test test test mr robert mueller before us and we began with some observations from our members of the committee myself ranking member smith subcommittee crime chairman scott and judge gomery federal bureau of investigation as the critical cog in our nation's federal law enforcement efforts the bureau has important powers that include the ability to combat crime conduct surveillance on our citizens and then issue eight investigations these powers have grown exponentially since the tragedies of september eleventh and the question is how wisely is the bureau using its vast resources and how appropriately are they being employed with that in mind the areas of my most concern deal with the use and misuse of national security letters widely known that the bureau has on numerous occasions issuing nationals issued national security letters without proper certification or approval member and and have improperly uploaded and retain information on private citizens how do we deal with that it is also no secret that the members of this committee on a bipartisan basis have expressed serious concerns about the f b i wiretapping of members of congress particularly in connection with the investigation of member r i the surveillance of this nature raises serious constitutional questions that involve the speech and debate cause and we should have a discussion about it there are similar questions presented in the case of the search of representative jefferson of louisiana is office and the circuit court was forced to intervene and overruled the department in that regard whether the phone is being tapped as public or private whether it is or isn't it behooves the department and the sides so like to discuss here this morning the subject of several inmates held in solitary confinement in the maximum security louisiana state penitentiary at goal for thirty six years and i have asked as a result that the f b i files on this matter be revealed read least to this committee immediately  and then of course we're still grappling with this question of the redaction of the notes related to the infamous ashcroft hospital visit we can get a more understandable version without trying to go into the conversations between the president and the attorney general or anybody else and so i  its expanding national security and counterterrorism responsibilities with its traditional law enforcement duties and although this task has presented challenges to the f b i the success of the dedicated men and women of the bureau is evident from one simple fact the united states has not suffered another terrorist attack it's easy to assume that the terrorist threat has lessened or even disappeared because we have not had an attack since september eleventh two thousand and one it's easy to become complacent about the need for vigilant intelligence gathering because we rarely read in the paper where here on the news about the number of terrorist plots that have been thwarted by the f b i and other law enforcement and intelligence agencies but the threat remains and it is important that congress ensure that our law enforcement and intelligence agencies are given the tools and the resources they need to protect us all it is also important congress ensure that these are used properly one powerful tool is our ability to gather intelligence to learn what our enemies are planning before it is too late the foreign intelligence surveillance act provides the framework for gathering foreign intelligence but as we learned a year ago it was outdated last august congress passed the protect america act to modernize faisel and in february that law expired in august so too will the surveillance authorized under the act congress has greater or more urgent responsibility then to enact long term commonsense legislation to modernize fice and ensure that our nation is safe from future attacks our national security relies on other information gathering tools as well including national security letters national security letters allow the f b i to request the production of records held by third parties and are generally used to chain telephone billing records credit reports or financial information last year the department of justice inspector general issued a report citing significant problems with the f b i s use of national security letter authority from two thousand and three to two thousand and five recently the inspector general has released a follow up to its march two thousand and seven report according to this report the f b i has made significant progress implementing the inspector general's recommendations and in adopting other corrective actions to its national security letters authority the recent report is encouraging and shows that the f b i has taken strong action to ensure that its investigative efforts do not infringe on the privacy of individual americans despite the are decreasing though violent crime is slightly down nationwide trends and crime are changing in the one nine hundred ninety s gang violence was traditionally found in urban communities of major cities like los angeles and new york city but now we're seeing a rise of gang violence in suburban communities the methods for committing a crime also are changing the internet has transformed traditional brick and mortar crimes into virtual crimes committed by faceless criminals with no borders or boundaries identity theft shopping ah griffey organized retail crime dept of inner light show property and even drug trafficking can now be committed with a few computer strokes last year i joined chairman conyers in introducing h r forty one seventy five the privacy and cyber crime enforcement act of two thousand and seven our nation has become increasingly vulnerable to cyber attacks as the us economy and critical infrastructures grow more and more reliant on interdependent computer networks and the internet large scale computer attacks on our critical infrastructure and economy could have devastating results personal data security breaches are being reported with increasing regularity during two thousand and six alone personal records for approximately seventy three million people were lost or stolen i look forward to hearing from director mueller today about improvements in bureau operations the continuing need to pursue counterterrorism and traditional law enforcement and the f b i efforts to investigate the growing threat of cyber crime thank you mr chairman and i'll yield back thank you  should be able to get whatever information is necessary for the fight against terrorism there also needs to be meaningful oversight first we need traditional oversight over the bureau's in s l powers at last year's oversight hearing we heard about the inspector general findings of illegal and improper use of national security letters to obtain phone and financial records and that required reports to congress were inaccurate last month and second the expected general release another report which noted the bureau's own reviews confirms numerous deficiencies in the process including an almost ten percent rate of unlawful violations which the bureau should have reported to the president's intelligence oversight board the next question of course is where is oversight in this process we learned from the recent i g report to the bureau has implemented internal policies and procedures but it turns out that the checks and balances are presumably within the bureau itself checking with subordinates is not a check and balance some of us think the check and balance means that you check with another branch of government we've always had to we always have to think about what would happen of such power such as obtaining it from an information to an n f l subject to political whims and that concern is not just hypothetical republican appointed officials have accused this administration of firing u s attorneys because they did not indict democrats in time too and to affect an upcoming election we've been unable to ascertain the truth of the allegations for several reasons first high ranking administration officials question the credibility of the attorney general during a general's original response to the allegations another high ranking justice department official quit another pleaded the fifth and white house officials have refused to respond to subpoenas second we need to determine the necessity behind the broad n f l power itself one hundred forty thousand n f l requests over the three year period may not have  necessary one hundred forty thousand requests and all of these requests related to terrorism at last year's oversight hearing the director testified the traditional fire so warrants would be too burdensome to acquire the information gained from an n but always bypassing traditional court oversight to engage in over collection of information we now understand the defense department may be using f b i n f l power to access records that ordinarily it could not be permitted to obtain and finally we have been told that while the bureau is asking for continue asking to continue its broad power to fight against terror terrorism it is losing critical information under the traditional powers that has the inspector general found for example that some intercept information required by feisal order was lost due to the failure of the f b i to pay its phone bill finally we have to determine the how to best how to how the bureau is using the resources it has and if additional resources are needed to combat terrorism we should be coming up with new resources rather than transferring powers sacrificing the fight against white collar crime and violent crime we also need to make sure that other critical priorities and responsibilities are not left behind so i look forward to seeing what the bureau is doing in the fight against consumer identity theft investigation the shootings  gohmert thank you mr chairman and prescience you're holding this important hearing a question i found myself asking back during my days as a district trial judge when there were allegations of impropriety the state of texas law enforcement officer with whom the f b i had been working who investigates the investigators when the f b i is involved in recuse itself we've heard stories of attorney general robert kennedy martin luther king jr which raises an issue of if there were probable cause to believe that the f b i were illegally wiretapping then who can wiretap the f b i to find out frankly i don't know we've learned in the recent past that when the f b i as part of the executive branch had concerns about someone in the legislative slate a branch the f b i believed it was appropriate appropriate to make an intrusion into a congressional office for the first time in over two hundred years speaking out but that it clearly if there were probable cause to believe the f b i had violated some law which made an intrusion into an f b i office in washington this is scary who would be in a position to do that they stop that go question should point out just how critical it is that our f b i get things right it seems that since the judiciary branch and the legislative branches do not have trained under current agents in them it is very difficult to adequately bring a wayward f b i into line if we were to ever have that a car i'm fortunate to have known of work with so many f b i agents over the years with the different hats i've worn and i've known them well enough to know that i would have no hesitancy whatsoever and putting my life in their hands i trust them that much we also know that we have before us here testifying today the current f b i director who is a marine decorated vietnam war he as well as a brilliant attorney and prosecutor well we can learn an important lesson from the biblical account of king david who was the only man ever said in the bible to have had a heart after god's own the lesson is this even the greatest people in the world if left without adequate accountability can give in to the temptation to abuse power that recognition was part of the brilliance of our constitution which tried to address the problem of accountability by creating the three separate but supposedly somewhat equal branches help keep the other branches in check that's how we got to this hearing to have the director of an independent agency over here testifying about how what has gone right and what has gone wrong on some of these issues former attorney general gonzales had testified and during his testimony here on capitol hill last year he had said that there were no known abuses of the dramatic investigate a investigative tool called the national security letter as far as he was not aware because he was not aware of the inspector general's report that i g report indicated that there had been basically some significant problems of abuse with the n els i recall director mueller saying back when the abuses of this very invasive tool were brought to light that he would have to take full responsibility for the an adequate supervision and training that it led to such abuses to most americans the power of an f b i agent to simply send a letter without any court authority or warrant demanding private records in the possession of said person or entity pertaining to another individual is almost you dish will in scope and probably was not anticipated by our constitutional forefathers under normal circumstances it is a bit frightening to most people to have such a demanding letter also stay within the letter that that person in the letters addressed would commit a federal crime if he were to disclose that even i received the letter the only exception being that he could discuss it with his attorney that is why i said to press a power must be used sparingly with great discretion and oversight but we've also heard previously that the personnel policy that this director instituted includes a five year or out policy as essentially that program prevents agents in a supervisory capacity with many years of experience and training from using their experience and training in that capacity for more than five years after which they must either move to washington d c retired take a demotion from their position as i understand it that policies forced the loss of the f centuries of experience by those who simply would not move to washington but chose to take their vast invaluable experience into the private sector or even be demoted in the last hearing with the director i don't understand him to say that because of that policy though he has been thanked by junior or younger agents who were made supervisors who never thought that they would have had a chance to move up so soon and i have no doubt that that banks is abounding by those younger agents also note that if that policy of a five year limit on a supervisory personnel were imposed on the director it would mean the director would of retired as director back september fourth of two thousand six yet here we are in any event last week we had a hearing in this very room the director of the georgia bureau of investigation testified that's vernon burning the i'm keenan and i couldn't help but ask him about their experience with moving people around and he said the following quote i've discussed with f b i officials before my belief that they would be much more effective if they left their supervisors in duty stations longer to build those relations law enforcement is based around personal relationships and partners and you have to have a stable as workforce to build those relationships the f b i is a wonderful law enforcement agency our agents to be  b i agent is the same requirements to be an f b i agent we have found out over the years that our most productive agents most effective agents are those that live and work in a community that have an opportunity to build public trust and work with their counterparts and that's relationships some observers noted that perhaps the five year up or out policy should have been scrapped in two thousand and five along with a multi million dollar computer system called a virtual case  the just part as inspector general in february two thousand and five audit blamed the virtual case files programs meltdown on poor management and oversight design modifications during the project and bad investment practices  but we're pleased to have a hero such as yourself a true patriotic american here testifying before a senate for your testimony thank you sir thank you does any other member wish to bring  again welcome the director and it's good to see you and we thank the f b i for its service in particular i always want to make note of the houston office that we've had a series of great special agent in charge and we are obviously benefiting from that leadership again one of the principles of this the f b i mandate or mission is to protect the civil rights of all americans and so in the course of this morning and hopefully in the opportunity i may have to question let me just make mention that i think we've had a series of harsh circumstances i think we still have rising hate crimes in america i think one of the sadder tales of justice was jena six and i'd be interested in how quickly the f b i became involved when the actions were taken by the high school students who happened to be white and provoked the situation and it seemed to be no intervention at that time and whether or not the relationship between the u s attorney in the f b i is the horse before the cart or otherwise the f b i engage in the investigation if so i think there was a great failure in