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) 512–2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402–0001

96–459 PDF 2008

S. HRG. 108–925 

THE 9/11 COMMISSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS 

FOR THE FUTURE OF FEDERAL LAW ENFORCEMENT AND BORDER SECURITY 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

AUGUST 19, 2004 

Serial No. J–108–92 

Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary 

( 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah, Chairman 

CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa 

ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania 

JON KYL, Arizona 

MIKE DEWINE, Ohio 

JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama 

LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina 

LARRY E. CRAIG, Idaho 

SAXBY CHAMBLISS, Georgia 

JOHN CORNYN, Texas 

PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont 

EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts 

JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR., Delaware 

HERBERT KOHL, Wisconsin 

DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California 

RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin 

CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York 

RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois 

JOHN EDWARDS, North Carolina 

BRUCE ARTIM, Chief Counsel and Staff Director 

BRUCE A. COHEN, Democratic Chief Counsel and Staff Director 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

STATEMENTS OF COMMITTEE MEMBERS 

Page 

Biden, Hon. Joseph R., Jr., a U.S. Senator from the State of Delaware, 

prepared statement .............................................................................................. 143 

Chambliss, Hon. Saxby, a U.S. Senator from the State of Georgia, charts ........ 154 

Cornyn, Hon. John, a U.S. Senator from the State of Texas, prepared statement ...................................................................................................................... 175 

Feingold, Hon. Russell D., a U.S. Senator from the State of Wisconsin, prepared statement ................................................................................................... 176 

Hatch, Hon. Orrin G., a U.S. Senator from the State of Utah ............................ 1 

prepared statement .......................................................................................... 187 

Kennedy, Hon. Edward M., a U.S. Senator from the State of Massachusetts, 

prepared statement .............................................................................................. 204 

Leahy, Hon. Patrick J., a U.S. Senator from the State of Vermont .................... 4 

prepared statement .......................................................................................... 208 

WITNESSES 

Baginski, Maureen A., Executive Assistant Director, Intelligence, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Washington, D.C. ............................................................ 14 

Hamilton, Lee, Vice Chair, 9/11 Commission, Washington, D.C., and Slade 

Gorton, Commissioner, 9/11 Commission, Washington, D.C. ........................... 7 

Hutchinson, Asa, Under Secretary for Border and Transportation Security, 

Department of Homeland Security, Washington, D.C. ..................................... 12 

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 

Responses of Maureen Baginski to questions submitted by Senators Hatch, 

Leahy, and Feingold ............................................................................................ 49 

Responses of Asa Hutchinson to questions submitted by Senators Hatch, 

Schumer, Leahy, and Feingold ........................................................................... 79 

Questions for Commissioners Lee Hamilton & Slade Gorton submitted by 

Senators Hatch, Leahy and Feingold. (Note: Responses to the written questions were not available at the time of printing.) .............................................. 113 

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD 

American Civil Liberties Union, Gregory T. Nojeim, Associate Director and 

Chief Legislative Counsel, and Timothy H. Edgar Legislative Counsel, 

Washington, D.C., statement .............................................................................. 120 

Baginski, Maureen A., Executive Assistant Director, Intelligence, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Washington, D.C., statement ......................................... 146 

Goodrich, Donald, Chairman of the Board, Families of September 11, statement ...................................................................................................................... 177 

Hamilton, Lee, Vice Chair, 9/11 Commission, Washington, D.C., and Slade 

Gorton, Commissioner, 9/11 Commission, Washington, D.C., statement ........ 179 

Hutchinson, Asa, Under Secretary for Border and Transportation Security, 

Department of Homeland Security, Washington, D.C., statement .................. 190 

(1) 

THE 9/11 COMMISSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE FUTURE OF FEDERAL LAW 

ENFORCEMENT AND BORDER SECURITY 

THURSDAY, AUGUST 19, 2004 

UNITED STATES SENATE, 

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY, 

Washington, D.C. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:32 a.m., in room 

SD–226, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Orrin G. Hatch, 

Chairman of the Committee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Hatch, DeWine, Chambliss, Cornyn, Leahy, 

Kennedy, Kohl, Feingold, and Schumer. 

Chairman HATCH. We are ready to go here. I think we will have 

all our panelists come up to the table so that when we ask questions, we can ask everybody. 

Senator LEAHY. But if we do that, Mr. Chairman, we are going 

to need more than—I think it would be almost—well, I think we 

would be rightly criticized if we then spent just the same few minutes each Senator Cornyn, myself or anybody else might have, and 

spread it across four instead of across two. 

Chairman HATCH. Well, let’s see what we can do. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ORRIN G. HATCH, A U.S. 

SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF UTAH 

Chairman HATCH. Let me just begin here by adding my voice to 

those who have expressed their appreciation to the members of the 

9/11 Commission and their staff for their hard work in putting together a thorough report that includes many thoughtful recommendations. 

I want to thank you, Senator Gorton, and you, Representative 

Hamilton. We know how hard you have worked to get this all done, 

and we have chatted with both of you extensively. 

We also owe a debt of gratitude to all of the witnesses who appeared before the Commission, especially the representatives of 

families of those who perished in the horrific and unjustified attacks of nearly 3 years ago. 

The first responsibility of government is to protect its citizens 

and we must never shy away from that duty. Today, the Judiciary 

Committee begins its discussion of the portions of the 9/11 Commission’s report and recommendations that relate to areas under 

our jurisdiction, such as border security and the role of the FBI in 

the field of counterintelligence. 

2 

Our colleagues on the Governmental Affairs Committee, led by 

Senators Collins and Lieberman, have asked for our Committee’s 

perspective on matters within our expertise, and I want to thank 

them for that. 

In addition to those recommendations that are designed to help 

our law enforcement and homeland security agencies identify, 

thwart and apprehend terrorists, we on the Senate Judiciary Committee have a role in implementing and overseeing any recommendations aimed at protecting our civil liberties. I expect, for 

example, that today’s hearing will help us gain a better understanding of the Commission’s recommendation calling for the creation of a new civil liberties board. 

Similarly, we must take to heart the Commission’s recommendation with respect to our obligation to provide humane treatment for 

those detained as suspected or captured terrorists. The abuse of 

prisoners such as occurred at Abu Ghraib is contemptible, as well 

as counter-productive to our efforts to stop Islamist terrorism at its 

countries of origin. 

Much attention has been focused on now-famous organizational 

chart on page 413 of the Commission report proposing the National 

Intelligence Director, the National Counterterrorism Center, and 

three dual-hatted deputies. As significant as the debate today over 

the structural issues is, it must not be allowed to crowd out an 

equally important policy discussion of those recommendations that 

urge America to stand up for and defend our core values and ideals 

with our foreign neighbors, and work to bring about long-term 

changes in the underlying economic and political conditions that 

foster Islamist terrorism in certain regions. 

We must not be under any illusion that we can reach accommodations with Islamist terrorist organizations like al Qaeda. The 

Commission found that these groups do not hold views, quote, 

‘‘with which Americans can bargain or negotiate...there is no common ground—not even respect for life—on which to begin a dialogue...[They] can only be destroyed or utterly isolated,’’ unquote. 

The deadly attacks on 9/11 required our country to adopt new 

laws to protect the public. I find constructive the Commission’s observation that, quote, ‘‘a full and informed public debate on the PATRIOT Act would be healthy,’’ unquote. In this regard, I would 

note that the Commission also found that ‘‘some executive actions 

that have been criticized are unrelated to the PATRIOT Act. The 

provisions that facilitate the sharing of information among intelligence agencies and between law enforcement and intelligence appear, on balance, to be beneficial,’’ unquote. 

The 9/11 Commission report documents the negative repercussions of the so-called wall that existed before enactment of the PATRIOT Act between intelligence and criminal investigators. Even if 

the Commission is accurate in its assessment that the July 1995 

procedures establishing the wall by Attorney General Reno, quote, 

‘‘were almost immediately misunderstood and misapplied,’’ unquote, there can be no doubt, as Chapter 8 of the report lays out 

in great detail, that creation of the wall between intelligence and 

criminal investigators impeded rigorous following of leads that may 

have prevented the 9/11 attacks. 

3 

The Commission’s report catalogs that on August 29, 2001, one 

frustrated FBI criminal investigator prophetically e-mailed across 

the wall to an FBI intelligence officer the following message after 

being denied the ability to access and use information about one 

key al Qaeda operative, quote, ‘‘...someday someone will die—and 

wall or not—the public will not understand why we were not more 

effective and throwing every resource we had at certain problems,’’ 

unquote. 

Never were more truer words written, but our job is to learn 

from our past mistakes in order to protect the American public in 

the future. If we carefully review the lessons contained in the 9/ 

11 Commission report and fairly evaluate its recommendations, we 

will be able to marshal our resources and carry out our 

counterterrorism programs more effectively and reduce the risk of 

terrorist attacks against Americans at home and abroad. 

For example, the Commission’s report compellingly demonstrates 

the importance of border security and tracking international travelers. Under Secretary Hutchinson will help us understand the administration’s views in this critical area. 

Also of great interest to the Judiciary Committee is the Commission’s recommendation relating to the future of the FBI in the war 

against terrorism. The 9/11 Commission report found that the FBI 

and Director Mueller have cooperated with the Commission. Recently, the FBI issued its formal response to the Commission’s recommendations and in each instance was either implementing those 

recommendations or reexamining its current policy in light of the 

recommendations. 

I would like to commend President Bush for his leadership in 

making certain that the key senior administration officials are giving the bipartisan 9/11 Commission report the respect and consideration that it merits and deserves. 

It appears to me that, by and large, all of the committees in the 

House and Senate are attempting to approach the report in a bipartisan manner, despite the fact that we are deep into the election 

cycle and despite the fact that some of the Commission’s recommendations are somewhat complex and controversial, such as 

those pertaining to changes in Congressional oversight of terrorism 

programs. 

I hope that this spirit of bipartisanship continues this morning 

so that we can go about the serious business of adopting the set 

of policies and laws that best protects the American public from 

terrorism, while preserving our traditional rights and liberties as 

American citizens. 

So I want to express my gratitude to all four of you being here— 

you two members of the Commission who have served so well and 

have given so much time to committees up here on Capitol Hill and 

have, I think, written an excellent report, for the work that the 

FBI does and, of course, Homeland Security does, represented by 

Ms. Baginski and Asa Hutchinson. I just want to tell you how 

grateful we are to have all of you here. 

We will put your full statements in the record. I notice they are 

rather long. We would like you to summarize so that we have 

enough time for questions here today. 

4 

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

So we will turn to Senator Leahy, and then we will turn to the 

witnesses. 

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

FROM THE STATE OF VERMONT 

Senator LEAHY. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am glad you 

are having this hearing and I thank you for accommodating schedules so we could do it. 

I am glad to see all the witnesses, especially my old friends Lee 

Hamilton and Slade Gorton. I had a chance to talk with both of 

them, although for months I felt as though they had never left because I would see them everyday on television. 

I think that as the Commission’s Chair and Vice Chair, Governor 

Kean and Congressman Hamilton offered extraordinary leadership, 

leadership in the highest traditions of our great country in guiding 

the investigation through difficult shoals and bringing the Commission not only to constructive, but unanimous findings and recommendations. 

I have also heard the high praise that you and the other commissioners have had for the Commission staff. I join you in that praise. 

The report you have produced is an exceptional product and deserves the Nation’s attention and deserves the Congress’ prompt 

consideration. 

Senator Gorton, I was so proud of many of the comments you 

made, but especially when you remarked that the commissioners 

checked their politics at the door. I think the quality of the Commission’s report bears out what you had said. 

Working in this non-partisan fashion, the 9/11 Commission has 

given us a chance for a fresh start in tackling the issues the report 

has identified. We shouldn’t squander that chance. We should use 

the Commission as our model. After all, the terrorists don’t attack 

Democrats or Republicans or independents. When they strike, they 

attack all Americans. I know my friend, Asa Hutchinson, has said 

very similar things in the past, and he and Ms. Baginski know this 

very, very well. 

I also want to commend the tireless efforts of the families and 

survivors who fought so hard to ensure that this Commission was 

established. Like the commissioners, the victims groups put partisanship aside and they pushed for an open, deliberative and accountable investigation, moving us forward in a constructive manner to better protect this Nation. Many of the victims groups are 

here today. I want to thank them, I want to welcome them. 

I might ask, Mr. Chairman, for consent to submit for the record 

the written statement of Donald Goodrich, of Bennington, Vermont. 

Chairman HATCH. Without objection. 

Senator LEAHY. He lost his son, Pete, on September 11th and he 

has come to work closely with me on victims issues. I want to express my deep appreciation to him. 

We can’t overstate the importance of oversight. The Commission 

deserves our praise for fighting for full access to documents and official testimony, and for acknowledging in its final report the importance of open government. They stated that secrecy can harm 

5 

oversight and note that democracy’s best oversight mechanism is 

public disclosure. 

We are going to focus on two areas of great significance—FBI reform and border security. Both are topics well-known to this a 

Committee and have been of particular concern to me. My home 

State of Vermont shares 90 miles of our international border with 

Canada and I know the challenges faced there. 

The attacks of 9/11 did not create the problems the Commission 

has identified; it simply brought them into sharp relief. As someone 

who comes from a law enforcement background, several of them 

are problems that have concerned me for some time, and I know 

they concern others on this Committee from both sides of the aisle. 

Addressing some of these deficiencies was my first priority when I 

was Chairman for a few months before September 11th. 

During our hearings that summer, it was already clear that the 

FBI over the years has lost its way on some of the fundamentals, 

the ABCs, starting with accountability; basic tools like computers, 

technology and translators; and culture issues, like the treatment 

of whistleblowers and a resistance to share information outside the 

Bureau. 

We began bipartisan hearings on reforming the FBI just weeks 

before September 11th, and the new FBI Director pledged to make 

the changes necessary. 

The Director has made significant progress on several fronts, but 

the Commission’s report strikes several familiar chords, showing 

that there is much ground yet to cover before we can say that the 

FBI is as effective as Americans need the Bureau to be in preventing and combatting terrorism. 

We continued the hearings on FBI reform after September 11th. 

We sharpened our focus on the relevance of these longstanding 

problems. Our inquiry constituted the most intensive FBI oversight 

in many years and generated wide-ranging recommendations. The 

Commission report identified many of the same failures within the 

FBI that we had highlighted in those hearings. It recognizes, as do 

I, that Director Mueller has already taken certain steps to solve 

structural problems and that he is striving to change the culture 

within the Bureau. These are important steps, but it also points 

out that we have to institutionalize these changes or they will die 

on the vine, as they have in the past, when you have lapses in 

leadership or oversight. 

There are two particular areas that gravely concern me—and, 

Ms. Baginski, I will be going into this later—the FBI’s foreign language translation program and its information technology system. 

These are the nuts and bolts of effective law enforcement and counterintelligence, but we know in the months leading up to September 11, 2001, they were in sorry shape. Three years later, and 

millions and millions of dollars later, we want to know what 

progress has been made. 

Ms. Baginski has said recently she was optimistic about the status of the FBI’s foreign translation program. I hope you have some 

good news for us today because last spring, despite claims of near 

real-time translation of wiretaps, the FBI could not state with any 

certainty how much time passes between the time a telephone call 

is taped and when it is translated. There is still a vast backlog, for 

6 

example, of material needing to be translated. The FBI sought an 

unprecedented number of new FISA wiretaps last year. I have to 

ask, how does this impact their resources? 

The FBI longstanding problems of mastering the computer technology that is essential to modern-day law enforcement has been 

another great failing. The Trilogy solution that the FBI said would 

be the answer to the computer problems has been a disaster. By 

now, two phases of Trilogy have been completed. All agents at least 

have their own computers and can send e-mails to one another, 

something my 12-year-old neighbor was able to do years ago. It is 

hardly a noteworthy accomplishment in the Information Age, especially $500 to $600 million later. My neighbor did it for a couple 

of hundred dollars. 

