<DOC>
[108th Congress House Hearings]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access]
[DOCID: f:98119.wais]
FACILITATING AN ENHANCED INFORMATION SHARING NETWORK THAT LINKS LAW
ENFORCEMENT AND HOMELAND SECURITY FOR FEDERAL, STATE, AND LOCAL
GOVERNMENTS
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON TECHNOLOGY, INFORMATION
POLICY, INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS AND
THE CENSUS
of the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JULY 13, 2004
__________
Serial No. 108-254
__________
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
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
98-119 WASHINGTON : 2004
_________________________________________________________________
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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
NATHAN DEAL, Georgia C.A. ``DUTCH'' RUPPERSBERGER,
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan Maryland
TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio Columbia
JOHN R. CARTER, Texas JIM COOPER, Tennessee
MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota
PATRICK J. TIBERI, Ohio ------
KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
(Independent)
Melissa Wojciak, Staff Director
David Marin, Deputy Staff Director/Communications Director
Rob Borden, Parliamentarian
Teresa Austin, Chief Clerk
Phil Barnett, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel
Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy, Intergovernmental
Relations and the Census
ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida, Chairman
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
DOUG OSE, California STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania ------ ------
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio
Ex Officio
TOM DAVIS, Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
Bob Dix, Staff Director
Chip Walker, Professional Staff Member
Juliana French, Clerk
Adam Bordes, Minority Professional Staff Member
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on July 13, 2004.................................... 1
Statement of:
Hughes, Lieutenant General Patrick, Assistant Secretary for
Information Analysis, U.S. Department of Homeland Security;
Russell Travers, Deputy Director and Associate Director for
Defense Issues, Terrorist Threat Integration Center; and
Willie Hulon, Deputy Assistant Director, Counterterrorism
Division, Federal Bureau of Investigation.................. 7
Lynch, Gerard, chairman, Regional Information Security
Systems Policy Board; Mark Zadra, chief of investigations,
Florida Department of Law Enforcement; and Suzanne Peck,
chief technology officer, government of the District of
Columbia................................................... 60
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Clay, Hon. Wm. Lacy, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Missouri, prepared statement of................... 45
Hughes, Lieutenant General Patrick, Assistant Secretary for
Information Analysis, U.S. Department of Homeland Security,
prepared statement of...................................... 10
Hulon, Willie, Deputy Assistant Director, Counterterrorism
Division, Federal Bureau of Investigation, prepared
statement of............................................... 32
Lynch, Gerard, chairman, Regional Information Security
Systems Policy Board, prepared statement of................ 62
Peck, Suzanne, chief technology officer, government of the
District of Columbia, prepared statement of................ 90
Putnam, Hon. Adam H., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Florida, prepared statement of.................... 4
Travers, Russell, Deputy Director and Associate Director for
Defense Issues, Terrorist Threat Integration Center,
prepared statement of...................................... 17
Zadra, Mark, chief of investigations, Florida Department of
Law Enforcement, prepared statement of..................... 73
FACILITATING AN ENHANCED INFORMATION SHARING NETWORK THAT LINKS LAW
ENFORCEMENT AND HOMELAND SECURITY FOR FEDERAL, STATE, AND LOCAL
GOVERNMENTS
----------
TUESDAY, JULY 13, 2004
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy,
Intergovernmental Relations and the Census,
Committee on Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 3 p.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Adam Putnam
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Putnam, Turner, and Clay.
Staff present: Bob Dix, staff director; John Hambel, senior
counsel; Ursula Wojciechowski, professional staff member;
Juliana French, clerk; Felipe Colon, fellow; Kaitlyn Jahrling,
intern; Adam Bordes, minority professional staff member; and
Jean Gosa, minority assistant clerk.
Mr. Putnam. A quorum being present, this hearing on the
Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy,
Intergovernmental Relations and the Census will come to order.
Our deepest apologies for us running an hour late because of
votes, but that is the nature of this business.
Good afternoon and welcome to the subcommittee's hearing
entitled ``Facilitating an Enhanced Information Sharing Network
that Links Law Enforcement and Homeland Security for Federal,
State, and Local governments.'' This hearing will address the
initiatives and strategies being implemented to enhance
information sharing capabilities between Federal, State and
local law enforcement agencies and homeland security
activities. There are many examples of direct and indirect
links between criminal activity and terrorist-related activity.
Accordingly, law enforcement agencies at all levels of
government should have effective collaborative capabilities for
information sharing.
The need to coordinate the efforts of Federal, State, and
local governments for homeland security is now well understood.
September 11th highlighted the increasing risk of terrorist
attacks on U.S. soil. Consequently, Federal, State and local
governments recognized the need to effectively unify efforts to
enhance homeland security by employing the unique contribution
at each level a government can make on the basis of its
capabilities and knowledge of its own environment. U.S.
intelligence and law enforcement communities continuously
assess both foreign and domestic terrorist threats to the
United States. In October 2001, Congress passed the USA Patriot
Act, to improve the sharing of information between the
intelligence and law enforcement communities.
Information sharing and coordination among government
organizations are essential to producing comprehensive and
practical approaches to combating threats. Having information
on threats and actual incidents experienced by others can help
an organization identify trends, better understand the risk,
and determine what preventive measures should be implemented.
In addition, comprehensive, timely information on incidents can
help Federal and nonFederal analysis centers determine the
nature of an attack, provide warnings and advise on how to
mitigate an imminent attack. Also, sharing information on known
terrorists and criminals can help secure our Nation's borders.
There is clear, compelling, and documented evidence to
support the notion that there are instances of a direct link
between criminal activity such as drug trafficking, illegal
gambling, and money laundering whose primary beneficiaries are
terrorist organizations. Cutting off funding sources and
interrupting the linkage that supports the threat activity will
contribute to a more secure America.
Another critical issue in developing effective analysis and
warning capabilities is to ensure that appropriate intelligence
and other threat information, both cyber and physical, are
received from the intelligence and law enforcement communities.
For example, there has been great public debate regarding the
quality and timeliness of intelligence data shared between and
among relevant intelligence law enforcement and other agencies.
Today we will not focus on the rear-view mirror or dwell on
past breakdowns in the process of gathering or sharing
information. Today's hearing seeks to address this matter in
the unclassified space, with knowledge that there's an
enormously valuable and important component of information
sharing managed and conducted in the classified space.
Regardless of source, it is important that relevant information
be available to appropriate decisionmakers to enhance our
prevention efforts in the law enforcement and homeland security
communities on behalf of protecting our citizens from foreign
and domestic threats. We need only to be reminded of the sniper
tragedy in the Washington area during the fall of 2002 to
reflect on the intrinsic value of such collaboration.
During this hearing, we will examine the efforts and
progress achieved in developing secure, reliable, and
interoperable information sharing networks that facilitate a
comprehensive real-time information sharing capability that is
dependable and respects privacy. The subcommittee will seek a
better understanding of how improved collaboration and
communication will enhance two-way flow of information between
Federal, State and local law enforcement entities. With the
threat environment that exists in the world today, it is
increasingly important that cross-agency and intergovernmental
collaboration is effective and efficient. Accordingly, the
subcommittee will explore progress and obstacles to achieving
the most successful implementation of a strategy for
information sharing related to law enforcement and homeland
security.
We have a very distinguished panel of witnesses today and I
look forward to their testimony and the opportunity to explore
these matters in greater detail. Today's hearing can be viewed
live via Webcast by going to reform.house.gov and clicking on
the link under live committee broadcast.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Adam H. Putnam follows:]
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Mr. Putnam. At this time, I would yield to the gentleman
from Ohio for any opening statements he may have. You are
recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Turner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to congratulate
you on your efforts to continue the review of the issues of
technology and how it plays an important role in homeland
security. So much of the work we have had in front of us has
been an ascertainment of areas in which we need to bolster the
ability for agencies to work together both in information
sharing and just in basic communications, so I appreciate your
focus on this issue.
Mr. Putnam. Thank you very much. And we will insert Mr.
Clay's statement for the record at the appropriate time.
At this time, we will move directly into testimony. If the
first panel would please rise for the administration of the
oath and anyone accompanying who will be providing answers.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Putnam. All the witnesses have responded in the
affirmative, and we will move to testimony. As you know, you
have a light panel on your desk indicating the 5-minute time
restraints, and the bulk of your statement will be inserted
into the record.
Our first is Lieutenant General Patrick Hughes, U.S. Army,
retired, the Assistant Secretary for Information Analysis with
the Department of Homeland Security. General Hughes assumed his
current duties on November 17, 2003. He was formerly president
of PMH Enterprises, LLC, a private consulting firm specializing
in intelligence, national security and international relations.