that community i think the other question of course is how do we assess or how do we protect even persons who  experience abuse in an incarcerated situation where their civil rights have been violent prison abuse for example it is notorious in the state of texas we have previously been under a federal court order so many years ago but we face a situation where there is either abuse or inadequacy and my question is the collaboration or the interaction with the f b i or special agent in charge so i am welcome you want to make note that my state in particular faces a number of i think serious issues with its youth commission sexual abuse on children inside the juvenile system and as well it's prison system a state prison system i believe that the f b i is a better organization when they're out front fighting for the civil rights of all americans and i hope that we'll have a chance to have that discussion with that mr chairman i yield back thank you very much  witness robert mueller the third director of the federal bureau of investigation has held this post since september fourth two thousand and one is a long and distinguished career in public service between princeton and university of virginia law school he served as an officer in the marines and was heavily decorated for his duties there he's been in the system united states attorney in san francisco in boston and in washington d c he served as assistant attorney general for the criminal division in the early ninety's returned to san francisco in  is the united states attorney has served two stents in private practice as a partner in two prominent boston firms was called back to washington early in two thousand and one to be acting deputy attorney general where he served until assuming his current post director mueller we welcome you will look forward to your comments good morning and thank you for having me chairman conyers represents most members of the committee it's an honor to be here i have submitted a written statement for the record and i said be made a part of  you are aware of the f b i s top three priorities are counterterrorism counterintelligence and cyber security these priorities are critical to our national security and to the f b i s vital work as  committed member of the intel of it's community but important also our efforts to protect our communities from the very real threat of crime especially violent crime in the counterterrorism arena train and operate right here at home our domestic joint terrorism task forces and abroad through our legal attache is in our international partners we together share real time intelligence to fight the terrorists and their supporters with regard to the counterintelligence threat protecting our nation's most sensitive secrets from hostile intelligence services or others who would do us harm is also at the core of the f b i mission in further and so this we reach out to businesses and universities we join forces with our intelligence community partners and we work closely with the military to help safeguard our country's secrets cyber threats to our national security and the intersection between cybercrime terrorism and counter intelligence is increasingly evident today the f b i has cyber investigators focus on these threats as we partner with others in government and industry one way we do this is to our sponsorship of a program called in for a guard an alliance of more than twenty three thousand individuals and corporate members who help identify and prevent cyber attacks i am mindful of your ongoing interest in the f b i s progress in building an intelligence program law combat in these threats the f b i has made a number of changes in the last several years to enhance our capabilities among them today intelligence is woven throughout every f b i program and every operation and then utilizing this intelligence we have successfully broken up terrorist plots across the country from portland oregon lackawanna new york torrance california chicago illinois to the more recent fort dix and j f k plots we have increased and enhanced working relationships with our international partners sharing critical intelligence to identify terrorist networks and disrupt planned attacks around the globe we have doubled the number of intelligence analysts on board and tripled the number of linguists we have tripled the number of joint terrorism task forces from thirty three in september of two thousand and one to over one hundred now and these task forces combine the resources and expertise of the f b i the intelligence community military and state local and tribal law enforcement another critical and important part of the f b i as traditional mission is quite clearly our work against criminal elements in our communities very often and most useful in task forces with our federal state and local and tribal partners will say the public corruption remains the f b i s top criminal investigative priority and that past two years alone we have convicted over eight hundred federal state and local officials for abusing their public trust similarly our work to protect the civil rights guaranteed by our constitution is a priority which includes fighting human trafficking as well as our focus on the civil rights code cold case initiative gangs and violent crime continue to be as much a concern for the f b i as it is for the rest of the country the f b i has one hundred  forty three say streets violent gang task forces leverage the unique knowledge of state local police officers with federal investigative resources we also sponsor fifty two additional violent crime and interstate theft task forces as well as sixteen safe trails task force is targeting crime in indian country the f b i combat's transnational organized crime in part by linking the efforts of our nation's eight hundred thousand state and local police officers with international partners to the f b i s legal attache offices which we have currently over sixty all over the world and finally major white collar crime from corporate fraud to fraud in the mortgage industry clearly continues to be an economic threat to the country for example in recent years the number of f b i pending cases focusing on mortgage fraud including those associated with subprime lending has grown nearly fifty percent to over thirteen hundred cases roughly half of these have losses of over one million and several have losses over ten million dollars will continue our work to identify large scale industry insiders and criminal enterprises engaged in systemic economic  fraud we recognize that for the past one hundred years of the f b i s history our greatest asset has been our people and we are building on that history with a comprehensive restructuring of our approach to intelligence training for both  professional intelligence analytical corps as well as for new f b i agents coming out of quantico we have and we will continue to streamline our recruiting and hiring processes to attract persons having the critical skills needed for continued success i also remain committed to and during our employees and employees have the information technology infrastructure they need to do their jobs this includes the continuing successful development of the sentinel case management system as well as other i t upgrades i am very well aware of your concerns that we always use legal tools given to the f b i fully but also appropriately at the department of justice reviewed the use of national security letters we instituted additional internal oversight mechanisms to ensure that we as an organization minimize the chance of future lapses among the reforms with the creation of a new office of integrity in compliance within the bureau to identify and mitigate such potential risks in closing the f b i recognizes that it is in some sense a national security service responsible not only for collecting analyzing and disseminating intelligence but most particularly for taking time action to neutralize threats to this country he's a threat from a terrorist from a foreign spy or from a criminal and in doing so we also recognize that we must properly balance civil liberties with public safety in pursuing our efforts and we will continually strive to do so and as chairman representative smith members of the committee i appreciate the opportunity to testify before you this morning and i do look forward the thing that bothers many of us most is the national security letters very large embarrassment to all of us what can we do to ensure that the feel of the directors share a commitment to rectifying the problems pertaining to the abuse of national security  letters when it seems like at the top we always seem to work out agreements but they don't seem to drift down to the men and women in the field let me review if i could what steps we've been taken since the first report came out the year year and a half ago as i mentioned in my remarks we established in office of integrity and compliance we had procedures in place two for addressing national security letters but there were lapses throughout the country in those procedures and we now have an office of integrity and compliance that looks not just atlanta sales but other requirements under the law that red team to to assure that we identify the risks and find  risks before it gets before somebody else such as the an inspector general comes and looks at it so that we can identify our vulnerabilities and address them early on we have created a new database and software  which created the problem that was found by the inspector general and we have provided comprehensive guidance and training to our field offices in the last in the last year i believe that in the testimony that was given before  subcommittee of this committee week or so ago you now quote from the testimony given by glenn fine he says that we believe the f b i has evidence to a commitment to correcting these problems we found in our first report on national security letters and has made some significant progress in addressing the need to improve compliance in the f b i he said the n s l s and i'll be quick to say also said that the department's measures are not yet fully implemented we're in the process of implementing all of those that i described and that the i g will be looking to assure full implementation of those measures so in this case i think we've taken the steps that are necessary to assure that this will not happen again mr chairman what order the full facts were exposed to the district court judge the judge issued the search warrant understanding all of the facts in the search was done pursuant to that court order now that was reviewed by the circuit court who in its opinion indicated that the protocols we followed were not adequate to preserve the the that the the the privilege and so we are with the department of justice looking at protocols and my understanding is the department is discussing with elements of the congress and appropriate protocols can we can every member of the congress in the united states senate assume that we could still get broken into  we understand that there's been an intervening circuit court opinion that requires us to follow protocols although it is not clear what those protocols are but we are very sensitive to not only the the the debate clause but also to the circuit court opinion and that said that we did not have the adequate protocols in place now what those protocols will be is a subject of discussion between my understanding congress and the department well i'm glad you're sensitive to i'm also with regard to that other the other question you asked in terms of the wire interception of a of a phone with regard to our recent  s not being able to speak specifically about an ongoing investigation ongoing prosecution i can see that that phone was a phone that was registered to a corporation in phoenix arizona and that in order for us to intercept we again after go to a court make a probable cause showing and that any interception that is maintained by us is reviewed by the court generally every ten or fifteen days and there are minimisation procedures that are what about the congressman if there were  the interception there is an obligation that you notify those persons that they were overheard and then that occurred yes could you make more comfortably tonight by saying that also the conversations were redacted and were taken out since the speech in the bait clause i presume operates on personal telephones as well as government telephone i'm not certain what minimization procedures were in place and i am not sure how they were applied in that particular case and even if i did know because it's currently in litigation i probably would not be able to discuss it this forum but it but it's the obligation of the f b i to know i mean where do you have some place else we can go to find out the answer to this question i would have to get back to you on that chairman first of all director mother i'd like to congratulate you and other law enforcement agencies and other intelligence gathering agencies as well for what you have done to prevent another terrorist attack since september eleventh two thousand and one looks like to me that you all are batting a thousand having prevented any other terrorist attack and i hope that that can continue as well my first question goes to a recent report by fox news now i'd like to read you the beginning of the report and ask you to comment to the extent that you can the f b i has narrowed its focus to about four suspects in the second half your investigation of the deadly anthrax anthrax attacks of two thousand and one and at least three of those suspects are linked to the army's bio weapons research facility at fort detrick in maryland that's an ongoing investigation so i know you can't go into any details but can you tell us for example when that investigation might be concluded whether it might be this year or not or anything else you can tell us about it what i can say and all i can say about it is an ongoing investigation we have a number of agents and postal inspectors assigned to it as we have since the incentives occurred back in two thousand and one two thousand and two and we continue to push the investigation hard i cannot give you a timeframe however i understand let me go to the subject of violent crime which as you know has decreased slightly in two thousand and seven i think by crime is down one point eight percent you mentioned in your testimony a few minutes ago that one of those reasons or the task force that have been created usually in a slow economy violent crime increases to what do you attribute the slight decrease in violent crime that we see across the country i think what we have seen over the last year is some spikes in some cities some decrease in other cities i do believe one of the most effective tools in addressing violent crime here is having federal state local task forces and support of congress of those task forces and of the participation of state local law enforcement on those task forces we currently have a total of one hundred eighty two violent gang crime task forces around the country and i  think to a one they are perceived to be effective not only by the bureau and our other federal partners but also by state local law enforcement and to the extent that funding's come through the from the  federal side of the house i am tremendously supportive of those funds going to state local law enforcement on condition that they be utilized in a task force arena because i do believe we are most effective when we sit shoulder to shoulder and address  of violent crime in a particular region or particular city the extent of incarceration is one of those factors the drug abuse or usage the problems of gangs there are a number of various factors that may result in a rise child pornography and we have passed a number of laws to address that and i wonder if you have any suggestions for us as to any other legislation that might be helpful to you in order to prosecute the internet child pornography we have a couple things about our capabilities in that regard we currently have progeny two hundred and seventy agents who are working what we call innocent images  have a task force of operating out of maryland which is an international task force in which we've had agents from from some twenty one countries who are participating on this task force we recently had a a takedown several months ago of almost six individuals who over a period of fifteen years had over four hundred thousand images pornographic images child pornography that they'd encrypted and thought they were safe from the authorities right close to sixty persons were arrested in the united kingdom and australia in germany and the united states as we busted that up one thing to another question that linguistics languages and i don't know if i don't think i formally asked for the breakdown but it could you give us information on which languages you may have shortfalls well we still have a  if you don't have it on your terms of the middle eastern languages and asian languages i would say in those two areas i served on the education and labor committee so if we could get a breakdown of that and also the  diversity numbers for your all of your employer employees out of depreciate if you could provide that i would do that happy that what is being done with the elegant we had allegations of sexual assault committed by persons working for contractors in iraq are allegations of sexual assault