[Senate Hearing 107-912]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 107-912
SHOULD THE OFFICE OF HOMELAND SECURITY
HAVE MORE POWER? A CASE STUDY IN
INFORMATION SHARING
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ADMINISTRATIVE OVERSIGHT AND THE COURTS
of the
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
APRIL 17, 2002
__________
Serial No. J-107-73
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
85-887 U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
WASHINGTON : 2003
____________________________________________________________________________
For Sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office
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COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont, Chairman
EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah
JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Jr., Delaware STROM THURMOND, South Carolina
HERBERT KOHL, Wisconsin CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa
DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania
RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin JON KYL, Arizona
CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York MIKE DeWINE, Ohio
RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama
MARIA CANTWELL, Washington SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas
JOHN EDWARDS, North Carolina MITCH McCONNELL, Kentucky
Bruce A. Cohen, Majority Chief Counsel and Staff Director
Sharon Prost, Minority Chief Counsel
Makan Delrahim, Minority Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts
CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York, Chairman
PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama
EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts STROM THURMOND, South Carolina
RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa
RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania
Benjamin Lawsky, Majority Chief Counsel
Ed Haden, Minority Chief Counsel
C O N T E N T S
----------
STATEMENTS OF COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Page
Schumer, Hon. Charles E., a U.S. Senator from the State of New
York........................................................... 1
Leahy, Hon. Patrick J., a U.S. Senator from the State of Vermont. 69
Sessions, Hon. Jeff, a U.S. Senator from the State of Alabama.... 5
WITNESSES
Anderson, Philip, Senior Fellow and Director, Homeland Security
Initiative, Center for Strategic and International Studies..... 46
Hastings, Scott O., Associate Commissioner for the Office of
Information Resources Management, U.S. Immigration and
Naturalization Service, Washington, D.C........................ 17
Hitch, Vance, Chief Information Officer, Justice Management
Division, Department of Justice, Washington, D.C............... 7
Jordan, Robert J., head of the Information Sharing Task Force,
Federal Bureau of Investigation, Washington, D.C............... 12
Light, Paul C., Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C........... 53
Panetta, Hon. Leon E., Director, Panetta Institute, Monterey Bay,
CA............................................................. 35
Terwilliger, George J., III, Partner, White & Case, Washington,
D.C............................................................ 42
SUBMISSION FOR THE RECORD
Department of Justice, Joseph Karpinski, Director, Congressional
Relations and Public Affairs, letter........................... 70
SHOULD THE OFFICE OF HOMELAND
SECURITY HAVE MORE POWER? A
CASE STUDY IN INFORMATION SHARING
----------
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 17, 2002
United States Senate,
Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight
and the Courts,
Committee on the Judiciary,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:36 a.m., in
Room SD-216, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Charles
Schumer, Chairman of the subcommittee, presiding.
Present: Senators Schumer, Sessions, and Specter.
STATEMENT OF HON. CHARLES E. SCHUMER,
A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF NEW YORK
Chairman Schumer. Good morning, everybody. The hearing will
come to order.
We have consulted with Senator Sessions' staff, and because
of our timing issues and particularly a few of our witnesses
have to catch planes, we are going to start now. We will
probably have a quick vote at 10 o'clock, and so we are going
to try to move things along as quickly as possible.
I want to thank all of our witnesses for coming to what I
think is a very interesting and important hearing. I hope you
will agree--all of you in the audience--after you hear what we
have to say.
And here is Senator Sessions now. Jeff, I am just going to
begin my opening statement, because we have some time
constraints.
Since the events of September 11th, every local, State and
Federal Government agency has been scrambling to repair the
holes in our homeland defense that were revealed on that
fateful day.
Our homeland defense situation is comparable to the story
of the little Dutch boy who single-handedly tried to keep the
floods from breaking through the dike and destroying Amsterdam.
He was successful, but we have many more holes than that one
little hole in the dike. All of them have to be plugged up
rather quickly.
Try as we might, every time we plug one hole, another pops
up. Whether it is the discovery of a terrorist with a shoe bomb
who made it onto a plane, or sending student visas to known
terrorists, we keep discovering hole after hole, and that
translates into threat after threat and risk after risk.
That is something we clearly cannot afford in the post-9/11
world. Our world changes, and we have to adapt to it.
There are over 40 Federal agencies charged with law
enforcement and intelligence gathering. Our safety relies in
good part upon each and every one of them. When the left hand
does not know what the right hand is doing, you have a problem.
When you have 20 left hands and 20 right hands and none of them
know what the other is doing, you have a potential disaster in
the making.
That is what we are facing right now.
The backbone of homeland defense is good information
sharing and coordination between Federal law enforcement and
intelligence agencies. It is clear that we need some kind of
body to coordinate government-wide policy on information
sharing. We need an entity that can answer questions like:
Where are we most vulnerable? Who can supply the right
information about those vulnerabilities? Who needs to know
about our weaknesses? And who is going to tell them?
These sound like simple, basic questions, but in a
bureaucracy like ours, unless someone is keeping an eye on
things, the answers get lost pretty quickly.
The Administration, in my judgment, was headed in the right
direction when Tom Ridge was sworn in as the first Director of
the Office of Homeland Security. Director Ridge was charged
with developing and coordinating a comprehensive national
strategy to strengthen protections against terrorist threats or
attacks in the United States.
Though the idea is a good one, I am afraid that the
consequences, intended or not, have resulted in OHS becoming a
little bit akin to something like a toothless tiger.
Everybody has tremendous respect for Tom Ridge. I certainly
do. We served in the House together, and he is an exemplary man
and I am glad he is in that position.
But at this point in time, he does not have the tools or
the power to get what needs to be done, and this hearing will
just show one little aspect of that.
If OHS is meant to be more of a policymaking agency, then
it needs to acquire the appropriate authority and be subject to
congressional oversight.
We are not taking any sides on whether Mr. Ridge ought to
testify here or not; that is not the issue. The issue is what
the scope of his office ought to be as it relates to
information sharing and other issues.
But OHS in this case needs to be able to prod or even
direct the different Federal agencies into changing their
management decisions and removing the blinders that stop
agencies from thinking outside their own parameters. Each
agency and bureau needs to think beyond its own functions,
beyond its own databases, and work to connect to other
departments.
It is very hard to do this on your own. I am not blaming
any of the agencies here for not doing it on their own. I am
not blaming anyone in the Administration or in the House or
Senate that we did not do this before. This is a brave new
world and nobody had the foresight to know what we had to do.
But now we do know what we have to do. And that is why we have
to improve things and act.
Various proposals have been laid out on how this entity, a
new entity, an agency that is responsible for making sure there
is coordination of information, be structured. And I look
forward to hearing from our witnesses today on what they think.
But whatever form it takes, I strongly believe that we need
to empower one agency, one entity, to coordinate information
sharing between and among the different Federal law enforcement
and intelligence agencies for the purposes of homeland defense.
Having an agency that coordinates information from different
agencies is the first problem. Then having technology to help
them do it is the second.
I have been told the technology exists to vastly improve
our agencies' databases so appropriate agency officials can
access information in real time, both within their own agencies
and, just as importantly, with other State, Federal, and local
agencies.
Before the recess, I introduced the idea of a supercomputer
to coordinate Federal law enforcement intelligence gathering
activities. While we would have to address the obvious privacy
concerns in developing such an idea as this one, that is hardly
beyond the pale. You can deal with privacy issues because you
cannot just be Luddite and say do not make coordination better,
do not have the best computers. You rather would have them, and
then make sure that privacy concerns are protected as you use
them.
Now, we might need three or four of these computers, each
one for a separate security purpose. In a recent interview,
Larry Ellison of Oracle blamed a lot of our security problems
on fragmented data. He said, ``We knew that Mohammed Atta was
wanted. We just did not check the right database when he came
into the country.'' And that sums up the problem as good as
anybody can.
For the most part, we have the right information. We know
who to go after. We just keep stumbling into our own
bureaucracy.
About 6 weeks ago, I requested a complete list of the
unclassified information databases used for law enforcement and
intelligence purposes from 10 different law enforcement and
intelligence agencies. I did not request what is in the
databases, just what the databases are. I made follow-up call
after follow-up call. I received the final lists only
yesterday--6 weeks just to get a list of what the databases
are, so we would know how to coordinate them.
What does that say about our organizational capabilities? I
have been told that our intelligence community is light years
ahead of our law enforcement community in terms of the
organization of information sharing and its technology. Well,
everyone has to be brought up to speed and maybe the
intelligence agencies can share some of their wisdom and what
they have done with our law enforcement agencies.
Intelligence gathering does not help if we do not have the
law enforcement capability to deal with that information.
Finally, we have to look at the culture in our Federal
agencies and put a stop to the rivalries that get in the way of
protecting our country. It is a well-known fact that cultural
differences between the different law enforcement and
intelligence agencies hinder proper information sharing. The
CIA does not want to share with the FBI. The FBI does not want
to share with the INS.
My message to all of these groups is: Get with it. We are
in a new and different world, and those rivalries cause us to
pay a real price or could cause us to pay a real price. This is
not about a turf war between Federal agencies. It is about
preventing terrorists from murdering innocent civilians. If you
cannot see that, then you need to take a good, hard look and
figure it out.
I very much look forward to hearing from our witnesses
today from both inside and outside the government. And working
together--this is not a partisan issue in any sense--we can
repair our defenses and make our Nation a safer one.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Senator Schumer follows:]
Statement of Hon. Charles E. Schumer,
a U.S. Senator from the State of New York
With over forty Federal agencies conducting homeland security-
related law enforcement or intelligence gathering activities, and no
one entity actually in charge of coordinating and directing all of
them, the Courts Subcommittee today held a hearing to explore whether
the Office of Homeland Security has the authority it needs. Schumer
pointed to frequent terrorist threats that can and are slipping through
the cracks and examined why major mistakes like granting student visas
to terrorists occur and whether the Federal Government is doing enough
to develop a supercomputer to coordinate homeland security activities.
The following is Schumer's statement from the hearing:
Since the events of September 11th, every local, State, and Federal
Government agency has been scrambling to repair the holes in our
homeland defense that were revealed on that fateful day.
Our homeland defense situation is comparable to that story of the
little Dutch boy who singlehandedly tried to keep the floods from
breaking through the dike and destroying Amsterdam. Though I think he
was successful, we're having a much harder time defending our own.
Try as we might, every time we plug one hole, another one pops up.
Whether it's the discovery of a terrorist with a shoe bomb who made it
onto a plane or sending student visas to known terrorists, we keep
discovering hole after hole, and that translates into threat after
threat, risk after risk. That's something we clearly can't afford.
There are over forty Federal agencies charged with law enforcement
and intelligence gathering. Our safety relies, in some part, upon each
and every one of them. When the left hand doesn't know what the right
hand is doing, you've got a problem. When you have 20 left hands and 20
right hands and none of them knows what the other is, you've got a
disaster in the making. And that's exactly what we're facing right now.
The backbone of homeland defense is good information sharing and
coordination between Federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
It's clear that we need some kind of body to coordinate governmentwide
policy on information sharing. We need an entity that can answer
questions like: Where are we most vulnerable? Who can supply the right
information about those vulnerabilities? Who needs to know about our
weaknesses? And who is going to tell them? These may sounds like
simple, basic questions, but in a bureaucracy like ours, unless someone
is keeping an eye on things, the answers get lost pretty quickly.
The Administration was headed in the right direction when Tom Ridge
was sworn in as the first director of the Office of Homeland Security.
Director Ridge was charged with developing and coordinating a
comprehensive national strategy to strengthen protections against
terrorist threats or attacks in the United States.
Everyone has tremendous respect for Tom Ridge, but he needs the
power to carry out his mandate: protecting the American people. If OHS
is meant to be more of a policymaking agency, then it needs to acquire
the appropriate authority and be subject to Congressional oversight.
OHS needs to be able to prod the different Federal agencies into
changing their management decisions and remove the blinders that stop
agencies from thinking outside their own parameters.
Each agency and bureau needs to think beyond its own functions,
beyond its own databases, and work to connect to other departments.
It's very hard to do this on your own. That's why we need an agency
who's responsible for making sure it happens.
Various proposals have been laid out for how this entity should be
structured and I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today on
what they think.
But whatever form it takes, I strongly believe that we need to
empower one agency, one entity, to coordinate information-sharing
between and among the different Federal law enforcement and
intelligence agencies for the purposes of homeland defense.
Having an agency that coordinates information from different
agencies is the first problem. Having the technology to help them do so
is the second.
I've been told that the technology exists to vastly improve our
agencies' databases so that the appropriate officials can access
information in real time both within their own agencies and with other
Federal, State, and local agencies. Before the recess, I introduced the
idea of a supercomputer to coordinate Federal law enforcement
intelligence-gathering activities. While we would have to address the
obvious privacy concerns in developing an idea such as this one, it's
not beyond the pale. We might need three or four of these computers,
each one for a separate security purpose.
In a recent interview, Larry Ellison of Oracle blamed a lot of our
security problems on fragmented data. ``We knew that Mohammed Atta was
wanted,'' he said. ``We just didn't check the right database when he
came into the country.''
For the most part, we have the right information. We know who to go
after. We just keep stumbling into our own bureaucracy. About 6 weeks
ago, I requested a complete list of the unclassified information
databases used for law enforcement and intelligence purposes from 10
different Federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
After making follow-up call after follow-up call, I received the
final lists only yesterday. What does this say about our organizational
capabilities?
I've been told that our intelligence community is light years ahead
of our law enforcement community in terms of the organization of
information-sharing and its technology. Everyone has to be brought up
to speed. Intelligence gathering doesn't help if we don't have the law
enforcement capabilities to deal with the information.
Finally, we have to look at the culture in our Federal agencies and
put a stop to the stupid rivalries that get in the way of protecting
our country.
It's a well known fact that cultural differences between the
different law enforcement and intelligence agencies hinder proper
information sharing. The CIA doesn't want to share with the FBI, the
FBI doesn't want to share with INS. My message to all of them is this:
grow up. This isn't about turf wars between Federal agencies. It's
about preventing terrorists from murdering innocent civilians. If you
can't see that, then you need to take a good, hard look and figure it
out.
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today, from both
inside and outside the Government. Together, we can repair our defenses
and make our Nation a safer one.
Chairman Schumer. Now let me call on my colleague and
friend, Senator Sessions.
STATEMENT OF HON. JEFF SESSIONS,
A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF ALABAMA
Senator Sessions. Thank you, Senator Schumer, and thank you
for your courtesy in working with us on putting this hearing
together. We do not always work as well as we should in the
Senate sometimes, but you have always been extremely courteous
and open about what the purposes of a hearing would be and what
you hoped to accomplish.
I believe it is an important issue. How we go about making
sure that we have the right kind of unified information-sharing
system is a critically important issue.
I have believed for some time that we have a number of
problems there. DEA can do certain things. They do not input
their intelligence information, but if there is a warrant or an
arrest warrant for someone, they will flag it so that if that
person is ever arrested, at least they would call the Drug
Enforcement Administration, then they would know that this
person has been arrested, and they would not have to share
their most sensitive intelligence information on the NCIC or
some other system.
I believe we have to utilize the NCIC more. We have some
600,000-plus State and local law enforcement officers, and, for
example, 12,000 FBI agents. So not to enlist them in this
effort is a colossal error. They have got to be. They are out
there every day making arrests, making stops for people. And it
is just a tragedy if they make an arrest of a seriously wanted
individual, to not know it and release them.
We have systems today that a person who has been stopped,
you can put their thumb or finger on a machine, and it would
tell their criminal history from the police officer's car. It
is amazing.
So we have some capabilities here that we need to make sure
that we are utilizing fully. I look forward to asking some
questions about how our computer data systems are working, how
they actually work today, because I am not sure I fully
understand it. But there are gaps, and it is a good thing to
talk about.
With regard to the homeland security organization, that is
a matter of great complexity and importance. How we go about
that, I do not know. I am not convinced we need to create a
large, permanent Cabinet-level or even semi-Cabinet-level
agency at this point. But we are going to have to decide how to
do that, how we can improve our homeland security, so it will
be good to talk about those issues, too.
Mr. Chairman, thank you.
Chairman Schumer. Thank you, Senator Sessions.
I want to just repay the compliment. We are from different
parts of the country. We are different ideologically. But we
work together well, and it is a tribute to Jeff. He is
straightforward and fair, and I very much appreciate that all
the time.
Now let's call on our witnesses and try to get right to the
point here. I am going to ask each of the witnesses to really--
their entire statements will be read into the record--but each
witness to try and limit the testimony to 5 minutes and get to
the point, so we can ask questions, because I think we are
going to have a vote at 10 o'clock. As I say, we have some
plane schedules from some of our future witnesses to catch. We
could not put them on first, because the protocol is always
that you guys go first. So I just ask your cooperation.
So let me introduce all three witnesses, and then we will
have each of them testify.
Mr. Vance Hitch is the CIO, the Chief Information Officer,
for the Department of Justice. He was appointed by Attorney
General Ashcroft in March. He is leading the development of an
IT, information technology, strategic plan that provides
direction for the Department of Justice's future IT
investments. Before coming to DoJ, Mr. Hitch was a senior
partner with Accenture, where he developed the IT strategic
plan for the State of Maryland, comprehensive reengineering and
automation of the city of Philadelphia's records. He has worked
with other agencies, such as the Department of State, the NSA,
the CIA, and the DoD, to name a few initials, and multiple
State and local governments.
Mr. Robert Jordan, our second witness, heads the
information sharing task force for the FBI. He is the section
chief in the Government and Civil Rights section. He is a 22-
year-old veteran of the FBI and was most recently in Newark,
New Jersey, where he supervised the white-collar crime and
corruption program for that entire State. Before that, he was a
supervisory special agent in San Diego, where he initiated a
large-scale judicial corruption case.
Our third witness is Mr. Scott Hastings. He is the
associate commissioner of the Office of Information Resource
Management and the deputy chief information officer of the INS.
As the associate commissioner, Mr. Hastings is responsible for
the service's information technology programs, including all
established ADP functions, telecommunications, and electronic
enforcement technology programs.
He has considerable experience with outsourcing of
government operations. In his current position, he is examining
the role of Federal information technology organizations and
their future configurations and structure.
Prior to this position, he was the assistant commissioner
for the Office of Record Services at the INS, during which time
he created a national records facility and centralized
operation for holdings in excess of 25 million active files.
So you can see all three gentlemen are very accomplished in
this field and in the government. We are lucky to have all
three of you. Each of your statements will be read into the
record. I am going to try to stick to the 5 minutes.
Mr. Hitch, you may proceed.
STATEMENT OF VANCE HITCH, CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER, DEPARTMENT
OF JUSTICE, WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Hitch. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee, I am pleased
to appear before you today to discuss information sharing, as
you requested. I will take just a few minutes to briefly
summarize my prepared statement.
Last month, the Attorney General appointed me as the chief
information officer of the Department of Justice. In announcing
my appointment, the Attorney General stated: A critical element
in our battle against the terrorist threat is the effective use
of information technology to share information across law
enforcement.
To pursue this mission, my mandate, I believe, is very
clear: Upgrade the department's information technology program
to better enable core mission accomplishment and use
information technology as a tool for collaboration among the
Justice components and between Justice and other Federal
agencies, as well as Federal, State and local law enforcement.
Improving and expanding the department's use of information
technology is a key component of the Attorney General's wartime
reorganization of the department, which he announced last
November 8. Just last week, the Attorney General ordered the
Justice components to take further actions to institutionalize
the department's ongoing efforts to coordinate information
relating to terrorism.
Specifically, he asked for four things. First, expand the
information about known or suspected terrorists in existing law
enforcement databases, such as the FBI's National Crime
Information Center, or NCIC, the Department of State's TIPOFF
system, and the Customs Service's Interagency Border Inspection
System or IBIS. Number two, establish procedures to obtain on a
regular basis identifying information on terrorists known to
other countries. Three, establish a secure system for sharing
information with State and local agencies. And four,
standardize procedures for sharing sensitive information and
implementing the information sharing provisions of the U.S.
Patriot Act.
But even prior to 9/11, the department was involved in
several efforts to improve information sharing. For example,
the El Paso Intelligence Center, or EPIC, is an interagency
center that provides tactical drug intelligence to Federal,
State and local users. A telephone call, fax or teletype
provides the requester real-time information access to EPIC
from many Federal databases and EPIC's own internal system. The
IDENT/IAFIS project is integrating the INS's IDENT system with
the FBI's IAFIS fingerprint database. The integration project
will increase the apprehension and effective prosecution of
criminal aliens. Finally, the JABS, or the Joint Automated
Booking System, is streamlining the identification and booking
of persons in Federal custody. JABS enables the department's
law enforcement components to share arrest information
electronically and update the FBI's crime master file in a
real-time mode.
In direct response to the deadly attacks on the World Trade
Center and the Pentagon, the President directed the department
also to create a foreign terrorist tracking task force, or
FTTTF, a multi-agency group that leverages expertise,
information, and technology to identify, locate, remove or deny
entry to foreign terrorists and their supporters.
Among the participating agencies are the CIA, the INS, FBI,
State, Customs, Social Security and many members of the
intelligence community.
The President also directed that the Attorney General and
the Director of Central Intelligence ensure to the maximum
extent permitted by law that the task force has access to all
available information necessary to perform its mission. The
task force is gathering and analyzing data contributed by
participating agencies, using advanced techniques to mine the
data, establish patterns, and calculate risk parameters. The
results of these analyses are provided to the relevant agencies
for appropriate enforcement action.
Although the task force is still in the early stages of its
work, it offers an especially promising model for information
sharing and collaboration associated with terrorism.
Despite these efforts, it is clear that more needs to be
done. We must fundamentally rethink how information systems are
designed, developed, and managed, so that information
technology fosters rather than hinders collaboration.
This really means creating a Department of Justice
information architecture, as well as infrastructure and the
management approach that promotes both information sharing, as
well as information security at the same time.
I am confident that the organizational and cultural
roadblocks to information sharing are being remedied. We know
that to succeed we must work together. Our long-term goal and
one that technology can help make a reality is that the
Department of Justice and members of the law enforcement
community, whether State, Federal or local, be able to
communicate and collaborate with one another fully, easily, and
securely.
One of the Attorney General's top 10 management goals,
which he announced in his initial reorganization letter, and
one of his initial assignments to me, is the development of a
comprehensive information technology plan for the department.
We are working on this plan as we speak and expect to have it
completed within the next several months.
Among the major goals of this plan are removing any
technical barriers to information sharing, building a
department-wide security infrastructure, and developing an
enterprise architecture that ensures secure access to data by
all authorized users, and promotes sharing and collaboration
across organizational lines.
I can assure this Subcommittee that the Department of
Justice is committed to moving away from the stovepipe systems
and overcoming unnecessary obstacles to information sharing,
and working closely with the Office of Homeland Security, the
Federal agencies and others, to fully and securely share
sensitive law enforcement information.
Again, thank you for the opportunity to discuss this matter
of critical importance to the Justice Department and to all law
enforcement. I would be pleased to respond to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hitch follows:]
Statement Vance Hitch, Chief Information Officer, Justice Management
Division, United States Department of Justice
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, I am pleased to appear
before you today to discuss information sharing. I am both honored and
grateful for this opportunity.
Last month, the Attorney General appointed me Chief Information
Officer (CIO) for the Department of Justice. In announcing my
appointment, the Attorney General stated: ``A critical element in our
battle against the terrorist threat is the effective use of information
technology to share information across law enforcement.'' To pursue
this mission, my mandate is clear: upgrade the Department's information
technology program to better enable core mission accomplishment, and
use information technology as a tool for collaboration among Justice
components, between Justice and other Federal agencies, and among
Federal, State, and local law enforcement.
