Security and terrorism. She talked of the Hudson Institute in washington d. C. Earlier this week about how the department is adapting as the debts against the nation change. Her remarks are almost one hour. Good afternoon and welcome to Hudson Institute. Hudson is a policy Research Organization dedicated to promoting security freedom and prosperity through strong and engaged Us International leadership. I want to welcome both of our members of the audience and our good friends from cspan as well. One of the most important threats, potential threats in the United States is out of terrorists using weapons of mass destruction, chemical, biological and nuclear agents to harm americans. We had this attacked the other day in new york which just imagine how much scarier it would have been had the terrace had weapons of mass destruction. Preventing such attacks are obviously critical to the president and his team and his august 24 speech that outlined a new strategy for overseas. He says we must prevent weapons being used against us and around the world. We have done a lot in the Homeland Security space. I should note that we are the former congressman, former secretary, former governor tom ridge, that seeks to improve preparedness for chemical, biological, biohazard events and also seeks to improve coordination in the area. And we have also Just Launched a major new project funded by the john dee and Catherine Macarthur foundation on sustaining bipartisan us leadership against Nuclear Terrorism that is led by senior fellow richard white. This project intends to build an enduring foundation with inclusive us Global Leadership regarding your security and strengthen mystic political consensus on policies and trying to counter Nuclear Terrorism be the first speaker in a series that we have for the project was a hudson alum. Special assistant to the presidency director for weapons of mass destruction at the National Security council. Todays speaker, the first speaker is elaine duke. The seventh deputy Secretary Department of Homeland Security. They computed a term as acting secretary for the past 4 and a half months and is nearly 3 decades of experience in federal government at the senior position. As the adjuster she was under secretary of management at tsa and various roles of department of defense care she will deliver remarks on the departments new countering weapons of Mass Destruction Office which was created earlier this week. The wemd efforts will prevent terrorist organizations from using weapons of mass destruction against the United States and its partners. Also will allow for greater policy core mission and Strategic Planning and greater visibility for this important mission. After her remarks, we will have questions from john walters, hudson chief operating officer. He will moderate a discussion with secretary duke and James Mcdonald capel had the new office here john is both my partner and building Hudson Institute coo. He is also more importantly on this occasion, the former director of the office of National Drug control policy where under his tenure from 2001 through 2009 we saw a record reduction in drug use and significant reductions in cocaine and methamphetamine use. As well as the effective use of drugs coming in. It is an area he knows well and can speak to. He will be moderating discussion with both deputy secretary duke and with the new director of the for the acting assistant secretary for countering weapons of mass destruction, james mcconnell. He was appointed june 2017 by President Trump to serve as director of the dhs. He is a navy veteran spent 20 years in special operations and Counterterrorism Operations before a distinguished career in both the private sector and federal government. Without any further do it is my honor to turn it over to deputy secretary duke. Thank you mr. Weinstein. I appreciate Hudson Institute leadership in the area. I see several professional friends in the audience also. It really is a group effort to ensure that we our continually stand head on the threats against the United States. My teammates here, and those of you that are from private industry, really support us and our continuing efforts to get better at weapons of mass destruction as well as other just the homeland. I really appreciate your support. I would like to start today by highlighting the threat landscape. Each day we begin with an intelligence briefing. We see the danger that the country faces and we tracked the jet streams. Over the past year of being back, one of the things that has been most significant is that we think we stay persistent. When we look at the threats of chemical, biological, nuclear and radiological, the threat is real. It is evolving and it is persistent. Whether the threat comes from rogue states, terrorist groups, our adversaries are interested in creating terror and destruction through the use of chemical, biological, radiological and Nuclear Weapons. There focused on ages not just because of the destructive potential, but because of the psychological impact. Many of us remember the 1995 chemical attack on the subway in tokyo when they released a highly toxic nerve agent during rush hour. That attack killed 12 people and injured more than 5000 others. Also, if youre like me, you remember working in Downtown Washington d. C. In 2001 when anthrax was mailed to office throughout the city. Remember the fear that gripped the country. Each year we continue to see threats on display around the world. And in april the assad regime and syria attacked rebels with gas. The attack killed more than 90 people. And in recent months, north korea has tested Nuclear Weapons and missiles that could reach our territory. We have seen terrorist groups use overseas battlefields