| Home | Information Sharing & Analysis | Prevention & Protection | Preparedness & Response | Research | Commerce & Trade | Travel Security | Immigration |
The threat level in the airline sector is High or Orange. Read more.
Release Date: December 7, 2007
Washington, DC
Ronald Reagan Building
Secretary Chertoff: All right. Hello, everybody.
Audience: Hi.
Secretary Chertoff: Thanks for coming. I'm joined by Chief Aguilar of the Border Patrol and Greg Giddens, and they gave me a long thing to read you, but I won't read it all, so we'll have more time for questions. But we have tried to give some visibility into the various things that we are doing at the borders as well as the interior as part of our effort to get control of the immigration situation in this country, particularly to stem the flow of illegal immigration.
Some of this involves activity at the border. Some of it involves activity in the interior. I should also remind everybody that we are -- we have sent over to OMB some proposals for streamlining temporary worker programs which would help to alleviate some of the labor shortages which everybody predicts we're going to feel as we begin to achieve success in stemming the flow of illegal migrants.
And we're also obviously involved in courtroom procedures with respect to a number of the measures that we want to take. So I'll review them quickly and then we can talk a little bit about two things in particular, which are where we are with respect to fencing where we're beginning to install what we call P225, which is the next stage of getting fencing done at the Southwest border. And we also have made a decision in terms of the P28 Boeing project.
First of all, if you look back on fiscal year 2007, apprehensions at the border were down a little over 20 percent for the fiscal year, which combined with other indicators, strongly demonstrates to us that we are seeing fewer people that are attempting to cross.
One of the metrics, by the way, that kind of suggests we are having an impact on illegal migration is that apparently remittances are down. Remittances, as you know, are the payments that people send back to their home country. And at least some people interpret that as a sign that people are either going back on their own or they're at least prepared to go back and therefore they're beginning to bank more of their money.
We are on pace to double the size of the Border Patrol. We're at about 15,000 or will be at the end of this year, end of the month. And we have also dramatically ramped up interior enforcement efforts. In fiscal year 2006, I think we had about 740 criminal cases. This past fiscal year we were over 800. We doubled the number of fugitives we arrested in the last fiscal year as compared to the prior fiscal year, and that was achieved by increasing the number of teams that go out to apprehend fugitives.
Obviously, a big part of our effort is to give direction to employers and tools to employers to allow them to self-police and make sure that they are properly checking whether their employees have legitimate work status or not. An important part of this effort obviously was to give guidance with respect to No Match letters, which as you know, are letters that tell you that the name and Social Security number don't match what Social Security has in its database. A set of strange bedfellows as plaintiffs, including the ACLU and the Chamber of Commerce, went to court to block this. We have filed an appeal. Also having read the judge's opinion, it seems at least to me that he's actually upheld the basic principles of what we're doing. And if we can make some corrections in the regulation which we are in the process of doing, we may be able to go back to him early next year and say, look, we've addressed your concerns, now lift the sanction.
The principal argument that was made -- there were two arguments that were made against us. The initial argument was, oh, this is going to cause problems for legal people because there are some errors in the system. That is, if I may say so, a bogus argument. It's bogus because first of all, to the extent there are innocent errors, it's not that the system doesn't work. It means simply that people inputted wrong data. In that circumstance, it actually benefits the legitimate employee to have the matter highlighted and corrected. Otherwise, in 30 years when you expect that check to come, it's not coming, because there was a mistake in the system.
But the vast majority, or certainly a majority of the cases where there's a discrepancy I think are more likely to be because the number or the name are not real. And there I think it is fair to give employers 90 days to try to correct legitimate errors and then say at that point if it turns out there's not a legitimate explanation, you cannot just put your head in the sand about whether you're hiring someone illegal.
So we're going to push forward on that as well. The bottom line is I think these measures have all demonstrated some positive results, but they've also demonstrated some real pushback. Because the second argument that was raised against the No Match letter, which I think is the real argument, is simply that it's going to affect employers who have built a large part of their business on illegal workers. And, therefore, what some of the business groups have asked me to do was not enforce the law because it's going to be bad for business. I am not going to accept that invitation.
While I agree that we do need to find a source of workers from outside the country to do some of the jobs that aren't filled, there's a right way to do it, and that's to adjust the law to allow it to happen. There's a wrong way to do it, and that's not to enforce the law. And I'm not going to do it the wrong way. The failure to enforce the law over the last 30 years has caused a tremendous amount of public cynicism, and if nothing else, we can demonstrate to the public that the government can be trusted in this because we are going to be persistent in executing the law.