In the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks, it is clear
that information sharing is critical to our Nation's safety. The
Attorney General recognizes clearly that access to accurate and timely
information is crucial to supporting the Department's critical law
enforcement responsibilities, and especially in protecting against acts
and threats of terrorism. Improving and expanding the Department's use
of information technology are key components of the Attorney General's
wartime reorganization of the Department, announced on November 8,
2001.
Just last week, the Attorney General directed key Justice
components to take further actions to institutionalize the Department's
ongoing efforts to coordinate information relating to terrorism.
Specifically, he ordered the investigating components to establish
procedures to provide, on a regular basis and in electronic format, the
names, photographs and other identifying data of all known or suspected
terrorists for inclusion in the State Department's TIPOFF system, the
FBI's National Crime Information Center (NCIC), and the Customs
Service's Interagency Border Inspection System (IBIS). He also ordered
the Assistant Attorney General for Legal Policy to work with the
components to draft for his consideration procedures, guidelines, and
regulations to implement the information sharing provisions of the USA
PATRIOT Act.
Historically, information systems have been developed and
implemented to meet the particular business needs of a specific
component organization. The result, as you know all too well, is a
number of legacy stovepipe systems that impede cross component
information sharing. However, even before 9/11, the Department was
involved in several efforts to improve sharing or to consolidate
systems. For example:
El Paso Intelligence Center (EPIC). The Department of
Justice established the El Paso Intelligence Center (EPIC) in 1974,
staffed by representatives of the INS, the Customs Service, and the
DEA, to provide a common information resource on drug movement and
immigration violations. Today, EPIC has grown to include 15 Federal
agencies, the Texas Department of Public Safety, and the Texas Air
National Guard. In addition, EPIC maintains information sharing
agreements with other Federal law enforcement agencies, the Royal
Canadian Mounted Police and each of the 50 States and serves law
enforcement agencies throughout the western hemisphere. A telephone
call, fax, or teletype from any of these agencies provides the
requestor real-time information accessed through EPIC from many
different Federal data bases, plus EPIC's own internal database.
IDENT/IAFIS. The IDENT/IAFIS project was established to
integrate the INS IDENT system with the FBI's IAFIS. The integration
project will directly enhance the Department's ability to meet its
mission through increased apprehension and effective prosecution of
criminal aliens. It is a major cross-cutting initiative and will
provide improved INS identification services to determine whether a
person they apprehend is the subject of a posted Want or Warrant or has
a record in the FBI's Criminal Master File. Similarly, it will provide
law enforcement agencies with all relevant immigration information as
part of a criminal history response from a single FBI.
Joint Automated Booking System (JABS). JABS is another
major cross-cutting initiative involving the Bureau of Prisons, the
U.S. Marshals Service, the INS, the FBI, and the DEA. JABS streamlines
the identification and processing of Federal offenders by providing the
means to electronically collect, store, and transmit photographic,
fingerprint, and biographical data.
More recently, and in direct response to the deadly attacks on the
World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the President directed the
Department to create a Foreign Terrorist Tracking Task Force (FTTTF).
This is a multi-agency Task Force that combines agency expertise,
information and advanced technologies to identify, locate, and remove
or deny entry to foreign terrorists and their supporters. There are
several Federal agencies that are already participating (e.g., the FBI,
the INS, the State Department, the Customs Service, the Social Security
Administration, and elements of the Intelligence Community). These
agencies are joint participants with a common mission of neutralizing
the threat of terrorist aliens.
The President also directed that the Attorney General and the
Director of Central Intelligence ``ensure, to the maximum extent
permitted by law, that the Task Force has access to all available
information necessary to perform its mission.'' The Task Force is both
gathering and analyzing data contributed by participating agencies,
using advanced methods to mine the data, establish patterns, and
calculate risk parameters. Results of these analyses are provided to
the relevant agencies for appropriate enforcement action. Although the
Task Force is still in the early stages of its work, it offers an
especially promising model for information sharing and collaboration.
Despite these efforts, it is clear that more needs to be done. To
meet the new threats and challenges we face today, we must
fundamentally rethink how information systems are designed, developed
and managed so that IT fosters, rather than hinders, collaboration.
This means creating a DoJ information architecture, infrastructure, and
management approach that promote both information sharing and
information security.
It is important that we move forward on both the sharing and
security fronts simultaneously. Sharing information depends in no small
measure on our ability to assure that the information will be protected
from unauthorized disclosure. A primary obstacle to sharing has been,
and remains, concerns about the security of the information once it is
outside the control of the agency that ``owns'' it.
The Department has a long ways to go, but I am confident we are
headed in the right direction. I am convinced that organizational and
cultural roadblocks to information sharing are being remedied. In part,
this is because of executive branch and Congressional leadership; in
part, it is because of the sheer magnitude and complexity of the
threat. We know that to succeed we must work together. Our long-term
goal--and one that technology can help make a reality--is that the
Department of Justice and all members of the law enforcement community,
whether Federal, State, or local, be able to communicate and
collaborate with one another fully, easily, and securely.
One of the Attorney General's top ten management goals, and one of
his initial assignments to me, is the development of a comprehensive
Information Technology Plan for the Department. We are working on this
Plan and expect to complete it within the next month. However, let me
briefly outline the Plan's major themes and directions:
Information Sharing
There are three key technical barriers to information sharing
within the Department of Justice: (1) insufficiently modernized office
automation systems; (2) inadequate networking; and (3) applications and
data stores that cannot be accessed by other components or agencies.
Overcoming these barriers is a long-term effort, but progress has and
is being made. For example, the components are in various stages of
updating their office automation and networking infrastructures and, as
mentioned earlier, there have been some, albeit limited, efforts to
share information and integrate systems.
Critical areas in support of information sharing to be addressed in
the plan include:
Upgrading our telecommunications infrastructure to improve
cross component access to intranet sites and other data stores, meet
projected demands for bandwidth, and ensure wireless and remote access
to the DoJ network;
Accelerating the completion of component office automation
upgrades; and
Modernizing access methods, such as through Web-like
interfaces, collaboration platforms, and systems consolidation.
I want to elaborate on the last point. Of great concern to this
Committee is whether agencies are sharing information related to
foreign nationals who want to enter this country, or are already here,
and who may be threats to national security. One of the difficulties is
that the INS has an array of heterogeneous systems that does not
provide a full and complete picture of a foreign national's travel to
and from the United States or critical events during his or her period
of stay. For this reason, the Department is exploring with the Office
of Homeland Security and affected agencies the creation of a
consolidated database that would be organized by person rather than
immigration event and would be accessible to all parties, including the
State Department and the Customs Service.
Information Security
Information systems must be protected from inadvertent or
deliberate disclosure of sensitive information to unauthorized users,
from attacks on the infrastructure that deny services, and from
attempts to alter or otherwise falsify information. Securing our
information systems has rightfully become the focus of increasing
scrutiny by the Congress and others.
We need to improve information security by building a long-term
departmentwide security infrastructure that will ensure that
information systems are secure from day one, rather than requiring
continuous patches and fixes. In the meantime, we will take two
immediate steps:
First, we need to make sure that existing systems are as
well protected as they should be by identifying vulnerabilities and
taking corrective action. The Department is carefully monitoring and
tracking component progress in this regard.
Second, we need to build infrastructure-based
capabilities, such as public key infrastructure, available for use
throughout DoJ and scalable to the broader law enforcement and judicial
communities.
IT Planning and Management
We also intend to strengthen the way we plan for and manage our IT
investments. Here again, progress has been made but more work is
needed. Among my priorities will be developing an enterprise
architecture that is linked to investment management and provides a
foundation for ensuring that IT systems meet mission requirements,
identifies redundancies and opportunities for consolidation, and
ensures cross component sharing of common assets, services, and
solutions. It will be an architecture that ensures secure access to
data by all authorized users and promotes sharing and collaboration
across organizational lines. Relatedly, I will be emphasizing the
development of Departmentwide standards and policies, as well as
stronger oversight of priority initiatives.
This is an ambitious agenda, one that will take time, resources,
and cooperation to implement fully. But I can assure this Committee
that the Department of Justice is committed to moving away from
stovepipe information systems, overcoming unnecessary obstacles to
information sharing, and working closely with the Office of Homeland
Security, Federal agencies, and others to fully and securely share
sensitive law enforcement. We simply cannot afford to do otherwise.
Again, thank you for the opportunity to discuss this matter of
critical importance to the Justice Department, and to all law
enforcement. I would be pleased to respond to your questions at this
time.
Chairman Schumer. Thank you, Mr. Hitch.
Mr. Jordan.
STATEMENT OF ROBERT J. JORDAN, CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIVE DIVISION,
FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION, WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Jordan. Thank you. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and
Senator Sessions.
My name is Bob Jordan and I serve as the head of the FBI's
information sharing task force. With me today is Gene O'Leary,
acting Assistant Director of the FBI's Information Resources
Division, and Ken Ritchhart, Chief of the Data/Information
Management Section of IRD.
We welcome this opportunity to meet with you today about
the status of the FBI's information sharing initiatives within
the bureau and with other government agencies for homeland
defense purposes.
The FBI is an organization in change. Not only are we
structurally different, but in very fundamental ways, Director
Mueller has revamped our approaches to counterterrorism and
prevention.
Since 9/11, we have seen massive shifts in our resource
deployments. Our missions and priorities are being redefined to
better reflect the post-9/11 realities. As an agency, we are
committed to devoting whatever resources are necessary to meet
our prevention mission and continue to sustain a dramatically
enhanced worldwide counterterrorism effort.
A substantial component of this approach is information
sharing, not only at the Federal level, but also within the
entire law enforcement and intelligence communities.
Over the last several years, much has improved, but this
seemingly simple issue is actually a complex myriad of
technology, legal, policy, and cultural issues. Since the
tragic events of 9/11, this single issue which is critical to
public safety is receiving the sustained high-level attention
necessary to ensure that everything that can be done on every
facet of the issue is being done.
In that regard, I am happy to say that the spirit of
collaboration and willingness to exchange data has never been
stronger or more pronounced than it is today. Many of the legal
and policy impediments that kept us from more fully exchanging
information in the past have been or are now being changed.
The Patriot Act has greatly improved our ability to
exchange data with the intelligence community and across law
enforcement. In addition, the Attorney General's recent
directive to increase the coordination and sharing of
information between the Department of Justice, the FBI, INS,
the Marshals Service and the Foreign Terrorist Tracking Task
Force on terrorist matters, and to establish secure means of
working with State and local officials, are major milestones in
improving our information-sharing and collaboration efforts.
Equally important, the difficult technology challenges we
all face are on top of everybody's priority list. This is
especially so at the FBI. Under Director Mueller's leadership,
the FBI on every front is hard at work, carrying out the
Attorney General's information-sharing directive.
Within the FBI, Director Mueller has personally taken on
the challenge of improving information sharing and has directed
FBI executive management to develop every means necessary to
share as much information as possible with other agencies, as
well as State and local law enforcement. Years of experience
have demonstrated that joint terrorism task forces, our JTTFs,
have proven to be one of the most effective methods of unifying
Federal, State and local law enforcement efforts to prevent and
investigate terrorist activity by ensuring that all levels of
law enforcement are fully benefiting from the information
possessed by each.
There are currently 47 JTTFs. We are working expeditiously
to establish JTTFs in each of the FBI's 56 field offices. In
1996, there were only 11 of these task forces. The creation of
21 new JTTFs this year is resulting in an expanded level of
interaction and cooperation between the FBI and their Federal,
State and local counterparts, as well as an enhanced flow of
information between the participating law enforcement agencies.
Among the full-time Federal participants on JTTFs are the
INS, the Marshals Service, Secret Service, the FAA, the Customs
Service, ATF, the State Department, Postal Inspection Service,
IRS, and the U.S. Park Police. State and local agencies are
heavily represented.
The FBI has a long tradition of exchanging unclassified
information with Federal, State and local law enforcement
agencies on wants and warrants, fingerprint identification,
forensic information, and watch lists. The last few years has
seen dramatic increases in the exchanges of specific case-
related information due in large part to the proliferation of
task forces. Now we are improving our sharing of classified
information, again through such mechanisms as the JTTFs.
Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, FBI
headquarters compiled what became known as the Project Lookout
Watch List. The project was successful in identifying a number
of individuals potentially connected to the PENTTBOM
investigation. Due to the success of this effort and in
recognition of the need to maintain a centralized repository of
names in the investigative interests related to terrorism
investigations, Director Mueller instructed the establishment
of a permanent terrorism watch list, TWL, to serve as the FBI's
single integrated listing of individuals of investigative
interest that will be accessible throughout the law enforcement
intelligence communities.
We anticipate the full implementation of the TWL within the
next 60 to 90 days, replacing the stopgap system now resident
in NCIC. The TWL will consist of a compendium of names based on
information identified through FBI and JTTF investigations,
U.S. intelligence community reporting, and Department of
Defense intelligence gathering, as well as information provided
by cooperating foreign governments.
Director Mueller has undertaken several other initiatives
that either directly or indirectly enhance the FBI's
information sharing capacity. All of these efforts are designed
around the recognition that post-9/11, the FBI has adopted both
a new focus and priorities that recognize the substantial
investment being made in prevention.
A few examples include:
Director Mueller has recently named Louis Quijas, currently
the Chief of Police of High Point, North Carolina, to be the
FBI Assistant Director for Law Enforcement Coordination.
An Office of Intelligence is now part of the FBI's
organizational structure.
The FBI has undertaken a major recruiting and hiring
initiative to bring into the FBI private sector IT experts who
can greatly assist in designing and managing our sizeable IT
projects recently funded by Congress.
The FBI's future ability to deter and prevent crimes
requires the use of current and relevant IT. We have several
critical initiatives underway to upgrade our IT infrastructure
and investigative applications, such as Trilogy program, data
warehousing and data mining, and our information assurance
initiative.
Funding these programs is essential to providing our
investigators and analysts with improved IT resources and tools
to support criminal and national security investigations,
enabling improved and more expeditious data sharing and active
collaboration.
That concludes my prepared remarks, Mr. Chairman. I will be
happy to respond to any questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Jordan follows:]
Statement of Robert J. Jordan, Federal Bureau of Investigation
Good morning, Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee. My name
is Bob Jordan and I serve as the head of the FBI's Information Sharing
Task Force. With me today is Gene O'Leary, Acting Assistant Director of
the FBI's Information Resources Division (IRD) and Ken Ritchhart, Chief
of the Data/Information Management Section of IRD. We welcome this
opportunity to meet with you today about the status of the FBI's
information sharing initiatives within the Bureau and with other
Government agencies for homeland defense purposes.
The FBI is an organization in change. Not only are we structurally
different but, in very fundamental ways, Director Mueller has revamped
our approaches to counterterrorism and prevention. Since 9/11, we have
seen massive shifts in our resource deployments. Our missions and
priorities are being redefined to better reflect the post-9/11
realities. As an agency, we are committed to devoting whatever
resources are necessary to meet our prevention mission and continue to
sustain a dramatically enhanced worldwide counterterrorism effort. A
substantial component of this approach is information sharing, not only
at the Federal level but also within the entire law enforcement and
intelligence communities: Over the last several years much has
improved, but this seemingly simple issue is actually a complex myriad
of technology, legal, policy and cultural issues. Since the tragic
events of September 11, this single issue, which is critical to public
safety, is receiving the sustained, high-level attention necessary to
ensure everything that can be done on every facet of the issue is being
done.
In that regard, I am happy to say that the spirit of collaboration
and willingness to exchange data has never been stronger or more
pronounced than it is today. Many of the legal and policy impediments
that kept us from more fully exchanging information in the past have
been or are now being changed. The USA Patriot Act (Pub. L. 107-56) has
greatly improved our ability to exchange data with the intelligence
community and across law enforcement. In addition, the Attorney
General's recent directive to increase the coordination and sharing of
information between the DoJ, the FBI, the INS, the USMS, and the
Foreign Terrorist Tracking Task Force (FTTTF) on terrorist matters and
to establish secure means of working with State and local officials are
major milestones in improving our information sharing and collaboration
efforts. Equally important, the difficult technology challenges we all
face are on the top of everyone's priority list. This is especially so
at the FBI. Under Director Mueller's leadership, the FBI, on every
front, is hard at work carrying out the Attorney General's information-
sharing directive.
Joint Terrorism Task Forces
Within the FBI, Director Mueller has personally taken on the
challenge of improving information sharing and has directed FBI
executive management to develop every means necessary to share as much
information as possible with other agencies as well as with State and
local law enforcement. Years of experience have demonstrated that Joint
Terrorism Task Forces, JTTFs, have proven to be one of the most
effective methods of unifying Federal, State and local law enforcement
efforts to prevent and investigate terrorist activity by ensuring that
all levels of law enforcement are fully benefiting from the information
possessed by each.
There are currently 47 JTTFs. We are working expeditiously to
establish JTTFs in each of the FBI's 56 field offices. In 1996, there
were only 11 of these task forces. The creation of 21 new JTTFs this
year is resulting in an expanded level of interaction and cooperation
between FBI Special Agents and their Federal, State and local
counterparts, as well as an enhanced flow of information between the
participating law enforcement agencies.
Among the full-time Federal participants on JTTFs are the INS, the
Marshal's Service, the Secret Service, the FAA, the Customs Service,
the ATF, the State Department, the Postal Inspection Service, the IRS,
and the U.S. Park Police. State and local agencies are heavily
represented.
In addition to the JTTFs, the Regional Terrorism Task Force (RTTF)
initiative serves as a viable means of accomplishing the benefits
associated with information sharing without establishing a full-time
JTTF. FBI Special Agents assigned to counterterrorism matters meet with
their Federal, State and local counterparts in designated alternating
locations on a semi-annual basis for common training, discussion of
investigations, and to share and discuss intelligence. The design of
this non-traditional terrorism task force provides the necessary
mechanism and structure to direct counterterrorism resources toward
localized terrorism problems within the United States. There are
currently six RTTFs: the Inland Northwest, the South Central, the
Southeastern, the Northeast Border, the Deep South and the Southwest
RTTFs.
The FBI has a long tradition of exchanging unclassified information
with Federal, State and local law enforcement agencies on wants and
warrants, fingerprint identification, forensic information and watch
lists. The last few years have seen dramatic increases in the exchange
of specific case-related information due, in large part, to the
proliferation of task forces. Now, we are improving our sharing of
classified information again through such mechanisms as the JTTFs.
Terrorism Watch List
Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, FBI
Headquarters compiled what became known as the ``Project Lookout Watch
List.'' The project was successful in identifying a number of
individuals potentially connected to the PENTTBOM investigation. Due to
the success of this effort and in recognition of the need to maintain a
centralized repository of names of investigative interest related to
terrorism investigations, Director Mueller instructed the establishment
of a permanent Terrorism Watch List (TWL) to serve as the FBI's single,
integrated listing of individuals of investigative interest that will
be accessible throughout the law enforcement and intelligence
communities. We anticipate the full implementation of the TWL within
the next 60 to 90 days, replacing the stop-gap system now resident in
NCIC. The TWL will consist of a compendium of names based on
information identified through FBI and JTTF investigations, U.S.
Intelligence Community reporting, and Department of Defense
intelligence gathering, as well as information provided by cooperating
foreign governments.
The TWL will be designed to assist both the intelligence and the
law enforcement communities in their investigations of terrorist
groups/individuals and, equally important, to alert officers or agents
should a person of interest in a terrorism matter be encountered by
another agency. TWL staff will coordinate with the FBI's Criminal
Justice Information Services (CJIS) Division to ensure the utilization
of appropriate NCIC files. This capability will provide all State and
local law enforcement agencies ready access to this information.
Information in the TWL will also be shared with U.S. Government
agencies that operate comparable tracking systems. As I describe these
new databases and our plans for sharing them, please remember that the
FBI will by complying with the Privacy Act and the detailed regulations
that govern our law enforcement, counterterrorism, and
counterintelligence activities, which ensures proper protection for the
rights of Americans in the use of the databases.
The TWL will be divided into three distinct categories. The first
category will include the names of individuals for whom formal criminal
charges or indictments have been issued (e.g., the 22 individuals on
the Most Wanted Terrorist list). The second category will include the
names of individuals of investigative interest to the FBI.
The third category of the TWL will include the names of individuals
provided by the Intelligence Community and cooperating foreign
governments.
Other FBI Initiatives
We have recently developed an FBI-wide and DoJ-wide capability to
electronically share case information. Our Integrated Intelligence
Information Application (IIIA) database is another example of major
improvements in information sharing. It uses information derived from
many different sources including the Department of State and INS. IIIA
provides analytical support for Counterintelligence and
Counterterrorism programs. It is a real-time collection system that
houses over 33 million records. In the aftermath of 9/11 and PENTTBOM,
IIIA has been asked to provide electronic search support to units
within the FBI as well as to the critical FTTTF. To satisfy these
requests, multiple programs have been written to standardize incoming
data arriving in differing formats and to package the responses to
accommodate the requesters' needs.
Director Mueller has undertaken several other initiatives that
either directly or indirectly enhance the FBI's information sharing
capacity. All of these efforts are designed around the recognition that
post-9/11, the FBI has adopted both a new focus and priorities that
recognize the substantial investment being made in prevention. A few
examples include:
Director Mueller has named Louis Quijas, currently Chief
of Police of High Point, North Carolina, to be FBI Assistant Director
for Law Enforcement Coordination. Chief Quijas has as his single
mission fully exploiting State and local law enforcement support
through enhanced information sharing and ensuring that State and local
law enforcement have a strong voice within the FBI as we work on
terrorism, prevention and major investigations.
An Office of Intelligence is now part of the FBI's
organizational structure. This office has as part of its mission not
only to ensure the vigorous and fluid flow of information within the
FBI but also to ensure that intelligence goes elsewhere within the law
enforcement and intelligence communities in every instance when it is
appropriate to do so.
The FBI has undertaken a major recruiting and hiring
initiative to bring into the FBI private sector IT experts who can
greatly assist in designing and managing the sizable IT projects
recently funded by Congress. These projects, such as Trilogy, are vital
to any robust information sharing program.
A Records Management Division has been established, headed
by an outside records expert, to put in place the ``information
management'' policies and mechanisms critical to effective sharing
programs.
The FBI is detailing personnel to other agencies, and vice
versa, to ensure that information both is both shared and understood
within both agencies. These efforts are critical to programs like the
National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC), the Counterterrorism
Center at CIA, and others.
Information Security
One equity we must balance with our desire to share information as
freely as possible is the need for the security of information. As
recently detailed in Judge William Webster's report, we must keep in
mind that we are keepers of information that is highly classified and
controlled by ``need to know'' principles. Access to highly
confidential information will be in accordance with the FBI's broad,
new security policies. Access control mechanisms, such as
identification and authentication will provide accountability for those
individuals having a need to know restricted information. In addition,
audits of this access will be routinely conducted. The lives of agents,
informants and innocent victims often rest upon the safekeeping of
their information. The need for information security must be balanced
by the driving need of the criminal investigator to be able to follow
any and all avenues in an investigation.
The Webster Commission report accurately points out that the FBI's
information technology (IT) recapitalization effort, Trilogy, includes
funding for only the foundational elements of Information Assurance
(IA). At rollout, Trilogy will provide more security than the FBI's
current IT backbone. The goal, however, is to develop the IA Program to
be on par with other world-class information systems security efforts.
Significant coordination has taken place between the Trilogy Program
and personnel assigned to the IA Program to ensure that the Trilogy
security architecture will support the utilization of the future IA
technologies we plan to employ. So, while Trilogy and related
applications will give the FBI a vastly increased capability to use,
analyze, exploit and share information collected in investigations, it
will be designed and deployed in a manner that addresses the
shortcomings apparent in the Hanssen matter.
