Transcripts For CSPAN FBI Dir. Christopher Wray Discusses National Security Concerns 20240708

To White House Events and Supreme Court oral arguments. Evening our live interactive Morning Program washington journal where we hear your voices every day. Cspan now has you covered. Download the app for free today. F. B. I. Director christopher way spoke at the Ronald Reagan library on monday. He said the Chinese Government has stolen more corporate and personal data than all other countries combined. Good evening, everyone. My name is john heubusch, and i have the honor of being the executive director of the Ronald Reagan president ial foundation and institute. Thank you all for coming this evening. In honor of our men and women in uniform, who defend our freedom around the world, would you please stand and join me for the pledge of allegiance . I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of america, and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Please be seated. Before we get started this evening, theres just a few people in the audience i would like to sure i recognize. Ventura County District attorney eric. Eric . [applause] and Ventura County sheriff. Bill . [applause] and, of course, we want to thank all of the former and current fbi agents and Law Enforcement agents here this evening. Thank you for joining us. [applause] you are all here tonight for a first in our foundations history. This is the very first time we have welcomed the city director of the federal bureau of investigation to the Reagan Library. Its also the first time weve had an audience so well behaved. [laughing] director wray is here tonight in part to celebrate our first of its kind 11,000 squarefoot exhibit on the history of his storied agency. We have artifacts that the public has never seen before, and likely may never see together again. Heres just a few. Some personal effects of the fbis first director, j. Edgar hoover. The automobile known as bonnie and clyde death car. We have John Dillinger is a gun as well. The unit bombers manifesto. A raft used by three prisoners to escape alcatraz, or did they . And engine from one of the aircraft that terrorist used to destroy the World Trade Center on 9 11. The fbi history, its history, fascinate so many. Its predecessor organization founded by Teddy Roosevelts first attorney general, charles bonaparte, yes, those bonaparte, he is the grandnephew of the emperor napoleon. So a lot to explore in this exhibit, and hope that you will pay to visit it if you havent had the chance already. Importantly, we could not have put this exhibition together without the help of the fbi, both in its l. A. Main office and headquarters in washington, d. C. Tonight though, with director wray i know that we will move beyond the past and continue the journey into the threats the fbi is confronting today and tomorrow. By the directors own count, the fbi has investigated 100 different types of ransomware. Its opening a new china counterintelligence investigation every ten hours. It has rested more than 600 game members in a single month, and thousands of tips pour into the bureaus National Threat Operations Center every day. This is an agency whose adversaries seem to shape shift by the day, so it takes a seasoned professional to lead its mission. In christopher wray, they have won. Now, if we were to prepare an exhibit on directors ray dasha director wrays career, 2001 would be the key moment when he moved from being assistant u. S. Attorney from the Northern District of georgia to the role of associate Deputy Attorney general at the Justice Department shortly before the 9 11 attacks, in the tiktok of that fateful day, you would see he spent the afternoon at the fbi in the strategic information Operations Center with director mueller and attorney general john ashcroft. This exhibit might include highlights from his time as the youngest assistant attorney general leading the Dojs Criminal Division would prosecute names like enron, and fine the Edmund J Randolph award, the dojs highest honor for leadership in Public Service which he received in 2005, a testament to his character and dedication. And i imagine you might also see a photo or two of his days at yale, especially meaningful place as thats where he met his wife, helen. Yet, as full as his career has been, i would wager the most compelling parts of his biography are yet to be written. Because there are too many threats to confront, too many enemies to defeat, and too many cases to solve. So the next chapter of his life to be any thing less. Ladies and gentlemen, for a truly special evening here at the Reagan Library please welcome the eighth, yes, only the eighth director of the fbi, christopher wray. [applause] thanks, everybody. Thank you. Well, thank you, john. And i have to say im honored to be here with you at the Ronald Reagan president ial library. The use of president reagans administration were momentous ones, defined, in large part, by our struggle against the soviet union, whose empire, where freedoms we hold dear were snuffed out. Im sure everyone here is familiar with the president reagans speech at the Brandenburg Gate in june 1987, when he called out mr. Gorbachev by name and challenged him to tear down this wall between free west berlin and imprisoned east germany, a nightmare surveillance state where no personal information was offlimits to the government. The fbi was deeply engaged in that struggle, tracking soviet agents operating here in the United States and protecting our freedoms from a dangerous enemy. That era and that work are a huge part of the fbis legacy and history, a history that the library has captured so well in this exhibit. So i want to take a moment to thank the library and john and the exhibit curators, randle swan, jennifer torres, lauren haischedwards, robert zucca, and derek lyneis for the great care youve taken in telling the fbis story. Thank you for the tour this afternoon, thank you for showcasing our organization and our people, whom im proud and humbled to represent, and thank you for allowing me to join you here this evening. I also want to congratulate whoever came up with the name