[Senate Hearing 118-98]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                                                     S. Hrg. 118-98

                             OPEN HEARING:
                THE 2023 ANNUAL THREAT ASSESSMENT OF THE 
                       U.S. INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY

=======================================================================


                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                    SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE

                                OF THE

                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                             MARCH 8, 2023

                               __________

      Printed for the use of the Select Committee on Intelligence
      
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        Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
        
                               ________

                   U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
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                    SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE

           [Established by S. Res. 400, 94th Cong. 2d Sess.]

                   MARK R. WARNER, Virginia, Chairman
                  MARCO RUBIO, Florida, Vice Chairman

DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California         JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho
RON WYDEN, Oregon                    SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine
MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico          TOM COTTON, Arkansas
ANGUS S. KING, Maine                 JOHN CORNYN, Texas
MICHAEL F. BENNET, Colorado          JERRY MORAN, Kansas
ROBERT P. CASEY, Jr., Pennsylvania   JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma
KIRSTEN E. GILLIBRAND, New York      MIKE ROUNDS, South Dakota
JON OSSOFF, Georgia

                CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York, Ex Officio
                 MITCH McCONNELL, Kentucky, Ex Officio
                  JACK REED, Rhode Island, Ex Officio
                ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi, Ex Officio
                              ----------                              

                     Michael Casey, Staff Director
                  Brian Walsh, Minority Staff Director
                   Kelsey Stroud Bailey, Chief Clerk
                            
                            
                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              

                             MARCH 8, 2023
                           
                           OPENING STATEMENTS

                                                                   Page
Mark R. Warner, U.S. Senator from Virginia.......................     1
Marco Rubio, U.S. Senator from Florida...........................     3

                               WITNESSES

Avril Haines, Director of National Intelligence..................     5
    Prepared Statement...........................................    12
Christopher Wray, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation......    23
William J. Burns, Director, Central Intelligence Agency..........    24
General Paul Nakasone, Director, National Security Agency, and 
  Commander, USCYBERCOM..........................................    24
Lieutenant General Scott D. Berrier, Director, Defense 
  Intelligence Agency............................................    25

 
    OPEN HEARING: ON THE 2023 ANNUAL THREAT ASSESSMENT OF THE U.S. 
                         INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY

                              ----------                              


                        WEDNESDAY, MARCH 8, 2023

                                       U.S. Senate,
                          Select Committee on Intelligence,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:11 a.m., in 
Room SH-216 in the Hart Senate Office Building, in open 
session, the Honorable Mark R. Warner, Chairman of the 
Committee, presiding.
    Present: Senators Warner (presiding), Rubio, Wyden, 
Heinrich, King, Bennet, Casey, Gillibrand, Ossoff, Risch, 
Collins, Cotton, Cornyn, Moran, Lankford, and Rounds.

 OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MARK R. WARNER, A U.S. SENATOR FROM 
                            VIRGINIA

    Chairman Warner. Good morning. I'm going to call this 
hearing to order and welcome to our witnesses: Director of 
National Intelligence Avril Haines; CIA Director Bill Burns; 
FBI Director Chris Wray; Director of National Security Agency 
and Commander of U.S. CYBERCOM General Paul Nakasone; and DIA 
Director Lieutenant General Scott Berrier.
    Thank you all for coming before the Committee today to 
discuss the Intelligence Community's annual worldwide threat 
assessment. This is an opportunity for agencies to brief this 
oversight committee, and most importantly the American public, 
about the numerous threats and challenges facing our country.
    Our Nation's intelligence professionals are America's eyes 
and ears. They provide crucial intelligence assessments and 
warnings to policymakers so that we might address not just 
immediate threats but dangers on the horizon.
    I'd like to thank you and, importantly, the thousands of 
men and women of America's Intelligence Community whom you 
represent, for their quiet, unsung, and often unacknowledged 
service.
    I think we all know--and we see this on a daily basis--we 
live in an increasingly challenging and complex world. While 
the ongoing war in Ukraine has shown that conventional military 
capabilities are still important, I think the very nature of 
national security is undergoing a profound transformation. 
National security in 2023 is not the same as it was in 1993, or 
for that matter, in 2003.
    We can no longer just pay attention to who has the most 
tanks, airplanes, or missiles. We also need to focus on 
technology, R&D dollars, strategic investment flows, and supply 
chains, because whoever leads and wins the challenges in 
technology domains will have an edge in national security 
competition in the future.
    We've already seen this with the outsized impact of cyber 
tools, which now give both state and non-state actors alike the 
power to cripple a country's critical infrastructure and entire 
economies from behind a keyboard without firing a single shot. 
And we're increasingly seeing rising competition in the 
technology space with the authoritarian regimes that are 
challenging democratic norms at home and around the world.
    The People's Republic of China under President Xi and the 
Chinese Communist Party is now unfortunately a near-peer 
competitor with our country in its economy, technology, and 
military capabilities. I think it is more important than just 
political correctness to emphasize, at least in my mind, our 
beef is with Xi Jinping, the Communist Party, and their 
authoritarian tendencies. It is not with the Chinese people, it 
is not with the Chinese diaspora, it is not with Chinese-
Americans or Asian-Americans, who oftentimes have been the 
strongest critics of the increasingly-authoritarian regime of 
the Xi government and who are often victims themselves of CCP's 
repression.
    While America has focused for two decades on 
counterterrorism, China was racing to overtake the United 
States in a range of emerging and foundational technologies, 
such as advanced wireless communication semiconductors, quantum 
synthetic biology, and next generation energy, as well as 
taking not only the extraction but the processing of rare earth 
minerals that are so critical in so many of those technologies.
    The PRC has also become an active player in the 
international technology standard-setting bodies and is 
embedding itself in global supply chains. All of this is why 
the United States must aggressively invest in talent, tools, 
and research to lead in tomorrow's technologies.
    Today, you'll undoubtedly be asked about the IC's 
assessments on the origins of COVID-19. Let's be clear, despite 
China's denials, it is entirely fair for us to ask whether the 
virus that has killed at least 6.8 million so far might have 
been accidentally released from a lab in Wuhan. That these 
questions are even necessary is a testament to the failings of 
the Chinese system and stands in contrast to the openness of 
our own public health officials during the pandemic. The lack 
of transparency in China's authoritarian systems may mean that 
we will never be absolutely certain where COVID-19 or, God 
forbid, the next pandemic, could have or will next originate.
    Looking towards Russia, we are now in the second year of 
the war in Ukraine. The IC--and I'm going to commend so many of 
you who did an incredible job of predicting Putin's plans and 
issuing warnings about the invasion, declassifying and sharing 
intelligence in a timely way--and I know from many of you that 
was totally against your grain, but making that 
declassification in a timely way, I really think upended 
Russia's plans and kept Putin off his game.
    Over the last years, Ukrainians have displayed resolve 
bravery, resourcefulness, as they have defended their country 
against Russia's ruthless invasion. NATO's more united than 
ever and democracies around the world have rallied with 
unprecedented assistance to Ukraine in training, intelligence 
sharing, humanitarian, and modern military equipment.
    I hope that we'll hear IC's assessment of the trajectory of 
this bloody conflict and what we think the end game will be, 
while at the same time, obviously maintaining Ukraine's right 
to exist as a sovereign nation.
    I'm sure that we will discuss the multitude of other 
threats from rogue states like Iran and North Korea to emerging 
global health threats to the threat of global warming as well 
as the threats presented to the IC's workforce by anomalous 
health incidents or AHIs.
    All of your agencies rely on world class talent of your 
workforce, and that's why this Committee will continue our 
efforts to ensure on federal security clearance reform. Hiring 
and retention is so important to make sure we maintain that 
world class workforce.
    One last thing to note, and I think I speak for everyone on 
both sides of the aisle on this Committee: we still have 
unfinished business regarding the classified documents that we 
need to see in order for this Intelligence Committee to 
effectively oversee its job on intelligence oversight. We must 
resolve this issue soon.
    The challenges we face are more varied and dynamic than 
ever and clearly you all have your hands full, but we also 
have, I think, in this hearing, particularly for the public 
part, a chance to underscore conviction in our values and our 
efforts to reinvigorate our allies around the world and to be 
clear eyed about the threats that authoritarian regimes like 
China and Russia pose.
    So, I look forward to today's discussion. And with that, 
I'll turn it over to the Vice Chairman.

  OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MARCO RUBIO, A U.S. SENATOR FROM 
                            FLORIDA

    Vice Chairman Rubio. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you all 
for coming in here today.
    For two decades after the end of the Cold War, our country, 
the United States, was the world's sole superpower and that 
gave us the luxury to hope for a world in which Russia and 
China were coming into convergence with the values of the free 
world. And I think it also gave us the luxury of entertaining 
this fantasy that somehow free trade and globalizing the 
economy would produce peace, prosperity, and prevent nation-
state rivalry.
    And that brief period of time, between the end of the Cold 
War and very recently, was an historic anomaly. The truth is 
that if you look at 500 years of geopolitics, it's been defined 
by great power competition and that's where we find ourselves 
once again.
    It's clear there's not going to be any convergence of 
values. It's clear that globalization led to the rise of China. 
But it also de-industrialized America, created long and 
vulnerable supply chains that eroded our middle class, left our 
society deeply divided along socioeconomic lines. And we now 
find ourselves in a new world, one divided between the free 
nations led still by America and the authoritarian and 
tyrannical block, led by Beijing--and then dozens and dozens of 
developing countries that are leveraging both sides against 
each other on issue after issue to cut the best deal for 
themselves.
    So today, we gather here, as we do once a year, to discuss 
the worldwide threats facing our country and those threats, 
there are no shortage of them, from China, Russia, Iran, North 
Korea, global terrorism, narco-terrorists operating just right 
off and across our border--and even in the homeland. All these 
are very serious threats, but it is my view that the greatest 
threat facing America is not another country. It is whether or 
not we have the ability and the willingness to accurately 
assess and appropriately adapt our foreign and domestic 
policies in this time of historic, revolutionary, and 
disruptive technological, social, economic, and geopolitical 
changes.
    The answer to that question is not just going to determine 
the direction of our country. The answer to that question will 
define the twenty-first century. And on this matter, I believe 
that the Intelligence Community has a critical and vital role 
to play, first, because the changes we must make will have to 
overcome complacency, bureaucratic resistance, opposition from 
interest groups who benefit from the status quo, and frankly, 
public discomfort with the consequences of some of the changes 
we're going to need to make.
    Complacency--because we've relied on our power advantages, 
and we've forgotten what it's like to live in a world where we 
have near-peer competitors.
    Bureaucratic resistance--because our government, frankly, 
the commentary class, think tanks, academia, to some extent 
even Congress, is still filled with officials who came of age 
in the post-Cold War fantasy about the end of history.
    Opposition from powerful interests--because multinational 
corporations that dominate and have consolidated some of our 
most important industries are deeply invested in foreign supply 
chains and in the current state of the global economy.
    And public discomfort--frankly, because we've become a 
society addicted to cheap products from China and viral videos 
on TikTok.
    Overcoming all of this will only be possible if we can 
motivate policymakers and convince our citizens of the need to 
act on at least five distinct areas of great power competition 
and potentially great power conflicts.
    It's a military competition, one which we can no longer 
rely on overwhelming advantages to deliver relatively quick 
success.
    It's a diplomatic and political competition for influence 
and multilateral institutions and entering into and maintaining 
important international alliance.
    It's an economic and industrial competition over critical 
industries, supply chains, access to resources, the flow of 
capital.
    It's a scientific and technological competition on areas 
ranging from precision medicine, artificial intelligence, 
cyber, the digital economy, quantum computing, control over 
valuable personal data, and protecting innovation and 
intellectual property.
    And it's an informational competition involving closed and 
controlled societies dedicated to using our openness to divide 
us against each other here at home and drive disinformation to 
further their narrative and undermine our standing in the 
world.
    In the twenty-first century, providing policymakers 
information on these areas of competition and understanding how 
they intersect with one another is a vital and critical 
national priority. And only our intelligence agencies have the 
resources and the broad-based insight needed to provide this.
    Intelligence work today is not just about collecting state 
secrets and protecting our own, it is now also increasingly 
about the importance analysis of what all of these factors mean 
tied together so that we as policymakers can decide what 
matters and what doesn't, so that we can prioritize the urgent 
over the important.
    Getting this wrong is the single greatest threat facing our 
country; and getting it right, the single most important task 
we have at hand. So, I hope we can hear in this open setting 
how each of the agencies represented here today is adjusting to 
this historic challenge, because we simply have no time to 
waste.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Warner. Thank you, Senator Rubio.
    For Members and audience, we're going to have an open 
session now. We are going to work through the votes this 
morning and the Vice Chairman and I will take turns getting out 
to vote. We will go immediately into a closed session and bring 
lunch along the way. We want to make sure we take advantage of 
as much time as needed with our distinguished panel.
    And although we've got great attendance at the gavel, we 
are going to go by seniority today, just because I know a lot 
of Members have got other committee meetings as well this 
morning.
    With that, I think, Director Haines, are you going to start 
us off?

