News Release - June 28, 2007

National Drug Intelligence Center and Utah National Guard Open a Joint Language Training Center Housing a Foreign Language Document Exploitation Team

On June 26, Major General Brian L. Tarbet, Adjutant General Utah National Guard (UNG), and Ms. Irene S. Hernandez, Acting Director of the National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC), celebrated the opening of the permanent NDIC-Joint Language Training Center (JLTC) foreign language Document Exploitation (Doc Ex) facility at Camp W. G. Williams in Riverton, Utah. The NDIC-JLTC Doc Ex facility will house 14 UNG Linguists and 2 NDIC Intelligence Analysts composing the foreign language Document Exploitation Team.

As part of its mission, NDIC, a component of the U.S. Department of Justice, provides real-time intelligence support to federal, state, and local law enforcement by conducting document and computer exploitation of materials associated with counterdrug and counterterrorism investigations. The UNG Joint Language Training Center has provided linguistic support to federal, state, and local government agencies since 1993. In 2005, the two centers agreed to create a joint Document Exploitation Team at Camp Williams to combine the linguistic capabilities of the JLTC with the intelligence analysis capabilities of NDIC to support law enforcement investigations requiring analysis and exploitation of documents and electronic  media that are in languages other than English.

During the ribbon-cutting ceremony, Acting Director Hernandez thanked everyone who had worked to bring into operation what had only been a concept less than 2 years ago, stating, "This is an important milestone for the Utah National Guard and NDIC in supporting our nation's counterdrug effort by leveraging the unique capabilities of the two centers." General Tarbet stated, "This is a great day. It's a benchmark of accomplishment showing that good people, working hard, can bring about great things." Robert Patterson, Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the Special Operations Division of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), commented, "What you do in your job is mission-critical for us. Thank you for what you do for us on a daily basis."

NDIC's Doc Ex program has conducted over 600 missions since its inception and often has had an instrumental impact by assisting in the investigation and prosecution of drug traffickers. That impact is nowhere more evident than in our FY2006 successes. In FY2006, NDIC conducted 60 Doc Ex missions in support of investigations targeting illicit drug trafficking, money laundering, terrorism, and other criminal activities that (more) impact U.S. national security. Almost half of the missions supported the Department of Justice Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force investigations, and more than half supported the DEA or Federal Bureau of Investigation investigations. Other Doc Ex missions were conducted on behalf of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, U.S. Attorneys Offices, U.S. Department of State, and others. These missions were instrumental in identifying previously unknown associates and hidden assets and frequently provided significant assistance in the successful prosecution of offenders.

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