U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

WASHINGTON : 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800

Fax: (202) 512–2250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402–0001

86–932 PDF 2006

S. HRG. 107–1155

PROTECTING THE HOMELAND: THE PRESIDENT’S

PROPOSAL FOR REORGANIZING OUR

HOMELAND DEFENSE INFRASTRUCTURE

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

JUNE 26, 2002

Serial No. J–107–91

Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary

(

(II)

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont, Chairman 

EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts 

JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR., Delaware 

HERBERT KOHL, Wisconsin 

DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California 

RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin 

CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York 

RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois 

MARIA CANTWELL, Washington 

JOHN EDWARDS, North Carolina 

ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah 

STROM THURMOND, South Carolina 

CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa 

ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania 

JON KYL, Arizona 

MIKE DEWINE, Ohio 

JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama 

SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas 

MITCH MCCONNELL, Kentucky 

BRUCE A. COHEN, Majority Chief Counsel and Staff Director 

SHARON PROST, Minority Chief Counsel 

MAKAN DELRAHIM, Minority Staff Director 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

STATEMENTS OF COMMITTEE MEMBERS 

Page

Cantwell, Hon. Maria, a U.S. Senator from the State of Washington ................ 29

DeWine, Hon. Mike, a U.S. Senator from the State of Ohio ................................ 20

Edwards, Hon. John, a U.S. Senator from the State of North Carolina ............. 46

Feingold, Hon. Russell D., a U.S. Senator from the State of Wisconsin ............. 38

Feinstein, Hon. Dianne, a U.S. Senator from the State of California ................. 21

Grassley, Hon. Charles E., a U.S. Senator from the State of Iowa ..................... 35

prepared statement .......................................................................................... 92

Hatch, Hon. Orrin G., a U.S. Senator from the State of Utah ............................ 4

prepared statement .......................................................................................... 102

Leahy, Hon. Patrick J., a U.S. Senator from the State of Vermont .................... 1

prepared statement .......................................................................................... 105

Kohl, Hon. Herbert, a U.S. Senator from the State of Wisconsin ....................... 18

Schumer, Hon. Charles E., a U.S. from the State of New York .......................... 32

Sessions, Hon. Jeff, a U.S. Senator from the State of Alabama .......................... 26

Specter, Hon. Arlen, a U.S. Senator from the State of Pennsylvania ................. 15

WITNESSES 

Ridge, Tom, Director, Transition Planning Office for the Department of Homeland Security, Washington, D.C. ......................................................................... 7

QUESTIONS 

Questions submitted to Director Ridge by Senators Grassley, Biden, Cantwell, 

Leahy, Feingold and Feinstein (Note: As of the time of printing, responses 

to these questions had not been received.) ......................................................... 49

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD 

American Civil Liberties Union, Timothy H. Edgar, Legislative Counsel, 

Washington, D.C., statement .............................................................................. 77

American Society for Microbilogy, Abigail Salyers, President, Ronald M. Atlas, 

President Elect, Gail Cassell, Chair, Public and Scientific Affairs Board, 

and Kenneth Berns, M.D., Co-Chair, Task Force on Biological Weapons 

Control, Washington, D.C., statement ................................................................ 87

Ridge, Tom, Director, Transition Planning Office for the Department of Homeland Security, Washington, D.C., statement ...................................................... 108

(1)

PROTECTING THE HOMELAND: THE PRESIDENT’S PROPOSAL FOR REORGANIZING 

OUR HOMELAND DEFENSE INFRASTRUCTURE 

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 26, 2002

U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY, Washington, D.C. 

The Committee met, Pursuant to notice, at 9:40 a.m., in room 

SD–106, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon Patrick J. Leahy, 

Chairman of the Committee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Leahy, Feingold, Specter, Sessions, Kohl, 

Hatch, Grassley, DeWine, Schumer, Feinstein, Biden, and Edwards. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. PATRICK J. LEAHY, A U.S. 

SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF VERMONT 

Chairman LEAHY. I know Senator Hatch is on his way, but we 

will begin. Senator Specter and Senator Feingold are here, and, of 

course, with this witness, we will dispense with any swearing-in. 

We know Governor Ridge well, and most of us served with him 

before when he was with the other body, and, of course, you are 

always welcome here, Governor. 

Director RIDGE. Thank you, Senator. 

Chairman LEAHY. Before the terrorist attacks on September 

11th, we had been focusing on improving the effectiveness of the 

U.S. Department of Justice, which is the lead Federal agency with 

responsibility for domestic security. We have had oversight hearings with the FBI and INS as well as hearings on legislative proposals to improve the legal tools that are available to detect, to investigate and prosecute those who threaten Americans here and 

abroad. 

Director Ridge has transmitted a specific legislative proposal for 

a new Homeland Security Department. He sent us that last week, 

and I think it is fair to say that we all thank him for his hard work 

and also for all he has done for this country, from his military service, to the Governors, to the task that he has taken on now. 

There is bipartisan support for the concept of a Cabinet-level officer to coordinate homeland security. We wanted to include such a 

provision in the USA PATRIOT Act last year, but the White House 

back then asked us not to. But we hope we can work with you, Director, on that. 

2

Now, one thing we should do, though, is to acknowledge what the 

President’s proposal does not do. It does not address the problems 

inside agencies like the FBI or the INS, problems like outdated 

computers or hostility to employees who report problems or lapses 

in intelligence sharing, lack of translation—for example, all of the 

documents that were in the Department of Justice were never 

translated—or analytical capabilities, and also a lot of people called 

it the cultural problems within the Department of Justice and the 

FBI. So we are going to have to work together, the Congress and 

the administration, to solve these problems. 

This committee unanimously reported the FBI Reform Act in 

1974 to improve the FBI. That came out of here with a bipartisan 

unanimous vote. I hope the President will work with us in trying 

to accomplish moving that through Congress. 

Putting together a new agency by itself does not fix existing 

problems, and, Governor Ridge, you have been very frank in pointing that out both in your public statements and in a number of the 

private meetings that we have had with you. So we have to be 

careful we don’t generate new management problems. 

I am concerned that the administration’s proposal would exempt 

the new Department from many of the legal requirements that 

apply to other agencies, and here are my concerns. The Freedom 

of Information Act would not apply. Conflict-of-interest and accountability rules for agency advisors would not apply. The new 

Department head would have the power to suspend the Whistleblower Protection Act, the normal procurement rules, and even to 

intervene in the independent investigations of the Inspector General. 

So, really, what this does is put them above the law. That is very 

troubling to me, Director. We go on the assumption that everybody 

has to follow the law, the President, the Congress, the administration, and to put this agency above the law on questions of conflict 

of interest, the whistleblower, FOIA and all that, that is not a good 

signal to send. 

I know it is a proposal borne in secrecy and rushed to the stage 

even before the legislation was ready. It is somewhat troublesome 

when we find the whistleblower laws exempted when this was announced on the day that there was very powerful whistleblower 

testimony before this committee pointing out some real problems 

and mistakes in the Department of Justice and the FBI. 

So we don’t want to exempt the new Department from laws that 

ensure accountability to the Congress, but more especially to the 

American people. 

By bolstering our defenses against terrorists, we don’t want to do 

damage to other important national interests. Many of the agencies 

proposed for transfer performed vital duties in addition to their responsibility for security against terrorism, and as agencies are 

moved to the new Department, we need to make sure this does not 

force duplication of efforts or downgrading of important missions. 

For example, for 8 years, crime went down in this country. In the 

last year, it started coming back up. Even though each administration wants to have their own way of doing it, and that is appropriate, I would hope that you don’t start throwing the baby out 

with the bath water. 

3

During the Clinton administration, the COPS programs and 

other things were part of the reason crime went down. The administration proposes doing away with it, with that program. Crime is 

coming back up. What I am saying is we all want to focus on fighting terrorists, of course. There isn’t a person in here, Republican 

or Democrat, who disagrees with that, but if you are living in a 

street or living in a neighborhood somewhere and there is a rapist 

or a murderer or a mugger praying in that neighborhood, that is 

a terrorist. You are terrified, you are worried, and we don’t want 

to expose our neighborhoods or our rural communities to rising 

crime based on traffic in crack or heroin or whatever else it might 

be. So I would hope that this isn’t going to be an excuse for the 

cost of this to do away with these programs. These local law enforcement programs have helped bring the crime rate down. If you 

have got a murderer in your neighborhood, you are as frightened 

as if you lived new the Pentagon or the Trade Towers in New York 

City. 

Now, the President’s proposal centralizes many important functions, and we had a solid start by being able to workout the blueprint provided by legislation originally introduced by Senator Specter and others and by the work of Senator Feinstein, the committee’s Terrorism Subcommittee. 

Our former colleague, Senator Warren Rudman has urged that 

we fix the FBI and not slice and dice it, and considering the problems with the FBI, I am interested in hearing from Governor Ridge 

whether separating the Federal agencies responsible for investigating terrorism in a separate agency from the FBI would be better or would it be worse. Would it be better to spin off the FBI’s 

counterterrorism agents into some new organization, or should we 

work with the current FBI to make sure they have the tools necessary? 

Now, the Majority Leader and all of us want the Senate to 

produce a thoughtful and workable charter for the new Department 

as quickly as possible. What we don’t want to do is slow things 

down by cobbling together a collection of unrelated political items 

in the bill under the heading of management flexibility, and I 

would mention four. 

These are the things that could slow it down. Creating an ill-considered and overly broad new exemption to the Freedom of Information Act, encouraging Government complicity with private firms 

and definitely keep secrets about information and critical infrastructure, vulnerabilities may reduce the incentive to fix the problems. I know we all want to trust our major corporations to do everything right, and there is no reason why we should suspect they 

don’t, unless, of course, you read the front page of today’s paper or 

yesterday’s paper or the day before or the day before or the day before. So I don’t want to shield unnecessarily what might be wrongdoing. 

I don’t think we should weaken whistleblower protection. Senator 

Grassley and I made sure that the FBI Reform Act would end the 

FBI special exemptions from whistleblower protection. I hope the 

administration is not going to insist on moving backward on whistleblower protection as they have in this proposal. I don’t think either Senator Grassley or I would take kindly to that. 

4

Third, weakening safeguards for the gathering and handling of 

sensitive law enforcement information. While the Department’s role 

on domestic surveillance remains unclear, it is more important 

than ever that there be strong protection to ensure such information is not gathered or used improperly. We do not want to go back 

to the excesses of the days of J. Edgar Hoover and things like that. 

The American people want to be protected against terrorist. They 

also want to make sure they are protected in the security of their 

own privacy from their own Government, and that is not a liberal 

or a conservative philosophy. That is an American philosophy. That 

is why we began this country in the first place. 

Fourth, I don’t want to threaten job security for hard-working 

Government employees. We wouldn’t want to use this transition as 

an excuse to suddenly cut the wages of those who have been defending our country. That is not going to encourage retention and 

recruitment of the vital human resources. 

Director Ridge, as I said before, I do welcome you. I think that 

you have done the country a good service, and the President, by 

taking on this job. 

[The prepared statement of Senator Leahy appears as a submission for the record.] 

Chairman LEAHY. I am delighted to have Senator Hatch, who got 

the memo on gray suits. Senator Hatch. 

STATEMENT OF HON. ORRIN G. HATCH, A U.S. SENATOR FROM 

THE STATE OF UTAH 

Senator HATCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

First, I want to commend you for holding these hearings and focusing this committee’s attention on the most critical issue facing 

our Nation today, and that is securing our homeland to protect 

America from further terrorist attacks. 

I join with you, Mr. Chairman, in the spirit of bipartisanship, 

which Congress has demonstrated since the horrific attacks of September 11th, to consider the President’s proposed Homeland Security Department. 

This committee has much to offer in this area. After the tragic 

events of September 11th, members of this committee and Congress worked tirelessly to provide the Attorney General with the 

tools necessary to fight terrorism worldwide and protect our country. 

Specifically, we had passed the PATRIOT Act, a critical set of reforms needed to unleash our Government’s ability to detect and 

prevent terrorist attacks. Since then, we have examined other 

issues of significance in our country’s work against terrorism. We 

have reviewed the FBI’s reorganization plan. We have presented 

and considered a workable plan for restructuring the INS. We have 

reviewed other significant organizational and operational issues 

that have arisen. Against this backdrop, we must now turn our attention together to consider carefully the creation of the new Department of Homeland Security. 

At the outset, I want to welcome Governor Tom Ridge, President 

Bush’s homeland security advisor. Since your swearing-in on October 8, 2001, less than 1 month after the terrorist attacks on our 

5

country, you, Governor Ridge, have worked with an unwavering determination to protect our homeland. 

I want to commend you on your efforts to improve our Nation’s 

security and your dedication and courage in tackling these most 

difficult issues in this time of crisis. You have accomplished a great 

deal, and while there is much more to do to ensure the safety of 

our country, I personally am comforted by the leadership that you 

have shown thus far. 

You and the President, I think, have both been a steady set of 

beacons of hope for all Americans, and I want to thank you again 

for your accomplishments. 

We were privileged to hear your views when you came here in 

May to brief the Senators on your proposals to consolidate border 

control. The proposed creation of the new Homeland Security Department is a massive task. Not since 1947 when President Truman reorganized our defense and security agencies has this country faced a reorganization of this scale, but today we face a significant new threat, one far different than post-World War II communism. 

Today we face the danger of numerous well-financed terrorist 

groups, not just Al-Qaeda, but many others, who will stop at nothing to cross our borders and attack our institutions. Our infrastructures are people and freedoms with weapons of all types. 

The administration’s proposal to create a new Homeland Security 

Department is the next logical step in our country’s war against 

terrorism, and while the President’s proposal to create a new 

Homeland Security Department is certainly a necessary first step, 

it is not the end of our country’s mission. 

No one expects to achieve this end goal of an efficiently operating 

Homeland Security Department overnight. There may well be 

areas of debate or issues that we in Congress need to save for another day. 

Certainly, however, there are areas where we share a common 

view. First, in the aftermath of September 11th, we recognize that 

it is essential that we improve our intelligence gathering and analytical capabilities within and among our Federal, State, and local 

agencies. 

The administration’s proposal makes it clear that the Secretary 

of the new Homeland Security Department will have the primary, 

but not sole, responsibility for coordinating terrorist-related threat 

information. 

The Secretary will be responsible for analyzing threat information from various agencies, assessing the vulnerability of our Nation’s infrastructures, and developing a long-term plan to protect 

those infrastructures. 

Second, regardless of the final structure of the new Department, 

we all agree that it is essential that reforms within the FBI and 

CIA must continue. Both the FBI and CIA are in the process of 

making internal changes that will improve their ability to collaborate and coordinate within this new Department. 

We are familiar with the substantial reforms that FBI Director 

Robert Mueller has instituted within the Bureau. Under his able 

leadership, I am confident that the effectiveness of the FBI and its 

intelligence capabilities in particular will be much improved. 

6

As a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, I 

have to say that our director of Central Intelligence is also doing 

an excellent job in this area. 

Similarly, reforms within the new Department’s component agencies must also continue. We are well aware of the role INS plays 

in enforcing this country’s immigration laws and administrating 

services. Implementing critical reforms at the INS, of course, undoubtedly will improve the overall effectiveness of the new Department. 

