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

21–954 PDF 2005

ASSESSING THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND

SECURITY’S MISSION EFFECTIVENESS: IS IT

ENOUGH TO MEET THE TERRORIST THREAT?

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

JUNE 9, 2005

Serial No. 109–34

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

DAN BURTON, Indiana

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

DARRELL E. ISSA, California

GINNY BROWN-WAITE, Florida

JON C. PORTER, Nevada

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania

VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina

——— ———

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

MELISSA WOJCIAK, Staff Director

DAVID MARIN, Deputy Staff Director/Communications Director

ROB BORDEN, Parliamentarian

TERESA AUSTIN, Chief Clerk

PHIL BARNETT, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on June 9, 2005 ................................................................................. 1

Statement of:

Chertoff, Michael, Secretary, U.S. Department of Homeland Security ....... 27

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

Brown-Waite, Hon. Ginny, a Representative in Congress from the State

of Florida, prepared statement of ................................................................ 82

Chertoff, Michael, Secretary, U.S. Department of Homeland Security,

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

Cummings, Hon. Elijah E., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Maryland, prepared statement of ............................................................ 22

Davis, Chairman Tom, a Representative in Congress from the State of

Virginia, prepared statement of ................................................................... 5

Porter, Hon. Jon C., a Representative in Congress from the State of

Nevada, prepared statement of .................................................................... 82

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

of Connecticut:

Letter dated October 15, 2001 .................................................................. 78

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 18

Waxman, Hon. Henry A., a Representative in Congress from the State

of California, prepared statement of ........................................................... 10

(1)

ASSESSING THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND

SECURITY’S MISSION EFFECTIVENESS: IS IT

ENOUGH TO MEET THE TERRORIST

THREAT?

THURSDAY, JUNE 9, 2005,

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Washington, DC.

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in room 2154,

Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Tom Davis (chairman of the

committee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Davis of Virginia, Shays, Mica, Gutknecht, Souder, Platts, Cannon, Duncan, Miller, Turner, Issa,

Brown-Waite, Porter, Dent, Fox, Waxman, Maloney, Cummings,

Clay, Watson, Ruppersberger, Higgins, and Norton.

Staff present: Melissa Wojciak, staff director; David Marin, deputy staff director/communications director; Keith Ausbrook, chief

counsel; Jennifer Safavian, chief counsel for oversight and investigations; John Hunter, counsel; Chas Phillips, policy counsel; Rob

White, press secretary; Drew Crockett, deputy director of communications; Teresa Austin, chief clerk; Sarah D’Orsie, deputy clerk;

Corinne Zaccgnini, chief information officer; Andrew James, staff

assistant; Phil Barnett, minority staff director/chief counsel; Kristin

Amerling, minority general counsel; David Rapallo, minority chief

investigative counsel; Andrew Su, minority professional staff member; Earley Green, minority chief clerk; and Jean Gosa, minority

assistant clerk.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. The meeting will come to order.

I want to welcome everybody to today’s hearing, and we are very

privileged to have Michael Chertoff, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, with us today. The purpose of this

hearing is to get the Secretary’s assessment of the Department’s

overall effectiveness in meeting its core mission—specifically its operations, management, opportunities for performance improvement,

as well as discuss our concerns about how certain programs are

being implemented in the Department.

The Department of Homeland Security was created in response

to the terrorist attacks of September 11. The formation of the new

Department constituted the most massive Government reorganization since 1947. It integrated 23 separate agencies and bureaus, it

employs over 180,000 people, it has a budget of $38.5 billion for fiscal year 2005 and a proposed budget of over $41 billion for fiscal

year 2006, and it spends an estimated $11 billion on contracted

2

services. It is an enormous undertaking to put together this new

Department and make it work. This committee has a direct interest in assessing the effective integration of the 23 agencies into one

single Department.

The wide-reaching mission of DHS is critical to the safety of the

Nation. The ultimate objective is to protect the American people

from future terrorist attacks and to respond to natural disasters.

The war that threatened our country, and every civilized country,

has the historic combat component, and our troops show every day

just how effective the United States is in conventional combat. We

have no peers in this arena.

But America’s enemies today don’t confine themselves to conventional combat alone. They target communities, schools, and civilians. They fly planes into buildings and take great pride in the

murder and maiming of scores and scores of innocent men, women,

and children. Combat soldiers, no matter how brave or well

equipped, are not the optimal weapon in this environment.

This committee has responsibility for assuring that areas such as

personnel management, agency organization and integration, procurement and particularly utilization of technology, information

sharing, and information security are receiving adequate attention

and the congressional policies on these issues are being implemented throughout DHS. With the huge investment of Government

resources and the critical nature of the Department’s mission, it is

our job to determine how well the Department is functioning to

meet the terrorist threat and to provide adequate protection to our

citizens.

Secretary Chertoff initiated a comprehensive review of DHS’s organization, its operations, and its policies shortly before he became

Secretary. Known as the second stage review, this evaluation is not

yet complete, but the exercise signals a recognition that additional

work is needed to fully integrate and coordinate the disparate entities that comprise the new Department. I welcome the results of

this review. Since its ultimate recommendations will most certainly

affect issues of vital interest to this committee, I want to have further discussions with the Secretary as this review progresses.

I am heartened to know that Secretary Chertoff’s approach to the

organization and operation of DHS is to integrate the areas of intelligence, policy, and operations. As we exercise our oversight responsibility of the committee, it is important to focus on all three

of these areas, not just the first. Intelligence gathering is critical,

but how that intelligence is evaluated and acted upon depends

upon whether the Department performs each of its critical missions.

The optimal weapon is information: information moved to the

right people at the right place at the right time; information moved

within agencies and across departments; information moved across

jurisdictions of Government as well, seamlessly, securely, efficiently. The homeland security battle, therefore, is not just about

intelligence, but what we do with it.

We need to be able to identify terrorist threats and defeat them.

Our success depends on collecting, analyzing, and appropriately

sharing information found in data bases, transactions, and other

sources. This committee has long been concerned about the lack of

3

information sharing and analysis within the Government and

among the relevant public and private sector parties. This committee was heavily involved in the information sharing portions of the

Intelligence Reform legislation, requiring the President to establish

an Information Sharing Environment within the Federal Government to share information and better protect us from further attacks. I am interested in learning how the Department is addressing this important issue.

Although I had initial concerns, I supported the elevation of the

Assistant Secretary for Cybersecurity within DHS. The White

House, through the Office of Management and Budget, has oversight of Government-wide information policies. The Assistant Secretary should bring focus to the issue within DHS. However, this

individual should not sit at the center of all Federal agencies and

direct and control their policies on information sharing and

cybersecurity. That has been, and should remain, in my judgment,

an issue for the White House. There is an important difference between operational authority and policy authority.

Another area of committee oversight is the status of the implementation of the new personnel system at the Department. In the

Homeland Security Act of 2002, Congress gave the Secretary and

the Director of the Office of Personnel Management authority to establish a new, department-wide human resources management system, rather than simply cobbling together the dozens of pre-existing personnel systems. I am interested in hearing about the implementation of the new system from the Secretary, including the

funding.

The committee continues to monitor DHS’s integration of acquisition functions within its 23 agencies. A recent Government Accountability Office report found several successes in DHS’s implementation, but also a number of significant challenges. I will be

anxious to hear from the Secretary about DHS’s efforts to implement GAO recommendations to strengthen centralized procurement policies and practices throughout the Department.

The committee is concerned about the performance of the U.S.

Citizenship and Immigration Service. There have been mounting

issues of coordination and efficiency in the many processes used by

the agency to accomplish its mission, particularly in the information technology systems. I am concerned that many legal immigrants, the people who follow the rules we have established for entering the country and the kind of people we want to welcome to

America, are falling through the cracks of a broken immigration

system.

The committee is also launching an aggressive review of the U.S.

Visitor and Immigration Status Indication Technology [U.S. VISIT]

program being implemented by DHS. A fully functional U.S. VISIT

system will go a long way toward securing our borders from terrorists. During the implementation phase, we want to make sure that

U.S. VISIT will help secure our borders without disrupting the Nation’s travel or commerce. Balance on this is paramount.

In addition, the committee has held hearings on the Department’s implementation of the Support Anti-Terrorism by Fostering

Effective Technologies [SAFETY] Act of 2002, which was enacted to

provide incentives for the development and deployment of anti-terVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:49 Dec 06, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\21954.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
4

rorist technologies. I have expressed concern about the pace of implementing the application processes and conferring designations,

as well as the burdensome effect of the process on applicants and

the lack of coordination with the procurement process. I was glad

to see Secretary Chertoff acknowledge that problems existed with

the implementation of the SAFETY Act and that he is committed

to making sure that the intent of Congress is followed.

The committee looks forward to hearing from the Secretary.

We are honored to have you here today, and I want to once again

welcome you and thank you for being here.

[The prepared statement of Chairman Tom Davis follows:]

5

6

7

8

Chairman TOM DAVIS. I will now recognize our ranking member,

Mr. Waxman, for his opening statement.

Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to

join you in welcoming Secretary Chertoff to our hearing today.

Secretary Chertoff has an extraordinarily difficult job. The mission of his Department is to protect the United States from terrorist attacks. This could not be more important. Yet, the organization

he now runs is seriously dysfunctional.

At a hearing of the National Security Subcommittee earlier this

week, I expressed my growing concerns about Federal procurement

policy under the Bush administration.

The fact is, this administration has misspent literally billions of

dollars on wasteful and ineffective Federal contracts. Private contractors may be making millions, but taxpayers are getting soaked.

Whether the explanation is gross incompetence or deliberate malfeasance, the result is the same: taxpayers are being vastly overcharged.

The litany of administration mismanagement of Federal contracts is long and costly. The value of no-bid contracts has skyrocketed under the Bush administration. Oversight of Federal contracts has been turned over to private companies with blatant conflicts of interest. And when government auditors do find abuses,

their recommendations are ignored.

Nearly every week, the newspapers are full of stories of contract

abuse. The FBI has spent $170 million on Virtual Case File software that doesn’t work. In Iraq, Halliburton has overcharged by

hundreds of millions of dollars, yet the administration continues to

shower the company with bonuses and special treatment. New

equipment worth billions has been sold by the Defense Department

at fire-sale prices.

Some of the worst problems, however, are at the Department of

Homeland Security. As a series of investigative reports have revealed, the Department has spent hundreds of millions of dollars

on homeland security contracts that have proven largely ineffective.

In April, the Washington Post reported that the Government is

spending over $200 million to buy a high-tech system of cameras

and sensors to monitor activity on the Mexican and the Canadian

borders. But this surveillance system has been plagued by incomplete installments and doesn’t work.

In May, the New York Times reported that the Department has

spent billions of dollars on screening equipment at the Nation’s

entry points. But the radiation devices bought by the Department

can’t differentiate between radiation emitted from a nuclear bomb

and radiation from cat litter or bananas.

And in May, the Washington Post and the New York Times reported that the Department has spent over $1 billion to install

massive equipment to screen luggage at airports. But the equipment doesn’t work right and it has been plagued by high rates of

false alarms.

Perhaps the largest contract being managed by the Department

is the U.S. VISIT contract with Accenture to create a ‘‘virtual border’’ around the United States. Yet, critics say that this $10 billion

9

contract may turn into an enormous boondoggle that never runs effectively.

And while billions are being wasted on these contracts, the Department’s Inspector General has found that taxpayers’ dollars are

being lavished on perks for senior agency officials. One IG report

found that the Department spent hundreds of thousands of dollars

on a lavish conference, complete with hula dancers, in Hawaii. Another IG report found that the Department spent hundreds of thousands more on a gold-plated gym for senior executives and other

employees.

Secretary Chertoff, I recognize that some of these problems will

be difficult and time-consuming for you to address. But there is one

step you could take right away that would have immediate benefits. And that is to change the culture of secrecy that envelopes and

the Department and impedes accountability.

And I want to give you an example. Last fall, there were reports

suggesting that the Department and your predecessor, Secretary

Ridge, inappropriately awarded multiple contracts to clients of a

Philadelphia law firm, Blank Rome. I don’t know whether those reports are true or not. But to learn more about them, I joined with

the ranking member of the Homeland Security Committee just to

request basic information about the contracts between the Department and Blank Rome.

That was 5 months ago. We still have received no information in

response to our requests.

And this is not an isolated example. The Department is so secretive that it even tried to conceal the identity of a newly appointed

ombudsman for the Transportation Security Administration, whose

responsibility it was to interact with the public regarding airport

security. We couldn’t even get the identity of the ombudsman.

Secretary Chertoff, your Department may be able to succeed in

keeping this kind of information secret. After all, I am a member

of the minority party, and I don’t have the power to issue subpoenas or call hearings. But I am a Member of Congress, and your Department should be giving out information to all Members of Congress, and particularly those on the committees that have oversight

jurisdiction.

You may be successful in keeping this culture of secrecy going,

but I hope you will realize that your Department won’t succeed if

you do. Our system requires checks and balances. The surest way

to stop wasteful spending and improve performance is to encourage—not resist—oversight and accountability.