What troubles me, however, is the FBI agents are still trying to 

connect the dots using pencil and paper. That is fine for kindergarten, but it is not fine for our FBI. The long anticipated virtual 

case file system which would put intelligence at the fingertips of 

the agents in the field is far behind schedule. It is vastly over 

budget. It should have been operational long ago, but the dates 

keep getting extended. In May, the Director assured us that it 

would be deployed by the end of the year. A month later, in June, 

we were told there would be further delays. At this rate, by the 

time it is finally implemented, it will be outdated. We should be 

working with state-of-the-art technology. 

There are other critical areas that need reform within the FBI. 

Some we learned from the 9/11 Commission, some we learned from 

our own oversight efforts and reports by the DOJ Inspector General, but some have come to light only because of whistleblowers. 

Senator Grassley and I spent a great deal of time listening to reports from whistleblowers because we believed they may provide us 

with information critical to our National security. As a result of 

Enron and related corporate scandals, I worked with Senator 

Grassley and others in Congress to give broad protection to whistleblowers in the private sector. 

But so far, Congress has not acted to protect those who come forward from the FBI. The FBI Reform Act that Senator Grassley and 

I introduced in July of 2003 is drawn from the FBI Reform Act that 

had been unanimously approved by this Committee a year before. 

It has died on the Senate floor because of anonymous holds on the 

Republican side. It does address several outstanding problems in 

the Bureau, and acting on those reforms is long overdue. 

Finally, I want to raise the question of State grants for homeland 

security funding. The 9/11 Commission recommended that homeland security assistance should be based strictly on an assessment 

of risks and security questions. I believe the real problem we face 

is a failure on the part of both the Congress and the administration 

to make enough of an overall commitment of resources to first responders. 

Instead of making first responders the priority they should be, 

some have preferred to pit State against State for the inadequate 

Federal resources that are available. Rather than turning large 

States against small States, the needs of both should be recognized. 

The Commission has rendered to history its careful reconstruction. The Commission has given to us the task of carefully considVerDate Aug 31 2005 15:22 Oct 22, 2008 Jkt 096459 PO 00000 Frm 00010 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\GPO\HEARINGS\96459.TXT SJUD1 PsN: CMORC
7 

ering its recommendations drawn from those events, recommendations that in several ways would help the FBI get back to mastering its ABCs. We owe our fellow citizens and the families of 

those whose lives were lost or forever changed by those attacks our 

full and respectful consideration of these findings and recommendations. But let me say one more time, every single American owes 

an enormous debt of gratitude to Congressman Hamilton, to Senator Gorton and all the other Commission members. 

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman HATCH. Thank you, Senator. 

We will start with Congressman Hamilton, and then Senator 

Gorton. We would like you to summarize, if you can. We will put 

all full statements into the record, and then hopefully we will have 

enough time for some questions. 

So, Lee, we are happy to have you here. We welcome all four of 

you here. We are grateful for the service you have given and we 

look forward to hearing your testimony. 

STATEMENT OF LEE HAMILTON, VICE CHAIR, 9/11 COMMISSION, WASHINGTON, D.C., AND SLADE GORTON, COMMISSIONER, 9/11 COMMISSION, WASHINGTON, D.C. 

Mr. HAMILTON. Thank you very much, Chairman Hatch, Ranking 

Member Leahy and the other distinguished Senators of this Committee. We are very pleased to be before you today. I want to just 

mention that Chairman Kean, who deserves enormous credit for 

his leadership in this Commission, is not able to be with us today. 

But I am delighted to have joining me Senator Gorton, who made 

innumerable contributions to this report and served with extraordinary distinction. We are aware, of course, that August is not usually a month when you meet, and we are very grateful to you for 

your willingness to be here to hear our testimony. 

What we will do is kind of alternate in summarizing our paragraphs, as the Chairman has indicated. You have asked us to discuss three topics—our findings and recommendations with regard 

to the FBI; secondly, border security; and, third, the PATRIOT Act. 

We will discuss each of these in turn. 

Senator? 

Mr. GORTON. The FBI has for several decades performed two important but related functions. First, it serves as our premier Federal law enforcement agency investigating possible violations of 

Federal criminal statutes and working with Federal prosecutors to 

develop and bring cases against violators of those laws. 

Second, it is an important member of the intelligence community, 

collecting information on foreign intelligence or terrorist activities 

within the United States. That information can be used either for 

additional counterintelligence or counterterrorism investigation or 

to bring criminal prosecutions. 

We focused on the FBI’s performance as an intelligence agency 

combatting the al Qaeda threat within the United States before 9/ 

11. And like the Joint Inquiry of the Senate and House Intelligence 

Committees before us, we found that performance seriously deficient. 

8 

Finally, when FBI agents did develop important information 

about possible terrorist-related activities, that information often 

did not get effectively communicated either within the FBI itself or 

in the intelligence community as a whole. 

Within the FBI itself, communication of important information 

was hampered by the traditional case-oriented approach of the 

agency and the possessive case file mentality of FBI agents. As this 

Committee is only too familiar with the information technology 

problems that have hampered the FBI’s ability to know what it 

knows for years, even when information was communicated from 

the field to headquarters, it didn’t always come to the attention of 

the Director or other top officials who should have seen it. 

This was the case in the now-famous incidents in the summer of 

2001 of the Phoenix electronic communication about Middle Eastern immigrants in flight schools and the Minneapolis field office’s 

report to headquarters about the arrest of Zacarias Moussaoui. 

The other internal barrier to communication of intelligence information between the FBI intelligence officials and the FBI criminal 

agents and the Federal prosecutors was the wall between intelligence and law enforcement that developed in the 1980s and reinforced in the 1990s. 

Through a combination of court decisions, pronouncements from 

the Department of Justice and its Office of Intelligence Policy and 

Review, and risk-averse interpretations of those pronouncements 

by the FBI, the flow of information between the intelligence and 

criminal sides of the FBI and the Justice Department was significantly choked off—a phenomenon that continued until after 9/11, 

when the Congress enacted the PATRIOT Act and when the Justice Department successfully appealed a FISA court decision that 

effectively reinstated the wall. 

These failures in internal communications were exacerbated by 

a reluctance of the FBI to share information with its sister agencies in the intelligence community. The FBI, under the leadership 

of its current Director, Robert Mueller, has undertaken significant 

reforms to try to deal with these deficiencies and build a strong capability in intelligence and counterterrorism. 

Because of the history of serious deficiencies and because of lingering doubts about whether the FBI can overcome its deep-seated 

law enforcement culture, the Commission gave serious consideration to proposals to move the FBI’s intelligence operation to a new 

agency devoted exclusively to intelligence collection inside the 

United States, a variant of the British security service popularly 

known as MI–5. 

We decided not to make such a recommendation for several reasons set forth in our report. Chief among them were the disadvantages of separating domestic intelligence from law enforcement and 

losing the collection resources of FBI field offices around the country, supplemented by their relationships with State and local law 

enforcement agencies. 

Another major reason was civil liberties concerns that would 

arise from creating outside of the Justice Department an agency 

whose focus is on collecting information from and about American 

citizens, residents and visitors. We also believe that while the jury 

is still out on the ultimate success of the reforms initiated by DirecVerDate Aug 31 2005 15:22 Oct 22, 2008 Jkt 096459 PO 00000 Frm 00012 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\GPO\HEARINGS\96459.TXT SJUD1 PsN: CMORC
9 

tor Mueller, the process he has started is promising, and many of 

the benefits that might be realized by creating a new agency will 

be achieved, we are convinced, if our important recommendations 

on restructuring the intelligence community, creation of a national 

counterterrorism center and a national intelligence director with 

real authority to coordinate and direct the activities of our intelligence agencies are implemented. 

An FBI that is an integral part of the NCTC and is responsive 

to the leadership of the national intelligence director will work 

even more effectively with the CIA and other intelligence agencies, 

while retaining the law enforcement tools that continue to be an 

essential weapon in combatting terrorism. 

What the Commission recommends, therefore, is that further 

steps be taken by the President, the Justice Department and the 

FBI itself to build on the reforms that have been undertaken already and to institutionalize those reforms so that the FBI is permanently transformed into an effective intelligence and 

counterterrorism agency. The goal, as our report states, is to create 

within the FBI a specialized and integrated national security workforce of agents, analysts, linguists and surveillance specialists who 

create a new FBI culture of expertise in national security and intelligence. 

Mr. HAMILTON. On Border Patrol, I think our principal finding 

was a simple one, and that was that border security was not seen 

as a national security matter. We looked at it as a narcotics problem, illegal immigration, smuggling of weapons of mass destruction. But we simply did not exhibit a comparable level of concern 

about terrorists’ ability to enter and stay in the United States. 

Al Qaeda was very skillful in exploiting the gaps in our visa 

entry systems. They even set up their own passport office. They developed very good contacts with travel facilitators and were very effective in getting into the country. 

The Commission found that many of the 19 hijackers were potentially vulnerable to detection by border authorities, for all kinds of 

reasons. Some made false statements on their visa applications, 

some lied, some violated the rules of immigration. One failed to enroll in school; two over-stayed their time. But neither the intelligence community nor the border security agencies nor the FBI 

had programs in place to analyze and act upon that intelligence on 

their travel tactics. 

Since 9/11, we know that important steps have been taken to 

strengthen our border security. We spell them out in our statement. I will not go into those. The efforts have certainly made us 

safer, but not safe enough. As a Nation, we have not yet fully absorbed the lessons of 9/11 with respect to border security. 

The terrorists are travelers; they are jet-setters in many ways. 

They have to leave safe havens, they have to travel clandestinely, 

they have to use evasive techniques, they have to alter travel documents. All of these things give us an opportunity to zero in on the 

terrorists. So we have recommended a broad strategy that combines terrorist travel intelligence, operations, law enforcement, in 

a strategy to intercept terrorists, find their travel facilitators and 

constrain their mobility. 

10 

Mr. GORTON. Front-line border agencies must not only obtain 

from the intelligence community on a real-time basis information 

on terrorists. They must also assist in collecting it. Consular officers and immigration inspectors, after all, are the people who encounter travelers and their documents. Specialists must be developed and deployed in consulates and at the border to detect terrorists through their travel practices, including their documents. 

Technology has a vital role to play. Three years after 9/11, it has 

been more than enough time for border officials to integrate into 

their operations terrorist travel indicators that have been developed by the intelligence community. The intelligence community 

and the border security community have not been close partners in 

the past. This must change. 

We also need an operational program to target terrorist travel 

facilitators, forgers, human smugglers, travel agencies and corrupt 

border officials. Some may be found here, but most will be found 

abroad. Disrupting them would seriously constrain terrorists’ mobility. While there have been some successes in this area, intelligence far outstrips action. This problem illustrates the need for a 

national counterterrorism center. 

Investigations of travel facilitators invariably raise complicated 

questions. Should a particular travel facilitator be arrested or 

should he be the subject of continued intelligence operations? In 

which country should he be arrested? A central planning authority 

is needed to bring the numerous agencies to the table and to decide 

on the best course of action. 

Mr. HAMILTON. With regard to screening systems, we think the 

Government simply must accelerate its efforts to build a comprehensive biometric entry and exit screening system. The Congress has had an interest in that, but as a practical matter there 

hasn’t been any funding until the end of 2002. 

The new Department of Homeland Security, we believe, is emerging from its difficult start-up period, and we believe it is poised to 

move forward to implement Congress’s mandate in this area. We 

stress four principles. 

One is that the Department has to lead with a comprehensive 

screening system. We will have more to say about that, I am sure, 

in the Q and A period. It addresses the common problems, setting 

common standards with system-wide goals in mind. 

Secondly, a biometric entry and exit screening system is just fundamental to intercepting terrorists, and its development should be 

accelerated. Each element of that system is very important. It must 

enable the border officials to access all relevant information about 

a traveler in order to assess the risk they may pose. We must know 

who is coming into this country. We must know people are who 

they say they are. 

The third principle is that United States citizens should not be 

exempt from carrying biometric passports or other identities to be 

securely verified. And there should be a uniform program to speed 

known travelers so inspectors can focus their efforts on the ones 

that might pose greater risks. 

Mr. GORTON. We need to dedicate a much greater effort to collaboration with foreign governments with respect to border security. This means more exchange of information about terrorists and 

11 

passports, and improved global passport design standards. Implicit 

in this recommendation is continued close cooperation with Mexico 

and Canada. One particularly important effort is to improve 

screening efforts prior to departure from foreign airports, especially 

in countries participating in the visa waiver program. 

Mr. HAMILTON. Our law enforcement system has to send a message of welcome, tolerance and justice to members of the immigrant communities in the United States, fostering also a respect for 

the rule of law. Good immigration services are one way to reach out 

that is valuable, including for intelligence. 

State and local law enforcement agencies need more training; 

they need to partner with Federal agencies so that they can cooperate more effectively in identifying terrorist suspects. We also need 

secure identification, and that should begin in the United States. 

We believe that the Federal Government should set standards for 

the issuance of birth certificates and sources of identification such 

as drivers’ licenses. The bottom line is that our visa and border 

control systems must become an integral part of our 

counterterrorism intelligence system. 

Mr. GORTON. The USA PATRIOT Act, passed in the wake of the 

9/11 attacks, was substantially the product of this Committee. 

While a number of provisions of the Act were relatively non-controversial, updating existing authorities to take account of the digital age in which we now live, others are more far-reaching, granting to the FBI, the Department of Justice and other executive 

branch agencies important new authorities to use in combatting 

terrorism. 

For this reason, the Congress chose to sunset many of the provisions of the Act at the end of next year. We know that this Committee and the House Committee on the Judiciary will be holding 

hearings to determine whether to extend these expiring provisions 

and whether to make additional changes in the law. 

This Commission did not canvass the entire range of issues 

raised by the USA PATRIOT Act in detail. We have limited our 

specific recommendations with respect to the Act to those provisions that bear most directly on our mandate; i.e. those that relate 

to information-sharing in the intelligence and law enforcement 

communities. We believe that those provisions breaking down the 

wall that prevented the FBI from sharing intelligence information 

guaranteed under FISA with Federal prosecutors and allowing the 

Justice Department to share grand jury information with other intelligence and law enforcement agencies should be extended or 

made permanent. They are important in their own right and they 

have helped spur the increased sharing of information throughout 

the intelligence community that is vital to a successful 

counterterrorism program. 

We made a general recommendation that applies not only to consideration of other provisions of the PATRIOT Act, but also to 

other legislative or regulatory proposals that may impinge on individual rights or liberties, including personal privacy. The burden in 

all cases should be on those proposing the restriction to show that 

the gains that will flow in terms of national security are real and 

substantial and that individual rights and liberties will be adequately protected. We recommend the establishment of appropriate 

12 

guidelines for such programs. We also recommend the establishment in the executive branch of an oversight office or board to be 

a watchdog to assure maximum protection of individual rights and 

liberties in those programs. 

Let us conclude with what we said in our report. We must find 

ways of reconciling security with liberty, since the success of one 

helps protect the other. The choice between security and liberty is 

a false choice and nothing is more likely to endanger American liberties than the success of terrorist attacks at home. Our history 

has shown us that insecurity threatens liberty. Yet, if our liberties 

are curtailed, we lose the values that we are struggling to defend. 

We are now pleased to answer your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Messrs. Hamilton and Gorton appears as a submission for the record.] 

Chairman HATCH. Thank you very much. 

We want to thank you, Secretary Hutchinson, for being here. You 

have testified, I believe, 12 times so far before committees up on 

Capitol Hill here in this last short time, and we are grateful that 

you have been willing to come and testify here as well. 

Senator LEAHY. Asa spends more time here now than when he 

was in the House. 

Chairman HATCH. I don’t think you have to take that kind of 

stuff. 

[Laughter.] 

