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THREATS TO THE HOMELAND 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

HOMELAND SECURITY AND 

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

NOVEMBER 14, 2013 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov/ 

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs 

( 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware Chairman 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan 

MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas 

MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana 

CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri 

JON TESTER, Montana 

MARK BEGICH, Alaska 

TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin 

HEIDI HEITKAMP, North Dakota 

TOM COBURN, Oklahoma 

JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona 

RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin 

ROB PORTMAN, Ohio 

RAND PAUL, Kentucky 

MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming 

KELLY AYOTTE, New Hampshire 

RICHARD J. KESSLER, Staff Director 

JOHN P. KILVINGTON, Deputy Staff Director 

HARLAN C. GEER, Senior Professional Staff Member 

MICHELLE C. TAYLOR, Federal Bureau of Investigations Detailee 

KEITH B. ASHDOWN, Minority Staff Director 

CHRISTOPHER J. BARKLEY, Minority Deputy Staff Director 

DANIEL P. LIPS, Minority Director of Homeland Security 

MARK K. HARRIS, U.S. Coast Guard Detailee 

LAURA W. KILBRIDE, Chief Clerk 

LAUREN M. CORCORAN, Hearing Clerk 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Opening statements: Page 

Senator Carper ................................................................................................. 1 

Senator Coburn ................................................................................................. 3 

Senator Johnson ............................................................................................... 16 

Senator Ayotte .................................................................................................. 19 

Senator Levin .................................................................................................... 24 

Prepared statements: 

Senator Carper ................................................................................................. 41 

WITNESSES 

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2013 

Hon. Rand Beers, Acting Secretary, U.S. Department of Homeland Security ... 5 

Hon. James B. Comey, Jr., Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. 

Department of Justice ......................................................................................... 7 

Hon. Matthew G. Olsen, Director, National Counterterrorism Center, Office 

of the Director of National Intelligence .............................................................. 10 

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Beers, Hon. Rand 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 5 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 43 

Comey, Hon. James B. Jr.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 7 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 59 

Olsen, Hon. Matthew G.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 10 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 65 

APPENDIX 

Responses to post-hearing questions for the Record: 

Mr. Beers ........................................................................................................... 76 

Mr. Comey ......................................................................................................... 103 

Mr. Olsen ........................................................................................................... 115 

(1) 

THREATS TO THE HOMELAND 

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2013 

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:04 a.m., in room 

SD–342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Thomas R. Carper, 

presiding. 

Present: Senators Carper, Levin, Coburn, Johnson, and Ayotte. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN CARPER 

Chairman CARPER. This hearing will come to order. 

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to our witnesses, Dr. Coburn. 

I welcome all of you, and we will be joined by some of our colleagues here as the morning progresses, but we are happy you are 

all here bright and early. 

Today’s hearing will consider threats to the U.S. homeland from 

terrorists, from cyber attackers, from homegrown extremists, and 

from lone wolf offenders. The objective of this hearing is for this 

Committee to gain a better understanding of how these threats 

have evolved over the last year and if our national security agencies are keeping up with these ever-changing threats. I would add 

another purpose for these hearings is to find out what we need to 

be doing on the legislative side to better enable you to keep up with 

these ever-changing threats. 

As we know, 12 years ago, our country’s sense of security was 

upended when Al-Qaeda launched the most significant attack on 

U.S. soil since Pearl Harbor. In the years since that tragic day, we 

have made significant progress in combatting the terrorist threat 

to our homeland. On behalf of this entire Committee, I want to express our thanks from the American people for the very good work 

that has been done and continues to be done to try to make sure 

that we stay safe in a very dangerous world. 

Our aviation system is more secure. Our borders are stronger. 

Our government agencies share more terrorist intelligence than 

ever before. Our first responders are better prepared to deal with 

disasters and terrorist attacks. Americans are safer because of 

these efforts. 

And while we have made great strides, our system for preventing 

terrorist attacks is not perfect, and as Dr. Coburn knows, one of 

my guiding principles is, if it is not perfect, make it better. This 

is not a time to rest on our laurels. This is not the time to take 

a victory lap. It is a time to thank those that are working hard to 
2 

make us safe, keep us safe, and let us continue to work hard and 

work smarter. 

In this spirit, this Committee will continue its work to improve 

America’s defenses against terrorism and other threats. Part of this 

process means understanding that the threat is also evolving. If we 

are to make America safer from these threats and secure our homeland, we must do a better job of anticipating those evolving threats. 

We do a good job at fighting the last war, but to secure the homeland, we must be better at anticipating the next war. We know 

that the threats from Al-Qaeda have changed over the past decade 

and we are now dealing with a number of splinter groups, including Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which was responsible for 

the Christmas Day attack in 2009 and which continues its efforts 

to attack us to this day. 

And we know that American citizens, as well as Canadian and 

European nationals, have taken up arms in Syria, Yemen, and Somalia. The threat that these individuals could return home to carry 

out attacks is real and troubling. Even as our borders and ports of 

entry (POE) have become more secure, there are still those within 

our borders who have become radicalized by online Al-Qaeda propaganda and seek to carry out their own attacks against the United 

States. 

And there are other threats to our domestic security unrelated 

to Al-Qaeda which we must be prepared to address. As the September attack on the Washington Navy Yard and the shooting at 

the Los Angeles airport just 2 weeks ago demonstrate, there are a 

variety of threats to Federal personnel and Federal facilities that 

we must be prepared to defend against. 

However, nowhere is the need to prepare for the next attack 

more pressing than in the cybersecurity realm. In the words of 

your predecessor, Director Comey, Bob Mueller, cyber threats may 

‘‘equal or surpass the threat of terrorism in the foreseeable future.’’ 

With a few keystrokes, hackers can shut down our electric grid. 

They can release dangerous chemicals into our air that we breathe. 

They can disrupt our financial markets. And now, more than ever, 

we must come together to pass cybersecurity legislation that 

strengthens our defenses against these cyber threats and others. 

The threat is too great, the potential consequences too severe to do 

nothing. Today’s hearing will explore these threats as well as others. 

Today, we will hear testimony from the leaders of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), from the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), and from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) about the greatest dangers to the homeland and the 

steps that their colleagues are taking to further secure our country. 

The findings from today’s hearing will help continue our process 

of recalibrating our homeland defenses to address our current 

threats as well as prepare for tomorrow’s threats. It will also help 

to ensure that we have a government in place that can connect the 

dots before terror comes to our shores. 

We look forward to hearing from each of our witnesses, and the 

Members of our Committee do, as well, as we seek to defeat those 

threats and keep our countrymen and women safe from those who 

wish to do us harm. 
3 

Now, let me turn to Dr. Coburn for any remarks he wishes to 

make. 

Senator COBURN. Thank you, Senator Carper. 

Chairman CARPER. Good morning. 

Senator COBURN. Good morning. 

Chairman CARPER. Good morning Mr. Johnson, and good morning, Dr. Coburn. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COBURN 

Senator COBURN. First of all, let me welcome you to the Committee. I have expressed this to Senator Carper. I think we are 

best when we have open hearings, but this Committee also needs 

to have a closed hearing because the Members will not be able to 

be made aware of the things they need to be made aware of without a closed hearing. So, I would look forward to that at some point 

in the future. 

Secretary Beers, I want to thank you for the great work you are 

doing, filling in at Homeland Security, and the cooperative nature 

you have demonstrated. You have been great to work with and I 

want to tell you I appreciate that and thank you for it. 

Director Comey, it is a privilege to have you serving in your position today. I supported your position, having worked with you both 

on the Intelligence Committee and here. I appreciate what you are 

doing. 

And, Matt, you have been tremendous. People will never know 

all the work that NCTC does because they cannot, but it is tremendous and I applaud you being here. 

Other than that, I will reserve most of my comments for question 

and answer after we have heard the comments from our panelists. 

But I do appreciate your service. This is an important issue and 

it is important that we are having a discussion in public about 

what the real threats are. There is a discussion on how we address 

those. There is a difference of opinion in how we do it. 

The one final note I would make is we need to have some reforms 

so this Committee has the authority and the responsibility to do 

those things, like the Federal Information Security Management 

Act (FISMA) reform and some of the other reforms in terms of 

cyber. But it is going to be hard to move on cyber until we create 

competency, and that is one of the areas that we have to make sure 

we have right before we give more authority. 

So, with that, I would yield back and look forward to our witnesses’ testimony. 

Chairman CARPER. Thank you, Tom. 

Let me take just a moment to introduce our panel of distinguished witnesses. 

Our first witness is Rand Beers. I was joking in the anteroom 

that I knew Rand when he was six-foot-four and had shoulderlength blond hair, but I really did not know him then, and I do not 

know that he ever had hair that long. But, we are delighted, and 

I just want to say, to back up to what Dr. Coburn has said, you 

have taken on a tough job. First, you had your day job at Homeland Security, and then you were asked to be Deputy Secretary, 

and now you are asked to be the Acting Deputy Secretary and now 
4 

the Acting Secretary. That is a whole lot for any one man or 

woman to carry, so thank you for doing it in good spirit. 

Rand has been serving as the Acting Secretary of Homeland Security since early September, when Janet Napolitano left us to 

head up the department at the University of California system on 

the West Coast. Rand most recently served as the Acting Deputy 

Secretary. Before that, he held the position of Under Secretary of 

National Protection Programs Directorate at the Department 

(NPPD). 

Prior to coming to the Department of Homeland Security, Secretary Beers served on the National Security staff under not one, 

not two, not three, but four Presidents. He began his professional 

career as a Marine Corps officer in Vietnam. I think if we go back 

5 days, there was a birthday for the Marine Corps, so happy belated birthday and thank you for your service in Southeast Asia 

and welcome home. But, thank you for joining us today. 

Our next witness is James Comey, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He has a tough act to follow, as he knows. 

We talked about it not long ago in my office. Thank you for your 

willingness to do this and we are excited about your leadership and 

the way you hit the ground running. 

Jim is the seventh Director of the FBI since September, I believe. 

He brings a wealth of law enforcement experience to the FBI, having served as the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New 

York and as Deputy Attorney General (AG) at the Department of 

Justice (DOJ). After leaving the Department of Justice in 2005, Mr. 

Comey served as the General Counsel at Lockheed Martin and 

then held the same position at the investment management firm of 

Bridgewater Associates. 

Thank you for your presence today and your testimony. Thank 

you very much for your years of service to our country. 

Our final witness is Matt Olsen, Director of the National 

Counterterrorism Center. Matt, good morning. Mr. Olsen has 

served as the Director of the National Counterterrorism Center for 

just over 2 years. In this position, Director Olsen oversees the analysis and the integration of all terrorism intelligence in the U.S. 

Government, reporting directly to the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). Additionally, he oversees the strategic operational 

planning for counterterrorism activities, a role that requires him to 

report directly to the President. 

Prior to joining the National Counterterrorism Center, Mr. Olsen 

was the General Counsel for the National Security Agency and the 

Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Department of Justice’s 

National Security Division. 

Again, Matt, thank you for joining us today. We welcome your 

testimony. 

I am going to turn it over to you, and Mr. Secretary, if you would 

like to lead us off, and after you have finished your testimonies, we 

will get into a good conversation. But, you are recognized. Please 

proceed. Thank you all, again, for joining us. 
5 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Beers appears in the Appendix on page 43. 

TESTIMONY OF THE HON. RAND BEERS,1 ACTING SECRETARY, 

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY 

Mr. BEERS. Thank you, Chairman Carper and Ranking Member 

Coburn and the Members of the Committee today for the opportunity to be here to testify. 

I would also like to thank my co-panelists, Directors Comey and 

Olsen, for their partnership and strong collaboration as we together 

meet the shared responsibility of keeping the American people safe. 

Before I begin my testimony, I would like to urge you all and the 

Senate to confirm Jeh Johnson as my replacement and confirmed 

nominee. I have known him for a long time and I think he cares 

deeply about our mission and I think he has considerable skill, intellect, and experience, and dedication to deal with these evolving 

threats. And, Senator Coburn, I appreciate your remarks to him 

yesterday. In short, I think he will make an excellent Secretary. 

I would also like to take a moment, as you did, Senator Carper, 

to recognize Transportation Security Officer (TSO) Gerardo Hernandez, who was killed at the Los Angeles airport on the first of 

November. He was an exceptional officer and his loss will be felt 

within the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and the 

Department. I had the honor and somber experience of going to his 

memorial service yesterday. It was a very moving event, and 

this—— 

Chairman CARPER. Let me just interrupt, Secretary. Is there another memorial service, maybe next Monday or something—— 

Mr. BEERS. We are having one here at TSA, yes, that is correct, 

sir. 

