Preventing more serious conduct. And wed be happy to meet with you or engage with you to provide a better seasons of how all this works from an operational perspective. I know that the key consumer of the information here, as your question alluded our state and local Law Enforcement, so i would to make sure we do it in a way we work with them as to what they would find most useful. As i said in response to senator feinstein, the volume of nix checks overall and as a small subset of denials has exploded over the curse of the last year. So i am mindful of the resource burden that it puts on everybody in the Law Enforcement system. But wed be happy to talk with you more about it. Thanks. I look forward to working with you. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Senator sass. Thank you, chairman. Thank you, director, for being here and being available to us on this committee and on the intel committee. Weve always been grateful for your work and availability. Weve talked a good bit about the intelligence failures around january 6th, but some of it is how did we sort signal from noise, and some of it is the handoff from the fbi and other entities to the Capitol Police. As you do an afteraction, how much of the problem is the challenge of navigating a social media world where any drunk guy in a bar now has amplification that he can be heard around the world and lots is just drunk guy in a bar ranting, and some of it is more particular threats because people can find communities of kind of warped belief with other people if theyre planning something wicked on social media. How much of it is the fitters of social media to make sense of it and how much of the january 6th failure, wz the handoff from the fbi to Capitol Police . Senator, as i said, when it comes to the handoff, a lot of the attention has been about this norfolk s. I. R. , which i uf talked about al at some length, provided the information to our partners in three different ways, and as it was the information was raw, uncorroborated information at the time, certainly. I think the other part of your question, the filter, the social media piece of it, is a huge issue. Its something we and everybody in Law Enforcement struggles with right now. You know, you use the drunk guy example. I guess sometimes i refer to it used to be some angry demented guy living in moms basement, not that theres anything wrong with that, you know, in one part of the country is now able to communicate with the similarly angry guy in grandmas attic in another part of the country, and they get each other spun up now, and how to separate whos being aspirational versus whos being intentional, it wont shock you to learn, hopefully not other members of the committee, that the amount of angry, hateful, unspeakable combative violent rhetoric on social media exceeds what anybody in their worst imagination is out there. So trying to figure out whos just saying you know what we ought to do is x or everybody ought to do x versus the person whos doing that and actually getting traction and getting followers and of course thats assuming theyre not communicating through encrypted channels about all that stuff is one of the hardest things there is to do in todays world with the nature of the violent extremism threat we face. Social Media Companies play a huge role in helping us with that, but you often hear us say if you see something, Say Something. To me the refinement here would be if americans see something on social media that seems to have crossed that line, they need to Say Something, because thats going to be our best source of information to prevent this. So its helpful. Ive heard from Law Enforcement before at one level they dont know what to do if you see something, Say Something, because its not clear where they hand that information. Lets talk a little more about the handoff between state and local Law Enforcement but also about platform content information. But first inside the bureau, give us comfort that were getting a lot better at this, because i dont think were giving you enough resources to get the right kind of Human Capital youll need, but id love to be wrong. Go from three years ago, to a year ago, to now, how are we Getting Better at filtering signal from noise and what kind of new Human Capital are you hiring that should give us confidence well get better in this world that is exploding with online rant . There are a number of things were trying to do better. Were making progress. But all of it like you said requires reresources. Theres Data Analytics piece because the volume is so significant that we need to get better being able to analyze the data we have in a timely way to separate the cheat from the chaff and that requires both tools, analytical tools, and weve had requests for those in the budgets the last couple years, but also people, data analysts, who can devote their time to that and have the experience. So thats part of it. I think a second part of it is as i think i referenced in response to an earlier question, all these investigations that we do, all these arrests we make are important not just from a disruption perspective but putting my intelligence hat on, they allow us to learn more about where people communicate, how they communicate, what the magic words are, all that kind of stuff so we get better and better at anticipating from that reason. But make no mistake, we have a long way to go. This is an incredibly hard problem. I know from communicating with my foreign counterparts, especially the five eyes, that theyre struggling with it too. As to your point about people knowing where to go, you know, i will tell you that our tip line, our Public Access tip line, both the email tips and the phone tips, have exploded in volume, and were doing things to kind of get that information