Finally, we all recognize that the war against terrorism cannot 

be won simply by reorganizing Government agencies into a new, 

more effective Department of Homeland Security. It is essential 

that we tap into the resources and expertise of America’s private 

sector. 

I am encouraged personally by Governor Ridge’s efforts to enlist 

the aid and expertise of America’s businesses to enhance our Nation’s security, and I am committed to making sure that the new 

Department is able to receive the uninhibited advice and counsel 

from our various business leaders. 

It is private businesses which own and operate most of our infrastructure, our telecommunications, energy and financial systems. 

Our Government cannot effectively fight this war against terrorism 

without their support. So we must arm our agencies with the best 

technologies available and our private sector as a critical player in 

this process, as has been our national defense and military. 

Congress must act, and must do so quickly and carefully, without 

political gamesmanship. Our task is too important. We cannot afford to sacrifice our country’s safety in the process. 

The threat of terrorist attacks on our homeland as well as abroad 

is here to stay. Our response to these threats requires a singleness 

of focus, and all of us in Government have a duty to do all we can 

to protect the American people from future terrorist attacks. 

I look forward to your testimony today, Governor Ridge. I can’t 

be here the full time because of markup in the Finance Committee, 

upon which I sit as well, but I look forward to working with you. 

I have known you for quite a while. I know what a great job you 

did in Pennsylvania. I think you have done a superb job since you 

have been with the President, and I was really, frankly, amazed at 

how well you kept these things under wraps until you finally were 

able to get all of the different elements put together so that you 

could announce this to the world at large. 

I think members of this committee, the Senator Governmental 

Affairs Committee, and our colleagues in both chambers should accomplish this task this year. 

We rallied last year in a matter of days, in about 3 weeks—well, 

it was a little longer than that—to enact the PATRIOT Act, and 

I am confident that if we continue to work in a bipartisan, bicameral manner, we can do the same here and in this Congress to 

enact legislation to create this new Department of Homeland Security. If we do, then a great deal of that credit should go to you and 

those who have worked with you and the President for having done 

the great work that you have done. 

7

So I am very grateful to you, and I just want to let you know 

that I am looking forward to both hearing and reading what you 

have to say. 

[The parpared statement of Senator Hatch appears as a submission for the record.] 

Chairman LEAHY. As you can see, Governor, this is not the most 

unfriendly committee that you have probably appeared before, and 

please go ahead with your testimony, sir. 

STATEMENT OF TOM RIDGE, DIRECTOR, TRANSITION PLANNING OFFICE FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, WASHINGTON, D.C. 

Director RIDGE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman Leahy, Senator Hatch, and committee members, I 

truly do appreciate the opportunity to testify in support of the 

President’s historic proposal to unify our homeland security efforts 

under the new Department of Homeland Security. 

I would like to reiterate personally the President’s strong desire 

to work with Members of Congress in a bipartisan way and to 

thank you for the bipartisan support you have already expressed 

in the commitment to act on this proposal by the end of this year. 

I am here in keeping with the President’s directive to me to explain our proposal and its effects. In addition, the President has 

signed an executive order creating a transition planning office for 

the new Department, housed within the Office of Management and 

Budget. I speak before you today as director of this new office, and 

I certainly look forward to working with you in the future and am 

grateful for the bipartisan expression of support for that effort this 

morning. 

Since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, all of America has risen to the 

challenge of improving the security of our homeland, and as the 

President’s Homeland Security Advisor, I fortunately have had the 

privilege of seeing much of this firsthand. 

In partnership with Congress, with the States and localities, 

with the law enforcement community, the private sector, and the 

academic world, we have worked to assess our Nation’s critical infrastructure to do a better job at sealing our borders, airports, and 

seaports from terrorists and their deadly cargo, to strengthen enforcement of our immigration laws, to share information about 

threats and to prepare for and prevent attacks involving weapons 

of mass destruction. 

People, not just people in Government, but people all around this 

country, are working harder, they are working smarter, and they 

are working together. But they need a structure that rewards that 

attitude and encourages others to adopt it as well. That is why the 

President believes our Nation must now take the next critical step 

by unifying our efforts under a single Department of Homeland Security. Only Congress can create such a department, and I am here 

today to convey personally the President’s desire to work with 

members to accomplish this goal. 

The President believes the creation of a single department with 

a single clear line of authority would not only improve our preparedness for a future attack, but also help prevent attacks before 

they happen. 

8

Let me talk about the proposal, if I might, in general for a moment. As you know, responsibility for homeland security is currently dispersed among more than 100 different governmental organizations. No agency or department calls homeland security its 

sole, or even its primary, mission. Such a structure increases both 

the potential for mistakes and the opportunities for abuse. It certainly does not help us reach our full potential to secure this country, its citizens, and our way of life. 

The President’s proposal would transform much of this confusing 

patchwork into a single department whose primary mission is to 

protect our homeland, a single department to secure our borders, 

to integrate and analyze intelligence in a new and different way, 

to combat bioterrorism and weapons of mass destruction, and to direct emergency response activities. 

The Department of Homeland Security will bring homeland security responsibilities under one roof, working toward one goal, and 

moving in one direction, forward with a single clear line of authority to get the job done. To paraphrase President Truman, the buck 

will stop there. 

As you know, this would be the largest reorganization of the Government since the Truman Presidency. Then the problem was a divided military. Years before he became President, Truman saw the 

problem as a Senator, as a Senator that was tasked with identifying duplication and inefficiency in the armed forces, and he saw 

a solution, a coordinated defense organization. 

After he became President, Truman acted upon his experience as 

a Senator as well as on the lessons learned from Pearl Harbor and 

World War II. He unified America’s military, national security, and 

intelligence apparatus to meet the emerging threat of the cold war. 

He said it is now time to discard obsolete organizational forms, 

Truman told the Nation, and to provide for the future of the soundest, the most effective, and the most economical kind of structure. 

The Senate and Government told Truman it couldn’t be done, and, 

frankly, I think he told them that it had to be done. 

We, too, must act on the lessons we have learned from 9/11 and 

from our war against terrorism. We, too, must build a sound homeland security structure for the future. 

The Department of Homeland Security will be built on four 

strong components, four individual units, border and transportation 

security, emergency preparedness and response, chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear countermeasures, and information, 

analysis, and infrastructure protection. It would be a key step in 

the President’s emerging national strategy for homeland security. 

Like the national security strategy, our national strategy for 

homeland security will form the intellectual underpinning to guide 

the decisionmaking of budgeteers and policymakers in t he years 

to come. 

The President’s proposal was the result of a full deliberative 

planning process that began with an effort led by Vice President 

Cheney in May of 2001 to examine the Government’s response to 

a terrorist threat. It continued, and obviously accelerated, as part 

of the mission of the Office of Homeland Security created last October. 

9

The President’s proposal is drawn on the conclusions of recent 

blue-ribbon reports on terrorism such as Hart-Rudman, the Bremer 

Commission, and the Gilmore Commission, on legislative proposals 

by your colleagues in Congress in both the House and the Senate, 

Republicans and Democrats, and reports from the various think 

tanks and analytical groups that have made it their task to take 

a look at the threat of terrorism to this country over the past several years. 

My staff and I have met with thousands of Government officials 

at the Federal, State, and local levels, and with hundreds of experts and numerous private citizens, and, of course, we spent 

many, many hours meeting with many of your colleagues on both 

sides of the aisle, again, in both the House and the Senate. Their 

counsel has reinforced my belief that if we can protect the hometown, we will protect the homeland. 

The heart of Homeland Security, our highest priority must be 

prevention. Because terrorism is a global threat, we must have 

complete control over who and what enters the United States. We 

are working with Canada and Mexico to create smart borders that 

prevent terrorists and their weapons of terror from entering, while 

at the same time facilitating the legal flow of people and goods in 

which our economies depend. 

Protecting our borders and controlling entry to the United States 

is the responsibility of the Federal Government, but it has currently dispersed more than five major governmental organizations 

in five different Departments. 

The new Department would unify authority over the Coast 

Guard, Customs Service, Immigration and Naturalization Service 

and Border Patrol, and the recently created Transportation Security Administration. All aspects of border control, including the 

issuance of visas would be frankly improved and certainly enhanced by a central information-sharing clearinghouse. 

Our borders include our international airports, seaports, and 

coastlines, and our 21st-century rapid transportation systems. The 

new Department would unify Government’s efforts to secure them 

all. 

The new Department can also help strengthen the qualities that 

define us as Americans. Allow me to illustrate. America is a nation 

built on, and built by, immigrants. We have traditionally been an 

open and warm and welcoming country to the entire world. 

President Bush has carried on that tradition in several ways. He 

used as an illustration, work to reduce the backlog of legal immigrants awaiting citizenship. After 9/11, he repeatedly stressed the 

message of tolerance to the entire Nation, and his proposal would 

place the duties of the INS under the leadership of the Secretary 

of Homeland Security. We need to know that the guests of our 

country have the right to be in our country. We need to know who 

is playing by the rules and who is trying to play the system to ultimately do us harm. 

America, whose immigration laws are fully enforced, is an America that is more tolerant, trusting, and welcoming to legal immigrants. We will better our state-of-the art entry/exit visa tracking 

system, wisely advocated by Congress several years ago, several 

years ago, but never fully implemented. That is why we do not proVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:03 Jul 20, 2006 Jkt 086932 PO 00000 Frm 00013 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\GPO\HEARINGS\86932.TXT SJUD4 PsN: CMORC
10

pose to separate the administrative and enforcement functions of 

the INS. To make the system work, the right hand of enforcement 

must know what the left hand of visa application and processing 

is doing at all times. 

The President’s bill contains language for a human resources 

management system that is flexible, contemporary, with public employment principles of merit and fairness. We ask for the ability to 

use common-sense tools such as providing merit pay for top performers or lifting the pay cap to attract quality IT workers from 

the private sector. We want to offer the best worker incentives for 

exceptional contributions and ensure accountability for individual 

performance, and we want to hire good people for critical positions 

immediately. 

Finally, one of the Department’s most important missions will be 

to protect our Nation’s critical infrastructure. To do so, the Department must collect information, identifying key assets and components of that infrastructure, evaluate vulnerabilities, and match 

threat assessments against those vulnerabilities. 

We can only accomplish this if the Department can gather information comprehensively and freely from the private sector, which 

all of you know owns 80 to 90 percent of that critical infrastructure. The private sector has knowledge and expertise not readily 

available to the Government, expertise we believe we can use to develop and recommend appropriate protective measures. 

Under current law, all of the information collected from the private sector could easily become public. I acknowledge the chairman’s concerns about the limited exemption that is provided for in 

the President’s proposal, and I am anxious to work with the chairman and other members of the committee to assure that the concerns that you have raised are properly addressed. It would not be 

in the best interest of American businessmen or -women or any 

other American, frankly, to draw a road map of critical infrastructure vulnerabilities for those who would do us harm, but there are 

also considerations that you have raised, Mr. Chairman, that we 

must deal with in this legislation as well, and we look forward to 

the opportunity to do that with you. 

The only answer we believe is a limited statutory exemption to 

the Freedom of Information Act, such exemptions where Congress 

has deemed that the public interest requires protection of information submitted to the Government. We believe homeland security 

deserves such treatment. 

We want to ensure that information, voluntarily provided for the 

purpose of securing our critical infrastructure as well as the American people, is protected. We also want to help mayors and Governors receive threat information and intelligence from the Federal 

Government without having it become public. The President is 

looking forward to working with the House and the Senate to create an exemption appropriate to the need of the new agency. 

Finally, the President appreciates again the extraordinarily enthusiastic response from Members of Congress to this initiative, 

and he frankly is gratified by the optimism about how quickly the 

bill might be passed. This administration is ready to work together 

with you in partnership to get the job done. This is our priority, 

and I believe it is yours as well. 

11

We know the threats are real. We know the need is urgent, and 

we also know that working together, we can succeed in this endeavor. 

President Truman did not live to see the end of the cold war, but 

the war did end, and historians agree that the consolidation of Federal resources was critical to our ultimate success. 

Ladies and gentlemen, we have that opportunity to provide the 

same leadership and create the same kind of legacy, and I certainly 

look forward to working with you to seize that opportunity. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Director Ridge appears as a submission for the record.] 

Chairman LEAHY. Thank you, Director, and I appreciate your 

comments on FOIA. We will work together on that. Of course, as 

you know, there are some very significant protections under FOIA 

even today with people protecting trade secrets especially for the 

high-tech industry, provisions that protect releasing their 

vulnerabilities, but as the moment, the feeling—and it is not what 

you are suggesting, but the feeling that may come across in some 

of the legislation, to trust private industry to do all the right 

things, especially in telecommunications and other areas, it is not 

necessarily a time when that call might ring on receptive ears. 

Again, just looking at the headlines today, there are an awful lot 

of people who find themselves broke today who wish that somebody 

had done a better job of finding out what was going on, whether 

it is WorldCom or anywhere else. 

Let me ask you this. FBI Director Mueller is trying to reform an 

organization, in this case, the FBI. It is easy to change, and do you 

really think, when you look back over the years at the FBI, the FBI 

can overcome its problems, or should we create a new and separate 

agency to investigate terrorism, one that is not as bureaucratic or 

technologically backward? 

Director RIDGE. Senator, I have had the real pleasure and privilege to get to know Director Mueller who came on the scene probably about 6 weeks before I did and 1 week before September 11th. 

We have the opportunity to interact on a daily basis, an opportunity to observe and witness the interaction between the FBI director, the CIA director, and other members of the administration 

on a daily basis, sharing information and talking about the kind of 

structural, organizational, and technological changes to which you 

referred. 

I think the President believes very strongly that the reorganization efforts undertaken by Director Mueller are very appropriate 

under the circumstances. As you know, he inherited an agency that 

was technologically deficient. We are all concerned about creating 

the capacity within the FBI to share relevant information within 

the Federal Government, including the new Department of Homeland Security who will be a recipient of that information, but for 

whatever reason, over the past couple of years, in spite of the investment by Congress of substantial dollars in information technology, at least appropriations—

Chairman LEAHY. Billions of dollars. 

Director RIDGE. Billions of dollars. It just didn’t happen, and so 

the work that he has undertaken, again with strong supplemental 

12

support that the Congress gave him last fall, to bring the kind of 

digital competency to the agency is a much-needed improvement to 

develop the kind of reporting and analytical capacity that will be 

necessary to share information with the new Department of Homeland Security is something that he has undertaken. By agreement 

with the CIA Director, they will be providing 25 CIA agents, so 

they can begin to develop that capacity within the FBI. 

So, in response to your question, Mr. Chairman, I believe Director Mueller is making very aggressive and very positive steps to reorganize not just the personnel and the technology, but to change 

the culture. 

Remember, of course, there is still going to be the investigative 

arm of the Attorney General to deal with the traditional mission 

of the Department of Justice, but they also need to develop the new 

capacity to take a look at terrorist-related information, distill it in 

a form and report and analysis to be conveyed with the CIA and 

with the new Department of Homeland Security, and I think he is 

on the right path. 

Chairman LEAHY. So we don’t need to create this new and separate agency to investigate terrorism? 

Director RIDGE. Well, I think what we have within the Federal 

Government, Mr. Chairman, as you commented, we have the CIA 

and we have the FBI. There is much better information sharing. 

