Transcripts For CSPAN Homeland Security Chair McCaul On State Of National Security 20180206

Good morning. If i can ask everyone to please put their phones on silent mode and let me welcome you to the campus of George Washington university. It is a real treat, a real trip pleasure, and a privilege to once again host chairman mccall on campus. He has been chairman of the House Homeland Committee since 2013. At a time when there seems to be quite a bit of gridlock in washington, d. C. , i can say without any exaggeration that he is one of the most prolific and more important, effective legislators in d. C. Right now. Focused on a host of National Security issues, and also chairs his committee and a genuinely i partisan kind of way, which is very true to the issues our country faces on national and Homeland Security. I am going to be reef which is rare for me, since i have never had an unspoken thought but i will turn it over to the chairman. Afterwards, we have an amazing panel. When you think about embers of congress, you do not think cia, you do not immediately think National Counterterrorism center. You do not immediately think prosecutors working some of the most important issues racing our country. I am proud tocongress, you do n, you do not immediately think say we have got three of the best members who have done just that following this discussion. Mr. Chairman, thank you and thank you for being a great friend to the center, thank you for being a great friend to myself into George Washington university and most important, thank you for all you do for our country. Mccaul thank you. Special thanks to George Washington university for hosting me. It is an honor to be here. I want to thank the students for attending this session. I see a few of you out there. Collegewo daughters in and triplets in high school. When it comes to Homeland Security issues, i have some personal experience as well. Education is really the key. That is why i am here today. You are the thought leaders of and on these most pressing issues facing the United States. The state of u. S. National security. I believe american strength is a pillar of global peace upon which our allies and partners depend and our enemies recoil. As i reflect on my time as chairman, i saw the rise of isis and then i saw the collapse of the caliphate. I am disturbed by the evil that has emerged over the last decade under retreating American Leadership. Im encouraged by the progress we are making in eradicating this evil that has entrenched itself around the globe. As an internal optimist, i am confident our nation is finally heading in the right direction. Moving forward, it is critical that we continue to reclaim our sovereignty. This includes enhancing security along our southern border, addressing boehner abilities in our current immigration system, encouraging responsible use of cyberspace, improving Aviation Security and defending against malicious ideology and actions of our enemies. On the southern border, for too long, and i come from the state of texas where i was a federal prosecutor with the jurisdiction of the texas mexico border and for too long, it has been a opendoor which has had Transnational Criminal Organizations like ms 13, dangerous opioids and drugs coming across, trafficking women and children, destroying lives, shattering families and ravaging our communities. Despite Law Enforcement entities and advocacy groups and government agencies, human traffickers continue to exploit thousands of continue to exploit thousands of migrants making their way into the notice United States. Security along the southern borders is critical. There are glaring on her abilities in the immigration system. Legal loopholes. I was in the white house, a surreal moment at the table with both senators and congressmen, democrats, republicans as it was covered on live tv for almost an hour, discussing how to resolve this Current Situation we find ourselves in. We agreed to the four pillars. Border security, fixing chain migration, the visa lottery system and finally, fixing daca so these children can stay in the country legally. I would argue our Nation Security has been weakened by chain migration and the Visa Lottery Program which is random. These programs risk exploitation from those who do not share our values and actively work to undermine them. Look no further than the two terror attacks we saw in new york city. These programs allow terrorists to legally enter our country and reach havoc on our way and wreck havoc wreack havoc on our way of life. He mowed down by vehicle innocent americans, argentinians and a belgian in new york city. In december, the bangladeshi who entered the United States as a young adult through chain migration intended to blow up a new york subway terminal in times square. I happened to be in new york that morning, just a few blocks away when the attack occurred. I was promoting my congressional Childhood Cancer caucus. I remember being notified by nypd about the attack, and it reminded us that there is still a serious threat. Securing americas future a bill introduced by the house of the the chair of the house judiciary and myself, to close these legal loopholes. This legislation authorizes the construction of a border wall system to stem the flow of illegal immigration. It also provides effective technology, infrastructure and manpower to defend our border. 5000 Additional Border patrol agents, 5000 customs and Border Protection officers, including the authorization of the National Guard to provide air support to Border Security operations. In addition, we demand the use of the mandatory entry exit system at all points of entry to address these overstates. Why is this one a point important . The 9 11 hijackers came in legally and then overstayed their visas. The 9 11 Commission Recommended we had a biometric way to determine when people come in and when they leave. Until we do that, we will never be secure. The statistics i have, up to 40 of the people here are here illegally, these overstates. We call for an end to chain migration to protect the Nuclear Family and the visa lottery system to defending its further explication to our homeland. We propose a meritbased immigration system to attract the best and the brightest, not pulling a number out of a hat. Finally, the securing americas future act allows daca beneficiaries to receive a threeyear renewable legal status while ensuring that gang members, individuals with criminal convictions or convictions in Juvenile Court for serious crimes are not eligible for this legal status. With respect to jihad and threats, our american way of life has been under attack well before 9 11. 1979 was the year that changed everything. In 1979, the revolution in iran brought the ayatollah to power where he still remains. That same year, the soviets invaded afghanistan and the mujahedin rose to power, allowing Osama Bin Laden to become a force to be reckoned with. Now, 39 years later, the Threat Landscape remain serious. My committee has been focused on the threat of foreign fighters leaving the caliphate and vetting procedures. I established two taskforces to address issues specifically and we enacted over 20 bills to make america more secure. Mike gallagher is going to show up. We passed over 60 bills in this congress, many of which were just sitting in the senate. These two recent terror attacks last year in new york, i believe underscore the threat that we face from a determined enemy that does not sleep. Our homeland, our allies, partners, friends are confronted with a stark reality and will be for years to come. Since 2013, we have had 150 homegrown jihadist and terrorist cases in the United States and 179 isis linked incidents in europe. I would believe that europe is in far more danger from the foreign fighter threat. These stats are alarming when you look at them and they are a demonstration of why we must remain vigilant in our quest to expel violent islamic extremism from the earth, by destroying the roots from which it came. This threat manifests itself in the unstable ground upon which jihadist ideology spreads, whether it is the middle east, north and sub sahara africa, the philippines and elsewhere. We must deny these combatants from achieving their jihadist glory. The memories of september 11 and the images of the planes striking the twin towers are never far from our thoughts. While we are almost 17 years removed from this, let me assure you, americas aviation sector remains a crown jewel of isis and other terrorist groups targeting our homeland. Late last year, the director of the National Counterterrorism center testified before my committee that they are seeing a surge in terrorist activity against commercial airlines. Recently, we discover that terrorists have the capability to create bombs from laptops and remember the printer bomb plot in 2010. Tsa has struggled to deploy Innovative Solutions and it can be effectively deployed at airports. This technology is like moving from a twodimensional xray to a threedimensional m. R. I. You can see a lot more with a m. R. I. Than a xray and it provides a much clearer picture for screeners to detect these threats. I have seen these devices, they work. The request was cut in half by omb to deploy 300 machines. That was cut in half. 150 million to do this. That is a lot of money, but in washington, we talk about billions of dollars. 