Transcripts For CSPAN NSA 20240704

Good morning. Host all right. Reminder, you have to mute the television. We will leave the conversation for now. We will be back tomorrow morning at 7 00 a. M. Eastern time, happening in washington at the center for strategic and International Studies is a discussion about National Security. We will bring you there, now. Live coverage here on cspan. Before that before that, you are ahead of the Cyber National mission force. You went from being a one star to a four star in six years, which is an impressive sign of how wellregarded you are. Id like to use that five year time period during your tenure at nsa as the framework for our discussion this morning. Looking at some of the extraordinary technological changes that have transpired over that period, as well as a whirlwind of geopolitical events. Lets, if i may, start off by going back to the summer of 2018, you first became the director. I recall we had just months before reauthorized the 702 foreign Intelligence Surveillance act. We were thinking about what the russians had done in the 2016 elections. We were thinking about dealing with the aftermath of the snowden problems. The alleged shadow brokers theft. What was your thought, looking back, what were your first thoughts in the summer of 2018, when you took office . Let me echo your thanks, certainly to dr. Jones and the president for hosting us today. In the way back machine, summer of 2018, you have to backup a few months to the spring of 2018. Im in my confirmation hearings in march. I come out of my confirmation hearings, pretty well focused on the fact that we are going to have a safe and secure election in 2018 or they will find a new director and a new commander. My sense is that after taking over on the fourth of may, the following week, we are talking about the 2018 elections. How do we have a secure election . How do we bring the meeting today other together . From the sixth of november and beyond and as the results are confirmed, it is all about the elections. The number one priority, safe and secure elections. Its an interesting point. The more important point is the fact that the midterm elections of 2018, the ability for us to do this type of work sets the foundation for the for where the agency and the commander will operate for the next five years. How are we going to do new and innovative things such as hunt Forward Operations . How do we look at the private sector differently . How do we leverage this idea of hey, the private sector has an incredible amount of power . And obviously, the partnerships. The partnerships no that that not only form, that is all the summer of 2018. That is an important piece for me as i think about it. Truly the jumping point for where we are going to go. One big part of that was the elections were mostly, not totally focused against the elections because of what they did with their interference in 2016. But, you know, on the cybersecurity side, apart from the election, there were also and they were also and continue to be a serious threat in the cybersecurity world. I wonder how you think about that now. My sense is many people feel like we got caught flatfooted with the solar winds intrusion. It took months for that to be detected. We have seen in the interim, a wave of Ransomware Attacks coming from Eastern Europe and russia. Some of that continues to this day. Every day, there are News Headlines and new Ransomware Attacks. How do you think about the ways we need to counter the cyber where maliciousness . Gen. Nakasone you mentioned solar winds. I would say solar winds when you are doing an intelligence operation, you never want to be caught. And we got caught. And that should be the story that goes with solar winds. The other story is the ceo and the founder comes to our agency the tuesday before thanksgiving to have a discussion about what he is seeing. It starts to formulate our idea that maybe if we had an unclassified facility outside of our agency where the private sector and our agency can talk to people, wouldnt that be powerful . And the other thing i would say is it always comes back to what are the competitive advantages . What are the competitive advantages of our agency and command . It begins with the idea we operate outside the United States. We have an understanding of what our adversaries are doing. And how do we communicate that with the private sector . This is the growth of cybersecurity collaboration. Nse nsa has an unclassified facility that engages in over with over 400 different private sector companies. This idea is how do we both give and get . Why do they talk to us . They talk to us because we have this incredible element of intelligence that comes from our work outside of the United States. They also talked to us for the fact that when they are talking to one of our folks, its not hey, let me write this down and i will get somebody that really understands, no. They are talking to the experts. That is really powerful. I think that is where we have been able to look at additions and abilities such as ransomware and zero days and supply chain and been able to bring the power of what our agency and command does to address those. Glenn we will come back to russia. Let me spend a minute on china. It seems like in the intervening years, china has, to some extent, taken center stage, at least in the cyber area. We could talk about the decades of cyber theft, cyber propelled disinformation. But it looks like there has been a little bit of a change. Maybe that is my impression, in the last several months or year or so, it feels like there is a step up in the level of sophistication of the chinese. We have seen reports about them allegedly happening hacking into the japanese classified networks. It sounds like there is a chinese attribution to the Microsoft Outlook hacks that apparently led to the emails of our secretary of commerce and the ambassador of beijing being read by adversaries. Even more ominously, we have seen reports about apparent chinese infiltration into infrastructure in guam. My sense is maybe there has been a big step up by them. Is my laymans perception correct . Let me put it bluntly, are they ahead of us in cyber and surveillance . Are they equal to us . How do you think about them . Glenn no, no, no. Gen. Nakasone no, no, no. Glenn thats clear. Gen. Nakasone i think this is a good leadin. Are they Getting Better . Yes. But, i think the question always comes back to us, we think about how do we address it . What are our competitive advantages against a nation that has so much scope, so much scale and increasing sophistication . It begins with this idea that our competitive advantages are being able to understand what our adversaries are doing. You mentioned the idea of utilizing different capabilities to spy on us, certainly we have to address this. I am very concerned and we are addressing the issues that we made public in may of this past spring about china living off