He retired from the U.S. Army on October 1, 1999 after more
than 37 years of military service beginning as an enlisted
soldier and combat medic in January 1962. His last Active-Duty
assignment was Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, a
position which he held for 3\1/2\ years. Other positions
included Director of Intelligence, J2, Joint Staff and DIA,
Director of Intelligence J2 U.S. Central Command, and
Commanding General of the U.S. Army Intelligence Agency. We
appreciate the work that you have done for this Nation and you
are recognized for your opening statement.
STATEMENTS OF LIEUTENANT GENERAL PATRICK HUGHES, ASSISTANT
SECRETARY FOR INFORMATION ANALYSIS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND
SECURITY; RUSSELL TRAVERS, DEPUTY DIRECTOR AND ASSOCIATE
DIRECTOR FOR DEFENSE ISSUES, TERRORIST THREAT INTEGRATION
CENTER; AND WILLIE HULON, DEPUTY ASSISTANT DIRECTOR,
COUNTERTERRORISM DIVISION, FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
General Hughes. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and
Congressman Turner and other distinguished staff of the
subcommittee.
I am privileged to appear before you today to discuss the
current status of the progress being made by the Department of
Homeland Security to coordinate efforts to achieve common
goals. In this case, we are focused on information sharing and
collaboration. Information sharing is becoming more common
throughout the Federal, State, territorial, tribal, major city,
local and private sector environment in which DHS interacts.
However, we have not yet completed the mechanisms to engage in
information sharing nor have we fully developed the systemic
methodology necessary to fully achieve our collaborative goals.
We are working toward that end as rapidly as we can.
Our goal is to effectively, efficiently, and
synergistically pass and receive information in all of its
forms for the benefit of the U.S. Government, our nonFederal
constituents and DHS entities. In order to achieve this goal,
we must build an architecture with technical and procedural
transparency and interoperability wherever possible.
However, the most significant impediments to information
sharing are not technological. They are legal and cultural and
evolve both policy and procedure. In response to these and
other challenges, DHS has established an Information Sharing
and Collaboration Center which will achieve improvements in
these areas. The primary means of interdepartmental,
interagency, and intersector communication, intersector
communication being two way, that DHS will use is the Homeland
Security Information Network, otherwise known as HSIN. The
service system and capabilities that form the larger network
are on the way to being fielded throughout the State and
territorial constituency with plans to expand that fielded
element to all other partners and associates as soon as
possible.
Given our imperative to provide support and assistance to
State and local officials, it is no longer sufficient to have
vertical and horizontal linkage just with some of the
participants. The Nation must achieve a fully collaborative
environment through which homeland security officials, law
enforcement, first responders, and decisionmakers can fully
interact, across traditional boundaries, seamlessly and
effectively to deal with issues of terrorism and response to
terrorism and other emergency conditions.
I would like to inform you at the present time, including
our participation in the newly constructed Homeland Security
Interactive Operations Center, we in DHS at the Office of
Information Analysis, which I am privileged to head, have the
following connectivity: standard telephone; secure telephones;
facsimile of all kinds; wideband encrypted NSTS, or gray phone;
courier service; standard Internet connectivity; open-source
information system and NIPRNet connectivity; SIPRNet
connectivity; joint worldwide intelligence communication system
linkage; secure VTC capability; and many software and hardware
tools which collectively affords us access to virtually every
communication and information sharing level and capability that
we need to fully engage in the intelligence function.
We have liaison officers with online access to the CIA, to
the Terrorism Threat Integration Center, TTIC, to the National
Security Agency, to the National Geospatial Agency, DOD, and
especially to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. All of those
liaison officers have access to their automated systems of
their organizations. We are fully integrated into the national
government meeting mechanism. We are making steady progress to
connect to the Homeland Security Information Network.
We can do the job now and do it well. We seek to continue
to make progress to more fully realize the goals we have set
for broad and unfettered access to as much information as
possible in the shared context to secure our homeland.
Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, this
concludes my prepared statement. Thank you very much.
Mr. Putnam. Thank you very much, General Hughes.
[The prepared statement of General Hughes follows:]
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Mr. Putnam. Our next witness is Mr. Russell Travers. Mr.
Travers is serving as TTIC Deputy Director and the Associate
Director for Defense Issues. Mr. Travers manages the
government-wide information sharing initiative, TTIC's red
team, and knowledge-development efforts in the maintenance of
the USG's terrorists' identities' data base. He is responsible
for TTIC's interaction with DOD's analytic efforts focused on
terrorism. Formerly he was the Deputy Director for Policy
Support at the Defense Intelligence Agency and responsible for
intelligence support to the Office of Secretary of Defense,
managing activities of the Defense intelligence officers and
overseas liaison officers, administering special access
programs and organizing agency support to homeland defense. He
received his B.A. in government from the College of William &
Mary and his J.D. from George Washington. Welcome to the
subcommittee.
Mr. Travers. Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee, I
am pleased to be here today to discuss TTIC's role in
information sharing. I will summarize three areas from my
written statement: first, TTIC's access to information; second,
TTIC information sharing initiatives; and third, an important
qualifier about what information sharing can and can't do.
First, our access. TTIC is an integration center, and by
DCI directive we are to have unfettered access to terrorist
threat-related information. For the last 14 months we have been
working with the community to achieve that all-encompassing
access. With our recent move to a new facility, TTIC analysts
can now access up to 21 networks from across the relevant
communities. That number will soon grow to at least 26. To give
you some perspective on what that means, I am a Defense
Department assignee to TTIC. At my desk, I can access the CIA
operational traffic related to terrorism. At my desk, I can
access FBI case files related to international terrorism. We
have come a very long way. To be sure, we are still working
some access issues, and our CIO is intently focusing on how we
handle assimilation of data and the ability to efficiently
search across the holdings from so many diverse networks. But
the progress over the past 14 months has been exceptional.
The second issue I want to address relates to a number of
TTIC initiatives associated with information sharing.
Importantly, by DCI directive our mandate is to work
information sharing at the Federal level, and so I will focus
on horizontal information sharing. However, we are posturing
ourselves to support the FBI and DHS with their critical
vertical information sharing responsibilities and I will be
happy to address some of those initiatives during Q and A.
With regard to horizontal information sharing, TTIC has
established a program office to implement the March 2003
information sharing memorandum of understanding. This office is
working with our community partners in the full range of
impediments associated with information sharing: originated
control information, third agency rule, no double standard,
terror lines and so forth. The community can detail progress
across the board, I believe. For instance, pure terrorism
reporting has grown by a factor of 6 since before September 11.
In terms of the technical advances to share terrorism
information, TTIC's CIO has been leading community efforts. In
August of last year, we launched the TTIC online Web site which
is populated with terrorism-related information. This highly
secured capability can reach virtually the entire structure of
the Federal Government, hosting over 2,800 users. TTIC Online
reaches all traditional Intelligence Community terrorism
analytic elements, but also FBI headquarters, all JTTFs,
Department of Homeland Security, the military commands and
numerous other organizations that have a need for terrorism
threat information: the Departments of Interior and
Agriculture, for example.
The success of TTIC Online can be seen by a comparison with
the analogous capabilities that existed in September of 01. The
user base is six times greater. Five times as many
organizations participate. The average number of document hits
per week has grown by 500 times. And the total repository of
documents has grown from 1 to 3.5 million. Just over a month
ago, TTIC deployed a SIPRNet version of TTIC Online. This has
the potential to dramatically increase situational awareness
for those tens of thousands of individuals involved in the war
against terrorism but don't have access to the Top Secret
Network.
Moreover, to help support vertical information sharing,
TTIC will be deploying a sensitive but unclassified presence of
TTIC Online on the open-source information system network.
I hope it is apparent that TTIC is taking a very aggressive
approach to improving information sharing across the
government. And while we are second to none in espousing the
importance of information sharing, I do want to close with a
few cautionary words:
First, information sharing has become a bit of a bumper
sticker; everybody supports it, but few appreciate the
complexities of implementing it. There are almost invariably a
complicated mix of technical security, policy, and legal issues
associated with sharing information. Source sensitivity is
real. Operational considerations do exist. Privacy matters do
pertain. And the technical capabilities of government networks
vary widely. There are always going to be impediments and
reasonable people can and do disagree.
Second, I am increasingly concerned with something that
could be called effective information sharing. As we see the
explosion of networks and Web sites, organizations can post
their data and legitimately say they have shared their
information. Whether anyone on the other end knows it is there
and reads it is an entirely different matter.
Third, information sharing is not and will never be a
panacea. If we don't have a basic terrorism analytic business
process right and have an established critical mass of analytic
talent, we can pass information all over the government and
still not connect the proper dots. Indeed we could face the
prospect of being wrong faster. Terrorism is an extraordinarily
difficult analytic problem and the key is having long-term
expertise available to sort through the reams of information,
much of which is inaccurate, contradictory, or utterly
irrelevant. This in no way demeans the importance of
information sharing, merely to point out that information
sharing is necessary but not sufficient.