for the exhibit, fbi, from al capone to alqaeda. Its not only catchy, and also captures the way the world has changed since the bureaus establishment back in 1908 and the way we have evolved as a Law Enforcement and Intelligence Agency to keep ahead of the changing threats we face. Today, we in the United States and the western world find ourselves in a very different struggle against another global adversary, the Chinese Communist party. Now, there are some surface level similarities between the threat posed by the Chinese Government and the historical threat of the soviet union. The Chinese Government also rejects the fundamental freedoms, basic human rights, and democratic norms we value as americans. But the soviet union didnt make much that anyone in america wanted to buy. We didnt invest in each others economies or send huge numbers of students to study in each others universities. The u. S. And todays china are far more interconnected than the u. S. And the old ussr ever were, and china is an economic power on a level the soviets could never have dreamed of being. Using capabilities to steal and threaten rather than to cooperate and build and that theft, those threats are happening right here in america literally every day. Thats what i want to talk to you about tonight, the threat posed by the Chinese Government here at home to our Economic Security and to our freedom. Our freedom of speech, of conscience, our freedom to elect and be served by our representatives without foreign meddling. Our freedom to prosper when we toil and invent. Ive spoke and lot about this threat since i became fbi director, but i want to focus on it here tonight because in many ways, its reached a new level. More brazen, more damaging than ever before and its vital, vital that all of us focus on that threat together. Now, having said that, i do want to be clear that the Chinese Government and the Chinese Communist party pose a threat were focused on countering, not the Chinese People and certainly not chineseamericans who are themselves frequently victims of the Chinese Governments lawless aggression, protecting them from the Chinese Government is top of mind for us, too. America a richer and stronger because of the generations of people who immigrated here from china many will celebrate the lunar festival this week. And at the fbi were commit today protecting the safety and rights of all americans. At the bureau weve long held the view that protecting our nations innovations an in both Law Enforcement priority and National Security. And it keeps individuals employed, families to make ends meet and fully live their lives, to put food on the table. And thats what is at stake with the Chinese Government, its not just home economics, its macro economics. Americas strength is build on our innovation and our striving citizens and the world changing products and services that they built, from the invention of the airplane around the time of the fbis founding, to the computer, the internet, gps, life saving medicines and thousands of others over the decades. When we tally up what we see in our investigations, over 2000 of which are focused on the Chinese Government trying to steal our information and technology, there is just no country that presents a broader threat to our ideas, our innovation, and our Economic Security than china. The Chinese Government steals staggering volumes of information and causes deep job destroying damage across a wide range of industries. So much so, that as you heard, were constantly opening new cases to counter their intelligence operations. About every 12 hours or so. What makes the Chinese Government strategy so insidious is the way it exploits multiple avenues at once, often in seemingly innocuous ways. They identify key technologies to target, their made in china 2025 plan, for example, lists 10 broad ones, the keys to economic success in the coming century, robotics, Green Energy Production and vehicles, aerospace, biopharma, and so on. And then, and then they throw over tool in their arsenal at stealing technology to succeed in those areas. Here in the u. S. They unleash a massive sophisticated Hacking Program bigger than those of every other nation combined. Operating from pretty much every city in china from a lot of funding and sophisticated tools and often joining forces with cyber criminals, in effect, cyber mecenamercenaries. And a group of hackers stole terra bytes from a company. One terra byte is around 70 million pages of data, think about that. Theyre not just hacking on a huge scale, but causing indiscriminate damage to get what they want like in the recent Microsoft Exchange hack, which compromised the networks of more than 10,000 American Companies in a Single Campaign alone. At the same time, the Chinese Government uses Intelligence Officers to target the same information multiplying their efforts by working extensively through scores of socalled coo coopees, spotting and assesses sources and providing cover, communications and helping steal secrets in other ways. The Chinese Government also makes partnerships and position their proxies to take valuable technology. Sometimes they wave enough money to get what they want. But often conceal which companies they actually control. Or use companies they dont literally own, but instead can control through embedded Chinese Communist party cells to exist in virtually in any Chinese Company of any real size. Using elaborate shell games to disguise their efforts both from our companies and from our Government Investment Screening Program sifius, the committee on Foreign Investments in the United States. Within china, they force u. S. Companies to partner with Chinese Governmentowned ones to do business in china and then abuse and exploit those partnerships. A recent case from ohio is a great illustration of the Chinese Governments multipronged strategy for stealing our valuable secrets. This past november a chinese Intelligence Officer named jeung was convicted of espionage in cincinnati. He was part of the Chinese Service responsible for stealing aviation related secrets. He was targeting an advanced engine made by ge and a foreign