captioning performed by vitac that's a private sector, tech sector mission. i see more and more of the tech sector getting involved in that. so we want to help them partner with muslim leaders. and talking to philanthropies as well. but i do think that the grant money for cve, which we begun this year, and we want to continue, has been and will be used very effectively. the cve effort, given how the global terrorist threat has evolved is in my view as important as any other homeland security effort. >> if i could just do a

follow-up, mr. chairman, even though my time is up. i think it's relevant to this issue. the funding that was awarded in 2016, my understanding is that it's not actually going to be out in communities and be dispersed until the end of the year at the earliest. can you talk about why the additional funding is needed even though that money still is in the pipeline and hasn't been used yet? >> well, i suspect the answer is that because this is new money, it takes an effort to start up the process for the grant awards, grant applications and so forth. that's why you are probably hearing that we won't be able to distribute it until the end of the fiscal year. but i want to keep that pipeline going. i think this should not be a one-year only deal. i think we need to keep at this, write write is where we're asking for more money in '17.

>> thank you. thank you, mr. chairman. >> senator cochran? >> thank you, mr. chairman. there are several areas, mr. secretary, where you have outlined previously some goals and ambitions for the department. to what extent do you think this budget authority that you will be given by the congress is sufficient? is the administration's request sufficient? do you have additions to make to those requests that have already been submitted? >> i think that we have done the best we can do within the budget caps that we have. to adequately fund our vital homeland security missions, which include aviation security, maritime security, cyber

security, the secret service and our other missions. there are some hard choices reflected in this budget, including decreases in current funding levels. i am pleased that the congress is supporting the continuation of our efforts to recapitalize the coast guard. i'm pleased that congress this year is supporting our aviation security efforts. i want to more sharply focus on aviation security and double down on aviation security in particular. that's reflected in our budget request. and cyber security, of course, is a big issue. so we're asking for increased levels of funding there. but overall, this request reflects the hard choices of living within the caps that we were given. >> what about traditional -- i guess would you call it old-line enforcement officials that are

hired under the authorities of the creation of the homeland security act? to what extent do we need to take a fresh look at the secret service, for example? are they being overworked? do they have -- are they stressed out? do you have enough money to keep them adequately funded so their jobs that are very dangerous and very important to the security interests of our country are satisfied? >> chairman, as you know, over the last several years, the secret service has had its challenges. and in december 2014, an independent panel of outsiders did take a look. they were asked about training, manpower, culture, management.

they delivered some good recommendations, all of which or almost all of which were following -- i've told the director of the secret service to implement. i would say the biggest challenge is the one that you mentioned, which is manpower. and the opportunity to train. and so congress has supported that effort with adequate levels of funding. and it's our job to make sure that hiring outpaces retirement and attrition. and that's something director clancy has been very focused on. we do need to be sure that the secret service is adequately funded. we are in a presidential election year right now where four candidates are supported by the secret service. and at the end of the year, we're going to have another

former president to take care of. so staffing manpower is very important. whenever i get together with director clancy, that's topic of conversation number one. and i'm pleased that in this request and in this fiscal year's budget, the secret service -- the congress has come through and supported the secret service in its efforts. it's our job to make sure that we invest and spend up to those levels. that's what i want to be sure director clancy is doing. >> thank you. we appreciate your service. all of those who work at the department. there's no more important activity in my view that we face at the federal level. budgeting, trying to appropriate the dollars where there is need the most to accomplish the very important responsibilities, activities of your service. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> senator murkowski.

>> thank you. welcome. as i mentioned, i would like to speak about where we are with the coast guard budget and more specifically to that point, ice breakers and the arctic. i think we recognize that as an arctic nation, we have certain responsibilities, obligations and ice breakers are up there. when you have 1 1/2 and one is in the antarctic almost full-time, it really is an imperative -- i'm very pleased that the administration has acknowledged that in this year's budget. we have been working with you on this for a while. and so making sure that we have that support for not only moving towards an ice breaker but acceleration of bringing that ice breaker online as the president has outlined is

critically important. you also know that have i been a staunch defender of the coast guard at all levels and in making sure that they have the assets that they need to do the job. so i want assurances from you, mr. secretary, that we do have adequate funding in this year's budget to ensure the president's deadline of awarding construction of this new ice breaker by 2020 while at the same time we're on track with keeping the national security cutter, the off-shore patrol cutters and the fast response cutters acquisition programs on time and on budget. because what i would hate to see is that we're sacrificing one at the expense of another. we need both. the recapitalization effort that you have spoken to is critically important for our country. if you can speak to that. >> the answer is yes. >> good. >> with respect to the current year and the request for the next year. i am very pleased that in our request there is $150 million for the design of the new ice breaker.

as you know, because of the increasing commercialization in the arctic and for national security reasons, we need a second heavy ice breaker beyond the polar star. we have the polar sea, which is not operational. we need a second heavy ice breaker in addition to the lighter ones we already have. alongside of that, we are still continuing with the recapitalization of the frcs, building more frcs. in this budget request, there's a request for four. we're moving forward with the off-shore patrol cutter. i expect that we will make a selection for the contractor sometime this year. for the opc, there is i believe $100 million to continue with that program. and as you know, this year we are tasked and given funding to build a ninth national security

cutter. so all three of those programs continue and are moving forward. i think that is a good thing. and we have the money for the ice breaker. some people are concerned that we might be moving too fast. but our goal -- >> they haven't talked to me. >> they haven't talked to you. that was what i was met with at this morning's house appropriations meeting. we believe that we can stay on track and we should stay on track with respect to the $150 million this year. so that we can begin production by 2020. >> well, i appreciate that response and know that you have got an ally in me in terms of how we can ensure people understand the imperative of building this out and doing it quickly. we recognize that it is expensive. but we also recognize that it's the coast guard's study but there be three polar ice breakers and three smaller ice breakers. so making sure we have a trajectory going forward on that is going to be an issue for us

as well. i want to switch now to national security cutter and the program you mentioned. the approval to build out the ninth nsc, which for us from an arctic perspective is absolutely key. we have seen national security cutters every season in the summer up in the arctic as we are seeing different traffic, different folks poking around up there that you probably wouldn't anticipate and knowing that we have the capabilities of these nscs up there is very critical. the question for you this afternoon is home porting of this ninth national security cutter. or even another nsc that's currently slated for elsewhere. i think we need to be looking to a home port that is closer to the arctic. right now the closest is california. it's a long haul from california to get up into the arctic, into the areas in the gulf and the

bering sea. recognizing what is happening in the arctic and coast guard's need for expanded presence, can you comment on the prospects for a national security cutter to be stationed in alaska? >> as you know, i'm sure, senator, we have a process for determining home ports. we're a ways off from the completion of the ninth cutter. it would be premature for me at this stage to comment on whether or not it should be ported in the arctic region. i certainly understand the concern. and i certainly understand that california is a long way away from the arctic region. >> but you, too, recognize that coast guard's role -- their commission truly has expanded

dramatically as we are seeing greater activity within the arctic region. it's like discovering a new ocean. and the coast guard is charged with responsibility over that new ocean. so how we make sure that we can stage these critical assets in places where they can be most effective, most impactful is important. so i understand there's a process. but i would also encourage you within the department to look critically at the benefits of home porting closer to where that activity is going to be. with that, mr. chairman, thank you for the extra time. >> thank you, senator. senator cassidy. >> secretary, a couple things. first, just purely -- i have folks i met with yesterday that

are trying to set up with the folks at fema. can my staff touch because with your staff to help arrange that meeting? they have been frustrated in doing so. just trying to be -- >> yes, sir. >> thank you. appreciate that. secondly, to the point, your budget zeros out the cyber security education program. every year our committee puts it back in. it seems like we have the about thor argument, because in your testimony and elsewhere you mention the need to have better cyber security, which therefore, of course, suggests that we need a better trained work force. and i happen to know that there is one that is making an attempt to diversify the children who are -- the kids -- a 20-year-old is a kid is -- are involved in

such programs. so just trying to get a sense of why you all don't have the same prioritization for cyber education as we. >> senator, i do agree that cyber education is important. that is reflected in the national action plan for cyber security that the president announced two weeks ago. i would certainly prefer that we have more money for cyber education. but again, we have to live within the budget caps that have been agreed to between the congress and the president. but i'm agreeing with you in principle. i have been to some great cyber education institutions, including in your state. i agree in principle what you're saying. this reflects the hard choices we have to live with, sir. >> you mentioned tsa and airport security. obviously i coindicationally fly

out of new orleans, big tourist city and there can be long lines. i'm imagining we are expecting longer lines so a receiver res of questions to extra degree can y'all expand the use of the prechecked or trusted traveler program, number one. number two, i signed up my daughter that flies with me and i put her in trusted traveler and she ends up not getting in that, for whatever reason it's not on her ticket. the airline when i complained is shurz me -- >> trusted traveler for tsa precheck. >> she's in trusted traveller. did i have a fundamental misunderstanding whether that would get her in the precheck line? >> i think it's better to sign up for tsa precheck per se. i think that -- i'm not real sure. i can get back to you on that. >> please, please. on a personal level i know it's a great program but not many people do because when i go

through new orleans, i'm in the line but 100 people who are not. is there a way we can expand that and i have one other question after that, just to kind of get your thoughts there. >> well, first of all, we are expanding it in the sense that last year 1.5 million new people signed up for tsa precheck compared to 579,000 the year before. the more people sign up for tsa precheck, the more they have the occasion to get on the line. to be quite honest with you, the ad administration of tsa and i are making a renewed effort at aviation security that meant longer wait times at airports for those in the longer lines due to the renewed push on security and because of the travel volume. there are more people traveling right now. and less managed inclusion. what that means is we're no

longer pulling people at airports out of the longer line and putting them in the shorter line that is the tsa precheck line. we're doing less of that because we want to put more people through the more focused aviation security efforts. the ig's report that was unfortunately leaked last summer was a bit of a wakeup call for tsa and i made sure. so the new administrator with my support is very focused on aviation security. >> then let me go to my last question, which is i'll be in line at dca or new orleans and mainly dca and they have somebody comes out with a little pad and randomly wipes the hand of somebody, there is 100 people waiting and randomly wipes the hand. there is no way that this is risk-based screening. it is entirely random. now i have to know once i put a

question to tsa, didn't get an answer. i'd like to know how many of the kind of random screenings actually results in someone with an intent to bring an explosive on board getting caught. i'm guessing it's about zero and another time i was at dca about to board the plane beyond the security check point. someone came up and pulled somebody aside, randomly, she looked more like a grandmother than she looked like anything else and kind of goes through her stuff and i'm thinking if we're having a hard time with number of employees and want to expand the work force, it seems better to focus it on a risk-based program as opposed to let's expand this random 200 people waiting, let's grab three of them and now four because we've expanded it. i'd like to know whether or not you've ever caught anybody with that, and secondly, why don't we become more risk-based as opposed to winning the lottery, if you will, but occasionally

getting the one person. >> well, very definitely, part of aviation security is random screening. randomization. that is inherent in aviation security but there are also aspects of aviation security that do focus on individuals based on behavioral observation and based on things about the nature of where they are going, where they have been, whether they fit a certain profile or not, but very definitely, part of it is random. >> i'd love to see a frequency distribution to the degree the random checks have actually nabbed somebody who would not otherwise have been nabbed. for me, it seems almost kind of, again, here is lady 80 years old, say 65 years old the last woman i saw there looking like a tourist, excuse me, ma'am, we got to wipe your hands and -- >> first of all, i'd be happy to

have the tsa leadership come by and talk to you more in detail about this. random screening searches two purposes. one, you may catch somebody doing something and also, it serves as a deterrent but i will be happy to send the tsa leadership to meet with you for a greater in-depth conversation about this. >> thank you. i yield back. >> the randomization really is a deterrent, isn't it, the reason you do it is as a deterrent. i suppose once in awhile you get somebody but primary i think it is a deterrent is is my understanding. one thing senator brought is use of k-9s, which i think is effective. what is the status in terms of using k-9s? >> we are using more k-9s, both with respect to passenger screening and with respect to cargo screening at and around

the airplanes before they take off. that is something that we have begun, that we stepped up in recent months. in some respects, there is no better technology as a k-9. >> strikes me as effective deterrent because the dogs can walk around, pass people in line, coming in line, that are, you know, even just moving around the airport. it seems to me -- people notice it. the dogs' capabilities are remarkable and i think it's a very effective detour rant and encourage further use. i'd like to ask you about filling your personal vacancies, you know, in a number of areas, customs and border protection, secret service, a number of these areas you not only have attrition issues but you're just

not able to hire enough people to fill, you know, the number of slots that you have requested and you feel you need. so what steps are you taking, how is that coming in terms of filling some of these areas? >> let me begin with cyber. as you know, there is a lot of competition for good cyber talent. i'm competing with other agencies and the private sector. i appreciate in cyber legislation passed in 2014 congress gave us greater ability to hire cyber talent and so i've charged nppd with ensuring that we do that and i keep after them to make sure that we're doing that. >> are they telling you they have a reasonable pay of benefits package they can attract the talent they need? do they feel that's an issue or feel they have a package that works? >> kind of all of the above. i mean, it is tough to hire good

cyber talent without a doubt but we have additional hiring authorities and we are hiring at a pretty rapid rate but there are vacancies that we can fill now that we have additional vacancies to fill. so it's an effort where we continually push our people to work at this. with regard to the border patrol and some of our other law enforcement components, we had a problem with getting people vetted fast enough, passing polygraphs and so part so there has been an issue with hiring up to our authorities when it comes to the border patrol force. i think we are now at 21,070 which is about where the leadership believes that it needs to be but that was with a lot of effort to get there. >> so --

>> secret service, i talked about earlier. >> yeah, but there it's an attrition issue, i think, as much as anything and the other thing is length of hiring, i think you've got about a 500-day average in terms of filling some of these backlog areas. so do you feel that changes you've been able to make will address it satisfactionly? do you have the flexibility and have what you need to make the changes you want to make? >> the honest answer to your question, senator, with the help of congress, we have been able to make some changes to -- that are positive in this area but it's a work in progress and it's a challenge and i keep after my component leadership to make sure that we do as much as we can there. >> border patrol, do you have what you need with people and technology, what else would be helpful in terms of people ex technologies as far as border patrol? >> in terms of border patrol agents, we are in the view of our border patrol leadership at about where we need to be.

21,070. in terms of technology, we could always use more investments in surveillance technology. i think that's reflected in our surveillance in particular. >> in the budget, how -- do you feel you have adequate funding for your surveillance technology? i've been down there and seen it and i think it's effective and i agree, there should be more -- >> times of ceiling we have to work with, my answer is yes. >> do you have enough flexibility between budget lines, as far as personnel such if you hire personnel faster in one area and you're not able to get them in another area, do you have enough ability to move funds or is that an issue for you? >> probably i'm going to say probably not. >> you got it right. >> my cfo says i have it right. probably not.

