[inaudible conversations] good afternoon. We are going to get the hearing started. I want to welcome director Nick Rasmussen from the National Counterterrorism center. Nick, we have invited you here today in an open session. I think some of the news outlets vice chair that said this would never happen with me being chairman that everything would be close and i want to point out we are having an open session and this is to provide the senate and the American People with an update on the current threat from terrorism. The committee remains concerned about the expanding evolving nature of this threat than the challenges facing the Intelligence Community and the evolving nature of the threat. This is the first of what i hope will be a number of open hearings that should give the Intelligence Community an opportunity to better inform the public of its current efforts and challenges. As mr. Rasmussen and i have talked about here is what we do. More importantly here is why the American People should understand why this is important to them. Its about their defense. Given the nature of the material we are here discussing and the fact that this is an open hearing i want to remind everyone to use extreme caution to protect intelligence sources and methods. While this is an excellent venue to engage Nick Rasmussen via a reserve the right to immediately suspend any questions or comments that may be sensitive in nature or his response could disclose classified information. The congress is currently debating several matters that impact our counterterrorism efforts including an aumf on the conflict in iraq and syria. As we take up these issues i want to make sure that our members and the public understand the serious and credible threat that many of these groups present to the security of the United States into our allies. In addition to addressing the threat itself i hope you will discuss the impact of media leaks encryption and other challenges on our durability to thwart terrorist attacks. Nick im afraid that your job is getting harder at a time when we can least afford it. I have spent more than 10 years as a member of the house and Senate Intelligence committee as has the vice chairman and have watched closely the threat environment as it has evolved since the attacks of 9 11. The threats we face today are much greater than those we faced since 2001. Al qaeda in 2001 was estimated to have less than a thousand members. The group was relatively geographically contained and plots against our interests were infrequent like todays standards. Today we face groups like the Islamic State of iraq and the levant which is often described as a terrorist army with membership is estimated to be in the tens of thousands. We face terrasys hibbings spamming the middle east and south asia confronted by a host of different plots almost daily. We have have evacuated our embassies in libya and yemen due to threats against their personnel and terrorist groups becoming more creative threatening our citizens and allies with nonmetallic iuds at massive truck bombs. In addition they are mastering the use of the internet and social media to disseminate propaganda to recruit fighters that often already have access to western culture countries like we have seen in europe, canada and even in new york. One of the biggest lessons we have learned from september the 11th attacks was that we cannot give terrasys sanctuary from which to plan attacks against us. Arguably isil now has control of the largest territory ever held by a terrorist group. This safe haven provides isil and other extremists with the time and space they need to train fighters and to plan operations. Also has provided them with the access to weapons and that network that can be used to support external operations. We know about the threat we face from al qaeda prior to 9 11 that we failed to act. I just hope we dont make the same mistake again. Nick i once again thank you, i welcome you here and i now turn it over to the distinguished vice chairman. Thanks very much mr. Chairman mr. Chairman. Director rasmussen welcome and let me say that i have been reading a number of your intelligence products particularly on threats yesterday. I think your agency is doing a very good job. I think you are outwardly bound and just the way we think think about today so i want to thank you for that good work. Today provides us an opportunity for the committee as the chairman has said to discuss and unclassified terms the terrorist threats to the United States and to the rest of the world. This is particularly important that the American Public understand these threads because they provide the necessary context for a number of policy decisions that the United States government was facing and that we have to help make. These threats affect whether we authorize the use of force against isil the need for our continued military deployment and counterterrorism efforts and the need to reauthorize intelligence tools necessary to keep our country safe. I believe the terrorist threats facing the United States is as diverse and serious as anytime any time in our history. I have never seen more serious threats. These come from both inside our country and outside more so than any other terrorist organizations we have seen in the past. Isil is seeking to radicalize followers around the world and inspire attacks in our homeland. They are extraordinarily visible visible. If you look at aqap just as much a danger to us but much more invisible the uniforms of isil their equipment, their taking over the city the children that had been, the christians who have been sacrificed, the iraqi army that were shot down in cold blood all of this has been on television so americans have come to know the threat that isil is. The guidance from isil to potential terrorists is clear, it wants westerners to come to syria into iraq to fight. Isil instructs on how to carry out attacks at home and that is what we are up against. There are more than 100 americans who have either traveled to syria or attempted to travel there. 