STATEMENT OF ASA HUTCHINSON, UNDER SECRETARY FOR 

BORDER AND TRANSPORTATION SECURITY, DEPARTMENT 

OF HOMELAND SECURITY, WASHINGTON, D.C. 

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Well, thank you, Chairman Hatch, Senator 

Leahy, members of the Committee. I would love to have an honorary seat somewhere here if I continue to testify, but it is always 

a privilege to be before this Committee. 

As we approach the anniversary of the September 11 attacks, it 

is important to recognize that significant progress has been made. 

But we also understand there is a great need to do more, and I am 

grateful for the testimony of Congressman Hamilton and Senator 

Gorton, who have done such a terrific job with the 9/11 Commission. The recommendations in their testimony today will help us to 

drive forward many of the initiatives that the Department of 

Homeland Security has been engaged in. 

I wanted to cover a couple of points that are covered in the Commission report and talk about some of the things we have done in 

this regard. 

In its report, the Commission noted that vigorous efforts to track 

terrorist financing must remain front and center in U.S. 

counterterrorism efforts. We certainly agree with this. Well over a 

year ago, the Department has worked in close cooperation with the 

FBI and others to track terrorist financing and to dismantle the 

sources of terrorist funding. 

The Department’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or 

ICE agents share all terrorist financing leads with the FBI under 

a memorandum of agreement with the Department of Justice. We 

have established a joint vetting unit to clear all investigations with 

any potential nexus to terrorist financing. We have also assigned 

13 

321 ICE agents to the FBI’s joint terrorism task forces, which is 

a very effective means of clearing information and enhancing cooperation. 

ICE initiated the Cornerstone program, which focuses on the systems of financing that criminals, terrorists and alien smugglers use 

to earn, store and move their proceeds. To date, Cornerstone has 

recovered $348 million in illegal currency and made 1,800 arrests. 

Another recommendation of the Commission was in reference to 

terrorist travel that was testified to previously, that we should 

combine terrorist travel intelligence, operations and law enforcement in a strategy to intercept terrorists and their facilitators as 

they go about their business. The Department has moved forward 

with this aggressively. There is more to be done. 

Through the National Targeting Center, which is operated by 

Customs and Border Protection, we use a variety of information to 

identify potentially high-risk travelers and shipments that should 

have more scrutiny. We have the Automated Targeting System 

that allows us through the NTC to analyze raw intelligence and 

travel data and commercial data to pinpoint anomalies to help us 

to be able to flag those that might pose a risk. That is the foundation, of course, for the Container Security Initiative, which is the 

cargo side of our inspections. So that is the capacity to look at terrorist travel. 

Secondly, we have our US–VISIT program that provides an important continuum of security that has improved our ability to target individuals, and hopefully to have the traveler files in place 

that the Commission has referred to. US–VISIT for the first time 

allows us to biometrically confirm the identity of foreign visitors as 

they enter our ports of entry. It has allowed us to freeze the identity of travelers, to positively match that identity with the individual’s travel document and to determine over-stays. 

We recognize the Commission’s recommendation that this program be accelerated, and this Congress has given us some very 

strict deadlines. We have met the deadlines that have previously 

been provided to us. This year, we are looking at the 50 busiest 

land ports as our deadline. We intend to make the very aggressive 

deadlines Congress has given, but if there are ways to accelerate 

this and expand it, we certainly are open to those possibilities. 

In the first 7 months of operation, US–VISIT processed nearly 7 

million foreign national applicants for admission at our air and sea 

ports of entry. During that time, 674 individuals have been identified through biometrics alone as being the subject of a lookout. Of 

the 674 hits, 64 percent were for criminal violations and 36 percent 

were for immigration violations alone. We continue to develop the 

exit capacity in reference to that program, now relying upon biographic information for exit procedures. 

Through US–VISIT, we caught a woman who had used a fraudulent visa to enter the United States over 60 times without being 

detected by standard biographic record checks. We also stopped a 

convicted rapist previously deported from the United States who 

had used nine different aliases and four dates of birth. US–VISIT 

enhances our ability to track criminal and terrorist travel. It also 

contains unprecedented privacy protections that are very important. 

14 

Those are the international travel components for the terrorists 

that may try to enter the U.S. We also, through TSA’s no-fly and 

selectee lists, look at domestic travel. We have to enhance the capabilities in that arena that we are working on. 

We also are concerned about our vast land borders that many of 

the Senators on this panel have raised issues concerning. The Commission’s report refers to having the capacity to monitor and respond to intrusions across our border. That is the basis of the Arizona Border Control Initiative, in which we have utilized unmanned aerial vehicles, new technologies and new personnel assigned to that difficult border region. 

The 9/11 Commission report recommends that the U.S. border security system should be integrated into a larger network of screening points. Integration, of course, is the main focus of the US– 

VISIT program that has brought together and made the databases 

speak to each other from the State Department, to our criminal 

databases, to our port of entry databases. We continue to expand 

that integration. 

Our first responsibility is to make sure that the systems we are 

working on operate effectively, from US–VISIT, to our pilot program on transportation worker identification credentials, to our 

registered traveler program. But we also recognize the need to review all of these programs and coordinate them together because 

they all look at a whole range of biometrics and we want to be able 

to coordinate those. The Department is accelerating that effort as 

well. 

Finally, on the USA PATRIOT Act, I would second the point that 

this has been a very helpful tool obviously to the FBI, but also to 

all who work in law enforcement. From a Department of Homeland 

Security standpoint, it has given us a greater capability to go after 

the bulk cash transfers of money that was previously a reporting 

violation, but now is a criminal offense. It also enhances the sharing of information between those in the intelligence community and 

the law enforcement side, breaking that wall down, that is helpful 

to our efforts as well. We are very focused on these initiatives. The 

Commission report will help us to push these forward even to a 

greater extent. 

I want to thank the Committee for their leadership on these very 

important issues. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hutchinson appears as a submission for the record.] 

Chairman HATCH. Well, thank you, Secretary Hutchinson. 

Ms. Baginski is the Executive Assistant Director of Intelligence 

for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. We are so grateful to have 

you here today, so we will take your testimony at this time. 

STATEMENT OF MAUREEN A. BAGINSKI, EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, INTELLIGENCE, FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION, WASHINGTON, D.C. 

Ms. BAGINSKI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and distinguished 

members of the Committee, for the opportunity to appear before 

you to discuss the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. The 

FBI applauds and is very grateful for the work of the Commission. 

15 

We are also grateful to the families for reminding us for whom and 

why we serve always. 

We are pleased that the Commission has embraced the general 

direction of our reform, and we agree wholeheartedly that much 

work remains to be done to institutionalize that reform. We are 

committed to doing everything that we have to do to do that. 

Intelligence, which we define as vital information about those 

who would do us harm, is a powerful tool in defense of the Nation. 

In using that tool comes great responsibility: first, the responsibility for producing and sharing that information, and the responsibility for its accuracy; second, the responsibility for ensuring the 

protection of the rights of U.S. citizens as it is produced and collected; and, third, the responsibility for using the Nation’s resources responsibly as you develop capabilities to do the intelligence mission. 

If intelligence is vital information about those who would do us 

harm, then the only true value of intelligence is in the eyes of the 

users of intelligence. The only true measure of the value of intelligence is whether or not it helps someone make a better decision. 

So in the eyes of the producer is not how we measure the value 

of intelligence. 

When we think about the range of decisiomakers that are necessary to defend our Nation, you could think about them as ranging from the President to the patrolman. And those of us with the 

responsibility of producing and sharing information must make 

sure that they are networked together with information that allows 

them to act in defense of the country. In the end, that is what intelligence really is. 

This is not the responsibility, as you say and know, of the Federal family alone. We are part of many networks. We are part of 

a Federal network. We are part of an intelligence community. We 

are part of the law enforcement community. We are part of 800,000 

State, local and tribal police officers who together, everyday, protect the Nation on the front lines. They will be the first to encounter the threat and they will be the first to defend against that 

threat. 

So everything that we have done in the FBI for intelligence has 

been about getting our own internal act together so that we can be 

the best node possible on this network, the network itself is only 

going to be as effective as its individual members coming together 

in that network. 

My responsibility at the FBI has been to take charge of creating 

an enterprise-wide intelligence capability under the leadership of 

Director Mueller. Intelligence reform, I think as the findings of the 

Commission have proven, at the FBI has been a very evolutionary 

process, starting first immediately in the aftermath of 9/11 very focused on counterterrorism, very focused on getting the information 

out and producing strategic analysis, and then finally culminating 

in the Director’s decision to create an Executive Assistant Director 

for Intelligence. And I was very, very proud to take such a position 

last year, May of 2003. As I said, all of our efforts have been about 

getting our own internal act together, and we still do have work 

to do. 

16 

In the interest of time, I only want to share with you the core 

principles on which we have built that, and the first thought is a 

very important one and that is that intelligence is the job of the 

entire FBI, not just the job of my organization. If we are to do it 

correctly, then our training, our security, all of the components that 

make up the FBI must be as optimized for its intelligence mission 

as it is for its law enforcement mission. 

After that core principle come four. The first is the integration 

of intelligence and law enforcement operations. Intelligence is best 

when it is informed by an operational view. I think I bring my bias 

to that largely from my experience in the Department of Defense, 

where intelligence was always very integrated with military operations. 

Secondly, at the same time that you want production integrated, 

you do want an independent requirement and collection management process. By that, I simply mean an independent authority 

setting priorities, looking at what you are doing against those priorities, consistently identifying gaps and developing the strategies 

to develop sources to fill those gaps. That is the responsibility of 

my organization. 

Third, centralized management and distributed execution. The 

power of the FBI intelligence capability is in its 56 field offices and 

400 resident agencies. It is in those numbers that are out there. 

So, it is getting them to have a shared view of the threat; a single 

set of operating processes, policies and procedures; the resources to 

do that work; the IT to connect them; the humans to do the analysis; and allowing that power to perform. 

Fourth, focused strategic analysis. If we spend all of our time 

doing current reporting, we will be working the urgent, and my job 

is to make sure we are also working the important. 

In the interest of time, I don’t want to go over the accomplishments, although we are very proud of all of them. I would just 

focus on a couple to get to your opening statements because I think 

they are, in fact, very important and we share many of your concerns. 

In terms of information-sharing, we have tripled the amount of 

raw intelligence reporting that we have done already this year over 

last year, and we have doubled the number of assessments that we 

have provided. 

Senator LEAHY. Provided to whom? 

Ms. BAGINSKI. That we have provided to the larger intelligence 

community, and also to the Congress and to State and local law enforcement. 

Also on the cultural side, you are right; there is much work to 

do on culture. And that is not a light switch; that takes time to 

work through. There are two critical things that the Director has 

championed, and the first is changing the performance evaluations 

of the agents to include a critical element that grades them against 

source development and intelligence production; and, finally, the 

proposal for an intelligence officer certification that requires intelligence officer certification for all of our agents before they could 

become ASACs or section chiefs, the first SES level at headquarters. 

17 

I could detail more achievements and more accomplishments. We 

think we are on a good path. We think the Commission is also 

right; we have much work to do. With that, we look forward to your 

questions. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Baginski appears as a submission for the record.] 

Chairman HATCH. Well, thank you so much. We appreciate all 

four of you and your statements and we are encouraged by those 

statements. 

Let me ask a question to both Commissioners in this first round 

here. Although the Commission’s rejection of the MI–5 model was 

conditioned upon adoption of the panel’s other recommendations, 

such as the creation of the counterterrorism center and the national intelligence director, Congressman Hamilton, you have personally voiced strong objections to the MI–5 model, regardless of 

the enactment of these other measures. I would like to know what 

is that. 

Senator Gorton, I am interested to hear your views, as well, on 

that. 

Mr. HAMILTON. Senator Hatch, we looked at MI–5 because of the 

record the FBI had in the lead-up to 9/11 was not impressive. We 

were intrigued by it. We flirted with it a little bit, but we soundly 

rejected it in the end. We rejected it, I think, for several reasons. 

One was the concern for civil liberties. We think the FBI does 

have a tradition of rule of law, protection of civil liberties. We were 

afraid setting up another independent domestic intelligence without that tradition would not be helpful. 

Secondly, we think the FBI is moving in the right direction now 

to correct the deficiencies, and to set up an MI–5 would be terribly 

disruptive, would take a long time, would be very costly—you 

would have to set up separate training facilities and bring new 

agents in and all the rest of it—and would not be helpful at this 

point in time. So the MI–5 was rejected. 

Interestingly enough, when we talked with the Brits about this, 

they didn’t even think an MI–5 was a good idea for the United 

States because the two countries are so very, very different. So we 

rejected that completely and emphasized instead the importance of 

focusing on institutionalizing the reforms that are underway. 

Mr. GORTON. I would simply emphasize what Lee has said. I 

think one of our most fascinating and delightful interviews was 

with the head of MI–5. She said, among other things, there, her relationships are with exactly 56 chief constables in the United Kingdom, all of whom she knows personally. Here in the United States, 

of course, we have 10, 15,000 different police agencies, many of 

which have developed good relationships with the FBI agencies in 

their given areas. There are just too many differences between the 

United States and the United Kingdom. 

And you shouldn’t underestimate, of course, the dislocation of 

creating an entirely new agency, the potential of one further stovepipe, one further agency not to communicate with others. But I 

think the primary reasons were positive, were the significant 

progress that we believe that the FBI has made under Bob Mueller 

in correcting many of the failures that led up to 9/11. 

18 

Mr. HAMILTON. We see an important advantage in the FBI’s ability to link law enforcement and intelligence. They are not separate. 

You cannot separate them completely. What the investigator finds 

out here with regard to intelligence can be helpful to the criminal 

prosecutor. What the criminal prosecutor finds out in his investigation can be helpful on the intelligence side. That link, that synergy 

is important. 

Chairman HATCH. Let me just ask one other question. 

Vice Chairman Hamilton, in prior testimony on this subject you 

have suggested that new legislation on information-sharing and the 

reforms at the FBI may not be necessary, if I interpret it correctly, 

so long as the current Director takes steps to institutionalize his 

reforms or the President issues appropriate executive orders. 

Could you elaborate on those observations on the merits of entrusting some of these recommendations to the executive branch? 

Mr. HAMILTON. Well, what we found, I think, as we looked at the 

problem of sharing information—and that really was critical for us. 

We think 9/11 came about, in part, because we did not do as good 

a job as we should have in sharing information. Whereas many of 

our intelligence agencies are very good at what they do, they nonetheless have a kind of a restricted view of the world and we think 

the sharing was critically important. 

Now, the whole question of integrating information systems, the 

reform of them, the improvement of them, cannot be done by a single agency or even a single department. What you need is integration, and that can only be done across the Government, and when 

you are seeking action across the Government, you have to have 

the President do it. I don’t know any other way to get it done. 

So we call upon the President here to lead a major effort in the 

Government to develop common standards, common practices, common approaches to the information system. I don’t think we considered that a legislative matter. We think it really has to be done by 

the President, and the benefits of it are just enormous if you can 

get that free flow of information flowing across these stovepipes 

that we have. 

Mr. GORTON. Bob Mueller had one tremendous accidental advantage. He became the head of the FBI one week before 9/11. He had 

no intellectual or emotional investment in the way business had 

been done prior to 9/11 and that gave him a very great ability to 

make dramatic changes. 

We had two concerns, however—the very strong culture of the 

FBI itself which creates internal resistance to major change, and 

the fact that no individual is going to head it forever, and we have 

no idea who his successor may be. So we want these very positive 

changes to be institutionalized. 

I think a major reason that we said that this could be done by 

executive order is to freeze a particular structure in the law makes 

it extremely difficult to change. Whether every element of an original change through executive order is a hundred percent correct is 

certainly a matter which one can question, and there is a somewhat easier facility to make adjustments if the reforms are done 

by executive order. We do think they need to be institutionalized 

and can’t just be left up to the Bureau itself, but we don’t think 

it absolutely necessary that they be put into statute. 