>> okay. that's my sense, too. well, secret service i guess we covered pretty well. what about the white house fence? remember, we started down the trail of replacing the white house fence and now i don't see that you have that request here to finish out replacing the white house fence. >> yes, we put in the temporary fence a couple of months ago, which i believe has detoured fence jumping. there was once incident that occurred after that that i know about. and longer term we need to make the investment in a higher better fence but the fence served as a deterrent for the short term. >> thank you. my opening statement i talked about the challenges we're

facing in new hampshire and so many other states with respect to the heroin and opiate epidemic. we're losing three times as many people as traffic accidents in new hampshire and last spring senator hoven and i had an opportunity to go to the southern border and meet with customs and border patrol in laredo and watch some of the dogs in action as they were trying to find drugs being smuggled across the border and i remember very vividly the conversation with cbp where they talked about drugs coming across the southern border and going up the interstates, up 95 which is how they get to new hampshire and up 35 across the middle of the country. and obviously, we've got to confront this crisis on many fronts, but one piece of it is the interdiction of drugs and challenges that cpb and coast

guard are facing as they look at how to keep those drugs from coming across the border. so can you talk first about whether there are other things you just mention that you think were about right in terms of cbp guards, can you talk about what additional role they might be able to play in interdiction and whether the budget is there to support the role. >> there is a role for homeland security investigations. >> absolutely. >> and it's part of a task force with doj, components of doj to deal with the heroin epidemic in new hampshire and elsewhere. we have had considerable success at the border with it but there is the interior effort, as well. we stepped up interior enforcement efforts with hsi and as you know, the coast guard does a terrific job at sea. one of our national security

cutters you may know, the stratton went out on a four-month mission across the coast and in four months itself seized over 1 billion in narcotics including two cartel submarines. i didn't know cartels had submarines until last year. but the heroin epidemic is very real and it is become an enter agency coordinated task force mission. >> and so when you say it's become an inner agency mission, can you talk a little bit about what that means, how are you working with agencies within homeland security and with other parts of government and justice working on this issue. >> i know hsi has been involved in this effort with dea, fbi and

that has been a relatively recent phenomenon -- >> that would be great. another issue i've won working on, you and secretary kerry received letter from the ranking member about the special immigrant visa program and recent authorization bill for this year and i would hope that you would consult with state on this issue. i had a chance to raise this concern are secretary kerry yesterday at the foreign relations committee and he was very responsive to the idea that

perhaps they needed to take another look at the interpretation because certainly, for those of us that worked on that defense authorization bill, our understanding of what that language meant was different than what state and dhs have interpreted. can you tell me whether you're willing to take another look at that and whether you've been consulting with state in doing that? >> i have read your letter. i thought it was a good letter. hats off to whoever wrote it. i thought it made good points i. was a legal question which we're having lawyers look at for myself. i do believe that an expression of congressional intent from congress directly on a point is

very relevant. so we have the letter and we're looking at the question. >> thank you. i appreciate that. as we know, attorneys can interpret the law in different ways and congressional intent is very important so i appreciate that. thank you. >> senator cochran? >> mr. chairman, my wide awake staff decided i need to ask one more question. [ laughter ] >> mr. secretary, as your department continues to analyze the potential applications and performance of using unmanned arial systems in its operations, would you provide this subcommittee with an inventory of existing unmanned marry time systems and sensors that you are researching? >> yes, sir. we will. >> thank you. >> pretty good. >> how about that?

>> just like that. >> got cracker jack -- >> right to it. >> could you also provide us with that for not only martime but on the boarder use of u.s. as well? >> yes. >> and you will share that with the committee, i assume. >> yeah, for the committee. >> okay. >> unaccompanied alien children, 2015 we saw a reduction versus -- i'm talking about fiscal year. fiscal year '15, we saw a reduction versus '14 but '16 the numbers are coming back up, so if you would, talk about what you're doing to stem that flow. >> yes, senator. this is a report issued daily for me with these numbers, these migrant numbers on the southwest border. it's one of the first things i look at when i come to work in the morning along with my daily intelligence and as you noted in fiscal '15, we were down around

331,000, which is the second lowest apprehension number since 1972, '14 was 479 and 15 was 331 in the fall we saw numbers rise again and they were reaching by december, levels that looked like they were approaching the summer spike we had in 2014. so january 4th i issued a statement laying out our comprehensive plan for dealing with it which included for more included enforcement directed at those part of families who have

been ordered removed by an immigration court. their appeal time had run and they had no pending asylum claim. it is not limited to one weekend. it has continued. since the beginning of the year the numbers have gone down reflected on this chart right here. the blue line is up to date and the spike is the end of last year. the numbers now in jan and february are down around where they were this time last year. january and february of this year look a lot like january, february of last year but we are concerned about the traditional seasonal increase that occurs. i think a big part of this and a big part of border security is our enforcement priorities and those apprehend the at the

border are priority one for enforcement, along with the others in that category. i think it's fundamental to our border security efforts. we have to mean what we say when we say we'll send you back if you come illegally. that includes people who are part of families and that includes unaccompanied children consistent with our laws. so that's where we are. >> do you -- i don't suppose you have february results yet. it does appear the actions you took made a significant difference from december to january and a continuation of the activity would be important. i'm wondering if you have data that indicates in february -- >> february has increased

slightly from about -- from january on the last projection i saw for the month of february has us at about 24,000 apprehensions for the month which is considerably lower than december and it's about what january looked like. i don't know whether the enforcement actions are cause and effect but the numbers are in fact lower for apprehensions for the border patrol. >> are you continuing to develop met tricks and also release those including some of the met tricks on ice? i know we provided additional funding in the 16 appropriation to i.c.e. for data reporting. can you kind of give us an update in terms of reporting on odd data from i.c.e. and other entities. >> senators, you and i discussed i believe we need to have better, clearer metrics for measuring border security.

when i came to this department in 2013 the border patrol has a method for measuring total attempts to cross the border illegally but i don't think it's sophisticated. we have a firm we are working with developing more sophisticated ways for measuring total attempts to cross the border, more sophisticated ways for measuring how we are doing in terms of border security sector by sector and this is a project that i want to complete before i leave office 11 moments from now. >> i guess i'm over my time. i better turn to senator sheen.

>> thank you. i would -- i have one additional area of questioning and that has to do with the disaster mitigation efforts as i'm sure you're aware last year administration had additional funding for mitigation grants and i was surprised to see the dramatic reduction in the request for those programs and this is an area that really does pay big dividends with the increased natural disasters we're seeing this is one way to reduce the costs and we can encourage state and local efforts in the mitigation area if they think at the federal level we'll be partners on doing this. as i said, i was surprised to see that those programs are reduced pretty significantly in this budget and i wonder if you

can talk to the rational on that. this is one that seems to me that pays big dividends at the other end in terms of cost savings and how do we avoid the culture avoiding disasters and mitigate for disasters as opposed to waiting for things to happen and responding. >> well, my cfo can correct me but i believe that what we asked for is essentially the same as what we received for this year, is that correct? excuse me, sorry. you're correct.

this year we prioritized flood mapping over the predisaster assistance because it was something we thought we needed to do within the confines of what we had to work with that is how we saw the priorities for this constrained year, flood happening, which is something that members of congress have talked to me a lot about. >> and certainly i agree that's an area we need to support. are there other agencies within the federal government where you see the ability to partner in ways that encourage a continuation of mitigation efforts and try to support prevention as opposed to waiting for disasters? >> yes. i would -- i don't want to speculate but i think the short

answer to your question is yes. i i can imagine other agencies that should be supporting and contributing to the effort. >> are there efforts under way to explore those partnerships? dot is one that comes to mind, obviously, but other areas that work on infrastructure, we should think how we work together to get the best bang for the buck. >> if they are not, there probably should be. so that's my best answer. >> okay. thank you. thank you mr. chairman. >> just a couple to finish up. secretary you've been patient with time. senator cochran? biometric exit system. why is it taking as long to develop and implement and could we do a biographic if biometric

is the problem, but an exit tracking system, very important to get a handle on visa overstays. could be we've been down there. you can comment on both, i guess. >> senator, the visa overstay report that we just issued is based on biographic exit. somebody is not counted as a visa exit unless we charted it by biographic exit. >> that's primarily for travelers. that doesn't go to students and others. >> non-immigrant b 1, b 2 visas. at this point it would be very difficult to track spree ja over -- at this point, it would be very difficult to track student visa overstays because the amount of the permitted stay is often difficult to know as opposed to a hard and fast date.

with regard to biometric exit, i've asked my staff the same question, why is it taking so long? this year we received money tenure money from congress and fee increases to pay for biometric exit. i said to my folks, okay, we have the money. now let's have the timetable, and so what i've told my folks is that we want to begin implementing this as soon as 2018 at airports, biometric exit. >> do you have a realistic or what you think is realistic timeline to roll this out at this time or are you still developing that? should we look for 2018 that would be ubiquitous then? >> i told my folks, we have pilot programs right now for biometric exit. >> right, i've seen -- >> i want to see this begin in the implementation at airports

by 2018. so if i believe that my folks take me seriously when i tell them to do things, and i do, sometimes i have to ask two or three times, i believe that the deadline will be met. [ laughter ] >> last question i have relates to cyber -- >> they met all my deadlines when it comes to cybersecurity, so. >> well, and that's where i want to finish up is on the cyber piece and there is specific -- we talked about a number of different things but where i want to go is with technology. einstein and some technology systems you have, do you think you have what you need? are you able to develop what you need? this is such a dynamic, fast-moving area. the technology advances every single day and you're facing a new threat every single day. so do you feel that you have -- and obviously, there is a major commitment in funding in this budget, but talk for a minute about the technology, including this issue of, you know, getting

into phones and so forth, or getting help, the help you need from the private sector, whether it's getting into an encrypted phone or something else. >> well, let me focus first on the einstein system. we are making a huge investment in einstein. einstein one, two and three. and there are always skeptics that say whether it's cybersecurity system or a fighter jet. there is always people that say i can build it bigger and better and we don't have the best. a conversation that i had with the cybersecurity experts tell me that einstein remains a good investment because of the unique capability to rely upon classified information for detecting and blocking cyber intrusions and more importantly, because it is a platform for future technology.

einstein, the einstein 3 a system which we will have in place for the entire federal.gov civilian world by the end of this year can block known bad actors, known bad signatures. it is also a platform for technology to block suspected bad actors in the future. and so once that system is in place, it will serve as a platform for the future technology i think we need to have to block the suspected bad actor. i believe that we should and we can stay the course with our current investments but we need to build on that and when the time is right, add to it, replace improve it but have the ability to do so and we can with the einstein system, the federal

sprpiece centerpiece of our federal cyber security efforts. the cybersecurity bill that passed last year, i think is a terrific bill. i'm very pleased with the bipartisan support we got from congress on a very complex issue which gives us additional authorities and gives us the private sector the immunities that they say this he need to share with us cyber threat indicators. that was a really, really big thing for a long time we heard from the private sector they had to have before they would share cyber threat indicators with us. we now that have in place. so i think we're moving in the right direction and i think that by the time this administration leaves office and i leave office, we will have made tangible improvements in cybersecurity. >> that leads right to the issue of getting assistance from the private sector, apple, encrypted phones and so forth. give us your take on how to -- that should be approached and --

>> i think we need -- >> what can and can't be done. >> i think we need to be in a different place from where we are now. i think the demands in response to the marketplace, a lot of tech companies have a lot of tech companies have driven deeper and deeper toward endescription encryption and that has, in fact, hampered the ability of law enforcement to hamper plots, crime, and not just talking about federal crime. any state crime that involves a communication, i hear this from the district attorney of new york county for example. cyrus vance is very big on the encryption issue. it's gone pretty far in one direction. i think we need to move it back a bit to account for law enforcement and national security needs. exactly how we accomplish that with the tech sector is a harder

longer conversation to have. this latest issue in california i fully support the government's position. i've read the briefs. i understand the need and i'm fully supportive of the government's position there. i know from talking to the fbi director that in a number of instances federal law enforcement gets good cooperation from a lot of companies in that sector on a case by case basis this is one we didn't agree. i think there needs to be a c6ñ larger national conversation to address this issue as i don't like where we are right now. >> is there anything else that

you want to bring up that we haven't asked you in the course of this hearing regarding your budget? >> i'm sure that this committee appreciates the fundamentally different place we are in right now in terms of the global terrorist threat. it's more complicated. it involves smaller scale attacks by terrorists-inspired actors here in the homeland. people ask me what keeps you up at night. one of the things that keeps me up at night is that we can have another attack in a community like chattanooga, tennessee or san bernardino at a moment's notice by somebody not previously on our radar. that's why our efforts are so

important. we're in a fundamentally different place now and just on my watch in national security since 2009 i've seen that evolution from taking the fight to aqab and al sha bob and dealing with a very different type of threat that includes people who live among us. that requires a whole government effort and that requires where it counts. we build the right bridges. and that requires supporting local law enforcement and their efforts, too. so -- >> again, thank you mr. secretary for being here and to you and your people for all the hard work they do in this very important area. this will conclude our hearing today. the hearing record will remain open for two weeks from today, senators may submit written questions for the record and we ask that the department respond to them within a reasonable length of time. with that, this subcommittee stands in recess.

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[ inaudible ] every election cycle, we're reminded how important it is for citizens to be informed. >> i think it's a great way for us to stay informed. >> there are a lot of c-span fans on the hill.

>> there's so much more that c-span does to make sure that people outside the beltway know what's going on inside it. ? live to capitol hill now, where u.s. protections commissioner gil kerlikowske is testifying on his agency's 2017 budget request. we expect this to get under way shortly.

>> all right, i'm going to call the hearing to order. today we welcome gil kerlikowske. his third appearance before the subcommittee. commissioner, welcome. appreciate you being here and your service to dhs and the nation, thank you for that. fiscal year 2017 budget for customs and border protection is $13.9 billion. an increase of 686 million above

fiscal year 2016. a gap that requires this subcommittee to make hard choices. therefore, the increase to cbc may not be affordable as it's evaluated by the totality of this budget. we discussed this between the two of us yesterday. or the other day. commissioner, as you know, i discussed this with you. we're really concerned about cbc's hiring problems that have to be fixed. to secure and expedite trade, the budget requests funds for 23,861 cbc officers, which include 2,000 officers further than 2014. commissioner, taking four year, to hire 20,000 cbc -- 2,000 cbc

officers is way too long. i know you plan to send a request tho the authorizers, asking them to pass legislation increasing the number of cbc officers. knowing that wait times don't deserve cbc because cbc isn't likely to have these officers on board for years. 2014. look where we are now. likewise, the border patrol is losing more agents than it can hire. currently, cbp is below the mandated floor. the budget takes advantage of this by increasing the mandate. unfortunately, the reduction isn't supported by any analysis proving that border security won't be compromised as a result. commissioner, as you understand the important national security

role these agents play, but we are concerned that cbp isn't able to sustain the existing workforce, let alone the mandated floor leaves of the agents. these are urgent problems, which must be fixed. now, we'll have to discuss how you plan to correct this. this request also includes a contingency fund for potential surge in unaccompanied children. we look forward to an update of the current estimates of the uac. other increases include $55 million for tactical communications, $47 million for vehicles, $26 million for aerostats and relocatable towers and many other smaller increases. i look forward to working with you over the next few weeks to determine the priority of these

programs. the request proposes a realignment for appropriation structures to be more mission focused. while i know it is challenging, it is an effort that i have supported for several years. i want to commend you and your team for making the effort. lastly, commissioner, sovereign nations control and manage their borders. and sustain the integrity of their immigration systems. these objectives are your duty and i expect nothing less from you and from the men and women of cbp. now, let me turn to my distinguished ranking member miss roybal-allard for remarks she wishes to make. >> thank you. good morning, commissioner, and welcome. the request for u.s. customs and border protection in fiscal year 2017. about half of that increase say

tributable to the proposed transfer of the office of bio metric identity management from mpd to cpc. you have served as commissioner now for nearly two years and cbp has made good progress in a number of areas under your leadership and i'd like to highlight some of those. this includes the establishment of the task force west for the southern border. the assumption of criminal and investigative authority for allegations of misconduct and use of force indents involved cbp personnel. the expansion of the preclearance program which helps address threats before they reach our borders. a new use of force policy and the establishment of a use of force center of excellence. business transformation efforts that are reducing weight times for passengers and expediting the flow of commerce. good progress toward a more rigorous technologically based methodology for determining situational awareness at the

border. a more risk based approach to border security. and enhanced capacity to target high-risk individuals and cargo, including a new counternetwork program focused on disrupting transnational criminal organizations. so i think there is a lot that you can be proud of, even if there are still significant challenges that still remain. one of those challenges has been the struggle to hire new agents that officers and manage attrition, particularly border patrol agents. as a result, the number of border patrol agents and cbp officers are significantly below the target levels as the chairman mentioned. humanely managing the influx of unaccompanied children and families fleeing violence in the northern triangle. i look forward to a productive conversation on these and other issues. once again, i appreciate your joining us.

