Transcripts For CSPAN3 House 20240705

Authorization by a foreign Intelligence Surveillance act. This is about two and half hours. [background noises] [background noises] [background noises] [background noises] [background noises] the media will come to order, good morning. Before we start i want to address some housekeeping matters. First, todays open portion is being broadcast live. And streamed on the committees youtube channel. We conducted entirely on an unclassified basis. All participants are reminded to refrain from discussing classified or other information protected from public exposure. It is my privilege to welcome a distinguished panel of leaders today to discuss Intelligence Committee anti threat assessment rate during todays proceedings we will hear from Lieutenant General scott director of the Defense Intelligence agency by the honorable William Burns director of the Central Intelligence agency. The honorable admiral intelligence, general paul, director of the National Security agency. And the honorable Christopher Wray director of the federal bureau of investigation. One day for your service and for your parents here today. I also want to thank all of our Committee Members for their cooperation with the witnesses. Our plan is to complete the open session by noon, adjourned for a lunch break and reserving closed session. My opening statement, this is our annual hearing on worldwide threats. Its an open hearing to come before congress and the American People to talk about the threats that are nation faces. It also will be an opportunity to talk about how we can respond to those threats and what are the needs of the Intelligence Community. Our adversaries self select three today you are certainly here about china, russia, north korea, iran, and others but you also be discussing when the Domestic Violence extremist groups. Domestic violence extremist groups such as antifa, have funding, organizational structures, which include communications, training, logistics, illegal activities especially sluicing across the country, violence. Today when we discuss the Intelligence Community surveillance of Domestic Violence extremist organizations are certainly going to be discussing the issue of our concerns of the rights of every date lawabiding americans whose rights may be violated. Since 1977, our committee was formed to respond to abuses by the Intelligence Community. We were organized to protect the integrity of our laws. To protect our citizens constitutional right. For most, is why our committee is here. Currently we were also here to protect our National Security, to protect our country and its citizens from foreign and domestic adversaries. Now, i want to welcome you to our new Intelligence Community. It is new because we have a renewed commitment of bipartisanship and working a professional manner. Our committee was open and addressed by the speaker of the house dedicated to National Security and to working together. Very pleased jim hines and myself and Ranking Member are dedicated to that bipartisan cooperation into the professionalism. No one is served by members of this Committee Fighting with each other. We are here to Work Together that is what the American People deserve, but the American People expect. We will not always degree but through debate and dialogue we will find solutions. One of these issues that will be open for debate is the renewal. The foreign Intelligence Surveillance act section 702. 702 is essential. It has provided successes and provide successes against our adversaries. There have been and there continue to be many abuses of pfizer. It must be reformed our first step is we must be honest with the American People today im going to be looking to each of you for honesty it acknowledgment that pfizer has been abused. From that acknowledgment we came together, find solutions and reforms as we work to renew 702 of pfizer. To aid in this product success i have a point out working group three members of the majority, tim hines will be reporting three members of the minority to the working group. The working group will have equal numbers of democrats and republicans. They are in the hood will be its chair. Ive appointed representative to chair this working group because of his leadership, expertise and integrity. Prior to his election to congress he served as a career prosecutor at the state and federal levels. Specifically he worked for the department of justice as an assistant United States attorney and was selected as the chief terrorism prosecutor in las vegas, nevada. I am confident his experience in investigating and prosecuting with the bipartisan. Im excited about the important work this working group is planning on to do. And i am confident they will produce meaningful reform proposals. But i would be remiss with pfizer alone. From each of you is a commitment to work with the committee and the working group to gain Americans Trust and to pursue to the pfizer process. The Constitutional Rights of all american citizens. This commitment is necessary of your organizations have degrade the public trust that ultimately put pfizer at risk. It is not congress put pfizer at risk. It is your organization these abuse happen somewhere else they happened under the leadership of the individuals represented by may sound harsh but the first and earning back this is the ability to admit there is a problem. This problem cannot be explained by staff mistakes and misunderstandings. It is a problem that will require cooperation with clear and open minds. We cannot undertake a clean reauthorization of 702 without an authorization of the problem. A concerted effort to gain back trust and commitment to working with congress. He needs to treasure the renewal of 702 and understand its importance in the work it accomplishes for National Security. But that i yield to the Ranking Member. Thank you, mr. Chairman think to each of our witnesses for appearing today but we are grateful for the important work the Intelligence Community every day unique opportunity for the public to hear directly from Intelligence Community leadership about the latest assessments, the most pressing National Security threats facing the United States. It is important for the American People to understand mission states and non nation state actors remain serious concern for intelligence agencies National Security United States. North korea starting behavior toward the United States under south korean alleys continue at a high clip. Even as the Missile Program ask progress. Articulate malign and threatened behavior in the region towards the United States threatens us in the region, our allies in the region and i fear Irans Nuclear program is advanced a point we have little warning if they decided to produce a weapons grade uranium and move on to the weaponization of that uranium. Rush it remains a central threat one year into putins brutal invasion of ukraine. Last year chairman turner to have the opportunity to visit and meet president zelenskyy in his leadership to see firsthand the courage of the ukrainian people who were defending their homeland. The assistance and support we provide along with our allies and frustrated putins ambitions we have clearly a long way to go and some thinking to do about how to make sure that conflict does not continue being the meat grinder that it is. Which brings me too china which is i think the central county face in the world. Its a complicated interdependent economic relationship. Lastly we held a hearing Foreign Policy committee most recently the council on Foreign Relations determined however one might characterize our relationship with china the easy cold war analogies to the soviet union. Set a new record in 2022 on twoway trade between our countries tolling china currently holds close to 1 trillion of the nicest sovereign debt. How do we respond to an increase of the aggressive militaristic chinese approach to World Affairs . China clearly aspires to export its authoritarian approach to governance including technological tools that enabled the regime to restrict speech and surveillance of their people. How well do we know chinese thinking, intentions, and weaknesses as policymakers navigate this difficult path that will be in task for the Intelligence Community. A word on technology i think ive talked to all of you about, the First Time Since the Manhattan Project in the late 1940s we are not the clear technological leader innovation is happening elsewhere and innovation is happening at a rapid click inside china. We no longer live in the era of plain and trim planes, tanks, battleships Technology Means Artificial Intelligence, and biosynthesis. None of those are areas in which we want to be even type fast follower we would be at the point of the sphere on innovation very concurrently chairman on 702 the people sitting here today understand 702 authorities must be reauthorized at 702, unlike section 215 meta Data Collection program is a 24 7 day by day essential tool to keeping this country safe. The chairman is not wrong. As a long way to go to educate congress on precisely what those authorities are. Many of the abuses the chairman made reference to or misbehavior were it not under zero two but other pfizer authorities i note that because we have a long way to go in educating congress of the United States and the people of the nine states about exactly what it is we are talking about. You have a long way to go to validating my statement 24 7 day by day essential tool to keeping the American People safe. Concur in the chairmans view we are committed to pursuing the important work of this committee a bipartisan way and looking for to testimony today. We now turn to admiral haynes director of National Intelligence welcome fear leadership. Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman turner, Ranking Member hines, members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to be here today alongside my wonderful colleagues and on behalf of the extraordinary Public Servants we lead in the Intelligence Community to protect the annual threat assessment. I want to thank the men and women of the Intelligence Communitys work representing today. On the collector to the animals and everyone in between, and help this work will keep our work safe and prosperous thank you. This years assessment notes during the coming year the United States and its allies will face an interNational Security environment by two sets of strategic challenges that intersect with each other first great powers rising regional powers and involving an array of nonstate actors for influence and impact in the International System including over the standards that shape the global order for decades to come. The next few years are critical strategic competition with china and russia intensifies for particular how the world will evolve over the rise of authoritarianism can be checked and reversed. I will be set ahead of and manage will be fundamental to our success in navigating Everything Else. Second challenges transcend borders including Climate Change, and Economic Needs made worse by energy and food security. Club swells russias unprovoked illegal vision of ukraine are converging as a plan emerges from the covid 19 pandemic. All the sick time as challenging longstanding norms for transnational cooperation. Further compounding this dynamic is impacted rapidly emerging technologies Ranking Member hines noted their having on government, society and intelligence around the world. Given that background i militarily around the world. The Chinese Party under present shooting paying will continue efforts of making china the preeminent power in asia and a major power on the world stage. Ccp is encouraging convinced it can only fill with the power and influence by using coordinating whole of government tools compel neighbors to ask we ask including ant land, sea, and airplanes in the region and its assertions of sovereignty over taiwan. Last october present she secured his third fiveyear term as chinas leader of the 20th party and as we meet today chinas National Legislature is in session. Formally appointing president sheet and confirming his choice to lead the prc state council as well as its ministries and leaders of the military at legislative and judicial branches. After more than a decade serving as top leaders he is controller key members of power with significant influence over most issues. He has surrounded himself with likeminded loyalists at the apex of the Party Standing committee. Chinas highest decisionmaking body and the ss during the course of his third term attempt to press taiwan on reunification, undercut u. S. Influence which they perceive as a threat, drive a wedge is between washington and its allies and partners and promote certain norms that favors chinas authoritarian system. You may have seen president shes recent criticism during his speech on monday of which he referred to as americans question of china reflecting his longstanding distrust of u. S. Goals and his apparent belief that the United States tends to contain china she spoke with the most direct criticism we have seen from him today and probably reflects pessimism in beijing about chinas relationship with the United States as well as president sheehan growing worries and trajectories and Economic Development and technology innovation. He also wants to messages populace and