19 

Chairman HATCH. Thank you, Senator. My time is up. 

Senator Leahy. 

Senator LEAHY. Well, thank you, and thank you again to the four 

witnesses. To follow up on what Senator Gorton said. The institutionalizing of some of these reforms is very necessary. We sometimes rely too much on ad hominem reform, which simply allows 

those within the bureaucracy who don’t want a reform to hunker 

down and just wait for the person who feels that way to leave, because ultimately people in these positions come and go. 

Congressman Hamilton, again, please tell Governor Kean also of 

our great respect for what he has done. 

Under Secretary Hutchinson, we talk about how we get information back and forth, and if I might be allowed just a little bit of 

parochial bragging, you and I visited the Law Enforcement Support 

Center, the LESC, in Williston, Vermont, the Nation’s primary 

database and search engine for criminal aliens. 

As you know, whether it is two o’clock on a Sunday morning in 

the middle of a three-foot—and that is not an exaggeration—snowfall or in the middle of a sunny summer afternoon, they are operating. They answer 750,000 queries a year from law enforcement 

in 50 States. They answer them within 15 minutes or sooner. 

Would you say this is something that we could look at as a model 

for talking about how you do real-time sharing. 

Mr. HUTCHINSON. I think the Law Enforcement Support Center 

in Vermont is an unheralded example of some of the things that 

are being done right in sharing information with our State and 

local officers. The fact that the men and women there at the facility 

in Vermont are loading into the immigration file of the NCIC, National Crime Information System, allows all of that information on 

immigration violators to be available to local law enforcement. 

As a result of that effort, we have increased the detainers that 

have been lodged, the number of absconder files that are entered 

into the system, and we have actually decreased the number of 

alien absconders that are in this country. So we certainly applaud 

that effort and we expect great results in the future on it. 

Senator LEAHY. Congressman Hamilton and Senator Gorton, I 

am reading from your final recommendations with respect to the 

FBI. You say that the Congress should make sure funding is available to accelerate the expansion of secure facilities in FBI field offices so as to increase their ability to use secure e-mail systems in 

classified intelligence product exchanges. 

We have already given the FBI hundreds of millions of dollars 

to upgrade its information technology systems to bring the FBI into 

the 21st century. I have spoken before about how prior to 9/11 they 

were deciding how they could put agents on airplanes to bring photographs of suspected hijackers to different parts of the country, 

something any grade school kid could have e-mailed to someone 

else. 

We spent hundreds of millions of dollars on Trilogy. It is way 

over budget. It is nowhere near completion. Some think it never 

will be. I wonder if money is the only thing because you also recommend that the Congress should monitor whether the FBI’s information-sharing principles are implemented in practice. 

20 

But, for the Congress to do this, they have got to get answers 

from the Department of Justice and we don’t get them, whether it 

is Republican Senators or Democratic Senators asking. I can give 

you a list of things that have been asked for years. They just don’t 

bother to answer or send non-answers. 

If it sounds like I am frustrated, I am, because we have shown 

a willingness to authorize the money—and I am also on the Appropriations Committee—and the willingness to appropriate the 

money for all of this, yet we have no way of finding out what goes 

wrong after we appropriate it. 

How do we get this information? What is your recommendation? 

Mr. GORTON. I think if there were an easy answer to that question, Senator Leahy, you would have long since come up with it. 

Obviously, it is not only with the FBI and the Department of Justice that hundreds of millions of dollars have been appropriated to 

bring them into the information age, but many other departments 

as well. 

Going beyond our recommendation, perhaps some of the concerns 

are with the elaborate nature of the acquisition process in the Federal Government. The information age revolution goes so fast that 

by the time we go through our normal procurement processes, we 

are in the next generation. That may be one thing to look at. 

We didn’t attempt to become experts in procurement policies or 

the like. We saw a lack of an ability within an agency to share information and have recommended changes. You also may note in 

another part of our report we talk about Congressional oversight 

and show deep concern with the fact that Asa here must spend a 

huge amount of his time—you have said how many times he has 

come to this Committee. 

Senator LEAHY. We were referring to all committees. 

Mr. GORTON. Yes, 88 committees and subcommittees that the Department of Homeland Security must report to. I suspect that Congressional oversight would probably be sharper if it were somewhat 

more limited. 

Senator LEAHY. In this Committee, somebody once said, I think, 

Dracula fears holy water less than the Attorney General fears coming to this Committee. We don’t see him, and we like him. I mean, 

we are all friends with him and we all served with him, but getting 

answers is very, very difficult. 

I will give you one example. Three years ago, in the PATRIOT 

Act, we had a requirement, not a request, but a requirement that 

the Attorney General prepare a comprehensive report on the FBI’s 

translation program. We have never gotten it, even though that is 

vital to our understanding of virtually every piece of intelligence information from the Middle East. 

I know this particular section very well; I wrote it. The PATRIOT 

Act required it because ensuring the FBI’s translation program is 

working to its potential is important to national security. There is 

an awful lot of data out there that is not translated. We have a 

huge ability with FISA, without going into the nature of some of 

our intelligence-gathering abilities, to get all this information, but 

then it sits there untranslated. We can’t even get something that 

is required by law from the Attorney General that has been required for 3 years to tell us what is happening. 

21 

What do we do about that? 

Mr. GORTON. Ultimately, you have the purse strings. That is the 

ultimate control. 

Senator LEAHY. Thank you. My time is up. I will come back later. 

Chairman HATCH. Thank you, Senator. 

We will turn to Senator Cornyn, who was here first. 

Senator CORNYN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks to the panel 

for being here. I have two questions, as time permits. One has to 

do with continuity of Government and the other has to do with border security, and I would like to direct my first question to Congressman Hamilton and Senator Gorton. 

It has been almost 3 years since Flight 93 was diverted and 

crashed in a place other than which it was originally intended to 

crash, and that is possibly the United States Capitol or at the 

White House, potentially decapitating the United States Government. Since that time, a bipartisan Commission and a joint venture 

of the Brookings Institution and the American Enterprise Institute 

have come up with some very good, in my opinion, recommendations for the Congress to undertake with regard to presidential 

transition and Congressional continuity. But so far, we have had 

perhaps even less success than the Government has had generally 

in improving our situation since 9/11 in this area. 

I would ask perhaps, Congressman Hamilton, for you to first address that, and then Senator Gorton. How urgent do you believe it 

is for Congress to deal with the matter of governmental continuity, 

where the alternative if we don’t do anything—and there is a successful decapitation, debilitation of the Congress—the alternative is 

essentially martial law? 

Mr. HAMILTON. Senator, we did not address your specific proposal with regard to a constitutional amendment, nor did we delve 

greatly into the question of continuity of Government. We had a 

statutory mandate. We interpreted that mandate fairly carefully or 

strictly, and we did not think that it was clear that we should get 

into the continuity of Government question. We know it is a major 

concern here in the Congress, as it should be. So we cannot speak 

as a Commission with regard to your particular proposal. 

We do think that you are putting your finger on a very, very important problem, however, and in the report we address the question of transition. We think that the country is most vulnerable, or 

very vulnerable perhaps I should say, during a period of transition 

of Government. And we make some recommendations with respect 

to requiring a President-elect to submit nominees in the national 

security area, and for the Senate to act to accept or reject those 

nominations within a 30-day period, because we are concerned 

about that transition period. 

Now, your proposal has a lot of similarities with that. It is broader than ours. You speak about all the Cabinet members, as I recall, 

in your proposal, not just the national security proposals. So we are 

very receptive to proposals on continuity of Government, but we did 

not endorse any particular approach to them. We do appreciate 

your initiative. 

Mr. GORTON. We were not able to determine with absolute certainty the target at which Flight 93 was aimed, but I think all of 

22 

us believe that it was much more likely than not that it was the 

Capitol. The basis of your concern is well taken. 

As Lee has said, we deal with maybe the first cousin of your proposal in dealing with transition. We were particularly struck by the 

attack on the Cole which took place in late October of the year 

2000. Within a couple of weeks, there was a preliminary determination of responsibility. A final determination literally took 

years, but in that transition time neither administration felt certain enough or concerned enough to deal with it and it went entirely unanswered. 

That was the reason, or a major reason that we went into the 

transition to try to get national security officers into place as quickly as possible. You have taken a step beyond that and gone beyond 

anything we thought about in suggesting that the sitting President 

make the nominations for his successor. I think that is an absolutely intriguing idea, as are your ideas with respect to the continuity of Government. 

We looked at our charge and we simply didn’t get into it. But is 

it a vitally important issue and one that we think should be given 

serious consideration by the Congress? The answer to that is a 

total affirmative. 

Senator CORNYN. Thank you for your answers. I do understand 

it was not perhaps within the scope of your Commission, but I do 

appreciate your responses. I wish I could claim originality, but 

there are a lot of very smart and very dedicated people who have 

made some recommendations which I have tried to bring forward 

together with others in Congress to address those. 

Secretary Hutchinson, I want to tell you what an outstanding job 

I think you and the Secretary have done in trying to address the 

border security concerns we have. But I can tell you, as you know 

and as we have discussed, as a Texan, with a 1,200-mile border 

with Mexico and a southern border of Mexico leading down to Central America, one of the most porous in the country, we still have 

a long way to go. And I know you recognize that. 

I would like to ask you specifically about how do we conserve our 

resources, or I should say direct our resources in a way that goes 

after those who would come across our borders with malicious intent from those who want to come across our borders with benign, 

perhaps even beneficial intentions. 

I speak specifically of whether you think a temporary worker 

program, something that would deal not necessarily with people 

who are just wanting to come, but even people who are already 

here and working in our economy—the last estimate I heard is 

about 6 million in that workforce—do you think a worker program 

and immigration reform need to be coupled with our efforts at border security? 

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Thank you, Senator Cornyn, particularly for 

your leadership and push on a number of border security issues. 

In reference to the borders, first of all, I think it is important 

that we understand the difference between those that come into 

our country to harm us versus those that come in for an intent to 

get a job, support a family. The entry is still illegal. We have a responsibility to enforce the law in all respects, but we still have to 

recognize a distinction there. 

23 

Secondly, as you indicated, the pull, the magnet that brings in 

those that are coming in for job purposes or other purposes into 

this country really diverts our resources, consumes our resources, 

as compared to focusing on those that are coming in to harm us. 

So the temporary worker enhances security, gives a legal path, and 

it really mirrors what we did last week with two announcements, 

which was to reward those that are seeking a legal means to come 

to this country and to deter and discourage those that are trying 

to come in illegally. So I think the temporary worker program does 

that. It discourages illegal flow, and thereby it enhances security. 

Mr. HAMILTON. Senator, may I just add—I know you didn’t direct 

the question to us, but it raises a point that is very important to 

the Commission and that is the tie between border security and immigration. I think what we are trying to say in our report is that 

that is an enormously important tie. You cannot put those two 

things in separate boxes and deal with immigration over here and 

border security over here. 

We believe you have got to have a biometric entry/exit system 

that is comprehensive. People come into this country all sorts of 

ways, not just across the border in Texas. They come across there 

in great numbers, but many, many ways they get into this country, 

and we have got to have a system that is comprehensive enough 

to deal with all of these people coming in. 

Almost all of them come in with very benign purposes. We want 

them to come in, but we have got to be able to sort them out. We 

think officials have to have access to files on the visitors and the 

immigrants that are coming into this country so that they can 

make a judgment and make it quickly, as they often have to do. 

We think you have to have an exchange of information on these 

people with other countries because most of them come from other 

countries, I guess by definition. Real-time verification of passports—we cannot do that today, but we have to try to do it and 

work toward that. And we see, of course, a growing role for partnership with State and local officials because the Federal Government simply is not going to be able to do it all. Part of all of this 

is secure identification of U.S. citizens, as well. 

So we see this as an enormously important part of the national 

security of the United States. These people got into this country all 

sorts of ways. They cooperated with corrupt officials. They used 

fraud. They lied. They worked with human traffickers to get into 

the country. We have got to be able to identify these people. We 

have got to get the information on it, and once we get the information on it, we have got to put it into a center where it can be accessible to everybody. 

And beyond intelligence, somebody has to be in charge to take 

charge of the case, to manage the case, which was not done on 9/ 

11. Nobody was in charge, nobody managed it. When we learned 

about these fellows out in San Diego, we had bits and pieces of information about them and nobody put it all together. 

George Tenet was asked by us—when he learned in August of 

2000 about Moussaoui in Minneapolis and we asked him what did 

he do about it. He said, well, I put some of my CIA people to work 

with the FBI. And we pushed him a little harder on it and he said 

this was the FBI’s case. 

24 

Now, I don’t think his answer was wrong, but it just illustrates 

what happened prior to 9/11. Nobody took charge of the case, nobody managed the case, and that is what we are trying to correct 

with our proposal on the national counterterrorism center. You 

have got to have somebody not only that collects the information, 

but once the information is collected, somebody has to manage it 

and say I am taking charge of this. 

Chairman HATCH. Thank you. 

Senator Kennedy. 

Senator KENNEDY. Thank you very much, and I thank our panelists for remarkable public service. We can tell from listening to Lee 

Hamilton how strongly he feels about this undertaking, and I know 

it is a feeling that is shared by all of you. 

Right here is a book of hearings and it is hearings that I held 

in 1971 about what has happened to other presidential commissions, and the fact was nothing, nothing; they are all gathering 

dust. These were the Scranton Commission on Campus Unrest, 

Katzenbach on Crime, Eisenhower on the Causes of Violence, 

Hesburgh on Civil Rights, many others on health and the list goes 

on. That isn’t what is going to happen to this, but it is an important historical fact about what the history has been. That is why 

I think there is a sense of urgency about taking action at this time. 

Let me go to a very important part of the recommendations that 

were mentioned by your joint statement, and also Asa Hutchinson, 

in the jurisdiction of this Committee and that is the sections on privacy and civil liberties. You make the very important point that 

the new focus on collecting and sharing more and more information 

about people raises these serious concerns. 

You say that no one in Government is now responsible for making sure that everything that is done in the name of fighting terrorism is done consistently with the historic and essential commitment to personal privacy and liberty. You recommend that an office 

be established to handle this issue government-wide. Both of you 

have generous comments about it in your testimony. 

I would like to just sort of ask rhetorical questions and you will 

get the thrust of it. I am interested about how serious the Commission was in making these recommendations and whether all of you 

will put the full weight of credibility behind it and make it clear 

that this office, to be effective, needs adequate resources and access 

and clout if it is going to be able to be effective in doing what you 

have outlined would be so important to be done. 

In the 9/11 Commission report, it talks about the possibility of 

setting up a panel similar to the Foreign Intelligence Advisory 

Board. I am interested in, one, the kind of commitment that all of 

you feel we should have on this, how important it is, and then 

whether this ought to be an internal or external board. Should it 

be just left to the particular agency or should it be a panel that 

is established within the Government, or should it be established 

inside the Government and one that would be outside but working 

like the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board? 

Mr. HAMILTON. Well, Senator, we are very serious about it. Look, 

in order to get at the terrorists, you put into place a lot of things 

that are intrusive on the lives of Americans. We encounter it everyVerDate Aug 31 2005 15:22 Oct 22, 2008 Jkt 096459 PO 00000 Frm 00028 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\GPO\HEARINGS\96459.TXT SJUD1 PsN: CMORC
25 

day. We have become more tolerant of those intrusions because of 

our fear, because of our concern about the terrorists. 

But everywhere you turn, including in our report, you keep 

stacking up restrictions on Americans and you expand the powers 

of Government in the FBI, in the DHS and a lot of other places. 

Now, that has to be a concern to everybody and we didn’t know exactly how to deal with that, but one of the things that struck us 

was that there was not in the Government any single place across 

departments, across agencies that looked at the questions of privacy and civil liberties. 

I heard—I have it in mind; I know it is highly classified. I can’t 

talk about it, except to say it is an astounding intrusion into the 

lives of ordinary Americans that is routine today in Government. 