Chairman CARPER. That is one o’clock on Monday, I think? 

Mr. BEERS. I will get the time precisely to you, but yes, we are 

going to have another one—— 

Chairman CARPER. Thanks so much. 

Mr. BEERS [continuing]. Another one here. 

That senseless act, as you said, sir, reminds us every day of the 

dangers that the men and women who work on the front lines of 

our Department, and other parts of the U.S. Government, have 

very real sacrifices that they often have to make on our behalf. We 

continue to work closely with the Bureau and with State and local 

law enforcement to fully investigate this crime and ensure that justice is done, as the Attorney General said yesterday. 

DHS works very closely with all of our partners across the country to build critical capabilities at every level, whether it is sharing 

information, protecting critical infrastructure, or protecting our 

cyberspace. We work with the private sector on improving preparedness and resilience and addressing the evolving threats, such 

as I just mentioned. Because of this work, our Nation, I believe, is 

stronger and better equipped to handle these threats and we are 

more nimble in our ability to respond and recover. Nevertheless, 

we continue to face a dynamic threat environment that includes 

threats from abroad as well as those that originate within our borders. 

At DHS, our chief operating principle has been to work with 

partners to detect and deter these threats as early as possible, to 
6 

build the capabilities to respond if and when required, and enhance 

our ability to recover after the fact. We have sought to get information, tools, and resources out of Washington, D.C., and into the 

partners that we work with on the front line. 

At the Federal level, with intelligence and law enforcement partners like the Bureau and NCTC, we have made significant strides, 

I believe, in information sharing and joint analysis. Through State 

and major urban area Fusion Centers, we have improved sharing 

of both classified and unclassified information and built grassroots 

analytic capabilities at the State and local levels. 

With the FBI, we have now standardized how we train front line 

law enforcement to recognize behaviors and indicators that have 

historically been associated with terrorism and report suspicious 

activities as part of the National Suspicious Activities Reporting 

(SAR) Initiative (NSI). We have greatly expanded our training and 

our outreach on encountering violent extremism and active shooter 

threats, providing extensive tools, workshops, and analysis on potential indicators of terrorism and providing partners with resources and training to effectively respond to active shooter 

threats. 

We have also strengthened our ability to address improvised explosive devices (IEDs) through training and awareness and grants 

and information sharing. These investments directly contributed to 

the comprehensive and well executed response at the Boston Marathon attack and prevented more lives from being lost on that tragic 

day. 

We have also expanded our ‘‘If you see something, say something’’ campaign to more than 250 cities and States and transportation systems, universities, and private sector entities nationwide 

to encourage the public to play an active role in reporting suspicious activity. 

With respect to our aviation sector, we have built upon the successes of our risk-based intelligence-driven approach, which includes prescreening of passengers, deployment of new technologies, 

training of airport security and law enforcement personnel to better 

detect those behaviors potentially associated with terrorism and 

strengthening our air cargo security. 

Today, we are much better able to protect the aviation sector because we vet those who are traveling—who seek to travel or immigrate to the United States against a broad array of law enforcement and intelligence information. We are working with our components to identify ways further to enhance these vetting operations to harness the power of data management while providing 

better safeguards and access control. And we also continue to leverage information and technology to expedite trusted travelers 

through a successful program such as Global Entry and TSA PreCheck. To date, more than 16 million travelers have already experienced Pre-Check. 

Of course, as you said, one of our major threats, one of our 

gravest threats that we continue to face is the threat to our cyber 

networks and infrastructure. Our Nation confronts a dangerous 

combination of known and unknown cyber vulnerabilities and adversaries with strong and rapidly expanding capabilities. Our focus 

at DHS remains securing unclassified Federal system government 
7 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Comey appears in the Appendix on page 59. 

networks, working with critical infrastructure owners and operators, combating cyber crime, building a national capacity to promote responsible cyber behavior, and cultivating the next generation of front line cybersecurity professionals, all the while protecting privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties. 

To this end, we have deployed technology to detect and block 

cyber intrusions and we are developing continuous diagnostic capabilities while providing guidance to Federal agencies on how to protect themselves. We have also worked closely with infrastructure 

owners and operators to strengthen their facilities through an onsite risk assessment, mitigation, and incident response by sharing 

risk and threat information through U.S. Computer Emergency 

Readiness Team (US–CERT) and other means. 

Since 2009, we have also prevented $10 billion in potential losses 

through our cyber crime investigations with domestic and international partners and arrested more than 5,000 individuals for participating in cyber crime activities. We have also partnered with 

the Departments of Justice and Defense (DOD) to ensure the whole 

of government approach when responding to cyber incidents and 

threats. 

While these accomplishments are significant, and President 

Obama has further strengthened them through executive action, 

we still need Congress to pass a suite of comprehensive 

cybersecurity legislation to be best able to meet this growing 

threat. 

Thank you very much for this opportunity. 

Chairman CARPER. Thank you. Thank you for that testimony. 

Before I turn it over to Director Comey, during the question and 

answers (Q&A), we are going to come back to cybersecurity—— 

Mr. BEERS. Good. 

Chairman CARPER. And get just an update as to where the Administration is, where are we with respect to implementing the 

President’s Executive Order (EO), the framework, and then what 

you need from us and why you need it. So, just be ready for that. 

That will be my first question. Director Comey. 

TESTIMONY OF THE HON. JAMES B. COMEY, JR.,1 DIRECTOR, 

FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT 

OF JUSTICE 

Mr. COMEY. Thank you, Chairman Carper, Ranking Member 

Coburn, and Members of the Committee, for inviting me here 

today, and most of all for your support of the men and women of 

the FBI. 

As I think about threats to the homeland, I worry most about 

terrorism and cyber attacks. First, terrorism. I think about our terrorism threat today as a metasticizing threat in two different ways. 

First, I worry most at home about the individuals we call homegrown violent extremists (HVEs). They are people who are inspired 

by Al-Qaeda but who direct themselves and equip themselves to engage in their own version of jihad on behalf of terrorist interests. 

They are certainly encouraged by Al-Qaeda around the world. We 

have seen Al-Qaeda propaganda already embracing the tragedy at 
8 

the Boston Marathon. And I worry very much that they are inspired also by high-profile attacks around the world on so-called 

soft targets. 

The second aspect in which I worry about the homeland terrorism threat is in Al-Qaeda itself. Although we as a Nation have 

made great progress against core Al-Qaeda in Pakistan, the threat 

posed by Al-Qaeda, in a way, has become Hydra-headed, and by 

that I mean Al-Qaeda affiliates have blossomed and flourished in 

places around the world, especially in the Middle East and North 

Africa, and especially there in territories that are ungoverned or 

poorly governed. Al-Qaeda and its affiliates, as you mentioned, especially Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, pose the top terrorist 

threat to this Nation. They are constantly working to develop 

operatives and techniques to get past our defenses and wreak 

havoc in the homeland. 

To combat these threats, the FBI relies upon our more than 100 

Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTF) around the country which 

bring together State, local, and Federal enforcers to assess the 

threat and to disrupt the threat before it becomes a reality. And 

we also work closely through our 60 legal attache offices—more 

than 60—around the world with the Intelligence Community (IC) 

and foreign partners to try to press out beyond our borders to identify threats and disrupt them. 

With respect to cyber, whether by foreign governments or criminals or activists or terrorists, attacks on our computers and the 

systems that connect them have become one of the most serious 

threats to our Nation. As you said, Mr. Chairman, Bob Mueller, my 

predecessor, testified and also told me privately that he believed 

that this threat would, during my tenure term, come to eclipse 

even the threat from foreign terrorism to our homeland. And just 

based on my 2 months on the job, I believe that he is accurate in 

that prediction, and the reason is simple. 

We have connected, all of us, all of our lives, personal, professional, and national, to the Internet, and that is where the bad 

guys will go because that is where our lives are and our money, 

our secrets, and our intellectual property. And they can go there 

at the speed of light. A trip around the world takes milliseconds 

on the Internet. And there are no safe neighborhoods. All of us are 

next-door neighbors on the Internet in the blink of an eye. 

In response, the FBI has been working very hard under my predecessor and continues to buildup our capacity to identify and respond to cyber threats, focusing on intrusions, both—our work is 

done in the homeland and overseas. Here at home, the National 

Cyber Investigative Joint Task Force (NCIJTF) is a grouping of 19 

agencies—intelligence, military, and law enforcement—that have 

come together to try and assess the threat, deconflict our work, and 

work in a smart and quick way. A critical partner in that is seated 

to my right, the Department of Homeland Security, with whom we 

are working better than ever, and the National Security Agency 

(NSA). We have different responsibilities and different lanes in the 

road, but it is essential that we work together, and the good news 

for the American people is that we are doing that incredibly well. 

While national-level coordination is important, the local level is 

also important to us and so we have stood up Cyber Task Forces 
9 

(CTFs) in each of our 56 field offices to focus on cyber intrusions. 

And just as the JTTFs do, it is to bring together Federal, State, 

and local enforcers to focus on this threat and to blunt it. 

And, as I said, overseas, we are working through 60-some legal 

attache ́s to do the same with our foreign partners. We have FBI 

agents now embedded with police departments around the world, 

including in Romania, Estonia, Ukraine, and the Netherlands, to 

identify emerging threats, because these threats know no boundaries and move at the speed of light, and to try to also identify the 

key bad actors. 

But, I should add, as hard as we are working to work better together, it is essential that the private sector work effectively with 

the government. The private sector is, in almost every circumstance, the victim of cyber crime and cyber intrusions and we 

need their help to stop them. 

And let me finish by just saying a couple of words about how I 

think you and your colleagues in Congress can help us combat 

these threats and carry out our mission. When I became FBI Director, I did not know exactly what challenges I would face. I knew 

it would be a hard job. I have discovered that the challenge that 

I face most near field is the budget challenge imposed on the FBI 

by sequestration. I am staring at a situation where I need to reduce almost 10 percent of our budget this year. We are eliminating 

3,500 positions and face the prospect of furlough. 

We have, as you know, Mr. Chairman, an enormous portfolio of 

responsibilities for the American people and the challenge of sequestration makes it enormously difficult for us to accomplish that 

mission. The FBI will always soldier on. We have always tried to 

do more and more with less. I worry very much, though, we are approaching a situation where we are going to be doing less with less. 

With that, I thank you very much for inviting me here today and 

I look forward to discussing these important issues with you. 

Chairman CARPER. Thank you. You said the prospect of eliminating 3,500 positions in this fiscal year? 

Mr. COMEY. Yes. We have already done that. Through attrition, 

we are not hiring, and it was Bob Mueller’s plan, which I agreed 

to, we are going to eliminate 3,500 to get our numbers down. 

Chairman CARPER. Additional, on top of what you have already 

done, or—— 

Mr. COMEY. He started. He marked 3,500 positions for elimination and I am continuing that. He took out almost $600 million 

last year and I am taking out over $700 million this year, unless 

the sequestration cap on us goes away. 

Chairman CARPER. And one last quick question and then I will 

turn to Mr. Olsen. Once the 3,500 positions go unfilled or vacated, 

how many positions does that leave you in the FBI? 

Mr. COMEY. We will be down to where we were in 2009. So, we 

are now at about 36,000 people. We will be down around 31,000 

people. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. Thanks very much. OK. 

Mr. Olsen, thanks. 
10 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Olsen appears in the Appendix 65. 

TESTIMONY OF THE HON. MATTHEW G. OLSEN,1 DIRECTOR, 

NATIONAL COUNTERTERRORISM CENTER, OFFICE OF THE 

DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE 

Mr. OLSEN. Thank you very much, Chairman Carper, Ranking 

Member Coburn, Members of the Committee. Thank you for inviting me here today. I also want to thank you for your consistent 

support of the men and women at the National Counterterrorism 

Center and I would invite you to come out to NCTC and see our 

operations firsthand. 

I am particularly pleased to be here with Jim Comey and Rand 

Beers. We are close partners in our common fight against terrorism. 

It has been just over a year since I last testified before this Committee, and at that time, I pointed to Al-Qaeda core, as Director 

Comey referenced, really now as a shadow of its former self. That 

assessment remains true today. At the same time, Al-Qaeda and 

the senior leaders of Al-Qaeda in Pakistan are a leader, or remain 

the leader of an ideological movement, and that includes affiliated 

groups and followers worldwide, particularly in the Middle East 

and North Africa, and this results in a wide-ranging threat from 

a diverse and dedicated array of actors. 