joint venture partner they were working to copy. And he corrupted insiders with access to company data and access to Company Infrastructure so he could help mss hackers in cyber units in china target the same data at the same time. He used one of his recruits or cooptees, a Senior Company official to help install malware and kept track to make sure they could access the implant hed uploaded and steal a similar fan Blade Technology that only ge possesses and this one an official at a Chinese University to contact a ge engineer through linkedin. Id be remiss if we didnt say we see a lot of chinese outreach on social media especially on linkedin and they offered him a trip and then another to europe. When we saw what happened we at ge were able to use our relationship to Work Together to foil the attempted threat. Letting the scheme appear to play out, but helping ge provide the engineer altered documents to steal. So in this case, at least, because of ges quick work and cooperation, china was not able to leapfrog over a decade of hard work and billions in investment to under cut a major u. S. Employer with nearly 50,000 employees. But were waging this battle every day. As dangerous as that blend of tools all directed at a single Companys Technology is, whats really scary is how come on chinese operations like that one have become. Shue is just one chinese Intelligence Officer working for an entire unit dedicated solely to stealing aviation related secrets and thats just one of the Ten Technology areas the Chinese Government prioritized for stealing. Just using cyber means, Chinese Government hackers have stolen more of our personal and corporate data than every other nation combined. The harm from the Chinese Governments economic espionage isnt just that its Companies Pull ahead based on illegally gotTen Technology, while they pull ahead, they push our companies and workers behind. That harm, company failures, job losses, has been building for a decade for the crush that we feel today. Its harm felt across the country in a whole range of industries. Ill give you an example. Several years ago, a Chinese Governmentowned corporation signed sinevel stole the source codes for Wind Turbines from a u. S. Company in massachusetts. Causing that u. S. Company, american semiconductor, to plummet from being a 1. 6 billion company to 200 Million Company and from 900 employees to only 300 employees. Thats 600 people who lost their livelihoods. And while those people were trying to figure out how to cope with catastrophe, they were adding insult to injury using the source code theyd stolen to sell Wind Turbines right here in the United States. In 2015, the Chinese Government publicly promised to stop handing hacked u. S. Technology to chinese companies, but their cyber Theft Program kept going strong and the years since, theyve hit ever more companies and workers. Weve seen Small Companies developing important medicines, ransacked. Weve seen big, managed Service Providers remotely managing i. T. Services for thousands of other businesses hacked so the Chinese Government could hijack their trusted connections with their customers and hack those companies, too. Whatever makes an industry tick, they target. Source codes from software companies, testing data and chemical designs from pharma firms, engineering designs from manufacturers, personal data from hospitals, Credit Bureaus and banks. Theyve even sent people to sneak into agri businesss fields and dig up advanced seeds out of the ground. The Common Thread is that they steal the Things Companies cant afford to lose. So the Chinese Governments economic Theft Campaign is not just unprecedented in its breadth, its also deeply damaging, undoing the labor, ideas, and investments of decades and leaving lives overturned in its wake. But stealing innovations isnt the only way the Chinese Government shows their disregard for the International Rule of law. The Chinese Government is increasingly targeting people inside the u. S. For personal and political retribution, undercutting the freedoms that our constitution and laws promise. The kinds of people the Chinese Communist party tends to go after are not those that a responsible government with make their enemies, refugee, dissidents, uyghurs, people with their own ideas who speak or worship as their conscience dick cates. One egregious example is a thing called fox hunt, which is a program that president xi jinping claimed in 2014 was created to stamp out corruption, but in reality, in reality, it targets, captures and repatriots former chinese citizens living overseas whom it sees as a political or financial threat. Over the past eight years, the Chinese Government has hauled home more than 9,000 people worldwide, bringing them back to china where they can be imprisoned or controlled and a big reason why its been so effective is because much like with this economic espionage, the Chinese Government is willing to disregard diplomatic norms and International Law when it comes to grabbing those victims. To start with, they often issue red notices through interpol using the international Law Enforcement community to stop and hold people for extradition. Effective use of red notices brings real criminals to justice. But issuing red notices for political purposes is an abuse of the program. Currently there are hundreds of people on u. S. Soil who are on the Chinese Governments official fox hunt list and a whole lot more not on the official list and most of the targets are green card holders, naturalized citizens, folks with important rights and protections under u. S. Law. But abusing red notices is bad enough, were seeing the Chinese Government resort to blackmail, threats of violence, stalking and kidnappings. Theyve actually engaged criminal organizations in the u. S. Offering them bounties in hopes of successfully taking targets back to china. China applies incredible pressure on the targets of those efforts, many of whom still have families back in china. Some, unaware that the party was after them have traveled back to china for a visit to find themselves suddenly trapped and prevented from leaving. Others, who are