Thank you for your time. TTIC looks forward to continuing
to work with the subcommittee and I will be happy to answer any
questions.
Mr. Putnam. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Travers follows:]
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Mr. Putnam. Our third witness is Mr. Willy Hulon. Mr. Hulon
is the Deputy Assistant Director of the Counterterrorism
Division at the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He began his
career as an FBI Special Agent in September 1983. In July 2001,
Mr. Hulon was designated Chief Inspector for the FBI. In
October 2002, Director Mueller appointed Mr. Hulon as Special
Agent in Charge of the FBI's Detroit Division. In his capacity,
he worked closely with the Detroit JTTF and oversaw a wide
range of investigations.
Delighted to have him here today to discuss all of the
FBI's information sharing initiatives and welcome you to the
subcommittee, and you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Hulon. Good afternoon, Chairman Putnam, Ranking Member
Clay, and members of the subcommittee. Thank you for inviting
me to speak to you on the information sharing issues that face
the Federal Bureau of Investigation and members of the
intelligence and law enforcement communities.
The terrorist threat of today poses complex challenges.
Today's terrorists operate seamlessly across borders and
continents. Aided by sophisticated communications technologies,
they finance their operations with elaborate funding schemes
and patiently and methodically plan and prepare their attacks.
To meet and defeat this threat, the FBI must have several
critical capabilities. First, we must be intelligence driven.
To defeat the terrorists, we must develop intelligence about
their plans and use that intelligence to disrupt those plans.
We must be global. We must continue our efforts to develop our
overseas law enforcement options, our partnerships with foreign
law enforcement and intelligence services, and our knowledge
and expertise about foreign cultures and terrorists adversaries
overseas. We must have networked information technology
systems. We need the capacity to manage and share our
information effectively. Finally, we must remain accountable
under the Constitution and the rule of law. We must respect
human rights and civil liberties as we protect the American
people.
The FBI has an information and intelligence sharing
strategy. The strategy recognizes that we have a responsibility
to the Nation to disseminate information broadly, that we will
share information by rule and withhold by exception, and the
sharing is cross-community in nature. The FBI will protect
sources and methods by separating what needs to be shared from
how the information was obtained. Our strategy is implemented
through both collaborative initiatives and information system
connectivity initiatives both on a national scale and in local
projects. Collaborative initiatives bring together personnel
and processes in a common setting to facilitate information
sharing through each agency's information systems. Information
system connectivity initiatives share data electronically by
combining the respective agency's data technologically in some
form.
As local and regional collaborative intelligence centers
are being established across the country, the FBI has been
asked to take an active role in building the intelligence
processes in these initiatives. Through our field intelligence
groups in each field office, we are contributing personnel,
intelligence process development, information access and
funding. To further strengthen our collaborative efforts with
both local and national benefits, we have established an
intelligence reporting capability in each of our joint
terrorism task forces through the assignment of field
intelligence group personnel. We can ensure that terrorist
threat information collected by the JTTFs is quickly
disseminated to all who need it to protect the country.
On a national scale, the Law Enforcement National Data
Exchange, or NDEX, is being developed by the FBI as the
principal nationwide system for sharing criminal incident
report data to link law enforcement interests and enhance law
enforcement strategic planning. NDEX prototypes are being
tested now and we are seeking new Department of Justice policy
for Federal crime reporting to match local and State crime
reporting. Other examples of national intelligence and
information sharing systems are Law Enforcement Online, or LEO,
and the Homeland Security Information Network. The FBI is using
LEO to post and disseminate a variety of intelligence products
to State and local police as well as to publish its
intelligence priorities. We are working closely with DHS to
support its mission by collaborating on information and
intelligence sharing on DHS information networks.
The FBI supports and participates in local and regional
information sharing projects such as LINX in Seattle, WA, which
was conceived by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. LINX
is an innovative example of an initiative to integrate
disparate law enforcement information into a single data
warehouse with the latest analytical tools to produce valuable
intelligence that will help prevent terrorism and other crimes.
Other examples are the upstate New York Regional Intelligence
Center and the California State Warning Center.
Thank you again for inviting me to speak to you today on
the information sharing issues that face the Federal Bureau of
Investigation and other members of the intelligence and law
enforcement communities. It will be my pleasure to answer any
questions you may have at this time.
Mr. Putnam. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hulon follows:]
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Mr. Putnam. Mr. Clay, do you have a statement you would
like to place in the record?
Mr. Clay. I do, Mr. Chairman. And I will forego reading if
we can get right into the questions and I ask that my remarks
be inserted into the record.
Mr. Putnam. Without objection, your opening statement will
be inserted into the record and you are recognized for 5
minutes of questioning.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Wm. Lacy Clay follows:]
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Mr. Clay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to start
with Mr. Hughes. Does DHS plan to replace existing systems with
a new national communications infrastructure? And if so, what
are the specific milestones for implementing a national
infrastructure?
General Hughes. To the best of my knowledge, we do not have
any intent to replace what you have referred to there, sir, as
the national communications infrastructure. We plan to use it
and ride upon it, connect using the capabilities that exist now
and those that come in the future. But the Homeland Security
Information Network does not duplicate most of that structure.
It merely rides upon it.
Mr. Clay. Mr. Hughes, let me ask you about TSA. Are we
safer in our airports now since September 11 with TSA? Do they
have the adequate information in order to be able to detect
what probably shouldn't be on an airplane?
General Hughes. Yes, we are safer. And they do have
information that tips them off to persons that we call persons
of interest. It happens many, many times every day that persons
who have come to our attention through intelligence or other
information channels are sent to the Transportation Security
Agency screeners and to the Customs and Border Protection
officers that man the points of entry. TSA, itself, as you know
is not an armed law enforcement organization, but Customs and
Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the
Federal Bureau of Investigation and local police, of course,
take care of the law enforcement portion of that activity.
Mr. Clay. I notice that in some airports TSA interacts with
private security companies.
General Hughes. That is true.
Mr. Clay. How does that work?
General Hughes. I think it is a cooperative association
where some of the functions of screening passengers for their
documentation especially--I will use as an example when you get
into a line at the airport to approach the TSA screening point,
you have to present a photo identification and your ticket in
order to pass into the screening point, and often those persons
are local security people who have been contract hired to
perform that function. But the function of screening the
individual, their carry-on luggage and person, is the TSA's
function.
Mr. Clay. I thank you for that explanation.
Let me ask a question of the entire panel and we can start
with Mr. Hulon. It seems to me that the goals for information
sharing among stakeholders are well established, but the
emergence of new threats make determining what our domestic or
international threats are less clear. Are the stakeholder
agencies such as DOJ, DHS and DOD working on methods to refine
their determinants for what constitutes domestic or
international-related incidents?
Mr. Hulon. Yes, sir. Actually, Federal law enforcement is
working collectively to identify those threats as we develop
the intelligence. I think the thing that is really key is that
through various relationships that are established specifically
at the State and local level with the JTTFs, that information
is passed to the appropriate local agencies so that we can take
the right precautionary action to either disrupt or to gain
additional information in regards to the potential threat.
Mr. Travers. Yes, sir. I believe TTIC is a manifestation of
exactly the phenomena about which you speak. We are represented
with partner agencies to include the three you mentioned and we
have 16 organizations within TTIC. And our job is to bring
together threat information whether it is collected
domestically or abroad. So we are precisely attentive to that
problem with a blurriness between domestic and foreign threats.
General Hughes. I think, first of all, Mr. Hulon's
characterization is one that I would certainly agree with and
certainly Mr. Travers, that this is a cooperative group effort
and it is largely about human beings. It is largely about
identifying persons who have for some reason come to our
attention, and then processing them appropriately.
In order to do that every day, we have to engage in some
form of interaction. Quite often it is at a meeting, or sending
a message to each other alerting one or another agency involved
in this process about those people of interest. And that is
working well, however it is not perfect. And frankly, it is
about as dynamic as the traveling public who comes to America
and travels inside America is. It is a very large body of
activity and human beings to deal with.
Mr. Clay. Thank you. Mr. Travers, since TTIC is not
actually under the domain of the CIA or FBI, can its efforts to
break down the barriers for information sharing between the two
agencies be successful over the long term of its operation, and
has TTIC had any managerial or strategic disagreements with its
participating agencies on how to pursue its mission or goals?
Mr. Travers. Two part question. With regard to information
sharing barriers, I believe that we have enjoyed extraordinary
success working with our partners across the government. As I
suggested in my statement, none of these issues, at least in
our view, lends itself to an easy fix. They have multiple
components. There are, as suggested, source sensitivities,
operational considerations, and there is always a balance; and
we work with our partner organizations on a daily basis to
break down the institutional barriers that exist and we have
enjoyed substantial success.