     STATEMENT OF HON. AVRIL HAINES, DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL 
                          INTELLIGENCE

    Director Haines. Yes, Chairman. I'll deliver the statement 
for the group in a sense.
    Chairman Warner, Vice Chairman Rubio, Members of the 
Committee, thank you for the opportunity to be here today 
alongside my wonderful colleagues, on behalf of the 
extraordinary public servants we lead in the Intelligence 
Community, to present the IC's annual threat assessment.
    Before I start, I just want to publicly thank the men and 
women of the Intelligence Community whose work we're presenting 
today, from the collector to the analyst and everybody in 
between, who made it possible for us to bring you the annual 
threat assessment in hopes that this work will help keep our 
country safe and prosperous. Thank you.
    This year's assessment notes that during the coming year, 
the United States and its allies will face an international 
security environment dominated by two sets of strategic 
challenges that intersect with each other and existing trends 
to intensify their national security implications.
    First great powers rising, regional powers, and an evolving 
array of non-state actors are vying for influence and impact in 
the international system, including over the standards and 
rules that will shape the global order for decades to come. The 
next few years are critical as strategic competition with China 
and Russia intensifies, in particular how the world will evolve 
and whether the rise of authoritarianism can be checked and 
reversed. Other threats are, of course, also individually 
significant, but how well we stay ahead of and manage this 
competition will be fundamental to our success at navigating 
everything else.
    Second, challenges that transcend borders, including 
climate change, human and health security, and economic needs 
made worse by energy and food security as well as Russia's 
unprovoked and illegal invasion of Ukraine are converging as 
the planet emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic and all at the 
same time as great powers are challenging longstanding norms 
for transnational cooperation. And further compounding this 
dynamic is the impact that rapidly emerging technologies are 
having on governance, business, society, and intelligence 
around the world. And given that background, perhaps needless 
to say, the People's Republic of China, which is increasingly 
challenging the United States, economically, technologically, 
politically, and militarily around the world remains our 
unparalleled priority. Chinese Communist Party, or CCP, under 
President Xi Jinping will continue efforts to achieve Xi's 
vision of making China the preeminent power in East Asia and a 
major power on the world stage.
    To fulfill Xi's vision, however, the CCP is increasingly 
convinced that it can only do so at the expense of U.S. power 
and influence and by using coordinated whole of government 
tools to demonstrate strength and compel neighbors to acquiesce 
to its preferences, including its land, sea, and air claims in 
the region and its assertions of sovereignty over Taiwan.
    Last October, President Xi secured his third five-year term 
as China's leader at the 20th Party Congress. And as we meet 
today, China's national legislature is in session, formally 
appointing Xi and confirming his choice to lead the PRC's State 
Council, as well as its ministries and leaders of the military, 
legislature, and judicial branches. And after more than a 
decade of serving as China's top leader, Xi's control over key 
levers of power gives him significant power and influence over 
most issues. Xi has surrounded himself with likeminded 
loyalists at the apex of the Party's Standing Committee, 
China's highest decision-making body. And we assess that during 
the course of Xi's third term, they will together attempt to 
press Taiwan on unification, undercut U.S. influence, which 
they perceive as a threat, and drive wedges between Washington 
and its allies and partners and promote certain norms that 
favor China's authoritarian system.
    And you may have seen Xi's recent criticism during his 
speech on Monday, of what he referred to as America's 
suppression of China, reflecting his longstanding distrust of 
U.S. goals and his apparent belief that the United States seeks 
to ``contain China''. And Xi's speech this week was the most 
public and direct criticism that we've seen from him to date 
and probably reflects growing pessimism in Beijing about 
China's relationship with the United States as well as Xi's 
growing worries about the trajectory of China's domestic 
economic development and indigenous technology innovation, 
challenges that he now blames on the United States.
    He also wants to message his populist and regional actors 
that the U.S. bears the responsibility for any coming increase 
in tensions. And despite this more public and directly critical 
rhetoric however, we assess that Beijing still believes it 
benefits most by preventing a spiraling of tensions and by 
preserving stability in its relationship with the United 
States. And specifically, Beijing wants to preserve stability 
in East Asia, avoid triggering additional economic punishments 
from U.S. sanctions and U.S. partners, and showcase a steady 
relationship with the United States to help avoid setbacks in 
its other relationships around the world, even while signaling 
opposition to claimed U.S. provocations including the shoot-
down of the PRC balloon. He wants a period of relative calm to 
give China the time and stability it needs to address growing 
domestic difficulties.
    And Xi's principal focus is on domestic economic 
development, which is not assured. In fact, the IC assesses 
that China's long term economic growth will continue to 
decelerate because China's era of rapid catchup growth is 
ending and structural issues such as debt, demographics, 
inequality, overreliance on investment, and suppressed 
consumption remain. And although the CCP may find ways to 
overcome its structural challenges over the long term, in the 
short term, the CCP continues to take an increasingly 
aggressive approach to external affairs, pursuing its goal of 
building a world-class military, expanding its nuclear arsenal, 
pursuing counter-space weapons capable of targeting U.S. and 
allied satellites, forcing foreign companies and coercing 
foreign countries to allow the transfer of technology and 
intellectual property in order to boost its indigenous 
capabilities, continuing to increase global supply chain 
dependencies on China with the aim of using such dependencies 
to threaten and cut off foreign countries during a crisis, 
expanding the cyber pursuits and increasing the threat of 
aggressive cyber operations against the U.S. homeland and 
foreign partners, and expanding influence operations, including 
through the export of digital repression technologies.
    And the CCP will also seek to reshape global governance in 
line with his preferences and governance standards that support 
its monopoly of power within China. Beijing is elevating PRC 
candidates and policies at the U.N., attempting to gain buy-in 
for Xi's development and global initiatives, promotes blocks 
like the Shanghai Cooperation Organization as a counterweight 
to the West, and shape multilateral groupings such as the 
formerly 17+1 Forum in Eastern Europe, but with mixed success. 
In brief, the CCP represents both the leading and most 
consequential threat to U.S. national security and leadership 
globally. And its intelligence specific ambitions and 
capabilities make it for us our most serious and consequential 
intelligence rival.
    During the past year, the threat has been additionally 
complicated by a deepening collaboration with Russia, which 
also remains an area of intense focus for the Intelligence 
Community. In fact, we were last here for you and for our ATA 
hearing last year, it was only a few weeks after Russia's 
unprovoked and illegal invasion of Ukraine. And now we are over 
a year into the war, which is reshaping not only Russia's 
global relationships and strategic standing, but also our own, 
strengthening our alliances and partnerships in ways that 
President Putin almost certainly did not anticipate, often 
precipitating the very events that he was trying to avoid, such 
as Sweden and Finland's petition to join NATO.
    And on the battlefield, there is currently a grinding 
attritional war in which neither side has a definitive military 
advantage, and the day-to-day fighting is over hundreds of 
meters currently focused largely in Donetsk as Russia tries to 
capture the remainder of the Oblast. The Russians are making 
incremental progress on Bakhmut, which is not a particularly 
strategic objective, but are otherwise facing considerable 
constraints, including personnel and ammunition shortages, 
dysfunction within the military's leadership, exhaustion, as 
well as morale challenges. And even as the Russian offensive 
continues, they are experiencing high casualty rates. Putin is 
likely better at understanding the limits of what his military 
is capable of achieving and appears to be focused on more 
modest military objectives for now.
    Export controls and sanctions are hampering Russia's war 
effort, particularly by restricting access to foreign 
components necessary to produce weapon systems. If Russia does 
not initiate a mandatory mobilization and identify substantial 
third-party ammunition supplies, it will be increasingly 
challenging for them to sustain even the current level of 
offensive operations in the coming months; and consequently, 
they may fully shift to holding and defending the territories 
they now occupy.
    In short, we do not foresee the Russian military recovering 
enough this year to make major territorial gains. But Putin 
most likely calculates that time works in his favor and that 
prolonging the war, including with potential pauses in the 
fighting, may be his best remaining pathway to eventually 
securing Russia's strategic interests in Ukraine, even if it 
takes years.
    And Ukraine, of course, also faces challenges. Ukraine's 
prospects for success in a major spring offensive will probably 
hinge on a number of factors. And at present, the Ukrainian 
armed forces remain locked in a struggle to defend against 
Russian offenses across eastern Ukraine. And while these 
Russian assaults are costly for Russia, the extent to which 
Ukrainian forces are having to draw down their reserves and 
equipment, as well as suffer further casualties, will all 
likely factor into Ukraine's ability to go on the offensive 
later this spring.
    The IC continues to monitor Putin's reactions and his 
nuclear saber-rattling. Our analysts assess that his current 
posturing is intended to deter the West from providing 
additional support to Ukraine as he weighs a further escalation 
of the conflict. He probably will still remain confident that 
Russia can eventually militarily defeat Ukraine and wants to 
prevent western support from tipping the balance and forcing a 
conflict with NATO.
    And of course, the already considerable human toll of the 
conflict is only increasing. In addition to the many tens of 
thousands of casualties suffered by the Russian and Ukrainian 
militaries, more than eight million people have been forced to 
flee Ukraine since Russia invaded. And there is widespread 
reporting of atrocities committed by Russian forces, including 
deliberate strikes against non-military targets such as 
Ukraine's civilian population and civilian infrastructure, 
particularly its energy facilities and electric grid.
    Russia and its proxy groups almost certainly are using so 
called filtration operations to detain and forcibly deport tens 
of thousands of Ukrainian civilians to Russia. The IC is 
engaged with other parts of the U.S. government to document and 
hold Russia and Russian actors accountable for their actions.
    The reaction to the invasion from countries around the 
world has been resolute, hurting Russia's reputation and 
generating criticism at home. And Moscow has suffered losses 
that will require years of rebuilding and leave it less capable 
of posing a conventional military threat to Europe and 
operating assertively in Eurasia and on the global stage. And 
as a result, Russia will become even more reliant on asymmetric 
options, such as nuclear, cyber, space capabilities, and on 
China.
    Now, our assessment also covers Iran, which continues to 
pursue its longstanding ambitions for regional leadership and 
is a threat to U.S. persons, directly and via proxy attacks. 
Iran also remains a threat to Israel, both directly through its 
missile and UAV forces and indirectly through its support of 
Lebanese Hezbollah and other proxies. And most concerning, Iran 
has accelerated the expansion of its nuclear program, stating 
that it is no longer constrained by JCPOA limits and has 
undertaken research and development activities that would bring 
it closer to producing the fissile material necessary for 
completing a nuclear device following a decision to do so.
    North Korea, similarly, remains a proliferation concern as 
it continues its efforts to steadily expand and enhance its 
nuclear and conventional capabilities targeting the United 
States and our allies, periodically using aggressive and 
potentially destabilizing actions to reshape the regional 
security environment in its favor and to reinforce its status 
as a de facto nuclear power.
    And in addition, regional challenges such as interstate 
conflicts, key cases of instability, and poor governance 
developments also pose growing challenges.
    In Africa and in the developing world, increased poverty, 
hindered economic growth, and widened inequality are creating 
the conditions that are feeding domestic unrest, insurgencies, 
democratic backsliding, authoritarianism, and cross-border 
conflict spillover. Several parts of the Middle East will 
remain plagued by war over the year, insurgencies, and 
corruption.
    In the Western Hemisphere, persistent economic weakness, 
insecurity, and corruption are fueling public frustration in 
anti-status-quo pressures that very likely will present 
governance challenges to leaders, while also posing sustained 
spillover, migration, criminal, and economic challenges for the 
United States. And throughout the world, countries are 
struggling to maintain democratic systems and prevent the rise 
of authoritarians, in some cases because Russia and China are 
helping autocrats take or hold power.
    And as I noted at the outset, transnational challenges 
interact in this complex system along with more traditional 
threats and often reinforce each other, creating compounding 
and cascading risks to U.S. national security. For example, 
climate change remains an urgent threat that will increasingly 
exacerbate risks to U.S. national security as the physical 
impacts increase and geopolitical tensions mount over the 
global response to the challenge.
    And now, entering its fourth year, the COVID-19 pandemic 
remains one of the most significant threats to global public 
health at a cost of more than 6.5 million lives and trillions 
of dollars in lost economic output today. In addition to direct 
effects of the pandemic resulting on economic human security, 
political national security implications of COVID-19 continue 
to strain recovery efforts presenting both known and unforeseen 
challenges that probably will ripple through society and the 
global economy during the next year--and for years to come.
    Russia's aggression against Ukraine has aggravated COVID-
19-related fragilities in the global economy, raised commodity 
prices, fueled market volatility, and contributed to food 
insecurity and financial instability. The combination of 
elevated energy and food prices has increased the number of 
individuals facing extreme poverty and food insecurity. 
Affected countries will struggle to reverse those trends 
through 2023, even if global food prices stabilize. Russia's 
war in Ukraine can be blamed for these intensifying effects, 
something much of the world also understands and that others, 
including China will have to come to terms with as they 
consider to what extent they want to continue assisting or 
enabling Russia.
    Climate change, the pandemic, and conflicts are 
exacerbating irregular migration and in the Western Hemisphere. 
Push and pull factors that drive migrants to the United States, 
such as deteriorating socioeconomic and security conditions, 
misperceptions of U.S. policies, and employment opportunities 
in the United States will almost certainly persist through 
2023.
    Transnational criminal organizations exploit migrants 
through extortion, kidnapping, and human trafficking, including 
sex trafficking and forced labor. These organizations also 
continue to pose a direct threat through the production and 
trafficking of lethal illicit drugs, massive theft, financial 
and cybercrimes, money laundering, and eroding the rule of law 
in partner nations. In particular, the threat from illicit 
drugs is at historic levels with the robust supply of synthetic 
opioids from Mexican TCO's continuing to play a major role in 
driving American overdose deaths to over 100,000 annually.
    And terrorism, of course, remains a persistent threat. But 
the problem is evolving. Individuals and cells adhering to 
ideologies espoused by ISIS, Al-Qaeda, and transnational 
racially or ethnically motivated violent extremist movements in 
particular, post significant threats to U.S. persons, 
facilities, and interests.
    And then two indirect threats that I think are worth 
highlighting in the report: new technologies, particularly in 
the field of AI and biotechnologies are being developed and 
proliferating faster than companies and governments are able to 
shape norms governing their use, protect against privacy 
challenges associated with them, and prevent dangerous outcomes 
that they can trigger. The convergence of emerging technologies 
is likely to create breakthroughs that are not as predictable 
and that risk rapid development of more interconnected, 
asymmetric threats to U.S. interests.
    And relatedly, foreign states' malicious use of digital 
information and communication technologies will become more 
pervasive, automated, targeted, and complex during the next few 
years, threatening to distort publicly available information 
and probably outpacing efforts to protect digital freedoms and 
at the same time, educate audiences on how to distinguish fact 
from propaganda. Authoritarian governments usually are the 
principal offenders of digital repression and of course, 
democracies with open information environments are the most 
vulnerable to them.
