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NATIONAL COMMISSION ON TERRORIST

ATTACKS UPON THE UNITED STATES

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SELECT COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND 

SECURITY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

AUGUST 17, 2004

Serial No. 108–55

Printed for the use of the Select Committee on Homeland Security

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html
SELECT COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

CHRISTOPHER COX, California, Chairman 

JENNIFER DUNN, Washington 

C.W. BILL YOUNG, Florida 

DON YOUNG, Alaska 

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., Wisconsin 

DAVID DREIER, California 

DUNCAN HUNTER, California 

HAROLD ROGERS, Kentucky 

SHERWOOD BOEHLERT, New York 

JOE BARTON, Texas 

LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas 

CURT WELDON, Pennsylvania 

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut 

PORTER J. GOSS, Florida 

DAVE CAMP, Michigan 

LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART, Florida 

BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia 

ERNEST J. ISTOOK, JR., Oklahoma 

PETER T. KING, New York 

JOHN LINDER, Georgia 

JOHN B. SHADEGG, Arizona 

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana 

MAC THORNBERRY, Texas 

JIM GIBBONS, Nevada 

KAY GRANGER, Texas 

PETE SESSIONS, Texas 

JOHN E. SWEENEY, New York 

JIM TURNER, Texas, Ranking Member 

BENNIE G. THOMPSON, Mississippi 

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California 

EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts 

NORMAN D. DICKS, Washington 

BARNEY FRANK, Massachusetts 

JANE HARMAN, California 

BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland 

LOUISE MCINTOSH SLAUGHTER, New York 

PETER A. DEFAZIO, Oregon 

NITA M. LOWEY, New York 

ROBERT E. ANDREWS, New Jersey 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

KAREN MCCARTHY, Missouri 

SHEILA JACKSON-LEE, Texas 

BILL PASCRELL, JR., New Jersey 

DONNA M. CHRISTENSEN, U.S. Virgin Islands 

BOB ETHERIDGE, North Carolina 

KEN LUCAS, Kentucky 

JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island 

KENDRICK B. MEEK, Florida 

BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky 

JOHN GANNON, Chief of Staff 

STEPHEN DEVINE, Deputy Staff Director and General Counsel 

THOMAS DILENGE, Chief Counsel and Policy Director 

DAVID H. SCHANZER, Democrat Staff Director 

MARK T. MAGEE, Democrat Deputy Staff Director 

MICHAEL S. TWINCHEK, Chief Clerk

(II) 
(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

STATEMENTS

The Honorable Christopher Cox, a Representative in Congress From the 

State of California, and Chairman, Select Committee on Homeland Security 1

The Honorable Jim Turner, a Representative in Congress From the State 

of Texas, Ranking Member, Select Committee on Homeland Security ........... 3

The Honorable Robert E. Andrews, a Representative in Congress From the 

State of New Jersey ............................................................................................. 64

The Honorable Dave Camp, a Representative in Congress From the State 

of Michigan ........................................................................................................... 39

The Honorable Lincoln Diaz-Balart, a Representative in Congress From the 

State of Florida ..................................................................................................... 85

The Honorable Benjamin L. Cardin, a Representative in Congress From the 

State of Maryland ................................................................................................ 50

The Honorable Donna M. Christensen, a Delegate in Congress From the 

U.S. Virgin Islands: Prepared Statement .......................................................... 7

The Honorable Peter A. DeFazio, a Representative in Congress From the 

State of Oregon ..................................................................................................... 36

The Honorable Norman D. Dicks, a Representative in Congress From the 

State of Washington ............................................................................................. 37

The Honorable Jennifer Dunn, a Representative in Congress From the State 

of Washington ....................................................................................................... 6

The Honorable Bob Etheridge, a Representative in Congress From the State 

of North Carolina ................................................................................................. 100

The Honorable Barney Frank, a Representative in Congress From the State 

of Massachusetts .................................................................................................. 40

The Honorable Jim Gibbons, a Representative in Congress From the State 

of Nevada .............................................................................................................. 62

The Honorable Bob Goodlatte, a Representative in Congress From the State 

of Virginia ............................................................................................................. 45

The Honorable Jane Harman, a Representative in Congress From the State 

of California .......................................................................................................... 47

The Honorable Ernest J. Istook, Jr., a Representative in Congress From 

the State of Oklahoma ......................................................................................... 93

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

of New York .......................................................................................................... 49

The Honorable James R. Langevin, a Representative in Congress From the 

States of Rhode Island ......................................................................................... 105

The Honorable Sheila Jackson-Lee, a Representative in Congress From the 

State of Texas ....................................................................................................... 66

The Honorable John Linder, a Representative in Congress From the State 

of Georgia .............................................................................................................. 52

The Honorable Zoe Lofgren, a Representative in Congress From the State 

of California .......................................................................................................... 86

The Honorable Nita M. Lowey, a Representative in Congress From the State 

of New York 

Oral Statement ..................................................................................................... 60

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 8

The Honorable Karen McCarthy, a Representative in Congress From the 

State of Missouri: Prepared Statement .............................................................. 9

The Honorable Kendrick Meek, a Representative in Congress From the State 

of Florida ............................................................................................................... 108 
Page

IV

The Honorable Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Delegate in Congress From the 

of District of Columbia ......................................................................................... 136

The Honorable Bill Pascrell, Jr., a Representative in Congress From the 

State of New Jersey ............................................................................................. 33

The Honorable Loretta Sanchez, a Representative in Congress From the 

State of California ................................................................................................ 119

The Honorable John B. Shadegg, a Representative in Congress From the 

State of Arizona .................................................................................................... 55

The Honorable Christopher Shays, a Representative in Congress From the 

State of Connecticut ............................................................................................. 35

The Honorable Louise McIntosh Slaughter, a Representative in Congress 

From the State of New York: 

Oral Statement ..................................................................................................... 53

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 10 

The Honorable Lamar S. Smith, a Representative in Congress From the 

State of Texas ....................................................................................................... 31

The Honorable Mark Souder, a Representative in Congress From the State 

of Indiana .............................................................................................................. 58

The Honorable John E. Sweeney, a Representative From the State of New 

York ....................................................................................................................... 87

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

the State of Mississippi ....................................................................................... 30

WITNESSES 

PANEL I 

The Honorable Lee H. Hamilton, Vice Chair, National Commission on 

Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States: 

Oral Statement ..................................................................................................... 15

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 19

The Honorable Thomas H. Kean, Chair, National Commission on Terrorist 

Attacks Upon the United States: 

Oral Statement ..................................................................................................... 11

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 19

PANEL II 

The Honorable J. Cofer Black, Coordinator, Office of the Coordinator for 

Counterterrorism, Department of State: 

Oral Statement ..................................................................................................... 67

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 68

Ms. Maureen Baginski, Executive Assistant Director for Intelligence, Federal 

Bureau of Investigation: 

Oral Statement ..................................................................................................... 77

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 79

Mr. John Brennan, Director, Terrorist Threat Integration Center: 

Oral Statement ..................................................................................................... 74

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 75

General Patrick Hughes, Assistant Secretary for Information Analysis, 

Department of Homeland Security: 

Oral Statement ..................................................................................................... 70

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 70

FOR THE RECORD

Responses from Ms. Maureen Baginski: 

Quesitons submitted by the Honorable Edward J. Markey ............................. 139

Questions submitted by the Honorable John Sweeney ..................................... 139
(1)

NATIONAL COMMISSION ON TERRORIST 

ATTACKS UPON THE UNITED STATES 

Tuesday, August 17, 2004

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SELECT COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY, Washington, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 9:40 a.m., in room 345, 

Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Christopher Cox [chairman of 

the committee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Cox, Dunn, Smith, Shays, Camp, DiazBalart, Goodlatte, Istook, King, Linder, Shadegg, Souder, Gibbons, 

Granger, Sessions, Sweeney, Turner, Thompson, Sanchez, Markey, 

Dicks, Frank, Harman, Cardin, Slaughter, DeFazio, Lowey, Andrews, Norton, Lofgren, McCarthy, Jackson-Lee, Pascrell, 

Christensen, Etheridge, Langevin, Meek, and Chandler. 

Chairman COX. Good morning. The Select Committee on Homeland Security will come to order. 

The prior business of the committee will stand adjourned, and 

the committee will proceed to hear testimony pursuant to notice on 

the 9/11 Commission recommendations concerning homeland security information sharing. Let me welcome the distinguished chairman and vice chairman of the Commission, Tom Kean and Lee 

Hamilton. 

We appreciate your appearance before us today. This committee, 

Republicans and Democrats alike, commend you for your work and 

for your significant contribution to our national effort to apply the 

lessons learned from the tragedies of September 11th. 

This committee and the 9/11 Commission both have a common 

origin. We were formed because of and in the wake of the catastrophic terrorist attacks against America. Both Congress and the 

President swiftly recognized that neither the executive nor the legislative branch of our government was organized to deal with this 

terrorist assault. This committee, as you know, represents the only 

structural change thus far in Congress, since September 11th, 

which was undertaken specifically to deal with the threat of international terrorism to the United States. As such, you can understand why we are here to conduct this hearing into your findings 

and your recommendations. 

As chairman, I can report that this committee has consistently 

pursued a legislative and policy agenda to focus congressional attention on preventing and preparing for acts of terrorism targeting 

the United States. This has been a bipartisan effort owing in part 

to the strong and able leadership of our ranking member, Jim 

Turner, and also to the recognition by all our members that the se-
2

curity of the American people must transcend politics, even in an 

election year. Partisanship will surely cause us to fail. 

The theme of today’s hearing is information sharing, which was 

a primary focus of the Commission, as it has been of numerous 

hearings of our committee. In the fight against international terrorism there can be no higher priority. 

Nor do we treat this subject narrowly. It encompasses fundamental issues of structure, systems, policy, and leadership. It is 

about getting vital information to those who need it in time to prevent harm to Americans. 

The 9/11 Commission has done a superb job in investigating and 

recounting for the American people the details of the Al-Qa’ida attacks on our Nation nearly 3 years ago. In 77 minutes on that fateful day, terrorism on U.S. soil took over 3,000 innocent American 

lives. 

The report shows in graphic detail how the terrorists exploited 

systemic weaknesses to defeat one U.S. Government agency after 

another. These were agencies that we reasonably could have expected to stop the terrorists—the Intelligence Community, law enforcement, the Federal Aviation Administration, the State Department, and the Department of Defense. 

Nor does the report spare the Congress. The Commission concludes that the Congress had failed to organize itself to deal effectively with post-Cold War national security threats in general and 

international terrorism in particular. 

Your indictment, therefore, is not just of our Intelligence Community, but of the way the entire U.S. Government was organized 

with respect to counterterrorism. 

The Intelligence Community does not exist in a vacuum. Its priorities and performances are clearly influenced both by executive 

branch structures and by the authorization and appropriations 

committees in the Congress. 

Reforms will not succeed, the report concludes, unless the priorities of the President, the Federal Government, and the Congress 

are brought into alignment for the future. And this means each 

branch must be properly organized to do this, which is still not the 

case today. 

President Bush has gotten ahead of this issue by accepting two 

principal recommendations from the Commission. First, with regard to establishing the National Counterterrorism Center, and 

second, by proposing a National Intelligence Director. These swift 

and bold decisions are consistent with his repeated statements that 

whatever we have achieved over the past 3 years, we have much 

more work to do to protect the American people. The President 

clearly sees the 9/11 Commission report as helping toward this end, 

and so should we here. 

I know the Commission will stay engaged with us as we grapple 

with these active issues in the months ahead. You have not just delivered a carefully prepared historical analysis, but you have also 

significantly advanced the long-term prospects for fundamental reform. 

Finally, let me turn to the Commission’s look at the performance 

of Congress over the past several years. The report found Congress 

wanting in several key areas. Congress, the report says, is too 
3

much oriented toward domestic rather than foreign affairs. Congress has resisted reorganizing itself to deal with the post-Cold 

War threat environment, including international terrorism. Congress has focused on selective investigations over comprehensive 

and thorough oversight. And Congress has allowed rigid and unchanging committee jurisdiction to skew priorities, often against 

heightened security concerns in a changing world. 

That is an unflinching diagnosis. All of us, Republicans and 

Democrats alike, would have preferred a different one. But we do 

hear you, and we must now do something about it. 

The Commission follows this provocative analysis with a recommendation that permanent standing committees on homeland 

security be established in both the Senate and the House. These 

far-reaching recommendations I know will be delved into even more 

deeply this morning. 

Let me thank you both once again for coming before our committee this morning. I am eager to hear your testimony and to remain engaged with you in the challenging year ahead. 

Let me now turn to our distinguished ranking member, Jim 

Turner, for his opening remarks. 

Mr. TURNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for calling 

this very important hearing. 

I want to acknowledge the presence of all of our colleagues here 

today to deal with this very critical issue. And I have been a part 

of several other hearings where many of the family members of the 

families of the 9/11 victims have been with us. I want to acknowledge their steadfastness in following this issue and working together with the 9/11 Commission to bring us to the point where we 

can make America safe. 

Governor Kean and Congressman Hamilton, we are very pleased 

to have you before us. I know you have had a rigorous schedule of 

testifying. I know, Governor, you are probably tired of hearing all 

of Lee Hamilton’s former colleagues brag on him, but we want to 

do that once again here today. I was listening to Congressman 

Hamilton’s successor, Baron Hill; in talking about him the other 

day in the Armed Services Committee, he pointed out that following Lee Hamilton in office was kind of like following Abraham 

Lincoln in office. Lee Hamilton did such an outstanding job for 

many years leading us, particularly in the area of foreign policy. 

So we are very honored by your presence and we thank you for 

being with us. Most importantly, thank you for your leadership of 

a bipartisan commission. Your unanimous report creates, I think, 

the political conditions that are necessary to advance meaningful 

reform. You have invited all to embrace your report and its recommendations. And in the partisan world of Washington, D.C., you 

have produced a truly bipartisan product. We commend you in that 

effort. You have not dealt with the blame game, wisely recognizing 

that prior to 9/11 failing to take Al-Qa’ida seriously was a pervasive fault. 

Now, here we are almost 3 years after 9/11, and frankly we have 

no excuse. We have heard repeatedly from numerous scholarly reports, recommendations for action. Today, we are confronted with 

the clear threat of another major attack on our country. The reality 
4

of these continued threats should be a stark reminder to us that 

we have much more to do to make America safe. 

You have been very clear in your recommendations that just 

moving a few positions around on the organizational chart as the 

proposed National Director of Intelligence will not get the job done. 

You have said we need a grand strategy, a comprehensive, longterm approach to address a new enemy, militant Islamic jihadism. 

Defeating this enemy, you say, requires a three-pronged approach: one, attacking the terrorists more aggressively; two, securing our homeland better; and three, pursuing policies and initiatives to prevent the rise of future terrorists. 

Only one of your recommendations, I note, deals with the role of 

the military; 21 of your recommendations deal with strengthening 

homeland security, 10 of your recommendations deal with preventing the rise of future terrorists. Clearly we must transform the 

military to defeat this new enemy. 

Condoleezza Rice testified to your commission that in June of 

2001 when she was tasked with drawing up plans to attack AlQa’ida and the Taliban, in her words, quote, ‘‘The military didn’t 

particularly want this mission.’’ We are trained and equipped to 

fight nations and armies, but the new enemy requires new training, new capabilities, and new missions. 

We defeated communism in the last century by maintaining superior military capabilities and by projecting our values and our 

ideals as a nation to the rest of the world. When the Berlin Wall 

fell, not one shot was fired. Radical Islamic fundamentalism must 

be defeated by the same force of our ideals and our values. Secretary Rumsfeld, in his now famous memo, asked this: He said, 

‘‘Are we capturing, killing or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrasas and the radical clerics are recruiting, training, and deploying against us? The United States is 

putting relatively little effort into a long-range plan, but we are 

putting a great deal of effort into trying to stop terrorists.’’ That 

is from the Secretary of Defense. 

The 9/11 Commission gives us a long-range plan to stem the rise 

of future terrorists, and it begins with supporting the voices of 

moderation in the Islamic world. The Commission recommends investment in education and economic partnership in the Muslim and 

Arab world with America offering, in your words, an example of 

moral leadership in the world committed to treat people humanely, 

abiding by the rule of law and being generous and caring to our 

neighbors. 

This clearly will require American leadership in building strong 

alliances and coalitions around the world. If our government continues to ignore the 10 recommendations of the Commission to prevent the rise of future terrorists, we have no strategy for victory 

over terrorism. We will be left to decades of fighting the terrorists 

both abroad and here at home. And until we achieve this ultimate 

victory over terrorism, we have no option but to implement vigorously the 21 recommendations of your report dealing with securing 

the homeland. 

I am pleased that we can report to you that our committee has 

already taken action on your recommendation to distribute homeland security funds based solely on the assessment of threats and 
5

vulnerabilities. We acted on this in a unanimous and bipartisan 

way last February. Now this legislation should be set for debate on 

the House floor. 

For over 2 years we have called on the administration to close 

the security gaps facing America as outlined in many of your recommendations. The 9/11 Commission has stated that unscreened 

air cargo is a threat to our security. Congressman Markey and 

Congressman Shays have called for action on this for over 2 years, 

yet little has been done to close that security gap, and the vulnerability remains. 

The 9/11 Commission has stated that we need a biometric interoperable border screening security system. Members of Congress on 

both sides of the aisle have been advocating for such a system for 

many years. Yet the 9/11 Commission has concluded that the US 

VISIT system, initiated by the Department of Homeland Security, 

is built on, and I quote, ‘‘antiquated computer environment.’’ That 

will have to be replaced. 

Almost 3 years after 9/11 we still do not have an interoperable 

border security system. We still have not achieved integrated information sharing among intelligence agencies. 

The 9/11 Commission has noted that even after the deadly rail 

attacks in Madrid, the Department of Homeland Security has 

failed to develop an integrated strategic plan for the transportation 

sector. My colleague, Congresswoman Holmes Norton, called for 

this action months ago in our legislation to better secure our rail 

and public transportation sector, but there has been no action. The 

list could go on. 

The 9/11 Commission report is a wake-up call for our government. We need to regain the sense of urgency that we all had after 

September 11th. With 21 recommendations on homeland security, 

we should, Mr. Chairman, schedule hearings on each of these recommendations jointly with other committees when appropriate to 

be ready to act on comprehensive legislation that addresses each of 

the Commission’s 41 recommendations. 

We also should be proceeding with the suspended markup of our 

Homeland Security Authorization Act. Many of the amendments 

that my colleagues and I would offer to that bill relate directly to 

the recommendations of the Commission. 

Democrats met last week with Governor Kean and Lee Hamilton 

to talk about the report and to let it be known that we are ready 

to get to work. I hope that this committee can provide and will provide the leadership necessary over the next few weeks to move forward on this important task. 

Governor Kean, Mr. Hamilton, thank you again for your leadership in helping make America safe. America is grateful for what 

you and your colleagues have done, and for your dedication and 

your commitment we will be eternally grateful. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman COX. I thank the gentleman. 

I would advise members of the outset that both Chairman Kean 

and Vice Chairman Hamilton have been generous with their time 

today. They are available to be with us all morning, and they have 

requested that they be dismissed at 12:15. In order to provide sufficient time for questioning by all members, I would ask members 
6

to consider waiving or limiting the durations of opening statements. If members have written statements, they may as always 

be included in the hearing record. 

The vice chairman of the full committee, the gentlelady from 

Washington State, Ms. Dunn, is recognized for her opening statement. 

Ms. DUNN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I too thank the witnesses 

for coming yet another time to testify before our committee—a very 

important committee, though, I believe, of people who are representative of districts all over the Nation. And we have flown in 

today to make sure that we hear from you firsthand. It is a credit 

to you that you have got so many members here today, because we 

believe that you have done a very thoughtful job and have brought 

sensitivity and attention to an issue that we have been dealing 

with now for almost 2 years. So thank you for being here. 

The terrorist attacks on September 11th forced all of us to think 

differently about life in America. We realize we faced a new enemy, 

one that is not easily contained or eliminated. That day we shifted 

our focus and our resources. The terrorists didn’t make us fearful 

as they had hoped they would do. They strengthened our resolve. 

They have not made us cower. We have confronted them with 

international might. Most of all, the terrorists have reminded us of 

what is great about America: freedom, democracy, justice, values 

that we will always fight for. 

These radical groups are creative and enduring in their effort to 

bring down the values of the Western civilization. We must be just 

as unwavering and innovative in our effort to prevent them from 

doing so. The 9/11 Commission’s report has provided an insightful 

road map for our continuing effort to reform systems and processes 

that were not designed to confront the present enemy. 

Today, we will hear firsthand from Commission leaders as well 

as Federal officials of counterterrorism responsibilities. House and 

Senate leadership are committed to swift action on the Commission’s report. In the following weeks, the American people will see 

a careful and thoughtful process that takes into account the 

progress that already has been made by the administration and the 

Congress as well as the equally thoughtful calls for action in the 

Commission’s report. 

We have a lot of work to do. The President has already proposed 

creating a National Intelligence Director as well as a National 

Counterterrorism Center, two changes suggested in your report. It 

is also important to note that of the 19 recommendations for intelligence reform issued by the joint Senate-House inquiry last year, 

which are consistent with the 9/11 Commission’s recommendations, 

Congress and the administration already have implemented or addressed all but three of those. 

As we take action on the 9/11 Commission’s ideas, we will also 

consider the Commission’s recommendation to focus congressional 

oversight. Successful reform of Federal Government agencies will 

absolutely depend on effective oversight. And the current system 

which requires Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge and his 

chief deputies to report to an estimated 88 committees and subcommittees reinforces the status quo and is unacceptable. We will 

continue to seize this opportunity for reform. And during our con-
7

sideration of bold proposals, we will not discount the reform that 

has already taken place—the consolidation of 22 Federal agencies 

within the Department of Homeland Security; the establishment of 

the Terrorist Threat Integration Center, centralizing information 

and manpower from several intelligence agencies; the passage of 

Project BioShield—all bold steps that have made us safer than we 

were on 9/11. 

In a Presidential election year, it is especially tempting to focus 

on what has been done wrong and not what has been done right. 

As we focus on the Commission’s recommendations, I am confident that all of us will put politics aside. It would be a mistake 

and a disservice to our constituents to ignore the progress we have 

made since 9/11. Today we welcome ideas for continued process. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman COX. I thank the gentlelady. Does the gentleman from 

Mississippi, Mr. Thompson, have an opening statement? 

Mr. THOMPSON. Mr. Chairman, in the interest of getting to the 

substance of why we are here, I will reserve the time allotted to 

me. 

Mr. FRANK. Mr. Chairman, as greatly as I respect my colleagues, 

I would not have interrupted my vacation to come listen to us all 

make speeches. I ask unanimous consent that we waive opening 

statements and get right to the witnesses.

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE DONNA M. CHRISTENSEN

Thank you Mr. Chairman. I want to, at the outset, commend you Mr. Chairman 

for scheduling a hearing before this committee on the recommendations of the September 11th Commission. 

Mr. Chairman, I welcome the opportunity to discuss the Commission’s findings 

and recommendations with the Commission’s distinguished Chairman and ViceChairman. They are to be commend for the remarkable job they have done, not only 

in spearheading the drafting of the report but also for the generous way that they 

have given of their time in appearing before a number of other committees to press 

for the enactment of their recommendations in their entirety. I also appreciate that 

we will hear from the Mr. Brennan of the TTIC again, as well as a comprehensive 

list of witnesses who will allow us to fully explore the need for a better homeland 

security information sharing system between agencies and state and local governments. 

Coming close to the end of the committee listing, I am sure that most of the 

broader questions will have been asked. My interest then is in border security, the 

treatment of the territories and Indian reservations, funding and preparedness of 

first responders, and how we regain our position of moral leadership in the world. 

Over the past two weeks, in response to the 9/11 commission report and in preparation for this hearing, I convened Town Meetings across my Congressional District 

to gage my constituent’s reaction to the commission’s recommendations. These meetings were hugely successful in demonstrating the importance the people of the Virgin Islands place on the protection of the community and the United States as a 

whole. 

Overall we endorse the findings and recommendations of the Commission, but 

stress the need for a planned approach developed on the basis of study and research. To the extent we are still not as well prepared as we should be and limited 

in our capacity to adequately respond, I believe it is because all along we have ‘‘reacted’’ instead of ‘‘responded.’’

I daresay, if lack of imagination was a fault before 9/11, it continues to be so 

today, closely followed by being entrenched in the old ways things were always 

done. This and the other legislative body bear much of the responsibility for the latter, and I see little signs of willingness to change. 

Change was and is needed to meet new threats and new methods of attack that 

are only limited by the imagination, will and ingenuity of those who would do us 

harm. 
8

If we fail to imagine and change, our constituents will always remain at great 

risk. 

Political posturing which is dominating much of our reaction has no place. To 

eliminate it requires presidential leadership of a kind we have not seen in the life 

of this Committee. 

More specifically, where you address the need for a comprehensive border strategy, the 175 miles of unsecured border in the U.S. Virgin Islands, my district—a 

cross over point for illegal entrants from distant places remains unsecured. We fully 

support that all borders must be secured. 

We support an all hazard approach that protects our communities’ safety at all 

times, for we cannot know where the terrorists will next strike or how. This includes 

a fully prepared and intact public and private health system with emphasis on poor 

and minority communities where it is weakest—including Indian reservations, with 

clear lines of authority and accountability. 

One area not specifically iterated in the report, but very relevant to improved intelligence, is the need to diversify our intelligence workforce if we are ever to penetrate the enemy cells. 

Realizing that this is a report on 9/11, I would nevertheless add that the focus 

of our terrorist identification and eradication cannot be focused on Islamic believers 

only. Continuing to do so leaves every other flank open. 

Lastly, and this is my greatest concern—as you have so accurately said, we have 

done nothing to reduce the growth of the numbers of those dedicated to doing harm 

to our citizens and our country. 

We have failed to look within, to go beyond getting back to ‘‘normal’’. It—normal—

was and remains not a nice place to be for many of us, and the world can see that. 

Our failure to deal fairly with those who are ‘‘different’’ right here in the US portends the impossible for our dealings with those in foreign lands. 

To gain respect we not only have to reach out with educational, political and economic opportunity elsewhere, we must begin that process here at home. We have 

yet failed to do so, and any outreach across the seas will be seen for the empty, 

false gesture that it is. 

So we have a lot of work to do. We are grateful for your service, and the blueprint 

you have so ably provided. 

It remains for the president and us to respond appropriately. The only hope I hold 

out that we will do so is your promise to follow through on the recommendations 

to the end, and the commitment of the families of those who were so brutally assassinated on September 11, 2004, whose efforts made the commission possible. 

Thank you once again Mr. Chairman for the opportunity to give these brief opening remarks. I look forward to hearing from our witnesses.

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE NITA M. LOWEY

I want to welcome Commission Chairman Kean and Vice Chairman Hamilton to 

the Committee. I commend you for the thorough and dedicated way in which you 

have carried out your work on behalf of our country. It is clear that this Committee, 

and this Congress, has a great deal of work to do. 

I share your commitment to act expeditiously to implement the recommended reforms, some of which can be put in place without major structural changes and 

without enacting legislation. It is on these recommendations I would like to focus 

today. 

This Committee has an awesome responsibility as the first oversight panel of the 

Department of Homeland Security. But despite the best intentions of many of my 

colleagues, the Select Committee has not become the perfect solution to the question 

of how to oversee this new Department. Instead, this arrangement has turned out 

to be the perfect storm. 

We have been hamstrung by jurisdictional disputes that the leadership has been 

unwilling to resolve. We passed a First Responder bill out of Committee five months 

ago that would have ensured that our formula for disbursing homeland security dollars was based on threat, population, and vulnerability, just as the Commission has 

recommended. But it has been stalled on its way to the floor by Members who disagree with the Commission’s recommendation that ‘‘Congress should not use this 

money as a pork barrel.’’ We could act on this recommendation right now, but we 

have not. 

Since the summer of 2003, the Department of Homeland Security has cited consistent intelligence reports that terrorists remain interested in using aircraft as 

weapons against the United States. A GAO report released in June concluded our 

airports and aircraft are still vulnerable—passengers are not checked adequately for 

explosives, and more than 1 million airport workers, many of whom have antiquated 
9

background checks, enter secured areas each day without being physically screened. 

The Commission recommended that we give priority attention to improving screening of passengers and more closely oversee screener performance. We could act on 

this recommendation right now, but we have not. 

Our communication systems failed our first responders on September 11th, leading to many deaths that could have been prevented. In May, I introduced the CONNECT First Responders Act, a bill that would fund the creation of a nationwide 

interoperable communications infrastructure. The Commission recommended that 

Congress support efforts to improve communications connectivity. We could act on 

this recommendation right now, but we have not. 

The Commission has also made recommendations that are more long-term, recognizing that homeland security is not only a matter of practice; it’s a matter of policy. 

I appreciate the Commission’s focus on the importance of providing a quality education in the Muslim world that teaches tolerance, the dignity and value of each individual, and a respect for different beliefs. As Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, I have worked to quadruple U.S. 

spending on basic education abroad, from $98 million in FY 2000 to a total of $400 

million for FY 2005. I have always maintained that support for this objective is a 

matter of national security—not just a nice thing to do—and I am pleased to have 

the unanimous support of the Commission in this endeavor. 

The Commission’s report has provided Congress with a road map. The speed and 

resolve with which we follow this road map will have serious consequences for the 

security of the American people. I urge this Committee and this Congress to listen 

carefully to our witnesses today, and to act quickly to make our country more safe.

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE KAREN MCCARTHY

Thank you Chairman Cox and Ranking Member Turner for convening this important hearing. 

On September 11, 2001 the world watched in horror as terrorists attacked our 

country. They were able to invade our country and commit these terrible acts of violence. 

The release of the bipartisan 9/11 Commission Report has told us what went 

wrong but most importantly provides us a roadmap to prevent this from happening 

in the future. Their recommendations are the actions that we in Congress must take 

to prepare and prevent another attack. 

The Commission found that lack of intelligence information sharing between the 

CIA, FBI and other government agencies was the greatest weakness leading to the 

9/11 attacks. They found that even when intelligence was shared there still was an 

inability to make sense of this information and take immediate action. I strongly 

agree with the Commission’s recommendation that the President should lead a government wide effort to help fix these critical problems within our intelligence gathering organizations. If this had happened before the 9/11 attacks many lives may 

have been saved. These institutions must be able to collect, analyze and share intelligence expeditiously and have the means to pass on and collect intelligence to and 

from our state and local officials who serve on the front lines. 

The Commission recommends the establishment of a National Counterterrorism 

Center, built upon the foundation of the existing Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC). They also recommend the consolidation of budgetary and operational 

oversight of all fifteen intelligence agencies and the naming of a new National Intelligence Director to unify the intelligence community. As the Ranking Member on the 

Intelligence and Counterterrorism Subcommittee of the Select Committee on Homeland Security, I whole heartedly support these recommendations. 

The international collection and sharing of information is extremely important to 

stopping terrorists. The Commission recommends a global strategy for the United 

States to ‘‘. . .reach out, listen to, and work with other countries. . .’’ Congress 

must embrace this strategy. During the first part of August, I joined with my Homeland Security Committee colleagues on an intelligence gathering trip to the UK and 

Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. We learned about the existence of foreign terrorist cells from their intelligence agencies and had a very frank exchange 

about how we can help each other in the fight against terrorism. I was very pleased 

to see that the 9/11 Commission Report recommends that United States ‘‘. . .should 

reach out, listen to, and work with other countries. . .’’ as a means of gathering intelligence. 

Now that the 9/11 Commission has done its job, we need to do ours. Today’s hearing puts us a step closer to preventing another terrorist attack. I urge the leadership of Congress to follow the lead of this Committee. 
10

I want thank the 9/11 Commissioners and the staff for their hard work and dedication. This report should become our bible in winning the war on terrorism. 

I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today on how we can quickly move 

forward to create a new National Counterterrorism Center, name a National Intelligence Director, develop a global strategy for working with our allies and implement all of the Commission’s recommendations. Thank you Mr. Chairman.

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE LOUISE M. SLAUGHTER

Thank you, Chairman Cox and Ranking Member Turner for holding this timely 

and important hearing, and thank you Governor Kean and Representative Hamilton 

for joining us. 

I would like to start by giving special recognition to the two fine men before us 

today for their yeoman’s work. 

The fortitude and great character that Governor Kean and Representative Hamilton exhibited at every point in the process is truly remarkable. From the very beginning, we could see that these two men took their responsibilities to the 9–11 families and the American people very seriously. 

As we are all aware, the process for investigating the attacks was not always 

smooth. In some corners, there were those who tried to denigrate the effort to secure 

key testimony and access to records. There were even some who chose to characterize the effort to secure this information as partisan. Those critics were blind to 

what was really behind this effort. 

On 9/11, I stood on the steps of the Capitol building, arm-in-arm with my colleagues in Congress to sing God Bless America. On that day, there was no such 

thing as Democrat or Republican. We were all just Americans. It is that sense of 

unity and patriotic spirit that guided this Commission’s work.

Governor Kean, the other Commissioners, and the Commission staff were executing their solemn oath to the 9/11 families and the nation. 

They did not execute their responsibilities to serve the interests of any one political party. No, they were on a mission to get to the truth to make America safer. 

The 9/11 Commission was not focused on pointing fingers or laying blame. Rather, 

it was focused on providing the truth about what happened on that terrible, terrible 

day to the families of those lost in the September 11th attacks and all Americans. 

The 9/11 Commission was also focused on providing us with a plan to ensure that 

our country is never as vulnerable as it was on September 11, 2001. 

They could not have provided a higher service to this country. 

I am pleased that the reaction to the 9/11 Commission report recommendations 

has been overwhelmingly positive. However, the Commissioners are right to be concerned that this report, like so many well-regarded reports before it, will be relegated to sitting on a shelf in all our offices, and see no action. 

We cannot not—we must not—let that happen. 

My constituents, the 9/11 families, and all Americans expect more than cosmetic 

changes from our government. 

We must act on all 41 recommendations outlined by the 9/11 Commission—not 

merely the provisions that the President supports. 

The focus of today’s hearing is on information sharing—an area that has received 

significant attention by this panel since the Committee’s inception in January 2003. 

The 9/11 Commission’s findings seem to support what I have come to believe. 

Despite the creation of the Department of Homeland Security in March 2003, our 

information sharing system is weak and the problems of interagency coordination 

that existed on September 11th persist.

The people I represent in Western New York are the kind of people who ‘‘call it 

like they see it’’. When it comes to current state of homeland security, they don’t 

know what to think. 

In the wake of the September 11th attacks, they stood ready to sacrifice; many 

going down to Ground Zero to help in the search and recovery. They still stand 

ready to withstand delay and discomfort, if it means our country will be safer. 

But today, nearly three years later, they ask me how duct tape will make their 

families safer. They ask me why there are chronic delays at the U.S.-Canadian border, even when we’re not at a heightened Orange Alert. They ask me how confiscating a key-chain pocketknife from an elderly man at the airport will make them 

safer. 

As the Ranking Member of this panel’s Rules Subcommittee, I am keenly interested in the Commission’s views on the weaknesses in the current congressional 

oversight model. 
11

Today, DHS officials must come before 88 congressional committees and subcommittees. How does that impact the Department’s ability to execute its mission 

and Congress’ ability to conduct oversight? 

When it came to creating DHS, Congress accepted, on a bipartisan basis, that the 

merger of 22 Executive agencies would be required to ensure greater coordination 

and accountability. 

Congress must now put aside its petty jurisdictional fights and enhance accountability by adopting a centralized model of oversight. 

This is not just my opinion, it’s what the 9/11 Commission recommends. 

In fact, the Commission calls on Congress to ‘‘create a single, principal point of 

oversight and review for homeland security.’’ By the Commission’s own admission, 

‘‘[o]f all our recommendations, strengthening congressional oversight may be among 

the most difficult and important.’’ 

As someone who has served in this body for 18 years, I must commend the Commission for its accurate assessment of the challenges ahead. 

I am interested in hearing from Representative Hamilton, a 34-year veteran of the 

House, on how to overcome the jurisdictional hurdles and develop a centralized approach to oversight. 

I am also interested to hear the panelists’ views on making this Committee permanent—as the primary House Committee in charge of overseeing the Department of 

Homeland Security. 

After months of study, I strongly believe that this Committee is uniquely situated 

to undertake the challenges of enhanced congressional oversight. Congress should 

make this Committee permanent to do just that. 

I also must reiterate that Congress must act on all forty-one recommendations. 

For this to be accomplished, Congress will not only have to put partisanship aside 

but also abandon jurisdictional wrangling. Such action is essential to giving the 

American people the homeland security they deserve. 

Thank you Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member Turner for holding this important 

hearing. 

Chairman COX. Is there objection? 

Hearing none, we will move immediately to the testimony of our distinguished 

witnesses, the chairman and vice chairman of the National Commission on Terrorist 

Attacks Upon the United States.

Chairman COX. Governor Kean, we will begin with you. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE THOMAS H. KEAN, CHAIR, 

NATIONAL COMMISSION ON TERRORIST ATTACKS UPON 

THE UNITED STATES 

Mr. KEAN. Chairman Cox, Ranking Member Turner, distinguished members of the House Select Committee on Homeland Security, I want to thank you, the ranking member and the chairman 

for their statements. We appreciate that it is a wonderful summary 

of our recommendations and your statements of support. I thank 

you on behalf of the Commission and the American people very 

much. 

We are honored to appear before you today. We want to thank 

you and the leadership of the House of Representatives for your 

very prompt attention to our recommendations. We are very grateful to you and the leadership for that attention. 

The Commission’s findings and recommendations, as you know, 

were strongly endorsed by all commissioners, five Democrats, and 

five Republicans. We share a unity of purpose and we call upon 

Congress and the administration to display that same bipartisanship and that same unity of purpose as we all strive to make our 

country and all Americans safer and more secure. How information 

is shared in our government, and not just at the Federal level, but 

with State and local agencies, is a matter of critical importance to 

homeland security and to national security. 
12

As we looked at the 9/11 story, we found that the failure to share 

information cost us very dearly. All agencies, Federal, State, and 

local, need to have information available in a timely manner because they all have responsibilities to protect Americans. We need 

to get this right. 

What we learned in our 9/11 story is that the U.S. Government 

has access to a vast amount of information. We have Customs and 

immigration information, FBI and police reports, and so much 

more. The storehouse of information is immense. But the government has very weak systems for processing and using that information it possesses, especially when that information has to be used 

across agency lines. 

Our report details many unexploited opportunities to disrupt the 

9/11 plot, failures to watchlists, failures to share information, failures to, as we say, ‘‘connect the dots.’’ 

The story of Hamzi and Mihdhar in Kuala Lumpur in January 

of 2000 is just one of a number of examples. We caught a glimpse, 

we found those future hijackers, but we lost their trail somehow in 

Bangkok. And because information wasn’t shared when these people came to the United States and were living openly on the West 

Coast, Los Angeles and San Diego, the FBI didn’t know about it. 

And the FBI didn’t learn until August of 2001 that Hazmi and 

Mihdhar were in the United States. And so they suddenly started 

pursuing leads, but that was too late, and time on that fateful day 

just simply ran out. 

Agencies live by the need-to-know rule. They limit the sharing of 

information. Each agency has its own computer system, its own security practices, and these are outgrowths of the Cold War. Implicit 

in their practices is the assumption that the risk of inadvertent disclosure outweighs the benefits of larger sharing among agencies. 

And we believe, as a commission, that that is a Cold War assumption and it is no longer appropriate. 

In the 9/11 story we came to understand the huge cost of failing 

to share information across agency boundaries. Yet the current 

practices of government, security practices encourage overclassification. 

Now, we understand the critical importance of protecting sources 

and methods. We believe it is also important to share information. 

There are plenty of penalties for unauthorized disclosure, but you 

know there isn’t one single penalty for not sharing information. 

We believe that information procedures across the government 

need to be changed, that there should be incentives provided for 

sharing information. Intelligence gathered about transnational terrorism should be processed, turned into reports, and distributed according to the same quality standards whether it is collected in Indonesia or Minnesota. 

We believe the President needs to lead a government-wide effort 

to bring the major national security institutions into the information revolution. The President needs to lead the way and coordinate 

the resolutions of the legal, policy, and technical issues across 

agency lines so that we can make sure in the future that this important information is shared. 

The model is a decentralized network. Agencies would still have 

their own databases, but those databases would be searchable 
13

across agency lines. In the system, in this system, secrets are protected. They are protected, though, through the design of the network that controls access to the data. They don’t prevent people 

from having access to the network. 

An outstanding conceptual framework for this kind of trusted information network has been developed by a task force of leading 

professionals in national security, information technology and laws 

as they are all assembled by the Markle Foundation. Its report has 

been widely discussed throughout the U.S. Government, but so far 

it has just been discussed; it hasn’t been converted into action. 

The point here is that no single agency can do this alone. One 

agency can modernize its stovepipe, but cannot develop a system 

to replace that stovepipe. Only Presidential leadership can develop 

the necessary government-wide concepts and standards. 

In a hearing that Lee Hamilton and I testified at last week, a 

Member of Congress asked us what information about terrorism 

did the pilot of American 11 have available to him on the morning 

of September 11th? And the answer is very simple: He had none. 

Despite his professional training and military experience, he was 

given no useful information to help him or the crew to protect the 

passengers of that plane. In fact, his training told him that if there 

was a hijacking, you submit to it, protect the passengers, and eventually perhaps you would land in Havana and then go home. 

Now, contrast this with the situation on United 93 when the passengers and crew learned from phone conversations with their 

loved ones about the attacks on the World Trade Center. They took 

action as citizens. They saved the Capitol, or the White House, we 

don’t know which, from probable destruction. An informed citizenry, a citizenry that knows the facts, is this Nation’s best defense. 

For the same reason, we believe it is imperative that as much 

information as possible be shared with State and local authorities. 

There are a lot more of them than there are Federal authorities, 

and they too can take action to protect the homes of their fellow 

citizens. 

There are some 18,000 State and local law enforcement agencies 

in the United States. If we can harness the awareness and experience of these dedicated professionals, as a Nation we will greatly 

enhance our security. Reforms of the kind we recommend will push 

more important information out to State and local agencies. The 

more everyone charged with our security knows, the more information they have, and the safer we all will be. 

Let me turn for a moment to some of our findings and recommendations. As our report makes clear, the decade before 9/11 

border security was simply not seen as a national security matter. 

From a strategic perspective, border policy focused on counternarcotics efforts, illegal immigration, and more recently perhaps, 

the smuggling of weapons of mass destruction. 

Our government simply did not exhibit a comparable level of concern about terrorists’ ability to enter and stay in the United States. 

During that same period, Al-Qa’ida was working very hard. They 

were studying all our systems. They were learning how to exploit 

gaps and weaknesses in our passport system and our visa system, 

our entry systems of the United States and other countries. Al-
14

Qa’ida actually set up its own passport office in Kandahar and developed working relationships with travel facilities, travel agents, 

some of them witting, some of them unwitting, document forgers, 

corrupt government officials to move their people around. 

More robust enforcement of routine immigration laws, supported 

by better information, might have made a real difference in stopping these hijackers. Had information been shared and these terrorists watchlisted, border authorities could have intercepted up to 

three of those hijackers. Two hijackers made patently false statements on their visa applications. They could have been shown to 

be false by U.S. Government records, and those records were available to consular officials. Many of the hijackers lied about their employment or lied about their educational status. Two hijackers 

could have been denied admission to ports of entry based on violations of immigration rules themselves governing the terms of admission. Three hijackers violated the immigration laws after entry. 

One who said he was going to enroll in school and then never did, 

two by overstays of their terms of admission. 

Although the intelligence as to their tactics was not known at the 

time, examining their passports could have allowed authorities to 

detect at least four and possibly up to 15 hijackers. 

Neither the Intelligence Community, nor the border security 

agencies or the FBI, had programs in place to analyze and act upon 

intelligence about terrorists’ travel tactics—how they obtained their 

passports, how they made travel arrangements and subverted national laws and processes governing entry and stays in foreign 

countries. 

Now, Congress during the 1990’s took some steps to provide better information to immigration officials by legislating requirements 

for a foreign student information system and entry-exit system. As 

we know, these programs had not yet successfully been completed 

by 9/11. 

Since 9/11, some important steps have been taken to strengthen 

our border security. The Department of Homeland Security has 

been established, combining the resources of the former Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Customs Bureau into new 

agencies to protect our borders and to enforce the immigration laws 

within the United States. The visa process and the terrorist 

watchlist system have been strengthened. DHS has begun to implement, through the US VISIT program, a biometric screening system for use at the borders. 

Now, we believe, as a commission, there is no question that these 

efforts have made us safer, but they have not made us safe. As a 

nation, we have not yet fully absorbed the lessons that we should 

have learned from 9/11 with respect to border security. When they 

travel, that is the time that terrorists are at their most vulnerable. 

You see, they have to leave safer havens where they have been. 

They have to travel secretly. They have to use evasive techniques, 

from altered travel documents to lies or cover stories. Terrorist 

entry can often be prevented and terrorist travel can be constrained by acting on this knowledge and understanding it. Targeting terrorist travel is at least as powerful a weapon against terrorists as targeting their finances. The Commission therefore has 

recommended that we combine terrorist travel intelligence, oper-
15

ations, and law enforcement in a strategy to intercept terrorists, 

find terrorist travel facilitators, and constrain terrorist mobility. 

Frontline border agencies must not only obtain from the Intelligence Community, on a real-time basis, information on terrorists, 

they must also assist in collecting it. Consular officers and immigration inspectors, after all, are the people who encounter these 

terrorists. They encounter travelers, they encounter their documents. 

Specialists must be developed and deployed in consulates and at 

the border to detect terrorists in their travel practices, including 

looking very carefully at their documents. Technology has a vital 

role to play. Three years after 9/11 it is more than time for border 

officials to integrate into their operations terrorist travel indicators 

that have been developed by our Intelligence Community. The Intelligence Community and the border security community, they 

really haven’t been close partners in the past. This simply must 

change. 