With regard to disagreements, I think it's fair to say that
there is ambiguity in TTIC's mission relative to many other
terrorism analytic organizations' missions across the
government. I believe that is to be expected. We are dealing
with organizations, departments, and agencies that go back to
the National Security Act. We are dealing with some that go
back to September 11. The government is not of one mind on
precisely how best to sort this out, and so we are working
through that on a daily basis.
Mr. Clay. Just as a followup, my concern would be that we
would not gum up the works to the point that it would hamper
our ability to apprehend someone or to point out the real
threat or to just make law enforcement that more ineffective. I
mean that would be my concern, and hopefully----
Mr. Travers. TTIC has no operational responsibilities. I
don't believe you would find any of our operational partners
has gummed up the works.
Mr. Clay. Thank you for your response. And thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Putnam. Thank you, Mr. Clay.
Last couple of weeks, the press has reported on a number of
DHS initiatives to promote information sharing--including the
expansion of the HSIN, which was launched in February--to the
Secret level and the upgrading of the new Homeland Security
Operational Center to promote information sharing.
With these and other efforts underway, how does the
Department envision itself promoting information sharing
between levels of government? And how far a reach does the DHS
plan to have, and what role or other law enforcement agencies
pulling in that?
General Hughes. I need to correct something about the
information there. We have not yet secured the Homeland
Security Information Network to the Secret level. It is our
attempt to do so by December of this year. But we put the first
part of the Information Network Online at the Sensitive but
Unclassified level. And we do pass law enforcement Sensitive
but Unclassified information over that system. But the Secret
classification will have to come in the next few months.
Our intent is to connect to all States and we are now
connected to all 50 States to the governance level, either the
State Governor's Office or the Homeland Security Office, or
both, to all territories and possessions. And I believe we have
one or two of those remaining. But generally we are connected.
We intend to connect to many counties, if not all; all major
cities; some municipalities which are complex organisms like
themselves, like Los Angeles and Los Angeles County. New York
would fit in that category, too. We would at some point connect
to the tribal organizations, especially those that have
administrative burdens on the borders of our country with
Canada and Mexico. And last if not least, we intend to extend
the Homeland Security Information Network into the private
sector, especially to those companies and business
organizations which have a nexus to their work ethic and
national or homeland security.
Mr. Putnam. Let me ask each of you to answer this. Who
determines what information is passed along the chain and who
determines to whom it is passed? Is that TTIC's responsibility?
Who makes that decision ultimately? And I want to begin with
the FBI.
Mr. Hulon. It would depend on the nature of the
information. But there are various systems in place to pass
information. At the FBI, we have an Office of Intelligence that
is basically responsible for assimulating and working with the
other Federal agencies as well as State agencies with the
collection and analysis of that information. Depending on the
nature of that information as far as what it entails, what the
threat might be or what the intelligence value of that
information is, decisions will be made on where it goes.
For example, if it is threat-related information that
impacts a certain jurisdiction, then that information would go
directly through the FBI and the other agencies that are
involved to the appropriate law enforcement agencies at the
level that they could effect whatever action that needs to be
taken. And that information will be passed, say, to a JTTF,
say, in Jacksonville, Florida. If there was information that
impacted Jacksonville, Florida, that information would come
into the FBI and come into the appropriate headquarters entity
and then be disseminated to our appropriate channels down to
that field office and go to the field intelligence group that
we have there that is responsible for assessing that
information, and then it would be disseminated to the
appropriate JTTF members or the appropriate law enforcement
agency that should get that information.
Mr. Putnam. Mr. Travers.
Mr. Travers. TTIC is not a collection organization. I have
to distinguish between raw material and analyzed product. To
the degree we receive products from the collection
organizations, be they FBI, DHS or NSA or CIA, we will make
that material as broadly available as the collector will allow
us. If there are originator control restrictions, then, that
may in fact restrict the amount of information that can go on a
TTIC Online, for example. But to the degree we can make it
available, we make it available as broadly as we can. Our
finished products will be the same in that some product will be
limited for very narrow audiences at the most senior levels of
the government, but in general what we try to do is make
information as broadly available across the Federal structures
as possible.
Mr. Putnam. General.
General Hughes. I think first, I think both answers are
correct and bear on DHS. I would like to give you two other
perspectives. Some information has to be sensitively applied,
and so the answer to the question who makes this determination,
the answer I think should be given as leadership often has to
make that determination. We decide very specifically at the
leadership level, and sometimes the Secretary will decide where
information goes and who it goes to and how it goes. And that
would be the exception rather than the rule. But we often find
ourselves dealing with exceptional information which if it
didn't go to the right place at the right time, may have an
unintended effect or consequence. That is especially true of
our constituency, much like the FBI's. It is broad throughout
the country. But in our case, it is not to Federal officials
who are of longstanding experience in the intelligence and law
enforcement system, but instead to persons who might have even
a year or two of fairly spotty experience in handling federally
originated information. So this is, once again, I think the
point was made earlier, it is a complete organism.
The last point I would like to make is that we are
beginning now--and I think the FBI and DHS have set the
standard here but others are doing this to, as frequently as we
can, where it is appropriate, act jointly. Indeed, Mr. Hulon
and I have recently acted jointly to inform local officials
about various circumstances. And that communication mechanism,
whether it is by secure telephone or open telephone or message
or however it's done, gives added weight and importance and
perhaps motivation to those we communicate with about the
information. It's up to us to put it in the right context. But
that joint effort from the Federal Government speaking together
in some ways or collectively is vital to making this
information meaningful and clarifying it to the respondents and
people who receive it.
Mr. Putnam. Let me followup on that. TTIC does not generate
information, you disseminate it. That's the point you wanted to
make earlier, correct?
Mr. Travers. We do not collect information. We do have
analysts who will pull together all source products and
disseminate those.
Mr. Putnam. If there is information about a potential event
in a given city, what I'm really getting at, there are dozens
of Federal and State law enforcement agencies that would
immediately be involved. Where do you stop? You know, if you
take Mr. Hulon's example of something in Jacksonville, you only
do the city of Jacksonville, or do you do the county or
surrounding counties, particularly if the airport for that city
is in a different county? What point does it stop?
And we can get into this with the second panel, when we
have some of our State and local representatives, but it is the
most common complaint is that folks still aren't getting the
information. But when you look at the number of agencies only
in the Federal Government that might have an interest in that
piece of information and then to extrapolate it down to the
boots in the alley, is there a technological system for
disseminating that information or does it boil down to a
judgment call by a human being?
Mr. Travers. If that is directed to me, just a point of
clarification. I don't deal with State and local organizations.
I pass my information to the Bureau and to DHS, and they are
much more intimately involved in the vertical information
sharing, so over to them.
Mr. Hulon. I can respond to that. Actually, it is twofold.
We have networks that we can use, such as inlets, if we have a
general message to get out, say if we are reporting something
relative to threats or trends that all of law enforcement
should be on the lookout for, general information, that could
go out over the inlets and that is available to all law
enforcement. Anybody can go on that's in law enforcement and
get on to the inlets.
Mr. Putnam. They could. You make them aware that
information is posted that they ought to go read more about? Is
that the way that it works?
Mr. Hulon. With inlets, though, you would have a local law
enforcement agency, a State agency. There are dispatchers
monitoring the inlets. They would see that and pull it off and
it would go to the appropriate person in that department. If we
have something more specific, say to a general area, like a
city or surrounding counties, you know, if that information
should go to the city and the surrounding counties, we will
make a judgment call that this information needs to be in this
general area or this region, and we would make the
notifications primarily for the FBI through our law enforcement
networks which would be the JTTFs, which is what we rely on.
And we have a lot of agencies that are involved in the joint
terrorism task forces.
And what happens on the field level--and I can kind of
speak to that--we would make those notifications based on other
associations that we have in that law enforcement community,
whether that would be with the sheriff's association, police
chief's association or whatever. And that is one mechanism we
can use to put general information out to the entire law
enforcement community: you should be on the look out for this.
If it's threat information that's relative to an
investigation or something we need to disrupt, then, of course,
that information decision will be made on who does this
information need to go to so we can effectively disrupt this
operation or conduct this investigation without compromising
it. And decisions have to be made there. And those are human
decisions that, you know, basically the field office agent in
charge is responsible for and we have networks to really
facilitate that.
And we talk about networks and we talk about IT systems, a
lot of it depends on what we have in place, and that is a
collective effort of law enforcement. You see it a lot when you
get outside the D.C. area where you have State and local
agencies working together, you have various associations, you
have various law enforcement head working groups where there is
a constant exchange of information.
Now, could there be times where something might fall
through the cracks and one particular agency might not get
informed of some general information? That could in fact
happen, but for the most part, it is really the relationships
and the liaisons that are established among all the law
enforcement that really helps to facilitate a lot of this
information getting out.
