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THREATS TO THE HOMELAND 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

HOMELAND SECURITY AND 

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

OCTOBER 8, 2015 

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

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs 

( 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin Chairman 

JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona 

ROB PORTMAN, Ohio 

RAND PAUL, Kentucky 

JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma 

MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming 

KELLY AYOTTE, New Hampshire 

JONI ERNST, Iowa 

BEN SASSE, Nebraska 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri 

JON TESTER, Montana 

TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin 

HEIDI HEITKAMP, North Dakota 

CORY A. BOOKER, New Jersey 

GARY C. PETERS, Michigan 

KEITH B. ASHDOWN, Staff Director 

ELIZABETH MCWHORTER, Professional Staff Member 

GABRIELLE A. BATKIN, Minority Staff Director 

JOHN P. KILVINGTON, Minority Deputy Staff Director 

HARLAN C. GEER, Minority Senior Professional Staff Member 

LAURA W. KILBRIDE, Chief Clerk 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Opening statements: Page 

Senator Johnson ............................................................................................... 1 

Senator Carper ................................................................................................. 2 

Senator Tester .................................................................................................. 17 

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

Senator Heitkamp ............................................................................................ 23 

Senator Portman .............................................................................................. 25 

Senator Lankford .............................................................................................. 28 

Senator Baldwin ............................................................................................... 36 

Prepared statements: 

Senator Johnson ............................................................................................... 41 

Senator Carper ................................................................................................. 42 

WITNESS 

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2015 

Hon. Jeh C. Johnson, Secretary, U.S. Department of Homeland Security ......... 4 

Hon. James B. Comey, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation ...................... 6 

Hon. Nicholas J. Rasmussen, Director, National Counterterrorism Center, 

Office of the Director of National Intelligence ................................................... 8 

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Comey, Hon. James B.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 6 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 54 

Johnson. Hon. Jeh C.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 4 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 44 

Rasmussen, Hon. Nicholas J.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 8 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 60 

APPENDIX 

Article submitted by Senator Johnson ................................................................... 64 

Responses to post-hearing questions submitted for the Record: 

Hon. Johnson .................................................................................................... 103 

Hon. Comey ....................................................................................................... 109 

Hon. Rasmussen ............................................................................................... 113 

(1) 

THREATS TO THE HOMELAND 

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2015 

U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in room SD– 

342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Ron Johnson, Chairman 

of the Committee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Johnson, Portman, Lankford, Ayotte, Ernst, 

Sasse, Carper, McCaskill, Tester, Baldwin, Heitkamp, Booker, and 

Peters. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN JOHNSON 

Chairman JOHNSON. Good morning. This hearing will come to 

order. I want to first of all welcome our distinguished panel of witnesses. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your thoughtful 

testimony. Thank you for your service to this Nation. 

When I took over chairmanship of this Committee—what was it? 

About 10 months ago—the first thing I did is I reached out to Senator Carper, another person of real integrity, and I suggested we 

do something maybe a little unusual for a Senate Committee. We 

developed a mission statement. I guess that is my business and my 

manufacturing background. And so we came up with one that is 

pretty simple. It is, simply, to enhance the economic and national 

security of America. 

I think that accomplished two things: First of all, it starts our 

relationship as the Ranking Member and Chairman and as the 

Committee on an area of agreement. I mean, who could disagree 

with that? It also directed the activity of our Committee. 

And so the other thing we did is we established—we have really 

kind of two Committees in one, Homeland Security and then Governmental Affairs. But on the Homeland Security side—and that is 

what this hearing is all about—we established some basic priorities, and not in any particular order. We established five: border 

security; cybersecurity; protecting our critical infrastructure, including our electrical grid; doing whatever we can to counter violent extremists, Islamic terrorists whose threat, Director, in your 

testimony you say is growing; and our fifth priority was really kind 

of directed at the Secretary, but I will include both you gentlemen 

as well, doing everything we can, committing this Committee to 

help you achieve your goal, your mission of keeping this Nation 

safe. 

So, again, I want to thank you for your service. It is exactly what 

this Committee is trying to do. Your testimony, which I have reviewed, basically follows right down what our list of priorities are. 
2 

These threats that we face in the Nation are real. They are not diminishing. They are not receding. They are actually growing. 

And so I know you are, again, three men of integrity that take 

your duties and responsibilities very seriously. So, again, I thank 

you for that. I am certainly looking forward to your testimony. I 

want to thank the Senators that are here. I am looking forward to 

a very informative hearing. 

With that, I will turn it over to Senator Carper. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER 

Senator CARPER. Thanks. Thanks so much, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to start off by calling an audible here. I was thinking 

today, Secretary Jeh Johnson, coming down on the train, that in 

the last couple of weeks, we have been visited by Pope Francis up 

and down the east coast, all over the place, millions of people involved with him. We have been visited by the President of China, 

President Xi Jinping, a big entourage. Up in New York City, at the 

United Nations, I think leaders of over maybe 70 countries have 

visited our country, New York City, the U.N. The thing to me that 

is remarkable about all that—and I think you are going to touch 

on this in your testimony, but I want to just add a word as well. 

When the Secret Service screws up—and they have—we call them 

on it. And when people make a mistake, there needs to be accountability. I know you believe in that, and we do as well. And the 

Pope’s visit, the visit of President Xi, the visit of all the 70 national 

leaders who came to our country, for it to come off without a hitch 

is just amazing. It is just amazing. And it gives me some encouragement that folks in the Secret Service, most of whom are hardworking and want to do the right thing, do the right thing every 

day, that better days lie ahead. They did not do this by themselves. 

They had a lot of help from other entities within the Department 

of Homeland Security (DHS), State and local law authorities, and 

others. But I just want to say, as we say in the Navy when somebody does a job well, ‘‘Bravo Zulu.’’ 

Since 9/11, the most acute terrorist threats came from Osama bin 

Laden. Today bin Laden is dead. The core of al-Qaeda is largely 

dismantled. 

Unfortunately, ISIS and al-Qaeda’s affiliates in Yemen and Syria 

have filled the void. The tactics they use against us and others 

have changed. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in particular has perfected, as we know, using social media to spread its 

online propaganda and recruit members to its ranks. These new 

tactics mean that we can no longer rely solely on military force to 

eliminate a terrorist threat. 

We must identify the root causes of why Westerners join the 

ranks of ISIS and tailor our counterterrorism tactics to meet this 

evolving challenge, and that is no easy task. To do this, we will 

have to improve our ability to counter violent extremism, and I 

know we are focused on that. I know this is a priority for all of our 

witnesses, and I commend the Secretary for establishing a new office at the Department that will be focused on countering violent 

extremism (CVE). 

Moreover, if we are to be truly successful in countering ISIS’ 

message, among other things, we must remind the world of the 
3 

principles and values that our country stands for. We have a long 

history of granting refuge to the war-weary. We have a moral obligation to continue this tradition by taking a reasonable share of 

Syrian refugees. 

The Pope reminded us as he invoked not just the Golden Rule 

but Matthew 25, ‘‘When I was hungry, did you feed Me? When I 

was naked, did you clothe Me? When I was thirsty, did you give 

Me to drink? When I was sick and in prison, did you come to visit 

Me? When I was a stranger in your land, did you take Me in?’’ So 

there is a moral imperative here. The moral imperative for us is 

not to be blind to this really awful situation that is faced by all 

these millions of Syrian refugees, but also to realize that there is 

a smart way for us to play a role. We are doing a huge role financially, leader among the nations of the world in providing aid, 

emergency aid to the folks that are displaced, and so there is sort 

of a tension here between how do we be consistent with Matthew 

25, the least of these, and how do we do that in a way that protects 

us from extremists who might like to try to use this as an opportunity to come in and infiltrate our country? 

The other thing I want to mention is cybersecurity. I just came 

from a meeting with a bunch of folks over in the Capitol on 

cybersecurity, and when I finished my remarks, we took a little bit 

of time, and I said, ‘‘Every one of you, take 15 seconds and tell us 

what you think we should make as a priority. What should be our 

priority between now and, say, Christmas?’’ And they basically had 

two answers: one was do not let the government shut down, come 

up with a reasonable budget that meets our Nation’s needs in a fiscally responsible, sustainable way; and the other thing they said is 

cybersecurity. Cybersecurity. And we have the opportunity—we 

have worked very hard here under the leadership of our Chairman, 

a lot of folks on our Committee, to do just that, to make it possible 

the last Congress for DHS to have some of the tools that they need 

to do a better job—and you are doing a better job; we applaud you 

for that—but to also make sure that we focus on information sharing, do it in a smart way that incentivizes folks that are hackers 

or whatever it is share their information with the Federal Government and the Federal Government in real time—it comes through 

the DHS portal in real time, you share it with everybody else so 

there is no loss of time. 

So those are the kind of things—we are going to take EINSTEIN, 

build on EINSTEIN 1, 2, 3, EINSTEIN 3A, put it on steroids, and 

I think you are doing a lot of good things in your Department, Mr. 

Secretary, to help build on those tools. 

The last thing I want to say is this: A week ago, or 2 weeks ago 

maybe, Senator Johnson and I were invited by you, along with Tom 

Ridge, former Secretary, your predecessor, a former Governor with 

whom I served as Governor, and you invited us to come to 

Shanksville, Pennsylvania. It was a day I will never forget, and I 

just want to thank you again for that. It reminds us again of what 

can happen when bad people want bad things to happen in our 

country. We have to be on guard. We have to be ever vigilant. But 

it also reminds me of the strength and the course of the 40 people 

on that plane who refused to go down without a fight. Refused to 

go down without a fight. And I will always remember them, be 
4 

1The prepared statement of Secretary Johnson appears in the Appendix on page 44. 

grateful to them, and grateful to you for reminding us on that special day of what service is really about and what the values of this 

country are truly about. 

Thank you. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Senator Carper. I would also 

like to thank Secretary Jeh Johnson for inviting us. The moment 

that stuck out in my mind—and you gave a great speech; everybody did—was when they were describing what those passengers 

did. Almost their final act was they did something quintessentially 

American: They took a vote. So I would recommend to anybody who 

has not gone to Shanksville—most people probably have not—to go 

there. There is a powerful panel there where we have phones 

where you can listen to three amazing voice-mail messages from 

the people on that plane, concerned far more about their loved ones 

they were leaving behind than themselves. So, again, something 

quintessentially American. 

With that, it is the tradition of this Committee to swear witnesses in, so if you would all rise and raise your right hand? Do 

you swear that the testimony you will give before this Committee 

will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so 

help you. God? 

Secretary JOHNSON. I do. 

Mr. COMEY. I do. 

Mr. RASMUSSEN. I do. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you. 

Our first witness is Secretary Jeh Johnson. Secretary Johnson is 

the fourth Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. 

Prior to leading DHS, Secretary Johnson served as General Counsel for the Department of Defense (DOD), General Counsel of the 

Department of the Air Force, and Assistant U.S. Attorney for the 

Southern District of New York. Secretary Johnson. 

TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE JEH C. JOHNSON,1

SECRETARY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY 

Secretary JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As you and Senator Carper noted, last month the three of us attended a sobering 

ceremony in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, for the 14th anniversary of 

9/11. Today, 14 years after 9/11, it is still a dangerous world. 

The events of 9/11 were the most prominent and devastating example of terrorist attacks by those who are recruited, trained, and 

directed overseas and exported to our homeland. The 9/11 hijackers 

were acting on orders from al-Qaeda’s external operations chief, 

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was in turn carrying out the direction of Osama bin Laden. 

Likewise, the attempted ‘‘Shoe Bomber’’ in December 2001, the 

attempted ‘‘Underwear Bomber’’ in December 2009, the attempted 

Times Square car bombing in May 2010, and the attempted ‘‘Package Bomb’’ plot in October 2010 were all efforts to export terrorism 

to the United States, and they all appear to have been directed by 

a terrorist organization overseas. 
5 

The response to these types of attacks and attempted attacks on 

our homeland was and is to take the fight directly to the terrorist 

organizations at locations overseas. 

But today the global terrorist threat is now more decentralized, 

more complex, and in many respects harder to detect. The new reality involves the potential for smaller-scale attacks by those who 

are either homegrown or home-based, not exported, and who are 

inspired by but not necessarily directed by a terrorist organization. 

Today it is no longer necessary for terrorist organizations to personally recruit, train, and direct operatives overseas and in secret 

and export them to the United States to commit a terrorist attack. 

Today, with new and skilled use of the Internet, terrorist organizations may publicly recruit and inspire individuals to conduct attacks within their own homelands. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula no longer hides the fact that it builds bombs; it publicizes its 

instruction manual in its magazine and publicly urges people to 

use it. 

Today we are also concerned about foreign terrorist fighters who 

are answering public calls to leave their home countries in Europe 

and elsewhere to travel to Iraq and Syria and take up the extremists’ fight there. Many of these individuals will seek to return to 

their home countries with that same extremist motive. 

