Counsel of the department of Homeland Security commented on the fact Homeland Security is a discipline and we see this in our law schools and undergraduate schools around the country were Homeland Security is taught today and we will be holding not on a penal josh will be moderating later. Celebrations and anniversaries come in 10 year intervals. Youre part of History Today with this 10th year program. The program really had its genesis to serving the general counsels office many years ago. So it is only appropriate today introduced the keynote speaker who is the current general counsel of the department of Homeland Security. The bible is the current general counsel and has served with distinction they are the last many years. Hes the chief legal officer of the department of Homeland Security and see if i lost track of how Many Employers you actually supervise, but it is probably somewhere in the vicinity of 1800 lawyers. I recall as many as 600 lawyers are sure the wash d. C. Area. I know in the audience we have a number of you who served so that they thank you for your service and sacrifice and your help protecting america under steves leadership. Before steve is at dhs he was managing partner of one of americas most prominent law firms in the washington d. C. Office prior spent every two decades of Public Service as an assistant u. S. Attorney office in the District Of Columbia and also the department of justice Headquarters Office in a number of key leadership positions. Hes a very distinguished lawyer and graduate of stanford law school. Lets give steve a big round of applause. Thank you. [applause] good morning, everyone. Thank you, joe for the kind introduction. I am very fortunate to be one of your successors as general counsel and although it has been a while since you last, all of us that go gc and across the entire hartman continued to benefit from your leadership in our formative years. They say the years two to five are important for the development there in the beginning. Let me also thank josh for his leadership not only in helping to get this conference organized, working with joe, but your leadership in helping to establish the discipline of Homeland Security log and together helping to establish a law in this space. It is an important area for people to drive together the different aspects of law and policy to shape what we do and is frankly one of the things that make it so interesting. These different strands of law coming together. Thank you for the leadership. Im honored to be here today. My plan is to start by describing some of the top challenges facing the Department Today of course given the scope of dhss responsibility i am going to limit myself to just a few. In fact i could try to provide a high level review of four areas but i dont mean i did not suggest there arent a lot of other things leadership thinks about and focuses on. After highlighting some of these top challenges im going to put him a general councils had an talk a little bit about transit teams and Homeland Security log although i did notice on the program this is not a cle Eligible Program so im not going to be particularly insightful with respect to the law. If we have time at the end id be happy to take some questions. Let me start with what we have been spending our time on lately at the department and when i say we talking about my client and this is really the operational policy challenges of the department. The first challenge i want to discuss his counterterrorism. As shown others know well, counterterrorism is the Founding Mission of the department and continues to be the cornerstone of what we do and compared to what we faced in 2003 when the department was established, the terrorism threat today is in some ways more challenging, more decentralized, more diffused, arguably more complex. We are pleasantly particularly concerned about foreign fighters who believe this country or other countries, travel to another country and take up the fight as it were, link up with a terrorist organization and return home with a terrorist purpose, whether this country are elsewhere. We are concerned with organizations adaptive and skilled use of the internet to publicly recruit and inspire individuals including socalled lone wolves to conduct attacks in the home countries. To combat these threats weve been working hard with International Partners to prevent the travel of foreign terrorist fighters. And maybe secretary represented of represented the United States in an unprecedented ministry session at the u. N. Security council to discuss foreign fighters and encourage the implementation of u. N. Security Council Resolution 2178 including the enhanced information sharing, cooperative application and other bilateral security programs. We are also making security enhancements to the Waiver Program which allows travelers 38 countries. We also added application which we believe will strengthen the security of the program while maintaining the substantial economic benefit that the visa Waiver Program provides. We are working closely in a collaborative way with state and local Law Enforcement and of course in coordination with the fbi and joint Terrorism Task force. Local Police Chiefs and sheriffs and have we have also Greater Community outreach and in the face of the very slick internet ipo of bunnell and isil and individuals who may be particularly vulnerable to recruitment it may be prone to turn to violence. In 2014 coming dhs help over 27 meetings and other events in 14 cities across the country and the secretary participated in a number of those meetings in a variety of locations. Cybersecurity come in the second area i want to emphasize has really emerged in recent years and frankly more so in recent and its become one of the Top Priorities we have much greater detail about cyberthreats and this ensures our Senior Leadership across the department has a current security concern in the realm as well as the physical one. The recent data breach at the office of Personnel Management highlights the fact federal. Gov cybersecurity is not what it needs to be. The same can be said for Many Networks and the private sector including systems that operate critical infrastructure. Weve been working with a renewed sense of urgency across the ages they to encourage full implementation of the einstein establishes the basic layer cyberprotection that we at dhs make available and the agencys departments. We also expand the end cake which im sure all of the net stands for the National Cybersecurity and communications center. That is the governments 24 7 hub for cybersecurity information sharing in response in coordination. Let me say more about that. 13 u. S. Departments and agencies and of regular dedicated liaisons at imola per 100 entities to share information. It shares information on cyberthreats and demands to victims of cyberattacks and it has shared over 6000 politicians, alerts and warnings and responded on site 32 instances that double the onsite responses for the entire year. Also the place where we managed the einstein system. When they say our ability to improve cybersecurity is limited by our current statutory authorities and we are working with congress to try to get a legislation to address that specifically we believe congress should express the program and eliminate any remaining legal obstacles to its deployment across the entire federal government. Second, we must incentivize the private sector for cyberthreat indicators that the federal government matter that provides protection for private entities and share these indicators and also protects privacy. Third, we believe we need a National Data breach reporting system instead of the existing patchwork of state laws on this subject. Let me now turn to aviation security. Much of our Homeland Security and counterterrorism efforts continue to center around aviation security. We constantly make adjustments and to try to stay ahead. Last summer for instance in response to changes we started requiring enhanced screening of select overseas airports with direct flights to the United States. Weve also prioritize expansion of preclearance operations up for an airport. Preclearance allows customs and Border Protection officials overseas to screen passengers bound for the United States at the front end thereby protecting the planes and passengers and hopefully our country. We now have 15 preclearance sites overseas in six Different Countries operated by 600 Law Enforcement officers and agricultural specials. The most preclearance is set up another dobby and since that time weve are discrete and 500,000 passenger and crew and we have denied ordering 785 individual concluding her on the database in the database. We now enter negotiations to excite parents intend their airports. The force area i want to highlight his immigration which of course is a huge and multifaceted area and one that weve been spending a lot of time on recently even more than we normally would. I will talk a little bit about order security and last years actions. We have continued the trend of devoting increased resources to the border. Today the Border Patrol has the largest deployment of people, vehicles, aircraft, boats and equipment on the southwest border in its nineyear history. Nations longterm investment Border Security has produced results over the years, sometimes not readily apparent in the Media Coverage but unlawful migration into the country peaked in the year 2000 was reflected by the 1. 6 million apprehensions that year. Since then, unlawful migration into the country has dropped considerably. We then find from 1. 