Mr. Putnam. In a post September 11 world, if one of your
agents in Detroit made an observation, they had a hunch that
was backed up by some facts that there was an unusual interest
in flight schools, how would someone in Pahokee, Florida, where
another flight school was, know that someone halfway across the
country had made an observation that was relevant to them?
Mr. Hulon. That information, say coming from Detroit, would
go through the Detroit field office and make its way back
through FBI headquarters to the Office of Intelligence where
the information is assessed, assimilated, shared with the
components of the Office of Intelligence which has participants
from all the other agencies; all that information would be put
back together to bring it into some type of understanding of
this is a potential threat or this is a trend we should be
aware of.
And that is where sometimes TTIC will come in because they
would have access to that information. We might have someone
put an analytical piece together that would go out at TTIC or
could go out in the form of an intelligence bulletin from the
FBI. And the FBI intelligence bulletins are disseminated
through LEO Law Enforcement Online where we have several
thousand police agencies access that information that are
members of that network to where they can get that information
off. So information would be disseminated that way.
Mr. Putnam. At what point would TTIC be involved?
Mr. Hulon. When the information comes back to headquarters,
TTIC would have access to that information also. And it could
be a collaborative effort where this would be shared with TTIC.
And they could work along with the other intelligence agencies
to put together an analytical piece.
Mr. Putnam. How long are we talking about? From the time
this report is filed until the time that other law enforcement
agencies around the country have the opportunity to pick up on
it, how much time has elapsed?
Mr. Hulon. It depends. And another way this could work also
is information coming back to headquarters. It could go out as
an intelligence requirement where we would disseminate this
from the Office of Intelligence to State and local agencies
where we have intelligence requirements that go out, to ask
them to report certain information or be on the lookout for
certain information. If you have that backed up through the
FBI, it could go out through those channels. A lot of it
depends on the nature of the information.
Mr. Travers. I would concur with that entirely. TTIC would
have instantaneous access to that information given that many
of our analysts have access to FBI Net. It becomes part of the
analytic grist mill that is occurring amongst the various
intelligence organizations dealing with terrorism analysis and
then is put out as a product, and then the organization that's
responsible for vertical information sharing to push it down in
the various ways that Willie talked about.
Mr. Putnam. Let me approach this from a different angle. A
telephone number is found in a cave in Afghanistan. How long
does it take before that telephone number is in all these data
bases that it then becomes actionable, or an address is
discovered? How long between the time that some marine picks it
up in the bottom of the cave in Afghanistan until the time that
it winds up--let's say it is a Detroit area code, and ends up
on one of his agent's desk--how much time elapses?
Mr. Travers. It is going to depend on the medium in which
we get that telephone number, and I think I would rather talk
about this in closed session, if we could, but it's going to
move its way back to Washington and be made available. But it
could be some period of time, or maybe very little period of
time, in terms of the amount of effort that goes into getting
that number out of whatever the mechanism is in which we
recovered it. I will need to talk to you about that off line,
sir.
Mr. Putnam. We will do that, because it is the key to your
existence. I mean, the whole point of TTIC is to rapidly
assimilate and then analyze and disseminate information to guys
like Mr. Hulon in Detroit when things are being discovered or
heard or overheard or whatever. Let me move onto the next
question.
The volume of information that all three of your
departments or agencies generate, how much are we talking about
here so that the average FBI agent, the average police chief in
a medium-sized city, or the average intelligence law
enforcement officer in a major police department, are they just
being covered up in threats all day every day? Are there e-
mails coming in every hour on the hour? Is that something that
is condensed into a weekly bulletin? If you take all this data
that's out there, how much information does it become when it
reaches the end of the pipe?
General Hughes. I will go ahead and start. First, this kind
of refers in part to the previous discussion. I think this is a
collective attempt here--we're trying to get specific
information to the right place, not every piece of information
every place. I believe that moderates the effect, the larger
effect of so much information. But I don't know of a good way
to characterize the volume except to say that it is large and
it is growing, because we are now getting information from the
civilian population here in the United States as well as from
the traditional law enforcement and security organizations and
from the Federal Government's activities.
That large body of information is representing a much
larger influx of information at some level, that I would
imagine that there are still some police departments, some
homeland security elements and others, who don't get too much
information. And to be honest with you, that may be a function
and part of who they are and where they are. It is just some
places are much more active than others.
If you went to the New York City Police Department, let me
tell you, the information flow is large but probably not as
large as they would like. I think they would like to have more;
at least that is what they tell me. So I don't think there is
an answer.
Mr. Putnam. Mr. Clay.
Mr. Clay. Mr. Hughes, since September 11, funds have gone
to States and localities to improve emergency response
planning. Many of these funds request the States to submit an
emergency preparedness plan. For example, the Office of
Domestic Preparedness is requesting the States submit a
statewide strategic plan for fiscal year 2004 funds. Can you
tell us what DHS is doing to ensure coordination among other
Federal agencies that request emergency preparedness plans?
General Hughes. I know we give the agencies and
organizations that submit those plans as much help as we can
with regard to the preparation of them. I would say probably
not a happy constituency out there. I know there are complaints
about the application of these funds, but it is frankly, quite
difficult to do on a basis that makes everyone happy.
But I am not sure if I understood your question exactly
beyond help to prepare the plan. Once we get the plan, we try
to administer it appropriately with the other agencies in
government here in Washington.
Mr. Clay. That was the question. I thank you for that
answer.
Mr. Travers, although TTIC is funded through several
agencies' budgets, are there specific resource allocation
concerns that Congress needs to be concerned in order for the
TTIC to fulfill its objectives?
Mr. Travers. No, sir, I don't believe so. We are funded out
of the community management account for operations and
maintenance and our building and so forth and our personal
services are handled, given that we are assignees. DIA
continues to pay my salary. We are working a memorandum of
agreement with all of the partner organizations to ensure
adequate manning of TTIC, and I believe we are in good shape.
Mr. Clay. According to recent GAO studies, there are still
more than 12 Federal agencies with more than nine different
watch lists, and that doesn't include the CIA. Further, the GAO
cites that in spite of congressional direction, information
sharing remains inconsistent and limited. What role is DHS
claiming to make information sharing more seamless among
Federal agencies?
Mr. Travers. Asking me about DHS?
Mr. Clay. You are familiar with their operation, like you
are familiar with yours. How is information seamless among the
agencies?
Mr. Travers. Let me use the watch list example, then, if we
go back to that. TTIC has responsibility under HSPD 6 with
maintaining an all source data base for the U.S. Government on
all known and suspected terrorists. So all sources of
information, be they from the Bureau, DHS, CIA, FBI comes into
TTIC.
We maintain the data base on known and suspected terrorists
that is available to the community. Under HSPD 6, we then
provide to the Terrorist Screening Center unclassified data
elements so they can make those available to any screening
opportunities that occur, be they in the United States or
external. So it is a vast simplification of what occurred in
the period leading up to September 11.
Mr. Clay. How do citizens who may show up erroneously on a
list, how do they address that?
Mr. Travers. This data base will for the first time have
U.S. persons in it. We are being assigned 15 FBI officers to
maintain the U.S.-person portion of that data base, and
electronic communication will come in to TTIC. If an
investigation is started up on a U.S. person, if it is
determined that person is no longer under investigation, we
will get an electronic communication in to ensure that we pull
that person out.
Mr. Clay. All of the lists from all of the agencies.
Mr. Travers. For U.S. persons particularly. So we are very
attentive to that.
Mr. Clay. OK. Thank you for that answer.
Mr. Hulon, from your perspective, has the establishment of
the TTIC aided in the information sharing practices between
agencies, or is interagency coordination still inadequate?
Mr. Hulon. I think there's always room for improvement.
However, I would like to state that I think, today, after
September 11, we are much better off than we were in the past,
because what we have is, collectively, you have a lot of
agencies coming together and actually, really making efforts to
share information, just like some of the cross-designations,
when we talk about the various agencies having representatives
at other agencies, shops. Like in my division, in the Counter
Terrorism Division at the FBI, the associate deputy director is
from an intelligence agency that works with us.
So, I think, collectively, we are really pulling together
to make sure that we are sharing information better. We are
looking for ways that we can do it that doesn't violate any
laws, that doesn't violate any privacy acts, and things of that
matter. And I think, with TTIC, what they are doing, like has
been reported, they are taking this information and going to a
lot of public-source information and putting together
analytical pieces that go out to the law enforcement and
intelligence communities that assist and enhance our abilities
to look at information overall. So I think, collectively, we
are moving down the road, and we are going to get where we need
to be.
Mr. Clay. And you are comfortable that the coordination is
there and that the information is valid and good?