Let me focus now on fencing. We committed to building 370 miles of pedestrian fence along the Southwest border by the end of the next calendar year, and about 300 miles of vehicle fence. To put that in perspective, that would be a total of about 670 miles of fencing, and it will fence about 90 to 95 percent of the border from the Pacific Ocean to the New Mexico-Texas border. It will also have about 180 miles of fencing, pedestrian and vehicle in Texas.
That means we will, when we get this done, have basically a barrier, either a natural barrier or a man-made barrier across the entirety of the stretch of border from the Pacific Ocean to Texas. And, of course, in Texas, you have the Rio Grande River, which in many places is a barrier in and of itself. That is a big step forward in answering the public outcry to have some protection at the Southwest border.
But there are two caveats to that. First of all, we have to have the money. We do not have appropriations bills yet from Congress. If we don't get the money that we've requested, including some supplemental money that we were seeking, then of course that could impact moving forward on this.
A second issue is a recognition that although I think barriers are recognized as necessary by most people in the country, there are some people in the affected areas of the border who don't like fences or don't like barriers.
And that gets into the problem of what we sometimes call "not in my backyard." I am sensitive to the fact that fencing can be an obstacle to people's activities, agricultural activities and things of that sort. We have tried to work with communities and with individuals to get access and see what we can do to satisfy our operational goals in a way that is minimally intrusive.
But we are coming to the point that we will need, and if we're going to keep our deadlines, to move forward in terms of giving some entry work and engineering preliminary work and then ultimately some building, whether it's barriers, roads or light fixtures. We're going to need to start doing that in some areas where property owners have not been cooperative, either because they haven't responded to our requests to enter, which may be because we haven't you know, connected with them, or because they've actually turned us down.
So we're going to be sending letters out today telling them that over the next 30 days we'd like to hear from them and negotiate with them, but failing that, we are going to be commencing eminent domain to give us a right of entry. We will obviously deposit money in the court to pay for any incidental damages. And then depending on what we see once we've done the engineering work, we will want to then do some building. It may be roads, it may be lights, it may be fencing. And there again, we would of course like to reach an agreement with the landowner in doing that, but if we are unsuccessful, we are prepared to use eminent domain.
The door is still open to talk if people want to engage with us, if they have some alternative ideas, but it's not open for endless talk. We do need to get moving on this proposition.
Let me try to explain why this is important. You know, people talk about fencing in the context of illegal migrants, but I want to make it clear there's more at stake than that. We've got a lot of drugs coming through this country, and a lot of it coming across the Southwest border, whether it's marijuana, methamphetamine, or cocaine. It may very well be that most of these drugs go to the interior. But we've got to stop them at the border. And that means fencing, which happens to be effective in stopping drug smuggling as well as human smuggling, is an important tool in some areas if we are going to make progress on keeping these drugs out of the country.
So when local people say, well, we don't want a fence. You know, we don't think it's necessary, I have to say back to them, well, look. I understand that you may feel it constrains you or it's bad for your relations with your counterparts across the border, but I have to consider the cost to the whole country. And if marijuana or methamphetamine coming through a community is on the streets of Chicago or Los Angeles or New York, I've got to consider the cost to those communities of not stemming the flow of drugs.
I also have to say that violence is a threat to our Border Patrol agents. And we understand infrastructure like roads and fencing helps to minimize the violence. I have an obligation to do that as well. So, without suggesting we want to do fencing everywhere, the whole suite of these kinds of infrastructure I think are critical in maintaining our mission.
So, again, we want to be open to negotiate. We have, in some cases, for example, where local officials have said, look, instead of fence, why don't you cut down the cane and create an open field of vision? We've accepted that. So we have been open to alternative solutions. But, again, this has to get done in real time. We don't have an endless amount of time, because problems continue to mount.
So, we're going to move forward with this, and I've spoken to some of the members of Congress. We've briefed Congress. And, again, we want to make this as efficient as possible.
Now another component of what we're doing is technological. And, of course, as you know, we've been testing what we call P28, which is a 28-mile stretch of integrated technology in Arizona that blends radar, cameras and communications equipment as a way of giving the Border Patrol better visibility and better ability to respond than the current system.
