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UNDERSTANDING THE HOMELAND THREAT 

LANDSCAPE—CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE 112TH 

CONGRESS 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

FEBRUARY 9, 2011 

Serial No. 112–1 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/ 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY 

PETER T. KING, New York, Chairman 

LAMAR SMITH, Texas 

DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California 

MIKE ROGERS, Alabama 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida 

PAUL C. BROUN, Georgia 

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan 

TIM WALBERG, Michigan 

CHIP CRAVAACK, Minnesota 

JOE WALSH, Illinois 

PATRICK MEEHAN, Pennsylvania 

BEN QUAYLE, Arizona 

SCOTT RIGELL, Virginia 

BILLY LONG, Missouri 

JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

BENNIE G. THOMPSON, Mississippi 

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California 

JANE HARMAN, California 

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas 

HENRY CUELLAR, Texas 

YVETTE D. CLARKE, New York 

LAURA RICHARDSON, California 

DONNA M. CHRISTENSEN, U.S. Virgin Islands 

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

JACKIE SPEIER, California 

CEDRIC L. RICHMOND, Louisiana 

HANSEN CLARKE, Michigan 

WILLIAM R. KEATING, Massachusetts 

MICHAEL J. RUSSELL, Staff Director/Chief Counsel 

MICHAEL S. TWINCHEK, Chief Clerk 

I. LANIER AVANT, Minority Staff Director 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

STATEMENTS

The Honorable Peter T. King, a Representative in Congress From the State 

of New York, and Chairman, Committee on Homeland Security .................... 1 

The Honorable Bennie G. Thompson, a Representative in Congress From 

the State of Mississippi, and Ranking Member, Committee on Homeland 

Security: 

Oral Statement ..................................................................................................... 3 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 4 

The Honorable Laura Richardson, a Representative in Congress From the 

State of California: 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 5 

WITNESSES

Hon. Janet Napolitano, Secretary, Department of Homeland Security: 

Oral Statement ..................................................................................................... 7 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 9 

Mr. Michael E. Leiter, Director, National Counterterrorism Center: 

Oral Statement ..................................................................................................... 17 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 20 

FOR THE RECORD

The Honorable Brian Higgins, a Representative in Congress From the State 

of New York: 

Letter From Secretary Janet Napolitano, August 9, 2010 ............................... 34 

APPENDIX

Questions From Ranking Member Bennie G. Thompson of Mississippi for 

Janet Napolitano .................................................................................................. 61 

(1) 

UNDERSTANDING THE HOMELAND THREAT 

LANDSCAPE—CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE 

112TH CONGRESS 

Wednesday, February 9, 2011 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY, 

Washington, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:04 a.m., in Room 311, 

Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Peter T. King [Chairman of 

the committee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives King, Lungren, McCaul, Bilirakis, 

Broun, Miller, Walberg, Cravaack, Walsh, Meehan, Quayle, Rigell, 

Long, Duncan, Farenthold, Brooks, Thompson, Sanchez, Harman, 

Jackson Lee, Cuellar, Clarke of New York, Richardson, 

Christensen, Davis, Higgins, Speier, Richmond, Clarke of Michigan, 

and Keating. 

Chairman KING [presiding]. The Committee on Homeland Security will come to order. The committee is meeting today to hear testimony from Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and 

National Counterterrorism Director Michael Leiter on the homeland threat landscape. I look forward to the hearing, and I now recognize myself for an opening statement. 

I want to welcome our returning and new committee Members to 

this, the first hearing of the 112th Congress. We also welcome back 

Secretary Napolitano and Director Leiter to the committee and 

thank them for appearing today, as they have done in the past. 

While she is not here yet, let me also take the opportunity to recognize the outstanding service of Representative Jane Harman, 

who has announced that she will be leaving Congress to run the 

Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Jane Harman 

has been a leader on this committee. 

She has been a leader in the Congress. No one since September 

11, 2001, and even before that, for that matter, has been more 

knowledgeable or informed or dedicated to intelligence and homeland security issues, and her departure is a loss to both sides of 

the aisle. We certainly—we hope everyone, I believe—we certainly 

wish her well in her new role. 

Let me also express my deepest sympathy to the family of David 

Hillman, a retired CBP officer who was killed by a suicide bomb 

in Kandahar while working as a boarder mentor and adviser. 

There are other CBP personnel, Michael Lachowsky, Terry Sherrill, 

and Vernon Rinus, who were also injured in the attack. Our 

thoughts and prayers are with them all. 
2 

To me that just personifies the level of patriotism that CBP officers demonstrate no matter where they happen to be located. They 

perform a tremendous service to our country. Also, we should never 

forget there are members of the DHS family serving all around the 

world, working to protect the homeland. 

Ms. Harman has just arrived. 

We said very good things about you, Jane. Again, great to have 

you here. Thank you. 

As we begin the work of the 112th Congress, the goal of the committee today is to get a comprehensive review of the terrorist 

threats facing our Nation. Today we will be in an open, unclassified 

session, and so I would ask that the Secretary and the Director if 

they could report back to us any Members’ questions which might 

require a classified response. 

The top priority for the committee is to counter the serious and 

evolving terrorist threats facing our country. Let’s put our work in 

context. A number of committee Members recently went out to the 

NCTC and heard from Director Leiter in a classified setting about 

threats and plots against the United States and our allies. 

As we approach the 10th anniversary of September 11, we are 

constantly reminded that terrorists continue to plot to kill Americans at home and abroad. According to Attorney General Holder, 

in the last 2 years alone there have been 126 people indicted for 

terrorist-related activity, including 50 U.S. citizens. 

There was the Times Square bomber Shahzad. There was the 

Fort Hood terrorist, Army Major Hasan. There was the Little Rock 

recruiting center shooter, the New York City subway bomber, the 

Mumbai plotter David Headley. There is Jihad Jane, dozens of individuals in Minnesota, and so many other plots and cases—Portland, Oregon; Ashburn, Virginia; Riverdale section of the Bronx; 

Dallas, Texas; Springfield, Illinois; John F. Kennedy Airport; Fort 

Dix; Baltimore. We can go through an entire list of cases just in 

the last several years. 

Homegrown radicalization is a growing threat, and one we cannot ignore. This shift, as far as I am concerned, is a game changer 

that presents a serious challenge to law enforcement and the intelligence community. Indeed, Attorney General Holder said that he 

loses sleep at night thinking of the young men in this country who 

were raised in this country who are being radicalized and willing 

to take up arms against their own Nation. 

Just last week, Senator Joe Lieberman and Senator Susan Collins released a bipartisan Senate Homeland Security Committee report examining the events leading up to the terrorist attack at Fort 

Hood. The report concluded that the Department of Defense should 

confront the threat of radicalization to violent Islamist extremism 

amongst service members explicitly and directly, unquote. 

I believe this statement is true for the entire Government. We 

must confront this threat explicitly and directly. That is why I intend to hold a hearing next month examining the threat of domestic radicalization in the Muslim community. 

Because of policies the United States has implemented since September 11, the threat from al-Qaeda has evolved, but it is still 

deadly. Because of the layers of defense that we have set in place 

that we have put in motion, it is very difficult for al-Qaeda to 
3 

launch an attack similar to what happened on September 11. Obviously, it is possible, but it is much more difficult for them, and they 

have realized that. 

They have adapted their strategy and their tactics so they are 

now recruiting from within the country, and they are looking for 

people who are under the radar screen, people who are living here 

legally, people who have green cards, people who are citizens, people who have no known terrorist activity. 

Again, probably the classic example of that would be Zazi in New 

York, who was raised in Queens, went to high school, had a small 

business in lower Manhattan, and was brought back to Afghanistan for training and came back as a liquid explosive bomber attempting to blow up the New York subways. 

So that is the type of person we have to be looking for. The good 

side of that, I suppose, is that al-Qaeda feels it cannot launch a 

major attack from the outside, and it also means that they cannot 

send a type of fully trained and skilled terrorist to this country. 

The downside of it is that these terrorists are people living under 

the radar screen, who are very difficult to detect. 

On certain issues that I have a particular interest in, one is the 

threat of chemical and biological weapons, which is why I believe 

the Securing the Cities Program is so important, because it is very 

likely that the next attack against a major city in this country will 

be launched from the suburbs, similar to what happened in Madrid 

and London. 

A nightmare scenario is to have that attack involve a dirty bomb, 

which would put that metropolitan area basically off-limits, besides 

the massive loss of human life that would result. So that is a program the Secretary and I discussed. We are particularly interested 

in pursuing that. But in any event, there can be no doubt that the 

threat against the United States remains extremely high, and we 

must remain vigilant and never allow the memories of 9/11 to fade. 

With that, I recognize the distinguished Ranking Member of the 

committee, Mr. Thompson form Mississippi, for any statement he 

may have. 

Mr. THOMPSON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for holding today’s hearing. I want to join you in welcoming Secretary 

Napolitano and Director Leiter. 

But before we hear their testimony on the threat posed by terrorism, I want to encourage my colleagues to remember that our 

words travel far beyond these four walls. For several weeks we 

have seen protests across North Africa and the Middle East. In 

many ways these protests represent a demand for democracy. Yet 

we know that this is the same region that has been home to some 

of those who call for jihad. 

The United States, the world’s only remaining superpower, occupies a providential position. If we take the right action, many of 

our concerns about a terrorist threat from this region could be significantly reduced. That is why I want to ensure that our examination of the global threat from terrorist activities does not complicate the job being done by the State Department and others in 

this administration. We must recognize that this predominantly 

Muslim area of the world is seeking to embrace democracy. Let us 
4 

take care that nothing we do or say here today works to undermine 

those efforts. 

Since September 11, the threat of terrorist attacks has become 

an undeniable and unsettling feature of American society. 

However, combating the terrorist threat depends on accurate intelligence and an unbiased assessment of the size, scope, depth, 

and breadth of this threat. 

The lessons learned from past wars are clear. We cannot defeat 

an enemy that we do not know. Unreliable information, personal 

opinions or narrow agendas cannot inform our assessment of a 

threat to our Nation. 

We have seen the results of unreliable intelligence in Iraq. Our 

examination of a global threat must look at the vulnerabilities 

within commerce, transportation, and all aspects of our modern 

lives. 

We must find and eliminate these vulnerabilities, focus on what 

we can do, and keep the Nation safe. 

We can secure an airplane. We can secure the border. We can secure Federal buildings. We can secure a chemical plant or a nuclear facility. 

We must not become distracted from our basic mission to keep 

this Nation safe and maintain the security of the people. 

Finally, Mr. Chairman, I want to bid farewell to my colleague 

from California. She has demonstrated her commitment to the security of this Nation by her service on the intelligence committee 

and this committee. 

We will miss her, but we wish her happiness in her new undertaking. 

Again, I want to thank you. 

I want to thank the witnesses and look forward to hearing their 

testimony. 

[The statement of Ranking Member Thompson follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF RANKING MEMBER BENNIE G. THOMPSON

I want to encourage my colleagues to remember that our words travel far beyond 

these far walls. 

For several weeks, we have seen protests across North Africa and the Middle 

East. In many ways, these protests represent a demand for democracy. Yet we know 

that this same region has been home to some who have called for jihad. 

The United States—the world’s only remaining super power—occupies a providential position. If we take the right action, many of our concerns about a terrorist 

threat from this region could be significantly reduced. 

That is why I want to ensure that our examination of the global threat from terrorist activity does not complicate the job being done by the State Department and 

others in this administration. We must recognize that this predominantly Muslim 

area of the world is seeking to embrace democracy. Let us take care that nothing 

we do or say here today works to undermine those efforts. 

Since September 11, the threat of terrorist attack has become an undeniable an 

unsettling feature of American society. However, combating the terrorist threat depends on accurate intelligence and an unbiased assessment of the size, scope, depth 

and breadth of the threat. 

The lessons learned from past wars are clear—we cannot defeat an enemy we do 

not know. Unreliable information, personal opinion, or narrow agendas cannot inform our assessment of a threat to our nation. 

We have seen the result of unreliable intelligence in Iraq. Our examination of the 

global threat must look at the vulnerabilities within commerce, transportation, and 

all aspects of our modern lives. We must find and eliminate these vulnerabilities, 

focus on what we can do, and keep this Nation safe. 
5 

We can secure an airplane. We can secure the border. We can secure a Federal 

building.We can secure a chemical plant or a nuclear facility. We must not become 

distracted from our basic mission to keep this Nation safe and maintain the security 

of the people. 

Chairman KING. Thank you, Mr. Thompson. 

Now we ask unanimous consent to recognize the gentlelady from 

California, Ms. Harman, 1 minute or as much time as she—— 

Ms. HARMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Ranking Member Thompson. Welcome to our witnesses. 

This is probably my last hearing on this committee. As all of you 

know, I know this, including the new Members, I have worked my 

heart out for many years in this Congress to keep our homeland 

safe. 

It has been an honor to be one of the initial Members of this 

committee and to have chaired its Intelligence Subcommittee for 4 

years. 

I just want to thank all the Members, and I want to thank all 

the staff for the effort we have made so far together. 

To these two witnesses, who are both dear friends of mine, I 

want to thank you for the effort you make. 

Finally, let me urge that the best present you could all give me 

is to find a way to get more jurisdiction in this committee, which 

ought to be—and I know the Secretary agrees with this—the central point in the House of Representatives for oversight and focus 

on this critical subject of keeping our homeland safe. 

So, once again, thank you all for your good wishes. I am just 

moving down the street. I am really not leaving this place. Thank 

you very much. 

I yield back. 

Chairman KING. Thank you, Jane. 

I remind the Members of the committee that opening statements 

may be submitted for the record. 

[The statement of Hon. Richardson follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. LAURA RICHARDSON

I would like to thank Chairman King and Ranking Member Thompson for convening this hearing today focusing on the ever-evolving threat of terrorist attacks 

against the homeland and the current state of America’s efforts to counter these 

threats. I would like to thank our distinguished panel of witnesses for appearing 

before the committee today to discuss what progress has been made in this area and 

what else needs to be done. 

The events that occurred on the morning of September 11, 2001 had a profound 

impact on the lives of every American. The terrifying images of commercial airliners 

flying into the World Trade Centers are engraved in people’s hearts and minds forever. 

Even though the attacks occurred nearly 10 years ago, we are constantly reminded of the effects of that day. Whether we’re going through airport security to 

board a plane to see our family for the holidays or we’re reuniting with a loved one 

who just returned from Afghanistan, possible threats and attacks continue to loom 

large over each and every aspect of our lives. For example, the events of that tragic 

morning forced us to recognize that we now live in a new world, with new threats, 

and that in order to combat these threats we must be willing to change and improve 

our tactics. 

After these devastating events, our Government initiated a number of unprecedented changes to our National security infrastructure in order to address these 

new threats. For instance, in 2002 the Department of Homeland Security was created with the stated goal of preparing, preventing, and responding to domestic 

emergencies, specifically terrorism. Additionally, we initiated sweeping improvements to our transportation security and made great strides in securing our Na-
6 

tion’s borders and ports. And in the hills and valleys of Afghanistan, our soldiers 

continue to fight against al-Qaeda and its allies to ensure that those who wish to 

do or train others to do America harm are brought to justice. 

However, as we will discuss today, terrorism has become an ever-evolving threat. 

We no longer face a threat from just one group of people or even from just one ideology. From Joe Stack, who flew a plane into an IRS building to Faishal Shazhad, 

the American citizen who attempted to blow up a car bomb in Times Square, we 

have learned that we must constantly be changing our tactics to ensure we have 

the ability to effectively combat and neutralize the changing methods of terrorists. 

As the representative of the 37th district, I understand the need for law enforcement to constantly modify and assess anti-terror strategies in order to protect potential targets in their communities. My Congressional district abuts the Nation’s largest ports, contains oil refineries that produce more than 1 million barrels per day, 

and is home to a number of gas treatment and petrochemical facilities that present 

a target-rich environment for those seeking to do us harm. These challenges represent a new and emerging need for us to be increasingly more vigilant in understanding and combating the ever-evolving threat of terrorism. 

Finally, in the pursuit of these counterterrorism efforts, we must constantly be 

aware of the fact that these strategies must not undercut the very principles they 

are attempting to defend. In our zeal to combat terrorism and protect our country, 

we must be careful not to wrongly accuse our people because of how they look, 

where they live, or their cultural background. To be safe, it is necessary that we 

also be smart. It is my hope and belief that my fellow colleagues will remain mindful of these important principles of which this great country was founded upon. 

Thank you again Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Thompson, for convening this 

very important hearing today. I look forward to hearing from our distinguished 

panel of witnesses on these issues. I yield back my time. 

Chairman KING. As I mentioned, we are pleased to have two very 

distinguished witnesses today on this topic most important in the 

entire Government as Secretary Napolitano, who is third Secretary 

of the Department of Homeland Security, overseeing over 200,000 

employees. 

I have to say, on the record, that she has worked very closely 

with us. She does not let partisan lines divide us and she probably 

meets with us more than she wants to, but she meets on a regular 

basis. 

She is always on the phone, both with compliments and criticisms. I never know when I am going to get a call from the Secretary. But, again, she is totally dedicated. Whatever differences 

we have, are ones of policy and no one has ever questioned her 

dedication or her ability. 

Similarly, Mike Leiter has served as the head of National 

Counterterrorism Center for 31⁄2 years under two Presidents, done 

a truly outstanding job in that capacity. 

Prior to that, he was in the military. He was assistant to the 

U.S. attorney and, again, absolutely dedicated to combating international terrorism and protecting the homeland. 

So I would ask that the witnesses, your entire statements will 

appear in the record. I have asked you to summarize the testimony 

but because of the importance of it, obviously, I am not going to 

cut you off. 

But I just ask you to keep in mind that many Members here 

today do have questions for you. With that, I now recognize Secretary Napolitano. 

Secretary Napolitano. 
7 

STATEMENT OF HON. JANET NAPOLITANO, SECRETARY, 

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Well, thank you, Chairman King, Ranking Member Thompson, Members of the committee, for the opportunity to appear before you today to testify on the terrorist threat 

to the United States and what the Department of Homeland Security and the NCTC are doing to combat it. 

I also have to echo the thoughts about Representative Harman. 

You will be missed. You have been totally dedicated to this effort. 

That effort has been producing results in terms of safety of the 

American people. 

I also have to echo your thoughts about the amount of Congressional oversight of this department. We added up the 111th Congress, and our Department testified over 285 times. I testified over 

20 times myself. 

I think that was the most of any Cabinet official. That, of course, 

requires a lot of preparation and work. We provided over 3,900 substantive briefings to different committees of the Congress. 

So Chairman King, Ranking Member Thompson, you and I have 

all discussed this. But that amount of oversight does have impact. 

So I thought I would just mention that. 

So let me turn now to the subject and the very important subject 

of today’s hearing. There is no question that we have made many 

important strides in securing our country from terrorism since 9/ 

11. 

But the threat continues to evolve. In some ways, the threat 

today may be at its most heightened state since the attacks nearly 

10 years ago. In addition to the core al-Qaeda group, which still 

represents a threat to the United States, despite its diminished capabilities, we now face threats from a number of al-Qaeda associates that share its violent extremist ideology. 

Among these groups, we are also seeing an increased emphasis 

on recruiting Americans and Westerners to carry out attacks. 

These groups are trying to recruit people to carry out attacks. 

They have connections to the West, but who do not have strong 

ties to terrorist groups that could possibly tip off the intelligence 

community. 

They are also encouraging individuals in the West to carry out 

their own small-scale attacks, which require less of the coordination and planning that could raise red flags and lead to an attack 

disruption. 

This means that the threat has evolved in such a way that we 

have to add to our traditional counterterrorism strategies, which, 

in the past, have looked at the attack as coming from abroad. 

The realities of today’s threat environment also means that State 

and local law enforcement officers will more often be in the first 

position to notice the signs of a planned attack. 

So our focus must be on aiding law enforcement and helping to 

provide them with the information and resources they need to secure their own communities from the threats they face. 

To this end, the Department of Homeland Security is working to 

counter violent extremism here at home by helping law enforcement use many of the same techniques and strategies that have 

proven successful in combating violence in Americans communities. 
8 

DHS is moving forward in this area, based on the recommendations provided to us by the experts on the Homeland Security Advisory Council. 

We are releasing the first iteration of a community-oriented policing curriculum for front-line officers, which is aimed at helping 

them to counter violent extremism in their communities. 

That curriculum is being focus grouped right now down at 

FLETC. We are sharing among State and local officers unclassified 

case studies about the size of violent extremism. We are helping 

communities to share with each other best practices about forming 

productive community partnerships. 

This way, law enforcement across can better know what works 

and what does not. 

We are helping law enforcement to reach out to American communities, to include them as partners in the effort to combat the 

presence of violent extremism in our country. 

Americans of all stripes resoundingly reject violence, which we 

must use as an important tool in countering violent extremism 

here at home. 

DHS is also expanding our own outreach to communities, and 

conducting these initiatives in a way consistent with Americans’ 

rights and liberties. 

At the same time, we are building a new homeland security architecture that guards against the kinds of threats we are seeing 

right here at home. 

There are four major parts of this architecture I want to mention 

here today. 

The first are the joint terrorism task forces, which are led by the 

FBI. These task forces bring together agencies and jurisdictions to 

jointly investigate terrorism cases. 

DHS has hundreds of personnel supporting the 104 JTTFs across 

the country. 

The second is the network of State-and locally-run fusion centers 

that bring together agencies and jurisdictions to share information 

about the threat picture and what it means for our communities. 

This information sharing and analytical work complements the 

investigative work done by the JTTFs. 