150 million to protect americans at the last 20 departure airports in my judgment is worth every penny. I am not going to have that all my head and we made our quest to the department. I talked to the appropriators to get this funded and fully protect americans in aviation. This is also been bogged down in bureaucratic delays. Each day, we fail to effectively mitigate evolving threats to Aviation Security. Additionally, we have seen Insider Threats to Aviation Security grow ever more secure concerning in the wake of the metro jet bombing in egypt. Despite dhs efforts to enhance security measures for flights to the United States, they continue to be vulnerable. In recognition of this glaring vulnerability, when active legislation to enhance tsa security procedures we enacted legislation to enhance tsa security procedures, particularly screening employees at secure access points. We must continue to close gaps, most critically istanbul and cairo. I can tell you that these are not secure airports. High volumes of american travelers come out of these airports and i have seen these border abilities, firsthand these vulnerabilities firsthand. These threats are only one flight a way into the homeland, but as we all know, the threats are not restricted by physical boundaries. We have cyber as Suzanne Spaulding knows so well. I want to applaud you for your service to the department. You did such a great job. [applause] rep. Mccaul as suzanne knows, our adversaries threaten us around the clock in cyberspace and whether it is north korea launching a global cyber attack, crippling infrastructure to china stealing our nations valuable intellectual property to russia conducting misInformation Warfare campaigns to sow discord among the people, to iran attacking our financial institutions, to terrorists spreading evil propaganda over the internet or criminals taking our financial and personal information, we are all exposed to harm. I was one of the millions victims of the opm data breach by china in 2015 which resulted in over 20 million stolen security records including Social Security numbers and fingerprints. To mitigate the threat, we must improve our cyber resiliency and protection. The house passed and i authored the deck directorate to a director level position and rename it the directorate for the Cyber Security and infrastructure security agency. In other words, create a Cyber Security Agency Within the department of Homeland Security to help the priority and the missing. I hope the senate will pass this legislation, soon. The house just put it on legislation introduced by Foreign Affairs chairman ed royce proposing the creation of the office of cyber issues at the state department. This legislation will establish a highlevel ambassador for Cyber Security to leave the lead the departments diplomatic cyber efforts. We must enforce our norms in cyberspace because right now, we dont have any norms. There are no rules of the game. That is a problem. Not to mention what would happen if a nato ally was attacked in cyberspace. We must eliminate the legal barriers our private sector conference from other countrys Cyber Security laws including the mandatory requirement 11 allow a Foreign Government to review a companys source code. This puts us at a major disadvantage both competitively and from a security standpoint. We must also build products that are secure with the growth of the internet of things, we are more vulnerable than ever. We are the largest chipmakers in the world. These threats are real and impact all of us. I believe now more than ever that securing the nation at home requires protecting american strength abroad. North korea is a good example. Nationstate adversaries have expanded their influence at the expense of our own. In north korea, kim jongun has marched down a path of nuclearization, absent American Leadership. He is now on the cusp of obtaining the ability to conduct a successful nuclear icbm strike anywhere in the world, including against the notice states. This is unacceptable. That is what the president and his a administration have begun to lead a maximum Pressure Campaign against north korea to compel him to retreat from this destabilizing nuclear ambition. These efforts include working with International Partners to forge a diplomatic solution, to isolate the regime by increasing economic pressure on the north korean economy through sanctions and refusing to take military force off the table unless kim jongun reverses course. Further chinese and russian efforts to undermine National Sanctions on north korea at the expense of Global Security must not go unheeded. The United States and our partners must confront them head on. You must be clear and decisive in our actions, which takes me to the next country hotspot, iran. As north korea marches on with their destabilizing behavior, so does iran, the world ticket leading sponsor of terrorism the worlds leading state sponsor of terrorism. They must not be allowed to ever have a nuclear weapon. As negotiated by the previous and administration, the Iran Nuclear Deal known as the joint conference of plan of action injected the Iranian Regime with billions of dollars. From yemen through iraq and syria all the way to lebanon and the mediterranean, iran continues to solidify its influence in the region through what the president what from minister netanyahu of israel calls the crescent. This land bridge connects iran to its destabilizing proxies throughout the region such as a lebanese faith based hezbollah. Irans actions are a direct threat to our regional stability. Worse yet, the regime funds expansion with domestic Financial Resources siphoned away from the iranian people. While inflation soars into ron, the regime brutally suppresses any dissidents to its irresponsible policies, but i believe there is light. We see iranians pleading for freedom, protesting openly in the streets, and i believe that we as americans have a duty to support them. We must stand with them. In january, i introduced legislation backing the iranian people as they demand reforms in the country. This legislation requires the president to determine whether senior members of the government of iran are responsible for or complicit in human rights abuses, corruption or censorship. It also calls out the iran regimes practice of taking americans and other foreign nationals hostage as a crime against humanity. Lastly, it outlines several steps the administration to take in conjunction with our allies, to stop this practice, including imposing sanctions on iranian officials responsible for unjust intentions. I think the iranian people want, need and deserve better. When it comes to russia, putins regime continues to hinder american efforts at peace on the Korean Peninsula by covertly supporting the regime economy which ultimately helps further their nuclear ambitions. Across europe and the americas, putin continues to engage in hostile disinformation campaigns intended to sow discord among our people. Divide europe and