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FACILITATING AN ENHANCED INFORMATION

SHARING NETWORK THAT LINKS LAW ENFORCEMENT AND HOMELAND SECURITY FOR

FEDERAL, STATE, AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TECHNOLOGY, INFORMATION

POLICY, INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS AND

THE CENSUS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

JULY 13, 2004

Serial No. 108–254

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman

DAN BURTON, Indiana

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

DOUG OSE, California

RON LEWIS, Kentucky

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida

EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

NATHAN DEAL, Georgia

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

JOHN R. CARTER, Texas

MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee

PATRICK J. TIBERI, Ohio

KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. ‘‘DUTCH’’ RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

BETTY MCCOLLUM, Minnesota

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

MELISSA WOJCIAK, Staff Director

DAVID MARIN, Deputy Staff Director/Communications Director

ROB BORDEN, Parliamentarian

TERESA AUSTIN, Chief Clerk

PHIL BARNETT, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TECHNOLOGY, INFORMATION POLICY, INTERGOVERNMENTAL

RELATIONS AND THE CENSUS

ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida, Chairman

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

DOUG OSE, California

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

——— ———

EX OFFICIO

TOM DAVIS, Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

BOB DIX, Staff Director

CHIP WALKER, Professional Staff Member

JULIANA FRENCH, Clerk

ADAM BORDES, Minority Professional Staff Member

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on July 13, 2004 ............................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Hughes, Lieutenant General Patrick, Assistant Secretary for Information

Analysis, U.S. Department of Homeland Security; Russell Travers, Deputy Director and Associate Director for Defense Issues, Terrorist Threat

Integration Center; and Willie Hulon, Deputy Assistant Director,

Counterterrorism Division, Federal Bureau of Investigation ................... 7

Lynch, Gerard, chairman, Regional Information Security Systems Policy

Board; Mark Zadra, chief of investigations, Florida Department of Law

Enforcement; and Suzanne Peck, chief technology officer, government

of the District of Columbia ........................................................................... 60

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Clay, Hon. Wm. Lacy, a Representative in Congress from the State of

Missouri, prepared statement of .................................................................. 45

Hughes, Lieutenant General Patrick, Assistant Secretary for Information

Analysis, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, prepared statement

of ..................................................................................................................... 10

Hulon, Willie, Deputy Assistant Director, Counterterrorism Division, Federal Bureau of Investigation, prepared statement of ................................. 32

Lynch, Gerard, chairman, Regional Information Security Systems Policy

Board, prepared statement of ...................................................................... 62

Peck, Suzanne, chief technology officer, government of the District of

Columbia, prepared statement of ................................................................ 90

Putnam, Hon. Adam H., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Florida, prepared statement of ................................................................ 4

Travers, Russell, Deputy Director and Associate Director for Defense

Issues, Terrorist Threat Integration Center, prepared statement of ....... 17

Zadra, Mark, chief of investigations, Florida Department of Law Enforcement, prepared statement of ........................................................................ 73

(1)

FACILITATING AN ENHANCED INFORMATION

SHARING NETWORK THAT LINKS LAW ENFORCEMENT AND HOMELAND SECURITY

FOR FEDERAL, STATE, AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS

TUESDAY, JULY 13, 2004

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON TECHNOLOGY, INFORMATION POLICY, INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS AND THE CENSUS, COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM, Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 3 p.m., in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Adam Putnam (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Putnam, Turner, and Clay.

Staff present: Bob Dix, staff director; John Hambel, senior counsel; Ursula Wojciechowski, professional staff member; Juliana

French, clerk; Felipe Colon, fellow; Kaitlyn Jahrling, intern; Adam

Bordes, minority professional staff member; and Jean Gosa, minority assistant clerk.

Mr. PUTNAM. A quorum being present, this hearing on the Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy, Intergovernmental

Relations and the Census will come to order. Our deepest apologies

for us running an hour late because of votes, but that is the nature

of this business.

Good afternoon and welcome to the subcommittee’s hearing entitled ‘‘Facilitating an Enhanced Information Sharing Network that

Links Law Enforcement and Homeland Security for Federal, State,

and Local governments.’’ This hearing will address the initiatives

and strategies being implemented to enhance information sharing

capabilities between Federal, State and local law enforcement

agencies and homeland security activities. There are many examples of direct and indirect links between criminal activity and terrorist-related activity. Accordingly, law enforcement agencies at all

levels of government should have effective collaborative capabilities

for information sharing.

The need to coordinate the efforts of Federal, State, and local

governments for homeland security is now well understood. September 11th highlighted the increasing risk of terrorist attacks on

U.S. soil. Consequently, Federal, State and local governments recognized the need to effectively unify efforts to enhance homeland

security by employing the unique contribution at each level a government can make on the basis of its capabilities and knowledge

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of its own environment. U.S. intelligence and law enforcement communities continuously assess both foreign and domestic terrorist

threats to the United States. In October 2001, Congress passed the

USA Patriot Act, to improve the sharing of information between

the intelligence and law enforcement communities.

Information sharing and coordination among government organizations are essential to producing comprehensive and practical approaches to combating threats. Having information on threats and

actual incidents experienced by others can help an organization

identify trends, better understand the risk, and determine what

preventive measures should be implemented. In addition, comprehensive, timely information on incidents can help Federal and

nonFederal analysis centers determine the nature of an attack, provide warnings and advise on how to mitigate an imminent attack.

Also, sharing information on known terrorists and criminals can

help secure our Nation’s borders.

There is clear, compelling, and documented evidence to support

the notion that there are instances of a direct link between criminal activity such as drug trafficking, illegal gambling, and money

laundering whose primary beneficiaries are terrorist organizations.

Cutting off funding sources and interrupting the linkage that supports the threat activity will contribute to a more secure America.

Another critical issue in developing effective analysis and warning capabilities is to ensure that appropriate intelligence and other

threat information, both cyber and physical, are received from the

intelligence and law enforcement communities. For example, there

has been great public debate regarding the quality and timeliness

of intelligence data shared between and among relevant intelligence law enforcement and other agencies. Today we will not

focus on the rear-view mirror or dwell on past breakdowns in the

process of gathering or sharing information. Today’s hearing seeks

to address this matter in the unclassified space, with knowledge

that there’s an enormously valuable and important component of

information sharing managed and conducted in the classified space.

Regardless of source, it is important that relevant information be

available to appropriate decisionmakers to enhance our prevention

efforts in the law enforcement and homeland security communities

on behalf of protecting our citizens from foreign and domestic

threats. We need only to be reminded of the sniper tragedy in the

Washington area during the fall of 2002 to reflect on the intrinsic

value of such collaboration.

During this hearing, we will examine the efforts and progress

achieved in developing secure, reliable, and interoperable information sharing networks that facilitate a comprehensive real-time information sharing capability that is dependable and respects privacy. The subcommittee will seek a better understanding of how

improved collaboration and communication will enhance two-way

flow of information between Federal, State and local law enforcement entities. With the threat environment that exists in the world

today, it is increasingly important that cross-agency and intergovernmental collaboration is effective and efficient. Accordingly, the

subcommittee will explore progress and obstacles to achieving the

most successful implementation of a strategy for information sharing related to law enforcement and homeland security.

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We have a very distinguished panel of witnesses today and I look

forward to their testimony and the opportunity to explore these

matters in greater detail. Today’s hearing can be viewed live via

Webcast by going to reform.house.gov and clicking on the link

under live committee broadcast.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Adam H. Putnam follows:]

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Mr. PUTNAM. At this time, I would yield to the gentleman from

Ohio for any opening statements he may have. You are recognized

for 5 minutes.

Mr. TURNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to congratulate

you on your efforts to continue the review of the issues of technology and how it plays an important role in homeland security. So

much of the work we have had in front of us has been an ascertainment of areas in which we need to bolster the ability for agencies

to work together both in information sharing and just in basic communications, so I appreciate your focus on this issue.

Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you very much. And we will insert Mr.

Clay’s statement for the record at the appropriate time.

At this time, we will move directly into testimony. If the first

panel would please rise for the administration of the oath and anyone accompanying who will be providing answers.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. PUTNAM. All the witnesses have responded in the affirmative, and we will move to testimony. As you know, you have a light

panel on your desk indicating the 5-minute time restraints, and the

bulk of your statement will be inserted into the record.

Our first is Lieutenant General Patrick Hughes, U.S. Army, retired, the Assistant Secretary for Information Analysis with the Department of Homeland Security. General Hughes assumed his current duties on November 17, 2003. He was formerly president of

PMH Enterprises, LLC, a private consulting firm specializing in intelligence, national security and international relations. He retired

from the U.S. Army on October 1, 1999 after more than 37 years

of military service beginning as an enlisted soldier and combat

medic in January 1962. His last Active-Duty assignment was Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, a position which he held

for 31⁄2 years. Other positions included Director of Intelligence, J2,

Joint Staff and DIA, Director of Intelligence J2 U.S. Central Command, and Commanding General of the U.S. Army Intelligence

Agency. We appreciate the work that you have done for this Nation

and you are recognized for your opening statement.

STATEMENTS OF LIEUTENANT GENERAL PATRICK HUGHES,

ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR INFORMATION ANALYSIS, U.S.

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY; RUSSELL

TRAVERS, DEPUTY DIRECTOR AND ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR

FOR DEFENSE ISSUES, TERRORIST THREAT INTEGRATION

CENTER; AND WILLIE HULON, DEPUTY ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, COUNTERTERRORISM DIVISION, FEDERAL BUREAU OF

INVESTIGATION

General HUGHES. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and Congressman Turner and other distinguished staff of the subcommittee.

I am privileged to appear before you today to discuss the current

status of the progress being made by the Department of Homeland

Security to coordinate efforts to achieve common goals. In this case,

we are focused on information sharing and collaboration. Information sharing is becoming more common throughout the Federal,

State, territorial, tribal, major city, local and private sector environment in which DHS interacts. However, we have not yet comVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:43 Feb 11, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00011 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\98119.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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pleted the mechanisms to engage in information sharing nor have

we fully developed the systemic methodology necessary to fully

achieve our collaborative goals. We are working toward that end as

rapidly as we can.

Our goal is to effectively, efficiently, and synergistically pass and

receive information in all of its forms for the benefit of the U.S.

Government, our nonFederal constituents and DHS entities. In

order to achieve this goal, we must build an architecture with technical and procedural transparency and interoperability wherever

possible.

However, the most significant impediments to information sharing are not technological. They are legal and cultural and evolve

both policy and procedure. In response to these and other challenges, DHS has established an Information Sharing and Collaboration Center which will achieve improvements in these areas. The

primary means of interdepartmental, interagency, and intersector

communication, intersector communication being two way, that

DHS will use is the Homeland Security Information Network, otherwise known as HSIN. The service system and capabilities that

form the larger network are on the way to being fielded throughout

the State and territorial constituency with plans to expand that

fielded element to all other partners and associates as soon as possible.

Given our imperative to provide support and assistance to State

and local officials, it is no longer sufficient to have vertical and horizontal linkage just with some of the participants. The Nation must

achieve a fully collaborative environment through which homeland

security officials, law enforcement, first responders, and decisionmakers can fully interact, across traditional boundaries, seamlessly

and effectively to deal with issues of terrorism and response to terrorism and other emergency conditions.

I would like to inform you at the present time, including our participation in the newly constructed Homeland Security Interactive

Operations Center, we in DHS at the Office of Information Analysis, which I am privileged to head, have the following connectivity:

standard telephone; secure telephones; facsimile of all kinds; wideband encrypted NSTS, or gray phone; courier service; standard

Internet connectivity; open-source information system and

NIPRNet connectivity; SIPRNet connectivity; joint worldwide intelligence communication system linkage; secure VTC capability; and

many software and hardware tools which collectively affords us access to virtually every communication and information sharing

level and capability that we need to fully engage in the intelligence

function.