Now, a lot of this stuff is highly classified, and so I am very committed to the idea of a board. And you asked what resources, what 

power should it have. It ought to have adequate resources. It ought 

to have a very tough investigative staff and it ought to be a very 

active board and agency, and it has to be able to cut across all departments. I don’t know how you set that up, except you set it up 

through the President and the White House. 

Mr. GORTON. Senator Kennedy, I remember very distinctly that 

this subject came up in the initial organizing meeting of the 9/11 

Commission, and it flowed through from the first day to the last. 

It informs our general statement that as the Congress or administration considers new powers that it has got to weigh what the goal 

of the exercise of those new powers is against what the effect of 

those new powers will be on individual citizens within the United 

States. It informs the recommendation that we make with respect 

to this board, this agency, this individual, whose sole responsibility 

it will be to see to the civil rights of all Americans. 

One of the decisions we tried to make—it has been very difficult, 

I can tell you, in the four weeks of making speeches on this subject. 

Everyone wants to know, well, what is your most important recommendation? How would you rank them one through five? 

We tried to avoid that. We think that they are all of great importance and we think that this one, or the connection of these two 

or three are of great importance as we fight terrorism in the 

United States. 

Senator KENNEDY. Well, that is powerful support. 

Secretary Hutchinson, border security, entry-exit—we have 

talked about that here. This has been talked about since the 

Hesburgh Commission on Immigration going back 25 years. We 

passed a border security bill. We are doing reasonably well in 

terms of the entry, but not very well in terms of the exit. There 

have been some estimates that in order to have a really effective 

system, it is going to take 7, 8, 9 years. 

Last year, for example, we had actually a reduction in requests 

by the administration in terms of border security, somewhere 

around $300 million and it was reduced by over $100 million, and 

efforts were made in a bipartisan way to restore it. 

Let me ask you about the exit aspects just briefly, when you 

think that can be effective so that we have comprehensive entry 

and exit, just as quickly as we can because there is one other area 

I want to cover. 

26 

Mr. HUTCHINSON. We have an exit capability that is limited to 

biographical information at present, and so we do have information 

that comes in from our airline departure information so that we 

can see when people leave our land borders as well. We need to add 

the biometric feature to it, which we are testing at about 15 airports now. We will get the right technology, and then we move to 

our land borders. This is an enormously challenging prospect and 

funding is a part of it. We can go back and forth on that, but the 

administration did request $400 million in 1904. 

Senator KENNEDY. Ms. Baginski, on the watch list, I want to 

know—and my time is running out here—about how this works for 

the average person. Let me give you an example. I got on the 

watch list last April. I was taking a plane to Boston and I got out 

to U.S. Air and I came up at quarter seven and I wanted my ticket. 

They said we can’t give it to you. I said, well, wait a minute, here 

is a visa; there must have been a mix-up. And the person behind 

the gate said I can’t sell it to you; you can’t buy a ticket to go on 

the airline to Boston. 

I said, well, why not? We can’t tell you. Well, I said let me talk 

to the supervisor on that. This is at five of seven. The plane is 

about to leave, and finally the supervisor said okay. I thought it 

was a mix-up in my office, which it wasn’t. I got to Boston and I 

said there has been a mix-up on this thing in Boston. What in the 

world has happened? 

I tried to get on the plane back to Washington. You can’t get on 

the plane. I went up to the desk and I said I have been getting on 

this plane for 42 years and why can’t I get on the plane back to 

Washington. They said you can’t get on the plane back to Washington. So my administrative assistant talked to the Department of 

Homeland Security and they said there was some mistake. It happened three more times, and finally Secretary Ridge called to 

apologize on it. It happened even after he called to apologize because my name was on the list at the airports and with the airlines, and Homeland Security couldn’t get my name off the list for 

a period of weeks. 

Now, if they have that kind of difficulty with a member of Congress—my office has a number of instances where we have the 

leader of a distinguished medical school in New England, and the 

list goes on—how in the world are average Americans who are 

going to get caught up in this kind of thing going to be able to get 

to be treated fairly and not have their rights abused? 

Then just finally if you can just tell us what the justification was 

for the investigation of those FBI agents out in Colorado with the 

six agents interviewing that 21-year-old woman that has been reported in the paper. 

Thank you. 

Ms. BAGINSKI. I will deal with the last issue first because I think 

I can deal with that more succinctly. We have read the New York 

Times representation of our activities and compared that to the actual activities. I think as you know, we engaged in interviews of 

people based on specific intelligence that they planned to perpetrate violent acts at the Democratic National Convention, and we 

are also looking at the Republican National Convention in that dimension. 

27 

There are many of you who I think are rightly concerned about 

that in light of the press treatment. What we have offered to other 

committees and what we would like to offer to you is a written accounting step by step of what was done so we can separate fact 

from fiction on this and hopefully ease your concerns and those of 

the American people. 

Chairman HATCH. We would appreciate that. 

Senator LEAHY. I would like one, too. 

Ms. BAGINSKI. Yes, sir. On the issue of the— 

Chairman HATCH. How about the conspiracy to stop Senator 

Kennedy from getting where he wants to go? 

[Laughter.] 

Senator KENNEDY. Notice that I didn’t accuse the Republicans of 

doing that. 

Chairman HATCH. No, no, but it was implied, we know. 

[Laughter.] 

Ms. BAGINSKI. I think actually the answer to that is a combination of the two of us. 

Asa, do you want to start? 

Mr. HUTCHINSON. If I might, Senator, we do regret that inconvenience to you. 

Senator KENNEDY. No problem, no problem. 

Chairman HATCH. Asa, don’t be so quick to say that. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator LEAHY. We have had this problem with Irish terrorists 

before. 

Mr. HUTCHINSON. It is important for the average citizen to know 

the process. They can call our TSA ombudsman, who will take the 

information down, verify that their name is not the same as what 

is confusingly similar on the list. And we can actually enter into 

the database that they have been cleared, so that that should be 

prevented in the future. So there is a process to clear names, but 

it does illustrate the importance of improving the whole system, 

which we are very aggressively working to do. We need to own that 

no-fly list. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator KENNEDY. My time is up. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman HATCH. Ms. Baginski? 

Ms. BAGINSKI. Just to complete the part of it in terms of the responsibility for the authoritative list, of course, on the international 

side it resides with the TTIC, the Terrorist Threat Integration Center, so the vetting of those names. And then, of course, for the domestic side, it would come from the FBI. And those are fused, I 

think, as you know, in the Terrorist Screening Center. So I do have 

some responsibility for the pedigree of that information that comes 

from intelligence, and I want to assure you that we review that on 

a regular basis. 

Chairman HATCH. Thank you. 

Senator DeWine. 

Senator DEWINE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me thank all of 

you for your great work and the very wonderful job each one of you 

has done. 

Ms. Baginski, let me ask you the first question. You talked about 

in great detail improvement in the area of intelligence and inforVerDate Aug 31 2005 15:22 Oct 22, 2008 Jkt 096459 PO 00000 Frm 00031 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\GPO\HEARINGS\96459.TXT SJUD1 PsN: CMORC
28 

mation. The September 11th Commission outlined in great detail 

a lot of the problems, and I think we all are very familiar with the 

story leading up to September 11th. 

Explain to me in layman’s terms what is different today from 

what was the situation on September 10th as far as the FBI is concerned, and in terms of an FBI agent. Senator Leahy has described 

the problem and our continuing frustration, and I know Director 

Mueller has the same frustration with the computer system that is 

not progressing as fast as we would like it to. 

What is the difference today for an agent who seeks information 

or who needs information or who wants to share information, and 

not in general terms, but in real specific terms? 

Ms. BAGINSKI. I can answer this in terms of technology and 

also— 

Senator DEWINE. No, I don’t want that. Give me an example that 

I can understand. What matters? What is the difference today? 

Ms. BAGINSKI. I think there are three areas and I will try to 

cover them in as much detail as I can. First— 

Senator DEWINE. No, no, I don’t want three areas. 

Ms. BAGINSKI. You want a specific example? 

Senator DEWINE. Yes. Give me an example; tell me a story in the 

next 5 minutes. What difference does it make? How are we any better off today than we were prior to September 11th? Tell the American people why they should feel better. 

Ms. BAGINSKI. On the first order, terrorism is the number one 

priority of every member of the FBI. Since 9/11, as you know, with 

our responsibility, we have expanded our number of joint terrorism 

task forces, which are— 

Senator DEWINE. Excuse me. I am sorry. 

Ms. BAGINSKI. I am still not doing what you want. I know you 

want a specific example. 

Senator DEWINE. Okay, no. Tell me what an FBI agent knows 

today or can do today that he or she couldn’t do. 

Ms. BAGINSKI. Okay. 

Senator DEWINE. What can they share? What comes up on their 

computer screen? How is that? 

Ms. BAGINSKI. I got it. Before 9/11, agents could not send with 

any ease e-mails to one another across a secret network. Now, that 

can be done. Before 9/11, agents did not have access to other agency intelligence production in the joint terrorism task forces, and 

now they do. So they can actually go into a database and enter on 

that like system and actually access that information and find out 

if there is other information that they need and can act upon in 

terms of working the case. 

Prior to 9/11, all cases in the FBI, I think as you have all said, 

would have been opened first as counterterrorism cases in the 

sense of prosecution. Post 9/11, all cases in the counterterrorism 

arena are opened as intelligence cases first, so that instead of the 

intelligence component being a sub-file in the larger case, the intelligence is driving that and is one of the tools in the tool kit that 

the agent brings to bear on neutralizing a threat. 

Prior to 9/11, the intelligence analysts at the FBI could not with 

any ease ask questions of data that was aggregated for them and 

do federated queries across the database. Since 9/11, we can. 

29 

Senator DEWINE. What kind of search can I do now? 

Ms. BAGINSKI. If you are an analyst, you can do a search against 

a finite body of information at the secret level on one network and 

at the top secret and higher on another network that, in fact, is exactly what you can do in your living room. You can ask questions 

of the data and the answers will be pushed to you. 

Senator DEWINE. What if I am an agent in San Diego and I am 

working on a particular case and I am wondering if there is a similar case somewhere else in the country and I want to put in a series of words? Can I do that? 

Ms. BAGINSKI. You can. You can do a word search and you will 

get the answer. 

Senator DEWINE. I will now get the answer? 

Ms. BAGINSKI. Yes, sir. 

Senator DEWINE. What can’t I do now that I should be able to 

do in 2 years or 3 years or 4 years? What are you frustrated about? 

What are you upset about? What bothers you today that you can’t 

do? 

Ms. BAGINSKI. I think there are three critical areas. The first 

would be being able to operate in a top-secret, code-word environment, which is connected to the Commission’s recommendation to 

help us with our secure, classified information facilities. 

All of the field offices have secure, classified information facilities. They are very, very small areas. I sometimes joke that they 

look like closets, and they generally have an Intelink computer 

there. What I am saying is if we want to be part of this network 

in which the larger intelligence community operates, we need that 

kind of— 

Senator DEWINE. Excuse me. I don’t understand what that 

means. Does that mean that only a limited number of agents have 

access to that? Is that the problem, or what does that mean? 

Ms. BAGINSKI. Well, the physical access is determined by your security clearance. So, of course, everyone that is cleared to the secret and top secret area, which is the way that we do our clearances, would have access. My point is it is usually one or two terminals which—it is the hardware that is limiting, if you understand. The secured, classified information space is necessary to be 

expanded to accommodate that hardware and the network. 

Senator DEWINE. So that creates the problem of what, just not 

enough people being able to get at it that need to get at it? 

Ms. BAGINSKI. Yes, sir. As I expand the number of analysts that 

are out in the field, which is what I really need to do, I am going 

to need more space for them to access that classified information. 

Senator DEWINE. Would every field office have access to it, 

though? 

Ms. BAGINSKI. Yes, sir. 

Senator DEWINE. What other problems are you having that you 

would be able to solve in the next couple of years when the system 

is totally up? 

Ms. BAGINSKI. The other, I think, issue for all of us is what I 

think Senator Leahy was referring to, which is the automatic entry 

of information into corporate databases. Trilogy, as you know, was 

three initiatives. Hardware is there; the LANs are there. It is the 

application, the virtual case file case management application, that 

30 

allows the automatic entry of this information into corporate databases for follow-on analysis. That is the part that is delayed. So we 

have delivered two, except for this application. 

I think the solution of that in the hands of our chief information 

officer will help the robustness of my analysts’ database, which is 

called the Investigative Data Warehouse. That will help my analysts have the breadth they need of information to actually do the 

queries against. 

Senator DEWINE. When do you expect that to be up? 

Ms. BAGINSKI. We will have some delivery of that by the end of 

this year, and I would like to get back to you with a specific date 

because I am actually not as current on that as I should be. 

Senator DEWINE. Sure. 

Ms. BAGINSKI. Lastly, for me, I have a training issue and it is 

not a small issue and it is going to require an investment both in 

terms of facilities and in terms of expertise and in terms of time. 

In building this cadre that has been recommended to us by the 

Commission, and I think very rightly recommended by the Commission, there is a wonderful training capacity in Quantico. There 

is a very powerful FBI, and I would say law enforcement brand in 

Quantico, but to build in there that same expertise and capacity for 

teaching intelligence to the agents and to the analysts and to the 

linguists, and then to our partners in State and local law enforcement—that actually is an investment and is going to be both in 

time and in some facilities and infrastructure. 

I am very pleased with the work we have done. I just want to 

share with you very briefly—we have just overhauled our basic 

analysis training, seven core learning objectives. Those learning objectives are now being worked into the new agent’s class. They are 

the same learning objectives, the same modules, and the magic will 

be that we will have agents and analysts doing joint exercises together when they are in training. Now, we need to offer that to our 

State and local partners. The National Academy has been very 

powerful in that partnership. We need to be able to offer that same 

thing. 

Thank you. 

Senator DEWINE. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. 

Chairman HATCH. Senator Leahy wanted to interject here. 

Senator LEAHY. I am not sure I fully understood. To follow what 

Senator DeWine was saying, and I am not sure I understood the 

question, if you want to do a search, for example, could you put a 

series of words in the same search, like, for example, southwestern, 

alien, flight training? Could you put that all in as one thing and 

have it searched down there, or do you have to put in each word 

separately in the search? 

Ms. BAGINSKI. We can, in fact, in the Investigative Data Warehouse, which actually started out as something called the Secure 

Operational Prototype—it was all based on terrorism—we can do 

the string that you are talking about, the multiple words. 

Senator LEAHY. And you can do that in— 

Ms. BAGINSKI. I beg your pardon? 

Senator LEAHY. You can do that in— 

Ms. BAGINSKI. In Trilogy? Is that what you mean, sir? 

Senator LEAHY. Trilogy, yes. 

31 

Ms. BAGINSKI. IDW is actually something that I would call separate from the Trilogy package that you and I have been talking 

about. 

Senator LEAHY. You can do it in Trilogy, though? 

Ms. BAGINSKI. Trilogy is not a data warehouse that you would 

search against. That is why I am having trouble answering the 

question. Trilogy is hardware, as you pointed out, computers on 

desktops. It is local area networks, wide area networks for the 

connectivity, and it is the case management application. 

The case management application then feeds the Integrated Data 

Warehouse that I am describing that allows me to do the search. 

Senator LEAHY. You could do a multi-word search? 

Ms. BAGINSKI. In the Integrated Data Warehouse, yes, sir. 

Senator LEAHY. Thank you. 

Chairman HATCH. Senator Kohl. 

Senator KOHL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

We appreciate very much your appearance here this morning. I 

have three questions that I would like to address to the Commission members, and I think all of us here and people who are watching on television are interested in your opinions on these questions 

because you have been so immersed and you have a written a report which is on the bestseller list. So, obviously, all Americans are 

concerned with your work and with what is going to happen to 

your work. 