6 million apprehensions in 2000 to 400,000 a year in recent years. Last fiscal year the number of apprehensions on the southwest border is born in 79,371. The slight increase in fiscal year 2014 was due mostly to the unprecedented spike in unlawful migration into the Rio Grande Valley sector of the southwest border in the southern part of texas and almost all of that came from guatemala, honduras and el salvador and consisted of adults with children. More than 53 across the southwest border were in the Rio Grande Valley. Dhs responded with the resources of personnel in june 2014 and the number of Illegal Migrants crossing into south texas has dropped dramatically since then. So far this year we have not seen a return to the spike from last year or anything close to it. Fiscal year 2014 through the mud of june apprehensions on our southern border was just over 381,002 the month of june this fiscal year total apprehensions on our southwest border are approximately 242,000 which is a 36 decrease. If the pace continues and we obviously dont know for sure if it will if it continues through the last portion of the fiscal year, the total will be the lowest number of apprehensions since the 1970s. Apprehensions as unaccompanied children across the southwest border are down significantly as well. During the first nine months of fiscal year 2015, apprehensions along the southwest border were 26,685 which is 54 decrease compared to the same period last year during the surge. The bottom line of all of this it is now if you take an historical note much harder to cross illegally and i think people know that. These numbers although they had declined dramatically however, we are not declared accomplished. The poverty and violence the pushback yours, honduras, guatemala and el salvador still exist and we must address we monitor the flow of unaccompanied and family unit on a daily basis and while we are not at the levels we were last year, we are not where we ultimately ought to be. I think as part of that, the president has requested a billion dollars in aid for Central America to address the underlying cause of migration and all saw the door, guatemala and honduras. We at Homeland Security believe that would be a sound investment. Last year the United States spent 1. 5 billion managing the migrants surge. Fiscal year 2014 dhs allowed to live a hundred Million Dollars processing unaccompanied children and family units immediately following detention. Its a far better investment to help Central America create jobs and pushback and help address conditions in Central America that prompts many families to send their children to the night is dates. I also want to mention in addition to the sufferers weve created what we call the southern border and approaches campaign to promote Border Security. The Campaign Book for the first time put to use a combined and strategic way the assets of personnel of the customs and Border Protection and immigration and Customs Enforcement, citizen and immigration services, the coast guard and other resources that the department had necessary. This is part of an effort to eliminate stove piping. Let me now talk a little bit about our executive actions. There were 10 executive actions of president and secretary of Homeland Security announced last november to try to at least partially fix our broken immigration system. While two of them are subject to litigation, the other eight are well underway. Overall actions are devoted to strengthening Border Security ,com,com ma prioritizing deportation of dangerous criminals, promoting an increase in access to citizenship, supporting high skilled businesses and workers in a number of other things to reform our immigration system. As part of our executive action, we have issued new immigration priorities and provide clearer and sharper guidance and we must prioritize use of our Immigration Enforcement resources on the removal of those who are dangerous criminals, National Security threats present order crossers and not rather than focusing resources on those whove been here for many years and havent become integrated members of society. We of course recognize the reality of their estimated 11. 3 million undocumented immigrants here in the country. More than half of those have been here for over 10 years. Many have spouses and children who are United States citizens and we simply must reckon with that reality. These people are here among us and they are not going away. And frankly no administration, no future administration will support the population of people. We simply do not have resources to do that. We have less than 250 Immigration Judges in this country. Not sure how long it would take to adjudicate 11. 3 million cases but im confident it would far exceed life expect to see if anyone in this room. Under circumstances that would admit the exercises and enforcement of immigration laws and conservation of scarce judicial resources for a most important cases is the only sensible option. Consistent with new priorities come immigration and Customs Enforcement has begun a new push in the interior of the country to search for and apprehend undocumented immigrants convicted of serious crimes through operation crosscheck and other initiatives. Currently 96 of all those folks, all those people attained fit within the top two of the enforcement priorities we have. 76 senate those detained by i. C. E. And Border Patrol are in the top priority which means convicted talent convicted of an offense that involves participation of a criminal street gang. They were apprehended crossing the border with espionage or otherwise poses a danger to National Security. I would also like to note we have been at the controversial secure Communities Program and are replacing that with a new Priority Enforcement Program. Secure communities is a program with immigration personnel watched decanters of individuals in local jails so they can be handed directly over to federal Immigration Enforcement. They can be handled over to federal authorities for Immigration Enforcement purposes when their time comes. Fortunately, secure communities became embroiled in political and legal controversy in a rapidly expanding list of city, county and state governments depending on over 200 enacted laws and executive orders and policies that limit cooperation with federal indication. They have led to a number of instances on the National Level in which dangerous undocumented criminals were released to the seats and committed perfect crimes. We acted to stop this program and the growing resistance to it. Are new Priority Enforcement Program we believe is a balanced commonsense approach to help us achieve our enforcement goals. We are breach at the governors, mayors of the communities with the program and engage in a number of state and local jurisdictions. Our overarching goal is to enforce immigration laws in a way that promote National Security and Border Security. That is a quake highlevel review that we have been focused on in recent months and now i do want to pay that back to the legal agreement which is frankly sharing a few generations on Homeland Security law. They face a constantly evolving threat environment and in the last 18 months, isil has gone from being obscure regional terrorist group to a high Profile International phenomenon that despite his barbaric localities successfully recruiting foreign fighters from around the globe, using the internet and social media in new and sophisticated ways. It seeks to be an inspirational movement, not a commandandcontrol Style Organization like al qaeda and seeks much more who can radicalize about the normal membership. The time we have to detect investigative and disrupting nearly radicalize lone actor may be very limited. The compressed timeframe from flash to bang as the fbi likes to say presents a serious challenge for intelligent than one person agencies. It is also clear many adversaries, especially the snowdon disclosures are more sophisticated in how they use technology. With proliferation of apps and Encryption Technology being built, there are many more options in ways that are much harder or frankly even impossible for intelligence and Law Enforcement agencies to intercept. Midway well enter a future in which we no longer can rely on lawenforcement tabs to the same extent we have in the past. The expanding use of Card Technology is making our mission were challenging. Data can now be stored anywhere in the world and readily accessed and as a result stated that historically could be collected using lawenforcement authorities through voluntary cooperation may now be out of reach because access is another law and particularly a problem for companies that do business or store data in Member States of the European Union which has most of you know how much more strict privacy. Those are what i would call the emerging security challenges we face and i think we will continue to face in the future and it kind of leaves to the question of how we adapt as a department and country to the emerging threat and new security landscape. I would submit we need to start adapting to tomorrows challenges into them today as part of the adaptation and important elements will be expanded use by dhs and other agencies and lack of a better term, big data and Predictive Analytics somewhere better align limited resources to risks with the most concern. Not all that different than what google and amazon do every day to figure out how to individually target advertising to reach of view. The white house issued a data report last year which kind of provides an overview. The benefits of big data as well as identifying concerns. Just to be clear im not predicting dhs will become a big brother operation or we should expect abuses of privacy or Civil Liberties of the future. I am only saying the challenges and pressures of the future and technology [inaudible] as a result of that we are almost certainly going to see more and better big data based predictive tools and if used responsibly they offer enormous potential to build some of the gaps and mitigate security risks in a targeted, costeffective way. Every day, 2 million passengers fly within the roof of the United States. Within a Million People enter the country by land. Dhs is a sponsor before identifying each person in determining whether he or she poses a threat. For most people, we do it in a matter of seconds it was not to impede lawful travel and commerce. Again without any claims been comprehensive public image of the few areas where think use a big data will generate policy issues. The first very his privacy, we saw last year in riley versus california the Supreme Court recognizing for the first time that for purposes of search of smartphone, its different than other items to export can contain a vast and diverse with data, pictures, health information, financial information, political and religious information. And much more frankly private information than a person might have a struggle sort in his entire home. And because of this change in technology itself is not treated different in terms of the fourth an indie. We saw similar shifting in for them and think in the concurring opinions of justice believe in justice so much or in the jones case and 2012 when the recognize that gps monitoring device on a car raise Fourth Amendment issues that are qualitatively different than the classic plainview situation. I always took about one in june the jones case to get i was a criminal chief better for the attachment of the gps device on mr. Jones car. It seemed like a good idea at the time. [laughter] anyway, he was by the