>> thank you. >> all right. commissioner, we'll hear from you and what your comments are. we all have copies of what you submitted to us. of course they'll be narrated for the record. you may proceed. >> good. chairman cart, ranking member roybal-allard and members of the subcommittee, good morning. during this past year, i certainly had the firsthand opportunity to travel not only throughout the country and visit with thousands of our personnel, but also to meet with our international partners in customs and border protection, particularly in south america, mexico and canada. these are countries we share common goals with and strengthening both our country's security but also our economic growth. i highlight this because with all of our responsibilities to protect the united states from the entry of dangerous people and materials, we also have to facilitate the flow of lawful international travel and

commerce. and these goals are the same for many other countries. while i'm reminded of the diversity of our operational environments, the complexity of our mission and the commitment of our dedicated personnel. and thanks to the critical resources that this committee has given to cpb, we've not only enhanced border operations, we've also laid the foundation for the changes that will increase cbp to be more operational agile, effective and efficient. many of these changes are focused on improving the hiring and retention of frontline personnel. i think we've made forward progress and i look forward to working with the committee on this. our budget request of $13.9 billion reflect some of the progress that we made and supports our continued investments and personnel and technology and initiatives that are going to strengthen our security and streamline our business process. detecting and preventing travel to the united states by a foreign terrorist fighter is our

highest priority. we recently made additional enhancements to the electronic system for travel authorization. we started immediately enforcing the restrictions in accordance with the visa waiver improvement, and terrorist prevention act in 2015 and we canceled 17,000 travel approvals immediately. we're expanding preclearance operations. i'd like to express my thanks to the subcommittee for the statutory changes that significantly improve the reimbursement mechanism to fund cbp's preclearance operations. it's a critical capability for addressing threats long before they ever arrive at our borders. furthermore, with the funding provided by the committee and the consolidated appropriations act of 2016, we're initiating counternetwork operations at our national targeting center. this capability enhances our comprehensive understanding of emerging threats not only for foreign fighters but also for drugs and human trafficking. and it advances our ability to

disrupt the networks from that targeting center many of you have visited. along the southwest border, we ment monitor and respond. the numbers declined from their spike in '14 but we did see an increase in the numbers this past fall and we remain concerned about seasonal increases later this year and in fiscal year 2017. the budget request $12.5 million increase in resources for cbp to provide for safety and security of children and families who are ta temp r temp rarly in our custody. to ensure that we can respond to that potential surge. along with all of the border environments, our land, air and sea, continued investments in technology, surveillance technology, other operational assets really increase our situational awareness. the cornerstone of our approach

to identify, disrupt and interdict illegal activities is key. recapitalizing some of the most essential equipment that was&jh mentioned, radios and vehicles, increasing our ability to respond quickly and to keep our frontline officers and agents safe. we continue to improve the secure and efficient movement of people and goods through the entry. that's a function critical to our economic competitiveness. the budget request enables us to continue frontline hiring efforts, incorporate new technologies into our travel and trade processes including bio metric exit and expand our public/private partnerships key components of our efforts to optimize resources, ease the flow of low risk lawful trade and travel and free agents and officers to focus on high risk cargo and high risk people. in all our operations across the globe, we continue to instill the highest levels of transparency and accountability. this past year, we implemented new use of force policies.

we continued to test camera technologies to find solutions that can meet the wide variety of operational terrains and climates where our agents and officers work. thank you for the opportunity to testify. thank you for your support. i'm happy to answer your questions. >> thank you, commissioner. before we begin with the questioning, i want to recognize how the chairman of the committee for a statement he wishes to make. >> thank you, mr. chairman. commissioner, kerlikowske, gil, good to see you again, thank you for being here to discuss your budget for cbp. i greatly enjoyed our association and working together in your earlier chapter of your life when you were director of the office of national drug control policy, the drug czar, and of course your experience

back home. and the police, that wonderful city. in the drug czar role, you graciously took time away from your busy schedule to visit my appalachian district to learn more about our challenges facing prescription drug abuse. so you bring a unique perspective i think to your job as, at cbp. as the prescription drug epidemic has exploded on to the national scene. controlling the influx of this dangerous drug and the violence it fuels in our border communities and elsewhere around the country is a top priority for you and for us. so i look forward to hearing about your efforts to reduce the supply of opioids in the country.

over 60,000 employees. one of the largest law enforcement agencies. if not the largest. you're tasked with protecting the united states through a number of critical missions including preventing the illegal entry of terrorists, weapons, narcotics, from the air, sea and land. on a typical day, i'm told, cbp welcomes nearly 1 million visitors. screened more than 67,000 cargo containers. arrests more than 1,100 individuals and seizes nearly 6 tons of illegal drugs. that's a day's work. you're busy to say the least. before going into the merits of your budget request, i'd like to express my sincere gratitude to the men and women under your charge including yourself who

serve our great nation. many of whom put themselves in harm's way on a daily basis to keep the homeland safe and secure. your fiscal '17 budget request, 13.9 billion, which constitutes an increase of 678 million above the current level, i want to commend you on the improvement you've made to the visa security program, although i did have some concerns with the gaps that still remain. i also look forward to the expansion of the preclearance program which will push our borders further and further out. your appearance here today and our testimony on this issue reminds me of this subcommittee and 2003 when we ushered it into existence and i became the first

chairman of this subcommittee and have followed fairly closely since the activities of the department. and it's a tough, tough job. mr. chairman. you're trying to meld together some 22 federal agencies. i think there's 16 different unions. and like 20 different pay scales. so the work continues. and we've got our work to do as well. but you're on the front line. there's many positive things in your budget request. i'm disappointed with the efforts efforts for our immigration laws. decreasing the statutory floor to 21,070. at a time when drug cartels from

mexico and elsewhere are flooding our communities. urban and rural alike with heroin. we've never seen the like. and yet the budget proposes we cut back on the people fighting that surge and that scourge in our country. others in the administration have rightfully labels the abuse of opioids as a national epidem epidemic. who says that overdose deaths, heroin and prescription pills, are taking more lives than car wrecks in the country. he calls it a national epidemic. and yet we hear from the administration well let's cut back on trying to fight it. well, don't be surprised if things are different when we get through with your budget in that regard. we lose 100 americans every day to addiction abuse. and yet you've proposed to

reduce our first line of defense against the entry of these dangerous deadly drugs without the benefit of any supporting analysis that border patrols mission won't be compromised. as i mentioned, you've been in that district. you've seen firsthand how these drugs are destroying ruralappal. while you and i agree that reducing demand through education and treatment is critical, we mustn't lose sight of the fact enforcement remains a critical prong of our wholistic strategy on this scourge. stakes are high. we must do everything in our power to combat this scourge. i look forward to continuing with you to provide the resources you need to do just that. another crisis being caused by the drug cartels is the massive

influx of unaccompanied alien children and families at our southern border. we've seen a surge in drug cartel and gang violence across central and south america. fueled by the production and trafficking of drugs. these thugs and murderers are wreaking havoc on millions of people. forcing many to flee to other countries including the u.s. recently, there's been an unprecedented spike in unaccompanied minors crossing our southern border. in the first four months of fiscal '16, border patrol has apprehended 20,000 unaccompanied alien children. that's double the number that were apprehended in the same time frame last year. unfortunately, this humanitarian crisis does not appear to be subsiding any time soon. the reality of which is reflected in your budget submission.

you've requested resources to support a revitzed baseline of 75,000 unaccompanied child apprehensions as well as a contingency fund should that number his exceeded. our committee will analyze this request and my hope is we can provide the ness safety resources for cbp to handle the influx of these children at our borders. in addition, virtually half of the 5.2% increase in your budget request comes from the transfer of 305 million for the office of biometric identity management which, as you know, like fees, requires authorization from other committees. unfortunately, the president has sent us a budget, after budget, after budget, that requests large increases in funding and offsets them by using budget

gimmick gimmicks like increasing taxes and fees that he knows are dead on arrival here on the hill. finally, i'd be remiss if i didn't mention president obama's executive order on immigration. as you know, this still remains one of the most divisive issues in congress and in the country indeed at large. the president's unilateral action demonstrates he has no intention of working with congress or respecting our constitutional authority. unfortunately, you and your agency are caught in the middle of this fight. and it has made passing an annual appropriations bill for department of homeland security incredibly difficult. it also makes it impossible to move forward on any meaningful immigration reform while the president remains in office. so mr. commissioner, thank you for being here today. thank you for your service to

your country. we thank you for leading this agency. >> thank you, mr. chairman. start off with the questioning here. i was talking to you, staffing is something you were concerned about, i'm concerned about and i want us to discuss it. hiring. we'll talk first about the border patrol and afterwards about hiring. i understand the border patrol is currently 1,268 agents below the mandated personnel floor of 21,370. not new. been around for a while. so the underexecution of agents is not due to hiring up to a new level as it is with the customs officers but sustaining the existing workforce. i'm going to have a series of questions. we'll pause for some of those,

then we'll move on. what are you doing to address the agents, border patrol? we have consistently lost board patrol agents over the last year. to ensure that stations are manned to the suggested and needed levels, do you foresee a need to reinstate disignition for certain stations or create other incentives to help prevent the attrition of agents, with the reduction of overall numbers, do you anticipate and need to re-examine and restructure how the border patrol man stations and forward operating bases? >> i share very much the concern we've discussed on this hiring issue. and for the border patrol to be in a downward spiral, which means that we are not able to hire as fast as attrition is

very concerning. i've talked with your staff also about the number of programs that we put in place particularly to speed up the process. so in these new hiring hubs, we can get people through in 160 days until at times well over a year. that's important. the close cooperation with the department of defense as people leave the department of defense and the active duty military to be able to hire them into the border patrol or into customs and border protection is particularly important. working with congress on additional pay for some of the very difficult locations that they work on hardship reimbursement would be particularly helpful. along with things that we've discussed around the age issues. when we talk about the border patrol, you know, we realize that their salaries were cut anywhere from 3,000 to $5,000.

as a result of the auo, the additional overtime money. but we've now transitioned to the border patrol pay reform act. 96% of the border patrol agents who have now opted into the number of hours that they would work have opted into the maximum number. so instead of a 40-hour workweek, they will work a 50-hour workweek for the aticianatician additional money, which they are clearly deserving of. actually results in us getting more boots on the ground. >> the '17 requests calls for reduction of 300 in the overall strength of the border patrol. however, we understand that many stations along the southern border are facing staffing setbacks for a variety of reasons. there's no imperial data to inform how many agents we need.

when cbp cannot articulate a validated requirement for the number border patrol agents combined with the technology requirements to surveil the border? when will we see validated requirements and resourcing models similar to the model used by the office of field operations? >> i don't think there's anything that's more frustrating to the heads, the executives of the border patrol or myself or certainly the secretary on not being able to have a set of metrics that actually said how many border patrol agents do you actually need. it has been unbelievably difficult and complex and it's as complex as when we tried to decide how many police officers we needed in seattle versus how many police officers were needed in a city like washington, d.c. but we're closer. we're much closer now to developing that set of metrics that would be helpful. as you know, the offset in the reduction of the 300 personnel

would be to fund radios, improvements in the radio system. the vast majority of which would go to the border patrol and to their vehicles. many of which now are reaching a life-span that makes them not as serviceable as they should be. there's nothing more frustrating than having an agent who can't go out to do patrol because the radio is not operable or because the vehicle. so we're looking at using those funds for that. >> commissioner, while we have long discussed the hiring of customs officers and border patrol agents, i'm equally as concerned with the vacancy for interdiction an interdiction agents. by your own numbers, cbp is 12% below the goal. 93 below the goal of 775 agents.

how can we officially utilize if we don't have the pilots to fly the aircraft? it's my understanding corpus christi is only manned to fly two, maybe three missions at a time. yet we have six p-3s and three uass stations at the facility. do we hire more agents or do we retire the aircraft? vacancies impacting operations. who have been flying combat missions overseas are failing the cbp polygraph. what is cbp doing to address hiring and polygraph issues? how do we address air crew vacancies for the p-3s who are mostly former navy when the navy is no longer training p-3 air

crews? >> so one of the difficulties in hiring for air and marine is it's a very competitive environment. one of my last flights, the first officer had been a pilot for us in san diego and was now flying for delta. and so we know and we've seen this huge increase in both domestic passenger travel and also international travel by air. so we're in a competitive environment. one of the difficulties has been, though, this requirement that a pilot coming out of the military must also undergo the same level of scrutiny or screening that someone hiring from outside will go through. quite frankly, they come with a top secret clearance if they're a pilot in the military. i don't see any reason why we can't continue to work with the office of personnel management and others to bring them on board much more quickly without going through as many hoops as we would go through for others.

the last thing i mention is amongst all those different job descriptions in air and marine, we have i think four different pay scales, and we are interested in working toward the same law enforcement pay system that the fbi and the marshals and dea have. which is law enforcement availability pay, leap pay, which provides an additional 25% of their salary for the extra hours that they would normally work. and we kind of like to level that playing field for all of them. so we'll continue to keep working on that. but of course i think you know too our push has been to hire with the appropriated money the additional customs and border protection officers, plus to stop the bleeding in the border patrol. >> commissioner, i would like to go back to the whole issue of border security and the fact

that we don't have enough border patrol manpower there. we also hear a lot about the fact that, you know, we have to secure our border and when i go back home, i hear a lot anxiety about that because the impression is that our borders are fairly open and that they're unprotected. in practical terms, how does cbp define its border security mission? and what are the measures by which we should be judging cbp's performance? >> we look very much, particularly with the border patrol, between the ports of entry. we look very much at the security that the border patrol -- do they have operational awareness or what we'd call situational awareness. do they know the number of people that may be attempting and the particular areas that they're coming across? they also have the information and the liaison with their state

and city and county partners all along the border. we know many of those border cities from el paso to san diego to tucson have some of the lowest crime rates of any of the large cities in the country. so understanding and recognizing that there are also places where we use our unmanned aircraft. there are also places that are so desolate and so rugged and so difficult that we're not seeing people attempt in nep way, shape or form to cross or enter the border illegally. well, if they're not using those locations, we need to take those finite border patrol resources and allow them and put them into places where we do have greater numbers. but, you know, as a police chief, i was always held accountable for managing our people, responding quickly, making sure that we're trained and have the equipment they needed, but i was never held accountable for a crime-free city whether it was buffalo or

seattle. there will always be gaps and we will work very hard to make sure those gaps are narrowed. >> i'd like to go now to an issue that we discussed during last year's hearing. that's the treatment of unaccompanied mexican children who crossed the border, which is different from those children that are coming from central america. last july, released a report on the treatment of unaccompanied children in dhs custody. we made a number of recommendations pertinent to mexican children. gao found that cbp personnel were not appropriately following the requirements of the trafficking victims protection reauthorization act. to assess whether a child was -- has credible fear of returning to mexico, could be at risk of

being trafficked if returned, or was capable of making an independent decision to voluntary return, voluntarily return. the report found that cbp personnel did not document the decisions they made relative to these factors. found that cbp repatriated 95% between 2009 and 2014. including 93% of mexican children under the age of 14. even though cbp's 2009 memorandum on the treatment of unaccompanied children states that children under 14 are generally presumed to be unable to make an independent decision. i saw that the department recently signed new repatriation agreements with mexico. to what extent were those agreements in response to the gao report? and what specific changes to

repatriations do they entail? >> as a result of the questions and discussion last year. also as a result of the gao, we did a new series of training for the border patrol to make sure those questions are appropriately asked and that the responses are appropriately recorded for that decision involving mexican children. the same time, within the last month, assistant secretary pursen and director from i.c.e. were in i believe arizona to sign new repatriation agreements with mexico to make sure that there was close coordination with the government of mexico. so they wouldn't be returned at night. they wouldn't be returned in an environment that may be considered hostile or dangerous. and that their property, whatever property they cross the border with, would be also returned with them. so i think the progress and the

