i have to begin by saying today that would be in most instances what you referred to there would be unlawful under current law and so as the director of the cia, you have my assurance we will not engage in unlawful activity. but i think this committee, the american people demand that if there s publicly available information someone has out there on a public available site, i think we have an obligation to use that information to use america. i think you would find the director and cia and intelligence community grossly negligent if they don t collect that information snp. i don t teak a back seat to anybody in terms of protecting this country when our security on the line. i wrote the section of the freedom act that gives the government emergencies authority to move when it s critical to protect the country. that s not what we re talking about here. you re talking about your interest in setting up a whole
yes, ma am, i can assure you, we talked about the fact that i have lived that life a bit as well and i understand it s not only in that interest is so broad, right. you spoke to, mentioned it here. this is a unique space where we operate in places where the american public doesn t always get a chance to see everything. and so the willingness to make sure that we share this information to policy makers who we trust will keep this information safe and secure and handle this information appropriately is absolutely critical. you have my assurance i ll do everything to make sure that this committee has a relationship with the agency that is forth thereto rigright every day. i want to turn to the issue of cyber threats and cyber security, which has been an obsession of mine for many, many years since joe lieberman and i tried to bring a cyber security bill to the floor in 2012 only
closed hearing later today. so the questions i m about to ask you, i ask that you answer based on open source information available to the general understanding and your understanding of the law of war as a graduate of west point and your services as an officer in the u.s. army. first, your understanding as an officer of the u.s. army, is military targeting of civilians a violation of the law of war? senator, intentional targeting the civilians is absolutely a violation of the law of war. based on open sources and information available to the general public, in the conflict in aleppo, syria, have russian forces conducted repeatedly attacks against civilian targets. based on open source reporting, it appears they have. do you believe based on your knowledge, again, acquired through open sources and your just general knowledge of geopolitics, that russian military forces could conduct a repeated attack against targets in aleppo, syria, without the express direction of vladimir
to the fbi? i want to make clear that i share your view these are unsubstantiated allegations. i emphasized that. i want to to make sure these are very serious allegations. there are a number of very serious things that have taken place. the leaks as well i consider to be intensely serious and director clapper s statement from last night or this morning b about his concern about these leaks is worthy. to your question, i promise i ll pursue the facts wherever they take us. the central intelligence agency has that as one of its singular functions and you have my commitment i ll do that with respect to this issue and each and every other issue. you sent the following twitter, quote, need further proof the fix was in from president obama on down. busted, 19,252 e-mails from dnc leaked by wikileaks. do you think wikileaks is a reliable source of information?
in other countries as well, that we ve seen the same sort of pattern in other places, correct? yes, senator. i ll add to that we have important elections taking place in the year ahead in europe and around the world and we need to be deeply cognizant of all of the foreign actor with maligned intent who are attempting to impact those elections as well. the cia has a role to understand that threat in a deep and fundamental way. and share that with the policy making community. i m not asking you to rely on classified intelligence information. as you see the state of american politics and political discourse, president-elect who has questioned at times the judgment of our nudge agencies, opponents to our president-elect o who continually question the legitimacy of his collection, the shameful leak defined so smear the president-elect, the fact that russia and vladimir putin have become a dominant