We have liaison officers with online access to the CIA, to the Terrorism Threat Integration Center, TTIC, to the National Security

Agency, to the National Geospatial Agency, DOD, and especially to

the Federal Bureau of Investigation. All of those liaison officers

have access to their automated systems of their organizations. We

are fully integrated into the national government meeting mechanism. We are making steady progress to connect to the Homeland

Security Information Network.

We can do the job now and do it well. We seek to continue to

make progress to more fully realize the goals we have set for broad

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and unfettered access to as much information as possible in the

shared context to secure our homeland.

Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, this concludes

my prepared statement. Thank you very much.

Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you very much, General Hughes.

[The prepared statement of General Hughes follows:]

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Mr. PUTNAM. Our next witness is Mr. Russell Travers. Mr.

Travers is serving as TTIC Deputy Director and the Associate Director for Defense Issues. Mr. Travers manages the governmentwide information sharing initiative, TTIC’s red team, and knowledge-development efforts in the maintenance of the USG’s terrorists’ identities’ data base. He is responsible for TTIC’s interaction

with DOD’s analytic efforts focused on terrorism. Formerly he was

the Deputy Director for Policy Support at the Defense Intelligence

Agency and responsible for intelligence support to the Office of Secretary of Defense, managing activities of the Defense intelligence

officers and overseas liaison officers, administering special access

programs and organizing agency support to homeland defense. He

received his B.A. in government from the College of William &

Mary and his J.D. from George Washington. Welcome to the subcommittee.

Mr. TRAVERS. Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee, I am

pleased to be here today to discuss TTIC’s role in information sharing. I will summarize three areas from my written statement: first,

TTIC’s access to information; second, TTIC information sharing initiatives; and third, an important qualifier about what information

sharing can and can’t do.

First, our access. TTIC is an integration center, and by DCI directive we are to have unfettered access to terrorist threat-related

information. For the last 14 months we have been working with the

community to achieve that all-encompassing access. With our recent move to a new facility, TTIC analysts can now access up to

21 networks from across the relevant communities. That number

will soon grow to at least 26. To give you some perspective on what

that means, I am a Defense Department assignee to TTIC. At my

desk, I can access the CIA operational traffic related to terrorism.

At my desk, I can access FBI case files related to international terrorism. We have come a very long way. To be sure, we are still

working some access issues, and our CIO is intently focusing on

how we handle assimilation of data and the ability to efficiently

search across the holdings from so many diverse networks. But the

progress over the past 14 months has been exceptional.

The second issue I want to address relates to a number of TTIC

initiatives associated with information sharing. Importantly, by

DCI directive our mandate is to work information sharing at the

Federal level, and so I will focus on horizontal information sharing.

However, we are posturing ourselves to support the FBI and DHS

with their critical vertical information sharing responsibilities and

I will be happy to address some of those initiatives during Q and

A.

With regard to horizontal information sharing, TTIC has established a program office to implement the March 2003 information

sharing memorandum of understanding. This office is working with

our community partners in the full range of impediments associated with information sharing: originated control information, third

agency rule, no double standard, terror lines and so forth. The community can detail progress across the board, I believe. For instance,

pure terrorism reporting has grown by a factor of 6 since before

September 11.

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In terms of the technical advances to share terrorism information, TTIC’s CIO has been leading community efforts. In August of

last year, we launched the TTIC online Web site which is populated with terrorism-related information. This highly secured capability can reach virtually the entire structure of the Federal Government, hosting over 2,800 users. TTIC Online reaches all traditional Intelligence Community terrorism analytic elements, but

also FBI headquarters, all JTTFs, Department of Homeland Security, the military commands and numerous other organizations

that have a need for terrorism threat information: the Departments

of Interior and Agriculture, for example.

The success of TTIC Online can be seen by a comparison with

the analogous capabilities that existed in September of 01. The

user base is six times greater. Five times as many organizations

participate. The average number of document hits per week has

grown by 500 times. And the total repository of documents has

grown from 1 to 3.5 million. Just over a month ago, TTIC deployed

a SIPRNet version of TTIC Online. This has the potential to dramatically increase situational awareness for those tens of thousands of individuals involved in the war against terrorism but don’t

have access to the Top Secret Network.

Moreover, to help support vertical information sharing, TTIC will

be deploying a sensitive but unclassified presence of TTIC Online

on the open-source information system network.

I hope it is apparent that TTIC is taking a very aggressive approach to improving information sharing across the government.

And while we are second to none in espousing the importance of

information sharing, I do want to close with a few cautionary

words:

First, information sharing has become a bit of a bumper sticker;

everybody supports it, but few appreciate the complexities of implementing it. There are almost invariably a complicated mix of technical security, policy, and legal issues associated with sharing information. Source sensitivity is real. Operational considerations do

exist. Privacy matters do pertain. And the technical capabilities of

government networks vary widely. There are always going to be

impediments and reasonable people can and do disagree.

Second, I am increasingly concerned with something that could

be called effective information sharing. As we see the explosion of

networks and Web sites, organizations can post their data and legitimately say they have shared their information. Whether anyone

on the other end knows it is there and reads it is an entirely different matter.

Third, information sharing is not and will never be a panacea.

If we don’t have a basic terrorism analytic business process right

and have an established critical mass of analytic talent, we can

pass information all over the government and still not connect the

proper dots. Indeed we could face the prospect of being wrong faster. Terrorism is an extraordinarily difficult analytic problem and

the key is having long-term expertise available to sort through the

reams of information, much of which is inaccurate, contradictory,

or utterly irrelevant. This in no way demeans the importance of information sharing, merely to point out that information sharing is

necessary but not sufficient.

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Thank you for your time. TTIC looks forward to continuing to

work with the subcommittee and I will be happy to answer any

questions.

Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Travers follows:]

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Mr. PUTNAM. Our third witness is Mr. Willy Hulon. Mr. Hulon

is the Deputy Assistant Director of the Counterterrorism Division

at the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He began his career as an

FBI Special Agent in September 1983. In July 2001, Mr. Hulon was

designated Chief Inspector for the FBI. In October 2002, Director

Mueller appointed Mr. Hulon as Special Agent in Charge of the

FBI’s Detroit Division. In his capacity, he worked closely with the

Detroit JTTF and oversaw a wide range of investigations.

Delighted to have him here today to discuss all of the FBI’s information sharing initiatives and welcome you to the subcommittee,

and you are recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. HULON. Good afternoon, Chairman Putnam, Ranking Member Clay, and members of the subcommittee. Thank you for inviting me to speak to you on the information sharing issues that face

the Federal Bureau of Investigation and members of the intelligence and law enforcement communities.

The terrorist threat of today poses complex challenges. Today’s

terrorists operate seamlessly across borders and continents. Aided

by sophisticated communications technologies, they finance their

operations with elaborate funding schemes and patiently and methodically plan and prepare their attacks. To meet and defeat this

threat, the FBI must have several critical capabilities. First, we

must be intelligence driven. To defeat the terrorists, we must develop intelligence about their plans and use that intelligence to disrupt those plans. We must be global. We must continue our efforts

to develop our overseas law enforcement options, our partnerships

with foreign law enforcement and intelligence services, and our

knowledge and expertise about foreign cultures and terrorists adversaries overseas. We must have networked information technology systems. We need the capacity to manage and share our information effectively. Finally, we must remain accountable under

the Constitution and the rule of law. We must respect human

rights and civil liberties as we protect the American people.

The FBI has an information and intelligence sharing strategy.

The strategy recognizes that we have a responsibility to the Nation

to disseminate information broadly, that we will share information

by rule and withhold by exception, and the sharing is cross-community in nature. The FBI will protect sources and methods by separating what needs to be shared from how the information was obtained. Our strategy is implemented through both collaborative initiatives and information system connectivity initiatives both on a

national scale and in local projects. Collaborative initiatives bring

together personnel and processes in a common setting to facilitate

information sharing through each agency’s information systems. Information system connectivity initiatives share data electronically

by combining the respective agency’s data technologically in some

form.

As local and regional collaborative intelligence centers are being

established across the country, the FBI has been asked to take an

active role in building the intelligence processes in these initiatives.

Through our field intelligence groups in each field office, we are

contributing personnel, intelligence process development, information access and funding. To further strengthen our collaborative efforts with both local and national benefits, we have established an

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intelligence reporting capability in each of our joint terrorism task

forces through the assignment of field intelligence group personnel.

We can ensure that terrorist threat information collected by the

JTTFs is quickly disseminated to all who need it to protect the

country.

On a national scale, the Law Enforcement National Data Exchange, or NDEX, is being developed by the FBI as the principal

nationwide system for sharing criminal incident report data to link

law enforcement interests and enhance law enforcement strategic

planning. NDEX prototypes are being tested now and we are seeking new Department of Justice policy for Federal crime reporting

to match local and State crime reporting. Other examples of national intelligence and information sharing systems are Law Enforcement Online, or LEO, and the Homeland Security Information

Network. The FBI is using LEO to post and disseminate a variety

of intelligence products to State and local police as well as to publish its intelligence priorities. We are working closely with DHS to

support its mission by collaborating on information and intelligence

sharing on DHS information networks.

The FBI supports and participates in local and regional information sharing projects such as LINX in Seattle, WA, which was conceived by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. LINX is an innovative example of an initiative to integrate disparate law enforcement information into a single data warehouse with the latest

analytical tools to produce valuable intelligence that will help prevent terrorism and other crimes. Other examples are the upstate

New York Regional Intelligence Center and the California State

Warning Center.

Thank you again for inviting me to speak to you today on the information sharing issues that face the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other members of the intelligence and law enforcement

communities. It will be my pleasure to answer any questions you

may have at this time.

Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hulon follows:]

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Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Clay, do you have a statement you would like

to place in the record?

Mr. CLAY. I do, Mr. Chairman. And I will forego reading if we

can get right into the questions and I ask that my remarks be inserted into the record.

Mr. PUTNAM. Without objection, your opening statement will be

inserted into the record and you are recognized for 5 minutes of

questioning.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Wm. Lacy Clay follows:]

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Mr. CLAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to start with

Mr. Hughes. Does DHS plan to replace existing systems with a new

national communications infrastructure? And if so, what are the

specific milestones for implementing a national infrastructure?

General HUGHES. To the best of my knowledge, we do not have

any intent to replace what you have referred to there, sir, as the

national communications infrastructure. We plan to use it and ride

upon it, connect using the capabilities that exist now and those

that come in the future. But the Homeland Security Information

Network does not duplicate most of that structure. It merely rides

upon it.

Mr. CLAY. Mr. Hughes, let me ask you about TSA. Are we safer

in our airports now since September 11 with TSA? Do they have

the adequate information in order to be able to detect what probably shouldn’t be on an airplane?

General HUGHES. Yes, we are safer. And they do have information that tips them off to persons that we call persons of interest.

It happens many, many times every day that persons who have

come to our attention through intelligence or other information

channels are sent to the Transportation Security Agency screeners

and to the Customs and Border Protection officers that man the

points of entry. TSA, itself, as you know is not an armed law enforcement organization, but Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Federal Bureau of Investigation and local police, of course, take care of the law enforcement portion of that activity.

Mr. CLAY. I notice that in some airports TSA interacts with private security companies.

General HUGHES. That is true.

Mr. CLAY. How does that work?

General HUGHES. I think it is a cooperative association where

some of the functions of screening passengers for their documentation especially—I will use as an example when you get into a line

at the airport to approach the TSA screening point, you have to

present a photo identification and your ticket in order to pass into

the screening point, and often those persons are local security people who have been contract hired to perform that function. But the

function of screening the individual, their carry-on luggage and

person, is the TSA’s function.

Mr. CLAY. I thank you for that explanation.