Mr. Hulon. Yes, sir, I am confident that we are really
working toward that. We have made a lot of improvements in the
last 2\1/2\ years.
Mr. Clay. I thank you for your response and thank the panel
for your response.
Thank you.
Mr. Putnam. Thank you.
Mr. Travers, you mentioned in your opening statement that
information sharing is not just a bumper sticker, and I think
that's well put. I mean, it's terribly complicated, and the
more you peel the onion, the more layers there are as we get
through this.
I believe you also were the one who said that technical
capabilities vary between the agencies who need to be talking
to each other? And since this is the tech subcommittee, let me
peel that onion a little bit.
Mr. Hulon, the FBI is notorious for having lousy computer
systems. Has your technology improved post September 11? Do you
now have the tools that you need, whether it's in an office in
Detroit or here at the headquarters, to be able to send and
receive information in the 21st century?
Mr. Hulon. First of all, I would like to maybe make a
disclaimer. I am not a real technical person. However, I do
know that the FBI technical systems are not quite where they
should be.
Efforts are being made to improve those systems. However,
we are continuing to work through the problem. So, actually, I
am just not the best person to really get into the technical
aspects of the systems themselves.
Mr. Putnam. General, is that a problem? I mean, if you look
at all the agencies that used to be on their own and that are
now just under DHS and add to that all of the other agencies
that DHS needs to be listening to or talking to, how
frequently, I mean, you pointed out correctly that legal and
cultural barriers are the biggest problems, but how often is
technology the problem?
General Hughes. I think it's kind of a different question,
if I may rephrase it. Technology is what it is, and if we had
the best technology the world can provide, we wouldn't have
that kind of problem.
It is true that some agencies are more technologically
advanced than others, but the FBI and TTIC and DHS sitting
here, we probably have different variations on the theme of
technological capability. But I personally believe that they
could, all of us could, interact, given the decision to do so.
That's my view.
My personal viewpoint--I don't think I should speak for DHS
here--is that what prevents us from doing that is making a
decision to do it, and that's my personal view. I guess like
you, sir, I am a creature of the automation system I have at
home. And the only impediment I can see to interaction with
virtually the world is someone deciding not to interact with
me.
Mr. Putnam. So, are all of the agencies now at a
technological point of equivalence that everyone is now
adequate, everyone has the tools they need to send and receive
the information on an interagency basis?
General Hughes. No. I don't think I should go that far.
Once again, some agencies and some organizations are behind,
technologically.
Mr. Putnam. And who is? Who is ahead, and who is behind?
General Hughes. I don't think it's appropriate for me to
answer your question, because I would have to characterize
organizations specifically to talk about things that I may not
fully understand. I can look you in the eye and tell you that
the Department I represent is technologically advanced. We are
capable of interacting on every level.
Mr. Putnam. You as the Department of Homeland Security?
General Hughes. That is correct.
Mr. Putnam. And everyone that got folded up inside of you
is now technologically advanced and capable of communicating
technologically?
General Hughes. No.
Mr. Putnam. Well, then, who is you?
General Hughes. Actually, I speak for myself, and my
organization here. The intelligence side of the house is very,
very good, very, very capable.
But some other administrative developments are not--
elements are not, and some other organizational elements may
have organizational shortcomings in this regard.
But, once again, I hasten to tell you, the technology is
there. It may not have been installed or it may not have been
acquired for installation, but it can be, and, in my view, it
should be.
Mr. Putnam. Well, in my view, it should be, too, but you
won't tell me where I am supposed to do it.
General Hughes. Well, I will be glad to talk about DHS, if
that will help you.
Mr. Putnam. That will. That's a start.
General Hughes. Inside the Department of Homeland Security,
the organizations that were folded in under the large DHS
umbrella include the U.S. Secret Service, the U.S. Coast Guard,
the former Bureau of Customs, the former Department of
Immigration and Naturalization, the Federal Protective Service,
the Federal Air Marshals and some other organizational
entities. Each of those has their own system.
Not every part of that system is compatible or fully
interoperable, because it is composed of a set of legacy
systems that were designed some years ago, perhaps even as long
as 10 years ago, and other parts of that system are newly
provided. They are newly engineered into this amalgam.
So, across the Department of Homeland Security, we need
to--and we are, we have a program to do this, which I
mentioned, the information sharing and collaboration program,
which is a formal effort to normalize for purposes of
interoperability and compatibility, across the organization,
internal to DHS.
With regard to our external communication, the Homeland
Security Operation Center, and the information analysis element
that I had, those two organizations between them do not have
any compatibility problems with anyone else; we could make it
work.
Mr. Putnam. Well, that's all. That's fantastic. That's what
we are after. I mean, the title of this hearing is,
Facilitating Information Exchange, and we need to know where,
where the information exchange is working particularly well,
and where it's not. And we had a number of hearings prior to
September 11th that pointed out an awful lot of problems in
communications, and I don't think they went away immediately,
but I would like to know that we are on some plan to make them
go away.
And that's just within the Department of Homeland Security,
not to mention the new monsters that have been created since
then, in addition to the DHS, like TTIC, and certainly the
radical transformation that's going on in the FBI, both
culturally and in terms of the scope of their responsibilities.
So, that's why we are picking that scab, is because we are
trying to get to the bottom of this to try to figure out what
we can do to improve this thing.
And, you know, I know everybody suits up and goes to work
every day trying to figure out new ways to protect the American
people. We just want to know if you have the tools you need to
do it. That's where we are going with this.
General Hughes. I think that's an admirable goal. And,
speaking for my organization--not others--you have done a good
job of providing us with both money and technical capability to
do the job. We have taken advantage of it.
Mr. Putnam. Let me ask a final question as a segue into our
second panel. Any or all three of you would certainly be
welcome to answer. How much good, actionable information do you
receive from the bottom up? We have spent most of this time
talking about how effectively you pass along your tips down to
local law enforcement. How much good stuff is coming back up
the pipe?
Mr. Hulon.
Mr. Hulon. Mr. Chairman, I can speak to that, solely
reflecting back on my former duty as the agent in charge in
Detroit. We do get a lot of information coming up, and a lot of
it might be relative to preoperational type surveillances or
suspicious-type activity that's reported back up to the FBI
from some police officers on the street. You know, they might
see something that seems out of the ordinary. And because of
the relationships that are established in the field offices,
between the FBI, State and local law enforcement agencies, as
well as other agencies, that information is provided back to
that police department's intelligence bureau, if they have one,
or directly to someone in investigations who might be
associated or affiliated with the JTTFs.
That information comes into the JTTFs. It goes to the
intelligence components in the field offices for immediate
action if it's necessary, and then, of course, then, it can be
channeled back to headquarters, FBI headquarters, and goes to
the Office of Intelligence to be assimilated in the total
overall intelligence, as being gathered and analyzed. So, it
does come back up, too. I can't really quantify that for you,
though, but there are situations where it does happen.
Mr. Putnam. General Hughes.
General Hughes. I think, once again, I think Russ Travers
didn't answer, because he is not in that category. But we
receive quite a lot of information--it's a growing body of
information--from local input. But it is not as good as it can
be or will be in the future.
Part of that issue is the fielding of connectivity, and the
case of the Homeland Security is slightly different from the
FBI's in that we are not dealing just with the law enforcement
mechanism or the security mechanisms who usually do have good
communications, mechanisms, even if it's interpersonal. We are
dealing with a new body and a broader body of individuals, down
to the citizen level.
We are getting reports from individual citizens who note
something suspicious. They communicate that to the appropriate
authority. Quite often, it's law enforcement. But, whatever the
mechanism, whatever the authority they communicate it to, that
is now finding its way, often in parallel, to the Federal
Bureau of Investigation or other Federal law enforcement like
ATF or DEA or somebody like that and to the Homeland Security
headquarters, and that's, I think, a very good thing. That will
improve and grow over time as we develop the mechanisms to
interact with these people, and they understand their role,
too.
And I would hasten to add to the explanation that Secretary
Ridge, on several occasions now, and in his most recent
pronouncement, has noted the importance of an aware and
involved citizenry who begins to pass this kind of information
to local authorities, and then local authorities pass it to
State and Federal authorities. And in a digital, interactive
environment, when the information gets into the digital system,
unless we, by some policy or procedural mechanism limit it, it
will appear everywhere.
It will appear kind of, sort of, let's call it
ubiquitously, throughout the digital interactive system, and
that's, I think, our goal. That's what we would like, so that
everyone has this information, knows about the problem or the
issue and then follows up on it or acts on it according to
their own responsibilities.
Mr. Putnam. Very good. Thank you very much.
Again, I apologize for the fact that we were an hour late
beginning. I want to thank all three of you gentlemen for the
work that you do and for the time that you have taken to
prepare for this hearing and joining us today. Your information
was very helpful, and we will be following up with you in a
closed-door session to pursue some of the other lines that we
were unable to pursue in this environment. So thank you very
much.