We also need an operational program to target terrorist travel 

facilitators—forgers, human smugglers, travel agencies and corrupt 

border officials. Some may be found in this country. Most will be 

found abroad. Disrupting them will seriously hurt the terrorists. 

While there have been some successes in this area, intelligence far 

outstrips action. This should be rectified by providing the interagency mandate and the necessary resources to Homeland Security’s enforcement arm, immigration and customs enforcement, and 

other relevant agencies, including, by the way, the FBI. 

This problem illustrates the need for a National 

Counterterrorism Center. Investigations of travel facilitators invariably raise complicated questions. For instance, should a particular travel facilitator be arrested or should he be the subject of 

continued intelligence operations? If he is going to be arrested, in 

which country do you do it? A National Counterterrorism Center is 

needed to bring the numerous agencies to the table so that they 

can talk together in a unified way, decide in each case what is the 

best course of action. 

And I now turn to my partner and friend and teacher, Lee Hamilton. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE LEE H. HAMILTON, VICE 

CHAIR, NATIONAL COMMISSION ON TERRORIST ATTACKS 

UPON THE UNITED STATES 

Mr. HAMILTON. Thank you very much, Governor. Let me join you 

in thanking you Chairman Cox, Ranking Member Turner, Congresswoman Dunn, for your really superb statements. It was very 

pleasing to us to hear the manner in which you summarized our 

report. 

I want to say just a word, that it has been a high personal privilege for me to work with Tom Kean. He is a consensus builder, a 

talent I think that is rare even among politicians today. And it has 

been one of the great privileges of my public career to work with 

Tom. 

And I also want to express a word of personal appreciation to 

each of the members for returning for this hearing in August. That 
16

is really unprecedented. And Tom and I and the Commission are 

very grateful to you for your interest in our report. 

I will begin on screening systems. To provide better information 

to our consular officers and immigration inspectors, the government must accelerate its efforts to build a biometric entry and exit 

screening system. This is an area in which Congress has been active since the mid-1990’s, and it has been a frustrating journey. 

Congress first legislated an entry-exit system in 1996 to increase 

compliance with our immigration laws. It was not associated with 

counterterrorism nor with biometric identification. As a practical 

matter, the entry-exit effort was not seriously funded until the end 

of 2002. By that time, aspects of the system were directed by four 

separate laws. The establishment of the Department of Homeland 

Security then changed the organizational context for implementing 

those laws. 

The new department is emerging from its difficult start-up period 

and is, we believe, poised to move forward to implement Congress’ 

mandates in this area. We stress four principles that we believe 

must guide our efforts: 

First, the U.S. border security system is effectively a part of a 

larger network of screening points that includes our transportation 

system and access to vital facilities such as nuclear reactors. The 

Department of Homeland Security should lead an effort to design 

a comprehensive screening system, addressing common problems 

and setting common standards with system-wide goals in mind. 

Second, a biometric entry and exit screening system is fundamental to intercepting terrorists, and its development should be accelerated. Each element of the system is important. The biometric 

identifier makes it difficult to defeat a watchlist by slight alteration 

in the spelling of a name, a technique relied upon by the terrorists. 

The screening system enables border officials’ access to all relevant 

information about a traveler in order to assess the risk they may 

pose. Exit information allows authorities to know if a suspect individual has left the country and to establish compliance with immigration laws. 

Third, United States citizens should not be exempt from carrying 

biometric passports or otherwise enabling their identities to be securely verified, nor should Canadians or Mexicans. 

Fourth, there should be a program to speed known travelers so 

inspectors can focus on those travelers who might present greater 

risks. This is especially important for border communities. 

We believe that the schedule for completion of this biometric 

entry-exit screening system should be accelerated to the extent feasible. This will require additional annual funding and a mandate 

to a central organizational authority such as the US VISIT office 

to manage the effort. We need much greater collaboration with foreign governments on border security. This means more exchange of 

information about terrorists and passports and improved global 

passport design standards. Implicit in this recommendation is continued close cooperation with Mexico and Canada. 

It is especially important to improve screening efforts prior to departure from foreign airports, especially in countries participating 

in the visa waiver program. We must be able to monitor and re-
17

spond to entries along our long borders with Canada and Mexico, 

working with those countries as much as possible. 

Our law enforcement system ought to send a message of welcome, tolerance, and justice to members of the immigrant communities in the United States. Good immigration services are one way 

to reach out that is valuable, including for intelligence. State and 

local law enforcement agencies need more training and partnerships with Federal agencies so they can cooperate more effectively 

with those Federal authorities in identifying terrorist suspects. 

Finally, secure identification should begin in the United States. 

We believe the Federal Government should set standards for the 

issuance of birth certificates and sources of identification such as 

driver’s licenses. 

The agenda on immigration and border control, then, is multifaceted and vital to our national security. The bottom line is that 

our visa and border control systems must become an integral part 

of our counterterrorism intelligence system. We must steer a course 

that remains true to our commitment to an open society and that 

welcomes legitimate immigrants and refugees, while concentrating 

our resources on identification of potential terrorists and prevention of their entry into the United States. 

We recommend that homeland security assistance should be 

based strictly on an assessment of risks and vulnerabilities. Now, 

in 2004, Washington, D.C., and New York City are certainly at the 

top of any such list. 

We understand the contention that every State and city needs to 

have some minimum infrastructure for emergency response. But 

Federal homeland security assistance should not remain a program 

for general revenue sharing. It should supplement State and local 

resources based on the risks or vulnerabilities that merit additional 

support. Congress should not use this money as a pork barrel. 

The 9/11 attacks showed that even the most vigorous emergency 

response capabilities can be overwhelmed if an attack is large 

enough. We recommend that emergency response agencies nationwide should adopt the incident command system. When multiple 

agencies or multiple jurisdictions are involved, they should adopt 

a unified command. Both are proven frameworks for emergency response. 

We strongly support the decision that Federal homeland security 

funding will be contingent, as of October 1, 2004, upon the adoption 

and regular use of ICS and unified command procedures. In the future, the Department of Homeland Security should consider making funding contingent on aggressive and realistic training in accordance with ICS and unified command procedures. 

The inability to communicate was a critical element at the World 

Trade Center, Pentagon, and Pennsylvania crash sites where multiple agencies and multiple jurisdictions responded. The occurrence 

of this problem at three very different sites is strong evidence that 

compatible and adequate communications among public safety organizations at the local, State, and Federal levels remains an important problem. 

Congress should support pending legislation which provides for 

the expedited and increased assignment of radio spectrum for public safety purposes. Furthermore, high-risk urban areas such as 
18

New York City and Washington, D.C., should establish signal corps 

units to ensure communications connectivity between and among 

civilian authorities, local first responders, and the National Guard. 

Federal funding for such units should be given a high priority by 

Congress. 

The private sector controls 85 percent of the critical infrastructure of the United States. The Department of Homeland Security’s 

mandate includes working with the private sector to ensure preparedness. Preparedness in the private sector and public sector for 

rescue, restart, and recovery of operations should include a plan for 

evacuation, adequate communications capabilities, and a plan for 

continuity of operations. 

As we examined the emergency response to 9/11, witness after 

witness told us that despite 9/11, the private sector remains largely 

unprepared for a terrorist attack. We were also advised that the 

lack of a widely embraced private-sector preparedness standard 

was a principal contributing factor in this lack of preparedness. 

The Commission, therefore, endorses the American National Standard Institute’s recommended standard for private preparedness, 

and we thank them for developing that. We were encouraged by 

Secretary Tom Ridge’s praise of the standard and urged the Department of Homeland Security to promote its adoption. 

We also encouraged the insurance and credit rating industries to 

look closely at a company’s compliance with the ANSI standard in 

assessing its insurability and creditworthiness. We believe that 

compliance with the standard should define the standard of care 

owed by a company to its employees and the public for legal purposes. 

Private-sector preparedness is not a luxury, it is a cost of doing 

business in the post–9/11 world. If we ignore it, the potential costs 

in lives, money and national security will be inestimable. 

Mr. Chairman, we believe the recommendations we have presented this morning, as well as the many other recommendations 

we have made on foreign policy, public diplomacy, and transportation security, can make a significant difference in making America safer and more secure. 

We also recommend reforms in the structure of the executive 

branch and the Congress. We believe that organizational reforms 

in the absence of implementing the other reforms and recommendations in our report will have significantly less value than the value 

of these reforms as a complete package. 

In short, while we welcome each step toward implementation of 

our recommendations, no one should be mistaken in believing that 

organizational reforms alone can address the current terrorist 

threat we face. We are very gratified by the rapid response of the 

President and the White House to our recommendations. We welcome the President’s support for a National Intelligence Director 

and National Counterterrorism Center. We welcome the support of 

Senator Kerry. 

We look forward to working with you on our recommendations. 

We should seize this historic opportunity and move expeditiously. 

With your counsel and direction, we believe the Nation can and 

will make wise choices. 

And we are pleased now to respond to your questions. 
19

[The statement of Messrs. Kean and Hamilton follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN THOMAS KEAN AND VICE CHAIR LEE HAMILTON

The 9/11 Commission’s Findings and Recommendations

Chairman Cox, Ranking Member Turner, distinguished members of the House Select Committee on Homeland Security. We are honored to appear before you today. 

We want to thank you and the leadership of the House of Representatives for your 

prompt attention to the recommendations of the Commission. We are grateful to 

you, and to the leadership of the House. 

The Commission’s findings and recommendations were strongly endorsed by all 

Commissioners—five Democrats and five Republicans. We share a unity of purpose. 

We call upon Congress and the Administration to display the same spirit of bipartisanship as we collectively seek to make our country and all Americans safer and 

more secure. 

How information is shared in our government—not just at the federal level, but 

with state and local agencies—is a matter of critical importance to homeland security, and to national security. As we looked into the 9/11 story, we found that the 

failure to share information cost us dearly. All agencies—federal, state, and 

local—need to have information available in a timely manner to protect Americans. 

We need to get this right.

Unity of Effort in Sharing Information 

What we learned in the 9/11 story is that the U.S. government has access to a 

vast amount of information. We have customs and immigration information, FBI 

and police reports, and much more. The storehouse of information is immense. But 

the government has weak systems for processing and using the information it possesses, especially across agency lines. 

Our report details many unexploited opportunities to disrupt the 9/11 plot: failures to watchlist, failures to share information, failure to connect the dots. The story 

of Hazmi and Mihdhar in Kuala Lumpur in January 2000 is a telling example. We 

caught a glimpse of the future hijackers, but we lost their trail in Bangkok. Agencies did not share information. The FBI did not learn until August, 2001 that Hazmi 

and Mihdhar had entered the United States. Late leads were pursued, but time ran 

out. 

Agencies live by the ‘‘need to know’’ rule. They limit the sharing of information. 

Each agency has its own computer system and its own security practices, outgrowths of the Cold War. Implicit in their practices is the assumption that the risk 

of inadvertent disclosure outweighs the benefits of wider sharing. We think this 

Cold War assumption is no longer appropriate. In the 9/11 story we came to understand the huge costs of failing to share information across agency boundaries. Yet, 

in the current practices of government, security practices encourage overclassification. 

We understand the critical importance of protecting sources and methods. We believe it is also important to share information. There are plenty of penalties for unauthorized disclosure; there are no punishments for not sharing information. 

We believe that information procedures across the government need to be 

changed, to provide incentives for sharing. Intelligence gathered about transnational 

terrorism should be processed, turned into reports, and distributed according to the 

same quality standards, whether it is collected in Indonesia, or in Minnesota. 

We believe the president needs to lead a government-wide effort to bring the 

major national security institutions into the information revolution. The president 

needs to lead the way and coordinate the resolution of the legal, policy, and technical issues across agency lines so that information can be shared. 

The model is a decentralized network. Agencies would still have their own databases, but those databases would be searchable across agency lines. In this system, 

secrets are protected through the design of the network that controls access to the 

data, not access to the network. 

An outstanding conceptual framework for this kind of ‘‘trusted information network’’ has been developed by a task force of leading professionals in national security, information technology, and law assembled by the Markle Foundation. Its report has been widely discussed throughout the U.S. government, but has not yet 

been converted into action. The point here is that no single agency can do this alone. 

One agency can modernize its stovepipe, but cannot design a system to replace it. 

Only presidential leadership can develop the necessary government-wide concepts 

and standards.
20

Sharing Information with State and Local Authorities 

In a hearing last week, a Member of Congress asked us: what information about 

terrorism did the pilot of American 11 have available to him on the morning of September 11? He had none. Despite his professional training and military experience, 

he had no useful information to help him or the crew protect the passengers or 

plane. 

We contrast this with the situation on United 93. When the passengers and crew 

learned from phone conversations about the attacks on the World Trade Center, 

they took action. They saved the Capitol or White House from destruction. An informed citizenry is the nation’s best defense. For the same reason, we believe it is 

imperative that as much information as possible be shared with state and local authorities. They, too, can then take action to protect their homes and fellow citizens. 

There are some 18,000 state and local law enforcement agencies in the United 

States. Harnessing the awareness and experience of these dedicated professionals 

can greatly enhance our security. Reforms of the kind we recommend will push 

more important information out to state and local agencies. The more everyone 

charged with our security knows, the more information they have, the safer we will 

all be. 

We will turn to some of our other findings and recommendations.

Border Control 

As our Report makes clear, in the decade before 9/11, border security was not seen 

as a national security matter. From a strategic perspective, border policy focused 

on counternarcotics efforts, illegal immigration, and, more recently, the smuggling 

of weapons of mass destruction. Our government simply did not exhibit a comparable level of concern about terrorists’ ability to enter and stay in the United 

States. 

During that same period, however, Al-Qa’ida studied how to exploit gaps and 

weaknesses in the passport, visa, and entry systems of the United States and other 

countries. Al-Qa’ida actually set up its own passport office in Kandahar and developed working relationships with travel facilitators—travel agents (witting or unwitting), document forgers, and corrupt government officials. 

More robust enforcement of routine immigration laws, supported by better information, might have made a difference in stopping the hijackers. 

• Had information been shared and the terrorists been watchlisted, border authorities could have intercepted up to three of the hijackers. 

• Two hijackers made statements on their visa applications that could have been 

shown to be false by U.S. government records available to consular officers. 

• Many of the hijackers lied about their employment or educational status. 

• Two hijackers could have been denied admission at the port of entry based on violations of immigration rules governing terms of admission. 

• Three hijackers violated the immigration laws after entry, one by failing to enroll 

in school as declared, and two by overstays of their terms of admission. 

• Although the intelligence as to their tactics was not developed at the time, examining their passports could have allowed authorities to detect from four to 15 hijackers 

Neither the intelligence community, nor the border security agencies or the FBI, 

had programs in place to analyze and act upon intelligence about terrorist travel 

tactics—how they obtained passports, made travel arrangements, and subverted national laws and processes governing entry and stays in foreign countries. 

Congress during the 1990s took some steps to provide better information to immigration officials by legislating requirements for a foreign student information system 

and an entry-exit system. As we know, these programs were not successfully completed before 9/11. 

Since 9/11, some important steps have been taken to strengthen our border security. The Department of Homeland Security has been established, combining the resources of the former Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Customs Bureau into new agencies to protect our borders and to enforce the immigration laws 

within the United States. The visa process and the terrorist watchlist system have 

been strengthened. DHS has begun to implement, through the US VISIT program, 

a biometric screening system for use at the border.

Targeting Terrorist Travel 

These efforts have made us safer, but not safe enough. As a nation we have not 

yet fully absorbed the lessons of 9/11 with respect to border security. The need to 

travel makes terrorists vulnerable. They must leave safe havens, travel clandestinely, and use evasive techniques, from altered travel documents to lies and cover 

stories. Terrorist entry often can be prevented and terrorist travel can be con-
21

strained by acting on this knowledge. Targeting terrorist travel is at least as powerful a weapon against terrorists as targeting their finances. 

The Commission therefore has recommended that we combine terrorist travel intelligence, operations, and law enforcement in a strategy to intercept terrorists, find 

terrorist travel facilitators, and constrain terrorist mobility. 

Front line border agencies must not only obtain from the Intelligence Community, 

on a real-time basis, information on terrorists, they must also assist in collecting 

it. Consular officers and immigration inspectors, after all, are the people who encounter travelers and their documents. 

Specialists must be developed and deployed in consulates and at the border to detect terrorists through their travel practices, including their documents. Technology 

has a vital role to play. Three years after 9/11 it is more than time for border officials to integrate into their operations terrorist travel indicators that have been developed by the intelligence community. The intelligence community and the border 

security community have not been close partners in the past. This must change. 

We also need an operational program to target terrorist travel facilitators—forgers, human smugglers, travel agencies, and corrupt border officials. Some may be 

found here, but most will be found abroad. Disrupting them would seriously constrain terrorist mobility. While there have been some successes in this area, intelligence far outstrips action. This should be rectified by providing the interagency 

mandate and the necessary resources to Homeland Security’s enforcement arm, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and other relevant agencies, including 

the FBI. 

This problem illustrates the need for a National Counterterrorism Center. Investigations of travel facilitators invariably raise complicated questions: Should a particular travel facilitator be arrested or should he be the subject of continued intelligence operations? In which country should he be arrested? A National 

Counterterrorism Center is needed to bring the numerous agencies to the table to 

decide on the right course of action.

Screening Systems 

To provide better information to our consular officers and immigration inspectors, 

the government must accelerate its efforts to build a biometric entry and exit 

screening system. This is an area in which Congress has been active since the mid1990’s. It has been a frustrating journey. 

Congress first legislated an entry-exit system in 1996, to increase compliance with 

our immigration laws. It was not associated with counterterrorism, nor with biometric identification. As a practical matter, the entry-exit effort was not seriously funded until the end of 2002. By that time, aspects of a system were directed by four 

separate laws. The establishment of the Department of Homeland Security then 

changed the organizational context for implementing those laws. 

The new Department is emerging from its difficult start-up period and is, we believe, poised to move forward to implement Congress’s mandates in this area. We 

would like to stress four principles that we believe must guide our efforts in this 

arena. 

First, the U.S. border security system is effectively a part of a larger network of 

screening points that includes our transportation system and access to vital facilities, such as nuclear reactors. The Department of Homeland Security should lead 

an effort to design a comprehensive screening system, addressing common problems 

and setting common standards with system-wide goals in mind. 

Second, a biometric entry and exit screening system is fundamental to intercepting terrorists and its development should be accelerated. Each element of the 

system is important. The biometric identifier makes it difficult to defeat a watchlist 

by a slight alteration in spelling of a name, a technique relied upon by terrorists. 

The screening system enables border officials access to all relevant information 

about a traveler, in order to assess the risk they may pose. Exit information allows 

authorities to know if a suspect individual has left the country and to establish compliance with immigration laws. 

Third, United States citizens should not be exempt from carrying biometric passports or otherwise enabling their identities to be securely verified. Nor should Canadians or Mexicans. 

Fourth, there should be a program to speed known travelers, so inspectors can 

focus on those travelers who might present greater risks. This is especially important for border communities. 

We believe that the schedule for completion of this biometric entry-exit screening 

system should be accelerated to the extent feasible. This will require additional annual funding, and a mandate to a central organizational authority, such as the US 

VISIT office, to manage the effort.
22

International Collaboration 

We need much greater collaboration with foreign governments on border security. 

This means more exchange of information about terrorists and passports, and improved global passport design standards. Implicit in this recommendation is continued close cooperation with Mexico and Canada. It is particularly important to improve screening efforts prior to departure from foreign airports, especially in countries participating in the visa waiver program.

Immigration Law and Enforcement 

We must be able to monitor and respond to entries along our long borders with 

Canada and Mexico, working with those countries as much as possible. Our law enforcement system ought to send a message of welcome, tolerance, and justice to 

members of the immigrant communities in the United States. Good immigration 

services are one way to reach out that is valuable, including for intelligence. State 

and local law enforcement agencies need more training and partnerships with federal agencies so they can cooperate more effectively with those federal authorities 

in identifying terrorist suspects. 

Finally, secure identification should begin in the United States. We believe that 

the federal government should set standards for the issuance of birth certificates 

and sources of identification such as drivers’ licenses. 

The agenda on immigration and border control, then, is multi-faceted and vital 

to our national security. The bottom line is that our visa and border control systems 

must become an integral part of our counterterrorism intelligence system. We must 

steer a course that remains true to our commitment to an open society and that welcomes legitimate immigrants and refugees, while concentrating our resources on 

identification of potential terrorists and prevention of their entry into the United 

States.

Setting Priorities 

We recommend that homeland security assistance should be based strictly on an 

assessment of risks and vulnerabilities. Now, in 2004, Washington, D.C., and New 

York City are certainly at the top of any such list. 

We understand the contention that every state and city needs to have some minimum infrastructure for emergency response. But federal homeland security assistance should not remain a program for general revenue sharing. It should supplement state and local resources based on the risks or vulnerabilities that merit additional support. Congress should not use this money as a pork barrel.

Command, Control, and Communications 

The 9/11 attacks showed that even the most vigorous emergency response capabilities can be overwhelmed if an attack is large enough. We recommend that emergency response agencies nationwide should adopt the Incident Command System 

(ICS). When multiple agencies or multiple jurisdictions are involved, they should 

adopt a unified command. Both are proven frameworks for emergency response. 

We strongly support the decision that federal homeland security funding will be 

contingent, as of October 1, 2004, upon the adoption and regular use of ICS and 

unified command procedures. In the future, the Department of Homeland Security 

should consider making funding contingent on aggressive and realistic training in 

accordance with ICS and unified command procedures. 

The inability to communicate was a critical element at the World Trade Center, 

Pentagon, and Pennsylvania crash sites, where multiple agencies and multiple jurisdictions responded. The occurrence of this problem at three very different sites is 

strong evidence that compatible and adequate communications among public safety 

organizations at the local, state, and federal levels remains an important problem. 

Congress should support pending legislation which provides for the expedited and 

increased assignment of radio spectrum for public safety purposes. Furthermore, 

high-risk urban areas such as New York City and Washington, D.C., should establish signal corps units to ensure communications connectivity between and among 

civilian authorities, local first responders, and the National Guard. Federal funding 

of such units should be given high priority by Congress.

Private-Sector Preparedness 

The private sector controls 85 percent of the critical infrastructure of the United 

States. The Department of Homeland Security’s mandate includes working with the 

private sector to ensure preparedness. 

Preparedness in the private sector and public sector for rescue, restart, and recovery of operations should include (1) a plan for evacuation, (2) adequate communications capabilities, and (3) a plan for continuity of operations. As we examined the 

emergency response to 9/11, witness after witness told us that, despite 9/11, the private sector remains largely unprepared for a terrorist attack. We were also advised 
23

that the lack of a widely embraced private-sector preparedness standard was a principal contributing factor to this lack of preparedness. 

The Commission therefore endorses the American National Standard Institute’s 

recommended standard for private preparedness. We were encouraged by Secretary 

Tom Ridge’s praise of the standard, and urge the Department of Homeland Security 

to promote its adoption. 

We also encourage the insurance and credit-rating industries to look closely at a 

company’s compliance with the ANSI standard in assessing its insurability and 

creditworthiness. We believe that compliance with the standard should define the 

standard of care owed by a company to its employees and the public for legal purposes. 

Private-sector preparedness, we believe, is not a luxury; it is a cost of doing business in the post-9/11 world. If we ignore it, the potential costs in lives, money, and 

national security will be inestimable. 

Closing Comments 

Mr. Chairman, we believe the recommendations we have presented this morning—as well as the many other recommendations we have made on foreign policy, 

public diplomacy, and transportation security—can make a significant difference in 

making America safer and more secure. 

We also recommend reforms in the structure of the Executive branch and the 

Congress. We believe that organizational reforms, in the absence of implementing 

the other reforms and recommendations in our report, will have significantly less 

value than the value of these reforms as a complete package. 

In short, while we welcome each step toward implementation of our recommendations, no one should be mistaken in believing that organizational reforms alone can 

address the current terrorist threat we face. 

We are gratified by the rapid response of the White House to our recommendations. We welcome the President’s support for a National Intelligence Director, and 

a National Counterterrorism Center. We welcome the support of Senator Kerry. 

We look forward to working with you on our recommendations. 

We should seize this historic opportunity and move expeditiously. With your counsel and direction, we believe that the nation can, and will, make wise choices. 

We would be pleased to respond to your questions.

Chairman COX. I thank you both for your excellent statements. 

I would like to begin with the point that Lee Hamilton has just 

made, that organizational changes will not be enough—your report 

makes this very, very clear—unless we also address the deep-rooted cultural resistance to sharing that is shot through the executive 

branch. Your report states that, quote, ‘‘The biggest impediment to 

all-source analysis is the human or systemic resistance to sharing 

information.’’ 

I want to ask you whether or not one of the highest purposes, 

therefore, to which a National Intelligence Director might be addressed is enforced sharing. Might we not consider that the National Intelligence Director have as his or her highest order of business the enforced sharing of information across jurisdictional lines? 

You mentioned, Governor Kean, the Markle report, which you 

have also drawn attention to in your Commission report. It is 

something that we have focused on in this committee. We must 

move, in my view, I agree completely, to a trusted information network along the lines of the Markle commission has proposed because agency-owned databases have to be made accessible across 

agency lines. 

That is a step beyond the TTIC concepts. Might this not be something that the National Intelligence Director would be tasked with 

enforcing? 

On the other side of this coin, I would like you to address concerns that a National Intelligence Director, to the extent he or she 

has programmatic responsibility, might homogenize the require-
24

ments that are currently in place across the Intelligence Community. 

As you know, we employ enough people in the Intelligence Community to populate a midsize U.S. city. There are 15 separate intelligence agencies, each with their own unique capabilities and missions, each of those critical to our national security. Currently, our 

chief national security priority is fighting terrorism, but if history 

is any guide, we will in the future at some point in the indefinite 

future face a war between nations. And one of the highest purposes 

of intelligence is to forestall conflict between nations. 

What can we do to make sure that we don’t dilute the positions 

on the field played by each of these intelligence agencies, to make 

sure that by funneling everything through a single National Intelligence Director we don’t—to make sure that we maintain the distinct purposes of each of these 15 agencies in our Intelligence Community. 

Separately, from NID, I would like you to address the question 

of the National Counterterrorism Center, in specifics, its relationship to the Department of Homeland Security. As you know, Congress created within the Department of Homeland Security the Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection directorate with 

the purpose of fusing both domestic and foreign intelligence and 

then disseminating that to State and local government and the private sector. One of the reasons, one of the several reasons that CIA 

was not given this function is that there is significant reach into 

our local communities, into the domestic United States, into the 

private sector beyond anything that we have asked CIA to do in 

the past; and we have abiding civil liberties concerns with breaching those walls that have been erected in the past for a very good 

purpose. 

The Department of Homeland Security now having been created 

for that purpose, TTIC now having been created separately from it 

outside the department, we are now faced with a proposal for a National Counterterrorism Center. Will it subsume TTIC? Will it subsume IAIP? Will it move its analysis directly to State, local, and 

private-sector entities? 

So if you would please address both the National Intelligence Director and the National Counterterrorism Center proposals and 

recommendations with those questions in mind, I would appreciate 

it. 

Mr. HAMILTON. That is a very formidable list you have us, Mr. 

Chairman. On the first point, you are absolutely right. We think 

that someone has to enforce sharing and that is a principal role of 

the national intelligence director. You have a lot of marvelous 

groups out here in the intelligence community who do very good 

work. The intelligence community is organized basically on the 

method of collection. And they do an excellent job in developing information through their particular means of collection. What does 

not happen is that intelligence community agencies share that information and our analysis of 9/11 was that a principal cause of 9/

11 was because the intelligence agencies did not share. You have 

to find some way to smash the stovepipes. 

And I think that can be done—has to be done by someone above 

them and therefore, the national intelligence director would have 
25

that role and it is a critically important role as we understand it. 

You simply got to get a better flow of intelligence information 

across all of the intelligence agencies and make that information 

available, more available than it is—has been in the past. I think 

some progress has been made here since 9/11. I know a lot of dedicated patriotic officials are trying to do a better job of it, but the 

organization is standing in the way of the sharing. 

Now the second point you raised with regard to homogeneity of 

intelligence is likewise an enormously significant question and one 

that we wrestle with a great deal. We do not believe that combining the intelligence agencies under one official undermines competitive analysis. Indeed, we want to encourage competitive analysis, and I think everybody does. It is a question of how best to put 

the structure together. I don’t think anyone can claim that the current structure fosters tears competitive analysis. We just had the 

Senate report come out the other day on group think. And the 

whole idea there is that everybody is thinking the same way with 

regard to Iraq and you did not have competitive analysis. So it 

seems to me the status quo is not satisfactory with regard to the 

competitive analysis. Under our system, I want to emphasize that 

we have recommended not all of the analysis would fall under the 

director. The State Department would still have the INR. The 

Treasury would still have their intelligence. The Energy Department would still have their intelligence. The Army, the Air Force, 

the Navy, the Marine Corps would all have their intelligence units. 

So the competitive analysis situation is very lively and viable. 

And the other point I would want to make here is that the focus 

we put on open source information, indeed we make it a special 

part of the national counterterrorism center, calls for the development of a new office or agency to collect and analyze intelligence 

that is available on the open source. I know that kind of runs 

counter to what you think with regard to intelligence agencies, but 

if you look back on 9/11, the fact of the matter is that almost all 

of the information that was available was available to all of us. All 

you had to do was read the newspaper. The problem was we just 

didn’t put it together, none of us put it together, or at least very, 

very few of us put it together. So open source analysis is important 

and will help competition. 

So we don’t see any reduction of competitive analysis under our 

plan. We think even more. And we also would mention that very 

same objection was made to Goldwater–Nichols prior to that being 

brought into effect. We think our military is the best in the world 

today. We think it performs far better than ever because of the 

joint command system, and we believe that the intelligence community will perform better with joint mission centers. 

The final point you made with regard to the NCTC, its relationship to the DHS, let me just say that the there are two parts of 

our organizational chart. I don’t know if you have that in front of 

you. It perhaps would be helpful if we did have it, the DHS, the 

Department of Homeland Security, is very much a part of the national intelligence centers. And they sit on the agency or the board 

where you have the deputy national intelligence director, who oversees homeland security. There are three deputies to the national 

intelligence director. One relates to the foreign field. That is CIA 
26

clandestine services. The other relates to defense. That is NSA, 

NGA, NRO. And the third relates to homeland security or homeland intelligence and that is where the tie would be to DHS. We 

think that TTIC is the right concept, but it needs to be strengthened. 

Mr. KEAN. I would add just very little to that except that we believe our proposal will strengthen analysis and enhance competitive analysis, right now viewed as marginalized from some of the 

agencies. And it can have dire consequences. An example, easy example of not sharing information is when we found Moussaoui. The 

FBI identified him as the guy trying to learn how to fly jumbo jets 

and not much else. That information was gathered by the FBI. It 

got to the CIA. It went right up to the director of the CIA. The director of the CIA said that is an FBI matter, and so he ignored it. 

It never got to the FBI. If there was at that point a 

counterterrorism center, that kind of information would have surfaced and people would have shared information and we believe 

there would have been fairly prompt action. And of course, there 

was no action on this before 9/11. 

Mr. HAMILTON. You mentioned, Mr. Chairman you mentioned 

specifically and I neglected to respond to it, what happens to IAIP, 

the information analysis and infrastructure protection agency within the Department within the homeland security, the answer is 

under our proposal, the locus of analysis moves to the national 

counterterrorism center, but IAIP continues to exist and continues 

to support the Department requirements, infrastructure protection, 

support to State and local authorities, but the overall analysis 

moves to the national center. 

Chairman COX. I thank you. We have a great deal more to delve 

into on these subjects, but my time has expired and I want to move 

this along, we are going to be operating on a strict five-minute rule 

to give members who travelled great distances to be here, the opportunity to ask their questions. And I now recognize Mr. Turner 

for his questions. 

Mr. TURNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Governor Kean, in your 

statement, you say, and I am looking at it here, we believe the 

President needs to lead a government-wide effort to bring the 

major national security institutions into the information revolution. 

And you also say further down in your statement, only presidential 

leadership can develop the necessary government-wide concepts 

and standards. And I hope we don’t miss that message, because as 

I have reviewed the efforts to bring about an integrated information sharing system, it is clear to me that the Congress has made 

repeated efforts to accomplish that. We have passed, as Lee Hamilton said, four separate laws mandating an interoperable border 

security system. Back in 2000, Congress created an independent 

commission appointed by the Attorney General to report on how 

border agencies could efficiently and effectively carry out the mission of creating an integrated collection and data sharing system, 

including an integrated entry and exit system which was mandated 

by the Congress in 1996. It seems that this law creating this independent commission followed 4 years of costly delays at the former 

INS when they failed to develop such an integrated entry exit system. Congress authorized the task force that was created. It au-
27

thorized funding for fiscal years 2001 through 2008. In the first report of that Commission issued in December, 2002, the task force 

included an entire chapter on subjects that the task force would 

continue to research through 2003 and 2004, which included the 

development of an interoperable entry exit border system. 

In December of 2002, Attorney General Ashcroft renewed the task force charge to study this issue, provided $5.6 million to do 

it and assigned seven new staff divisions to accomplish it. And 

among the most significant efforts of this task force was to employ 

a group of eight scientists from the Los Alamos labs to study the 

50 major border IT systems that are used in our government and 

to make recommendations. And when they issued their report in 

December of 2003, which, by the way, was on the eve of the implementation of this new U.S. VISIT program, these Los Alamos scientists stated that most of the existing border security systems 

could be readily integrated into an interoperable network so that 

one query could search numerous data bases simultaneously. They 

cautioned that the underlying technical infrastructure at the borders needed to be replaced with a more modern foundation in order 

to achieve interoperability. 

It seems clear to me—oh, by the way, this task force was dismissed by the Department of Homeland Security after the task 

force warned, in its December 2003 report, that entry-exit U.S. 

VISIT is a critical component of the broader DHS strategy and any 

system that is designed or perceived as a stand alone system simply would not fit into a post-September 2001 world. The report 

went on to recommend an independent evaluation of U.S. VISIT. 

It seems very clear that this task force suspected that we were 

once again building another stovepipe. And it comes back down to 

your initial statement that I read when I began my question and 

that is, it takes presidential leadership to develop the necessary 

government-wide concepts and standards to have an interoperable 

system. 

So I ask each of you if you were advising the President this 

morning and he were to say, yes, I will call in all the relevant players, the Cabinet secretaries and I will try to find out why after 3 

years, we haven’t created this interoperability that is so critical to 

preventing another 9/11, I would like you, based on your experience, to tell me what kind of excuses would we get from the relevant players for not moving forward more expeditiously to solve 

this problem? Where is the problem? You say it is presidential 

leadership. But even if the President were to lead, what kind of excuses would he get for this problem not being solved today? 

Mr. HAMILTON. Well, first excuse would be need to know, I believe, because that is so embedded in our intelligence community 

today and we don’t mean to dismiss that. That can be very important in protecting sources and methods. So you have to get a balance here. You have to get a balance on need to know on the one 

hand and need to share on the other. But the way we produce our 

intelligence in each of these areas, HUMINT over here, satellites 

over here, interceptions over here and other means, they all kind 

of hanging on to that information. And because the need to know 

philosophy is so deeply embedded in the intelligence community, 

they hang onto it. And they say, we are the only ones that really 
28

have to know this information. Now that is understandable and it 

probably historically has validity to it, but we are in a different 

world now with terrorism. And we think that you have to elevate 

the need to share up to the need to know and maybe the balance 

has to tip a little towards need to share because it was precisely 

the lack of sharing of information that Tom has cited just a moment ago that created the circumstances that permitted 9/11 to 

occur. In addition to this, as we say in our report, there is this very 

strong urge, which every one of you has countered to overclassify. 

Look, a document becomes secret before a person has the authority 

to classify or not classify. He or she looks at that document. There 

is no incentive for that person to make it public. The incentive is 

to classify it and protect himself from the possibility of the information getting out and causing a problem, so they stamp it secret. 

And we pile up enormous amounts of information, warehouses of 

information that are secret because of the incentives are all on the 

side of classification. 

Now this is a problem we think that no agency can deal with, 

no agency can solve this problem. It has to be done above an agency. And it has some very tough problems in it. There are technical 

problems, there are legal problems, there are political problems. 

And I think only the President can resolve those matters and has 

to resolve them, I believe, or you will not get the kind of information rights management that we think is necessary to protect ourselves. 

Chairman COX. The gentlelady from Washington is recognized 

for her questions. 

Ms. DUNN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Congressman Hamilton, 

12 years ago, as you may recall, you and I served together on the 

joint committee for the organization of Congress. Our report included specific recommendations on consolidation within the committee structure. You devote some of your report to this subject, 

specifically noting that congressional oversight for intelligence and 

counterterrorism is dysfunctional. My question to you and certainly 

Governor Kean, please jump in because you have been through this 

thing for the past many months, and we are very intrigued to hear 

the results of your experience on this, if you were in charge of organizing Congress to provide particular focus to this new threat of 

terrorism, where would you start? 

Would you, for example, divide the responsibilities for oversight 

and authorization in appropriations? What would you do with the 

terrorist watchlist, which is not currently under the aegis of our 

Select Committee on Homeland Security? What kind of a committee would you see happening? Would it be a joint committee between the House and the Senate? And I would suggest to you that 

just as you see what we are going through today with such a massive committee, it is hard for us to bore in and spend the time we 

need to spend to get precise answers and to follow up. It is very 

challenging. But the goal of all of us is to provide focus. I think, 

for example, that if something else does happen here in the United 

States, people will turn to Congress and say they had the chance 

to do the best job they could ever do to put such an oversight committee together. And so I am asking for your experience and for 

your thoughts as you have heard from other groups you have testi-
29

fied before and from the people who testified before your committee 

in the many, many hearings you have held, what is your suggestion to do with Congress? 

Mr. KEAN. Well, we have general, what we have said has got to 

be consolidated. The importance came to me and I got this from the 

outside in that in this whole area, normally in areas other than intelligence, there is a lot of oversight from the press and from the 

public. People press in. People want questions answered. When you 

get into the counterterrorism area, so much of it is secret that that 

whole area doesn’t exist. So you depend much more heavily on the 

Congress to do the oversight than you do than in almost any other 

area of government. And if the Congress can’t get it done, nobody 

gets it done. If these agencies are allowed to go their own way or 

make use of multiple jurisdictions or not answer the questions 

properly from the Congress, then there is no oversight at all. 

And we suggest in the report that—particularly homeland security where there is mention, they are responsible to 88 different 

committees. That doesn’t mean oversight at all. What it does mean 

is that people who should be spending their time protecting us all 

are spending an enormous amount of time of time testifying before 

a whole vast majority of committees. We suggest consolidating 

homeland security into a committee in the House and committee in 

the Senate. We suggested intelligence doing something radical and 

that is taking the authorization and budget functions and combining them into one committee because we sense the intelligence 

committee without any budget authority doesn’t really have the 

clout with the intelligence community that they need to do their 

job. 

So it is moving in those directions so there is more concentrated 

oversight that can really understand these organizations, which are 

very complicated. Lee Hamilton knows more about this than I will 

ever learn in a lifetime, but he tells me that in the intelligence 

area, it is 4 years, 6 years before you really understand these agencies and are really able to ask the intelligent questions. So it is a 

question of consolidation. More authority for the committees. 

Mr. HAMILTON. I think Tom has made the essential points. I 

must say, I have considerable sympathy for the Congress in putting 

this together, because Congresswoman Dunn, you and I served on 

the Joint Reform Committee and I might say that when the Democrats controlled the Congress, we weren’t all that successful in 

making these reforms. It is very tough to do. I appreciate that. 

Very difficult to do, because when you are talking about reform of 

committee jurisdiction, you are talking about allocation of power, 

and power is the name of the game. Now what we are saying to 

you here is that this threat of terrorism is so urgent, so long-term, 

so difficult that not only must we do some reorganization of the executive branch, we also have to reorganize the Congress as well. 

And I will be quick to admit that it is a lot easier to say this from 

outside the body than from inside the body. 

But I think you folks are at a crunch point. And I think you are 

exactly right when you say that if another incident were to happen 

and the Congress had done nothing to put its own house in order, 

I think the institution, and maybe some of you individually would 

be heavily criticized for not acting. In other words, I think there 
30

is a political risk here. I may be wrong about that. I don’t think 

so. I certainly don’t think that the particular suggestions we made 

are carved in granite. You have to analyze the situation, understand the internal dynamics better than I do and you have to figure it out, but you have to get your house in order so you can have 

robust oversight of the Department of Homeland Security. 

The Department of Homeland Security needs your advice and 

counsel. And they want to be able to come—as Secretary Ridge said 

to us, I want to be able to come to one body of expert members of 

the Congress and lay out my problems to them and tell them what 

we have done and tell them what we haven’t done and get their 

advice and counsel, rather than going to 88 subcommittees, which 

Tom mentioned, 88 subcommittees. That really is absurd. And it is 

not fair, it simply is not fair to the executive branch to make them 

do that, I don’t believe. 

So we say OK, we have to have robust reform. Let me tell you 

what I did in the Senate. I was making a presentation on this for 

the Senate not long ago, and I asked them how long did you spend 

in the appropriations committee on review of the intelligence budget? And one Senator spoke up and said 10 minutes. The defense 

subcommittee appropriations in the United States Senate spent 10 

minutes reviewing what we all know to be a $40 billion budget. I 

used that illustration in another group of senators a day or two 

later. And one Senator got up and say Hamilton, you are all wrong, 

you greatly exaggerated it. It was 5 minutes. Now nobody can say 

that is robust oversight. And it is a very, very serious matter. So 

you work it out. We have made our suggestions on it. You know 

this place better than I know it, now. 

But I think it is important for the Congress to get itself in shape 

so that it can perform one of its constitutional duties, which is 

oversight. 

Chairman COX. The gentleman from Mississippi, Mr. Thompson. 

Mr. THOMPSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And let me welcome 

the two gentlemen here this morning. Let me join my colleague, 

Ms. Dunn, in saying that the notion that we have all these jurisdictional issues before us is a real problem and it is both—it is a bipartisan problem. Mr. Hamilton, you are absolutely correct. This 

institution loves power, individuals love power and the homeland 

security issue is really one that should not be about power, but one 

about the people and how we can secure the homeland. 

So I will join you and other colleagues who testified before this 

committee that we ought to have a standing committee with all the 

jurisdictional authorities right within the committee. So I appreciate your comments on that respect. But there are some other 

issues associated with your report. One, it has to do with transportation. Many individuals in the public would like for people to try 

to prioritize transportation problems. Did you all look at transportation and try to give it a pecking order in terms of security or 

what did you do? 

Mr. KEAN. I don’t think we gave it a pecking order, but what we 

did was identify the various problems that had to be addressed in 

the transportation and security areas. And we are spending most 

of the money now on air safety, but we recognize that the transportation of containers, transportation of people via rail or subway, 
31

there are a number of other areas we have got to give if not equal 

attention to at least more attention to than we are giving them 

right now. 

Mr. HAMILTON. Mr. Thompson, I think we look quite a bit at the 

transportation sector and there are so many possible recommendations that you could make there. We did not try to do that. But 

what we did say is that you have to plan. We have been doing is 

planning on planning for the last 3 years. We have got to put into 

place plans and it has to be done urgently. A comprehensive plan 

for the entire transportation system that Tom mentioned, aviation, 

rail, all the rest of it, and likewise, sector plans so that you have 

some way of measuring what you have done, you know what your 

goals are, you establish your priorities, you do your budgeting and 

all the things that are necessary in good planning, we are not there 

yet. 

We heard yesterday from the assistant secretary, Asa Hutchinson. We are moving forward on this. And I think some of these 

plans will be ready by the end of the year. We think it is terribly 

important to have integrated security plans for all of these modes 

of transportation. And the other things we mentioned were with regard to aviation security was to make sure you had layers of security, not just one checkpoint. What happened with the 9/11 terrorists was there was no layered security. 

They had to get by one principal problem and that was the 

check-in. And incidentally, a number of them were screened twice, 

but we didn’t stop them. But I think everybody acknowledges that 

in order to have an effective security system, you have to have layers of checks and so we emphasized that. We put a lot of emphasis 

on explosives, because we think that is a very major problem in 

transportation security today and recommended among other 

things, for example, that every airplane have an explosive proof 

container on it and very few airplanes have that today. 

So those are some of the comments we made with regard to aviation security and rail security. But we didn’t try to deal with it 

comprehensively but picked out two, three things that we thought 

were especially important. 

Chairman COX. The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Smith. If the 

gentleman would suspend in order to permit time for all members’ 

questions, I would ask that both members and our witnesses observe the green, amber and red lights that are there for your convenience. The gentleman from Texas. 

Mr. SMITH. Chairman Kean, my first question is addressed to 

you and this goes to the statement on page 1 of your testimony 

today where you say the failure to share information cost us dearly. 

Today as we sit here, does ICE within the Homeland Security Department, the FBI and the CIA have the computer interface capability to exchange information, not whether they should exchange 

any and all information, but do they have the ability to exchange 

information? 

Mr. KEAN. No. 

Mr. SMITH. Do you have any idea when they will have that ability? 

Mr. KEAN. No. We don’t know what the timetable is. We know 

they are working on it, but we have not been given a timetable. 
32

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Hamilton, page 3 of your testimony suggests 

pretty strongly that if a previous administration had enforced the 

immigration laws then in effect, we might have stopped the terrorist attack from occurring. You specifically refer to a number of 

laws, including laws—one law passed in 1996, Immigration Reform 

Act, which called for a entry-exit system, called for standardized 

birth certificates, called for better scrutiny of student visas. 