the land. This idea of positioning themselves in different, Critical Infrastructure elements of the United States, our lives, our territories, to perhaps utilize in the future. Why are they doing that . Why are they in our Critical Infrastructure . That is the thing we are addressing today. Glenn is your sense that perhaps the chinese are infiltrating some of our infrastructure networks, not only for surveillance, but in essence they are positioning themselves for future malevolent actions such as taking down networks . Gen. Nakasone certainly, what we have said is there is an option that provides the chinese against many different scenarios. Its not to collect intelligence is our view. We want to make sure we are addressing everything and we are doing that today. The other piece that we have to think about is so clearly, not just the ability for us to understand what our adversaries are doing. I think the other piece that is our huge advantage is the private sector. This is what we have learned from russia and ukraine. Being able to leverage the private sector, being able to work with the private sector, being able to understand what the private sector is doing is tremendously important. We have a global set of partnerships. We have a global set of partnerships that allow us a look throughout the world. It allows us, a series of likeminded nations, to be able to address actions such as these. This is something that is truly a competitive advantage to us. This is what we are using today to address some of the issues you highlighted there. Glenn let me maybe turn the question around and ask something, not to put you on the spot. But, how confident are we, given the technical sophistication of the chinese hackers, how covenant are we for which you are the national manager, you are the respondent responsible for the pentagons last fight networks. That is your response billy. Ill come in and are we that our classified networks have not been infiltrated, they have not been compromised and maybe you can comment on how do we know how confident are we that our classified networks have not been infiltrated . That they have not been compromised and you can comment. The networks the networks that a response will for our communications, they are assured. There is an integrity there. He spoke about my responsibilities as a national manager. Im also responsible for the dod information network. Both the classified and unclassified networks. An example of what we are doing is how do you work with different combat and commands to keep this vigilance in line. We learned this in ukraine. Why is it they are able to share intelligence . Because we set the theater. Being able to understand that what we are going to share has to be protected. The other piece is i would come back to the idea of Forward Operations. Its the fall of 2018 and we have a really intriguing idea bubbling up from nevada. Folks are saying wouldnt it be interesting if we sent a team at the request of a foreign country to hunt their networks . At the request of a foreign network, hey, please come look at what is happening with our networks. If you find tradecraft or some other areas that you think are concerning, we want to be able to publicize that. One of the first places we go, 2018, ukraine. Following ukraine, four other times. The third of december, 2021. With a team of 19 marines and soldiers, go back to ukraine to hunt operations. This is the piece of vigilance that is really important. We dont necessarily believe it because we think it. We believe it because we test it and exercise it. The whole idea of being persistently engaged. Glenn good. Ok. Let me maybe take a step back. But still on china for a second. More broadly than just cyber. Obviously, when you took office five years ago, while china was very much perceived as a threat, it perhaps did not have the same level of intensity now. Including partly because of a political focus on it these days. Everything from chairman gallaghers committee of the house, which addresses a perceived threat of china. You speak on any oped today, there seems to be they seem to be focused on the pacing threat presented by china. Particularly in the area of other technologies. How do you think about that . Obviously, the Cyber Command and the agency deal with Artificial Intelligence, quantum. The potential threats to our encryption, which you are awesome will also responsible for. Are we looking at this the right way in terms of china as a threat . How do we need to address this more broadly . Gen. Nakasone 2018 was a big year for the department and looking at cyber. I think 2021 is the Inflection Point for our nation in cyber. You mentioned the beginning of 2021 with solar winds. Remember what 2021 was like for us as a nation. Its solar winds, its Colonial Pipeline in may. Its jbs by the summer. In one year, nine months really, we had supply chain. We have ransomware. We have security attacks. It was the point in time for myself and for our agency in command, cybersecuritys National Security. That is a big year. I think from that year forward, we think they are planning, the nation we have a number of different abilities we didnt have before. Partnerships have been developed. When you say how do you think about it, i begin with this idea that 2021 sets us up with the foundation to go forward. How can we be sure that we verify our nation . How do we think about defending our National Security systems differently . How do we work with the private sector . 2021 leads into 2022. If we talk about russia and ukraine, one of the things i will highlight is the fact that we are learning in 2018 and 2021, we have to be engaged with the private sector. Private sector gives us the ability to address the piece that we talked about, scope, scale and sophistication. Doing it with a series of partners with a very focused strategy pays off. Glenn i summarize by saying you dont think the chinese threat in these areas is being hyped. You think it is something we need to focus on . Gen. Nakasone china is the challenge of our nation. It is the generational challenge we will address. Our children will address. Our grandchildren will address. We see across the major alliance. Military economics. It is different than adversaries i have seen in my three decades plus of service in the army. We when i came in, it was the soviet union. I dont remember anyone saying boy, i hope they dont bring the cars from the soviet union to sell them in detroit. That wasnt what we were thinking about. We were thinking about a military component. Now, we think about many different components. This is where i think our Agency Agencies pivot and our command pivots. How do we empower the National Elements of power that our National Agency has . Navy it is commerce and treasure. These are all critical elements that we are working toward today. Glenn i know youve talked before, partly due to technology but also geopolitical events, about the pacing threat