Your appearance at this hearing today is a good first step, and

I look forward to your testimony at this hearing.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Henry A. Waxman follows:]

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you.

Mr. Shays.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Secretary Chertoff, welcome to the committee. Before you even

say a word, your presence here this morning is powerful testimony

to the fact that homeland security reaches into every aspect of

American government. The Committee on Government Reform,

with oversight jurisdiction over all Federal programs and unique

purview over intergovernmental relations, can help you implement

the Department’s unfolding mission.

The first hearing on a bill to create a Department of Homeland

Security [DHS] was held in this room. We saw the need to unify

and coordinate scattered functions to confront a new lethal postSeptember 11 security paradigm. But, truth be told, we created a

fairly blunt instrument to wield against an agile and subtle foe. In

effect, we built a four-headed octopus and asked the behemoth to

perform brain surgery the next day. We know there has to be a

learning curve on both sides of these tables.

Mr. Secretary, I look forward to the results of your review of

DHS structure and operations. The disparate elements of the Department have begun to fuse into a force as nimble and discerning

as our enemies. The full committee’s Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats, and International Relations oversight

has raised some issues that merit your sustained attention.

The alert system. Bleach out the colors. The current system is

not consistent with good risk communication principles. People deserve to know all they can about specific threats and what they can

do about them. That takes words targeted to specific audiences, not

just colors splashed coast to coast.

Radiation detection. The technology may not be ready, and we

shouldn’t indulge a false sense of security about its capabilities.

Plutonium or highly enriched uranium give off very little in terms

of detectable radiation and are easily shielded. Intelligence is still

our best portal monitor against those trying to import radiological

terror.

Technology triage. The Department’s technology assessment

process seems without consistency or clear priorities. Developers

who try to give innovative concepts to DHS are rebuffed, while the

Department spends millions buying marginal technology from big

defense contractors.

Exercises. Federal counter-terrorism training and exercise programs still offer first responders a confusing smorgasbord rather

than a cohesive curriculum. Local exercises can lack realism, and

lessons learned are not consistently captured and fed back into the

system.

Standards. We will never know if preparedness is improving if

first responders can’t answer the basic question: Prepared for

what? Efforts to define essential capabilities to meet specific

threats need to be accelerated so States and localities know what

to do, not just what to buy. The focus on equipment standards over

functional benchmarks invites wasteful spending.

Mr. Secretary, we know that this is a new job for you and the

challenges that I have outlined are challenges that we know you

are trying to address, and not certainly created by you or even your

17

predecessor; it is just the task of getting such an important department to function the way it needs to.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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

18

19

20

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

I ask Members to try to limit opening statements. I know Mr.

Souder has one, and our side has the subcommittee chairman with

some jurisdiction on this.

Gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Welcome, Mr. Secretary. I am glad to see you here.

Mr. Chairman, I do thank you for calling today’s vitally important hearing to evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of the Department of Homeland Security’s operation and management.

Following the tragic events of September 11, the DHS was created, representing one of the most significant transformations of

the Federal Government in 50 years. The central mission of the

DHS is to ‘‘lead the unified efforts to secure America, prevent and

deter terrorist attacks, and protect against and respond to threats

and hazards to this nation; ensure safe and secure borders; welcome lawful immigrants and visitors; and promote the free flow of

commerce.’’

To carry out this important mission, the DHS employs approximately 180,000 employees and manages a budget of $38.5 billion

for fiscal year 2005. In light of the need to better protect the homeland in the post-September 11 world, I was deeply troubled to learn

that DHS’s own office of Inspector General found that the Department has much to do to establish a cohesive, efficient, and effective

organizations. That is what they said.

While the Department’s massive jurisdiction makes it impossible

to discuss all my concerns in this statement, I would be remiss if

I failed to mention several challenges that I believe particularly undermine the ability of DHS to fulfill its mission, in addition to

those things that were stated by Mr. Waxman.

To begin, DHS recently unveiled a new personnel system that

would needlessly undermine our Nation’s longstanding commitment to employee protection, independent arbitration and collective

bargaining rights. Specifically, DHS issued regulations that would

substantially restrict what issues are covered by collective bargaining. As described in the new regulations, the DHS is no longer

mandated to bargain over ‘‘the number, types, grades, or occupational clusters and bands of employees or positions assigned to any

organizational subdivision, work project, or tour of duty.’’

The new personnel system also fails to establish an independent

entity to resolve labor management disputes and establishes a performance-based pay system that can provide a means for

politicization and cronyism within the DHS without the necessary

safeguards and clear standards needed to measure employee performance. I do not believe that the new personnel system supports

an efficient and inclusive relationship between employers and employees at the DHS, specifically, the type of relationship needed to

keep morale high, support retention, and attract skilled and capable prospective employees to serve at the DHS.

Furthermore, congressional investigations and increasing instances of terrorists or alleged terrorists illegally entering into the

United States have left me seriously questioning the DHS’s ability

to secure our southwest border. Weak decisions on our border sysVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:49 Dec 06, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00024 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\21954.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
21

tem undermine our efforts to protect our homeland from terrorism

and drugs.

As ranking minority member of the Subcommittee on Criminal

Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources, I have seen first-hand

how the terrorism fueled by the drug trade can be just as destructive as the terrorism fueled by religious extremism. We cannot lose

sight of the fact that nearly all of the cocaine consumed in the

United States, and most of the heroin consumed on the east coast,

originates in Colombia. The Customs and Border Protection Office

within DHS is, therefore, essential in identifying and stopping terrorists and drug traffickers before they enter our Nation.

Unfortunately, the President’s budget for fiscal year 2006 makes

it more difficult to address these concerns by inadequately funding

the hiring of new Border Patrol agents and Immigration and Customs officers. Related challenges the DHS must address are the

Transportation Security Administration’s troublingly high failure

rate in detecting weapons, a homeland security threat advisory system that is unsophisticated and vague, and a poor distribution of

limited resources.

Finally, Mr. Chairman, in no uncertain terms, the American people anxiously look to their government to ensure our efforts or protecting the homeland and making sure that those efforts are effective and efficient, and driven by a commitment to common sense.

In the end, they expect us to protect their communities from those

that seek to do us harm. Sadly, there is much work yet undone if

we are to achieve this worthwhile end.

I look forward to the testimony of today’s witnesses, and with

that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Elijah E. Cummings follows:]

22

23

24

25

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you.

Mr. Souder.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you, Chairman Davis. I want to thank you

for this opportunity and for holding this important hearing.

I would also like to thank Secretary Chertoff for his willingness

to come today and join us. And I thoroughly support your goal of

improving the operations and the efficiency of the Department of

Homeland Security, and look forward to hearing the results of your

second stage review.

Although the Department has made major strides, much unfinished business remains, and I do not envy your job. It is no secret

that the American public has become increasingly exasperated

about our Government’s inability to control our Nation’s borders. I

have seen that impatience and anger at numerous border security

hearings, in many border communities, both rural and urban, and

even in my home district in Northwest Indiana at every meeting

I go to. If there is one thing that your Department must get better

at, and soon, it is border control.

Our constituents know what we know, namely, that it is quite

easy to cross our borders illegally and to bring in all kinds of contraband. Well organized, large-scale smuggling organizations are

going on at every hour of every day along our borders. Alien smuggling, terrorist smuggling, narcotics trafficking and weapons smuggling are not random acts of aggression but, rather, well planned,

well executed, well funded ventures. The networks that support

these smugglers are international in scope and rival our own security agencies in sophistication.

Smuggling takes its toll throughout the country in ways that

might surprise most people. Elkhart County law enforcement officials in my district recently took down two operations that produced fake green cards, and in Fort Wayne, my hometown, yet another fake green card operation was taken down. At a wedding reception Saturday night, a doctor told me that every single doctor

in his practice has had their Social Security Number stolen, resulting in financial hardship and legal hassles.

Yet another person at the same table told me their identity had

been stolen. Four different people had their Social Security Number. Most of this is being used to produce fake IDs. This is a national network in scope, along with the coyotes who plane in, who

arrange the vans, who move them through the different States,

who then bring them into our States, who provide the networking

for the jobs. These are massive networks. The public expects us to

take action.

Congress, of course, needs to do its part. For example, we need

to enact tougher laws to prosecute the human traffickers along the

borders, whose agents are often called coyotes, and these networks

that go there. It is one thing to pick on an individual worker. It

is another to say, ‘‘who are these huge networks that are bringing

in hundreds of thousands of illegal people funded often by drugs

and other contraband?’’

But I also believe the Department needs to get its own house in

order. Organizing the numerous agencies that were put in DHS is

a difficult task. But in some cases the Department not only hasn’t

improved coordination and efficiency, it has actually made them

26

worse. In fact, your Department’s lack of organization has an impact on the entire Federal Government. The most glaring example

of this is a current division between Customs and Border Protection [CBP] and Immigrations and Customs Enforcement [ICE].

Congress put the old INS and Customs Service in DHS back in

2002. The Department then decided to break these agencies apart

and split the border inspectors and the patrol agents away from

the investigators.

I have met lots of inspectors and investigators at the border in

every single southwest border State and almost every single northern State, and I can’t remember a single one of them who believed

that this is working. To the contrary, it is roundly criticized wherever I go. The Department has broken down the old working relationships between cops on the beat and the detectives without putting new ones in place.

In addition, the Department has created one agency completely

focused on the physical border, CBP, and another one physically

cutoff from the border, ICE. Theoretically, they are supposed to cooperate, but, as a practical matter, they are doing it less so than

they used to. It means that no operational agency at DHS is looking holistically at border security. It has also left several agencies

which are essentially, particularly in the narcotics war, that

worked well both at the border and on the border, like Customs Air

and Marine, and the Shadow Wolves Native American Customs Patrol officers in Arizona, without any logical place because they do

both things.

The fact is that the different narcotics trafficking groups, human

trafficking groups, contraband trafficking, terrorists do not work in

isolation. In fact, the reason they don’t cross anymore at San

Ysidro as much in El Paso, the large groups are going in between.

We don’t hold them anyway. So unless they have another type of

crime, we don’t detain them more than just a few hours; we send

them right back. So the only ones that are working through are

parts of large organizations. And what I have been told is that if

there are 20 or more people, they can’t afford to delay, because we

do a fairly good job of catching them the first time and then sending them back.

But if you are moving a group of 20 to 50, then it becomes inconvenient, because we get 2 here and 2 there. And if they want to

move them in a group, they are now saturating Arizona and Texas.

And a picket fence isn’t going to do this. They are working behind

the border, passed the border. You have people in your department

working on Colombia, you have them working inside, and you don’t

have a logical place to do it if you don’t merge the two things.

Meanwhile, this lack of organization has been reflected in the

lack of coordination. Here are some questions I hope you will address, if not directly today, then in writing back: Are you at least

considering merging the enforcement components of CBP and ICE?

What specific steps are you taking to improve the coordination and

cooperation on intelligence and information sharing within the Department? The stove-piping has gotten worse, not better, and it is

less coordinated than it was before.

Do you support the House-passed legislation that moved the

Shadow Wolves to ICE and will you expand the program to include

27

other Native American reservations along the northern border? Because this is one of the most effective, sensitive types of things that

has worked, and it is being disbanded, in effect, by making them

a picket fence. Fourth, are you going to dedicate specific funds to

the Office of Counter-Narcotics Enforcement to allow it to carry out

the coordination and oversight responsibilities that Congress gave

it? The administration continues to try to zero it out and not provide any actual dollars and, instead, just detailed employees.

Thank you for coming here, and I look forward to working with

you in the future, both here and on the Homeland Security.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you.

Members’ statements, without objection, will be put in the record

today.

I recognize you now, Secretary Chertoff. Again, it is an honor to

have you here. For the record, I think you are doing a great job,

but I think this review is the appropriate thing coming in there,

and we are honored by your presence.

STATEMENT OF MICHAEL CHERTOFF, SECRETARY, U.S.

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY

Secretary CHERTOFF. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you,

Ranking Member Waxman. I actually have a full statement for the

record, which I respectfully request be included. I am just going to

make a few brief points before I make myself available for questions.

I appreciate the opportunity to make my first appearance before

this committee to talk about where I see us going at the Department of Homeland Security. As has been observed by the chairman,

2 years into the establishment of the Department, I have initiated

what we are calling a second stage review to identify where we

have been, where we are headed, and what course corrections we

need to make.

Now, this process, of course, builds on the very fine work done

by my predecessor, Governor Ridge, and his Deputy, Admiral Jim

Loy. They had the enormous challenge of launching the first stage

of the Department, as someone observed, the largest reorganization

of departments in the Government since 1947. So we now have a

chance, 2 years into the process, to look back and see where we can

make some improvements.

My basic philosophy is this: our structures and our programs

have to be outcome-oriented, not the reverse. We don’t drive the

mission and the outcome by the structure; we drive the structure

and operation by the mission and the outcome. So the second stage

review is designed to take a close look at the mission, see how we

can achieve our goals, where we have gaps, and what we can do

to bridge between where we are and where we need to be.