Challenges
Today, information sharing is technologically feasible. Advances in
information technology have made it possible to link the information
systems of agencies that are operating with different hardware and
software. The improvements in information sharing that are at the heart
of these initiatives, however, require that agencies participating in
integration initiatives come together and agree upon a governance
structure to manage decisionmaking in an integrated environment.
Federal, State and Local law enforcement must address the considerable
challenge of developing a formalized organizational framework within
which participating agencies will share responsibility for making and
executing overarching decisions on such issues as budgeting, hardware
and software purchases, and the development of policies, procedures,
and protocols that effect the operational integrity of the information
sharing system. Our systems were originally designed to comply with a
complex set of regulations restricting what can and cannot be shared
amongst Federal, State and local agencies. We are committed to
redesigning our systems and making whatever changes are necessary to
ensure the effective and efficient exchange of information within the
law enforcement community.
At the same time, we still need to further improve our ability to
share information between our own applications and our own multitude of
databases. Our Data Warehousing project will provide us with the
capability to finally combine information from all our applications
into a coherent whole and provide advanced data mining, analytical and
visualization tools. We are also working with the Office of Homeland
Security on improving horizontal information sharing, developing common
data standards, and improving collaboration capabilities.
The FBI's future ability to deter and prevent crimes requires the
use of current, and relevant IT. We have several critical initiatives
underway to upgrade the FBI IT infrastructure and investigative
applications such as the Trilogy Program; Data Warehousing & Data
Mining; our Collaboration Initiative; and our Information Assurance
initiative. Funding these programs is essential to provide our
investigators and analysts with improved IT resources and tools to
support criminal and national security investigations, enabling
improved and more expeditious data sharing and active collaboration.
That concludes my prepared remarks, Mr. Chairman. I will be happy
to respond to any questions you may have.
Chairman Schumer. Thank you, Mr. Jordan. I want to thank
both witnesses. I know you condensed your testimony.
Mr. Hastings. I presume you will do the same thing.
STATEMENT OF SCOTT O. HASTINGS, DEPUTY ASSOCIATE COMMISSIONER
FOR INFORMATION RESOURCES, IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION
SERVICE, WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Hastings. I will certainly do that.
I appreciate the opportunity to appear today to discuss
this issue. In any discussion about moving Federal agencies to
a more effective information-sharing environment, technical
solutions need to be only a part.
The Department of Justice approach and the approach of the
Office of Homeland Security are similar: build a solid planning
requirements base before identifying technical solutions, at
the same time implementing tactical interim successes that make
sense to support the immediate threats. Business needs and
objectives that may be expressed in enterprise architectures
must be established.
Following that process, decide the information that is
required by the operation and how to deliver it, identify
technology alternatives to deliver that information, create
utilities that support that process, and invest.
Finally, select, control, and manage those utilities, and
then create knowledge-management capability.
The INS is clearly one of the core agencies that requires
enhanced information-sharing capabilities. The data we collect
are crucial to the law enforcement and intelligence
communities, who are now integrating their functions to combat
the threat of terrorism. Consequently, we are deeply involved
in efforts to overcome the barriers to appropriate and secure
exchange of data, and equally important to convert that data to
useful information that supports clear operational objectives.
The Office of Homeland Security, in conjunction with OMB,
is overseeing initiatives that provide information sharing
between Federal agencies horizontally, and then promote
agencies vertically to State and local governments, as well as
selected private industries. INS is a working partner in those
efforts.
Attorney General Ashcroft has made the prevention of
terrorist activities an overriding priority in the Department
of Justice and its components. With this goal in mind, he
directed us to review and strengthen our policies and
procedures to ensure that information sharing and analysis and
coordination of activities with other Federal agencies, as well
as our State and local partners, to combat terrorism.
This mandate, coupled with new legislation, such as the USA
Patriot Act, has provided us with greater authority to share
information as appropriate. We are implementing technical
linkages as we speak with other Federal agencies to integrate
the data required to support the act.
We have also been directed by the Attorney General to step
up our efforts to coordinate information activities in the
common effort to prevent and disrupt terrorism, and we are full
participants in the departmental efforts to improve data
sharing.
Federal agencies maintain a number of databases that
provide real-time information to officials at U.S. diplomatic
posts abroad, offices at ports of entry, and the interior law
enforcement officials. We work closely with agencies to prevent
terrorists from entering the United States, to deny them entry
across our borders, and to detect and apprehend those already
in the country, and to gather intelligence on the plans and
activities of terrorist conspiracies.
We provide, in electronic format, biographic, biometric,
and associated data for inclusion in several external agency
databases to better identify these terrorists.
For many years, INS has taken steps to enhance the exchange
of information through greater cooperation amongst the law
enforcement community. An example of this is the law
enforcement support center, available 24 hours a day, 7 days a
week, to provide State law enforcement with data and
information from INS databases. We also verify immigration
status for State and local benefit granting agencies, some
employers and some State drivers license bureaus.
Finally, we are working internationally to develop better
ways of sharing information that will support enforcement
intelligence operations. The U.S. government recently signed
agreements with the governments of Canada and Mexico to further
these initiatives.
I cannot overemphasize the commitment of INS and the other
Federal agencies to work together to achieve a more supportive
and comprehensive information support environment. In each of
these, we need to be sensitive to the legal limitations on
sharing information, security and privacy concerns, and who are
the appropriate users of the information.
With all the initiatives, there are no quick fixes,
technological or otherwise, to problems we face. We must work
with advanced technology to improve our systems. But technology
alone cannot solve our problems.
In order to leverage our resources and maximize our
capabilities, technology must be coupled with strong
intelligence information-gathering distribution systems. This
will require seamless cooperation amongst the agencies
involved. It is crucial we focus on the efforts exemplified by
DoJ, the Department of Justice, and the Homeland Security
Office that solidify the planning and administrative structures
that are required, while continuing to support the immediate
requirements levied every day by ongoing intelligence and
enforcement operations. In this way, the INS can help ensure a
more dependable outcome that takes advantage of the wealth of
technology solutions that already exist, but that may be
embedded within individual agencies. Without these structures,
we will be unable to interlace these solutions together in a
meaningful way.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hastings follows:]
Statement of Scott O. Hastings, Associate Commissioner for the Office
of Information Resources Management, U.S. Immigration & Naturalization
Service, Washington, D.C.
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, I appreciate the
opportunity to appear before you to discuss the important issue of how
technology and information can best support our efforts to reduce the
threat of foreign terrorist activity.
The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) is clearly one of
the core agencies that will require enhanced information sharing
capabilities. The data we collect are crucial to the law enforcement
and intelligence communities that are now integrating their functions
to combat the threat of terrorism. The INS will need to take advantage
of additional external sources of data to support our enforcement and
intelligence functions.
Consequently, we are involved deeply in efforts to overcome
barriers to the appropriate and secure exchange of data and, equally
important, to convert that data to useful information that supports
clear operational objectives. The Office of Homeland Security, in
conjunction with the Office of Management and Budget, is coordinating
agency initiatives that promote information sharing among Federal
agencies horizontally, and then from those agencies, vertically, to
State and local governments as well as selected private industries. INS
is a working partner in those efforts.
Attorney General Ashcroft has made the prevention of terrorist
activities an overriding priority of the Department of Justice and its
components. With this goal in mind, he directed us to review and
strengthen our policies and procedures to ensure information sharing
and analysis and coordination of activities with other Federal
agencies, as well as our State and local partners, to combat terrorism.
This mandate, coupled with new legislation such as the USA PATRIOT Act
of 2001, has provided us with greater authority to share information
with Federal officials to assist in the performance of their duties. We
are implementing the technical linkages with other Federal agencies to
integrate data required to support this Act.
The Attorney General has also directed Department of Justice
components to step up our efforts to coordinate information and
activities in the common effort to prevent and disrupt terrorism. We
are participating in Department efforts to improve data sharing.
Federal agencies maintain a number of databases that provide
realtime information to officials at U.S. diplomatic outposts abroad,
officers at ports-of-entry, and interior law enforcement officials
(e.g., the State Department's TIPOFF program). We work closely with
these agencies to prevent terrorists from entering the United States,
to deny them entry across our borders, to detect and apprehend those
already in the country, and to gather intelligence on the plans and
activities of terrorist conspiracies. We provide in electronic format
biographic, biometric, and associated data for inclusion in several
external agency databases to better identify suspected terrorists. For
example, through the Interagency Border Inspection System (IBIS), the
primary automated screening tool used by both the INS and U.S. Customs
Service at ports-of-entry, access is provided to many databases,
including the FBI National Crime Information Center (NCIC). NCIC is the
Nation's principal law enforcement automated information sharing tool.
It provides on-the-street access to information to over 650,000 U.S.
local, State, and Federal law enforcement officers.
Additionally, the INS works to share information through the
Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS) and
other appropriate law enforcement databases to assist in detecting and
locating foreign terrorists.
We have successfully integrated wants and warrants from the NCIC
and the FBI into our own IDENT system. Through this joint endeavor,
since August 15, 2001, we have identified a total of 891 individual
aliens at the border who were wanted on outstanding criminal charges.
With the expansion of IDENT to INS offices in the interior, we have
been better able to identify criminal aliens residing in the United
States.
On October 30, 2001, the President directed the Department of
Justice to establish the Foreign Terrorist Tracking Task Force (FTTTF).
The mission of the FTTTF is to keep foreign terrorists and their
supporters out of the United States by providing critical and timely
information to border control and interior enforcement agencies and
officials. To do so requires electronic access to large sets of data,
including the most sensitive material from law enforcement and
intelligence sources. The INS works closely with the FTTTF to discern
patterns and probabilities of terrorist activities and to ensure that
data is properly shared.
For many years, the INS has taken steps to enhance the exchange of
information through greater cooperation amongst the law enforcement
community. An example of this is the Law Enforcement Support Center
available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to provide State law
enforcement with data and information from INS databases. We also
verify immigration status for State and local benefit granting
agencies, some employers, and some State driver's license bureaus.
Finally, we are working internationally to develop better ways of
sharing information that will support enforcement and intelligence
operations. The U.S. Government recently signed agreements with the
governments of Canada and Mexico to further these initiatives.
I cannot over-emphasize the commitment of the INS and other Federal
agencies and other participants to work together to achieve a more
supportive and comprehensive information support environment.
In each of these data sharing initiatives we must be sensitive to
the Privacy Act and other relevant legal limitations on sharing
information. When making information available to other entities,
security, privacy concerns and appropriate user access are primary
considerations for us. We have created a standing reviewing body to
ensure all these issues are addressed with each type of data-sharing
request.
All of our efforts to better share data need to take place in a
sound planning and investment management process in order to succeed.
Prior to September 11, the INS was developing mid- to long-range plans
in response to growth in both its mission responsibilities and
information sharing. Specifically, the INS has long-term plans to guide
and align infrastructure and technology to accomplish this mission. The
INS has undertaken several major initiatives to improve the planning
and integration of its information technology environment, including an
INS Enterprise Architecture Plan, a technology architecture, strategic
information technology plans, and a 5-year records management plan. One
goal of these plans is to ensure enhanced data sharing that is secure,
accurate, and timely, and that meets the enterprise's operational
objectives, not individual and ``stove-piped'' business functions.
Other goals of these plans include:
Additional agent support equipment and technology enhancements and
expanded access to biometric identification systems, such as a mobile
IDENT system.
Implementation of automated access to the National Crime
Information Center Interstate Identification Index (NCIC III) through
the Advance Passenger Information System to enable primary inspectors
at ports-of-entry receiving Advance Passenger Information to identify,
prior to admission, aliens with criminal histories.
Improved system checks for the adjudication of applications at INS
Service Centers and District Offices.
Improved accessibility to all Department of State visa data and
photographs in electronic form at ports-of-entry so that visa
information will be available at the time of actual inspection.
Expanded implementation of alternative inspection systems to
facilitate admission of low-risk travelers while focusing on high-risk
travelers. Deployment of the Student Exchange Visitor Information
System, an Internet-based system that provides tracking and monitoring
functionality on non-immigrant students and exchange visitors.
Implementation of an entry and exit data system that will record the
arrivals and departures of foreign nationals visiting the United
States.
Continued cooperation with the State Department to replace old
border crossing cards with the new biometric border crossing card and
deploy card readers to our ports-of-entry.
Even with each of these initiatives, there is no quick fix,
technological or otherwise, to the problems we face. We must work with
advanced technology and improve our systems. But technology alone
cannot solve our problems. In order to leverage our resources and
maximize our capabilities, technology must be coupled with a strong
intelligence and information-gathering and distribution system. This
will require seamless cooperation among the many Federal agencies
involved.
The most compelling progress in this arena has been the
formalization of the planning and management processes needed to
achieve the necessary level of information sharing among Federal,
State, and local entities. These structures will bring discipline to
the development and application of technology and will ensure that the
INS defines what our operational objectives should be, identifies the
data and the data sources needed to support those objectives, and
applies the appropriate technology solutions to deliver that
information.
It is crucial that we focus on the efforts exemplified by the
Department of Justice and the Homeland Security Office that solidify
the planning and administrative structure, while continuing to support
immediate requirements levied every day by ongoing intelligence and
enforcement operations. In this way, the INS will ensure a more
dependable outcome that takes advantage of the wealth of technology
solutions that already exist, but that may be embedded within
individual agencies. Without these structures, we will be unable to
interlace those solutions together in a meaningful way.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify before the Committee this
morning. I welcome your questions.
Chairman Schumer. Thank you, Mr. Hastings.
As you can probably see, we had a vote called. Senator
Sessions has gone to vote, so we do not have to interrupt,
because we know the deadlines.
So I am going to begin asking questions. The minute Senator
Sessions gets back, I will break my questioning. He will ask
questions. I will go vote, and then we will resume in that way.
And however Arlen wants to fit into this will be fine with
me in any way.
I guess the first question I have is a preliminary one. You
have all outlined some ambitious plans for information sharing
and all of that, which obviously requires more dollars in terms
of both hardware, machinery, computers, et cetera, as well as
more personnel.
First, how much would each of you estimate it will cost to
eventually do this over the period of years? I guess Mr. Hitch
would probably know this for all of Justice, and then just Mr.
Jordan and Mr. Hastings, in your respective agencies.
And second, is lack of money a problem at all? I would
presume it is not at this point in time.
Mr. Hitch.
Mr. Hitch. Yes, sir. Right now, we do not have definitive
estimates to respond to your question. However, I would say,
the way I have been talking about this to my counterparts in
Justice, is we need to view this as the Defense Department
would a new aircraft carrier. It is a big effort to implement
the kind of systems that are going to be necessary to protect
our citizens. The number is--
Chairman Schumer. It is in the billions, you would say?
Mr. Hitch. It is probably in the billions, yes.
Chairman Schumer. That is within the Justice Department.
Senator Specter. Mr. Chairman, could I just say a word?
Chairman Schumer. Please.
Senator Specter. I am going to be departing in a moment for
the vote, but I just wanted to thank you for scheduling this
hearing.
I believe the issue of homeland security is one of enormous
importance. It cuts across many of our Committee lines. It is
my hope that we will see some legislation in the field that
will strengthen the operation, make it a Cabinet officer.
And I think that a hearing like this is very constructive
toward finding out what we ought to be doing.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Schumer. Thank you, Senator Specter.
Do you expect that you will have all the dollars that you
need to do this? You have been told by the Attorney General or
others to make the best system and do not let finances get in
the way?
Mr. Hitch. At this point, finances have not gotten in the
way. I think the U.S. Patriot Act was really a landmark piece
of legislation in helping us along that way. It provided a lot
of seed money for a lot of things to get under way that we
currently have under way. I think ongoing support is going to
be necessary, but I think we have got enough to get us going in
the right direction, to do the best we can without regard to
that issue.
Chairman Schumer. Right.
Mr. Jordan, how much do you think it will cost and do you
have the resources you need to do what you need to do in the
FBI?
Mr. Jordan. We have a budget request for fiscal year 2003
in this area of approximately $411 million. With that, we would
have what we need.
Chairman Schumer. And has the Administration put that in
its budget?
Mr. Jordan. That is correct. It has.
Chairman Schumer. It will continue to be at about that
level over the next several years, by the way, Mr. Jordan.
Mr. Jordan. That is my understanding.
Chairman Schumer. Okay, Mr. Hastings.
Mr. Hastings. We received specific funding for specific
projects in the counterterrorism supplemental. We have a 2003
budget request, which I do not have the details in front of me,
but there are some large efforts that we have yet to put
dollars to. The exit-entry system alone will be a significant
investment, and it is really very difficult to predict at this
point.
I know that the department will be helping us orchestrate
and integrating these requests to ensure that we are not
duplicating efforts, and we are making the best use of the
funds from a departmental standpoint.
Chairman Schumer. Is yours in the hundreds of millions for
this year?
Mr. Hastings. I would say so.
Chairman Schumer. Yes, okay.
Well, Jeff is not here, and I think we have about a minute
or two left to vote. So what I am going to do is just call a
brief recess. I will run vote and come right back.
But if Senator Sessions comes, we will let him start his
questioning, and then I will resume mine when he finishes.
We are calling a short recess.
[Recess.]
Senator Sessions. If you do not mind, we will get started
again. Senator Schumer told me to go ahead and get started with
some questions that I might have.
I would just like to ask some fundamental questions that
sort of go to where we are in terms of information sharing.
My personal view is the National Crime Information Center,
the NCIC, is accessible by police officers in their vehicles
anywhere in America, by police departments and sheriff's
departments. It is secure in the sense that anybody that leaks
that information is subject to a criminal penalty. But it is
not secure, not greatly secure, in terms of the intelligence
community, I am sure, because so many thousands of people have
access to it and could obtain access to it in any police
department surreptitiously to run any name that they would like
to run.
So it has tremendous potential to help local law
enforcement be the eyes and ears and hands of our effort to
maintain security in our country, but it has some difficulties,
too.
Mr. Hastings, with regard to INS, let me ask you a few
simple questions. If an individual who comes here overstays his
visa or is otherwise declared to be illegally in the United
States, is that information made available to local law
enforcement through the NCIC? Is any of that information placed
in NCIC, which is the primary information center for law
enforcement throughout America?
Mr. Hastings. The information would be available through
our LESC, which is available 24 by 7 to law enforcement
communities. We can provide that on a case-by-base basis.
And we also have begun including absconder information,
where folks have gone through deportation proceedings and are
still known to be in the country.
Senator Sessions. Prior to September 11, that was not the
case. Is that correct?
Mr. Hastings. That is correct.
Senator Sessions. So prior to September 11, we did not have
any database accessible to local law enforcement to identify
people who they may be apprehending for some minor offense, but
that would tell them that person was an illegal entrant or
overstayer in the United States.
Mr. Hastings. By accessing the LESC, it would be the--
Senator Sessions. Now let's pursue the changes you have
made. What is the LESC?
Mr. Hastings. The Law Enforcement Support Center. I am
sorry for the acronym.
Senator Sessions. Is that available to a local police
officer?
Mr. Hastings. Yes, it is.
Senator Sessions. And is it, therefore, part of the NCIC?
Or does he have to do a double access?
Mr. Hastings. The LESC will access a multiplicity of data
sources to provide information that we have according to the
query that is generated by the local law enforcement.
Senator Sessions. Let me get that straight. I just want to
know what it is like for the police officer out there trying to
do his duty. He stops someone. Does that officer have to run
two different systems from his vehicle or from the police
station where he may have taken a person for some maybe minor
crime? Or will one access to the general NCIC kick out a hit
for that individual? Do you know?
Mr. Hastings. If he runs NCIC, and we have put information
such as the absconder in that database, he will have access to
that. He might want to make a further inquiry to determine
whether or not we have additional information on this
individual, in which case that is when he would contact our Law
Enforcement Support Center.
Senator Sessions. With regard to absconder information and
so forth, what if a person is eligible to stay in the country
one year and they overstay and they are here 18 months. Is that
going to be normally in your system under your current policy
today?
Mr. Hastings. In the NCIC?
Senator Sessions. Yes.
Mr. Hastings. Not at this point.
Senator Sessions. So who would go in that system, then? You
say you will put some of the absconders or others in there. How
do you determine who will go in the system made available to
local law enforcement?
Mr. Hastings. Sir, you are getting into an area--I am the
technologist, and I am really not able to give you the policy
decisions behind how we make the decisions. I know that
information is reviewed before it goes into the NCIC to make
sure it is appropriate to go there.
We can certainly follow up with a detailed explanation of
what types of information at this point we put in there and how
it is done, if I can defer that to a follow-up.
Senator Sessions. All right. That is very important to me.
Mr. Hastings. We will make sure you get that information.
Senator Sessions. What we have done in this country with
regard to illegal immigration, we have said the words, and we
have passed generalized statutes that deal with immigration.
But when it gets down to the grassroots level where it actually
succeeds or does not succeed, we have created roadblocks and
problems that have eviscerated the capability of enforcing our
statutes.
Well, I guess, Mr. Hastings, I will ask you. Maybe some of
the others would comment. What happens if a police officer in
Hagerstown stops a person that he identifies as being an
illegal alien, but has not violated any serious Federal crimes?
Do you know what that officer does, Mr. Hastings, with the
person he has apprehended, who he determines to be illegally
here?
Mr. Hastings. I suspect that will be a case-by-case
decision on their part.
Again, sir, I would want to defer to our operations and
investigations folks to give you the specifics on that.
Senator Sessions. That may not your area of responsibility.
Mr. Hitch, would you like to opine on that question?
Mr. Hitch. Sir, I would have to defer to the INS on exactly
how it works today. What I have been working on is the future
vision of how this would work. Certainly, our objective is to
do exactly what you are talking about, to have a tiered system
where that police officer would know exactly what the situation
for that person is. The top tier would be the 10 most-wanted
terrorists, but along the line there would be the people who
are on an overstay situation, with specific directions, action
codes to tell the police officer how to react to that
situation.
Senator Sessions. We are going to get to the bottom of that
question pretty soon.
Mr. Jordan, what is your view on it?
Mr. Jordan. Currently, right now, there is a stopgap system
in place, wherein absconder information can be accessed through
NCIC, and it is currently dependent on INS putting that
information into the absconder file.
Senator Sessions. Will the FBI accept any INS information
indicating illegal aliens and absconder information that they
wish to put in it? Or does the FBI refuse to accept--would have
to approve that? Or do you object to receiving such
information?
Mr. Jordan. My understanding is that absconder information,
where the person has been adjudged to be an absconder, that
that information we will enter, if it is provided to us by INS.
As I said in my opening statement, we have a terrorism
watch list, which is being integrated into NCIC. And it will be
fully implemented within this next 60 to 90 days, to bridge the
gap that I think you are making reference to.
Senator Sessions. Well, I just want the American people to
know something. What the American people need to know is that
all over America, when a police officer or sheriff's deputy
stops someone, unless they have some high degree of notoriety,
that is illegally in this country, they turn them loose. They
do not even bother to call INS, from what I understand, because
INS has no interest in it. They will not come and pick them up
and process them, because they say they are too busy.
And so we have these rules that people think are working,
but actually out there on the ground, they are not working.
So it makes a mockery, really, of the immigration laws in
America.
So let's go back. You say absconder information; that deals
with a circumstance, if I am not in error, in which a full
court hearing has been held and an individual has been declared
to be illegal and has been ordered to remove himself from the
country and fails to do so, but absconds and hides in the
United States.
Mr. Jordan. That is correct.
Senator Sessions. Those are very, very few. That would be
less than 1 percent of the people here illegally, would it not,
Mr. Jordan?
Mr. Jordan. I would not know the numbers, but it is
certainly a distinction between someone who just overstays and
someone adjudged to be an absconder.
Senator Sessions. Well, I think it is going to be
exceedingly small, probably less than one-tenth of 1 percent,
but I may be in error about that.
