Festival of books in nashville. Youre the end of the month, we will be covering to book festivals on the same weekend. From our nations heartland, it is the wisconsin book festival in madison. On the east coast, the boston book festival. At the start of november, we will be in portland, work and followed by the National Book awards in new york city. At the end of november, we are live for the 18th year in a row from florida for the Miami Book Fair international. That is a few of the fairs and festivals. On wednesday, director of National Intelligence, James Clapper spoke at the second nationaltelligence and security summit. He gave an assessment of the state of the u. S. Intelligence and what needs to be done in the future. This is just over one hour. [applause] mr. Clapper we have done more than that. It is a testimony to the importance you attach to this conference. I would like to echo joes comments regarding our cea. Nership with af have and continue to enjoy working with the organization and look forward to continuing this partnership again next year. Is no better place to begin our exploration of the state of u. S. Intelligence then with an address from director of National Intelligence, James Clapper. The fourth director of National Intelligence and the leader of all United States intelligence. Inector clapper has served United States intelligence for over 50 years. With more than 30 of those years in uniform. Ofhas served as the director two National Intelligence agencies, the dia, and the nga. He has been the undersecretary of defense for intelligence. And as a private sector executive, leading industry support to the Intelligence Community. There is no Intelligence Leader past or present with director clappers death and breath of multiplee across intelligence domains. And in both the private and public sector. I say that with all due humility as the first director of National Intelligence and i marvel at the wisdom and experience that jim has brought to his job which i believe has really enhanced the standing and of the ood and i. And i think it is also important that unlike his predecessors, he has managed to spend a good bit ,f time on this tour of duty more than five years at this point. His career and many accomplishments serve as an example of the power of both Intelligence Community egration and public Publicprivate Partnerships. When director clapper completes his remarks, i will moderate a questionandanswer session and look forward to including many of your questions as well. As was mentioned earlier, write them down, and they will be collected from you by the conference staff. Directorhonor to have James Clapper with us today. Himse join me in welcoming to the 2015 intelligence and National Security summit. [applause] director clapper it is great to be back on the stage with this integrated group. I spent the last five years preaching the gospel of intelligence integration and it has been my major theme during reasonre and it is the that the office exists. It is what the 9 11 commission advocated and it is what what what our act legislated. Perhaps, my successor will not get to talk about it. These twong, seeing it makes meether, feel like intelligence integration is catching on. Joe has a ringnd to it. Either a singing duo or selling car parts together. For the rest of this speech and in the spirit of integration i will refer to you jointly as mojo. Thank you both for the invitation to kick off this great summit and for nurturing the spirit of working together. When i was here last year, i spoke about our new National Strategy quite literally on the day that our publication was rolling off of the presses. This year, we do not have quite obviously we do not have anything quite obvious to talk about. What mojoed to read expected me to talk about. Here is what the website says i would be discussing. U. S. Intelligence is an essential part of u. S. Power and it perhaps has never been more powerful than today given advances in technology. With great power comes great responsibility. Line really struck me. With great power comes great responsibility. Apparently, mojo thinks i am spiderman. I amthe transparency not. Ask my staff and you can and they will tell you that i look more like spideys uncle ben. I feel like i have a personal connection to the web sling your. That line was used to introduce a spideys first comic book appearance in 1962. In the spring of 1963, just as i was starting off in the intelligence business, marvel published the first issue of the amazing spiderman. Coincidence . Yes. All kidding aside, we have a lot in common with spiderman. We constantly have to worry about covert concerns, someone matching our secret identities to our every day, normal lives. But the spiderman and his alter ego are known for their genius, level intellect. Spiderman is known for his superhuman strength. Leftple of days a week, i weights in our office gym and my spotter says i am pretty strong for a geezer. Roomvaluation of my weight prowess may be just a little bit biased. Spiderman is known for his precognitive spidey sense. Many of our customers expect us to be clairvoyant. Especially when it comes to world events. Spidey is known as the web sling or because he shoots his lighter wet from devices on his wrists. Because he shoots spiderwebs from devices on his wrists. There are even similarities