Transcripts For CSPAN Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20160715 : v

CSPAN Key Capitol Hill Hearings July 15, 2016

Identify some of these extremist groups . Thank you, mr. Thompson the website, hopefully is cooler for kids to explore the way in which extremist groups and other extremist groups might try to recruit them or lure them. Its a series of games or interactive events on the website that allows them to go in and explore and learn from it. Weve got great feedback from around the country. We invited a lot of people to give us input. Gotten great feedback from teachers especially that they like it i think the kids think we could be a little cooler. Weve stretched as far as we can stretch in the coolness department. Were getting great feedback. The dave of Homeland Security is doing a ton the department of Homeland Security is dining ton of things but there are other things we can do. Bangladesh k in would threaten werners out of the middle east. They target cafes in bangladesh or a club in orlando, the new battlefield in which americans should expect isis to attack. If so, what can the u. S. Do to counter this type of terrorist activity . Thank you, mr. Thompson. I guess we could highlight two things we can try to do to counter this vulnerability when americans are traveling or living overseas. The first is to be as open and transparent about the risks we see in overseas location. We work very hard with the state department about travel warnings and travel a he First Americans who are traveling overseas or living overseas. Beyond that, our best show to work with local partners to build up their capacity to increase the capacity of local military authorities to respond to and to prevent local intelligence authorities to respond to or prevent these kinds of acts of terror if you think about all the different places in the world where isil has been active thats a very, very mixed story. There are cases where we can work with partners and in other cases those partners suffer from a lot of capacity deficits that were going to have to work out overtime. Mr. Thompson thank you, yield back. The gentleman from new york is recognized. Let me thank all the witnesses for their service. Director comey, i would like to discuss orlando with you not for the sake of monday morning quarterbacking but planning for the future. The investigation was stopped by the f. B. I. Based on the criteria that he did not seem sophisticated. He didnt know the difference between sunni and shiah. Didnt have any formed ideology at all. Based on the profile thats sys is looking for in some cases the person who was deranged, the person who may be influenced by islamist ideology and whether or not he was islamist himself or whether he appreciates it. I would ask going towards the future how long investigations can be left open, basically its a sixmonth investigation. Can there be an indefinite period where the local police obviously, you dont have the personnel to be carrying out surveillance all over the country or to be following people. But if you have local police detectives, informers, sources it could be handed off for a period of time to the police. They can say heres the person, doesnt mean we can meet the threshold of terrorism. But can you keep an eye on him . Im thinking in new york you probably have more cops than f. B. I. Agents than others. Could better use be made of local law firm and could these people who are serve in the Twilight Zone between terrorism eing disfunk nal sit dysfunctional citizens could they keep you apprised . I dont know yet. Although were having that conversation with our state and local partners. The way it works, is a preliminary investigation stays open for six months and it could stay extended for another six months. It requires higher levels of approvals. What happens, its designed to figure out is there anything here. If there is we convert it to a full examination. If they rebut the initial allegation then we close it. Our local partners have asked that in addition to being on the joint Terrorism Task for, is there Something Else that we can do to flag a person . Thats a naughty question but a serious one. I dont know. But its worth the conversation. I think in terms, of course, the marathon bombing. Nothing in the preliminary investigation showed anything but if the local police may have they would have been aware of why he was thrown out of the mosque. I think its really essential because they are certainly added elements and they would have sources just by the nature of being local cops and may not be available to the f. B. I. Secretary johnson, i know that your department has been exploring the use of social media. Give us the status of those efforts and do you feel you have sufficient resources to do what you between do as far as vetting, employees, immigrants go forward. We use social media for Something Like 30 different purposes across the department. We have expanded the use of social media when it comes to immigration reviews, immigration benefits. What id like to do is bailed centralized social media center for excellence which will be housed in our National Targeting Center and c. B. P. Request reprogramming with dong help fund that. And in the outyears, id like to see congress do a bit more to help us out with a centralized social media capability. Right now a lot of that is done for uscis but as you know cis is a feed bank organization. Theres enough but i want to see this expanded and funded. We have the program request now and we could use more money in the future years. Thank you, secretary. Ive been a supporter of the h. S. S. Programs. Theres concern among a good number of people about the grans that they may go to an organization like care which has been an unindicted coconspirator. Is there any assurance that those grans will not go to an organization like care. There will be a secure review conducted with each