Let me ask a question of the entire panel and we can start with

Mr. Hulon. It seems to me that the goals for information sharing

among stakeholders are well established, but the emergence of new

threats make determining what our domestic or international

threats are less clear. Are the stakeholder agencies such as DOJ,

DHS and DOD working on methods to refine their determinants for

what constitutes domestic or international-related incidents?

Mr. HULON. Yes, sir. Actually, Federal law enforcement is working collectively to identify those threats as we develop the intelligence. I think the thing that is really key is that through various

relationships that are established specifically at the State and local

level with the JTTFs, that information is passed to the appropriate

local agencies so that we can take the right precautionary action

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to either disrupt or to gain additional information in regards to the

potential threat.

Mr. TRAVERS. Yes, sir. I believe TTIC is a manifestation of exactly the phenomena about which you speak. We are represented

with partner agencies to include the three you mentioned and we

have 16 organizations within TTIC. And our job is to bring together

threat information whether it is collected domestically or abroad.

So we are precisely attentive to that problem with a blurriness between domestic and foreign threats.

General HUGHES. I think, first of all, Mr. Hulon’s characterization is one that I would certainly agree with and certainly Mr.

Travers, that this is a cooperative group effort and it is largely

about human beings. It is largely about identifying persons who

have for some reason come to our attention, and then processing

them appropriately.

In order to do that every day, we have to engage in some form

of interaction. Quite often it is at a meeting, or sending a message

to each other alerting one or another agency involved in this process about those people of interest. And that is working well, however it is not perfect. And frankly, it is about as dynamic as the

traveling public who comes to America and travels inside America

is. It is a very large body of activity and human beings to deal

with.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you. Mr. Travers, since TTIC is not actually

under the domain of the CIA or FBI, can its efforts to break down

the barriers for information sharing between the two agencies be

successful over the long term of its operation, and has TTIC had

any managerial or strategic disagreements with its participating

agencies on how to pursue its mission or goals?

Mr. TRAVERS. Two part question. With regard to information

sharing barriers, I believe that we have enjoyed extraordinary success working with our partners across the government. As I suggested in my statement, none of these issues, at least in our view,

lends itself to an easy fix. They have multiple components. There

are, as suggested, source sensitivities, operational considerations,

and there is always a balance; and we work with our partner organizations on a daily basis to break down the institutional barriers

that exist and we have enjoyed substantial success.

With regard to disagreements, I think it’s fair to say that there

is ambiguity in TTIC’s mission relative to many other terrorism

analytic organizations’ missions across the government. I believe

that is to be expected. We are dealing with organizations, departments, and agencies that go back to the National Security Act. We

are dealing with some that go back to September 11. The government is not of one mind on precisely how best to sort this out, and

so we are working through that on a daily basis.

Mr. CLAY. Just as a followup, my concern would be that we

would not gum up the works to the point that it would hamper our

ability to apprehend someone or to point out the real threat or to

just make law enforcement that more ineffective. I mean that

would be my concern, and hopefully——

Mr. TRAVERS. TTIC has no operational responsibilities. I don’t

believe you would find any of our operational partners has gummed

up the works.

49

Mr. CLAY. Thank you for your response. And thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you, Mr. Clay.

Last couple of weeks, the press has reported on a number of DHS

initiatives to promote information sharing—including the expansion of the HSIN, which was launched in February—to the Secret

level and the upgrading of the new Homeland Security Operational

Center to promote information sharing.

With these and other efforts underway, how does the Department envision itself promoting information sharing between levels

of government? And how far a reach does the DHS plan to have,

and what role or other law enforcement agencies pulling in that?

General HUGHES. I need to correct something about the information there. We have not yet secured the Homeland Security Information Network to the Secret level. It is our attempt to do so by

December of this year. But we put the first part of the Information

Network Online at the Sensitive but Unclassified level. And we do

pass law enforcement Sensitive but Unclassified information over

that system. But the Secret classification will have to come in the

next few months.

Our intent is to connect to all States and we are now connected

to all 50 States to the governance level, either the State Governor’s

Office or the Homeland Security Office, or both, to all territories

and possessions. And I believe we have one or two of those remaining. But generally we are connected. We intend to connect to many

counties, if not all; all major cities; some municipalities which are

complex organisms like themselves, like Los Angeles and Los Angeles County. New York would fit in that category, too. We would at

some point connect to the tribal organizations, especially those that

have administrative burdens on the borders of our country with

Canada and Mexico. And last if not least, we intend to extend the

Homeland Security Information Network into the private sector, especially to those companies and business organizations which have

a nexus to their work ethic and national or homeland security.

Mr. PUTNAM. Let me ask each of you to answer this. Who determines what information is passed along the chain and who determines to whom it is passed? Is that TTIC’s responsibility? Who

makes that decision ultimately? And I want to begin with the FBI.

Mr. HULON. It would depend on the nature of the information.

But there are various systems in place to pass information. At the

FBI, we have an Office of Intelligence that is basically responsible

for assimulating and working with the other Federal agencies as

well as State agencies with the collection and analysis of that information. Depending on the nature of that information as far as

what it entails, what the threat might be or what the intelligence

value of that information is, decisions will be made on where it

goes.

For example, if it is threat-related information that impacts a

certain jurisdiction, then that information would go directly

through the FBI and the other agencies that are involved to the appropriate law enforcement agencies at the level that they could effect whatever action that needs to be taken. And that information

will be passed, say, to a JTTF, say, in Jacksonville, Florida. If

there was information that impacted Jacksonville, Florida, that inVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:43 Feb 11, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00053 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\98119.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
50

formation would come into the FBI and come into the appropriate

headquarters entity and then be disseminated to our appropriate

channels down to that field office and go to the field intelligence

group that we have there that is responsible for assessing that information, and then it would be disseminated to the appropriate

JTTF members or the appropriate law enforcement agency that

should get that information.

Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Travers.

Mr. TRAVERS. TTIC is not a collection organization. I have to distinguish between raw material and analyzed product. To the degree we receive products from the collection organizations, be they

FBI, DHS or NSA or CIA, we will make that material as broadly

available as the collector will allow us. If there are originator control restrictions, then, that may in fact restrict the amount of information that can go on a TTIC Online, for example. But to the degree we can make it available, we make it available as broadly as

we can. Our finished products will be the same in that some product will be limited for very narrow audiences at the most senior

levels of the government, but in general what we try to do is make

information as broadly available across the Federal structures as

possible.

Mr. PUTNAM. General.

General HUGHES. I think first, I think both answers are correct

and bear on DHS. I would like to give you two other perspectives.

Some information has to be sensitively applied, and so the answer

to the question who makes this determination, the answer I think

should be given as leadership often has to make that determination. We decide very specifically at the leadership level, and sometimes the Secretary will decide where information goes and who it

goes to and how it goes. And that would be the exception rather

than the rule. But we often find ourselves dealing with exceptional

information which if it didn’t go to the right place at the right time,

may have an unintended effect or consequence. That is especially

true of our constituency, much like the FBI’s. It is broad throughout the country. But in our case, it is not to Federal officials who

are of longstanding experience in the intelligence and law enforcement system, but instead to persons who might have even a year

or two of fairly spotty experience in handling federally originated

information. So this is, once again, I think the point was made earlier, it is a complete organism.

The last point I would like to make is that we are beginning

now—and I think the FBI and DHS have set the standard here but

others are doing this to, as frequently as we can, where it is appropriate, act jointly. Indeed, Mr. Hulon and I have recently acted

jointly to inform local officials about various circumstances. And

that communication mechanism, whether it is by secure telephone

or open telephone or message or however it’s done, gives added

weight and importance and perhaps motivation to those we communicate with about the information. It’s up to us to put it in the

right context. But that joint effort from the Federal Government

speaking together in some ways or collectively is vital to making

this information meaningful and clarifying it to the respondents

and people who receive it.

51

Mr. PUTNAM. Let me followup on that. TTIC does not generate

information, you disseminate it. That’s the point you wanted to

make earlier, correct?

Mr. TRAVERS. We do not collect information. We do have analysts

who will pull together all source products and disseminate those.

Mr. PUTNAM. If there is information about a potential event in

a given city, what I’m really getting at, there are dozens of Federal

and State law enforcement agencies that would immediately be involved. Where do you stop? You know, if you take Mr. Hulon’s example of something in Jacksonville, you only do the city of Jacksonville, or do you do the county or surrounding counties, particularly

if the airport for that city is in a different county? What point does

it stop?

And we can get into this with the second panel, when we have

some of our State and local representatives, but it is the most common complaint is that folks still aren’t getting the information. But

when you look at the number of agencies only in the Federal Government that might have an interest in that piece of information

and then to extrapolate it down to the boots in the alley, is there

a technological system for disseminating that information or does

it boil down to a judgment call by a human being?

Mr. TRAVERS. If that is directed to me, just a point of clarification. I don’t deal with State and local organizations. I pass my information to the Bureau and to DHS, and they are much more intimately involved in the vertical information sharing, so over to

them.

Mr. HULON. I can respond to that. Actually, it is twofold. We

have networks that we can use, such as inlets, if we have a general

message to get out, say if we are reporting something relative to

threats or trends that all of law enforcement should be on the lookout for, general information, that could go out over the inlets and

that is available to all law enforcement. Anybody can go on that’s

in law enforcement and get on to the inlets.

Mr. PUTNAM. They could. You make them aware that information

is posted that they ought to go read more about? Is that the way

that it works?

Mr. HULON. With inlets, though, you would have a local law enforcement agency, a State agency. There are dispatchers monitoring the inlets. They would see that and pull it off and it would go

to the appropriate person in that department. If we have something more specific, say to a general area, like a city or surrounding counties, you know, if that information should go to the city

and the surrounding counties, we will make a judgment call that

this information needs to be in this general area or this region, and

we would make the notifications primarily for the FBI through our

law enforcement networks which would be the JTTFs, which is

what we rely on. And we have a lot of agencies that are involved

in the joint terrorism task forces.

And what happens on the field level—and I can kind of speak to

that—we would make those notifications based on other associations that we have in that law enforcement community, whether

that would be with the sheriff’s association, police chief’s association or whatever. And that is one mechanism we can use to put

52

general information out to the entire law enforcement community:

you should be on the look out for this.

If it’s threat information that’s relative to an investigation or

something we need to disrupt, then, of course, that information decision will be made on who does this information need to go to so

we can effectively disrupt this operation or conduct this investigation without compromising it. And decisions have to be made there.

And those are human decisions that, you know, basically the field

office agent in charge is responsible for and we have networks to

really facilitate that.

And we talk about networks and we talk about IT systems, a lot

of it depends on what we have in place, and that is a collective effort of law enforcement. You see it a lot when you get outside the

D.C. area where you have State and local agencies working together, you have various associations, you have various law enforcement head working groups where there is a constant exchange

of information.

Now, could there be times where something might fall through

the cracks and one particular agency might not get informed of

some general information? That could in fact happen, but for the

most part, it is really the relationships and the liaisons that are

established among all the law enforcement that really helps to facilitate a lot of this information getting out.

Mr. PUTNAM. In a post September 11 world, if one of your agents

in Detroit made an observation, they had a hunch that was backed

up by some facts that there was an unusual interest in flight

schools, how would someone in Pahokee, Florida, where another

flight school was, know that someone halfway across the country

had made an observation that was relevant to them?

Mr. HULON. That information, say coming from Detroit, would go

through the Detroit field office and make its way back through FBI

headquarters to the Office of Intelligence where the information is

assessed, assimilated, shared with the components of the Office of

Intelligence which has participants from all the other agencies; all

that information would be put back together to bring it into some

type of understanding of this is a potential threat or this is a trend

we should be aware of.