between superman and the icy when it comes to governance. Stanley and marble created spiderman and still published spidey comics. Sony pictures has created control on film. Our in someone elses Cabinet Department. Integrating priorities and resources across the icy is not easy. Particularly when it comes to following in the different laws, rules, that reside in each one of those Cabinet Departments. While we are listing similarities, do not forget that Sony Pictures and i have a less than friendly interaction with north korea. Spidey fan hopes that spiderman has a role in the upcoming movie. I will set aside as comparisons for a few minutes because those website,nces on the the ones posted just under my picture, make a good point. Intelligence is a powerful and essential tool for our National Security enterprise. Comes greatower responsibility. Those statements have been true as long as i can remember and i can remember back a long way. My dad was in the sick it nt business ingi world war ii. As a consequence of traveling around the globe with him, i grew up on intelligent sites and in antenna farms all over the world. Of course back then we didnt talk about intelligence publicly. Five decades later, thats of course changed. In fact, thats changed a lot just over the past three years. I admit, because of my experience growing up in the sigint business, and my five decades or so in intel, that the kind of transparency were engaged in now almost is genetically antithetical to me. As i think back, which im want to do these days, air force Second Lieutenant jim clapper in 1963 would be shocked by the level of detail that we talk about, specifically in intelligence activities in general in 2015. Thats been one of my major takeaways the past few years. Yes, we have to protect our secrets, our sources and methods, our trade craft. But we have to be more transparent about the things that we can talk about. Because now the American Public expects us to talk about how were using the power of u. S. Intelligence responsibly. And again with great power comes great responsibility. Thats a lesson i personally believe we didnt learn quickly enough and that we certainly include mess. So thats why more and more were discussing our work, to correct misunderstandings and to try to help people grasp what we do. To show that were worthy of americas trust. And to prove that we make worthwhile contributions to the security of americans and our friends and allies around the world. Its why over the past two years the community has declassified more than 5,000 pages of documents about our work and importantly about the oversight of our work, that which is conducted by all three branches of the government. And by publishing these declassified documents on our tumbr site, i. C. On the record, and pushing them out on facebook and twitter, theyve reached millions of people in the u. S. And around the world. That includes of course our adversaries who also have learned a lot from our transparency. But i think weve come down on the side of transparency is worth that cost. We declassified these documents to show that we follow the law and when we do make mistakes, we do our best to live up to that line stan lee wrote just a few months before i joined the intelligence business, with great power comes great responsibility. We understand the truth in that line, its why the president challenged us in his speech of january last year to formalize privacy protections for our signals intelligence efforts at home and abroad. And to be more transparent about how we implement those protections. This past january we published a comprehensive report answering the challenges the president publicly gave us in 2014. We also supported the u. S. A. Freedom act, which authorizes increased reporting of how the i. C. Exercises some of its authorities. This past february, we published the principles of intelligence transparency, and we stood up an i. C. Transparency working group with senior representatives from all over the i. C. And their purpose is to i meet with these great people to transform these principles into action. I want to talk about those four Transparency Principles just for a moment. Theyre fairly simple. One, provide appropriate transparency to enhance public understanding of the Intelligence Community. That principle says, what we ought to be transparent about and why. Two, be proactive and clear in making information publicly available. Of course, when we can. And that gets into how we should be transparent. Three, protect information about intelligence sources methods and activities. And, four, align i. C. Roles, resources, processes and policies to support transparency implementation. So, the tenants three and four essentially say that protecting our trade craft, our sources, methods and activities is an individual responsibility. For each person who holds a security clearance. Well, transparency is an institutional responsibility for the i. C. As an enterprise. If a member of the Intelligence Community, blue badge or green badge, comes across information she thinks we should make public, we have processes in place already to review it for declassification. And if someone comes across something she thinks were doing wrong, we have lots of avenues to report that activity. Including legitimate avenues for whistleblowing. To make sure our work