The recent attack at the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, which was 

linked to Al-Shabaab in Somalia, illustrates the type of threat we 

face from around the world: Committed extremists, the availability 

of weapons, and vulnerable targets. Along with January’s attack at 

the gas facility in Algeria as well as last fall’s attack in Benghazi, 

all of these attacks serve as sobering reminders of the persistent 

threat of terrorism that we face in these regions of the world. 

Today, Al-Qaeda’s core leadership in the Afghanistan-Pakistan 

border region is still really trying to navigate its response to the 

ongoing events in the Muslim world and working to promote a 

global jihadist movement. Additionally, unrest in the Middle East 

and North Africa, most notably in Syria, is creating opportunities 

for veteran jihadists to recruit and train what may be the next generation of militants, some of whom are less dogmatic in their embrace of Al-Qaeda’s ideology but still support an anti-Western agenda, and these developments are really blurring the lines between 

terrorist, insurgent, and criminal groups operating in these regions. 

Here in the United States, the attack on the Boston Marathon 

highlighted the danger of violent extremism at home, where terrorists who may have no formal or direct ties to Al-Qaeda but still adhere to that ideology can use simple tactics to wreak havoc on innocent victims. As the President observed in his speech at the National Defense University, today, a person can consume hateful ideology, commit themselves to a violent agenda, and learn how to kill 

without leaving their home. 

So, NCTC’s mission is to combat these threats both at home and 

abroad. We examine threat information. We develop leads. We 

work closely with domestic and international partners. And we develop strategic plans to help unify our efforts. 

And as part of these responsibilities, we are coordinating and integrating the Intelligence Community’s support, for example, to the 
11 

Winter Olympics in Sochi. I was just in Sochi last week and I had 

the opportunity to meet with Russian intelligence and security officials to discuss the threat picture that we face there and the security preparations for the games. 

Closer to home, the dedicated workforce at NCTC works in concert with our partners, particularly FBI and DHS, to protect the 

homeland, and we are adapting as that threat evolves. I would like 

to take just a quick moment to share with you some of the measures that we have initiated over the past year. 

First, in April, along with DHS and FBI, NCTC established a 

new organization called the Joint Counterterrorism Assessment 

Team (JCAT). This is the successor organization to the Interagency 

Threat Assessment Coordination Group (ITACG), which this Committee helped to establish but which was really no longer sustainable under current budget conditions. What JCAT does is bring together State and local first responders from around the country 

who come to NCTC to work side-by-side with Federal intelligence 

analysts to research and produce and share counterterrorism intelligence that is really tailored to the State, local, and Tribal communities, and they do this in an unclassified format as much as possible. 

Outside of Washington, we continue to build our Domestic Representative Program. We have representatives in a number of cities 

now, and we just added Boston and Atlanta. These individuals are 

intelligence analysts, senior intelligence analysts who work in close 

coordination with the FBI and the Joint Terrorism Task Forces and 

the Fusion Centers to bring the national intelligence picture to the 

local level. 

As the April attack in Boston demonstrated, there are times we 

will have little or no warning when a homegrown violent extremist 

mobilizes to violent action, and that is why we work closely with 

the Federal, State, and local officials as well as community partners to raise local awareness about the threat of terrorism as part 

of our countering violent extremist effort. It is through this whole 

of government approach that we are collaborating with community 

leaders to counter radicalization, recognizing, that it is community 

stakeholders who are best positioned to prevent the exploitation of 

our youth and to intervene when they spot signs of trouble. 

On the pragmatic side, we recognize that we cannot prevent 

every attack, so we work closely, again, with DHS and FBI to prepare communities should they need to respond. For several years, 

we have been involved in collaborating with DHS, the Federal 

Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and FBI to conduct 

awareness workshops throughout the United States and help cities 

assess their readiness to respond to a terrorist attack. One of our 

first such workshops was in Boston back in 2011, and we think 

that helped contribute to the effective response we saw in Boston 

to the Marathon attack. 

Finally, to better detect and disrupt plots, we continue to refine 

and improve our counterterrorism data layer and our analysts’ ability to have access to the information that they need to have access 

to that is collected by other government agencies. And it is our 

ability to examine a broad range of information, combined with sophisticated analytic tools and the expertise of our analysts, that is 
12 

necessary to provide the best all-source collaborative terrorism 

analysis. 

In short, Mr. Chairman, after almost 10 years of service, NCTC 

has become a center of gravity in our Nation’s fight against terrorism and it is our commitment to this team effort with communities throughout the country, with the government at all levels, 

and with the private sector that is at the core of our ability to identify and prevent the threat of terrorism. 

Thank you very much. 

Chairman CARPER. Thank you, each of you, for your testimony. 

Very interesting. Very helpful. Very timely. 

The first question I want to ask, as promised, I want to go back 

to cybersecurity and I am going to ask you to—and you can just 

weave in and out in responding, but a couple of things I want to 

hear. How are we doing with the followup on the President’s Executive Order? How is the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) doing with respect to working on the framework? 

How does the private sector feel? What is the kind of feedback we 

are getting from the private sector as to how that is proceeding? 

Describe, if you will, the roles, the interrelationship, the responsibilities, and how you cooperate and collaborate. Just talk to us 

about your respective roles and how you collaborate. And, finally, 

how could you work better together, collaborate better, collaborate 

smarter together? And what can we do to help you in that regard? 

So those are a bunch of questions, but I think there is a theme 

to it, but just give us a good update, if you will. That will probably 

exhaust my 7 minutes. Thank you. 

Rand, do you want to lead it off. 

Mr. BEERS. Thank you, sir. Let me start with the Executive 

Order and the Presidential Policy Directive (PPD). With respect to 

the National Cybersecurity Framework that the National Institute 

of Standard and Technology has responsibility for drafting, the first 

draft of that is completed. It is available. We are seeking comment 

from the private sector and government officials at all levels as 

well as, obviously, the Congress. That draft was the result of a 

number of workshops and outreach efforts that involved both NIST 

and the Department of Homeland Security in order to find a way 

to make sure that we brought the best and the brightest together 

in order to produce this framework. The final framework is due in 

February and we certainly anticipate meeting that deadline. 

In addition to that, we have been mapping the information sharing networks that exist within the government. We have been looking at the National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP) that we 

are responsible for, weaving cyber and physical infrastructure together, because, obviously, a cyber attack may result in physical 

damage just as much as it might result in cyber damage. 

And all of those deadlines that were set up in the Executive 

Order have been met up to date. The longest pole in that tent is 

the science and technology report that we owe in a couple of years. 

So, with respect to that, I think we are moving forward in line with 

the expectations. 

With respect to collaboration, and obviously, Director Comey will 

comment on this, as well, what we have basically instituted is a 

call to any one of us, that is, to the Bureau, to the Department of 
13 

Homeland Security, or to the National Security Agency, will be responded to collectively because we each bring a particular expertise 

and particular activities that I think do allow us to most effectively 

help an affected business or government entity to respond to an intrusion. 

The Bureau, obviously, has the investigative lead, and I will let 

the Director talk about that. Our responsibility is to, as quickly as 

possible, know what happened and provide outreach to others that 

will help them be able to prevent the same kind of an intrusion 

from happening to them. And the National Security Agency backs 

us up with all of the intelligence capabilities that they can bring 

to bear on an event. 

With respect to the legislative issue that you asked, I think while 

we are moving forward as we can with executive authority, we 

really do continue to need your support in passing that legislation. 

The areas that we can receive help are, first, on information sharing, to make it easier for private sector firms to share information 

with us without crossing lines that are of concern to them, for instance, with respect to personal information. We need your help in 

creating incentives that would help firms adopt higher security 

practices in cyberspace. The framework will be a good guide on 

what to do. What we need your help in is helping them realize why 

they need to do that. 

We can also benefit from additional law enforcement tools that 

were discussed in the draft legislation over a year ago. 

We also, as Senator Coburn has mentioned, can use an update 

on FISMA, as we have at DHS gotten additional responsibilities 

while the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) remains in the 

policy lead on this, as well as additional hiring flexibility to allow 

us to hire in the same way that the National Security Agency can 

hire cyber expertise. 

And, finally, a national data breach reporting requirement so 

that we can have a national reporting requirement rather than a 

patchwork of State reporting requirements on personal information. All of those would go a long way and can only be provided by 

you, the Congress of the United States. 

Let me stop there and turn it over to Director Comey on his role. 

Chairman CARPER. I have used up about 61⁄2 minutes. I want to 

be responsible to my colleagues. I am going to come back and ask 

you to just keep that question in mind, because we will come back 

in the second round and drill down on it again, so Dr. Coburn. 

Senator COBURN. Well, thank you for your testimony. 

One of the concerns, if you watched any of the testimony yesterday and the questioning of who I presume to be our new Secretary, 

it is about transparency and responsiveness. Secretary Beers, we 

had forwarded to you all on October 18 asking information about 

the EB–5 system. What the legislative staff here on the Hill did 

was offer to brief us, and, of course, I do not want a briefing. I 

want the data and then we will take the briefing after we look at 

the data. 

And the problem has been at Homeland Security with timely responses to Committee requests for information. I think I got a pretty firm ‘‘yes’’ from Jeh Johnson yesterday about being transparent 

with us as long as we are responsible in terms of what we are ask-
14 

ing for. So I would hope that you would redirect the staff there to 

give us the information. We have a real problem on EB–5s, both 

in terms of national security and also fraud, and we need that information. 

I have a letter going to Director Comey. It went October 1, along 

with Senator Chambliss and Senator Grassley, in regards to that 

same issue, and I would appreciate a response to that. 

And then, Matt, we sent you a questionnaire on the Boston 

bombing—and not only did you all not respond, you did not respond to say—what you told us verbally was that the FBI was answering for you. For us to really have a good working relationship, 

some of the things that have to happen is communication. And if 

the FBI is answering for you, you ought to say, ‘‘The FBI is answering for us,’’ rather than just not answer us, because all that 

does is raise the hair on the back of my neck, and I have a great 

working relationship with you through the Intelligence Committee 

and I trust you immensely. But just common courtesy would tell 

us we are going to let the FBI answer that. 

Matt, when was the last time you got actionable intelligence from 

a Fusion Center? Other than Boston. Boston gave you some information. But I am talking actionable intelligence. 

Mr. OLSEN. We work with the Fusion Centers really through the 

FBI Joint Terrorism Task Forces and through, I mentioned in my 

opening comments, our domestic representatives who work with 

the Fusion Centers. The Fusion Centers are largely there to support what is happening at the State and local level, and they certainly serve their State and local customers. I have had the opportunity to visit a number of Fusion Centers and they seem to be 

doing a good job in that regard. 

It is not the case, however, that they would typically provide intelligence to, for example, me at the National Counterterrorism 

Center, where we are focusing more on national-level intelligence. 

Senator COBURN. All right. So the point is, they are an all-hazards, mostly State and local initiative, and the fact is, they are 

mostly funded by Homeland Security. Yet the upward flow of information that is actionable intelligence is almost nothing. And so the 

question is, could some of those dollars be better used, as far as 

Federal dollars, at the NCTC or at the FBI, as the Director has 

said, in terms of what we have seen in terms of sequester. 

I just wanted to make the point—you have not gotten any information that is actionable from a Fusion Center and very little of 

it goes to the Joint Terrorism Task Force, for an investigation. So 

it is not that—I am against them. It is that we ought to look at 

what they are really doing, which is mainly local and State, and 

it has as much to do with drugs and all these other issues that 

local law enforcement deal with more so than counterterrorism and 

the terrorism threat to the country. 

Let us talk for a minute. One of the things that has to happen 

on cyber has been referred to, and Secretary Beers, you mentioned 

this, is the free flow of information from the private sector to you 

all. And the problem with that is, the liability concerns on private 

information. So, my question to each of you is: do you think it is 

proper that any cyber bill we put forward would create a liability 
15 

protection for the private sector in terms of sharing information 

with the government? 

Mr. BEERS. Let me start, sir. That is one of the things that we 

want. Obviously, we want to make sure, together with you, that the 

liability protection that you are talking about is carefully crafted 

in order to ensure that it protects activity—information sharing 

that is legitimate under the terms of that and not a total blanket 

liability protection. But those are the kinds of things that would 

help with this so that they are more willing to share that information instead of having a long conversation between lawyers about 

the terms of the information sharing, which very much slows it 

down. 

