Transcripts For CSPAN2 Public Affairs Events 20171021 : vima

CSPAN2 Public Affairs Events October 21, 2017

Im sure you can see that chart over there. Charts are always interesting, but this one, were going to need someone to translate for us because its an example, and i think an one, of the difference, the differences and authorities and responsibilities, none of which seem to have an overall coordinating office or individual. Of course, mr. Joyce absence here, whose job it is to do all this is an example, frankly, of the disarray in which this whole issue rests. And mr. Rapuano, to start with, you said that is not department of defense responsibility. Suppose at the russians had been able to affect the outcome of the last election. Wouldnt that fall under their responsibility and authority to some degree of the department of defense if theyre able to destroy the fundamental of democracy which would be to change the outcome of an election . Mr. Chairman, specifically, the issues associated with protecting elections from cyber incursion so youre saying cyber incursion is not something that requires the department of defense to be engaged in, is that correct. Was no. Im simply saying based on the state authorities and the state control of the election process in each state, there are issues associated with federal authority to engage so those issues could be corrected by legislation. They are not engraved in tablets, okay . So for you to sit there and say well but its not department of defense responsibility. It is. To defend the nation, the very fundamental, the reason why were here is because of free and Fair Elections. If you can change the outcome of an election, that has consequences far more serious than a physical attack. So i admin fundamental disagreement with you about requirements of the department of defense to defend the fundamental of this nation which is a free and Fair Election which we all know the russians try to affect the outcome. Whether they did or not is a matter of opinion. I dont think so, but for you to shuffle off this well, its not an attack, it is an attack of enormous proportions. It you can change the outcome of an election, then whats the constitution and our way of life all about . I think senator rounds will be much more articulate on the issue. So one, i disagree with your assessment, and one of the reasons why we have felt frustrated is exactly what you just said. Its exactly what you just said, well, its not the department of defense is job. Its the department of defense is jump to defend this nation thats why its called the department of defense. Mr. Krebs, numerous expert over the past few years have highlighted the need for dramatic change. According to the president ial commission on enhancing national cybersecurity, and i quote, the current leadership and organizational construct for cybersecurity within the federal government is not commensurate with the challenges of securing the Digital Economy and supporting the national and economic study of the United States. General Keith Alexander, one of the most respected men in the world, said before this full committee in march quote, when we talked to the different agencies they dont understand the roles and responsibilities. When you ask each of them who is defending what, you get a different answer. Admiral jim cerritos, quote, the need to be a voice in the captain that focuses on cyber. Obviously there supposedly one there but he is not appearing before this committee, and that diminishes our ability to carry out our responsibilities. The list goes on and on. January 2017 center for strategic and institutional studies task force simply concluded quote we must consider how to organize the United States to defend cyberspace. And that it dhs is unable to step up its game, we should consider the creation of a new cybersecurity agency. The list goes on and on. I like to have your responses to these assessments ranging from a president ial commission to general Keith Alexander to the Atlantic Council to the center for strategic and International Studies task force. All of them are saying the same thing, gentlemen. All of them are saying exactly the same thing. I look forward to getting a translator who can show us what this chart means. Ill be glad to hear your responses. Mr. Rapuano. Mr. Chairman, i would say just on the issue of the election process the department is clearly there to support the response or the mitigation of potential threats to electoral process but it is something that when you look at the separation of authority between state and local governments, the lead for the coordination and support in our Current System is dhs here can we provide defense of authorities as requested support those needs and requirements. That obviously assumes that the department of Homeland Security has the capabilities and the authority in order to carry out that requirement. Whereas this cyber is warfare. Cyber is warfare. Cyber is an attempt to destroy a democracy. Thats what mr. Putin is all about. So to somehow shuffled off on to the department of Homeland Security of course this goes back to this problem with this organizational chart. So i steadfastly reject your shuffling off the responsibilities of cyber over to the department of Homeland Security, and we have included in the ndaa a requirement for you to do so. Mr. Smith, you want to respond, or mr. Krebs . Im happy to. Fundamentally, its a complex and challenging operational environment. Everyone of the agencies represented at the table today as you see in the bubble chart as its called has a unique contribution across the ecosystem. Without coordination . I would suggest that we are getting there, we are on the coordination. Ppd 41, the Cyber Response group