force knows their rights and responsibilities on these issues, weve been publicizing how to recommend something for declassification, how to properly blow a whistle, and what their protections are if they do so. Were also increasingly reaching out to the American Public. As our transparency principle two says, we need to be proactive and clear with transparency. Because were trying to help the public understand what we do in their name. Its why weve declassified and published so many significant documents. The tumblr site has a review. Thats a big reason why this spring we sent our National Intelligence counsel to the south by southwest festival to engage the Diverse Group of people there and get them to help us identify themes to include in our next Global Trends report. Its also why this summer we published a huge tranche of documents wed collected during a raid, probably later than we should, but we got to it. By the way, our publication of bin ladens book shelf gave us about as much web traffic in just two days, 750,000 site visits, and two million page views, as our website received in all of 2013 and 2014 put together. And if you ran a Google Search for bin laden, di. Gov was the number two search behind only wikipedia. Tomorrow ill be on the hill once again in an open hearing testifying on cyberthreats and cyberintelligence. Of course transparency can help us with mission two, particularly when were able to use imagery publicly. In 2013 we showed how syria had used chemical weapons on its own people. In 2014 we helped make public a diplomatic case against russia for obfuscating what happened to Malaysian Airlines flight 17. We also shared imagery to help people in need. As we pass the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina a couple of weeks ago, i found myself thinking about the work n. G. A. Did back when i was director. In the aftermath of the hurricane, admiral allen reached out to n. G. A. For help. In figuring out what precisely the storm had done to new orleans and to the state of louisiana and the state of mississippi. It had decimated so much property and rerouted the waterways and blocked the ports. The general helping him with Situational Awareness in managing the response to this disaster. The coast guard and n. G. A. Ended up working very closely together. And in the process, i got to know him pretty well. I consider him both a personal hero and a close friend. This spring my wife, sue, and i had dinner with thad and his wife, pam. And as old war horses are want to do, we reminisced and told war stories. I found out that among the few mementos that thad and pam displayed in their home is a topographical, three dimensional map of new orleans given to him by n. G. A. When he retired. And he recalled fondly the superb work n. G. A. Did after hurricane rita and katrina, as well as in the aftermath of the b. P. Oil spill. That was all work that mattered. That directly made a difference to american citizens. And to people who were on the ground and remember it. As we push forward, transparency is initiatives, weve been able to help with tragedies and natural disasters around the world. Last summer and fall, the i. C. And n. G. A. Had a huge and largely unsung impact on the control and containment of ebola in west africa. By providing open data on human geographies to the countries and n. G. O. s. And for the first time ever, setting up a publicly available website for disaster support. This spring, n. G. A. A and the i. C. Put the lessons we learned into action after the earthquake in nepal. Producing damage assessment, reporting on the operating status of air fields, providing estimates on internally displaced people and displaying studies of transportation routes. We save lives and set a community on the other side of the world on the road to recovery. Those are things the Intelligence Community has done that im pretty proud of. Once we made a commitment to be transparent, doing these things, helping people in need, were easy decisions, easy commitments to make. I think Going Forward were going to have to be more transparent in talking about hard decisions and difficult choices. Because were in a difficult business, in a challenging time. So this morning i started my speech with a comparison of superficial similarities between the i. C. And spiderman. I think theres one other thing that the Intelligence Community has in common with spidey and more directly and more distinctly with peter parker. This gets to the heart of why spiderman has been one of marvels most popular characters since the first issue of the amazing spiderman. 