[House Hearing, 109 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
TRANSPORTATION SECURITY
ADMINISTRATION'S OFFICE OF INTELLIGENCE: PROGRESS AND CHALLENGES
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE,
INFORMATION SHARING, AND TERRORISM RISK ASSESSMENT
of the
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JUNE 14, 2006
__________
Serial No. 109-83
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/
index.html
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
32-739 WASHINGTON : 2007
------------------------------------------------------------------
For sale by Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing
Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800;
DC area (202) 512-1800 Fax: (202) 512-2250. Mail: Stop SSOP,
Washington, DC 20402-0001
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
Peter T. King, New York, Chairman
Don Young, Alaska Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi
Lamar S. Smith, Texas Loretta Sanchez, California
Curt Weldon, Pennsylvania Edward J. Markey, Massachusetts
Christopher Shays, Connecticut Norman D. Dicks, Washington
John Linder, Georgia Jane Harman, California
Mark E. Souder, Indiana Peter A. DeFazio, Oregon
Tom Davis, Virginia Nita M. Lowey, New York
Daniel E. Lungren, California Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of
Jim Gibbons, Nevada Columbia
Rob Simmons, Connecticut Zoe Lofgren, California
Mike Rogers, Alabama Sheila Jackson-Lee, Texas
Stevan Pearce, New Mexico Bill Pascrell, Jr., New Jersey
Katherine Harris, Florida Donna M. Christensen, U.S. Virgin
Bobby Jindal, Louisiana Islands
Dave G. Reichert, Washington Bob Etheridge, North Carolina
Michael McCaul, Texas James R. Langevin, Rhode Island
Charlie Dent, Pennsylvania Kendrick B. Meek, Florida
Ginny Brown-Waite, Florida
______
SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE, INFORMATION SHARING, AND TERRORISM RISK
ASSESSMENT
Rob Simmons, Connecticut, Chairman
Curt Weldon, Pennsylvania Zoe Lofgren, California
Mark E. Souder, Indiana Loretta Sanchez, California
Daniel E. Lungren, California Jane Harman, California
Jim Gibbons, Nevada Nita M. Lowey, New York
Stevan Pearce, New Mexico Sheila Jackson-Lee, Texas
Bobby Jindal, Louisiana James R. Langevin, Rhode Island
Charlie Dent, Pennsylvania Kendrick B. Meek, Florida
Ginny Brown-Waite, Florida Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi
Peter T. King, New York (Ex (Ex Officio)
Officio)
(II)
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
STATEMENTS
The Honorable Rob Simmons, a Representative in Congress For the
State of Connecticut, and Chairman, Subcommittee on
Intelligence, Information Sharing, and Terrorism Risk
Assessment..................................................... 1
The Honorable Zoe Lofgren, a Representative in Congress For the
State of California and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on
Intelligence, Informaton Sharing, and Terrorism Risk Assessment 2
The Honorable Jim Gibbons, a Representative in Congress For the
State of Nevada................................................ 16
The Honorable James R. Langevin, a Representative in Congress For
the State of Rhode Island...................................... 14
The Honorable Nita M. Lowey, a Representative in Congress For the
State of New York.............................................. 12
The Honorable Stevan Pearce, a Representative in Congress For the
State of New Mexico............................................ 18
WITNESSES
William Gaches, Assistant Administrator for Intelligence,
Transportation Security Administration, U.S. Department of
Homeland Security:
Oral Statement................................................. 4
Prepared Statement............................................. 6
Cathleen A. Berrick, Director, Homeland Security and Justice,
U.S.Government Accountability Office:
Oral Statement................................................. 30
Prepared Statement............................................. 32
TRANSPORTATION SECURITY
ADMINISTRATION'S OFFICE OF INTELLIGENCE: PROGRESS AND CHALLENGES
----------
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
U.S. House of Representatives,
Committee on Homeland Security,
Subcommittee on Intelligence, Information
Sharing, and Terrorism Risk Assessment,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:40 p.m., in
Room 311, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Rob Simmons
[chairman of the subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Simmons, Gibbons, Pearce, Lofgren,
Lowey and Langevin.
Mr. Simmons. The quorum being present, the Committee on
Homeland Security, Subcommittee on Intelligence, Information
Sharing, and Terrorism Risk Assessment will come to order.
Today the subcommittee meets to hear testimony on the
Transportation Security Administration's Office of Intelligence
and its integration within the DHS intelligence enterprise.
We will be hearing testimony from two witnesses today. Our
first panel, we will be hearing from Mr. William B. Gaches,
TSA's Assistant Administrator for Intelligence. Welcome, Bill.
Good to have you here.
And our second panel, we will hear from Ms. Cathleen
Berrick, Director of Homeland Security and Justice, U.S.
Government Accountability Office.
I thank Mr. Gaches for being here this morning, and I also
want to thank you for hosting our visit to your facility on
Monday. The tour provided the subcommittee with insight for a
look at how your office carries out its mission to identify,
deter, and mitigate threats against our Nation's transportation
infrastructure. And I look forward to continuing the discussion
that we began on your role in protecting our Nation.
I also look forward to hearing from you today on the roles
and responsibilities of the TSA Office of Intelligence and its
role in the DHS intelligence enterprise. TSA's Office of
Intelligence was created to mitigate the risk of terrorism
against aviation. Formed in the wake of the 1988 Pan Am Flight
103 bombing over Lockerbie, the legacy Federal Aviation
Administration's Office of Civil Aviation Security Intelligence
was eventually transformed into a 24/7 operation during the
Gulf War. However, the fate of the FAA's Intelligence Office
was tragically changed on September 11, 2001.
Given these events, I found it very interesting and
encouraging that one of the mantras of personnel from TSA's
Office of Intelligence is, and I quote, zero tolerance for
failure; no successful attacks against U.S. transportation
based on failure by TSA intelligence to warn or inform.
The culture of TSA intelligence is emblematic of DHS
itself. It is a culture of men and women that readily accept
the responsibility to protect our Nation against the threat of
terrorism. When I visited the office on Monday, I met a
gentleman who worked for you, and I asked him why he chose TSA
instead of the more traditional intelligence agencies like CIA
or FBI, and he told me, and I quote, because here I am
defending the homeland, unquote.
The good men and women that work in intelligence at TSA
work hard every day to defend us against attack. That work is
important. We must ensure as a Congress and as a government
that they have the tools and policies in place to get the job
done.
I would now like to recognize the Ranking Member of the
subcommittee Ms. Lofgren for any statement she may have.
Ms. Lofgren. I am pleased we are turning our attention
today to the Transportation Security Administration's Office of
Intelligence. The Department's Chief Intelligence Officer
Charlie Allen recently testified before us about one of his key
goals making all the Departments' intelligence offices work
together. Put simply, Mr. Allen wants intelligence folks and
TCB and to be on the same sheet of music when it comes to the
intelligence agenda. To get there he needs the various
intelligence offices falling under his leadership to share
information with each other and to draw on each other's
expertise in order to produce unique intelligence products,
products that advise the Department's State, local, tribal, and
private sector partners about what steps to take to protect
people and property from terrorist attacks.
I therefore welcome the testimony here today and look
forward to Mr. Gaches' testimony about the work he is doing. I
look forward to asking both witnesses about the practical
impact that TSA's intelligence shop has on everyday Americans.
Specifically, I am interested with TSA's ongoing involvement
and its impact on TSA's Secure Flight program.
Most Americans are well aware of news stories about senior
citizens, babies, nuns and even Members of Congress being
stopped at airports because they share the same or similar name
as a terrorist on a watch list. In fact, a member of my own
family is routinely stopped by certain airlines whenever he
flies. I understand that TSA intelligence analysts are
stationed at the Terrorist Screening Center at this very moment
and are assisting in the monumental task of manually reviewing
the tens of thousands of names included on the watch list based
upon information we have recently received from the Department
of Justice's inspector general. However, this manual review
process will take 5 or 6 years to complete. We simply don't
have 5 or 6 years to read through records to get the data
right.
A similar data problem apparently plagues TSA's planned
Secure Flight program. Ms. Berrick testified this past February
the program, as presently envisioned, will rely upon the
Terrorist Screening Center's terrorist watch list to conduct
automatic name checks to see if a passenger with an airline
reservation is a terrorist or not. If the records on the watch
list are inaccurate or incomplete, TSA's intelligence analysts
along with their colleagues at the Terrorist Screening Center
will have to perform a manual review of passenger records on
sometimes very short time frames in order to see if they can
figure out who is who. The same manual review will be needed if
the airlines that submit passenger information to secure
flights somehow muck up the data during the reservations
process. Not only will this lead to delays, but I fear it won't
protect us. Terrorists could game the Secure Flight system and
also the current watch system.
As Ms. Berrick states in her prepared testimony today,
Secure Flight was not designed to protect people using stolen
identities from boarding airplanes. Given the millions of
veterans' records recently stolen from the Department of
Veterans Affairs complete with names, dates of birth and Social
Security numbers, this vulnerability is a particularly serious
one. Now that TSA has announced that its going back to the
drawing board on Secure Flight, it might make sense to figure
out how to address the identity theft problem as well as the
inadequacy of name checks before getting too far ahead of
itself. I therefore look forward to Mr. Gaches' comments not
only about the work he is doing to stand up TSA's Office of
Intelligence, but also how he is gearing it up to prepare for
Secure Flight and to address the problems that Ms. Berrick and
others at GAO have identified.
Welcome to you both, and I yield back, Mr. Chairman. Thank
you.
Mr. Simmons. Thank you very much. And as the other members
of the subcommittee know, they have an opportunity to insert
any opening statement for the record that they may wish to
insert.
Mr. Simmons. And it is a pleasure to have the distinguished
gentlewoman from New York here with us this afternoon.
Our first witness will be William Gaches, who is the
Assistant Administrator for Intelligence, Director of
Intelligence and Analysis, Transportation Security
Administration. He assumed this responsibility in February of
2006 and is the senior intelligence officer for the
Transportation Security Administration.
From the year 2003 to 2004, Mr. Gaches headed the DCI's
Terrorist Threat Integration Center, Analysis and Production
Department, and was responsible for managing and overseeing all
of TTIC's publication and analysis efforts. He is a 30-year
veteran of the National Security Agency, has earned his BA in
political science from Westminster College, received a master
of liberal arts from Johns Hopkins University, and advanced
certificate in American public policy from the University of
Maryland in Baltimore. It is good to have you here.
We will put a 5 minute light on. We have your full
testimony, so you don't have to read it. And if you wish to
summarize in 5 minutes, we look forward to hearing your
testimony.
STATEMENT OF WILLIAM GACHES, ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR FOR
INTELLIGENCE, TRANSPORTATION SECURITY ADMINISTRATION, U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Mr. Gaches. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member
Lofgren, for the kind opening comments. Members of the
subcommittee, thank you for this time. It is an opportunity to
talk to you about the Office of Intelligence at the
Transportation Security Administration, our mission, our
capabilities and some thoughts about how we use intelligence to
help secure the transportation networks of America.
As I have not appeared as a witness before this
subcommittee prior to today, allow me to a little bit more
formally introduce myself. As Chairman Simmons said, I arrived
at TSA in February of 2006. For over 31 years I served at home
and abroad as an officer of the National Security Agency,
including being the NSA production manager for counterterrorism
from 2000 to 2003.
In 2003, as Chairman Simmons pointed out, I was indeed
asked to be one of the founding leaders of the President's
Terrorism Threat Integration Center, or TTIC, which later
became the National Counterterrorism Center, or NCTC, and in
this 2003 to 2006 timeframe, I did, in fact, run the analytic
element of those organizations.
Along the way I became committed to the concept of team
play, and also I became a colleague and, I dare say, a friend
of Charlie Allen, DHS's Chief Intelligence Officer. As I
headed, I thought, from NCTC back to NSA, Charlie Allen asked
me if I would be interested in helping TSA improve their
intelligence department. For me, a guy who wished to be a pilot
in younger years and a college-age summer hire of a national
airline, this would be too good an opportunity to pass up,
action-oriented intelligence work coupled with transportation.
Administrator Hawley and I met, and by early February I was
an assignee at TSA headquarters, but my commitment to TSA has
steadily grown since that time, and on Friday, 12 May, I
resigned from NSA and the following Monday came back to work as
a TSA officer.
The mission of the TSA Office of Intelligence is, in fact,
formally outlined in the Aviation and Transportation Security
Act of 2001 and, in short, directs TSA to receive, assess and
distribute intelligence information related to transportation
security. This dynamic, multifaceted effort by TSA must be done
in concert with the efforts of the DHS's Chief Intelligence
Officer, his staff and DHS's other component intel shops. We
cannot operate so independent as to preclude coordination and
consultation with and across DHS, and we are, in fact, fully
committed to the Secretary's objective as stated before the
full committee this past October by Charlie Allen regarding
integrating the intelligence elements of the Department,
creating a unified intelligence culture, and improving the flow
and reporting of intelligence.
