Transcripts For CSPAN2 Capital News Today 20130712

What you think of its performance over the past few days . And has done many things. They also have attacked china and arrested many people in the media. Thank you. Now, every time they dont like something, i dont think they would do this again. But as i said, you know, i dont think that this could happen again. But of course, people will refuse any dictatorship. Today we have a past president and ousted president and no president. The country will where we always have one president , it is either worthy either. Everything is new for us. For the first time we see that. And, you know, in regards to the revolution, what did you say . You trust it . Well, i do not agree. There are many things at the army has done in the past few days. But there are conflicting reports for what has happened in the people who have died. I do not think the army would have gone and just like that. But there was something happening the revolutionary guard or something. This is the physical process today, to tell them not to use Excessive Force is one. Especially if there is no evidence. It was taken in custody and he was the one who incited all of this. Anyway, i do not want to go into many names. You never know, they might come back. [laughter] but i am against it, i am against this kind of, you know, but you must expect wonders to happen. Things would be restored once we put down the foot and the military will take a step back. I know all of these people who are in government. They are all excellent. For the time being it is a very good picture with egyptians. Is a roadmap for the economy when you have two thirds of the population almost under the age of 30, and about 90 unemployed. How do you deal with this, as each of you have a lot of resources, corruption, a lot of other things that go with it. The time that i spend, we are not very familiar with certain aspects of it. But they said it is done in the United States where you buy shares and whatever. No, there was never some serious thought given to the economy, where as it is the main problem that is almost on the brink that has gone down by half the foreign currency also. All of what you are saying is true. Inflation is part of the economy and it can be hard time the first thing, you know, the third thing is a topnotch economist she is the vice Prime Minister for economics. People must get better they must get their house in order it is the time to be behind the government in order to get the consensus that permits them to get things done. But you have to explain to people that you never treat people as if they are people. You treat them as children. So you have to tell them the truth. What we need today is transparency especially if they dont a deliver or perform. I think that this would be in the cards in the future and it has to be in any case. Thank you were speaking. I have a relative that was just sentenced to five years in prison in egypt. I work with the National Democratic institute and you mention that tomorrow could develop into a grassroots organization. What do you think are the chances for someone like me or an institute to be able to return to egypt to do the work that we do to help parties. I have worked with them and i have defended them. I have been attacked for defending them. I believe that the sole judgment was politicized. So i believe that the people in charge now know what the ngos are. I think that what we need are ngos that must abide by the law. That is that. No one should violate it at all and the rule of law should apply to everyone. I believe it is very possible that this law will be passed an amended and you will be able to follow the law. Im with the American Chamber of commerce in egypt. Id like to ask you about economic assistance and your views about that. You talked about the need for this charity and perform on the ground in egypt because of the perceived austerity would have that would have to happen. What are your views on that and also a bandaid rather than anything significant carrying a political influence. Now the tables have been turned, you have seen the united arab emirates. And how they should act responsibly in terms of supporting egypt. They give. Today is a very serious transitional time. In particular for the economy. Because the unrest and calm in this we must put a stop to it. At lease create jobs, that is what you dont have. The creation of jobs, you dont have Productive Industries that are laborintensive. So i think that the economy is the number one priority. But i have reservations about the imf. Because it is the thing to do and as it is with social unrest as it is in egypt, i dont think that this is the best recipe for chaos. As the recipe for another resistance movement. More people would be affected by that than lack of democracy. We would actually have to think twice to go by the book, it is to see what is the social effects of austerity measures. In 1977 they did the same thing. This is the right thing to do. The reluctance was not so much those measures, but it was a government and they didnt trust and whom they knew didnt have the support of the people and now it is going to be different with the new minister of finance and the new feeling in the country and of course they would be worried about the security. They would be worried about the violence. Thank you very much. We have had an extra 15 minutes of questions and answers. I know that we are exhausted and im afraid there are many questions that many of you want to ask. I apologize if you didnt get a chance to ask. We will have one last question and it will be right here. Thank you for your presentation this afternoon [inaudible] he painted a picture of egypt and this is his style. My question to you is are you optimistic about egypts future. We are all optimistic. But how long . How long when the clouds are over when the sky is clear, you mean. We cannot say more than that. Nobody can predict or hope and we can be wishful so it remains for me to thank everyone what i like best is the questions. Youre watching cspan2 with politics and Public Affairs featuring live coverage of key Public Policy events and the latest nonfiction authors and books. Join in the conversation on social media sites. In a few moments, domestic counterterrorism. In a little more than three hours, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on state department nominees. After that, we will reair it the middle east is to form. On our next washington journal, we will talk with tom price of georgia about the oklahoma administrations oneyear delay of the employer mandate portion of the Health Care Mandate law. And steve cohen joins us to discuss immigration legislation and other items on the congressional agenda. Later the chaplain of the National Center for Education Statistics and Barbara Weller will discuss education priorities. Plus your phone calls and emails and tweets. Each morning at seven eastern on cspan. We wanted a representative look at american life. I also was interested in the recurring pattern that you see with opera and jc and sam walton, people who really began in very humble places and they are not unlike the main ones that reinvent themselves as something new and finding new language that is riveting to americans. Through that, they build an empire and they cannot stop that. It is almost like you have to keep growing as a person or a brand. Eventually it sort of sets in order becomes a parody of itself and in the longer seem to be producing something good. They just continue to produce book after book. Oprah is on the cover of every issue of her magazine. So they become this celebrity that we are familiar with, those that dominate our imaginations in a way that come to replace institutions that have faltered in its period of time. George packer talks about free americans whose american way of life has failed on sunday at 8 00 p. M. On cspan2 q a. Now a House Homeland Security hearing on the Boston Marathon bombings and the domestic counterterrorism efforts are among the witnesses include Rudy Giuliani and director michael leiter. This is a little bit more than three hours. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] the meeting of Homeland Security is meeting today to continue our series of hearings examining the boston bombings of april 15, 2013. I recognize myself in opening statement. I want to thank the witnesses were clearing the today. This is an open hearing and today we will vote to receive classified testimony from department of Homeland Security and the National Counterterrorism center. Unfortunately the fbi has refused to appear in continuous reviews this committees appropriate request for information and documents crucial to investigation into what happened in the city of boston. Three months ago there was a terrorist attack in our country. It is this committees responsibility to find out how we did not the it coming. It concerns me greatly and the problem at preventing the boston bombings includes being witnessed here in this room. The information belongs to the American People. It does not belong solely to the fbi and i sincerely hope that they do not continue to stonewall our inquiry into how this happened. As i said when i started the investigation and we are going to find out what happened and what went wrong and how to fix it. I will not be satisfied until we get the answers to the American People deserve. Justice is just beginning. Today we turn to making sure what he did is prevented from ever happening again. Just weeks ago i walked the streets of boston with my colleague and while the citys resilience and strength were obvious everywhere we went, and this includes our counterterrorism efforts into 9 11. We will look at how far we have come in what is changed to better protect the homeland. Today by looking at other domestic terror attacks on our soil in addition to the boston bombings, we seek to identify systematic vulnerabilities in our defenses could help to prevent these attacks. Since 9 11 the great challenge for Homeland Security are gratis remains. Much information is available and we must make sure that we have the best information for sharing intelligence. In this case, the fbi had investigated the older suspect and his travel overseas to a hotbed of geodesy terrorism ultimately, this type of failure to follow up must now continue this is not what the United States faces today. Al qaedas magazine encourages other extremist to conduct similar attacks. Terrorist within the u. S. Who are inspired by jean hottest rhetoric present a new threat and must be looked at as any less deadly but those abroad. In light of boston, it is more important than ever to find weaknesses that can be fixed for before another attack is attempted for june of 2009, killing one soldier and wounding another, Carlos Bledsoe spent 16 months in yemen added to hottest training camp. He had been interviewed twice before the shooting. Law enforcement agencies were concerned that he may have ties to extremist groups that did not pursue the matter, this shooting at fort hood in november of 2009 is another example of government officials either failing to recognize or failing to pursue a credible threat. A year prior to the terrorist attack, where he killed 13 people and wounded 43 others. Ultimately this information was not shared with fort hood. It is another example of the agencies failing to connect the dots. His father reported his sons extremism and hatred of the west to the u. S. Embassy but one agency failed to alert another. However this Computer System does not share information effectively among databases and consequently he fell off the radar screen to prevent the bomb from going off. Finally the Boston Marathon bombings. When agencies failed to share critical information about terrorists, they fail to see the full picture that appointed could point to an imminent attack. We still do not know if the fbi is was alerted, but we do know that no action was taken. And the Deputy Director of the fbi said even if they had been notified about the travel, the case was closed and it would not have been reopened. These events bring to light two areas that deserve scrutiny. The first is being stoked by between agencies and the second for whether our agencies need to update their policies in order to be noble enough to correct the dynamic threat to this country. It is easy to see why this must be done. Especially when we read the words of our enemies in the most recent issue of the magazine. A poem written declares in what is part of your goal. Whenever i move around around my waist, i wish that i am in america. Chilling words make it clear that enemies applaud the actions and they will try again and again. And we must be better prepared. The chair now recognizes the Ranking Member of the committee. Thank you for calling todays hearing. I want to thank the witnesses for agreeing to appear. We will explore five terrorist incidents that have occurred within the United States since the attack of september 11, 2001. In june of 2009, Carlos Wetzel shot two people at an Army Recruiting center in larocque, arkansas. He was found guilty and is serving a life sentence. In november 2009, a major in the u. S. Army opened fire at at fort hood, texas. Jury selection for his trial begins this week. In december of 2009, a Christmas Day bomber was arrested in michigan after trying to detonate an explosive aboard a plane and he was convicted and is serving a full life sentence in a super max prison in colorado. In may of 2010 he tried to detonate a bomb in times square and he was convicted and is serving a life sentence in federal prison. In april of 2013, two bombs detonated during the Boston Marathons killing three people and wounding 260 individuals in one suspect dead and the other macs in turn makes his first public appearance in federal court today. So i would like to begin todays hearing by pointing out the similarities in the limited selection. They have been convicted and are serving sentences. It appears that the people who committed these attacks were radicalized throughout the United States. In at least two cases the primary means appears to have come from homeland contact. At least three cases they were young men and it was seen that these cases stood for several propositions. First, the federal court system is perfectly capable of handling terrorism cases. As a matter fact, in 2009 alone, department of justice saw more terrorism related charges and any other federal crime. Second, is none of these cases were carried out by an organized group, it was seen that terrorists had changed their methods and they had shifted their focus to identifying particular individuals. A change in tactics that cause us to change our response. Here the response should focus on acts perpetrated by extremist. Because none of these attacks were carried out by an organized group, we can conclude that our efforts abroad have been successful in disrupting