and the cyber unified Cognition Group provide a foundation under which we can coordinate. We do work closely with mr. Joyce and National City council. However, from an operational perspective i think the department of Homeland Security and imi will as undersecretary have the direction and authorities i need to move out. The question is whether i have are winning or losing . This is a battle theres going to be going on for many years. We are still cant get our arms around it. This is not speak repeat my question. I would winning or losing . Its hard to assess whether we are winning or losing i was a were fighting this battle every day, working with the private sector. It is a complex apartment and i look for to working with congress speedy to you know for eight years with and trying to get a policy, for eight years weve been trying to get a strategy, for eight years weve been trying to get something besides this convoluted chart . Did you know that . Yes, sir. Ive been in my role for eight weeks. I understand your frustration. I share your frustration. I think we have a lot of work to do, and i think this is going to require both the executive branch and the Congress Working together to continue understanding exactly how we need to address the threat. When the coordinator doesnt show up for hearing, thats not an encouraging sign. Senator reed. I wish you would consider a subpoena to get the main witness. I think that has to be discussed in the committee. Well, thank you mr. Chairman, thank you, gentlemen, for your testimony. The chairman have raised the issue, russian involvement in the last election but our Intelligence Community essentially assured us that theyre going to come back and with more brio, whatever the right term is. Have you been told to prepare for that, mr. Rapuano . Has the Defense Department given direction to according to take all steps to advise the administration on what you can do to prevent, preempt tort respond to russian intrusions in 2018 . Senator cochran not aware of a specific direction in terms of a specific task associated with the election process. We are engaging on a routine basis with dhs and the rest of the Interagency Community to develop priorities and consider responses as well as mitigation measures. As i tried to note earlier, the competing authorities associate with electoral process really do call for a thoughtful orchestration of how we would direct and cast and engage with the state and local authorities. It really does need to be coordinated because each agency bring something different. Theres a private sector component, because most states get very significant support in terms of their Electoral Systems from five entities. We are certainly engaged in the process and were certainly available to support, but but you have been directed to start actively planning and coordinating with respect to the election specific . Not to my knowledge. Mr. Smith, have you been and your agency the fbi been told of the actively coordinating with respect to the 2018 election in terms of interrupting, preempting, responding to russian intrusions which begin the Intelligence Community practically assures us will happen . Yes. You have been . Yes. Would you describe what you been doing in the general terms . In general terms. We have not stopped since the last election, coordinating and keeping together an election fusion cell which is jointly located at hoover building and working with our interagency partners, not only on what had transpired and getting deeper on that but also working forward as to what may, towards us in the upcoming midterms and 2018 election cycles. So we are actively engaged both with outreach in the communities and the dhs and the Election Task force, along with every field office has a designated election crimes coordinator who is on the ground out there in the event of information coming towards us or any evidence that we would need to be aware of and react to. Mr. Krebs, same question. Absolutely. But ill tell you this, i did need anybody to tell me to stand up a task force or anything like that. The first thing i did when i came in eight weeks ago was assess the state of the election infrastructure activities and establish an election saturday task force which brings together all the components underneath within nppd but also works closely with intelligence and analysis component with dhs as those fda fbi and other partners. I think theres a lot more to do as director smith mentioned it were not just thinking about 18. 18. We think that the Gubernatorial Election coming up in a matter of weeks. Last week we work with 27 states, the Election Assistance Commission and establish a government coordinate in council, the body under which all the state Election Officials can come together, and provide a foundation to which coordinate security practices, share information. We are issuing security clearances to a number of Election Officials and in a matter of weeks will establish a sector chordate accounts which will bring the private sector elements to provide systems and technologies and support. Theres still a lot to be done. We certainly have worked ahead of us in the question they will come back and we will be fighting them everyday. You mention and several times you need to engage the private sector, and thats a challenge. In fact, it might be more important in this context that in any other since they lead, whereas in other areas like missiles, bombers and vehicles, its the government more than the private sector. But just quickly, some of the things we have to consider are sort of not responsible of this committee but legislation senator mccain and i are sponsoring so they would have to designate if they havent experts have said expert on the board