of china. The adventure of National Security has expanded. Lets go back to russia, you mentioned a second ago, the ukraine war again. I know we are bouncing back and forth but these are two big topics. What lessons have you learned from the ukraine conflict . I know you get asked that question a lot. From the perspective, the war has gone on for well over a year, a year and a half area could you a year and a half. Could you comment on the role of open Source Information and the role of the classifying information at the beginning of this, not something the u. S. Intelligence committee has previously done . What lessons have you learned from an intelligence perspective on this . Gen. Nakasone ive talked a little bit about the preparation. Ive talked about the private sector in terms of what the private sector can bring. But lets talk about public information, right . I think a brilliant decision by the president , director of national intelligence, how do we take our most Sensitive Information and share it with our allies . And share it with the public . What does it do . At the end of the day, i think it does three things. It builds coalition for us. Secondly, it disrupts adversaries. Russia has never been the same since the fall of 2021, when we called out what they were doing. The final thing it does is it enables a partner. Everything the day, work is being done to provide information to ukraine. This is tremendously powerful. Even our National Security strategy talks about this idea of inheriting National Strength with the Intelligence Committee. We think about it different for a how do we take the information and intelligence we produce . And protect the sources and methods . And then be able to utilize that and share it. If you can have an ability to garner this information, a lot of the things we dont classify, we dont classify it for what it is but how we obtain it. So, if someone else obtains it, isnt it powerful to be able to tell that story . I think we have done a good job as an Intelligence Community of doing that. Glenn exactly hurry thats why i did go into your didnt go into your office with that. Another remarkable change in a relatively short period of time. I mentioned at the beginning of this talk how just after you took office, the congress had reauthorized section 702. I had the privilege of being in the office the year before you. And at the agency. I recall how very involved the agency was in a tactical sense of supplying information and briefing congress, etc. The political decisions were made by the administration at the time. 702 have been passed, the foreign Intelligence Surveillance act, was passed since 2008 with declining majorities in congress. It is now up for new rule renewal at the end of december. I presume it is on your list, your to do list of things to do before you leave the office. What it plays such a critical role. I dont know what the percentage is. Some 50 or 60 is a trip itd 2702. Attributed to 702. Im sure you can correct me. As Congress Considers this, if congress was here and you had the privilege of addressing them, what would you ask congress to think about as they consider this authorization process . I begin gen. Nakasone i begin with 702 is perhaps our most important authority. It enables us to do so much of what we do to provide insights to policymakers. And warning to our military commanders. But, here is a thing that i would emphasize. First of all, 702 saves lives and protects the homeless. Saves lives and protects the homeless. 702 allowed us to provide information on chinese precursor chemicals that are being utilized. It allows us to be able to block some of the International Shipments of these chemicals into the United States. Protect the homeland. I talked about Colonial Pipeline in the spring of 2021. 702, essential for us to understand how we need to react and be able to utilize a series of actions as Colonial Pipeline is taking place. The second thing is i would emphasize to everyone the idea that its not just National Security or Civil Liberties and privacy. Its National Security and Civil Liberties and privacy. Thats a culture in our Intelligence Community that is so important. Its an and statement. How do i know that jacob i know it because how do i know that . I know it because everyone gets trained on it. There is a culture of compliance at our agency. 77 of our employees in a recent survey said among the most important cultures is compliance. The next thing is we have a series of legislative, executive and judicial oversight on what we do. 99 rating, in terms of our ability to utilize 702 lawfully. That is the latest look at what we are doing. The final piece is that at the end of the day, we have become much more transparent, i believe, in terms of talking about this. The president ial intelligence Advisory Board talked about how this is among the most publicized Authority Boards that we have across the world. That is an important piece. The last thing i would say with regards to 702 is there is an Important Role in 702 for all of the intelligence members to include the fbi. The fbi has the focus and authorities in the United States. Being able to provide the intelligence that allows them to be able to address Cyber Security issues is essential for us. And so, for me, hard to imagine anything right now that is more important to being then than making sure 702 gets authorized. Glenn and if it lapsed or congress can come to an agreement on it, what is left in terms of your statutory abilities . I dont mean in a legal sense. Gen. Nakasone there is less capability for us. There is clearly a National Security impact if it is not reauthorized. Glenn and on the legal side, i know that there is no other legal substitute for the ability to compel u. S. Communications providers, at a minimum, to produce this information. There is definitely a legal gap and the operational gap. We will see how that unfolds over the next several months. Lets i guess we are coming up on the end of time, because we have a Panel Discussion after this. Maybe we can move away from some of these more gloomy threats and talk about the future and solutions and end on that note. Id like to ask you to expand on some of the comments youve made about partnerships and leveraging the ability of the agencies. Can you talk about how you are setting the agency up, both to succeed in the future, both in terms of the people, recruiting and retaining people . And more important or equally important he, outside the agencies, you mentioned partnerships and the private sector and other countries we rely on. There is a lot of effort focused on internal people and people externally. I recall the model motto of the nsa is defend the nation. How do you see the agency defending the nation with these challenges . Gen. Nakasone its defend the nation and secure the future. When i think about those two pieces of it, lets talk a little bit about how we do that. So, you mentioned people. We