regional actors u. S. Bears responsibility for any increase intentions despite public and direct critical rhetoric we assessed beijing benefits most by spiraling attentions to him by preserving stability in its relationship with the United States. Specifically preserving stability in east asia, avoid triggering a National Economic punishments from u. S. Sanctions with its partners and showcase study relationship with the United States to avoid setbacks in its other relationships around the world even while signaling opposition to provocation including the shootdown of the prc balloon. He was a period of relative calm to give china the time of stability it needs to address difficulties. Economic development the i see assesses chinas longterm Economic Growth will continue to decelerate because chinas era of rapid catchup road this ending and debt, demographics, inequality overreliance on investment and suppressed remain. Although it may find ways to overcome structural challenges over the long term in the short term the ccp continues to make take a grease aggressive approach to external affairs pursuing the goal of building a worldclass military, expanding its nuclear arsenal, pursuing counterspace weapons capable of targeting u. S. And satellite forcing Foreign Companies and coercing Foreign Countries to allow the transfer of technology and intellectual property in order to boost its indigenous capabilities. Continuing to increase supply chain dependency on china with the aim of viewing Foreign Countries during the crisis, expanding its cyber pursuits and increasing the threat of aggressive Cyber Operations against the u. S. Homeland and foreign partners. And influencing operations the export of technology. Ccp will also seek to reshape Global Governance in light of this preferences when government standards supported with policies that the un the Global Initiative blocks like the Shanghai Cooperation Organization as a counterweight to the west and then grouping in a forum to see its success. Ccp represents leading most consequential threat to the u. S. National security and leadership globally and its intelligence and global ambition make it your most serious and consequential intelligence rival. During the past year the threat has been additionally complicated by a collaboration with russia. Which also with the Intelligence Community. When we were here last, before the committee before the annual threat assessment last year, theres only a few weeks after russias unprovoked and illegal invasion of ukraine, now were over a year into the war are reshaping the only russias global relationship but also strengthening our alliances and partnerships in ways that president putin almost certainly did not anticipate. Often precipitating the very events that he hoped to avoid such as sweden and finland petition to join nato. On the battlefield there is currently the grinding attritional war in which neither side has definitive military advantage. As russia tries to capture the remainder. The russians are making incremental progress on that which is not a particular strategic objective. But otherwise facing considerable constraints. Including personnel and ammunition shortages, dysfunction within the militarys leadership, exhaustion, and morale challenges. And even as the russian offensive continues they are experiencing rates with better understanding the limits of what his military is capable of achieving. And it appears to be focused on more modest military objective for now. Export control and sanctions are hampering war efforts particular by restricting access to foreign components necessary to produce weapon systems. If russia does not initiate a mobilization, a mandatory one and identify substantial thirdparty ammunition supplies it will be challenging for them to sustain even the current level of operations in coming months. And consequentially we do not perceive that military recovering enough this year to make a major territorial gains. Putin most likely time is on his side. And prolonging the war including potential pauses in the fighting may be his best remaining pathway to eventually securing russias strategic interest in ukraine, even if it takes several years. Ukraine also faces challenges. The prospects for success in a major spring offensive will hinge on several factors the Ukrainian Armed forces struggling to defend against russia across eastern these russian assaults are costly for a rush of the extent to which Ukrainian Forces are having to draw it on their reserves and equipment as well as the suffer the casualties will all likely factor into ukraines ability to go on the offensive later this spring. Continues to monitor putins reactions and saber rattling the assesses current posturing is intended to deter the west from providing additional see to ukraine as he further escalate the conflict. And probably remains more confident russia can eventually militarily defeat ukraine and wants to prevent support from tipping the balance in forcing a conflict with nato. And of course already considerable human toll of the conflict is only increasing. In addition to the many tens of thousands of casualties suffered by the russians and Ukrainian Military more than 8 Million People been forced to flee ukraine. Since russia invaded there is widespread reporting atrocities committed by Russian Forces including deliberate strikes against nonmilitary targets such as ukraine civilian population and infrastructure particulates Energy Facilities and electrical grid and proxy groups tens of thousands of ukrainian civilians and hold russian russia actors accountable for their actions. The reaction to countries around the world and criticism at home. Suffer losses require years of rebuilding less capable of military threat to men in europe and certainly in eurasia. As a result russia will become even more reliant on asymmetric options such as nuclear, cyber, Space Capabilities and on china. Our assessment also covers iran which continues to pursue longstanding ambitions for regional leadership and u. S. Persons directly and via proxy attack by rhonda meza threat to israel more indirectly through the support and other proxies in most concerning iran is accelerating the expansion of the Nuclear Program stating its no longer constrained by limits and has undertaken research and develop meant activities that would bring it closer to producing material for completing a Nuclear Device following the decision to do so. North korea similarly remains a concern as it continues to get the efforts to steadily expand and enhance its nuclear and conventional capabilities targeting the United States and our allies periodically using aggressive potentially destabilizing actions to reshape the regional stability environment in its favor and reinforce its status as a de facto nuclear power. In addition regional challenges such as interstate conflicts, instability and core and africa and the developing world increase poverty hinders insurgencies democratic backsliding spill over. Will remain in place insurgencies and corruption at western hammonds and economic weakness and corruption public frustration that challenges to leaders were also opposing sustained migration criminal challenges. Throughout the world countries are struggling and prevent the authoritarian in some cases because russia and china are helping autocrats take or hold power. As i noted at the outset transnational challenges in iraq with more than often reinforce each other. Yuans national for Climate Change remains an urgent threat. I will increasingly exacerbate risks u. S. National security at the physical and the tension. But the global response. And now entering the fourth year of the covid19 pandemic remains one of the most significant threats excuse me. To Global Public health at a cost of more than 6. 5 million, trillions of dollars in lost economic output to date. In addition to the direct effects of the pandemic resulted in economic security, political and National Security implications of covid19 to straight Recovery Efforts present at both known and unforeseen challenges, though probably will ripple through society and the Global Economy during the next year end for years to come. Precious aggression against ukraine is aggravated covid19 related for julies in the Global Economy raised commodity prices, fueled market volatility and contribute to Food Insecurity and financial instability. The combination of elevated Energy Prices has increased the number of those facing extreme poverty and Food Insecurity. Countries will struggle to reverse these trends. Food sables stabilized war in ukraine can be blamed for these intensifying effects. Some think much of the world also understands. Others including china will have to come to terms with this they consider to what extent they continue insisting or enabling a russia. The Climate Change, the pandemic and conflicts are exacerbating regular migration in the western sailboat and in the United States such as deteriorating socioeconomic security conditions with perceptions of u. S. Policy and Employment Opportunities in the United States will almost certainly persist through 2023. Please forgive me because apparently the pet last two pages did not print out. For heaven sakes. Okay, Transnational Criminal Organizations exploit migrants, through distortion kidnapping, human trivia including sex trafficking and forced labor these organizations also continue to pose a direct threat to the production trafficking lethal list of drugs and the world of law and partner nations. In particular the threat from drugs and historic level best to apply synthetic opioids from mexican pcos continuing to play a role in driving american overdosed to over 100,000 annually. It remains a persistent threat the problem is evolving. Individuals to ideologies expelled by isis, al qaeda, transnational racially and ethnically motivated extremis, movements in particular pose significant threats to u. S. Persons, facilities and interest. New technologies particularly in the field that are partially governments were able to shape and prevent dangerous outcomes are triggered risk a Rapid Development of more interconnected asymmetric threats to u. S. , relatedly foreign states malicious use of Digital Information and Communication Technology will become more pervasive. The became complex during the next few years threating to distort publicly available information and outpacing efforts on how to distinguish fact from propaganda. Authoritarian with open information and environments went to bring protection the absolute crucial authority and Ranking Member hines discussed. If congress does not act in relied upon in gathering intelligence the 30 every day. Unique intelligence on foreign intelligence at a speed and reliability we cannot replicate section 702 terrorists abroad. Foreign intelligence from non u. S. People located outside the United States. An Electronic Communication Service providers as evidenced by his key role in the u. S. Government operations to former al qaeda leader. Her vital insights for hard Party Threats Critical Infrastructure precursor chemicals key intelligence related to threats coming from russia, north korea and iran and china again. Its a powerful authority and send comment on all of us the Intelligence Community to ensure the privacy and Civil Liberties interests of americans are built into its design and implementation at every level protect the last many years complaints to do just that. We welcome the opportunity to reauthorizing critical authority and building in your trust for thank you for your patience and look forward your questions, thank you. Text incredibly impressive doctor burns for the when that was good now to begin with member questions but i yield my time to representative the chair of our pfizer 702 board, derek request thank you chairman turner. I want to thank the panel here today for your service to our country. And to keep the country secure it. I bought her to be selected as the lead for this important working group on pfizer reform. Im excited to take on a necessary review. I concur with chairman turner pfizer specifically authorities in section zero two provide armed with success Security Apparatus in the fight against foreign adversaries. Overseeing the investigation criminal prosecutions of terrorist activity. I fully understand the value of pfizer as an incredible collection asset in our fight against ongoing global terrorist threats. This has been briefed countless times on the many successes directly to the 702 collection authorities. Seven of which director haynes you highlight in your opening remarks. Above 702 in that speech you talked about this authority provides the u. S. Government and sites whether we are reporting on cybersecurity threats, counterterrorism threats, or u. S. And allied forces. Pfizer section 702 russia iran and norsk north korea unfortunately far too many members of congress on both sides of the aisle can be trusted with this powerful tool that is because they are in the past by the fbi. From where i sit i believe theres a clean legislative reauthorization to reiterate what the chairman said we must first acknowledge a problem exists with meaningful reform to build back trust and confidence in the pfizer process. Doctor rao went to start with you. Are you willing to acknowledge the fbi is committed abuses and