aware that they are targets, in those cases the Chinese Government has arrested their family members and imprisoned them, effectively holding the relatives hostage until the victims return to china. Now, at the fbi, we know a lot about criminal tactics after 113 years and this is right up there. And its certainly not the kind of conduct you would expect from a responsible nation on the world stage. As with the ge espionage example, the appalling thing about fox hunt its the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the Chinese Government transnational, and theyve targeted, threatened and harassed, u. S. Based tibetans and uyghurs and pro democracy advocates and those who question their legitimacy or authority. Now, of course, theres a lot of bad behavior on the global stage, but the Chinese Governments reach, their willingness and ability to exert power here in the United States is unique. Sometimes they seem to make a point of applying overwhelming pressure to stifle even petty criticisms. In 2018, after one u. S. Based employee of a major hotel chain liked a social media post by a tibetan separatist group the Chinese Government made the u. S. Hotel chain shut down all of its chinese websites and applications for an entire week and many of you will remember when an executive with a certain nba team seemed to tweet in support of hong kong, the Chinese Government banned nba for an entire year. The Chinese Government has gotten more brazen. A couple months ago the Chinese Embassy put out letters effectively warning u. S. Businesses if they want to do business in china, they need to fight against Chinese Governmentrelated bills in our congress. But even more concerning are menaing violations of our citizens and residents rights, things like threatening and harassing students at our universities when they exercise their right to free speech. At a midwestern university, a chineseamerican expressed praise for the students killed in the Tiananmen Square in 1989 and almost immediately his parents called to say chinese officers had threatened them because of his posts. When the same student participated in an online rehearsal for a protest event with other students, the Chinese Government new what hed said in the rehearsal and his parents called again more frantic. The student backed out of the event only recently making public what had happened. This is at a major American University right in the heartland. And that kind of overt harassment is just part of the visible spectrum of the problem. The Chinese Government is also leveraging covert means like using their Cyber Capabilities to target business. And the party doesnt just go individuals though, they aim higher and more broadly to try to corrupt our leaders, to buy or intimidate acquiescence to their will, that includes trying to undermine our democratic process by influencing our elected officials and here, too, they play the long game. The Chinese Government understands that politicians in smaller roles today may rise to become more influential over time. So they look to cultivate talent early, often state and local officials to ensure that politicians at all levels of government will be ready to take a call and advocate on behalf of beijings agenda. The Chinese Government is not the first with authoritarian ambitions. As i mentioned when we started, president reagan and his fellow cold war president s knew a thing or two about confronting tyranny. Its like the surveillance of east germany combined with the tech of silicon valley. I hope all of this gives you a sense for why the fbi is so focused on the threats from the Chinese Government. Here the Reagan Librarys fbi exhibit is a great place to talk about what we, our partners and our allies are doing about that threat. The exhibit not only shows how threats to the United States have evolved over the decades, but also how the fbi has evolved to stay ahead of those threats. 20 years after 9 11, the fbi is a very Different Agency in important and valuable ways, to deal with the threat of terrorism around the world. We shifted focus to disruption before danger can strike and we cemented a culture of working with and through partners of all kinds. Today we use our intelligence collection, both what we developed and what we obtain from Partner Agencies here and abroad, to identify and disrupt threats early. Like when we ran an operation to slam shut the back doors the Chinese Government hackers had placed on thousands of American Companies networks in the Microsoft Exchange operation i referred to earlier, in that case working closely with microsoft and other private sector and government partners. And we focused on sharing what we learned through our work and i mean really sharing a lot with the whole variety of partners who can act alongside us. Not just other intelligence services, but Law Enforcement agencies around the world and private sectors, state and local and military partners here at home. Pointing to hacking infrastructure to take down, Intelligence Officers to track, corporate transactions to block and more. As we have against other dangers, were applying a lot of the Lessons Learned in the fight against terrorism to every aspect of the Chinese Government threat. Following the successful model of the joint Terrorism Task force as we lead in every one of our field offices we also now have both cyber and Counter Intelligence Task Forces Set up in all of those field offices, too, bringing aboard indispensable teammates from scores of other federal, state and local agencies. We also recently set up a national Counter Intelligence task force to provide nationwide coordination with federal Law Enforcement and intelligence partners. A lot like the National Cyber choice Investigative Task force weve built on the cyber side and were continuing to adapt how we operate. The post 9 11 counterterrorism analogy is not a perfect one. The biggest differences we see with the threats from the Chinese Government are first the central importance of the private sector, from young, new economy firms, to internet Service Providers to industrial giants and second, how often were using tools other than arrests