as tests to develop new attack methods and new attack isys for example has deployed chemical weapons in syria and iraq and has attempted to use them in terrorist attacks in the west. What is worse, the blueprint for creating rudimentary wmd devices can be spread quickly and clandestinely on the internet. As white we have got to be prepared. We must be ready not only to defend our country against the threats we are seeing materialize, but also against those on the horizon. For example, as we see advancements in the biosciences, we must be prepared for the possibility that innovation is designed to stabilize and it can also be used to end them. It is against that backdrop that we decided to make a big change at the department of Homeland Security. For many months, weve been engaged in an effort to increase and improve security across the board. We are finding ways to raise, for instance we are heading down potential terrorist pathways in our country. We are ramping up us bound travelers and immigrants. We are setting a new bar for information sharing. And today i am pleased to announce we are taking Decisive Action to protect our homeland against weapons of mass destruction. The two laws often properly organized to confront the wmd threat. It wasnt because we lack expertise, and didnt see the threat as a priority. Rather, our efforts were fragmented. We lost clear leadership in this space. What many National Security departments and agencies have activities in the wake of 9 11, it is not designed that way. That has caused visibility for this critical wmd Mission Space. It lacks insufficient internal coordination, disjointed interagency cooperation and in some cases, waste overlap and duplication of effort. Multiple reviews in the last 10 years of internal and external to the department have highlighted our shortcomings in the space. Something needed to change so this year we examine the current structure of previous views. We found that in light of the current threat environment, we had to push back and improve the effectiveness of our wmd defense structure. The first step in that process is a broad reorganization that we are eager to talk about today encountering weapons of mass destruction. This is not quickfix, not simply a moving boxes in an order chart. And its not going to solve our problems and one step solution. However, this new office will lay the foundation for Strategic Direction that we need to do our strategic and accurate in protecting our country. The full range of changes that need to be in place will take time. We are eager to work with congress to make sure the office is postured to combat all the threats we are facing. This reorganization is Something Congress has seen for a while and we are glad that there is bipartisan support for continued improvements in this area. The office will consolidate all functions under wmd, establishing a unity of command for this Mission Space and elevating our efforts for the next generation. We are merely, the office will consolidate what was the end do, the Domestic NuclearProtection Office which have a biological and chemical expertise and components. For the first time, the department of Homeland Security will have focal points on all wmd issues an expert will bebrought together under one leader. I am very excited that leader is james joe mcdonald. Mister mcdonald served as the director. He is a recognized expert in the field of wmd, terrorism and experience executive and military officer. Mister mcdonalds original executive leadership was seen at the institute in 2003 where he was responsible for the development and management of todays infrastructure Detection Office. He has also held junior executive positions at the department of energy and white house. In the private sector he directs the security and other riskmanagement functions. He is also a veteran who retired from the navy after 20 years of service, special operations and counterterrorism. No one is better prepared or qualified for this role. Im glad to have Mister Mcdonald here with us today as we answer questions about this reorganization and its increased focus. Internally, this reorganization will strengthen our operational activity and allow us to better support the front lines more critical to this mission today. The domestic Detection Office operated an Exceptional Business model. We plan to use that model to identify solutions and deploy them to men and women in the field in our operating component. As an example, the wmd office is deploying the technology of customs and Border Protection operated so they can protect threats more effectively. He also intends to manage a wide stable of people and technologies and introduce cuttingedge technologies. This ensures our operators have nothing short of the best Technology Available to disrupt the threat of wmd before they reach our borders. In addition by embedding a team of experts at the National Targeting Center, we can integrate our wmd production capabilities to weather protection and Surveillance Data into targeting entities. Externally, the cw m. D. Office will allow us to work more closely with our partners in Law Enforcement and the Intelligence Community from the fbi to cia to state and local partners to keep our communities safe from these dangers. Make no mistake, are entered enemies and adversaries are constantly probing our weaknesses to see how they can threaten us , including with weapons of mass destruction. Dhs, the cwmd will be at the forefront of our efforts to close the gaps and buildout defenses against chemical, biological, radiological devices. There is a lot of work to be done. Its a great start and we are up to the task. Im excited to sit down and take questions and provide you more