drive a wedge between our nato allies. I was recently in the ukraine and they were right on the border of russia and the Cyber Attacks are fierce and intense and the campaign a district information is real and the threat in the ukraine and crimea israel crimea is real. Europe and our allies have tried they tried to drive a wedge between. In syria, he is bolstering the brutal regime of bashar alassad, making the likelihood of a political solution more difficult and more challenging. In response to russias aggressive foreignpolicy, Congress Passed and the president signed the counter the americas adversaries through sanctions act to impose an economic price on russias meddling in our international interests, and we must remain vigilant encountering russias attempts to meddle in our elections in the future. I got the briefing on the russian meddling and i have been consistently strong from the beginning that it indeed happened and that there needs to be consequences to what they were doing. We need to call them out for what they did, and our needs to be a consequence. And there needs to be a consequence. When it comes to china, china continues to consolidate its control over all facets of chinese government. Last october, the president was elevated into the peoples republic of chinas constitution, on par with mao zedong, one of the most brutal dictators we have seen in the history of the world. We have seen him purchase competitors within his country and compel the commercial sector to support destabilizing around the world. The bottom line, china is on the rise and its influence is expanding globally at a rapid pace. It is the soviet union of our times in my eyes. China is rebuilding military bases around the world, as evidenced in djbouti. This military expansion is not peaceful, and we know what they are doing in the cyberspace. It will grow as the one road expands, strangling the developing and developed world, suffocating freedom until its dying breath. To counter china, we must support our allies, partners and friends and expand our support to the International Development efforts. In closing, as we assess the Threat Landscape 2018 and beyond, i urge us all to seek Pragmatic Solutions to address the challenges before us. These solutions to protect those who cannot protect themselves, we must shield freedom, loving people from the radical ideology and explication that terrorists and repressive regimes are trying to affect them with. We must protect those who are elected to serve, by closing gaps that allow our enemies to infiltrate the homeland. A we must enable the notice states to thrive at home so that we can continue to support our friends abroad. I say we because these threats are blind to party affiliation. Ive always said that the terrorists dont check our party affiliation. It takes an effort that will require a holistic bipartisan approach, one that includes collaboration with state and local stakeholders, private sector, federal and Law Enforcement, intelligence communities and our military. One that requires us to Work Together with our foreign allies, partners and friends, upholding this bipartisan tradition and maintaining American Leadership on the world stage is very personal to me. My father was a bombardier in world war ii and dissipated in the dday air campaign on a b17. He helped defeat the evil of his time. I was recently in auschwitz and i saw the horrors of what the nazis did, the pure evil of the gas chambers. My father and his band of brothers did not think about politics when they were drafted to serve. He actually volunteered. They simply put our Country First and the example they set is one we should follow because as we know, freedom is never free and we will always have to fight for it. Ronald reagan once told us that freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We must pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected and handed on for them to do the same or one day, we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our childrens children what it was once like in the United States, where men were free. These are the challenges of our times and just like my fathers generation, the greatest generation, we fought and defeated fascism that threatened civilization and we also defeated communism. I am confident in the current struggle, that we will also prevail. With that, thank you and may god bless the United States of america. [applause] thank you. Mr. Chairman, thank you for a Tour De Force and for correctly highlighting the many challenges that we face as a nation right now and the huge mission to be able to deliver and make sure we have prescriptions to some of these issues we are all facing. We have about 15 minutes or so for questions. I will pick up the first two and i am not it is dominating the news, so i think weve got to zero in on your colleague on the committee of intelligence recently releasing a memo and i would be curious what some of your thoughts are since it is gripping much of d. C. Right now. Rep. Mccaul in terms of background, i was a federal prosecutor, i worked on pfizer applications with the fbi. It is probably the most serious power within the federal government, to have National Security wiretaps, to monitor american citizens in the United States or americans deemed to be an agent of a foreign power. I look at it from that context that these applications need to be based on evidence. My concern after reading the document was that it bore the principal pieces of evidence was a dossier memo that then fbi director comey came out later to say was salacious and unverifiable, in addition, that document was had a yahoo article press report which in my judgment, i have a deep respect for the press, but it is not evidence. This has to be based on evidence before you put a wiretap on someone in the United States to demonstrate probable cause that they are agent of a foreign power. Given what the fbi director said about the dossier, i find that difficult to believe, but that is sufficient evidence. In my experience, they would be a duty to notify the fisa court when it was deemed by the fbi director that there was salacious and unverifiable, to my knowledge. I am not sure that happened. I think the court may have viewed this application in a different light. There are two things that need to happen going forward. And from the american observer, you are going to see a report in memo and a democratic memo. Two things need to happen. I believe that the entire fisa application including the affidavit attached taking out methods and sources should be released to the American People so we have a full context of what was the basis for the application from a evidenced standpoint. I believe americans have a right to see that. Lastly, i do believe the Inspector General is looking into a couple of these fbi agents political motivations with respect to some of these politically charged investigations. Nobody knew what your political affiliation was and that was for a reason, because we are not supposed to bring our politics into that office because it undermines the integrity of the institution and the credibility and that should not have happened in this case. The idea of looking at this particular investigation, but i would respectfully request and recommend that the ig also stand expand his investigation into this application to determine whether it was valid or not and as it is not, it should not go forward. Host im sure theyll come up in the next panel as well, especially given role in the Intelligence Committee as well, but lets transition to Aviation Security and you talked about, powerfully, how it will not be on your shoulders if we dont fulfill some of the commitments we need to be able to put in place. Terrorists by definition are thinking predators. They base their actions in part on our actions and it is a bit of a changing and evolving threat. What would some of those Top Priorities be for you, to be able to this is not about risk elimination, it is about Risk Mitigation and how we manage all of that, but what would some of those top issues be on your list . Rep. Mccaul with the defeat of isis in iraq and syria, they are going elsewhere, but they had