[House Hearing, 108 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
CAN THE USE OF FACTUAL DATA ANALYSIS STRENGTHEN NATIONAL SECURITY? PART
ONE
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON TECHNOLOGY, INFORMATION
POLICY, INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS AND
THE CENSUS
of the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MAY 6, 2003
__________
Serial No. 108-72
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house
http://www.house.gov/reform
______
90-399 U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
WASHINGTON : 2003
____________________________________________________________________________
For Sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office
Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; (202) 512�091800
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COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman
DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut TOM LANTOS, California
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
JOHN L. MICA, Florida PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
DOUG OSE, California DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
RON LEWIS, Kentucky DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
CHRIS CANNON, Utah DIANE E. WATSON, California
ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma C.A. ``DUTCH'' RUPPERSBERGER,
NATHAN DEAL, Georgia Maryland
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania Columbia
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio JIM COOPER, Tennessee
JOHN R. CARTER, Texas CHRIS BELL, Texas
WILLIAM J. JANKLOW, South Dakota ------
MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
(Independent)
Peter Sirh, Staff Director
Melissa Wojciak, Deputy Staff Director
Rob Borden, Parliamentarian
Teresa Austin, Chief Clerk
Philip M. Schiliro, Minority Staff Director
Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy, Intergovernmental
Relations and the Census
ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida, Chairman
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
DOUG OSE, California DIANE E. WATSON, California
TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio
Ex Officio
TOM DAVIS, Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
Bob Dix, Staff Director
Scott Klein, Professional Staff Member
Ursula Wojciechowski, Clerk
David McMillen, Minority Professional Staff Member
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on May 6, 2003...................................... 1
Statement of:
Loy, Admiral James L., Director, Transportation Security
Administration............................................. 31
McCraw, Steve, Assistant Director, Office of Intelligence,
Federal Bureau of Investigation, accompanied by William
Hooten, Deputy Executive Assistant Director................ 13
Tether, Tony, Director, Defense Advance Research Project
Agency, Department of Defense.............................. 46
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Clay, Hon. Wm. Lacy, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Missouri, prepared statement of................... 8
Loy, Admiral James L., Director, Transportation Security
Administration, prepared statement of...................... 34
McCraw, Steve, Assistant Director, Office of Intelligence,
Federal Bureau of Investigation, prepared statement of..... 16
Miller, Hon. Candice, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Michigan, prepared statement of................... 25
Putnam, Hon. Adam H., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Florida, prepared statement of.................... 4
Tether, Tony, Director, Defense Advance Research Project
Agency, Department of Defense, prepared statement of....... 49
CAN THE USE OF FACTUAL DATA ANALYSIS STRENGTHEN NATIONAL SECURITY? PART
ONE
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TUESDAY, MAY 6, 2003
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy,
Intergovernmental Relations and the Census,
Committee on Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 3 p.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Adam Putnam
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Putnam, Miller and Clay.
Staff present: Bob Dix, staff director; John Hambel, senior
counsel; Scott Klein, Chip Walker, Lori Martin, and Casey
Welch, professional staff members; Ursula Wojchechowski, clerk;
Suzanne Lightman, fellow; David McMillen, minority professional
staff member; and Jean Gosa, minority assistant clerk.
Mr. Putnam. A quorum being present. The hearing of the
Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy,
Intergovernmental Relations and the Census will come to order.
Good afternoon and welcome to today's hearing, ``Can the Use of
Factual Data Analysis Strengthen National Security? Part One.''
First of all, I'd like to thank everyone for bearing with us as
we've had to make time and room changes for today's hearing. We
appreciate your cooperation.
In an effort to prevent future terrorist attacks and
enhance law enforcement efforts, deputies and agencies
throughout the Federal Government have begun developing
strategies that will assist in the identification of potential
risks through the use of technology and information sharing.
The truth is that there is a tremendous amount of information
that already resides in the public venue. However, due to past
practices of stovepipe mentalities and turf issues, much
relevant information that could be of use or interest to law
enforcement officials has not been easily accessible.
In particular, since September 11, 2001, it has been
imminently clear that we must do a better job of compiling and
sharing information that will provide, enhance the
opportunities for law enforcement and national security
officials to identify potential risks in advance. Federal
agencies have utilized methodologies that facilitate data base
exploration for quite some time in an effort to root out waste,
fraud and abuse. In fact the recent highly public case of
government credit card abuse was flushed out, and the
perpetrators identified through the use of data mining or
factual data analysis, as some call it.
Now, a number of Federal agencies with the responsibility
for homeland security and law enforcement are employing the
lessons learned through the use of factual data analysis or the
conclusions drawn from this analytical process to increase
their ability to detect patterns and relationships within the
masses of data they have access to in an effort to increase
risk assessment capabilities. This hearing will examine whether
the use of this process will successfully enhance efforts to
strengthen law enforcement and national security.
Does factual data analysis contribute to increase the risk
detection? As we have previously established, factual data
analysis is not a technology in and of itself. It is an
analytical process that utilizes technology in an effort to
identify patterns and relationships that were previously
unknown. It has been used successfully in the private sector to
craft specific marketing and sales programs. It has been used
successfully in the public sector to identify and address
instances of waste, fraud and abuse.
The hope is that these same technological advances that aid
marketers in identifying customers for their products and law
enforcement in catching tax evaders or identifying welfare
fraud will also detect patterns that should raise suspicion
among those working would improve our Nation's security. Today
we have witnesses representing the FBI, the Transportation
Security Administration, and Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency.
Each of these three agencies proposes to use factual data
analysis or conclusions drawn from the process to enhance
homeland security. Specifically, we will be examining the FBI's
Trilogy and related technology analysis tools, TSA's computer-
assisted prescreening process system [CAPPS] II, and DARPA's
total information awareness [TIA]. We have asked each of these
witnesses to explain their agency's program and talk about the
role factual data analysis is envisioned to play. While each of
these agencies proposals is different in its construct and each
may generate varying responses and levels of interest, the
subcommittee will seek to learn more about the source,
accuracy, reliability, and security of the data that is
accessed to determine risk assessment.
Let me be clear, we are not here to compare one project to
the other, nor are we here to evaluate the strategic basis for
these projects. We are here to examine the use of technology in
the facilitation of this process and the techniques, processes
and outcomes that are produced. We hope to listen and learn
from these expert witnesses and hear factual information about
these projects. We also recognize that there is clearly some
concern and reluctance on the part of some of the witnesses to
even be here today because of some of the press coverage about
these projects. Today we will examine the facts about how data
will be compiled, what data will be assembled, what steps are
taken to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the data, how
the data will be analyzed, and what will be done with the
results as well as how the privacy and personal freedom of the
public will be protected by the process itself. We expect full
and complete disclosure.
In 2 weeks after gathering and evaluating the information
that will be presented today, the subcommittee will reconvene
and examine this issue from a standpoint of privacy and
personal freedom concerns in part 2 of this hearing. The
subcommittee believes this is a good place to start from. From
an oversight perspective, we look forward to working with these
agencies as they continue to plan and implement their proposals
for enhancing homeland security.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Adam H. Putnam follows:]
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Mr. Putnam. It's my pleasure now to yield to the gentleman
from Missouri, the ranking member, Mr. Clay, for any opening
remarks that he may have.
Mr. Clay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you for
calling this hearing. I look forward to today's testimony. When
government agencies collect information about American
citizens, then those citizens have a right to see that
information and correct it if there are errors. I would like to
begin by quoting one of our witnesses from our last hearing on
data mining, Professor Jeffrey Rosen. At that hearing,
Professor Rosen opened his testimony with this statement:
``It's possible to design data mining technologies in ways that
strike better or worse balances between liberty and security.
But there is no guarantee that the executive branch or the
technology just left to their own devices will demand and
provide technologies that strike the balance in a reasonable
way. Congress, therefore, has a special responsibility to
provide technological and legal oversight of data mining to
ensure that the most invasive searches are focused on the most
serious crimes.''
Our job today is to gather as much information as possible
about these three programs so that we can assure that the
balance between liberty and security is a good one. Over the
past 2 years, we have seen a heavy thumb on the balance scale
in favor of security. However, it is not clear that we are
necessarily more secure because of it. We have also seen the
liberty of individuals abused in ways we have not seen in this
country since the internment of the Japanese during World War
II. We learned in hindsight that breach of liberty was a
terrible misuse of government power. The government quietly
admitted so when it turned to those people interned and asked
them to serve in the military or to work as translators.
Much later our government officially apologized. President
Clinton, in issuing that policy said, ``we recognize the wrongs
of the past and offer our profound regret to those who endured
such grave injustice. We understand that our Nation's actions
were rooted in racial prejudice and wartime hysteria. And we
must learn from the past and dedicate ourselves as a Nation to
renewing and strengthening equality, justice and freedom.''
Today our government faces a threat to our national
security that many have compared to World War II. President
Bush compared the attack on the World Trade Center to the
bombing of Pearl Harbor. In the days that followed that attack,
the President's speech writers used President Roosevelt's
speeches from December 1941 to shape President Bush's remarks.
We must learn from the past and not allow our fears to destroy
the very liberties for which we fight. The descriptions of the
programs we are considering today with secret filings and
warrantless searches of our electronic lives puncture that thin
wall between liberty and security. At the same time, these
programs have not proved that they have a benefit strong enough
to justify that breach.
Finally, I'd like to thank the Defense Advance Research
Project Agency for providing this testimony to the subcommittee
in a timely fashion. It's a shame that the FBI and TSA did not
show the same respect for this subcommittee. Again, let me
thank the witnesses for their testimony. And I ask that my
statement be included in the record. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Putnam. You're very welcome. Thank you, Mr. Clay. We
appreciate your interest.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Wm. Lacy Clay follows:]
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Mr. Putnam. And obviously this is going to be an
interesting hearing. At this time, I'd like to recognize the
vice chair of the subcommittee, the gentlelady from Michigan,
Mrs. Miller.
Mrs. Miller. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a brief opening
statement if I may. I look forward to hearing the testimony of
all the witnesses. I'm very appreciative of all of you coming
here today. I think this will be a fascinating hearing. I think
the issue of factual data analysis as a tool to strengthen
national security is certainly one of the most significant
issues facing our Nation. In fact, today in our society. And
with the implementation of the E-government Act of 2002 and the
growing importance of information technology in our world
establishing investigative techniques such as factual data
analysis are vital, absolutely vital if our Nation is to
successfully prosecute the war on terror.
As we know, the terrorists seem to have an uncanny ability
to adapt to our methods of prevention. In many instances, they
are using our freedoms against us. In my view, I think we need
to focus all of our resources and attention to ensure we are
always at least one step ahead of them if possible. Federal
officials currently have at their disposal the resources and
knowledge to implement systems that assist us in this process.
These officials currently occupy the vanguard of our defenses
and need not to necessarily be hampered by bureaucracy in their
efforts.
However, the American people must have confidence that the
Federal Government is using this new source of information in a
very ethical and proper and effective way. It's absolutely
essential that a proper balance be made between the operation
of the government as it prosecutes the war on terror and the
disclosure of operations to citizens that it was set up to
protect. And for this reason, it's the responsibility of this
subcommittee to ensure that the factual data analysis as a tool
be not abused.
For example, I'm certainly very encouraged that the Total
Information Awareness Project [TIA], is being conducted by the
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency [DARPA], and it has
been relatively transparent. Why only in its beginning phases
this program provides a hope that we can analyze the patterns
of a terrorist to anticipate their next move? And some have
expressed concern about programs such as these. But the mere
fact that Mr. McCraw, Admiral Loy, and Dr. Tether have agreed
to testify certainly shows that the Federal Government is
concerned about the perception that Congress and the public has
about data analysis as well.
I'm very much looking forward to working with the chairman
and members of the subcommittee and full committee to ensure
that this program receives the proper congressional oversight
and I certainly will be interested to hear the testimony
provided today. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Putnam. You're very welcome, Mrs. Miller. We thank you.
With that, we will move to the witnesses. You're all
experienced with congressional testimony. You understand the
light system. We'll ask you to adhere to the timing out of
respect for everyone's schedules. Today each witness will
testify on his own panel. After each witness has given the 5-
minute statement, the subcommittee will ask questions
particular to that witness's agency. After all three panels
have testified and answered this initial round of questioning,
the three witnesses will return to the witness table to answer
future rounds of questions.