This architecture building is, in my humble opinion,
comparable to DOD's joint staff model. We are in the JCS/J2,
work hand in glove with the J2s of the combatant commanders in
the field, and each field commander's intel chief has their
autonomy and their responsibilities, but one of those
responsibilities is to work in concert with the JCS/J2 back in
the Pentagon.
The intelligence office at TSA is comprised of 99
government personnel and about 40 contractors. We operate on a
budget of about $21 million, most of which is used to pay for
salaries, IT support and the critical IT linkage to the field
and our customers. Organizationally we have three major
components: a 24-by-7 watch operation at TSA headquarters, as
well as intelligence officers at TSA's operation center in
Herndon, Virginia; an analytic effort, which I view as our core
purpose; and a business management team to help us run right
and run straight.
Many of my analysts have prior intelligence and/or law
enforcement backgrounds either in the military or at agencies
such as FBI, DIA and CIA. Our products are transportation
focused, and we strive to issue much at the lowest
classification level possible, frequently to include
unclassified reports.
We have two primary customer sets. First, the major
transportation industries, aviation, mass transit and rail,
maritime, cargo, highway, and pipeline; and our second primary
customer is the operational element of TSA, almost the rest of
TSA, which includes 150 TSA Federal security directors and
40,000 transportation security officers, formerly known as
screeners, supporting 450 federalized airports and associated
intermodal transportation activities across the country, as
well as 21 Federal air marshal field offices. Working together,
we help to operationalize the intel and put it to work to
secure our transportation networks.
We also interface daily with and draw upon the U.S.
Intelligence Community as well as other U.S. Government
agencies. We consider all forms of intelligence as critical to
our mission, and we also rely heavily on open-source
information to include information garnered by the
transportation industry, and by TSA officers in the field at
passenger checkpoints, and by TSA's Federal Air Marshal
Service.
We are not, nor should we be, construed as experts in all
things terrorism, but we need to know where to go to get that
expertise, then operationalize this intelligence and make it
work for our customers. The intelligence analysts at TSA needs
to comprehend facets of transportation and simultaneously the
implications of the intelligence covering terrorists'
intentions, plans and activities.
In conclusion, the future for the Office of Intelligence
will be challenging, as is any Office of Intelligence engaged
in the global war on terrorism. Our adversary is determined,
learns from its mistakes and is flexible in many ways. We will
focus on training our workforce and on continuing to work with
DHS, the U.S. Intelligence Community, and our customers. This
is a battle that cannot be won by one agency or even two or
three. It will take a collaborative and cooperative approach
across DHS and across the U.S. Government. As the Assistant
Administrator For Intelligence at TSA, you have my pledge that
I will do all that I can within authorities in law to ensure
the safety of the United States' transportation networks.
Thank you for this opportunity, and I welcome your
questions.
Mr. Simmons. I thank you for that testimony.
[The statement of Mr. Gaches follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF WILLIAM GACHES
Good morning, Chairman Simmons, Ranking Member Lofgren, and members
of the Subcommittee. Thank you for this opportunity to speak with you
about the Transportation Security Administration's Office of
Intelligence (OI) and its crucial role in assuring transportation
security. OI serves the Assistant Secretary, key TSA staff, TSA field
elements and a select, specialized set of stakeholders located mainly
in the transportation sector. As such, its efforts complement and are
coordinated with the broader mission of the Department of Homeland
Security (DHS). Today, I would like to address who we are, what we do
and our ongoing efforts to improve intelligence at TSA.
Our Mission
The layered approach to security seeks to identify and deter
threats well before they reach America's airports, railways, highways,
mass transit, and ports and pipelines. United States government
agencies work with others around the globe to identify and disrupt
terrorist activities at their source. U.S. Customs and Border
Protection activities further identify potential terrorists and bar
their entry into the United States. Federal, State, and local law
enforcement work together with the FBI in Joint Terrorism Task Forces
across the United States to identify and disrupt terrorist activities
within the country. Intelligence activities are vital to the success of
this effort and TSA's OI is a key part of the intelligence team.
Although many of TSA's most visible programs, like aviation
checkpoint screening, are intended to deter and physically prevent
terrorists from carrying out a planned attack, the reality is that much
of what TSA does is focused on stopping terrorists before they launch
an attack. OI is absolutely critical to that effort because
information, analyzed and shared, is the very heart of this defense.
That is why we are working to enhance TSA's role as an information
resource to support our partners and stakeholders in transportation
security. Our goal is to make sure that our government and private
sector partners receive timely information from us and communicate
directly with us so we can achieve maximum effectiveness in our
response to terrorism and ideally in its prevention.
OI is legislatively mandated by the Aviation and Transportation
Security Act of 2001 (ATSA), further revised by the Homeland Security
Act of 2002. ATSA directs TSA to receive, assess, and distribute
intelligence information related to transportation security; assess
threats to transportation; develop policies, strategies, and plans for
dealing with threats to transportation security; [and] act as the
primary liaison for transportation security to the intelligence and law
enforcement communities. . ."
OI is the intelligence organization for TSA, providing an organic
capability to review, synthesize, and analyze transportation specific
intelligence. It is the only federal intelligence entity focused solely
on security of the transportation sector. OI coordinates closely and
shares information with other DHS components, the intelligence and the
law enforcement community, other government departments and agencies
such as DOT and FAA, and the transportation industry. To facilitate
collaboration with the intelligence community and provide rapid
analysis and notification of threats, this office has placed liaison
officers with key intelligence community and law enforcement agencies
across the Federal government.
OI is critical to TSA's overall risk-based security strategy. Its
products provide a threat framework to prioritize security resources
which is regularly used by the Federal Air Marshal Service, Federal
Security Directors and the transportation industry. The office operates
and maintains a twenty-four hour a day, seven days a week intelligence
capability for TSA and, in conjunction with the Transportation Security
Operations Center (TSOC), disseminates warnings and notifications of
credible and imminent threats.
In order to perform its mission, OI provides and maintains the
information technology (IT) infrastructure for interfacing OI with U.S.
Government classified networks. It also maintains secure electronic
connectivity to over 190 TSA field elements via the Remote Access
Security Program (RASP) that provides the TSA field with access to
classified information in a timely and secure manner.
It must be stated that TSA's OI is one part of the team at a
complex and multi-functional Department of Homeland Security. We are
fully committed to the Secretary's objective as stated before the full
committee this past October by Charlie Allen, DHS's Chief Intelligence
Officer, of integrating the intelligence elements of the Department so
as to create a unified intelligence culture, improving the flow of
intelligence information both horizontally and vertically throughout
the organization, and improving the reporting of intelligence
information from the Department's operating components and providing
actionable, relevant analysis back to them.
The Office of Intelligence consists of two Divisions. The
Intelligence Watch and Outreach Division functions as a 24/7 watch,
providing indications and warning information related to transportation
security while fulfilling vital communication and liaison roles. The
Current Intelligence and Assessments Division assesses current and
emerging threats across all modes of transportation and creates
products that are key to shaping security policy and developing and
implementing countermeasures.
Intelligence Watch and Outreach
Our Intelligence Watch and Outreach (IW&O) Division employs a cadre
of experienced intelligence officers who operate and maintain a 24/7
intelligence watch capability for TSA. The essential goal of their
efforts is to identify and assess the credibility of any security
threat(s) to U.S. transportation, to alert OI and TSA managers and
staff to these threats, and to support OI, TSA, and other U.S.
Government organizations in their efforts to deter and prevent credible
planned or actual attacks against U.S. transportation by providing
Intelligence indications and warning support and crisis management
assistance.
To support this mission, IW&O maintains a full-time liaison officer
presence at seven key Intelligence Community (IC) and Law Enforcement
(LE) nodes including DHS's Office of Intelligence and Analysis, the
Director of National Intelligence's (DNI) National Counter Terrorism
Center, the FBI's National Joint Terrorism Task Force, Customs and
Border Protection's National Targeting Center, the National Security
Agency (NSA), the DEA-administered El Paso Intelligence Center (EPIC)
Air Watch, and the Terrorist Screening Center (TSC). These liaison
relationships facilitate the timely analysis and exchange of
intelligence relating to transportation security and also provide these
other entities with valuable expertise in transportation security as
well as real time access to our experts and capabilities in the OI.
In addition to the Headquarters Watch operation, IW&O also
maintains an OI office (24/7) at TSA's TSOC. In that capacity, it
provides direct intelligence support to the TSOC and the Federal Air
Marshal Service's Mission Operations Center. The office also develops
and executes all OI field support and Intelligence Operations outreach
programs.
Current Intelligence and Assessments
OI's Current Intelligence and Assessments (CI&A) section is a well
experienced group of intelligence officers whose products and programs
focus on the terrorist threat to transportation. These professionals
perform valuable functions in support of daily security readiness and
long term strategic planning. Among their products are:* The
Transportation Intelligence Gazette (TIG), Weekly Field Intelligence
Summary (WFIS), Suspicious Incidents Report (SIR);* Specialized
analytic assessments focused on terrorist groups, weapons, explosives,
Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, or High-Yield Explosive
threats (CBRNE), modus operandi, tactics and trends;* Baseline modal
threat assessments, updated as developing information warrants; and*
Special reports and other products as needed to support the
intelligence needs of TSA, DHS, and the intelligence and law
enforcement community.
Significantly, CI&A provides intelligence support for other TSA
Assistant Administrators, notably Transportation Sector Network
Management (TSNM) and its modal general managers, Security Operations,
and Law Enforcement/Federal Air Marshal Service. CI&A products assist
these critical TSA components in assessing risk, to include
consequence, criticality and vulnerability, and developing appropriate
security programs, countermeasures, mitigation strategies and
protection guidance.
CI&A's focused examination of data to identify new or unrealized
threats in the transportation domain assists TSA leadership in
understanding the strategic threat. Analytical products are used in the
development of security policies and the setting of program priorities.
Transportation intelligence assessments often serve as the key
ingredient in shaping Security Directives (SDs) and Emergency
Amendments (EAs) to stakeholders and support decisions on
countermeasures. Frequently, CI&A coordinates on issues related to the
National Infrastructure Protection Program (NIPP), National Strategy
for Transportation Security (NSTS), National Planning Scenarios,
Strategic Homeland Infrastructure Risk Assessment (SHIRA),
Transportation Security Operational Plan (TSOP) and other similar
programs. CI&A also plays a critical role in the development and
coordination of interagency security initiatives. The Division's
Director serves as TSA's technical advisor to the Overseas Security
Advisory Council (OSAC) of the Department of State and directs TSA's
Chemical and Biological Task Force, which, in turn, provided
countermeasures support to the TSA Pandemic Influenza Task Force.
OI directs TSA's Red Cell activity to identify potential
vulnerabilities in the transportation system through the use of
adversarial (terrorist) role playing and scenario development. All
major offices of TSA participate in the Red Cells, to include TSA field
personnel, Office of Security Operations, TSNM, OI, Internal Affairs,
Information Technology, Operational Process and Technology, Office of
Chief Counsel, and Office of Law Enforcement/Federal Air Marshal
Service. Red Cell members reflect TSA's broad knowledge, expertise and
ability to think creatively and outside-the-box. The purpose of the TSA
Red Cell is to provide TSA leadership with threat scenarios that could
affect the U.S. transportation infrastructure so that mitigation
strategies are developed to counter these vulnerabilities. Following
the presentation of the Red Cell scenarios to TSA senior leadership,
other TSA offices conduct criticality and consequence analysis,
determine appropriate counter measures and validate mitigation
strategies. U.S. transportation sector representatives and industry
stakeholders are made aware of these Red Cell scenarios which pinpoint
potential vulnerabilities to the transportation system so that they may
assist TSA in the development of mitigation strategies.
In support of transportation stakeholders, CI&A coordinates with
Information Sharing Analysis Centers (ISACs) to ensure awareness of and
maintain a baseline understanding of threats to all modes of
transportation. The Department, working with the Federal Transit
Administration (FTA), coordinates information and threat sharing for
rail and transit through the Surface Transportation Information Sharing
and Analysis Center (ST-ISAC) in partnership with the Association of
American Railroads (AAR) and the American Public Transportation
Association (APTA). As part of the significant partnership that has
developed, TSA hosts ST-ISAC representatives at the TSOC. Similarly,
CI&A, in coordination with security program officials at DHS, TSA, and
DOT, shares threat information with highway, trucking, and motor
carrier stakeholders through the Highway Watch program. The TSOC
maintains a working area and supporting equipment for this program as
well.
