Nkick. We put in the place of march of 2016 and so its now a matter of getting agencies and Companies Online with this new capability. We have the Intelligence Community, we have the Law Enforcement community of the federal government online with this. A few other departments and we have a number of Large Companies in the private sector and information sharing organizations but theres a lot more to do there and so im continually promoting this new capability in the private sector in particular. And so thats a work in progress. All right, good. I think i mentioned i want down to flexi, the federal Law EnforcementTraining Center in what used to be glen we, georgia, and i was real impressed by what i saw. It was a wonderful day with a lot of dedicated committed people doing good work for our country. I want to talk about the tsa Training Academy to train everybody who works at tsa and ive been especially impressed with steps that admiral neffenger took at tsa. Remember the day you called me to say that weve got someone we want you to consider for confirmation of head of tsa, a guy named they having jer. I think a spreestar admiral. Hes a good one and you were right. You were right. Give us a flavor, an update of hows t how tsa has been doing. First, the day pete was sworn in i handed him a 10point plan for improving Aviation Security in reaction to the inspector generals covert testing last year. Tsa has done an excellent job at implementing that 10point plan including investments in new technology and less managed inclusion at airports, the longer line, where you take people from the longer line and put them in the shorter line. That contributed to the additional wait times we saw this spring along with the increased travel volume. We addressed that by with the permission of congress expediting the hiring of new tsos and convert ago lot of them from part time to full time. Weve addressed the wait times. Were continuing to invest in new technology and i think we have to build back that work force so we have a longterm plan with congress to do that. Mr. Chairman, can i just end up with another minute and this is the last time ill have jeh before us. As much as i admire and respect and feel gratitude toward mr. Comey and nick, i want to say what a joy its been to work with you. Thank you for your leadership. Our job was to try to make sure youre surrounded by a firstrate team and that the folks that you and the president gave to us to consider really are a firstrate team. Were really pleased with that. Ever since this department was created theyve suffered the bad morale. Through all these disparate agencies all over the place, they make it hard to communicate to Work Together, for a long time we didnt have confirmed leadership at the top and we tried to address that and provide reasonable amounts of support financially. And the morale of the agency has finally turned for the better. Would you just take a minute and talk about that . Just a minute and give us what advice tell us what advice would you give to your successor on the importance of continuing management reforms at the department . I would say that its important to continue what we have begun, particularly when it comes to Employee Satisfaction. We turned the corner and i hope that continues. The deputy secretary and i did this year 55 employee engagements in 22 different cities to hear concerns, to meet employees, we have a more transparent hiring system, we have a departmentwide Mission Statement and weve been stressing to our work force the importance of their mission and i think people are responding. I think its significant to note that the levels of Employee Satisfaction went upmost significantly in the immigration components. Ice went up seven full percentage points. Customs Border Protection went up four percentage points. These are two large Government Agencies in and of themselves. Im very proud of that progress and i think we need to continue that along with making our department more centralized, less stove piped, more streamlined. So i hope that happens and i will note that that it was members of this committee, including you in particular, tom, that told me that management reform needs to be one of my priorities if im confirmed and it has been. Thank you. Senator peters . Thank you, mr. Chairman, and thank you to our witnesses here today. And thank you for your Service Everyday in defense of our nation. You have a very tough task and you perform it with professionalism and passion, thank you for that. And i also wanted to say thank you to secretary johnson who i know may this may be your last appearance. Youve heard many of my colleagues praise your efforts, i want to join in that chorus, appreciate your efforts, particularly in michigan, your many trips that you have made to our state, particularly to engage the community as im sure most folks are aware, we have a very large middle eastern population in michigan, one of the largest concentrations anywhere. You have been actively engaged in that community and i know thats been part of your efforts to make sure that this is a Community Approach to dealing with the threats that are there. You were recently there in august. We spoke briefly before the beginning of the hearing, your meeting with some Police Officers of middle eastern descent. Just briefly, i think folks need to know whats happening in a vibrant middle Eastern Community in michigan and how that can be a template for how we handle this issue around the country. Senator, you have in michigan some really dedicated, terrific dhs personnel who took the initiative to form this middle eastern Law EnforcementOfficers Association