As you are aware, we swear in our witnesses. So if Mr.
McCraw would please rise for the swearing in.
[Witness sworn.]
Mr. Putnam. Note for the record the witness has responded
in the affirmative. I will ask if there are associates from
your agency who intend to provide supporting evidence or
testimony for the subcommittee, that you rise and be sworn in
also at the appropriate time. Our first witness today is Steven
C. McCraw, a 20-year FBI veteran. He's assisted this year to
the newly created Office of Intelligence. His office will be
responsible for implementing FBI intelligence strategies,
making sure that intelligence is properly collected, managed
and shared within the FBI, with State and local law enforcement
through the 66 Joint Terrorism Task Forces, and with the
intelligence community, including the new Terrorist Threat
Integration Center.
Previous to his current appointment, he was special agent
in charge of the FBI San Antonio field office and served as the
director of the Foreign Terrorist Tracking Task Force before
that. We're pleased to have you and you're recognized for your
statement.
STATEMENT OF STEVE McCRAW, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF
INTELLIGENCE, FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION, ACCOMPANIED BY
WILLIAM HOOTEN, DEPUTY EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT DIRECTOR
Mr. McCraw. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First, I owe yourself
and the members of the subcommittee an apology because you
didn't have my statement well in advance. I have been notified
that it has been cleared. I ask your permission that we do
submit it for the record.
Mr. Putnam. How quickly can you get it to the subcommittee
using all the miracles of technology?
Mr. McCraw. Well, I have to turn around here, Mr. Chairman,
with your permission. Making copies and driving it here right
now at this time.
Mr. Putnam. I'm quite certain we have a fax machine. If
they want to get it to us that way, we'll be able to afford the
audience and others the opportunity to review it as well in a
timely manner. We look forward to that. Thank you. You're
recognized.
Mr. McCraw. Thank you. First, I'd like to take the
opportunity to thank each and every one of you for your support
in enabling the FBI to modernize its information technology
systems. I think, in fact, in all the statements that you made,
you know, previously including the letter asking the FBI's
participation in this important hearing, I noted the importance
and value added benefits of utilizing technology. Clearly, the
FBI's focus is trying to utilize these advances to manage and
to find links, relationships, and patterns of individuals
within its own data systems. To that end, it's the information
in terms that the FBI legally and lawfully collects in the
course of its investigations that becomes a part of its system
of records.
As background in terms of discussion of data mining, I
believe it's important to understand the term ``data mining''
as it's used commonly today. It's defined as technology that
facilitates the ability to sort through masses of amounts of
information through data base explorations, extract specific
information in accordance with defined criteria, and then
identify patterns of interest to users.
Also, as I mentioned before, it's an outstanding tool to be
able to go through those data sets and identify links,
relationships, and associations between individuals of
interest. And in effect, what it does is automate what analysts
and agents have had to do for years. So what it does, it allows
analysts and agents to work cheaper, faster, smarter. And that
is how the FBI, in terms of its Trilogy, is going about it.
Now, one thing that has been critically important to the
FBI and we have a strong commitment to and that is the rule of
law, the Constitution, the statutes that you in Congress have
passed, the Attorney General guidelines, the Privacy Act, and
all of the laws and statutes that clearly delineate and
guidelines for the FBI in terms of how they can properly and
lawfully collect information. Because in effect, that's the
information that we would be utilizing this technology on, its
own internal information.
One of the advantages, the FBI, from lessons learned over
the years, is that we have, and the reasons we have what the
Office of General Counsel has, an Administrative Law Unit, we
have an Investigative Law Unit, the reason we have in the field
the Chief Division Counsels so that these rules and regulations
that are closely adhered to and followed up on is to ensure
that an agent doesn't go out on an fishing expedition in terms
of looking at an individual, arbitrarily looks at a person or
surveils a person, but there's predication, a reason for doing
it. It's the same thing that we're talking about in terms of
data mining. There's a reason, first, to collect the
information. Once we collect it lawfully, then naturally we
want to exploit the latest technology so that we can work
better, in protecting Americans from terrorism, from crime, and
from foreign intelligence activities.
Ensuring the appropriate controls to protect the privacy of
the Federal Government data, we must also look at in terms of
public source data. And that is data that is derived and sold
by public companies that people have access to, you and I,
certainly the private industry utilizes this, and clearly the
FBI does utilize public source data as a tool, and clearly as a
tool for leads.
Again, so we can work more economically, we can save time,
and we can be more efficient in what we're doing in terms of
investigations. Now, we've learned from lessons learned, and as
you well know, is that public source data is not always
accurate. In fact, many times there are errors. So we have to
be mindful it's a tool that requires followup investigation.
I'm sure, there have been instances were they've come
across erroneous information. I'm applying for a mortgage at
this time--and they've identified inaccurate information. In so
doing, it makes you mindful of how much other information was
linked to a particular credit card inappropriately. Well, you
know, the systems aren't perfect. They're run by people. That's
why it's only a tool for FBI. And that when we use public
source data that we extract the relevant components of it
before we bring it into the FBI system of records. We don't,
and we won't, go out and purchase wholesale data sets that are
publicly available and incorporate that with the names of
myself, my family, you and hundreds of thousands of other
Americans in our system of records for convenience sake.
Clearly we have an obligation to be mindful of those
things. I look forward to any questions that you might have
later. Thank you very much for your time.
Mr. Putnam. Thank you, Mr. McCraw. I'm informed that we are
either electronically or by fax receiving your testimony so we
appreciate that.
Mr. McCraw. We don't have the greatest success rate in
technology, Mr. Chairman. I apologize for that. We're trying to
get better with it.
Mr. Putnam. We're going to try to help you.
Mr. McCraw. Thank you, sir.
[The prepared statement of Mr. McCraw follows:]
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Mr. Putnam. I'd like to recognize the gentleman from
Missouri to begin his round of questions. Mr. Clay, you're
recognized.
Mr. Clay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. McCraw, a few weeks ago, the FBI issued a final rule
that exempted information held by the FBI like the information
in Trilogy from the Privacy Act requirements that the
information held on individuals be accurate and timely. In
other words, the FBI is going to make no effort to assure that
the information they hold on an individual is correct. Now,
some of these records are available to local law enforcement
officials. When someone is stopped for a traffic violation, the
officer runs that person's identity through a number of
systems, one of the systems checked is the FBI's National Crime
Information Center. Under this new rule, the FBI no longer is
obligated to assure that the information held by the National
Crime Information Center is correct. That means that people
will be detained and arrested based on inaccurate information
when all they have done is roll through a stop sign. Will you
explain to this committee why the FBI believes it is no longer
necessary to verify the accuracy of the information it holds on
individuals?
Mr. McCraw. Mr. Clay, one reason without discussing the
statute for years and maintaining these high standards in terms
of what data is entered into the NCIC is for that very specific
reason that you gave, is that we have police officers out
there, they stop for a traffic ticket, run the name and they
have been advised all of a sudden this person is wanted. In
accordance with officer safety and established guidelines, they
have this person arrested. Clearly, there has to be, you know,
strict guidelines when you use NCIC, and in fact, it has to not
be just for the FBI, but all users of NCIC that have access and
enter records into it. Those requirements are, and it's been
held in place and there will be no shifting of those
requirements in terms of agents being obligated in terms of the
accuracy of the information that goes in there.
That's critical in terms of the FBI in terms of how it
operates NCIC. It's also important for us in our own system of
record that we have accurate information. But sometimes what we
may find in our own system of records is a report, a lead that
someone is suspected by somebody of doing something and that
we're obligated as FBI, in the FBI, to followup on. And we find
during the course of it that's not accurate.
In fact we found that for other reasons that the allegation
was made that wasn't accurate. I'm not in a position to discuss
some of the technology issues or the statute that you referred
to, but obviously, we want everything in our data base to be
correct. But I can assure you there is instances where we
collect information that when we do further investigation, we
find out, in fact, that statement was not correct to begin
with.
Mr. Clay. So then what happens? Do you go back and correct
your records? I mean, do you delete that information that is
incorrect from the records or do you put it in a different
category?
Mr. McCraw. No, sir. We just include in the record that we
have gone out and done this and determined that, in fact, this
allegation was not true.
Mr. Clay. So that's the system the FBI has in place.
Mr. McCraw. Because we're obligated to keep all information
that we collect and also show the business process of what we
actually did or did not do.
Mr. Clay. What about some information that is so inaccurate
that you list some motorist stopped as being on the FBI 10 most
wanted list, and then you detain this person and you find out
he or she is not the right person. Then how do you correct
that?
Mr. McCraw. We're still obligated to report the facts and
the facts are that in your scenario that the FBI made a
mistake. We still need to maintain the fact that we had a
report, we acted inappropriately, we made a mistake and it's
still there and it's documented.
Mr. Clay. It would seem that out of efficiency to law
enforcement you would go and clean up that error and take it
out of that record so that the next law enforcement officer
doesn't pull that information up.
Mr. McCraw. I couldn't agree more, Congressman. As it
relates to NCIC, and what State and local law enforcement have
access to, absolutely. If there's a mistake that has been made,
or if someone has been located they have to be immediately
taken out of NCIC because that issue could have been resolved.
We have to be mindful and the rules and guidelines require that
it is immediately corrected if there's an inaccuracy found at
NCIC.
Mr. Clay. And that's what happens now.
Mr. McCraw. Absolutely.
Mr. Clay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Putnam. At this time, I recognize the Vice Chair, Mrs.
Miller.
Mrs. Miller. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. McCraw, pleasure
to have you here. First of all, let me just say that my
experience with your agents in the Detroit area has been
remarkable. You have some really fabulous folks there that have
done a very excellent job. And I felt like I was achieving
nirvana with them because I was speaking to them every single
day after September 11 in my previous capacity as the Michigan
Secretary of State, where we do the motor vehicle kinds of
things.
As you might recall, after September 11 there were nine
individuals that appeared on every newspaper in the Nation
where these fellows had--this is about a week after September
11--these individuals had obtained commercial driver's licenses
with hazardous material endorsements. And they were all
ostensibly from Michigan. As we found out later, I think there
were only two that actually got a CDL with a HAZMAT endorsement
from us. The rest weren't Americans, but they were here of
Arabic descent that had just gotten a driver's license through
the sources that they should have not from another State,
actually.
But at any rate, you know you look at some of these things.
And that actually led us to make a proposal. I wasn't a Member
of Congress then, but something that we had talked about
actually did become a part of the Patriot Act in my State, if
you want a concealed weapons permit, we do a criminal
background check. But if you want a commercial driver's license
with a hazardous material endorsement and drive around with
10,000 gallons of liquid propane, no problem, just fill out a
form.
So we thought then to try to think like terrorists
ourselves. As I said in my opening statements many times, these
individuals are using our freedoms against us.
And I sort of preface that with asking you, if you were
aware if the Federal motor carrier division has promulgated
rules or implemented them in which there is a requirement for
an FBI criminal background check for anyone who is receiving
not a CDL, Commercial driver's license, but a hazardous
material endorsement. We have a large population of people who
are of Arabic descent, and I compliment the FBI and Justice. It
is very common knowledge there was a large group of individuals
who were called in to be questioned in the Detroit area, and I
think it was handled with a high degree of sensitivity by the
FBI. I certainly again commend the Detroit agents for how they
handled that.
But do you have any knowledge if anything is happening in
that area where there is a criminal background check now
required for those that are getting those kinds of things? What
has your experience been as you are creating these data bases
as you interact with State agencies such as a DMV or others?
[The prepared statement of Hon. Candice Miller follows:]
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[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0399.014
Mr. McCraw. First, I want to thank you for your kind words.
I appreciate that. I'll relay that to the special agent in
charge in Detroit, and hopefully to his agents as well. I'm not
familiar with what has been done right now in terms of
regulations. And it may be better asked to the TSA, they may
know better. If I'm not mistaken I think that's in their
bailiwick, by statute. I do know one of the things that the FBI
has been criticized for over the years, that we've been trying
to correct, and clearly the director stepped ahead in doing so
in your question in terms of how we're using data bases. We
take--and also addresses one of Mr. Clay's concerns as well--
individuals under investigation for terrorism that we actually
have a predicated subject, and they're investigated by the full
field investigation, the FBI has taken, the Director ordered
and has taken those names and put them into NCIC.