training and progress in the additional repatriation agreement with mexico is helpful. as you know, the vast majority of the unaccompanied children that we are apprehending are coming from the three central american countries and really not mexico right now. >> i see that my time is up. thank you, mr. chairman. >> chairman rogers. >> mr. commissioner, you and i have been working many times together over the years to curtail drug trafficking and abuse. i've said many times and i've heard you say it many times that there is no one answer ton the problem. that does take enforcement, treatment and education. holistic approach. the president's budget rightly puts prescription drug and heroin abuse in the forefront, but largely focuses on treatment and the demand side of the

equation. if we want to see any further success in treating victims of abuse and educating the public about the danger that's present, i think we've got to be sure enforcement on the front end is emphasized and, in fact, ironclad. your agency's charged with protecting the borders and you've got the primary role to play in all of this. dea says heroin seizures in the u.s. have increased in each of the last five years, nearly doubling from 2010 to 2014. your agency reports seizing over 9,600 ounces of heroin during fiscal year '14 and yet your budget would reduce the number of agents patrolling our borders by some 300. how can you justify taking boots

off the ground in spite of this huge increase in heroin interdiction? >> mr. chairman, i go back to a couple things. one is on the heroin issue, the majority of any heroin that we seize is not between the ports of entry, it's smuggled through the ports of entry. whether it's in san ysidro or jfk airport, heroin seizures also predominantly are through a port of entry and carried in a vehicle or carried by an individual. we don't get much heroin seized by the border patrol coming through. i think just because there's a? lot of risks to the smugglers and the difficulty of trying to smuggle it through. but when i look at -- when i look at the number of border patrol agents that we are already down and i look at offsetting, being able to provide additional radio

equipment and additional vehicles as a result of using some of that money or the majority of that money to the border patrol. i think it's a decision that will help. we know that technology is better for their safety and it's also better to get them out to be able to patrol. >> changing subjects. >> okay. >> the visa waver program permits citizens of 38 different countries to travel to the u.s. either for business or tourism purposes up to 90 days without a visa. in return, those 38 countries must per miss u.s. citizens to remain in their countries for a similar length of time. since its inception in 1986, that program has evolved into a comprehensive security partnership with many of

america's closest allies. the department administrato adm visa waiver program in consultation with the state department. to detect and prevent terrorists, serious criminals and other bad actors from traveling to this country. with the advent of the terrorist era that we're in now, the congress deemed it impossible to live with that kind of a free border program with 38 countries in the world for fear of terrorist infiltration undetected. so we pass the visa waiver program improvement and terrorist travel prevent act of 2015. which established new eligibility requirements for travel under the visa waiver

program to include travel restrictions. they don't bar a person from coming to the u.s. point blank but they do require that the traveler obtain a u.s. visa which then gives us the chance to investigate the background of the person. so in december, that law was passed. can you outline for us the program changes concerning aliens from these countries, how soon you'll be able to implement the changes if they're not already there? >> secretary johnson several months before the passage of this authorized additional series of questions to be put into the esta. this system in which we would record information with more detail and more specificity.

for instance, more specificity when it comes to the location that a person would be staying. additional contact information such as cell phone and e-mail, those types of pieces, and then when the law was passed, particularly the fact of dual citizenship with the four countries that were outlined. we canceled 17,000 travel approval requests that were already -- had already been basically approved. as you know, the esta system lasts. you can use it within a two-year window. one thing that isn't always recognized with this system, though, is that a person is continually vetted. those names are run against databases every 24 hours. so growyou applied and you were going to travel for another nine months, every single day you name would be run against a series of database because we don't want you to suddenly say now i'm going to go ahead and use the esta.

it's already been approached. i'm going to get on a plane. we say, well, wait, in the last 48 hours or 72 hours some information of a derogatory nature came up and needs to be worked on. we work closely with the department of state. i testified recently of two hearings on this issue. i think the fact we were able to cancel the 17,000 visas or estas and require those individuals then go back to an embassy or a consulate and get a waiver, and we will continue including standing up at the national targeting center along with the state department personnel sitting right next to us, terrorist prevention group that will look at us much more in depth on a 24-hour basis. >> are you staffed to handle

this workload? >> with personnel at the targeting center. i would think frankly if there's a real jewel in the crown and cbp when it comes to prevention i would say our national targeting centers for cargo and passenger anticipation of things that could be dangerous or people that could be dangerous and i know a number of members and a number of staff have visited it and i would encourage them to visit to see that operation. as for additional people, including working in a counternetwork division to work on human smuggling and drug smuggling is a good prevention technique. >> the legislation also required program countries to validate passports, report lost or stolen passports, use screening and start passenger information exchange agreements. can you tell us what the

requirements are and how they would be put in place? >> they must vest or check that foreign passport against interpol's lost or stolen passport database. they must do that. the requirement with visa waiver i think is not often talked about but is really quite helpful is the fact that it will bring these countries who are like-minded who want to prevent terrorism and want to prevent smuggling. it brings us together in a better information sharing environment. we have in cbp a permanent liaison to interpol. we have two permanent liaisons to euro poll policing. and we have at our immigration assistance program a number of cbp personnel at airports where they don't do enforcement on foreign territory but work closely with their foreign counterparts. the benefit of frankly the visa

waiver program brings us together to all assess risk and realize we're all in the same boat. >> the legislation directed you to terminate program countries for failure to comply with certain agreements. >> i'm not familiar with that. i know secretary johnson in counsel with secretary kerry and also the director of the office of national intelligence just added three additional countries to that, to the original four that congress passed. and so that increases our workload, but it also improves our risk assessment and our safety and security. >> thank you, mr. commissioner, for your service. >> thank you. >> mr. price. >> thank you, mr. chairman. welcome, commissioner, glad to see you here again.

>> thanks. >> i want to pick up where the ranking member left off on the question of border security, how you conceive of that going forward in terms of the mix of elements that would go to make up the kind of situational awareness and border security you're talking about. i understand this is a mix of personnel infrastructure and technology that we're talking about here. i share the concern that's been expressed repeatedly this morning about the short fall in personnel that this budget would apparently leave us with. something like 700 custom officials, 1,300 border patrol agents. my own view, i think it's widely shared, is in the long term, true and effective border security isn't going to be achieved, even with all the money we might throw at it, without comprehensive immigration reform. and since it's been brought up

here this morning, i think maybe a little reality check is in order. the president, in fact, pushed very hard in cooperation with the congress for years for comprehensive immigration worke and successfully with the senate. the senate passed a bipartisan, immigration reform bill. but then the house never took it up. that's the problem. and it was only after months, indeed years of that kind of stonewalling that the president did take executive action. it was limited action, it is very well reasoned and legally sound action, i believe. >> to exercise a degree of prosecutorial respect to those we initiate immigration enforcement on. then the republicans take that executive action as new excuse,

a new excuse not to act. so frustratingly, we fall short, far short of the comprehensive immigration reform that might deal with this larger issue. so we return to border security. and that, that issue, too, has become inflamed in recent months. thanks, largely to the presidential campaign. people with little or no immigration enforcement or policy experience, including some high-profile presidential candidates have said once again, we can simply build a fence. we can seal the southern border. and one actually says we can send the bill to mexico. now when i was chairman of this committee, the fence loomed very large. and we appropriated on this subcommittee for hundreds of miles of pedestrian and vehicle fence. we attempted with mixed success,

i have to say. to exercise some measure of cost/benefit analysis with these various segments of the fence. but we built it there was a huge political push on at the time to build that fence. now the fence is back. and i'm going to give you a chance to comment explicitly on this. what does a secure border look like? and do we need more fence? >> it does mean that when we have that situational or operational awareness and we know what's coming and where our gaps are, the fence that's been built is 600 miles of different fencing, including tactical fencing, very high fencing. double and triple fencing in some locations and some to prevent a vehicle. the border patrol uses that type of technique and those types of

fence technologies in order to move people that may be attempting to come across, into different locations where they can have more resources. we also you know, clearly recognize that anyone who has traveled and spent time on the border, as i think every one of the members here has, that there are lots of locations in which fencing and walls would, would not be able to be built. would not work and would not be able to withstand, and even with the fencing that we have, we spend considerable resources repairing and keeping that fencing in line. so you know, we think it's the combination of all of the other things that we do, tactical aerostats, patrols, infrared, fixed towers, ground sensors, on and on. that make for a more secure border. >> would it be your judgment that the budget you submitted gets that balance right? in terms of the mix of elements

going forward? are there major gaps, major omissions that you would look to be addressed in later years? >> i think the budget that we submitted is a very realistic budget. i think that i would be very happy as i'm sure every member of the committee would be, if we could hire and get the number of border patrol agents and customs and border protection officers fully trained and on the job. that right now, that is, that is the number one priority, because regardless of all the technology, this is still a very labor-intensive and people-oriented kind of business, whether it's at a port of entry or between the ports of entry. but i think we've submitted a realistic budget that will help us get there. and quite frankly, the committee has been very supportive of a number of initiatives in the past. and i think that's why we've made progress. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> mr. stewart?

>> thank you, mr. chairman, commissioner, thank you for many years of service. and to your peers as well. law enforcement, all around the country, it's a difficult time to be in law enforcement. and to want you to know that many of us support you and the efforts you're trying to undertake. i'm going to ask you a couple questions. i'd kind of like to explore, do we know what we don't know? do we have a good feel for some of these things, for example i want to follow up on the chairman's conversation about the visa waiver program. you've indicated something like 17,000 who have been denied or revoked to date on the esta program. do we have any idea of those 17,000 is that 90% of those who may be we should have identified? is it 50%? do you have a sense of how successful that is? >> the 17,000 are the dual

citizens with the four countries. >> that's very easy to identify. >> i would tell you that looking, it is a mix of people, is there somebody in that mix that probably might not have or should not have gotten that? i think that's very possible. but also, it's people who fled iran during the overthrow of the shah in 1979, that have been, haven't been to iran in 40 years, and but still have dual citizenship. and they were canceled. so you know, it was a broad brush, widely supported by congress and the president. >> that's a relatively easy thing to do. identify those who have the dual citizenship of those targeted countries. i'm guessing you identified most of those people. wouldn't you say? >> we identified them through the fact that they already, we knew in the system that they were dual citizens. >> much harder to identify those, that the visa waiver

legislation required us to identify. those who had traveled to some of these countries in question. do you have a sense for how, successful we've been in identifying those people? and let me elaborate and then i'll allow you to answer. they may be traveling from europe. that we would be unaware of that travel, were it not for our european partners or counterparts that have made us aware of that. and the homeland director was firm on several countries, france, belgium, germany, italy, greece, gave them a february 1 deadline to fix what he called crucial loop hoholes. can you give us an update in how our partners are doing in providing us this information? we would be unaware of it without their input. have they gotten better, are

partners doing a better job of giving us that information? >> visa waiver results in a lot of partnerships that including the exchange of information. so one, the relationship particularly after the attacks in paris, continues to get strengthened about the necessity of exchanging and sharing information. you are exactly correct when you talk about how difficult it is to detect people because of broken travel. we rely on another partner in another government to perhaps tell us about that. also, people do self-declare. about having travelled to one of the countries. then lastly when you enter the united states and the passport is gone by through the customs and border protection officers. just as we did during ebola screening, we do come across people that have traveled to one of those countries i think 2011 was the cut-off date that you put in place.

>> commissioner, being short on time, let me ask you, the department of homeland security gave the partner as february 1 deadline to close the loopholes, would you say they've done that effectively? >> i would say they're much better. but i couldn't answer for every one of them and i'd be happy to provide that information to you and your staff. >> i wish you would. some of them are more effective than others, it's something we're going to have to keep our eye on. let me ask you, one of the things we identified and we recognized something we had to expand our capabilities, that was to use social media to those who may be entering our country and pose a threat. san bernardino there were indications, i'm not talking blt radicalization, i'm talking about those who are radicalized, trying to enter a country. if we use social media as a tool, we would raise red flags and say this person, is someone we should look more closely. but previous to that, we hadn't done a good job. i don't think it was a policy to

use that tool. can you update, how is that being implemented to use social media to identify those individuals who may be a threat as they're trying to enter the country. >> sure, the social media checks would apply through dhs, to i.c.e., et cetera. and secretary johnson has stood up a task force within dhs to look at expanding and moving forward on the ability to research and use information and social media. that applies to dhs-wide, not just for cbt. >> do you know when that task force is supposed to give their report? >> i believe general taylor from intelligence and analysis is in charge as the chair of that task force. i don't know the date. >> we'll find out and follow up with that thank you. >> mr. quayle? >> mr. chairman. >> i believe you said earlier this might be your last hearing,

i want to say thank you so much for all your many years of service, i appreciate it. and also appreciate your moderate approach to this i'm from the border. laredo is 96%, most hispanic city percentage wise in the country. i think people know my policies. i like to see a moderate approach. we don't want to see open borders. we believe that if somebody has put in detention, they ought to be treated fairly. we should have detention, have some sort of deterrent. at the same time we believe in immigration reform, sensible immigration reform. at the same time, we think the wall is a 14th century solution to a 21st century problem that we have. we would like to see moderation. because we'd like to see order at the border. don't want to get political, but the folks that i represent on the border, wouldn't give me 95, 90% of the vote every time i run, i assume they support my

policies. which is pretty much what you do also, a moderate approach. one of the things we've talked about lately is to extend our border beyond the u.s. mexico border. a couple of years ago, we, i think we put about 80, $85 million to secure the mexican board wer guatemala. over period of time, they deported more people than border patrol did over the same amount of time. so just $80 million did a lot to help mexico extend our border. we were in costa rica, the cuban, a totally different issue. the costa ricans were telling us in december that the people who are coming in trying to get into the u.s. they had people from ghana, somalia, nepal, and literally

name the country, and they were there. my question to you in extending the border out besides the u.s. mexico border. what else can we do to help the mexicans and our central american folks to help us secure our border? the more we stop outside the u.s. border, the better it is for us. so if you want to address biometric equipment. training, we can do that. i know you're doing that. what can we do to step this up? >> congressman, think the government of mexico has done a really admirable job, particularly in the last year plus on increasing and improving their border. cvp and other components of dhs have a number of advisers and technical assistants both in places like tapachula and other locations, but also within mexico city. we visited the training center for those personnel. we visited the detention

facility. i visited it particularly. they have made marked progress in, in, in the work that they've done. and i think we couldn't be more pleased with the government of mexico as a partner in this. so we'll continue to look at can we assist in biometric identification process, other types of things. but i think the last thing and probably the most important in all of this, would be that if those three central american countries, honduras and el salvador and guatemala had better safety, better security, a better educational system for people, and better hope for the people that live in those countries, they wouldn't be fleeing and making an incredibly dangerous journey to the united states. as mr. allen as i sat on the floor with a father and his 4-year-old daughter not that long ago. he said you know we had several

murders down the street. he said the last thing i need to do is to leave my wife with one of our other children and for myself and my daughter to flee. this is in el salvador to flee and try to get to the united states where his mother, where his mother lives. but he said, i can't, i can't raise her in that environment. if those countries are more stable, i think people don't want to pick up and leave and come here. >> well i hope you work with the state department, because as you know, mr. chairman, and members of the committee, we added $750 million working with kay ranger, for the central america, the northern triangles, hopefully you're all a part of that process, the more we extend our security out instead of playing defense on the one yard line, but extend it to the 20 yard line, the better it is. so there was $750 million that hopefully all-will work with the state department, thank you so much for your time and effort. >> it would be helpful to have an ambassador, too, in mexico.