their networks. Because these attacks involve violent radicalization of disillusioned young men beyond teaching and Community Leaders to effectively engage in these situations which may cause these routes of anger to grow. Prevention is likely to be more Cost Effective than surveillance or trials or wars. While this focuses on attacks carried out by muslim americans, these lessons we should take from this hearing and should not focus on any particular religious group. We must expand our focus. By now we should know that terrorist violence is not limited to any ideology or nation. As the law center reported in march of 2013, the number of conspiracy minded patriot groups on the american radical right reached an alltime high in 2012. The fourth Consecutive Year of growth. They concluded that these groups will continue to grow and become more militant during president obama second term and due to the National Debate we have applied them to the evolving face of terror, both at home and abroad. Additionally, we are here to be proactive and we should focus on the vulnerabilities that remain in the construction contract constructive accents available to the congress. We need to understand why one of the accused bombers was listed on to federal databases but available to travel to russia and we need to understand the vast and most costeffective way to fix that problem we can find a solution to point the finger. The choice is ours. The Christmas Day bomber even though terrorist do not board the flight in the United States, the government spent about 800 million and today those machines have been removed from the airports because americans decided that they were not willing to give up their privacy for security. A few years and 800 million later, we have found a solution that allows us to preserve privacy while maintaining security. Also we are here to be proactive and we need to understand that solutions could not be reached with dialogue and an open discussion of the facts. In the least at least two of the cases we are here to examine and they have yet to be tried in a court of law. What a verdict has been rendered, i hope that we can look at the Boston Marathon cases and it may include words spoken in this room. Since september 11, we look forward to a full discussion of actions in a bipartisan manner. I yield back. I think the Ranking Member. In corresponding with government witnesses, the members of the second panel have indicated that the topic we are examining today is of a sensitive nature and include Law Enforcement information. Therefore it appears the best path forward is for the hearing to recess after the panel has concluded and reconvene in a classified session. This includes the house of representatives that the hearing be closed to the public at that time. Emotion is in order and is not debatable. It is now subject to a recorded vote and the clerk will call the roll. [roll call] [roll call] [roll call] rococo. [roll call] [roll call] [roll call] [roll call] [roll call] [roll call] the clerk will report the tally to 23 for an end preconcert. The chair recognizes the motion. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I did vote. But if i might engage, as you well know, we have gone for the through the last couple of weeks with the public expressing concern, not particularly the topic of this hearing but concerned about their own security and their own privacy. This might be interpreted as a committee desiring to hide information from the public. Another those of us who voted to not want to hide information from the public. This hearing is specifically to protect information that directly is perceived by those witnesses to have a direct National Security impact and it is not to hide Vital Information from the american public. The gentlewoman is correct and i appreciate you making that point. It is unfortunate the committee will recess at the conclusion of the first panel and reconvene at 9 00 a. M. On thursday, july 9. We are now pleased to have three distinguished witnesses to discuss this important topic. First, we are very pleased to have Rudy Giuliani and he needs little introduction here. He served as mayor during the terrorist attacks on September September 11, 2001. Prior to his services, he served as a u. S. Attorney and many would argue it is the best Attorneys Office in the nation. From 1983 until 1989, throughout his career, he has received many awards and accommodations, including being time magazines person of the year and receiving the honorary knighthood from Queen Elizabeth to in 1997. He served as director at the National Terrorism center from june 2008 until july of 2011. He remained a highly respected voice on terrorism threats on National Security and currently he is a senior counsel to the chief executive officer and in addition he serves as a National Security analyst for nbc news. Doctor hoffman is at the center for Security Studies and a tenor professor at georgetown university. He was at the Central Intelligence agency between the reservoir in 2006 and he served and as adviser on counterterrorism to the provisional authority in baghdad, iraq, during the spring of 2003. Thank you both for being here today. A full statement will appear in the record. We now recognize mayor giuliani for five minutes for the opening statement. [inaudible conversations] sumac it is a privilege to testify before you on this important subject. Since september 11, 2001, it is really a day that goes by that im not asked by someone are we safer today than we were before september 11. The answer to that question has never been a clear yes or no. In some ways the answer is yes we are safer. We know the ways, but we havent given them enough attention to certain areas that make us vulnerable or we have not anticipated this as of yet. I would say that probably the prevailing view right now among most experts is that we have improved our safety and security with regard to attacks by air in our safety and security with regard to attacks by recognized terrorist groups. But that we are now more vulnerable to attack by single individuals are much smaller groups who are acting on their own. We have seen a few very recent attacks like that, boston is one of them, little rock, fort hood before that. The attempted attack in times square, the successful attack in the air attack that was foiled in detroit. Of course the one in boston is probably one that got everyone riveted around the idea that the small attacks are now not something that we must really worry about. They are not new, and they have actually gone back quite some time. Maybe it is a failing as it takes us so long to identify these things is a new method of attack. It goes back to lease 2005 in london when essentially a very similar thing happened. Homegrown terrorists in england, people who were uk citizens attacked the city of london and it just so happens i was there that day and observed that attack and got very involved in the aftermath of it. From that point on we also should have been alerted to the fact that this is a very deliberate part of the islamic extremist ideology to use single individuals and smaller groups as a way of attacking. Going back to the early part of this century, bin laden was encouraging people to do that. One of the things that maybe we can examine is why it takes so long, 10 years, to recognize this is a new form of attack when this is in fact a very old form of attack. The individuals and small groups largely operate on their own. That usually they have some training or encouragement from a more organized were established group. And they are part of the extremists or jihadist message. Sometimes with encouragement or support, very rarely completely on their own. They operate in ways that make them much harder to detect they are more difficult to detect because they engage in many fewer electronic Wire Communications with organizations that we have under physical or technological surveillance, or that we have infiltrated with undercover agents. A Large International group hamas has to triple with some of the things we have put in this. They have to communicate, transfer money and equipment, they have to move people. They almost always have to deal with someone giving us information. The chances of us detecting a large and well organized plot is much greater than a young man or two young men running on their own to do this, where maybe they make a few contacts, but relatively few in the avalanche of information that comes to Services Every day. One or two people who are motivated on their own following the hottest websites and attending mosques that do that by any means. The first attack that really shocked the country was inspired in union city by a cleric that is serving 100 years in prison. These individuals can be extremely dangerous. Because although they operate dependent on one another, sometimes as independent actors are connected by a welldefined common cause. Islamic extremism or jihadist. Even if no single one can do the damage of the september 11 smaller more frequent attacks that can kill people or shocked the country or show us how vulnerable we are, it can just as well serve the goal of these jihadist groups which can try to destabilize us or make us become less confident in our system of government. So how do we deal with the smaller groups. As a threshold matter, we shouldnt begin by stopping doing what were doing on the larger groups. This has actually been a very effective issue and it would be very unfortunate if we were to take some resources away from dealing with a larger groups in order to deal with a smaller groups. Should be an expansion rather than a contraction because these groups still pose a mortal threat to us. And maybe this new method of terrorism and the old method is still very much alive and well. Theyre planning to come and bomb us in some kind of a spectacular way. Any attempt to back off that and the father we have conquered them would be exceedingly unrealistic and dangerous. We have not conquered these groups. Whether we recognize this is almost completely irrelevant because they are at war with us. And will we recognize that or are we going to fool ourselves into a dangerous state of denial. However, the first thing we must recognize about these groups is that we have to be able to identify them with precision. Violent jihad is them is an ideological serial killer. The way to catch a serial killer come which i have had experience with, is to recognize the connection between the murders, find the Common Threads in the shared motivations and then hopefully you catch the serial killer. If you go on for years not recognizing the Common Threads, being afraid to identify the Common Threads and you cant say state the logical conclusion, then those killings go on. It is absolutely vital that we identify our enemy correctly. Its very hard to find someone that you dont identify correctly with. These attacks have been connected by a common motivation and a singular purpose. This times square attempt, those who announced it and they are all adherents to the islamic domination and the murder of free and innocent people in order to accomplish that goal. Failure to recognize this leads to wasted effort and analyzing the avalanche of data presented every day. We often describe it and it is accurate but these people are looking for a needle in a haystack. It is not just a needle, its a needle that has very clear identifiable characteristics. We have to when it interferes it helps us to discover this in advance. This is the benefit of hindsight. It wouldve been would have been a much greater chance of preventing forth with impossibly, possibly the boston bombings. It is relevant that they had been less as potential islamic extremist terrorists. They respond to the message that they get from above. It requires understanding that this signal sent by the chief executive, the president , governor, the mayor, the head of the fbi, they respond to that. That it is inappropriate to label someone an islamic stream extremist to matter how compelling the proof will make them reluctant to pursue leads that would otherwise be perceived. If the party line is to never use the words of islamic terrorists, it is paralyzed by a greater fear of being wrong if they could identify someone is a terrorist and they can be wrong about preventing a bombing. Despite repeated indications of his views not only does it fail to identify him as a terrorist, but includes the United States army and not has been extended so far the Current Administration describes this as workplace violence. This is dangerous to do this. It leads to all sorts of mistakes being made by the bureaucracy you realize they cannot identify people correctly without great fear that they will be in trouble. Even so, it would surely be enormously helpful if the fort hood exact were described as an act of terror. He was yelling as he was slaughtering people. We dont need to discover his motivation. He did explain his motivation to us. We just failed to listen to it. Prior to the boston bombings, the motivation is not as clear. We cannot be certain that that played a role with investigating with the intensity that it should have been done. But it is certainly a question worth asking, what other steps have been taken if the fear wasnt so great and we identify someone as a terrorist who wasnt. That is certainly something that is absolutely required. It will require a very different strategy. It will require a significant involvement of local Law Enforcement. If the genesis is domestic, which it obviously is, our only chance to detect it in advance as if the fbi and other federal agencies use local Law Enforcement as their eyes and ears. They are only about 12,000 for the entire world. There are 800,000 Police Officers. 