information about our work in this area. [applause] thank you madame secretary. Let me ask you quick on a couple things you talked about. The threat you see, can you talk a little bit about how that threat has shifted and how these plans mess with that . We have seen an increased intelligence of threats in terms of value, especially in the chemical and biological area. Additionally we are seeing a decentralization a little bit, of a lot of these threats. That makes it more challenging because we are not seeing, pull a thread for years. So we have to be agile, we have to be out there and we have to do it quick how is that compared to a general terrorism threat that we are responsible for combating, is it unique in this dimension or parallel to the three of them . I think its similar but its the reverse where in cwmd we have a lower probability that traditionally a higher consequence. We see at the other end of the spectrum the lower consequence higher probability. A lot of these traditionally, there isnt any weapon. The problem is whether it is a weapon of mass destruction or a threat, its creating terror there are two tragedies. One from the actual destruction but the second is the introduction, the psychological terror and of those forms of wmd, which you consider the most threatening . From nonstate actors we see an indication of the desire to use chemical weapons that are easy or relatively easy to produce. Really followed by biological, they are a little bit more accessible than traditional devices for nonstate actors. Made it to the office and what it changes. What unique authorities does the office pull together that Homeland Security department has and how do you intend to use those authorities . I will let jim answer. The highest level what we need to do, and when addressing threats you have to make sure you are doing a riskbased look at threats. When we look at chemical, biological radiological and nuclear, we have to address them in terms of the threat portfolio because of their relation and their similarity from a risk perspective. Does anyone want to add . Probably the biggest convergence of authorities so dnd when it was created really was arising from threat risk analysis through the organization of gaps in the field to understand how the operators need to support relevant to new controls and techniques that allow for the operators in deployment its got a very well established Business Model. But when oha was created, it brought in the national bio Innovation Center and a program that didnt have a lot of infrastructure for the development of capabilities to deliver to the operators. Theres a tremendous amount of Technical Expertise in both jobs but by merging them together, we have the ability to use a Business Model and brought authorities to go with intelligence analysis but maintaining it throughout its lifecycle. And can do that based on risk so theres this flexibility to say the threat, the deputy secretary mentioned, changed the dynamic but in my career ive seen it shift from state actors primarily concerned with wmd to nonstate actors and proliferation of information to the internet, inspire magazine and all those type of things. Now you have to worry about a microbiologist that has access to a laboratory in a Community College. 15 years ago that wasnt something we were dealing with. One thing to not lose in the nuances what jim talked about the operator. What we are focused on in this new study of the office and across the headquarters is the uniformly focused on the operators. We are here to support the operators in carrying out their mission and i think that is something that the old model did relatively well in terms of making sure they were enabling the mission and were looking forward to headquarters continuing to refine that. That we are across all of the Headquarters Offices looking at how do we enable the operators by delivering the resources, the tools, the policies and to them, to let them be more effective in carrying out their duty. How much of the work do you see involving opponents of dhs and their activities and operations and how much of it is assigned to other outside agencies at other countries . Theres a couple thousand cvd officers today looking for radiological to come across the border, whether its advancedequipment. The department really goes back to postlutheran legislation and 96. That was issued at about 50,000 radiological detectors across the country so everything from local Police Officers on patrol to hazmat teams, fbi seeing who has advanced capabilities. Ddd was mentioned, coast guard. Theres a tremendous amount of capability that been deployed but its literally a team of teams so that sounds a little bit like a clichc but you cant help the book. When we look at how our response has been, in new york yesterday it was a poorly constructed pipe bomb. It could just as well have been a radiological item dispersed. First responders, our focus was understanding what the operators requirements are, how that sequence is going to go and whether it was Intelligence Driven or responding to an incident in making sure everybody has the appropriate support they need. The deputy secretary said we are a support organization. Our primary job is to support the operators and as you mentioned, we recently closed what was called a joint Analysis Center which was in mbo, twoperson Operation Center doing monitoring and a National Targeting Center which is a big data Global Operation that makes us much more relevant in insuring information is coming into the operators as quickly as possible and overlaying with other data. Theres some little subsets here and there although most of the wmd office is technology will go to dhs and they have a tremendous amount of