>> i think roberto jacobsen should be the ambassador, it's unfair that she's been delayed for something -- roberta jacobsen. she's been delayed for something, that's unrelated. >> thanks for your service. >> i'm going to follow up with what the chairman of the full committee asked about a little bit. which is the role of your organization now, in controlling drug traffic. i think there was testimony last year. th that. >> your gartment doesn't have a zero tolerance policy. people found crossing the border with marijuana, or other drugs, actually, there's no zero tolerance, you don't refer for

prosecution everyone, who poisons our youth. i've got to ask you, why? >> i don't know of any policy like that i know that people are apprehended with drugs, whether it's small amounts that they're carrying for some personal use or whether it is multi-ton or multi-kilo loads. all of those to my knowledge would be referred to the united states attorney and it would not be up to customs and border protection to make a decision for the department of justice as to whether or not prosecution would be accepted. and frankly, if i did find out that we did have a policy where we were making those decisions. rather than where they belong with the department of justice, i would reverse that policy very quickly. >> you were head of the office of national drug control policy. would you be disappointed with the department of justice, if in fact they had set minimum amounts of marijuana to be

brought into this country before they would be prosecuted? >> i would tell you that -- >> it seem like it would be a waste of time for your agents, your agents go, track them down, find the drugs, they think they did a great job and turn it over to the doj, and the doj looks the other way. >> i would tell you, i understand depending on the united states attorneys' offices along the border from texas to california, that the number one client for prosecutions is customs and border protection. we keep them busy with everything possible. i think they're clearly going to be cases that they are not going to, and these are questions that are answered by them. i think they're clearly cases that given the fine it resources that they have, they're not going to be able to accept for prosecution either because of prosecutorial merit. or because they've set some guideline. but i would tell thaw we make those referrals all the time.

and we're happy to make sure they have everything. i've assigned attorneys in our office to be cross-designated as assistant united states attorneys just to help out in those areas so they can have additional prosecutors and if we need to assign more attorneys to do that, to help them out, then that's what we'll have to do. >> thank you very much. >> i was a little disappointed, back in 2009 i guess, you know the administration decided and i think you agreed, to stop using the term -- war on drugs. and honestly, i think if you look at the heroin epidemic we have now, it's exactly the result of the leadership of the country, saying that we no longer have a war on drugs. just my personal opinion. rhetorical question. let me go onto the visa waiver program. i just have a question about this. because as you know, part of the controversy is this decision was made to on on a case-by-case basis, permit waivers for people from business people from iraq

or iran who are conducting business, i believe those are the two case-by-case. can you tell us since that program was put in place, how many, since it was case by case -- who makes those case-by-case decisions? >> the process, if there was a kwrks and to my knowledge there's not even a pending request, for anyone to use that example. but we would use the unit or the group that we stood up in the national targeting center to review those. they're a series of questions that a person would have to answer if in fact for example it was a business case. we know there that there are waivers already in existence, general waivers in the law for government officials and for military. but there would be a whole series of questions. and we would have to validate through that system. but right now. there's not a single pending request or even one that's been

made. >> iran's objection seems to be much ado about nothing? >> i don't know if it's, if it's merely too early in the process for some of these additional requests. but i do know that no request has been made. >> one final point and it would be pretty brief. it has to do with the integrated fixed towers contracts. these were supposed to be important parts of our first line of defense and yet the first tower you know was, the certification was delayed. now there's no, is there money in the budgetses for the rest of these towers? are they going to proceed on time? >> there is money and they are proceeding on time. the border patrol was required under the contract, and rightly so, to certify that these expensive pieces of technology are actually operational and are helpful. and i think as many members of the kmity know, the attempt to

build a virtual wall, an sbi net resulted in pretty significant investments of taxpayer dollars in some technology that did not prove to be useful to the agents on the ground that actually needed it as i understand it the border patrol has certified that the integrated fixed tower is, is a useful, helpful tool that expands their visibility on the border. >> thank you very much. yield back. >> doctor, as you'll recall, i mentioned the a pretty strong rumor on the texas border of the 200-pound rule on marijuana. i didn't get a response from the attorney general, i asked her about that. mr. young? commissioner, welcome. nice to see you, thanks for what you do. i want to talk about a little about custom and border protection uses of unmanned

aerial systems. i had gone down to the border last year, early last year and noticed things, uavs and aerostats, can you talk a little bit about where those are being used, how they're being used, and where they're being used. are you seeing a drop in border activity? because it seems to me like many times this can simply be a real deterrent by seeing these intimidating blimps or drones up in the sky. and can you just reassure us or talk about the relationship between using the uass and in conjunction with your agents. and is one meant to supplement the other? you're not phasing out agents with the use of uass are you? can you talk a little bit about this? >> they're all designed to enhance and even in my earlier statement. the fact that it's still a labor intensive job. it still requires boots on the ground but it can be greatly enhanced with technology. soy think the tactical or the tethered aerostats are particularly helpful.

with the camera systems that are in them. >> do you know about how many aerostats we are at now? >> i think we're at five and we put another one in mcallen area, so we're now moving to six aerostats, they're fairly expensive to operate. because we use contractors to operate them. but frankly, i don't want to take a border patrol agent off the road. and then have them operate the mechanics of the tactical aerostat. so i think they are helpful. i'll be down in mcallen next week for my 12th or 13th trip. and the agents down there feel that they're a definite deterrent and visible. i kind of thought that even if we had some extras without the equipment we ought to just put them up in the air. and see how that works. kind of like when we park a police car with nobody in it. and see if people slow down. >> or the inflatable tanks they used in world war ii. >> on the road. but we'll have to see if they

take up my idea. >> thank you for that. >> last year, i asked you about guidance given to cpv personnel to keep administration's policies in mind and if these priorities supersede the law. last month the house judiciary committee, her testimony from a cpb agent that undocumented immigrants are no longer given a notice to appear order and are released without any means of tracking their whereabouts. are you know, i have serious concerns about this. i know some of my colleagues do as well. are agents being directed to ignore the law? or is this coming from within their own decision-making? or are they given guidance on ignoring the law on this? >> they shouldn't be releasing anyone and the border patrol shouldn't be issuing the notices to appear without going through and without having i.c.e., immigrations and customs enforcement. we don't need to be in that i think everyone is very familiar

with policies in the past. called catch and release. in which people were not documented. reports were not as well written. people weren't questioned. there's no one that's apprehended today that isn't, unless they're under the age of 14, that isn't fingerprinted and photographed, that isn't debriefed about how did you get here. was there a smuggler involved? who did you pay? how much did it cost? all of that information. but we don't need and don't want an i would not stand by if the border patrol was releasing people without going through all of the formalities that are required. >> did this concern you when this border patrol agent gave this testimony before the judiciary committee about this? >> the concern i have is quite often the border patrol council, which is the union, is probably not the most knowledgeable organization about what's actually going on. i think unlike, you know, when i

had police officers in seattle, they would follow the law. then there's room within the law to actually do things. and if they weren't happy with doing that, it's kind of like well, if you really don't want to follow the directions that your superiors, including the president of the united states and the commissioner of customs and border protection, then you really do need to look for another job. >> there's some serious concerns out there that the law is not being enforced. last year when saldana was here, she gave a statement saying their goals and principles and priorities should take precedents. even over the law. so that's very concerning to myself and many others. on this panel. and just throughout america. wondering why if it's not happening, the law is not being enforced. it's a very serious thing. i urge you to keep an eye on that, please. thanks. >> thank you. >> all right. i think we'll start a second

round. >> first going back to something one of my colleagues brought up. i think mr. harris, the integrated fixed towers, the reality is that the first certification of one of these towers, was last friday. isn't that correct? so it's a very, very current event. and on those towers, here's the question, the texans would like to know -- when will your budget install towers in texas? what will you use in texas, if not integrated fixed towers? >> i think part of the delay with the integrated fixed towers was the fact that that contract was protested. and as we know, when a contract is protested, it takes a long time then to overcome that. but that fixed tower in arizona is up and working, we know that the additional aerostat in texas is very helpful. and if there are other locations, including those within texas in which that fixed

tower would make a difference, then i would like to move forward with, with that. i couldn't be more specific, but i'm happy to get back to you on that. >> it's not it wouldn't be the first time that we've looked around and seen resources going to arizona that we really needed in texas. so i think i'm required to ask that question. >> i got the message. >> okay. >> we understand that the department is exploring an outcome-based approach to metrics that would measure the effectiveness or of our border security. how is cpb working with the secretary on this initiative and how will it change the current cpb metrics which are more input-based instead of outcome-based. what does the preliminary data suggest for border security between an and at ports of entries. i understand reports different compare with existing metrics.

>> the secretary and i think everyone including cpb and the border patrol is frustrated with either the lack of metrics or the metrics that exist, what do they tell you. almost like dr., i believe dr. aris, you don't know what you don't know, would be one of the questions. so the secretary brought in a number of people from the department of defense and others that have been working pretty closely with all of us to gather as much information as possible. about what are the measures and what should be looked at and what are the determinations that would be most useful in things like determining the number of border patrol agents, how secure is the border, what are we missing, et cetera. it's very complex. i don't know the exact timeline, but i know that he is absolutely focused and intent on trying to have this done and out, certainly before he leaves office.

>> so you already know don't really know anything, the difference between you know, between input and outcome bases? do you have some examples as to what the differences might be? >> i don't. the last bringing i had from the people that had come over from defense, was probably three or four months ago. so i'm not all that familiar with where they are now. they wanted to gather a lot of information from i.c.e., not just border patrol. but also, at our ports of entry. so -- >> have you got anything that gives us a hint? did you let us, would you share it with us? >> i'll be happy to. >> okay. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i think we look back on the record of the last hearing last year, i do not believe that saldana said or implied that the law should not be followed.

commissioner, late last year, you briefed me on the results of cvp's review of body-worn cameras, which this committee submitted as a way of increasing the accountability of cvp personnel, as well as protecting them from unfounded accusations of misconduct. the budget continues to $5 million to tn continue to examine how body cameras might be used across cvp's varied operational environments and looking at the is expanded efficient use of other camera technologies could be beneficial. can you elaborate on how this funding will be used? and how that activity will be different from the feasibility study that cvp conducted last year? >> yes,man ma'am. we've tried to move beyond. the fact that one customs and border protection is a very camera-rich environment now. every port of entry, certain checkpoints, lots of locations, including all the cameras along

the border. so we have lots of cameras and we use a lot of cameras. expanding the cameras in two areas would be helpful. one is that our marked vehicles, do not have dash cameras as many police departments have. like los angeles and others. we want to be able to use part of that $5 million to put those cameras in those vehicles, we do end up in apprehensions and pursuits, et cetera, where that record would be helpful. expanding cameras at the checkpoints, the permanent checkpoints, the number would be helpful. and also on our boats, we've had two fatal incidents, one off the coast of california and one with british virgin islands, within the last year, of fatalities involving enforcement actions. our boats are not equipped with those cameras. the difficulty we've had with body-worn cameras for in our air and marine agents will be testing them out as they

interact with people. at locations. the difficulty with the body-worn cameras for our border patrol agents, we did not find a camera with, withstood the environment that they worked in for more than about three months. we've had a number of discussions with vendors who have come forward with either ideas or ways to improve those cameras, because we think it would be helpful. i spent time over coffee with a number of the agents who field-tested the cameras. they were very positive about it. the border patrol council, the union in this particular case, has indicated support for body-worn cameras. >> how long do you anticipate the next phase will take and when can we anticipate that cvp will make a decision about improving and expanding use of cameras, including the body-worn cameras? >> it's a relatively easy to

improve an expand on the cameras. and all of the locations i talked about. except for the agents out in the field and the rough terrain. i would certainly make a goal of mine before i leave office at the end of the year. to make sure that we've developed body-worn cameras that agents can wear and rely upon. >> what progress has been made in addressing the major procedural and policy challenges associated with using the cameras? >> i think the most help that we've gotten has been from the nongovernmental organizations who are very involved in body-worn camera issues for state and local law enforcement. they have been a part of the discussion and over what would be the best policies. but we also know and i think the city of los angeles looked at a pricetag just for that city alone of over $50 million and wants to make sure, i think you

brought this up, too, mr. chairman. there are huge numbers of costs when it comes to retaining information, foia requests, et cetera and all of that needs to be included in the analysis. >> when you arrived at cvp, i and many others had significant concerns about allegations of the improper use and misconduct among cvp personnel. a short time late anywhere 2014, you updated cvp's use of force handbook, incorporating many of the representations made by the inspector general and the police review of cvp, use of force cases and policies. you announced the establishment of a use of force center of excellence. the budget request for fy 17 include as $4.2 million increase for the center. which is based on cvp's advanced center in harper's ferry. chu elaborate on the purpose of

the center what it has accomplished to date and how the proposed budget increase would be used? >> the center has been helpful in two areas, one is less lethal technology. there are a variety of less lethal from tasers to pepper ball launchers and on and on. they can be used before having to resort to the use of a firearm. so part of the work that they do is the training and looking at the new equipment. the other is the simulators, so we're in the process of purchasing 21 simulators. that will be assigned throughout the, our field of operations, from spokane, washington, to florida. where agents and officers can go through a simulation. we make our own videos, based upon the environment particularly that the border patrol works in. the same time. we added a variety of fence together border patrol training facility and in artesian, nx new

mexico so that agents can practice before they ever leave training, can practice in the environment that they're going to be operating in. we've seen great progress and we'd like to make more. >> have you seen the use of force instance decreased over the past year? >> our assaults on agents so far year to date in this fiscal year are down about i believe 25-30%. so assaults on agents are down. we released our use of force information and our uses of force were even though last year we did see a flattening or the same number of assaults on agents, we saw a reduction in the use of force by agents. and part of that is a result of better policy. better training, better equipment, et cetera. >> question, as you well know it

is critical for cvp officers to be able to transfer information they gathered for national security purposes. concerned about some findings issued by the homeland security committee that while cvp officers can pass along information collected at borders, the process isn't augment pd or incorporate rated into the federal government's databases, i see you're requesting $48 million for the office ever intelligence staffing. i want to be sure, i know everybody does, that maybe you can talk a little more about the intent sbeg grags and clab of systems and technologies to address this. >> when i arrived at cvp and examed each of the components, including the office of intelligenc intelligence,. >> i saw the office was focused on particular targeting. that means that as i describe

it, it was kind of an a mile wide and an inch deep. no, vice-versa. it was very much targeted or very much tactical. and so it was very important and we brought in a new assistant commissioner who came from the office of the director of national intelligence. and and the fbi and had been at the nsc. who said let's broaden our intelligence scope and work with other intelligence agencies and feed the information to our targeting center. but let's not make our intelligence unit all targeting all the time. we needed all of the other information. for instance, we're negotiating on preclearance with nine other countries, we need that broad-based intelligence. that's where we are, that's where we're headed. and the relationship with the intelligence community to be able to use or access other databases, is progressing well. >> it's progressing well. >> you sense any impediments that you're facing that need to overcome that we can help with?