out to state and local Law Enforcement much more quickly. And certainly the social Media Companies, some of them have gotten better at providing us more realtime information when they see something because they have a lot of resources to devote to this problem in terms of policing their own platforms. So the more we can incentivize them to do that, thats big part too. So im a high school teacher, a High School Principal and some kid comes to me and says, these kids have always seemed to be online bullies but now it seems like the things they ear saying sound more violent. What do you tell them to do . Contact your local fbi field office. Not the local Police Department . They could also contact state and local Law Enforcement. We all now work so closely together i think we view a call to one as a call to us all. If we get the information were nine times out of ten going to be pushing it to state and local Law Enforcement as quickly as we can. We do a lot of outreach to the high schools like youre talking about, meeting with teachers, meeting with students, meeting with parents to try to get them to understand better what to be on the lookout for, what might be that indicator. Because the one thing we know whether its any kind of Domestic Violence extremism weve talked about this morning or frankly just the horrific active shooter, School Shooter situation, is that when you look back on the path to the key moment, almost every single time there was a friend, a family member, a neighbor, a classmate, a coworker, something, somebody who knew the person well enough to know this is their baseline, theyve now changed in a way thats scary to me and no one knows better than the person who knows them well. Thats the person we need to come forward. When they do and theyre doing its more, were able to get in front of it. Ill flag a question i want to continue talking with you about. I would love to hear your big National Pitch for these data analysts because we need more great Human Capital serving their country in this way. I want to be sure our training for these data analysts have 1st amendment sensibilities about what theyre there to do. Theyre looking for violence, not to be the National Speech police. So look forward to continuing that conversation. Thanks for your work. Thank you, senator sass. Senator blumenthal . Thank you, mr. Chairman, thank you director wray for being here today. I want to join in expressing my condolences for loss of those two agents, and my thanks to the thousands of agents who work day in and day out to make america safer. When you last appeared before this committee in july of 2019, i expressed my concern that Donald Trumps attacks against members of congress and his other rhetoric, quote, might ignite White Supremacists and nationalist organizations and encourage hate crimes. I asked you whether you were concerned about this increasing number and intensity of is attacks on Public Officials and what the fbi was doing both proactively and responsively about them. And you said, quote, i think we are very concerned about any threats of violence against any americans but certainly that would prominently include our elected officials. Weve seen increasing attacks by the president and others against Public Officials. When the rioters who came to the capitol stormed the citadel of democracy on january 6th were inside, they boasted proudly and loudly that they were doing what donald trump wanted them to do. We have warned specifically about qanon in a letter dated december 8th, 2020, a number of us, members of the senate, warned that qanon specifically was a threat. I would like to ask you whether the threat posed by qanon, and as you well know, adherence of qanon, were among the rioters, very prominently, who stormed the capitol, whether the continuing threat is worsened when prominent elected officials, including members of congress, endorsed the qanon they ary. Certainly we are concerned about the qanon phenomenon, which we view as a sort of loose set of conspiracy theory, and weve certainly seen domestic violent extremists of the sort youre describing who cite that as part of their motivation. So thats something that we do but i apologize for interrupting. As you know my time is limited. When members of congress, as has happened, endorse the qanon theory, doesnt it worsen the threat of violence . Well, again, our focus is on the violence and on the plans to commit violence, the threats to commit violence, less on the rhetoric and the ideology. Obviously, the folk who is engage in this kind of violence draw inspiration from a variety of sources and were concerned about any source that stimulates or motivates violent extremism. Ill follow up in another setting. But i am strategist frankly disappointed youre not discouraging one of the sources of incitement, which is prominent Public Officials endorsing a theory that in turn resulted in storming the United States capitol. Let me turn to hate crimes. Hate crimes are underreported. Were seeing a rising trend of hate crimes particularly directed at asianamerican Pacific Islanders. I have a bill called the no hate act that would require more reporting, provide both incentives and requirements. Wouldnt you think that kind of measure is a good idea . So certainly we share your goal of both deterring and reducing hate crime but also particularly relevantly in promoting better reporting, more complete reporting of hate crime. And we are specifically concerned about hate crimes against asianamericans as well. Im not directly familiar with the bill, but i think we share the goal of trying to figure out how to improve reporting. As you may know, we have a new system that were rolling out, trying to get to 100 on that, and wed be pleased to work with you on figuring out how this bill might