The philosophy of risk management is the template for our decisions, so the Review is examining nearly every area of the Department to identify ways in which we can better manage risk in terms

of threat, vulnerability, and consequence. This will help make sure

that we have a coherent set of priorities about how we deal with

homeland security. And, of course, Congress can help in this by

making sure that, in the distribution of funds and other activities,

we are driven by risk management as our principle template.

28

Now, I am very pleased to say the first phase of this Review,

which entailed an overarching effort to gather information on the

policies, operations, and organizations, was completed ahead of

schedule. One of the things I wanted to do was to get us in the

habit of setting deadlines and meeting deadlines. I set a deadline

for the gathering of information of May 31st, and I am pleased to

say it was beaten by 1 day, which I thought was an important message.

Now, I am beginning the process, over the next month, of sitting

down with the various action teams and discussing the specifics of

what they have found and what they are going to be recommending

we do to move forward. I anticipate that I will begin to be able to

discuss the first set of recommendations that we are going to have

based on this Review in approximately a month.

Our objective is to develop a model agency for the 21st century

that supports a unified national effort to secure America. I am well

aware of the fact that the Department was not created simply to

assemble 22 agencies in a big tent. It was created to enable the

agencies to operate in a unified and coordinated fashion.

So, as the chairman observed, what we need to do is integrate

intelligence policy and operations across the Department so that

each component is directed from a Department-wide perspective

with a clear focus on the outcomes we need to attain. That means

we have to eliminate bureaucratic stovepipes and we have to learn

to share information. And part of that, of course, is the technical

process we have underway of deploying IT systems to allow, for example, for complete email and network consolidation.

Within the management arena, we are making important strides,

although we have more to do, in the area of functional integration,

procurement, and human capital. And through the management directorate of the Department, we are developing leadership and

guidance on our integration efforts. And as the chairman observed,

we were recently praised by the GAO in terms of the progress we

have made on our functional integration efforts, and we view that

as a spur to continue to complete this task.

In specific areas such as procurement, we have seen marked improvement. After consolidating acquisition support throughout

areas of the Department, we are achieving more effective and efficient acquisition of resources. But we are still not there and we

still need to do more.

I remain committed to ensuring the credibility of the procurement process and for developing strategies to enhance a Department-wide driven procurement process.

One thing I want to observe, since I think the Inspector General

was mentioned, actually, before I was confirmed, I identified as one

of the things I wanted to do upon my arrival was to use the IG as

a better management tool to identify for us what we need to do to

adopt the best practices in acquisition and procurement across the

government, both from an ethics standpoint and from and operational standpoint.

And within a matter of a few weeks of being on, I met with the

IG, I tasked him with carrying this out. He has come back to me

and we have begun discussion. I have had several meetings with

the Inspector General and I have been personally interested and

29

have given my personal stamp on the effort to make sure that we

are bringing our practices in line with the best thinking on procurement ethics and procurement strategies.

Now, as we make important changes in the Department, we have

to continue to support our employees and to provide the necessary

tools to recognize their accomplishments and build on their successes. Through MaxHR, the new human resource management

system, we will foster a culture of integrity, accountability, and effectiveness that enables each employee to achieve mission goals

and be rewarded for excellence. A major goal of the system is to

unite managers and employees to ensure that all are coordinating

to achieve and accomplish the DHS mission. We also want to be

competitive with the private sector in terms of attracting the best

talent.

And one of the things we want to build with this new performance-based system is a reward for operating in joint and coordinated fashion. Just as in the military, part of the process of advancing a career requires you to work with other components and

to learn how to operate in a joint environment. We have to build

that same effort and that same set of incentives into our backbone

if we are to complete the process of integrating our Department.

I appreciate the support of this committee and I look forward to

working with you on these and other matters as we seek to achieve

our shared goal of a safe and secure homeland. Thank you, and I

would be delighted to answer questions.

[The prepared statement of Secretary Chertoff follows:]

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

40

41

42

43

44

45

46

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Mr. Secretary, thank you very much for

that statement. I am going to start the questioning on our side

with Members who didn’t make opening statements.

Mr. Gutknecht, you are recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. Gutknecht. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And thank you, Mr. Chertoff, for coming. I echo the comments

of some of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle as they made

their opening statements.

One of my concerns really has been, and continues to be, that

when we started this Department, we were told that by consolidating these 22-odd different departments into one department, that

we would eliminate duplication and, at the end of it all, it would

actually be more efficient and may not be any more expensive to

run this big department.

And I don’t have the number in front of me right now, but as a

former member of the Budget Committee, it strikes me—and I

think I am correct that the budget actually now is more than double what it was when the Department was created. And when you

combine that with some of the other stories that we hear daily or

read regularly in the papers, I guess the real problem is there is

developing almost a problem of confidence not only among the general public, but I think among Members of Congress, we see ourselves spending lots of money and we continually hear that things

are not like they were supposed to be.

So it seems to me that you have a very, very difficult job. First

and foremost, I think you have to restore confidence among the

American people that this Department is really doing what we

thought it was going to do. And then I think, almost as important,

you have to restore the confidence among those of us who, in effect,

sign the checks on behalf of the American people that their money

is being well spent. And that is not really a question as much as

it is a comment, but I think that really is the mission that you

have, and we wish you well.

But I think it is important that as we go forward, that this committee and others get regular reports in terms of the kind of

progress that is really being made, because, as I say and as our colleagues have said, we hear reports in the news media and from our

constituents that things aren’t really getting better, they are actually getting worse. And I will give you one example.

Particularly in rural parts of America, we have real problems

with a drug called meth, and we have meth labs where people are

actually making this drug. But we are learning more and more

that an awful lot of that drug is not being made in the United

States, it is actually coming across the border from Mexico; and apparently it is very easy to get it across the border.

And that is just one example of how we are not really getting the

job done. We are spending an awful lot of money and there is a

growing at least suspicion that things are not getting better, they

are actually perhaps getting worse.

So that is not a question so much. You may want to respond to

it, but we do want to wish you well, because in some respects we

all have a huge stake in making certain that this Department succeeds.

47

Secretary CHERTOFF. Well, I appreciate the opportunity to talk

about this a little bit, because I am very sensitive about the fact

that everybody, as a citizen, has a real stake in our doing our job

efficiently and achieving the result of bettering American security.

We are stewards of the public fisc. We have to be responsible in

the way we spend money. I have to say, frankly, a lot of the increase in the budget reflects an increase in the substance of what

we need to protect the country.

For example, in the area of the Coast Guard, we have requested

substantial funding because we need new ships, new planes, new

physical assets which will give us the capabilities to do exactly

what you want us to do: intercept drugs, protect our ports, protect

our maritime area, protect our fisheries. So that is an area where

increases we are requesting in money are not about bureaucracy or

about process, they are about real stuff that we actually deploy.

We are also making some substantial efforts to do some consolidation. And I know it is a long process, it is something that is

going to take a little while, but we came in with 22 separate

human resource agencies. We are now down to 7 offices servicing

the 22 components; 8 payroll systems have been consolidated to 2;

19 financial management centers have been consolidated to 10. I

am not saying we are at the end of the process, but I do think it

is fair to tell the American people we have made some progress in

that direction.

I am acutely aware of the issue that we have at our borders.

That is a very significant problem from a variety of standpoints,

not only security, but because we need to assure the American people that if we have borders and we take them seriously, we are

going to get control of them. And we are in the process now of looking at what our border strategy is.

A couple of years in a row now we have had an Arizona border

control initiative which has really paid off in terms of increased apprehensions of people and bad things coming across the border, and

one of the lessons that we have learned from that is that the best

way to address the problem is with a comprehensive combination

of technology and people: better awareness of who is crossing, some

infrastructure to block vehicles from coming across, and then an

ability to direct the Border Patrol where they need to go.

So I think, based on those lessons, we are now looking across the

entire span of the border to see how we can most efficiently use

technology and people to get us control.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Waxman.

Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Secretary Chertoff, I want you to know that I have a lot of confidence in you personally, you have an excellent record, and I am

encouraged by what you have had to say today. But I have always

felt that one of the ways to make sure that the Government is functioning the way it should, every department is functioning the way

it should, is to make appropriate oversight both from within the

Department and from outside the Department; and Congress has

that responsibility. There have been, unfortunately, a number of incidents that raised questions regarding whether the Department’s

48

leadership encourages such oversight, and I want to ask you some

questions about these incidents.

Last year, press accounts raised questions about the relationship

between former Secretary Ridge and his aides and an outfit called

Blank Rome, which is a Philadelphia law firm. According to these

accounts, two top aides of Secretary Ridge left government soon

after the Department was established to work for Blank Rome, and

the Secretary himself was a close personal friend of the chairman

of Blank Rome. Blank Rome reportedly lobbied DHS on behalf of

29 firms and Blank Rome clients have been awarded major DHS

contracts.

Well, to examine whether there was any impropriety—and I am

not suggesting there was, but I think it ought to be looked at, this

relationship between Blank Rome and top DHS staff—I joined in

a letter with the ranking Democrat on the Homeland Security

Committee in the House and we requested all the communications

between Blank Rome and top DHS political appointees and staff.

In a followup meeting shortly thereafter between my staff and my

office and Representative Thompson’s office, Bennie Thompson

from Mississippi, who is the ranking Democrat of the Homeland

Security Committee, DHS agreed to provide this information in

several batches, the first one encompassing communications specifically with DHS management. Yet, 5 months after our request, we

have yet to receive any information.

I would like to know whether you would commit right now to

providing us with copies of all communications between Blank

Rome representatives and DHS management by the end of June

2005.

Secretary CHERTOFF. Well, first of all, let me say that I am not

obviously personally familiar with this, nor has anybody brought to

my attention any allegation of impropriety. In terms of the information, my understanding is that we had offered some information,

and we will certainly—in fact, I was informed of the fact that the

offer was not acted upon. I will certainly commit to furnishing

what we offered to provide promptly, within a month.

Mr. WAXMAN. Well, I appreciate that. That would be the first

batch which the Department agreed to give us many months ago.

I would also like to suggest that we get the remaining batches of

the responsive materials by the end of July. I think this is a

straightforward request. It was made close to half a year ago by

us, and that ought to be sufficient time to get that second batch

of information to us as well. Are you prepared to give me that commitment?

Secretary CHERTOFF. Well, not knowing what the information is,

as I say, what we have previously agreed to give we should certainly give. I am not in a position to tell you right now if there are

legal or other constraints on giving other information. We will certainly address the request promptly and make available what is

appropriate to be made available.

Mr. WAXMAN. OK.

On March 1, I wrote to Chairman Chris Shays as the committee

launched an investigation into the growing use of secrecy, particularly with respect to non-classified information designations. These

are rapidly proliferating, and these designations are called things

49

like ‘‘sensitive but unclassified,’’ or ‘‘for official use only,’’ and then

the information is not given out. An example is in February 2002,

the Department of Homeland Security concealed the unclassified

identity of a newly appointed ombudsman for the Transportation

Security Administration, an official whose responsibility was to

interact with the public.

Well, in response to my request for this investigation, Chairman

Shays agreed and together we sent a letter to your Department on

March 4th. Just to be clear, this request was sent to you, not Secretary Ridge. Chairman Shays and I asked for you to provide the

committee copies of reports and other documents that the Department issued in two forums, in a public version and in a what is

called ‘‘sensitive but unclassified’’ version, that way we, as an oversight committee, could compare these documents and evaluate the

propriety of your Department’s redactions.

It has now been over 3 months since this bipartisan request;

however, we have received no response whatsoever. We haven’t

even received a letter saying you are working on this. Would you

commit to providing this information by the end of this month so

that we can get the information that we have requested?

Secretary CHERTOFF. Well, I can certainly tell you we are working on it. Not knowing what the volume of information is or how

difficult it is to assemble, I would be hesitant to make a timeframe

commitment. What I can tell you is that I will ask that I get a report as to where we are in the process of responding to this and

that we come back by the end of the month with a timeframe within which we think we can do what is appropriate.

Mr. WAXMAN. I appreciate that. Let me just tell you what is involved. We had statements that were redactions that were given to

us, and the redactions were not classified information, but information that was called sensitive but unclassified. So Members of Congress on the appropriate committees are now requesting that we

get the original information that was redacted out so we can see

what kind of information is being withheld.

This is not national security; these are not classified documents.

There is this new description that is being used to hide information, not just in your Department, but in others as well, where they

are labeled ‘‘sensitive but unclassified’’ or ‘‘for official use only.’’

There is no legal standing to it.

Thank you very much, and we look forward to working with you.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Dent.

Mr. DENT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Good morning, Mr. Secretary. To what extent do you support the

use of State and local law enforcement to supplement immigration

enforcement activity? And do you support the repeal of the Memo

of Understanding requirements for Federal immigration training

and assistance to States and localities?

Secretary CHERTOFF. I don’t think I heard the last piece of the

question.

Mr. DENT. Do you support the repeal of the Memo of Understanding requirements for Federal immigration training and assistance to States and localities?

50

Secretary CHERTOFF. Well, I will say I generally support the idea

where States and localities want to assist we have under 287(g).