DHS is intent on helping these fusion centers to develop their 

core capabilities to share and analyze information and to provide 

State and local law enforcement with useful, actionable information 

they can use to better protect their own communities. 

We are supporting fusion centers in many ways. Among them, 

we are providing DHS personnel to work in them and are providing 

properly cleared law enforcement personnel with classified threat 

information. 

The third is the Nation-wide Suspicious Activity Reporting initiative, or the SAR initiative. We are working closely with our partners at the Department of Justice on this project. 

The SAR initiative creates a standard process for law enforcement to identify, document, vet and share reports of suspicious incidents or behaviors associated with specific threats of terrorism. 

The reports then can be used to identify and share a broader 

trend. 
9 

To date, the SAR initiative is under various stages of implementation at 33 sites that cover two-thirds of the American population. 

It should be fully implemented across the country by September. 

We are also working with DOJ and major law enforcement associations to provide SAR training to all front-line enforcement officers in the country. They will learn how to properly make, vet, 

share, and analyze reports in accordance with best practices and 

with regard to civil rights and civil liberties. Thousands of officers 

have already been trained, and we expect to train virtually all 

front-line officers in the country by this fall. 

The pilots of the SAR program have proven its tremendous value 

to law enforcement, and I believe it will be a critical tool in 

strengthening the ability of law enforcement to protect our communities from acts of terrorism. 

The fourth piece of the new homeland security architecture that 

I want to mention is the ‘‘If You See Something, Say Something’’ 

campaign. This campaign focuses on the positive role Americans 

can play in our own security. It focuses on fostering the kind of 

public vigilance that we know is critical to the success of community-oriented policing. 

We constantly see examples of why this sort of vigilance is so important, not just in the attempted Times Square bombing last May, 

but also just last month in Spokane, Washington, when city workers noticed a suspicious backpack and notified police before an 

MLK Day parade. 

DHS is rolling out this campaign across the country and in many 

important sectors, including passenger rail, Amtrak, sports stadiums—you may have seen it in the stadium at the Super Bowl— 

retail stores, and more. 

Now, on top of these four pieces, last month, I also announced 

changes to the National Terrorism Advisory System. We are replacing the old system of color-coded alerts with a new system that 

aims to provide more useful information to the public and to those 

who need it. 

This new system was developed collaboratively by a bipartisan 

group and with the consultation of law enforcement. It reflects our 

need to be ready, while also promising to tell Americans everything 

we can when new threat information affects them. 

In addition, to what I have mentioned here today, there are numerous other areas of action I have detailed in my written statement, Mr. Chairman, and ask that that statement be included in 

the record. 

Now, thank you again for inviting me to testify today. I look forward to working with this committee and its leadership in this new 

Congress as we continue to make progress in securing our Nation. 

I will be happy to take your questions once you have heard from 

Director Leiter. 

[The statement of Secretary Napolitano follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF JANET NAPOLITANO

FEBRUARY 9, 2011 

Chairman King, Ranking Member Thompson, and Members of the committee: 

Thank you for the opportunity to testify today about the changing terrorist threat 

that the United States faces, and how the Department of Homeland Security is re-
10 

sponding. I am glad to be here today with my colleague, Director Leiter. I look forward to continuing to work with this committee and its leadership in this new Congress, and I expect that, working together, we will continue to make great strides 

in securing our country. 

THE RESPONSE TO A CHANGING THREAT

Since 9/11, the United States has made important progress in securing our Nation 

from terrorism. Nevertheless, the terrorist threat facing our country has evolved significantly in the last ten years—and continues to evolve—so that, in some ways, the 

threat facing us is at its most heightened state since those attacks. This fact requires us to continually adapt our counterterrorism techniques to effectively detect, 

deter, and prevent terrorist acts. 

Following 9/11, the Federal Government moved quickly to build an intelligence 

and security apparatus that has protected our country from the kind of large-scale 

attack, directed from abroad, that struck us nearly 10 years ago. The resulting architecture yielded considerable success in both preventing this kind of attack and 

limiting, though not eliminating, the operational ability of the core al-Qaeda group 

that is currently based in the mountainous area between Afghanistan and Pakistan. 

Today, however, in addition to the direct threats we continue to face from alQaeda, we also face growing threats from other foreign-based terrorist groups that 

are inspired by al-Qaeda ideology but have few operational connections to the core 

al-Qaeda group. Perhaps most crucially, we face a threat environment where violent 

extremism is not defined or contained by international borders. Today, we must address threats that are homegrown as well as those that originate abroad. 

One of the most striking elements of today’s threat picture is that plots to attack 

America increasingly involve American residents and citizens. We are now operating 

under the assumption, based on the latest intelligence and recent arrests, that individuals prepared to carry out terrorist attacks and acts of violence might be in the 

United States, and they could carry out acts of violence with little or no warning. 

Over the past 2 years, we have seen the rise of a number of terrorist groups inspired by al-Qaeda ideology—including (but not limited to) al-Qaeda in the Arabian 

Peninsula (AQAP) from Yemen, al-Shabaab from Somalia, and Tehrik-e Taliban 

Pakistan (TTP)—that are placing a growing emphasis on recruiting individuals who 

are either Westerners or have connections to the West, but who do not have strong 

links to terrorist groups, and are thus more difficult for authorities to identify. We 

saw this, for instance, in the case of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who is accused 

of attempting to detonate explosives aboard a Detroit-bound plane on December 25, 

2009; and Faisal Shahzad, who attempted to detonate a bomb in Times Square in 

May of last year. These groups are also trying to inspire individuals in the West 

to launch their own, smaller-scale attacks, which require less of the advanced planning or coordination that would typically raise red flags. The logic supporting these 

kinds of terrorist plots is simple: They present fewer opportunities for disruption by 

intelligence or law enforcement than more elaborate, larger-scale plots by groups of 

foreign-based terrorists. 

This threat of homegrown violent extremism fundamentally changes who is most 

often in the best position to spot terrorist activity, investigate, and respond. More 

and more, State, local, and Tribal front-line law enforcement officers are most likely 

to notice the first signs of terrorist activity. This has profound implications for how 

we go about securing our country against the terrorist threat, and requires a new 

kind of security architecture that complements the structure we have already built 

to protect America from threats coming from abroad. 

Over the past 2 years, the Department of Homeland Security has been working 

diligently to build this new architecture in order to defend against this evolving 

threat. There are two dimensions of this architecture that I will discuss today before 

I detail other major developments in our defenses against terrorism over the past 

year. 

The first part of our effort is working directly with law enforcement and community-based organizations to counter violent extremism at its source, using many of 

the same techniques and strategies that have proven successful in combating violence in American communities. Law enforcement at the State, local, and Federal 

levels are leveraging and enhancing their relationships with members of diverse 

communities that broadly and strongly reject violent extremism. 

Second, DHS is focused on getting resources and information out of Washington, 

DC and into the hands of State and local law enforcement, in order to provide them 

with the tools they need to combat the threats their communities face. Because 

State and local law enforcement are often in the best position to first notice the 

signs of a planned attack, our homeland security efforts must be interwoven in the 
11 

1 An examination of 86 terrorist cases in the United States from 1999 to 2009 by the Institute 

for Homeland Security Solutions (‘‘Building on Clues: Examining Successes and Failures in Detecting U.S. Terrorist Plots, 1999–2009,’’ October 2010) shows that nearly half of those cases 

were related to al-Qaeda or al-Qaeda-inspired ideology, with the remainder due to a number of 

other violent extremist motivations. 2 New York State Intelligence Center, ‘‘The Vigilance Project: An Analysis of 32 Terrorism 

Cases Against the Homeland,’’ December 2010. 

police work that State, local, and Tribal officers do every day. We must make sure 

that officers everywhere have a clear understanding of the tactics, behaviors, and 

other indicators that could point to terrorist activity. Accordingly, DHS is improving 

and expanding the information-sharing mechanisms by which officers on the beat 

are made aware of the threat picture and what it means for their communities. DHS 

is doing so in alignment with the vision of Congress and the direction the President 

has set for a robust information sharing environment. These efforts include providing training programs for local law enforcement to help them identify indicators 

of terrorist activity, as well as our work with our partners at the Department of 

Justice (DOJ) on the Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative, which has 

created a standardized system for reporting suspicious activity so that this information can be analyzed against National trends and shared across jurisdictions. And 

we are encouraging Americans to alert local law enforcement if they see something 

that is potentially dangerous through the ‘‘If You See Something, Say Something’’ 

campaign. The kind of vigilance that this campaign promotes has helped to foil terrorist plots in the past, including last month in Spokane, Washington. 

Taken together, these steps lay a strong foundation that police and their partners 

across the country can use to protect their communities from terrorism and violence. 

While many kinds of violent motivations threaten our security,1 these initiatives are 

helping to build a strong foundation of preparedness that will be embedded in the 

fabric of cities and towns across the Nation. Indeed, what we are building to secure 

America from every type of attack is a homeland security architecture that helps 

law enforcement everywhere protect their communities from any type of attack. This 

homeland security architecture will be paired with efforts to better understand the 

risk confronting the homeland, and to protect the privacy rights and civil liberties 

of all Americans. 

COUNTERING VIOLENT EXTREMISM (CVE)

Since 2009, more than two dozen Americans have been arrested on terrorism-related charges. More broadly, a report last month from the New York State Intelligence Center, the fusion center for the State of New York, examining 32 major terrorism cases in the United States related to al-Qaeda-like ideology since 9/11, shows 

that 50 of the 88 individuals involved in those plots were U.S. citizens at the time 

of their arrests, and among those citizens, a clear majority of were natural-born.2

This report demonstrates why we must confront the threat of homegrown violent 

extremism in order to truly secure our country. We have a clear path forward to 

guide our efforts on this front. The Homeland Security Advisory Council’s (HSAC) 

Countering Violent Extremism Working Group—comprised of security experts, elected officials, law enforcement leaders, community leaders, and first responders from 

around the country—has provided DHS with a number of recommendations on how 

to support local law enforcement and community-based efforts to identify and combat sources of violent extremism. 

One major recommendation was to develop a CVE curriculum for State and local 

law enforcement that is focused on community-oriented policing, and that would 

help enable front-line personnel to identify activities that are indicators of potential 

terrorist activity and violence. We have now developed the first iteration of this curriculum, through partnership with the Major Cities Chiefs Association, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the Department of Justice, the Counter Terrorism Academy, and the Naval Postgraduate School. The first training with this 

CVE curriculum will take place this month at DHS’ Federal Law Enforcement 

Training Center (FLETC). Law enforcement from New York, Detroit, the Twin Cities, Chicago, Washington DC, and Los Angeles are invited to participate. This curriculum will continue to be developed and refined in consultation with our partners, 

and it will become widely available through regional policing institutes, in addition 

to FLETC. The eventual goal is to include this curriculum in the basic and in-service training that is provided to all new law enforcement personnel. 

In forming these kinds of community-based partnerships, it is important that 

communities learn from each other about what works in countering violent extremism. To support this effort, we work closely with a diverse collection of religious, 

ethnic, and community organizations. As the President said in his State of the 
12 

Union address, in the face of violent extremism, ‘‘we are responding with the 

strength of our communities.’’ A vast majority of people in every American community resoundingly reject violence, and this certainly includes the violent, al-Qaedastyle ideology that claims to launch attacks in the name of their widely rejected 

version of Islam. We must use these facts as a tool against the threat of homegrown 

violent extremism. In conjunction with these communities and with the Department 

of Justice and the Program Manager for the Information Sharing Environment, we 

have published guidance on best practices for community partnerships, which has 

been distributed to local law enforcement across the country. DHS also holds regular regional meetings—which include State and local law enforcement, State and 

local governments, and community organizations—in Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, 

and Minneapolis. These regional meetings have enabled participants to provide and 

receive feedback on successful community-oriented policing and other programs 

aimed at preventing violence. 

DHS has also issued, and continues to compile, unclassified case studies that examine recent incidents involving terrorism so that State and local law enforcement, 

State and local governments, and community members can understand the warning 

signs that could indicate a developing terrorist attack. These case studies focus on 

common behaviors and indicators regarding violent extremism to increase overall 

situational awareness and provide law enforcement with information on tactics, 

techniques, and plans of international and domestic terrorists. 

DHS has also conducted ‘‘deep dive’’ sessions with the intelligence directors of 

major city police departments and with the leadership of State and major urban 

area fusion centers. DHS leaders meet with these individuals to discuss case studies, terrorist techniques, and current or novel indicators of terrorism, so that these 

leaders can inculcate these lessons in their own institutions. 

The United States Government as a whole is also working with our international 

allies who have experience with homegrown terrorism. The State Department has 

the lead for these international activities, but DHS is also working with foreign governments that share many of our security concerns. In the past several months, 

DHS has participated in bilateral conferences with partners in Canada and the 

United Kingdom on countering violent extremism, and these and additional conversations will continue to leverage lessons our partners have learned that may benefit law enforcement in the United States. 

We will also leverage grant programs to support training and technical assistance 

in building community partnerships and local participation in the SAR Initiative. 

Pending our fiscal year 2011 appropriation, DHS, the Office of Community Oriented 

Policing Services (COPS) within DOJ, and the DOJ Bureau for Justice Assistance 

within the DOJ are working together to develop a joint grant resource guide for 

State and local law enforcement that leverages relevant funds and programs for 

community-oriented policing. At the same time, DHS is expanding engagement 

through our Privacy Office and our Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties to help 

DHS personnel and law enforcement on the ground better understand and identify 

threats and mitigate risks to our communities while ensuring these efforts respect 

the rights enjoyed by all Americans. 

SUPPORTING LAW ENFORCEMENT WITH THE INFORMATION AND RESOURCES THEY NEED

As I mentioned above, a major role of the Department of Homeland Security is 

to get information and resources out of Washington, DC and into the hands of law 

enforcement throughout the country. Local law enforcement, community groups, citizens, and the private sector play as much of a role in homeland security as the Federal Government. That is why we emphasize that ‘‘homeland security starts with 

hometown security.’’ 

DHS has been working to expand our efforts to build the capacities of State, local, 

Tribal, and territorial law enforcement over the past 2 years to support four main 

priorities. First, the information and intelligence provided to States and local authorities should be timely, actionable, and useful to their efforts to protect local communities from terrorism and other threats. Second, we should support State and 

local law enforcement efforts to recognize the behaviors and indicators associated 

with terrorism, and incorporate this knowledge into their day-to-day efforts to protect their communities from terrorist acts violent crime. Third, we should ensure 

that information about terrorism-related suspicious activity is shared quickly among 

all levels of government, so that information from the front lines can be factored 

into larger analytic efforts regarding the threat picture across the whole country. 

Fourth, we should encourage a ‘‘whole of Nation’’ approach to security, where officers on the ground are supported by an informed, vigilant public that plays a key 

role in helping to secure our country against new and evolving threats. 
13 

We have dedicated significant resources to building four major pieces of our new 

homeland-security architecture to work towards these goals. The four pieces are 

Joint Terrorist Task Forces (JTTFs), State and major urban area fusion centers, the 

Nation-wide SAR Initiative, and the ‘‘If You See Something, Say Something’’ campaign. 

Joint Terrorism Task Forces 

A critical piece of the homeland security architecture is the mechanism created 

to jointly investigate terrorism cases: the Joint Terrorism Task Forces led by the 

FBI. Hundreds of DHS personnel from eleven DHS components are currently working to support and participate in the 104 JTTFs across the country, all of which 

marshal resources from a number of sources to jointly conduct terrorism investigations. Our Nation’s JTTFs have been successful in mitigating the terrorist threat 

in a number of instances, including in the investigation of Najibullah Zazi, who was 

arrested in 2009 for a terrorist plot to attack the New York transit system. In that 

case, several FBI field offices and their JTTFs (including the New York JTTF) contributed to efforts in identifying Zazi, conducting surveillance of him, and arresting 

Zazi before he could execute his attack, while also identifying Zazi’s associates. 

Fusion centers 

The second element is the network of State and major urban area fusion centers, 

which serve as focal points for information sharing among all levels of government. 

While JTTFs are investigative teams that bring agencies together to investigate particular terrorism cases, fusion centers are analytical and information-sharing entities that bring agencies together to assess local implications of threat information 

in order to better understand the general threat picture. These centers analyze information and identify trends to share timely intelligence with Federal, State, and 

local law enforcement including DHS, which then further shares this information 

with other members of the intelligence community. In turn, DHS provides relevant 

and appropriate threat information from the intelligence community back to the fusion centers. Today, there are 72 State- and locally-run fusion centers in operation 

across the Nation, up from a handful in 2006. Our goal is to make every one of these 

fusion centers a center of analytic excellence that provides useful, actionable information about threats to law enforcement and first responders. To do this, we have 

deployed 68 experienced DHS intelligence officers to fusion centers across the country. We are committed to having an officer in each fusion center. DHS further supports fusion centers through the grants process, and, as fusion centers become fully 

operational, by deploying the Homeland Security Data Network to provide access to 

classified homeland security threat information to qualified personnel. Our support 

for fusion centers is focused on supporting them to fully achieve four baseline capabilities: the ability to receive classified and unclassified threat-related information 

from the Federal Government; the ability to assess the local implications of threatrelated information through the use of risk assessments; the ability to further disseminate to localities threat information, so local law enforcement can recognize behaviors and indicators associated with terrorism; and the ability to share, when appropriate, locally-generated information with Federal authorities, in order to better 

identify emerging threats. The Department of Justice also work closely with fusion 

centers to ensure that the analytical work of fusion centers and the investigative 

work of JTTFs complement each other. 

Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative 

The third piece of our homeland security architecture that I described earlier is 

the Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting, or SAR, Initiative, which DHS is 

working closely with DOJ in order to expand and improve. The Nationwide SAR Initiative creates a standard process for law enforcement to identify, document, vet, 

and share reports of suspicious incidents or behaviors associated with specific 

threats of terrorism. The reports then can be used to identify broader trends. To 

date, the SAR Initiative is under various stages of implementation at 33 sites that 

cover two-thirds of the American population, and it should be fully implemented 

across the country by September of this year. 

Importantly, this initiative also trains frontline, analytic, and executive personnel 

to recognize behaviors and indicators associated with terrorism, and to distinguish 

them from non-suspicious and legal behaviors. Thus far, more than 13,000 frontline 

Federal, State, and local law enforcement personnel across the country have received SAR training, and it is expected that virtually all frontline law enforcement 

personnel in the United States—hundreds of thousands of officers—will receive this 

training by the autumn of this year, thanks in large part to the partnership of the 

International Association of Chiefs of Police, the Major Cities Chiefs Association, the 

Major County Sheriffs’ Association, and the National Sheriffs’ Association. As part 
14 

of the SAR Initiative, we are also installing information-sharing technologies within 

DHS that enable suspicious activity reports that are vetted by specially trained analysts to be forwarded to JTTFs and to be accessible to other fusion centers and DHS 

offices. In conjunction with the Nationwide SAR Initiative, DHS is also working to 

provide reporting capability directly to owners and operators of critical infrastructure. 

The initial stages of this program have underscored the value of this initiative. 

For example, over the 2 years it was involved in the pilot, one major city reported 

that implementation of the initiative resulted in seventeen reports related to an 

open FBI terrorism case. Over those same 2 years, a total of 393 reports were accepted by local JTTFs for further investigation, and local investigations resulted in 

90 additional arrests for weapons offenses and related charges. Separately, as the 

media has already reported, a Chicago Police Department officer filed a suspicious 

activity report in summer 2009 about David Coleman Headley based on observations the officer made in a Chicago park. Headley was subsequently tied to the terrorist attacks in Mumbai in November of 2008 and was arrested on U.S. charges 

as well. In addition, fusion centers in New York, Florida, and Virginia used suspicious activity reports and other documents to identify associates of both Faisal 

Shahzad and Najibullah Zazi. 

‘‘If You See Something, Say Something’’ 

The fourth element of the homeland security architecture I referenced is the effort 

to spread awareness about the role the public plays in our security. The vigilance 

of Americans continues to help save lives and aid law enforcement and first responders. We saw this last month in the brave responses of many Americans in the 

moments after the shootings in Tucson, when members of the public subdued the 

shooter. We saw how the vigilance of the public can prevent an attack when a potentially deadly bomb was found prior to the start of a Martin Luther King Day parade in Spokane, Washington, after several city workers noticed a suspicious backpack and reported it to police. Of course, we all remember how last May, a street 

vendor alerted police to smoke coming from a car and helped to save lives during 

the attempted bombing in Times Square. Time and time again, we see vivid examples of why the American public’s vigilance is a critical part of our security. 

To foster this vigilance, we have taken a public awareness campaign with a familiar slogan—‘‘If You See Something, Say Something,’’ initially used by New York’s 

Metropolitan Transit Authority and funded in part by DHS—and are spreading it 

across the country. This program is based on those tenets of community-oriented policing that enable the public to work closely with local law enforcement to protect 

their communities from crime. The campaign outlines a positive role that Americans 

can play in our shared security. This public education effort is being expanded to 

places where the Nationwide SAR Initiative is already being implemented, so we 

can ensure that calls to authorities will be handled appropriately and in an environment where privacy and civil-liberties protections are in place. The campaign has 

already been launched in a number of State and local jurisdictions, as well as within 

several key sectors, including Amtrak, the general aviation community, the Washington Metro, New Jersey Transit, with the NFL and the NCAA, the commercial 

services sector at hotels and major landmarks such as the Mall of America in Minnesota, and National retailers like Walmart; and at Federal buildings protected by 

the Federal Protective Service. 