violations with the use of fisa it is that defensible . Its important to distinguish with title i pfizer. For example it were an issue the inspector generals report with crossfire hurricane. Conduct considered totally unacceptable. Totally unacceptable. And unrepresentative of the fbi. Implement all sorts of reforms i could go into on that. To address that issue is important to note about that is all of the reports to date that have been shared with the public and i think with congress about 702 compliance issues all predate the comdex which is why its so important for me too be able to let the committee know. This will be coming in more detail in the next report that comes out in late april i think it is. That we have now seen a 93 decrease. Yearoveryear from 2022. Made by the fbi. Aberration of one year prepare it to 2020s of the year before that its about 85 . Their judicious nests of be around running their queries. We are absolute committed to making sure the congress the American People we are worthy of these incredibly valuable authorities for cracks because a number of these abuses and noncompliance issues with the fbi, would you agree the fbi as a trust issue with the American Public and specifically with members of congress . Click certainly, any time we have anybody who has a trust issue with us we want to try to address it. I look at the American People more broadly i think a lot of it is reaction to specific cases. I see the American People showing up in droves to come work at the fbi. Putting that to the side, we clearly have work to do and we are eager to do with this committee. To show we can be worthy stewards of these important authorities. And so if there questions that need to be answered, i understand completely why those questions are being raised. We brought them on ourselves. I want to make sure we can answer those questions. And how would you give reassurance to the American People their Civil Liberties are going to be protected . The changes i started describing at a high level include all sorts of things. Even inadvertent compliance incidents that snoot safeguards new approvals, new oversights. All sorts of mandatory enhanced training by created an entire new office of internal audit that did not exist at the fbi before. And brought in a former agent accounting partner specifically on compliance. Ultimately we want that office to take on other kind of compliance to because of the importance of this issue we dedicated that internal audits obvious that theres a lot more we could get into it but im sympathetic to the time constraints here. Quick thank you for that. Unfortunately i believe the fbi does have an issue with members of congress. Thats part of what we could deal the working group. I would say that trust is only been made worse by the recent declassified 702 covering december 2019 through may of 2020. During that report theres a number of things brought forward. There was queries done inappropriately by the fbi on a local political party. Secondarily included in there was one specific instance of abuse involving multiple queries of the sitting member of congress in the fbi there is a footnote of the assessment. This describes as follows. Quotes and Intelligence Analyst with the fbi conducted multiple queries using only the name of u. S. Congressman. Nay 707 report specific facts that lead the analyst to conduct these queries, these queries retrieve required information clean section 702 that were open fbi advised no minimize fisa information was disseminated or used in any way. This was reviewed by the National Security division of the s department of justice od and i and based on what they reviewed they found these queries to be wholly inappropriate, not compliant and a violation. They were overly broad as constructed. I think the reports characterization of this fbi analyst action as a near miss understanding and procedures is indicative of the culture of the fbis come to expect and even tolerate. Its also indicative of the fbis continued failure to appreciate how the misuse of this authority is seen on capitol hill. I want to make clear the fbi inappropriate of a duly elected member of congress is agreed to us. And the violation not only that degrades the trust in fisa but viewed as a threat to the separation of powers. I have had the opportunity to review the classified summary of this operation it is my opinion the member of congress that was wrongfully queried multiple times solely by his name was in fact me. Now this careless abuse of this critical tool is unfortunate. Gives me an opportunity and unique perspective on whats wrong with the fbi and the problems the fbi has. To highlight that i would like to submit for the record a couple of things. February 28, 2023 director haynes and attorney general garland asked for reauthorization of the congress. They can lend their dispute rigorous ongoing oversight of fbi 702 query. The collection decisions on u. S. Person inquiries. They will be evaluating taking remedial action to address incidents of noncompliance by the fbi. I like to submit that for the record mr. Chairman. 2023 from congressman andy biggs of arizona. He talks about declassified 2021 report detailing these continued abuses of 702. In there he mentions these incidences should frighten every american and Congress Deserves an expedition for them. He additionally talks about these quote backdoor searches are violation of the Fourth Amendment and could not continue but if asked to submit that for the record. Without objection. Thirdly article in politico from march 1 title d. O. J. Faces bipartisan for army of skeptics on fisa 702. In that article again referring to declassified report on the inappropriate 7702 talks about a sign of odd political bedfellows in the house who are pushing reforms conservative congressman andy biggs both members of the Judiciary Committee publicly vetted on the detailed in the footnote of the report. Fbi Intelligence Analyst improperly queried surveillance and data on the u. S. Member of the house rat asked to submit that for the record requests without objection. Last of the footnote i mentioned that has been declassified states in their the National Security division of the u. S. Department of justice od and i assessed based on the facts and analysis of this fbi analyst these queries would not comply because theyre overly broad as constructed. Like to submit that for the record. Without objection. The bottom line is 702 deserves to be reauthorized because its an invaluable tool to our efforts to counter the threats of our adversaries. But the pfizer working group must and will pursue reforms and safeguards through this reauthorization process. I have a few questions for other panelist, director haynes why do we need 70 choose to specifically Counter China . Thank you representative. Specifically with respect to china there are a number of ways in which it is crucial in the context of counterintelligence. Where we are looking at where it is they fight into the United States. And with their planning is in relation to it. Its crucial in the context of threats to u. S. Victims into Critical Infrastructure through cyber as we have all indicated. It is crucial to understanding a whole range of issues because it is effectively the most effective way for us to gather intelligence outside the United States. Thank you. Director burns one to 70 to mean for cias ability to Counter China . Is crucially important for all the reasons that doctor haynes just mentioned. It also enables us to focus on avoiding sanctions to obtain sensitive technologies. All this areas are extremely important. And director, can you quantify in some way how vital 702 is and the efforts to Counter China . I know you specifically referenced a number of incidents in your speech in january. I would congress its the number one that we need. I can go into specific areas where it is so important. Thank you. Director, as a consumer of the information obtained by 702 can you explain the value of this information to Counter China . Yes i can pay the intelligence Source Agency while we do not give fisa collection certainly benefit if the insights we get from that point we bake that into are all sorts analysis for the department of defense. Thank you for that. In closing, i am honored by chairman turner selection is a chair of the pfizer working group, and i am energized to begin a bar pride bipartisan work in her Senate Colleagues to reauthorized this vital tool. I also look forward to working with all of you here and request your cooperation in this endeavor. Thank you neil mr. Chairman. Thank you. Thank you ginter were witnesses. My good friend from illinois put a lot on the table much i was not briefed on. Directory adlibbed to start giving you a minute or two to respond id like you to keep it to a minute or two if you could. Theres a lot to say so be very brief. I completely understand concerns and everything he read per the main point i would make for todays purposes is that all of those problems and they are problems. All of those violations and they are violations predates all of these reforms i was trying to summarize. My hope is how these reforms will prevent stuff like what you just described from happening again in the future. Thank you. Going to direct my next question to director haynes and director burns. We spend a lot of time thing about the mechanics with china what it would look like we do not spend a lot of time thinking about the economics of tension leading to ultimately conflict for that to occur. This is not current ran did a study they estimate the gdp in the event of a conflict would contract a staggering 25 35 rate u. S. Gdp contract by five or 10 . The perplexing thing here is the sole reason and has been able to achieve the Economic Growth that has a point where today today its on an aggregate basis has been the engagement with the world. Illicit engagement through trade and other things and elicit engagement to the ceiling of ip that manipulation of currency rates et cetera. A twopart question, can you paint the picture of if we continue my contentions continue to be exacerbated leading to a point where there is conflict, what that would look like for the Global Economy for the chinese economy and most importantly help me understand what the chinese leader would risk the golden goose essentially . I will start. I think to your point that is something i think to start with. In other words, we continue to assess for example even respect to taiwan they would prefer to achieve unification for peaceful means. And for of course. They nevertheless are utterly committed to reunification with that is the challenge. President xi has made it quite clear that if something has to happen. As a consequence theres peaceful there is the potential for actually trying to achieve it militarily. They are certainly planning for that. On that in terms of the impact you would have, it obviously depends upon what the conflict looks like. But to your point again youre actually right this is any conflict is likely to happen and the economic implications. In one of things youve certainly looked at its in the government treasury and commerce and so on. You look at the implications with respect to taiwan and with disruption of their materials particularly their Semi Conductors. Studies have showed it would have an absolute enormous implication for the Global Financial economy if there were disruption to Taiwan Semiconductor production. The Semi Conductor of the chips that come out of taiwan are present and virtually every category of Electronic Devices around the world. Director, i know tia conducts economic work and economic assessment. Id be interested in your view. Shortened two examples toward what director said in terms of the calculus the chinese leadership. In terms of that relationship i think in taiwan as director ian said we do not see evidence today that president xi has made a decision to invade taiwan. I would never underestimate the ambitious of the leadership in that regard or determination. I do think no one has watch more intently what putins experience in ukraine then she thinking has. I think he has been sobered to some extent, at least it is our analysis by the extent to which the west was able to maintain solidarity and shortterm economic cause in the interest of imposing longterm Economic Cost to russia. That is something president xi has to wait as he comes out of zero covid, tries to resort chinese Economic Growth. Tries to engage with the rest of the Global Economy. But i think that also weighs in his decision about whether or not to lethal equipment to russia. We see clear evidence that chinese leadership is considering them. But there again economic factors director haynes says has to weigh significantly in the calculus of the chinese leadership. Do we believe the chinese leaderships of appreciates it when they supply lethal weapons that would have economic consequences. A lot of people around will be much more hesitant to do business with china. Do we believe the leadership in beijing understands again killing the golden goose that allowed that country economically . Click something i would highlight congress is i think it has been important for european leaders the wedges between the United States and european allies. The leaders have spoken out directly about this is a very important step. Thank