>> no, we couldn't have better, you can always help. but we couldn't have better partners than director clapper, than director comey and others. i think they see the value and the importance of what cvp brings to the table on these issues. >> thank you for that. >> thanks. >> mr. price? >> thank you, mr. chairman. commissioner, i'd like to ask you about two distinct but related areas to push our borders outward as we say. the first, cargo screening overseas. the second preclearance for airline passengers. first on the, on the cargo screening. as you know, the 9/11 act required cvp to scan 100% of maritime cargo originating in foreign ports prior to landing on american shores. for a variety of reasons, from

cost to technological constraints to inadequate infrastructure at many harbors, this requirement remains illusive. perhaps it's not ultimately impossible. perhaps this subcommittee has recognized that. in our 2016 report, we acknowledged as much. we acknowledged the expectation that, that the department in light of this, would provide to the congress an aggressive alternative requirements that build on the layered secured capabilities achieved to date and that could be realistically achieved within the next two years, i'm quoting so we directed cvp to provide a briefing within 45 days of enactment on its near-term and longer-term plans for improvement of maritime cargo scanning at foreign ports. not so much a question as a comment. -day think you have a case to make here.

there may be we had an earlier report on this from your agency, which was very brief and not totally adequate. so there is a history here. but i, i hope you will take this briefing very seriously. it's not yet occurred. i do think the subcommittee needs to be assured that in in light of this very difficult, perhaps impossible statutory requirement, that you are filling in the blanks with a risk-based screening process that we can rely on longer term. we put great stock in your filling out that information. >> we do the the secretary has made it very clear, the importance of this. we know we have a lot of screening systems in place, both overseas and here. but it does not meet the requirements of the law. and that's important. and also of course the direction through the law of biometric exit. that's why we've moved

aggressively since we were given the mandate in 2013, to move to a biometric exit process, we have a biographic exit program that's pretty robust. but we need biometric exit. the final part of the budget is the request that the office of the biometric information be moved to cvp so that if you're going to hold me or the next commissioner accountable for biometric exit. we would have the tools and the resources to actually make that happen. >> my reference is to this prior statutory requirement for screening overseas, as i said this subcommittee on a bipartisan basis has been kong zant of the difficulties there, but at the same time we do need to be filled in as to what the short and long-term plans look like for the screening of particularly risky cargo coming from overseas. now preclearance, airline passengers.

this has been in some instances a very uncontroversial process, involving canada, ireland, other countries in the case of abu dhabi, not so controversial. nonetheless, it seems to me it's had a very solid rationale. security rationale. a rationale in terms of convenience to passengers and in other words, the case is pretty strong. but we do need to make the case and we do need to understand how the department assesses the work done so far and what kind of projections you make into the future so i wonder here, you may want to submit more for the record. i wonder if you could briefly give us an assessment. how many places this is going on. what do you think would be desirable in terms of the future reach of, of this preclearance effort. what kind of progress report can you go? >> so the discussion with ten airports in nine countries is continuing on. it's very robust. tonight i'll be meeting in new

york with a group from a country, seven people flying in from another country to discuss final discussions, i believe that before the end of this calendar year that we will have several signed agreements with countries for preclearance. and then i believe in 2017 preclearance operationses will be operational in calm of those locations. for safety, security, benefit to the traveler, cost to the taxpayer i don't think, certainly with the support that congress has given on this, i don't think we can go wrong with pushing our borders out. >> abu dhabi in particular, do you have any comments on how that's worked? particularly on the security benefits of that arrangement? >> the last numbers i looked at, which several months ago, well over 1,000 people who wanted to fly from abu dhabi to the united states. our recommendation to the airline was that if they arrived, they would be deemed

inadmissible. the airline made a decision not to admit them. that doesn't mean just citizens from uae, but that's people who have flown through abu dhabi to then continue on travel. from a security standpoint. i think it makes sense. but i'm very pleased in the negotiations with the current negotiations, all of these loerkss have american flag carriers that fly into and out of them. >> that's the requirement going forward. >> it was not true of abu dhabi at the time. that seems, that seems remarkable. just on the face of it 1,000, you say? >> yes. >> do you think you think those thousands of people otherwise would have come to this country and be dealt with at one of our ports of entry? or is there something attracting these people to maybe try? >> they would have been -- >> we apprehend and denied a

missibility every single day. they would have landed in the united states, they would have been deemed inadmissible based on the information we had. they would have, the airline would have been required to place them on the next flight, the next return flight. they would have been held during that, they would have been incarcerated during that period. or maintained in a secure location until getting back on that flight where we escorted them back on the plane and they left the united states. >> thank you, thank you, mr. chairman. >> dr. harris -- >> thank you very much. let me ask a little bit about the oig report on the forward operating bases which i'm sure you've seen. i understand and they say that you know, your organization responded -- but it seems it's pretty serious, these are pretty important operating bases. are you committed to addressing all the problems they found?

>> the first problems and the ones that were certainly most significant involved the quality of the water and we made we made changes. one of the difficulties with an organization this vast and this widely disbursed is that sometimes by the time the information gets to me it's like, what is being done? and how many days has this already gone. i've made it clear that the safety and security of our personnel, whether it's in where they work, is key to that. so these forward operating bases, which can be quite helpful, but are also quite remote. need to be secure and they need to be well maintained and we need to work with our staff5um the gsa to make sure these locations are better. >> thank you. i appreciate that. because you're right, our agents do need to have secure facilities and good facilities where they're working. with regards to export

enforcement, i have a question that obviously the sanctions that prohibit u.s. exports to iran still remain in full effect. with the exception of civilian aircraft. what is, what steps are you doing now that there's this, enhanced relationship with iran, to monitor for illegal exports to make sure that we're not exporting illegally to iran? >> exports for any customs organization in the past, including ours, did not see the same level the scrutiny and review that certainly imports see. over the last several years we've take an number of steps to do a much better job of looking at what is leaving. there is a program in which large numbers of exports from well known manufacturers here in the united states may leave the country. but that the manifest of what was leaving the country would not be transmitted until it was already on a ship and already going out. so we're working with industry

because we want the manifest in advance before it ever gets on a boat or ever gets the ability to leave. and we also need to make sure that we're working closely with the intelligence community and others, on things that may be exported to a country that could be hostile to us. that they never get to that country. >> one final question, i'm just not sure this is you know your jurisdiction, but the homeland security sector is supposed to deny entry to the u.s. of any iranian citizen seeking to enter the u.s. to study the field of nuclear engineering. it makes great sense, we don't need to train our enemies. the law is to remain in effect for the next eight years. my concern is maybe you have knowledge of how this -- i have five children, four have been to college, all four have changed their majors when they were in college. someone can come here and say i'm not going to study nuclear engineering, go to school and in

fact take nuclear engineering courses, do we have a safeguard to make sure that iranians don't come here and literally gain access to what i believe is the best education in the world, technical education in the world to go back and build weapons against us? how do we safeguard against that? >> dr. harris, it isn't -- >> that's probably i.c.e., isn't that? >> i don't have that information. but we'll be happy to get with your staff. >> that's of some concern to me. people can come here, we don't know their intention, they'll fill out a form that says they want to be a history major and end up in an engineering school, learning things that will come back to bite us. thank you very much. i yield back. >> mr. goyar, mr. chairman, thank you so much. two questions. dealing with trade. where are we on the full 2,000 cvp officers? at one time we were delayed

because of breach of security background. where are we with that? tell as you little bit about the agricultural specialist staffing issue and again my history about laredo and the valley has a lot of agriculture. so tell us where we are on that those two issues? >> sure, one i would be remiss if i didn't thank you for speaking to our personnel when they have their large personnel meetings and talking to them about professionalism and their responsibilities and on and on. it means a great deal when a member of congress spends time with them. so that's very helpful. we're about 700 customs and border protection agents below what the 2,000 we would have hired. remember we've had a lot of attrition. >> in dems we hit the highest number of customs and border protection agents on board. we're making progress with them.

that's helpful. we also did not ever have a staffing program or a work load analysis for our agricultural specialists. after 2003 and the fact we were put together as a result of that, combining in the department of homeland security, it was all security all the time. and our agricultural specialists, who are the most highly educated by the way of our workforce, did not receive in my estimation, as much support as needed. and when you think about the things that can harm this country, from pests and diseases and agriculture, we've worked pretty hard to try and improve and increase and show the recognition for the important work that they do. but the staffing model will be helpful. >> second question, has to do with a letter that, that governor abbott and myself wrote to the secretary. and i see the response and i

told the secretary, i respectfully disagree. especially, think the chairman said a while ago that y'all are 12% below the goal for air interdiction officers, is that correct? >> yes. >> there's eight air crew vacancies and we provided funding, full funding to to the national guard and again i disagree with the way the secretary had looked at and you know, he does a great job and i appreciate it, he was looking at one month from january to december to january, when actually when you look at the longer one it's, it's actually 171% increase, just unaccompanied kids, 102% on families. but regardless of all that if we're short, we have vacancies. the national guard got funded. i would ask you all without

respect to the letter i got from the secretary, i would ask you all to look at that again one more time. mr. chairman i am going to request some language, especially if we fund it. that we put that back again. especially your numbers are correct and they've been confirmed 12% under the goal of air interdiction, we want to provide the men and women the support, air support. i can understand, we didn't provide the funding, blame congress, but in this case, we did provide funding. i would ask to respectfully consider our request again. >> we would never blame congress. >> and again, my last question again, commissioner, thank you for all, i wish the best for the end of this year and again i really appreciate your dedication. the men and women that serve along with you, thank you so much. >> commissioner i, too, want to join my friend from texas, thank you for your hard work. please convey our appreciation

and thanks to all the members of the u.s. customs and border protection agency. they do a tough job. in a tough environment, and as we talk, questioned, we always know, because all of us have been there. those that haven't are going to go. because they need to know the kind of rough environment that y'all have to work in. we hope god blesses each and every one of you, thank you. >> thank you. >>

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a reminder if you missed any of this hearing you can watch it in our video library at c-span.org. we're be back on capitol hill later today for a hearing on encryption and federal investigatio investigations, witnesses will testify on the fbi's can hand that apple assist in unlocking an iphone used by one of the san bernardino shootshooters. that's live at 1:00 p.m. eastern. today is super tuesday with primaries in 12 states and 865 democratic and 595 gop delegates up for grabs. politico writing that donald trump is poised for sweeping

nationwide wins today, solidifying his position as the republican front runner and intensifying the pressure on his struggling primary rival to find a way forward. top republican expect the real estate mog toll carry as many as then states on tuesday night, an outcome that would deal a body blow to ted cruz and to florida senator marco rubio who has yet to win a primary and isn't expected to on tuesday. c-span is following all of the results and be will lye beginning at 7:00 p.m. eastern with your reaction an victory and concession speeches from the candidates. that coverage gets under way tonight at 7:00 p.m.

♪ i'll go here with aarp to get what the candidates are standing about social security and how they're planning on saving it. and if they are, what are they going to do to save it. >> i'm participate in this election because i feel like it's very important to get out and vote because it's really the only way, besides local elections, that we can voice our opinions. an a reminder that we'll be live at 1:00 p.m. for a hearing on the fbi's demand that apple help in unlocking a cell phone. next a recent discussion on that issue from c-span's communicators program. and this week on the communicators, a discussion about encryption, the iphone and the fbi. joining us josh zive who is with the fbi agents association,

general counsel there, and chris calabrese, with the center for? democracy and technology, sies president for policy. we also have a working reporter, and that's dustin volz of righters where he covers cybersecurity. is this issue that we're currently discussing about the iphone and terrorism. it is a classic case of security versus privacy? sfl i think it's more of a case of security versus security. i mean certainly apple is concerned and we're all concerned about the privacy of the information on the device. but we're also very much worried that building any tool that allows you to break this security on the device is really a privacy harm, one that's going to come back and bite apple users around the world. >> mr. zive, same question. >> we do see it fundamentally as a challenge to that proper balance. and that is because there is a tool at play, and the tool was a

device that was intentionally designed to be impenetrable. and as a result we believe it threatens the way that our search and seizure laws were to operate. so we do view it as a real threat to the balance of security sits on. >> tim cook in his open letter writes about this issue, the government suggests this tool could only be used once own one phone, but that's simply not true. once created the technique could be used over and over again on any number of devices. in the physical world it would be the equivalent of a master key capable of opening hundreds of millions of locks. >> i think there's a lot of hyperbole in mr. cook's letter. we like the analogy because the truth is when you look at the physical world, all sorts of

private information exist in the world, medical records, business records. where those records are stored, law enforcement with a warrant with access that evidence. it is available. there are keys to physical toors, keys to safe-deposit boxes and also private companies are required to comply with warrants in order to access even locked physical devices. in this instance the fbi is asking for with a magistrate's order, apple to simply unlock their own device. this is technology -- these are technical means that they haved a plad admitted that they have. >> this is different. we're not asking them to unlock a device. they do not have a key in their possession. what's being asked of them is that they build code to break their device. in other words that they

actively create a way that they can access their device and make it less secure. that's different. i mean a warrant entitles you to search a place. it doesn't entitle someone -- doesn't entitle you to get something. it entitles you to access if access is possible. that's different than saying i'm going to make you build a vulnerability that could be reproduced or asked for by china or illicitly accessed by a hacker. >> on that point, chris, one of the things that the doj is saying this is not a broader attempt to break encryption. they said we want to disable nonencryption barriers, the auto delete on the pass code. how do you push back when they say this is a one-time thing for one phone, we're not undermining encryption. the apple can keep the custody

of the code that they write. >> i think it's true that we're not breaking encryption when we do this. we're breaking the security features of the phone. the policy debate is broader than encryption versus nonencryption. that's the first point. the reality is, there's already 12 cases outstanding where the fbi is asking them to do this in other cases. if we set this precedent now we're going to be setting a precedent where i can get your help whether you want to give it to me or not, to turn your device into either something that can be accessed by the government or a listenings device. i think that we don't want a precedent where the government is able to force people to turn the devices that we rely on into spies on us. >> and i think that's a significant overstatement of what the risk is here. what we're describing here is the normal operation of the fourth amendment for hundreds of

years, which is that even the most private areas, the most private locations can be accessed with a warrant, with -- we're not talking about mass surveillance, we're not talking about the government turning devices into listening devices. we're talking about court-supervised warrants and the ability to access evidence. and i think the question people need to have is what is the alternative. these devices have been intentionally designed to be impenetrable by normal legal process. that is not the way our system is designed to operate. that is a choice that apple and these companies have made for largely business reasons and there's in question -- and he is correct. there is both an individual instance that we're dealing with with the phone that was used by the san bernardino terrorists and there is a larger question of whether these companies should be able to mass market technology that is intentionally designed to frustrate the legal process. >> it's not intentionally

designed to frustrate the law enforcement process. it's intentionally designed to be safe and secure for users. your phone is the most personal information about you. i mean it's all contained in there, whether it's your back access, p.i.n. numbers, personal information about you, all of they're designing it to be safe. to be impenetrable not from law enforcement but everyone so that we stay secure in your digital world. >> is this different than looking at somebody's e-mails going to jordan, say? >> well there are different -- that does implicate a different set of laws, perhaps. i do think it's a different angle on the policy debate, one that is a valuable policy debate. i think it's important to note that these companies were and able to and did work with law enforcement for years in responding to legal process. to say that this was not intentionally designed to frustrate law enforcement i believe is misleading.

in the announcement of this, part of the announcement and the role out of this technology was a declaration that they would no longer work with law enforcement on these. this is the experience that our agents have had in the field where even outreach to these entity to participate on discussions on these topics have been met with the claim that -- from apple met with silence and from google met with the claim that they would only respond to legal process. so we're -- we are at this location because we were forced to be here by these companies' business decisions. >> you're talking about legal process. is there any concern that the statute, the law that the government is relying on in this case goes back to our founding, it's centuries old and that's the rationale they're currently using in this debate? >> i don't think so. the all ritz act speak to the prois seerds available to a court to enforce a warrant and it has been applied to modernize

technology many years. this is not the first time that it's been used with the technology that didn't exist at the time. it's been applied to security video, credit card records. none of those things existed in the 18th century. >> it's a pretty wide-ranging change now. while i agree clearly we've applied the all ritz act in the past, this is a make no mistake policy dispute. if we decide to allow access of this type, a magistrate court would be saying there is little or no argument to keep a china from doing this exact same thing. there is little or no discussion of who else might be able to access this or would the security implications of creating a back door that might be misused by a hacker. this goes far beyond what a magistrate can honestly grapple with in the course of interpreting the all ritz act to

a sea change around all of our pr privacy. >> what is the all ritz act? >> the all ritz act is a 1789 statute that essentially says you must give assistance to law enforcement when they come to you with parent and essentially producing information on that warrant. but that's a little bit different. what we have here is not just assistance. it's not just the landlord opening the doors, you know, uses his key. it's the landlord drills a hole in the safe or, worse yet, the safe company is required to put a back door lock on their safe that law enforcement can use the open. so we're taking a substantial step beyond assisting in the pursuit of a warrant to essentially rebuilding security and access control. >> but we do have the ask the question of what the alternative is. we can debate -- there are a

variety of mechanisms that exist to address this issue. there are split key options, back door master key, a range of options. however, right now none of those options have been used. and what is true is that these devices are locked to law enforcement, apple is refusing to comply with this and other warrants. and as a result those phones act as active safe havens for people who want to conduct criminal activity. >> this is a county owned work phone used by one of the two perpetrators in the san bernardino attack. the personal phones of he and his wife, they destroyed them, dropped some of their other electronics in the lakes. this is a county-owned phone. do you really believe this would be that important to investigators. >> i believe that's why we have a fourth amendment process, so we don't force people to answer that question before you've seen

the evidence. if you have probable cause and you obtain a lawful warrant that you look for the evidence then. the whole point is we don't know what is on that phone. so pointing to that lack of knowledge as evidence that we shouldn't see what's on that phone turns the warrant system on its head. >> i do think it's worth acknowledging here that while it's fine to say we should have this debate, the realty is that there is vastly more information available to the fbi now than there was 20 years ago. vastly more. we're communicating in texts, sending hundreds of thousands f e-mails a day. much of it is accessible not on the phone but in the cloud and other devices. when we say we need information to build a criminal case, location information is available routinely. the reality is that we have a ton of information. what we're saying is that in a very narrow case when other security interests are at stake, we may not have universal access

to all information because we're potentially harming the security of every phone -- everyone who holds a phone. >> chris calabrese, do you have a problem with mr. farook's cloud information being accessed? >> i think there's an interesting legal question about what standard it should be asked at. right now the legal standard for accessing information in cloud content is not a warrant. the law that deals with that is very out of date. there's a bill before congress right now that would update that. it's being held by civil agencies and law enforcement interests. so i think we can have a question about what the right standard is. but i think accessible with a warrant, no we don't have a problem. >> i'm glad you brought up that law. as it is, the fbi already executes warrants for all of that content even though it's not required. the fbi uses warrants for all content.