potential grantee before we grant out any money. This is a new program. We Just Announced notice of the proposal out to the public last week. But there will be a security review in connection with every grant. Being an unindicted coconspirator, shouldnt that be grounds to deny a grant . Without knowing the specific case that seems likely, yes. The Holy Land Foundation and the f. B. I. Will not deal with care because of that. Director comey, is that true . Director comey thats true. Thank you. I yield back. The chair recognizes mrs. Sanchez. Thank you, gentlemen, and i want to thank the gentlemen before us for all the great work that youre doing. Secretary johnson, in march, you came before our committee and we re discussing the countering violent extremism mission. And we talked about having the department of Homeland Security allowing some of those grants to be used to nonprofit organizations to help us in countering the fight in going after the fight against terror. And i just want to thank you and compliment you because i know and that youre finding new innovative ways to improve those nonprofits that we have in our area. As you know i have one of the largest muslim and arab communities in our nation some of we work very closely with a lot of our nonprofits too to keep an ear to the ground and to nsure that we are on the forefront of trying to eliminate any of this radicalization that has such a potential that we saw in San Bernardino. I want to ask a couple of questions. After 911 we try to share more information between local states and federal agencies especially in the intelligence gathering and sharing. And so i wanted to ask you a little bit about is that working . Are we going to open up more or eliminate more silos . What more can we do as we see really the front line of information as we saw in los angeles for example when somebody saw something phoned it in and our local Law Enforcement as able to get to some bombmaking materials. How can we make sure that the information is being shared or is there enough going on . And i would ask any of you. Ill star. My general assessment is that ere doing much better now jteps through fusion certains through our own personal relationships working together. Jim and i, for example, have been on conferences calls with it will ally hundreds of state and Law Enforcement personal knoll share what were seeing here at a National Level in terms of the public sharing information with us, that is a work in progress thats the case when someone selfra calizes theres somebody else that saw the signs. We all from the Homeland Security perspective and the Law Firm Perspective need to encourage the public if you see something say smog something. But i think were on the right track and were much better than we used to be. I have a question for yall with respect to my Transit Authority in particular in orange county. We run a large bus system. Ere getting ready for a streetcar, obviously california is working on this high speed real. I have a twoprong question. The first would be any guidance that these agencies should follow in making these new systems because were developing especially this fixed rail anything that we should worry about with respect to Cyber Attacks and secondly the Biggest Issue that my Transit Agency has is all of these attacks from a cyber perspective. Every day people are trying to get into their system. Theyre trying to, you know, really raise chaos. What can they do, or what would you snugget suggest . I suggest that they would our Critical Infrastructure protection experts within nppd, programs al potential director. Psa also has a Rail Security mission. But ive seen some fairly sophisticated analysis of how to bailed secure rail station or a secure Transit Center that we can share with anyone who asks us. Any of ok. I will submit the rest more detailed questions along this topic. And hopefully we can get some answers for the record because were very concerned about these cyber type of situations going on. Thank you. Thank you all. Chair recognizes the gentleman from texas, mr. Smith. Chairman smith director comey, thank you for your many years of snfs this country. Its appreciated by many individuals. I would like to ask you first about Syrian Refugees. Last october, you testified that you had concerns about admitting Syrian Refugees when a thorough background check was not possible. In fact, you called it a risk. Do you still have concerns about admitting syrian refugee where is you cannot conduct the thorough backgrounds and do you consider them a risk now . Thank you, mr. Smith. I think what all three of us said when we last talked about this together is we were comparing or able to vet iraqi refugees favorable where Syrian Refugees. Weve made great progress and weve made even more progress at Getting Better at knowing what we know about anybody who is looking to come to the United States. The point im trying to make then, is that we will know certainly on average less about somebody coming from syria than somebody coming from iraq just giving the United Statess long standing presence in iraq. And so theres no such thing as zero risk. The challenge we face is not being able to see somebody coming from syria as from iraq. Ive stayed away from the policy question, to let in refugees. So my view of it is basically the same as it was last october. Because you said last october there is risk associated with bringing anybody in from the outside especially like a conflict zone like syria. I dont want to talk about publicly in the data. So you stand by there. Theres a rissk and you have concerns risks and you have concerns. You testified before the Oversight Committee that foreman secretary state clinton did not comply with the federal records act at least in some respects. You thought she violated at least some aspects of the federal records act. I understand that anyone found guilty of willfully and unlawfully