Transcripts For CSPAN2 Global Terror Threats 20180221 : vima

CSPAN2 Global Terror Threats February 21, 2018

Tran thanh [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] would like to call this hearing on worldwide threats to order. I would like to welcome our distinguished witnesses today, director of national intelligence, dan coats. Director Central Intelligence agency, mike pompeo. Director of the intelligence agency, general robert ashley. Director the federal bureau of investigation, chris rea. After the National Security agency, admiral mike rogers. And directed the Geospatial Intelligence agency, robert cardillo. Weve got along in front of us and i thank you all for being here. I know how forwardlooking this one occasion on an annual basis. Since 1995, this committee has met in open forum to discuss the Security Threat facing the United States of america. This has never been, nor will it ever be a comfortable conversation to have. The threats this country face are complex, evolving and without easy answers. Exist in multiple domains. They are asymmetrical and conventional. They can be launched from across the ocean or be planned in the heart of our homeland. Nonetheless, this conversation serves a vital purpose and its essential that it takes place in the Public Square with as much detail and candor as is possible. In my view, that is the true value in Public Service at this hearing that provides the American People with insight that they just dont normally get. Those insights are about this for some we are up against defamation, but importantly, those insights are also about the work that the Intelligence Community does to push back on this thread. This is work that both time and labor intensive. It can be frustrating, heartbreaking and dangerous. It is often thankless, but because of the dedication of men and women who make up our Intelligence Community, he gets done on behalf of the American People every single day. Until this point, encourage other witnesses this morning to not only address the threats to our nation, that you talk about what their organizations are doing to help secure this country into the degree they can in an unclassified setting. Director coats coming are tested for me for the record ties together the expertise, capabilities and wisdom of the entire Intelligence Community. Anchorage ever want to familiarize himself with this content. It is lengthy and at detailed and its a testament to the broad range of talents brought to the table. It is also a compelling reminder of why this country is substantial and it intelligence apparatus. Director pompeo, when we held the series last year, and by the judiciary your assessment on the Korean Peninsula. I will ask you again for your insights on the state of north Koreas Nuclear and Missile Program and importantly what is going on politically with north koreas leadership. Perhaps you can help us differentiate between a genuine effort to reconcile with south korea and an opportunistic attempt to drive a wedge between washington and seoul. General ashley, the work just never seems to end for defense department. I would value your latest assessment of the battlefield situations and syria and afghanistan. Last week we had u. S. Advisers come under fire in eastern syria. This prompted a retaliatory strike that killed dozens of forces. And afghanistan, string of terrorist attacks in kabul left 150 death last month, suggesting to me after 16 years of work, the urgency is nowhere near folding in the government remains hard pressed to provide the security needed for its own people. I particularly value unfurnished appraisal of where progress is being made in afghanistan and where its not. Admiral rogers, cyberis the most challenging threat factor this country faces. Its also one of the most concerning giving how many aspects of our daily lives in the United States can be hit by a well planned, well executed cyberattack. I appreciate your assessment of how well you are doing when it comes to protecting the nations most critical computer networks. From the systems that guide our military to the networks that ensure the Nations Energy supply, and they are all essential twoway functionality of a modern america and i fear that they are increasingly vulnerable to state and nonstate actors. Director ray, i am keenly interested in hearing your assessment of the threat posed by the spread of Foreign Technology and the United States. This committee has worked diligently to sound the alarm bells when it comes to the counterintelligence Information Security risk that come prepackaged with the goods and services that certain overseas vendors. The focus of my concern today is china and specifically Chinese Telecom that are widely understood to have extraordinary ties with the Chinese Government. I hope youll share your thoughts on this and i also ask you to provide your insights into how foreign, commercial investment in acquisitions are jeopardizing the nations most sent new technologies. Lastly, i would like to spend a moment on the counterintelligence threat to our National Academic research and laboratory construct. What is the scale of the problem and what is the fbi doing to fight it . Finally, director cardillo, weve come to associate engineer with the modernization of the Intelligence Community. The adversaries of this country are investing in innovative fact there with fewer constraints than we are. The threats we face are multidimensional, decentralized and global. Nga is playing an essential role in pushing the envelope with new ways of tackling problems like having more dated than you