For two reasons, there is predication, there is not an
arrest scenario with it, but there is predication so the State
and local officers have access to that information who are
really the front lines of public safety and need that
information.
So those are the types of things that we're doing, and
there's a number of other information sharing initiatives that
really are technology-based, like a national alert system. We
want to be able to reach out to those chiefs of police using
the latest technology through their cell phones and PDAs and
text messaging, and let them know, we're in the process of
doing those similar type of things and even looking, the
chairman noted earlier, at the importance, in post September
11, of sharing information in ways that we can do it better and
collocate investigative data, multi agencies, use encryption
point-to-point over the Internet backbone to access information
and provide details. I hope that was responsive to your
question.
Mrs. Miller. It was. Because I think it's so important, as
you mention, as we saw since September 11, we've had
individuals that have been picked up for routine traffic
violations that were suspected terrorists. And the patrol in
the black and white car didn't have the information or whatever
as they're trying to share some of these data bases. My
understanding is that the FBI currently has 31 different data
bases, separate data bases which you're trying to combine under
this Trilogy project. First of all, why do you have 31
different data bases? How is it working as you try to notify
some of those?
Mr. McCraw. It's not working. Fortunately behind me, I have
the Deputy Assistant Director, who we are fortunate to have in
the FBI, whose job is to make those things work. And for years
we've had antiquated systems, stovepipe systems, and certainly,
Mr. Hooten is in a better state to describe the state of
affairs he inherited, but clearly it was a detriment in terms
of what we needed to do in our mission.
So I have no defense for it. Clearly it was a problem.
Certainly this Director recognizes the need for technology. And
fortunately for us, and thankful to you that you've empowered
people from the outside that come with the latest technological
skills like Mr. Hooten, Mr. Lauer to come in and address this
important issue.
Mrs. Miller. Thank you. I don't have any further questions,
but I certainly look forward to working with you and make sure
you have the resources that you need to work these systems.
It's critical. No use sitting here pointing fingers on what we
should have done 3, 4 or 5 years ago. We need to look to the
future. We've got a new enemy. These terrorists are different.
They live in the shadows and prey on the innocent. We do need
to utilize technology to assist you in doing your job. Thank
you very much.
Mr. Putnam. Thank you very much. We do have your testimony
so thank you.
Mr. McCraw. Again, apologize for the delay.
Mr. Putnam. My understanding for the record, it was held up
at OMB, not at FBI; is that correct?
Mr. McCraw. I don't know that I'm supposed to comment on
why it's held up. I know one thing, if I had done it sooner, it
would have been likely cleared in time. So it's really my
fault.
Mr. Putnam. Well, we're glad that we have it now.
In your testimony you indicated that you have traditionally
used factual data analysis, the collection of data bases prior
to Trilogy. Could you please compare what you have done in the
past with the technology that Trilogy will provide for you.
Mr. McCraw. Certainly. Currently in the FBI we have the
system called ACS. It provides an antiquated software over a
full text data that allows you to go through a number of green
screens. It allows someone to try to do a full text query, just
like you would a search on the Internet, a search engine.
However, it is so cumbersome and is so difficult and you are
overloaded with a tsunami of information that comes back hardly
useful.
Moreover, there is no visual link type of tools or link
analysis tools that are common use; certainly the Department of
Defense uses it; a number of different agencies have been using
it successfully over the years.
So right now the type of technology that is being brought
on board and actually being used, even though development is
being utilized right now by our counterterrorism analysts, is a
tremendous benefit to our analysts. They will actually be able
to go to specific sets of information for query. One of the
major advances using a software package that actually works is
that there is no question that we would have gotten to the
Phoenix memo just asking the question, in terms of are there
any threats in aviation.
Also it's really important to utilize push technology,
which the private industry has been using for years.
Again, I'm just describing what we're doing now versus what
I was able to do before. And let's say an analyst has a certain
issue or topic, let's say it's ricin, anything in the FBI
records gets loaded up into if it had ricin, whether it came in
the community, whether it was an FD 302, which was an
investigative report that the FBI did, or whether it was an
insert or electronic communication, that information is pushed
to the analyst.
Now, the scope is the prototype, and Mr. Hooten and Mr.
Lauer and others in their professional project managers are
working on perfecting the technology. And it improves every
day. Already we're seeing some tremendous advancements when we
standardize the data, provide it in a useful format, and apply
these state-of-the-art technology tools on top of it.
Mr. Putnam. In quickly reviewing your written testimony,
the term Trilogy is never mentioned. Would you define Trilogy
for the subcommittee?
Mr. McCraw. I think Mr. Hooten is probably better to define
it, but Trilogy, I'll attempt it, my understanding is that it
is the entire modernization of information technology in the
FBI.
If you don't mind, could we have Mr. Hooten.
Mr. Putnam. Please stand.
[Witness sworn.]
Mr. Putnam. Note for the record the witness responded in
the affirmative.
Mr. Hooten. Trilogy is two very specific contracts. One is
to redraw our infrastructure of networks, which is virtually
non existent. That part has already been done. The second part
is going through and upgrading our hardware inlcuding our old
PCs. The third part is several applications of software, the
main one is the virtual case file, which is the replacement, as
Steve said, for the old ACS system. So it will be our new
system of records. It's the management of our cases. But it's
not a data analysis tool which is what this particular subject
is. That system that Steve has been referring to is SCOPE,
which is a development system that we're currently working on
that's made up of the series of COTS products that we are just
basically buying off the shelf and doing some quick
modifications so that these analysts can have something in
their hands that they can use right away. That is closer to
this sort of data mining idea, going through sets of data,
multiple data bases and looking for particular things.
Mr. Putnam. The SCOPE would be more of what you would
traditionally define as data mining than Trilogy?
Mr. Hooten. Yes.
Mr. Putnam. And SCOPE stands for what?
Mr. Hooten. I was afraid you would ask me that. I can't
tell you off the top of my head. We've been calling it SCOPE so
long I forget what it stands for. I can find out for you
though.
Mr. Putnam. OK. That would be helpful. What new data bases
would be searched through SCOPE or through the new Trilogy
program that are not currently accessed or utilized today or
prior to the deployment of those two programs?
Mr. Hooten. Nothing new. It's the same thing we're doing
now. The first one is our ACS, which is our system of records,
that's our main data base. The nine other things that are very
helpful to the analyst are called SAMnet, which are all the
cables coming in.
Mr. Putnam. According to your written testimony, ``the FBI
uses information collected by public source companies to obtain
information on individuals during the course of its terrorist
criminal and foreign intelligence investigative activities.''
What type of public source companies have data bases that are
accessed prior to an event that would trigger an investigation?
Mr. McCraw. That we would use as an investigative tool? To
name some of the public names, LEXIS/NEXIS, Choice Point.
There's several of them out there that have information,
driver's license information, government information that
they've purchased and that through a query over the Internet
and for a fee, you're able to find out additional information
about a name. Again, it's a nice tool. It saves valuable lead
time. But it has to be done not on a fishing expedition, it's
done based upon a reason. There has to be a reason why you
decided to run somebody through that data base.
Mr. Putnam. Could you please elaborate some on what role
these improvements, and you've outlined two or three different
programs, how will they contribute to better collaborative
efforts between the FBI and the CIA with the Terrorist Threat
Investigation Center?
Mr. McCraw. Well first and foremost, it allows the FBI to
properly manage its information so we can extract the essential
elements of information and to get that in through reports
officers, and subject matter experts to get that to the TTIC,
also to the Counterterrorism Center as well and to other
customers out in the community that need that information.
From the technology standpoint, Mr. Hooten can explain a
lot better. It has been standardized so when there's sets of
information that the FBI is legally able to provide the
intelligence community with, it can do in a standardized
format, that it can then use without additional, you know,
contractors having to rewrite the format. Better----
Mr. Putnam. Before you do, I think, for the record, if you
would, please give your full name and your position.
Mr. Hooten. William L. Hooten. My position is Deputy
Executive Assistant Director over at administration.
Mr. Putnam. Thank you. I appreciate that. Thanks for your
help.
Mr. Hooten. Sure.
Mr. Putnam. Mr. Clay raised some interesting issues about
the accuracy. What is the level of sophistication of technology
today that an Arabic name, for example, would be case sensitive
or would certain persons who have the same name and perhaps
even the same middle initial and perhaps even the same middle
name, what level of sophistication is there to prevent people
from being caught up in a mistaken identity?
Mr. McCraw. Well, obviously, transliteration has been a
problem that all of us face in the government in terms of
names. I mean, Waheed Alshiri, I know of at least 14 different
types in juxtapositions of the name itself and in public source
data alone in which it it appeared. And many times there is
insufficient data that you can actually make a determination
that it was, in fact, that person. Because there is no date of
birth, biographical data or other relational type of data that
you can be assured it's that person. That's why it's careful,
especially if your operating in the public and proprietary data
bases, that there is always followup along those lines, and
that it's properly characterized, that information.
Again, a tool within our own system now that we're bringing
on greater and advanced tools, there is varying degrees of
software that has greater success in terms of discerning those
differences, in providing a greater ability of analysts to be
able to try to get the transliterations, the juxtapositions or
incorrect spellings during the course of an investigation that
it was captured.
So clearly, technology has improved. It empowers the
analyst and agent to do things that we couldn't do in the past,
but it still requires followup work on every piece. And
certainly it's an analytical judgment, an investigative
judgment when you brought this information together.
Mr. Putnam. Mr. McCraw, we're going to have to move to the
second panel recognizing, of course, that everyone will be on
the panel together as soon as we have gone through these
individually. Somebody had to be first and you drew the short
straw. So thank you very much for leading us off on this
hearing. At this time we'll excuse the first panel and seat the
second.
Mr. McCraw. Thank you.
Mr. Putnam. Admiral, are you ready?
Admiral Loy. I'm ready to be sworn, sir.
Mr. Putnam. Let me introduce you first. We appreciate you
being here. And look forward to your testimony. Admiral James
Loy is the administrator of the Transportation Security
Administration. Previous to his service in this position,
Admiral Loy was Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard and served
as the Coast Guard chief of staff from 1996 to 1998. From 1994
to 1996, he was Commander of the Coast Guard's Atlantic area.
His other flag assignments were as chief of personnel and
training and commander of the 8th Coast Guard district. A
career sea going officer, Admiral Loy has served tours aboard
six Coast Guard cutters, including command of a patrol boat in
combat during the Vietnam War and command of major cutters in
both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
Admiral Loy graduated from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in
1964 and holds masters degrees from Wesleyan University and the
University of Rhode Island. Certainly a very distinguished
career serving our Nation. We look forward to your service at
the new Department of Homeland Security. Please rise and I'll
swear you in.
[Witness sworn.]
Mr. Putnam. Note for the record, the Admiral responded in
the affirmative. Is there anyone with you that needed to do
that also?
Admiral Loy. I don't think so.
Mr. Putnam. You don't need anybody to answer questions?
Admiral Loy. We'll see, sir.
Mr. Putnam. Very well. You're recognized.
STATEMENT OF ADMIRAL JAMES L. LOY, DIRECTOR, TRANSPORTATION
SECURITY ADMINISTRATION
Admiral Loy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and good afternoon.
Congressman Clay. Good afternoon, sir. Thanks for the
opportunity to discuss CAPPS II as a project with your
subcommittee. Mr. Clay, I clearly got your message on time,
sir, and we'll make sure that we follow that closely in the
future. If I may, sir, I'll offer my written testimony for the
record and simply try to emphasize a couple of important points
with my oral testimony about this project, and then answer your
questions if I may, sir.
First, it's important to recognize that the existing CAPPS
system is seriously flawed and in need of replacement. We've
studied this system at great length and replacement is the
right word. It's too broken in both concept and execution to be
upgraded or repaired. Discussing its shortcomings in a public
hearing, I believe, is a bit inappropriate, sir, but I would
like to offer the committee a follow-on closed briefing if
there is any interest in that after our time together today.