As Senator Kennedy pointed out, the history of commissions in 

terms of their effectiveness and implementation of their recommendations is not good. In the case of the world in which we are 

living right now, your recommendations are high on the list of 

every American’s thoughts. 

So, first of all, on your arguably most important recommendation 

that we have a national intelligence director to coordinate all the 

things that we are talking about this morning and the things that 

you have recommended in your report, already we have seen that 

the Secretary of Defense has basically come to a disagreement with 

you on the need for a national intelligence director or on the efficacy of such a person. The President himself, I believe, has said 

perhaps a NID, a director, but not with control over budgets and 

personnel. 

Now, the way Washington works is if the Secretary of Defense, 

who spends 80 percent of the intelligence money that we allocate, 

and the President are not in support of that recommendation, what 

are the chances of getting that through, number one? 

Number two, this is all about fighting terrorism and making 

Americans more secure. In the Muslim world today, our standing 

is as low as it has ever been. The number of people who are in 

strong dislike, if not outright hatred, of the United States and willing to do as much damage as they can to the United States—the 

number of people in that category is growing ever higher everyday. 

How are we going to ever win the fight on terrorism and make 

America more secure if, in the short term, if not the long term, we 

are not making progress in this area? 

Number three, I would like to ask you about the color coding system. Does it make any sense, in your opinion, for us to have a national color coding system; for example, the orange, which is the 

32 

second highest alert, to place the whole country on an orange alert, 

when, in all probability, it is specific parts of our country that need 

to be placed on alert? Do we need to sharpen up that color coding 

system to make Americans all across our country more aware of 

who is at the greatest risk and who is at minimum risk when, in 

fact, we issue that kind of a warning to the American people? 

So it is three things—the national intelligence director, our problems within the Muslim world today and how are they going to 

manifest themselves going forward, and the color coding alert system. 

Mr. GORTON. You have covered the waterfront, Senator Kohl. 

Senator KOHL. Well, you have been thinking about this now for 

months and months and months, and you obviously have opinions 

that are of great interest to those who are watching on television. 

Mr. GORTON. First, on the national intelligence director, on that 

system, remember we pair two things—the national 

counterterrorism center that we think is vital and we have discussed earlier, whose functions are just counterterrorism, and a national intelligence director, who will cover the waterfront as far as 

intelligence is concerned. 

In one sense, ours is a very conservative recommendation because we go back with this National intelligence director to what 

the CIA Director was supposed to have been in 1947 when it was 

created, which was the overseer of all of the intelligence of the 

United States. 

Well, first, of course, the CIA has become bigger and more complicated. Just running the CIA is clearly a full-time job. But, secondly, because of the absence of any effective budget control over 

roughly 80 percent of the budget, no CIA Director could really fulfill that function in any event. 

So what we think is that 50 years ought to have taught us that 

if you are going to have someone who oversees all of the intelligence activities of the United States and does planning for all of 

them, that individual should have control over at least the supervision of the budget and some very real influence over personnel, 

as well. And we do feel very strongly about that. If you just do 

again what you did in 1947, you aren’t going to have any more effect. That position must have power. 

I guess personally I am less pessimistic than you are. I think the 

administration’s objections to it at least are softening, but it is 

going to be a decision Congress is going to have to make. And we 

feel very, very strongly that if you are going to create a national 

intelligence director, that individual should have budget authority 

and should have some personnel authority. 

Certainly, no national intelligence director is going to starve the 

military of the intelligence information that it needs. It is impossible to imagine. 

Second, we make recommendations with respect to the war on 

terrorism on three levels, and we distinguish those levels. One is 

that in dealing with those enemies that are absolutely irreconcilable, you know, we simply have to recognize they declared war on 

us a long time ago, and we are at war with them, and it should 

be conducted as a war, and we need to deny them sanctuaries and 

the like. The overwhelming challenge is the one that you raise, is 

33 

how do you separate that large but small in percentage group of 

enemies from the vast majority of Muslims who are peace loving 

and want better lives for themselves and for their children. That 

is a tremendous foreign policy challenge, but it is a challenge that 

we must make. We make some general suggestions in that connection, more specific with three countries, but general suggestions 

about carrying out our own message. 

Finally, on the color code system, I share your frustration. Just 

to tell everyone in the United States you are on orange alert now, 

that makes it even harder to get into an airport or on an airplane, 

but does not tell any local enforcement that there is some specific 

challenge in your place, seems to me at least to be rather frustrating. 

I think the more recent one, where the warnings were very specific, is the way in which we should go. Now, there is still going 

to be criticisms as there have been of that, but I do think that at 

least those are meaningful. 

Now, the real paradox in this country today is that we have not 

had any other attack since 9/11, and every time there is not one, 

people become more relaxed, and to a certain extent more complacent. Even if a warning from Homeland Security may have prevented an attack, we will never know that it did, and it leads to 

a certain degree of cynicism with respect to whether or not we were 

calling ‘‘wolf.’’ That is a challenge. It is a challenge any administration will have. But I do think the more specific way in which the 

Department is operating is better than that national orange alert. 

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Senator Kohl, could I just jump in there? That 

we certainly share the reservation about raising the threat level 

nationally if we have intelligence that we can narrow it. We are 

very grateful that the intelligence collection was very effective this 

last time. We were able to do it narrow in the financial sector in 

certain geographic areas, so we recognize, and we do evaluate the 

burden that falls nationally with the law enforcement community 

when we do raise that threat level, and we are certainly looking, 

with Congress, for ways to refine that system. 

Senator KOHL. Congressman Hamilton, would you— 

Mr. HAMILTON. Senator Kohl, first of all, I have been getting an 

inferiority complex here, hearing all these stories about ineffective 

presidential commissions and Congressional commissions. I want to 

respond to that, and say that there are some commissions that 

have worked. The Greenspan Commission on Social Security reported. The Congress adopted it in total, a few months before the 

election, as I recall. I served on the Hart-Rudman Commission. 

This gentleman would not be sitting here today if it had not been 

for our recommendations. We recommended the Department of 

Homeland Security. So some of these commissions do have recommendations adopted. 

You asked what are the changes of the National Intelligence 

Director and the National Counterterrorism Center being adopted. That is a tough one. Look, we understand we have put forward 

here a fairly radical proposal. The President has endorsed the idea 

of a National Intelligence Director. He has endorsed the idea of a 

National Center for Counterterrorism. What is not clear is what 

34 

powers he would give to those positions, and I think that is still 

a matter very much under discussion in the administration. 

Secretary Rumsfeld expressed a wariness. He did not object to a 

National Intelligence Director. He just expressed a kind of a wariness about the idea. That is understandable. 

Look, we have a tough problem here. On the one hand the military says, we want all of this intelligence to protect the war-maker, 

and I do not know anybody that wants to make it more difficult 

for the war-maker. We want to provide information for the warmaker, and none of us want to limit the intelligence flowing to the 

war-maker. But you also have an obligation to protect the American people. In order to protect the American people, you have to 

have intelligence not just flowing to the war-maker, you have to 

have intelligence flowing to this policymaker, the strategic and the 

national intelligence. 

Where do you draw the line between strategic and national intelligence on the one hand, tactical intelligence on the other hand? In 

many cases it is very easy, very simple. But there are a number 

of areas, particularly in the areas in which the Defense Intelligence 

Agency is involved, for example, where it gets a little murky, and 

the Secretary is right to be concerned about that. Take the U–2. 

The U–2 flies all over the place, takes a lot of pictures, and many 

of those pictures are of enormous importance to the tactical commander on the field. Nobody wants to interrupt that. But that U– 

2 also takes pictures that are tremendously important to the policymaker. Who should control that asset? 

What I am suggesting here is that the debate that is going on 

is not a frivolous one. It is not an ideological one. It is a very practical one, and the issues are not always clear-cut. They often are. 

So I have welcomed the support that has been shown to the Commission’s recommendations. I understand a lot of recommendations 

we made raise big questions in the FBI, big questions at the DHS, 

and certainly big questions at the DOD. I think we can work 

through this and come up with a solution that is reasonably satisfactory. 

The second question about the Muslim world, Senator Gorton I 

think was on the mark there. The distinction that has to be made 

is this very, very small group of people who are out to kill us, al 

Qaeda, Osama bin Laden and his top cohorts. That is not a hard 

question from a foreign policy point of view. You have got to remove them, whatever that means, capture, kill, whatever. You are 

not going to convert Osama bin Laden to democracy or to our way 

of life. In a sense, that is easier—not easy to carry out, but easy 

to articulate—foreign policy. The tough part is this Muslim world 

that you express your concern about, and so do we in the report. 

Here you have, stretching from North Africa to Indonesia, millions and billions of people who, if the polls are correct, do not 

think very highly of us, hold us in very low esteem, admire Osama 

bin Laden, are sympathetic with much of what he says, but may 

not endorse his violence. And if the war on terrorism is to be won, 

we have to appeal to those people, and that is one of the reasons 

we say this is a generational challenge. You cannot do it in a year 

or two. 

35 

How do you do it? Well, we tried to put forward some suggestions, but the important point here is, for me at least, is if you are 

thinking about counterterrorism policy, what should the United 

States do to deal with terrorism? You cannot get all hung up in the 

boxes. You cannot get hung up on terrorist financing. You cannot 

get hung up on the FBI. You cannot get hung up on DHS. You 

have to see it as necessary to put together a integrated, balanced 

effort dealing with military action, covert action, law enforcement, 

treasury actions to stop the flow of money, public diplomacy in 

many, many areas. The tough part of counterterrorism policy is to 

get all of that integrated and balanced. 

One of the aspects of it is to show to them, the Muslim world, 

if you want to put it in simple terms, that we are on their side in 

terms of wanting a better life. We want for them a better life and 

better opportunities. You know the figures with regard to young 

men in these countries, 40, 50 percent unemployment. Where do 

they go? What do they do? Why do they turn to violence? That is 

not a impossible question to answer. Their life has nothing in it to 

give them any hope. We cannot solve all those problems. We do not 

have the resources to solve all those problems. We can encourage 

the governments to move in the right direction, become more open, 

more transparent, to become more concerned about their people. 

We think there are a lot of things you can do to that are perhaps 

symbolic, but nonetheless important. Every politician knows how 

important it is to let people know you are on their side. You have 

constituents that come up to you all the time that ask you to do 

something that you cannot possibly do. But the important thing, in 

a political sense, is to let those people know you are on their side, 

you want to help them with their problem. Maybe I am too simplistic about this, but I think that is what you have to do in American foreign policy, you have to let these people know we are on 

their side and we want to help. Okay. You have decided to put $100 million, I think it is—I may 

not be quite right on that figure—into the school system in Pakistan. If you know anything about the school system in Pakistan, 

that is a drop in the bucket, but I think it is very, very important 

to let those people know we want a decent education for a lot of 

Pakistanis, and we want to provide an agenda of hope, and we 

want to be on the side of hope for these people. 

What does Osama bin Laden offer these people? Death, a very 

tough life. What do we offer? We have an awful lot to offer, and 

we have just got to be able to put this all together in American foreign policy in terms of a robust public diplomacy, in terms of increased scholarships. 

I used to go to Eastern Europe all the time when we had those 

cultural centers during the Cold War, and people were constantly 

attacking them as being a waste of money and a waste of time, but 

you would visit those offices in Prague or Warsaw at 10 o’clock at 

night, and we had to throw then out of there. They were so anxious 

to learn something about the United States of America, and I 

thought those were enormously important, and I think you have to 

do a lot more of the same with regard to this Muslim world. 

We are not going to solve this problem in a week or two or a year 

or two or in my lifetime, but we have to get started on it. 

36 

Chairman HATCH. Thank you, Lee. 

Senator Chambliss. 

Senator CHAMBLISS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

A very profound statement, Lee. I am one of the folks who was 

somewhat skeptical about the formation of this Commission when 

it started, in some part because of exactly what Senator Kennedy 

alluded to there, that thick book he held up. I know he is exactly 

right about it, but I just want to tell you guys, and I have known 

both of you for a decade and have had the opportunity to work with 

you and have great respect for both of you, and I think your Commission did a really find job, not just in what you recommended, 

but you did an awful lot of research and you put it in black and 

white where Americans can understand it. I hope this report continues to be on the best seller list for months to come. 

I appreciate you setting the record straight relative to what the 

President and Secretary Rumsfeld, as well as others in the administration, have said. I am one who, because of your report in part, 

has come around to a way of thinking that we do need a National 

Intelligence Director, and we are going to have one. It may take us 

somewhat longer than what some folks would like for it to happen, 

but it is going to happen. But the President has been very specific 

in saying that he has not shut the door on what kind of power and 

authority this individual ought to have and that is open for discussion. That is the kind of leadership that we expect out of our President and we are getting out of our President on this specific issue. 

There has been a compilation, Mr. Chairman, of a side-by-side of 

the 41 recommendations that the 9/11 Commission made, and either the action on the part of the administration, a lot of which 

was alluded to by Secretary Hutchinson, and the ones that have 

not been acted on, the particular consideration that is being given 

to those recommendations. Thirty-nine of the 41 have either been 

directly acted on or are under consideration. The only two that 

have not been, interestingly enough, are the two relative to the reorganization of Congress. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator CHAMBLISS. I introduced a copy of that yesterday in the 

Intelligence Committee hearing, and I would like unanimous consent to introduce that today as part of this hearing. 

Chairman HATCH. Without objection. 

Senator CHAMBLISS. Ms. Baginski, I want to tell you an anecdote 

particularly with the strong support coming from the 9/11 Commission about the PATRIOT Act. I have been a strong supporter of it. 

I think it was the right thing for us to do, and I think it has been 

very effective. I met with most of my JTTF in Atlanta recently, and 

an interesting comment came out of that group when we were talking about the PATRIOT Act. What one FBI agent said was, he 

said: The enactment of the PATRIOT Act has been crucial to us 

winning the war on terrorism, and we need for every bit of it to 

be extended. And he said: I will tell you that it has not been the 

great asset that a lot of people thought it would be relative to the 

arrest and prosecution of terrorists, but what it has allowed us 

more importantly to do, and on many more cases than have been 

prosecuted, is to eliminate suspects from suspected acts of terrorism. 

37 

I think that is critically important when we are talking about invasion of freedom and liberty, and, Lee, you are right, we have a 

delicate balance there that the PATRIOT Act has to meet. But I 

was particularly intrigued when that agent told me that we have 

relieved a lot of people’s minds because we had the PATRIOT Act. 

We would not have been able to do the that had we not had the 

PATRIOT Act. 

One quick question, Lee and Slade. You are, rightly I think, very 

critical of the FBI from an information sharing standpoint. You 

identified them as one of the biggest abusers of the frankly lack of 

information sharing, and I have done the same thing, as you know. 

While there have been great strides made there, the one glaring 

area to me you left out was DOD’s information sharing. What did 

you conclude relative to the acts of DOD regarding information 

sharing, and is there any kind of model there that we can look at 

for the future? 

Mr. HAMILTON. There are a number of very important intelligence collection agencies in DOD. You have got the NSA, you 

have got the NGA, you have got the NRO, and you have got the 

Defense Intelligence Agency. There are probably others as well. 

And one of the interesting things about the intelligence community 

is that, as you know, that is the way it is organized. It is organized 

around collection, how you collect. And when you stop to think 

about it, it ought to be, at least in my mind, not organized on the 

way you collect, but it ought to be organized on your mission, what 

you are trying to accomplish, and that is why we get into the national intelligence centers and the National Counterterrorism Center. 

We believe all of those agencies I have mentioned and others do 

a very good job of collecting information. We collect vast amounts 

of information in this Government. Every minute or two we are collecting millions of bytes of data, and the big problem is not so 

much collection as it is analysis and assessment. But we think the 

stovepipe phenomenon has seriously hurt our overall intelligence 

agency, and I think there have been improvements made since 9/ 

11, but nonetheless, still there is this kind of focus on, we collected 

this information, we will keep it, and the sharing mechanisms are 

informal, they are not institutionalized. They are better I think 

than they were, but I think we have a long way to go to get the 

kind of free flow of information that is vital to counterterrorism efforts. 