Of course, my witness to that is as of October 8th that they have 

done some unprecedented work together, at least in this administration. I can’t speak to previous administrations. 

But the unique aspect of the new Department, Mr. Chairman, is 

that there will be a different kind of threat analysis that will enable us to harden targets, to make it progressively more difficult 

for the terrorists to bring the same level of destruction. So I don’t 

believe you need a new separate agency to do that. I think the CIA 

and the FBI are moving in the right direction together. 

Chairman LEAHY. This committee has given strong support to 

Director Mueller, as you know, and is trying to help him in overcoming what are some real problems, not the least of which in technology, but also in personnel. 

Government secrecy, going back to the FOIA, is necessary, I 

think in limited circumstances, to protect our national security. I 

think we all agree on that. As one who helped to write the most 

recent FOIA law, I was very much attuned to that. 

We also know, going back to the days of Watergate, that secrecy 

can often lead to serious management problems that could be very 

costly for Americans, not just monetarily, but if you undermine the 

trust that we want to have in our Government, that is a cost that 

can sometimes be unbearable. Sunlight and openness, that is the 

best way to make sure you have the accountability. 

When Government agencies do things right, we are going to hear 

about that because they are going to have a hundred press releases 

out immediately to tell us this, but when things go wrong, we usually don’t hear about it, and we only hear about it when we pick 

up the paper and find some enterprising reporter found out about 

it. 

I think about a very powerful letter—and you should take a look 

it; in fact, I will put it in the record, if I could have her permisVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:03 Jul 20, 2006 Jkt 086932 PO 00000 Frm 00016 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\GPO\HEARINGS\86932.TXT SJUD4 PsN: CMORC
13

sion—that Senator Feinstein just sent to the FBI about the FBI’s 

activities in the 1950’s and 1960’s, their effort to get the president 

to the University of California fired and actually to lie in the background check on him. When a former President of the United 

States wanted to appoint him to the Cabinet, the FBI did the background report, lied in it, so he didn’t get the Cabinet position. 

Now, the reason I mention this, it took a San Francisco Chronicle 

reporter 17 years to get the FOIA request answered to turn out 

what was really outrageous, and some would even say criminal, 

conduct on the part of the FBI 17 years ago. We are being asked to spend $37 billion of taxpayers’ dollars in 

the first year in this new Department. I think we ought to make 

sure that we know not just when it is doing things right because 

I am sure we will find out about that. We want to make sure that 

we know when things are wrong. 

I mention that not so much as a question, Director, but on the 

issue of FOIA, I think it would be rise if your staff and ours spend 

some time together to talk about that. 

Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, I went down to the FBI’s Operations Coordination Center, the SIOC. You have been there, and I 

think a number of members of the committee have. This brings together every agency’s information to evaluate it, respond to a crisis, 

and so on. The administration bill does not specifically call for the 

Homeland Security Department to have a coordination center like 

this. Do you plan to move this SIOC from the FBI to the new Department, or will the new Department have its own coordination 

center? 

Director RIDGE. Mr. Chairman, the unit that we describe as the 

Information Analysis and Critical Infrastructure Protection Unit 

will basically be a coordination center having access to reports and 

the analytical work products not only from the CIA and the FBI, 

but from the other agencies that have intelligence and informationgathering responsibilities within the Federal Government. 

I would also say that the model that the CIA and the FBI have 

begun to develop as they place individual members from their respective agencies in each other’s agencies to work, to share, and to 

integrate and consolidate that process is a model that I would suspect a new Secretary would follow. It assures the flow of information. It assures that those two agencies are really working side by 

side to generate certain work products, to facilitate the threat assessment and to get that work product to each other and to the 

new Department. 

Chairman LEAHY. Let me ask you about that. With the field office, suppose you have a field office—I am thinking of something 

like the Phoenix memo—

Director RIDGE. Right. 

Chairman LEAHY [continuing]. And they suspect something is 

wrong. They send it up to the Department of Justice or headquarters recommending surveillance or court order, arrest, or whatever. Would that have to be coordinated through the Homeland Security Department, or would it still go to the Department of Justice 

and the FBI? 

Director RIDGE. Mr. Chairman, it is our belief the way the legislation is drafted that something like the Phoenix memo would be 

14

categorized as an FBI report, and the information in that report 

relative to homeland security would be not only forwarded to the 

FBI, because obviously is it an FBI product, but there is an affirmative obligation on behalf of the FBI to forward that report to the 

Department of Homeland Security in their Information Analysis 

Unit. 

Chairman LEAHY. The President has proposed exempting the 

new Department from certain conflict-of-interest laws and procurement regulations, proposed allowing the Department to set up private advisory committees and exempting the Department from the 

anti-secrecy provisions under the Federal Advisory Committee Act. 

So you could have secret committees staffed by outside corporate 

officers with a financial interest in the outcome, giving recommendations to the new Department, if you would, through all 

the different things, everything from the preservation of offshore 

fisheries and food safety. 

Do we really need this? I mean, I could think of some instances 

where some would be rubbing their hands in glee to get on those 

secret advisory committees. Do we really need that? 

Director RIDGE. Well, I believe the President’s design and desire 

is to at least give the new Secretary the capacity or the option, if 

the circumstances warranted, during any time during not only the 

organizational setup of the new Department, but in the future, to 

bring together as quickly as possible the kind of professionalism 

and expertise that may only be available through the private sector. 

Chairman LEAHY. In secret? 

Director RIDGE. I think depending on the nature of the challenge 

before the Department of Homeland Security, it is conceivable that 

that circumstance could arrive. 

Chairman LEAHY. Waiving? 

Director RIDGE. I think rare—

Chairman LEAHY. Waiving all conflict-of-interest laws? 

Director RIDGE. Mr. Chairman, you raise a very interesting question that we have had to deal with in a very real way, even during 

the operation of the small White House Office of Homeland Security, and that is, that you all know within the private sector and 

elsewhere, in the academic world—but we are talking primarily 

about the private sector—there is enormous expertise. There are 

men and women who spent their lives developing a background of 

knowledge and experience that I think we would want on occasion 

to be available as quickly as possible, depending on the urgency, 

depending on the need of the Federal Government to secure the 

homeland, but there are enormous reservations for people to come 

on board as we are looking for solutions because there is always 

in the back of somebody’s mind, they may be coming in to look for 

solutions, but we anticipate the worst and suggest or infer that 

they really want to sell products. That is how people are concerned 

about conflict, and I do—

Chairman LEAHY. But why don’t we just work on the overall conflict-of-interest laws to make them a little bit clearer and simpler 

to handle rather than somebody just having total exemption from 

them? I mean, that is my issue. 

My time is up. 

15

Director RIDGE. I would welcome to work on that with you, Senator, because I have seen it firsthand. I think we want to make 

sure that the public’s interest is protected both from undue influence and any proper relationship with the Federal Government, 

but also the public and national interest is promoted and enhanced 

by getting this expertise in when we need it. 

Chairman LEAHY. Thank you. 

Senator Specter.

STATEMENT OF HON. ARLEN SPECTER, A U.S. SENATOR FROM 

THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA 

Senator SPECTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

At the outset, Governor Ridge, I commend the President for coming forward with a legislative proposal for a Secretary of Homeland 

Defense, and I compliment you on the excellent work which you 

have done to date in a very, very difficult position. 

Last October, Senator Lieberman and I introduced legislation to 

structure homeland security. There have been very significant developments since that time, which I think require focusing on 

major deficiencies in the intelligence community in their current 

operation and also on the need to restructure the intelligence community. 

This committee had hearings with Director Mueller of the FBI 

which disclosed very material shortcomings on the FBI’s internal 

operation on processing reports illustrated by the Phoenix report 

where there were indicators of suspicious young men taking aeronautical training, having big posters of Osama bin Laden in their 

rooms, something that should have alerted the FBI last July. 

In some detail, Agent Coleen Rowley described the prevails of 

trying to get a warrant under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance 

Act and the obstacles reached in headquarters where the wrong 

standards were being applied for what was probable cause and 

even a challenge as to whether Zacarias Moussaoui, who was suspect in Morocco and Paris, was the same Zacarias Moussaoui as if 

that was a common name. Those pose really big difficulties which 

candidly this committee ought to be doing more on. 

We have found the same problems present on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act standards today which we found when we 

investigated the Wen Ho Lee case several years ago where it is 

now conceded that the Attorney General personally did not move 

for a warrant which could have shed tremendous light on what Dr. 

Wen Ho Lee was doing. 

I suggest to you that the Secretary of Homeland Defense is going 

to have the responsibility to really superintend this very, very critical area. 

With respect to the structure of the operation, I would appreciate 

it if you would take a look at legislation which my staff and I have 

prepared, which calls for the creation of a national terrorism assessment center within the Office of Secretary of Homeland Defense, and this is an updated effort to accomplish what many have 

tried in the past to make a central repository available for all of 

the intelligence information. 

When I chaired the Intelligence Committee in the 104th Congress in 1996, I proposed legislation which would have brought all 

16

intelligence agencies under the direction of the director of Central 

Intelligence, and that has been fought on many lines on the traditional Washington turf battles, including the Department of Defense, which traditionally says they ought not to have anyone over 

them, even a coordinator, because of their responsibility to fight 

wars, which, of course, is the heaviest responsibility of all, but 

there have been proposals, including that by the present Scowcroft 

group which would accommodate the Department of Defense’s proposals. 

The legislation which my staff and I have prepared would centralize analysts from not only the FBI and CIA, but the National 

Security Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, the National Reconnaissance Office, 

Intelligence from the Secretary of State, to bring in one spot, finally and irrevocably, the full picture on intelligence. 

If we put together all of the information which was available 

prior to 9/11, there is a very distinct possibility, in fact, even perhaps a probability, that 9/11 could be averted. We all know 20/20 

hindsight has perfect vision, but when you put together the pieces 

of the Phoenix report with the young suspicious men getting aeronautical training, big posters of Osama bin Laden, when you put 

together what Zacarias Moussaoui had in his computer, practically 

a blueprint for 9/11, one of the conspirators on the air attacks, if 

you put together what Merad confessed in 1996, a Pakistani with 

connections with Al-Qaeda, when you put together what the CIA 

knew about the two men in Kuala Lumpur, when you add in what 

the National Security Agency had the day before on a possible attack, September 10th, some notice, that there was a possibility of 

an attack on September 11th and it was put on a 2-day review, a 

lot of good a 2-day review does when you have a warning for the 

very next day. But the point is that on all of these matters, there 

really is a need to put it in one spot, and homeland security, in my 

view, is the spot. That is what we are creating now, and as you 

aptly note, the biggest reorganization of the Federal Government 

since 1947. 

I would ask you to study the proposal in depth, but I would be 

interested at this point in your thinking on this subject. 

Director RIDGE. Thank you, Senator, and I will look forward to 

exploring it in depth with you as well. 

As you know, the President’s initiative to a certain extent begins 

the integration effort that you see is vital for us to enhance our 

ability to protect this country with the Information Analysis and 

Critical Structure Center. However, the Department of Homeland 

Security will not have any collection ability. The President is very 

sensitive to the fact that the information collection ability has been 

properly given and regulated and overseen in the CIA and the FBI, 

but this new Department would have the opportunity to get the 

work product not only from those agencies, but the work product, 

the analytical work that has been done, by the other agencies. 

Many of them are included in your legislation. 

The purpose of this unit within the Department, Senator, is really to take those threat assessments, map them against the 

vulnerabilities we have in this country, and perform the back-end 

operations, what do we need to do to harden these targets, to reVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:03 Jul 20, 2006 Jkt 086932 PO 00000 Frm 00020 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\GPO\HEARINGS\86932.TXT SJUD4 PsN: CMORC
17

duce the vulnerabilities, to make it progressively, year after year, 

more difficult for terrorists to attack successfully. 

The prevention side, which you are obviously very concerned in 

and is very much at the heart of homeland security, investigate, 

identify, and intradict, get them before they attack, is something 

that the Counterterrorism Center that is being substantially enhanced by the CIA and the new work the Center for Intelligence 

that the FBI director has undertaken I think is a place where the 

President envisions that kind of amalgamation, aggregation of information, is more appropriately placed. 

This center, as designed in this legislation, is really to take the 

work product of these agencies, map it against and match it 

against the vulnerabilities, and then make recommendations for either the private sector, for that company, for that community to 

harden itself against the terrorist attack. 

I am anxious to take a look in greater detail at your legislation 

and continue this conversation. 

Senator SPECTER. Well, thank you very much, Governor Ridge. I 

do not disagree with your articulation of the President’s policy that 

homeland security ought not to be a collector. I don’t disagree with 

that at all, but that does not in any way impede upon the suggestion that I am making that there ought to be analysts from each 

of these Departments which would have full access to everything 

collected by those Departments, so it can be put under one uniform 

microscope. 

One concluding comment, Mr. Chairman, and that is on the ability of Congress to do oversight. It is a recurrent theme for many 

of us that we need to do a great deal more oversight, and tomorrow 

we will be taking a look in a closed session on what happened on 

the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act on Zacarias Moussaoui 

and what happened with the FISA court on their reluctance to hear 

from certain of the FBI agents. That is something we are going to 

be going into. 

I believe it is indispensable for the Congress to maintain vigorous independent oversight, and while it is not directly on point, 

it is relevant here to comment about having the FBI investigate 

the Intelligence Agency leaks. My view is that is a colossal mistake. It is just not realistic to have the Intelligence Committee investigating the FBI and having the FBI investigate the Intelligence 

Committee without the unmistakable inference that somebody is 

pulling the punches. 

On separation of powers, if necessary, there could be independent 

counsel, as there was on leaks in the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearing where Senators were questioned by independent counsel, not a very pleasant experience. I was one of those who were 

questioned. Either the Congress ought to investigate itself or 

through the Ethics Committee, but there should not be a chilling 

effect on our ability, the congressional ability for oversight, which 

is so urgently needed to help you in your important job. 

Director RIDGE. Thank you, Senator. 

Senator SPECTER. Thank you, Governor. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman LEAHY. Thank you. 

Senator Kohl.

18

STATEMENT OF HON. HERBERT KOHL, A U.S. SENATOR FROM 

THE STATE OF WISCONSIN 

Senator KOHL. Governor Ridge, when FBI Director Mueller testified before our committee earlier this month, I asked him about the 

total absence of preboarding screening for passengers on chartered 

aircraft. 

Today, almost anyone with a high-enough credit can charter a 

747 airplane, bring whomever they want on board and bring whatever they want on board, including weapons, and potentially repeat 

the horrific events of September 11th. 

Now, after much prodding from my office, the Transportation Security Administration issued a regulation requiring those passengers who charter very large aircraft, those over 95,000-pounds 

takeoff weight, which is about the size of a DC–9, to undergo 

preboarding screening, just as passengers on a commercial airline 

would. 

We are happy they took at least this step, but let me ask you 

a question about chartered aircraft security from the perspective of 

the administration official who is responsible for homeland security. 

Governor Ridge, do you believe that we are at so little risk of a 

terrorist using a chartered aircraft as a weapon that we do not 

need any screening of chartered aircraft passengers and their baggage on chartered planes smaller than DC–9’s? 

