I am not a lawyer. I have come to learn of the term sui generis. The olc memos released after the president came into office were released because the program was terminated. Olc will counsel opinions, and those opinions were looked at in a different way because of the sui generis circumstances. Both are essential for the ability of congress to carry its oversight responsibilities. Finally, the intelligence reform act and terrorist prevention act of 2004, with which you are very familiar and which i was a coauthor, requires the director of National Intelligence to recommend who the cia director should be to the president of the United States. I am aware of general clapper the dnis letter, endorsing your nomination, which is different from his actually recommending to the president that you be chosen. To your knowledge, did general clapper recommend to the president that he be nominated for this position . I know for certain that he made a recommendation, but i would defer to general clapper to tell you what that recommendation is. Thank you. Senator heinrich . Thank you for your service to this country and welcome you to the committee. And should you be confirmed, i would like to start by just inviting you to visit to mexico at some point and in particular sandia and Los Alamos National labs, because while you often do not hear about the contributions they make to our Intelligence Community, i can assure you that that support is vital to keeping our nation safe. I have a few questions, and forgive me if some of these return to some of the things you have heard from other senators. I want to start with your november 2007 interview with cbs news, where you said, there have been a lot of information that has come out of these interrogation procedures that the agency has in fact used against the real hardcore terrorists. Other intelligence officials went a lot further than that in defending the use of socalled enhanced interrogation techniques at the time, and some still do. If your review of the committee consists that these did not in fact save lives, i would like to ask would you be as public into condemning the program as you were in its defense, and, in other words, would you set the record straight . I will do whatever possible to make sure that the record is straight and that i speak fully and honestly on it. I want to return to a question that mr. Udall asked you. Would you object to, and if so, why, to a public release to a declassified version of the committees report . I would give such a request for declassification every consideration. There is a lot of information and those volumes with a lot of potential consequences as far as its public release. At the same time that we have a commitment to take care to, we also have a tremendous commitment to making sure that we keep this country safe by protecting its secrets. There are a lot of equities and operational activities, and it has to be looked at carefully. I would just say i agree with you that sources and methods and many of the operational details absolutely should never be declassified, but there is some basic principles in that report that i think is going to be very important for history to be able to judge. I would urge you to look closely at that. Senator levin asked about waterboarding. Let me follow up. In november 2007, you were asked if waterboarding was torture, and you said it is subjecting an individual to severe pain and suffering, which is the classic definition of torture. I believe quite frankly it is inconsistent with American Values and should be prohibited. Is that still your view . Yes, senator. Thank you. Do you think all agencies of the United States government should be held to Interrogation Centers that are laid out in the Army Field Manual as currently required by executive order, and you support efforts to codify this into law . The fbi has its own processes and procedures and laws that covers its activities, so i wanted to do is to make sure appropriate attention is paid to fbi as opposed to military. I understand. Back in 2006, you were part of an online discussion with the Washington Post, where you suggested at that time that the director of the cia should have a set fiveyear term, like the fbi director, to guarantee absolute need for independence and integrity to give to the senior ranks of our Intelligence Community. Given that you will serve at the pleasure of the president , how do you maintain your independence . Having grown up in the community for 25 years, i understand the importance and value at maintaining independence and integrity of the process. I know when i have sat in the white house situation room and when i have looked to the intelligence briefer, that if they were to advocate in any way a policy preference, it calls into question the independence, subjectivity, and basis of that intelligence. I want them to give me the facts as is, in respect of what their leanings or preferences might be. Policy makers need to do that. In order to me to be able to maintain my integrity, as i would go to the president , secretary of state, or the National Security council meeting, i need to make sure i can say it straight, get it straight, and that the policymakers determine the best course of action. Thank you. One last question. I believe it was during that same discussion with the Washington Post you said, i think there is an effort underway for the cia to adapt to the new realities of the Intelligence Community. The cia has resisted many of these changes, which has been a problem. It is time to move forward. What exactly did you mean and has the cia progressed . I credit you and your staff for following up that interview, because i had not read about that or thought about that for a while. I must say, having grown up in the agency for 25 years, i have tremendous respect for that organization. It is exceptionally capable, competent, by nature of its work, it also at times is insular and it has not interacted and interoperated the way it needs to with the rest of the Intelligence Community and government. At times that is to protect methods and the secrets it has. But given the