Overwhelmingly, the people that are here illegally have not
been taken to court and been officially declared to be illegal.
This is when they have contested it in some fashion or maybe
got in trouble and there was an official court hearing.
I have information, Mr. Hastings, that there are some
321,000 people who have been ordered deported, but only 2,000
names have been put in NCIC. What would you say about that?
Mr. Hastings. I am not sure of those statistics. I believe
that those cases are being reviewed. There are procedures that
need to be followed before we enter individuals into NCIC, to
make sure it is appropriate that they are there. Again, I will
include the exact statistics in the follow-up that I can give
you on where we stand in terms of how many have actually been
entered.
Senator Sessions. Well, that is the information I have.
Certainly, prior to September 11, that is what the
circumstances were, if not worse than that, which just
indicates to me that we are not serious about this.
There are people who say, well, we cannot do anything about
people who are here illegally. It is just hopeless. One reason
it is hopeless is because we are not taking the steps necessary
to see that we enforce the law.
To me, as a Federal prosecutor for 15 years enforcing the
law and prosecuting a number of immigration cases, America has
got to enforce the law fairly. It is just not right to have
somebody who patiently waits their turn to come into the United
States, and to have their slot, their spot, taken by somebody
who is here illegally and who cuts the corners and goes around
it.
So I just think that in the course of all this it will help
us in security. It will help us also just in maintaining the
rule of law in this country.
With regard to approval for a person, let's say from Iran,
who would like to come to the United States, what does the
American embassy in Iran, what kind of information do they have
as they evaluate whether or not that person is a potential good
person to trust to come into the country? Do they have access
to your computer system?
Mr. Hastings. They do not have direct access to our
computer systems. There are databases that they utilize--TIPOFF
is one--to inform the decision-making. We are working with them
to include, again, additional information and make that
available. We are working aggressively with a Department of
State initiative to establish a collaboration zone to enhance
the data sharing and information available to those decisions
made before these individuals reach our shores.
Senator Sessions. Well, what if an individual that has been
approved for admission into the United States from Iran, and I
just say that because there are some people in that country
that would be dangerous, although normally I think most
Iranians reject all terrorism and that kind of thing, but let's
just say some country that we know has an indigenous terrorist
network that perhaps may be trying to operate there illegally,
and that after they have been approved for entry into the
United States it is discovered by the consulate that they may
be connected to al Qaeda, what is done? Are they taking any
action to identify or apprehend that person?
Mr. Hastings. Is State Department taking any action?
Senator Sessions. Yes. Would they contact INS and say,
``The person that we approved for entry we now think may be
dangerous.''
Mr. Hastings. I cannot testify to specific steps the State
Department takes. I do know that information that is being
developed cooperatively between intelligence and enforcement
agencies is that there is an effort to include that in the
inspectional access, the systems that we use as the
inspections, to determine whether or not that information can
be communicated at the point of inspection. I am not sure what
the procedure is at State Department in a case like that.
Chairman Schumer. I just had a follow-up here, related to
Jeff's question, which I think is on the money.
Right now, and I would ask this of Mr. Hastings and Mr.
Hitch, right now if, say, the FBI Counterterrorism Bureau
suspects somebody of being a terrorist, and they would be on
this list that I think Mr. Jordan mentioned, what you called
TWL, and they apply for a visa in any country--they are a
foreign national--does that show up on the INS computers right
now?
Mr. Jordan.
Mr. Jordan. Right now, the State Department, when they
receive an application for a visa, prior to them approving it,
they send that information on the application to the FBI, and
we process that through our databases to include databases that
have information about terrorism.
Chairman Schumer. So every single person who applies for
any kind of visa would go through your TWL list?
Mr. Jordan. Yes. That is going on right now.
Chairman Schumer. Through the State Department.
Mr. Jordan. Right. That is correct.
Mr. Hastings. And the INS gets access to it. A Border
Patrol or somebody at a port of entry would have access to the
IBIS system, which contains the same information. These are
coordinated databases that would contain information about----
Chairman Schumer. Right. That is what I was asking. So at
the border, you would have exactly that information.
Mr. Hastings. Yes.
Chairman Schumer. So right now we could say that every
person on this list--we do not know if we have everybody who
might be a terrorist on this list--but anyone we have on this
list would be known immediately as they apply to come into the
country by both the State Department and the INS, whether it is
at the border or in the embassies. Is that fair to say?
Mr. Hitch. I think that is fair to say that that is
certainly the intent, and in the post-9/11 world, the Attorney
General specifically asked for a review of all those procedures
to make sure that if there was anything that could be done, it
was done. He followed up just this past week to
institutionalize all those procedures to make sure that that is
happening.
Chairman Schumer. And what is the answer? I know he wants
to make sure.
Mr. Hitch. The answer is yes.
Chairman Schumer. Yes, okay. And you both agree with that?
Sorry, Jeff.
Chairman Sessions. What about where there is a visa waiver
in our relationship with a country? Many countries have that.
First, if you know how many we have a visa waiver system
with? And does this procedure you have just described work in
those cases? Do they check?
Mr. Hitch. The visa waiver countries, there are a lot of
them. There are something like 29 or 30.
Mr. Hastings. Twenty-eight countries.
Mr. Hitch. Twenty-eight visa waiver countries. Those
countries basically what they have is a speedy process of
getting into the United States based on treaties that have been
negotiated. Those procedures do not apply to them. They can
come if they have a passport.
So I think that is an area that, for our future look at
what we are doing, what we are planning to do is to tighten up
on those visa waiver people also, because that is a significant
hole in our security.
However, that is going to require renegotiation of those
agreements.
Mr. Hastings. We do have access to advance passenger
information, and we are utilizing that in the inspectional
process. And by the fall, we will have that fully integrated in
that IBIS environment as well, again, as an interim step,
knowing that we have still have an entry-exit system in a very
large scope to be planned and developed over the next several
years. These are the interim measures that we have taken.
Chairman Schumer. But you are basically saying that your
system at the borders is a lot better than your system
internally in the country. I mean, the kind of thing we read
about with the two people, the two terrorists who posthumously
got the approval of their visas, shows that things are not in
good shape. What you are leading us to believe is that, if they
were coming into the country at this point in time, not 9/11,
and they were on some kind of list--that is a different issue,
how good our lists are--that they would have been blocked.
Mr. Hastings. I think that is safe to say. As a matter of
fact in those cases, at the point of inspection and the point
of adjudication, there was no reason to believe in any of the
data that was available in our databases that there was a
record that these folks were of interest.
Chairman Schumer. Right. Okay.
Senator Sessions. The shoe bomber came in the country
through another country that we have a visa waiver system for.
Mr. Hitch, would our system today catch that or not? Or would
that be a weakness in our system today?
Mr. Hitch. I believe that is a weakness in our system today
that we are fully aware of and trying to figure out ways to
best fill it.
As I mentioned before, the long-term answer is some
renegotiation of the visa waiver agreements. I think the
passenger manifests that were mentioned by Mr. Hastings are a
step in the right direction.
But unless we had some reason to suspect him, the passenger
manifests would not have shown up anything.
Mr. Hastings. Mr. Hitch is correct in that. I do want to
articulate that, in that case, we would check the advance
passenger information against what we have in our databases.
The question would be, would there be information in those
databases that would have suggested that this individual was
someone we should be looking for?
Chairman Schumer. As I remember, he was an American
citizen, right? The shoe bomber?
Mr. Hastings. I think he was a British citizen.
He was traveling on a British passport.
Chairman Schumer. A British passport.
Mr. Hitch. I do believe that that is a weakness that has to
be plugged up. The visa waiver issue has to be plugged up from
a policy standpoint.
Senator Sessions. Just one more.
Mr. Jordan, with regard to the National Crime Information
Center, let's say an individual came here from the United
Kingdom. There is no evidence that they pose any threat to
America, but under our new system that INS is going to be
putting together, I trust he is identified as an overstayer or
is identified as a person that otherwise has violated the terms
of his entry and is therefore illegally entering here. Does the
FBI have any objection to entering all of those people's names
into the system?
Mr. Jordan. Give me one minute, Senator?
Our NCIC system is managed by an oversight panel that is
staffed by local chiefs, who work with us in establishing what
goes in and what does not go in NCIC files. One of the things
we want to make sure is that the information is relevant and
useful and mature enough to be disseminated.
Senator Sessions. Has the FBI opposed that information
coming in? Or is it INS that has no desire to put it in?
Mr. Jordan. I do not know that sitting here this morning,
Senator, I can answer that question.
Senator Sessions. Well, the answer I guess fundamentally
is, it is not going in. And it is either that the INS is not
putting it in or there has been an objection from NCIC to
receiving it. If it overwhelmed the computer system, I could
understand that. Otherwise, I think it should be in there for
whatever value it can provide to a local officer.
I think we, ultimately, if we have any respect for law in
America, if we have any respect for fairness and justice, will
try to make sure that people who are here illegally are not
allowed to continue in that status. And to do so, we have to
enlist the local law enforcement, and they have to be able to
access it on the computer.
I do not mean to belabor that. That may be a subject for a
different hearing, because you are the technicians, you are not
the policymakers on this deal.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Schumer. Thank you, Senator Sessions.
I have so many questions, but we are going to move it
along. This was all helpful.
Just one final question on this level, Mr. Hastings. I
remember back in 1993 when the outcry occurred because the
sheik came in through Khartoum, I believe it was, and there was
not a computer. I take it every one of our embassies has a
computer now, whether INS or State Department. There are no
just handwritten lists. And what we are talking about is
available in any point of access.
Mr. Hastings. I know that our staff overseas has access to
computers. Again, I am not sure where the State Department is,
but I assume that is correct.
Chairman Schumer. Do you know, Mr. Hitch?
Mr. Hitch. I cannot speak for the State Department.
Chairman Schumer. Right. OK.
Let me ask you, Mr. Hitch, a couple of questions.
Do you have the authority to order all the various agencies
in the Justice Department to do things so that their computers
are in greater sync or so that their coordination is in greater
sync? How does that work?
Let's say you go to the FBI and then you go to the INS--
both Justice Department components--and they have good reason,
each of them, to say, ``No, no, no, they have to do it my way,
or I cannot do it.'' Each agency says that. Do you have the
ability to order them to develop a system to coordinate?
Mr. Hitch. I believe I do, sir. But that is a new position.
I have only been around for a month, but in my discussions with
the Attorney General when I accepted the position, I made it
clear that I thought that was necessary in order to be
successful.
Chairman Schumer. Right. OK. And so your authority----
Mr. Hitch. And he has asked me to define an organization to
make that happen.
Chairman Schumer. I see. Good.
Now, what if the same problem occurs from without your
agency? In other words, Justice to State or CIA to Justice or
DIA to Justice. What happens? What will happen if, say, we need
information from DIA or NSA and they, ``We are not giving it to
any of your Justice Department components,'' and you say you
need it? How does that work?
Mr. Hitch. Well, the way it is working right now, and I can
speak from experience on this, even though it is short, is we
approach the department directly, and we are participating in
what are called these policy coordination committee meetings of
the homeland security, associated with a lot of different
topics. On this one, it would probably be called horizontal
sharing, which is the sharing of information among Federal
agencies. On a regular basis, we would discuss those issues and
come to resolution of those issues.
Chairman Schumer. And someone from the Homeland Security
Office is there?
Mr. Hitch. Yes.
Chairman Schumer. OK. What if there is an impasse? You may
not have had that yet in your short history.
Mr. Hitch. There has not been an impasse in my short
history. Basically, I asked that same question and was told
that we will work it out, and basically Homeland Security will
help us broker the agreement.
Chairman Schumer. Okay. So we do not know, but at this
point, you have not come across it. I take it neither of you
have either, where someone outside of the Justice Department
purview, you feel you need certain information from them, and
you cannot get it. Because of their own internal reasons, they
will not give it to you. I am sure that has happened in the
past.
Is that correct, Mr. Jordan? You do not have to give me any
specifics, but I am sure it has, right?
Mr. Jordan. That is correct.
Chairman Schumer. And how about now? Is it better?
Mr. Jordan. Our Director has told us that we are going to
share information unless there is a specific or legal reason
not to. That has been a sea-change for us at the FBI.
Chairman Schumer. Yes. And how about the other agencies
sharing it with you, intelligence agencies in particular?
Mr. Jordan. It is a tremendous change there. I can tell you
that in my position as the chief of the corruption section, I
brief up all the cases that we have in the presence of CIA and
DEA personnel that are assigned to FBI headquarters. They sit
in without any reservation on all those kinds of briefings.
Chairman Schumer. Mr. Hitch, which agency in your purview
needs the most help in terms of bringing its computers up to
date, its entry and all of that? Which one is the furthest
behind where you want them to be?
Mr. Hitch. Within Justice?
Chairman Schumer. Yes.
Mr. Hitch. Obviously, the two largest agencies and the two
at the center of this issue are here at the table with me, and
so I am looking very closely at both of those and trying to get
involved very deeply in all the projects associated with this
topic.
Chairman Schumer. When we hear that there are mess-ups at
the INS, the people in the INS are often quoted in the press
saying, ``Well, what do you expect? Our computer system is so
backward that it doesn't work. It doesn't do what we need.''
You hear that sometimes from FBI, too, although I think there
have been greater efforts to update the FBI computers.
Again, this is not to blame anybody here. We are all new to
this.
Would it be fair to say that INS is considerably behind
most of the others?
Mr. Hitch. I think INS needs a lot of improvement in terms
of its computer system. I think it is fair to say that.
Comparing it to others, I have a difficult time doing that
at this point, based on my short tenure.
But I am trying to work with them to improve what they
have.
Chairman Schumer. I have one final question for all of you.
I have more questions that I will submit in writing.
But there has been talk of one sort of supercomputer, where
all the information is almost automatically shared. You would
have to have privacy safeguards. But, again, that is who
manipulates the computer, not what the computer says.
What do you think of that idea? I would ask each of you,
given your experience in this, what you think of that idea?
What do you think of the idea of the fellow from Oracle who
came in and said, ``You just let me do it. I will do it for
free, and I will have you all coordinated in no time.''
Easier said than done, obviously. When you are worth $10
billion, you can----
Mr. Hitch. Having been in this business for 28 years so
far, I certainly respect Larry Ellison. However, it is easier
said than done.
From my perspective, I am trying to understand what the
business issues are and what the impediments to doing what we
want to do are. I do not think it is technology.
We are looking into all different alternatives--
supercomputers, data mining. We are looking into distributed
databases. We are looking at all the options. And I do not feel
that that is the obstacle at this point.
Chairman Schumer. But I do think, and you tell me what you
think of this, right now there is an era of cooperation because
of 9/11. The way the world works, the way bureaucracy works,
if, God willing, there is no new terrorist incident a year from
now, that could fade back into the old bureaucratic
mentalities, unless a system is in place that ensures that
sharing. If you believe, as I know the President does and I do,
that this terrorism is going to be with us for decades--it is
not an al Qaeda phenomena; it is a technology phenomena that we
have to deal with.
It would be good to have a system in place that makes sure
that there is no slide-back. Do you buy that?
Mr. Hitch. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Chairman Schumer. And do you think we will have one in a
year or two?
Mr. Hitch. I think putting in place the long-term solution
to these issues is going to take more than a year or two. I
would couch the problem a little differently than you have. As
opposed to the technical solution being a supercomputer, I
think the real solution--as a couple of us, Scott and I,
mentioned--is looking at enterprise architecture, because that
is really where you design into the systems the ability to
share information, making sure that you do not have
redundancies, making sure that the business functions that are
related get related in the system. That is the real answer.
So my long-term approach is to make sure that we are doing
that kind of an approach to building systems at the Justice
Department.
Obviously, in the shorter term, we have to look to what I
would call patches, things to physically integrate information
that was not previously in the same database.
Chairman Schumer. And have you in the short time that you
have been there had disagreements among your component agencies
about how to solve some of these problems?
Mr. Hitch. I would not call them major disagreements. I
would call them heated discussions about approaches.
I have been involved very significantly in this entry-exit
system that is being developed at the INS. I would say we have
come up with a collaborative effort that I am pretty proud of.
Chairman Schumer. Okay, thank you.
I want to thank the entire panel for being here, and I
would ask unanimous consent the record be held open for
approximately a week so others might submit written questions
or some of us might, but it was very helpful.
Senator Sessions. Mr. Chairman, can I ask one thing?
Chairman Schumer. Please.
Senator Sessions. Regional Organized Crime, they have a
database system too, don't they, Mr. Jordan? The Regional
Organized Crime group?
Mr. Jordan. Yes.
Senator Sessions. State systems have data systems.
I really think that we have to do better about getting it
all in one system.
You listed, Mr. Hitch, here a number--EPIC and IDENT and
JABS. There are a lot of them out there, and how you make this
come together in a coherent way is real important.
These systems are sources of power for the individual
entities. They create them. They work at them. They put their
information in them. They tend to be very jealous of them.
So we want you to know we are behind you in trying to work
that out. I think that is fair to say.
Chairman Schumer. One hundred percent.
Senator Sessions. They have some legitimate concerns, but
for the most part, unifying this system is going to be good for
America.
Mr. Hastings, with regard to the two individuals--I will
just say it this way. You will hear from the people at the top
echelons of the Department of Justice and INS and Customs and
State and all that; they are looking at this level up here. I
do not think they understand or have given nearly enough
thought to the grassroots level where you have got two
terrorists stopped for speeding in Maryland. They were on those
planes that killed American citizens.
Had that information been in the system available to those
local police officers when they ran NCIC, which they invariably
do when they stop somebody, there would have been a hit, would
it not, Mr. Hitch?
Mr. Hitch. Yes.
Senator Sessions. And, Mr. Hastings, I know there are
policies now, with regard to what you can put in the system and
you cannot put in the system. Let's say you have an individual
that has been approved properly to come into the United States,
and somewhere along the way the embassy or State Department or
another agency determines that that person has connections to
al Qaeda. You find out that they have overstayed in the United
States, but they have committed no provable crime at that
point. Can you put in the system legally today, according to
our rules and regulations, that information, so any police
officer stopping them would know to hold them?
Mr. Hastings. It is my understanding in that case, where we
have developed specific information, that that would find its
way into our watch list and be accessible.
Just the overstay with no other negative information I
think is a policy that has yet to be established.
Senator Sessions. So a mere overstay with intelligence
information.
Mr. Hastings. I believe that if the intelligence community
has uncovered information that we need to know about, they
would be working through the FBI, and that information would be
reviewed and made available in a watch list environment. In
that case, I do not think we would be the lead agency on
getting that done.
Senator Sessions. And, Mr. Hitch, what about a local police
officer? Can they hold the individual?
Let's say it comes up on the NCIC--an overstay, flag,
contact FBI before releasing--something to that effect is what
it ought to say. What power does a local police officer have to
hold a person who is illegally in the United States?
Mr. Hitch. Sir, I am not the best person to answer that
question, but I do recall just in the past couple of weeks that
the Attorney General has made some statements about pilot
projects in Florida and elsewhere, where they are empowering
the local police to be extensions of the INS in some ways. I
know it is a very sensitive topic, but that is happening right
now.
Senator Sessions. Well, it is not that complicated. Police
officers hold people for all kinds of crimes, and if they can
hold them for shoplifting, if they can hold them for absconding
and not answering warrants for traffic tickets, they can hold
them for being in the country illegally.
This is a political deal. It is a political deal that
undermines the realistic ability of our country to enforce our
immigration laws. So we passed a law, but we create a system so
it cannot be effectively enforced.
So we need to deal with that. I think the Attorney
General's steps are in the right direction, but it really needs
to go a lot further, to me.
And I do not think police officers need 2 weeks of training
on how to hold an illegal alien. If you do that, you have
basically made it very difficult for them to do it.
Chairman Schumer. And on that strong note, we thank the
panel.
We are now going to combine the next two panels, so we are
going to call all four people up--Congressman Panetta, Mr.
Terwilliger, Mr. Anderson, and Mr. Light. What we are going to
do is, because Mr. Panetta came here with the proviso that he
had a plane to catch, we are going to let him testify, ask him
questions, and then go to the other three, if that is okay with
you, Jeff. Great.
We put you closest to the door so you can get to that
plane.
Is Dr. Anderson here as well? Yes. Great.
Okay, thank you. And I want to thank very much this panel
for coming and very much appreciate Senator Sessions'
participation and good questions. So what I am going to do is
introduce Leon Panetta, let him testify. We will ask him
questions, and then we will go to the other three, if that is
OK with everybody. Is that all right? Thank you.
Because of his time commitment, I am going to be brief in
my introduction. Leon Panetta is co-founder and director of the
Panetta Institute, a nonpartisan center for the study of public
policy. He has had a very long, very distinguished career,
starting in politics in appointed office in his 20s; serving in
the House of Representatives for 16 years, four as Chairman of
the Budget Committee; and then serving President Clinton as
both the head of OMB and then Chief of Staff.
In addition, he was my roommate for 12 years, and he is a
man of hard work, intelligence, integrity--just the kind of
public servant you want.
So, Leon, welcome. It is great to see you again, and your
entire statement will be read in the record and you may proceed
as you wish.
STATEMENT OF LEON E. PANETTA, DIRECTOR, PANETTA INSTITUTE,
MONTEREY BAY, CA
Mr. Panetta. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator
Sessions.
Thank you for asking me to provide my views on the issue of
the Office of Homeland Security and whether or not it should
have more power in trying to meet this challenge of information
sharing within the executive branch.
Let me preface my remarks by saying that obviously I am
going to provide these views from the White House perspective.
I realize, as with the testimony that you just received, that
there are a number of efforts, I am sure, that are going on
between the various departments to try to improve the
situation.
Chairman Schumer. We wanted the first panel sort of to be a
little bit of a case study, and now to take it to the larger
issue.
Mr. Panetta. That is why I would like to kind of address it
from the larger perspective. Just let me get to the point very
quickly.
I do not think there is any question that if you want to
have an Office of Homeland Security be effective, it has to
have additional power to be able to effectively coordinate the
information and activities that are so necessary to protecting
this country against the threat of domestic terrorism.
Part of the problem, obviously, is developing more
effective technology. We understand that. They do have to
develop more effective databases and better computers to put
this information into and greater ability to share that
information, obviously, at the local level.
And part of the problem is also organizing common policy
between a very large number and a diverse number of agencies
and departments that you have to work with to try to develop
some kind of common strategy.
But make no mistake about it, the biggest problem to
centralizing command and control here is the basic culture of
the Federal bureaucracy. You have to be able to break through
that. You have to be able to deal with a culture that basically
resists the kind of coordination and sharing that is so
essential to effective law enforcement.
As Chief of Staff to the President, I was responsible for
policy development and, obviously, the flow of crucial
information to the President of the United States. It is my
experience that in the absence of a clear line of authority and
a clear chain of command, that the sharing of information
within the Executive Branch is haphazard at best.
When a crisis happens or when the White House directly
says, ``I want information, and the President wants information
on a particular issue or a particular crisis,'' the agencies
and departments are obviously forthcoming.
As an example of that, based on my own experience, when
Oklahoma City took place and the bombing occurred there at the
Federal building, what I did as Chief of Staff was convene a
task force at the White House that included the
representatives, obviously, of all of the responsible agencies
involved with what had happened there for the specific purpose
of making sure that they were sharing and coordinating crucial
information on that crisis. We also needed to have a single
place in which information flow could then go to the public.
In the absence of that kind of presidential mandate or when
that kind of crisis begins to--as you see in the present
situation--as it begins to move away from public attention,
information is largely provided at the discretion of each
department or agency.
I always found as Chief of Staff that good news can travel
very quickly to the White House. People are willing to tell you
if it is good news. But if it is bad news, usually it winds up
on the front page of The Washington Post or the New York Times,
and then you wonder why you did not hear about it or why the
information was not shared--because nobody wants to provide
that kind of bad news, obviously.