And you give examples, in fact, there on page 3 of your testimony 

that pretty clearly implied that a majority of the terrorists might 

have been apprehended or at least not admitted had those and 

other laws been enforced. You then say that eventually in 2002, 

they were implemented or beginning to be implemented or enforced 

then. But we did have a terrorist attack in 1993. The basement of 

the World Trade Center was attacked. You are suggesting something pretty seriously. 

If the Clinton administration had enforced the 1996 law which 

was passed by the House by a 3-to–1 margin, and in the Senate 

by a 9-to–1 margin, we might have avoided the terrorist attack; is 

that right? 

Mr. HAMILTON. We certainly say that more robust enforcement 

of routine immigration laws supported by better information might 

have made the difference. Tom and I have been very, very careful 

not to say that if this step or that step had been taken, it would 

have prevented 9/11. Causation is much too complex to draw that 

conclusion. 

Mr. SMITH. You said might have stopped. That is a very astounding statement. And is there any good explanation as to why the 

previous administration didn’t enforce a lot of these laws considering the overwhelming support in Congress and considering the 

wake-up call we had in 1993? 

Mr. HAMILTON. Two administrations have not enforced the 1996 

law with regard to entry and exit systems. 

Mr. SMITH. The current administration is enforcing that. 

Mr. HAMILTON. I think our enforcement is better, and I agree 

with that, because we have learned a lot. Why didn’t we enforce 

it back then, the reason is that none of us thought that this could 

happen. We just didn’t expect it. And I think that made us all kind 

of lax probably in enforcement. What we are saying today—

Mr. SMITH. Let me interrupt you quickly. The 1996 bill was 

passed just a couple of years after the 1993 World Trade Center 

bombing. It seems to me that we were pretty much on notice that 

we should start enforcing immigration laws especially those that 

were passed by Congress. Is there any good explanation as to why 

we did not? 

Mr. HAMILTON. I thought I just answered that. Any reason we 

why we did not enforce? 

Mr. SMITH. 1993. We passed major legislation in 1996. It was ignored. I know we are talking in retrospect, but it seems to me that 

was a dangerous position. 

Mr. HAMILTON. I think in retrospect, it is easy to see there 

should have been a much more robust enforcement of our immigration laws. 

Mr. SMITH. Let me squeeze in one more question. The Commission relied upon an individual foreign national security advisor to 
33

provide the Commission with information as to whether the previous administration had—how they had handled the Al-Qa’ida terrorist threat. Don’t you think there was some conflict of interest on 

relying upon a national security advisor with a previous administration to tell the committee whether or not the previous administration had, in fact, handled the Al-Qa’ida threat well or no? 

Wasn’t there some conflict of interest relying on a biased source 

there? 

Mr. HAMILTON. We took the testimony of hundreds of people and 

I don’t think we relied on anyone. We tried to sort through all of 

it. And we certainly gave the national security advisors of both administrations ample opportunity to defend their administrations 

and they both did a very good job of it. 

Mr. SMITH. My time is up. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. PASCRELL. Mr. Chairman, point of inquiry? 

Chairman COX. Gentleman of New Jersey. 

Mr. PASCRELL. I must say after that line of questioning—

Chairman COX. If the gentleman is not stating a procedural inquiry, the gentleman is going to recognize the gentlelady from California. 

Mr. PASCRELL. We have not had time for questions at our end 

many, many times on both sides. And I think that the line of questioning is improper and does not sit well—with the findings of 

this—

Chairman COX. The gentleman will suspend. The gentleman will 

suspend. 

Mr. PASCRELL. You can suspend all you want. 

Chairman COX. The Chair will take this opportunity to announce 

that in order to permit time for all members to ask questions, we 

are going to proceed in the order of questioning for this panel that 

we have been following until 12:15 when our panel members must 

leave, and then the testimony of the second panel. We will continue 

in that order without interruption. So we will not resume with 

questions from the chairman and ranking member until every 

member has had an opportunity to ask questions. The gentlelady 

from California is recognized for her questions. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you again, 

gentlemen. I had the pleasure of questioning you last week in the 

defense committee. I have two questions, one for Governor Kean 

and one for my former colleague and let me say them both. The 

first one would be to Governor Kean. It is about the whole issue 

that you wrote about with respect to the relationship of strengthening and in some cases repairing our relationships with other 

countries. In your report, you recommend the formation of a flexible contact group of leading coalition governments. Can you elaborate more on what you meant by this; how do you see this contact 

group functioning; what would be its relationship to other multinational groups, like NATO, for example? 

And then to my former colleague, great again to see you. If you 

take a look over there on the majority side right after Ms. Dunn, 

you will see a lot of empty seats. Those are all chairmen of other 

committees. I also sit on the subcommittee of this group, which is 

the rules subcommittee, the one tasked with trying to figure out 

how we make this or if we make this a real standing committee 
34

with real jurisdictional power. When we had testimony before that 

rules subcommittee, most of those chairmen said make this go 

away. Comes back to that power struggle that you were talking 

about. 

So I would like to ask you, after all of the experience that you 

have had and the changes that you were able to construct within 

the Congress, how do we get these gentlemen to sit here and have 

a real discussion about not having 88 subcommittees for the homeland security agency to report before the Congress? 

Mr. KEAN. I guess I will start. Our recommendation was that 

there should be some sort of a forum. We have no forum now for 

talking with the countries of the Arab world. We meet a number 

of times a year with the European union and we have an organization to discuss with them. The Asian countries and we have a 

forum to discuss things with them. If you take the countries of the 

Muslim world, there is no forum of that kind and there is no occasion to get together with them to share our thoughts and share our 

differences and get to know each other in that kind of a relationship. And so the point of that recommendation is just to suggest 

that such a forum be created. And that we as a country, therefore, 

would have the ability to have the same kind of conversations with 

that part of the world as we do with other parts of the world. 

Mr. HAMILTON. I am not sure I can be helpful to you in trying 

to figure out the best way to deal with your very real problems of 

jurisdiction, except I would recommend to you the Tom Kean approach. Tom deserves much of the credit for the fact that we had 

a consensus report. And it is worth looking at why we were able 

to reach it and I think it may have some lessons for the Congress. 

The first rule was that we are going to agree on the facts. It is 

amazing how often we disagree on facts. And the Commission 

again and again—somebody would say, what is the fact, what is 

the fact here? And we would kind of suspend everything in the 

work of the Commission until we agreed upon the fact. 

So you have to figure out what the problems are and what the 

facts are. And then if you can get an agreement on the facts, it becomes not a cinch, but it becomes easier to get agreement on recommendations. But it can only be done with extended dialogue and 

deliberation. One of the things that really boaters me about the 

Congress today, looking at it from my posture is how difficult it is 

for you to deliberate, and that really is what the body is all about 

or should be, deliberation. But your schedules are so hectic and the 

time that you have to sit down with your colleagues and work 

through difficult problems is limited. I think one of the things you 

really have to do is to figure out how to engage in dialog with one 

another. And so much of the activity on the floor of the House, you 

are just kind of reading speeches and making speeches past one another. That is not deliberation. That is not dialog. That is not the 

way the body is supposed to work. And so I have that advice for 

you. And it all came about because of the remarkable leadership 

that Tom Kean showed in bringing a very disparate group of commissioners together. It is a hard business and it is tough to do and 

takes a lot of time. 

Chairman COX. The gentleman from Connecticut, Mr. Shays. 
35

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I just want to 

say to both of you as the chairman and vice-chairman, I am in awe 

of the work you did on the 9/11 Commission. I am absolutely in 

awe of it. I am grateful that you made it unanimous and you didn’t 

have to work hard to do that part. I mean, you had to work hard 

to make sure it didn’t become partisan. And it is very clear that 

you put criticism on previous administrations, the present, Congress, our oversight and yet, you did it in a way that I thought was 

helpful in our getting and moving forward. 

I believe some of this can be done in executive order, regulation, 

law and House and Senate rules. And I just want to say publicly 

that I will not, and if I am reelected and in a position to vote on 

the rules, I am not going to vote for any House rule that doesn’t 

include a permanent committee on Department of Homeland Security, for instance. I just simply will vote against any rule. I will not 

vote for a rule that places our country in jeopardy because we don’t 

have the good sense to make this a permanent committee. 

And I think my colleague is correct that when she points out that 

the people who aren’t here today are the Chairmen of the other 

committees. It is outrageous. We have to put this aside and do 

what is right and have a permanent committee. Lots of things to 

talk about with the limited time I have, I would like you both to 

address the whole issue of overclassification. And I would like you 

to just tell me when you see what is the incentive for change? I 

mean, we all know that we have too much classification. We read 

documents. And I think, Governor Kean, you told me that you just 

were amazed at the fairly average stuff you read that was classified. 

So what is the incentive, though, that we put in to change that? 

We are going to have a hearing, my subcommittee is going to have 

a hearing on this next week, called too many secrets, overclassification, it is a barrier to information sharing. But I don’t know what 

the incentive is. Tell me what the incentive is so we don’t have so 

much overclassification? 

Mr. KEAN. It is hard. I will tell you, Congressman, you are absolutely right, coming from the outside, it just absolutely amazed and 

appalled me the amount of information I read that was stamped, 

classified, top secret, all these stamps on it and then you would 

read it and it wasn’t anything you hadn’t read in the newspapers. 

And I was asking one of my watches that we used to call them and 

I said, why would 300 pages of it—why is it classified? And he said 

because he didn’t know it was true when he read it before. 

That is no answer. That is no answer. I think this overclassification is hurting us terribly right now. The public is not an enemy, 

it is an ally in this war against terrorism. The more they know, the 

more they can help us. The more local law enforcement knows, the 

more they can help us. I don’t know whether you have somebody 

with all the incentives to declassify that you now have to classify. 

What Congressman Hamilton said before was absolutely right. If 

you have a document, you get in no trouble for classifying it secret. 

You might get in trouble if you don’t. So everything is stamped secret. You have to somehow put the motivation on somebody to look 

at all this stuff and say why shouldn’t the American people have 
36

this information? Why shouldn’t it be in the paper? Wouldn’t it 

help if it was? Knowledge is power. 

Mr. SHAYS. It would strike me that if you didn’t classify as much, 

you would then know what are those classified pieces of information that have to be shared from one agency to another. So it seems 

to me like a huge issue. I have been wrestling with what the incentives are. 

Mr. Hamilton. 

Mr. HAMILTON. Congressman Shays, I am immensely pleased to 

learn that you are having a hearing in this area because it really 

does need to be explored and we need to get some more ideas into 

it. And what I am going to suggest may not be too palatable to this 

group. But my experience is the Congress has just defaulted on the 

question of classification, just been too timid and has said in effect, 

Mr. President, you deal with it. The President today—and look, 

presidents have many things on their plate. Presidents of the 

United States do not sit around stamping documents secret. They 

have the authority, but they delegate that authority all over the 

place so that every department of government you go into, they 

have classifiers whose job it is to stamp documents secret. And believe you me, they have got a good stamp. 

I think the Congress has to assert itself and begin to find ways 

and means of setting standards, for example, for when a document 

should be classified and when it should not be classified. Now I 

don’t suggest that is easy. It will be a tough task. It hadn’t been 

done before. But I think the tumidity of the Congress, the willingness just to defer to the President, whoever the President is, the 

authority to stamp—to delegate this authority without any real review by the Congress is a major default of responsibility. 

So I will be following your hearings. I would like to hear—we did 

not have time, I guess, maybe that is not a very good excuse—we 

did not get into the question of what incentives, the one you are 

raising—it is a hard one to answer—I would like to see what you 

come up with. 

Chairman COX. The gentleman’s time has expired. I will interject 

at this point that the comments that have been made about chairmen of other committees should be clarified by observing that the 

questioner himself is the vice chairman of the Full Committee on 

Government Reform and Oversight and top representative of that 

committee on the select panel. He is, of course, here today and has 

endorsed the concept of creating a permanent homeland security 

committee. Likewise, the chairman of the Committee on Intelligence who, with his ranking member, has strongly endorsed a 

permanent— 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, we are running out of time. You 

said there would be no extraneous statements. Could we move on? 

We are not going to have a chance to ask questions. 

Chairman COX. I appreciate the gentleman. I think we wish to 

point out that the chairman of the Intelligence Committee has 

recused himself from today’s hearing because he has been nominated as Director of Central Intelligence, and likewise, the chairman of the Committee on Armed Services strongly supports the 

recommendations of this commission. The gentleman from the 

State of Washington, Mr. Dicks is recognized. 
37

Mr. DICKS. I, too, want to thank the chairman and vice-chairman 

for their great work for the country—

Chairman COX. Would the gentleman yield for just a moment? I 

failed to recognize that Mr. Goodlatte, the chairman of the Committee on Agriculture is present. 

Mr. DICKS. I want to thank you for your great service and I know 

particularly Lee Hamilton chaired the intelligence committee. I 

served for 8 years on the Intelligence Committee. One of the things 

that Secretary Kissinger reminded us of yesterday was that one of 

the biggest breakdowns is not necessarily in the collection of the 

information, but in the assessment of that information and it in almost every one of these intelligence failures we have had, we have 

had the information. 

Either we have collected it through our national, technical means 

or we had information like that from the FBI field offices, but it 

was the failure of higher-ups who got that information to act upon 

it. When we think about this whole issue, we need to remember 

that. In many of these cases, we had the information. It is tragic, 

but we had it and we just didn’t act on it. The group think, you 

know, like that which occurred going into the Egyptian–Israeli of 

1973. 

Another classic example was right before Desert Storm and 

Desert Shield. The information was there. We saw the tanks being 

fueled, but the President was talking to leaders in the region and 

they said Saddam won’t do it and he did it. And to President 

Bush’s great commendation, he came out and said this wasn’t an 

intelligence failure but a failure to act on the intelligence. 

But I think that is one thing we need to consider here. I think 

John Hamre has made an important point in his statement. Remember, this is the start of the debate. This is far too important 

a point on whether we create a national intelligence director and 

how that is done because you have the classic problem here. 80 

percent of the intelligence budget is in the Defense Department. 20 

percent is over at CIA. So how do you work out an arrangement 

so the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, who has community-wide responsibility, can actually have authority over this 

budget? Hamre puts out a pretty good point. 

You could put the NRO, the NSA, NEMA and the interspacial 

group all together and put the intelligence director over that so you 

would have diversity and you would have the CIA and director of 

CIA. You would have the DIA over in the Defense Department and 

their services. 

So I think that deserves some consideration. Another idea here 

that we need to think about in trying to figure out a solution is 

there is a model where the head of the NRO, Peter Teets, is also 

the assistant secretary of the Air Force for science and space. You 

could have a model where the director of the Central Intelligence 

Agency would also be the deputy Secretary of Defense for intelligence. He would still have to work out his arrangement with the 

Secretary of Defense, but you could have then one person in charge 

of the entire intelligence community in terms of formulating the 

budget and the policy, but also he would have to coordinate with 

the Secretary of Defense, which is the situation that we have 

today. 
38

So there is some concern, I think, about if we create a new national intelligence director, then we are going to have to create a 

new bureaucracy and all the staff to support that person. And what 

does the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency do besides run 

the CIA as part of this operation? I like the idea of the center. I 

think it is good. But I make the point. All this discussion about information sharing and tearing down the stovepipes, we have done 

a lot of that work. A lot of these interagency centers can get the 

work done. But don’t forget, it is the failure of assessment. That 

is where the real failures have occurred in our history. I just would 

make that point. 

Mr. HAMILTON. Well, Congressman Dicks, the two articles that 

you referred to by former Secretary Kissinger and John Hamre, 

need to be looked and studied carefully because both are highly respected figures who have had a lot of experience in this field. Secretary Kissinger obviously is correct when he says we have got to 

get the assessments right. The question I raise about that is how 

can you possibly get the assessment right if you don’t have accurate sharing? You have to have the sharing of the information so 

that the analyst is able to see what these various agencies of intelligence have done. You have to pool that information. You have to 

bring it together somewhere or you cannot get an accurate assessment. 

And that is what we are saying. We are saying we have to share 

that information and only then can the analysts have a chance of 

getting an accurate assessment. There is no quarrel with the idea 

that you have to put emphasis on assessment. I think he is exactly 

right in many respects. We have put most of our resources in intelligence on collection. And we collect so much data that we can’t 

process it all. 

Mr. DICKS. That is true. As you well know, there is only a fraction of this information that is analyzed in real-time, and that is 

a major problem. The assessment thing has to be considered. I 

agree completely with you on the information sharing, and I think 

that is a great concept. But it is the assessment phase, getting the 

equipment and getting the information so you can analyze this information as much as possible in real-time and then having people 

who are smart enough to be able to conclude that something is 

happening and convince their superiors to act upon it. Don’t forget 

that part. 

Chairman COX. The gentleman from—

Mr. KEAN. May I say one comment? You are absolutely right on 

the assessment side. And we think the director of the CIA is going 

to have a full-time job rebuilding the CIA. It will take 5 years to 

do that. We hope he can do it faster, but that is going to be a fulltime job, getting diversity, language skills and getting the right 

people on board. So we think that is very, very important. And 

looking at the assessment, I will tell you, having read, I guess, the 

highest level briefings that were given to two presidents, I will say 

only as a citizen coming from the outside, I think our intelligence 

agencies failed two presidents. 

Neither president had the information that he needed to assess 

the situation properly and make correct decisions. So I think the 

one thing we cannot do is allow a lot of status quo to exist. 
39

Chairman COX. The gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Camp. 

Mr. CAMP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for your 

service in making our country safer. My question is this, you both 

referred to our porous borders and some of the things we have done 

to address that issue. Certainly creating the Department of Homeland Security is one of those things to secure our borders. There 

is this U.S. VISIT program. The administration is ahead of the congressionally-mandated schedule. But my question is this recent 

change. As you know, border protection could deport at airports 

and seaports people found illegally. Now that has been extended to 

those found within 100 miles of our border. It is a new responsibility of our border protection. Is that something you would agree 

with? Is that moving in the right direction in terms of trying to address our border issue? 

Mr. HAMILTON. Mr. Camp, I am not clear on what change you 

are talking about. 

Mr. CAMP. The law was that if someone was found within 100 

miles of our border, border patrol did not have the authority to deport people. However, if they were at a airport or seaport they were 

immediately deported to another country. There has been an administrative change allowing now inspectors at our borders to deport people who are found in this country illegally. Is that the sort 

of thing that would fit in with attempts to address our porous border? 

Mr. HAMILTON. That is the so-called expedited removal program 

that was announced this week. That was announced after the Commission had completed its work. We do want to emphasize the need 

for terrorists’ travel intelligence and operational strategy in this. 

And that step when I read it, I thought my reaction was positive 

to it. Of course it is implemented and makes all the difference, but 

it is a means of making a decision on site as I understand it, is 

that correct, to act? 

Mr. CAMP. Yes, it is. 

Mr. KEAN. It does give us an opportunity. Everybody who we 

catch who crosses the border on phony documents we shouldn’t just 

send them back. We should get those documents, find out where 

those documents came from. Because if we can crack these illegal 

terrorist facilitators who are doing this work, we will go a long way 

to stopping the problem. 

So I think we should look at any of these people we catch as not 

just somebody but as an opportunity to learn more. 

Mr. CAMP. My second question is on the issue of airline security 

and particularly the No–Fly Lists and attempting to compare every 

passenger list with comprehensive lists or terrorist lists. This has 

been done primarily by the airlines. Recently, there is a suggestion 

to move that to TSA. And I would like to get your comments. It 

would seem to me that if the more everyone knows, the safer we 

are, I don’t see why the airlines should not have a role in that as 

well. But I would be interested in both of your comments in that 

area. 

Mr. HAMILTON. One of the recommendations we made was that 

you have to have an improved No–Fly List and you have to have 

an improved automatic selectee list and that we ought not to delay 
40

the development of those while the argument goes on about the 

successor to the CAPS program. 

We believe the screening function should be performed by the 

TSA, not by the air carriers. It certainly has to utilize the set of 

terrorist watchlists, all of them, that we have that are maintained 

by the Federal Government; and air carriers should be required to 

supply information that is needed for the system. 

Mr. CAMP. Thank you very much. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman COX. The gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Frank. 

Mr. FRANK. In your report you have a great deal about the FBI 

and quite thoughtfully note that there were past problems with the 

FBI in terms of getting into impingement on political freedom. And 

I was struck by the thoughtfulness with which you said that your 

recommendations—essentially, you rejected the notion that there 

should be a new agency that would take a big chunk out of the FBI 

but did say quite thoughtfully that you are expressing the hope 

that the FBI will be able to reform. We all share that hope. 

I must say that my hope in that regard was given a little bit of 

a jolt yesterday when I read the New York Times article by Eric 

Lichtblau headed ‘‘FBI goes knocking for political troublemakers.’’ 

FBI officials, it says, are urging agents to canvas their communities 

for information about planned disruptions aimed at the convention 

and other coming political events. 

Essentially what it says is that a significant number of FBI 

agents are questioning people about whether or not they know 

whether or not somebody is going to do something violent at the 

Republican convention. They had apparently done it with regard to 

the Democratic convention. The New York Times in today’s editorial says, quite accurately, I believe, these heavy-handed inquiries are intimidating and they threaten to chill freedom of expression. They also appear to be a spectacularly poor use of limited law 

enforcement resources. 

You pay some attention, I was pleased to see, about privacy and 

civil liberties. I wonder if you have any reaction to this. I mean, 

the notion the FBI is out there asking people if they plan to do 

things, there is a troubling tendency here to take the doctrine of 

preemption, which seems to me controversial enough in the international area, and apply it domestically. It is none of the business 

of law enforcement in the United States to preempt people of what 

some might think are whacky political views and I might think because they might be about to do something. 

We have this new notion of free speech zones. Many of us had 

always thought that the free speech zone was called the United 

States of America, and efforts to kind of make it anything less than 

that were grave error. 

In your judgment—you spent a great deal of time on this—is 

there any reason why we should be having the FBI going around 

anticipatorily asking people if they know anybody who plans to divert attention? Is the FBI that deep in extra agents that they got 

people with nothing else to do for the summer to go out and do 

this? I wonder if this in your mind raises the concern that it raises 

in mine. 
41

Let me read, in your report, on page 75, you note Attorney General Levi, who did great work when he was under Gerald Ford in 

this regard, tried to clean it up and then talked about Attorney 

General Smith’s revision. But this is the key point: Smith’s guidelines, like Levi’s, took account of the reality that suspicion of, 

quote, terrorism like suspicion of, quote, subversion could lead to 

making individuals targets for investigation more because of their 

beliefs than because of their acts. I am wondering if you think have 

we gotten that out of our system? Is it coming back? 

Mr. KEAN. I don’t know the facts other than what you have read 

behind this particular case. What we do believe is that, as we try 

to protect ourselves, there is always the danger as we get into 

these new methods of protection that our civil liberties will be jeopardized; and we have recommended creating something that does 

not exist right now, which is a board within the executive branch 

to examine these various things where in cases like this are raised 

to actually look and see is this getting unnecessarily into the 

jeopardies of our—

Mr. FRANK. Thank you, Chairman Kean. I would hope very 

strongly that we would make that part of any report. I hope it will 

get the attention. 

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to put into the record 

the New York Times article and the editorial. 

Chairman COX. Without objection. 

[The information follows:]

COPYRIGHT 2004 THE NEW YORK TIMES COMPANY

THE NEW YORK TIMES

August 16, 2004 MONDAY

CORRECTION APPENDED

LATE EDITION—FINAL

SECTION: Section A; Column 2; National Desk; Pg. 1

LENGTH: 1605 words

HEADLINE: F.B.I. Goes Knocking for Political Troublemakers

BYLINE: By ERIC LICHTBLAU

DATELINE: WASHINGTON, Aug. 15

BODY:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has been questioning political demonstrators 

across the country, and in rare cases even subpoenaing them, in an aggressive effort 

to forestall what officials say could be violent and disruptive protests at the Republican National Convention in New York. 

F.B.I. officials are urging agents to canvass their communities for information 

about planned disruptions aimed at the convention and other coming political 

events, and they say they have developed a list of people who they think may have 

information about possible violence. They say the inquiries, which began last month 

before the Democratic convention in Boston, are focused solely on possible crimes, 

not on dissent, at major political events. 

But some people contacted by the F.B.I. say they are mystified by the bureau’s 

interest and felt harassed by questions about their political plans. 

‘‘The message I took from it,’’ said Sarah Bardwell, 21, an intern at a Denver 

antiwar group who was visited by six investigators a few weeks ago, ‘‘was that they 

were trying to intimidate us into not going to any protests and to let us know that, 

‘hey, we’re watching you.’ ’’ 

The unusual initiative comes after the Justice Department, in a previously undisclosed legal opinion, gave its blessing to controversial tactics used last year by the 
42

F.B.I in urging local police departments to report suspicious activity at political and 

antiwar demonstrations to counterterrorism squads. The F.B.I. bulletins that relayed the request for help detailed tactics used by demonstrators—everything from 

violent resistance to Internet fund-raising and recruitment. 

In an internal complaint, an F.B.I. employee charged that the bulletins improperly blurred the line between lawfully protected speech and illegal activity. But the 

Justice Department’s Office of Legal Policy, in a five-page internal analysis obtained 

by The New York Times, disagreed. 

The office, which also made headlines in June in an opinion—since disavowed—

that authorized the use of torture against terrorism suspects in some circumstances, 

said any First Amendment impact posed by the F.B.I.’s monitoring of the political 

protests was negligible and constitutional. 

The opinion said: ‘‘Given the limited nature of such public monitoring, any possible ’chilling’ effect caused by the bulletins would be quite minimal and substantially outweighed by the public interest in maintaining safety and order during 

large-scale demonstrations.’’ 

Those same concerns are now central to the vigorous efforts by the F.B.I. to identify possible disruptions by anarchists, violent demonstrators and others at the Republican National Convention, which begins Aug. 30 and is expected to draw hundreds of thousands of protesters. 

In the last few weeks, beginning before the Democratic convention, F.B.I. 

counterterrorism agents and other federal and local officers have sought to interview dozens of people in at least six states, including past protesters and their 

friends and family members, about possible violence at the two conventions. In addition, three young men in Missouri said they were trailed by federal agents for several days and subpoenaed to testify before a federal grand jury last month, forcing 

them to cancel their trip to Boston to take part in a protest there that same day. 

Interrogations have generally covered the same three questions, according to some 

of those questioned and their lawyers: were demonstrators planning violence or 

other disruptions, did they know anyone who was, and did they realize it was a 

crime to withhold such information. 

A handful of protesters at the Boston convention were arrested but there were no 

major disruptions. Concerns have risen for the Republican convention, however, because of antiwar demonstrations directed at President Bush and because of New 

York City’s global prominence. 

With the F.B.I. given more authority after the Sept. 11 attacks to monitor public 

events, the tensions over the convention protests, coupled with the Justice Department’s own legal analysis of such monitoring, reflect the fine line between protecting 

national security in an age of terrorism and discouraging political expression. 

F.B.I. officials, mindful of the bureau’s abuses in the 1960’s and 1970’s monitoring 

political dissidents like the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., say they are confident 

their agents have not crossed that line in the lead-up to the conventions. 

‘‘The F.B.I. isn’t in the business of chilling anyone’s First Amendment rights,’’ said 

Joe Parris, a bureau spokesman in Washington. ‘‘But criminal behavior isn’t covered 

by the First Amendment. What we’re concerned about are injuries to convention 

participants, injuries to citizens, injuries to police and first responders.’’

F.B.I. officials would not say how many people had been interviewed in recent 

weeks, how they were identified or what spurred the bureau’s interest. 

They said the initiative was part of a broader, nationwide effort to follow any 

leads pointing to possible violence or illegal disruptions in connection with the political conventions, presidential debates or the November election, which come at a 

time of heightened concern about a possible terrorist attack. 

F.B.I. officials in Washington have urged field offices around the country in recent 

weeks to redouble their efforts to interview sources and gather information that 

might help to detect criminal plots. The only lead to emerge publicly resulted in a 

warning to authorities before the Boston convention that anarchists or other domestic groups might bomb news vans there. It is not clear whether there was an actual 

plot. 

The individuals visited in recent weeks ‘‘are people that we identified that could 

reasonably be expected to have knowledge of such plans and plots if they existed,’’ 

Mr. Parris said. 

‘‘We vetted down a list and went out and knocked on doors and had a laundry 

list of questions to ask about possible criminal behavior,’’ he added. ‘‘No one was 

dragged from their homes and put under bright lights. The interviewees were free 

to talk to us or close the door in our faces.’’ 

But civil rights advocates argued that the visits amounted to harassment. They 

said they saw the interrogations as part of a pattern of increasingly aggressive tactics by federal investigators in combating domestic terrorism. In an episode in Feb-
43

ruary in Iowa, federal prosecutors subpoenaed Drake University for records on the 

sponsor of a campus antiwar forum. The demand was dropped after a community 

outcry. 

Protest leaders and civil rights advocates who have monitored the recent interrogations said they believed at least 40 or 50 people, and perhaps many more, had 

been contacted by federal agents about demonstration plans and possible violence 

surrounding the conventions and other political events. 

‘‘This kind of pressure has a real chilling effect on perfectly legitimate political 

activity,’’ said Mark Silverstein, legal director for the American Civil Liberties 

Union of Colorado, where two groups of political activists in Denver and a third in 

Fort Collins were visited by the F.B.I. ‘‘People are going to be afraid to go to a demonstration or even sign a petition if they justifiably believe that will result in your 

having an F.B.I. file opened on you.’’

The issue is a particularly sensitive one in Denver, where the police agreed last 

year to restrictions on local intelligence-gathering operations after it was disclosed 

that the police had kept files on some 3,000 people and 200 groups involved in protests. 

But the inquiries have stirred opposition elsewhere as well. 

In New York, federal agents recently questioned a man whose neighbor reported 

he had made threatening comments against the president. He and a lawyer, Jeffrey 

Fogel, agreed to talk to the Secret Service, denying the accusation and blaming it 

on a feud with the neighbor. But when agents started to question the man about 

his political affiliations and whether he planned to attend convention protests, 

‘‘that’s when I said no, no, no, we’re not going to answer those kinds of questions,’’ 

said Mr. Fogel, who is legal director for the Center for Constitutional Rights in New 

York. 

In the case of the three young men subpoenaed in Missouri, Denise Lieberman, 

legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union in St. Louis, which is representing them, said they scrapped plans to attend both the Boston and the New 

York conventions after they were questioned about possible violence. 

The men are all in their early 20’s, Ms. Lieberman said, but she would not identify them. 

All three have taken part in past protests over American foreign policy and in 

planning meetings for convention demonstrations. She said two of them were arrested before on misdemeanor charges for what she described as minor civil disobedience at protests. 

Prosecutors have now informed the men that they are targets of a domestic terrorism investigation, Ms. Lieberman said, but have not disclosed the basis for their 

suspicions. ‘‘They won’t tell me,’’ she said. 

Federal officials in St. Louis and Washington declined to comment on the case. 

Ms. Lieberman insisted that the men ‘‘didn’t have any plans to participate in the 

violence, but what’s so disturbing about all this is the pre-emptive nature—stopping 

them from participating in a protest before anything even happened.’’ 

The three men ‘‘were really shaken and frightened by all this,’’ she said, ‘‘and they 

got the message loud and clear that if you make plans to go to a protest, you could 

be subject to arrest or a visit from the F.B.I.’’

URL: http://www.nytimes.com

CORRECTION-DATE: August 17, 2004

CORRECTION:

A front-page article yesterday about efforts by the F.B.I. to interview prospective 

political demonstrators in advance of the Republican National Convention in New 

York misidentified the Justice Department office that found the bureau’s monitoring 

of previous protests to be constitutional. It is the Office of Legal Counsel, not of 

Legal Policy. A caption with a picture of four Denver residents who were questioned 

in the effort referred incorrectly to two of them in some copies. Sarah Graves, not 

Christopher Riederer, is the housemate of Sarah Bardwell.

GRAPHIC: Photo: F.B.I. agents and Denver police officers visited Sarah Bardwell, 

right, and a housemate, Sarah Graves, and two neighbors, Christopher Riederer, 

second from right, and Blake, who would not give his last name, at their homes to 

ask them about political and antiwar protest activities. (Photo by Carmel Zucker for 

The New York Times)(pg. A11)

LOAD-DATE: August 16, 2004
44

COPYRIGHT 2004 THE NEW YORK TIMES COMPANY

THE NEW YORK TIMES

August 17, 2004 Tuesday 

LATE EDITION - FINAL

SECTION: Section A; Column 1; Editorial Desk; Pg. 20

LENGTH: 542 words

HEADLINE: Interrogating the Protesters

BODY:

For several weeks, starting before the Democratic convention, F.B.I. officers have 

been questioning potential political demonstrators, and their friends and families, 

about their plans to protest at the two national conventions. These heavy-handed 

inquiries are intimidating, and they threaten to chill freedom of expression. They 

also appear to be a spectacularly poor use of limited law-enforcement resources. The 

F.B.I. should redirect its efforts to focus more directly on real threats. 

Six investigators recently descended on Sarah Bardwell, a 21-year-old intern with 

a Denver antiwar group, who quite reasonably took away the message that the government was watching her closely. In Missouri, three men in their early 20’s said 

they had been followed by federal investigators for days, then subpoenaed to appear 

before a grand jury. They ended up canceling their plans to show up for the Democratic and Republican conventions. 

The F.B.I. is going forward with the blessing of the Justice Department’s Office 

of Legal Counsel—the same outfit that recently approved the use of torture against 

terrorism suspects. In the Justice Department’s opinion, the chilling effect of the investigations is ‘‘quite minimal,’’ and ‘‘substantially outweighed by the public interest 

in maintaining safety and order.’’ But this analysis gets the balance wrong. When 

protesters are made to feel like criminal suspects, the chilling effect is potentially 

quite serious. And the chances of gaining any information that would be useful in 

stopping violence are quite small. 

The knock on the door from government investigators asking about political activities is the stuff of totalitarian regimes. It is intimidating to be visited by the 

Federal Bureau of Investigation, particularly by investigators who warn that 

withholding information about anyone with plans to create a disruption is a crime. 

And few people would want the F.B.I. to cross-examine their friends and family 

about them. If engaging in constitutionally protected speech means subjecting yourself to this kind of government monitoring, many Americans may decide—as the 

men from Missouri did—that the cost is too high. 

Meanwhile, history suggests that the way to find out what potentially violent protesters are planning is not to send F.B.I. officers bearing questionnaires to the doorsteps of potential demonstrators. As became clear in the 1960’s, F.B.I. monitoring 

of youthful dissenters is notoriously unreliable. The files that were created in the 

past often proved to be laughably inaccurate. 

The F.B.I.’s questioning of protesters is part of a larger campaign against political 

dissent that has increased sharply since the start of the war on terror. 

At the Democratic convention, protesters were sent to a depressing barbed-wire 

camp under the subway tracks. And at a recent Bush-Cheney campaign event, audience members were required to sign a pledge to support President Bush before they 

were admitted. 

F.B.I. officials insist that the people they interview are free to ‘‘close the door in 

our faces,’’ but by then the damage may already have been done. The government 

must not be allowed to turn a war against foreign enemies into a campaign against 

critics at home.

URL: http://www.nytimes.com

LOAD-DATE: August 17, 2004

Mr. FRANK. One last question. I was struck when you talked 

about the failure of immigration enforcement to exclude some of 

the people who came in. I was involved to state my role during the 

1980’s and 1990’s trying to change the rules. I thought they were 

unduly restrictive on political grounds of people coming in. I take 

it from reading your report that you don’t find that the problem is 
45

in the definition statutory of who can be excluded but rather in the 

failure to use that definition appropriately. Am I reading that accurately? 

Mr. KEAN. I think you are reading that accurately. We had a 

wonderful example of an immigration official in Orlando, Florida, 

who simply asked a couple of questions. A lot of these people just 

automatically granted access even to those that made false statements. 

Mr. FRANK. Can I just say that the key point is that under the 

statutes as they now exist those people were excludable if the right 

procedures had been followed. It is not that the statute allows—

Mr. KEAN. No, they were excludable, and they were not. I am 

saying there was at least one case of a very alert Customs agent 

who simply started asking questions, and that was probably the 

20th hijacker who was excluded because of a good civil servant 

doing his job. 

Mr. FRANK. We have FBI agents asking too many questions and 

immigration officials not asking enough. Maybe they can trade off. 

Chairman COX. The gentleman from Virginia, the distinguished 

chairman of the Committee on Agriculture, Mr. Goodlatte. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for holding 

this very important hearing. Thank you for the excellent work that 

both of you and your colleagues have done in preparing this report 

and providing us with many thought-provoking ideas that the Congress and the executive branch need to act upon and act upon aggressively. 

I would like to follow up on two areas that have been talked 

about thus far. Governor Kean, you mentioned in your opening 

comments and in the report your note that in the past the wall 

that we have built between intelligence-gathering agencies like the 

CIA and law enforcement agencies like the FBI was due to the risk 

of inadvertent disclosure that outweighs the benefit of sharing information with other agencies. 

That certainly is one of the concerns, certainly, on the part of intelligence agencies why we had that wall, but it was not by any 

means the only reason. Another reason that the wall was built up 

was to address the concern about the use of intelligence gathering 

which is done with regard to foreign nationals but necessarily involves also gathering information about U.S. citizens when those 

foreign nationals have communications with them and so on. Even 

when done properly, information is gathered, and the concern was 

then that law enforcement agencies which could abuse that information would not have access to it. 

Obviously, there is a big flaw in that; and September 11th is the 

greatest proof of that flaw. But, nonetheless, while we did in the 

PATRIOT Act, I would note, partially tear down that wall to enable 

the sharing of that information, we have also been careful to make 

sure that we not have the kind of abuses that some have suggested 

could occur. 

I wonder if you have additional comments that you might make 

or recommendations that you might make to how the Congress can 

assure the public that the action taken as a part of the PATRIOT 

Act was a sound one for the reasons of September 11th but not one 
46

that should cause them concern that their civil liberties are going 

to be abused. 

Mr. KEAN. You know, in that regard I would say there is probably no substitute for the oversight of the committees. I mean, that 

is another argument for really having very, very vigorous oversight 

on the part of the Congress, to make sure that the public can be 

assured that it is being done properly. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you. 

Congressman Hamilton. 

Mr. HAMILTON. Well, we think the provisions of the PATRIOT 

Act that facilitate the sharing of information between the law enforcement people on the one side and the intelligence on the other 

are very beneficial and very important in terms of a 

counterterrorism strategy overall. We are not experts on the PATRIOT Act, and there are many provisions of the PATRIOT Act, 

but this provision we think is very, very important. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Let me follow up also on the questions related 

to immigration. I was pleased to hear you both say that more robust enforcement of routine immigration laws—and the example 

you just cited is clearly one of those—is very important. I wonder 

how serious you are about that. This is, as you probably know, a 

major political issue here in the Congress. There are very widely 

differing opinions about what types of overall reforms, some related 

to national security, some related to a whole host of other interests, 

should take place. But we have been unable to reach conclusions 

about that except the law that we passed in 1996 that did provide 

for greater crackdown on illegal immigration. 

Nonetheless, since that time I would argue, in part because of 

lack of enforcement of our current immigration laws, we have seen 

the number of illegal immigrants in the country rise. Obviously, 

not all of those are threats to our national security, but it is very 

difficult when have you a lack of information because people are 

operating below the radar screen which ones are and which ones 

are not of concern to the country because of national security. How 

aggressively should we be enforcing our immigration laws overall 

to avoid that very type of problem when that individual presented 

himself to that particular immigration officer in Florida, that officer had no reason before asking the questions whether that particular person was a threat. 

We also have millions of people who never check in with an immigration officer to go through that kind of questioning who are 

here in this country, some of which have malicious intent; and I 

wish you would comment on the need to enforce our immigration 

laws overall and address this problem. 

Mr. HAMILTON. I want to say, first of all, in responding to your 

question, that we were given a mandate and we did not construe 

that mandate to mean that we should review all of these immigration questions that you have presented. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. I understand. I am talking about enforcement 

of current law. 

Mr. HAMILTON. I think the enforcement has to be very robust. 

Let me say that we believe that border security is a part of national security and that we have to have an integrated, modern 

border and immigration system. You can’t look at them as two sep-
47

arate things. You have got to have a border and immigration system that meshes. We make three specific recommendations, and 

they are fairly broad, but there is where we focused our interest. 

Number one, we said you must move towards a biometric entry 

and exit system as soon as you possibly can. We think that is absolutely essential to getting control of the border and to providing an 

integrated border immigration system. So number one is the adoption of a biometric entry exit system. 

Number two is to have accessible files on visitors and immigrants so that officials at all points who deal with people coming 

into this country—Customs, Border Patrol, immigration, visas, 

passports, whatever—you have to have an accessible file that people can tap into to learn about that person. Is that person who he 

says he is or she is? And we have got to be able to put that all 

together and integrate it. 

And the third thing we say is you have to use intelligence on indicators of the terrorist travel tactics. Terrorists are great travelers. They have all kinds of tactics which we have already referred 

to earlier in our report, and you have got to get intelligence on 

those tactics so that you can effectively defend your borders. 

We do not, Mr. Goodlatte, get into more detail on immigration 

than that. What we have suggested is—calls for major change, and 

I must say it is not inexpensive. It is going to cost a lot of money. 

Mr. KEAN. It is probably the largest expense of all of our recommendations. 

We also believe, by the way, as we move in this direction if possible it be coordinated with other countries, particularly like the 

European Union who have the same interest we do. And because 

the terrorists are so vulnerable when they are traveling, if we could 

have a biometric system as integrated with as many countries as 

possible, it is going to make the terrorist’s job a lot tougher. 

Chairman COX. The gentlelady from California, Ms. Harman. 

Ms. HARMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I would first like to observe that many members of this committee in the lower rows here have traveled across the country 

today to participate, and I would urge you to gavel each person’s 

questions closed at 5 minutes sharp, including the answers, because it is really unfair to other members that they will have so 

little time. 

Chairman COX. I appreciate the gentlelady’s comments. 

Ms. HARMAN. And please gavel me closed. I don’t plan to exceed 

the 5 minutes. 

I would like to welcome our witnesses. I have had a lot of time 

to talk to them, to read their report carefully. I think it is an exceptionally good report. I think we will be measured, all of us in this 

committee, all of us in Congress, and the President, by whether we 

step up and act on the recommendations, not just talk about them 

but act on the recommendations. 

If there are representatives of the 9/11 families in the audience 

today, as there have been in so many hearings, I would like to welcome you and tell you that, certainly speaking just for me, I will 

do everything I can to make sure that these recommendations are 

acted on in a timely way in this term of Congress. 
48

I just want to mention several things. I was one who testified before the Rules Committee as a ranking member of the Intelligence 

Committee. I testified in favor of making this committee permanent, making it have real jurisdiction so that it could truly authorize a real homeland security budget. That will mean other committees giving up jurisdiction. I think we should be for that. 

Similarly, I feel that the Intelligence Committee—realize I have 

an interest in it, but even if I were not a member—should have 

real jurisdiction and should have, as both witnesses have testified, 

control over both the authorization and appropriations of a standalone intelligence budget. We do not have that. In fact, the defense 

appropriations budget is already law. It appropriates funds for intelligence programs that have not yet been authorized. I think that 

that is a sad commentary on the state of power of the Intelligence 

Committees in the Congress. 

At any rate, I want to focus today on one of what I think are two 

glaring gaps. One glaring gap is information sharing. We have had 

lots of conversation about the need—and I share this—for a national intelligence, a national counterterrorism director, technology 

reforms and so forth. These are great ideas. 

I want to talk about the other glaring gap, and that is interoperable communications. Congressman Hamilton mentioned it this 

morning. Congressman Kean testified about it yesterday. There is 

a recommendation in your report that specifically says Congress 

should support legislation to expedite the assignment of radio spectrum. Legislation introduced in the House 17 months ago by Congressman Curt Weldon and me has been languishing because of jurisdictional disputes in various committees. It would close the gap 

and make certain that adequate spectrum is available by the end 

of 2002 which was the promise—2006, excuse me, a promise Congress made in 1997. 

My question to you is, when you say we should expedite the assignment of radio spectrum, are you talking about closing the loopholes and making certain that that spectrum is available by 2006 

or are you trying to argue that we should transfer that spectrum 

even sooner? 

Mr. KEAN. As soon as possible. 

Let me tell you what she is talking about. We have been told by 

respondents—firemen, policemen, first aid people—who respond to 

the scene that they do not now have the ability to communicate 

with one another and therefore save lives together. It puts their 

lives in jeopardy, and it puts people’s lives in jeopardy. They can’t 

do it because they don’t have enough spectrum for their radios. 

This is a plea that came to us particularly from the New York Police Department and Fire Department but a number of others, also. 

I recognize this is a tougher one because I guess you would be 

taking on the National Association of Broadcasters. They win most 

of their fights. But it is absolutely essential for the protection of 

the American people. 

I can’t tell you how important that is. Talk at home, talk to your 

responders, talk to your fire and police, talk to the people in your 

districts, because this has to be done. This is something which will 

not only in case of a terrorist attack but in case of the kind of terrible tragedy we had in Florida with the hurricane, in case of any 
49

other emergencies like that, giving spectrum to our public safety officials is just going to make your constituents and our countrymen 

and women a lot safer. 

Ms. HARMAN. Governor, I thank you. 

I would like to quote Senator McCain from yesterday. He said, 

‘‘I have been on this committee’’—that is the Commerce Committee—‘‘for 18 years and they’’—that is the broadcasters—’’ won 

every time. Maybe we will have a victory on behalf of the American 

people. I surely hope so.’’ 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman COX. I agree. 

The gentleman from New York, Mr. King. 

Mr. KING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

First of all, I want to thank Governor Kean and Congressman 

Hamilton for the great job they have done. The country owes you 

a tremendous debt. 