    In closing, I want to bring to your attention an absolutely 
crucial authority that will expire at the end of this year if 
Congress does not act--Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence 
Surveillance Act. I can tell you without hesitation that 
Section 702 was relied upon in gathering intelligence that was 
relevant to putting together this assessment, and it is hard to 
overestimate, frankly the importance of this authority to our 
work across the board. FISA Section 702 provides unique 
intelligence on foreign intelligence targets at a speed and 
reliability that we cannot replicate with any other authority. 
Section 702 was originally enacted with the primary focus of 
enabling the U.S. government to quickly collect on the 
communication of terrorists abroad. The authority allows the IC 
to acquire foreign intelligence from non-US people located 
outside of the United States who are using U.S. electronic 
communication service providers.
    702 is still vital to our counterterrorism mission, as 
evidenced by its key role in the United States government's 
operations against former Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. 
But 702 is now principally relied upon for vital insights 
across a range of high priority threats: malicious cyber actors 
targeting U.S. critical infrastructure; U.S. government efforts 
to stop components of weapons of mass destruction from reaching 
foreign actors; and even key intelligence related to threats 
emanating from China, Russia, North Korea, Iran.
    I realize that 702 is a powerful authority and it is 
incumbent on all of us in the Intelligence Community to ensure 
that the privacy and civil liberty interests of Americans are 
built into its design and implemented at every level. And over 
the last many years, we have significantly expanded oversight, 
dedicated resources to compliance in order to do just that, and 
we welcome the opportunity to work with you on reauthorizing 
this critical authority.
    Thank you so much for your patience. And we look forward to 
your questions.
    [The prepared statement of the witness follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Chairman Warner. Thank you, Director Haines. And again, 
this is a critically important time for not only those of us on 
the Committee but the public at large to see the intelligence 
community leadership. I personally believe the value of 702, 
but we're going to have to lean in on being willing to have the 
same kind of courage of declassification that we showed in 
advance of Putin's invasion of Ukraine to make the case to the 
American public, and for that matter to skeptical Members of 
Congress, in terms of how this is not simply used as an anti-
terrorism tool, but also in terms of our competition with 
Russia and China.
    I'm going to take my time and come back to the question of 
the changing nature of national security. I made the comment 
that national security today is different than it was in 1993 
or 2003. At that moment in time, perhaps relatively simpler 
times, we looked at our adversaries in terms of how many tanks 
and planes and guns they might have.
    Increasingly, I believe, and I think the vast majority of 
us on this Committee believe, the competition falls into who 
wins various technology domains. General Nakasone and I were 
talking before the session today about how then-Chairman Burr 
and I were trying to make the case that Huawei posed a national 
security threat to American telecom providers and others. It 
took us years to make that case and we're still recovering from 
that activity. I think a lot more recently, Senator Cornyn and 
I and others on this Committee recognize that we've fallen far 
behind in the research, development, and fabrication--the 
making of semiconductor chips. And again, in a broad bipartisan 
way Congress reacted to that.
    The vast majority of us on this Committee think that 
increasing Chinese use of mobile apps like TikTok--and while we 
have different approaches--I know the Vice Chairman and I very 
much believe that TikTok poses a national security threat, both 
in terms of data collection and in terms of a potentially 
enormous propaganda tool.
    What I would like to hear from all of you, and maybe we'll 
start with Director Wray, is do you share at least my 
assessment that national security has to be redefined in 2023 
to recognize that domination of technology domains that on the 
surface do not appear to have anything to do with national 
security--artificial intelligence, Director Haines mentioned 
biotechnology, quantum computing, who wins the challenge around 
advanced energy--these are national security issues as well and 
we have to do a better job of both convincing the public and 
quite honestly, some in the business community. We've made 
progress on the business community, but many are still, as 
Senator Rubio made mention, inexorably tied to a global supply 
chain that relies on cheap Chinese goods. How do we make that 
case? Do you start with accepting the premise that national 
security has to include who wins each of these technology 
domains?
    And I'll just go right down the line.
    Director Wray. Well, certainly Mr. Chairman, I 
wholeheartedly agree that technology and economic security have 
become inextricably intertwined with national security. And the 
efforts this Committee has made and that a lot of us in the 
Intelligence Community have made to engage the private sector, 
I think are essential to that. And we just have to keep 
doubling down on that.
    You could just look at, for example, on the cyber side, our 
critical infrastructure, 85 percent of it or something, is in 
the hands of the private sector. And if you look at our 
innovation, if you look at our PII, our personal identifiable 
information, the percentage is even higher. And if you look at 
what the Chinese are trying to steal, that's where it is. So, 
we need to be working more and more closely with the business 
community to try to build resilience. I think there has been a 
lot of progress that's been made, but we need to make more.
    Chairman Warner. General.
    General Nakasone. Chairman, I certainly agree on the 
statement with regards to the changing nature of power. I think 
that's where the National Security Agency has always found 
itself in being able to hardwire to look for what's next 
technology we should be chasing.
    Being able to leverage a workforce that is very, very 
heavily inculcated with science, technology, engineering, and 
mathematics, but I think the big piece that at least I've 
learned over the past several years is the fact that it's all 
about partnerships. It's the partnerships that we have here in 
the IC. It's the partnerships with the public sector. It's the 
partnerships that we have to develop that will give us the 
competitive advantage as we look at this new changing 
character.
    Chairman Warner. Director Haines.
    Director Haines. Yes, absolutely agree obviously with my 
colleagues. One of the things that we have been learning in the 
Intelligence Community, exactly as General Nakasone indicated, 
is our work with the private sector in this space is 
particularly important. Over my lifetime, I have seen 
increasingly the innovation of critical, foundational 
technologies occurring in the context of the private sector and 
our capacity to work with them to understand essentially what 
those innovations are and how we can help them protect 
themselves in this context, is another aspect of this that has 
to be focused on and something we spend a lot of time on.
    Chairman Warner. Director.
    Director Burns. Mr. Chairman, I fully agree. I think the 
revolution in technology is not only the main arena for 
competition with the People's Republic of China, it's also the 
main determinant of our future as an intelligence service as 
well. As you know, we've undertaken a number of innovations 
over the last couple of years to strengthen our capacity on 
that revolution and technology: for the first time appointing a 
Chief Technology Officer, for the first time establishing a CIA 
wide technology strategy, creating a new mission center focused 
largely on technology. And as my colleagues emphasized, 
building better partnerships, stronger partnerships with the 
private sector as well as with academia, creating a technology 
fellows program, because we have to be more flexible in our 
employment practices as well, to attract people who are 
accomplished in the private sector, in the tech sector who may 
be interested in a couple of years of public service, as well. 
And we're deeply interested in trying to attract those kinds of 
people as well.
    And then finally, I absolutely agree on the importance of 
partnerships, not just across the Intelligence Community but 
with others in the Executive Branch. So, as you know, we're 
working closely with the Department of Commerce and their CHIPS 
Implementation Act Office as well, to provide the kind of 
direct support that I think is essential to that effort as 
well.
    Chairman Warner. General.
    General Berrier. Chairman, I completely agree with the 
statement. You went back to 1993, I'll go back to 1984. When I 
came into the Army in 1984, we owned the technology; the West 
owned the technology. We won the Cold War and then I think we 
took our eye off that ball. So now, it's about how do we apply 
this asymmetric advantage that we have and this partnership of 
folks sitting at this table right now, who work so closely 
together to try and defend our Nation.
    Like the other agencies, DIA has hired the right people at 
the right time to get into this, to try and understand it and 
make an impact for the Department of Defense.
    Chairman Warner. I'm over time but my only closing comment 
is that does mean we may need to redirect some of the 
resources. I mean the idea of China's extraction of cobalt out 
of the DRC and how they're going to get it back to China, 
becomes a national security issue. The question of China 
flooding the zone on standard-setting bodies to define the next 
technology rules from beyond 5G to ORAN, open radio access 
networks, next generation of wireless, is a national security 
concern. Who's leading the way on biotech innovation becomes a 
national security concern, and I think we need to make sure 
that we are both reporting on this and that we are engaging our 
private sector partners. I agree with Senator Rubio: too many 
of our corporate world still believes that these collaborations 
inside of China are benign, even though when they turn a blind 
eye to the literally unprecedented amounts of intellectual 
property theft, too often because they're making way too much 
money on investing in China tech. Some of that has changed, but 
this is an ongoing challenge.
    Senator Rubio.
    Vice Chairman Rubio. Thank you.
    I'll start with you, Director Wray. Let me ask you, as I 
know you are familiar with this. The most downloaded app in the 
world--one of the most downloaded apps in the world, the social 
media company TikTok: could the Chinese government, through its 
ownership of ByteDance that owns ByteDance U.S.--if they wanted 
to, and ByteDance U.S. were willing to cooperate or forced to 
cooperate, could they use TikTok to control data on millions of 
users?
    Director Wray. Yes.
    Vice Chairman Rubio. Could they use it to control the 
software on millions of devices, given the opportunity to do 
so?
    Director Wray. Yes.
    Vice Chairman Rubio. Could they use it to drive narratives, 
like to divide Americans against each other. For example, let's 
say China wants to invade Taiwan, to make sure that Americans 
are seeing videos arguing why Taiwan belongs to China and why 
the U.S. should not intervene?
    Director Wray. Yes, and I would make the point on that last 
one in particular, that we're not sure that we would see many 
of the outward signs of it happening if it was happening. And I 
think the thing, the most fundamental piece that cuts across 
every one of those risks and threats that you mentioned, that I 
think Americans need to understand is that something that's 
very sacred in our country, the difference between the private 
sector and the public sector--that's a line that is non-
existent in the way the CCP operates.
    Vice Chairman Rubio. Do you think it's valuable to look at 
how TikTok operates in China versus the U.S.? For example, in 
the U.S., kids are being encouraged to choke themselves out--
we've had kids die. In China they're encouraged to focus on 
math and science and building the country. Is that an example 
of how two different versions of TikTok, one feeding our 
society poison and the other inculcating positive values, an 
example of how potentially or in reality TikTok could be used 
to damage our country?
    Director Wray. I think those are among many telling 
indicators that we should be looking at in assessing the 
national security concerns this poses.
    Vice Chairman Rubio. So, they can collect our data, 
manipulate information, poison the minds, and feed garbage into 
the minds of millions of people and so forth. Given the threat, 
I imagine this is the reason why TikTok is no longer allowed on 
federal devices. Pretty soon, no federal devices can have 
TikTok on it, correct?
    Director Wray. Well, certainly at the FBI, TikTok never has 
been and nor will it be approved, and I think it's my 
understanding that that's about to be in place across the 
entire Federal Government.
    Vice Chairman Rubio. So, given the weight of all this, does 
anyone on the panel disagree that TikTok is not a good thing 
for America?
    Well, if no one disagrees, my question is then, if TikTok 
is bad for America and we've talked about all of these 
disadvantages and potential harm that's caused by it, should 
the fact that it is popular among people under the age of 35 be 
the reason why we don't take strong action against it?
    Director Wray. Not from my perspective.
    Vice Chairman Rubio. Okay, because that's what the 
Secretary of Commerce said, that potentially we won't do 
something about this because it would upset people under the 
age of 35.
    So, I guess my point--just to tie it all up--this is a 
substantial national security threat for the country, of a kind 
that we didn't face in the past. At the end of the day, it's 
not about some grown man in the middle of the day putting up 
videos that people that have a job shouldn't be putting up. But 
it's also about all these other things that we've talked 
about--the data, the ability to manipulate information.
    I would imagine that it's probably one of the most valuable 
surveillance tools on the planet. I mean if we went out and 
decided to build something like this of our own to influence or 
spy on another society, I'm not sure we could build something 
like this. And we've invited them in and protected them by our 
laws.
    So, I don't understand why this company is allowed to 
operate as long as it's owned--it's my understanding and maybe 
Director Haines, you can clarify this--but I think this is the 
case. Under Chinese law, any company, I don't care what the 
companies are, in China that the Chinese government says give 
me everything you have, they have no choice but to give it to 
them or someone else will be in charge. Correct? Okay.
    My time is remaining here. I want to talk a little bit 
about COVID and the pandemic. So, here's what we know about 
COVID. Okay, it originated in the city of Wuhan, where the 
Wuhan Institute of Virology, which has a questionable safety 
record and conducts experiments on making viruses that are not 
infectious in humans infectious in humans. They do it for the 
purpose of then developing a vaccine. They're located in that 
city. The Chinese CDC is also located in the city.
    Number two, unlike for example SARS, to this moment, unless 
it happened in the last hour, the Chinese have not been able to 
say here's the bat, here's the pangolin, here's the animal that 
the virus came from.
    Number three, there is evidence, both in open source--it's 
been widely discussed that the Chinese, at a minimum, have not 
been to say the least, open about any of this. And in fact, 
real clear indications that they've done everything possible to 
obstruct any sort of international inquiry into how this began 
or to be sharing this information. This is a lot of 
circumstantial evidence that adds together. And I believe 
that's why the FBI has concluded what on the origins of COVID, 
Director Wray.
    Director Wray. So, Mr. Vice Chairman, as the Committee 
knows, the FBI has long assessed, going all the way back to the 
summer of 2021, that the origin of the pandemic was likely a 
lab incident in Wuhan.
    Vice Chairman Rubio. So, Director Haines, I know that 
there's a difference of opinion among the different agencies. I 
think Energy and FBI have that assessment. What is preventing 
the other agencies from reaching the same assessment? Is it 
basically the lack of a smoking gun? Will we not be able to say 
that we believe that the lab origin is the likeliest outcome, 
unless somehow we can provide a smoking gun proof that that's 
what happened?
    Director Haines. Thank you, Sir. You're right, basically, 
there's a broad consensus in the Intelligence Community that 
the outbreak is not the result of a bioweapon or genetic 
engineering. What there isn't a consensus on is whether or not 
it's a lab leak, as Director Wray indicated, or natural 
exposure to an infected animal. Those are the two operating 
theories. And what would change--essentially elements/
perspectives--would be additional information. And we've been 
trying to collect additional information. I think you're 
absolutely right that China has not fully cooperated, and we do 
think that's a key critical gap that would help us to 
understand what exactly happened.
    Vice Chairman Rubio. My time is up.
    Mr. Chairman, I would just point out it is true that the 
lab leak--we don't have a smoking gun. We don't have some guy 
calling another guy saying hey, we had a lab leak. We also 
don't have a smoking gun that it was a naturally occurring 
event, which is the easiest one for them to prove, come out, 
have a press conference, show us the bat or the pangolin--
whatever a pangolin is--and show us that this is the one and 
here's the virus that came from that animal, because it 
wouldn't have not just been found on one animal, it would have 
been pretty widespread.
    That's the easiest thing for the Chinese to have done and 
they haven't done it. I think that's a pretty strong reason to 
suspect that it's not naturally occurring, because they've done 
it with the other pandemics.
    Thank you.
    Chairman Warner. And I would just point out--before I go to 
Senator Wyden, when those of us raise the issue around TikTok, 