And that is where sometimes TTIC will come in because they

would have access to that information. We might have someone put

an analytical piece together that would go out at TTIC or could go

out in the form of an intelligence bulletin from the FBI. And the

FBI intelligence bulletins are disseminated through LEO Law Enforcement Online where we have several thousand police agencies

access that information that are members of that network to where

they can get that information off. So information would be disseminated that way.

Mr. PUTNAM. At what point would TTIC be involved?

Mr. HULON. When the information comes back to headquarters,

TTIC would have access to that information also. And it could be

a collaborative effort where this would be shared with TTIC. And

they could work along with the other intelligence agencies to put

together an analytical piece.

Mr. PUTNAM. How long are we talking about? From the time this

report is filed until the time that other law enforcement agencies

53

around the country have the opportunity to pick up on it, how

much time has elapsed?

Mr. HULON. It depends. And another way this could work also

is information coming back to headquarters. It could go out as an

intelligence requirement where we would disseminate this from the

Office of Intelligence to State and local agencies where we have intelligence requirements that go out, to ask them to report certain

information or be on the lookout for certain information. If you

have that backed up through the FBI, it could go out through those

channels. A lot of it depends on the nature of the information.

Mr. TRAVERS. I would concur with that entirely. TTIC would

have instantaneous access to that information given that many of

our analysts have access to FBI Net. It becomes part of the analytic grist mill that is occurring amongst the various intelligence

organizations dealing with terrorism analysis and then is put out

as a product, and then the organization that’s responsible for vertical information sharing to push it down in the various ways that

Willie talked about.

Mr. PUTNAM. Let me approach this from a different angle. A telephone number is found in a cave in Afghanistan. How long does it

take before that telephone number is in all these data bases that

it then becomes actionable, or an address is discovered? How long

between the time that some marine picks it up in the bottom of the

cave in Afghanistan until the time that it winds up—let’s say it is

a Detroit area code, and ends up on one of his agent’s desk—how

much time elapses?

Mr. TRAVERS. It is going to depend on the medium in which we

get that telephone number, and I think I would rather talk about

this in closed session, if we could, but it’s going to move its way

back to Washington and be made available. But it could be some

period of time, or maybe very little period of time, in terms of the

amount of effort that goes into getting that number out of whatever

the mechanism is in which we recovered it. I will need to talk to

you about that off line, sir.

Mr. PUTNAM. We will do that, because it is the key to your existence. I mean, the whole point of TTIC is to rapidly assimilate and

then analyze and disseminate information to guys like Mr. Hulon

in Detroit when things are being discovered or heard or overheard

or whatever. Let me move onto the next question.

The volume of information that all three of your departments or

agencies generate, how much are we talking about here so that the

average FBI agent, the average police chief in a medium-sized city,

or the average intelligence law enforcement officer in a major police

department, are they just being covered up in threats all day every

day? Are there e-mails coming in every hour on the hour? Is that

something that is condensed into a weekly bulletin? If you take all

this data that’s out there, how much information does it become

when it reaches the end of the pipe?

General HUGHES. I will go ahead and start. First, this kind of refers in part to the previous discussion. I think this is a collective

attempt here—we’re trying to get specific information to the right

place, not every piece of information every place. I believe that

moderates the effect, the larger effect of so much information. But

I don’t know of a good way to characterize the volume except to say

54

that it is large and it is growing, because we are now getting information from the civilian population here in the United States as

well as from the traditional law enforcement and security organizations and from the Federal Government’s activities.

That large body of information is representing a much larger influx of information at some level, that I would imagine that there

are still some police departments, some homeland security elements and others, who don’t get too much information. And to be

honest with you, that may be a function and part of who they are

and where they are. It is just some places are much more active

than others.

If you went to the New York City Police Department, let me tell

you, the information flow is large but probably not as large as they

would like. I think they would like to have more; at least that is

what they tell me. So I don’t think there is an answer.

Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Clay.

Mr. CLAY. Mr. Hughes, since September 11, funds have gone to

States and localities to improve emergency response planning.

Many of these funds request the States to submit an emergency

preparedness plan. For example, the Office of Domestic Preparedness is requesting the States submit a statewide strategic plan for

fiscal year 2004 funds. Can you tell us what DHS is doing to ensure coordination among other Federal agencies that request emergency preparedness plans?

General HUGHES. I know we give the agencies and organizations

that submit those plans as much help as we can with regard to the

preparation of them. I would say probably not a happy constituency

out there. I know there are complaints about the application of

these funds, but it is frankly, quite difficult to do on a basis that

makes everyone happy.

But I am not sure if I understood your question exactly beyond

help to prepare the plan. Once we get the plan, we try to administer it appropriately with the other agencies in government here

in Washington.

Mr. CLAY. That was the question. I thank you for that answer.

Mr. Travers, although TTIC is funded through several agencies’

budgets, are there specific resource allocation concerns that Congress needs to be concerned in order for the TTIC to fulfill its objectives?

Mr. TRAVERS. No, sir, I don’t believe so. We are funded out of the

community management account for operations and maintenance

and our building and so forth and our personal services are handled, given that we are assignees. DIA continues to pay my salary.

We are working a memorandum of agreement with all of the partner organizations to ensure adequate manning of TTIC, and I believe we are in good shape.

Mr. CLAY. According to recent GAO studies, there are still more

than 12 Federal agencies with more than nine different watch lists,

and that doesn’t include the CIA. Further, the GAO cites that in

spite of congressional direction, information sharing remains inconsistent and limited. What role is DHS claiming to make information sharing more seamless among Federal agencies?

Mr. TRAVERS. Asking me about DHS?

55

Mr. CLAY. You are familiar with their operation, like you are familiar with yours. How is information seamless among the agencies?

Mr. TRAVERS. Let me use the watch list example, then, if we go

back to that. TTIC has responsibility under HSPD 6 with maintaining an all source data base for the U.S. Government on all

known and suspected terrorists. So all sources of information, be

they from the Bureau, DHS, CIA, FBI comes into TTIC.

We maintain the data base on known and suspected terrorists

that is available to the community. Under HSPD 6, we then provide to the Terrorist Screening Center unclassified data elements

so they can make those available to any screening opportunities

that occur, be they in the United States or external. So it is a vast

simplification of what occurred in the period leading up to September 11.

Mr. CLAY. How do citizens who may show up erroneously on a

list, how do they address that?

Mr. TRAVERS. This data base will for the first time have U.S. persons in it. We are being assigned 15 FBI officers to maintain the

U.S.-person portion of that data base, and electronic communication will come in to TTIC. If an investigation is started up on a

U.S. person, if it is determined that person is no longer under investigation, we will get an electronic communication in to ensure

that we pull that person out.

Mr. CLAY. All of the lists from all of the agencies.

Mr. TRAVERS. For U.S. persons particularly. So we are very attentive to that.

Mr. CLAY. OK. Thank you for that answer.

Mr. Hulon, from your perspective, has the establishment of the

TTIC aided in the information sharing practices between agencies,

or is interagency coordination still inadequate?

Mr. HULON. I think there’s always room for improvement. However, I would like to state that I think, today, after September 11,

we are much better off than we were in the past, because what we

have is, collectively, you have a lot of agencies coming together and

actually, really making efforts to share information, just like some

of the cross-designations, when we talk about the various agencies

having representatives at other agencies, shops. Like in my division, in the Counter Terrorism Division at the FBI, the associate

deputy director is from an intelligence agency that works with us.

So, I think, collectively, we are really pulling together to make

sure that we are sharing information better. We are looking for

ways that we can do it that doesn’t violate any laws, that doesn’t

violate any privacy acts, and things of that matter. And I think,

with TTIC, what they are doing, like has been reported, they are

taking this information and going to a lot of public-source information and putting together analytical pieces that go out to the law

enforcement and intelligence communities that assist and enhance

our abilities to look at information overall. So I think, collectively,

we are moving down the road, and we are going to get where we

need to be.

Mr. CLAY. And you are comfortable that the coordination is there

and that the information is valid and good?

56

Mr. HULON. Yes, sir, I am confident that we are really working

toward that. We have made a lot of improvements in the last 21⁄2

years.

Mr. CLAY. I thank you for your response and thank the panel for

your response.

Thank you.

Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you.

Mr. Travers, you mentioned in your opening statement that information sharing is not just a bumper sticker, and I think that’s

well put. I mean, it’s terribly complicated, and the more you peel

the onion, the more layers there are as we get through this.

I believe you also were the one who said that technical capabilities vary between the agencies who need to be talking to each

other? And since this is the tech subcommittee, let me peel that

onion a little bit.

Mr. Hulon, the FBI is notorious for having lousy computer systems. Has your technology improved post September 11? Do you

now have the tools that you need, whether it’s in an office in Detroit or here at the headquarters, to be able to send and receive information in the 21st century?

Mr. HULON. First of all, I would like to maybe make a disclaimer.

I am not a real technical person. However, I do know that the FBI

technical systems are not quite where they should be.

Efforts are being made to improve those systems. However, we

are continuing to work through the problem. So, actually, I am just

not the best person to really get into the technical aspects of the

systems themselves.

Mr. PUTNAM. General, is that a problem? I mean, if you look at

all the agencies that used to be on their own and that are now just

under DHS and add to that all of the other agencies that DHS

needs to be listening to or talking to, how frequently, I mean, you

pointed out correctly that legal and cultural barriers are the biggest problems, but how often is technology the problem?

General HUGHES. I think it’s kind of a different question, if I

may rephrase it. Technology is what it is, and if we had the best

technology the world can provide, we wouldn’t have that kind of

problem.

It is true that some agencies are more technologically advanced

than others, but the FBI and TTIC and DHS sitting here, we probably have different variations on the theme of technological capability. But I personally believe that they could, all of us could,

interact, given the decision to do so. That’s my view.

My personal viewpoint—I don’t think I should speak for DHS

here—is that what prevents us from doing that is making a decision to do it, and that’s my personal view. I guess like you, sir, I

am a creature of the automation system I have at home. And the

only impediment I can see to interaction with virtually the world

is someone deciding not to interact with me.

Mr. PUTNAM. So, are all of the agencies now at a technological

point of equivalence that everyone is now adequate, everyone has

the tools they need to send and receive the information on an interagency basis?

57

General HUGHES. No. I don’t think I should go that far. Once

again, some agencies and some organizations are behind, technologically.

Mr. PUTNAM. And who is? Who is ahead, and who is behind?

General HUGHES. I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to answer

your question, because I would have to characterize organizations

specifically to talk about things that I may not fully understand.

I can look you in the eye and tell you that the Department I represent is technologically advanced. We are capable of interacting on

every level.

Mr. PUTNAM. You as the Department of Homeland Security?

General HUGHES. That is correct.

Mr. PUTNAM. And everyone that got folded up inside of you is

now technologically advanced and capable of communicating technologically?

General HUGHES. No.

Mr. PUTNAM. Well, then, who is you?

General HUGHES. Actually, I speak for myself, and my organization here. The intelligence side of the house is very, very good,

very, very capable.

But some other administrative developments are not—elements

are not, and some other organizational elements may have organizational shortcomings in this regard.

But, once again, I hasten to tell you, the technology is there. It

may not have been installed or it may not have been acquired for

installation, but it can be, and, in my view, it should be.

Mr. PUTNAM. Well, in my view, it should be, too, but you won’t

tell me where I am supposed to do it.

General HUGHES. Well, I will be glad to talk about DHS, if that

will help you.

Mr. PUTNAM. That will. That’s a start.

General HUGHES. Inside the Department of Homeland Security,

the organizations that were folded in under the large DHS umbrella include the U.S. Secret Service, the U.S. Coast Guard, the

former Bureau of Customs, the former Department of Immigration

and Naturalization, the Federal Protective Service, the Federal Air

Marshals and some other organizational entities. Each of those has

their own system.