you. Second category of questions is on technology and i want to be respectful of my colleagues times im going to direct my questions. I had the opportunity last week to visit cia and see the work thats been done by the director in terms of technological innovation. Doctor burns is made a strategic priority. He hired smith from the outside to be chief technology officer. It was amazing officer cleared out offices created open floor space. Missing a millennial playing a guitar to reproduce what you see every day in the middle cia headquarters. With that whats the context, when you guys doing that this tangible ci has done and is at the cutting edge of Technology Innovations . Its one of things weve done Ranking Members look at different partners. This is the key piece of what we learn from russia ukraine. The cyber sectors been incredibly helpful where we need to go to thwart what rushes attempted to do in ukraine. Within the cyberspace collaboration unclassified building were our analysts go to engage with the private sector. Members of the Defense Industrial base to do two things. One, was to provide information in terms of whats going on in cyberspace. Two, to also get information about what were seeing out there. One of the new leads . Or the things we have to be able to emphasize . The coming decade is certainly a decade were cyberspace will be dominate one of the things we believe is we have to have those partnerships that are critical. Congressmen are innovation engines fueled by the sin this is where companies can come in with great ideas on how they might be able to help the Defense Intelligence enterprise but we evaluate those and meet with those folks and try to pull their ideas in. Our two major focus areas rai for program called mars the machine. That rapid repository system that will revolutionize the way we do military intelligence, really pulling in swaths of data to make an environment much richer for analysts. The other pieces are sense of modernization to take all of those rides and signals out there that are unique and be able pull them into art mouse enterprise. Thats our hope youre. Appreciate that im glad you highlighted openness to outside companies that are not traditional. I have just heard too many stories, Innovative Companies who have no hope of navigating the acquisition process and Everything Else even though they may have cutting edge technology. Going to follow up with you on that. And youll back my time, thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you chairman turner, Ranking Member heinz and all of you for being here today. Director haynes if you cut right to it today. That is the challenges that we face in the nation and the threat that we have, threats our country are not new but some of the forms of that threat are neo. When i talk about that a little bit the Chinese Communist party is assertive. They want to stabilize us as much as they can. They are getting pretty good at it. The only concerns i have are the development of adversaries, biological weapons. The very great concern to me. Also the flow of illicit fentanyl coming into our country, which even in the meeting with the Chinese Ambassador he admitted we sell the precursors. Somebody elses problem after that. It is our problem i doing to hold those accountable for these efforts to be held accountable at some points. We have got to do a better job of that. I think we need to address and invest in some of the resources we need to stop the scourge of fentanyl. Also the creation of a bio weapons is something we should be greatly concerned about with any weapon it is our responsibility to really Work Together on these things as best we can. We do panel a few weeks ago a little bit better in her eyes. She mentioned how the law requires members of this committee to be informed of the intelligence activities of the United States. That is this committee is not every member of commerce is not the general public can we get that. But for this committee it has to happen for it and we need to insist upon that. We also need to insist on our side that we engender trust to the seriousness of this committee and the work that we have to do on her own professional responsibilities in this relationship. And i think we are at this point. Very helpful to the work that we do on this committee and i thank you for that. Sometimes we can do a little bit more. So, director i know this committee has written you a few times about who the Intelligence Community consulted with regarding the assessment of covid19 and its origins. I chair the select committee on the pandemic all things with of the pandemic and origins to covid is important and even yesterday in the hearing every person on the committee, bipartisan and every one of our panelists said its an important project we need to continue and try to get to and we can go to all those reasons. Why is it important for us to have this information and to know who the experts are . If we hear Something Like its our policy to tell you, thats a problem and it is important who you spoke to because it doesnt, they may have some personal bias or other agenda or a political l bias towards their conclusions. Youve seen all these agencies with different conclusions. Why is that . It may be dependent on who they talk to so its important that we get that information and its my understanding they would be willing to show their underlining report especially the updated report since odni owns the assessment so what im going to ask is that you would approve that and get us that information so we can move forward and i would hope we could also get the information of who they talked to. Its important to this committee and to the country so i am asking would you commit to that at this time . I know this is an issue that weve talked about and i think first of all absolutely in classified form. I dont know what that is but we will look at that and get back to you. On the more general issue, let me put a few things down. One problem for us is we want to be able to consult including with academics, a variety of other experts in fields related to covid19 but also a series of other areas and often for many its not something they want to be known as consulting with the Intelligence Community it creates challenges for them. Im talking about in a classified setting. This is important for the work because we do need to know who they are and how they came to their assessment. Often what will happen is for example they will be willing to participate in a conference or something along those lines and they will do it under the house rule that says we cant attribute essentially anything to them specifically to bring the information out. Thats an example of the kind of challenge. Also the backgrounds of the various experts that weve consulted with. The published information that weve relied on and any questions. Is there anybody you want us to talk to i commit to you that we will absolutely take those things and ensure that we are consulting with them as well. We are trying to do the best job that we can to predict a pandemic, prepare, protect the american lives and to prevent one. Thank you. An open question. Last week the Committee Heard from several leaders from the think tank community. And in their remarks they presented differing views about whether a standalone open Source Agency is needed. What are your views and what are the agency is doing to incorporate the reporting and its analysis to help counter the threats described in your remarks . I will start but i think going to director burns and the general would be useful to hear what they are doing because they are centers of excellence in this area. We have been through a process whereby weve been trying to ensure the open source work that is being done across the community is as effective as possible in supporting the priorities across the Intelligence Community and one of those issues thats come up is how do we organize ourselves and make sure we have the right talent for the technology thats needed and maintain the partnerships with the private sector and otherwise important to this effort. And we had an external panel look at that and weve received advice and we are going to be establishing at odni executive a small group that will be like a dozen folks we go through. Basically need to support the work that is being done across the Intelligence Community. The cia is the functional manager and the dia is the Defense Intelligence enterprise manager, so i will turn to them. Just to add, i take very seriously the increasingly Important Role of open Source Information. We cant function effectively as an Intelligence Service if the functional managers across the Intelligence Community unless we put more resources into drive and energy into this issue so i appointed a new director of the open source enterprise several months ago and im pleased with the drive and energy and creativity that hes bringing to this as well not only to make better use of the Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning because the challenge for us with the panelists is sifting through the avalanche of information, sifting through the haystack to get to those needles that are going to matter most. Then to work with the director and our other partners to avoid duplication, we are learning from one anothers experience to look at ways in which we can learn from one another. From the defense portfolio what we are trying to do is establish the defense programs so that we have standards for training and tradecraft that we are not getting ripped off in multiple places by buying the same kind of data and that we are doing this in a way that is smart across the combatant commands. Weve heard from several speakers including general petraeus who warned of a lack of a genuine Workforce Development training. What are your organizations doing when it comes to recruiting and maintaining the workforces and if you agree that it needs to devote more resources for professional development how do you plan on tackling those very apparent issues . There is no question we have to do better on the diversity accessibility and in the budget request and proposals and all the work we are doing that we see this as an area that we need to focus more intense resources and efforts. When i look across odni in the Senior Leadership and i look at the percentage of hispanic and latinos for example, it is a little bit more than 3 and that doesnt reflect of the country. These are things we are trying to get out. It allows us to be held accountable for what the diversity is and we are able to do studies and work that allow us to understand where there are challenges. We are also working across a range of other issues that we have seen to promote recruitment across the country and in a variety of communities to make sure we are reaching folks that dont normally come to vic and they are focused on retaining the talented that we do have. Weve recently looked at the project im going to have to ask you to get through the list that we have we have to start keeping it to the window with five minutes. Im going to talk really fast. Theres a couple of things again to hit them both im going to be brief the 702 for the importance of that thank you for being here. We recognize each of u. S. Distinguished leaders. If i could make this point, all of us are responsible to the people, but those of us sitting up here have a special trip responsibility. We go home every weekend and we talk with hundreds of people. I think that we have a pulse on where the people are far more than executive or military intelligence officials. I think we have the pulse of the people and in that regard when we talk about the fear and concern. For the National Security expert official and then i would ask you to respond but i read this to you to illustrate this is the challenge we have when it comes to reauthorizing and much of this is shared by members of congress. We could show dozens of examples sending agents to shut down local prosecutors and jeff epstein. Refusing to investigate multiple points the problem is speaking of the fbi they have no accountability, near absolute power and they know no one not Even Congress can touch them. That is we understand your concerns but at the same time we want to reauthorize these powers and authorities. If you recognize we need to admit weve made mistakes and we are going to correct it. I appreciate you sharing your constituents letter with me. What i would say is of course like any Major Institution we have made mistakes. Some of the descriptions in the letter are not accurate. Absolutely weve made mistakes and to me the mark of the organization isnt whether it makes mistakes or not. All major organizations about whether or not we learn from those mistakes weve made all sorts of changes to go into on different issues but we are determined to be worthy of all Americans Trust including your constituents. I appreciate that because thats where we are going to find a success. To say we recognize we can do better and to do better the process has to be reformed. We look forward to working with you because we do have to reorganize. This is to you you are most appropriate to answer this. There are so many things we can talk about we look forward to the closed hearing as i said but we have to talk about china. Reflecting back on my military experience with a