way a drug dealer. [laughter] we are, i think we are certain to see similar legal doctrine and policy relating to Privacy Protection and use of big date and Homeland Security area. As Technology Makes it easier and less expensive for dhs and other Government Agencies to collect and analyze broader and more comprehensive get to be a greater focus on how that data is collected, how it is used, how they distort and how long we keep it. At some point and increased light on big data will lead to me legal restrictions i believe. I dont think it is safe anymore for the government to say as a Legal Defense that the data at issue is not private because it involves activities that occur in plainview, and activity like walking past a Video Surveillance camera, getting on an airplane or crossing through a port of entry. I dont think its a safe and legal position to just take a date is by the thirdparty doctrine. Because it was voluntarily given for third party, part of a commercial transaction or that it was posted publicly on social media. Or decliners no real harm because typically all we are doing with this data which is publicly available is to pull with Law Enforcement it and analyze it or patterns and risk indicators. I think of congress, how the courts and congress and the general public react to what i predict will be expanded just a big data will depend on whether dhs and other security agencies put in place credible internal controls and administered by 50 protections. If we dont do it ourselves, some court will very likely to do it for us. At dhs i would say we been trying to get ahead of the curve. We have piloted a program on how to use big data to safeguard. It was identified in the white house big data report as a model for other agencies. So as part of that pilot we have developed tagging standards to govern information that has been collected from the sources across dhs components. We did this by bringing together is the owners of the data system with representatives from privacy, Civil Liberties and legal oversight opposite. For each database field the group charted its attributes and how access to the did is credited different user communities. About developing a set of tags to encode this information they can consider what additional rules and protections we needed to account for specific use, limitations or special cases governed by law and regulation. Attacking both enables precise Access Control and preserves links to source of data and the purpose of its original collection. The end result is a set up internal controls that govern where information goes and tracks where it came from and under what authority. As we scale the pilot of and implement it to all dhs, it will be important to institutionalize robust Privacy Protections and monitor their effectiveness. How well we do that will no doubt impact the degree of concern courts and others may have been a future about the privacy implications of an expand use of big data analytics. The second area where i expect well see a lot of legal activity in the coming years is under what i would call a general umbrella of due process. When dhs for another secret agency deprive someone of a personal, i property or liberty interest, theres always the question of how much process the deprived person is entitled to. Providing notice and an opportunity to be heard is a difficult thing when the Government Action is based on classified or otherwise sensitive security information to if we reveal our sources and methods to a dont ask, we lose a lot of sources and a lot of covert collection capability. Capability. And more general if we open up our security too much to our adversaries, we will have made ourselves more, significantly more vulnerable to Historic Records have been deferential to the executive branch and the National Security area and for the most part have rejected claims to access the classified information and declined to engage in judicial review of national and Homeland Security judgments. And we are starting to see that change, the case which has been in federal court in portland, oregon, is an example. The case was brought by 13 u. S. Citizens and legal permanent residents who believed that they were denied boarding on International Flights to and from the training because they are on the nofly list. The plaintiff sued to get an explanation for why they were denied boarding and 40 more meaningful opportunity to challenge the governments apparent determination that they pose a threat to aviation security. The District Court judge in that case found that the ability to fly internationally is a constitutionally protected liberty interest and ruled that the planes were entitled to more due process and they have been afforded through the dhs trip administrative redress process. In particular the court from the government could not just refused to confirm or deny whether planes were on the no fly list or categorically refused to name of National Security to provide any explanation for why. Court ordered the government to go back and develop a more meaningful administrative redress process and presented to the court for review. The government has done that and that case is ongoing. I see this world as a big change but it is hardly, two cases have a big change but i think its hardly the end of the legal issue. Courts have been expensing Due Process Rights in other areas that impact national and Homeland Security. The d. C. Circuit recently found not too long ago found that a Chinese Company was entitled to Additional Information and opportunity to be heard before decision is made to block its acquisition of u. S. Company our National Security grounds. And, of course, in immigration area there have been a spate of recent cases expand their Due Process Rights of individuals at various stages of the removal process which to me reflect a general frustration with the many dysfunctional aspects of our immigration system. It is another example of what happens when the executive into certain extent the legislative branch dont have their acts together. Judges will be happy to order the government to provide more meaningful due process even when National Security is involved. The last thing i would highlight is the international dimension. If we wanted to do big data right we need a lot of data which b22 we need interNational Data. We need to work with our International Partners, critically our closest neighbors, the canadians and the mexicans to allow us access to travel shipping to to Financial Data to government information to social media information, among other things. In getting our International Partners to share critical data, its going to require us to accommodate to a certain extent their privacy and other laws, some of which are truly foreign concepts to us. Ill give you one example. Something the europeans refer to as fundamental human right we forgotten. This right was recognized last year in a case brought in spain by the lord who didnt like when his name was googled, the first thing that came up with a 12 year Old Newspaper article about his personal bankruptcy. The article was truthful but the lawyer felt it was hurting his business to government efforts so he sent to google take down the link to the newspaper and he won. European court found it was quote excessive for google to maintain a link to personal information about the lawyer that was 12 years old. Needless to say i think the notion of a u. S. Court ordering google or anyone else not to post truthful speech on their website would raise some First Amendment issues. The information sharing challenge for the eu is to find ways to accommodate enough at the privacy concerns that they feel comfortable sharing data with us. They recognize that our system is different and they are not looking first to adopt all of the privacy principles, just most of them. They are also looking to make sure that the data of the eu citizen is protected the same way as u. S. Person data. This is a bit tricky because eu citizens to have Constitutional Rights the way u. S. Citizens do. I think one of the things that may happen in the nottoodistant future is legislation that would give eu citizens expanded rights to judicial redress in u. S. Courts. Theres actually legislation has been introduced in congress as part of an ongoing effort to get the eu to agree to a framework for sharing broad categories of Law Enforcement information. That actually had the privilege of partially sitting through many long negotiating sessions with the eu about that framework agreement. I think were getting quite close to finalizing the terms. The general trend to watch is a partial convergence of u. S. And eu privacy laws, which as i said i think will be necessary if we want robust information sharing, which i think we need. So to recap, the department is hardly worth addressing a broad array of challenges including its cornerstone counterterrorism mission, its increasingly a potentially soontobe extended expanded sadr city mission. Its challenging Aviation Safety Commission where we are trying to push back the security perimeter through preclearance and other means. And in the immigration area where the challenge at least until we get comprehensive statutory reform is to do what we can to work with our current authorities and resources to make the system smarter, fairer, more efficient. And with regard to the legal issues facing the department, at as dhs adapts to the challenges of new technology and the need for increased Legal International cooperation, i believe an important part of that adaptation will be increased use of big data and riskbased security methodology. Which will in turn create many new and challenging legal issues including issues involving privacy and due process and international law. The good news is, this is a time of, the time to be able to a lot of interesting changes that are coming down the pipeline. I commend all of you for your interest in this topic, and stake in for thank you. [applause] p. Stay tuned for more. Do we have time for a couple of questions . [inaudible] just a small preamble before i ask my question. My name is alice. And former u. S. Department state service, turkey, oman, sweden, u. S. Nation u. N. Under Richard Holbrooke and john negroponte, to name a few. And a new yorker. Living in target city, im constantly being situationally aware, thats a term i use in military talk. So you comes briefly my three concerned. I have discovered writing on greyhound and i like it, but my First Experience i had some concern and not alerted our deputy secretary of terrorism john miller about what i had observed. Last