Senator COBURN. Right. And nobody is talking about a blanket 

liability. But the fact is, if a company is at risk, fiduciary risk, with 

sharing something that the government needs on a timely basis 

and we have not given adequate liability protection for that, we are 

never going to get the information on a timely basis. We may ultimately get it, but it will be past the point which we could have utilized it most effectively. Would you agree with that? 

Mr. BEERS. Yes, sir. 

Senator COBURN. Director Comey. 

Mr. COMEY. Yes, Senator, I would. Since I was last in government, I have been the general counsel of two different private companies and so I know the concern in the private sector is that, and 

then a related concern, which is reputational damage. Will the government keep their information confidential? So they are worried 

on both fronts. 

Senator COBURN. Right. Matt. 

Mr. OLSEN. I do not have anything to add to that. 

Senator COBURN. OK. Tell me about this National Cyber Investigative Task Force between the DHS, FBI, and NSA. We have had 

a couple of presentations, most of them in closed session, just so 

the American public can hear this. I was pretty impressed at the 

coordination and cooperation that I saw among the agencies, and 

if any of you would talk about that, I think it would be very good 

for the American people to see that, government is not always dysfunctional. You guys are really doing some stuff together across department and agency lines, and I think hearing about that would 

be very reassuring to the American public. 

Mr. COMEY. I can say the first word about that, Senator. That 

was one of the first places I visited as Director, was to go and see 

the NCIJTF, and it is, as I said, a grouping of 19 agencies that all 

touch a piece of cyber. Cyber is sort of an evil layer cake. There 

are State actors trying to steal information. There are terrorists. 

There are organized criminal groups. There are ‘‘hacktivists.’’ There 

are identity thieves. And there are a huge number of people in government worrying about different pieces of that layer cake, but 

until the NCIJTF was created, they were all sitting in different 

places worrying about it in different ways that were inefficient and 

conflicting. 

So what this did was literally pull everybody together, get them 

all in the same physical place so they could figure out who should 

work what threat and how should it be worked, and then parse 
16 

that work out in the way that is most cost efficient and most effective for the American people. 

It is a great news story. A lot of its achievements are things we 

cannot talk about in an open setting, but I agree with you. I think 

it is something the American people should be very happy about. 

Senator COBURN. All right. 

Mr. BEERS. Let me second Director Comey’s remarks. It is an excellent way in bringing these people together, in addition to deciding who should take responsibility for a case, but to allow the people at the Task Force, when an incident comes up, to know who 

may have information about it and to pool that information so that 

when the lead investigator is determined, that investigator has all 

of that information. 

We have had cases where one or the other of us has been contacted about dealing with something when the other of us was already running a parallel investigation to that kind of activity 

which provided absolutely critical information to resolving that 

particular case. 

The other thing to keep in mind for the American people is these 

investigations are really hard because of the difficulty in getting attribution about who is actually doing it. But with dedicated investigators, we have brought down a number of these bad actors. 

Mr. COMEY. And can I just add a word, Senator. I have worked 

a lot of different kinds of investigations in my career, and when 

you are doing a La Cosa Nostra investigation, you can deconflict 

by calling each other or setting up a meeting for next Wednesday. 

When the threat is moving at 186,000 miles per second, as a photon does on the Internet, there is no time to make that phone call. 

So the advantage of this, the genius of this is the FBI and DHS 

person are sitting next to each other. So, have you got this? Good. 

Go with that. We will give you this piece. And they can respond 

in the way that is needed. 

Senator COBURN. Thank you. 

Chairman CARPER. Senator Johnson. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR JOHNSON 

Senator JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to welcome everybody here and also thank you sincerely 

for your service. 

I want to talk a little bit about just the actual threat level and 

the history of it, and so I want to start, first of all, and ask each 

one of you quickly, when do you believe the current, we will call 

it War on Terrorism, really began? Where did this all start? Secretary Beers. 

Mr. BEERS. Sir, if we are talking about Al-Qaeda, I believe that 

we really first experienced it with the embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya in 1998. 

Senator JOHNSON. OK. 

Mr. BEERS. We had evidence of them before, for example, in Somalia during the U.S. intervention in Somalia, but that was where 

it really came to the fore in terms of my own personal experience. 

Senator JOHNSON. Director Comey. 

Mr. COMEY. I trace the current threat back to the 1980s in Afghanistan, a situation I worry about repeating in Syria, where peo-
17 

ple were getting training and learning and meeting each other, out 

of which Osama Bin Laden formed the base Al-Qaeda. 

Senator JOHNSON. Director Olsen. 

Mr. OLSEN. I would agree with both my colleagues. I mean, this 

is a process that has evolved and we see today the changing threat, 

as Director Comey described, a metastasized threat. So, it is an 

evolving threat, but it can be traced back to the 1980s. 

Senator JOHNSON. OK. So, my next question is—I realize the answer is going to have to be very subjective, but based on that history, that evolution, is the threat level higher today? I will start 

with you, Director Olsen. 

Mr. OLSEN. It is a complicated answer. The threat level as we 

look at the threat is more dispersed geographically. The threat has 

moved out from the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region to broad 

swaths of areas that are largely ungoverned across North Africa 

and the Middle East. So, in some ways, it has become more significant from a geographic perspective and more complicated from an 

intelligence perspective. 

I would not say that the threat to the United States of a 9/11- 

style attack is greater. In fact, I would say it is lower today than 

it was in 2001. So, the threat of that type of attack today is lower 

than it was 12 years ago. 

Senator JOHNSON. Director Comey. 

Mr. COMEY. I would agree with that. I think because we took the 

fight to the enemy and got our act together in the last 12 years in 

very important ways, the risk of that spectacular attack in the 

homeland is significantly lower than it was before 9/11. And what 

has popped up in its place are these, in the homeland, the risks of 

the smaller attacks, which are no less, obviously, concerning to us, 

but smaller, and similar overseas. The Hydra head is less able to 

attack us in the homeland, so it has pushed more overseas and gotten smaller and more disparate in the homeland. 

Senator JOHNSON. Secretary Beers. 

Mr. BEERS. I would concur with that and go back particularly to 

Matt’s comment. The dispersion makes it a bigger challenge in 

terms of knowing what and where things might happen, but the 

‘‘where’’ is more likely now to be overseas than it is to be in the 

homeland, which is not to say that we should drop our guard in 

any way. 

Senator JOHNSON. So, you really do think that the threat is more 

severe in terms of a worldwide threat coming onto our shore as opposed to the homegrown terrorists, is that what you are saying? 

Mr. BEERS. No, that is not at all what I am saying. I am saying, 

in terms of the consequences of a particular kind of attack—— 

Senator JOHNSON. It is going to occur overseas as opposed to in 

the homeland. 

Mr. BEERS. The dispersion of the Al-Qaeda brand in North Africa, in Yemen, in Somalia, and in other places, and as it is appearing to manifest in Syria now, means that the kinds of activities 

that will be undertaken are likely to be undertaken overseas—— 

Senator JOHNSON. Oh, OK. 

Mr. BEERS [continuing]. Rather than directed against the homeland. That is not to say that we still do not face a threat, and it 
18 

is certainly not to say that homegrown violent extremists are inconsequential. Far from it. 

Senator JOHNSON. I have always felt that our strongest line of 

defense against any of these threats really is a strong intelligence 

gathering capability. To what extent has the NSA disclosures—how 

extensive has the harm been in terms of those intelligence gathering capabilities? Director Olsen. 

Mr. OLSEN. I would echo the comments recently of Director Clapper, who characterized them as extremely damaging. There is no 

doubt that those disclosures have made our job harder. We have 

seen that terrorists, our adversaries, are seeking to learn about the 

ways that we collect intelligence and seeking to adapt and change 

the ways that they communicate in order to avoid our surveillance. 

So, it has made our job significantly harder. 

Senator JOHNSON. How to repair the damage of it? Director 

Comey. I mean, what does Congress need to do? What do we need 

to resist, potentially? 

Mr. COMEY. Well, I agree with what Matt said about the challenge. Just in 2 months on the job, I have seen changes in terrorist 

behavior in response to the disclosures about our communications 

intercept capabilities. I think that Congress just needs to make 

sure that we do not—if there are changes that need to be made at 

the margins or in oversight, that we do not make those at the expense of the core capabilities we need as a country. 

Senator JOHNSON. Secretary Beers, what is your biggest concern 

that Congress might do that would just be a huge mistake? 

Mr. BEERS. I think Director Comey characterized it. What we 

need to do is make sure that you are comfortable with the oversight, but not to throw the baby out with the bathwater in terms 

of lurching too far in terms of restrictions on our intelligence—our 

ability to collect intelligence. 

Senator JOHNSON. Director Olsen, you were talking about going 

over to Russia for the Olympic games. Can you describe the common interests we may have with Russia? Can you describe a little 

bit about who really are some solid world partners in this War on 

Terrorism? Where do we have some common interests? 

Mr. OLSEN. We have a number of very close partners around the 

world in our fight against terrorism, obviously, particularly in Europe and particularly the United Kingdom. In Russia, we face a 

common threat of violent extremists, and particularly in the North 

Caucasus area of Russia. So, there is a consistent threat stream 

coming from violent extremists in that area, from terrorists in that 

area. They are largely focused on Russian government targets, but, 

obviously, that is a concern as we approach the Olympics, which 

will be a very high-profile event in February. 

Senator JOHNSON. Just a quick followup. Do you find Russian cooperation increasing or decreasing over the last, let us say, decade? 

Mr. OLSEN. I would point to the last several months as a period 

of increasing cooperation, and Director Comey may be able to speak 

to this, as well, but since the Boston bombing, there has been an 

increase in cooperation with Russian intelligence authorities. 

Senator JOHNSON. OK. Thank you. 

Chairman CARPER. Thank you, Senator Johnson. 

Senator Ayotte, welcome. Good morning. 
19 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR AYOTTE 

Senator AYOTTE. I want to thank the Chairman and the Ranking 

Member. I want to thank each of you for what you do for our country. You have very important positions in keeping us safe. 

Director Comey, I want to ask you about the attacks on our consulate in Benghazi over a year ago, on September 11. I guess the 

question that I have most of all, that you and I have talked about 

in the past when we met, why has not anyone been brought to justice? We are in a position now where I have seen public reports of 

individuals like Ahmed abu Khatalla, who is associated with Ansar 

Al-Sharia. The reports have been that he has been indicted in New 

York with others that have not been named, and yet no one has 

been brought to justice. Can you tell us why? 

Mr. COMEY. Thank you, Senator. If charges are brought in a case 

and they are under seal, it is not something that I could talk about. 

What I can tell you is this is among the FBI’s very highest priorities. I have a lot of people working very hard on it. We are committed to bringing to justice those responsible for the attack and 

the murder of our folks. These are often difficult cases to make, but 

as you have seen in our work—we never give up and we will never 

rest until we bring to justice the people responsible. 

The challenge for me is I have twin goals. I want to bring them 

to justice successfully and I want to make sure that any witnesses 

I have stay cooperative with us and that the bad guys do not know 

what I might know or what I might be doing, and so I am limited 

in what I can say in an open forum. 

Senator AYOTTE. Well, one thing that struck me is on October 5, 

there was the successful raid into Libya to capture Al-Libi, which 

I congratulate the FBI and everyone who worked, obviously, our 

military and intelligence agencies, on that capture. And it just led 

me to raise, of course, in my own mind, when we went into Libya 

on October 5, if there are individuals that need to be captured, why 

we would not capture them then, as well. And I know that may not 

be something you can answer in an open setting, but people are 

frustrated that these people have not been brought to justice. So, 

I do want your commitment that they will be brought to justice. 

Mr. COMEY. You have it. I think the Al-Libi case, I hope, illustrates for the American people what I said before. We will never 

stop and we will never give up. He has been wanted, as you know, 

for well over a decade. So, the work will continue. 

Senator AYOTTE. Well, let me ask you. Are you getting cooperation from Libya on this issue of capturing and seeing that those 

who committed the attacks on our consulate are brought to justice? 

Mr. COMEY. I do not want to talk in particular about particular 

operations or particular conversations, but I think as we have said 

publicly, the Libyan government has been cooperative with us in 

this investigation. 

Senator AYOTTE. Well, we expect them to be cooperative with everything, obviously, we have done and the support we have given 

them. 

