<DOC> [108th Congress House Hearings] [From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access] [DOCID: f:89455.wais] ONDCP REAUTHORIZATION: THE HIGH INTENSITY DRUG TRAFFICKING AREAS PROGRAM AND CTAC ======================================================================= HEARING before the SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE, DRUG POLICY AND HUMAN RESOURCES of the COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION __________ APRIL 8, 2003 __________ Serial No. 108-52 __________ Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house http://www.house.gov/reform ______ 89-455 U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE WASHINGTON : 2003 ____________________________________________________________________________ For Sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Internet: bookstore.gpr.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; (202) 512ÿ091800 Fax: (202) 512ÿ092250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402ÿ090001 COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut TOM LANTOS, California ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida MAJOR R. OWENS, New York JOHN M. McHUGH, New York EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York JOHN L. MICA, Florida PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland DOUG OSE, California DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio RON LEWIS, Kentucky DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri CHRIS CANNON, Utah DIANE E. WATSON, California ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma C.A. ``DUTCH'' RUPPERSBERGER, NATHAN DEAL, Georgia Maryland CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania Columbia MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio JIM COOPER, Tennessee JOHN R. CARTER, Texas CHRIS BELL, Texas WILLIAM J. JANKLOW, South Dakota ------ MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont (Independent) Peter Sirh, Staff Director Melissa Wojciak, Deputy Staff Director Rob Borden, Parliamentarian Teresa Austin, Chief Clerk Philip M. Schiliro, Minority Staff Director Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana, Chairman NATHAN DEAL, Georgia ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland JOHN M. McHUGH, New York DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois JOHN L. MICA, Florida WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri DOUG OSE, California LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia C.A. ``DUTCH'' RUPPERSBERGER, EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia Maryland JOHN R. CARTER, Texas ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee Columbia CHRIS BELL, Texas Ex Officio TOM DAVIS, Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California Christopher Donesa, Staff Director and Chief Counsel Nicholas Coleman, Professional Staff Member and Counsel Nicole Garrett, Clerk Tony Haywood, Minority Counsel C O N T E N T S ---------- Page Hearing held on April 8, 2003.................................... 1 Statement of: Burns, Ron, chief, Lakewood, CO Police Department; and Peter Modafferi, Chief of Detectives, Rockland County, NY District Attorney's Office................................. 79 Burns, Scott, Director, Office of State and Local Affairs, Office of National Drug Control Policy; and Roger Guevara, Chief of Operations, Drug Enforcement Administration....... 7 McCampbell, Christy, chief, Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement, California Department of Justice; Wayne Wiberg, commander, Narcotics and Gang Investigation Section, Chicago Police Department; Anthony Romano, chief, Organized Crime Division, Baltimore Police Department; and Lieutenant Colonel Steve Moyer, chief, Homeland Defense/Intelligence Bureau, Maryland State Police.............................. 40 Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by: Burns, Ron, chief, Lakewood, CO Police Department, prepared statement of............................................... 81 Burns, Scott, Director, Office of State and Local Affairs, Office of National Drug Control Policy, prepared statement of......................................................... 9 Guevara, Roger, Chief of Operations, Drug Enforcement Administration, prepared statement of...................... 19 McCampbell, Christy, chief, Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement, California Department of Justice, prepared statement of.... 43 Modafferi, Peter, Chief of Detectives, Rockland County, NY District Attorney's Office, prepared statement of.......... 85 Romano, Anthony, chief, Organized Crime Division, Baltimore Police Department, prepared statement of................... 57 Souder, Hon. Mark E., a Representative in Congress from the State of Indiana, prepared statement of.................... 4 Wiberg, Wayne, commander, Narcotics and Gang Investigation Section, Chicago Police Department, prepared statement of.. 50 ONDCP REAUTHORIZATION: THE HIGH INTENSITY DRUG TRAFFICKING AREAS PROGRAM AND CTAC ---------- TUESDAY, APRIL 8, 2003 House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources, Committee on Government Reform, Washington, DC. The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Mark E. Souder (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Present: Representatives Souder, Cummings, Carter, Ruppersberger, Blackburn, Deal, Bell, and Ose. Staff present: Christopher A. Donesa, staff director and chief counsel; Nicholas Coleman, professional staff member and counsel; John Stanton, congressional fellow; Nicole Garrett, clerk; Tony Haywood, minority counsel; and Earley Green, minority chief clerk. Mr. Souder. Good morning. This is our third hearing on the reauthorization of the Office of National Drug Control Policy and its programs. Today we will focus on two programs that most directly impact State and local law enforcement against drug crimes: the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas [HIDTA] program, and the Counterdrug Technology Assessment Center [CTAC]. Congress originally authorized the HIDTA program in 1988, and renewed it in 1993 and 1998. The program provides significant financial assistance to State and local law enforcement and facilitates strong cooperation among those agencies and with Federal law enforcement. That cooperation has led to many successes in our efforts to disrupt the market for illegal drugs. HIDTA has also been a politically popular program, as evidenced by its rapid expansion. The program started with five HIDTAs in areas that we would all agree are at the heart of the national drug trafficking networks. Over time, the program has steadily grown to where it now covers 28 separate areas and nearly 60 percent of the population. While the program unquestionably is a key tool in our national drug control strategy, that rapid expansion clearly demonstrates that the subcommittee has many issues to consider to ensure that the program pursues its original goals, that it is accountable, and that it delivers results determined under rigorous performance measures. We must also carefully consider how to strike the appropriate balance to ensure that the program remains predominantly focused on national goals while still ensuring that State and local agencies receive a fair return for their investments in the program. It is easy to make a case for the need to send Federal assistance to the hubs of national drug traffic to disrupt the market and keep drugs from every city in America. It is much harder to make the case to take taxpayer money from Indiana and send it to another State if it is used mainly for local projects or if it is not effective. We will also consider today issues related to legislation that Ranking Member Cummings introduced last week to direct HIDTA funds to be made available to protect witnesses impacted in their neighborhoods by national drug traffic. The bill is fittingly named the ``Dawson Family Community Protection Act.'' I believe that the unconscionable tragedy that befell the Dawson family in Baltimore well demonstrates the need for action in this area. As a cosponsor of his bill, I commend Mr. Cummings for his leadership and look forward to working closely with him on this issue. With limited dollars and great demands we will need to work with the Senate and the administration on the final amount, but I am committed to the principle that part of winning the battle against the drug lords is protecting citizens brave enough to stand up to their brutality. Today's hearing will also review the Counterdrug Technology Assessment Center, which was established in 1990 to oversee and coordinate the Federal Government's anti-drug research and development. CTAC oversees a number of research programs as well as the Technology Transfer Program, which provides drug detection and law enforcement technologies to Federal, State and local law enforcement. The program is so successful that there is a long waiting list for the available technology. I hope we can reaffirm our support for the key research programs, as well as to try to bolster the TTP program to make the equipment better available to our communities. We have quite a mix of witnesses with us today, and we would especially like to welcome all the representatives of the State and local law enforcement community who are joining us here at this time. From the administration, on our first panel we will hear from Scott Burns, the Deputy Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy for State and Local Affairs. From the Drug Enforcement Administration, we will also hear from Mr. Roger Guevara, the Chief of Operations. Our second panel will focus on HIDTA, and we will hear from Christy McCampbell, chief of the California Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement and Wayne Wiberg, commander of the Narcotics Investigation Section of the Chicago Police Department. From Maryland, Maryland State Police Superintendent Ed Norris, and Baltimore Police Department Organized Crime Bureau Chief Anthony Romano will testify. On our third panel, we will focus on CTAC with Chief Ron Burns of Lakewood, Colorado Police Department, and Peter Modafferi, chief of Detectives for Rockland County, NY, District Attorney's Office. Again, I thank you all for coming from so many places across the country to be here today. We very much look very much forward to your testimony. [The prepared statement of Hon. Mark E. Souder follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9455.001 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9455.002 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9455.003 Mr. Souder. I will now see if any of the other Members have an opening statement. Mr. Ruppersberger. Mr. Ruppersberger. Yes. Just very quick. First, I would like to commend ONDCP for all the work that you do. Since 1998 I believe that your efforts to maintain a program of such importance to work with the local, State, and Federal law enforcement agency has done a lot to do with the issue of drugs. We know drugs is probably accountable for about 90 percent of all of our crime, especially violent crime, and the coordination and the teamwork is one of the main avenues and ways that we are going to at least put a dent into what is going on. So looking forward to your testimony. Thank you. Mr. Souder. Congressman Carter. OK, I would like to take care of a few procedural matters. First, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to submit written statements and questions for the hearing record, and that any answers to written questions provided by the witnesses also be included in the record. Without objection, it is so ordered. I also ask unanimous consent that all exhibits, documents, and other materials referred to by Members and the witnesses may be included in the hearing record, and that all Members be permitted to revise and extend their remarks. Without objection, it is so ordered. Now, as our standard procedure, if Mr. Burns and Mr. Guevara will stand, is it our standard procedure to administer the oath. [Witnesses sworn.] Mr. Souder. Thank you both for being here today and for your many years of work in these efforts, and we will start with Mr. Scott Burns, the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy for State and Local Affairs. STATEMENTS OF SCOTT BURNS, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF STATE AND LOCAL AFFAIRS, OFFICE OF NATIONAL DRUG CONTROL POLICY; AND ROGER GUEVARA, CHIEF OF OPERATIONS, DRUG ENFORCEMENT ADMINISTRATION Mr. Scott Burns. Thank you, Chairman Souder and Congressman Ruppersberger, Congressman Carter. It is a pleasure to appear before you today to talk about the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Program [HIDTA], and the Counterdrug Technology Assessment Center [CTAC], that are programs under the Office of National Drug Control Policy. I would like to commend you, Chairman Souder and your staff, and the subcommittee for the support that you have given us over the years in making the HIDTA program and the CTAC program successful arsenals in our efforts to make this problem of addiction and trafficking smaller. As stated, the HIDTA program began in 1988 with the designation of five States. They were initially funded in 1990 and have grown over the subsequent 15 years to 28 HIDTAs in some 43 States. Membership includes some 35 Federal agencies, over 100 State agencies, in excess of 1,000 local law enforcement agencies participating. I believe that the HIDTA program is one of the most effective law enforcement and counterdrug tools in the country, and I say that because the HIDTA program is one of the, if not the only Federal program that does one, what one would think is simple, but very important thing, and that is bring together Federal, State, and local law enforcement agencies and law enforcement leaders in various areas of the country to collaborate, to work together, to share information, to use their intelligence support centers to make the problem of drug addiction and drug trafficking in this country smaller. I also believe that under the leadership and direction of John Walters, the Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, over the past 12 months we have made great effort to make the HIDTA program better. We have initiated performance measurement standards; they have been written, they have been drafted, they have been disseminated to the 28 HIDTA directors, and we are in the initial process of implementation. We have also reorganized the Office of State and Local Affairs to provide greater oversight and greater attention to the HIDTAs, and we have also, as you well know, joined with the Department of Justice in launching the CPOT, or Consolidated Priority Organizational Targeting, program in an effort to go after the major drug trafficking organizations in this country and in the world. I have the privilege, and I know that you have visited several of the HIDTAs, to work with some of the finest women and men in this country. I have found, under the direction of Kurt Schmidt, the National HIDTA Director, folks to be extremely dedicated from California to Connecticut, and every State in between, to getting up each day trying to help in this counterdrug effort. I am also pleased to speak today on behalf of the Counternarcotics Technical Assessment Center [CTAC]. As you know, it is this country's chief R&D, or research and development, effort in trying to do two corps missions: one, to locate, to find, and to develop technologies that will help Federal, State, and local law enforcement agencies to do better to protect lives of law enforcement folks in the field and to allow them to do their missions better; and also through the neuroimaging program, which is a project, as you know, to bring together our best medical and scientific people in this country to study and to research addiction so that some day we will fully understand what it is and be able to treat it. With that, I would respectfully request that my written statements be submitted into the record, and I look forward to any questions you may have. Thank you. [The prepared statement of Mr. Scott Burns follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9455.004 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9455.005 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9455.006 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9455.007 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9455.008 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9455.009 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9455.010 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9455.011 Mr. Souder. Thank you very much. Mr. Guevara. Mr. Guevara. Good morning, Chairman Souder and distinguished members of this subcommittee. It is a pleasure to appear before you today to discuss ONDCP and the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program which was established by Congress over a decade ago. On behalf of Acting Administrator John B. Brown III and myself, I want to thank the subcommittee for their unwavering support on behalf of the men and women of DEA. The HIDTA-funded program is a regional strategy providing Federal assistance in coordinating law enforcement efforts at the local, State, and Federal level. The program is designed to impact on the manufacturing, importation, and distribution networks. The HIDTA program complements our mission to destruct and dismantle major drug trafficking organizations. By leveraging the resources, manpower, and equipment of numerous law enforcement entities, we can, and have, achieved tremendous success. I have benefited from seeing firsthand how a successful HIDTA-funded program operates. From 1997 to 1999, I was charged with oversight of the HIDTA Southern California Drug Task Force. In September 2000, I was promoted to Special Agent in Charge of the Caribbean Division in San Juan, Puerto Rico. With this promotion came the responsibility of serving as the vice- chair of the HIDTA executive board for the Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands HIDTA. Difficult decisions had to be made on which initiatives to undertake and how best to utilize our funds, but our cooperation and collaboration did breed success. Federal resource constraints require that DEA continue to pursue the cooperative investigative efforts of other Federal, State, and local law enforcement officers. There are presently 18 DEA field divisions, plus the El Paso Intelligence Center [EPIC], that participates in the HIDTA-funded programs. This includes 48 DEA HIDTA groups supporting 90 initiatives and consisting of 527 task force officers. Over 300 DEA special agents work with HIDTA initiatives. In support of national ONDCP objectives, each HIDTA is supposed to consist of an executive board comprised of an equal number of Federal, State, and local law enforcement leaders. DEA continues to urge that all HIDTA executive boards hold to the equal representation requirement mandated by the ONDCP in order to yield maximum effectiveness, and we pledge to undertake leadership positions whenever the opportunity arises. Investigations begin for DEA, including our HIDTA-funded task forces, when discovering that larger scope of drug crime arrests merits the consolidation of resources. I would like to highlight three major programs the administration is emphasizing to make the greatest impact on America's drug enforcement efforts. The first one is the Consolidated Priority Organization Targets [CPOTs], which is a single national list of major drug trafficking and money laundering organizations. There are 53 identified international command and control organizations representing the most significant drug organizations threatening the United States. In fiscal year 2002, ONDCP allocated $5.7 million in discretionary funds in support of HIDTA-funded initiatives targeting CPOTs. DEA fully supports this in keeping with HIDTA's mission to target the highest levels of drug trafficking groups. DEA's Priority Drug Traffic Organization's [PDTO's], program is similar to CPOT, but more expansive since it also includes local and regional drug organizations significantly impacting the drug supply in DEA's 21 nationwide field divisions. And, finally, the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force [OCDETF], determines connections to related investigations nationwide in order to identify and dismantle drug trafficking organization. DEA's State and Local Task Force and HIDTA-funded groups are engaged as partners with the OCDETF program and enforce the effectiveness and success of the OCDETF program. DEA currently has 30 HIDTA-funded initiatives that are PDTO investigations. Eighteen of those are also established as OCDETF investigations. Each designated HIDTA has at least one intelligence element, usually called an Investigative Support Center, which provide tactical investigative and strategic drug intelligence to HIDTA-supported task forces. HIDTA ISCs serve as hubs for the sharing of drug intelligence among Federal, State, and