That take care of their people and respect the human rights of their citizens. Ukraines gone through a difficult past. Ukraine is critically important to the United States. Its in a strategic location, it is very important to regional stability. We have a lot of our nato partners in that region. This is a very important country. The corruption that youre referring to was under previous administration. That Prime Minister, as you know, is now hiding in russia, and ukraine is starting a new government, an inclusive government, a government that will represent all the people of the ukraine. And that is critically important that they have the economic underpinnings so that they can gain the confidence of people. Thats why the imf provisions are particularly important, because it allows for the International Monetary fund to be able to go in, do the necessary audits, put the country on the right path and allow it to become a viable economic country. The Loan Guarantees is part of a package.
We were seeing such a sharp rise. As we look at the issue were closing, we realized that really wasnt true. Many of the new middle class and trends when not traveling to the United States. They were still traveling inside brazil. We were seeing increased travel but uppermiddleclass. Because they had more disposable income and they had developed an interest in travel. Even though we had to run really hard in order to fashion a visa process that reduced wait times down to two days and accommodate the Many Brazilians traveling to the United States, we recognize that there is a new group of entrance into the middle class that have yet to attempt to travel to the United States but hat they are coming. It is kind of like a rogue wave out there. It is in the middle of the ocean and not stopping. Through expanding our consular sections and the number of officers we have in building out the interview windows we have, we are building a capacity to produce 1. 8 million to 2 million visas a year.
Than saddam hussein. Thats one aspect of it. The ore aspect the other aspect of it is that people used to have pride in their country. Now they are alienated internationally. More u. S. Sanctions than anybody else, Chapter Seven and everything else. Many class moralists are no longer there. Moralists evaporated outside the country or internally. You have the University Professor doing taxi service in the evening to supplement. That was the extent of the household. So that was an aspect. The question, i think, is many for american is more for american historians to answer than iraqis, that dimension of it. But for iraqis, we now have an opportunity for democracy. We have challenges, and nobodys underestimating that challenges. But we have the big project ahead of us. We have extremely ambitious project ahead of us. To achieve that, people want to do it in their lifetime. I think it will take generations because of the legacy took generations. Its always harder to build than to demolish.
Been reprimanded for that. Mr. Bankston, what do you think . Speaking generally we think transparency is critical to restoring trust in the u. S. Internet economy and in the u. S. Government itself. But it alone is not sufficient and that indeed substantive reform is necessary. Cbp supports the bill you have introduced, u. S. Freedom act aand we thank you for it. We look forward to working with you and the committee as it moves forward. Im worried about overclassification. I find oftentimes every administrations been guilty of this. Its easy to classify a secret classify a mistake rather than try to explain it. Let me ask mr. Salgado, are you permitted to tell us whether googles received any fisa court orders . Im sorry, mr. Chairman. I would have to decline that answer until the bills that were discussing today is passed. Is our country safer because you cant answer the question . I cant imagine the country is safer as a result of that. Thank you. That answers my question. And mr. Ban
Been raised company by company reporting that fisa might tip off those were trying to track. But theres a lot of reporting available on criminal surveillance. Is National Security sufficiently different from criminal investigations, we have to have this kind of secrecy . I dont believe so, chairman. No. In the criminal context were often investigating sophisticated organized criminals and in fact sometimes investigating terrorists. And yet weve been able to publish and the u. S. Government has been able to publish very detailed statistics about how the government is using its authorities, both the government as a whole and company by Company Without any suggestion that has harmed National Security. And i just want to take the moment to address this issue of lumping all those authorities together. I think that combining numbers for targeted fisa intercepts with fisa registers, with fisa orders for records, with fisa warrants for stored communications, with all the range of National Secu