con sealing, removing, obliterating or destroying or atemping to take any such action against a federal record can be fined for up to three years. Anyone helling federal office can lose his or her position and be disqualified from holding federal office in the future. If mrs. Clinton violated the federal records act could these penalties alie to her . I do remember vividly my 4 40 minutes. I dont think we stephed that were doing a federal investigation about. And whether its mishandled or transmitted. Heres your exact statement. You ask if you thought secretary clinton come plined with the federal records act. Your first sentence back was i dont think so. At least in some respects, no. Youre saying that she violated the federal records act. I thought i was answering a estion with respect to the department. Did you consider prosecuting her for violating the federal records act . Did i consider that . Yes. No. Thank you, mr. Chairman, yield back. The e chair recognizes gentleman from rhode island. ] so obviously were in these two stages. S the result of the residual people that traveled sit more because of the homegrown violence problem or is there some other explanation . Thank you for the question. I guess the way i would think about it is that weve always looked at isil as having multiple agendas being a multifaceted organization. As we talked about with this committee they were in the business of trying to create and run a cal fat. And in my testimony, i think weve made progress in diminishing some of the capacity they have, denying them a rich flow of resources as they had at the beginning of the conflict. But theyve got another prong to their agenda and thats their effort to carry out or inspire or enable attacks of various places around the globe. And that line of effort thatsle is engaged in weve had less success in that area. We shouldnt be surprised because there isnt necessarily a one for one connection between success and our efforts in one area denying them territory constraining their resource an success in this other area diminishing their attack capacity. It is only true that the greater success in shrinking their territory, overtime we will degrade their capacity. I was simply making the an letic and scation that there may be significant niff cant lag too. When theyre small and operating clan december tan way clandestine way can still carry out attacks around the world. Thats simply the distinction were trying to make is that theres multiple things going on with isil. Thank you some of to the panel, as you all know im very deeply concerned about the issue of Cyber Security something ive spent years on. I share this with the chairman and as well as with the d. N. I. Threats s recent through testimony, is the threat that we nace this domain. One of the threats is the lack of metric some of for each of you, how you do measure how much the threat is increasing and what progress were making in defending ourselves. So for each of you, i would be interested know what metrics you rely on. How do you decide whether were ving forward, treading water or falling behind . The metrics that first come to me in the d. H. S. Commission, were building capability to block intrusions into the system. So i measure the number of intrusions blocked. A, wetime i looked with e3 ad blocked well in excess of 5700,000. Increase security by the number of companys that we have with the information capability and our progress in terms of getting federal agencies online with our d. H. S. Capables. So those are the three things right there. Thank you. Dr. Comey . Director comey thats not susceptible of a great set of metrics but we look at the demand for our services. Complaints to our Internet Crime center. Number of cases open that is referral to us and other Government Agencies as a proxy for the threat that we face. Those are the two that dom mind. I have a somewhat narrower slice of this problem because i worry about from the perspective as an International Terrorist organization trying to carry out an attack. The metrics speak a Terrorists Organization desire to gain that capability to threaten the United States or other countries with that capability. And also when theyve been able to succeed in doing that because thus far its been generally true that this is something organizations have aspired to do but with not as much success as they would have liked. We want to understand whether we are making progress and not just your eye on anecdotal evidence. I yield back the balance of my time. Gentleman from st. . I would like to recommend to my colleagues that they view senator tim scotts floor speech from yesterday. Its on his facebook page. I would like to provide one for the record, mr. Chairman. Without objection, so ordered. The situationsut as an africanamerican and some of the situations that we have in this country. As white man, i cant relate to that. So i need those experiences from senator scott and others. So i would encourage everyone to watch it because i think its important in the dialogue that were having. The rank in file member mentioned no fly no by and asked the secretary about that. The problem with that, it seems common sense but the problem with that no one can substantially tell us how someone gets on the nofly list or when its adjudicated how they get off the no fly list without complete understanding from members of congress and we have asked. Its based on somebodys sus nation somebody might be involved in an act of terror or crime. When were talking about Second Amendment, we need to realize that no fly no by also violates the fifth and sixth amendment guarantees of due process. How do you get on it . Do you have a chance to view the charge, interview the witnesses, hear testimony, defend yourself . We need to be cautious when we start eliminating our Second Amendment rights but also our fifth and

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