The recent wave of terrorist attacks and attempted attacks here 

and in Europe reflect this new reality. The Boston Marathon bombing in April 2013, the attack on the war memorial and the parliament building in Ottawa in October 2014, the attack on the 

Charlie Hebdo headquarters in Paris in January 2015, the attempted attack in Garland City, Texas, in May 2015, and the attack that killed five U.S. servicemembers in Chattanooga, Tennessee in July 2015—what does this recent wave of attacks and attempted attacks have in common? They were all conducted by 

homegrown or home-based actors, and they all appear to have been 

inspired, and not directed by, al-Qaeda or the Islamic State of Iraq 

and the Levant (ISIL). 

We are concerned about domestic terrorism in the form of a ‘‘lone 

wolf,’’ which can include various aspects of domestic terrorism such 

as right-wing extremism as well. We devote substantial efforts to 

the study and understanding of these threats and will continue to 

further our understanding of the underpinnings of terrorist threats 

of all forms. 

What we are doing about it I hope to discuss in further detail 

during the Q&A. It is set forth in my prepared remarks, and I will 

not elaborate that here. What I will conclude by saying is basically 

two points: 

One, I applaud both the House and the Senate for the good work 

that has been done on cybersecurity legislation. I applaud the fact 

that it has been bipartisan. As Senator Carper noted, I believe that 

there is an urgent need for help from this Congress in the area of 

cybersecurity. The need for cybersecurity legislation has, in my 

judgment, been amply demonstrated just over the last 12 months 

with some of the things we have seen. So I hope that the House 

and Senate can come together, pass legislation, go to conference, 

and have that legislation become law. 
6 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Comey appears in the Appendix on page 54. 

The last thing I will say is that homeland security is part of national security. It is the front line of national security. Our job is 

much more difficult to protect the American people if Congress 

does not repeal sequestration. We simply cannot deliver for the 

American people all of the homeland security that they need and 

want if we have to work with a sequestered budget. So I urge Congress, in as strong terms as I can, to consider repealing sequestration. 

Thank you. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Secretary Johnson. 

I will say I continue to press leadership to bring cybersecurity 

onto the floor of the Senate. I think we have that commitment. I 

think you will see that hopefully within the next couple weeks. And 

the success of that will largely depend on us all working together, 

as we have in the past. It is amazing what you can accomplish if 

you concentrate on what you agree on, the things that unite us as 

opposed to exploit our division. So cybersecurity is certainly one of 

those things that we do agree on, and I am actually quite hopeful 

of it, again, with your help and with Senator Carper’s and really 

everybody on this Committee. 

Our next witness is Director James Comey. Director Comey is 

the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Director 

Comey has also served as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District 

of New York, Deputy Attorney General (AG) for the Department of 

Justice (DOJ), and General Counsel for organizations in the private 

sector. Director Comey. 

TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE JAMES B. COMEY,1 DIRECTOR, FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE 

Mr. COMEY. Thank you, Chairman Johnson, Senator Carper. 

Thank you for this opportunity to appear before the Committee, especially with my two friends and colleagues here with whom we do 

so much work to try and protect the American people. I am grateful 

for their partnership. 

I am not going to repeat what is in the written statement, which 

we have submitted for the record, and I think Jeh has captured 

well the challenge we face. His description of a new reality is dead 

on, and I simply want to amplify it because it bears stressing. A 

lot of us are still thinking about the terrorism threat through the 

paradigm of what I call ‘‘your parents al-Qaeda.’’ And I think it is 

very important that the American people understand how things 

have changed, and so I just want to spend a brief minute on that. 

ISIL has broken the core al-Qaeda paradigm by using social 

media to broadcast a twin-pronged call to thousands and thousands 

of followers around the world, including many people in the United 

States. They send two messages: 

First, come to the caliphate and participate in the final battle between good and evil on God’s side and find meaning in your life. 

Second, if you cannot travel, kill where you are. Kill anyone. But 

especially if you could kill people in military uniform or law enforcement uniform and video it, that would be best of all. 
7 

And it is a message that comes in an entirely new way, because 

it buzzes in the pockets of troubled souls, unmoored people all over 

this country all day long. Twitter is worth a lot of money because 

it is a great way to sell shoes or books or movies. It is a great way 

to crowdsource terrorism. And so ISIL started investing in this in 

the middle of 2014, and earlier this year we saw the payoff on the 

investment in hundreds of investigations in all 50 States of people 

who are on some path between consuming this poison and responding to it by either traveling to the so-called caliphate or killing 

where they are. 

And so the challenge we face, the folks at this table, is finding 

those needles in a nationwide haystack and assessing where are 

they on that spectrum between consuming poison to acting on poison and disrupting them before they act. 

And it gets harder still. It is not just a nationwide haystack 

where we are looking for needles. But what ISIL has been doing 

over the last year is when they find a live one, someone who might 

be willing to kill where they are, they will move them off of Twitter 

where, with lawful process, we can see the communications, and 

move them to an end-to-end mobile message app that is end-to-end 

encrypted. So the needle that we may have found disappears on us 

once it becomes most dangerous. And with a court order—which is 

the way we collect the content of communications in the United 

States; we get a court order. We cannot see what is being said between that ISIL recruiter and someone who would kill where they 

are. 

This is a big problem. It is an illustration of the problem that we 

call ‘‘Going Dark.’’ It illustrates to people the conflict that we are 

experiencing, this country, between two values we all hold dear: 

safety and security on the Internet, right? I can assure you Secretary Jeh Johnson and I are big fans of strong encryption. It protects what matters to us most. We must use strong encryption. But 

the other value that is in conflict is public safety. We must protect 

the people of the United States. We must find those needs and stop 

them before they kill. We must find child predators, we must find 

kidnappers, we must find drug dealers. Those two values we hold 

dear are crashing into each other. 

I do not know what the answer is, but I keep telling folks the 

FBI is not an alien force imposed on America from Mars. We belong to the American people. Our tools are only those tools the 

American people give us through you. And I think my job is to tell 

folks when one of the tools you are counting on us to use to protect 

you is not working so much anymore, we have to talk about that. 

And so there has been a lot of conversation, very productive. The 

administration has decided not to seek a legislative remedy now, 

but that it makes sense to continue the conversations that we are 

having that are very productive. Because here is the thing: people 

in industry are good folks. They share those same values, and they 

are working with us to figure out how could we solve this problem. 

And so we are talking to industry, we are talking to State and local 

law enforcement, we are talking to our foreign partners, because 

everybody who cares about these two values has to be involved in 

this conversation. 
8 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Rasmussen appears in the Appendix on page 60. 

There is no clear answer. An important start is to remove the 

venom and understand we share values. We care about protecting 

people. We care about safety and security on the Internet. How do 

we maximize both values? It is a really hard thing. But I think 

America does hard, especially when it implicates our most fundamental values. 

So I thank the Members of this Committee for their engagement 

on this issue and my partners here at the table, and we will continue the conversation with the American people. Thank you, Mr. 

Chairman. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Director. 

Our next witness is Director Nicholas Rasmussen. Director Rasmussen is the Director of the National Counterterrorism Center 

(NCTC). Director Rasmussen previously served as the Deputy Director of NCTC, in various functions on the National Security 

Council staff, and in several key positions within the Department 

of State. Director Rasmussen. 

TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE NICHOLAS J. RASMUSSEN,1

DIRECTOR, NATIONAL COUNTERTERRORISM CENTER, OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE 

Mr. RASMUSSEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, thank you, Senator 

Carper. Like Secretary Johnson and Director Comey, I welcome the 

opportunity today to have a good, thoughtful conversation with the 

Committee. 

Before getting into the threat picture in a little greater detail, I 

first want to stress just how well and how closely aligned we at 

NCTC are with my colleagues at DHS and FBI. We see the threat 

environment the same way. We share information. We collaborate 

in a very intense way every day to produce analysis to support our 

operations. 

I will start with the good news. From an analytic perspective, the 

chances of a spectacular large-scale attack here in the homeland 

carried out by an overseas terrorist group, along the lines of what 

my two colleagues described, that has been substantially reduced 

over the last several years, and we have collectively achieved that 

outcome through aggressive CT action in South Asia and other 

places around the world, but also through the creation of a robust 

homeland security and counterterrorism infrastructure here in the 

homeland that we have developed as a community over the last 

decade. 

And while we can look with some degree of satisfaction at the 

work done to reduce that threat of a large-scale mass casualty attack, there is still quite a bit to be concerned about in the threat 

landscape, as Secretary Jeh Johnson and Director James Comey 

mentioned, and that landscape is in some ways more challenging 

than ever. 

It is also clear that the terrorists’ operating paradigm has shifted, and it has shifted in ways that are proving particularly challenging as we try to identify and disrupt threats to the homeland. 

Today there are more threats originating in more places and involving a more diffuse and disparate set of individuals than at any 
9 

time previously. And let me spell out what I mean by that and 

highlight a couple of areas of greatest focus and concern. And as 

you would expect, I will start with ISIL, the Islamic State in Iraq 

and the Levant. 

In our judgment, ISIL has overtaken al-Qaeda as the leader of 

the global violent extremist movement, and the group does view 

itself as being in conflict with the West, and that conflict is being 

played out not just in Syria and Iraq now but also in a number of 

other locations around the world where ISIL has declared itself to 

have established a province. Those places include Algeria, Libya, 

Egypt, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Nigeria, the Caucusus 

Region, and even potentially in Southeast Asia as well—Indonesia 

and perhaps the Philippines. And that aggressive growth and expansionist agenda has implications for our homeland threat picture, and there are three especially concerning features of ISIL as 

a terrorist group that make me reach this conclusion. 

The first is ISIL’s access to extensive resources, and that can be 

measured in terms of manpower, military materiel, and, of course, 

money. 

The second concerning feature of ISIL is the territorial control 

that ISIL exercises in large portions of Iraq and Syria as well as 

in some of those province areas that I mentioned a few minutes 

ago. 

And third is their access to a large pool of individuals from Western countries, both those who have traveled to Iraq and Syria and 

those who have remained in their home countries. And when we 

look as intelligence professionals for indicators of external operations capability in ISIL that could threaten our homeland, these 

are the key features that we would expect to see, and that is of concern. 

In his testimony, in his published testimony, Secretary Jeh Johnson alluded to how we are coming to view the threat from ISIL, 

and especially the homeland piece of that threat. We are seeing 

that threat as having ISIL involved in some ways along a spectrum 

of activity. At one end of that spectrum we see isolated individuals, 

as Director Comey mentioned, who draw inspiration from ISIL’s 

prolific, spectacular use of sophisticated social media, and that is 

true even if ISIL is not actually directing or guiding their actions. 

And at the other end of the spectrum, we assess that there are, in 

fact, individuals who may, in fact, receive direct guidance and direction from ISIL members, including people who are leaders in the 

ISIL organization. This spectrum is very difficult for us to penetrate and understand because of the collection difficulties that Director Comey pointed to a minute ago. 

But more often than not, we see that individuals inside the 

homeland actually are operating somewhere between the two ends 

of that spectrum, and that creates a fluid picture that makes it 

even more challenging for us to get inside of. 

Beyond our intensive focus on ISIL and the threat it poses to the 

homeland, though, you would certainly expect that we are continuing to devote substantial attention to al-Qaeda, its affiliates 

and nodes around the world. And despite the unrelenting media attention that is focused on ISIL in current days, in no respect at all, 
10 

would we downgrade our level of effort and attention on the alQaeda-related set of threats that we face as a Nation. 

And when I am asked often to identify what my No. 1 terrorism 

concern is, I most often decline to answer because I would not want 

to suggest that our focus on ISIL comes at the expense of efforts 

focused on al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations. 

Specifically with al-Qaeda, we are watching closely for signs that 

their attack capability is being restored ahead of the drawdown in 

Afghanistan. And while al-Qaeda’s core leaders have certainly been 

degraded, we continue to track and investigate any indications that 

core al-Qaeda is engaged in plotting activity aimed at the homeland. We know that remains an ambition and their intent, so we 

stay on it constantly. 

In both their statements for the record, both Director Comey and 

Secretary Johnson highlighted al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula 

(AQAP), and that is for good reason. The threat from AQAP remains at the top of our list of analytic priorities given the group’s 

unrelenting focus on targeting U.S. interests, including potentially 

the homeland and potentially the aviation sector. Our work in this 

area is made all the more complicated by the difficult situation in 

Yemen at this time. 

Beyond Yemen, we are also watching al-Qaeda affiliate networks 

and individuals in Syria who may be looking to carry out external 

operations attacks. Our efforts to disrupt al-Qaeda plotting emanating from Syria have certainly been successful in the last several 

months, and some of the most important figures of concern have 

been taken off the map, but there is clearly more to be done in this 

regard. And in the meantime, we are looking very closely for any 

signs of intelligence that would give us a hint as to what they are 

planning. 