persons working as contractors in iraq being investigated and if appropriately if appropriate areas the first area is by conducting investigations in a new area where you can assure the safety of our persons and you can't go out and interview witnesses as you would the streets of the united states let me just ask a short court are we doing the best we can to investigate and if and if appropriate prosecute those allegations yes ok in the area of torture i know these questions may require you may not be able to answer and open session and that's the case that's just the case have you authorized torture by any f b i agents can you can i or have i was a question have you know it has been our policy it's been the protocol the along those lines but to your knowledge have f b i agents warned other administration employees that those employees may be breaking the law about torturing people there have over the years been  occasions where our employees have informed employees of other agencies that they believe their conduct was not appropriate if any f b i arrests of us that has since been made for torturing people i have to get back to i do believe that there have been investigations and formal investigations of torture by either contractors or members of another organization which we are the investigating body and my belief is that at least one case  that has been brought back in the person times successfully prosecuted here i think it was in north carolina may have been south carolina thank you be theft one of the problems with when you have these major breaches in security and pursue the larger breaches there are the ability of hackers to steal information is grown exponentially over the last several years the department of justice has a task force concept in which we participate in problem a huge problem and it takes tremendous resources it would take tremendous resources to address every one of them those that are large intrusions where there are substantial numbers and names that are stolen and pursue those  we that we do if you could get us some estimates of resources that would be needed to pursue even more cases would appreciate it public records public reports reveal that the f b i had some phones cut off because of failure to pay phone bills is that true and if so what happened if we did not have a financial system that assured throughout our fifty six field offices four hundred resident agencies that the phone bills were paid on time and there were five instances going back to two thousand and two in which apparently where we had an interception it was for a period of time disrupted until the bill of been paid we've focused on two i think they were in two thousand and two is absolutely no harm came to the investigation that's as a result of the i g report that we identified five instances in which that may have happened mr chairman i know my time is expired i'd like to pose another question that i could get an answer in writing since my time has expired if that be appropriate question is what is the f b i doing to combat human trafficking you mention the new opening statement especially whether or not you are using our new legislation which committee jim sensenbrenner thank you very much mr current chairman during my six years as chairman mr director of the f b i continuously frustrated the committee's attempt to get to the bottom of the fiasco of the virtual case file how much money was wasted in that before you gave the op bonnets we had tried to be fully transparent what happened there i had to make a decision to cut that loose because it was not going to be successful and i i believe we provided thorough briefings throughout the time that you were the chair i certainly tr to i want to know how much money was wasted there was i believe a lot of that was a lot of a lot of it three things but no figure i believe that there was one hundred ninety seven million dollars that was put into that program of which we could recover somewhere is under one hundred million of that so at least ninety seven million probably more then more likely a hundred million has that money been recovered you know why not we've looked at it there are a number of intervening entities that are in part were part responsible for for that and the advice of counsel is that we would not be successful if we attempted to go to court and recover it now this goes to in demick management problem the gentleman from virginia mr scott referred to the fact that there are phones shut off because the phone bill wasn't paid on time you know now we hear about the fact that almost two hundred million dollars peers who have been lost in an unsuccessful attempt at the virtual case file you and i both know that that was not the first attempt to  provide the best information agents available and we're now in the middle of implementing the sentinel program which i believe is the fourth attempt to do this what's there that you can tell us that fourth attempt is going to be more successful than the previous three i'm not familiar with the first two i'm from very familiar with virtual case file because that contract was entered in and i think two thousand and  had a three prong approach you had the hardware it also had the networks and it had the software package three two of those products were very successful the networks and the hardware but the software package was not  successful when we decided that we could not effectively bring online virtual case file we decided to cut our losses and start as sentinel the first phase of sentinel was put in place june of last year was successful was  on time on budget and we are in the second phase and my expectation is that that will be on time and on on budget we have gone to a spiral development  in which we have pieces that are pulled together and put in place as opposed to going phase by phase by phase where we're advancing the capabilities in the course of administering this contest what management techniques have you learned from the fact that the virtual case file effort went off the cliff and the taxpayers got stuck with a pretty significant bill that you're applying to make sure that this doesn't happen with sentinel and there probably three things i would say one is you need a chief intelligence officer infrastructure you need an architecture you need the persons capable of managing contracts such as this and you need the expertise we had none of that in two thousand and one we had built a substantial cheap intelligence officers capability and contract management capability secondly the lesson one of the lessons i learned is that you cannot just turn to the experts in technology and tell me and say build something what you need is a combination of those who are familiar with the business practices to be integrated with the technicians  ensure that what you're going to build will actually work and actually brew move the organization ahead and you have to do it in a combination of setting down firm requirements so that both you and the contractors know what you're going to build to requirements in place yes yes and how often you personally review whether things are on track and every week generally and i'll miss a week or two but i generally meet on set and with all the players once a  week that sounds good and i wish you good luck and i hope that we don't see you back here with a report like the virtual case file reports that we got during my chairmansh to i have not looked at international law and not had an opportunity to apply the law to any particular set of facts well i'm not asking you to apply to any set of facts i'm just asking you to acknowledge that the  person to secret detention without a trial is a violation of the united nations convention against torture and cruel inhuman or degrading treatment universal declaration of human rights the international convention of civil and political rights the geneva convention and so i mean that's not a trick question i'm  that that is they about lation of international law it may well be ok do you acknowledge that if the captives were tortured that would be a violation of federal law eighteen u s c section twenty three forty may well be and if you had a contractor in north carolina for example assisting with transporting people when during people north carolina attorney general has referred such a matter to you about a company called aero contractors in and apparently a public prosecutor in munich germany is issued arrest warrants for three of the company's employees all of whom  residents of north carolina i'd like to know what the f b i is doing in this investigation whether it's doing anything and i'd be happy to have it in writing in fact it would be better to have it in writing  we don't maybe don't need to discuss it in a public venue but i'd like to know what's going on with that investigation if there is an investigation what the status  or arrow a r o contractors johnston county operating out of the johnston county airport near smithfield north carolina  now there was an allegation that actually i guess you all have acknowledged that a national security letter was in appropriate issued with reference to a north carolina state university student are you familiar with that yes it was an appropriately issued to tell me what happened and why it happened what i understand is that  and i believe a grand jury subpoena followed up so that was one of how many cases where in a sales way in appropriately i'm not certain i have to get back to you on that can you specifically get back to us on that to  been in appropriately issued along in that same category how soon you think we might expect specific responses to both of those issues the error in a week ok thank you appreciate service i'd like to talk to you director about mortgage fraud intellectual property i feel strongly that the growing crisis sub prime mortgages as a result of predatory lending epidemic which seems to reached these cases as they continue to march we as i indicated are large we have more than thirteen hundred cases that have grown substantially over the last couple years involving mortgages we have two hundred forty six agents that are working on this approximately one hundred sixty looking at brokers appraisers buyers lenders and the like we have another almost ninety they're looking at larger corporations the possibility of misstatements indictments in this class of white collar crime but it's fair to say that as these mortgage cases grow as the investigations proceed and that we are going to need additional resources to address knows that he or she is not going to be able to comply perhaps backing off would be a dollar and the same that would apply to the lenders out they need concur that we all the way up the chain there have been may i feel special agents are still full time to the investigation and pursuit of intellectual property rights matters do you concur that we need more agents dedicated to worldwide with the advance of technology to the ability of persons to counterfeit whether it be cd roms or software packages or music c d s or pull it off the internet it is a  and no one agency has a resources to address it now we address it when there are relatively large cases i'm sure you're familiar with a case that we brought down several months ago involving a joint operation w about the the mortgage subprime crisis that we have now this has been going on for quite some time and it appears just looking that less than ten  lending cases have been foul between two thousand and two and two thousand and seven could you tell us exactly what you're doing now how many cases do you have under active investigation over thirteen hundred in fact the latest total to be specific to thirteen thirty seven have you have you identified any of the institutions have been involved in serious fraud we have  investigations into nineteen i have large institutions and we've had a number of indictments as i said last year we had three hundred twenty indictments or informations in this arena you had how many indictments three hundred seventy for mortgage fraud or mortgage fraud could we get more information on that yes you can we'll get that to you go ahead well yet we have a i said we have over three hundred cases we have total of almost two hundred well got two hundred forty six agents working on mortgage fraud around the country we participate in thirty three task forces where the securities and exchange commission with other federal state and local entities the department of justice has a coordinating committee that is specifically addressed to the issues relating to the it should be yes no maybe one or two in there there are still sealed but i would venture to say most of them are public we had you we can get you a list of that would you please give me a list of that those because we have not seen i have not seen that and the public is you know they're very upset about the fact that we don't appear to be doing anything to deal with this massive fraud that has taken place in this country so we need to say we need to understand exactly what you're doing having said that let me go on to gang violence you have all of these paths forces this gang problem has been going on the many many years i know you've only been here for so many years but it doesn't appear that you're successful in breaking up gangs and stopping violence in the greater los angeles area is rampant what are you going to do about gang balance and how are you go tackle this issue to get some real success we i think if you talk to bill bratton and others in los angeles you'll see that we have a very close partnership with our office and no no no i don't have to talk to mr breton i'm witnessing the drive by shootings and the killings that are going on i know what bret is doing and i have to talk to him i want to know what are you doing but we are working very closely with brett and bill bratton and l a p d and the sheriff's office on task forces we also have  given the prevalence of the eighteenth street gangs the ins are teen we have entities not only in los angeles my but in el salvador and we have a task force down el salvador we have l a p d officers are working on it we're bringing el salvador officers the  put in place fingerprint effort efforts so that we can identify gang members who come in and out of the country and utilize those countries outside the united states to sell safe havens we are complementing  sheriff's office in terms of addressing them asserting the eighteenth street gangs and the other gangs that you have in los angeles well let me just say that i'm not satisfied most of the elected officials and that's had a sigh i would like to know if you would be willing to come to lausanne to us and be a part of a meeting with chief bratton chief baka all of the elected officials in the affected area and and talk about what you are doing now what can be done better and how can we depend on your task forces to solve some of these problems we cannot continue to witness the murders the drive by shootings and the devastation to our communities and a longer would you be willing to do that yes ma'am six months ago i went stood on the street corner with nary a row so with bill bratton with the sheriff and you did exactly that  and followed up with each of those individuals with more personnel with contributions to the task force and of course i'd be willing to do that again well this is this is something that i will follow up on if not necessarily stand on the street corners  but it will be to sit down with the elected officials and the police officers in that greater los angeles area so that we can talk about the devastation to our communities and see if we cannot figure out with you how we are going to address this issue with a combination of law enforcement and social services yes ma'am thank you top priorities that you're dealing with and it cost as much as one hundred billion dollars a year in a speech that you gave last week you were reported as saying quote the simple truth is we do not protect cyberspace to the same degree we protect our physical space we have in large part left the doors open to our practices are sensitive data and are intellectual property unquote your chief of the computer intrusion section went on to say  in the same article quote we the f b i do not have the right amount of resources or training in place unquote what additional resources does the f b i need to close those doors that you mentioned remain unfortunately we don't look at the internet in the same way we look at our physical security where we have a door we can shut but the fact of matter is that people can utilizing the internet and with inadequate security a person could lodge on your machine and a an entity that  to take down the strokes and push it out and push the information out and people don't think of that in the same way part of it is giving adequate security to the nets whether it be dot gov dot net and the like hackers those who want to utilize the internet to disrupt facilities and the like we have put in back to your last question in terms of resources in our two thousand and nine request we are requesting additional two hundred eleven position and thirty nine million dollars i testified to that before the appropriations committee house i guess senate and house appropriations committee in the last several weeks so  that will enhance our capabilities if we were able to get those two hundred eleven positions not thirty nine million dollars thank you