Many of these components, of course, we've been using on the border for a long period of time. We've been using ground-based radar. We've been using cameras. We've been using UAVs. The idea is to see what value we can add by integrating them together.
We have, I think, concluded the first step of this process, which is the delivery of a satisfactory system of what we call P28 that meets the initial requirements, generally speaking, of what we want it to have.
We are going to take, and we're going to accept it then in what we call a conditional fashion, meaning we're going to take the operation over, an integrated operation to the Border Patrol and give them about 45 days to really run it operationally. From that, we will identify further adjustments or fixes that need to be made. Maybe more important, we're going to determine things that we want to add or amend in the system so we can improve its value and make it more of a value add.
I would say honestly it adds some value at this point, but we think it could add more value. And this is the essence of what we call spiral development, which is building a system that's operational, living with it for a little while, and then using that as a way of getting to the next level.
The analogy I'm using is this. If I go to buy a car, I want to make sure I have a stripped down version that works. I want to make sure it gets me where I'm supposed to go safely. And maybe I take a test drive with the salesman. Okay. Now I've got a car that gets me where I have to go, but I'm not sure I'm going to be happy with it yet.
So now we're at the stage where the salesman is going to let me take it home, and I'm going to drive it around for 45 days. I may decide I need a bigger fuel tank. I may decide I need, you know, different capacity, maybe more luggage space, and then I'm going to go back and say, okay, I want to have a second generation car or a change to the car that's going to achieve these results.
And so we're in this second stage. Again, we're going to be, you know, disciplined customers, and tough customers, and we're going to proceed to make this as useful as it can possibly be in order to become an enabler for the Border Patrol. I mean, we already know, for example, one thing we want to do is get a better common operational picture that allows us to see more readily and in a more user-friendly fashion the way in which these various components integrate. So we've asked Boeing to begin developing what we call COP Version 0.5. It's like, you know, Microsoft goes to 1, 2, 3, 4. So we're at 0.5. And then this software will eventually, after it's tested and satisfactory, not only be used for the next stage of the rollout of technology but will be actually probably retrofitted to P28.
So we're proceeding again in a measured way, but I have to say also an expeditious way, because the best way to make the technology work is to live with it and to have the people who are actually going to be with it day-in, day-out, not just kick the tires but actually drive it around and run errands with it so they can finally make a determination as we continue the spiral development.
So that's kind of a summary of where we are. And we'll take questions.
Question: Mr. Secretary, could you talk about -- you said that you want a more -- a better common operational picture, and I know that's been a long-standing problem with P28. Are there -- do you feel that the basic fundamental problems have been solved with the Cop, and it's just a matter of tweaking now? And also on other parts of the program you said generally things are okay. But what are the --
Secretary Chertoff: I think it's workable in operation. I think it adds value. I think it could add a lot more value. You know, part of -- once you get the basic system, to determine that it operates, you know, in the real world in the environment, now you've got to live with it for a while to see, well, what works for the Border Patrol? Because they on a day-in, day-out basis, they've got to be satisfied that it's user-friendly and effective.
Again, I'm going to use the – I'm going to use another homey example. When you move into a house, there may be some things you think are going to be a real pain in the rear, and it turns out after a while, you know, it's not really a big problem. But there may be some things you didn't think were a problem and go, after living there a month, you go, boy, this is really a headache. I've got to get it fixed.
So I think we're at that stage now we've got to live with this for a while. There's clearly more that can be done, and I think we're going to continue to be demanding, but I think we need to give the agents a period of time now to really just, you know, work it out, work with the system.
Question: And you're satisfied with Boeing as a contractor on the project?
Secretary Chertoff: I'm satisfied for now.
Question: Mr. Secretary, on physical fencing, can you talk about the steps, you know, getting these letters out today and having 30 days. What happens after that 30-day period in terms of the eminent domain? And can you also characterize the level of cooperation you've had from landowners and how many of them are holdouts?
Secretary Chertoff: Most landowners have been cooperative. I would say in California, Arizona and New Mexico, very, very few landowners have been uncooperative. Of course, a lot of this is federal land. And in some cases, it may be people are just trying to hold out for, you know, extra money, and we won't pay more than fair market value.
In Texas, I would say the majority, and maybe close to two-thirds of the landowners we've talked to have agreed to give us rights of entry. I would say a little over a quarter we have not gotten a response from, although I think since this got publicized, we've actually gotten some more responses. And maybe some people, you know, we may have had a misspelled name, or they may have been away, or we just didn't connect.