Also, as someone who lost well over 100 friends, neighbors, and 

constituents on September 11th, I want to thank Congresswoman 

Sanchez and Congressman Shays for the remarks they made about 

the importance that Congress has to give to this committee and to 

this entire issue of homeland security. I think it is really unfortunate that too many Members of Congress are still living back on 

September 10th, 2001. If another attack does come, we haven’t 

done our job. There will be no forgiving any of us for not having 

moving forward when we should have. 

Congressman Hamilton, I think my main question is to you. You 

touched on this before, but it is often the whole issue of TTIC and 

the National Counterterrorism Threat Center. I would ask you—

first of all, I read the report. I am not certain exactly what you 

mean by saying that you would build on TTIC. In other words, will 

it still be there? Will it continue to function? 

Second, if you could give us your analysis of the job that TTIC 

has done and is doing and how you expect that to be improved by 

the National Counterterrorism Threat Center. How and why will 

there be a better job done in the future than there will be now 

under TTIC? 

Mr. HAMILTON. I think TTIC is a valuable concept. It is working 

reasonably well. We are concerned that the people that are assigned to TTIC are not at the highest level. In other words, it tends 

to be junior level people; and it doesn’t quite have the overall clout 

that you want. 

What you have today is a lot of different fusion centers around 

the government, and TTIC is one among several fusion centers, 

maybe even one among many. What we are suggesting here is a 

National Counterterrorism Center which would take the lead on 

strategic analysis and develop net assessments, and it would really 

have—it would not—it would replace all of the other fusion centers. 

This would be the center that you would look to for your strategic 

analysis, the President and Members of Congress, and to make assessments and to provide warnings of possible terrorist attacks. It 

would have the responsibility of tasking collection requirements. 

In other words—and that is a terribly important role in the Intelligence Community—to say, OK, you are going to go after this, you 

are going to use these assets to go after this kind of intelligence. 
50

And it would be—it would have that responsibility both inside and 

outside the United States. It would be a very—it would absorb and 

we think strengthen the analytic talent that exists today in TTIC 

and not just TTIC but the Counterterrorism Center, the DIA’s 

Joint Intelligence Task Force combating terrorism. So it is a newer 

and much more powerful fusion center. 

In addition to what I have said, it would have not just responsibilities in intelligence but it would have responsibilities in operational planning as well. And this is an important concept that we 

borrow completely from the military. It is not just an intelligence 

entity, it is a place where you pool and collect and analyze all of 

the intelligence from the various intelligence agencies of the United 

States, but, beyond that, it is an operational center in the sense 

that it plans operations. 

The Governor mentioned early on in his testimony the case of 

these two muscular hijackers in San Diego. We had bits and information—bits and pieces of information about them. Nowhere did it 

all come together. Nobody was in charge in the sense of managing 

the case. And that is what you need. You need someone to step forward and say we are going to manage the case. 

George Tenet was informed in August of 2001 about Moussaoui 

in Minneapolis. We asked him about it; and he said, first of all, he 

assigned some of his people to work with the FBI on it. Then we 

said, did you talk to the President about it? And he said, no, and 

said this was the FBI’s case. 

I don’t think that answer was wrong. It was the FBI’s case, but 

clearly insufficient. What was the problem? The problem was nobody was managing the case. Nobody was saying to themselves, I 

know about these two fellows out on the West Coast. I know this 

about them. I know that about them. It raises red flags. And somebody has got to take hold of that and management case, plan it 

operationally. And that is what this counterterrorism would do. 

They are appointed by the President. It reports to the National 

Intelligence Director. It is a very, very important center. May I say 

that it is not just a center that deals with counterterrorism—excuse me, beyond that, we create centers for other threats. Because 

the same thing is needed with regard to other threats. WMD or 

maybe you put China or maybe you put the international crime 

and narcotics on the list. Whatever you think the major threats to 

the national security are, we create a center, if you would, to deal 

with it. Those would change from time to time, and the responsibility would be not just to pool all of the intelligence you have got 

but to operationally plan it and to see that the policy decisions of 

the President and the National Security Council are in fact carried 

out. 

Chairman COX. The gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Cardin. 

Mr. HAMILTON. It is a very new concept, and it is not easy to get 

hold of. 

Mr. CARDIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Let me also offer my congratulations to Governor Kean and to 

Congressman Hamilton for their extraordinary service to our country. I also want to compliment the other members of your Commission for the extraordinary work that you were able to do. It is a 

very professional document. 
51

I hope the fact that we are holding these August hearings, which 

are extraordinary for Congress to do, means that we will have action in September establishing a single point, single person for the 

collection and analysis of intelligence information and strengthening the entire process for dealing with intelligence information 

and protecting us. 

I also cannot help but look at a comparison to the Cold War. 

Growing up in the Cold War, the fear of communism and the Soviet 

Union really prevailed throughout our community, similar to how 

the fear of terrorism is today. We developed a strategy in the Cold 

War to develop a very strong national defense, and we did that in 

the United States. But we also recognized we couldn’t win the war 

on terrorism alone and the war against the communists alone, that 

we needed to develop international support. We worked with our 

friends in Europe, and we developed NATO, which was a way of 

shoring up our defense in Europe, and we shared a lot of information with the Europeans. And we won. 

We developed a war of ideas, and we used new technology at that 

time to get information behind the Iron Curtain that there was a 

better way of life, with democratic principles and respect for 

human rights that led to economic advancements. And more and 

more people, more and more nations agreed with us; and we won 

the Cold War. 

So I guess my point is, I looked at your report, and I am impressed by your commitment to expand our efforts internationally. 

Yes, we need to develop our capacities here for sharing information, but we also need to work with our friends around the world 

to share information. The people who travel to the United States, 

the terrorists go through other countries; and we need to share 

that information. 

In 1975, we developed the Helsinki Accord, the organization for 

security and cooperation in Europe to develop an international regional forum to share a commitment towards democratic principles 

and respect for human rights. It helped us during the Cold War 

with a forum that we could go to challenge the actions of other 

countries and to help people who in their own countries were fighting a battle of ideas. 

There is interest in the Middle East to do that, to develop forums 

where we can show hope to people and look at longer-range solutions to this battle. 

So I just really wanted to give you an opportunity to underscore 

the importance not just for us to look inward at our own Nation 

to improve the collection of intelligence information and to deal 

with a better sharing of information, but this battle, if we are going 

to win it, also has to be engaged internationally with the U.S. leadership working with our friends around the world, particularly in 

the Middle East. 

Mr. KEAN. Congressman, thank you very much for making that 

point. Because that is a very strong and important area of our recommendations and hasn’t received the focus, frankly, that some the 

rest of it has. We have got to have a consistent message going out 

to that part of the world. And it is a message of hope. You are absolutely right. Bin Laden’s message is one of despair that leads 

eventually to death. That is what he is talking about. If we don’t 
52

have a message to these people to show there is a better life, that 

we can actually provide a path to that better life, that we are on 

their side, not somebody else’s side, we are not going to win this. 

Because, as Secretary Rumsfeld said to us once, you know we can 

kill these terrorists, but if they are being created faster than we 

kill them, we are not going to win this one. That is one thing, the 

message of hope, certainly working with our friends and allies who 

have some of the same interests we do and share the same hopes 

and dreams and way of life and ideals, getting those across. We 

have specific recommendations, as you know, for some of the most 

important countries, we believe—Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Pakistan. The emphasis on those three countries in our report is very, 

very important. 

We believe the whole way in which we do business in that part 

of the world, once we get a consistent message, has got to change—

if we are, for instance, upset, as we should be, that these madrasas 

that kids are going to in that part of the world are teaching hate 

and teaching hate of the West and all of that, well, there has got 

to be some alternative. A lot of the young children are going to 

those madrasas because there is no other school. There is other opportunity for parents to send them anywhere except the madrasas. 

All right, let’s help these countries to build alternatives. 

There are a number of recommendations along this area in our 

report. We believe, frankly, they are among the most important 

recommendations. 

Thank you very much for bringing them to our attention. 

Chairman COX. The gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Linder. 

Mr. LINDER. I want to thank you both for being here and for your 

service to our country. We appreciate it. 

Lee, you mentioned something about biometrics early on. It 

strikes me that the terrorists need access to our traveling systems, 

our airplanes, our trains, and if we could get to biometric identifiers on people who are not risks quickly, could we spend more of 

our time on those who might be risks and cannot be identified with 

the biometrics? Would you expand on that? 

Mr. HAMILTON. You always have a tension here. Most of the people that come into this country are peaceful and have good intent. 

The overwhelming number that come into the country do. You have 

a lot of people who come into the country every day to work and 

go back and you have to develop systems that sort these people out 

very quickly. That is one of the goals, I think, of the biometric 

entry exit system. 

We have to develop the technology and the skill to let the peaceful people, if you will, through quickly and the person who is a regular commuter across the international boundary, to let him go 

through quickly; and we think the biometric system integrated 

with both border security and immigration is the way to do that. 

It is the quickest way to do it. 

To pick up on the previous question, you have to have international cooperation on that. We want to develop a biometric system that is internationally recognized. Now, that is not going to be 

done in the next year or two, but it ought to be the goal in the long 

term, and it is the way to assure fluid commerce. 
53

We are very concerned about the anecdotal, I guess, information 

we were getting about the number of scholars who are not coming 

into the country and the number of students who are not coming 

into the country. This is a serious matter for us in the long term, 

and we have to figure out a system. Now, we have talked to all of 

the top officials about this. They are very alert to it. They know 

the importance of it. So I think the system will move forward. But 

we have got to accelerate it. If we don’t, we are going to be denying 

ourselves and this country a lot of talent that we need. 

Mr. LINDER. Governor, you think alluded twice to are we staying 

ahead, are we killing more terrorists than we are creating or than 

are being created? You referred to the madrasas. I would like to 

ask you very bluntly, can we deal with this without dealing directly 

and frontally and bluntly with Saudi Arabia? 

Mr. KEAN. No. And the relationship with Saudi Arabia has got 

to change. Our relationship in the past with Saudi Arabia, to be 

very blunt, is, as I understand it, has been oil. That has been the 

relationship with Saudi Arabia. Allies to the royal family, they ensure us enough oil, and that has sort of been the relationship. 

That can’t be the relationship anymore. We have got to continue 

to work with the royal family. There is no question about it. But 

we got to work with the royal family to bring some changes in that 

country. 

It seems they are now recognizing that their way of life, the royal 

family’s leaders of Saudi Arabia, is under attack; and these Islamic 

militants would like to overthrow them just as much as they would 

like to injure us at the moment. So they are, of necessity, our allies; and they also realize the need for change within their own borders. We have got to work with them on that. We have got to help 

them on that. We have got to work with them instituting the 

changes that are possible and then try to push and shove a little 

bit and get a few more changes to the system. 

Because if Saudi Arabia—I mean, we identified those three countries—Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan—because if any one of 

them went the wrong direction, we would have a world of trouble 

on the international stage and in the terrorist problem. So, yes, the 

relationship with Saudi Arabia has to change, must change. 

Chairman COX. The gentlelady from New York, Mrs. Slaughter. 

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am so happy to see 

both of you here this morning. 

I think the whole world owes you thanks for what you have done. 

I want to express my thanks to your amazing staff as well. The report that they have produced is unequal to any report I have seen 

in three legislatures, and I am very grateful for that. 

Personally. I lost any confidence I might have had that our intelligence agencies were any good when the CIA let Aldrich Ames sit 

with them for 8 years as a Russian spy and the FBI let Robert 

Hanssen do the same thing here in the shadow of the Capitol. It 

certainly was not lost on me that if they couldn’t even find spies 

in their midst that worked with them on a daily basis that they 

probably weren’t doing a great deal to protect us. So I was not surprised at that. 

I agree with you absolutely about congressional oversight. We 

have got to get some control in this House and make this a strong 
54

committee that really has the jurisdiction it needs to see to give the 

American people and the rest of the world confidence that we are 

doing our part to keep America secure. 

In that regard, I have only got one complaint. I represent Niagara Falls, New York; and you have recommended that DHS lead 

the effort for the comprehensive integrated system. I would like to 

ask you to reconsider that. After 3 years, DHS has still not given 

us a threat assessment. At this point, Wyoming is getting the same 

amount of aid from our national security as New Yorkers on a per 

capita basis. This makes no sence since all of us are aware that if 

terrorists strike, two things they are going to want to do is, one, 

kill as many people as possible and, two, cause as much economic 

damage as possible. And while I don’t mean to denigrate Wyoming, 

that is not likely to happen there. 

On our border, since 9/11 there has been a complete backup of 

both commerce and people at our border crossing. It it takes about 

five hours to get across. At the same time, you can still come across 

in a rowboat from Canada to the United States at many, many 

points; and people do that. DHS’ plan for security on the Great 

Lakes was to set up something that would require every boat on 

the lake to report to a video phone somewhere, many, many of 

them 60, 70 miles apart, which are continuously out of order. 

Now what people tell me is that fewer than 5 percent even attempt to use those video phones. The only thing that people who 

do not do so have to worry about, in some of our rural counties, 

is that the sheriff might somehow pluck them up from all of the 

hundreds of boaters who are there. 

It simply does not work; and, beyond that, it doesn’t make any 

sense. 

At the same time, we have tightened up so much on our border 

on our side you cannot come in from Canada literally for hours. I 

am meeting tomorrow with my Canadian counterparts to see what 

we can do. DHS has come up with a Nexus card, which I think 

Congressman Hamilton referred to, which would work except it 

costs $80 for 5 years and nobody will pay. In addition, in my area, 

you can only buy it in Canada. 

So these are some of the things that we should be able to deal 

with, but at this point I would like to see if you would re-consider 

your border recommendation and see if one of the national laboratories or NIST or GAO or somebody could develop a better border 

plan do that in a hurry. Because we can’t wait 3 more years for 

something like that. 

So that is my major concern at this point having—representing 

one of those border States, I need to tell you that what DHS is 

doing there simply does not work. 

Citizens tell me that in these rural towns, they see boats come 

in, cars drive on the bridge, pick up somebody or something from 

that boat and go away all night long. By the time they call the 

sheriff, they are long gone. 

So this is a wide-open area which is of some concern. What the 

answer is eludes me, but I am very much concerned that after 3 

years I think that all that we have accomplished there basically is 

to aggravate almost everybody who lives in that area. Most of these 

people cross this bridge almost on a daily basis; and if they try to 
55

get to the Nexus lane, they can’t. They are tied up so much in traffic. 

So these are some of the things on a local basis that we are trying to deal with. My sense about DHS is 170,000 people trying to 

learn how to get along. I am not sure they are anywhere near close 

to that at this point. 

So I just throw that out for your recommendation. But, beyond 

that, I cannot tell you how impressed I am on the work that you 

have done. Like Congressman Shays, I will certainly pledge to you 

my strong support that we will get your recommendations enacted 

into law. Thank you very much for what you have done and I appreciate, despite all that other work you have done, that you continue to make all these rounds and talk to all of us. Thank you 

both very much. 

Mr. KEAN. Thank you very much. 

Chairman COX. The gentleman from Arizona, Mr. Shadegg. 

Mr. SHADEGG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman; and, gentlemen, I 

would like to echo the appreciation of the others on the panel. I 

greatly appreciate the work you have done. I think it is a great 

contribution to our efforts here in the Congress to move forward 

and to improve homeland security. 

I want to begin with a question that goes to kind of one of the 

thrusts of the report. A great deal of your recommendations go to 

restructuring, restructuring particularly of the Intelligence Community, and not substantive recommendations. Some have criticized that. One prominent individual within the CIA has criticized 

that rather strongly. Others have said that at least a flaw they see 

in your overall report is its failure to emphasize revitalizing the 

clandestine service to infiltrate and destroy terrorist organizations, 

as opposed to making structural or restructuring recommendations. 

I would like to give you a chance to respond to that and tell us 

why you think focusing on restructuring is important and, second, 

how important you personally believe it is to increase our efforts 

through the clandestine service to infiltrate and destroy terrorist 

organizations. 

Mr. HAMILTON. We put a lot of emphasis on strengthening 

human intelligence, and I think that is part of the conventional 

wisdom today. Everybody agrees with it. I don’t know anybody that 

disagrees with it. 

Now, there are two problems with it. One is that it is very, very 

tough to penetrate these cells; and that is why you have to have 

a lot more diversity into the CIA. But these cells are very small. 

I suspect they are the most difficult intelligence targets there to 

penetrate. We must not have exaggerated expectations about our 

ability to do it. 

I am all for doing it, I am all for strengthening the human intelligence, and it clearly needs to be done. But may I cite to you when 

I was chairman of the Intelligence Committee back in the late 

1980’s and the early 1990’s that we were talking about strengthening human intelligence. This is not a new idea. It is just very 

hard to do. And Tenet testified before us that it will take him at 

least 5 years from now to get intelligence clandestine service where 

he wants it to be. 
56

The second problem that I think we often overlook with regard 

to intelligence HUMINT, human intelligence, is you are asking a 

person to live a very dangerous life for a very long period of time, 

away from family, away from country, and it is not the easiest 

thing to recruit those kind of people. They have to be absolutely 

fluent in the language. They have to be able to be absorbed into 

the culture so that nobody would recognize them. 

So I am all for human intelligence. I think it needs to be 

strengthened, but I also think we have to have some reasonable expectation of its limitations. 

The second point about why did we put so much emphasis on the 

structure, I would only say to the person that made that criticism 

they haven’t read the report. Look, we talk in here about the military actions that are necessary, attacking the Usama bin Ladens 

of the world, of not providing any sanctuaries. We have a whole 

chapter devoted to American foreign policy and how you prevent 

the growth of terrorism, how you have got to engage with ideas, 

how our policies have to understand the—we have to understand 

the consequences of our policies. We talk about the elements of a 

coalition strategy, public diplomacy, scholarship exchanges, agenda 

of opportunity, a better vision. We talk about how to stop terrorist 

financing or use terrorist financing to your advantage; and we have 

a whole list of recommendations, many of which we have been talking about today, about how to protect ourselves better. 

So I understand that a lot of the discussion in the public press 

and in the media has been on institutional reform, and that is understandable because—but—

Mr. SHADEGG. I have just a little bit of time. Let me get in one 

other question. 

Under the structure you envision there will be—several agencies 

will be able to search the database—we are talking about intelligence-gathering agencies—the database of other agencies. I think 

that is clearly necessary. But my question is, is not that or did you 

give thought to the fact that might, in fact, be a disincentive for 

the agencies to put information into their database and—since 

human nature being what it is—and are there recommendations 

you think within your report that go to that particular point? 

Mr. HAMILTON. It is a good point, and what it means is you have 

to have someone above the agency who has the power to impose 

rules and regulations to force that sharing. I think you put your 

finger on a very good point. It is not automatic that you get the 

sharing, and the tendency of keeping the information you have got 

from everybody else is a very human one and a very strong one. 

The only way I know you can deal with it is through superior authority. 

Mr. SHADEGG. I thank you for your report. 

Chairman COX. The gentleman from Oregon, Mr. DeFazio. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, thanks 

for convening the committee during the August recess. 

I have several questions. Stansfield Turner and others have postulated that a number of the more urgent reforms and requirements that you are putting forward in terms of a National Intelligence Director, budgetary control, basically putting someone in 

charge and making the agency share could be done by executive 
57

order or modification of Ronald Reagan’s executive order regarding 

the intelligence services. So that would be one question, to comment on whether or not, given the fact Congress won’t act at least 

until September, very likely may be not even until later than that, 

shouldn’t the President look at implementing some of these 

changes more quickly by executive order? 

The second would be, you commented on interoperability and the 

focus was on spectrum, but I would like you to focus, if you could, 

on cost of interoperability. Because that seems to me to be the 

major barrier to all of the first responders I talked to. In fact, the 

President’s budget this year zeroed out interoperability funds from 

the Federal Government. What priority would you put on that 

since you have talked about the fact that the funds are spread 

widely, but would you put a priority on a national interoperable 

communications system for all level of government since you rightly pointed out that Federal, State, and local are the eyes and ears 

and first responders are the State and local and they need to be 

there. 

So, first, the executive order; second, interoperability; and then, 

third, if you could just come back to—I continue to be frustrated. 

I thought I was told at an aviation hearing that we now had an 

integrated watchlist or it was announced actually at a hearing by 

Admiral Stone, as I recall, that by the end of that month—and I 

believe that was the month of June—that there would be an integrated watchlist available so that the agencies and the TSA could 

access that. 

If you could comment on those three things. 

Mr. KEAN. I guess I will start. 

While some of it could be done by executive order, we felt very 

strongly—we talked about this and talked about this on the Commission—that the Congress really ought to—is it ought to be law 

and Congress ought to have the input and Congress ought to be the 

designer and it ought to be permanent. And that things done by 

executive order are not permanent and sometimes they are not 

agreed to by the Congress and that creates all sorts of problems. 

So we felt very strongly in the Commission as we talked about it 

that this really should be congressionally inputted. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Quickly, because I hope you can cover the other 

two points, but I mean is it urgent that we begin to force the coordination more quickly and that perhaps at least as an interim 

step the President could appoint somebody or could force that 

change in terms of authority to the CID? 

Mr. KEAN. He could do anything, I guess, in consultation with 

the Congress. My worry is if you start to put a new system in place 

or a new individual in place or what have you and then the Congress comes along behind that—for instance, a person who we 

would recommend should be Senate confirmed because it is such an 

important position. So you put somebody in, it is just—it raises 

problems that we would much rather have the Congress to obviously act with due deliberation but act as hastily as possible because we believe that until this information is shared the American 

people are not going to be as safe as they should be. 

As far as the cost of trying to make a communication system, we 

leave it—we believe it is a national priority. These first responders 
58

and people who are going to come to national emergencies need 

help and everything we can do to help them I think we ought to 

do. 

And the third point. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Watchlist. We have been told it was going to be up 

and running. 

Mr. HAMILTON. Our impression is we do not have a totally integrated watchlist, and there is still a number of different watchlists, 

and we are urge, of course, that it be integrated. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman COX. The gentleman from Indiana, Mr. Souder. 

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to pursue a little 

bit the biometric indicators on the licenses. We have had a little 

bit of discussion about this, mostly as it relates to borders. 

A couple of premises. One is that not every terrorist is going to 

cross the border. Some may already be here. second, they may even 

in fact, since they don’t seem in a rush, get themselves into regular 

crossings and get into the fast pass lanes, get secured. It seems to 

me, in addition to kind of the way we are doing it now, the random 

or unexpected or occasional terrorist, we also have to have a system that has biometric indicators or other things more than just 

that. 

Could you elaborate a little bit more on whether you see this as 

a watermark, whether you see this as indicators, what type of 

things, whether you see this for all citizens, for people who have 

Green Cards? And also address the question, as many cities in Indiana and other places are starting to accept non–American identification, which would include setting up a bank account which 

would make it very difficult for us to track financial funding, be 

able to go to a store to pick up precursor chemicals for bombs using 

a non–American ID, could you elaborate more in detail and specific 

how we should start to address this question? 

Mr. HAMILTON. I don’t think, Mr. Souder, that we consider ourselves any kind of experts on what kind of a biometric screening 

system you have. It is a complicated, technical question; and you 

do want to try to begin to implement the system as soon as you 

can and not wait for the perfect system to come along. 

What we say is that the goal is an effective biometric entry/exit 

screening system, that it needs to be compatible with other countries to the extent possible so that we can exchange information 

about these people that cross international boundaries. We need to 

have border officials who have access to interoperable—access I 

guess to all of the information about an individual traveler; and we 

think it is just common sense to have a modern, integrated border 

immigration system. 

Now, all of that, of what I have said to you, are kind of general 

principles and statements. That is as far as the Commission went 

in addition to saying that you have got to have all of the intelligence you can about individual travelers. When you get into the 

questions you are raising about the kinds of biometric systems and 

all, we did not address those. 

Mr. SOUDER. Don’t you agree it isn’t just a matter of travelers? 

They may already be here. People can move and get work permits 

and say something more than a passport. Don’t we need a system 
59

internally as well? Can you comment on how can you track intelligence if you can’t track the individuals? What good will a national 

intelligence center do if people can start bank accounts and pick up 

bomb supplies and we don’t know who they are? 

Mr. HAMILTON. Well, it is a very important point because what 

we know is that the terrorists are very good at exploiting the gaps. 

And if we have a marvelous system that works at the borders but 

it doesn’t catch the illegals and it doesn’t catch other people who 

come in different ways, it is not going to work. And that is really 

what we mean by the word integrated. It has to include all of the 

ways that we check on people coming into this country. 

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Hamilton, I have a question. As a fellow Hoosier, one of the difficult things we have, and you have this in your 

report, that we have to put the money to targeted higher-risk 

areas. Bottom line what that means is moving money from Indiana 

to the East Coast and hardening targets in the East Coast, which 

potentially leaves us more vulnerable in Indiana. We saw the incident in Ohio, that it can move to other places. 

How do you advise those of us who are in those places to deal 

with this difficult political question? It is fine to say that is the 

case, but the terrorists may move around. They are going to go to 

softer targets. You may get copycats. What do you recommend we 

say, those of us who already see a lot of our dollars go to the East 

and West Coast? 

Mr. HAMILTON. There are limited resources, and you have to 

make some tough judgments. I think it is likely that every State 

could make a claim for some of these funds. But to suggest that 

you are going to predict a rural county in southern Indiana—I will 

say southern rather than northern Indiana—to the extent that you 

protect New York City or Washington, D.C., just doesn’t stack up 

with the intelligence information. 

So you have a limited number of dollars. You can’t protect 

against every threat, you cannot protect against every tactic that 

a terrorist will use, and you have to make some very tough judgments as to where you put those dollars. I know that those are 

very difficult judgments to make because you are dealing with a 

question of priorities, and priorities is always the toughest question 

in government. Where do you put limited resources? 

The intelligence chatter is very clear. The intelligence chatter is 

that New York and Washington, D.C., are the primary targets and, 

therefore, the bulk of your resources have to go there. I know that 

may not be an easy message for somebody from Indiana because 

they see it, but I also think that there are many facilities—I mentioned in the testimony 85 percent of the facilities that need protection are in the private sector. You folks know better than anybody 

what facilities in your district need protecting, and I suspect some 

Federal funds should be made available for these most vulnerable 

facilities. You have to also take into account not just the vulnerability of the facility but how much damage would be done if the 

facility, in fact, were attacked. 

Mr. HAMILTON. How many lives would be lost, what are the 

risks, all of those things have to be sorted through, and so we say 

money should be distributed largely on a risk assessment basis. 
60

Mr. KEAN. There are two targets that come over and over and 

over again. These people want to kill as many of us as possible, so 

they are going to pick targets where the most people are. And second, they talk about the symbols of America. And so where those 

symbols are located are where the targets will be. We have to direct our resources to the places where those large numbers of people congregate and where the symbols exist. 

Chairman COX. The gentlelady from New York, Ms. Lowey. 

Mrs. LOWEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to join my 

colleagues in welcoming you, Chairman Kean and my good colleague, Lee Hamilton. I really appreciate your last comments, because it is an excellent segue way to several of the issues that 

many of us have been working on as New Yorkers. First of all, I 

would like to generally ask you to continue your involvement, to 

continue using your clout and influence in implementing the recommendations that don’t require overall structure change. I support the structure change, but for those of us who have been trying 

to move some of these issues forward, we share the frustration of 

many here in this Congress that we can’t get it done. 

First of all, John Sweeney and I and others have been working 

on formula change. We have not been able to get that done. I won’t 

repeat the statistics. You know, and Louise Slaughter mentioned it 

as well, when you compare the per capita of New York to the other 

areas, it should be an embarrassment to all of us: $10.12 compared 

to the $38 to other parts of the country. So please continue your 

advocacy. Whether it is done through the Congress or executive 

order, it must be done and it must be done as soon as possible, and 

I know you agree. 

second, many of us have been talking about airport security. In 

your report, you say, quote, ‘‘It must take into consideration the 

full array of possible enemy tactics, such as the use of insiders.’’ 

Did the Commission intend for airport workers, cabin cleaners, 

maintenance crews, caterers who are currently permitted to bypass 

metal detectors, or should everyone have to go through metal detectors? And I have been repeatedly told by TSA it is too inconvenient 

and costly to screen airport workers despite the fact that 100 percent of workers are physically screened at airports like Heathrow, 

almost 100 percent at Charles de Gaulle. This doesn’t make sense 

to me. If you could, continue to weigh in on that issue, because I 

am sure you agree that everyone should be going through metal detectors. And I—as a New Yorker, it disturbs me that currently, we 

are so worried about security in the New York area, yet thousands 

of people are going through airports every day with antiquated 

identification badges. 

I also would like to comment on your eloquent statements about 

education. You are very well aware that the whole budget for the 

foreign aid appropriations bill is $19.3 billion—I happen to be the 

ranking member—and the budget for the military is upwards of 

$416 billion. 

We managed to get education dollars from $100 million to $400 

million. I would be interested to know whether you think the current estimate of $10 billion or more should be validated by this 

committee and this Congress by adding dollars to our overall allocation for education. The $19.3 billion goes, as you know, to HIV–
61

AIDS, goes to all the work of US–AID, goes to education. I would 

like to hear your recommendations. 

And since my time is running out, if you could comment on the 

formula change, if you could comment on airport security in particular, the fact that thousands of people are not going through the 

metal detectors with their badges; and third with regard to our foreign aid budget. 

Thank you very much. 

Mr. KEAN. Everybody should go through metal detectors, my belief, without exception. 

Mrs. LOWEY. Do we have to wait for structural change or do you 

think it can be implemented now, or can it be implemented by executive order? We can’t seem to move the FAA or TSA, and business keeps talking about an inconvenience. How can we get that 

done now? 

Mr. KEAN. You probably could answer it better than I could. I 

don’t know how you can do these things by executive order, or 

whether you can, or whether you have to have something through 

the United States Congress. I don’t have the expertise to answer 

that, but it should be done. No question about it. 

I believe that if we are going to create fewer terrorists, change 

minds in the Arab world, we have got to change—we just can’t be 

viewed as a military power. We have to get back to some of the 

things we used to do in the Cold War, to try to win that Cold War 

and change minds, and that involves not only education expenses, 

but cultural exchanges, ways in which there are student exchanges, 

ways in which we allowed these people to get to know us and we 

get a better understanding of them. We have to get into those soft 

areas. 

We have got to get into them. We have to let these people know 

who we are, and we have to understand in a much better way who 

they are. And I am not talking about the small percentage who 

want to kill us, but I am talking about the much larger percentage 

that don’t really like us at all because of what they know of us 

right now, but if we are able to send a different message, might 

like us a bit better. 

And the third question—

Mrs. LOWEY. The formula. 

Mr. KEAN. My view and the Commission’s view: You have to put 

the money where the greatest danger is, and that is measurable 

due to the chatter we hear and the estimates from the intelligence 

agencies. We know where the greatest danger is and that is where 

the money ought to go. 

Mr. HAMILTON. Let me add to what Tom has said. What you are 

really wrestling with here is, what should the elements be of a 

counterterrorism policy. And the answer to that is that it takes a 

lot of elements. And if you think only in terms of one or two of 

those elements, you are not going to get it together. 

You have to have military force. You have to have covert actions 

and the right kind of diplomacy, the right kind of public diplomacy, 

the right kind of law enforcement. You have to have the right kind 

of action in the Treasury Department to trace the flow of monies. 

And I think the risk that you face in thinking about 

counterterrorism policy is that you grab on to one or two of those 
62

and say you are going to solve counterterrorism with covert action 

or with military action or with educational reform. 

You are not going to do it. You have to get the whole thing in 

balance and integrate it, and that is the big challenge of 

counterterrorism policy. 

With regard to the education matter, we think that is a very, 

very important part of it. I want to pick up on what Tom has said. 

The challenge to American foreign policy is not the Osama bin 

Ladens. We know what we have to do with them. We have to remove them. We have to kill them. We think and we believe that 

is a very small portion of the Muslim world. 

The challenge to American foreign policy is the great vast number of Muslims who are sympathetic to Osama bin Laden, who may 

admire him, but do not support the idea of violence. And that is—

if you are going to win the war on terrorism, you have got to prevail, you have got to persuade those people that we offer a better 

vision and an agenda and an opportunity for them. 

Now, you work all the time with the foreign aid budget and you 

know the limitations of that budget, but you also know the importance of it. You cannot solve the problem of these schools in Saudi 

Arabia and Pakistan in the United States—can’t do it. You have 

money in the foreign aid budget today for Pakistani schools. What 

is it, 100 million or so? 

Mrs. LOWEY. Out of the 600 million about 30 million is going to 

education. 

Mr. HAMILTON. It is a drop in the bucket, isn’t it? But it does 

say to these people who are seeking a better life, who want some 

of the same things you and I seek, that we are on their side and 

we are trying to help them with their problem; and that is a very 

important message to convey. 

Fundamentally, Pakistan has to solve its own education program 

and so does Saudi Arabia. As Tom said a moment ago, you have 

to push and prod them in that direction. And we certainly do, and 

we could maybe encourage them a little bit with a few million dollars here and there, but we cannot solve their problem. But we 

want to let them know that it is not only in the American national 

interest that they reform their school systems; it is in their national interest that they do it, and if they don’t do it with all of 

the technology available today to let these people know that their 

life is pretty miserable, if they don’t begin to deal with those problems, they are not going to be in charge. 

Chairman COX. The gentleman from Nevada, Mr. Gibbons. 

Mr. GIBBONS. Thank you very much. And gentlemen, thank you 

very much for your patience with us here today. Your dedication 

to helping us better understand these issues is greatly appreciated. 

Thank you for your assistance in helping make America safer. We 

appreciate that as well. 

Let me say that over the last 3 weeks as I sat here listening to 

each of you, I know we have talked about information sharing, the 

need for information sharing, the management and direction that 

information sharing should take. 

We have talked about the overclassification of information, but 

you do not make a recommendation; in fact, you oppose a recommendation for an internal MI5-style intelligence agency which 
63

would look at domestic or U.S. citizens’ intelligence. I want to build 

on that concept, because I think the confluence of understanding 

your recommendations and our taking action has to understand a 

better—little bit better, this idea. Because what I see is an agency, 

the FBI, as needing some reform itself, because we have a construct in the FBI today which says that when we gather intelligence information in FBI, we are focused on prosecution and 

criminal action cases, rather than on anti terrorism intelligence. 

Now, the focus on prosecution is highly appropriate for a law enforcement agency, but it is not appropriate for intelligence gathering in a counterterrorism, antiterrorism type environment. 

Should we, and here is my question and I will leave it to one question—should we divide the FBI into two intelligence-type agencies 

leaving to it law enforcement for the conviction and prosecution 

and that construct, and giving it an additional role, a different 

agency, which is intelligence gathering for antiterrorism? 

What are your thoughts on that? 

Mr. KEAN. Under the reforms that the director is trying to implement in the FBI, that would in a sense be a division in the FBI, 

an important division of the FBI, and that would be their job. Their 

job would be to collect information against terrorist efforts. 

We on the Commission wrestled with this FBI problem, because 

the history of the FBI and the culture of FBI is as you so correctly 

stated. As you know, you break down the door, you make the case 

and you take somebody to trial and convict them. That is not gathering information for counterterrorism purposes. 

There is now a large part of the FBI that is starting to be devoted to collecting information for counterterrorism purposes. But 

it is being done from a very top-down reform by Director Mueller. 

Our concern on the Commission was that this—these reforms were 

based on the work of two or three people at the very top, and if 

they were to retire, to leave or die or whatever, that the FBI culture would go right back to the way it was. 

So we think it is very important and this again comes to oversight. I don’t think you have to create something different, but you 

have to systematize these reforms. You have to make sure that the 

FBI doesn’t slide back. The people that go into the intelligence 

gathering side have to have the same chances at promotion, same 

chances of salary increases, same chances to get to the top of the 

FBI as the people under the old J. Edgar Hoover side. If that 

doesn’t happen, then it is not going to work. 

So we endorsed the director’s reforms with the proviso that the 

Congress in particular look and make sure that these reforms are 

implemented not only under this director, but with future directors. 

Because without it, it doesn’t work. That was basically the view we 

came to. 

Mr. HAMILTON. I think the Commission believed that there is a 

very important synergy between intelligence gathering on the one 

hand and law enforcement on the other, and you ought not to put 

a wall between them. The guy out here who is trying to prosecute 

somebody collects a lot of information. The fellow out here who is 

doing some surveillance on a prospective terrorist is also collecting 

a lot of information. And you want to make sure that they are talking to one another and that there is interaction between them and 
64

that you not build that wall too solidly. So that is what we are really driving at. 

Now, when you talked about the FBI collecting all antiterrorist 

intelligence, you are not talking about the foreign side? 

Mr. GIBBONS. No. 

Mr. HAMILTON. I may have misunderstood. We do think this synergy is very, very important and each benefits from the other in effect. 

Mr. GIBBONS. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman COX. The gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Andrews. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to express to 

Mr. Hamilton the honor of having served with him in this institution, and on behalf of our fellow New Jerseyans, express our pride 

to Governor Kean and the work you have done here. We are proud 

of you. 

One of the most compelling parts of your report is the riveting 

discussion of those moments on the morning of September 11th 

when there were still two planes in the sky and there was a muddled and dysfunctional series of communications among decision 

makers as to what to do about those two planes. And in your report 

you address that, I think, in two places. One is in Recommendation 

26 about incident command systems and the other is in Recommendation 40 about the role of the Northern Command. 

I want to ask you this question based upon this chilling hypothetical. If we knew right now that someone had hijacked a tanker 

truck on the New Jersey Turnpike filled with chlorine gas and that 

the person was headed toward Washington, D.C., on I–95 and that 

their intention was to blow up that chlorine tanker truck and in 

fact create a chemical weapon on the Capitol Mall, and we had to 

make a decision about what to do about that truck right now, who 

should be in charge of making that decision and what should the 

chain of command be? 

Mr. KEAN. Under the present system or under the system we—

Mr. ANDREWS. What does the Commission believe it ought to be? 

Mr. HAMILTON. The question of who is responsible for defending 

us at home? 

Mr. ANDREWS. During an imminent ongoing emergency. 

Mr. HAMILTON. Very tough question. We think there are two answers. One is the Department of Defense, the Northern Command, 

and the second is the Department of Homeland Security. They both 

have the responsibility and the authority for defending the country. 

Now they have to work that out, how that authority is split. 

I don’t know the answer to your question specifically. 

Mr. ANDREWS. As my colleague knows, one of the vexing questions here is the doctrine of posse comitatus and how it would play 

into the answer of this question. 

I don’t want in any way to erode our important tradition of separating the military from the control of civilian life. I think that is 

one of the key precepts of the country. On the other hand, just because something is taking place on or above our soil does not mean 

it is a domestic matter. And I think that is one of the key issues 

we have to grapple with. 
65

My own suggestion is that we have to revisit the doctrine of 

posse comitatus in this terrible new world. We need to do so in a 

way that doesn’t undermine civil liberties, but sorts this question 

out. 

To answer my own hypothetical, if a decision were made to take 

paramilitary action to stop that truck, scramble a helicopter and 

shoot the driver of the truck, that is a function that I want the Department of Defense to lead and be responsible for. On the other 

hand, I think it has to be under extremely egregious and emergent 

circumstances like those on the morning of 9/11. 

I think one of the most chilling things I read in your report is 

that the order that was given by President Bush to Vice President 

Cheney and then passed down the command to—as I understand 

it, to intercept and shoot planes that were hijacked was not communicated to the pilots in the cockpit; that they received an order 

that they should identify tail and type of the airplanes, but that 

is it. 

That could have been—and I ascribe no fault here, but I blame 

all of us—that could have been a terrible miscommunication. I am 

interested in the Commission’s thoughts on how to fix it. 

Mr. KEAN. I had exactly the same reaction you did. 

And there is another part to that story, that the Secret Service 

had some control of National Guard planes that they sent up, and 

they had the order to shoot. So the National Guard planes, without 

getting an order from the President, might have shot these planes 

that were supposed to have orders from the President to shoot, 

wouldn’t have shot. 

So we are told in questioning that that command and control 

problem has been straightened out. We hope it is true, but that 

was a moment for me, too, when I heard that information. 

Mr. ANDREWS. This fall, the GAO will be issuing a report that 

examines in the war game context whether the problems have been 

straightened out, and we are anxiously awaiting that report and we 

would be interested in the Commission’s review of it. 

Mr. KEAN. Command and control, that whole day in the fog of 

war, as the President told us, Air Force One didn’t work properly. 

The President was not—did not have the communicative skills 

above Air Force One as commander in chief. Now he told us as a 

commission when we met him that that has been straightened out. 

We have to be sure of these things. It is too important for the 

defense of this country that these things cannot occur that way 

again. 

Mr. HAMILTON. I want to amend. I think I said there are two 

people who had the responsibility to defend, the Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security. 

The Department of Defense would only defend in the event of a 

military attack, I think. And what you described, the example you 

gave about the truck on the turnpike, I think probably would not 

qualify as a military threat. 

As a practical matter, if something like that happened, we would 

put every resource we had into it to try to stop it. That would include local sheriffs, National Guard and probably some military 

components as well. 
66

Mr. ANDREWS. The question is not how we categorize it, but how 

we stop it. 

Mr. HAMILTON. Mr. Chairman, we are hitting 1:00 and I had 

kind of planned finishing at 12:15 or 12:30. 

Chairman COX. I understand and I want to at this point recognize that we have members on both sides of the aisle who have not 

yet had the opportunity to put questions, but out of courtesy to 

both of you, we will adjourn this panel at this time. And we want 

to thank you very much for the extended period of time that you 

have spent with us this morning. I know that when Congress reconvenes in 2 weeks that you will be available to continue to work 

with us on the implementation and further consideration of your 

recommendations. 

At this time—

Ms. JACKSON-LEE. Mr. Chairman, I have an inquiry, please. This 

is such a moment in history and time for this committee, and I respect the gentlemen’s time and I am always grateful for their work. 

My request to the chairman, because other members have not 

had a chance to inquire and other members may have been on 

other committees, that the gentlemen be asked to come back. This 

is crucial. We are not acting, we are only hearing and listening. 

This committee is burdened with the responsibility of doing something. And I would ask respectfully if we could inquire of the gentlemen through the committee and have them come back to the 

Homeland Security Committee, the very committee you have asked 

to take up the responsibility singularly of oversight of the Homeland Security Department. 

And I ask the chairman for a response, and I know the gentlemen may not have their schedules, but looking at the smiling face 

of the Governor, it looks as if we can work that out. You are cutting us off from doing the questions with respect to the gentlemen’s 

time, and I do respect their time. Mr. Chairman. I yield back to the 

chairman. 

Chairman COX. I know that both the chairman and vice chairman have committed to continue to work with this committee, both 

formally through the hearing process and informally. As part of the 

latter, I hope that members who have additional questions will feel 

free even before Congress reconvenes. And the hearing record will 

be held open for that purpose. 

Ms. JACKSON-LEE. Will the gentleman extend an invitation to the 

Chair and Cochair? That is my inquiry and my question, and I 

think they would be receptive to that invitation. This is a work in 

progress and it is not complete. 

Mr. SHAYS. Would the gentleman yield? It may be if these gentlemen cannot attend that—we had Mr. Lehman and Senator Kerrey 

come before us and they likewise did an excellent job and I think 

that is the strength of this Commission. There are other members 

who could come before us as well. 

Ms. JACKSON-LEE. I would welcome that. I welcome any opportunity for us to pursue the work of the Commission. I think the two 

Chairs, Cochairs have done an excellent job. I think we should do 

that. 

Chairman COX. Well, I don’t wish to speak for our witnesses, but 

I know that they have on multiple occasions extended their full co-
67

operation to this committee, and I expect they and their staff and 

other commissioners will continue to do so. 

We will be seeking that cooperation. It is a vital concern to our 

Nation. It is a point that I know we are in complete accord on. 

There being no further questions at this time, I thank you, Mr. 

Kean and Mr. Hamilton, for your testimony. And at this time you 

are excused, and I call up our second panel. Members should be advised as we call up the second panel, following the testimony of this 

panel, questioning will resume with Ms. Granger and Ms. Holmes 

Norton; and we will proceed, continuing in the order that we have 

already adopted. 

Our witnesses on this second panel will include Hon. J. Cofer 

Black, Counterterrorism Coordinator for the Department of State; 

Patrick Hughes, Assistant Secretary For Information Analysis for 

the Department of Homeland Security; John Brennan, Director of 

the Terrorist Threat Integration Center; and Maureen Baginski, 

the Executive Assistant Director for Intelligence for the Federal 

Bureau of Investigation. 

Some of our witnesses are involved in White House discussions 

today on the very proposals for restructuring the Intelligence Community that are the subject of this hearing. 

Members are informed that Mr. Hughes must depart no later 

than 2:45 p.m. today. Mr. Brennan will be with us until 3:45 p.m. 

We will do our best to get as much questioning done as we can 

today before those deadlines. 

As the witnesses take their seats, I ask members to take their 

seats. The chairman will recognize first Mr. Black and Mr. Hughes, 

Mr. Brennan and Ms. Baginski. I think our panel is now all seated. 

Chairman COX. Welcome, Ms. Baginski, Mr. Brennan, General 

Hughes, Mr. Black. Thank you very much for being with us. We 

look forward to an opportunity to have significant discussion with 

you. 

I know that you have offered to forgo your opening statements 

and go directly into questions. We would like, nonetheless, to have 

you put a summary of your statement on the record; members, I 

think, will benefit from that. And we will begin with the 

Counterterrorism Coordinator for the Department of State, Cofer 

Black. 

Mr. Black, your statement, please. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE J. COFER BLACK, 

COORDINATOR, OFFICE OF THE COORDINATOR FOR 

COUNTERTERRORISM, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE 

Mr. BLACK. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much, distinguished 

members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify 

on the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. I will attempt to 

summarize my formal, written statement and ask that you include 

my full testimony in the record. 