Director RIDGE. Senator, I believe that the recently promulgated 

regulations are a step in the right direction, but as you well know, 

because you had to be persistent and insistent to get the regulations issued that, prior to your involvement and hopefully the advocacy of others, there was no regulation of private-chartered aircraft 

at all. 

I believe that as we continue to address the question of transportation security, more work needs to be done with the access to 

chartered aircraft. As I said before, I think you are moving in the 

right direction. I am not sure we have completed our mission there. 

Senator KOHL. Could you give us some indication as to when 

your office might come up with a more complete policy on chartered 

aircraft security? 

Director RIDGE. I believe that we were working in tandem, unknowingly, at the same time you were encouraging the TSA to 

come up with some regulations. We were urging them to do the 

same thing. 

I believe that the Congress vested in the Transportation Security 

Administration, the responsibility to deal with this issue. It is their 

primary responsibility. We need to ensure that they pay closer attention to this, and as you have alluded to, heretofore there has 

been no requirement, no regulations related to private aircraft, and 

we will continue to work with you and the FAA to see that those 

who charter the aircraft, the baggage put aboard the aircraft, that 

these are normally done through privately controlled entities, 

which previously the Government had little or no regulatory authority, we have to visit that with you in order to accomplish that 

task. 

Senator KOHL. Thank you. I hope that you will attach enough urgency to it to come up with a more complete policy, obviously, as 

19

soon as possible because, potentially, we could have, as you know, 

a disaster tomorrow. 

Director RIDGE. We have, Senator, to your point, with your insistence, but we have worked through the FAA. We have worked 

with the TSA. We have sent out advisories. We have made recommendations. The FBI sent out intellesats to State and local law 

enforcement to make them aware of the possibility of the use of 

these privately chartered aircraft for terrorist purposes. 

There has been followup within the law enforcement community 

visiting some of these facilities, but at the end of the day, we still 

don’t have the comprehensive wraparound that I think you believe 

we need and I think we are all working toward. 

Again, prior to 9/11, we didn’t think people would turn aircraft 

into missiles. We now know they do. We also know there is no regulatory underpinning to deal with the privately chartered aircraft. 

We have made a step in that direction, but we have more steps to 

take, and we need to take them sooner rather than later. 

Senator KOHL. Thank you. 

Governor Ridge, all of us have recently been alerted to concerns 

about dirty bombs, and the arrest of a man in Chicago who was 

allegedly planning to build one shows that it is not an idle concern. 

On considering who would have jurisdiction over the case under 

the administration’s proposed reorganization, it seems likely that 

the Department of Homeland Security would be involved because 

of the potential for chemical or biological assault, and yet the ATF 

is the expert agency in bomb-making and in regulating explosives, 

and as you know, it is not part of the new Department. 

Governor Ridge, it seems odd that ATF, the agency which played 

a crucial role in domestic terrorism events such as solving the 1993 

World Trade Center bombing and linking the Olympics bombing to 

a suspect, would be left out of the new Department of Homeland 

Security. Can you comment on why the administration chose to 

leave the ATF at Treasury, whether you would be amenable to 

moving it to the new Department of Homeland Security, and 

whether the administration considered, as we heard, moving ATF 

to the Department of Justice? 

Director RIDGE. Senator, first of all, if the organization, as requested by the President, occurs, I suspect that there will be a 

great deal of interest both within the executive branch and legislative branch to take a look at the various pieces that remain associated with the Departments to see if they ought to be reconfigured 

either into this Department or placed elsewhere, No. 1. So I think 

that would be an undertaking worth both of our time. 

Second, the ATF, as we looked at it for purposes of this agency, 

while it had domestic terrorism roles and potential missions, we 

felt that at least for the time being, there were more responsibilities not related to domestic terrorism and the kind of intergovernmental work and collaboration that we would need to undertake 

with the ATF could be done through memorandums of understanding. It could be done through interagency cooperation, like it 

is done with a lot of other agencies, but they do have multiple missions. They do have a role to play within homeland security dealing 

with domestic terrorist threats. You have alluded to one perfect example, but their primary missions seem to be outside that venue, 

20

and we would work with them in a structured way, but not as a 

formal part of this Department. 

Senator KOHL. I thank you so much. 

Chairman LEAHY. Senator DeWine. 

STATEMENT OF HON. MIKE DEWINE, A U.S. SENATOR FROM 

THE STATE OF OHIO 

Senator DEWINE. Governor, thanks for being with us. 

Director RIDGE. Good to see you again. Thank you. 

Senator DEWINE. Let me first congratulate you and the President on this proposal. 

I think it is important that, as we discuss this proposal, we articulate to the American people that the creation of this new Department with this entirely new structure does not negate our obligation to do other things. 

This is not an ‘‘or’’ situation. It is an ‘‘and’’ situation, and I think 

there has been a little confusion in the public debate. You have 

been criticized. The President has been criticized. Some are saying 

that this doesn’t solve all of our problems. Well, of course, it doesn’t 

solve all of our problems. It will help. It will do some things that 

need to be done. 

It obviously is not going to mean that it doesn’t deal with the 

fact, as you have already articulated this morning, that we need to 

do a better job with technology in the FBI. We need to get the FBI 

caught up to the present. We need to give them the same capability 

that the private sector has. We need to maintain the cooperation 

that the FBI and CIA directors are clearly demonstrating. We need 

to speed that cooperation down through the culture of these two institutions, down to people who have been there 15 and 20 years, 

who have seen the missions of these two organization’s as different 

over the years. 

We have to get people who fundamentally speak languages that 

are very difficult for those of us who have English as our first or 

only language. These are things that we have to do, and we have 

to make a long-term commitment to do them year after year after 

year and to spend the money to support them. 

So I would like your comment on that. Maybe this is, Mr. Chairman, more of a statement than a question, but it seems to me that 

we need to be very clear to the American people that it is not an 

either/or situation. To me, it is an ‘‘and.’’ We have to do more. We 

can legitimately debate how we restructure homeland security, but 

at the same time, we need to be moving forward in the other areas 

that I have articulated as well. 

Director RIDGE. Senator, I thank you for sharing that view so 

publicly. It is very appropriate for us to take a look at this reorganization effort as one of many steps the country needs to take, to 

enhance its ability to protect itself and its way of life. 

One of the interesting features of this reorientation or reorganization is that the structure lends itself to developing stronger 

partnerships with the State and local governments and stronger 

partnerships under the right kind of circumstances with the private sector. 

The structure lends itself to the development of a new product. 

There will be a new capacity within the Federal Government, and 

21

that new capacity of that new product will be the recommendations 

that the Federal Government will make based on the threat assessments it receives mapped against the vulnerabilities that it is 

aware of. The recommendations and the protective measures and 

the prescriptive measures that the Federal Government, perhaps 

working with the State and localities or the private sector, will be 

encouraged or urged or supported to do. 

We don’t have a place in the Federal Government now where 

someone looks at the threats, has done a vulnerability assessment, 

puts the two together, and then gives some direction to the efforts 

that should be undertaken by other levels of Government, by the 

other Federal agencies, or by the private sector to harden targets. 

So we need to give some specific direction to people, to organizations, to companies, to sectors in the economy based on the threat 

and the vulnerability assessment. So there will be a new capacity 

within the Federal Government, but then in and of itself, we still 

need a lot of other folks to continue to work as hard and as aggressively as they have since 9/11 to do their job better. 

Senator DEWINE. Thank you very much. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman LEAHY. Thank you. 

Senator Biden was here earlier, the former chairman of this committee. He is also the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, and there is a conflicting hearing which he has to go to, but 

he will have written questions, Governor, and I will make sure 

those are given to you. 

I would also indicate for members of the committee, if there are 

those who have followup questions—I will have some—we will submit them in writing, something you are well familiar with. 

Senator DEWINE. I did that during my 12 years as a Member of 

the House, Mr. Chairman. We anticipate and expect them and are 

grateful for them. 

Chairman LEAHY. If there is any Member of Congress, present 

or former, who hasn’t submitted questions in writing at some time 

or another, they didn’t go to very many hearings. 

Senator DEWINE. They didn’t earn their paycheck. 

Chairman LEAHY. Senator Feinstein. 

As I noted in my opening statement, Senator Feinstein chairs 

our Terrorism Subcommittee, but has been actively involved in this 

issue for some time. 

Senator Feinstein.

STATEMENT OF HON. DIANNE FEINSTEIN, A U.S. SENATOR 

FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA 

Senator FEINSTEIN. Thanks very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Good morning, Mr. Ridge. 

Director RIDGE. Good morning, Senator. 

Senator FEINSTEIN. As you know, because we have talked about 

it before, I very much wanted you to have both budgetary and statutory authority over the homeland defense area. Now you have it 

apparently or will possibly have it big time, and maybe too much 

big time. That is what I wanted to spend a little bit of time with 

you this morning to discuss. 

22

Yesterday, we had a hearing, and Senator Rudman testified, 

Governor Gilmore testified, and a couple of people from Brookings 

and Cato Institute testified on this proposal. As you know—you 

mentioned the Rudman Commission—they suggested a much 

smaller agency. 

Director RIDGE. Right. 

Senator FEINSTEIN. This is really a mega-agency. I am told it is 

really over 170,000 employees, probably closer to 270,000 employees. It will cost a good deal more, and into it, you have taken nearly whole Departments. I wanted to ask you some questions about 

the wisdom of doing that. 

I also sit on the Immigration Subcommittee, and I wonder about 

the wisdom of taking all of the Immigration Department into homeland defense. I am not sure you want to be in charge of marriage 

fraud for newcomers. I am not sure you want to be in charge of the 

inspection of workplaces for illegal aliens. I am not sure you want 

to be in charge of the Children’s Bureau. We have got 5,000 children who come here unaccompanied in various facilities, some of 

them detention facilities. It doesn’t seem to me that that is an appropriate thing for homeland defense. 

I am not sure you want to be in charge of the naturalization 

processes of INS. It seems to me that what you do want is, as you 

have said, Border Patrol and immigration inspections, 

counterterrorism intelligence, terrorist investigations involving document fraud and alien smuggling, and oversight over visa issuance. 

I also think you probably want to have the consular services of 

the State Department. That is the agency that issues the visa. We 

held hearings in our subcommittee, and Ms. Ryan said one of the 

reasons they authorized the visas was because they had no intelligence. It seems to me that that aspect ought to go into homeland 

defense. 

I understand why you want the Coast Guard, and although I 

think the appropriate agency is National Guard, I understand and 

am sympathetic to the Coast Guard. 

On the other hand, the FBI is relinquishing a lot of its narcotics 

work. The Coast Guard is the primary agency for going after the 

big go-fast boats that bring in most of the narcotics from South and 

Central America. They will, I guess, no longer do that. 

So, if you have two agencies now relinquishing control over the 

big shipments of narcotics, that control concerns me very greatly. 

I guess my first concern is that, and I am just going to indicate 

my two other concerns and then let you respond, as you might wish 

to. 

Yesterday, it was brought out that the new Department would 

have 27 Presidential appointments, only 14 subject to Senate confirmation. You create essentially two tiers of assistant secretaries, 

and this would be the first time in history that 10 assistant secretaries would have no advice and consent from the Senate. I think 

that is a concern as well. 

Additionally, the personnel changes are really starkly dramatic, 

and I don’t know in this word ‘‘flexibility’’ if you really want to include an across-the-board arbitrary personnel reforms that the 

President’s proposal calls for. 

23

The third area of concern has to do with my service on Intelligence. I am sorry Senator Specter isn’t here because I come from 

where he does in his comments except that I end up at a different 

place. 

We have more than 12 intelligence agencies right now under a 

DCI. The amount of intelligence that comes in, in bits and pieces, 

one way or another, is in the tens of thousands a day. So it is huge. 

We have the FBI now getting into the intelligence business, and 

you are getting into the intelligence business. My concern is that 

rather than improve the communication and interrelationship and 

expedited movement of data, we are going to slow it down. 

I have just proposed a director of National Intelligence. I mean 

the largest agency, an intelligence agency, is NSA. NSA has 80 percent of the intelligence budget, and yet the DCI runs CIA, runs the 

entire intelligence community, and also does things in the Middle 

East. I am not really sure that that is the best way to run our intelligence community. I think you need somebody really at the top 

over all of the intelligence of our Nation, and to that end, I have 

introduced this legislation to create a director of National Intelligence appointed by the President with a 10-year term with budget 

authority to sort of move chessmen across the board based on need 

in the intelligence community. 

I appreciate that you don’t want to be an intelligence collection 

agency, and if I understood what you said to Senator Specter, you 

said you didn’t want to actually do the all-source analysis yourself, 

meaning your agency, but you would be a recipient of all-source 

analyzed intelligence, which I think is appropriate, but my concern 

is that we not spread the intelligence community so thin without 

the kind of oversight that we have less expedited transference of 

all-source analyzed intelligence. If you could comment on those 

three aspects, too big, the personnel aspects, and the intelligence 

aspects. 

Director RIDGE. Senator, the Hart-Rudman proposal, I think 

when it included the INS and the Customs and the Coast Guard, 

basically the Border—

Senator FEINSTEIN. The Border Patrol. 

Director RIDGE. The Border Patrol. The consolidation of some of 

these agencies was very consistent with the private conversations 

you and I had about a comprehensive approach toward the borders, 

and I believe it is the—it is the President’s belief in his initiative 

that the INS should be included because who comes into the country and what comes into the country has very much to do with the 

sovereignty of the country and the security of the country. 

So, even though in this package, in this proposal, there is a separation between the immigration services, which you have historically been very concerned about and very sensitive to and really 

helped try to reform and drive the reform of that process, and separated from the enforcement side, it is the President’s belief that 

putting them into the new Department as part of a comprehensive 

board approach is very appropriate. 

They were multi-tasked into the Justice Department, the functions that you are talking about, whether it is adoption or asylum 

or refugee or those kind of things. 

Senator FEINSTEIN. Workplace inspections? 

24

Director RIDGE. Pardon me? 

Senator FEINSTEIN. Workplace inspections? 

Director RIDGE. Well, but I mean, again, to your point, there are 

a lot of agencies and departments that would be pulled in, Senator, 

to the new Department of Homeland Security whose primary mission or importance will be to security, but they will have other very 

important missions that are not directly related to it. 

It is our belief that pulling them in this structure, undergoing reform not only by the present commission, but obviously there is a 

great deal of discussion about reform in the House and Senate, will 

make it a better agency, and it needs to be part of a comprehensive 

border approach. 

There is information sharing relative to some of the tasks that 

you have alluded to that might be relevant to whether a visa 

should or should not be given or perhaps a visa should be revoked. 

So we think we need to take a look at the INS, separate the immigration service from the enforcement function, but integrate the 

sharing of information and understanding that not everything they 

do, like a lot of other agencies, will be directly related to homeland 

security, but better to have a comprehensive approach in one agency over which there is controlling legal authority rather than dividing the responsibility between two or more Cabinet agencies. 

Senator FEINSTEIN. Let me just stop you here for 1 second because it is important. We have 5,000 children. Take Elian Gonzalez, for example. If Elian Gonzalez didn’t have a family in Miami, 

he could end up in a detention center, and he could sit there month 

after month and even year after year. He doesn’t have access to an 

attorney. There is no guardian ad litem provided for him under the 

present system, and we have 5,000 children at any given time in 

that kind of custody. Now, that is going to go into an office of 

homeland defense, it just doesn’t seem to make sense to me. 