which consists of largely but not exclusively dhs people customs, immigration, tsa centered around the detroit dearborn area. I went out to meet with them several months ago, i think it was january. I was really impressed and i encouraged them to grow nationally for a couple of reasons. One, community outreach, two, recruiting, and, three, cultural sensitivity when it comes to others in Law Enforcement. And when i went back in august, i was pleased to see that they were having a National Level meeting, their organization has grown and id like to see this concept grow across the entire federal government. And so ive encouraged them to do that and, senator, i encourage you to get to know these people and support them as well, theyre a terrific group centered right there in your state. Well, i look forward to it and appreciate yourer in shepherding that forward in giving them the support they need to continue to grow and well hopefully be able to involve all sorts of agencies, local and federal, in that community. I also want to change course a little bit and just talk about some potential future threats. Certainly weve had a discussion today of a variety of immediate threats that we have to be very concerned about and youre actively engaged but i also i stay up at night thinking about the future threats that may be there and are we adequately prepared. And one area i have that thought about and we had some testimony here before our committee not long ago dealt with biodefense and bioterrorism and it had potential for that. We heard from secretary ridge and senator lieberman regarding some findings from the Blue Ribbon Study Panel on bio defense and basically declared the United States is unprepared for biological threats. The Government Accounting Office also has found that the bio defense enterprise is fragmented, its lacking strategic oversight necessary for efficiency and accountability and certainly im concerned a bioterror attack could be the next threat that we have to deal with and we need to be prepared. Secretary johnson, im particularly interested in the dhs use of Biowatch Program developed to provide Early Detection of bioterrorism events. As you know, last year the gao identified flaws with biowatch, including it isnt possible to test in the an operational environment so could you give us an update on biowatch and some of your efforts related to bioterrorism, please . Senator, its been a focus of mine. We have an office and a mission dedicated to the chem bio threat to the homeland. Id be happy to give you a more fuller written report on exactly where we are with biowatch. But this has been a focus of mine and obviously its been a focus of others, including secretary ridge. And the way i look at it is this, there are threats and all three of us deal with this everyday. There are threats that are high probability and there are threats that are perhaps less lower probability but high impact, high cost. And weve got to be responsible and keep our eyes on all of it, and that includes the chem bio threat to the homeland. But i can get you a fuller report in response to your question, sir. Well, appreciate that. And i didnt realize you had multiple threats and you have to make those kinds of assessments on a regular basis but certainly something of this nature, as you mentioned, even if the probability is maybe lower at this time, the impact is significant. And when you look at the new technologies coming on board in bio tech, Crisper Technology which could be used in nefarious ways has potential but you can buy these kits fairly inexpensively and could present significant issues. I want to talk on Cyber Security, another area thats critical and perhaps one of the biggest threats we have as a country. I had the opportunity to be out yesterday and visit with folks at nsa and with the Cyber Command and im encouraged by the cooperation i saw. I know a couple of you have mentioned about how were now working together on cyber, all agencies coming together. I saw that firsthand, it was refreshing to see. But id like a brief comment on an area i see as a vulnerability that we have to be thinking about is that when it comes to cyber risk, its usually the weakest link. Where the bad guys are going to go and although the agencies have hardened systems and are our departments have done you think i think of small local governments, i think of small businesses, others. We know some of the attacks weve seen have gone through contractors that are small contractors tied to a larger organization. So i see significant threats from that potentially through local governments, municipalities as well as small businesses. Are there things that we should be doing here in congress to aid those efforts . I know all three of you are very aware of that. Ill start, im pleased with the law Congress Passed on cyber schurt has aided what we do in dhs. When you talk about the weakest link. The weakest link is always the employee vulnerable to an act of spear fishing. So the very basic thing we need to do is raise employee Awareness Among our respective work forces to the hazards of spear fishing. The most sophisticated attacks very often occur through an act of spear fishing. Senator booker . Director comey, id like to change the direction of my questioning, specifically to issues of race in america. Theres been a lot of talk recently about law and order and you and i both you in your position, me when i was mayor and had a city with high levels of violence and crime did focus on law and order and its critically important. But we make a distinction in america between law and order, which is a baseline, but we seek a higher level of