night, tonight before, yesterday morning coming in from new york city. Greyhound, is greyhound a Foreign Company . Anyway, they took my luggage straight from me into the inside of that greyhound bus. It was not scanned. I wasnt even given a ticket for my luggage. Overtime we had to stop i. T. Got to make sure no one took my luggage or added something in there. Site help you can give some concern about that. So i hope [inaudible] im a shareholder and i went there yesterday to deliver a letter in person because nobody is answering my calls and want to know about the debate as a shoulder i went for years ago. They stopped me and they said they dont accept any mail. I said, well, can i send a certified letter . Yes, they will sign for the. There was additional security to the building security. The head of security at time warner is former secret service to mr. Clinton, and hes in charge of their security if you want asking whats going on with shareholder there, too. And last but not least, there was an article in the newspaper recently, and it was, it showed the structure at dhs. And it alluded to the fact that its bloated our nobody seems to know what the other department is doing. So as citizen taxpayer and very grateful to my United States government for its services and for protecting me, i want to do if you could comment on that pickup which is like to say to all of you here, i had a hollywood bagram. Im a former tv producer, but i want to tell you being here today amongst all of you, and i kind of choked up at it with my gratitude and pride, i just want to say that you all are my stars and i wish i could give everyone an oscar. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Also thank you for your career of Public Service. And i think recognizing one of the realities of those who work in the Homeland Security department is that shall we say sometimes the people we are serving dont fully appreciate what were trying to do for them. And i think thats particularly true for many of our frontline employees, whether youre a screener at an airport, you are a person at the port of entry, whether you are an attorney who is trying to principally and fairly enforce the immigration laws. I think we tend to get more criticism than praise unfairly i would say. [inaudible] so i appreciate you noting that. I often say that for the lawyers who are supporting the unappreciated workforce, even one further step removed from appreciation. I want to give a round of applause to the lawyers. [applause] im not sure quite which part of your statement you would like me to address. It sounds to me like you more than just want to point out a couple of points about the department. [inaudible] in terms of the structure of the department . Well, we are a big conglomerate. We were put together in part by mr. Willie here. And for the purpose of trying to pull together mr. Whitley a lot of agencies and functions at a stroke have not worked in a unified way, but anytime you try to do that with a universe as large as 240,000 employees, you are going to lots of challenges. I think the thing that we try to emphasize his unity of effort. As opposed to some sort of mindless uniformity across the board that sort everybody within the department has to do everything the same way. The coast guard, for instance, has been around for 225 years. Have a lot of wonderful traditions. Theres a reason to miss all the good stuff they do in order to sort of make everyone do something assembly picks we try to preserve component identity and component traditions, and component practices that make sense. But at the same time we tried to make sure that people put aside any kind of your credit or sort of were together on the important stuff. So thats the balance. Its more art than science. I think were moving forward. Weve only been around a dozen years or so. Teenagers are sometimes unruly group to do with. So thank you for the question. Okay, thank you very much. [applause] good morning, and thank you, steve, for your generosity and being with us today. You showed a lot of generosity to listen to, city. You have a gift for distilling down complex issues i think the way that we can understand. And i think steve may have blamed joe for all of the inadequacies of the structure of dhs. But is that what i took from that . Soundtrack. Right. I want to take him on par introduce our next panel and just thank joe. I think joe doesnt get enough praise. This is joes baby that he created. [applause] ten years ago, and i think all you need to know about joe is when the president and tom ridge wanted to set this up are tasked with setting this up, their lawyer was joe whitley. I think that says a lot about the man and lawyer that he is him and i just feel fortunate that hes got us involved in this from oklahoma city. So thank you, joe. And another one of those lawyers that helped set up dhs is our next, moderator who has a car that i think will fill up a business card, if not to. James mccament as the deputy chief of staff of the office of the legislative affairs. He also serves as the acting deputy associate director for uscis service and are operations. You can see his old bio in the program. James has been there since day one, since dhs was founded. Something does not a better person to give us i of this overview and to lead us through our next discussion which will talk about the legislative update currently. So please welcome professor, director james mccament. [applause] good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Thanks to the kind introduction. Its more i try to stay in unemployed so the top of the a better moniker on. Very excited to our panel this morning joining us, and to give you an overview of the Department Latest legislative and predatory update, in particular as im introducing our panelists like to know, we always try to keep things fresh and current, which means that, no introduce them in the order our panelists are represented from the department is Keith Johnson who yesterday was the scene advisor to the director of ice and last night was meant as a new assistant secretary legislative affairs of the department. [applause] and so weve been keeping our fingers crossed that the time with allies on the nominee, the appointment so she could joined on the panel this morning. Ill get a bit of background and introduced to remain of our panelists as well which have a great and distinguished lineup. Tia ask as i mentioned has served as Senior Advisor to the director of i. C. E. , also recently retired u. S. Army judge advocate and specializing in international and National Security law, has participated in many aba panels and on committees we made no her from those interactions as well. She had served as a Legal Advisor within the department of defense and the u. S. , korea, italy and bosnia and also led to Teaching Department at the jag school and became the first africanamerican penalty be selected to the rank of colonel in the jack or in 2002 jack or. Is a graduate of temple university, such as school and next on our dhs panel is another longterm veteran of the department, as tina mcdonald, and she serves as the assistant associate general counsel for Regulatory Affairs and at dhs served with joe and i edited the british served as deputy an attorney advisor in the repertory law division. Party that was a Trial Attorney the federal Railroad Administration and is a graduate of Franklin Marshall and also the university of Maryland School of law. In our to go representatives from the senate and the house side, for our general counsel for Homeland Security supporting chairman mccaul, joan ohara, shes been a council since 2011 and has been interactive and a lot of topics including privacy, Civil Liberties and constitutional question as to the general counsel helping develop intimate the legislative agenda. Earned her jv from new York Law School and also several distinguished clerkships and also participates on the aba and last but not least stephen vina, chief counsel for Homeland Security and the Senate Committee for Homeland Security of Government Affairs and has been with senator carper in that role for several years and since 2011. Prior to that if you google you will find some of his articles when he was just the Congressional Research service as well. So with that, great pay out of what we wanted to do is just note that as were looking at the legislative and predatory agenda for the department, we are almost 15 years in. In the operations and policies of the Department Since its founding in 2003. The Homeland Security act when it was passed in great evidence of bipartisanship and signed into law november 2002 set off an amazing reorganization of the department, multiple point agencies. You all know the story, came together, multiple new directorates and you fresh ideas of what government should look like from an infrastructure site and also from a policy side and how to respond to the needs of 9 11, post 9 11 world. But that was 13 years ago almost and so our operations inside the department continued to evolve to meet the present day needs be it on the infrastructure of the cyber fraud, the impact of legislative priority, regulatory priorities. And so what we want to lay out for you today is a presentation that looks at how internally the just issued on to Homeland Security needs through its migratory agenda. I vast tia just to put on the spot or in one just to give a couple minutes of thought on the legislative agenda with the knowledge that she is to have ours in exactly. Thats right. But how we are looking at this from the perspective of we are constantly spotted to operational and policy needs the internal needs and those of public and those most certainly and our partners on capitol hill. So how are migratory and legislative agenda reflects that. Had also been looking at from two points for the health. First out how is congress legislatively respond to the needs of the department, and hellman secret and actions. Undertaking, nominations and other steps that are a daytoday thats needed to sustain our operations and ensure that we have what we need. While engaging in robust debate about the latest policy issues, immigration, cyber and others. Then concurrent with that, in the truth you have available to you, is how congress as the creator if you of the department of Homeland Security through the Homeland Security act is not only acting in support of the nation but also now evaluating potential changes to the Homeland Security at 12 years and under the reauthorization front and that something that joan and particular focus on with her article. I