We have the ability to have them properly trained in order to assist us in terms of enforcing the immigration laws. That is not

something that we compel States and localities to do; some want

to do it, some don’t want to do it. They obviously need to be trained

properly. So I am unequivocally in support of that.

Mr. DENT. Thank you, sir. And a following question, according to

DOJ’s Inspector General, DHS officials expect to check approximately 800 people out of roughly 118,000 visitors a day who should

be screened against the FBI data base. Is this accurate information?

Secretary CHERTOFF. I have never heard that figure. I am not

sure the context in which it has been publicized, so I can’t really

respond. I mean, we do check. Under U.S. VISIT, we have the capability and we actually do check everybody who comes in against

both the IDENT data base and the relevant FBI data base.

Mr. DENT. And with respect to the Real ID Act, which we just

enacted a few months ago, the legislation establishes minimum

standards for Federal acceptance of driver’s licenses and Stateissued identity documents, and provides for rulemaking through

your Department to enact reforms. How are you taking action in

this area?

Secretary CHERTOFF. Within a day or so after the act was passed,

I told my Acting General Counsel that I wanted him to put together for me a map about what we need to do to go forward in

terms of implementing the necessary rules and regulations to make

the act effective.

Mr. DENT. OK. Finally, with respect to the so-called Minutemen

Project, what are your thoughts about that organization and

whether or not there should be any utilization by those folks

through your Department?

Secretary CHERTOFF. You know, it is a free country and people

are, of course, entitled to go peacefully wherever they want and

demonstrate or raise issues. What people cannot do, of course, is

take the law into their own hand or interfere with either law enforcement authorities or, in fact, try to engage in self-help to interfere with people coming across the border.

You know, we are committed to have a professional system of

controlling our border, and that means a system that involves well

trained people who know what the rules are, who are properly

backed up with equipment. And our strategy is to go forward and

find the best mix of personnel and technology to give us control of

the border.

Mr. DENT. Would that include the temporary placement of National Guard on the border until these new Border Patrol agents

are trained?

Secretary CHERTOFF. I don’t know that the National Guard is in

a position from a training standpoint or resources standpoint to

play that role. There are issues of appropriate legal authorities to

be exercised against people coming across the border, which, frankly, do require a certain amount of training and a certain amount

of supervision, which is typically something we accomplish through

putting Border Patrol agents through training and is not, as I unVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:49 Dec 06, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00054 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\21954.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
51

derstand it, typically a part of the training you get in the National

Guard. So I would hesitate to suggest that is a solution.

Mr. DENT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. The gentleman has a minute remaining.

I know Mr. Cannon would like you to yield to him.

Mr. CANNON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do have a question.

In the first place, welcome to your new job, Mr. Chertoff. I am

a big fan and I know that you are going to do a great job there.

The Federal Protective Service is a component of the Department

of Homeland Security, and that has been transformed into a

proactive law enforcement agency in the aftermath of September

11, 2001.

I am concerned that the officers and agents of the FPS are not

allowed to have in their possession their authorized weapons while

off duty. I think it is vital that the FPS, like other Federal law enforcement officers with the same training, be authorized to carry

their firearms while off duty and be available to respond to problems. I suspect you would agree with this, that having trained officers with the authority to carry weapons while off duty would increase our security. Would you work with me to see that we can

rectify this anomaly?

Secretary CHERTOFF. I will certainly work with you to see what

the issue is and make sure we come to an appropriate resolution.

Mr. CANNON. Thank you, sir. I appreciate that.

I yield back.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you.

Mr. Clay.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for being here. Recently, the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General issued yet another

report on the poor performance of airport screeners and found once

again that undercover agents were often able to smuggle weapons

past TSA airport screeners at multiple airports around the country,

including those used by the September 11th hijackers. Why are airport screeners continuing to demonstrate poor performance and,

bluntly put, are our airports and airplanes still vulnerable?

Secretary CHERTOFF. Let me begin by saying our airports and

airplanes are safe, and the reason they are safe is because we use

a layered strategy of protection, meaning, unlike before September

11, our strategy now involves several different layers of defense.

We have the inspection when people come through the checkpoint

at the airport; we have hardened cockpit doors which repel anybody

who tries to get in the cockpit and take control of the plane; we

have Federal air marshals, we have Federal flight deck officers

who are armed. So we have a lot more layers of protection in place

now, which I think do make the system safe and sound. That is not

to say we don’t always try to improve it.

In the area of screening, a question arises whether we have essentially hit the limit of what we can do to reduce human error in

the absence of deploying more advanced technology. We actually

have more advanced technology. We are now deploying these air

puffers which detect trace amounts of explosives at airports. I saw

one in Los Angeles last week.

52

There are back scatter machines, which would allow us actually

to see organic compounds and explosives concealed on a person.

Some of these issues are financial issues. Some of them, frankly,

are making a decision to go forward. Some people don’t like some

of the technologies. I think we have to make a decision, if we are

going to keep our airports secure, that we are going to have to deploy these technologies; we are going to have to take appropriate

steps to preserve privacy; but that in order to move to the next

level of detection, we have to start to make use of the one thing

we have that the terrorists don’t have, which is our ingenuity in

getting technology out into the real world.

Mr. CLAY. Mr. Secretary, how does it work as far as the first persons that you see when you go in line are usually with the airlines

or a private security company, and then you are transferred to TSA

personnel. Has that been seamless? Has it been pretty trouble-free?

Secretary CHERTOFF. You know, TSA has the responsibility for

dealing with the screeners. I think, as with any other human system, anecdotal reporting indicates that there are sometimes problems. Sometimes people say the system works very well; sometimes

people say there are slips in the seams. And that is why we build

layers, because I think human experience tells us that statistically,

out of every 1,000 people, you are going to get a small number who

are going to mess up.

What we want to do, though, as I say, is by building the technology in place, we want to reduce the scope of human error. And

I have to say, in fairness to the TSA screeners—because I was out

there in Los Angeles and I have been in a number of airports—they

actually do a phenomenal job working with the technology in being

able to identify dangerous items on baggage or on people. It is not

just machines, it requires trained people. So we have to treat that

work force with respect.

Mr. CLAY. Let me say that since September 11 I too feel safer

boarding an airport and feel safer in airports. But, hypothetically,

would you say Mr. bin Laden may be sitting around with some of

his compatriots and saying look at those foolish Americans, they

have now spent billions on airport security and we will never use

another airplane again as far as a weapon?

Secretary CHERTOFF. Well, first of all, based on some of the successes we have had overseas in the last few years, it is my belief

that Mr. bin Laden and his compatriots are spending a lot of time

worrying about their own hides, which, of course, is part of the

strategy, is to force them to worry about themselves. I do think you

are right, we can’t really just fight the same battle over and over

again. And we are looking at maritime, land borders, the whole

complex of issues we have to be concerned about.

I do have to say, though, that the intelligence continues to support the idea, and has supported the idea over the last few years,

that the terrorists still regard the airplanes as a significant target.

And the economy of this country is so dependent on air transportation that we have to be careful to preserve that system and its

integrity and public confidence in the system.

Mr. CLAY. I appreciate your responses. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you.

53

Mrs. MILLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Secretary, I appreciate your attendance here today. I am

from Michigan, and I know there is a lot of consternation about the

southern border of our Nation, but I am very concerned about the

northern border of our State. In fact, in my particular district and

in the region in southeast Michigan, I had your predecessor in and

we took him on a helicopter tour, and I would like to invite you

to do the same thing just to get a perspective of the kinds of dynamics that we have that have a lot of concern for all of us.

The Ambassador Bridge, which is the first busiest commercial artery on the northern tier, is there, along with the tunnel to Windsor. In my district, we have the Blue Water Bridge, which is the

third busiest commercial artery and the only one that allows for

transit of hazardous material. We have the Sea and Rail Tunnel

there. We have an interesting dynamic along the liquid border that

we share with Canada. We call it Chemical Valley because there

is a huge concentration of petrochemical plants along there.

And, of course, being right on the lakes, the Great Lakes, which

are fully one-fifth of the freshwater supply of the entire planet,

there are a number of interesting dynamics that we have there. As

well, we, of course, document as much as we can the kind of illegal

immigration that is happening there, whether they are transiting

across the infrastructure or just simply coming across by boat. That

is happening all the time, in all types of weather conditions.

And there had been some talk with the Department of Homeland

Security about the potential of having regional homeland security

headquarters across the Nation. In fact, we were very interested in

pursuing that in the Midwest region there with your Department.

I don’t know where that has all gone. I also sit on the House

Armed Services Committee. Obviously, we are very interested in

the BRAC process.

And part of the criteria for the BRAC process was that the DOD

should be working with the DHS about not only national security,

but homeland security for some of the various bases. And one of

the bases that is in my district has some of the components under

your umbrella. It is an Air National Guard base, but it has the

Coast Guard, the Border Crossing, some of these different kinds of

things.

I am just wondering if you could fill me in on where you are with

the concept, if you have plans to move ahead with any of these regional homeland security headquarters.

Secretary CHERTOFF. Well, this is a matter I know that has been

proposed and it is something that we are looking at. My concern

is I want to be sure that whatever we do is something that does

not add a layer of bureaucracy, but that actually streamlines

things and flattens the organizations. So as we move forward we

will obviously look at all different kinds of configurations for making sure we maximize the—we want to get the outcome of more regional cooperation. What the right way to do that is and how to organize the individual elements of the Department to do that is still

something, frankly, that is kind of an open question.

Mrs. MILLER. If I could ask just one more question. As well, a

particular dynamic that occurs on our border, because of a number

of reasons, we have been cannibalizing nurses from Canada to

54

work in our health care system, particularly in southeast Michigan.

In fact, if you go into any of our hospitals, probably 25 percent of

all the nurses are Canadian citizens.

And there was some consternation about how they were

transiting across with the kind of work permits that were required

through your Department. And I think, for the most part, most of

them are now operating under this NEXUS program. If you could

comment on how is that working and were you aware about the

Canadian—we actually, during September 11, had to stop surgeries

for all practical purposes, because we couldn’t get our nurses across

the border. So it is a concern there.

Secretary CHERTOFF. I can’t say that I was particularly aware of

the nurses, but I am aware of the fact that our economy is very

interdependent with the Canadian economy. It is true in services,

it is true in manufacturing. And a critical challenge for us is to

have the right balance between security and efficiency, because if

either one of those gets out of balance, we are really going to hurt

our economy, we are going to hurt our country.

So NEXUS is a terrific program, it is a program that basically

allows us to check people and make sure they are essentially trusted travelers, and then let them move back and forth more quickly.

And, frankly, that is the way forward across the board for this

country in terms of travel in and out of the country and in terms

of a whole series of things.

We need to offer people the opportunity to get into a program

where we can do a reasonable background check, get some biographical information, make sure they are not a threat, and then

build them a biometric identification card that assures that the

person holding the card is the person we have checked, and then

let them move through the system rapidly. That gives us both more

security and more efficiency, which is, I think, a win-win for everybody.

Mrs. MILLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Ms. Norton.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for your testimony. I have a couple of

questions. One has to do with the personnel system. I note in today’s Washington Post that the Pentagon is delaying implementation of its personnel system, very much like what was approved for

your Department. Your Department, of course, has even more employees. This is a radical change, obviously, in the Government, a

profound change. I don’t envy you, having all you have to do, having also to deal with these—arcane is the only word for them—details.

We had a witness here at one point who seemed not even to understand the root reason for this rather ponderous system that the

Government has. You, of course, are not a lawyer. Due process

comes into play here when you are talking about pay for performance; due process doesn’t come into play when you are talking

AT&T or whoever in the private sector. So it becomes really complicated. One doesn’t want to build a system that is full of opportunities for litigation and the like.

55

What is being changed, of course, is everything from pay for performance—and that is the real zinger if you are talking about a

Government system where you have to show that you are being

fair given Constitutional strictures on the Government—but there

are label disputes. Frankly, from top to bottom, the personnel system is being changed. The Pentagon is delaying major aspects, it

looks like, of its plan, and I would like to know the status of the

changes, comparable changes in your Department.

Secretary CHERTOFF. Well, let me first identify I think the philosophical and practical reasons for having this new set of improvements in the personnel system. You know, we brought together legacy personnel systems that had to be integrated, and rather than

integrate them according to the least efficient model, the thought

was let us take the opportunity, as long as we have to do some integration, to integrate to the 21st century state-of-the-art with respect to personnel.

We need to get high performers into the Government. We have

jobs that need to be done now that are increasingly more sophisticated. We are competing with the private sector and, candidly, we

cannot do that if we cannot offer some reasonably competitive

rates, including pay bands and pay for performance, so that people

who are good performers have some degree of confidence that they

are going to be rewarded.

At the same time, I think the cornerstone of the philosophy is

our system has to be fair, it has to be transparent, and also has

to be efficient. And a key piece of that is training. We need to make

sure that as managers and supervisors get involved in the process

of reviewing as part of this system, they really understand how to

do it in a way that is fair, transparent, and efficient. And, by the

way, we should be reviewing the reviewers. We should be making

sure that the very fairness, transparency, and efficiency levels that

they employ are themselves a function that is being reviewed.

