Next the House Homeland Security committee holds its first open meeting to examine these up security procedures and what can be done to strengthen prevention of a terrorist entering the us. We hear testimony from several federal agencies including customs and Border Protection and the state department. This is an hour and a half. The Committee Tax course on denying terrorist entering the eye states will come to order. The test for submitting to examine a visa process and the Visa Waiver Program. I recognize myself for an Opening Statement. I welcome back our expert witnesses to the capital and thank you for being here and doing double duty. I look forward to following up on some of the broader themes for the briefing. In order to inform the American People of the security of the visa process and Visa Waiver Program. I want to thank chairman mccall for prioritizing this task force in its commission. Last congress on combating terrorist and foreign fighter travel was not only successful
Whats next . Guest well those hearings i think were very helpful at educating members of the committee and other members of congress and the general public about the importance of this issue. Interestingly we have already scheduled a hearing on encryption before the apple fbi controversy broke out to the publics attention and we were right thing pleased with the presentation made by all of the witnesses at the hearing but i think the number one thing that comes across is encryption is a good thing and a very important thing and we have got to find our way through this not be weakening encryption but by continuing effort to strengthen it and you only need to look at the problems that we have had with foreign governments, with criminal enterprise, with hackers stealing millions of documents from Government Agencies and alleys of credit card records from retail establishments, financial establishments to know that we need to be moving toward stronger uses of encryption and stronger encryp
Host whats next . Guest well, those hearings, i think, were very helpful at educating members of the committee, other members of congress and the general public about the importance of this issue. Interestingly, we had already scheduled the hearing on encryption before the apple fbi controversy broke out into the publics attention. And we were, i think, pleased with the presentations made by all of the witnesses at the hearing. But i think the number one thing that comes across is that encryption is a good thing and a very important thing, and we have got to find our way through this not by weakening encryption, but by continuing the effort to strengthen it. And you only need to look at the problems that weve had with foreign governments, with criminal enterprises, with just plain hackers stealing millions of documents from Government Agencies and millions of credit card records from retail establishments, from financial establishments to know that we need to be moving toward stronger
Attacks of San Bernardino were are know not part of a terrorist cell. The head of the fbi discounted reports that the shooters, syed farook and tashfeen malik, pos posted messages for terrorist attacks on social media. We saw no evidence of posting on social media, reflecting their commitment to jihad. The San Bernardino shootings have left americans on edge. The department of Homeland Security is now modifying its terror alert system. An attempt it says to better communicate the kind of threats americans now face. In my view, it highlights the new environment we are in. Which includes the very real prospect of terroristinspired attacks, that can happen with little or no notice. Reporter after the 9 11 attacks Homeland Security used color coded threat levels. That was replaced in 2011 with the National Terrorism eterrorism advisory system. Te. A bulletin when threats are more vague. The first one issued wednesday says, we are in a new phase in the global threat environment. With self r
Seems most painful when you look at the fact that standards of living are not growing as rapidly as we would like. In the near term, we had had an looking forward for a little while Job Opportunities hasnt been as available as we would like. Incomes havent been growing rapidly. Our society continues having growing standards of living to which we all aspire, youre going to have to make sure that as many of our population as possible are going to have skills that are necessary to advance in the workforce. That raises issues all the way from preschool education where we are relative to some of our competitors around the world. Just in terms of access all the way through the quality of education going through secondary school and into college where interestingly the u. S. Population overall continues to be doing relatively well with respect to post secondary attainment in comparison with other countries. That cause people like me, older people who have degrees the rate of which we are diff