My point here is that CAPPS II would be a huge security
improvement. I believe of all the elements that we've put in
place in designing a system of systems for aviation security
first and for the rest of transportation of now and into the
future, CAPPS II has the most potential to improve both
security and customer service. Our goal is to simply keep
foreign terrorists off airplanes. And CAPPS II is a key piece
of our interlocking system of systems. And it's also very
important to note, I believe, Mr. Chairman, that we are working
hard with other detection and screening project owners in the
new Department of Homeland Security to ensure good stewardship
of the taxpayers' investment in all of these projects. We don't
need redundancies; we don't need overlaps; but we do need gaps
closed, and we're working very hard to see those goals come to
closure.
Second, the goals of CAPPS II are simply twofold and very
basic: They are to radically improve the identification
authentication of travelers and with that, improve the
identification and detection of known and unknown foreign
terrorists before they board an airplane, including those that
associate with terrorists.
Third, the Aviation Transportation Security Act directed
TSA to focus on CAPPS, the current system, and any of its
successor systems for improvement and to ensure that any such
system would evaluate all would-be passengers before they
board. That's precisely what we're doing. Our review to date
again clearly indicates the requirement for a replacement
system.
Fourth, CAPPS II will be a limited risk assessment tool
based on dynamic intelligence information about the activities
of known terrorists and their associates. It will be run by TSA
inside a compartmented government firewall and sensitive to
changing intelligence assessments or the alert conditions, for
example, as set by DHS. Think of it, if you will, as a
theostat, for the risk assessment scores returned by the CAPPS
II tool can be compared to higher or lower limits set by
intelligence inputs for the day.
Fifth, unlike the classic definition of data mining as
outlined in your invitation to testify, where one searches
through reams of data to detect or identify hitherto unknown
patterns, CAPPS II will be a traveler-activated search where
traveler-offered data elements provided to secure a
reservation, name, address, phone number, and date of birth,
will initiate the identification authentication score, as well
as the risk assessment score. The search will be to determine
if well-known patterns are found to drive that risk assessment
score higher than the threshold acceptable for the security
environment of the moment.
The products of the search, the result and risk score and
identification score will translate to a simple direction to
the checkpoint at the airport. Green, have a nice flight;
yellow, provide secondary screening before boarding; or red,
refer to law enforcement as one whose risk score deserves law
enforcement scrutiny, and in any case, who will not board that
flight.
Sixth, we have recognized the importance of privacy
concerns and have conducted considerable outreach to the
privacy and civil liberties arenas. At multiple day offsites,
we have collaborated with a good number of those with privacy
concerns because we have them as well. We have met with groups
of privacy officers from the business community, with groups of
stakeholders in the privacy arena, and with individuals who
have a deep conviction about the fourth amendment. We've also
met with congressional representatives, with Senators and their
staffs, and have listened intently so as to develop a privacy
strategy for CAPPS II that will be a strength of our system,
not a weakness.
Most recently, we have engaged the review of Ms. Nuala
O'Connor Kelly, the newly established privacy officer at the
Department of Homeland Security, to validate our commitment to
doing this right. And as we speak, she is with our delegation
to the EU to sort out international privacy concerns. And I am
simply of the mind that we can design, if we put our minds to
it, a solid program where security and privacy are
complementary goals. That's why we designed our Federal
Register notice to solicit the widest spectrum of comment
possible. When our listening is done, we will reissue that
notice based on what we've learned.
Seventh, CAPPS II will not build data bases on U.S. persons
permitted to fly; will never see the commercial data being used
to authenticate identification; will not search medical records
or criminal records nor see credit ratings, overdue bills or
any such data to assess risk; will not generate new
intelligence; and will not keep even the risk scores after
travel is complete.
Eighth, CAPPS II will be a serious resource allocation
tool. It will allow us to better schedule Federal air marshals,
to better schedule screeners, even the new Federal flight deck
officers--``guns in the cockpit,'' if you will--so as to
optimize the resources we have to throw against the security
problems we face.
Last, Mr. Chairman, CAPPS II will be counterintuitive in
the sense that we will not be looking for the proverbial needle
in a haystack. Rather, we will be taking that haystack off the
needle, identifying those thousands and thousands of perfectly
innocent travelers, opting them in, if you will, thereby
leaving only those we can't evaluate as OK to be the subject of
added scrutiny.
Today about 15 percent of the travelers are dubbed
selectees, and undergo secondary screening. We believe we can
bring that percentage way down, and thereby make not only a
significant difference in security, but also a significant
difference in customer service as well.
Thank you for your attention, sir. I look forward to your
questions.
Mr. Putnam. Thank you, Admiral.
[The prepared statement of Admiral Loy follows:]
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Mr. Putnam. As with our previous witness, our ranking
member will be recognized first for questions.
Mr. Clay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you Admiral for
being here today. I want to salute you for your leadership in
the area of airline security, over the TSA and being willing to
serve this Nation in that capacity.
Admiral, airline security has a troubled history of racial
profiling, even before the attack on the World Trade Towers.
During the 1991 Gulf war, individuals with Middle Eastern names
were forced off their flights despite the fact they were
American citizens. One gentleman, an American citizen, whose
parents were from Bangladesh, was told he should carry his
passport to prove his citizenship.
Last year the ACLU testified before Congress of dozens of
such incidents, individuals discriminated against in airports
or on airplanes based on race and heritage. The same people who
oversaw the private contractors who provided discriminatory
security are now designing new systems. What is TSA doing to
prevent racial profiling from continuing in our air
transportation?
Admiral Loy. Mr. Clay, the design work associated with
CAPPS II as the replacement for the existent CAPPS program in
place today has a very clear specification: there will be no
racial or gender profiling. We frankly don't believe there's
any value in going in that direction at the other end of a
security risk assessment. What one has to do with the other is
simply unknown to us. So the design work here is to keep such
things totally out of the picture by specifying in the contract
that we don't go there. There is no reason for it either, and
it's certainly totally out of both my personal and our
organizational ethic.
Mr. Clay. You mentioned in your testimony the random checks
that occur, I was leaving Orlando a couple weeks ago, from the
Chair's area, I had a one-way ticket back here to Washington
and I had four ``S"s on my ticket. Quickly routed into special
security, take off the shoes and all of that.
Mr. Putnam. It's not racial, man, I was there with you.
Mr. Clay. You did it, too. I mean, so now under CAPPS II it
will be less and less of that?
Admiral Loy. Absolutely, sir.
Mr. Clay. How do you get picked?
Admiral Loy. Today CAPPS is a rule-based system. It has
been that way with no changes to those rules for a rather
lengthy period of time. In the immediate wake of the tragedies
of September 11, 2001, those rules were actually reinforced. I
would rather not go into a public listing of those rules, but I
can tell you that they are recognizable; they are
compromisable; they are broken, sir. That is exactly the reason
why CAPPS, as a system in place today, needs to be replaced.
We will not have rules associated with the manner in which
CAPPS II will do its work. We will take advantage of added
pieces of information that we will ask of travelers. A
condition of a reservation is that you no longer just give your
name; you give your name, address, phone number and date of
birth, and allow the extraordinary technology of today to give
us a risk score associated with authenticating that
identification.
Mr. Clay. Thank you. Admiral, 2 weeks ago the Wall Street
Journal ran an article on the problems created by the no-fly
list. That article began with the story of Larry Mussara. Mr.
Mussara is a retired Coast Guard Commander, the father of
three, a local hero in Alaska for his daring helicopter rescues
of stranded fishermen and mountaineers.
But, every time Mr. Mussara flies Alaska Airlines, which is
about once a month, he gets stopped, often missing his plane.
This kind of error occurs because Mr. Mussara has a name
similar to one or more names on the no-fly list.
In CAPPS II, the TSA is going to use a number of private
data bases to make these same kind of comparisons. Will that
increase the chance of a missmatch like the one Mr. Mussara
faces?
Admiral Loy. No, sir. It will actually radically decrease
the chance of a mismatch. I want to make it clear here, Mr.
Mussara will not be singled out in the days when CAPPS II is an
active program, though he is focused on time and time again,
unfortunately, under the program that is in place today.
Mr. Clay. Just to wrap up with you. Can you share with us
how many names are on the no-fly list? Is that available?
Admiral Loy. Again, sir, I think that I would prefer to
tell you that in confidence or in private. I will be happy to
do that. I can offer that CAPPS II compared to CAPPS as it is
in place today is quantum levels better in both identification
scrutiny, and in risk assessment across a watch list created
predominately by the Justice Department in the Terrorist
Tracking Task Force over the course of this last year. So we
are talking hundreds on one hand, tens of thousands on the
other.
Mr. Clay. Under CAPPS II the kind of mistakes that Mr.
Mussara encounters will not occur?
Admiral Loy. That is exactly right, sir.
Mr. Clay. Well, thank you very much for that.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Putnam. The gentlelady from Michigan, Mrs. Miller.
Mrs. Miller of Michigan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And to my
colleagues, I have also been under selection numerous times. It
seems, to go through the whole check.
I have to tell you that I was on a flight on Friday night
with six Members. I noticed all of the Republicans were being
selected, but not the Democrats. So I don't think it is racial,
it is partisan. That is my observation.
Admiral, I appreciate your testimony and certainly your
service to our Nation as well. I would like to ask a question
as you talked to categorizing it as a risk assessment score,
perhaps we can call it a threat score, what have you.
Will it only be the TSA that would have that kind of
information of a threat score? Will you be utilizing or
sharing, or sharing any of this information with commercial
entities? If you do intend to share any of it with commercial
entities, how can your organization ensure that the commercial
entities are not sharing this information when they should not
be?
Admiral Loy. Ma'am, we will not be sharing the risk scores,
either with respect to identification or with respect to final
risk, with anyone outside that firewall I described as being
the break point between inside government and outside
government.
We will be enormously concerned about four or five privacy
parameters that I believe are the framing elements of what we
wanted to build our privacy strategy around. But particularly
to your point, we will not be getting into data itself; we will
be designing arithmetic algorithms that will be able to search
those data bases.
Our first effort will be to take those traveler-initiated
pieces of information--PNR data--aggregate them, and send them
to commercial data bases for the manipulation, if you will,
that offers us back an identification authentication.
Goal one is to be able to look travelers in the eye and
have great confidence that they are who they claim to be. That
is job one, to get us from where we are today, with a name-
based system only, with its potential for challenge, and this
goes directly to Mr. Clay's question as well, and toward a
system where we have great confidence that the person who is
asking for this reservation is the person he claims to be.
Second, armed with that, we will run that authenticated
name against the government data bases. That will reflect for
us a final risk score determination. That will only be shared
with another law enforcement organization if the purpose for
which CAPPS II has been met, should they or should they not be
allowed to board that plane. And there is a recognition in that
risk score that law enforcement attention is actually in order.
Mrs. Miller of Michigan. Admiral, you said, ``we want to
look them in the eye and make sure that they are the person
that they are claiming to be.'' So, let me ask if you have any
comment on using technology, the retinal scans, looking them in
the eye. That is the best technology that we really have
available today.
I will tell you, as a frequent traveler, I would be happy
to have presecurity clearance and look me in the eye and make
sure that you do the retinal scan and let me through the lines
rather than standing there forever.
Do you have any comment about whether we ever get to that
point? I recognize the privacy advocates are talking about
that. But, I mean, I think it makes a lot of sense.
Admiral Loy. Well, we are actually working with the privacy
advocates at the table, on design work, both with respect to
CAPPS II and with respect to another project that we have
underway, the transportation workers identification credential.
The notion there is biometrical, such that the identification,
so beating the so-called identity theft issue is very much
within our grasp.
CAPPS II will not have a biometric base associated with it,
but I think we are only months away from having as a foundation
block CAPPS II on one hand and the TWIC program on the other.
We will build a registered traveler program that will be
biometrically based, that will seek those players who are
willing to step forward to get the background investigation,
and get it accredited in the form of a biometrically-based
card, so that we can facilitate a quicker passage through the
airport system.
Everyone will always go through the basic screening, and
then of course if you trigger an alarm, based on having gone
through the magnetometer, whatever screening is required there.
If we can facilitate that in a frequent flyer line, or in
some fashion that we can work out, and I am very optimistic
that we can do that with the airlines, because they see it as a
great value as well, we will end up doing exactly what you
described. I would like to call it a registered traveler
program, rather than frequent, which is, of course, associated
with airlines exclusively, if you will, or trusted, the obverse
of which I am not too keen on, labeling people as untrusted
travelers.
So we are right there. That is exactly the design work that
we are following.