52 years ago, the same year i started in intel, before spidey, most comic books depicted the external struggle between the superhero and the supervillain. It was superman versus lex luther with kryptonite. With peter parker for the first time, comic readers saw a heros inner struggles. They shared his experiences of trying to keep the job and earn enough to survive. Of trying to talk to girls. And watching helplessly as a loved one, his uncle ben, dies. And more than anything else, peters struggles with deciding what to do when his principles, his personal values, came in conflict with each other. Thats what made spiderman such an interesting character to follow. People always related to his inner struggle with decisions. Peter found that sometimes he couldnt keep a promise to a friend and at the same time as spiderman help someone in need. The Intelligence Community is composed of people who similarly face tough choices. I think this often gets lost in the public discussion. We as an institution and as a work force have principles and values that sometimes come into conflict. Things like our need to keep sources and methods secret and our desire to be more open and transparent with what we do. Things like pursuing terrorists and others who want to do us harm and protecting the privacy and Civil Liberties of the typical citizens, not just of this country, but of the world. Who are rarely but sometimes caught up in our collection efforts against the bad guys. Solutions for these conflicts are not always obvious. Ive been in meetings in which we literally pulled out our copies of the constitution and bill of rights to get to the ground truth of what our principles and obligations are. Wrestling with constitutional issues to make difficult decisions is part of our daily business. It is just a fragment of what make our i. C. Career so unique. This is a difficult business. Ive been in this job, as john mentioned, a little over five years. And every day i realize that fact a little more. Ive been pondering a lot about how to best express my feelings on my career and this job. And just last week, i came across an email that captured them and expressed them better than i could ever have done. It was something an f. B. I. Director, one of our great leaders in all of government, sent out to his staff. I want to share his thoughts. He wrote, ive been thinking about humility lately. One of my weaknesses has long been overconfidence. I dont know whether it was the product of nature or nurture. But from an early age, i had a tendency to reach a conclusion quickly, hold to it firmly and argue about it until the sun went down. Fortunately a whole lot of Life Experience has helped beat that out of me. In fact, the older i get, the less i know for absolute certain. And the more i realize my own ability to see clearly and to reason well is limited. Thats one of the reasons it is so important to have people around me who see the world differently. And who will tell me what they see and conclude so that together we can make better decisions. His email absolutely nail what i had been thinking about and pondering of late. Ere is a human aspect to intelligence work that gets lost in the public discussion. Were human. And when we forget that, when were utterly certain about everything, when we stop questioning and stop listening to the people around us who see the world differently, were more likely to make mistakes and poor decisions. And thats what it means to be human. Fans of the amazing spiderman love peter parker because we can relate to his humanity. He struggles, he tries his best. He makes mistakes. He learns from them. And he keeps going. He constantly tries to live up to the line that became his creed. With great power comes great responsibility. That line so describes what is the people of the Intelligence Community try to live up to every day. To show that were worthy of americas trust and that were worthwhile because, spoiler alert, were not comic book characters. Were americans working to protect our nation and at the same time striving to live up to our nations values. So, thanks again, mojo, for inviting me to kick off the summit and thanks to everyone here this morning for listening. And for being here in the spirit of integration, to map out where our Community Goes next. So thank you very much. [applause] john thanks very much, jim. That email from the c. I. A. Goes back to socrates, doesnt it . All i know is that i know nothing. I guess thats the ultimate wisdom. Before i go to questions from the participants, i had a couple of my own. That id like to ask. Just two. I dont think theyre curveballs in any way. The first, because i know its a subject of great interest to everybody here, is the intelligence budget. I know youre not you dont have a crystal ball. But i think wed be very interested in hearing what you might have to say, what observations you might have to say about the status of the intelligence budget and what the prospects are for it in the months or years, years is perhaps saying much, but as far out as you feel you can comfortably see in that regard. Whats your view on that . Dir. Clapper i guess if i had to pick one word to characterize the budget environment, the budget situation for intelligence, which is a microcosm of the rest of the government, i would characterize it as one of uncertainty. We are potentially facing the specter in 2016, depending on what happens on the hill, of another year of sequestration. This afternoon coincidentally ill be meeting with what we call the small excom which are essentially the big six on teeing up 2017. Were having to worry now about that budget year. Once again, as we look forward to 2017, we are again going to be confronted with putting together a budget with great uncertainty about its fate in the congress. The budget caps, budget control act, still apply. That law still runs until the year 2021. So were going to be in this mode of making of not knowing what our funding levels ultimately going to be and living from year to year in this uncertain context, which makes planning very, very difficult. We have 