changes in the environment, given the changes in the nature of our government, cia needs to play a part in this large a role. Now the head of cia does not sit on top of the key Intelligence Community, but is part of a Larger Community that is led by another. My objective is to make sure our capabilities are leveraged and empowered to responsibilities, the missions of the rest of the government, the department of the Homeland Security is a new creation, and they need intelligence like everyone else. There was resistance at the time of the rgpa that they did not want to break some of the past practices. A lot of that resistance is overcome, and cia analyses the benefit of having someone sit on top of that committee. That is very helpful. I will yield back. That you very much, senator. Senator king . You want to turn on your mike . Thank you for your testimony and stamina today. I should tell you in an earlier hearing secretary panetta was testifying before the Armed Services committee, and he strongly endorsed your nomination. I think the record clearly shows that secretary panetta was very complimentary at your capabilities and experience. Secondly, and this is not really a question, it is incredibly important for the cia to be as open, to be totally open with this committee. The reason is that there is no one else watching. Typically in our country, where the public is involved, the press involved, there are a lot of people that have access to intermission to what the department of state or commerce is doing. This is a unique situation where this committee and house are the only places where they are paying attention in terms of separation of powers. It is not just nice to have that openness. It is critically important, and i hope you subscribe to that view. Absolutely, i do. Briefly, and i think senator warner touched on this, going forward, there needs to be some discussion with the department of defense about where the cia and the department of defense starts in terms of Counter Terrorism activities, operations, and i do not want to pursue that, but i think senator warner raised an important point, because we cannot be duplicating a whole set of capabilities and priorities and officers and procedures. I take you subscribe to that . I do agree, and look forward to you in closed session to look and talk to you about the areas where the relationship of these agencies are critically important. Mindful of not having any type of redundant capabilities, we need to make sure we can leverage the capabilities in both organizations for the good of this country. And the area i want to spent time on is that iran policy as it relates to the american citizens. There is a lot of law and history involved in our system of checks and balances. James madison said if people were angels, we would not need a government, and if the government was run by angels, we would not need checks and balances. He concluded that angels were in short supply, as they are today. We need checks and balances. The fifth amendment is clear no deprivation of life and liberty without due process of law, and we are depriving americans of their life when we target and in a drone attack. I understand it is under military circumstances. These are the enemy combatants. I would like to suggest to you that you consider, and madam chairman, i would like to suggest that we consider a fisatype Court Process where an american citizen is what the targeted for a lethal strike, but having the executive being the prosecutor, judge, jury, an executioner all in one is very contrary to traditions and the laws of this country, particularly in a situation where there is time. If a soldier on a battlefield does not have time to go to court, if you are planning to strike over a matter of days, weeks, or months, there is an opportunity to at least go to some outside of the executive branch body like the fisa court make a case that this citizen is an enemy combatant and at least that would be some check on the activities of the executive. I have great confidence in you and president obama, but all the lessons of history, it should not matter who is in charge, because we should have procedures and processes in place that will protect us no matter who the people are that are in the particular positions. How do you react to the suggestion . It is worthy of discussion. The judicial tradition is that a court of law is used. This is very different from the decisions made on the battlefield as well as actions taken against terrorists, because none of those actions are to determine pass the guilt for actions they took. The decisions are made to take action so we prevent a future action, to protect american lives. That is inherently an executivebranch function to determine, and the commanders and chiefs and executive have the responsibility to protect the american citizens. We have wrestled with this in terms of whether they can be a fisalike court. Certain types of activities but it is analogous to a court going action we take our to take actions against individuals where we believe the intelligence base is so strong and the nature of the threat is so grave and serious as well as imminent that we have no recourse except to take this action that may involve a lethal strike. I agree, and i understand the dilemma. I am not suggesting anything that would limit our ability to take actions on behalf of american citizens. I would feel comfortable if somebody other than a member of the executive said we agree the evidence is so strong, etc. , as he stated, and in the hamdi decision, Sandra Day Oconnor said a state of war is not a blank check. The point of due process needs to be taken into account. American citizens by definition are due much greater due process by their citizenship. This is a worthwhile discussion. What is the appropriate balance between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches responsibilities in this area. I appreciate your consideration, and again, appreciate your testimony today, and thank you for your service to this country. Madam chairman, i yield back my time. Thank you very much. We will do another quick round. I think