want to take a couple of minutes and turned to tia first. No pressure at all. But knowing your expenses in the department with i. C. E. But also prior to that. Tia has an extensive aggregate she and i chatted, and the whole homeland secure data backup onto the founding of the department but part to the ingress of some of the only issues. I know we shared a conversation about her thoughts of how that might impact the agenda. So i promise this is only a minute or two. Good morning, everyone. Thank you, james. James said that might announcement came up last night while i was sitting over at this table. I got the email that the president signed my appointment. So yeah, i am the assistant secretary. Havent even taken the oath yet, but im brandnew. But yes, james and i were talking. I was the unnamed draft choice because of course i couldnt appear until i was official. And so in the course of trying to prepare, james and i were talking about what would be the legislative outlooks, and ive mentioned the fact that i followed the development of the department because i was teaching at the jag school at the time. And in the wake o of the september 11 attacks from the military perspective, the issue became what actions the military was taking, and were those under the umbrella of homeland defense, which we called it, or some people were saying you have problems with the statutory prohibition against the military providing certain type of support for Law Enforcement type of actions. And so intellectually been i had start cropping up to answer that question, and we came square within the fact that yes, it was well within the constitutional mission of the armed forces because we were defending the homeland we have been attacked. Thats what caused me to start following what was happening on the civilian side with the development of Homeland Security. So yes, i am with others who think mr. Whitley, who think others for developing us as a display. With regard to department, yes, we are, and im looking for steve. Steve did a great job because it was so unknown as to what i was going to show up today. He did a great job of laying out what our legislative priorities are. And one of which is the units africa is the recognition that the department was quickly put together in the wake of september 11 attack, taking the recommendations from the 9 11 commission. And we pulled together 22 different agencies. And so we have gone through a maturation process, and the secretary is trying to advance that maturation process. And is under what he calls his unity of effort, he issued a memorandum last april to kind of lay that out. But in preparing for this i found an article that talked about dod and the Goldwater Nichols act which permit of you are familiar with, dod was created under the nations good act of 1947. We got our name, the department of defense and a act of 1949, but the last time there was major legislation do with the organization of department of defense until 1986 when we had the Goldwater Nichols act. What to do things that is going to read this quote quickly but with the things that dan gerstein said in an article back in january and described goldwaternichols and the need to something similar to that for dhs. What he said was the legislation help clarify roles and responsibilities, elevated the importance of strategy formulation, provided more efficient use of resources to improve administration, management and operations and perhaps most importantly build a unified culture within our diverse department. And so those same parameters apply to dhs today. That is what the secretary tried to achieve it as steve noted, and james, that the whole idea was that we had 22 components, different traditions, different cultures, but that overarching systems and processes could be put in place to create a more effective and Efficient Department of Homeland Security. And so, so that is one of the secretaries main priorities in driving through this whole unity of effort. You hear that in some of the legislation we are looking for someone to enacted into legislation, to help with the organization and structure. And i think thats it. That answered the question, right . Okay. Spent short and sweet, and thanks for the reference as well. I think steves comments help set a great framework also. As mentioned, while we watched the legislation, the daytoday operations of the agency has to continue. Part of that is giving movement to legislative mandate and daytoday requirements for agencies as well as the department as a whole. So to that and im going to turn to christina to give us an overview of where things like in the rulemaking front most recently. Thank you, james. So i am the person on accountable talk about regulations at dhs. That are actually three areas im going to cover. So im going to start and talk about the overall level, overall dhs regular programs. Im going to give you some statistics on activity within dhs across components and over the past decade. I will also then second i want to discuss notable regulation, some from lash at whats coming up in this coming year and third i want to just share with you some of the things weve heard in the regulatory world from the other two branches of government because we have heard some things. So thats what im going to cover. Okay, so first i want to start just the overview of the teachers Regulatory Program. The dhs regulatory responsibility is broad and diverse deadlines with a nation which is broad and diverse. The are several components in dhs that issue regulations that are critically Homeland Security mission of the majority come from seven regulatory components with operational responsibility basic the ones ive highlighted in hi this chart. So those are cbd, i. C. E. , tsa, coast guard. So these components are drafting the regulations and then implementing and enforcing them. So in a unified agenda from the fall 2014 with 141 regulatory actions, and that is things that is in progress were projected for the next six months or in progress may be a proposed rule that has been analyzed aspect i like it. Of those, its interesting to see the largest number of kind where coast guard. They have the largest Regulatory Program in the department, 45 . Thats interesting to see. As far as a number of regulations, i of this table here that shows are significant and regulatory actions over the past decade, th little more thaa decade, 11 district ive only discuss significant regulation and significant visitor of art that refers to regulations that omb reviews. Generally that means regulations that are highcost, impact of agencies or raise novel legal or policy issues. In these numbers you see what one would expect in a very early years in 2000 or quit huge uptick. At the end of the administrations that tends to be more than what and thats what you see in 2008. 2014 might look i but its not really pitches that there were several temporary protected status of the great eight of those big and 2014 making it look higher than it is. The only thing i want to add, these regulations are significant. Term of art, dhs issues several more regulations, tons more. Nonsignificant ones which are just ones that omb doesnt review, field regulations, frequent regulations. Went on to greater these are just a fraction, highcost, more controversial, more novel. Thats the overview of wanted to give. Next i want to move to notable regulations that we have seen lester and well see yet issue. So of course immigration has been huge. I think as everyone knows in november 2014 the president and the secretary announced a series of executive actions related to immigration. So the are several regulations that come out of the executive actions. And so of you in fact published we have two that i want to make in both our cis time when the what is the final rule and the published in february 2015. That extend eligibility for Work Authorization to the spouses of high skilled workers. That regulation is now in effect and theres a lot more technical but im giving the high level. But also a 601 proposed rule published that is only proposal at this poker is proposing to expand the provision waiver process that dhs put into place in 2013. That rule will extend that process to all statutory, statutorily eligible people. So thats an open Comment Period right after kosovo to republish. With several more in the works. One of them is a nice regulation, optional practical training. Opd is a program where foreign students can study, after studying in the u. S. They can request additional months like an additional 12 months ended in state under student visa status as opt, stay for the additional 12 months. In 2008 does extension of opt per student science, technology, engineering and math student. There is no another wrote in the works in the opt realm and that is being developed by i. C. E. In addition cis is working on a roll that would identify conditions under which talented entrepreneurs could be brought to the u. S. On the idea that their entry would provide significant public benefit. So thats a few of the many things happening in immigration. Theres a lot of regulations right now, a lot in the works. That is something you should expect to see in the coming year. I just also want to mention temporary protected status because we had several notices extended temperate protected status, or tedious. It is as a temporary benefit. It allows certain eligible national to certain countries do, and stay and work in the u. S. Because lead to any kind of permanent part of immigration status but its also not a regulation but only be under the governing executive order would reduce these. So thats why they are in a counselor involved in 2014 and 2015 teach as either designated or be designated or extended tps for 12 Different Countries. The secretary can designate tps because, progress. On growing ground conflict pashtun ongoing ground conflict. We saw that im going with earthquake in haiti, of salvador, her claims. And thirdly, the secretary can designate tps for other conditions. So this past year we saw that with the ebola virus disease. Weve had a lot of tvs activity in the past year. Second category want to discuss losing his security regulations. On the tsa front, thereve been several regulations on passenger security. By statute tsa can collect fees to provide security services. Tsa original limited that provision in 2001 but theres been several bills, so a piece of legislation had a chance that in the past year to tsa has issued several roles but their most recent role was in june 2014 and basically the amount of the fee has been adjusted. And so as