I want to welcome everyone. I want to apologize to our two witnesses and to everyone else whos been waiting. Just blame me for the delay. That would be the quickest and easiest thing to do. Ill do my best to start on time henceforth. This is hearing number two, reviewing efforts to secure u. S. Department diplomatic facilities and personnel. The committee will come to order. Chairman notes a quorum for taking testimony pursuant to the appropriate House Resolution number and house rule number, i want to recognize myself for the opening statement. In september of 2012, four of our fellow americans were killed and others were injured in an attack on our facility in benghazi, libya. Shawn smith, tyrone woods, Glenn Doherty and ambassador Chris Stevens died under circumstances most of us can not fathom. Fire, violence, the weaponry of war. I want to read something and i want to ask my colleagues to listen to what i read. Not just to the words but i want you to imagine having to live through
I want to thank the panelists. I think it was an interesting discussion, and look forward to having many more today. Thank you very much. And were live on capitol hill this thursday morning as this wednesday morning as the House Select Committee on benghazi will hear testimony on the 2012 attack on the u. S. Consulate in benghazi, libya. Greg starr will appear before the committee again today. And in testimony last september for the same committee he encouraged law enforcements to give the state department extra funding to increase embassy security. Now, also testifying today we expect to hear from steve linick, the Inspector General at the state department. As this hearing gets under way and for the rest of the day were asking should more resources be put togethers Diplomatic Security. Go to facebook. Com or tweet us using the hash tag, cspan chat. This is live coverage on cspan 3. Again, we are awaiting the start of this House Select Committee on benghazi attack hearings to get under
This point. I think there has been a culture change in the department. I think having to weigh the importance of our programs and why were in very danger places under the vp2 process has brought a laser focus on why were there, what the real threats are and have a clear understanding of the threats, not ignoring the threats, what weve done to mitigate those flets and then a decision at the end of that is our presence still adequate and is our presence warranted, despite all these things, i think, has brought a new culture to the department in many ways. I think i have never seen security taken as seriously as it has been in the last two years. And i say that not lightly because ive been here a long time and security has been taken seriously for many, many years in the department. But i think this some of these processes we have put in place this time are new to the department and are doing exactly what the arb wanted and what youre talking about. Is it working itself into the culture .
App . Im not banging them, but we need to get people focused on the data going out there. This is twofold. What was brought up, does the fcc have the capacity to manage the prioritization and distribution of the spectrum or are they thinking about the issue . To what degree the governance play with the Global Nature of iot . I will take a step. Its usable and on time. Some shouldnt exist at all. Everybody is here and i think thats technically true although they have enforcement and improper use and so forth. There these passes set aside for shared use and technology knows how to hop around and it detects interference and finding unused portions and any systems that have a certain resilience. I dont think that is necessarily going to be a big thing in terms of solving the problems, but others may have other perspectives on that. The prioritization with a couple programs around the federal partnership with communications as well as the 50 net program looking at when we instrument these u
Review board report to upgrade security for personnel at highthreat posts. Has this been done . Not according to the facts ive heard. So, in fact, the department has yet to comply with benghazi arb recommendation 11, correct . We believe benghazi arb 11 intended for there to be Marine Security guards at all high threat posts. So i want to hear you say yes, that is correct. Thank you very much. Ive got 24 22 seconds left. I did want to touch a little bit on the local guard force. Real quick, mr. Linick, if i can just get to the findings with you. A, b, Regional Security officers took it upon themselves to vary the vetting and approval process and failed to ensure that the security contractors provided all the required documents. Thats correct . Thats correct. So, did any of the Security Companies that had contracts fully perform all vetting required in their contracts . No. We looked at 87 personnel files and none of them none of the security contractors performed all of the vetting req