The third and final area of priority focus is the growing use of 

simple, opportunity-driven attacks by homegrown violent extremists (HVEs).’’ If you go back to 2009, we were seeing on average 

less than two or three of these incidents a year. By last year, the 

number rose to a dozen, and to date this year, that number has already doubled. And, of course, we are not all the way through the 

year yet. And while it is difficult for us to put numbers on the precise population of homegrown violent extremists here in the United 

States, there is no question in my mind that this population has 

increased in size dramatically over the last 18 months. And you 

can certainly say that ISIL has injected new energy and life into 

the population of homegrown violent extremists. 

ISIL for its part knows that it can have an impact, as the Director said, by motivating individuals in their own locations to act in 

support of ISIL by carrying out individual attacks, even on a relatively modest scale. 

So as I conclude, I would just like to say that we stress again 

we continue to work to detect, defeat, and disrupt the full spectrum 

of threats we face as a country, focused heavily on ISIL and the 

set of associated threats, but just as ardently, just as committedly, 

the focus remains on al-Qaeda and all of its affiliates. 

I will stop there, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Director Rasmussen. 
11 

Obviously, the purpose of this hearing is to highlight these 

threats so that as a public we face this new reality, as the Director 

and Secretary both mentioned. We obviously want to be very 

concerned about anything classified, but it is extremely important—Secretary Johnson, in your testimony you said, and let me 

repeat, ‘‘But today the global terrorist threat is more decentralized, 

more complex, and in many respects harder to detect.’’ 

Director Rasmussen, your testimony: ‘‘The array of extremist actors around the globe is broader, wider, and deeper than . . . at 

any time since 9/11.’’ 

Director Comey, we had a hearing called ‘‘Jihad 2.0’’ really exploring and highlighting the problem of and the sophistication with 

which ISIL is utilizing social media. In that hearing, we had testimony that said that there were at the time somewhere between 

46,000 and 90,000 overt ISIS support accounts. 

Now, I know Twitter has been taking some of those accounts 

down, but they just basically pop up with another name and another handle. 

You talked about the social media, those individuals following 

ISIS there, then being moved over into encrypted accounts. Can 

you give us some sense of the numbers of people that you are concerned about that have been engaged in social media? And I do 

want to talk about your inability to track, but how much information do we have just in terms of the number of people that have 

been inspired through the social media, the open media, where we 

can track into encrypted accounts? 

Mr. COMEY. Probably the best number I can give in an open setting is dozens. 

Chairman JOHNSON. OK. I would also, as long as I am talking 

to you—and I know Secretary Johnson has also gone into the communities to try and engage the communities. And this is, I do not 

think, classified. I remember hearing in a briefing that the members of the communities themselves think that we have a complete 

handle on this, that we know who among their midst might be 

being inspired by ISIS, which that is completely false, correct? I 

mean, would you agree that that is sort of an assessment? 

Mr. COMEY. I do. First of all, I agree with you, I think Jeh has 

been a leader on this, getting out there and talking to the good 

folks, no matter what their background, do not want their sons and 

daughters either going to caliphate, which is a nightmare, and 

dying there or killing people and surrendering their life to a long 

prison sentence here. The answer is it is a huge challenge because 

good people do what good people do, which is we tend to write an 

innocent narrative over troubling facts, so the hair stands up on 

the back of your neck, but you say, ‘‘Well, I must be misunderstanding,’’ or ‘‘He must just be having a bad day,’’ or ‘‘I must not 

have heard him right.’’ And what we are trying to get folks to do 

is, when the hair stands up on the back of your neck, just tell us. 

Tell any police officer, any deputy sheriff. We will check it out, in 

secret so no one gets smeared, and if it is nothing, it is nothing. 

But if it is something, you may have just saved your child’s life and 

the life of innocent people. But given human nature, that is an 

enormous challenge for us. 
12 

Chairman JOHNSON. There was a New York Times article that 

really described an FBI informant operative really having multiple, 

I think hundreds of conversations with the terrorist from Garland, 

Texas, and the FBI spent quite a few, I think hundreds of thousands of dollars for that FBI operative. Talk to me about the effectiveness of that. I am just putting myself in the position of a parent 

whose son, maybe a 20-year-old kid, is being engaged by the FBI, 

talked about different—the caliphate and all that type of thing, and 

then all of a sudden the FBI swoops in and says, ‘‘Did you ever talk 

about traveling over to Syria?’’ And the person is brought up on 

charges and convicted. 

I think that is a serious concern about is that the best way to 

engage a community. Based on that, have we rethought that at all? 

Mr. COMEY. Well, we have not rethought—we all agree, I think, 

that it is very important that we try to understand where are folks 

from this consuming to acting, make an assessment, and then take 

it very seriously, especially if they are moving toward acts of violence. And so we are going to continue that work, but knowing that 

we have to do that work I hope should motivate the good parents 

of the United States. No one wants their children to go die in the 

nightmare that is the so-called caliphate or have to be locked up 

because they violated the antiterrorism laws of the United States. 

And so it is just another reason why good parents need to talk to 

us, need to know what their kids are doing. 

One of the challenges we all face as parents—I have five children—is a sense that you want to know where your child is going 

physically, you want to know if your kid is going to hang out at 

the mall, but you do not have such a sense of where they are online, which is the entire world. And so what we keep saying to people is when you see things that are troubling, help us engage and 

keep kids from getting to a place where they have to be locked up. 

We have done a lot of work, the three organizations at this table, 

to try and build capabilities—we call them ‘‘off ramps’’—so that if 

we can intervene early when a parent tells us about a kid, we can 

get that kid the help they need—sometimes it is substance abuse, 

sometimes it is counseling, sometimes it is religious guidance—so 

they do not have to become somebody we have to lock up. And so 

that is an ongoing conversation with the families of the United 

States. And we are making progress, but it is something we have 

to continue to push on. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Secretary Johnson, again, you have been a 

real leader and engaged in the communities, and I applaud you for 

that. And, again, I am a little concerned about numbers, but I will 

say I am surprised if it is only a couple dozen people who have 

been inspired on social media, then moved to encrypted accounts. 

Talk to me about your engagement with communities, but also 

about your assessment of that number. 

Secretary JOHNSON. Well, first of all, by the nature of the existing threat we face, we are concerned about a lot of people who selfradicalize, essentially, by reading things on social media without 

necessarily direct communications between somebody in the homeland and somebody overseas. And what we know suggests that before somebody in that situation turns to an act of violence, there 

are very few people who are in a position to know about it—the 
13 

parents, perhaps a brother or a spouse, somebody that is living in 

the immediate home with that person. And so by the nature of the 

problem, we do not often have advance opportunity to interdict, to 

arrest, to prosecute, which is why I think the CVE engagements 

are so important, to build bridges, lower barriers of suspicion, and 

encourage people in communities, this is your homeland, too, help 

us help you with public safety. 

And so we have been out there doing this. I think we have seen 

a lot of good reaction, some criticism to our efforts, which I think 

means we know that our efforts are having an effect, but just 

heightening awareness and asking people for their help is fundamental given the nature of the current threat we have. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Just real quick with Director Rasmussen, 

Director Comey talked about the balance, the very delicate balance 

between civil liberties and security, and we are always concerned 

about that. You talked about the spectrum. Where are we today in 

that spectrum, in that fulcrum point between civil liberties and security? And where do we really need to be? 

Mr. RASMUSSEN. Boy, that is an incredibly complex question, and 

I am not sure there is a particular point that is a resting point on 

that spectrum. As Director Comey suggested, we know we are facing significant new challenges in the way we have traditionally collected intelligence to get at our terrorist adversaries. Simply put, 

the kinds of insight we used to have into some of the more complex 

al-Qaeda-linked plotting is just not available to us right now. And 

so, naturally, in that environment we are going to exhaust every 

opportunity we can—every avenue we can think of to try to develop 

new collection opportunities. Those will, of course, have to be balanced against all of the factors you describe, Mr. Chairman, and 

that is an ongoing process, which is why I do not think we are at 

some steady equilibrium along a spectrum, I think as the Director 

said, is also going to be a subject of an ongoing conservation with 

the private sector and the parts of industry that hold critical nodes 

of communication. And, unfortunately, many of these terrorist actors are exercising their craft on these platforms. 

I think the good news is that we have opened a conversation. 

There is a lot of ground to be covered in that conversation without 

the Federal Government dictating solutions or, as the Director 

said, choosing a legislative framework at this particular point. But 

we are at the front end of that conversation, and it has to play out 

over the period ahead. 

Chairman JOHNSON. I recognize it is complex. I did not expect a 

definitive answer, and your answer is exactly right. This is a conversation, this is a discussion we must have. It has to be an honest 

conversation, and we have to be looking at the new reality, the 

threats we are facing. They are not on the run. They are growing, 

and we need to be concerned about that. And we have to be discussing this in a very serious and honest fashion. Senator Carper. 

Senator CARPER. Let me preface my questions by again just emphasizing how much we appreciate your commitment to our country, your commitment to defending us, and the hard work that you 

and your team, the teams that you lead, are doing on our behalf. 

As my colleagues know, I like to talk about what is the secret 

to a long marriage between two people, and the best answer I ever 
14 

heard: Communicate and compromise. I would add a third C to 

that: collaborate. And when I look at the three of you, I see the 

three C’s—communicate, compromise, collaborate—embodied. So 

keep it up and thank you. You set a good example for us. 

Our Chairman and I and others on this Committee like to focus 

not just on addressing symptoms of problems. We are pretty good 

at that as a Nation. We do not always look at the underlying cause 

or the root cause. Senator Johnson and I are going to lead a Congressional Delegation (CODEL). I think Senator Peters is going to 

go down with us, I think Senator Heitkamp is going down with us, 

and maybe a couple of House colleagues are going to go down with 

uninsured, and we are going to go to Honduras, maybe Guatemala, 

and try to get a better handle on why tens of thousands of people 

would risk life and limb to go 1,500 miles through a terrible situation of getting through Mexico to get to our border to face an uncertain future. We have spent $1 trillion in the last decade or so trying to figure out how to stop people from getting in. We have spent 

less than 1 percent of that to try to figure out what the root causes 

are that are compelling people to come. So I am big root cause guy, 

and when I look at the cyber attacks that have been directed at our 

country in recent years, one of them is the Chinese. And they know 

what is going on. They pretend that they have not, but they know 

full well that there are entities within their country that are trying 

to steal our intellectual seed corn to be able to get economic shortcuts to prosperity at our expense, and we just pretty much underwrite the costs for them. 

I just want to commend Secretary Johnson and everybody else 

that was involved, the President and others that were involved in 

convincing the Chinese that it was time to change their ways, to 

mend their ways. And I am not sure what the prospects are for actually succeeding in this, but the agreement that has been struck 

is a very, very encouraging sign. I really did not think we would 

be able to get that, so I applaud you. 

There is a mechanism in place, Secretary Johnson, going forth, 

and I think it involves you, I think it involves the Attorney General, to build on what has been agreed to, to make sure that, it is 

not just that they are going to say this and do something else, but 

how do we make sure they do what they have committed to do and 

then for us to build on that. 

Would you just talk a minute about that, please? 

Secretary JOHNSON. Yes. When the Chinese were here, both for 

the President’s visit and about 2 weeks before, we had very frank 

conversations about cybersecurity, about cyber norms that we believe nations should embrace, and there are a lot of good things on 

paper. The question now becomes whether the Chinese will do 

what they agreed to do on paper. And so the way forward will be 

putting them to the task of having ministerial-level conversations 

with us on a regular basis. We hope to have one before the end of 

this year, and we are now arranging dates to do that. So time will 

tell about whether or not the Chinese will live up to what they 

agreed to do. 

I am pleased with what is on the paper, but actions will speak 

louder than words in this context. 
15 

Senator CARPER. All right. Thank you. I alluded earlier to actually the Pope’s message, Pope Francis’ message to us. When he was 

here, he spoke to our Joint Session of Congress a week or two ago, 

and his focus was on the Golden Rule and on Matthew 25, the least 

of these. And one of the provisions in Matthew 25 talks about, 

‘‘Where were you when I was a stranger in your land? Did you welcome me in?’’ And we have, I think, a moral obligation to do that 

where we can and to look out for those that are in terrible situations. We have this need to make sure that as those 10,000 Syrian 

refugees come to agree that they are not embedded by a number 

of folks from ISIS who wish us harm. 

I would just like for us to talk about what we can do, ought to 

do, will do, to the extent you can in a public forum, to make sure 

that those threats are anticipated and appropriately addressed. 

And that could be for a number of you—Director Comey, Secretary 

Johnson, Nick. 