and prosecutions to neutralize those threats. Were showing that early coordination is essential to achieving positive results, like ge aviation, saving thousands of jobs by acting before their trade secrets could be stolen. Much of the battle grounds that were contesting lies outside the governments control. Companies Whose Technology were helping to protect, universities whose students and research were helping to protect. Local governments were warning about foreign threats. None of them are equipped to deal with a threat this complex alone, so its good they dont have to. Were sharing information, those partners need to protect themselves while we employ all the lawful tools at our disposal and provide our government partners around the world with the evidence they need to act in concert. The sheer volume of criminal and threatening actions we see from the Chinese Government is immense. But the good news, the good news is that our partners and allies these days are more alert to those dangers than ever. I spend a lot of my time talking with other leaders, focused on National Security and Law Enforcement, both here at home and abroad. And the frequency with which this threat dominates the discussions is striking. I have foreign counterparts tell me theyre fighting to protect their students from intimidation, too. The chinese officials are targeting their policies and their candidates with malign influence, too. The hackers in china are carrying their innovation off and chinese proxies are using quasi legal investments to undermine their economy and theyre in the fight with us. Just over the last couple of months, for example, australia passed new rules to protect students from harassment on campus and to safeguard their universities from research. In the u. K. , our close partner m i5 publicly alerted the parliament for a Chinese Agency trying to corrupt their political process. Not long after, my friend and colleague richard moore, the head of mi6 warned in his first public speech of some. Very same dangers ive talked about here. Across europe and east asia, our partners are establishing or strengthening investment Screening Programs, toughening programs sometimes with our technically trained agents with them and improving their own sector partnerships. The list goes on. So, yes, the Chinese Government understands the wests free and open society and tries to exploit it. But the Chinese Governments world view works as a blinder, too. They may think our adherence to the rule of law is a weakness, but theyre wrong. As a rule of law agency in a rule of law country, with rule of law partners, we see how our democratic and legal processes arm us. For one, when its appropriate, we make allegations we can prove to neutral fact finders and those allegations often give allied governments the predications they need to act. Look at whats been happening with huawei. When an independent grand jury returns an indictment accusing a company of serial trade secret theft, people think twice of trusting their privacy and secrets to that company. And the threats huawei poses is a lot better understood now than before our investigation led to those charges. So were confronting this threat and winning important battles, not just while adhering to our battles, but by adhering to our battles. I believe that in the course of doing so, were showing why the Chinese Government needs to change course for all our sakes. There is so much good we could do with a responsible Chinese Government. Crack down on chinese criminals, stop money launderers, reduce opioid overdose deaths, but in the fbi were focused on the reality of the Chinese Government today. All of us in america and across the free world are in this together. And as president reagan said in his inaugural address, no arsenal or no weapon in the arsenals of the world is so foremidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. And i have been heartened to see that recognition take hold, to watch and help our partners gird for the long, important fight now underway. And everyone involved in that fight can be certain that you will have no more committed partner than the fbi. Thank you. [applause] just terrific, thank you, director wray. Sobering to be sure. I guess it would be safe to say that china and this kind of theft, the whole Broad Spectrum of threats that you noted are the number one priority for the fbi today or does the fbi have lots of number one priorities . Well, i guess i would say this, everywhere i turn i find that people have really good ideas of things the fbi needs to be doing more of. And i havent found very many people with really good ideas what we can start to go a lot less of. Certainly for us, counterterrorism is and has to remain our number one priority, but much like most of the Intelligence Community, theres been a pivot to what we would call the hard targets, which means that a lot of the growth in our National Security mission, both Counter Intelligence and cyber, is really focused on this threat that weve been talking about tonight. Well, 9 11, at least from the laymans perspective as we watched just the horrible, horrible destruction of what occurred on that day, would we the layman often heard, one of the reasons that we let our guard down and Something Like this was possible because our Law Enforcement agencies, federal, state and local, were just not talking to each other, communicating with one another, coordinating, sharing information. And i know laws have passed and many things have changed since then. Does that issue still keep you up at night . Do you think that we are doing a terrific job of coordinating now and as a result, reducing the threat or is there still work to be done amongst the multilevel actors and agencies . Well, im impatient by nature so theres always more work to be done, but i would say, and especially with the perspective of somebody who, as you said in your introduction, was in the fbi headquarters on 9 11 and around for, at the heart of really a lot of the changes post 9 11, coming back into service now in this era, the leaps and transformations that all of us collectively have made in that regard i