Across the critical infrastructure sectors, including
transportation, DHS is streamlining governmental organizational
structure and processes to improve coordination and engagement with
industry stakeholders. Government Coordinating Councils (GCCs) have
been established to implement the public-private partnership envisioned
by the National Infrastructure Protection Plan. The Transportation
Sector GCC formed in January 2006. That council is establishing its
membership and operating procedures, direct formation of modal GCCs,
and facilitating outreach to stakeholders to foster development of
equivalent Sector Coordinating Councils (SCC) for each of the
transportation modes and the sector as a whole. Membership includes TSA
as Chair, DHS, Department of Transportation (DOT), Department of
Defense (DOD), and the Department of Energy. GCCs in each of the modes
are developing strategies, plans, and initiatives for transportation
security.
The intelligence professionals at TSA OI provide essential all-
source, all modal, foreign and domestic transportation threat
intelligence analysis capability in the United States Government.
The Path Forward
The spectrum of its transportation security responsibilities, TSA
seeks opportunities to enhance security posture and activities through
targeted deployment of resources. In the intelligence field, OI has
established a Pilot Program to enhance reporting of information
obtained incidental to law enforcement and security operations, by
deploying Field Intelligence Officers to a select group of airports
including Boston, New York (JFK International Airport), Miami, Chicago
(O'Hare International Airport), Los Angeles (Los Angeles International
Airport), Phoenix and Dallas Fort Worth. Our goal is to improve
intelligence support, coordination, and communication between TSA
Headquarters, our Federal Security Directors (FSDs) and our modal
stakeholders. After a one year trial, the Pilot Program will be
evaluated.
The Field Intelligence Officers will serve as the principal advisor
to FSDs and their staffs on all intelligence matters. Other
responsibilities will include developing and maintaining a working
relationship with local, federal, state, and private entities
responsible for transportation security, regardless of mode. It is
important to note here that while our officers will be based at the
airports, they will still interface with the security elements from the
local rail, mass transit, highway, and port and pipeline (where
applicable) modals to facilitate the sharing and exchange of relevant
threat information among these modals. TSA Field Intelligence Officers
will gather pertinent law enforcement and intelligence information and
ensure it is disseminated throughout the National Intelligence
Community. Law enforcement information will be vetted, validated, and
formatted as Homeland Intelligence Reports (HIRs) by TSA's Office of
Intelligence HIR program. Upon approval, the HIRs will be disseminated
to the Intelligence Community.
Field Intelligence Officer core competencies will include:*
delivery of intelligence briefings to FSDs, senior staff, airport
workforce and partner agencies;* service as intelligence liaisons with
applicable federal, state, and local intelligence offices;* the
facilitation of intelligence data sharing from TSA Headquarters via the
Office of Intelligence; and* submission of field intelligence reports
to TSA Headquarters via the Office of Intelligence.
Staffing for the Field Intelligence Officers will rely on highly
competent and experienced personnel. These officers are expected to
interact and coordinate with multiple levels of government and non-
government personnel at each site. The Field Intelligence Officers will
serve as the face of TSA's Office of Intelligence for thousands of TSA
employees working at the airports.
Operational support derives from the TSA Assistant Administrator
for Operations and the FSDs at the seven participating airports. TSA's
Office of Intelligence has sufficient staffing to support the Pilot
Program.
Conclusion
TSA's Office of Intelligence serves a select, specialized community
of TSA leadership and key stakeholders. Our position within the
government draws upon the expertise of experienced intelligence
officers whose focus on the transportation industry provides the
intelligence and law enforcement communities with valuable resources
with which to prevent a terrorist attack. By providing an organic
capability to review, synthesize, and analyze transportation specific
intelligence, we make an absolutely critical contribution to our
nation's security which complements the efforts made in the Department
as well the government as a whole.
Thank you again for this opportunity to inform the subcommittee of
our efforts. I would be happy to respond to any questions that you
might have.
Mr. Simmons. In my opening statement, I referred to the
TSA's Office of Intelligence slogan, I guess you could say,
zero tolerance for failure. You know, air traffic is one of
those modes of transportation where somebody like myself who is
inherently scared of flying wants to make sure that the
takeoff, the flight, and the landing are done 100 percent
perfectly. We don't want 95 ercent of the takeoffs, the
flights, and the landings to be successful, you know. That 5
percent of lack of success is what scares us all when it comes
to flying.
And certainly after 9/11, great efforts have been made by
the U.S. Government and by TSA intelligence to improve the
security of those flights. But in so doing, we also have to
balance the privacy issues of the traveling public with
efficiency issues, the efficiency of getting people through the
security process and to their aircrafts in a timely fashion so
that they don't--they don't miss the flight.
What do you see as the principal challenges of your office,
of TSA intelligence, and in balancing that security with that
efficiency'
Mr. Gaches. The challenges that I see in that particular
case, Mr. Chairman, would be largely surrounding first and
foremost, we are concerned about the privacy of the American
citizen, and as the recipient of the no fly and selectee list
from the Terrorist Screening Center and the responsible agent
for forwarding that on to the U.S. airlines in which they do
the actual matching with oncoming passengers, we work as hard,
as Ms. Lofgren pointed out, and also in a very manually intense
system right now to try and ensure the privacy balanced against
what we know is out there trying to work through our system.
And it becomes very difficult because, as I pointed out in my
oral testimony, this is an ever-changing enemy; this is an
enemy that is becoming increasingly difficult to identify. This
is an enemy that was not quite what it was in September of 2001
or before that.
So this is a constant balancing act between where we are
trying to preserve the rights and the privacy of American
citizens while still being able to determine where the bad
person is, if you will, and how they are trying to get through
whether it is the aviation or any other transportation system,
a constant balancing act. A lot of training for our analysts to
be witting of privacy concerns. It is done on an annual basis.
So we are trying on many different facets to balance between
both of those very important tasks for the office.
Mr. Simmons. And I am sure you have heard of the stories
about the little baby whose name is Osama bin Laden, or, in my
case, the treasurer of the Connecticut Education Association
whose name is Michael Freeman, whose name matches the name of
somebody else, and when they get slowed down in the process,
then we have to try to correct those holdings for those
individuals.
How efficient and how effective do you feel we have been in
addressing those issues?
Mr. Gaches. I think we have made some progress. I think we
have a long way to go yet, in all honesty. This is a very
complicated process, in an open hearing and unclassified. I
know that you all are familiar with the basic tenets of how
this works, the information that we receive from the TSC, how
that information is fed to the TSC in the first place. It is a
process that when you just look at it almost in a flow-chart
fashion has room, unfortunately, for error just because of the
complexity and the volume and the variety of the input of the
information.
I would certainly welcome you, Mr. Chairman, and Ranking
Member Lofgren, to TSA for a classified sort of A-to-Z review
of this process. There are things that I would be perhaps
incorrect in a public forum to detail about some of the checks
and balances that we can take, and certainly don't want to give
those away in an open forum, but would be happy to have all of
the members of this subcommittee visit us and have members from
the TSC and from the National Counterterrorism Center and other
parts of the community have a discussion about this entire
process. I think you might find that very useful and helpful
and also answer some of the questions that might be difficult
to address in an open forum here.
Mr. Simmons. I appreciate that.
One final question. We all hear about the exceptions to the
rule where the wrong person is identified or stopped or
delayed. Am I correct in assuming that there have been
instances where the right person or a person who is on a
terrorist watch list has also been identified and either
detained or otherwise questioned?
Mr. Gaches. Absolutely. A very recent and exciting
adventure that we took part in, actually led a few weeks ago,
where through other sources we had six individuals, five
individuals identified on a particular flight, and, in fact,
they were on that list that we call the no fly List. They were
bona fide flyers. They had unfortunately gotten onto the flight
because it was coming from an overseas location, so because we
knew who they were, we could confirm that. They were greeted
accordingly and followed accordingly by law enforcement
agencies to determine what they were up to, et cetera. And,
again, wouldn't want to go into any further detail, but I would
say certainly several times a month we are getting positive
hits on this system.
Mr. Simmons. Thank you. My time has expired, and I
recognize the distinguished Ranking Member.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I am wondering, Mr. Gaches, the GAO recently concluded that
TSA's response to the problems in Secure Flight raise more
questions really than it answered. And I am wondering, they
pointed particularly to the accuracy and completeness of the
records included in the Terrorist Screening Center's master
terrorist watch list in the database as well as the protocols
for handling airline reservation information in a way that
facilitates the TSA-based Secure Flight automated name-checking
process; and then also the role of TSA OI analysts in ensuring
that false positive, innocent people are identified and then
dealt with effectively. Can you address those GAO criticisms
here in a public session?
Mr. Gaches. Thank you for that question and the opportunity
to make a left turn.
Let me say in all honesty, I am clearly not the Secure
Flight expert, and, in fact, it is not a direct responsibility
of the Office of Intelligence. It is a complicated process, as
you are aware, because of the vast number of inputs and the
variety of agencies that input to the TSC and eventually in the
case right today of the no fly and selectee list.
Certainly the Secure Flight program first and foremost is
being revamped and built from privacy up to standpoint, and our
goal is to do it right and not do it fast. And as I think you
are aware, we are rebaselining that program, and I am sure
Cathy will have more words to say about that from the GAO
perspective.
I think that in the entire--if I may say that in the entire
war on terrorism, it is difficult to always have precise
information on the individuals that you are looking for, and
the details on precise information, that probably should be
left out of this open hearing. And we would welcome you again
to go through in a classified session what we use criteriawise,
why we encounter problems, and some thoughts that we have, and
perhaps solicit thoughts from you that we should employ in
making this a better and faster system, because clearly we do
have room for improvement.
Ms. Lofgren. I am wondering, you mentioned in your
testimony that you have information on a daily basis from the
Intelligence Community. To what extent do you have connectivity
with the Intelligence Community? What kind of interface do you
have that permits the full sharing that we expect?
Mr. Gaches. Thank you for that.
As I mentioned, I have come out of that Intelligence
Community. I have accrued a few friends and contacts that will
still talk to me even in the non-IC status that I now hold.
As you know, the TSA Office of Intelligence is not one of
the formal 16 members of the U.S. Intelligence Community.
Formally, however, let me point out perhaps one of the most
critical things, even though it sounds somewhat elementary.
Each morning the Administrator and I start our intel day by
attending a televised secure videoconference with, I will just
say, lots of folks talking about lots of things, and it is
hosted by the National Counterterrorism Center, and Admiral
Redd, Retired Admiral John Scott Redd, is the host of that. And
in that forum we have the opportunity to sort of have the
huddle, have the scorecard check, if you will.
That doesn't stop at that time. There are other video
teleconferences then the rest of the 24-hour day involving very
many of the same organizations, usually different sets of
players, if you will. That is one of the best ways to keep
connected. We are an active participant in the Interagency
Intelligence Agency on Terrorism. We are an active participant
and supplier, if you will, of liaison officers, who--I will
just say from various parts of the Intelligence Community, and,
of course, there is the thing, this network, of just keeping in
touch with those you used to work with.
Ms. Lofgren. Well, could I ask just more in a systemic
way--systematic way, I don't want to denigrate those informal,
because I am sure those are very important, but I am
interested, we have accumulated or supposed to have accumulated
intelligence information, various databases, one of which is
the customs enforcement arm, Immigration Customs Enforcement.
To what extent do you have technology that can interface with
ICE and utilize that database to inform the decisions on the
terrorist watch list? And can you talk about specifically the
computer systems and other software programs that you have?
Mr. Gaches. I apologize. I could not very well address the
computer systems of the IT connectivity between specifically
ICE and those databases that are used in the watch list
process, or even to the Office of Intelligence. That is clearly
an area that we need to grow our connectivity to CBP, to ICE,
and the Coast Guard is an area that both my Deputy and I are
very interested in trying to move forward and bring a closer
connectivity between the component intel parts of DHS as well
as to DHS's own IA central activity.
Ms. Lofgren. I wonder if you could follow up subsequent to
this hearing with the details on that question.
Mr. Gaches. Sure. I would be happy to do that.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you.
Mr. Simmons. Chair recognizes the gentlelady from New York.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you very much for appearing before us, and I
would like to pursue this line of questioning because in my
district, there have been at least five different examples of
constituents that have contacted my office about possibly being
placed on a watch list, and in each case, it seems as though
they are a false positive and don't deserve extra screening.
One case in particular, which I think we finally sorted
out, this person was a Peace Corps worker in Africa 20 years
ago, and he rides first class, he rides frequently. He has an
international business. He lives in Westchester County. He must
have names similar to others on the watch list, and each case
he still has to arrive several hours before he boards the
plane. And I hope the most recent effort that my office has
made will take care of this.
But it seems to me that your intelligence office has or
should have a central role in TSA's current redress process,
and my understanding is that innocent travelers now supply
additional information about themselves to TSA to distinguish
themselves from those on the terrorist watch list.
