Transcripts For CSPAN3 Terror Threats Part One 20171208

Committee on Homeland Security will come to order. Committee is meeting today to exam the most serious threats confronting our homeland. Before i recognize myself for an opening statement, i would like to take a moment to welcome the newest member of our committee, don bacon. Don served nearly 30 years in the air force and is experienced in cybersecurity and Airborne Reconnaissance will prove greatly beneficial to this committee. Thank you, sir, for being here. Thank you, chairman. I now recognize myself for an opening statement. I would like to thank each of the witnesses, acting secretary elaine duke, fbi director christopher wray, ctc director nick rasmussen, for joining us today. You represent thousands of patriotic men and women who go to work every day to insure the safety of their fellow americans. Everyone on this committee is extremely grateful for your service and director rasmussen, for over two decades, you have helped navigate an unprecedented landscape in combat terrorism around the globe. You have been a great partner to me and to this committee. And i would like to call you a friend. And we all wish you the best of luck in i hate to say retirement whatever you do after this. This past year has been a particularly devastating one. In just the last month, we witnessed another terror attack in downtown new york, and over the summer, parts of america including my home state of texas. Were greatly impacted by hurricanes and other natural disasters. We also saw several heinous acts of violence that included the Mass Shootings in las vegas, sutherland springs, and the hatefueled homicides in portland and charlottesville. Tens of millions of americans also felt the effects of cyberattacks. From hackers and other cyber criminals. These are just a few of the horrors that hit our homeland. Islamic terrorism, over the thanksgiving break, an isis affiliated group attacked a mosque in northern sinai that left 300 people, including 27 children, dead. While this attack was thousands of miles away, it was a reminder of the savage nature of an enemy that always has our homeland in its sights. And the aftermath of 9 11, the department of Homeland Security was created to prevent further attacks, and i believe we are better prepared than we were 16 years ago. However, in that time, al qaeda has expanded its Global Presence and isis has conquered parts of countries, slaughtered innocent civilians, and inspired new followers. By using encrypted technology and by spreading incessant propaganda across the internet, jihadists are recruiting new members and planning new attacks. This has been obvious by a series of vehicle homicides across europe. Cities known for their history and culture like paris, berlin, london, nice, barcelona, and brussels are becoming more familiar as terror targets. The attack on halloween in new york was proof that our homeland is also susceptible to this line of attack. Terrorists are answering the sheikhs call to kill westerners using whatever means necessary wherever they are. And while our enemies are always adjusting their tactics, we know that our aviation sector is still their crown jewel of targets. Earlier this month, our committee was briefed about aspects of airport security. To our dismay, it was made clear that we have a long ways to go. We must do more to address the threat also posed by foreign fighters who have fled the battlefield and remain one flight away. Consequently, we have identified key areas that need improvements and look forward to working with the tsa to see them through. To help defeat terrorists, we must work with private Tech Companies to limit their communication capabilities and use all of our economic and military resources to dry up their funding and crush them on the battlefield. When it comes to Border Security, another ongoing challenge is keeping our borders secure. Human traffickers, gangs like ms13, drug smugglers and potential terrorists are continually looking for new ways to sneak into our country. We must do whatever we can to stop this illegal entry, especially those who wish to do us harm. In october, this committee took a big step in the right direction by passing the Border Security for america act. This legislation, which i introduced, calls for building additional physical barriers, including a wall, fencing, new technology, and a surge in personnel. It targets drugs and human traffickers at our ports of entry and will help identify visa overstays through the full deployment of a biometric entry exit system, which the 9 11 commission recommended. Our homeland cannot be secure without strong borders. And i look forward to getting this bill to the floor. Natural disasters. This years Hurricane Season devastated many cities and towns in my home state of texas, in louisiana, florida, puerto rico, and the u. S. Virgin islands. After Hurricane Harvey, i personally toured much of the wreckage back home. Roads were flooded, homes destroyed, and many people lost their lives. However, i was amazed by the strength demonstrated by people who braved dangerous conditions to support one another. Texans helping texans. I was also impressed by the quick actions taken by our heroic First Responders and by the Emergency Response at the federal, state, and local levels. Thanks to a coordinated effort led by fema. A broader recovery will take a long time. But i know that if we continue to work together, well be able to successfully rebuild these communities that were shattered by these powerful storms. On the issue of cybersecurity, americas Cybersecurity Networks are under attack. In september, we learned that equifax has been successfully hacked and 145. 5 Million People may have been affected by the breach. Last week, it was also reported that 57 Million People use uber, that they may have had their personal information stolen from a cyber attack in 2016. This cannot continue. Fortunately, our committee has made strengthening dhs cybersecurity a top priority. In 2014, Bipartisan Committee efforts resulted in the enactment of legislation that provided dhs expedited hiring authorities, insured dhs is assessing its cybersecurity workforce, and clarified the departments role in cybersecurity in federal networks. In 2015, the cybersecurity act provided Liability Protections for public to private and private to private cyber threat information sharing. We have had some success. But we need to do better. And that is why this committee passed a bill to elevate the operational capabilities of dhs cyber office to better protect digital america. And finally, on the issue of domestic terror attacks. Domestic terror attacks and violence ignited by White Supremacists, the kkk, or anyone else who preached prejudice must not be tolerated. As i stated before, threatening the safety of others and using intimidation tactics to advance political or religious beliefs is simply unacceptable in the United States. Too often, we are seeing that our differences lead to violence, and this must be stopped. As a nation, we should stand together and reject any type of hatred that seeks to divide our neighbors as enemies. This is an issue we will explore further in our second panel. In conclusion, Homeland Security must be bipartisan. The terrorists dont check our party affiliation. And theres certainly other threats from ballistic missiles, weapons of mass destruction programs in north korea and iran, to the continued undermining of american interests by nation states, including russia. As we face these threats, we must put our Homeland Security before partisanship and politics. Im proud to say this committee has had a long track record of doing just that. We have improved information sharing for counterterrorism efforts, increased support for First Responders, in july passed the first ever comprehensive reauthorization of dhs with an overwhelming bipartisan support. This reauthorization will allow dhs to more faithfully carry out its mission of safeguarding our homeland, our people, and our values. And im hopeful that the senate will finally take up this vital bill as soon as possible. So with that, i want to thank you again. These very prominent and important witnesses, for appearing here before this committee. And with that, i recognize the Ranking Member. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you for holding this hearing on keeping america secure from terrorism. Hang on just a minute. Id also like to thank both panels of witnesses for today. In the wake of the disturbing rise of domestic terrorism in recent years, democratic members of this committee have repeatedly asked for a hearing on this important topic. While this hearing is our annual one examining worldwide threats, a great deal of our conversations will likely be focused on the Terror Threat from right here at home. Incidents like the 2015 killing of nine churchgoers by a white supremacist at Mother Emanuel Church in charleston, and the hatefueled violence that left a young woman dead and 19 others injured during a white supremacist rally in charlottesville earlier this year highlight the threat posed by domestic extremists. Domestic terrorist organizations have even adopted some of the same techniques for recruitment and radicalization as Foreign Terrorist Organizations. Using the internet to reach followers and coordinate their actions. One thing, it means were showing to this parasitic class of antiwhite vermin this is our country, it was built by our forefathers and sustained by us. Its going to remain our country. Were stepping off the internet in a big way. Last night at the torch walk, there were hundreds and hundreds of us. People realize theyre not itemized individuals, theyre part of a larger whole because we have been spreading our means. We have been organizing on the internet, and so now theyre coming out. And now, as you can see today, we greatly outnumber the antiwhite, antiamerican filth. And at some point, we will have enough power that we will clear them from the streets forever. That which is degenerate in white countries will be removed. You think showing up in physical space helps let people know that, like, there are more like them. Were starting to slowly unveil a little bit of our power level. You aint seen nothing yet. Unfortunately, President Trump insists on fueling the fire of hatred and extremism in america, calling marchers in charlottesville very fine people. And just yesterday, retweeting inflammatory antimuslim videos posted by a far right british organization. James clapper, the former director of national intelligence, called trumps retweeting of the videos bizarre and disturbing. And said his action undermines our relationship with our friends and allies. Americans should be able to look to our president for a steady hand and responsible leadership in uncertain times. But unfortunately, President Trump consistently conducts himself in a way that jeopardizes our security and is not befitting the office he holds. Also, though they cannot say so themselves, the president s actions make the already difficult job of the witnesses joining us on the first panel today even harder. The department of Homeland Security, federal bureau of investigations, and National Counterterrorism center play key roles in securing the homeland from terrorists, both foreign and domestic. I hope to hear from these Witnesses Today about the challenges they face, what emerging threats we should be aware of, and how congress can support them in their missions, consistent with our american laws and values. Since much of our focus is typically on foreign terrorists, today im especially interested in hearing how the witnesses assess the threat from domestic extremists and terrorist groups and learning what can be done to protect us from this rising concern. I also look forward to hearing from our second panel of witnesses on this topic later this morning. They bring special expertise on domestic extremism and terrorism issues, and i hope members will hear what they have to say and engage in a thoughtful dialogue. The Southern Poverty Law Center in particular is dedicated to fighting hate and seeking justice and equality for all americans. And i look forward to their recommendations for countering the ideologies that are inspiring violence in america. I had hoped to have naacp testify as well. But their invitation was issued less than 24 hours prior to the hearing, and the late notice prevents their participation today. I look forward to inviting them to testify at a future hearing. In closing, i want to say that we know there are those around the world who seek to come here and do americans harm. Those charged with preventing such attacks have the unwavering support of all the members of this committee, consistent with the laws and values of our nation. I hope that some attention and resources will be dedicated to fighting domestic extremism and terrorism here at home to insure the security of all americans. Again, i thank the chairman for holding todays hearing and look forward to a productive discussion. I yield back. Ranking member yields back. Other members are reminded Opening Statements may be submitted for the record. Pleased to have two distinguished panels of witnesses before us today. Our first Panel Includes the honorable elaine duke, acting secretary of the United States department of Homeland Security. The honorable christopher wray, director of the fbi. And the honorable nicholas rasmussen, director of the National Counterterrorism center. The witnesses have full written statements that will appear in the record. Chair now recognizes secretary duke for an opening statement. Good morning, chairman mccaul, Ranking Member thompson, and distinguished members of this committee. Its my honor to testify here before you this morning on behalf of the men and women of department of Homeland Security who shield our nation from threats every single day, often in extremely dangerous environments. Were reminded of that this past week when we lost Border Patrol agent martinez in the line of duty. I truly appreciate and know our country appreciates his service and sacrifice. While we do not know for certain the circumstances of his death, we do know that he courageously chose a dangerous job with dhs because it was so important to our nations security. When his father was asked why his son chose the Border Patrol, his son said, i want to defend my country from terrorists. I want to prevent terrorists and drugs from coming into our country, and he loved his job. I want to begin by noting right now that the terrorist threat in our country equals and in many ways exceeds the period around 9 11. We are seeing a surge in terrorist activity because the fundamentals of terrorism have changed. Our enemies are crowdsourcing their violence online and promoting a doityourself approach that involves using any weapons their followers can get their hands on. We saw this just last month here on our own soil when a terrorist killed and wounded pedestrians in new york city using a rented vehicle. But new yorkers rallied and they refused to be intimidated by this heinous attack. I also want to make it clear that dhs is not standing on the sidelines as these threats proliferate, and we will not allow frequent terrorism to become the new normal. The primary international Terror Threat facing our country is from global jihadist groups. However, the department is also focused on the threat of domestic terrorism. Idealogically motivated violence here in the United States is a danger to our nation, our people, and our values. We are tackling the overall Terror Threat in the United States headon in two ways. First, we are rethinking Homeland Security for this new age. There is no longer a home game and an away game. The line is blurred and the threats are connected and across border. Thats why dhs is moving towards a more integrated approach, bringing together intelligence, operations, interagency agreement, and International Action like never before. Second, we are raising the bar on our Security Posture across the board to keep dangerous individuals and goods from entering the United States. That includes building a wall on the southwest border and cracking down on Transnational Criminal Organizations that bring drugs, violence, and other threats to our communities. IlLegal Immigration puts our communities and country at risk, which is why our Border Security strategy is multilayered and includes robust interior enforcement operations to deter and prevent illegal entry. Were also strengthening everything from traveler screening to information sharing. We now require all foreign governments to share Critical Data with us on terrorists and criminals and to help us confidently identify their nationals. We must know who is coming into our country and make sure they do not pose a threat. That is why i recommended and the president approved tough but tailored restrictions against countries that pose a risk and which are not complying with our security requirements. And we are trying to stay a step ahead of emerging threats. Were planning next to launch a new office of countering weapons of mass destruction next week to consolidate and elevate dhs efforts to guard against chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear threats. Separately and additionally, our global Aviation Security plan is making it harder for terrorists to target u. S. Bound aircraft with concealed explosives or by using corrupted insiders. At the same time, were rededicating ourselves to terrorism prevention, to keep terrorists from radicalizing our people. And our newly reorganized office of terrorism Prevention Partnership will lead this charge. Finally, we have stepped up dhs efforts to protect soft targets, which will not only help better defend our country against terrorists but against tragedies we have witnessed like that in las vegas and texas. Americans are also alarmed by the spike in terrorist attacks. Dhs is engaging with congress on legislation that would establish a new operating component dedicated to cybersecurity. On behalf of the entire department, i appreciate the Critical Role this committee plays. Thank you for holding this hearing, and i look forward to answering your questions. Thank you madam secretary. The chair recognizes the fbi director, christopher wray. Thank you, chairman mccaul, Ranking Member thompson, and members of the committee for the opportunity to talk to you today about the threats that we face and the tremendous work thats being done by the people of the fbi. I will say that from my prior Law Enforcement and National Security experience, i already knew how outstanding and dedicated the men and women of the fbi were, but i have to say that from the past three months here in this job, seeing it from this perch has made me feel even more humbled and inspired to work with them. The people that i get to work with every day around the country and around the world are missionfocused, theyre passionate, and they are utterly determined to be the very best that they can be to protect the American People and uphold the rule of law. In coming back to government after being gone for about 12 years, what struck me the most is some of the changes that i have seen. The evolution of the threat, the changes in technology, the capabilities that have been built. And as i have been getting briefed up on the work were doing and encountering firsthand how we do our work in todays environment, like we just had in new york, whats really struck me is the magnitude of the threats we face and the diversity of the threats we face. On terrorism front, in addition to International Terrorist groups and homegrown violent extremists, we also have domestic terrorists intending to influence or coerce our government through violent criminal activity. In the cyber arena, we have not only nation states but also sophisticated criminal actors. And in our counterintelligence work, we face threats from nation states targeting not just our National Security secrets but also our ideas and our innovations, and theyre doing so not just through traditional intelligence operatives but through nontraditional collectors like scientists and students and businessmen. On the terrorism issue in particular, my Prior Experience had been very focused on large structured organizations like al qaeda, and to be clear, we still confront threats from organizations like al qaeda planning largescale attacks over long periods of time. But we also face groups like isis, who use social media to recruit followers remotely and to inspire people to take to the streets with crude but effective weapons like hatchets and vehicles. Smaller in scale but greater in volume, these organizations, if you can call them organizations, move from plotting to action in a very short period of time with very little planning, using lowtech and widely available attack methods. On top of that, these terrorists use of social media and Encryption Technology has made it harder to find their messages of hate and destruction, leaving even fewer footprints or dots for us to connect. The good news is that i have also been very impressed and pleased at the progress that the fbi has made since i was last working with them, particularly in the areas of intelligence integration and partnerships. Intelligence is now heavily integrated into every program the fbi has, into our overall mission, our training, and it drives really everything we do. In addition to that, the scope and strength of the partnerships that the bureau now has with our federal partners, our state and local counterparts, members of the Intelligence Community, and our International Partners are at a whole new level compared to what i saw when i was in government before. So while remarkable progress has been made, we cannot become complacent, and we need to keep improving to insure that were up to the task in getting ahead of the threat. As one example, we are now at risk of losing one of the key tools in our tool kit that is invaluable to all of our National Security programs that i just mentioned. As i mentioned at the beginning, the speed and agility of our terrorists and intelligence adversaries has increased at a tremendous pace, putting a huge premium on matching that speed and agility with our ability to connect the dots. Thats why reauthorization of fisa section 702, which expires in just a few weeks, is so incredibly important to our work. Its one of the most powerful tools that we have to help us evaluate, lead, and prioritize threat information. It can tell us quickly whether a person here in the u. S. Has ties to a terrorist overseas or if theres someone overseas who is planning an attack. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, members of this committee, i look forward to working with you on these and other significant challenges, and i appreciate the opportunity to be with you today, and i look forward to answering your questions. Thank you, director. The chair recognizes the nctc director rasmussen. Thank you, mr. Chairman, and Ranking Member thompson, and members of the committee. As i mentioned during my testimony before the Committee Last year, the array of terrorist actors around the globe is broader, wider, and deeper than it has been at any t actors is browder and deeper since september 11, 20001. As we meet here the prevention is changing beneath our feet every day and requires that we respond with extraordinary agility and flexibility. I would like to take the opportunity to share what ive seen in the way of changes in the terrorism landscape since i last testified before the committee and say a few words we can do a better job of tackling those in the homeland. Let me begin with whats new with the overall threat. Those developments fall into three primary areas. The first of these is the coalitions success in shrinking the territory that isis controls as compared to a year ago. An uptick in the attacks inspired by isis in the last year as compared to attacks that are directed by the group from their headquarters in iraq and syria. The resurgence of aviation threats, reaching the level of concern that we have not faced since aqaps printer package plot back in 2010. So to start with isis losses on the battle feel. Isis is feeling pressure from u. S. Forces and the coalition. As isis copes with the territorial loss, the group will preserve its capabilities by operating more as a covert terrorist organization and unsur jency. We are winning on the battlefield. Territorial losses have not translated into a corresponding reduction in the groups ability to inspire attacks including here at home. Over the last year isis has inspiredd numerous attacks most recently right at home in new york city on halloween. The number of disruptions we have seen around the globe while that is a testament to effective Law Enforcement work it tells us that the global reach of isis remains largely intact even as the group is being defeated on the battlefield. The uptick inspired attack stands in contrast to the pattern of attacks directed and enabled by the group from syria in 2015 and 2016. So far we have not seen the Group Successfully director a large scale sophisticated attack like the paris and brussels attacks in previous years but the number inspired attacks as director wray mentioned is clearly on the rise and all of this underscores our belief there is not a direct link between the battlefield position of isis in iraq and their capacity to continue inspiring external attacks. Battlefield losses are not sufficient to mitigate alone the threat from isis. Also worth me saying even as we are focused on isis as a primary terrorism challenge that al qaeda has never stopped being a primary terrorism challenge for the United States and a top tier priority. As we point to isis we continue to evolution of al qaeda as a Resilient Organization and know that al qaeda retains the capability intent to carry out attacks against our allies around the world. Our touch on the Third Development the threat to civil aviation. Theres a long history to terrorists seeking innovative means to carry out aviation attacks. Aviation has taken center stage this year as evidenced by Australian Authorities disrupting a plot back in july by terrorists to bring explosives aboard an aircraft. Terrorists have shown themselves to be out of the box thinkers with respect to aviation. Threats have been and will remain at the top of the things that demand our focused attention. This brings me to my final point we need to do a better job of tackling the threat of those mobilized to violence here in the homeland. One of the things we do quite well is collecting intelligence and sharing with those who need it. We also do a great job of pushing unclassified information to partners around the country but beyond just sharing intelligence theres more we can do to prevent home grown violent extremists from becoming radicalized and improve the tool kit we use to deal with this short. We must expand our investment in terrorist prevention specifically here in the homeland. And ensure that communities are equipped to respond and prevent all forms of violence. Im proud of the work that i do in this area along with director wray and secretary dukes team on this matter. But its something im sure we can do better and im sure we should do on a greater scale. By leveraging all aspects of the elements of the federal government working with state and local partners, im certain we can create a culture of prevention and resilience across the United States. Ill end there mr. Chairman and thank you and the committee for you continued support of the work were doing at nctc and thank you for your friendship and the kind words that you used earlier today as i move on from federal Government Service and step down at the end of december. Even though i am grateful for your kind words im mindful whenever i appear before you, i am standing on the shoulders of many hundreds of talented men and women at nctc certaining alongside those professionals has been an honor of my life and i look forward to answering your questions. Thank you. Thank you director and thank you for your service to our country over the years. I now recognize myself for questions. Secretary duke, we recently held a hearing with the tsa administrator. 9 11 was an aviation attack using planes as guided missiles into the world trade center, the pentagon. This is still the crown jewel of isis and al qaeda. The Inspector General produced a report on the findings in terms of screening at airports and quite frankly it was in my words at the last hearing disturbing to find that the tsa still has received a failing grade, a failed report card when it comes to screening. We heard this in 2015 and now were in 2017. As you know with the laptop threat, the ability to convert laptops into bombs and explosive devices to blow up airplanes possibly imbound flights into the United States i think i speak for almost every member of this committee that we need to take quicker action. There is Technology Available today. There are pilot programs today using computer tomography, its like going from an xray to an mri. A lot of us on the committee have seen this and i sent you a letter requesting this technology be deployed not in 2018 or 2019, but as soon as possible given the nature on the threat that exists. Can you respond to that letter . Yes mr. Chairman. We agree its essential and part of our plan to raise the baseline of Aviation Security and currently developing the algorithms for that and agree with you it is essential for our tsa future. What the administrator said was we cant deploy the Technology Today because we have to upgrade the software later. We should deploy the Technology Today and stop procuring these xray machines. Deploy that Technology Today and upgrade the software at a later date. Do you have any thoughts on that . I agree. We are already procuring some. The algorithms are the running different materials through to make sure that the machines can detect what we need them to detect. Thats in process now and we are along with our foreign partners working on making that the new standard for passenger baggage. Thats one of the greatest threats to the homeland today and so well be providing followup to director wray and rasmussen over the five years of my chairmanship on this committee i saw the rise of isis and the rise of the caliphate and the rise of external operations and the threats coming out of that region. Fortunately we are now seeing the fall of the caliphate, the defeat of isis of iraq and syria but how do you see this threat as we move on postcaliphate . Director wray. Mr. Chairman i think as director rasmussen said, on the one hand the collapse or the Building Collapse of the caliphate is good news but i think the way were concerned about a number of Different Things that could come out of that. One is, of course, what everybody in the world is concerned about is foreign fighters returning. What were primarily seeing there is some of them would return not directly to the u. S. But perhaps to countries in europe and then from there come into the u. S. Second, were concerned about home grown violent extremists who continue to be inspired by isis even if not directed in the sort of classic sense. And we know that isis is encouraging fighters who as spired to travel to stay where they are and commit attacks at home. So those are some of the issues that i think continue to exist even with the caliphate collapsing. I think the power of isis as opposed to al qaeda is the internet. I know you have worked with google, facebook, twitter, i have as well. I look forward to working with you and the secretary to try to get this stuff in nctc off of the internet. Director rasmussen . I would just make one simple analytic point about the distinction we observed between al qaeda and isis. Al qaeda operated as a clandestine covert organization with barriers to entry that made it difficult for individuals to become members. Isis sought to become a Mass Movement and reach people regardless of their prior affiliation with extremism and recruit anyone who would come through the door. That means that the isis variant of this problem has brought many more individuals radicalized around the world. It is a problem that extends further and wider than the al qaeda problem that we faced. Thats not to say its all bad news. Theres plenty we have done to mitigate the possibility of large scale catastrophic attack the kind of director attacks that director wray spoke about. Im not here to solely point to a bad news story but its a different problem than what we faced a few years ago. Final question. Secretary duke, my home state was devastated by Hurricane Harvey. Parts of my district, some members on this committee been there many times to see the devastation. I understand the decision perhaps was not yours but the office of onb. I have to express my disappointment on the record at the recent 44 billion Disaster Recovery supplemental request. It was just a fraction of what the governor determined texas alone needed to recover does not adequately take into account the devastation in the other areas as well and of course, places in my district have flooded three times over the last two years. We need flood mitigation efforts. This is something that congress will be making decisions on. But we have to entertain not only the Response Recovery but the flood mitigation. I would like you to respond to that recognizing that this was not probably your decision to make but i do want to register my disappointment with the administration on this issue. Yes, mr. Chairman. I recognize that the amount in the supplemental did not totally address all the future needs of the disasters we experienced this summer. What that was intended to do is fund the stafford act work that needs to be done currently. I have looked at it, and i think its appropriate, and its enough for the near term. We do have more work to do along with the housing and urban development and well be with texas and the other areas until that work is done. Whats known as the section 428 Housing Program is going to be helpful in restoring texas. Thank you and i look forward to working with you on that. With that the chair recognizes the Ranking Member. Thank you very much mr. Chairman. In light of your question, one of the ongoing challenges we have is that staff at jurisdiction is in the transportation and Infrastructure Committee and fema is over here with us and every time a problem comes up, people look to us and its where t i comes. Thats