35,000 Police Officers nationwide and if youre trying to find a needle in a haystack in a community in america, the fbi cannot do it. They just dont have the numbers to do that. Boston police, they have the numbers to do this. The reality is that they have to be trained in how to detect terrorism. And the Police Officers can be trained to do to look for terrorists. Giving me signs of a possible terrorist threat. Over the past 15 years and certainly over the past 2000 years, going back to the 1960s and 1970s, i have worked with the fbi and local police and they have made enormous progress in bringing in state and local Law Enforcement. It is Lightyears Ahead light years ahead of what it was when i first got involved in the 1970s. It was established in 1970s and i work with it as the United States attorney in charge of what they were doing and is the as the mayor of new york city who supplied the Police Officers. The cooperation there is superb and i could give you one example after another of terrorist acts that they have presented in new york when i was u. S. Attorney and mayor and now the reality is more has to be done in order to foster this cooperation. The committee will find out if the fbi notified them. Apparently he didnt get to the police chief about the information from russia. So i believe that there was an obligation to notify. I dont know if it happened or did not happen. But there is a second reason why they should have been notified and it wasnt just to notify the Boston Police but to ask for their help. If the fbi receives notification from the government of russia that a man is a suspected terrorist, where would you go immediately . Where should you go to get information about that. Had to be going back for a purpose that was nefarious. Those dots werent connected. That information was not passed on to the Boston Police, who would have been in a position to put him under surveillance. The fbi couldnt do that with it small forces and thats the area i would examine. I think it would be of great between fit to Law Enforcement. Why did that did the connection get maybe . Maybed did. If not, why didnt it get made . And most importantly for the future, lets make certain it does get made. This isnt the last act like this were going to face. So, i think you have some very important questions to ask, and in assessing our level of danger, from and our defenses against terror, both president george w. Bush and probe barack probe we have to succeed every time and the terrorist only have to succeed once. And our response must be subjected to criticism and excruciating analysis, free of Political Correctness and constantly reevaluated to reduce our percentage of failure and terrorism to as close to zero as possible market and what as possibility and i encourage you. Thank you for your testimony. Chair now recognizes mikeat leiter. Pleasure to be back in front of you, an honor to be with both mayor giuliani and bruce hoffman, two counterterrorism icons before reflecting on the instances where our defenses were not perfect, want to begin withour successes because theyre a lot more previous leapt than the tragic counterpart, and im always very careful saying this because the loss of 18 people is a tragedy and i dont want to underestimate that. I have met at Dover Air Force base the bodies of fallen showeds soldiers, but frankly in my view, it is nothing short of remarkable that since 9 11, we have had a total of 18 People Killed in the homeland by al qaeda inspired terrorrity. 13 at not hood, fort hood, one at little rock, and four in boston. These were all tragic and have enormous psychological effect on the country, but this toll is astounding, and i would venture potentially dangerous guess, but if i asked the members of this committee on september 12, 2001, how Many Americans would be killed by terrorists in the United States over the subsequent 12 years, not one of you would say 18. Many of you would say, 1800. Some of you smooth some of might say 18,000. So our regard is far from perfect but its pretty good. And the riots of success come in many forms. First, incredibly successful offensive strikes in pakistan and yemen and elsewhere that crushed al qaeda overseas. Excellent human and tactical surveillance in intelligence to penetrate the networks, abroad and develop include. Improved screen screening of cargo, vastly improved information sharing. Improved domestic counterterrorism intelligence investigationes led by the fbi but very much done in conjunction with dhs and state and local authorities. As we saw in boston, First Responder and Community Preparedness after an take to reduce the conferences of that attack, and finally a piece which is central and can often be lost in the counterterrorism dialogue, unfortunately, Community Engagement, especially with the American Muslim Community to reduce the attractiveness of the message and ensure that the Community Feels theyre one with the governments intentions. The concrete results of this is a very long list, but very briefly, the 2011 arrest of khallid in texas, the 2010 attempt to take down u. S. Cargo planes by al qaeda. The arrest of the new york city subway system bomber. 2008 arrest of the man who tried to attack new york city trains. A 2007 attack in fort dix, and in 2006, the operation to down numerous airlines. Our defenses arent perfect. But i want to stress that i say this completely apolitically we have to accept that counterterrorism perfection is impossible. This isnt an excuse. I take responsibility for those plots i didnt help stop and that we didnt stop before an attack happened. But we do have to have realistic expectations so we dont have partisan witch hunts after the fact. So what should the American People and you expect . That it is far less likely that we have largescale successful attacks, and it is significantly less likely we have smallscale attacks. Even some of the examples the committee has mentioned as failures, i would note it is a layering of counterterrorism defenses which helped make them not be successful. The case of times square. At it is undoubtedly true we did not identify asad before the fact but one of the reasons his bomb failed was he knew that the fbi had tripwire programs in place and if he bought a certain type of fertilizer, they would be tipped off. The result . He budget a bought a type of fertilizer that wouldnt explode. The Christmas Day bomber. We failed to identify the individual but what was the al qaeda forced to do . Use a dealt detonator that failed to work. All of that being said, what are some quick lessons i would learn and urge this commitee to learn from the five not where we didnt fully succeed. First, and i think i have a slightly different view than the mayor recognizing recall kazizeation is critical. We need improve our training. We cant be afraid to train. Both the fbi and state and local officials so they understand radicalization, and at least in the case of fort hood, failure to recognize that radicalization process, and major asans violent inclinations were a factor. But with that, i must say in my six and a half years working intelligence and counterterrorism for two president s, the idea that Political Correctness in any systemic way affected our efforts to find, locate, and either kill or arrest terroriists, is simply beyond me. Second, al qaeda. Inspired messages on the internet are here to stay and we have to do more to understand them, track them, and to some extent disrupt them. The case of boston is an interesting one, and i do believe that the fbi, Homeland Security, state and local officials, need to Work Together more closely to allocate responsibility, to monitor those webses that produce some of the recall caddizing influences we have seen. I believe this is a current weakness. Third. The shift from radicalization to mobilation is incredibly hard to detect and is resource intensive. If we could put surveillance on everybody who is recall caddized this would be easy. But we cant stop them. We cant with federal and roo sources and state and local resources. There are too many. And detecting the Tipping Point where someone moves from radicalize to mobilize is the very hardest piece, and i believe in the case of Carlos Bledsoe, the federal government failed to do that effectively, what is not clear to me there were resources in place that would have been able to follow him sufficiently to stop the shooting at the Army Recruiting center. Fourth, information sharing within the u. S. Government has to be maintained. And i think the case of fort hood does represent the low point in this. I it was a failure to share information between the fbi and department of defense and a failure to provide some information to the National Counterterrorism center. This has to continue to be pressed, and even in light of what we have heard about nsa surveillance, i believe this committee must continue to press the executive branch that this information is provided to agencies to connect the dots. Joint Terrorism Task forces of the fbi are credit exactly do excellent work critical and do excellent work but they dont do everything. In those cases the fbi and the jtts cannot continue to investigate. When they dont have the resources or theyre deemed not to be of sufficient threat. In those cases we must create a better system, linking thefish state and local authorities to pick up those smaller pieces, in my view, although we have invested an enormous amount in state and Fusion Centers theyre not sufficiently tied together. Chairman will call and Ranking Member thompson, you have known me for the past several years be very committed to this problem. I would urge this committee to keep the pressure on the administration, but to also provide the service that you must to the American People, to convince them that the members of the federal government, state and local officials, are not spying for the sake of spying and you as a committee are in fact holding the executive branchs feet to the fire to ensure their Civil Liberties and privacy are being protected. I thank miss lee for making the statement. Much of this cannot be spoken about in open hearings but as much as we can we must, because without the trust of the American People, the fbi, the cia, the department of Homeland Security, the Police Departments across the country, will be looked at as the enemy and we cannot allow that to happen. Once that happens our efforts to actually disrupt these terrorist acts will be seriously undermined. Thank you. Thank you. Chair you recognizes professor hoffman for five minutes. Chairman mccall, Ranking Member thompson, distinguished members of the committee. My humble apologies for being so laid, my apologies to your staff and my fellow witnesses. Thank you for the opportunity to testify. Its a great honor to do so besides to distinguished americans as mayor giuliani and mr. Leitner. Today the core Al Qaeda Organization is widely seen on he verge of strategic collapse. Even though al qaeda may be in decline, al qaeda isnt. The movements ideaol continues to resonate and attract new adherents. Al qaeda remains an appealings brand in northwest africa. The movement also retains its visceral hatred of the United States and the west, along with the potential continue fire and motivate individuals to engage in deadly acts of home grown terrorism as we likely saw last april in boston. For more than a decade, al qaeda has withstood arguably the greatest international onslaught directed against terrorist organization in history. Further, it is consistently shown itself capable of adapting and adjusting to even the most consequential countermeasures directed against it, having, despet all odds, survived for quarter century. Throughout its history the oxygen that al qaeda depends upon has been in thes of or access to physical sank area and safe haven. In the turn bent wake of the arab spring ask the political upheavals and instability followed al qaeda has the ability to transfer toe holds and in the sigh sinai and north and west africa into outposts. Hence, while osama bin ladens death inflicted a crushing blow on al qaeda, its not clear its necessarily been a fatal one. Today al qaeda is arguably situated in more places than it was on september 11, 2001. It maintains a presence in some 14 different theaters operation. Almost all of these environments are less amenable than others, such as in southeast asia. Others have become sights of resuscitation such as in iraq and north africa or the expansion such nasir ya and syria, mali, mauritania. Al qaeda has recall caddized persons who are citizens of and residents in the United States and canada and inspiring and motivating them to engauge in terrorist acts whether on their own, such as oaccord in fort hood in 2009, or at the direction and behest of al qaeda senior leadership, such as the plot to stage suicide attacks on in the new york city subway in 2009, and the more recent plot in canada that wag was reportedly orchestrated by al qaeda commanders based in iran. The continuing challenge that the United States will face is that al qaedas core ideology remains attractive both to a hard core radicals and also capable of drawing new at minorities into its ranks. Alawlaki is still a recruiter, and then the tsarnaev brothers, products of the violence in chechneya and roche. And the violence on women and children around the world is a salient motivating factor in their radicalization, thats may also explain why the american invasions of iraq and afghanistan were cited by tsarnaev as the reason behind his and his older brothers bombing of the Boston Marathon. There is no one path to razz calizeation, individuals will always be attracted to violence in different ways. These radicalized person come from every walk of life, from marginalized people working in menial jobs, long criminal histories, to persons from upperly middle class background with university and perhaps even graduate degrees. The Common Element in their radicalization process reflects the individuals deep commitment to their faith, often recently discovered, theyre admiration of terrorist movements who they seeing a striking a blow against their enemies wherever they are, hatred of theyre adopted homes, especially in the United States and west, and ay profoundly shared sense of alienation from their host countries. At the start of the war on terrorism a does years ago the enemy was clear and plainly in sight. A large terrorist organization situated mostly in one geographic location and it was led by an identifiable leader. Today when the borders between domestic and interNational Terrorism have blurred, when our adversaries are not only final terrorist organizations but enigmatic visits, complete rethinking of our counterterrorism policies and architecture is needed. We built an effective defense against the previous threat. Our challenge today is to develop new defenses against this more eform mouse, amorphous, individualized threat. But the failure to destroy al qaeda and the ideology that fuels and sustains them. Thank you. Professor hoffman, chair now recognizes himself for five minutes for questions. Let me just state at the outset, its the constitutional responsibility of this committee to conduct oversight into these matters, to get to the truth and also to find solutions, and it is the intention of this chair to issue a report of findings and recommendations to improve the system where there may be failures. Mayor, id like to ask you a couple of questions. First, let me say i agree with you that our inability to define the threat because of Political Correctness i think poses a danger to the safety of americans. With respect to boston, you spoke of jtts. You have a unique background to bring to the table here. Youre high up in the justice department, then u. S. Attorney, then mayor of new york with the nypd, you have seen all the federal, state and local assets that are in play here. After 9 11, the gel was to connect the goal was to connect the dots and the jtts was the model of cooperation and communication, and for the most part i think director, theyve been very successful. The ones i worked will have been very successful. Theyre all in the same room. The walls have been taken down. They talk to each other. Thats how theyre supposed to work in the case of boston, i raise some concerns to me. I wanted to echo a few points you made as well. We had Police Commissioner ed davis come testify before the committee. He is testifying before the senate as i speak. His testimony was interesting because when i asked him, did you know about the russian warning . His answer was, no. I said did you know that the fbi opened up a criminal investigation into tamerlan his answer was, no. Did you know he traveled overseas to dagestan, which in the context of the russian, thats what they warneds about. He was going to meet with extremists and come back. The answer was, no. In spite of the fact he has four boston Police Officers on the jtts. He didnt know about it. And the Boston Police didnt know about it. Thats an issue. Then to make the bold assertion that even if they knew it was foreign travel to the jihad part of the world, chef anyone rebels fight alongside al qaeda but to make the assertion that would have made any difference because the case was closed raises a whole other set of issues. When i talked to ed davis and we went to boston, mr. Quieting and keeting and i, he said, its hard to say i didnt know about it. I didnt know about. He said my guys know the streets. The fbi does their job and do it well. But my guys know the streets. And the mayor, as you pointed out, local Law Enforcement are the eyes and ears. On the ground. You have 12,000 fbi agents. Nationwide, and you have 800,000 Police Officers nationwide. 