20,000 foreign fighters will have traveled to syria and who will return home. At least 3400 of them are from western europe and that includes visa waiver countries where they are a plane ticket away from the United States. What we dont know is how many people are inside the United States following isil on the news and on social media and you are becoming inspired to carry out their own attacks. Separately ill qaeda remains focused on conducting attacks against our homeland while a queue in ungoverned areas of pakistan may be as weak as it has been in many years. Al qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula or aqap still poses a clear threat. The group is enjoying a safe haven and yemen with the huti over one of the government there. Remember at aqap was behind the attacks against charlie hebdo. The group has already tempted to send nonmetallic and essentially undetectable bombs into our country on four occasions beginning with the Christmas Day 2009 optima taleb underwear bombing. They do have a bomb that can go through a magnetometer. A few has published stepbystep directions for building that bomb in the latest inspire magazine. Our efforts to confront aqap are significantly diminished with the removal of president hoddy of yemen. The foodies may not have love for aqap but over time the Yemeni Government has become a strong counterterrorism partner that we no longer have. Closing our embassy in sanaa was the right choice but the instability in yemen presents new freedom to roam and kill. Elsewhere there is a power vacuum in libya, and maybe even civil war. Much of northwest africa groups are using that territory for safe haven and i could go on and on but let me just conclude with one remark that i hope director rasmussen will address. On june 1 3 provisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act which we call fisa will expire. They are the Business Records authority, the roving wiretap and the lone wolf. If these authorities expire the Intelligence Community will lose key tools to identify terrorist groups and to protect the homeland. This includes nsas fun Metadata Program as well as the authority for domestic fbi investigations but also other important authorities. So i look forward to your testimony director masters director rasmussen and again i thank you for the excellent work you are doing. Thank you mr. Chairman. Thank you vice chairman and let me say for the purposes of members is my intent once testimony has been received that we will go to fiveminute questions based on the order of attendance. Hopefully that is being shared with everybody and we will at this time turned to the director for as much time as your testimony might take. Thank you mr. Chairman madam vice chairman remembers the committee and i have submitted for the record i longer statement and discussed in some depth the threat picture as we see it. I thank you for inviting me today to discuss the terrorist threat the United States is facing worldwide and also to discussed discuss and ctcs effort. As the chairman and vice chairman have noted todays threat environment is increasingly diverse and dynamic as is the wide array of terrorist actors that is driving this environment. They can reach into the west and even into the United States. The emergence of iraq and syria and extremist battlefield and isil is related expansion is brought about changes in that landscape. The emergence of new groups in the wake of the arab uprising since 2011 has also altered the threat picture as most of those groups are focused more on achieving local gains in their regions. We are also experiencing a new level of specialization and fragmentation within the larger terrorism landscape. We believe we might be entering into an era which centralized leadership of terrorist groups matters less than it did previously. We may be entering a time in which Group Affiliation and identity is more fluid. Extremist narratives are more focused on a wider range of agreements as enemies. As paris showed us this may be a time which personal connections on individual terrorists may be more relevant to their plodding than individual Group Affiliations or identity. Even in this dynamic and increasingly complex environment i believe its possible to differentiate to some degree the threat we are facing in the u. S. In the west and the threat we are seeing in the regions where many of our terrorist adversaries are located. As we look at the global terrorism picture we are trying to be careful not to paint a picture with a single broadbrush and i will try to explain. In the United States and western europe the threat of catastrophic attack has been significantly reduced as winter partners have been able to apply consistent counterterrorism pressure to some of the most dangerous groups that we face. Clearly sustaining that counterterrorism pressure is a key element in the ski places around the world and an essential condition to preventing the reemergence of some of the more complex threats that would aim to have catastrophic impact on our homeland. In its current environment our assessment that we face a much greater more frequent recurring threat from lone offenders and probably Loose Networks of individuals. Measured in terms of frequency and numbers it is attacks from those sources that are increasingly the most noteworthy feature of the terrorism landscape. Since may of last year 10 of 11 attacks we have seen in the west were in fact conducted by these individual extremist to hear United States and