In addition to these four major pieces of our homeland security architecture, we 

are further enhancing our Nation’s defenses against threats through reforms we 

have made to the DHS grants and the grant process. Our State and local partners 

everywhere are struggling to pay their bills and fund vital services. As a former governor, I know the hard choices they face. But it is critical to our National security 

that local communities maintain and continue to strengthen their public safety capabilities. In 2010, DHS awarded $3.8 billion to States, cities, law enforcement, and 

first responders to strengthen preparedness for acts of terrorism, major disasters 

and other emergencies. We are also changing the grant process to help them stretch 

these dollars even further. We have eliminated red tape by streamlining the grant 

process; expanded eligible expenses to fund maintenance and sustainability; and 

made it easier for fire grants to be put to work quickly to rehire laid-off firefighters 

and protect the jobs of veteran firefighters. 

We also are making significant changes to the National Terrorism Advisory System (NTAS), which will make the system a better tool for disseminating information 

about threats both to the public and to specific sectors. Last month, I announced 

the end of the old system of color-coded alerts, and that we are moving forward on 

a 90-day implementation period in which state and local governments, law enforce-
15 

ment agencies, private and non-profit sector partners, airports, and transport hubs 

will transition to this new system. 

Americans have a stake in our collective security, and we trust them to do their 

part in our shared responsibility for our Nation’s security. The new system is built 

on the simple premise that when a threat develops that could impact the public, 

we will tell the public and provide whatever information we can. 

The new system reflects the reality that we must always be on alert and ready. 

When we have information about a specific, credible threat, we will issue a formal 

alert with as much information as possible. The alert may also be limited; depending on the nature of the threat, alerts may be issued only to law enforcement, or, 

for example, to a segment of the private sector such as shopping malls or hotels. 

Alternately, the alert may be issued more broadly to the American people. The alert 

may ask Americans to take certain actions, or to look for specific suspicious behavior. And alerts will have an end date. 

This new system was developed collaboratively. It was largely the work of a bipartisan task force that included law enforcement, former mayors and governors, and 

members of the previous administration. I look forward to continuing to work with 

our many partners and with this committee to improve this system as it moves forward. 

STRENGTHENING VULNERABLE SECTORS

In addition to building this foundation, DHS has also been at work strengthening 

sectors that have been—and continue to be—targets of attacks. 

Commercial aviation 

The latest threat information indicates that commercial aviation is still the top 

target of terrorists, a fact that is underscored by the terrible bombing in Moscow’s 

Domodedovo airport last month. The attempted terrorist attack on Christmas day 

2009 illustrated the global nature of the threat to aviation. That incident involved 

a U.S. plane flying into a U.S. city, but it endangered individuals from at least 17 

foreign countries. The alleged attacker, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, is a Nigerian 

citizen educated in the United Kingdom. He received training in terrorist tactics in 

Yemen, purchased his ticket in Ghana, and flew from Nigeria to Amsterdam before 

departing for Detroit. 

After this attempted terrorist attack, the U.S. Government moved quickly to 

strengthen security. We took immediate steps to bolster passenger screening, while 

addressing larger systemic issues on a global scale. We launched a global initiative 

to ensure international aviation security efforts were stronger, better coordinated, 

and designed to meet the current threat environment. With the International Civil 

Aviation Organization (ICAO), the United Nations body responsible for air transport, we held five regional aviation security summits which resulted in five major 

regional aviation security declarations, and worked closely with U.S. and international airline and airport trade associations and airline CEOs on a coordinated, 

international approach to enhancing aviation security. These meetings culminated 

in the ICAO Triennial Assembly at the beginning of October, where the Assembly 

adopted a historic Declaration on Aviation Security, which forges a historic new 

foundation for aviation security that will better protect the entire global aviation 

system from evolving terrorist threats. 

DHS coupled these international efforts with significant advances in domestic 

aviation security. We have deployed additional behavior detection officers, air marshals, and explosives-detection canine teams, among other measures, to airports 

across the country. Through the Recovery Act, we accelerated the purchase of Advanced Imaging Technology machines for deployment to airports around the country, and currently have 486 deployed. The President’s fiscal year 2011 budget request would provide funding for a further 500 AIT machines for deployment to our 

Nation’s airports. We are also purchasing and deploying more portable explosive detection machines, Advanced Technology X-ray systems, and bottled liquid scanners. 

In addition, in April 2010, the United States implemented new, enhanced security 

measures for all air carriers with international flights to the United States that use 

real-time, threat-based intelligence to better mitigate the evolving terrorist threats. 

And in November, DHS achieved a major aviation security milestone called for in 

the 9/11 Commission Report, as 100 percent of passengers on flights within or 

bound for the United States are now being checked against Government watch lists. 

The global supply chain 

In addition to our on-going efforts to enhance international aviation security, last 

month I announced a new partnership with the World Customs Organization to enlist other nations, international bodies, and the private sector to strengthen the 
16 

3The completed recommendations are: Number 1, Cross Modal Risk Analyses; Number 3, 

Evaluate and Rank Critical Surface Transportation Systems and Infrastructure; Number 12, 

Gap Analysis of Existing Risk Tools and Methodologies; Number 15, SecureTM and 

FutureTECHTM Programs; and Number 18, Transportation Research & Development Input 

Process. 

global supply chain. As illustrated this past October by a thwarted plot to conceal 

explosive devices onboard cargo aircraft bound for the United States from Yemen, 

the supply chain is a target for those who seek to disrupt global commerce. 

Securing the global supply chain is an important part of securing both the lives 

of people around the world as well as the stability of the global economy. Beyond 

the immediate impact of a potential attack on passengers, transportation workers 

and other innocent people, the longer-term consequences of a disabled supply chain 

could quickly snowball and impact economies around the world. One consequence, 

for example, could be that people across the world would find empty store shelves 

for food, serious shortages in needed medical supplies, or significant increases in the 

cost of energy. 

To secure the supply chain, we first must work to prevent terrorists from exploiting the supply chain to plan and execute attacks. This means, for example, working 

with customs agencies and shipping companies to keep precursor chemicals that can 

be used to produce improvised explosive devices (IEDs) from being trafficked by terrorists. We must also protect the most critical elements of the supply chain, like 

central transportation hubs, from attack or disruption. This means strengthening 

the civilian capacities of governments around the world, including our own, to secure these hubs; establishing global screening standards; and providing partner 

countries across the supply chain with needed training and technology. Finally, we 

must make the global supply chain more resilient, so that in case of disruption it 

can recover quickly. Trade needs to be up and running, with bolstered security, if 

needed, as quickly as possible after any kind of event. 

I am confident the global community can make great strides on all of these fronts 

in 2011. Just as the nations of the world were able to make historic progress on 

enhancing international aviation security in 2010, so too can we make global supply 

chain security stronger, smarter, and more resilient this year. 

Surface transportation 

DHS has also taken major steps to strengthen security for surface transportation, 

including passenger rail and mass transit. Many of the steps I have already described are especially important in helping to secure that environment. We conducted the initial launch of the National ‘‘If You See Something, Say Something’’ 

campaign at Penn Station in New York, in conjunction with Amtrak. The Nationwide SAR Initiative is also geared toward detecting signs of terrorism in mass transit hubs and vehicles like train stations, buses, or rail cars. This initiative includes 

as law enforcement partners the Amtrak Police Department as well as all police 

agencies serving rail networks in the Northeast corridor, providing officers to use 

this upgraded reporting system to refer suspicious activity to DHS and the FBI. 

This is in addition to the intelligence sharing that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) conducts with Amtrak on an on-going basis, and the informationsharing work conducted by the Public Transportation Information Sharing Analysis 

Center. TSA special operation teams, known as Visible Intermodal Prevention and 

Response (VIPR) teams, work with local partners to support several thousand operations every year. The expansion of the Nation-wide SAR Initiative will continue to 

include our partners in the transportation sector. 

We are moving forward on the implementation of the 20 recommendations made 

in the Surface Transportation Security Assessment, released in April as part of an 

administration-wide effort to address surface transportation security. DHS has the 

lead on 19 of these recommendations; to date we have completed five of the recommendations 3 and are making significant progress toward implementing the remainder. We are also in the rulemaking process to require background checks and 

security training for public transit employees, and to require vulnerability assessments and security plans for high-risk public transportation agencies, railroads, and 

bus operators. All of these actions will help to address a landscape where the 

threats to these systems are clear. 

Cybersecurity 

At the same time that we work to strengthen the security of our critical physical 

infrastructure, we are also working to secure cyberspace—an effort that requires coordination and partnership among the multitude of different entities in both the 

Government and private sector that share responsibility for important cyber infra-
17 

structure. Indeed, in just the last year, we have seen the full spectrum of cyber 

threats, from denial-of-service attacks and spamming to attacks with spyware. However, we have made—and are continuing to make—substantial progress at building 

the capability necessary to address cyber incidents on a National level. 

DHS has expanded its capabilities to further secure cyberspace. Last year, we entered into a new agreement with the Department of Defense and National Security 

Agency to enhance our capabilities to protect against threats to civilian and military 

computer systems and networks. Through this agreement, personnel from DHS and 

the DOD are now able to call upon the resources from each other and the NSA in 

order to respond to attacks against our interlinked networks. We also continue to 

expand the number of cyber experts working for DHS, a number which has increased about fivefold in the past 2 years. 

The Cyber Storm III exercise was another milestone in 2010. This exercise simulated a large-scale cyber attack on our critical infrastructure and involved participants from DHS and seven Cabinet-level Federal agencies, but also from 13 other 

countries and 11 States. It represented an important test for the country’s National 

Cyber Incident Response Plan. 

DHS has opened and is now growing the National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center (NCCIC), which is a 24/7 watch-and-warning center that 

works closely with both government and private-sector partners. In 2011, DHS will 

complete the deployment of the EINSTEIN 2 threat detection system across the 

Federal space. In addition, the Department will continue to develop, and begin deployment, of EINSTEIN 3, which will provide DHS with the ability to automatically 

detect and counter malicious cyber activity. 

CONCLUSION

The terrorist threat to the homeland is, in many ways, at its most heightened 

state since 9/11. This threat is constantly evolving, and, as I have said before, we 

cannot guarantee that there will never be another terrorist attack, and we cannot 

seal our country under a glass dome. However, we continue to do everything we can 

to reduce the risk of terrorism in our Nation. 

Our efforts are guided by a simple premise: To provide the information, resources, 

and support that the hardworking men and women of DHS, our Federal partners, 

and State, local, Tribal, and territorial first responders need to effectively prevent 

and recover from acts of terrorism and to mitigate the threats we face. This support 

helps to build the kind of foundation that can guard against—and bounce back 

from—any kind of attack, from newly emerging threats to specific sectors that have 

been terrorist targets in the past. Working with our Federal partners, law enforcement across the country, the private sector, and the American public, we are making great progress in addressing today’s evolving terrorist threats. 

Chairman King, Ranking Member Thompson, and Members of the committee: 

Thank you for inviting me to testify today. I can now take your questions. 

Chairman KING. Thank you, Secretary Napolitano. Your statement will be made part of the record, your full statement. 

I will now recognize Director Mike Leiter. Director Leiter. 

STATEMENT OF MICHAEL E. LEITER, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL 

COUNTERTERRORISM CENTER 

Mr. LEITER. Thank you, Chairman King, Ranking Member 

Thompson, Members of the committee. Thank you for having me, 

with Secretary Napolitano. 

I hate to sound like a broken record, but I do want to add my 

personal thanks to Congresswoman Harman, who has been a leader in intelligence and homeland security for many years now. 

She has been a staunch supporter of NCTC. The one anecdote I 

would pass along beyond the laws you have worked on, the oversight you have provided, Congresswoman Harman came out and 

spent about 21⁄2 hours with a packed room of analysts, about 50 or 

60 men and women, to talk to them about what it was like to be 

a senior woman in National security. Those young analysts came 

out glowing about their experience. I think it was the personal 
18 

touch that you provided which helped, I think, inspire another generation of National security leaders. So thank you very much. 

I also want to thank the committee for coming out and visiting 

NCTC. I think the opportunity to see young analysts and the ways 

in which NCTC and DHS are so entwined in our work on a daily 

basis was a great opportunity. 

As Chairman King noted, the past 2 years have obviously highlighted the many dangers associated with a geographically and 

ideologically diverse group of terrorists that seek to harm the 

United States and our allies. These threats are not only from outside our borders, but increasingly from within. 

Although we have made enormous strides in combating and reducing the likelihood of some complex catastrophic attacks by alQaeda from Pakistan, we continue to face threats from many other 

corners. 

I will briefly outline those remarks and, again, ask that my full 

record be made part of the—my full statement be made part of the 

record. To begin, I will touch on the threats that we face. Today, 

al-Qaeda and its allies in Pakistan still pose a threat, despite degradation suffered from extensive and sustained counterterrorism 

operations over the past several years and accelerated over the 

past 2 years. 

Al-Qaeda, we believe in Pakistan is at one of its weakest points 

in the past decade, and it is continuously being forced to react to 

a reduced safe haven and personnel losses. 

But it remains a very determined enemy. Of course, Osama bin 

Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri maintain al-Qaeda’s unity and strategic focus on the United States and other Western targets. At 

least five disrupted plots in Europe during the past 5 years, including the plot to attack U.S. airliners transiting between the United 

Kingdom and the United States, in addition to disrupted cells in 

the United Kingdom, Norway, and attacks against newspaper offices in Denmark demonstrate al-Qaeda in Pakistan’s steadfast intentions. 

We are also concerned about future homeland attacks from one 

of al-Qaeda’s key allies within the Federally Administered Tribal 

Areas, or the FATA, Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, TTP, the group 

that trained Faisal Shahzad, the Times Square bomber from May 

1 of last year, as well as the potential threat from other al-Qaeda 

original allies within the Pakistan and Afghanistan region. 

Also on Pakistan, we remain focused on Lashkar-e-Taiba, the 

group behind the 2008 Mumbai attacks, which remains a threat to 

a variety of interests in South Asia. Although LET has not yet conducted attacks in the West, it does have individuals who have been 

trained who have been involved in attacks, and it could pose a 

threat to the homeland and Europe, in addition to destabilizing 

South Asia more broadly. 

Of course, we continue to view Yemen as a key base of operations 

from which al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula can and has 

planned and executed attacks. Over the past year, AQAP expanded 

operations against the homeland, including, of course, the December 2009 attack, and its follow-on effort to down two U.S.-bound 

cargo planes in October 2010. 
19 

In addition to these specific attacks, A.Q. has made several appeals last year to Muslims to conduct attacks on their own initiative. Specifically, over the past year, AQAP released four issues of 

its magazine, English magazine Inspire, which attempts to persuade adherence to launch attacks on their own in the West. 

East Africa remains a key operating area for al-Qaeda associates, 

as well. Of course, last year, for the first time, they struck outside 

of Somalia, killing 74, including one American in Uganda, and they 

continue to attract violent extremists from across the globe, including from the United States. 

Now, these were mostly threats from outside the country. As the 

Chairman noted, we are extremely concerned with homegrown violent extremists here in the United States. Plots disrupted in Washington, DC, Oregon, Alaska, and Maryland during the past year 

were indicative of a common cause rallying independent extremists 

to attack the homeland. Homegrown violent extremists have yet to 

demonstrate a sophisticated ability, but as Fort Hood demonstrated, attacks need not be sophisticated to be quite deadly. 

Now, although time doesn’t permit me to go into all of the 

threats we watch, I would just like to highlight, in addition to 

these threats, we continue to watch al-Qaeda in North Africa and 

Iraq, Hezbollah and its targeting of U.S. interests globally, and also 

other terrorist groups, including Greek anarchists that recently 

sent letter bombs to embassies in Rome and elsewhere. 

In light of this changing dynamic, we have significantly evolved 

our capabilities to try to reduce the likelihood of a successful attack. Most notably, as you saw last week or 2 weeks ago in your 

visit, NCTC established a pursuit group that is designed to track 

down tactical leads that can lead to the discovery of threats and 

against the homeland. As I hope you saw, the pursuit group has 

repeatedly identified and passed to our operational partners like 

DHS key leads which might otherwise have been missed. 

We are, of course, also focused on continuing to lead information 

integration across the U.S. Government for counterterrorism purposes. We have always had access to a plethora of databases, but 

in conjunction with DHS, FBI, and others, we have further developed over the past year an information technology architecture 

which aims to improve our ability to detect this new sort of threat. 

Finally, as this committee knows quite well, counterterrorism efforts are not just about stopping attacks, but also trying to address 

the upstream factors that drive violent extremism. Our focus as a 

general matter is undercutting the terrorist narrative and building 

safe and resilient communities, not NCTC operationally, but with 

our partners like DHS, in conjunction with other parts of the U.S. 

Government. 

Specifically, on behalf of the National security staff, we are coordinating interagency planning in partnership with departments 

and agencies across the U.S. Government. Where appropriate, we 

are helping to support and coordinate the Federal Government’s 

engagement with American communities where terrorists are already focusing their recruiting efforts. 

In my view, while government has an important role in implementing these strategies, we along with DHS view the private-sector and community institutions as key players in countering 
20 

radicalization. We believe strongly that addressing radicalization 

requires community-based solutions service to local dynamics and 

needs. 

In coordination with FBI and DHS, NCTC developed a community awareness briefing that conveys unclassified information about 

the realities of current terrorist recruitment to the homeland on 

the internet so communities can be mobilized to fight the same 

fight that we are involved in. 

Chairman King, Ranking Member Thompson, and all the Members of the committee, thank you very much again for having us 

here today. As you know well, despite the improvements, perfection 

in this endeavor is not possible. We are working every day, 24 

hours a day, tirelessly to try to stop the next attack, but we cannot 

guarantee 100 percent safety. 

In this regard, I believe we must continue to foster domestic resilience while highlighting the ultimate futility of al-Qaeda’s fight. 

Without your leadership—and, again, without Ms. Harman’s leadership—we would not have made the strides that we have. I very 

much look forward to taking your questions and working with you 

for years to come. Thank you. 

[The statement of Mr. Leiter follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MICHAEL E. LEITER

FEBRUARY 9, 2011 

INTRODUCTION

Chairman King, Ranking Member Thompson, distinguished Members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity today to discuss the current state of the terrorist threat to the Homeland and the U.S. Government’s efforts to address the 

threat. I am pleased to join Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano here 

today—one of the National Counterterrorism Center’s (NCTC) closest and most critical partners. 

The past 2 years have highlighted the growing breadth of terrorism faced by the 

United States and our allies. Although we and our partners have made enormous 

strides in reducing some terrorist threats—most particularly in reducing the threat 

of a complex, catastrophic attack by al-Qaeda’s senior leadership in Pakistan—we 

continue to face a variety of threats from other corners. These of course include 

those commonly referred to as ‘‘homegrown terrorists’’ who have long-standing ties 

to the United States and who are often inspired by al-Qaeda’s ideology. While these 

newer forms of threats are less likely to be of the same magnitude as the tragedy 

this Nation suffered in September 2001, their breadth and simplicity make our work 

all the more difficult. 

In response, and especially since the failed December 25 attack of 2009, the 

counterterrorism community broadly and NCTC specifically have pursued numerous 

reforms to reduce the threat to the American people and our allies. These reforms 

address a wide variety of areas, including prioritizing CT activities across the intelligence community, clarifying counterterrorism analytic responsibilities, and improving information integration. Perhaps most notably, NCTC created a new analytical 

effort, the Pursuit Group, to help track down tactical leads that can lead to the discovery of threats aimed against the Homeland or U.S. interests abroad. None of 

these reforms are a panacea, but in combination I believe they reduce the likelihood 

of a successful attack. 

Finally, while defending against current threats we must remain focused on denying al-Qaeda and its affiliates a new generation of recruits—especially in the homeland. In that light, NCTC has remained at the forefront of identifying, integrating, 

coordinating, and assessing efforts that aim to undercut the terrorism narrative and 

prevent the radicalization and mobilization of new additional terrorists. 

AL-QAEDA AND ITS ALLIES IN PAKISTAN POSE THREAT DESPITE DEGRADATION

While al-Qaeda in Pakistan remains focused on conducting attacks in the West, 

the group must balance that intent with concerns for its security. Sustained CT 
21 

pressure on al-Qaeda in Pakistan has degraded the group’s capabilities, leaving it 

at one of its weakest points in the past decade. 

• During the past 2 years, al-Qaeda’s base of operations in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) has been restricted considerably, limiting its freedom 

of movement and ability to operate. The group has been forced to react continuously to personnel losses that are affecting the group’s morale, command and 

control, and continuity of operations. 

Al-Qaeda continues to prize attacks against the U.S. Homeland and our European 

allies above all else. We remain vigilant to the possibility that despite the degradation of the organization, al-Qaeda already may have deployed operatives to the West 

for attacks. Al-Qaeda’s senior-most leaders—Usama Bin Ladin and Ayman alZawahiri—maintain al-Qaeda’s unity and strategic focus on U.S. targets, especially 

prominent political, economic, and infrastructure targets. 

• Europe is a key focus of al-Qaeda plotting. At least five disrupted plots during 

the past 5 years—including a plan to attack airliners transiting between the 

United Kingdom and the United States, disrupted cells in the United Kingdom 

and Norway, and two disrupted plots to attack a newspaper office in Denmark—demonstrate al-Qaeda’s steadfast intentions. 

We remain concerned about future Homeland attacks from one of al-Qaeda’s key 

allies in the FATA, Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the group that trained the 

bomber who failed in his attempt in 2010 to detonate a bomb in Times Square. TTP 

is an alliance of militant groups that formed in 2007 with the intent of imposing 

its interpretation of sharia law in Pakistan and expelling the Coalition from Afghanistan. TTP leaders maintain close ties to senior al-Qaeda leaders, providing critical 

support to al-Qaeda in the FATA and sharing some of the same global violent extremist goals. 

