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FEDERAL INTERAGENCY DATA-SHARING AND

NATIONAL SECURITY

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY,

VETERANS AFFAIRS AND INTERNATIONAL

RELATIONS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

JULY 24, 2001

Serial No. 107–100

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

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

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York

CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

STEPHEN HORN, California

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

BOB BARR, Georgia

DAN MILLER, Florida

DOUG OSE, California

RON LEWIS, Kentucky

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

DAVE WELDON, Florida

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida

C.L. ‘‘BUTCH’’ OTTER, Idaho

EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,

DC

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

JIM TURNER, Texas

THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

——— ———

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

KEVIN BINGER, Staff Director

DANIEL R. MOLL, Deputy Staff Director

JAMES C. WILSON, Chief Counsel

ROBERT A. BRIGGS, Chief Clerk

PHIL SCHILIRO, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, VETERANS AFFAIRS AND INTERNATIONAL

RELATIONS

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut, Chairman

ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

RON LEWIS, Kentucky

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

DAVE WELDON, Florida

C.L. ‘‘BUTCH’’ OTTER, Idaho

EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine

TOM LANTOS, California

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

——— ———

——— ———

EX OFFICIO

DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

LAWRENCE J. HALLORAN, Staff Director and Counsel

THOMAS COSTA, Professional Staff Member

JASON CHUNG, Clerk

DAVID RAPALLO, Minority Counsel

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on July 24, 2001 ............................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Swartz, Bruce C., Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Division,

U.S. Department of Justice; Bruce Townsend, Special Agent in Charge,

Financial Crimes Division, U.S. Secret Service; Catherine Barry, Director, Consular Affairs Visa Services, accompanied by John Brennan,

Visa Office, Interagency and Systems Liaison Division, U.S. Department of State; and Colonel Mike Deacy, USAF, Assistant Deputy Director, Information Engineering, Defense Information Systems Agency ...... 5

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

Barry, Catherine, Director, Consular Affairs Visa Services, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 30

Deacy, Colonel Mike, USAF, Assistant Deputy Director, Information Engineering, Defense Information Systems Agency, prepared statement

of ..................................................................................................................... 46

Shays, Hon. Christopher, a Representative in Congress from the State

of Connecticut, prepared statement of ........................................................ 3

Swartz, Bruce C., Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Division,

U.S. Department of Justice, prepared statement of ................................... 9

Townsend, Bruce, Special Agent in Charge, Financial Crimes Division,

U.S. Secret Service, prepared statement of ................................................ 22

(1)

FEDERAL INTERAGENCY DATA-SHARING AND

NATIONAL SECURITY

TUESDAY, JULY 24, 2001

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, VETERANS

AFFAIRS AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM, Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in room

2247, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher Shays

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Shays, Gilman, Otter, and Kucinich.

Staff present: Lawrence J. Halloran, staff director and counsel;

Robert Newman and Thomas Costa, professional staff members;

Alex Moore, fellow; Jason M. Chung, clerk; Kristin Taylor, intern;

David Rapallo, minority counsel; Earley Green, minority assistant

clerk; and Teresa Coufal, minority staff assistant.

Mr. SHAYS. Good morning.

In 1996, President Clinton declared international crime a threat

to national security and ordered Federal agencies to integrate and

coordinate their efforts against global crime syndicates. In response, the Department of Justice [DOJ], launched the Anti-Drug

Network/Nigerian Crime Initiative, referred to as ADNET/NCI, the

first data-sharing project allowing all participating Federal law enforcement agencies to pool active criminal case information on a secure network, computer network.

It was hoped this initiative would help meet the threats of money

laundering, narcotics trafficking and terrorism, and serve as a prototype for more efficient data base coordination and cooperation.

But now it appears that the ADNET/NCI project has lost momentum, falling prey to jurisdictional disputes, unresolved legal issues,

bureaucratic inertia, budget constraints and personnel turnover. A

key leadership position in the program has been vacant for months.

What were once regular working group meetings have become sporadic. A number of ADNET/NCI task force sites appear to lack

agency support.

During our hearing last April on protecting American interests

abroad, witnesses said they saw a need for more frequent, more accurate and more timely data exchanges between Federal agencies

to keep pace with the dynamic criminal and terrorist threats to

U.S. citizens and corporate facilities. In this hearing, we ask

whether ADNET/NCI or a program like it can meet that need. And

we ask what legal organizational and fiscal barriers stand in the

way of broader, more effective data-sharing.

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Strengthening national security, particularly border security

against dispersed but deadly criminals and terrorists requires

interagency cooperation and coordination on an unprecedented

scale. Data matches between Federal agencies today are often the

product of good luck and the happenstance of personal relationships. The modern threat demands a more systematic collection

and dissemination of the information needed to identify suspects or

prevent felony criminals from entering the United States, consistent with the privacy rights and the protection of civil liberties.

Joining us today are representatives from the Department of

Justice, the Secret Service, the Defense Information Systems Agency and the Department of State to describe the status of interagency data-sharing and discuss the obstacles they face in using information technology to enhance national security.

The subcommittee appreciates, truly appreciates, the contributions of our witnesses today and we look forward to their testimony.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Christopher Shays follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. We have one panel today. Our panel consists of four

participants: Bruce Swartz, Deputy Assistant Attorney General,

Criminal Division, U.S. Department of Justice; Mr. Bruce Townsend, Special Agent in Charge of the Financial Crimes Division,

U.S. Secret Service; Ms. Catherine Barry, Director, Consular Affairs Visa Services, U.S. Department of State; and Colonel Mike

Deacy, U.S. Air Force, Assistant Deputy Director, Information Engineering, Defense Information Systems Agency.

And as you are aware, we swear in our witnesses. We invite you

to stand and raise your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. SHAYS. I will note for the record that all of our witnesses

have responded in the affirmative. I think what we will do is, we’ll

take you in the order that I called you.

And so you understand, the clock, we do 5 minutes and then roll

over into the next 5 minutes. That is acceptable. If you get to the

second red light, all hell breaks loose.

STATEMENTS OF BRUCE C. SWARTZ, DEPUTY ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL, CRIMINAL DIVISION, U.S. DEPARTMENT

OF JUSTICE; BRUCE TOWNSEND, SPECIAL AGENT IN

CHARGE, FINANCIAL CRIMES DIVISION, U.S. SECRET SERVICE; CATHERINE BARRY, DIRECTOR, CONSULAR AFFAIRS

VISA SERVICES, ACCOMPANIED BY JOHN BRENNAN, VISA

OFFICE, INTERAGENCY AND SYSTEMS LIAISON DIVISION,

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE; AND COLONEL MIKE DEACY,

USAF, ASSISTANT DEPUTY DIRECTOR, INFORMATION ENGINEERING, DEFENSE INFORMATION SYSTEMS AGENCY

Mr. SWARTZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With that warning in

mind, I would like to submit my statement for the record with the

subcommittee’s permission.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the opportunity to testify this morning on behalf of the Department of Justice on the issues of interagency data-sharing and national security. My testimony this

morning focuses on two distinct but interrelated topics, the Nigerian Organized Crime Initiative and ADNET, the Anti-Drug Network. We’ll turn first to the Nigerian Organized Crime Initiative.

Mr. Chairman, as you noted in your opening statement, the Nigerian Organized Crime Initiative is part of the Federal law enforcement response to international organized crime. As the subcommittee is well aware, international organized crime is a rising

threat to U.S. citizens. It reaches out and touches American citizens in a number of ways.

International organized crime has drawn upon the forces that

have made globalization possible, including advanced telecommunications networks of travel and means of moving quickly from one

country to another. In recognition of this, again as you recognized,

Mr. Chairman, in your opening statement, PDD–42, has denominated international organized crime not simply as a law enforcement problem, but as a national security threat.

Mr. SHAYS. Can you suspend a second?

Can I ask if you can hear in the back? It might be such a good

system it does not sound like a system. Sorry to interrupt.

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Since I have already interrupted you, let me just welcome Mr.

Kucinich. And I think you have a statement that you would like

submitted for the record.

And if I you don’t mind, as well, I am going to—to just take care

of two business issues so I don’t forget them. I ask unanimous consent that all members of the subcommittee be permitted to place

an opening statement in the record, and that the record remain

open for 3 days for that purpose. Without objection so ordered.

As for procedures, now that all witnesses be permitted to include

their written statements. Without objection, so ordered.

Mr. Swartz, sorry to interrupt you. But you have the floor again.

Mr. SWARTZ. Then let me turn back to PDD–42.

Mr. SHAYS. Sure.

Mr. SWARTZ. That decision directive required that Federal law

enforcement consider more interagency data-sharing, think how

they could work together, how national law enforcement can work

together more effectively. One part of the response to that directive

was the creation of the Nigerian Organized Crime Initiative.

I want to emphasize from the outset that the focus of this initiative is not, of course, on the millions of law-abiding Nigerians both

in this country and abroad. Rather, the focus is on Nigerian criminal groups that now dominate crime emanating from West Africa.

Crime arising from those Nigerian criminal enterprises has escalated over the past decade. Those criminal groups are polymorphic

in nature. They engage in a wide range of crimes ranging from narcotics trafficking to alien smuggling to financial crime. Because of

the wide range of their criminal activities, and the shifting membership of their groups, their loose affiliations, a number of Federal

law enforcement agencies are involved in the response to Nigerian

organized crime.

As Mr. Townsend of the Secret Service will explain in greater detail, since the late 1980’s, the U.S. Secret Service has sponsored a

number of task forces to respond to the problem of financial crime

that is committed by Nigerian organized crime groups.

In 1996, following PDD–42, the Department of Justice, the Department of Treasury and the Department of State, along with the

U.S. Postal Service, began to work together to develop the Nigerian

Organized Crime Initiative. The principal components of that initiative are: interagency and multilateral task forces to investigate

Nigerian organized crime both here and abroad; second, coordinated efforts to educate the public as to Nigerian organized crime,

particularly financial crime; and, third, increased data-sharing

among the Federal law enforcement agencies involved in the fight

against Nigerian organized crime, including data-sharing through

electronic computerized means on ADNET wanted the subcommittee’s permission.

I’ll now turn to the second topic that we are visiting this morning, ADNET, which is the Anti-Drug Network. As the subcommittee is aware, ADNET is a secure network administered by the Defense Information Services Agency [DISA], on DISA’s Defense Information Systems network.

ADNET was established pursuant to the Defense Authorization

Act of 1989 for purposes of integrating the command, control, comVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:35 Oct 10, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00010 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\81594.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
7

munications, and technical intelligence aspects of the United States

dedicated to the interdiction of illegal drugs.