30 or so major systems acquisitions to manage across the i. C. Most of those in the inner row. It plays havoc when you dont know what the budget situation is going to be and of course it has huge impact on our most valuable asset, which is our work force and that uncertainty, the lingering uncertainty, now stretching into four years, is having impacts on the work force and that is evidenced in our latest i. C. Climate survey. So it is very daunting thing, challenging thing, to manage in this kind of environment. I will say that i believe the office my office, odni, has kind of been put to the litmus test during the last four years of uncertainty and reduction. In the decade or so after 9 11, every year the Intelligence Community got more money and more people, which wasnt hard to manage. Were in a much different mode now. Id like to think odni has earned its keep by managing an environment, where we invest and where we take cuts. Of course through all of that has been the number one precept that ive stuck to, the First Priority is to try to protect the work force. John thank you for that. My second question goes to the iran agreement. Basically to ask you if you care to offer some comments on the verifiability of the agreement. Dir. Clapper that is pretty much the lane ive tried to stick to. Our ability to monitor compliance with this agreement, assuming it comes off. And we were required within five days after the agreement was struck to submit to the congress very detailed assessment of our capabilities, what we could do and what we had lesser capabilities to monitor the agreement. So i come away with pretty confident, i wont say 100 , should never say, that but pretty confident that we can in fact verify, through our own sources, what the International Community will be able to, through the mechanism, the iaea, and its very intrusive, in fact unprecedented access and ability to observe and monitor what the iranians are doing. Im pretty confident in that. We are fielding some independent capabilities, which i cant obviously go into, despite all my protestations about transparency. That will enable us to have good insight into the Nuclear Enterprise of iran, if i can call it that. If you ask me, given a choice between a state sponsor of terrorism with a Nuclear Capability or a state sponsor of terrorism without it, id probably pick the latter. John yes, sir. So if we could perhaps go to some of the questions that have been submitted from the audience. The first one reads, and this really goes to the Human Resource issue of the i. C. As a whole. What will the i. C. Work force of the future look like in your view . How are we thinking about policies and processes for recruiting, retention, etc. , and i would just add, just a parenthesis to that which is, are we getting hows recruitment going . Are we getting the people we want . Dir. Clapper i will tell you that since 9 11 we have brought on a tremendous cadre of people in the Intelligence Community. I just got back from a 10day, sevenstop death march in north africa and east africa and wherever i went it is literally eyewatering to see what our Intelligence Community people are doing. And the vast majority of these men and women have come on since 9 11. For me its a rather profound sociological change in the community. In that thousands of civilian employees in the Intelligence Community have deployed to war zones multiple times since 9 11. That has had a huge impact on the indemnification of mission in our work force and it attracts young people to the Intelligence Community. I went to southeast asia, vietnam in 1965, you hardly ever saw a civilian. A civilian employee or contractor. They just werent there. And that is very, very different today. Thats had a huge impact on the community. I remember when i left n. G. A. In 2006, i was there almost five years, one statistic i recall that was quoted to me was 60 of the work force had been hired during the five years i was there. And thats not unusual. That is across the board. We had last fall 31 vacancies and got 6,000 applicants. So we do continue to attract. I will also tell you that our attrition rate is pretty low. It runs around 4 and has plus or minus. 1 . At least in the five years ive been d. N. I. As to your question, whats the work force going to be like, i think one thing that ive noticed is what the work force desires is, particularly the younger people, is mobility. And we need to be able to facilitate the ability of our young people to come to the community and then go to industry, get refreshed, technologically, and then come back to the community. We need to figure out a way to facilitate that. So i think what i find is what theyre interested in, whats the technological challenge, where can i go to broaden my professional horizons . Theyre not too concerned with sticking with one institution for a 30year lifetime career. Thats a big difference from my day, when i first got into this business. John thank you for that. Somewhat related question. Many have suggested that the intelligence reform and terrorism prevention act and the odni are like goldwaternichols was for the d. O. D. So how do you think the i. C. s journey is going 10 years into this reform . Dir. Clapper i think, again, being i think we operate better as an enterprise, as a community, than we did 10 years ago. We had 9 11, so lets