number of instances a couple times when we had American Assets and intelligence aircraft and the p3 as an example. During that time we didnt really know what our policy would be or how the u. S. Would respond. In the past, the president said pretty clearly that we would respond with military action if china were to invade taiwan and shortly after that the administration walked back those comments but it didnt occur once. It occurred several times. We have the policy of strategic ambiguity that served us well for the last 30 years. But i wonder if its not time for us to declare another policy added that is we will defend taiwan. Its pretty clear of the presidency to think that. Understand the need for strategic ambiguity before with the times are different now. If we are going to detour i think we have to be clear in saying we will defend taiwan militarily. Director, am i wrong and has there been a change in the administrations policy regarding ambiguity . I would obviously not be in the position to comment on policy, but i think youre right and recognizing the president s comments on this issue and thats been a pretty strong statement. In the 13 seconds i have do you agree that there would be stronger deterrence of the adversaries new that we would defend militarily if necessary . In this particular case i think it is to the chinese. For unearthing evidence we will be visiting shortly. My first question is directed to director ray. Youve said the popular apps on peoples phones, this quote a tool that is ultimately within the control of the Chinese Government and it screams out with National Security concerns. We found that employee is regularly engaged in a practice called heating a manual push that ensures specific videos to achieve a certain number of videos. Can you rule out that it is heated content at the director . What i think is problematic and their Parent Company they confirmed it used ticktock to monitor journalists physical locations using their ip addresses in an attempt to identify whether they had been located. Can you rule out that the data was also shared with the ccp . I dont think we could rule that out. Could they use it to shape political opinions such as to inform, misinform the American Public . Much along the lines of the first two questions its important to understand. It was one of the concerns. Recently my staff described a term apparently a chinese term that refers to a part of Chinese Culture where people develop personal trust in a stronger relationship that can involve moral obligations in exchange of favors and suggested in the press theyve developed between vladimir putin. Do we have any evidence in the calculations of potentially providing military assistance from russia and ukraine that hes ever discussed among his internal called raise maybe we could discuss this in closed session. General, i want to talk to you about something called case disease which have been talked about recently. This is what a former general of the commission and the prc described he said, quote, today the pla hasnt been in actual combat for many years get the fires of war are burning throughout the world. The gap between the pla informed military is growing day by day and closes with an actual problem. This is from a 2009 speech by the general. This term peace disease refers to supposedly a lack of combat readiness on the part of the pla between 2012 and 2018 and recently said he wants to cure the peace disease. How do you assess when the chair man would know the peacetime disease has been cured and the troops are ready for combat . Im not sure i could put a fixed data on that. We know the leaders dont have the kind of combat experience that the leaders have, so we think this shapes the way that he thinks about the readiness of the force and we could probably go into a few more details on that. I wanted to ask you a question about threats from gtp but i couldnt think of any. What measures are the cia taking to monitor and mitigate potential risks associated with the use of the language modeled by gtp and how would you prevent the language models not to be used by malicious actors to spread false information or influence Public Opinion . Im glad to give you an example. It isnt the first language and they are thinking about ways they can come up with compelling spearfishing messages. Its logical to use Artificial Intelligence of one kind or another to produce the message that can be pretty effective in spearfishing and therefore taking advantage of vulnerabilities. What we are working on across the committee is ways of identifying that spearfishing effort of using Artificial Intelligence by a foreign adversary. Thank you, mr. Chair man for being here today. America is for the era of great power conflict with the likes of russia and china heres a bit of their analysis. The bigger military budgets including the 7 in spending this year improved the air force missiles and submarines better training created a modern force from what was once a military recruit and chinas developing weapons and other capabilities and presents a threat to infrastructure further. Around of the countries that are leaders advanced technologies 44 categories the United States led in seven in the balance and we have that graph to ask unanimous consent to enter into the record. Without objection. The Research Strength at the intersection of the sensors, quantum communication and advanced Optical Communications and cryptography could demand the intelligence communities particularly could lose important capabilities and suffer from situational awareness. They lead in the photonic sensors and communications, advanced Optical Communications and post cryptography. Further states taken together these observations increase the risk of the Chinese Communications going dark to the efforts of western Intelligence Services. This is a plan for contingency in the event of hostilities and tensions. Let me ask you do you agree or disagree with those statements and what is your agency or agencies doing to catch up or stay ahead of china considering those comments . I would agree that china shrunk the gap in terms of where they are previously and where they are today. Several things. First of all competitive advantages we make and break code to better than anyone in the world. The second, we look at partnership. Those are partners we have to bring in, academic partners engaged with industries. This is what gives strength that china will never have. The association we have as a combat support agency with the department of defense to identify vulnerabilities, mitigate them and then ensure that we can advance. The Defense Intelligence agency recently reorganized with a group that is specifically focused on this threat. We are continuing to engage the partners and other partners in the region on where we can Work Together to get after this threat in a collective way, and we will be expanding our footprint into the indo pacific very soon. Further comments . We have made to the same kind of important organizational changes because i think that the two challenges that you just talked about are going to be central to the future Intelligence Services meaning china and competition with of the prc and the revolution in technology that is going to be the main arena for the competition, so what we have done is stepped up considerable efforts to collect on the areas youve described working with partners in the u. S. Government but also foreign partners as well to slow down the prc efforts to try to gain an advantage in those areas and then underscore what the general said what is crucial to all of this working with partners within the private sector as well as foreign partners. One more issue for your attention this is also a wall street report. Life with no internet and then the gist of this, there is an island that had their internet cut off effectively and this is typically a precursor for action and with regards to taiwan, do you think we have adequate redundancies to address that threat should the situation arise . This is an issue that we are worrying about across all our partners, analyze to ensure we have a way to help them and we can further discuss details. Thats been the case where they diminished the capabilities and so on, operational control. Thats why i asked the question because i have some concerns about addressing that and do we have the adequate resources in place to mitigate that threat. Thank you and i will yield back. Thank you mr. Chair man. Russia has committed and continues to commit on the speakable war crimes against the people in the conduct of this war. The United States is not a signatory to the actual criminal court but Congress Last year passed a law that made it very clear we should provide intelligence and information related to the crimes to the International Criminal court and i will quote in the appropriations bill that passed late last year exceptions allowing for assistance with investigations and prosecutions of the foreign nationals related to the situation in ukraine and of course the discussion around that and the debate around that made it very clear the congressional intent was to provide that information to the icc. Its my understanding this debate within the administration, more specifically the department of defense is producing that assistance and information from being relayed including the principals meeting that occurred on february 3rd where there was debate about that so it is your understanding that current law passed by congress mandates this information in furtherance of the russian war crimes . We absolutely, and i dont think theres any debate we should be providing support on the russian war crimes as a general matter. What we do is provide intelligence that can be provided through the arms of the u. S. Government that typically work with the icc so the war crimes we dont do that directly and i think its a question of what we are providing and whether or not theres information that is currently not being provided that the Intelligence Community would like or otherwise would provide. We provided to the policy arms and i dont know exactly what they have provided. More specifically then if your understanding the department of defense is holding up the provision of information or intelligence to the icc. That is not my understanding. Do you have an understanding one way or another on this . The next question is about the assistance generally to ukraine theres a lot of debate in congress right now and the administration about both the quantity and the quality of the military assistance to ukraine. My understanding is that russia does not have the capability of any major offenses or breakthroughs currently in ukraine. Theyve been degraded. Is it your understanding in 2023 that the russians couldnt conduct major offenses or have major strategic success in ukraine . It is our judgment of the Russian Military is capable of making incremental tactical gains and they made some in the course of the launch to the last four or five weeks in the don bus of Eastern Ukraine but its our collective assessment i think that the whole variety of reasons the director mentioned the mission shortages and morale problems, manpower problems, conflicts within their own military leadership that they are unlikely to be able to make significant strategic breakthroughs or sustain them over the course of this year. Is it your understanding Vladimir Putins strategy is to recapitalize to consolidate support and to rebuild the infrastructure so that he will be capable of making advances or strategic success within 2024 and 2025 in the longterm view . I think that he is very much taking a longer term view and i think that he is doubling down in many respects right now i believe that he is convinced he can make time work for him and ground down the ukrainians in this war of attrition and wear down though supporters of ukraine and he is convinced also and has been for some time without ukraine matters more to him than us. Therefore the challenge i think is to puncture that view. Given that the decisions have been made about the relative risks and where they live versus the longterm risks, would it be your best advice that we transition the nature of our support to look more towards ukraine and the modernization efforts to ban to look further out on the horizon then the shorterterm efforts . I avoid offering free policy advice in my current role these days. I would say the matter of intelligence assessment is the next several months, four, five, six months will be crucial and i think any prospect for the serious negotiation which i do not believe we are ready for today is going to depend on progress on the battlefield. Therefore i think analytically what is important is to provide all of the support that we possibly can which is that the president and the western allies are doing for the ukrainians as they prepare for a significant offensive in the spring. And that at the same time its not an either or question just as you said its looking at the longterm security needs of ukraine to help ensure the situation where they want to try to mount another opens organ of the invasion as they did at the beginning of last year. Thank you. I will yield back. One year ago at this very same hearing i asked you about the deadliest vehicle crash in my district in upstate new york. The crash instantly