I am trying to get a separate children’s agency set up so that 

children that come—I saw one girl who was in a container from 

China, and her parents died, and she was shackled hand and foot 

in front of a judge. She couldn’t speak English. Her nose was running. She was crying. She couldn’t get her hands up to her face because she was shackled to her feet. That is what we are doing 

today, and I am not sure that homeland defense is the agency to 

put children into—when they need some other concerns as what is 

the best placement for them, do they have a family to return home 

to, if not what are we going to do with them. This is not an inconsequential issue because there are 5,000 of them. 

Director RIDGE. Senator, I agree with you, having observed some 

several dozen children behind a plexiglas partition in El Paso, and 

you say to yourself, you can understand perhaps why they want to 

come to this country. You don’t know whether they made the effort 

with parental consent or not, but they are alone. They are frightened, and your interest as well as the commissioner’s interest in 

trying to deal with it I don’t think will be undermined by the fact 

that that portion of the INS focused on these children, in fairness 

to children and sensitivity to children, would be in an Office of 

Homeland Security. 

Again, as you well know better than most, since it is an issue 

that you have dealt with during your time in Congress, there are 

25

a lot of issues that are not directly related to who comes into the 

country, who is given a visa, who is asked to leave the country. 

There are other very important issues, but I truly believe that the 

reform that would be undertaken could be undertaken within the 

INS, within this new Department. 

Just as the Coast Guard is going to have an enhanced mission 

dealing with port security and port security, they will still have 

maritime fishing responsibilities and boating safety responsibilities. 

They are multi-tasked organizations. To try to segregate and separate them, I think it would a very difficult, almost impossible task, 

and not necessarily guarantee the kind of reform or improvement 

that we would all seek. 

If I might real quickly to that end, the President has recognized 

in the 2003 budget—and you alluded to the Coast Guard—the fact 

that they have an enhanced mission. Therefore, because of the enhanced mission, they need additional support for more personnel, 

more boats, more aircraft. He is going to buildup that capacity. So 

I would say to you—

Senator FEINSTEIN. And intradiction—

Director RIDGE. Yes. 

Senator FEINSTEIN [continuing]. Of large narcotics trafficking by 

sea? 

Director RIDGE. Yes. 

Senator FEINSTEIN. Will they still have that responsibility? 

Director RIDGE. I think that must continue to be a goal, objective, 

part of the mission of the Coast Guard. 

I met with the joint task force that the Coast Guard put together 

out in Key West where they work with the DEA and the FBI and 

frankly the Department of Defense and others, and I candidly believe that integrating these border agencies, ultimately developing 

the technology to share information, it will be a lot easier to see 

that the integration and coordination is done aggressively when 

you have a command structure that says this is the goal, this is 

the objective, you are the agencies or departments that must work 

together to achieve the goal, develop the plan, and get it done. 

There is a lot to be said for unitary command structure that puts 

these people together and directs their mission, but, again, you 

have raised an issue that a lot of your other colleagues have raised. 

There are some entities that are pulled in as part of this agency 

that will be tasked to do things that are not directly related to 

homeland security. We still think because they have been multitasked in other Departments, with the appropriate leadership, they 

will get it done in this agency as well. 

Senator FEINSTEIN. Could you just make a quick comment on the 

intelligence aspect? 

Director RIDGE. Yes. The President’s design for the new Department is really to create a new product that has less to do with the 

tactical operation of investigating terrorists or directly the CIA to 

do certain things in the field, but we will work with the CIA and 

the FBI in this agency to take a look at the threat assessments to 

create the new capacity and the new product which is giving instruction, giving direction, identifying protective measures that we 

need to harden targets around America. That is the new product. 

That is the new capacity. 

26

What we don’t have in this country, we don’t have right now 

within the Federal Government, the ability to match the 

vulnerabilities with the threats and then give some specific direction as to what we need to do to protect ourselves. That is the 

President’s intention. 

The President is quite aware that you and Senator Specter, Senator Leahy, and many, many others are concerned about centralizing all of the information relative to domestic terrorism, very 

much aware that the recommendations with regard to CIA and FBI 

reforms may very well be coming forth. You are going to do some 

legislation with some of these recommendations, but the President 

believes that reform involving the CIA and the FBI should be with 

those entities, but not within this one. 

Senator FEINSTEIN. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman LEAHY. Thank you. 

Senator Sessions.

STATEMENT OF HON. JEFF SESSIONS, A U.S. SENATOR FROM 

THE STATE OF ALABAMA 

Senator SESSIONS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

This is an important hearing, and we are glad to have you here, 

Mr. Ridge, and thank you for your service. 

I know as you started out as the President’s guide, you had to 

try to take all of those various agencies that have parts of them 

that relate to homeland security, and try to make them work together. I think you certainly have, and the President has, energized 

those agencies. 

As I talk to people involved with terrorism matters, they know 

without any doubt that the President of the United States expects 

them to make homeland security No. 1. They may have other ideas 

and problems. They may be investigating drug smugglers or bank 

robbers or other things, but they know without any doubt that terrorism is No. 1. 

Since you have done this and you work with all of these agencies 

and tried to reach agreements with them to give this priority to 

homeland security, you obviously, and the President has obviously, 

reached a conclusion that this is not a long-term solution, that the 

reorganization is necessary. 

Would you just sort of summarize again for me why you have 

concluded that we can’t operate as business as usual, but you need 

this new agency to carry out the high priority we give the homeland security? 

Director RIDGE. Senator, after review of all the commissions that 

had studied homeland security issues, conversations with Members 

of Congress, think tanks, the private sector, the President concluded that we could dramatically improve our ability to protect 

ourselves and our way of life if we created a single agency whose 

primary mission was to secure the homeland. 

The President concluded that there are various aspects of homeland security. One deals with the new integration analysis component that will help us harden targets. I mean, we will finally have 

the capacity to give very specific directions to address 

vulnerabilities. 

27

One is to consolidate the effort on the border. There have been 

discussions about border security and border issues since the 

1920’s and the 1930’s. It has been recommended over and over and 

over again, but we have never done it. 9/11 gave us a different perspective that we need to control who and what, and we needed to 

do it in a way that will not impede the flow of goods and commerce 

between the United States, Mexico, and Canada. We need to take 

that new model of the border agreement, because we are such an 

open and welcoming, trusting country, and ultimately that is going 

to have an international impact on us as well. We are going to have 

to get our allies to be thinking about the airlines and about container traffic and commercial international shipping just as we do. 

The President has also thought that you could build on core competencies of Departments to help communities prepare for the 

eventuality of the possibility of a terrorist attack. That is why he 

grafted the Federal Emergency Management Agency that has these 

core competencies that deals with first responders on a day-to-day 

basis for natural disasters. 

Then, finally, the President took a look at again well-intentioned 

but disparate agencies and programs that deal with research and 

development that have an impact on homeland security and said 

we need a strategic focus. We need a strategic focus to direct these 

research dollars based on our threat assessments, based on our vulnerability. So, at the end of the day, you create an agency whose 

primary mission is to enhance security, not the exclusive mission. 

This is not an agency—and I am sorry, Senator Feinstein—that 

will lose its heart. America has a big heart. We are open. We are 

welcoming. We are trusting. That is one of the qualities that makes 

us unique. That is also one of the qualities that makes us vulnerable, and we understand that there are some very human personal 

issues that we involve with some of these agencies such as the children that she is worried about. America is not going to lose its 

heart. These children aren’t going to be lost in a new Department, 

but the fact of the matter is that, at the end of the day, giving one 

agency whose primary focus is homeland security, it is at the heart 

of the President’s proposal. 

The President and Congress always like to align authority with 

accountability. Now it is aligned in an apparently straightforward 

manner, and at the end of the day, the President believes, and I 

believe Congress will ultimately conclude, hopefully that that is the 

best way to get things done, hopefully get them done quickly, but 

also get them done correctly. 

Senator SESSIONS. With regard to your affirmation of the need to 

work with State and local law enforcement, I do appreciate your 

emphasis on training. I am glad you visited the Center for Domestic Preparedness in Anniston, Alabama. 

Are you committed, and will this new agency be committed, to 

bringing in local law enforcement, who are going to be the first responders in most instances, in making sure they are fully trained 

and equipped? Will that be one of your goals? 

Director RIDGE. We will never have the national capacity to protect and defend ourselves unless we do, and that is, again, very 

much at the heart of the President’s proposal. It is at the heart of 

his budget recommendation that the Congress will be dealing with, 

28

with the $3.5 billion to make the Federal Emergency Management 

Agency the centerpiece of that outreach effort with State and local 

communities, to help train, help exercise, and help equip our first 

responders. 

Senator SESSIONS. It is a critical thing, and we probably have 10 

local agents for every one Federal or maybe 9.5 for every one Federal. So, if they are not engaged, we are giving up one of the biggest resources we have available to us. 

Director RIDGE. I must tell you, Senator, that in my conversations with many mayors and several Governors, the notion that the 

State and locals could come to one agency, a one-stop shop, as you 

will, to apply for these preparedness grants dealing with first responders has a great deal of appeal to our colleagues in public service at other levels of Government. 

Senator SESSIONS. Well, I believe it could help to make sure we 

have a uniform view of this whole matter of training and having 

some standards that work, and I salute you for that. 

I have had a number of people ask about proposals they have for 

technology that could help us. I know Senator Kit Bond proposed 

a job fair, but I really believe that the Federal Government should 

have a good location, a central place where somebody who has the 

kind of ideas that they think will help us could at least be heard. 

Do you think we are there yet, or can we do better in providing 

access for people to present their ideas? Some of them may be 

wacky, but some of them may be full of insight. 

Director RIDGE. Senator, we are not there yet. We are moving in 

that direction, but we are not where we need to be. Were we moved 

in the past couple of months is an agreement with the Office of 

Science and Technology Policy within the White House to set up an 

infrastructure where we can get some of these wonderful ideas, 

these potential solutions to a variety of problems. We haven’t had 

them tested to see whether or not they are as good as they say they 

are, they do what they claim they can do. 

Over the long term, we need a mechanism, a place within the 

Department of Homeland Security to do the evaluation and assessment, and that is one of the features of the unit that would be dealing with the research and development and the countermeasures to 

weapons of mass destruction, all aspects of homeland security, 

technology and all the applications of existing technology and the 

new products down the road. This would be the very appropriate 

place to vet them and determine whether or not they function as 

promised, see if they fit into an overall system that we have recommended to the country. 

We need that assessment capacity. We don’t have it yet. We are 

working toward it, but we need to make it a permanent part of the 

infrastructure of homeland security, and the President’s initiative 

does that. 

Senator SESSIONS. I appreciate that. 

With regard to immigration, you have made some statements I 

thought were important, such as people need to know that they 

must play by the rules. 

We have very generous immigration rules, which I support. Most 

of us believe that immigration does help our Nation and strengthen 

it, but we also believe it needs to be done according to the rules. 

29

We are just not able to open this great country to anybody who 

wants to come here without any kind of paperwork at all. So I believe you also said that an America, whose laws are fairly enforced, 

will be safer and more tolerant. I think that is a good line. 

Just for example, Mr. Ridge, I just learned yesterday that we 

have two INS agents in the State of Alabama. One of them is assigned to the President. Only one is available to help all three 

United States Attorneys deal with conspiracy cases or maybe drug 

smuggling that may have an immigration component to it. 

I met with police chiefs recently, and they told me that they had 

been told by INS if they arrest people here illegally, if there is not 

more than 24, not to bother to call them or they will not be able 

to come to pick them up. So somehow we are saying at this level 

that we have a legal system that deals with controlling immigration in a rational and fair way, but the reality is we are not there. 

We are really not there. It is worse than most people realize. 

Do you think this reorganization can help us with that? Because 

I think that we are just going to have to simply do better. 

Director RIDGE. Congress tried to effect a change in this several 

years ago when they recommended an entry/exit system, which the 

President supports, and clearly, with the border consolidation within the Department of Homeland Security and if the INS remains 

an integral part of that new Department, I think we will be in a 

much better position to effect that kind of change, as the Congress 

directed several years ago and the President has embraced. 

We do not have a system to monitor the entry of our guests or 

the exist of our guests. It is long overdue, and I think that this new 

agency will enable us to facilitate this a lot quicker. 

Senator SESSIONS. Thank you. In many ways, I think that could 

make the system work much better for those people who are dutifully trying to follow our rules and policies and want to come here 

on the right conditions. I think we can make life better for them 

and tougher for those who want to violate the law. 

Director RIDGE. And I think Americans understand that we are 

a nation of immigrants. The immigrants built this country. We 

want to remain a country with a heart. We want to remain a country that is open, but we also need to enforce our laws, even our immigration laws. Our national sovereignty, and recently our security, depends upon it. 

Chairman LEAHY. Thank you. 

Senator Cantwell.

STATEMENT OF MARIA CANTWELL, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE 

STATE OF WASHINGTON 

Senator CANTWELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Governor Ridge, good to see you. We have had a chance to talk 

in some of our briefings with individual members about the overall 

integration of homeland defense and getting out our key focus of 

making sure that from intelligence gathering at the FBI that we 

have a flat organization that disseminates information more rapidly than what this committee heard from Special Agent Rowley 

had happened in the past events. 

One general question I have, and then I have a specific question, 

is how do we in the compilation of the new agency as well as the 

30

reforms within the FBI make sure that we are really building an 

organizational response to what are these asymmetrical terrorist 

attacks which are much smaller organizations, move much more 

rapidly information flows, and so we are talking about what is 

going to be our organizational response to that. 

When we look at the homeland security efforts and the new efforts within the FBI’s intelligence gathering, it looks like an organization that has many layers to it. So how do we attack that goal 

of having a streamlined information flow so that we can respond 

more quickly to these attacks and process information more efficiently? 

Director RIDGE. Well, I think, Senator, that within both the CIA 

and the FBI, that kind of restructuring and repositioning of assets 

is very much a part of an ongoing reform effort under the direction 

of both Director Mueller and Director Tenet. 

As you know, with congressional support, to expedite the flow of 

information for analytical purposes, you have given the FBI several 

hundred million dollars to finally bring it into the 21st century, 

into the digital world. What happened prior to Mueller’s tenure, I 

do not know, but he inherited an organization that had a pretty 

difficult time communicating internally, let along externally. So I 

think the organizational changes and the technological changes will 

facilitate the flow of information and get it to the analysts a lot 

quicker. 

The new Department’s piece of that information matrix is really 

designed not to collect information and deal with particular terrorists, but it is designed to identify vulnerabilities that are threatened and then direct specific action or encourage specific action be 

taken to harden the targets. 

I will give you an example. The Phoenix memo would have been 

available under the new Department of Homeland Security. There 

may have been other bits and pieces of information relative to the 

possible use of aircraft in a terrorist incident. Obviously, there are 

hijackings in the 1980’s and hijackings in the 1990’s, but we got 

that particular information. People talk about Moussaoui. They 

talk about Phoenix. If that information was available as part of the 

reporting and analytical data that would come to this new Department, and it would, the FBI and the CIA would continue to identify 

and to track and to work those issues as hard as they possibly 

could to identify potential terrorists, but the new Homeland Security Office would then take that threat and take a look at the vulnerability. 