reorganize. We can argue until the cows come over whether that was really necessary or needed, but it doesnt matter. Its the law. Its what the 9 11 commission decided was needed and thats on its way into the intelligence reform and terrorism prevention act. We have a unique arrangement in this country for an Intelligence Community thats really not although many countries i find now are trying to emulate it, its not quite like ours. Its not like goldwaternichols because goldwaternichols applied to one Cabinet Department and the i. C. Is 17 organizations that cut across six Cabinet Departments and two independent agencies. Perhaps the spirit of goldwaternichols applies and weve tried to do that, particularly with joint duty. Were approaching somewhere in the neighborhood of 12,000 employees that have qualified for joint duty. Many of them in deployed status. So i think weve made progress. We operate better as an enterprise, as a community. Thats not to say there arent issues and problems that we still wrestle with and well continue to do that and i suspect my successor will continue to promote innovation. Certainly in the spirit of goldwaternichols, if not the exact letter of it. John if i could just add a comment of my own on that. I was not involved in the reform process. I was serving as ambassador to iraq at the time. And actually the first time i read the legislation was when the president asked me to be the first director it. Seems to me, whatever the merits or demerits, one has to accept things as they are. That legislation was passed and i think the idea of trying to reform the Intelligence Community again, the least in any significant way, would be opening up a can of worms. So i think that thats the best, to make what we have work. Vice president cheney used to talk to me about maybe at some point you might have some perfecting amendments, he called, to suggest. But im not even sure that we want to do that. Perhaps what is we want to do is make sure that we make the improvements we can within existing legal authorities. Heres a question about the snowden affair. Can you give a capsule summary of how the snowden issue has affected our i. C. Operations . I guess not to mention our diplomacy. Dir. Clapper on the one hand, obviously it forced some needed transparency. Particularly on those programs that affected Civil Liberties and privacy in this country. And had that been all he had done, i probably could have understood it better or maybe even tolerated it. But he exposed so many other things that had nothing to do with socalled domestic surveillance or privacy in this country. Hes done untold damage to our foreign collection and analysis capabilities. Terrorists particularly have gone to school on the revelations caused by snowden. Particular program in afghanistan that he exposed and the day after it was written about, the program was shut down by the government of afghanistan which was the single most important source of force protection warning for our people in afghanistan. So hes done huge damage to our collections capabilities, make no mistake about it. John very, very interesting. And troubling, of course. Heres a question i had wanted to ask you. As a leader who has uniquely observed major world events and the effects of those world events over the past years, what are your concerns with the mass syrian refugee situation on the Different Countries throughout europe . Economically, National Securitywise, culturally, etc. I guess i just would to add something to that, would be, how do we know what kind of people are going to europe in this refugee flow . Dir. Clapper well, it is, you know, getting to be in its totality a disaster of biblical proportions. Just look at syria alone. Where there are in excess of four Million People that have left syria and another 11 million that have been internally displaced. And of course humanitarian situation internal to syria is a disaster. And so what this has caused obviously is this urge to go somewhere, anywhere, where theres some hope of their life improving. Of course as they descend on europe, one of the obvious issues that we worry about, in turn as we bring refugees in this country, is exactly what their background is. I dont obviously put it past the likes of isil to infiltrate operatives among these refugees. So that is a huge concern of ours. We do have a pretty Aggressive Program for those coming to this country for screening their background. Im not as uniformly confident about each european country that is going to be faced with welcoming or allowing refugees into their country. So this is a huge issue for all kinds of reasons. The security implications are just one small part of it. The economic, the social impacts are huge. John its really captured global attention. Its on the front page every single day. I suspect it will be for quite a while to come. Heres a question about russia. The resurgence of Russian Military power is not just playing out in eastern europe, but also in places such as the arctic, with one quarter of the worlds oil reserves future transpolar shipping and concern on Climate Change, do we have a greater need to balance our National Interests above the Arctic Circle . Dir. Clapper well, the first one i think is a general statement about russia. Its very aggressive and to me very concerning military modernization. Is of