Today’s hearing offers a timely opportunity to examine broad recommendations to reorganize the national security institutions of 

the U.S. Government in order to combat terrorism. I welcome the 

invitation to contribute to this important debate on how to protect 

American citizens at home and abroad. 
68

Following the September 11 attacks, the administration developed the National Strategy for Combating Terrorism, which outlines the broad policy framework for coordinated actions to prevent 

terrorist attacks against the United States, its citizens, its interests 

and its friends around the world. The national strategy is premised 

on the systematic application of the key elements of national security, diplomacy, financial, law enforcement, military and intelligence and information sharing. Today I would like to address the 

process in place at the Department of State. 

The Bureau of Intelligence and Research, or INR, is the Department’s liaison to the Intelligence Community at large. My office 

works closely with INR, with the Bureau of Diplomatic Security’s 

Office of Intelligence and Threat Analysis, to assess the current intelligence information related to terrorist threats overseas and at 

home. Through these relationships, the State Department has 

ample opportunities to provide input to the U.S. Government’s 

process for collecting and analyzing intelligence for 

counterterrorism purposes. 

Finally, as a participant in the National Security Council’s 

Counterterrorism Security Group, I have frequent interactions with 

other interagency officials who shape and direct the 

counterterrorism policies of the U.S. Government. 

The State Department will play a crucial role in the President’s 

strategy to implement reforms that will make Americans safer at 

home and abroad. I look forward to the role that the Department 

and my office will play in this process through the intra—and 

interdepartmental relationships briefly outlined in my testimony 

today. 

Mr. Chairman, with this background and experience in mind, I 

will conclude my formal testimony. Thank you again for the opportunity to appear before your committee. I will be happy to take 

questions. 

Chairman COX. Thank you. 

[The statement of Mr. Black follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE COFER BLACK

Chairman Cox, Distinguished Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today on the recommendations of the 9-11 Commission to reorganize the national security institutions of the U.S. Government to better combat terrorism. In light of the testimony you will hear from my co-panelists and other witnesses, I will keep my remarks brief. 

Following the September 11 attacks, the Administration developed the National 

Strategy for Combating Terrorism, which outlined the policy framework for coordinated actions to prevent terrorist attacks against the United States, its citizens, its 

interests, and its friends around the world. Our work to implement the National 

Strategy will ultimately create an international environment inhospitable to terrorists and all those who support them. We have implemented this strategy to act simultaneously on four fronts: • Defeat terrorist organizations of global reach by attacking their sanctuaries, 

leadership, finances, and command, control and communications; 

• Deny further sponsorship, support, and sanctuary to terrorists by cooperating 

with other states to take action against these international threats; 

• Diminish the underlying conditions that terrorists seek to exploit by enlisting the international community to focus its efforts and resources on the areas 

most at risk; and 

• Defend the United States, its citizens, and interests at home and abroad. 

Today’s hearing offers an opportunity to examine the 9–11 Commission’s recommendations on information and intelligence sharing. I welcome the invitation to 

contribute to this important national debate on how better to protect American citi-
69

zens at home and abroad. The National Strategy for Combating Terrorism is premised on five key elements of national security—diplomatic, financial, law enforcement, military, and, as we will discuss today, intelligence and information sharing.

Intelligence Analysis and Information Sharing 

When discussing ways to improve information and intelligence sharing for 

counterterrorism, it is important to consider the foundation upon which we must 

build, in this case, the elements of intelligence analysis in place at the Department 

of State. The Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) is one of the 

15 members of the U.S. Intelligence Community. My colleagues in INR share my 

opinion that we need to do much more to make it easy, not just possible, to share 

information across agencies, with state and local officials and with our foreign allies. 

This is especially important to the State Department because widespread, timely, 

and routine information sharing facilitates decentralized and competitive intelligence analysis crucial to our mission. My office also works closely with the Bureau 

of Diplomatic Security Office of Intelligence and Threat Analysis (DS/ITA), which 

focuses specifically on threats against U.S. interests, to assess the current intelligence information on terrorist threats overseas and at home. 

We also agree with the 9–11 Commission’s recommendation to move from a system based on ‘‘need-to-know’’ to one based ‘‘need-to-share,’’ consistent, of course, 

with the 9-11 Commission’s recommendation to ‘‘safeguard the privacy of individuals 

about whom information is shared.’’ Mechanisms for separating content from source 

information could help with classification levels. This is already accomplished to a 

certain extent with tear lines. Web-based systems will undeniably be part of the solution, given the ubiquitous nature of this technology. By following the progression 

of technology advances in the open market, information sharing can be made technologically easier and less cumbersome.

The Counterterrorism Security Group 

Intelligence sharing within the Department and with other agencies was a reality 

before September 11, but it has since improved. Deepening our intelligence sharing 

through personnel liaison, we have provided the Terrorist Threat Integration Center 

(TTIC), among others, with State Department detailees, and we host detailees from 

the CIA and other agencies as well. In addition to the intelligence analysis work 

of INR and DS/ITA, S/CT and the Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Diplomatic 

Security participate in the Counterterrorism Security Group (CSG). The CSG is 

chaired by the National Security Council and serves to share information and coordinate the response to terrorist threats against U.S. interests domestically and 

abroad. Each morning we join the NSC-chaired meeting of high-level representatives from the Homeland Security Council, the Departments of Defense, Justice, 

Treasury, and Homeland Security, the CIA, FBI, and TTIC. A staff-level meeting 

of CSG participants is conducted every afternoon. 

Within the CSG structure, the Department has frequent and direct interactions 

with the other senior interagency officials who shape and direct the 

counterterrorism policies of the U.S. Government. Through these relationships, we 

have ample opportunity to provide input to the U.S. Government process for collecting and analyzing intelligence for counterterrorism purposes. The quality of information exchange and effectiveness has improved significantly since 9/11 partly 

because the CSG mechanism promotes proper coordination among agencies regarding terrorist threats globally on a daily basis.

Other Department Contributions to Information Sharing 

Since 9/11, the Department of State’s Bureau of Consular Affairs has worked with 

other agencies to make significant improvements to our ability to share information. 

Thanks to this new level of collaboration, the data holdings in the Department’s consular lookout system now total almost 18 million records on people potentially ineligible to receive visas, nearly triple what we had prior to September 11. We now 

have more than eight million records from the FBI alone in our system. In fact, the 

majority of the data in the consular lookout system now derives from other agencies, 

especially those in the law enforcement and intelligence communities. Information 

sharing, of course, must be mutual. 

The Department now provides access to 75 million visa records in our consular 

database so that Department of Homeland Security officers at ports of entry can 

view the electronic files of every passenger with a visa entering the United States. 

This database permits detailed examination of the information in near-real time for 

all visas issued, including the photographs of nonimmigrant visa applicants. We are 

also sharing our consular database with the National Targeting Center, a 24/7 operation of Customs and Border Protection in DHS. 
70

The Department of State joined in the establishment of the Terrorist Screening 

Center (TSC), which integrates terrorist watchlists and serves as the centralized 

point of contact for everyone from the U.S. police officer on the beat to the consular 

officer in the farthest reaches of the globe. Together with TTIC, which maintains 

the principal database on known and suspected international terrorists in a highly 

classified form, we rely on the TSC to ensure that consular officers have access to 

the information they need to scrutinize applications and deny visas to those who 

would do us harm. These institutions rest on a foundation that the Department laid 

in the form of TIPOFF, a pioneering system in the use of classified information for 

screening purposes. Much of the cost of developing and operating TIPOFF was funded through the Border Security Program, which the Bureau of Consular Affairs 

manages for the Department. The TIPOFF database with its approximately 120,000 

records, more than double the amount since September 11, is now housed at TTIC. 

TTIC and TSC together eliminate the stovepiping of terrorist data and provide a 

more systematic approach to posting lookouts on potential and known terrorists.

Conclusion 

The President indicated in his speech on August 2nd support for the key recommendations of the 9–11 Commission, including the establishment of a National 

Intelligence Director and a National Counterterrorism Center. The Department of 

State will play a crucial role in the President’s plan to implement reforms that will 

make Americans safer at home and abroad. I personally look forward to the role 

that the Department and my office will play in this process, through the intra- and 

interdepartmental relationships briefly outlined in my testimony today. 

With this background and experience in mind, I will conclude my formal testimony. Thank you again for the opportunity to appear before the Committee. I would 

be happy to take your questions.

Chairman COX. General Hughes. 

STATEMENT OF LIEUTENANT GENERAL PATRICK M. HUGHES, 

USA, RET., ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR INFORMATION 

ANALYSIS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY 

Mr. HUGHES. Good day, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. It is a privilege to appear before you today as I have in the 

past. And today, I would like to just give you a short version of my 

views. 

We are very supportive of efforts to improve and enhance the Intelligence Community that are ongoing in the aftermath of the 9/

11 Commission’s report and recommendations. Today’s hearing, I 

think, is in the context of information sharing and improvements; 

and in that category, the glue that links and holds our national intelligence and counterterrorist activities together is indeed the professional exchange of information that empowers knowledge and 

action, often referred to as ‘‘information sharing,’’ but we would like 

to include the idea of ‘‘collaboration’’ in the construct. 

We are supporting making information readily available rapidly 

to all who need it to accomplish their mission, while at the same 

time facilitating interaction to better understand and use the 

knowledge that collaboration produces while always protecting 

sources and methods. 

It is a very simple philosophical underpinning; and I think I will 

give the rest of my time back to you, sir, and say I am willing to 

answer any questions you have today. 

Chairman COX. Thank you. 

[The statement of General Hughes follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF PATRICK M. HUGHES

Good morning Chairman Cox and distinguished members of the Committee. I am 

privileged to appear before you today to discuss the role of the Office of Information 

Analysis (IA), within the Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection Direc-
71

torate (IAIP) of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), as well as IA’s intelligence, coordination, and information sharing efforts to date. 

September 11, 2001 forever transformed our nation. In one moment, we came face 

to face with a known enemy. . .on American soil. . .and a changed condition 

threatening to our way of life. This day seared images of devastating loss and destruction into our national consciousness, images that we—I—will never forget. I 

was present at the Pentagon minutes after the plane struck and I saw once again 

something I have become all too familiar with over the years. . .the violent outcome 

of a terrorist attack against unwarned unprotected people. The anguish and fear of 

the moment was written on the faces of many of my colleagues who never dreamed 

that their place of work in a bastion of Democracy would be struck. Our co-workers, 

soldiers all, lay in the wreckage. The damage was done. 

However, on that day, something far greater than fear and something much 

stronger than despair took root. An unshakeable faith in our fellow citizens, in our 

ideals, in our nation and an unwavering determination to protect and preserve what 

we stand for as a country emerged from the destruction, to guide our efforts in the 

fight against terrorism and the quest to preserve liberty. I am at my place of work 

at the Department of Homeland Security because of that motivating set of beliefs. 

In the aftermath of 9/11, the Department of Homeland Security was envisioned, 

formed, and is now in operation. Standing up the Department, the largest reorganization of government in fifty years, has been a great undertaking. Many employees of DHS have assumed new responsibilities, and all have put in long hours to 

ensure that while our strategies may change to meet the terrorist threat, our course 

as a nation will remain constant. President Bush’s decision to establish the Department has enabled us to unify our resources into one team, to ready ourselves 

against our enemy, and to ensure the highest level of protection for our country and 

the citizens we serve. 

I became a direct part of this Department’s effort when I became the Assistant 

Secretary for Information Analysis, part of the Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection Directorate, on 17 November 2003. Through the Homeland Security 

Act of 2002, IAIP is charged with integrating relevant information, intelligence 

analyses, and vulnerability assessments (whether such information, analyses, or assessments are provided or produced by the Department or others) to identify protective priorities and support protective measures by the Department, by other executive agencies, by State and local government personnel, agencies, and authorities, 

by the private sector, and by other entities. 

The philosophical underpinning of IA as an integral part of the IAIP Under-Secretariat of DHS is to provide the connectivity, the integration, the communication, the 

coordination, the collaboration, and the professional intelligence work necessary to 

accomplish the missions of, and the products and capability necessary for the customers and the leadership of DHS. Simply put, we perform the intelligence and 

threat analysis of Department of Homeland Security. 

IAIP is moving forward in carrying out our statutory responsibilities which include: 

• Providing the full range of intelligence support to senior DHS leadership and 

component organizations and to state and local and private sector respondents 

• Mapping terrorist threats to the homeland against assessed vulnerabilities to 

drive our efforts to protect against terrorist attacks 

• Conducting independent analysis and assessments of terrorist threats 

through competitive analysis, tailored analysis, and an analytical red cell 

• Assessing the vulnerabilities of key resources and critical infrastructure of 

the United States 

• Merging the relevant analyses and vulnerability assessments to identify priorities for protective and support measures by the Department, other government agencies, and the private sector 

• Partnering with the intelligence community, TTIC, TSC, law enforcement 

agencies, state and local partners, and the private sector, as well as DHS’ components to manage the collection and processing of information within DHS involving threats to the Homeland into usable, comprehensive, and actionable information 

• Disseminating time sensitive warnings, alerts and advisories to federal, state, 

local governments and private sector infrastructure owners and operators 

It is the mandate to independently analyze, coordinate, and disseminate information affecting the homeland that makes IA unique among its Intelligence Community partners. The analysts within Information Analysis are talented individuals 

who draw on intelligence from other components within DHS, IA’s fellow Intelligence Community members, the Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC), and 

federal, state and local law enforcement and private sector entities. The analysis 
72

produced is coordinated with the vulnerability assessment and consequence predictions identified by the Infrastructure Protection half of the IAIP Directorate. 

The Office of Information Analysis communicates timely and valuable threat products to state and local officials, federal sector specific agencies (as indicated in 

Homeland Security Presidential Directive-7, ‘‘Critical Infrastructure Identification, 

Prioritization, and Protection’’), and the private sector as is appropriate. The relationship IA and indeed the entire Department of Homeland Security has with these 

contacts results in the IAIP Directorate being in the position to effectively manage 

information requirements from the state and local governments and private sector 

entities that are vital to protecting the homeland. DHS will continue to work in 

close communication with these officials, as well as with the other organizations it 

receives inputs from, to maintain the effective relationships that have been established. 

IA is the heart of the intelligence effort at DHS. It is responsible for accessing 

and analyzing the entire array of intelligence relating to threats against the homeland, and making that information useful to first responders, state and local governments, and private sector officials. As such, IA provides the full-range of intelligence 

support to the Secretary, DHS leadership, the Undersecretary for IAIP, and DHS 

components. Additionally, IA ensures that the best intelligence information informs 

the administration of the Homeland Security Advisory System. 

Central to the success of the DHS mission is the close working relationship among 

components, the Office of Information Analysis and the Office of Infrastructure Protection (‘‘IP’’), and the Homeland Security Operations Center (HSOC), to ensure that 

threat information and situational awareness are correlated with critical infrastructure vulnerabilities and protective programs. Together, the three offices provide real 

time monitoring of threat information and critical infrastructure to support the Department of Homeland Security’s overall mission. This permits us to immediately 

respond to and monitor emerging potential threat information and events, and to 

take issues or information for more detailed analysis and recommendations for preventive and protective measures. The integration of information access and analysis 

on the one hand, and vulnerabilities analysis and protective measures on the other, 

is the fundamental mission of the IAIP Directorate.

IA and TTIC 

The close professional associations that have been forged between the two offices 

will allow both organizations to work on complimenting each other in the best interest of the nation’s security. For example, IA is responsible for translating the analysis done at the TTIC into actionable data for State, territorial, tribal, local, and 

private sector officials responsible for homeland security. From a personal standpoint, I believe both organizations are fulfilling their missions and enriching both 

each other and the wider Intelligence Community. My relationship with TTIC Director John Brennan could not be better. At present, we talk at least daily and as specific threats pertinent to the homeland arise. This opinion is backed by the tremendous track record of success TTIC has in supporting the Department of Homeland 

Security and its needs. As partners, IA and TTIC spend much time communicating, 

both through the DHS representatives located at TTIC and through direct communication of leadership.

IA and TSC 

The Office of Information Analysis has a similarly productive relationship with 

the Terrorist Screening Center. While both perform duties that result in information 

being passed to local first responders and State, territorial, tribal, and local officials, 

both entities have separate missions. IA provides the full spectrum of information 

support necessary for the operation of the Department of Homeland Security and 

for the benefit of Federal, State, territorial, tribal, local, and private sector officials 

throughout the United States, to secure the homeland, defend the citizenry and protect our critical infrastructure. In contrast, the TSC is in the process of developing 

a fully interoperable watch list database which will provide immediate responses to 

border-screening and law-enforcement authorities to identify suspected terrorists 

trying to enter or operate within the United States. 

Just as TTIC plays a vital role in supplying its federal partners with the broad 

threat picture, the TSC has quickly become an essential resource for local law enforcement, its federal government contributors, and other users. Through the matching and cross-referencing of lists, the TSC is allowing those personnel on the front 

lines of the fight against terrorism to access the information they need to identify 

and detain suspicious individuals. 

DHS, IAIP, and especially IA will continue to work with the TSC to coordinate 

information sharing efforts and to establish requirements for accessing information. 
73

IA and the TSC will grow together in their effort to serve the people and guardians 

of this nation.

Improving Information Sharing and Collaboration 

While existing relationships are gaining momentum every day, we must assure 

that we formalize a process which will improve information sharing and collaboration. The Department is charged with this responsibility by law and by Executive 

Order. 

Our goal is to effectively, efficiently, and synergistically pass and receive information in all of its forms for the benefit of the United States Government, our State, 

tribal, territorial, local, and private sector partners, and other DHS entities. In 

order to achieve this goal we must develop technical and procedural transparency 

and interoperability in mind to the greatest extent possible. However, the most significant impediments to information sharing are not technological, they are legal 

and cultural. We needed to start with the ‘‘business case’’ and work toward a common, integrated, and rational vision for the Department. That is precisely what we 

are doing. 

Information sharing involves working with the Department of Justice (DOJ), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and Department of Defense (DOD), the Central 

Intelligence Agency (CIA), the State Department and others. For instance, as part 

of this effort, the DOJ and DHS information sharing staffs are working hard to 

bring the Homeland Security Information Network (HSIN), Law Enforcement Online (LEO), and the Regional Information Sharing System (RISSNET) together with 

the goal of making the systems more compatible as quickly as possible. As we rely 

on existing systems, we recognize the significant work needed ahead to achieve compatibility and interoperability to meet the challenges faced by DHS.

In Conclusion 

The Office of Information Analysis’ unique position, roles and efforts have lead to 

many challenges. However, the work is not done. These challenges now lead us to 

the next logical step in protecting the nation, its people, and its infrastructure. Following careful review of the 9/11 Commission report, President Bush announced his 

support for the creation of National Intelligence Director (NID) and the establishment of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC). We at the Department of 

Homeland Security look forward to continuing to work with the Congress to take 

these important steps in preventing terrorist attacks against the United States. 

The Department of Homeland Security is a prime example of how changes have 

already been made to the Intelligence Community and the counterterrorism community as they existed before September 11th, 2001. The creation of the NID and 

NCTC will enhance DHS’ ability to better identify threats and map those threats 

against vulnerabilities. However, these are not the only recommendations the Commission made. The Commission also recommended continued improvements in information sharing among agencies involved in national security. DHS, especially the 

IAIP Directorate, plays a central role in this effort as we continue the work of communicating both with our partners in the federal government as well as with the 

State, territorial, tribal, local, and private sector officials charged with protecting 

the people and infrastructure of this country. 

Building up the IA office, increasing our information capabilities, and coordinating 

information sharing across the entire federal government are monumental tasks. 

And, while we have accomplished much in a short period of time, we continue to 

press forward to strengthen this vital office and our ability to support the overall 

DHS mission of securing our homeland. In order for the Office of Information Analysis to accomplish its unique mission, we need the right organizational structure, 

qualified and cleared personnel, resources, and technical capabilities. 

We are working hard to coordinate and integrate the intelligence and information 

necessary to protect our people and our critical infrastructure. Yet, we still have 

much work to do. We have made tremendous progress and the dedication and devotion to duty of those who do the work of intelligence at DHS is unparalleled. 

We are meeting threats to the homeland with determination and dedication to 

lead this nation to a higher level of protection every single day. The sheer depth 

and breadth of our country means that one slip, one gap, one vengeful person, can 

threaten the lives of our citizens at any time, in any number of ways. There are 

no guarantees, but I firmly believe the American people are more secure and better 

prepared than before September 11th 2001, directly because of the Department of 

Homeland Security. 

A brief note about the threat: it is real. Terrorists are at work around the world 

and when they succeed it seems our best efforts in intelligence, security, defense 

and protective measures have somehow failed, despite the many successes we have 

against terrorists. We continue to receive substantial information concerning ter-
74

rorist intent to strike us again in our homeland. As we approach the period of our 

national political process and the many associated events, it is my view that we are 

entering a period of significant risk, perceived by those who would strike us as an 

opportunity to tear our societal and cultural fabric. We cannot relax, we cannot falter, we cannot live in fear. Instead, we who do the work of intelligence and law enforcement must persevere and provide insight and knowledge to those who lead and 

decide. 

We have accomplished much in IA since our inception and we are on course with 

our partners and colleagues to continue to achieve. We are fully connected to the 

U.S. Intelligence Community and well informed. We are integrated into the workings of the domestic security structure. We are connected with law enforcement. We 

have working analysts poring over the detail of intelligence and law enforcement reporting to discover the hidden patterns and concealed threads of terrorist activity 

and the manifestation of other threats to America from crime with national security 

implications and from other disasters and threatening conditions that come our way. 

We have a sense of purpose and we have embarked on what has likely never been 

done before with regard to information fusion. . .to fully understand the threat and 

the conditions extant in the ‘‘new normal’’ United States context that we see now 

and in the future. The 9–11 attacks, the December 2003—February 2004 period of 

heightened concern, the recent attack in Madrid and potential but largely interdicted attacks elsewhere, and the fact of anthrax and ricin attacks here in the 

United States, combine to form this ‘‘new normal’’ condition of constant possibility 

that we cannot ignore. 

At the same time we are—I am—most mindful of the need to protect the civil liberties and personal privacy of our citizens and to preserve and defend our Constitution and our way of life. In the end, we are—I am—focused on defeating the terrorists before they can strike. That is why we exist. 

Chairman Cox and Members of the Committee, this concludes my prepared statement. I would be happy to answer any questions you may have at this time.

Chairman COX. Mr. Brennan. 

STATEMENT OF JOHN O. BRENNAN, DIRECTOR, TERRORIST 

THREAT INTEGRATION CENTER 

Mr. BRENNAN. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and members of 

the committee. It is a pleasure to appear before you today to talk 

about information sharing and homeland security. And I would like 

to offer just a few brief ideas, as well as lessons learned from the 

TTIC experience on information sharing. 

In order to minimize the potential for dangerous seams and coverage as well as to optimize the use of finite resources, we must 

continue building and implementing a national framework for the 

origination, analysis and dissemination of terrorism information by 

the U.S. Government. The delineation of such responsibilities must 

be as unambiguous and as straightforward as possible to ensure we 

continue building an agreed-upon information sharing architecture, 

both horizontal and vertical, that is based on a clear understanding 

of who is responsible for what. 

Such an architecture must include an overall Intelligence Community business model framework to ensure comprehensive, robust 

and as appropriate, alternative terrorism capability; a national information sharing framework based on increased clarity of mission 

roles and responsibilities, including an understanding of the information needs of the Federal Government, State and local officials 

and law enforcement and the private sector; an overall blueprint 

for information technology systems, including strategic 

prioritization, implementation schedules and sunset requirements 

for legacy systems that impede interoperability; community-wide 

standards for reporting formats, dissemination requirements, interoperable hardware and software; and role-based data access. 
75

There are important lessons in the establishment of TTIC. Assignees to TTIC retain authorities to home organizations, which allows TTIC to access more information than in any single government department or agency. 

Now, a key TTIC objective has been to develop an integrated information technology architecture so its sophisticated analytic tools 

and search capabilities can be applied against the many terabytes 

of data available to the Federal Government. We must be able to 

cross-check these different data sets which are collected by departments and agencies statutorily authorized to do so. Our approach 

for this is called the Sanctum architecture, which will allow analysts to conduct simultaneous and federated searches against data 

sets resident on separate networks. By the end of this month, we 

will be able to conduct federated simultaneous searches against the 

data contained in six separate networks, and other networks will 

be added throughout the year. 

An additional challenge is dealing with disparate information 

technology systems and nonstandardized information technology 

practices, processes and procedures, including a plethora of legacy 

information systems and networks that impede interoperability. 

This is not to say that there should be a single integrated database 

of all terrorism information in the U.S. Government. However, 

overall guidelines for U.S. Government information technology systems and enforced community-wide standards regarding metadata 

tagging, security practices and procedures would go a long way toward implementing an overall national framework that promotes 

interoperability and information sharing. 

And I look forward to taking your questions. 

[The statement of Mr. Brennan follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT JOHN O. BRENNAN

Good afternoon, Chairman Cox, Ranking Member Turner, and the Members of the 

House Select Committee on Homeland Security. 

I appreciate the opportunity to join my colleagues from the Departments of State 

and Homeland Security, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, to discuss 

progress made, lessons learned, and areas that might be strengthened regarding information sharing and associated activities to protect U.S. interests at home and 

abroad from the terrorist threat. 

Significant progress has been made on information sharing throughout the Federal government and beyond since the tragic events of September 11, 2001. The implementation of streamlined processes and procedures, enhanced partnerships bridging organizational boundaries, and the deployment of new technologies have enabled 

the integration and dissemination of information on terrorist threats to U.S. interests at home and abroad in a more timely and comprehensive manner than ever 

before. Likewise, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) are expediting the provision of terrorist threat-related 

and associated information to state and local government officials, the private sector, and law enforcement entities. 

As we collectively continue efforts to improve information sharing, as well as 

move toward implementing recommendations made by the 9/11 Commission, I offer 

some core concepts as well as lessons learned based on the experience establishing 

the multi-agency joint venture known as the Terrorist Threat Integration Center 

(TTIC). 

It is my personal opinion that in order to minimize the potential for dangerous 

seams in coverage as well as to optimize the use of finite analytic resources, we 

must continue building and implementing a national framework for terrorism analytic responsibility in the U.S. Government. The delineation of substantive responsibilities for terrorism analysis among the various members of the Intelligence Community must be as unambiguous and as straightforward as possible, while still allowing alternative views to be heard. An unambiguous delineation of roles and re-
76

sponsibilities is critical to ensure that we continue building an information-sharing 

architecture—both horizontal and vertical—that is based on a clear understanding 

of who has responsibility for analytic ‘‘output.’’ With well-defined responsibilities, we 

will have a system that identifies ‘‘who’’ is responsible for providing ‘‘what’’ to 

‘‘whom.’’ We must continue progress already made in clarifying roles and responsibilities and the building of an information-sharing architecture, with particular 

emphasis on establishing: • An overall Intelligence Community business model framework to ensure comprehensive, robust, and, as appropriate, redundant terrorism analysis capability. 

• A national information-sharing framework based on increased clarity of mission roles and responsibilities, with a common understanding of the information 

requirements of individual U.S. Government components and beyond. This information-sharing framework should extend beyond the Intelligence Community 

and where appropriate, include linkages to state and local officials and law enforcement; commercial industry; foreign entities; and other non-traditional partners. 

• An overall blueprint for information technology systems, including strategic 

prioritization, implementation schedules, as well as establishment of a ‘‘sunset’’ 

list for legacy systems that impede interoperability. 

• Community-wide standards for reporting formats, dissemination requirements, and interoperable hardware and software, with an information technology architecture for role-based data access. 

There are some relevant lessons from the establishment of TTIC. Assignees to 

TTIC carry the authorities of their home organizations with them, such that in 

TTIC there is the ability to access more information than in any single independent 

agency or department. In fact, TTIC has direct access connectivity with 26 separate 

U.S. Government networks, enabling access to terrorism-related information systems and databases spanning the intelligence, law enforcement, homeland security, 

diplomatic, and military communities. This unprecedented information access allows 

for a more comprehensive understanding of terrorist threats to U.S. interests at 

home and abroad and, most importantly, enables the provision of this information 

and related analysis to those responsible for detecting, disrupting, deterring, and defending against terrorist attacks. 

A key TTIC objective is to develop an integrated information technology architecture so that sophisticated analytic tools and federated search capabilities can be applied to the many terabytes of data available to the Federal Government. We must 

be able to cross check these different data sets, which are collected by departments 

and agencies statutorily authorized to do so, in a manner that allows us to identify 

terrorists and their supporters before they reach our shores or when they emerge 

within our midst. Simply put, we need to create new knowledge from existing information currently resident in a distributed architecture. We must also implement the 

appropriate controls to ensure security and privacy of information. Progress has 

been made toward this end. Our approach, called the ‘‘Sanctum Architecture,’’ is expected to reach initial operating capability later this month, allowing analysts to 

search against data sets resident on 6 separate networks. Over time, the goal for 

the Sanctum architecture is to expand this capability to enable federated searches 

across multiple data sets—in other words, one query against the holdings of multiple systems and databases on multiple networks. 

An additional challenge is that of disparate information technology systems and 

non-standardized information technology practices, processes, and procedures, including a plethora of legacy information systems and networks that impede interoperability. This is not to say that there should be a single, integrated database of 

all terrorism information in the U.S. Government. However, overall guidelines for 

U.S. Government information technology systems and enforced community-wide 

standards (metadata tagging, security practices and procedures, etc) would go a long 

way toward implementing an overall national framework that promotes interoperability and information sharing. 

In conclusion, as we move forward with information sharing initiatives as well as 

address the broader issues associated with intelligence reform, integration of effort 

should serve as an important organizing principle. In particular, we need to enhance 

orchestration of the broad array of counterterrorism activities across the U.S. Government and beyond. In this regard, I support the concept of establishing a National 

Counterterrorism Center to orchestrate and integrate, as appropriate, the myriad of 

activities working to protect U.S. interests at home and abroad from the scourge of 

international terrorism. We all have a shared responsibility to continue implementing a new information sharing paradigm and an overall national 

counterterrorism system that maximizes the security and safety of all Americans, 
77

wherever they live or work. I look forward to continue working with my colleagues 

here today and with the Members of this committee toward this end.

Chairman COX. Ms. Baginski, I should note for members, the 

title Executive Assistant Director refers to the Bureau and you are 

in fact the Director of the Office of Intelligence. 

STATEMENT OF MAUREEN BAGINSKI, EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT 

DIRECTOR FOR INTELLIGENCE, FEDERAL BUREAU OF 

INVESTIGATION 

Ms. BAGINSKI. Thank you very much. It is a pleasure to appear 

before you and I will make my remarks brief. 

We applaud—at the FBI we applaud the work of the 9/11 Commission. We are grateful for their fine work. We are pleased they 

have embraced our reforms to date, and we agree with them wholeheartedly that we have additional work to do. 

The adversary we face today is networked and enabled by information technology that allows it to have a shared view of the objective, a clear understanding of roles and responsibilities in carrying 

out the objective and very tight decision loops in taking action. To 

defeat this adversary, we, the intelligence and homeland security 

communities, have to look just like it. Each of us sitting here at 

this table represents a node on the Federal network. Our job is to 

interoperate with each other, but also ensure that we can interoperate with other information networks, particularly those at the 

State and local and tribal level, who will be the first to encounter 

threats and the first called upon to defend against them. 

At the FBI, we define intelligence very simply. We call intelligence vital information about those who would do us harm; and 

we see the only true measure of intelligence, good intelligence, is 

whether or not it helps someone make a better decision. The decision makers who have to defend our Nation are varied indeed, and 

they range from the President to the patrolman. So our first commitment on the intelligence side is to invest very substantial resources in understanding the decisions that have to be made and 

ensuring that we provide the proper information to do that. 

Over 2 years ago, Director Mueller recognized this and appointed 

an Assistant Director of the FBI for Law Enforcement Coordination. That Assistant Director is sitting behind me, Mr. Louis 

Quijas, who comes to us from High Point, North Carolina, where 

he was a police chief, and before that, the Kansas City chief. 

Everything we have done since 9/11 in the FBI and across the 

Federal, State, local and tribal governments has been designed to 

create this information network, and it has been an evolutionary 

process. We began, I think, immediately after 9/11 with bringing 

foreign and domestic intelligence about the terrorist threat together in the Oval Office in the President’s briefings. That evolved 

into the creation of a TTIC where we institutionalized the bringing 

together of information around the threat. 

And we brought together intelligence and operations in the 

counterterrorism strategy security group headed by the National 

Security Council. We stood up the Department of Homeland Security designed to really overlay those threats, over our critical infrastructure, and to ensure that we were protected. And the reforms 

that the President has announced, the ones he has accepted from 
78

the creation of the National Counterterrorism Center and the creation of a National Intelligence Director are embraced as logical 

next steps. 

There is great parallel to that progression in the course we have 

taken with intelligence at the FBI, a very evolutionary path, beginning immediately after the events of 9/11 and standing up a very 

robust intelligence capability within our counterterrorism directorate focused basically on raw intelligence production and finished 

analysis; and then gradually, over a 3-year period, migrating to the 

creation of an enterprise-wide intelligence program led by an Executive Assistant Director. And I was pleased and honored to join the 

FBI in that position in May of 2003. 

Our intelligence program is actually built on four key principles. 

We want an independent collection and requirements management 

system. What we can do and what we can collect should not be 

driving what we collect. What we must collect should be driving 

what we need to know and have to know to defend the country has 

to be defining it. So that process is managed in my office. 

Another core principle is centralized management of intelligence. 

The power of the FBI intelligence process is in its distribution geographically in its 56 field offices, 400 resident agencies and worldwide legal attache offices. My trick is to ensure that that process 

is managed against common threats, but not micromanaged from 

headquarters so we unleash the power that is out in the field. 

The third principle is focused strategic analysis. If all of our attention is on current reporting, then we are failing to devote the 

resources we need to step back from the threat so that we understand what we don’t know and need to know, to put all of that information so we can make better decisions. 

And finally: the core principle of integration of intelligence with 

law enforcement operations. 

Those are our four principles. 

I am the FBI official responsible for information sharing. So if 

there are problems with information sharing and information policy, you are looking at the person who has to put in place the proper policies to do that. 

I come before you today to tell you we have made a very good 

step and we have more work to do. So that there is no confusion 

for you, it is my responsibility both within the FBI and outside of 

the FBI to ensure that the proper information is delivered to key 

decision makers, and with the timeliness they need it and at the 

classification level that they need it. 

In the interest of brevity, I want to share with you some of the 

key accomplishments we have made, because they are substantial 

and they are a good start, but they are not yet enough. 

First, we have issued our first-ever FBI intelligence requirements 

and collection tasking documents. These requirements are completely lined up with the national intelligence priorities framework 

and emanate from it. We have, in addition, issued an unclassified 

version for our partners in State, local and tribal law enforcement 

who continue to ask me, we will give you whatever it is you want: 

just tell us what it is you need from us. 

We have become full members of the DCI’s National Intelligence 

Collection Board and National Intelligence Analysis and Production 
79

Board, and we are participating in the drafting of national intelligence estimates. 

We have created a collection capabilities database that tells us 

what sources we have and could bring to bear on all threats facing 

the Nation. Most importantly, this database allows us to identify 

where we have critical gaps and need to develop new sources. 

I chair a daily intelligence board every day to ensure that critical 

decisions are made about information sharing and that cross-programmatic analysis is done so all information is brought to bear on 

threats. 

We completed our first-ever FBI dissemination manual. It is 

based on the principle ‘‘right to release’’ and requires a new classification requirement, ‘‘required to release.’’ We write to the lowest 

classification. We separate sources from methods. And we have just 

developed a Web-based intelligence authoring tool that requires the 

author to write their first version at the lowest classification level. 

We have set unified standards and policies for training intelligence analysts. We are in the process of changing the critical performance criteria for agents to include emphasis on source development and production of intelligence. 

We have tripled our raw intelligence production this year and 

doubled our production of Presidential assessments—of intelligence 

assessments. 

I want to tell you the final thing we have done is to develop 

metrics to tell you, ourselves and others whether these changes are 

making any difference. And with that, I will be happy to take any 

of your questions. 

[The statement of Ms. Baginski follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MAUREEN A. BAGINSKI

Introduction 

Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee. It is my pleasure 

to come before you today to discuss the recommendations of the 9–11 Commission, 

specifically information sharing issues that face the Federal Bureau of Investigation 

and other members of the Intelligence and Law Enforcement communities. As Director Mueller has said, the FBI has worked closely with the Commission and their 

staff throughout their tenure and we commend them for an extraordinary effort. 

Throughout this process, we have approached the Commission’s inquiry as an opportunity to gain further input from outside experts. We took their critiques seriously, 

adapted our ongoing reform efforts, and have already taken substantial steps to address their remaining concerns. We are gratified and encouraged that the Commission has embraced our vision for change and has recognized the progress that the 

men and women of the FBI have made to implement that vision. Our work to date 

has been on strengthening FBI capabilities so that we can be a strong node on the 

information network of those who defend the nation. Vital information about those 

who would do us harm is not produced by the federal government alone. We are 

proud to also be part of an 800,000 strong state, local, and tribal law enforcement 

community who are the first to encounter and defend against threats. 

On August 2nd, the President announced his intention to establish a National Intelligence Director (NID) and a National Counter Terrorism Center (NCTC). We look 

forward to working with you on these vital reforms. 

Our core guiding principle at the FBI is that intelligence and law enforcement operations must be integrated. Under the direction of Director Mueller, the FBI has 

moved aggressively forward in this regard by implementing a comprehensive plan 

that has fundamentally transformed the FBI. Director Mueller has overhauled our 

counterterrorism operations, expanded our intelligence capabilities, modernized our 

business practices and technology, and improved coordination with our partners. 

A prerequisite for any operational coordination is the full and free exchange of 

information. Without procedures and mechanisms that allow information sharing on 

a regular and timely basis, we and our partners cannot expect to align our oper-
80

ational efforts to best accomplish our shared mission. Accordingly, we have taken 

steps to establish unified FBI-wide policies for sharing information and intelligence 

both within the FBI and outside it. This has occurred under the umbrella of the 

FBI’s Intelligence Program, and is my personal responsibility as the FBI executive 

for information sharing. We have made great progress and we have much work 

ahead of us.

Intelligence Program 

The mission of the FBI’s Intelligence Program is to optimally position the FBI to 

meet current and emerging national security and criminal threats by (1) aiming core 

investigative work proactively against threats to US interests, (2) building and sustaining enterprise-wide intelligence policies and human and technical capabilities, 

and (3) providing useful, appropriate, and timely information and analysis to the national security, homeland security, and law enforcement communities. Building on 

already strong FBI intelligence capabilities, Director Mueller created in January 

2003 the position of Executive Assistant Director (EAD) of Intelligence and an Office 

of Intelligence. I was honored to join the FBI in May 2003 as the first EAD Intelligence.

Core Principles 

We built the FBI Intelligence Program on the following core principles: 

• Independent Requirements and Collection Management: While intelligence 

collection, operations, analysis, and reporting are integrated at headquarters divisions and in the field, the Office of Intelligence manages the 

requirements and collection management process. This ensures that we 

focus intelligence collection and production on priority intelligence requirements and on filling key gaps in our knowledge. 

• Centralized Management and Distributed Execution: The power of the 

FBI intelligence capability is in its 56 field offices, 400 resident agencies 

and 56 legal attache ́ offices around the world. The Office of Intelligence 

must provide those entities with sufficient guidance to drive intelligence 

production effectively and efficiently, but not micro-manage field intelligence operations. 

• Focused Strategic Analysis: The Office of Intelligence sets strategic analysis priorities and ensures they are carried out both at headquarters and 

in the field. This is accomplished through a daily production meeting that 

I chair. 

• Integration of Analysis with Operations: Intelligence analysis is best 

when collectors and analysts work side-by-side in integrated operations.

Concept of Operations 

Concepts of Operations (CONOPs) guide FBI intelligence processes and detailed 

implementation plans drive specific actions to implement them. Our CONOPs cover 

the following core functions: Intelligence Requirements and Collection Management; 

Intelligence Assessment Process; Human Talent for Intelligence Production; Field Office Intelligence Operation; Intelligence Production and Use; Information Sharing; 

Community Support; Threat Forecasting and Operational Requirements; and Budget 

Formulation for Intelligence.

Accomplishments 

What follows are some of our key accomplishments: 

• We have issued the first-ever FBI requirements and collection tasking documents. These documents are fully aligned with the DCI’s National Intelligence 

Priorities Framework and we have published unclassified versions for our partners in state, local, and tribal law enforcement. 

• We are full members of the National Intelligence Collection Board and the 

National Intelligence Analysis and Production Board, and soon will be participating in the drafting of National Intelligence Estimates and the National Foreign Intelligence Board. 

• We have created a collection capabilities database that tells us what sources 

we can bring to bear on intelligence issues across the FBI. 

• We have created FBI homepages on INTELINK, SIPRNET, and Law Enforcement Online (LEO) for dissemination and evaluation of our intelligence product. 

• We have established a daily Intelligence Production Board to ensure that 

timely decisions are made regarding the production and dissemination of all analytical products. The Board reviews the significant threats, developments, and 

issues emerging in each investigative priority area, and identifies topics for intelligence products. 

• We have completed the first-ever FBI intelligence dissemination manual. 
81

• We have proposed and are building an Intelligence Officer certification program for Agents, Analysts, Surveillance Specialists and Language Analysts. 

Once established this certification will be a pre-requisite for advancement to 

Section Chief or Assistant Special Agent in Charge, thus ensuring that all FBI 

senior managers will be fully trained and experienced intelligence officers. 

• We have completed and begun to implement the CONOPs for Intelligence Analysts. We have set unified standards, policies, and training for intelligence analysts. In a new recruiting program veteran analysts are attending events at colleges and universities throughout the country and we are offering hiring bonuses to analysts for the first time in FBI history. 

• We are in the process of changing the criteria on which Agents are evaluated 

to place more emphasis on intelligence-related function. 

• We are on course to triple our intelligence production this year. 

• We have placed reports officers in our Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTFs) 

to ensure vital information is flowing to those who need it. 

• We have developed detailed metrics to judge the results of our intelligence 

initiatives and are prepared to regularly report performance and progress to 

Congress and other stakeholders, partners, and customers. 

• We have established Field Intelligence Groups (FIGs) to integrate analysts, 

Agents, linguists, and surveillance personnel in the field to bring a dedicated 

team focus to intelligence operations. As of June 2004, there are 1,450 FIG personnel, including 382 Special Agents and 160 employees from other Government 

agencies. Each FIG is under the direct supervision of an Assistant Special 

Agent in Charge. 

• From October 2003 to April 2004, the FBI participated in more than 10 recruitment events and plans to add at least five additional events through September 2004. A marketing plan also was implemented to attract potential candidates. In February 2004, an advertisement specific to the Intelligence Analyst 

position at the FBI was placed in The Washington Post, The Washington Times,

and the New York Times, and has since been run several more times. Our National Press Office issued a press release that kicked off an aggressive hiring 

campaign. 

• The College of Analytic Studies (CAS), established in October 2001, is based 

at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia. Since FY 2002, 264 analysts have 

graduated from the College’s six-week Basic Intelligence Analyst Course. 655 

field and headquarters analysts have attended specialty courses on a variety of 

analytical topics. 1,389 field and headquarters employees have attended specialized counterterrorism courses offered in conjunction with CIA University, and 

1,010 New Agent Trainees have received a two-hour instructional block on intelligence. 

• The Basic Intelligence Course currently offered by the CAS is being revised 

and updated to incorporate key elements of our intelligence program. Upon completion of this effort, the course will be retitled: Analytical Cadre Education 

Strategy I (ACES I) as outlined in the Human Talent CONOPS. An intermediate course entitled ACES II is anticipated in the future that would target 

more experienced analysts. Practical exercises and advanced writing skills will 

be emphasized, as well as advanced analytical techniques. 

• The ACES I course will incorporate seven core elements of intelligence relevant for new agents and new analysts. Additionally ACES I will focus on assimilation, analytic tradecraft and practice, thinking and writing skills, resources, and field skills. 

• Complementing ACES I and ACES II, the Office of Intelligence, in coordination with the FBI Training and Development Division, will identify, facilitate, 

and exploit training partnerships with other government agencies, academia, 

and the private sector to fully develop the career choices of FBI analysts. 

Whether an analyst chooses the specialized, interdisciplinary, or managerial career path, s/he will have the opportunity to attend courses offered through the 

Joint Military Intelligence Training Center, other government training centers, 

and private companies. 

• The Office of Intelligence is also establishing education cooperative programs 

where college students will be able to work at the FBI while earning a fouryear degree. Students may alternate semesters of work with full-time study or 

may work in the summers in exchange for tuition assistance. In addition to financial assistance, students would benefit by obtaining significant work experience, and the FBI would benefit through an agreement requiring the student 

to continue working for the FBI for a specific period of time after graduation. 

This program will be implemented in FY 2005. 
82

• An Analyst Advisory Group has also been created specifically to address analytical concerns. I established and chair the advisory group—composed of Headquarters and field analysts. The group affords analysts the opportunity to provide a working-level view of analytic issues and to participate in policy and procedure formation. They are involved in developing promotional criteria, providing input for training initiatives, and establishing the mentoring program for 

new FBI analysts. 

• The Career Mentoring Working Group of the Analyst Advisory Group is creating a career mentoring program to provide guidance and advice to new analysts. Once implemented, all new Intelligence Analysts will have a mentor to 

assist them. The career mentor will have scheduled contact with the new analyst on a monthly basis throughout the analyst’s first year of employment. 

• As of this year, the Director’s Awards will feature a new category: the Director’s Award for Excellence in Intelligence Analysis. Nominees for this award 

must display a unique ability to apply skills in intelligence analysis in furtherance of the FBI’s mission, resulting in significant improvements or innovations 

in methods of analysis that contribute to many investigations or activities, and/

or overcoming serious obstacles through exceptional perseverance or dedication 

leading to an extraordinary contribution to a significant case, program, threat, 

or issue. 