35,000 of them in new york. New york has stood out. So, it seems to me, theres a great force multiplier but 12 years after 9 11, and we still are not seeing that kind of coordination and communication taking place. And when the fbi said we dont have the resources, why dont you leverage state and locals . They want to help. The Boston Police wanted to be part of this. They wanted to be at the table. They wanted to be at that interview. The want to know about the russian warning. There werent that many leads and werent that many foreign threats coming into the boston area. So, its a general question, mayor, but 12 years later, what has gone wrong here and what can we do to fix this . Mr. Chairman, i dont know if what went wrong is systemic or just a thing that happened within that organization. I dont know if the information was communicated within the jttf, so that one of the four Boston Police knew about this, and they didnt communicate it to their chief commissioner, whether it wasnt community indicated to the Police Officers. Its hard to say. I dont know if this is an individual thing that went wrong or a systemic thing going wrong. I do know that if you ask me, what chose to any strategy have to be to deal with this new threat of isolated, individual, small groups, the emphasis on state and local Law Enforcement becomes critical here. Because if were talking about a Large International group like al qaeda. Then the cia, the nsa, the fbi. Theyre going to be the main actors in being able to find them, because theyre operating internationally. But if youre saying to me, as we all agree, that our threat now are two young men living in boston, or somebody living in philadelphia or someone living in new york or someone living in las vegas, only going to find them with the fbi is not going find. The only going to find them with the local police in my experience of i dont know 40 ho years of working with the fbi and local police and whatever, it seems to me the break down when it happens it happens less often now. The fbi shares a lot more than it ever did 20 years ago. The breakdown comes about if you really ask the fbi, theyll say we cant trust the local police. They might make a few exceptions. They might say we can trust new york or boston but we cant trust the local police. Theyll leak the information, maybe inadvertently because theyre not as professional as we are. Heres the reality. What the fbi should do is then honestly confront that with the Police Department go to that Police Department and say, we can share information like this with ray kelly or with this department, that department, some other department, but we have concerns about yours, and we want to work with you to train them so that were confident we can share information with them. Listen. Even the fbi has occasionally had leaks. So nobody can be hole holier than thou about this. So if the fbi isnt comfortable sharing with the local Law Enforcementthefbi has to confront local Law Enforcement and get local Law Enforcement in that area to straighten out whatever the inadequacy is. Because we cant deal with this by not sharing information. Were going to miss other bostons if the federal government doesnt engage local Police Indian a very, very big way there are theyre our only answer to find these isolated, single individuals, small groups; so i would say, in i dont know if this is the case in boston. Im really giving you my experience more than what happened the boston. Whenever i confronted the situation of even when i was the mayor, and my jttf didnt get information i thought it should get, very offer i got the were not sure about the reliability of this particular Police Officer, this particular unit. Well then you come to me in advance and tell me youre not, and lets straighten it out. Because its really important that we share this information. At least that would be my thank you. Even at the federal level, we dont know if the fbi got the travel information on him. Thats a whole other breakdown. And going back to state and local director, when it comes back to just this radicalized web sites, mosques, literally kicked out of a mosque, seems to me the Boston Police know the streets, they could have taken a second look at this individual. But that just didnt happen. And i understand 20 20 is hindsight. Whatter prohibit baseness the current structure you would recommend improving . I know the four boston Police Officers cant talk to their police chief. Mr. Chairman, first of all, lets remember in this case, wouldnt have been the Boston Police department. We woo have been the cambridge Police Department, and theyre a much smaller department, but theyre not always going to have a situation where a local Police Department is even represented on the jttf, and in terms of tough fiscal times now thats becoming more and more of the case to your question about what they can do my understanding of how the jttf works, the boston or cambridge Police Departments could have asked for permission to share that with their chief. I think that is so the jttf knows where the information is going. I think that is probably good protocol. My guess is, all too often, it means they dont ask at all and it doesnt get shared. I do think that on a more systemic basis, as the mayor implied, we need to make sure that every jttf, when an investigation is concluded, that information is effectively shared back with the Host Department so that the department can decide whether using its own Police Powers it really should be concluded or whether or not they can do more where the fbi cant. I have to ask. You understand, as an attorney, mr. Chairman, there are real civil liberty issues here, and in this case, of course, we have a bomber and we say they should have fed so it hem and we would see he has been radicalized in many other instances sharing information about someone who the fbi investigated, they say theres nothing wrong and now were going to start sharing and let the local police keep quiet surveillance on them. In this case the russian warning was the threat was fulfilled by the overseas travel which takes it to a whole other level and should have raid an additional level of scrutiny. I see my time is way over expired, mr. Ranking anybody and ill now recognize you for questions. Ill allow mr. Leitner to finish his statement. Mr. Chairman i dont disagree that the travel overseas is something that the fbi or anyone would want to know and would consider. Its my understanding they were notified. It didnt for the agent, change his conclusion it should be closed. But my point is, when we share this information, which i think needs to be done for all the reasons the mayor says, the fbi cant do this, local police have an understanding. This needs to be done in a systemic way, so that the Boston Police, the Cambridge Police, the Massachusetts State Police can say these 100 cases the fbi is done with. Do we care about them and what should be do about them . And then they also have to make the decision, is this okay . Is this permissible under our local Police Authority that the fbi doesnt have . That requires real oversight in massachusetts, in washington, to make sure thats not being done in an inappropriate manner. Thank you. I think we picked up a lot of information. After we created dhs, after the unfortunate incident of 9 11, Congress Also tried to legislate the culture of organizations by saying, you must share information. We told the cia you must Start Talking a little more to the fbi, and so we did it. But along the way, we ran up on something called need to know. From an intelligence standpoint, and some of us say, well, what do you mean by need to know . Well, we decide whether we need to share it with the next organization. Mayor, have you seen a lessening of that are or we still caught in the culture of telling people just what you want them to know, rather than a fullphased sharing of intelligence . And ask mr. Lite lighter in the same question. This is a situation of just not need to know. Its need to get help. So, it would seem to me that the fbi should have communicated with the local police, boston, cambridge, whatever, all of us, to get help. Not just to let them know. The fbi was present with a significant fact, the russians identified this man as a suspected terrorist. That could either by valid information, the fbi might have thought the russia was misleading us. But you needed help. So where are you going to go to get information about this . Russia wouldnt give you anymore. The man lived in boston,or quite some time. As a matter of help you would go to the Boston Police and say, what do you know about system that part is the part i dont understand. The need to know part, i think that due to the efforts of congress, both president s, president bush, president obama, i think a lot has changed to the positive. That is why this is a more unusual circumstance. 20 years ago this would be the usual thing that happens. This is unusual largely because the fbi is sharing much better now than it did before. So i dont have the answer to, and i think thats what your inquiry is about. I dont know why che didnt they didnt go to the local police, not only to warn them but to ask for their help and kind of solving this puzzle. Was tsarnaev a terrorist or were the russians either wrong or misleading us, trying to get us involved in the whole chechneya problem. Congressman thompson, i think it is still a problem, and at its nub, its that people people generally will share now but they generally share once they determine that something is relevant to a terrorism investigation that someone else might be able to help them on. And thats too late. The fact is, you have to share volumes of information across the u. S. Government, for example, travel information from dhs northeasts to needs to go to fbi and generally does. But there are often disputes about that because they say, its just travel information, not counterterrorism information. The answer is, you dont know if its counterterrorism information until you have it and until you can compare it to other information and find connections between those dots. So i think the committees pressure needs to be on ensuring the people are sharing core information they collect from the very start, even if theres no indication yet that its relevant to an individual investigation. Dr. Hoffman, do you have any comment on that . Well, fellow witnesses know far more about this than die but seems that two things. One is that the main challenge is how we interject the radicalization process and how you intervene before a crime is committed and how you identify this process of people embracing violence. I think the important point is we should look at the Boston Marathon attacks as an we shouldnt look at the Boston Marathon attacks as an aberration. This is going to be the next generation threat and getting it right is enormously important. Thank you. Yield back. Chair recognizes the gentleman from new york, mr. King. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you for holding this hearing on the boston bombing which i aggrieve with dr. Hoffman, going to be the rule rather than the exception as we go forward. Let me also just for the record state that as far as lone wolves, that the Christmas Day bomber in 2009 was not trained and set out on a mission, and also the times square bomber was trained by the ptn pakistan. 