Mr. GORTON. Lee is entirely right in that connection, and Senator Kennedy referred to the fact that much of the information that 

we gather through the signals things does not get translated or 

does not get translated in real time, and the sharing arrangements 

were highly informal. Now, one major improvement since 9/11 was 

the creation of the Terrorist Threat Integration Center, which is 

designed to see to it that information from here and information 

from there and from the CIA and the Defense Department gets to 

someone who can distribute it to the people in the agencies who 

know about it. In one very real sense, our recommendation for a 

National Counterterrorism Center builds on that. Our impression 

is that it has done a pretty good job, but it is headed by a relatively 

mid-level executive on loan from the CIA, and it has people on loan 

38 

from the FBI and on loan from the Defense Department and other 

agencies, who know their long-term career is somewhere else. They 

obviously cannot tell those agencies what to do. 

If you have a National Counterterrorism Center headed by a 

presidential appointee confirmed by the Senate with the power to 

demand cooperation, and even more significantly, the power to say: 

here is something we are missing in the field of terrorism, I think 

it falls within the FBI’s jurisdiction, so you go out and look for it 

here, CIA go out and look for it somewhere else, we will make that 

a much more powerful and effective entity. 

Are we doing a better job now than we were before 9/11? There 

is no question about it. Can we do a better job, including the integration of these Defense Department agencies which are really the 

800-pound gorilla? At least from the point of view of the technology 

they have and the money they have, clearly we can. 

Senator CHAMBLISS. Thank you, and thanks to all of you for the 

great job you are doing. 

Chairman HATCH. Thank you, Senator. 

Senator Feingold. 

Senator FEINGOLD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman for holding this 

hearing. 

I too want to thank Commissioners Hamilton and Gorton, and all 

the Commissioners and members of the staff of the 9/11 Commission for your incredibly important and effective service. I cannot 

emphasize enough how vital your work is to the American people, 

and how significant and refreshing it is, that your reports and recommendations are bipartisan and unanimous. 

Chairman Hamilton, let me particularly thank you for your comments today, your candor with regard to certain, as you described 

them, astonishing powers of the Government, and also your enormous eloquence in your recent comments to Senator Kohl about 

some of the real foreign policy challenges that are before us. 

I supported the creation of the 9/11 Commission because I believed it was crucial to review what went wrong leading up to the 

fateful day in September, 3 years ago, what we can learn from 

those mistakes and what we should do to improve our Nation’s defenses against a future attack. But I will confess that this product 

greatly exceeded my expectations and even my hopes. You have 

provided us with a template for how to make our country safer and 

stronger. It is not time to implement these recommendations. We 

need to work out the details carefully but quickly, and in a bipartisan manner, taking our cue from the work of the Commission. 

Our Nation must effectively combat the terrorist threat we face. 

That must be the very highest priority of the Congress. We need 

real reforms now, particularly with regard to our intelligence community and our intelligence oversight, and I obviously look forward 

to working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle as we do 

that. 

Let me ask questions of Congressman Hamilton and Senator 

Gorton. The Commission has created an extraordinary sense of urgency about its recommendations. It seems very possible, if not 

likely, that we will consider the legislation on the floor with regard 

to this prior to the election. You have created a very fast-moving 

train for these recommendations, and I do salute you for that. Both 

39 

of you served with distinction in the Congress, so you know very 

well that fast-moving legislative trains are vehicles that are tempting targets for pet projects. So I want to get your reaction to some 

possibilities that, given the highly-charged political atmosphere we 

are all working in, do not seem all that farfetched to me. 

First let me ask you about potential efforts to attach or sneak in 

unrelated legislation to the bill that implements your recommendations. Will you as a bipartisan group oppose and speak out against 

efforts to use this legislation as a vehicle to force the enactment of 

other unrelated bills in the closing hours of this Congress? Congressman Hamilton. 

Mr. HAMILTON. Senator, I do not think we view our responsibility 

to tell you how to get the job done. We think the recommendations 

we have made are important and we think they are urgent, and we 

urge quick action on them, but also careful action, as you said in 

your statement. The Commissioners are committed to trying to get 

the recommendations enacted, and we will speak out in favor of 

those recommendations. I understand, and Slade understands, the 

intricacies of the legislative process, but our eye will be on the target, and our target is to get these things enacted. 

Mr. GORTON. Senator, we are not only gratified, but I may say, 

surprised at the quick and decisive action so far during the month 

of August, that 18 years in the Senate I do not remember an August when I was back here at hearings like this. It is an imposition 

on your time, and I think a tribute to your concern for what we 

have recommended that you have been doing this. And reading assiduously all our clips, I have not seen any indication of people trying to put pet projects on any of this legislation. We hope that you 

will pass legislation. Your procedures for doing so, of course, are for 

you to decide for yourself, and so I just simply associate myself 

with Lee. We hope you will act judiciously and carefully and 

thoughtfully, but because of the nature of this threat, we hope you 

will be able to act quickly. 

Senator FEINGOLD. Thank you. I would just comment that the 

American people I think are proud of what you have done here, 

and one of the things that could most quickly undercut what you 

have done is if somehow this legislation became a vehicle for other 

agendas. But I do respect your caution in your answers. 

In the report you repeatedly note the importance of protecting 

civil liberties, and I am pleased that you highlight that point, as 

I indicate, in your testimony as well. You say, Congressman Hamilton, that we must find ways of reconciling security with liberty, 

and of course, I strongly agree with you. Noting that some provisions of the PATRIOT Act will sunset at the end of 2005, you called 

for, and I am quoting here from page 394 of the report, ‘‘A full and 

informed debate on the PATRIOT Act.’’ Can we count on you to 

speak out against attempts to short-circuit the full and informed 

debate you have called for by adding PATRIOT Act reauthorization 

provisions or new law enforcement powers to the legislation that 

we will potentially consider in the next few weeks? 

Mr. HAMILTON. My recollection is that we commented with approval on the sunset provision in the PATRIOT Act, and because 

of the sensitivity of increasing Government powers, and the protection on the other hand of human freedom, human liberties, we 

40 

think it is a very, very important matter for the Congress to try 

to balance these as best they can. Your specific question, would we 

comment about any effort to short-circuit consideration of the PATRIOT Act, I think we recognize the issues in the PATRIOT Act 

are very serious issues, and we would favor full and open discussion of them. 

Senator FEINGOLD. Senator Gorton. 

Mr. GORTON. I cannot add to those comments. I agree with my 

Vice Chairman. 

Senator FEINGOLD. In the few seconds I have left, let me simply 

say that it is almost inherently the case that if we were to completely reauthorize every word of the PATRIOT Act during this accelerated period between now and the election, that it is impossible 

for this Commission’s recommendation with regard to this to occur, 

and that the proper time for that consideration is at the time of 

the expiration of the sunset, but I certainly am not trying to put 

words in your mouth, just I believe that is a reasonable conclusion 

from what the two of you have said. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman HATCH. Thank you, Senator. 

Senator Schumer. 

Senator SCHUMER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank you for 

having this hearing in a timely way. 

And I thank all of our panelists for the good work they do. I have 

worked with Asa Hutchinson and Maureen Baginski in their respective roles, and they are both responsive and involved and really 

caring about tightening up security in our Nation. I cannot say 

enough good about the 9/11 Commission. I think it was just an incredible, an incredible, incredible tour de force in terms of the recommendations, in terms of the bipartisanship, in terms of the refusal to point fingers of blame, which makes the media all happy 

but does not really solve the problems here, but instead looks for 

the future. So I compliment you all on that. 

I am worried. I want to address this to our two Commissioners. 

I know it has been touched on, but I am worried that a lot of your 

recommendations are either not going to happen or more likely, 

what usually happens in Washington, we look like we are doing 

something, but we do not do them. The Director of the National Intelligence is a classic. The President came out early for it, but did 

not give it the teeth, did not say he was for the budgetary and the 

hiring authority, which you had mentioned, Slade, was supposed to 

be in the original CIA and somehow got lost over the years. And 

then 2 days ago we heard Secretary Rumsfeld, and he is representing the Defense Department, and obviously, the interests of 

the Defense Department, come out and basically—I mean we all 

have been around Washington long enough to know he was throwing cold water on your proposals even if he did not say it directly. 

So I have a few questions on that. First, are you going to take 

strong and direct action to try and make sure we enact a full DNI, 

Director of National Intelligence, with budgetary and hiring authority before Congress adjourns this year, including however you 

see fit to do it, making sure that the President supports those proposals or is told that he ought to? Slade? 

41 

Mr. GORTON. That is exactly what we have done. We have made 

our recommendations. We have said that our recommendations are 

integral, that they fit into one another, and that we cannot say 

that doing them partway or piecemeal is going to provide the necessary degree of public security for the people of the United States 

that it is our conclusion that they deserve and can have. 

I think that all of us are probably more optimistic maybe than 

your question on this. We do not see, at least so far in any of the 

comments, some kind of veto coming from the administration, and 

we see that the legislation is going to be written here. Just 2 days 

ago, as I understand it, Senator Roberts and Senator Rockefeller 

submitted drafts to the Governmental Affairs Committee that are 

essentially what we have recommended. That is the legislation that 

we recommend be passed. 

Senator SCHUMER. Right. Do you worry that the House may not, 

you may not get a vote on it in the House? The Senate you will 

get a vote on it one way or another. 

Mr. GORTON. I think we will. I have already attended one House 

hearing in Los Angeles on the subject, and have another tomorrow. 

I think members of the House are equally interested in doing something. 

Senator SCHUMER. Let me ask you this, because when Porter 

Goss was nominated, it was early on I think, I was the first Democrat to say good things about him. I think he is a good man. I 

served with him in the House, and I think he has integrity. My 

worry is that will be a substitute for doing the recommendations 

that you suggested on the Director of National Intelligence, that we 

will do Goss, and then we will say, Let us come back. Let us let 

him have an assessment. He has not been that friendly to your recommendations. What would you think of trying to tie the two together? I think this is much more of an issue of structure than of 

one individual person, but of us—and we could probably do this 

here in the Senate—saying, yes, let us approve Porter Goss, and 

let us approve the 9/11 Commission’s recommendations on DNI at 

the same time? 

Mr. GORTON. That is beyond our pay grade, Senator. 

Senator SCHUMER. Oh, no, it is not. I would simply say to you 

that I am more worried maybe than you are. I was delighted to 

hear Pat Roberts come out and say what he did, but I think we 

have a long way to go, and frankly, that does not absolve this body. 

I think we have the same problems here, maybe even more so in 

terms of creating a Committee that has oversight over all intelligence with budgetary and other kinds of authority, which we do 

not have now, and no one is happy with the oversight that the Intelligence Committee is able to do because of their lack of power. 

I would just hope that you will be real strong on this, saying it 

and then letting it—because if we do not do it by November, I am 

very worried we may never do it, and the fine work that you have 

done may be put on the bookshelf. 

Do you have any comments on this, Lee? 

Mr. HAMILTON. Well, we feel very positive about our recommendations. We think if they are adopted the country will be 

safer. We think it is terribly important that the National Intelligence Director have full authority of budget, information systems, 

42 

personnel, and we go so far as to say that if he does not have those 

powers, do not bother with it. 

Senator SCHUMER. Right. 

Mr. HAMILTON. No sense creating it because then you really are 

creating another layer of bureaucracy. We have been talking for 30 

or 40 years around here about strengthening the power of the CIA 

Director, and we have done, you, and I in the past, have done some 

things that I think have been helpful, but he still is in a very 

anomalous position. 

Senator SCHUMER. Will both of you and the Committee members 

have a running sort of—you will be commenting as we move 

through the process about this and that and the other, not just saying, these are our recommendations, we hope you do them, and 

then exiting the stage? 

Mr. GORTON. No, we do not have any intention of exiting. 

Senator SCHUMER. Great. That is good news. 

Chairman HATCH. We have not seen you exit at all. 

[Laughter.] 

Chairman HATCH. We think you are hanging in there. 

Senator SCHUMER. Do I have time for— 

Chairman HATCH. You can have one more question. 

Senator SCHUMER. Great, okay. 

My next question relates to the issue of nuclear security. One of 

my great worries—and I think many of us share this, but particularly I have been focused on this—is that somebody slip a nuclear 

weapon into our country, and God forbid, explode it. I do not mean 

a dirty bomb. I mean a real nuclear weapon. And there are a lot 

of different ways to focus on this. One of course is to try and buy 

them all up overseas. That is an important job. We should do everything we can. It is next to an impossible job. It seems to me the 

better way to do this is to be at the choke point, that is, the place 

where a nuclear weapon would be smuggled into this country. 

And I have been trying to push this Congress for years, and the 

administration now for 2 years, coming from the city from which 

I come, to do more on this. We had originally proposed—technologically it is feasible—to develop detectors that you could put on 

every crane that loaded a container bound for the United States, 

on every toll booth of a truck that entered our borders, and those 

are really the only two ways you can bring a nuclear weapon here 

into this country, that could detect an amount of radiation in a real 

bomb. I have been pushing to have money for this. We had proposed 150 million, which is what the scientists told us they needed 

the first year. We got 35 million through the Appropriations Committee, and even that, as best I can tell, has not been spent. 

So here my question goes to all of the panelists, or particularly 

our two Commission members and Asa Hutchinson from Homeland 

Security. Should we not be doing more on this? Are we doing 

enough on this? Why, and to Asa in particular, why are we not 

spending at least the paltry $35 million that has been allocated to 

develop these devices? Is it good enough to inspect only 4 percent 

of the containers, for instance, that come through our ports, for nuclear devices? 

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Thank you, Senator Schumer. First of all, we 

agree completely with the underlying point that we have to do all 

43 

we can to detect nuclear devices, weapons, material that might be 

coming into the United States. We have a goal of 100 percent radiological screening of cargo and conveyances coming into the country. We have deployed 151 imaging systems, detection systems. We 

have 10,000 personal radiation monitors that have been deployed, 

284 radiation portable monitors. In reference to a dollar amount, 

the President’s budget for 2005 asks for $50 million, which is an 

increase from what was previously designated. 

And so we share the commitment, and we believe it is important, 

and we are working very hard to make sure that those items are 

procured and deployed. 

Senator SCHUMER. Asa, I am glad it is 15 million more. Every 

expert will tell you that over a 3-year period—because I have 

talked to all of them, and none of them are terribly political, these 

are scientists. The idea is to develop something that moves from a 

Geiger counter to sort of a foolproof detection device that can detect 

things many more feet away. A Geiger counter works great at three 

feet. It does not work at 80 feet. And 50 million is not close to 

enough. We have faced so many dangers, and it is not an easy job. 

Look at the range of the questions, every one of them legitimate 

that has been asked here. But this is so serious in terms of its devastation, and it is hardly the most expensive even to implement 

and everything else. Why only 50 million? Why are we not doing 

more? And again, this is not just an al Qaeda problem. This is our 

problem for the next generation. 

Mr. HUTCHINSON. That is correct. For example, whenever we 

looked at New York and concerns in that arena, we make sure that 

we have our assets flexible enough to deploy where they are needed 

to be. 

Procurement is an issue whenever it is allocated. So the schedule 

of manufacturing and the procurement of that, but we are moving 

very quickly on that. And we are enhancing our capacity. 

Senator SCHUMER. Why has the $35 million not been spent that 

was allocated not in this year’s budget, but in last year’s? 

Mr. HUTCHINSON. I would have to get back with you on that. 

Customs and Border Protection is spending that money as quickly 

as they can in terms of procuring these assets. I mentioned the 151 

that has been deployed, 284 radiation monitors. So there is a 

schedule that is being met day in and day out for the deployment 

of these radiation monitors. 