it is not simply an American concern. Canada, the EU, India 
have also taken action on this application because of this 
national security concern.
    Senator Wyden.
    Senator Wyden. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and thank 
you all for your service.
    Begin with you, Director Burns. Last year, you committed to 
me that the CIA would require written justifications that could 
be audited whenever CIA conducts searches of its databases for 
information on Americans. Has the agency done that?
    Director Burns. Yes, sir, we have. And thank you very much 
for your attention on this issue. In keeping with the 
commitment that I made to you last year, the CIA has made 
substantial and rapid progress developing and implementing, 
across all of the CIA, a capability to support written, 
auditable justifications for searches, as you said, designed to 
retrieve U.S. person information.
    We've kept your staff regularly updated on this. We're 
ahead of the schedule that I set out for you in that letter 
last September. We've already begun implementing the tool we've 
developed in the database that the Privacy and Civil Liberties 
Oversight Board has been focused on, and now we're moving 
forward with that approach across the remaining databases.
    Senator Wyden. Thank you for doing this.
    Let me turn to commercial information. Director Wray, does 
the FBI purchase U.S. phone geolocation information?
    Director Wray. So, to my knowledge, we do not currently 
purchase commercial database information that includes location 
data derived from internet advertising. I understand that we 
previously--as in the past--purchased some such information for 
a specific national security pilot project, but that's not been 
active for some time.
    I could provide more information about that in closed 
session if you would like. But when we use so-called ad tech 
location data, it is through a court authorized process.
    Senator Wyden. And you do not plan to change your current 
practice of not buying this geolocation information?
    Director Wray. We have no plans to change that at the 
current time.
    Senator Wyden. I think it's a very important privacy issue 
that that not take place. We'll discuss it more at the closed 
session.
    Director Haines, you convened an outside panel to study and 
make recommendations related to the government's purchase of 
data, including sensitive data on Americans. There has been a 
lengthy report that has been done here. Will you agree to 
release this report to the public?
    Director Haines. Thank you, Senator. I'll absolutely--. 
We'll have our folks review it for that purpose.
    Senator Wyden. Is there any reason why it shouldn't be made 
available to the public?
    Director Haines. No, I think it absolutely should. As long 
as there's not classified information in it, we'll provide it.
    Senator Wyden. Okay. One additional question for you, if I 
might, Director Haines.
    As you know, last May, Senator Moran and I urged the 
President to prioritize the rewriting of the Executive Order 
that governs classification, declassification--hadn't been 
updated in ages. In August, you wrote back on behalf of the 
President saying that the process was underway.
    My concern is that we're not seeing the urgency that is 
necessary, because we all know what the challenge is, and 
that's foot dragging by some people who mean well, but they're 
just not on the program of reform. Will you push the National 
Security Council to get this done, because my sense is this 
just isn't going to happen unless you can successfully push the 
National Security Council to break up the status quo?
    Because the classification system is now at the point 
where, as you correctly said and to your credit, it's not 
serving national security. And I think it's so broken, we're 
not getting classified what we need to get classified, and we 
surely are classifying stuff that shouldn't be classified. So, 
we got to break up business as usual here. And it's only going 
to happen in my view if you can push the National Security 
Council.
    Can you commit to doing that?
    Director Haines. Thank you, Senator. First of all, for your 
and for Senator Moran's attention on this issue, I think it is 
incredibly important and something that, over many years, I 
think for all of us, we've seen the frustration of actually 
trying to make this better.
    I know the President is committed to this issue. I 
absolutely will ensure that he and the National Security 
Council know of your concerns and relay them as such.
    Senator Wyden. I want to also ask you, Madam Director, 
about security clearances and past marijuana use. At the end of 
2021, you issued guidance that past marijuana use was not by 
itself a disqualification for security clearance. I think it'd 
be very good if you could tell the American people why it's 
important that this past use not be a disqualification to serve 
your country. This is a national security issue, and we 
desperately need people. We've got new Members in this 
Committee talking about languages that they're going to be 
focused on as we try to recruit and the like. Tell the American 
people why past marijuana use is not disqualifying for a 
National Security post?
    Director Haines. Thank you, Senator.
    I think we recognize, frankly, that many states have 
legalized or decriminalized marijuana use and wanted to be sure 
that we're not disqualifying people solely for that purpose in 
that context. We obviously believe that we want to have the 
talent that exists in America. When somebody is using 
experimentally in a legal state, that's something that 
shouldn't on its own disqualify.
    We continue to approach this from a whole-of-person 
perspective, and we expect if anybody takes the job to comply 
with our policies and our laws in a trusted position.
    Senator Wyden. My time is up. I only want to say that I 
know we've got some big privacy issues ahead of us and I want 
to thank all of you for keeping your door open to discuss them 
with me.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Warner. Thank you, Senator Wyden. Senator Collins.
    Senator Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Director Haines, I want to follow up on the Vice Chairman's 
questions to you and the panel about the origins of COVID. We 
know that 6.5 million people have died, that trillions of 
dollars have been lost in economic activity. We also know that 
had we known early the origin of COVID, we might have well been 
able to change the trajectory and been better prepared for 
future pandemics. So, this matters.
    It is disturbing to me that in your written statement, you 
say all agencies assess that two hypotheses are plausible 
explanations for the origin of COVID: natural exposure to an 
infected animal, and a laboratory-associated incident. That's 
one of those statements that's technically true but misleading.
    We've heard the FBI director today say that the most likely 
explanation is a laboratory incident. We know that the Wuhan 
whistleblower, who first raised alarms, was silenced by the 
Chinese government and later died of COVID. We know, as your 
statement says, that Beijing continues to hinder the global 
investigation, resists sharing information, and blames other 
countries. Those are not the actions of an innocent party. We 
know that the Department of Energy has changed its assessment 
to say that the most likely cause is a laboratory incident.
    I just don't understand why you continue to maintain on 
behalf of the Intelligence Community, that these are two 
equally plausible explanations. They simply are not.
    Director Haines. Thank you, Senator.
    And I think I share your frustration with the fact that 
China hasn't been more cooperative on this issue to provide 
intelligence that would be of use to the scientists and others 
who work on these questions. And I think you're absolutely 
right. This is critically important. It has been extremely 
challenging. Let me give you where we are in the Intelligence 
Community with more precision to your point.
    There are four elements, plus our National Intelligence 
Council, that assess with low confidence that the infection was 
most likely caused by natural exposure to an infected animal. 
So, the IC remains divided on this issue. We have the FBI, as 
you noted, that sees it as more likely that it's a lab leak and 
has done that with moderate confidence. And the Department of 
Energy has changed its view slightly with low confidence. It 
says that a lab leak is most likely. But they do so for 
different reasons than the FBI does, and their assessments are 
not identical.
    So, you can see how challenging this has been across the 
community. And not even every element of the IC has been able 
to put themselves on one side of the ledger or the other. I've 
given you seven, but not everybody has been able to put 
themselves on one versus the other.
    So, it is a really challenging issue, and I think our folks 
honestly are trying to do the best that they can to figure out 
what exactly happened based on the information they have 
available to them.
    Senator Collins. Let me switch to a different issue. 
General Berrier, in the Administration's hasty withdrawal from 
Afghanistan by an arbitrary date, billions of dollars' worth of 
military assets were left behind, including munitions, 16,000 
pairs of night vision goggles, 167 aircraft, communications 
equipment, 2,000 vehicles. The list goes on and on and on. My 
concern is that all of these assets could be useful in 
launching a terrorist attack on the United States or one of our 
allies.
    Given the continued chaos in Afghanistan and presence of 
terrorist groups that want to harm the United States, that have 
made no secret about harming us or our allies, what is the 
Intelligence Community's assessment on the counterterrorism 
threat to the United States homeland and our allies, 
particularly one launched from Afghanistan?
    General Berrier. Senator Collins, thank you for that 
question. From our perspective, at the Defense Intelligence 
Agency, certainly our reach and grasp into that nation since 
the fall of the government has eroded over time, but we still 
have some access. And I would say, based on what we know right 
now from the threat of Al-Qaeda, they're trying to survive, 
basically without a real plan to at least--or intent--to attack 
the West anytime soon.
    And I would say that ISIS-K poses a bit of a larger threat, 
but they are under attack from the Taliban regime right now, 
and it's a matter of time before they may have the ability and 
intent to actually attack the West at this point.
    Senator Collins. General Nakasone, very quickly, could you 
give me your assessment?
    General Nakasone. Yes, that dovetails very closely with the 
Defense Intelligence Agency. We see the same challenges across 
the IC with some of our collection. But we do see a challenged 
ISIS-K in Afghanistan right now as they battle the Taliban.
    Senator Collins. Thank you.
    Chairman Warner. Senator Heinrich.
    Senator Heinrich. Thank you, Chairman.
    Director Burns, U.S. law states that to be designated as a 
foreign terrorist organization, a group must be engaged in 
premeditated, politically motivated violence against non-
combatant targets, and the activity must threaten the national 
security of the United States. In my view, and in the view of a 
number of folks, the Wagner Group fits that definition. Wagner 
now openly operates as private military for Vladimir Putin, 
conducting terrorist operations in Ukraine and in countries 
across Africa.
    Director, I realize that the responsibility for designating 
foreign terrorist organizations lies with the Secretary of 
State, but I'd like to get your assessment of the Wagner 
Group's activities, whether you would describe the atrocities 
its mercenaries have committed as terrorism, and if you think 
there is any downside to making such a designation?
    Director Burns. Well, thanks, Senator.
    And as you rightly pointed out, I'll steer away from the 
policy question there. But certainly, our assessment is that 
the Wagner Group is a vicious, aggressive organization, which 
has posed a threat, not just to the people of Ukraine. And we 
see that every day, especially in the intense fighting that's 
going around the city of Bakhmut right now, largely conducted 
on the Russian side by the Wagner Group, which is suffering 
incredible casualties.
    But I've also seen it, as we were discussing earlier, in my 
own travels in West Africa and the Sahel, where I think the 
deeply destabilizing impact of Wagner can be seen in a lot of 
very fragile societies right now. We work as an agency, along 
with our partners, to help many of those governments and many 
of our security service partners to resist that. We work with 
the French and with other countries, other allies, in that 
effort as well. But we take very seriously the threat posed by 
Wagner and do everything we can to counter it and disrupt it.
    Senator Heinrich. Great. Thank you, Director.
    Director Haines, earlier I shared with you a report by the 
Converging Risk Lab called ``The Security Threat That Binds 
Us,'' which outlined, among other things, the need to elevate 
ecological security in U.S. national security policymaking. And 
one example they really go into a great deal of detail about is 
China's aggressive fishing activities and how those have 
contributed to over-fishing more than any other nation. This 
has led to increasingly hostile fishing disputes between China 
and its neighbors, as well as along the coast of Africa and 
Latin America, threatening economic, food security, and 
sovereignty.
    In the view of the report's authors, the IC needs greater 
capacity to analyze the negative effects of illegal fishing 
activities, as well as a whole host of other causes of 
ecological disruption. And it needs to elevate the relative 
importance of ecological security issues within the IC 
prioritization framework.
    Have you had a chance to look at that, and can you commit 
to work with me to try to implement some of the recommendations 
included in that report?
    Director Haines. Yes, absolutely, Senator.
    I did see the report, and I thought it was actually 
excellent. We've given it to our National Intelligence Manager 
for Climate and Global Issues, who is focused on these issues. 
I think one of the things that it does say very much in line 
with what you just indicated is it's not just about collecting 
more analysis. It's about prioritizing it. It's about ensuring 
we have access to the outside folks. And I think that is 
something that we are trying to do. In other words, get 
expertise both from the federal science community and work with 
them, but also with academic communities, and also with 
partners who have access to academic and other resources on 
these issues.
    I absolutely commit to working with you further on this 
question. And I share your concern about unregulated, unlawful 
fishing that the Chinese have been doing in a variety of areas 
where we've seen them strip resources from countries.
    Senator Heinrich. Thank you, Director.
    General Nakasone, I want to ask you one last quick question 
before my time is out, and it involves supply chains, which we 
are hearing a lot more about now, for appropriate reasons. The 
2021 National Intelligence Estimate on Climate Change states 
that China is the world's leading supplier of advanced grid 
components for ultra-high voltage systems--things like 
transformers, circuit breakers, inverters--which we assess 
create cyber vulnerability risk.
    Can you talk a little bit about your concerns about those 
vulnerabilities to our electric grid and what it means to 
currently be dependent on China for components for things like 
large power transformers?
    General Nakasone. Senator, you highlight the challenge of 
supply chains, and we know supply chains well, even from a 
different adversary with SolarWinds. What have we learned? I 
would tell you, first of all, is that as we are reliant on more 
and more nations to provide this type of capability, we have to 
have a vigilance in terms of how we look at this. Whether or 
not we're understanding the complete supply chain of the 
critical pieces that come into it, or whether or not we have 
sensoring on the other end that tells us something is 
anomalous, something is unique, something that has changed. 
This is the world in which we live. This is the world in which 
we have to operate for the future.
    Senator Heinrich. Would it be a good idea to try to produce 
some of those critical components here, or with trusted allies 
and friends instead of being so dependent?
    General Nakasone. Certainly, and I think the work of many 
of you on this Committee with regards to semiconductors is one 
great example of the importance of fabrication within the 
United States.
    Senator Heinrich. Thank you. Thank you, General.
    [Now Presiding: Vice Chairman Rubio.]
    Vice Chairman Rubio. Senator Cotton.
    Senator Cotton. I want to raise a question that Senator 
Warner raised in his opening statement about the classified 
documents that were found at the residences or offices of 
President Trump, President Biden, and Vice President Pence. I 
want to be clear. I'm not talking about who done it, about who 
took them there and how they handled them and what criminal 
standards there are and is there an investigation. I'm talking 
about the documents themselves and what risk, if any, they pose 
to our national security.
    Director Haines, the last time you appeared in front of 
this committee, you said that you had not personally reviewed 
those documents. Is that still the case?
    Director Haines. I've only reviewed documents that have 
already gone through an initial classification review process. 
So, now I have reviewed some of the documents but not all of 
the documents myself, that is. There are others, obviously, 
within our institutions that have reviewed them.
    Senator Cotton. Director Wray, have you reviewed these 
documents personally?
    Director Wray. I have reviewed some of the documents 
personally, and my team, of course, has reviewed the documents.
    Senator Cotton. To both of you, why have you not reviewed 
all of these documents? It would seem this would be a matter of 
vital urgency to put your eyes on these documents and make a 
determination if you think there actually is national security 
risk in the contents of those documents.
    Director Haines. Thank you, Senator. I'll start, and 
Director Wray can continue.
    So, when we get documents that have been compromised in the 
context of leak, investigation, or other things like that, I 
don't personally review them generally, even when they have 