Not every part of that system is compatible or fully interoperable, because it is composed of a set of legacy systems that were

designed some years ago, perhaps even as long as 10 years ago,

and other parts of that system are newly provided. They are newly

engineered into this amalgam.

So, across the Department of Homeland Security, we need to—

and we are, we have a program to do this, which I mentioned, the

information sharing and collaboration program, which is a formal

effort to normalize for purposes of interoperability and compatibility, across the organization, internal to DHS.

With regard to our external communication, the Homeland Security Operation Center, and the information analysis element that

I had, those two organizations between them do not have any compatibility problems with anyone else; we could make it work.

Mr. PUTNAM. Well, that’s all. That’s fantastic. That’s what we are

after. I mean, the title of this hearing is, Facilitating Information

58

Exchange, and we need to know where, where the information exchange is working particularly well, and where it’s not. And we had

a number of hearings prior to September 11th that pointed out an

awful lot of problems in communications, and I don’t think they

went away immediately, but I would like to know that we are on

some plan to make them go away.

And that’s just within the Department of Homeland Security, not

to mention the new monsters that have been created since then, in

addition to the DHS, like TTIC, and certainly the radical transformation that’s going on in the FBI, both culturally and in terms

of the scope of their responsibilities.

So, that’s why we are picking that scab, is because we are trying

to get to the bottom of this to try to figure out what we can do to

improve this thing.

And, you know, I know everybody suits up and goes to work

every day trying to figure out new ways to protect the American

people. We just want to know if you have the tools you need to do

it. That’s where we are going with this.

General HUGHES. I think that’s an admirable goal. And, speaking

for my organization—not others—you have done a good job of providing us with both money and technical capability to do the job.

We have taken advantage of it.

Mr. PUTNAM. Let me ask a final question as a segue into our second panel. Any or all three of you would certainly be welcome to

answer. How much good, actionable information do you receive

from the bottom up? We have spent most of this time talking about

how effectively you pass along your tips down to local law enforcement. How much good stuff is coming back up the pipe?

Mr. Hulon.

Mr. HULON. Mr. Chairman, I can speak to that, solely reflecting

back on my former duty as the agent in charge in Detroit. We do

get a lot of information coming up, and a lot of it might be relative

to preoperational type surveillances or suspicious-type activity

that’s reported back up to the FBI from some police officers on the

street. You know, they might see something that seems out of the

ordinary. And because of the relationships that are established in

the field offices, between the FBI, State and local law enforcement

agencies, as well as other agencies, that information is provided

back to that police department’s intelligence bureau, if they have

one, or directly to someone in investigations who might be associated or affiliated with the JTTFs.

That information comes into the JTTFs. It goes to the intelligence components in the field offices for immediate action if it’s

necessary, and then, of course, then, it can be channeled back to

headquarters, FBI headquarters, and goes to the Office of Intelligence to be assimilated in the total overall intelligence, as being

gathered and analyzed. So, it does come back up, too. I can’t really

quantify that for you, though, but there are situations where it

does happen.

Mr. PUTNAM. General Hughes.

General HUGHES. I think, once again, I think Russ Travers didn’t

answer, because he is not in that category. But we receive quite a

lot of information—it’s a growing body of information—from local

input. But it is not as good as it can be or will be in the future.

59

Part of that issue is the fielding of connectivity, and the case of

the Homeland Security is slightly different from the FBI’s in that

we are not dealing just with the law enforcement mechanism or the

security mechanisms who usually do have good communications,

mechanisms, even if it’s interpersonal. We are dealing with a new

body and a broader body of individuals, down to the citizen level.

We are getting reports from individual citizens who note something suspicious. They communicate that to the appropriate authority. Quite often, it’s law enforcement. But, whatever the mechanism, whatever the authority they communicate it to, that is now

finding its way, often in parallel, to the Federal Bureau of Investigation or other Federal law enforcement like ATF or DEA or

somebody like that and to the Homeland Security headquarters,

and that’s, I think, a very good thing. That will improve and grow

over time as we develop the mechanisms to interact with these people, and they understand their role, too.

And I would hasten to add to the explanation that Secretary

Ridge, on several occasions now, and in his most recent pronouncement, has noted the importance of an aware and involved citizenry

who begins to pass this kind of information to local authorities, and

then local authorities pass it to State and Federal authorities. And

in a digital, interactive environment, when the information gets

into the digital system, unless we, by some policy or procedural

mechanism limit it, it will appear everywhere.

It will appear kind of, sort of, let’s call it ubiquitously, throughout the digital interactive system, and that’s, I think, our goal.

That’s what we would like, so that everyone has this information,

knows about the problem or the issue and then follows up on it or

acts on it according to their own responsibilities.

Mr. PUTNAM. Very good. Thank you very much.

Again, I apologize for the fact that we were an hour late beginning. I want to thank all three of you gentlemen for the work that

you do and for the time that you have taken to prepare for this

hearing and joining us today. Your information was very helpful,

and we will be following up with you in a closed-door session to

pursue some of the other lines that we were unable to pursue in

this environment. So thank you very much.

The subcommittee will stand in recess for a couple of moments

while we set up the second panel.

[Recess.]

Mr. PUTNAM. The subcommittee will reconvene.

If our second panel of witnesses will please rise for the administration of the oath.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. PUTNAM. I would note for the record that all of the witnesses

responded in the affirmative. We will move immediately to their

testimony.

Our first witness is Mr. Gerard Lynch. Mr. Lynch serves as

chairman of the Regional Information Security Systems Center Directors Association and is currently the executive director of the

Middle Atlantic Great Lakes Organized Crime Law Enforcement

Network. Formerly, Mr. Lynch served as counsel to the New Jersey

State Commission of Investigation where he was in charge of the

Organized Crime Unit for the State of New Jersey. While serving

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as counsel, Mr. Lynch helped create and organize the

MAGLOCLEN Concept, later serving as the association’s secretary,

vice chairman and chairman. During his tenure with the commission, Mr. Lynch worked on the infiltration of organized crime in the

casino, construction, trucking and boxing industries.

You are a busy man.

Mr. GERARD LYNCH. Yes, sir.

Mr. PUTNAM. Welcome to the subcommittee. You are recognized

for 5 minutes.

STATEMENTS OF GERARD LYNCH, CHAIRMAN, REGIONAL INFORMATION SECURITY SYSTEMS POLICY BOARD; MARK

ZADRA, CHIEF OF INVESTIGATIONS, FLORIDA DEPARTMENT

OF LAW ENFORCEMENT; AND SUZANNE PECK, CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER, GOVERNMENT OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

Mr. GERARD LYNCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman,

it is indeed a pleasure to testify before this subcommittee. I am

going to try to lead my 5 minutes——

Mr. PUTNAM. Please pull the mic a little built closer to you so

our reporter can be sure to pick it up.

Mr. GERARD LYNCH. OK, I’m sorry. I am going to lead it into how

technology developed into the information sharing that we know

today as the RISSNET. In the early 1970’s, through the early

1980’s, the way we shared information—and that’s what the RISS

system is all about—was through the telephone line. We would

share information, talk to one another. The information would then

be relayed back to the inquiring officer. If need be, we would telephonically contact each one of the six RISS centers across the country.

Subsequent to that, we decided to seek approval from the Federal Government to give us the ability to electronically connect our

systems together, and that became the RISSNET I system, and

subsequent to that the RISSNET II system, where, when an agency

then calls us up, we didn’t have to call the other RISS centers; we

would just do it over a wide area of network. It worked very well,

but it was still behind the times.

Shortly thereafter, we had a meeting in Baltimore, Maryland,

where we discussed how we could possibly use the internet for

technology exchange, and that’s where we really blossomed into the

system that we now know as the RISSNET system. The RISS system is comprised of about 7,000 law enforcement agencies on the

RISSNET system. We have approximately 70,000 individuals that

can use the system and use it well.

The RISSNET provides secure connectivity and electronic access

to law enforcement SBU information, encrypted e-mail, electronic

collaboration and data bases known as RISSINTEL, successfully to

all of the law enforcement agencies, criminal justice agencies, from

the Federal, State and local and tribal agencies.

We operate a current state-of-the-art technical capabilities and

systems architecture that allows member agencies to interact electronically in a secure environment.

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ing Plan, which was created not too long ago. When we decided to

hook up the system, we were very successful, and then we started

to look at other partners in order to avoid duplication.

We were approached by the High Intensity Drug Trafficking

Area Centers across the country, known as the HIDTAs, and their

main goal was to see if they could talk to each other electronically,

which they didn’t have the ability to do at that point.

Since RISS had at that point the only national communication

system around the country, they approached us. And in order to

avoid duplication and to save money, all of the HIDTA systems

partnered with the RISS systems, and they are now today

seamlessly working on the RISSNET systems. And each one of the

HIDTA centers are connected. There are 16 node centers on as well

as all 32 HIDTA centers around the country.

And that’s a partnership that has been working exceptionally

well since its inception. Besides the 16 HIDTAs, we have 15 State

law enforcement systems that have also hooked onto our system.

And what we have done is basically started creating nodes, and a

node is a system-to-system communication.

In order to enable that to work out, we had to develop using the

current technology, XML technology, which would allow system A

to talk to system B. So, for instance, if you are going to hook up

the Colorado State Police with the RISS system, we created this

XML translator that allows the Colorado system to transfer information over the RISS system that’s being requested by someone

maybe down in Florida. So it has been working and working out

well. And we were the first law enforcement entity to use the XML

technology, and we used it very well.

We are also have 16 HIDTAs that are hooked up. We have 93

U.S. Attorney’s offices around the country that are hooked up, the

Criminal Division of Department of Justice, the EPIC Crime Lab

Seizure System, law enforcement intelligence units across the country, the National White Collar Crime Center, The National Drug

Pointer Index Center, the National Telecommunications System or

NLETS, and the National Drug Intelligence Center.

We are also in talks with the Postal Services, Postal Inspection

Services, and with the Department of Defense ADNET, with the

Open Source Network of CIA and also the Department of State’s

OpenNet Plus system, and these systems are coming on, as we

speak, very, very rapidly.

We also developed the RISS ATIX system to talk to the first-responder communities, the Governors across the State, the mayors,

then the various critical infrastructures. And we have roughly

47,000 users of the RISS ATIX system, and we have RISS ATIX

online. We can go into more and more of that, but we are very

pleased with what the RISS system has developed to date.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Lynch follows:]

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Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you very much. I appreciate your testimony

and for your recognition of the clock. We will put all of your testimony in the record and get to the rest of it in questions.

Mr. GERARD LYNCH. Thank you.

Mr. PUTNAM. Our second witness is Mr. Mark Zadra. Is that correct?

Mr. ZADRA. Zadra.

Mr. PUTNAM. Zadra.

Mr. PUTNAM. I am sorry, Mr. Mark Zadra.

Mr. Zadra currently serves as chief of investigations for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement Office of Statewide Intelligence. In this role, Chief Zadra provides oversight for investigations, intelligence and business functions. This includes oversight

of automated intelligence systems, the Counter Terrorism Intelligence Center, Financial Crime Analysis Center, Computer Crime

Center, Investigative Intelligence Support and Publications.

Chief Zadra provides administrative oversight of Florida’s effort

in the implementation of the MATRIX project. He also chairs the

State of Florida Data Integration Committee, which functions to insure data interoperability and efficiency in data collection maintenance, analysis and dissemination. In addition, he insures coordination and consistency of intelligence components of Florida’s seven

Regional Domestic Security Task Forces.

Welcome to the subcommittee. You are recognized.

Mr. ZADRA. Thank you, Chairman Putnam, and the staff and for

the opportunity to speak with you today about some of Florida’s efforts in conjunction with our local, State and Federal partners in

information sharing across our State and Nation.