interaction, with the diversity and the intensity of the threat, information sharing about you know, intelligence is absolutely critical. So ted mentioned with the work the ngo is doing and within the geo was doing, that other parts of dhs headquarters, the office of policy are working a tremendous waste. Weve got to get out of this timewise. We cant wait and as i said earlier, because a lot of these threats are obviously nonstate actors butthey are also not wellplanned all the time. The amount of time , the idea to radicalization can be short or from the idea to implementation so weve got to have a Strong Partnership internationally in every possible way. Its critical to that. How much of this threat then is a shifting focus of the office is from an intelligence problem to seeing a welldeveloped threat come through some kind of more immediate pervasive capability of something you may not have much thought on or any intelligence on . We may not have any intelligence but we have a lot of strategic elements. We know all types of capabilities are being developed and so if we can effectively inform the operators of whatto look for , i always like to use the example if folks who are a littleolder can remember polaroid cameras. The battery packs, there was that you. You only had two purposes. One was the polaroid and the other was for whatever. Thats bomb making material. If we can give knowledge, tools to the operators, precursor materials understanding what somebody might be using than they could hide them in sulfite or atp which is our major explosive. Those type of things, we have 100,000 Police Officers on patrol every day in the United States. Its a tremendous amount of intellectual property, eyeballs looking at things and when we first started the department, that was great and thats the first thing i ever heard about Homeland Security we have Law Enforcement and its our job to help them figure out whats wrong. This is still the case. Theres more technology than we can apply we have to increase our likelihood of encounter. To be part of how we are pushing out to support the operators. We have a joint task force west. There is doing approaches campaign, weve embedded folks in our staffto support , looking for wmd but its ultimately thefront line operators. The rest of the department. Its been a little more centralized but to the audience, can you explain a little bit how this works across the agencies because these kind of crosscutting functions are always an issue because somebodys trying to manage the coast guard or secret service or ice or cvd and somebody else is trying to say well, this part of your operation to work this way and theresalways an issue , its always a fight over regional people having good intentions but theyre not exactly in harmony. When we were talking about this, many millions of models that we could do, miles taylor, he was critical in setting us back. The older i get the older i feel like optimization. I think an extreme consolidation is inappropriate. And actually experiencing decentralization is inappropriate. If jim were to try to call up operations, components like coast guard, cvd that couldnt operate, for the dhs was set up there, they should all be authorities, resources and availability. That will stay. What we do is we are the optimum level ligation where we add efficiency. We add, why should everybody be doing chemicals so we dont have the ability either timewise or moneywise to have this type of inefficiency though as i said in my opening comments, were going to continue to revise this. The optimization level is somewhere here. But it may change over time, change with the project but what were doing is , its the appropriate amount of centralization so that we can efficiently decentralize capability would be the best way i can describe it. That i mentioned we are a support components, currently we lead oha and the assistant secretary in the new office but those two folks are dha leaders. They have 23 years as a customs officer so hes been a frontline operator formost of his career. He and i have met with every single component had and talk to the chief operating folks. The Component Commanders and you have, we were just starting a process weve used for several years called the ring rock which is an ideological requirements and Oversight Council more like the doj rock doing the same thing and starting up next week for wmds. We bring the components together, talk through what the requirements, how can we support those and they decide what the priority is. We execute. Somebody from dvd and the coast guard, only from the tsa are able to sit together and as we talked through the greatest threats and problems, they derive support i need and heres how we see this. So we have to support this is really good, for those of you familiar with unity, that weve been carrying for several administrations. The next phase of that. He built out some of the acquisitions, Something Like a Performance Review board. But what we have to drive towards now is operational. Driving into requirements, and then operations, driving through what i call that last night. Going from a strategic plan, saying where do we have these capability gaps. The process that without that, we developed the other parts later in the Community Effort like the budget and the acquisition process. Those can never be 100 percent effective without that initial work being done. I want to have on the flipside, which of the agencies, federal state or local are most closely at work. Who are you going to work with. Do we rely on outside, outside of dhs theres a community that works with wmd issues so one way you can look at us is a Work Organization is a mini defense production agency. Their job is to look at