local law enforcement HIDTA-funded participating agencies. DEA's commitment to HIDTA shows in the assignment of nearly 10 percent of our analytical resources to the HIDTAs. But DEA can and should do more. DEA should provide a leadership role in all of the HIDTA ISCs. HIDTA-funded initiatives should address the most significant drug threats. These initiatives must be evaluated regularly to ensure that they remain relevant. Oversight of HIDTA initiatives is crucial in order to keep within the national objectives of ONDCP. In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, HIDTA is a concept and not an agency. Many participants believe HIDTA is a Federal grant for their own use. However, HIDTA is a funding mechanism designed to support Federal, State, and local drug investigative efforts. This point must be recognized by participating agencies in order to pursue a consolidated regional and national enforcement objective, as opposed to a fragmented one. DEA believes the HIDTA program is a critical component in the administration's drug enforcement efforts. Maintaining the focus on the HIDTA mission and emphasizing the most significant targets will go a long way in not only achieving the disruption and dismantling of national and international organizations, but also in keeping drugs off our local streets. DEA stands ready to take on any challenge and continue to lead in America's fight to reduce drug trafficking and abuse. In my written testimony which I have submitted is an overview of DEA's witness protection initiative. At this point I would be happy to answer any questions this subcommittee may have. Thank you. [The prepared statement of Mr. Guevara follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9455.012 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9455.013 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9455.014 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9455.015 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9455.016 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9455.017 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9455.018 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9455.019 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9455.020 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9455.021 Mr. Souder. I thank you both for your testimony, and as we continue to work on, as we start to actually prepare for the markup of the legislation, there are a number of things we are debating as regards HIDTAs. And, Mr. Burns, I would like to start with the proliferation of HIDTAs that has occurred has resulted in a kind of different focus. In other words, every area, to some degree, is a drug trafficking area or it wouldn't have any drug usage; it is because somebody had to traffic in the narcotics. Historically we had DEA task forces or FBI task forces or local task forces to deal with that, but when the HIDTA was developed, they were supposed to be high intensity, which means higher intensity than other parts of the country drug trafficking areas. The initial ones, as I said in my opening statement, as you referred to, were pretty well universally agreed upon, Miami and Los Angeles, Southwest Border, and the large areas. As this has proliferated, we have seen a wide variety of different types HIDTA focus, and this has also diluted the funds from going to those highest intensity areas. Do you believe that some of those areas should be removed from participation in the program? If we don't remove some from the program, do you believe that the budget should be allocated and a certain fixed portion should go to the highest intensity parts and less to the lower intensity? And if that isn't the case, there are certainly going to be additional HIDTAs because there are several HIDTAs right now that aren't as high as some areas that aren't excluded, so would you favor increasing the number of HIDTAs? Mr. Scott Burns. Thank you for that question, Mr. Chairman. There is no doubt from 5 HIDTAs to 28 HIDTAs now in 43 States, the District of Columbia and Puerto, and covering approximately 13 percent of the counties in this country, that the original HIDTA concept in 1988 is not what it is in 2003. With that said, I must state that each HIDTA is different. Each HIDTA, as this program has evolved, has come to deal with specific issues in their area. Appalachia, certainly, as you know, is not New York and is not Los Angeles and is not the Midwest, each attacking the local impact and drug issues that they have in their jurisdiction, but also dealing with national manufacturing, transportation, distribution and financial crimes aspects of this business we call the drug trade. Certainly in 15 years the threat has moved. Certainly there are counties that no longer would meet the original designation as a HIDTA county, and certainly there must be some mechanism in place to rectify that. With that said, level funding every year, and with a great deal of help from Congress with respect to where new or additional counties or HIDTAs ought to be stood up has had the effect, as you say, to dilute the pool, if you will, with which to attack the problem. I believe that the HIDTA program is most effective when professionals here in Washington and, more importantly, in the field assess the threat and then, with your support, drive resources to where we can do the best good. Mr. Souder. You have, in your testimony, said you have tried to shift the focus of the HIDTA program to the National priority targets as well as the regional targets. Will HIDTAs be required to tailor all of their programs that direction, or do you see it as a mix? Mr. Scott Burns. I see it as a mix. Currently our requirement is that 51 percent of all the funds for the HIDTA program must be allocated to rural areas or to attack the problem in rural America. The reality is today about 80 percent of all of the HIDTA funds are going to State and local jurisdictions in counterdrug functions. The CPOT program is an attempt by Director Walters and myself and Kurt Schmidt and the Department of Justice, and with support from you, Mr. Chairman, and others to redirect the HIDTA focus toward the major targets, back in line with what the original intent of HIDTA was, and to try and make a difference on a National and international level. Mr. Souder. This is probably going to be the most difficult challenge, and I am not sure we can politically get this done, but the way it is going is that every area of the United States, if it is to have a coordinated effort, that is a wonderful goal, and that certainly my home area, which does not have a HIDTA, even though it was raised initially in the process whether we would have one, is at this point a lot higher drug intensity trafficking area than many that are HIDTAs; and, therefore, the question is why doesn't my area and other Members of Congress, who don't have an area have a similar drug coordination effort? But the high intensity concept was to make sure that the places where most of the drugs were coming into the county would keep it from getting into the rural areas and other areas with pockets in myth and others that may be focused on differently. But I am not sure, politically, whether we can accomplish this, but it is definitely a different type of program and we have to, in the reauthorization, either acknowledge that it is a different program or figure out how we are going to do battle with the appropriators to make sure that the program follows through its authorized language. And I thank you for your comments. Mr. Scott Burns. Thank you. Mr. Souder. Mr. Ruppersberger. Mr. Ruppersberger. After September 11 there has been a lot of refocus of different Federal law enforcement agencies working more in the terrorism arena and with homeland security. How has that affected your agency as it relates to the programs we are talking about today, as far as resources going more into terrorism, homeland security? Has it affected manpower, resources? Mr. Scott Burns. We have seen, Congressman, some pullback from clearly the Federal agencies that are involved, the FBI, which has been well documented, the Department of Defense, whom we have been working with closely to transition those programs that have been an assistance in the counterdrug program eradication, cargo inspections along the border, the schools that train thousands of State and local law enforcement in counterdrug efforts each year. But the most disconcerting, I suppose, would be what is more in the rumor mill than we have actually seen, and that is that State and local law enforcement agencies are becoming more taxed. Budgets, as you know, are not going well across the country, and if chiefs and sheriffs have additional duties, counterterrorism or because of the budget, HIDTA is certainly the first area not that they want to, but that they are going to pull out of. That is our suspect. Mr. Ruppersberger. I understand that. And with the locals and the refocus and all the different law enforcement agencies, have you seen resources leave your focus on actual drug versus looking more into the terrorism, from your perspective, from the Federal level? Mr. Scott Burns. I have to tell you honestly that the day after, on September 12, and until today, John Walters has charged us with making it very clear to all Federal agencies that we are all Americans, we are here to help, whatever we can do to assist you we will, but we cannot dilute the counterdrug mission in light of terrorism, and that we will work together. So to date I would say I have not seen that. Mr. Ruppersberger. That is good. The other thing, first thing, drugs have no geographical boundaries, and I think the HIDTA concept is an excellent concept because you have local, State, Federal. A lot of times leads and sources or informants come from the local and then you develop like a strike force relationship. Now, there are always jealousies that exist. I know in the old days, when I was a narcotics prosecutor, we, as a local, did not have the money to pursue a high profile person, to have four or five cars tail some to put somebody in the witness protection program. I think what the Federal Government, through HIDTA, brought to the locals was not the resources and the teamwork concept. You always have issues of need to know, and the locals and State feel that the Federal agents are not telling them everything they know; probably more FBI than DEA, by the way. But where has that evolved? Do you see that changing or does that still exist? And if it does exist, what do you suggest we do to keep working through that problem? Mr. Scott Burns. I have, likewise, spent a career as a local prosecutor. Mr. Ruppersberger. Where were you? Mr. Scott Burns. In southern Utah. Probably smaller than where you came from. Mr. Ruppersberger. Oh, yeah. Baltimore. Mr. Scott Burns. That is pretty close. I think one thing HIDTA has done over the years is establish better relationships. We have had the ability on a State and local level to work with the DEA, the U.S. attorneys, the relevant Federal agencies that are involved, and obtained the resources and the help to go after the higher priority targets; and, in fact, we have had many discussions in looking at CPOT, or the Consolidated Priority Organizational Targeting, program. While the target may be in Colombia or Mexico, we are certainly cognizant that the intelligence and the assistance may come from a local prosecutor in Baltimore or Duluth, and that is part of the beauty of the HIDTA program. Mr. Ruppersberger. In the high profile targets are resources used the most effectively wiretapping? Mr. Scott Burns. Absolutely. Mr Ruppersberger. OK. Mr. Scott Burns. Yes. That is what we are doing. Mr. Ruppersberger. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Souder. Thank you. Mr. Carter. Mr. Carter. Well, I have had the pleasure to work with the capital area task force in Texas on many, many occasions, and it is a very, very effective group; brought a lot of cases to my court to try, and we disposed of a lot of those very effectively. I think it is a great concept, this proliferation of numerous expansions of offices that they have had. I am just curious because we are aware, particularly where I live is a gateway area from Mexico, I-35 supposedly is one of the highest drug traffic columns in America, and it runs right through my hometown. It is estimated every fifth car is possibly a drug trafficker. That is a kind of interesting estimate, I think, but, anyway, that is what they claim. And so the five original idea areas of the country were clearly the areas where we had a high priority, and now there is some question as to whether resources are being drained from the high profile areas to other areas that have definite needs. And I think the task force idea works. Have you ever thought about switching from a task force to a strike force in some of the rural areas? Because I have seen our task force deal with specific problems and go in and attack a specific problem area as a strike force, which would temporarily take those resources from the high target areas, but then those resources could be re-made available for those high priority areas when they are needed; sort of a big picture allocation: strike a problem in middle America, and I think you can effectively deal with it, and then move back to the border and the areas where the high traffic unit is coming in and out. Has any of that concept been looked into? Mr. Scott Burns. Interesting, Congressman, we have had those very discussions, and as Chairman Souder and his staff, and you know, Director Walters looks as the drug trade as a business. How do we hurt them; how do we become the anti-CEOs; what can we do to cripple or disable an entire trafficking organization or a part of it, the distribution, the transportation, the financial crimes aspect. And one of the tactics that we have looked at, and in some areas tried, is exactly what you are talking about, concentrate resources on a particular problem in a particular area and then see if we can disrupt the market. Mr. Carter. In our county they did that very thing on a small town, which you would think wouldn't be a source, but it seemed to be a congregating area for traffickers as they came out of Mexico. They, along with locals, have gone in and taken an area where you wouldn't allow your child to even drive through the area, and made it a place where you can hold a Sunday school picnic. They actually dozed down buildings along with local cooperation and did a beautiful job of cleaning up that area, and it was a strike by the capital area task force that did that, and very effective, and then they moved on to what they normally did with it. Mr. Scott Burns. Sure. Mr. Carter. And so that was the reason I thought about that. Mr. Scott Burns. Thank you. Mr. Carter. Thank you. Mr. Souder. Mr. Deal. Mr. Deal. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, witnesses, for being here. Obviously sometimes our questions reflect where we live and what our districts are made up of, and mine is one of those areas that is in north Georgia, which is a non-border State, yet from some of the actual arrests and convictions that have been obtained contain some of the hot spot areas for major distribution since I-75 goes through my district and I-85 also goes through my district. So my first question is since we do have a HIDTA in Atlanta, but it is restricted, it is my understanding its content of restricted area is only Fulton County, city of Atlanta, and DeKalb County, and does not include any of the counties in my northern district, even though they have had some of the major drug busts, much more significant even than Atlanta itself, who, first of all, decides the jurisdictional area that is included within a HIDTA? Who makes the decision as to expand it or not? Mr. Scott Burns. It is a long process, but the short answer is the ultimate decision is made by the Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy after consulting with Members of Congress, you, the Governor from the respective State, and then having an intra-agency review; we would bring in experts from DEA and FBI and Treasury and others to look at it to see if it meets the statutory criteria. But I guess the better answer to your question is, and it goes back to the chairman's initial statements, we are currently level funded at $206 million, and have been for some time, and the question is, then, how do we continue to expand. And you may have a serious problem in the northern part of Georgia, but we have to come up with a way of determining whether or not that is more of a problem than in Brownsville, TX, currently. And that is why we have looked at options of how we can reassess and look at the HIDTA program, and we hope that these performance measures that we are putting in place will do just that. Mr. Deal. Well, first of all, would you convey the request that they contact and discuss this issue with me, as a Member of Congress who has an issue and an interest in it? Mr. Scott Burns. Most certainly. Mr. Deal. And I don't view it necessarily as putting one part of the country necessarily in competition with the other. I would like to say I would be willing to be in competition with the counties that make up the Atlanta division right now, as to whether or not they can justify all of the resources there, as opposed to some of the outlying areas on the suburban areas on the interstates, where much of the traffic is obviously still moving. My second question is as an area that just as we have a problem with drug activity, we also have a problem with illegal immigrant activity, and since my son is the State prosecutor in my local area, we obviously know that there is a linkage of one with the other, and I would like to ask what is your working relationship with the INS as it relates to the illegal immigrant population being a source of bringing many of the drugs in from Mexico; and second, has that relationship changed or do you anticipate any changes as we move into the new Homeland Security Department? Would you comment on those areas, please? Mr. Scott Burns. Certainly. I would answer that by saying along the border I think we have had an excellent relationship. I think that inside the continental United States we have not done as well as we can. Under the new reorganization and under the Department of Homeland Security, we have made new efforts to try and coordinate better with them in the HIDTAs, and just within the last 6 months we have also made several trips to Mexico; we have met with State and local prosecutors on the other side of the border and discussed issues with respect to how we can help each other on these immigration issues and prosecution issues. So we are doing good on the border; we could do better inside the United States. Mr. Deal. I am going to ask one last question, if my time is about to expire. In that regard, my concern has been, of recent, that we have not seen the cooperation from Mexico with regard to such things as extradition. We all understand that capital felonies they are not going to extradite back, but most recently we understand that the Supreme Court of Mexico has now issued a ruling in which they have ruled that even those cases that would impose life imprisonment, since they now consider that to be cruel and unusual punishment, will not be extraditable back to the United States; and that is going to involve most of your major drug activities. I think that is in stark contrast to what Colombia's attitude has been, is that they welcome extradition of their major drug traffickers. Have you seen any problems developing from that more restrictive extradition attitude from Mexico? And what impact will that have on your efforts to focus on major drug trafficking organizations? Mr. Scott Burns. It is certainly an issue. I know that Director Walters has met with persons in the highest levels of the Mexican Government, I know that it is an issue that the Department of Justice deals with everyday, and I can only tell you that I think great strides have been made by Mexico within the last 12 months because of efforts by Mr. Walters and others to convince them that we can make the problem smaller by working together. And as a local prosecutor, my efforts have been to reach out to local prosecutors along the border. I have found that sometimes the problem isn't as big as countries, but as simple as getting to know people on the other side, and we have great hope that relationship is going to better our cooperative efforts and take down some of the major trafficking organizations. But clearly, Congressman, the extradition issue is a difficult one. Mr. Deal. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Souder. Mr. Guevara, do you have anything to add on the Mexico relationship? Mr. Guevara. No, sir. At my level, when I have met with counterparts, as recently as last week, I see an attitude that is predisposed to trying to cooperate with us more, and I think that there is a new era that will allow us to move forward and push ahead with that particular issue. In speaking to a prosecutor again just last week, I understand there is new legislation in Mexico that allows for the maximum penalty of 60 years, and in my semi-private discussions with him, he was of the opinion that if somebody was 50 years old and Mexican law allowed for punishment up to 60 year incarceration, that, in his eyes, constituted a life sentence. So I say that just simply there is a new attitude, and I am optimistic that will lead us in this very, very difficult issue. Mr. Souder. Mr. Bell. Mr. Bell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Burns, I apologize to both of you for not being here for your earlier testimony. And if you have already covered it, I also apologize. Mr. Scott Burns. It was really good. Mr. Bell. It was all the talk throughout the Capitol that it was. Mr. Scott Burns. That is what I thought. Mr. Bell. That is why I came. But I represent part of the Houston region, and I wanted to talk to you. Some of the concern is focused on the splintering of the Southwest Border, HIDTA into the five different parts, and I am curious if you have plans for addressing some of the problems in regard to cooperation and communication, and how we get passed some of the turf war mentality. Mr. Scott Burns. Congressman, I have been the deputy director for 11 months. There are 28 HIDTAs, including one in Hawaii and Puerto Rico. I have been to the Southwest Border, I think, eight times. I have only been to about 14 of the HIDTAs. I have been there that many times to deal with the very issue that you raise. I am convinced that this country and the HIDTA program is best served by, one, cooperating HIDTA along the Southwest Border, from San Diego to south Texas. We have to deal with the border as one HIDTA, which it has always been, and in a cooperative spirit. Last week we had the board members from, I think, four of the five partnerships, Arizona had some conflicts, we had all of the partnership directors here with the exception of Arizona, met with some of them later, and I believe we are well on our way to establishing standard operating procedure to meet the needs and the desires of the respective States, which is always a priority, and understand that in America it is time to work together, not splinter off, not my State, not my local issues, not my section of the border, but all together. And I hope to report to you within the next month that has happened and we are going to make it better. Mr. Bell. Have you been able to develop some consensus during your trips for the formation of one? Mr. Scott Burns. It has always been one. There has always been some idea that individual States want their own, and they believe that by being called their own HIDTA they may have more leverage for additional money. I think that, in meeting with the board members, there has become a consensus that they are more important to you and to the citizens of this country when they are combined as opposed to individual HIDTAs. They currently receive almost a quarter of the entire HIDTA budget. Individual States receive large amounts of moneys to combat the problem, and I think the reason that they receive so much attention is because they are the border. Mr. Bell. Looking at just the Houston HIDTA, 15 State and local agencies and 10 Federal agencies that have to come together to formulate a strategy to attack drug trafficking, and I am just curious if you have seen some of the problems in that area regarding communications and information sharing and strategic planning, and how what you would recommend as far as addressing some of those issues. Mr. Scott Burns. In Houston? Stan Purse, first, is one of the HIDTA directors in the country. The coordination in the Houston HIDTA, which I haven't been to because in many ways it is an example of what all HIDTAs should be, they have their finger on the pulse, they understand the threat, and they move their assets and direct their focus in cases toward the problem. Mr. Bell. Thank you. Mr. Scott Burns. Thank you. Mr. Bell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Souder. I would like to do a brief followup. This is far too complex a subject to do in a hearing, but I want to put on the record this comment and question. If we have a Southwest Border HIDTA, which I agree with the concept, why wouldn't we have, then, regional concepts that are broad in other areas, such as north border, the northern border is longer, so maybe east-west? Why wouldn't everything north of the south border then also be a large zone of southwestern United States? Great Lakes region, all of Florida be together in one. In other words, a regionalization concept then with a local implementation, which might not be called a HIDTA, but we all agree that the functions of having the State and local involved have been invaluable in multiple ways. Nobody is questioning whether HIDTAs are effective, the question is how do we approach a national strategy to get the drug trafficking organizations? And if regionalization is good in one place, why wouldn't it be good in another? And I would ask Mr. Guevara and then Mr. Burns to comment. You were involved in southern California. Could you share some of your thoughts as how the DEA coordinates with this? Because the fact is we had DEA or FBI task forces in most regions already. What did the HIDTA add to that? And could you kind of weigh in on both the Southwest Border, the concept of regionalization, and then if we went to National, what that would do to the State and local cooperation? Mr. Guevara. Yes, sir. The DEA would support consolidation of multiple efforts. DEA is of the view that if we bring our resources together and we stay focused, we can impact the traffic at the highest level and thereby reduce the overall flow of drugs, reducing the availability. So DEA would support a consolidation of border HIDTAs. And because these criminal organizations operate at will and are very fluid, we need to be able to respond accordingly, and toward that end DEA has recently been moving toward improving our ability to do just that. DEA has four border sacks that go from San Diego to Houston, and it has been one of my projects to improve our operations there, and that has included meetings as recently as the previous month and the month prior to that, in which I brought the four sacks together to improve that communication, and then I took it a step further by meeting with our Mexican colleagues in Mexico City to see what more we could do to improve that communication. So I am of the view that it is imperative, wherever possible, that we have common goals and objectives, and that by working together and pooling our resources, we will hopefully, at the end of the day, be able to impact the traffic that will allow my parents in east Los Angeles to go to the grocery store. And if you could repeat the second part of the question, please. Mr. Souder. You were in the southwest or southern California border HIDTA yourself as a coordinator. How do you see, if we nationalize this more, it possibly negatively impacting the State and local cooperation? Mr. Guevara. I think that there may be a reluctance on the part of local law enforcement if they were to see or think that this would take away from the local impact cases. And my answer to that point of view would be that it would actually allow us to improve our overall efforts impacting on local traffickers if we can identify a cell that is responsible for just putting out the narcotics on the street. Ultimately, they are getting it from somebody else, and the challenge needs to be that we connect those cells operating in the neighborhoods, connect it to the mid-level violators that will lead to the command and control operations that we can detect through Title 3 or wiretap operations. I don't see a conflict whatsoever. I think what it will do is facilitate the coordination that will allow us to do exactly those type of operations. Mr. Souder. Mr. Burns, do you have any comments? Mr. Scott Burns. It is an excellent question, and it is something that students of HIDTA, if there is such a thing, talk about. I guess my response would be that what we have tried to do is be threat-driven and not necessarily make it all fit nicely in geographic regions. To some extent, as you well know, there already is some regionalization. We have five States in the Rocky Mountain HIDTA, we have six States in the Midwest, we have six in New England. But those States came together because the threat was consistent one with another and they believed that in those areas they could best attack the problem. But your idea is a good one, and it is one that I would like to discuss with you and your staff, because we are always trying to make this program better. Mr. Souder. For most of those clusters, they were too small to get their own HIDTA to justify it to the director or the appropriations. In the Southwest Border HIDTA it is a different challenge because they are big enough to do it individually, and that is the tension. But I appreciate your comments. Mr. Deal, do you have any other questions? Mr. Deal. I would just like to ask if there are any impediments to your functioning that we have any jurisdiction to deal with. I know that in the past, of course, there have always been jealousies among various departments. There have been in the past, of course, suspicions of not involving certain levels of departments. Many local jurisdictions, I think, were viewed as, well, don't share information with them, you are not sure where it is headed. I hope those days are over with. In fact, the jurisdictions at the local level that I have had involvement with I think are very willing to cooperate, I think they have the highest level of integrity of cooperation, and most of them are hungry for help from the outside because their resources are so limited. But are there impediments such as Federal rules, regulations, laws, etc. that prohibit sharing of information, that prohibit your transfer of functions or personnel? Are there things along those lines that we need to be aware of that we ought to be trying to deal with? Mr. Scott Burns. In many ways, Congressman, I think HIDTA is a victim of its own success. In the areas of the country where it works and is effective, everybody wants one, and I would say that, and I know Chairman Souder and his staff are well aware of this, it is a disincentive to the current HIDTAs where there is level funding in place. If they know the same money is going to come next year, no matter what, because of that requirement, we are not able, in ONDCP, I think, to do our job, and I think that would be helpful. As I said, in the short time Director Walters has been here and that I have been here, we are all on the same page in one vein, and that is we need to stop, take a deep breath, find out where we are at with this program, get performance measures in place, and then determine how we can make it better. Mr. Deal. That is all, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Souder. Thank you very much. Mr. Ruppersberger? Mr. Ruppersberger. After the arrests are made, where do the cases go, the State court or Federal court, or do you determine where you can get the best result? Mr. Scott Burns. It depends. Again, the beauty of HIDTA, I guess, is those issues are dealt with by the women and men who live in those areas and have firsthand knowledge of the problem. For example, along the Southwest Border we fund a number of State and local prosecutors because the cases, frankly, are overwhelming for U.S. attorneys to handle. And so it is dealt with by and between the States' attorneys and the U.S. attorneys in a particular region. Washington State right now, I am going there next week because there is an issue with BC Bud coming over the border in large amounts, and there is a State's attorney up there that some would say is swamped and he needs help; and there are county commissioners that say their jail is full, and, by the way, this kind of looks like a Federal issue. So part of what HIDTA does is try and assist in working those issues out by and between the prosecutors as well as local law enforcement. Mr. Ruppersberger. Would you say that it is more an issue of swamped or where you think you can get the best sentence time, so to speak? Mr. Scott Burns. I have to answer that honestly. Mr. Ruppersberger. That is what I want you to do. Mr. Scott Burns. I wish we were to the point of where we could get the best sentence. I would say it is not that. I am sure it is that way in certain specific areas, but right now it is a matter of resources, it is a matter of putting bodies on cases and getting them charged. Mr. Ruppersberger. Even with your high profile targets? Mr. Scott Burns. Well, not with high profile targets. Those obviously would go to U.S. attorneys, and we would look at those as cases where the Federal system ought to be used always. Mr. Ruppersberger. OK. Thank you. Mr. Souder. One of the problems is that the northwest border is unusual because the primary markets are so far from the county where they are catching most of it, it is even way north of Seattle, and they are mostly headed toward California. So it has been a really unusual situation on the northwest. Mr. Bell, do you have any further questions? Mr. Bell. I have one other question on CTAC. The Technology Transfer Program is so popular that apparently we have a significant backlog in applications for next year's appropriations, and they will be spent as soon as these applications are approved. Do you think we should have an additional spending authorization? And if so, at what level? Mr. Scott Burns. As you state, the 2003 budget was spent in March, and there are over 1,000 applications already for 2004. Dr. Albert Brandenstein, who is here, would tell you that $65 million, I think it is $48 million for 2003, $65 million, and that is without the wireless communication aspect of it, would meet all of the needs of this important R&D program. Mr. Souder. With that, we will have additional written submitted questions, and we will go to the second panel. Thank you for coming this morning. Mr. Scott Burns. Thank you very much. Mr. Guevara. Thank you. Mr. Souder. If the second panel could come forward. Mr. Deal [assuming Chair]. We will welcome you to our hearing today, and it is my pleasure to be able to swear you in, but I would ask that you rise, please, take the oath. [Witnesses sworn.] Mr. Deal. Let the record show that the witnesses have answered in the affirmative to the oath. I told them I was accustomed to swearing in folks to a grand jury and to a witness stand, and that is almost the same, so we welcome you here. Does any member of the panel have a special guest on the panel you would like to introduce? Mr. Ruppersberger. I would just like to acknowledge Mr. Romano from the great city of Baltimore. Mr. Deal. All right, well, thank you. The witnesses will each be recognized for opening statements, and we ask if you would, please, to try to summarize your statements and keep it within a 5-minute opening period. And we are pleased to have Chief McCampbell. We will start with you and then just move down the line. Chief, we are pleased to have you with us. STATEMENTS OF CHRISTY MCCAMPBELL, CHIEF, BUREAU OF NARCOTICS ENFORCEMENT, CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE; WAYNE WIBERG, COMMANDER, NARCOTICS AND GANG INVESTIGATION SECTION, CHICAGO POLICE DEPARTMENT; ANTHONY ROMANO, CHIEF, ORGANIZED CRIME DIVISION, BALTIMORE POLICE DEPARTMENT; AND LIEUTENANT COLONEL STEVE MOYER, CHIEF, HOMELAND DEFENSE/INTELLIGENCE BUREAU, MARYLAND STATE POLICE Ms. McCampbell. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee, I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss what I see as the immense importance and the influence that the HIDTA programs have in our States. I speak representing my home State of California, but I hope that I can convey to you the benefits that are reflected on all the other States that participate in the HIDTAs. I am the Chief of California's Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement and I oversee all statewide narcotic enforcement operations. I am also a past president of the California Narcotic Officers Association, which represents 7,000 members; NASDEA, which is the National Association of State Drug Enforcement Agencies; and, as well, I am an active member in the NNOAC, which is the National Coalition of Narcotic Officer Associations. With an exploding population of over 34 million residents in California, it is the most populous State in the United States. We border Mexico; we face the most severe drug abuse epidemic ever known, and I attribute that to the ever- increasing legalization movement which many misguided individuals seem to be enthusiastically embracing in my State; and we are considered the source country for the manufacture of methamphetamine. With these many, many problems, we in California are fortunate enough to have been granted four HIDTAs in the State: one in Los Angeles, one in San Diego, one in San Francisco, one in Fresno. Or perhaps I should say that we are unfortunate enough to need that much help from ONDCP. I am not an expert in the everyday administration of any of the HIDTAs, I leave that to the HIDTA directors, but I do participate in all four HIDTAs, have personnel assigned to each one. I have had the experience of being one of the framers of the San Francisco HIDTA and I chair their Initiatives Committee. With this experience I have been able to observe firsthand the power and the coordination of efforts that the HIDTAs bring in the overall U.S. drug strategy. In observing the HIDTAs, I have noted five specific areas which I believe to be representative of the great success of this program. First and foremost, of course, is the coordination of efforts. The designation of a HIDTA demands that the variety of agencies and personalities must come to the table and forge partnerships. Law enforcement has a tendency, as was mentioned before, to work separately and not always share. But HIDTA members must all work together, we share information and resources, and we establish those ``pick up the phone'' type relationships. Requiring the agencies to co-locate and place as many resources under one roof is efficient and it builds those working relationships. Just recently, in my own Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement, we moved one of our local task forces under the umbrella of the HIDTA in the Richmond, CA area, combining our investigative efforts. Second, enhanced communications and intelligence. Without the benefit of the HIDTAs, we would not have the communication levels that we now maintain for officer safety. The HIDTAs have tremendously enhanced communication abilities, and an integral part of HIDTA is the need to enhance and increase the free exchange of information and drug and criminal intelligence. As a matter of fact, last year our Los Angeles clearinghouse, which is one of our information HIDTAs, began providing deconfliction services for not only the Los Angeles area, but for the northern California HIDTA, Central HIDTA, and the Nevada HIDTA. In the spirit of cooperation that is fostered by the HIDTA program, the northern California Narcotic Information Network [NIN], co-located with the Los Angeles Clearinghouse, and instead of everyone being territorial, all agreed to co-locate and work together in integrating our information. The intelligence component also of the HIDTAs has connectivity into the National RISS System, which combines local, State, and Federal narcotic intelligence sharing and has dramatically improved the communications. Third, and I consider this very important regarding the HIDTAs, is regional responses. An essential component of HIDTA is the flexibility to focus on regional drug issues. Under the guidance of the board of directors, threat assessments are developed and then a strategy is built. The Central Valley HIDTA is centered around Fresno in our State, an agricultural area that has a tremendous problem with meth labs and resulting toxic waste sites that are left behind. The environmental damage is horrendous, and I have personally seen drug-encrusted canisters, plastic ephedrine bottles visibly floating downstream in the Fresno area, or strewn about in the animal pastures in that area. The drug threat is enormous, and the Central Valley HIDTA almost exclusively focuses on the meth problem in our State. Other parts of the State do have different geographical problems and different drug problems, but the benefit of flexibility for the local board to decide what the threat is is essential to fighting our the drug problem. We try to conduct OCDETF cases, but that is not always necessarily the case. So through the HIDTA flexibility, if necessary, we can still take a smaller case to the State's attorney. This type of flexibility is a key of success to the HIDTA program. And I want to say, before I close, that