Senator SCHUMER. But we still only do 4 percent of the containers and a certain percentage, I do not recall, of the toll booths. 

I have seen them work. I have seen the ones that are there. They 

are just not close to enough. 

Chairman HATCH. Senator, your time is up. 

Senator SCHUMER. Could I just ask our Commissioners to comment? 

Mr. HAMILTON. Well, Senator Schumer, I want you to take a look 

at our proposal on the National Intelligence Centers. All of the attention has been on the National Counterterrorism Center, but we 

recommend, it is the other side of the chart here, all of the attention has been over here, but the other side of it is that the administration would identify the major threats to the national security of 

44 

the United States—counterterrorism would be a part of it—but also 

the weapons of mass destruction. 

And you would put in one place then the authority to bring together all of the intelligence that we have from all of these various 

intelligence agencies, but more than intelligence, you would do 

operational planning there, and that follows the military example, 

where you pool J2 and J3 together. And so you would put in one 

place in Government the responsibility to plan operations to deal 

with weapons of mass destruction. You would have all of the intelligence the Government has. We support the expansion of the Proliferation Initiative of the President. We support more funding for 

the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program. This is the ultimate 

nightmare— 

Senator SCHUMER. Right. 

Mr. HAMILTON. —that the terrorists gets hands on a weapons of 

mass destruction. We know that they have tried for 2 years to do 

so, and it is a terribly important program. But take a look at the 

potential of the National Intelligence Centers as the way to deal 

with this problem. 

Senator SCHUMER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman HATCH. I have a lot of questions that I will submit in 

writing, and I hope others will as well. 

Senator Leahy would like to ask one or two more questions. 

Senator LEAHY. Just because I thought that the line of questions 

that Senator DeWine was asking was a good one. I just want to 

make sure I fully understand this. 

I will direct to you, Ms. Baginski. Am I pronouncing that right— 

‘‘Baginski’’ or ‘‘Bajinski’’? 

Ms. BAGINSKI. Baginski is correct, sir. Thank you for asking. 

Senator LEAHY. Hard ‘‘g.’’ You said earlier the FBI can do multiple term searches in the Integrated Data Warehouse, the IDW. 

Now, I am not quite sure what databases are in there. Are case 

files included in that? 

Ms. BAGINSKI. Yes, sir. 

Senator LEAHY. So let us say you had a scenario like the wellknown Phoenix memo, where the young FBI agent who blew the 

whistle on the potential hijackers taking flight lessons out in Phoenix, presented a memo that was basically shunted aside when it 

reached headquarters. If that was generated today by an agent in 

the field, would it be included in the IDW? 

Ms. BAGINSKI. Yes, sir. 

Senator LEAHY. Thank you. 

Ms. BAGINSKI. I can give you a specific example from the demonstration they gave me on my first day here, which was to show 

this set of data that included a lot of different things, including 

case files, but not all case files, but terrorism information. And the 

activity was I could ask it a question. So I asked it give me information on how terrorists could do us harm. And with no fix in or 

anything else, the first thing that came up was the Phoenix memorandum. 

Senator LEAHY. Maybe this fall Senator DeWine and I might 

have time to just go down and take a look at it. 

45 

Ms. BAGINSKI. We would love to have you come and look at what 

the power of putting data like that together is doing for our analysis. 

Senator LEAHY. I know how shocked I was right after 9/11, when 

I went down to the Center. I have said this publicly and in fact I 

discussed it with President Bush at the time. He was equally 

shocked at the amount of paper, and rewriting, and rewriting— 

Ms. BAGINSKI. Yes, sir. And we have more work to do, and just 

not to— 

Senator LEAHY. I want to help. I mean, I am not here to criticize. 

Ms. BAGINSKI. But I also want to tell you that I had the responsibility for information sharing. And through a policy board we are 

looking specifically at IDW and trying to add to the data sets that 

are in there. That is the point I want to make to you. 

Senator LEAHY. Thank you. I will be down. 

Ms. BAGINSKI. Great, sir. Thank you. 

Senator LEAHY. Congressman Hamilton and Senator Gorton, you 

have recommended the National Intelligence Director, and you recommend that the NID be located in the Executive Office of the 

President. The question comes to my mind, would that give the 

NID sufficient independence? 

And, secondly, also on the question of independence, do you want 

this NID—to serve at the pleasure of the President or have a set 

term similar to what we do with the FBI Director? 

And, thirdly, you recommend giving the NID hiring and firing 

authority over the FBI’s executive assistant director for intelligence, as well as budgetary control of the FBI’s Intelligence Division. Does that assistant director then remain accountable to the 

FBI Director and the Attorney General or does she or whoever it 

might be became accountable to the NID? 

These are sort of questions that, as I walked across the fields of 

my farm in Vermont, I was thinking about maybe because I was 

not wearing a tie. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. HAMILTON. Well, they are very important questions, Senator. 

With regard to the location in the White House, the Executive Office, a little earlier I was talking about the necessity of integrating 

a lot of aspects of counterterrorism policy. Where do you do that? 

Well, I think it has to be done in or near the White House. It has 

to be done with the authority of the President. 

Now, we do not want to get hung up on boxes here. Boxes are 

not the most important thing. Authorities are the most important 

thing. If you do not put it in the White House, where do you put 

it? I do not think it would be correct to put it in DOD or the CIA 

because those departments and agencies deal with very specific 

kinds of responsibilities, and what you need is a very cross-cutting 

responsibility here. You are going to be giving direction to the Secretary of State, and the Secretary of the Treasury, and a lot of 

other people. 

So we recommend putting it in the White House. That is for you 

all to sort through, but if you do not put it there, where do you put 

it? 

Senator SCHUMER. With a term or at the pleasure of the President? 

46 

Mr. HAMILTON. No, he serves at the pleasure of the President. 

This position is—he is the principal adviser to the President, and 

we think the importance of a good relationship between the President and the National Intelligence Director is crucial. So we say coterminous with the President. 

Now, this question of independence is a genuine one. And we all 

know that politicalization of intelligence is a very, very difficult 

problem. Our analysis of that was that we had put into this system 

a very good means of competitive analysis, and we do not think 

that the locus or the geographical location of where the principal 

adviser to the President sits, whether it is in the Executive Office 

Building or somewhere else, maybe even in Vermont—is key. 

Senator LEAHY. That is okay. We have got enough people. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. HAMILTON. The danger of politicalization rises because of the 

functions and the relationships not the location of the person. And 

I do not see how anyone can look at the present system today— 

you just came out in the Senate here with this devastating report 

on ‘‘groupthink’’ in intelligence community. What that means is a 

lack of competitive analysis. So I do not think the status quo is encouraging with respect to competitive analysis. 

What we do is we keep all of the independent analysis—State 

will have their analysis; Treasury will have their analysis; Energy 

will have theirs; Army, Navy, Marine Corps, they will all have 

theirs—there is no change there—they have their independent 

analysis. And then we emphasize the importance of open-source 

analysis as well, which we think adds to the competitive analysis. 

Everybody wants competitive analysis. Nobody wants 

politicalization of intelligence. All of us recognize how difficult it is 

to deal with both of these problems. 

We believe, if you look at our system very carefully, the creation 

of the National Intelligence Director has a number of benefits 

which will strengthen competitive analysis and decrease the possibility of politicalization of intelligence. You cannot ever remove the 

prospect of politicalization of intelligence, but you can decrease it. 

Senator LEAHY. You did not answer what happens with Ms. 

Baginski. Is she accountable to the FBI and the AG— 

Mr. GORTON. Basically, she is going to be accountable— 

Senator LEAHY. —or is she accountable to the NID? 

Mr. GORTON. Basically, she is going to be accountable to both. As 

we said, we have affirmative, we have been very positive about this 

relationship in the FBI between intelligence and law enforcement 

and the fact that people who work in the FBI know something 

about both. 

I think we ought to emphasize just one other thing, in addition 

to what Lee has said to you. We do not say that this National Intelligence Director should be a Cabinet officer because we do think 

intelligence, the collection and communication of intelligence and 

operational planning should be separated from policy. Cabinet 

members are policymakers. 

Policies, with respect to what is done in the White House, should 

go through the National Security Council and should be those of 

the President. But, on the other hand, the President has got to 

trust this person who is the head of all intelligence, and that is the 

47 

reason we make those recommendations. But that person should 

not be a policy setter. 

Chairman HATCH. Senator Schumer said he will take one 

minute, and then we are going to shut this down. 

Senator SCHUMER. Mr. Chairman, I have a whole lot of questions. 

Chairman HATCH. And you can submit them in writing. 

Senator SCHUMER. I am mindful of people’s schedules. I will do 

them in writing. 

I am going to ask Mr. Hutchinson in writing, just from the Homeland Security, why this $35 million, paltry as it is, has not 

been spent yet or just to give me some details, in writing. He does 

not have to do it now. 

My final question relates, it is to both the Commission and Ms. 

Baginski. I am still concerned about all of those Saudi flights that 

came about right after September 11th. Long before the Commission came out, I sat down with Dick Clark, you know, he gave me 

his little synopsis as to what happened. I know you talked to him. 

And this is one place, one of the very few places I am not sure I 

completely agree with the Commission’s recommendations. 

My question is this, not did every person who was on that flight 

get a check—they did. Somebody went and cleared them. I am not 

sure it was under the best of circumstances—I want to know who 

authorized the flight. How was it, especially when all planes were 

grounded, that this plane was able to take off, filled with Saudi nationals, including some people in the bin Laden family? It could not 

have been Dick Clark. I do not think he would have that authority. 

And so did you ask that question on the Commission? Did you get 

any answers? Is it not a relevant question to be answered? 

And then Ms. Baginski, if she knows anything. 

Mr. HAMILTON. Well, we looked into it as thoroughly as we could, 

Senator Schumer. And I suspect this is one of these questions that 

will be looked at a great deal more in the future. We found no evidence that any flight of Saudi nationals departed before national 

airspace was opened or reopened. We found no evidence of the involvement of U.S. officials at the political level in any decisionmaking on these flights. 

What the testimony was, was that Dick Clark—this was a few 

days after—was just— 

Senator SCHUMER. It was on the 13th. 

Mr. HAMILTON. Yes.—just besieged with hundreds and hundreds 

of questions. And the FBI called up Dick Clark, and there had been 

a contact from the Saudi Embassy to the FBI. The FBI called up 

Dick Clark and said, ‘‘Is it okay to let these flights go out?’’ 

And Dick Clark said, ‘‘Yes, if checks have been made’’ or whatever. In other words, it was not something that took a huge 

amount of his time. 

And from what we know, we believe the FBI conducted a satisfactory screening of the Saudi nationals before their departure, including extensive interviews with regard to the bin Ladens, and 

there were a number of them. Now, our own independent check of 

the databases found no links between terrorism and the Saudis 

that departed. So that is where we came out on the investigation. 

Mr. GORTON. And I emphasize that is after the fact. 

48 

Mr. HAMILTON. That is after the fact. 

Mr. GORTON. That is what we did later during the course of our 

investigation. 

Mr. HAMILTON. That is after the fact. That is where we are in 

the investigation. 

Senator SCHUMER. But you do not know who authorized this, the 

early one, the 13th was one of the very first flights allowed. It was 

not that everybody was flying then again. You had to get specific 

authorization. And then there were others later. Like there was 

one the 19th, after everybody was flying again. 

Mr. HAMILTON. Is that the one from Florida that came up you 

are talking about? 

Senator SCHUMER. Yes. 

Mr. GORTON. Even that early Tampa flight to Lexington was 

after the Tampa airport was opened to general aviation. 

Senator SCHUMER. Did they not have to get approval? I thought, 

in those early days, there had to—in other words, all planes were 

flying then? 

Mr. HAMILTON. The commercial airplanes, it took a little while 

longer than some of the general aviation to get cranked up to fly. 

Senator SCHUMER. And any general aviation was allowed on the 

13th? 

Senator GORTON. They did not take off until the Tampa airport 

was opened. 

Chairman HATCH. That has got to be it. 

I want to thank each of you for being here. I thought this was 

one of the best hearings that I have observed in the Congress, and 

it is because of the four of you and those who back you up. I think 

you have been terrific. I think you have helped us to understand 

a lot of things we need to understand. We have only scratched the 

surface in some ways, so we will keep the record open for a week 

for written questions, and hopefully you can help us even further 

there, so that we can do our part of this and of course participate 

in all of the other parts of it as well, which this Committee does 

very well. 

So we want to thank each one of you. I am sorry it has taken 

us so long, but it has been a very, very worthwhile hearing, and 

we are grateful to you. 

With that, we will recess until further notice. 

[Whereupon, the 12:18 p.m., the Committee was concluded.] 

[Questions and answers and submissions for the record follow:] 

49 


96459.001
50 


96459.002
51 


96459.003
52 


96459.004
53 


96459.005
54 


96459.006
55 


96459.007
56 


96459.008
57 


96459.009
58 


96459.010
59 


96459.011
60 


96459.012
61 


96459.013
62 


96459.014
63 


96459.015
64 


96459.016
65 


96459.017
66 


96459.018
67 


96459.019
68 


96459.020
69 


96459.021
70 


96459.022
71 


96459.023
72 


96459.024
73 


96459.025
74 


96459.026
75 


96459.027
76 


96459.028
77 


96459.029
78 


96459.030
79 


96459.031
80 


96459.032
81 


96459.033
82 


96459.034
83 


96459.035
84 


96459.036
85 


96459.037
86 


96459.038
87 


96459.039
88 


96459.040
89 


96459.041
90 


96459.042
91 


96459.043
92 


96459.044
93 


96459.045
94 


96459.046
95 


96459.047
96 


96459.048
97 


96459.049
98 


96459.050
99 


96459.051
100 


96459.052
101 


96459.053
102 


96459.054
103 


96459.055
104 


96459.056
105 


96459.057
106 


96459.058
107 


96459.059
108 


96459.060
109 


96459.061
110 


96459.062
111 


96459.063
112 


96459.064
113 


96459.065
114 


96459.066
115 


96459.067
116 


96459.068
117 


96459.069
118 


96459.070
119 


96459.071
120 


96459.072
121 


96459.073
122 


96459.074
123 


96459.075
124 


96459.076
125 


96459.077
126 


96459.078
127 


96459.079
128 


96459.080
129 


96459.081
130 


96459.082
131 


96459.083
132 


96459.084
133 


96459.085
134 


96459.086
135 


96459.087
136 


96459.088
137 


96459.089
138 


96459.090
139 


96459.091
140 


96459.092
141 


96459.093
142 


96459.094
143 


96459.095
144 


96459.096
145 


96459.097
146 


96459.098
147 


96459.099
148 


96459.100
149 


96459.101
150 


96459.102
151 


96459.103
152 


96459.104
153 


96459.105
154 


96459.106
155 


96459.107
156 


96459.108
157 


96459.109
158 


96459.110
159 


96459.111
160 


96459.112
161 


96459.113
162 


96459.114
163 


96459.115
164 


96459.116
165 


96459.117
166 


96459.118
167 


96459.119
168 


96459.120
169 


96459.121
170 


96459.122
171 


96459.123
172 


96459.124
173 


96459.125
174 


96459.126
175 


96459.127
176 


96459.128
177 


96459.129
178 


96459.130
179 


96459.131
180 


96459.132
181 


96459.133
182 


96459.134
183 


96459.135
184 


96459.136
185 


96459.137
186 


96459.138
187 


96459.139
188 


96459.140
189 


96459.141
190 


96459.142
191 


96459.143
192 


96459.144
193 


96459.145
194 


96459.146
195 


96459.147
196 


96459.148
197 


96459.149
198 


96459.150
199 


96459.151
200 


96459.152
201 


96459.153
202 


96459.154
203 


96459.155
204 


96459.156
205 


96459.157
206 


96459.158
207 


96459.159
208 


96459.160
209 


96459.161
210 


96459.162
211 


96459.163
212 


96459.164
213 

Æ 


96459.165