The subcommittee will stand in recess for a couple of
moments while we set up the second panel.
[Recess.]
Mr. Putnam. The subcommittee will reconvene.
If our second panel of witnesses will please rise for the
administration of the oath.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Putnam. I would note for the record that all of the
witnesses responded in the affirmative. We will move
immediately to their testimony.
Our first witness is Mr. Gerard Lynch. Mr. Lynch serves as
chairman of the Regional Information Security Systems Center
Directors Association and is currently the executive director
of the Middle Atlantic Great Lakes Organized Crime Law
Enforcement Network. Formerly, Mr. Lynch served as counsel to
the New Jersey State Commission of Investigation where he was
in charge of the Organized Crime Unit for the State of New
Jersey. While serving as counsel, Mr. Lynch helped create and
organize the MAGLOCLEN Concept, later serving as the
association's secretary, vice chairman and chairman. During his
tenure with the commission, Mr. Lynch worked on the
infiltration of organized crime in the casino, construction,
trucking and boxing industries.
You are a busy man.
Mr. Gerard Lynch. Yes, sir.
Mr. Putnam. Welcome to the subcommittee. You are recognized
for 5 minutes.
STATEMENTS OF GERARD LYNCH, CHAIRMAN, REGIONAL INFORMATION
SECURITY SYSTEMS POLICY BOARD; MARK ZADRA, CHIEF OF
INVESTIGATIONS, FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF LAW ENFORCEMENT; AND
SUZANNE PECK, CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER, GOVERNMENT OF THE
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
Mr. Gerard Lynch. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, it
is indeed a pleasure to testify before this subcommittee. I am
going to try to lead my 5 minutes----
Mr. Putnam. Please pull the mic a little built closer to
you so our reporter can be sure to pick it up.
Mr. Gerard Lynch. OK, I'm sorry. I am going to lead it into
how technology developed into the information sharing that we
know today as the RISSNET. In the early 1970's, through the
early 1980's, the way we shared information--and that's what
the RISS system is all about--was through the telephone line.
We would share information, talk to one another. The
information would then be relayed back to the inquiring
officer. If need be, we would telephonically contact each one
of the six RISS centers across the country.
Subsequent to that, we decided to seek approval from the
Federal Government to give us the ability to electronically
connect our systems together, and that became the RISSNET I
system, and subsequent to that the RISSNET II system, where,
when an agency then calls us up, we didn't have to call the
other RISS centers; we would just do it over a wide area of
network. It worked very well, but it was still behind the
times.
Shortly thereafter, we had a meeting in Baltimore,
Maryland, where we discussed how we could possibly use the
internet for technology exchange, and that's where we really
blossomed into the system that we now know as the RISSNET
system. The RISS system is comprised of about 7,000 law
enforcement agencies on the RISSNET system. We have
approximately 70,000 individuals that can use the system and
use it well.
The RISSNET provides secure connectivity and electronic
access to law enforcement SBU information, encrypted e-mail,
electronic collaboration and data bases known as RISSINTEL,
successfully to all of the law enforcement agencies, criminal
justice agencies, from the Federal, State and local and tribal
agencies.
We operate a current state-of-the-art technical
capabilities and systems architecture that allows member
agencies to interact electronically in a secure environment.
We, the system and the architecture that we developed, was
adopted and endorsed by the National Criminal Intelligence
Sharing Plan, which was created not too long ago. When we
decided to hook up the system, we were very successful, and
then we started to look at other partners in order to avoid
duplication.
We were approached by the High Intensity Drug Trafficking
Area Centers across the country, known as the HIDTAs, and their
main goal was to see if they could talk to each other
electronically, which they didn't have the ability to do at
that point.
Since RISS had at that point the only national
communication system around the country, they approached us.
And in order to avoid duplication and to save money, all of the
HIDTA systems partnered with the RISS systems, and they are now
today seamlessly working on the RISSNET systems. And each one
of the HIDTA centers are connected. There are 16 node centers
on as well as all 32 HIDTA centers around the country.
And that's a partnership that has been working
exceptionally well since its inception. Besides the 16 HIDTAs,
we have 15 State law enforcement systems that have also hooked
onto our system. And what we have done is basically started
creating nodes, and a node is a system-to-system communication.
In order to enable that to work out, we had to develop
using the current technology, XML technology, which would allow
system A to talk to system B. So, for instance, if you are
going to hook up the Colorado State Police with the RISS
system, we created this XML translator that allows the Colorado
system to transfer information over the RISS system that's
being requested by someone maybe down in Florida. So it has
been working and working out well. And we were the first law
enforcement entity to use the XML technology, and we used it
very well.
We are also have 16 HIDTAs that are hooked up. We have 93
U.S. Attorney's offices around the country that are hooked up,
the Criminal Division of Department of Justice, the EPIC Crime
Lab Seizure System, law enforcement intelligence units across
the country, the National White Collar Crime Center, The
National Drug Pointer Index Center, the National
Telecommunications System or NLETS, and the National Drug
Intelligence Center.
We are also in talks with the Postal Services, Postal
Inspection Services, and with the Department of Defense ADNET,
with the Open Source Network of CIA and also the Department of
State's OpenNet Plus system, and these systems are coming on,
as we speak, very, very rapidly.
We also developed the RISS ATIX system to talk to the
first-responder communities, the Governors across the State,
the mayors, then the various critical infrastructures. And we
have roughly 47,000 users of the RISS ATIX system, and we have
RISS ATIX online. We can go into more and more of that, but we
are very pleased with what the RISS system has developed to
date.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Lynch follows:]
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Mr. Putnam. Thank you very much. I appreciate your
testimony and for your recognition of the clock. We will put
all of your testimony in the record and get to the rest of it
in questions.
Mr. Gerard Lynch. Thank you.
Mr. Putnam. Our second witness is Mr. Mark Zadra. Is that
correct?
Mr. Zadra. Zadra.
Mr. Putnam. Zadra.
Mr. Putnam. I am sorry, Mr. Mark Zadra.
Mr. Zadra currently serves as chief of investigations for
the Florida Department of Law Enforcement Office of Statewide
Intelligence. In this role, Chief Zadra provides oversight for
investigations, intelligence and business functions. This
includes oversight of automated intelligence systems, the
Counter Terrorism Intelligence Center, Financial Crime Analysis
Center, Computer Crime Center, Investigative Intelligence
Support and Publications.
Chief Zadra provides administrative oversight of Florida's
effort in the implementation of the MATRIX project. He also
chairs the State of Florida Data Integration Committee, which
functions to insure data interoperability and efficiency in
data collection maintenance, analysis and dissemination. In
addition, he insures coordination and consistency of
intelligence components of Florida's seven Regional Domestic
Security Task Forces.
Welcome to the subcommittee. You are recognized.
Mr. Zadra. Thank you, Chairman Putnam, and the staff and
for the opportunity to speak with you today about some of
Florida's efforts in conjunction with our local, State and
Federal partners in information sharing across our State and
Nation.
Following September 11th and the horrific events of that
day, it soon became quite apparent that local law enforcement
in the State had a role in ensuring security in our Nation.
State law enforcement representatives began meeting from all
over the country to talk about how we could share the right
types of information necessary to do that.
Resulting from those discussions were the development of
the MATRIX project, which stands for Multistate Anti-Terrorism
Information Exchange. This project is to increase and enhance
the exchange of terrorism and other criminal activity
information among local, State and Federal agencies. The
project is funded by two Federal grants, and it currently
involves five States--Connecticut, Florida, Michigan, Ohio and
Pennsylvania--four States, I would note, which are represented
by members of your subcommittee. There are other agencies that
are, States that are continuing to involve in discussions
regarding joining.
The funding was used to purchase hardware, software,
communication support, to make each State a member of RISS,
through a RISS node, also develop secure Web sites and for data
integration efforts.
There are three main objectives of the MATRIX project. One
is connectivity. The other is Web-based access to data
intelligence, and the third is factual data analysis. On the
connectivity side, as Mr. Lynch had indicated, the RISSNET is
used by all the MATRIX participants for all their secure
connectivity. And it's graphically displayed there, the six
RISS centers.
Florida is a node directly to that. The importance to that
is that the Criminal Justice Network within the State of
Florida is a trusted, secure intranet which connects all of
Florida's criminal justice agencies, over 1,000 of those. It
provides e-mail services in a secure environment, the ability
to have interagency files and image transfers and, as
importantly, it allows access to all different types of
applications that local agencies and State agencies make
available over the CJNet. And some of those are displayed on
the materials that have been provided to you.
The second objective, as I mentioned, was Web-based access.
