing which began focused on the FBI, and hearing testimony from Director Robert Mueller. But with Russack's participation on a second panel, the topic broadened to encompass the challenges facing information sharing across the federal government.

A visibly frustrated Specter asked the other panelists how to instill "a sense of urgency" in the work being done by Mueller and Russack.

"We went to help you," he told Russack. "If I were to write a scathing letter, whom would I address it to, to give you some help?" He asked.

Russack replied that "we have been working hard on this, even though we have a very small staff." He said that he had just sent out a letter to federal agencies and departments outlining the positions he needed filled by detailees.

"I can assure you that there is a sense of urgency to get those positions filled," he said, adding that Specter should write to the Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte.

Hamilton soliloquized about the importance of Russack's job.

"The place where it all comes together is in Mr. Russack's position," he said. "He's the fellow that has to see that we get all this information shared."

Hamilton said the position of the program manager had to be "empowered. He has to have the resources. He's got to have the people. He's got to have the political support in order to get the job done."

Russack said that he had already completed his first legislatively mandated report, delivered to Congress and the president June 15.

His prepared testimony said the report identified five broad issues that would "define the agenda for the program manager's office over its two-year life."

They were -- in the order he listed them -- "ambiguous and conflicting" policies and authorities governing access to information; a lack of trust between different parts of the federal government, and more generally between the feds and state and local agencies, or between intelligence and law enforcement professionals; the persistence of the need-to-know principle in the application of "controls (on classified data) imposed by the originating organization;" the need to improve information sharing "in parallel with the protection of the information privacy and other rights of Americans;" and, finally, technology.

Russack said that technology was not a barrier to or a restraint on information sharing. "The impediments are not the flow of electrons," he said, calling technology "an enabler of information sharing."

The problem, his prepared testimony explains, is that "disagreements over roles and responsibilities coupled with inadequate or outdated policies, procedures and standards often impede our ability to use existing technology effectively," and resulted in a "vast and confusing array of systems, databases, networks and tools that users must deal with."

Russack's June 15 report is classified For Official Use Only, the level below Secret, he told United Press International after the hearing.

"We'll see what we can do," he responded when asked whether copies might be provided to the media. "A lot of other people have been asking that, too."

Russack told UPI that his office was "going to be staffing up very quickly."

"As you see, I have a lot of oversight to ensure that that happens," he said, but declined to put a timeline on the effort.

Russack was not asked to elaborate on any of the policy or turf conflicts that he alluded to in his prepared testimony. But one such issue identified by the presidential commission on intelligence was the existence of conflicting and inconsistent rules about what intelligence can be collected and shared if it relates to U.S. persons -- American citizens and corporations and other people living legally in the United States.

At his confirmation hearing last week, the man nominated to be the general counsel in the office of the director of national intelligence told lawmakers he would work closely with Russack, noting that President Bush had chosen to place him under the new director.

Benjamin Powell said that if confirmed, he "would supply necessary legal support to (Russack) that would involve working with the chief legal officers of the components of the intelligence community to identify legal impediments to information sharing."

Powell said that he was considering setting up "some type of think tank" in the general counsel's office -- "people whose job it is to look at these kinds of disputes" and who were "wall(ed)... off from the day-to-day types of tasks that take everyone's time."

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