significant consequences. There are the subject matter experts 
within the institutions that do that. They provide their views, 
and then they typically will summarize or otherwise indicate 
issues that have to be addressed as a consequence, if there are 
any.
    Senator Cotton. Director Wray is the same answer?
    Director Wray. It's similar, except I would just add that 
we have teams of people who are experienced with these 
mishandling of classified documents cases, of which we have any 
number and have had for years. And I would add that although I 
have not reviewed all of the documents myself, I have gone 
through a fairly meticulous listing of all the documents. That 
includes detailed information about the content, so it's not 
reading every page of each one.
    Senator Cotton. I bet General Nakasone and General Berrier, 
when they were second lieutenants, were taught that they were 
responsible for everything their organization does and fails to 
do, which I think is a pretty good principle of leadership.
    I just think on something of such prominence and perhaps 
such significance that you both should review them. More 
importantly, this Committee should review them. As you heard 
Senator Warner say, we're all very frustrated that we haven't 
even had these documents characterized to us, and we've 
patiently allowed Senator Warner and Senator Rubio to try to 
resolve this matter.
    But I would say our patience is starting to run out, and at 
least some of us are prepared to start putting our foot down if 
we don't get better answers and the stone wall doesn't stop.
    Director Haines, I want to turn to concern I've raised with 
you and Director Burns and others, and that's my worries about 
growing politicization and the analysis coming out of our 
intelligence agency.
    This is an annual threat assessment. There is an annual 
threat assessment. So, let's look at it. On page 33, you write, 
transnational, racially, or ethnically motivated violent 
extremists continue to pose the most lethal threat to U.S. 
persons and interests. Are you serious? You seriously think 
that racially and ethnically motivated violent extremists are 
the most lethal threat that Americans face?
    Director Haines. Yes, sir. In terms of the number of people 
killed or wounded as a consequence.
    Senator Cotton. How many people were killed by racially and 
ethnically motivated violent extremists in the United States 
last year?
    Director Haines. I don't have the exact number for you 
right here, but I will get it for you.
    Senator Cotton. How many people were killed by fentanyl in 
the United States last year?
    Director Haines. As you know, it's over 100,000 for 
fentanyl.
    Senator Cotton. So, isn't that a more lethal threat?
    Director Haines. Absolutely, but it's not being compared 
against fentanyl in that statement. It's in the context of 
terrorist threat.
    Senator Cotton. Okay, so on page 38, you write about 
governance challenges in Europe. You talk about populist 
parties taking advantage of inflation and high energy prices. 
You worry that public discontent, potentially including 
increased mass protests, could undermine backing from 
mainstream European governments while increasing support for 
populist and extreme parties. You also say it could undermine 
the quality of democracy.
    How is this foreign intelligence? And who are these 
populist parties in Europe that we're so concerned about?
    Director Haines. So, we can get you further information 
about this, but I'll just say, as a general matter, Senator, we 
do cover different effects on democracy throughout the world, 
and that is something that is typically perceived as part of 
our remit.
    Senator Cotton. Are the Brothers of Italy, the Italian 
Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni's, party, are they a populist or 
extreme party that are a threat to America's interests?
    Director Haines. I wouldn't want to speak for the analysts 
as to whether or not they consider them a populist party. I 
suspect that they may, but I don't know that they would say 
that they're a threat to us, to the United States.
    Senator Cotton. All right, just one final example of this. 
On page 18, about nuclear issues with Iran. You write that 
since the assassination in November 2020 of nuclear scientist 
Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, Iran has accelerated the expansion of its 
nuclear program. Unfortunate ending for Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in 
November of 2020. Did anything else happen in the world in 
November of 2020 that might have caused Iran to accelerate its 
nuclear program?
    Director Haines. Senator, I'm not sure what you're 
referring to.
    Senator Cotton. A pretty big event. A pretty big event here 
in America. November 2020.
    Director Haines. If you mean the election--.
    Senator Cotton. I do mean the election.
    Director Haines. I don't believe that our analysts perceive 
that as being the key--.
    Senator Cotton. Right. Because I've gone through the IEA 
reports. Iran took almost a year, almost a year after President 
Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal until the summer of 2019 
to say it was going to incrementally begin to breach its 
limits. After we killed Qasem Soleimani in January 2020, they 
basically ceased all enrichment or other activity. And since 
November of 2020, they've reintroduced advanced centrifuges. 
They've began enriching uranium past the critical 3.67 percent 
mark. They produced uranium metal. They've moved enrichment 
underground. They're now enriching to almost 90 percent.
    Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Colin Cole said to the 
House recently that they're just twelve days away from a 
breakout, implying that all happened on the former 
Administration's watch. This has all happened since November of 
2020, Director Haines, and your report makes nothing, says 
nothing about the Biden Administration's policies.
    You really don't think the Ayatollah has had any change of 
views once it was clear Joe Biden was going to be President?
    Director Haines. I think our analysts would look at leaving 
the JCPOA as one element that's relevant to the----
    Chairman Warner. Your time has expired.
    Senator Cotton. Alright, so my time has expired.
    I'll say, Director Burns, we've talked about this in a 
classified setting before, I mean, your organization produces 
the vast majority of the analysis for the IC. And it's not just 
the conclusions but also the priorities and the volume of focus 
on things like climate change or gay marriage bills in other 
countries or some of these conclusions that just cause me great 
pause about the priorities and the resources we're applying to 
the critical threats this country face. We can talk more about 
it in a classified setting.
    Chairman Warner. Thank you.
    Senator King.
    Senator King. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    First, Director Haines, the good news is the report is 
clearly written and I think establishes a lot of very valuable 
information. The bad news is I made the mistake of reading it 
Monday night just before trying to go to sleep. There are a lot 
of serious matters in there.
    One of the things that really jumped out at me, and I want 
to follow up on Senator Heinrich's question, is on page 9. 
China now is on track to control 65 percent of lithium-ion 
battery market. They dominate all parts of the supply chain. 
Forty percent of the world's active pharmaceutical ingredients. 
And their global share across all manufacturing of solar panels 
is 80 percent now--will certainly go to 90 percent.
    This is important information for us in terms of informing 
us about the dangerous dependency that we've developed in a 
whole lot of areas, and semiconductors is one that we've talked 
about. But it suggests to me that this issue of dependency is 
something that really has to have some serious policy 
examination. Would you concur?
    Director Haines. Yes, absolutely. I think one of the things 
that we're really trying to expose here is the fact that it's 
not just simply about China trying to create indigenous supply 
chains, but actually to control global supply chains.
    Senator King. That seems to be a deliberate policy, does it 
not?
    Director Haines. Exactly.
    Senator King. And that goes also about their actions in 
Africa and South America, where they're trying to corner the 
market, if you will, on various commodities.
    Director Haines. And you can see it also, as you indicate, 
not only in their decisions about what they're purchasing and 
how they're managing it, but also the laws that they pass that 
give them the capability, for example, in rare earth elements, 
to actually turn the dial on their export and import policies 
so that they can actually create that pressure.
    Senator King. You'd think that we'd learn from Europe's 
dependency on Russian gas that this is a similar thing that we 
really need to address as a matter of policy.
    Let's move to another specific intelligence question. 
What's the current analysis on the relationship between China 
and Russia? Is it a temporary marriage of convenience, or is it 
a long-term love affair?
    Director Haines. It is continuing to deepen, so I think 
maybe the latter, although I hesitate to characterize it as a 
love affair. There are some limitations that we would see on 
where they would go in that partnership. We don't see them 
becoming allies the way we are with allies in NATO. But 
nevertheless, we do see it increasing across every sector.
    Senator King. Well, the sector that we're most concerned 
about right now is aid to Russia in the Ukraine conflict. What 
do we see there? Is China about to act? Are they issuing any 
supplies now? That's the highest risk, it seems to me, in terms 
of the development of this relationship. The immediate risk.
    Director Haines. Yeah, we do see them providing assistance 
to Russia in the context of the conflict. And we see them in a 
situation in which they become increasingly uncomfortable about 
the level of assistance and not looking to do it as publicly as 
might otherwise occur, and given the reputational costs 
associated with it. But I think that is a very real concern. 
And the degree of how close they get and how much assistance 
they're providing is something we watch very carefully. And 
we'd be happy to talk to you about that in closed session.
    Senator King. One point I thought could have used more 
emphasis--there's a whole section on climate change, which is 
interestingly--it's China, Russia, Iran, North Korea--climate 
change in terms of risks. And you identify the risk of famine 
and food insecurity across the developing world. You mentioned 
migration two or three times, but that, it seems to me, is one 
of the most serious destabilization risks. Syrian refugees 
upset European politics--6 million. We're talking 100-plus 
million. I hope that the Intelligence Community can provide 
some more-detailed analysis of the migration risk, which I see 
as one of the real challenges of the next 10 or 15 years as it 
becomes uninhabitable in areas of North Africa and the Middle 
East. Could you comment on that?
    Director Haines. Could not agree with you more, Sir. And we 
will look to try to produce something, and perhaps we can do 
something publicly along those lines.
    Senator King. And General Nakasone, in a few seconds that I 
have left, China's cyber posture. My sense is that they're 
getting more aggressive. Is that true? And is Russia adapting 
and getting better?
    General Nakasone. Senator, I would say that both for China 
and Russia, they are very capable cyber adversaries. With 
regards to China, we see an increasing degree of risk-taking 
that they've undergone with regards to stealing our 
intellectual property, even increasing their influence 
operations. These are concerning efforts for us.
    With regards to Russia, we still see them, and we see them 
very accurately and being able to warn and being able to 
counteract some of the things that they're doing around the 
world. And so, we know them very, very well.
    Senator King. But they're getting cleverer, aren't they? 
About using our infrastructure, for example?
    General Nakasone. Well, certainly they're getting clever. 
But we still, I would say, Senator, are able to stay ahead of 
them. And that's the big piece that I want to emphasize.
    Senator King. Maybe the answer would be, so are we getting 
more clever? Thank you.
    General Nakasone. Well said, Senator.
    Senator King. Thank you.
    Chairman Warner. Senator Cornyn.
    Senator Cornyn. On September 11th, 2001, we lost 3,000 
Americans. About a week later, Congress authorized the use of 
military force to go after the terrorists that committed those 
attacks. Last year alone, we lost 108,000 Americans to drugs 
that are coming across the southwestern border. I think the 
figure is roughly 71,000 of those deaths were caused by 
synthetic opioids, fentanyl.
    And we know where the precursors come from. They're coming 
largely from China. This is like losing a large passenger jet 
every day for more than a year. Just like 9/11. Just like we 
would react if, in fact, passenger jets were falling out of the 
sky each day for a year, we would react in an overwhelming 
fashion. Yet the Attorney General of the United States has 
said, we're doing everything, he's doing everything he can.
    And so, my question for each of you is what additional 
authorities, what additional resources do we need to defeat 
this threat to American lives? Some have suggested that they 
should be designated a foreign terrorist organization. Others, 
other Members of Congress have said, well, we need to use an 
authorization for the use of military force like we did after 
9/11.
    But I'd like to hear, maybe starting with you, Director 
Haines, and then I'd like to have Director Burns address the 
question. What additional authorities, what additional 
resources do we need in order to save American lives from this 
threat?
    Director Haines. Thank you, Senator.
    I know you've done a lot of work on these issues, and I 
could not agree more with your characterization of it and the 
importance that it holds. And you'll hear from my colleagues 
some of the increasing resources and efforts that all of them 
have engaged in in this area. I will speak for myself in terms 
of the ODNI, our Office of the Director of National 
Intelligence. We have a national intelligence manager that 
covers this issue and a national intelligence officer.
    And one of the things that I've learned in the two years 
that I've been there is that we do not have as deep a bench of 
analysts on these issues, and we are therefore not as resourced 
as we need to be in order to really address this question. 
That's something that we've been building, and that's something 
that we need to continue to build.
    Senator Cornyn. I agree with you that we are losing. And 
what I want to know is: what do we need to win?
    Director Burns, would you address that?
    Director Burns. Yes, Sir.
    From the point of view of CIA, as we've discussed before, 
we've tried to transform our strategy through our 
counternarcotic center, working with partners across the 
Intelligence Community, and domestic and foreign partners as 
well, focusing on the entire network that you described. In 
other words, precursor chemicals, financial flows, the 
production of fentanyl pills and the equipment that goes into 
that, as well as disrupting that trafficking as well.
    And here I would emphasize that I think we talked earlier 
about Section 702, I think that has helped us to illuminate 
that network and has helped us in some successful actions 
recently with which foreign intelligence collected by CIA has 
contributed to both recent successes that our Mexican partners 
have had against the Sinaloa Cartel and also recent successes 
against fentanyl production and processing equipment in Mexico 
and in the United States.
    So, I couldn't agree with you more about the severity of 
this problem. For all of us, protecting American lives is our 
highest priority.
    Senator Cornyn. I'd like to follow up with the panel in 
closed session.
    Let me turn to the issue that Senator King raised. COVID 
exposed our vulnerability to long supply chains, everything 
from advanced semiconductors to rare earth elements to active 
ingredients in pharmaceuticals that are manufactured in China. 
And, in the event that supply was disrupted, it would be not 
only a tremendous threat to our economy, but to our national 
security as well. For many years, American businesses have been 
investing in China. We had a witness that testified last May, I 
think it was, that the current market value of U.S. investments 
in China were worth $2.3 trillion. In other words, American 
investment in China has been financing the rise of China's 
economy and the rise of their military might, just like CFIUS 
allows us to review foreign investment in the United States.
    Do you support an outbound investment transparency regime 
that would give us greater insight, give you greater insight 
into what we are financing? We, in effect, are financing our 
number one adversary. And we have--it's relatively opaque, I 
think, to the Intelligence Community, and certainly to the 
policymakers.
    Director Haines.
    Director Haines. Sure, I'll start. Obviously without 
prejudice to the policy question of what is the right answer 
for how to deal with this, I think you're absolutely right that 
there's no question that something that would create greater 
transparency would give us more information about this. And 
that would be valuable from our perspective.
    Chairman Warner. And I think Senator Cornyn raised a good 
point, and something we've discussed at some length: how we 
have to make sure we're also following what particularly China 
is doing in other nation-states.
    Senator Bennet.
    Senator Bennet. Thanks. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
    And I just would make a comment on Senator Cornyn's 
question to you and your response to Senator Cornyn. Colorado 
is being overrun by fentanyl. And we're at a point now where, 
when a kid dies who's the age of my children, I no longer ask, 
what was the accident? Did they have a car accident? Or was it 
leukemia? The question is, was it suicide? Was it fentanyl? Or 
was it guns?
    And, I guess from my perspective, I don't see any evidence 
that we're getting the cooperation that we need from Mexico to 
deal with this crisis at our border. And I don't know if you 
want to amend your answer to Senator Cornyn. Maybe if you 
could? And this is not the only thing I want to ask about, but 