enough emphasis cannot be placed on the importance of the HIDTA concept that allows strong local and State agency input into developing the regional enforcement strategies. HIDTA is the one Federal program that provides equal balance to all participants and maintains the identity of each region through our board of directors. To diminish that balance and exclude the State and the local input in favor of exclusive Federal control I think would dramatically dissipate participation and cooperation of many agencies. Of course, it goes without saying the fiscal help that we get from HIDTA no doubt helps us, and we on the HIDTA boards, we watch that money very carefully, and it was just a week ago that one of the HIDTA committees sat down together and we reviewed the initiatives and we redirected some of the funding from initiatives that had met their mission. As you know, California is undergoing a severe budget crisis, and local and State narcotic enforcement units are being virtually eliminated. I have to say in Oregon I was told that just recently they are down to eight State narcotic agents in that State, Nevada has almost eliminated all of their State narcotic agents, and my own Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement, we have been reduced by 100 personnel and I have had a cut of almost $10 million in my State BNE budget. It is very severe, and most of that money is being redirected toward homeland security. The bottom line are the results that the HIDTAs produce: LA, we seized almost 40 tons of dangerous drugs in 2001; the Central Valley HIDTA, in 3 years, we seized over 1,400 lbs. of pseudoephedrine tablets; the northern California HIDTA, in 2 years we have made over 5,000 arrests; and the California Border Alliance Group, we have seized 8,000 lbs. of cocaine. These are the results that the HIDTAs produce for us. In conclusion, this program allows enforcement to enhance narcotic enforcement activities, provide focus to regional problems, and facilitate cooperation. You would probably ask is it possible that we would continue on our narcotic efforts without a HIDTA. Yes, but it would be very painful, and I think it would hurt what we have built up with the HIDTAs. Thank you. [The prepared statement of Ms. McCampbell follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9455.022 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9455.023 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9455.024 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9455.025 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9455.026 Mr. Souder [resuming Chair]. Mr. Wiberg. Mr. Wiberg. Good morning. I want to thank you for affording me the opportunity to be here. My name is Wayne Wiberg. I am the commander of the Chicago Police Department Narcotic and Gang Investigation Section. Chicago has a major problem threatening our communities and the people whom we are sworn to protect. There is a cycle of narcotic violence which has been persistent over several years. The violence in Chicago is directed by sophisticated gangs with long histories, as the Vice Lords and the Gangster Disciples, these gangs whose organizational structures can rival those of many Fortune 500 companies. The violence inflicted on our communities by the attempt to control the distribution of narcotics in our city is apparent in at least 50 percent of all homicides occurring within Chicago, and are attributed to the gangs involved in the narcotic trade. The main avenues of distribution are the open air drug market, which can net anywhere between $5,000 and $10,000 per day or a staggering $1.8 to $3.5 million per year at each location. As the gangs fight between each other and among themselves over the control of these open market locations, police officers' lives are at risk, in addition to the young men, women, and children who are losing their lives and their futures to violent death, lifelong addiction, and to long periods of incarceration. We believe we have made a significant impact on these gangs. Our street corner conspiracy operations have been shown to effectively remove street corner gang markets in a surgical fashion, encompassing all entities in the market operation. Our conviction rates are high and sentences considerable. These operations have also shown to significantly improve the quality of life in the neighborhoods where we have been conducting them. But as important as these operations are, it is not enough. We are doing what we can to sever the ``tentacles'' of the drug distribution here in Chicago, but we need really to sever the ``head,'' which is made up of the cartels that reach beyond local law enforcement and who supply various bulk narcotics for further distribution throughout this country. Chicago has been identified as the premiere intermodal hub of narcotic distribution for the United States. An example can be found in one of the many large seizures made by the Narcotics Section of the Chicago Police Department in the year 2002. Officers from the Narcotic and Gang Investigation Section from the Chicago Police Department seized the largest amount of cocaine in department history: 2,000 kilos of cocaine were recovered from a warehouse in a suburb of Chicago. This seizure of cocaine had an estimated street value of approximately a quarter of a billion dollars. The Mexican cartel identified as bringing this shipment into the area stood to make an estimated $20 million in the wholesale distribution of these drugs, and the money was to be smuggled back into Mexico via the same false truck panels used to hide the bulk drugs. There are many other examples supporting the fact that drug cartels are responsible for all the drugs that enter or pass through the Chicagoland area. The ability of local law enforcement to attack international mechanisms that feed the narcotic violence in my city is not only limited by jurisdictional constraints, but by financial constraints as well. To be more effective in stemming the distribution of drugs, there has to be a greater participation between the Federal Government and local law enforcement in all investigative aspects of drug trafficking. A more concerted effort has to be applied to removing and eradicating the financial resources that generate drug distribution and the related violence. This can only be accomplished by a multi-agency effort. That is why the Chicago HIDTA is so valuable, it is the catalyst to accomplish this goal. As with the era of prohibition, when the gangs rose to a level of sophistication that allowed their influence to reach beyond the resources of local law enforcement, there was a need for the Federal Government to help. The Chicago HIDTA is a conduit for that help. HIDTA has provided us with the resources and capabilities to identify the hierarchy of these drug organizations, and to move toward a more effective prosecution of drug conspiracy cases. In closing, we in local law enforcement are challenged to try to make an impact on what really is an international network of drug delivery and distribution with limited resources. The Chicago HIDTA has been instrumental in helping to provide intelligence and link Federal resources to formulate comprehensive strategies and operations to be more effective by attacking not only the operatives at the street distribution level, but also impacting the upper and mid-level supply sources. We need continued support of these efforts to not only protect our police officers, but also to make our communities safer and to help to ensure a chance for a prosperous future for the next generation. Thank you. [The prepared statement of Mr. Wiberg follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9455.027 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9455.028 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9455.029 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9455.030 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9455.031 Mr. Souder. Thank you. Mr. Romano. Chief Romano. Members of the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources, good morning. I am pleased that Congressman Cummings extended the opportunity to the Baltimore Police Department to provide testimony today regarding the reauthorization of the Office of National Drug Control Policy's High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas. I am Anthony Romano, chief of the Organized Crime Division of the Baltimore Police Department. I am extremely grateful for the partnership with HIDTA in Baltimore, and in my previous career with the New York HIDTA, where I served in the New York City Police Department for 18 years. During those 18 years, I spent a period of time, in excess of 10 years, combating the war on drugs, especially in the late 1980's, the mid-1980's to late-1980's, when crack had completely overrun our city streets. I was a young narcotics detective assigned to the Narcotics Division, and we were tasked with the mission of taking back these streets. All of this was done with nothing more than a gun, a badge, and our arrest powers. We had no training other the basic training that was afforded to us by the New York City Police Department. There were no avenues available to rehabilitate those who were arrested. There were limitations on enforcement due to budgetary restraints. A young police officer back in the 1980's, while guarding a witness in a drug trial, was assigned his post to watch the home of these witnesses, and that night, in doing his job, it cost him his life; he was executed by members of the gang that this witness was going to testify against. I find myself now, after just retiring a year ago from the New York City Police Department, here in Baltimore, in a city that bears much resemblance to what I saw in the 1980's in New York, and as a specific case as it relates to a family here in Baltimore, namely, the Dawson family, another person who wanted to stand up against the fight on drugs, and this cost a mother, a father, and their father's children their lives. There is just no room for this here. We need help beyond the help of just having additional manpower and being able to go out there and take these streets back. The people who are arrested need to be rehabilitated. Those involved in the fight need to have the training that is available. Often, much too often, I have heard in my career in the New York City Police Department, and I hear grumblings as I begin my career here in Baltimore City, that there are budgetary restraints, and it is very difficult to run an operation 24 hours. Drug dealers don't shut down their operations; they begin in the morning, they work through the night, 7 days a week. Unfortunately, there aren't enough people for us to put out on the street to fight this war 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, so we find ourselves needing people to stay longer. And what I have found in my career in New York, and I am starting to see here in Baltimore, and from my own personal experiences, no one does this work because they have to do this work. Drug work is a passion. I do this work and I have done it, and I could have moved on to many different areas in the police departments, but I chose not to. I could have advanced up the ladder through promotion. I chose not to, I chose to stay where I was and fight the war on drugs. Since 1994, the Baltimore/Washington HIDTA has performed at an extremely high level. It has assisted law enforcement agencies in coordinating an interagency response to significant threats or crises, such as the Washington-area sniper killings and the local response to the September 11 terrorist attacks. As a result, three law enforcement task forces operating in Maryland have been recognized by the ONDCP for their exemplary performance. These units include The Major Drug Traffickers Initiative, Drug Money Laundering Initiative, and Prince George's County Safe Streets Initiative. Communities battling this intensive drug trade and the violence that accompanies it need to know that HIDTA dollars and expertise are available for them for strategic and effective responses to violence and substance abuse. In New York, and now in Baltimore, I know that we cannot do it alone. Please consider ONDCP and HIDTA favorably in your reauthorization deliberation. Thank you. [The prepared statement of Chief Romano follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9455.032 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9455.033 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9455.034 Mr. Souder. Thank you each for your testimony. I am going to yield first to Ranking Member Mr. Cummings. Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to just read over opening statement, make it a part of the record. Mr. Chairman, the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas program is an important weapon in the Government's drug- fighting arsenal. By coordinating and synchronizing the regional anti-drug efforts of local, State, and Federal law enforcement agencies, HIDTA programs around the country amplify the impact that participating agencies can make with limited resources. I don't think that there is any question as to whether we should reauthorize this program. Absolutely we should, in my judgment. And I know, Mr. Chairman, that you agree. Like any program that undergoes rapid expansion, the HIDTA program has experienced growing pains. New and evolving drug use transit patterns of drug trafficking have fueled the growth of the HIDTA program from five regions in 1990 to more than 25 today. One of the program's chief attributes is the capacity it provides to tailor a comprehensive interagency response to a highly specific regional drug threat. As we consider how to manage the growth of the HIDTA program into the future, we must be careful to preserve the advantage of flexibility that the program presently affords. The value of the HIDTA program is evident to me in the contribution that the Washington/Baltimore HIDTA has made since 1994 in helping agencies to fight the drug trafficking problem that severely affects my congressional district in Baltimore City, Baltimore County, and Howard County. It is no secret that Baltimore City's local drug problem is among the Nation's worse. Sadly, the city I represent in Congress is home to some of the Nation's most violent drug trafficking organizations, and the impact of their activities on those who live among the dealers and their client is direct. Everyday I see the devastation that drug trafficking causes in the lives of drug abusers, their loved ones, and the entire neighborhoods crippled and terrorized by drug-related crimes against people and property. As bad as conditions are in certain sections of Baltimore City, they would be much worse without the cooperation of coordination enabled by the Washington/Baltimore HIDTA. Through interagency task force and innovative and successful drug treatment component, a regional intelligence center and sophisticated crime mapping tools, the Washington/Baltimore HIDTA has dramatically enhanced the ability of law enforcement agencies to work together to dismantle major drug trafficking organizations and conduct investigations into large-scale drug money laundering operations. The existence of the Washington/Baltimore HIDTA also enabled a multi-agency response to one of the most tragic events the city of Baltimore has ever seen: the arson and murder, as Mr. Romano has already talked about, of the Dawson family in retaliation for Angela Dawson's efforts to engage police to keep drug dealers away from her very doorstep. In the immediate wake of this tragedy, ONDCP Director Walters, to his credit, authorized the redirection of existing funds within the fiscal year 2002 Baltimore/Washington HIDTA budget to support a Baltimore targeting initiative that is helping to increase safety for residents of specific neighborhoods that are subject to the ever-present threat of violence from drug distribution organizations and their affiliates. And I want to thank all of our witnesses for being here today, and coming, many of them, in such short notice. Like the HIDTA program, the Counterdrug Technology Assessment Center plays a critical role in our national drug control strategy and clearly deserves to be reauthorized. CTAC represents a tremendous resource for our Federal drug control agencies through its research and development programs and for local and State law enforcement through the Technology Transfer Program. As foreign and domestic criminals develop ever more sophisticated means of threatening harm to the American people, whether through the illegal drug trade or through terrorist activities, it becomes more and more essential to develop the technological means to detect and disrupt their activities. It is equally important that we enable those applications to be put to effective use by State and local law enforcement agencies. CTAC performs both these vital functions, and I strongly support the extension of its authorization. A moment ago I mentioned the horrific crime that claimed the lives of Carnell and Angela Dawson and their five young children, age 9 to 14. In sections of Baltimore City and places like them, the drug trade has immediate and severe impact. Angela Dawson had the courage to stand up to drug dealers. The dealers responded with a brazen message to the entire community. We must ensure that the residents of communities like the Dawsons have the vigorous support of law enforcement to insulate them from the threat of violent retaliation for their partnership with the police. I have often said, and I firmly believe, that the police cannot do their job effectively without the cooperation of the public. Witness relocation programs are not an adequate solution for individuals and families who are so deeply committed to reclaiming their communities as the Dawsons were. Moreover, communities can ill afford to lose such committed and courageous people. The redirection of funds by Director Walters for the Baltimore targeting initiative was an appropriate and necessary initial Federal response to this very difficult problem of domestic narco-terrorism. The next step must be to ensure that this kind of effort can continue without eroding the support for other important HIDTA initiatives. With that in mind, I have introduced legislation entitled the ``Dawson Family Community Protection Act'' that would make the funding of initiatives like the Baltimore targeting initiative a permanent priority within the Office of National Drug Control Policy. The bill would require the Director of ONDCP to devote a minimum of $1 million annually to HIDTA initiatives that aim to increase safety for and encourage voluntary cooperation with law enforcement, residents of neighborhoods that are severely affected by drug trafficking activity and related violence. Mr. Chairman, I sincerely thank you for lending your support for H.R. 1599 as an original co-sponsor, and I look forward to working with you to see that the legislation is enacted either on its own or as part of the ONDCP reauthorization legislation the subcommittee will consider in the coming weeks. In the meantime, I also want to thank all of the witnesses again for appearing before the subcommittee today, and I look forward to hearing the answers to the various questions put to you by our committee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. Mr. Souder. Thank you. Mr. Ose, did you have a statement also? Mr. Ose. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize for being late. I did want to get down here and make sure that I welcome Ms. McCampbell here to our committee. She is the chief of the California Department of Justice Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement, and in that role she has worked closely with my staff and the communities that I represent across the State to improve our efforts to fight the use and abuse of dangerous drugs and narcotics. Mr. Chairman, I want to add my compliments to those of the other Members here to your's and Mr. Cummings' continuing commitment to this effort. I have a statement I would like to enter into the record, but more than anything, I just want Christy McCampbell to know she is welcome here. Mr. Souder. Thank you. I am going to start with a few direct questions on the HIDTA. And let me start as a followup to the last panel, if I can ask Ms. McCampbell, the California partnership based in San Diego is part of the overarching Southwest Border HIDTA. Do you agree with ONDCP belief that greater authority should be given to the Southwest Border HIDTA to manage the five regional? Have you been involved in this discussion at all? How would you ensure that the individual partnerships do not take actions that negatively impact other parts of the Southwest Border? Ms. McCampbell. Well, I would have to say that I have not been directly involved in those types of discussions, but I know our CBAG, which is at San Diego and Imperial County, they do work collectively with the entire Southwest Border, and I do believe that we all need to be working together; that is the point of the HIDTAs. And we do work together at this time, so I am not sure to say it is really a separate entity is a fair thing. We have worked together; we share intelligence, we share information, and we share resources. So at this time we are part of the entire region. Mr. Souder. We can have all nice general discussions, but sometimes it comes down to money, that part of the struggle that we have at the Federal level when we devise a program like this, and this is what we are trying to work through, is that each HIDTA sees its money coming in, they make their plans based on their money. What happens when there are shifts along the border in particular? Because when we are successful in one area, they will tend to move to another area. And the question is how do we make the decision to shift those different funding mechanisms? The theory behind Southwest Border that this subcommittee clearly pushed for many years, particularly when Speaker Hastert was here, was that it needed to be somewhat fungible money that could move the intensity of the action where the gaps were. But then we ran into different problems in each State. It is one thing to talk theoretically about cooperation; it is another thing to say we are doing these ongoing investigations, we don't want the money moved. Any thoughts on that process of how to work through it? Because there is never enough money to tackle all the problems. The bottom line is nobody is saying that clearly there are parts of the Arizona border that are wide open right now; whereas, in the California border we have a little more, at least theoretically, control. That doesn't mean we have begun to eliminate the drug problem in California. Ms. McCampbell. In the initiatives that I am familiar with within our State, we actually do some shifting of funds in the particular initiatives. We just did that recently. We felt that in the Bay Area, particularly, that we had met the mission of some of those original initiatives, so the board of directors took that upon themselves to say, OK, we have finished up with that initiative, let's redirect this to some new initiatives that are coming in. And I think the key to this is to allow that board of directors who knows the particular areas to have a lot of say into how those moneys are spent. Now, that doesn't directly answer your question as to what do we do with that vacant part over there in Arizona at the border. I do agree that there has to be a shifting of funds; we don't stay on the same mission day in and day out forever. But I would like to emphasize that I think that those boards of directors, working in conjunction with ONDCP and with the HIDTA director, should have the authority to be able to perhaps in fact do shifting changing moneys. Mr. Souder. Mr. Wiberg, we have a HIDTA in Chicago and a HIDTA in Lake County. I am from the northeast part of Indiana, where we tend to view Lake County as Lake County views itself, as almost an adjunct of Chicago. Why would those two HIDTAs be separate? In other words, part of what we are getting at the Southwest Border we need to look at in the Midwest as well, and that is drug dealers don't divide along State lines because they elect officials along State party lines; they work in geographic areas in distribution networks that aren't our political subdivisions. I know political reasons why it is helpful in Indiana to have HIDTA. And I would ask a broader question. Not only Lake County, Chicago, but also why not a Great Lakes HIDTA or a West Great Lakes and an East Great Lakes, knowing Chicago and Detroit face slightly different things? But, in other words, why wouldn't you look at it as a hub, if we are saying this for the Southwest Border, and say how is it moving through the Great Lakes region? Mr. Wiberg. To be very honest with you, it would be very difficult for me to try and evaluate what occurs in other areas outside of the city of Chicago. Mr. Souder. OK, let us say Chicago and Lake County. Mr. Wiberg. OK. Mr. Souder. Because your guys are moving across the border. Most people who live there don't even know where the border is. Mr. Wiberg. We have worked in conjunction with the Lake County HIDTA, and it was very effective because they brought to our table something that we were looking at with respect to another street gang that was involved in the sale of PCP. And please understand, it is very difficult for me to make a judgment. I can tell you the HIDTA in Chicago is very effective; it works. I would like to see more of it, to be honest with you, for the surrounding Chicagoland area. We need more initiatives. How that would compare with Indiana, to be honest with you, Mr. Chairman, it would be very difficult for me to respond to that. Mr. Souder. My assumption is that, for example, in my hometown the narcotics were mostly coming from Detroit, but we found gangs, kids who had moved in from Chicago. The logical connection in most cases are going to be out of the major metro areas moving through into the other areas, and this isn't hard for an outsider to see, and it is kind of exasperating to look at it from the outside and not see a willingness inside the organizations to see the networking pattern that comes with the narcotics coming from a long distance, moving to regional networks, down into subregional networks, down into smaller networks. And if we don't, as a country, focus on that, we are just going to continue to drown in the individual cases. The HIDTAs certainly have improved that coordination, and what we are trying to get to is are there ways to further improve that or are HIDTAs starting to become, in a sense, another jurisdictional potential problem inside this system if they start coming in to the adjacency areas. So you have had some cooperation with Lake County. Do you get into the Milwaukee zone at all? Mr. Wiberg. Yes. Mr. Souder. In other words, presumably narco chains are going to run up toward Milwaukee. Rockford? Mr. Wiberg. Yes. Oh, definitely Rockford. Mr. Souder. How do you interact with St. Louis? Mr. Wiberg. From the time that I have been there, minimal. We really don't have that much involvement with St. Louis. A lot more closer to, you know, Milwaukee, Indiana, obviously. From the investigations that I have been involved in or know my group involved with, St. Louis has been minimal. But please understand, from a person who lives in Chicago and was a police officer for 37 years, I am glad the gangs are moving out of the city. You know, I apologize if they are coming your way, but I am glad they are moving that way. And I think that is one of the things that we need to be aware of, because when the gangs move, they bring everything with them; they bring the violence and they bring the drugs. And, again, I was stressing the fact that these drugs are not just limited to gangs, but they have that head behind them, which is the drug cartel. Mr. Souder. Thank you. Mr. Ruppersberger. Mr. Ruppersberger. First thing, your comment kind of concerned me about the fact, and I am sure this is happening everywhere, the resources that are being taken away from the drug enforcement going into homeland security and terrorism. And there is no question we have to deal with both issues, but if you take one away from narcotics and transfer it, and I would like to know from maybe each one of you on the panel is that happening in all of your jurisdictions, that the resources of manpower and moneys are going more into the terrorism and drawing away from your operations? Ms. McCampbell. Yes, I can respond to that. It has been devastating to California. I try not to take it personally, as heading up narcotic enforcement, but, you know, in California the Governor and the attorney general created CADIC, which is an acronym for our intelligence system for homeland security for terrorism, and they created that out of nothing. They had no budget when September 11 occurred. There was no budget and so to create this bureau they took it out of narcotic enforcement. And they took it out of narcotic enforcement because who knows how to deal with things going on the streets but the narcotics officers? We had informants; we knew there were Middle Eastern connections to pseudoephedrine sales that we, as narcotic enforcement officers, had worked. So 100 agents were taken out of Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement to create CADIC. We were promised eventually that would be refunded and made up, but then in the meantime we have energy crises and everything else, and so we have not received any allotments or funding back from our own State government. Mr. Ruppersberger. Mr. Romano, how about you in Baltimore? Chief Romano. Sir, as you know, we are in Charlie status. A lot of our moneys are going toward paying for overtime for officers and try to secure a city against terrorist attacks. Being new to this city and my initial impression of how serious the mayor and the police commissioner are to fighting this war on drugs, even though a lot of the moneys that I would normally be using to spend on training and for rehabilitation and for overtime as it relates to the war on drugs, there seems to be a huge commitment on the part of the mayor and, again, the police commissioner to go out there and do the job, and that is what we do. At some point I can only imagine that the strain on the budget is going to affect the work that we do. Mr. Ruppersberger. All the more reason why we need to encourage our President to give more money to first responders. I mean, it has to be done, because it is not only affecting what we are doing with our first responders, our police, our firefighters, and our health officers, but it is affecting your enforcement abilities. And after September 11 the terrorism issue will stay, we have to do that, but we can't take away from this drug situation. I think the statistics are clearly 90 percent of all crime is drug-related. That is about the national average. And we have to continue to focus on that. My investigation, which is limited, on HIDTA, I think most of the jurisdictions like the fact that we have Federal, State, and local; love the fact that we get some resources from the Feds because they have more money than anybody; but some of the complaints that I hear that HIDTA, in certain areas, might be putting too much money into infrastructure and not enough into investigations, infrastructure being salary, rent, whatever that is. Do you see that in any of your jurisdictions? And I want to start with you, Mr. Romano, since I am from Baltimore and you are from Baltimore. Chief Romano. Sir, if you could just repeat the question. Mr. Ruppersberger. Basically the question is the one complaint I hear about HIDTA is that there should be more money put into basic investigations than into infrastructure, infrastructure meaning salaries, rent, those type of things. Chief Romano. HIDTA moneys that are utilized need to go beyond just certainly the infrastructure; we need to allocate moneys toward that. There is another huge component which has to be addressed, and that is in just dealing with witnesses and securing their safety and spending moneys to relocate them. In Baltimore City, approximately 25 percent of the cases are dropped because witnesses fail to appear, and this comes as a result of issues like the Dawson case, where a family who vowed to stand up and fight lost their lives in that fight. Mr. Ruppersberger. I don't mean infrastructures in the communities. Really what I am trying to get to, because we are in reauthorization, do you feel that the Federal part of HIDTA needs to put more money into focusing on your target, on your investigations, you know, whatever the issues, or you don't see that that is an issue? Chief Romano. No. Mr. Ruppersberger. OK. Chief Romano. It has gotten more and more expensive to get this job done in purchasing equipment, in dealing with, as it pertains to Title 3, wiretapping, in dealing with companies that supply the services. Back in the early 1980's, when Title 3 on cellular phones were very rare, it seemed as though a lot of the companies were willing to help out law enforcement to the best of their ability. Now it has actually become business for them; we have become just another customer, and the amounts of money that are spent are exorbitant. Mr. Ruppersberger. Thank you. Mr. Souder. Mr. Deal. Mr. Deal. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First of all, let me thank all three of you for coming today, and to thank you personally for what you do to fight the problem of drugs and to ask that you express the appreciation of this committee and this Congress to your colleagues who do it on a daily basis. I think sometimes almost we are at a point in the history of our country where we take for granted that drugs are just an endemic part of everyday life, and I think we need to get much more serious about this so-called war on drugs, and I thank all of you and your departments for what you do in that regard. I think all of us can hopefully agree that we need to reauthorize and hopefully to continue to enhance funding for all of these efforts, HIDTA and CTAC and every other effort that we have in that regard. I would like to ask you a little different question, though. Ms. McCampbell, you are the only one of the panel whose State actually borders one of the two countries that border us. I would like to ask you have you made any overall general determination of the country of transport, the last country of transport through which the drugs are coming? Mr. Wiberg, of course, you are closer to the Canadian border. Where are these drugs actually being transported through? I know we have done a lot to try to deal with the country of origin, with Colombia and others, but what country are these drugs primarily coming through to get to our country? Ms. McCampbell. Well, it depends on which drugs. We certainly know the issues, the pseudoephedrine dealing with methamphetamine in my State of California. We have found that a good portion of the pseudoephedrine is coming over the Canadian border down to California. Fortunately, we were able to create some laws that restricted sales and the ability to get pseudoephedrine in the State. Unfortunately, now they are not getting it in California, it is coming from Canada, and then being manufactured. When you say the drugs themselves, we grow a lot of our own marijuana there, but there is marijuana being imported from Mexico as well. But, frankly, that is not our most serious problem. If you are going to prioritize, methamphetamine is our most serious problem, and that I would have to say Canadian border and the cookers, if you will, those manufacturing meth are coming across themselves, body-wise, from Mexico. Mr. Deal. Mr. Wiberg. Mr. Wiberg. I think DEA probably can answer that question better than myself, but as an observer from the Chicago Police Department standpoint, Mexico has to take the lead with us. We don't really deal that much with the Canadian aspect of the pseudoephedrine coming through. Customs has made some excellent cases out of that. I know DEA has made some also. Most of it is the cocaine that comes into our city. And now we are graduating to white heroin, and that is Nigerian cartels now are becoming involved with that very strongly. How they are getting it in, a lot appears to be coming out of New York. That is what we see here in Chicago. Mr. Deal. Mr. Romano, how is it getting into New York? Where is it coming from? Chief Romano. Well, you know, spending a lot of time in debriefing those who have been arrested, especially high level, when I retired, I retired out of a New York drug enforcement task force office, and I spent a lot of time there doing money laundering, you know, looking at the money leaving the country, back to the origin countries, and in doing that it was no different than tracking the drugs coming in. Basically, this is big business, and it is like being in a maze, you get to a wall and you find yourself having to look around for an alternate means to get through it, and these guys are no different. Mr. Deal. Where was the country of transport, at least, or where was the money going back to? Chief Romano. The money was usually going back to South America, finding its way back there. But, again, the money aspect, there is a lot of big business here in the United States and a lot of people who are willing to assist these individuals in getting money out. But as far as the drugs coming in, when we stopped up the ports of entry, the Mexican borders, when we beef that up and we go down to Miami and we beef up the borders and go into New York and Canada, we are attacking those individuals coming in from South America, from Mexico, so what they do is they have actually found a way to go into Europe and come through Europe and work their way back into the United States, because we pay less attention to individuals coming in from Europe than we do those coming in from South America, because the mind-set is that drugs come in from South America, so we beef up on the borders and we pay no attention to a flight coming in from Spain. Spain is a huge, huge point of origin where the drugs actually go from South America into Spain, or somewhere in Europe, and find their way back into the United States. Mr. Deal. Can I ask one quick followup? And, Ms. McCampbell, I think it might be appropriate, since you are on the border State, are you seeing any more cooperation on the other side of the border, on the Mexican side, to assist us to try to stop it before it ever gets across the border, or is this all just what we are having to play defense on our side of the border? Are you seeing any more cooperation? Ms. McCampbell. Well, we are definitely playing defense on our side, but I think we have definitely received more cooperation from Mexico with their attorney general there. He seems to be cooperating with us. We have intelligence that works with Mexico, I know DEA is working with Mexico, and I think there has been a definite improvement over the last few years than what it used to be. Mr. Deal. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Souder. Thank you. We have been joined by Lieutenant Colonel Steve Moyer. If you will stand, we need to swear you in, and then get your testimony. [Witnesses sworn.] Mr. Souder. Let the record show that the witness responded in the affirmative. And, Mr. Bell, if I could go ahead and take summary of his testimony before we move to you for questioning. Yes, Lieutenant Colonel Moyer? Colonel Moyer. Yes, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for the opportunity to be here today. It is my understanding that the State Police is here to support the reauthorization of issues as it relates to the HIDTA. The Maryland State Police has been actively a part of this, in cooperation with the Washington/ Baltimore HIDTA since 1994. We have participated in showing that the development of the Office of National Drug Control Policy are utilized in the management of investigative initiatives and administrative responsibilities assigned in the Baltimore/Washington metropolitan area. Most of the significant accomplishments has been the pioneering and the use of a crime mapping tool for drug enforcement and operations planning and evaluation in this region. It also offers a case explorer software, a case management system for law enforcement agencies to help facilitate information sharing and intelligence gathering on these types of operations. Additionally, we have also worked with supporting enhancement of technology such as the CAPWIN project, which is a communications software piece which helps us have interactions with other law enforcement agencies in the region so we are not operating on different frequencies when we are involved in these types of drug operations. Since Colonel Norris has been on board as of January 15, his priority has been to focus on homeland security, and over the last 18 months, in cooperation with the U.S. Attorney's Office, the Baltimore Police Department and Baltimore County Police Department, and other entities in the Baltimore/ Washington metropolitan area, we are trying to foster a joint analysis center where we can take all information related to crime and/or terrorism-related type activities so that we can have all the information coming into one center so that it is shared with all Federal, State, and local law enforcement agencies in the region. With this, the Maryland State Police stands behind the HIDTA and the initiatives, and with the hopes in future cooperation along the lines of information sharing. The three major cases of recent that brings rise and shows the exposure of how well we do interact would be the Washington area sniper killings. HIDTA actually assisted us with the case management process on that. I am the chief of the Homeland Security and Intelligence Bureau. The State Police was tasked with taking those thousands of leads, you know, whether it be Federal, State, or local, and putting that information together so that law enforcement could stay focused on making a successful conclusion to that case. I think if you remember the tag number was actually obtained by the Baltimore Police Department on a non- enforcement type contact which linked the adult suspect in that case with the tag number, which resulted in the arrest being made in Maryland, and we have to give a lot of credit to HIDTA for bringing that software forward to be used in that case, which brought it to a successful conclusion. And that would be the summary of State Police testimony. Mr. Souder. Thank you. We will put your whole statement in the record. Mr. Bell. Mr. Bell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to go back to something that was said about the diversion of funds to homeland security and away from the war on drugs in the various States. And I believe, Chief McCampbell, you commented on that. Certainly it was the desire of many of us that after September 11 that we move away from the protect the turf mentality that seemed to exist throughout law enforcement, regardless of what area we were talking about, and based on what we are told these days, that has happened in regard to terrorism. I am curious as to whether you all believe there is any way to expand that concept and start building alliances between those who are engaged in the war on drugs with those who are engaged in homeland security. And where I am going with this, looking at like port security. It seems to make perfect sense. And I represent the Houston region. One of the major entry points for drugs is obviously the Port of Houston. There seems to be a natural crossover there and a natural overlap there where folks could work together. And I am just curious, Chief McCampbell, could you comment on that? Ms. McCampbell. Yes. That is a very good point, and, actually we are starting to do that in our intelligence system, No. 1, our RISS, our Regional Information Sharing network, which the HIDTAs, they connect into, and that is how we all share our intelligence and put our information in on our drug cases. But now we are putting some security information in there, and our war room in the Los Angeles Clearinghouse is working on deconfliction of our agents going out and looking at terrorism, possible suspects of terrorism. So we are doing that and we are doing it through the HIDTAs. Our ports of entry, I certainly have them in San Francisco, that is one of our main initiatives. And we have agents at the ports of entry and at the airport, and we are combining our efforts with our own Statewide internal homeland security units. Mr. Bell. Commander Wiberg, do you have any thoughts on that? Mr. Wiberg. I think we are in the embryonic stages of it, to be honest with you. A lot of my people from narcotics graduate into the intelligence and are mostly working on the terrorists. Unfortunately, from my standpoint, I am not getting anything back, and obviously the experienced police officers that have that narcotics background fall right into the training for the work of the terrorists. I think we need more of it. I want to say after we recovered that 2,000 kilos, it made it very apparent to me that if someone can smuggle that much quantity of drugs in the country, what else can they bring in? Mr. Bell. Sure. Mr. Wiberg. And if we don't have a closer association with those people that are responsible for keeping an eye on those individuals, then we are banging our heads against the wall, we are losing it again; and I don't think we should. I think it is very important that we have this multi-agency exchange of information, be it on terrorists, be it on drug traffickers. Mr. Bell. In looking at the HIDTA program overall, since we are talking about reauthorization, and you are not going to hurt any of our feelings if you have criticisms of the program, are there problems that need to be addressed going forward from this point? Lieutenant Colonel, we can start with you. Colonel Moyer. Yes, sir. The amount of success and cooperation we have had with HIDTA in the Baltimore/Washington area is phenomenal. As I mentioned, and I can go back to the statements that were just made, trying to put this joint analysis center together, we will be taking crime information as well as the information related to terrorism; and whether it is Federal, State, or a local law enforcement agency, and even the military branches want to participate with us, we want to get all the information into one center so that we can get the information back out to all of law enforcement. You know, what was mentioned was, you know, a lot of the people with the drug experience is from the law enforcement arena and others, you know, are going into the terrorism identification type work. But we feel it is a benefit to bring everything together because, you know, cases that we feel will lead you into a terrorist type investigation, are those people out there with false identities or doing some money laundering, which all can tie back into several of the drug operations. So we would support that in enhancing and broadening it so it can work together with both, because we feel there is a lot of overlap that will show once we put all the data bases together. Mr. Bell. Anyone else want to comment on changes or problems that they would like to see addressed? Mr. Wiberg. From the Chicago standpoint, I would like to see more initiatives, is one. I don't feel we have enough. And that may be because of resources. Mr. Souder. Could you explain what you mean by initiatives? Mr. Wiberg. More initiatives relative to working the cases involving the drug cartels and their correlation with respect to the open air drug markets that we have so many of. In every situation that we are involved in, be it a wiretap or an investigation, it is either popping up to a Nigerian cartel or a Mexican or Colombian cartel, and it is all the way from the individual who is buying a $10 bag of dope all the way up, and it goes that far; and the violence that occurs as a result of that. These street corners now are tremendous amounts of real estate, and they bear a lot of money, and people are willing to do whatever is necessary to protect them, defend them, and ensure that no one takes them from them. Consequently, we need more initiatives along the lines of doing more street conspiracy cases with HIDTA involvement. We have HIDTA involvement now; we would like to have more. Like anywhere else, we are all suffering from manpower constraints; Chicago Police Department Narcotics Section is no different. And I think with respect to that, I think by having the initiatives we can make it more conducive to bring more police officers in for more training, whatever. One of the things that has not hit Chicago as of yet, and I have my fingers crossed, but I am not very optimistic, is the methamphetamine. We have had three within the last year, which we consider ourselves very fortunate, but it is very apparent from surrounding suburbs that it is very close, and it is getting closer everyday. And I think that is something that we need to really address from a Federal standpoint, along with the HIDTA, to be honest with you. The second thing that I think is even more important is that because the financial gains that are being made by these drug operations, we need more involvement from the Federal Government relative to financial, to the financial end of going after these individuals. As the mayor of the city said, you know, you can go in any neighborhood and they will be glad to tell you who the drug dealers are, and most of the Chicago policemen could tell you that too. It is just, you know, when they are driving around in their fancy cars, living in their homes that are extravagant, you know, who is going after them? And realistically, right now, nobody. Nobody. And that is the reality in Chicago, nobody is going after the financial end of these individuals. And if it is being done, it is being done on a very small basis, and that is not acceptable when you have a street corner that can generate the kind of money that they are generating. Mr. Bell. Chief McCampbell. Ms. McCampbell. There has been, if you will, in the rumor mill, or talk of consolidating the HIDTAs and putting them under the umbrella of, say, the OCDETFs or some other Federal being, and I would like to emphasize, and I did mention it in my testimony, but I would like to emphasize the importance of keeping the balance of having Federal, State, and local participation and acting as the board of directors, because it is my belief that if we went under just the OCDETFs or under just the straight Federal guidelines, if you will, that we would lose participation, and I think like a local sheriff would go why do I need to put my agents in another Federal program? And I think the structure of the HIDTAs, where you allow the sheriffs and the chiefs and the State and locals to be on the board, I think that is an important presence, and I think it is an excellent part of the HIDTAs and one that I hope does not go away. Mr. Bell. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Souder. Mr. Cummings. Mr. Cummings. I want to thank Chief Romano and the Lieutenant Colonel Moyer for being here. Let me just ask you all a few questions. Chief Romano, you talked about this whole issue of 25 percent of the cases being dropped because of witness problems and, more specifically, I guess, witnesses being threatened. I live in the inner city of Baltimore and I talk to lks all the time, and people are scared to death. I believe that you can see crimes committed in my neighborhood and nobody would tell, and I don't think the Dawson case helped. Matter of fact, I think it hurt tremendously. I am just wondering how do you deal with that kind of issue, I mean, that is, of threatened witnesses? Because I think if we are not careful in this country, we will find ourselves in a situation like they find themselves in Colombia, where you just don't get the cooperation and the drug dealers take over. Chief Romano. Well, this problem goes beyond simply having someone pick up the phone and make a call and having the police respond and making an arrest. We, as a police department, have to forge a tremendous relationship with the community. In dealing with the prosecution and the cases, we have to make the best cases that we can make so that the community sees an individual taken off the street, brought to justice, and then incarcerated, because too often what they are seeing is that an individual, they will pick up a phone and call in about, will be back out on the street a week, a month, a year later. There is no sense of feeling that you e safe when a person that you are directly responsible for putting away is back out there an hour, a day later. So certainly us, as a police department, we need to make the best cases that we can make. We have to go out there and speak with the community and let them know that there are avenues available to them so that they can be safe. Take a family and relocate them, almost like witness protection. Let us do this, but, again, to do things like this we need moneys. But our relationship with the community is probably the most important part of this whole process, and just trust, trusting the police, because as much as they don't like the drug dealers, there are a lot of other issues that they have to deal with, and in the process we will find a way to forge a relationship with them and allow them to feel as though there is safety if they come forward. Mr. Cummings. Lieutenant Colonel, did you want to join in? Colonel Moyer. The comment that I can make is I think you were well aware that I was on loan with the Department of Juvenile Justice for the last 3 years, helping them get through their issues there in Maryland, and still what we run into is what was just mentioned; it is the ability to keep, as far as juveniles go, keep those youths off of the streets for reasons of the problems that they are creating in their neighborhoods when they go back home. But there is also that issue of offering some type of protection when they are involved or when they become a target or their family becomes a target because of their involvement in the drug trade in Baltimore. I think what was mentioned was through Steve Hess and the U.S. Attorney's Office there are victim assistance and witness assistance type programs, but, again, it is a funding issue and being able to have the capacity to do that for certain cases which may not be prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney's Office and rests locally with the State's attorney's office. I know in having personally talked to some of the youth that were detained at Cheltenham and at the Hickey School, there were times when they would act up intentionally just to stay there on the grounds of those two schools so they would not return to the street and be confronted with people that they may owe some money to from a drug transaction. But, again, it boils down to having the right amount of funding available to offer that type of protection for the cases, which are not the huge case that is going before the U.S. Attorney's Office. Mr. Cummings. I see my time has run out, but I want to thank all of you for what you do everyday. This drug problem is a very, very serious problem, and sometimes I don't think that a lot of people understand how devastating and how far-ranging it is and the many families that it affects; and you all put your lives on the line everyday and your welfare on the line everyday to make a difference, and we really appreciate what you all do, and we want to make sure that we do everything in our power to help you do what you have to do. And this subcommittee has been very, very supportive of law enforcement and at the same time been very supportive of trying to bring treatment to our communities so that we can have that dual approach, addressing the law enforcement portion but also dealing with the treatment and prevention so that you don't have as much of a problem to deal with. And so we thank you all for being here. We really appreciate it. Mr. Souder. Thank you. We will have additional written questions, but I wanted to pursue just a couple of things here yet at the end of this panel. We made a tactical decision, in putting this panel together, not to have HIDTA directors themselves, who would have a direct vested interest, but to have representatives of a number of different narcotics agencies to tell you your reactions of the HIDTAs. We have been meeting with HIDTA directors all over the country, getting all sorts of information in, and it is a little like Garrison Keeler and Lake Wobegone, all the men are good looking, all the women are strong, and all the kids are above average. And the problem we get is everybody is above average; we don't get any problems identifying. But a couple have jumped out here, and I particularly wanted to ask Mr. Wiberg a couple of questions. I don't think you want to give the impression, nor do you mean to give the impression, that in Chicago it is worse than everybody else, but you may have given us a window that we do not often get to see, when you said that there aren't investigations occurring. I want to zoom in a little bit on what you meant about the drug markets and the Colombians and the Mexicans and so on, because we are paying, in Chicago, for example, we have huge agencies that are dealing with trying to traffic back and trace that back to Colombia and Mexico. Yet you are saying they aren't being pursued, and you are the commander of the Narcotics Division of the Chicago Police Department. What precisely are you saying? Are you saying there is not the efforts; it has been cut back? Mr. Wiberg. Please understand, Mr. Chairman, we are pursuing and Federal agencies are pursuing the drug dealers. What is not being pursued is the financial end at all. At all. It is not being pursued from the individuals that are the gang leaders, gang structure of selling drugs. Mr. Souder. Not going after their assets under asset forfeiture law? Is that a U.S. attorney's problem? Mr. Wiberg. To be honest with you, we don't see IRS involved in anything. These individuals have been conducting business for a number of years, and I don't think they are paying taxes, and IRS, we have given them information and it just falls on deaf ears, to be honest with you. There is no involvement on their part. Mr. Souder. Have there been cases made by the police department working with ATF, with DEA, with FBI, where the U.S. attorney has gone after the money? Mr. Wiberg. Yes. Mr. Souder. And then it is not being followed through is what you are saying. Mr. Wiberg. Definitely not. There is no follow-through on the part of IRS. Mr. Souder. Are you part of and does the HIDTA in Chicago have subgroups like was alluded to in Mr. Romano's testimony, and which we have seen in other areas, where you have multiple different task forces taking care of different problems? Mr. Wiberg. Yes. Mr. Souder. Is this one of them? Why wouldn't this be one? Mr. Wiberg. Well, let me say this. They have been invited to the table; they just haven't shown up yet. Mr. Souder. IRS? Mr. Wiberg. IRS. Mr. Souder. But that is the only agency? Mr. Wiberg. And we have presented to IRS. Mr. Souder. Have you gone to Treasury as opposed to IRS? Because Treasury is the prosecuting. Mr. Wiberg. I understand, sir. The mayor gave to whomever 10 names of people that we had worked, that we know had tremendous amount of assets, and where that is at, I don't know. Mr. Souder. OK. I appreciate your frankness, because that is what we are trying to figure out. Mr. Wiberg. But please don't misunderstand. We have a tremendous effort on the part of working the cartels for enforcement by everyone, everyone involved. The problem rests with the financial end, like I said; it is not being done. Mr. Souder. The other question I wanted to ask, which now that I am over 50 my mind occasionally drifts. I was reading something else there. Let me see if it comes back to me in a second. Well, I lost it. Does anyone else on the panel have any additional questions? Mr. Ruppersberger. Mr. Ruppersberger. The prior panel, I think it was Mr. Burns that testified, and I asked him the question about resources being taken away from Federal law enforcement because of the terrorism issue, and all three members of the panel here said that clearly is an issue. Now, from your perspective, from more the local, State level, do you see that resources are also being drawn away from the Federal law enforcement agencies as a result of what is happening with the terrorism issue? Because we are trying to do reauthorization, and we want to focus on what is right, and we know that we need the resources and we know that we have to deal with the issue of terrorism and we have to deal with the issue of drugs, narcotics. Now, you know, if we need more resources, more probably in the terrorism so that you won't lose resources, do you see that also on a Federal level too? Mr. Souder. That is my question as well. Let me try another angle, if I may. Mr. Ruppersberger. You gave me the ESP. Mr. Souder. Yes. This is a touchy subject, and I am the new homeland security, and I am particular on the border committee, and we inserted, with my initiation and the Speaker pushing it, a narcotics connection inside the new Department of Homeland Security. But this is indisputable, a couple of the facts. FBI has been asked to concentrate on homeland security, not narcotics, and they are pulling officers off the case. Customs and Border Patrol are trying to sort through what their responsibilities are, given the fact they are now under homeland security and that is their No. 1 priority. Presumably, if they are following orders at the local level, you have seen a reduction in Federal cooperation in drug enforcement in those agencies. Is that true? Colonel Moyer. I think what we are seeing in Maryland is that we are in a transition, you know, right now, and having a meeting with Gary Bald, who is the special agent in charge at the Baltimore office, we know that they are redirecting some resources, but I don't think we felt the overall impact of what the Bureau's involvement will be there in the Baltimore area. And I can hand it off to my colleagues from there. Mr. Ruppersberger. Also you are DEA also. Colonel Moyer. And DEA, correct. Chief Romano. Based on what I have seen so far, it seems as though our representation in the task forces and the assistance that we are getting from the task forces has been fine. I basically arrived here in Baltimore yesterday, but have been here several weeks ago, over the past couple weeks to start looking at what needs to be addressed here; and the areas as they pertain to our Federal task forces, whether they be Customs task forces, DEA task forces, FBI task forces, there seems to be a very good working relationship with them. Mr. Ruppersberger. My questions is not the working relationship. Are resources being