Let me ask you, in terms of the Al-Libi capture on October 5, as 

I understand it, he was captured on October 5, placed on a ship, 

and then was interrogated for—this is according to all public infor-
20 

mation, now he has been publicly indicted—until the 12th, in 

which he was brought into civilian custody, is that right? 

Mr. COMEY. I do not know the exact dates, but the general—— 

Senator AYOTTE. So, it is about a week of interrogation? 

Mr. COMEY [continuing]. General contours sound right. 

Senator AYOTTE. So, Mr. Beers identified the beginning of AlQaeda as the attacks on our embassies in Africa, and, of course, AlLibi has been charged with those attacks on our consulate. He was 

a very major capture, was he not, of Al-Qaeda? 

Mr. COMEY. He is alleged to be one of the founding fathers of AlQaeda. 

Senator AYOTTE. That is right. So, yesterday, we had the nominee to take over for Mr. Beers, Jeh Johnson, and he described interrogation as a treasure trove, as an opportunity, of course, for us 

to gather information and protect our country. You would agree 

with that, would you not, Director Comey? 

Mr. COMEY. Yes. 

Senator AYOTTE. Was 7 days enough, long enough interrogation, 

in your view, to find out everything that Al-Libi knew about AlQaeda and its operations? 

Mr. COMEY. I do not want to comment on the particular case. 

Longer is always better. More is always better. Interrogation, I 

agree with Jeh Johnson. Interrogation is a critical tool and is often 

a treasure trove—— 

Senator AYOTTE. So, here is our conundrum. Here is the problem 

we face. Let us take it out of Al-Libi for a moment. He was put 

on a ship instead of being brought to Guantanamo because, obviously, this has been a policy, political decision of the Administration of not wanting to put anyone in Guantanamo. But, is it practical that we can put everyone on ships, of his nature? 

Mr. COMEY. That is a hard question for me to answer. 

Senator AYOTTE. Well, I guess the question I have is, tomorrow, 

let us say we get Zawahiri. Let us say we get the current titular 

head, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, tomorrow. Where do we put him? You 

need to interrogate him, not only you, but our intelligence officials 

to protect our country. What do we do with him? I would hope that 

we are not going to only interrogate him for a week, so do you 

know what we do with him, where we detain him, how he is treated? 

Mr. COMEY. I do not in particular. I am aware of a variety of options. My goal would be just what you said, to have our agents and 

our Intelligence Community colleagues have the opportunity to interrogate him to get that information. 

Senator AYOTTE. Do you think he should be Mirandized? 

Mr. COMEY. Who are you asking about? I am sorry. 

Senator AYOTTE. Zawahiri. If we get Zawahiri tomorrow, when 

we capture him, do you believe that he should be read his Miranda 

rights? 

Mr. COMEY. Well, I, as my predecessor did, believe that the more 

flexibility we have to delay the reading of those rights, the better. 

But, again, the reason I am hesitating is it would depend upon 

where he is and whether there was a court case pending against 

him and all those kinds of things. But, sure, the more flexibility, 

the better for us. 
21 

Senator AYOTTE. And that is because, obviously, you capture a 

known terrorist, someone who is the head of Al-Qaeda, you tell him 

he has the right to remain silent, that obviously could have the potential to interfere with your interrogation, is that right? 

Mr. COMEY. Sure. It would end the interrogation. And in situations like that, it is not that I am looking for confessions to be able 

to use in a court—— 

Senator AYOTTE. No. You are using—— 

Mr. COMEY. I am trying to get intelligence—— 

Senator AYOTTE. You are looking for information to protect the 

country, right? 

Mr. COMEY. Exactly. 

Senator AYOTTE. And that is different than gathering—certainly, 

they can be concomitant and together, but the priority has to be 

in gathering information to protect the country, is that right? 

Mr. COMEY. Sure, and that is the way we approach it. 

Senator AYOTTE. Well, the one thing I will just say is that I 

worry about the Zawahiri situation, because right now, the Administration has chosen not to use Guantanamo. The Administration 

is putting people on ships. But Al-Libi, to only interrogate someone 

like that for 7 days, it seems to me that we are losing opportunities 

to gather intelligence. And I hope that—Director Comey, you are 

new to this position—that we can work on a policy for detention 

and interrogation that will allow you to fully interrogate the worst 

terrorists that continue to pose threats for our country. So, I thank 

you all for what you are doing. 

Mr. COMEY. Thank you, Senator. 

Chairman CARPER. Thank you, Senator Ayotte. 

I want to return to my earlier question. Secretary Beers, you had 

a chance to respond to it. We are under cyber attack every day. It 

is not just something that could happen. It does happen, and it 

happens in a lot of different ways and a lot of different directions. 

I want to come back to it, and my original question, Director 

Comey and Mr. Olsen, was are you guys working together? How 

well are your agencies working together? What are you doing better than you were? Where can you do better still? How can we 

help? Please. 

Mr. COMEY. I think two things that I could add to the answer 

that Rand Beers gave you already, one is I agree very much what 

we are doing better together is talking to each other and sharing 

information very quickly so that we can discharge our responsibilities quickly. So that is my first response. 

My second response is, it is our need to get information from the 

private sector quickly that is critical. Otherwise, we are patrolling—I picture us as police officers patrolling a street where the 

walls on either side of the street are 50-feet high. We can make 

sure that the street is safe, but we cannot tell what is going on in 

the neighborhood. That neighborhood in my metaphor is all the private networks and all the private companies that are the victims 

of these attacks. So, we need to find a way to lower those walls so 

that we can learn the information we need quickly to be able to respond to the attacks. That is what we could do better. 

Chairman CARPER. How can we help? 
22 

Mr. COMEY. Well, I think, as Secretary Beers said, I think one 

of the things that is very important is to create incentives for private companies to cooperate, to address their concerns primarily 

about liability, and second, their concerns about their reputation. 

And so I think that liability issue sits with Congress that can offer 

them that protection. So, I think that is very important. 

Chairman CARPER. Talk more about that liability protection. 

Mr. COMEY. Well, private companies are concerned that if they 

turn over information, they will end up getting sued by people 

whose personal information may be somewhere in the data they 

supply, or competitors may complain about them turning it over, 

or that it will be used against them in some fashion in a government contract competition down the road. And all of these things 

make their general counsels, which I used to be, say, great idea. 

We really want to share. We do not want to hurt the stockholders 

of this company by sharing, so what is our protection? That conversation just took me 10 seconds to say it. That is a several hour 

conversation inside any company. In the meantime, that threat, as 

I said, has moved at the speed of light, and so that is just not sustainable. 

Chairman CARPER. What are a short menu of options that we 

should consider in addressing those liability concerns? 

Mr. COMEY. I do not think I am expert enough in the pending 

legislation to offer you a specific view, so I would defer to Secretary 

Beers, who I think knows it better than I. 

Chairman CARPER. Is that true? Do you know better than he 

does? 

Mr. BEERS. I have been at it longer, Senator. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. Do you want to take a shot at that, 

a menu of options for us to consider on the liability side? 

Mr. BEERS. Well, as explored with Senator Coburn, I think what 

we need is for the liability protection to create the willingness for 

the private sector to share information about a data breach as soon 

as they experience it, so that we can help them as quickly as possible and we can protect others as quickly as possible. 

So, how the liability protection is constructed, I am not a lawyer. 

I cannot define that in the legal terms that you all need to put into 

the law. But I certainly would be ready and willing to help with 

technical assistance on trying to define precisely what that ought 

to look like, as we tried earlier on with the last attempt to write 

the legislation in this body. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. Mr. Olsen. 

Mr. OLSEN. I do not have anything to add on the cyber legislation. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. Thank you. 

Let us talk a bit about the lone wolves, the folks, American citizens in many cases, who become radicalized, in some cases by traveling abroad, being exposed to jihadist activities, in other cases just 

being radicalized here, over the Internet or maybe in their own 

communities. I worry a lot about that. I know you do, too. Share 

with us what we are doing to try to address that threat and how 

you are working together. How can we help you? 

Mr. BEERS. Let me go ahead and start. In addition to the great 

investigative work that the Bureau does, the three of us, along 
23 

with the Department of Justice leadership, have a regular dialogue 

among ourselves about how to craft a common approach to assist 

in the identification of individuals, the prevention of them carrying 

out their acts. 

We do this under three large categories of activity. The first is 

to look at all of the events that have occurred and see what transpired in those events so that we can create a body of knowledge 

about behaviors and indicators that can inform us and State and 

local law enforcement and citizens of what kinds of indicators 

might provide us with a warning of an event. 

We then take that information and provide it to all of our law 

enforcement partners. We conduct training in association with that. 

We conduct exercises in association with that. And we, as Matt 

Olsen indicated, that is not just before the event, but also what do 

you do after an event has begun to occur. All of the active shooter 

training that we do is designed to assist in that, although it is a 

much broader resonance in terms of those kinds of events. 

And then the last is community engagement, to talk to people in 

the communities, to hear what their concerns and issues are and 

to provide that information to them, as well. And all three of us 

participate in that effort, either as individual agencies or in concert 

with one another. That is the broad scheme of how we work together. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. Director Comey, would you add to 

that, please. 

Mr. COMEY. The only thing I would add is that with respect to 

the travelers—in some ways, the travelers are easier for us—they 

are still a huge challenge—than the homegrown violent extremist 

who stays in his basement the whole time, radicalizing himself 

through the Internet. There, it is a huge challenge, as Secretary 

Beers said, trying to develop a set of indicators. What are we looking for? What should we equip the police officers patrolling that 

neighborhood to look for? So, that is something we are focused on. 

The travelers, we can see them come in and out of the country, 

and so figuring out smart ways to assess what they are doing and 

to have conversations with them that are useful to us is something 

we are working together on. 

Chairman CARPER. Good. Mr. Olsen. 

Mr. OLSEN. If I could just really echo the comments of my colleagues. I mean, the challenge of the homegrown violent extremist 

is exactly as Director Comey described. This could be an individual 

who does not travel, does not communicate, maybe a passive consumer of radical information on the Internet, so really does not hit 

any of the trip wires that help us discern when somebody is mobilizing to violence. 

So, we are working closely together as a team to implement the 

strategy. The strategy has the three broad categories that Rand 

Beers laid out—engagement, training and expertise with State and 

local law enforcement, as well as countering the Al-Qaeda narrative. 

We talked a minute ago about Fusion Centers. Fusion Centers do 

provide a very good way for us to help develop the expertise at the 

State and local level. Around the country, there are a million first 

responders between the police officers and firefighters. Those are 
24 

the individuals who are going to be most likely to see someone who 

is on that path from radicalization to mobilization. And helping 

equip them with how to find those signs is a key part of the strategy. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. Thanks. My time has expired. 

Let me just ask you, take 10 seconds apiece and answer this 

question. If somebody sees something—they are saying, see something, say something. If someone sees someone that they believe is 

being radicalized in their own community, maybe in their own family, who should they say something to? Rand. 

Mr. BEERS. Usually, the first instance is the local law enforcement agencies. 

Mr. COMEY. I Agree, and I would urge people, listen to that feeling on the back of your neck and do not write an innocent narrative over facts that initially strike you as strange. Just tell somebody. 

Mr. OLSEN. And if I could just add, a key element of this is to 

build trust with those communities, particularly the American 

Muslim community, so they have the confidence and trust in our 

law enforcement agencies to, if they see something that gives them 

concern, to come forward. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. Thanks so much. 

Senator Levin, it is good to see you. You are recognized. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LEVIN 

Senator LEVIN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Director Comey, let me start with you. The law now does not 

allow detainees to be brought from Guantanamo to the U.S. for detention and trial. Should this law be changed? 

Mr. COMEY. That is—— 

Senator LEVIN. Should we allow people to be brought from Guantanamo to the U.S. for detention and trial? Can they be properly 

tried? Can they be safely detained? 

Mr. COMEY. The policy question, I think, Senator, is one better 

answered by the Department of Justice. I know from my personal 

experience, though, terrorists can be safely detained and tried. I 

have been involved in many cases myself in civilian courts in the 

United States. So, that part, I can definitely answer and the answer is yes. 

Senator LEVIN. Well, what is that personal experience? 

Mr. COMEY. Well—— 

Senator LEVIN. More specifically, have we tried individuals for 

terrorism in Federal courts? 