what would it look like to have a neighbor to the south who is 
actually taking seriously the fact that we're losing more than 
100,000 Americans a year, many of them children, who are taking 
drugs for the first time in their lives and then drop dead? 
What would it look like to have a partner in our neighbor 
country?
    Mr. Director or Director Haines?
    Director Haines. I'm happy to start.
    Senator Bennet. I mean, this is not about the number of 
analysts.
    Director Haines. Exactly. That was just the beginning of my 
answer. But I think it was fair to let others talk. I think we 
should talk about this in closed session further.
    Senator Bennet. Okay, let's do that. I have other things 
I'd like to talk about, too, but let's do that because we 
haven't made any progress. Things have gotten a lot worse, and 
I'm sorry to say they've gotten a lot worse during the course 
of this Administration.
    Second. Director Wray, you mentioned in your answers to 
Senator Rubio's questions about TikTok how concerned you are 
and the degree to which they're subject to the CCP in terms of 
their disgorgement of data and the potential use of that data 
to run operations against the American people.
    I wonder if you could use this open, public opportunity to 
describe to the American people what the danger to them is of 
this platform that is run out of Beijing. What is the danger to 
them?
    Director Wray. Well, let me start by saying the point that 
I tried to get to towards the end of my exchange with Senator 
Rubio, which is: understand that the difference between an 
ostensibly private company and the CCP is essentially a 
distinction without a difference. So, if you were to ask 
Americans, would you like to turn over your data, all your 
data, control of your devices, control of your information to 
the CCP, most Americans would say, I'm not down with that, as 
my kids would say.
    That's the question we're asking. So, it's really a 
question of data collection. And we know that they can use it 
to conduct all sorts of big data operations.
    Senator Bennet. And what would a big data operation mean to 
your average citizen?
    Director Wray. There have been a lot of questions from the 
Chairman and others about AI and things like that. If you look 
at the Chinese government's gobbling up of information and 
data, and then the use of AI and other tools, ultimately 
supercomputing things like that, to marshal all that data to 
conduct targeting for espionage, targeting for IP theft, 
targeting for all the things that I and others on this panel 
have been calling out about the Chinese government, data is the 
coin of the realm.
    Those who have the best information have the power, and 
that's what that enables them to do. You just have to look at 
the Equifax hack, where they essentially stole the PII of half 
the population of the United States. That's one Chinese 
government operation. So, it's the control of the data to 
conduct all sorts of big data operations. It's the control of 
the recommendation algorithm, which allows them to conduct 
influence operations. It's the control of the software, which 
allows them to then have access to millions of devices.
    So, you put all those three things together and again come 
back to the starting point, which is, this is a tool that is 
ultimately within the control of the Chinese government. And to 
me, it screams out with national security concerns.
    Senator Bennet. My kids are about the same age as your 
kids. And what I would say is people ought to find a different 
platform. The American people don't need to spend three weeks 
out of the year on a platform that's run out of Beijing for 
Beijing's purposes. And we can do a better job than that.
    I also just, while I have one second left, would say that I 
don't think the American people have had the kind of 
negotiation you were just talking about. Even with our own big 
data platforms in the United States, our big social media 
platforms, we have not had a negotiation about our privacy 
rights. We've not had a negotiation about whether your kids or 
my kids should have the benefit of the economics, the benefit 
of the economics of their identities, or whether Mark 
Zuckerberg should have the benefit of the economics of their 
identities.
    And I think, Mr. Chairman, that's something that this 
Committee, I mean, it's not exactly what we're working on, but 
I think it's a related topic that is important for us to think 
about.
    Chairman Warner. I agree with you. I agree with you. 
Senator Moran.
    Senator Moran. Chairman, thank you.
    Maybe to follow along with what the conversation was 
between the Director, between Director Wray and Senator from 
Colorado. For most of my time in the Senate, I've been working 
to try to get data privacy legislation through the Congress. We 
have failed. We get this close. We get very close. And then 
issues of private right of action become a barrier between 
Republicans and Democrats.
    I just would make the public offer to any Democrat and any 
Republican that wants to work to get us to the point that we've 
been unable to be at. I am still ready, able, and willing to 
try to accomplish that.
    I was going to ask Director--maybe the FBI Director has 
answered this question, but I was going to ask the CIA 
Director. What does all this failure to have data privacy mean 
in the intelligence world? So, when they collect, I think 
Director Wray was talking about this, but what does it mean to 
American citizens and to our national security?
    Director Burns. Well, Senator, in terms of our national 
security, it obviously enables our adversaries' efforts at 
espionage, as well. It enables them to steal intellectual 
property. It enables them to get access to sensitive 
technologies. It enables them to spy on our citizens, as well. 
So, it offers enormous opportunities, I think, for our 
adversaries.
    Senator Moran. General Berrier, anything to add to that 
from a----
    General Berrier. No, I concur with the Director of CIA.
    Senator Moran. Thank you. And General Berrier, what level 
of urgency would you attach to the issues of shrinking U.S. 
leadership in key technology areas? It's one of the reasons I 
voted for the CHIPS Act. What would you identify as the 
challenges we face, and what can we accomplish in protecting 
our country if we will invest in greater levels of technical 
abilities?
    General Berrier. The ability to secure this technology 
keeps our adversaries from actually obtaining the kinds of kit 
that they need to develop their most advanced weapon system. 
So, our ability to protect those chip sets, the ability to 
produce them in the United States of America is very, very 
important to keep those out of the hands of our adversaries.
    Senator Moran. I have additional questions on this line, 
but I think in the public setting this is something I want 
Americans to know. I think it's our natural instinct to believe 
we are the best at everything, and we can be. And in many 
instances, we are. But it's a different world than the one I 
grew up in, in which we absolutely were.
    Tell me again--maybe anyone can answer this question--but 
the differences in advancements that China is making in advance 
manufacturing and automation. And maybe to you, General, the 
military consequences if we fail to advance our emerging 
technology capabilities?
    General Berrier. Senator, I would say that the Chinese are 
advancing very, very rapidly in every warfighting domain that 
exists, whether that's space, cyber, air and air defense, 
ground combat, command and control, cyber. They are making 
very, very rapid advances, and the Defense Intelligence Agency 
is taking note of that and watching it very carefully.
    Senator Moran. We talked a bit about our neighbor to the 
south, a little bit further south in Latin America. Many 
countries in Latin America have elected leftist governments. 
What are the extents of the inroads that our adversaries have 
made in those countries which have been traditionally friendly 
to the United States? What's the difference in today's world in 
Latin America?
    Director Burns. I think there's a broad trend that some of 
our adversaries take advantage of. We see this when we were 
talking about technology, whether it's completing deals 
involving Huawei or ZTE or 5G, which, as we've all been 
discussing, enable access to data. This is something we remind 
countries with whom we deal in Latin America all the time of 
the risk of doing that, especially with regard to the People's 
Republic of China.
    There are economic relationships that can add to corruption 
in those countries that can make them kind of one-dimensional 
economies more and more dependent on the export of commodities 
to China, incur debts which will complicate their own economic 
growth, sustainably over time as well. And certainly, 
adversarial intelligence services try to erode our influence in 
a lot of those countries as well.
    So, it's a real challenge as well in some places like 
Colombia, where we've had long standing relationships in 
fighting narcotics and in supporting the progress of those 
countries economically and politically. I think we're still 
able to sustain a lot of the cooperation we've built up over 
the last 20 years or so. So, we just have to work hard at it, 
relationship by relationship.
    Senator Moran. Director Burns, I was hoping you would 
answer that in 19 seconds shorter so I could ask Director 
Haines a question. But you failed. And so, I failed. Thank you.
    Chairman Warner. Well, I would say, Senator Moran, new 
Member of the Committee, I think you focusing on this 
technology competition is spot on, and I appreciate it.
    Senator Gillibrand.
    Senator Gillibrand. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Director Haines, in last year's Intelligence Authorization 
Act, Senators Rubio, Warner, Heinrich, Burr, Blunt, and I 
created the AARO, the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, to 
break down the stovepipes between the Intelligence Community 
and the military regarding unidentified aerial, marine, and 
other phenomenon which could pose a risk to the safety of our 
service members, as well as collection risks against sensitive 
facilities and overseas military bases. As recent events have 
shown, we need more and better sharing between the Intelligence 
Community and our military. And the stigmatization of the 
servicemembers and personnel who come forward with this data is 
unacceptable.
    Do I have a commitment from you and each of our witnesses 
that you will work to reduce stigma, share intelligence between 
agencies, and as you're able with the public, to ensure that we 
understand what's happening in our skies and seas?
    Director Haines. Yes, Senator. Absolutely.
    And I agree with you that this is an issue, and it's 
something that we've been trying to work through, both by 
sending the message from leadership that this is important, but 
also creating mechanisms that allow for people to do this more 
easily and with less stigma associated with it.
    Senator Gillibrand. And is the AARO Office fully funded in 
your budget?
    Director Haines. Yes, I believe it is.
    Senator Gillibrand. Can you make sure? Because it was left 
off last year from both the DoD and Intel's budgets.
    Director Haines. Right. So, it's in DoD, but I think our 
support is funded in the National Intelligence Program, and I 
will check to make sure on the details.
    Senator Gillibrand. Everybody else can answer the question.
    General Berrier. I believe it is funded.
    Senator Gillibrand. Thank you.
    Director Burns. Yes. I support, Senator.
    Senator Gillibrand. Thank you.
    Director Wray. Yes.
    Senator Gillibrand. A somewhat related question is the 
issue of IC's Agency's assessment with varying levels of 
confidence that most reported incidents can be explained by 
medical conditions, environmental, or technical factors. And 
that it's unlikely that a foreign actor, including Russia, is 
conducting a sustained worldwide campaign involving hundreds of 
incidents without detection with regard to the anomalous health 
incidents.
    And that report was received in a very negative way by 
personnel who have been affected, by their families, because it 
essentially says there's no external cause, which I think is 
really problematic. I'm very grateful that the Intelligence 
Community has been determined to make sure that health care is 
being met in the healthcare needs, and that each of these 
service members and personnel are treated appropriately and 
humanely from that perspective. But I find it unacceptable that 
we are not continuing diligent analysis of possible causes. I 
do appreciate that the Department of Defense continues to do 
research in that regard, and I'd like General Berrier to give 
us an update on how you're looking at this issue and how you 
are continuing to assess possible causes, as well as possible 
delivery mechanisms?
    And I'd like to include delivery mechanisms from above, so 
whether it can be delivered by a drone or a spy balloon, 
through a collection device or collection technology, I'd like 
an update, please. Thank you.
    General Berrier. Senator Gillibrand, DIA participated in 
the Intelligence Community assessment. We had a multidiscipline 
team of very senior analysts, counterintelligence 
professionals, and technical people look at the issue. I do 
concur with the assessment, but I also think our work is not 
done there. DIA continues to focus on, number one, the care of 
our officers who have been affected. We are doing some work on 
the analytical side, and we're doing work on the S&T side to 
determine causation, and we'll continue that work. And I've 
made that commitment to my workforce.
    Senator Gillibrand. And then I'd like a supplemental answer 
in closed session as well.
    General Berrier. Yes, Ma'am.
    Senator Gillibrand. Thank you.
    Director Haines, I've been working on legislation which 
would create a One Health Security Council to create a whole-
of-government approach to address a broad range of biological 
threats to human, animal, and agricultural health as part of 
the Intelligence Community study of the impacts of climate 
change on food security and social instability. How well 
positioned are you to support the U.S. in strategic competition 
for the kind of biotechnology innovations which will ensure our 
resiliency in the face of a rapid-changing climate?
    Director Haines. This has been an incredibly intense area 
of focus for us, and you've seen us put forward in budgets, 
essentially for bio-convergence. We've proposed quite a bit of 
money on this. We now have the National Center for Biosecurity 
as opposed to what used to be the National Counter 
Proliferation Center. It is an area where you'll see even our 
recent head is somebody, of that center, is somebody with a 
history in this area.
    And we are increasingly working on essentially different 
mechanisms by which we can both promote greater exchange and 
access to expertise outside of the Intelligence Community, and 
biotechnology and work, but also to understand better the 
innovations that are occurring there and try to make sure that 
we can take advantage of those, so that we understand them for 
collection purposes.
    Senator Gillibrand. And just for the record, post-9/11, we 
had the 9/11 Commission to assess what went wrong with regard 
to 9/11. What we could have done to prevent it. The fact that 
the Intelligence Community still disagrees on the origins of 
COVID is concerning. And I understand there's a massive lack of 
transparency from the Chinese government.
    However, I have legislation that will require a much more 
fulsome, deep-dive review, sort of like a 9/11 Commission 
report, to then inform our legislation about having a one 
health approach, which is very similar as our post-9/11 
approach, to have no siloing, to have everyone at the table, to 
do constant assessment, both agriculture and CIA and DoD and 
FBI and Homeland Security.
    So, I'd like your assessment of both of those pieces of 
legislation with an eye towards solving the problem long term.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
    Chairman Warner. Senator Lankford.
    Senator Lankford. Mr. Chairman, thank you. Thank you, all 
of you and your service. Please pass on our gratitude to the 
great folks that work with you as well. They work very hard, 
and most Americans don't get to see them and thank them 
personally in a restaurant, in other places. So, please pass on 
our thanks.
    Director Haines, I do want to be able to talk a little bit 
about Iran. Many of us on this Committee have traveled, some of 
us very recently, to the Middle East. Our allies in the Middle 
East and others in the Middle East are not excited about the 
JCPOA, they're not supportive of it. This report that's come 
out seems to be somewhat nostalgic of--if only the JCPOA would 
have been accepted, none of this would have happened. It is a 
bit of a challenge when we're watching Iran dramatically 
increase its enrichment. Now, the IAEA is saying they're at 
almost 84 percent. And a public statement there, how close is 
Iran right now? And what are their nuclear ambitions? Are they 
peaceful, or are they weapon systems, or what are they actually 
trying to be able to develop towards?
    Director Haines. Thank you, Senator. We should obviously 
take this up further in closed session. I think we continue to 
have concerns. You've seen the report and the indication that 
they are moving closer without a decision at this stage to 
pursue is our assessment; but nevertheless, getting very 
concerningly close.
    Senator Lankford. Is Iran trying to be able to develop 
surrogate networks, even into the United States, where they're 
choosing Hezbollah to advance across different regions, but 
also trying to develop surrogate networks in the United States 
right now?
    Director Haines. Yes, Senator.
    Senator Lankford. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard have 
noted that they are trying to assassinate, for lack of a better 
term, some American former officials, and have put out a list 
on that. My question for you and for Director Wray is how are 
we handling that? And are we providing the adequate level of 
both information and security to those former American 
officials that have been specifically named by the RGC as on 
their target list for assassination?
    Director Wray. Well, I'll start. There's obviously more we 
could talk about in closed session, but this is a threat stream 
that I talk about with my folks, my team several times a week, 
which gives you a measure of what our priority is. And we are 
certainly engaged in the ways that you would expect with the 