taken away, manpower, and moved over to the terrorist issue? And if it is the case, I mean, we want to know about it so we can try to raise an issue. My issue, which I stated before, is that we need to encourage the President to give more resources to first responders so that the resources do not have to be taken away from your goal and mission, which is to fight drugs and arrest people with drugs. And that is what I am looking for in my question. If you haven't been here that long, you probably don't know yet, because you don't know what was there and what is not going to be there, so probably a month from now you will be able to answer the question a lot better. Chief Romano. That is correct, sir. Ms. McCampbell. We have definitely seen, in particular, our military, our National Guard has been taken off almost all of our drug cases. They were very dominant in helping us with our weed and seed programs with our marijuana eradication. They were actually out there whacking weeds with us up in the mountains, and they have all been taken off that. Now, I understand military, it is a whole separate thing, but this is our State, our National Guard, which has always been very helpful in drug eradication in our State. That is one. The second part of that is FBI. They were very helpful, we worked very closely with them on drug cases until September 11, and they were part of our task forces, and almost all of them have been taken out of the drug business and their resources are all going to, you know, homeland security type of issues. DEA I personally have not seen that their mission has been decreased in working drugs from a State perspective. Mr. Ruppersberger. So as a result of that, is that impacting on your abilities to do the job that you need to do? Ms. McCampbell. Yes. Mr. Ruppersberger. OK. Mr. Souder. She didn't mention Customs and Border Patrol. Mr. Ruppersberger. What? Mr. Souder. She didn't mention Customs and Border Patrol. Have they had a reduction in the amount working on narcotics as opposed to terrorism? Ms. McCampbell. Yes, they have. We certainly had much Border Patrol participation down at the border. Actually, to some extent they were very helpful, because when they were looking for terrorists, as opposed to drugs, we were getting bad people and drugs that were at the border. But really their mission, I think, has been much more toward homeland security now than it has looking for drugs at the borders. And as far as Customs, they certainly participate in our task forces, but they have been kind of in limbo right now because some of them, at least on the street level, don't exactly know who or where they are working because of the combining of them into homeland security. I think they are struggling with identity right now. Mr. Wiberg. If I may, I think it is the situation, at least in Chicago, that everybody is doing more with less. The relationships we have had with DEA go back as far as I can remember. We have good relationships with all the agencies, but we are all doing more with less. September 11 has affected every agency within the Chicagoland area. Customs is drifting. A lot of times we are being involved now with assisting Customs with cases that they have, taking some of my officers and assisting them in cases they have, which do not directly have anything to do with the narcotics end of it, but maybe homeland security. But all the agencies that I deal with, all the Federal agencies are doing more with less, and we are trying to combine, and I think, you know, it is becoming very apparent that we become more effective when we are all together because there isn't a lot of us independently, to be honest with you. Mr. Ruppersberger. No further questions. Mr. Cummings. I think basically what Chairman Souder and Mr. Ruppersberger are aiming at is that we have always been concerned about balance, having a balance. I have often said that while we are fighting terrorists and fighting outside forces, we have to be carful that we don't erode from the inside or implode. And I just wanted to figure out, I mean, do you all see the problem as such, just to put the final question on what they have been saying, are there things that you would like for us to do as a Congress to help you? Do you think the problem is that bad or do you feel confident that it is just a temporary situation? For example, the National Guard helping you out, is that something that you feel is very important right now, or do you feel that, you know, you can kind of go without it? And if you can go without it, what impact does it have? You know, those are the kind of things that we have to have a pretty good understanding of because we are all of us, one thing that Democrats and Republicans agree on, we don't agree on a whole, whole lot, but we do agree that the people's taxes should be spent effectively and efficiently. And so, you know, we are just wondering what would you have us do, if anything? Ms. McCampbell. I would like to respond to that. I think what I am very concerned about, being in the narcotic business, is that with the creation of homeland security and the surrounding issues of that, that we in narcotic enforcement are going to get lost. It certainly has put narcotic enforcement to the back burner in my State, that is for sure, and I would certainly ask you for continued support, continued funding. I need the help of the National Guard, and they are virtually closing down on their drug interdiction business that they had been in. I need that help from them. I need the FBI to help on our local task forces and our local areas. And certainly I can't work without DEA. I mean, they are as important as anybody can be in our State. And so I don't know exactly what the answer is, I suppose it is always funding, but if there is some way that we can make sure that narcotic enforcement doesn't fall to the background under the shadow of homeland security, we need to do that. Mr. Cummings. When the homeland security legislation came through, Chairman Souder and I were very concerned about narcotics efforts, law enforcement efforts not getting the kind of attention that we thought it should continue to get, and we had put in an amendment to make sure that there was a person in Homeland Security to address the issue of drugs in this country. We didn't get the level that we wanted, but we did make sure that we got somebody in there to keep their eye on the drug problems here, because we were so afraid that some of the things that you are talking about right now would happen, and we need to kind of figure out how we get to the powers that be to begin to look at some of these issues. Ms. McCampbell. Just in response to that, I believe the appointment is Mr. Mackin. And I had an opportunity to meet with him very briefly at the National Coalition of Narcotic Officer Association's meeting last week, which, by the way, Chairman Souder was awarded a very prestigious award of being in the House of Representatives, the most honored person in the House of Representatives. But I did have a chance to meet with Mr. Mackin last week, and he actually has contacted me and is going to be coming out to California to discuss these exact issues. So I was quite pleased to hear that. Mr. Cummings. So now you know who was responsible for Mr. Mackin even having a position to get. It is nice to take credit for something up here for a change. Congratulations, Mr. Chairman, by the way. Anybody else want to respond to that? Colonel Moyer. The only thing that I would like to add to that is that I think, like I said, we have a great working relationship with our partners. You know, the FBI has admitted that they will be backing away. I think we need to see who will be picking up that extra load. But you have already mentioned, I think, with the focus on enforcement, as well as treatment, needs to be paramount, and especially in the Baltimore area, treatment. I would echo what you have already said, that if there is dollars that can come toward Maryland in that effort, that would be great. But as far as enforcement goes, a lot of the enhancements that have come through HIDTA have been from a technology point of view. The ability to have deconfliction so you don't have officers from different agencies or different task forces overlapping is very important, but, additionally, the surveillance equipment ability, to be able to watch particular hot spot areas or drug corners and marketing type areas where you don't have to put the human resource there undercover on the street, where you can monitor the activity from a distance, would be a huge enhancement for all of us. Mr. Wiberg. Might I also interject more funding for hiring more agents and more police officers. Those are the first responders, and we are running out of them. Mr. Cummings. Thank you all very much. Mr. Souder. I thank you for your testimony. As Mr. Cummings said, it was one of only two changes in the original markup of the bill. We are very concerned about the long-term trends. I do believe the border security will be a benefit; in other words, as we tighten that up, we will catch them at the borders more. We are concerned in obviously having Asa Hutchinson and Mr. Bonner from Customs there, they were former DEA guys, but I think there will be a narrowing in of DEA being the primary Federal, and that means they can't take a reduction; and that hopefully less is more will work, because we are in a very difficult situation as advocates of the anti-narcotics effort. Either we have to argue that we haven't been efficient in the past or that when we reduce resources going to narcotics, we are going to have a rise in narcotics; and we don't like either one of those points. But we are now at that position in the U.S. Congress is the less is more will work to a point, but we have to show the specifics or we are going to look at longer term questions as we see resources diverted, as they certainly are and we are hearing on a regular basis. But thank you each for your work. Thank you for your testimony, and appreciate your coming in today. If you have any further additions you want to add to the record, send them to us. Mr. Souder. If the third panel will now come forward. Mr. Ron Burns, the chief of the Lakewood, CO Police Department; Mr. Peter Modafferi, chief of detectives, Rockland County, NY District Attorney's Office. The third panel is one of the less glamorous, in Washington terms, issues in the supply of equipment in the OCDETF program, but it is one of the most important things at the local level. If both of you will remain standing, I will give you your oath. [Witnesses sworn.] Mr. Souder. Let the record show that both witnesses responded in the affirmative. Thank you for your patience. This has been a long hearing, but it will be most likely the only hearing, particularly on the subject that you are about to address, and one of the most important programs in the Nation regarding local law enforcement. So thank you for taking the time to come to Washington and be willing to testify. Chief Burns. STATEMENT OF RON BURNS, CHIEF, LAKEWOOD, CO POLICE DEPARTMENT; AND PETER MODAFFERI, CHIEF OF DETECTIVES, ROCKLAND COUNTY, NY DISTRICT ATTORNEY'S OFFICE Chief Ron Burns. Chairman Souder and distinguished members of the subcommittee, I would like to thank the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources for the opportunity to testify regarding the effectiveness of the Counterdrug Technology Assessment Center [CTAC]. The role of CTAC in the research and development of technological measures for Federal and local law enforcement agencies has benefited the efforts of the Lakewood Police Department and the Federal and local agencies in the Denver area. The city of Lakewood is located in the metropolitan Denver area. There are 43 local, county, and State law enforcement agencies, in addition to several Federal law enforcement agencies in that area. Drug trafficking, crime, and exceptional incidents have no jurisdictional boundaries. Collaboration and multi-jurisdictional efforts are essential to combating illicit drug trafficking and crime. Our law enforcement agencies operate typically with incompatible radio communications systems. During multi-jurisdictional efforts we cannot communicate with each other. Our department has experienced these difficulties on many occasions, including the Columbine incident. In September 2000, the Lakewood Police Department hosted an evaluation of various technologies that link the communication signals from one radio, and it is typically from a diverse system, directly into all other radios selected for interoperability. The evaluation was successful and the system, the ACU-1000, was selected and made operational in 2001. The cost of the system, and this was for the equipment, was $194,971 and was entirely funded through the ONDCP, CTAC, and the Navy's SPAWAR Systems Center in San Diego. Installation was very smooth and the cooperation with coordinating Federal agencies was excellent. Today the system is operational on a 24 hour, 7 day a week basis and hosts 15 local, State, and Federal agencies. The Lakewood Police Department's Technical Operations Unit provides ongoing maintenance and support. During 2002 the system was used on the average of once a day, or almost 38 times a month, for inter-jurisdictional operations. Very frequently, DEA, U.S. Customs, the FBI, and local law enforcement use the system in drug investigations. Their surveillance includes the use of aircraft linked with the ACU-1000 to follow suspected drug dealers. The system was also used in a bomb threat at the Denver Federal Center, and in the summer of 2002 to coordinate emergency response to front line firefighters during the worst forest fire in Colorado history. This technology has not only solved a communications problem, but also enhanced the overall cooperation among participating agencies. Cooperation among local, State, and Federal agencies is critical in the investigation of illegal drug operations, crime reduction, and large-scale events, and now with the threat of terrorists' activities. The ability of public safety agencies to communicate is absolutely essential. The ACU-1000 radio interoperability successfully solves this communications issue by linking radio systems from various and diverse systems or signals. Hopefully, this system will be expanded to include entire metro areas and to link with other areas of interoperability systems across the country, building a national network. Thank you for the opportunity to provide a success story of the cooperation between Federal agencies and local law enforcement. This project is a resounding success and could not have been accomplished without the House Committee on Government Reform, and the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources, and CTAC. Thank you. [The prepared statement of Chief Ron Burns follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9455.035 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9455.036 Mr. Souder. Thank you very much. It is good to hear a success story. Mr. Modafferi. Mr. Modafferi. Good afternoon, Chairman Souder. Thank you for this opportunity to speak to you this morning in support of the Counterdrug Technology Assessment Center. My name is Peter A. Modafferi, and I am the chief of detectives of the Rockland County, NY District Attorney's Office. I also chair the Police Investigative Operations Committee of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, and I sit on a number of boards, working groups, and committees concerned with issues related to criminal investigations. Those positions include, among others, serving as a Technical Expert for CTAC's Technology Transfer Program and serving as a member of the FBI's Law Enforcement Executive Forum, two projects which are concerned with how technology affects law enforcement's ability to conduct criminal investigations. In the Rockland County District Attorney's Office I am responsible for the supervision of criminal investigations in Rockland County, including those conducted by the Rockland County Narcotics Task Force. The Task Force is an investigative unit under the District Attorney which is comprised of investigators and support staff from eight different agencies. It is under the operational command of a director, Captain Joseph Tripodo of the New York State Police, and the assistant director, William Manti, a Supervisory Investigator with the District Attorney's Office. I offer this explanation of our Drug Task Force to emphasize the need for and the successes garnered from interagency cooperation. Cooperation is essential at all levels of government, and it is the foundation on which the Counterdrug Technology Assessment Center is built. There are two parts of the CTAC program that Rockland County and law enforcement nationwide have benefited from: the Technology Transfer Program and the Research and Development Program. The Technology Transfer Program provides State and local law enforcement agencies with technologies without encumbering the budgets of the applying departments. Through that program, Rockland County has been able to maintain its ability to conduct court-authorized or electronic surveillance while investigating mid to upper-level drug trafficking organizations. As you are aware, the technology in the communications industry has changed dramatically over the past decade. Those changes have severely limited the ability of law enforcement agencies to conduct investigations utilizing electronic surveillance. The Technology Transfer Program has supplied Rockland County with equipment which is critical to our mission. One such piece of equipment is a digital wiretap system, Voice Box 3. This allows us to conduct electronic surveillance in accordance with changes brought about by the Communications Act to Assist Law Enforcement. In addition to supplying these systems, CTAC maintains contact with the agencies that receive equipment, and through training and consultation address the needs and issues that arise. Our experiences with the support we receive from CTAC has been outstanding. In addition to TTP, Rockland County has been involved in research and development projects through CTAC. While these projects are manpower-intensive for Rockland County, the county and other agencies benefit greatly when projects that are developed become products made available to law enforcement through TTP. CTAC makes it possible for agencies like Rockland County Narcotics Task Force to do its job effectively. This was dramatically proven when, during investigation which culminated in June 2002, the Rockland County Narcotics Task Force found a gaping hole in our border security. While in the course of intercepting conversations pertaining to smuggling of cocaine through Kennedy Airport, we were shocked to hear the drug traffickers we were targeting discuss a highly successful and lucrative alien smuggling operation. We immediately notified DEA, Customs, and INS, all of whom joined our investigation. In addition to the 51 drug-related arrests prosecuted by the District Attorney's Office, the U.S. Attorney's Office of the Eastern District of New York prosecuted seven individuals for passport fraud and alien smuggling. The Rockland County Narcotics Task Force, utilizing equipment made available to us through CTAC, found and helped address a serious weakness in the security of our Nation. Local law enforcement is faced with technological change everyday. We need the Counterdrug Technology Assessment Center to continue to be effective. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has done an outstanding job of implementing the Communications Act to Assist Law Enforcement. There are, however, obstacles yet to be addressed. CTAC helps us address these needs. In my opinion, the communication industry views law enforcement as a profit center; they charge exorbitant fees to make connections necessary to conduct court-ordered electronic surveillance. Law enforcement agencies will continue to work with CTAC to seek technical solutions to limit the impact of this problem; however, these exorbitant phone company charges may soon eliminate our ability to conduct electronic surveillance. This would be devastating to the safety and security of our Nation. I would like to thank Dr. Brandenstein, who is seated to my left, for his leadership in this wonderful program, and I would like to thank you for this opportunity to speak before you. [The prepared statement of Mr. Modafferi follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9455.037 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9455.038 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9455.039 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9455.040 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9455.041 Mr. Souder. Thank you both for your concise testimony. We will insert the entire statement in the record. It is important that we build on the hearing record on reauthorization, the importance of this program, and it is important to local law enforcement. Could you each tell us how you and your agencies first learned about the Technology Transfer Program? Chief Ron Burns. I have been with two other agencies, actually three other agencies other than Lakewood, CO, and we heard about the Technology Transfer Program primarily through our involvement with HIDTA, our involvement with DEA, and then through local and federally based task forces. Mr. Souder. Do you get the impression in Colorado that it has kind of been a rolling process, that as more people get access to the technology, people ask them where they heard about it and then it is connected, or do you think it is more top-down? Chief Ron Burns. No, I think that is the case. You know, technology is continually developing, and as new items come into use, as new technologies are discovered, you know, one agency will get them and then the word will spread. Mr. Souder. Mr. Modafferi, could you tell us how you and your agency first learned, and then how you think others learn in the primary way? Because the difference is that had it come top-down and every department known about it, we would know kind of the finite about a demand. But if it has been kind of a trickle in, it means the demand is going to build as more people hear about it from other local departments and subdepartments. Mr. Modafferi. That is an interesting question. We are very pleased with what we have received from CTAC, and we hope we continue to receive as much as it spreads out with our success. We first heard of CTAC through a former chief investigator with the New York State Organized Crime Task Force who became an employee of CTAC. He got us involved; we have had tremendous successes, and our success has been noted by the media in the New York metropolitan area and I think has gotten people to call us and ask how you did that, where did you get that equipment from, and we have promoted CTAC. The other way that I am promoting CTAC nationwide is through the Police Investigative Operations Committee of the International Association of Chiefs of Police. Dr. Brandenstein has appeared before the Committee and explained the program; he has stood before it and been grilled on questions, and he has been very favorably received. So people leave the different IACP functions and conferences with a better knowledge of CTAC, and I am sure that played a role in the growing demand for it. Mr. Souder. What is interesting is when he came to Fort Wayne and the areas north of Fort Wayne, a fair number of people were exposed to it for the first time. Some had heard that other departments had it, and many of the departments already had applied or had gone off on their own because they had heard earlier. It is a combination, but my feeling is that it is a building demand. Is there anything in the process that you believe could either be streamlined or improved, as we look at reauthorization, as far as from the local law enforcement standpoint as far as clarity, what it takes to go through, the amount of paperwork, clarity, or even other types of technology that clearly would help in the anti-narcotics effort? Chief Ron Burns. Well, actually, I asked that question of the technicians and the operational people who really were at the grassroots level developing this system, you know, were there any problems whatsoever. There were none. I mean, it was very, very smooth. The development, the testing of the equipment, the installation all went very, very smooth; I couldn't have asked for any more cooperation. Mr. Modafferi. From my experience, it has been an outstanding relationship. I also sit as a technical expert, regional expert for CTAC, and I review the applications that come in from the northeast, and as word spreads of CTAC, the numbers increase, the volume of the applications, and I do find that certain departments are asking for equipment that they couldn't possibly utilize; an eight-man police department in the State of Maine will ask for a wiretap system that costs a tremendous amount of money, but they wouldn't have the personnel to conduct a wiretap. So it is something that I have spoken to Dr. Brandenstein about and it is something that we are addressing. I think when we talk about the CTAC program, we have to make people understand where they fit into it, as opposed to they can just get all this equipment that would be great to have; but logic has to enter into this someplace, and how do you logically put that equipment to best use. Mr. Souder. Thank you. Mr. Cummings. Mr. Cummings. Is the research and development duplicative of the National Institute of Drug Abuse, what they do? I mean, is it the same kind of thing? Mr. Modafferi. Not at all. The research and development program that we are involved in with CTAC is specifically related to conducting drug investigations to a degree that it is very specific projects that we work on, very specific equipment that couldn't be used anyplace else in the criminal justice arena but narcotics investigations. It is region- specific, it is case-specific, and hopefully it is stuff that can be used in other areas, but in other areas by people with similar needs. Mr. Cummings. You know, they say that as we develop our technology, the folks who want to skirt the technology are constantly coming up with new things to get around it. I mean, do we have that; is that a major problem? Chief Ron Burns. Well, I would say technology is continually evolving, and, first of all, we have to adjust our enforcement and our efforts to be flexible enough to respond to that, but then the development of our technology I think continually has to be evolving. And as something is developed, something else may be developed to counteract that. So I guess the answer to that question is yes, it is continually changing but, yes, we have to continually respond to that change technologically. Mr. Cummings. Did you have something? I am sorry. Mr. Modafferi. I am sorry, sir. In preparing my statement for today, I was going to go into more detail about what we have actually accomplished through CTAC, but we don't put that out in our press releases. I would be hesitant to speak about it anywhere because we have made some tremendous, tremendous technological advances that we don't want the bad guys to know. If they knew we knew, they would change their approach, and at this point I think we are doing some things that they just don't know we can do. Mr. Cummings. Well, I will tell you I agree with you. I think, you know, I don't want them to know what you know either. And that is the very reason why I asked that question, because I know that when you have the amounts of money that are involved here, they can certainly get folks or find people who are probably almost, if not just, as sharp, as the people who do what you do. And so I was just wondering about that. When I see how far technology has come just in the last few years, I mean it has been astounding. When I think that I can hold one of these little things and be able to send messages all around the world from just sitting right here, it is just astounding to me. So I just was wondering, you know, exactly how you go about making sure that you keep up with what they may be trying to do to counter what you do. And so apparently you feel like you have been very effective, and I assume you would, like everybody else, love to see more money in the program. Is that right? Chief Ron Burns. Absolutely. And, you know, I think we have made tremendous strides with technology. I mean, in my days working narcotics on the street, you know, I had a body bug system that hardly even worked at all, and the technology today is just tremendous, and I would like to see more support. You know, in terms of this radio interoperability system, it has been so helpful in regional investigations and drug investigations, or counterterrorism investigations, and that is something that probably wouldn't have been thought of or we were able to do. We could not have accomplished this, you know, 5 years ago as easily, so it is just incredible the support that we have had. Mr. Cummings. Thank you all. Mr. Souder. Could you describe to me, Mr. Modafferi probably would know most here, the process of when new technologies are added? Is it a combination of something becomes available at the national level that can be offered and requests that are coming up from the local communities? Mr. Modafferi. With CTAC, we have sources meetings periodically throughout the year in which we, in working with the SPAWAR people and the Fort Huachuca, who does the technical assistance for CTAC, we develop what we think should be in the program and we ask vendors what they think they have to offer the program, and we come out of these with new products that we put into the booklet that makes it available to local law enforcement. Mr. Souder. One other question regarding the, in general, on this program as to how it works. You mentioned an example of Maine possibly wanting a system that they didn't have the ability to utilize. And I believe I know the answer to the question, but I want to have it in the record and understand how you measure that and are there requirements if you get this equipment you have to take X amount of training, you have to have somebody to staff it? Mr. Modafferi. Yes, before any training is given out by CTAC, they have the mandatory training sessions around the country. But before it reaches that point, it goes through a series of evaluations by different CTAC staff people, up to and including myself, looking at the northeast region, and very often I will look at an application and I will say, you know, this really isn't appropriate, and I will call that police chief and talk to them about what else is available in the program that he might be able to get a better bang for our buck with, ours being the public's, it is taxpayer money. But once it is given out, it is seriously monitored, and if they can't pass muster on the training, it is not given. Mr. Souder. And, Mr. Burns, when you received your equipment and have looked at other departments in your region, as well as your own, did you see that as also a request to you about whether you will adequately staff or have maintenance abilities, those type of things? Chief Ron Burns. Well, our staff was trained in the operation of the equipment and then effectively took over the ongoing maintenance with the help of CTAC. So we conduct our own maintenance and system upgrades and ongoing maintenance currently with our own staff, and they were trained through CTAC. Mr. Souder. Do either of you have any additional things you would like to add about the strengths or weaknesses of the program? You will probably be the only witnesses to this committee and the full committee as far as what things we might want to do in the reauthorization, do you have any suggestions? Chief Ron Burns. I would just suggest, in my perspective, from a local law enforcement agency in a metropolitan area, and that would be to continue pushing the envelope looking for new technologies, and continually offering these products to local law enforcement agencies or metropolitan task forces in terms of drug interdiction and terrorism. I think this has just been a tremendous success for us, and I don't know how we could actually operate it without it effectively. Mr. Modafferi. I would like to make a point; I made it in my oral statement and my written statement. We are generalists at our level, at local law enforcement; we handle not only narcotics, but we handle everything from organized crime to terrorism. And it is important that the committee realize that at our level the equipment that is being used is used not only in drug fighting, but also in terrorism. I mentioned our case with Kennedy Airport. And there are different things that are available through CTAC, night vision equipment, hidden compartment detectors, digital wiretap systems, satellite-based trackers, radio interoperability systems. All of those are vitally important not only to the drug arena, but also to terrorism, and I think when you get to our level, the very local level of law enforcement, CTAC has to continue acting the way it is acting in supporting local law enforcement because we do share our equipment and we do make it available. The other thing that I mentioned in my statement is not a CTAC-related issue, but it is one very dear to my heart, and it is about the communications industry acting like we are profit centers; and I wish at someplace in Congress they would address that issue, because we may have the equipment, but with what we are being charged by the phone companies, we may be soon unable to use it. Thank you. Mr. Souder. You mean rates, basically? Mr. Modafferi. Yes, the things they charge us to hook up. Mr. Souder. I would like to pursue two other things here. We are getting ready to vote. I know you have both come a long way, but you heard the earlier discussions that we had on HIDTAs. Presumably both of you have seen and had interactions in that. Do either of you have anything you would like to add on the record as far as the HIDTA debates? Chief Ron Burns. In our area, we operate a task force, a drug task force that is made up of several city agencies, county agencies, and HIDTA has been very supportive of that effort, helps fund that effort. And, in addition, from that task force we assign an officer to the local DEA office, so we work very closely with DEA. And it seems to tie the Federal enforcement with our local enforcement very nicely, and, again, HIDTA has been very cooperative and very supportive in funding our task force, our local task force. So I guess I am not talking about just one singular agency, but a multitude of agencies working a larger geographic area, and it has worked out very well. Mr. Modafferi. I am in the New York metropolitan area, and we are very involved with the New York HIDTA. The New York HIDTA, over the years, has been tremendously successful, and especially since September 11. We have, in Rockland County, in Westchester County, we have set up our own regional intelligence centers that are separate and distinct from the main HIDTA center in downtown Manhattan. The New York State Police are now setting up a regional intelligence center in Upstate New York. And without New York HIDTA, we wouldn't be able to have the investigative support that we have in the New York metropolitan area and throughout New York State, so it has been a tremendous success. And I have heard about the changes that are being considered, but I would hope that, especially in an area like New York, it would remain pretty much the way it is going. Mr. Souder. Well, they have called a vote. I guarantee this will be my last question. In particular, Mr. Modafferi, I wanted you to see if you have any thoughts on this. It is somewhat related to the topic at hand today, but they have done such a good job at ONDCP in implementing this program that one of the questions are is in the Department of Homeland Security should we have a similar type of an outreach? You have raised the question of multi-use of the equipment; in other words, I don't want to see this program changed because it enables us to particularly have things that are of particular use in narcotics, and to somewhat not lose focus by blending and having Homeland Security squash the narcotics effort in this area as well because it is like a 1,000 pound gorilla versus a 100 pound gorilla in terms of Washington spending right now. On the other hand, were we to set up some kind of a program, clearly a lot of the equipment would be similar, because, just like you said, you clearly, in the smuggling ring, I thought you had a great comment in your testimony about with just family connections it is very hard to use undercover agents, and you need the technology. That would be true of terrorism and homeland security type systems as well. And I just wondered if you had any thoughts of if we set up a similar type system for local responders, how we would deal with the overlaps. Mr. Modafferi. First off, I don't think you should set up something similar. That is my opinion. I think you should just go with what works. Mr. Souder. Let me tell you what is somewhat behind it. I and others are seeing potentially, and this is heresy in some corners, a potential humongous pork barrel project here in homeland security, where everybody is coming to us for all kinds of stuff, and we are going to repeat what you said about Maine 1,000 times over. People are going to get equipment that they don't know how to use, they haven't gone through training, and unless we have some kind of an orderly method to distribute the responder equipment, we are going to drown in dollars that are ineffectively used, then the criticism is going to come back you wasted all this money in homeland security, you diverted anti-drug resources, other crime resources into homeland security, and you didn't know your head from a hole in the ground. That is what is kind of behind how do we control the technology, much like what you have done such a good job of in narcotics. Mr. Modafferi. Well, I think Chief Burns would agree with me, that the panel before us was comprised of major cities and large States. We are from the local level and we do work together and we are very generalists. I think the CTAC program has been very effective. I don't know how you are going to work this out, because the equipment has to get out there, but you should at least replicate CTAC's approach. But you have to realize that when you are supplying equipment to the local level, it is incumbent upon us to work together. Our drug task force is co-located in the same building as our intelligence unit. If the drug people arrest somebody who knows something about terrorism or murders or something, they tell the intelligence unit and it gets out. So when you do replicate this thing, you really have to have regional experts that are considering that an eight-man police department really doesn't need that, or the 40,000-man New York City Police Department needs 12 of these. You know, it basically comes down to local level to common sense, and I don't think that a big bureaucratic shuffle in Washington can address it as effectively as CTAC has. Mr. Souder. Thank you very much. Do you have anything to add, Mr. Burns, to that? Chief Ron Burns. I was just going to say why reinvent the wheel when there is a mechanism already in place. Very effective. Mr. Souder. A smile came to my face, it is because the scale of the way we do things in Washington, and as a practical matter, we would certainly try to replicate the process, but you have to be very careful you are not swallowed up by a huge department that is big right now. But I definitely agree if a process is working, that is the process we ought to look at replicating, how you get this local community input into making that kind of decision, particularly as it gets to smaller counties, because unlike a statement was made in homeland security and everybody seems to be uniting, we are watching the counties and the cities fight over every dollar right now, and we are actually seeing more turf battles right now in homeland security than we are seeing in narcotics, and it is really scary because the money is so huge; it is much like the way government works. If we say narcotics is the big issue, everybody repositions their departments around narcotics; if we say it is missing children, we reposition around missing children; if it is homeland security, we reposition all the grant requests around that. And we really need to both watch to make sure that your efforts in the drug enforcement areas are still there and, at the same time, that we are as efficient in these new departments. So thank you very much for your testimony. Thanks for coming a long distance for the hearing today. And with that, the subcommittee hearing stands adjourned. [Whereupon, at 1:13 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned, to reconvene at the call of the Chair.] [Additional information submitted for the hearing record follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9455.042 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9455.043 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9455.044 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9455.045 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9455.046 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9455.047 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9455.048 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9455.049 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9455.050 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9455.051 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9455.052 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9455.053 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9455.054 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9455.055 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9455.056