one of the problems is now that the Drone Program is so public, and one american citizen has been caught up, people do not know much about this one american citizen, so called. They do not know what he has been doing. They do not know what he is connected to. They do not know the incitement he has stirred up. I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about mr. Awlaki and what he had been doing. I am not going to talk about any particular operation or responsibility for anything whenever. That is the problem. When people hear american citizens, they think somebody who is an upstanding, and this man was not standing by a long shot. Maybe you cannot discuss it here, but i have read enough to know that he was a real problem. Before he died he was intimately involved in activities that were designed to kill innocent men, women, and children, and mostly americans. He was not just a propagandist. He was in fact part of the operational effort that is known as al qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and had responsibilities in that regard. Can i ask some questions about him . Did he have a connection to abdulmuttalab who intended to explode a device over detroit . Yes, he did. Could you tell us what connection it was . I would prefer not to at this time. Did he have a connection to the fort hood attack . Al qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has a variety of means of communicating and inciting individuals, whether that be websites, emails, or other types of things. There are a number of occasions where individuals have been in touch with other individuals. Senator, i will not address the specifics of these, but i will ask you a couple questions. Did shahzad, who pled guilty to the times square bombing attempt, tell that he was inspired by alawlaki . Yes. Last october, alawlaki, did he have a role in supervising aqap by detonating explosives, as a matter of fact, coming inside a computer printer cartridge . He was involved in overseeing a number of these activities, yes, there was a relationship. Were they so concealed that the first attempt to find did not find them . Yes, the method used was one of the best we had ever encountered. So mr. Alawlaki is by not an american citizen by where anyone in america would be proud . He was part of al qaeda, and it was his determination to kill americans on behalf of al qaeda. Thank you. Is it true that in the last four years the fbi has arrested 100 people, either planning, conspiring, or trying to commit a terrorist attack on this nation . Yes, they have arrested a lot of people. That is because of good, sound intelligence. I think what people forget is that they will kill us if they can and it is extraordinarily difficult if you cannot get into where they were hiding. Would it have been possible to have arrested mr. Alawlaki where he was in the yemen . We work very closely with yemenis to see if we can arrest individuals. If we can, we want to do that because it is valuable for us. Any actions taken in concert with the Yemeni Government are done in terms of any types of strikes we might engage there with them, are done only because we do not have the ability to bring those individuals into custody. Thank you. My time is up. Senator chambliss . Thanks, madam chair. In 2002 what was your knowledge of interrogation videotapes about zebeda, and did you see any information about a review of them in 2002 . I do not have their recollection of that, senator. Of the tapes or that request . At the time in 2002, i did not know what my involvement or knowledge was at the time. I believe i was aware of the briefings being taped. It should be no surprise that many members have been dissatisfied with the administrations cooperation on the benghazi inquiries. Senator graham asked director clapper if he was aware of the attacks in the summer of 2012 and asked if he had informed the president about those attacks. Those seemed like reasonable questions, and dni said we would be given an answer. When we got an answer back from the dni, there was a notation next to this particular question that senator graham asked, and here is what it said per nss, no response required. Mr. Brennan, that is your shop. Do you have any knowledge about why senator grahams question was not to be answered . There is a longstanding tradition understanding of respecting the executive privilege that exists in the presidency in terms of what information is provided to the president or advice, counsel, to him. I would suspect that that question gets into this issue of the executive privilege which i think again has been a long standing tradition. Are you sure that is the answer or do you think . I do not understand, because that will not be a request coming to me. I understand, so my direction to you, at what i ask you, is that you review that. We will get you the and notation, if necessary. Secretary panetta told us it was detainee information that was key to them finding the courier and bin laden. Were you briefed by any of the analysts who tracked down bin laden . Before the operation . Yes. Yes, absolutely. Is that the information given to you, that it came from interrogation of detainees on whom eips had been used . I cannot recall. They talked about the chain of collection that took place related to the information coming from the detainees. Do you agree with secretary panettas comments . Senator, looking at this document from ssci, i do not know what the facts are. I really need to look at that carefully and see what cias response is. The report called into question whether any information was unique. Fair enough. The secretary comments are indirect you told me a couple days ago when we met that the study was not objective, and it was a prosecutors brief, written with an eye toward finding problems. You went on to say your withholding judgment until you read the response. My understanding is from what he said, that is what you are going to do. Suppose the cia takes a position and finds that the conclusions are wrong. I know john brennan well enough to note that you are quick to stand up and say what is on your mind and what ever you co