individuals who are potentially targeted in terms of duties to 
warn and that sort of thing. Security varies for different 
individuals depending on the situation. And we're not the ones 
that provide the security, but we give them information that 
helps shape their approach to security.
    Senator Lankford. Great, thank you.
    Let me follow up on this, Director Wray. There's a piece 
that came out recently out of the Richmond Office that you have 
then come back and said, oops, that should have never gone out. 
But it was a piece that's in an unclassified document that came 
out of the memo. And the memo specifically states in the 
opening paragraph, violent extremists and radical 
traditionalist Catholic ideology almost certainly presents 
opportunities for threat mitigation through the exploration of 
new avenues for tripwire and source development.
    Wow. This goes specifically into these radical traditional 
Catholics and explains what a traditional Catholic looks like 
on it. Help me understand what's happened since then, when this 
came out.
    Director Wray. Well, first let me say that when I first 
learned of the piece, I was aghast.
    Senator Lankford. As you should be.
    Director Wray. And we took steps immediately to withdraw it 
and remove it from FBI systems. It does not reflect FBI 
standards. We do not conduct investigations based on religious 
affiliation or practices. Full stop.
    We have also now ordered our Inspection Division to take a 
look at how this happened and try to figure out how we can make 
sure something like this doesn't happen again. I will note it 
was a product by one field office, which is--of course, we have 
scores and scores of these products. And when we found out 
about it, we took action. We are also taking steps to reinforce 
with our workforce all of the long-standing policies we have 
that speak to this kind of thing. We've got refresher training 
for the relevant employees, et cetera. And we do not and will 
not target people for religious beliefs. And we do not and will 
not monitor people's religious practices. That's not 
acceptable.
    Senator Lankford. That is completely not acceptable. For 
the first time a couple of years ago, I had parents that came 
up to me in-state and said, I went to a parent meeting at my 
school. Am I going to be monitored now? And after this came 
out, I have people that catch me and say, okay, I'm Catholic. 
Am I about to be monitored now? This sends all the wrong 
messages on it.
    I do have to tell you, we've talked about this before. When 
I saw the memo and looked through it, I was not surprised to be 
able to see the source document that they came back through was 
the Southern Poverty Law Center, which we've talked about 
before, is not the FBI. But for whatever reason, the FBI 
continues to be able to be able to count on them for who's on a 
listing of a hate group. They have a long history of having 
anti-Christian bias, and there's multiple different entities 
that they actually tried to go after on that as a hate group. 
But for whatever reason, the FBI continues to be able to count 
them as a source to be able to identify this. This is a very 
real problem. And the FBI needs to identify on its own--we have 
great resources--what are the threats? And not outsource that 
to a group that is known to be not center-left, but far-left 
group, and has its own set of biases as well.
    Chairman Warner. Senator Casey.
    Senator Casey. Mr. Chairman, thanks very much. I want to 
thank the panel for your testimony today, your appearance, and 
also, of course, your public service.
    I'll direct my question or two to Director Haines, but I 
know this is an issue that has already been spoken to in the 
hearing. The Chairman, the Vice Chairman, and Director Haines 
have alluded to the important role that private industry has to 
play as we consider both economic security and national 
security, and the inextricable link between the two.
    I'm talking, in particular, not only exclusively, but in 
particular about the People's Republic of China--maybe more 
specifically the Chinese Communist Party--and investment in 
China that could undermine our security. I am grateful, as 
always, that Senator Cornyn and others have worked on this 
issue with me, and I appreciate his question about the need for 
an outbound investment review that we're trying to get passed 
into law. But Director Haines, I wanted to ask you about, in 
particular, venture capital and private equity firms, as they 
continue to seek out business opportunities in China with often 
very little regard for national security risk or other risk.
    Can you explain both the national security risks, as well 
as the economic security risks that are relevant when it comes 
to the business deals between those kinds of firms and the 
People's Republic of China?
    Director Haines. Absolutely, Senator. I'll do my best. And 
others may have something to add on this, too.
    China, obviously, is focused, as we've been talking about, 
on critical foundational technologies that it believes will 
create a sort of disproportionate impact on their capacity for 
technological advantage. Right? And we've talked about a number 
of these technologies--artificial intelligence, quantum 
computing, high performance computing, all of these different 
areas, semiconductors, et cetera. That is something that we're 
in competition with China on. If a company in the United States 
or in an allied country has an office in Beijing or opens a 
plant or does other things, China has laws that allow them to 
get access to information and other things that they have 
there. And that provides them with an opportunity to basically 
force those companies to provide information that can be 
helpful to their intellectual property extension, and to 
ultimately advance their own competitiveness in this area. And 
they, through espionage and other means, have also gotten 
information from our companies, even outside of China and from 
Western companies. And that in and of itself is an issue.
    In addition, we see that they are trying to create control 
over global supply chains. And what we've been discussing in 
this hearing, in the context of a variety of technology areas 
such as rare earth elements or other places where we know that 
or semiconductors and the CHIPS Act is a kind of a response to 
this, right? Where if they are capable of controlling certain 
parts of the supply chain, they can basically have leverage 
over that in a way that gives them unacceptable advantage in 
making it harder for us to get those supplies that we need at 
the moment that we need it for national security purposes or 
other purposes.
    And I think that an example of this is if you just look at 
Russia and what's happening right now and the export controls 
that we've been able to use with respect to Russia and 
semiconductors, you can see how important it is to their 
capacity to prosecute their conflict. Right? And we don't want 
in the United States to be subject to that kind of a concern 
where in effect China would be able to prevent us from getting 
material that's necessary to our national defense or to our 
capacity.
    So, these are among the challenges that we see for 
essentially supporting business in China on these sorts of key 
foundational areas where they can get information that's of 
need. So, it's not in everything, and it's not suggesting that 
there can't be any economic relationship, obviously. But I 
think we just have to be especially conscious of this, and 
we're trying to educate both our policymakers and the public on 
these issues.
    Senator Casey. I know I'm almost out of time. Just want to 
follow up on that for you or anyone else that wants to make a 
quick comment.
    Are there sectors about which you're most concerned, purely 
from--setting aside economic security--purely from a national 
security point of view? Are there sectors about which you're 
most concerned?
    Director Haines. Yes, absolutely. Semiconductors, 
artificial intelligence, advanced computing, quantum computing, 
biotechnology, bio-manufacturing. These are some of the most 
important areas that we have concerns about.
    Chairman Warner. Thank you, Senator Casey, for, again, 
raising those issues. And we've seen this play out with venture 
firms and others, sometimes even using false fronts, which is 
gravely concerning.
    Senator Rounds.
    Senator Rounds. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Once again, let me offer my thanks and appreciation to you 
and to all the members of your different services for how they 
contribute to our security.
    In Director Haines's original comments, her early comments, 
she clearly discussed, or at least suggested strongly, the need 
for the reauthorization of the FISA Section 702. And I think 
sometimes we talk in terms of codes and so forth. We don't 
provide the opportunity for the American public to actually 
understand what this is. And I'm going to ask General Nakasone, 
because I've heard him in the past very eloquently share what 
Section 702 does. And in this open setting, I'd really like 
Director Nakasone to be able to share a little bit about what 
702 really is, and the reason why it is so important that we 
reauthorize 702.
    General Nakasone. Senator, 702 allows the U.S. Intelligence 
Community to collect communications of foreigners operating 
outside of the United States that utilize U.S. infrastructure 
and services. Now why is that important? It's important because 
if you think about what we've been able to do as authorities 
since 2008--first of all, provide and shine a light on what our 
adversaries are doing. What's Iran doing? What's China doing? 
What's Russia doing? What's North Korea doing? In all parts of 
the world.
    Secondly, disrupting----
    Senator Rounds. But if I could, that's because they're 
using platforms that have a nexus to our communications systems 
within the United States?
    General Nakasone. That's correct.
    Senator Rounds. But they're doing it from outside of the 
United States, and it is not necessarily connected with someone 
from within the United States. They're simply using the 
platform because it's easy.
    General Nakasone. Right, and again, I think those are the 
two really important points: non-U.S. person, that's foreigner, 
and it's outside the United States.
    The second piece is, is that we have built up and I think 
have done a very effective job of ensuring not only national 
security, but the security and rights and civil liberties of 
our citizens. Those things are not an either/or, it's an and-
statement. And we've been able to do that with internal 
compliance and external compliance.
    Senator Rounds. And I want to go into that a little bit. 
Could you explain the reverse targeting prohibition, and 
specifically what it prevents the government from doing?
    General Nakasone. So, if one of our analysts in the U.S. 
Intelligence Community says, hey, I want to be able to get to 
someone in the United States? Well, I'll go ahead and just 
target this person outside the United States as a way around 
it. We do not allow that. In fact, we check that very, very 
carefully. It's audited. It's a double checked and triple 
checked. That's interesting. When we make a mistake, we 
investigate, we mitigate, and then we report on it. That's the 
type of attention we pay to this authority.
    Senator Rounds. Okay. And then there's also concern about 
what is known as incidental collection. Could you explain what 
is meant by incidental collection and why it's important to our 
national security?
    General Nakasone. Senator, a lot of times when foreigners 
are operating outside the United States, and they are 
conducting their communications, they may reference someone in 
the United States. If they do in their communications, we have 
very, very specific ways that we minimize and be able to hide 
that type of data. So that is, again, the importance of us 
being able to, again, the national security piece and the 
protection of civil liberties and privacy.
    Senator Rounds. Thank you.
    Director Wray, would you have anything to comment with 
regard to the need for 702?
    Director Wray. So, it is absolutely essential to our 
ability to protect Americans, to protect victims here from 
foreign threats, and that's the FBI's lens into it. And I would 
say to pick up on a point that General Nakasone made, that we 
take very seriously our role as stewards of these important 
authorities. I know concerns have been raised about compliance. 
Understandably so. And we have made extensive changes over the 
past few years to address the root causes and to fix compliance 
issues.
    We've set up a whole new office of internal audit that's 
focused specifically on FISA compliance. We've made massive 
changes to our database systems to prevent inadvertent 702 
queries. We've enhanced training. We've implemented new 
oversight and preapprovals and all of the reports that this 
Committee and the public have seen about some of those issues 
all predate those important reforms.
    And I look forward to being able to share the impact of 
those reforms, as well as our focus on trying to make sure 
people are using the authority in a surgical and judicious way, 
which is why I'm very pleased to be able to share with the 
Committee today publicly for the first time that we saw in 2022 
a 93 percent year-over-year drop in U.S.-person queries. Ninety 
three percent drop, and that's not an aberration. That's about 
an 85 percent drop if you compare it to 2020.
    So, this is major impact. This is something we're going to 
treat as an ongoing effort. But it is part of our focus as 
stewards of these important authorities to make sure that we 
are protecting American civil liberties, but also using the 
tool in a way that is so valuable to protect Americans, in 
particular, increasingly these days to protect American victims 
from malicious cyber actors. I've talked before about how the 
Chinese have the largest hacking program in the world, by far 
bigger than every major nation combined, and they've stolen 
more of our personal and corporate data than every nation, big 
or small, combined. You look at the Russians. We've talked 
before about their treating of cyber as an asymmetric weapon. 
And they've invested significant resources in that. You look at 
the Iranians and their efforts to conduct destructive attacks 
even in the United States. And all of these powers are trying 
to build, preposition capabilities in the event of a much more 
serious conflict.
    702 is what enables the FBI to get to victims, to warn 
them, to take steps to mitigate those cyber threats. And 
there's a lot more that we could talk about in closed session. 
But it's an incredibly, incredibly valuable tool to protect 
Americans, especially as you look out over the next five years 
in terms of the threats we're going to face with great powers, 
with cyber, and unfortunately--picking up on some of the 
questions that were asked earlier--from foreign terrorist 
organizations again.
    Senator Rounds. Thank you. My time has expired.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Warner. Thank you, Senator Rounds. Thank you for 
raising the issue. And I do think for a lot of our colleagues, 
we're going to need to have this kind of explanation. We're 
going to need the community to lean in on declassifying 
specific examples, particularly vis-`-vis China and Russia. And 
also, a lot has changed since the Congress debated this issue 
back in, I believe, 2017-2018 in terms of reforms.
    Senator Ossoff, you've been very patient. Senator Ossoff.
    Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank 
you for your focus on technology, as well. And in that vein, 
General Nakasone----
    Chairman Warner. Can we check whether we are being listened 
into at this point or maybe you want to switch microphones.
    Senator Ossoff. Mr. Chairman, we should probably get that 
looked at. Maybe General Nakasone can.
    But speaking of technology and General Nakasone. General, I 
have an offer I think you can't refuse. You have, of course, 
tremendous assets and personnel in Georgia. NSA Georgia. The 
Cyber Center for Excellence at Fort Gordon, just around the 
corner from Augusta University's Cyber Center as well, an 
academic resource there. And I would like to invite you to join 
me, and perhaps we can get some barbecue and pecan pie as well, 
to visit with your personnel at NSA Georgia and/or at the 
Georgia Tech Research Institute--which is based in Atlanta with 
facilities across the country--is conducting much of the 
advanced research consistent with the Chairman's commitment to 
technology as a key frontier in our national security. So, will 
you join me in Georgia, General?
    General Nakasone. I will, Senator.
    Senator Ossoff. Looking forward to that and appreciate the 
commitment.
    Speaking of Georgia, Director Haines, the assessment warns, 
quote, Russia is particularly focused on improving its ability 
to target critical infrastructure, including underwater cables, 
and that, quote, the PLA Navy and Air Force already are the 
largest in the region, meaning the Indo-Pacific region, and 
continue to field advanced platforms that improve China's 
ability to try to establish air superiority and project power 
beyond the first island chain. The assessment doesn't make 
explicit mention of the submarine domain. But during the Navy's 
posture hearing last year before the SACS, the CNO testified 
that submarines are the highest demand capability in both 
INDOPACOM and EUCOM. We have the Kings Bay, submarine base in 
Georgia.
    I want to ask you first do you share our military's 
assessment that the undersea domain is critical and one in 
which we presently enjoy unique advantages?
    Director Haines. Yes, absolutely.
    Senator Ossoff. And so, what I want to ask you to work with 
my office on is, if and as the Navy considers activities at 
Kings Bay, and some of the emerging capabilities and 
technologies in the undersea domain and their potential 
presence or augmentation at Kings Bay, that you'll work with me 
to determine how the Intelligence Community can provide 
intelligence support to those efforts. Will you work with my 
office on that Director?
    Director Haines. Yes, absolutely, Senator.
    Senator Ossoff. Thank you.
    Remaining focused on Georgia, we have the third busiest 
deep-water port in the country, and Director Wray as a 
Georgian, you know this. Ports are critical infrastructure. 
Yes?
    Director Wray. Absolutely.
    Senator Ossoff. And there are threats to our ports and 
threats that move through our ports. We've seen foreign 
intelligence services try to infiltrate, according to public 
reporting in the Wall Street Journal, for example: 