• Turning to intelligence training for our agents, we are now working to incorporate elements of our basic intelligence training course into the New Agents 

Class curriculum. We expect that work to be completed by September. A key 

element of this concept is that agents in New Agents Training and analysts in 

the College of Analytic Studies will conduct joint training exercises in intelligence tradecraft. The first offerings to contain these joint exercises are expected in December of this year. In addition to this, we are in the process of 

changing the criteria on which agents are evaluated to place more emphasis on 

intelligence-related functions and information sharing. 

• On March 22, 2004, Director Mueller also adopted a proposal to establish a 

career path in which new Special Agents are initially assigned to a small field 

office and exposed to a wide range of field experiences. After approximately 

three years, agents will be transferred to a large field office where they will specialize in one of four program areas: Intelligence, Counterterrorism/ Counterintelligence, Cyber, or Criminal, and will receive advanced training tailored to 

their area of specialization. In our Special Agent hiring, we have changed the 

list of ‘‘critical skills’’ we are seeking in candidates to include intelligence experience and expertise, foreign languages, and technology. 

• Our language specialists are critical to our intelligence cadre as well. The 

FBI’s approximately 1,200 language specialists are stationed across 52 field offices and headquarters, and are now connected via secure networks that allow 

language specialists in one FBI office to work on projects for any other office. 

Since the beginning of FY 2001, the FBI has recruited and processed more than 

30,000 linguist applicants. These efforts have resulted in the addition of nearly 

700 new linguists with a Top Secret security clearance. In addition, the FBI 

formed a Language Services Translation Center to act as a command and control center to coordinate translator assignments and maximize its capacity to 

render immediate translation assistance.

Information Sharing—Our Relationship with the Intelligence and Law 

Enforcement Communities 

The FBI shares intelligence with other members of the Intelligence Community, 

to include the intelligence components of the Department of Homeland Security 

(DHS), through direct classified and unclassified dissemination and through 

websites on classified Intelligence Community networks. The FBI also shares intelligence with representatives of other elements of the Intelligence Community who 

participate in Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTFs) in the United States or with 

whom the FBI collaborates in activities abroad. FBI intelligence products shared 

with the Intelligence Community include both raw and finished intelligence reports. 

FBI intelligence products shared with the Intelligence Community include Intelligence Information Reports (IIRs), Intelligence Assessments, and Intelligence Bulletins. To support information sharing, there is now a Special Agent or Intelligence 

Analyst in the JTTFs dedicated to producing ‘‘raw’’ intelligence reports for the entire 

national security community, including state, municipal, and tribal law enforcement 

partners and other JTTF members. These reports officers are trained to produce intelligence reports that both protect sources and methods and maximize the amount 

of information that can be shared. It is the responsibility of the FIGs to manage, 

execute and maintain the FBI’s intelligence functions within the FBI field office. 
83

FIG personnel have access to TS and SCI information so they will be able to receive, 

analyze, review and recommend sharing this information with entities within the 

FBI as well as our customers and partners within the Intelligence and law enforcement communities. 

In addition, classified intelligence and other sensitive FBI data are shared with 

cleared federal, state, and local law enforcement officials who participate in the 

JTTFs. The JTTFs partner FBI personnel with hundreds of investigators from various federal, state, and local agencies, and are important force multipliers in the 

fight against terrorism. Since September 11, 2001, the FBI has increased the number of JTTFs from 34 to 100 nationwide. We also established the National Joint Terrorism Task Force (NJTTF) at FBI Headquarters, staffed by representatives from 

38 federal, state, and local agencies. The mission of the NJTTF is to enhance communication, coordination, and cooperation by acting as the hub of support for the 

JTTFs throughout the United States, providing a point of fusion for intelligence acquired in support of counterterrorism operations. The FBI will continue to create 

new avenues of communication between law enforcement agencies to better fight the 

terrorist threat. 

The FBI has also established a robust channel for sharing information with the 

Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC) by providing direct electronic access to 

classified and unclassified internal FBI investigative and operational databases, 

with narrow exceptions for certain types of sensitive domestic criminal cases unrelated to terrorism. TTIC also has direct electronic access to internal FBI headquarters division websites and e-mail capabilities on the FBI’s classified intranet 

system. Both FBI and non-FBI personnel assigned to TTIC have access to this information. 

The FBI has agreed to provide a substantial permanent staff to TTIC. TTIC’s mission is to enable full integration of terrorist threat-related information and analysis. 

It creates a structure to institutionalize sharing across appropriate federal agency 

lines of terrorist threat-related information in order to form the most comprehensive 

threat picture. 

Although the FBI retains authority to approve dissemination of raw FBI information by TTIC to other agencies, the FBI authorizes the TTIC to share FBI intelligence products by posting them on the TTIC Online website on Intelink-TS. The 

TTIC Online website provides additional security safeguards, and access is granted 

to Intelligence Community users who have a need-to-know for more sensitive classified intelligence on international terrorism from the FBI and other agencies. The 

FBI also authorizes the National Counterintelligence Executive (NCIX) to share FBI 

counterintelligence products on the Intelink-CI(iCI) website with similar safeguards 

and access by users who have a need-to-know for more sensitive classified counterintelligence products. 

In addition to this, the Bureau also fully contributes intelligence analysis to the 

President’s Terrorist Threat Report (PTTR). These products are coordinated with 

the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), DHS, and other federal agencies. In addition 

to the PTTR, the FBI provides Presidential Intelligence Assessments directly to the 

President and the White House Executive Staff. 

The FBI is also committed to providing those tools which assist law enforcement 

in intelligence-led policing—from the National Crime Information Center, the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System, and the Interstate Identification Index, to Law Enforcement Online (LEO), a virtual private network that 

reaches federal, state, and law enforcement agencies at the Sensitive but Unclassified (SBU) level. LEO user’s total nearly 30,000 and that number is increasing. That 

total includes more than 14,000 state and local law enforcement members. LEO 

makes finished FBI intelligence products available, including Intelligence Assessments resulting from analysis of criminal, cyber, and terrorism intelligence. Our 

LEO Intelligence Bulletins are used to disseminate finished intelligence on significant developments or trends. Intelligence Information Reports also are available on 

LEO at the Law Enforcement Sensitive classification level. The FBI also recently 

posted the requirements document on LEO, which provided state and local law enforcement a shared view of the terrorist threat and the information needed in every 

priority area. 

LEO also has secure connectivity to the Regional Information Sharing Systems 

network (riss.net). The FBI Intelligence products are disseminated weekly via LEO 

to over 17,000 law enforcement agencies and to 60 federal agencies, providing information about terrorism, criminal, and cyber threats to patrol officers and other local 

law enforcement personnel who have direct daily contacts with the general public. 

The FBI will use an enhanced LEO as the primary channel for sensitive but unclassified communications with other federal, state and local agencies. LEO and the 
84

DHS Joint Regional Information Exchange System (JRIES) will also be interoperable. 

In the spring of 2002, the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) met 

and agreed that a collaborative intelligence sharing plan must be created to address 

the inadequacies of the intelligence process that, in part, led to the failure to prevent the events of September 11. In response, the Global Justice Information Sharing Initiative (Global), which is a Federal Advisory Committee to the U.S. Attorney 

General, formed the Global Intelligence Working Group (GIWG). The GIWG is comprised of experts and leaders from local, state, and federal law enforcement, including members from the FBI. Their efforts resulted in the creation of the National 

Criminal Intelligence Sharing Plan (NCISP). 

On February 11, 2004 the Attorney General announced the creation of the Justice 

Intelligence Coordinating Council (JICC). I currently chair this Council, which is 

comprised of the heads of Department of Justice (DOJ) agencies with intelligence 

responsibilities. The Council works to improve information sharing within DOJ, and 

ensures that DOJ meets the intelligence needs of outside customers and acts in accordance with intelligence priorities. The Council will also identify common challenges (such as electronic connectivity, collaborative analytic tools, and intelligence 

skills training) and establish policies and programs to address them. 

On February 20, 2004 the FBI formed the Information Sharing Policy Group, comprised of Executive Assistant Directors, Assistant Directors, and other senior executive managers. I serve as the co-chair. This group is establishing the FBI’s information and intelligence sharing policies. 

At the same time, we have intelligence analysts from other agencies working in 

key positions throughout the Bureau. The Associate Deputy Assistant Director for 

Operations in the Counterterrorism Division is a CIA detailee. This exchange of personnel is taking place in our field offices as well. 

We have also worked closely with DHS to ensure that we have the integration 

and comprehensive information sharing between our agencies that are vital to the 

success of our missions. The FBI and DHS share database access at TTIC, in the 

National JTTF at FBI Headquarters, in the Foreign Terrorist Tracking Task Force 

(FTTTF) and the Terrorist Screening Center (TSC), and in local JTTFs in our field 

offices around the country. We worked closely together to get the new Terrorist 

Screening Center up and running. We hold weekly briefings in which our 

Counterterrorism analysts brief their DHS counterparts on current terrorism developments. The FBI and DHS now coordinate joint warning products to address our 

customers’ concerns about multiple and duplicative warnings. We designated an experienced executive from the Transportation Security Administration to run the 

TSC, a DHS executive to serve as Deputy Director of the TSC, and a senior DHS 

executive was detailed to the FBI to ensure coordination and transparency between 

the agencies. 

In order to improve the compatibility of information technology systems throughout the Intelligence Community and increase the speed and ease of information 

sharing and collaboration, the FBI’s information technology team has worked closely 

with the Chief Information Officers of DHS and other Intelligence Community agencies, to develop our recent and ongoing technology upgrades to ensure the interoperability of the various information systems. To facilitate further coordination, the FBI 

Chief Information Officer (CIO) sits on the Intelligence Community CIO Executive 

Council. The Council develops and recommends technical requirements, policies and 

procedures, and coordinates initiatives to improve the interoperability of information 

technology systems within the Intelligence Community. 

The CIO is also working with DOJ on interfaces between the Intelligence Community System for Information Sharing (ICSIS) and the Law Enforcement Information 

Sharing (LEIS) initiative, with the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services 

(CJIS) Division, to increase the sharing of intelligence-related information to and 

from state and local officials. 

In conclusion, the FBI has a responsibility to the nation, Intelligence Community, 

and federal, state, and local law enforcement to disseminate information, and to do 

so is an inherent part of our mission. Sharing FBI information will be the rule, unless sharing is legally or procedurally unacceptable.

Next Steps 

We have made great progress, but we have much work to do. Our plan is solid 

and we believe we are heading in the right direction. We have enjoyed much support 

from your committee and we are very appreciative of the time your staff has spent 

in learning about our initiatives and giving us advice. What we need more than anything else is your continued support and understanding that a change of this magnitude will require time to implement. With your help, we will have that. Thank 
85

you for allowing me the opportunity to testify before you today and I will be happy 

to entertain any questions you may have.

Ms. DUNN. Thank you, each of you, for your statements. We will 

begin the questioning with the gentleman from Florida, Mr. DiazBalart. 

Mr. DIAZ-BALART. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I would like to thank you for testifying before us today. The first 

question I would like to address is to Mr. Brennan. 

The 9/11 Commission report recommended expanding TTIC, enabling it to share foreign and domestic intelligence and conduct joint 

operational planning. So what I would like to ask you about is, in 

your opinion, what legal changes would be needed to accomplish 

that? 

Mr. BRENNAN. Congressman, I think there is still a lot of discussion going on right now to determine exactly what the NCTC 

should do. The President has announced support for it and there 

have been important meetings over the past several weeks to look 

at the details on that. And depending on the extent of the change 

and the NCTC’s responsibilities, I think there would have to be a 

careful look at whatever types of legislative action or executive 

order language that would need to be put forward. I think that is 

open to discussion; and as you point out rightly, it is talking about 

a new dimension to provide to TTIC in terms of this joint operational planning. And I think the 9/11 Commission report says that 

decisions would have to be made about how much authority should, 

in fact, be vested in the NCTC on that score. 

Mr. DIAZ-BALART. Ms. Baginski, I appreciated very much your 

testimony, and as an admirer of the FBI, as I am—and you have 

a very solid team in south Florida dealing with multiple challenges 

on a daily basis—the community is very proud of the FBI. 

The criticism in the Commission’s report of the FBI was perhaps 

stinging, not only of the FBI, but as an admirer of the FBI, I noted 

it with much interest. You explained in some detail, and I appreciate you having done so, steps that the FBI has taken since September 11 with regard to the very specific criticisms by the Commission. And so I don’t want you to expand more on those steps. 

But what I would ask you is to facilitate the steps you are taking, 

because some of them are continuing obviously. Especially with regard to information sharing, how can we in Congress be of help to 

you, to the FBI in the efforts being taken to improve information 

sharing?. 

Ms. BAGINSKI. The first dimension is the recognition that it is 

going to take some time. There are dimensions in this that are information technology, that are people, that are training issues. So 

that would be helpful to recognize. It is a combination of things. 

And then, from our perspective, our biggest needs are for secure 

communications to our field offices and for secure compartmented 

information facilities. And these are not small requests. In order to 

join this large Intelligence Community and to be a healthy node on 

this network, we have to be able to operate in their information environment. 

So those are the two areas. And I think third is to foster the debate that is necessary on important issues that people are raising 

about civil liberties as this work is done. 
86

Mr. DIAZ-BALART. Look forward to continuing to work with you. 

Ms. DUNN. The gentlelady from California, Ms. Lofgren. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Thank you and thanks for your service to our 

country. 

You know, as I have been listening both to the Chair and to the 

Vice Chair of the Commission before you and the questions of my 

colleagues, my thoughts have really turned to a broad question, 

which is the deployment of technology in the Federal Government. 

And we have talked about information sharing, but it is not just 

information sharing, it is the deployment of technology generally. 

Listening to one of my colleagues talk about enforcement of the 

immigration laws, I was mindful of Commissioner Ziglar telling us 

that they didn’t catch the terrorist who applied for a student visa 

because the application was on a piece of microfiche in a bucket in 

Florida and you couldn’t do a data search of the microfiche in the 

bucket. 

Listening to Mr. Andrews’ hypothetical about a hazardous material truck on its way to blow up the Capitol, there is technology 

that Lawrence Livermore Labs has today that could be inserted on 

HAZMAT trucks that would allow those trucks to be stopped remotely, and yet we don’t deploy that technology. Why not? 

I am interested, obviously—have been on the Judiciary Committee since I became a Member of the House in January of 1995, 

and I have complained for nearly 10 years now about the lack of 

technology in the immigration function. And when our markup was 

interrupted before we recessed, I had several amendments that I 

had planned to offer and I shared with the majority to automate 

the I–94 entry-exit form, which is something that Director Mueller 

told me was a high priority for him and yet has not occurred, to 

require a study on digitizing all immigration applications and petitions with a mind towards cataloging all immigration applications 

by a unique biometric identifier such as a fingerprint and have the 

NIST biometric study go forward. 

I understand since that time, US VISIT has ditched the idea of 

a broad biometric that would be cross-platformed and crossagencied and instead is proposing to use the IDENT system, which 

uses a nonstandard fingerprint format. And maybe we need to do 

that because we need something in place. I voted to continue that, 

as a matter of fact, for that very reason, but it looks like we have 

now stopped the deployment of the broader effort. 

So I guess my question to all of you is, in the Homeland Security—in the 9/11 Commission report, there is a recommendation 

that DHS take on the lead for integrating the larger network in 

terms of entry-exit. And the question I have is, is DHS capable of 

actually getting the technology deployed? If so, how are they going 

to do it? They haven’t shown any capacity to do it yet. If not, how 

do we get technology identified and deployed on a Federal Government-wide basis to keep our country safe here? 

Any of you who can answer. 

General HUGHES. I am the representative from the Department 

of Homeland Security. I think the answer is that we can and are 

deploying technology across the board for many biometric and sensory missions to include on the borders and to include in ports of 

entry. 
87

Ms. LOFGREN. Can I interrupt? I recently did some study on 

what technology is actually along the borders and interviewed a 

team that had been out from the national labs, had gone out to the 

borders. And this is 2 weeks ago. Basically, no technology has been 

deployed. They are short of gasoline for the trucks. They don’t have 

any of the cutting-edge technology that America owns through our 

very excellent science centers. Why is that? 

General HUGHES. May I ask which part of the border? 

Ms. LOFGREN. They went to the southern border with the Lawrence Livermore National Lab. It has a whole unit to establish this 

technology. 

General HUGHES. I am not familiar with which border site they 

went to, but if they covered the entire southwest border, they 

talked to the wrong people. 

There are, of course, some problems. I am not sure what—some 

border areas being not directly covered by technology, but much of 

it is covered. We are flying unmanned aerial vehicles over the 

southwest border. We have placed sensors at border control points. 

We have a variety of checks against the immigration documents, 

persons coming across the border—there are a large number of illegal immigrants coming across the border every single day. 

Ms. LOFGREN. I see that my time has run out, but we are still 

issuing paper on I–94s. 

General HUGHES. That is true. We have not yet digitized the entire system. We are in the process, however, of trying to upgrade 

to a digital environment. 

Ms. DUNN. The gentleman from New York, Mr. Sweeney. 

Mr. SWEENEY. I thank the Chair. We have limited time and I 

want to thank our witnesses. I have about eight questions, two for 

each of you, so I am going to try to give them to you in ‘‘machine 

gun’’ fashion. Before I do that, I want to look back to the last panel 

and correct the record if I could regarding the contention by some 

that the Administration’s proposal for funding on interoperability 

zeroed out the budget, as I am on the Appropriations Committee. 

That didn’t happen. There was a different set of priorities established and, in fact, $2.5 billion first responder grant monies was 

put in the budget for those communications, and $20 million specifically for DHS. I wanted the record to reflect that because I 

think it is important we have the facts. 

The 9/11 Commission report says a lot of things. One of the 

things I think it says is that there is a general sense, an overwhelming sense, that we still don’t have it right and what we effectively need, as Vice Chairman Hamilton said, is some superior authority over the information sharing part of this process. And, that 

is the reason why there is the call for the National Intelligence Director. 

I have a real concern about it all, because as we all know, the 

IAIP directorate was set by Congress and the Executive branch to 

address the information sharing issues. What I have seen is that 

in a year and one half, we are at the point where it is all starting 

to come together. The right people have been hired, and we are beginning to set up protocols and standards that are beginning to be 

used. And I am worried about starting over, and I am worried 

about layering bureaucracies on top of each other. 
88

General Hughes and Mr. Brennan, you two are going to be the 

ones who are going to probably most directly be impacted. I know 

the President has said he supports the idea of the national director. 

I don’t expect you are going to be able to tell me as definitively or 

not whether you are, as well, concerned, but it is a concern I have 

in the creation of that position or any others. And I just don’t know 

how it is going to work. I think it is important that we deliberate 

this in the next couple of weeks. 

Mr. Black, can you guarantee that relevant information we receive from foreign partners gets to the FBI? 

Mr. BLACK. The systems are in place. As an example, we have 

communications connectivity where the FBI has access to the traffic that we produce. We spent a lot of our time supporting the various elements, the practitioners of counterterrorism, whether it be 

intelligence, FBI and the rest. So we have an FBI officer in my office whose sole job is to facilitate this process. 

Mr. SWEENEY. Ms. Baginski, that is happening? You are getting 

it into the threat integration center networks and it is getting out 

there? 

Ms. BAGINSKI. Yes, sir. But I wouldn’t be passing it to threat integration. That actually happens from Cofer’s organization itself. 

Mr. SWEENEY. So that is happening? 

Mr. BLACK. Sure. 

Mr. SWEENEY. One hundred percent capacity? How much improvement? How do we measure that? 

Mr. BLACK. In terms of all of our cable traffic, it has full 

connectivity with the screening elements. So that, as an example, 

everything that we have, Visa Viper mechanism, which is a retrievable terrorist information system, is made available, 100 percent of 

it, to the Terrorist Threat Integration Center and the Terrorist 

Screening Center. And we have plugged in the system that we 

started off and contributed—TIC, the tip-off program, has been 

moved, so I think we are well ahead of the curve in making the 

information collected by the Department of State—

Mr. SWEENEY. Are we fully exchanging information with India, 

who has had hundreds of years of fighting Islamic extremists? Are 

we fully engaged in the exchange of information? 

Mr. BLACK. We are fully engaged. I am always queasy when we 

use figures like 100 percent. There is not much in life that I would 

raise my hand to 100 percent on. But I could tell you— 

Mr. SWEENEY. That is why you want us to quantify things? 

Mr. BLACK. In all professional candor, this process has gone forward tremendously and that the impetus is on making all of the 

information that we have available to the practitioners of 

counterterrorism. 

Mr.Sweeney. Okay, Mr. Brennan, do all the analysts at TTIC receive full access to databases which TTIC has access to, or do providing agencies limit distribution of that information? 

Mr. BRENNAN. As I mentioned, we have over 22 networks that 

come into TTIC. Access within TTIC is based on what the role and 

the function of the analysts are, and so many analysts have access 

to many—most all of the information streams. All of them don’t 

need all of the access. 
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Mr. SWEENEY. Could I follow up and have a real sense of the protocols that are in place there? 

Mr. BRENNAN. Sure. 

Mr. SWEENEY. Last question to you—have a couple more I am 

going to ask others for the record—but do you believe that some 

terrorist organizations have the intention, organizational capabilities, or technical acumen to produce and deliver a nuclear weapon 

to U.S. cities? 

Mr. BRENNAN. I do not believe at the current moment that any 

terrorist organization has the capability to do that. I believe that 

terrorist organizations are pursuing a nuclear capability to include 

radiological devices, nuclear devices and other types of materiel. 

But I don’t believe they have the capability right now to do that 

right now. No. 

Mr. SWEENEY. Thank you. I thank the Chair. 

Chairman COX. [Presiding.] The gentlelady from Texas, Ms. 

Jackson-Lee. 

Ms. JACKSON-LEE. I thank the Chair very much and the Ranking 

Member for both convening this meeting, and I thank him for allowing me to pursue the line of questioning relating to the importance of the work of this body and the need to reconvene with the 

two members of the 9/11 Commission. I must say, Mr. Chairman, 

that in conversations with both the Governor and the Co-Chair 

Hamilton both agreed to welcome both an invitation and to return 

before this committee. 

Because, as I said in the open session and as I have said in this 

direct conversation with them, this is ours, and our work is securing the homeland. Abbreviated hearings, mixed with no congressional and executive action, giving no legislative direction to the securing of the homeland is playing with fire. It almost reminds me 

of Rome burning while music plays. So I would just start out by 

saying then that I call upon the Speaker of the House to convene 

a session in Congress so that the legislative matters that need to 

be acted upon the 9/11 Commission Report can be done now and 

can be done immediately. 

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to submit into the 

record the first page of the legislation that I have offered giving 

Cabinet status to the National Intelligence Director—

Chairman COX. Without objection, so ordered. 

Ms. JACKSON-LEE. —which would oversee budget operations and 

personnel of the entire Intelligence Community. 

[The information follows:]
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Ms. JACKSON-LEE. Let me qualify it is Cabinet status without the 

responsibilities of policy. It will be operational, but that individual 

will have budgetary responsibility and control. It is crucial that 

these legislative initiatives be able to be filed and that we act upon 

them immediately. 

Let me thank the panel, and I realize that we may be at a disadvantage for some of the concerns that I have, because, as I indicated, I frankly believe that Rome is burning and that we are literally playing with fire. 

In conversations that have gone on that have evidenced themselves in the press, it is well-known that some terrorist act is expected before the elections. It is also well-known that we as Americans will not be intimidated, but certainly Congress has a crucial 

responsibility to be able to be part of the firewall, if you will, in 

protecting the American people. We cannot do that in an abbreviated framework, albeit with respect to our committee leadership, 

and with a Congress that is not in session. 

So, first of all, I think that we must frame this in a way that 

Co-Chair Hamilton said, and that is to smash the stovepipe on intelligence. Because the very core of the disaster of 9/11 was the 

lack of transferring intelligence as it was needed. 

So I would clearly like to hear from this group your sense of 

smashing the stovepipe and whether or not you believe it will 

interfere with competitive analysis. I say that straightforwardly, 

because I believe that our previous director, certainly a distinguished public servant, failed us in the inability to see the big picture, as did our other agencies pre-9/11. 

Likewise, there was a failure in oversight in the intelligence disseminated on Iraq, and there was no objectivity as I perceived it 

in our Intelligence Community. It was only a ‘‘yes, sir, yes, boss’’ 

attitude in terms of taking America to war. 

That is my first question. 

The second is, any impressions, Mr. Brennan or General Hughes 

on a national I.D. card? My understanding is the Commission, has 

not, has not, has not confirmed or recommended such. Your view 

of that. 

Civil liberties, I would like your view on the implementation of 

a board inside of the intelligence center that will be created that 

will oversee the protection of civil liberties. 

And I would appreciate, Ms. Baginski, your comment on the 

FBI’s seeming siege on peace activists in the United States and 

whether that has anything to do with protecting the homeland. 

And lastly, the need for border security to be combined with intelligence, meaning to enhance the capabilities of border personnel 

in securing intelligence. 

If I could get an answer to at least one of those questions since 

the Nation is at crisis. 

Mr. Brennan. 

Mr. BRENNAN. I will start. First of all, smashing the stovepipes 

and competitive analysis, I think we are all committed to smashing 

any stovepipes that remain. It is not sufficient though just to share 

hard copy information. It is important to have an information technology architecture that allows institutions to share information 

with institutions so that in fact you can search, retrieve that infor-
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mation in a systemic manner, as opposed to having a lot of different hard copy files. That is not what we need, because there are 

so many different elements of the U.S. government that need that 

information. We need to put in place that architecture. 

Competitive analysis, I am fully supportive of competitive analysis but done thoughtfully, as opposed to unnecessary redundancy 

that wastes resources. And, as I said in my statement, what we 

need to do is have a framework that allows for allocation of roles 

and responsibilities to include the assignment of competitive or alternative analysis. 

Regarding national ID cards, I would refer to DHS on that, but 

what I would do is say the administration is looking at different 

standards and biometrics that in fact makes sense to apply at borders in other orders. 

Civil liberties, since TTIC has access to so much data, we take 

very seriously the protection of U.S. citizens’ rights and privacy obligations and we are committed to working with the rest of the government as far as having some type of board that in fact look at 

those issues very seriously. 

General HUGHES. And I will have my views that we definitely believe in breaking or ending any barriers that exist. The term stovepipe is a little bit emotional, as far as I am concerned. We are in 

favor of horizontal and vertical integration at every part of the government, if we can get it. We are in favor of protecting civil liberties at every opportunity. I personally am and so is the Department. We are in favor of a board to oversee if this is a necessary 

development. 

We are also working on the national I.D. card issue. It is more 

complex than simply saying, yes, we are in favor of it or, no, we 

are not. It has great implications for the United States, and one of 

the implications is the civil liberties of individuals. We have to deal 

with that, and so we are considering the issue. 

Ms. JACKSON-LEE. Well, obviously, General Hughes, you will do 

that with the consent of Congress, because there are those of us 

who are not conceding a national I.D. card and particularly I do not 

sense and did not read that the Commission recommended a national I.D. card, and that is correct? 

General HUGHES. That is correct. 

Ms. JACKSON-LEE. Thank you, sir. 

Ms. BAGINSKI. Yes, ma’am, on two issues. Stovepipes are not necessarily all bad. A stovepipe around an area of expertise, an analytical area of expertise, a center, if you will, is not something that 

necessarily would be negative. 

But what I would say is we have done a remarkable job unifying 

our disparate collection resources against threats, and I think that 

is the core of the progress that we have made over time. 

In response to your question about the articles that appeared in 

the New York Times, the—both the Democratic National Convention and the Republican National Convention have been designated 

national security special events. In accordance with that, every effort is made to insure that any threat to the security of that event 

is taken care of within the confines of the Constitution and the law 

as we always do. There is absolutely no truth to the allegation that 
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any of these things were undertaken outside of predication and 

outside the bounds of the Constitution. 

I understand the press article. I did read it. I understand the 

concerns of citizens. But I also know the organization that I work 

in, and these were all done with regard for specific intelligence that 

caused us to have concerns about attempts to disrupt this event, 

and we had a similar series of events for the Democratic National 

Convention. 

Ms. JACKSON-LEE. Well, I would ask that any peace activist that 

believes that they have been intimidated just for their opposition 

and first amendment rights need to be contacting both Members of 

Congress who are concerned, and I hope that you will be responsive 

to our calls regarding this intimidation. 

Ms. BAGINSKI. Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. JACKSON-LEE. Security is one thing, but intimidation and oppression is another thing. 

Chairman COX. The gentlelady’s time has expired. 

Ms. BAGINSKI. We would be very anxious, ma’am, to have those 

reports and deal with that. 

Ms. JACKSON-LEE. I thank you very much, thank you. 

I thank the gentleman. 

Chairman COX. Are there other members of the panel that would 

like to address any of the questions that have been put? 

Mr. BLACK. I would just add one concluding remark. I think the 

stovepipe issue is very important. We are trying to institutionalize 

this. I think, Congresswoman, it is not only institutional but employees and individuals involved in this process don’t have to put 

in Herculean efforts all the time. 

I think in the past we have been relying on the work ethic of people working around the clock in defense of this country. What we 

are trying to do is put in a system that lends itself to people routinely doing their job in a more productive way. We no longer the 

have the luxury to rely upon people working around the clock with 

no sleep, and I think we are heading in that direction. 

I would also underscore that my exposure to this issue in terms 

of civil liberties is that we are very and profoundly interested in 

this. We are in the business of defending America, and America is 

based upon civil liberties. They go together. You can’t have one 

without the other. 

Chairman COX. The gentleman from Oklahoma, Mr. Istook. 

Ms. JACKSON-LEE. Thank you. 

Mr. ISTOOK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I would like to address to the panel the issue of blind spots. We 

are all concerned, of course, realizing that terrorists want to attack 

us where we are not expecting it. We recognize the great symbolic 

value of attacks upon icons such as the World Trade Center, the 

U.S. Capitol or the Pentagon. Yet, being from Oklahoma City, I am 

certainly aware that terrorism can strike in the heartland. 

It can strike where it is unexpected. In fact, that is the goal of 

terrorists is to do so. I am also aware that terrorism does not necessarily come totally from foreign nationals. Again, I cite the Oklahoma City example, although it was for different motives than AlQa’ida is pursuing. 
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But I would like the members of the panel to address these aspects. For example, in the testimony this morning, when we are 

talking about the great desire of people to blend into the landscape 

and to acquire documentation that will help them to escape detection—Mr. Kean certainly testified that terrorists are most vulnerable when they are traveling. So we have established networks, 

and we are trying to make them more robust, with the entry and 

exit programs focused mostly again on foreign nationals. Yet we 

have not only a great number of people who are in the country illegally, but we also have people who are American citizens that are 

involved in things, not just a Tim McVeigh. We have the American 

Taliban we have arrested that have been made up of American citizens in connection with foreign activities. 

One thing that I did not see, and perhaps I overlooked it, but did 

not see among the Commission’s recommendations was focusing on 

better screening in the naturalization process where someone wishes to become an American citizen, wishes to acquire a U.S. passport, to enable them to escape some levels of scrutiny. 

We had several years ago a situation where some people said it 

was 50,000, some will say it was 100,000, people who applied to become American citizens were not put through the routine criminal 

background screenings. I do not know, and you perhaps can tell 

me, of any access to these information systems that is part of the 

naturalization process currently to make sure that the same level 

of screening that we are applying to people that want to come in 

and out of the country freely applies to people who want that great 

credential of U.S. citizenship and thus access to U.S. passports. 

So I would appreciate the panel addressing how much of a potential blind spot we have when we either do not put enough focus on 

the soft targets or fail to recognize that some of the targets may 

have American citizenship or may be pursuing American citizenship. 

General HUGHES. Perhaps I will start, since primary responsibilities lies with the Department of Homeland Security for these 

issues. I think I have got two questions here. 

Mr. ISTOOK. Yes. 

General HUGHES. The question of blind spots, especially dealing 

with documentation of proof of who you are and what you are 

doing, there are a variety of issues at work here, but the primary 

one is to focus on those persons that either have documentation 

that is questionable or illicit more—or on those persons who have 

a history or record we have now recorded in databases and in other 

ways that tells us that there are terrorists or terrorist-connected 

persons. 

That testimony is not perfect, sir—and I would be the first one 

to admit that—but working; and it is being improved all the time. 

The good news is that once again I think something that began 

before the Commission and the 9/11 report is—continues until this 

day is attempting to coordinate, collate and interact with all of the 

databases and all of the repositories of information. 

Mr. Istook. Is that being done in the naturalization screening 

processes? 

General HUGHES. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. Our Office of Citizenship 

and Immigration Services is the office that undertakes that. They 
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are not as fully integrated yet into the system as they will be in 

the future because when we absorbed them they were an analog organization largely. They are making rapid process to bring themselves into the digital environment, as Ms. Lofgren and others have 

remarked on here earlier, and that is an ongoing process. 

I would like to just mention that the idea of blind spots is of 

great importance certainly to all of us here, I think, and we have 

detected instances where American citizens, where people with 

very, very good documentation who were indeed terrorists or terrorist connected have been able to travel or transit in some way 

across our borders. We regret that. We are trying hard to figure out 

how to solve it. 

I think in the case of the American citizens who do want to do 

ill to the United States, we are not dealing there with identity, 

mirror identity. We are dealing also with their belief system, their 

values and their actions, and that is a more difficult kind of thing 

to reduce to a data entry that will show that in every case. 

So we are trying to come to grips with that, but it is at that time 

primarily an interface process where we come to those persons, understand their actions or their professions, the views and ideas that 

they give, and then we deal with them on that basis. But their documentation or their previous identity may not show anything else 

at all that is wrong. 

Mr. ISTOOK. Other panelists. 

Mr. BRENNAN. The issue of blank spots is a very important one, 

and that is why I am a strong advocate of making sure that there 

is an allocation of responsibilities. Because there is a vast horizon 

of issues that need coverage from an analytic as well as a collection 

perspective, and the more that we can identify that universe and 

that horizon and assign responsibilities the better chance we are 

going to be able to cover that horizon. 

On the issue of individuals here in the States who may in fact 

be part of transnational terrorist groups, the Homeland Security 

Presidential Directive 6, HSPD–6, that was promulgated last September streamlined the whole watchlisting and database process. It 

is still in the process of being streamlined and overhauled, but in 

the past when there were 12 different databases and nine different 

departments and agencies, that no longer is the case. 

There is the terrorist screening center. That falls on the FBI that 

has responsibilities for and in fact providing the support to those 

screeners and watchlisters. TTIC now has the national responsibility to maintain the national database on known and suspected 

transnational terrorists to include U.S. citizens who are here in the 

United States. So we have absorbed from the State Department the 

tip-off program that has been in existence for close to 20 years. We 

are putting into that the names of U.S. citizens who are known or 

purported to be part of transnational terrorist groups, and we work 

very closely with the FBI on domestic terrorism responsibilities. 

Mr. ISTOOK. And would that show up on a background check for 

someone seeking U.S. Citizenship? 

Chairman COX. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Mr. ISTOOK. Thank you. 

Chairman COX. But the panel may address the question further 

if you choose to do so. 
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If not, the gentlelady from the Virgin Islands. 

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am going to go 

right into my questions. 

Welcome, panelists. I wanted to follow up on the question on the 

board to protect civil rights and liberties, because my understanding is that the recommendation is that the board would insure that the government is adhering to guidelines and protocols 

for protecting civil rights and civil liberties. Can one person answer 

for me? Are there guidelines and protocols in place at this time for 

the government to adhere to? 

Ms. BAGINSKI. Speaking from the FBI perspective, there clearly 

are those guidelines. We conduct all of our intelligence activities 

and all of our investigative activity under the attorney general 

guidelines that were just recently updated; and they give us those 

guidelines, clear guidelines, for predication for when one can collect 

information on U.S. citizens and under what circumstances. So 

those guidelines are in place and have been in place for many 

years, yes. 

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. OK. Unless we get good-quality intelligence, 

the best organization and collaboration won’t help to give the people of this country the kind of protection they deserve. 

I wanted to raise an issue that I wanted to ask the last panel 

about, which is diversity within the Intelligence Community, and 

it also speaks to how the data will be analyzed. We are dealing 

with people from a faraway country, different cultures, different 

ways of approaching things. What is the level of diversity, for example, within the FBI, TTIC? My experience in speaking with people within the Intelligence Community, from the African American 

point of view, is that they are few and far between and even rarer 

at the top of the spectrum. So what is it and to what extent are 

you seeking actively to bring diversity into the Intelligence Community? 

Ms. BAGINSKI. I think the DCI—former DCI Tenet in fact led a 

very, very focused study of this issue; and I know that I in fact testified in front of this group on behalf of the FBI. Within the FBI, 

there is very great diversity among our intelligence analyst program. So I will just speak for that portion, not for the law enforcement portion. 

What I would say is that your observation is correct in terms of 

African Americans and leadership positions, but we have a very 

healthy diversity, both in terms of gender—what Director Mueller’s 

guidance to me is is to bring in people who understand the cultures, that we are actually—that we are actually analyzing that 

and that we are actually studying, as that is part of a very focused 

recruiting process, 33 recruiters focused on universities to be able 

to bring that kind of diversity thinking. 

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. So that focused somewhat also on HPCUs 

and Hispanic surveys of Americans? 

Ms. BAGINSKI. Yes, ma’am. 

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Anyone else? TTIC want to answer? 

Mr. BRENNAN. TTIC doesn’t have direct hiring authority. We rely 

on the different agencies and the departments. But integration by 

definition is diversity, and so what we are trying to do is make 
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sure we have that diversity perspective which includes diversity in 

terms of background. 

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. OK. One of the other recommendations is on 

incentive for information sharing. Personally, I don’t see incentives 

as being the answer, because I believe that we should have a centralized system and one director. But if there were incentives for 

information sharing, what would you envision them to be? 

Mr. BRENNAN. I agree with you completely that the reference in 

the 9/11 Commission to creating incentives to better balance security with information sharing, I believe it should be institutionalized, not incentivized. You want to make sure that you are able to 

facilitate that flow of information and require and mandate, in fact, 

that information be shared and so not leave it discretionary. What 

you need to do is put together a framework, though, that is sensible, that you can protect information as well as get it out. 

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Can I just follow up with you? 

Mr. Brennan, because you talk about—you said—talked several 

times about the architecture that needs to be in place to facilitate 

this, to what extent is any of it in place at this point? Where are 

we in having the kind of infrastructure to facilitate the collaboration and the sharing of information? 

Mr. BRENNAN. I think there are many pieces of an architecture 

in place. But when we talk about a national architecture, you are 

talking about a very complicated multidimensional architectural 

system that in fact is trying to take shape right now. The FBI and 

DHS and other departments and agencies have their systems and 

networks that they are trying to interact with. 

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. But some of them don’t talk to each other. 

Some of them are not able to talk to each other. 

Mr. BRENNAN. That is a question in terms of interoperability. 

That is why we have to look from a government-wide perspective 

across all the departments and agencies. But then it is complicated 

by the fact you are bringing in State and local entities and local 

law enforcement that have their own systems, and so this is a challenge of, you know, enormous magnitude, and I think—

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. So are we at the beginning of that process? 

Are we just at zero? 

Ms. BAGINSKI. No, actually, ma’am, I don’t think that we are at 

zero at all. In fact, in terms of the Intelligence Community classified architecture, that is very well established and we have been 

joining it. 

I think in terms of the secret level and then in the sensitive but 

unclassified level there have been enormously positive efforts between DHS and the FBI to take the existing sensitive but unclassified infrastructure and join it with the DHS architecture so that 

they interoperate and so that information appears seamlessly to 

the users so that they don’t have to actually worry about whose 

network that was actually carrying on. So I think there is very 

positive work going on there. 

And in terms of incentives for information sharing, I happen to 

agree with John. I don’t think he can do this through incentives, 

so we have actually done it through rules, which is essentially—

we have created a category of information that is required to share, 
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and our authoring tool for reports requires the first version to be 

written at a low classification. 

General HUGHES. Would you mind if I gave a brief follow-on? 

Chairman COX. Please do. 

General HUGHES. I would like to tell you last week we convened 

324 persons from States, the territories and possessions, from a few 

localities here in D.C. and began in the process of training them 

in the handling of U.S. Federal Government information up to the 

Secret level. The system that will provide that information to them 

is also being fielded now. It is almost complete, called the Homeland Security Information Network, which was complementary and 

parallel with the JTTF structure from the FBI and other systems 

that are in use throughout the country. So we are definitely more 

than talking about or thinking about this. We are doing it, and we 

are some distance into it. 

Chairman COX. The Chairman will recognize himself for 5 minutes. 

Ms. Baginski, as the person responsible within the FBI for information sharing and also as part of a bureau that has nearly 100 

JTTFs operating, not to mention the field offices and so on, do you 

see it as the role of the FBI to take the lead on information sharing 

with State and local governments? 

Ms. BAGINSKI. We actually see it as the responsibilities of DHS 

and the FBI to speak from the Federal level to the various components of State and local government. In our case, we are focused 

on the law enforcement community. In DHS’s case, they are focused on the municipal and the private sector. 

Chairman COX. I am not quite sure I understand how that 

works. What you are saying is that information that is finished intelligence, analytical product, is in some cases shared by DHS with 

State and local government and some cases shared by FBI, but 

there isn’t anyone with a lead on it? 

Mrs. BAGINSKI. Actually, what General Hughes and I have 

done—and I think we are both enormously proud of it—when those 

communications occur, we have been doing them in the form of bulletins. I think you probably recognize those. Before, we were in a 

position where the FBI was issuing its own to the local law enforcement community and the DHS was issuing its own to the municipal and government and private sector. 

What we have done is we issue now one bulletin, one set of information with both seals, so that the Federal voice to the local community is a single voice, and I think that is a very positive step 

forward that we have worked as a personal partnership and that 

our folks have executed very, very well over the past couple of 

months. 

Chairman COX. So there isn’t a customer that is getting information from FBI that is not under the aegis of DHS? 

Ms. BAGINSKI. Yes, there is. 

Chairman COX. There is. What customers are those? 

Ms. BAGINSKI. The Intelligence Community is one of those customers. We, I think, as you know—

Chairman COX. I am sorry, talking within the realm of State and 

local governments in the private sector? 

Ms. BAGINSKI. Uh-huh. 
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Chairman COX. Any customers within that realm? 

Ms. BAGINSKI. Yes, I think it is fair to say in the State and local 

law enforcement community, we are, in fact, producing a number 

of intelligence assessments to include the raw intelligence that we 

produce that the Director of the FBI is actually responsible for producing; and through a number of mechanisms, to include our law 

enforcement online sensitive but unclassified Web-based network, 

we are posting intelligence assessments and raw intelligence for 

passage for our State and local partners at the same time that we 

are passing it to our partners at the Department of Homeland Security. 

Chairman COX. We have simultaneously the bulletins going out 

which are jointly produced by DHS and FBI and we have things 

going directly from FBI that don’t go through DHS? Same customers? 

Ms. BAGINSKI. That is correct. And I think it is important to note 

here that you might be thinking about just terrorism, but you understand that we have three other missions as well, and there is 

the traditional criminal mission, where we produce a lot of intelligence that is of direct use to State and local law enforcement. 

Chairman COX. Could be, but I am not addressing my question 

to that. 

Ms. BAGINSKI. I am sorry. 

Chairman COX. I am addressing my question entirely to the—

Ms. BAGINSKI. Counterterrorism. 

Chairman COX. —issue that we have been focused on this in this 

hearing. 

Ms. BAGINSKI. I am sorry, this is actual information that goes to 

State and local law enforcement and, of course, our JTTF constructs which is, of course, our operational arm. Information is in 

fact going in there to the JTTFs to take action on as well as the 

DHS, and the elements of DHS are partners in that. 

But when you ask me the information—is there specific information, State and local, not going to DHS, our answer is yes. Our bulletins are putting threat information in perspective and giving 

State and local authorities a sense of what countermeasures they 

can take and be on the lookout for. 

Chairman COX. I am sorry. My time is just about running out. 

I want to get to one other aspect here. 

My question is that I don’t think we have yet licked the problem 

of complete coordination between the Federal Government, certainly not through DHS and the State and local governments and 

the private sector customers for finished intelligence products. That 

raises then the question about the National Counterterrorist Center and the degree to which it might be viewed by some people, 

now that it is in the planning stages, as acquiring the responsibility that I think by statute now in section 201 under the Homeland Security Act is given to DHS. 

General Hughes, since my time has expired, let me leave that 

question in your lap. What do you think we are headed for in terms 

of the executive branch’s points of view on this? Is the National 

Counterterrorism Center going to be in the role of distributing information to State and local governments? Is DHS going to want 

to continue to do this, FBI or TTIC, or is TTIC going to be sub-
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sumed in this? We don’t know any more than what we read in the 

newspapers about this right now. While you are at it, what do you 

think will happen to IA in all of this process? 

General HUGHES. I think the process and the point we were discussing, these issues, I don’t think decisions have been made. If 

they are, I am not aware of them. 

With regard to the idea that supposed that information will flow 

from the National Counterterrorism Center out to the States and 

localities, there is some discussion about that, how it will go, 

whether it goes through DHS or through law enforcement channels 

or through a direct channel. Because we certainly could do it directly. And, by the way, probably concurrently to not only the respondents of the State and local but also to Federal partners, much 

as Ms. Baginski just described, that has yet to be determined. 

That is one of the many—I would say many thousands of details 

we have to work through here. But certainly it is intended for the 

National Counterterrorism Center to be the focal point for threat 

assessments regarding terrorism for the United States. So I can assume from that title, that idea, that concept, that if the NCTC embraces that mission, they will be issuing products that one way or 

another through a variety of conduits will go to the State and local 

level in our country. 

Chairman COX. Mr. Etheridge. 