Secretary JOHNSON. Well, just to highlight one thing in particular, given the nature of how the terrorist threat has evolved, I 

think it is incumbent upon us at the Federal level to share as much 

intelligence as we can with State and local law enforcement. I 

think Jim’s people do an excellent job at the Federal level of detecting, investigating, and interdicting terrorist threats almost on a 

weekly, if not daily basis. And I have been constantly impressed 

with how their methods have evolved to match the threat. But 

things like the Garland City, Texas, attempted attack highlight 

that it is also critical that we get information out to State and local 

law enforcement as well so that they are aware of what we are seeing. 

Senator CARPER. Mr. Comey. 

Mr. COMEY. With respect to the potential of Syrian asylees coming to the United States, it is—— 

Senator CARPER. There is a real tension here, as you know. We 

are trying to do the right thing, and at the same time, we are trying to do the other right thing. 

Mr. COMEY. It is something that we have learned how to do better, screening people. The experience we had, we did not do it as 

well as we should have in the mid-2000s, the first decade, with 

Iraqi refugees. So we had to go back and redo it. We have learned 

a lot from that, so I think we are more effective as a law enforcement, intelligence, national security community at screening folks. 

That said, there is no such thing as a no-risk enterprise, and 

there are deficits that we face. I am not comfortable talking about 

them in an open setting. 

Senator CARPER. I understand. 

Mr. COMEY. I do not want the bad guys to know what we might 

not be able to—— 

Senator CARPER. I understand. 

Mr. COMEY. But that is how I would sum it up. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Fine. Thank you. 

Secretary JOHNSON. Senator, if I could? 

Senator CARPER. Please, yes. 

Secretary JOHNSON. With regard to Syrian refugees in particular, 

I agree totally with what Jim said. We should do the right thing 

by accepting more, but we have to be careful in doing it. We have 
16 

improved the process for vetting from a security standpoint the refugees who are admitted in this country, and I am committed to 

making sure that we maintain that process. 

Senator CARPER. Good. Thanks. 

Director Comey, you mentioned encryption, back-door ways to 

make sure we are trying to protect against terrible crime and 

criminals, and you mentioned conversations are under way. Can 

you tell us just a little bit more about that? Because I think this 

is real important, and I am sure you do, too. 

Mr. COMEY. We are having increasingly productive, frank conversations with industry because I think in part the ISIL threat focused everybody’s minds and understood that we are just not making this up, that there really is a conflict between values we all 

care about, safety and security and public safety. And so industry 

is not a monolith. There are lots of different services and products 

being provided, but what I have found is they are all people who 

care about the safety of America and also care about privacy and 

civil liberties. And so we are talking to each other about how could 

we accommodate both of those values. Again, this is about how 

could we get you in a position to comply with a court order. We are 

not looking for volunteers. We are not looking to sneak in anywhere. But how could we get to a place, technologically, legally, 

where we could get you to comply with court orders? So that is 

with the companies. But also really important conversations with 

our allies around the world who care both about the same values, 

the rule of law, and care about safety, public safety. And so we are 

having good conversations with a lot of our European allies, but 

how could we together come up with a framework that would make 

sense, embrace the rule of law, and maximize both of those values. 

And the last group, with State and local law enforcement. This 

is actually a problem that affects State and local law enforcement 

most of all, because child abuse cases, domestic violence cases, car 

crash cases, all of those things that cops and sheriffs and DAs have 

to work are affected by the fact that encryption has gone from an 

option available to sophisticated people, which has always been, to 

a default. And so cops and sheriffs trying to figure out where this 

child went are increasingly encountering devices they cannot open 

with a search warrant. And so we are engaging them in the conversation, too, because this affects every community in the United 

States. 

There is no simple answer, that is what I meant when I said the 

conversations are ongoing, and they have gotten healthier, because 

people have stripped out a lot of the venom. Folks are not questioning as much as they used to each other’s motives because we 

are in a place where we recognize we care about the same stuff. 

Senator CARPER. I will close with this quick note, if I can. We 

are always asking Secretary Johnson what we can do to help. He 

is always good to give us a to-do list. I would say to you this is an 

important issue, and if there are some things that we can be doing 

to help on the legislative side, please let us know. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Senator Carper. 

By the way, a quick comment or suggestion on the prioritization 

of the Syrian refugees we do let into this country. If we set as a 

No. 1 criteria family members and we can do DNA testing, that 
17 

would certainly be, I think, helpful. Plus Syrian families, Syrian 

American families can also be financially responsible. So I think it 

is setting criteria for prioritization of who we actually let in, and 

I think it would be helpful. Senator Tester. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR TESTER 

Senator TESTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you all 

for your sobering testimony. 

I am going to start with you, Director Comey—and the Ranking 

Member touched on this—about folks being on Twitter and then 

they go dark. And you talked about technology and legality, and 

you talked about working with the private sector when you responded to the Ranking Member. 

The question I have is: Do you have adequate resources—this 

could go across the board, by the way, because I know you work 

on it, too, Jeh. But do you have adequate resources, do you have 

adequate manpower to be able to technologically stay ahead of 

these guys? 

Mr. COMEY. A tentative yes, and here is why it is a tentative yes. 

The answer yes depends upon a number of things: the FBI’s ability 

to hire out of the hole we were left with from the impact of the last 

sequestration, almost 3,000 vacancies. We are climbing out of that 

hole now. That is the first thing. 

And the second thing is I do not know whether what we faced 

this summer is the new normal; that is, this summer we were following dozens and dozens of people all over the United States 

24/7, and that is only easy on TV. And so to do that, we had to 

surge resources from our criminal cases to make sure we cover this 

so these folks did not go kill people, and we disrupted a lot of those 

people. And our great colleagues in the military have made some 

progress at degrading some of the capabilities of ISIL in their socalled caliphate. So I do not know whether what we experienced 

this summer will be the new normal. If it is, then I will have a resource mismatch, and I will be prudent about coming back and asking. 

Senator TESTER. OK. Jeh, is your agency in the same boat? 

Secretary JOHNSON. Yes, I agree with everything Jim said, and 

I also agree with his assessment of the ‘‘Going Dark’’ problem. 

There are demonstrable cases where we have seen that our ability 

to track individuals of suspicion is hampered by the means of their 

communication. 

Senator TESTER. And so I would just ask, can technology take 

that darkness to light? 

Secretary JOHNSON. With help from the private sector, yes. 

Senator TESTER. OK. Collaboration and communication has been 

talked about. I think it was you, Nick, who talked about across the 

board you guys collaborate and communicate well. How is it working with State and local law enforcement? Are they brought up to 

speed? Are you concerned about information getting out that you 

do not want out so they are not brought up to speed? Give me the 

lay of the landscape. I do not care which one you want to talk 

about. 

Mr. COMEY. I think it is in a very good place, and I think they 

would be the best people to check with on this. But I think our 
18 

Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTF), our Fusion Centers around 

the country are connected in ways they were not before, and chiefs 

and sheriffs understand that the new reality, as Jeh said, is not a 

Washington-focused or New York-focused. These troubled souls, 

these unmoored people, are everywhere, and so they get that and 

they are engaged. And I think they would tell you that they are 

hearing earlier and more completely from all of us at this table 

what they need to know. 

Senator TESTER. So the channels are there to flow information 

down and back up. 

Mr. COMEY. Yes. 

Senator TESTER. OK. The Ranking Member also talked about, he 

said it takes more than military to reduce the terrorist threats. 

Would you guys agree with that statement? 

Secretary JOHNSON. Yes, absolutely. 

Senator TESTER. And your role in reducing the domestic threat, 

that is your primary responsibility, correct? 

Secretary JOHNSON. Yes, sir. 

Senator TESTER. OK. So as Congress wraps up this year—and 

any one of you guys can answer this, but it would probably be you, 

Jeh—what would you prioritize Congress needs to do, two or three 

things, for you to be able to do your job—— 

Secretary JOHNSON. Repeal sequestration—— 

Senator TESTER [continuing]. That we need to get done soon. 

Secretary JOHNSON. Repeal sequestration so that I can do all the 

things that the American public needs us to do for homeland security, whether it is cybersecurity, border security, aviation security. 

It is going to be very difficult to meet all of those priorities if we 

have to work with a sequestered budget. 

Senator TESTER. Get rid of sequestration. Anything else? 

Secretary JOHNSON. That is one, two, and three. 

Senator TESTER. That is one, two, and three. OK. Has there been 

any comparison with terrorist actions in this country and other 

countries in the world? Are we more targeted? Is it the same 

threats around the world? Go ahead, Nick. 

Mr. RASMUSSEN. The phenomenon that we have all described, 

these unmoored, untethered actors who potentially are connecting 

to ISIL by consuming their media and maybe seeking to act on 

their own, we have our concerning population of those individuals, 

as the Director described, as we have all described. Our European 

partners have a much larger population of those potential actors, 

several of them quite a bit larger than ours. And so by relative 

comparisons on scale, I think we are in a sense better off than 

some of our close European partners. 

That by no means makes me feel sanguine about our own efforts 

and the level of resources, as the Director indicated, to be able to 

follow and track all of the individuals who may turn out to be a 

concern from a terrorism perspective. But our European partners 

are in some ways are even more challenged because they bring to 

the table often considerably less capability than we do, not just in 

their FBI equivalent or their homeland security equivalent, their 

ministry of interior or their domestic security service, but their 

whole counterterrorism and homeland security enterprise is often 
19 

considerably less well developed than ours, and they are often looking to us for help in trying to help figure that out. 

Senator TESTER. And is that because they choose not to fund it? 

Mr. RASMUSSEN. Again, I think it is the rapid emergence of this 

new variant of the threat, I think they became—as would not be 

surprising—comfortable with their capability to deal with the kind 

of al-Qaeda threat and al-Qaeda affiliates as they understood it. 

The threat has changed in a pretty dramatic way as we have tried 

to outline, and it creates a new set of challenges, some of which are 

particularly resource intensive for law enforcement and intelligence 

organizations, especially in smaller countries. 

Senator TESTER. This is not within your purview, but is there 

anybody—it seems to me what is going on in the Middle East 

now—and it extends far beyond that—is crazier than I have ever 

seen in my lifetime, and I do not think that is an imagination. I 

think there is just stuff going on that makes no sense. Is 

there—at least from my perspective it makes no sense. Is there 

anybody that is trying to find the root causes of why everything 

seems to be going upside down? You guys are dealing with the 

threat on this end. Is there anybody that is trying to ask the questions on why these guys are so effective? I know it is communication, the Internet and all that, but there has—maybe there does 

not. Is there a reason for this stuff? Is there something that is 

going on in the world that we could have some impacts on that 

would delegitimize these folks? 

Secretary JOHNSON. We could have a whole hearing on this. And 

you are right, it is not directly within the purview of the three of 

us. My immediate reaction to your question is that there needs to 

be more of a global message and a global theme to counter the ISIL 

message to the Muslim world about what the Islamic State supposedly represents. And so my judgment is that in order to try to 

counter what we are seeing, the volatility that we are seeing in the 

Middle East, particularly Iraq and Syria, is a more amplified global 

message about how in the Muslim world in particular their efforts 

and their energy should be directed toward younger people in a 

positive, constructive way. 

Senator TESTER. Thank you all for the jobs you do. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Senator Tester. 

By the way, Secretary Johnson, I agree with you, sequestration 

was a really stupid idea. But there is a way of solving this, and 

it is called ‘‘prioritization of spending.’’ And I completely agree, defense of this Nation, defense of this homeland is a top priority, and 

we ought to treat it that way.Senator Ayotte. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR AYOTTE 

Senator AYOTTE. Thank you, Chairman. I want to thank all of 

you for being here and for what you do to keep the country safe 

and for your leadership. 

And I wanted to start with a question for you, Secretary Johnson. We in New Hampshire are facing a public health epidemic 

with opioid and heroin abuse, and we have had a situation where 

we have had a 60-percent increase in drug deaths. And recently, 

Mr. Secretary, I know that you—thank you for reviewing the transcript of the hearing that we had, Senator Shaheen and I had, in 
20 

New Hampshire, of this Committee, which was where we had the 

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner Gill 

Kerlikowske there; we had the Drug Enforcement Administration 

(DEA) Acting Administrator Jack Riley there; and Director Botticelli from the Office of National Drug Control Policy. 

So they testified, but also we heard from the police chief of our 

largest city, Nick Willard, and Chief Willard said something that 

I think is really important that is right in your wheelhouse, which 

is they had an arrest recently—they responded to a shooting in 

Manchester, and they had officers ‘‘go into an apartment unknown 

to us previously’’—these are his words—‘‘and we found it to be a 

drug house. And from that we did an investigation that led to Lawrence, Massachusetts, and from Lawrence, Massachusetts, directly 

to Mexico. So now we know that there is a Mexican drug cartel, 

the Sinaloa drug cartel, that is fueling heroin to the streets of Manchester, New Hampshire, and that is alarming.’’ 