are in the midst of perhaps the largest growth in our agencies history. We are going to hire over 3000 folks this year. We will hire probably half of our civilian workforce over the next five years. There is a demographic change with folks that have been hired in the late 1980s, becoming retirement eligible. Glenn the people from the reagan years are reaching retirement. Gen. Nakasone we are working to bring in the next generation of those who will contribute to our National Security. Its not only the new hires but folks across our agency and being able to get out and talk about it. Hey, how about coming back to our agency . Or how about taking a look at whats going on . Its a tremendous opportunity for us to move forward. We have an initiative called the future ready workforce, looking to how do we take a look at wellbeing . How do we do hybrid work . The idea that perhaps some of it that we do and then how do we look at Leadership Development . Those are critical things the agency has to do. Glenn retention, how do you feel . Is that less of a problem these days or still a problem given the allure of the private sector . Gen. Nakasone i think if someone were to say, i think about our workforce all the time. How do we make sure that we recruit, we train and we retain them . There are competitive opportunities for people that work our agency of command. That is a challenge for us and something we have to be able to address. The partnership piece, we talked about Artificial Intelligence for quite some time. As i think about Artificial Intelligence for the agency and u. S. Cyber command, it comes back to the idea of what is our role . I think one is the fact that we have used Artificial Intelligence for many years. But the models that have come, the Large Language Models provide great intelligence on the cybersecurity side. How do we look at data and being able to address it in a matter that continues to keep people in the loop that provides a safe and secure network. We are working on an Artificial Intelligence roadmap that looks at how do we engage with a series of different Key Private Sector Companies to make sure that they understand, first of all, what we need but also the idea that and being able to protect their intellectual property is important in the environment we live today. I would tell you that we have thought about it day in and day out as a community that has tremendous technology. But the true secret of what we do comes back to what we do. Its our talent. That is how we are going to defend the nation and secure the future. Glenn ok. Speaking of the future, your successor has been nominated by the president. Some confirmation hearings have been held and it has not moved any further than that in the senate. We wont get into the politics of that at the moment. But at some point, your five year plus tenure will come to an end. Its been longer than usual as a reflection of the esteem in which you have been held. Whats next . Sleep . The golf course . New job, ceo . Gen. Nakasone my next is determining today what i have to do this afternoon. Determining next week what has to be done in the following months. Im the director of nsa and the commander of u. S. Cyber command until my successor has been confirmed in the senate and that is my focus right now. Once i have determined the future, i will come back and make sure i tell you my plans. [laughter] glenn secure the future is still part of that piece. Thank you so much. This has been not only an honor and a tree but im sure it is a treat for the audience both here in person and online. Thank you. Thank you for your service. Your comments here today. And i wish you the best of luck. Im asking the audience to join me in thanking you again. [applause] we are going to do a quick set change and then introduce the panel in one moment. Thanks. Thanks everyone for staying with us. I will turn this over to glenn, again. Glenn thank you. After having had the honor of the general on the stage, i now have the honor of having two wonderful former colleagues of mine here on the stage. To my immediate left is someone tom bossert is the former Homeland Security that served under President Trump and had roles under the Bush Administration and is the current president and ceo of trinity cybersecurity. To my far left is, not in a political sense necessarily but, in position, is april dos, who i had the pleasure of overlapping with when i was the general counsel. She was the assistant general counsel, having served as a lawyer at the agency for many years. She went into private practice and wrote a terrific book about who has cybersecurity, who has cyber data and why. Which is a terrific read for those of you interested in furthering the topic. What we are going to do is spend half an hour with a couple of questions to follow up on some of the topics general nakasone talked about. We will take questions from the audience. You can write them down and hand them to one of the cis people. Let me thank the institution, in particular, dave mcnair who did a terrific job organizing this. I want to mention suzanne spalding, the head of the defending democracy project. She was not able to attend but wanted to be part of this panel. She was out of town. With that, let me get started. I guess, i cant resist the temptation, april, to start with 70 twos since 702, since that was what the general talked about. You had the advantage of having a period of time to assess this. When you were originally at nsa, my own recollection was there was some points of tension, friction between the nsa and the department of justice over a number of things. The foreign Intelligence Surveillance court was occasionally critical of nsas use of the authority. And there were points of contention. I sense now my sense now is that has essentially evacuated because of changes that nsa that i would like to ask you to talk more about. And some of the focus these days on the foreign Intelligence Surveillance court and the department of justice is much more on the fbi. Can i ask you to talk about that evolution . You were there at the ground level, implement and these changes. Can you talk about what is new implementing these changes. Can you talk about what is new . April first, i would like to thank csis. The top line we have to start from is what general nakasone pointed to. The national from a National Security perspective, it is vital. It saves lives and protect the homeland. There is 59 of homeland. You cannot overstate the importance of this. To your point, you also cannot overstate the importance of the cultural compliance and the robust oversight that goes along with this program. And all of the measures that the government as a whole have undertaken to build that trust and confidence with overseers. Those of you who are very involved in tracking 702 at a detailed level are aware that a great amount of transparency reporting released about 702. You can trackback to all of the years of the