we have serious concerns about other aspects of that law and we do think that that -- the discussion of electronic privacy laws, like the law that chris mentions, provides a very useful tool to have this discussion. because if you don't think the al ritz act is the proper tool, if people have concerns about the fact that yes, there broader ways to access this information. so creating this tool for even cyber criminals which is one impenetrable tool in a world of accessible information, we think that debate should be joined by congress. and that legislation would provide an ample opportunity to have that very discussion. >> based on what you know about the case and your expertise, do you believe investigators made a mistake in telling san bernardino to reset the apple id password on a phone that precluded another attempt of obtaining the information on the

cloud? did they make a mistake? >> i still kwcan't get rid of t freakin' u2 song off my phone. it's a separate question from the one that's presented here, which is, you know, should apple comply with that magistrate's order or not. >> well, i mean i think there's no question they made a mistake. but i think it's also, to be fair, every investigation will not be conducted perfectly. putting that aside, i think the reality is that if we have a device that is likely not going to contain useful information, that probably could have been accessed without this mistake in a -- you know, access that information. is this really the hill that we want to create a huge new precedent allowing law enforcement to essentially force

the building of weaknesses and back doors into devices? i think it's not. i think this is a discussion that should go to congress and continue on past this court proceeding. >> despite those issues that you raised, a poll came out on monday, it's only one poll, i think some polling data may be out in the coming days. but this one said that 51% of the americans sided with the fbi, 38% sided with apple. is apple losing this -- this is a very public fight. are they losing this in the public court of opinion? >> i don't think they are. perhaps i'm a sunny optimist. the fact that we're talking about a high profile terrorism organization and the fact that 40% of people on a fairly es 0 teric issue understand that their privacy is so at stake and their phones are so sensitive that they're willing to say even in this extreme circumstance we

still don't want to see that phone accessed. i think that's a big deal. >> i think that number speak to something different, which is, if you take into account the massive amount of resources that these very large companies have put into public relations and lobbying and outside groups that are serving as advocates on these issues, in this face of all of that, that 51% of the people, many of whom are loyal apple customers, including myself, still have questions about these companies choices, marketing choices. i think that number is very persuasive. >> josh zive, has apple ever unlocked phones before for a criminal case? >> sure. although i think we both would agree the newer operating systems presents a different technological issue than the past ones. they've certained cooperated with law enforcement scores of times in the past with their technology. >> to my mind that only

underscores the seriousness of how they view this incursion into their device. i mean, listen, josh said it well. there are billions of people buying iphones. they're in the business of selling phones to lots and lots of people. if they thought there was a risk of alienating their customers, i think the smart corporate money in a lot of places would have said, you know what? i'm not going to pick this fight. but i think that they recognize that this is a sea change. this is us turning the device -- this is companies being forced to turn devices on their users. and if go down that road, no one is going to trust these devices then's going to have a bigger impact on apple than anything. >> i continue to think there's a bigger question that we have here about whether we turn over our search and seizure over to corporate. these are choices that were made for business decisions that

we're now being told override the procedures that we've used to strike the balance between privacy and security for centuries. >> you mentioned earlier that congress should get in and decide this. there have been proposals floated but they haven't gotten any momentum. how do you see -- can congress ultimately deal with this and how do you see that going forward? would that require opening up the computer assistance for law enforcement act? >> there's a lot of ways it could go forward. the reality is that congress first needs to grapple with whether we're better off with stronger systems. if we have a device that is secure, that does not have a back door with that's protecting the interest of human rights ad skro cates in china, that's protecting my interest against a hacker, that might have a greater benefit than the marginal effect of law

enforcement. i think we shouldn't forecoclose that discussion in any way. >> we agree. but this discussion should have occurred before these companies put millions of devices on the market. because the implications of this for law enforcement are already being felt. our local and state law enforcement report multiple investigations on things ranging from low level crime to child pornography and abduction the that is frustrated by this. we can have this discussion but there needs to be action and there should have been responsibility from these companies on the front end. certainly law enforcement learned about these imp caklicas at the beginning and it's misleading. >> are the lawmakers acting in bad faith when they say they support apple and strong encryption. they're now saying we need to deal with it. but they haven't deal it with. they renews to deal with it.

>> i think a lot of lawmakers have been hesitant to get involved in what often has complicated technological implications. and there's no question i think that being faced with looking at a cell phone that was used by terrorists and knowing that there's information in there we don't know what it is and we can't get it because of choices made by these companies, i think that's certainly clard fie the issue for a lot of people. >> if congress doesn't act, does this wind up in the supreme court and what does that look like? >> those may be separate questions. this litigation will unquestionably proceed, regardless of the outcome at the district court level and also it should be a policy discussion that occurs right now as well. >> yeah. i think we're really at the beginning of exploring the legal issues. we haven't talked about the free speech implications of requiring apple to certify that a device is secure when they know it's not. essentially forcing the company to say something to its user rks

ie, this device is secure, the update i'm sending is an update you can trust when they know that's not the case. we haven't talked about that. the idea of the government preapprove l technological changes is terrifying. we should worry about that. worry about saying i can't roll out strong safe devices until i've gotten sign-off from the fbi. nobody wants that. >> that's an interesting concept. it's not one pa barred apple from running their security. protocols by the chinese government when they wanted to get access to that market. their concern for human rights was not that strong when they were building the phones. they're acting out of libertarian desires. i don't think it's true. >> well back to tim cook's letter, mr. zive, we can fand no

precedent for an american company being forced to expose its customers to a greater attack ff fer years national security experts have been warning of weakening encryption. >> i don't think that's accurate. you could have made that -- the credit card companies under the all ritz act could have made the same claim. there was no precedent set until that precedent was set. if you read what the motion to compel actually requires, the software that's being asked to be used to essentially turn off the booby trap, that would be held by the company the same way that the expertise to create that software is already held by the company. i don't think you have a marginal difference. >> let's dig into the technology

for a second here. at least as an initial matter yes, i'm going to send a -- probably end up happening, i would send the device itself to apple and apple would then essentially create software which would trick this device into changing its operating system. saying you can trust this download. we're going to certify that to you. that's fine that it's held in apple's hands today. the reality is if that precedent is set, i will have a precedent that updates me be falsified. now if you put five security experts around this room, i think they would tell you one of the single greatest innovations and most important changes in cybersecurity in the last ten to 15 years is the universal update. we're auto updating devices so we know when there are security surnl rablts they get patched. if we break that process, say don't update your devices because you don't know what's in

there and you can't trust the company to tell you this is actually a secure update or worse than it could be subverted in some way by a hacker, we have broken huge improvements to cybersecurity and rolled us back a substantial amount. i think that's something we should worry about independently, which is why this is something that congress should be considering, not a magistrate judge in california. >> seems like every week we have a new story about how silicon valley and washington are not getting along. this seems to be bourn out of the edward snowden revelations. this is the new normal and are we having this debate now because of those revelations? is this why apple and other companies have decided to go this far on the side of digital privacy? >> i can't speak to their motivations in terms of snowden. it certainly hurt them.

they suffered loss on legal harms they couldn't koenig about. right now there's something called the privacy shield which is the framework that allows information to flow from the eu to the united states. that agreement was essentially wiped at way by european courts because of their concerns about domestic surveillance and requiring companies to comply with that surveillance. so that threw thousands of companies into disarray. they've clearly felt harm and there's nothing they can do. they're complying with legal orders. it's hard to look at them and turned around and say, you must continue to comply with these legal orders even though it is likely the cause you even more financial harm. i think at minimum the fbi and other law enforcement need to recognize what they're doing is causing financial hardship to companies as well as harming devices.

>> i'm sure we feel bad that the marketing choice that these companies, which are very successful companies, have made, that we have proposing a solution that in order to solve very dangerous crimes may not be fully consistent with their investor goals. but the truth is nobody is more sensitive to cyber crime than the 13,000 agents who are members of the fbi association. not only are these the crimes that our members are dedicated to solving every single day. direct director comey says cyber crime is crime. our members, almost every one of them were a victim of the recent very large a shack into the office of personnel management. our people are very sensitive to these issues. but they also know that in the midst of this it means that our constitutional system should set the rules for how you access information, not marketing teams. >> i'm really glad that you mentioned the omb hack.

this was about 24 million people, federal employees who had their most personal information held by the federal government hacked. this was their background checks, their mental health history, whether they have a drinking problem. everything in their background check. i can't think of anything more secure than that. if we can't keep that secure, does anybody really believe we're going to be able to keep any technique that we develop as part of this process secure? >> that's part of the point. that information is all hackable. all these companies have done -- the one thing that hasn't been a big source of threat is the physical phone. >> because they kept it secure, pause they built the security. >> until this recent operating system, which we didn't have problems before. you're creating a tool for those very hackers that our agents, will make their jobs substantially more difficult to investigate and prosecute those

kind of people. you're handing that tool for profit to criminals around the world. >> chris calabrese, how does the center for democracy and technology want to see this play out? >> well i think we want to make sure that we protect people's privacy. at the end of the day we don't want to see apple forced to build malware. i don't want to see apple doing a cyber criminal's job for them, forcing them to build a product that's going to hack their device. that's a terrible outcome that's going to make all of us less safe. >> josh zive. >> we would like to see apple stop selling malware in the initial phones that are being used by those very people and being marketed upon the false promise of security. because their information is already vulnerable but what is really a tool that frus tates and understand consistent with

our constitution. >> josh zive, chris ka la brees, vice president for policy, sent several years as council at the aclu and dustin volz, gentlemen, thank you. >> thank you. the topic of iphone encryption goes to capitol hill today when we'll hear from james comey and bruce sewell on the fbi's demand that apple insist on unlocking an iphone used by one of the san bernardino shooters. that's live at 1:00 p.m. eastern here on c-span 3. until then, more about encryption and federal investigations from a recent conversation on washington journal. joining us now, our first segment talking about the current debate, susan hennessy. at the brookings institution at

the national security law fellow but formerly an attorney. >> at the nsa i advised the government on matters related to their cybersecurity mission as well as served within their legislative affairs office, so managing the relationship with congress, you know, legislative reporting obligations, that kind of thing. >> so when it skocomes to the current fight we've been hearing about when apple and the fbi, can you give us a shorthand of what's going on two these two companies? >> this is a long simmering conflict. the fbi gave voice to this going dark issues back in 2010. this is something that the department of justice, the fbi, local law enforcement have increasingly come up against the phenomenon of not being able to access encrypted information when they have a lawful court

order. so they've sought a number of different methods. they have reached out to technology companies, they've introduced the notion of legislation to solve this problem. it's really come to a head here. essentially the fbi is seeking to access the content of the phone of one of the san bernardino shooters, a suspected terrorist attack with isis links from late last year. and apple no longer has the technical capabilities by which they had previously assisted law enforcement in extracting data. so essentially the government is moving to compel them under a law called the all ritz act in order to provide assistance. the difference here from what we've seen previously is while apple had prooifsly voluntarily maintained the capacity to extract the data in question, they no longer have the capacity. it's a question that the judge

will determine as to whether or not apple can be compelled to create the assistance for the government. >> so in writing about this issue on a recent blog post you wrote this. apple is being mischievous and they're crusading on whaf of their consumers. expand on that. >> they have every right to vand kate their rights in court and challenge this order. that said, this is a decision that aligns very very closely with apple's stated business interest. and the reason why i think that some of these sort of more kind of pious statements about this is really about a commitment to civil liberties, which of course the company might also be very committed to civil liberties, they can sort of mutually exist at the same time.

what sort of puts a lie to the notion that this has absolutely nothing no do with apple's business model, a previous case lawsuit last year in the bern district of new york where apple refused to comply or challenged an order. and in this case they actually asserted in federal court that complying with the order would cause reputational harm. >> and you wrote expanding your thoughts saying apple is trying to create a zone of impunity. can you expand on that? >> apple's fundamental argument and again we're extrapolating off of their arguments in the eastern district of new york. we haven't seen apple's reply brief. that's due early next month. but in the eastern district of new york what they're arguing is a number of things. it's complex and technical but essentially the all ritz act

which is a gap filling measure which courts are able to effectuate their warrants so they don't say the warrant is worth more than the paper it's printed on. it's a gap filling measure. the congress has spoken you must follow the law. apple is being a little bit mischievous here. i mean essentially what they're arguing is that there is a law on point, calea, the assistance for law enforcement act, they claim cob covered by this act and yet not covered be at the same time. defined in the act but not directed. and therefore nobody can regulate them. at the same time they make an alternative argument, saying that the all ritz act is improperer here. congress needs to be speaking. that's a sper fektly reasonable position for a company to take. the problem is that that i've made very clear there is essentially no accept nl legislation ahead of actively

worked on the hill to thwart all reasonable attempts. so really what they're doing is both saying this is an area for congress to speak in the courts and using that as a defense against this particular measure. and at the same time actively working against legislation. so that's why i think, you know, it's important that sort of citizens that are trying to evaluate their own civil liberties interest in this debate make sure they really keep the arguments clear and understand that apple is a company, you know, and not sort of the voice of the people here. >> joining us to talk about this back and forth debate going on. call in with questions for her. we divided the lines differently. take. l's point, 800 is in number you call, the government's point, 8001 web and for all others 202-748-8002. earlier on this week on sunday,

ted olson, the attorney appointed by apple spoke about this issue, spoke about apple's position. listen to it and get your response. >> absolutely. >> apple has helped the fbi in this investigation in every way the law required but it has to draw the line at recreating code, changing its iphone, putting its engineers and creative talent to destroy the iphone as it exists. apple has a responsibility to maintain the trust and faith of millions of people who depended upon apple to produce a product that protecting their privacy, their intimate personal life. this is a pandora's box. we're not talking about one imagine sfr imagine trait. there are hundreds of magistrates and hundreds of courts and there's no limit to what the government could require apple to do if it succeeds this way.

>> so ted olson is certainly a brilliant litigator and will bring the absolute strongest arguments that apple is capable 0 making. he makes the point that apple has to draw the line somewhere. no. the government draws the line somewhere. by the government, the federal judge who determines the scope of the law and congress when they pass legislation. it's true that apple should only be complying with court orders or warrants that they believe satisfy legal process and when they believe they're deficient, i believe they have an obligation to go to court to make sure that a court can determine that this is a proper application of the law. i think sort of the notion that apple is taking up this mantle on behalf of sort of the process really is not sort of -- it's an inaccurate description. >> is there a slippery slope, though, apple assists in this one tailored case, what makes the argument in the future? is there a broader concern?