Ms. NORTON. Of course, that would assume standards. This is

the Government. That sounds like any personnel system. This

sounds like what any manager anywhere in the United States

would say. When you are talking about 800,000 employees going to

pay for performance, for example, those are words.

The real challenge for you and your Department is how do people

make that judgment so that you are not overridden with litigation,

grievances or complaints. And that is really my question. The question goes to standards and whether or not you believe your Department is ready to move forward, as apparently the Pentagon, with

its civilian employees, does not.

Secretary CHERTOFF. I believe we are ready to move forward. I

think we are looking to implement the current regulations in August of this year and to start the new performance management

system; not the pay piece, but the performance management in October. And the idea is to do this in stages to lay down specific

metrics, the kinds of things that are going to be measured in terms

of performance, and to train managers to do that so that everybody

has confidence in the system.

But in that regard I do have to make a point about a problem

that we have. As I look at what has been done in the current stage

of the appropriations, we have had a substantial cut of money, a

56

$26 million from MaxHR and $98 million from management, which

also is responsible. Frankly, if we want to have the system work

well, if we want it to be fair and transparent and efficient, we have

to pay for it. We can’t shortchange the training; we can’t shortchange putting in place a process that is going to be fair and efficient. And that is why I think it is very important to fund the system so that it works.

I guess the last observation I would make is this. I think delay

is the worst of all worlds. I lived most of my life in a pay for performance system in the private sector, and I think that it can work

and it will work. I think the uncertainty after transition is always

the hardest piece and, frankly, the longer we delay the transition

and the more we drag it out, the more apprehension people are

going to have and the more anxiety. And that is why I think we

are committed to doing this and we should move in a disciplined

but brisk manner in getting this implemented.

Ms. NORTON. I couldn’t agree more.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. The gentlelady’s time has expired.

Ms. NORTON. Just to finish, I couldn’t agree more. Grievances

and complaints that go on for years and years, I don’t see how they

assist either the agency or the person. I must say, though, Mr. Secretary, that if a court gets grievances or gets cases, training will

not be what the court will look at. The court will look at something

you mentioned in passing that is so important, and that is the

measures, what they were and whether the supervisor has indeed

met those measures.

And I just want to emphasize again—and the reason I do it is

because we had someone before us who acted as if due process did

not come into play with the Government. Whether you go into pay

for performance or whether you have this old GSA system—I ran

a Federal agency; you will not find me a fan of that system—that

standard is not going to change if people, of course, sue the agency.

And let me just finally say that I am very pleased to hear what

you said about screeners, that we have probably reached the level

of what you can expect of human screening, and instead of just

beating up on screeners, we now have to face the fact that the next

level is the technology level.

Thank you very much.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you. The gentlelady’s time has expired.

Mr. Turner.

Mr. TURNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your holding this hearing concerning the Department of Homeland Security.

Mr. Secretary, I want to thank you for all of your efforts in the

important and enormous job of keeping our country safe. Your

dedication to that critical goal is certainly what will be part of our

great success in keeping this country safe.

You have already acknowledged that one of the challenges that

you face is the area of information sharing and data warehousing,

trying to get the various branches of the Federal Government and

of your Department to share information and effectively use it. The

January 2005 GAO High-Risk Series Report identifies appropriate

and effective information sharing mechanisms in Homeland Security as one of the new areas of high risk, and when they issued this

57

report this year, they stated, ‘‘As in prior GAO High-Risk Update

Reports, Federal programs and operations are also emphasized

when they are at high risk because of their great vulnerabilities to

fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement, and are in need of transformation.’’

In looking to the processes of transforming that area, which is

going to be so critical to our success, I wanted to ask you some

questions of your thoughts of the issues of the application of commercial processes for information sharing. In my district we have

NCR, which is one of the preeminent data management and terror

data companies in the country. They do the processes for Wal-Mart

and Federal Express, which are both known as companies that utilize information and data sharing to make certain that they are

successful. And in talking to representatives of NCR, they talk

about the process that they work with with clients, in looking to

what information is needed and then designing systems both that

produce data and that can manage data and effectively transmit

data.

So many times I think we are fearful when the Federal Government begins to look at trying to seek the acquisition of systems, for

example, in trying to acquire a hammer, that they might try to redesign the hammer instead of just going and looking for a hammer.

In this instance we know that out in the commercial sector are

companies in the United States that have focused on data management that have been highly successful. There is both technical expertise and management expertise that we can tap into.

Could you talk to us for a moment about your efforts to reach

out to the commercial sector so that, as we look to this important

issue that GAO has identified as high-risk, we could take advantage of some of the resources we already have here?

Secretary CHERTOFF. As a matter of fact, this morning I met

with CEOs from the software industry and the Business Software

Alliance to talk generally about some of their issues, and I said to

them I thought that we need to do a better job of tapping into the

ingenuity of the private sector in providing solutions. In other

words, not necessarily coming in and saying let us build something

from scratch, which I think, as experience shows, has often resulted in an overpriced and underperforming system. And this is

not just computers, it is across the board. But sometimes we should

be a little less ambitious, take what already has worked and figure

out how to adapt it to our current circumstance.

We need to do that in this Department. We need to do it by completing the process of integrating our IT acquisition and rollout coordination, which we are in the process of doing. We then need to

make sure that we are looking at what is out there in the real

world as examples, as opposed to buying pie-in-the-sky promises.

We also have the challenge, of course, of having existing legacy systems which we can’t entirely scrap, and we have to figure ways to

bridge between those existing systems with platforms that will operate across them.

The desired end stage, as you say, is an ability to have, like we

are on the verge of having now, single email system, single information system, and one that has adequate screening and adequate

security so we are not worried about penetration from the outside.

58

Mr. TURNER. Thank you. I appreciate your efforts in that regard,

because it certainly will enhance our success to the extent that we

go to those that are already being successful in these processes.

Thank you.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Mrs. Maloney.

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this incredibly important hearing.

And welcome, Mr. Chertoff. I represent New York City, lost

many friends and neighbors on September 11, and we certainly

wish you well.

But this copy that came out recently, June 6th, on U.S. News &

World Report entitled, ‘‘Pigging Out: How Homeland Security Became Washington’s Biggest Porkfest,’’ is not encouraging, to say the

least. It is extremely discouraging and really frightening, in my

opinion. Unfortunately, this is not the only article on this. We have

seen headlines like this too often. This article highlighted TSA

spending $500,000 for silk plants and artwork, and then they were

purchasing sub-zero refrigerators at a cost of $3,000 each. And as

one who represents what remains to be target No. 1 in America,

New York City, I find that very troubling.

But even more troubling is not addressing the moneys toward

really preventing danger coming to our citizens. In this they talked

extensively about our Nation’s cargo screening strategy, and in it

they reported, ‘‘that nuclear specialists say some of the efforts suffer from misplaced priorities and rely on detectors so primitive that

they cannot tell the difference between highly enriched uranium

and naturally occurring radiation in kitty litter.’’

And on the same day that this report came out, ABC News reported that, ‘‘the new drive-through detection machines being installed at a cost of half a billion dollars cannot detect the enriched

uranium that many say poses the greatest threat to our Nation,’’

and this expert says that it could leave our country’s ports—and I

represent, along with New Jersey, one of the biggest ports in our

country—but it would leave our ports susceptible to terrorists

smuggling nuclear weapons or material in one of the thousands of

containers that came into the country every day.

And in this report they quoted Dr. Tom Coburn, the Director of

the National Resource Defense Council, a nuclear program, as saying, ‘‘Unfortunately, we have about a half a billion dollars worth

of kitty litter detectors that will not detect enriched uranium reliably.’’ They further reported that in tests it conducted in 2002 and

2003, uranium shielded and lead easily passed by detection machines that were in place.

I believe that this is totally an unacceptable situation. The smuggling of nuclear material, a dirty bomb or weapons of mass destruction, in a commercial cargo still represents probably one of the

most important, if not the most important or most significant, security threat to our Nation and to our citizens. In fact, there was a

movie out of England that showed what would happen if a dirty

bomb exploded in England, and it was horrifying. And some economists estimated if one happened in our country, there would be

well over a million casualties and an impact of well over $300 billion to several trillion dollars.

59

But despite this threat, the fact is that most currently deployed

non-intrusive inspection systems in ports were designed to intercept contraband, stolen vehicles, stowaways, and not designed to

detect—which is truly our most important threat—dirty bombs or

weapons or mass destruction. So I would like to go to the root of

the problem. The article alleges that the problem is a sole source

contract. That is what the article alleges, that is the problem.

So based on that situation, I really would like to ask you how

you feel about this. And specifically, Mr. Chairman, do you believe

in best value procurement so that DHS can properly balance cost

and technical capacity in purchasing key technology? Do you agree

that the lowest cost is not necessarily the best value? Do you believe in full and fair and open competition for DHS procurements?

Do you believe DHS should procure by sole source methods when

there are possibly multiple U.S. sources available? And do you

think the best technology should be used to detect weapons of mass

destruction in cargoes?

Chairman TOM DAVIS. The gentlelady’s time has expired.

Mrs. MALONEY. And my time is up.

Secretary CHERTOFF. Let me, if I may, just take a moment to answer. I agree that nuclear material being smuggled in is a very,

very high priority for us, and that is one of the reasons the President’s budget has asked for funding of about $227 million for a domestic nuclear detection office, which would bring together a lot of

the programs we now have to develop systems and technology to

identify and detect and thereby intercept nuclear bombs or nuclear

material coming into the country. That is a very high priority.

I have to say this about articles like that, though. It strikes me

you can pretty much find a self-styled expert to say something

about everything. And I think the article overstates dramatically

the problem that we have. The radiation detector monitors which

we have in ports in fact do detect radiation quite well; they are extremely sensitive to radiation.

There are certain inherent physical limitations as between different types of radioactive material—for example, plutonium versus

highly enriched uranium—which are endemic in the physical substance. In other words, we don’t create that problem, God creates

the problem because that is the way the physics of nuclear energy

works. So we do actually have a robust detection system.

Second, it is misleading to say that the machines can’t distinguish between kitty litter and other kinds of isotopes, because the

way the system is structured is there is a capacity to send back to

a targeting center a profile of the particular characteristics of what

is being read on the monitor, and scientists sitting in the targeting

center are in fact capable of distinguishing between kitty litter and

isotopes. So that is, again, a misleading statement in the article.

Finally, with respect to shielding, it is true that shielding can

create a problem for radiation detection? What the article doesn’t

tell you, though, is that part of what you do in a layered protection

system is you build in a detector that detects the presence of

shielding. So that there may be sufficient shielding to protect the

radioactive material from direct detection, but another detector will

point out that there is shielding. And if I see there is shielding in

a container, I am going to open it up and I am going to look inside.

60

Mrs. MALONEY. But, Mr. Chertoff, my question was not whether

kitty litter could be detected or not. My question was, was this a

sole source contract; where is the justification document for that

contract? Do you believe——

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Well, unfortunately, Mrs. Maloney, your

time is up.

Mrs. MALONEY. Could you just answer in writing to my questions

since my time is up?

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Well, you had a 41⁄2 minute question, and

that made it tough for him to get everything in. So I am going to

have to go on to the next.

I would just say to Members everybody has been waiting here,

and I am just trying to move this along fairly.

Mr. Issa.

Mr. ISSA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Secretary, I have a border region in San Diego, and I have a

unique situation that I have been working through your predecessor organizations for a very long time, and that is, as you well

know—but most people in the United States don’t know—we have

border checkpoints more than 70 miles inside the United States.

And the Border Patrol, under management after management and

different secretaries, has always tried to defend these even though

the Government Accountability Office study shows that they are

hard to defend.

It would be perfect to tell you exactly how hard to defend the effectiveness of these except that the Border Patrol systematically

doesn’t deliver accurate information as to where apprehensions are.

Every time there is a study, every piece of released information always simply talks about regions and areas, when in fact there are

exact points that they could say we apprehended them here, here,

and here.

Having said that, I want to make it very clear that I support the

Border Patrol when they try to do things that make sense. In June

2004, the Temecula Border Patrol station conducted a series of illegal immigrant sweeps in inland areas in my district. During that

time, they were called Mobile Patrol Group, made up of 12 Border

Patrol agents. They successfully had 450 arrests in 18 days, nearly

double the monthly average for 2003 not for 12 people, but for the

whole station, for everybody.

Secretary, those mobile patrols, at the orders of Washington,

were stopped. A lot of double-talk about, well, they weren’t officially stopped. They were stopped. The Border Patrol wants to conduct those, and I don’t really care if it is a Border Patrol, it is ICE,

it is the man in the moon, who it is. Your organization is reorganizing exactly like the Polish cavalry before World War II. If you continue to use horses that don’t succeed, well, there are tanks that

do succeed.

Effective enforcement, when demonstrated in Southern California, is being thwarted through your Department by simply not allowing the Border Patrol to organize under whatever set of rules

and guidelines you have to, or ICE, in order to go after illegal immigrants who otherwise would not be caught.