bomb makers and i cannot go on the classifieds face of where they are, what we know where they are and we know their intent and the threat was worse than i thought. When i got this breathing on multiple occasions briefing on multiple occasions, it is kind of what keeps you up at night, because if they are using vehicles or knives, the crown jewel is aviation. And they are still seeking to blow up airplanes even though they might not be able to hijack it. That threat is very real, im not where we have to take action. When we found out on the committee that we are still using Xray Technology as opposed to computed tomography which is like an mri which would help the screeners because explosives light up a different color. You can see everything in the bag that is going on the airplane. Why would we want to develop this . The answer we get is maybe we will do some study groups in 2019 and maybe we will start deploying this stuff even though we have pilot programs that work. My answer is that is unacceptable for the American People and the safety and security of the American People. We need to deploy these machines. They exist, currently. If we are going to squabble between 75 million and 150 million, working closely with the tsa administrator, i said i want to support your request and i know omb cut your request in half, but he is putting the American People at risk. We see this on both sides of the aisle as a not on our watch type of thing and we are going to fully deploy this. They said we will put the machines and, but we cannot do the machines without the updated software. My point of view is lets put the machines and every can update the software as it gets updated. I see this as one of the biggest threats and something we need immediate action on and the congress is doing that and i know the tsa administrator once that and we just have to back can. Back him. Host one more quick question. You had mentioned the reauthorization of dhs in your remarks. Can you set some light on why that is so important . It is the first time there has been a reauthorization bill. First, its significance and secondly, that the point fingers at the other chamber but do you see the Senate Acting . Rep. Mccaul i do. In my judgment, this has taken too long. The jurisdictions committee needs to be fixed first. I had a son at the speakers leadership with seven other chairman to get the first ever reauthorization of the department of Homeland Security since its inception. That is astounding. A abdication of article one constitutional responsibilities. A lot of these offices really dont exist. In ice doesnt exist. Host the name change itself is so important. Rep. Mccaul ice doesnt exist in law. It is kind of demoralizing to a department when congress has not officially authorized or recognized it. In law recognized it in law. That is why it is so important to codify these offices and codify the Blue Campaign and the Cyber Security agency and reauthorize the entire department because then they are protected from what happened so often in the federal government and that is department attacking other departments and then you have the congressional stamp of approval saying congress has authorized view, congress respects you by law. Host i am to allow one question because we are running out of time. Would you like to see the same at the state department . Rep. Mccaul the committee has a lot of unrealized potential. The ndaa, we do that right and it means a lot to the department of defense and that is the model i was trying to sequence. Why not the state department, which is one of our most critical departments of the government . These are all National Security departments that deserve to be reauthorized. Host we have time for one question. We will go right up front, here. I am on the board, here. First of all, congratulations on the miracle of getting a bill through. I have spent some time on the hill. You really do have my admiration. You talked about cyber, you talked about terrorism. A question i want to ask is where is fema in of this . There is a question in whether or not fema actually does belong in dhs. What are your thoughts on that structure . Not that it does not do a very important job, but just wondering if it belongs in that structure. Rep. Mccaul that is a good question. We did reauthorize it in the bill. When you Homeland Security act was passed after 9 11, there are looking at all threats to the homeland, both manmade and Natural Disasters. I think fema falls into that Natural Disaster piece. I dont envy fema. There is a misconception that they have with First Response capabilities. There really there to be supportive they are really there to be supportive. My state got hit by harvey and we had a supplemental that doubled the request, sitting in the senate. Whether it was my state or florida or puerto rico, or the virgin islands, they all need that attention. I will say brock long is very action oriented. Him will he likes to get past the red tape to get assets on the ground effectively before, rather than after. That is why you did not see a katrina like response. Host it comes from he comes from the First Responder community and his deputy was my deputy. Mr. Chairman, i hate to do this but i am required to be a bit of a tyrant to make sure we have time for a bit of your colleagues. Thank you for being a good friend. It is going to take some of these budget issues, they are crucial. But we all know when something bad happens, getting out in front of this and reminding people of the legitimate risk, so thank you for that. Rep. Mccaul thank you. [applause] host if i can ask our next members to come up. We are in for a real rare treat. As i had mentioned, we have three members with incredible National Security expertise, experience and leadership, congressman casco who represents the five state i am from. He served as a prosecutor and he worked as a number that a number of narcotics cases and also chairs the subcommittee on that set oversees the tsa and you are also on tni. In followed by congressman will heard. I believe the Central Intelligence agency at the time, but he is also a former Central Intelligence agency officer. He has walked and sludge should the talk sludged the talk. Also serves on the House Permanent Select Committee on intelligence. Thank you for joining us. Last but certainly not least, congressman gallagher, a former marine. A captain who has also served at the National Counterterrorism center. You must be the only member of congress who i can think of who has served at an ctc, worked with general detritus, General Trias patreus. Trying to get those with the muddy boots getting the jobs done. I want to thank you for that. Given where we are, i think we will start with you, because you sit not only on the House Homeland Committee but also on hipc and shed some light more so than heat on some of these issues. Your colleague mr. Nunes, his memo, what you we be thinking . Im going to do something i was told not to do. For those members of the press that are here, this is off the record, if you would. Host this is being covered live. I will say it anyway. Politicians are prone to hyperbole and exaggeration. You probably did not know that. [laughter] breaking news. Let me tell you what the memo is not. The memo is not a rebuke of bob muellers investigation. Bob mueller should be allowed to turn over every rock and check every lead to completion. We have to have trust in that process. This is not a rebuke of the rankandfile of the fbi. Having the honor of serving sidebyside with them for almost a decade, in my career as a undercover operative in the in the cia, the fbi works to keep our nation safe. On september 12, 2001, i was the fourth or fifth employee of the ctcso counterterrorism operation and we were the entity that ended up prosecuting the war and providing headquarters support to the war in afghanistan. At that time, if you were to tell me that 17 years would go by without another attack on the magnitude of the attack in new york and the pentagon, at that point i would have said you were crazy and the only reason we have gone 17 years is that the men and women in the intelligence services, and the armed forces, the