ADNET thus preexists and predates the Nigerian Organized

Crime Initiative, and its scope extends beyond that initiative. By

the same token, the Nigerian Organized Crime Initiative extends

beyond ADNET. They are, if you will, two noncongruent circles

that intersect at a certain point, that point, the area of overlap, is

the use of ADNET for the use of electronic sharing of information

involving Nigerian organized crime groups.

But, again, it is important to recognize that the initiative and

ADNET exist independently of each other.

In April 1998, former Attorney General Reno requested that

DISA agree to create, as a pilot project, the use of ADNET to share

information involving Nigerian organized crime groups. It was envisioned that ADNET would serve as a secure means of exchanging

information in the data bases of the various law enforcement agencies fighting Nigerian organized crime, to share, to communicate

with each other as to the investigations they are conducting.

That network has grown significantly since its inception. Currently, ADNET has more than 1.5 million records involving Nigerian organized crime in its data base. That is drawing from 15 distinct data bases supplied by eight Federal agencies; 331 agents and

other personnel have been cleared for access to these records.

A total of 16 ADNET network stations have been installed in six

of the interagency task force offices, as well as there are two locations abroad now that have ADNET terminals that are supported

by the Nigerian Crime Initiative, one in Ghana and one in Nigeria.

There are another 15 ADNET terminals in place in agency headquarters and various law enforcement field offices. At the current

time, this system, that is, the Nigerian records system on the

ADNET, receives approximately 1,000 queries per month as of this

current year.

The chairman’s letter to the Department of Justice asked for reports regarding the success of the ADNET/NCI, Nigerian Crime

Initiative. This is a difficult topic to address simply because the use

of ADNET and the exchange of information varies significantly

from agency to agency depending upon their needs at a particular

time.

Nonetheless, it is important to recognize that the Nigerian Organized Crime Initiative as a whole has registered a number of significant successes, in part because of the interagency data-sharing

that has gone forward both through ADNET and other means. And

Mr. Townsend will, I think, report on some of the successes that

task forces and other portions of the combined initiative have tallied thus far.

We have also been asked to comment on the Department of Justice’s plans for the future of the ADNET Nigerian Organized Crime

Initiative in regard—again, it is important to distinguish between

the Nigerian Organized Crime Initiative and ADNET; both must be

assessed independently.

The Nigerian Organized Crime Initiative, again, as I have said

previously, has, we believe, scored significant successes. That initiative is broader than the use of ADNET and will certainly continue in its use of task forces and information sharing.

8

Similarly, ADNET, again as I have pointed out, is broader than

the initiative itself. And the use of ADNET for law enforcement

purposes also will continue, both, we believe, within the initiative

itself and outside of that initiative, since ADNET provides a secure

means for law enforcement agencies to communicate with each

other and provides a means for accessing other law enforcement

data bases that are preexisting.

The administration will consider what steps are appropriate next

to take with regard to the Nigerian Organized Crime Initiative and

its use of ADNET. The possibilities include an expanded use of

ADNET not only for Nigerian organized crime, but possibly for

other organized crime activities.

Alternatively, there is the possibility of the use of ADNET as

more of a pointer or index system. Instead of creating case data

bases in each agency that can be accessed by ADNET, which is

very resource-intensive, to try to use more easily uploaded sets of

documents to make ADNET a means of having a broader index system.

The Department will be happy to report back after that review

has taken place.

Finally, we have been asked to talk some on the legal and other

options—— Mr. SHAYS. We’ll come back. You have had 10 minutes.

Mr. SWARTZ. Thank you.

Mr. SHAYS. I think you were curious to see what would happen

with the red light. I was sure that you wouldn’t point out that I

was a fraud.

I also like put the fear in you. It accomplished nothing.

Mr. SWARTZ. No. I am very fearful actually.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Swartz follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Townsend.

Mr. TOWNSEND. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to

address the subcommittee on the subject of Federal interagency

data-sharing and the Secret Service’s role in the Anti-Drug Network/Nigerian Crime Initiative. I have prepared a comprehensive

statement which will be submitted for the record. With the subcommittee’s permission, I will summarize it at this time.

Mr. SHAYS. Sometimes the summary is longer than the statement.

Mr. TOWNSEND. I will endeavor to make sure that is not the case.

Mr. SHAYS. We want you to cover the territory, so you go ahead.

Mr. TOWNSEND. In addition to providing the highest levels of

physical protection to our Nation’s leaders, the Secret Service exercises broad investigative jurisdiction over a variety of financial

crimes. As the original guardian of our nation’s financial payment

system, the Secret Service has a long history of pursuing those who

would victimize our financial institutions and law-abiding citizens.

In recent years, a combination of the information technology revolution and the effects of globalization have caused the investigative mission of the Secret Service to evolve in a manner that cannot

be overstated.

With the passage of the Omnibus Crime Control Act of 1984, the

Secret Service was provided jurisdiction to investigate access device

fraud. One of the first groups that the Secret Service identified as

being heavily involved in this crime was a loosely organized criminal element within the growing Nigerian population in the United

States.

It is important to emphasize at the outset that despite the Nigerian criminal elements that now dominate crime emanating from

West Africa, we in the Secret Service recognize that there are millions of law-abiding Nigerians at home and abroad whose rich tradition and culture we admire and whose contributions to our society we value.

The democratically elected government that came to power in Nigeria in 1999 is keenly aware that the extensive involvement by

Nigerians in financial scams carried out around the world and in

the international drug trade creates not only enormous financial

losses, but often feeds widespread, but unjustified, perceptions

about Nigerians. Nigeria still retains many legitimate opportunities

for business and investment; however, there are corporations

around the world that are reluctant to deal with Nigerian companies for fear of becoming embroiled in fraudulent activity.

Only by sharing our combined expertise and resources will we be

able to effectively address the Nigerian organized crime problem

that plagues us all.

In the late 1980’s, the Secret Service took a proactive approach

to combating Nigerian organized crime by establishing and maintaining task forces throughout the United States whose main focus

was the investigation of financial fraud committed by Nigerian nationals and their accomplices. Membership in these task forces included representatives from the U.S. Customs Service, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the U.S. Postal Inspection

Service, the DEA, the FBI, the IRS, the Department of State’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security, bank investigators from the private

21

sector, as well as numerous State and local law enforcement agencies.

In May 1996, pursuant to PDD–42, a Federal law enforcement

interagency working group was created to develop a domestic law

enforcement strategy regarding Nigerian organized crime. The

strategy that was developed targeted both domestic and international Nigerian criminal activity, and emphasized coordination of

U.S. law enforcement, the sharing of investigative leads and information and enhanced cooperation with our foreign law enforcement

counterparts to coordinate multinational cases and investigations.

The proposed enforcement efforts of this strategy became known

as the Nigerian Crime Initiative. The working group also proposed

to utilize its computer data base to share Nigerian case data electronically. It was later agreed that the Department of Defense Information Systems Agency Anti-drug Network, ADNET, would be

the mechanism for sharing this information.

In an effort to take the fight against these criminal organizations

to its source, on January 12, 1999, the Secret Service began a cooperative effort with the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria and the Nigerian

National Police. The purpose of this effort was to provide operational, investigative and training assistance to the NNP and other

Nigerian Federal law enforcement agencies. A task force was established in Lagos, Nigeria, that was initially staffed by two special

agents of the Secret Service on rotating temporary assignments.

Over the next 16 months, using information supplied by the 11

domestic task force, the Secret Service assisted the NNP in executing search warrants at more than 100 suspected advance fee fraud

plants around Lagos, which, in turn, resulted in nearly 200 arrests.

The challenge we face is great, but the progress we are making

against Nigerian criminal elements is positive, as is the commitment by the new democratically elected government in Nigeria to

become a full partner in these efforts.

Mr. Chairman, that concludes my prepared statement. I would

be happy to answer any questions.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Mr. Townsend.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Townsend follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Ms. Barry.

Ms. BARRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a pleasure to be here

today to comment on the efforts of the Bureau of Consular Affairs

for the Department of State to use an enhanced interagency datashare. I have prepared a written statement, and with your permission, will submit it for the record and make a few oral remarks.

Mr. SHAYS. Yes. Thank you.

Ms. BARRY. As you are well aware, sir, our visa workload overseas has grown steadily every year. In fiscal year 2000, we processed 413,000 immigrant visa cases and close to 10 million nonimmigrant visa cases. That resulted in issuing visas to the tune of

7.1 million and denying visas to 2.4 million applicants.

The visa waiver program approved by Congress last year prevented this number from growing even higher. Data-share has become essential to us, keeping up with this growing workload and

providing visa adjudication in an efficient manner.

Using funding provided by the machinery to do visa fee, the Bureau of Consular Affairs installed modernized computers overseas

for all visa functions, and we covered all of our operations worldwide by September 1999.

Since that time, we have continued to improve our systems, both

the hardware and software. This year, our most significant achievement was the replication of all visa data in Washington in a manner that can be accessed by the Bureau of Consular Affairs and

consular officers overseas.

One constant element of our efforts since 1999 has been to expand data-share with other agencies. Our Lookout System, known

as CLASS-E, keeps growing, in part because of the data-share

agreements we have with other agencies. Our Lookout data base

now has 5.7 million records.

With regard to immigrant visa cases, we now share 55 percent

of our immigrant visa data with INS and Customs at 16 ports of

entry. Data on new cases is available to these agencies in less than

an hour.

The Bureau of Consular Affairs, INS and the Social Security Administration have recently reached an agreement to use immigrant

visa data to ensure the secure issuance of Social Security numbers

to new immigrants.

With regard to nonimmigrant visa cases, earlier this month we

began a pilot to share data on issued visas with INS ports of entry.

The pilot program currently includes the INS operation at Newark

Airport. For example, by looking at the photo in our data base, INS

inspectors will be able to uncover imposters more quickly and effectively.

We maintain dialog with analysts, especially those who work on

antiterrorism or antiorganized crime projects to ensure that their

hard findings are captured in an appropriate visa Lookout entry.

We share with INS information on lost and stolen passports.

And to sum up, in our view, the results of these efforts have been

faster detection of fraud overseas, improved evidence and greater

overall deterrence. We know there is always room for improvement;

in this vein, we continue to improve the algorithms we use to define the search in the Lookout System on foreign names.

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The comments an adjudicating officer may make in an electronic

record of a specific case will soon be available to consular officers

at other posts, as well as to INS inspectors.

The next projects in our horizon are a pilot program using facial

recognition technology, enhanced data-share with the FBI on criminal alien records for which legislation would be required. We are

talking to Customs about getting more data on serious violators.

And with DEA we are discussing improving the timeliness of our

connectivity.

I would like to close by reiterating that the use and enhancement

of data-share is and will remain a significant objective of the Bureau of Consular Affairs. We view data-share as a means of facilitating legitimate travel and improving border security, although

our focus is a little different.