technologies to support the workforce. It grew out of the dna of the defense agency. It a Similar Group and a pattern. Special Operations Command has a similar responsibility for wmd defense. We work closely with the fbi, with the department of energy and an essay and Security Administration so there really is already a very robust area of organization. Bobcat lackey is the secretary for response at hhs leads the response for bioterrorism. We are good friends for 25 years and we all know each other and its a Common Mission set. And its a group of folks that understand they are supporting the folks out in the field. So its a body of friends, quite frankly that get together professionally and say what do we need to fix, how can we fix it and how can we get the support out there as quicklyas we can mark. I was going to ask you about gas, how much of this is also as you look toward the future in addition to you mentioned the chemistry professor at a Community College being a threat. Also with the proliferation of materials of weapons, how much of this down the road are you worried that becomes decentralized through agents of agents and the threat from someplace like north korea, iran and other places that mass to charge and becomes an even more priority. The threat is real. I think it might change a little but its going to continue. I think what were Getting Better at is adapting. What we really are looking to do is adjust the scene. What we cant afford either timewise or otherwise, one of the biggest changes when coming back from being retired seven years. It is the away game of counterterrorism and Homeland Security. What we have done is not a gap but we still have a seam and were challenged with today is how do we make sure those seems hard walls, that they are permeable. Combining the threats helps do that to make sure were not just addressing each of those threats in silos but with walls in between. How much is this decision and new office reflect a larger issue for Homeland Security. Is this part of looking at themes or hard to manage capabilities and responsibilities . If it does, in terms of the expansion of the types of threats were seeing in the regular nest of those threats so i think it is, i also think it is also reflective of looking at things riskbased so like i said, as we were getting ready to come on, for every incremental dollar, are we spending it on the highest risk . You think combining and looking up threats and portfolios helps us move further into that risk to look at addressing terrorism. How do you see this office evolving . Do you think you look back at this in a year and where you want to be and how do you see that future . We want to be better integrated and i talked about putting folks into the joint task forces, we are embedding folks at the headquarters so we have a joint Program Office to do the portal replacement program, Radiation Detection equipment. Integration across the board. As an example, talking about the Business Model, i had several meetings talking through this last few months and had a group but does our systems planning and acquisition in a room. I said how many people in here are Nuclear Experts in about five people raise their hands. About 45 are program managers, acquisition experts and development folks. If i take five bio people and plug them into that, oha has tremendous capability and talent. I just created an acquisition that has both bio expertise because the Program Management support is essentially the same. Its meeting that niche subject Matter Expert to help steer things so i think what you see is a much more integrated approach, much more seamless. Nypd, when they call up and say we need assistance, they can call one place. Right now in new york city we have a secure the citys program which is the nuke program and a bio lunch program. They both have similar processes but there similarly managed. Overtime will be able to integrate a lot of that will be much more effective than we can share Data Management systems and information as is coming up and be able to be much more flexible because we wont be organized based on the material, will be organized based on the mission. I think that this change could be the model for the pilot for a version threepoint oh, having been in the department back at it start, what is the purpose of having a department, its to close gaps and eliminate redundancy or minimize redundancy, and i think this type of model gets us back into those roots and the problem that we were solving when we set up the department of homeland scary. Its very cliche, but thats the value proposition. Thats where i think we are going back to the basics of why we are department. You both have a lot of experience here as my colleague mentioned in the introduction and its clearing your bio. Friends are watching stream this were not professionals are experts in this, if you could briefly describe how you see setting up these capabilities. Youre talking about some developments that youre looking at going online and you have people everyday on the front line trying to make their needs easier to meet and more robustly satisfying, but how do you see the stages of your support for the somewhat, how far off do you think you can look to plan these capacities or prepare for threats . On the nuclear side we are looking out 15 years. Programmatically, what equipment is out there, when you look at the map of the globe and say what we have robust detection capability, where we have gaps, the acquisition cycle, that planning has been going on for some time. I dont think its a huge leap to overlay the other technical specialties into that same timeline because as i mentioned, you look around the United States and the defensive posture we are