Mr. COMEY. Many we have. I was the U.S. Attorney in Manhattan after September 11, 2001, and we had cases pending then. We 

are very good in the United States at safely detaining bad people 

with all kinds of threat. We are successful in detaining them. The 

Bureau of Prisons, I used to supervise when I was Deputy Attorney 

General, and there is nobody better in the world. And our courts 

are, as they have proven in a track record going back to probably 

the largest case was the initial East Africa bombings case brought 

in the Southern District of New York, which was tried, and it is 

actually the case that Al-Libi was just arrested on. It is a long 

track record. 
25 

Senator LEVIN. Now, are trials that are held in Federal court 

more likely to be conducted in a speedy manner compared to trials 

before military commissions? 

Mr. COMEY. I do not have enough experience—I guess we do not 

as a country—with the military commissions for me to say about 

that. So, what I can say is I do know the Federal courts have long 

been able to move these cases, protect classified information, and 

get them done in a reasonably prompt time. 

Senator LEVIN. Now, the argument has been made that this 

bringing terrorists to trial, either directly for trial in the United 

States or from Guantanamo, somehow or other creates a security 

threat for those communities in which they are held. Do we have 

any evidence to support that kind of a conclusion? 

Mr. COMEY. I do not know of any, Senator, with respect to a 

threat created in the area of a prison facility. Our ADMAX, our 

supermax prison in the high desert in Colorado, is fairly remote. 

I do not know of any threat surrounding that facility. We have 

housed in that facility some really bad people for a long time. 

Senator LEVIN. And, Mr. Beers, is there any position that DHS 

has taken about any security threat from trying and detaining terrorist defendants? 

Mr. BEERS. Sir, I do not have any information indicating any significant threat to a particular trial that has taken place. 

Mr. OLSEN. Senator Levin, if I may, just to jump in for a moment 

here, I would want to fully endorse Director Comey’s comments 

about the Federal courts. I share, at least in part, the experience 

of having been a Federal prosecutor and the ability of our Federal 

courts to handle these cases. 

And the one element I would add is—what we have seen in certain cases, in certain important cases, is the ability to obtain intelligence information from individuals who are brought into that system. From my perspective at the National Counterterrorism Center, of course, it is very important that we do whatever we can to 

gain that intelligence, and we have been able to do that in a number of important cases where individuals have been cooperative and 

provided important information. 

Senator LEVIN. Is there any evidence—or maybe, Director Comey 

and others, you can compare the kind of intelligence both in terms 

of quantity and quality that the FBI has been able to obtain from 

terrorist suspects compared to their being held by other elements 

of our Federal Government. 

Mr. COMEY. Senator, I am not in a position to compare because 

I do not know enough about the track record in getting information 

by other agencies, so I can only speak to the FBI’s, which is long, 

and it is one of the things we do best, is get information from people, especially bad guys. 

Senator LEVIN. And is that also consistent with the guarantees 

in the law for interrogation of suspects? 

Mr. COMEY. Absolutely. 

Senator LEVIN. Let me ask you a question, Director, about a bill 

that Senator Grassley and I have introduced relative to U.S. States 

and the United States incorporating entities that have hidden ownership. Is there a problem from a law enforcement point of view in 

not knowing the real owners of corporations? In this regard, I think 
26 

you may be familiar with what happened at the G–20 summit, 

where 20 leaders, including President Obama, reached a consensus 

that it was time to stop creating corporations with hidden owners, 

and President Obama has issued a National Action Plan which 

calls for Federal legislation, such as we have introduced, to require 

our States to include on their incorporation forms a question asking for the names of the real owners of the corporation being 

formed. 

Now, do you support that bill? Does the FBI want to know the 

real owners of corporations? Is there a law enforcement purpose, 

because we have had all kinds of letters from law enforcement 

groups, Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association (FLEOA), 

Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), Assistant U.S. Attorneys Association, on and on, saying it is critically important that you know the 

beneficial owners of corporations because, otherwise, suspected terrorists, drug trafficking organizations, and other criminal enterprises continue to exploit the anonymity afforded to them through 

the current corporate filing process. That is quoting the letter from 

the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association. 

Do you support, as Director of the FBI, our passing a bill which 

would require States to ask one question on the incorporation 

forms: who are the real owners, who are the beneficial owners of 

the corporation that you seek to incorporate? And if you do support 

it, will you tell us why? 

Mr. COMEY. I do not know enough about the bill in particular to 

have a position. I am sure the Department of Justice is working 

on it. But I agree with your premise. It is very important to our 

investigations across a whole range of cases to be able to learn that 

information. 

Senator LEVIN. Why? 

Mr. COMEY. Because—— 

Senator LEVIN. Give us examples. Why does it make a difference 

in law enforcement? 

Mr. COMEY. Well, if you are conducting an investigation of a 

transnational organized crime group that is involved in human 

trafficking or drug smuggling and they are laundering their money 

through a particular corporate entity, connecting that entity to the 

bad guys is going to be a critical step in your investigation. I mean, 

and you could take that and make it an analog in any different 

kind of a terrorism financing case, a bank fraud case, a Ponzi 

scheme. All of those require you to find the people who are hiding 

behind particular names or shells. 

Senator LEVIN. Thank you. My time is up. 

Chairman CARPER. And just to followup on the question, that exchange that you just had with Senator Levin, this is an issue that 

he has pursued for some time. And, interestingly enough, the 

States are uncomfortable with the manner that it has been pursued. The States, especially the States that have expressed their 

concern through their Secretaries of State, and we have encouraged 

our own Secretary of State in Delaware to work with, partner with 

other Secretaries of State across the country to meet with the FBI, 

engage in a conversation with the FBI and other law enforcement 

agencies to find a way that addresses the concerns that Senator 

Levin has expressed and that you, and I think many Americans, 
27 

would share, but to do so in a way that the States do not find overwhelmingly difficult to administer. I think there is a sweet spot 

there and there is a negotiation that has begun. We appreciate the 

participation of the FBI and other law enforcement agencies in that 

discussion. 

Back to Senator Coburn. 

Senator COBURN. Thank you. 

Director Beers, you mentioned a minute ago the National Suspicious Activities group—what was the full name of that? 

Mr. BEERS. ‘‘National Suspicious Activities Reporting Initiative.’’ 

Senator COBURN. This morning, a news article broke that 4,904 

people, personal Social Security numbers, addresses, and professions, and lots of other detail came out of the DHS, whose Customs 

and Border Protection (CBP) was leading an investigation on some 

information about how to get around a lie detector test and a book 

that was sold. And if you read this report—I do not know if you 

are familiar with this or not—— 

Mr. BEERS. No, I have not seen it, sir. 

Senator COBURN [continuing]. But I would tell you, this is really 

concerning to me. First of all, it looks sloppy on its face in terms 

of the number of people. And what I would direct you to is today’s 

McClatchy news story. 

But this is the kind of thing where, because it is not done right, 

it looks to be very inappropriate. As a matter of fact, in the story, 

it is quoted that the agencies will keep this information for long periods of time on these individuals, and the American people are 

going to want to know why and what did they do wrong. Because 

they wanted to read a book, now the Federal Government has 

shared all our information with 20-some other agencies, including 

our personal data. 

I think there is a balance to where we are going and I would love 

for you to both brief my staff and also respond to this news story, 

if you would, later today. I know I am catching you off guard, but 

we need to protect ourselves, but we also need to protect the 

Fourth and First Amendments. To me, on the face—and I will reserve final judgment until I hear from you—this is way overboard 

and way beyond, and I would hope you would address this. 

Director Comey, as you know, Senator Graham has held up and 

is holding up all nominations of the President coming before the 

Senate because, in his opinion, the Congress ought to have the 

right to interview and discuss what happened in Benghazi with the 

survivors. That has been resisted. And I have two questions for 

you. No. 1 is why does the Congress not have the right to do that? 

And No. 2 is, is Senator Graham inappropriate in trying to have 

the American people know what happened in Benghazi by interviewing those survivors? 

Mr. COMEY. My reactions are, I do not know. This is the first 

question. And no as to the second question. It does not strike me 

as inappropriate. As I said in response to an earlier question, my 

interests are in making sure that we balance the FBI’s need to be 

able to protect our witnesses and find those people and bring them 

to justice, but I do not see anything inappropriate with the inquiry. 

Senator COBURN. Well, but it is my understanding he has been 

told he cannot interview those survivors. Is that correct? 
28 

Mr. COMEY. Certainly not by me. I do not know. I—— 

Senator COBURN. The FBI has no problem with Congress interviewing the survivors of Benghazi? 

Mr. COMEY. No. 

Senator COBURN. All right. Thank you. 

One of the concerns that I hear from the private sector, Secretary 

Beers, on the Executive Order—and, by the way, I compliment the 

President on his Executive Order on cyber. I think they listened 

well. They built a good plan. And, so far, it has been executed very 

well. So, I congratulate him and you on what has been done on 

that. 

But, one of the concerns is about what is coming with the Executive Order in terms of regulations, one of the things that I believe 

is stifling our economy now, is just tremendously excessive, and if 

we want private data shared with the government so we can actually protect us. Do you have any concerns on that part, or do you 

have any feel for what we are going to see in terms of regulations? 

Mr. BEERS. Sir, at this particular point in time, as we negotiated 

the original cyber bill that was considered in this body and in this 

Committee, it was not our intention to seek regulation in association with that. It was a very light touch. I think that remains our 

posture with respect to going forward. The part of the Executive 

Order that seeks to catalog regulatory authorities is an effort to 

pull that together to see what authorities do currently exist that 

allow regulation that is already underway—— 

Senator COBURN. You would—— 

Mr. BEERS [continuing]. And see where we go from there. We 

have not completed that particular—— 

Senator COBURN. You would agree that voluntary compliance, if 

people were made aware of it and made aware of the benefits of 

it, is a better scenario than forced compliance, or at least forced 

compliance should come after we see a failure of voluntary compliance? Would you agree to that? 

Mr. BEERS. Yes, sir. 

Senator COBURN. All right. Thank you. I have no further questions. 

Chairman CARPER. Senator Johnson. 

Senator JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I would like to followup on questioning by both Senator Ayotte 

and Senator Coburn on Benghazi. Director Comey, for 14 months, 

it has been the consistent excuse of this Administration that the 

reason Members of Congress do not have access to the survivors of 

Benghazi is because of the FBI investigation. I mean, you are 

aware of that, correct? 

Mr. COMEY. I am not, Senator. I am not. 

Senator JOHNSON. So, just getting back to what Senator Coburn 

said, there should be no reason that the FBI investigation should 

be used as an excuse for us not to have access to question those 

witnesses, whether it is in an open hearing or in a secure briefing 

setting? 

Mr. COMEY. As the FBI Director, I do not have an objection to 

it. I do not know whether the prosecutors would feel differently or 

there is some other reason I am not thinking of, but speaking from 

my perspective, yes, I do not have an objection to that. 
29 

Senator JOHNSON. Director Olsen, I would just like to talk about 

the difference between our desire to prosecute and the difference 

between gathering intelligence. I mean, from my standpoint, with 

the threats that you are far more aware of than I am, to me, it 

sounds like intelligence gathering is a far higher priority than 

bringing people, I guess, to eventual justice, particularly when we 

can hold them as unlawful enemy combatants. Can you just kind 

of discuss the difference between the desire to prosecute, which we 

all want people brought to justice, but the need, the absolute requirement for intelligence gathering? 

Mr. OLSEN. I think there is no conflict in that. In other words, 

from everything I have seen in my work at the National Counterterrorism Center and before, the No. 1 goal in any of these instances involving terrorist suspects is to gather intelligence. That 

is the overriding objective. At the same time, we need to have an 

option for disposition, and with respect to, for example, Abu Anas 

Al-Libi, who we discussed, this was an individual who was indicted 

and where a disposition option was readily available in the Federal 

courts. But every case is different and every case is treated on the 

basis of the facts presented, and in every case, intelligence gathering is the priority, and that is what I have experienced—— 

Senator JOHNSON. I made a trip down to Guantanamo with Senator Ayotte and we spoke to the people they are continuing to interrogate over a very long period of time, the detainees down there. 

The very strong opinion of those individuals doing those interrogations say that the most effective interrogation occurs over years, 

where you gain their confidence, and slowly and surely you obtain 

the little threads of information, the types of threads that, I think, 

eventually led to the killing of Osama Bin Laden. Do you disagree 

with that? I mean, to me, I think it is absurd that we think we 

can actually gather the types of intelligence that is possibly there 

in a week on a ship, or a couple days before we Mirandize somebody. Do you disagree with that? 