>> people fail to forget that slippery slope is a name for illogical fallacy. the issue is it's the sort of assertion that the technical assistance is being sought here. that wouldn't undermined the security of the phone in the back door as it's commonly understood. but of course the press dental value if apple can be compelled to write code, if the all ritz act can apply, then the government will be able to push malicious software update, i think apple said that the government might be able to compel them to record conversations. there's two issues with this. the court can only decide the case in controversy before it. and so yes, this is really in kind of the most literal sense a case about one iphone, one case, you know one application of the law. that said it will have press

dental value, of course. the is law a properly aplieds in this case, then the fact that it might be -- that somebody might not like the result when it was applied in a future case doesn't mean it's incorrectly applied in the first insfans. they're sort of saying if it's right here, it's also right somewhere else. it has to be wrong here. i they that reveals that the objections are centered around objections to the law. so the court's job and the fbi's job is to comply with the law and interpret the law. it's congress's new job to pass new laws. so the argument this will allow ap toll do whatever they want, vis-a-vis being able to force technical assistance from companies, that really speaks to the american people get to say we want different laws. if we're seeing our laws being used in a way that's at odds with our values, there's a process for changing them. >> first call comes from

richards in lake placid, california. he supports apple. you're on with your guest. go ahead. >> caller: yes, good morning. this should be fbi's fight over the first amendment of the people. i mean, you know, what you say over the phone or what you print is going to be scrutinized by the fbi and it's going to create, you know, a problem with the people talking and really saying what they want to say. anything verbally or printed can be misinterpreted. and that way put the people subject to skrut any or investigation. now this isn't only against apple. this is against all the people. and it needs to be -- this needs to be thrown out completely. you know, it's a fight against first amendment is what this is. >> richard, thanks. >> so richard actually raises an interesting point and that is

that there are potentially first amendment implications to this case. essentially there is some precedent that says code is speech. whenever you write a code you're speaking and that can be protected the. in the governor christie succeeds in the application of the law here, is that going to result in the government compelling speech. we would expect apple to raise that argument, we would expect it to be litigated to the highest levels. but certainly there are constitutional law scholars around the country that are closely following this case for those reasons. >> larry supports the government's position. larry, go ahead. >> caller: yes. the way i look at it, we had murders in california by a foreign body. isis in particular. most probably mitigate

conversation on the tape and i really feel that under these circumstances, considering american citizens that were murdered by isis, that we should have the complete, complete information on it. and i really feel that the company, that is the -- excuse me, the company is being ridiculous in stating that the first amendment rights would apply her. they do not apply when it comes to the national security. and i served by country for 20 years and i stand by that commitment. >> we'll let our guest respond. >> i think a lot of people recognize that there really is a compelling government interest here. we have one of the worst terrorist attacks ever on american soil. i think there is, you know what the caller is getting at is

really the sense of feeling like this is part of the fbi's job. right? it's part of the fbi's job to ensure that they fully investigate the crime. now the fbi is not saying that the keys to solving the case are on this phone. the perpetrators on the case are already known and are now deceased. and they're essentially saying they don't know what's on the phone. but this was a shooting that occurred at the perpetrator's workplace so his communication with his colleagues or other individual on his work device are per innocent to their investigation. so i think sort of what a lot of people are struggling with, especially those who still sort of don't know where they fall is this real tension between sort of recognizing the ways that the law, you know protecting our privacy and civil liberties, not necessarily disagreeing with apple's core concerns here. we want to ensure that the government is following the rules. you know, wu at the same time we

expect or federal law enforcement, state and local law enforcement to do their jobs when and part of their jobs is investigating crimes. >> don't you hear the argument can't the nsa or the cia orb the fbi or whatever body of government do this already? >> i have heard this a quite a bit. as a former intelligence attorney it makes me know vous. sure, the intelligent community might have methods that are applicable here. i couldn't speak to specific operational realities. there are all kinds of reasonings why the intelligence community would not want to share those broadly, including sort of there are issues of constitutional preparations were making sure that congress is enacting the will of congress, you know, legal authorities, et cetera. and i also think as a u.s. citizen, like, i don't want -- i've seen what the intelligence

community is able to do pursuant to their foreign and lawful authorities. i don't think that all of those tallahassee are appropriate for domestic law enforcement. can't you do elsewhere in the government? in theory, but i think it's also important to understand that the law in question, it incorporates that analysis. so the government has to prove that the request is necessary. and so that they're essentially not able the do it on their own. they can't use this law to outsource the work that they're perfectly capable of doing on their own. so a judge will be able to say whether or not it's appropriate for the government you know, sort of how much the government has to represent. does the government have to represent that nobody anywhere within the entirety of the u.s. government can unlock this phone or extract this data? that would be a novel oply occasion of the law. but ultimately it's for the court to decide where this lane is drawn. >> let's hear from janet,

florida, supports apple's position. hi, janet. >> caller: yes, i support apple 100%. i feel like what the government want is for apple to discriminate. and they're probably looking at that because there is things that happen -- there are s people that killed like 26 children at one time and they're not looking at that as a terrorist attack. they're looking at a person's race and trying to tie these people to isis because of their race. i feel like that's wrong. and to me, that is straight out discrimination. if you're going to check these people's record, you have to check all of these other people who are killing way more than those nine people that got killed. you had 26 people that got killed in sandy hook, 20 of them was children and they're not looking at that as a terrorist attack. which it is. anytime you tear rise somebody, that is a terrorist attack. you have to stop looking at a

person's race and thinking an arab person is a terrorist. but a person, a caucasian person is just someone that's angry. you have to look at that. if apple have to send these people's records, then they should get cliven bundy's records. theme people was planning a terrorist attack against the government. their records should get pulled. if you're going to pull some people's records, pull everybody's record. >> janet, you put a lot out there. we'll let our guest respond. >> you raise a really important point. this is the point that the fbi should be a little clearer about and louder about. this is not just a tool for terrorist investigationings. this is an issue for local law enforcement for ordinary criminal matters. so whenever the fbi director testified last week, he raised

two cases where the going dark problem was a real issue. one was the san bernardino case. the other was the case of the louisiana woman, eight months pregnant who was murdered. all she was found with was her phone. that case is currently unsolved. the fbi has no leads because they're unable to access the data. so i think it's clear to understand that what the government is looking for, it has implications for its basic ability to investigation all kinds of crimes, not just crimes related to terrorism. >> you mentioned going dark. could you explain what that means? >> this is the thaerm the government uses to explain the fa nonl nonof not being able to access information. you have the court order, you've satisfied the constitutional checks, you have probable cause, you go and find the phone and want to look inside of it. going dark describes the

phenomenon of not being able to inside that. >> this is david from texas, supporting the government. you're on. go ahead. >> caller: boy, slippery slope conversations. you got -- it's like after all these years of not having a serious terrorist attack in the u.s., we get into this position again where we want to -- i'm sorry. that sandy hook conversation just took me totally off hook. the dark internet devices that are encrypted in such a way that the government has no prayer of breaking into them, you've got a scenario where terrorists are going to be able to communicate completely on the dark 0 on the internet with devices that can't be broken, we're going to have discussions like this. this is a continuation of the -- where the government lost in terms of the gathering, the

metadata which seemed to be to be such a misunderstood situation. i would like to ask the guest in relation to metadata if she knows whether or not the reason that the parisian authorities are able to track down and stop these terrorists who were still evidently intent and armed and ready to go with additional attacks in the coming hours and days, how did they do that so quickly where, you know, i've heard discussions where it seemed to infer that they had access to such metadata, they found a phone, were able to track who the phone had been in touch with and able to act on that right away. when the metadata discussion, it's not tracking phone calls. you've got gazillions of records out there that the government has to have a centralized place to be able to have that data, to be able to access the data if the need arises. they can't go out and get court

orders with companies that may oar may not cooperate. >> gotcha. thanks. >> this is an important point, one that everyone should recognize, there's always going to be information that the government can't access. even if apple voluntarily complied with the order. there are all sorts of communicating in secure methods that the government is not able to access. this is about getting the access to which they're a able to get access. right? in this case apple continues to maintain the capability. they admit they're able to do this. in the fub chur apple might change the way their technology is structured so it can no longer main tin the capability that the government is requesting. they're allowed to make the technological and the business decisions that make sense for their business model and for

their customer model and for their corporate values. it's not the place of the fbi to tell apple what they might need to do in the future or any other company. the fbi's job in the department of justice's job here is only saying where you can help us within the law we believe you're required to help us, provides this particular type of assistance. there are significant questions as to whether or not the proliferation of metadata can fill some of the gaps in the loss of content moving forward. time will tell. >> we see facebook weighing in on the side of apple. this morning, bill gates saying apple should cooperate. these tech companies they're lining up for and against. what's their interest? >> apple is a little bit of a different company like a lot of similar tech companies like facebook or google. apple doesn't yusz the data in the same way. they have business incentive to

not see the data in other situations where companies might have reason to look @data. google might want to look at your data in order to sell particular types of advertising to you. et cetera. and i think whatever companies are coming forward, they are, like the rest of us, trying to make sense of a enormously difficult question, right, that implicates the future of their ability to sort of create their systems. i think it's becoming increasingly clear that this is such a complex matter that it's time for congress to weigh in. and certainly these tech companies' voices are going to be relevant and critical to their discussion. i expect we'll hear them and they'll be loud about expressing their interest and also in educating the public. they know their systemance the potential consequences as well as anybody if not better. however, ultimately the business interest can only stand for itself. and it's the role of electeds

representative to decide how we strike that balance overall. >> in fact there's letters being sent out by the committee of energy and commerce asking these representative to come together to hold some type of hearing. perhaps in the next few weeks we'll hear of a forum or a hearing on this topic. mia, maryland, supporting apple's position. >> caller: hi. thank you so much. this is my first time calling. thank you so much. i enjoy your show. just one point i wanted to make. i have served both on the intel side of the community and in the civil space. and something that i haven't seen that hasn't been mentioned or discussed that i certainly would like your guest to address is the fact that apple is a multinational corporation in which the code that is actually developed for the iphone -- for use of the iphone is in many cases code is developed by

foreign nationals or people that represent other nations around the world. and one of the things that i heard coming from the ceo of apple is the statement that yes, they could create this back door or this key, but they, you know, have chosen not to. and my concern there was, or what i heard from that was there is a potential that the fact that they do have employees or people developers that they use from around the world that could create such a key could perhaps allow that key to get into the wrong hands. and that is a very sensitive within i think, issue that when you have a multinational cooperation that you may not be able to protect something like this. and i don't think anyone is talking about it. thank you very much. i'll tag your answer off line. >> thank you. i think this raises one of apple's strongest arguments and that is there's a little bit of discussion or argument or controversy over whether or not this can be fairly characterized

as a back door. if there's some way to access the system that doesn't exist, that will exist that doesn't exist now, that represents at least in additional vulnerability or additional sort of threat factor. i think what's sort of maybe tamps down some of apple's ability to really be overly concerned here about their ability to protect what essentially is a piece of alternative software, so apple would be holding the software themselves within their own facilities. apple actually maintained while it was technologically different, they maintained a similar alternate software. and they've maintain ed it for many, many years. so up until 2014 with the implementation of the ios8 operating system they were able to extract data. and so while sort of the technical methods were a little different, at the end of the day they had to store a version of the software which could have been used to compromise their phones. there are no known exploitations

of that. so there's no known vulnerability there. so i think that that while apple certainly has an interest in being honest about their ability to secure information, you know, i think that this is considering sort of the larger equities in play sort of questions of physical security versus sort of online security. we have to understand that sort of within the balance, right, of how serious that threat might be in reality or sort of in practice as opposed to just in theory. >> so we've divided the lines, if you support apple or government, all others as well, someone along that line, laura, huntington, new york, go ahead. >> caller: hi. thanks for c-span and good morning, ms. hennessy? >> good morning. >> caller: we have a couple of things here. one of them is the big issue of encryption, and civil liberties, which might be something for the

aclu to take a stand on, but we also have the small issue of this particular case where the fbi wants specific information about a specific phone. and bill o'riley last night said it's very simple at the lower level of generality ask apple for the contents of the phone and have apple give it to the fbi. what do you think about splitting this argument into two pieces as i have just done? >> so i think it sort of makes sense to understand these as two separate issues, right? the understanding that it doesn't go to apple's -- it doesn't create the kind of encryption back door that a lot of people think about whenever they think about sort of the

government's ability to intercept communications, et cetera. so i do think it makes sense to sort of understand that this is a particular case, this is access to a particular phone. there's not really any reason to believe that the specifics of an issue could be compromised to other phones. that said i think it's important to be honest about the fact that however the court rules here will have some precedencprecede. one come forward saying he has hundreds of iphones that he would like to unlock that are needed for new york investigations. so it is possible -- it's certainly possible that this is going to have sort of reverb consequences. the job here is to investigate a specific crime. this is what the fbi agents are tasked with under the law. and the courts have a specific job of deciding if in this

specific case based on this specific technology and this application of the law that's an appropriate thing. and so i do think that it's sort of important to understand that really we're talking about a very, very specific thing, but at the same time recognizing that we really are much larger issues are coming to a head here. >> paula from albany, georgia, go ahead. >> caller: yes. good morning to all. my comment is, apple's staff, mr. cook, it all should be marched out of there from those corporate offices and put in jail now for defying a subpoena issued by a federal judge. the american people are living now under exsi gent circumstances and enough of all this political correctness.

always, always ere in favor of protecting america and the americans' security. thank you. >> right. so sort of in defense of tim cook and apple there's nothing unpatriotic about coming to court to ask whether or not a court order has been properly issued. right. so the government has gone to the court and ex parte application and the court issues a court order. part of that court order includes a period of time in which apple is entitled to challenge that court order within the system. and apple is certainly not wrong. if they believe the application of the law is deficient, they're certainly not wrong to challenge that. that said, i think a little bit of what the caller is getting is a notion that a particular corporation or a particular group of individuals would substitute their value judgments above our own. and so in understanding that it's for all americans to decide collectively through our elected

representatives how we want the expression of our civil liberties and security values to apply. what we want the law to look like. so i do think that occasionally silicon valley can be a little bit of an echo chamber and fail to connect with other parts of the united states where people have different types of concerns. not because they don't understand the technology, not because they're wrong, but because their values and where they come down on the balance is different. pugh has now reached a recent poll showing about 51% of americans believe apple should unlock the phone. about 38% of people believe apple should not unlock the phone. so really i think what this shows is that it's a real question of american values. reasonable minds differ on these issues. and where reasonable minds differ we have a process for resolving those differences. >> susan hennessy, you talked about the law and needed changes.

would it be safe to say these kinds of laws that exist now apply for telephone conversations? and if it has to be applied or at least changed for the 21st century, what are the questions congress has to ask itself then? >> so i think congress really needs to ask itself what type of technical assistance companies are required to provide to the government, right? so i think it would be -- and this is my personal opinion, imprudent for congress to attempt to shape a law that told companies that they shouldn't develop strong security standards or build in a back door or even dictate at all how companies might need to shape their security systems and standards as they move forward. however, congress should clarify what exactly the obligations are. apple shouldn't be in the position of looking at this court order and saying we aren't really sure whether or not this compels us. congress should have been very clear either in the affirmative or the negative of what exactly a company is required to assist

the government within its capacity. >> from middletown, delaware, paula -- we are leaving this recorded program to take you live to capitol hill where the house judiciary committee is about to hold a hearing on encryption and federal investigations. witnesses for this hearing will include fbi director james comey and apple general counsel bill sewell. they'll both be testifying on the demand apple insist unlocking one of the iphone used by one of the san bernardino shooters. we are live here on c-span3.