men and women in our diplomatic corps and in federal Law Enforcement and specifically the fbi have kept us safe. [applause] the memo is about a process and what kind of information should be used in order to allow the federal government to spy on americans and in my opinion, unverified information, circular reporting and rumors should not be used in a application to spy on american citizens. We should be protecting our Civil Liberties. It is congresss responsibility to shine a light. Some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle says we should have brought members of the fbi and the doj in front of the committee and ask them questions. We did. I participated in dozens of hours of interviews with our Senior Leaders of the organization. As a professional intelligence officer, my job was to tie the difference between intelligence and information. The intelligence is something that has gone through a vetting process and has been confirmed. That was not the type of information that was used in this application. Somewhat say you reviewed classified information some would say you reveal classified information. Anyone who has read the memo knows there was nothing in that memo that hadnt already been out in the Public Sector. Where was the outrage when that information was already released and leaked to the press . Where was the outrage when it was dribbling out . The only thing that was new was the specific mention of a newspaper article that was used in the application. This is about protecting Civil Liberties and making sure that we can trust the leaders of our organization and it is Congress Take a responsibility to provide oversight even in a incredibly difficult partisan time. The press criticizing congress for doing oversight, republicans and democrats being unable to agree on something just because the other side said it, the perceived distrust between executive branch, legislative branch and the Intelligence Committee that community is feeding into the narrative and allowing the russians to win. The russians were involved in our election for one reason, to erode trust in our Credit Institutions democratic institutions. We are allowing it to happen by having these partisan fights and not having this conversation dispassionately. Where we should be is what is our strategy to counter this information disinformation . We should be having it here because ultimately it is going to be the department of Homeland Securitys responsibility for coordinating the Public Sector response to disinformation. Host i am glad you brought that up. In we are actually kicking off a cyber active measures, not just exclusively on russia but they are the most active. I promise you almost every country is going to be in this activity. I would like to ask you one quick question and then i will get your colleagues view on that. Should the minority report be released and would you support congress absolutely, and we will vote on that tonight. The reason we did not in the beginning was there were references to things from Ongoing Operations and activities. Host very good. Anything you want to add . I am not going to work repeat anything he just said but ideal i will say i agree with him. The federal organized crime prosecutor in that capacity, i did well over 100 wiretap applications. When you do wiretap applications, it is incumbent that you not only show the probable cause you have, but it is also incumbent upon you to make sure that the information you have is fully and fairly and accurately portrayed. If you just wrote all the good information and affidavit, but you dont discuss things that may be derogatory information about the sources you are using, then you are not providing accurate picture to the judge. If you dont provide an accurate pitcher to the judge, and you are not following the standards of the department of justice. In this case, the fact that certain things were not disclosed in a pfizer or wiretap affidavit to the judges truck in a fisa or wiretap affidavit to the judge you tell them the things that are helpful to your case but you dont tell them he is being paid by the party who is trying to go after with a personal vendetta. In that would be a very germane thing for a wiretap affidavit. If that is not in there, the judge may want to take it and suppress the evidence. That was a big glaring thing i saw, when i read the memo the first time. What i will say, i worked at doj for 20 years as a prosecutor. I traveled all over the world wont and i routinely have taskforces everywhere. Political corruption cases, organized crime, Police Corruption cases. The fbi was always by my side along with dea and many others. I can tell you they are highly professional. You have things like this from the oversight capacity, it is incumbent on us to get this out of the open and fix it and use it as an example so that it does not happen again. Host thank you. I thought we were here to talk about the pats and eagles. I cannot add anything unique to it except as somebody who is newer to politics, it strikes me that people are opting into parallel realities right now. We dont have any Common Ground that we can analyze this stuff dispassionately. I see this tearing apart of communities like places in northeast wisconsin. People are reverting to their tribes and you cant have a conversation and that is bad. It is bad for all these agencies we are supposed to be overseeing. It is bad for our communities. It has been so frustrating. As a new member of congress of our inability to have a conversation without it immediately devolving into hyper tribal partisan warfare. It is really troubling and its a problem we should all think deeply about solving because in order for this system to work, there are unwritten rules and norms and standards of decency that every time one side violates one, the other side escalates, it is like mutually assured destruction. I think you speak for so many who share that exact feeling. I certainly second that. Thank you for underscoring that. Lets go to some of the subjects now. Congressman mccall waxed eloquent on the counterterrorism issues we all face. Everyone on this stage has had scar tissue around some of these issues and i would be curious. Secretary mattis release the National Security strategy and i will read, but americas military reclaims an era of strategic purge best. Great power competition, not terrorism is the primary focus of National Security. It wasnt and either or proposition, but where do we stand on the global war on terrorism . The biggest mistake i think we do is not focus on these issues because they tend to rear their head in ugly ways. I would be curious what your take is. Why dont you start, you served in iraq. You have seen the surge. In w planted in there so i an dont claim credit for the surge. Good to see you. Thanks for not firing me, i appreciate it. [laughter] i was struck by the optimism that primarily our military servicemembers had about the mission. I think that is always the tendency with us military folks, we believe we can, the mission of matter the obstacles. There are very real gains our iraqi partners have made against isis with our support. As we saw with the surge and its success, all that does is give the country possibility and leaders to forge some sort of durable political modus. The fight against isis has papered over some of the fault lines that will determine the future of the country, most obviously governance in sunni areas of the country relative to the Central Government of iraq. We heard more concerns about ongoing tensions between the kurds and the Central Government and the perceptions that theyve taken a harder line against the kurds. There is a lot of trepidation around Security Forces will make a move on a port jeff Border Crossing on the northwest. Border crossing in the northwest. If we dont figure that out, we will find ourselves finding fighting the next variation of isis. In afghanistan there is a sense of the new strategy is the right one, particularly harder on pakistan. My understanding is men are often rivals when they heard we would be pulling out, embraced each other and started to cry which is a testament to how these problems are existential