The southern border. This is one hour and a half. The committee on Homeland Security subcommittee on counterterrorism Law Enforcement intelligence will come to order, without objection. The subcommittee may recess at any point and the purpose of this hearing is to conduct oversight of the department of Homeland Securities Office of intelligence and analysis that will be referred to here from under secretary for ina mr kenneth wainstein. I now recognize myself for an opening statement. Were holding this important hearing to examine and discuss the role of dhss office of ina that helps play a role in safeguarding our nation. United states faces a myriad of threats from state and nonstate actors. Were seeing authoritarian regimes such as china russia and iran expand their reach across the globe and challenge the sovereignty of the United States and our allies. Our adversaries are not only working to achieve these objectives through conventional military means but are also masterfully accomplishing these goals through cyberspace and by using asymmetric tactics that fall just below the threshold of traditional conflict. More commonly known as grey zone aggression, we have seen actors utilize stateowned companies and their technological products to spy on our nation and gather Sensitive Data that advances their strategic goals. Further the threats posed by violent extremist groups like isis, alshabab, alqaeda and others that continue to operate throughout subsaharan africa, the middle east and southeast asia. They present consistent challenges overall, the threats posed by state and nonstate actors paired with the departments failure to secure our borders have led our nation down a precarious path that presents a clear and present danger. Our nation has almost certainly not seen this level in of instability since world war ii and these threats will only continue if we dont do something about it and stop the aggression from our adversaries. I highlight the troubling developments because they show why now more than ever our nation needs an effective and efficient intelligence enterprise to keep the homeland safe secure and resilient while not abusing its authorities or violating the Constitutional Rights of americans. The men and women that work within ina are charged with disseminating intelligence to state, local, tribal and territorial enforcement agencies and other partners and develop intelligence from those partners for dhs and the ic to ensure our communities stay safe over the years. And across administrations ina has struggled at times to complete its mission to equip the Homeland Security enterprise with timely intelligence and information needed to keep the homeland safe systematic and documented failures as detailed by various reports by the dhs. Inspector generals have led to breakdowns and identifying specific threat streams or have undermined public trust. For instance, inas Overt Human Intelligence Collection Program has raised serious questions and concerns related to the departments overreach of its statutory mandate and to potential violations of the fundamental Civil Liberties of all americans. In fact, part of the program was paused after a number of dhs officials raised concern about its legality, these issues have led to high turnover, no clear leadership or effective oversight and a significant and significant training gaps for its employees. These incidents within dhs are unacceptable and erode trust in keeping our nation safe at a time when our country faces an elevated threat. It did not help when dhs unilaterally decided to establish a now disbanded Homeland Intelligence Expert Group an action that continued an action that continues to raise concerns about dhss impartiality and objectivity in furthering its Homeland Security mission amidst ever evolving threats. These concerns were further exacerbated when dhs then decided to rebrand the discredited an expert group as an Advisory Board claiming that the new board builds upon the Experts Group and will represent diverse perspectives without regard for political affiliation. In an effort to address some of these shortcomings within ina members of this committee have not only conducted oversight of inas operations, but also passed various bipartisan legislative measures designed to improve training and transparency of inas activities today ive asked under secretary weinstein to provide us with an update on the steps that the department has taken to address the longstanding issues associated with ina that cannot be fixed with surface level patches. Im encouraged to hear that ina has been undergoing an internal review and we thank mr. Wayin for doing that and a reorganization as well. But it simply cant be a reshuffling of leadership roles or just to give the appearance of progress. We have talked several times throughout the last year about some of these issues. Ive worked with the Ranking Member mr. Magazine. This subcommittee has worked on truly identifying and having a conversation that highlights some of the past, what i would call failures, but also looks forward to what can be done to keep our nation safe as we approach the anniversary of 9 11, the 23rd anniversary of 9 11, i think its important for all of us to keep in mind that in the days leading up to 9 11 the word the phrase the system was blinking red was brought up. That was part of the 911 commission. It was part of the findings and its part of what i want to frame. This subcommittee hearing today is that im fearful and concerned today that the system is blinking red in a number of ways and i think that even if our intention is to keep this country safe we have to look under the hood and get to an organization. And i appreciate you being here, doing that, so that if it is blinking