0 so there was an international nexus. And let me thank the witnesses for their testimony. Let me just say, with mayor giuliani, when i was listening to the bro duke and he mentioned you being elevated to knighthood by Queen Elizabeth, to the days taking the subway in brooklyn and manhattan, of all the thing toes, over in thought it would be the knight of the british empire. I try to keep it secret. Thank you for bringing that up. Let me just if we can focus on what happened here in boston. Actually, thereore i think i the Boston Police had four detectives with top secret clearance on the jttf. They were never told about the letter from russia. They knew nothing about it. The commissioner knew nothing about it. The commissioner then went back and during the seven years he was commissioner, went back and found out that during the seven years, his Police Officers, his detectives, had never been given any top secret information by though fbi. This was kept from them. I know its different in new york, in Suffolk County but i was struck by this, and you add to that when the younger brother was in the oh, being interrogated, he said that they had been on their way to times square to carry out a bombing in times square, and the fbi never told nypd about that. It was four days later when commissioner kelly found out that threat heard against new york, and the fbis excuse was, well, he was in the hospital, couldnt have carried out the bombing. At that stage no one knew who else was involved in the plot and at the very least the fbi should have contacted the nypd and said they had been on their way to carry out an attack in times square. I think the fbi has a lot to explain here, and the fact theyre not here, they have stonewalled us completely since the boston bombings, i think its unacceptable and we talk about information sharing, among all levels of government and different agencies. The fact that the fbi is not sharing information with its committee, which has jurisdiction over Homeland Security is totally up acceptable heat. Stand together on both sides of the aisle and insist the fbi be much more accountable to us. But i dont mean this leading question but do you think jtfs can function effectively if top secret information is not transmilted to them by the fbi . For instance, with the older brother, when the fbi was notified by the russians, apparently under attorney general guidelines they were not allowed to go to the mosque to see if he had been radicalized. Or talk to his imam. The fact if they had gone to the bond police, as im sure all of you know, the police have so many informants on the street so many people on the streets they know people that, could i ha saved, do you know anything about him . And that would have been out there so when he was thrown out of the mosque in 2012. He was put out of the mosque for radical behavior. That would have been known. The police could have brought that to the fbis attention. The fbi doesnt have people working on the streets like this. So, again, dont mean its a leading question but without that sharing of information between the fbi and the police. I mean, the whole purpose of the jttf is to share information. So, now Police Officer on the jttf should be cleared for getting classified information. Its a perfect opportunity to do that. A perfect opportunity to clean up the problem i mixed earlier i mentioned earlier where the fbi go back to the earlier era of Law Enforcement, the fbi was probably correct in many cases that you couldnt share information with some local Police Department because they were unprofessional, they were corrupt, they werent going to handle the information correctly. Thats largely not true today. And probably some exceptions to that. But what the fbi should do is make certain that it has the ability to communicate with local police. And if that means going to the local Police Commissioner and saying, you have to tighten up your department, you have too solve these problems so we can share with you, the fbi should do that. Particularly since the new threat were facing is a threat where were going to be looking for people in americas communities, in americas neighborhoods, in americas homes, the fbi cant possibly do that. The thing that confounds me about this, which as i said before, its not a so much their failure to warn but their failure to ask for help, which they needed. Congressman, think the mayor is exactly right. If youre on the joint Terrorism Task force, you have a cleans you should have access to this information. Now, in this case, the question would still be what do the Police Officer does in working with their Home Department after the fbi interviews tsarnaev and says, hes not a a threat. Lets just assume thats a reasonable conclusion at the time. How can Boston Police, how become mass state police, Cambridge Police, pick up what the fbi no longer can cover in i will say i dont mean to be an fbi apologist here mitchell understanding is the fbi not in its Law Enforcement role but actually had visited that mosque and had engaged with the mosque in the past, on a Community Engagement front, which is very important parole for the fbi Important Role for the fbi and others to get information. But we have to continue to encourage the fbi, dh and state and local authorities to engage with mosques in the same way they engage with all community organizations. The fbi never told anyone on the jttf about the russian inquiry. Also they did not question anyone in the mosque about the older brother, and also afterwards, even when the brothers pictures were on television all over the world, nobody from the mosque came forward to identify them. One tensecond remark. I fully agree with what the chairman said and mayor said ridiculous to call that work place violence and be worked to get purple hearts for those of killed at fort hood because theyre casualties in an international war. I yield back. I thank the gentleman for his questioning. Chair now recognizes theendlelady from the great state of texas. I want to thank you and the Ranking Member for your cooperation and commitment to the security of this nation, and im reminded of my premise for serving on this committee, mayor, since the hainous tragedy of 9 11, had the humble and awesome challenge of coming to view the aftermath. Many members of congress came to ground zero. Sobering, emotional experience. Many of us early enough to see the remnants of recovery. It is a scene that will never be forgotten by those of us who served, but more importantly, the American People. And my inquiry of the chairman on the issue of security to the witnesses and recognition of Civil Liberties, is that im always reminded of those words that would said that we would not allow ourselves to be terroristes and not allow ourselves to deny our citizens their Civil Liberties and civil rights. I maintain that as a dual responsibility of this committee. And im glad to see witnesses acknowledge the importance of that. Let me, as i thank the mayor and all the witnesses for their service, just make an inquiry of a line of questions that im glad that mayor indicated that both president obama and president bush both said that, our challenge is to be successful 100 of the time. If that is not the case we obviously are vulnerable. And im curious and interested in your line of reasoning about leadership from the top and certainly we know among other things, our president s speak around the world, they interface with mideast leaders, president obama speak in cairo, under the premise of making the nation secure. I hope youre not suggesting those kinds of outreach would intimidate our Law Enforcement officer inside i want to do everything i took let them know, as a member of congress, that believes in engagement, i am are, however, not suggesting my behavior of engagement is to instruct them not to do as you have just laid out for us. That is not what im just trying to clarify the record. The what i was saying is does not relate to the statements the president makes internationally or his engagement against terrorism or his desire to try to work things out with some of these countries. I was really being more specific about major has yap, i hassan, its exceedingly damaging to engage in this fiction that the attack at fort hood was work place violence, and i know many, many Law Enforcement officers, the new york city Police Officers, fbi agents, other agencies, and there is a certain reluctance to describe someone as an islamic extremist terrorist. For fear that youre going to make a mistake and if you make a mistake, the consequences are going to be very, very heavy. And i dont know that played a role in boston. Im not sure of that. Im not sure well ever know that. But it certainly played a role in the case of major hassan. It was so obvious this man was a possible terrorist. Now, some of this goes back to be fair to before president obama. Hassan was being evaluated in the military, also during the Bush Administration. Where there was a similar kind of reluctant. And i think it would be very helpful and very healthy if the hasan situation were described correctly, and it would leave us with Law Enforcement officers and intelligence agents having correct sense that which is very, very difficult but we want them to understand theyre protecting us from bombings, not protecting us from possibly making a few mistakes about how you classify people. Thank you, mayor, very much. I ask the chairs indulgence. I want to raise two questions and my clock was ticking but that was an important clarification and i would indicate to you, mr. Mayor, many civilians were impacted at fort hood and i champion the cause it was in no way workplace violence. It was after the fact noted and those officers who were the supervisors of major hasan should have detected the erratic behavior. I call that connecting the dots and i argue vigorously we have to improve our connecting the dots, and if we have an aftermath of assessing what happened with that major, then we need to indicate that the dots were not connected. So many lives still impacted at fort hood. Let me go to the other two witnesses. And i want you to expand on one as the mayor has indicated, what we can do to Law Enforcement to let them know that connecting the dots is not going to drive an attack on their determination if they fairly connect the dots on individuals who have erratic behavior that suggests they are selfradicalized or terrorists. If you can talk about that in the terms of the Fusion Center and how we spend our money and if i can get a questions in to mr. Hoffman just to indicate what are we doing right or wrong with a review of our own selfappointed asian nointed terrorists in the United States . Wherewe mitting the boat on that . Congresswoman, i do want to make one note, which is the day after the fort hood attack the National Counterterrorism center entered the attack at fort hood in the terrorist database. That was the day after. Im not disagreeing. I think some of the army reviews were driven by Political Correctness but the ntct called it terrorism the day after the attack. To your question how were spending our money and improve the ability to detect this, we have spent a lot of money on state and local Fusion Centers. In my view we have not always done it smartly. We have to make sure the state and local Fusion Centers are trained. We dont have people that recognize radicalization. We had agents and Task Force Officers that were look to go square didnt recognize radicalization in the same way that people study it would. So we have to improve the train, and that applies not just to the state and local Fusion Centers but to fbi officers themselves and give them in training shire not forced to bev politically correct, second las vegas to tie the Fusion Centers and the jttf closely together. We created them at independent enemyies in the best places they talk to each ute but the centers place two roles. First, they take the pieces the fbi cant investigate or need help on and parse that out to the state and local communities for followup session. Second they take the piece coming found. The state and local officials and say, thats a little funny, and then they coordinate with the jttf to figure out who will investigate that information that is bubbling up. Honestly in my experience, state and local fuchs centers are not doing enough of that. Theyre looking at screens, waiting for a big event. They have to be more involved in the investigative work up front to allocate scarce resources. Mr. Hoffman. Well, i think mr. Leiter was quite correct when he began his testimony to point out the series of successes and counterterrorism capabilities have evolved. What i see is this constant problem and what slips through the net this interdicting radicalizing. And we see it occurring again with the tsarnaevs. Its two dimensions. One is the two distinguished witnesses have said, typing tightening up the state and local Law Enforcement next sunday, and what you find these individuals navigating between. Jurisdictions. One relocated from new york city to aurora, colorado, then drove back to new york in the case of shahzad, he lived in suburban connecticut and crossed to new york. The tsarnaevs were based in cambridge and came to boston. And the other one perhaps my colleagues can comment but whats always eluded me is who is responsible for counterradicalization in the United States today . Were talking about the phenomenal where a crime has not yet been committed. Certainly it receives high level direction from the white house and from the National Security council. Of that theres no doubt. Certain lay priority especially are in mr. Leitners tenure, but then beyond those two more coordinating functions and policy functions, who in the federal government is responsible for this . The department of hopeland security . The fbi . A crime hasnt been committed. This is why i think its so important to enlist local police forces, because at least they have the access and the knowledge hoff at the street that can at least facilitate the identification of the radicalization process but there has to be some direction or some federal agency that actually takes ownership of this. The time of the gentlelady has expired. Senator mccall had to leave to go to a science and technology committee. Thank you for the time. Used back. Thank you, gentlelady. Brings back memories of when i was chairman and the gentlelady was very eloquent. Sometimes overeloquent. Good to be back. Thank you. Mr. Chairman. And i want to thank all the witnesses for being here. I appreciate your service so very much. All of us do to the country and what you have done, and especially to the mayor. Id like to just i didnt know you at 9 11, i was still at michigan secretary of state that day. We were having an election in detroit and you were in new york. I remember where we were that day what happened that day, what happened afterwards, and i think thats where you picked up what i think is your greatest title and thats americas mayor. You were more than the president , more than the governor, more than the fbi director, more than the cia, more than the department of defense, everyone seemed to look to you for what had happened, why, what was the path forward, shat should america think about from that day forward, and i guess my question, mr. Mayor, goes to how does the American People perceive this war on grow how do we actually prosecute these enemy combatants as well . Because obviously we do face such a new type of enemy. Its not like the battlefields that are clearly drawn and each side has colored uniforms and theyre quickly identified who the enemy and is you spoke about identifying the enemy and how important that is for us. But now you have a new type of enemy that sees the battlefield asymmetric include, the battlefield, whether it was the finish line at the Boston Marathon. They saw that as the battlefield, and i want to i guess talk about one that very personal, obviously the Christmas Day bomber in 2009 over the skies of detroit. That terrorist, enemy combatant in my mind, saw the battlefield that day as seat 19a and at that time that northwest flight, and what happened then we learned some lessons from that. The plane actually taxied up to the gateway rather than should have been held out on the tarmac really. But we learned from that. Then they arrest him, take him off to the university of michigans burn center, where he received the very best treatment known to mankind. Immediately lawyered up. Very quickly. Lawyered up, mirandaizees. Lawyered up. So im certain we lost all kinds of valuable information. At that time. With that particular terrorist. And then he was of course tried in detroit at huge expense to the taxpayers, and enormous amount of security that was necessary there, et cetera, and i guess my question is, i said i said actually