Mrs. Miller of Michigan. Well, call it whatever you want
to. I would like to sign up when you get it available, please.
You mentioned that the purpose of CAPPS is really, a
primary purpose is obviously to improve identification
processes and those kinds of things. You heard me mention
earlier I had been a person that was in charge of DMVs.
And, of course, the driver's license really has become sort
of the critical foundation of establishing anyones identity,
whether they are utilizing driver's licenses, whether they are
utilizing State identification cards, what have you.
Let me ask you to comment on something that Secretary Ridge
has, I know, made some comments on. There has been a lot of
discussion amongst all of the States about the possibility, the
potential of having a nationwide driver's license, because
currently the type of primary documents that are required by
the individual States to establish identity have such a huge
fluctuation it is unbelievable. We take a lot of pride in
Michigan, we think that we have some of the more stringent
standards in the Nation. Minnesota also has very stringent
standards.
But I have never been able to figure out why it matters
whether you get a driver's license in Minnesota or Michigan or
Tennessee, or what have you, and that you have all of these
different requirements. It must be an unbelievable challenge
for yourself, the FBI and others, looking at these driver's
licenses that are often times issued with erroneous
documentation or very little kind of primary identification
requirements.
I think people are sometimes startled to know that it is
the rule rather than the exception that almost every State in
our Nation must issue a driver's license or a State
identification card to people that we know are here illegally,
illegal aliens are getting these driver's licenses. By most of
our State laws we are required to give those out.
So I can't imagine what kind of impact that is having on
the CAPPS program, and some of these others as you try to
identify trusted travelers.
Admiral Loy. Yes, ma'am. I think you are absolutely right
on point. We have given up using that base as a means by which
we can gain confidence that a person who claims to be whoever
they claim to be is really that person.
In the other work of the Transportation Security
Administration across all modes of transportation, that is
where the transportation workers' identification credential is
going, because, among other reasons, we can't have faith in the
systems you were just describing.
The notion of a biometrically based transportation workers'
credential, both for identification purposes and for access
control purposes, is where we believe we need to go in the
transportation system at large. And we are working on two
prototype projects in that regard, one in the Philadelphia
area, and one in the Los Angeles area over the next several
months.
So I reinforce your concerns, and let you know that we
can't go there with comfort and have to design a better
mousetrap. I would also offer, based on your question to our
first panelists, that just last Friday, ma'am, we did issue an
interim final rule on hazardous materials endorsements on CDLs
in conjunction with FMCSA, as well as RSPA, the Research and
Special Programs Administration in DOT, with Justice alongside
in terms of making sure we have met that requirement that you
described in the Patriot Act.
And it does require a BI, which is exactly, I think, the
question you asked.
Mrs. Miller of Michigan. Thank you, Admiral. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Putnam. You are very welcome.
Admiral, several things about the mechanics of CAPPS II
program. First of all, the international terrorist
organizations have shown a remarkable agility in selecting a
variety of different targets. And in response to September
11th, I think that we have disappropriately focused our efforts
on protecting airline safety at the expense of rail, passenger
cruise ships and other potential threats. Will this same
technology be deployed for rail and passenger cruise lines?
Admiral Loy. The potential is very much there, sir. My
notion is that CAPPS II is a phased kind of project. Our first
goal needs to be to construct; I have analogized it to our
closets at home. And our first challenge is to build the rail.
And then how we develop and use the multiple applications that
might come from the risk assessment engines that will be
designed as the rail. I liken those to multiple hangers
sequentially being put on that rod over time.
And with not only the knowledge of, but the consent of
oversight-responsible organizations, not the least of which, of
course, is the Congress.
So, yes, my charge from Secretary Ridge is to build a
national transportation system security plan, not an aviation
security plan. And it does go to aviation, it does go to
maritime, and it is about rail, transit systems, highways, and
pipelines. All of those, plus maritime and aviation, compose
our national transportation system.
My goal is to make sure that Secretary Ridge is not found
with a weak link among any or all of those aspects of our
system. And, of course, that is just one of the puzzle pieces
he has to fit into his much bigger challenge across the rest of
our homeland.
Mr. Putnam. Do you currently have congressional
authorization to deploy that beyond air travel?
Admiral Loy. We do not. That is exactly why I said it would
be enormously important for us to come back and think it
through carefully, not only with authorizing committees, but of
course to seek the appropriations necessary to make it happen.
Mr. Putnam. And how would the technology detect or review
or assign a threat score to suspect domestic terrorists?
Admiral Loy. The process would be absolutely similar, sir.
Armed with those four pieces of information, the system would
first of all build that identification score. That score then,
as part of a review of those government data bases, would allow
us to assign that final risk score. It frankly doesn't matter
whether it is a foreign terrorist, although that is what we are
looking for. Our challenge to allowing a U.S. person on that
plane would simply be based on the fact that their score had
elevated beyond the threshold of going from yellow to red, and
we would then allow an investigative effort to take place by
the right law enforcement organization.
Mr. Putnam. So it would then also detect persons who are
not necessarily a threat to that airline, but who are wanted
for some other crime?
Admiral Loy. As you heard me say earlier, sir, we are not
searching NCIC as part of the data that we are looking at. This
is a very focused tool, designed not without potential to do
other things, if authorized and challenged by the Congress to
do so, but at the moment, we are charged with finding, in the
aviation sector, foreign terrorists or those associated with
foreign terrorists and keep them off airplanes. That is our
very limited goal at the moment.
Mr. Putnam. Certainly the additional hangers that would be
in your closet would inevitably lead to the technological
ability in detecting anyone on rail, seacraft, aircraft, who
would be then reviewed in data bases, that would include any
number of warrants outstanding for any number of crimes.
Admiral Loy. The potential there is very real, sir. And
frankly at the other end of the day, even as heinous as it
sounds, the ax murderer that gets on the airplane with a clean
record in New Orleans and goes to Los Angeles and commits his
or her crime, is not the person we are trying to keep off that
airplane at the moment.
Mr. Putnam. Today.
Admiral Loy. Yes, sir.
Mr. Putnam. But, clearly circumstances could change?
Admiral Loy. As I indicated, there are several issues here.
First of all, Mission Creep, if you will, is one of those
absolute parameters that the privacy community is enormously
concerned about, and I am enormously concerned about. We will
build such concerns into the privacy strategy that we will have
for CAPPS II.
On the other hand, over the course of time, with an airing,
clearly with the oversight associated with not only the
Congress but our continued collaboration with our privacy
colleagues, there are changes that can be made. There can be
additional hangers hung on the closet rod.
Mr. Putnam. Let me--you mentioned that the score--the
criteria that determine the score change, depending on
different circumstances.
Admiral Loy. Yes, sir.
Mr. Putnam. Who sets the criteria? Who makes those changes
based on other intelligence or other circumstances?
Admiral Loy. Well, I would offer, sir, that it is the
identification score that comes back first across that firewall
from its mix in the commercial data bases that will be
searched. Armed with that score, we then assess the risk and
produce the final risk score, and that score is going to be
probably the same, regardless of what is also happening at the
same time.
That process will run its course, and we will end up with a
risk score for that traveler. In the meantime, if we are at
alert condition blue or yellow or orange or red, there may be
enormously different attention being paid to one thing or
another.
If the intelligence drift over the course of that past
month or week or day or hour is being focused on an airline or
an airport or a flight or such things as that, then we would
have the ability to adjust that rheostat in such a fashion, if
there is a score of--pretend it is 100 max, if it was a score
of 94, if 1 day would find you in a yellow capacity as opposed
to red, based on the focus of intelligence that day, the
security environment, if you will, that is associated with the
world in which we are living in.
We believe it is enormously important for this system to
recognize adjustments in the flow of intelligence across our
daily desks and be able to do something about it. At the
moment, nothing like that exists in the CAPPS system that is on
the books today.
Mr. Putnam. And all of that is based simply on name,
address, phone number, and date of birth?
Admiral Loy. That is correct. That is the only data; that
is only four pieces of data that, A, the traveler will offer,
that, B, TSA will aggregate, that, C, will go to the commercial
review process to produce the identification authentication
score.
And when it comes then back into across that firewall to be
assessed against our government data bases for the final risk
score, there are no other pieces of data. We will only see
scores, not data beyond what the traveler offers us.
Mr. Putnam. It will be sensitive enough that if Mr. Clay
purchases a ticket from Washington and uses his Washington
address and phone number, and returns back from Missiouri using
his Missouri address and phone number, the discrepancy alone
will not flag him red?
Admiral Loy. That is exactly the case. Because, first of
all, if it ever occurs, his opportunity for redress is, again,
one of those parameters in the privacy strategy that we will
have for CAPPS II that offers an appeal system to challenge
decisions that have been made.
Now, to the degree he goes red on that flight or even
yellow, he has every right to call us. We are going to
establish an ombudsman--we are not going to call it that,
passenger advocate, I think, is the phrase that we are going to
use--whose purpose in life is going to be to take calls from
people who feel that they have been misread by the system, and
adjust accordingly.
That person will be able to search the data and come to the
right answer.
Mr. Putnam. In a timely manner for him to make his flight?
Admiral Loy. I can't say that it will be in a timely manner
for him to make his flight. If it requires research that the
person, that the passenger advocate has to do for us, that is
not a promise that I can make today.
Mr. Putnam. I have overstepped the bounds of time that I
set for everyone else. I apologize. We will excuse this panel
temporarily and swear in the third panel and then bring all
three of you back forward.
So at this time we will excuse you, Admiral. Thank you for
your testimony. And we will welcome panel three.
Admiral Loy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Putnam. Thank you, sir.
[Witness sworn.]
Mr. Putnam. Note for the record Dr. Tether responded in the
affirmative.
Dr. Anthony J. Tether was appointed as Director of the
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency on June 18, 2001.
DARPA is the principal agency within the Department of Defense
for research, development and demonstration of concepts,
devices and systems that provide highly advanced military
capabilities.
As Director, Dr. Tether is responsible for management of
the agency's projects for high-payoff innovative research and
development. Prior to his appointment as Director, DARPA, Dr.
Tether held the position of chief executive officer and
president of the Sequoia Group, which he founded in 1996.
He has served as chief executive officer for Dynamics
Technology Inc., vice president of Science Applications
International Corp.'s Advanced Technology Sector, and then vice
president and general manager for Range Systems at SAIC.
He spent 6 years as vice president for technology and
advanced development at Ford Aerospace and has also held
positions in the Department of Defense serving as Director of
DARPA's Strategic Technology Office from 1982 through 1986, and
as Director of the National Intelligence Office in the Office
of the Secretary of Defense from 1978 to 1982.
Prior to entering government service, he served as
executive vice president of Systems Control from 1969 to 1978,
where he applied estimation and control theory to military and
commercial problems with particular concentration on
development and specifications of algorithms to perform
realtime resource allocation and control.
Your mother must be very proud.
Mr. Tether. Well, I haven't been able to hold a job for
very long.
Mr. Putnam. You do move around a lot. But you are not
exactly slumming. We welcome you to the subcommittee, and look
forward to your testimony, if we can understand it.
STATEMENT OF TONY TETHER, DIRECTOR, DEFENSE ADVANCE RESEARCH
PROJECT AGENCY, DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
Mr. Tether. Well, thank you very much. I would like to
offer my written testimony for the record if I can.
I am not going to really go through much of the written
testimony, since you have had it, and have had a chance to
review it. So I just want to make a few points.
First of all, my testimony today is less on TIA, the Total
Information Awareness Program, as a program and more addresses
just a very small part of that program, the data mining part of
it.
The TIA itself is a much larger program dealing with
collaborative technology, language translation, biometrics
identification and so forth and so on. Now, on the other hand,
you all will be getting a major report on May 20th, assuming
that I can get it through all of the coordination that still
has to go on, which will describe in great detail for you the
Total Information Awareness Program, as a program. So you will
have that available to you very shortly.
Data mining, as sometimes used, more commonly used, refers
to the clever statistical techniques which basically seek to
comb through large amounts of data looking for previously
unknown but useful possible patterns. And, as you know, it has
been used commercially by pharmaceutical companies and so forth
and so on.
The problem is that this approach, while useful for coming
up with correlations, does lead to many false positives and so
forth and so on. Also, it typically requires that all of the
data be centralized in one place for those algorithms to work.