And we want you to do your job because we understand that
the safety and security of the public is at stake here;
however, this particular case and a half dozen others that have
been brought to my attention just seem to me to be a lack of
efficiency, or that is what I am trying to find out. What is
going on? Could you tell me the average amount of time it takes
for an innocent traveler to clear his name?
Mr. Gaches. Thank you. No, I could not, because the Office
of Redress is the one that has those statistics and runs that
activity where an individual who wants to fill the paperwork
out and the forms to have their name or similar name, if you
will, removed and clarify them as not being the party of
interest, they maintain that. It is an entirely separate
operation from me. We occasionally get involved, depending on
the particulars of the case at hand.
I am not familiar with the individual that you mention from
Westchester. I would be happy to take additional information
perhaps after this or through your staff and personally look
into this on your behalf, but the general process is that the
Office of Redress at TSA will take the information from an
individual. They will return to us and to the TSC to compare
that information with that which is held in the databases, and
then we can go from there. We have gone to some--at some points
issuing letters for individuals to carry to explain to the
carriers. This takes--sometimes this will take, unfortunately,
a lot of time to get the records cleared all the way back
through the various carriers.
Mrs. Lowey. But, Mr. Gaches, don't you have a voice in who
makes the no fly list? Has the Terrorist Screening Center drawn
the expertise of your office from making decisions?
Mr. Gaches. In this setting I would just say that the
preponderance of the no fly and selectee individuals are
nominated by other agencies, and TSA has a limited role in
doing that because this comes from, we will say, core
intelligence agencies and law enforcement agencies. We at TSA
Office of Intelligence seldom--certainly not in the 4 months I
have been there--have nominated individuals for either of these
lists.
Mrs. Lowey. Well, one of my concerns, not just with DHS,
but I have seen this happen with many of the agencies of
government, is the lack of coordination, and it seems to me
that we have had three attempts at least to put in place an
automated passenger screening system, and if you don't know the
role and responsibilities of your people, how would the program
be designed in ways so they are going to work together' Because
it seems that the integration of these offices should have been
addressed in the planning stages of the program.
Maybe you can explain how that works, and if someone is
applying for redress, shouldn't the Intelligence Office be
involved' Shouldn't an intelligence analyst look at what
evidence there is and what questions should be asked, and who
else has the background and knowledge at TSA to inform the
discussion of who is and who is not a terrorist?
Mr. Gaches. I would again comment that our office's purpose
is more in the liaison with the airlines' at the beginning. On
a redress issue, we would have--we could help facilitate going
back to the originator of that individual being placed on the
list, and 99 percent of the time, 99-plus percent of the time,
that is not the TSA Office of Intelligence who nominated that
person in the first place. So we would have to go back to the
originating agency and ask them for further details, tell them
the information that the Redress Office has.
And I take your point. We could perhaps be more proactive
in facilitating that between the Office of Redress and whatever
element of the Intelligence Community or law enforcement
community nominated the name in the first place. But by and
large, that is not a role that we have had a leading role in,
if you will.
Mrs. Lowey. My time is up, but let me just say, Mr.
Chairman, if I may, I am concerned that we are not doing enough
to examine these names, and if we ever reach a time where we
need to focus our resources on an imminent threat, the
terrorist list will be needlessly populated by people who pose
no threat, and we will not have separated those individuals who
should not be on the list from those who should; and that we
are going to be overwhelmed by a list which is so long and
unrefined that it defeats the very purpose of a list, which is
to focus on the real threats.
So I am concerned that there are so many of these units
that have particular responsibilities, and I wonder about the
overall coordination and what your office is actually doing to
refine these lists, but I guess we can take that up another
time unless the Chairman--maybe you could pardon? Okay.
Mr. Simmons. We plan to have a second round of questions. I
think the gentlelady's comments are well taken, and I think
that, as I understand the process both from the witness and
talking to others, the Office of Redress goes back to the
originator of the information, and in these particular
instances, if TSA intelligence is not the originator of the
information, let us say it is FBI or CIA or somebody else, they
would not be directly involved.
But I think what you are suggesting, which is quite
correct, is that we have to facilitate and improve the process
of cleaning up these lists, because if my constituent is on the
list with several other people by his name, and one of those
people is a dangerous person, we want to make sure that it is
the dangerous person that is being apprehended and not
everybody else. And, you know, that goes to the issue of trying
to improve the process, and that is what oversight is all
about.
And now I yield to my friend from Rhode Island, the
distinguished gentleman Mr. Langevin, who has been very
patient.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And, Mr. Gaches, thank you for your testimony today. And I
echo the sentiments and comments of many of my colleagues. We
are concerned--we obviously want the potential terrorist watch
list to be accurate, and the sooner we can make sure that that
list is culled and that we have an adequate redress process,
the better, because I don't think there is a member in Congress
that hasn't had a constituent or someone they know directly
that has been on that list and shouldn't be because they were
looking for a list--the list itself was looking for someone
else.
Turning to another front, though, we have heard from Chief
Intelligence Officer Charlie Allen about his plans for a new
Office of Intelligence and Analysis, and his plans to integrate
the various intelligence components as a united intelligence
operation. So it seems to me that IA must decide if it is going
to be either a strategic-type operation that focuses on setting
an agenda, policies, and representing intelligence components
like your shop to the wider Intelligence Community, or an
operational shop that is going to be creating its own
intelligence products.
So my question is what path is IA taking, in your view, and
what path should it be taking, and how is IA's approach working
for your shop?
And my other question would be how does TSA's Office of
Intelligence work to ensure that your analyst expertise informs
what IA is producing, and what challenges have you encountered
in this area?
Mr. Gaches. Thank you, sir, for those questions. On the
first--I think that the DHS IA approach to being the strategic
sort of ombudsman for the Department in having cognizance of
and looking at the strategic assessing of issues related to the
component intel parts is the way to go. DHS IA has to cover
everything in regards to the homeland. I am somewhat of a
specialist. I am the transportation systems or networks intel
officer. I am not saying that I don't care about other aspects
of the terrorism problem, but that is where my focus really has
to be, and I am much more tactical than the DHS IA activity in
the sense that I am on the phone or my folks are on the phone
with someone at Amtrak, someone at a particular airline,
whatever the case may be. DHSIA, I see them, and I am hoping,
and I think from conversations with--Charlie Allen sees them
more of a strategic view.
Now, we are just beginning, as I mentioned in my opening
comments. This is an architecture that is a work in progress,
and we have got some load-smoothing to do and some bumps to
iron out, but that would be my response to the first part of
your question.
As far as how we sort of work, I think your second
question, more almost on a day-to-day, how do we fit into IA as
far as ensuring analytic conversations and collaboration, we
are in no small part in constant contact both visibly and
physically, if you will, with the individuals at Nebraska
Avenue. Each of my modal transportation analysts have an
individual or individuals IA that they have the ability to
reach out to. We try and inform and in many cases coordinate on
the work that we do. They are the recipients--they, being IA,
are the recipients of everything that the Office of
Intelligence at TSA produces. So I think, you know, we are
providing them everything that we are doing. We certainly have
access to all that they produce, but I would just ask you to
consider keeping in mind that we are servicing that very
focused area--not small, not insignificant by any stretch of
the imagination, but we are transportation focused, and DHS IA
has to look across the gamut of things that are homeland
security issues.
So we are actually complementing each other, and as I said
again in my opening comments, not too dissimilar from the JCS/
J2 model where if you are the J2 at the Pentagon, and you want
to know something about what is going on in Bolivia, as an
example, chances are you are going to reach out to the J2 at
SOUTHCOM who really has some expertise and is focussing in on
there, and then that relationship exists between those two,
just like it does between Charlie Allen's folks and myself.
Mr. Langevin. Within the Department, do you believe that
you have timely access to the accumulated DHS intelligence
base' That is, can you easily retrieve--I mean, manipulate
information or intelligence that, for example, Immigration and
Customs Enforcement, for example, has collected; and if so, by
what means do you access this information' Specifically which
systems do you use?
Mr. Gaches. Thank you.
In all honesty, I don't know the names of the systems, if
you will. But we do have the ability to reach out and
electronically obtain the Customs and Border Patrol reports,
the ICE reports, the Coast Guard reports, all of the DHS
components, as well as the Intelligence Community component
reporting.
Now, there are limitations. I can't say that we have access
to 100 percent of everything that is out there. And in some
respects we probably don't even need access to 100 percent of
everything out there because of our niche approach, if you
will, to a lot of the issues. But I feel comfortable that my
analysts are able to go through both the classified and the
open source through our IT connectivity, which is very robust,
with all of component intel parts of DHS, as well as with the
Intelligence Community members themselves, and I feel fairly
comfortable in the way and the speed with which we can do that.
And that is in addition to conferences and meetings and just
telephone conversations, and very often like-minded analysts or
subject matter experts gravitate together and exchange
information as well.
That is sort of the informal network. So I think we have it
fairly well covered for both informal as well as electronic
connectivity.
Mr. Langevin. I thank you.
I see my time has expired, but, again, thank you for the
answers to my questions, and we certainly look forward to
working with you to make sure that this effort is as robust as
possible to make sure the work that you are doing is maximized.
Thank you.
Mr. Gaches. Thank you.
Mr. Simmons. I thank the gentleman for his questions.
The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Nevada.
Mr. Gibbons. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Gaches, thank you very much for being here today and
for your testimony.
Basically what distinguishes or differentiates TSA's
intelligence from Homeland Security intelligence?
Mr. Gaches. Thank you, sir. If I may, I am assuming you
mean specifically how do we differ from intelligence and
analysis----
Mr. Gibbons. Analytical.
Mr. Gaches.--IA, if you will, at DHS headquarters.
I would offer that we are very focused on transportation.
That is our niche. That is our lane, if you want to call it, in
the road. IA is very much looking across the board of all sorts
of issues related to homeland security that may or may not have
a transportation and terrorism nexus. I think we are also much
more tactical in many respects.
One of my goals and one of the Office of Intelligence's
goals is this doesn't do us any good, this intelligence, if we
can't get it out to somebody who can use it and make a
difference, whether that is in the industry, or whether that is
an operating element of TSA, such as the Transportation
Security officers at the airports, the Federal security
directors located across the country, the Federal air marshals.
Any of those thousands of people are our customers as well as
the transportation industry folks themselves. So we are that
short link or we are that last mile between intelligence that
could be operationalized and be worked on by a customer to take
a positive action, and we have done that clearly in a number of
cases since I came on board in February; not because of me, but
I can cite this as an example.
I have lived through--we have informed at least three U.S.
carriers about--we will just call them in an open hearing nasty
situations in certain parts of the world. We were the ones who
took it from the high classified side, worked a story down that
is deliverable to the airlines in this case, explained to them
the problem in some cases face to face, and then watched them
take whatever actions they thought were appropriate. I think
that is a more deliverable kind of intelligence that we are
responsible to to the transportation industry of America than
what I consider the IA approach, if you will, or focus, is very
much a strategic and very much completely across the board of
homeland defense.
Mr. Gibbons. Mr. Gaches, are you saying that homeland
security doesn't do transportation analysis of its
intelligence?
Mr. Gaches. Oh, no, sir, not at all.
Mr. Gibbons. What you are saying is you are a second set of
eyes on the same intelligence or the same analysis that
homeland security does?
Mr. Gaches. Sir, I probably misspoke in that what I mean is
lots of folks get the same intelligence reports wherever they
are derived from. We at TSA will get similar or identical
reports as to what DHS IA does and many other people within the
community or in the U.S. Government.
What I was trying to say was I think unlike DHS IA, who I
have seen tends to take a more strategic across-the-board look
at sometimes--a larger look at even a given subject, we are
very much more in the tactical--tactical environment with our
customer set on a daily basis.
Mr. Gibbons. Very briefly because my time is limited. From
that standpoint, where would you suggest improvement in TSA's
analytical intelligence efforts?
Mr. Gaches. I think that we have a lot of room to improve
in just the taking a lot of the tactical information that we
get, a lot of which comes from the field that TSA is in. In
other words, we have two different reports in particular in
which TSA officers, wherever they may be in the U.S. system,
but as TSA, provides at least 60 percent of the information
that comes into us to put those reports together, and I believe
that we probably need to take that information and step back
just a little bit, not too far, and start to look more at
trends in different transportation networks; see if there are
patterns, compare across transportation networks and see if
there are more similarities between, say, aviation and rail
activities, et cetera, still not in that larger assessment role
that I see DHS IA doing, but clearly we have some room to grow
in that TSA OI.
Mr. Gibbons. What keeps you awake at night, Mr. Gaches?