Mr. OLSEN. I mean, as a general proposition, I think it is clear 

that the longer opportunity we have to gather intelligence, to interrogate someone, the better. There are—— 

Senator JOHNSON. So, do you not believe we really ought to be 

using that absolute first class facility down in Guantanamo to detain these individuals so we can gather the type of intelligence we 

need? 

Mr. OLSEN. I mean, in every case, there are going to be other 

considerations that are going to come into play, and that, in 

fact—— 

Senator JOHNSON. Any higher consideration than gathering the 

intelligence we need to keep the homeland safe? 

Mr. OLSEN. There are going to be other considerations, and that 

was, indeed, what was in play with Abu Anas Al-Libi. So, again, 

though, the No. 1 goal is to gather intelligence, and that is what 

I have seen in these cases. 

Senator JOHNSON. OK. Well, I wish that were the top priority. 

It does not seem to be so. 

Secretary Beers, on May 23, 2012, we held a hearing in this 

Committee on the very unfortunate events in Cartagena. We were 

pretty well led to believe by the then-Director of the Secret Service 
30 

that was a one-time occurrence. I really wanted to believe that. I 

think it is incredibly important that the Secret Service has total 

credibility and that their important mission of securing high government officials and national security information is paramount. 

In my capacity as Ranking Member on a Subcommittee that had 

oversight of that, we continued to dig into exactly what happened 

in Cartagena, hoping it was a one-time occurrence. It does not appear that it was. 

We have, through whistleblower accounts, found out that similar 

instances occurred in 17 countries around the world. And, again, 

that is just a limited snapshot. We have had very limited access 

to individuals that might know better. Just the other day, two Secret Service individuals were disciplined for sexual misconduct in 

a hotel here in Washington. One of those men, Ignacio Zamora, we 

have come to find out actually was involved in the Cartagena incident and interviewed Secret Service personnel. 

The question I have for you is we have been waiting for a culture 

report from the Inspector General’s (IGs) office now for 18 months. 

Do you know when that culture report will be released? 

Mr. BEERS. Sir, I do not have a specific date. I know that it is 

near completion and we are expecting it shortly. But I cannot give 

you—— 

Senator JOHNSON. Do you think 18 months is kind of an inordinate amount of time to take to determine something I think is so 

critically important, to find out whether there is a real cultural 

problem in the Secret Service? 

Mr. BEERS. Obviously, we would prefer to have the report sooner 

rather than later, sir. 

Senator JOHNSON. Can I get your commitment to check into that 

and get that report completed and released as soon as possible? 

Mr. BEERS. Yes, you have it. 

Senator JOHNSON. OK. Thank you. No further questions, Mr. 

Chairman. 

Chairman CARPER. Dr. Coburn, please. 

Senator COBURN. I just had one other thought. As we went 

through the Boston Marathon bombing and we look at the 

Tsarnaevs, the one thing that was never covered is the parents 

came here under an asylum visa, except the parents are back home 

and have been for a number of years. Has anybody looked at our 

techniques, processes, requirements for granting asylum to individuals, because, obviously, with the ability to return home to their 

home city from which they were granted asylum in the first place, 

something has changed. Either we got it wrong or something markedly changed in Chechnya. I do not think that is the case. So, has 

anybody looked at that? And I know that is a State Department 

issue probably more than Homeland Security, or maybe it is not. 

Any comments on that? 

Mr. BEERS. Sir, let me start. The Tsarnaev family sought asylum 

from Kyrgyzstan, where they had moved to avoid the violence in 

their home area of Dagestan. Their request for asylum was that 

they were being discriminated against in Kyrgyzstan for being from 

Dagestan and that was the basis of the initial granting. So, that 

was the way that it happened, and then they, as you quite correctly 

say, chose later on for presumably personal reasons to go back to 
31 

the place that they were actually from, that they were actually 

born in. Those are the facts of the case. 

With respect to the asylum, yes, we are looking at this as a regular issue, since DHS is a participant in the granting of asylum, 

because, in part, it leads often to legal permanent resident status 

and naturalization. So, we are very much a part of that. 

Senator COBURN. All right. Thank you very much. 

Chairman CARPER. Senator Ayotte. 

Senator AYOTTE. Thank you. 

Director Comey, I wanted to followup on a discussion that we 

had on the JTTF and the Memorandums of Understanding (MOU), 

because when Commissioner Davis had testified before our Committee about the Boston bombing, and I think all of us agree that 

there was great cooperation there and the Boston Police Department did a phenomenal job, along with the Federal partners, he 

had some concerns about how the MOU was operating, and you 

and I talked about that, and I wanted to followup with you on as 

to where we are with the communication on the JTTF for the 

Memorandum of Understanding. He was concerned that his local 

officers, the information was not flowing downward. 

Mr. COMEY. Thank you, Senator. Yes, that is a concern that we 

have been discussing with the major city chiefs and the sheriffs. I 

had a lunch meeting last week with them to followup on that. So, 

it is a work in progress, but I think we are going to—our goal is 

to, when you and I discussed, which is to make sure there are not 

impediments, either real or perceived, and so his concern is being 

acted on. I do not have a date for when it will be done, but it will 

be very soon. 

Senator AYOTTE. Good. I would very much love if you would report back to the Committee to just give us that answer, because I 

know it is an issue that is of importance to you, just so we know 

that this is operating and the information is flowing correctly 

downward and upward. 

Mr. COMEY. Sure. I will. 

Senator AYOTTE. Thank you. Also, Mr. Olsen, I wanted to ask 

you about your testimony. You mentioned something about the 

withdrawal of coalition forces from Afghanistan could enable core 

Al-Qaeda veterans to reconstitute there. Right now, the Administration, we are in a key moment with regard to what happens in 

Afghanistan, decisions that are going to have to be made on what 

the follow-on force will be in 2014. And so I guess I want to hear 

from you, does it matter? I have heard some people say, what can 

we accomplish there, and I was intrigued by what you said because 

I share the belief that we could have a reconstitution of Al-Qaeda 

or other terrorist groups there. So, could you enlighten us on that. 

Mr. OLSEN. I mean, I think from an intelligence perspective, we 

are concerned about Afghanistan and Pakistan and the border region, no doubt, because of the presence of extremist groups, including the remnants of core Al-Qaeda in that region. We have seen 

that there has been an interest in Al-Qaeda in parts of Afghanistan, particularly Northeastern Afghanistan, and it is just going to 

be an issue that we are going to have to monitor very closely after 

2014 to see what types of activities Al-Qaeda or other allies of Al- 
32 

Qaeda, for example, the Haqqani network, undertake in that region. 

Senator AYOTTE. And, in fact, have we not seen reactivity by AlQaeda, or activity by Al-Qaeda in Iraq with what is happening 

there right now. We were not able to come to an agreement on a 

follow-on force in Iraq and now we are certainly seeing some followon there. Can you describe that? 

Mr. OLSEN. Sure. Senator, we have seen an uptick over the last 

several months in violence in Iraq, much of it, we believe, perpetrated by Sunni extremists in Iraq, almost all of it focused on 

Iraqi targets, not U.S. targets necessarily. But, certainly, there has 

been an uptick in the violence in that country. 

Senator AYOTTE. And we certainly want to avoid the scenario 

where Afghanistan becomes a launching pad for terrorists again, do 

we not? 

Mr. OLSEN. Absolutely. 

Senator AYOTTE. All right. Thank you all. 

Senator COBURN. [Presiding.] Senator Levin. 

Senator LEVIN. Thank you. I just have a few more questions. 

Director, you indicated that you do not have a personal problem 

with Congress interviewing the witnesses from Benghazi but that 

you have not talked to your prosecutors, is that what you said? 

Mr. COMEY. I do not know. I have not discussed it with the Department of Justice to see whether there are separate concerns 

about—from the Assistant U.S. Attorneys handling the matter 

about it. And when I said witnesses, I thought the question was 

about the survivors, which are the U.S. personnel who were there. 

Senator LEVIN. Correct. 

Mr. COMEY. Yes. 

Senator LEVIN. Is it possible that you would have a different 

opinion if you talked to those prosecutors? 

Mr. COMEY. It is always possible, sure. 

Senator LEVIN. OK. 

Mr. COMEY. I do not know. 

Senator LEVIN. My other question has to do with going back to 

the beneficial ownership issue of corporations and the national security problems that are created when we do not know who owns 

the corporations. We have some, apparently, testimony or some indication from some of the Secretaries of State that the FBI could 

obtain—and other law enforcement agents could obtain corporate 

ownership information from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) on 

a form, I guess it is called SS–4, but the corporations have to fill 

out those forms to get a U.S. Taxpayer ID Number. Does that work 

from the FBI’s perspective, to try to get the important information 

that you described from the IRS instead of from the applications 

for corporate incorporation? 

Mr. COMEY. I do not know enough to say, Senator. I just do not 

know. 

Senator LEVIN. So you are not familiar with the argument that 

the FBI could get that information from the IRS? 

Mr. COMEY. I am not. 

Senator LEVIN. Thank you. Those are the only questions that I 

have, and I just want to thank you all. 
33 

Mr. OLSEN. Senator Levin, if I could go back to your question 

with respect to Benghazi, the one point I would like to offer to the 

Committee is over the course of the last year and several months 

since the Benghazi attacks, we have presented a number of briefings to Members of this Committee as well as a number of other 

members, probably over a dozen briefings that presented a multimedia presentation, including surveillance video, overhead imagery, witness statements describing every facet that we had from 

an intelligence perspective about those attacks. So, we have had a 

number of opportunities to present everything that we know from 

an Intelligence Community’s perspective about the attacks in 

Benghazi. We would certainly offer that again if the Committee 

was interested in seeing that. 

Senator LEVIN. Well, I was just curious about the Director’s comment about not having talked to the prosecutors and whether or 

not that might impact his opinion as to whether or not for some 

reason Congress should not have access to those survivors. I do not 

know of any reason, either, by the way, I have to tell you. I think 

this whole thing has been not handled appropriately, but that is 

not the point. The point is, I do not see any reason myself why 

Congress should not have access to anybody Congress wants to 

have access to. Whether it has overdone it or not, I will leave that 

up to my own personal opinion and to others to resolve. But, I do 

not have a personal problem, either. 

But, I, sure as heck, if I knew prosecutors had a problem with 

it, I would want to hear their view before I reached my conclusion. 

I was kind of surprised that the Director said, well, it is his opinion 

that there is no problem, but the prosecutors may have a different 

approach. So, that was the reason I was pressing the Director on 

this issue, and I can leave it at that. 

Going back just to clarify one question about some of the positions that Secretaries of State have taken about the FBI going to 

the IRS to get the beneficial ownership information, would you find 

out and give us an answer for the record as to whether or not the 

FBI believes that is a satisfactory alternative to knowing the beneficial owners from the incorporation documents? Would you let us 

know for the record? 

Mr. COMEY. Sure, Senator. 

Senator LEVIN. Thank you. 

Chairman CARPER. [Presiding.] All right. I have a couple of closing questions, and then I will give you an opportunity, if you want, 

just to make a short closing statement of your own, so think about 

that while I ask these questions. 

Probably most Americans are concerned about their personal security in this country, either from crime in their own communities 

or own States or the threat of a terrorist attack. I think people are 

more mindful of the threat of cyber attacks than they have ever 

been, and we are reminded of those threats every day. People in 

this country are also concerned about their own privacy and the 

ability to have their privacy protected, and sometimes there is a 

tension between those two desires. We all want to be safe. We also 

want to make sure that our rights to privacy are protected. 
34 

Please talk about the tension that exists between those two 

rights and concerns and how we are trying to strike the right balance, please. Mr. Olsen, do you want to go first. 

Mr. OLSEN. Sure. This is an issue, obviously, that is front and 

center today, and I can assure you, Mr. Chairman, and the Committee that it is an issue that is part of what we think about every 

day at the National Counterterrorism Center, and I know it is true 

from my experience at the other places I have worked, including 

the National Security Agency and the Department of Justice. 

Particularly with respect to where I am now, at the National 

Counterterrorism Center, we are charged with the responsibility of 

preventing terrorist attacks. We do that by integrating and analyzing information. We understand that we need to have access to 

a lot of information, government-collected information, in order to 

do that, in order to analyze that information, look for particular 

threads, look for threats, share that information, again, with agencies like the FBI and others who can act upon it. 