Obviously, from my remarks, we are focused more on the hard

findings rather than on the analytical side of the process.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Ms. Barry.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Barry follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Colonel Deacy.

Colonel DEACY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this opportunity

to testify before your subcommittee. I have submitted a written

statement for the record, and I will proceed now with brief oral remarks.

Mr. SHAYS. Please move your mic a little closer.

Colonel DEACY. I am Colonel Mike Deacy, Assistant Deputy Director for Information Engineering at the Defense Information Systems Agency [DISA], Department of Defense.

The agency began in 1960 as a defense communications agency

charged with consolidating the communications functions common

to the military department at that time. In 1991, the name was

changed to DISA, to reflect the agency’s role in providing total information systems support to the Defense Department.

The DISA commander is dual-hatted as Director, DISA, and

Manager of the National Communications System. National Communications System is a confederation of 23 Federal departments

and agencies in cooperation with 30 private companies responsible

for the availability of a viable national security and emergency preparedness telecommunications infrastructure.

The White House Communications Agency is also managed

under DISA. The DISA Vice Director is dual-hatted as commander

of the Joint Task Force Computer Network Operations.

DISA is a Department of Defense combat support agency under

the direction, authority and control of the Assistant Secretary of

Defense for Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence.

DISA provides reliable, flexible, affordable and effective communications and information systems support to warfighters, regardless of their location, mission, or the military service or allied nation with which they are affiliated.

DISA plans, develops, supports command, control, communications, computer and intelligence and information systems that

serve the needs of the national command authorities under all conditions during peace or war.

DISA ensures the interoperability and integration of C4I systems. The Global Command and Control System is the premier

command and control system in support of national command authorities, warfighting commanders in chief and joint task force

commanders.

The global combat support system interfaces, integrates and displays information from authoritative DOD-wide service and agencysponsored combat support systems. The Defense Information System Network data networks include the unclassified but sensitive

Internet Protocol Router network, or NIPRNet, and the Secret

Internet Protocol Router network, SIPRNet. These two data networks provide the essential information necessary to conduct and

support the full range of military operations.

The Defense Message System is the ASD C3I designated messaging system for DOD and supporting agencies. The Defense Information infrastructure common operating environment is the foundation infrastructure for building interoperable C2 systems.

In partnership with the Defense Logistics Agency, we provide engineering support for the Joint Electronic Commerce Program ofVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:35 Oct 10, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00047 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\81594.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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fice. This effort will make electronic commerce electronic business

a reality between DOD and its commercial partners.

We work closely with theatre and tactical command and control

systems, allied C4 systems and those national and international

commercial systems that affect DISA’s mission.

DISA Western Hemisphere, or WESTHEM provides world class

information products and services to DISA customers in the Western Hemisphere and global systems management of deployed portions of the Defense Information System network.

In partnership with the National Security Agency, we also provide engineering for the DOD public key infrastructure program.

One of our assigned projects is the Anti-Drug Network, ADNET.

Our ADNET office is located within the information engineering organization, the smallest of its nine divisions.

DISA works two multi-agency projects for the law enforcement

community as the technical agent for computers and communications. The first project, ADNET, serves the military, intelligence

and law enforcement communities, sharing counter-drug information at the secret collateral level.

The second project supports the Nigerian Organized Crime Strategy of the Departments of Justice, State, Treasury and the U.S.

Postal Service by assisting those organizations in the sharing of

sensitive law enforcement information within a secret environment.

ADNET is a component of our response to congressional tasking

in the 1989 Defense Authorization Act. By taking advantage of the

existing military command and control network used across the Department, ADNET expanded to serve 17 key detection and monitoring locations by early 1990, and totaled over 30 sites by 1991.

There were a number of concerns cross the counter-drug community as this information sharing environment grew. We ensured

that the Joint Staff validated each and every new site in the

ADNET community of interest.

In 1994, the executive office of the President, Office of National

Drug Control Policy [ONDCP], sponsored the National Interdiction

Command and Control Plan [NICCP]. The NICCP directed that,

‘‘ADNET will be the primary communications interface for passing

counter-drug command, control and tactically actionable information among the three intelligence centers.’’ DISA supported this effort as it engineered upgrades to the overall networking environment.

In 1995, ONDCP and the drug intelligence community, which includes defense law enforcement and foreign intelligence agencies,

developed and signed the Interdiction Intelligence Support Plan.

The support plan designated ADNET as the principal tool for sharing counter-drug intelligence among the interdiction centers/components and supporting drug intelligence community.

The ISSP also tasked the ADNET program to initiate new forms

of information sharing based on World Wide Web technology. DISA

supported this effort and made possible quantities of data-sharing.

Over 50 Federal entities are now members of the ADNET community and they operate from over 130 sites worldwide.

As for the second effort, from the Defense perspective, our support to the Nigerian Organized Crime Strategy is based on PDD–

42, International Organized Crime, November 1995.

45

In 1997, senior Justice Department representatives requested an

enhancement in the ADNET model for information sharing to include hosting sensitive law enforcement data with access from nine

Federal agencies.

The agencies had no way to interconnect themselves across any

other common network. As a Federal agency tasked to support

PDD–42, DISA made it clear that while this could not be funded

by Defense appropriations, DISA could support an innovative information sharing effort with funding by the participating agencies.

Funding began in 1998, and DISA developed a distributed data

base environment with query capability across the agencies, along

with security controls.

Once again, I thank you for the opportunity to appear before the

subcommittee. I will answer any questions you have to the best of

my ability and take questions for the record that are beyond my

capability to respond to at this time.

[The prepared statement of Colonel Deacy follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much.

Let me confess that when we talk about information systems,

sometimes my eyelids start to go down a little bit, and I notice

some of the people in audience, they start to—their heads start to

droop.

But I consider this a very, very important issue. And the logic

that I take to this is, of course, we would want to share this information, subject to wanting to make sure that civil liberties aren’t,

you know, compromised and that data isn’t compromised.

Colonel Deacy, you said basically we had 13 sites, to go to 30.

I just want to be clear. That is the only—first off, how many sites

are there? You told—now my understanding, Colonel, is there are

only a few places that you can access information, correct?

Colonel DEACY. No, sir. There are actually many places.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. Then I misunderstand the concept in your document when—maybe that is when my eyes started to droop too low,

my eyelids. What was the mention of sites? We talked about sites,

and they——

Colonel DEACY. Yes, sir. That is where I mentioned the initial

starting number of sites.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. You are going to have to talk a little bit louder.

Hit that mic, just—I just dislike these mics, I guess.

Colonel DEACY. Sir, the key is that there are 50 Federal entities

that can access this data, which belong to us.

Mr. SHAYS. Anywhere? The term—or are there only certain

places where they can get this information?

Colonel DEACY. There are only certain places.

Mr. SHAYS. That is what my question was. How many places are

there presently?

Colonel DEACY. Sir, for a specific number, I will have to take that

for the record. But, I believe it’s in the range of 130 locations.

But let me take that for the record for a specific answer.

Mr. SHAYS. All right. Well, when I am asking, the gentleman behind you was nodding his head. So maybe he would be able to——

Colonel DEACY. That is specific, 130.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. And only in those sites can you access the information, correct?

Colonel DEACY. That is the way the system is configured and our

security controls tend to ensure that. There is no 100 percent security.

Mr. SHAYS. My understanding is—I mean, I—when we started

this hearing, I saw, Anti-Drug Network/Nigeria Crime Initiative.

The reason why we took Nigeria as a pilot program is that Nigeria

seemed to interface the—their activities interfaced a whole host of

different agencies.

Right, Mr. Swartz?

Mr. SWARTZ. Yes, sir. That is certainly one of the reasons. It

seemed like a logical pilot project simply because there were a

number of different law enforcement agencies that dealt with one

aspect or another of the problem.

Mr. SHAYS. I am unclear as to whether this was administrative

driven or legislatively driven, this effort.

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Mr. SWARTZ. The ADNET itself, as I understand it, Mr. Chairman, was legislatively driven. And then there were administrative

followups that made ADNET into the Anti-Drug Network.

The Nigerian Organized Crime Initiative, my understanding, was

driven largely in response to PDD–42 and in response to the escalation of Nigerian organized crime, building upon work that had already been done by law enforcement agencies, including through

interagency task——

Mr. SHAYS. Should I make an assumption that basically this was

not something that really came from the Department? I mean,

right now, candidly—and this is not to beat up on anybody, but

this program is stalled.

It is not—and my wife works for the Peace Corps and she has

an important position there. But we don’t have a Director of the

Peace Corps, and certain things aren’t happening at the Peace

Corps until you get a Director.

Is some of what we are seeing here the result of just key people

not being there?

What—how should I interpret this with—first off, do you agree

that we are not moving ahead, full speed ahead?

Mr. SWARTZ. Speaking for the Department of Justice, I think it

is fair to say that the transition from one administration to the

next has led to the need to reassess how we go forward with this

initiative.

In terms of being stalled, I think it is still the case that the Nigerian Organized Crime Initiative on ADNET continues to be used.

As I mentioned in my testimony, there are approximately 1,000

hits per month that are—that are now—queries being made on the

network.

Mr. SHAYS. But that system is only as good as what comes into

it.

Mr. SWARTZ. That’s correct.

Mr. SHAYS. You know, I get the sense—I was thinking that

maybe we should have had the FBI and the DEA here too, but Justice—and the INS here. But basically Justice has decided to speak

through you on this issue.

And, I—we don’t have the sense that there is the kind of cooperation from some of these departments as there—agencies as we

would like.

Mr. SWARTZ. I would say, from the Department of Justice’s perspective, the primary issue now confronting the Department is the

uploading of full text reports, 302s in the case of FBI and otherwise, and how that should go forward, what the utility of that is.

That is one thing that the Department does want to study, largely because the resources that are—need to be devoted to that are

extensive. As the basic policy establishing ADNET makes clear—

excuse me, the Nigerian Crime Initiative on ADNET makes clear,

there are a number of items that have to be vetted in each report

before it can be uploaded to ADNET. That does take a significant

amount of time and resources.

But I do want to make clear that the Department is not wavering in its desire to fight Nigerian organized crime. The question is

only what is the most effective use of our resources and should

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ADNET be moving more toward an indexing system for this

system——

Mr. SHAYS. And you are talking about Nigerian crime. I am

thinking of this as a system that was a pilot program to demonstrate that we could do what logically seems to me to be appropriate; and that is, to have different law enforcement agencies

share information, which they are very reluctant to do.

Let me just get in with some of these questions in some sense

of order.

To what extent are the member agencies fully committed to funding participating and sharing data with ADNET/NCI? And I would

like to ask you that question, Mr. Swartz. I mean, to what extent

are they fully committed?