for partners on the ground. Do we have any sense of how the afghans will be able to sustain these gains without our significant involvement . Al qaeda has been biding time. Its various affiliates elsewhere. I would be curious in addition to and congressman gallagher underscored what comes in its place. I dont mean to be too blunt spoken, but during president clintons election, it is the economy. In this case is that the ideology . Until we address the roots that propagate the fuel and ideological underpinnings, wont we always be reacting instead of directly preventing . Will a question i ask anybody who has been involved in terrorism the global war on terrorism, i asked them what day do we celebrate . What day are we going to in celebrate . In i have gotten a lot of crummy responses, but the best response was from a friend and business partner. He said terrorism is like influenza. It is always going to be around, but you can inoculate communities from it and sometimes it goes up, sometimes it is going to wreak some havoc. If we think of terrorism as how you fight influenza, it will be something that will be around. It has been around and it will continue to be around. I think when it comes to National Security strategy, a missing pieces that we are still focusing on terrorism, but our allies are getting more involved in handling this issue because you have to work at some of the root causes that has made terrorism show its ugly head. I always remind folks in december of 2001, when kandahar fell, we had killed 75 of al all qaeda leadership, we had pushed all of al qaeda out of afghanistan. And we did that with 400 americans on the ground, 300 special forces, 100 cia and the greatest air force the world had seen. It is not like the ttp that the terrorists are using are better and in than us, they dont have more resources, but we have seen with isis is diminished ability. Al qaeda is still around, theyve been pacified in parts of the world and we have to address that ideology. Countering violent extremism is him and him and worse working on that cause. They are working with the state department and our allies around the world to address that underpinning. I will make one final comment. I was in riyadh probably a year ago and mohammad bin salman said the problem of islamic extremism is a civil war within islam. In i was blown away that he actually said it because of to that point, i had never heard a president working from that part of the world to talk that way and realize that this is an issue that we all have to Work Together and so i think addressing extremism and islamic terrorism is something that we have more partners that realize the issue. Will will it sounds like you are somewhat optimistic where saudi arabia is going. Because i think the issues of direct relevance to countering deceptive activity by nations, whether it is russia, china, north korea, iran. We should be looking at it as a model for countering disinformation. What about your thoughts . My thoughts are they are absolutely right from the military and big picture standpoint. But im going to talk about the threats that still exist because they are very real. Since to any 13 for example in western europe theres been 179 isis linked incidents. What weve had with the caliphate being dispersed is a lot of these hardcore survivors of the caliphate have dispersed and gone back to western europe him him for example and they are ticking time bombs. They go back from this area where they were protected with this idealism to going back to perhaps segregated neighbor which have brought all kinds of terrorist activities. One of the was in jordan and in we were up at a camp and the number of reports they had of he exisis fighters try to get back into the actsisis exisis fighters try to get back it was terrifying. You factor in the ability of isis to export their fear and terrorism without having to lift a finger other than to press a few buttons on the computer and people going in their homelands. Will i saw in western europe, i went to berlin, we have been to paris and brussels. One thing i know for sure is countering violent extremism is much more active in western europe perhaps out of necessity. They get into the neighborhoods, the getting to communities and they stop something before it happens by trying to anticipate someone breaking bad. We dont have that similar amount of effectiveness in the United States. Do you remember San Bernardino for example. People walked by the guys garage and they saw bombs. They knew he was upset, they did not know who to call. They did not know if they would be racially insensitive to call even though he was making bombs. In 14 people died in 14 were injured because nobody thought they should intervene. Will in addition to the threat itself , it is intervening and developing countering violent extremism programs. The last thing i will say and his impact a lot of work i do with tsa. We have had 2000 hearings in my committee. In those hearings it has become clear to us and as my colleagues know, isis is fixated on taking down airlines and al qaeda is as well. They can create so much more mayhem in other ways, but they are fixed on it. They had another bomb concealed in a laptop that bloody side of the plane and the only guy who got sucked out was the guy who detonated the bomb. It shows her as a threat. Shows there is a threat. Something about the size of this concealed in a laptop could be taken on a jet. Think of how hard it is to try in and find this. We are doing remarkably good jobs, but when i go over to an and airport in amsterdam and i look at the 3d imaging the we want as use here and i see that we have 12 of those machines of the airport and i asked where did you get those and they say american manufacturers. How long does it could get these from start to finish . Pretty much a few months after we ordered them they were here. You then we had a hearing in our committee and that same machine, they are doing studies of algorithm still 2019. And then they will have six prototypes of these machines at airport nature wide. We have 450 airports nationwide. Theyre going to have six machines from a year for now. The problem with technology and the problem with keeping up his we can talk more about this if you want to, the lack of Technology Going from ideas to frontline is so bad in Homeland Security. Probably one of the biggest a problems. I think you are spot on there. Dod entitle 50 intelligence have learned the hard way that is not an option. I think we need to be looking at ways where Congress Oversight can help cn speed ultimate deployment of technology. We will get derailed. [crosstalk] talking about the homegrown in threat. You can translate as a lone wolf scenario which is one of the hardest things for my friends and the fbi and local Law Enforcement to deal with. One of the issues is since 9 11, information sharing across the federal government has improved. But information sharing down to state and local has not. Vertical sharing. The person that will have to deal with a lone wolf is that private Security Guard at the mall or a discotheque. Are they doing suspicious activity reports . Where is that going . Is someone able to correlate that information . That is one of the problems we have. We dont have agreedupon framework on that information of how we share it. Spalding is is so much a dhs working to make sure there is a prominent framework so we can share information vertically as well. We need to be getting the information we are getting from our friends overseas. The group that he chaired last congress when we did our group work, it was shocking our european allies were only looking at one of every three travel documents. They were not checking the main names of known travelers against watchlist information. Those of the kinds of basic blocking and tackling everybody should be doing and we are not doing it and we could improve that in the u. S. Having lived through some of the tft p issues, you are spot on. I want to pick up on one point. Lone wolves, there is mood music around these. Im not a big fan of that terminology because it assumes they are literally alone. The reality is, there there are networks of