an ongoing battle we have dealt with from our inception as a committee and i hope some of this gets resolved fairly soon. Ms. Duke, the Inspector General recently notified congress that a report on the travel ban was being held up in your office. Can you provide us details on why its being held up. There was a disagreement between the office of the Inspector General and dhs on privileges that included Attorney Client privileges and executive privileges and because the attorney general does not agree with those privileges, had not issued the report. We feel its important to maintain some of those privileges especially since the matter addressed by the report is under litigation. I feel comfortable that the privileges we had to assert to the report were accurate. However, to be absolutely sure and make sure the public is confident, too, we have ordered a third party review. Independent review to make sure that the privileges that we need to redact that report are sound. But you are aware that the Inspector General concluded that the department violated certain aspects of the law relative to the implementation of it . Yeah. The report itself was based on decisionmaking that, you know, by practices is executive privilege and so it was problematic from the start. But we still are committed to working with the attorney general and making sure that i understand but youre aware yes, i am. Of their conclusion . Yes. Thank you. Mr. Wray, good to see you again. Since we met in another forum yesterday. Can you share with us your analysis of the domestic terrorism threat here in america and what does it include . Yes Ranking Member thompson. As we have discussed a few times i think, the fbi senses the domestic terroristic threat to be a major one. It presents some of the same kind of challenges that we seen with homegrown violent extremists in that youre talking about loosely con federated people with less communication, less sophistication in applauding the attacks. Sometimes you have socalled lone wolves which makes it more challenges from a detection and prevention perspective. At any given time including right as we sit here today, the fbi recently has had in the neighborhood of about 1,000 pending domestic terrorism investigations. Those cover the waterfront from everything from white supremacis supremacists, insovereign citizens, maliciousists but the key point is we are only focused on people who are engaged in violent criminal activity. And thats what were focused on. We are not focused on ideology or opinion or rhetoric. Thank you. Can you provide the committee with the most recent reporting on the categorization of those different terrorists . I would be happy to have my staff get together with yours and see if we can get you some more helpful and detailed information on that. Thank you. One of the things for our departing nctc director that the fbi director talked about was homegrown violent extremists. You referenced that in your testimony as part of that threelegged stool that you have been concerned about. Can you share with us why that is a concern of yours . Absolutely, mr. Ranking member. As director wray noted, many of the individuals who we categorize as home grown violent extremists dont typically engage in the behavior that makes detection and disruption easy. They arent necessarily communicating or gathering in large groups or traveling to conflict zones or engaging in the kind of behavior that would be good predictors that someone might be interested in carrying out a terroristic attack. That puts pressure on Law Enforcement at the local level and my fbi colleagues to figure out who is the person who was just there dabbling and sampling and looking at material and who is the person that is actually looking to maybe mobilize and act on their beliefs and carry out a terrorist attack. That becomes a much different challenge, a much more difficult challenge than what we face in trying to disrupt sleeper cells or other terror cells from abroad. Its a harder problem. So is your testimony that we need more funding to address that increasing homegrown Terror Threat in this country since you have identified it as a growing vulnerability for us as a country . I wouldnt necessarily pose it as being only measured in funding. I think about the communities where ive had conversations with local Law Enforcement and they desire greater federal help and understanding the Threat Landscape and understanding how it is these home grown violent extremists appear in their midst. If we can do that through information sharing, through sharing of personnel and best practices, then that to me would be a contribution. I just dont think i think the scale of the problem is such that we have to put more effort behind it. I wouldnt isolate funding alone as the issue. Thank you. The chair recognizes the gentleman from alabama, mr. Rogers. Mr. Wray, in october of 2015 director comey was testifying before this committee and i asked him if he had the resources he needed to handle the terrorism investigations that were pending before them and also to investigate the surge of attacks on soft targets occurring at the time and his response was, to be honest, i dont know. I know the fbi has been stretched thin and had to pull agents off criminal investigations to look into these terrorist attacks but i would pose that question to you. I know you have only been there three months but have you been able to determine whether or not you have the resources you need to meet the challenges you face . Well, at the risk of sounding like my predecessor but combined with the fact ive only been there three months, im still taking stock of that. Some day i would like to find somebody they would like the fbi to do less of. I havent met that person yet. We have a lot of challenges as you say. We have matured to the point where were not having to pull people off of programs the same way that used to happen. As director rasmussen said its not a question of funding. Im not convinced we could spend our way out of the threat. Some is working better collaboratively and im pleased the fbi wasnt always that way in long times past, working with its partners in the federal Law Enforcement, Intelligence Community, foreign partners, state and local Law Enforcement in particular. We have to be smarter and get Better Technology and make sure we have the right resources. Could we do more with if we had more . Absolutely. Well, we need you to let us know. If you get to the point that you determine that you need Additional Resources to be able to meet your needs, we cant fix it if the we dont know about it. And try to get you what you need. So i would ask you to not be shy. Thank you for your support. Secretary duke, welcome back. A lot of work has gone into improving our visa process but vulnerabilities remain identifying those radicalized over the internet. Can you tell us what if anything is being done to connect the u. S. Cis and the visa process to the latest intelligence from high risk areas . We have instituted many new visa review steps that are going to help with making sure that we have the true identity of the persons that are applying for visas and also that they dont have a criminal purpose in coming here. One of the biggest things were doing is the 100 interviews and also looking at advanced information sharing. As we talk about some of the other topics, the speed were moving at, having that information sharing with the other countries is absolutely critical. And doing the vetting against the databases. Also, social media checks have played a huge role in better vetting of visa applicants. Those are a few of the areas. Okay. This may not be dramatically different from that answer. What steps is dhs taking under the Trump Administration to develop and implement what he has referred to as extreme vetting . Well, its been a multilevel step. First we decided what vetting should be, what additional steps should we take in vetting people and then we compared the countrys. What were those additional steps . Making sure that passports had bio metrics that we had copies of those passports. That countries provided us advanced information. Those similar types of steps and we have a full report on that that we can provide. And then we compared the and the countries actually using our databases and us using theirs. Then we compared the countrys performance against that and we have instituted getwell plans if the you wiyou will for the c who dont conform to the new vetting standards. Would you assert this status of extreme vetting is fully implemented now . It is fully implemented. We always have to get better. I think every time we put a fix in place, the enemy adapts to it but it is in place. Thank you very much. Recognize the gentleman from massachusetts. Mr. Keating. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you for being here and your service. Secretary duke, you mentioned that terrorists will use any weapon at their disposal, you know, on different terrorist threats. So i have a question for director wray in that regard. Theres tens of thousands of individuals and many of the attacks were talking about, guns were clearly a part of this and firearms and weapons and tens of thousands of individuals removed from the background check, the National Criminal background check for guns after the fbi changed its interpretation and limited who is considered a fugitive from justice. That decision was made in february. Its now december. We have no idea how many people brought firearms this year. Even though theyre outstanding warrants for their arrest just because theres no evidence they crossed state lines. Now, how did this decision come to be . And isnt this a gap in trying to secure our safety and trying to keep these kind of weapons away from terrorists . We have websites that are telling people and directing people how to get these weapons but we have fugitives from justice in our own country that arent being picked up by the system now. Could you just tell us what that was done and if theres something to fix this gap which i think is a very serious one . Thank you, congressman. The change that youre referring to was the product of several years long debate as i understand it between the fbi and the atf about the interpretation of that prohibiter, the fugitive prohibiter under the brady act and the fbi had interpreted as not requiring crossing of state lines and the atf interpreted it differently. And under the Prior Administration the Justice Department came down with a legal determination and resolved that legal disagreement about what the statute meant in favor of the narrower interpretation different than the fbis interpretation at the time. I think it was in january that that change legal change was declared. And the department again under the Prior Administration as i understand it sent a notification to both house and Senate Judiciary committees notifying the impact of the change and inviting legislative fix and it may be the kind of thing addressed through legislation. Once the change went in place the fbi complied. Thank you for clarifying that. Its on our watch now to change this and i hope we do. Secretary duke, thank you, too, for clarifying and agreeing to move forward on the Ct Technology and getting that in the field. Thats something our last hearing really had a great concern about and thank you for doing that. But administrate or said the otr issue is its a budgetary issue in moving these things forward and i realize the monies that people pay for a fee outside of things on their own as they board airplanes, that that money was moved again by congress away from that. But can you tell us right now if we provided that budgetary assistance, you would be able to move quicker for that new technology in the field. Do you agree with the administrator on that . Yes. We have the money to deploy, to build out complete research and development. You know, as the fbi director said, theres always more to do but right now i feel comfortable that were deploying that technology. We also have the commitment of some of our foreign partners. If i could, if indeed, there were more money, he indicated if its a budgetary issue as well, is that correct . Its a prioritization issue, yes. Well, all right. I think its a priority. If were going to keep our people safe here in this country that are traveling on the airlin airlines. Quickly, the nrc, Nuclear Regulatory commission in terms of cyberattacks has tried to upgrade requirements for nuclear plants. I have one in my district facing in a few year decommission and they have applied a waiver for the security upgrades so its not there for an attack. Its my understanding that Homeland Security really doesnt have the role, that its really the nrc. Dont you think you should have a director role in this . I think you should. I dont think the Nuclear Regulatory commission is the right agency by itself to be making those kind of safety considerations in terms of a cyberatta cyberattack. To my knowledge, youre correct. We dont have that specific role. We do assist the Critical Infrastructures but do not have that director regulatory role. I would like to engage your office in terms of trying to suggest ways to shore that up. Its another gaping hole. Thank you and i yield back. Just a quick clarification madam secretary. Are the monies available today to purchase the computer tomography technology . We have some funding for the Ct Technology. We do not have the funding to deploy it at every airport nationwide. Would that require a reprogramming by congress . That would require to buy for every airport would require much more than a reprogramming. I would like to follow up with you on a later date. Chairman recognizes the gentleman from pennsylvania, mr. Perry. Thancsecretary duke, you tal about the vetting process and the extreme vetting process a little bit. I would like to drill down on that a little bit and ask is there a system to investigate or at least query in a minimal sense at least the intending entrance for an ideological affinity to some other legal system opposed to the u. S. Constitution similar to what was done by the United States during the cold war with some of our adversaries whose potential entrants wanted to come into our country . Yes, an affiliation with an ideology or a country known for ideologies that are contrary to the United States is something we look at. In terms of the extreme vetting. So theres literally a question and answer portion to that or when you say you look at it, what does that mean in practical terms . One of the things we look at is where a person has traveled to and if they show a travel pattern in countries that have a high degree of terrorism we look at that. We also look at social media if appropriate to see if theres anything on it that indicates they are following terrorists websites, those type of things for example. Not only just terrorist websites but things to the west and democracy and our constitutions i would be interesting in as well, not only just terrorism. Do you question them as opposed to just looking at their travel and maybe social postings . Do you ask them . Do you agree with the United States constitution, would you uphold and defend the United States constitution . Do you believe sharia law should supercede . I do not know the questions of the interview but i do know they adapt based on the persons scenario. I appreciate it and look forward to continuing conversation on that. Director wray, thanks for your service. Good luck to you. Just curious, if you can tell me if the fbi has taken any steps to reverse the previous administrations purge of training courses and information about islamism, jihad, sharia and the Muslim Brotherhood . Congressman, im not aware of any ongoing efforts to purge training materials. They were purged in the last administration. I see. So my question is, have you taken any steps or the fbi as you know it taken any steps to reverse that purge or include some of the things that allow us to see in totality the threat that faces america . I have not studied what has been done in the training but i appreciate your bringing that issue to my attention and happy to take a hard look at it. If we can have a continuing conversation on that as well, i would appreciate it. Director, atifa operaties with criminal activitieactivities. Im wondering if the fbi is doing anything in that regard including investigating their Funding Sources . As i mentioned to Ranking Member thompson, we do have a very active Domestic Terrorism Program and while we are not investigating antifa as antifa as ideologies we are investigating what we call an arc kiss extremist investigations, of people who are motivated to commit violent criminal activity on an antifa ideology. So we have a number of active investigations in that space all around the country. That space would include individuals, but if a group itself even though like you said its an ideology but if the group is receiving funding to promote that ideology which is not congruent with the law, is that something you delve into especially when it crosses state lines . Well, certainly any time were doing a domestic terrorism investigation whether its just to a individual or lets say a collection of individuals, we do enterprise investigations when