Following September 11th and the horrific events of that day, it

soon became quite apparent that local law enforcement in the State

had a role in ensuring security in our Nation. State law enforcement representatives began meeting from all over the country to

talk about how we could share the right types of information necessary to do that.

Resulting from those discussions were the development of the

MATRIX project, which stands for Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange. This project is to increase and enhance the exchange of terrorism and other criminal activity information among

local, State and Federal agencies. The project is funded by two Federal grants, and it currently involves five States—Connecticut,

Florida, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania—four States, I would

note, which are represented by members of your subcommittee.

There are other agencies that are, States that are continuing to involve in discussions regarding joining.

The funding was used to purchase hardware, software, communication support, to make each State a member of RISS, through

a RISS node, also develop secure Web sites and for data integration

efforts.

There are three main objectives of the MATRIX project. One is

connectivity. The other is Web-based access to data intelligence,

and the third is factual data analysis. On the connectivity side, as

Mr. Lynch had indicated, the RISSNET is used by all the MATRIX

participants for all their secure connectivity. And it’s graphically

displayed there, the six RISS centers.

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Florida is a node directly to that. The importance to that is that

the Criminal Justice Network within the State of Florida is a trusted, secure intranet which connects all of Florida’s criminal justice

agencies, over 1,000 of those. It provides e-mail services in a secure

environment, the ability to have interagency files and image transfers and, as importantly, it allows access to all different types of

applications that local agencies and State agencies make available

over the CJNet. And some of those are displayed on the materials

that have been provided to you.

The second objective, as I mentioned, was Web-based access. And

in that, we have, within each State, the desire is to be a secure

Web site, and that would leverage existing systems that are already built. There’s been too much time, money and effort placed

into putting in systems; those do not need to be duplicated.

You will see in the next slide, the Office of Statewide Intelligence, Florida Department of Law Enforcement. We do have a secure Web site, which allows us to provide law enforcement sensitive information to all of our local, State and Federal partners in

the State of Florida.

And regarding the first panel and the ability to push information, you will see, in the middle of that, the daily brief. That’s

something that we do every day. We provide a daily brief to all of

our partners, including the Homeland Security Operation Center,

about what is going on this day in Florida.

The third objective was factual data analysis, and that is the

ability to take information, which we discovered as a result of a

specific investigation of September 11, where the data aggregators

have commercially, public-available information. We discovered,

when that can be dynamically linked with data that States collect

and maintain—and those are drivers license and digital images,

motor vehicle information, criminal history, sexual offender information, Department of Corrections, that when you combine that

data, you can take what would be disparate data and make it very

meaningful for law enforcement purposes.

You will see displayed in the next slide, there is actual screen

shots from the FACTS program, and it shows that we can produce

information regarding subjects who are the subjects of criminal investigations, their relationships can be shown between individuals

of that criminal organization as well as photo lineups and

thosetype of things. The system has numerous security considerations in place.

The MATRIX board, which may represent each State and oversees the activities of the MATRIX participant, they, as well, address the privacy concerns.

And you will see graphically displayed there information that

when each member signs on to the system, it again acknowledges

again the purpose they are there and the guidelines that they are

to operate under. It also requests the need to identify a case number and the type of activity that is being examined.

The searches that are done within the FACTS application—drivers license, vehicles, corporations, telephone directory assistance,

property, deed, assessments, those types of things—it is used to investigate domestic security concerns as well as other types of domestic criminal activity.

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I would like to point out, too, the project has had a lot of misconceptions that have been attached to it. I would like to highlight

just one or two of those. Primarily, the FACTS application does not

do predictive analysis. It does not track or monitor individuals. It

does not collect the types of information that I believe our citizens

would be concerned about, such as their health records, where it

is that they shop, their credit information and thosetype of things.

Simply put, FACTS, within the MATRIX project, was designed

simply to allow law enforcement investigators to work more efficiently, pulling information that they have always had access to, legally, and it’s not unlike an internet search engine that you use to

conduct internet searches. It is a tool; it is not a substitute for investigative work.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to address you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Zadra follows:]

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Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you very much.

Sorry, Ms. Peck. We saved the best for last.

Ms. PECK. You did indeed.

Mr. PUTNAM. Our third witness on the panel is Ms. Suzanne

Peck. She is chief technology officer for the District of Columbia.

Prior to her appointment, she served as the senior technology and

operations executive for several Fortune 500 companies. Ms. Peck

is a recognized expert in the conception and implementation of

large-scale technology operations.

Her decade-long service as senior vice president, chief information officer of the Student Loan Marketing Association of Sallie

Mae helped transform the $46 billion corporation into one of the

Nation’s largest wholesale credit providers.

More recently, Ms. Peck was senior vice president of CoreStates Financial Corp. and chief executive officer of its $50 million technology startup subsidiary,

Welcome to the subcommittee. You are recognized for 5 minutes.

Ms. PECK. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman. I am the District of Columbia’s

chief technology officer, leading the Office of the Chief Technology

Officer, the central information technology and telecommunications

agency of the District of Columbia Government. I am pleased to

testify today on the District’s leadership efforts in developing an

enhanced information-sharing network that links law enforcement

and homeland security for multi-jurisdictional use.

In the District, we have developed an integrated suite of information-sharing programs for local, regional and Federal public safety

and domestic preparedness. This suite focuses on the exchange,

transportation, presentation and coordination of important public

safety and emergency preparedness data. And we are building this

enhanced information-sharing network to be fully interoperable

among District agencies, Federal agencies and regional and national municipalities.

In the area of data exchange, we are building a public safety and

criminal justice data sharing system that easily integrates this

data using only open-standard components which can be easily and

quickly replicated by other jurisdictions. This initiative is underway under the name of SHIELD, Securing the Homeland By Integrating Existing Local Data bases.

SHIELD currently shares data among 14 District and Federal

public safety criminal justice and court agencies and also shares

this data with similar agencies in New York City, Pennsylvania,

Maryland and Virginia. SHIELD provides access to available, unrestricted public safety and justice data through an interoperability

partnership of independent city, State and regional information

systems.

Through secure internet access, SHIELD allows justice and

homeland security officials across the region and the Nation to

share incident information and to perform comprehensive public

safety analyses in real time and to respond more rapidly with better-informed decisions in first-responder and terrorist situations.

In the area of data transport, we are implementing broadband

networks over which we are prepared to drive SHIELD shared-information data, both regionally and nationally.

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One network we are supporting uses the internet as the

broadband transport network. We’re implementing secure internet

connections, using existing components, such as browsers, ISP connections and commerciallyavailable authentication tokens.

Another network we are supporting is a pilot broadband public

safety network in the 700 megahertz band that allows us to transport real-time video-streaming data from first responder incident

sites to central command centers.

A third transport initiative we are underwriting is the District’s

leadership of the Spectrum Coalition, a national coalition of cities,

States and counties formed to advocate for national legislation that

would permanently allocate spectrum in the 700 megahertz band

to public safety so that States and cities throughout the United

States would have sufficient reserved spectrum to support vital

public safety wireless applications.

A fourth key data network effort in which we are participating

is the Capital Wireless Integrated Network, or CapWIN, a partnership among Maryland, Virginia and the District to develop an integrated transportation and criminal justice information wireless network.

In the area of data presentation, we are enhancing the uses and

usefulness of the justice and emergency preparedness data we

share and transport to municipal and Federal colleagues by presenting that data in innovative ways. The District’s DCSTAT system provides both nearly daily and real time capabilities to collect,

organize, report, and map data for use by local, regional and Federal agencies in the national capital region and, by extension, the

Nation. DCSTAT will enable local and Federal agency executives

and program managers to merge spatial data, that is map data,

with traditional public safety data to better predict and manage

public safety emergencies in a geographic mapped context.

In the area of data coordination, it’s critical to effective homeland

defense that first-responder and emergency management agencies

coordinate data planning and deployment. Our Unified Communications Center, UCC, a 127,000-square-foot building on the East

Campus of St. Elizabeths Hospital in Ward 8, will consolidate,

when opened in early 2006, District emergency communications

and traffic management functions and our 911 emergency, 311 nonemergency, and 727–1000 citizen service call centers.

But, in addition, the UCC will play a very key homeland defense

role, serving as the Regional Incident Command and Control Communications Center [RICCC], for the 17 major jurisdictions in the

national capital area. The RICCC will facilitate communication and

coordination among local, State and Federal authorities for effective and timely response to regional and national emergencies.

In summary, the initiatives I have just spoken about address the

public safety, criminal justice and homeland security data sharing,

transportation, presentation and coordination needs that are critical and urgent for the Nation’s capital and for the Nation. We have

designed our programs from inception to serve not only the District

but national homeland defense as well. Each of the elements of the

District’s enhanced information-sharing network can be easily expanded to local, State, regional and Federal agencies to meet homeland defense needs on a national scale.

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And we look forward and, in fact, are already working with DHS

and our county, State, regional and national partners in achieving

this.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Peck follows:]

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Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you, Ms. Peck.

I want to thank all of you for being here today and, in particular,

for being here so long here today. We were an hour late starting,

and you have been very patient, and fortunately, I am hopeful that

we will be able to complete this without being interrupted by votes.

But the award, I guess, for your resilience is that you get the last

word.

So my first question to each of you is to comment on what you

heard in panel one and give us some sense if things are going well,

not so well, and how you evaluate their observations from the Federal level on information sharing to prevent future terrorist acts,

and where there may be some differences from your perspective at

the State and local level.

So, Mr. Lynch, I will let you begin.

Mr. GERARD LYNCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I did listen very intently to the gentleman from the FBI as well

as Homeland Security, and what they are saying, there is truth to

it, although it was sometimes a little more difficult to get the information that we thought we would be getting sooner.

But, with regard to the FBI, just before September 11, we were

in discussions with the FBI about marrying their system, the LEO

system, with the RISS system so that we could have the Federal

entities also hooked up with the State and local entities systemwide, not individualized.

And since September 11, that became a reality. We are still

modifying it. We are still perfecting the relationship with the FBI

and the LEO system, and we are very confident that’s going to continue. We are getting the bulletins from the FBI that are needed

to share among the 7,000 law enforcement agencies that I previously testified about, and we are getting them on a regular basis.

We are also working very intently with the Department of Homeland Security. As a matter of fact, just yesterday, we had a meeting

with the IAIP section of the Homeland Security to see if we could

get some more seamless cooperation between the two entities. And

we seem to be on that road, and the road, I think, is going to be

leading to more and more cooperation and more and more sharing

of information.

In fact, on Monday, I have another meeting with the Department

of Homeland Security, and the purpose of that is to work out ways

that we can share information, use the systems that are out there,

the existing systems, and get the information to the entire community.

As you know, since RISS system has already developed RISS

ATIX, we have been there for several years. Homeland Security is

now getting into that field. And what we want to do is, once they

are in it, we want to marry those two systems up. And we are in

those discussions to make that occur.

So we are cautiously optimistic that things are improving, and

will continue to improve in the future.

Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Zadra.

Mr. ZADRA. Mr. Chairman, I believe that you would be pleased

to hear from the State standpoint that things are greatly improved,

as each of the gentlemen indicated.

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Probably would not be so pleased to hear, as was also indicated,

that we are not there yet with everything that needs to be done.

From the State’s perspective, it’s our belief and representative of

our local agencies, that what we need the Federal Government to

do is to help bring all of these systems together. As you can see,

they have sprung up all across the Nation. There were existing systems before.

What we don’t need is to go to a desktop and have to go check

120 different systems from across the country to connect those puzzle pieces.

What we need to do is to have the Federal Government, hopefully through the—was mentioned through the National Intelligence Criminal Sharing Plan, they indicated in their Criminal Intelligence Coordinating Council, which would be made up of representatives of the right organizations, to help us as a country

come together, and so that we can take and integrate all of the existing systems, to leverage what we have and not take all of this

funding that is going forward to the States and to the locals to

build, again, disparate silos of information. So there is a lot of work

that really needs to be done, and we would hope that the Federal

Government would help with that.