Other al-Qaeda allies in Pakistan, the Haqqani network and Harakat-ul Jihad 

Islami (HUJI), have close ties to al-Qaeda. Both groups have demonstrated the intent and capability to conduct attacks against U.S. persons and targets in the region, and we are looking closely for any indicators of attack planning in the West. 

Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LT)—another Pakistan-based Sunni extremist group—poses a 

threat to a range of interests in South Asia. Its previous attacks in Kashmir and 

India have had a destabilizing effect on the region, increasing tensions and brinkmanship between New Delhi and Islamabad, and we are concerned that it is increasing its operational role in attacks against Coalition forces in Afghanistan. Although LT has not previously conducted attacks in the West, LT—or individuals 

who trained with LT in the past—could pose a threat to the Homeland and Europe, 

particularly if they were to collude with al-Qaeda operatives or other like-minded 

terrorists. 

THE INCREASING THREAT FROM AL-QAEDA’S REGIONAL AFFILIATES

As al-Qaeda’s affiliates continue to develop and evolve, the threat posed by many 

of these groups to U.S. interests abroad and the Homeland has grown. The affiliates 

possess local roots and autonomous command structures and represent a talent pool 

that al-Qaeda leadership may tap to augment operational efforts. 

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).—We continue to view Yemen as a 

key battleground and regional base of operations from which AQAP can plan attacks, train recruits, and facilitate the movement of operatives. We assess AQAP remains intent on conducting additional attacks targeting the Homeland and U.S. interests overseas and will continue propaganda efforts designed to inspire like-minded individuals to conduct attacks in their home countries. 

• AQAP has orchestrated many attacks in Yemen and expanded external operations to Saudi Arabia and the Homeland, including the assassination attempt 

on a Saudi Prince in August 2009, the attempted airliner attack during December 2009, and its follow-on effort to down two U.S.-bound cargo planes in October 2010 using explosives-laden printer cartridges. 

• Anwar al-Aulaqi, a dual U.S.-Yemeni citizen and a leader within AQAP, played 

a significant role in the attempted airliner attack and was designated in July 

as a specially designated global terrorist under E.O. 13224 by the U.S. Government and the UN’s 1267 al-Qaeda and Taliban Sanctions Committee. AlAulaqi’s familiarity with the West and his operational role in AQAP remain key 

concerns for us. 

• AQAP’s use of a single operative using a prefabricated explosive device in their 

first attempted Homeland attack, and the lack of operatives associated with 

their second attempted attack, minimized its resource requirements and reduced visible signatures that often enable us to detect and disrupt plotting efforts. 
22 

Al-Qaeda Operatives in East Africa and Al-Shabaab.—East Africa remains a key 

operating area for al-Qaeda associates and the Somalia-based terrorist and insurgent group al-Shabaab. Some al-Shabaab leaders share al-Qaeda’s ideology, publicly 

praising Usama Bin Ladin and requesting further guidance from him, although Somali nationalist themes are also prevalent in their public statements and remain 

one of the primary motivations of rank-and-file members of al-Shabaab. The Somalia-based training program established by al-Shabaab and al-Qaeda continues to attract foreign fighters from across the globe, to include recruits from the United 

States. At least 20 U.S. persons—the majority of whom are ethnic Somalis—have 

traveled to Somalia since 2006 to fight and train with al-Shabaab. In June and July 

2010, four U.S. citizens of non-Somali descent were arrested trying to travel to Somalia to join al-Shabaab. 

• Omar Hammami, a U.S. citizen who traveled to Somalia in 2006 and is now 

believed to be one of al-Shabaab’s most prominent foreign fighters, told the New 

York Times last year that the United States was a legitimate target for attack. 

The potential for Somali trainees to return to the United States or locations in 

the West to launch attacks and threaten Western interests remains a significant concern. 

• This past year, al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for its first transnational attack outside of Somalia—the suicide bombings in Kampala, Uganda in July that 

killed 74 people including one American. Al-Shabaab leaders have vowed additional attacks in the region. 

Al-Qaeda in the Lands of the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).—AQIM is a threat to U.S. 

and other Western interests in North and West Africa, primarily through kidnapfor-ransom operations and small-arms attacks, though the group’s recent execution 

of several French hostages and first suicide bombing attack in Niger last year highlight AQIM’s potential attack range. Disrupted plotting against France and publicized support for Nigerian extremists reveal the group’s continuing aspirations to 

expand its influence. Sustained Algerian efforts against AQIM have significantly degraded the organization’s ability to conduct high-casualty attacks in the country and 

compelled the group to shift its operational focus from northern Algeria to the vast, 

ungoverned Sahel region in the south. 

Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI).—On-going CT successes against AQI—to include the 

deaths of the group’s top two leaders last year in a joint Iraqi/U.S. military operation—have continued to put pressure on the organization. However, despite these 

on-going setbacks, AQI remains a key al-Qaeda affiliate and has maintained a 

steady attack tempo within Iraq, serving as a disruptive influence in the Iraqi Government formation process and a threat to U.S. forces. We are concerned that AQI 

remains committed to al-Qaeda’s global agenda and intent on conducting external 

operations, to include in the U.S. Homeland. 

HOMEGROWN EXTREMIST ACTIVITY REMAINS ELEVATED

In addition to threats emanating from outside the country, we also remain concerned that homegrown violent extremists (HVEs) continue to pose an elevated 

threat to the Homeland. Plots disrupted in Washington, DC, Oregon, Alaska, and 

Maryland during the past year were unrelated operationally, but indicate that the 

ideology espoused by al-Qaeda and its adherents is motivating, or being used as a 

justification by, individuals to attack the Homeland. Key to this trend has been the 

development of a U.S.-specific narrative, particularly in terrorist media available on 

the internet that motivates individuals to violence. This narrative—a blend of alQaeda inspiration, perceived victimization, and glorification of past Homegrown 

plotting—addresses the unique concerns of like-minded, U.S.-based individuals. 

HVEs continue to act independently and have yet to demonstrate the capability to 

conduct sophisticated attacks, but as Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan demonstrated, 

attacks need not be sophisticated to be deadly. 

• Similar to 2009, arrests of HVEs in the United States in 2010 remained at elevated levels, with four plots disrupted in the Homeland. The individuals involved were motivated to carry out violence on the basis of a variety of personal 

rationales, underscoring the continued intent by some HVEs to take part in violence despite having no operational connections to terrorists overseas. 

• Increasingly sophisticated English-language propaganda that provides extremists with guidance to carry out Homeland attacks remains easily accessible via 

the internet. English-language web forums also foster a sense of community and 

further indoctrinate new recruits, both of which can lead to increased levels of 

violent activity. 

• The prominent profiles of U.S. citizens within overseas terrorist groups—such 

as Omar Hammami in al-Shabaab and Anwar al-Aulaqi in AQAP—may also 
23 

provide young U.S.-based individuals with American role models in groups that 

in the past may have appeared foreign and inaccessible. These individuals have 

also provided encouragement for homegrown extremists to travel overseas and 

join terrorist organizations. 

AL-QAEDA AND AFFILIATES SUSTAIN MEDIA CAMPAIGN

Al-Qaeda senior leaders issued significantly fewer video and audio statements in 

2010 than 2009. As previously, public al-Qaeda statements rarely contained a specific threat or telegraphed attack planning, but they continue to provide a window 

into the group’s strategic intentions. 

Al-Qaeda spokesmen continued to call for violence against Western targets, including appeals last year for Muslims to conduct attacks on their own initiative, and 

they reiterated assertions that U.S. outreach to Muslims is deceptive. Bin Ladin, alZawahiri, and American spokesman Adam Gadahn also released statements that decried the evils of climate change and expressed sympathy for Muslims affected by 

severe flooding in Pakistan, probably in an effort to bolster the group’s image among 

mainstream Muslims. 

AQAP since September has released three issues of Inspire—the group’s Englishlanguage on-line magazine produced by its media wing—including a ‘‘Special Edition’’ in November that glorified the group’s disrupted 29 October cargo plot. 

OUR EVOLVING RESPONSE: LESSONS FROM 12/25 AND BEYOND

In light of this dynamic terrorist landscape, the CT Community has significantly 

evolved to improve our chances of disrupting terrorist attacks before they occur and 

reducing the likelihood that attacks will be successful. These reforms address a wide 

variety of areas, including prioritizing CT reforms across the intelligence community, clarifying counterterrorism analytic responsibilities, improving our ability to 

develop tactical leads like the identity of a future Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab by 

creating NCTC’s ‘‘Pursuit Group,’’ expanding watchlisting resources and modifying 

watchlisting criteria, accelerating information integration across key interagency 

data holdings, and continuing to prioritize sharing of intelligence with State, local, 

and Tribal partners. 

With respect to our improved ability to develop tactical leads, 1 year ago I directed the creation of a new ‘‘Pursuit Group’’ within NCTC, which now focuses exclusively on information that could lead to the discovery of threats aimed against 

the Homeland or U.S. interests abroad. The Pursuit Group’s six analytical teams 

work with our IC partners to identify and examine as early as possible leads that 

could become terrorist threats; to pursue unresolved and non-obvious connections; 

and to inform in a timely manner appropriate U.S. Government entities for action. 

Although I cannot discuss these findings in an unclassified setting, I can inform the 

committee that the Pursuit Group has repeatedly identified key leads that would 

have otherwise been missed amidst a sea of uncorrelated data. 

We are also continuing to implement revamped watchlisting protocols, and—in 

conjunction with the FBI and DHS—we have made major improvements to the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (i.e., the classified backbone of terrorist 

watchlisting also known as ‘‘TIDE’’) to better support watchlisting, information 

sharing, and analysis. In addition, a comprehensive training program has been developed for the counterterrorism community involved in watchlisting and screening 

to ensure consistent application of watchlisting standards across the U.S. Government. Finally, I restructured NCTC’s directorates to bring improved focus to terrorist identities; the new directorate brings additional resources to bear to enhance 

watchlisting records and fuse biometric and biographic watchlisting data. 

Supporting all of these and other NCTC missions, NCTC has continued to lead 

information integration across the counterterrorism community. NCTC has long had 

appropriate access to a plethora of databases that span every aspect of terrorism 

information, but over the past year in conjunction with the ODNI, DHS, CIA, NSA, 

DOD, and DOJ (including FBI), we have further developed an Information Technology infrastructure to better meet the demands of the evolving threat. Such steps 

include the enhancement of a ‘‘Google-like’’ search across databases, and the development of a ‘‘CT Data Layer’’ to discover non-obvious terrorist relationships so that 

analysts can examine potential findings more efficiently. All of these efforts are 

being pursued vehemently, but they also require careful consideration of complex 

legal, policy, and technical issues as well as the implementation of appropriate privacy, civil liberty, and security protections. 

And as we improve our ability to counter the evolving threat, we remain focused 

on sharing intelligence outside the ‘‘Federal family.’’ Working with and through 

DHS and FBI, NCTC’s Interagency Threat Assessment and Coordination Group 
24 

(ITACG) continues to bridge the intelligence information gap between traditional intelligence agencies and State, local, Tribal (SLT) partners, playing a pivotal role in 

assisting Federal partners in interpreting and analyzing intelligence intended for 

dissemination to SLT mission partners. 

COUNTERING VIOLENT EXTREMISM

As this committee knows well, counterterrorism efforts are not just about stopping 

plots but must also include addressing ‘‘upstream factors’’ that drive violent extremism. NCTC continues to play a significant role in this realm, both overseas and 

at home. Pursuant to our authorities under the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism 

Prevention Act, NCTC helps identify, integrate, coordinate, and assess U.S. Government efforts that aim to counter and prevent the recruitment and radicalization of 

a new generation of terrorists. Our focus is on both near- and long-term efforts to 

undercut the terrorist narrative and promote safe and responsive communities, 

thereby minimizing the pool of people who would support violent extremism. 

More specifically, NCTC works with colleagues in Federal, State, local and Tribal 

governments; with international partners; and with the private sector to integrate 

all elements of National power to counter and prevent violent extremism. We are 

coordinating an interagency planning effort to address domestic radicalization. 

Where appropriate, NCTC is also helping support and coordinate the Federal Government’s engagement with American communities where terrorists are focusing 

their recruiting efforts. 

In all of our efforts we work closely with security agencies such as DHS and FBI, 

as well as non-traditional Federal partners such as the Department of Health and 

Human Services and the Department of Education. For example, NCTC participated 

in an event with the Department of Education where five school districts came together to discuss unique challenges facing schoolchildren of Somali descent, including targeted recruitment efforts by al-Shabaab. These non-security partners offer expertise in social services and the capacity to act on the local and community level. 

By coordinating and integrating a broad community of interest, NCTC ensures a 

‘‘whole of government’’ approach that is vital to addressing and preventing 

radicalization. 

While Government has an important role in developing and implementing strategies, we view the private sector and community institutions as key players in directly countering radicalization, and we believe strongly that addressing 

radicalization requires community-based solutions that are sensitive to local dynamics and needs. In this regard, NCTC has engaged the private sector to provide forums in which to examine these issues. Specifically, we recently participated in an 

event hosted by a prominent think tank that brought together private technology 

experts and community members in order to explore ways to counter terrorist narratives on the internet. 

NCTC in coordination with FBI and DHS has also worked with community leaders, State and local governments and law enforcement involved in countering violent 

extremism to understand how governments can effectively partner with their communities. It has become clear that Government can play a significant role by acting 

as a convener and facilitator that informs and supports—but does not direct—community-led initiatives. Based on this, NCTC has developed a Community Awareness 

Briefing that conveys unclassified information about the realities of terrorist recruitment in the Homeland and on the internet. The briefing aims to educate and empower parents and community leaders to combat violent extremist narratives and 

recruitment. NCTC has presented the briefing to communities—including Muslim 

American communities—around the country, leveraging, when possible, existing 

U.S. Government engagement platforms such as DHS and FBI roundtables. 

CONCLUSION

Chairman King and Ranking Member Thompson, I want to thank you for the opportunity to testify before your committee today. Together we have made great 

strides in reducing the likelihood of a successful terrorist attack—especially a catastrophic one. But as you know well, perfection is no more possible in counterterrorism than it is in any other endeavor. NCTC and the entire counterterrorism community work tirelessly to reduce the likelihood of attack but we cannot guarantee 

safety. In this regard, I believe we must continue to foster resilience domestically 

while highlighting the futility of al-Qaeda’s fight. 

Without your leadership, the strides we have jointly made to counter the terrorist 

threat would not be possible. Congress’s continued support is critical to the Center’s 

mission to lead our Nation’s effort to combat terrorism at home and abroad by analyzing the threat, sharing that information with our partners, and integrating all 
25 

instruments of National power to ensure their coordinated application and thereby 

maximize our effectiveness at combating the threat. I look forward to continuing our 

work together in the years to come. 

Chairman KING. Thank you, Director Leiter. I thank both witnesses for their testimony. 

Secretary Napolitano, 2 years ago, when you made your first 

statement before this committee, I pointed out the fact that you do 

not use the word ‘‘terrorist’’ or ‘‘terrorism’’ even once. In today’s 

statement, you used it more than 60 times. Is that a reflection of 

the growing terrorist threat? Is it a reflection of the changing emphasis within the administration? Or is it just something that happened? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Well, I think my initial statement before 

the committee was one of several speeches, and it just happened 

to be the one that didn’t use the word ‘‘terrorism.’’ 

But the plain fact of the matter is, is that I spend the bulk of 

my time working on counterterrorism-related activities. It can be 

in the TSA world. It can be in the CBP world. It can be with intel 

and analysis and working with our fusion centers with the NCTC 

and others, but this is a top priority for us. 

Mr. Chairman, one area that is really not up to bat today but 

is a new one and is also one I think we need to watch out for is 

the whole word of cyber and cybersecurity and how that is going 

to interconnect with the terrorist—— 

Chairman KING. Yes. In fact, Chairman Lungren—is going to be 

working on that extensively during the year. How prepared do you 

believe the Department is to deal with the threat from biological, 

chemical, radiological weapons? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Yes. Now that is an extraordinarily difficult area in the sense that we are still working on—at the science 

and technology level on things like detection mechanisms that are 

effective in all areas. Mr. Chairman, I think I would say that we 

are more prepared now than we were 2 years ago. Two years ago 

we were more prepared than 2 years before then. But there is still 

much work to be done. 

That is why we have funded and are continuing to fund pilots 

of different types with laboratories and universities and actually 

private-sector entities around the country, particularly in the 

CBRN arena. That is why those things are so important. Securiing 

the Cities is an example of that. 

Chairman KING. Thank you. Director Leiter, with the splintering 

of these—the development of these various splinter groups, how 

much control do you see coming from al-Qaeda central to those 

groups? If there is not control, is that good or bad? 

Mr. LEITER. Mr. Chairman, I think there remains certainly ideological inspiration from al-Qaeda’s senior leadership but less and 

less operational control. I think that is in large part due to the offensive pressure that we are applying to al-Qaeda in Pakistan. 

I think to some extent that is quite good. It reduces the likelihood again of a large-scale organized attack. I think the negative 

aspects of it is it allows the franchises to innovate on their own. 

In the case of al-Qaeda and the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen and 

folks like Anwar al-Awlaki they have been quite successful at being 

innovators that make our jobs more challenging. 
26 

Chairman KING. Not to be, I guess, grading them, but would say 

that al-Awlaki is at least a severe threat today as Bin Laden? 

Mr. LEITER. I actually consider al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula with al-Awlaki as a leader within that organization probably 

the most significant risk to the U.S. homeland. I am hesitant to 

rank them too quickly, but certainly up there. 

Chairman KING. Would al-Awlaki be the one who has been the 

most successful as far as radicalizing through the internet? 

Mr. LEITER. I think al-Awlaki is probably—certainly is the most 

well-known English-speaking ideologue who is speaking directly to 

folks here in the homeland. There are several others who we are 

concerned with but I think al-Awlaki probably does have the greatest audience and the like. So in that sense he is the most important. 

Chairman KING. How effective do you find Inspire? 

Mr. LEITER. It is a difficult question. Mr. Chairman. We obviously look at Inspire. It is spiffy. It has got great graphics and in 

some sense we think probably speaks to individuals who are likely 

to be radicalized. Frankly there is very little new information in Inspire. So to that extent it is not I don’t think something revolutionary and new in the substance. But again, in the way it conveys 

the message it is useful and we think it is attractive to English 

speakers. 

Chairman KING. How concerned are you at the possibility of messages or signals being sent through Inspire? 

Mr. LEITER. I think I would take that more in a classified setting, but as a general matter I think Inspire is attempting not to 

build a secret network between AQAP folks in the United States 

or other English-speaking countries. It is more looking to what the 

title suggests, inspire them to act on their own. 

Chairman KING. Secretary Napolitano, in your State of the 

Homeland Security speech, you mentioned D-block and the President made reference to it in his State of the Union speech. We 

don’t have the details yet. Can you give us any indication of when 

it will be formally unveiled or what the specific details of D-block 

will be? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. I don’t know the exact date. We will find 

that for you, Mr. Chairman. But I know the President is intent on 

working with the Congress to set aside the D-block for public safety. It is something that both our Department and the Department 

the Justice advocated very strongly within the administration. But 

I don’t know the exact date when they are going to approach the 

Congress about the legislative change that will—— 

Chairman KING. I look forward to working with you and the administration on that. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Indeed. 

Chairman KING [continuing]. Ranking Member, Mr. Thompson. 

Mr. THOMPSON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing. Secretary Napolitano, in your testimony you went 

to great lengths to describe your involvement in the homeland relative to home-grown terrors. Law enforcement agencies have also 

talked about neo-Nazis, environmental extremists and anti-tax 

groups as more prevalent than al-Qaeda-inspired terrorist organizations. Have you looked at this to see if that in fact is the truth? 
27 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Representative Thompson, not in that 

sense. I mean, we don’t have like a scorecard. The plain fact of the 

matter is, is that from a law enforcement, terrorist prevention perspective we have to prepare law enforcement and communities for 

both types of acts. 

Mr. THOMPSON. Well Mr. Leiter, given what has occurred in the 

last 2 years here in this country, have you been able to analyze 

what that threat looks like? 

Mr. LEITER. Congressmen, by law the National Counterterrorism 

Center only looks at international terrorism or that inspired by 

international terrorism. So my analysts do not actually look at 

some of the groups that you described in your question to the Secretary. 

Mr. THOMPSON. But you do communicate to the people. Am I correct? On the domestic side. 

Mr. LEITER. We generally work through the Department of 

Homeland Security and the FBI, who has the direct operational responsibility. 

Mr. THOMPSON. Madam Secretary, could you help me with that? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. In what sense? 

Mr. THOMPSON. Relative to the information in terms of individuals who are being a threat to the homeland. I am trying to look 

at it in a broader sense. Sometimes we tend to narrow the focus. 

But I think what we have to do in looking at the threat is look at 

the entire threat. Can you share with the committee some of those 

other threats that you have deemed necessary to address? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Well, what we are focused on is helping 

law enforcement and communities look for the tactics, the techniques, the behaviors that would indicate that a violent act, a terrorist act, is impending. Now, some of those are inspired by 

Islamist groups, Al-Qaeda and so forth. Others can be inspired by, 

like, anti-government groups flying a plane into the IRS building, 

for example. 

So the JPTS are the ones on which we have members who caseby-case analyze what was the motivation of a particular actor at 

a particular time. I would say, Representative Thompson, that we 

see a variety of different types of motivations in addition to the 

Islamist motivation that we are here talking about right now. 