I want to make it very clear that it is not about just catching

illegals. Because if you want to catch illegals, you can go to any

61

farm in my district, any hotel in my district, you can go anywhere

you want; but, in fact, about successfully collecting the worst offenders.

And to that extent, although it is not directly your jurisdiction,

I want to make you further aware—and get your comments on

this—the fact that the U.S. attorney in San Diego has refused to

prosecute coyotes, no matter how many times they are arrested,

unless they use violence or specifically endanger a life or are carrying drugs. And if you think that is appropriate or not would be my

first question. Should we be having a zero tolerance for the coyotes

even if we cannot effectively arrest the more than 11 million illegal

immigrants in this country?

Secretary CHERTOFF. Well, of course, it is true that the U.S. attorneys are not in my purview. I used to be a U.S. attorney, but

that was many years ago and that was in a different part of the

country. Obviously we need to focus on deterring people who are

trafficking, starting, of course, our highest priority are the organizations. If we can take down the organizations, we get the maximum bang for the buck.

The more deterrence we can bring to bear, the better off we are.

I recognize that U.S. attorneys have constraints. Among other

things, you have court constraints; there are only so many judges,

so many courtrooms. When you charge people, you have to try

them. So that is a numerical limit.

As far as the particular tactic you are telling me about, I, frankly, don’t know whether it was stopped or why it was stopped. What

I can tell you is that——

Mr. ISSA. But are you familiar with the mobile patrols and the

success? It was nationally covered in a fairly broad way.

Secretary CHERTOFF. I think I was probably a judge when it was

being covered, and I was focused on doing judicial things. But I do

think that we have recently unified our command and control over

Border Patrol across the board, the idea being that we don’t want

to have ad hoc decisions made about how border tactics are operated, we want to have a comprehensive picture, recognizing that

there are different tactics that work on different parts of the border

because of the topography. So we are committed to the best practices. If there is anything there that works well that is legal, we

are going to do it.

And I am more than happy to go back and say, look, let us see

if this worked and it is not continuing, what else do we need to do;

should we re-inaugurate it. There is no pride of authorship here.

We want to do the best to maximize the effect we have with the

resources we can bring to bear.

Mr. ISSA. I appreciate that. And if, after you have looked at the

success of the mobile patrols out of the Temecula checkpoint, you

would get back to my office with either your comments in the negative, if you don’t think it worked or if there were serious problems,

or how, on a centralized basis, perhaps we could begin using these

kinds of techniques to target those who are either the most dangerous or the least desirable among the 11 million illegals that operate here in the United States today. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

62

Mr. Ruppersberger.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Mr. Secretary, first, I want to say you have

one of the toughest jobs in Washington. But don’t feel alone, because we all need to come together to work with you in our different agencies. I mean, to take 22 different agencies, it is tough

enough getting 2 agencies together. And I think really what starts

in anything that we do is management, and management at the

top.

Now, I have a letter, it is a bipartisan letter written on October

15, 2001, and it was to the President and it is a letter that I am

going to give you a copy of. Basically what the letter says and asks,

it asks what are our vulnerabilities as it relates to terrorism and

national security, what are the threats, what are our priorities, and

how do we link that to funding, and that is basically risk management. Now, what I am interested in is to find out where you are

today or where you think you are today as it relates to the threats,

the budget priority and the funding.

Now, I have other questions—and I know that we have 5 minutes—that I am going to submit to you and ask that you respond

to that and maybe to the contents of this letter. But I think it is

important. We can talk about immigration, we can talk about

money going to the locals. There are a lot of things, but we are not

going to be able to accomplish it. So let us start from a management perspective, from risk management, all the threats, what we

are looking for as it relates to funding.

Secretary CHERTOFF. We are 110 percent on board with the proposition that we have to be risk-based in funding, and that means

we look at three characteristics: we look, first of all, at consequence; we look at vulnerability; we look at threat. We have a

national preparedness plan which identifies, again, against that

template of those three characteristics, the kinds of capabilities and

tasks that individual localities or States ought to be able to carry

out in order to be prepared to meet the risks as we have outlined

them. And we are capable of working with computer modeling resources that we have—for example, at the National Sciences Laboratories—at being pretty specific in determining—using, again,

consequence, vulnerability and threat—what our highest priority

targets are, what are the things we ought to be worrying about the

most so we can address those things first.

That is the template that we use in terms of driving everything

that we do. And one of the things we are undertaking in the second

stage review is we are trying to build a way of looking at all the

threats, vulnerabilities and consequences, and having accountability as part of a three dimensional matrix for making sure that we

have in place everything we need to address the highest priority

targets in terms of those characteristics.

There is something Congress can do to help. We have to continue

to move to a funding system that is risk-based. The more ability

we have to apply our funding based upon risks that are identified

through this disciplined process, the closer we are in giving the

American public what they are entitled to expect, which is the

maximum value for their hard-earned dollars.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Based on what you just said and the matrix

that you have, what would you say are your top five threats from

63

a priority point of view? I mean, management, again, is about

prioritizing.

Secretary CHERTOFF. It is a little hard to take a matrix and compress it into five. I would say that among the things that are high

priority are obviously things which could yield a catastrophic response, a threat which would yield a huge loss in human life or a

huge economic impact. So we do think about, for example, nuclear/

biological/chemical. Those are things which would be very significant.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. With each one that you are going to talk

about, how much funding are you putting into these areas?

Secretary CHERTOFF. Well, again, it is a little more granular

than that, because we have, for example, in the nuclear area, the

President has requested $227 million for a domestic nuclear detection office. Obviously, there are programs; Department of Energy is

doing stuff, Department of Defense——

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. All right, I see my yellow light is coming

on. I want to get one more question out, and we will see where we

can go. Two years ago Congressman Waxman and I asked GAO to

do a risk management of Department of Homeland Security, especially as it related to maritime security. And, by the way, I think

GAO has some of the top risk management people, and I would

hope that you would use them in your second stage review and get

information, as we do, from them, because I think it is a great resource.

But getting back to the question that I asked about your priorities—and we are not going to have enough time to finish it—it is

important, I think, that we pick those priorities, and I would like

to know where they are and also where your priority of funding,

because it is all about funding in the end.

I have the letter I am going to give you, and I have other questions that I would like you, if you could, to get back to me.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. OK, thank you.

Mr. Platts.

Mr. PLATTS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Secretary, I appreciate your being here, and certainly thank

you for your many years of public service, especially now as head

of the Department of Homeland Security. I wanted to touch on two

specific issues that relate to the passage of the Department of

Homeland Security Financial Accountability Act last October. I

sponsored that legislation, and this committee moved it and the

House and Senate passed it, and the President signed it into law.

We worked very closely with your Department, prior to your being

there, in drafting, amending, and kind of getting a consensus.

Two parts that have not yet either been fulfilled or the Department is showing now, after the fact, an unwillingness to comply.

The first is the issue of your CFO. The law says that within 6

months of its passage, that the President would nominate for Senate confirmation a new CFO or designate CFO, and that the current CFO could continue serving until confirmation occurred. That

6 months passed about 45 days or so ago. My understanding is you

have not yet even begun interviewing potential nominees, and I

would be interested in why the delay. The law says what it does;

it was written in cooperation with the Department and the adminVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:49 Dec 06, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00067 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\21954.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
64

istration. What is the timeframe that is in place today to get this

law complied with?

Secretary CHERTOFF. Well, we have a very able CFO on board

now and, of course, we know we need to find somebody who is

going to ultimately be nominated for a Senate-confirmed position.

As you know, there has been a substantial turnover in the Department. I mean, when I came in with the deputy, we had a large

number of vacancies in the top management of the Department.

We have been working very hard to fill those. Some of those are

getting filled. I think you know the process of searching tends to

be a cumbersome process, not the least of all because, first of all,

these are challenging jobs, and sometimes the people you want for

them don’t necessarily want to give up their lucrative careers to

take them, and sometimes because it is a cumbersome background

check process.

So we are aware of the legal requirement; we are committed to

meeting it. We are dealing with market constraints and kind of

practical constraints, but we are actively involved in the process of

trying to fill the position.

Mr. PLATTS. Well, I hope that the process will pick up, because

it is something regularly in my subcommittee, when we talk about

various agencies, that we have laws on the books and agencies just

fail to comply with the law and there are never any consequences.

That certainly doesn’t work back home when citizens don’t comply

with the law.

The law was agreed to by the administration, and the fact that

we are now a month and a half past the 6-month deadline, so we

are 71⁄2 months past when the Department knew this was a requirement. And it is not simply to go through the process; it is because Congress has said we believe that in these departments it is

important to have the best possible officials in place, and that Senate confirmation process is part of ensuring that.

I certainly don’t have anything bad to say about Andy Maner,

your current CFO, but the law is as it stands and it needs to be

complied with.

Related to that, the same piece of legislation deals with internal

controls. The President’s management agenda, one of the core

areas was financial management, and through the legislation we

have sought to help strengthen your Department’s financial management process. You inherited, I think, more than 15 material

weaknesses in the various agencies. Getting to that foundation is

assessing your internal controls.

The law, as passed, said in the current year 2005 you have to

make an assertion regarding your internal controls, and in 2006

have an audit of your internal controls. In this year’s budget that

came up to Congress from the administration, there was language

proposing to delay the assertion 1 year and to delay the internal

control audit 2 more years, so a total of 3 years from the time the

law was passed.

I would like to know why you don’t want to go forward with that

and what is the Department’s position today in compliance with

the law as it stands?

Secretary CHERTOFF. Let me tell you where we are. In March of

this year the CFO established an internal control committee which

65

was responsible to implement the provisions of PO 108330. Last

month, in May, we developed an implementation guide for the internal control provision, working with OMB and an interagency

committee.

We also began executing the planning phase of implementation

to determine what documentation we would need and the kind of

testing that would need to be performed. And over the summer we

plan to complete the GAO internal control management and evaluation tool as the assessment process to support the statement of

assurance in fiscal year 2005.

We have also, in the fiscal year 2006 budget, which is pending, requested a little over $5.2 million and five full-time equivalents to

support remediation efforts to transform the legacy internal control

structured in an integrated control framework.

So we are moving forward on this briskly. It is a challenge. As

you point out, we have a lot of legacy agencies, so we have not only

the challenge of meeting a new standard, but also bringing together and binding all the existing legacies. And I think we have

a brisk program to move forward and complete what we need to do.

Mr. PLATTS. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. If you could followup

maybe in writing to the committee a timeline proposed for confirmation of the CFO and specifically your intent to comply with

the law passed last year regarding the assertion for 2005 and the

internal control audit for 2006, that would very much be appreciated.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Platts.

Mr. Porter.

Mr. PORTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Secretary, I appreciate your being here and your depth of

knowledge in such a short time of being in that role.

If you look at the economies of every State in the Nation, each

has their strengths, from ranching, farming, industrial, chemicals.

It depends on the State. I represent the community of Las Vegas,

NV, area, one of the major tourist destinations in the world, where

close to 40 million a year visit a State of about 2 million. Of course,

after September 11th we experienced some very, very serious

downturn in our economy.

But, more importantly, we realized at that point, more than ever,

the importance of coordination between the Federal Government

and the State governments. In that Nevada’s No. 1 economy is

tourism, I think many times overlooked that in every State in the

Union travel and tourism is one, two, and three in every State as

far as their economic base, but also employment.

I believe so much in the fact that we needed to have representation in the Department of Homeland Security. We worked, in the

bill that passed last year, of course, the Reform Act, to create a role

for your special assistant, Alfonzo Martinez-Fonts, who is now

working closely with the tourism travel industry. So first let me

say thank you for the efforts of your assistant.

But also to reiterate the importance, as you are developing your

new plans—I know you are creating in the Department possibly a

Department-wide policy office—that the tourism and travel industry—whether it be Anaheim, Disneyland, Orlando, Chicago, New

66

York, wherever in this country, New Orleans—we handle a lot of

people, and a great mass of people, and we work closely with TSA

and other parts of your Department.

I want to reiterate the importance of that communication so we

can play a major role in helping you, because security certainly is

paramount. The community of Nevada, our hotels, our resort industry are state-of-the-art, the latest security, the latest technology,

and we appreciate the efforts so far, but want to reiterate for the

future that is important.

So more of a comment than a question. And if I could followup

now with a more specific question.

As you know also, Nevada has been chosen as the site for highlevel nuclear waste to be buried at Yucca Mountain. I appreciate

comments today about the current uranium detection methods

being problematic. As we are looking at homeland security and the

possible transportation of 77,000 tons of nuclear waste through

most every State in the Union, I would appreciate, one, a comment,

of course, on the tourism aspect, but also on plans to secure our

community as this waste travels by schools and churches and malls

and parks, that we have the proper security in place.

Secretary CHERTOFF. Let me try to address both of those issues.

We are very sensitive about the fact that tourism and travel is a

significant component of the economy, not just for the hotels, the

airlines and shipping. I mean, across the board it has a major ripple effect. And one of the things that we are trying to do, as we

move forward, for example, with security in airports and infrastructure security, is to build a system that actually facilitates ease

of movement in travel and tourism while building in security.