pushing off into the caribbean and the northern triangle looking at Drug Trafficking routes, Human Trafficking routes so a good friend of mine over at the Counterterrorism Center had an interesting perspective. He said a lot of people like to look at this in its own stovepipe but i like to spread across all the other bad stuff. If you think about it from that perspective, we know a lot about whats going on, where bad guys are and where we should be operating. Its just a question then of having the desire to say were in a plugin to this and identify whats on the shelf, what is commercially Available Technology that we can push out now, we need to be very fast and flexible and the bad guys are as well. Theyre getting new information, we need to be ahead of the curve. Not reacting to what theyre doing but making them wonder what we are doing a little bit more. The challenging thing, having an acquisition background ive seen, my time in the dod, in many dod programs, you go through a cycle and you maybe go through the milestones of the acquisition and you have your design and your prototype you go through the steps and dhs were constantly in all stages of acquisition. One of the challenges we have is when is it time to deploy new technology . When do you wait for perfection, when you develop, do deliver something better, its resource constrained in its technology constraint, but that is one of the challenges we will have, if we get incremental progress in screening and detection, do we deliver that new technology is marked at what point you invest in deliver and so thats one of the things we had. We are not seeing major leaps in technology. We are seeing incremental improvements and that is challenging decisions to make. You want to have every capability out at the current state of technology, but then again, do you wait . How often can you refresh . What you use as a guideline . , check improvements, obviously are doing costbenefit, risk, cost, but how do you think about that . Its a lot of factors. One is how close is the next level of technology and think another criteria is how bad is the current capability gap . If we have no capability in that area, we have to deliver whatever we can. I think its a whole set of factors and i think the experience and judgment as any trade office or alternative comes in, but what we have learned is we have to not worry for protection, perfection, excuse me, and continue to do improvements in technology, whether its radiation monitors or tsa but we have to incrementally continue to deliver it. One follow up on that is a better understanding that most of the technology that we deplo deploy, rather than going down the rabbit hole to use this super high speed whizbang thing that will improve the decision, say hi how does he operate and how can i make their life better. If i can get a piece of technology out there to help someone send something a little bit quicker or a patrol officer, you cant carry a bunch. You need gear thats tailored to their operational learning. They dont necessarily know that. Its incumbent on us to an understand how they are operating what the limitations are and make sure we get what they need to operate in that environment. We can make huge leaps just using that. Thats sort of the model and equipment to get the guys what they need at the time they needed and then the larger acquisition programs and things like that, they go through normal cycle but the ability to rapidly prototype things. We taken, for example, in our r d shop, everything that is l6 and above and were kicking it out the door to do pilots where we know theres operational gaps. Working with the coast guard and cbp and instead of doing a lot of testing in the beltway, were pushing it out into the operational environment see how it works and having that inform the acquisition process. For making the acquisition process itself a little more operational. We kick them out the door as fast as possible. Another thing we have at state and local, we havent mak mentioned industry. I think industry can be a big part of our ability to move forward. How much can industry deliver capabilities that are plugandplay and can be refreshed without assembling the machine and replanting another one, those types of things. I think with the state of security, ive worked more on the aviation lately, i think industry is very interested in helping us address security. If a plane goes down, thats not good for anyone including those in the aircraft industry and the airline. We would hope the same type of corporation as we continue to move forward. That relationship will also be part of the responsibility of your area. In fact theres been a lot of industry outreach. I actually believe that between all the work that dod has done in the space and the industry, the technologies that are available in the private sector, the matter of educating industry on what were looking for, where were going and what we need so they can tuneup their r d internally to compete for that work. One of the challenges weve got is leapfrogging from the Current Program which does exactly what it was designed to do and it doesnt really well but its not real time or neinear realtime detection. Its tough to get a business to invest a lot of capital into a technology if youre only deploying to 34 places. But if you say youre going to deploy it to thousands of places but its going to me more costeffective deployment so realtime triggers that are more like plugandplay Burglar Alarm technology, now thats a market thats big enough to start driving action and integrates into the big data concept of cbp so when youre integrated into a larger system, that draws industry investment and industry interest. The more that we can get out of