also director mueller and my colleague mr coble referred to this issue already but i'm going to come out a little differently and that's relative to the subprime mortgage crisis in the predatory lending aspects of that state that i happen to represent ohio ranks six in the number of homes that have been the subject of foreclosure with only well with one in every fifty eight homes being foreclosed upon the city of cincinnati that i represent witnessed an increase in the number of foreclosures in zero seven placing it among the top thirty cities in the nation a foreclosure problem and a primary reason for the foreclosure fallout as mr coble mentioned is predatory and lending practices or other things as well but that's certainly been a part of it and many of those things were in involved in what you don't have to go into specifics obviously for obvious reasons but but how do you cooperate with the local entities when it comes to these investigations to be effective to the extent that the state or local entities local jurisdictions have an entity that is addressing this and we try to work in task forces we have white collar crime squads this is a substantial element of most of our white collar crime squads around the country at this point and they reach out to the analytical expertise in these entities again will work together in task forces as i say we have thirty three formalistic or formalized working groups or task forces around the country and my expectation is those will expand as we find more of these issues we think we had something like several thousand specific suspicious activity reports from banks and the last several years and that's going up to tens of thousands of suspicious activity reports reported by banks of activities that perhaps should be investigated and so this problem is growing bigger not smaller and as it grows bigger we are going to have to enlist the resources of state local law enforcement if we are to jointly be successful thank you very much the immigration committee so thank you mr chairman i want to talk a little bit about the interface between the f b i and the department of homeland security as it relates to the f b i s role in name checks when you appeared before this committee last fall i asked you where we were on that and you indicated according to the transcript that we were bringing the sentinel system online however subsequent to that we've had a hearing  in the immigration subcommittee with the department of homeland security on this issue and they are reporting that although in a ninety day period  permanent residence applications if they don't hear from the f b i they simply proceed they are not doing that when it comes to those nations i don't quarrel with that judgment but there are still many cases where apparently  the name check function takes many many months i mean even two years and i'm wondering where we are on that i mean we actually had one of the members that he's not here today but howard berman explained that one of his constituents at popped up on a name check because he's gotten a security clearance and somehow they could never get i mean he was good enough to get a security clearance but they could never clear it to the f b i where are you on that whole venture  the problem the backlog that we had is attributable to goes back to two thousand and two when in the wake of september eleventh u s c i s resubmitted two point seven million names which got us behind the eight ball and then the last we in the past have completed seventy percent of them within thirty days but that left the other forty percent that was taking substantially longer  have recognized this we have done taken a number of steps we have raised the fees we have revised the criteria to eliminate certain categories of records that have to be researched we have prioritized the workload we have built a central records complex and most importantly we've hired over two hundred contractors to work along with forty f b i employees as a result of that our expectation is by july of this year we will of the limb unaided the backlog behind two years beyond two years and by november of this year we will the lemonade in the backlog beyond one year and by june of next year ninety eight percent of the record checks will be done within thirty days if i made most of the name checks are done instantaneously because of the computers so that's nothing new it's it's perspective i mean right now we've got according to the information i've received from v h s forty six thousand cases are have been pending for more than two years it may be i'm not certain i'm not certain of those statistics but maybe you think by june the two years will be cleared out yes and we had one hundred thirty thousand that had been pending for more than six months will those be cleared out by june as well those who have been pending for more than one year will been cleared out by november of this year let me ask you in terms of your computer efforts i know mr sensenbrenner also explored this but it seems to me that until we move into this century we're really never going to get ahead of this whole game not only the computer system but did you guys in your existing records can you tell us where you are implementation on that and let me just explain for our records check in most cases you can come back and you get a records request from customs or state what have you and a check and a computer check will show you it shows up in one file or no files at all and you can get about what happened back in two thousand and two is determined that whenever a name shows up in a file you have to go find that file our files paper files for years and years and years are resident in the various fifty six field all of those whenever we have a record check to requires us to pull out a file we are digitizing it and putting into the computer database so you're just doing it as we do as well going on we've got i think records from ten years forward  we're doing in particular offices we're doing the backlog i'd have to get you the exact records retention digitization i would like to report on that mr director because obviously digitizing a thirty year old record doesn't have the same  priority urgent but it seems to me if if google can digitize stanford university's library in a few months the f b i should be able to digitize its current records in an equivalent time if it were a priority we have priority prioritize it it's a it's a really a function of personnel and capability and for the last five years we have prioritized and gone throughout our country and digitize as many records as we call and given the guys these records you're going to actually enhance the ability of your agents to perform and therefore it's worth an investment to enhance the capability of your entire workforce to be more effective and so i'd like i don't know if you've done a cost benefit analysis but it seems to me clear that if you move into the modern age your agents are going to be optimized in terms of their performance i think that's right give you an example prioritization we have digitized every counterterrorism file every terrorism record we do a lot of civil work and their civil files are very big as you would understand that go back for a number of years that are on the sort of the back end when all get digitized so we have prioritized we have put emphasis on it particularly in those areas where we need to have access to those records digitally immediately mr i know my time's expired but i would hope that we could get a full report on where we are on the computer system and on digitizing these records what we ma thank you for being here and your service let me go back to the national security letters for a moment if i might believe it or not at one of my last town hall meetings i had people who were concerned about the federal government spying on them and they mentioned the patriot act and i have no problem defending that in defending our efforts in the area when they start talking about national security letters i have to i had to admit to them that we had some problems the f b i had some problems there that there were as a result of the inspector general's report instances of the failure of the f b i to act properly to have it supervisors understand what they were supposed to do have the agents understand what they were supposed to do and so subsequent to your last appearance before us we've had a report that covered the year two thousand and six as required by legislation passed by this body and started by this committee that latest report showed that the mismanagement of the national security letters continued into two thousand and six you've talked about the various things you have done to try and change this the i g report said that there was a lack of understanding the n f l legal requirements in the field how do you specifically address that and have you made any training mandatory for all employees who are involved with n s l's let me start by saying yes the latest i  report i covered the period up to two thousand and six because it was not included in the previous report was terminated some point time so it reflects that point in time before we put into place these new practices the  practices were put into place we changed the procedures as i indicated where our chief division counsel asked to review every n f l we provided training across the board let me make certain let me just check one on one  thing we have instituted mandatory training i want to make certain that it was mandatory was mandatory in the meantime for anybody who handles national security letters the reason this is so important is that i believe the national security letters play an indispensable part in the area of protecting us against terrorism at the same time we have legislation introduced by a distinguished member of this  panel that i believe would make it very difficult if not impossible for you to use in terrorist cases in timely fashion that's why it's so important that we're able to give a statement of confidence the american people that the f b i has reformed itself and that will carry this out one of the questions i have is accountability if these mistakes have been made in the past has anybody been held accountable number one and number two the i g report says that your office of integrity and compliance which you referred to earlier in your answer needs more staff to carry out its oversight role do you agree that more oversight staff may be needed and do you have the right again computer systems to improve the way you issue and track n s l s so that you don't have to come up here next year or your successor if you're decide to return to the private sector we don't have to will go a long ways to shaping and assuring that the particular protocols are followed in the issuance of a national security letter the i am comfortable and confident that what we have put into place will address this issue the i agree with you that's tremendously important that we maintain the capability of issuing national security letters with the current standard because a point at the outset it does not request content it does not get content it gets information relating to records most often toll records which allows us time to get a probable cause so that you can go on to get content if appropriate is that perhaps loosely essential to provide the foundation for getting probable cause to get content down the road and absent that we would be severely severely severely hampered i do have a disagreement i think it's really a minor disagreement with the inspector general we have put into place and the compliance office my expectation is that will it will grow but i believe the people i put in charge and the people that are currently working in that office are sufficient to the task right now and as we look at different areas of vulnerability it will shape the growth of the office he believes we should have made a more substantial initial investment of personnel in the office i believe we can grow to where he expects us to be would you give focus on it and be fairly clear in terms of the standards then it might be a benefit what i would not want to have tampered with however is the standard for issuing the n f l which is akin to the standard for the issuance of a grand jury subpoena reported that the n s a wireless wiretapping program had produced thousands of leads each month that the f b i had to track down but that no out qaeda networks were discovered during a july seventeenth two thousand and seven briefing f b i deputy director john pistole indicated that the f b i was not aware of any al qaeda sleeper cells operating in the united states in august of two thousand and seven congress passed the protect america act giving the intelligence community greater access to electronic communications coming into and out of the united states i have two questions in this regard has the f b i found any sleeper cells yet one too has the n s a s wireless wiretapping programs either before the protect america act or after led to the prosecution and conviction of any terrorists in the united states well as to your first question as to whether we have found affiliates or as you would call themselves of al qaeda in the united states yes we have again i cannot get into it in public session but i would say yes we have with regard to the relationship of the a particular case or individual to the the terrorists surveillance program again that is something that would have to be covered in a closed session mr mr director  a times article from october two thousand and seven quotes one senior federal enforcement official as saying quote the cia determined they were going to torture people and we made the decision not to be involved and quote the article goes on to say that some f b i officials went to you and that you quote pulled many of the agents back from playing even a supporting role in the investigations to avoid exposing them to legal jeopardy and quote my question mr director i congratulate you for pulling the f b i agents back but why did you not take more substantial steps to stop the interrogation techniques that your own f b i agents were telling you were illegal why did you not initiate criminal investigations when your agents told you the cia and the department of defense were engaging in illegal interrogation techniques and rather than just simply pulling your agents out of these interrogations shouldn't you have directed them to prevent any illegal interrogations from taking place i can go so far as to tell you that our protocol in the f b i is not to have been not to use coercion and any of our kara geisha into our questioning and we have abided by our protocol i appreciate that what is the protocol say when the f b i knows that the cia is engaging or the department of defense is gauging in an illegal technique what is the protocol say in that circumstance we would bring it up to appropriate authorities and determine whether the techniques were legal or illegal did you bring it up to appropriate athol i can tell you is that we followed our own protocols so you can't tell us whether you brought it went when your own f b i agents came to you instead the cia is doing something illegal which caused you to say don't you get involved you can't tell us whether you then went out tell you ever that we all owed our own protocols and what was the result we followed our own protocols we followed our protocols we did not use coercion we did not participate in any instance where coercion was used to my knowledge did the cia use techniques that were illegal i'm not can't comment on what has been done by another agency and under what authorities the other agency may have taken actions why can't you comment on the actions of another agency it's not i'm not i leave that up to the other agency to answer questions with regard to the actions taken by that agency and the legal authorities of man apply that are are you the league the chief legal law enforcement agency in the united states i am head of the i am the director of the f b i and you do not have a with respect to any other governmental agency in the united states i'd always say when the authority is given to me to investigate yes we do that somebody take away that authority with respect to this note taking away the authority i can tell you what our protocol was and how we followed that protocol did anybody take away the authority with respect to the department of defense i'm not certain what you mean your authority to investigate an illegal to ask of a legal basis for us to investigate and generally that legal basis is given to us by the department of justice and the interpretations of laws given to us by the department of justice but i don't well see but apparently your own agents made a determination that the actions by the cia and the department of defense were illegal so much so that you capture online predators and also results from the safe streets task force to go after violent crime the bottom line in my area of orlando florida is that the results the f b i has to house forcing going after online child predators have been spectacular the results from the other task force dealing with violent crime have been less than spectacular and i just want to walk through both first with respect to online child predators and one out of seven children in this country are sexually solicited online my home state of florida ranks fourth in the volume of solicitations and child pornography it