Now, you need both of those, because we know if there are security problems people are not going to want to travel. But we also

know that if it is inconvenient and inefficient, people are not going

to want to travel. So we try to maximize both.

In line with that, I met, when I was in New York a month or

so ago, with representatives of the travel and tourism industry,

when I was overseas a couple weeks ago I met with overseas travel

and tourism representatives, to make this point, to say that we

want to build systems for security that work with the needs of our

travel and tourism sectors of the economy, and not across purposes.

As far as nuclear goes, we work hand-in-hand with the NRC and

the other agencies that have the substantive expertise in terms of

transporting and storing nuclear waste, to make sure that they

have the benefit of our insights with respect to security-type issues.

They often own the expertise and have been doing a lot of work,

frankly, over a number of years, even before September 11, in modeling the kinds of threats there are to nuclear material and how

you can best protect against them. And that is an area where we

are going to continue to be actively involved, again, working with

the NRC and the other responsible agencies who have direct supervision over nuclear material, to make sure that we are assuring

safety for communities.

Mr. PORTER. And I appreciate two diverse questions in a 5-

minute period. But back to the tourism, I think it is important and

imperative to note that our goal, like yours, is the security and the

safety of these individuals. We work closely with TSA, and we have

67

evolved, I think, a premier facility at our airport, McCarran Airport, in handling these 30-some million that travel through our airport. And we would like to offer our assistance in other areas because of our expertise. It is certainly economic but, more important,

that we can help balance the security with that.

I appreciate your comments. Thank you.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you.

Mr. Mica, followed by Mr. Duncan.

Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize; I have had to

run in and out for another hearing across the hall, actually, two

hearings today.

Nice to see you, Mr. Secretary. Thank you for participating today

and giving us sort of an update of where we are and where we

want to go. One of the concerns that we have, and I have heard

expressed on the floor, is the checking of cargo. They say that only

some 6 percent of cargo is examined, either coming in or commercial aircraft, etc., and right now you have a system that is based

on really going out and doing spot checks and using sort of intensive and costly personnel.

Have you given any consideration to setting standards, looking

at a system that relies more on you setting sort of the rules and,

again, process that should be followed and checking of companies,

as opposed to sort of a massive—it would probably bankrupt the

system or completely slow down the economy or bring it to a halt

if we did 100 percent cargo check. Are you looking at an optional

approach?

Secretary CHERTOFF. I think the answer is, first of all, we are

acutely aware of the fact that we screen and then we inspect a percentage based on what we screen. But if we were to physically inspect everything, I think you are quite right, the system would

grind to a halt. So we have to take into account a number of things.

We have to consider the risk. You know, we deal with cargo that

travels on passenger planes versus cargo that travels on cargo

planes. There may be some differences in the way we want to handle that.

And as a general principle I think we are always open to the

question of are there ways we can build a process that does not require Federal ownership of the process, but where the Federal Government sets standards and checks the checkers, but puts the responsibility on the people who are other players in the process, private players, to actually make sure that they are keeping standards.

Now, the devil is in the details. There may be different requirements in different settings. That, by the way, is a model we use

in a lot of different areas in government. We use it in the securities

area. I know when I was in the area of being a prosecutor, we had

increasingly found the use of private sector ombudsmen or inspectors general as a way to have compliance in business that did not

require the Federal Government itself to own the compliance. But

we could create a model in which someone else would have that responsibility with our supervision and checking.

So that is probably a long-winded answer to the question that we

are open to systems that minimize cost, maximize efficiency, and

give us the best possible protection.

68

Mr. MICA. Well, the same type of approach or similar approach,

having you set standards, say, for passenger screening. I believe

you have already certified some companies, and we have five private screening companies that have worked very well under Federal supervision. Micro-managing all of that from Washington in

sort of a Soviet style system has proven very difficult. I mean, you

haven’t been in office that long, but you will be getting requests

from Members here. The lines are backed up at my airport. What

are you going to do in Orlando? And I am chairman of Aviation.

We had a request for additional screeners. It took some 6 months

to do an evaluation. Then by the time the folks got on board—well,

they changed the numbers slightly—the situation had changed because of the fluctuation of schedules and requirements and season,

conventions, all kinds of things.

Is it possible for us to look at decentralizing the system? You

know, we have the opt-out which I authored in the bill. And the

major problem, too, we have with opt-out right now—and many airports would do it across the country if the liability question was

satisfactorily resolved for them. Where are we on that?

Secretary CHERTOFF. Well, as I say, we do have some pilot programs, I think five. We have had five opt-outs. We are always interested, obviously, in seeing how that approach compares with the

current approach. As I said earlier, I continue to think—well, we

have identified, but deploying existing technologies that would do

a better job in terms of puffers and back-scatter, if we can finance

that and get it out there, that is going to make a big difference.

As far as the SAFETY Act goes, that is a very significant tool if

we are going to get the private sector involved in carrying its share

of the burden of security. And I am pleased to say that we have,

in the, I guess, 31⁄2 months I have been on the job, we have approved I think more than twice as many applications than had

been approved during the preceding 2 years. But I don’t regard

that as a mission accomplished; I regard that as merely a kind of

a direction we have to point the way.

Philosophically, my understanding of the intent to Congress with

the SAFETY Act was not to put the DHS in the position of picking

the best or the winner or having a competition, but picking technologies that were good, that added value, and then getting them

reasonable protection under the SAFETY Act. And I think if we

have an appropriate philosophy, we are going to see a much more

efficient use of that process.

Mr. MICA. Well, the high-tech proposal that we have offered, just

in conclusion, we solicited your support because high tech is the

answer, not only expediting checked baggage screening, but also

passengers, and giving us better detection at much lower cost, as

GAO had pointed out.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you.

Mr. Duncan.

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Secretary, a couple of years ago, when the Congress passed

the farm bill and it had the word security in it, the Wall Street

Journal had an editorial which said that any time a bill had the

word security in it, we should give it four times the scrutiny, beVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:49 Dec 06, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00072 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\21954.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
69

cause their point was that every department and agency was trying

to come up with security measures so they could get higher funding.

And I remember when Governor Gilmore, who chaired the President’s Commission on Terrorism and what to do about it, in his

final report to the President, in his letter he said we must resist

the urge to try to seek total security, because it is not achievable

and it will drain resources away from things that are attainable.

So it seems to me that what the most difficult question here is

how do you achieve the balance necessary? Because we all want to

keep the country as safe as possible, and, yet, we are thousands of

times more likely to be killed in a car wreck on the highways, or

even more likely to be struck by lightning or win a lottery, than

being killed by a terrorist.

So how do you achieve that balance? What is the common sense

approach that is necessary to do what we need to do but not go ridiculously overboard in that process? I have heard on the news and

read that there are hundreds of companies now and thousands of

ideas that have been submitted to your Department. Everybody

has the latest product, the latest idea. I mean, this seems to me

to be a very difficult process, but I just wanted to get your thoughts

in response to what I have just said.

Secretary CHERTOFF. My response is I agree 100 percent with

what you just said. We should be a secure nation, but not a security nation; meaning our life should not just be about security, our

life should be about our prosperity and our freedom. And our security is what is indispensable to preserve our way of life.

I think the first thing we do is we have an honest—we are honest with the American people; we say exactly what you have said

and what I have said, we are not going to protect everybody

against every bad thing every place at every moment. Before September 11, apart from terrorism, there have been bad things that

have happened; there have been train derailments, there have been

fires, there have been things of that sort. We have to take reasonable precautions.

And that is where risk management comes in. We have to identify those things that are truly catastrophic and we really have to

work hard on those. And then there are things that are going to

happen that are going to be bad, but, frankly, we are going to look

to our State and local partners and private citizens to take reasonable precautions.

As you say, every day we make judgments, we take some risks,

because we want to be able to get in the car, go to work or go to

the movies. So part of it is we have to make sure we have a very

clear statement to the American people, which I think, by the way,

they will have no trouble understanding, because I think they do

it in their own life. We need to build risk management into our programs and we need to then walk the walk, meaning we need to

make decisions that do not overprotect.

And what I am happy to say is I think in some of the things we

have been able to do since I got here, which I know about, we have

started to make some decisions that I think are common sense decisions that balance risks. For example, there was an issue about

should we remove placards, hazardous material placards, warning

70

placards from railcars because there is some risk that might identify a target for a terrorist.

And we balanced the risk, we said, look, it is more important to

have first responders know what is in the car, if there is an accident, than it is to worry if some terrorist is going to read it. So we

said, OK, we are going to keep the placards up. General aviation

at Reagan. Again, we balanced risks against benefits, and we have,

in principle, come up with the idea that we are going to open it up

in a limited, controlled fashion.

So we are now starting to make decisions in this Department

that produce results that balance properly, and I think the more

we do that the better off we are going to be.

Mr. DUNCAN. Well, very good answer. Let me go to another direction very quickly. I have read several articles that we are most vulnerable now on cybersecurity. We have taught especially young

people, but we are teaching almost everybody the worst of the computer today. And I know they can do miraculous things, but are

you also discussing or looking into encouraging companies and

agencies to keep old-fashioned backup paper systems? Or what

steps are you taking to really work on this cybersecurity threat,

which I read is extremely dangerous?

Secretary CHERTOFF. Well, as I said, I met this morning with the

Business Software Alliance, which are CEOs of a number of prominent companies, to talk about cybersecurity. We have identified

that as something we need to beef up in our Department. Part of

it is having defenses against various kinds of cyber attacks; part

of it is physical security. You know, there are technologies now

where you have dual authorizations; not only a password, but it is

a thumb print. And promoting that kind of security and building

those kinds of standards in what we do internally, as well as what

our private sector does, is an important step in protecting our computer assets.

Mr. DUNCAN. All right.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Mr. Secretary, thank you very much for

being here. I am going to try to move quickly through my questions.

The new personnel system that is being implemented, the House

took some actions on an amendment a couple weeks ago that basically hurt the funding for that. Do you want to comment on that?

It is at a critical stage in its development, and zeroing out those

funds, has that hurt?

Secretary CHERTOFF. Mr. Chairman, it is essential we have the

funding to move the program forward. The worst possible world

would be to have a system that we cannot properly operate because

we haven’t trained people. If nothing else, fairness to the people in

the system requires that we fund it in a way that allows us to get

it moving.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. I talked to Mr. Menendez, whose amendment took the money. I don’t think he was even aware that this

was the money to implement that system. And I hope we can make

sure in the conference that money is restored.

Two weeks ago we did a press conference; your people were just

excellent. We had former TSA Assistant Secretary Stone announcVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:49 Dec 06, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00074 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\21954.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
71

ing the pending release of interim final rule reopening Reagan National Airport to general aviation. Do you know what the status of

that rule is?

Secretary CHERTOFF. I believe we are working on the technical

aspects of the rule, and I hope to have it out within a few weeks.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

The U.S. VISIT program is absolutely critical at this point. What

kind of plans does the Department have to generate stakeholder

ownership, as well as a buy-in at the Department of State and the

Department of Justice in order to have a really, truly integrated

border management system? Also, what are the next major increments of the U.S. VISIT program that DHS would deliver, and how

is it going from your perspective?

Secretary CHERTOFF. Well, it has been very successful so far. By

the way, when I was in Europe, I had unsolicited praise from three

separate government officials in European countries about how Europeans like the system because it moves them much more efficiently. We are working to put—we have pilot programs with U.S.

VISIT at several ports of exit, so we can get the exit piece of it,

and we are now more efficient about being able to tap into both our

own data base and the FBI’s data base from a single point of contact at each of the ports of entry where we have deployed U.S.

VISIT. We are going to continue the program going forward and we

are going to use it as a platform to actually have a more robust

effort to have knowledge of who is coming in and who is leaving

our border.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you.

Switching to cybersecurity, do you see a need to have a senior

person in the White House or OMB to coordinate cybersecurity policy across the Government agencies, or is this DHS’s role, or do you

think DHS should be maybe working with the critical infrastructure that is owned by the private sector and coordinating policies?

I think you know what I am asking.

Secretary CHERTOFF. Yes. We are looking to upgrade our capability in terms of doing our cybersecurity piece, and a large part of

what we do is we network, not surprisingly, with the private sector,

because they actually own most of the assets and they have a good

deal of the ingenuity. So we are looking to, as part of our second

stage review, find a way to further build on those relationships to

give us kind of a comprehensive approach to dealing with

cybersecurity.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you.

Let me just finally ask—there has been a considerable debate up

here over container security and how much is actually inspected.

Could you just give us your views in terms of how safe the containers are coming to this country, what other strategies might be pursued, how open you are to some new ideas in those areas?

Secretary CHERTOFF. I will answer both parts of that. We use a

layered approach now. We screen 100 percent, we inspect those

containers that, under our screening system, are high risk. We are

continuing to move to commence the inspection process at the port

of departure, as opposed to the port of entry. We are deploying radiation detection monitors. I announced last week that by the end

of the year the Port of Los Angeles, which I think is the largest

72

in the United States for containers, would be fully deployed with

radiation portal monitors by the end of the year.