Mr. THOMPSON. For the sake of the record, give us some of those 

varieties. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. They can be anti-Federal Government 

type of motivation. I mentioned the individual who flew the plane 

into the IRS building. Tim McVeigh. I worked on the Oklahoma 

City bombing case. Would be another great—I don’t want to say 

great example—another example of that sort of motivation. It can 

be a variety of other things. As Mike indicated, the FBI works directly on those cases, has operational lead for their investigations. 

Mr. THOMPSON. Mr. Leiter, let’s take an international situation. 

The incident that occurred in October with the printer bomb. Were 

you involved in that? 

Mr. LEITER. Yes, we were. 

Mr. THOMPSON. Can you share with the committee, if you can, 

whether or not security gaps like that are being reviewed going forward, so that others hopefully will be closed? 
28 

Mr. LEITER. Congressmen, I can. Then I will also defer again to 

Secretary Napolitano, who has some broader responsibilities for 

cargo. Actually even before that event we were obviously concerned 

with the possibility of using cargo in a terrorist attack. You only 

have to look back at the Lockerbie bombing to know that this is 

something that could occur. 

Since that event, we have worked at NCTC and the intelligence 

community to find new ways to support DHS to sharpen our ability 

to find individuals or shippers who we consider high-risk so those 

packages can be put through further screening. I think as Secretary Napolitano will echo, it is a challenge. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Yes, Representative Thompson, even 

prior to October we had assembled an international initiative similar to what we have been doing on passenger air travel with respect to cargo. It involves the World Customs Organization, the 

International Civil Aviation Organization, and the International 

Maritime Organization. 

What we are doing is working to have international standards 

requirements, and also working with the private sector who are the 

main air shippers. This of course was an air shipment. We are now 

screening 100 of at-risk cargo that is on a passenger plane inbound 

to the United States, which is something we had not had the capability of doing until the last year. We continue to work across the 

world, across different nodes of transportation, across different 

types of cargo, across different types of personnel who handle that 

cargo to secure the entire supply chain. 

Mr. LEITER. Congressmen, if I could just add one point. I think 

this is an area where the cooperation between DHS and NCTC has 

really improved and been stellar over the past year. Not just with 

cargo, but with screened personnel. The movement now of information as we see a threat in the intelligence stream about a country 

or a name or a region and where we think an attack might be coming to, that movement is moving—that information is moving in 

real time to DHS so DHS can rapidly adjust their screening protocol. Again, that is happening on an hourly basis. 

Chairman KING. The gentleman from Texas, Mr. McCaul. 

Mr. MCCAUL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, Madam Secretary, Director Leiter. In November 

2009, I attended the Fort Hood memorial service just north of my 

district in Texas and saw the 13 combat boots, the rifles, talked to 

the soldiers who had been shot that day. They described how the 

Major Hasan said, ‘‘Allahu Akbar.’’ It was very dramatic. 

Some said that wasn’t an act of terrorism. I said it was. I think 

it is the deadliest attack we have had since 9/11. 

Since that time, the Senate has issued a report called, ‘‘A Ticking 

Time Bomb.’’ In that report, it talks about how the Joint Terrorism 

Task Force in San Diego had information about Major Hasan’s contacts with what you described, Director, as the most dangerous 

threat to the United States’ security, and that is Awlaki. Unfortunately, that information was not shared with the commander, General Cone at Ford Hood, who I talked to, and I said, ‘‘Wouldn’t you 

have liked to have known that?’’ 

When the attack took place, the FBI agent was quoted as saying, 

‘‘You know who that is? That is our boy. That is our boy.’’ 
29 

Can you tell this committee and the American people what happened that day and what Major Hasan’s connections are to the terrorist community? 

Mr. LEITER. Congressman, to begin, I would just say at NCTC, 

within about 48 hours of that attack, we designated that a terrorist 

attack in what we call the worldwide incident tracking system. So 

from our perspective, it was—as soon as we had the initial indication of the motivation, we counted it as a terrorist attack. It can 

always change back; in this case, it hasn’t. 

With respect to his connection to Awlaki and AQAP—and I want 

to be very careful here, because obviously this is still a case for 

prosecution—but we have said publicly it looks to us like inspiration, rather than direction. 

Finally, your question about what happened, I want to be careful 

not to speak for either Director Mueller or the Department of Defense. I think they said quite clearly at the time that information 

was not shared effectively between the FBI and Department of Defense. They have taken remedial action to address some of that. 

I know on—for NCTC’s part, since then, we have worked with 

the FBI to produce improved training materials and training for 

field offices, so there really is no question for the next special agent 

when he is investigating a case that he will recognize the telltale 

signs of radicalization and moving towards mobilization, and not 

just convey that to the Department of Defense, but probably be 

more aggressive in following that up. 

Mr. MCCAUL. I mean, I think the American people—it is hard to 

understand—you know, you have to—and we can talk about infiltration of the military and what the threat is there, but it is hard 

for the average citizen to understand how the FBI could have this 

kind of information, that you have a major at the biggest installation in the United States in contact with one of the biggest threats 

to the security of the United States, and yet that information is not 

shared at all. 

I think that is a major breakdown. I hope—and I know that is 

not totally within your purview and your jurisdiction, but I sure 

hope we can fix that—fix that problem. 

Mr. LEITER. Congressman, I will say, again, I do know that the 

Department of Defense and FBI now have a much tighter relationship, so that information is shared. During the investigation, it was 

shared with a Department of Defense agent on the JTTF, but not 

shared back to the Army. We have also since then expanded 

NCTC’s access to some of that granular information that was the 

basis for the investigation, so NCTC can help to fill those gaps and 

make sure the information is properly shared. 

Mr. MCCAUL. Okay. 

Madam Secretary, you were quoted in the Hill newspaper as saying that, with respect to the border, that the border—it is inaccurate to state that the border is out of control. 

We had a briefing with Border Patrol. They said that about 44 

percent of the border is under operational control. As you well 

know, the killings, the violence going on, you know, coming from 

Arizona, me coming from Texas, I would say my constituents do 

view it as an out-of-control state. 
30 

The special interest aliens have—has increased by 37 percent. 

Those are persons coming from countries that may have potentially 

terrorist influences. There was recently a potential terrorist that 

was found in the trunk of a car, paid a Mexican cartel drug dealer 

$5,000 to sneak across the border. 

Could you just clarify the statement, in terms of your statement 

that it is not out of control down there? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Oh, absolutely. First—and I will give you 

the full talk that I gave at UTEP. 

But the border—thanks in part to the bipartisan efforts of the 

Congress—has more manpower, technology, and infrastructure 

than ever before. The numbers in terms of seizures that need to go 

up are going up, and the numbers in terms of illegal immigration 

are going way down. 

The communities that are along the border—San Diego, Nogales, 

El Paso, and so forth—are among, in terms of violent crime statistics, are among the safest in the United States. 

So what I was saying at that—from which I am quoted in part 

was to the cartels in Mexico: Don’t bring your violence that you are 

doing in Juarez, et cetera, over into the United States. You will be 

met with an overwhelming response. 

It is true that there are crimes on this side of the border. The 

murder of a rancher in Arizona is one example. But it is inaccurate 

to extrapolate from that to say that the entire border is out of control. 

With respect to the 44 percent number, I think it is important 

to recognize that operational control is a very narrow term of art 

in Border Patrol lingo. Basically, it is restricted to where you have 

individual agents located. 

It does not take into account infrastructure. It does not take into 

account technology, which is a force multiplier, as you know, so 

that I think it would be inaccurate to take from that number or 

that phrase to say, well, that means the other percentage of the 

border, 56 percent, is out of control. That would not be accurate. 

Chairman KING. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

The gentlelady from California, Ms. Sanchez. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank both of you for being before us again. 

Secretary Napolitano, I am still worried about this whole issue 

of overstays with respect to visas, in particular because I belong to 

a couple groups that deal with the Europeans. As you know, the 

European Union is having a difficult time understanding why we 

accept some and not some others on Visa Waiver. 

So I would like to know 2 things. First, can you discuss the security measures with respect to somebody being able to come from a 

country where there is Visa Waiver going on and how that might 

be infiltrated by someone like al-Qaeda to get people over here? 

Second, what progress are we making on the exit part of US– 

VISIT? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Well, in terms of Visa Waiver, what we 

have is ESTA. What ESTA does is that it gives us advanced information on someone traveling to the United States on a visa waiver—— 
31 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Is it working? Have we seen any places where 

someone or some cell group might be, in fact, trying to come in that 

particular way? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Well, let me just say that it is working 

in terms of smoothly identifying individuals coming across. You 

know, we deal with so many passengers every day. So, from a systemic point of view, it is working. 

However, I think it important to say that there is—no system, 

no matter how well working, is a 100 percent guarantee that someone will not be able, ultimately, to infiltrate it. It may be somebody 

about whom we have no advance information; it may be somebody 

who has managed to steal an identity of someone else. 

This is, unfortunately, a business in which we cannot give guarantees. What we can do and what we are doing is maximizing our 

ability to catch somebody ahead of time and minimize the risk that 

they will be infiltrated. 

In terms of visa overstays, in addition to U.S. Exit, let me just 

suggest that one of the most effective investments the Congress can 

make is in ICE investigative agents, because they are the ones that 

really find the visa overstays and get them into proceedings. 

So one of the things we are looking at doing as we move forward 

in the budget process is being able to staff ICE appropriately in 

that regard. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. You stated earlier, in response to one of my colleague’s questions, that you believe that all this technology that we 

have been using at the border, in particular with respect to Mexico, 

is a force multiplier. 

The entire time that I was the chair of the Border Subcommittee, 

we would get both GAO and Border Patrol saying they didn’t know 

if some of this technology was actually going to require that we 

have more people or that we actually get that savings that we intuitively think should come from that. 

Do you have a new study, do you have new numbers, do you 

have something that is showing that relationship? Because the entire time that I was the chair, which was for about 3 years, we 

have on record people saying that maybe it doesn’t lower the 

amount of body power that we need. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Well, you still need manpower. I mean, 

technology is no substitute for manpower. But you are never going 

to have enough money to put a Border Patrol agent every 100 

yards along the thousands of miles of border. 

So you have to have technology and infrastructure as a threelegged stool as part of a system. Then you have to have interior enforcement inside the country to back that up. 

One of the reasons that I stopped the SBInet program was so 

that we could redeploy those moneys into technologies that we 

know work, that we know are force multipliers, that enable, for example, a small forward-operating base near the Tohono O’odham 

nation in Arizona to be a deterrent and be able to cover a larger 

distance than otherwise they would be able to do. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Last—and this would be to our other guest—I represent a very large Arab Muslim community in our Nation, have 

the second-largest community mosque, if you will. We have had a 

lot of situations with FBI probes and local infiltration, et cetera. 
32 

What are the safeguards that we now have in place so that we 

aren’t sending people into mosques and trying to elicit proactively 

somebody to create some sort of terrorist attack? 

Mr. LEITER. Well, Congresswoman, I want to be a bit careful, because although I am familiar with them, I am certainly no expert 

on the FBI domestic intelligence operating guidelines and the attorney general guidelines. 

What I can tell you is the FBI, approved by the attorney general, 

has very strict guidelines on the level of intrusiveness and what 

they can do based on specific information about individuals not 

having radical thoughts, but moving to action, which should be terrorist actions. 

One of the key requirements is that no investigations can be 

predicated on the exercise of first amendment rights. There always 

has to be additional evidence on which to predicate an investigation that would then lead to some of the tools that you referenced. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Has that always been the case? Because we have 

documented cases, of course, even out in the press and out in the 

public where the fact of the matter was there was instigation of 

these things within the mosque by our own undercover. 

Mr. LEITER. I can tell you that the current attorney general 

guidelines were developed during the end of the Bush administration and ultimately approved under the Obama administration and 

signed by the current attorney general. 

The key piece here, if I may, is that you have to—obviously, 

there are going to be places where you have to do law enforcement 

investigations. In my view you have to have a balanced approach, 

not just those law enforcement investigations, but you have to engage with those communities, with other non-law enforcement elements of the U.S. Government to make clear that this is not an adversarial situation. In fact, this is a partnership. 

As you know well, many of our tips to uncover active terrorist 

plots in the United States have come from the Muslim community. 

So we have to make quite clear that the communities are part of 

the solution and not part of the problem. You do that through 

using a variety of tools, not just law enforcement. 

Chairman KING. The time of the gentlelady has expired. 

Dr. Broun of Georgia. 

Mr. BROUN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Secretary, Director, appreciate you all being here today. I have 

several pressing questions for both of you, and in my limited 

amount of time, it will allow for only one or two, and I trust that 

you will send a prompt response to my written questions. 

My first question is for both of you, but I would like the Director 

to give me a written response, but I would like to address this particularly here in this hearing. 

Secretary, most terrorist experts believe that given the list of incidents of homegrown radicals—and trained terrorist recruits, the 

United States is now a little different from Europe in terms of having a domestic terrorist problem involving the immigrant as well 

as indigenous Muslims as well as converts to Islam. 

However, in April 2010 the Obama administration announced 

that it intended to remove religious terms such as ‘‘Islamic extremism’’ from the National security strategy. Moreover, in a May 
33 

2010 speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, 

the deputy national security adviser for homeland security and 

counterterrorism, John Brennan, stated that the administration 

would not ‘‘describe our enemy as jihadist or Islamist.’’ 

Do you believe that by disregarding the ideological factor behind 

the recent rise in domestic and international terrorism mainly by 

Islamic extremism the administration is inhibiting our ability to 

address and combat this dangerous trend? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Representative, without having seen 

John Brennan’s speech or having recently reviewed the National 

security strategy, let me, if I might, respond to that in writing. I 

would venture to say that what the concern was is that in addition 

to Islamist terrorism or Islamist-inspired terrorism, we not overlook other types of extremism that can be homegrown and that we 

indeed have experiences with, as I described to Representative 

Thompson. 

But as our testimony here today indicates, we understand full 

well that Islamist-inspired, al-Qaeda-inspired, however you want to 

call it terrorism, be it coming from abroad were now being homegrown, it is part and parcel of the security picture that we now 

have to deal with in the United States. 

Mr. BROUN. Well, I appreciate that—I went through security 

TSA not long ago, and I went through it. There was a guy who followed me that obviously was of Arabian and or Middle Eastern descent. Both of us were not patted down. There was a grandma who 

followed me, and she was patted down. There was a small child 

with her. He was patted down. I have yet to see a grandma try to 

bomb any U.S. facility with chemicals in her bloomers, so I think 

we need to focus on those who want to do us harm. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Representative, if I might respond to 

that, because that is a common complaint that I—— 

Mr. BROUN. I saw it myself. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Well, I know. Let me just suggest, first 

of all, that when we add random screening to whatever we are 

doing, it has to be truly random. Otherwise, you use the value of 

unpredictability. 

Second, I would be happy to have you briefed in a classified setting about how when we set firm rules about we won’t screen this 

kind of person or that kind of person, that our adversaries, they 

know those rules, and they attempt to train and get around them. 

Mr. BROUN. Well, thank you. I would appreciate that briefing. 

We have to focus on those people who want to do us harm. This 

administration and your Department are seen to be very adverse 

to focusing on those entities that want to do us harm and have 

even at times back when your spokesman came and testified before 

this committee, he would not even describe that Fort Hood massacre as a terrorist threat and talked about an alleged attack. 

I think this is unconscionable. We have to focus on those people 

who want to harm us. The people who want to harm us are not 

grandmas, and it is not little children. It is the Islamic extremist. 

There are others, and I want to look into those, too, but your own 

Department has described people who are pro-life, who are—who 

believe in the Constitution, and military personnel as being potential terrorists. 
34 

Now, come on. Give me a break. We do need to focus on the folks 

who want to harm us. I encourage you to maybe take a step back 

and look and see how we can focus on those people who want to 

harm us. We have to profile these folks. You all have not been willing to do so, in my opinion. I hope that you will look at this issue, 

because I think it is absolutely critical for the safety of our Nation 

and for the American citizens. 

I will submit the other questions for written comment. Thank 

you both for being here. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Mr. Chairman, may I make a response to 

that? 

Chairman KING. Yes. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. First of all, Representative, there are 

hundreds of thousands of men and women in my Department. They 

come to work every day to protect the American people. The writing or the document I think you are referencing was something 

that was actually drafted at the end of the Bush administration 

and issued by mistake at the beginning of this administration. I 

would point out that we just established that in the Hasan matter, 

he is a terrorist, and he was an active duty military individual. 

Chairman KING. The time of the gentleman has expired. 

The gentleman from New York, my colleague, Mr. Higgins. 

Mr. HIGGINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman KING. New Member of the committee. Good to have 

you aboard, Brian. 

Mr. HIGGINS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Madam Secretary, the Peace Bridge connects my community, 

western New York, to southern Ontario. It is the busiest passenger 

crossing at the northern border and is a vital economic asset to 

western New York and to the country and of profound National security importance. 

We are advancing a project to reduce congestion at the Peace 

Bridge by building a new span and customs facilities, but our 

progress has been slowed in part due to ambiguous and sometimes 

conflicting communications from the Department of Homeland Security. Specifically, confusion exists about whether the project 

would include pre-clearance, a shared border management strategy, but would locate the American customs plaza on the Canadian 

side of the bridge. 

On August 20, 2009, you wrote to me that pre-clearance was not 

possible, because it would require the United States accept a lower 

level of security at the Peace Bridge than at any other U.S. port 

of entry or require Canada to accept actions contrary to its charter 

of rights and freedoms. 

Mr. Chairman, I would like to enter that letter into the record. 

Chairman KING. Without objection. 

[The information follows:] 

SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD BY HON. BRIAN HIGGINS

AUGUST 20, 2009. 

The Honorable BRIAN HIGGINS, 

U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, DC 20515. 

DEAR REPRESENTATIVE HIGGINS: Thank you for your March 26, 2009 letter regarding land preclearance for border crossings between Buffalo, New York, and Fort 

Erie, Ontario. Public Safety Canada Minister Peter Van Loan, Secretary of State 
35 

Hillary Clinton, and Representatives Louise Slaughter and John McHugh have also 

asked me to personally look into the shared border management issue. 

The United States and Canada negotiated in good faith on a pilot program for 

land preclearance between 2005 and 2007. Although our two governments were able 

to reach agreement on some key issues, negotiations ended in 2007 when a mutually 

acceptable framework could not be reached due to sovereignty issues for both the 

United States and Canada. 

Implementing the proposed land preclearance framework would have required the 

United States to accept a lower level of security at a land preclearance crossing than 

at any other U.S. port of entry or required Canada to accept actions contrary to its 

Charter of Rights and Freedoms. U.S. Government concerns included limited U.S. 

law enforcement authority, the right of individuals to withdraw applications, limitations on fingerprint collection and sharing, and potential future interpretations of 

the Charter. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) subsequently developed 

a concept that would have deployed U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers to 

Canada to perform primary inspection and reserved all authority to conduct secondary inspections on U.S. soil, but Canada was not interested in pursuing that option and suggested that attention shift to other efforts to facilitate low-risk commercial traffic. 

Since the beginning of the land preclearance negotiations, there have been significant improvements at the Peace Bridge that have facilitated travel and trade, and 

more are planned. These include an expanded number of truck lanes, a redesign of 

the plaza, the creation of a new pedestrian lane and expanded passenger processing 

terminal, the creation of a dedicated NEXUS lane and opening of a second enrollment center, and the installation of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology. Current plans to redesign the U.S. plaza at the Peace Bridge, long term 

plans to build a companion bridge, and the expected saturation of the traveling public with WID-enabled Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative-compliant documents, 

are expected to address long-standing challenges of limited capacity and outdated 

infrastructure. These improvements will lead to the relief sought through land 

preclearance well before it would have been possible to implement land 

preclearance. 

Having reviewed the significant legal and sovereignty issues that were at the 

heart of the decision to terminate negotiations, as well as the current situation on 

the ground, I have decided DHS will not be reopening negotiations on land 

preclearance at the Peace Bridge. However, DHS will continue to engage with Canada on preclearance issues more generally and will continue to explore new ideas 

for creating additional efficiencies at our shared ports of entry. I welcome your 

input, as well as the input of public and private sector stakeholders, in these endeavors to further enhance the flow of legitimate trade and travel at the Peace 

Bridge and the U.S.-Canadian border more generally. 

Thank you again for your interest in homeland security, and your commitment 

to the physical security and economic well-being of the United States and Canada. 

A similar response was sent to Representative Christopher J. Lee, who cosigned 

your letter. Should you need additional assistance, please do not hesitate to contact 

me. 

Yours very truly, 

JANET NAPOLITANO. 

Mr. HIGGINS. Yet in response to recent media inquiries on the 

issue, the Department of Homeland Security officials have issued 

vague responses that have caused confusion about the status of the 

pre-clearance proposal. 

Madam Secretary, we need clarity from the Department of 

Homeland Security on this issue in order for this important project 

to proceed, so can you please tell us does the position of the Department of Homeland Security remain consistent with your letter 

that due to security and constitutional obstacles that cannot be 

overcome, the Peace Bridge project will not include locating the 

American customs facilities in Canada? 

Is it your position that the Department of Homeland Security 

will not reopen negotiations on pre-clearance at the Peace Bridge 

and that the pre-clearance proposal is for the purposes of this 

project dead? 
36 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Representative, I will be very clear. We 

have looked into pre-clearance on the Canadian side. We cannot do 

it. The position has not changed. When and if the bridge and the 

facilities are expanded on the U.S. side, we are fully prepared to 

provide the staffing and support for that on the U.S. side. 

We understand the importance of the span for trade and tourism 

and so forth, but we are not going to be able to resolve the preclearance issues in Canada. 

Mr. HIGGINS. Okay. 

I yield back. Thank you. 

Chairman KING. The gentlelady from Michigan, Mrs. Miller. 