But we also understand that in so doing, in handling that information, we are responsible for being stewards of that information 

and that we are entrusted by the American people with protecting 

it. And it is part of our training, it is part of everything we do in 

terms of having access to information that we understand the laws 

and the policies and the regulations that apply to protecting that 

information to ensure that we do so in a way that is consistent 

with the civil liberties and privacy of all Americans. 

Chairman CARPER. What further could you say to the American 

people who have these concerns about the right to privacy and 

their concern it is being violated or could be violated? What more 

could you say to reassure them that this is, indeed, a concern that 

the Administration and those with whom you work are mindful of? 

Mr. OLSEN. Well, I think what I would say is that, again, the 

training and the oversight that we are subject to is unlike anything 

I have seen anywhere in the world, and it surpasses that which we 

experienced 10 years ago or even 5 years ago. So, the degree of 

oversight that we are subject to by Congress, by the judicial 

branch, by other elements of the executive branch, I believe should 

give the American people confidence that we are handling this information in a way that is appropriate and that secures privacy 

and civil liberties. 

That said, we depend on the confidence of the American people 

in being able to do our job, so we are committed to being as transparent as possible in how we do that in order to continue to gain 

and maintain their confidence. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. Director Comey, we have people 

that are concerned that folks at NSA are reading their e-mails, 

looking at their text messages, listening to their telephone conversations. What can you say to reassure almost all Americans that 

is not a concern they need to have, or can you? 

Mr. COMEY. The first thing I would say is I agree very much with 

Director Olsen, that this is something every American should care 

about. Every American should care about how the government is 

using its authorities to protect them and where the government is 

also being mindful of the liberties that make this country so special. And what I tell folks is, look, our Founders were geniuses. 
35 

They divided power and created three parts of government to check 

power. 

So, if you care about these issues, and everybody should, you 

should first ask, is the government working? Is there oversight? 

How is that oversight being done? Is it balanced? And the second 

thing is, I tell people, you should participate. Everybody should ask 

questions about how government is using its authorities and ask 

whether the system is working. 

I happen to think the angel is in those details, that what has gotten lost in a lot of the discussion about how we use our authorities 

is just how the design of the Founders is operating to balance and 

to oversee the use of those authorities. 

The challenge for all of us who are in charge of protecting the 

American people is finding the space in American life to have that 

conversation, because it cannot be on a bumper sticker. It requires 

me to say, look at how Congress oversees me. Look at how the Inspector General oversees me. Look at what the courts do. Look at 

what I report on. And that seems kind of boring, but that is the 

most important part of what we do, to show people that the government is working. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. Thank you. Secretary Beers. 

Mr. BEERS. I would certainly associate myself with the comments 

of both of my colleagues. The only thing that I would add is as a 

practical and operational matter at DHS, we have a Privacy Office 

with a Chief Privacy Officer, and we involve them in all of our 

projects to both collect, store, and share that information. Almost 

none of it is what you would call intelligence, but it is information 

and it is private information about applications for citizenship or 

travel information or visas. There is a lot of it and it is certainly 

one of the major activities that we engage in order to ensure that 

we are good stewards of that information as we obtain, store, and 

share. 

Chairman CARPER. Should there be a similar kind of entity within, say, NSA that also, or the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance 

Court (FISA Court), focuses on privacy, as well? 

Mr. BEERS. What works for us is what works for us, sir. I do 

know that they do have individuals who work on these issues with 

their staff, just as Director Olsen mentioned they do at NCTC. It 

just happens that, uniquely, we have an office that is formally part 

of the organization with a Chief Privacy Officer. 

Chairman CARPER. Could you say to the American people with 

assurance that the gathering of all this information—and I realize 

it is impossible for NSA to actually listen to every telephone conversation, to read every e-mail, to be mindful of all the text messages that might be sent—but is there some way that you could reassure the American people that all the effort that is underway 

that we are talking about is actually for some good purpose, but 

actually for a demonstrated purpose because it has made us safer 

again and again and again? Can you provide any reassurance along 

those lines? 

Mr. COMEY. What I can tell you, Senator, and the American people, is this is an agency that is not some rogue actor, the NSA. We 

work very closely with them. They have a very strong compliance 

culture. And they are overseen in many different ways in their ac-
36 

tivities. What I say to folks who discuss it with me is, look, if you 

think the law ought to change, well, that is a discussion to have 

with Congress. But I have seen no indication that the NSA is acting outside the law or outside the scope of their oversight responsibilities. I just know from working with those folks, they are obsessed with compliance and with staying within the law. 

Chairman CARPER. Mr. Olsen. 

Mr. OLSEN. I would agree with Director Comey, and I, as I mentioned, served as the General Counsel at the National Security 

Agency. It is an extraordinary agency and it is an agency that is 

committed and, I think, using Director Comey’s word, obsessed 

with compliance. They have a Chief Compliance Officer. They have 

an Inspector General. They have a General Counsel’s Office. The 

leadership on down reiterates and reinforces the importance of 

complying with the law and the civil liberties and privacy of Americans. They follow the law when it comes to the collection of information involving U.S. persons. They do not indiscriminately collect 

information around the world. They serve to protect American 

lives, and that is what I saw when I served there. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. Thank you. 

Let us turn to the issue of dirty bombs, devices that could use 

radiological material, could sicken a lot of people, could cause significant psychological and, really, economic damage on a community. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in the Department of Energy’s, I think it is the National Nuclear Security Administration, I believe they are responsible for the security of radiological sources. I think there was a GAO report, I want to say it 

was about a year ago, maybe September of last year, an audit that 

revealed that the U.S. medical facilities that house radiological material still face some challenges securing their supplies from potential theft. 

Director Olsen, I do not know if you have any thoughts that you 

could give us, but what is the Intelligence Community’s assessment 

of the likelihood that Al-Qaeda or one of its affiliates will seek to 

acquire radiological materials in order to try to make a dirty bomb? 

Mr. OLSEN. I think what I can say in this setting is that we have 

seen over time some degree of interest along those lines, but nothing at this point that I would consider to be more than the sort of 

most basic aspirational type of interest by a terrorist organization. 

And I am not familiar with the report that you referenced. 

Chairman CARPER. OK. And, Director Comey and Secretary 

Beers, what roles do your agencies play in preventing terrorists 

from building and potentially detonating a dirty bomb in the 

United States? 

Mr. COMEY. I could probably answer for both of us. We share a 

responsibility that, at the FBI, we execute through our Weapons of 

Mass Destruction Directorate, one of whose responsibilities is to 

work with DHS to understand what are the potential sources of 

materials that terrorists could use to harm us and what are the 

trip wires we put in place so that we can know if something suspicious is happening around that material. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. Secretary Beers. 

Mr. BEERS. The only thing that I would add is we do have the 

ability to at least screen with radiation detectors at our ports of 
37 

entry. Obviously, it is possible that you could shield that information, but at least it gives us a first order sensor system to try to 

determine whether or not that information comes into the United 

States. We have also, through our grants program, helped State 

and local authorities obtain first order radiation detectors so that 

they can also look for that material within the country. But the key 

here is that we and the Bureau work together very much on this 

kind of effort. 

Chairman CARPER. OK. Good. We talked a little bit earlier about 

travel, terrorist travel, going to a place for a while overseas and in 

a place from which they can freely travel back to the United States. 

Let me just ask each of you, what are we doing to better track and 

monitor people traveling to war zones and terrorist safe havens 

and then deciding to return to the United States? Mr. Olsen. 

Mr. OLSEN. It is an important question and a matter of significant concern for us, Mr. Chairman. In particular, I would reference 

Syria as a place that we are concerned about because of the ongoing conflict there and the presence of extremist elements, including 

a group connected to Al-Qaeda such that it has become a place 

where literally thousands of individuals from other countries have 

gone to Syria to join in the fight, a number of them to join with 

Al-Nusra, this group that is connected to Al-Qaeda. 

At NCTC, we work closely with the FBI and DHS to track the 

travel of any individuals that we have identified as an extremist 

and to, if appropriate, place those individuals on the watch list. We 

maintain the central database of known and suspected terrorists. 

That central database for the government provides a resource for 

all of our agencies as well as some of our partners around the 

world to identify those individuals and then to do what we can to 

look for the ways in which they are traveling, the facilitation 

routes, how they are funded, where they are going, and to disrupt 

their travel if possible, but at least to identify them so if they do 

return to their home country, and especially, obviously, the United 

States, we have a handle on what their activities are. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. 

Mr. BEERS. Let me add to that. This is truly an integrated effort. 

We sit together in terms of trying to pull together the lists of individuals that we have identified as potential threats to the United 

States. We also have a program with our, particularly our European allies because of the visa waiver program, to share information that they and we might have nationally with one another in 

order to add to the database that we have of the individuals who 

are of concern. 

We at DHS also support this effort through our travel analysis, 

looking for people who we do not know might have gone to Syria— 

or might have gone to Syria for nefarious purposes. We have a 

number of indicators that help us identify individuals who we 

might want to speak to at ports of entry as they return to the 

United States. 

I do not want to go into the details of that because I do not want 

to give away the way we actually do that, but we have a number 

of techniques which will allow us to identify somebody who it is not 

clear in terms of their travel record leaving the United States and 

coming back that they were anywhere near Syria. But there are 
38 

other indicators that can give us indications that we might want 

to talk to those individuals, and that is part of finding the unknowns as opposed to tracking the knowns, which I think we are 

pretty good at. 

Chairman CARPER. Good. Thank you for responding to that question. 

That is the last question I have except this is an opportunity for 

you, if you would like to each just give a short closing statement, 

please. And it could be something that has come to mind, something that you want to reiterate, something that you heard another 

colleague say that you think is worth emphasizing. Go ahead, 

please. 

Mr. OLSEN. Well, Mr. Chairman, first, let me just thank you and 

this Committee for holding the hearing and really for your consistent and steadfast support for the Intelligence Community and 

for all of our efforts with respect to protecting the homeland. 

The one issue, I think, that comes to mind goes back to Director 

Comey’s opening comments, and that is on the budget. We are 

struggling, like all other government agencies, to deal with the sequester cuts, and this is a real issue that strikes at the core of our 

workforce and it is something that I think bears raising in this 

forum. 

Chairman CARPER. And I am glad you did. Thank you. 

Mr. OLSEN. But, otherwise, I would just offer, again, to continue 

to work closely with you and the Committee going forward for 

whatever you need from us as we work together. 

Chairman CARPER. Great. Thank you. Director Comey. 

Mr. COMEY. Mr. Chairman, I would just thank you for having 

this hearing. These conversations are critically important to the 

American people. They should demand to know how we are doing 

our jobs and how we are using the power we have been given and 

we ought to answer and have those conversations. I should not be 

doing anything—we should not be doing anything we cannot explain. Sometimes it has to be in a closed setting so that the bad 

guys do not know what we are doing, but these conversations are 

what the Founders intended, so thank you. 

Chairman CARPER. You are welcome, and thank you. Secretary 

Beers. 

Mr. BEERS. I certainly would be remiss in not piling on the budget question. It obviously affects us enormously at DHS, with 

240,000-plus individuals and a vast array of programs. 

The second point I would make is the point that we talked repeatedly about. We really do need the cyber legislation. I know that 

you and this Committee are trying to do something on that, but as 

we have sat here and told you and you have told us that this is 

a critical vulnerability that the United States faces, not having 

that legislation leaves that vulnerability open and we owe it to the 

American people to be able to protect them and protect them better. 

Chairman CARPER. Well, those are all really good notes on which 

to close. 

I want to, again, thank you for your preparation, for clearing 

your schedules to be with us and spend time with us. 
39 

Dr. Coburn said to me that it is too bad the other Members of 

our Committee could not have been here to hear this and to participate in the conversation. All of them have several Committee hearings going on simultaneously and it is just difficult for them to go 

to every one of them. But about half of our colleagues were able 

to join us for part of it. Their staffs were, in many cases, here, but 

also watching on closed-circuit television back in their offices, as 

you know. 

Director Comey, this is the first time that you have been before 

us to testify and I am very impressed by the way you handled yourself. These other two fellows are seasoned pros and they lived up 

to their reputation. 

Rand, thank you for taking on all these responsibilities over at 

DHS and doing them well while we work very hard to try to get 

a Secretary confirmed and a Deputy Secretary confirmed so you 

can be a little less frenetic. 

Thank you very much, and I think the hearing record is going 

to remain open for 12 days. That is until November 25, at 5 p.m., 

for the submission of statements and questions for the record. 

And with that, this hearing is adjourned. Thank you again very 

much. 

[Whereupon, at 12:07 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

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