that day, this guy is an enemy combatant, should not be mirandaizeed. This is not a Law Enforcement situation going on. I guess my question really is, how do you think we should be treating these individuals . Now he is serving a life term. Thats fine. But what about all the information that we lost . By not turning him over to a military tribunal. Im just questioning how this administration and the department of justice is proceeding, whether thats the right path forward in an effort to really put into the american psyche, we are in a war with these individuals. This is not some Law Enforcement thing. I think its a very, very good point. That the reality is that these we keep referring to these individuals as isolated acts, single individuals. Thats true, theyre isolated and single individuals about theyre also connected. Not as if these are completely independent. Theyre connect by the same motivation. Exactly the same causative factors. Theyre driven by the same ideology. And if you recognize that, it makes it easier to catch them. Makes it easier to find the clues and the thing that would lead to who they are and why theyre dog what theyre doing. I also i certainly in both cases, the detroit case and the boston case, if it were my decision, i would have treat both of them as enemy combatants for the purpose of questioning them endlessly. The fact is, particularly with boston, more than enough evidence to convict the younger tsarnaev brother if you needed more evidence than that, i never would have hired youve as an assistant u. S. Attorney. If you needed more evidence than they already had by the time they caught him, well, then, you shouldnt prosecute a case. There was no reason we didnt need his statement as a properly admitted confession or admission. What we needed was an endless amount of information so would have been a much wiser thing to declare him an enemy combatant near or four or five weeks and question him. When he got better, question him for as long as you have to question him to get every bit of information out of him. Same thing is true in detroit. We also should recognize about the detroit situation, that seems to me we only prevented that by luck. Nobody should be taking credit for, gee, what a great job we did in preventing that bombing. He just was incompetent, and we cant count on that. I always have found in my life that i learn a lot more from when i lose and fail than when i succeed. And therefore, i think you shouldnt feel any kind of guilt about going back and examining these situations where we fail, with excruciating analysis, because thats the only way to prevent these things in the future, and our goal is a very difficult one here. To protect lives we have to be right 100 of the time. So, maybe we cant reach that standard. But the more analysis you do of these incidents after they happen, the more were going to learn so that we fix it in the future. And why we want to deprive ourselves of information i cant figure out. There was no tactical reason to give either one of these people miranda warnings. And either case youd be able to prosecute and convict because you had enoughed to do it. You certainly have more than enough basis to describe them as part of an International Conspiracy against us. One they voluntarily joined. One they voluntarily joined. On their own, when they decided to undertake these acts. Many of them announced to us theyre motivation when they commit their kinds, like major hasan did. Not talking about the bombing in london that took place after boston but that bomber went on television to tell us he was doing this in the name of allah. So, we get an idea he joined the same conspiracy. So you have enough basis to describe them as enemy combatants. When you have enough evidence to convict, seems to me you should subject them to long periods of questioning and then move on and prosecutor them in a military court or civilian court. Of you have gotten out of them everything you can get out of them. Thank you very much. My time is expired. Thanks marx are chairman. The gentleman from massachusetts who is a great personal involve in this marys,mer keeting. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, there was mention by the chair that theres a judicial proceeding in massachusetts going on candidate with tsarnaev. But now my involvement is to russia. First i sent a staff member to russia and then followed up personally where i met with the Deputy Director of the fsb and the director of counterterrorism. Wallace and russia upon my question is, first questioning why it did not respond to the fbi requests for information and having those top Officials Say they didnt know anything about the requests, never heard of it. They said to me, give me the name of the people that the request was made to on the them and get me the dates of when that was sent. So there is a gap. They wanted to get the answer to that. In my questioning they began to refer to a piece of paper and finally asked. They said it was march 4th 2011 correspondence they sent to the fbi and cia. I ask them for copy of this said, well, can you get one for your own people. Ask them for theirs. I wasnt sure, frankly, if i could get one or not. This committee has requested that and still doesnt have a copy. But they read to me that document of march 4th 2000 all of them, and it was amazing in its detail dealing with individuals, and that is what prompted the interviewed by the fbi joint Terrorism Task force shortly thereafter. Now, put into the database, but shortly thereafter, that was closed, case closed. No, nine months later after that date of the letter he is in russia. Give reports that he was beating a known terrorist. Someone already on their rear screen in russia. There was another gap where that could have been closed. He came back to the u. S. After the person he met with reportedly was killed. The other person was known to him was killed. He went home. When he came home he applied for citizenship. An fbi background check went into that is my understanding. No, hes already on those databases. In the course of doing that they approved of the background check to go ahead and proceed with citizenship, and it was not picked up that. Its like a data base. You go through that parallelism that as well . The above among security and why and they say, the problem of Homeland Security say they communicated that to the fbi, but the case was closed. Part of our oversight has to deal with this case closed process because something is wrong. The incident we keep getting back is the local it would not have mattered anyway because the case was closed. His a activities and stop. We have to find a way. Im suggesting this as a question. We have to find a way to get through this para christie where case closed stopped everything. In fact commit became an excuse for why the things are not done. Different agencies with the u. S. Government. What can we do . We have to our obligation is oversight, to let the process. Therere obviously things of raw. Help us, if you could come on with your expertise, how can we crack through these things so we dont have a future case closed roadblock that to stop everything from happening . Congressman, i think your basic observation is exactly right. Lets assume again that the fbi did everything right up to the moment of the closing of the case. There was nothing suspicious. He continues to evolve. We have texas system for the state and locals and the fbi and i when security that that information is getting added back into the close case so people can go back and say should it be closed and should the reopening. That is not happening, thats bad. You then also have to tell the fbi and state and local saw long they should keep going back and looking at people. Now lets take it out of the violent islamic extremist terrorists and put it in the domestic terrorism case. Someone gets a tip that there neighbor in taxes is stockpiling guns in the happy gaggers in interviews and says, are you kidding me . And not violent. The close the case. Hot off said the fbi go back in look at that case . Kellogg should the state and locals look at that case wondering about that person and still in some way or another keep them under suspicion . Ask one question. How common is it that a country like russia will be that specific . That specific kind of information to a country . If that is the case wouldnt you go back to that country . Part of that, as i recall for our reference to the fact that he might change his name slightly in china to come back. Its not common, but i have great sympathy for an organization with the american intelligence is see in get stiff from 3 tons a row. I dont know if thats the case. Thats my point. Said think is relatively common blood with is this or another, there will be cases of the fbi closes. How do we spread the responsibility so the other resources can keep an eye . And right now the inFusion Centers frankly and not to rain great job of picking that up because we have not driven them to do that. The rules make it difficult reformation to be shared. The mayor of new york or ray kelly or ed davis or the Cambridge Police chief can decide, you know what, this is worth my time and energy, even if its not worth the fbis. We dont want them making that decision. To what the state and local authorities because they know if they want to guard against that are robbers or anything else. You have to make sure that a separation is shared systematically with oversight and then put that burden on the state and locals to do with it what they want and make sure that information is being refreshed. This clearly should have come out. That was after he returned. Something should have come up was something should have been in the system internally. Are not talking about someones civil rights. Retired u. S. Something internally in the system. I dont think there are any clear answers. That will be our job here to do these. No were talking about average in sharing, i just want to get this, and out it better be shared with members of congress. We arent getting that information to conduct proper oversight. Were not going to stop until we get it. I yield back. Thank the gentleman. We apologize so this is. I call a vote for reauthorization and had to go over there. The director, i will be interesting for you to give recommendations on the Fusion Centers. They have a role here. Ill think there in texas it works really well, but not other places in the country. That would be helpful. I dont mean to put all the blame on the Fusion Centers either. Assessing the relationship between the fbi and inFusion Centers. If you have a followon operation. Mr. Keating, think we heard repeatedly in boston case closed with that i recognize. Okay. Thank you. It was very, booktv going to a followup on the inquiry. It goes to the degree to which there is an ability to pursue investigations. At one point in time jeep discontinued . It has been awhile since you have opened your u. S. Attorneys manual. They did have manuals in my day. You might have been more free to act. That is part of the issue. As a former prosecutor, and anti you work closely in your part capacity with the rules and to some extent the constraints. We had senator lieberman senator lieberman of for us. In the aftermath one of the things that he was concerned about or attorney generals guidelines which may in and of themselves allow even the asians themselves to ask questions to a certain point. Political correctness, it would never happen in a murder investigation. This with the dismally used to look bearishly as crimes committed and ask questions until we have a resolution. Now the dynamic is changed. Were being asked to investigate matters before they commit a crime. There is some tension of the have deeply ago. Do we need to revisit deadlines, be more aggressive at pursuing . Where is the right place for us to keep this in some kind of status and wish new information, particularly which you touched on, affirmation over the internet becomes the kind of thing now allows a stir reopen the inquiry. Said think you nailed it and i do think this is exactly where the mayor is right. Political correctness comes an issue. We have one overarching issue. Congress passes a law, maybe its the privacy act, whatever it might be. The cherry general has guidelines. Usually they pushed the bordello father and they have the fbi create their Domestic Intelligence operations guidelines, and they make everyone a little more nervous. You want to let them do this and suddenly theyre doing a lot less internally. The role the Congress Says the play is to make sure that the attorney general guidelines and fbi into regulations of what they can do are consistent and are not being risk averse. Now, as you yourself noted, these investigations are different from a bank robbery because there has not been the crimean and also because they implicate the first amendment. The Free Expression of religion in some cases in a way that the normal bank robbery doesnt, so its a riskier area, would you have to make sure you have good alignment between how people are operating in the Fusion Centers so that it is consistent with the maximum authority of given them under lock. Theyre is a last piece here, congressman. After they do they need to give them top cover. I have sat in this chair when i was an official of the u. S. Government getting yelled at by people in your seats about how dare you watch list my constituents. My guess its just never did anything, and every time they stopped at the airport. In three months later the very same people, not suggesting members of this committee, were saying, how dare you the more people on the nofly list . So you have to live set the bar, make sure the executive branch is honoring the bar to its fullest and then be honest after the fact that people in the executive branch are doing our jobs, did it with your blessing as long as theyre doing what you are explicit about along the to do. I think youre right and other uses for under zero per congress are talking about. Yenisei issue is a perfect example of how it had a tremendous with Chilling Effect on the ability to pursue where we need to go as a nation in terms of protecting the homeland maybe its never return to be asking those questions. You have any thoughts on the comments . Said think hes absolutely right. The reality is that these are just natural concerns the people who are doing harris investigations have. The atmosphere you create for them means theyre going to go further or back off. They think it will be criticized if they make a mistake cordially criticized the back of quickly, so it will be supported. To make a mistake it will go further, but theres a second issue. I dont know that this is just a matter of Political Correctness or fear. Its also a matter of resources. The fbi is only 13,000 agents. A hundred thousand Police Officers nationwide. And at 12,000 Person Organization you have to have some