The vulnerability is airplanes and airports, and they say what 

have we done as a country based on this threat that we have received and we are going to get from multiple sources about the potential use of aircraft and people taking flying lessons and the like. 

What have we done to harden cockpit doors? Have we put air marshals there? I am not saying that this is the conclusion that would 

have been reached. Hopefully, it would have been reached, but the 

new product, the new capacity within this Department is really to 

take advantage of the product given to us by the CIA, the FBI, and 

the other intelligence-gathering agencies. If there is a stream of information, of intelligence that points to a particular sector of our 

economy, in this instance it may have led the new Department of 

31

Homeland Security to take a look at aviation, perhaps we would 

have done something like the Transportation Security Act prior to 

9/11 rather than after. So, you see, that is the new product. That 

is the new capacity within the Department of Homeland Security. 

Of course, the CIA and FBI will continue to make internal reforms, and down the road, your colleagues may also legislate some 

reforms to that end, but that is the President’s design and intent 

with the information gathering and the information analysis within 

the new Department, to do the hard work at the back end, harden 

targets, take precautionary measures, protective measures based 

on threats matched with vulnerabilities. 

Senator CANTWELL. I have no objection to the Homeland Security 

Office from the point of view of redundancy. I think that is very 

important, a very important strategic goal for us to have, or the 

hardening of the targets, that is something that I definitely think 

is what we need to be doing to make sure the American public feels 

more secure. 

But on the front end of the process, I am not even sure with our 

briefing that we have had with the FBI director in his new office 

that we will have eliminated the seven layers that Special Agent 

Rowley talked about because this challenge is—because, again, we 

are not talking about analyzing the super power and their likely 

four or five moves. We are talking about lots of different organizations moving in lots of different places and processing that information. So, to me, what you have said, there are some very positive 

parts of it, but there are also some challenges in how we make sure 

that information flows in a very rapid fashion back to the people 

that need to have that information, and I think that is going to be 

a challenge for us. 

I had a particular question. Part of this understanding the new 

agency is the various organizations that will be part of that system 

organization. So, when you think about some of the agencies and 

their involvement, I mean, I am sure there are many of us who 

have always wished that Customs and INS would work more closely together or information should be shared. 

I have a particular concern or interest in the Coast Guard because the Coast Guard plays such a vital role in search and rescue, 

in fisheries management, in enforcement in our State, in various 

other areas. So how do we make sure that the core mission that 

the Coast Guard now has in its financial resources are maintained 

and focused on that mission? 

Director RIDGE. Senator, your concern or reservations about moving into the new Department, agencies that have multiple missions, is one that I have heard in both the House and Senate and 

Republicans and Democrats alike. So I appreciate that concern. 

The President recognizes that as of 9/11, in response to the 

events of that day—I don’t know if there is another agency or department in the Federal Government that ramped up as quickly as 

possible and did as many things as well and as quickly as the 

Coast Guard did once the Twin Towers were struck and the Pentagon was struck. They are a very gifted and talented group of men 

and women. 

The President recognizes that the new mission as part of homeland security will be increased emphasis on port security, not just 

32

the vessels in and out, but, frankly, you visit enough ports to know 

there is a tremendous amount of critical infrastructure in and 

around all of our ports. 

To that end, the President in the $14-billion increase over the 

2002 appropriation level embodied in his 2003 budget request gives 

the Coast Guard the largest single increase they have ever received 

so that they can begin building this additional capacity with people, boats, and airplanes to take on the added responsibility of 

homeland security. So they will be multi-tasked. They will still 

have to be concerned about fisheries and boating safety, but they 

will also be given additional assets to enhance their capability to 

provide homeland security assistance as well. 

Senator CANTWELL. Thank you very much for that. We may submit a written question in more detail on that. 

Director RIDGE. Yes. 

Senator CANTWELL. We appreciate your answer on that today. 

Director RIDGE. Thank you, Senator. 

Senator CANTWELL. I see my time has expired, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman LEAHY. The Senator from New York. 

There will be statements and questions, as I have noted, submitted for the record in this hearing, and the senior Senator from 

New York. 

STATEMENT OF HON. CHARLES E. SCHUMER, A U.S. SENATOR 

FROM THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

Senator SCHUMER. Thank you, and I thank you, Mr. Ridge. 

We used to play basketball in the House together, Mr. Chairman. 

He was better than me, which isn’t saying very much. 

Chairman LEAHY. He is taller. 

Senator SCHUMER. Yes. Our high school team’s motto was: We 

may be small, but we are slow. So it is not saying very much. 

In any case, I have a couple of questions for you, and I very 

much appreciate your being here, Tom. 

First, just a specific need, we in New York have our unusual circumstances, obviously, since 9/11, and in a sense, we are still at 

Ground Zero in a whole lot of ways and the way people think in 

terms of the number of threats that have been directed at particular New York institutions, things like the Statue of Liberty, 

neighborhoods, and things like that. 

The problem we face is there is so much to do in so many ways. 

So I had made a request that the Homeland Security Office do 

what the FBI does. The FBI has a special and large office in New 

York which has special responsibilities. Now, I don’t know what 

you plan is for the rest of the country, but I would like to be able 

to assure New Yorkers that when this homeland security agency is 

set up that there would be a special office in New York that might 

be able to focus on the unique needs that we have in terms of port, 

in terms of rail, in terms of air, and in terms of seeming to be a 

target of the terrorists, a variety of different terrorists in a whole 

lot of ways. 

Director RIDGE. Senator, I believe that that recommendation 

would be very seriously considered by the new Secretary. It makes 

a lot of sense. 

33

The experience I have had just in the White House Office of 

Homeland Security is, observing how the agency sometimes integrate their resources and their personnel, so that the CIA and FBI 

have people working together. In New York, you had the CIA, FBI, 

FEMA, and multiple other organizations, and I would suspect that 

that is a recommendation that would be given very serious consideration, not only in New York City, but potentially at other locations around the country. It makes a great deal of sense. 

Senator SCHUMER. Right. Well, I thank you. 

I mean, we have so many things. Most people don’t know, for instance, most of the Internet communication across the Atlantic 

ends up in two large terminals that arrive in lower Manhattan. 

There are just so many different aspects of help we need, many of 

which are unique to our city because it is such a different, in my 

opinion, beautiful place. 

The second question I have relates to the opposite end of my 

State, which is the northern border. We have the second busiest 

border with Canada, and people there—and I don’t know if Maria 

addressed this because she has the same problem in Washington 

State, our Michigan Senator, Senator Leahy from Vermont as well, 

but one of the great things we are worried about is we, obviously, 

everyone in America, those along the northern border as well, understand the great need for beefing up our security. The worry is 

that as we do that, it slows down commerce, which is slow enough 

as it is, particularly during the summer in the Niagara Falls-Buffalo area, in the Thousand Islands area, near Ogdensburg, and 

then for so many people traveling via Plattsburg to Montreal, you 

add the vacation traffic to the normal commerce traffic, and things 

would grind to a halt even before 9/11. Now with the special security needs we have, it is even worse. 

It is my view we can have both. We can have the security and 

not have commerce slow down to a standstill, but it requires personnel, and this committee, working with the administration under 

the USA PATRIOT Act, we authorized a tripling of staffing at the 

northern border. Maria was very active in this. I helped out. There 

were others on the committee, Senator Leahy concerned, of course, 

our chairman, concerned with this, but, thus far, that tripling has 

not been fulfilled in appropriation. 

We have gotten some more. I think in New York State, for instance, we have 62 more people on the Border Patrol than we had 

before, but it is not close to enough to deal with all of our needs, 

all of our new needs. 

Can you tell me what the administration is planning with the 

new Department, even before we get to the new Department, about 

beefing up the northern border in terms of actual appropriations of 

personnel from the three agencies that staff it, INS, Border Patrol, 

and Customs? 

Director RIDGE. Senator, first of all, I believe you are aware of 

the fact that the administration has been working with our Canadian allies and friends on a smart border accord—

Senator SCHUMER. I will get to that next. Right. 

Mr. RIDGE [continuing]. To achieve the objectives that you have 

identified, enhance security without jeopardizing the flow of goods 

34

and people across the border. We are well on our way in that process. 

As you also know, there are, at different locations along the border, National Guard being used, and they will remain there for the 

next several months. 

I know in conversations with the commissioner of the INS—and 

I haven’t had a recent conversation to verify this with Customs, but 

there dollars in the budget for them to begin hiring people in addition to whatever new appropriations you get, so they can enhance 

security at the border. As we buildup that capacity, it is going to, 

unfortunately, take us some time. That is why we are using National Guardsmen as a temporary stop-gap measure at the borders, 

but, ultimately, the goal is to buildup the capacity and replace 

them with INS and Customs agents. 

Senator SCHUMER. How long do you think it will take to get to 

the goal we set in the PATRIOT Act, which is really to triple the 

number of personnel from when we started? 

Director RIDGE. Senator, it would be the grossest form of speculation to tell you how and to tell you when. I have no idea. 

I do know that there is some extraordinary proportion of individuals interviewed, and those ultimately hired, maybe 50 to 1 or 100 

to 1. The men and women that we have employed in Customs and 

INS have to pass very rigorous background checks and investigations and the very high standards that we apply. So it is a very 

time-consuming, labor-intensive process. So we will just have to 

work with you and the INS commissioner and the Customs commissioner to give you a more specific answer on that question. 

Senator SCHUMER. The second question I had was related to your 

meeting with the Canadians in the Buffalo area, I guess it was, 2 

weeks ago, 3 weeks ago, something like that, and tell us how that 

is going, what are the obstacles, how about the problem of U.S. personnel carrying guns in Canada, if we want to do things on one 

side of the border or the other instead of redundancy on our border. 

It makes some sense to just move things to one side, and the Canadians seem to have more room than we do on the New York side. 

So tell me how all of that is going, and particularly in regards 

to the relationship between having U.S. personnel work on the Canadian side of the border. 

Director RIDGE. Senator, those discussions are moving quite well. 

In meeting with my counterpart, Deputy Prime Minister John 

Manley, again, on Friday to continue to move those discussions to 

a conclusion, we both agree that if we can pre-identify people in 

cargo, that will certainly facilitate it at the border. We will be in 

a position to announce some of the pilot programs, Nexus, pre-identifying residents on both sides and when it will take effect in Buffalo, possibly as early as Friday as well. 

Senator SCHUMER. Right. 

Director RIDGE. Obviously, we will let you know. They are going 

to talk about it in Washington, too. I think Commissioner Ziglar is 

going to go up there Thursday for that announcement. 

The other challenge, once we have applied that notion of risk 

management, let’s deal with the people and the cargo that we 

know, so we can focus our resources and our technology on the people and the cargo we don’t know. 

35

We are both in agreement that it would serve our interests, both 

security and economic interests as well, if we could preposition 

some assets away from the border, and I think we are making 

great progress and ultimately think we are going to come to a resolution of the cultural differences and some of the constitutional differences between the two democracies with regard to the use of 

firearms and on representatives from other countries on your soil. 

Senator SCHUMER. You don’t see this as an insurmountable barrier—

Director RIDGE. No, I do not. 

Senator SCHUMER [continuing]. The firearms issue. You are making good progress. 

Director RIDGE. I think it will be resolved in the very near term. 

Senator SCHUMER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, 

Mr. Director. I appreciate your hard work on an important job. 

Chairman LEAHY. I would be interested in how that goes, too, obviously. I live an hour’s drive from the Canadian border. I greatly 

value the relationships we have had with Canada throughout our 

history. We want to keep that relationship going. We want to make 

it work, however. 

Senator Grassley has been one of the most active members of 

this committee in this area, and I would yield to him. I thank him 

for coming back. I know that he was trying to juggle two or three 

other committee meetings at the same time, and I appreciate him 

being here. 

STATEMENT OF HON. CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, A U.S. SENATOR 

FROM THE STATE OF IOWA 

Senator GRASSLEY. We are still in markup on welfare, and that 

is why I wasn’t here during your statement, Governor, and I thank 

you for coming and appearing. 

I did listen in a little bit to what our chairman said about whistleblowers. I want to associate myself with his remarks, and before 

I ask you questions about that, I will give you my philosophy on 

it, which isn’t any different than Senator Leahy’s. 

I think whistleblowers are key to exposing dysfunctional bureaucracy and security problems, and I don’t think that whistleblowers are an outcast and that they ought to be retaliated against; 

that they are very valuable. They are an asset to good government 

and national security. 

In all the years that I have done congressional oversight work, 

when I find someone who opposes whistleblower protection, it 

means that these people are more worried about being embarrassed than fixing problems. I have heard the talk about the need 

for flexibility for employees, but that should not mean getting rid 

of whistleblower protection. 

I think there is a certain amount of arrogance about Departments that think they have to be protected against whistleblowers. 

I am concerned that the bill cuts out whistleblower protection for 

the Department of Homeland Security. The bill provides the Secretary of the new Department creating an employee management 

system different from the traditional system, which would include 

the Whistleblower Protection Act. 

36

It uses language similar to Aviation Transportation Security Act, 

which created the Transportation Safety Administration. The Office 

of Special Counsel which administers whistleblower protections interpreted the Transportation Safety Administration language as accepting Federal screeners from established Federal whistleblower 

protection. 

That is why I am introducing a bill to provide whistleblower protection for Federal baggage screeners. I am fearful that the Office 

of Special Counsel then could come up with the same interpretation 

with the President’s bill on homeland security. 

So, Governor Ridge, I would like to know what your opinion is 

of whistleblowers and whistleblower protection, and, more importantly, I would like you to explain why the bill for Homeland Security Department does not have explicit whistleblower protections. 

Director RIDGE. Senator, we believe that the men and women 

would be working within the new Department of Homeland Security should be afforded the protection to come forward with recommendations, and some might consider it criticism, and so be it, 

in order to enhance homeland security. Everybody has to be involved. Over a period of time, we would want to create a work environment where there would be no fear of reprisal. 

We have had the attorneys look at the legislation. We draw a different conclusion than you do with regard to the application of the 

whistleblower protection. I know it is something that the chairman 

is concerned. All members are concerned about it, but I would assure you that the environment in which these men and women 

should operate, they should operate without fear of discrimination, 

without fear of reprisal. The notion that they would come forward 

with candor and honesty to make recommendations that others 

might consider to be criticisms in order to enhance homeland security is something we ought to protect, and the President very much 

alluded to that in his national address a couple of weeks ago when 

he announced the new Department of Homeland Security, when he 

told the men and women involved in the intelligence community, 

referring directly to Coleen Rowley. You are patriots all. We value 

your opinions, even if they are critical. So we will just have to work 

with you, to assure you that the kind of protection you want to give 

these men and women exists within the statute. We believe it does, 

but obviously have more persuasion—

Senator GRASSLEY. Well, then I want the employee in Homeland 

Security to have exactly the same protection as somebody does in 

the Department of Justice or the Secretary of Defense. So you are 

willing to do that? 

Director RIDGE. We believe those protections are present, but 

we—

Senator GRASSLEY. Well, the way to make it sure is to make sure 

the language is exactly the same. OK? 

Director RIDGE. Senator, we will work with you on the language. 

Senator GRASSLEY. OK. Well, that clears it up. I mean, that 

takes care of it. 