is so bad that an f b i agent logged on in central florida into a chat room as a thirteen year old girl and within one minute he received fifteen sexual solicitations and within five minutes a man turned a video camera on himself and performed an explicit sexual act that i can't describe in public fortunately we have a local agent f b i agent name it nick savage who heads up the innocent images task force and he has really been wonderful and dressing this i'm so concerned i've had five town hall meetings across my district to let parents know some of the tips they can do to protect their children against online child predators and he's been right there with me to educate them the convictions based task force are up twenty five percent and he he and other f b i agents work very well with our local and state authorities in response to a question from lamar smith you said that if there's one thing we could do with respect to helping you go after cybercrime and child pornographers is to work with the i s p's on access to records that's correct yes is that challenge them not cooperating or them not keeping their records long enough it's a question of having a standard against which you retain the records the european union has a standard now for i s p's that generally can go up to two years and some of the concerns are the storage some of the concerns are developing the software that would now you to allow you to keep the requisite records but from the person perspective of an investigator having that backlog of records would be tremendously important if somebody comes up on your screen now and you want to know and make the case as to the past activity of that individual if those records are only kept fifteen days or thirty days you may lose the information you need to be able to bring the person to are you suggesting a two year guideline comparable to other countries i believe that would be helpful yes ok next let me turn to the issue of the state's safe streets task force orlando's murder rate went up one hundred  twenty three percent in two thousand and six third largest increase in the country i then went in early two thousand and seven to meet with attorney general gonzales and said we need help i know crimes and mostly a local problem but we need help from  federal crime fighting teams we need technology we need more cops and he responded on june first of two thousand and seven he announced that there would be a violent crime impact team sent down from a t f as well as a new safe streets team  to tackle violent crime and gang violence in orlando a t f then promptly surged an additional five agents they work very closely with local law enforcement and have got the worst of the worst off the streets the f b i folks i learned from local law enforcement didn't add any new agents whatsoever and i ride around with the police at night and so i know that to be true i then went and met with the local head of the f b i named chris davis  office i couldn't be more impressed with him i'm super respect respect all of them hope you get promoted but he confirmed to me that there's there's no new agents and it is my view at minimum that the f b i should have sent in at least five new agents for at least a search of ninety days like the a t f did and i just want to ask you why no new agents to the city that has a third biggest increase in violent crime if you've got one hundred eighty task forces out there surely the number three worst problem should get some more agents and what if anything can we do to get you to send more folks to an area like orlando the first answer is i'm not certain what the circumstances were that we did not participate in at least put agents on for a search and i'd have to talk to the special agent in charge down there to see what the circumstances are and the second answer is resources resources and we have a number of programs mortgage fraud is burgeoning now and to a certain extent a zero sum game we requested resources i think the own budget we have a request in for additional resources on the violent crime side but the fact the matter is with our national security responsibilities i've had to move agents from the criminal side of the house to the national security side of the house almost two agents since two thousand and two thousand agents i should say since two thousand and one so it's really a function of additional resources generally well thank you as a follow up but i know you can't know the details of every particular special agents task task force and how many folks they had but i would ask respectfully that you you would you would chat with a special agent there because your folks are real well respected and when you put a federal charge on the worst of the worst we never see him again and i would love your help if you'd follow up with that thank you sir thank you the gentleman from tennessee steve cohen thank you mr chairman director mueller mr webster was asking about some illegal tactics that the f b i did not engage in and you said you followed the protocol does the protocol include informing other agencies that you believe what they were doing was illegal excuse me just second can this time not be counted against me i'm sorry go ahead i'm sorry what was the question again stop the clock be did the protocol you say you wouldn't engage in torture but when you find out that other agencies may be engaged in torture that you believe is illegal does your protocol include informing those agencies that you believe their actions are illegal yes who were concerned might not be appropriate let me put it that way and do you inform both the department of defense department justice at and during the period of time in question after two thousand and eight two thousand and two there been times when we have done that yes and do you have can you supply us with copies of those many letters or memoranda i'd have to get back to you on that would appreciate if you would i would like to request to do that and what was their response to you again i'm not certain what and this is classified i'd have to get back to you on that on any of that if you could give us their responses as well i'd like to know which agencies did not listen to you director and engaged in torture i think that would be very important for this committee to know if there's departments on the fence or justice or any  appropriate behavior under circumstances for other agencies is subject to legal opinions from the department of justice yes around and where he with we would we would over a period of time say look we have noticed behavior that may be questionable and reported to the agency that particular agency may be governed by legal opinions that are not applicable to us yes sir but if i would listen to your opinion first you have a great agent memphis my harrison and she's done a phenomenal job she's convicted or brought prosecutions and juries and judges found guilty many public officials many of whom were african american you say eighteen hundred officials have been prosecuted over a period of time two years do you have statistics to show that there is not a racial bias do not could you can you do you have a right i'm not certain we keep that i would be surprised if we kept a such as statistic is there any statistic that shows how many were democrats republicans that show up there don't let it pass we are nonpolitical i think if you are fair and look across you'll see that regardless of political official affiliation you have any number from various parties and that that eight hundred figure agent harrison was able through very outstanding work to have a diamond brought against a man in tennessee who had killed shelby county codes in force but also from a mickey right the circumstances of his death were such and the proof that the general pled to second degree murder or manslaughter fifteen years and that was not sufficient for taking this man's life through her diligent work she was able to charge a hate crime because he was a government official but he weren't a government official she couldn't have gotten the u s attorney to present to the grand jury and for them to return an indictment of a hate crime where there's a possibility of additional punishment for this man's murdering mickey right are you a supporter of the hate crime legislation that went through that would give you more power to enforce hate crimes i'd have to look at the particular legislation before i give an opinion as to whether we could support it or not it's one that's already passed the house one that's already house gave more power to the federal government to go after hate crime  i'd have to specifically look at it before i could render an opinion if a person takes a corpse across state lines to avoid prosecution are devoid of a discovery of the crime and the facts otherwise don't constitute a federal crime as they wouldn't here except for miss my harrison's work would it be helpful to the f b i to have a federal law to make it illegal to transport a corpse across state lines for the purpose of avoiding detection of the  crime and i'd have to look at the circumstances where there wasn't a a a federal jurisdictional let's assume they're legal to start with and let's assume there isn't and then a person took a body from you know new york  to the giants stadium or they took it from memphis to arkansas wouldn't be helpful again it's something i'd have to look at i thought my head i realized to think about it before i rendered opinion on that as well thank you for that with the gentleman from tennessee you kind as i will you once removed i thought it was clear that the f b i made it clear that they do not torture although some other agencies may not be able to answer the question the same way states we operate within the court framework of the united states with the expectation that if we find a crime develop the evidence that will then have to be presented in a court room thank you the  gangs and gang violence we see it in virtually every corner of the country in my congressional district which is smaller cities and rural areas in western virginia that shenandoah valley and  roanoke valley we see increasing numbers of gangs and increasing problems with local law enforcement dealing with them and i'd like to ask how the f b i is dedicating resources to fighting street gangs  in my remarks we have a number of over well over one hundred task forces that spread throughout the united states in which we work with federal state and local counterparts to address the gang violence we have we participate in a national gang intelligence center here in d c within which we lead with a number of contributing agencies we have a separate m s thirteen gang task force headed here in washington and across the probably plus more than forty states now that have an m s thirteen problem we have a coordination function we're working very and in los angeles and that area which is the basically the headquarters of a number of the gangs m s r team being one of them quips and bloods and i and others in chicago and elsewhere in northeast we address the latin kings we have looking at the panoply of gangs that you have we have adapted structures to do to address those gangs both here in the united states as well as overseas if you've seen any changes in the nature of this threat  i think the biggest change is the the acquisition by certain gangs in certain places of automatic weapons and the growth of the threats to law enforcement particular law local law enforcement by the acquisition of these this heavy weaponry i know and talking to my counterparts around the country particularly in places like miami this  becoming a substantial concern and and do you need additional resources to fight these gangs we can always use resources additional resources and so could state local law enforcement and i understand that and you may have just compass this under a different name but i understand that you have an anti gay and coordinating committee working and how is that working well we have the national gang intelligen center that works exceptionally well and d o j i know has structures that that coordinate the the placement of resources whether it be our resources a t f marshal service and the like in a  coordinated fashion around the country and that may be the coordinating mechanism to which you had bird let me switch gears and ask you some questions about internet gambling which is also a serious problem and we made some headway in this area in recent times and thanks in part to work by the f b i are you still dedicated to vigorously enforcing our nation's laws against illegal online gambling transit yes and do you still believe online gambling is used as a method for money laundering by criminal enterprise yes and he found yes evidence to support this and do you agree with the now i think probably forty five state attorneys general who oppose federal legislation to legalize currently illegal online gambling trade i'm not that familiar with that legislation so i really can't find on are you familiar with the concern that a number of state attorneys general have with the problem of online gambling and you  share their concern about that i share a concern about online gambling and the uses can to which you can be put yes great thank you mr chairman thank you the  simmons thank you thank you direct them alone for again your service i wanted to pursue that line of questioning that i had raised early in my opening remarks engine briefly try to address  questions that may require you and staff to come back on because they are for sick to my state in my congressional district i would like to hear from you your assessment of the f b i s work in hate crimes i know that there are statistics that the d o j likes to offer regarding the creasing amount of hate crimes but i'm very interested in whether or not there is a targeted unit that focused on those crimes i think expertise is important because there is a question of knowing when to move in and to make the appropriate intervention that may not always result in an arrest and i bring to your attention again the facts of jena six that you know generated an enormous outpouring response and emotion and realistically so young men six of them who happen to be african americans were penalize for what has been printed as a schoolyard fight for some and others a brutal attack we know that the gentleman who was attacked we don't condone those actions but was released the same day and was functioning we also know that white students at a high school were alleged to have hung a noose or provoked students at that school and we know that parents came to the school african american parents and asked for intervention which i think would have been the stopgap for what ultimately generated into that issue we know that a gun was pulled on black students at a at the energy behind prosecuting hate crimes or the f b i intervening either in local law enforcement to be able to be a stopgap even though i know that your job is prevention and when i look at the civil rights issues those are civil rights the other one is we have two issues in the state of texas where allegations have been proven where there's been abuse in a juvenile system detention facility we have found in the harris county jail one hundred and twenty deaths over ten years the denial of medicine and legal services and religious leaders in the harris county jail have been denied entrance and not to proselytize but to interact with their members and constituents so i let me just stop for a moment for those two questions and i know that my time is short and i do have a one or two other thank you that's a direct well yeah so the first incident to which you refer to as soon as we were notified of that incident we had agents who responded along with the locals monitored the situation we had discussions i know with you as well as with the department of justice to determine what if any investigation was warranted on our part and that is typical of the process that we follow whenever there is an allegation of a crime or a civil rights abuse we immediately  or investigation to determine whether further investigation is necessary in a civil rights arena that is coordinated with the department of justice and a determination is made what if any additional investigation is warranted by the department of justice or the f b i and we follow that procedure and director as to why that my time is short can i get a chronology in writing so i won't have to pursue it any further here on just what have and and how that intervention i believe that's possible we have to get back to prefer arms of harris county and what happens in jails or juveniles as the sillies again if there are allegations we write up the allegations we look at the report and then we coordinate with department justice and determine what additional investigation we should conduct to determine whether or not there are federal charges that should be brought well i'm going to engage your office i know that it is a d o j partnership but let me say that i think more work needs to be done i want to quickly move to you i think of come in  thousand and one i believe to this position and i was wondering whether you were aware quickly of your deputy general counsel at the f b i as relates to the guantanamo bay who brought to the attention the questions of abusive interrogation and whether or not anything was done when your own person on the ground offered that off at that point and  will look