Mr. Gaches. A lot of things in this business after a lot of
years. But in all seriousness, sir, a great question. I think
right now there are probably two things that I will sort of
generalize in an open forum, and that is if you look at London,
if you look at what has happened in Canada recently, the phrase
comes about that we use ``home-grown,'' and I think that is a
that is a field ripe for study and for analysis about home-
grown individuals wanting to engage in the terrorist activity
as opposed to awaiting the next shipment, if you will, from an
overseas location. That certainly is one thing.
The other thing that I find very challenging, and I, in
fact-- Mr. Chairman and I were speaking about this the other
day. I can't find an answer, and it has to do with sometimes
the lack of certain types of activity in this country, and you
know, we sometimes wonder with what we see overseas,
particularly the use of suicide bombers and improvised
explosive devices overseas, we certainly wonder and stay up at
night questioning about the lack of that in the U.S., and that
is what keeps me up. Some of the things we do about that would
best be said in a classified session at another time. I would
be happy to take that on.
Mr. Simmons. Thank you, Mr. Gaches. The Chair recognizes
the gentleman are from New Mexico, Mr. Pearce.
Mr. Pearce. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Appreciate the
testimony and the opportunity to ask questions.
If you were to look at the structure around the
intelligence section of TSA, how far do you have to go around
the director, administrator in charge, to find somebody with an
intelligence background instead of, say, a lawyer or whatever?
What is the management structure?
Mr. Gaches. Specifically within TSA'
Mr. Pearce. Yes.
Mr. Gaches. Thank you, sir, for the question. Of course you
know Mr. Hauley, the Administrator, is literally right above me
as the Assistant Administrator and Director of Intel, and he is
a very, very strong advocate of his entire staff understanding
that he wants intel to drive a lot of the decisions, policy
formulations and actions taken by TSA as opposed to we are just
going to do it because it seems like a good idea. A very strong
advocate.
Mr. Pearce. I didn't ask if he is an advocate, I asked if
he has got background.
Mr. Gaches. I am not familiar with Mr. Hauley's background
to that degree. I am unaware of it.
Mr. Pearce. When TSA started 2, 2 1/2 years ago when they
first arrived we were asking the same question. You could go
for five or six layers without finding anybody but lawyers, so
then the administration program began not to be directed so
much at outcomes but in processes and legal defenses and things
that really in my mind compromised the ability of the program
to work to really protect the American people, and instead
appeared to have processes to protect the TSA from outside
intervention.
Mr. Gaches. Sir, if I may, I have only been there for 4
months but my access to the Administrator is unfettered by any
other Assistant Administrator or by his Principal Deputy. We
start the TSA day off in my area of intel with all of the other
assistant administrators and what we call general managers in
attendance of a morning briefing. It is an intel briefing.
I think there is a greatly improved presence of intel and
intel usage by TSA in the past 4 months. I am impressed by how
an organization in which I am a very, very, very small
minority, gets an awful lot of attention from all of the
elements of TSA.
I hope that helps clarify, but I am optimistic about the
way intel is going at TSA at this time in the administrative
sense.
Mr. Pearce. If I were to ask the local sheriffs in my
district--I have got a very rural district, right on the
southern border of the country--the last time they got any
evidence through the channels, the intel channels rather than
through the local news or CNN or Fox News, do you think that
they would respond that they ever hear from you all, that there
is any mechanism to communicate down to the people on the front
lines?
Mr. Gaches. Sir, I honestly don't know about literally the
local sheriff, but we do push our information as low as the
unclassified level. We literally have hundreds of thousands of
recipients of those reports that come out on a weekly basis and
those are pushed down as far as any of the operational elements
at TSA or DHS Central wish to, and if there is an element that
is not hearing from us that anyone feels should, I would be
more than happy to have that conversation and probably end up
providing that information.
Mr. Pearce. I wonder, a lot of times TSA begins to
contemplate how to respond based on projecting the threat and
projecting how the threat is going to arrive. Do we really
believe that we can project what the terrorists are going to
think next? In other words, mostly we respond to what has
happened in the past, so today everybody takes off their shoes
because of one shoe bomber.
They are not going to come with shoes the next time, they
might come with a shirt or something next time. You can follow
it from there. But even with a light touch, too, it just seems
like the ability to project what is in the terrorist mind is
really unusual.
I see my time has expired. You can answer if the Chairman
permits.
Mr. Simmons. Please.
Mr. Gaches. In an open forum I will be very careful and say
there is a lot that we look back over our shoulder. The old
adage that history teaches, et cetera, I think applies in this
case. I think we are not in the clairvoyant stage, but I think
we have some good sense about the future, and I would like to
leave it in an open session at that, and I would love to have a
classified hearing at greater detail.
Mr. Simmons. Thank you.
We are prepared to do a second round if members are so
interested, and, if so, I will start with a couple of questions
of my own. You have used the word ``tactical'' as opposed to
``strategic'' in drawing the difference between TSA
intelligence and, let's say, INA at a DHS level. There has also
been reference to planning and developing policies, procedures,
and applying resources to the problem of the past as opposed to
perhaps a current or future threat.
We have put literally billions of dollars into aviation
security, we have heard tens of thousands of people, we have
got all kinds of equipment and policies and procedures, and
anybody who travels in America has encountered those up close
and personal. America is airborne, and, as a consequence, that
is a legitimate area to focus, especially after 9/11.
I also have concerns about Amtrak and the national
passenger rail system, about Metro in the Northeast, and other
computer rail systems like BART. We have got pipelines. I
believe all of these different systems come within your purview
in one form or another.
Focusing specifically on rail, I serve on the Railroad
Subcommittee and there is a tremendous lack of rail security
personnel, whether it is Amtrak or whether it is the other
systems. And I wonder if you could talk for a minute or so on
the staffing that you have to focus on the rail target, if you
will, and maybe give us a sense of what those risks are, given
London, the Spain and Japanese experiences that we have had.
Mr. Gaches. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for that question.
Indeed our analysts are roughly divided across the different
modes. They are not all aviation-oriented or one mode over the
other, and we do have a few that can go in different
directions.
Certainly the lessons of London, Madrid, and, from the
nineties, Tokyo, have made it very clear to us that rail and
mass transit are areas that we need a lot of attention and, in
all honesty, are probably areas that we could even increase our
attention in the future.
We are trying very hard to reach out directly from the
Office of Intelligence to the rail and mass transit industries,
if you will. We are also utilizing other elements of TSA where
there are general managers, if you will, as they are called for
the different transportation modes to work through them.
As I mentioned before, we have a series of reports that we
issue on a weekly basis that talk about suspicious incidents,
observations, surveillances, et cetera. Those are flowing back
to all of the sectors, to include rail and transport. And as I
also mentioned, a lot of that information is gathered, if you
will, or observed by TSA individuals, but also can come to us
from an Amtrak or another private rail company or whatever the
case may be.
Again, we are trying to keep this a fairly tactical level.
This is not necessarily something that we are quite ready, nor
probably will we be for some time, to go into the large, large
assessment; although twice a year for each one of the modes, if
you will, of transportation that I articulated in my opening
comments, we do prepare a classified and unclassified
assessment from what we have seen at the tactical level and we
provide that to many people including, DHS IA who can then take
it on to even a further level.
So I think we have fairly robust effort with the rail
activity. It is one that we are building. I certainly can't say
that it is as robust as aviation for some of the obvious
reasons that you have articulated in our past, but we are
clearly looking at that as an area of future concern in trying
to react accordingly and increase our involvement with that
sector.
Mr. Simmons. Thank you. Very briefly, you spent 30 years
with the National Security Agency, one of the key components of
the U.S. Intelligence Community, with the CIA, FBI, DIA, the
military services and so on. TSA, as you mentioned, is not one
of the 16 members, TSA Intelligence. What motivated you to move
from one of the 16, one of the premier, to a relatively small,
relatively new, relatively unknown component of intelligence?
Mr. Gaches. Thank you, sir. Small, unknown and those other
things, that is a challenge. But in all honesty, d truly I mean
this in all honesty and frankness, you can sit outside the DHS
family and you can make criticism, or you can join the team and
help make it better. I was headed back to NCTC and potentially,
probably, retirement. And when Charlie said, would you have any
interest in doing this, it was just too good to be true, and I
couldn't get down to Arlington, Virginia fast enough.
I find it exciting, challenging, good workforce, dedicated
group of folks where homeland focused. In those 30 years--and I
mentioned doing counterterrorism at NSA--I spent my fair time
doing other things that might not be homeland focused, and it
is pretty rewarding to try and apply that knowledge, if I may
be so bold as to say there is knowledge to specifically the
homeland environment. It was an easy choice, it truly was.
Mr. Simmons. Thank you. The Chair recognizes the Ranking
Member.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you. I want to get back to the terrorist
watch list, because as has been discussed here, it is
important. We can't get it perfect, I think we know that. We
need to do the best that we can. We need to probably err on the
side of caution. So I don't think there is disagreement on
those basic points.
On the other hand, the GAO has told us that we are--I don't
want to say starting over, but going through manually the
entire list, and I think TSA and TSC is going through it, but
it is going to take 5 or 6 years, according to GAO, to complete
that. And it strikes me that that, therefore, means it is a
never-ending task because as that review is going through
manually, more information is going to be coming in and we will
have to go through that manually.
Have you thought about this and what we could do that might
make that more efficient and accomplishable in the near term?
Mr. Gaches. Not as much as I probably should, ma'am, to be
perfectly honest. I think that there are so many entities now
involved in the watch list process that it is probably time for
us to once again sit down and examine the roles of the
individual agencies, entities, and talk about this very subject
of taking so much time to go through this list and revet it.
Because you are absolutely correct, we will get through the
list. By the time we get to the Zs there will be a whole new
group of As, Bs and Cs.
I have no particular straight substantive answer for you
except the promise to look at this, to become more involved in
this, and, as I said earlier, would really welcome the
opportunity to talk to the subcommittee in a classified session
with others who are involved in the process, because I could
easily misspeak or misinform you by trying to address some of
the areas that you have brought up that I think fall outside of
my specific office area's responsibility.
Ms. Lofgren. Let me ask, it is not just the government but
it is all of the private sector partners that have to be
aligned on one mission, which is to keep us safe; but the
private sector actors are pretty reliant on the information we
give them. And it strikes me--I am sure you wouldn't disagree--
to the extent that we are stopping babies whose name is Osama,
we are wasting our time and effort that should be focused on
real threats, and we don't have enough time to spare to divert
ourselves for things that don't work.
I was listening to the Chairman talk about the redress
committee and I think it is important from an individual's
point of view that if you are unable to fly and you are the
wrong guy, that you be able to get that fixed. None of us
quarrel with that.
What has always bothered me is, once it is fixed, it is
important not just for the individual but for the system itself
so we don't divert our efforts to things we don't need to look
at. So, for example, if you have Sean O'Casey on the IRA and on
the watch list, a Sean O'Casey who is complaining that he was
born in 1935 and he is not the real guy, somehow that
information needs to get into the system so that the airlines
cannot waste their time on the older Mr. O'Casey and be looking
for the real Mr. O'Casey.
It seems to me we don't have enough data in the system to
allow for the corrections itself. Have you thought
strategically how to layer that information so that we can
actually focus our efforts on the people we are really worried
about?
Mr. Gaches. In an open forum I will see if I can give you
an answer, ma'am, that makes sense, because I agree with the
premise that you just outlined. Because we go from the
classified to the unclassified world, there is a fair amount of
information that drops off, as you would expect when you get to
the unclassified.
I think it would be useful for intelligence officers to
step back and see what else could be added to the, quote,
unclassified world to make it easier to have the right person
stopped, not the wrong person, and also not have the wrong
person stopped in the future.
I am not sure that we have even gone down that path, but as
you spoke I think you certainly gave me an idea about dropping
back on this and looking at what else could be done as
identifiers of the individual besides the current paradigm, if
you will, and I wouldn't want to go much deeper into those
elements.
Ms. Lofgren. We had a hearing in the last Congress on the
fact that name checks alone were not good enough. I realize in
some cases the intelligence--we may not have the whole rich
amount of intelligence, and maybe that is all we have got, but
that is not always the case. Just seems to me we need to build
a system that will utilize the data that we do have, just put
aside the individual's interests, I don't want to say that is
not important, but in our own interest in keeping the country
safe. And if we are going to have a watch list that really
works, we certainly want to fine-tune that if we are going to
use that for rail systems, anything else with a ticket and a
name that we might expand.
I see my time is up, but I would just like to close with a
request for information either in writing or, if necessary, in
a closed session about what technology is being considered by
yourself to share the kind of information that you are
receiving with our private sector partners in keeping us safe,
that would respect the sources and yet get that information
out.
I thank the Chairman.
Mr. Simmons. In response to that, I would be happy to
schedule a follow-up meeting or briefing in a secure
environment for any members of the subcommittee or other
subcommittees of the full committee who are so interested. And
the Chair now recognizes the gentlelady from New York.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you again,
Mr. Gaches. On another area, we have invested billions of
dollars in screening passengers, and certainly the Chairman and
all of us are happy to take off our shoes or jackets or
whatever is necessary to go through the system.