The next stage, which I think you asked about, is equally important. I think——

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Let me just try to take that a different

way. Let me look at an idea. For example, the SEC would require

traded companies to have their financial affairs in order. But they

don’t actually check the books themselves; they have third-party

auditors, certified auditors with their reputations on the line, accomplish that. Is there any way that the CBP should look at shifting that type of system where you could be prepared by independent third-party auditors, rather than having you do that? Is that

a concept, do you think?

Secretary CHERTOFF. Absolutely. I think a concept we look at is

the idea, again, of using, as I said, the private inspectors general

and modern supply chain management. Companies now have the

ability to track their stuff at a very specific level. We are starting

to talk about how we can tap into that expertise, so we don’t have

to own everything ourselves. We want to set the baseline, we want

to be confident and assured; we don’t necessarily want to operate

it all as a government operation.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Souder.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Secretary, if anything anybody has watched is

the breathtaking scope of the job that you have, and I wanted to

raise—it is an unusual opportunity here as you are redoing the Department—a couple of additional questions, and I know we will

continue to work through these both on homeland security and

other areas.

First, let me thank you for your efforts on the Coast Guard, because that is one of the classic examples of multitasking. If the

boats go out of Alaska, the fishing industry and all of Alaska and

the Northwest United States could be destroyed. If we don’t have

search and rescue in the Great Lakes, people are going to drown,

and off Florida and elsewhere. In the Caribbean we depend on the

Coast Guard for drug interdiction, as well as terrorist interdiction.

And the bottom line is if you don’t have more boats, these boats

can’t be in harbor, in the Caribbean, in Alaska, on the Great Lakes.

And I appreciate your support for our boats, and we are going to

meet more. But I appreciate your earlier comments.

Also, I know yesterday the drug task force meeting was canceled.

I hope you can do that. Many members have expressed to me—because you are the largest combined drug agency that there is because of the legacy Border Patrol, legacy Customs, Air and Marine,

Shadow Wolves, Coast Guard. All those things are in your Department, and 30,000 people die from narcotics. Terrorism is a perceived and there is certainly a great potential threat, but every

year narco-terrorists are doing this, and the money is very interrelated.

Also, I have interacted with your staff on the Capitol airspace security question. I spent quite a bit of time with Chairman Rogers

last night, and he is working with that. I just believe there needs

to be better coordination. We weren’t even out of the cloakroom and

that building would have been blown up.

73

We are dependent, here in the Capitol Building, on earlier warning, earlier detection, and certainty of security, because there is no

way they can move us out of these buildings, no matter how hard

they try, and they were yelling at all of us but we can’t get out.

And it is clear there are still arguments going on between the different agencies, and it isn’t just a matter of the White House. Congress and the Supreme Court are equal branches, and there has to

be some kind of coordinated security.

Also, Congressman Reyes raised on Fox and Friends this morning another unusual thing related to the border, and that is Mexicans are immediately deported if you don’t have another crime. At

El Paso they used to have 17 times you were detained, but as long

as you don’t have another crime now, they just send you back to

Mexico.

But we have about 10 percent of the people who aren’t Mexicans.

When I was on the border last, there were Brazilians, Middle Easterners being picked up, and we don’t have detention facilities to

put them in. They are then on a deportation hearing up to their

own recognizance. We have enough of a problem with people coming in with Mexican IDs and going back to Mexico.

But clearly, we are going to have to have some kind of way to

address these others who are not coming back for their deportation

hearings. And while they may not have a criminal record, they certainly are potential. It is a huge vulnerability. And I wonder if that

and one other question if you could address. Do you support additional detention centers for non-Mexicans so that we don’t just release them into the United States?

And then the last thing is, given the incident on the Canadian

border last week with the murderer who killed the two Canadian

citizens, we have a problem at these small border crossings. Shortterm it is not our greatest problem, but the millennium bomber

came across at a small crossing at Port Angeles. It was dependent

on the local agent from your Department actually intuitively saying

this person seems suspicious.

And we don’t have adequate blood detection equipment; we don’t

have adequate other types of things to put at all these small borders. But I wonder if this has done any re-evaluation. This guy had

a bloody chain saw in his back seat and other guns. Is there some

kind of additional type of check that this has made you re-evaluate,

like a bloody chainsaw rule or something?

Secretary CHERTOFF. Those are a lot of questions. I think they

break into two parts. Let me try to answer them both.

We are very mindful of the issue of people other than Mexicans

across the southern border. One approach which we have expanded

is expedited removal, which allows us to remove them more quickly. There is now additional funding in the budget for more beds.

Clearly, the ability to detain—you know, we detain those who have

criminal records. The ability to expand and detain others, particularly those who are flight risks, is important.

We also are looking at alternative ways of ensuring that if we

release people, we can get them back, which is bracelets or monitoring and supervision. So those are our approaches that we are

working on now to see if we can have a better ability to make sure

people don’t just get released into the population and never return.

74

On the issue of the report on the Canadian citizen, I don’t want

to get too specific. I will say that, as with the Rissom case, our best

weapon in many cases is still good old-fashioned, well trained intuition. Even with the machinery, even with the high tech, you have

to read it, and that requires training. And I am continually impressed by the phenomenal job that our folks do at the border and

at the airports in picking up on the cues that you need to know

something.

I think in this particular case, in fairness, there was not a failure

to identify that there was an issue. My understanding is that the

local Border Patrol folks questioned the person, seized the weapons, checked relentlessly to see if there were any outstanding warrants or paper or charges.

At the end of the day, though, a U.S. citizen is entitled to return

to the country, and we cannot hold people without a legal basis.

And I think in that particular case, whatever the ultimate disposition of the case is, there was no legal basis on which to hold this

person. So it was not a failure of investigation or failure of the

process, it was kind of an inherent limitation of our system of law.

Mr. SOUDER. Is there an automatic check with the RCMP?

Secretary CHERTOFF. I don’t know if there is an automatic check,

but my understanding is they checked with every conceivable—in

every way they could think of to see if there was paper out. I think

they caught onto the fact that there was something to ask about.

That is my understanding; that is what I have been told.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you.

Mr. SHAYS [presiding]. I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Secretary, you have a reputation that says that you think

strategicly, that you are organized, that you are demanding. I

think those are some very important characteristics, and we appreciate the job you are doing and we appreciate your coming before

this committee.

Some of your staff, when we put in the legislation on color coded

in the authorization bill, almost seemed offended that we would

put it in the legislation, because I think you folks are moving away

from colors to be a little more helpful. But I just want to understand your attitude about how the alert system should work.

Secretary CHERTOFF. Well, first of all, I want to be clear, because

there is sometimes a little bit of a misunderstanding. The Department of Homeland Security is not on the alert system, it is actually

an HSPD, a Presidential directive. And a number of agencies participate in the process of setting the alert. The system serves two

functions——

Mr. SHAYS. Let me just say parenthetically, that is why we wanted to have some say in that by why we put it in the authorization

bill.

Secretary CHERTOFF. I think it serves two functions. One is we

have geared in the private sector and State and local government

a series of measures that one takes when we get up to orange, including certain funding mechanisms. So obviously we now have

baked into the system a whole lot of stakeholders who have made

their own arrangements based on the idea of elevating the level.

Sometimes, as was the case last year, I think in the financial sector, in the New York metropolitan area, we are able to give some

75

specificity to the threat. Sometimes the threat, although credible,

is not particularly specific, and we have to weigh whether, under

the circumstances, we should advise State and locals and private

sector to take additional protective measures. That is a hard task.

There is a public awareness dimension as well, which is also important but has certain different dynamics. As with anything else,

this is a system which we have had experience with for 2 or 3

years. It clearly makes sense to look at it and see if there are improvements that should be made. Congress has indicated we should

do that.

We want to make sure, at the end of the day, we can preserve

both elements, we can have a system that works for our stakeholders operationally and also a system that is not overly alarming to

the public, gives them reasonable insight into what is going on in

the world around them, but does not place a burden on them or impede the living of their daily lives.

Mr. SHAYS. Well, let me just share with you that I think our legislation clearly wants you to be geographic when you can be, to be

economic sector specific when you can be, and it wants us to tell

the public what it means, in other words, what actions they might

take.

And I can tell you a few years ago, just close to the New Year’s

Eve, we knew that we were looking for radioactive material; we

knew we were looking in five cities. And I will tell you every staff

member who had that briefing made sure they took specific action

and didn’t go in specific places. And it seemed outrageous to me

that the people who knew what the threat was took one action and

the people in general, who didn’t, had no sense of what action they

should have taken.

Secretary CHERTOFF. Well, you know, we do try, and obviously

want to continue to try, to be as specific as to sector or as to geography as we can be. You know, the issue of what we can tell people, we are obviously always constrained by sources and methods,

and we have to be careful sometimes not to create a panic. I mean,

often we get information that is very—you really have a doubt and

you have to balance whether it is sufficiently definite that you

want to put out a warning, particularly if it is going to result in

people taking dramatic activity that could have real unintended

consequences.

The last piece you raise is kind of a moral issue. You have more

insight into threats than the average person, and we often struggle

with the fact that we cannot take steps on our own behalf that we

would not warn other people about. That is kind of a personal

moral issue we have to deal with. But we clearly want to convey

as much information as we can consistent with not overly alarming

people and consistent with the quality of the intelligence and the

preservation of sources and methods.

Mr. SHAYS. It is clearly a tradeoff. But I will tell you if you know

that a site is dangerous, at least parents should—and it is a public

place—at least parents should have the recognition that if they go

there, they take a chance. And maybe they want to go but not

bring their kids. There are things that I think the public has a

right to know, and I hope that the Department will move more in

that direction than the other direction.

76

I know you want to leave. Let me just quickly ask you about the

cargo issue. And the cargo issue is, frankly, we don’t check cargo

on passenger aircraft. That is the bottom line. And I hope we refrain from saying we check it, because we have known cargo.

It strikes me that Congress has been reluctant to even put a

deadline on this. We did it for baggage, we did it for luggage under

the belly of an aircraft. Why shouldn’t we be expecting from you

that you should tell us this is what we can do by this period of time

and this is what we can do by this period, and this is what we can

do by this?

Secretary CHERTOFF. One of the things I asked when we set out

the second stage review is specifically this question. I said we need

to develop a plan to determine how we are going to handle the

issue of cargo on passenger planes and cargo on cargo planes. It

has to be a system that works in a way that does not destroy the

cargo industry, because it makes it impossible to ship things because it takes too long.

And it has to assure us reasonable security. Whether the approach is the one suggested by Chairman Mica or whether it is another approach, I do agree this is one of the things we need to have

an answer in really the short term, and I expect one of the things

that will emerge from the second stage review will be a plan and

a set of recommendations about how to go forward to address this

very important issue.

Mr. SHAYS. OK.

I know that you just have one question. The Secretary wanted

to leave by 12 noon, so if it could be a quick one.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Sure.

I was a former county executive during September 11, and one

of the bigger issues is the standards of getting money and resources to first responders to State and local, and then holding

them accountable for their performance. As you know, there has

been some lack of accountability, a lot of money that has been

wasted. And I just want to throw it out as far as where we are with

respect to the standards as it relates to getting resources, money

to the first responders, and then the issue of what is going for what

purpose and then holding them accountable for performing it?

Secretary CHERTOFF. We have a set of national preparedness

goals which breaks down basically all the things you need to be

prepared to do across the spectrum, from prevention through response, for first responders, and below each of the categories are

some very specific things that every particular region or area needs

to have. We don’t give design, we give performance.

You know, we recognize there are differences geographically and

in terms of communities. That is the template we are going to be

using in terms of distributing grant money. We are going to be saying these are the things you need to be coming forward and saying

I need money to do this, that, or the other thing under this particular goal or standard.

That tool, when it is fully deployed, will be a tool that will allow

us to have both intelligent application of resources and real accountability.

77

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Which includes areas, for instance, like

Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York versus maybe

Jackson Hole, WY.

Secretary CHERTOFF. Well, there are two separate issues. One is

how we divide among areas. And I think that we are going to do

based on a risk-based theory. And as I said, the President’s budget

and the administration has urged that we move away from large

guaranteed amounts per State, down to I think the House passed

0.25, because that gives us more money we can allocate.

But, you know, we are not driven by State; we are driven by infrastructure, we are driven by consequence. It is not a question of

jurisdictional lines, it is a question of what our analytical tools

show us is the most intelligent way to spend money.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Secretary, you have been generous with your

time, and we wanted to get you out by 12. Thanks for staying a

little later.

We would ask that the record remain open for 10 days for Members’ questions and any other information we need to insert into

the record.

Secretary CHERTOFF. Thank you very much.

Mr. SHAYS. And we will put Mr. Ruppersberger’s letter into the

record.

[The information referred to follows:]

78

79

80

81

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary.

This hearing is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 12:20 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]

[The prepared statements of Hon. Jon C. Porter and Hon. Kenny

Marchant and additional information submitted for the hearing

record follow:]

82

83

84

85

86

87

88

89

90

91

92

93

94

95

96

97

98

99

100

101

102

103

Æ