nine others occurring in Europe Canada and australia. The majority of these attacks look more like like what we would expect from random acts of violence rather than africa alert scale destruction we saw in terrorist plotting immediately after 9 11. In going for we believe individuals and Smaller Networks will try similar attacks to capitalize and build momentum for Media Coverage of these attacks generate. Its also important to note that one would call the smaller scale lowerlevel attacks still can cause amazingly tragic human suffering that can clearly generate fear among local populations and clearly have profound effects on the societies in which these attacks come. I am in no way seeking to minimize the impact that such a path can occur. On these lowerlevel attacks in the west should not in any way suggest we are no longer concerned with the ability of established terrorist groups and even some individuals to target western aviation which would certainly constitute a large scale potentially catastrophic attack. Mitigating the threat to aviation remains at the top of our party list in terms of disruption efforts. He remains true we still face moderate to smallscale threats from groups that are structured and cohesive like a qaeda was an the yak al qaeda affiliates and allies. Although the groups the number of groups opposing that threat is somewhat smaller and their efforts to place pressure on them is met with success is important to remember that these groups are persistent and patient of their desires and their plans to strike the homeland. In contrast to the threat we face at home in western capitals are allies and partners in africa asia and the middle east are facing in some ways a much different threat. As you know some of the most vicious and active terrorist groups are located in countries that are continuing to work through the effects of the arab uprising in recent years places like egypt iraq libya syria and lemon yemen. Other terrorist groups are active in countries undergoing insurgencies places like afghanistanpakistan somalia and egypt iraq syria and yemen. In all of these countries terrorist groups are trying to displace weak governments to make significant territorial gains. In other countries terrorist or contributed to population displacement affecting millions of people on a huge scale. This is happening places like iraq syria nigeria and afghanistan. Some of these terrorist groups are responsible for contributing to the shia and sunni violence. Amidst this and security violence and political instability around the world terrorists are carrying out ever more Violent Attacks much more frequently in these countries and often a greater scale than what we have seen recently conducted in the west. In last year when we have assessed thereve been hundreds of attacks in these countries that have caused thousands of deaths. Just last month the world focused its attention on paris and the attack there well at the same time as this committee knows attacks on local populations by boko haram in nigeria and yemen taking place on a larger scale. Despite the fact that ive tried in some small way to differentiate between the impairment of the west and that we see in a africa the middle east and south asia there is one phenomenon which draws a separate thread pictures together. That phenomenon is the continued flow of foreign fighters to syria particularly those fighters who come from western countries. While the majority of the roughly 20,000 foreign fighters have come to the middle east and north africa more than 3400 have we assessed come from western countries. At and ctc we are working to advance a broad effort across all centers working closely with the Intelligence Community and partners around the world. And ctc compiles information on known and suspected terrorist to travel to syria and we have the data in our environment. That effort has greater viable form for sharing information on known or suspected terrorists with Key Stakeholders that includes Law Enforcement entity Counterterrorism Committee is the screening and the watch listing committees. The severed heads directly help her solve inconclusive identity information enhanced records with more information and most importantly upgrade watch the status for several hundred suspected terrorists. And ctc officers work with fully identified foreign fighters that have access or connection to the individuals on the homeland so they can be watchlisted. My offices are using unique access to a wide range of Law Enforcement information wider than anywhere else. This axis includes her own data as well as their embedded officers and 10 other intelligence organizations. To prevent individuals from traveling to syria in the first place my officers are working to diminish the appeal of terrorism. In partnership with the Energy Department justice and the department of Homeland Security and the fbi we have helped develop tools to counter violent extremism in ways or awareness summer Law EnforcementCommittee Leaders across the country. We try to tailor these tools to address foreign fighters recruitment and received a significant amount of positive feedback from the communities with whom we have worked. Theres a demand signal for more of us across the country. Despite these concerted efforts the nature of todays threat that is evident in the chairman in the chairman and vicechairman vice chairman same as the nature of todays threat is challenging our ability to identify and disrupt terrorist plots. This is coming at a time when we are losing capability. Today the terrorist related communications of our terrorist adversaries are increasingly intermingled with communications that are not relevant to our terrorism work that they are not separate and identified strains of information.