However, airports are allowed to issue SITA badges to those
workers who work in the secure areas. They don't have to go
through the metal detectors. They work in food catering, they
work in the mechanics of the plane. And as I understand it, in
fact, it is a fact that they don't have to go through the
screening in most situations.
Now as I understand in Europe, at the largest airports,
everyone has to go through the screening. At LaGuardia there
are over 20,000 SITA badges that have been issued.
Now, in addition, I think it is important to note that the
background checks on workers include only criminal background
checks and a watch list. They don't ask for the Social Security
numbers. So they don't have any identification.
We know what happened, I think it was about 2 years ago at
JFK, there were several airport workers that were arrested for
smuggling drugs. Could have been explosives instead of
narcotics.
Are you concerned about this and what is happening about
this? I have to say with all fairness to Mr. Gaches, I
understand you are there for 4 months but I have been talking
about there for 4 years. And to me it just doesn't make any
sense. If European workers have to be screened and go through
those metal detectors, seems we should be able to do it here.
By the way, I mentioned LaGuardia, 20,000 SITA badges; San
Francisco International, 16,536; in Las Vegas, 21,912; in
Hartford Bradley Airport, 4,133. I am sure they are all good,
hardworking people, but why shouldn't everybody have to go
through the metal detector and could you please comment what
you are thinking about doing about it; are you concerned about
it; what should be done about it?
Mr. Gaches. Thank you, ma'am. The role of my office in this
particular scenario that you have outlined is probably the role
that you could really like us to be and hope that we are, and
that is that we are pointing out similar concerns and
deficiencies which I would like to elaborate upon in perhaps
the closed session, that the Chairman will arrange on the no
fly and selectee list issues, because there is a similar
process, if you will, for transportation workers, the vetting
process. It really would be unfair to talk about that.
But what I am saying is we recognize that there is an issue
with issuing SITA badges and we understand that there is a
differentiation between a SITA worker and the public individual
who goes through a different treatment. And we are looking at
that and we are looking at what the threats are associated
potentially, and in some cases real, in both those scenarios
and those populations. But it would be remiss of me to go into
great detail about our action plan or thinking in an open
forum, for obvious reasons, but I would welcome the opportunity
to walk you through that in greater detail at another time or
in written response.
Mrs. Lowey. I would be delighted to follow up on this, Mr.
Chairman, because it seems to me it is like installing an
expensive home security system and leaving the back door open.
We are happy to go through these metal detectors, but this is
an issue I have been talking about for a long time, and you
probably can't discuss in this setting whether there is any
security threat that could come from an airport worker, could
you?
Mr. Gaches. I think that would probably be remiss of me to
go into any detail on that. Yes, ma'am.
Mrs. Lowey. Perhaps I can give you another follow-up
question. Is your office doing anything to analyze potential
threats from a terrorist who could gain almost unfettered
access to airports by obtaining a SITA badge, or is that for a
follow-up hearing as well?
Mr. Gaches. Yes and yes. How is that?
Mrs. Lowey. Maybe you can answer a follow-up question. I
know you are only there 4 months. I am just a Member of
Congress but I have been concerned about this for years,
especially since 9/11, and then after what happened with the
arrest at JFK with narcotics, and we know that this is a risk.
Have your predecessors been focused on this at all, have they
left you any information, or are you just starting from scratch
and just became aware of this issue?
Mr. Gaches. No, ma'am. I would say there is a good portion
of TSA not represented by my office that worries about the
issuance and the processes for the SITA badges specifically,
and certainly that has been ongoing work and revisions and
improvements to that process are being looked at and worked on.
And certainly from an intelligence standpoint, I certainly
believe that my predecessor was quite aware of the potential
for this area and looked at that and compared all of the
available intelligence information that might exist in that
particular realm.
Mrs. Lowey. Mr. Chairman, I know my time is up and I will
conclude. Can you give me one reason, possibility, from
reviewing this--because this is an important issue--as to why
someone with a SITA badge shouldn't have to go through a metal
detector, one possible reason? Why wouldn't they? Why wouldn't
they give the benefit of the doubt to the possibility of a
threat. Why should someone get a SITA badge, not have it
reissued for a couple of years, go into a secure area, service
the plane, whether it is in food, catering or mechanics, have
access to that plane, when you don't have their Social Security
number, no one is sure that they haven't passed the badge to
someone else? Has anyone recommend that this be changed?
Mr. Gaches. Again, ma'am, I believe that that whole process
is being reviewed at this time; the criteria for those badges
being reviewed.
Mrs. Lowey. How long is this review going to take? I have
been asking for this review for the last 3 years.
Mr. Gaches. No, ma'am. I apologize. I do not know where
they are at in that particular review process. I do think there
is a sense of urgency that has been applied to it just before
my arrival, if you will, because clearly it was one of the
first issues that I heard outside of the Intel Department of
TSA being discussed about in earnest, and our role is to try
and contribute some thoughts about if you are going to revise
this, what can we the, intel folks, provide to you, the ones
that are making the SITA policy; how would you improve it; what
are the things you should be looking for, checking for? I kind
of leave it at that in open session.
Mrs. Lowey. Mr. Chairman, perhaps Mr. Gaches could get back
to the committee before the next hearing with some kind of time
frame. I am still waiting for the Standards--from the
Department of Homeland Security--for Interoperability, and I
hope we don't have to wait another 3, 4 years for you to
conclude this evaluation.
Good luck to you. I know you have only been there for 4
months.
Mr. Simmons. I thank the gentlelady for her questions. I
agree with the thrust of her comments. And I think we all have
that concern, that people who are badged but in and out on a
regular basis, sail on through. From my own background and
experience, food can be configured in many different ways, not
just to eat, but to do other things. And so that can be an
issue. Certainly issues relative to mechanics and maintenance
are important.
I am not convinced that Mr. Gaches' office is the central
focus for this activity, but I would be happy to invite him
back to a closed session with other participants to see what
the delay is and see what we can do to expedite it.
Mrs. Lowey. If I may just respond to one thing, my concern
here is if Mr. Gaches' office doesn't have the responsibility,
who does? My experience is there is a great big bureaucracy out
there, and so if you can find the answer to that question, let
us now how long this investigation----
Mr. Simmons. I think what we will probably find is that
site managers probably have substantial discretion, whether
they should have it or not. But I feel badly for my colleague
from Nevada who has been waiting so patiently, and I now
recognize him.
Mr. Gibbons. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I will
try to not take too long.
I wanted to go into an issue of the area of information
sharing, simply because over the last many years there has been
a question not so much about agency to agency, although there
still is this, I don't know, obstacle between sharing when
people want to take pride in their work product and credit for
what they do, but information sharing from the Federal level
down to the State and local level in transportation issues,
whether it is airport, rail, highway, whatever.
Talk to me a little bit about whether or not that
information sharing responsibility is through the TSA or only
through Homeland Security.
Mr. Gaches. No, sir. It is a combination, and what I mean
by that is we view that the DHS IA has a very, very strong
charge to work with the State Homeland Security advisors and
the local government elected officials and advisors. That does
not preclude TSA, who is a strong participant on the
transportation side, with two different bodies, if you will,
ISACs, which are really the transportation network and private
sector companies, if you will, getting together, whether it is
highway or rail or aviation. And those are localized as well as
nationalized. They are helping to push information down.
There is also another fairly new adventure with the
government councils in which we are trying to facilitate the
pushdown of information to State and local transportation
authorities, and DHS is working with the Homeland Security
advisors; and as long as we are working together with DHS IA,
we are trying to ensure that all of the appropriate State and
local, be they elected or private individuals involved in
transportation, are aware of some version in a form that is
useful of threat, new developments. And I harken back to the
report that I mentioned that we send out on a weekly basis on
both fueled intelligence activities, as we call it, and also
suspicious incident reporting. Those are to be shared widely
amongst State and local, both government and private sector
entities.
I mentioned perhaps earlier that very little of this
information should be viewed as so secret that some version of
it can't be shared with that furthermost point, and I am
certainly interested in trying to solve the sheriff's problem
of your colleague, because every time we hear this we are going
to find gaps where we are not quite there yet in getting that
information out and down. But it certainly is one of the
highest goals of the Office of Intelligence at TSA to ensure
that happens and that we don't have surprises at the distant
end of the system, if you would.
Mr. Gibbons. I suppose that TSA, then, as well as Homeland
Security, have their own protocols for sharing information.
Mr. Gaches. But they are concurrent protocols in how we do
that and we do that together.
Mr. Gibbons. Current, meaning?
Mr. Gaches. The protocol is such that I believe they
understand our role with the transportation industries and
associated State and local transportation activities. I think
we understand their slightly upper-level approach to the State
and local government officials. And when I say ``protocols,''
concurrent is probably the wrong word, more ``complementary,''
so that there is coverage for all and not unnecessary
duplication across entities from DHS Central, if you will, and
from the DHS office.
Mr. Gibbons. Are there times you have to seek permission or
authority from Homeland Security to share information
vertically?
Mr. Gaches. We have had occasions where when we have
informed DHS Central that we wanted to send something out, they
have asked if they could look at it to make it a better
informed product. If someone can make it a better informed
product at DHS IA, I am willing to do that. We have sent many
other things out, including the weekly reports that I have
mentioned, and there is no--we have to get permission to do it
before we send it.
Mr. Gibbons. Sometimes States do undertake their own
analytical fusion centers. California is doing that, I think
Nevada is looking at doing something similar to that as well.
Do you actually either have an individual that coordinates or
is in place in those fusion centers on the State level that is
either trained to look at or to work through your details and
your information?
Mr. Gaches. No, sir; we do not. DHS is working with those
State fusion centers and Charlie Allen is working on a program,
I believe, to have IA intelligence analysts deployed to those
State fusion centers. TSA Office of Intelligence, as I have
described, is not overly large; appropriately sized for what we
are tackling.
But one of the things we are going to experiment with in
this year, in fact we started at the beginning of June, is to
deploy a TSA Office of Intelligence analyst to six of the
Federal security directors who happen to be located at
airports. But they are intermodal-thinking people, if you will,
and we want to see if there is a value in putting one of our
headquarters folks out a little more at the pointy end of the
spear, where that individual can do two things for us in a very
rough sense: one, make sure the intelligence that TSA Office of
Intelligence is producing is being used and being understood at
that particular location; and, conversely, those observations,
that information which is occurring in that geographic area
where that person is assigned again to the TSA Federal Security
Director, gets back into my analyst in Arlington so we can be
better informed.
We will weigh the pros and cons of that after trying it for
6 to 12 months and see where we go with that in conjunction
with what Charlie Allen is doing with his infusion of analysts
to the fusion centers of the States.
Mr. Gibbons. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the time you have
given. There are certainly a number of questions I could have
asked, but I will yield to anyone else at this point in time
who wishes to ask further questions.
Mr. Simmons. I appreciate that. Your time has expired but
the Chair is happy to recognize the gentleman from New Mexico
for his time.
Mr. Pearce. Thank you. I thank the gentleman for yielding
expired time to me. People do that with parking meters all the
time.
If you would explain to me about how you achieve the risk-
based security strategy--in other words, what is the
quantitative measurement of that risk base, in very short form,
because I have 3 or 4 minutes' worth of questions. How do you
achieve that internally; how do you look and evaluate the
risks?
Mr. Gaches. I wince because it is a great question. At the
same time it makes me nervous, I think from my background, to
try and give you a solid answer. But let me take a shot. Any of
the threats that we are concerned about at any given time are
constantly evaluated, and our evaluation compared to others who
are evaluating the same risk. As I mentioned earlier, lots of
us receive a lot of those initial intel reports to sort of chew
on and think about, and that is a good thing, actually, because
you don't want just one, if you will, leading the way all the
time.
So we look at the veracity of the reporting of the
sourcing, et cetera. We do take into consideration the
vulnerability of the potential target. We also take into
consideration the likelihood of the scenario.
I for one am less concerned at proving the veracity of the
likelihood because people can be very inventive, and just
because it doesn't make sense to us doesn't mean it hasn't made
sense to someone else. So it is a combination of factors that
lead us to determine those three major areas: the sourcing, the
vulnerability, and I would also say somewhat along the line of
the likelihood of this being a situation that is actually
capable of being executed by the adversary.
You add the particulars of those together and it gives you
some sense, at least in my opinion, of what the risk is to that
potential target.
Mr. Pearce. That is fair enough. If we look at the
sourcing, I would suspect that if we looked in Iraq and we
looked at al Qaeda and their past actions, that might be a
source. They have had a tendency to blow up refineries and
pipelines, then we look at the vulnerability of the pipelines.