there are multiple individuals working together and the funding that supports violent criminal activities absolutely is something were keenly interested in. Finally, director rasmussen, regarding antifa, can you describe how the nctc acts to counter them if you do . We actually dont. With respect to domestic terrorism issues in the United States my agencies mandate and authorities are limited to matters of International Terrorism and that was in the founding legislation that created nctc. So we defer to fbi in this role. If there are International Connection to these groups operating domestically you dont take any certainly if there was intelligence that tied any individual here in the United States to a Foreign Terrorist Organization that changes the nature of the problem and becomes very much a collaborative effort but its not a Foreign Terrorist Organization but foreign funding. Does that invoke your authority . Not to my i dont believe so unless it would involve a Foreign Terrorist Organization, but that kind of intelligence were to emerge we would make sure our fbi colleagues were aware of it. Thank you sir. Yield back. The chair recognizes gentlelady from new york ms. Rice. Thank you, mr. Chairman. So this question is for director wray. Earlier this week a canadian citizen pled quilty to charges he worked for the Russian Intelligence Service as part of the 2013 yahoo hack that led to the theft of 500 million yahoo accounts. One of the largest cyberer breaches in history. Three other conspirators including two other russian usb officers have been indicted by evaded arrest. This case is the first time the u. S. Has issued criminal charges against russian officials for a cyberattack even though russian aggression has continued to rise in that area. We have seen large scale cyberattacks on u. S. Companies, equifax, uber, verizon, theyre just some of the biggest breaches this year. What other cyberattacks do you suspect russian involvement in . [ inaudible ] without commenting on a specific investigation. I think you put your finger on what we view as a blended threat. Its particularly seen in the exact example you mentioned. The yahoo attack. Where you have the blend of a nation state actor, in that case the Russian Intelligence Service using the assistance of criminal hackers which you think of almost like mercenaries being used to commit cyberattacks and one of the reasons we thought bringing that particular case was important even though as you say some of the defendants are russian government officials who are safely in russia was to try to highlight to the public the importance of being vigilant on this threat. We are seeing an emergence of that kind of collaboration which used to be two separate things, nation state actors and criminal hackers and now theres this collusion if you will occurring on a number of instances. What do you think russias motivation is for these attacks . Well, i think russia is attempting to assert its place in the world and relying more creatively on asymmetric warfare to damage and weaken this country economically and otherwise. We have been focused today on terrorist threats at home and abroad. Should the American People consider russias repeated attempts to breach their personal data as a terrorist threat . Well, i think its certainly a threat we should take seriously as a National Security matter or Homeland Security matter. I dont know that we would brand it a terrorist threat, but i think to me thats a labeling issue more than anything else. It certainly is a very serious threat that the public needs to be aware of and that we are all working collectively to try to do more to combat. I guess it depends on what you feel the motivation is at the end of the day, what their motivation is and is this just a part of getting to that ultimate goal. What steps are you taking your Department Taking to deter these attacks . Number one, do you expect any future indictments of russian officials without naming any . And lastly, do you believe that they will ever be extradited and brought to the u. S. For trial . Taking the last part of your question first, we dont have an extra digs relationship with russia. I wouldnt necessarily expect to see them coming to the United States. On the other hand, if they travel thats going to be a challenge for them because they are now fugitives wanted by the fbi. Would we pursue them then . Absolutely. As far as what were doing, we have tried to model more and more our Cyber Efforts along the sort of more developed front that we have in the terrorism space. Just like we have jttfs in all 56 offices we have cyber task forces that are multiagency. That have 184 different agencies participating. We have cy watch where we coordinate closely with others. Its different in the cyber space, the need to kind of work with the private sector. Im glad to hear you say that. Russias interference in the 2016 election was an unprecedented attack on our democracy. What is your agency doing to protect our election systems in 2018 . The chairman has been bravely outspoken on this issue and talking about how this was not a political issue, its a American Issue and democratic issue. Are you working with social Media Companies to prevent the dissemination and limit the effects of russian trolls . Needless to say, i take any effort to interfere with our election system by russia extremely seriously because it strikes at the heart of who we are as a country. We have at the fbi, were focused forward looking on the next in a couple of election cycles. We have a Foreign Influence Task force ive stood up inside the fbi that brings together different divisions of the fbi because its a multidisciplinary problem. So you have got Counter Intelligence dimension, a cyber dimension, a criminal investigation dimension. We coordinate closely with dhs. Were coordinating with our foreign partners because happily for me we dont have elections every year in this country and we can look what other countries are trying to do in terms of the trade craft, et cetera. Were trying to get in front and figure out and be on the lookout for efforts to interfere going forward. Thats at a high level of what were doing. Thank you very much. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you. The chair recognizes gentleman from new york, mr. Donovan. Thank you, mr. Chairman and thank all of you for what you do to protect our nation. Secretary duke, you noted in your testimony that youre rethinking Homeland Security for a new age. In many cases dhs is still operating on the same authority it was issued 15 years ago. We have to ensure that you have the tools and the resources you need to address the ever changing threatened landscape in our nation. Earlier this year this committee crafted in the house of representatives approved the first ever comprehensive dhs reauthorization bill. The bill author rises vital Grant Programs for First Responders and provides authorities for a number of dhs components like cis and the coast guard. What effect will this reauthorization bill have on the departments ability to meet its mission and how important is it that the senate expeditiously acts on this piece of legislation for you and your efforts of the brave women and men who work for you . Thank you. We think the authorization bill is very important to dhs. And what it will do is it will help us partner with congress in terms of prioritizing and making sure that were focused with laser vision on the Homeland Security issues that faced our country. So i think it is a very important because this is an enduring threat and to make sure that were unified and focused would be one of the most significant effects. And how is the lack of action over in the senate and the lack of reauthorization bill we passed handcuffing, curtailing your efforts in what youre trying to achieve for our nation right now . I think with a lack of authorization we have many different opinions and jurisdictions over what should be the priorities for our nation and so it makes it more complicated to move forward crisply and clearly. Especially with on both the authorization hand appropriation side. Where do we put the next dollar, towards which risk and way. It sounds like theres a lack of certainty what the agency will hold unless Congress Acts to allow you to prepare for the future . Yeah. It does cause its a lack of clarity, definitely. Thank you very much. Director wray, welcome my fellow new yorker. Ranking member thompson and my colleague from pennsylvania, mr. Perry, was speaking about this crossing of the state lines, rioting and the matters that youre facing now. Im always concerned about people using disguise and masks like they did at the berkley riots, preventing their identity from being revealed to Law Enforcement. We are a legislative body that is charged with creating laws to help you protect our nation and ive always asked witnesses at hearings what tools do you need . What could this committee do . What could congress do to aid the brave agents that work for you . What laws would you like to see us create that will help you address some of these things like people crossing state lines for rioting, enhancing i know theres local laws, i was a prosecutor and the elected d. A. , one of the five of new york city for 12 years. What could we do for you to help you in the efforts to protect our nation and our families . Well, needless to say, congressman, thats a question i would love to answer for hours. So i appreciate the question. I think looking down at the clock with the 45 seconds remaining the thing i would say more than anything else i would urge every member of this committee to support reauthorization of section 702 and not to erode the important tool that we have there. Just to give some context. The reason why that is so important, the fbis ability to query its own database which is what 702 allows us to do is picture a situation where some person in this country buys a huge amount of Hydrogen Peroxide. Nothing wrong necessarily but we know its a precursor for terrorist attacks. So if the merchant sends the fbi a tip that somebody bought an unusual amount of Hydrogen Peroxide heres the email address. Right now the fbi agent can run that email address and if it turns out that person is in contact with a known isis recruiter overseas, suddenly that purchase becomes a lot more important and we can mobilize the scarce resources in a way to make that a priority. If 702 is a road that we lose that ability and make people less safe. Right now im focused on not losing the one we have already. Thank you. Wonderful. Thank you again for your service. By the way, bill sweeney is a great sack in h new york. Unless youre going to promote him. Leave him there. Thank you. Thank you mr. Chairman. Ranking member thompson for holding this important hearing. One of the very important purposes of this committee is to assess and address all threats posed to our country. Given the isis style attack in charlottesville by White Supremacists i asked this committee to hold a hearing on white supremacist terrorism. The department of Homeland Security issued an intelligence assessment warning that sovereign citizen with extremist ideology would prompt violence across the u. S. A bulletin produced by the fbi and the department of Homeland Security stated that White Supremacists were responsible for 49 homicides and 26 attacks from 2000 to 2016. More than any other domestic extreme movement. We must not take our eyes off the ball in regards to threats posed to our country. We are unprepared for 9 11 and no excuse if were not prepared for another large scale attack like that of Oklahoma City. I want to thank the fbi and other agencies. Ive got a New York Times article that says bombing plot in Oklahoma City is stopped with the arrest fbi says. Individuals looking to take out many, many people. And it says here, an antigovernment id lolg and expressed an interest in carrying out an attack that would echo the bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City of april 1995 that killed almost 170 people. So thank you very much for that very good work to you and the other agencies. Director wray and acting secretary duke, as you know, Congress Passed Senate Joint Resolution 49 signed by the president in september. It condemned the racist violence and attacks in charlottesville and urged the president and administration to use all available resources to address the growing prevalence of domestic terrorist groups. My questions are are you in your organizations doing anything differently since this resolution was signed . We support the fbi strongly. What we have done recently is make sure that were doing the training and the information sharing with the state and local governments. We believe that with both domestic terrorism and home grown violent extremists, theyre both decentralized and need the state and local governments, especially the local to be on acting secretary, you mentioned there was a blur of lines between domestic and international activities. Following up on your coordination of locals have you put that same effort will you put that same effort in coordinating with our allies to the north and to the south . Your predecessor said if those threats get to the border, we have essentially lost the fight. So what are we doing to make sure these terrorist threats dont get even close to our borders . The most important thing is information sharing. We need to know about them early on before they board planes, before they move. So are you working with our allies and our neighbors to the north and south. Absolutely. North and south and always the eu and other European Countries but definitely canada, mexico, the northern triangle and south america. Sir . So on the white supremacist threat in the wake of charlottesville we had a Conference Call with all of the sacs from around the country trying to make sure they had learned they could learn from the experience in charlottesville and people were pooling ideas and information about things they were seeing. We have jttfs in every field office and they are they have that as one of their specific areas of focus. So i would ask both of you are you doing anything different in terms of following databases, updating databases, trying to track white supremacist groups compared to the efforts you would put to track isis style terrorists that are threatening our citizens . I believe both of those groups pose equal threats. An american citizen that loses their life to a terrorist attack whether motivated by isis or White Supremacists doesnt matter, its still a tragedy in our society in our country. Are you doing anything to make sure these white supremacist groups are being followed and being monitored as you would any other group . One of the major things we have done very recently is open the office of terrorism Prevention Partnerships which is making sure every piece of information we get the state and local governments have to be at the point to notice and deal with any types of hate crimes in these groups. And training and information sharing is two of our major efforts. We have stepped up investigative interests but we do not as i think you may know, we do not on the domestic terrorism front investigate groups in the same way. In other words, because of the First Amendment issues and the freedom of expression issues and the somewhat ugly history the fbi has had in the past. We have very specific rules on the domestic terrorism front where in order to open an investigation there has to be, you know, credible evidence of federal crime, threat of force or violence to further a political then we open a very aggressive investigation. Thank you very much. Im out of time. But i would like to ask unanimous consent to submit this statement for the record. Its by dr. Southern. Its a statement worldwide threats keeping america secure in the new age of terrorism. Without objection, so ordered. Chair recognizes the gentleman from louisiana, mr. Higgins. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Director wray thank you for your service to your country and i specifically thank you for bringing up the importance of 702 as an invaluable tool for your Investigative Services in defense of our nation. Im a strong supporter of it and shall be a vocal voice as the debates move forward. Please describe in at least general terms what programs the fbi implements to monitor potentially activity known to be affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood or other islamic extremist organizations . Congressman, we investigate International Terrorism matters global jihadi inspired directed matters and follow them wherever they may lead, and in some cases that may lead to specific individuals, and if they are in a mosque then we would continue the investigation there. Do you monitor the advertised appearances of known radical imams that speak at Islamic Centers across the country. I asked this specifically because a known radical imam spoke in my district recently and completely under the radar, no media, no Law Enforcement knowledge, i found out from my own informant that he appeared within my district and spoke. So im wondering does the fbi monitor the websites and social media announcements of the movements and the appearances of known radicalized jihadist imams. We have a variety of social media exploitation efforts under way focused on the kind of problem youre describing and we also have in some cases predicated investigations of specific subjects. In some cases those have been even imams. There have been cases where we have pursued a matter weve pursued a matter that led to arrest, indictment and conviction. I think back to the case against hamsa. Who was a very active cleric in that space. Again, thats to give an example of the kind of thing we do. Quickly within this nonclassified setting, would your investigative efforts include human assets . Absolutely. I appreciate you bringing that up because one of the things that is increasingly important with all the kind of challenges we have described, all three of us have described in the terrorism arena is the ability to use human sources. Yes, sir. And we need to be able to work with the communities around the country to be able to get people to come forward. When you have somebody whos radicalized in a very short period of time in some cases, the best hope we have of funding out before the person commits an attack and kills somebody is to have somebody speak up and talk to Law Enforcement. Its important that we earn the confidence of the community to be able to generate human sources. Thats a very high private. 702 enhances your ability to use human assets, is that correct . Yes. Thank you, sir. Secretary duke, thank you for your service to your country, madame. I have one question. The u. S. Electric grid is unsecured under the threat of an electromagnetic pulse based on a nuclear explosion. Can you explain what steps the department of Homeland Security is taking to secure the u. S. Electric grid on an expedited basis, and further, what can this committee and this body do to assist in that effort . This is a relatively new threat that weve been looking at in that Critical Infrastructure sector. We have a strategy that will be completed before the end of this calendar year late in december and well be sharing that strategy that will help us start to better address the emp threat along with the geo magnetic disturbance threat. You have a study that will be concluded by the end of this year . Yes. The target date is december 23rd. And you will share that with this committee . Yes. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, i yield the bans of my time. Gentleman yields. Recognize ms. Watsoncoleman. Thank you, mr. Chairman and thank you to each of you for your testimony and for your service. One of the types of far right extremism that is concerning to me has to do with the Antiabortion Movement and their willingness to engage in a very dangerous actions to express their position. So with that, i would seek unanimous consent to enter a statement for the record from the feminist majority foundation, keeping america secure in a new age of terror. Without objection so ordered. Thank you very much. I have a series of questions some of which i really would like quick quick answers to. Thank you. This is for you secretary duke and for you, director wray, because both of you mentioned the importance of information sharing with our foreign allies. Could you just elaborate on why that is so significant as quickly as possible. Because we need to know about people and vet them before they move toward the United States. And i would add to that in many cases people are either crossing borders themselves or communicating across borders. Or at a minimum facing similar issues in those countries and in ours, so we have to compare notes. So its really important that we at least maintain this open communication with people that we have had relationships with that we could trust that would share this information. So having said that do you think that the president s tweets regarding the british Prime Minister help furthered that cooperation . Or impaired that cooperation . I work with the home secretary of Great Britain and have a very Good Relationship and focus on that rather than speaking on tweets. In dealing with our allies, do you find theres any concern on their part with regard to how quickly the president will tweet information that is not accurate, including the most recent ones regarding the far right supposedly antimuslim groups. My personal experience is that theyre anxious to work with us for the threats that director wray made. And so just work on building those toward the mission. Would you characterize those tweets helpful or not . My experience is similar to secretary dukes. I was just over in the u. K. Less than ten days ago and met with all my british counterparts. And i think the relationship was very strong and productive. Lets hope so. Director wray, you had expressed a strong desire that we reauthorize section 702 and that its very vital for you all to do your job. I wanted to just say that i have tremendous pause when i read the report on black identity extremism and its threat to Law Enforcement. I still had very very Major Concerns about what it communicates to Law Enforcement, what to fear, whether or not those fears have been developed in terms of the research and the analysis. I look forward to meeting with those analysts to discuss what seems to be a very skimpy report. That kind of gives me pause to support that kind of authorization to an agency that would, i think, allow this sort of poorly developed report to come out and not demonstrate in my opinion a i guess a commensurate identification or expression of white identity extremism that presents a threat to our environment. I would just add i appreciate our conversation yesterday. Im sorry that i had to leave before it was completed. But i found it a candid and hopefully constructive conversation. I look forward to continuing the dialogue on that issue. I would say on the white supremacist issue, we do put out information to state and local Law Enforcement on that. And in fact at the iecp conference recently in philadelphia that i attended and spoke at we distributed Something Like 15,000 copies of a video which id be happy to make available to you about the white supremacist threat. To state and local Law Enforcements to raise their awareness of that threat. Thats an example but its hardly the only example. Y i think its important and a difficult discussion to have, but i need to agree that if were really going to look at the the dangers confronting our safety and security of our citizens here in the homeland that we need to have a serious discussion of who represents that danger. And while we talk about this on the surface and we kind of skim and we include it in the larger discussions on very important issues of Homeland Security. In and of itself, the threat is so severe that even organizations who have done research on these issues find that the threat to our security is greater with these groups than it is with these sort of foreign fighters or foreign inspired individuals. We just need to confront this. On the record i need to ask again that we have a hearing specifically addressing those issues with those members of the administration that weigh in, work on and have consideration of these issues. Thank you. I see that ive gone beyond my time. Chair recognizes former fbi agent from pennsylvania, mr. Fitzpatrick. Thank you mr. Chairman and thank you all for being here and thank you for what you do. Your work is not easy. We know that and were here to support you in any way necessary. I can report to this Committee Regarding director wray whos leading my former organization, ive spoken and keep in touch with many of my former colleagues from the ground all the way up. This is a man they have come to respect tremendously. Thank you for leading the organization that i love. I think that it warrants further discussion regarding section 702. Mr. Higgins brought it up briefly. I want this committee to be fully aware not only of what you just said regarding the benefits to the bureau. And to the National Security apparatus, but what id like you to address briefly, sir, is the consequences of not reauthorizing. What would we not be able to do anymore should section 702 expire . The real value of the 702 to the fbi and to the protection of the American People is at the front end, at the very early stages, when a tip comes in, and were in an environment now where theres a high volume of threats and there are so few dots in many cases to connect with these smaller, more contained more loosely organized situations so that the premium on getting the right dots to connect, to understand what threats are real, which ones are more aspirational thats when the value of 702 kicks in. Right now under 702, we can query information that the fbi has already lawfully in its position. Theres no court that disagrees with that. And right now they can clear that information and know this tip from state and local Law Enforcement or somebody in the private sector is one that really matters and allows us to mobilize resources to be sure we get in front of the threat. If seven 2 is walked back, we will in effect be starting to rebuild the wall that existed before 9 11. I implore the committee not to go there again, because that is something we learned the hard thank you, mr. Wray. We have a lot of people asking what we can do to help. Secretary duke, i had the honor of visiting puerto rico last week. As you know, this committee has oversight over fema. I describe the experience as heart breaking and heartwarming all at the same time. Walking through the Convention Center where some amazing work is being done by a great team of federal agencies who have challenges. My concern is, and if you could address this, fema is spread very thin right now. Theyre responding in texas, in florida and also responding to what i believe to be the most challenging situation in puerto rico. Logistically being over 1,000 miles off the coast of florida. They had an antiquated infrastructure and electrical grid to begin with and they dealt with a cat 5 hurricane right through the island. 190mileanhour sustained winds for a 12hour period of time. Citizens there described it to me as a 12hour long tornado. It was absolutely devastating. What are we doing specifically for puerto rico given the unique challenges logistically and economically that those people face because i think its important that we constantly talk about and remind everybody they are american citizens, too. Right. Puerto rico and the u. S. Virgin islands definitely had some unique challenges. The main thing were doing differently is ill juxtapose it against texas where Governor Abbott had a strong infrastructure in place both physical infrastructure and people to lead the effort and we augmented. What weve done in puerto rico because of their financial concerns and others, governor rosello had a weak ability to execute his vision. So we have embedded fema people with the governor and are bolstering his vision, his Recovery Efforts even more strongly. Additionally were doing response and recovery simultaneously. So we are continuing response even though its tailed off, we are still delivering water and meals but were actually doing the Recovery Efforts in terms of rebuilding the infrastructure. So i would say a much stronger role in supporting the governor. We appreciate it. And please keep the focus on puerto rico. We dont want them to be forgotten and anything this committee can do to support that role, please let us know. I yield back. Recognize the gentleman from the rhode island, mr. Langevin. Thank you. I want to thank our witnesses for your testimony today. Before i begin, mr. Chairman, id ask unanimous consent to submit a statement from the start that the National Consortium the study of terrorism and responses to terrorism. Without objection, so ordered. Thank you, mr. Chairman. So before director wray and secretary duke, for both of you, in your testimony you reference two major subsecurity instances this year under the National Cyber Incident Response plan when a significant cyber incident occurs, the department of justice acting through the fbi is the lead agency for threat response and dhs is the lead agency for asset response. So can you and director wray describe how your two agencies collaborated in the response to these incidents and your Lessons Learned and how do you see the cyber threat evolving and what gaps do you see in u. S. Defenses in response to Recovery Efforts . I think the Main Division is that dhs is responsible for securing the systems and remediating any malware. Were on the technical side of addressing the threat such as want to cry. We are embedded with the fbi in their National Cyber joint task force and then we have our own intake. I think that what we are having to do is really understand as the director said earlier the difference between state actors just persons looking for maybe financial gain and those hybrid actors. Thats become much more difficult. And i think just information sharing and the colocation is huge for us working together in the future. I would just add that just as the dhs has the lead in Asset Protection and asset mitigation, the fbi has the lead in threat response which we understand to mean sort of the pursuit and the attribution and the investigation of the incident and ive been encouraged by how much progress has been made about the cooperation between dhs and fbi on this issue. Its been a challenge for everybody because its such an evolving challenging technical area. But because of the various Interagency Task forces that exist and there are ones both at the policy coordination level that are sort of standing and then there are specific ones that get stood up in response to a significant cyber incident. And i think the better we get and we need to keep Getting Better at information sharing and kind of cooperation and including involving the private sector wherever possible i think thats how were going to ultimately get in front of the threat. Any gaps in particular . I think one of the biggest gaps is the role that Critical Infrastructure plays in this issue in protecting our country. As the director said, having to involve the private industry in key Critical Infrastructure sectors. Okay. So secretary duke, while model aircraft have been available to the general consumer for decades, the injection of precision navigation and simple tor use control interfaces has rapidly expanded the user base of unmanned aerial vehicles. Combined with the capability to carry small pay loads such as improvised explosives these devices now can be used to commit acts of terror, sadly. Ive worked with my colleague senator whitehouse from rhode island. I intend to introduce legislation criminalizing the reckless operation of drones. That in itself not stop committed violent actors. How is dhs assessing the rapid increase in the quantities and capabilities of small uavs and the potential to be used as an attack vek vector . In case my time does run out, director wray, integrating intelligence is the critical strategic pillar of the fbi strategy. I want to thank you for your efforts in this domain. In the international space, the u. S. Provides a significant amount of intelligence to our foreign partners that enables them to better protect their own nations from attacks. Can you and director rasmussen comment on how these partners are reciprocating in information sharing and what can be done to improve this cooperation . A quick answer on aircraft systems, this is an area where we lack authority. If theres anything i ask of the committee, it would be to assist us in getting authority. We cant even do testing of antius systems with our authorities, and we think this is a major increasing threat. And on the Foreign Cooperation point, one of the things were doing better now that i think is significantly improved the amount of intelligence flowing back the other way is through our league at programs. We have legates, 80 legates serving 200 countries. Thats our foreign offices of the fbi. A lot of those i just came back from europe in particular where were starting to get more and more twoway flow of information in particular from the brits but also from other countries as they learn more about what would be valuable and as we get more and more embedded and the level of trust both ways between the two countries matures. Thats another place where when i look at the kind of cooperation that exists now between Intelligence Services and the way it was back when i was in government before, its like night and day. Doesnt mean it cant be better. It needs to keep Getting Better. I really feel like were on the right track there. I would add to that if there was any modest Silver Lining in the difficult threat environment that we face driven by isis over the last few years its been the dramatic increase in information sharing globally weve seen. Many more countries than ever before view this as their problem too and not something that they can shut off and ignore and say thats an american problem or thats a british problem. So the array, the number of countries that we have active intelligence sharing arrangements with is in the many, many dozen now rather than a handful of very close partners. Again, the foreign fighter phenomenon has also helped drive that kind you have information sharing, as well. Its a modest Silver Lining but something we can build on for the range of terrorism threats well face in the future. I want to thank you all for your testimony and insight and secretary duke, i think its outrageous that dhs cant even do testing on these on drones and their capabilities and mr. Chairman, maybe thats something we can work on together to help the change. Yeah, if the gentleman, ive been looking at this issue for quite some time. We have seen drones being used in iraq and syria, weve seen drones at the white house, the capitol. I do think its time for us to consider legislation to move some authorities from the faa to the department of Homeland Security. And i would very much like to work with you. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Id welcome the opportunity. With that, thank you to the witnesses and i yield back. Gentleman yields. Gentleman from nebraska, general bacon is recognized for the first time. Thank you, mr. Chairman. It is an honor to be on the committee defending our constitution and strengthening our National Security. My most important priorities. Its an honor to be on this committee to put focus on that. Secretary duke, i wanted to ask you about what i consider is one of the most important threats to our country and thats the cyber penetration from russia and china into our energy infrastructure, our perhaps our financial networks. How would you assess the threat that russia and china poses on a one to ten scale, ten being the worse . What i fear is the next december 7th we face will be preceded by an energy attack or Financial Sector attack like that. Thank you. It is very strong. On a scale of one to ten, i would say probably a seven or an eight because what we know is daunting and we dont know what we dont know. But looking at using cyber to attack the control systems of Critical Infrastructure is a major area of concern that were working with the Critical Infrastructure on. It seems apparent to me that theyre putting a foundation to have that capability if needed. We should be concerned. Do you think were doing enough to build resilience in the system or to have backups or is there a lot more that we can do . I think its to the point where the Critical Infrastructure sector has really recognized the threat recently. So i think everyone has the attention now. Its implementing the safeties to help try to prevent this. Thank you. Director wray, when i go and talk to the Law Enforcement in the omaha area, ask them what is the one thing we can do more to help you with, gun violence and things like that. I hear two things. Do more about straw man purchases, not enough is being done there and to help off duty Law Enforcement to carry their weapons or retired. Would you share those sentiments from our Law Enforcement from omaha . Certainly on the straw purchasing side, when i was a line prosecutor back, as a baby prosecutor, i used to do a lot of straw purchaser cases. And i do think thats a place where more aggressive enforcement of laws on the books would be helpful. Most of that responsibility lies with atf. But we work collaboratively with the atf who is a great partner on more organized criminal activity that involves some of the same kind of firearms crime that youre talking about. As you may know, the attorney general is revitalizing project safe neighborhoods that was a very effective federal, state and local program that existed in the early 2000s that kind of built off of project exile that had been in richmond to try to more strategically focus on gun violence. I think that will help the folks in omaha among other places. Were going to be working on legislation towards that end. Thank you. Director rasmussen, as you know secretary of defense mattis changed our strategy. When we get to an area where isis is operating our policy was previously to take over a city but they would be able to get out, retreat, regroup somewhere else. Now his strategy is kill them where theyre at. And not let them get out. Are you seeing effects of the strategy where we see less of the terrorists leaving syria trying to come back this direction or going to europe or are you seeing a reduction in this terrorist flow . Certainly the territorial aspect of the fight i mentioned in my prepared remarks has accelerated over the course of this year with the dramatic reduction in the amount of territory isis controls. One of the difficulty and challenges though has been that that campaign has taken a period of time to play out. In a sense, the bad guys in many cases knew where we were headed next. They knew that the effort was focused on mosul, the largest city in iraq under isis control. They knew we were over time going to move towards raqqa, the city in Eastern Syria that served as headquarters for isis. That unfortunately allowed many of the actors we would be most concerned about to bleed out over time ahead of that campaign. Many chose to fight to stay and fight and they chose to stay and fight and die in defense of the caliphate. Others we are concerned about made their way into either the iraqi countryside or trying to find their way out of the conflict zone. Its not necessarily a volume question as much as it is a quality and quantity question. If the wrong individuals get out if the wrong individuals who have particular capability or skill experience with weapons of mass destruction, those are the ones we are the most concerned about. But yes, i agree. We are focused on making sure these individuals do not escape the battlefield. One last question, if i may. I think were doing a lot in the kinetic site going after the financial end of it. I have yet to see how we can do better at undermining the ideology that recruits lone wolves to help sustain isis and al qaeda overseas. What more can we do to undermine the ideology that does this recruiting . I think there a soft touch and a little bit of subtlety is required because i think we will be most effective if we are enabling and empowering credible actors who can speak credibly to those potentially vulnerable populations rather than something coming out from the state department or with the brand of the United States on it saying this is how you should behave. This is how you should believe. But if we can identify and empower and support credible voices within the communities where this is a problem, its a better solution. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, i yield back. Gentleman yields. Director wray, i just want to comment, in addition to doing counterterrorism work, i was also a exile prosecutor. Please relay to the attorney general my thanks for reviving that program. Its a very it works. So thank you. Chair now recognizes the gentle lady from texas, ms. Jackson lee. I thank you and let me start out by thanking each and every one of you for your service to this nation. My time is short. So i will be pointed in my questions. Secretary duke, let me first of all offer my sympathy publicly again as ive done for the loss of life as a Border Patrol agent just a few weeks ago and, as well one that is injured and mending. And thank you for all the men and women that work in the Homeland Security department. Let me focus on Hurricane Harvey which by connections i think it impacts the Virgin Islands and as well as puerto rico and florida and others. Fema certainly is an agency that we owe a great debt of gratitude to. But let me be very clear. Ive been asked how houston is doing, how texas is doing. We are a strong group of people. But we are devastated. And it is so difficult dealing with fema and the repeated denials, people who have not heard from fema. Fema is good for the immediacy but not good for recovery. Youre listed as a recovery agency. We need help down in texas. We need more fema drcs. We need more people dealing with the appeal process. It is absolutely absurd. The second question is, dealing with the appropriations. I would ask that you would ask the president of the United States to consider that 44 billion is shameful. The president came to texas and said that we would provide you with everything you need. This is 44 billion for the u. S. Virgin islands, for puerto rico, texas and everyone else. If you would answer that question after let me go to director wray. Ill put the questions on the record quickly. The questions on the record are on director wray as you well know, there have been some antimuslim videos offered by the commander in chief. My question is, as the world has condemned this, how difficult it makes the work of the fbi that deals with domestic terrorism with these kinds of videos being associated with the United States. Second, im interested in the commitment to not do reverse targeting under 702. I know that its an International Issue but the fbi is involved in terrorism in the fight against terrorism and may use the 702 law and i want to know your position on reverse targeting of a u. S. Citizen. Finally, the black identity extremist weve had some conversations on that. I believe it is crucial that there be a clarification so that individuals expressing themselves under the First Amendment understand the parameters of the fbi. Miss duke, if you would please, secretary duke. I will check into the specific inquiries and work with Governor Abbotts office to make sure were keeping in texas the 44 billion is the current supplemental. We do expect there will be needed additional supplementals. But for now, we do have adequate resources to do all the Recovery Efforts. I vigorously disagree with you. We do not have the adequate resources and this is going to be on the verge of a Government Shutdown if texas and all the other victims of these hurricanes do not have a compromise but we can work together. I would encourage you to tell the president it is not enough. It simply is not. May i also leave with you miss jimoh who is a United Airlines supervisor has not been able to determine why she has been denied official background check. Shes filed two appeals. Id like to speak with your leg affairs on that. Director wray, thank you. Thank you, congresswoman. On the, if i can take your questions in rapid fire fashion here. Thank you. The first one, i think we try very hard at the fbi and will continue to try very hard to earn the trust and confidence of every community we serve and protect including the Muslim American community and we are trying as i mentioned in response to an earlier question to encourage people to come forward as potential sources and witnesses and we will continue to do that. On the reverse targeting point, my position is there should not be and we do not permit reverse targeting under section 702. And on the black identity extremist issue, i thought our conversation yesterday was candid and constructive. At least i hope you felt the same way. I can assure you and the rest of the American People that we do not investigate people for rhetoric for ideology, for First Amendment expression, for association. What we do is when people are engaged in when theres credible evidence of federal crime involving the threat, credible threat of force or violence to further political or social goal thats our focus. We have no interest in investigating any group for expressing strong views no matter who might consider them extremist about any important social issue including racial injustice. Did you answer that last question i got nine seconds about 702 . Im sorry. On 702, i was just saying we do not permit reverse targeting and would not. Thank you so very much. Chair recognizes the gentleman from florida, mr. Rutherford. Thank you, mr. Chairman. First i want to thank the panel for your service to the country and particularly your service here this morning in this long testimony. Theres an old saying that everybody uses, dont beat a dead horse. And, of course, then we turn right around and beat the dead horse. So secretary duke, i too am going to ask about the ombs recommendation of the 44 billion for storm recovery. And be heres the issue in florida. We are a very large agricultural state. Most people dont realize that. But we took a very hard hit about 1. 5 billion in almost 1 almost 700 million of that was to our citrus industry. And this is why a supplemental to follow is not adequate because these citrus farmers need the money now for the next crop coming. And if they dont have that, those assets right now, then theyre not going to be prepared for the next growing season. I spoke with one citrus grower who lost 36,000 trees. 36,000 trees. Thats going to take some time to replace. And more delays is going to have a tremendous negative impact on our recovery in florida. So id like to you carry that back to the administration and the omb and let them know the impact thats going to have on these growing seasons that dont wait for next supplemental. So thank you for that. And now id like to shift over to and followup on cyber as many of my colleagues have. And you know, not just Asset Protection but also the ideological fight that i think needs to go on within the cyber war and director wray, you mentioned the cyber squads that you have now in all 56 regional offices and what id like to know is, what are the difficulties, you know, one of the challenges i think in the world of cyber is getting that great talent. And being able to pay for it and pull them away from you know, private industry. How is there anything that we can do to help you get the best of the best for your cyber war . Well, as you started to ask the question, i was thinking before you got to the talent, that was going to be my answer as the principle challenge. Theres just not enough people who really have that for genius level talent for anybody including the private sector. We cant compete with the hefty paychecks that the private sector can offer those same people. I do believe that people we can compete with anybody on mission. And i think we have found that the bright young talent were able to attract in the space join us for the right reasons which is their commitment to the mission. We clearly need more of them. Were trying to do more to raise the level of what i will call sort of cyber literacy across our workforce. One of the things we struggle with right now is sort of our cyber black belt if you can call them that get diverted into having to help out with other kinds of criminal investigation work that has a Cyber Component but if we could raise the basic level of literacy across the organization, then i assume secretary duke would say the same thing within hers then we could have the most talented people focus on the really so sift indicated cutting edge stuff and thats where im hoping to take the organization. Im glad you referenced Homeland Security because i know the secret service, for example, had some Great Success in going after transnational organizations with Money Laundering and those kind of things and its important to have that cyber attack. Director rasmussen, how about you . Is there anything what can we do to help you all with this recruiting . Anything . Well, director wray made a very good point. With the mission that we have before us whether its Counter Terrorism or dealing with cyber crime or siebet Cyber Threats to the United States, motivating young people who want to do this for a living is not a challenge. Good. We put out announcements for job openings, we get hundreds and hundreds of very high quality applicants from all over the country. One of the challenges were facing the Intelligence Community is getting them through the security clearance process quickly enough that we dont make someone wait 18 months to start embarking on their federal career. Thats something were working on internally. I would tell you the biggest thing you objection could give us as all federal agencies is predictable funding environment so we didnt have to wonder year to yearly be able next year to have an entry level cadre of young people coming in or am i stuck with this years class and have to hold on to them that much longer. So year to year predictability is very, very important. Yes, and let me ask one other thing in the little bit of time i have left. National cyber Incident Response plan as was mentioned earlier, dhs is responsible for the asset response but fbi and doj responsible for the threat response. What is the involvement of private industry in that partnership and response and do we need some further clarification and definition of roles in this cyber war . I would say that while there was a time when the definition was murkier and there were more confusion about the lanes in the road that after ppd41, the lanes in the road i think are much more clearly defined. I havent seen as much of that as an issue. I think the private sector engagement piece is something that we in dhs work on together a lot more and more. Were always trying to figure out ways to balance the desire to get with the private sector faster but at the same time to make sure were both providing accurate information. And that were not compromising an existing investigation and in many cases the information that were getting at least on the fbi side is either classified or involves coordination with our foreign partners as i said earlier and there may be restrictions in our ability to share it. So were all learning collectively the Interagency Community and the private sector how to kind of