help advance that goal. Well, the no hate act would, in fact, lead to better reporting if 87 of hate crimes are unreported now. That is a searing indictment of the present system. We need to know more and particularly about asianamericans and island pacificers being victims of them. I know you dont want to be a, as you said, armchair quarterback, but youre going to be armchair quarterback by the American People. And i think the American People listening to these past ten days of hearing and knowing how much information there was out there on social media, in other forum, about these thugs and rioters coming to washington, organized groups, 3 proud boys and others, are wondering why didnt the fbi sound the alarm . I know there was a communication through that threat assessment. I know youve talked about the agencies that were hearing that assessment. But here we have the United States capitol, where a key function of democracy, enabling the peaceful transition of power was taking place and a threat of violence and even death to them. Why didnt you go to the gang of eight . Why didnt you sound the alarm in some more visible and ringing way . Well, senator, i guess a couple things. One, over the course of 2020, we repeatedly, repeatedly put out intelligence products on this very issue. Domestic violent extremism, tied to the election, violent extremism tied to the election and continuing beyond the election up through the inauguration, and specifically in december of 2020. In addition to that, in connection with the one piece of raw intelligence thats been discussed so much here today, we did pass that on to the people in the best position to take action on the threat, not one, not two, but three different ways. Now, more broadly in terms of whats out in social media, as a number of the questions here today have elicited, it highlights one of the most challenging jobs for Law Enforcement in todays world with social media. There is so much chatter often unattributed to somebody in a neatly identifiable way where people are saying unbelievably horrific, angry, combative things using language about beheading and shooting and explosives an all kinds of things like that, and separating out which ones are getting traction, which ones reflect intention as to posed to aspiration, is something we spend an enormous amount of time trying to do. Sometimes we dont have the luxury of time and the ability to make those judgments. I can assure you that as i said i think to senator klobucar, my standard is were trying to bat a thousand. We want the thwart every attack. Anytime theres an attack thats not thwarted we and our partners want to make sure we figure out how to do even better sprenting that. Were pleased that the inauguration, for example, went smoothly, notwithstanding threats and chatter we were seeing not just near in the National Capital region but state capitals across the country. Our focus was on engaging with all of our partners, our state and local partners. I did a conference with like 1,000plus Police Chiefs around the country about the state capitols. Thats the kind of thing we were doing to try to make sure were doing the grind, the hard work, to get in front of the threat. And were going to keep working at it every single day. I understand your response. What i dont understand is why this chatter, raw intelligence, didnt prompt a stronger warning, an alarm going to the very top of the United States congress, because clearly, the United States congress was under severe threat. Thank you, senator. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Senator holley . Director wray, thanks for being here. I want to go back to questions from senator lee. He asked you about the geolocation and metadata aspects and gathering related to investigation of january 6th riots. You said you werent familiar with the specifics. Can i just clarify your responses to him . So when you say youre not familiar, are you saying that you dont know whether or not the bureau has scooped up geolocation data, metadata from cell phone records, from cell phone towers . Do you not know . Are you saying that the bureau maybe or maybe hasnt done it . Just tell me what you know about this. When it comes to geolocation data specifically, the use of it, i would not be surprised to learn but i do not know for a fact that we were using geolocation data under any situation in connection with the investigation of the 6th. But, again, we do use geolocation data under specific authorities and specific instances because this is such a sprawling investigation that would not surprise me. When it comes to metadata, its a little different obviously than geolocation data. I feel confident that we are using various legal authorities to look at metadata under a variety of situations, but, again, the specifics of when, under what circumstances, with whom, that kind of thing im not in a position to testify about with the sprawl and size of the investigation and certainly not in a congressional hearing. What authorities do you have in mind . You say youre using the relevant authorities. What authorities are they . Well, we have various forms of Legal Process we can serve on companies that will allow us to get and thats been done. Were using a lot of Legal Processes in connection with the investigation, so yes. But specifically, serving process on companies using, invoking your various legal powers to get that data from companies, thats been done in the case of gathering this data . In gathering metadata . Yeah. Again, i dont know the specifics, but i feel confident that is happening because metadata is often something we look at, and we have a variety of legal tools that allow us to do that under certain circumstances. What about the cell tower data that was reportedly scooped up by the bureau