think are very encouraging and should make everyone feel better about the way in which government partners together, federal, state, and local, the joint Terrorism Task force and i mentioned, you know, background of 9 11 there were only a handful and now every field office like 4500 investigators from state and federal local agencies working together. Theres a mindset of share, share, share. So i think that part has improved dramatically and i think what i would say, that is more concerning in some ways, is that the terrorist threat itself has also changed in an i with a that makes it more, more vexing and more challenging. So if you look at the kind of stuff that we were focused on on 9 11, certainly, and the years right afterwards, you picture this sort of classic al qaeda sleeper cell. Picture the 19 people on 9 11, for example. Well, you think about a threat like that, youve got a group of people communicating with each other, and planning, training, fund raising even. There are a lot of you heard the expression of dots to connect and in that situation there are a lot of dots out there to connect, the interaction between them and all the work theyre doing. What worries us now is what we call the home grown, those people here largely lone actors inspired typically online or radicalized by a Jihadist Movement like isis or extremist much the same way who dont have a lot of confederates, who are acting largely as i said alone, and choose soft targets with crude accessible weapons. In that kind of situation there arent a lot of dots out there and on top of that, the time, as the professionals would say, from flash to bang is much tighter. And the time to connect the dots, and to try to figure out who might want to decide based on something they saw online, to drive their car through a pedestrian walkway. So that kind of threat is what keeps us on the balls of our feet now. Yeah. You know, the public often sees you in your role as the director of the fbi and perhaps a press conference here or there, called to testify in front of congress and it seems from the last decade the fbi is in the headlines so much more so than used to be the case. And also, this politics that tries to pull the agency in in one way, shape or form, into these headlines. And i wonder, how do you, as a director, youre certainly not a politician, youre a civil servant, how do you keep the fbi in its lane and do your best to keep it out of the political back and forth . Well, as you can imagine, this is something that i think about a lot. The first thing i will say is that political controversies and even controversies specifically impacting the fbi, have been around for 113 years. As your exhibit in some ways demonstrates. What has changed is that were now having that play out against the back drop of 24 7 cable coverage and ubiquitous social media. Used to hear that the vietnam war was the first war fought in our living rooms, referring to television. I would say were the first ones in the environment i just described and i think we have to stay focused on the basics. What i mean by that is, we have to make sure were focused on our core values, rigor, professionalism, objectivity, following the facts wherever they may lead, no matter whom they may lead, no matter who likes it ill add that part because one of the things ive discovered in this day and age, with people fixated on results, theres always going to be somebody who is unhappy with the arrests we made, the arrests we couldnt make, the intelligence assessment we made, the intelligence assessment we couldnt make and theyre going to second guess and criticize us. That comes with the territory. We need to make sure that our process, the way we did our work is bulletproof and thats what i keep trying to preach to our people. If we do that, i think well be just fine and as to me its about focusing on the work, on the people that we do the work with and the people that we do the work force and what i see now, having been to all 56 of our field offices and most of them more than once, met with Law Enforcement partners from all 50 states, Law Enforcement and Security Partners from well over 50 countries, judges, business leaders, community leaders, prosecutors, victims and their families, the appreciation that i encounter for the fbis 37,000 men and women from them, not on social media, but from them, is inspiring. And as further testament to that, in 2019, the number of americans all over this country applying to be special agents, to put their lives on the line, working for us, tripled the pace that it had been for the last, i dont know how many years before that. And it continued in 20, in 21, the highest its been in about a decade. In my book, that speaks volumes what the people think about the fbi. Sure, thats good news. And other than those double, triple the number of people who say i want to be part of the fbi family, as you just noted, director wray, how can the average person out there help in the fbis mission . You referenced importantly that particular example the case with ge and the chinese trying to steal technology, what have you, but is it the average businessman . Do you have to be the head of a fortune 500 to assist the fbi by looking for espionage, what have you . What can the average person do rather than work for the fbi . I think the engagement with the public, both citizens, individual citizens, businesses of all sizes alike, early engagement is the key. Whether its active shooters that were trying to prevent, or terrorist acts were trying to prevent where someone we have found time and time again, who knows the person or observes something, says something to Law Enforcement, thats how we prevent those attacks and thats early engagement and the private sector and i talked about that some in my remarks and businesses of all sizes reaching out and letting us know what their needs and risks are. What theyre seeing on the cyber side. We need companies and were seeing more and more companies to notify us quickly when they encounter intrusion. At the end of the day engagement by each of us protects all of us. And i wonder if you as director you talked about what