Mr. SWARTZ. I think it is fair to say within the Department of

Justice now, the various law enforcement agencies, there is not

unanimity as to the utility of funding ADNET, the ADNET portion

of the Nigerian Crime Initiative at its current levels.

Again, it is a question of each agency trying to balance its resources, not——

Mr. SHAYS. But they have the ability not to fund it if they don’t

want to?

Mr. SWARTZ. That is a question that the administration is considering, whether each agency—how it should be required to go forward with regard to funding this.

Mr. SHAYS. Why do FBI and DEA have zero inquiries into

ADNET and NCI for over the last few months? They had practically no inquiries.

Mr. SWARTZ. I believe, Mr. Chairman—I can go back and determine this directly from the DEA and FBI, but my understanding

is, it is a result of whether or not their particular investigations led

them to make use of the data base for any such queries.

Mr. SHAYS. Say that last thing again, please.

Mr. SWARTZ. It would be a question of whether or not the investigations they are conducting led them to make inquiries on the

data base.

Mr. SHAYS. Or is it that they just simply don’t think there is information in there that would be helpful, or is it that they think

that they have the information, which they are not sharing? If they

are not making inquiries, are they also providing data to this system?

Mr. SWARTZ. Well, the FBI has, in fact, uploaded full text records

in many cases.

Mr. SHAYS. On a timely basis?

Mr. SWARTZ. They have been doing it on a timely basis. I think

the question is what to do on a going-forward basis, whether they

should be going to a pointer index system rather than loading full

text records. But I think their record in the past of loading such

records has been one of going forward.

Mr. SHAYS. So what agencies are participating fully and what

agencies aren’t, with the Nigerian Crime Task Force locations?

Mr. SWARTZ. In the task force locations?

Mr. SHAYS. Yes.

Mr. SWARTZ. Perhaps Secret Service could address that.

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Mr. TOWNSEND. Mr. Chairman, I can go site by site if you would

like the participants.

The New York field office, there are 22 full-time Secret Service

special agents, two from the Postal Inspection Service, one from the

FBI, one from the DEA, one from the INS and one from the Social

Security Administration, OIG. Those are the full-time participants.

Would you like me to continue?

Mr. SHAYS. Who is left out?

Mr. TOWNSEND. The Department of State participates on an ad

hoc basis, which is allowed by the MOU.

And additionally there are full-time local police officers; of

course, we are speaking of the Nigerian Crime Initiative. Due to security clearance issues, their access to ADNET is limited. In New

York, it is three from the NYPD.

I have that additional information which I can submit for the

record or give it to you now.

Mr. SHAYS. So who, in your mind, is left out?

Mr. TOWNSEND. Well, in the case of New York, that is a pretty

comprehensive view of Federal law enforcement. I think I named

pretty much all of the major players there.

Mr. SHAYS. OK.

What is DOJ’s program plan for expanding ADNET terminal installations, domestically and overseas?

Mr. SWARTZ. The expansion of the Nigerian Organized Crime Initiative/ADNET site is one that is established not simply by DOJ,

but it is part of the MOU. The memorandum of understanding

called for 12 task force sites, five headquarters sites and one site

abroad. In fact, my understanding is that we have had eight sites

installed, to date, according to DISA, and eight headquarters sites.

And abroad as I mentioned, one in Nigeria, one in Ghana.

Mr. SHAYS. Let me just conclude, Mr. Swartz, with this first

round, then go to Mr. Gilman.

You are here, but the FBI and the DEA aren’t here. I am just

curious to know why there is not participation on their part. I

would think they would be wanting to participate more than anyone else.

Is it that they feel that the information that they can get, they

already have; that they are basically the in-puters and not that

they don’t see much plus in utilizing this information?

Mr. SWARTZ. I do want to make clear that the FBI and the DEA

have participated in the past, both financially and in records being

supplied to the system.

I do think that the usefulness of this system to each agency will

depend in part, as you suggested, on whether the agency believes

that it has the records that it already needs for the particular aspect of the Nigerian organized crime that it is dealing with.

But again, as Mr. Townsend has suggested, the FBI, and in some

cases, the DEA do participate in task force activities and are participating through other means as well.

Mr. SHAYS. Is this a good program, Mr. Swartz?

Mr. SWARTZ. Again, I think it is important to distinguish between the two programs. I think that the Nigerian Organized

Crime Initiative, that is the idea of task force, is essential. I think

that all Federal agencies would agree that we need to engage in

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information sharing; similarly, I think that the idea of ADNET, of

information sharing as you suggest, is a very important one.

And this system is a powerful one. I think the issue that we face,

that critical issue that I have seen with regard to this, is how you

effectively make access available to the preexisting data bases in

each Federal law enforcement agency and whether, because of constraints required by Rule 6E, grand jury materials or privacy—— Mr. SHAYS. Privacy and what was the other one?

Mr. SWARTZ. Rule 6E, the grand jury secrecy issue, the Privacy

Act, questions that may go to confidentiality of informants, whether it is necessary, as has happened with this initiative, for each

record to be vetted, if you will, to be cleared before it is put into

a separate data base that can be accessed to the initiative. That

is a time-consuming and expensive operation, one that I think that

the administration has to consider as to whether it is the most effective way to share information or whether, alternatively, we

might think of, for instance, an index system.

But, again, this may be something that the Secret Service—— Mr. SHAYS. Let me just ask one last question. I am sorry, but is

this system totally and completely secure, or are there concerns

that it can be compromised; and who would be prepared to answer

that?

Colonel DEACY. Sir, security is something of a risk management

endeavor. We endeavor for 100 percent security, but you are never

sure of what the enemy’s—for example—— Mr. SHAYS. If someone on the outside were to look at this system,

would they say this is an easy system to penetrate?

Colonel DEACY. No, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. Even though we have terminals so many different places.

Colonel DEACY. That is correct. They would not say it is an easy

system to penetrate.

Mr. SHAYS. OK.

Mr. Gilman, would you like the floor?

Mr. GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank you for

conducting this hearing. The state of the Federal interagency datasharing program is important to all of us, and as a former chairman of our International Relations Committee, I was in complete

agreement with President Clinton’s decision declaring international

crime a threat to our national security, and threats posed from

transnational criminal organizations, including the Nigerian heroin

traffickers, South American drug cartels, Russian organized crime

and Asian triads were and still are great threats to our Nation.

Accordingly, I applauded the President’s decision to increase

interagency cooperation against both these organizations and those

engaged in money laundering.

In the 5 years since the issuance of the Clinton Executive order,

the process of fostering greater interagency information, interagency communication has been with mixed results while some

progress has been made with the creation of an Anti-Drug Network, ADNET, data base to share interagency information, these

efforts have not realized their full potential, and greater interagency cooperation has been impeded by traditional jurisdictional

turf battles, legal challenges, including privacy, the civil rights

65

issues, bureaucratic inertia, high turnover rates among personnel

and funding problems from the participating agencies.

Despite these ongoing problems, the challenges posed by

transnational criminal organizations remain. If anything, these entities are as dangerous today, if not more so, than they were back

in 1996 when that Executive order was issued.

It is gratifying, Mr. Chairman, that this subcommittee has had

the opportunity to bring some experts in on the front lines in order

to review the status of interagency data-sharing and our progress

in interagency cooperation can be improved.

Let me ask our panelists. Do you see the need for some central

authority right now to review how more effectively we can have

interagency sharing of information?

Mr. Swartz.

Mr. SWARTZ. Thank you, Mr. Gilman.

Certainly the Department of Justice believes that it is necessary

internally to assess the various means of interagency sharing, of

which ADNET, of course, is one both with regard to its Nigerian

crime aspect and more broadly as we use it for other aspects, including the anti-drug aspect.

But we have, of course, in the context of the drug interdiction

work, have been building the strategy for interagency sharing, and

that is certainly one area that we believe that the Department

should assess on an ongoing——

Mr. GILMAN. Well, have you been using that? Beyond Nigeria has

that been utilized?

Mr. SWARTZ. Yes, ADNET does have the capacity and is used for

secure communications in other contexts for law enforcement purposes, and began, in its essence, as an anti-drug network.

Mr. GILMAN. Do you supply information to DEA, for example?

Mr. SWARTZ. Well, through ADNET—and again DISA can correct

me, but my understanding is that ADNET can be used to access

other preexisting law enforcement data bases such as EPIC if there

is, in fact, a clearance for the particular user. So it is in essence,

ADNET is basically a framework through which law enforcement

data bases can be accessed. In that regard, it’s an extremely powerful device for law enforcement.

Mr. GILMAN. So all Federal law enforcement agencies can make

use of ADNET?

Mr. SWARTZ. If they have the proper clearance and proper interconnections. And, again, some law enforcement agencies are moving to make sure that they do have access to ADNET.

Mr. GILMAN. Well, are there some that do not have that kind of

proper equipment?

Mr. SWARTZ. My understanding is that the—and, again, I can be

corrected—that the headquarters operations of Federal law enforcement agencies all do have ADNET access and that a number of

field offices of different law enforcement agencies have ADNET access as well.

Mr. GILMAN. Are there some that do not? Is there something that

your agency can do to help them acquire that ability?

Mr. SWARTZ. I would have to take that question, and I’ll answer

it for the record.

66

Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Townsend, my question about whether there

should be some sort of central oversight.

Mr. TOWNSEND. Thank you, Mr. Gilman.

Two things strike me here. We are talking about two separate

but related issues, the ADNET system and its use in the Nigerian

Crime Initiative itself——

Mr. GILMAN. Let’s not just concentrate on Nigeria. But what

about for all the law enforcement people?

Mr. TOWNSEND. Well, clearly information sharing is where we

have to get stronger in law enforcement and——

Mr. GILMAN. Well, then should there be some central oversight

agency to do that?

Mr. TOWNSEND. Sir, my response to that would be, we in the Secret Service would look for commitment at the departmental level

for law enforcement agencies’ participation to be mandated in this

program, if that were the desire of that department.

Mr. GILMAN. Well, here we have an Executive order going back

to 1996 by President Clinton asking that this be done, and apparently it hasn’t been fully carried out. What do you think is needed

to do that?

Mr. TOWNSEND. I would say that commitment at the departmental level for the agencies residing within that department.

Mr. GILMAN. And that’s not there at the present time, that kind

of commitment isn’t?

Mr. TOWNSEND. It depends on the location around the country

operationally. At the headquarters level, we share information well,

and the field tends to share it well also. But the various departments, because of their mandates, their different mandates—Justice having a very wide mandate, Treasury having a much narrower mandate—have competing——

Mr. GILMAN. Ms. Barry.