I would agree with Chief Willard. We know this is coming over 

the Mexican border. It is really cheap on our streets right now, and 

obviously this is a very complex problem. There is some very 

strong, bipartisan legislation we are working on here across the 

aisle. 

But, Secretary Johnson, can you tell me what more we need to 

do to interdict more drugs, especially heroin, coming over from 

Mexico? And how are you working with Mexican authorities on this 

issue and also other departments, including the FBI, DEA? Because this really is a public health epidemic. 

Secretary JOHNSON. Well, first, Senator, thank you for conducting that field hearing. I found the testimony and your remarks 

from that enlightening, and you have put a spotlight on a serious 

problem in New Hampshire. 

From my perspective, interdiction is the key. Interdiction at the 

Southern Border is the key. And what we have done in my Department is devise our Southern Border Campaign Strategy, which is 

a consolidated, strategic effort to bring to bear all the resources of 

my Department on the single problem of border security, which includes people and narcotics. So that is not just CBP. It is also Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), and we are generally moving in the direction of 

a more coordinated strategy, which includes the DEA and other 

elements of our law enforcement. 

Eventually, I would like to do the same thing on the northern 

border so that we are less stovepiped in our approach to both borders, and my hope is that at some point the Congress will codify 

our Southern Border Campaign Strategy into law and give us the 

additional resources we need to further work on this effort. But, obviously, interdiction is the key. 

Senator AYOTTE. And, Director Comey, I wanted to ask you, one 

of the things that we know that the people who are addicted—law 

enforcement is telling us, rightly so, ‘‘We cannot arrest our way out 

of this problem.’’ But they want to focus on the kingpins. They 

want to focus on the cartels. We saw from Secretary Johnson what 

he just said, obviously the interdiction piece. But how is the FBI 

working to go after, for example, the kingpins of these enterprises 
21 

that are really making the money off of it and getting more and 

more people addicted, unfortunately, in our country. 

Mr. COMEY. The answer is working especially closely with DEA, 

our strategy is focused on what we call ‘‘transnational organized 

crime,’’ so the big syndicates and the cartels, to do just what you 

said, to drive up the cost for them, to lock up them and their lieutenants, to make it harder for them to try to get drugs in, the 

interdiction being a separate piece of the strategy. And we are 

working hard at that every single day, but it is an enormous problem because of the shift you talked about. 

Senator AYOTTE. Can I ask you, one of the issues that the chief 

raised and we talked about with the DEA—I just wanted to see if 

you had any insight on this. Chicago has an organized crime drug 

enforcement task force (OCDETF) model that they are working on, 

and I do not know if—the FBI I understood was a part of that 

model, which really was bringing—so it has sort of a partnership, 

as I understand it, DOJ, FBI, DEA, and local authorities. And our 

authorities are interested in could we bring a similar model to 

work together along with the High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Area 

(HIDTA) task force in New Hampshire, and I just wanted to get 

your thoughts on that type of model. 

Mr. COMEY. Yes, it is a model that we have—I cannot remember 

what the nearest OCDETF task force is to New Hampshire. There 

may be one in Boston. I cannot recall. But that is a huge feature 

of our work, because drugs is not the Bureau’s specialty, but we 

have certain capabilities that we can bring to bear, so we tend to 

bring it to bear in those task forces, which is both—mostly 

OCDETF, actually, and also HIDTAs. 

Senator AYOTTE. Well, I would ask you, because when I had Administrator Riley in New Hampshire, I would ask you, Director 

Comey, can you work with us on this, and Administrator Riley 

committed that from the DEA, too, to see—just to make sure—and 

I will say that Chief Willard said that he has been really pleased 

with the help he is getting from the FBI. But looking at are there 

better ways we can do this and make sure we are all working together in a cohesive fashion. 

Mr. COMEY. Sure. Thank you. 

Senator AYOTTE. I appreciate that. 

I wanted to ask about this issue of—I know in your testimony, 

Director Comey, you talked about the estimate that 250 Americans 

have traveled—I do not know if it is in Secretary Johnson’s or your 

testimony—have traveled or attempted to travel to Syria to participate in, obviously, the conflict, and we are worried about, obviously, their participation in the jihad. And one thing I wanted to 

ask about is, I understand, Director Comey, that we have had an 

effort where we have been arresting people across this country very 

aggressively, and as I understand it, we have had maybe close to 

50 arrests that are related to these issues. Maybe the person did 

not travel to Syria, but they have some connection where they are 

at least perhaps attempting to travel, a connection to ISIS. Could 

you tell us what is happening? Because I think it is important for 

the American people to understand that this is happening quite 

frequently. Your department is trying aggressively, working with 

Homeland Security, to arrest these individuals. But what have you 
22 

been doing across the country in terms of arrests that are being 

made? 

Mr. COMEY. Yes, we are trying to—the arrests are part of our 

strategy to do two things: to incapacitate people who might otherwise travel over to the so-called caliphate, and then become much 

more dangerous to us. I know some folks say, ‘‘Why don’t you just 

let them all go? Maybe they will get killed there.’’ Well, maybe they 

will not. And when they have been—— 

Senator AYOTTE. We certainly do not want them coming back or 

going to hurt our partners in Europe. 

Mr. COMEY. Right, and that is the future we are going to be talking about for the next 3 to 5 years. So we want to stop that. 

We also want to send a really scary message because what we 

see in the travelers is they are getting incrementally younger, and 

more females think that it is a great way to find a life. So we are 

trying to send a message, first of all, that it is a nightmare there, 

especially for a woman. But that if you play around with this, you 

are going to end up in jail for a long stretch to try and change that 

behavior. 

Senator AYOTTE. Could you give us a sense—I know my time is 

up, but who are you arresting? Like what is the background of the 

individuals? You said more women. Are you encountering younger 

people? Is this just centered in one community or is this something 

we are seeing across the country? 

Mr. COMEY. No, the challenge for us is it is not—there is no geographic center to it, and in part because of the crowdsourced way 

that the message is going out, and there are kids and adults who 

are seeking meaning in their life, trouble people all over the United 

States. And so it resonates with those groups. 

What I meant was we are seeing—there is not a particular demographic, either as to location or to age. The Syria travelers early 

on ranged from something like 18 to 63. But what we have noticed 

is—and it is early so this is not a high-confidence read—it seems 

to be drifting younger with more girls, and by girls I mean women 

under the age of 18, with whom this message on social media is 

resonating. And my hope is—and it is not just hope. I may see 

some early signs in the data that the message is getting out to families and to young people. First, it is a nightmare in Syria, do not 

go there thinking—— 

Senator AYOTTE. Of course, it is a nightmare. I mean, women are 

being raped, girls are being raped. 

Mr. COMEY. Exactly. 

Senator AYOTTE. It is horrific. 

Mr. COMEY. It is hell on Earth. And this is not some joyride, that 

you will get in serious trouble if we get wind of it, and you will 

go to jail for a very long stretch. And we are doing—both of those 

things are important in driving the numbers down, but time will 

tell whether we are making progress there. 

Senator AYOTTE. Well, thank you, and this is obviously something we are all very concerned about. I appreciate you all being 

here. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Senator Ayotte. And, again, 

thank you for your leadership on this heroin issue. 
23 

If you remember, during testimony at one of our border security 

hearings, General McCaffrey said we are only interdicting 5 to 10 

percent of illegal drugs coming in through the Southern Border, 

really indicating how unsecure our border is. 

I want to thank Secretary Johnson. By the way, we were talking 

about the border metrics bill. That report language will be done I 

think next week, so hopefully we can get that passed as a first 

step, and we have been working on helping you codify your strategy, so happy to ramp up those efforts and kind of work on those 

areas of agreement. So thank you for that. Senator Heitkamp. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR HEITKAMP 

Senator HEITKAMP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So much to talk 

about and so little time. 

I want to thank you, Secretary Johnson, for mentioning the 

Northern Border. It is a big balloon. You press on one area, it is 

going to stress another area. Obviously, we have huge workforce 

challenges on the Northern Border, recruiting and retaining workforce. And so we have been working with the Office of Personnel 

Management (OPM), working with your office, and I want to thank 

you for the attention that you have focused. Senator Ayotte and I 

have a bill that has already passed here and will hopefully require 

a new look at the Northern Border. So I will leave it there. 

Director, I do not mean to pick on you, but I am going to. Have 

you ever been to Indian country personally? 

Mr. COMEY. Yes. 

Senator HEITKAMP. Where? 

Mr. COMEY. I have been to Navajo, I have been to Acoma Pueblo, 

a couple other pueblos. 

Senator HEITKAMP. OK. Have you ever been to a Great Plains 

reservation? 

Mr. COMEY. I have not. 

Senator HEITKAMP. Pine Ridge—— 

Mr. COMEY. My children go to Pine Ridge every summer, so—— 

Senator HEITKAMP. I want to tell you, there is no place in the 

United States where you have more responsibility than Indian 

country. And there is no place where we do not have a cop on the 

beat. We can talk all we want about what is happening in places 

like New Hampshire. When Gil was the drug czar, he came out and 

he spent 4 hours listening to the challenges of Native American 

leaders in dealing with drugs, cartels, an easy place to hide because jurisdictionally it is a no-man’s-land, and there is no cop on 

the beat. And a Native American woman said to him, ‘‘We are an 

endangered species.’’ 

And we have huge and critical problems, and the FBI I think is 

failing in meeting the challenges, certainly in my part of the world, 

in protecting Native American people. We have record numbers of 

rapes of small children. We have a record amount of drugs. A tribal 

chairman told me that 40 percent of all the children born on one 

of my reservations is meth-addicted. 

And so I am begging you to help. I am begging you to seek an 

opportunity to participate and to bring Federal law enforcement 

and bring your counterparts at DEA and really start focusing, because as we talk about the structures of law enforcement—and, I 
24 

spent 8 years, as North Dakota’s Attorney General. When people 

said, where is it that the FBI gets along with the rest of the States, 

I would raise my hand. We have a terrific relationship with the 

FBI and local law enforcement. But we lose and we fail in Indian 

country. And you cannot protect a whole State when you have a 

huge amount of land and a huge opportunity for people who are 

peddling poison to basically go undetected, invisible, and not even, 

any threat at all of prosecution right there on the reservation. And 

people who can move are moving, and people who cannot move are 

being exploited. 

And so I am wondering if within the FBI and within the Department of Justice and your counter agencies whether there is an opportunity to really do more surge work in Indian country, especially in my part of the world. 

Mr. COMEY. The answer is yes, and thank you for that. It is not 

picking on me because I agree with you totally. And I am so grateful for your passion because I have had a bunch of meetings on this 

as Director. My children—when I became FBI Director—had just 

returned from Red Shirt Table, and my two girls said to me, ‘‘You 

have to do something. You would not believe what it is like.’’ Well, 

I understand in a pretty good way what it is like, and I describe 

it as ‘‘a crime scene without representation.’’ No one speaks for 

these places. So to hear you speak for this, Senator, is a wonderful 

thing. 

So I have done some; not nearly enough. I have pushed additional resources to the Minneapolis Division, which covers you. I 

have changed the way we assign and recruit agents to Indian country to get more there and to get more talent there. But I have to 

do more, and so watch this space. But I would love to talk to you 

about it again. 

Senator HEITKAMP. I would welcome the opportunity to talk 

about what we need to do, because a lot of people do not understand jurisdictional challenges. I spent a lot of time trying to get 

memorandums of understanding (MOUs) so that we could get drug 

task forces, and this was back when we were worried about far less 

influx of white powder heroin, methamphetamines is epidemic. And 

the challenges are not only in the public health arena, because Indian Health is not equipped to handle this, but there are certainly 

in the law enforcement. And we need a cop on the beat, and that 

is the Federal officials. You have primacy here. 

And so I look forward to working with you on those issues and 

making sure that this big part of my community, which is Native 

American people, has the same level of public protection as any 

other American. And right now, I have a huge land mass, one cop, 

and a big river in between, and no way to get across the river to 

protect people. And these challenges are in Alaska, they are, as you 

said, on the Navajo. And so I want to thank you for your willingness to have this conversation. I want to tell you we are passionate 

about it. Senator Tester and I have talked over and over about this. 

And we would welcome you in North Dakota. 

Thank you. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Senator Portman. 
25 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PORTMAN 

Senator PORTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you all 

for being here and for your service. 

On the issue of opioid abuse, particularly heroin, which is the 

growth area in my State of Ohio and around the country, we now 

have the alarming statistic that in Ohio it is the No. 1 cause of 

death, greater than auto accidents, which is typically the case. 

I was able to speak at the rally on addiction that occurred on 

Sunday evening here and then spent the week with some of the individuals who came in from Ohio, and I do believe that this is an 

epidemic level at this point, particularly in certain parts of our 

State. And, by the way, the addiction rates in our rural communities are higher than in our urban or suburban communities now, 

according to the latest statistics that we have. And I focus more on 

the demand side and the treatment and recovery side, but law enforcement plays a critical role, and we need your help in Ohio. We 

do have some HIDTA programs that are working well. And I appreciate your commitment to that today. 