We are really not pursuing that technique. I want to really
make that clear, primarily, because if you have done nothing
but read the papers about TIA, you are thinking that we doing
nothing at DARPA but just piling through tons and tons of data
about people in the United States looking for possible
wrongdoings, and nothing could really be further from the
truth.
Our approach basically starts with a hypothesis about
attack scenarios. Given an attack scenario, we create a model,
a model which basically says, if this is the attack scenario
being carried out, these are the observables, these are the
questions that if we asked them, that came up positive, would
indicate to us that this attack scenario was underway.
So basically what we end up doing, we spend a lot of effort
and time, basically in creating a model, which ends up with a
pattern, a pattern that indicates that model or attack scenario
is true.
We then take that pattern to the data base, and look in the
data base to see if that pattern exists. Now, this allows us
basically to really cut down, to narrow to scope on the data
bases on the answers. Also, it also allows us to let the data
bases remain distributed. We don't have to bring the data to a
central location with this approach.
Basically, this is not a new approach, one of the questions
was, well, how do you know that your approaches are going to
provide any security? This is really an approach that has been
under development by DARPA and other agencies for many years.
One of the examples is in image processing.
When we receive an image, we can either have an analyst go
through and look at every little pixel to see if a target is
there, or we can develop a model that says, this is what a
target looks like in this picture, and then have the algorithms
go through the image to find if that target is there.
And this is called automatic target recognition, very
successful. We have used it for years, and quite frankly, have
just recently used it in the last Iraq war very successfully.
Privacy, however, is really a major concern to us. And from
the outset of the TIA program, we have really worried about
privacy. Now, we worried about privacy for perhaps a different
reason. But it does transcend into the public. As you can tell
from reading my resume, I have been around for a long time. And
every time there has been an intelligence failure, it has never
been because we didn't have the data. We have always had the
data.
And, I think, as you see from the hearings on September 11,
it turns out we always had the data. The problem was that the
data was distributed. The problem is that some of data was held
by CIA. Some of the data was held by NSA. The problem was is
that there was no method to have everybody collaborate to work
on a problem to bring that data to be able to answer questions.
One of the reasons that there is difficulty in doing that,
is that the agencies try to protect their sources and methods,
for good reasons.
I mean, this is for really good reasons. SIGINT, signals
intelligence, is a special case. It has special rules and
regulations because signals intelligence is gathering
information overseas, but it can accidentally pull in what is
known as data about U.S. persons, which is not just people, but
also corporations. So there is a regulation that prevents
people from really automatically sharing raw data.
So we really are worried about the privacy concerns from
how do we develop a system which would allow this collaboration
to take place with distributed data bases for everyone to get
together virtually, work on a problem, yet be comfortable that
the privacy of their data bases was going to be held.
And we have spent a lot of time and a lot of money on that.
One of the major things we also believe is that an audit
technique has to be developed. In other words, in order for
people to feel comfortable about somebody seeing a piece of
data, they want to know, in my world, the DOD world, there is a
technique known as ORCON, originator controlled data.
This is an attempt by the originator to make sure the data
is not not used for other than the purpose for which it was
granted to the individual. We believe that you need to have an
audit technology which attaches itself to the data so that
everyone, from that moment on, will know who is looking at that
data and where has that data gone. We are spending a great deal
of money and effort trying to do that too.
I think I will stop, because time is getting late and I ask
you for your questions.
Mr. Putnam. Thank you, Dr. Tether.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Tether follows:]
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Mr. Putnam. We will lead off with Mr. Clay, again.
Mr. Clay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Dr.
Tether for being here.
You indicate that TIA will use transaction information held
by private companies. What will you do to assess the accuracy
of those information systems?
Mr. Tether. Well, actually, I don't think we ever really
said that TIA will use transaction information held by private
companies. I know it has been said in the press. Our emphasis
really has been on the data that is currently legally collected
by our intelligence community, and also the counterintelligence
community.
Now, what we have done, I, personally, believe that all of
the data that we really need to have in order to detect these
attacks already exists in that legally gathered data, because
of my experience.
On the other hand, we have looked at, ``Is there other data
that perhaps would accelerate the process of coming to a
conclusion about whether an attack is going on?'' So we have
had research ongoing to see if there was other data besides
data that is normally collected by the intelligence community
that could be used.
Now, we have a lot of researchers. DARPA itself does not
have any internal capability. We contract out. We have
researchers and industry that really do the work. So we have to
describe a problem to them to work on. And in some of the
descriptions of the problems we talked about transaction data.
And I am afraid that they probably took it maybe a little more
literally than we really meant it. We didn't mean credit card
data. We really were looking for people to research data as to
what might be extra data.
Now, we have found in that research that transportation
data is probably data that makes a lot of sense to be included
into the mix. Why? Because these terrorists have to travel. And
they don't have their own means of communication, which means
they are going to have to take commercial means of
communication like airlines, trains, rental cars, rental trucks
and so forth and so on. So it looks like, if we were to add
data that looks like it must be very advantageous, we would say
transportation data really looks like it would be advantageous.
But, again as to how do we know the data is good, and I
don't mean this as a cop-out, but at DARPA we develop the
tools. You have heard about these other two organizations who
want to have this capability, but they can't have the
capability if someone doesn't develop the tools.
We are the ones that basically develop the tools for them
to use. And presumably we don't collect any data, but we are
developing tools for them to use on the data. And the accuracy
of the data is really on their nickel.
Mr. Clay. Doctor, along these lines, you indicate in your
testimony that you want to operate a system that is consistent
with the spirit not the letter of the Privacy Act.
Mr. Tether. That is correct.
Mr. Clay. I don't quite understand how you are going to do
that. Fundamental to the Privacy Act is the right of
individuals to see the information held about them, and to
correct that information.
Since DARPA will be using data held in the private sector,
it cannot give individuals the right of access and correction,
to say that you are going to comply with the Privacy Act seems
misleading.
How will you address this fundamental conflict?
Mr. Tether. Well, the fundamental conflict again is going
back to what we do. We don't collect any data. We are not the
people that collect data. We are the people that supply the
analytical tools to those who collect the data. Now, we do
worry about privacy. And, therefore, we are providing
technology so that the people in the different agencies, as
they share data with each other, can be comfortable that their
sources and methods are not being compromised.
We are developing new technology for doing that. For
example, one of the major efforts we have in this privacy
technology, we have Oracle as a contractor. Why Oracle? Well,
as you know they are a great data base company. And, in fact,
it is the only way we will get the transitioning of that
technology is to have a company like that develop the
technology and be comfortable with its use, to pull it in.
But we really are not the ones that collect the data. And I
really want to make that very clear. We are the ones that
supply the tools to the people that collect the data, who by
the way are operating in full cognizance of all of the
regulations.
Mr. Clay. Thank you for that.
You, know, you talked in your testimony about us knowing
the hijackers, knowing they were here 2 days after September
11, having known Attorney General Ashcroft for the last 20
years as my State AG, Governor and U.S. Senator, he is a guy
that can't keep a job either, but he told me that we knew that
the hijackers were in this country, we just had no real good
system of tracking them.
Now, we'll be able to track them under this new technology?
Mr. Tether. We are developing a technology, which will
allow the agencies involved to easily collaborate with each
other and to be able to ask questions and create a model.
For example, if one of the models was, and we knew that
using an aircraft as a weapon was something on their minds,
because of the Philippines in 1995. So that was a known
technique. Now, imagine if we had a model created about how
would somebody go and use an airplane as a weapon? And we had
created all of the indicators that had to be true.
Well, one would say, well, it is going to be hard to have
somebody have a pilot who is being paid to fly that airplane
actually fly it into a building. So that means that someone is
going to probably have to take over the plane and learn how to
fly it.
So one question would be, do we have any unusual people
learning aviation? OK. Imagine if we had a collaborative system
like we are talking about, and there was a set of questions up
there, and one of them is, has anybody come across anybody
wanting to learn how to fly aircraft under unusual
circumstances, like maybe they don't care if they land?
If that system had been in effect, that question in that
memo that the FBI talked about, would have popped up, and
people would have looked at it and looked further into it. I
really believe that. What we are doing is providing the
technology to allow that to happen, not the collection of the
data itself.
Mr. Clay. Thank you, Doctor, for your answers. Thank you.
Mr. Putnam. The gentlelady from Michigan.
Mrs. Miller of Michigan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Tether, I think that you may have just answered my
question here. I am listening to you talk about modeling and
models, and so as opposed to doing sort of broad surveillance,
as you are doing the construct for your models and using some
of those things for investigative work, then you say you do a
model and you find a pattern, then you match the pattern
against the data bases.
I was going to ask you for an example, a pattern of what.
Could you give us a pattern of what? And perhaps you just
answered that, by talking about someone going to a flight
school and learn how to fly an airplane, didn't care whether or
not he landed. That is a pattern of odd behavior.
Mr. Tether. That is a pattern of odd behavior that would
come out if you had a center which people from different
agencies were able to collaborate and actually address various
questions. Now, we used to do this in the cold war in Germany
in Stuttgart, there was a center where there was like 250
questions that were developed over the years for what would the
state of the Soviet Union be if it were going to attack us?
And there were a whole bunch of questions. Some of them
were, where is the Soviet leadership? Are they still publicly
visible? The CIA could go over with their HUMINT people and
find out the answer to that question and come back and say they
are visible, yes we know where they are, and never have to
disclose their source. And that is what I meant about having
the technique to protect the sources and methods.
But, we have had that system in the past. And it has worked
really well. It is just never been applied here. We firmly
believe that, first of all, all of our agencies have these
stovepipes. These are really based on culture. We don't want to
get rid of the stovepipes. I don't think anybody wants to
either, because there is a certain value to having a culture.
But, what we are trying to do is develop the technology so
those stovepipes can be punctured full of holes. While the
culture remains, it allows people to cross communicate in a
very easy way. That is really all TIA is about. The data mining
part is really the easiest part. It is all of the going before,
the collaboration technology and coming up with the models,
which you then take the pattern to the data base.
That part, while really not trivial, is really the easy
part. It is really the before part that is what we are trying
to do. I hope that helps.
Mrs. Miller of Michigan. Yes. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Putnam. You mentioned that there was no transactional
data contemplated, that was in the media, but that actually was
not contemplated by DARPA?
Mr. Tether. Except in a research way to assess what might
be a sweet spot of new data that is not currently being
collected by our intelligence and counterintelligence
organizations.
Mr. Putnam. You identified transportation data.
Mr. Tether. I probably will regret that. But that seems to
be a major part to the puzzle, because of the fact that these
terrorists don't have their own Air Forces or Navy and have to
rely upon commercial capabilities.
Mr. Putnam. But you are stating here, on the record, that
you don't contemplate monitoring credit card transactions,
library card check-outs, video rentals.
Mr. Tether. Contemplating is the word I am having trouble
with, because we have a lot of researchers who are out there
looking at what data might be useful.
I personally would be extraordinarily surprised if video
rentals, and such, would be some of that data. The only person
I know of who has said that credit card data monitoring would
be a good thing to do, actually was President Clinton at an
address at UC Davis in the spring of 2002, because he talked
about some facts about the hijackers with their credit cards
being maxed out, and so forth and so on, which might have
tipped you off that something is wrong about this person who
has six credit cards that are all maxed out.
But that is sort of a hindsight type of input, that I don't
really know if it would be valuable in doing the predictive
something.
Mr. Putnam. I am not trying to back you in a corner. I am
trying to help you guys fix a little bit of your PR problem.
Mr. Tether. I am trying to contemplate.
Mr. Putnam. We pay you to contemplate.
Mr. Tether. You pay us to contemplate.
Mr. Putnam. So there is no plans to deploy?
Mr. Tether. There are no plans to deploy. Contemplate, is
there a researcher someplace that we are paying at some
university who is thinking.
Mr. Putnam. Again, I am not trying to back you in a corner.
I am trying to get out there what is not occurring.
Mr. Tether. Thank you.
Mr. Putnam. I will stop there in the interests of time, and
let's go ahead and reseat everyone. Let's take a 2-minute
recess and allow everyone to come forward.
[Recess.]