There are major pipelines running out of New Mexico into
California that are significant, in likelihood, again going
back to their past actions in Iraq.
I would suspect that TSA has not--and I don't want to make
statements in an open meeting--I would just think that they
don't get very high on your vulnerability list on your risk
assessment. I suspect that pipelines are not in full view. And
you can either confirm or say that you can't deal with that.
Mr. Gaches. I would say in this forum, sir, that it
probably would be best left to a closed session. But at the
same time, I do want to give you a sense, and it is difficult
because currently we have concerns about pipelines, and I will
be happy to give you those details.
Mr. Pearce. I appreciate that. Then we were discussing the
local sheriffs and the sharing of information, and I will
accept that there is probably not much percolation down there.
But going to your layered approach, that is, trying to stop the
threats as far away as we can, seems like that you would be
seeking information from local sheriffs. In other words, the
local sheriffs at a meeting told me we routinely have people
that have brown skin and black hair that can't speak a word of
English or a word of Spanish. They have given themselves a
Spanish surname, but the chance is they are really Arabic, and
maybe Middle Eastern, coming in. And yet no one seems to care
that they are interdicting these people and under the catch-
and-release they are back out.
They stopped four or five people with Middle Eastern
accents recently; I mean with Middle European. They felt like
they were probably from the Soviet Union or something around
there. And it doesn't seem that anybody is interested. Do you
at least have an e-mail address where these locals out here can
share information so that your layered approach can begin to
utilize scattered, random sightings or information sources? Do
you have something like that?
Mr. Gaches. Sir, I would strongly recommend the connection
there, and we do make use of this information and I am
personally aware of it being used, if you will. That type of
information, that scenario that you just described, really
needs to be reported to the Border Patrol and perhaps the
Customs, but particularly Border Patrol, because we do get
reports of those crossings.
Mr. Pearce. They called Border Patrol and they told them
they are busy, they would check on it tomorrow. I am telling
you, the system has broken pretty badly on the border and it
seems like at some point we would really work on passing this
information up and down.
I see my time has gone. Thank you very much.
Mr. Gaches. Mr. Chairman, if I may comment, happy is
perhaps not the right word, but I will take that concern back
and the Border Patrol reaction back to CBP, because we are
dependent on them to be the ones who are in fact gathering that
information from the local authorities along the border and
funneling that into a system that we at TSA can access, and see
if that plays into, perhaps in this case, a pipeline issue or
another transportation network issue. So I will take that on to
get with CBP and hopefully get back to you, sir.
Mr. Pearce. It may be in transition, but I can tell you in
the past there has been almost no desire for information from
local law enforcement officers by CBP. And it begins at the
interdiction of criminals, and if you are an illegal into
Mexico and if you commit an illegal act, you are turned loose
because the judge is not going to convict. In fact, they have
predescribed limits for illegal drugs. I think it takes 120
pounds of marijuana to reach the threshold where the judge and
the system will actually accept the complaint.
So I am just telling you that sitting here in Washington,
you may not know how badly the system is disrupted, for
whatever purposes. It may be in the process of changing, and I
have good strong hope that it is, because we have had just
recent visits with Mr. Aguilar. But in the past, it has been
this way, up until 2 months ago, when we had a last public
meeting of about 30 different local law enforcement officers
discussing these various issues, information sharing.
Again, thank you for your indulgence, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Simmons. I want to thank the members of the
subcommittee and our panelist, Mr. Gaches, for being here
today. You have an important challenge. You have heard some
very important concerns expressed from the podium. There will
be follow-up to what we have discussed here.
I hear there are going to be votes around 5 o'clock, so we
want to get our second panel going. But at the same time, I
want to encourage you, Mr. Gaches, to continue to work hard. We
are trying to build something here. We are trying to build
something that will serve to preserve and protect the safety
and security of our citizens, and, at the same time, protect
their civil liberties. And this is not easily done. You are
charged with an important responsibility. So we wish you all
the best in this endeavor and we look forward to our future
interactions. And thank you very much for being here today.
Mr. Gaches. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ms. Lofgren, members
of the subcommittee. And I too look forward to working with you
in the future, hoping to answer more questions in other
sessions at your leisure. Thank you again.
Mr. Simmons. The next panel will be made up of one person,
Cathleen A. Berrick, Director of Homeland Security and Justice,
at the U.S. Government Accountability Office. I want to thank
her for sitting here for several hours and thank her for her
accommodation. She is a senior executive with GAO's Homeland
Security and Justice team, and in this position she oversees
GAO's reviews of aviation and surface transportation security
matters and has developed a broad knowledge of transportation
security practices and related Federal policies and Federal and
private sector roles and responsibilities.
In the year 2005 she was awarded the William A. Jump
Memorial Foundation's Meritorious Award for Exemplary
Achievement in Public Administration. Congratulations for that.
She has also held previous positions at the Department of
Defense and in the U.S. Postal Service.
Welcome. We look forward to hearing your testimony. We will
ask you to speak for 5 minutes or so. We have your written
testimony for the record and we look forward to hearing what
you have to say.
STATEMENT OF CATHLEEN A. BERRICK, DIRECTOR,
HOMELAND SECURITY AND JUSTICE, U.S. GOVERNMENT
ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE
Ms. Berrick. Thank you Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member
Lofgren, and members of the committee for inviting me to
discuss TSA's Secure Flight program, a program that will match
airline passenger information against terrorist watch lists to
identify passengers who should be denied boarding or undergo
additional security scrutiny prior to boarding a domestic
flight.
Secure Flight, which has not yet been fielded, represents a
practical application of the use of terrorist watch lists and
the impact that intelligence information and its use has on the
traveling public. In addition to utilizing terrorist watch
lists, Secure Flight will also be supported by intelligence
analysts from TSA and the Terrorist Screening Center, who will
determine whether potential matches to the watch list are in
fact actual matches during the prescreening process.
Currently, prescreening for domestic passengers is
conducted by air carriers. Air carriers match passenger
information against information contained in TSA's no fly and
selectee list, which are provided by TSA prior to passengers
boarding a flight. Secure Flight is being developed to take
over the prescreening function from air carriers. By taking
over this function, TSA will use one common prescreening system
for all domestic passengers, rather than each carrier using
their own and sometimes differing systems, as is the case
today. Secure Flight will also use an expanded terrorist watch
list during the prescreening.
My testimony today focuses on the development and oversight
of Secure Flight, key factors that will influence the program's
effectiveness, and TSA's coordination with key stakeholders who
are critical to the program's success. Overall, our work has
found that TSA faces significant challenges in implementing
Secure Flight, and that the program was at risk in not meeting
its goals. Due in part to these issues, TSA announced in
February that it was halting development of Secure Flight and
was rebaselining the program. During rebaselining, TSA is
reassessing the program goals, requirements and schedule, and
these efforts are ongoing.
Related to systems development, we found that TSA had not
conducted critical activities consistent with best practices
for large-scale IT systems. For example, officials declared the
design phase of Secure Flight complete before fully defining
system requirements.
We also found that TSA must still make key policy decisions
that will influence the program's effectiveness. These
decisions include determining what passenger information air
carriers will be required to collect to support name matching
and how data quality issues with passenger and terrorist watch
list information will be mitigated.
These decisions will influence a number of potential
matches against terrorist watch lists, the number of passengers
who may be inappropriately inconvenienced during the
prescreening process, and the ability of the program to
appropriately identify individuals actually on the terrorist
watch list.
TSA must also determine the level of support needed from
TSA's Office of Intelligence and the Terrorist Screening Center
to resolve questionable matches of passenger information to
terrorist watch lists.
We also found that TSA has collaborated with key
stakeholders whose participation is critical to support Secure
Flight. However, these stakeholders, to include the Terrorist
Screening Center, have stated they need more information about
Secure Flight requirements in order to able to support the
program.
In light of TSA's rebaselining efforts, two air carriers we
spoke with were moving forward with making improvement to their
current passenger prescreening system because they stated they
were unsure when or if Secure Flight will become operational.
While these efforts may improve individual systems, the
modifications could result in further differences that already
exist among the existing air carriers systems. These
differences may result in varying levels of effectiveness in
the name-matching process against terrorist watch lists.
Since we testified on these issues in February of 2006, in
addition to rebaselining the program TSA has taken several
actions to instill more discipline into the development of
Secure Flight. We are encouraged by these efforts and believe
TSA should not move forward with implementing the programs
until these issues are resolved and requirements are defined.
This concludes my opening statement. I will be happy to
respond to any questions.
Mr. Simmons. Thank you very much for the opening statement.
[The statement of Ms. Berrick follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Simmons. You heard some of the concerns that have been
expressed by the subcommittee to the previous panelist and I
guess I would be interested in your assessment of the role in
the past of TSA Intelligence in cooperating or coordinating
with the Secure Flight system and whether you think that role
needs to be enhanced, changed in some fashion, or whether we
are dealing with a somewhat larger problem involving different
entities of TSA and the private carriers.
Ms. Berrick. Thank you. To answer your larger question, I
think we are dealing with a larger problem that I will talk
about in a little bit. But with respect to TSA's Office of
Intelligence role within the current prescreening process right
now, air carriers are doing the actual matching of names
against terrorist watch lists. If they conduct a match that is
questionable, they don't know whether or not this is in fact a
match, they would contact intelligence analysts at TSA to look
up additional information to try to determine this person's
identity.
If TSA can't make that determination, they will contact the
Terrorist Screening Center and the Terrorist Screening Center
would help them do that. So that is the intelligence analyst's
role right now within the current prescreening process.
Under Secure Flight, intelligence analysts will still need
to maintain that role in TSA to resolve potential matches.
Although TSA is taking over the actual name-matching function,
they will still run into similar situations where they might
have a potential match, they are not certain. In those cases,
we will need to utilize intelligence analysts within TSA to
make that determination, and, again, if they can't make that
determination, they will have to work with the Terrorist
Screening Center.
But your larger question about this beyond TSA Office of
Intelligence' It is. There are some overarching issues with
Secure Flight that need to be addressed. Some of you had asked
about data quality. That is certainly one important issue both
with the Terrorist Screening Center's database, the no fly and
selectee list, but also an issue with passenger data, which is
the data that is being used to match against the Terrorist
Screening Center's database.
There are no standards for collecting passenger data. Each
air carrier does it a little bit differently. That greatly
influences the effectiveness of the matching process.
Another key factor that can influence how effective these
matches are the matching algorithms or software used to conduct
the matches. They may try to make a perfect match, as some air
carriers do, or some will look for name permutations to try to
account for misspellings in names or things along those lines.
So all of those policy decisions have yet to be made in
terms of what passenger data will Secure Flight use, what
matching algorithms will they use; and all that has the bigger
impact, I think, on how effective it will be.
Mr. Simmons. What you are saying is that in some respect
the approach of the carriers to the problem can affect the
efficiency with which the system works. And let me ask you
this. I fly Southwest a lot. Let's say there is a hit. Now, do
they go back through the system to TSA, to the analyst or to
the Terrorist Screening Center, if an automated fashion? Is it
something that is relatively quick because there is
connectivity, or do they use telephonic systems or other types
of more cumbersome systems? Where are we on that respect?
Ms. Berrick. It depends on the individual air carrier. Some
have better connections than others. But when there is a
positive match either to the no fly or selectee list, the air
carriers are required to contact TSA and let them know, and TSA
in turn will contact the Terrorist Screening Center. So that is
in place.
Now, more often than actual matches are questionable
matches, and in those cases the air carriers again need to
contact TSA, work with the intelligence analyst, and depending
on the carrier, that may be electronically, or it may be over
the phone. But the more frequent contact is when we have these
potential matches that need additional information from TSA on
who this individual, is so they can clear them and let them
board or take the appropriate action such as calling law
enforcement.
Mr. Simmons. How effective is the system if somebody buys
the ticket at the last minute?
Ms. Berrick. They are still prescreened under the current
process and will be under Secure Flight. It is envisioned, even
at the last minute, they would have to get their boarding pass,
and go through this process. In addition to this prescreen
process, there are other layers of security, as you know, to
try to protect aviation security.
You mentioned buying tickets at the last minute. There are
other procedures in place that try to augment the current
prescreening process that would protect against some
vulnerabilities.
Mr. Simmons. Thank you. The Chair recognizes the Ranking
Member.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you. I appreciate your testimony and the
report. Rebaselining, does that mean we are starting over?
Ms. Berrick. What TSA has told us about rebaselining --
Ms. Lofgren. Is that a word?
Ms. Berrick. According to our IT folks at GAO they do
believe it is a word, and different organizations may define it
differently. What TSA has told us is that everything is on the
table with the program. They may make changes, they may not.
They are going to look at the requirements, look at their
goals.