Ms. BARRY. Yes, sir. Well, from the perspective of a consular officer overseas, we are working in an unclassified environment, and

so we are really looking for tools like ADNET to have direct access

to the records of law enforcement agencies. Our CLASS Lookout

System points the way to the agency that owns the information.

Mr. GILMAN. Well, don’t you with consular activity have to approve visas? Didn’t we revise the system for you so that you could

have information on the background of anyone applying for a visa

that had a criminal record?

Ms. BARRY. Yes, sir. And as we have detailed, I think, in our

written statement for the record, we receive routinely many records

from other foreign—from the law enforcement agencies.

Mr. GILMAN. Well, wouldn’t that be of help to you in that direction?

Ms. BARRY. It is of immense help. What happens is that when

we get a hit, the headquarters here goes back to the owner of that

information and provides that information, or the gist of it, to the

consular officer in the field. Or, if we don’t have a hard finding yet,

we simply have information that points to a problem of concern, we

point out to the consular officer lines of questioning to pursue or

the types of evidence that would help us reach a final determination.

67

Mr. GILMAN. Well, is your system working now out in the field

where someone applying for a visa, do you automatically have information on whether or not he has a criminal record?

Ms. BARRY. Yes, we do, sir. In most instances, the one issue that

we haven’t really finalized yet is a better information system— data-share system with the FBI for which legislation is required.

Mr. GILMAN. What is holding up that kind of a sharing of information?

Ms. BARRY. Well—— Mr. GILMAN. You don’t have any criminal record from the FBI

then; is that right? Is that—— Ms. BARRY. We don’t get it on the most timely basis, sir.

Mr. GILMAN. Well, what is—how timely do you get it?

You have a person applying for a visa. How long does it take you

to find out whether he has a criminal record or not?

Ms. BARRY. Well, when we query the CLASS data base, it takes

a matter of seconds to find out if there’s a hit in the system. The

NCIC data base is the one data base that we do not have

connectivity to in the kind of real-time basis that we would like.

Mr. GILMAN. What would you like? How long does it take you to

find out from the FBI whether this person has a criminal record?

How long does it take you at the present time to find out whether

he has a criminal record with the FBI?

Ms. BARRY. Just a minute.

Sir, if I can distinguish in my answer between immigrant visas

and nonimmigrant visas. When we are adjudicating an immigrant

visa application, we have access to the NCIC data base. We have

an FBI agent who is part of our staff at the National Visa Center

who accesses the NCIC data base on our behalf and gives us information on a timely basis so that the adjudication of an immigrant

visa application is done in a timely manner—— Mr. GILMAN. Let me give you a hypothetical. Assume you have

a terrorist getting a nonimmigrant visa from you. How would you

find out whether or not he has a criminal record?

Ms. BARRY. For terrorism, there is a very specific program called

TIPOFF. Analysts in the Department of State and the Bureau of

Intelligence and Research feed our data base regularly, and so

when we get a hit in that data base for someone suspected of terrorist activity, we go back to the INR Bureau to help us determine

the full information.

Mr. GILMAN. So you have sufficient information now to determine

whether a terrorist could be given a nonimmigrant visa?

Ms. BARRY. Yes, sir. It’s a very active program.

Mr. GILMAN. What——

Ms. BARRY. I can tell you, if I may, that——

Mr. GILMAN. Do you have any need for improving the information that you’re getting? Is there a need for your getting more information for your visa people?

Ms. BARRY. We have two objectives to improve our Datashare,

and that’s to improve our access to FBI records and to improve our

access to Customs data on serious violators.

Mr. GILMAN. What do you need to improve that?

Ms. BARRY. Well, with Customs, we believe we can work that arrangement out directly between the two agencies——

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Mr. GILMAN. What about the FBI?

Ms. BARRY. With FBI, we understand legal opinion is that we require a legislative fix.

Mr. GILMAN. Have you made a recommendation with regard to

that?

Ms. BARRY. Yes, we have, sir.

Mr. GILMAN. Who did you make that recommendation to?

Ms. BARRY. I’m sorry, sir. We have to take the question for details. We have submitted some legislative ideas.

Mr. GILMAN. Will you let our committee know of any legislation

that’s needed?

Ms. BARRY. We will certainly do that.

Mr. GILMAN. And will you inform the chairman of that?

Ms. BARRY. I will be happy to, sir.

Mr. GILMAN. Thank you.

Colonel Deacy—is it Deacy, sir?

Colonel DEACY. Yes, sir. I’m here representing DISA. DISA’s role

is to implement solutions to satisfy the valid requirements of the

users. So on all policy questions, I defer to the Justice Department.

Mr. GILMAN. So you have no—— Colonel DEACY. We have no position on that, sir.

Mr. GILMAN. Thank you.

Just one other question.

Mr. SHAYS. You always do this to me. You wait ’til the red light,

and then you say, one more—— Mr. GILMAN. I’m sorry. All right. Go ahead, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. No. You have one other—— Mr. GILMAN. All right. What are the Department of Justice’s

plans, Mr. Swartz, expanding your ADNET program beyond Nigerian crime, and such areas as Russian organized crime or Asian

gangs? Do you have any proposal to expand it?

Mr. SWARTZ. Mr. Gilman, that is one of the matters that is under

consideration by the new administration, whether this pilot project

has suggested the expansion to other areas—— Mr. GILMAN. What is your personal opinion? Should it be expanded?

Mr. SWARTZ. My personal opinion, Mr. Gilman, is that the system needs to be considered in several different possibilities, one of

which is an indexing system as opposed to a full data retrieval system, that is, a full record, simply because indexing is less onerous

in terms of the time for scanning the records, for vetting them to

make sure that materials can’t be loaded into the—— Mr. GILMAN. But this system can be beneficial to all crime enforcement people, right?

Mr. SWARTZ. There is certainly no doubt—and I do want to make

clear that the Department of Justice strongly does favor interagency sharing of information with regard to fighting criminal——

Mr. GILMAN. I think we all favor that, but how are we accomplishing it?

Mr. SWARTZ. And the ADNET system has, we believe, great

promise, but there are issues, including the issues of how are data

bases created in each agency for ADNET, and, I should add, issues

of access, because ADNET and ADNET terminals are not present

at every agent’s desk——

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Mr. GILMAN. Well, I would like to make one request. If there is

something that this committee can do to assist in expanding that

program, please let us know.

Mr. SWARTZ. Thank you.

Mr. GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. I thank the gentleman. I appreciate his very helpful

questions.

Mr. Otter.

Mr. OTTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and my apologies to you

and the panel for my tardiness this morning. If I’m going over

some of the same ground that’s already been plowed, I apologize for

that as well.

But, Mr. Swartz, most of the questions relative to success or failure here have been directed at you, and so with your permission,

I’m going to continue with that same direction.

Totally how many agencies are involved here?

Mr. SWARTZ. I believe that the answer to that, Mr. Otter, is that

the agencies that load on—let me find my record here. There are

8 agencies and 15 data bases from those agencies involved in providing materials for the Nigerian Crime Initiative on ADNET.

Mr. OTTER. We didn’t come up with a specific contribution from

each agency for the overall funding of this, but I did see that there

were funds committed. What has been the total commitment of

funds for setting up this project?

Mr. SWARTZ. Approximately $7.5 million for——

Mr. OTTER. And is that in some way quoted back to each agency,

or does everybody put up a certain amount of money—the same

amount of money?

Mr. SWARTZ. No. It’s been assessed to each agency——

Mr. SHAYS. Excuse me, Mr. Swartz. I’m really curious. What are

you looking through?

Mr. SWARTZ. These materials are NCI—excuse me, Nigerian organized crime metrics material to——

Mr. SHAYS. I’m sorry to interrupt, but this is getting a little frustrating for me. This committee asked for a briefing and a hearing.

Why were we only allowed the opportunity to have a hearing and

not a briefing as well?

Mr. SWARTZ. Mr. Chairman, I can’t respond to that issue. The

materials here are DISA materials that I’m looking at.

Mr. SHAYS. So it’s available to the committee, right?

Mr. SWARTZ. Certainly, as far as I’m aware.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. So I’d like that document.

Mr. SWARTZ. Certainly.

Mr. SHAYS. I mean, it’s—what’s—and no disrespect to any of the

witnesses here, but we’re kind of an eclectic group here. We don’t

have FBI. We don’t have the DEA. The Justice is coming and

speaking for these other agencies. I don’t know why there was a

reluctance to allow them to come testify. We have had more trouble

putting together this hearing than we’ve had on most hearings,

which to me illustrates—some people didn’t want to come. They

didn’t want to talk about it. Other people wanted to come because

they didn’t want other people to come. And it’s just—to me, it just

points out what a mess this program is, quite candidly.

70

It may be that there just is uncertainty as to where they go, so

we’re trying to be careful what we say. But you’re looking at basically charts and figures that should have been provided to the committee, it seems to me, and to my knowledge they weren’t. And it

just—it makes for, one, a boring hearing. It makes for an uninformed hearing. We don’t get the opportunity to really get at the

nub of this. I still feel like we’re wandering around trying to get

a handle on this program. You may know about the program, but

we don’t. We don’t know how well it is working, and, boy, I’ll tell

you, by the time we’re done, we won’t know much more. And I am

sorry to say that, but that’s the feeling I get, and we’re all probably

answering to higher-ups here. So I don’t mean to be taking it out

on you all, but it’s just a little frustrating to me.

I’m sorry, Mr. Otter.

Mr. OTTER. That’s all right, Mr. Chairman. I’m the bottom of the

political food chain here, and I understand that.

Mr. SHAYS. No. You were the one who helped illustrate the point.

Mr. OTTER. However, the chairman’s recent observations and actions does bring me to my next question, which is what I was leading up to. We’ve spent $71⁄2 million. We’ve employed eight agencies,

or some assets from each agency, and the question is at what success rate. But more importantly to me is—the question would be

who is in charge? Who is—you’ve got eight agencies. You’ve got

$7.5 million being spent. Who is in charge here? I see—and I know,

having been in business, but also been in government a long time,

that there is conflicting areas of whose responsibility is what and

turfy and all of that kind of stuff, but it seems to me that if this

project was going after an issue which is as important as I believe

it is, that we would have set ourselves up for success rather than

a question of whether or not we’ve succeeded or failed.

So I want to know, Mr. Swartz, who is in charge?

Mr. SWARTZ. Well, Mr. Otter, in the narrowest sense, there is a

charter group on which I sit.

Mr. OTTER. A group?

Mr. SWARTZ. A charter group.

Mr. OTTER. A group is in charge.

Mr. SWARTZ. That’s correct——

Mr. OTTER. And how many is on that group?

Mr. SWARTZ. I would have to get you the exact numbers, though

there’s a representative from the law enforcement agency as well

as the Department of Justice and the Department of State that sits

on the charter group.