Mrs. MILLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think I will follow up 

a bit of my colleague from New York, who raised sort of a northern 

border issue. 

If I could talk a bit, Secretary and Director—and, first of all, 

thank you both for coming, and we appreciate your service to the 

Nation sincerely—we have a lot of people on the committee that 

talk about the southern border, and, believe me, I am not minimizing. I recognize the challenges that we have on the southern 

border and the safety of our Nation. But I do sometimes think we 

forget, almost, about the northern border. 

One of my colleagues said there was 44 percent of operational 

control on the southern border. According to the GAO report that 

came out last week, we have less than 2 percent under operational 

control of our 4,000-mile—with our wonderful, wonderful trading 

partner—our biggest trading partner is not Mexico, it is Canada by 

a huge, huge margin. As you mentioned, the Peace Bridge in Buffalo, which is, I think we have always thought, sort of the thirdbusiest crossing, I think the first in passenger. 

But in my district and my colleague from Detroit, Mr. Clarke, 

where he has the Ambassador Bridge, which is the busiest commercial artery on the northern tier, the Windsor Tunnel there, and the 

Blue Water Bridge in my district, which is 30 minutes, 30 miles 

to the north, it is the second-busiest border crossing. The Canadian 

national rail tunnel runs under the St. Clair River there, as well. 

We were very concerned about what the GAO said about essentially no operational control, for all practical purposes, along the 

northern border. I would just like to address that a bit, because as 

we think about our wonderful trading partner, our neighbors of 

Canada, there are several Islamic terrorists, extremist groups that 

are represented there, as you are well aware. 

I thought it was interesting, with the GAO report coming out, on 

the heels of that, President Obama and Prime Minister Harper 

came out with a U.S.-Canadian agreement, which was a wonderful 

step forward—they are going to put this working group together, 

but talking about some of the various unique challenges, dynamics 

along our shared border, how we can have interagency cooperation, 

sharing of intelligence, et cetera, et cetera. 

So from a high-tech perspective of the kinds of resources that I 

think we—are necessary along the—obviously, we are not going to 

build a 4,000-mile-long fence along the northern border. So certainly the kind of technology that we need to be utilizing there, as 

well as low-tech—low-tech, K9s. There are about 60 K9s, as I un-
37 

derstand it, at El Paso. There are zero at the Blue Water Bridge 

and maybe one at the Ambassador Bridge. 

So, believe me, I am not minimizing what is happening on the 

southern border, but for everything to be going on the southern 

border at the expense of the northern border, I think we need to 

have a bit of a balance. 

Even the UAV missions, which I am heavily an advocate of, now 

with a ground mission at Corpus Christi—and I know we do have 

one along the more northern part of our border, but I think in the 

Detroit—certainly, Michigan, New York sector, having those kinds 

of—we need those kinds of technologies, off-the-shelf hardware, essentially, that has worked extremely well in theater that the taxpayers have already paid for, that we can utilize along the northern border. 

So I just raise this as a concern. Perhaps when we think about 

threats from abroad, et cetera, they are not all going to come on 

an airplane from Amsterdam. Of course, as the terrorists think to 

cripple our Nation, and they think about doing it economically, just 

to use the Blue Water again as an example, at that, as it comes 

into the United States, that is the genesis for I–69, I–94, two of the 

most major trade routes that we have. 

As my colleague talked about, what we consider to be reverse inspection, that is another thing we have been trying to advocate for. 

Could we have reverse inspection so that we are inspecting things 

before they start coming across our major infrastructure, as well? 

So I raise some of these questions. I am not sure who I am directing them all to. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. I think they are mine. Mike is going like 

this. 

Mr. LEITER. All yours. 

Mrs. MILLER. Thanks, Secretary. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. I will be brief, Mr. Chairman. 

First of all, again, on the GAO report, we are—I encourage the 

committee, the term ‘‘operational control’’ is a very narrow term of 

art. It does not reflect the infrastructure and technology and all the 

other things that happen at the border, and so it should not be 

used as a substitute for an overall border strategy. 

One of the most significant things that has happened in the last 

month, quite frankly—or even in the last year—was Prime Minister Harper, President Obama signing the shared security strategy, border strategy between our two countries. 

It is our No. 1 trading partner. Canada is now beginning to do 

or conducting some of the same kinds of things around its perimeter that we used to be concerned about coming across inland on 

the border. We will be working more in light of this shared vision 

statement on an integrated northern border strategy. Indeed, we 

have prepared one. It is in review right now at the OMB. 

Because as you recognize, Representative, borders are—they are 

law enforcement jurisdictions, and you have to protect the borders 

in that regard, but they are also huge trade jurisdictions, and you 

have to be able to move legitimate trade and commerce. 

We are very much in favor of looking at ways to pre-clear certain 

things before they—cargo, for example, before it gets to the border 

so that we can relieve the pressure on the lines. The technology for 
38 

being able to do that kind of thing gets better all the time. So that 

is one of the things we will be, I am sure, working on and implementing over the coming months and years. 

Mrs. MILLER. Thank you. I know my time has expired, but I 

would just also point out, in regards to the TIDE list, without 

quantifying it, it is much higher—there are much higher hits on 

the northern border than they are on the southern border with the 

TIDE list, much higher. 

Mr. LEITER. Congresswoman, I will just say that I have been 

working extremely closely, going up to Ottawa since 2005. It is a 

very different set of challenges on that border, but it is one that 

we are acutely engaged on with the Canadians who are an excellent partner in information-sharing and the like. 

So although we talk about it less than the southern border quite 

often, that—I don’t want to leave anyone with the impression that 

it is not a very high priority for us and the Canadians. 

Mrs. MILLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman KING. Now to the other side of the aisle, one of the 

more enthusiastic new Members, Mr. Clarke of Michigan. 

Mr. CLARKE of Michigan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you 

for calling this meeting. 

Thank you, Secretary Napolitano, Director Leiter. You know, I 

want to make sure that I address you directly, but I have to speak 

into this mic. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. That is okay. 

Mr. CLARKE of Michigan. All right. Okay. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. We are good. 

Mr. CLARKE of Michigan. I want to thank Chair Miller for outlining the importance of the busiest international border crossing 

in North America, which is in the city of Detroit, and also the fact 

that we have a large airport, which is an international hub. 

This makes this area at high risk of attack and also high impact, 

in case of a natural disaster or other emergency. In the event of 

such an emergency, it will be local police, local firefighters, our 

local emergency medical providers that will be the first to respond. 

My concern, though, is with the security of those first responders. 

I realize that this Department cannot be the local law enforcement 

or first responders. 

Last week, I visited a police precinct in Detroit, which a few 

hours earlier had been attacked by a lone gunman who tried to kill 

virtually every officer in that precinct, to find out that that precinct 

needed a metal detector that would have cost $5,000, but because 

of the city’s budget restraints, couldn’t afford that. 

I am aware that many of the grant programs are awarded on a 

competitive basis or based by formula. There are some districts, 

some areas that will get resources, some that won’t. 

In your written testimony, Madam Secretary, you rightfully say 

that homeland security starts here with hometown security. What 

types of resources in addition to the grants are available to protect 

our first responders so they can be in a good position to protect our 

citizens in case of an attack or other emergency? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Representative, I would suggest, in addition to the grants, some of which are formula-driven, others of 

which are based on analysis of risk and threat, one of the—or two 
39 

of the things that are of direct assistance to our first responders 

are, A, training. 

That is why as we do our countering violent extremism curricula, 

we are testing it at FLETC with representatives of the chiefs’ association, the sheriffs’ associations, and others who would have to implement this on the ground. 

The second is information sharing, so that they have maximum 

access to actionable intelligence. 

Now, the latter probably would not help much in the case of a 

lone wolf gunman. Those are—and I will ask Director Leiter of his 

comments on that. But the lone wolf-type situation is almost impossible to prevent from a law enforcement perspective. 

So when you deal with the first responders, you deal with maybe 

early tips that somebody is getting ready to come in and then the 

ability to respond very effectively. That is SWAT training and 

equipment and the like. 

Mr. LEITER. Congressman, what I would say is, immediately 

after the Mumbai attacks in November 2008, we started working 

with DHS and FBI to look at the techniques that were used in 

India and how U.S. law enforcement and Homeland Security would 

be able to respond. 

Out of that, we created a scenario that has been used in Chicago 

and other cities by the local authorities in conjunction with the 

Federal authorities to see what kind of response could be brought. 

Recently, we combined with FEMA, and we now have a program 

for each of—I think it is the eight FEMA sectors. The last one, the 

first one was run in Philadelphia just several weeks ago, involved 

over 300 people, including the Philadelphia police chief, DHS, 

FEMA, FBI, again, running through a scenario like Mumbai with 

multiple shooters. 

Because you are absolutely right: It is going to be the Detroit police or the Philadelphia police that are there first. How do they respond? What specialized tools can the U.S. Government bring to 

bear? Certainly we would be happy to work with—I think it is 

Sheriff Bouchard or the Detroit Police Department or others to get 

that sort of training in conjunction with DHS and FBI to Detroit. 

Chairman KING. The gentleman from Pennsylvania is recognized, 

Mr. Meehan. 

Mr. MEEHAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the opportunity to be with you here today. 

I have noticed that the gentlewoman from California has departed, but I did want to take a moment on the record to express 

my regret that I will not have the opportunity to work so directly 

with her, having been given the opportunity to chair the Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, and it would have created that 

chance. I think—I spoke to my staff—it is a little bit like finally 

making it to the Yankees and realizing that they just traded away 

Derek Jeter. 

I am very grateful for your presence here today and for helping 

us set the table. 

Let me ask both Madam Secretary and Director Leiter, I came 

on to this issue just 5 days after September 11, like many of each 

of us did in different capacities, as United States Attorney. 
40 

But we are sitting here now 10 years later. We have done a lot. 

We have done a lot right. I think the gravest marker of what we 

have done right is the incredible record of safety in the American 

homeland in that 10-year period. 

But we have also spent a lot of money. As you said, Madam Secretary, we have had hundreds of thousands of people deployed in 

this—we have—right. 

What are we doing now to begin to look back at what we are 

doing and say, hey, where are we going wrong? 

Where are we creating redundancies? What does our process 

now, 10 years later, for asking some tough questions about whether 

we could be doing something better? 

Or if we are doing something that—you know, the institution 

keeps moving forward because it is there. But maybe it is not the 

best expenditure of dollars, making tough choices. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. I will take that one first, Representative—say we are always asking those hard questions. It—I begin 

every morning with an intel briefing and I think my briefers will 

tell you, it begins with hard questions, why, where, how, what 

could have been done to prevent, what is needed, et cetera. 

With respect to those dollars, we all appreciate the fiscal discipline needed by our Department, even—you know, even though 

it is security and everyone says they want to protect security, we 

still have a duty to really protect dollars and use them in the 

wisest possible fashion. 

So it is everything from procurement reform that we have undertaken, acquisition management, which sounds really governmentese. 

But I will tell you, it is those kinds of things that help find 

projects before they get too far along, that are not really going to 

work or be value added to the process. 

Then, the third—and we have literally found hundreds of millions of dollars, that we have built into our budgets now, of cost 

avoidances, using some of those just plain old management techniques. 

Lastly, I think that our ability and the—just the—and I have 

seen it just even over the last 2 years, the increasing integration 

and leveraging of the data resources that NCTC has with its pursuit teams, with our incredible data resources that we collect on 

the customs and the TSA side. 

The ability to leverage those resources together is a Homeland 

Security kind of architecture that we just plain didn’t have before, 

and allows us to make maximum use of the dollars we do get. 

But I ask the Director if he has anything to—— 

Mr. LEITER. Congressman, I have three quick points. But I will 

open with the fact that the Yankees have traded a lot of greats. 

They keep on winning, so—— 

Yes, but it is much to my chagrin. 

Chairman KING. I share the Director’s chagrin. 

Mr. LEITER. The Mets keep making a lot of trades and not winning. 

Three quick points, Congressman. First, the amount of change 

that already goes on is really quite incredible. 
41 

Ms. Sanchez asked about the visa waiver program. The way in 

which we screen—ask the travelers today, compared to how we 

screened them a year ago, is radically different. 

So it really has not been a steady state in the first place. There 

have been lots of twists and turns. Unless you are kind of in the 

counterterrorism trenches, you don’t necessarily know that is going 

on. Second, we, of course, try to learn lessons from our failures. But 

we also do a lot of gaming to try and figure out what the next attack will be and how we have to shape things. 

Now, that is an imperfect science, and you are going to end up 

going down some wrong paths. 

But there are significant things like that, as I said to Congressman Clark about gaming here domestically of about a Mumbaistyle attack, when you look at that, do we have the right resources, 

do we have the right communications, what could we buy, even 

though we haven’t seen that event here in the United States yet. 

The third is, Congressman, NCTC has a statutory responsibility 

to do net assessments, and that is looking both at the changed 

enemy, our U.S. capabilities and the changed global environment, 

including here in the United States. 

We provide that annual net assessment along with targeted net 

assessments to the White House. We also work closely with the Office of Management and Budgets to try to look across all of these 

expenditure centers and see which are being the most effective. 

I will tell you that that is a huge challenge, because simply identifying what satisfies part of a counterterrorism purpose, as you 

can imagine, is very difficult. The Department of Homeland Security is a perfect example. 

It is not just counterterrorism what CBC does. It is immigrant 

smuggling, it is drugs, it is all of these pieces. 

So trying to parse this out remains a challenge, but one that I 

think—especially over the last 2 years—we have made some good 

progress on. 

Mr. MEEHAN. I agree with the—I am not looking at it just from— 

although in this day and age, we are paying particular attention 

to how the dollars are spent—but some—also technique as well. 

I mean, at what point in time do we reach a tipping point? While 

I ascribe to the belief that we are doing the right things—hear people say, hey, when I have to walk through an airport screener and 

make the decision about whether I am groped or photographed, you 

know, are we going too far along? 

We keep pushing where—I went to that UPS terminal. The impact of trying to push off further and further the screening of the 

packages, at some point, it is going to have an impact on their ability to do business. 

I mean, where do we make those analyses? They are tough 

choices. But we say, hey, maybe we are overcompensating in order 

to try to create some sense of safety. 

Or is it necessary? 

Chairman KING. The gentleman’s time has expired. We can answer the question. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Well, thank you, Congressman. 

Well, first, with respect to the AITs and the pat-downs, it was 

very interesting, but between Thanksgiving and Christmas, that 
42 

heavy travel season, fewer than 1 percent of travelers opted out of 

using the AITs. 

As you may have seen, we are now piloting the next software, 

which will be even less invasive and will allow us to do fewer patdowns. 

But the plain fact of the matter is, we do that because, from a 

security and intelligence perspective, and just looking at what 

Abdulmutallab did, going into Detroit in Christmas 2009, we know 

they try to hire non-metallic-based explosives to get on a plane. 

We know that aviation, be it cargo or passenger, continues to be 

a target. 

So that is something that we have, you know, had to deal with. 

The TSA administrator, who is the former Deputy Director of the 

FBI, has to deal with it on a daily basis. 

We are working with UPS and FedEx and the other major shippers on how we secure cargo. We are moving toward kind of a 

trusted shipper regime so that cargo can move and we can meet 

the needs of real-time inventory. 

That is part of the global cargo supply chain initiative I was describing earlier. They are part and parcel of how we are devising 

that strategy. 

So we are not just sitting here, as the Government, figuring this 

out. We have the private sector, who has to move those planes and 

move that cargo, helping us. 

Mr. LEITER. Because, I will simply add, I think, almost everything we do in counterterrorism, there is a second-order effect. If 

we increase screening, that is going to affect people’s perceptions. 

If we increase investigations domestically, that is going to affect 

the community. 

We have to build into those required and necessary preventive 

steps additional programs to address those second-order effects so 

you are not worsening the situation inadvertently. 

Again, that applies to screening. It applies to homegrown extremism. It applies to overseas efforts. 

Chairman KING. Virgin Islands. 

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Welcome and 

thank you for the great job you are doing with these tremendous 

challenges that the country faces, to both of you. 

My first question is to both of you. I want to focus on another 

part of the southern border that I don’t think gets enough attention. 

As the representative from the U.S. Virgin Islands, where a district where I even seek acts, I am always concerned that not 

enough attention is being paid to the Caribbean, either in assessing 

the risks or in building strong partnerships that we need in that 

region. 

So do you feel comfortable that the Department and the Center 

are seeking and getting adequate information from the Caribbean, 

and even from South and Central America, where there are countries that are friendly with areas in the world that have radical Islamic extremism? 

Or are there any efforts, for example, to prevent radicalization, 

reduce the likelihood of radicalization or to help the governments 

in those countries to strengthen their capabilities to do so? 
43 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Representative, I have myself asked 

somewhat similar questions, in part because of the increase in special interest aliens that we are seeing get up to the Mexican border, what are the routes, how are they getting across. 

It is a terrorism issue. It can be a human trafficking issue, a 

drug trafficking issue—— 

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. All of this. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO [continuing]. And all of the above. In this 

open setting, I would prefer not to give more of a detailed answer 

except to say that I share your concern to make sure that we not 

lose sight of this part of the world as we plan our protection strategies. 

We will be happy to sit with you in a classified setting to give 

you more information. 

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Thank you. 

Mr. LEITER. Representative, I would largely say the same thing. 

I think there actually are some interesting pieces that I can’t go 

into in open setting, with a particular focus to radicalization and 

movement of travelers. 

Mr. LEITER. We do spend significant time on the Caribbean. 

I will also tell you that there has been good cooperation in the 

past, for example, I believe it was 2007, the Cricket World Cup, it 

was held in the Caribbean. 

That provided an opportunity to help the region develop more effective screening of travelers. So there are some steps that the U.S. 

Government has taken to enable them. 

Of course, more towards South America, we have on-going concerns about the influence of terrorist states, sponsors of terrorism 

in that region and their presence. 

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Thank you. 

I have also been away from the committee for a while. But while 

I was here before, I did put a lot of pressure on the then Secretary 

to beef up the Office of House Affairs and to make sure that lines 

of authority and response were clear between them and the Department of Health and Human Services and that they work 

seamlessly together. 

Given your response to the question about biological threats, 

what role does this office play, and are they adequately staffed, resources and placed to be effective? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. We are working very closely with the Department of Health and Human Services on a number of scenarios, 

pandemic planning being one, but also medical countermeasures, in 

the light of—if there were to be a biologic attack. 

We have been working with them on protocols, who would do 

what, when, and where? Do we have the surge capacity to handle, 

say, if there were to be an anthrax attack? We have been table-topping some of these things. 

So, Representative, the work between our departments, I think, 

has been very good. I am not able right now at the table to say, 

do they have enough resources? All I can say is that we believe the 

biologic threat is real, and we believe it is something that we need 

to keep maturing our efforts about. 

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Thank you. 
44 

Director Leiter, from some of the reading that I did in preparation for this, it seems that there are still some turf battles and 

disalignment, I guess I would call it, regarding lines of authority 

and some stove-piping within the intelligence community, which 

would be very dangerous if it does exist. 

So where is the communication and the integration and the collaboration? Is it where it needs to be in the intelligence community? 

Mr. LEITER. Like every Government official, I will say, it is good. 

It can always get better. But now I do want to give you some perspective, having been doing this since 2004, and where we are 

today, it is night and day. 

Secretary Napolitano and I sit on what is called the Counterterrorism Resource Council, which is chaired by Jim Clapper. It includes Bob Mueller, the Director of the FBI, the Director of DIA, 

Leon Panetta, Director of CIA. Over the past year, we have met 

every 2 weeks to delve in as senior leaders for hours on end about 

how we can integrate our missions better. 

That is night and day, again, from where we were in 2004 or 

2005. Frankly, it is night and day from where we were in 2009. So 

I think there are always some tensions when organizations are trying to do the right thing and think they are trying to do the right 

thing and someone else disagrees. Not all of that tension is bad. 

On the terrorism issue, I think—I have never seen it better integrated than it is today. 

Just one other point about integration, you mentioned the Health 

and Human Services. We are integrated with them and DHS. They 

are in charge of refugee resettlement. They play a critical role in 

helping us work with new immigrant communities to reduce the 

likelihood of radicalization. 

Again, that sort of partnership between the counterterrorism 

community and an organization that is responsible for refugee resettlement, 4 years ago, never existed at all. 

Chairman KING. Time of the gentlelady has expired. 

The gentleman from Arizona, Mr. Quayle. 

Mr. QUAYLE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to 

Madam Secretary and Director Leiter for being here and giving us 

the testimony on a very important subject. 

Madam Secretary, while I was reading your testimony and listening to your opening statement, the one thing that I was a little 

puzzled—and it surprised me—was the lack of emphasis on the 

southern border and how we are going to continue to protect the 

southern border. 

The reason that I was a little surprised by that is because the 

rise and the escalation of the violence between the drug cartels and 

the Mexican government as they continue to try to tamp down on 

the various drug cartels that are really ravaging the various areas 

along our southern border. 

So the reason I was sort of—and that was the reason I was surprised. Was it left out of there just because—do you think that we 

have operational control of the southern border? Or was it just not 

part of this particular testimony? 
45 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Well, thank you, Representative. It was 

not emphasized in this testimony, because I didn’t think it was 

within the scope of this particular hearing. 

I will send you the speech I gave in El Paso about a week-anda-half ago specifically to the southwest border. In the major point 

I made there, a major point, was that, while we are working with 

Mexico on the unprecedented level of violence there, as the cartels 

fight for territory, separate, terrible crimes aside—and there have 

been some—but we have not seen systemically that violence come 

across the border. 

What I have told and been very public about to these cartels is 

don’t bring that over our border into the United States. We will respond very, very vigorously. 