major opinions from the foreign Intelligence Surveillance court and you can read those opinions. With some redactions here and there that are necessary for National Security. You can see the semiannual and annual reports that are made to congress and that are published every year, every half year, describing success and failures from clients. What the nsa and the government has done is lean forward in a rather extraordinary way, to show our homework. To show what we are doing to be entrusted with this authority. How we are managing it. When i say it is unprecedented, its not my opinion or view, necessarily. It is. But the intelligence Advisory Board recently released a report on 702 with a unanimous report that included a number of recommendations for further reports to the program. In the report, they talked about the fact that this is the most transparent Surveillance Program of any government in the world. They also talked about the fact that if it is not renewed, that could prove to be the greatest intelligence failure the u. S. Has ever known. That is the importance of it. If you will permit me, i will say another thing. Its not often that i get to come to an event and do show and tell. I am excited about this. This actually, for those interested in 702, if you go to the website, there is a whole range of information and products on that site. They are trying to explain what the authority is an how it is overseen, what some of those mechanisms are. This happens to be the front cover of that. For people who are interested in delving more deeply into the topic, i would allocate those resources to you. It is useful. I think in terms of showing our homework, i think that the u. S. Is really leading the way in that regard. Glenn transparency has always been a big piece of it, with an incredible amount of information released, including the transparency reports which are also on that website. They hold lots of statistics about how the authorities are used. Before i go to tom, and i do want to make sure we couple cover a couple of other aspects. Let me ask you one issue that kept bubbling up when i was there. Which is some of the privacy and Civil Liberties advocates have been saying we just would like a sense of the scope of the number of u. S. People, u. S. Persons whose communications are picked up in the course of the absolutely lawful monitoring of the foreign targets. Those foreign targets are busy going at other foreign targets. Obviously, some of them, you can envision, not necessarily a 702 target, but you can envision a chinese spy overseas, trying to recruit an american. There would be communications back and forth. Some of this privacy some of the privacy and Civil Liberties advocates have said we would like a sense of just how much is inadvertently picked up in this. The Intelligence Committee has said we dont want we are not going to tell you because we cant tell you. Can you elaborate on that . That continues to be an issue that is percolating. April absolutely. It is a difficult area to get a grass around. I want to remind everybody that, with respect to nsas foreign intelligence commission, we stand at the shores of the nation and look out. With respect to the 702 authority in particular, 702 only permits specified targeting of nonus persons outside the u. S. That is tied to a specific authorized intelligence purpose. All of the targeting under 702 is always in that context. Nonus persons outside the u. S. , tied to a foreign intelligence purpose. Glenn some of the people in the audience may not know, what is the process . Does an agent say lets go after x . April no. That ties back into our culture of compliance. It is a multilayered process of review. General nakasone talks about the training everybody in the nsa is required to receive. There is very intensive training for people working with 702 data. So, initially, what happens is an analyst has agreed that a particular entity might be a suitable target. The Research Using non702 kinds of sources through Research Using non702 kinds of sources, and they explain why. And is tied to one of the Court Certifications that defines exactly how 702 can be used. All of that has to be submitted. Once that is submitted, another analyst receives the same kind of training and will have the same rigor and has to review it to assess whether they leave it meets that standard. Then a third level of review happens, all within the nsa. By an adjudicator who gives it additional levels of scrutiny. Then all of that is repute reviewed by the department of justice. So, there is a tremendous amount of oversight. Back to the u. S. Person issue, we stand at the shores of the nation and look out. 702 targets nonus preference persons overseas for foreign intelligence purposes. We might be in communication with a u. S. Person. This is called incidental collection. It is a challenge that congress has known to be a challenge, going back to the beginning days in 1978. We have procedures for how we handle that data. And there is a question of how to quantify it. The nsa has made a number of efforts over the years to try to quantify that. It has been an extraordinarily difficult challenge. Part of the reason is because its difficult to find a way to assess information in a way that is not itself privacy intrusive. If you think about it is interesting. From an intelligence tradecraft perspective, there is a strong alignment between what makes a tradecraft and what makes for good Civil Liberties privacy protections in the sense that what you want to do is hone in on the information that is of most relevance. And that is the foreign intelligence. So, we have not yet cracked the code, if you will, on how to quantify that u. S. Person information without taking action that would be intrusive of privacy. There have been proposals from outside researchers. We absolutely welcome those proposals. As there is a continued shared interest, across the communities with people who are interested in 702 and how to do this better. Glenn maybe im putting words in your mouth but, when you come across an email of glenn at yahoo. Com, we dont necessarily know whether that person is in the u. S. That continues to be a big challenge. Tom, i know that was a long description but an important one on some of the mechanics of 702. So, im going to give you a nice, big, juicy, nonlegal question. Which is you had a front roast on some of this legislative process, the political process and the administration trying to work with congress to reauthorize section 702. Calling out i recall many conversations in 2017 leading up to this. Give us your outlook on where we are congressionally as a landscape. Not necessarily the nsa, although there are concerns about the entire Intelligence Committees use of this authority. Is it going to get past what is necessary is a going to get passed . What is necessary . And how is it different from 2017, most importantly . Tom i will start with how cool it is that