forward to getting that question answered in writing i think the well you can you can and to you can finish the question i think it is ok for again we received allegations of from our people and we received allegations from our people it much the gentleman from california darrell issa thank you chairman director there isn't enough time in five minutes to to open and close the subject of the cyber initiative but this committee is going to in my opinion be the lead committee on the actual effectiveness of that initiative as we both know it's compartmented highly class the fight but i'd like to concentrate just on what laws or changes that you would need from this committee if you were to do the following and i'll set out a scenario if there if you go into a place and there's a crime actively being committed let's say say there's a bookie joint and there's tens of thousands of illegal transactions going on every minute and you know that and you have proof of that you don't question your ability to go in and harvest the fruit of all the activities in there is that correct correct now whether it was a search warrant with a search warrant today every i s p is being maliciously attacked and this is goes beyond the dot mills and dot gobs but i think that's the important reason that we approach it today every i s p is being attacked maliciously both from in the united states and out of the united states by those who both want to invade people's privacy but more importantly they want to take control of computers they want to hack them they want to steal information this is also true of the dot mills and every one of our congressional office is every day is under attack every portal leading out of the united states some of them going in and out of the united states but talking only about your jurisdiction in the united states every portal coming into this country is being attacked by those who would harvest information both national security secrets and just the common information of private companies and private individuals that crime is going on every day on a single entity known as the internet what authorities do you need in order to monitor looking for those illegal activities and then act on those both defensively and either yourself or certainly other agencies all offensively in order to show down a crime in process now i'm a civil libertarian i was with bob barr arguing some of the elements of the patriot act that we still don't agree should have been there but when i set up that crime scenario how is it that you're going to get the right to react when today people would say that if they if you're addressing an action from an american person you don't have that right how are you going to do it and how can we help you do it appropriately and constitutionally i think legislation has to be developed that balances on the one hand the privacy rights of the individuals who are receiving the information but on the other hand given the technology the necessity of having some on of this search capability utilizing filters that would identify the illegal activity as it comes through and give us the ability to preempt that illegal activity where it comes through a choke point as opposed to the point where it is diffused on the on the internet and it is a question of the legislation catching up to the technology understanding these crimes are being committed every moment dot com whichever network you're talking about ok and one follow up question because i two for questions i know we're not going to get it all resolved today one can you have somebody on your staff designated to work with members of congress on trying to craft that legislation i'd appreciate being as of the work with that person and secondly and this goes to a legal opinion may or may not be able to help us with today but i'd like you to try to work on it if i s other private entities a lockheed martin on one hand and my old company directed electronics on the other if they consented to participation voluntarily in being in fact defended in a cyber initiative and that includes ai s p s who hypothetically got consent from every single person that signed up to operate under their auspices if that consent were granted do you believe that current laws either can or reasonably could reasonably easily could be made to protect them in other words a voluntary program that would begin allowing federal agencies to  counterattack and to defend on behalf of those who waive current possible restrictions in that sense and that's probably my most important question to try to get this committee to thinking of i think that's going to require subside ot because an individual company can say ok i am i consent to have somebody protect me but if the filter is is inappropriate place just protecting that particular country or company it may have to be one or two or three institutions or i s p's off and that's where you would have a problem and whether the us forget which company you mentioned lockheed martin saying ok i'm willing for somebody to protect me but the protection may be two or three countries companies off and a lockheed martin has no mechanism in order to affect the company that's two or three off if you see what i'm getting at thank you and thank you mr chairman hopefully one six three three three three three zero will be protected if they ask to be whoever they are as you wish mister i said i was chairman i do hope that when we look at the cyber initiative we view ourselves as the primary committee that has to clear the way for appropriate action on behalf of our government all branches here is no police to recognize the evil gentleman from georgia johnson thank you warrant and moved to the navy brig in south carolina where he was held in solitary confinement denied access to an attorney and subject subjected to a host of harsh interrogation techniques including days of sleep interrogation during which time the department of justice defended his detention before various courts he's also alleged that he was subjected to mind altering drugs  i did put dissipate in the interrogation of mr padilla did it not yes and you were kept informed about the nature and the results of the interrogation is that correct me personally yes no i did not specifically i mean i may have been upon occasion informed that he was being interrogated i don't think i was informed of what information come out of him did you know that he was being subjected to of sleep and sensory deprivation now and i'm not certain that i understand the question but i by answering the question i'm not i don't really want a firm that that is exactly what happened but let me add eastern let me at the  results of the interim that you may have had some discussions about it is that correct i met i know he was at a brig and south carolina i knew that he pics of it i did not know you did not know anything about this sleep depravation you were not informed about that i did not know you would not informed of any mind use of mind altering but i do believe he was successfully prosecuted and and was recently sentenced where did you have expressed any disagreement with the policies surrounding the detention  and interrogation of mr padilla no again i go back to i did the specifics in which you allude i was not aware of thank you in your senate testimony sir you admitted that the f b i is no longer vigorously fighting white collar crime and drug cases for example you mentioned that eight hundred agents have been shifted off of fighting white collar crime and ten thousand cases are not being done as a result and you also mention that nine hundred agents were shifted off of drug cases with violent crimes on the on the rise what else besides money do you need to pump up our internal crime fighting capabilities let me clarify one thing what i said was that we shifted eight hundred agents i believe it was from smaller white collar criminal cases and generally those are cases under a certain dollar amount which we could not handle we quite clearly have addressed in the enron to world coms the health south the large white collar criminal cases as we are addressing the the subprime mortgage cases but we have to prioritize we did shift nine hundred agents from doing narcotics cases over to national security to backfill you quite obviously need the agents almost two thousand agents to backfill those that have been moved over and but it also takes the infrastructure the training facilities the information technology and the associated intelligence  analysts that go with building up that capacity on the on the criminal side of the house so have those potential capabilities been requested over the years we e to assess its progress in implementing its counterterrorism policy and the effects of this priority on its traditional law enforcement crime fighting mission in terms of we look at a number of metrics when it comes to counterterrorism the most obvious metric is the stopping of any terrorist attacks but also the number of individuals that are under investigation the number  or places like pakistan saudi arabia all of which contribute to our ability to protect the country from additional terrorist attacks we look at the number of the i r s intelligence information reports that we  disseminate on a daily weekly monthly basis to the rest of the entire intelligence community participation the national counterterrorism center the extent that we have analysts participating in that and those are just to mention a few of the metrics that we look at in terms of for being here i want to first compliment your good judgment going as far back as your selection of the law school to attend i also want to go back to september eleventh two thousand and one i was the newest member of congress and i still remember gathering in the command headquarters in d c and members of congress coming in there and you walk in and you'd only been on the job for one week as i recall at that particular point i remember the looks on members of congress faces many of them sitting on this panel today and we were looking outside and we saw smoke coming up from the pentagon jets flying over d c streets vacant except for people with guns for security there and i remember us looking at you then and saying mr director do what you have to do to keep our country safe and protect our citizens from terrorists and for almost seven years you have done incredibly good they doing that and we just want to thank you for that he only had to blink one time you only had to miss wine and i couldn't say that but we can today the other thing i want to tell you is as you can hear from the testimony here today no good deed goes unpunished and now based on the success we've had there we seem to turn our tax inwardly and one of the concerns i have today if you listen to the press if you listen to a lot of law enforcement across the country listen to some members of the public they've developed this kind gotcha mentality towards elected officials business leaders religious leaders where it's almost as if there's a view that all of them are corrupt or at least corruptible and my questions for you today are these first of all what do you do as director to make sure all of the stuff that you hear all this got just stuff that's going on doesn't permeate your agents and so we don't have hunts to get the bad guys but we have instead investigations to determine who the bad guys are if they are and the other question i have for you is regarding something that i think is a far greater concern to the country and that is the issue of chinese espionage and i know some of that is classified but much  of it is a thin source how significant is that problem today what's the extent of the threat and what can we do to stop it let me start by saying that to the extent that the country has been  from terrorist attacks over the last six and a half years because of the men and women in the f b i most particularly men and women who work and on the eight hundred thousand state local law enforcement officers around the country many of whom or several  that same actually many of their agencies work on joint terrorism task forces it also is attributable to the relationships with our counterparts overseas with regard to what you call the gotcha  mentality it is discouraging for the men and women the f b i to who do every morning wake up with one goal in mind that is what do we do how do we do the right thing to protect the american public whether it be from crime from terrorism  counterespionage to have persons not necessarily understand that we are human we do many make mistakes when we make mistakes we made to them and and move on but the reputation of the bureau whether it's in the united states or outside the united states i think is very good we have a hundred year track record of capability and i do believe that that is acknowledged turning to the second question you have with regard to series of successful prosecutions recently in which individuals had worked with particular companies or and a recent case in a university  and there have been a number of cases in which the evidence has shown that they were stealing secrets with the expectation that information going back to the p r c so there is a public track record  you the chair is pleased the recognize the able gentle lady from wisconsin tammy baldwin thank you mr chairman and thank you director mueller for your time today i have thought hopefully i'll have time to get to  two distinct lines of questioning both regarding issues of great interest to my constituents and i hope state of wisconsin as you know our committee has spent considerable time looking into the terminations of the nine u s attorneys and they question of politically motivated prosecutions one such prosecution occurred in the state of wisconsin and i assume that you are aware that a public servant has georgia thompson was wrongfully sent to a federal prison amidst serious allegations that political considerations may have influenced the exercise of prosecutorial power as you recall when ms thompson's conviction was overturned the appeals court released her immediately upon a ruling on the case calling the evidence beyond thin and the state of wisconsin is taking the very unusual move of repaying all of her  legal fees and expenses now we know that the f b i was involved in investigating the georgia thompson case because special agent terry sparrow see no testified during her trial that he had found and i quote he had found no evidence during his investigation to support the prosecution's contention of wrongdoing now did i did the f b i agents who were involved in the investigation of this case ever consult you directly or indirectly via superiors to discuss their concerns about the investigation or the prosecution despite what they were uncovering or not relates to some concerns that have been raised in my district by constituents i have very politically active district people vote in high numbers communicate with their elected officials and sometimes protest or demonstrate to the watch list and have been denied entry into canada for example have these news reports have been read and discussed among folks in my constituency and i'm hearing concerns  about how decisions are made so i thought i would just ask you a series of questions about the terrorist screening database in the watch list first of all can you tell me anything about what the criteria are for  your for the f b i nominating somebody to that to that list well there are a number of try our criteria we would have to get to you but i will say that we are very careful not to  focus on individuals who are exercising their first amendment rights as a protest or to in any way inhibit that or utilize that reason open investigation we are very careful about that we understand the sensitivity of that where crosses the line in terms of damage violence and the like we have quite obviously a responsibility to follow up but we are very sensitive  news reports that the individuals who were denied entry into canada for example for being involved were being on the watch list had had been convicted of misdemeanors but in completely  nonviolent context for example and removing or not leaving some place voluntarily and so being arrested as they were leaving is there a way that a person can enquire whether they are on a list and  appeal their presence on the list if they feel that there has been an improper placement on the list there is an office where you can make the request they may or may not to probably will not tell you if you are on the last and i'm not on the watch with people on the watch list and that's something i can't give an open session ok and also differs i might say because there are a number of names different records as opposed to individuals one individual can five ten or fifteen different alias  very effective directorship that you have conducted here over these years the first question i have is do you detect as we approach it upcoming presidential election everything gets more and more politicized and we may have noticed that actually here today do you detect as a gentle lady from wisconsin mentioned politically motivated prosecutions do you detect any reluctance on the part of justice to bring indictments that might be construed as politically motivated as we approach this elect you did how would you consider your duty to be i'd raise it with the attorney general thank you i appreciate that very concise and direct answer now there is also the