Switching gears for a second, Secretary Johnson, just over a 

week ago, you stated, ‘‘The threat of foreign terrorist fighters requires the comprehensive efforts of all of our partner agencies and 

allied nations. We will continue to adapt to this evolving threat and 

take necessary action to protect the American public.’’ 

I would ask this morning, Director Rasmussen, if you could give 

us some information on these foreign fighters, and, specifically, my 

concern is, of course, these visa waiver countries. Can you tell us 

how many foreign fighters from visa waiver program countries 

have traveled to Syria to date? 

Mr. RASMUSSEN. I would have to get back to you with a breakdown by the visa waiver countries, as we understand it, Senator, 

but in aggregate, we assess that if you go back to the period when 

the conflict began, well over 3 years now, and look in aggregate, 

the population of individuals who we assess have traveled to the 

conflict zone is upwards of 28,000 right now. Now, that is an aggregate, so it does not mean that today as we speak there is a pool 

or a population inside Iraq and Syria. That captures and covers 3 

years of activity. It also captures and covers activity in both directions, individuals who have died on the battlefield, individuals who 

have come and gone, individuals who have left and gone to other 

onward third locations. From the West—and that would largely 

capture the visa waiver countries that you are talking about, Senator—we assess that that population, that aggregate total, is somewhere in excess of 5,000, with the number of U.S. persons, as the 

Director indicated, being approximately 250. 

So that is the broad breakdown of the numbers as we have them. 

The greatest supply of countries come from the immediate frontline States in the region, as you would imagine, because travel is 

so easy. But then as you get into the next outer ring, which, of 

course, would include Southern and Western Europe, of course, the 

population numbers are significant there as well. 

Senator PORTMAN. That is a shocking number, 5,000, and just so 

people understand what we are talking about here, these are countries that have a visa waiver program with the United States 

where they can come to the United States without going through 
26 

the normal process to get a non-immigrant visa. These are countries that are sending foreign fighters into Syria. The concern is 

they would then go back to their country of origin and then be able 

to come to the United States under a visa waiver. And 5,000 is obviously a huge number and a huge concern. 

If you would not mind, what I would like to do is ask you to get 

back to me on a more specific number from the visa waiver countries, and, specifically, I have a concern about the lack of information sharing. We have programs with some of these countries 

where we try to share information, but the passenger name recognition data, as I understand it, leaves us vulnerable to some of 

these countries sending us some of these foreign fighters. 

Can you tell us a little about that, or anybody else on the panel, 

how that program is working and what else can be done to get better data on these people? 

Secretary JOHNSON. Senator, let me start. I agree with you about 

the concern of foreign fighters coming from countries for which we 

do not require a visa, which is why last year we required additional 

information, data fields in the electronic system travel authorization (ESTA) database, those who want to come here, and then in 

August of this year, we identified a number of security enhancements that we could obtain from countries in the program so that 

we have a much better idea of who is coming here from those countries. They include, for example, the requirement that these countries make better use of API and PNR data, that they use the 

Interpol database for stolen passports on a more regular basis, that 

we increase the use of Federal air marshals on flights coming from 

these countries. There are a whole series of security enhancements 

that we identified that we could obtain and we are obtaining from 

these countries for exactly this reason. 

Senator PORTMAN. And what more do you need? What more can 

we help you with? Is there anything legislatively we can do or a 

codification of any of that or other ways to ensure we do not have 

these foreign fighters slipping into this country? 

Secretary JOHNSON. Well, HSPD–6, which is a Presidential directive, gives us a lot of authority in this area, and if countries want 

to be in this program, they should agree to these security enhancements. So that has been the mechanism for our seeking greater assurances on that. But this is a concern of mine, and I am always 

asking my staff that exact question: Is there any legislative authority that we could use—— 

Senator PORTMAN. Well, let us know, and on the passenger name 

recognition data, my understanding is there are some concerns 

there. Is there more we can do to tighten that up as well? And 

maybe you can get back to us with a specific answer on that issue. 

On the Syrian refugees in general, as you know, Secretary Johnson, I have spent some time focusing on this issue of special immigrant visas for interpreters who served with our troops in Iraq and 

Afghanistan. We have had a real hard time being able to go 

through the security clearance for these interpreters, who had already gone through a clearance process. And so I have to tell you, 

I am very skeptical of what I hear today about 10,000 Syrians coming into this country and having some sort of an expedited process 

to screen them, having gone through the experience of these inter-
27 

preters. So I guess I would ask you today, and, Director Comey, 

also, you expressed concerns about this as well, I have noted, in the 

public media. How are we going to deal with this? Sixteen hundred 

Syrians by the end of fiscal year (FY) 2015 are going to be admitted. Don’t you think that also creates a threat to the homeland? 

And, if you do think that—from, again, your comments that I have 

seen in the public media, you have a concern about that—what are 

we going to do about it? 

Mr. COMEY. Well, yes, Senator, there is risk associated with 

bringing anybody in from the outside, but especially from a conflict 

zone like that. From the intelligence community’s (IC) perspective, 

as I said, I think we have developed an effective way to touch all 

of our databases and resources to figure out what we know about 

individuals. And so that is my piece of it. I do not think that is a 

cumbersome process. My concern there is that there are certain 

gaps that I do not want to talk about publicly in the data available 

to us. But I cannot speak to the rest of the processing that may 

be part of what you are talking about. 

Senator PORTMAN. Well, I think there is a significant gap because our intelligence in Syria is so bad. Right? I mean, we really 

do not have the information that we need to be able to process 

these folks. I think we need to figure this out quickly, given the 

fact we have made this commitment. But I do not know. Director 

Rasmussen, do you have more to add to that? 

Mr. RASMUSSEN. You have certainly highlighted, as a matter of 

comparison, the intelligence picture we have of this particular conflict zone is not as rich as we would like it to be so that would give 

us—obviously, when you screen and vet, you screen and vet against 

available intelligence holdings. The more you have, the more likely 

you are to be able to catch derogatory information that would cause 

you to review a potential case more closely. 

So I think the Director is absolutely right. We have a much more 

streamlined and effective system to make sure that all of our intelligence holdings are brought to bear as these decisions are made. 

But you can only review against what you have, and that is—and, 

again, we are actually building that fact into the way our analysts 

look at the picture as well so that at least we can identify where 

more questions need to be asked, even if intelligence is not available. 

Senator PORTMAN. Well, my time has expired. I appreciate it, Mr. 

Chairman. But I think this is a huge issue, and before making 

these commitments, I hope that there is some dialogue with certainly you three gentlemen and your organizations, and I hope that 

we can come up with a screening process that is better than the 

one we have had on these interpreters I talked about, and particularly with even less intelligence, as you say, from the ground. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Senator Lankford. 
28 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LANKFORD 

Senator LANKFORD. Gentlemen, thank you for your work to protect the Nation. It is extremely important. And I want you to hear 

from the folks in Oklahoma. We appreciate the work that you do, 

and it is incredibly valuable. We understand very well—as Jeh 

Johnson was in Oklahoma not long ago, Director Comey was in 

Oklahoma not long ago, we understand extremely well the threats 

that we face. So I just wanted you to hear from us again that we 

are grateful for what you are doing. 

I wanted to ask you, Secretary Johnson, you mentioned before 

about the cybersecurity bill. Can you explain to this Committee the 

why on the cybersecurity bill, why that is so important right now? 

Not the threats that are out there, but the specific language and 

what you need on the cybersecurity bill. 

Secretary JOHNSON. Yes, sir. Two principal things come to mind 

immediately. 

One, explicit congressional authorization for DHS’S ability to 

monitor, identify, and block unwanted intrusions in other Federal 

agencies through our EINSTEIN system. The virtue of the EINSTEIN system is that it has the ability to block intrusions, and it 

is a platform for greater and better technology in the future. So—— 

Senator LANKFORD. And that is in the Federal systems, not private systems, correct? 

Secretary JOHNSON. Correct. 

Senator LANKFORD. OK. 

Secretary JOHNSON. No. 2, greater incentives through law for the 

private sector to share information with the Federal Government 

when it comes to cyber threat indicators. And so that is something 

that is in the pending legislation now before the Senate, and I 

think that is a very good thing. 

So those are the two principal areas. There is always the data 

breach notification requirement and enhanced penalties, but those 

are the two principal things we need. 

Senator LANKFORD. Voluntary cooperation or mandatory cooperation with the private sector? 

Secretary JOHNSON. We believe that encouraging voluntary cooperation with the private sector is the way to go. 

Senator LANKFORD. OK. That is a key aspect; I would agree on 

that. And I think the private sector and that cooperation, as Jim 

Comey mentioned earlier, the FBI does not come from Mars. We 

are all American citizens here, and finding ways for us to be able 

to work together on this I think is extremely important. 

I want us to be able to shift a little bit to what some other folks 

have talked about. We talk about the threat from ISIS. It is spectacular. And we talk about a couple of dozen folks that are here 

that are major concerns. Last year, we had over 10,000 deaths by 

heroin on the streets of the United States. Hotel rooms, houses, on 

the streets, people quietly dying from heroin and from narcoterrorists moving into our borders and distributing this incredibly toxic 

substance across our Nation. So whether it is heroin, whether it is 

cocaine, whether it is marijuana, whether it is methamphetamines, 

it is a very strategic move that is happening, and it is extremely 

aggressive and seems to be accelerating at a pace we have not seen 
29 

before in many areas of certain types. We seem to have new locations that these drugs are coming from as well. 

So can you help me understand the coordinated strategy not only 

dealing with ISIS and those threats on American soil, but the 

threats that are coming in from narcoterrorists around the world 

as well, both their distribution networks, the interdiction, and if we 

are dealing with new locations and new groups to bring it in? How 

are we coordinating that among the agencies to take that on? 

Mr. COMEY. Senator, I can start from the enforcement perspective. Your description is completely accurate, and I actually worry 

that our country is not getting it the way you described it. Recently, the Acting Administrator of the DEA, who is a great leader, 

sent over his team to brief me on their current view of the threat, 

and it is breathtaking. Cocaine use has gone down since 2006. That 

is good news. All the rest, it is not just bad news. It is awful. 

Senator LANKFORD. Right. 

Mr. COMEY. And so the strategy from the enforcement perspective is try to disrupt the traffickers, try to lock them up, both the 

kingpins in Mexico, which is where this is coming from, and to disrupt the gangs and organized criminals they are using to distribute 

it in the United States, the goal being to try to drive up the price, 

to be honest. What is happening is heroin is so cheap and so pure 

that it is a tidal wave washing over children and killing them because they do not know how pure it is. And so that is the strategy 

from the law enforcement perspective: Drive up the cost by locking 

up as many of these people as we can. 

And I cannot speak to, obviously, the international piece as well 

as maybe others could. 

Secretary JOHNSON. Senator, on the interdiction front, I think 

the key is a good working relationship with the Government of 

Mexico. My Department and I personally spend a lot of time with 

my Mexican counterparts. I plan to go there next week. This will 

be a topic. We have our joint task forces here, but working with 

the Government of Mexico is obviously key, and I agree with you 

that we need to do a better job in this respect because the problem 

is getting worse. 

Senator LANKFORD. Yes, it is accelerating. We seem to have supply coming from new areas as well. Are you seeing new players 

internationally that are trying to actually get supply to the United 

States? I mean, Mexico is obviously a very close neighbor. They are 

pushing it all the way through North America all the way to Canada. Are there other locations that you have seen on the horizon 

that you would say this is a new region that we have not dealt 

with as much but they are trying to transport to the United States? 

Mr. COMEY. The big focus is Mexico, because what has happened 

is the Mexican traffickers have figured out that they can do better 

by, instead of bringing Colombian heroin or heroin from some other 

place than the United States and transport to the United States, 

they are growing it in southern Mexico. They are growing the poppies. They are refining it themselves. So it is just a business. They 

just shorten their transportation routes. They have dropped their 

cost so they can sell it at a lower cost and a higher purity. And 

so it is that domination. 
30 

And then the other piece, which is a plague in the West, is methamphetamine. 

Senator LANKFORD. Right. 

Mr. COMEY. They are making it in huge factories in Mexico. 

Again, they are not bringing it in from Colombia or any other place 

anymore. So the center ground zero for this plague across the 

drugs is Mexico. 

Secretary JOHNSON. Let me give you a little bit of good news. 

The United States Coast Guard (USCG), we sent the national security cutter, the USS Stratton, on a 4-month mission down to Central America. While they were out for 4 months, they interdicted 

$1 billion worth of cocaine, including large seizures off of 

submersibles that the cartels manufacture and run in the high seas 

between South America and Central America. So we want to continue those kinds of missions. 