So regardless of Administration, I want you to consider the
kind of deep and intractable factors that involve the
operations of the bureaucracy.
Obviously, the first is protection of turf. There just is a
natural instinct in every department and agency to try to
protect their jurisdiction. I understand that. There is a
loyalty that develops that is necessary for their particular
operation. There is a certain competitiveness that is involved
to try to sharpen their mission. Every secretary, every
director basically talks about the special uniqueness of that
particular operation. But the first loyalty is obviously to the
President and the overall policy of the Administration and
obviously to the American people, and that is a fundamental
principle that is so often forgotten.
The size of the bureaucracy, the sheer numbers of
departments and agencies that share responsibility for a given
area are just overwhelming. Homeland security, as you know,
involves well over 40 agencies. When there are that many
involved, it is just very difficult to determine who knows
what. There are different databases. There are different
operations. You have heard some of that this morning. Even
within a large department, it was my experience that
information can have a difficult time just making its way
through the internal chain of command that is within that
department. I have had secretaries tell me, when something has
happened that was of concern to the White House, I have had
secretaries tell me that they had no idea that a certain policy
decision was being made at a certain level or that a certain
fact had taken place, just because of the sheer immensity of
the bureaucracy within that department.
Security of information, you will hear a lot of that on
issues that involve, obviously, national security or law
enforcement. There is a concern about sharing that information,
a concern about compromising an action or mission. And
obviously, this is a legitimate concern, but there is no reason
why that information cannot be shared with those that have the
proper credentials, particularly at the White House level or at
the Homeland Security level.
Fighting for funding is another major problem, because
every department and agency understands that their lifeblood is
funding. They have developed their own approach to White House
aides, to OMB aides, and to Members of Congress for the purpose
of funding their particular programs. The dependence on certain
Members and aides and programs just often inhibits the sharing
of information. They basically understand that they have got to
go to certain Members to basically make sure that those Members
and those aides are working for them and not working for
others.
And obviously, there are personality differences. This is
something that is true everywhere, I am sure. But in a large
operation like the Federal Government, if you have friction and
political competition between personalities, that can seriously
affect communications and operations. There has got to be a way
to cut through that, and obviously, you do not expect that kind
of behavior from professionals. But if they have vital
information, it can be used to undermine each other, and that
is a reality.
Recognizing the need for command and control, then, and
coordinated information and response capability, what can be
done to try to break through these bureaucratic barriers and
try to accomplish the vital goal? I think the U.S. Commission
on National Security in the 21st Century basically made this
recognition before September 11, and I think it is still
relevant, that we have to create a national homeland security
agency with ``the responsibility for planning, coordinating,
and integrating various U.S. Government activities that are
involved in homeland security.'' They recommended the agency be
built on the capabilities of FEMA, the Federal Emergency
Management Agency, and include the Customs Service and the
Border Patrol and the Coast Guard. I think it can be designed
in different ways, but you need to establish some kind of
agency, department agency, that has a Cabinet officer that has
responsibility in this area.
The appointment of a Director of Homeland Security, as the
President has done, obviously is an important step. But unless
that Director has direct line authority over the policies and
funding of the agencies involved in homeland security, it is
just very difficult to control and coordinate the effort. I do
not care how likable that person. I do not care how nice that
person may be. The reality is that he can persuade, he can try
to convince people, but he cannot enforce, and you have to have
the ability to enforce actions.
Even with the blessing of the President, the primary
instinct of agencies and departments is to protect their own
information and their own operations. The reality is that they
will do that because there is little threat of consequences.
Funding and line authority primarily rest with each
department and agency, so it makes them behave more like
independent contractors than team players.
At the very least, and this is a suggestion that I make
from my own experience as Director of OMB, Tom Ridge obviously
has to have broader authority over funding. I can tell you it
would be my view that he would be more effective if you made
Mr. Ridge a deputy director at the Office of Management and
Budget, responsible for the budgets of the homeland security
agencies, than just being another presidential assistant. At
least in that position, you know that he has to oversee those
budgets and that he can control the recommendations as to what
those agencies ultimately get in their budgets.
A better approach, of course, would be to have and
establish a national homeland security agency. Again, I
recognize there is no silver bullet here, but having that kind
of agency and having better control and coordination and having
a clear line of responsibility, not just for the country, not
just for the Administration, but for the Congress. You cannot
have a situation where you have a Homeland Security Director
who, for whatever reason, will not testify to the Congress. You
have to have somebody who has the ability to come here, to
share information with the Congress, and to be the primary
spokesman to the country.
As a former Member of Congress, I recognize the
difficulties of establishing any new agency. I know the turf
battles that will go on, even in a situation that involves a
national crisis. But I do not think that we can afford to
simply have the internal politics of the Executive or
Legislative Branch prevent the Nation from doing what is
essential here to our security.
So, Mr. Chairman, you have a choice. You can either go with
the status quo as it exists and try to beat up different
agencies and departments as they come up here one at a time. Or
you can try to centralize this in a homeland security agency
with the power to do the job.
I think it is an important decision that hopefully you will
proceed with.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Panetta follows:]
Statement of Hon. Leon E. Panetta, Director, Panetta Institute,
Washington, D.C.
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Judiciary Committee:
Thank you for your invitation to provide my views on the issue of
the Office of Homeland Security and whether it should have more power
in meeting the challenge of information sharing within the Executive
Branch.
Let me get to the basic point quickly: There is absolutely no
question but that the Office of Homeland Security must have additional
power if it is to effectively coordinate the information and activities
relevant to protecting our country against the threat of domestic
terrorism.
Part of the problem of coordination is developing more effective
technology and part of the problem is organizing common policy among a
large group of agencies and departments. But make no mistake--the
biggest problem to centralizing command control is the basic culture of
the Federal bureaucracy.
As Chief of Staff to the President and therefore responsible for
policy development and the flow of crucial information to the President
of the United States, it is my experience that absent a clear line of
authority and chain of command, the sharing of information within the
Executive Branch can be haphazard at best.
In a crisis or when the White House demands information on an
issue, the agencies and departments are generally forthcoming. As an
example, following the Oklahoma City bombing at the Federal Building, I
convened a task force at the White House of all the responsible
agencies and each day would meet for the specific purpose of sharing
and coordinating crucial information on this crisis.
In the absence of that kind of Presidential mandate, information is
provided largely at the discretion of the department or agency. Good
news generally seems to flow much faster to the White House. Bad news
seems to usually wind up first on the front page of the Washington Post
or the New York Times.
Why is this? Regardless of Administration, there are some deep and
intractable factors that characterize the operations of the
bureaucracy.
(1) Protection of Turf. There is a natural instinct in each
department or agency to protect their jurisdiction. Loyalty is an
important quality necessary to the esprit of any Federal operation. And
competitiveness can sharpen the performance of a mission. But the first
loyalty is to the President and to the overall policy of an
Administration and too often, that fundamental principle is forgotten.
(2) Size of Bureaucracy. The sheer numbers of departments and
agencies that share responsibility for any given area can be
overwhelming. Homeland security alone involves well over 40 agencies.
When that many are involved, it is difficult to determine who knows
what. Even within a large department, information can have a difficult
time making its way through the internal chain of command.
(4) Security of Information. In areas that involve national
security or law enforcement, there is a concern about protecting
information so as not to compromise an action or mission. While this
can be a legitimate concern, there is no reason why information cannot
be shared with those in authority at other agencies or the White House
who have the proper security credentials.
(5) Fighting for Funding. Because the lifeblood of each department
and agency is money, each has developed its own approach to White House
aides and the Congress for funding programs. Obviously, this dependence
on specific members, aides and programs often inhibits the sharing of
information between agencies if they believe it can hurt their
particular budgets.
(6) Personality Differences. In any large operation, particularly
in government, friction and political competition between personalities
can seriously affect communications and operations. Withholding vital
information can be one of the ways people try to undermine each other.
Again, there is no excuse for this kind of behavior by professionals,
but it can be a reality.
Recognizing the need for command control and a coordinated
information and response capability for effective homeland security,
what steps can be taken to overcome these bureaucratic barriers and
accomplish this vital goal?
The U.S. Commission on National Security in the 21st Century laid
out the most important step--the creation of a National Homeland
Security Agency with ``responsibility for planning, coordinating and
integrating various U.S. Government activities involved in homeland
security.'' They recommended building this agency on the capabilities
of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and including the Customs
Service, Border Patrol and Coast Guard.
While the President has appointed a Director of Homeland Security
within the White House, unless that Director is given direct line
authority over the policies and funding of the agencies involved with
homeland security, it will be very difficult to control and coordinate
their efforts. He can persuade but he cannot enforce.
Even with the blessing of the President, the primary instinct of
these agencies and departments will be to protect their own information
and operations first because there is little threat of any real
consequences. Funding and line authority will primarily rest within
each department and agency, and that makes them act more like
independent contractors than team players.
In the very least, Tom Ridge needs broader authority over funding.
As a former Director of the Office of Management and Budget, it is my
view that it would be more effective to make Mr. Ridge a Deputy
Director at OMB in charge of the budgets for the homeland security
agencies rather than just another Presidential assistant.
The better approach is for the President to support and the
Congress to establish a National Homeland Security Agency. Not only
would this ensure better control and coordination within the Executive
Branch, it would establish a clear relationship with the Congress and
the country as to who is responsible for overall homeland security
policy.
As a former Member of Congress, I recognize the difficulties of
establishing any new agency, even one essential to dealing with a
national crisis. But if September 11 told us anything, it is that we
cannot afford to allow the internal politics of either the Executive or
Legislative branches prevent the Nation from doing what is essential to
its security.
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee you have two choices: You
can accept the status quo--a Homeland Security Director with little or
no direct line authority; or you can establish a single Homeland
Security Agency with the power needed to do the job. This is not just a
political decision; it is a national security decision that will
determine whether we can more fully protect our citizens from acts of
terrorism. I urge you and the Congress to make the right choice.
Chairman Schumer. Well, thank you, Leon Panetta, and once
again your remarks are excellent. Whether one agrees or not,
they are just laid out terrifically.
Let me ask you this. The report that you refer to that was
made before 9/11 gave rather limited agencies. You know, there
were a few there--the Border Patrol and FEMA and others. Would
you, just off the top of your head, think other agencies would
have to be part of this, or at least parts of other agencies?
And the second question is, there are some agencies you
would not want to put under the direct authority of the Office
of Homeland Security, but you would certainly want that person
to have authority to get certain things done. Take information
sharing between the FBI and the State Department, let's say.
How do you accomplish that in this kind of an office as well?
Mr. Panetta. Well, obviously there would be, I think, at
least parts of other agencies that I think that ought to be
included here.
Having seen efforts to try to get the Coast Guard located
in a number of other areas, it is impossible to do. I mean,
with all respect to the commission, that is going to be tough
to do. But in the very least, if you could get an element of
Coast Guard that is associated with enforcement located there,
I think that would be important, and the same thing is true for
these other agencies.
I think building it on FEMA does make sense, just because
FEMA has the responsibility for emergency response, and I think
that is true for others, so I would look at that.
In addition, I do think that you need a council at the
White House. I would have the head of the Homeland Security
Agency chair that council. But the difference is that as a
Cabinet member and a lead Cabinet member, that person would
have greater authority then to get responses from the other
agencies at the table.
So the way to get at having the Defense Department, having
the CIA, having DIA, having these other agencies at the table
would be make sure that you, in addition to establishing a
Homeland Security Agency, that you formalize a council within
the White House for that purpose.
Chairman Schumer. Let me ask you, does it make sense to
have a strong and statutory national chief information officer,
maybe under the homeland security person, to deal with the
problems that we face? I mean, the model is so obvious.
Mr. Hitch talked about now how he has authority within the
Justice Department, which no one had ever had before, to sort
of knock heads and get one information-sharing system. But of
course, if that model works, then the obvious question is, why
don't you use a similar model when you go interagency as
opposed to intra-agency in this kind of chief information
officer, on the area of information would make sense. What do
you think of that?
Mr. Panetta. I think either a directorate or an assistant
director responsible for coordinating that information would be
very important, because again, even though within the
departments there will be efforts now to try to better
coordinate information, you have to be able to establish a
larger information base in which different agencies can be able
to share information, and you can require that information to
be shared.
Right now, there is no central location for that kind of
information. In the absence of that, you basically have to go
hat in hand, then, to Justice, to CIA, to these other
departments and say, ``What do you know about this and what is
happening?''
Chairman Schumer. What about the answer to this?
And I have read in the paper now that the White House is
actually considering upgrading Tom Ridge's office, which my
guess is, if they were to propose it, it would pass the House
and Senate like a hot knife through butter.
But what about the alternative answer, which says, look,
the President is in charge of this. You do not really need this
Cabinet-level officer, because that is his job to do. If he
wants it done, he will get it done, and if he does not want it
done, no matter who you have there, he will not get it done.
Mr. Panetta. The President of the United States has
responsibility in a number of areas each day. He is dealing
obviously with foreign policy crises. He is dealing with
legislative issues. He is going out on political trips. He is
going here. He is going there. Admittedly, the President of the
United States appoints somebody as an assistant to oversee
that, but the problem is that the agencies and departments know
very well that unless the President is calling on every issue
that the Homeland Security Director is trying to enforce, that
they can basically nod, say ``yes'', and walk away and nothing
happens.
You have to have line authority. And the only way you
really have line authority is controlling the purse strings.
Chairman Schumer. So you would say that this office has to
have authority, but budget authority as well?
Mr. Panetta. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Chairman Schumer. OK. I know you are in a hurry. We very
much appreciate your remarks. I am going to ask the other
witnesses what they think of them, and have a safe flight.
Mr. Panetta. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Schumer. Thank you. Great.
Okay, now let's introduce our next three witnesses and hear
from them and see what they have to say about chief of staff,
Congressman Panetta's fairly strong views on these issues.
First, we are honored to have somebody just like Leon
Panetta, who stands for excellence in government and has been
there a long time in many different capacities, even though now
he is out of government. My guess is he will be back at some
point or another. But George Terwilliger is a partner now in
the office of White & Case, which is an international law firm.
He represents institutional clients in dealings with the U.S.
Government. During 15 years of public service, Mr. Terwilliger
was the Deputy Attorney General of the United States, second-
ranking in the Department of Justice. He was the U.S. Attorney
in Vermont and Assistant U.S. Attorney in Washington, DC, and
in Vermont. On policy matters, he was a principal in the
highest councils of government charged with addressing a broad
array of legal, policy issues arising in the Executive Branch.
Mr. Terwilliger has served as counsel to a U.S. Senate
investigation, outside general counsel to Federal commissions,
as well as confidante and counselor to elected and appointed
officials.
We are also honored to have Dr. Phil Anderson. He is a
senior fellow in the international security program at CSIS,
the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He
specializes in homeland security studies and was previously
Director of Defense and Aerospace Content for the Intellibridge
Corporation, a provider of customized Internet-based
intelligence and advisory solutions. He also served 23 years in
the Marine Corps, and his military experience includes
leadership of operational organizations, from platoon through
battalion, with deployments worldwide. He was the principal
operations adviser to the commander of the U.S. Marine Corps
Forces Atlantic, where he conducted research and onsite
analyses, resulting in successful antiterrorism force
protection plans for the U.S. forces assigned to Haiti.
And finally, Dr. Paul Light is the founding director of the
Center for Public Service and Vice President and Director of
Governmental Studies at Brookings. After serving as director of
studies at the National Academy of Public Administration from
1984 to 1997, he came to Capitol Hill as a senior staffer to
the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee. He then became
Associate Dean and Professor of Public Affairs at the
University of Minnesota's Hubert H. Humphrey Institute and was
Director of the Public Policy program at the Pew Charitable
Trust in Philadelphia. Dr. Light has written 15 books,
including ``Thickening Government,'' ``The Tides of Reform,''
and ``The True Size of Government.''
Each of your entire statements will be read into the
record.
And, Mr. Terwilliger, you may proceed.
Senator Sessions. Mr. Chairman?
Chairman Schumer. Please.
Senator Sessions. If I could have a moment of personal
privilege to welcome my good friend George Terwilliger. He used
to be my boss; he was the Deputy Attorney General.
But more than that, what we liked about him, and all the
prosecutors out around the country liked, he had been a line
prosecutor; personally tried hundreds of cases and knew all
about that, and then had served in Vermont as a United States
Attorney, where he was a hands-on United States Attorney.
So not only did he have a view from the high echelons of
the Department of Justice, but he knows what it is like out in
the real world.
George, it is great to have you before us.
STATEMENT OF GEORGE J. TERWILLIGER III, PARTNER, WHITE & CASE,
WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Terwilliger. Thank you, Jeff, Senator Sessions, and
thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do appreciate being invited here.
I cannot help but observe, in light of your kind
introduction and Senator Sessions' remarks, that Jeff and I
shared duties at the Justice Department on the Attorney
General's Advisory Committee of United States Attorneys when we
were both United States Attorneys. Regretfully, I must say that
some of the very information sharing-issues, and the effect of
information sharing on how things really work out in the real
world where the rubber meets the road, were topics of more than
a few of those meetings, some of the self-same issues we are
here to talk about today.
Chairman Schumer. Which might give us cause for pessimism.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Terwilliger. Well, actually, I think what it may be is
that, for all of the tragedy of September 11, it may in fact be
the impetus to change some things that will not only help us in
dealing with terrorism, but with a lot of other national
problems.
Mr. Chairman, thank you for taking my statement for the
record. I will try to briefly summarize a couple of the points
that I have here, in the interests of time.
I do want to say at the outset that despite your very
generous introduction, I do not claim to have all the answers,
maybe not even some of them. I am not sure I even know all the
questions, but I will share some observations.
My statement goes into some detail about the importance of
intelligence historically to success in our military endeavors.
Today, while we may be in a different kind of war, we are in a
war, and this is not a metaphorical war. I have heard some
people recently describe it that way. We are really facing a
new paradigm of warfare.
But it is a war, and it is a war where our fundamental
liberty interests are what is at stake. In my view, knowledge
is the most important weapon we have to be able to fight that
war against terrorists.
We can tighten our borders. We can improve aviation
security. We can do a bunch of other things that will improve
infrastructure security. But there is a real danger, I think,
in concentrating on those tangible and visible improvements
that we could develop a Maginot Line-type mentality that will
lull us into a sense of security based on what we see, but does
not protect us from the real threat.
The fact of the matter is, Mr. Chairman, I believe that we
cannot remain the kind of free and open society that we exist
to be without remaining vulnerable to people who are both
willing to subvert the rule of law and to surrender their own
lives or perhaps the lives of others to create mayhem and
destruction in our midst.
What this means is that intelligence, information about who
our foe is, what they are planning to do, how they operate, is
what is essential to victory in order to preempt further
attacks. I would also observe that, as we divide the response
to terrorism into prevention or preemption and consequence
management, intelligence has great value on the consequence
management side as well. We cannot prepare for everything that
we have to deal with. It makes more sense to know more about
what we are most likely to face and prepare for that.
So the first question for me in terms of how the government
is organized in terms of dealing with counterterrorism--how it
is best organized--is how can we improve our counterterrorism
intelligence effort. I think first the fact that this hearing
is being held and that this topic is before the Congress and
before the Administration is important, because we simply have
to recognize and understand how important information is to our
eventual success.
On a more practical level, somebody has to be in charge of
that function. It is one of the principal functions of the
counterterrorism effort, and somebody has to be in charge of
it. I think if you asked the question today, ``Who is in charge
of counterintelligence intelligence functions within the
government?'' the answer would be a lot less clear than it
ought to be.
There are also several policy issues that may inform a
reasoned judgment about how to best organize the government to
deal with this. For example, is this a law enforcement
function? I would say, not entirely. Is it a military function?
Not necessarily, but perhaps sometimes. Is it largely a
national security function? Arguably so.
I do not think these are academic points. The need to
defend ourselves here at home, based on information to be
acquired both here and abroad, diminishes the traditional
distinctions between counterterrorism responsibilities of law
enforcement agencies and those in the intelligence community.
In addition to that, I think when we talk about
reorganizing the law enforcement functions of some of our major
agencies to focus on counterterrorism, we should not lose sight
that even though counterterrorism, as you remarked before, Mr.
Chairman, will be with us for decades, it is not going to be
here forever.
I see my light is on, so I will submit the rest of my
statement for the record, if I may just make a couple of
closing points.
I think we ought to consider some other kind of an agency
to perform at least the intelligence function in
counterterrorism. It is clear that somebody has to be in
charge. It is clear that it has to be someone that bears the
President's authority and can direct the activities of other
agencies, coordinate with State and local governments, and,
indeed, the private sector, as I mention in my statement.
The idea of having an agency or a unit or a combination of
agency functions to do this is not inconsistent, as Mr. Panetta
mentioned, with also having a council that is a domestic analog
to the National Security Council at the White House performing
this function with someone bearing the President's authority in
charge of that.
I do not think it is a good idea to take what is
essentially now Governor Ridge's office and make it
operational. The White House should not run operations.
Thank you, sir.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Terwilliger follows:]
Statement of George J. Terwilliger III, Partner, White & Case,
Washington, D.C.
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee: I was asked to assist
your consideration of government organizational issues related to
counter-terrorism. I thank you for the invitation, but let me say at
the outset that I do not claim to have a lot of answers, nor even to
know all the questions. Thus, I offer no advice to anyone. Rather, I am
pleased to share some observations based on my experience that I hope
will assist consideration of how to best defend the United States from
terrorist attack. Biographical material concerning my background is
attached for your reference.
Tomorrow is the 226th anniversary of one our fledgling Nation's
early intelligence successes. When Paul Revere rode through the
Massachusetts countryside awakening the citizen army, he was
functioning as intelligence officer, analyst and disseminator of
product. Observation of the British fleet, signaling the enemy's
intentions from the tower of the North Church and a call to arms from
horseback combined to provide and disseminate the intelligence that
made the following day a success for the colonial forces fighting a
war.
Today we are in a different kind of war, but a war nonetheless.
This is not a metaphorical war. We are confronted with a new paradigm
of warfare.
It is one where we face a clandestine foe using tactics that
include the use of common instrumentalities of our commerce as weapons
against us. It is every inch a war to defend our country from
fundamental threats to liberty.
In my view, knowledge is the most important weapon we have in the
war against terrorists. We can and should tighten our borders, improve
transportation security, increase immigration controls and take a host
of other security measures. However, there is a danger of developing a
``Maginot Line mentality'' that would mistake these tangible and
visible improvements to security as a complete defense against the
terrorist threat. We cannot remain a free society without also
remaining vulnerable to those willing to subvert the rule of law and
surrender their own lives in order to create mayhem and destruction.
The only way to best such people is to know who they are, what they are
planning and to stop them.
This gives us something in common with our colonial predecessors.
It means that intelligence--information about who our foe is, how it
operates and what its plans are--is essential to our victory. Today the
objective is to acquire the information necessary to preempt further
attacks. Large, clandestine outlaw organizations cannot be completely
eliminated. But their capabilities to operate can be greatly diminished
and even destroyed if we understand who they are and how they function.
Intelligence also has value in helping those who must manage the
consequences of attack anticipate what particular challenges they are
most likely to face.
So, for me, the first question concerning how the government is
organized to deal with terrorism today is how can we improve our
counter-terrorism intelligence effort? I have a few observations.
First, we need to simply recognize and understand how important the
intelligence effort is to success. If one accepts the premise that our
counter-terrorism program requires detailed information about our foes,
then it must be asked, who is in charge? Perhaps because perception of
the current threat has emerged gradually and only become a matter of
great urgency in recent months, I think the answer to that question may
be less clear than it ought to be.