standard and that is justice. We pledge allegiance to this idea of liberty and justice for all. We look at our highest ideal is on the Supreme Court building equal justice under the law. Now, in birmingham in 1960, there was law and order but there was a clear lack of justice. And many people complained when some rabblerousers outside agitators came in, literally breaking some laws, actually, but exposed the fact that there was law and order but without justice. Now, king wrote eloquently in the letters from the birmingham jail about that distinction, really focusing on the difference between law and order, which he used germany and other areas as places that had law and order but didnt have justice. We are americans and we strive for that ideal. Now, what frustrates me is 50 years from that time we still seem to be dealing with a lot of the same issues. The Kerner Commission put forth by johnson 50 years ago was seeking to diagnose why there was so much violence and rioting in cities as well as nonviolent protests going on and the report identified Police Incidents as the most common cause of riots and criticized the overpolicing of black neighborhoods. Now, what frustrates me is that you read the kerner report, you read the letters from the birmingham jail and you read your words, sir, your courageous words, and you see were still struggling from those issues. Now you gave a speech that i found amazing, i actually used your speech in my book that i wrote, the New York Times called it an unusually candid speech and, frror the record, ts is what you wrote. When the death of Michael Brown in ferguson, the death of new york city Police Officers, we are at a cross roads you stated. As a society, we can choose to live our everyday lives raising our families, going to work, hoping that someone somewhere will do something to ease the tension to smooth over the conflict. We can roll up our car windows, turn up the radio and drive around these problems. Or we can choose to have an open and honest discussion about what our relationship is today. What are it should be, what it could be, what it needs to be. If we took our time to better understand one another. These are your words, sir. Much Research Points to the widespread existence of unconscious racial bias. Many people in our white majority culture have unconscious racial biases and react differently to a white face than a black face. In fact, we all, white and black, carry these biases around with us. But if we cant help our latent biases, we can help our behavior in response to these instinctive reactions which is why we need to work to Design Systems and processes that overcome the very human part of us all. Although the research may be unsettling, its what we do next that matters most. You were incredibly courageous in this speech about talking about racial bias in policing. You and i both have an adherence to the idea of data. We have wild conversations in america, and sometimes i listen to it and it seems like were not even talking to each other, were not leading with courageous empathy. But what i am frustrated about is while i think we need that empathetic courageous empathy to create the understanding to heal as a country, we still consistently 50 years since the kerner report based on data have different standards of justice being applied to different communities in our country that is creating understandable tension and, frankly, if we saw the overpolicing the kerner report talked about being done in other areas of affluence we would have a very different reality in american politics because it wouldnt be tolerated. Now, you go on in this great speech to talk about specific needs that we have if were going to correct this problem. You state not long after riots broke out in ferguson late last summer i asked my staff to tell me how many people shot by police were africanamericans in this country. I wanted to see the trends. You wanted the data. I continue in your words i wanted to see the information, they couldnt give it to me and it wasnt their fault. Demographic data regarding Police Officer involved shootings is not consistently reported to us through our uniform Crime Reporting program because reporting is voluntary, our data is incomplete and therefore in the aggregate is not available. I recently listened to a thoughtful Big City Police chief. I stop and say you and i both know there are Police Departments trying to do very good things about confronting implicit racial bias. There are a lot of good thoughtful leaders in this country who recognize like you do that this is a problem. I continue in your words. Thoughtful Big City Police chief, his frustration with the lack of reliable data. He said people didnt know whether the Ferguson Police shot one person a week, a year, or one a century. And what the absence of good data all we get are ideological thunderbolts when what we need are agnostics who use information to try to solve a problem. And you say he is right. And so i dont want to be here 50 years from now or listening to my kids and grand kids struggle with what should have been done in the 1960s when thoughtful Police Leadership like you called for understanding this data of what does exist in our country, which is racial bias. And so i put forth legislation saying, hey, lets get away from the ideological thunderbolts and get the data. We cant solve a problem unless we measure it. Youre a manager of an agency, i was a manager of a city, if you cant measure it, you cant manage it. And so i want your opinion on basically what you stated clearly on the need for National Collection of data on implicit racial bias, on Police Interactions with c