red, which i think it is, that we can get the oversight done. Provide dhs with the appropriate resources to keep the country safe so that we dont have another incident like 911 again. And i appreciate you being here. I look forward to hearing your testimony and i now recognize the gentleman from rhode island, the Ranking Member mr. Magazine. Well, thank you chairman pfluger for calling todays hearing and also for the constructive conversations that weve been having around ways that we can support your efforts to reform and enhance the effectiveness of the office and thank you under secretary weinstein for joining us this afternoon. Todays conversation has to start with remembering why the office of intelligence and analysis was created, the terror attacks that took place on september 11th 2001, i remember that day vividly and im sure everyone else here does as well. And the failures that allowed it to happen were in large part due to the lack of coordination and information sharing at the time between intelligence agencies and Law Enforcement. Terrorism threats persist as does overseeing the integration of dhs. We are aware of challenges but i want to highlight work to keep americans safe. There are challenges that need to be addressed and im pleased the undersecretary has taken on a review but the work continues to ensure it complies with oversights. Collecting, analyzing and disseminating intelligence. The only Community Member tasked with this. The Critical Role is necessary because the u. S. Faces threats. Racially motivated violent extremists pose a threat, they commit Mass Shootings and other acts to advance their negated agendas. At the same time the secretary warned isis, al qaeda and others are again plotting attacks against americans at home and abroad. These require intelligence and Law Enforcement to Work Together to do their jobs on the ground. I look forward to hearing about the results and the steps taken to help regain their status and ensure the mission is carried out with respect to Civil Liberties. I think the chairman. Other members are invited Opening Statements may Opening Statements, made a witness please rise . Do you square swear the testimony will be the truth and nothing but the truth, so hope you god . Thank you, the witness answered in the affirmative and i would like to introduce undersecretary kenneth wainstein. He is responsible for providing components in private sector partners with information to keep the country resilient. Ina is a liaison and he serves at dhs and reports to the director of intelligence. He spent over 20 years as the federal prosecutor. He was confirmed as the First Assistant attorney general at department of justice. He led the new National Security division which consolidated Law Enforcement and intelligence operations. In 2008, he was named Homeland Security advisor. I know you love this country. I appreciate you being here and we recognize your opening testimony. Chairman pfluger, Ranking Member magaziner, and distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to discuss the current activities of the office of intelligence and analysis in the department of Homeland Security. In the hearing i previewed our plans for change and we put those plans in place and in action. This has been a rigorous assessment and preceded in three stages. The third stage we just announced. I would like to give you an overview because i can address your valid concern. The first stage was reorganization with the creation of new structures. We enhanced the work we do with partners, created an office of collections, created a Program Office to enhance coordination. We created a Transparency Office to enhance privacy and Civil Liberties. That was the first stage. Second was reprioritizing and producing a homeland intelligence framework. A list of topics that serves as the overarching strategic document to guide our intelligence. The third stage was functional stage involving the utility of various functions and we developed principles in consultation with partners including you all and it is important to take a minute to show the direction of the organization. First, while we serve many intelligence customers from the president down, our primary intelligence customers are our partners. Their intelligence needs are our primary concern. We serve those needs by providing strategic level Threat Intelligence to inform decisionmaking. Third, we focus on areas with operational advantages and we defer when we do not. Fourth we strive to build strong management for our culture. We are implementing 30 different initiatives and as one example, we passed service to customers for the first principle. We are restructuring to be responsible to those customers and we are starting a program that will embed representatives within the ranks of our organization. We are embedding open source to tether connection to each centers analytic efforts. To leverage one of our advantages, our relationships, we are embedding personnel to generate intelligence reports about the federal data in their systems. We are teaming up with personnel to conduct field interviews. Finally, to improve management support we created new training programs. These are just a few examples of changes underway. As i wind up, let me give kudos to the workforce. Change like this is not easy and our workforce has been stepping up. Openness to change is not everywhere in government, but it is here. One of the many reasons im proud to be counted among the dedicated professionals who do so much every day. Thank you for the opportunity and i look forward to answering any questions. Thank you, undersecretary. I thank you for your testimony and again for your service. Members may have additional questions and we will basically go