being a little Niche Organization and being part of a bigger system, the more effective the industry push will be. You mentioned earlier the work that youve done in terms of spilling over into Human Trafficking or Drug Trafficking. Knowledge been a lot of talk about transnational crime and terrorism blending together. Also, obviously are talking about the threat of individuals who become radicalized when theres not much clear avenue had a time. How do you see these threats from state sponsors, actual organized groups versus criminal groups that may also blend into the threat and then just kind of almost spontaneous individuals that pop up . There is a link, Transnational Criminal Organizations use crimes like human smuggling to fund themselves just like drug smuggling. To them, whether they smuggle human or a kilo of cocaine, they dont care. They are making money. Thats the truth of it and thats the sadness of it. In this case, what were concerned about it is not only the human factor which is extremely important but also their ability to fund them selves. We see that through some of the Drug Trafficking south of us but also in terms of the terrorist organizations in some of the foreign areas where they are looking to raise money and to keep interest up. Thats why one of the things we are pushing hard on is taking down terrorists material on the internet. One because we dont want it up there because people can read it, but the second is we dont want to be able to use the internet to get people excited about their terrorist organization. That funds it and then its that bad cycle. They are different from a lawenforcement perspective but there all the same, there about raising money to do bad things. Do see transnational crime groups as a growing threat for terrorism . I believe so. Our largest growing in the United States threat was homegrown violent extremists. So from that perspective, yes because the homegrown violent extremism is coming from the international, transnational groups. So, if we effect on the Drug Trafficking, if we affect Drug Trafficking, theres still a criminal enterprise that wants to make money so the likelihood that you will look for other things to smuggle, that is going to happen. We have to accept that these organizations are there, theyre not going away, theyre going to morph over time and we need to morph with them and be able to change and adapt as they do, but to do that you have to have flexibility. If everything we do is sort of a cookiecutter approach, then we cant get it, we cant get out in front of them and we need too. Theres a lot of talk also about the kind of revolution that is now ongoing but is even coming with greater magnitude using big data and Artificial Intelligence on a wide scale to create signal a lot of noise and if you have enough sensors and you have enough, can you talk a little bit about how the department sees that as a possibility in the future and how that applies to the containment of these threats. We are deploying a system that weve crosswalk from darpa, its Radiation Detection that are smart phone enabled and realtime transmitting data, thats a huge leap from what we had just a few years ago, but the question is what you do with that data. For example, in the ports, we are starting to play smarter technology. The amount of time they can be affected by nuisance alarms is a really big deal because it just takes, if you have a bunch of sensors and are too sensitive and youre responding to every time nothing triggers, then youre not able to do your job so, a big part of this is going to be building the algorithms in the background to be able to look for anomalies rather than look for specific things. Its similar in the bio space as we feel detectors, the materials in the air are different than in washington. So having better sensors and having better inputs is interesting, but you have to have the Big Data Analytics in the background running to do that. Thats where the integration with the targeting center and duties big data turning will pay big dividends because we dont have to recreate that backbone. It already exists. So you dont think this will be a cure all. Absolutely not. We will never be done in dhs. The terrorists will continue to evolve, our homeland will continue to evolve, and so we will always be adapting and improving. This is one step, we are working with congress for additional steps, we continue to look at our very limited r d dollars and how we should best spend them, not only in this but other areas and how we work with other inner agencies, there are many, many steps but we felt it was important to take the first step. I think that we can over plan and have such a grand vision that we never start and i think its best to get started. How ask a question for you. When you think about, i remember is that the government someone after 911 and we settled ground at one point without about all the different ways we could be vulnerable in free society which are vast, and in some ways the surprise was that a lot of them were exploited and i presume theres ongoing efforts to try to provide assessment of what could be high risk the tax or vulnerabilities, but you have to deal with this daytoday providing things for people on the front line but also perfect pairing us for the next five or ten years. How do you find it best to sort through these possibilities versus what youre actually going to put hardware on as a threat. How do you tell the difference . Obviously, i think most of it is teamwork and talking. Bring in the components together and sit around the table and say where is it that we need to be taking action and strategically, what we need to be doing in the next five years. The mission is going to continue to change. I