Also, I think it’s critical that what we need the Federal Government to do, and all of the agencies that were represented here

today, is we don’t need to query their data bases. We need information pushed to us. We should not be where we have to make individual phone calls to all of them. So that information that TTIC is

analyzing, it needs to be disseminated, and it’s currently, how it’s

structure is now that it goes to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which goes to their Joint Terrorism Task Forces or, first, to

the intelligence center and then to the respective Joint Terrorism

Task Force.

Within Florida, we have seven regional district domestic task

forces that have liaisons with each of the two JTFFs, and in fact,

in two of our regions, they are co-located with them. So we depend

a lot on Homeland Security for situation awareness. As there are

events unfolding in Florida, we make notification to their command

center. Likewise, they make notice to us and, through Jay Reeves,

as incidents that are occuring, issues of concern across the country.

On the intelligence side, we depend a lot on the intelligence coming

from—internationally coupled with the domestic—from other areas

of the country to funnel us from the FBI, in addition to the information and intelligence mechanisms from the Department of

Homeland Security.

Mr. PUTNAM. Ms. Peck.

Ms. PECK. The District of Columbia is in the unique position, not

only of being the Nation’s capital, but of being the single municipality in the Nation which is a city, a county and a State. So the

perspective I bring is of all three of those. And our perspective is

that, finally, all terrorism is local.

DHS, I think, is doing an extraordinary job at the Federal and

national level, and the system that we bring to the party is a system that we have implemented for ourselves to make sure that all

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ties in the District are now sharing their data for the first time

ever in the history of the District.

That system can be replicated through using commercially available components, in every municipality in the United States, and

the funding for that replication can be taken from local funding. If,

theoretically, every individual municipality in the State created

only just their own local information-sharing system, and brought

that system to a national consortium, all they would need, in addition to that system, is a browser capability, an ISP, a secure ISP

connection, and some authentication token so that integration

would be the only additional expense to making all local information in the major municipalities in the United States available.

What the District of Columbia is doing and believes very strongly

in is that system, where we don’t create monolithic new systems

and structures of communications but take locally funded information-sharing systems in municipalities across the Nation, connect

via commercial, secure internet connections and have data available in any kind of emergency preparedness or terrorist incident

where any combination of city, States, counties across the Nation

can converse with each other, local data availability.

DHS then adds the component that each of these systems, local

information systems, can also connect, as the gentleman from the

FBI told you earlier, with NWCCC, with NCIC, with LEO, with

HSIN, with all of the DHS systems and the Federal systems.

But a system of local data-sharing across the United States does

not have to be invented and implemented whole cloth. It already

exists. We are proving that and have proved it in the District and

have taken that system, already regionally, to the September 11

municipalities, to New York City, to Virginia, to Maryland and to

Pennsylvania and have piloted data exchange of local information

among all of those elements.

Our next step in this system, in showing that every jurisdiction

could build the system very quickly, and for very little marginal

cost, is to do what the first panel—you queried the first panel

about notification and alerts. The very next thing we are putting

into place is that system, so that system, nationwide, of notifications on alerts would exist at a local level, and we are also going

to the next production pilot. What we are doing is to connect the

entire eastern seaboard and have them exchange information.

From the Eastern Seaboard, it’s just one easy step to the Nation.

So the systems that we have built really are a pilot to show how

to have local data available in any permutation and combination,

available between and among localities across the Nation and

available to DHS.

So we look at DHS as the Federal information consortium, and

we are looking at local municipalities and connecting local municipalities.

Mr. PUTNAM. It sounds like what you just said, please correct me

if I am wrong, is that if DHS would just get out of the way, you

would have this thing done in a year or two?

Ms. PECK. Local, there—no, what I am saying is, our focuses are

different. The focus of DHS is Federal, national information. Our

focus is in working with them, and we are working closely with

them on these initiatives. And our focus is to have—when I say

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local information, DHS is not currently focusing on having local

mug shots, local fingerprints, local criminal records, local incarceration records at a very, very detailed level. Those are the kinds of

things we say, when terrorism occurs, are kinds of information you

are very likely to need as well.

And so we are, as I look at us, DHS’s partner in helping get that

information into the bundle without extraordinary expense, from

scrap expense.

We have simply shown how you can have all of that information

made available at very little incremental cost; only integration is

the incremental cost.

Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Zadra, MATRIX, a very innovative program

that you have brought up to speed in Florida, does DHS have access to that, or do they have to go through you?

Mr. ZADRA. We are still awaiting a final policy decision from

DHS. We have members of DHS, such as the Immigration, Customs, Enforcement representatives, within this State of Florida

who are assigned to our Domestic Security Task Forces. They have

access to the FACTS application, the MATRIX project.

One complicating factor, Mr. Chairman, since this is under a

pilot project and is funded by Federal grants, the information that’s

been provided to us is that Federal agencies, therefore, cannot benefit from the Federal funds for the position that it possibly could

be supplanting congressional funding. That’s a policy decision

that’s still being waited on.

Within Florida, however, the Federal partners to our task forces,

the State of Florida, our State legislature authorized additional

funding for us to purchase additional licenses, if you will, for use

by the task force members, and, therefore, we can provide those licenses to our Federal partners and not be in conflict with, perhaps,

that policy decision.

Mr. PUTNAM. Have you had an opportunity, post September 11,

to take this thing out for a spin and really see how it works in a

real live threat situation? Has there been an operation where there

was either a threat or a situation that required you to really exercise the system that has grown up since September 11?

Mr. ZADRA. Respect to FACTS, sir?

Mr. PUTNAM. Yes.

Mr. ZADRA. Yes, sir. Let me say that FACTS is utilized by the

regional domestic security task forces with the subject of concern

relating to criminal organizations involved in, perhaps, terrorist activities. So it is used every day by them.

An actual incident that happened, that I was personally involved

in, is we received a request from a Federal agency who had been

advised that there were a certain number of individuals who were

on their way to an airport within the State of Florida to bomb it.

And they had partial descriptions of vehicles but no tag numbers.

Some very suspicious circumstances regarding the individuals observed with those vehicles and the activities that they were involved in.

The request to the State of Florida was to provide for them, if

you will, the universe of those type vehicles that are registered in

the State of Florida.

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Prior to being able to utilize FACTS, the ability to do that would

have required an offline search through our Department of Motor

Vehicles which, in the past, has taken 24 to 48 hours to do. Within

less than 2 minutes, we provided a list of—and the numbers, our

round numbers of approximately 80 of one vehicle and 70 of the

other vehicle to them within 2 minutes.

The importance of that, however, is by dynamically combining

the State-owned data, which is the vehicle registrants, the drivers

licenses but, more importantly, the drivers license photographs,

when that material was provided to the Federal agency, it had the

list of all known vehicles that met that description within a 25-mile

radius of where the incident was reported. It had the motor vehicle

registration information, the address for each of those.

But, more importantly, it had the drivers license photographs for

those registered owners. And the Federal agency could go to their

witness, provide this and ask that witness, do you recognize any

of the following as that? Now, compare minutes to what really

would have taken weeks or, I should say, days if not weeks of a

table full of analysts and agents sorting through stacks of computer

printouts, only then to find a vehicle that may match the description. But then have to go make a separate query to identify the

registered owner, make a second query to then identify the actual

drivers license photograph associated with that.

Now, I will tell you that, in that particular circumstance that I

just referenced, that it turned out to be a hoax, so you might ask

me, why, Mr. Zadra, would you be discussing that as a success

story? And I would say this, it’s a success story from this standpoint, that every time it’s used, it enhances the investigator’s ability with respect to not only the hopeful successful conclusion of

that investigative league, but timeliness is what’s critical. And

when you are talking about a weapons of mass destruction, it’s the

time, it’s those minutes and seconds that count. So any time you

utilize FACTS is a success story, in my personal view.

And the other thing is that, if you think about this particular circumstance, of the hours that were saved by not having that table

full of analysts and agents pursuing leads relating to a hoax—this

all—there are numerous success stories, Mr. Chairman, regarding

all types of criminal activity. And if I could mention one more to

give you an idea of how successful of a tool it is.

Within Florida, we had a 15-year-old female who was victimized

by a sexual offender who was going around exposing himself to

young females within the State. A call came from local law enforcement. And this one young female, there was an attempted actual

abduction, so it went beyond just exposing himself to now attempted abduction. Fortunately, this young female was very heady,

used good technique, was able to obtain a partial description of attack, observe the facial description of the individual and was able

to escape from being abducted, provided that information to local

law enforcement. The call to us was, ‘‘We have a partial tag. We

have a color of a vehicle. That’s all we know. Is there anything you

can do?’’

Within minutes, we provided a list of, because you can do what

is referred to as a wildcard search within FACTS on a partial tag

number. But, again, it brought back the registered owner of just a

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few vehicles now that met that within, again, a mile radius of that,

where it was reported, and now, again, we had the photograph. It

was shown to the victim, immediately identified the subject, and

warrants were issued for its arrest. So that is how the system is

used effectively in pursuit of not only terrorism investigations,

which are certainly critical, but all types of criminal activity. What

we had found was we developed a tool which obviously was brought

about from the standpoint of and addressing counter terrorism efforts, but certainly, I don’t think any of us would find, if we had

a tool in our tool box that was multipurpose, that we would not utilize that tool for any other use.

Mr. PUTNAM. Well, that’s interesting that you are so willing to

disclose that your search took 2 minutes, and TTIC was reluctant

to disclose how long theirs took. I suspect, if it was as efficient as

2 minutes, they might have been more willing to disclose it in open

forum. I think that is a perfect example of technology being utilized

in a nonintrusive way to keep people safe, either from the traditional bad guys and as well as the, the new terrorist threat that’s

even greater in this post September 11.

Are you satisfied with the level of coordination from the Federal

level on these threats? And the example I would use is sort of a

nontraditional example, but it’s a big deal for Florida, and the example is the recent unrest and humanitarian crisis, actually, in

Haiti, that for several days bordered on what could have been a

massive migration to Florida. And in the middle of that, I can remember getting a briefing from the State Department on the preparations that were being made in anticipation of a refugee crisis.

And my first question was, ‘‘Are you, have you talked to Florida

about this?’’ and they said, ‘‘Well, no, we haven’t.’’ Well, then I

said, ‘‘You don’t have a plan if you are not talking to the people

who are about to be on the shores, receiving thousands of people

who are going to be in need of medical treatment and food and

shelter and clothing and all of these things.’’ And it really sort of

set off a red light that they still don’t get it.

Are you satisfied with the level of coordination that exists on

major, major efforts like that?

Mr. ZADRA. Mr. Chairman, I would say that I am encouraged to

say I am completely satisfied, I do not think would be the case.

There is room for improvement. Perhaps if it would make you feel

better with respect to that Haitian situation, we were very well

aware and were planning very diligently and were reaching out

and we’re involving our homeland security partners, the U.S. Coast

Guard, the Maritime Intelligence Center out of south Florida.

Fortunately within the State of Florida, we were the first State

to engage in a very innovative project where we actually have 35

of our regional domestic security task force members who are crosstrained and designated and have detention and arrest authority for

immigration issues with respect to domestic security.

So we had in place not only with our local law enforcement, but

also regional and domestic security task forces to have those representatives and members available to assist in that particular situation. We are continuing dialog and there is still a lot of work to

be done to ensure that the State of Florida, particularly our local

law enforcement, because as was mentioned, the issues always

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occur locally. So when you have boatloads of those that are migrating to our shores, they come to local jurisdictions as they pass

through the international waters, obviously. But when they get to

our shore, local law enforcement is the first to intervene. So we are

working through and we are in the process of finalizing some training, which would be for those jurisdictions that line, particularly

our south Florida coast line, where there would be specific individuals that would be trained and have the ability to do nothing else

but to stop and detain and wait for the proper Federal law enforcement representatives to effectively deal with that situation.