we just watched the end of general nakasones close to the end of his tenure here on stage. I personally think he has been a tremendous national treasure. I cant thank him enough. I cant thank csis enough for having us here. But im tickled to be part of what seems to be the exiting set of speeches that general nakasone is delivering. The political machinations will work themselves out and he will get himself to a place where he realizes how proud he can be. I do want to say, to add to his timeline of importance, i agree with his assessment that 2018 was a very important year. But the seeds for 2018 were planted in 2017. The idea of us creating a defense forward concept and giving him the policy and the procedures and legal attitude to go out and execute against that, i thought were important. To hear him confirm that five years later a something i would like to share with you. Secondly, he pointed out that 2021 was an inflection, a big inflection year. That was probably what he cited as a phenomenon of national secured her he was right in his assessment of all of the big events that happened in 2021. People who were worried about the high volume of clearance in 2021, a lot of them were tied to the investigation. Im not sure if that has been drawn out. 18,000 victims correlates with the fbi searching 702 information. Maybe i will come back and answer your first question. Let me try something before i do that. Did that help with the volume . No. All right. Glenn how about this . Better . Tom 702, i was fortunate to be in the white house. And then again in 2017, for the 2018 slim victory. Before people think that this is different, this political debate. In 2008, the world distrusted american centralized authority and we could never allow george bush and the patriot act of users to have such an authority. It was bad rhetoric it was coming from a place of public distrust of central authorities. In 2017, we saw the same thing. In 2018, we ended up getting passage of this critical piece of information by a slim margin. I am not worried about its passage. I am predicting passage. I dont buy any of the complaints. I dont buy any of the concerns. I dont even buy any of the premises of some of the questions that there needs to be better or different oversight or compliance cultures. All that exists already and it is Getting Better and it is demonstrable. For me, it is based on misunderstanding and the difficulty that im seeing in the political environment is people that have taking taken strident positions publicly and having to square that peg. They have to figure out how they are going to support this thing, given the fact they have said it is the worst abuse ever. I think they will get there. There is a lot of distrust right now. Some of it is in the fbi. It is a buse it is abuse of other authorities. 702 must be banned, President Trump center he said i dont support 702. This is bad people coming after me. He probably said things that you think would put him in a clinical bind. Political bind. What did he do . He supported the, signed into law and put a tweet out saying i was wrong. And then it went away. If they are looking for political top cover, he has given it to them. I guarantee you there is a trust issue that falls along private lines. It seems to come down to the house, how many boats there are there. And there are people looking into a political insight into whether they can vote yes for this thing and not be thrown out of office. And im telling you, there is no other place to look than the fact that donald trump signed this thing into law. He did it based on self recognition of how important this is and how little these claims of abuse really merit attention. Especially when compared to the value that this collected information yields every day, in helping to protect american interests and allies. One other thing i would add, it is not just about a name, glenn at yahoo. Com. Sometimes, it is an i. T. Address. You dont want them digging into every ip address in order to answer the question of how much information has been collected. To me, 702 is a straightforward question. Im probably the last guy standing in this town that thinks it is a patriotic obligation to pass it. People who suggest otherwise dont understand the implications of what they are messing with. Glenn that was certainly very clear. That is good. Not entirely sure if all of congress is going to agree with you. But i appreciate your position. Tom the webster report, every sane, sensible authority that is looking into how we can better protect america after big losses has said general nakasone said on a regular basis. All those things are because we take advantage of our national treasure, which is a private sector. Not because we are using some sort of weird government surveillance authority. Recognize the u. S. Industry, 45 of the nasdaq, represented by these big tech companies, are todays standard oil. They are what makes the United States great. And we can utilize the fact that the rest of the world utilizes these platforms to track what our enemies are talking about. The one thing let me put some data on this. I think it helps. We are talking about targeted use of surveillance. For an guys on foreign land. Everywhere every time you say it somewhere in public, you make this argument for me. Youre talking about surveillance surveilling foreign bad guys on foreign land. This is foreign bad guys on foreign land. The list is probably around 35,000 targets. These are bad guys and they are not messing around. We are talking about surveilling 35,000 foreign bad guys. If they are talking about me or talking with glenn, i think that is relevant. I dont think that is a violation. I know it is not. They are not protected by our u. S. Constitution. Dont talk about warrants. Thats not a search. We have lawfully collected information between bad guys on bad land, doing bad things to us. For me, we are only talking about volume. We are only talking about volume. Do you know how Benedict Arnold got caught . Our revolutionary war of course we do. Tom of course you do. We captured the head of enemy intelligence, the good guys, the u. S. The americans. We captured him and on his person, he had papers. We read them. Was there any violation of anyones rights in that situation . When we read those papers, we read that he was in correspondence with Benedict Arnold to assassinate general washington. Nobody violated, even though this predates the constitution, but you understand my analogy. Nobody was violating american rights. That was righteous collection on bad guy in a war and we caught him indirect medications with one of our Citizens Communications with one of our citizens doing bad things. And im all for it. Glenn very clear. My own sense, i appreciate your comments, i agree with you. But i think the situation in Congress Still remains uncertain. I think the senate violence act that ive been talking about because of my interest in this area, is