great concern. In some ways its almost a throwback to the era of the cold war. We do not have nearly the resources that we did in the hay day of the cold war to allocate against watching what is becoming a very formidable adversary. Manifestation of that of course is their aggressiveness in the arctic and they have, which of course underlying that are their own concerns and interests and claims for Oil Resources in the arctic shelf. So they have set about a very Aggressive Campaign to either reactivate and refurbish bases in the arctic region or build new ones. And its very clear they are quite serious about a stake in the arctic. I think the president s visit to alaska was intended to, i think, attract attention to this, why the arctic is important to the United States. Speaking of Climate Change, as controversial as that is with some people, the impacts of Climate Change are having and will continue to have huge National Security implications around the world. It already is. With changes in the changes in climate, changes in weather and how that affects crops and the availability of water, which is getting to be, in many cases, a great point of friction between and among certain countries. John heres a perennial. Background investigation and security clearance process and system. These are pretty strong words coming here. Inefficient, wasteful and obsolete. With the revelations about the o. P. M. Data breach, we now know that the system is corrupt. Therefore untrustworthy. What are you doing to reform and reshape the Background Investigation and clearance process to bring it into the 21st century . Dir. Clapper what were attempting to do, which of course now is because of all the challenges with o. P. M. Before the breach, but what were trying to do is go to a system of continuous evaluation. Which would mean monitoring, employees who have once theyre granted the clearance, to detect behavior in the workplace or outside the workplace that could then prompt or stimulate a deeper investigation, as opposed to the system weve had which was back in the cold war era of an initial clearance and allegedly every five years you get a periodic reinvestigation. A system which is broken. Made all the more so by the challenges that o. P. M. Had with its contractor before the revelation of the breaches. So the combination of what were doing, that weve been told to do, mandated to do, both by the hill and the white house, to enhance Insider Threat detection, and as we morph to a system of continuous evaluation, i think that will change the system. What that will hopefully do is allow more mobility between and among i. C. Components and between i. C. Components and contractors. Than has been in the case in the past. The other thing that ive been kind of on the warpath about is just reducing the number of clearances that are granted. Because you have a clearance and no one theres hundreds of thousands of cases of this, where people have clearances that dont need or have the access. That imposes a huge burden on the system, the investigatory system. One way we can help ourselves, and this is primarily through the efforts of d. O. D. , is to reduce the need for clearances. The d. O. D. s reduced somewhere in the neighborhood of 600,000 or 700,000 clearance requirements. Which in turn lightens the load somewhat on the whole system. But youre right. The system we have now doesnt work. And i think the only hope here is, which is where were going, a system of continuous evaluation which would depend heavily on automation, particularly at the secret level. Were probably going to do all of that on an automated basis unless something kicks up that cues us that we need to go look at this person in a little more depth. John interesting. Trusted traveler sort of approach. What is your advice to recent graduates, exmilitary, students and Young Professionals seeking to enter the field of intelligence, with cutbacks in government . And the prerequisite of active security clearances, here we are again, in the private sector . Dir. Clapper now that ive in my geezer era, i guess, ive spent a good bit of time engaging individually with young people in college and coming out of college. A couple of things i tell them is, many of them will set their goal or their target on, i want to go to work for agency x. And my advice to them is, apply to all of them. Theres interesting, challenging work in any one of the intelligence components, if you can get on with one of them, then worry about where youre going to end up later. You may find your secondchoice is not there. If you cannot get on with the government, then seek employment with contractors who work for the Intelligence Community. There are many avenues. At the same time, as i indicated earlier, attrition rate not all that high and people do stay and the prospects, frankly, given our budget situation and the life of the budget control act through 2021, there arent going to be a whole lot of openings. Thats not to say there wont be some. There are. But so the one thing i try to import to people, young people, many of them are not good at that, is patience. Be patient and persevere. John here it is. The audience in front of you today is about 75 private sector. And the private sector builds capabilities for the i. C. , it provides Critical Services and is the source of critical innovation. How