killed 20 people. Those families have never been the same and my office has communicated with many of them. The owner of the illegally retrofitted was an fbi informant with the rap sheet a mile long and it was because of my question to you in this open hearing that the fbi was forced to open an internal review. Let me be clear that was in response to our congressional oversight. Since then, the fbi has stonewalled and slow walked all of the additional requests for updates until miraculously just this week before you knew you were going to appear here today, we received an email informing the committee and myself of the following. The internal review is now complete. The fbi will provide a briefing and in connection we will make available the internal review with certain red actions and coordinate with your staff regarding the material. The fbi is providing this with an understanding that the committee will not publicly disclose the information contained. My expectation is that briefing will be this month. I want to follow up can you provide that briefing to the immediate family members, the parents or spouses of those victims . Let me make sure i talk with our folks and circle back. Obviously we want to make sure the victims and their families are informed but i dont know yet what constraints there will be so we will follow back up with you. Its only because of my work in congressional oversight that they are starting to have sunlight. I believe that you are a parent . I am a new parent as well and there is a set of parents that lost three daughters in that crash so providing sunlight and transparency is important. I also want to note the portion of the letter that says the fbi considers the provision of the review is the fulfillment of the above referenced. I remind you this committee and all the fbi determines the level for the full compliance with our constitutionally directed oversight role. I want to submit this for the record. So ordered. I also want to shift gears regarding the Judiciary Committee. I serve on the committee and theyve made 50 different requests for information and documents concerning the operations and actions of the fbi. To date the fbi hasnt complied with the committees long outstanding request for information documents. The fbis accountable to congress and by extension the American People responding to this routine oversight is the bare minimum. The saying that we have this hearing happening. Can you commit to sending a witness before the next subcommittee hearing on march 208th . We are happy to work with you. Can i get a commitment yes you will provide a witness . You are having the fbi director refused to provide a witness we will work with you to make somebody available. Do you believe that the hunter biden laptop story is disinformation . I want to be careful theres an Ongoing Investigation that is relevant to that so i have to be careful what i can share on that. Do you believe that its raised misinformation . I dont think theres anything i can share on that in an open setting. Were they in contact with twitter regarding the hunter biden laptop story . I dont believe personnel were in contact with twitter about the hunter story specifically. I think there were people in contact with twitter about russian disinformation efforts. I would be happy to talk about what the fbi does and doesnt do with respect to social media companies. Were you aware this december of 2019 . As you know theres an Ongoing Investigation run by u. S. Attorney out of delaware from the Prior Administration that we continue to work very closely with. The Baltimore Field Office is working very hard with of that attorney and i expect him to pursue that case this is unacceptable. Lastly did you sign off on the raid . First off it wasnt a rated was an execution of a search warrant second i dont sign off on individual search organs. In that case or any other. Among the fbi and the department of justice. Even though its been reported in the Washington Post . With that, i yield back in preparation of this briefing and then low and behold yesterday we had an email from the speaker talking about a data breach. Lets talk about the cyber crime and ransom where et cetera. I am sure we will get briefed on the data link in the future but obviously cybercrime and ransom is a major issue we are dealing with and becoming much more frequent. Maybe this is a question for the director to ask about state actors but also nonstate actors. How do we work with the private sector to compel them to put in the resources to harden the evidence and also maybe this is for director ray for the private Sector Companies how do we compel them whether it is the ic or the community with ransom where to address this issue we have to be aware of the issue you are exactly right in particular the private sector is the key to all of this. 85 of the Critical Infrastructure is in the hands of the private sector and a higher percentage when you look at innovation and even higher than that when you look at the rpi. As you know, congress has an important first step. In particular there are things that can be done and should be done to strengthen that. Its flowing more quickly to us so we can help as quickly as possible. Then i think overall part of it is raising Cyber Security awareness, which is part of what the active engagement that we are trying to participate in, all of us with the private sector is designed to accomplish. If i might add, congressman, it also means being able to leverage what we do as a community operating out of side and understanding with the adversaries are doing to ensure that tradecraft publicly. To be able to provide that to the fbi they talk to the u. S. Infrastructure and we prioritize that work that is very critical to us. Let me shift directions. I had the chance in my Foreign Affairs capacity and clearly japan is a geopolitical ally of increasing importance for stepping up and understanding the framework. They dont allow them to do security clearances et cetera. We want to have this relationship. What can we do as Congress Working with of the administration they are very aware of the vulnerability it seems like it is moving very slow. To raise the bar for cybersecurity i think this is instrumental to understanding where we need to go as the Intelligence Committee had to select partners we need to be able to share information with a great assurance they can protect and we need to be able to communicate to them with the idea that what we are saying will not be monitored. I give great credit theyve done tremendous work but we do need to focus on this very hard going forward. I will add to what was said this is an area of work that we have been engaged with japan, the republic of korea and we have a trilateral that we Work Together on these kind of issues it is incredibly important as you say just to build help for all of us to be better data cybersecurity but then also to be able to work against, for example, north korea and others that are engaging in activities or attacking the systems. We share the admiration we also applaud the japanese leadership for understanding. Its not as if we have a monopoly that the importance of the cybersecurity as well as an agency we are working with our partners. I was blessed in tokyo in december to Start Talking about these issues to do as much as we can to be supportive of the allies. Thank you and i will yield back. Thank you mr. Chair man and each of you for being here. I want to start off the man and women who do the work are amazing men and women and protect this on a daily basis however i will come in on some of the things that have happened. There is an erosion of trust in the American Public that you are protecting us and all of our constitutional and civil rights created in the constitution whether that is leaks at high levels to media sources or the political viewpoint that isnt necessarily anybody at this table whether that is resistance to oversight and using is currently under investigation. Just understanding we are not a normal congressperson we are selected for the committee. Weve had to trust in place on both sides of the aisle to be able to keep and maintain the same secrets that you do. Whether its not providing witnesses when we ask for them and saying they may not want to be disclosed. We have power if they dont want to disclose. It is important for us to be able to do our job with partners on that oversight and that is what we want to do not to throw daggers and rocks at you but we are the people who are most charged with selling renewals to the congress and to the American People. And without proper oversight, we cant do that. As we used to say, one does away with ten years without a voice. We cannot do that so when one happens if the public doesnt delight we are addressing that appropriately we have to do that so i would ask you director what are we doing for you to help us rebuild the trust and public theyve lost over years and many times it predates you but it doesnt matter when it happens weve got to turn the perception back that we trust the fbi and the nsa. Absolutely, thank you, congressman. Having the trust with respect to the community is fundamental and critical to us doing our job for all the reasons you indicated but also when we put out a warning the American People trust it enough to act on it. What we are doing is across the board trying to ensure we have appropriate oversight and the extraordinary power that we have in the context of 702 i think you heard a little bit of director ray but the investment that we are making in training with policies and procedures that help to ensure that we are doing things important for the law that we are looking at designs of technology its quite hard to do anything else. The search warrants, whatever, all the documents through multiple president s and Vice President s that were improperly disclosed. We have to do a better job of not telling the American Public all those things but they have to know that when they ask for those things, when we ask for those and you tell us we dont have the need to know where the right to know i can assure you that erodes public trust and doesnt help. We are not partisan folks on the committee when we are asking that. We are asking that for oversight so i ask you comply and i will shift a little bit to the Southern Hemisphere because i know when youre sitting here you talk quite a lot about the border and at those kind of things. We also talk about the trends, the National Terrorist organization and those things. That is not a connecticut fight but what can we do training assist wise to move to the southern part of mexico south what can we do to improve the standing and then nation through training and assist with the intelligence provided to them what can we do to strengthen the relationship so we dont have so much pressure on our border . I will start and im sure others will want to weigh in. One thing you rightly said mexico and then further south one of the things weve been doing and i think we can doubled down and i think we are trying to do that to work with the northern Triangle Companies with ms 13 et cetera, to illustrate how implicated this problem is, we have what we call transnational antigang the task forces and all of the el salvador, honduras, guatemala and in el salvador recently for example working in a massive ms 13 take down which is great youve got all these people walked up before they got anywhere near the border. The problem is theres so many of them that the ones that didnt get caught immediately started fleeing looking for someplace else to go and look at where they wanted to come, heading straight for our borders, so it illustrates why we cant just play whack a mole. We have to have a comprehensive solution. Mr. Chair man, i will yield back. I would ask consent we go to four minutes, not three. Thank you everyone that is here. I proudly served so many members of the committee as the representatives in congress on that note i would like to start with something thats impacted the personality and begin by saying that i appreciate the outreach that ive received from various agencies knowing of my interest in this. And the conversation hopefully will continue in closed session. I would like to ask for comments that it literally says what to me are somewhat contradictory statements in one paragraph noting it is unlikely that a foreign actor including russia is missed conducting a campaign involving hundreds. It continues related. Further in the paragraph it says they continued to actively investigate the issue focusing particularly on a subset of cases for which it has not ruled out any cause including the possibilities that one or more foreign actors were involved. Theres a lot of consternation among those that have been impacted and i appreciate the work you are doing to make sure people have their needs met. Would anyone like to comment on what appears to be by my reading somewhat contradictory statements in one small paragraph . Thank you very much, congressman. There is no question the analysis you are looking at that indicates as a general matter you move to conclude that it is very unlikely a foreign adversary is responsible and then you have some that look at it as unlikely. At the same time and this is where the work continues and there is no question that we see this as a continued priority