Mr. Putnam. Let's go ahead and reconvene. I want to thank
Admiral Loy and Mr. McCraw for remaining with the committee. We
deliberately gave everyone their own panel to focus on the
unique aspects of each of those systems, which I think is an
important distinction to draw, because they are unique and have
different purposes.
But, under the umbrella of general factual data analysis or
data mining, I think it also makes some sense to bring everyone
back and talk about collaboration and some of the other issues
that are common to all three departments or agencies.
So we will, in keeping with our tradition, allow Mr. Clay
to lead off with questions for the entire panel.
Mr. Clay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
There is a dark cloud of secrecy that hangs over this
administration. And the programs we are discussing today are a
part of the reason that cloud is so dark. These agencies are
creating surveillance systems, and they don't want to tell the
American people how they work. Just this week U.S. News
reported that there are a number of children among the
detainees at Guantanamo. How many we don't know, but we do know
that the Secretary of State has objected to the situation.
TSA wants to develop a profiling system and doesn't want to
allow the public to see or correct the information that is used
to profile them. The FBI has decided that it no longer has to
worry about the accuracy of the information it holds on people.
DARPA wants to build yet another system to profile the American
public.
Security at any cost is not what either Congress or the
American public wants. Systems that skirt the Privacy Act or
try to wiggle under the fourth amendment are not in our best
interest. As we saw, when the public learned about the TIA
program at DARPA, they were outraged, and Congress put a hold
on the funding for that program.
I would like to ask each of you to explain to the
subcommittee what you are doing to explain to the public what
you are doing, and why you must keep it a secret.
Admiral Loy. Mr. Clay, thank you very much for the
opportunity. First of all, TSA has filed a Federal Register
notice, probably with as wide a set of opportunities for
comment as has ever been published. We have reached out
deliberately to a large spectrum of the privacy community,
those folks who would be the first to support the fourth
amendment.
We intend to continue to hold that ongoing conversation by
holding public meetings about exactly what CAPPS II is all
about. We are absolutely not putting together a profiling
system that we will be ashamed of or fear offering to the
public for comment. In fact, we are going desperately quickly
in the other direction, to give every opportunity to the
public, through public meetings, and through publicly stated
records, with every intention of refiling a public notice when
we have heard that conversation carefully and forged the
privacy strategy associated with CAPPS II.
So I take issue with the kind of question that seems shaped
around a conclusion, when, in fact, the conversation has not
even been continuously held yet.
Mr. Clay. Well, Admiral, I shape it that way because in our
last hearing, Mark Forman, the Federal CIO, indicated that TSA
was not meeting its deadlines for providing information to OMB.
That was the end of March. Has TSA provided OMB with all of the
information that OMB has requested about CAPPS II since that
hearing?
Admiral Loy. Indeed we have, sir. What Mr. Forman is
responsible for is making sure that the business case end of
CAPPS II complies, not only with the procedures appropriate in
any instance, but those that are sensitive in a project like
you and I are speaking about.
Indeed we have provided that information to OMB.
Mr. Clay. Thank you. Dr. Tether.
Mr. Tether. Well, first of all, DARPA is not developing a
system to profile the American public. And I hope, maybe I have
convinced you in our previous conversation and the testimony.
Nothing could really be further from the truth. I mean, we
aren't doing that at all. As far as secrecy, I can't think of
anybody that has been more open about what we are doing. It is
because of the nature of us. In order to develop this
technology, we reach out for everybody that we can.
Consequently, we advertise what we are doing. In this
particular area, all of what we are doing is really
unclassified.
Now, the application of it and the use of it on the data,
the data becomes classified. But the actual technology and all
is unclassified. We had a conference last year. We had 2,000
people there. We disclosed fully what we were doing. The press
was there. We even here in the House last year, in the House
Authorization Report, what we were doing was lauded by the
report. As, ``Hey, this is really great stuff.''
Now, so it hasn't been kept quiet. On the other hand,
because of the deluge of comments that happened last fall, I
knew what was going on at DARPA, I was reading the papers. I
mean, my God, I finally called up my guys, and asked if they
were doing what I thought they were doing? I really became
worried myself.
I can imagine that you all, with the inputs that you were
getting from your constituents, I know about them because a lot
of them have been forwarded to me to answer, that you must have
been worried too.
Some of them were so outrageous we were stunned, quite
frankly. The one mistake that we at DARPA made is that we were
so stunned by the outrageous comments that we didn't do
anything about it for some time. We just watched it. And
finally we woke up and got over here and tried to get the truth
out.
Now, on the other hand the Department of Defense, the
Honorable Pete Aldridge, who I work for, said, ``Look, I know
that what you are doing is OK, Tony. But I am going to do two
things to make sure that everybody else believes that too.''
First of all, two boards have been created in the Department of
Defense, an internal board and an external board. The internal
board is really set up to really just review the DARPA TIA
project. OK, to make sure that the DARPA TIA project is truly
following all of the rules and regulations and so forth and so
on.
And we have certain outputs already from our internal
Inspector General that says what we are doing is in compliance
with all of the laws and regulations. On the other hand, they
have also established an external board. Now, this external
board is comprised of people from the outside. I didn't give
you a list in my testimony, but I would be happy to do that, of
people on the outside, some are privacy advocates, but all are
well known, and understand the Constitution and the laws and
regulations.
And the purpose of that is not just for us. But you see in
the Department, if you want to do experiments on animals, you
go to an animal board. You say, look this is an experiment
using animals. Can I do it? And the board says yes or no. If
you want to use humans, same thing. What we don't have is a
board that really does privacy things.
If you go to the board and say look, here is a new
information technique that I want to use. You know, can I do
it? Is it violating any laws and regulations? This external
board is supposed to be a board that people like us can go to
and get someone to say yes or no on what we are trying to do.
But we really have been open.
We are not developing a system to profile the American
public.
Mr. Clay. Thank you.
Mr. McCraw.
Mr. McCraw. Yes, sir, Congressman.
First, I would like to say, you know, a core value of the
FBI is a rigorous obedience to the Constitution and the rule of
law. And that there is no justification at all when the FBI is
in search of or investigating or trying to enforce the law,
violating the law. We must adhere to all proscribed laws by
Congress, the attorney general guidelines.
In maintaining, you know, the data in our systems, we need
to apply to those laws and we will. And whatever laws and
whatever rules that are applicable, the internal guidelines,
the FBI will abide by those.
Mr. Clay. Let me say in summary, Mr. Chairman, to the
witnesses, that TSA won't tell us how CAPPS II works or what
data goes into it.
DARPA wants to keep the same kinds of secrets. The FBI
issued a rule saying that it doesn't have to keep its records
on Americans accurate and up to date. I would like each of you
to go back to your respective agencies and figure out what you
can do to help build public confidence in your activities
through openness and then report back to this committee and
tell us what you think would make this process a little easier
on the American public.
Mr. McCraw. If I may, I would like to go back and research
the rule that you are referring to, because, clearly, I need
to. I will do that. And I will get back to you.
Mr. Clay. Get back to us. I would appreciate it. Thank you.
Mr. Putnam. Thank you, Mr. Clay. And if you have additional
questions at any time, just let me know.
I really sympathize with the position that all three of you
are in. Prior to September 11th, we would have town hall
meetings and letters and phone calls where people were unhappy
about red light cameras. And then people were unhappy when
Tampa hosted the Super Bowl and they deployed a new face
recognition technology that scanned the crowd and detected
people who may be terrorists or who may be criminals. And
people were up in arms. It was a very hot constituent issue.
On September 12th, people were up in arms that we had not
done more to surveil potential bad people, to track potentially
bad people, to keep tabs on them or to prevent their entry into
this country and so forth and so on.
We are plowing new ground here. We are taking advantage of
wonderful new technologies that offer the hope of greater
national security, and the threat of greater intrusiveness into
innocent lives. And we hold Mr. McCraw and Admiral Loy on a
regular basis responsible for all a lot of those things, for
the safety of Americans, and yet all of us as policymakers in
the executive branch and the legislative branch and the
judiciary, are all trying to find this new line to go along
with this new technology.
So we have this obligation to find this balance and to take
the promise of the technology, without having inaccuracies,
cause good people to be held, detained or held in suspicion or
cause to disrupt their lives, whether it is as simple as
missing a flight or as serious as being detained and questioned
and perhaps even held for some charge that is false.
So that is what we are attempting to do with this Phase 1
of these hearings is exercise our responsibility to weigh in on
where these lines are. All of these events, all of these
terrorist incidents have highlighted new weaknesses and new
gaps in our ability as a country to detect or prevent them.
And one of them is really a lack of collaboration, it is
not a technological challenge, it is a human capital challenge,
and a couple of you have referred to that. You are a creature
of the FBI culture, a very proud, rich tradition in law
enforcement.
You are a DOD animal, a creature of that community. And
Admiral Loy, you and your guys are still figuring out your
culture.
Admiral Loy. Well, I came with one from 200 years of
culture.
Mr. Putnam. You certainly have a rich tradition from the
Coast Guard, and, hopefully, that will influence the spotted
zebra that we have created at Homeland Security. But, how can
each of you address the challenge of overcoming the cultural
obstacles to utilize this technology, to share the data, to
break down the mistrust, and have this system, these systems
when they are deployed in an efficient way, have them truly
collaborative across the Federal Government and including State
and local law enforcement, beginning with Admiral Loy.
Admiral Loy. Sir, it is an enormous challenge. If you go
back to even a founding father, the balance was being discussed
even then. Franklin said, ``He who would give up even a moment
of liberty for hours of safety deserves neither.''
Our challenge is to build the culture you were just
describing. It is to take a set of core values, I use the
phrase that was just used a moment ago, and in our case at TSA,
to bring together a composite of people from so many different
walks of life, not only the Federal Government, but from
throughout America as well, and compose a culture. That culture
would be based on the Constitution that we all hold so dear,
and we would be reminded on a daily basis that what was
attacked on September 11, 2001 was not just the World Trade
Center, it was not just the Pentagon, but it was the whole
notion, idea and ethic of what America is all about. We should
be in the business in a post-September 11 environment of
designing systems that recognize that very Constitutional
foundation that we are so enormously proud of as Americans.
I also, at this particular point in my 1-year tutelage of
this organization, have come to conclude that the Founding
Fathers, also had mobility as one of the inalienable rights
they were talking about. My challenge is to protect that
particular notion for Americans who want to get up and go,
wherever they want to go, with some security and comfort. This
includes not only being able to get to their destination, but
any system that will be imposed on them for either their
benefit for security or for their benefit for safety will be
such that they don't feel they have given up something in the
way of privacy in order to be comfortable in the way of
security.
That is the challenge that we have on a daily basis; you're
absolutely right. It's the execution of those things, day after
day after day, and the aggregation of that which will represent
the answer at the other end of the day as to whether we, in our
generation, had our chance to get it right and did so. That
calls for a commitment to the very basic precepts that have
always guided legislators, judges and operators in the
executive branch, to meet the needs of Americans.
Mr. Tether. First of all, I think you're absolutely right,
collaboration is the key. And that is really the technology
that really needs to be developed that will allow people like
the three of us to be able to remain physically where our
particular offices are, but yet be able to go into a ``room''
and have no constraints on being able to talk to each other
like we're at this table right now. We're working hard on
developing that collaboration technology which we believe in
and we're experimenting with it. We have experimental nodes at
several places within the DOD, INSCOM, overseas, SOCOM,
STRATCOM, JFCOM, these are all DOD locations. We are putting in
these experimental nodes where the collaboration technology and
other tools are being tried. I really agree with you.
Now how do we make people comfortable with what we're
doing? Well, hearings like this. This is really the right way
to do it. I don't know how else to do it except talk about what
we're doing. To talk about it where people will listen. I'm
sure there's press here in the room. And you know, this is the
way to do it. Hearings like this, congressional oversight.
As you know, we had a major flap, over the last year, and a
lot of good came out of that. Because we weren't doing anything
wrong. But now I believe that with the report that's coming out
and the conversations that we've had, a lot of other people are
understanding what we're doing. I think they're starting to be
more comfortable with it. At least I'm not getting as many
letters as I was. But collaboration is the tool, the coin of
the realm. And meetings like this and hearings like this are
the way we're going to make people in the United States
comfortable. That's all I have.
Mr. Putnam. Mr. McCraw.