Second, there are several policy issues that may inform a reasoned
judgment about how the Government would be best organized to fight
terrorism today. Chief among these is the issue of defining clearly the
nature of the current counter-terrorism mission here in the United
States. Is this a law enforcement function? Not entirely. Is it a
military function? Not necessarily. Is it a largely national security
function? Arguably so.
I do not intend an academic discussion. These questions, and other
related issues, have very practical implications. The need to defend
ourselves from attack at home with knowledge of what is going on both
here and abroad may diminish the traditional distinction between the
counter-terrorism responsibilities of law enforcement agencies and
those of the intelligence community. For example, is the FBI gathering
information in criminal investigations or for other intelligence
purposes? Can the CIA and other community agencies share classified
terrorism information with Federal law enforcement agencies?
Likewise, we might bear in mind that while making us safe from
terrorist attack will take time, it is a mission that is more limited
than the general Federal law enforcement responsibility. Thus, one
might question whether the broad powers and authorities necessary for
counter-terrorism measures should be provided as general law
enforcement authority. This could result in relatively extraordinary
powers being applied to a wide range of investigative activities having
nothing to do with terrorism. Conversely, the authority necessary to
effectively combat terrorism may be withheld out of concern that we not
expand law enforcement powers in general. In my view, despite some
current modernizing that is necessary, the FBI and other Federal law
enforcement agencies have built well deserved reputations for
excellence in making this Nation more safe from crime. For all these
reasons, I believe we should be cautious in fundamentally altering the
role and authority of Federal law enforcement agencies.
My third observation is that, given the foregoing considerations,
it maybe worth considering a new organizational approach to counter-
terrorism, especially as to the intelligence function. This could be a
new organization, or new unit or task force made up of a combination of
parts of existing agencies. What to me renders this worth considering
are three principal factors:
1. The counter-terrorism intelligence challenge today is a
domestic-international hybrid which may obviate the utility of
traditional distinctions between domestic and international terrorism;
2. Preempting further attacks and neutralizing terrorist
capabilities are likely to necessitate intrusive investigative
activities at home and unprecedented coordination of domestic and
international intelligence functions.
3. The organizations and the people performing these tasks must
have clear and unambiguous legal authority for their work.
A smaller organization dedicated to counter-terrorism intelligence
may be both more nimble in, and more accountable for, the use of more
powerful investigative authority that also crosses traditional legal,
policy and agency jurisdictional lines. This may not be any answer at
all, but we should not let the way we have been organized to date
dictate what we do going forward without consideration of alternatives.
My fourth point is that, regardless of the organizational structure
used, we must improve the quality and quantity of information made
available to those upon whose work our security depends. We cannot
allow their work to be hindered by systemic inadequacies. For example,
putting terminals from multiple information systems in one room and
calling it an ``intelligence center'' is no substitute for true systems
integration. Our Nation is in the forefront of information technology
and our intelligence agencies should have state-of-the-art information
systems. If government procurement procedures are an impediment to
keeping these vital functions on the cutting edge of this rapidly
changing technology, then the way government acquires, maintains and
updates this technology needs to change.
My fifth and final observation is that further organizational
changes in government to address the terrorist threat must account for
the necessary involvement of many Federal agencies, State and local
governments and the private sector as both contributors and consumers
of counter-terrorism intelligence. Federal agencies of limited
jurisdiction, such as Immigration, Customs, BATF and others make
extremely important contributions to counter-terrorism, including by
collection of valuable intelligence in the ordinary course and by
executing specific tasks in furtherance of intelligence objectives.
Each performs part of a critical intelligence function that must be, in
my judgment, not just coordinated, but directed.
The same premise is true as to State and local governments,
including their law enforcement components. While Federal direction is
not called for, coordination in counter-terrorism is. Time and again
State and local authorities, which have the most frequent and routine
encounters with the general population, discover information that, when
placed into a bigger picture, may be critical to counter-terrorism
objectives.
The private sector's potential to contribute should not be
overlooked. Experience has shownthat the terrorist organizations and
their support networks make considerable use of private sector
services, educational and employment opportunities. Business can be a
great help, but the effort needs Federal leadership and assistance.
Are we doing a better job of all of this today then before
September 11? While I have no access to non-public information, I am
sure that we are doing better, much better. I would not be surprised to
learn at some point in the future that our government and our allies
have succeeded in stopping one or more significant terrorist episodes
in the last several months. The recent capture of a key terrorist
leader is a reminder that there are many people whose names we will
probably never know, and whose faces we will never harm's way in
distant places so that see, going we and our families may sleep in
safety and security. If something more can be done here, we owe it to
them to do it.
Thank you.
Chairman Schumer. Thank you, Mr. Terwilliger, again, for
your intelligence and being right to the point.
Dr. Anderson.
STATEMENT OF PHILIP ANDERSON, SENIOR FELLOW, INTERNATIONAL
SECURITY PROGRAM, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL
STUDIES, WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Anderson. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Senator Sessions.
It is an honor to be here this morning, and I thank you for
accepting my longer statement into the record.
I would like to begin by saying that we are barely 7 months
into what I believe to be a much deeper examination of the
homeland security issue.
The President has given Governor Ridge the task of
developing a national strategy for homeland security, and it is
important to note that despite the criticism in the media and
on Capitol Hill that the Office of Homeland Security is
understaffed and has no budget authority or power to make
decisions. I believe that the public should understand that the
Administration has really not been given enough time to fully
address this new challenge.
While time is of the essence, this new environment demands
some patience to allow a comprehensive strategy to emerge. In
the absence of a comprehensive strategy, there can be no clear
understanding of the threat to be addressed or any real sense
of the priorities from which specific requirements will emerge.
Assuming the Office of Homeland Security can produce a
comprehensive strategy this year, once it is published, the
debate can begin on implementation.
Although there are numerous challenges associated with
securing the homeland, the following are a few that I believe
should be given priority going forward.
First, a national strategy as the basis for initiating
government reform. In the absence of a comprehensive national
strategy which addresses all aspects of waging an ongoing war
against terrorism--to include detection, preparation,
prevention, protection, response, and recovery--there can be no
framework for establishing clear priorities or defining
requirements to base decisions on how to organize the
government and spend the taxpayers' money.
With real threats to the homeland and agreement that we are
unprepared to deal with those threats, what is needed is
continued leadership in the Administration to finish a
comprehensive national strategy. Significant organizational
reform cannot happen without all the strategic underpinnings--
the strategy and all its interrelated parts that enables
government to make decisions on how best to move forward.
Second, a national strategy that addresses the principal
obstacles to information sharing and coordination. No one
disagrees the coordination and the sharing of information is
absolutely essential in this environment, but there is little
mention or debate about the cultural barriers that exist both
within the Federal Government and between the Federal
Government and the State and local governments, and between all
aspects of government and the private sector. With extremely
large agencies like those in the intelligence community, the
senior leadership has their own business interests and their
own relationships with customers and capabilities that they
think they are protecting, that truly are the source of their
influence.
The CIA is a good example, and in many ways is supposed to
be the focal point for the intelligence community. The CIA has
privileged access to the President of the United States and
privileged access to the Congress. Why would the Director of
Central Intelligence want to cooperate fully with other
intelligence agencies and give up the power that he has as CIA
Director?
That said, I believe that behavior can be changed through
incentives and disincentives. Leadership is critical to
cultural change--leaders who see the broader need, the greater
good, and aggressively pursue them to initiate change in their
organization and across government.
The inherent distrust between the Federal Government and
State and local governments is another obstacle that will have
to be overcome. In this new environment, State and local assets
will play the lead role in responding to and managing the
consequences of an attack. With the exception of some
specialized Federal capability in the Department of Energy for
nuclear weapons and in the Department of Defense's capability
for chemical and biological response, the majority of first
response assets will come from State and local governments.
It would seem that much attention has been focused on the
Federal apparatus, but the national strategy, to be
comprehensive, must establish the framework for effective
communication and coordination at every level of government.
The terrorists who attacked the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon on September 11th were able to move information,
people, and finances across a sophisticated terrorist network.
The fact that government at all levels is not networked must be
addressed.
The intelligence community again offers a good example.
There are 14 agencies in the intelligence community doing
analysis. Coordinating intelligence across those disparate
agencies involves moving information across those agencies.
The terrorists of September 11th proved that they could
beat us at this game. On September 12th, if you were employed
by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, for example, you were
getting reports about Osama bin Laden's potential attack
against nuclear facilities. Most assuredly, those reports came
from a newspaper or from CNN, but not from the intelligence
community.
We are still in the infancy stage of determining how best
to do this, but in the context of homeland security, if you are
a fireman or if you are a policeman, you certainly do want and
should expect relevant information and effective communication
from your Federal government. As the concern about security
abates, as it inevitably will, networking the Federal
Government with State and local government functions must be
aggressively pursued.
Third, a national strategy that provides for private sector
involvement. A good example of the complexity of initiating
public-private cooperation can be seen in the containerized
shipping industry. Approximately 7.5 million containers enter
the United States each year, and the Customs Service only
inspects 2 percent of those. The contents of these containers
originate with approximately 450,000 shippers globally. This
would appear to represent an unworkable number, but I believe
that there are steps that can be taken now to reduce this
vulnerability. An interesting statistic is that the contents of
60 percent of those shipping containers entering the United
States originate with just 1,000 large shipping companies
worldwide. This would seem to be a workable number where
cooperation between government and the private sector could
again make a difference and drastically reduce our overall
vulnerability.
Recently, and I think it was just yesterday, 60 large
corporations agreed to work with the government as part of the
Customs Trade Partnership Against Terrorism to ensure adequate
security of goods entering the United States, in exchange for
faster passage through border checkpoints.
Much of the Nation's strength rests on its privately owned
critical infrastructure, but the private sector does not just
own and operate the Nation's critical infrastructure. The
private sector owns a lot of expertise that could improve the
way in which government approaches the information-sharing
problem. The Y2K problem is a good example, where the private
sector did a much better job in understanding the problem in
developing responses to it.
And I will wrap this up quickly.
Networking is an area that the private sector has mastered.
They proved that during the Y2K situation.
In the National Security Council or Homeland Security
Council, you will not find our Federal agencies networked in
the same way that you would find similar functions networked in
the private sector. Developing public-private partnerships is
complicated by the need to protect sensitive information and
the lack of information sharing and coordination between the
numerous agencies of the Federal Government with responsibility
for homeland security.
The national strategy must be the vehicle for simplifying
the communication and coordination problem within government
and between government and the private sector. The private
sector should be included in the development of the strategy,
and the strategy must formalize the means to ensure private
sector involvement in its implementation.
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, over the long term, in the
absence of a comprehensive national homeland security strategy,
there can be no clear understanding of the threat to be
addressed or any real sense of priorities from which specific
requirements will emerge.
Mr. Chairman, my time is way passed up. We appreciate the
Committee's leadership on this issue and we look forward to
helping in any way we can at CSIS.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Anderson follows:]
Statement of Philip Anderson, Senior Fellow and Director, Homeland
Security Initiative, Center for Strategic and International Studies
I. Introduction.
Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, it is an
honor to be with you today, to present my views on ``Should the Office
of Homeland Security Have More Power? A Case Study in Information
Sharing.'' Let me begin by saying that the statement I am about to give
represents my views and in no way should be taken as the institutional
view of CSIS. Before beginning though, let me provide you with some
background on the work we are doing at CSIS.
CSIS has completed a number of homeland security projects both
prior to and since the tragic events of September 11. In January 2001,
CSIS released a report on the results of an 18-month study, Homeland
Defense: A Strategic Approach. In June 2001, CSIS co-directed Dark
Winter, a high-level simulation of a smallpox attack originating in
Oklahoma City. In the immediate aftermath of September 11, CSIS
convened an internal task force on terrorism, the results of which were
published in To Prevail: An American Strategy for the Campaign Against
Terrorism.
CSIS is currently working on two projects in the area of Critical
Infrastructure Protection:
(1) A comprehensive series of events to address critical
infrastructure issues facing the United States establishing the
foundation for a report that will focus on what business and government
can accomplish together to meet future threats--pulling together
public-private partnerships.
A simulation exercise, patterned after our Dark Winter effort--to
focus on energy infrastructure in the United States. Rather than
consequence management, this simulation exercise will focus on the less
understood--and explored--scenarios in which policymakers must decide
on whether and how to act in the case of a credible threat against
critical energy infrastructure.
II. Overview.
In the 7 months since the tragic events of September 11, there has
been a great deal of momentum, both inside and outside of government--
and it would seem that we are all developing a clearer understanding of
the Homeland Security problem in all of its complexity--but most often,
solutions remain out of reach--which should be expected at this point--
as we are barely 7 months into a much deeper examination of the issue
which in most ways represents the most daunting challenge the United
States has ever had to address.
In this new and very dangerous environment, it is clear that
government reform will be necessary to ensure clear lines of authority,
responsibility and most importantly, accountability to unify the
efforts of the 46 Federal agencies that, to varying degrees, have
responsibility for Homeland Security. With responsibility spread across
so many agencies, effective communication and coordination is extremely
complicated and will only become more difficult in the long term as
threats to the homeland increase. This is made far more complex by the
additional requirement for the Federal Government to coordinate and
communicate efforts with State and local governments and further, to
develop the means to work with, and cooperate with the private sector.
The most important question to consider at this juncture is: When
should reform be initiated? Some would argue that there is no time to
waste and that well-informed decisions should be acted on immediately
in this environment. However, the President has given Governor Ridge
the task of developing a strategy for National Homeland Security and as
such, the Office of Homeland Security should be allowed some time to
fully address the problem. In the absence of a comprehensive strategy,
there can be no clear understanding of the threat to be addressed or
any real sense of priorities from which specific requirements will
emerge. If the strategy that emerges is truly comprehensive, the debate
that will follow will certainly involve the appropriate organization of
government to address the problem.
It would seem that with each passing day, the Administration, in
the process of developing a National Strategy, is learning that
organizational and process reform will be necessary to streamline the
process of coordination and communication. At a Senate hearing on April
11, to address Senator Lieberman's proposal to create a Department of
National Homeland Security and a White House Office to combat
terrorism, at which I was also fortunate to testify, OMB Director Mitch
Daniels Jr., told the Senate Government Reform Committee that President
Bush ``has said from the outset that the structure for organizing and
overseeing homeland security may evolve over time . . . should the
ongoing strategy review ultimately recommend to the President a
different homeland security structure, there is a chance it may
resemble Senator Lieberman's bill.'' Among the many organizational
issues the strategy will have to address, the following would seem most
important:
Create a foundation for unifying the efforts of the Federal
Government or at least establish the conditions for effective
cooperation and coordination.
(2) Point the way for those agencies of the Federal Government,
with direct responsibility for Homeland Security, to effectively
cooperate, coordinate and communicate with State and local governments.
(3) Establish the conditions for every level of government to
effectively cooperate with the private sector since they own and
operate most of the critical infrastructure in the United States and as
such, are ultimately responsible for securing it.
Developing a National Homeland Security strategy that points the
way toward effectively addressing these issues is no small task, it is
truly a daunting challenge--the likes of which have never been faced at
any other point in our Nation's history. It is important to note that
despite the criticism in the media and on Capitol Hill--that the Office
of Homeland Security is understaffed and has no budget authority or
power to make decisions--the public should understand that the
Administration has really not been given enough time to fully address
this new challenge. While time is of the essence, this new environment
demands some patience to allow a strategy to emerge. The strategy
should serve as the basis to initiate government reform and allocate
resources and assuming the Office of Homeland Security can produce a
comprehensive strategy this year--and once it is published--the debate
can begin on implementation.
III. The Challenges.
Although there are numerous challenges associated with securing the
homeland, the following are a few that should be given priority going
forward:
A National Strategy as the basis for initiating government reform:
There have been numerous commissions and studies conducted--the Hart-
Rudman Commission, the Gilmore Commission, the Bremer Commission, and
the Center for Strategic and International Studies Working Group on
Homeland Defense--that addressed the lack of coordination among the 46
Federal agencies that have specific responsibilities for Homeland
Security. There have also been a number of proposals floating around in
the Administration and in Congress that call for consolidating some of
the agencies responsible for securing the homeland. The
Administration's proposal to consolidate Immigration and Naturalization
Service, Customs and the Border Patrol in one agency and Senators
Lieberman and Specter's proposed National Homeland Security and
Combating Terrorism Act of 2002 are just two examples. Governor Ridge's
original proposal also included the Coast Guard and border-related
parts of the Agriculture Department. In addition, many commissions and
studies recommended that Congress develop the means for reviewing the
President's policy and budget for Homeland Security. The lines of
responsibility are unclear in the Executive Branch but they are just as
unclear in the Legislative Branch given the existing committee
structure that further complicates coordination in the Executive
Branch.
Most importantly, in the absence of a comprehensive National
Strategy which addresses all aspects of waging an on-going war against
terrorism to include, detection, preparation, prevention, protection,
response and recovery, there is no framework for establishing clear
priorities and defining requirements to base decisions on how to
organize the government and spend the taxpayers' money. With real
threats to the homeland and agreement that we are unprepared to deal
with those threats, what is needed now is leadership in the
Administration to finish a comprehensive National Strategy. Significant
organizational reform cannot happen without all the strategic
underpinnings--the strategy in all its interrelated parts--that enables
government to make decisions on how best to move forward.
A comprehensive threat assessment as the basis for the National
Strategy: It would seem that the Administration has, since September
11, taken a ``vulnerabilities-based'' approach to the problem. That is,
in the absence of a strategy, they have attempted to identify the
Nation's critical vulnerabilities and focus attention and resources
accordingly. Unfortunately, at this juncture, this is exactly the
condition the public should expect where everything appears to be a
critical vulnerability. This situation will not resolve itself until
the Nation has a comprehensive Homeland Security strategy.
At the heart of any effort to develop a strategy is the requirement
to address the likely threats. The strategy that emerges at the end of
the development process will need to be first and foremost, threat-
specific. However, defining likely threats in this new environment is
problematic in that they will likely derive from multiple sources with
different objectives and various means to do us harm. Defining the
threat is risky but absolutely necessary to developing a coherent
National Strategy to fully address the problem. It is hard to develop
plans, organize and allocate resources to address the myriad
vulnerabilities that exist without taking an informed position on
potential threats.
While we remain extremely vulnerable in many areas, most do not
represent critical vulnerabilities simply because they are not likely
targets. How many people would argue, at this point, that commercial
aviation is a critical vulnerability? On the other hand, private
aviation with 500,000 private pilots and 200,000 private aircraft
operating from approximately 18,000 airfields could represent a
critical vulnerability. Some would argue that the nuclear power
industry is critically vulnerable. I would submit that the nuclear
power industry, the most regulated in the United States, is far less
vulnerable than other aspects of energy infrastructure to include,
liquid natural gas operations, refineries and petro-chemical
operations. Without an informed assessment of how those that would do
us harm may act, the ability to organize and allocate resources
effectively is extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible. Another
important point relates to the way in which the current organization of
government looks at the threat. FEMA is a good example--with an
organizational culture that has, for the most part, addressed natural
disasters rather than a thinking enemy.
A National Strategy that addresses the principal obstacles to
information sharing and coordination: There are numerous obstacles that
stand in the way, culture certainly not the least among them. No one
disagrees that coordination and the sharing of information is
absolutely essential in this environment but there is little mention or
debate about the cultural barriers that exist both within the Federal
Government and between the Federal Government and State and local
governments, and between all aspects of government and the private
sector. With extremely large agencies, like those in the intelligence
community, the senior leadership has their own business interests and
their own relationships with the customers and capabilities they think
they are protecting that are the source of their influence. The CIA is
a good example and many ways is supposed to be the focal point for the
intelligence community. CIA has privileged access to the President of
the United States, and privileged access to the Congress. Why would the
Director of Central intelligence want to cooperate fully with the other
intelligence agencies and give up the power that he has as the CIA
director? However, behavior can be changed through incentives and
disincentives. Leadership is critical to cultural change--leaders who
see the broader need--the greater good--and aggressively pursue them to
initiate change in their organizations and across government.
The inherent distrust between the Federal Government and State and
local governments is another obstacle that will have to be overcome. In
this new environment, State and local assets will play the lead role in
responding to and managing the consequences of an attack. With the
exception of some specialized Federal capability in DOE for nuclear
weapons and DoD's specialized chemical and biological capabilities, the
majority of first response assets will come from State and local
governments. It would seem that the Federal Government is primarily
focused on the Federal apparatus, but the national strategy, to be
comprehensive, must establish the framework for effective communication
and coordination at every level of government.
The terrorists who attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon
on September 11 were able to move information, people, and finance
across a sophisticated terrorist network. The fact that government at
all levels is not networked must be addressed. The intelligence
community again offers a good example. There are at least 11 agencies
in the intelligence community doing analysis. Coordinating intelligence
across those disparate agencies involves moving information across
those agencies. The terrorists of September 11 proved that they could
beat us at this game. On the September 12, if you were employed by the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, you were getting reports about Osama bin
Laden's potential attack against nuclear facilities. Most assuredly,
those reports came from a newspaper or from CNN not from the
intelligence community. We are still in the infancy stage of
determining how best to do this, but in the context of homeland
security, if you're a fireman or policeman, you certainly do want and
should expect relevant information and effective communication from
your Federal Government.
As the concern about security abates, as inevitably it will in our
society, networking the Federal Government with State and local
government functions must be aggressively pursued. To effectively
respond to threats to the homeland, government at every level is going
to have to be networked.
A National Strategy that accounts for the primary missions of
Federal agencies associated with Homeland Security: The national
strategy must establish the framework to account for large gaps in
missions that potentially stand in the way of unifying around the
homeland security mission. Most agencies that are now focused on
homeland security have other primary missions that will have to be
accounted for. The Customs Service is a good example because its
mission is as a revenue-generating agency, focused on goods and trade,
not on security. Last year, the Customs Service collected in $23.5
billion in taxes, fees, and penalties, second only to the Internal
Revenue Service in generating government income. The Coast Guard is
another good example with non-homeland security missions associated
with routine law enforcement, fisheries, and deep-water drug and
political refugee interdiction.
A National Strategy that provides for private sector involvement: A
good example of the complexity of initiating public-private cooperation
can be seen in the containerized shipping industry. Approximately 7.5
million containers enter the United States each year. The Customs
Service only inspects 2 percent. The contents of these containers
originate with approximately 450,000 shippers globally. This represents
an unworkable number, but there are steps that can be taken now to
reduce our vulnerability. Recently more than 50 large corporations
agreed to work with the government to ensure adequate security of goods
entering the United States in exchange for faster passage through
border checkpoints. An interesting statistic is that the contents of 60
percent of shipping containers entering the United States originate
with just 1000 large shipping companies worldwide. This would seem to
be a workable number where cooperation between government and the
private sector could again make a difference and drastically reduce our
overall vulnerability.
Much of the Nation's strength rests on its privately owned critical
infrastructure, but the private sector does not just own and operate
the Nation's critical infrastructure, the private sector owns a lot of
the expertise that could improve the way in which government approaches
the homeland security problem. The private sector does not just have
interest in working with the government, the government absolutely has
to have help from the private sector. The Y2K problem is a good example
where the private sector did a much better job in understanding the
problem and developing responses to it. Networking is an area that the
private sector has mastered. In the National Security Council or
Homeland Security Council, you won't find our Federal agencies
networked in the way you would find similar functions networked in the
private sector.
Developing public-private partnership is complicated by the need to
protect sensitive information and the lack of information sharing and
coordination between the numerous agencies of the Federal Government
with responsibility for homeland security. The national strategy must
be the vehicle for simplifying the communication and coordination
problem within government--and between government and the private
sector. The private sector must be included in the development of the
strategy and the strategy must formalize the means to ensure private
sector involvement in its implementation.