degree of discipline about what you can investigate. You can investigate everything. You have the resources to do. A think the suggestion, one of your recommendation should be that if the fbi does not want to pursue it and if they can be honest about that because that all have the resources, which they dont, they should turn it over to the Philadelphia Police of the Boston Police or the Chicago Police to further investigate. Then they can make that decision with a larger Resource Pool available. Is this something worth pursuing or isnt it . Our thinking the situation at least we know enough about it that this would have been something that if you had more resources this is something you would have kept after, particularly our friend is going back to russia a startling event , particularly since he sought asylum in the United States. I dealt with thousands of asylum cases while i was associated for a general because it was during the haitian migration. You get asylum in the United States if you prove that there is a valid fear of persecution if you go back to your homeland. So he proved to our satisfaction that his he would be persecuted if you went back to russia. All the senate gets up and goes back to russia after they told us he was a suspected terrorist. Alarm bells should have gone off of that happened. Something strange is going on. This guy is going back to the country from which he was persecuted. It would seem to be put him back on the list of watch and more carefully. There was plenty here. If the fbi had come to the conclusion were done the best we can and dont have the resources to go further, you have this very large local Law Enforcement agency. Give them the chance to go forward. Something should be builtin so that the fbi is encouraged to do that. If they have to straighten out local lawenforcement agencies and get them and make themselves more responsible, then raise the issue and gethat straight down the advance. I know as i yield back the that is one of the concepts that was behind the creation of the Fusion Center. There would be the followup force to pursue that which could not be done in the fact that it is not happening appropriately is another witness that we ought to be observing and putting in as part of the analysis that is included in your report. Thank you and i yield back. We certainly will. The chair recognizes mr. Bell from texas. Thank you. Mr. They a subcommittee of this full body led by chairman duncan of the subcommittee had a hearing about the influence and the western hemisphere. Understanding the terrorists may into this country through many other ports of entry, curious about your thoughts on all we can do more in terms of relationships with canada and mexico to prevent these terrorists from coming into this country. Congressman, we have of these two examples already. You have the plot against the saudi ambassador which was sponsored by the iranians and then you have the al qaeda inspired plot in canada which involved al qaeda from the iranians. The post of the challenges. The southwest border is mass and volume. Frankly if you have a radius of went through the border they tend to stand up. On the northern border there is still lot of mass and volume, but its a diverse population. In that sense it can be harder to pass. Paul going to insure and it Al Qaeda Chester fbi command ctc, cra and sharing information and a seamless voice to you can detect these people. The coast to another point. The general matter, iranian sponsored terrorism has not done the same focus as al qaeda inspired terrorism and the u. S. Appropriately so. If youre going to free up the fbi to pursue, you have to have them shed some of the mission. One of the lawyers to do that cares are back to what the mayor was saying about ensuring the state and locals are being fully leveraged. A real threat on both borders. We have seen it over the past two years and the fbi has to have the resources to pursue the threat. You can do that in part by leveraging state and locals were lowerlevel threats like what eventually became the boss and bombing. So do you view the degree of risk from the standpoint of entry of iranian terrorists as equal . Congressman, i view it as different. It is a real threat especially if there were conflicts between the west, are real threats of using a force to attack the u. S. There are operatives in the u. S. Today. We have seen them plot attacks here in the u. S. And the border is a vulnerability. Income after is a shooting war and to some extent the europeans already think therein one with us we will become increasingly vulnerable. I guess what i meant was as equal as the threat of injury by the border . Frankly i would not diminish the possibility. There will use any of vulnerability to the people inside. My next question is in terms of our relationships with both countries what more can we do to avoid those . Congressman, i wish our were greater expert on our current relations with mexico and canada another is incredible pressure to keep both of these borders open. At the same time having worked well with canadians i think theyre very focused on this issue. On the mexico border and the southwest border. Frankly i think that there are bigger issues and that is the general insecurity of the border. At think in that sense poorly continuing to focus on this would be critical. You mentioned with respect to the new york time bombing that there was due to the type of fertilizer that particular bomber had used and because there were mechanisms there were able to detect other more dangerous versions what information do we have about the materials overuse in the boston bombing in that regard . If you have that information can you elaborate . Where are we not able to and identify those materials . We learned that nitrogen fertilizer base is an incredibly effective and burma improvised explosive device. The fbi search controlling that. If you go out and buy a thousand pounds the next day ages with block and a door and sit where you buying this. Now, in the case of boston the enemy got smarter. He got smarter in part because they were trained through things like al qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and bought things that really cannot be controlled very well. You cant control the purchase of pressure cookers. You can, but not effectively, control the purchase of firecrackers. You can control the purchase of small bbs and things like that. There were smart enough to buy things that are not controlled. That regrettably, when you are part of this Ideological Group you learn from each others mistakes in this murder. The kid nooses they could not build bombs that were nearly as big and powerful as we have seen in the past. Big enough and powerful enough to kill three and wounding others, but not catastrophic. Thank you. The chair recognizes the gym and from south carolina. Mr. Chairman, thank you so much. I think the chairman from texas for following up on yesterdays hearing. I want to thank the director for your comments in recognizing that there is an iranian threat and that all of the proxys and their actual paramilitary groups are trying to infiltrate this country, have operatives in this hemisphere. Your comments sort of contradict the state department your help is taking note of those comments when they said that the iranian threat is winning. At the best taking a very narrow view. Its sort of like focusing on boat broke your plumbing and up the field. I appreciate the frankness in the open this. We will not slow down on recognizing all raising awareness where america about up. Of want to just take a moment and think the mayor for continuing to talk about Political Correctness. You may disagree with some of that. The report use words that i identified the real threat, identifying the state sponsors of terror, these are identifiers when you see that the use of those are discouraged or they themselves are stripped from the lexicons of some of the Law Enforcement agencies as we have seen over the last for five years, that concerns me because i do believe the you have to be able to identify your enemy and talk openly. When i hear this carries the use of certain and in the fine words with them and military apparatus and discouraged officers from talking about those types of threats, then you do have a situation where maybe military officers that saw something happening were fearful of identifying that he has a future promotions or assignments. So i dont think we need to back away from being a will to talk about the threats that we face. I appreciate the frankness that were seeing today. Just segue and not me say that the mayor in hours and days and weeks, your even keel trustworthy became a symbol of new york incarnations resolve. I have reason to believe in the confidence of our agreements ability to respond, it really came about. I think you for that because i was sitting in south carolina. I was watching it from 04. I was inspired to the point to get back involved in public service. Let me expand on that. We were on a boat in the philippines with a young man in the navy manning a 50 caliber gun. As far away from new york as you can think, afghanistan. We ask him, why did you join the navy. He said to live from new york. He said, my best friend and i went down on september the 12th and joint because we never want to see that happen again. He was inspired and is serving a nation. So when we talk about Political Correctness and your lead, you helped start the ball to the ball rolling. Inspiring american sexually watch your surroundings and be cognizant of what is going on and see that. But the only talk with the vhs about their communication with america, they seem antagonistic. It seems to me that on a whole host of issues from tsa screening to d. H. As ammunition purchases, the department does a tremendous job communicating its mission in policies. How would you recommend that the d. A. To ask a better engage the American People read continue in an antagonism . I do believe that it is part of the answer. If you could address that. Thank you. The reality is this is a very difficult balance. We want an alert group of citizens who are reporting to us information that they see that a suspicious. Nubile Police Officers who have been trained on the precursors of terrorism. I recommend to you an article written by commissioner bratton about four years ago now in which he describes the training he put the los angeles Police Department through to look for the warning signs of a terrorist act. You want a citizenry that is a lie to that, a Police Department at a sensitive to a. At the same time, we dont want to trample on Civil Liberties because if you have a citizenry that is a lawyer to that and a Police Department that is sensitive to bill occasionally make mistakes. It will see something suspicious that turns out to be innocent activity. Its a difficult balance. Its a very difficult balance to strike, but we have to attempt. We always have. We now have to if in fact we have finally recognized them face this threat of one of terrorist, self inspired terrorist. The only signs of them are truly going to be these things you see in the community by the police or citizens. I think that being honest about what we face will make that citizenry more willing to come forward and make the Police Department more willing to take a risk in our favor. And if we engage in this fiction that there is no war against us, well, thats absurd. I mean, they believe theres a war. Its just a matter of whether we recognize the not. Its absurd to say that there isnt a connection between these things. Within a couple of weeks of each other there was a connection between boston of london. The bombers in boston or inspired by islamic extremists. The guy and london went on television to explain that he was inspired by exactly the same thing. I dont think we are insulting anybody or offending anybody if we just recognize reality. If we dont we will lose a lot of these hints. Before september 11th i saw my city saved from terrorism several times by an alleged Police Department that was not afraid to come forward. An incident occurred about two years before september 11th. A young new york city Police Officer, i think a rookie Police Officer was patrolling subway stations in brooklyn and noticed two men that looked middle eastern, suspiciously looking at a transition. I dont exactly remember what the suspicion was. He went to his sergeant at the desk and said you know, i saw this these two middle eastern looking guys, and they looked suspicious. Detergent charging could have said, forget it. He said, i will check. So we called them the j. T. Etf. This was about 10 00 tonight. 5 00 a. M. In a broken toe row house in brooklyn and shot this menace to is about to read the titles which obama bought the entire building. Theyre repining to blow up the subway station. That this is will we want to happen. Who want rookie Police Officers your alert enough to pick out things like that because it prevents it can happen every time, but this is what the fbi needs if it will help us prevent these kinds of things from happening. Maybe we have terror and of the side, dont be afraid to act on your instincts because every once in awhile it will make a mistake. The question is, on what side of we want to air, on the side of making sure we never make a mistake and falsely head of the price of one as a terrorist to visit or in the side of making sure reid dont have any future boston bombings . Acting thats up a little towards not in a partisan sense, but in a legal sense. That is a political chores that has to be made. I know which one i think we should do, but i think that is something that is confusing right now. Let me and saying god bless you guys. I believe that if we are honest with the American People, we will be better off a long run. I yield back. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from louisiana, mr. Rich and. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I will pick out where the mayor left off, talking about giving our Law Enforcement officers the reassurance that if it is a good faith effort and it is wrong or a mistake to support the. We want them to use judgment. What in europe again to the need to do to send them that message . The fbi being more engaged would be enormously helpful. Developing a new director. To really think in terms of a potentially the hundred thousand additional Law Enforcement agents available to us. Maybe the fbi should undertake to train them and what they should be looking for and have a conduct themselves, even how they conduct themselves in trying to strike a balance between how far we go in when we violate someones Civil Liberties. That would be a very valid thing for the fbi did do. He is the thing that breaks down these institutional barriers which i saw in the federal government in new york city. Some of our agencies dont exactly get along all time. The more these people get to know each other, the better works. The first joint Terrorism Task force was set up a new york city in the late 1970s between an fbi director named ken walton and the new york city Police Commissioner name mcguire. There were good friends. They were facing bombings that have nothing to do. Facing bombings that included a cuban terrorist group. Facing all these bombings and decided that there were going to do a joint Terrorism Task force. Make the cops and the fbi agents partners. It would sit down and investigate cases together which came about because of their personal relationships. Most of them per with the other was a terrible mistake. You cannot work with the fbi. Most other be compromised forever. Because these guys along with each other if you foster these relationships the information flows a lot better. And that goes right into my next question. I would give you a shot at answering. Do we leave this leave this voluntarily or do we set some sort of prickles or rules whereby when something is reached that there is some mandatory disclosure or information sharing . Congressman, i am an executive branch guy. Unlike a little bit of flexibility for the executive branch because i dont think that the congress was to be in the position of figuring out when something should or should not be shared. You can also set the tone. It would be great to have a joint hearing between this committee in the House Judiciary Committee and invite fbi and vhs to sit next to each other. You have a davis up there. Thats a statement that were trying to Work Together on this, restores the two organizations in no way that forces you to Work Together. Will only fund future inFusion Centers of jericho located. Thats the messes that you will operate in the doorway. We will set the standard. And it is you can provide reporting requirements. Hon providing rules, if you get a thousand guardian leads, that is the tip. Tell us what percentage of those are provided to state and local Fusion Centers and then to state and local Police Departments. And you can make the judgment. 5 to 195 percent, you can have that conversation. Thats a better methodology of legislating and trying to sell you will share under the circumstances. Thank you for that. Well have a lot of talk about Political Correctness today. Part of the conversation has to be about political courage. We talked about the commission report. I still think the we are far too patient as a committee. Not climbing are ruffled jurisdiction so that the department of Homeland Security is not spread out all over the place answering to 108 committees or subcommittees of the luster of live years. Its one of the suggestions that has not been implemented. I dont think its a direct threat or republican thing. Its one thing that this committee could do in a bipartisan manner, make sure that we bring enough attention to the fact that we still did not have the jurisdiction that we should have the manners the chairman, that we do it. I think that the more that these things happen the more it highlights the fact that we have an interest, the ability to do it, but just dont have the jurisdiction so that we can give it to where we need to be as a committee. With that i would you pack. I think the gentleman. That is a work in progress. Your recommendation is one that i have already been discussing with the chairman judiciary to hold a joint hearing. I am not sure the fbi will show up, they should. With that i now recognize thank you. Let me just say and have a special admiration for italian mayor sorry yankee fans. I believe our First Priority is to protect the American People. That is first and foremost. Obviously immigration is at the forefront. Only talk about Border Security sometimes orders left out is lisa overstays. They came legally and overstay their visas and to simply cant find him. When i look at and in any state that has an International Airport and a belief here there for a border state. Will we look us some of the attacks, the Christmas Day bomber, tamarin, a kung back to a country he was fleeing from and being a will to it back and with his buddy who got back here on a student visa when he was an even in school in the longer. In 1986 he was given amnesty. In reality he was a taxicab driver and was involved in the 93 attack on the world trade center. The only thing he planted of america was a bomb. Two of the pilots who had their student visas approved after theyre rig it. Its obvious that we have gaping holes in our visa system. My question is, with pat, do you feel that it would be in the best interest of the American People that we fix the problem first since we know it is a National Security threat and would solve half of our problem as well as making cities no one knows better than you what happens when someone gets by. Of like your opinion. Well, theres no question that our ration system has to be fixed. Your body has just passed a massive reform. Some people think is enough. You have made a goodfaith effort to try to fix it which has not been done in a long time i think that too often we think a Border Security in terms of illegal immigration and non terms of if we are open to illegal immigration were also open to terrorists coming in and drug dealers coming in, the criminals coming in, people are mentally ill. A civilized country controls its border. There is nothing unfair about that are inhumane about that. Its actually humane to the services that area that will make a goodfaith effort to figure out who was in this country and identify them. Virtually every other democracy has a pretty strict policy about who they let into their country. You travel, i travel. So i think that to the extent we can have a system that allows us to get as close to wander as possible, were going to be a much safer country. Safer against terrorism, crime, communicable disease. I think this is just one of the things that benefits from the. And if we dont have control of it can never go have reasonable control our borders then Everything Else kind of falls apart. I hope the with the bill that you passed now you, the senate, i hope what comes out of that is whatever happens on the part of it, more resources for Border Patrol. Analysts thought it was much easier than people think to control the southern border. It is not an Impossible Task as people make up to be. A look at the size of the border and of this house like a strange statement, but think it would be easier to control the southern border. The scale is about the same. Seventyseven police precincts. Youd need of 50 Border Patrol stations. We have about 40,000 Police Officers. You are really only need about 20 to 30,000 Border Patrol to do it. And if we did it we would end up with a much we would end up with a much better Economic System than if we had control over who was coming in illegally and who they were and could expand the number of people coming in illegally. We could make easier for them to come in legally. I think this will help reduce the risk of terrorism and about 100 other ways. You would not replace the carpenter on the facade of the hole in your roof. Thats right. Thank you. Just for the record, this committee did pass the Border Security results act unanimously which is almost unheard of in todays political of farm. With that the chair recognizes the film from california. I was a congressional intern when september 11th happened. I appreciate your lead during the terrifying time to be in washington. You really led the city. The remember reading your book. I still follow that model. I think you would agree that even the congress came together. A moment of bipartisanship. The date, we, and month after our country can tell whether. You have the really a knowledge president bushs role and have seen the praise than the amelie plate. Would you agree that obama, since he took office has increased the number of drone strikes that the Bush Administration was conducting once he took office and actually went after terrorists more broad . I think there are very get things that the president has done. There are some things us strongly disagree with. Particularly a believe that the Drone Program has been an effective program. I dont know the program in great detail. I dont know exactly how the choices i made about who is targeted for attacks into as a, but if you ask me in general, though i think the program is a good thing, i do. Its a necessary one. The program has certainly escalated since president bush left office. Yes. I dont want to get contentious, but i do have one issue coming in it from where i come not in which is there was such a tremendous amount of concern in capturing terrorists and suggesting them to intensive questioning including the three year for them or water boarded. No of course we have killed many more. The of one hesitation i have is to be deprived ourselves of the ability to get information from people fleeing days sell little more of the dirty task of capturing and question them . Im not an expert. I dont know what the right answer is. He would also agree that the nsa and Data Collection and the present are remiss certainly escalating. Our efforts to identify foreign nationals, president obama even taking heat from his own party has stepped up efforts. He certainly has and continues of the programs that president bush started. Prexy participated in the artery of the killing. Given have great praise and told him personally i thought it was an act of in doing that. At think you would agree that president obama has continued the efforts of the war on terror and as in some ways been more successful. In some ways he is the more successful and in some ways less think he has been less successful in capturing people and getting information from him my major objection to is change has been in is on line this to spread as a war on terror because it says the wrong signals to our bureaucracy and the wrong signal to our enemies. They perceive that as a sign of weakness and a loss irrationality they would not describe this as being a war with tears when there were with us. We have seen the plane crash in said francisco. Social meal was the first on the ground to respond. The fbi work to collect information learning about the bombers that of the investigation in trying to go back in time. What will the you think social media would have played had it been around on september 11th . What role do you hope to see a play overruled the use the plane if we address the threat going for . It has expanded exponentially since september 11th. That is probably a hypothetical question that is almost impossible dancer. If a september 11th or planned to day the chance of picking it up from social media and other forms of communication which we now have much more surveillance of as we found out is much greater. The end, no 100 percent chance he will pick something of. One of the reasons i forgot he made this statement, how long we have gone without a really massive attack like September September 11th to 1 of the reses it would be very hard to do, to accomplish that today. Things arent place today give us a much greater chance of picking up a massive attack. On the other hand, that then leaves as vulnerable to a smaller tax which take place under the rear. So we are safer against one but more vulnerable to another. Although the numbers are different, and a large tech more people die. Both of them were enormously destabilizing to a country that after all values every human life. So we can say 13 died here and 3,000 died there. That does make a difference, but is still very destabilizing, particularly if we have numerous attacks like this to my numerous attempts to attack us, even the test of we stop a very destabilizing. Thank you. Thank you for holding this hearing. Thank you for being here today. You have received great praise commands you should. The hope youre not offended we have not called user. I appreciated. I try to hide the fact. I hope that there is sufficient. In brooklyn this would be. As it would in my home town as well. I would like to quickly follow on his comments recognizing to me as of year irony that most if not all of the policies of former president bush and which are president campaigned so aggressively against are the very policies that he has kept and perhaps president bush had more than a few things right. The history will prove that is the case. I have taken a lot of notes from the gentleman. Things to you testified about here today. We talked a lot of Political Correctness. Some of those ideas. The big picture where the bigger picture. Specifically like to talk about the motivation for their actions what motivates our enemies to do the things theyre done. Maybe the u. S. Is to blame. Perhaps if we had not been so colonial power if we had not exploded developing nations are for the nav u. S. Personnel in certain parts of the war over no , i guess at its essence it is the idea of american exceptional as imperious you have faith in that are believed more in india of american relativism 50. Thats true for people over the world. At its heart my question is this is there anything that we can do that will eliminate or maybe of these lesson their motivation to bring us harm . Or is it a greater truth that the reality is that as long as the islamic fundamentalism exists there will always seek to distress. I would appreciate your opinion. I have no doubt about the answer to your question. I faced this in the days after september 11th trying to figure out why some of it would do what they did. The reality is what we do is only at the margins of what they do to us. They are motivated, even though it can be described as irrational and maybe even insane , the motivation is their perception of their religion. Is it incorrect . I believe it is. It is a completely deceptive kind of you of the major message of the muslim religion but it is a mess is then taken out of it. The only way we can stop them is a voice stop being a democracy, stop respecting the rights of women, subjugated women to wear their believe women belong in society, stop believing in god that we believe in god and accepted their belief. To a large extent we will have to do away with our Financial System the way it operates. Essentially we would have to change our values to fit their values in order for them not to want to kill us because that is why theyre trying to convince. Is not about israel and palestine. That is a side issue. Is not about our occupation of any place because we havent really occupied any muslim land. Its not like the dispute with communism over an Economic System and even a social system. This emanates from their perception of their religion and what their religion is demanding of them. Then me get to that because of psychological problems of they have, but when they get to a pair joined in the same motivation. So if your asking, how can we stop that, we cant. On this long novel we can try. On a smaller level we can try to engage more with moderate sensible mainstream members of