Mr. OTTER. What do you call this, a posse or what?

Mr. SWARTZ. No. That would be an interesting thing to call it,

but charter group is the name of that oversight board.

With regard to the pilot project—and, again, I do want to emphasize that this was seen as a pilot project, and it is important to distinguish between the ADNET terminals and the actual creation of

this network and the use of this network—or the terminals of this

network for the Nigerian Crime Initiative. It is certainly the case,

as the chairman suggests, there have been shifting in personnel

over the years as agents come in and out, as people in the departments come in and out.

71

There are, of course, always competing objectives with regard to

the fight of international crime, but I do want to indicate that the

fight against Nigerian organized crime is broader than the particular initiative on ADNET, and certainly the chairman—we would be

glad to provide anything that we’ve been provided by DISA or otherwise with regard to the initiative. We’re certainly not trying to

keep anything from the committee, either the successes or failures,

but I think it is fair to say that the Department of Justice, at least,

has not sat down with the new administration and made an assessment of how this has worked over the years it’s been in place, and

it’s not been that long a period of time.

Mr. OTTER. How long has it been in place? When did you organize the charter group?

Mr. SWARTZ. The charter group, I believe, is 1998. So we’re now

reaching the end of the MOU period.

Mr. GILMAN. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. OTTER. The gentleman yields.

Mr. GILMAN. President Clinton created that Executive order in

1996. It took 2 years to bring together a charter group?

Mr. SWARTZ. Well, I should say that the—and, again, the Secret

Service can comment on this as well. The interagency group started

working on the Nigerian problem long before that, and, in fact—— Mr. GILMAN. Forget Nigerian problem. How long did it take to

follow President Clinton’s Executive order and put together some

oversight that the gentleman is asking about?

Mr. SWARTZ. Well, the response to PDD–42 extends far beyond

the Nigerian Organized Crime Initiative. There are any number of

working groups, I should stress, in any number of areas with regard to international crime. This is simply one aspect, one

response—— Mr. GILMAN. But was there any oversight group appointed following that Executive order?

Mr. SWARTZ. Well, certainly the National Security Council did

have an international organized crime coordination group that followed PDD–42 and that worked on coordinating these issues. As

well, the Departments of Justice——

Mr. GILMAN. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. OTTER. I’m reclaiming my time.

Colonel Deacy, you obviously come from an environment which

requires a chain of command. Do you feel comfortable operating in

this kind of an environment?

Colonel DEACY. Sir, on this program or initiative, we are comfortable because we have a program. It’s funded by the agencies involved. They validate what their requirements are through whatever means, in this case a group, and we take those and transform

that into a solution that will technically do that. So for us there’s

no ambiguity or confusion.

Mr. OTTER. Obviously there is a lot for this committee, and obviously there is a lot for the intent what this committee had or felt

that they had, because I’m not sure that we’ve come up with a success number here; 1 to 10, 1 being the worst, 10 being the best,

in your estimation what has been your success since the charter

group was formed and, I suspect, some sort of formal operations

began?

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Colonel DEACY. Sir, as the implementor of a solution, it’s providing a tool. We really have no opinion on success or failure of how

that tool is used so as a corporate opinion. We have none.

Mr. OTTER. I see. So you’re not in charge?

Colonel DEACY. Certainly not.

Mr. OTTER. I’m still not sure who is, but I guess my overall question, then—perhaps I formulate this more as a statement, Mr.

Chairman and members of the panel, than I do as a question, but

why would we even entertain the thought of putting this same program into another theater of involvement when we don’t know and

we haven’t achieved a level of what I would consider a measurable—or of success that we can at least brag on a little bit and say,

this is what we’ve done?

The other thing that I’m really conflicted about here is I know

there is sensitive information that you all gather, but it seems to

me like somebody’s criminal record would not be sensitive information, and that ought to be first line—that ought to be the first note,

and that if the county sheriff of Lemhi County, ID wanted to find

out what somebody from Nigeria—whether or not because of all

those letter that is they sent, I’m sure, out to everybody, whether

these people were legitimate, or did they have some kind of a

criminal record, I would think that the irrigation superintendent

ought to be able to get ahold of that.

Why is criminal information sensitive information? I do know

that in most of the organizations that I’ve been a part of, knowledge is power, and that is what really concerns me here, and I

don’t like the idea of wasting $71⁄2 million. And not only that, but

taking agencies whose mission is required—could be required and

utilized very effectively in other areas of operation and put them

in on something that we’ve operated since 1990—had the permission to do since 1996 and operate since 1998, and I really can’t get

a grade. Could you give yourself a grade, Mr. Swartz; 1 to 10, 1

being bad, 10 being good?

Mr. SWARTZ. Mr. Otter, I think that the Department of Justice’s

perspective on this is that it is now time to think about a grade

for the Nigerian Crime Initiative. We’ve had it in place. We’ve had

it through the MOU period, and it’s now time to assess where we

stand.

Mr. OTTER. When you formulated the charter, did you and could

you make available to this committee a list of achievable objectives

for that? Did you expect to have certain successes on certain time

lines, and if you did, could you make that available to this committee and what your success rate is there?

Mr. SWARTZ. I will certainly go back and see what the time line

is. Certainly we did have objectives with regard to the number of

terminals being put in place and the connectivity for those terminals. Those objectives have been met in that regard.

And I do want to stress that, again, I don’t think this should be

seen as money wasted, and it is money that has been spent to try

and develop the concept, which hasn’t been done before, of accessing each agency’s data bases or a portion of those data bases on

a particular crime area over a secure network. That in itself, I

think, has been a useful experiment with lessons to be learned.

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Mr. OTTER. I’m going to make you a deal, Mr. Swartz. Don’t put

words in my mouth, and I won’t put words in yours. If I said ‘‘wasted,’’ I misspoke, and I sincerely apologize for that. I said ‘‘spent.’’ You said ‘‘wasted.’’ That was your word.

Mr. SWARTZ. No. And I certainly didn’t mean to suggest, Mr.

Otter, that you said the money was wasted. I just don’t want the

committee to—the subcommittee to believe that it’s—— Mr. OTTER. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Gilman, do you have some questions? Mr. Gilman, do you have questions you’d like to ask?

Mr. GILMAN. Well, again, from what we’re hearing, it sounds like

there is a need out there for some oversight besides the charter

commission. Does the charter commission meet on a regular basis?

Mr. SWARTZ. The charter group has met on a regular basis. It

is——

Mr. GILMAN. How often?

Mr. SWARTZ. It met at least, I believe, twice a year.

Mr. GILMAN. Twice a year.

Mr. TOWNSEND. Sir, the interagency working group has met

every 4 to 6 weeks for the 12 to 14 months that I’ve been associated with the program.

Mr. GILMAN. Well, is that—Mr. Townsend, does that differ from

the charter commission?

Mr. TOWNSEND. It does, yes. The interagency working group are

below-policy-level players in the program; in other words, the people hopefully that are charged with making some things happen.

Mr. GILMAN. Well, the interagency working group, is there a primary assignment, the data exchange, the data sharing?

Mr. TOWNSEND. I would say that is not their primary assignment, although it is one key component; as I mentioned earlier, two

sides to this, the ADNET component and the operational side. The

Secret Service has been engaged in the operational side before

PDD–42 in 1996. The Nigerian organized crime task forces that

came about after the implementation of the interagency working

group and the charter group or the second evolution of the Secret

Service task forces that already existed.

Mr. GILMAN. When PDD–42 was issued, who had the responsibility, then, of formulating whatever implementation was needed? Mr.

Swartz.

Mr. SWARTZ. My understanding is, Mr. Gilman, that the Attorney

General had the lead in responding to international organized

crime issues with regard to PDD–42, and certainly a number of

steps were taken at that time to deal and expand our response to

international organized crime. I would stress, as I have in the past,

this is simply one part of the actions that the Department of Justice has taken against international crime.

Mr. GILMAN. Well, did PPD 42 prescribe the necessity for a central agency or central authority to implement it?

Mr. SWARTZ. I would have to review that. Again, I believe that

the National Security Council, again, through its special coordination group, also took on a coordinating role. And I should say as

well that PDD–42 did lead to the International Crime Control

Strategy, which was subsequently promulgated, which I believe

74

this subcommittee has a copy of or which we can certainly provide.

But that is as you are aware, that is quite a complete document

that discusses a number of goals and objectives in combating international crime—— Mr. GILMAN. What is the title of that?

Mr. SWARTZ. This is the International Crime Control Strategy.

Mr. GILMAN. All right. And in that strategy, is there something

about sharing data?

Mr. SWARTZ. Yes. It certainly does talk about interagency cooperation throughout, and I should say that this crime control

strategy, crime currently in effect, is now under consideration by

the administration for any revisions that do need to be made.

Mr. GILMAN. What was the date of that document?

Mr. SWARTZ. I believe it’s May 1998.

Mr. GILMAN. And from the time that PDD–42 is issued, do you

know whether any—was there any authorization or any implementation by any central agency of PDD–42?

Mr. SWARTZ. My understanding is, Mr. Gilman, that—well, of

course, before PDD–42 and thereafter, there were a number of

steps taken——— Mr. GILMAN. I’m talking about from the time the Executive order

was issued in 1996.

Mr. SWARTZ. Well, my—— Mr. GILMAN. Would you tell me whether there has been any central authority implementing PDD–42?

Mr. SWARTZ. I think that the central authorities would be the Attorney General, and the National Security Council’s coordination

group would have been looking at the issues presented by PDD– 42. But, of course, the Attorney General would have been working

and meeting with her colleagues at the time.

Mr. GILMAN. All right. So National Security and Attorney General worked together. What did they do to implement PDD–42?

Mr. SWARTZ. I would be glad to supply to the committee any

steps that were taken with regard to——

Mr. GILMAN. Would you do that and supply it to the chairman?

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. Ms. Barry, I’m—— Ms. BARRY. Yes, sir?

Mr. SHAYS. Bottom line, you’re not inputting information—you’re

not providing input, but you can draw on this information. You

would find it helpful, but you don’t need top security clearance. In

other words, you need something, share data, but just tell me your

perspective again on——

Ms. BARRY. Our perspective is that we work in an unclassified

environment overseas, and given the volume of cases we handle, we

need a very, very quick response time.

Mr. SHAYS. Right.

Ms. BARRY. So basically the CLASS data base is name, date and

place of birth of an individual and a code so when we get a hit, we

know which agency to go to for the fuller report. So our officers in

the field know enough in the first instance to suspend the case,

with the general understanding of why they’re suspending the case,

and then working with headquarters back here and the other agenVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:35 Oct 10, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00078 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\81594.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
75

cies, we provide them the fuller information they need to make a

final determination.

