the truth is i don t know the answer. bu i do know if this committ can do its work properly, if we can sufficient facts wherever lae lead, to hear witnesses testify, to learn what we will and reach a common conclusion, it would be a public public as much and what that will very much be in the national interest so let us try. with that, admiral rodgers, you re recognized for five minutes. thank you. thank you on behalf of the men of the national security agency. i m honored to appear beside my teammate mr. comey to discuss russian s activities and continue tensions and want to ensure the committee that my team is doing the best to sin al-fil fulfill the requests
protect their privacy and identity unless it hit certain exception. so masking means, i ll see an intelligent report from nsa will say u.s. person nom one, u.s. person number two, u.s. person number three and there s no further identification on the document. admiral rodgers said there are 20 people in the nsa that are part of the unmasking process. how many people in the fbi are involved in the unmasking process i m not sure. we con noom contact with persons a whole lot more than the nsa because we only conduct our operations in the united states to conduct electronic surveillance. i can find out the exact number. i think given the fact that yoand i believe this is kate call, vital, indense penceable, a, it would be nice to know the universe of people who have the
you a timetable as to when it will be done. we approach this work in an open-minded, independent way and our expert investigators will conclude that work as quickly as they can, but they will always do it well no matter how long that takes. i can promise you we will follow the facts wherever they lead. and i want to underscore my friend mike rodgers said. leaks of classified information are serious, serious federal crimes for a reason. the they should be investigated and where possible prosecuted in a way that reflects that seriousneserious ness so that people will know it will not be tolerated. thank you, director comey. mr. rodgers, on january 6, 2017 the intelligence community assessment assessing russian activities and intentions in recent u.s. elections stated
understand the context. and whether or not someone in the intelligent community that we put the trust in is going to leak that information too the press for whatever reason. . and i m not even going to get into the gratuitous what that reason may be. but it s really going to hurt the people on this committee and you on the when we try to retain this tool this year and convince some of our could when someone in the intelligence community says you know, what to hell with, it i m going to release this person s name because i m going to get something out of it. we re all going to be murt by that? yes, sir. mr. the committee sent to you on march 15th a letter yeah, to admiral rodgers and direct or
i think other elements of the government that are consumers of or products can ask the collectors to unmask. the unmasking lies with those who collected the information. if mike rodgers collected seasoned and it says u.s. person number one and it s important to know who it is, our request will go back to them. the white house can make similar requests but they don t on their own collect so they can t unmask. you say it s vital, critical, indispensable, we both know it s a threat to the reauthorization of 702 later on this fall and it s also a felony punishable by up to ten years so how would you begin your investigate that a u.s. citizen s name appeared in the washington post or new york times, why would you start