intelligence-gathering equipment through U.S. ports. There's a 
risk of drug trafficking through U.S. ports, human trafficking 
through U.S. ports.
    Director Wray, I'd like to ask you to redouble the 
commitment you've made to me in the past to ensure that the FBI 
is fully focused on protecting the Port of Savannah and other 
seaports across the country.
    Director Wray. We're very focused on port security. I 
haven't forgotten our previous conversations on the subject, 
both in Savannah but also in places like Norfolk and other 
significant ports around the United States. And certainly, a 
lot of the comments that occurred earlier about other 
technologies, and the Chinese government's ability to advance 
their agenda at our expense, apply in spades to ports and port 
technology and port services.
    Senator Ossoff. So, speaking of ports and critical 
infrastructure, I'd like to hear from you on this Director Wray 
and then also from Director Haines.
    Director Wray, what are the capabilities that you lack that 
require the DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis to 
undertake its own, with respect to the protection of for 
example, ports or other critical infrastructure?
    And Director Haines so you can contemplate it for a moment 
before I come to you, the question I'm going to ask you is why 
we require an independent intelligence office at the Department 
of Homeland Security and why the FBI can't do that work.
    Go ahead, Director.
    Director Wray. Well, I think we work well and closely with 
that office at DHS. I don't know that I could point to a 
specific thing that we lack, but certainly more players on the 
field is a useful exercise.
    Senator Ossoff. Well sometimes, unless there's duplication 
or overlap or inefficiency, right?
    Director Wray. There is, there is that. I will say that 
what we focus on the most, and it relates to the overall theme 
of technology here from a different way, is that we in the FBI, 
and to some extent throughout the Intelligence Community, have 
a Big Data problem, to use the cliche, of our own, right? Which 
is that in every investigation, every intelligence analysis, 
the amount of data that is available or that is being reviewed 
has exploded over the last few years.
    If you just look at a typical FBI case. In one active 
shooter situation, for example, to pick something simple, we've 
had ones where we've had more data, pour in than the entire 
library of Congress in just one investigation.
    So, the ability to have tools and people who can get 
through that data as quickly as possible, to figure out the 
important leads, to marshal that data--whether that's AI, 
whether that's data analysts--all those sorts of things become 
incredibly important to this community's ability to marshal the 
data and to inform the people that need to be informed.
    Senator Ossoff. And with the Chairman's permission, could 
Director Haines answer my questions as well, Mr. Chairman?
    Thank you.
    Director Haines. Thank you, Senator.
    There are a number of missions that DHS and FBI have in 
relation to domestic intelligence work that's being done across 
the Nation, where they're really taking the lead. And, when you 
look at, for example, cybersecurity issues related to critical 
infrastructure in the United States, CISA within DHS obviously, 
has an incredibly important role to play, as does the FBI, in 
working with the private sector and with others on these 
contacts. And the advantage, I think, of having intel elements, 
for example in both the FBI and the DHS, is that they're able 
to work most closely with their agency and under those 
authorities to help to support effectively the mission that 
those agencies are taking. Does that make sense?
    Senator Ossoff. Well, thank you, Director. We'll follow up. 
Thank you.
    Director Haines. Thank you.
    Chairman Warner. We're through the first round. I've 
checked with Senator Collins, Senator King. They're prepared to 
move to the classified section. Senator Rubio and I are. I 
think Senator Cotton's in a corner and have one question each, 
and there's about 80 votes in on the second vote. I've not 
voted yet. So, we'll try to get through these next questions. 
We will then ask our witnesses to be able to exit the room 
first before the audience exits, and we will we reconvene in 
our SCIF.
    Senator Cotton.
    Senator Cotton. Thank you. I want to return to the issue I 
addressed at first, which is politicization of analysis and 
resources. And that can happen by altering conclusions to fit a 
party line, but it can also happen, as I stressed, in 
priorities and focus and resources.
    So, Director Haines, I want to return again to page 33 of 
the threat assessment, where you write, transnational racially- 
and ethnically-motivated violent extremists continue to pose 
the most lethal threat to U.S. persons and interests. I just 
found that astonishing. I compared it to fentanyl. And you said 
your talk you mean that in the context of terrorism, correct? 
Do you agree with me that fentanyl is a more lethal threat to 
Americans than racially- and ethnically-motivated violent 
extremists?
    Director Haines. Yes, absolutely.
    Senator Cotton. But in the context of terrorism, your 
conclusion is that racially- and ethnically-motivated violent 
extremists are a more lethal threat to Americans than ISIS or 
Al-Qaeda or Hezbollah?
    Director Haines. Thank you. Yes, what we say in the piece, 
and it's under the category, essentially, of global terrorism, 
right. So, it goes through the different areas of global 
terrorism, including transnationally-, racially-, and 
ethnically-motivated violent extremism. The fact that it is the 
most lethal threat with respect to U.S. persons is something 
that we actually stated, I think, over two years ago in another 
report as well that similarly laid out these different issues. 
And it simply is a question of how many people, how many U.S. 
persons are killed or wounded as a consequence of attacks.
    Senator Cotton. Director Burns, do you agree that racially- 
and ethnically-motivated violent extremists are a more lethal 
threat to Americans than ISIS or Al-Qaeda?
    Director Burns. Well, I agree, Senator, with what Director 
Haines just said, that if you measure this in terms of American 
lives lost or people who were wounded, I think those statistics 
bear that out. I mean, we obviously take extremely seriously 
the threat posed by groups like Al-Qaeda, ISIS, and Hezbollah 
as well. That's our job as a foreign intelligence service as 
well.
    Senator Cotton. I find this astonishing.
    Chairman Warner. Senator Cornyn.
    Senator Cornyn. Just as COVID exposed the vulnerability of 
our supply chains, I think the war in Ukraine has demonstrated 
the weakness of our industrial base when it comes to 
replenishing the weapons that we are supplying to the 
Ukrainians, which I'm all in favor of. And they're using them 
to good effect.
    But General Berrier, in World War II, we became the arsenal 
of democracy and saved Britain and Europe. But if we got 
involved in a shooting war in Asia, we would not be ready. And 
I just want to ask you in terms of an intelligence assessment, 
how much should we be concerned about our inability to 
replenish the weapons that we're supplying to Ukraine and the 
degradation of our defense industrial base?
    General Berrier. Senator, I do appreciate that question. 
But that's really a question, I think, for our policymakers and 
decisionmakers inside the Pentagon and Department of Defense. 
Certainly, our readiness is crucial if we're tested by the 
People's Republic of China, and I'll leave it there.
    Chairman Warner. Well, we're coming to the close of this 
open hearing. I want to make two final comments.
    One, I know Senator Cotton raised this on his first round 
of questions, and I raised it in my opening comment. Part of 
our job is the intelligence oversight of all of your agencies 
and the other roughly 13 additional agencies. We want, 
following on Senator Rounds's questions, to help make the 
case--many of us at least do--about 702. And we're going to 
push you to declassify more information so that we can, again, 
convince the American public and for that matter, convince the 
85 or 86 or 84, colleagues, 83 colleagues, because we're up to 
17 now, who are not on this committee. It's one of the reasons 
why it just does not pass the smell test. The Administration 
and the Director's current view about giving this Committee 
access to the classified documents that we have every right to 
see--in terms of our oversight role involved in terms of the 
documents that were found at former President Trump, President 
Biden, and Vice President Pence's. This trust relationship has 
to go two ways. And the absurdity of the position that somehow 
a special prosecutor prosecution, about mishandling of 
documents is more important than making sure that critical top-
secret documents that if we have chance to review those and 
mitigation efforts have been taken. That is not the kind of 
collaboration cooperation that we expect. And it will tie and 
restrain our ability to kind of make the kind of trusting 
relationship with the non-Members of this Committee on issues 
like 702.
    So, I want to be loud and clear on that. And I can assure 
you, there's not a Member on this Committee--doesn't matter 
which side of the dais they sit on, that doesn't believe that.
    Last point I want to make then turn it over Senator Rubio 
is that we get to see you guys. And we get to see many of you 
who are sitting behind you at these sessions and these 
hearings. We all want to make sure, though, that the literally 
thousands of men and women, the vast majority of which who have 
to work in secret, in many cases can't even tell their loved 
ones what they're doing, that we have your back, we appreciate 
what you do. We are a safer Nation and a stronger Nation 
because of the work of the men and women of the IC. And we look 
forward to continuing to support you in any way we can.
    But we really do want to make sure that message is relayed 
to those not only back in headquarters, but in many cases, the 
men and women who are deployed all around the world.
    Senator Rubio.
    Vice Chairman Rubio. So just to echo the point the Chairman 
just made, okay, on this issue of the documents. Let me just 
take a hypothetical. Well, let me let me start with this. Every 
agency of our government, right they come here before Congress 
have oversight committees, they have public hearings, questions 
are asked, they have to answer them in public, people have to 
testify. The unique aspect of what your agencies do is, by 
necessity, it has to be in secret. Most of what you do has to 
be kept secret, that's the work of intelligence. So how do you 
conduct oversight over something like that? For a long time, 
there really wasn't any congressional oversight until the mid-
1970s, when committees uncovered all kinds of situations 
involving the intelligence community. Actually, it almost 
destroyed the CIA. And the result is the creation of this 
committee and our counterpart in the House.
    And so basically, it comes down to a handful of Members in 
the House and Senate who are entrusted with conducting 
oversight to ensure that not only are the intelligence agencies 
focused on the right things, but are doing it in a way that 
protects both civil liberties and our national security. 
Difficult balance.
    So that's our role. And it's one we have to play very 
carefully and one that that's really important for the country, 
because we need what you do. But we also understand that, left 
unsupervised, any agency at any time, especially one with these 
extraordinary powers, can do things that are really troubling 
and end up actually threatening these agencies' ability to 
continue to work.
    Now, getting to these classified documents. Just as a 
hypothetical, if tomorrow I take a folder full of classified 
information, or anybody does, outside the building 
inappropriately, Okay? For whatever reason, there's going to be 
an investigation, and there are going to be two things that are 
going to happen. And there are two individual tracks. Track 
number one is, I violated the law. I potentially committed--a 
crime has been committed--because information that's classified 
was removed from its proper setting. And the result is that 
there's going to be an investigation. And it could involve the 
criminal justice system. In most cases, obviously, when it 
comes to former Presidents, may require special counsel. But 
generally, it's the U.S. Attorney that's going to look at that 
and figure that part of it out. Okay. That's not our oversight. 
And that's not our job to interfere in that.
    Separate from that is the job the intelligence agencies 
have of assessing, okay, this is the information that was 
stored and inappropriately. Here's the risks to the country, if 
that information was seen by someone who shouldn't have seen 
it. And here's what we are doing to mitigate against that risk. 
How can we possibly conduct oversight over (a), whether you've 
assigned the proper risk assessment, and (b), over whether the 
mitigation is appropriate? How can we possibly do that if we 
don't know what we're talking about? And that's really the 
situation that we're at right now. And that is that, even 
though undoubtedly, the information that was found in all three 
sites and so forth, are things that we would have had access 
to. Unless we can identify them, we can't begin to (A) opine 
over whether or not the risk assessment is accurate, and (B), 
whether the mitigation that's been assigned is appropriate. We 
can't do our job. And a special counsel cannot have veto 
authority over Congress's ability to do its job. It just can't 
happen. It won't happen.
    And so, it will change the nature of the relationship 
between this Committee, which I think has been very 
cooperative, and I know we don't have a lot of competition in 
terms of cooperation, but we're very cooperative. And I'm very 
proud of the work this Committee has done. And I don't want it 
to get to that, and it shouldn't get to that, but this is going 
to be addressed one way or the other.
    Chairman Warner. Amen. And with the recognition that I run 
a risk that other Members will come back with one last 
question, James, you're going to get the last bite. And then 
once you're done with that question, and I think I can speak 
for all the Members, we would all echo what all the Members on 
both sides of the dais would agree with what Senator Rubio and 
I've just said.
    Senator Lankford.
    Senator Lankford. Chairman, I appreciate that. I know we're 
headed to closed session. Just a couple of statements I wanted 
to make in open session format.
    One is I wanted to reiterate the whole issue of TikTok 
that's come up several times and just be able to make the 
comment I think we'll all agree with. This is not about TikTok. 
This is about any app, any electronics that are coming from 
China. That information goes back through China. And so, I 
don't want us to just zero in and just say this is just a 
TikTok thing. And if we can deal with TikTok, then it's solved. 
That's not true. There are other apps, there are other things 
that are coming out of China that are electronic that are doing 
the exact same thing, just in different areas. It's just that 
TikTok is kind of the big dog in this.
    It reminds me somewhat of our conversation several years 
ago on Kaspersky, when Kaspersky used to be the free virus 
software that you could get at Best Buy. What a great deal that 
you can get this free virus software that runs through Russia 
to be able to check your computer for viruses. We've all 
learned the lesson of that. I don't think we've learned the 
lesson on China. So, I want to be able to reinforce that this 
is much bigger than just a TikTok issue, though they are the 
big dog.
    The second one is just the issue about what's happening on 
our southern border. There are some comments that are made in 
the public statement about this being a Western Hemisphere. 
Senator Cornyn and I were just at the border not long ago. When 
we were in Yuma, Arizona, we looked through the listing there 
at that that particular week, as we're dealing with, there were 
more people from Uzbekistan that were coming across the border 
there than there were actually from El Salvador. When we were 
there, we actually walked up as the Border Patrol was arresting 
two Chinese nationals coming across. And we're fully aware 
we're dealing with more than 100 Russian nationals that are 
crossing our border every single month illegally.
    So, my question/issue is here, this is a national security 
issue, as we've identified. Individuals crossing our southern 
border that the FBI has interdicted that were coming to 
assassinate former President Bush not long ago. That came back 
out. So, this is a bigger national security issue. And what I 
want to reiterate is, this is not just an issue of push/pull 
factors in the Western Hemisphere. The openness of our borders 
also facilitating individuals that I would assume the FBI is 
not able to be able to keep tabs on the Chinese nationals and 
Russian nationals and others that are coming into our country 
that are quote/unquote, seeking asylum, but we don't know where 
they are in the country.
    Is that true or false on that?
    Director Haines. Yes, I certainly did not mean to suggest 
that the border is solely, related to the comment made about 
the Western Hemisphere in my opening remarks. I absolutely 
agree that there's national security issues with vetting folks 
who go across the border. We obviously participate in vetting 
in the Intelligence Community and NCTC takes that role from my 
office and participates in trying to ensure that we can manage 
that.
    Senator Lankford. Director Wray, are you able to keep tabs 
on these individuals that are coming in, has that been assigned 
to you?
    Director Wray. We're not able to keep tabs on every single 
person who comes in, certainly. We have all sorts of 
investigations into certain people who get in. And we try to 
work very hard on both sides of the border to support DHS's 
efforts and to some extent, our neighbors south of the border, 
from preventing them from coming in.
    Senator Lankford. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, thank you.
    Chairman Warner. Thank you all again, please take back our 
thanks to all the members and I would again ask our audience, 
please to allow our witnesses to leave first. And we will 
reconvene immediately after those of us who have not voted on 
the last vote. Thank you.
    (Whereupon the hearing was adjourned at 12:34 p.m.)

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