Now, that doesn’t say that existing whistleblower protection language is adequate. It really isn’t, but as long as the inadequacy of 

the present law would still be applied in the same fair way to employees in homeland security that it is in the Department of DeVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:03 Jul 20, 2006 Jkt 086932 PO 00000 Frm 00040 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\GPO\HEARINGS\86932.TXT SJUD4 PsN: CMORC
37

fense, at least that is the minimum protection that they ought to 

have. 

So I think that is a pretty good answer, isn’t it, Mr. Chairman? 

Director RIDGE. Senator, we want these men, women, patriots. 

all to be comfortable with the President’s encouragement that they 

have criticisms, that they can come forward and operate without 

fear of a reprisal, and that is the language we want to include in 

this legislation and we will be pleased to work with you on it. 

Chairman LEAHY. If I might, I would agree with the Senator 

from Iowa if we could have basically the same language because 

then you have got a history. You have got a legislative history and 

everything else, and we all know we are in the same choir book. 

Senator GRASSLEY. Just so that we know, that there was an exception made for the FBI 13 years ago when we passed the last legislation because somehow there was a rationale, FBI just couldn’t 

have it exactly the same as it was for other Federal employees. 

There was an exception made for the FBI to come up with their 

own. Do you know when they finally came up with it? 

Director RIDGE. No, sir. 

Senator GRASSLEY. About a couple of years ago, after we pushed 

them to doing it. 

I don’t accuse you of it, but there is a great deal of peer pressure 

to go along, to get along in the bureaucracy, and whistleblowers are 

like skunks at a picnic. That is how much disliked they are. In fact, 

it is still allowed to have somebody say something nice about a 

whistleblower. If I didn’t have a strong heart, I would have fell off 

my chair when Director Mueller said that Coleen Rowley was doing 

a good job and thanked her for the job she was doing to call forth 

the shortcomings of some things within the FBI. 

Well, let’s move on, then. Another area where I am not as critical 

of the legislation, but I want to be very watchful of, is in regard 

to the Office of Inspector General. I believe we have to have Offices 

of Inspector General that are very, very strong and very, very independent. It is critical to the proper functioning of an agency. 

The President’s bill has provisions that allow the Secretary to 

stop an IG auditor investigation under certain circumstances, as do 

Justice and Defense Departments. Although I know it is extremely 

rare for those agencies, meaning Justice and DOD, to exercise that 

power, I am concerned that this power could be abused. 

Governor Ridge, could you assure me that this power will be 

used carefully and rarely? Can you give me some examples of when 

you think the Secretary of Homeland Security would have to stop 

an IG from doing a report or an investigation? 

Director RIDGE. Senator, I can’t give you a specific example now. 

I am going to leave it to perhaps the new Cabinet Secretary to answer the hypothetical, but I would tell you this, that the law of an 

Inspector General is predicated upon, that man or woman being 

independent of the kind of influence that you are concerned about, 

and only on the rarest occasions would the Secretary look to circumscribe that independence, and only on those occasions would he 

not only have to justify it privately, but he would have to justify 

it to the Congress of the United States because I don’t believe that 

when the Department of Defense or the Attorney General exercised 

their authority to circumscribe it that they can do so without notice 

38

to Congress. So I don’t know what he case would be, but it would 

have to be a very persuasive case in order to convince the Congress 

of the United States that they were moving in the right direction. 

Senator GRASSLEY. Thank you, Governor. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman LEAHY. Thank you, Senator Grassley. 

Senator Feingold.

STATEMENT OF HON. RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, A U.S. SENATOR 

FROM THE STATE OF WISCONSIN 

Senator FEINGOLD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your leadership and for holding this hearing, and I, too, want to welcome you, 

Governor Ridge. 

Director RIDGE. Thank you, Senator. 

Senator FEINGOLD. Thank you for your service to our country 

and for appearing before the committee. 

Governor, let me say before I get to my questions that I, too, 

commend you and the President for recognizing that a major Government reorganization must be considered in light of the tragic 

events of September 11th, and I am pleased that the President has 

thrown his support behind congressional efforts to elevate the authority and the status of the Office of Homeland Security. 

In hearings before Judiciary Committee this year, we have been 

exploring the bureaucratic obstacles that limited our capacity to 

identify and prevent the terrorist attacks last fall, and I think that 

inquiry has to continue. As we move forward in considering the 

President’s proposal, I would like to see us guided by two simple 

questions. One, will this reorganization make all of us safer, and, 

two, will it preserve our cherished liberties as Americans? 

I appreciate your testimony this morning, and I look forward to 

reviewing more of the details of the reorganization and the challenging task of following up on it, but let me begin with a question. 

I approached the debate over the new Department of Homeland 

Security with a lot of questions, but one of the most important ones 

relates to our Federal budget. We are facing a real budget mess 

right now, and some suggest that this new Department may just 

add to our budget problems. In fact, I have heard from a number 

of folks in Wisconsin who share that concern about it. 

Paul Light of the Brookings Institute notes that when the Education Department and the Energy Department were created, they 

both exceeded their initial budgets by at least 10 percent, and he 

believes that this will also be the case with the new Department 

of Homeland Security. 

Now, the President has said that by creating this new Cabinet 

Department, the Government will actually save money. Can you 

give me some assurance today that the President is correct and 

that this new Department will not cost any more than the current 

budgets of the various agencies it will contain. 

Director RIDGE. Senator, the $37 billion figure used the $14 billion increase in homeland security line items in the President’s 

2003 budget. So there is a huge increase in the level of appropriation to support the homeland security budget, and it is within that 

massive increase that the President feels confident that the costs 

can be contained. 

39

Second, looking at both organizational and administrative efficiencies that could be brought to bear because of the consolidation 

of the agencies, clearly there are some additional savings there 

that could go from the bureaucratic side of the department to the 

prevention and interdiction and security side of the department. 

And then, third, I would tell you that the critical component of 

this new agency—and, again, we are going to need congressional 

support to provide it in order to meet the President’s goal of not 

going above the $37 billion-plus, and that is the ability to transfer 

up to 5 percent of any particular line item. 

If you give the new secretary the ability to transfer up to 5 percent of the department’s budget, trying to create an agile and flexible department, addressing needs as the threat or vulnerability becomes apparent, again within the restriction of a huge increase in 

the 2003 budget, with the transfer authority and with many of the 

organizational and administrative efficiencies we can bring to bear, 

I believe the President’s goal of not costing any more than in his 

2003 budget can be met. 

Senator FEINGOLD. Thank you. Let me ask a different kind of 

question. Under the President’s proposed Department of Homeland 

Security, as you have been talking about, there is authority for receiving and analyzing investigative information that relates to terrorism. 

Some have characterized the department as being a customer of 

intelligence and law enforcement information that it would receive 

from other Federal agencies that would not be part of the new department, such as the FBI and the CIA. 

What interagency procedures do you envision to ensure that the 

new department will be able not only to obtain information, but 

then, when necessary, request additional followup information from 

the FBI and the CIA or any other investigative agency? 

For example, if the new department received a report from the 

FBI that a witness suspected terrorists were considering using 

planes as weapons, how would you be able to find out if the witness 

was referring to commercial airplanes or a crop duster? Or if a report made reference to power plants, who would the new department staff call to find out if it meant all power plants or just specific ones? 

In effect, would you have the authority in the agency here to request that agents of the FBI or the CIA actually do a followup investigation? 

Director RIDGE. No. 1, Senator, if you adopt the language within 

the President’s proposal with regard to the requirement that the 

CIA and the FBI submit the reports, assessments, and their analytical work product to the new agency, this new agency will receive that information. There is an affirmative responsibility, an affirmative obligation contained within this language; there is a statutory mandate that they provide that information. 

I don’t believe the clarification of the kind of information that 

you would have alluded to would be any problem whatsoever. As 

a matter of fact, I think going back and getting that kind of clarification could be done either on an ad hoc basis or certainly clarified by executive order or interdepartmental memorandum of understanding. 

40

But as I have seen the work product from these two agencies on 

a fairly regular basis, at least once a day, generally that kind of 

information is included, and, if not, can be clarified quickly with a 

phone call. 

Senator FEINGOLD. Well, I would like to be assured in some way 

that the actual legislation will provide for that, because these are 

not agencies that have been shown to have a record for easily responding to this sort of thing if there is not authority for it. 

I think specifically what I am interested in is not just whether 

or not you are going to get a work product. But if you get a work 

product and you need to ask a followup question, do you have the 

authority to do it? Do they have the obligation to respond to you 

and can you ask that an FBI or CIA agent do further investigation 

at the request of this new department? 

Director RIDGE. We can certainly task back. Perhaps even more 

importantly, Senator, I think it would be certainly the recommendation to the new secretary that homeland security analysts 

be placed in the CIA and the FBI, and work with them in their 

counterterrorism centers, work with the FBI in their new Center 

for Intelligence that Director Mueller is organizing. 

So I think you have a variety of ways to deal with the concerns 

that you have addressed—statutory obligation, the tasking back 

and the actual day-to-day work together to get that kind of information. 

To give you a good example, twice a day the CIA, the FBI, Homeland Security, and multiple other agencies do a teleconference to do 

precisely the kind of thing that you are talking about. This is the 

report, this is the assessment, we need a little bit more background 

information. So there is a process in place now and it will be ratified by the law in a practice that I am confident will continue. 

Senator FEINGOLD. Well, I appreciate that and I would like to followup with you to try to find out. 

Director RIDGE. Please. 

Senator FEINGOLD. I see that my time is up, but I will be submitting questions to you relating to questions having to do with the 

relationship and role of the National Guard and certain questions 

about the Secret Service and their role in the new organization. 

Director RIDGE. Thank you, Senator. 

Senator FEINGOLD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman LEAHY. Thank you. 

To followup on the area that Senator Feingold raised, and a very 

good area, I am thinking back that on June 6 when this was announced, Director Mueller was up here talking about the FBI reorganization plans and how they would handle information in the future, the feeling being that a lot of information was available prior 

to September 11, but tragically was overlooked, whether it was in 

the Department of Justice, the FBI, CIA, or wherever else. 

So we are trying to make sure the FBI does a better job of, one, 

sharing information and, second, of analyzing it. I know that Director Mueller, who is on the front line in that, is doing everything 

he can. They are the primary agency for collecting domestic intelligence on terrorism or anything else. 

I look at the homeland security part where you combine Customs, the Secret Service, Immigration, the Coast Guard, and 

41

Transportation Security. That is about 140,000 people all over the 

country. To what extent do they get into collecting—and I am not 

sure I understand fully from your answer—how much do they get 

into collecting domestic intelligence alongside the FBI? 

The reason I ask this is following the excesses of the J. Edgar 

Hoover era and some of the followup time, we have put in some 

guidelines and we have put in some oversight of the FBI. To what 

extent are they going to be able to do this without those same 

kinds of guidelines and oversight at a time when it is so easy to 

spy on people and track people with computers every time they 

make a phone call, every time they purchase something with a 

credit card at the local grocery store or buy books online? 

Now, they even talk about going into public libraries to see what 

you are reading. I am not trying to be one of those who sees the 

black helicopters coming at three o’clock in the morning, but you 

can see where a lot of people are going to be very concerned that 

the temptation and the ability are going to be there to snoop for 

the sake of snooping. 

That is a long way around of saying how far can they go to collect domestic intelligence? 

Director RIDGE. Well, Senator, I think their collection activity is 

prescribed by law and regulation. You are correct in concluding 

that they may have information regarding potential terrorist activity that they might accumulate during regular functioning of the 

department. 

The inspector at the border may pick up a potential terrorist 

based on a watch list, or observe some suspicious activity. Customs 

agents, based upon lists of crews or origin of cargo, may determine 

it is necessary to target a particular ship and take action. So there 

are bits and pieces of information that they have historically gathered and when they have some relevance to homeland security, 

they would be channeled into this unit within the new department. 

But one of the reasons the President has been adamant and very 

clear and very direct and very precise about this new agency not 

having any collection capacity or ability, other than that now exists 

according to the law, is to ensure that it doesn’t turn into some 

kind of domestic spying agency. 

The collection capacity of the CIA and the FBI is regulated. 

There are privacy concerns, there are civil liberties concerns. There 

is aggressive oversight; there has been, there should be, there must 

be. But the President is very clear that the purpose of the information analysis and infrastructure protection piece is really to identify 

the targets that need to be hardened and not to be collecting information on American citizens. They can’t do it now. 

Chairman LEAHY. But the analysis reports you get—does that include raw analysis? 

Director RIDGE. It does not, it does not, Senator. 

Chairman LEAHY. Well, for example, the FBI’s FD–302, the summary of a witness interview—would those be automatically sent to 

Homeland Security? 

Director RIDGE. You have the 302 reports and occasionally electronic transcripts, and to the extent that it relates to potential terrorist activity, that kind of information could be forwarded. But it 

would have been gathered lawfully by the FBI and if it related to 

42

a potential domestic terrorist event, it would be shared with the 

new department. 

Chairman LEAHY. Well, take the Phoenix electronic communication, where an agent recommended that they followup on the information that they had about potential terrorists getting flight training. Would that automatically be turned over to the Department of 

Homeland Security? 

Director RIDGE. It is our interpretation of the statute as structured that the report would have gone to the Department of Homeland Security. They would have continued to followup on the individual or individuals associated or taking the flight training 

courses. That would continue to be the function of the FBI, but this 

information, in conjunction, I suspect, with other bits and pieces of 

information that may have been accumulated the same day or over 

the weeks or the months that suggested that airplanes could be 

used perhaps as missiles, but perhaps just in anticipation of a more 

traditional hijacking, would have led hopefully the new Department of Homeland Security to take a look at the threats which 

were forthcoming with some credibility, look at the vulnerability, 

what we have done in this country over the past decade or two to 

screen cargo and passengers or to harden cockpit doors, hopefully 

to have led to a decision to move before the incident occurred rather than after. 

Again, it is purely conjecture on our part, but that would be the 

intention of having the information analysis and having this new 

capacity within the new department. 

Chairman LEAHY. Well, I am going to want to followup on that. 

I also want to followup on NIPC, the National Infrastructure Protection Center, and how that may or may not be changed. But that 

goes into a much longer, more technical thing, but I will have questions on that and you and I may have to chat a little bit further 

on that. 

I know that Senator Schumer had one more question. Did you 

have another question? 

Senator SESSIONS. Two questions. 

Chairman LEAHY. Senator Sessions has a couple more questions, 

and then we can end. 

Senator Schumer, and then Senator Sessions. 

Senator SCHUMER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator SESSIONS. It is not my turn? That is all right. 

Senator SCHUMER. I will be brief. 

Senator SESSIONS. Fine. 

Senator SCHUMER. I don’t know if the Director will be brief, but 

I will. 

Chairman LEAHY. He took a lot less time than you did on your 

questions. As you may recall, I let you have virtually double time. 

Senator SESSIONS. I can’t complain. 

Senator SCHUMER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

My question goes to an issue I know you have discussed with 

Senator Leahy and a little bit with Senator Cantwell, which is the 

restructuring of how we analyze all of this intelligence. 

I guess many of us have doubts about whether the FBI is the 

right place to do analysis. It has been a great law enforcement 

agency. Somebody commits a crime and they find out who did it. 

43

They are better than anybody else. They have had a whole lot of 

weaknesses in terms of analysis. 