Mr. McCraw. Yes, sir. First it gives me another chance an
opportunity to thank you. For example, the Patriot Act, now
enables us to share data with other agencies that we could not
up until the passing of the Patriot Act, as well as certain
modifications in terms of the Attorney General guidelines. I
know it's been talked about a great deal about the cultures
within agencies not sharing information, protecting
information. And I'm not going to say that the FBI has had the
best reputation in the past in terms of sharing information,
but we've all worked with the American public and we've all
taken an oath. And one core value we all share is we're all
willing to sacrifice for our country. Like you, we all love our
country.
We cannot afford to have something happen like September
11th, because we didn't share information as a result of
parochial reasons. And, frankly, with technology and the type
of things that the good doctor is working on, clearly it
enables us, I think, collectively as a community, to leverage
that technology so that we can find those links, relationships,
and do what all of us want to do, and every American citizen
wants to do and that's protect the United States from a future
terrorist attack.
Mr. Putnam. Let me change gears just a little bit with you,
Mr. McCraw, because Admiral Loy and I had sort of an extended
dialog over the long-term potential of the CAPPS technology. It
is difficult for me to believe that at some point in the
future, when hopefully the national tension has declined a bit
over international terror and it has returned to good old
fashioned crime, it's difficult to believe that we wouldn't
take that technology and use it as a tool to capture someone
who had kidnapped a minor, was attempting to bring them back
across different States on an airline, essentially an Amber
Alert plus, it's difficult to believe that you wouldn't take
that same technology that's already paid for, that's already in
place, that's already omnipresent and use it to capture felons,
drug dealers, perhaps even a step further, people who owe child
support, it's limitless when you already have that type of
technology in place.
So as a law enforcement officer and former field agent,
wouldn't the temptation be you would want to go to the parents
of someone whose child has been kidnapped and say we've sent
out the alert; there's no station, no airport, no cruise
terminal anywhere, no rental car agency, that they could go
without being picked up?
Mr. McCraw. Well, you know, clearly, we're excited about
the technology because it doesn't just make us more effective
in terrorism, you're right, it also makes us more effective
with our own data in the internal data we collect when we're
trying to investigate corporate fraud, gang-related violence,
the sniper case, all of these particular things will enable us,
whatever the agent is investigating, and certainly to the
degree that there's things in place, technology that's out
there that we can employ over other data sets, as long as it's
legally permissible by law, by statute and attorney general
guidelines then clearly we would love to leverage that and will
leverage that not being unlike we use some of the technologies
out there in the private sector today and information when we
are using some of the public source data base that we talked
about.
Mr. Putnam. Admiral Loy, is there anything you want to add
to that?
Admiral Loy. Yes, sir. I will just add that is what the
notion of oversight is all about, both the general
congressional oversight of what the executive branch is up to,
checks and balances in the classic sense, but more
appropriately, an oversight group not only about the Congress
but to include folks who have as a raison d'etre in life, the
fourth amendment, to have them be part of that system. So
Mission Creep is not part of what occurs in a program without
the attention very carefully and very publicly being brought to
the attention of whoever is responsible for that program.
So if it's me responsible for CAPPS II 5 years from now
when what you just described has occurred, I want my oversight
panel to be composed in such a fashion that as soon as there is
the appearance of Mission Creep in the CAPPS II system, someone
will very clearly bring that to my attention, and, as
appropriate, bring it to your attention.
Mr. Putnam. Dr. Tether, is it your opinion that the
appropriate deployment of CAPPS II and Trilogy will
substantially improve national security?
Mr. Tether. Boy, that's a good question. The word is
substantially. I believe I do know about CAPPS II. We were
involved with the source election in CAPPS II, so I know about
it. And I also do know something about Trilogy, because we were
involved in talking with the FBI also about providing them some
capability. We're prohibited by the way from providing either
of these folks these tools that we're developing.
And I would say yes. I believe that. Especially if they
have the right tools. I'm hesitating because I'm not really
sure what tools they're going to have. I really think the fury
over what we're doing hasn't been by the people. The privacy
people are well-intentioned, but they know that we're not the
problem. It's the people who are going to use the tools and the
people who are going to authorize the use of the tools that are
the problem. But if they can stop the tools from being built,
they don't have to worry about the other people. I really
believe that's the reason for the fury over what we're doing.
But the tools are important. These folks could use the tools.
And I believe that they will. If he does his job right, with
the right tools, security will definitely be greatly enhanced.
Mr. Putnam. Mr. McCraw and Admiral Loy, will both of your
programs, and Dr. Tether, as part of your research, does your
program envision a mechanism for the public to have redress of
inaccurate or incomplete information that would make them whole
essentially for whatever harm is done?
Admiral Loy. Absolutely sir. The passenger advocate role
that I mentioned in my testimony is being designed to offer
that redress opportunity for anyone aggrieved by the system.
Mr. Tether. Same here. What we're doing is developing this
audit technology so that the data, the information can only be
used for the purpose for which it was granted and not abused by
being taken out of that environment and used elsewhere. That
audit technology again is very crucial to all of this. If it
works well, the public or anyone can be assured that the data
will only be used for what it was authorized to be used for,
and not anything else.
Mr. Putnam. Is it limited in its effectiveness to TIA, or
does it have potential for these other----
Mr. Tether. Oh, it's very general. In fact, it needs to be
general because the data bases are not homogenous, they're
heterogenous data bases so it has to be general.
Mr. Putnam. Anybody can pull up their credit reports and
find mistakes and have an opportunity----
Mr. Tether. In our case, only if a person is authorized to
see the credit report can he pull up the credit report. But
then that credit report cannot be used for other purposes,
without the audit technology either preventing it or raising an
alarm that it's being done. That's what I mean.
Admiral Loy. We're using, sir, a software system called
Radiant Mercury, which is an NSA-accredited--literally, the top
accreditation, if you will, that you can get in this regard.
It's essentially a real-time logging system that will
facilitate tracking for everybody that needs to understand
access to the system that has been encountered. It will be a
literally a real-time logging of who went in, got what, for
what purpose. That's one of the auditing systems that we're
using in the CAPPS II program.
Mr. Putnam. Radiant Mercury?
Admiral Loy. Radiant Mercury, a proprietary system by
Lockheed Martin.
Mr. Putnam. Only in homeland security?
Admiral Loy. No, sir. That's software that any program
manager who needs it for an auditing program or auditing
software piece can either purchase or lease as appropriate from
its proprietary owner.
Mr. McCraw. Auditing is a very important function with us
as well, including some of the risk technology that the doctor
talked about. In fact, using that, we will definitely improve
within the FBI information, who has a right to have access. Are
there patterns of activity being done by an agent that would
signal a concern in terms of the access? Also, we're even
looking at using the same type of technology to provide greater
oversight in terms of operations of sources. Because that
pattern technology is there and how we can do a better job of
using technology, building into Trilogy, things that can serve
as triggers, as alarms of activity that we need to take a
closer look at.
Mr. Putnam. Dr. Tether, are you aware of other nation's
approaches to data mining and where they are in their
sophistication, and are there other customers in the Federal
Government who have this level of data mining technology or
greater that may be employed?
Mr. Tether. You mean the technology that we're trying to
develop?
Mr. Putnam. Well, you've got three different ones
represented. I'm just curious how many others there may be in
the rest of the community or in other agencies that we're not
as familiar with.
Mr. Tether. With respect to other nations, I don't know of
any. That may be just ignorance on my part. But I don't know of
any that have technology that is anything like what we're
talking about here. With respect to other Federal agencies, NSA
obviously has a concern of people who have access to data that
may have audit capability there. They're worried about making
sure that data on U.S. persons stays in special compartments.
CIA undoubtedly has the same with respect to their human
capabilities. Other than that I don't think so. I mean, other
than that, I think you've, for better or worse, you've got it
here at the table.
Mr. Putnam. Admiral Loy, any comments on that?
Admiral Loy. I don't have any to add, simply because I'm
not sure of what others might be. There is one point that you
asked us to comment on earlier, Mr. Chairman. I would be remiss
if I didn't add that the whole purpose of DHS, as I understand
the legislation, was to facilitate the notion of information
sharing, and that is exactly what's going on under Secretary
Ridge. He is wedded clearly to the notion of the value in
pulling together all those disparate agencies under one roof.
For example, part of the review process for allowing CAPPS
II to go on and making budgetary judgments with respect to
building out our facility out at Annapolis Junction was to make
absolutely certain that it took into acocunt other programs in
the Bureau, the old Customs service, now the BCP Bureau under
BTS or BICE, the new Bureau that used to be fundamentally INS
under BTS, and whether there are screening projects going on in
any of those organizations. Secretary Ridge and Under Secretary
Hutchinson are making absolutely certain that we are present
together in the same room and we're not allowed out until the
notion of redundancies and overlaps and such are eliminated at
the design stage and dealt with in a fashion that was the
intention, I think, of the Congress when DHS was put together.
Mr. Putnam. And you're satisfied that information sharing
is occurring between the intelligence community?
Admiral Loy. I still think we have a way to go. There's no
doubt about that. But it is so much better than it was. We all
had this quest for connecting the dots after September 11,
2001, and as I think we heard from Dr. Tether the potential to
connect those dots is infinitely better today than it was then,
sir.
Mr. Putnam. With regard to CAPPS II and the TSA, are we
ahead of everybody else in the world? Do the Israelis have a
model or someone else out there?
Admiral Loy. Actually I'm going over to Israel at the end
of the month with several purposes in mind, among which are to
check the passenger prescreening process that they use there to
make sure that we are learning about whatever they may have
that they haven't shared with us already.
Mr. Putnam. Very good.
Dr. Tether.
Mr. Tether. This is ignorance.
Admiral Loy. Is Customs part of TSA?
Mr. Tether. It's part of homeland security. Customs has a
very good system for looking at imports coming in to be able to
determine whether a cargo ship or cargo is suspect to know
which ships to go and further inspect. And they have a very
good system in place.
Admiral Loy. If I may, Mr. Chairman, I have been personally
writing about and convinced for several years that the point of
origin, the point of destination, with transparency in between
is the real key to our understanding the cargo piece, perhaps
as well as the passenger piece, in terms of those who would be
aboard or even the crews. But properly manifested cargo and
people on ships at sea coming toward the United States is an
enormous challenge for us to deal with. This goes to your
earlier question about the rest of the transportation system
not being left behind. As Americans, we have a pretty good
penchant to continue to fight last year's war.
Mr. Putnam. It's important that the rest of the world join
us with all the ports that are now international and the
tremendous volume of cargo.
Admiral Loy. Commissioner Bonner has really done an
excellent job in his outreach to ports around the world, in his
so-called CSI initiative, which basically has convinced about
25 of the major ports of the world who send things to the
United States to be in a reciprocity agreement to allowing
Customs, U.S. BCP inspectors, portal inspectors to be literally
on the pier when things are being loaded on the ship as opposed
to when they're already here. It's too late if they're already
here.
Mr. Putnam. Admiral, do you have any final comments for the
subcommittee?
Admiral Loy. Only to thank you for the opportunity as
offered in the letter of invitation to offer to the committee
some insights as to the intentions of where we're going and how
we're going to do it. I appreciate that opportunity, sir, and
look forward to working with you in the future.
Mr. Putnam. Dr. Tether, anything from DARPA?
Mr. Tether. No. Thank you very much. I do believe that
hearings like this are the way to get the public comfortable,
and thank you for having it. Thank you for having me.
Mr. Putnam. Director McCraw.
Mr. McCraw. There's only one director. If I want to keep my
job, I better make that clear. The only thing I know it was to
the culture question that has been echoed is that we recognize
the FBI's unique collections of data, and we have to be able to
share that data to the widest extent possible by law and also
leveraging information technology that the good doctor has been
working on over at DARPA. So thank you very much for the time
of being here.
Mr. Putnam. Thank you. I thank all of our distinguished
witnesses for their participation today. I'm grateful for their
cooperation with Congress. We're particularly grateful at your
efforts to get in your written testimony. Your cooperation is
key as we continue to deal with these important issues facing
the Nation and the Congress. I want to thank the subcommittee
members for their participation, particularly our ranking
member. I appreciate everything that you've done. And in the
event that there may be additional questions we did not reach
today, the record shall remain open for 2 weeks for submitted
questions and answers. Thank you all. The subcommittee stands
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 5:21 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]