i said its been both worlds, a lot of legislation but they now have everything in place. Another security role we saw was esta federal. Esta is, actually take a step back. The visa Waiver Program that allows certain eligible citizens of certain designated country to travel to the u. S. Without a visa. Esta is the Online System people use to get, they get esta so they can travel under the vwp program. The cbp develop the esta program a computer and then set the fee for the program but now they have finally closed out the rulemaking to get issued a final rule in the gym and responded to comments and make them operational modifications. The last security regulation is its a guidance document this came out of the 2014 legislation and it just come it provides an expedited approval process for certain highrisk chemical facility its expedited process for the low risk of highrisk facilities. A third category i want to mention of what weve seen and what was he is maritime. Theres been a lot of coast guard relations in the past year and we should see several more. Smh and the coast guard is the largest Regulatory Program in dhs as far as volume. Some notable ones we saw the issued a proposed rule on cruise ships. Acquires owners and operators using prohibited items list window screening people in packages of what the so thats the cruise ship proposed rule. Coast guard also issued a final rule on the automatic identification system. And they are basically like transponders that are in the vessels and to help the ships are the vessels avoid collisions and also provide general maritime that would affect that was finalized. Theres really a lot with really a lot with good corporate they did regulations on a proposed rule on deepwater ports and extended repertory pashtun large offshore vessels. But whats coming up in america and iran is we should see if i wrote on towing vessels. That will, those are the vessels like tugboats, they push and pull of the vessel. Coast guard will implement a program to inspect and cover towing vessels. There also should be a twix card regulation. This will be regulation for the specifics for the actual card readers with the transportation worker identification. And, finally, on commercial phishing vessels. I just want to do what weve heard from other branches of government because we have heard stuff. From congress weve seen several bills that would impact regular process. I have several listed. Duels it would require congress to approve major rule before they take effect. Would require joint resolution of up to for any major will before it went into effect. A major rule is tracking the definition of congressional giunta was pretty much means i high cost rule, a rule 11 major increase in costs or that have a significant scrub act i is a report on commitment and establish and lead to a good review commission for the commission to look at regs the agency to eliminate. They would have to get, eliminate one of the regs issued, like a cut and go procedure. Weve also seen the alert act with our agencies to publish a report of the regs they plan to issue in the coming. Is highlight, a lot of activity. Most, the only one, the reins act past the house. Lastly i just want to make a difference an interesting Supreme Court cases in the regulatory world. I have charisma versus mortgage bankers. Its about changing your mind to the department of Labor Regulation they changed much on the longstanding interpretation. That d. C. Circuit said if you change may get to go to notice and comment rulemaking. You just dont change my. The Supreme Court can read have said no, thats doctrine. No, thats contrary you just cant change your mind. Youre putting the requirement and thats not in the administrative procedure act you dont have to go to notice and comment rulemaking if you change your mind and the longstanding interpretation. The only other one is michigan versus epa which is a very recent case that was just a news because it was dided in june of this year. Basically it was epa regulations thing you have to figure cost and deciding whether to regulate. Has been a lot of talk about these cases and would be more fun that will impact the regulatory world. Want to close and see whether diverse brighter to agenda. Expected to regulations that right at this but do we several highpowered immigration regulations. So thats it. Thank you. Your summary says more things change, the more things stay the same. Back to the start of department. That will note its great to see creativity of acronyms. That does reminded of the start of the pueblo site in the counsels office one of the first calls i received was from the federal register folks in the end of march 2003 saying your unified agenda is overdue. I dont know, what do you mean . So its been a great evolution to see how the process has evolved under your leadership. So moving from where we are internally and forecasting out, turn it over to stephen to talk about how the hill is taking note of our needs answered operating within the existing framework of the Homeland Security act and are oversight structure. Thank you, james, thank you to the aba for inviting me back. Its always a great privilege and honor. Im going to break up my comments. James at the chautauqua how Congress Supports dhs and conducts oversight. Im going to break my comments into three or four areas, leadership, oversight, legislation, and lastly but certainly not least, budget. On the leadership front, this is a unique role that congress place, particularly the senate given our advice and consent role. This is an area that i know my politicsboss takes, senator car, takes very graciously. You him say in a nomination hearing, no matter what organization, the size, the scope of what they do, leadership is the most important thing for an effective organization. So thats why we work incredibly hard when we do get a president ial nomination to do our Due Diligence and to do it quickly under the circumstances and push, knew that nomination. This year we have moved to nominate at least in the dhs realm, admiral neffenger for tsa, administered for tsa, and rusty of her undersecretary for management. Going back to last congress there was over a dozen vacancies at dhs and the secretary on down. So we really worked hard to move nominees to our committee and fill those vacancies. Today theres only very few but by and large we worked incredible hard to fill these vacancies. So thats on leadership. And again this is something thats incredibly important to not only did just that every agency out there. On the oversight front at the end of the day, oversight is, we want to ensure the federal agencies are carrying out their responsibility in a way tha thas consistent with the spirit and letter of the law. In doing so we look to ensure theres no fraud, waste, and abuse. And so Congress Takes its over several incredibly seriously, and while the hearings get a lot of the attention, and thats one of our big tools for oversight, theres a lot of different areas we work behind the scenes to carry out our oversight. Everything from just simple press statements or press releases to meetings to phone calls with executive branch officials. The oversight is not just to be critical all the time. Sometimes its to support, encourage certain things, consistent with a certain members priorities. And so that is can be effective as well, public letters and sometimes ive leaders were to ask all kinds of questions to get at a certain answer. There is investigations the our committee is unique in that we have a whole subcommittee, permanent subcommittee on investigations, one of the oldest subcommittees in the senate that deal specifically with just investigations. All the other committees and subcommittees to the own investigations as well. We can issue the committee reports. Our Committee Just released a Bipartisan Committee report, staff report on the gyrocopter incident that landed on the mall, on the white house, on the capitol grounds. Took a look at the issue, what can we do better, examined security and try to improve our security protected airspace around the National Capital region. And, of course, the are the hearings. The hearings in our committee weve had over 20 just on Homeland Security secretary i remember our committee on the senate side is Homeland Security and governmental affairs. Thats things like a census, the postal service, gsa, real property, opm, omb, and the list goes on. A lot of these overarching government activities, federal i. T. But on homeland see the space we had about 20 hearings, and almost half of those have been on the Border Security immigration well. My boss you here i am talk about force multipliers. Thats basically the technology, equipment, the types of assets that help our men and women on the ground to their job more effectively things like arrows that, surveillance equipment, mobile surveillance powers, biometric devices. All those types of devices that just multiply the efforts of our folks on the ground. But beyond that, my boss will talk a lot about not only addressing symptoms of problems but the root causes. So we think about immigration and Border Security, incident issues were dealing with, the root causes are you can trace back to most cases of Central America with the miner mine is r coming over and a lot of adults as well. It gets the issues of lack of security and Economic Opportunity and overall just hope for this country. Thats what i think Stephen Bonnell talked about the president s request for over a billion dollars to address those root causes in Central America and thats something my boss supports another the Senate Appropriations markets close to 700 million to that and thats something were very supportive of. And so help to address those root causes in Central America so we have less of a burden on our own borders. Cybersecurity of course its a huge issue into something we held several hearings on from the irs bridge to the opm reach and i think you woul expect to e more hearings on the cybersecurity world. Just looking at that there is bridges and information sharing. Weve looked at terrorism, counterterrorism issues, everything from homegrown extremism to foreign travelers, foreign fighters and their air travel issues that we look at transportation security. This was an issue, and some high profile i. T. Reports that made the press about people with metal or cascading through security checkpoints, or people getting access to secure areas of the airport when they shouldnt have. Thats something we closely looked at as well. Weve also looked at bird flu and some Public Health threats. So