There were about 10 percent, a little less than 10 percent that said no. But I'm hoping that by my telling people we're serious about this we'll get them to focus on it. You know, once the 30 days passes, I think we go to court and then -- I'm not an expert on eminent domain law, if someone here wants to talk about the process of eminent domain.
Mr. Giddens: I can talk a little bit about the timeline. As the Secretary said, that would happen in 30 days, so in January the notice would come, and then we would expect then to gain access in the February timeframe to do that initial evaluation.
Question: And then after that, what would be the timeframe in terms of actual construction or completion?
Secretary Chertoff: I don't know if it's possible to generalize, because I'm absolutely -- we intend to get it all done by the end of the calendar year. I can't tell you. It will depend again on what is the type of structure we are going to build. It depends on how complicated the engineering is and how suitable the property is. And some of it may not be fence.
In some cases, it may be road or may be lights or -- but the idea is to get this in a position so that we can make whatever construction steps are necessary in the next calendar year, because we do want to get this done by the end of '08.
Question: Mr. Secretary, on 28, can you say how much has been paid, how much is still pending, and what the conditions are to complete the --
Secretary Chertoff: Greg, you can answer.
Mr. Giddens: I think the invoicing we've paid, I think around 16 million, and that number changes based on when invoices come in. And the next part of your question was sort of what's still pending. We had held a million dollars as what we want to pay when we get to conditional acceptance.
And as the Secretary talked about, about moving into a house, there might be some punch list items that they need to work, and we're keeping a million and a half until they work through those items. Boeing is committed to working through those. But as the Secretary said, we're going to be hard customers, and we want to make sure that --
Secretary Chertoff: Did we get a couple of million back?
Mr. Giddens: Yes, sir.
Secretary Chertoff: I think we also got a couple million back.
Question: Like a refund?
Mr. Giddens: As consideration. And actually, you talk about refund, if you can think about sort of the bureaucracy of them paying us and us paying them, what that works out is, on future work we get $2 million worth of consideration.
Secretary Chertoff: Like a discount.
Mr. Giddens: And we're applying that to support work after P28. So we did get consideration from them later.
Question: Wait. So just to clarify, you paid them $16 million. You held a million for conditional acceptance? And you're holding another 1.5 million for --
Mr. Giddens: Correct.
Question: So you're paying them a million today as part of the conditional --
Mr. Giddens: We won't pay them today. I mean, there's an invoicing system, but --
Question: As of today, you owe them that --
Mr. Giddens: They could invoice --
Question: Right.
Mr. Giddens: They could invoice for up to that point.
Question: Okay. You're awarding them a $64 million task order for the common operating picture?
(No response.)
Sir, can you help clarify, because weren't there two purchase orders or two task orders initially, one for 28, one for the common operating picture, and wasn't the COP part of the initial Project 28 that was supposed to be done?
Mr. Giddens: There's only one task order for Project 28 that included that initial kind of common operating picture. In the proposal, we said for $20 million in eight months, you need to give us something that we can get in the hands of the agents so they can start to bring it out and we can better understand what our requirements are. So there's not a separate task order.
Question: Can I ask you, you were talking about potentially tweaking the system. I mean, is this going to significantly change the parameters before payment, potentially significantly change the cost? I mean, some of the estimates have already been, you know, that the $8 billion would be a significantly increased cost, I think your IG has said?
Secretary Chertoff: You know, everyone wants to speculate. I don't think I can give you an accurate answer about that. I think that the adjustments we make obviously will improve the system.
What the exact cost will be will depend on exactly where we deploy it. I think the particular area they picked for the initial P28 was a pretty challenging area geographically in the sense that there was a lot of scrub and ground -- described as ground clutter there that made it -- that really stressed the system.
There may be other parts of the border where we deploy something similar that is easier because its topography is better. There may be some parts of the border where we do a scaled-down system.
You know, the border is different, depending on where you are, and so you can't just take, you know, the cost of P28 and multiply it by a total number of miles of border because that would just be an inaccurate number.
Question: Mr. Secretary, you guys talk about being tough customers for Boeing, but they can also be a pretty tough contractor from what I see. Give me some sense of what that really means.