The communities along the border themselves, you can talk to 

Mayor Sanders in San Diego or the mayor of El Paso and others, 

and they will say themselves, they are—from a safety standpoint— 

among the safest in the country. We want to keep it that way. 

Then, last, you referenced operational control. I think you are the 

third member now. As I have said before and I will say again, that 

is a very narrow term of art in Border Patrol lingo and doesn’t— 

and should not be construed as kind of an overall assessment of 

what is happening at the border. 

Mr. QUAYLE. Okay. I understand that. You mentioned El Paso. 

You mentioned Yuma. You mentioned San Diego. These are areas 

where the Border Patrol agents have been actually beefed up, and 

we actually have barriers, and these are the areas that have actually had the expenses put down there. We have seen the apprehensions—and you had stated in your statement over in El Paso about 

the apprehensions going down. 

But do you know how many illegal immigrants have crossed the 

border, the southern border, in the last 2 years or year? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Well, it is an estimate. It used to be that 

the estimate was that we were catching 1 in 3. I think the commissioner would testify, if he were here today, that that number—we 

are catching a much higher percentage. 

It is a combination of things, of the Congress, what it has invested in this border, the manpower, the technology, the infrastructure. The area that is my top focus down there is the Tucson sector. We do have some fencing in Nogales, as you know, but we are 

continuing to basically surge manpower and technology into that 

sector to shut it down. 

Mr. QUAYLE. Well, and from that, if you look at the—what has 

been happening, where the National Guard troops are going to be 

taken out, starting June through August, is that correct? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Well, their current term ends in, I believe, June. I don’t know that a decision has been made as to 

whether they will continue or not. That will be an interagency 

process with the Department of Defense and also the White House 

involvement. 

Mr. QUAYLE. Now, when we talk about statistics—and statistics 

can always be skewed a different way—how well do you think that 

it actually represent what is going on, on the southern border, 

when most of the statistics revolve around apprehension and not 

a really good understanding of what is going on in the rural parts 
46 

of the border, where there is not as much enforcement and a lot 

of ranchers and the like are getting inundated from what the reports that they give with drug smugglers and human smugglers 

across their properties? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Yes, I think you are talking about the 

rural areas of the Tucson sector. As I have said before, that is 

where we are really flooding resources now, shut some of that 

down. We are in constant touch through my office with the sheriffs 

along the entire border. 

The sheriffs tend to have the—you know, the rural areas, because they have the areas outside of municipalities. We are working directly with them and—on where we need to put resources, 

what they need. 

For example, one of the needs they had last year was help paying 

overtime, and we did move overtime money—Representative Miller 

is not here, so I think I can say it—from the northern border down 

to the southern border to help cover some of that overtime. 

We keep looking for efforts like that, but I can guarantee you, 

Representative, that this is something that gets daily attention at 

the department. 

Mr. LEITER. Thank you, Madam Secretary. 

Chairman KING. The gentleman from Massachusetts is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. KEATING. Mr. Chair, thank you. Thank you, Ranking Member Thompson. 

Chairman KING. Welcome aboard. 

Mr. KEATING. Thank you, Secretary Napolitano, for being here. 

I am a new Member, but I am coming from a decade of law enforcement experience, dealing with a lot of these issues as a prosecutor. In fact, one of my last cases just a few months ago dealt 

with an issue that really called into very serious question the 

issues of aviation and transportation security. It is a situation— 

dealing with the 100 percent you had in November for successfully 

checking everyone that is on the watch list and making sure on inbound U.S. travels, as well as within the country, that they are 

checked. 

But in my case, it wasn’t involving a person that had a ticket. 

It wasn’t even involving a person that had a false identification. 

What occurred in that case is a young man, 16-year-old young man, 

Delvonte Tisdale from North Carolina, had stowed himself into the 

wheel well of that plane. It departed from Charlotte, and his body 

was found in Milton, Massachusetts, when the landing gear of that 

plane was coming down. 

Despite the tragedy of losing a young man like that, it raised 

enormous questions about tarmac security. His video never showed 

up with investigations, to my knowledge, in the airport, and it 

didn’t even show up near the perimeter. 

So what really I am concerned about is: What is being done by 

Homeland Security for safety on the tarmac that is vital for our 

aviation security? What other agencies are you working with in 

that respect? 

Because if it wasn’t this young man that just stowed himself for 

his own reasons, if that had been a person with more nefarious motivation, think of what would have happened to that 737 commer-
47 

cial airliner or any of the other airliners that were there at that 

time. It really raised enormous concerns about aviation safety, and 

I would like you to address what is being done on the tarmac, as 

well. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Well, a couple of things. One is, I will— 

I am going to ask TSA to respond directly to your question, Representative. The question of who controls what part of the airport, 

it is a combination. 

We work with the local airport authority on the areas of—and we 

set standards and requirements for things like the perimeter. They 

are to carry out those standards and requirements. 

Clearly, if somebody, a 16-year-old, is able to circumvent those 

standards and requirements and get into the wheel well of a plane, 

there has been a breakdown. So I can’t sit here, tell you what the 

after-action analysis was as to how that happened and what corrective action has been taken, but I can share with you that I suspect 

that that already has occurred and we will get it to you. 

Mr. KEATING. I appreciate that. 

Mr. Leiter, were you aware of this incident at all? You know— 

and, really, the concern is not just which agency is catching the 

ball at a certain time. It is, there has to be a seamless way for the 

agencies to deal with this locally or all the invasive procedures are 

there when you are getting a ticket are for naught. 

Mr. LEITER. Congressman, I was aware, but only through the 

press reports. I remember it took some time to figure out that he 

was actually set away on the plane when the body was first found. 

What we have been concerned about for quite some time, not just 

here in the United States but overseas, the insider threat to aviation. 

Those individuals who, even if they are not sneaking in, have 

credentials either to restricted areas of an airport or work for an 

airline, understand the watchlisting procedures, understand the 

screening procedures. I know DHS and NCTC work together with 

the airline industry to discuss those vulnerabilities, screen individuals and the like. But we will certainly continue to work with Secretary Napolitano on this case to see whether or not there is a 

broader perimeter issue. 

Mr. KEATING. I would welcome that information. I can speak for 

myself and I think for the members of the committee. This is an 

area that we will work with you on because these are really serious 

questions, not just in the Boston area but also in the Charlotte 

area. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. In the Charlotte area, yes, right. 

Mr. KEATING. Thank you. 

Chairman KING. The gentleman from Virginia. Mr. Rigell is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. RIGELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Secretary Napolitano, 

thank you for being here and Director Leiter. 

Last night the House fell short of the votes necessary to extend 

certain parts of the Patriot Act. Could you just comment on that 

please? The ramifications if those provisions are not extended. 

Mr. LEITER. Congressmen, as I testified before several years ago 

when this was up, the Patriot Act remains a very important tool, 

especially with respect to home-grown extremists. So from my per-
48 

spective, to have the Patriot Act expire on February 28 would be 

extremely problematic and would reduce our ability to detect terrorists. 

Mr. RIGELL. Many of my constituents, and I share their view, I 

have a deep concern about abuse of these powers. I would like to 

know, and my constituents would like to know, what specific practical steps are being taken to properly balance this tension that 

does exist between our freedom and our security? So if you could 

unpack that a bit, I would appreciate it. 

Mr. LEITER. Absolutely, Congressmen. I think it is a more-thanreasonable concern. There are significant authorities and there 

need to be protections. There are three basic provisions. The business records provision, the lone wolf, and the roving wiretap. 

First of all, I would say that in almost all cases there are very, 

very similar tools already being used in the criminal context. But 

in fundamentally all of these provisions there is a rigorous set of 

oversight both within the Executive Branch but also through the 

FISA court, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court. So in 

the case of business records, a showing has to be provided to the 

FISA court of the appropriateness of the order. They then also can 

do oversight of those records and the like. 

So I think this is, in the words of Ronald Reagan, this is trust 

and verify. It is trusting it will do it right but then it is verifying 

that we are doing it right through independent means, such as the 

FISA court. 

Mr. RIGELL. Are there examples within the Department where 

you have identified an abuse where an employee has abused his or 

her power and you have actually taken action and—— 

Mr. LEITER. Congressmen, I apologize. I am not quite the right 

witness for that. I really have to defer to the Department of Justice. I know in other contexts NCTC has had situations where, for 

example, U.S. person information was not protected to the way we 

expect it to and require it. We have disciplined those individuals 

and we have submitted those findings back to the Department of 

Justice, our inspector general and our civil liberties protection officer. So—— 

Mr. RIGELL. Director, that is a fair answer. I have the privilege 

of representing Virginia’s Second District, home to a beautiful port 

entrance to the Chesapeake Bay. So port security is a great concern 

to me. I notice that again it wasn’t really listed in the opening 

statement as a high-level concern. So please address where on the 

order of threat assessment does port security come in. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. I will take that one, Representative. 

Again, it was not in the statement because of the title of the hearing and what we thought the scope of the hearing was. But port 

security is keenly important for a whole number of reasons. 

Our ports are where we—around our ports are where we have a 

lot of our chemical facilities. The safety of containers bringing 

cargo into the United States and how they are handled, the ability 

of the Coast Guard to protect the ports. They serve as the captains 

of the ports. So we have major initiatives underway in all of those 

areas. 

In particular, we are working globally on the security of the supply chain, which really—with the International Maritime Organiza-
49 

tion. Because that affects how cargo is actually brought across the 

seas and into the United States. 

Mr. RIGELL. Thank you. I yield back. 

Chairman KING. It is almost time to expire. I would just add to 

that that there has been close cooperation between the committee 

and the Department for at least 5 years in both administrations on 

the issue of port security. It is a major, major issue and it will definitely be addressed throughout the next 2 years. I can assure you 

of that. Also, not to speak for the Secretary, but—Department 

takes it very seriously. 

The gentlelady from California, Ms. Speier, is recognized for 5 

minutes. 

Ms. SPEIER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you Madam Secretary and Director Leiter. You know, I think at the outset I would 

like to say I think you have the toughest jobs around. It is easy 

for us to sit here and poke holes but you always have to be anticipating where the next threat is coming from. 

We have porous borders. We have a system where, if I understand it correctly, waiver programs could easily allow a terrorist to 

come to this country. I realize that we probably have it because we 

have comity between our countries and the like. I worry about the 

lack of exit tracking of visas. 

I worry also about cargo surveillance. I had a briefing last week 

in my district from local mechanics who are concerned about all of 

the repair work being done offshore now. They showed me pictures 

in El Salvador of a repair facility where you just showed your ID 

as you came in. There was no tracking. You could have phony ID. 

No one would know. 

You can anticipate that there are lots of holes still out there and 

that al-Qaeda and any number of other terrorists are seeing those 

same holes. From your perspectives, each of you, what do you think 

is the biggest hole that we have to close? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Well, Representative, thank you for your 

kind words. I have gotten out of the business of ranking because 

it is fluid. It evolves. It changes based on what the current intel 

is. It requires us to react to what has occurred and also to be thinking ahead. 

With respect to the situation you referenced in El Salvador, one 

of the things that I—to me that illustrates is the absolute importance of good intel gathering and sharing. Not just within the 

United States, but abroad. 

When something is—significant is trying to infiltrate a port and 

get something like a radioactive or biological weapon inside a cargo 

container, say for example our ability to know ahead of time to be 

tipped off to know what to look for, as what happened in October 

with the air cargo plane, absolutely critical. So as we move forward, strengthening and enlarging those intelligence-gathering relationships is also very important. 

Mr. LEITER. Congresswoman, I first of all also thank you and I 

will say Secretary Napolitano has a harder job than I do. I am also 

loathe to actually give you what our greatest vulnerabilities are because I know al-Qaeda and other terrorists are listening to what 

we are seeing, and I don’t want them to know what I think are our 
50 

greatest vulnerabilities. I am happy to talk to you about that in a 

closed setting. 

What I will say is we have to look at both our greatest 

vulnerabilities in terms of likelihood and consequences. There are 

a lot of things that could happen where we have weaknesses, but 

the consequences of an attack along that angle really might not be 

that significant. So we have to balance trying to stop the most common attack or the most likely attack with the one that has the 

greatest consequences. 

In that respect, the Chairman raised chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear weapons. I don’t think that is remotely the most 

likely avenue of al-Qaeda or al-Qaeda inspired terrorists to attack 

this country, but the consequences of that would be so great we 

have to invest very significant resources to guard against it. 

Ms. SPEIER. To follow up on the El Salvador issue, shouldn’t we 

be requiring American airlines—not American Airlines but American airlines—to make sure they have strong kinds of security systems in place when they are doing the work offshore? It appears 

they do not and we don’t require them to. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Representative, I need to know more 

about the El Salvador situation, but as I testified earlier we are 

now requiring 100 percent screening of all in-bound, high-risk 

cargo that is on a passenger plane. Those are terms that would— 

that meet—require certain levels be met. We actually do work with 

the American flag carriers on those. They are part and parcel of 

this system, even from international ports. 

Mr. LEITER. Congresswoman, I will simply add if I could the 

challenge you identify is unique neither to El Salvador nor to aviation. The counterterrorism effort is truly a global effort and it is 

why we spend so much time with our overseas partners on aviation 

security, port security, intelligence, information sharing. We are 

very reliant on our partners doing what we think needs to be done 

to keep the homeland safe. 

Chairman KING. The gentlelady’s time has expired. The gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Duncan, is recognized. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Madam Secretary and Director Leiter, thank you for being here 

today. 

I wanted to first off thank the gentleman from the Virginia Tidewater for mentioning the PATRIOT Act and asking a line of 

questionings to ensure there are constitutional rights as free Americans aren’t trampled. 

I consider myself a Tea Party congressman, and many of my colleagues here in the freshman class feel the same way. So during 

the course of getting to this office, we were questioned a lot about 

certain things that the United States were doing with regard to patriotic Americans, who may label themselves as Tea Party folks, 

who peacefully assemble and petition the Government for redress 

of grievances, all the first amendment rights that we have. 

So I am concerned, and they are concerned in South Carolina, 

about a report of April 2009 from your Department titled ‘‘Right 

Wing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling 

Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment.’’ We understand 

that the House has passed a resolution of inquiry in the last Con-
51 

gress, and this committee held hearings on it. To my knowledge 

that document has never been retracted or corrected. 

So the question for you today is: Does your Department consider 

military veterans or groups dedicated to single issues, patriotic 

Americans, a threat to homeland security and high risk to engage 

in extremist activity? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. I think that is for me. As I said earlier 

in this hearing, Representative, that was a report that was begun 

under the prior administration and issued by mistake by our Department before it had been properly edited. 

Now, to the point, of course, we don’t consider patriotic Americans to be terrorism threats. Of course, we work closely with our 

military. My Department—we have now—we have had aggressive 

hiring within military and veterans coming back, and we have now 

almost 50,000 veterans in my Department, not to mention activeduty Coast Guard. So we are heavily military reliant, dependent 

and interconnected. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you for that, by the way. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. There you go. Now, I think a larger point 

is that as we do our work, we cannot categorize by ethnicity or religion or any of those sorts of things. We have to make decisions 

based on intelligence and intelligent sharing and risk about particular individuals. 

That is the way that we have directed it be done in our Department. That is what is required under the United States Constitution. While the FBI is not here today and the Department of Justice is not here, they have very strict standards in that regard. 

Mr. DUNCAN. What can you do or what steps have you taken to 

ensure this type of reporting as demonstrated doesn’t happen 

again? Because in my opinion we have targeted a quote in that report, and we never retracted that. So I just don’t want that to happen again. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Well, that report is no longer available. 

Congressman, I would simply say that I have been the Secretary 

for almost 2 years since then, and you have not seen a similar report come out of the Department. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much. 

I yield back the balance of my time, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman KING. The gentlelady from California, Ms. Richardson, 

is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Ms. RICHARDSON. Yes. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you to our two witnesses who are here today for your 

frankness and efforts to work with this committee. 

Just a couple of questions that I have. One is there is much discussion here in the House in terms of reducing budgets back to 

2008 levels. Madam Secretary, I would like to hear your opinion. 

If in fact that were to go into effect, how would that impact your 

Department? What would you specifically see might need to be cut, 

since we are not provided any of that direction? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Well, that is a very difficult question to 

answer, but this Congress in a bipartisan way has been building 

this Department. It put 22 some-odd the agencies together. It gave 

us probably the most varied group of missions of any Department, 
52 

and they touch directly on the safety and security of the American 

people. 

They have asked us to protect our ports. They have asked us to 

protect our borders. They have asked us to protect our communities 

against terrorists, whether international or homegrown. They have 

asked us to protect our cyber walls. We have been building to meet 

those missions. That is what we do. So we are going to be, and the 

President is going to be, I think, very careful in his request. We 

are under the same fiscal discipline demand as every other department, and we ought to be. There are some places where I think we 

can eliminate redundancies and save, and we are constantly looking for those. 

But to simply take a big old thing and say we will go back to 

2008 without understanding operational impacts for this kind of 

work would probably not be what I would advise from a budgetary 

standpoint. 

Ms. RICHARDSON. Thank you for that comment. I think it is very 

helpful to us all. 

My second question is we have several trade agreements that are 

on the horizon. Korea is here—probably soon Colombia and Panama coming. You have heard several questions having to do with 

the ports. When we asked the question, when you first became Secretary, about implementing the 9/11 recommendations, one of your 

responses was, well, in order for us to do that, we would have to 

do all these new agreements. 

How involved have you been with the current trade agreements 

that are on the table, if at all? If you have, do you see the possibility of us implementing some of these 9/11 recommendations with 

those possible trading partners? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Representative, I have not personally 

been involved in negotiating those trade agreements. We will have 

to get back to you as to whether individuals and the Department 

may have been. So I am just going to delete my answer at that for 

now. 

Ms. RICHARDSON. Okay. I would say in particular Korea is of 

great concern. It is my understanding it is coming, and we want 

to make sure that for any future agreements, that Mr. Kirk is 

keeping in mind what we need to achieve for this committee. 

My second question, building upon previous questions of my colleagues, in this particular committee we will be having an upcoming hearing about looking at the potential radicalization of Muslims 

in this country. As I just heard your response, your department, 

you don’t evaluate based upon race or religion and so on. You are 

basing your decisions on intelligence. 

So if that is the case, what percentage, if you have one, could you 

say occurs in terms of people that we need to be concerned about. 

Would you say 50 percent Muslim? Would you say 50 percent, you 

know, if you could give us kind of a general idea? 

Mr. LEITER. It is a absolutely tiny percentage of the U.S. Muslim 

population and, frankly, the global Islamic population are those 

that we are concerned with at the National Counterterrorism Center. If you look at the numbers, they are significant in terms of 

number of attacks we have, but in terms of the broader Muslim 
53 

community within the United States, it is a minute percentage of 

that population. 

Ms. RICHARDSON. Thank you. 

With my remaining 49 seconds, I have been doing some work 

looking at cogs in continuity of government. I think the Department has done an amazing job of coordinating various agencies and 

being prepared. 

I think, though, the last ones that are ready happen to be us as 

elected officials, and so I just wanted to say, Madam Secretary, I 

plan on working with your folks to really explore how can we better 

prepare from the local, State, and Federal level as elected officials 

when we have to step forward when that disaster occurs, that we 

know who to call, we know where to go, and we know how to be 

helpful and not a hindrance in the process. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Thank you. 

Ms. RICHARDSON. Thank you very much. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman KING. Time of the gentlelady has expired. 

The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Farenthold, is recognized for 5 

minutes. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

At the risk of being redundant, I am probably the fifth or sixth 

person here who is going to express some concern over the 44 percent operational control number. I think you have done an admirable job defining that as a term of art. 

What I would like to ask is let’s take the word ‘‘operation’’ out 

of there and define ‘‘control’’ as what the average American would 

say. What percentage control do you think we have of either of our 

borders now—or both of our borders? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Well, I think in terms of manpower, technology, infrastructure, we have the effective control over the great 

majority of both borders, particularly at the ports. Then we are 

using manpower and new technologies to help us between the 

ports. 

It is a project that is never ending. We are relentless in it. We 

recognize that when you are a country as large as ours with that 

kind of land borders we have, that you are never going to seal 

those borders. That is an unrealistic expectation. 

But I would say my top priority in terms of the effective control 

is the Tucson sector of the southwest border. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. You also mentioned that you didn’t feel like 

some of the violence from Mexico is spilling over into the United 

States annual crime. Just as a personal aside, I would like to take 

issue with that, because I really do believe that what we have is 

a very effective distribution network of narcotics that come into 

this country that I am very concerned could be exploited by terrorists and used for bringing in the tools of the terrorist trade. 

The easy availability of drugs in this country I think is an indication that we really don’t have the level of control that we would 

all like to hold. That is—— 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Indeed. One of the things that—all I will 

say in open setting is that we have for some time been thinking 

ahead about what would happen if, say, al-Qaeda were to unite 

with the Zetas, one of the drug cartels. I will just leave it at that. 
54 

Mr. LEITER. Congressman, if I could just add, one of the things 

we did post-December 2009 attack in looking at other possible avenues is we embed it for the first time several DEA agents and analysts within NCTC to try to make sure that counter narcotics and 

counterterrorism information was being shared effectively. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Great. 

Then just, kind of, jumping over to the TSA—and I realize this 

is probably outside of the scope of this hearing or something that 

we might want to take in a more classified environment—but 

where are we with respect to implementing a trusted traveler program that might mitigate the impact of law-abiding Americans of 

having to undergo these intrusive TSA searches? 