or why not is a way which disclosed to shareholders but also to provide an incentive for them to be more keyed into cyber. Theres been some discussions cost talking to mr. Rapuano about using that terrorism reinsurance as way to incentivize. Without that i dont think well get the kind of buying. My time is about to expire but where are we in terms of private engagement . The threshold or some engagement or it still i actually came out of the private sector, spent the last several years and a Major Technology come to i managed in them of the cybersecurity policy issues. Either unique understanding of what it takes on the private sector side as well incumbent. We do have a number of private sector representatives within nccic and with the unique statutory authorities for coordinating with the infrastructure committee. We need to better refine our Value Proposition to get more companies to come in and share information with us but we do have the unique Liability Protection capability. One thing i think will enable our advancement is i mentioned, i need a name change. I need to be able to tell my stakeholders, my customers wanted to depict the National Protection and Protector Program director doesnt do anything. I knew something i do subsidy so i can go out and clearly communicate what it is on a daily basis that a depict i think thats a big step forward. You tell us the title you want decides president. [laughing] we will get you a tshirt, too. [laughing] thank you, mr. Chairman. The three of you can relax, because what im going to address is to the empty chair. And i know that this message will get through. There has to do with section 881 and 886, there is some provisions in the the senate vn of the ndaa specifically those sections that have raised concerns among the Software Developers critical to our National Defense. The purpose of these provisions are to make available to the public the source code and proprietary data that is used by the department of defense. Id like to submit with the record numerous letters which i will do in a moment, and documents from industry stakeholders that share my concerns with this language. While he understand the goals and intentions of the legislation, a great unintended consequences and impacts such as limit the software choices available to dod to serve the war fighter, increase costs to the department of defense by compromising proprietary nature of software or in limiting contractor options, and potentially aid u. S. Adversaries and threaten dod cybersecurity by sharing dod source code by placing it in a public repository. It also reduces competitiveness of American Software Technology Companies by opening the Software Contractors intellectual property and code to the public repository. And as we progressed into the conference report, i look forward to working with the Senate Armed Services committee on the way forward on this topic and recommend that we studied this issue prior to instituting new legislation. This is a provision that is in the senate provision senate bill, not in the house bill. And i would ask unanimous consent to include in the record at this point mr. Chairman these documents from stakeholders. Without objection. Thank you. Well, i wouldnt exactly say that the three of you should relax, but i will address more directly not only to the empty chair, but the general mcmasters, to general kelly, to the Vice President into the president. Did you realize that you handed out a chart that is five years old . The date on this chart is january of 2013. I mean, why in the world . That by the way, senator rounds is saying, acknowledging this, and want to say what a pleasure it has been to deal with senator rounds as the two leaders of the cyber subcommittee. And i can tell you we are alarmed. You heard the alarm in the voice of the chairman. Can we stipulate here that state election apparatuses, state election databases, can we stipulate that that is Critical Infrastructure . We have made that, the department of Homeland Security has made that determination and i have a subsection. Good. Therefore, a tampering or a changing or interfering with state election databases being Critical Infrastructure would in fact, be an attack upon our country. Can we stipulate that that would be the case . Why is their silence . Let the record show there was silence. [laughing] wow. So do you realize that you can change speedy could i just please. Cut i end deferent the witnesses . That the one to i, and thats why im referring my comments that only to the empty chair, but to the people behind that into chair, which is the National Security council advisor, general mcmasters, the fellow who runs the white house staff, general kelly, both the phone i have the highest respect and esteem for, and ultimately the Vice President and the president. I would go back and listen. I would defer to the intensity of the chairman to remarks, both in his opening remarks and his questions. You mess around with our election apparatus, and it is an attack on our country. So let me give you an example. It doesnt even have to be that the russians, man or the chine or some third party. Thats not a nationstate. We already know that they are in 20 of our states. We know that from the reports that a a been in the newspaper from the Intelligence Community. All you have to do is go into certain precincts, you dont enough to change the outcome of the actual vote count. You could just eliminate every tenth registrant, every tenth registered voter. So when mr. Jones shows up on election day to vote, im sorry, mr. Jones, you are not a registered voter. You multiply that every tenth th voter, youve got absolute chaos in the election. And on to

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