Mr. PUTNAM. Perhaps Ms. Peck or Mr. Lynch could comment on

what cyber security assurances are in place to protect the sensitive

information that is being transferred between jurisdictions, whether it is between the States and the Federal Government or between

States.

Mr. GERARD LYNCH. I think the cyber security issue is being addressed by the law enforcement communities that are members of

the RISS system. And not only do we put on trainings for the law

enforcement community about cyber crime and how cyber crime is

affecting the lives of the average citizens, but we are also posting

on not only RISSLEADS, or RISSLIVE bulletin board incidences of

cyber crime identity theft. We are finding out that more and more

of these State and local agencies are becoming aware of the effect

that cyber crime has had on the relationships of the citizens of this

country. And we really looked at it as part of a major crime, whether it is narcotics trafficking or gang activity. Cyber crime is just as

important, just as debilitating and just as an effective means of the

criminals to perpetrate crimes on the citizens of this country. So we

are up to date on that. We are looking constantly to ways that we

can combat it and we will continue that training of our law enforcement personnel throughout the country to ensure that cyber crime

does, in fact, become an entity.

Mr. PUTNAM. In your organized crime work in New Jersey, had

you ever come across an organized crime influence in cyber crime?

Mr. GERARD LYNCH. Such as identity theft?

Mr. PUTNAM. No. I would kind of lump, unfortunately, identity

theft into the more traditional basket of crimes. But utilizing cyberspace perhaps to affect infrastructure, bring confusion or affect perhaps local response capabilities or things like that.

Mr. GERARD LYNCH. The traditional organized crime members

were not involved in that. That was not even—I don’t think I’ve

seen any indications that the traditional organized crime was involved in cyber crime to the effect that they want to disrupt the

Internet and do something to shut down the communications, such

as the banking industry. What we are seeing and what RISS has

done is we have basically made our system very secure, so that

when they had that last attack on the cyber community, we were

being banged almost 20 to 30,000 times an hour from Russia, from

Belarus, from all the European countries, so it is a very severe

thing.

And if the private community does not pick up on it and constantly stay on top of it, they will be shut down as Citibank was

done during the last cyber crime attack. We are aware of it and the

member agencies are aware of it and we are doing everything to

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educate and see to it that the criminal information is not affected

by it. And I am sure that homeland security will be doing the same

thing. It is a very serious issue that could face us in a very dangerous way down the road. But I see it more and more being protected as we protect our system.

Mr. PUTNAM. Sitting here listening to the different acronyms,

MAGLOCLEN, RISS, MATRIX, FAX, CJNet, CRIMES, CLEAR,

recognizing that it is always kind of a good thing to have your

States or localities be the laboratories for innovation, have we

reached the point that we are reinventing the wheel in different

States? And is the technology mature enough that we really could

be just replicating successful programs in other States instead of

funding a bunch of new pilot programs?

Mr. GERARD LYNCH. There will always be regional interests for

regional purposes that will be drafted, but we have been in constant contact with Members of Congress who appropriate funding

for the RISS program or some similar programs. And what they

have put in language now is language that would instruct those

grant issuing agencies a directive that if they are going to be setting up any kind of a regional data base or regional telecommunications system that they use existing systems out there and they

don’t reinvent the wheel so that the existing systems can operate

in a very effective manner. And that has been happening. Most of

the technology that we have today can be developed so that it can

marry most systems up.

When we decided to hook up the U.S. attorney’s offices nationwide so that we could give them secure e-mail and encrypted translation of information back and forth, it was done because we developed a system that would allow that. And I think that what we are

seeing here is that systems are being developed such as the RISS

system that allow other systems to seamlessly, if not transfer information, but at least talk to one another and we are seeing that.

We in MAGLOCLEN oppose constant duplication, because not only

does it affect law enforcement when they want to talk to other

agencies and the systems don’t talk to each other, but also it costs

money when you are developing new systems.

So when new systems are coming up and they are coming up—

I don’t think we can stop that—we want to make sure that if those

systems come up, that they are compatible with the systems that

are out there. And what I see in the future is that we are going

to have a system of systems whether it’s RISS system hooked up

to the homeland security system, hooked up to RISS/LEO, there

are many systems out there that will be able to communicate.

Technology is not the issue. Policy is the issue.

Mr. PUTNAM. Ms. Peck.

Ms. PECK. I would absolutely concur with that. It is the position

of DHS that they support a number of these State-based initiatives

and that they follow these initiatives to the logical conclusion of the

successful initiatives. So, you know, you plant your beans and you

see which ones come up and which ones grow the highest and the

best. So I think it makes a great deal of sense to support a number

of State systems.

We all come to more or less the same conclusion so if you look

at MATRIX’s technology and SHIELD’s technology, we come to a

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single place that says let’s not build it from scratch. Let’s use components that already exist. We have used exactly the same kinds

of components. The only place I think in which we differ and we

both come from a place that says it’s the local data that needs to

be integrated into the national DHS system. I think the only place

that we disagree knowing what I know of MATRIX is knowing

what kind of data is included and how that data is used. But in

terms of the technology and recognizing that we need to build very

cost sensitive systems from existing components and not ask the

national government to attach all local data on their expense, we

need to ask localities to do that.

We have come to exactly the same place. SHIELD’s next focus is

governments and national security and the security rules that will

govern national data sharing and regional data sharing. So again,

the technology can be easily replicated at very low costs and we

need to have governance structures that say what kind of data,

who is authorized to access that data and under what circumstances the data will be used and for what purposes, those

kinds of governance, and the security rules as well in terms of the

kinds of data and who has access to it. So it’s those policy issues

that are the things that we are looking at now and I am sure every

other State-based system is looking at the same thing. The technology is the easy part, getting people to play together and to agree

under which rules they play is much more focused now.

Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you very much. And before we bring this to

a close, I want to give all of you the opportunity to have any final

comments, it is the least we can do after this long afternoon. Ms.

Peck, we will begin with you and end with Mr. Lynch and we will

bring this subcommittee hearing to close. Any final thoughts?

Ms. PECK. I would like to thank you very much as chairman for

the opportunity to highlight the leadership work that the District

of Columbia has done in the area of local to national information

sharing of public safety, criminal justice. Thank you very much for

the opportunity.

Mr. PUTNAM. Chief.

Mr. ZADRA. Mr. Chairman, I thank you for the opportunity to be

here today and I applaud the efforts of this subcommittee. It is the

leadership. And we need, speaking from a State and local perspective on bringing all this together. I concur with both the last statements of Ms. Peck and Mr. Lynch in that the technology is not the

problem. We have all the systems there that really what we need.

What we need to do is figure out how to connect them together.

We need them not only regional strategies, we need a State strategy for each of our States so that each of the projects that they

have within their major municipalities or sheriff’s offices that they

can bring those together from a State perspective, and as Mr.

Lynch said, we will connect systems to other systems. I am 26-year

member of the department of the law enforcement and been involved in criminal investigations for years. What I would like to see

on my desk stop is instead of Mark Zadra having to query every

police jurisdiction in the United States of America, I believe that

we need a national index to where Mark Zadra could query a name

and if nothing else, if it was just a pointer—because we are going

to have to work through all of the security issues, policy issues,

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those are privacy issues that need to catch up to the technology,

but we need, if nothing else, so I can connect those puzzle pieces.

When you go to a store now and you buy a puzzle, you come

home and it has a picture on the box and it tells you how many

puzzle pieces are in there and you know they’re all in that box and

you can put your puzzle together. Law enforcement’s problem is

that we don’t have the picture. We don’t even know how many

pieces there are and our pieces don’t come in a box but are spread

across the country. So each of those jurisdictions may have that

puzzle piece that we need. We shouldn’t have to go individually

and make phone calls in the way that we used to do business 10

years ago, including just most recently prior to September 11.

What we really need to do is collapse all those tools on our desk.

We don’t need to be a multitasking disorder.

Having information is good, but what is important is making it

meaningful to us and figure out whether that information fits that

puzzle piece. What we would like to see and it needs, from the national perspective, and hopefully, this coordinating council can pull

this off, but we need to be in a position that when I sit as investigator at my desktop, I need homeland security to be dealing with

me and also me with them as to what is the situational awareness

issues that are going on across our country as they are developing.

We need to know about them so that when something happens

in another State, we in Florida can take that and apply the same

protective and necessary protective measures to our critical infrastructure that is the issue. The other thing we need to do is we realize everyday there are individuals that come into contact with

our criminal justice agencies as what talked about in SHIELD, that

information is sitting out there and being collected already in systems that are already existing.

I need the ability to determine with a single query who and

where have they come in contact with the criminal justice community, realizing that there are others that have a different type of

job and that is intelligence. And intelligence really isn’t intended

to be shared at all levels with everyone in the criminal justice community or law enforcement. And this plan again speaks to that. We

need the ability to hook up to those criminal intelligence systems

as well.

So again, I thank you for your what you’re doing with your subcommittee because I think that is the leadership we need is to pull

all of this together, someone to put their hands around it and assist

us. We have 40,000 law enforcement officers in the State of Florida

who everyday have eyes and ears that are trained on domestic security issues and those things do happen locally. And we need to

make sure that not only are we capturing it but we are sending

that information and making available to others that have a need

for that as well. So again, thank you, sir.

Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Lynch.

Mr. GERARD LYNCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and thank the

committee for bringing this to the forefront. I think that in the followup to the last statement, we are getting closer to that realm.

If you saw where we were 2 years ago to where we are today, we

are light years ahead of that, but yet we are still a long way from

seeing total connectivity. What we have seen as we have seen with

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the RISS system is that our member agencies such as the Florida

Department of Law Enforcement as well as New York City Police

Department, are participating more and more because they are seeing a lot more advantages coming out of these systems out there.

And with our RISSLive and our RISS ATIXLive, we are seeing

a lot more of the agencies starting to talk real-time to each other

on key issues, whether it is a fire marshal talking to a fire marshal

across the country or a police officer talking to a fire marshal

across the country, we are seeing the communities of interest

marry each other. And we are seeing a very fruitful end to all of

this. We have ventured into the first responder community and we

have seen a lot of positive feedback from the electrical critical

events individuals to the railroad associations to the trucking industry. They are now working together to share information to

shore up our homeland. And not only are the eyes and ears of the

local police department alerted, but now we have the truck drivers,

the electrical meter readers knowing more about what is going on

in this country as far as security and posting threat information.

You know, the pilot program we have with the Department of

Homeland Security on nuclear power plants is crucial that these

pilot plans are developed and our country is much safer, when we

see homeland security talking to the FEMA or the Federal management of each State and the local police departments and talking

about suspicious activity around nuclear power plants.

So I see a lot more happening, but we still have a long way to

go. And I think we have to make sure that the systems that are

out there are funded properly and moved forward and that these

connections such as the NODE activity and the NODE connection

with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement can be spread

throughout the entire country. And maybe this committee might be

a spear head in moving that forward. Again, I thank you.

Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you very much. I want to thank all of our

witnesses for your outstanding participation today. Your testimony

is vital to helping us to better understand this issue and move toward solutions and better interoperability. Thank you for your patience and your willingness to wait us out. I want to thank the

staff for pulling together an outstanding hearing, in particular one

of our committee interns who we are losing, Kaitlin Jarling’s last

day and we appreciate the work that she has done on this hearing

and a number of others this summer. In the event that there may

be additional questions we did not have time for today, the record

will remain open for 2 weeks for submitted questions and answers.

Thank you all very much. Subcommittee stands adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 5:25 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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