issue raised by the generally from california miss waters about the gang problems particularly in l a but across this country especially in our inner cities and we've had testimony from that table before the before the immigration subcommittee of this full judiciary committee about the percentages of gang membership that are illegals and in some cases seventy five to one hundred percent of some of these gangs being people that are unlawfully present in the united states m is thirteen a b in particular  by some stroke of the magic wand all of the folks that are in the united states on a lawfully woke up in a country that they were lawfully could be in how much might that reduce the problem of addressing gang activity in the united  states it's difficult to give an answer to i do believe that certain things have probably higher percentages of persons illegally in this country but it's i would say somewhat different difficult to ascertain would you concede that if we control our borders and stop the bleeding there are so to speak that that would be a look great step in the right direction to help alleviate the pressure that's on you to control gang activity in the united states well there are certain certainly some of the gangs one of asserting that is known quite obviously is having a very close ties to el salvador and individuals who are i moved back and forth between el salvador guatemala mexico honduras and like and scott asked you for a report on the diversity numbers within your department and i saw that that it would bring as a bring me the question of if you have to choose between diversity and merit when it comes to hiring employees and building out the personnel that you manage how do you no reason to you know i could ask you a hypothetical that would describe otherwise but i think i'll move on to something that up to this congress i want to review as well and that is that you use part of your resources in foreign countries and we recognize that and as the testimony has come out here on the as a final part of files expires in the in the director of national intelligence as testified a significant percentage of our access to intel goes away has gone away and will go away as as we move forward with pfizer doesn't that put the responsibility back on you and your department to be the last line of defense against terrorists here on the homeland in the united states and if it does then are you at some point if we don't remove fison going to need to come back to congress and ask for a lot more resources to protect americans well i think everyone ourselves included wants a resolution to the impasse with regard to five and the bill that was passed night last august it is important that we have clarity it's important that the communication carriers have clarity as to you know what the law is and to the extent that that can be done swiftly i think it's in all of our interest to do so regardless of what happens there we maintain our vigilance twenty four hours a day three hundred sixty five days a week and we will use to the fullest all the tools that congress has given to us and we cannot do it alone we have to do it with our counterparts in intel in the intelligence community as well as our counterparts overseas and consequently our hope is that there will be a fison bill soon right i thank the gentleman and chairman for his intelligence director mueller i just have a couple of things that i want to go over with you a lot of which is what i talked to you about last year at the hearing on on online not child is the second suspected arson in a synagogue in miami beach in six months and there were two obviously we're in the middle of passover which is a sacred jewish holiday so it makes it all the more disconcerting and tragic and i would hope and if you would my request if you would look into whether or not the f b i could have and investigate this as a potential hate crime and i would very much appreciate it we will do that thank you very much a t f is on the scene as well but obviously it's starting to to be more than troubling acknowledge the presence of ed smart who is with the surviving parents coalition here today and who has been a champion for advocating on behalf of children and who have been victims of online online sexual predators and children who've been victims it was clear in october when we had our hearing here that the we are investigate there are about five hundred thousand known online child pornographers people trading these images these are depictions sexual acts that are actually happening crime scene photographs and you do acknowledge that even though i know you said in your testimony that you're investigating that you convicted more than sixty eight hundred since one thousand nine hundred six which is twelve years that's still less than two percent of what we know is out there correct i'm not sure in those four years i would defer to you on the as well the testimony of james finch the assistant director of the f b i cyber division who was who wrote a letter to in response to senator biden he indicated in that letter that the f b i is innocent images unit had a total of just one unit chief thirteen special agents ten lists and nine support staff i mean there are internet blog sites that have larger staff i will say that we have almost two hundred seventy agents working nationwide but i'm not going to tell you that is sufficient to address this has been to cater to you before it's tremendously important it's an issue that is deserving of more resources we put in a request for did receive additional resources in two thousand and eight we got an additional two point four million dollars in fourteen positions but that is i will tell you a drop in the bucket is a huge huge do you still have more than two thousand investigators for white collar crime as compared to a couple of hundred for child exploitation if i'm not certain on white collar crimes was certainly on violent crimes for instance i know we have something like twenty two hundred white collar crimes it may be that high last year when  we had testimony from your from your staff they did testify that there were more than twenty three hundred investigators dedicated to white collar crime and only about two hundred thirty two that is dedicated to investigating child exploitation why is there such a disproportionate commitment if you verbal e are saying that you are committed to trying to ferret out a child exploitation well because you know we're facing has faced and continue to face substantial white collar criminal issues we've got a mortgage as i testified before the subprime mortgage challenge we have over thirteen hundred cases that have come to us and in the past we've had enron health south quest any number of large white collar criminal cases the white collar criminal program also encompasses civil rights and encompass ok you couldn't possibly compare the harming and sexual sexual exploitation of children and the rape of children being more important that white collar crime would be more important than that i mean you're certainly demonstrating that it seems to be by the disk disparate commitment in the commitment of staff congresswoman we agree this is a huge problem which i put in requests and i have gotten additional resources but but you know what the testimony that we had in october was that you were actually diverting resources from the innocent images program to other other priorities can you at least commit that you will stop diverting funding from the innocent images program to other to other priorities in the department of justice when i call may well can provide to look i will continue to look at our resources and tried to adjust the priorities as i think that you won't even commit that you will stop diverting and we'll look at the innocent and i will look at our resources over a period of time and do what i can on this priority what specific f b i resources and personnel do you believe are worth diverting from their current use to rescuing children from child that's what agent is there is there something you can identify can you commit to identifying other things that maybe aren't as high a priority moving those resources to the hundreds of thousands of children that are being victimized on line today i mean the actions speak louder than words mr director i think if you look at our actions in the cases we have made we have made substantial cases i had heard earlier to the case that we made back in in the fall where we are actually was several months ago we took off sixty individuals who had for a period of fifteen years been passing a child pornography in an encrypted state we did it with our always astonishing to me when we have people like you come forward and we can't get our act together on face which puts a double challenge upon you and so i want you to i want to start out by saying how much i appreciate your service to country net is certainly heartfelt and i you know when someone compliments you like that that they have a rather negative follow up sometimes don't you know i might go waiting for the other foot yeah and  i quite honestly had these questions before i heard the last question or so i want you to know that but i am going to have to follow up there because i used to be the director of the governor's office for children as i was a children's department and wrote most of arizona's ch and so it's something it i continue to be very concerned about and with that in mind i guess the first thing i want to give you the chance to answer the question do you think the f b i is making it a priority to investigate internet child pornography  intrusions we include hackers as well as the innocent images products project well is it true that you really get the manpower now to investigate about one percent of the leads that you discover is that is that accurate thing or is that something i'd have to get back to you on that i'm not certain that is accurate are you able to know sometimes it you know companies overseas are the biggest challenge are you able to partner with other countries to try to tr zero in on these these companies that do this from spokes safe harbor from other countries since october of two thousand and four we've had an international task force operating out of maryland and we've had  over the period of time we've had forty seven investigators from twenty one different countries going to participate in that task force by the spread of child pornography on the internet is not limited to any one state it's not limited to a one country it is world wide and in order to be effective we have to do it internationally and do it in an international task force and this task force has been exceptionally effective not only in bringing cases but also educating and training others to cooperate with us when they go back to their every crime there is gravitated to the internet and in certain cases the internet is has provided the vehicle for expansion that otherwise would not be there and that's certainly true with child pornography well let me let me just say i know that you're very concerned about it as well but i will tell you know sometimes in times when i used to give speeches on this subject you know i would remind people as the poet did that there comes a time in every child's life when the door to childhood quietly closes forever and after that no more power on earth can ever open again and i just i guess my final question here to you along those lines is that this is this is something that is profoundly important what can we do with you to help you number one with the legal mechanisms in some states you know they don't have the statute that's necessary to prevail ancillary evidence rules all kinds of things make it difficult for us to actually win in court what legislative mechanisms do you need to make this a priority undertake my own view again it relates to task forces the necessity we have cracked the task forces around the country but they need to be funded and state local law enforcement who focus initially on violent crime need to develop the expertise the resources to participate on these task forces we need to grow the task forces within the united states and and develop the relationships with similar task forces overseas i mentioned that  investigative mechanisms that all naval asked to obtain the records that are necessary from i s p's from credit court card companies do you need additional legislation to that if i again it goes to records retention i do believe the records and retention would be of assistance in terms of addressing these these problems there's not just one agency it's a number of federal agencies the state local law enforcement all to be integrated in addressing what is an increasing problem w mr chairman may be the gentleman would supply this committee with some ideas as to what we might do in that regard from his perspective as a as an investigator as a prosecutor as leading to prosecutions in that let's try to work together on a former united his assistant united states attorney arthur davis thank you mr adams feel i have a couple of questions or two sets of questions on the national security front let me turn to mr king's questions and the question of some of the members regarding five and your last set of comments regarding five so you indicated the importance of congress reauthorizing the act or coming to some kind of an agreement around the act by august and i assume that was a very deliberate choice of words on your part as you know there's been some controversy over the impact of the protect america act expiring back in february so let me ask you directly has the expiration of the protect america act and peril to any efforts by the bureau to conduct intercepts sensis exploration i cannot speak to a specific case i can say that there is uncertainty in the end the legal counsel's office of communications carriers as to the current state and is there and i mean our ability affects our ability to get information as fast a quickly as we would want is there any end stents when you are the bureau has attempt that to put an intercept in place since the expiration of the protect america act and you've been denied because of the expiration i believe there has been a delay attributed to it yes has there been a single and stunts when the bureau's request to conduct an intercept has been denied because of the expiration of the protect america and i'm aware of the president united states conducted a press conference shortly after the expiration of the protect america act and the president made the representation that lives were being threatened the lives could be lost do you mr director  single life that's been compromised or threatened and the enron between the expiration of the act i'm not i know you with those comments but would they be accurate i i do not know the basis upon which a statement was made if indeed it was made do you know  factual basis that would permit the president to make that i am not myself personally familiar with that statement or the basis for which statements made do you know of any factual basis that would permit that statement to be truthfully made i will accept it i'll leave the topic if you just give me a yes or no do you know of any factual basis for the president or anyone saying that lives have been threatened or compromised or lost because i did act and i think i an not certain of the statement but i partly do am not aware that the right response which was made all right i will take that as you know no factual basis and move on to my next area during the very beginning of your tenure mr mueller during the first years of your ten after we adopted the color coded terror alert system with some regularity the administration would raise the terror alert level when is the last time the terror alert level has been raised i can't recall well can that we have not faced a level of threat that arise our level of eminent threat that would cause the alert system to be raised or that the alert system has been abandoned as a practical matter which of those is accurate well you know let me let me  say i can't remember and august of two thousand and six where there were individuals who and the u k who connor rightly did bringing liquid explosives on right many as eight to ten planes airports not across the country let me because my time is limited i don't actually believe that we raise the alert that i think there was some discussion about it i think kansas i want to contradict me i'll speak to my memory i don't think that frankly we've raised the alert level since two thousand four and i papeete except contradiction of a one the room which is provided by believe it was two thousand and four so i would ask you going forward yes there will be a new president one of three individuals and you will serve for some period of time under that present i believe would be your recommendation to the next president that we continue the color coded system i haven't given some thought to that i denied my recollection is that we may have some active raising of the alert level during that period of time but not a countrywide want to get back to you on that though and i would just and if i can on this observation mr mueller's i think you get the point that i'm driving at and some circles there was a belief that the administration was quick to raise it during the run up to the two thousand and four presidential elections that political imperative having been secured it's not been raised since then