Mr. ETHERIDGE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Folks, we are here today because of this report. We would not 

have a meeting in August if it weren’t for this 9/11 Commission, 

a Commission that many people in this body opposed and people 

in high office didn’t want to happen. But because the families 

pushed hard and some Members did, we are here, and I want to 

thank them and the families, because they more than anyone else 

bear a lot of the burden of 9/11, and we want to fix that problem. 

The previous testimony from two speakers talked about a problem that we face, one of many. I am going to ask my question, and 

I want each of you to comment on it, because they discussed the 

inordinate amount of classification of intelligence data, data and information that no one has any doubt about what it is, not really 

sure that it is secret, classified, et cetera, and that information is 

then out of the public domain. 

Over the last couple of weeks I have had the opportunity to visit 

with a lot of police officers, police departments, fire departments, 

rescue squads and people that we say we really want to be in touch 

with, that we really need their help and their input. We are now 

just talking about the information that we are going to get to them. 

The problem is we don’t get them the information quickly and we 

classify stuff that shouldn’t be classified that would help. 

I remember in the last several weeks—whether it comes to anything or not—a police officer just doing his duty saw someone in 

Charlotte filming buildings, may not mean anything. But that is 

how we get the job done. But if we classify everything that crosses 

our desk, they won’t get the information. 

So my question is this—and I don’t think there is an adequate 

flow of information getting to locals, either that or the people I am 

talking with are not being honest with me, and I think they are 

being honest with me. I just think they are not getting the informa-
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tion. I would like for each of you to discuss any attempt that your 

organizations are making to coordinate and revise the classification 

strategies that would make the accuracy, the collection and the effective information available to the first responders across this 

country and what is being done to put the stamps of classification 

to the side when it doesn’t have to be put there. I think this is a 

huge problem that no one is doing any talking about yet. Because 

if we move all the blocks and the chairs we want to on the decks 

of the Titanic, if we keep doing that, we never get the information 

out in time no matter how many people we move and change. 

Whoever would like to go first. 

Mr. BLACK. I guess I have been elected to start. 

I think you have asked one of the most profound questions for 

the future of this issue. I think it is important to note that essentially we are in a different environment than we were in the past. 

This is not the Cold War. The Cold War was slow and ponderous. 

It rewarded attention to detail. It rewarded secrecy. It rewarded 

keeping secrets from as many as possible to protect the source. 

Immediate response to the high-velocity threat of terrorism requires accurate information, yet it requires speed. So I think the 

correct solution is to move away from where we were in the past. 

Speed counts, information has to be disseminated quickly so that 

people can take action to protect, especially since we are not interested in writing a intelligence report for its own sake. We are interested in using this information so it can protect people. 

In the overall context, this is where we are going. This is the future. There is the caveat that has to be the preserve of the Intelligence Community and the FBI, and that is to protect those 

sources that do need protection. 

Sometimes sources that are highly significant are rare. They 

need to be protected. But I think the community is working on 

that, and I would have to defer to Mr. Hughes and Mr. Brennan. 

But there is an effort in this direction. 

So I think the answer—the response to your question would be, 

in the past everything was classified because it was slow and ponderous. Now you require speed for action purposes, yet at the same 

time we have to increasingly identify those several sources of those 

limited numbers of sources that need to be protected, because they 

are so hard to replace. 

Ms. BAGINSKI. Yes, sir. I would like to comment on that. I think 

you have asked a very, very important question. 

Our initiatives are twofold. The first is to separate the information from the source; and we think that can, in fact, be done. As 

long as you try to merge those two things, you are often dealing 

in a very difficult classification situation. 

At the same time, when you separate those two things, we do require from the FBI analyst a source commentary that attests to the 

pedigree of the information, which generally can be described as 

the degree of separation of the source from the actual information 

itself and some characterization about its reliability. So there are 

two things, separation that allows us to write it to release it at the 

lowest classification in accordance with a DCI directive, I might 

add, a DCI directive that has been on the books since 1989 or be-
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fore, requiring us to alternate at the lowest possible classification 

level. 

Mr. BRENNAN. It is not just an issue regarding classification. It 

is the entire way that data is originated within the U.S. government. We need to reengineer that origination process. 

And, as Maureen said, right to release, so that the technology exists right now that the thread of information that is required overseas can move at the speed of light all the way down to the police 

chief in a local jurisdiction where the thread of information focuses 

on. 

But the policies and practices and procedures have to be put in 

place to reduce the number of human interventions that are required as the case exists right now. So what we need to do is—the 

natural default over the years in the intelligence business has been 

to declassify something. It is changing that mindset to make sure 

that the first piece out of the box in fact goes to the classified level 

that can go to the first responder or somebody else. Then you can 

follow with the more detailed, sensitive information. 

General HUGHES. I will just give three short bursts here. 

We are routinely producing in this community highly-classified 

information with tearlines or excerpts out of the information that 

are either at a reduced classification level or at unclassified level, 

sensitive but unclassified or law enforcement sensitive, that can be 

sent out to the field. That is an ongoing mechanism, and it seems 

to be working very well. It may not be yet where we would like it 

to be, but it is certainly a big improvement over the past. 

Second, we have direct automated communications that are or 

were at the unclassified level every day going to all of the States. 

Many of the localities in this country are also receiving that information. It is not all-inclusive. We are Federal officers. We are 

bound to protect according to the law, the information we invest so 

much in and worked so hard to get. So we are doing the best we 

can right now with this effort. 

I would also mention telephone calls, sir. Many of us make telephone calls. I personally make them to persons who are not—who 

do not have available to them some other kind of communication 

system that works. Sometimes those calls are secure, over classified telephone systems. Sometimes they are unclassified over the 

regular telephone system. Depends on the information. But that is 

happening now. 

And the last point I would like to make to you is classification 

is really not a barrier to the communication of information if indeed the information indicates an impending act or a crisis or some 

kind of a problem that needs to be acted upon immediately. I can 

look you and any Member here in the eye and tell you that we will 

get that information out of its classified restricted environment and 

give it to the people who need it as rapidly as possible. 

Chairman COX. Thank you. 

The gentlelady from Washington. 

Ms. DUNN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Welcome to our panel today. It is very helpful, your testimony. 

We have appreciated it. 

I have a couple of questions. I was very happy to hear Ms. 

Baginski talk about metrics being involved. Now measurements of 
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success, those are vitally important, and we take them seriously, 

but we also all know that structural change such as the sort of 

change we have gone through with the Department of Homeland 

Security can be as rational as possible and yet not really work because of cultural problems. 

I am interested in asking you, first of all, what sort of challenges 

have you run into in terms of the culture of the organizations that 

you lead. In two of the cases, General Hughes, Mr. Brennan, you 

are leading new agencies since 9/11. You are dealing with details 

from legacies, responsibilities. Some of you are having problems attracting talent to come to work in your departments. What have 

you done within your departments since 9/11 to make sure that we 

can meet some of the—that we already have some of the shortcomings that were listed in the 9/11 Commission’s report, and what 

do you have left to do? 

Mr. BRENNAN. First of all, as far as we in TTIC have different 

representatives, there are assignees in the different organizations, 

people have asked how do you bring those different cultures? Quite 

frankly, we haven’t had to work at it. Because if you give people 

an important mission like terrorism, you give them access to information across the U.S. Government. You find that they will work 

together seamlessly and collaboratively in a way that they haven’t 

done before. So we feel as though there is a real benefit of the integration and colocation of these individuals with information systems. 

This has been working in concert with FBI, DHS, CIA and others 

to bring together this—what I refer to as an architecture that is 

not just information technology architecture, it is also the business 

practices and interactions. 

So I think one of the things that we represent up here is that 

we have regular interaction. And if we have the interaction at senior levels, the individuals who are working on the challenges really 

feel at liberty to be sharing this information among themselves to 

find the ways that they can in fact facilitate that sharing of information. 

General HUGHES. I would like to give you just two quick answers 

here. 

First is what we have done since 9/11, and in my case we are 

a couple of months beyond a year old, in organizational terms. Our 

mere—the mere fact that we have come into being is a response to 

the need for some organizational entity to provide an umbrella for 

many disparate organizations to work under the Department of 

Homeland Security and then to use the power of those organizational elements that were legacy organizations to feed information 

into a central repository, a central location and interact in the Federal and the State and local environment to make sure that information has utility. That is the single biggest thing I can think of. 

We have many other issues, but I think that is enough on that 

topic. 

I would like to say that the idea that it was hard to get legacy 

organization personnel to work together, in my case, is the same 

as John Brennan has characterized it. If you give them a mission 

and if you give them an identity, especially that goes with that 

mission, an organizational identity or even perhaps a philosophical 
104

identity, they will do the job very well. They are, in fact, patriots 

as much as they are any other members of an organization. 

So on behalf of the country, I haven’t encountered any problems 

with people working together. Once they come into the Department 

of Homeland Security, they do very, very well together. 

Mr. BLACK. I would just say that personally the threat of terrorism is not foreign to the State Department. We all know we 

have had our embassies overseas and Foreign Service personnel 

being blown up and dying in large numbers over the years. So this 

is not anything new to us under the leadership of Secretary of 

State Powell. He has reinforced in the minds of our employees but 

also the mission. 

When we talk about counterterrorism, things come to mind like 

the FBI, CIA and the rest. The reality is that the Department of 

State has the privacy to be able to enable these other agencies, 

these practitioners of counterterrorism, to be able to do their work 

overseas and to prepare for that. To facilitate it, we have changed 

completely how we do our business. New officers coming in receive 

training in counterterrorism. Our consular programs receive pro 

forma counterterrorism training, how to contribute to the system. 

New ambassadors coming in, whether they are career with years 

of experience or new political appointees, get training programs. 

They are provided education in counterterrorism and the like. 

We also have diplomatic security that does for us our threat assessments globablly around the world. We also, through diplomatic 

security, have programs that reach out to the business and private 

sector around the world. We have 81 different offices overseas. 

So—I mean, I have only been in the State Department a couple 

of years, having come from intelligence. The great thing about the 

State Department in the past was to protect U.S. persons overseas, 

to conduct diplomacy and to facilitate the process of containing the 

Soviet Union under the Cold War. Secretary Powell has completely 

changed that. Counterterrorism is one of our primary missions, and 

our success is important to the country, and we are determined to 

be successful in that regard. 

Ms. BAGINSKI. Ma’am, if I might, I think what is more interesting to me is I haven’t found the challenge—I think what I hear 

is what you have probably all heard, that there is something that 

is inherently incongruous between law enforcement operations and 

intelligence operations, and I can honestly say from the day I arrived there, I found just the opposite to be true. Just like my time 

working in DOD where we had fully integrated military operations 

and intelligence, what I have seen is fully integrated law enforcement operations and intelligence. 

I have also seen two very strong strengths that actually come 

from intelligence being in the law enforcement community, and 

they are very important, the first being that there is enormous attention paid to the pedigree of the source. That comes from the heritage of the law enforcement culture that says that they would 

have to appear in court, therefore, they must be credible, and we 

must check them out. It is incredibly important to our intelligence 

capability. That kind of attention to pedigree of sourcing is critical 

to a good intelligence capability. 
105

And the second I would say there is an enormous rigor and discipline in intelligence analysis that I find very comfortable for me, 

coming from the second world, which is that facts are facts and 

conjecture is marked as conjecture, and that also comes from the 

law enforcement community. 

My challenges, though, have to do with an organization that has 

long been optimized for one of its missions, its law enforcement 

mission, and not as optimized for its overall intelligence mission. 

So in terms of infrastructure, hiring, training, recruiting, those 

kinds of issues, those are where I have had to spend the majority 

of my time. 

Chairman COX. Mr. Langevin, the gentleman from Rhode Island. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to thank the panel for being here today and for your testimony. I could probably follow up on Ms. Dunn’s question in the 

area of organizational culture, start with that. 

It is clear from the findings of the 9/11 Commission report and 

subsequent things that we have heard in testimony, both on my 

work in Armed Services and also here at Homeland Security, that 

the way that we were fighting the war on terrorism, both before 

9/11 and in many ways after 9/11, was according to the way we 

fought the Cold War, using the Cold War battle plan, if you will. 

And clearly that plan may have been successful in winning the 

Cold War, but it is not going to work in fighting this war on terrorism. 

Now, Public Administration 101 will teach you that bureaucracies by their very nature are intransigent and that one of the 

most difficult things in changing the mission of an organization is 

changing its organizational culture. People basically keep doing 

things the way they have always done them because that is the 

way they have always done them. 

I really do want to hear more about and I want to focus on the 

issue of incentives and what is being done to encourage information 

sharing. Mr. Brennan, you said that you want to institutionalize 

this effort to information share. Ms. Baginski, you said you have 

done it basically through rulemaking. 

I have found in my experience that it doesn’t work that way. You 

have got to have incentives to get people to buy into this. You either have to terminate people that are there—bviously, you are not 

going to do that across all lines and terms of the various agencies 

that deal with this—or you have to incentivise people to buy into 

changing the mission. 

Clearly, patriotism is a major incentive. I will concede that. But 

there are also going to have to be additional things done to change 

the mission. So we need to focus on that, and I would like to hear 

more about that. 

The other thing I wanted to ask, my second question, is that the 

Commission’s recommendations for a National Intelligence Director 

have received a great deal of attention. In particular, I would like 

to ask about the recommendation that there be a Deputy of Homeland Intelligence, one of three deputies who would serve under the 

DNI. Basically, the Commission suggests that this role should be 

filled by either the Executive Assistant Director for Intelligence at 
106

FBI or the DHS Undersecretary of Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection. 

I would like to hear your thoughts on which of these two would 

be the best option and how we can insure cooperation between the 

FBI and IAIP, if only one of the two were directly represented in 

the Office of the National Intelligence Director as a deputy. 

A related question, is it even necessary or advisable to create 

these dual roles for certain intelligence officials? 

Ms. BAGINSKI. I will go to your first question and then the second 

one. I think the notion of incentives is very powerful, and I hope 

I didn’t misspeak. Rulemaking actually is a very strong incentive 

in the FBI through an inspections process, and what people get 

measured on is what they get evaluated on. 

So when you create those rules that say you must do the following and you follow that up by inspecting them and ensuring 

that they are doing it, that actually becomes my incentive. So I 

didn’t mean to suggest I was just writing manuals and hoping that 

they would—

Mr. LANGEVIN. So pay measurements are in some way associated 

with—

Ms. BAGINSKI. Yes. Yes. And then I think the other big incentive 

for us is to actually change the critical elements on which agents 

are judged to include performance in source development and intelligence production, and those are going to be very, very strong incentives in our culture. 

So I think you and I are in violate agreement on what needs to 

be done, and we are searching for those things that actually work 

within a very proud and wonderful culture, actually, that the FBI 

has. 

To your second issue of the deputies, I think as you know, nothing is off the table in the discussions. There are very high-level discussions occurring now. The three of us have been involved in 

them, and there is a lot of discussion about what is—what are the 

details surrounding the implementation of this particular model 

and the President’s support for the NID, the national intelligence 

director. 

The more important question is, organization or not, how do the 

two of us ensure that we are actually sharing the information so 

that—in coordinating, so that we are providing the information. 

And I think that General Hughes and I did have an agreement—

and I know that he will tell me if we do not. I have a responsibility 

to produce raw information on all kinds of threats. 

So there are many missions where my path is very, very focused 

on the terrorism mission, and my job is to get him the dots and 

to get John Brennan the dots, frankly, so that they can produce the 

all-source analytic work and path in particular. General Hughes 

can then overlay them on the territory of the United States so that 

he can do the very hard analysis he has, which is to do vulnerability assessments and to provide countermeasures. 

So a good deal of our interaction is getting those relationships 

right. I have to serve John Brennan, and I have to serve Pat 

Hughes in order for both of them to be successful. So our 12,000 

collectors of information out there are passing that information in 

such a way that it reaches all who have to act on it. Pat acts in 
107

a certain domain. John Brennan acts in a certain domain, and 

Cofer Black acts in a certain domain, as well as do our State and 

local and tribal partners. I hope that made some sense. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you. 

Mr. BRENNAN. Maybe it is a difference in terms of our interpretation of the world scene, but I will stick with my earlier position 

that I don’t think settlements work. I believe enforcement and compliance of standards, rules, regulations and the law—and if you 

look at the memorandum of information signing that was signed by 

Attorney General Ashcroft, Secretary Ridge and DCI Tenet in 

March of 2003, it lays out very clearly what the obligations are, the 

very positive obligations on the part of the law enforcement and 

the intelligence community, and those obligations need to be enforced and complied with; and so therefore—whether it is not—you 

know, an evaluation of somebody’s performance, again, I don’t see 

incentives, because I see that as more discretionary. I want to have 

compliance enforcement and make sure that the obligations—the 

positive obligations on individuals are being fulfilled. 

As far as the deputy’s issues, I will defer to FBI and DHS on 

this, but I just don’t think that the model that is proposed by the 

9/11 Commission is workable. 

Chairman COX. The gentleman from Connecticut, Mr. Shays. 

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. All of you obviously are intricately involved in homeland security. I would like to know what you agreed 

with most with the 9/11, the recommendation that you thought was 

the soundest, the one you supported the most and the one you had 

the greatest reservation about. Why not the gentleman from Stamford, Connecticut answer first. 

Mr. BLACK. I think that is a good choice. I think in reading the 

report, the recommendation that jumps to mind is what I recall 

would have been the advantage of centralization in terms of leadership and resources. In this and other hearings, oftentimes you hear 

a lot of emphasis on an organizational chart, how essentially units 

would be integrated among themselves. 

I think in the past, we had very good people working very hard. 

I think it was over time from the 1990’s underresourced. So I personally have put the greatest weight on the centralization of having a director of national intelligence. I think that is a very good 

idea. 

I also like the idea of a director of national counterterrorism. As 

a customer now being at the State Department, because I think 

there is great advantage to have essentially one-stop shopping. 

Otherwise, it invariably puts me as the customer and the State Department into the business of having to evaluate competing analyses. Competition is good. I think competition is good among the 

collectors and those that analyze information. It is not necessarily 

good in terms of the customers. 

The recommendation—maybe a little outside of the reserve of 

this—that I am a bit apprehensive about is that the idea of having 

the Department of Defense assume complete responsibility for 

paramilitary affairs. On the one hand, I like this very much, the 

greatest fighting force known to man. These are the people to go 

to, but I also at the same time think the Central Intelligence Agency is very adept at the use of clandestinity and that type of activ-
108

ity. So what I would encourage would be a solidification, a merger, 

not necessarily one subsuming the other. 

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. 

Mr. HUGHES. In my case, I agree with the recommendations on 

information sharing. I support everything they advocate. I think 

actually I would like to go further perhaps in achieving information 

transparency inside this community so that the professional persons who work in this community under a common security standard know everything that they ought to know in order to accomplish their mission. 

The thing that I like the least—there are two or three things I 

don’t agree with, but I think the one that I will mention here is 

the organizational chart for the national intelligence director on 

page 413. 

I don’t believe that they got that right in several ways, and I believe that the administration and leadership here in Congress 

should carefully review the ideas regarding that structure and the 

missions and functions that a national intelligence director would 

have. That is my view. 

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. 

Mr. BRENNAN. I agree with what my colleagues have talked 

about as far as conceptually I agree with a national intelligence director and a national counterterrorism center. There is so much engineering that needs to go on in order to make both of those very 

successful, and I think that is what we are seeing right now. 

Quite frankly, the recommendation about having more streamlined congressional oversight I think is a good one. I think that is 

the way the executive branch needs to reshape itself so it does the 

legislative oversight function. 

The reference here that the President should lead a governmentwide effort to bring the major national security institutions into the 

information revolution, it is tremendously important that if we are 

going to achieve a national framework of sharing of information, 

that there needs to be this overarching effort on the part of the nation, not just the Federal Government, to ensure that we are moving together in concert as opposed to separate initiatives that are 

not in fact finding a way to meld together. 

Ms. BAGINSKI. From our perspective, we were pleased with the 

FBI recommendations, I am sure as would surprise you. We were. 

But for us, the key recommendation is the director of the national 

intelligence director to allow the fusion of domestic and foreign intelligence. We are very excited about that. 

Like Cofer, my personal reservations are with the recommendation to transfer all paramilitary activity to DOD. I think there is 

some complexity there that probably needs study. 

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman COX. Mr. Meek. 

Mr. MEEK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank our panelists that are here today. I just have an observation. I know we had 

the last panel with 9/11 Chairman and Vice Chairman Mr. Kean 

and Mr. Hamilton, and I just couldn’t help but think about their 

experience in this area. I mean, you have a past governor, past 

speaker of the New Jersey House, and majority and minority leader Mr. Kean and Mr. Hamilton spent 34 years in this body, several 
109

of those years on the Intelligence Committee serving, doing this 

kind of work. 

You had 78 staff members on this 9/11 Commission that worked 

very hard over a period of 18 months, took a lot of testimony from 

everyday individuals, victims, families, also those that were injured 

in 9/11, professional staff, even in some of your own offices. Probably some of you came before the Commission. 

And, you know, I couldn’t help but take an opportunity to look 

at and go through the 9/11 book and really read some of the—I just 

wanted to just talk about chapter 8, where it says the system was 

blinking red, and then you go on to page 254, and it said, the summer of threat. And then you can go to chapter 13 and it says, how 

do you do it? A different way of organizing the government. You 

know, that is the most, I think, interesting chapter in the whole 

book when you start talking about how do you reorganize a government. That is just something that doesn’t happen overnight. 

General Hughes, I know you know that we had an opportunity 

and you were before our subcommittee, and it was maybe about 4 

months you were on the job, and there is a lot of positive—and I 

want to commend you for your honesty, because a lot of the members on the Homeland Select Committee was, like, oh my God, we 

are in real trouble here, because this man doesn’t have what he 

needs. You know, we talked about your clearance versus your No. 

2 persons—or person clearance. If you caught a cold, he wouldn’t 

have the clearance to be able to hear what you could hear, and you 

are the guy, you are the gate to getting information out. 

We have this commission that is saying that we have a problem, 

and I will tell you many Members of Congress, I was a Member of 

Congress when they passed the PATRIOT Act. They couldn’t tell 

you what was in the PATRIOT Act. They just voted for it, and that 

is dangerous. And I feel—and I agree with you, Director, when you 

said we need enforcement and we need oversight. 

Well, you are testifying in front of a committee that is not even 

a committee. We are a Select Committee. We are temporary. We 

are like a syndication pilot that is out there right now, and we are 

here to hear you, but we don’t even know if we are going to exist 

in the 109th Congress. 

So we can, you know, go through and talk about what we agree 

and what we don’t agree with, but the bottom line and the final 

analysis, it is people like yourselves that are sitting on this panel, 

the panel before you, the Commission and vice chairman and the 

commissioners don’t demand a professional committee in this Congress to be able to become professionals in what we are talking 

about here, then we are just spinning our wheels. 

And as far as I am concerned, with all due respect to my colleagues, to be able to pass something without a standing committee 

to say report to 88 committees so when something happens, the 

Congress can just do this, you know, is really inadequate and a disservice to those that have lost their lives and all this time that we 

are spending. 

So I hope as we start to bubble things up to the director’s office 

and to other folks that are making major decisions, even to the 

White House as they start talking about who is going to have 

power and who doesn’t have power, that there is some discussion 
110

about sharing some of the decision making and also some of the 

thought as it relates to protecting the homeland with the Congress. 

And some folks are going to have to give up power in this Congress, and for folks to start doing the Potomac two-step saying we 

have done something when we really haven’t in the final analysis, 

it is really a disservice. 

So I would hope—I am not asking you to make a career decision, 

but I am making a statement here today. But what I am saying 

is that we have to man-up, woman-up and leader-up to be able to 

let folks know that it is imperative that we have this kind of oversight, because if we don’t have it, you can go before 100 committees 

before you circle back around to this one, but we can say can we 

pick up where we left off. And we have this 9/11 report out, and 

we are not the only ones reading it. I guarantee you that it is in 

the hands of terrorists abroad and domestic looking at where they 

can see through our lines of what we feel the defense that they 

know is not defense and take advantage of it. 

So to move fast and quick is important, but to also have what 

we need is also important. I share that. I am on the Armed Services Committee that meets in this room. I shared that with the 

panel that came before us. I am sharing it with you, because I 

think it is the most important thing that we can do in correcting 

the oversight and making this Congress aware of what is going on 

and paying a service to those of you that are working professionally 

in this area to have members that understand the issues and are 

able to get you what you need as it relates to oversight and authority and all of those things what comes along with it. 

So I just want to—Mr. Chairman, I am sorry for going over the 

time, but I just want to share with the panel if they can please 

pass that on to their superiors and colleagues. 

Chairman COX. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

The gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Goodlatte. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Brennan, currently the Terrorist Threat Integration Center, TTIC, does not collect intelligence. That function remains among the various other 

agencies within the intelligence community. TTIC analyzes the information provided by the community. How can a TTIC analyst 

trust raw data when he or she is not provided with some analysis 

on the background of the information, and how would the National 

Counterterrorism Center that is been proposed avoid this 

stovepiping that the report describes is a problem? 

Mr. BRENNAN. Well, first of all, TTIC has access not just to the 

raw data, but the information that sort of underlies that in terms 

of information on sources. We have real-time access to the FBI’s information system so that when an electronic communication comes 

in from New York into FBI headquarters, we see it at the same 

time the FBI headquarters sees it. When an operational cable 

comes in from the CIA, from overseas into CIA headquarters, we 

see it at the same exact time. So we have full insight, full transparency into that, which really helps to educate the analysts and 

inform them about the nature of the information that they are seeing so they can, in fact, tell us where it came from, how it was acquired, and as Ms. Baginski said, the pedigree of the information 

and the sourcing. 
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The national counterterrorism—

Mr. GOODLATTE. Let me ask you, with regard to that, do you feel 

that then that TTIC is already serving some of the functions of this 

suggested National Counterterrorism Center, then, if you are already—

Mr. BRENNAN. By all means. In fact, the Commission says that 

the National Counterterrorism Center shall be built upon the foundation of TTIC, because TTIC right now has been charged with the 

responsibility to access the information and provide all-source analysis that will integrate the information that is collected domestically as well as from abroad; so yes, we are far down this road to 

the National Counterterrorism Center analytic responsibilities. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Will the Center add another layer of bureaucracy, or will it enhance the process? In other words, in other words, 

we don’t want information—the problem we had in the past is information would be gathered and it would lie on somebody’ desk in 

somebody’s computer and not get in the hands of people who can 

act upon it. The more people who can lay their hands on the information it could mean more people are aware of the problem and 

get to address it, or it could mean it has got to go through one more 

channel before it actually arrives where it is needed. 

Mr. BRENNAN. Our obligation is to make sure we leverage that 

information to make it available to the different departments and 

agencies, and I talk about the architecture that is required in order 

to allow different departments and agencies to search against the 

largest volume of information so they can bring up the information 

that they need in order to fulfill their missions. 

So what we are trying to do right now and the administration 

is to determine exactly what this National Counterterrorism Center should, in fact, include and involved. The 9/11 Commission 

talks about basically two distinct functions that TTIC does not do 

right now. One is joint operational planning and the second is 

doing net assessments, which is, you take the threat and the capabilities of the terrorist organizations and you apply it against the 

vulnerabilities and the infrastructure that is going against. We 

don’t do that kind of assessment now. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. As I understand it, TTIC is overseen by the 

CIA; is that correct? 

Mr. BRENNAN. No, it is not. It is a direct report to the Director 

of Central Intelligence. So I don’t have anybody in the CIA to go 

through, directly report to the DCI. Now, the DCI is dual-hatted 

as well as the director of CIA as well. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. And how will this new—in your view. I don’t 

know if it is specified in any of the discussions you have had already, but how will the new National Counterterrorism Center fit 

into that framework? Is it going to be overarching above all of the 

different intelligence agencies, or will it also be under the direction 

of the director of the CIA? 

Mr. BRENNAN. Since it doesn’t exist yet, I can talk about what 

the 9/11 Commission recommends, which is that the National 

Counterterrorism Center would be a direct report to the national 

intelligence director, so that it would not, in fact, go through any 

individual department or agency, but those digs are yet to be made 

about that—
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Mr. GOODLATTE. Would that alter—in your view, would that or 

should that alter who you report to and where your organization 

lies in that framework? 

Mr. BRENNAN. I think the reporting chain right now from TTIC 

to the Director of Central Intelligence is the appropriate reporting 

chain of command, and if, in fact, a national intelligence director 

position is established, I believe that the director of the National 

Counterterrorism Center should report to the national intelligence 

director. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. So you think it should or should not be changed 

if that entity were created? 

Mr. BRENNAN. I don’t think that the—well, you will have a different person at top if the national intelligence director position is, 

in fact, legislated. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. And you would report directly to them or continue to report to the director of Central Intelligence, in your opinion? 

Mr. BRENNAN. Well, the national intelligence director would take 

the place of the director of Central Intelligence, and so in the future, if what they are proposing here, the director of CIA would be 

separate from the national intelligence director, so you would have 

two people there. Right now you just have one. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. I understand, but which of those do you think 

you should be reporting to? 

Mr. BRENNAN. The national intelligence director. We should not 

be embedded in one single department or agency since that transcends those individual mission responsibilities of individual departments and agencies. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Very good. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman COX. Mr. Turner. 

Mr. TURNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Brennan, you have 

been a very active proponent of an integrated information-sharing 

architecture, and you have talked a lot about your efforts to get us 

there. 

You mentioned in your statement that as of the end of this 

month, you will have six separate networks that will be integrated 

in such a way that searches can be done on all six separately accessing those networks as you do now at TTIC. 

What networks are those going to be that are now going to be 

integrated? 

Mr. BRENNAN. Believe it or not, it is different and distinct CIA 

networks. There is the CIA classification—classified system. There 

is the unclassified system. There is the open-source information 

system, the FBIS. And I will get back to you with precisely which 

of those networks, in fact, will be ready by the end of this month. 

Mr. TURNER. When you make the effort to get integration, who 

leads in that? Who provides the necessary leadership, as you have 

said, to basically say this has got to be done, we have got to integrate these databases? Who does that? 

Mr. BRENNAN. Right now there is an information program sharing office that TTIC chairs that includes the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI. It is to fulfill obligations that are contained in the MOU and information sharing in March of last year, 

and so there are a number of individuals who are a part of this in-
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formation-sharing program office and a number of groups that have 

been established to address issues such as third-party rule, originated control, tear line standards and other types of things. So it 

runs across the different agencies and departments, these there is 

nobody at the top. 

Mr. TURNER. Governor Kean this morning, in his oral statement, 

as well as his written statement, said, ‘‘Only presidential leadership can develop the necessary governmentwide concepts and 

standards,’’ referring to information sharing. 

Do you agree with that? 

Mr. BRENNAN. I think looking across the different departments 

and agencies and based on the statutory authorities, vested in 

those departments and agencies, it would then go to presidential 

leadership to initiate an effort on the part of the executive branch 

to work with the Congress, to be able to transcend those different 

bureaucratic boundaries. 

Mr. TURNER. Do we have any timetable that has been set forth 

by the President for integrating these databases? 

Mr. BRENNAN. There is a timetable that we are operating within 

in the intelligence community structure to try to bring those different elements of the intelligence community architecture together, and I believe that the administration said that every one 

of the commission’s recommendations are being followed up on and 

acted upon, and I know that there are efforts underway to try to 

address that specific recommendation here. 

Mr. TURNER. But do we have timetables? Do we have benchmarks, goals that we are trying to integrate a certain number of 

databases by a certain date? Do we have an overall objective that 

is expressed as a time frame within—

Mr. BRENNAN. Across the U.S. Government? 

Mr. TURNER. Yes. 

Mr. BRENNAN. I don’t believe. I would defer to the Office of Management and Budget on this issue since it, again, goes across them. 

We have one for TTIC internally. 

Mr. TURNER. All right. When I look at the changes that are recommended by the 9/11 Commission in the area of the 

counterterrorism center, it seems that TTIC would be absorbed into 

that new organization and that this new responsibility of planning, 

joint planning, as they refer to it, would be an additional responsibility. 

Is it your view that this new counterterrorism center is the best 

entity for carrying out that kind of joint operational planning? 

Mr. BRENNAN. There is a lot that is to be defined by the term 

‘‘joint operational planning’’ and what would actually be done within the center and what would be done outside in those individual 

agencies, departments that actually carry out those operations, and 

that is what the discussions have been taking place over the past 

two or three weeks have been, to try to define that appropriately 

to make sure that we continue to have chains of command between 

cabinet officers and the President, the White House and the Security Council. 

So I am a strong opponent of a National Counterterrorism Center, but, again, like other things, the devil is in the details here, 
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and you have to make sure that you understand what you want to 

invest in that entity and what you want to leave outside. 

Mr. TURNER. One of the comments that was made, I believe by 

General Hughes, expressing some concern about the proposed 

structure of the National Counterterrorism Center, am I correct to 

assume, General Hughes, that your concern relates to that portion 

of the proposed counterterrorism center that requires a deputy national intelligence director to oversee the operations of DHS and 

specifically the operations of your particular directorate? 

General HUGHES. Sir, I believe that I don’t think they have got 

the organization for the national intelligence director right, not the 

National Counterterrorism Center. 

Mr. TURNER. Oh, all right. I am sorry. 

General HUGHES. Sure. 

Mr. TURNER. You agree with the proposed organizational chart 

on page 413 that you refer to? 

General HUGHES. I do not think it is what we ought to do. 

Mr. TURNER. Well, so specifically, what on that chart on page 413 

do you disagree with? 

General HUGHES. As a personal view, not representative of the 

DHS consolidated view, my personal view is that there should be 

three principal deputies, one for foreign intelligence, one for domestic intelligence and one for community management; and beneath 

those three principal deputies—and there could be other principal 

deputies, too, though. I am not sure, but I think the division of 

labor between foreign and domestic is an important issue to keep 

in mind in a bureaucratic sense. 

Beneath those principal deputies, I personally think that there 

are to be an array of organizations and entities. Some of them 

would be the departments and their intelligence organizations that 

currently exist. Some of them would be offices and functional areas 

of the intelligence community that currently exists or may need to 

exist in the future, and of course there would be centers like the 

National Counterterrorism Center reporting directly to the national 

intelligence director. So it is kind of a mixture of issues here, and 

I personally do not think the three-deputy mechanism that is portrayed on this chart is the right approach. It doesn’t incorporate all 

of the issues that the national intelligence director is going to be 

faced with. So I have a different hierarchical, organizational view 

than that portrayed by this chart. 

Mr. TURNER. All right. Thank you, sir. Is my time up? 

Chairman COX. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

The gentleman from New York, Mr. King. 

Mr. KING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank, again, all 

of the members of the panel for their appearance here today, and 

I would like to direct my question to Ms. Baginski. 

On the question of sharing intelligence and sharing information, 

I would like to focus on the issue of sleeper cells in this country. 

For instance, if you could give any detail on the extent of cooperation that you are receiving from the Muslim community, and when 

you do get information, how quickly would you share raw data, for 

instance, with the local police? I am thinking of the NYPD, for instance, where they have a number of mosques, where they received 

information that maybe isn’t actionable but may be of some means 
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to the NYPD who has its own operations going. How quickly in 

real-time would that type of information be made available to the 

NYPD, and how closely is the level of cooperation at that level? 

Ms. BAGINSKI. I would characterize the level of cooperation 

maybe three months ago and the level of cooperation today, and I 

personally have been involved in a lot of very hard work to close 

some of those seams. 

What we did for the Republican National Convention was actually to accomplish an information architecture that made us actually write down the protocols for passing this information quickly, 

beginning with what it was the NYPD wanted from us, and this 

is just a first step, but we have, I think, very, very good working 

relationships when we are in a crisis situation and when it is identified as such. 

I think we have work to do to make that the way we do business 

every day, and in a ready sense, we pass information to them, but 

also my talks with Dave Cohen have been about them passing that 

information to us and through the JTTF construct. I am very encouraged. With the working with a foundation who is actually helping us pull this together and engineering what the information 

sharing should be, and I have this responsibility myself given to 

me by the Director to make sure that we smooth this out in concert 

with Pat D’Amuro and Chuck Frahm, who is now up there, and I 

think we are making enormous strides, but we still have much 

work to do. 

Mr. KING. Now, David Cohen, the one you deal with from—

Ms. BAGINSKI. Yes. David is the one I will deal with. We are 

going to do intel to intel so that we have the strength in that relationship that we have always had ops to ops. 

Mr. KING. How concerned are you with the issue of sleeper cells, 

and I am concerned particularly with the city of New York, but nationwide. 

Ms. BAGINSKI. I think we are always concerned about what we 

don’t know. What I am encouraged by is that we have begun to attack that issue as an analytic problem, which is to say if there 

were, how would you find out, and then finding clues from intelligence reports that tell us they will use these kind of operatives, 

they want to come in from this kind of area and actually begin a 

full-court intelligence press to try to locate such cells. So I am encouraged with our methodology, and I am encouraged—I am concerned just as any citizen is with what we don’t know. 

Mr. KING. Do you believe you are making progress in developing 

sources in the community? 

Ms. BAGINSKI. I do indeed. 

Mr. KING. And without going into much detail, is much of the information you are getting overseas from overseas relating to operations here in the United States? 

Ms. BAGINSKI. I think that is fair to say, sir. 

Mr. KING. Thank you very much. 

Chairman COX. The gentleman from Mississippi, Mr. Thompson. 

Mr. THOMPSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Based on the 9/11 report and everything you have learned to date—and I am speaking 

specifically about Iraq—what additional steps can we take to ensure that the mistakes of the past won’t be repeated? And it is 
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based on this issue of faulty intelligence and the notion of weapons 

of mass destruction and a lot of other things. What have we done 

since the invasion of Iraq from an intelligence standpoint to get 

better intelligence from the field? 

Ms. BAGINSKI. I can take a stab at it, and this would apply to, 

I think, all threats, not just Iraq. 

There may be a difference between faulty intelligence and faulty 

intelligence analysis or insufficient intelligence analysis, but for us 

it is actually the core approach that we are taking to the whole 

business of intelligence, which is to understand at the base what 

information is necessary to make decisions but also accurately report what we know and what we don’t know in terms of doing the 

analysis and then dedicating resources that specifically have the 

full-time job of positing hypotheses and then interacting with the 

data to prove or disprove certain theories. 

So we have issues of analytic bias. We have issues of reporting 

only that which we have information on but not necessarily stepping back and saying, well, these are pieces of information that we 

have, but what are the pieces we don’t have that would be necessary to actually help us make those decisions. 

So mine are less about Iraq than analytic methodology is what 

I am actually responding to. 

Mr. THOMPSON. Well, I guess in layman’s terms, help me out. 

Who would make the call in terms of the intelligence that was 

being reviewed? Are the agencies now talking to each other so it 

would be a joint decision as to what this intelligence really means, 

or are we still separate and apart? 

Ms. BAGINSKI. No, sir. I do not think we are separate and apart. 

I think that under the existing DCI, there have been processes and 

procedures that begin with national intelligence requirements and 

joint community assessments on issues that are actually performed, and all of us are, I think, very keen to improve the analytic 

methodology, the analytic discipline and the analytic trade craft 

that goes into providing those assessments to include competitive 

analysis and what others might call contrarian analysis. 

Mr. BRENNAN. The whole concept of TTIC is to bring together 

those different agencies that have a shared responsibility to make 

sure they are sharing information, that they understand each other’s assumptions, to make sure that there is a full transparency 

into sources and methods and so that there is no mistakes made 

or to minimize the chance of mistakes. 

You want to put a rigor in analytic effort, an think that is what 

we have done in the terrorism environment, and so TTIC, which 

is very innovative within the U.S. Government, is basically the embodiment of FBI and Department of Homeland Security, State Department, CIA working collaboratively together to share that information and provide integrated assessments, working with them to 

identify if there are differences of view, you don’t want to have just 

group think. You want to make sure that you are able to present 

different hypotheses and different perspectives, so this, in fact, is 

giving birth to trying to do this in other areas as well such proliferation, and so there are initiatives underway to try to have a 

proliferation, in fact, integration center. 
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So I think the lessons of 9/11, the lessons of Iraq have really propelled the government as a whole to try to find ways that you can 

share this information and have the best darn analysis and output 

possible, and that has to be fueled then by enhanced complex and 

TTIC doesn’t do collection, but, you know, the FBI and CIA and 

others are, in fact, trying to improve their entire collection effort 

as well. So it is a cycle of collection, analysis, dissemination, the 

entire system. 

Chairman COX. The gentleman from Oklahoma, Mr. Istook. 

Mr. ISTOOK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Before I ask another question, I would like to go back to what 

was hanging out there when my time expired earlier. I would like 

to make sure that I understand clearly, against what lists or databases currently are people checks when they are either, one, seeking to become a citizen, or they are seeking an adjustment in immigration status, whether it be permanent residency, entry-exit 

visas? What are those lists against which they are currently 

checked? Is there a difference between the lists against which they 

are checked depending upon whether it is naturalization status and 

so forth? And the last part of that is when will any differences be 

resolved? When are other cross-checks supposed to be coming online? 

General HUGHES. If you don’t mind, I would like to get you a 

written answer to that question. I think it is a very good question, 

and we ought to give you the right information. It is a little too 

complex for me to relay all of the databases or lists that are now 

used and whether or not there are some problems with one check 

being made with one group of knowledge bases and another check 

being made with another group of knowledge bases. 

So I would like to reserve an answer to writing, and we will provide it to you as soon as we possibly can. 

Mr. ISTOOK. I would appreciate that definitive answer, because 

obviously what I am concerned with, as I expressed earlier, is potential blind spots, and we know that this is part of the overall 

data integration that we are seeking to resolve. 

Let me go on to the second topic. There was a lot of discussion 

about culture changes when you have the different information 

agencies, the consolidation of the homeland security, the potential 

further consolidations or revisions. According to the 9/11 Commission. And we have had discussion about culture changes among the 

Federal agencies, but culture changes are not confined to those 

agencies. You have a huge country, and if we want to take advantage of the citizenry, of the private sector, of the local and State, 

the law enforcement officials and take their knowledge of and put 

this to work, then we have to understand the culture of the country. 

I think Governor Kean certainly made that point this morning, 

when he said that if we have everybody focused upon homeland security and we are able to use their input, then we are going to 

achieve the results that we want. We have more people helping. 

But when there is constant change in the lines of authority, in 

the organizational structure, you confuse those potential people. A 

private citizen, if they see some sort of suspicious activity, typically 

will think of calling one of two law enforcement agencies, I believe. 
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They will contact their local police, or if in their mind they say, 

well, this is something bigger, they are going to think of the FBI. 

They are not going to think of any of the alphabet soup of other 

agencies which we are discussing about the reorganization. 

I am concerned that further reorganization may create problems 

with culture change that requires a culture change of the entire 

Nation if we do not give easy-to-understand lines of authority that 

the private citizens can understand so that they can therefore be 

active helpers in our war against terrorism. 

I would appreciate your comments and feedback on that concern. 

Ms. BAGINSKI. Yes, sir. I would actually like to start with that. 

I take your point, and I think it is a very, very important point 

about passage of information to State and locals. 

What I would like to highlight here is our agreement with you 

that this is terribly complex, and what we actually think is the solution, which is the Joint Terrorism Task Forces that we have had 

for many years, but I think as we have said earlier today, we are 

up to almost a hundred of them, which are literally that, joint task 

forces, State, local, tribal, DHS, intelligence community personnel, 

all in one area so that when that information is received that you 

are talking about, there is one place to go, into that task force, information is received, and there is the network that can pass it on 

to all of the people who need to know and to the appropriate people 

to act. 

So I think in the operational construct what we have hit upon 

is a JTTF, and I think those things are some of the best operational paradigm I have ever seen. Whichever—

Mr. ISTOOK. A private citizen is not going to think of a joint task 

force. 

Ms. BAGINSKI. But that is the FBI is the point I am saying, they 

would call the FBI, and that is done under their—

Mr. ISTOOK. They are the clearinghouse. 

Ms. BAGINSKI. Yeah. And so General Hughes and I, our work is 

about ensuring that 99 know what the 100th is doing and getting 

that information passed between them for analysis, and that is 

what we are working on. 

General HUGHES. Well, I think, first, I agree with your sentiments, and I think it is a concern. It is something we are going to 

have to work on. I am not sure if a single agency or a single organizational element can do the complete job. I am not positive of that, 

because there are differences between providing information to a 

law enforcement organization, providing information to a homeland 

security organization, providing information to an intelligence organization, specifically, and then providing information to other organizational entities that respond to the people of the United States. 

Those differences have to be accounted for. I, indeed, think they 

are a part of our culture. We haven’t got it right yet, but I think 

we have a lot of ideas and possibilities, and out of the 9/11 Commission report, this issue is being discussed and considered. As I 

think Chairman Cox asked me a question earlier about how the 

possible changes would affect the Department of Homeland Security, and I think there will be some changes coming to our Department out of the 9/11 Commission recommendations, as there probably should. We need to adapt and find the right pathway toward 
119

the future. Just what those are, it is premature to say, but if you 

could just accept the idea of that I personally agree with your concerns. I think the Department of Homeland Security has your concerns in mind, and we are going to try to achieve the right answer 

for our country and our culture. 

Mr. ISTOOK. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman COX. The gentlelady from California, Ms. Sanchez. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you all for 

being before us today. 

I have three quick questions. The first one is to Mr. Brennan. 

When my colleague, Mr. Meek, was questioning you, you said TTIC 

has been charged to analyze what has been collected. Who gave you 

that charge? 

Mr. BRENNAN. I am sorry. Could you repeat that question? 

Ms. SANCHEZ. You said that you had been charged to analyze the 

information that had been collected who gave you your charge? 

Who gave you your charter? Who put you up? How did we create 

you? Where did you get that charge from? 