Secretary Chertoff: What it means is that if we're not satisfied with something, we're going to tell them we're not satisfied with it. I mean, I told the head of Boeing sometime back, look, I'm not -- you know, you don't have a lock on this entire border.
As we did with, for example, with fencing in some areas. We offered them the opportunity to do some bid on fencing, but we also solicited other contractors to do fencing. If there's a piece of the border that we determine can do with a less sophisticated layout, we'll take a less sophisticated -- in other words, we don't have a deal where they now own the border and they tell us what they're going to put there.
At each stage of the proceeding, you know, recognizing that obviously we don't want to abuse the contractor, we're going to make a judgment on what is the best interest of the Border Patrol from a cost-effective standpoint -- that's why it's an indefinite contract. It doesn't lock us into a permanent thing.
Question: This is a $20 million program. It's, what, six months behind schedule? It's been problematic, and yet today you're giving them another $64 million contract?
Secretary Chertoff: You know, I have to -- that's, if I may say respectfully, that's really a mischaracterization.
Question: Okay. Well, give us your characterization and explain why with those circumstances they're getting a triple --
Secretary Chertoff: First of all, if you look at the total amount of time that we have had since we started this process, and you can ask other people who've done big contracts, this has been done in record time. When we started this, we announced this process in 2006, and we have a functional operating system in place as we speak.
Now, there was a delay because, as with every other contract of any significance that I've ever observed in my life, in the public or the private sector, if there's any degree of complexity there's always going to be that some belated effect occurs, unless you're just willing to take whatever is just thrown out.
So, in this case, we did say we're not going to do a conditional acceptance unless certain things are fixed. But even with that, we are still done in record time. Now, they've done a good job fixing the stuff that was -- needed to be fixed. There is more value on the system. Part of it is because now once we work with the system, we will see some things that will work better.
It's like the house. I might move into a house. I might at some point not realize that something's significant. After I live there for a month, I go, boy, you know, it's really a pain in the rear to have to deal with XYZ. I'm going to change it. So that's why we have to live in it. But I would say that the overall timeframe and performance has been good.
And I want to move to the next level based upon some of the lessons we've learned so far. So -- and we're going to obviously pay for what we get, but we're also going to make sure we get the next thing before we pay for it, we check. You know, there's a balance here between moving quickly and moving responsibly, and I think we've struck the right balance.
But I also know that there's not an infinite amount of time to get this job done. The public wants to see action on the border. One element of that strategy is the technology. And if we, you know, only move forward at a snail's pace, because, you know, everything has to be perfect before we put the first piling into the ground, then ten years from now we're going to be talking about how we want the technology for the border, and I think that's way too long.
So, I would dispute the idea that somehow this reflects, you know, problems with the system above and beyond the normal challenges you deal with in creating a system. You know, Windows 1.0 was good. They came out with 2.0 and 3.0 and I don't know what they're up to now. Because as people work with the system, they learned that there were things that would work well and things that didn't work well and could work better. And so you go back and you continue to develop.
Question: Mr. Secretary, just to clarify, will it be with this conditional acceptance, is Project 28 operational?
Secretary Chertoff: Yes.
Question: And will it affect the rest of the timeline for Barry M. Goldwater and I guess the El Paso piece, the other pieces that were to be done by the end of '08, are those still on schedule?
Secretary Chertoff: You mean fencing?
Question: No. The other two pieces of technological rollout that were --
Secretary Chertoff: Oh, I can't tell you right now where the other technological rollout is going to be.
Question: In other words, how will this affect the --
Secretary Chertoff: I can't tell you with certainty, and we're going to look at the next 45 days and we'll see where we are. We'll see where they are with the common operating picture. I'm not going to commit to a particular date because I want to see how this plays out. They want to see how it plays out, and I support them in doing so.
So, you know, if things proceed as we hope, we can repace. If it takes a little longer to do the COP, then it's going to take a little longer to get that other technology. And as I say, I'm not averse to using scaled-down technology if it turns out at a particular location we don't need quite so sophisticated a solution. That's okay. I mean, I'm not, you know, wedded to one solution or another.
Question: And, I'm sorry, one follow-up. Would the Commissioner or Mr. Giddens want to comment on right now, what's the most significant value added from this investment and what's the most -- what are the most pressing problems with it that keep it conditional?
Mr. Giddens: A couple of things that we look at in terms of value is what we've learned from a technology perspective in getting the system in the field. So there's things that the Secretary already talked about this area is very challenging in terms of the ground clutter.