IV. Conclusion
Mr. Chairman, over the long term, in this new and very dangerous
environment, government reform must be initiated to ensure unity of
effort and clear lines of authority, responsibility and most
importantly, accountability. In the absence of a comprehensive national
homeland security strategy, there can be no clear understanding of the
threat to be addressed or any real sense of priorities from which
specific requirements will emerge. The strategy should be the vehicle
that establishes the framework for every aspect of government to move
forward together in a unified and coordinated way to fully address what
is surely the most complex problem our government has ever had to face.
Mr. Chairman, the road ahead remains complex and dangerous with
numerous challenges yet to be addressed. The Center for Strategic and
International Studies is ready and willing to help.
Organizing effectively to secure the American homeland is essential
to our country's prosperity and to the prosperity of our allies. We
appreciate the Committee's leadership on this issue, and we look
forward to helping in any way we can.
Chairman Schumer. Thank you, Dr. Anderson. I very much
appreciate your testimony as well.
And finally, Dr. Light.
STATEMENT OF PAUL C. LIGHT, VICE PRESIDENT AND DIRECTOR,
GOVERNMENTAL STUDIES, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION
Mr. Light. It is nice to have the last word again on this
issue.
As you know, the Governmental Affairs Committee is
considering legislation to create both a Cabinet department and
a statutory Office of Homeland Security.
Before I go into a brief summary of my statement, I should
note that there already is a de facto national chief
information officer. That individual is the deputy director of
the Office of Management and Budget for management. That is a
position that has been vacant for 16 months. There is no
nominee currently pending before the United States Senate.
There is no individual who has been announced for that
position.
Last week, this Committee received testimony from the
Webster Commission about streamlining and improving the FBI
review process for appointees. We have over in the Governmental
Affairs Committee now legislation co-authored by Senators
Lieberman and Thompson that was favorably marked up earlier
this session called the Presidential Appointments Improvement
Act.
I cannot speak for those two Senators, obviously, but a
friendly amendment to ask the FBI to accelerate and make less
burdensome the review process for presidential appointees might
improve the odds that we would actually get somebody into the
position that you clearly have heard a case made for today.
My statement here basically argues that there is not
necessarily too little information in the Federal Government
today regarding potential threats, but possibly too much.
Perfect hindsight suggests that government often has the
information it needs to make decisions, but that it cannot sort
it, integrate it, or interpret it. I think that historians 20
or 30 years from now will be making that argument regarding
September 11th.
The Office of Homeland Security does not appear to have the
power to break down the barriers and address the most serious
problems facing those who desire to harm this country.
Interestingly enough, in my analysis of the Office of
Homeland Security, it may be young, it may be new, it may be
understaffed, but let me tell you, Senator, it is thick. The
organization chart for this young office is one of the most
complicated organization charts for a White House unit or for a
departmental unit that I have seen in my career. I make a
career of pointing at organization charts, and I have just
never seen on what appears to have been designed to complexify
the movement of knowledge.
I do not question Governor Ridge's sensibilities in putting
together this organization chart. I just point out that it is a
rather novel and complicated organization chart that may make
the procurement, production, and integration of information
more difficult than it needs to be.
My statement looks at seven components of an integrated
information chain that the Office of Homeland Security might
need. I talk about production of information, which the office
does not do and does not have the power to do. I talk about the
procurement of information. The office does not have the
authority to order, purchase, or otherwise gain information
that does not currently exist. It cannot order the study of a
particular issue. It cannot analyze a particular body of
information.
The word ``coordinate'' appears 33 times in the Executive
Order establishing the office. The word ``investigate'' appears
once. The word ``analyze'' appears not at all. The word
``study'' appears not at all.
The office does appear to have considerable authority to
collect information, but as my colleagues have argued at
Brookings and elsewhere, there is not enough staff or
capability in the office right now to basically crunch that
information into meaningful analysis. It does not have the
power to assess the quality of information or the capability to
assess the quality of information. It does not have the
capability to assess trends, to do analysis. It absolutely does
have the authority to disseminate information, but ironically--
and this is an important issue for this Committee and for the
Senate as a whole--the President's assistant for homeland
security does not have one authority to disseminate information
to the United States Congress. He may not disseminate
information through formal hearing or testimony before the
United States, and I think that is a weakness in the office,
which can be easily remedied by making that position a Senate
advise and consent position.
The director does have the power to classify information as
Top Secret, but does not have the power to declassify
information that he deems to be in the national interest to be
declassified.
My recommendations in my testimony are, number one, to give
the office a statutory base. That is the coin of the realm. You
want to go toe-to-toe with these agencies, you have to have a
statutory base which means Senate confirmation. You need
additional staffing. You need the dollars and the authority to
produce and procure information, and you need to be able to
coordinate an information technology plan for the agencies of
government.
I submit my testimony for the record and am open to any
questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Light follows:]
Statement of Paul C. Light, The Brookings Institution,
Washington, D.C.
I am pleased to appear before the Subcommittee today to consider
options for strengthening the Office of Homeland Security. I believe
this Subcommittee is right on target in asking whether and how the
office might improve the flow of information to and from key
decisionmakers. Although there are many causes of the September 11
tragedy, none was so easily addressed as the failure to collect,
interpret, and share information.
I believe the question of information sharing involves two discrete
parts. First, is the Federal Government currently producing the right
information? Second, is that information available to the right people
at the right time?
The Immigration and Naturalization Service is a perfect case in
point. It suffers from a dearth of high-quality information on
potential threats to national security, and has serious vulnerabilities
in making sure that high-quality information reaches the right people
at the right time. Bluntly put, even if the agency were to discover a
potential threat, it is not clear that the information would make it to
key law enforcement and security officials in time to prevent a
tragedy.
We know, for example, that the INS does not have the information
technology to track visitors to the United States. The agency simply
does not have the right information about who is entering the country
under what conditions and for what purpose, nor does it know where
current visitors might be located, or whether they have over-stayed
their welcome. Although there is nothing the Office of Homeland
Security can do at this point to better coordinate, share, or monitor
information that does not exist, I believe there are ways that the
office can better control the production of information through
expanded authority.
We also know that the INS does not have the technology to share the
information it does have with the right people at the right time. We
know, for example, that information about the individuals involved in
the September 11 attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., did not
make it to the right people at the right time in the Immigration and
Naturalization Service and its contractors. Otherwise, one would be
hard-pressed to explain last month's extraordinary news that ACS, Inc.,
had mailed visa notices on behalf of Mohamed Atta and Marwan Al-Shehhi.
Although one can argue that there was no harm, and, therefore, no foul,
the lack of communication up and down the INS hierarchy speaks to the
extraordinary problems in sharing information in a timely fashion.
Deja Vu
The INS is hardly the only Federal agency with problems collecting
and sharing the right information. Indeed, recent Federal history is
replete with examples of breakdowns caused by either bad information or
good information ignored, including the security problems at the
Nation's nuclear weapons laboratories and the taxpayer abuse at the
Internal Revenue Service. Looking back with perfect hindsight, we can
now see the outlines of a remarkable information breakdown at the core
of the September 11 attacks, not the least of which were bits and
pieces of evidence from flight schools and simulation centers. As in so
many similar cases, from Pearl Harbor to Vietnam, we are likely to
discover that the Federal Government had significant information about
the potential threat, but could not put the pieces together in time.
The fact is that the Federal Government, indeed most organizations,
almost always have the information to prevent failure, but not the
analysis or communication chains. That was the case in the 1980s with
the HUD scandal and the savings & loan debacle, in the 1990s with
espionage at the nuclear weapons labs and taxpayer abuse at the
Internal Revenue Service, and the early 2000s with the INS. Sadly, I
have made a living out of showing the problems associated with
communication failures in the Federal Government. We see the same
problems over and over and over again as information gets lost,
distorted, mishandled, improperly classified, or misinterpreted up and
down the ponderous Federal hierarchy. See the appendix of this
testimony for a side-by-side confirmation of my conclusion.
Assessing the Case at Hand
Our task today is not to look back for culprits, but to look
forward to solutions. Simply asked by the Subcommittee, should the
Office of Homeland Security have more power? As I and my colleagues at
the Brookings Institution have argued, the answer is ``yes.'' Much as
one can credit Governor Ridge with substantial success in shaping the
budgets of the agencies involved in homeland security, his office does
not provide the levers that are essential for coordinating, let alone
assuring the flow of high-quality information in real time. He should
be congratulated for having made the best of a very difficult
situation, but should be fully empowered to make sure that the Federal
Government has the information it needs.
Unfortunately, I do not believe Governor Ridge has the authority to
prevent communication failures in the future. Even a cursory review of
the Office of Homeland Security organization chart confirms the
problem. According to the latest available Yellow Book listing, the
office is structured around an assortment of titles whose primary tasks
focus more on outreach than information collection or analysis: (I have
numbered the layers within the office using conventional nomenclature.)
1. Assistant to the President for Homeland Security (Ridge)
2. Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Director
3. Deputy Assistant to the President (Communications &
Legislative Affairs)
4. Deputy Assistant to the President for Legislative Affairs
Senior Associate Counsel to the President and General Counsel
5. Special Assistant and Senior Director for Information
Integration and Chief Information Officer
Special Assistant and Senior Director for Policy & Plans
6. Special Assistant and Executive Secretary
Special Assistant for External Affairs
7. Protection & Prevention Senior Director
Response & Recovery Senior Director
8. Special Assistant and Director of Communications
9. Special Assistant for External Affairs
Special Assistant for Public Liaison
10. Assistant Director for Intergovernmental Affairs
11. Communication Strategy Director
12. Staff Assistant
Much as one might question the problems associated with 12 discrete
layers in the office, and much as one might ask whether the special
assistant for information integration and chief information officer is
(1) placed high enough in the bureaucratic pecking order, and (2) has
too many competitors for access, the more important question at hand is
whether Governor Ridge and his team have the authority needed to
assemble the information they need. The answer appears to be ``no.'' At
best, information collection and analysis is but one of many competing
priorities in the Office of Homeland Security. At worst, it appears to
reside in a single unit that has multiple responsibilities, not the
least of which is ensuring that the office itself has adequate computer
technology, which is the traditional concern of chief information
officer posts across government. At a minimum, I would recommend
splitting the information integration and chief information officer
posts, while raising the former to the level of deputy assistant to the
President.
An Inventory of Authority
More importantly, however, I worry that the office as currently
constructed does not have the authority to implement an aggressive
information collection, analysis, and dissemination strategy. Let me
suggest the following problems facing the office today:
1. Production. The Office of Homeland Security does not have the
authority to produce information that it deems essential to its
planning process. Although it does have a talented, albeit small staff,
the office does not have the internal capacity to investigate or study
problems that Governor Ridge deems essential. To the extent words have
meaning, ``coordinate'' appears 33 times in the President's Executive
Order establishing the Office of Homeland Security, while the word
``investigate'' appears only once. ``Study'' and ``analyze'' do not
appear at all.
2. Procurement. The Office of Homeland Security does not have the
authority to order or purchase information, whether through private
contractors such as the RAND Corporation, which has extraordinary
capacity for conducting the kind of exploratory analysis that Governor
Ridge might find particularly useful in anticipating potential threats,
or through government intelligence agencies. Nor does the Office of
Homeland Security have the dollars to make such purchases. If Governor
Ridge wants a special analysis of trends across or within agency
databases, one presumes he must ask.
3. Collection. The Office of Homeland Security appears to have
adequate mechanisms for tapping into the Federal Government's vast
inventory of information. The question is whether an office composed of
a scant 100 or so individuals, many of whom are dedicated to
prevention, outreach, legislative affairs, communications, etc., can
hope to swallow from the fire-hydrant of information that currently
courses through government. I do not see, for example, the capacity to
evaluate the quality of information flowing into the office, nor do I
see the ability to reach down into agencies to demand the release of
information that already exists. Even more importantly, I do not see
the capacity needed to compel the release of information that agencies
might or might not know they have.
4. Quality. I do not see firm evidence that the Office of Homeland
Security has the internal capacity to assay the quality of information
flowing from inside or outside government. At least for the time-being,
the office must rely on its sources to validate information.
5. Analysis and Interpretation. The Office of Homeland Security
does not appear to have adequate mechanisms for analyzing information.
That might mean, for example, resolving disputes between different
portraits of threats, or pulling strands of analysis together into a
particular whole. Such analysis requires a much greater staffing
complement than currently exists. By way of comparison, I would point
the Subcommittee to the National Security Council staff, which contains
a series of well-staffed directorates for monitoring international
threats, as well as a well-developed administrative infrastructure.
Although it is fair to argue that it has taken more than a half century
to develop, the Nation does not have another 50 years to wait. This
problem is particularly significant given the office's role in
maintaining the Homeland Security Advisory System, which assigns
threats on a green (low) to red (highest) level.
6. Dissemination. The Office of Homeland Security appears to have
adequate capability for disseminating information about potential
threats.
7. Classification and Declassification. Although the Office of
Homeland Security has ample authority to classify information as ``top
secret,'' it does not have parallel authority to order the immediate
declassification of information that it deems in the national interest.
Recommendations for Action
I do not believe statutory authority can solve all of these
problems. However, it can improve the odds that the Office of Homeland
Security can produce the right information at the right time. At a
minimum, I strongly recommend that the office be given the authority,
and budget, needed to produce and procure its own analysis. Some may
argue that such analysis would merely duplicate already existing
information. I would argue to the contrary. The Office of Homeland
Security has a special obligation to examine information through a very
broad lens and from a vantage point that no other agency of government
has.
I also strongly recommend that the office be given enough staff to
interpret, analyze, and assay the information that it currently
receives, and to make recommendations to Congress and the President
regarding improvements in the information system. That might mean, for
example, that Congress would provide the funding for a minimum staff
floor, or create a special information directorate within a new Office
of Homeland Security. That might also mean that Congress would require
the office to conduct an information audit of the Federal agencies it
coordinates, and make recommendations regarding the technology
investments needed to assure secure, high-quality information. Finally,
I recommend that the director of Homeland Security be given limited
authority to declassify information deemed in the public's interest.
These authorities will be wasted, however, if the current office or
its statutory successor is allowed to thicken with needless
bureaucracy. The thickening has already begun. Being lean and flat is
not just a value that the President himself espoused in the 2000
Presidential campaign; it is also the sine qua non for effective
information sharing. For whatever reason, the current Office of
Homeland Security has already become one of the thickest units in the
White House. That not only weakens communication within the office, it
merely adds to the extraordinary thickening of other units of
government. To the extent the President relies on Governor Ridge to
stay in touch with the front-lines at the INS, for example, he is
staring down an information chain with 30-35 links. That is more than
the Nation can afford.
Chairman Schumer. Thank you again. I think all three of you
really helped contribute.
Let me start off with one question. Our first panel gave a
pretty sanguine view of how information sharing was going
within the Justice Department. You could argue that that makes
the argument all three of you have made in different ways that
we ought to do the same thing within the whole Federal
Government, because we do have a new person here, Mr. Hitch,
who has the power, which I did not know until this testimony,
to order all the agencies to share information within Justice,
and can tell the INS and FBI, et cetera, to coordinate.
First, do you think things are going as well within the
Justice Department, based on your experience, as they say?
And second is the analogy that I am making: If it is good
for within the Justice Department, which has traditionally had
problems with information sharing, then it is probably good for
the whole government as well.
Mr. Terwilliger.
Mr. Terwilliger. Senator Schumer, let me observe that I
think it is no particular insight to say there is no issue more
critical than information management to this effort, and there
is no weakness that has traditionally been greater in
government, particularly in the Justice Department and law
enforcement, than information management. So the steps taken
seem to be ones very much in the right direction.
I am not sure that I am in a position to know whether it is
working or not, maybe no one is at this point.
Chairman Schumer. You have been aware of all the turf
problems when you were there.
Mr. Terwilliger. Yes, painfully.
Chairman Schumer. And do you think that the advent of 9/11
and a new person, who seems a fairly capable fellow who has
done this in the private sector and other places very well,
would be enough?
Mr. Terwilliger. No. I think that they both will be
important reasons for things to change, but there are systemic
issues that will get in the way of accomplishing what Mr. Hitch
and the Attorney General and others are setting out to do--how
the government procures technology, how it designs it, how it
uses it. All of those are systemic issues that giving someone
license and authority are simply not going to be sufficient to
solve.
The biggest problem, in my view--and I will just confine my
remarks to the Justice Department for the time being--in
information management is that every agency wants to own the
solution. If it is not an idea that has been homegrown and
developed by that agency, then largely it is not a good one.
There is precious little attention to how the use of that
information may affect the functions and responsibilities of
other components.
Chairman Schumer. In the model that we have seen, doesn't
Mr. Hitch have the ability to say, okay, even though this was
developed by FBI, INS, you have to use that system.
Mr. Terwilliger. Yes, I hope so. And I guess I would, to
quote another famous American, say: I trust his testimony, but
I would verify that that will happen.
Chairman Schumer. Right.
Dr. Anderson or Dr. Light, either one?
Mr. Anderson. My perspective as an outside observer is that
there is a far greater awareness clearly among those in
government that this is important. I think that within
departments, there has been some progress made, but it is
between departments where the problem still exists.
There is all kinds of great technology out there that will
allow you to address this problem, but there is not any
technology that is going to influence the willingness of people
to contribute to input the system.
You can appoint an information czar, but I am not convinced
that even though they may have the legal authority that it is
going to make a lot of difference.
I think that this is truly a function of leadership. You
have got to get the leaders involved in trying to change the
cultures of their organizations such that they can work
department to department and between multiple agencies of
government that would have to try and solve this problem.
Chairman Schumer. Do you think an Office of Homeland
Security with Cabinet authority, budget authority and statutory
basis could do that?
Mr. Anderson. I think it would be a good start. I am
convinced at this point that the strategy is going to point in
that direction. I think that to the extent that you can reduce
the number of agencies or at least consolidate a number of
those agencies in one department, it is probably a step in the
right direction. But a word of caution there relates to the
primary missions of these agencies.
If you look at Customs, they are a revenue-generating
agency, second only to Internal Revenue. So that function is
going to have to be accounted for in any organizational
structure or any organizational reform.
The Coast Guard has a deepwater mission. There are a lot of
other missions non-homeland-security-related that are going to
have to be accounted for.
That said, the most important concern at this point is
homeland security. So you deal with that problem first, and
then resolve the secondary tertiary missions after the fact.
Chairman Schumer. Dr. Light.
Mr. Light. I have watched the chief information officer
concept develop over the last 12, 14 years. The first CIO was
created in the Department of Veterans' Affairs back in 1988.
It is a slender reed on which to build a policy for
integrating information. These offices are staffed by talented
individuals, but 80 percent of their expenditures now are
contracted out, and they are primarily concerned with systems.
This augmentation of the CIO's office in Justice with a
policy function is a novel departure from prevailing practice.
We will just have to see how it works. I would rather see it as
a higher level within the agency and combining both systems and
policy.
Chairman Schumer. Each of you had sort of different
recommendations, but similar and not as grand, I guess, as the
Office of Homeland Security. There could be an addition to it,
obviously.
Mr. Terwilliger is a chief counterintelligence officer at
the White House, and I believe Dr. Light said let's build this
deputy director for management who could help coordinate a lot
of this. I take it both of you feel that that is necessary, but
not sufficient.
Mr. Terwilliger. Yes, I think that is right. Just to be
clear, I would not recommend putting the intelligence function
for counterterrorism in the White House. I would put it out
somewhere in an agency that is dedicated to that task, whether
it is an existing agency or whether it is--and I would frankly
prefer to see a new agency dedicated to that function in one
form or another. There is, frankly, a model among some of our
allies for that type of thing.
I think we will quickly recognize, if we do not already,
that what we are doing now is not enough.
Chairman Schumer. By the way, is there a model for a
country that does this better? Obviously, we are probably the
largest with the number of people, the amount of money spent,
responsibilities.
Mr. Terwilliger. Yes.
Chairman Schumer. But is there a smaller country that does
a better job of this that we should look at, on intelligence,
information sharing particularly when it comes to intelligence.
Mr. Terwilliger. You put your finger on the biggest problem
we have, Mr. Chairman, and that is just the size of the problem
and the breadth of the information we have to deal with. But in
terms of conceptual models, when you talk to the people who are
really experts in this and the professionals, they point, as
much as it may strike some as odd to say so, to some of our
European allies such as France, who at times appear not to have
been totally supportive of some of the things we are doing in
counterterrorism, but when they had a problem with terrorists
who were threatening to blow up their symbols of democracy,
they empowered their domestic security agency--I have worked
with them in my days at the Justice Department--they are very
effective. And they created a small cadre of very special
investigating magistrates, who are the equivalent of our
prosecutors, to be totally focused on terrorism and gave them
extraordinary investigative authority.
Chairman Schumer. Were they geographically--I mean, was one
for Paris, one for Marseilles?
Mr. Terwilliger. That is a good question that I do not know
the answer to. But the point is I think that the danger of
giving these extraordinary powers to law enforcement in general
is that they then become available for a lot of problems that
have nothing to do with terrorism. Conversely, if that is where
we talk about reposing the power, we may not give them the
authority they need to get the job done out of that very
concern.
Chairman Schumer. Dr. Light, I had asked you also about
this deputy director for management, which is necessary, but I
take it you would say hardly sufficient.
Mr. Light. It's a pivot point to note that we have serious
problems in the presidential appointments process. I have a
colleague behind me who would be very disappointed if I did not
make some segue here to argue for presidential appointee
reform.
I am a strong supporter of putting a statutory base under
the Office of Homeland Security. I think that is essential.
Chairman Schumer. One final question, and then I will turn
to Jeff. Each of you has pointed out that even if we were to do
that, you would still have many of these barriers and it would
take a long time and you all have years of experience either
doing this or studying it. And so let me go back to the
question I asked I think it was the first panel.
What about this idea to make this--I understand that you
need more than technology. But if you have a technological
direction, a lot of the other things fall by the wayside. So
what about this idea of a single computer, a supercomputer,
that Ellison model that says all our intelligence information
is shared on this one thing, and everybody--it is not their
only computer, but that has all their intelligence. If you
require them to input the information and then the selected
agencies have access to it, it makes information sharing--it
overcomes a lot of the cultural barriers, technological
barriers, turf issues, et cetera.
So I think it is more than just a technology. In a sense,
it is sort of a tool to overcome the age-old barriers that each
of you has very aptly pointed out. There is a privacy issue,
obviously, but I am not sure that is dispositive.
The final question is each of your views on that.
Mr. Terwilliger. I think that is a good vision. The answer
probably is not--and I know you do not intend it to be as
simple as you say, just technology or a computer.
This is a problem that is not new. This is just a different
subject matter to which it applies. We had this problem when
Senator Sessions and I were at the Justice Department with drug
intelligence.
And our solution, one of which I frankly spilled a lot of
blood internally within the Administration over, was to create
a fusion intelligence center, to have a computer system where
information from all the agencies that had drug-related
intelligence would fuse. It has worked to a certain degree, but
it only works as well as someone forces people to contribute to
the knowledge base that is in that system. I think that the
system without the authority--frankly, the authority of the
President over it--that you must contribute this kind of
information to that knowledge base, will not solve the problem.
So I think it is going to take both.
Chairman Schumer. What if you had the authority?
Mr. Terwilliger. If you have the authority, yes, because we
have to remember where we are trying to go here. We are trying
to find out what our enemy is up to here and stop them before
they do it. The ability to do that will follow naturally from
having the information.
Chairman Schumer. Dr. Anderson.
Mr. Anderson. I agree completely. I would like to say,
though, that there are no 100 percent solutions in this
environment.
Chairman Schumer. In this area, we would settle for 50
percent.