Mr. BRENNAN. First of all, the President announced in January 

of 2003 in the State of the Union address that was directing the 

director of Central Intelligence and the director of the FBI to form 

an integration center to deal with the terrorist threat. I was appointed in March of 2003. In May 1st we stood up. The Director 

of Central Intelligence issued a Director of Central Intelligence directive in May of 2003 that laid out under the DCI’s authorities 

what the responsibilities would be of the Terrorist Threat Integration Center and what my charge and the charge of the TTIC would 

be. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. What would you say to some of my colleagues here 

in the Congress who believe that as a joint sort of situation, really 

not under the jurisdiction of any particular statute or place in the 

Congress to have set you up, that, you know, they are not very 

happy, they don’t feel that they have much oversight, much control 

or much ability to bring you forward and sort of figure out what 

you all are doing? What would you say to that comment? 

Mr. BRENNAN. I would say it would be incorrect, because I have 

appeared in many different committees and subcommittees over 

the past year and a half. I think this is the third or fourth time 

I have appeared here. I also hope your colleagues would say that 

it is very good that the executive branch has found a way to bring 

together those different systems and agencies with shared statutory authorities and work together collaboratively in an integrated 

environment. I hope that is what they would say. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. And then I have two other questions that I would 

ask of any of you or all of you. The first is what do you say to—

you know, we are not the only ones who hopefully are reading this 

report, but there are a lot of Americans out there, and one of the 

things I am struck by when people ask me this, you know, we want 

to create this big position of a guy or gal overlooking intelligence. 

They are going to be in charge of these 15 agencies or departments 

or pieces or there might even be more, as some of us know. What 

would you say to the question about don’t you think a lot of these 

agencies are duplicating effort or have the same information or 

why didn’t the Commission address getting rid of some of these or 
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really rearranging things? What would you say, you know, to those 

people who say we just don’t need to put somebody at the top and 

then put everybody underneath? Why don’t we really make a reorganization? 

That would be that question, and then the next question would 

be what role did each of your agencies play in the analysis of the 

information that Al-Qa’ida was trying to target the financial buildings in DC, New Jersey and New York City? And do you agree that 

Secretary Ridge should have issued that warning? 

Mr. BRENNAN. On reorganization issues, I think it is a very 

worthwhile question to take look at all of those different intelligence agencies and what the responses are, and the ones that 

have been in fact set up by individual statutes. So I think that is 

an appropriate question for a review to take a look at ultimately. 

Regarding the role of TTIC in this analysis, we, in fact, were 

working very closely with the Department of Homeland Security, 

FBI and others, as that information was coming in, and we had to 

integrate the information and put it in a context for the Department of Homeland Security. And we worked very closely with Secretary Ridge as he moved forward with his announcements and decisions. 

General HUGHES. And I will chime in now and say I agree with 

the idea that these are very good questions to ask, and we should 

consider them in the future. With regard to the duplication of effort, the plethora of organizational entities and functions, we ought 

to try to more carefully consolidate and focus our efforts in some 

way. 

With regard to the role that DHS played, we were the recipient 

of information from others. We examined that information in the 

cold light of day. We determined that we had a duty, and in fact, 

a promise to the American people to warn them about information 

that rose to the level of detail and importance that would generate 

an action on our part. The Secretary made a final decision in consultation with the other secretaries of the government and the 

leaders of the executive branch and went forth with the more precise raising of the alert level, focused on specific facilities that you 

know occurred. Not a generalized alert, not a broad warning but 

a very specific kind of function based upon the information. 

I, as his intelligence officer, advised him on that, supported him 

on that. I believe that it was the right decision, and we did the 

right thing in this case with regard to our duties to the American 

people. 

Ms. BAGINSKI. We received and reviewed a lot of the raw intelligence, shared it immediately with both of these gentleman and 

with Cofer as well and are fully supportive of the action that the 

Secretary of Homeland Security took in issuing the warning. 

In terms of a duplication of effort, I think you are absolutely 

right to raise this issue, that it is a very fair thing to do, and I 

think as the President has made very clear, nothing is off the table 

as we look at intelligence reform. 

Mr. BLACK. Lastly, I would just add having a strong national director of intelligence would allow this man or woman to rationalize 

the intelligence system so there would be some economies. One 

would hope along those lines. I think the warning was appropriate. 
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The Department of State was a recipient of this information, and 

our function was to communicate it overseas to our embassies and 

see if there is anything that is applicable to U.S. interests overseas. 

Chairman COX. The gentleman from Indiana, Mr. Souder. 

Mr. SOUDER. Thanks. I first want to say to Mr. Brennan, I agree 

with you. I am glad the President didn’t sit around waiting for 

Congress to act. He needed to act far faster than we are going to 

get legislation done, and I appreciate that he attempted at least to 

bring as much fusion as possible. 

I also want to thank all the men and women in your agencies, 

because, in fact, we have intercepted at least many potential incidents, and that is because of our increased efforts. It is not perfect. 

We clearly are moving far ahead, but we should thank the patriots 

on the line who have risked their lives and who have, in fact, 

averted continual incidents. 

But one thing that really troubles me about today’s hearing. I 

raised it in the first panel. We go there this big report and we talk 

about new information systems. I spent 3 years doing hearings on 

our borders and sitting in the booths with our people, but, you 

know, if they don’t have an accurate ID, we put them into a system, and we don’t know whether it is the same person. 

So it isn’t going to pop up if they are a terrorist that they have 

a fake ID. I have been at the State Department desks and other 

places. If the ID changes, they get false ones, they use different 

names, hey, our whole system, the idea of intelligence is that you 

are pooling, having a whole bunch of meetings about people who 

may have 16 different names in common with a hundred or thousands of other people in the United States. We have already had 

cases of identity theft where people have stolen people’s IDs, and 

then one of the most common questions I get from Republicans, 

Democrats, all kinds of people in my district, is how do I get off 

a watchlist? 

Well, if we had a biometric indicator, whether it is an eye or a 

fingerprint or a watermark so that you can’t be duplicated, then we 

wouldn’t have this problem. How in the world do we justify to the 

taxpayers not doing this type of thing and investing millions of dollars in new border equipment, millions of dollars at the airport? 

Every airport screener I talked to says it is so hard to match any 

kind of ID with the ticket. People’s pictures don’t look the same. 

You are guessing. These people have multiple names. How can we 

even be discussing all of this investment, billions of dollars, if everybody is afraid to go on record and say, look, this whole system 

isn’t going to work unless we know the person we are dealing with 

is the person we are looking for? Any comments on this? 

General HUGHES. Well, first, I think your characterization of this 

is right. It is a very difficult job, and we are not doing it perfectly 

in all cases. That is for sure. 

I will have to tell you, sir, that there are others who have a differing view. They view a biometric identification as a controlled by 

the government as a potential for misuse. 

There are other issues involved here, collecting the biometric, 

placing it in an identification medium that could be relied upon, 

suffering the cost of doing this across the country. That sort of 

thing is all the problems that we are trying to come to grips with. 
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On the face of it, emotionally, I agree that we ought to have a reliable form of identification for persons who come into the United 

States and those who reside here, but for the reasons that I mentioned and many others, it is proving harder than mere sentiment. 

Mr. SOUDER. Let me follow up on that. Let me ask for the 

record—and you can just say yes or no—do you all agree, because 

certainly in material that has been released, that American citizens 

are included among the terrorist risks. It isn’t just people who are 

foreigners. Let the record show do you agree with that, Mr.Black, 

that there are American citizens who are on terrorist watchlists as 

well? 

Mr. BLACK. I think it would be prudent to assume that, yes, sir. 

Mr. SOUDER. And do you agree that we have had some reports 

now of people being contracted as mules like in narcotics where 

people could bring money in for terrorists, people could bring other 

things in who are American citizens, who get contracted like they 

do in narcotics. They might not even realize they are part of a bigger plot but can do that. 

In other words, this just isn’t about foreigners, and furthermore, 

it isn’t just about American citizens who go across the borders. It 

is about—and even for those foreigners, they can get false U.S. IDs. 

I have been against the national ID card. I am one of the conservatives who had a fear about this, but I don’t hear anything that 

you are telling me today that gives me any comfort if you don’t 

know who the individual is, and that the civil rights question, it 

can be done with a watermark. 

There are other ways to do it other than something completely 

invasive, and besides that, if you are following the law and you 

have an eyeball scanner or a fingerprint, what is invasive about it 

if you are following the law? You have a social security number already, or you are supposed to in the United States. We have driver’s licenses. What is the difference between a number with a picture—and a picture on your driver’s license and a picture that actually is proven to be yourself as opposed to a phony picture? 

I don’t understand why a picture on a driver’s license—I have a 

lot of Amish in my district. They are objecting to the pictures religiously, because they don’t believe in a photograph, a graven 

image. OK, that is a problem on a spiritual way, so then they 

should have a fingerprint, but we actually require a picture of people, a number of people. I don’t understand what exactly the civil 

liberty question here is and what is evasive—invasive about a fingerprint or an eye print as opposed to a picture and a number. 

That is the part I don’t understand, and it is important, I believe, 

for the people who are doing this to let the American people know 

that we are dependent on the stupidity of the terrorists to use their 

real name. That is basically what we are right now. That is what 

we are dependent on, to use the same ID with the real name. 

We just took down two fake IDs places in one of my mid-sized 

counties that were producing fake IDs. We are completely vulnerable unless we address this question. 

General HUGHES. Would you mind if I just gave a very brief 

reply to the last issue? 

Chairman COX. Please do. 
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General HUGHES. We do use fingerprints very successfully, sir, to 

identify persons. We do it at the borders, and we do it internal to 

the country. 

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you. 

Chairman COX. The gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Frank. 

Mr. FRANK. Ms.Baginski, I apologize. I took about 20 minutes off 

to do business, and I missed your colloquy with Ms. Jackson-Lee, 

and I apologize for that and I want to go back to it. 

I will tell you why I am disturbed. I was at the Democratic Convention, and the way the protesters were treated there was simply 

wrong. We had a case, for example, in South Carolina of a man 

who is now being prosecuted federally because he was carrying the 

wrong sign in a free speech zone, not that he was carrying a sign 

but it was the wrong sign. And I understand the need for security. 

I also think too much attention is being given to our desire not 

to have our feelings hurt and that it isn’t always easy for you to 

sort out, but I am troubled by this, and I am troubled again by the 

preemption doctrine. I don’t want people to commit violent acts, but 

I don’t think law enforcement should be spending a great deal of 

time—preventing violent acts, yes. 

If you have got intelligence, fine, but questioning people, questioning people about what they know, asking them what their 

plans are and then getting into their politics, which I am told 

sometimes happens, seems to me entirely inappropriate. And the 

opinion or quote in The New York Times dismissing the chilling effect as being outweighed as the potential for cutting out grounds, 

yeah, you have a right to cut out grounds, but I think the chilling 

effect ought to be a fairly high barrier. 

I am told you said there were legitimate needs. I would like to 

ask this and get it back in writing. How many inquiries did the 

FBI make with regard to the two conventions? How many different 

individuals were questioned? And I would like—and I appreciate 

what you said about getting out information and sources. So forget 

the sources and methods. What kind of crimes were you trying to 

forestall? You mentioned a couple, but what were the leads, and so 

I would like to know how many people were questioned, how many 

leads were there, and of what sort of crimes? Because I really am 

troubled. 

Now, you tell me that nobody was questioned unless there was 

a reason to think that he or she—let me ask this, that they were 

going to engage or violence or they knew someone who would? 

Which is it? 

Ms. BAGINSKI. I think it is both, but I would be loath to comment. I think your solution is the right one. This is a very reasonable request. 

Mr. FRANK. I will tell you in the interim one of the things I did 

when I went off was to write to the Director to tell him that I was 

troubled by the New York Times article; if it was accurate, it 

seemed to be an overreach. So I would really like to know how 

many people were questioned? And it is hard—I know the people 

in charge don’t—we don’t like to be yelled at, some of us. Some of 

us don’t mind. I find if you don’t like being yell at, then you lose 

your right to yell. I would rather preserve both. 
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But the other point we have is this: I know it has sort of been 

ramped up since September 11, but they are unrelated. September 

11, the terrible tragedy of September 11, the murdered innocent 

people, it is no reason to interfere with what people say, and I am 

troubled by what seems to me to be a crossing of that line. 

Ms. BAGINSKI. We appreciate your concern. We do not consider 

that article to be accurate, but we will provide the information. 

[The information follows:]
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Mr. FRANK. Let me ask you while I have a couple of minutes left, 

you heard Mr. Kean and Mr. Hamilton talk about this proposal for 

a board that would look into privacy and civil liberties. Do you all 

endorse that? Are you familiar with that recommendation? It would 

be particularly relevant to General Hughes and Ms. Baginski, but 

to everybody, do you endorse that, and what kind of powers would 

that board have? Would you agree that such a board ought to be 

able to commandeer any information from you it would want, the 

government officials? 

I would hope that if we had such a board, they would have a 

pretty firm right to go to any of your agencies and get the information with appropriate secrecy that they had. Would you be supportive of such a concept? We will start with Ms. Baginski. 

Ms. BAGINSKI. I am sorry. Yes. I think that that kind of concentrated look and responsibility at the whole civil liberties issue 

as we—

Mr. FRANK. I am talking specifically about their right to go to 

you and say we—you know, really full investigative powers, almost 

like an inspector general across the board with a civil liberties 

mandate. 

Ms. BAGINSKI. There are many bodies that have that responsibility now. 

Mr. FRANK. I am asking about this one. 

Ms. BAGINSKI. I wouldn’t hesitate to give that kind of information to any of the investigative bodies. If such a body were created, 

we would certainly do the same. 

Mr. FRANK. General, you would be relevant as well. 

General HUGHES. I think the answer is, as I tried to express earlier, if such a board is needed—

Mr. FRANK. Is such a board needed, General? Let me ask you a 

question. You have had a lot of opinions. I have been impressed by 

a lot of them. It is a little late for ‘‘if.’’ Do you think such a board 

is needed? 

General HUGHES. Yes, I believe it is. 

Mr. FRANK. Thank you. And you think it should have then the 

full powers? 

General HUGHES. I think it should have full powers, but it 

should follow the same rules as the government officials whom they 

are asking information from with regard to the safeguarding of 

the—

Mr. FRANK. Absolutely. Thank you. 

Chairman COX. The gentlewoman from California Ms. Harman. 

Ms. HARMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman COX. I am sorry, Ms. Harman. I did not see that Mr. 

Shadegg was here. So we are going back and forth. The gentleman 

from Arizona Mr. Shadegg. 

Mr. SHADEGG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I appreciate all of your being here, and I appreciate your testimony. I think you have given thoughtful input to us on which of 

the recommendations are most valuable and which you have concerns about. 

I have some concerns about some of them. I particularly have 

concerns about the issue of whether or not a clandestine military 

effort should be, in fact, handed over to the Department of Defense. 
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I am not certain that it isn’t important to preserve that capability 

within the CIA. 

But the issue I want to focus you on is one that orients itself towards human nature. The 9/11 Commission has recommended that 

the current spoke-and-wheel structure of our intelligence network 

where each agency cannot look at the other’s database needs to be 

replaced with one where each agency can look at the other’s database. While I see an advantage to that in terms of making sure 

that the information is out there for everyone to see, I am worried 

that human nature will cause that to cause perhaps a diminution 

in the value of the information that is put into the database. 

It seems to me that human nature might cause an agency to put 

on the database—I don’t want to be harsh about this, but there 

might be a tendency to put on there only things that were not particularly valuable, only things that they knew everybody else already knew, or only things that they were willing to let others 

know, and if it was this key bit of information that they wanted 

to take advantage of, it might not be put on the database. Short 

of—when I asked the Commissioners, the two vice chairs, cochairs, 

who were here earlier this question, their response was, well, that 

is why we have a singular czar overhead—I guess ‘‘czar’’ is a word 

not to be used—a singular person in charge over top to lay down 

edicts to force that data to be placed into the information network 

so that it can be accessed by everybody. 

I am interested in, since you deal with this kind of data all the 

time and these kinds of incentives, your thoughts on how we approach that problem, or perhaps it is not a legitimate concern. We 

can start with whoever has strong feelings on it. 

Mr. BRENNAN. The term ‘‘database’’ is used in different ways by 

different people. You can be talking about one set of data that is 

all together, that is just melded together, and everybody has access 

to that big soup, or you can talk about a database in terms of the 

distributed architecture where you have connectivity between the 

different data holdings that reside in different networks. And I 

think what the Commission is looking for is to have some type of 

overall architecture where there are connections between those different data holdings and data networks so you can pulse them to 

bring up the information. 

That doesn’t mean that everybody has access to everything, because I think that would be just a disaster. You want to make sure 

you maintain compartmentation for those things that need to be 

compartmented, but you want to make sure you make available to 

those individuals who need the information everything that should 

be made available to them. So I think it is more of an architecture 

as opposed to a single database. 

General HUGHES. I will just add that some elements of the information should not be visible to everybody, but the essence of the 

information between databases I believe should be available generally. We should figure out a technical way to compartment sensitive sources, methods, and other identifying data that would give 

too much information to the broad user; but the essence of the data 

can be somehow provided to the larger audience. And I think that 

is a direction we ought to go in. 

Mr. SHADEGG. Ms. Baginski, did you have—
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Ms. BAGINSKI. Very similar to my colleagues, I think the truth 

of the matter is that when we each built our individual databases, 

there was never any thought about their utility outside of us. So 

what has happened is we have mixed things that are legal and 

things that are source and method, and so sometimes it looks to 

you like we are always saying no, but really you either have an all 

yes or all no answer. I mean, we haven’t set these up to be flexible. 

So my view is the solution is what you want to be able to do is 

essentially what you do in your living room, right, or wherever you 

might do your own Internet work, which is to do federated queries 

across disparate databases that are structured similarly so that 

they provide you results and answer questions that you may have. 

And what that is going to require is for each of us to agree to different standards, data standards, flagging, tagging, and the separation of the source and method so that we can provide that access, 

and I think—that is where I think we are moving. 

Mr. SHADEGG. If you move in that direction, will there then not 

be a problem with agencies withholding data from that database 

which is accessible to other agencies? 

Ms. BAGINSKI. There will be less of a problem. I guess we learn 

to never say never, right? But there will be less of a problem if the 

sourcing material is not automatically linked to the data. I think 

there will be less of a problem. 

Mr. SHADEGG. So one agency would be able to get the data, but 

not necessarily the source of that information? 

Ms. BAGINSKI. Exactly. I mean one example is to look at what 

State and local law enforcement have done for years with things 

like NCIC. There is a price of admission. It is called flagging and 

tagging data in certain ways, and you are able to ask questions of 

it and get answers back. And I think there is actually a lot the Intelligence Community could learn from the law enforcement community on this one. 

Chairman COX. The gentlelady from California Ms. Harman. 

Ms. HARMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was happy to defer 

my time to a USC parent. 

Chairman COX. That makes at least three of us up here on the 

panel. 

Ms. HARMAN. I would like to welcome our panel and make a couple of comments about several of them, whom I have known for 

some years. Ambassador Black’s last incarnation was as head of 

the CTC at the CIA. He was there after 9/11 and before 9/11. His 

response to 9/11 is, I think, an example of the response of the hardworking men and women of the Intelligence Community, and his 

response was basically to camp out in his office for some weeks or 

months to make absolutely certain that he let nothing slip. And 

many of us worried about his health. He knows this. And all of us 

are very grateful for his dedication. And on behalf of those in Congress who knew you then and have watched you since, thank you 

very much personally for your service, and thank you to all of the 

men and women of the CTC for everything they have done and are 

doing. 

Mr. BLACK. Thank you very much. You are awfully gracious. I 

appreciate it. 
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Ms. HARMAN. There are others on this panel, too, Mr. Chairman, 

who have done a great deal. Mr. Brennan runs a very interesting 

operation. I have been there. I don’t know whether one can describe where it was or is, so I won’t. But I have been to someplace 

called TTIC, and one of the interesting metaphors is that under the 

desks of the people that work there are all these hard drives lined 

up next to each other. Those are the stovepipes. I mean, you can 

visually see the fact that we don’t have an integrated database. We 

have had a lot of conversation about this, and I guess we are getting there, but it has been a very hard slog. I think everything 

would agree. 

And to Ms. Baginski, who worked at the NSA before this, that 

agency and her present agency, the FBI, have made enormous 

progress. I like to say that the FBI has transitioned from the abacus and the smoke signal in the 14th century to the late 20th century. You have only got about 5 years to go and you will be up to 

date, but it has been a huge transition. So many of us appreciate 

what you do. 

Having said that, Mr. Chairman, we are the Homeland Security 

Committee. It may be that we don’t have all the jurisdiction we 

need, but we are the Homeland Security Committee. So my one 

question to all these witnesses is what in your personal view is the 

likelihood that we will be attacked again? What is the time frame? 

And if you could just tell us on the public record to the extent you 

can what is the basis for your view? 

Mr. BRENNAN. There will be inevitable attempts, I believe, including this year that try to carry out an attack by Al-Qa’ida. Since 

we are talking about anytime, anyplace, anywhere by Al-Qa’ida, I 

think Al-Qa’ida will succeed in penetrating certain security defenses whether it be overseas, potentially here in North America 

and the United States. I think that the Bureau, the Agency, Department of Homeland Security, have done a tremendous job as far 

as making this a very inhospitable environment. 

Ms. HARMAN. I appreciate, that Mr. Brennan, but I asked you 

what the likelihood is that we will be attacked, and I mean in the 

homeland, again; not what you have done to protect it—

Mr. BRENNAN. Ever by any transnational group, I think it is 

probably inevitable that at some point in the future there will be 

a transnational terrorist attack here in the United States. 

Ms. HARMAN. Others? 

Mr. BLACK. I think the use of the word ‘‘inevitable’’ is good. I 

think from a standpoint of counterterrorism, we must consider it 

to be probable unless we work against in that process—we reduce 

the threat as much as possible to defeat them and, should they become successful, minimize the damage as much as possible. 

General HUGHES. I don’t think it is inevitable at all. I personally 

believe that we can succeed against the terrorists, and we are so 

far doing that. 

Ms. HARMAN. Ms. Baginski. 

Ms. BAGINSKI. I think Cofer said it the best. I think it is probable, and we are doing the best we can to make it inhospitable, but 

I do think it is likely. 

Ms. HARMAN. I agree. I think it is likely, and I think the time 

frame is short, and I think the need to act is urgent, and I cer-
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tainly hope that this committee gets real jurisdiction and that this 

Congress gets it and we move ahead on very careful recommendations to provide us the kind of interoperable communications and 

information sharing that are absolutely critical to making us aware 

of a threat in advance and hopefully preventing the next attack. 

Thank you all. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman COX. The gentleman from Maryland Mr. Cardin. 

Mr. CARDIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Let me ask also thank our witnesses not only for their testimony 

today—this has been a long hearing—but for your service to our 

country. And what Ms. Harman said I would just like to underscore, particularly to the men and women who work in your agencies day in and day out at a great personal sacrifice under very difficult circumstances. If you would express our appreciation to the 

type of work they are doing for our country, I think every member 

of the committee would appreciate that. 

Many of the areas that I was interested in inquiring have been 

asked, so I want to spend my time on one area that has been continuously brought to my attention by local law enforcement. I hear 

over and over again that, yes, things are much better than they 

were before September 11; however, it is still not where it should 

be. And part of it, they believe, is the culture of a resistance to consider local law enforcement full partners in the war against terrorism, and that there is not a view that there is really a willingness to totally share information, although they know under the 

current scrutinies that they will get access to some information. 

So I really want you to go through for me where we are in this. 

If I am a detective in a Palmer City Police Department, and I am 

working on an investigation perhaps unrelated to terrorism, but I 

have reason to believe that there may be some connection to terrorist organizations, what do I have to go through in order to complete my investigation to make sure that there is not a terrorist 

contact here? Can I get the type of access to all the information I 

need, or do I have to send this to a third party, go through my 

Joint Terrorism Task Force? What have I got to do in order to be 

able to fully access in a realistic time frame to complete my investigation? 

Ms. BAGINSKI. I think you have raised a very, very important 

point, so let me be the first to say I think we have a lot of work 

to do. I think there are three dimensions, but the most inhibiting 

is the technology dimension, and that is the actual connection of 

our various systems, the State and local systems, the systems at 

the JTTFs. They are, in fact, different, and we do have plans to actually work on that. 

I think there is a cultural issue. My personal belief is that initiatives like the global—the criminal intelligence information-sharing 

plan that I am sure you have heard of is the notion that in terms 

of State and local, we have to allow State and local to lead and to 

dictate State and local needs as opposed to sort of coming in there 

like Big Brother and saying, we will tell you when you need to 

know something. So there is an interaction that needs to occur that 

has our State and local and tribal partners sitting at the table as 

a full partner expressing their needs from the Federal family. That 

is actually—I am watching that develop in certain areas, and I am 
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actually fairly encouraged by that. And the day-to-day operational 

level, what would have to happen for us to resolve the issue I think 

you laid out is if there were some suspicion, it would be into the 

JTTF, and the answer to the question would come from the JTTF, 

and I think what you are suggesting is that might not be the most 

efficient way to get the information. 

Mr. CARDIN. Exactly. I understand that. And our Joint Terrorism 

Task Force is working, I think, very effectively, and I am very 

pleased by the way it is working. But to expect that a first responder needs to go through another layer of bureaucracy when 

they already are pressed for time and time might be of the essence, 

and then they have to fight with the priorities within the Joint 

Terrorism Task Force, I am not sure that is the most efficient or 

the best way for that information to be handled. Again, I think 

there is a view among the first responders that there is not really 

a trust in letting them have access to the type of information they 

need. 

Ms. BAGINSKI. I can honestly tell you it is not a trust. It is not 

malice. It is incompetence perhaps sometimes or ineffective execution, and it definitely is not helped by a very difficult information 

technology issue. 

Mr. CARDIN. On the technology point, let me point out that under 

our current system, of course, almost all of the funding has to go 

through the State. Now, our State, again, is working very carefully 

with local governments, but there are many local governments, and 

we don’t always get the same degree of attention to the technology 

compatibilities for local law enforcement dealing directly with Federal agencies because it needs to go through the State as far as approval process is concerned. One of the issues came out again with 

the 9/11 Commission’s recommendations on the funding issues, I 

think, also may play into making it a more cost-effective way for 

local law enforcement to access this information. 

Ms. BAGINSKI. From our perspective, getting the Federal family 

sort of information act in order is job one so that we can interoperate with the State and local and tribal families systems, which 

they actually must have a voice in and lead in. We cannot be dictating hardware and software and business process to them. It is 

not effective. 

Mr. CARDIN. Thank you very. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman COX. I thank the gentleman. 

We have two Members who have not yet had the opportunity to 

question the panel, and with the indulgence of the panel, I know 

we are keeping you here an awfully long time, but if you will bear 

with us, I will give every Member here the opportunity to put questions. 

The Chair recognizes the gentlelady from New York, Mrs. Lowey. 

Mrs. LOWEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to add my 

appreciation to the panel for spending so much time with us here 

today. 

Mr. Brennan, I wanted to follow up on a couple of things that 

were said. Lee Hamilton was here earlier, as you know, and he 

said TTIC is the right concept, but needs to be strengthened. And 

then in your presentation you said the model of the 9/11 Commis-
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sion is not workable. You also referenced the memo of 2003 where 

you said there was an encouragement of cooperation and sharing 

of information, and in further remarks you said that that is improving. Then there was some discussion about upgrading computer technology and how it is so very essential. 

What I am trying to understand is can TTIC and all the other 

agencies which you coordinate do the job that is recommended by 

the 9/11 Commission? What will be different by the institution of 

the NCTC if all the agencies are already willing to share and there 

isn’t some embedded, shall we say, determination not to share? 

Why couldn’t it be done right now with TTIC? 

Along with that, I am concerned, and I would appreciate it if Mr. 

Brennan or each of you could answer, are there enough good intelligence people around? How do we encourage more people to enter 

the field? Should we be doing more training? I believe it is estimated that the new recommended agency will require over 100 new 

personnel. 

So back perhaps to Mr. Brennan, given the fact that Lee Hamilton and the Governor both said that the concept is based on TTIC, 

from your perspective why can’t you accomplish the goals of the 

new recommended agency? Is it that there isn’t an adequate directive from on high? Is it that you haven’t been given the authority 

on high? Is it that the President, as the Markle Foundation has 

stated, has to have a direct connection to this agency in order to 

make it succeed? 

So perhaps I am throwing several questions, but after listening 

here all day, I am trying to understand whether it is structure or 

personnel, whether it is practice or it is policy, or whether it is inadequate directives? Why can’t you do the job? I mean that seriously, obviously. 

Mr. BRENNAN. First of all, when I made reference before to the 

model of the 9/11 Commission not being workable, that was the reference to the overall reform of the Intelligence Community, the National Intelligence Director, and the diagram that is on page 14 of 

their Commission report. That is what I said is not workable, and 

General Hughes did a good job of explaining some of the concerns 

that we have with that. 

As far as the National Counterterrorism Center itself, the concept that is put forward by the 9/11 Commission, again, it calls for 

two things differently—two things that the NCTC would do that 

TTIC does not necessarily do. First is the joint operational planning, and second is net assessments, taking the threat and basing 

it against the vulnerabilities of a target. 

Mrs. LOWEY. Why don’t you do that, and could you do it? 

Mr. BRENNAN. We can do anything that we are directed to do 

and we get the appropriate resources to do. Right now what the arrangement is within the Federal Government is that in the Department of Homeland Security there is the Information Analysis and 

Infrastructure Protection Directorate that this committee was instrumental in setting up. The infrastructure protection element has 

the responsibility for assessing the vulnerabilities of U.S. critical 

infrastructure—

Mrs. LOWEY. Should it be there, or should it be in TTIC? 
135

Mr. BRENNAN. Right now it is there by statute, and what we do 

is we work very closely with the Department of Homeland Security 

so that the information is shared back and forth. 

There is a lot of work that needs to be done on the information 

protection side in terms of identifying those targets, assessing what 

the potential vulnerabilities are and what weaknesses that the terrorists could exploit. So what we are trying to do, I think, with this 

National Counterterrorism Center is try to identify all the responsibilities that need to be carried out and then have the right framework that can fulfill them. 

Mrs. LOWEY. I don’t mean to cut you off, but I see the yellow on. 

I just want to say I am a New Yorker. I lost hundreds of constituents on 9/11. It is 3 years later that we are still getting organized 

and the Department of Homeland Security is still getting organized. Although I believe we have to act expeditiously to implement 

the recommendations, I wonder if some of these recommendations 

couldn’t be implemented by personnel or different personnel or additional personnel at the current structures. And I think this is a 

very important discussion, and it is unfortunate that my red light 

is on. 

The Chairman is not paying attention, so you can respond. 

Mr. BRENNAN. Just a quick comment on that. I think the secret 

is that a lot of the recommendations included in here are already 

being implemented. A lot of work has gone on as far as information 

sharing and making structural change. So there is still more work 

to be done, but a lot of things that are entrained already will, in 

fact, give us a lot of things that are called for in here. 

I am not opposing the idea of intelligence transformation. I am 

one of the biggest advocates of it, in fact a maverick within my own 

home organization, but I think there have been a number of things 

that have been done. We represent here on the panel TTIC, the Office of Intelligence, and the IAIP, a clear manifestation of all the 

changes that have taken place. So what they are calling for here 

is a continued sort of strategic path that we need to be on, but a 

lot of things that are called for here are already done. 

Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Brennan, just in conclusion, with the indulgence of the Chair, I read it a little differently, and as a New Yorker, when I hear from several people on this panel that another attack is imminent, we don’t have the luxury, and I keep asking why 

the current structure can’t move more quickly, and why we keep 

creating bigger structures, and where are we going to get all those 

people to fill those positions? And this is probably another hour 

conversation. So I just wish you good luck, and I hope that you 

move to implement these plans, frankly, before another attack, and 

I hope that you take an aggressive role in reporting to somebody 

that they had better take action on recommendations that don’t 

need structure changes, such as having airport workers, all of them 

who are going into a sterile secure area, go through a metal detector. 

There are things that have to be done now, and I, frankly, representing my constituents, am quite worried that we are not doing 

the obvious. So at the same time I want to thank you, but I hope 

that will speed up the normal pace of the bureaucracy and make 
136

us all safer now, and, as Mr. Hughes said, hopefully avoid another 

attack. Thank you very much. 

Chairman COX. The gentlelady from the District of Columbia. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I apologize to the 

witnesses. Just as it came my time to speak, I was called away on 

a matter that I will take as a kind of case in point. I am working 

with security officials of the Capitol and of the District of Columbia 

concerning the present orange alert and its effects around this Capitol and on this city. And I take it as a case in point, and my question is really based on what amounts to a case study on how much 

integration is occurring and how it is implemented in the field. In 

a real sense it may be the best evidence. 

I have now had two meetings with security officials in the Senate, the House, the District of Columbia. One of the first agreements we reached, I think, would astound the public. We reached 

agreement that the executive branch, the congressional branch, 

and District of Columbia security officials would develop a citywide 

plan for protecting the Nation’s Capital. That means there was 

none, gentlemen. What we had and what we have had and what 

was all too clear following this orange alert is that the executive 

moved to do what it believed was appropriate, the congressional officials moved quickly and with astounding reaction, and the city believes overreaction, and they moved in very different ways. 

And this is why I want to put the question to you, for example, 

Mr. Hughes, is the information analysis and infrastructure protection at the Department of Homeland Security, they moved in very 

different ways. This is right here in the Nation’s Capital where I 

would think that attention and planning and integration of threats 

and how to respond would be at their best. They moved in very different ways. The executive along 15th Street where the Treasury 

Department is, a few blocks from the IMF and the World Bank, 

moved obviously with—first of all, there was some consultation 

with the District of Columbia. There was almost none on the congressional side—with some calculation of risk in deciding what to 

do. Already trucks don’t go up 17th Street, so virtually nothing was 

done on 17th Street. 15th Street is where the Treasury Department 

is. What they did on 15th Street was to decide to close the sidewalk 

on the Treasury Department side of 15th Street. It makes good 

sense to us; some inconvenience to walk on the other side of the 

street, but be my guest. They may be doing what they have been 

doing all along, some randomizing of trucks and larger vehicles, 

but they calculated that you had to continue to have traffic up 15th 

Street unless the risk was so great that you wanted to take more 

severe actions. It is the kind of sensible, but we think assessment—

somebody was doing some analysis. Somebody was thinking 

through all of the factors that had to be considered. 

Go to the other side of town, further away from at least the targeted threat, but certainly a place where you would better take 

some action. One of the reasons why you would better take some 

action is that terrorists know enough how to play chess rather than 

checkers and how to move around what they are going to do. So 

if there is a threat on one side of town, they will ride on this side 

of town to begin to take action. 
137

But the action was very different from the action taken closer to 

the threat. The Treasury Department is closer to the IMF, is closer 

to the World Bank and is arguably more related to those institutions than we are, at least as related. No check points on that side 

of town. The only reason this city isn’t closed down is because it 

is August, and nobody is here but you all and the few of us who 

are left. No closing of streets. 

This is anathema to any big city, absolutely anathema, and the 

one thing the city will not tolerate is the last-resort measure that 

you would expect on a red alert, a closing down of a street leading 

to the major transportation hub of the District of Columbia, Union 

Station, rail, Metro, light rail, the whole kit and caboodle. You 

can’t get there from there; the streets to that hub already closed 

down, the next street down, which is the Senate street, closed 

down. You have got to go all the way back up and get down. This 

is not a matter of convenience. We had to even have consultation 

on making sure emergency vehicles, fire, police, EMS, could get 

through. 

I mean, this is a case study, gentlemen, it seems to me, in 

whether or not there is any integration of terrorist threat going on 

and any analysis of response is occurring from the absence of a 

plan to what appeared to be kind of seat-of-your-pants reactions. 

I have to ask you what is your role here? Do you have any relationship to the people on the ground? Is your threat analysis conveyed in such a way that Federal officials on the ground have some 

basis to take reasonable and coordinative action related to the 

threat that has been identified? And I would like to know the role 

of your agency in that regard, particularly here in the Nation’s 

Capital where it seems to me it would be paramount. 

General HUGHES. I will start by saying that the Department of 

Homeland Security gives advice and assistance in these matters. 

We also provide threat information, and in this case we did provide 

threat information directly to the many officials involved. There are 

quite a few. 

As you know, this is a somewhat complex jurisdictional issue 

here in the District of Columbia and the two States that encompass 

it, Maryland and Virginia. We try to inform everyone involved, and 

in this case it may not have been a perfect job, but we did the best 

we could at the time. I have to say that the actions, the decisions 

and actions, are left to local authorities. In this case that would be 

both—

Ms. NORTON. I am quite aware of that. That is not my question. 

I know who did it. I am not accusing you of doing it. I am trying 

to find out whether or not the nature of the analysis of the threat 

as conveyed to the people on the ground is such that they are doing 

anything but acting in an ad hoc and uncoordinated manner. And 

my question really isn’t meant to be recriminatory to you. I am just 

trying to make a link here to an actual case in point because I 

think we might learn from it. 

And by the way, if I may say so, we are the one jurisdiction that 

does have a coordinator. It is in the statute. So if anything, it is 

easier here than it would be elsewhere because there is a paid coordinator who is in the Office of the Secretary himself precisely be-
138

cause this is the Nation’s Capital, and yet this is what has happened here only within the last 2 weeks. 

General HUGHES. The answer in this case is that the threat information regarding the International Monetary Fund and the 

World Bank buildings were communicated directly to appropriate 

authorities here in Washington, DC. 

Ms. NORTON. Does anybody else have anything to say about the 

relationship between the analysis and how those on the ground 

who are not experts at analysis and therefore have to depend upon 

the analysts, about that link which is the link I am trying to get 

at? 

Ms. BAGINSKI. Yes, ma’am. General Hughes and my organization 

have, in fact, done a series of joint advisories and bulletins for 

State and local authorities to share as much specificity as we can 

about the nature of this particular threat that would allow them 

to take countermeasures. So in this case we have a unique situation in that we have detail. I think the frustration in other cases 

is there is that lack of specificity to begin with, there isn’t a lot of 

detail, and so the analysis that you can do on an isolated threat 

is—

Ms. NORTON. But I congratulate you that for the first time you 

really did have, and we are all grateful for the fact that you had, 

the most specific information we have had since 9/11, and yet we 

see this seat of your pants all over the city, do as you care to do 

without much guidance in the analysis of the threat from somebody 

who knew more than they knew. That is my—that is what I am 

focusing on. 

Ms. BAGINSKI. We actually think that we did provide this analysis, but I think it is worth our going back and taking a look at 

it for you. 

Ms. NORTON. I would appreciate it. 

Chairman COX. The gentlelady’s time has expired. Each member 

of the committee having had the opportunity to ask questions of 

this panel, I want to at last excuse you long after our intended departure time. I know that several of you had to in real time change 

your schedules today. I know what is going down at the White 

House concurrently, and we very much appreciate your being with 

us here for such a long period of time here today. 

At this point I would yield to the Ranking Member. 

Mr. TURNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I, too, want to thank the 

witnesses for your patience and indulgence today. We had obviously such a broad scope of issues to delve into, I am sure we could 

spend many more hours on these subjects, and I hope we will, in 

fact. And I want to thank each of you for your dedication, for your 

service and your commitment to making America safe. 

Ms. JACKSON-LEE. Will Mr. Turner yield for a question, please? 

Mr. TURNER. Yes, I will yield. 

Ms. JACKSON-LEE. I heard Mr. Frank’s questioning regarding the 

peace activists and others. I would appreciate it if the same responses or written answers that you might give to him that you 

would forward to me as well. 

And also I wanted to make sure that the questions dealing with 

the power of the board governing civil liberties, if you were going 

to give written answers, if you will include me as well. I know you 
139

might be giving them to the committee. I wasn’t sure, and I wanted 

to make sure that those questions came in. Thank you. 

Ms. BAGINSKI. Yes, ma’am. 

Mr. TURNER. It would be helpful if you would just send that to 

all members of the committee. 

Ms. BAGINSKI. We will. 

Chairman COX. I thank the gentleman. 

Again, I thank each of our witnesses for your valuable testimony. 

The members of the committee may have some additional questions, as Ms. Jackson-Lee indicated. We would ask you to respond 

to these in writing. The hearing record will be held open for this 

purpose for 10 days. 

[The information follows:]

FOR THE RECORD 

QUESTIONS AND RESPONSES FOR THE RECORD

QUESTIONS FROM THE HONORABLE JOHN SWEENEY FOR MS. MAUREEN BAGINSKI

1. Does the FBI have real time secure digital communication networks capable of handling Top Secret SCI level information connected to all 84 

JTTFs? 

Response: The FBI is connected to the rest of the United States Intelligence Community (USIC) at the Top Secret Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) level 

via the new SCI Operational Network (SCION). SCION is currently available to 

over 1,000 users at FBI Headquarters (FBIHQ). The FBI has initiated a pilot project 

whereby SCION will be deployed to the FBI’s Field Offices in New York, Boston, 

and Kansas City, with plans to deliver SCION to all FBI Field Offices as funding 

becomes available. While in most Field Offices there are two Intelligence Information System Network (IISNET) workstations, which permit communications to the 

USIC’s Intelink system, these are difficult to use and are housed in small SCI Facilities (SCIFs) that are not located near the IISNET users. An impediment to field 

expansion of SCION is the current lack of SCIF space for Field Intelligence Group 

and Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) personnel, who are the most likely users. 

Currently, SCION is available to six of the 100 JTTFs.

2. Will the Integrated Data Warehouse be fully functional and available to 

state and local analysts by the end of December as Director Mueller promised? 

Response: Yes. The Integrated Data Warehouse (IDW) is currently fully functional 

with approximately 6,000 users, including approximately 2,500 users in state and 

local law enforcement and numerous federal government agencies. Although IDW 

can only be accessed from the FBI’s internal network, it is available to users in all 

Field Intelligence Groups (FIGs) and all JTTFs and, through these users, IDW is 

available to the thousands of federal, state, and local officials assigned to these entities. IDW contains more than 30 million FBI terrorism-related documents and 

bi11ions of database records relevant to counterterrorism and intelligence. 

QUESTIONS FROM THE HONORABLE EDWARD J. MARKEY

3. On page 380 of the Commission’s report, the Commission recommended 

that ‘‘The United States should engage its friends to develop a common coalition approach toward the detention and humane treatment of captured 

terrorists.’’ (emphasis added) The Commission further recommends that 

these ‘‘new principles might draw upon Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions on the law of armed conflict’’ which notes ‘‘was specifically designed 

for those cases in which the usual laws of war did not apply’’ and is 

generall accepted throughout the world as customary international law. 

As you know, Article 3 deals with conflicts that are not of an international character, such as civil wars, and it includes a specific prohibition 

on ‘‘violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture’’ and ‘‘outrages upon personal dignity, in 

particular, humiliating and degrading treatment.’’
140

Can I conclude, based on these passages in its report, that the Commission is recommending that captured terrorists should be afforded these 

types of protections—protections against murder, mutilation, torture and 

degrading treatment? 

Response: The FBI respectfully defers to the 9/11 Commission regarding the recommendations contained in the Commission’s report. With regard to the FBI’s participation in the interrogation of terrorists outside the United States, FBI agents deployed outside the United States in connection with the war on terrorism have been 

directed not to participate in the use of interrogation techniques that would not be 

permissible if used within the United States.

4. There is another Convention that the Commission did not specifically 

mention in its report—the UN Convention Against Torture. The U.S. is a 

signatory to that Convention. Article 3 of the Torture Convention provides 

that ‘‘no state party shall expel, return, or extradite a person to another 

State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be 

in danger of being subjected to torture.’’

Do you also believe that the U.S. should follow this prohibition in dealing 

with captured terrorist suspects? 

Response: It is my understanding that it is the policy of the United States to comply with the United States’ obligations under the Convention Against Torture.

5. The Bush Administration unfortunately appears to be pursuing policies 

that are inconsistent with the Commission’s recommendation. Specifically, 

instead of ensuring that the prisoners captured are treated humanely, the 

Administration continues to practice a process called ‘‘rendition,’’ in which 

it sends suspected terrorists to be interrogated in third countries. such as 

Syria or Saudi Arabia. that our government has determined, within the 

context of the State Department’s Country Reports on Human Rights Practices. are known to practice torture. This practice is very difficult to reconcile with President Bush’s own declaration, following the exposure of 

abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison, that: ‘‘We do not condone torture. I have 

never ordered torture. I will never order torture. The values of this country are such that torture is not a part of our soul and our being.’’

Perhaps there are some who would argue that as long as we ask others 

to do the torturing for us, the U.S. is not, strictly speaking, doing the torturing.

Do you agree that if we are to realize the Commission’s goal of having 

the U.S. serve as an example of moral leadership in the world, we should 

renounce the policy of rendition, which amounts to ‘‘outsourcing torture’’? 

Response: Your question assumes a number of facts that do not involve the FBI. 

The FBI respectfully defers to entities in the Executive Branch in a better position 

to respond.

6. If we are to ‘‘develop a common coalition approach toward the detention 

and humane treatment of captured terrorists’’—as the Commission has recommended, do you agree that the U.S. should comply with Article 3 of the 

Torture Convention and train our service men and women so they understand what is required to comply with Article 3? 

Response: It is my understanding that it is the policy of the United States to comply with the United States’ obligations under the Convention Against Torture.

7. I have recently introduced H.R. 4674, a bill to stop the rendition to countries that torture prisoners. My bill has been endorsed by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the World Organization for Human Rights, 

USA, and the New York Bar Association. 

Do you think it would be consistent with the Commission’s recommendations regarding torture for the Congress to enact this type of bill into law? 

Response: The FBI defers to other, more directly concerned parties regarding this 

question.

Chairman COX. I would like to thank all the members of this 

committee as well as the witnesses on the first panel, the Chairman and Vice Chairman of the 9/11 Commission for an extraordinary piece of business today which required Members to travel 

from all over the country to be here, and in some cases from other 

countries. 
141

There being no further business before the committee today, committee stands adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 4:15 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]

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