for us is that we are going to be and continue to be vigilant about looking for information that undercuts those assumptions because we recognize there are gaps. We are going to continue to focus on trying to understand essentially what it is we can do to help the folks that have experienced these symptoms and issues and to figure out what is happening to each of them. As we look at the Experts Panel that went through the process to look at different mechanisms that might be causing different symptoms, issues and so on they had recommendations on research and development that would continue to go forward and that is something we are also pursuing and any remaining questions are things that we are looking to try to ensure that we are focused on moving forward. We are currently at a point in time and an analysis the door is open and of the investigation very much continuous that there could be a reversal or not of new information that would cause a new assessment that might differ from what we have seen thus far. I guess what i would say first i have huge respect for your service at the agency as well as the Intelligence Committee and i would say several things none of us are pretending. I think the thorough work that was done reflected on the Intelligence Committee assessment none of us are pretending that that is absolutely the final word. We will sustain a dedicated unit working with our partners and Intelligence Committee is not just to be alert. By the adversaries but who could focus on the mechanisms as well i would add for the day i began as the director more than two years ago we tried to understand the significance of this issue is not an abstraction but its about people suffering Health Conditions and in the service of their country they will not diminish. We remain committed to supporting all of our workforces. I want to continue the conversation in closed session related to fentanyl trafficking. Can you update the committee on your efforts to combat cartels and the trafficking of fentanyl that we have seen to be lethal in the United States . I would be glad to start and bring this back to the 702 because its been a crucial tool in our effort to collect foreign intelligence and enable our partners whether its mexico or domestic partners in the United States to take action to help protect Americans First we transformed our approach on the agency to how we look at this issue to focus on networks spanning precursor chemicals, financial flows. Then also fentanyl production and processing equipment as well in example the last few months to work with mexican partners to take some very successful actions. To enable us to work with other partners to take significant action against fentanyl production equipment. Thank you for that update. I yield back. One question for the panel. To believe the biggest challenge facing the committee and the threat facing the nation is when unlike the universal support we have in congress, incredible universal support for the intelligence agencies. By director haynes and director burns due to the actions of your predecessors not yourselves youve been forced to deal with their actions when theres a chipping away, with journeys theres a way to remove for bias among other things. The background check system, the polygraphs can screen for drug use, foreign contacts but theres no way that im aware of and i dont know that theres a policy solution. For these agencies theres a Public Perception political bias on the left or the right it could be both. The hyper partisanship is that a spike right now and into the hiring process it makes it tough for the agencies to screen for that. So how do you deal with that . Weve never heard any talk about politics and i took that as a source of pride for the bureau. This is before weve seen the spike in hyper partisanship. How do your agencies combat that . In some cases its not the actions of the various agencies. Obviously it is a complicated topic. One thing i will point to that weve done because i think you are right to focus not just on actual problems that have occurred but perceptions, both things matter so one of the things that we did as i ordered a stand down to focus on not just objectivity but making sure that we avoided even the appearance of bias so i started in a way that from your past experience you will recognize the unusual instead of saddling the front lines with some new training requirement because of something somebody else they did, i started at the top. The overwhelming message was fundamentals the right thing and the right way what they heard from judges because a lot of what youre describing is trying to adopt. They may have political backgrounds but they put those aside zada took them at the door. We need to have that same kind of mentality. To make them take the medicine first and then push it out to the workforce and we did for the entire workforce. This is something that i also grew up as a Civil Servant in the government. Nobody asked me what party i belong too. I was never an issue and something that has no place in our work. And i think we are looking and director ray is coming to speak across the Intelligence Community, all of us are so very strongly about setting that tone for culture and making sure that is not an issue. The second piece more generally is in fact engaging in transparency where we can. Exposing our assessments during annual threat assessment and an open form and youve asked us to come back and try to put out more of our product. Trying to give an opportunity for the American People to see the work that we do. Sort of to give a little more insight into how it is we do things. And finally in the context of transparency, giving more of a sense of the rules within we operate and do not spirit that something we are continuing to try to push out frameworks and ways of working to expose when we make it and when we dont and why it is what we are doing about it. [background noises] thank you chairman. Thank you all for being here. Look, i take you all very serious. I think most of this report certainly reflects that. The environmental degradation. I address this issue on a very different issue. It was geopolitical instability. It is as if the occasional Severe Weather events worsen Energy Insecurity . Another to and therefore represent the National Security of the United States but is it one or the other or both . I suppose i should direct that question im sorry, to check doctor haynes you mentioned earlier. Thank you sir. Im happy to try to take that for the record if thats useful. Is try to save both are one or the other. The report only says one. If there was both white with scarcity is a global threat why isnt radical environmentalism is a global threat for the last years have actually cleared samples on a point is them out of my limited time. Environmental policies the collapse of farming output. The entire farming industry is under threat. There is nothing in the hundreds of millions of people at the Energy Policy by the europeans was in pakistan for european Energy Prices have gone to the roof and they desperately they engage in misguided Green Energy Policies for your street w. H. O. Estimates 3 million results from a lack of cooking feels me the burning wood or dung is that a fossil feels like propane and natural gas. These things are truly destabilizing the Global Security there is a perception of the reports about it. The report does say the intentions right as have reparations from developing nations. Of course the assumption all weather vendor due to Climate Change for that set mine assumptions i would not expect assumptions from Senior Intelligence professionals. Its worse examining the actual science predicament read the view that Climate Change report . Really . Okay i like that report. It would help this report be more objective and make science based predictions about the true Economic Cost of Climate Change will be over the next 100 years. The cost of Climate Change by the year 202100 will be 4. 5 reduction in global gdp for what it otherwise would be. Not from what is now about what it would otherwise would be. So if a trend of growth we grow global gdp and the cost of Climate Change make that may be four to 34 . Thats not a National Security threat im sure you all agree with that. The report also states insured loss due to catastrophes and Climate Change have increased 250 in the last 30 years. That year is a fact taken way out of context, misleading again i would expect from intelligence professionals that wes explanation is theres more problems and more infrastructure built on coastal areas. That natural disasters and decreased 90 . The truth is try mcewing energy and the frequency duration and intensity. No increasing trend in 2021 the hurricanes and tracking began 40 years ago. Noah, modeling shows hurricanes follow decreased 25 , as the Climate Changes with you and report the science member said red alert, never says crisis, never sits in the stuff commonly used by climate alarmists. Running out of time so just want to summarize if the chairman will let me. When we say this kind of stuff we detract from the very important topics youre often talking about this entire time. We detract from that. Its even worse when we do not at least balance it with the more obvious threats on the destabilizing effects that creates. That is my problem with this report and i hope we fix it i yield back. Thank you. Mr. Hill. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I think the panel so much for being here in this important open testimony for the American People to hear directly from you. Appreciate mr. Ray your candid responses to the question. Out in your statement you are talking about the slowing and the chinese Economic Growth, you stated china face domestic economic challenges. What is your assessment about this economic challenges for the prc are . How do you assess the slowing the economic vulnerability in china . Thank you. These are structural issues that are going to be a challenge for china moving forward. One is population. Basically the aging population. In 2021 and lester they declined by eight or 50000 people. The largest decline over 60 years and relatively low fertility rates chinas population will continue to shrink even as it ages. This is going to reduce chinas labor force and likely decrease miniatures on Health Issues going forward. The second piece of this is looking at the domestic Migrant Workers wages in china. In low skilled industries have more than doubled on average. The quantity of migrant labor from rural areas has actually declined by this has contributed to many major domestic. And from china to lower wage countries such as vietnam or to expansion plans in china leading large number of skills unemployed. And furthermore china is going to need to improve training to better prepare its workforce. At least 100 million low skilled workers risk losing their jobs as a result of automation that they are pursuing. Vocational education are upscaled untrained labor really entrenched obstacles within china. The deals on the issues we are dealing at with particularly challenging environment. We think theyre going to continue to sort of pursue their economic policies. Which will not be deficient moving forward. The followup to that, do you assess in their last 15 years of extraordinary space and Defense Technology build up, that workforce is aging . In other words as a medium age higher than her babyboom generation, therefore even have vulnerability in their Defense Space technological base. Because they have an aging workforce there or is that a younger than average workforce, what is your assessment . Oxygen of the answer to that i will find out. Thank you, director burns an open Source Information theres a lot of conversation about how effective the crypto criminals and dpr k and north korea are about stealing crypto currency from wallets around the world. And that in turn many times the export or what we know to be the export they push their earnings are stolen so its kind of hard to gauge what those might be. What is the United States doing to interdict en bloc and stop the illicit flows to north korea through that mechanism . Appreciate very much the question. Maybe we can go into this and a little more detail the closed session. But as we discussed when he came out to the headquarters this is a significant priority for us right now. I dont shared across the intelligence entity because in order to create a regime we look at what you describe as a way of sustaining itself. The number of things we can do working with some of our allies to counter that. Next i yield back mr. Chairman. The list is currently garcia, scott. Mr. Garcia. This has been enlightening and clarifying couple of hours for me. I think in the most disappointing way ive been personally baffled over the last two years about our southern border policies coming out of this administration. Where in the last year we had three times the number of people die as a result of fentanyl poisonings and folks died during the 911 event. Today more people are dying of fentanyl poisoning and then american dies overseas one day of wool operations. Enlightening to me as we did not spend almost any time on this topic today except for the questions posed to you. I read the 39 pages the aga the 15 minutes of your testimony director haynes. We are actually