Senator LANKFORD. OK. What is needed to be able to continue 

that kind of interdiction? Because as has already been mentioned, 

it is not coming from Central America. They will produce it in Mexico. And so trying to find those locations—methamphetamine production, I believe, is going down in the United States, but it is rising rapidly in Mexico. So we have found effective ways to be able 

to limit the production in the United States. But now it is just 

being pushed out. So how are we handling trying to limit production there and to be able to work through the process? As you mentioned, visiting with your Mexican counterparts is a good step, but 

the fields continue to grow that are there both with poppies and 

marijuana. And the production, and the locations to be able to pick 

up the basic supplies to be able to do methamphetamine, and the 

international connections for those. How can we help? 

Secretary JOHNSON. Greater coordinated law enforcement between our two governments. That is the key. And we do that on 

a regular basis, but we need to do more. 

Senator LANKFORD. OK. Thank you for all your work on that. I 

would tell you keep your eye on the ball on that, because that is 

something that we deal with on our streets across the entire country all the time. You all know that very well. The focus cannot be 

off, obviously, international terrorism, which happened with ISIL 

and their plans and their intentional focus to try to penetrate the 

United States, but we know the narcoterrorists are penetrating us 

every single day, and to be able to find a way to be able to go 

through that. 

One other quick side note, if I can, Mr. Chairman. Secretary 

Johnson, your Department has been very good working with the 

State of Oklahoma and dealing with the REAL ID. We are trying 

to work through all the final details. You have been good on a 

waiver on that with us. We are addressing that as a State, and I 

appreciate your waiver for us as we try to work through the final 

process to get up to speed on it. So I appreciate that. 

Secretary JOHNSON. Thank you. The thing I would emphasize 

there is that we are progressing in our efforts to enforce this law, 

and there will come a point where we have to set some real deadlines. So I am pleased at the progress that we have been making 

in working with State officials in Oklahoma. 

Senator LANKFORD. It has been good. Thank you. 
31 

1The article referenced by Senator Johnson appears in the Appendix on page 64. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Senator Lankford. 

Director Rasmussen, in your previous testimony, you talked 

about the fact that we have taken a number of these terrorists off 

the map, and I guess I want to get your assessment of the unfortunate reality, you take them off the map and they are replaced. Both 

the leadership as well as the flow of foreign fighters seems to continue largely unabated. Can you just give me your sense of how effectively the people we are killing are being replaced? 

Mr. RASMUSSEN. I will do the best I can in open testimony, Senator, Mr. Chairman. One of the ways we look at this as an intelligence community is try to identify who brings unique capability 

to the terrorist enterprise, whether that is from a leadership level, 

a high-value leadership target, someone who may have a very specific set of skills perhaps, in the weapons of mass destruction field 

or use of explosives, someone who has shown ability to organize 

and orchestrate significant large-scale plotting activities. Those 

kinds of individuals will be worthy of, focused intelligence collection 

and whatever disruption capabilities we can bring to bear. 

I will probably want to leave it there. Now, that is an ongoing—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. What about the flow of foreign fighters? 

Mr. RASMUSSEN. The flow of foreign fighters, there is nobody who 

is satisfied that we have yet turned the tide in terms of getting 

that flow to have crested. I will say, though, if there is a good-news 

story somewhere embedded in this foreign fighter story, it is that 

the level of information sharing, some of which Secretary Johnson 

was talking about a few minutes ago, particularly with our European partners, is much more robust than it would have been if we 

had entered—at the point we entered this crisis 2 years ago. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Again, the purpose of this hearing is laying 

out the reality, and so the reality is we have not stemmed the flow 

the way we want to. 

Talk a little bit about the significance of the caliphate and the 

territory. There was an excellent article written by Graeme Wood1

that really was pretty eye-opening, I think, for many people in 

Washington. We talked about that, Director Comey. Can you talk 

about that significance, again, lay out that reality and why part of 

our strategy has to be to deny them that territory to really end this 

caliphate? 

Mr. RASMUSSEN. There are a couple of different features of ISIL’s 

declaration of the caliphate that make it particularly concerning. 

One is, as you yourself suggested, Mr. Chairman, it becomes almost 

a magnet to attract individuals who are seeking meaning, who are 

seeking to participate in a global jihadist enterprise, and that is, 

unlike al-Qaeda, who is often running their enterprise as a clandestine movement with a very, very rigorous vetting process before allowing individuals inside the fold, ISIL is issuing an open invitation on social media for people to come to the caliphate and join. 

So simply in terms of size and scale, the declaration of the caliphate gives us concern because it provides that magnet. But beyond that kind of somewhat amorphous effect, the creation of a caliphate and the control of physical space, as I mentioned in my tes-
32 

timony, gives the terrorist organization the opportunity to gather 

resources, to operate potentially in a safe haven environment. And 

while they are managing other priorities, it gives them the time 

and space to pursue more aggressive, ambitious external operations, again, maybe of the sort even that al-Qaeda did traditionally. 

So that is I guess what I would say: The part of the caliphate 

that gives me the greatest concern is that physical space in Iraq 

and Syria that you yourself pointed to with your question. 

Chairman JOHNSON. So the goal of our strategy with that in 

mind really needs to be to deny them that territory. I mean, if you 

are going to degrade and ultimately defeat ISIS, you have to deny 

them that territory. 

Mr. RASMUSSEN. I would agree, Senator. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Director Comey, just a quick suggestion. I 

did meet with this young Yazidi woman, ‘‘Bazi,’’ who had the courage to come forward and tell her story in terms of combating on 

social media these young women who are actually inspired to go to 

Syria and Iraq to join ISIS. That would be a pretty powerful way 

of doing it. Just a comment. 

Secretary Johnson, we have held eight hearings on border security now. We are going to hold our ninth. In a couple weeks, we 

will issue the majority report on our conclusions from those hearings. I think we are in agreement that—because we have talked 

about this repeatedly. I am a manufacturer. I am always looking 

for the root cause. And I think we agree, Senator Carper, that the 

root cause of our unsecured border is literally our insatiable demand for drugs, and it has been insatiable for decades, which has 

given rise to the drug cartels, who are beginning to combine with 

transnational criminal organizations, potentially terrorist organizations, and so that is what we need to address. It is one of the reasons I pointed out the fact that General McCaffrey said we are only 

interdicting 5 to 10 percent of the drugs coming to the southern 

border, which shows you how unsecure our border is. So, again, we 

have to lay out that ugly and harsh reality. 

I would like to give you, Secretary Johnson, the opportunity—you 

have talked about the strategy that you are trying to employ that 

you would want this Congress—and, quite honestly, a lot of this 

would come through this Committee—to help you codify. So can 

you just describe what your strategy is in kind of summary detail 

here. And, again, I am completely committed to work very closely 

with you and your Department to codify this in a step-by-step approach, which is, I think, the way we can actually accomplish it. 

Let us find the areas of agreement that unite us. 

But can you kind of lay that out and give me the priorities of the 

components? Again, we started with you need information to solve 

a problem, so the border security metrics bill we are going to try 

and move that and get that passed and on the President’s desk as 

soon as possible. But then what are the next steps? And what is 

your strategy? 

Secretary JOHNSON. In terms of pure border security, Senator, 

more technology, more surveillance, to pursue a risk-based strategy 

so that we go after the threats where they know they exist. More 

surveillance, more technology, which is reflected in our fiscal year 
33 

2016 budget submission. We need help in terms of speeding the 

process of deportations and asylum applications in the immigration 

courts, more resources to accomplish that so that the time it takes 

to litigate is not as long as it is. 

But, frankly, given—you mentioned the root causes in this country. I want to mention the root causes that exist in Central America. The last time I was on the border, I talked to a 7-year-old girl 

who came all the way from Central America all by herself to Texas, 

and more surveillance is not going to deter a 7-year-old who is fleeing poverty and violence in Central America from coming up here. 

So my judgment is that we have to address the underlying 

causes in those countries. We talk about addressing the underlying 

causes for refugees in Syria. We have to do the same in Central 

America as well. And so the administration has asked for $1 billion 

to invest in Central America, and I hope the Congress seriously 

considers that. As long as the conditions in those countries are as 

bad as they are, we are going to have the types of numbers that 

we have coming from Central America. 

And so I want to invest in a smart, efficient border strategy 

which includes surveillance and technology on our border, but we 

have to address the underlying causes, too. 

Chairman JOHNSON. But if we do survey and detect and we apprehend and we process and then we distribute and disperse 

around America, that sends a pretty powerful signal, too, to Central America that if you get to America, regardless of what our 

laws say, if you get to America and we do not send people home, 

that is going to increase the flow. I mean, it is the problem right 

now with Syria. And we just had the President of Germany in. The 

more Europe accepts of the refugees from the compassion that we 

are as people, to address that humanitarian crisis, the more they 

accept in, the more of the 4 million that are displaced outside will 

flow into Europe, the more the 7.6 million are displaced within 

Syria will flow—will become refugees and flow into Europe. 

So we have a capacity in our country to take people. We are a 

Nation of immigrants. But at the same time, we have to recognize 

what incentives we are creating for illegal immigration. We also 

have to assess—and we are going to be going down to Central 

America—are there governing structures, are there leaders like we 

had in Colombia, are there leaders that will actually take that 

money and use it properly to improve conditions? Or are we just 

basically wasting that money as well? Those are legitimate questions. But I think we really do have to address this as part of our 

border security strategy, again, assessing the fact of our insatiable 

demand for drugs, also look at every incentive that we have created 

within our law for illegal immigration. We have talked about this. 

The No. 1 is work. So let us have a functioning guest worker program. 

There is a host of issues, but really we can control things here. 

I do not know how much we can control in Central America. We 

are compassionate. We want to help, and that would be great. I am 

not sure how much we can do. But we can do things here, and so 

let us make sure we are addressing all those incentives within our 

law, within our adjudication process, that are incentivizing people 

to come into this country and end those incentives. 
34 

Secretary JOHNSON. I do not disagree with what you are saying, 

but I do believe, having spent my 22 months as Secretary of Homeland Security intensely focused on this problem, that a large part 

of the solution is addressing the conditions in Central America. It 

is not simply as a matter of compassion. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Again, if we can make those economically 

prosperous zones, not havens for drugs and corruption, I would 

agree with you. I am not sure we can. Short term, there are some 

things we can do short term inside this country ourselves. Senator 

Carper. 

Senator CARPER. As our Chairman has heard me say, and I think 

you, Mr. Secretary, have heard me say many times, find out what 

works, do more of that. And if we go back and look at Colombia 

20 years ago, a failed nation, Plan Colombia, which we supported, 

funded, they had good leadership. They had a lot of leadership from 

the private sector as well, and bit by bit they have turned things 

around there. So somebody has done this before. We were involved 

in that, and so were other folks. 

And I would say with respect to Central America and the movement of all these folks up to our country, especially last year—not 

as much this year—there is a root cause, and you have nailed it, 

Mr. Secretary. But what the Chairman says, there is a lot of wisdom in that as well. It is not a choice of doing one or the other. 

Actually, we need to do both. And the question is: Can we walk and 

chew gum at the same time? I think we can, and I think we must. 

Nick, I have taken it easy on you today, and I am going to get 

you into the game here for a little bit. Does the name Jessica Stern 

mean anything to you? 

Mr. RASMUSSEN. Yes, sir. She is a terrorism expert, I think, in 

the academic world right now, but she has former government 

service. 

Senator CARPER. And her husband does, too. Her husband, Chet 

Atkins, was a former colleague of several of us in the House of 

Representatives for a number of years, and I had the good fortune—she actually testified here, I think at our hearing on Jihad 

2.0 earlier, and I had a chance to meet with her and her husband 

a couple of months ago. And she was good enough to give me a couple of her books, one called ‘‘ISIS: The State of Terror,’’ and that 

is a recent book; and then another one that she had written, gosh, 

more than a decade ago, and her older book focused on what is it 

that is causing estranged, alienated men, largely, to create in this 

country faith-based organizations in many cases that are really designed—that are morphing into terror organizations. And she grew 

that into visits all over the world, Palestine, if you will, Afghanistan, Iraq, all kinds of places. And what she was trying to do is 

drill down on root causes. What is it that is causing these mostly 

guys to leave their countries and go off in many cases and form an 

outfit or join an outfit like ISIS? And she concluded is this. She 

said these are mostly men without much meaning in their life. 

These are people who are—they do not like this country. They 

think of us as a Great Satan, a lot of immorality. The prospect of 

adventure, of real meaning in their life, the prospect of when they 

die they go to heaven, before they die they have all these wives, 
35 

and for people that there is not much happening in their life, there 

is not much prospect, she said they are ripe for the plucking. 

Does she have it right there? Again, thinking about root causes, 

part of the root causes, why are all these people, when they come 

from all over the world, to join up with ISIS? 