Mr. SHAYS. So—— Ms. BARRY. So we have a number of people at headquarters here

who are reaching out to the law enforcement agencies on a regular

basis.

Mr. SHAYS. Is your Department finding this a helpful system or

not? What is your message to this committee?

Ms. BARRY. Our message to the committee is that we do, in

terms of adjudicating visa cases, rely very, very much on

Datashare, because—as I explained to Mr. Gilman, we’re very satisfied with the program we have to identify potential terrorists. It’s

a very robust program. Because we don’t regularly get information

from the FBI out of the NCIC data base, we probably—we feel less

successful in stopping individuals of concern for criminal activities,

and we are working on that objective.

Mr. SHAYS. So your message to the committee is that you are a

user of this system and would like to see it—— Ms. BARRY. We understand that tools for analysts to develop

findings is very useful to us as the end user of the finding. So I

can’t speak for my colleagues who are analysts as to how effective

ADNET has been per se as a tool, but we understand in general

terms the use of tools for our work overseas.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Townsend, the—you described the New York office where you felt—you have 6 task forces, to go to 10, correct?

Mr. TOWNSEND. Presently, sir, we have 10 task forces, but not all

of them have ADNET terminals. They have 10 task forces working—that focus primarily on—— Mr. SHAYS. Six have the terminals?

Mr. TOWNSEND. There are terminals in New York, Dallas, Chicago, Houston, Atlanta, Washington. The Baltimore task force terminal is expected late this year, and we’ll also—— Mr. SHAYS. And we have terminals in other areas that are secured and so on?

Mr. TOWNSEND. Yes, sir. There are—— Mr. SHAYS. There have been 30?

Mr. TOWNSEND. There are terminals in Secret Service headquarters, FBI headquarters and so forth.

Mr. SHAYS. You describe the cooperation and involvement in New

York. Tell me what type of participation you have in Houston and

Atlanta.

Mr. TOWNSEND. Sir, in Houston, there are 14 Secret Service special agents full time assigned to the task force.

Mr. SHAYS. So that’s one, the Secret Service. Now the other departments.

Mr. TOWNSEND. Postal Information Service has one. The FBI has

one. The INS has one. And the rest are local officers.

Mr. SHAYS. So you don’t have DEA, for instance, there.

Mr. TOWNSEND. We do not. And I’m sorry, Atlanta was the other

one?

Mr. SHAYS. Yeah.

Mr. TOWNSEND. In Atlanta there are eight Secret Service, one

INS, one Postal Inspection Service; and on an ad hoc basis, one IRS

agent.

76

Mr. SHAYS. So no FBI and no DEA.

Mr. TOWNSEND. That’s correct.

Mr. SHAYS. Why, when I asked you about the cooperation, why

did you pick New York as the one you wanted to——

Mr. TOWNSEND. Well, it just happened to be first on my——

Mr. SHAYS. Because it’s the one where you have the greatest cooperation, right?

Mr. TOWNSEND. Well, it’s first on my list. That’s what I looked

at, yes, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. I’m just trying to understand. And the task

forces do what?

Mr. TOWNSEND. The task forces focus on operational issues and

Nigerian crime. Reports come in in a variety of manners, either

through the public, from local police officers, all the various ways

crime gets reported. We target those cases, the criminal activity,

that is, based on consultation with our task force partners, the U.S.

attorney, or the district attorney, and make criminal cases.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Otter, you had a question you wanted to——

Mr. OTTER. Yes, Mr. Chairman.

I’m going to ask Mr. Townsend. I picked on you too much, Mr.

Swartz.

Mr. Townsend, do you know if the organization has an organizational chart that you could supply the committee that kind of goes

from the charter group to the interagency working group to kind

of give us a flow of the information and a flow of control; and if

we could center in on really who we could get these answers from,

is there one person or two or three people, maybe, that we could

get these answers?

Mr. TOWNSEND. Sir, I’ll have to check and take for the record and

supply to the committee if there is a chart with regard to the interagency working group.

I can tell you that in our task forces that operate—well, I

shouldn’t say our task forces. The task forces that the Secret Service hosts where the terminals happen to be located, they’re organized along part military lines and squads and so forth, and we

could provide that to the committee.

Mr. OTTER. So it would be a normal practice in the agency that

you’re involved in and with to establish an operations chart?

Mr. TOWNSEND. Well, I don’t know——

Mr. OTTER. A chain of command or something.

Mr. TOWNSEND. Within the Secret Service, yes. I couldn’t speak

for the other agencies.

Mr. OTTER. Thank you.

That’s all, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SWARTZ. Mr. Otter, at the risk of——

Mr. OTTER. Oh. I guess I will pick on you.

Mr. SWARTZ. Certainly we can provide a list of the charter group

members, of which I sit on their chair, as I said, and of the interagency working groups under the charter group. So we can provide

that.

Mr. OTTER. Do you have an operations chart, an organizational

chart of who is a part of it and what the chain—if there is a chain

of command, what the chain of command is?

77

Mr. SWARTZ. I’m going to see if there is a chart per se. We certainly have a list of the members of the various working groups

and who chairs those groups.

Mr. OTTER. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. Sure.

Mr. GILMAN. Just one question of our good State Department

representative. Let me just ask our counselor, Director who is here,

and you’ve given a good—Catherine Barry, you’ve given a good insight to the problems you confront out there on the field. You say

it was—wasn’t until May that you finally were getting some decent

exchange for your consular offices; is that correct?

Ms. BARRY. No, sir. We’ve had Datashare for many years to one

degree or another. I’m not sure—oh, in May, I believe I said we’ve

replicated data back here.

Mr. GILMAN. In your testimony, you’re saying for the first time

since May, you’re beginning to get a decent exchange between the

main office and your office. I think I saw that in your testimony.

But at any rate, you’re making some recommendations. You’re saying Customs is taking steps to share their serious violator data.

How far along are they with that—taking the steps to do that?

Ms. BARRY. One moment, please, sir.

Sir, we have an agreement in principal with Customs. We are

discussing technical issues at this time to finalize our agreement.

Mr. GILMAN. How long will it take to iron those out?

Ms. BARRY. I can’t estimate at this time, sir. I’ll take the question, if you—if you’re willing——

Mr. GILMAN. Well, if it can be of assistance in expediting that,

we’d welcome your telling us if you’re running into any roadblocks

or delay.

Ms. BARRY. I certainly appreciate that, sir. We view this, as I

said, as simply technical people getting down and figuring out how

the data shall actually be accomplished, but——

Mr. GILMAN. Then you’re also saying Consular Affairs already

exchanges data with DEA, but we want to improve the efficiency

of that exchange closer to real-time rather than a slower tape exchange. What is taking—has the problem been in that delay?

Ms. BARRY. Again, sir, it is a technical issue on the interface that

the two agencies would use to accomplish that. For further details,

I would have to take the question. I am the worst person in the

word to explain technical issues.

Mr. GILMAN. Who is your assistant that is giving you the information? Do you want to come to a mic and identify yourself?

Mr. BRENNAN. Mr. Gilman, I’m John Brennan. I am with the

visa office. I work for Catherine Barry and the interagency——

Mr. GILMAN. Right. What is taking so long to iron out these

interagency problems?

Mr. BRENNAN. Well, it’s really not taking very long, in the sense

that we only just started discussions in the past couple of months

with DEA as to establishing an electronic means to do this. So

there is no real delay. We expect it to work out in a reasonably

timely fashion.

78

Mr. GILMAN. All right. Could you specify for this committee any

of those technical difficulties that may be delaying an adequate

change of information and see if we can be of any help to you?

Mr. BRENNAN. OK, sir. I will.

Mr. GILMAN. Now, in—— Mr. SHAYS. Excuse me. I just want to interrupt. Would you identify yourself for the record, again, and give your card to the transcriber here?

Mr. BRENNAN. Certainly I will. My name is John Brennan. I’m

in the Department of State in the visa office and the interagency

systems liaison unit of the visa office.

Mr. SHAYS. And if you would, make sure that you—and I want

you to know that you have the same status as Senator Byrd. I have

sworn in Senators, Cabinet officials, Members, and the only one I

chickened out was when Senator Byrd came, I couldn’t swear him

in, and you’re the second one. So you will now carry that status.

Two people in my 7 years have spoken before this committee and

not been sworn in.

Mr. BRENNAN. I apologize for that breach of etiquette.

Mr. GILMAN. Please don’t leave the mic yet.

Ms. Barry said, in regular consultations with the INS, we’re

working to upgrade this—— Mr. SHAYS. I’m going to ask the gentleman just to raise his right

hand.

[Witness sworn.]

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. Let me just explain that when we do

swear in people, we swear in everyone so someone doesn’t say, why

me and not someone else? And, you know, obviously we don’t always need to swear someone in, but this way we cover it. Thank

you. I’m sorry.

Mr. GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ms. Barry said in regular consultations with INS, we’re working

to upgrade Datashare to ensure Lookout data quality and improve

the speed of transmission of departure and deportation. Is there

any reason why that is being delayed?

Mr. BRENNAN. We have Datashare mechanisms that work with

INS at—some of them at virtually real-time speed, but INS also

has many layers of data within it, and the layer at which we take

data, the interagency border inspection system, doesn’t always contain all the data that INS has that we would like on a timely basis.

So we’re working with INS to get some other portions of data that

it has, for instance, data on people who are being deported, added

to their systems, either added to the interagency border inspection

system more quickly or provided to us in some other manner so

that we will have it available more quickly. It’s a timing matter

mostly.

Mr. GILMAN. It’s Mr. Brennan, right?

Mr. BRENNAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Brennan, if you would again notify our committee of anything we can do to expedite those problems. If it’s a need

for more equipment or cutting through some of the red tape, we’d

welcome knowing about that.

Mr. BRENNAN. Very good. I might add there’s really not a need

for more equipment. We’re in pretty good shape in that regard.

79

Mr. GILMAN. And then Ms. Barry went on to say, we believe

interagency data sharing, when more fully deployed, will very effectively deter aliens who are counterfeiting documents and making

fraudulent items.

Is there something we can do to make this more effective?

Ms. BARRY. Well, sir, we’re very pleased with the initial results

of the replication of data, because everyone’s data is now feeding

into Washington, and Washington is making it available to officers

overseas. And we’ve begun a pilot with INS. If you are in Paris

talking to an individual, and you have some concerns about the

quality of the visa that he’s shown you, you can now make a query

and look at the original visa issued in Bangkok, let’s say, compare

the photo of the original visa with the individual standing in front

of you, the name as specified in the original visa with the name

as it now appears on the document. So we are capturing lookalikes, imposters and people who have somehow fiddled with the

information on the original visa in a much more effective manner.