we can do on behalf of the United States and when we have the agency to defend against incredibly destructive Cyber Attacks on the United States corporations on our government, what have you, theft of information. Are you do you ever get frustrated that the United States, that our government is not proactively reacting to these kinds of acts by engaging in Cyber Attacks on those bad actors, either to prevent their action or to pay back for what they might have done, the shut down of a pipeline in the United States, that kind of thing . Well, what i would say is that we and our partners across the Intelligence Community and other agencies work very closely together to try to disrupt say the cyber threats, for example. And a lot of what we and they do together is the kind of thing i cant discuss in an open setting like this. Other than to reassure people that there are a lot of impactful things that we do. In some instances, there are things that i can point to publicly, where weve taken down the bad guys infrastructure, their Cyber Infrastructure and some of that stuff does happen. The operation i made in my remarks to the Microsoft Exchange actions, the place where we took action to disrupt and attack. And so, there are things that are happening, but what we dont do is compromise our values. We dont engage in indiscriminate hacking and gobbling up their personal data. There are a lot of things that other countries do that we wont do and i think were better for it. Like ransomware, you know, the average person to turn on the television today and youll see all sorts of advertising, how to protect your company and yourself. Is the problem really exploding around the world and against american actors . Because it certainly seems like the average citizen gets a sense that its just out of control. There has certainly been a significant increase in ransomware, 2019, 2020, the overall volume of ransom paid and of reported complaints tripled. You mentioned in your introduction that were currently investigating over 100 different variants of ransomware, but each of those has scoresen scores of victims and thats not counting the other Cyber Attacks that we investigate. One of the things about ransomware thats so striking is that some of the more recent examples have caused, i think, the average american to understand how it can affect them. Its no longer just, you know, company x whos blocked access to data bases. Now its affecting the price of gas at the pump. The availability and how ransomware affects everybody. Would you say that u. S. Corporations, businesses in the United States, are they doing enough to cooperate, to work with the fbi, to work in partnerships to your satisfaction so we can counter a number of the threats . Or does there still need to be a lot of education done with the American Business community . Well, i think its moving in the right direction. Ive seen more and more businesses all the time who are doing the right things. Theyre building relationships with their local fbi field offices. You know, theres the old saying that the best time to patch the roof is when the sun is shining. Theyre doing that more and more. And more and more, theyre notifying us when theyve had an intrusion. And more and more theyre working with us after this on intrusion so we can help prevent the same thing from happening either to them again or to countless other companies, so, its going in the right direction. As ive said earlier, im impatient by nature and i always think we can do better and we can do better and we need to do better. And how about on the encryption front some of the Fabulous Software companies in the United States and the ability they have to protect their software, to protect a client that purchases from them, yet, these encryption tools are just remarkable and as you know, in terms of the difficulty to receive them if the agency needs to protect someone. Are you getting sufficient cooperation from the code developers, the microsofts and the others to detect criminal activity, for example . So its a good question. This is a major Public Safety issue and frankly, more and more, its a National Security issue. We are, of course, as a Cyber Security agency, which is part of our mission, were big believers in encryption and were not asking for back doors into anybodys infrastructure, but what we are asking is for companies to make sure that when they design their platforms, their devices, they preserve a way to respond to a warrant. And thats whats at stake here. We are headed in a direction thats important for people to understand this, we are rapidly heading in a direction where devices and messaging platforms will be constructed in a way where they are essentially warrant proof. What i mean about that, picture the most awful crime you can imagine, picture the most grave threat to National Security you can imagine, picture the most heartbreaking victims or numbers of victims and then picture the most bulletproof, ironclad, rock solid court order and then process the fact that we will not be able to get access to the content to protect people. That will be beyond reach for Law Enforcement and security agencies and i hear about this issue from my state and local partners all the time, and i hear about it from my National Security counterparts all the time. So we have to, as a country, find a way to Work Together to solve these issues, because otherwise, were going to wake up one day, and its rapidly happening, where suddenly we cant protect people. Yeah, and in relation to that, can you talk about cryptocurrencies and where you see that going . Because again, from a laymans perspective it just appears with the new monetary secret Monetary Exchange programs, block chain and all the rest of this sophistication that this has to have given criminal elements, bad actors in particular, a safer way to hide from the law, is that right . Well, certainly cryptocurrency makes it harder for us to follow the money and following the money is a tried and true Law Enforcement, especially fbi, tactic. As your exhibit demonstrates in numerous ways. We have developed more and more analytic techniques and tools