can feasibly analyzed. Has edges closer to automation and eventually Artificial Intelligence, the computer learning and Computer Vision mark and nga will be a bridge to help us get there. I look forward to your thoughts on how the Intelligence Community can and is a good intelligence disciplines that have not changed much in the past 60 years. Our adversaries are going to wade for us to catch up. I will close there because we have a lot to get to. I want to thank you and more importantly those who are not here with you, and those who carry out the lion share of the work on behalf of the American People come in the Intelligence Community. The folks who represent are important to this committee. We cant do our oversight without the work they perform according to the distinguished vice chairman, i would like to highlight to my colleagues will reconvene at 2 30 this afternoon in a closed session to hear from the same witnesses in a classified setting. I will ask members to please reserve anything that remotely gets into a classified question for the afternoon session with that, vice chairman. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Let me also welcome all of you here and not for the chairmans comments. Thank you all for your service and we hope you will convey back to all the brave men and women who look to you, that this committee will always have your back. This open hearing comes at an extraordinarily important time. Our nations intelligence agencies stand at the forefront of our defense against continuing threat from terrorist groups, ideology, rogue regimes have a Nuclear Proliferation and regional instability. We all know and we discussed this at length. In recent years weve seen the rise of nations who lead themselves at least as competitors have not adversaries of the United States. They began to utilize new asymmetric weapons to undercut our democratic and two shams. To steal our most sensitive intellectual property. Let me start with russia. Obviously, certain questions remain with respect to the true extent of the russian interference in the 2016 election and we will continue to work through these in a bipartisan way. However, i think you will find a broad bipartisan situation on a number of critical issues. First, russia engaged in a coordinated cap to undermine our democracy. That included targeting of state and local elections, electoral activities in 21 states. The russian effort in a new area utilized or social media platforms to push and spread misinformation at an unprecedented scale. Weve had more than a year to get our act together and address the threat posed by russia and implement a strategy to deter further attacks. But i believe, unfortunately, we still dont have a comprehensive plan. Two weeks ago, director pompeo publicly stated he had every expectation that russia will try to influence our upcoming elections. Secretary of state tillerson just last week said we are already seeing russian effort to medal in the 2018 elections. But i believe in many ways we are no better prepared than they were in 2016. Make no mistake this did not begin in 2016 and certainly didnt end. We are seeing a continuous assault to target and undermined our Democratic Institutions and theyll keep coming at us. Despite all of this, the president inconveniently continues to deny the threat posed by russia. He didnt increase sanctions on russia when he had a chance to do so. He hasnt even treated a single concern. This threat i believe demands a whole of government responds and that responds as quickly to leadership at the top. At the same time, threats come from right here at home. There has been some aided and abetted a Russian Internet controls have attacked the basic integrity of the fbi and the justice department. This is a dangerous trend. This innuendo and misinformation regardless of our partisan affiliation. In addition to the ongoing threat from russia, im concerned that china has developed in all of society. Not just all of government, but all of Society Approach to gain access to our technologies and intellectual property. Im paying a great deal of attention to the rise china has kept separate. In particular im worried about the close relationship between the Chinese Government and Chinese Technology firms, particularly in the area of commercialization of our Surveillance Technology and efforts to shape telecommunication equipment markets. They want to ensure the i see is tracking the direction they are heading and especially the extent which they are beholden to the Chinese Government. In recent years, we have seen major technologies firms who rise to the illicit access of u. S. Technology and ip. These companies now represent some of the leading Market Players globally. Most americans have not heard of all of these, but as they enter western economic market, we want to ensure they play by the rules. We need to make sure that this is not a new way for china to gain access to sensitive technology. There are a number of other concerns i hope youll raise in the hearing this morning and this afternoon. Let me just briefly mention two. First, how is the i see poised to track foreign influence that relies on social media and misinformation . Just last week the chairman and i had a good meeting with their u. K. Parliamentary colleagues investigating this issue. Russian trolls and bots continue to push divisive content both in the United States and against all our allies in europe. Not only in the u. K. , thats a top for france, germany, netherlands and we heard recent indications that russia not to believe that mexico. The i see needs to stay on top of this issue and i am worried that we dont have a clear line of assignments. We also raise another issue. I believe we need to do more to reform the broken security clearance system, which gao recently placed on its list of highrisk Government Programs in need of reform. We spent close to 700,000 folks now waiting in line, folks do need a her country whether in government for the private factor. Weve been waiting way too long to get security clearances. Its obviously hampering your recruitment and its costing us millions of dolla in a efficient day. Again, thank you to all of you for your service. Please convey our best wishes the men and women who work with you and i look forward to our hearing. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I am going to recognize direct or code and he is the only one who was given official testimony all members of the panel are open for question. I will recognize our members by seniority for up to five minutes. With that, director coates, the floor is yours. Mr. Chairman, thank you. I want to start by apologizing for my raspy voice. Ive been fighting through the crud thats going around that several of us have endured. I may have to clear my throat a few times, which i apologize for. But it strikes me listening to europe in remarks in the vicechairmans opening remarks that, excuse me, do we have continued to have a very interactive presents with this committee. Issues that you and the vicechairman have raised and others will raise issues that we talked about continuously with the u. N. We want to continue to work with you carefully by both sides of the aisle as we go forward looking too with the Intelligence Community can provide for this committee and the issues we find in common. Vice chairman warner, members of the committee, we appreciate the opportunity to be here with you today. We have changes on the panel since we were here last year. Thisll be admiral rogers last visit and the threat assessment issue. He deeply regrets having to come before you in the future years as hes enjoyed this process very much considering the emeritus status. We have two new members. Director ray in general should who have been looking forward to this day with great anticipation. I say all that because what you are looking at here is a team. A team that works together in terms of how we provide the American People and o congress and policymakers for the intelligence that they need. Its an honor for us to be here and i think this team reflects the hard work the Intelligence Community and their testimonies in their answers to questions today. Before i begin, let me take a moment to acknowledge and express our thanks to members of this community for support in the renewing of the authorities and the recent 702 authorization. This is, as we have told you, our most important legislative issue because it is our most important election issue with threats to america and we appreciate the work the committee has done and others have done and particularly this team has done in reaching not gore. They will reach a complex threat environment. The risk of interstate conflict is higher than any time since the end of the cold war. The growing development with weapons of mass destruction by state. Our adversaries as well as the other maligned instruments of power to shape societies in market, International Rules and institutions and International Hotspots to their advantage. We have entered a period that can best be described as a race for technological superiority against our adversa who seek to sow division of united stas and weakened u. S. Leadership. And nonstate actors including terrorist and criminal groups are exploiting weak state capacity in the middle east, asia, latin america causing instability and violence both within the state and among states. In the interest of saving time, i will not cover every topic in my opening remarks. We are submitting a recent statement for the record with additional details. Let me turn to global threat and id like to start the cyberthreat, which is one of my greatest concerns in top priorities. Frankly the United States is under attack. Under attack identities using cyberto penetrate virtually every major action that takes place in the United States. From u. S. Businesses to the federal government, the United States is threatened by cyberattacks every day while russia, china, iran and north korea pose the greatest cyberthreat other nationstates, terrorist organizations, Transnational Criminal Organizations are ever more technically capable groups and individuals use cyberoperations to achieve strategic and maligned objectives. Some of these at yours, including russia are late lead to do even more aggressive cyberattack would cyberattack with the intent of degrading our Democratic Values and weakening our alliances. Persistent and disruptive against her european allies using elections those opportunities to undermine democracy, undermine our values. The cyberattack capabilities will continue to support chinas National Security and economic priorities. Iran will try to penetrate u. S. Allied networks for espionage and lay the groundwork for future cyberattacks and north korea will continue to use cyberoperations to raise funds, launch attacks against the United States. Terrorists will use the internet to raise funds. Criminals will finance their operations. By next topic for you as weapons of mass destruction, wmd. Overall, state efforts to modernize development are required wmd Delivery Systems or the underlying technologies constitute a major

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