So what kind of algorithms do we need to move forward with in order to be able clear that picture for the operators? As you can imagine if you'd been out there in very remote areas, the last mile of communications is always the hardest. And we found that out over the summer.
So we're really looking hard at what do we do in terms of our communications architecture moving forward. Those are two really big things that we have to -- that we've learned from Project 28, and the thing now is we're able to turn it over to the operators, as the Secretary said, for them to use it, and we're anxious to get their feedback to roll that into the next generation of the common operating picture.
Question: Does the Commissioner want to address that?
Mr. Jay Ahern: It's really important for the chief to talk about from the Border Patrol agents on the ground's perspective and how they can actually start to begin the functionality.
I think it's important to note that the system as it is operating now has initial operating capabilities. They're not perfect. But it is giving us detection capabilities, which is absolutely critical. It is also giving us the ability to identify what it is that we have detected, and it is bringing those two pieces together. In the past, we could do that only as a stand-alone, if you will. We could detect by ground sensors or we can detect by cameras. Today we detect and we identify at the same time.
Now, do we want a more efficient system in doing that? Absolutely. There's a little bit of lag time. We're working with satellite. We're going to microwave, things of that nature. But it is giving us capabilities that in the past we didn't have. A more efficient way of doing business, as we speak today. In an area, by the way, where we didn't have that kind of capability before. And the size of the area of operation, that 28 mile area, we had unattended ground sensors and we had personnel. Now we have a confluence of detection, identification and we're working towards greater efficiency.
Moderator: Time for two more questions, please.
Question: I have two questions.
Question: How many hours a day are the Border Patrol going to be using that for the next 45 days? And can you also explain the difference between the next task order and the common operating picture that you're testing right now?
Mr. Aguilar: I'll leave the task order to Mr. Giddens here. As far as operating the system, once the agents get their hands on, which they're going to do, they're going to be working with it 24/7. Now the system has passed the systems verification test where it has been shut down, it has been turned on, it is working on a constant basis. That is where we are today. Now our agents finally get their hands on the system and start working with it to figure out everything else that we want the system to do beyond the capabilities of -- the capabilities, again, I want to repeat, are limited. They're marginal in some capacity. But they do give us that capability that we didn't have in the past.
Mr. Giddens: The other one, the task order I mentioned a couple of the key areas that the next task order will focus on is that communication the chief talked about that time element and currently using the satellite introducing some lag, and so we're focused on making the system more responsive. And we've already gotten some feedback from the operators in terms of the icons and the symbology and how we need to present things so that they're easily digestible by the operators. So those are going to be key areas that we'll focus on.
Question: Chief, what have those capabilities actually meant to a Border Patrol agent in the field? You said you can detect things an you can identify what you've detected, but what would that mean if you were manning a post in that area? I mean, are the agents spending less time chasing down false –
Chief Aguilar: Absolutely. Quick example. Just from an officer safety perspective, within the area that this system works, in the past, we could detect. We didn't know what we were approaching. Today we can identify what we're approaching. Is it one, is it twenty, is it fifty? Is it a group of two or three that are carrying long arms? And then efficiencies. What is it that we need to deploy to approach and resolve that detection and identification of an illegal imposing?
Third, we test-make the approach. Is it on the immediate border? Do we let that -- do we track it to an area that's more convenient for us to approach and make the apprehension? Do we cue a UAV to it instead of sending an agent? Do we send a Blackhawk with an air interdiction unit to drop off, rope off and make the apprehension?
So it's all of these things combined. It's a tremendous efficiency increase with the system that we have in place. Again, but I clarify, we're looking to increase the efficiencies of the system. It's a tremendous force multiplier.
Moderator: We'll count Mike's as a follow-up. Michelle, you've got one more.
Question: Just real quickly, can you talk about how much training is going to be involved for the agents to take this over and to be operating --
Chief Aguilar: The training has actually been ongoing for a while already in a classroom environment. Academic and some assistance operators were already teaching our officers as to how they would potentially use the system. The critical training is going to be now that the actual operators get their hands on there and use their inherent knowledge and apply that to this technological capability that gives them that tremendous force multiplier effect and then move into utilizing it.
Moderator: All right, guys. Thanks very much.
Secretary Chertoff: Merry Christmas, everybody and Happy Hanukkah.
###
This page was last reviewed/modified on December 7, 2007.