being actively invaded on our southern border right now as a result of this demonstration policy. Whats clarifying to me is in effect receiving here is five people director of National Intelligence, director of National Security direct you arent messaging this is number one the table of contents the annual threat through Climate Change, health security, development and technology Transnational Organization global terrorism and the like. I grew these topics and i want to put a boot on the throat of russia, china, north korea and iran is just as much as anyone else. This is a shame the fact these poisonings right now you characterize as overdoses and the migration challenges as you say, director haynes which are not migration but active invasion of our southern border are being characterized by this body. It is indicative to meet you are not briefing the president of the nine states on these issues correctly. And americans are dying in a higher rate than american side during world thats why these policies have not changed, very clarifying to me today on your testimony. On a separate subject director haynes i went to ask you, first of all i want to ask you what you mean by misperception of u. S. Policies when it comes our southern border. I would let you address as quickly as you can. Thank you. I apologize if i gave you a misimpression. We do not believe critical aspects of our work. And its a party of the. Not interrupt is not counter narcotics. It is security of her homeland, defense of our southern border. Thats not the priority. You do not give me the perception you give the American People that perception. In your annual threat assessment reflects that will frankly look your budgets. Im an appropriated with the Justice Department i will look at your budget and see if reflects that priority here shortly. Im sorry go ahead and continue. I just want you to know that is a party from our perspective. From on the border we obviously support and facilitate the nancys government process. We have parts of the National Counterterrorism center. Central and shared knowledge basically unknown we maintain tide and ensure work but we have provided for border agents. And to department of homeland security. In the last 10 seconds its a priority i submitted is to be your number one priority. We are feeling this is a war are currently losing at the rate of 100,000 american lives every year. Ill have mike technical questions for the classified setting but thank you guys. Quick thank you, mr. Chairman. Just to build on mr. Garcias questions, director ray if isis or al qaeda poison through Chemical Warfare 70 80000 americans we approach that is Law Enforcement problem or military National Screen problem . I think we would all the above too. Certainly moody is military assets were at cyber, space, what have you. You have the authorization to the authorization use of military force to do so, correct . That is my understanding for quick shots of the use military resources against the fentanyl and cartels if you have that authorization of use of military fourth, correct . I believe soap that gets a little bit out of my area of expertise preclude you welcome additional for example offensive cyber from cyber, if you welcome this Additional Resources . We know how to deconstruct cartels, terrorist organizations, we did it in the 90s in columbia without a single american combat troops on the ground. We can do it again now would you welcome this Additional Resources . You will never find an fbi director that will not welcome. Switching thats good to hear. Just switching tasks, director haynes is isis and al qaedas capability increasing in afghanistan right now in terms of their capability to attack the west, attack u. S. Interest overseas, influence attacks United States are potentially attack the homeland . Of not characterize them as increasing. Although i would say. With it being set to be clicked yes for isis particular in afghanistan they have the intent. We can always say go further in closed session on details. Is our collection capabilities since the summer of 2021 decreased in afghanistan and in the surrounding region . Work so that the removal of the u. S. Troops in afghanistan absolutely our Collection Day today is decreased. Although again i think we can talk. Have the intent to attack us i am hearing. And think we can talk about water collection posture is in afghanistan. I think you can give you some comfort on that issue be. I am sorry, of course is true you are right. Our capabilities are not the same we have a lot on the ground. However as we have all promised you over the last couple of years we work incredibly hard to try to ensure we can still take action as u. S. Government did. I look forward to a closed session. However youre going to have a hard time convincing me managing sources or remotely without being on the ground is anywhere near as effective. General, with the Chinese Communist party take note if we had an air base a couple hundred miles in the western board border . And potentially staged strategic assets a few hundred miles from their Massive Nuclear buildup. Do you think the chinese had a 12000foot runway a few hundred foot from the board that get it for free . No. It would protect that asset . X yes but we airbase. That is correct. The British Government is now in negotiations we could. That would be significant. Finally, director ray you really sound the alarm on the counterintelligence 12 hours with the director of mi five. There is an increase in referrals to research that. Yet, you just answer me im out of time, for the record on shutting down the China Initiative . Or rebranding it, renaming it at least for many peoples perspective and diminishing it and priorities get that for the record. I cannot speak to the Justice Departments initiative itself. Oftentimes the fbi were not taking her foot off the gas one iota. Not prosecuting with the same fervor that that issue. Are going to try to use every tool in the toolbox that includes prosecution when we can do that for that include other things and we can do that. Think it mr. Chairman. Thank you mr. German. Cooks director ray im from georgia pretty been the last few years. Twenty years ago if you look at the list of groups as plcs were several hate groups. I think agreed with the list and put. But today they put out lists with names like the American Family association and the lines defending freedom. On gap on their charge with that bothers me too see them cited as a source from your agency who is not considered a domestic terrorist. Kind speak to the relationship between the fbi and the influence . Is it just a list you look at from time to time or is it just coordination . Verse about to be clear i consider georgia my home since i first got married claire back in 1989. So we have that in common. Second, as to the product youre referring to the intelligence products, when i first saw it and i said this yesterday i was aghast. Of the single piece of intelligence products by a field office. It did not meet our standards i had immediately removed or withdrawn and we have taken steps to make sure does not happen again. One of the reasons i say that one of the ways the sourcing did not meet our standards. Thank you for. Represent an agency that for years i held the highest regard. I will tell you i lost a lot of respect for the Justice Department and the fbi with what happened in that certain case where there was absolute evidence that a man and two kids have absolutely nothing to the death of another individual that man happened to be an fbi agent. While he in his family were all cleared by state, local, the fbi said Nothing Happened here there is indisputable evidence for u. S. Attorneys office in washington d. C. Carried in a civil rights investigation for over two and half years. While that film is eating Death Threats repeatedly because of that investigation continuing to stay open u. S. Attorneys office refused to release the absolute evidence were all three individuals were. What can be done to ensure the u. S. Attorneys office is held accountable when they take actions like that that put americans at risk, especially in this case it was an fbi agent and his family. I confess i am not familiar with that specific case. In general speaking in general there are disciplinary violations by prosecutors or something called opr pick luxembourg to move on then. Im going to speak with you were going get from over that case. I think the agents would like for you to probably be familiar with that case. China flew a spy balloon across the United States less than 15 days later ford motor companys with most iconic brands that they were team with technology to develop a multibilliondollar battery plant. Director hank is it time for us to declassify information we have on china, their espionage with the joint american our industries so we can expand to Corporate America you have to break your ties with communist china . Thank you sir we do actually have been continuing to try to declassify as much information as we can on these issues to ensure they have everything they need to protect themselves. The to not going toward china for Corporate America to understand they have dual source or multisource and get out of there. With that i yielded two seconds, hate to cut you off bottom on the clock. Thank you. Director rate yesterday expressed concern about ability for the ownership to control narrative, Software Data on tiktok. For another chinese entity owns or maintains control of tiktok or its algorithm would you maintain those concerns . Yes. Its the ownership of the ccp that fundamentally cuts across all those concerns. The algorithm that controls the algorithm . Its control the algorithm access to the data and its a software not control the software that allows access to the device. You have a Data Collection issues can be used to conduct all kind of data operations and traditional espionage. If the algorithm he rightly pointed out they will conduct influent operations. And as i said theres an earlier question that is particularly concerning not able to detect that. Third and finally software to access of millions of devices. The Chinese Government has the biggest Hacking Program in the world, bigger than that of any other major nation combined. But that together with they have stolen personal and corporate data and every nation big or small combined. You put that to give the risk you and i are talking about and to me it highlights a big concern. Expressed her concerns not sure how problems could be solved but expressed my concerns to the ownership. I dont speak to bands is a policy decision. If you have a voice in the process. You are absolutely i think we are all expressing assessment of the intelligence the risk threat in the process furthers the ultimate decision thats beyond the scope. Is that yes or no . You submit our intelligence and there is a committee that does its work. Doctor burns sorry to force the sales . I share the we are making policy calls. We are not shy about expressing those concerns. Do not get asked for the recommendation one way or the other . Speaking for the fbi were asked for the intelligence assessment but we are not asked its been my experience we are not asked for a recommendation but with the ultimate decision. We do not provide as director ray is indicating what happened to her office close together from the Intelligence Community. We provide that into the process for grounds for policy discussion per. You should director raise concerns . I do theres a foreign entity social media platforms, other things that can be misused. We have a program on the Security Center runs this. They had issued guidance essentially on these types the use of these types of applications and platforms. You share these concerns . Part one third of americans get their news from tiktok every single day. Sixteen of American Youth said they are costly on tiktok. That is a loaded gun congressman. As you know we are executing Government Applications and it. I would just say we support the process and as we briefed decisionmakers and policymakers with the intelligence we have an active and open dialogue we will give those opinions as its been said. Ive deputy directors three teenagers of tiktok goes she may not go home. And closing pursuant to 707 pouring surveillance act 50 usc 1881. An f a b1, you all provide to us annually a list of the directors asian potential abuses of fisa. Doctor rate, your answer to congressman was that you have other take in reforms and you believe it would significantly reduce the overall abuses we are concerned about in the fbi. Anticipating that might be your answer of a letter for that we will be presenting at the end of the hair and requesting that you go back and look at all of the reports we have received the indicate those abuses and find provides its going to be part of the working group, how those abuses that are identified would have been addressed under your new reforms so we can find out what is remaining. And i ask this be entered into the record. Thank you all. You continue to show your professionalism and expertise in your answers we look forward to continued to work with you. We will be adjourned. [background noises] [background noises] [background noises] [background noises] [background noises] [background noises] [background noises] [background noises]