My 21-year-old daughter had the misfortune of having a false 

positive display on one of the body scanners just last weekend and 

was subjected to a search that I think would rise to the level of sexual assault in most States. The Trusted Traveler Program seems 

like a way that it would pay for itself by user fees to alleviate that 

burden on at least the people who chose to take advantage of it. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Absolutely. We are moving as swiftly as 

we can, trusted shippers, trusted travelers. We have well over 

100,000 Americans signed up for trusted traveler air programs, like 

Global Entry. I would be happy to sign your daughter up, by the 

way. 

But I think that is the way to go. I mean, we need to have some 

way to effectively separate passengers and cargo that we need to 

pay specific attention to from those we don’t. We will always have 

to do some random searches. Unpredictability always has to be a 

tool in the toolbox. But we need to—we need to be working toward 

a system where we have better ways to tier and focus on who needs 

to go through what kind of screening or what needs to go through 

what kind of screening. That is what we are working toward, Representative. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Do you think it might be a cost-effective way 

to use Global Entry also for domestic flights, use something very 

similar to that infrastructure, and maybe a cost-effective way to 

implement it? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Yes, we are looking at that right now as 

a possibility. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Thank you. 

Chairman KING. The gentlelady from Texas, Ms. Jackson Lee. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. I am 

very grateful for this hearing and welcome, Secretary and Director 

Leiter, for what I think is an important discussion. 

Let me lay a premise for a series of questions very quickly. The 

people of Mexico, many of us who live on the border view them as 

our friend. But I do believe that there is a war going on. For us 

to ignore that—it is a drug war. It is a violent war. It is human 

smuggling. It is a war. 

When you have two young teenage boys, high school, leave to 

cross the border for what is perceived as an innocent activity at 

this juncture and wind up dead, this is—and you can count thousands who have died. We have a vicious and violent war. 

So my first question—and I am just going to ask a series—is, as 

we look to the border, is the Homeland Security Department—and, 
55 

of course, Customs and Border Protection as the agency—able to 

decipher the—and I think our flow of undocumented individuals 

coming across the border, I think, has actually gone down. 

But the point is—and I think you might confirm that—to that 

kind of war, versus individuals who have come to reunite with family members, whether you agree or disagree to come to work. Has 

the administration moved away from a concept of comprehensive 

immigration and border security as being partners in trying to fix 

the problem for us? That is the first question. 

The other question is to compliment TSA for the progress it has 

made. I still think—even though I am a proponent of ensuring our 

rail is safe, and I hope that the administration will look at the legislation we had last year that did not move—and I am hoping to 

work with this majority and this committee to do it again, H.R. 

2200, with my colleague, Ranking Member Thompson, and I and 

Republican Members of this committee joined in on. 

Aviation still seems to be the most attractive target. In your perspective, are we where we need to be in aviation security? Can you 

affirmatively tell me that we are not going to go through the battle 

of 2001, which is to expand privatization of airport security, when 

we are making enormous progress, and I think we are being responsible? 

We have a new and enriched democracy with diverse persons of 

many different faith. So I will ask the question that I have heard 

that has been answered before on dealing with our friends of the 

Muslim faith, specifically, Madam Secretary—and I will provide 

you with a letter—I would like to have an investigation on a Houston imam who was a family person and had a religious visa approved. Shortly thereafter, it was either disapproved and that person was deported. We all know that, once deported, it is a complicated process, leaving his family destitute, and we can’t imagine 

the circumstances of that. I think that is very harsh. 

I will ask the broader question as to how we address the policies 

of religious visas. Are we going to see the Muslim community unfairly targeted? Because they have a right to their faith, as well, 

though we are aware that we all must be diligent. 

Last, I would be interested in an answer—is about our cultural 

competency and the reach in that Department to be diverse and 

whether or not we have a diverse leadership, which would be under 

your ship, Director Leiter, you, Madam Secretary, and that includes African-Americans, Hispanics, Asians, Anglos, and, of 

course, the faith represented by Muslims. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Representative, let me take some of those 

in order, and we can respond more fully. 

Chairman KING. Secretary, if you would try to keep the answers 

about 3 or 4 minutes. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Yes, I will try to keep it short. I am 

sorry, Mr. Chairman. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. TSA privatization, the administrator has 

concluded not to expand privatization for a number of reasons, 

some of which are security-related, some of which are cost-related. 

He has announced that policy. As you know, the administrator is 

the former Deputy Director of the FBI. 
56 

With respect to the Mexican border and the drug war in Mexico, 

we are highly cognizant of the amount of violence going on in Mexico, the number of deaths associated with that violence, particularly in the northern states of Mexico. We are working very closely 

with the Caldero ́n administration on that. 

We have individuals in Mexico themselves working on these 

issues, but—and we are being very, very vigilant about that war 

being brought across our border. I will say it again to the cartels: 

Do not bring that war into the United States. But we need to work 

with Mexico to end the war. 

The administration remains committed to immigration reform 

and looks forward to working with—— 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. That includes comprehensive and border security? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Indeed. Then, last, with respect to the 

particular case of the religious visa that you referenced, why don’t 

I simply get that from you and I will respond in writing? 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. I would appreciate it. Just the cultural diversity issue and including Muslims at the Department of Homeland 

Security. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. I would be happy—why don’t I respond 

in writing to that? 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Chairman, could I just raise an inquiry 

to you, please? I would appreciate it if we could have a classified 

briefing on the border, on the southern border, particularly as it relates to drug cartels and the intermeshing between issues of terrorism or the porousness that is created and the distinction—and 

that would be my perspective—separating out undocumented persons that may be coming for work—these people. 

Chairman KING. I will work with our staff to make sure we do 

that. There is bipartisan interest in that, I can assure you. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very 

much. 

Chairman KING. The time of the gentlelady has expired. 

The gentleman from Missouri, you are up next, if you want. 

Okay. Then I will yield to the—not yield, I will—yes, yield to the 

gentleman from Florida, Mr. Bilirakis for 5 minutes. 

Mr. BILIRAKIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate it. 

Madam Secretary, we have previously discussed the importance 

of the Visa Security Program and the need to expand ICE’s visa security units to additional high-risk areas around the world. I understand that recent budget guidance to DHS for fiscal year 2012 

from the Office of Management and Budget does not propose additional funding for the Visa Security Program and directs ICE to reconsider its deployment of personnel overseas for this purpose. I 

find this recommendation, of course, very troubling. 

The ICE personnel that are deployed overseas to high-risk visa 

issuing posts are uniquely qualified to review visa applications and 

to identify individuals who might be attempting to enter the 

United States to do us harm. Do you agree with the OMB recommendation, the guidance regarding the Visa Security Program? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Well, let me—if I might, Representative—the President’s budget request is not yet out. It will be out 

on Monday. I believe my first hearing on the budget is next Thurs-
57 

day—yes, next Thursday. I think if I might ask your forbearance 

and respond to budget-related questions at that time. 

Mr. BILIRAKIS. Okay. But I would like to keep in touch with you 

on this vital issue—— 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Duly noted. 

Mr. BILIRAKIS. Thank you. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Yes, sir. 

Mr. BILIRAKIS. One more question. As you are aware, terrorists 

involved in both the 1993 and 2001 World Trade Center attacks entered the United States on student visas, later violating their 

terms. I have long been concerned that there are inadequate security controls in the student visa issuance process. I have similar 

concerns about the process to monitor visa holders’ compliance once 

they enter the United States. How concerned are you about the 

fraudulent use of student visas, or any visas for that matter? 

Mr. LEITER. We look at all types of visas. But, Congressman, I 

think you are absolutely right. There is a history with student 

visas. There is an on-going interest in student visas. So we have 

built in some extra protections on student visas, both for monitoring and cooperation with the countries that often sponsor those 

students for additional counterterrorism screening. 

Mr. BILIRAKIS. I would like to get with you—I have some recommendations of my own, as well. 

Mr. LEITER. Very happy to do that. 

Mr. BILIRAKIS. Okay. Thank you very much. 

Chairman KING. The gentleman from Louisiana, Mr. Richmond, 

is recognized. 

Mr. RICHMOND. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

We heard several points about our port security. As we talk 

about trade deals, I guess my question to you, Madam Secretary, 

is that, is there a way to evaluate or to inform us of, for example, 

South Korea and their port security? Because our security is based 

on how well they do their job over there. 

So as these trade agreements come up and as they are negotiated, I think it is very important for people in my district, which 

has the port of New Orleans and all the trade down there, to get 

some information on that. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Congressman, yes. We will respond to 

you in writing on that. I know one of our six international locations 

for our maritime cargo scanning technology was in Busan in the 

Republic of Korea. So we will get some information to you. 

Mr. RICHMOND. Second, watching what happened down in Louisiana with the B.P. Horizon incident, how safe are our rigs? 

Give me an assessment on, for example, our LOOP, which supplies a lot of oil and stuff for the rest of the country. 

So looking at how long it would take to get a backup or to potentially stop the flow of oil, how safe are our German rigs that are 

off the coast of all of our Gulf States? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Congressman, I have been on the LOOP 

and met with those individuals. There are extensive security precautions that are taken around that area. 

So there are no guarantees in this business. I think the Director 

and I would both agree on that. 
58 

But do I think they are taking all reasonable security precautions? I feel that they are. 

Mr. RICHMOND. Thank you, Mr. Acting Chairman. I yield back 

the remainder of my time. 

Mr. BILIRAKIS. Thank you. Thank you. 

Congressman Davis. 

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very—— 

Mr. BILIRAKIS. You are recognized. 

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Madam Secretary, Mr. Leiter, thank you both very much for 

being here and for your patience. 

As a new Member of this committee, let me just ask if you would 

quickly help me sharpen my understanding of what we define and 

designate as being terrorism or acts of terror. 

Mr. LEITER. Congressman, there are numerous definitions within 

Federal law about what terrorism is. 

The National Counterterrorism Center uses one of those, which 

is premeditated, politically-motivated violence by a non-state actor. 

So the key piece there—key pieces, it usually comes down to is 

politically motivated violence. 

Mr. DAVIS. Madam Secretary, I am very interested and very concerned about the impact of illegal narcotics on life in our country 

and, indeed, throughout the world. 

We know that Afghanistan supplies about 90 percent of the 

opium trade. There are also questions about its relationship to 

funding the Taliban and its relationship with al-Qaeda. 

Could you tell me what our goals are there from a DHS vantage 

point? I mean, what are we attempting to do in that region? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Well, Congressman, I think a better person to address that question to you would be the Secretary of Defense. 

But what our goal is at DHS, working with the government of 

Afghanistan—I was just there between Christmas and New 

Year’s—is to assist them in building their civilian capacity to have 

control of their own borders, particularly their ports of entry, and 

to be able to have the infrastructure, the technology, and the 

trained and vetted units necessary to do that. 

Mr. LEITER. Congressman—I am sorry—if I could just add, is, as 

you know, the Drug Enforcement Agency has a significant presence 

in Afghanistan and works—and part of this is important from the 

terrorism perspective, because, as you say, some of those funds do 

go to support the Taliban and could effectively go to al-Qaeda if 

they are not already. 

I think it is an important piece to note, because it simply highlights the moral depravity on this front, too, and really the hypocrisy of the organization, al-Qaeda and the Taliban, of pursuing 

what they are viewing as a vision of Islam while still maintaining 

and shipping heroin and opium overseas. 

Mr. DAVIS. Of course, I come from Chicago, which is considered 

to be by many, and certainly those of us who are there, the transportation capital of the world. 

We place a great deal of focus and interest on airline security, 

airline safety. 
59 

But I also have some concern about what we are doing in relationship to truck transport, buses, the large numbers of people who 

make use of them, and, of course, rail. 

Could you elaborate a bit on what we are doing in those areas 

to make sure that there is security and safety? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Indeed, Congressman, and we have a 

whole surface transportation program and strategy that we will 

make available to you now. 

It is a little bit different because so much of it is controlled locally, bus systems, subway systems and the like. 

I think Chicago is fortunate because they have built now some 

extensive security in this, at least in the—within the municipal 

limits that come into a hub area so there could be some effective 

monitoring of surface transportation. 

But we have added so-called VIPER teams, which are intermodal 

transportation security teams, dogs, explosive trace detection 

equipment in the surface transportation environment. 

We have made grants and grant guidance available to localities 

for things of this nature as well. 

Mr. DAVIS. Well, let me just thank you very much and let me, 

again, as other Members have done, commend you for what I think 

the outstanding work is that you do. I certainly look forward to 

working more closely with both of you. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. DAVIS. I thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back the balance of my time. 

Mr. BILIRAKIS. Thank you, sir. It doesn’t appear that anyone else 

is here. 

So I thank the witnesses. Thanks for the extra time, for your valuable testimony, and the Members, of course, for their questions. 

The Members of the committee may have some additional questions for the witness. We will ask you respond to these questions 

in writing, please. 

The hearing record will be held open for 10 days. 

Without objection, the committee stands adjourned. Thank you. 

[Whereupon, at 12:31 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 

(61) 

A P P E N D I X 

QUESTIONS FROM RANKING MEMBER BENNIE G. THOMPSON FOR JANET NAPOLITANO

Question 1. Madam Secretary, in your testimony you stated that ‘‘in some ways, 

the threat facing us is at its most heightened state’’ since 9/11. This statement was 

given with little context and seems to imply an added security threat, yet the committee was not provided any new threat information. Moreover, there was no change 

to the National Threat Advisory System that is still on the DHS website or the new 

threat advisory pilot program you have announced to replace the color-coded system. 

Why is the threat facing the Nation at its ‘‘most heightened state,’’ since 9/11? 

Answer. The terrorist threat facing our country has evolved significantly in the 

last 10 years, and continues to evolve. We face a threat environment where violent 

extremism is not defined or contained by international borders as evidenced by the 

Times Square bomber as well as the individual recently arrested in eastern Washington State for allegedly placing a bomb along the route of a Spokane parade in 

January. Today, we must address threats that are homegrown as well as those that 

originate abroad. As former Secretaries of Homeland Security have noted on several 

occasions, the threat of terrorism will never be completely eliminated and therefore, 

we will continue to operate under a heightened state of security. The Secretary’s annual Congressional testimony on the homeland threat landscape (February 9, 2011), 

the Director of National Intelligence Annual Threat Assessment (February 10, 

2011), and other such vehicles will inform this baseline. The new advisory system 

will only be initiated for terrorist threats to the homeland that rise above and beyond this baseline. 

• From December 2009 through 2010, there were seven attempted terrorist attacks or disrupted plots in the homeland. Two of these operations were linked 

to al-Qaeda affiliates, one to an al-Qaeda ally, and four to homegrown violent 

extremists. Most did not reach the execution phase or the intended target, all 

were operational failures, and none resulted in significant casualties. Nevertheless, al-Qaeda and its affiliates almost certainly perceive the failed attacks as 

both valuable propaganda opportunities and radicalization and recruitment 

tools that further its anti-Western narrative. 

• Mohamed Osman Mohamud’s failed attempt in November 2010 to allegedly 

bomb a Christmas celebration in Portland, OR represents a recent example of 

the increasing threat from homegrown violent extremists—Americans 

radicalized in the United States, acting independently of foreign terrorist organizations like al-Qaeda. 

The United States and our allies also face a threat from Westerners who have 

traveled overseas to receive terrorist training—with the intention of returning to 

conduct attacks at home. This presents numerous challenges as the individuals’ status as Westerners provides a simpler method for terrorists to infiltrate the homeland while also increasing the groups’ operational planners’ knowledge of Western 

targets and security practices. 

• Since 2008, U.S. persons, including confessed al-Qaeda operatives Najibullah 

Zazi and David Headley—the Chicago-based individual who also confessed to 

being a Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative—as well as confessed failed Times 

Square bomber Faisal Shahzad, have traveled to Pakistan for terrorist purposes 

and, upon their return to the United States, were able to operate under the 

radar of law enforcement, in some cases for long periods of time. 

The past 18 months have also featured the emergence of Western ideologues— 

particularly American citizens like Anwar al-Awlaki, Omar Hammami, and Adam 

Gadahn—publishing increasingly sophisticated English-language propaganda on behalf of al-Qaeda and its affiliates. The increasing availability on the internet of their 

materials espousing violent extremism and providing practical operational advice, 

combined with social networking tools that facilitate violent extremist communication, complicates the challenge of addressing the threat to the homeland. 
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• These violent extremist ideologues—al-Awlaki in particular—have also spearheaded recent efforts to provide Americans and other Westerners with the ability to independently plan and execute their own terrorist attacks—without the 

need to travel overseas for training—through English-language propaganda. 

Finally, we are currently witnessing an evolution in terrorist tactics. Terrorist attacks targeting the United States are trending towards smaller-scale operations executed on a compressed planning cycle that are perceived as successes, regardless of 

whether they caused physical damage. Violent extremist propaganda praised even 

operational failures in the West, spinning them as successful in causing economic 

damage, defeating existing security measures, and forcing the West to spend billions 

in security upgrades, while highlighting the operations’ relatively low cost and ease 

of planning and execution. We are concerned that the perceived successes of such 

smaller-scale attacks portends that these operations will occur with greater frequency and offer fewer opportunities for disruption. • Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’s (AQAP’s) English-language propaganda 

magazine—referencing the disrupted October 2010 plot to send explosive-laden 

packages on aircraft—boasted: ‘‘To bring down America we do not need to strike 

big . . . it is more feasible to stage smaller attacks that involve less players 

and less time to launch and thus we may circumvent the security barriers 

America worked so hard to erect.’’ • In the same edition, AQAP noted that the October 2010 plot was part of its 

‘‘strategy of a thousand cuts’’—intending to ‘‘bleed the enemy to death’’ and 

noted that despite the West’s success in intercepting the parcels, the $4,200 operation would force the United States and its allies to spend ‘‘billions’’ on security upgrades. 

Question 2. The latest Moscow airport suicide attack underscores what seems to 

be a troubling new trend: Terrorist attacks on soft targets in transportation infrastructure, such as pre-security baggage claims and subways. As you know, in other 

airports across the world, it is not uncommon to be inspected as soon as you enter 

the premises. What can we take away from the Moscow attack for our own airport 

security here at home? What strategy does DHS have in place to address terrorist 

attacks on soft targets, including shopping malls, pre-security baggage claims, and 

mass transit? 

Answer. One of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) primary strategies 

is to work with our partners in the intelligence community and in Federal, State, 

and local law enforcement to identify and prevent threats before they are carried 

out. Simultaneously, we work with airport authorities and other stakeholders to implement a layered security approach to mitigate the threat of terrorist attacks 

against soft targets. 

The terrorist attack at Moscow’s Domodedovo International Airport demonstrates 

the importance of having an effective security plan in place at our Nation’s airports. 

There are various layers of security at U.S. airports designed to help prevent or 

deter this type of an attack. The primary responsibility for security outside of the 

checkpoints rests with the airport operator, as detailed in the airport security plan 

that each airport operator submits to the Transportation Security Administration 

(TSA). Additionally, TSA personnel, including Behavior Detection Officers, Transportation Security Inspectors, and Federal Air Marshals, are engaged and trained 

to look for anomalies as they provide security, with local airport police, throughout 

both the public and secure areas of our Nation’s airports or any other venue where 

they are dispatched. I also cannot overstate the importance of public awareness and 

engagement in alerting law enforcement and security personnel to unusual behavior 

or activities by individuals. It is why I have placed so much emphasis on the ‘‘If 

You See Something, Say Something’’ program to solicit assistance from the public 

and further enhance security in airports and elsewhere. 

In light of the Moscow Domodedovo International Airport attack, TSA has increased security in the public areas of all airports both by conducting visible and 

covert operations. TSA has also developed the tactical response plan (TRP), which 

details the actions necessary at the field level to support the overall TSA operational 

response to various scenarios. All of our measures augment the existing security 

measures employed in all modes of transportation and may be used in combination 

with each other. 

Additional information regarding TSA’s mitigation strategy and response plans for 

a similar attack are considered sensitive security information and can be discussed 

during a thorough briefing on this topic at your convenience. 

Following the Moscow Domodedovo International Airport attack, the DHS Office 

for Bombing Prevention (OBP) released a Quick Look Report on TRIPwire that provided details on the device and the tactics used to State, local, Tribal, and territorial 

law enforcement to inform domestic prevention and deterrence efforts. TRIPwire is 
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DHS’s 24/7 on-line, information-sharing network of current terrorist IED tactics, 

techniques, and procedures, including design and emplacement considerations. 

DHS’s Office of Infrastructure Protection (IP) has a variety of programs to prepare 

for and address the threat of terrorist attacks on soft targets, including shopping 

malls, airports, hotels, sports venues, and other public gathering facilities. 

• IP has developed and provided to State, local, Tribal, and territorial agencies 

a series of reports, known collectively as the Infrastructure Protection Report 

Series (IPRS), that provide information on characteristics and common 

vulnerabilities of various types of critical infrastructure, potential indicators of 

terrorist activity, and associated protective measures to mitigate risks. IP has 

developed 360 IPRS reports, including reports for airports, shopping malls, hotels, sports venues, and other public gathering facilities. 

• IP’s OBP provides Surveillance Detection and Soft Target Awareness Training 

to State and local law enforcement officers and private sector facility security 

personnel to develop awareness of terrorist threats to critical infrastructure and 

educate participants on strategies for detecting and mitigating these threats. 

IP’s field-deployed Protective Security Advisors (PSAs) have conducted numerous 

outreach efforts to raise awareness of terrorist threats to soft targets and provide 

tools and resources to mitigate the threat. These outreach efforts included joint Office of Intelligence and Analysis and IP briefings on the terrorist threats, attacks, 

tactics, and potential protective measures. Notably, and to cite just two examples, 

these efforts reached 490 hotel, lodging, and major retail facilities in 2009, and 338 

sports league venues in 2010. 

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