sidebyside and ask additional questions. If we have additional questions, we will submit those in writing to you. I now recognize myself for opening questions. I will start with the southern border. As we have talked about a couple of times, the fact that we have had from the beginning of fiscal year 2021 through the present day over 300 60 individuals entering this country in some way, shape or form matching the terror watch list, what i want to start by asking is what are you doing and how is that being reorganized to better know those individuals and whether or not we are detaining them . The recent arrest or detainment of eight nationals with ties to isis frames this question. Walk us through what youre are doing in this situation. Thank you for the phone call. As we discussed that is a major focus of dhs, the border and who is coming across the border. We have at dhs a strong screening and vetting capability and the intent is to identify threats to the u. S. And prevent them from getting visas, coming across the border or if they are fear, we picked them up. And we neutralize the threat. We play an Important Role in generating intelligence, looking for threats and threat actors. We are involved in the screening and the vetting operation. We do a lot of support for the National Vetting center, the intermediary that makes sure that the information and National Security elements related to people on the border gets into the vetting process. We provide Technical Support and training and do other things that are focused on the border, such as we are involved in providing nominations for the top transnational organized crime watch list. There is a watchlist, as we have had for 20 some years. We nominate based on local partners and state partners. Individuals put out watch lists based on our work and in terms of proactive intelligence, we are focusing efforts on the border against the threat. How did the department on this issue these nationals came in in january. So it leads everyone to believe that 362 is a low number. If a people had been in the country for five or six months. How did the department miss that and then how did they catch that . What are we doing to make sure that never happens again . As you know, colleagues from dhs will give you a briefing after recess and most of this is sensitive and classified so i am limited in what i can say on the record, but it is clear that when those individuals came across the border or were encountered, there was no derogatory information that came to the attention of the people at the border. I can say without getting into specifics that i think you have heard there was unprecedented cooperation between dhs and the fbi on the situation. Beyond that, i have to defer to my colleagues who will give a classified briefing. It has been a joint effort between us and lawenforcement. When director wray testified, he talked about the threat level being high and used words to describe that he does not believe it has been higher. To think do you agree with that statement that he says . Is there a black swan event or some event that keeps you up at night that youre focused on trying to communicate, cooperate , and help between state, local, federal, all Different Levels . Let me start with the latter part of your question. We are involved in the terrorism fight and focused on terrorism threats. After the first part of your question, every time you look at it you think it is a unique threat but we are at a fraught time after october 7 because october 7 energized many threat actors with many different places and mobilized potential terrorists from a variety of perspectives. In addition to what was already a standing threat of terrorism, traditional and domestic violent extremism, the overlay of the sustained raised threat on october 7 on top of what we said was already a heightened threat makes this a precarious time in our nations history. My time has expired. I recognize the Ranking Member. I want to pick up, secretary, on the last point about domestic , violent extremism because i know dhs and the fbi flagged that as one of the top rats and we are talking about homegrown extremists motivated by racial or ethnic prejudice, extremism or antigovernment beliefs. Islam a phobia or antisemitism. It can be challenging to disrupt because we are talking about american citizens you have First Amendment rights so expand on fighting domestic terrorism, what can be done to strengthen dhss ability to counter and i will leave it open . Domestic extremism, youve heard from chris and the secretary and others that in terms of the numbers, it is it is the most lethal and dangerous threat in terms of the threat from individuals and small groups. October 7 exacerbated the threat and now you see a little bit of convergence, the terrorist threat and ideological rhetoric being picked up by some domestic extremists in the u. S. And that is fully energizing the threats. In terms of what we have to do to deal with that, you put your finger on the challenge because a lot of violent extremism rose out of ideology and a lot of it is politically based and political thought and rhetoric is the most centrally connected activity so if we are focusing our efforts on violence we are not focusing on extremist thought. You are allowed to be extremist, thats what we are all about, but one of the important things i highlight is im gratified about transparency and oversight in the success we have had. Really putting a program of oversight into operations because of the complex challenge, making sure we do not do any thing that shills Constitutional Rights. On the topic of domestic extremism, you failed to disseminate evidence prior to january 6 when extremists came to the Building Armed with weapons intending t