that the senate is more likely to feel come to will reauthorizing 702. The house, a little less so. That is where the most attention is going to be paid. As we talked about, it will be heavily about the attitudes toward the fbi. We have heard trust issues as well as 702 compliance issues as well. One thing april, you mentioned the president s intelligence Advisory Board, which specifically said that the nsa model and method of doing where east queries was a model that the fbi should follow. I think the fbi, we will see how this unfolds with the russian campaign, has not made its case as well as it could have, not on the use of it. Because i think most people understand the value of it, but on the scope of the reforms that they took, after what was frankly several years of debate between the fbi and the department of justice on the nature of the authority to query the database. That is the heart of the contention. And some reforms were put into place by director ray. They took the results only became apparent in 23 when director ray, the National Director of intelligence announced a dramatic drop of queries to the database. I think that will take heat out of this, still some. My guess is my own guess is that although the administration said they would like a street view authorization for indefinite or a least another five years, my grasses guesses congress when ahead with reauthorization for some amendments that curtail in some way the scope of the fbi authority. Perhaps nearly by enshrining in statute their current regulations which would not have any operational effect. I Hope Congress will recognize what you both have said which is the operational need for this should not be affected by the amendments. It is a political process and we will have to see how it goes. We have questions. Just a little more clarity. You mentioned the report and their discussion of u. S. Queries and it is important to note that , a couple things, every u. S. Wary is reviewed query is reviewed by the department of justice and 60 roughly of those queries are not natural persons, not human beings. So to talk more about the value of 702 [indiscernible] exactly and that was one of the examples in the report, they are a Foreign Terrorist Organization communicating about plans to launch an attack on the school in the United States and intelligence analysts have a need to quickly find out what other information might be relevant to that threat. Being able to search in the already collected data, being able to search quickly using things like the name of the school, would be considered a u. S. Person query. I think it is helpful in really parsing out the details and i will just interject that i think , tom, your number on targets, i think is low. However, the latest numbers are available in all of that statistical transparency reporting for clarity. 246,000 labs. Thats right. My guess is that significant portion is still a number and good points on not just a person or human but a lot of that has to do with the scale and size of the cyber world. The reality that there are billions of ip addresses, significant numbers of email addresses and Infrastructure Associated with our target. That is still a pretty small number. How much does the fbi get of that . The fbi gets about 3 , access about 3 of the Data Collected under 702. It varies from year to year. Last year, to your point, 3. 2 . About 7900 of the total universe of 702 targets, 7900 of the foreign targets, these are people relatively to a fully predicated National Security investigation, tells n. S. A. We want those information about votes. And that is all that goes to the fbi. So all the remaining i can do the math in my head but 200,000 doesnt go. It is relevant to those who have not studied the matter that have legitimate concerns. For them to be worried about this used as a backdoor collection on americans, you have to understand the targeted Collection Program for foreign bag eyes has a small scope. Then when you realize that, you realize it is an unusual thing to think that could be used as a backdoor collection for those that think it is a massive, ongoing collection i could turn into a backdoor, they need to understand the numbers. Share. We have a lot of Great Questions and im going to i want to get to some of them. I was also hoping we could talk about things raised such as Artificial Intelligence, maybe work it into one or two questions. I will try to combine a couple of these excellent questions. We could be here for hours with some of these comments. This is probably a little bit more may be for april and todd will have a view, talking about the host privacy regulations of the European Union has been concerned about the scope of United States surveillance, mostly 702 would also surveillance conducted on order of exact order of executive authorities and there has been back and forth over the years involving mr. Schrams who initiated this against facebook initially. Tom, i know you have been involved. What is your thinking on the current state of relations in this area between the u. S. And europe, and which of the usb doing . What should we be thinking about im looking at some of the other questions. How has snowden, which we commented on earlier, the source of some of the concerns in the case, impacted the geopolitical landscape of today . You both have perspectives, could you comment on where we are on this privacy issue and surveillance . April absolutely. As many folks who were here will know, the heart of the concerns raised in the litigation and court of justice and the European Union was a concern u. S. Surveillance logs focuses on rights of u. S. Persons and persons in the u. S. This is typical. Most countries do this, provide some set of special protections to their own nationals and people within their borders. But this is a big concern to the European Union, particularly in the context of transborder data flows. As a result of those concerns and a few iterations of programs to address it over the years, harbor and shield, where we are now is with eo 14 oh 86 signed by the president in october which articulates the set of conditions under which cigna can be done or any other signet sagan operational program. That says as a matter of government policy, the u. S. Will afford to nonus persons the same kinds of protections afforded to u. S. Persons and the assessment of who gets the protections, whether the government entered into an agreement. What we have seen now is, through these International Negotiations between the u. S. And European Union, following the signature of 1486, we have adequate determination from the European Union saying this framework, protections free persons, is consistent with eu Data Protection law and includes things like a redress mechanism so persons who are not u. S. People can come to the government, the u. S. Government, and complained to say we think we have been improperly surveilled and there is orbit there is a mechanism