individuals that propagate. They get heavily assisted online. One thing of want to pick up on and i be crazy not to go to cyber. I can play nobody gets a cyber. I want to make sure we get there myself. I do want to go one more question on some of the ct issues. Weve got to a former chairs of the committee the past multiple bills on the house side and earlier we were talking about lawmakers. What made ice is somewhat unique is that it became a cause across the web for all people with bad actors. Whether it is al qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and their bomb making skills or whether it is al qaeda and the islamic what is missing in the bill that you guys put forward in your report that needs to be address yesterday from a congressional standpoint . Maybe we will start there. You chair two committees, is anything not acted upon the needs to be . My Committee Really grew out of the committee that chairman cap co catco convened last year. As riley pointed out, the order of magnitude is so much greater than it was in when the soviets invaded afghanistan. A lot of times these were jihadi tourists, they went to get a picture with the ak. Now we have foreign fighters, anywhere between 50 and 200 have american passports and they are hardcore dudes. Dealing with that will be a generational challenge. From our committees analysis and we sort of proposed a variety of initiatives which i think are important. I had a bill called the counterterrorism information sharing improvement act which try to get at this issue of the u. S. Military collecting data downrange in place like iraq and syria, how do we ensure that information is handed off to dhs which will be the lead agency for making sure that person doesnt come off the battlefield and go into the United States. There are some other bills my colleagues had the dealt with things like enhancing the use of social media when it comes time to do screening and setting. One thing we asked dhs to look at is whether it makes more sense to but the terrorist Screening Center under fbi review and merge the function with dhss national targeting center. Thats where we could use your on a proposal. We left at the issue which is the fact that we looked at all the pathways terrorists can cross our borders, but the reality is they can cross hundreds of times every single day online. That question of online radicalization is so difficult. I would be lying if i had a Silver Bullet solution for it. We talk about things like cv, it boils down to cve, i feel it we sort of lost the capacity for political warfare, Information Warfare we had during the cold war. I agree with what you are saying. The biggest thing when he asked the question was western europe. And the vulnerabilities and western europe are real and they are substantial and they can affect the United States. You have countries that dont do a good job of reporting intelligence at all. Some dont share any intelligence. People with stolen asked stolen passports are not reported. The vulnerabilities which will alluded to our amazing. When i went to my first congressional delegation with chairman mccall, Pay Attention to where i went. We went to israel, iraq, berlin, brussels, turkey, and paris. When we went there there had not been any major terrorist attacks. Within six weeks or two months when i was getting home, every single of those places had a major terrorist attack. What was sad about it was that every place we went, especially within the european union, they said we know whats coming. Our citizens dont have the stomach to take the necessary measures. We have had our 9 11 so therefore we dont have the measures in place in the United States and they still dont. Theyre getting their butts kicked and western europe. They have People Living in segregated neighborhoods that are boiling with anger and boiling over. I think one thing we continue to do is put the screws in as diplomatic way as we can in western europe to get them to up their game to getting it, because theyve got it. They still have a long way to go. We still have a need to get them in that place. If they are not safe, we are definitely going to be vulnerable because of our relationship with them. Last question and i will open it up to the audience. Wednesday we are hosting the ukrainians for a cyber discussion. As we know, the attacks on the grid in particular from a cyber perspective from a tradecraft perspective, verified what many of us knew, that cyber incidents, Cyber Attacks can have real world physical effect. Clear to say there is a practice for whatever we see in ukraine tends to find its way elsewhere. What should we be asking the ukrainians . Lets be blunt, there are a lot of cyber active here. Actors here. Russia has been the most effective, the most active. We havent seemed to figure out the best way to deter that behavior. Lets start with you and then open it up because i think with secretary mattis was getting at, it is not that when you are talking about accidents that existential threats, there are a handful of countries that are at the top of that list. Some that are more likely to potentially use such means. I will be taking the ukrainians out to san antonio, texas after they are done here. So what im going to be asking them is what is the latest and greatest in countering Electronic Warfare . We should be looking at Eastern Ukraine as ground zero for testing and improving all of our counter Electronic Warfare activity. They have been dealing with this in an acute way, much longer than anyone else. They are seeing how the Electronic Warfare towards uavs is being done there. Understanding their skills gap would be helpful to us in figuring out what is the next how do we counter what the russians are doing. I think that is the most important thing we can learn from the ukrainians. We as a country we have to figure out how we do Electronic Warfare, who are the navy seals it comes to Electronic Warfare . How do we defend our infrastructure and what are the roles and responsibilities between the public and private sector . General alexander, former head of the nsa says if we think the federal government can defend itself by itself and the private center sectors equivalent of the french digging the maginot line. The first thing we need to do is read reorganize which i s we need to think of it differently because cyberspace is a domain and space. Battlefield, it is a different skill set and activity that needs to be done than if you are trying to protect the grid in the United States of america or defend the pentagon. I agree with what will is saying and would like to bring things down to practical examples. First of all, i think it is one of the existential threats we face. We live in a wired society. Threat andis a huge i also think anyone in intelligence background or the community will admit that the amount of malware that is probably sitting in the Public Service utilities and Critical Infrastructure throughout this country is quite substantial and has been placed there by other countries, for sure. They have not activated it because they dont want to incur the wrath of the United States. It is one of the most important issues we have today and the identification of the methods and means by which they are trying to do this is important. We passed a bill last term that encouraged people who are subject to attacks or find malware to work with the federal government and with the national andter Terrorism Center providinglp them by the ipo address and andare gets turned over work with the federal government to help them. Learn the methods they are doing and give us a chance to fight back. It is a crude way of saying we need to understand what the bad to outsmart and try the bad guy. Helps on the Electronic Warfare side because you can put it into use for yourself and there is no question that Cyber Command and everything going on in the military sphere is going to be extraordinarily important going forward. If westion in my mind ever have a bad spell with russia, a lot of Electronic Warfare will be at the forefront. This isu agree somewhat of a loaded question because i have written extensively myself, but we are never going to firewall our way out