adapt to this comparatively new threat still. Okay. Well, again, thank all of you for your time and mr. Chairman, i yield back. Gentleman yields. Gentleman from louisiana, mr. Richmond is recognized. Thank you Ranking Member for having this meeting and thank you director wray for the meeting yesterday which was very thorough and hope we continue to follow up. Let me just ask you all and maybe director rasmussen or director wray would have more insight. Im concerned about the new and reemerging slave trade in libya and the question is, have you all do you all have any intelligence on it . Do you have any reason to believe that it is not in fact happening . Obviously, the fact that there is as much political chaos and vacuum of authority in libya opens the door to all kinds of criminal and other illicit activity. Human trafficking is obviously a component of that as groups try to move individuals up through libya and potentially into europe and contribute to the migrant challenge in europe. We follow that pretty closely from a terrorism perspective because those same networks can be used to move extremists who want to do us harm or do harm to our allies and friends also. So we could arrange to share some more classified information with you or your staff in terms of what we know about those challenges. Unfortunately what we know and can do about it are two separate things. We dont have a lot of capability on the ground. I agree but almost like in a medical situation, you first have to diagnose there is a problem and acknowledge theres a problem. Theres more congress can do. I just wanted to know from experts whether its something you all would say is fact that its happening. Its certainly true. Okay. And thank you for that. Director wray and actually all of you all have employees that have to fill out the sf86 form and you talked about the process of 18 months to actually get through the process. But my question is, at what point and maybe director wray as a former agent you can comment on this. At what point do omissions become willful and deliberate omissions that rise to violating i think its title 18, section 1001 which is penalties for inaccurate or false statements on the security clearance form. First, while i would love to claim having been a former agent, i can claim to be a former prosecutor. So i wouldnt want any of the many agents who work for me to view me as a poser. Got it. Im very proud of my credentials now, however. Second, on the sf86 point, you know, really its going to depend on all the facts and circumstances of the particular case. Willfulness requires a level of conscious knowledge and intent and knowing falsehood and a recognition that the person is making a material omission or false statement and recognizing thats what theyre doing when they do it i guess is the way i think of it. Thats layman speak. You as a former defense lawyer can appreciate some of the nuances there. And i guess if we look at the administration and take the most obvious example which is kushners form that has been amended over 100 times and usually after it comes to light that it was inaccurate, the question becomes people who apply to your agencies who may leave off, you know, high school, eviction, college eviction from an apartment or Something Like that who may get prosecuted for it, at what point do we start to get to selective prosecution if we dont set the example at the top level with willful omissions that dont get corrected until after theyre brought to the public . Well, certainly i think its important to respond truthfully and completely on an sf86. I would expect all my folks to do that. It is a bear of a form to fill out if youve ever seen one. The older you are and the more time periods youve got to cover, it is a challenge. Im not aware of a whole lot of prosecutions that have occurred of people for their sf86 responses. But certainly i do think its important for everybody at any level to try to be as truthful and complete and accurate as possible in filling out sf86. With my last 15 seconds lets me thank you all for the job you do. We know how complicated it is from how do we secure drones or Unmanned Aircraft now and mr. Higgins would relate in my district i probably have the largest petrochemical footprint in the country. That is a concern how we protect it from flying objects that can be directed. No one pro fess that what you do is easy, but thank you for your service because the safety of the homeland depends on it. For those people who work for you all, please let them know this congress and i think i can speak for everybody surely appreciates their service and sacrifice for the country. With that, i yield back. Gentleman from texas, mr. Ratcliffe, is recognized. Thank you. Let me start off where my friend and colleague from louisiana left off. Thats thanking our entire panel today. Director rasmussen, let me just tell you that i believe that our nation is safer and better because of your service and i will tell you you will be missed. Secretary duke, as the chairman of the Cyber Security and Infrastructure Protection subcommittee here, i have enjoyed working with you and i have appreciated your leadership what i believe is our greatest National Security threat in the longterm, Cyber Security. Having said that, while i look forward to working with you, i have a limited time today and while i believe in Cyber Security is our greatest National Security threat i believe our most urgent National Security threat right now relates to section 702. That has been mentioned a number of times. Let me turn to you, director. Director wray. The reason i call 702 the most urgent National Security matter is i think its been mentioned its about to expire. We have nine legislative days left in this congress before the section 702 fisa expires at the end of the year. It has been mentioned that 702 broadly speaking targets foreign intelligence from nonu. S. Persons reasonably believed to be outside of the u. S. But quantifying exactly how the important 702 i think has been left out of the some of the discussion and i want to give you the opportunity to expound on that or maybe refute it. Our intelligence agencies estimate that 25 of our actionable foreign intelligence comes directly from 702. Do you believe that to be accurate . Im not sure i know what the percentage is but that doesnt surprise me, that estimate. I would have no reason to question it. I will tell that you every person i talk to whos actually seen the operation of 702 up close and ive sat with agents at the terminal watching how they use it so that i could be sure that i was really understanding it, every single one of them is just horrified at the thought we would lose that valuable tool. Lets assume our intelligence agencies are correct and 25 is an accurate number. Are you aware of any Legal Authority that would provide us a greater percentage of actionable foreign intelligence than section 702 . No. So we established that its very, very important to our National Security. Lets talk about how effective 702 really is. I participated last week in a debate at the Judiciary Committee as congress moved forward and the Judiciary Committee moved forward something called the usa liberty act which seeks to reauthorize but modify 702. In the course of that discussion, i found some of the well intentioned criticism to be misguided and unfair because some folks are conflating section 215 and telephony metadata with the 702. Would you agree those comparisons are misguided and unfair . Yes, i would. One of the legitimate concerns and questions raised about section 702 relates to the issue of incidental collection of information on americans and even nonu. S. Persons who are in the United States. We know that that happens. But again, i think what has been left out of much of the public debate and i want to give you the opportunity to weigh in and clarify as we members of congress and the public watches this debate move forward. There is oversight of this incidental collection that takes place. It takes place through an Oversight Board, a nonpartisan board called the privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board or pclob. Correct. Pclob issues a very specific report reviewing section 702 and the incidental collection that has taken place, correct . Correct. All right. And to your knowledge, does that report from an independent Oversight Board, has it found in the seven years that 702 has been in place, has it found any intentional abuse of section 702 . Not to my knowledge, no. Over seven years, no intentional abuses of section 702. I would think that that is essentially a record of success for a Government Authority that is unrivaled. Certainly in my experience. So i guess in summary, do you agree with me that 702 is our most important Law Enforcement and Counter Intelligence tool with respect to foreign intelligence . Yes. And its our most effective . Yes. And its our least abused . Yes. And given that, if we not only fail to reauthorize but fail to reauthorize section 702 in as close to its form as it possibly is right now, would we as members of congress be jeopardizing National Security for all 320 million americans in your opinion as americas top Law Enforcement official . That is definitely my view and i appreciate the question because i think when i talk about the importance of reauthorizing section 702, its exactly as you say. Its the importance of reauthorizing it in as close to to the current form as possible. My time expired. Thank you all. Thank you. Gentleman yields. Let me echo those sentiments. I believe reauthorization of 702 as close as possible to current law is vitally important to the security of the United States. With that, the chair now recognizes miss barragan. Thank you. Secretary duke, thank you for being here today. I just was last week visiting our troops overseas for thanksgiving. I was in afghanistan. Just amazed at how these young men and women are on the front lines of fighting terrorism doing so with a mission of protecting our homeland. Earlier this year, i was disturbed to learn that if you are not a citizen in this country and pick up a weapon and you go fight overseas and you die there, we will make you an automatic citizen. But if you survive and you come back to this country, you can still be deported. And when i was out there, i was talking to a few of our soldiers who were telling me about some of their concerns and problems with family members going through proceedings. Can you tell me if any veterans are being deported right now under your watch . I would have to get back for the record. I know that dod, department of defense is looking at reinstituting the program of pass for citizenship for soldiers but in terms of recently returning veterans id have to get back. They are not a priority for sure. Okay. Great. If you could so in writing i would appreciate that. Ive introduced a bill to address this so that we can just make sure we are protecting those on the front lines and who are serving. I wanted to ask you a little bit about the Hurricane Harvey in texas. My understanding from reports that i had read is that there was some confusion about directives on whether immigration checkpoints would remain or not. And so i wanted to ask if you were aware of the confusion that was created from the directives. We early on issued that there would be no active immigration control that other than criminal acts that needed to be addressed that we would not do pro active immigration enforcement. Okay. Im going to go ahead and enter into the record two articles covered by npr and some other organizations that highlighted the confusion that caused even the mayor i think of houston to have to come out to go on record to make a statement about this. Im hoping that this will be something that wont become an issue as another you know emergency disaster happens. We want to make sure that people feel safe and secure in following authorities when theyre being asked to leave. And in that regard, ive introduced a bill on that. Hopefully my colleagues will take a look at that. Without objection, so ordered. Thank you. I wanted to follow up on some of the questions about gun violence and their connection to terrorism. I think i remember hearing former Homeland Security secretary jay johnson once made a comment and im going to quote him that said, meaningful responsible gun control is now part and parcel of the Homeland Security especially given the prospect of homegrown home born violent extremism in this country. Do you agree with that assessment . What were seeing now is really an agnostic look at tools. And guns are not necessarily the primary vehicle by which terrorism is occurring. Well, would you say that the guns are part of what terrorists are using and that it certainly could be perceived as access to guns could be part of the issue . Guns, knives, vehicles are among the top, yes. Great, thank you. Director wray, i wanted to ask you, you know, i have to first agree with some of my colleagues who echoed you know having more hearings on the threats presented by domestic terrorism and homegrown terror. I also wrote a letter to the chairman asking we do a hearing just on that. Instead its harder to get to all these issues with a short amount of time. Director wray, terrorists are getting their hands on and using high assault weapons. Its repeated occurrence is costing american lives. Weve seen it happen in san bernardino, orlando at the pulse nightclub. There was an alarming statistic i saw the gao reported that between february, 2004 and december 2015, known or suspected terrorists initiated background checks to purchase a weapon i think it was about 2500 times. And 91 of the transactions were allowed to proceed. Does this concern you . Im not familiar with the specific report that you mention. I will say that much as secretary duke has said. Were really focused on the terrorists themselves whether they be domestic or international. And they seem in many ways hell bent on committing attacks to kill as many people as possible by whatever means they can get their hands on. I guess my so without looking at the report, would it be concerning to you that people who were on the known or suspected terrorist list are purchasing guns and 91 of those people are allowed to purchase guns . Is that concerning at all to you . Certainly the way you describe it is very concerning to me, yes. Thank you. I yield back. Gentle lady yields. Mr. Garrett from virginia is recognized. I would commend the gentle lady on pointing out these deported veterans issues. I was reading about that and i saw one was deported after he was convicted of shooting into an occupied vehicle in 2010. Im not sure who the president was then but its nice to see the attention getting brought on the subject matter now. So i would commend her for pointing that out. And cite a Los Angeles Times story that points out that each of the individuals in question deported between 2008 and 2016 had committed a crime that there might be up to 350 such individuals. Back to the testimony at hand, im curious i saw in miss dukes testimony that the federal agencies that coordinated prior to the events in charlottesville, thats a good thing. Certainly more is needed. But when you have large gatherings of people, say, for example, saturday at 2 00 p. M. At my high school which is in congressman bratts district and not my own, state championship football will be held. Is there any federal coordination for security for that sort of event . Unless its a national declared National Security event, our coordination is with the responsible local officials. We call that a soft target and we do quite a bit of training, coordination and assistance in advance to help them secure. And i apologize for the way this is going because its not intended to be a gotcha. Im going that way. Too much time as a courtroom lawyer but obviously, an event like that presents a soft target as you indicated and a collaboration or a gathering of people in close proximity to one another. Yet technology recently demonstrated via numerous videos on the internet the ability to use drones. As weapons, et cetera. Numerous videos of hand grenades being dropped through the cupolas of m1 tanks. Weve all seen them. Yet the antigun drone Gun Technology that current ly exists is limited in its capacity to be sold specifically and exclusively to federal Law Enforcement entities. I would submit for any of to you comment on that the first line of defense at that Football Game on saturday will be local Law Enforcement with probably some augmentation by state Law Enforcement. But that we do a historically wonderful job of preparing for the last conflict and the last attack and we generally do a relatively poor job which has been brought to the forefront post 9 11 of contemplating what the next attack might be. For example, weaponization of vehicles that members of the panel have made reference to that weve seen all too many times in europe and the United States. Can somebody tell me why the Virginia State police or the county police cant purchase antidrone technology when things like uva Football Games or the nascar race at richmond motor speedway occur under the protection of these entities . Can somebody give me a good reason why local and state Law Enforcement cant avail