and we try to stay ahead of the cryptocurrency advances, but its no longer a problem just with sophisticated actors, were seeing it more and more and in less sophisticated as well and clearly the way things are going. And theres a similarity in the cryptocurrency issue and the warrant proof encryption issue in the sense of blinding Law Enforcement and its ability with the proper legal process, to keep people safe. Yeah. Ive got time for just two more questions, if you would. January 6th, theres little doubt weve seen on the news every day that the fbi seems to be sparing no resources to go after some bad actors for the tragedy that occurred on january 6th, which is a very good thing. At the same time, i think theres also a concern out there in the community that a lot of bad actors did similar things, whether it would be the federal courthouses or police headquarters, across the United States in the summer of 2020 and can you assure the American People that the fbi is working just as hard to give equal justice of the law to those kinds of things that are happening there . Well, absolutely. We have one standard, which is, i dont care whether youre upset about an election, upset at our criminal justice system, whatever it is youre upset about, theres a right way and a wrong way to express youre upset in it country and violence against property and Law Enforcement is not it. Thats what the rule of law is about. We have in both instance the opened up hundreds in what happened over the summer and january 6th. Weave used almost 56 of our field offices and jint Terrorism Task forces in both. We use investigations and public posters. There are differences in the january 6th instances, it happened in broad daylight and photographed extensively and peoples faces, and involved fairly unmistakable breach and entry into congress while they were conducting one of their most sacred responsibilities. Contrast over the summer, happening under the cover of darkness with peoples faces concealed, often attacking builders that might not be federal property, sometimes courthouses, but not in operation and the federal hook and jurisdiction and the ability to more challenging. Were still working the cases and just a couple of months ago a case in st. Louis we indicted a car for arson of a gas station during the summer of 2020 stretch. So were pursuing both. Were aggressively pursuing both and as i said, we have one standard, which is you dont get to commit violence. Well said, director. The last question, it deals with the sanctity of life. And again, if one was to turn on the tv last week ned see another and another and another policeman, Law Enforcement official killed in the line of duty, ambushed. This seems to be occurring with just a remarkable frequency and i whats going on out there . What is happening in America Today where Law Enforcement is being targeted like this when they should Police Federal Law Enforcement should be on the pedestal that it deserves . Well, and not just federal Law Enforcement. I think an awful lot of these, in fact, the vast majority of these heartbreaking line of duty deaths are our state and local brothers and sisters. And theyre the ones that are bearing the brunt of this and we need to be there for them. I will say this is one of these issues that does not yet, in my view, the attention it deserves. We had 73 Law Enforcement officers feloniously killed in the line of duty last year. Thats greater than any number since 9 11. And whats even more alarming is how many of them were unprovoked, ambush or something similar type attacks and of course, thats not even counting all of those officers who were killed in other ways or who were shot and wounded, but thankfully survived, but whose lives and familys lives are forever changed. And were off to a pretty grim start in 2022 as well. I wrote an oped in the wall street journal a couple of weeks ago trying to raise more attention to this issue and one of the really grim things that struck me as i was working on the oped was that more kept dying as i was finetuning the piece. And this sits close to home for us, as i mentioned to you as we were downstairs. Last year, the fbi had two of our agents, daniel and swartzberger shot and killed in miami. And one agent ambushed outside of our offices in tara terra haute, indiana. And i decided as fbi director, every time an officer was shot and killed in the line of duty in this country i was going to call personally to the chiefs or the sheriff and express my condolences and each time i had my staff put together a writeup on their family, and how long theyve served, a photograph, the circumstances, and ive made well over 200 of those phone calls. And the thing that strikes me is that if you stop and think about what it takes for a person to be willing to sacrifice his or her life for a total stranger, thats a pretty special person. Not that many people are wired that way. And then if you think how many people are willing to get up and do that every single day, day after day after day, its extraordinary, and it is a in my view, a cherished resource that this country has that we should be taking better care of. And i think that means more resources, more training, more equipment for them. I think it means addressing the Violent Crime problem, more on and keeping the dangerous offenders off the streets and i think it means the community, in lots of different ways, showing officers how much they appreciated and how much we have their back. Yeah, moral support. [applause] now, just a great way to end it, director wray, on behalf of everyone here were just truly honored to have you come and cannot thank you enough for spending an hour of time with us. Thanks so much. Thanks, john. Appreciate it. [applause] 6 President Biden and Vice President harris delivered remarks in the annual Prayer Breakfast thism joined the chairs of the event, watch tonight at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan, online at cspan toirg or watch full coverage on our new video app cspan now. Cspan offers a variety of podcasts that have something for every listener. 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