of this problem. We need to build resilience, defend and protect their systems , but ultimately, we have to get to the point where we can articulate and determine a deterrent strategy. That is why i think Electronic Warfare is critically important. That will petrified people more than anything. What is the nuclear test equivalent of cyber . Congressman gallagher, and then i will open up to the audience for two quick questions. Hits to theogy heart of the problem. In 1949, when the new soviets a nuclearonated weapon, it freaked everyone else. In contrast, when i and everyone on the stage received a letter saying thank you for your service, your records have been hacked, because it is not as visible or at the physical nexus of loss of life, we have not had the wake of call or the sputnik moment. That is a long way of saying at the end of the day, just as our failures in cyberspace, particularly the nsas most visible recent failures have been human failures, i suspect the solution even though we are talking about high stick hightech stuff will be human. How do we were c recruit the best nerds . A military perspective, each branch is trying to grow the capability organically. The commandant talked about maybe we create a separate career path for cyber and special operators to do their own thing and dont have to go back to the flagpole. I just suspect that is never going to be even that wont he quick enough. Or girl who will join the marine corps at 18 years old and wants to do a bunch of pushups is probably not going to be a worldclass coder, i am intrigued by ciber Cyber Academy we just need the best model to make use of the human talent we have out there. Im glad you left with that because technology changes, human nature is pretty consistent, but ultimately, it will be a combination of both. Everybody needs to be cyber aware. The majority of breaches occur phishingman error and the like, but you also need that cyber elite force and i dont go only to the navy seals because i think other services have a lot to offer to that as well, but it is a combination of both. Cyber warfare in the future isnt going to be hacker versus hacker, it will be good ai versus bad ai. If we dont have people who understand how it works, understand how you create an algorithm that is learning, that of theg to be the need future and right now, we are only teaching that stuff and phd classes. I dont think that his future, it is happening. Not only in the military domain, but other domains as well. Agnostic to what the intent and outcome is. For two very quick questions if you can raise your hand and identify yourself. I am already over time. Question here and who would have the second question if any . That means we solve it all. Question right here. Europe all ind of the United States. I am interested in your comments about europe. We understand we are not the United States of europe and dont have a federal response to it. I am delighted to say we have guest officers from tsc, which is making the border safer for the u. S. And greece and italy. My question is, and a very broad question, but i would like one answer if you can. Europe, fromthink your visits centex inspections, where will the shoe pinch . Where do we need to go . We are doing what we can post attackscks, hebdo including attacks on americans, the jewish community, and not just isis. Other factions in the middle east. If you have one area you think we can focus on, not just pm now where we can improve in cooperation with the United States . Just got back from a delegation there and i went to one a couple of years ago. When i went a couple years ago before things went bad in western europe, there was a prevailing feeling that we know it is coming our citizens dont have the stomach to do the necessary things. Itn i came back this time, is remarkable how much stronger thee gotten in Europe European Union as far as your counterterrorism efforts. One place you have advanced on us and can teach us is countering violent extremism. From the airport side, which i do a lot of work on, i am at a loss as to why we dont screen people in the United States who worked at airports. I know the eu went from not doing the screening to 100 of screening of all employees within the european union. You have made a lot of progress in a short time. My suggestion would be to keep going because the stronger you are from a security standpoint, the stronger we are going to be. Doing also what you are doing is , Homeland Security, ice, all these agencies, fbi. There, the fbi is not always talking to ice in europe. That blows my mind. I grew up on task force concepts where you put two fbi agents, agents,ts three dea lets go after this organization, and they brought different strengths to the table. We have to get better at sharing the information. And then come have it so information sharing is better between western europe and the United States. The more we can do that, the safer we are all going to be. I can tell you i have seen a tremendous amount of progress in just a couple of years. You have had some pretty horrific incidents from Charlie Hebdo and others. It is going in the right direction. Information sharing is probably the key. Can i underscore, we have done a lot of work with europe ol. They have contributed greatly in cyber in terms of its crossborder, transporter and how private sector integrates with Law Enforcement. There is a lot we can learn there. It is ultimately not a government set of solutions alone, but the private sector. I will let that last question and would you like to comment where dioes the shoe pinch, i love that. To associate myself with the comments from the distinguished man of new york. Add is wehing i would are having this debate in the United States, privacy versus security, i think it is a false choice and we can do both. I think that is a similar conversation that you will have to deal with in europe and if europe i know it is not a homogenous entity and the United States can get more on the same page and that, it will improve and information sharing. Last question and a quick one. Given the rise of the iot increased interdependency among Critical Infrastructure, particularly in a digital world, what you see is the federal role literateving a cyber workforce, because it is no longer just going to be cyber issues are the responsibility of department, but everybody. What is your federal role in promoting the . That . To understand what is on its network. The federal government has 100 of awareness of all the device not. S network, absolutely lets start there. Lets figure out that one and go. Missed his ike as accepted as something smart folks on a number of different issues, looking at it, creating standards. I am always concerned that if Congress Passes laws, as soon as the ink is dry, the thing we just passed is obsolete. Anything congress and the federal government can be doing should be based on outcomes and not individual technology or pieces. One thing we could be doing is driving the workforce of the future, and i appreciate the comments, but can you get federal dollars to get boys and girls in High School Get training that they need in school . It may not be a fouryear institution, it to be two years, a certificate. When you finish that, you can come in to the federal government and work for the same amount of time. If you go into the private sector, the private sector will loan you back for 20 man days a year. It gets to the point that we are never going to be able to compete by salary with the private sector, so lets train that workforce to go in and still be able to take advantage of it. Two. Agree with these part of what i mentioned about the bill, which encourages the when they are hacked, to learn to be more collaborative, is going to be very important. Everything else you said. For yourmen, thank you service now and your service in previous years. Keep fighting and thanks to all of you watching cspan and elsewhere, but also for joining us today, so thank you. [applause] the House Intelligence Community voted to release the democratic memo which contradicts the gop allegations that the fbi of used surveillance laws. The top democrat on the committee spoke to reporters