those are the oversight issue to i do want to finish with one oversight issue that if he doesnt get a lot of attention. My boss, a very big priority for him is that management matters. And a lot of times we kind of gloss over, whether we can when football season, blocking and tackling. The things they get, but of Everything Else went smoothly and thats the h. R. System, the i. T. Systems, the Financial Management is something dhs is really shown a lot of improvement on with a clean audits over the last couple of years. If something very important to my boss at the former governor and former executive. The management of an agency. So hes put a lot of attention on that and that gets to something to dhs weve all heard about, morale issues. Something my boss does, something small but we think is significant, he goes down to the senate floor every month to talk about employees at dhs doing extraordinary things. Everything from tsa to s p, i. C. E. Employees, just doing simple things, doing their job and going above and beyond. So something small but we think its important. And part of the management is the unity of effort which was mentioned earlier. This is something are closely looking at anything and i know the house as well. Some of those proposals to require legislative language to move. Thats something were closely looking at the pilot on management i would just close erationally,erent agencies scattered across, over illions in d. C. A loan, just kind of assembly can be a task going across town. It has operational benefits for the department but it also has fiscal benefits for the taxpayer. Upwards of i believe close to 100, 1 billion. 1 billion over 30 years just in terminate the leases across the government, that would be consolidated in headquarters at saint elizabeth. This is something we continue to monitor, watch commendably the dhs appropriations in the senate, it got a really good mark so were really happy with that. So thats on the oversight part of some of things were looking at. I think cyber and border will continue to be very big issues and i think theres a couple things in Emergency Management, welcome Emergency Management right now we did with the tenyear anniversary of katrina, and sandy will be coming up as well, another anniversary. Looking at the fema issues and a biochem, wmd issue is an issue were expecting a big report, in the fall into something will be closely looking at as well. Lastly on legislation, before i get into this years legislative efforts, i do want to take one minute to talk about last years legislative efforts because we finished very strong id say with some significant bills in the last weeks of congress right before it went off to take the holiday break. We passed three cybersecurity bills, bipartisan bills with dr. Coburn, a Ranking Member at the time, chairman carper. One bill dealt with a cyber workforce. Every organization is probably really struggling to find qualified cybersecurity professionals. Today will of the dhs for those of you that follow this area you know that it is written in 20012002, and dhs was barely Getting Started so everything was given. They have a handful of people to oversee federal Network Security so what they did by miranda is delegate a lot of the responsibilities of what we try to do is ensure it up to date with its reality and so we divided the authority. We also tried to move away from the checklist paperwork exercise to more of a realtime continuous diagnostics monitoring so we have realtime security in place where federal agencies for today all the federal hacks we are hearing about its incredibly important we move in this direction. Weve been put in place in the data breach standards essentially by the memorandums we put it into law in the need for the policy in place. The last i could mention is a legislation that authorized dhs cyber center the Communications Integration center so we spent a lot of money every year supporting this federal data so we wanted to give some teeth and define its role and responsibilities again as lawyers its something we heard a lot from the private sector they have trouble negotiating with and talking to the private sector because they were not clear on what the center could do legally and what they can and what they could introduce a weekly or lead to find the role and it also helps working with other agencies so now they know what this is supposed to be doing providing predictability for both the government and private sector. We essentially authorized this for four years as a program carried by the appropriations bill yeartoyear so we gave a fouryear offer high station and created a screening process for the lowrisk facilities. Im i am sure she will chat about that. So looking at this quickly removed at least 14 bills through our committee in the First Six Months and about five or six are dealing with the Border Security issue and another five to do with Emergency Management communication issues and then theres a couple others in different areas. One i do want to focus on is on cybersecurity and that is the federal Cyber Security enhancement act and this introduced by senator corcoran and cosponsored by senator john said. It will do do two were three main things. First it authorizes Einstein Program or a sensually the federal intrusion that worked attention Protection System known as einstein. What we tried to do this mandate and put it in place. There was a lot of criticism about einstein because of the known threats and we want to get to those things that we dont know about it so we put in place the language and adult i would try to get to that issue of getting to the known. But at the end of the day the language was again there because there was a lot was a lot of legal ambiguity on what they could do with respect to another Agency Information they have their own own wall in place place and how they control their information there was a lot of question about what they could and couldnt share with dhs. From what i understand its about 50 of the government so that is the real reason behind that to push it forward as fast as possible. The bill also requires a certain best practice and leading practice. This is the term that you will hear a lot after the authentication testing so we try to put those in place and require that agency. And finally this was an amendment that was added at the markup offered by senator collins giving you dhs a stronger Oversight Authority for others to direct better cybersecurity hygiene and other federal agencies so this is something that was added at the markup. So that was a big bill that we just pushed out in july. So moving to information sharing the bill right now this past july was brought up. Its the bill sponsored by senator feinstein and poorer and moved out of the intelligence committee. In short it would authorize companies to share cyber threat indicators and the federal government but you only get Liability Protection and theres a couple exceptions so thats the bill and we are happy to talk about that further. There was an agreement reached with about 21 amendments and at this point some type of action will be carried out in those amendments and we are waiting on the timing right now. We know its one of the first things we will do and then we have the fiscal years budget talks so we are waiting to see what will happen in the cybersecurity bill. In the fiscal years coming up those are the discussions we will be having and i look forward to. Thank you very much. I think your framework in the leadership and oversight management and budget is something obviously in the department we operate sort of on where things stand for the department, where the Homeland Security act plays into the joint prayer he and keeping in mind as well that we have a robust and sometimes complex oversight structure so with no further comments i will turn to john. First thank you for being here this morning. Its a great opportunity to be able to discuss with you some of the priorities to the committee, some of the successes and also some of the challenges that we face. Writing law is not an easy thing. You have to get a lot of parties and opinions to come together and agree to move something forward which always requires a level of compromise and thats not always easy to achieve, but we certainly do our darndest to try to move the ball forward. Lots of hearings, letters, briefings, and its very important. It helps us understand what the departments priorities are, how they are implementing the mission, the direction that weve given them. But to a certain extent oversight is limited. The real power is from the legislation and as i said just a minute ago that can be a difficult challenge. So this year one of the most important things we are working on in the committee is to try to do the firstever reauthorization. A lot of people are surprised when they learned the department has never been reauthorized and some people think maybe thats not that important or its more of an academic exercise but it does have a a real world impact on what the department is doing and what its priorities are, but guidance we are able to convey making the suggestions in the oversight hearing. And i will get into what the challenges are. We are approaching a 15 years and its been 13 years since the Homeland Security act was drafted so a lot of people will say the department is entering its teenage years. And i think the department has something in common with teenagers. For one thing its working to establish its identity. Thats something teenagers struggled with and having been created out of the 22 separate components that the difficult challenge. There are cultures and traditions and protocols across the department trying to bring that altogether and create one dhs has been challenging and i know the department is working on that. Another aspect. With respect to the authorization i dont want to say to give legitimacy but to give a vote of confidence from the congressional standpoint to the department with other agencies in the executive branch another thing the department has an common with teenagers and im sure you have teenagers, thats something we are continually looking at as well. How has the department allocating funds show that allocating to its mission is the spending of dollars directly related to making the homeland more secure. And failing to authorize the department its difficult for us to give firm because everything is a very strong suggestion of the legislation behind it. We are basically ceding responsibility to the executive branch. So they are certainly not the wild west and everybody is going