would you assess the state of the i. C. s Publicprivate Partnership and how could it be improved . Dir. Clapper i think its pretty good. Still think it can always be better. I think one of the challenges, something ive tried to work when i was n. G. A. Director, after id spent six years in the industry, was to come up with a mechanism or mechanisms whereby we, im speaking we as n. G. A. , would be more open to contractors, particularly those who didnt have facilities or clearances, just for the sake of getting their technology. One of the things ive pushed as odni is to try to lay out a technology road map, what are the needs and requirements of the Intelligence Community, and, you know, present that as best we can to industry, to engage industry in helping us. Industry is absolutely crucial to the continued viability and success of the Intelligence Community. We have to have what you make, what you the tools that you give us and the technology. And so its never nirvana. Its not what everyone would like, just because of the certain extent, you know, the nature of our business, its classified, its secret and all that. And the nature of the rules that we have to live with. But within that, my, at least philosophically, philosophical bent, is to try to open up the lines of communication and be as open with industry as we can be. James so perhaps two more questions, if thats ok. With you. The first would be, how can we actively encourage innovation, horizontally, across the i. C. . Without using infrastructure or organizational reshuffle as a placebo for change, i guess. Dir. Clapper one way, i guess there are many, but in the interest of brevity, ill say one thing that helps that is facilitating moving people around within the i. C. I think where you bring the ideas of your Home Organization to another organization. Ive found, just in my own experience, just at odni, 40 of the work force are detailees from the rest of the community, that that constant infusion of new ideas from other places is hopeful. I also think that, this of course applies to the parts of the i. C. That have heavy military populations, like n. S. A. , for example, that the infusion of military people, who served other places, particularly in the war zone, and they come to the agencies and ive found that these young, particularly young soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines, are tremendous drivers for change and innovation. Particularly if they have served in the war zones. With due respect, there are still a number of questions here that i have. Im sorry we werent able to get to all of them. But maybe one final question. We face a plethora of threats, most of us never imagined. An evolving, ambitious china, a resurgent russia, a daily cyber catastrophes. And some of them do seem like catastrophes to me. And a disintegrating middle east. To name a few. How prepared are we to understand these threats and what initiatives or innovations do we need to be undertake to be better prepared . Dir. Clapper i think the line ive used in testimony on the hill every year ive been in this job is that, and i just repeat it and add a year, is to say that in my x number of years i dont recall a time when weve been befit by more challenges and crises and a greater diversity of them than we do today. And so what ive tried to protect in terms of our capability is Global Coverage, which means a couple of things, at least to me. One is sustaining or bases and stations around the world that the c. I. A. Is host for, what is increasingly become i. C. Cells. By the way, we here in the beltway like to agonize and hyperventilate over whether were integrated or not. When you go out to the field, i just had a reminder of that on my last trip, theres no question about integration and operating as a team. Because its just good business. When i first started traveling in this job, i thought, when i had had i. C. Town halls, embassies around the world, i needed to roll out my sermon about integration. I stopped doing that because its just not necessary anymore. In fact, i would submit that what c. I. A. Is doing in its reorganization is saluting what already goes on in the field, internally. As they are integrating into a series of mission centers. So i think thats that Global Coverage around the world is one very important dimension. So that we cannot possibly predict every single crisis and challenge were going to have. So we have to be positioned where we can observe, collect and understand whats going on. The other piece of Global Coverage in my mind is to sustain a robust overhead collection architecture. Particularly for access to denied areas. So those two capabilities, and of course particularly in the latter case, trying to push innovation and stretching the technological envelope, if you will, are the areas where id put a lot of emphasis. John thank you very much for this discussion which resulted from these questions. I understand, director clapper, that before we conclude this session, that you have announcement for james thanks. Its more an issue of commercial. First, thanks for having me. Kick this off. I did want to announce at 9 45 that bonita, who is the National Counterintelligence executive and also the now director of, as we call it, the National Counterintelligence securi center, will be here to roll out a counterintelligence seminar,