Ms. Lofgren. So they are starting over pretty much. The
question I have is as we are starting over, it is a new
opportunity to not make the same mistake over and over again. I
was very interested in your comments about what this has been
the history of this Department, where they rush off without
figuring out what they are doing, and then several years later
you have to start all over again. Waste of money, waste of
time, and the Nation has been left unprotected.
And it sounds like that is what has happened here again,
without the IT systems being defined, you rush off and do it.
Same thing happened with the biometrics, how we were going to
have consistency. Everybody rushed off and we are going to have
to redo that, I am sure ultimately, to the tune of billions of
dollars.
The data quality issues and what information is going to be
included was not decided upon. And so it seems to me that if
you could make some recommendations to us and to the Department
for what could and should be included, that would be enormously
helpful.
We got a report in the 108th Congress, I believe,
suggesting that names alone were never going to cut it. There
needs to be more than just the raw name. And especially in this
time of increased identity theft exposure, to use names alone
is a huge risk, it seems to me.
So I would appreciate very much if you could tell us right
now what your recommendation would be as we start from scratch.
That would be useful. And also if you have any information--Mr.
Gaches has only been here a short period of time, did not know
off the top of his head the technology questions. But do they
have access, for example, to those biometrics or do they not'
Can you answer those questions?
Ms. Berrick. In terms of recommendations for TSA as they
move forward with Secure Flight, the first recommendation that
we have made to them and I would continue to make is that we
support this rebaselining effort. We believe they need to
establish a disciplined and rigorous development process which
hasn't been in place to date. And TSA has stated that they have
followed an expedited process in order to field this program
quickly. We think they need to slow down to define the
requirements and do this more systematically.
In terms of determining what data elements they should be
using to support Secure Flight, we think what TSA needs to do
is appropriate testing, matching different combinations of
passenger data against the watch list to determine what results
in the most effective match. TSA has done some limited testing.
They have a lot more testing that they need to do before they
can make that decision.
And the third point I would make related to TSA moving
forward is they need to coordinate with their stakeholders,
with the Terrorist Screening Center, with Customs and Border
Protection on how this program is going to work and how they
are going to support it, and also need to make some key policy
decisions that are going to affect this program.
Ms. Lofgren. Wouldn't there be some simple things to save
time' For example, if you have got Sean O'Casey, the IRA guy--
if the person before you is 7 years old, that you don't have to
go through a big exploration; that the baby is not who you want
to stop, or the toddler. I mean, just some baseline things just
to clear this out. Couldn't we use common sense like that?
Ms. Berrick. TSA, Mr. Gaches was mentioning they have a
redress office.
Ms. Lofgren. Not redress, not for the sake of the baby but
for the sake of the rest of us; that we are not wasting our
time focusing and spinning our wheels about the toddler.
Ms. Berrick. The quality related to the Terrorist Screening
Center database is more, I believe, a TSC issue rather than it
is TSA. TSC does have some efforts underway to try to improve
the quality. They are doing a record-by-record review. They
have some other things in place.
I think it is important that they move forward. As you
mention, that will take a while to do. In the meantime, because
we are applying these watch lists today, we want to make sure
they are as accurate as they can be. I think the individual
agencies have a responsibility to make sure they are doing this
responsibly. And in TSA's case, in the case of Secure Flight, I
think they can do that by looking at the passenger data that
they are getting from air carriers, what are they going to
provide them, and coming up with the appropriate mix and
software to determine what is going to result in the best
match, while separately these data quality issues at the
Terrorist Screening Center are being worked.
I think they are both important.
Ms. Lofgren. I will just close by saying my mother always
used to tell me, take your time and do it right, because it is
actually quicker than doing it over and over again wrong. Thank
you very much.
Ms. Berrick. Thank you.
Mr. Simmons. Your mother was a very smart lady.
Mr. Simmons. The chair recognizes the gentleman from New
Mexico.
Mr. Pearce. Thank you.
Do you know what kind of cost has been associated with the
Secure Flight program up to this date?
Ms. Berrick. TSA hasn't been able to identify how much
money they have actually spent on Secure Flight and its
predecessor programs. We estimate about $120, $130 million but
that is an estimate. We don't have an exact figure. TSA
estimates are right in that ballpark, too.
Mr. Pearce. That is close enough. What is your measure of
success? In other words, you have got to be--U.S. GAO had to be
looking with some parameters to decide that the program is not
reaching success. So what is your measure of success?
Ms. Berrick. We are looking at a lot of areas related to
Secure Flight, and we have different criteria for each of those
areas. Let us take systems development. We are looking at best
practices for the development of IT systems and measuring TSA
against that. TSA itself has their own policies for developing
major IT systems, and we have looked at, what is their criteria
for developing these types of systems?
We found that, in the case of Secure Flight, they weren't
following their own systems development guidance. Instead, they
had a rapid development approach where some activities were
conducted out of sequence. They didn't define requirements, and
we believe that was the cause of what has resulted and some of
the problems that they are facing right now.
In other areas, for example in privacy and redress, we are
looking to what extent they are complying with the Privacy Act,
the E-Government Act, fair information principles. So each of
these areas we have specific criteria that we are measuring
them against, and we are also very open with TSA on what this
is. We want to help them be successful and are open with how we
are reviewing this program.
Mr. Pearce. If we go back to that word successful, helping
them be successful. Has anyone in the system defined success as
something other than compliance' In other words, to me, success
would be not knocking down any airliners for a given period of
time. So did TSA set this as an objective evaluation that we
are trying to set up a system that will keep us from losing an
airliner due to bad passengers doing bad things for the next
7.2 years or something?
Ms. Berrick. One of the concerns we raised-- and I think
your point gets back to requirements-- what do they ultimately
want this program to achieve' And we found that, over the 3
years that this program has been in process, the requirements
have changed. So it hasn't been entirely clear to us what the
goals of the program were.
Now, TSA is saying today that they agree with that. They
know that they need to finalize the requirements before moving
forward. So, I guess my short answer would be, I don't think
the goals have been clearly defined, and they have changed
somewhat over time.
Mr. Pearce. If we are to just take, take the position that
it is no aircraft losses due to passenger intervention during
the next 10 years, I mean, setting aside spelling of names,
algorithms, privacy rights and all that jazz, which has nothing
to do with keeping airliners in the air, we are trying to set
up a system for expediting passengers. And yet we know in
sleeper cells that they sometimes are deactivated, that humans
are deactivated for a period of 10 years, 20 years. How in the
world can you have a program with all the right algorithms and
spellings of names and all that jazz' How can we do this' I
mean, it seems ludicrous that we spend the first hundred
million dollars not even thinking that we want what we want to
achieve, but the fact that we would go ahead and say, okay,
just design it right, forget the fact that it can't be done
because these people that are willing to do these acts of
terror are willing to put backpacks on their kids and stick
them in the airplanes and blow them up with I mean, so how why
are you suggesting to cure the algorithms when it might not be
a curable question?
Ms. Berrick. I think that is a very good point. Secure
Flight is just one specific program of many that TSA has
implemented to ensure the security of aviation security, and it
is not intended to be the be all, end all. There are many other
security layers that TSA pays attention to. So I think it is
appropriate to put this in the proper context. It is not
intended to do everything. There are other programs in place,
but I think that is a very good point, and I agree with that.
This is just one program, and it should be viewed in that
context.
Mr. Pearce. What program is set up to stop the 20-year
silent nonparticipant and the al Qaeda cell that is waiting to
just have his number dialed and say, today's your day' What
program is there to stop that person?
Ms. Berrick. In addition to intelligence, TSA's building in
unpredictability into their procedures. For example, in their
screening procedures at airports, they are making things a
little bit more unpredictable, and that is geared towards the
thought that terrorists are going to change their tactics. You
may not know what the threat exactly is. This is another tool
that they are using to try to get at those types of points
where you can't predict where your next threat is, and they
have got some other efforts underway, too, along those lines.
Mr. Pearce. Okay.
Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
Thanks a lot Ms. Berrick.
Mr. Simmons. Thank you for those insightful questions. The
chair recognizes the lady from New York.
Mrs. Lowey. I thank you, and I thank you for your
presentation and the new vocabulary that you are sharing with
us. There was CAPPS I, CAPPS II, now Secure Flight. You say
that you think we have spent about $120 to $130 million. I can
think of a lot of good uses for $120 to $130 million. The list
just gets bigger. There are more errors. Can you give us
confidence that as a result of--this is called the rebaseline
assessment. Can you give us confidence that if they are
rethinking this again, will Secure Flight be any more
successful' What directives have you given them' Is it worth
even investing the $120 to $130 million' Perhaps you can
clarify for me why we, as appropriators, some of us are on this
committee, should even think about $120 to $130 million when
the agency can't even figure out what they did with the money'
And it is puzzling to me how you who are auditing it can even
find the money. So should we go ahead with this' I think we are
all saying this in different iterations because it is so
puzzling.
Ms. Berrick. Thank you. To first relate it to the benefits
of Secure Flight. You asked whether or not we should be moving
forward with this.
Mrs. Lowey. No. No. I think it is important, but do you
have any confidence that one strike, two strike, here we go
again, that they are going to spend the money any better' Just
give us confidence with the directives that you would offer
them, that this can be accomplished and at what price?
Ms. Berrick. Since TSA initiated their rebaselining
efforts, we have seen some very positive steps. They brought in
new leadership responsible for the program. They brought in
people with information systems credentials that they didn't
always have prior to that. There has been a commitment from the
head of TSA, Kip Hawley, that he really wants to do this right.
He wants to slow down. This is an important program. He is
going to build this with discipline and rigor. Based on hearing
GAO's concerns, Kip Hawley actually initiated an special review
of the program, identified the same issues pretty much that we
have identified, and that is why they are rebaselining the
program. So in terms of the history of this program, I have
seen very positive steps lately that are encouraging, and I am
looking forward to when TSA completes this rebaselining effort
to see how they are going to move forward, but I have seen some
very positive actions since the rebaselining was announced.
Mrs. Lowey. Could you discuss the oversight procedures that
have been put in place, so a year from now, you can tell us,
yes, they have spent the money, be it-- I hate even to think--
$100 to $300 million?
Ms. Berrick. The fiscal year 2006 appropriation legislation
requires that GAO report on Secure Flight 90 days after DHS
certifies that the system has satisfied its requirements that
are spelled out in legislation. So GAO is statutorily mandated
to report on the program once TSA certifies that they have met
these requirements. So we will be issuing report or testifying
on those results at some point in the future after TSA
certifies the system, and we are continuing to review the
program based on other requests that we have gotten from
various committees. So we have a continual presence looking at
Secure Flight. After they certify the system, we will be
reporting on it.
Mrs. Lowey. I have found, Mr. Chairman, that as Members of
Congress, be it appropriators or not, we look to GAO when all
else fails. I guess what I am trying to understand is, do you
feel there are appropriate accounting procedures in place as
the process moves forward' Or are we going to have to depend on
your oversight to make sure that TSA is spending the money
appropriately?
Ms. Berrick. I think there needs to be several oversight
mechanisms, and GAO is one. There are also oversight mechanisms
at the Department of Homeland Security level. They have an
investment review board where they look at these types of
programs. They are becoming more involved in Secure Flight.
That is a level of oversight. There are also some independent
groups that are made up of TSA employees and private sector
people that provide advice and counsel to TSA on the program.
And in addition, there are often congressional hearings,
oversight hearings on Secure Flight and related programs. Most
recently before the Senate Commerce Committee in February, TSA
and GAO testified on these same issues so. So there seems to be
some various mechanisms for oversight, and I think it is
important to have all of those as TSA moves forward.
Mrs. Lowey. Is that same oversight procedure, the same as
the one that was in place with the CAPPS I, CAPPS II?
Ms. Berrick. We were--GAO specifically was mandated to look
at CAPPS II. The requirement was a little bit different. That
required us to report on the program essentially once every
year. It wasn't driven by when TSA certified it. So we were so
essentially providing a status update once a year under the old
legislation.
Mrs. Lowey. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do hope we can
get something that is tangible and that works out of this
program; $100 to $130 million is a lot of money, and we can
think of many uses for it. So thank you very much.
And thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Berrick. Thank you.
Mr. Simmons. I thank the gentlelady from New York for her
continued interest and rigorous oversight activities on these
issues. She, like me, shares the memories of 9/11 and probably
lost many constituents on that day. So this is something that
we all have a deep concern for.
I appreciate your testimony. There will be a follow up on
this hearing. We will make an effort to pull together the TSA,
the TSC and the CBP into one room, and bring members in and see
if we can get our arms around this a little bit, a little bit
better.
So I thank all of my colleagues for their participation.
I thank you, Ms. Berrick, for your testimony. Members will
have I believe 5-10 working days to submit additional questions
and comments for the record. And there being no further
business, without objection the committee stands adjourned.
Ms. Berrick. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Simmons. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 4:45 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]