themselves of antidrone technology . I want to you say no, but if theres a good reason, i want t technology. I want you to say no, but if there is a good reason, i want to hear it too. No, there is no good reason. I think its as the chairman said, legacy of authorities, and not having the authorities, because of the its conflated with the signal waves of cell phones. And how theyre tracked. So it needs to be addressed. But thank you very much. And, again, im on the same team as all of you guys here. And i apologize again for my tone. Im going to try to snap out of it. Would it in your estimation, be a good policy area to consider to power down the ability to purchase Anti Drone Technology to state and local authorities, given that they are the first line of defense on so many soft target events that occur every single day in this country . Not to the civilian on the street, perhaps. But to Law Enforcement entities of the state and local level. I think also their ability to use them in antiterrorism use. And the federal government, as well. We are limited just as state and local governments are. Absolutely. So what youre suggesting then is that we review en masse the employment doctrine as it relates to these particular techno logical advances. Yes. I would yield back early, mr. Chairman, just because i want to set a precedent today. We certainly appreciate that. As do the witnesses. Thank you. The chair recognizes mr. Payne. Thank you, mr. Chairman. First id ask unanimous consent to submit a statement from the anti defamation league. Without objection, so ordered. Thank you, sir. And i would just like to thank all the witnesses for their service to this nation. To this point. And im going to be very brief. Because i in the interest of time, we have another panel. But i just and excuse me if this has already been answered, but i came in late. The black what is this new term . Black extremists radical what is it . I believe the term youre reaching for there is theres a term, black identity extremist, which is an intelligence product that i spent about two hours, i guess, discussing yesterday with some of your colleagues. Right. Yeah. I am sorry i missed that. Could you give me a brief definition of or an example of who would fall in that category . So the intelligence product in question refers to individuals who are committing violent criminal acts where the motivation is retaliation or retribution for injustices committed by Law Enforcement. So the focus is on Law Enforcement as victims in those situations. Okay. And you see a growing incidence in this situation . The piece in question, which was issued right before i joined the fbi, was based on a snapshot in time over the course primarily of 2016. And that was what the fbi was seeing during that period. Okay. Thank you for that. And i would just like to ask, the Ranking Member on emergency preparedness, response communications. And i would like to just ask ive done a lot of work around interoperability, and i know youre each a different entity. But how well and your communication is probably pretty good. But through your different departments, how is the communication between your different agencies . I think our communication is much better than it was when i was here before. And i think thats a lot to the centers of bringing these centers together. People are colocated. So its not just integration of systems. I think in the public sector, the first net Public Safety network is going to be huge going forward. I do think were working at dhs more on declassifying products earlier. So through our Fusion Centers and other tools, we could have better collaboration between federal and state and local Law Enforcement. Thats a major focus for us. I would agree that the technological part of the inner operability has improved significantly, although it can always get better. For us, particularly on the fbi side, the classified nature of so much of what we do does complicate our ability to communicate. Less so with either the folks here on the panel. But as elaine says, with the state and local Law Enforcement, that can get complicated. And certainly with the private sector, which, as we discussed on the cyber side, that presents some significant challenges. Okay. Thank you, sir. Sir . The only thing i would add is that level of integration that probably wasnt there among the federal agencies, 10 or 12 or 15 years ago, has in some ways been addressed, because at this point, so many of our Senior Leaders have served in each others organizations over the last dozen years. Several of my Senior Leaders are veterans of the department of Homeland Security. I have senior fbi personnel inside my organization, and have my persons served inside their organizations. That counts for a lot, because it makes that integration much easier. Okay. Thank you. And mr. Chairman, im going to yield back real quick. The gentleman yields. The lady gentle lady from arizona, miss mcsally. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you for your patience and director rasmussen, thanks for your service. I agree our country is safer because of your service. Many vulnerabilities have been talked about today that radical islamists, terrorists, can and have used in order to attack us and our citizens and our way of life. And you and all of the people on your teams are out there every single day on the front lines keeping us safe. One of those vulnerabilities was just used 30 days ago when self aloci above killed eight people and injured dozens in new york city on the bike path. And he came from uzbekistan. For those not familiar, this was created in 1995, specifically to help irish immigrants. And since 2007, its estimated 29,000 people from countries that sponsor terrorism, syria, sudan, iran, have actually used this program to dcome to americ. No other country that admits immigrants like we do, a million a year, we are an immigrantfriendly country, has their visas handed out by chance, not no other, but many others like canada, australia, austria, the uk. They dont have a program like this. By chance and lottery, people can gain access to come into our country. So my question, director im sorry acting secretary, is if he had come to the United States today, versus ten years ago, what checks would he have encountered how would it be different. And the fact he came from a country that has a history of terrorism impacted that . Yes, it would have. We also see that the Diversity Program is right for fraud. Today it would be better. But we still agree with your sentiments. What would be different is we have biographics. We have the ability to search social media and those types of things. But it is still one that would introduce risk. So i recently introduced legislation to eliminate lottery. President trump has called for the elimination of this program. Acting secretary duke, do you agree with the elimination of this program . Yes, i support that. Great, thank you. I do want to change gears on another topic deeply troubling to me and i know were in an unclassified setting but this is the mavne program, a program where nongreen card holders, which traditionally we allow to serve in the military. But nongreen card holders, starting in 2008, were allowed to start serving. And it was supposed to be in specific critical career fields. Like languages and other things. To boost our National Security. Unfortunately, im on the Armed Services committee, so weve gotten multiple classified briefings on this. Unfortunately, it looks like the army basically used this to meet its recruiting goals well beyond the intent. And many of these individuals were not vetted properly. And many come from countries that are adversaries with sophisticated foreign intelligence operations, getting a fast track to citizenship and basic training before any vetting went on. I am deeply concerned about the impacts. Now im sure theres many good people that are served in this program. But the potential and vulnerabilities have caused the dod to halt this program. And im just so concerned about the implications of those already in it and the fact they were not vetted and now theyre u. S. Citizens so they clearly have constitutional rights. So i just would like to hear all of your thoughts, and are you aware of this program and what are we doing now to mitigate any of these vulnerabilities and threats for those already through it, because of the buffoonery of what happened that is potentially impacting our National Security. I am aware of the program and that it is suspended. Dhs and i i believe we have to vet every individual. We believe in a Legal Immigration system, but have to balance security and make sure we vet all persons coming into the United States, permanently or temporarily. Director wray, your Counter Intelligence roles, any part youre playing now even to try and mitigate and address these threats potential threats . Well, we try to investigate wherever we can when we get intelligence of the people of the sort youre describing and share that information working with our fellow colleagues in the inner agency. So i would like to follow up in a classified setting as to whether there is any open investigation specifically related to this issue. And i doan this issue. And i do want to ask, mr. Chairman, and insert in the record, we did write a letter together to a usais and weve got the response here. Without objection, so ordered. Director rasmussen, any comments . I was not aware of this particular vulnerability. One thing that i think might contribute to identifying potential sources of concern about in this population is depending on their status, some individuals now are subject to recurrent vetting. The vetting that goes on long after they have been through the initial admission process. That changes, obviously, when they gain status as a citizen, for the reasons you suggest. But it could mean that some members of this population are still subject to some vetting process. Thanks. I am over my time. But i would like to follow up on a classified setting with all of you. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Chairman. And let me just say, i echo the gentle lady from arizonas concerns. Im glad this program is suspended. I met with the director of uscis yesterday and encouraged him to get the classified briefing on this program. With that, chair recognizes the gentleman from wisconsin, mr. Gallacher. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you all of you for being here. We talked about the evolving terrorist threat abroad. It seems isis is losing territory in western iraq and Eastern Syria, which opens up an opportunity for us to exploit a lot of valuable intelligence on the battlefield in the form of biometrics, fingerprints, documents, media devices. And this is vital that we collect it and then find a way to get that information to those outposts that are vetting people who want to come into this country. And these applicants, refuges, asylees, because we have had people who have come into the country tied to terrorist groups. I guess i would direct this to acting secretary duke. To what extent do you think this battlefield information being captured by our military operators and intel folks in the field, being incorporated into your respective aiblgs agencies, operations and investigations . I think this is one of the areas that has improved most, to be honest with you. Dhs is now an active member of the National Security council, as is director rasmussen, and we get the same intelligence, both before and after an incident. And i think the counterterrorism efforts overseas, led by the department of defense and are probably the area ive seen the most progress in. Yeah. What i would add to that is that the battlefield intelligence of the sort youre describing, mr. Gallacher, is most useful to us when it contains specific identity intelligence. When we can learn names, dates of birth, passport numbers, identity document information. So that can be used to feed our database of known and suspected terrorists. That is the intelligence database that all of acting secretary dukes immigration programs is bouncing off of as they are making decisions and vetting potential admissions to the country. So the better, the richer, the deeper that database, the more likely it is were going to have the information that will identify a potential bad actor. It still is imperfect in that you can never have the totality of the information that you would want. But there is no question, that whats happened in iraq over the last several months has given us a wealth of new information thats helpful in this regard. I would just add that and i agree with the sentiments that both my co panelists have expressed. But i would also add that the fbi has people Forward Deployed with the military so were trying to collect biometric information wherever we can and that has turned out to be very useful in some cases to identify people who are then returning or going elsewhere, who werent on peoples lists, whether in the u. S. Or in our foreign partners, as well. And i think going forward, thats going to be another place where we can be more effective. Let me jump in on another issue thats come up quite a bit in the hearing today. Much of what we have learned about terrorists potential use of uavs or uas devices as an aviation threat has been learned from what we see on the battlefield in iraq. And rapid exploitation of that material, rapid sharing here in the homeland so that local Law Enforcement does know that there is a threat to a high school Football Game of the sort we were talking about, a lot of that is derived directly from battlefield intelligence. Its heartening to hear you all three seem to think it is headed in the right direction. As a veteran of the nctc op center and many a night shift spent from 5 00 p. M. To 5 00 p. M. Poring over those databases. Acting secretary duke, i thank you for the important work of the committees task force and denying terrorists entry into the United States. As chairman of that task force, i would like to thank the department for your cooperation. Weve been conducting other review. Were looking forward to releasing the task forces final report in the near future and look forward to working with all of you to implement its recommendations or shore up any areas that you dont think we paid enough focus to. And earlier you discussed how our some of our foreign partners lack the necessary capabilities to close gaps in their security and stop terrorists travel. This matches one of the key findings in our Task Force Report and some of the recommendations will focus on dhs cooperation with our foreign partners. Can you briefly describe some of the work dhs is currently doing with our foreign partners to address any overseas vulnerabilities that pose a threat to our homeland . One of the main areas is using systems that either we have and offer them to use that track people, that track known terrorists. What director rasmussen talked about. We have International Partners feeding into that same known terrorist database. We think that that infosharing is number one. Additionally, documentation. Having the right documentation with the biometrics. And actually, the other part is not only inputting, but using the databases to make their own determinations with the borders so open, especially in europe. Those are a few of the areas. Thank you. I yield the balance of my time. The gentleman yields. And before i close, i also want to also share the concern, secretary duke, you raised in your prepared testimony about the relationship potentially between transNational Criminal organization and potential terrorists that could bring terrorists into the United States. But also weapons of mass destruction that we saw highlighted in the magazine where they talked about the ease with which that could be accomplished. And i think that certainly raises a warning sign. And i think demonstrates the need to get the border secure. I also want to thank director wray. I also share your concern about 702. As for me, this member, this chairman, ill be working closely with other likeminded members to make sure that happens. And director rasmussen, this will be your last testimony before this committee. I just want to commend you this or any committee. Or any committee, hopefully. And i just want to thank you for your service. Youll be missed. But i know youll be close by. I want to thank all three of you for your service. And most importantly, the men and women who serve in your organizations. With that, this were going to take a brief break and then begin with our second panel. [ banging gavel ]. Testifying next at the threat assessment hearing will be representatives of groups coping with radicalization of u. S. Citizens and efforts theyre making to prevent it. Following the hearing, labor secretary Anthony Acosta appears before a Congressional Panel to talk about priorities and policies of his agency, seven months into his tenure. And after that, north korean diplomacy and efforts by western governments and organizations to establish communications with the government and other groups. Tonight, President Trump will hold a rally in pensacola, florida, where hes expected to talk about republican tax reform efforts. Live coverage scheduled for 8 00 eastern on