So as I understand it, and it seems to be a work in progress here, 

the idea is that the FBI would continue to do analysis, but this new 

office of intelligence analysis would be a redundant analytic agency. I think that is a good idea, frankly. I think we are in a brave 

new world. I think it is very, very difficult to say that one agency 

should do it alone, but I have two questions for you related to that, 

or one two-part question, to keep my promise to Senator Leahy and 

Senator Sessions. 

A: Where are we going to get these analysts? When I spoke to 

the Director of the FBI privately, he is having trouble. They only 

have about 600 in the FBI. He is having trouble finding out where 

they are, and I read somewhere they might come from INS or some 

other agency. I forgot the second one that was mentioned. 

Well, that doesn’t give me too much faith. I don’t think the INS 

has been known to do very good analysis. That is question 1A. 

And 1B, related: Since the FBI has been so poor at this—we have 

had dialog about their computer systems which are just totally, totally backward, and I have been following up on that—why 

wouldn’t it be better just to chop off the 600 or 700 analysts and 

their sub-workers in the FBI and put that in the homeland security 

agency and let that be responsible for analysis, let the CIA do its 

analysis as well, instead of trying to start a third new agency, 

when the existing agencies have had such a difficult time coming 

up with the necessary analysts to begin with? 

Director RIDGE. Senator, the concern about being able to pull in 

additional analysts is certainly very much on our minds as we 

think about reorganizing and creating this new unit. 

Clearly, we could anticipate getting some additional support from 

the CIA. They have been very forthcoming and very helpful, and 

we could get some people assigned. I believe that depending on the 

kind of flexibility given the new Cabinet secretary, we might be 

able to bring some people out of retirement, depending on the pay 

scales. 

I think, third, there are men and women who are presently engaged in analytical work within the various departments. We may 

be able to bring in a few from there. But it is a process to buildup 

to the kind of capacity that the new department will need that will 

obviously take time. 

There is a school that the FBI is beginning to put together at 

Quantico to develop the analytical capability, but as you well know, 

there is no graduate school for analysts. It is about experience, it 

is about training, it is about imagination. I think we can create an 

infrastructure there from these sources and then build that capacity. 

Senator SCHUMER. I wanted to correct myself. 

Director RIDGE. Sure. 

Senator SCHUMER. They hope to get to 600 analysts by 2004. 

They only have about 200 now. Sorry. 

Director RIDGE. Well, the Director is pretty committed to meeting 

the goal. I wouldn’t bet against him. I know he is working very 

hard with the CIA to ramp up the educational component within 

the FBI so they can develop that capacity. He understands they 

44

need it, they don’t have it yet, and he is working hard to develop 

it. 

Senator the agents within the CIA, the analytical capacity that 

Director Mueller is building up, will serve really two functions and 

the new department will be the beneficiary of both functions. 

One, those analysts will also be charged with giving additional 

direction to the field offices in the FBI to followup on the reports 

and followup on the individuals, potential terrorists, and potential 

terrorist activities. So you need that analytical capacity to give the 

field agents specific direction. 

These analysts will also be working in conjunction with the CIA 

as they pull together their resources at their counterterrorism center to bring another set of eyes and ears and intuition and experience to that process. 

As a result of the capacity in FBI field offices and coordination 

with the CIA, I think the work product that the new department 

will get will be substantially better than it is today, and it is good 

now and it will be better. 

To your point, there is some redundancy within the analytical capacity of the new department looking at their reports and assessments. That is good. We all agree that it is good, but the primary 

mission of this new department is not to task the FBI or direct the 

CIA. It is to take those assessments and match them against the 

vulnerabilities and have for the first time some direction to local 

governments, to companies, whatever, to harden their targets. 

These are the protective measures we think you ought to take. 

There is a sense of urgency, there is a sense of priority, because 

we have taken a look at the threat. We have matched it against 

the vulnerability and you are not protected well enough and these 

are the things you have got to do. 

Senator SCHUMER. I have further questions I will ask in writing, 

but I thank the chairman. 

Director RIDGE. Thank you, Senator. 

Chairman LEAHY. Senator Sessions? 

Senator SESSIONS. Well, I thank, Mr. Chairman, you and Senator 

Schumer for this very interesting and important discussion. I think 

it is a very difficult issue. 

I was pleased when the Director told us that he was going to 

have an intelligence center in the FBI, that every 302 that the FBI 

prepares that relates to terrorism, as I understand it, would be immediately sent forward, not held in the field until a big file had 

been completed and then sent forward, as is often the case with 

routine criminal cases. 

Director RIDGE. The Director said yesterday, if I might apologize 

for interrupting you, Senator, that once they get their technological 

world sorted out, we like to think that the new Department of 

Homeland Security would have access virtually any time because 

of the better use of the technology that will hopefully be available 

to both agencies. 

Senator SESSIONS. Well, I think so, and he indicated that the 

CIA would be a part of that intelligence center, and actually a 

former CIA agent would head it. But I certainly think that Homeland Security should be a part of that center. Is that your understanding of where it would be? 

45

Director RIDGE. Yes. In discussions with Directors Tenet and 

Mueller, they anticipate that the new Secretary of Homeland Security would position some of his people within their organizations, 

as well, to work side by side with them. 

Senator SESSIONS. And Homeland Security will have its center, 

which would be somewhat duplicative but would have a somewhat 

different responsibility. Your center would develop a plan to carry 

out a defensive mechanism to a threat that has been uncovered. Is 

that correct? 

Director RIDGE. Correct. The CIA and the FBI will continue to 

be the most important offensive part of the operation of investigation and interdiction. This new capacity will be a defensive capacity 

to prepare for and provide protective measures to make it just progressively more difficult over the years for the terrorists to attack, 

to harden the targets of America. 

Senator SESSIONS. Mr. Ridge, let me ask you this and just sort 

of ask for a commitment from you or where you are and where the 

President is in his thinking. This reorganization is a very big deal. 

It is one of the biggest reorganizations that we have ever had in 

the history of the country. 

It is moving agencies like Customs and the Secret Service that 

have been a deeply ingrained part of the Treasury Department. It 

is moving INS and the Border Patrol, deeply ingrained in Justice, 

and Coast Guard and other agencies. It is really, really large. 

All of us that know anything about Government—and I spent 14 

or so years with the Federal Government—know that it lacks the 

efficiency of the private sector. That is why the private sector is 

more effective in doing things than Government. The very idea that 

we have to operate the way we do is sometimes maddening. 

My question to you is do you see this as an opportunity to think 

anew about how a Government agency ought to be organized, to encourage some of the ideas like total quality management, and 

maybe less emphasis on structures and grades and slots and special duties? 

You know, businesses call people team members instead of just 

some complex title everybody has. Do you think that you could do 

this maybe using the GAO’s ideas? They have got some good ideas 

about improving Government. Could we utilize this as an effective 

way to prove that we can do better in operating Government, rather than the danger that we would face that we would move these 

organizations and they really wouldn’t be much better than they 

were before? 

I know there will be more focus on homeland security. I know we 

will achieve that, but can we achieve efficiency in all the other aspects and duties that they will have to face? 

Director RIDGE. Senator, if we are not willing to think differently 

about the administration of this department, if we are not willing 

to think differently about the organization of the department, and 

if we are unwilling to think differently about the operational arrangements within the department, we will not have done our duty 

to do everything possible to maximize the use of these people and 

the technology and everything associated with the new agency to 

improve security for America. 

46

If we think we can just cobble together an agency and just realign the boxes and realign flow charts, we will not have done 

enough. A good organization doesn’t guarantee success. A flat organization does guarantee failure, and frankly if we can’t make some 

administrative changes and some organizational changes and operational changes, we will not have done our job for the citizens of 

this country. 

Senator SESSIONS. I hope you will do that. I hope you will maybe 

set a model for the rest of the Government that can really test 

some new, innovative ideas for making Government more efficient. 

Our Government employees are great people. 

Director RIDGE. They sure are. 

Senator SESSIONS. They are men and women of integrity and 

ability, but sometimes the way we organize and the way we think 

reduces the ability of our governmental agencies to be most effective. It would be exciting if you could do that in the course of this. 

Director RIDGE. Given the nature of the threat and the purpose 

for which the President has recommended the reorganization, we 

need to be as agile and as flexible and as able as our enemies. We 

do have to rethink how we deliver these services and provide protection for America. This gives us an extraordinary opportunity not 

only to enhance protection, but perhaps to come up with a new 

model of governance. 

Senator SESSIONS. And there will be those who will object, but 

I think in the long run all could benefit. 

Thank you. 

STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN EDWARDS, A U.S. SENATOR FROM 

THE STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA 

Senator EDWARDS. Governor, the chairman suggested I just go 

ahead because I know that you have an engagement at 12:30, so 

I will try to be very brief so that you can get to your appointment. 

Director RIDGE. Thank you, Senator. 

Senator EDWARDS. Thank you for being here and thank you for 

the work you are doing. I have looked at this proposal. It seems 

to me it has good ideas in it. I think my concern about it is that 

while we are going about the process of reforming these Government agencies, these Government bureaucracies and making them 

work more effectively and more efficiently that we don’t lose sight 

of another enormous priority, which is the imminent threat that we 

all know exists on a daily basis. 

We all know that this process of reform is going to take time. It 

is going to take months to probably get it through the Congress 

and then months to get it implemented. In the meantime, I have 

some more pressing questions which I won’t direct to you because 

I will have a chance to direct them to the people who are responsible for them on a daily basis. 

But I do want to know, in order to protect us, do we know where 

all the terrorists are within this country? Do we know where the 

terrorist cells are? Are we monitoring and infiltrating those groups? 

Do we know what they are planning as we speak? Is the FBI able 

to recognize foreign intelligence, given their nature and responsibilities and culture over the last few decades? Will they get that inforVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:03 Jul 20, 2006 Jkt 086932 PO 00000 Frm 00050 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\GPO\HEARINGS\86932.TXT SJUD4 PsN: CMORC
47

mation, when they get it, into the hands of the people who need 

it in order to act to protect the American people? 

These are obviously very serious issues that confront us as we 

speak, and this threat, as we all know, and you know better than 

anybody, is imminent. So if I could take just a minute and ask you 

a couple of questions about that area, because I know you have 

been meeting with these agencies, including members of the Intelligence Committee. 

We passed the PATRIOT Act, as you well know, and some of us 

on the Intelligence Committee had actually been working on some 

of those provisions before 9/11. Let me just direct you to a couple 

of areas, if I can, to the extent you know about them. 

Director RIDGE. Sure. 

Senator EDWARDS. One of the provisions of that Act dealt with 

the DCI having more involvement in the process by which the FBI 

collects foreign intelligence within our country using FISA, and 

there is a provision in the Act that addresses that. 

Can you tell me what progress has been made since that legislation was passed to get the DCI more involved in that process? 

Director RIDGE. Senator, I think both Director Mueller and Director Tenet would be a better source of that kind of information. 

Senator EDWARDS. Well, let me ask you a second question. 

Director RIDGE. And I appreciate it. I believe they have used the 

new capacity and the new tools that you have given them, but to 

give you a more specific answer I think it is more appropriately directed to them. 

Senator EDWARDS. That may be your answer to all these questions. If it is, that is fine. I just want to know what you do know 

about it. 

Do you know whether the Attorney General and the DCI have 

implemented training programs for Federal, State, and local law 

enforcement agencies so that they can, in fact, recognize foreign intelligence when they see it? Do you know whether anything has 

been done about that? 

Director RIDGE. I believe the Department of Justice and the FBI 

have begun providing that kind of training, but in what form I 

can’t tell you specifically. One of the challenges—and you raise a 

good point, Senator—is in the long term we are going to have to 

do a better job of sharing different kinds of information with State 

and local law enforcement officials that will empower them and assist them in that effort in recognizing potential terrorist activity. 

There is a great deal of concern, and very appropriately, in 

Washington about the horizontal sharing of information and integration. But we also need to work on a process by which we can 

empower State and local law enforcement officials with knowledge 

and information that will help them better do the job that you and 

I both think they need to do, and that is be a front-line set of eyes 

and ears, intuition and experience to possibly ferret out potential 

terrorist activity. So it is a process that is underway. I am confident it is not completed yet. 

Senator EDWARDS. Well, these other questions that I had all fall 

into the same category. I would just say, and I know you are aware 

of this, but as we go about this process which will take some time 

in reforming these Government bureaucracies and making sure 

48

they work the way they need to for the American people, I just 

don’t want us to lose sight of the fact that we have a threat in our 

midst today and we need to find out where these people are, find 

out what they are doing, get inside them and stop them. 

I know you know this, Governor, but that is also an enormous 

priority, but I appreciate very much the work that you are doing. 

Director RIDGE. Senator, you raise a very important point, and 

I think to reassure you and to reassure the American public, while 

the administration working with Congress undertakes the reorganization of the new department, the administration and Congress 

continue to work day after day on enhancing security through the 

existing departments and through the existing organizations as 

presently structured. 

When President Truman suggested that we needed to merge the 

Department of War and the Department of Navy, and it took him 

several years to do it, it didn’t mean that the Department of War 

and the Department of Navy didn’t continue to do their work. 

So to your point, we have to keep our eye on both objectives: one, 

to work with Congress to reorganize, if it is the collective will of 

the Congress to get it done, but at the same time neither the Congress nor the executive branch, I believe, will take its eye off the 

other important day-to-day responsibility, and that is doing everything we can to improve security in this country. 

So I appreciate your raising it and identifying the dual nature 

of the work we have to do together. 

Senator EDWARDS. Thank you, Governor. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman LEAHY. Thank you. 

With that, Governor, I extend appreciation for the time you have 

spent here and the time you have always been willing to spend. 

Director RIDGE. Senator, thank you very much. 

Chairman LEAHY. I appreciate the conversations we have had, 

both privately and at the White House on this subject. We will stay 

in touch, but I thank you very much and we stand in recess, which 

barely gives you time to grab a sandwich and get over to Chairman 

Sensenbrenner’s committee. 

Director RIDGE. Thank you, Senator. I appreciate it. 

Chairman LEAHY. Thank you. 

[Whereupon, at 12:22 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 

[Questions and submissions for the record follow.]

49


86932.001
50


86932.002
51


86932.003
52


86932.004
53


86932.005
54


86932.006
55


86932.007
56


86932.008
57


86932.009
58


86932.010
59


86932.011
60


86932.012
61


86932.013
62


86932.014
63


86932.015
64


86932.016
65


86932.017
66


86932.018
67


86932.019
68


86932.020
69


86932.021
70


86932.022
71


86932.023
72


86932.024
73


86932.025
74


86932.026
75


86932.027
76


86932.028
77


86932.029
78


86932.030
79


86932.031
80


86932.032
81


86932.033
82


86932.034
83


86932.035
84


86932.036
85


86932.037
86


86932.038
87


86932.039
88


86932.040
89


86932.041
90


86932.042
91


86932.043
92


86932.044
93


86932.045
94


86932.046
95


86932.047
96


86932.048
97


86932.049
98


86932.050
99


86932.051
100


86932.052
101


86932.053
102


86932.054
103


86932.055
104


86932.056
105


86932.057
106


86932.058
107


86932.059
108


86932.060
109


86932.061
110


86932.062
111


86932.063
112


86932.064
113


86932.065
114

Æ


86932.066