crazy over there. The secretary is doing a great job and there are thousands of excellent employees making things happen but to allow the dhs to provide oversight for itself is not really the way that its supposed to work so authorization would be important for that as well to try to take back some of the authority and responsibility congress is supposed to have in this realm. Also just an reality coming and in reality coming and i dont mean this to sound scary or anything like that Homeland Security is jeopardized in some respects when we cant pass bills that are really necessary to help the department prioritize. Obviously members have very strong opinions on all sorts of things including counterterrorism and the Border Security, etc. But without passing legislation is very difficult to mandate certain approaches for the department. I have a few interesting statistics for you. Theres a fractured jurisdiction in 2014 the dhs came up to the hill to brief congressional offices 1,742 times in one year. They testified before Committee Meetings on hundred 23 times and provided 180 witnesses. So as you can imagine this demand is time, resources and energy it takes away the time from implanting the mission. Spec dont be surprised to learn dhs reports to more than 100 committees and subcommittees. The senate is organizing where they report on the oversight when it is its so Homeland Security committees on the house side we are sharing jurisdiction with six or seven major other committees and then like i said its over 100 committees and subcommittees weighing in on a lot of these legislation we might propose so that is very challenging. Its been that way for a long time. Theres a lot of other report committees that had oversight on parts of the department or puts up the component to ask the committee to give up all of their oversight wasnt a reasonable aspect of time so what resulted was the fractured jurisdiction where the dhs is reporting to a lot of masters if you will. This has resulted in a lack of authorization for the last decade or more and thats something that is going to be difficult to change without a change in the actual jurisdiction structure. So we have the black letter law or rules in the house house that tells us exactly what our committee has oversight of. And the same applies to various other committees, transportation and infrastructure, energy and commerce. And theres a lot of overlap. But it can be difficult to get the law passed. So when you have to get together to help Senate Republicans to agree and of the senate and the house have to agree on the piece the civilization as well. We have to be rethinking that jurisdiction even though it would be difficult and politically difficult to be honest. But regardless, the committee and the chairman are committed to try to get that reauthorization done so we have been working diligently trying to reach out to the other committees that show a jurisdiction to engage them in the process to literally share legislative language and to solicit their input and feedback and to train and incorporate their ideas because at this. 1 committee cant do this authorization thats going to take all of us to come together and make this a priority and agreed to find Common Ground and in some cases make some compromises. So that has been a major legislative priority. Obviously Border Security, Cyber Security and counterterrorism remains front and center, but in addition to that its the right thing to do but its very important and that Congress Needs to take back its responsibility to provide guidance to the department. So im happy to take any questions you might have on the specifics of the authorize nation. Its been in progress over a year now and we have a lot of language written and we are in the process of as i said to talking to the committees to make progress and move the ball forward and we are trying to begin markups of the language. We would hopefully be able to say that we did accomplish and authorize this year. You have more energy than people in this room than folks at the department with respect to the authorization. Im reminded when you were talking about the oversight that the secretarys comments during his first year working as an adviser that at one point was asked to move a quicker turnaround on letters and witnesses and you didnt respond to this and why arent you doing accomplishing it following the goals and this was within the first year. He didnt say we can do the work, we can plan the work or we can come up and tell you about the work that we cant be appear telling you what we want to do and i think that we try to give that to all of the different committees they certainly experienced in the committees asking for hearings on the same day. Its just awkward. So the reauthorization would certainly serve that. I think we are right at the time so i do want to say if theres a couple questions and say thanks to all of the panelists youve given a great perspective. [applause] i saw your hand go up first i think. My question has to do with [inaudible] what are we doing with the domestic crew . The coast guard i dont personally have that information if you could give me your card i could finish and followup. They have extensive regulations on the books and hundreds of regulations in the works. [inaudible] i could follow up with you but if you follow up with me afterwards i will talk with you. I wanted to thank you for the act recently at the airport. A family bought a loaf of bread and Peanut Butter and they confiscated the Peanut Butter. The family was devastated that was economic that they did this. I recently was at the iowa state fair and had a watermelon cut up and put in a ziploc bag i had a debate for over ten minutes to keep my watermelon. I thought it was legal and i contacted tsa. They responded to me to speak to a member of congress and gave me the rule that said what could be approved in part and if it wasnt specific outside this issue but indicated that they are permitted as carryons but can be subject to digital screenings. I think the reauthorization of the dhs rebranding issue i think a lot of americans are frustrated. The members of congress are very angry that the get these complaints how do you address this in the authorization its kind of an image issue. Thats different but this is the personal experience. Thank you. Is certainly something that my boss is aware of and i have to say i dont think he is angry when he hears those complaints and in many cases he sympathizes. As i was saying the authorization gives us an opportunity to provide legislative guidance so with a situation like tsa come if there is abuse or improper policies those are things we can address in the legislation. The challenge is to try to get all the decisionmakers on the hill to sort of agree to a certain approach so its not that easy but its something we are certainly aware of and i felt the mention in my comments that we are not trying to do an overhaul of the Department Review in this authorization. This is a first attempt. Its a heavy lift for us to try to get everyone together to do this. So we want to give the legitimacy and baseline guidance we are but we are hoping to provide the foundation for the further adjustments to the kind of things he raised. The panelists would be moving towards the back afterwards if you want to ask other questions were email people available. Im a federal news radio. I think that youre talking about the same thing that you havent come out to say that directly. So what legislation are you talking about isnt the authorization or not what he wants congress to do . The fact that the secretary has limited authority. Can you give me an example of ask lookup section 872 it lays out the original limitations without congressional input. And its been in the appropriation bill. So some of the type of things to the systems and processes that are overarching we do need to do that legislation so some of it is organizational and some of it is putting things in some of the fiscal Management Systems and strategy formulation in the joint task force talked about. Those types of things we need some legislation for. Hispanic thanks again to the panel. [applause] this one should last longer. Let me thank steve for his excellent remarks opening up the program. We are going to take a short break for a moment and come back into this room if you are interested in the privacy and Data Security panel they will be here and then the other room will be the safety act panels of both of those are great channels. Come back after 11. Thank you. [inaudible conversations] a brief break in this conference on Homeland Security. This will last about ten minutes as you heard. Following the break will be a session on the balance between privacy versus Data Security. While we wait for the conference to resume we will go back to the beginning when we heard from steve in the general counsel for Homeland Security that talked about some of the challenges and changes to the department. Good morning everyone. Thank you for that kind the kind introduction. I am very fortunate to be one of your successors, and although it has been a while now i guess since you left, all of us across the department continue to benefit from your leadership and in our formative years they see the years two to five are the most important ones you were there in the beginning. Let me also thank josh for his leadership not only hoping to get this conference organized working with joe, but your leadership in helping to establish the discipline of Homeland Security law and together helping to establish a bar in this space, i think its an important area for people to draw together the different aspects the shape of the due in of the things that makes it so interesting. The kind of different strains of wall coming together around a kind of common set of challenges. So thank you not only for the logistics but also for the leadership in this space. I am honored to be here today. And my plan is to start by describing some of the top challenges facing the Department Today and of course given the scope of responsibilities, the responsibilities, im going to limit myself to just a few and provide a high level of area but i dont mean by doing that to suggest there arent a lot of other important things in the Senior Leadership that they think about and focus on. And then after highlighting some of these challenges im going to put on my general counsels hat and tie jakarta but the trends and themes. I notice on the program but this is not a cle Eligible Program. Im not going to
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