Mr. GILMAN. Ms. Barry, you went on to say, since ADNET is a

compendium of law enforcement data, wouldn’t this tool be useful

in each visa unit overseas? What prevents that from happening?

Ms. BARRY. Primarily because we’re in unclassified workspace.

We could not have access to sensitive law enforcement data——

Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Swartz, what can we do to improve that situation?

Ms. BARRY. If I may finish?

Mr. GILMAN. Go ahead. I’m sorry.

Ms. BARRY. I’m sorry, Mr. Gilman. Other members of the U.S.

mission overseas may, in fact, have access to sensitive information,

and through the country team mechanism and other coordinating

mechanisms of an Embassy, consular officers can consult sensitive

information through—with the help of their colleagues.

Mr. GILMAN. That sounds a little complicated and burdensome

and time-consuming.

Mr. Swartz, what can we do to assist our consular people who

are out there on the front line to screen the people we don’t want

coming into the country?

Mr. SWARTZ. One thing, Mr. Gilman, that the Nigerian Organized Crime Initiative has done through ADNET is placed five

ADNET terminals in two locations in foreign countries in——

Mr. GILMAN. Again, concentrating on Nigeria, we’re talking about

across the board, throughout the world.

Mr. SWARTZ. Yes. I certainly understand that. The way it would

have to be done to make use of ADNET would be to have a similar

program of either placing ADNET terminals in our consulates or

Embassies.

Mr. GILMAN. But what can we do to accomplish that?

Mr. SWARTZ. That, I believe, would be a question really of State

Department’s availability and funding.

Mr. GILMAN. Well, I don’t know. Is it just funding, or is there

some restriction? Ms. Barry?

Ms. BARRY. I think we’re talking about a methodology of working

a case. What we’re trying to give consular officers is a name check

system that is very robust. But——

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Mr. GILMAN. Well, ADNET would help you with that, wouldn’t

it?

Ms. BARRY. The name check is only the name, the identifying

name, and date and place of birth and a simple code to explain that

it’s somewhat of concern. The follow-on information does come differently and needs to come differently, because otherwise we would

slow down the entire visa adjudication function.

Mr. GILMAN. But ADNET would help you do that; would it not?

Ms. BARRY. Our methodology is to suspend a case of concern and

then take the time we need to adjudicate that, using all the tools

available to us.

Mr. GILMAN. How effective has been your visa VIPER program

to proactively get the names of the bad guys into the data base system for visas?

Ms. BARRY. We certainly routinely receive submissions from

country teams around the world for visa’s VIPER there is a requirement that every post respond—report one way or the other on

a quarterly basis.

Mr. GILMAN. And has it been effective?

Ms. BARRY. I believe so, sir. We have many names in the data

base based on visa’s VIPER submissions.

Mr. GILMAN. Now, Mr. Swartz has said to get the ADNET available to you, that’s up to the State Department. Is there any restriction on your getting that kind of a system put in place?

Ms. BARRY. My colleagues in the Bureau of Diplomatic Security

do have access to ADNET. I would have to take the question for

further comments from them and—— Mr. GILMAN. Would you do that?

Ms. BARRY. Yes, I will.

Mr. GILMAN. And let us know if there’s any restriction or obstruction for utilizing ADNET in your consular offices.

Thank you very much. And thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Schrock.

Mr. SCHROCK. I’m just trying to get caught up.

Mr. SHAYS. I was thinking that, and I do have a quick question

or two. Is it fair to say that NCI is the first attempt to share law

enforcement data on one system? Is that fair to say, Mr. Swartz?

Mr. SWARTZ. I believe that’s correct, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. And from my standpoint—and I admit it’s somewhat

of a superficial look, but it logically says, well, that makes a lot of

sense. We used obviously a case in which Nigeria seemed to interface with so many different agencies, so we had task force—we had

ADNET before NCI. ADNET was a system in place.

Mr. SWARTZ. That’s correct.

Mr. SHAYS. NCI then basically—we had task force before we had

ADNET NCI.

Mr. SWARTZ. That’s correct.

Mr. SHAYS. And we kind of combined the two. So I figure there

are two circles. There’s ADNET, and there’s NCI, and they kind of

overlap, and we’ve got this thing. And we’re kind of—I’m wondering and my staff is wondering if these circles aren’t kind of going

in this direction.

From my standpoint, I would almost give a congressional Medal

of Honor to some—I guess it’s called a Medal of Honor to someone

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who could get the different law enforcement organizations to share

data. I mean, when you get the FBI and the DEA and the Secret

Service and to some extent INS, everybody willing to share data,

boy, hats off to the person who can do that.

So, you know, I consider this a big deal. I mean, I consider— but—so I guess what I want to understand—maybe, Mr. Townsend,

you could respond—tell me—maybe it’s the obvious, but tell me

why there is a reluctance; why is it like pulling teeth? It’s not

something that someone runs to the dentist’s office to do, right? It

sounds like there’s—why do people have to be made to do what

seems logical?

Mr. TOWNSEND. Well, I think, Mr. Chairman, that there is a lot

of information sharing going on, and I don’t mean to answer your

question by saying there’s not a lot of room for improvement. There

is. Law enforcement is somewhat unique with regard to information sharing. There are source issues. There are issues with regard

to undercover personnel, issues that those of us who work in that

environment and have worked in that environment hold close to

our hearts and take it very seriously. Clearly your point is well

taken.

In the law enforcement system which we have decided that’s best

for our country—that is, one which has many different Federal

agencies and some thousands upon thousands of local agencies, as

opposed to the model where there’s one national police force and

perhaps no local agencies—this is one of the consequences of that.

Not that we shouldn’t do better. We can do better. But there are— it is an extremely complex issue.

Mr. SHAYS. Yeah. It is extremely complex, and I’m trying to—I

guess in one way it’s very simple, in one sense, but I’d almost felt

like I need to filibuster, because I don’t want this hearing to end

before I have a sense of a handle on this. I was thinking if I were

you, Mr. Swartz, I wonder—all of you kind of gave your—kind of

some details about the program and how it’s working, and I’m wondering if I were in your shoes, if I wouldn’t have come in and said,

this is an extraordinary program. It’s exciting in terms of its potential. We’ve had some successes, some failures. We’ve really succeeded in doing this, but we’ve failed to do this. And I would have

thought, Mr. Townsend, you would have done almost the same

thing; really great success, a failure here, this is what we’re working on. So I get the sense that there’s really not a buy-in yet to

this, and there’s not a sense that the program is working all that

well.

Mr. TOWNSEND. May I respond, Mr. Chairman?

Mr. SHAYS. Sure.

Mr. TOWNSEND. With regard to the Secret Service and the Nigerian crime issue, there certainly is an agency buy-in. We were

among those, as I mentioned in my oral statement, that identified

the issue of Nigerian crime in the 1980’s, and not to diminish the

efforts of our Federal law enforcement partners and our State law

enforcement partners, but certainly we have been among those at

the forefront, and I think everyone would agree with that assessment.

So there certainly is a commitment, and there are successes,

which I have available for the committee, should you care to hear

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them now, or for the record. Operationally, there are successes out

there. We are making cases that make a difference and the U.S.

attorneys in their districts want to have and that real people are

affected by. So the Secret Service, you know, is committed to the

program. There are—I mean, there are issues. It’s a complex situation.

Mr. SHAYS. But, you know, let me ask you, why is it complex?

Mr. TOWNSEND. Well, sir, I think to some degree for the things

I have stated, I mean, we are a country with a variety of law enforcement agencies, and these are very real——

Mr. SHAYS. Just take the Federal. Why is it complex for the Federal Government to work together to share data that could help get

at terrorists, help get at criminals, help make sure that people

don’t get in this country, shouldn’t get into this country?

Mr. TOWNSEND. I have no quibble with that, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. Why do I say that’s—I mean, I did say it earlier

that it’s complex, and I was trying to give my excuse, because I feel

so—I don’t feel that I’m getting it. So I like to think it’s complex

and that I’m not dumb.

Anyway, I still don’t understand why it’s complex.

Mr. TOWNSEND. If I may?

Mr. SHAYS. Sure.

Mr. TOWNSEND. With regard to the Secret Service, we have

uploaded the entirety of our master central index with regard to

Nigerian crimes since the start—every 30 to 60 days.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. So by complex, it’s just a hell of a lot of to work

to get that done into the data system. You’ve got to put this information into the system so others can access it.

Mr. TOWNSEND. It was a lot of work, which we accomplished and

continue to accomplish.

Mr. SHAYS. I agree with that, but complex would not be the word

I described, but pain in the neck or something stronger, taking resources from another place, all of those things I agree with; complex, no.

Mr. SWARTZ. If I may, Mr. Chairman. One additional complexity

does arise when you go beyond the index system that Secret Service has put on, and I think Mr. Townsend referred to this already.

In one document that the—one of the NCI documents that was produced, I know, to the subcommittee, there’s a list of the steps that

have to be taken by each law enforcement agency once it’s moving

toward full text loading of documents, which is what the FBI and

some other agencies have done. And there—again, for some of the

reasons that Mr. Townsend is suggesting, you do begin to reach

new levels of complexity because of grand jury secrecy rules, protection of sources, limitations on how to——

Mr. SHAYS. OK. So what document you can provide, then that becomes some—that does get into—the complexity——

Mr. SWARTZ. Right. Which I think goes back to the earlier discussion that was held with the subcommittee earlier today with regard

to how this should move, whether——

Mr. SHAYS. Some information that just simply is not going to be

provided, so no one should think it’s comprehensive. There’s some

information privacy issues, some documents that may be classified,

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some documents that—well, some classified documents can go in

there, obviously.

Mr. SWARTZ. Yes. I think that buy-in, though, from the agencies

turns in part on the amount of time and resources that are being

expended for that kind of getting of complete, full text records, as

opposed to an index system, and I think that is one of the things

that the Department of Justice will look at for data sharing in the

future.

Mr. SHAYS. Right. And I would accept this if you said, you know,

it takes a lot of—it takes valuable time in order to do this; it’s a

money question, and so on. Those are helpful to us. Saying it’s complex prevents me from understanding. Explaining why it’s difficult,

explaining that there are financial challenges, explaining there are

manpower, then that’s an instructive, educational and believe it— you know, if you tell us the truth, then actually we might do something intelligent, and that’s helpful. Thank you.

Mr. Schrock, do you—I’m kind of done.

Mr. Gilman, I really appreciate your questions. Are you all set?

Is there any question that you would like to respond to?

Mr. Deacy, is there anything you’d like to say, or Ms. Barry, in

the conclusion?

Colonel DEACY. No, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. Well, we appreciate you all being here, and we’ll get

a handle on this, and I thank you for helping us in that process.

This hearing is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 11:45 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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