think the biggest mistake anybody in the security business anywhere can make us to sit back and say okay, i got it covered. Because the second you think you got it covered, the adversary is going to change their tactic and change their plans or something will change. You dont control the environment, the best thing you can do is make it more difficult for them to do planning and them to do operations. As simple as it sounds, the see something Say Something is massive because if everybody is looking around thinking that package shouldnt be there and they know to tell a secure regard or police officer, thats huge. We are a free society. We cant build walls around everything so weve got to enable all of the citizens to literally be thinking about whats going on around me, what can i say, whats unusual and be comfortable saying im not happy this guy next door to me is filling up a bunch of blue drums with white powder. There something wrong. Its interesting that you said that because my first thought when you asked the question was that its the American People, but then i thought that was too much of a socials answer for this crowd, but now that you open the door. I really do think, there are two people, the ability and the technology, a lot of these tools are not new but the desire is there now. I think we as the American People need to understand desire is there. What is our desire. What are we gonna do about it. I think thats from the example jim just gave, but the desire is there to create terror in the United States and in all three countries so we just have to decide, its not just the technology fix. We could not produce enough technology, its a symptom of the people of the United States, the technology, the policies and the awareness and the grit and determination that is going to counterterrorism. And they just have one more brief question. It seems to me that the work of most the agents in this department has changed dramatically. It used to be for many parts of government, you took care of the parks for me too care funding programs to various activities, it was affixed set of goals where they changed very slowly over time. Thats not what youre facing. The threat is radically different. Its likely to be different in the future and you have to try to anticipate that. How do you think about preparing the next generation of people who will take your jobs . What you want from them or what you would you say is most important for them to think about if they are thinking about serving. I have to say, we have the best men and women in dhs. Theyre passionate about the mission, and they will be there and ready to take over the minute any of us leave. They are smart, the strong, and i think it is a change in mission. I think whats challenging as a leader is that they put themselves in harms way every day and theyre not always valued by the American People. Thats really hard to look at them and say please keep doing it anyway even though youre being criticized on social medi media. That is challenging. They are so good and theyre so concerned about our country that they do it anyway. Thats just pretty amazing. You been very generous. Thank you for what you do everyday and thanks for being with us today. I like to ask everyone to remain seated so our guests can leave with the staff they have here and please try me in a round of applause thanking them. [applause] thank you. [inaudible conversations] tonight cspans profile interview with senior white house advisor for strategic medications, mercedes, she talks about her fathers imprisonment in cuba, growing up in miami, and the 2000 florida president ial vote recount. You watch the interview tonight at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan. Washington journal is live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. Coming up saturday morning, the hills Ellen Mitchell discusses the future of defense spending and what was included in the National Defense authorization act that was signed by President Trump earlier this week. In our spotlight on magazine segment, we will feature contributing writer andy kroll as he talks about his recent piece on the secondary market. Then the Senior Research fellow brian knight chairs his view on bit coin in the future of crypto currency. Be sure to watch cspan washington journal live at 70 string saturday morning. In the discussion. Sunday night, Steve Koffler and his book bannon, always the rebel. We spend a lot of time with steve bannon. Youve heard his goals, youve talked about what he wants to d do. What odds do you give him for being able to help reach those goals . You want me too be utterly honest or utterly hopeful . I do tend to agree with a lot of what he says. I think there is a decent chance, because i think the belief that the electric has already changed, even in the general election, trump was victorious despite obvious flaws. He was not a perfect person and there was a lot of controversy and they still elected him. I think what bannon believes is that already the longing for populism and nationalism is there. He believes its already victorious among the base. Where it hasnt changed is in washington. What hasnt changed is in the leadership and some parts of the republican party, particularly the senate that hes going after now and thats whats driving him. Watch afterward sunday night at 9 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan2 book tv. Cspan, where history unfolds daily. In 1979, cspan was created as a Public Service by americas Cable Television companies. Its brought you today by your cable or satellite provider. Standing in pictures of recovered missile debris, Nikki Haley Says there is concrete evidence that proves iran is in violation of un resolutions