that is something that does bother some of us because it does raise a practical question of which of two things happen is it that we pretty much abandon the system since they are all for election and you all haven't bothered to tell us or is it that we've not had a level of threat rise to the level of evidence that would justify the alert level going up either one of those things was frank me as being relevant to this committee from a policy making standpoint i know there is a belief out there that that ministry officials would raise the concerns at a particular point of time for political reasons and i personally have never seen that and each case in which there has been information put out has been based on on viable information that it caused us and understand i'm in no way questioning your integrity i'm simply making a point that it's a fact that it's not happened since the l four election cycle and it does raise questions going forward as to whether it's been abandoned or whether we just haven't had an eminent threat of my word i would say again that's not contradictory fact on that is a fact and summer of two thousand and six in august of two thousand and six where we had that again i'm not certain where the level was  was raised by i can tell you that the the i remember being at a press conference with michael chertoff and the rest of the country became very much aware of that threat only when the level was raised or not well but my whole question went to the viability and the reasonableness of our continuing to have the color code system and frankly i think you made my point if a threat that you believed was an important one did not justify or for whatever reason didn't militate in the level of being raised it may tell us something about the lack of viability of the color coded system thank you the community recognizes the ranking member from texas judge director and i want to follow up on the five is that the f b i that has the that's the primary agency that would do wiretapping of foreign terrorists on foreign soil now who would that be n s a so that obviously would be a different agency that's correct that's not one you controlled in or here to testify about correct correct now i mentor so here we have not renewed we have cut the ability of our intelligence community to gather information about what terrorists are doing on foreign soil then we bring f b i director in here and want to know from him since you're no longer able to gather this intelligence in the same way you did before what if you missed but if you're not gathering  intelligence how would you know what you've missed my point you'd said while ago that one of your three missions was counterintelligence but the longer i'm here in congress the more i think maybe that's the number one mission in congress is to act counter to intelligence but anyway i want to ask you about ramos and campeon case though is there any post conviction investigation is going into the facts of that case that might help the president determine whether or not to give a pardon not to my knowledge but i don't know that that was a department homeland security case so i'm not certain what i am so the f b i didn't work that case complexity of knowing the appropriate basis and use particular in n f l that would be one benefit from it but i would i would hate to have lose again  you've got an impression there we're all extremely concerned about potential abuses there so whatever wouldn't do to help diminish that possibility when you were here before last y previously understood deputy attorney general paul mcnulty to say he was aware that there were secured copies of all the documents in jefferson's office that could be made available to him but he wanted the originals not the copies are you aware of the existence of copies at the time of the raid on his office no sir let me ask you about the terrorist surveillance program and what is the status of that and its operation under five and i've i would defer to my counterparts in other agencies on that also is classified so i could speak to it here well let me ask you though because i'm wondering if there has a role terrorist watch list consigns unacceptable errors and that the f b i was delayed in reporting names the terrorist watch list up to four months was why the delay there i think what the  what the i g report showed that in the nominations process for the terrorist screening center we had appropriate criteria and quality controls but we did not update the list as often as we should the as well field offices had submitted incomplete and occasionally inaccurate information there were eighteen recommendations made by the attorney by the inspector general for be close to twelve of those recommendations are awaiting closure which leaves only two so we have taken the i g report and followed up on each of the recommendations and believe that we're well on the way to solving those  very much the chair recognizes the gentleman from minnesota keith ellison they can share and i also want to thank you as well mr mueller you've been patient and try to answer the questions no mortgage fraud online sexual abuse terrorism n s l s files a t s p we've asked you about all those things how does this affect indian country i mean we're talking about a region of our country that really does depend upon the f for law enforcement services and yet we've seen high rates of violent crime and record rate rates how does this how does all of this impact in the country and how can we get some law enforcement sort resources there and we have t maintain our our our personnel in addressing crime so i need in country we focus on those crimes were really can make a difference in the violent crime in the like our hope is that other agencies can grow to fulfill or fill some of that mission but in the meantime to the extent that were necessary i want to keep our persons there i think i indicated we have something like  various responsibilities we have that's one that i think is important i am personally believe that there's anything that a federal entity can do to reduce the level of violence in our communities including communities on indian country where on trying to do so understanding that we have to prioritize and we are under financial and personal constraint has there been a decline in the number of law enforcement personnel federal law enforcement personnel in the country since a two thousand and one i would have to check i have tried to maintain the same staffing but i haven't checked on in the years so so i'd have to get back to you on that maybe somebody with your staff knows i think we'd have to get back to you i really haven't addressed the  question in a year or so so i would have to get back to let me let me tag i got a lot of constituents who are very concerned about this and i would count on you to get back with me i will also you know in the muslim community america has a great muslim community several million people in nine eleven post nine eleven world there's been greater attention on this community i'm sure you wouldn't dispute that my question is how important outreach efforts in the muslim community given that the overwhelming number of muslims condemn are opposed terrorism will be happy to report on somebody who was committed plotting terrorism how important our outreach efforts into the muslim community you know we have since september eleventh and every one of our offices every one of our field offices we've had substantial outreach efforts i'm sure you're familiar with them and your community we continue to have them both on the national as well as in the state in the local level and every opportunity i have i reaffirm the fact that ninety nine point nine percent of muslim americans are sikh americans are americans are every bit as patriotic as anybody else in this in this room and that many of our cases are a result of the cooperation from the muslim community in the united states one of the worst things that could happen in a muslim community is we had another attack such as september eleventh nobody wants whether it be ourselves in the f b i or those members of the muslim community so thank you so let me just ask you this i mean i know you're well aware that in may two thousand and seven prosecutors down dallas named about three know the history of the case and we're right i believe that case is still in litigation it's still a geisha and but you know that there was a there was a the jury came back home and that many of the verdicts were eleven to one to acquit you know  that not not all the verdicts many of the i'm not i understood it was hung i'm not certain that i am familiar with the break down the jury on a bigger dick than that but i don't want to get stuck in the weeds on the point the fact is twelve americans sat in judgment of this question by naming all these three hundred six individuals and organizations as unindicted coconspirators naming them explicitly what impact did that have on your effort to build better relations in the muslim american come not turn it on any impact i mean do you have not heard about an adverse impact as a result of that particular case ok well let me ask you this i mean there are groups on the groups that were named in there there was no victory against them because they were  indicted right i mean do you think that what kind of effect do you think it message it sends to them in terms of your ability to reach out to the community getting cooperation gain trust don't you think it might have a deleterious effect it doesn't your common sense tell you that i  understand what you're saying i take your point and could you elaborate on how we what we do about this given that you know it's arguable that these unindicted coconspirators that were explicitly named not killed kept under seal but explicitly identified could could well and my idea your time's up but you can talk some more if you are with i think you you know one of the questions that representative paul when pursued was getting a tighter handle on this watch list process i can't tell you how many people most of whom are muslim or have arabic names come to me saying wow you know i got humiliated delayed and it's often and it's common i've never done anything other than try to be a good citizen what recommendations do you have for us that would help us one protect america and to tailor this watchlist in a way that doesn't sweep up all these people who have done nothing wrong other than just try to be been delayed for three hours from their flight and everything they had to go do we need a better process than just call the redress office and i guess i was hoping given that your commitment to outreach in all the you be a little bit more willing to explicitly talk about things we could do to offer legislation to tailor a watch list that you tell me just go to the office and that's it well we have set up a redress process i'm always open to suggestions on how it can be improved but it seems to me that  you need definitely need a redress process i'm not disagreeing about the frustration of being held up for three hours her to read with you but we put in place a redress process i'm always open to suggestions as to how to make that redress process better how to compromise national security to be able to have people ask if they're on it and if they are to have some kind of process to set forth evidence to demonstrate that they should be off of it and that's part of the redress process as i understand it but i am i wrong i could be wrong i thought if you asked if you were on it you might not even be told whether you're on it or not you may not be a thing but there is a redress process how many people have been taken off the last list since zero one i believe  i'm not certain i'd have to get back to you you know is there a chance that what we have here is government workers who are like look i'm going to err on the side of just putting everybody on it because i don't want to be the one who didn't put somebody on it who maybe i should have so i'm going to have a very very low bar to put somebody on this list which they practically can never really get off of notwithstanding that we just process now i think there is and there is an article basis for going on the terrorist screening center watch list and you had a publisher didn't criteria that published i'm not certain it is i don't believe it is but there is a i would have to get back to you on that ok so you don't know what the criteria is but you right right now right offhand i don't know all the criteria i can't  watch listed have an opportunity to challenge those things i'm not certain i don't believe so because you would not be exposed to the information we have right here on the list and you say look i shouldn't be on this list but you're not told why you're on the list so you can't really rebut why you're on the list and would you call that a defect in the reaches process again i'd be happy to have the persons responsible for the watch list sit down with you and explain in more detail how we handle the watchlist often it happens that the name is similar to another name and through the redress process we get identifiers and identify you as being an individual who may have the same name as somebody on the watch list but because the identifiers we your particular name is no longer well thank you very much does the gentleman from texas the ranking member have any closing comment chairman no official cause i do want to thank the director for appearing i think we've had a good hearing today and i think you've been very responsive to all the questions that have been directed toward him as i understand director mother your appointment you became director the f b i one week after nine eleven when before one week before nine we i mean when we were four that may give rise to a new definition of on the job training i've never i'd forgotten that it was that so appreciate all that you've been through and appreciate your good record a s i said earlier you and other law enforcement agencies and tell us gathering agencies as well have obviously done an outstanding job since we haven't had another attack should we endure another attack that's not necessarily a reflection on you  because i think frankly i think most americans have been surprised there hasn't been another attack if you'd ask anybody a few weeks after nine eleven if we were going to be attacked again i suspect a high percentage of the american people would have thought that by now that would have occurred i'm grateful exchange you had with the gentleman from minnesota one of the concerns we had as we looked at it in the homeland security committee of people on the watch list is that because of concerns of privacy we don't have the list of identifiers that allow us to take people off the h s got a little bit of trouble because they had a list with information of people that they tried to run it against and one of the concerns we have in the homeland security is can we create a system where we query files that are available in the private sector therefore we don't retain that information and get people off the only other thing i was going to say mr muller is that when you were asked about the failure of the congress to enact reenact the protect america act i would just remind my colleagues that in testimony before this committee it was admiral mcconnell the d n i who said that prior to the enactment of the protect america act which is now expired these are his words we were not collecting somewhere between one half and two thirds of the foreign intelligence information that would have been collected that scenario still prevails today for new investigations not those that you referred to that started before last august and continued last august wrecked that's the concern i think that we are attempting to address those of us who raise this is the new targets that are out there and presumably we're missing between one half and two thirds if the d n i is correct and i thank you for your testimony and i think the gentleman from california  thank you director mueller we have a very meaningful hearing david started somewhere shortly after ten fifteen this morning serious problems concerning the national security letters abuse still continue including the collection of private information on innocent people who are not relevant to any authorized investigation and although the federal bureau of investigation has taken some positive steps action at the f b i field office level is needed along with legislative reform such as measures that have been proposed by members of this committee the f b i action in the renzi and jefferson cases raises in my mind serious concerns about the protecting of constitutional privileges of the members of congress as the court has already found in the jefferson case the f b i must act promptly to set up procedures in this area and it is shocking to me that f b i standards on interrogation have not apparently been followed by the department of defense or the cia the f b i deserves credit for establishing these standards but the fact that they're not followed by all federal agencies is a problem that we need in this committee to examine far more closely and carefully  we have up till now and so we thank you again for and your staff for appearing here this morning and afternoon for a very important session thank you thank you sir committee stands adjourned oh members will have five days to add their comments in the record committee stands adjour