Mr. Anderson. Senator, I think that is the most important
point. We need to do what we can do now. If we can address 60
percent of the containers that are coming into the country, we
need to do that. The airport analogy is a great one because any
one of us goes to an airport, we are all treated the same way.
But the bottom line is, through some simple identification
means and methods, we could probably reduce that number to 30
or 40 percent. And how much better would we be in scrutinizing
that percentage of the entire population? A lot better.
So we do what we can do now. And to the extent that we can
get people to input a central system, we ought to do it, but I
do not think we are going to get 100 percent willingness and
ability, short of forcing agencies of government to contribute.
Chairman Schumer. Last word, Dr. Light.
Mr. Light. It is kind of a ``Field of Dreams'' phenomenon,
isn't it? I mean, if we build it, will it come? And the answer
is that I think that if you build an integrated system and you
put authority behind it, I think we will probably do better
than 50 percent, less than 100 percent. It is part of a broad
attack on this particular problem, which has an asymmetry to
it. We do not know where the next attack will come from. All we
can do is be prudent and use due diligence to respond.
So if it can be built and it does not cost every last penny
in our coffers, I would say let's try.
Chairman Schumer. Jeff.
Senator Sessions. Thank you.
Chairman Schumer. I thank all of you.
Senator Sessions. It is very interesting and a great
discussion.
The best example I know of, of really uniting behind a
concept, was when your former Mayor, Rudy Giuliani, was
Associate Attorney General, he declared that we did not want
Federal agencies in Washington setting the policy of every one
of the offices in America, that each region would meet and set
their priorities. And it caused quite a stir, because the FBI
thought they should decide what their priorities were. So did
DEA, and so did Customs.
But because the President said, we are going to do it, and
Rudy Giuliani's drive and vision, he just overcame the
bureaucracy. And it just happened.
And it is still out there functioning. I do no think quite
as well. I think the agencies have sort of stovepiped since
then. But for a glorious time there of several years, there was
real unity within Federal law enforcement.
If you create a new Cabinet position, there is just one
more Cabinet position. That Cabinet position cannot order the
Attorney General or the Secretary of Treasury or the Secretary
of Transportation to do anything. It is ultimately the
President.
So I do not think we should dismiss entirely what is
happening now with Mr. Ridge, because I think that what the
President essentially said was, ``This needs a lot of time, a
lot of personal attention. There are a lot of bureaucratic
problems out there. I want to be personally engaged in it, but
I cannot personally do everything, so I am choosing somebody I
trust to be engaged in it, to advise me. All of this is an
Executive Branch function, and they are to come to me and we
will make sure that things happen.''
The way I understand what Mr. Ridge has done and does do,
is he meets with agencies where there is a dispute--like you
used to do, George--within the Department of Justice, but he is
doing it within the whole government.
He says, ``Well, having heard all this, I think Treasury,
you should give it up to Justice.'' And they say, ``No, we are
not going to do it. You do not have any legislative
authority.'' And what does Mr. Ridge say? ``Well, let's just go
meet with the President, and we will talk about it.'' Well,
then the agency heads say, ``Well, maybe we need to settle this
thing. We really do not want to go to the President, bickering
over some jurisdictional matter.'' And things do happen that
way.
So a good, strong leader, who has the personal confidence
of the President, could even in some ways be more effective
because he is known to speak directly to the President of the
United States. If he is given one more Cabinet head, I am not
sure that would have as much clout in this area.
It is a complex deal, and I can remember the battles over
intelligence within the Department of Justice--just brutal
sometimes.
I would say, you mentioned, Dr. Light, and I know Mr.
Panetta did, and I am sorry I did not have time to question
him, but there is a lot of power in the OMB, within the
Administration. In other words, if an agency asked for money to
start their intelligence system and another agency is asking
for money to do theirs, and the President has to submit a
budget, and he picks the one he wants. Could you explain the
power of OMB and how that could be a vehicle for eliminating
duplicity and creating some coherence in our government?
Mr. Light. In theory, the budget requests move up from the
bottom of that agency and eventually reach a decision point
where somebody, a program associate deputy, would basically
say, there is a conflict here, or we need to integrate.
I think where Governor Ridge has had his greatest influence
has been affecting the movement of budget information regarding
the homeland security function.
Currently within OMB, there is nobody per se who integrates
across the various program associate program levels to say,
okay, here is the homeland security issue. That goes all the
way up to the Director's office, which would be Mitch Daniels,
and one assumes that he looks at every budget request through
the lens of what is the total for homeland security.
Senator Sessions. But I guess the point is, assuming you
had it staffed properly, that is traditionally thought to be
the spot where duplications in organizations get fixed. Is that
right? Or at least it has that potential.
Mr. Light. On information technology, there is no question
that Congress has given OMB responsibility for integrating and
modernizing our computer systems. No doubt about it whatsoever.
We have the Office of Federal Procurement Policy within OMB,
which has been responsible for streamlining the way we purchase
technology. The deputy director for management is theoretically
responsible for convening the council of CIOs from around
government.
I mean, this all is supposed to happen within OMB. But you
know, it is a moving process, and if you do not get the
attention to it, and if you do not focus on it, we do not get
the result we want.
Senator Sessions. Mr. Terwilliger, sometimes OMB does not
catch it, or maybe it is below their radar screen. Do you
remember the duplication between ATF and FBI over forensic
analysis of firearms? To me, that was a classic unfortunate
event when two Federal agencies were competing around the
country, trying to get their system chosen throughout the
country.
Mr. Terwilliger. That is true. And as you know, Senator
Sessions, there have been a number of those. When the FBI was
developing automated fingerprint identification, one of the
Treasury agencies started a program to do that. In fact,
Attorney General Barr and I at one point tried to create a law
enforcement technology council and budgetary function with the
blessing of OMB. Every law enforcement agency in the
government, including our own, objected to it.
But I think that those experiences have to be put in a
proper perspective. What we are really grappling with here is
that we have never had this particular issue before, at least
since 1812. And if we had this problem at the beginning of the
19th Century, we would call the Army and ask them to go take
care of it. That is not, for a number of reasons, a very good
idea right now.
So what we are really talking about is, how do we deal with
a pernicious, serious threat to the security of the homeland of
the United States? The President has chosen to create a
domestic analog to the NSC. But the NSC largely--I have sat at
the table in the situation room of the deputies committee of
the NSC--and the NSC largely has a policymaking function, and
then the agencies at the table carry that policy out, and that
policy carries the President's authority.
I think what we are talking about in terms of the tasks
that involve homeland security, it does certainly involve
policy, but it is much more than that, particularly when it
comes to information management, consequences management, and
preemption of attack.
Senator Sessions. Mr. Chairman, we tend to blame the
Executive Branch, but a lot of these things are congressionally
created. We have said, ``Secret Service, you have this
jurisdiction. You have this authority.'' ``Coast Guard, you
have this authority by law.'' So Mr. Ridge--or whoever is in
charge of trying to work this--has got to utilize existing
agencies, unless we intend to do the most monumental
reorganization of agencies the government has ever seen, and
maybe that is not a bad idea.
Chairman Schumer. Everyone talked about turf in the
Executive Branch--something unheard of in the Congress.
[Laughter.]
Senator Sessions. Well-said.
So I mean probably the best way to do this thing is to make
sure that the Border Patrol agent, the Customs agent on the
docks, the DEA agent who may be monitoring an international
smuggling organization, the FBI agent who is doing
counterintelligence in organized crime and those kind of
things, probably we are going to be stuck with this solution,
making sure that they are moving relevant information promptly
to the right places when it is uncovered in the course of their
work, and perhaps giving each one of them some expanded
additional duties with regard to homeland security, enhancing
that as a priority of theirs.
So then how do you at the top fix that? Do you try to
create a separate Cabinet agency that basically is going to be
dealing with all the other Cabinet secretaries and their
subordinate units? Or does the President try to have his
personal coordinator to try to coordinate? Do you have any
comments on that?
Mr. Terwilliger. Senator, if I may just make an
observation? You have several times brought your perspective of
how decisions here in Washington affect how the people we are
depending on in the street do their jobs. One of the things
from talking to some of those people since 9/11 that I think is
critically important for the Congress to bear in mind and deal
with is, we have to give them the clear and unambiguous legal
authority for what we ask them to do.
Right now, I think there are law enforcement agents and
others out in the field doing things that they have been asked
operationally to do that they are not sure they really have the
authority to do, or at least there is uncertainty. That is not
fair to them, and it is not very efficacious in the long term.
Senator Sessions. And that is our responsibility as
Congress to give them that legislative authority.
All our agencies are limited, Mr. Chairman. They are given
jurisdiction over certain kinds of crime and only those kinds
of crimes. And sometimes that does impede their ability to
reach their maximum effectiveness.
Mr. Light. I suspect that what we are going to end up with
a border control agency and a statutory adviser for Homeland
Security. I suspect that is where this confluence of debate is
heading, that we do not have the wisdom to put together a
Cabinet department just yet, but there is this old saying that
if it ain't broke, don't fix it, and then, if it ain't broke,
don't break it.
Well, you have a couple of agencies under this Committee's
jurisdiction that are pretty badly broken, and you are going to
have to do something. The INS problems are going to lead
inevitably towards reorganization. Where does that take us in
terms of a border control agency? And on the other side, we
want a strong policy adviser who is allowed to testify before
Congress.
I do not know what the shape is going to be, but I would
put money on that particular outcome sometime later this year.
Chairman Schumer. But we are not sure that would deal with
the information sharing, which is, to me, at least, the most
important one of them all.
Mr. Light. And I think that you, the Subcommittee here,
should be working on the tasking on this particular issue. It
is a fundamentally important question that you are raising in
this hearing, and it is one that is not being worked anywhere
else in this conversation that I know of.
If you can come up with that supercomputer or you can come
up with that answer, put it in a bill and get it through.
Nobody is working this issue with diligence.
Chairman Schumer. Because we are all divided, too. We had
Justice and all of their agencies, but there are lots of
others.
Senator Sessions. And we have legislation. We have at least
four or five bills now with different ideas about how to
organize this thing. So there are a lot of different ideas out
there.
Sooner or later, we have to be realistic and do something
that makes a big step forward, which I believe we can do. I do
not think that anybody would disagree that, if we focused on
it, we can make a large improvement from our current status.
Mr. Anderson. I do not think this really, Senator, should
be viewed in general terms any differently than the way we view
national security. We have a number of different Cabinet
secretaries with very clearly defined responsibilities, and
departments with very clearly defined functions. They
coordinate through the National Security Council and there is a
National Security Advisor. It would seem to me that we should
have the equivalent on the homeland security side and at least
one Cabinet secretary, who consolidates potentially the border
responsibilities, which seem to be at this point our most
critical vulnerability.
But it would seem in general, and certainly this is far
more complex and involves far many more agencies, but the
national security apparatus would probably be, in my view, a
good starting point for the way to approach this problem
organizationally going forward.
Chairman Schumer. Jeff has a few more questions. I have a
12 o'clock appointment, so I am just going to excuse myself,
thank the witnesses, and let Jeff continue to chair the hearing
and close it.
Senator Sessions. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your
leadership.
Chairman Schumer. I really appreciate it. It was really
excellent, and it is getting us thinking.
Senator Sessions. It is important for us to be thinking
about this.
I am inclined to think the National Security Council
adviser model may be the right approach, too, Mr. Anderson. In
other words, this would be a person that answers directly to
the President. It today coordinates international matters, and
advises the President from the multiplicity of sources of
information that come in. A good bit of information comes in
outside of the State Department, so State should not be the
only person advising the President on foreign policy issues. So
you could do that for homeland security.
Would the three of you like to briefly just comment on that
model as a potential? You already have, Mr. Anderson. Would the
other two like to comment on that?
Mr. Light. The analogy is often made between the Office of
Homeland Security and the NSC. I think there are some areas
where the analogy is appropriate, and other areas where it is
not.
The Office of Homeland Security has a public face to it
that the NSC and the National Security Advisor do not. Governor
Ridge has a dissemination and a public awareness function, a
coordination function, that is fairly significant, and I think
leads us more towards thinking of him as we would the Director
of OMB or the international trade representative or the drug
czar. But I think that takes us a somewhat different direction.
Mr. Terwilliger. I think, Senator Sessions, that at least
the President intended to mirror in many respects the NSC model
and the NSC adviser's model in creating the current Office of
Homeland Security and Governor Ridge's position. But because
there is no one else to do a lot of the other things that go
with the issue and the tasks of homeland security, I think that
office has been inundated with responsibility that goes well
beyond anything we would expect in the national security arena
for the National Security Advisor to do.
So it may very well be that we will always need that kind
of function, a domestic security adviser at the White House.
The question remains whether we need something else in addition
to that. There are two ways to go about that.
Senator Sessions. Well, you could put those within existing
agencies.
Mr. Terwilliger. Exactly. Or you can create some new
agency, which would mean taking some functions from other
agencies.
When I was Deputy Attorney General, I would attend the
TREVI ministers conference, which is the G-7 nations
international organization to deal with terrorism and
immigration. And most of my counterparts at those meetings were
from the ministry of the interior in the European nations, for
example. Their chief legal officers do not function as our
Attorney General does. They do not run the police. They do not
handle internal security. That is in a separate ministry.
We have just evolved in a different way. It may be that,
given time, I think--I am not advocating for or against this--
it just may be that given time and maturity, that the idea of
having someone of Governor Ridge's authority under presidential
order as a domestic analog to the National Security Advisor may
work.
The question that I have about that is whether we have the
time to let that mature, given the threat that we are facing.
Senator Sessions. Dr. Light, just briefly, you mentioned
the distinction between the National Security Advisor and the
drug czar. Are you aware of their legislative powers and how
they are different, and why one might be preferable to the
other?
Mr. Light. The drug czar, as well as the international
trade rep, are subject to Senate confirmation, which I think is
important. The drug czar has some certification authorities
regarding budgets. I think if we look at the drug czar and say,
you know, ``Gee, how successful has that been in the war on
drugs?'' I am not sure we would all say that is the model. But
you look at the international trade rep and the OMB Director
and other Executive Office of the President's positions, and
there is that legal basis for action.
I am reminded here that, you know, the Office of Homeland
Security is currently responsible for the homeland security
advisory system, which alerts the American public to the level
of threat. But again, we are in a situation where the adviser
himself cannot come before Congress to explain why it is that
we are in one level of threat or another.
I agree with my colleague here that a lot of
responsibilities have flowed into this office that have gone
there because there is no place else to go, in a sense.
Senator Sessions. Any other thoughts on that subject?
Well, it is a difficult matter, how to organize this
government. As a United States Attorney, you represent the
United States Government, and I used to have a little phrase.
It would say something like: ``Here are the agencies; the
United States of America is one. It can only speak with one
voice.''
But the agencies become so independent over the years that
they think that they have a right to do policies contrary to
another agency's policies and conflict with them and fight with
them. But they have no authority to do that. They were created
to be part of one government, and when you get to court, there
is only one position the United States can take.
So it always has taught me a lesson that there is only one
goal for our agencies, and that is to serve the United States'
interest. And how we do it is very difficult.
I remember writing Associate Attorney General Rudy Giuliani
a wonderful letter I spent days writing, telling him that he
should merge not DEA with FBI, but merge ATF with DEA. ATF and
DEA--that would be a perfect match. And he said ``It cannot be
done.'' I said ``why?'' And he said, ``Well, that is Treasury
and Justice. We cannot even merge people within Justice. How
are we going to get the Secretary of Treasury's agency to merge
with Justice?'' That was a lesson for me in how a bureaucracy
works and how difficult it is to overcome.
Thank you very much for your insight. We have to continue
to wrestle with this. I thank Senator Schumer for his
leadership in calling this hearing. I know, having suffered as
he did in New York--the pain of all of that--he feels a
particularly strong mission to make sure that we do everything
we can to make sure that does not happen again.
If there is nothing else, we will stand adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:18 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
[Submissions for the record follow.]
SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD
Statement of Senator Patrick Leahy,
U.S. Senator from the State of Vermont
Today the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight
and Courts holds an important hearing on the sharing of information and
the power of the Office of Homeland Security, and I thank Senator
Schumer for his focused attention on this issue. The Judiciary
Committee has a critical oversight responsibility to ensure that
counterterrorism information is properly shared among Federal
Government agencies and that homeland security functions are managed
effectively. The apparent mission and authority of the Office of
Homeland Security relate extensively and directly to the Department of
Justice and to Federal law enforcement and border control operations
for which the Judiciary Committee has legislative and oversight
jurisdiction. Strong leadership is needed to bring together the
necessary organizations, both within and outside the Justice
Department, and design procedures, with adequate safeguards against
abuse, for sharing information across agencies that have different
missions, information technologies, policies and cultures.
Policies for sharing counterterrorism information were among the
most controversial issues during congressional consideration of the USA
PATRIOT Act last year. There was wide agreement on the principle that
unnecessary barriers to the sharing of intelligence and law enforcement
information on international terrorism should be removed. At the same
time, there was great concern that sensitive information, such as
information derived from grand juries or surreptitious wiretaps, should
not be shared without close supervision by Federal judges who have
traditionally played an important role in overseeing the grand jury and
electronic surveillance process. Another controversial issue was the
scope of information sharing that would be permitted for purposes
beyond counterterrorism.
As enacted, in Section 203, the USA PATRIOT Act reduced but did not
completely eliminate the role of the courts in the sharing of grand
jury information. The Act also provided for the sharing of foreign
intelligence information from criminal investigations for national
security purposes beyond counterterrorism, but definitions and
procedural safeguards were included in an effort to minimize the
dissemination of ``foreign intelligence'' about lawful activities of
United States persons and domestic groups acquired incidentally in
criminal investigations. The new law, in Section 905, also requires law
enforcement agencies to notify the Intelligence Community when a
criminal investigation reveals information of foreign intelligence
value.
I noted upon passage of the USA PATRIOT Act that the Judiciary
Committee has a responsibility to exercise careful and continuing
oversight with respect to implementation of the information sharing
provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act. On April 11, 2002, the Attorney
General made an announcement on information sharing that directed ``the
Assistant Attorney General for Legal Policy, in consultation with the
Justice Department's Criminal Division, to draft for consideration and
promulgation, procedures, guidelines, and regulations to implement
Sections 203 and 905 of the USA PATRIOT Act in a manner that makes
consistent and effective the standards for sharing of information,
including sensitive or legally restricted information, with other
Federal agencies.'' The Attorney General stated, ``Those standards
should be directed toward, consistent with law, the dissemination of
all relevant information to Federal officials who need such information
in order to prevent and disrupt terrorist activity and other activities
affecting our national security. At the same time, the procedures,
guidelines, and regulations should seek to ensure that shared
information is not misused for unauthorized purposes, disclosed to
unauthorized personnel, or otherwise handled in a manner that
jeopardizes the rights of U.S. persons, and that its use does not
unnecessarily affect criminal investigations and prosecutions. The
standards adopted will govern the coordination of information directed
by this memorandum, and [sic] well as other voluntary or mandated
sharing of criminal investigative information.''
I welcome the Attorney General's assignment of responsibility for
the drafting of these information sharing procedures, and I look
forward to consultation by the Department of Justice with this
Committee before rules are promulgated on such an important matter.
Information sharing involves technology and cultural issues as well
as policy considerations. Over the past month the full Judiciary
Committee has held two hearings on the FBI that highlighted the
weaknesses in the Bureau's information technology and security. On
March 21, 2002, the Justice Department Inspector General described
serious information management problems that contributed to the delay
in producing documents in the Oklahoma City bombing case. On April 9,
2002, Judge Webster discussed his Commission's report findings on
information security flaws that helped make it possible for FBI Agent
Robert Hanssen to commit espionage undetected. At both hearings, senior
FBI officials described the challenges they face in designing and
deploying new information technologies and management tools to meet the
operational and security needs of the FBI.
Today's hearing reminds us that the FBI cannot function in
isolation from the rest of the Justice Department or from other Federal
agencies. Other Justice Department components such as the Immigration
and Naturalization Service, the Criminal Division, the Office of
Intelligence Policy and Review, and the new Foreign Terrorist Tracking
Task Force share responsibility for counterterrorism and homeland
security and are at different stages in their development and use of
information technologies. The appointment of Mr. Vance Hitch as new
Chief Information Officer for the Department of Justice is a welcome
opportunity for leadership that integrates the work of Departmental
components internally and with other agencies. I encourage all elements
of the Justice Department to work closely with Mr. Hitch to achieve as
much collaboration as possible in the design of technologies and
information sharing policies that achieve shared national
counterterrorism and homeland security objectives.
Many of those national objectives and required actions have been
set out by the President in a series of policy directives based on the
advice of Governor Ridge, with the support of the staff of the Homeland
Security Office. Presidential decisions on homeland security are
coordinated through interagency bodies chaired by Governor Ridge and
his staff. Several witnesses today will testify as to the advantages
and disadvantages of various legislative proposals to enhance or
supplement the limited powers that Governor Ridge and his office
currently have under Presidential directives.
Whatever may be the legislative route, however, it is important to
stress that the Department of Justice and law enforcement agencies
generally have the principal domestic role in the operational
implementation of the President's counterterrorism and homeland
security policies. If any new Senate-confirmed positions are
established to lead counterterrorism or homeland security organizations
that directly and substantially affect Federal law enforcement, either
in the White House office or in a new department or agency, the
Judiciary Committee has the duty to ensure that the nominees are
qualified to perform the functions of their office and to oversee their
performance. In any event, this Committee, both through the work of the
full Committee and the capable leadership of its subcommittee chairmen,
will continue to monitor and engage in constructive and productive
dialog with the Administration and Justice Department in this important
work.
__________
Department of Justice,
Washington, DC., April 26, 2002.
Hon. Charles Schumer, Chairman,
Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts,
Committee on the Judiciary,
U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
Dear Mr. Chairman: I am writing to clarify two statements that were
made concerning the admission of Mohammed Atta and the issuance of
Forms I-20 to Atta and Marwan Al-Shehhi during opening remarks at the
April 17, 2002 hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee
on Administrative Oversight and the Courts. I ask that you enter this
letter into the hearing record.
In your opening statement, you said that, ``since September 11,
2001 every local, State, and Federal Government agency has been
scrambling to repair the holes in our homeland defense,'' and cited
``sending student visas to known terrorists'' as an example. On March
19, 2002, before the House Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on
Immigration and Claims, Commissioner Ziglar testified that, contrary to
some reports, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) did not
recently approve the applications for Atta and Al-Shehhi to change
their non-immigrant status. Adjudication of Atta's change of status
application took place on July 17, 2001, and adjudication of Al-
Shehhi's change of status application took place on August 9, 2001.
What Huffman Aviation International School received on March 11, 2002,
were file copies of paperwork originally prepared on behalf of Atta and
Al-Shehhi. No new visas were issued and no new decisions were reflected
in the documents sent to them.
It has been acknowledged that prior INS procedures and contract
terms for data entry and the mailing of student approvals were not
effective or desirable--both have changed. Commissioner Ziglar has
ordered that student notifications (I-20s) be mailed directly to the
schools at the time of adjudication. In addition, INS procedures and
the related contract have been modified to ensure that schools are
promptly notified when a student enters the United States at a port-of-
entry.
You also summarized your perception of the information-sharing
problem by quoting Larry Ellison of Oracle, who said that, ``We knew
that Mohammed Atta was wanted. We just didn't check the right database
when he came into the country.'' As the Commissioner has testified,
Atta was not the subject of a lookout or watch list at any time that he
was admitted into the United States. Again, let me emphasize that the
INS had no intelligence information that Atta was a potential
terrorist.
Thank you for the opportunity to explain this information to you.
Please contact me if you have additional questions or concerns about
this or any other immigration-related matter.
Sincerely,
Joseph Karpinski,
Director, Congressional Relations
and Public Affairs,