for reviewing that complaint. One of the comments people made his u. S. Citizens might not have the same right to contest surveillance because of standing issues of the u. S. Is there any sensitivity we are giving foreigners, potentially those in europe, some rights americans dont have . April i cant speak to the policy views on that but what i can say is u. S. Persons are protected by constitutions, statutes, and for example in the context of the concern that perhaps surveillance might have been made its way to some fashion in some fashion into credible null criminal prosecution. There are mechanisms within the u. S. Criminal procedures and law to raise those concerns in that context. It is different approaches to try to both provide for and protect the rights of u. S. Persons and nonus persons. Glenn tom, your thoughts . Tom i think you putting much covered it. Im worried about extending any rights and protections to nonamericans that americans enjoy because theres a series of cascading consequences thinking through that you wont want in that world. That is not the say privacy is not important. Despite my stance on 702, i take privacy seriously. All the rest of our collection stories and Law Enforcement stories, it is 702 has somehow been thrown into i think unfairly the debate. Its just a framing here, seems and this is a bit of hyperbole but the europeans assigned themselves the referee and they have players in the big data game dominating industry in terms of market share inside companies and innovation. I think the europeans realized they did not have big players competing in the space so they assigned themselves as the referees and become the regulator in a sense. Im worried at times of this california emission standard. They will set a standard that is very low and will impose the costs on all of us because the Big Companies cannot afford to build two different platforms, one that operates and one that operates in another. I watched some debates with concern that privacy protections we afford americans creep into a form of distrust of big tech that is hard to quantify. In that regard, i would offer, im not the most trusting i have big tech either, but i would rather have big u. S. Tack given latitude as opposed to the latitude being given to the chinese and russian authorities who will absolutely abuse our data, absolutely abuse our rights, and absolutely do it without regard for what we consider to be some righteousness or human fairness. Glenn lots of good questions. Let me close out some questions about some of these newer technologies, mostly Artificial Intelligence. Lets end on a future not on that which is, april, can you talk a little about how the nsa is currently utilizing ai . Obvious he theres a lot written about how ai has the potential to transform intelligence collection and reporting, it is important that i know the agency is already using it. What are the guidelines and guardrails they are using and the current debate is about that, from Data Collection including commercially available data. Can you talk about that . Tom, i want to come to her sense of how do you feel we should be thinking much china in this regard. April absolutely. You might have seen the remarks and a saiz Deputy Director was recently talking about and a saiz ai roadmap, sort of work underway and at your point, n. S. A. Has certainly used things like used Ai Technology to assist with things like language translation and that kind of thing for many years. I think everybody recognizes not only that this is a fast growing area of technology but also one that presents a number of threats from a National Security perspective and also that the government and Intelligence Community in particular need to be looking at how to make use of what is best and make fair and ethical use of it that respect privacy and has that built in. From an n. S. A. Perspective, what we are looking to are things like the dod guidance on ethical use of ai that came out in february this year. We are looking to the od ni standards for that the goal use of ai. From an internal perspective, as we look at things like the ai roadmap that the Deputy Director talked about recently, we have some clients, personnel, and lawyers and civil liberty teams in the mix of those conversations as they are taking place. Glenn tom, your closing thoughts on sort of the ai race with china and your perspective serving the Prior Administration . Tom ai is so profound. The effect it will have will touch every aspect of our society. I think it is an understatement. I dont know how to overstate it. From the fears of labor replacement to the fears of privacy and Economic Dominance and so forth, the social distrust that can be sewn by generative ai is terrifying. We cant figure out what was written by whom, if it was true with images that are real or not. I think a lot of this is coming down to trust. As i look at the central issue of ai, seems to be data and privacy. As i said earlier, the race is on for who is going to get and use data, and it is who owns data. Is it your data, my data, Company Whose platform youre operating on . What rights do they have . Tom how do we make sure its not poisoned. Tom im worried about poisoning data in the field of cogeneration with generative ai. If i were the bag i bad guy, i would be intentionally training ai to give predictable and known code writing mistakes to the world of code writers out there taking shortcuts so i would have a roadmap into the exploits they dont even know they put into their software yet. That is just another issue. I think it will accelerate everything we talked about today but the big question of the future will be whose who gets to work on it and it is sort of a race with the chinese but it is a question of trust, do we trust ourselves or do we distrust ourselves more than we fear our adversary . Glenn obviously this topic is one we could have many conferences on let alone spend the rest of the afternoon on but we are coming up to the end of our allotted time, so let me close out on that ai point, just to show the rapidity with which the level of acceleration of this debate has taken. I had occasions this morning thinking about what to look at the Global Trends 20 40 report published by the office of director of national intelligence, the longterm lookout that i guess was came out in 2021 so not quite two years old, 20 months old. It has about two pages in it and was a brilliant document trying to forecast future trends. It has two pages on a icing ai is likely to problem where we are likely to keep a sharp buy on it. Im understanding but it is fascinating how it has become even in 20 months such a high level of conversation. A lot to follow on that. We are out of time eared we had a fabulous conversation with the general bang and general and equally interesting conversation with april doss and tom bossert. Thank you to the audience for joining us. 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