Mr. RASMUSSEN. Thank you, sir. I think she certainly has part 

of it right, and the words you are using on her behalf or as part 

of her academic work echo some of the same analysis that our analysts across the community are engaged in. 

But I meant to add this when one of your colleagues on the Committee asked earlier about underlying conditions or underlying 

causes. If you look at each and every one of the conflict zones 

around the world that are particularly fraught right now or where 

ISIL seems to be able to take hold in some form or fashion, another 

recurring theme that runs through it is sectarian conflict. And so 

when there are in those locations significant unresolved sectarian 

issues—and I do not need to go into the details on how that plays 

out in Iraq and Syria and across the Levant between the Sunni and 

Shia communities, that just creates a much more fertile ground for 

the ISIL narrative to take hold. So that, as you develop—as you 

consider mitigating strategies, that adds a layer of complexity to 

what you are trying to do, because you are not simply setting up 

a condition where you are good against evil or good guys against 

bad guys. If your terrorist population of concern is also enmeshed 

in a sectarian conflict in which the answers are not easy, or if they 

were easy, they would have been seized upon by previous Iraqi and 

Syrian Governments, all I am saying is that adds a layer of complexity to a somewhat more simple narrative of personal alienation. 

And, again, I am not saying ‘‘simple’’ in a derogatory way. That is 

just one level of the problem. 

Senator CARPER. It seems that none of the people who are coming are going to join in the fight with ISIS. Some of them are coming from—they do not have much in terms of earning power. They 

do not have a lot of money in their lives. And one of the things that 

I hear that may attract them is being paid, to get some money out 

of this. 

Could you just take a minute and give us an unclassified assessment of ISIS’ finances? Are they running a deficit? Are they having 

trouble paying their bills? What are some of the factors—how do 

these factors impact their ability to be successful? 

Mr. RASMUSSEN. That is a very good question. At a gross aggregate level, we believe ISIS is a well-financed, well-resourced organization right now. At the early stages of the conflict, we assessed 

that some of the resource base on which they were relying was not 

necessarily going to be replenishable or a recurring base. You can 

rob a bank or the central bank in Iraq once, but you cannot rob 

it again and again and again. So I think we had hoped that over 

time ISIL’s ability to generate additional resources would go down 

more dramatically than it has. What they have shown is an ability 

to muster ways to use the natural resources present in the territory they control, principally oil, and exploit that for financial gain 

and actually develop their own manufacturing capability, and in a 

sense run an organization like a State. 
36 

And so I think unlike the al-Qaeda financial picture which we 

were dealing with for a number of years where you were worried 

about specific fundraising activities in certain far-flung capitals 

around the world and money flowing to, Pakistan to fund terrorist 

activity, this is much more self-generation by ISIL as it functions 

like a State, including using taxation but also extortion, also criminal means as well. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Thanks. One last quick question, if I 

could, Mr. Chairman, and this is one for Secretary Johnson. 

I understand you have established a new Office of Violent Extremism. Could you just take a moment and share with us how this 

office will do things maybe differently from DHS’ existing efforts to 

counter violent extremism? 

Secretary JOHNSON. A couple of things. 

One, this office and this Director will report directly to me. 

Two, I am consolidating all the personnel within the Department 

in headquarters who work on CVE in that one office under the supervision of that one Director. 

And, three, we want to eventually use this office to extend its 

reach out into the field so that we have more reach in the field, 

because when you embed people in the communities, you get some 

good results. 

And I want this office to focus on taking our efforts, along with 

the FBI and other agencies, to the next level, which is giving the 

counter-message a larger platform and encouraging leaders in 

those communities along with the tech sector to get together and 

do that, encourage philanthropies, and develop some of our own 

grantmaking in this specific area. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you. Our thanks to each one of you. 

Thank you. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Senator Baldwin. 

Senator CARPER. It is pretty good timing. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR BALDWIN 

Senator BALDWIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member. 

I want to thank all three of you for your service. I was here for 

your testimony. As you know, I had to step out. And so at the risk 

of getting into some of the territory that has been covered in my 

absence, I apologize for that. 

I want to dovetail on some of the questions that Senator Carper 

asked in his first round relating to the Syrian refugee crisis and, 

in particular, the waiting process. A number of you testified that 

we are getting better at the vetting process over time, but we are 

not 100 percent error-proof yet. Also, Chairman Johnson talked a 

little bit about prioritization in terms of family members of Syrian 

Americans. 

In this public setting, if you can outline how we make this process more efficient and swift without sacrificing the thoroughness 

and quality. And if you can talk a little bit, Secretary Johnson, 

about the prioritization process, to the degree that it exists, that 

deals with family members. I would assume that the vetting for a 

child is different than the vetting for an adult and others with ties 

to the United States. Recognizing that we are currently in a public 

setting, please tell me as much as you can. 
37 

Secretary JOHNSON. Yes. There are several agencies involved in 

the process—United States Citizenship and Immigration Services 

(USCIS), State Department—and when a refugee is referred to us, 

they are referred to us by United Nations High Commission for 

Refugees (UNHCR). So UNHCR will have done some of its own vetting, not necessarily the security vetting that we would conduct, 

and in referring a refugee to the United States in particular, it is 

my understanding they do so because there are family connections 

to the United States versus some other countries. So by the time 

they come to us, UNHCR has adjudged them to be a good candidate for resettlement in the United States. 

Once they are with us, the State Department meets with the individual. My understanding is that somebody from USCIS will personally interview the refugee. There is a pretty extensive background check now that includes vetting against a lot of other databases and agencies, including law enforcement and intelligence. It 

is better than it used to be, and the good news here is that UNHCR 

has already identified a number of refugees that they believe would 

be appropriate for resettlement in the United States. So we are not 

starting from scratch. We are waiting for people to pick up and 

leave Syria. UNHCR has already identified a number that are suitable for resettlement in the United States, and that is where we 

start. 

There was a reference made to 1,600 resettled this year. I think 

we will finish out this fiscal year—the last fiscal year closer to 

around 2,000. So we will have gotten through the ones that we 

were focused on in fiscal year 2015. But I do want to be—and I 

have told our people we should be—very careful in the security reviews for each of these. I agree with the assessments that have 

been expressed here earlier that this is a population of people that 

we are not going to know a whole lot about necessarily coming from 

Syria. So we are going to meet our commitments with the resources 

we have, but we will do so carefully. 

Senator BALDWIN. Thank you. Mr. Rasmussen in your written 

testimony, you described the increasing competition and conflict between the Taliban, ISIL, and al-Qaeda as a dynamic that you are 

working to understand more thoroughly. You also mentioned that 

the conflicts between these groups may in some respect distract 

from their Western targets. 

You said you do not have all the answers. What are the questions that you are asking? I have always worried that conflict between these groups could lead to a competition to be more spectacular than each other and that, of course, gives us great concern. 

Mr. RASMUSSEN. The conflict plays out at a number of levels. 

First of all, there is kind of at an ideological level conflict and competition taking place between al-Qaeda and the affiliated groups 

that still remain affiliated to al-Qaeda in Yemen, Al-Shabaab in Somalia, for example, other al-Qaeda-affiliated organizations, competition between them and ISIL for preeminence in the marketplace of ideas among global extremists. So that is at a very—at a 

high altitude. 

But on the ground in certain locations, there is actually much 

more on-the-ground physical conflict between ISIL or ISIL-related 

groups with the Taliban in Afghanistan, for example, where actu-
38 

ally there you have individuals who in other circumstances might 

even be comrades in arms, but in this circumstance are actually engaged in fighting and killing each other on the battlefield, even as 

Afghan National Security Forces and U.S. Coalition Forces are also 

present in the theater as well. 

So I take your point that you certainly do not want to create a 

competition for ever greater levels of spectacular violence, but the 

one thing that internal conflict, particularly that conflict on the 

battlefield in a place like Afghanistan does, is it does tend to be 

pretty all-consuming for a terrorist organization to fight a ground 

war against other extremist adversaries in a place like Afghanistan. 

So we are watching very carefully to see if the ISIL province in 

Afghanistan turns its attention from that effort to gain on the 

ground against the Taliban, turns from that project to something 

that would be aimed at us, particularly something with an external 

focus, something looking at the West akin to al-Qaeda over the last 

dozen years. 

So I do not necessarily want to call it good news or that we are 

heartened, but what we do as a matter of assessment is realize 

that terrorist organizations often have finite capabilities, and so 

they do not necessarily have the ability to prioritize everything 

equally. The more they are engaged in that kind of effort on the 

ground that is often very resource-intensive, the less capacity they 

have to carry out the more kind of complex plotting. 

Senator BALDWIN. In your verbal testimony this morning, you 

talked about ISIL having overtaken al-Qaeda, and you pointed to 

access to resources territorial control, and control over people. Is 

there still a very sharp distinction between ISIL and al-Qaeda with 

regard to their aspirations to control territory? And how does that 

relate to the risk that the organizations pose to our homeland? 

Mr. RASMUSSEN. From al-Qaeda’s perspective, ISIL’s declaration 

of the caliphate is illegitimate and premature, and so they differ 

fundamentally on a central premise of the ISIL agenda. 

At the same time, I would not draw some huge distinction between the two groups as they look at the legitimacy or virtue of attacking the West in whatever way that they can find the capacity 

to do so. Now, they are not making Common Cause with each other 

in that effort because of the philosophical and leadership cleavages. 

But at the same time, we worry and watch for individuals who 

might migrate across organizational lines to cooperate with each 

other for specific purpose-driven efforts. Just because someone is 

ISIL or al-Qaeda one day does not mean that that is—laminated 

badge from the organization may not last very long. You may find 

yourself changing teams, changing sides. And that is why I say 

what I said in the testimony about ISIL gaining preeminence. Success breeds success, and more individuals have flowed in the direction of ISIS/ISIL for that reason. 

Senator BALDWIN. Thank you. 

Mr. Chairman, I note that I have exceeded my time already. I 

have one other question that I wanted to ask the witnesses. I 

would ask unanimous consent to submit it for the record. 

Chairman JOHNSON. That is fine, and we will keep the record 

open for questions for the record. 
39 

Thank you, Senator Baldwin. 

It is another tradition of this Committee, at least since Senator 

Carper was Chairman, to give the witnesses a chance to just make 

kind of a closing comment, things that you would want to remark 

after the questioning. So I will start with you, Director Comey. 

Mr. COMEY. I do not think I have anything. I think we have covered a complex set of topics in a pretty good way. I am not sitting 

here thinking there is something lingering. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Good. I appreciate that. Secretary Johnson. 

Secretary JOHNSON. Chairman, Senator Carper, I have appreciated our very constructive working relationship. I appreciate the 

tone that you have set at these hearings, and I appreciate your 

friendship. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Director Rasmussen? 

Mr. RASMUSSEN. The only thing—— 

Mr. COMEY. You can have more time. [Laughter.] 

Chairman JOHNSON. Sing our praises. 

Mr. RASMUSSEN. The only thing I would add, Mr. Chairman, is 

on the Governmental Affairs side of your Committee’s hat, I think 

you would be pleased, I think as Senator Carper said, with how 

well and how closely our organizations are working together. As 

many of you know, NCTC is an organization that relies on contributions from other organizations. Our lifeblood, in addition to 

our permanent employees, is found in the contributions of other organizations. And just a couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity 

to host Director Comey as he spoke to 60 or so FBI detailees assigned to NCTC who are doing terrific work on behalf of us all. 

So just to say there is always room for improvement in the way 

we work together, we are constantly striving to get better at what 

we do, but I am tremendously proud of my workforce, but also the 

workforces that I get support from at DHS and FBI. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Director. We talked earlier 

about the cooperation between your agencies and State and local 

governments as well, and I am sure Senator Baldwin would agree 

with me. As I talk to individuals in Wisconsin tasked with your 

mission, keeping Wisconsin but also this Nation safe, they also are 

very pleased with the cooperation. So we are moving in the right 

direction, and that is kind of good news. So I appreciate that. 

Again, I want to thank you for your service to this Nation, all 

three of you. I think America is incredibly fortunate to have men 

of your caliber and of your dedication and of your integrity serving 

in your capacity. I realize this is not a 9-to-5 job 5 days a week. 

This is 24/7/365 days a year, and all three of you are working hard 

to keep this Nation safe. So, truly, I think I speak for all of us 

when I thank you for your patriotism and for your service to this 

Nation. 

Senator CARPER. I am Tom Carper, and I approve this message. 

[Laughter.] 

Chairman JOHNSON. Again, there is an awful lot we agree on, 

and we are trying to find those areas that unify us. 

So this hearing record will remain open for 15 days until October 

23 at 5 p.m.—so you have some time, Senator Baldwin. 

Senator BALDWIN. Thank you. 
40 

Chairman JOHNSON [continuing]. For submission of statements 

and questions for the record. This hearing is adjourned. Thank you 

all. 

[Whereupon, at 12 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 
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