And in that, we have, within each State, the desire is to be a
secure Web site, and that would leverage existing systems that
are already built. There's been too much time, money and effort
placed into putting in systems; those do not need to be
duplicated.
You will see in the next slide, the Office of Statewide
Intelligence, Florida Department of Law Enforcement. We do have
a secure Web site, which allows us to provide law enforcement
sensitive information to all of our local, State and Federal
partners in the State of Florida.
And regarding the first panel and the ability to push
information, you will see, in the middle of that, the daily
brief. That's something that we do every day. We provide a
daily brief to all of our partners, including the Homeland
Security Operation Center, about what is going on this day in
Florida.
The third objective was factual data analysis, and that is
the ability to take information, which we discovered as a
result of a specific investigation of September 11, where the
data aggregators have commercially, public-available
information. We discovered, when that can be dynamically linked
with data that States collect and maintain--and those are
drivers license and digital images, motor vehicle information,
criminal history, sexual offender information, Department of
Corrections, that when you combine that data, you can take what
would be disparate data and make it very meaningful for law
enforcement purposes.
You will see displayed in the next slide, there is actual
screen shots from the FACTS program, and it shows that we can
produce information regarding subjects who are the subjects of
criminal investigations, their relationships can be shown
between individuals of that criminal organization as well as
photo lineups and thosetype of things. The system has numerous
security considerations in place.
The MATRIX board, which may represent each State and
oversees the activities of the MATRIX participant, they, as
well, address the privacy concerns.
And you will see graphically displayed there information
that when each member signs on to the system, it again
acknowledges again the purpose they are there and the
guidelines that they are to operate under. It also requests the
need to identify a case number and the type of activity that is
being examined.
The searches that are done within the FACTS application--
drivers license, vehicles, corporations, telephone directory
assistance, property, deed, assessments, those types of
things--it is used to investigate domestic security concerns as
well as other types of domestic criminal activity.
I would like to point out, too, the project has had a lot
of misconceptions that have been attached to it. I would like
to highlight just one or two of those. Primarily, the FACTS
application does not do predictive analysis. It does not track
or monitor individuals. It does not collect the types of
information that I believe our citizens would be concerned
about, such as their health records, where it is that they
shop, their credit information and thosetype of things.
Simply put, FACTS, within the MATRIX project, was designed
simply to allow law enforcement investigators to work more
efficiently, pulling information that they have always had
access to, legally, and it's not unlike an internet search
engine that you use to conduct internet searches. It is a tool;
it is not a substitute for investigative work.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to address
you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Zadra follows:]
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Mr. Putnam. Thank you very much.
Sorry, Ms. Peck. We saved the best for last.
Ms. Peck. You did indeed.
Mr. Putnam. Our third witness on the panel is Ms. Suzanne
Peck. She is chief technology officer for the District of
Columbia. Prior to her appointment, she served as the senior
technology and operations executive for several Fortune 500
companies. Ms. Peck is a recognized expert in the conception
and implementation of large-scale technology operations.
Her decade-long service as senior vice president, chief
information officer of the Student Loan Marketing Association
of Sallie Mae helped transform the $46 billion corporation into
one of the Nation's largest wholesale credit providers.
More recently, Ms. Peck was senior vice president of
CoreStates Financial Corp. and chief executive officer of its
$50 million technology startup subsidiary,
Welcome to the subcommittee. You are recognized for 5
minutes.
Ms. Peck. Thank you.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman. I am the District of
Columbia's chief technology officer, leading the Office of the
Chief Technology Officer, the central information technology
and telecommunications agency of the District of Columbia
Government. I am pleased to testify today on the District's
leadership efforts in developing an enhanced information-
sharing network that links law enforcement and homeland
security for multi-jurisdictional use.
In the District, we have developed an integrated suite of
information-sharing programs for local, regional and Federal
public safety and domestic preparedness. This suite focuses on
the exchange, transportation, presentation and coordination of
important public safety and emergency preparedness data. And we
are building this enhanced information-sharing network to be
fully interoperable among District agencies, Federal agencies
and regional and national municipalities.
In the area of data exchange, we are building a public
safety and criminal justice data sharing system that easily
integrates this data using only open-standard components which
can be easily and quickly replicated by other jurisdictions.
This initiative is underway under the name of SHIELD, Securing
the Homeland By Integrating Existing Local Data bases.
SHIELD currently shares data among 14 District and Federal
public safety criminal justice and court agencies and also
shares this data with similar agencies in New York City,
Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia. SHIELD provides access to
available, unrestricted public safety and justice data through
an interoperability partnership of independent city, State and
regional information systems.
Through secure internet access, SHIELD allows justice and
homeland security officials across the region and the Nation to
share incident information and to perform comprehensive public
safety analyses in real time and to respond more rapidly with
better-informed decisions in first-responder and terrorist
situations.
In the area of data transport, we are implementing
broadband networks over which we are prepared to drive SHIELD
shared-information data, both regionally and nationally.
One network we are supporting uses the internet as the
broadband transport network. We're implementing secure internet
connections, using existing components, such as browsers, ISP
connections and commerciallyavailable authentication tokens.
Another network we are supporting is a pilot broadband
public safety network in the 700 megahertz band that allows us
to transport real-time video-streaming data from first
responder incident sites to central command centers.
A third transport initiative we are underwriting is the
District's leadership of the Spectrum Coalition, a national
coalition of cities, States and counties formed to advocate for
national legislation that would permanently allocate spectrum
in the 700 megahertz band to public safety so that States and
cities throughout the United States would have sufficient
reserved spectrum to support vital public safety wireless
applications.
A fourth key data network effort in which we are
participating is the Capital Wireless Integrated Network, or
CapWIN, a partnership among Maryland, Virginia and the District
to develop an integrated transportation and criminal justice
information wireless network.
In the area of data presentation, we are enhancing the uses
and usefulness of the justice and emergency preparedness data
we share and transport to municipal and Federal colleagues by
presenting that data in innovative ways. The District's DCSTAT
system provides both nearly daily and real time capabilities to
collect, organize, report, and map data for use by local,
regional and Federal agencies in the national capital region
and, by extension, the Nation. DCSTAT will enable local and
Federal agency executives and program managers to merge spatial
data, that is map data, with traditional public safety data to
better predict and manage public safety emergencies in a
geographic mapped context.
In the area of data coordination, it's critical to
effective homeland defense that first-responder and emergency
management agencies coordinate data planning and deployment.
Our Unified Communications Center, UCC, a 127,000-square-foot
building on the East Campus of St. Elizabeths Hospital in Ward
8, will consolidate, when opened in early 2006, District
emergency communications and traffic management functions and
our 911 emergency, 311 non-emergency, and 727-1000 citizen
service call centers.
But, in addition, the UCC will play a very key homeland
defense role, serving as the Regional Incident Command and
Control Communications Center [RICCC], for the 17 major
jurisdictions in the national capital area. The RICCC will
facilitate communication and coordination among local, State
and Federal authorities for effective and timely response to
regional and national emergencies.
In summary, the initiatives I have just spoken about
address the public safety, criminal justice and homeland
security data sharing, transportation, presentation and
coordination needs that are critical and urgent for the
Nation's capital and for the Nation. We have designed our
programs from inception to serve not only the District but
national homeland defense as well. Each of the elements of the
District's enhanced information-sharing network can be easily
expanded to local, State, regional and Federal agencies to meet
homeland defense needs on a national scale.
And we look forward and, in fact, are already working with
DHS and our county, State, regional and national partners in
achieving this.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Peck follows:]
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Mr. Putnam. Thank you, Ms. Peck.
I want to thank all of you for being here today and, in
particular, for being here so long here today. We were an hour
late starting, and you have been very patient, and fortunately,
I am hopeful that we will be able to complete this without
being interrupted by votes.
But the award, I guess, for your resilience is that you get
the last word.
So my first question to each of you is to comment on what
you heard in panel one and give us some sense if things are
going well, not so well, and how you evaluate their
observations from the Federal level on information sharing to
prevent future terrorist acts, and where there may be some
differences from your perspective at the State and local level.
So, Mr. Lynch, I will let you begin.
Mr. Gerard Lynch. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I did listen very intently to the gentleman from the FBI as
well as Homeland Security, and what they are saying, there is
truth to it, although it was sometimes a little more difficult
to get the information that we thought we would be getting
sooner.
But, with regard to the FBI, just before September 11, we
were in discussions with the FBI about marrying their system,
the LEO system, with the RISS system so that we could have the
Federal entities also hooked up with the State and local
entities system-wide, not individualized.
And since September 11, that became a reality. We are still
modifying it. We are still perfecting the relationship with the
FBI and the LEO system, and we are very confident that's going
to continue. We are getting the bulletins from the FBI that are
needed to share among the 7,000 law enforcement agencies that I
previously testified about, and we are getting them on a
regular basis.
We are also working very intently with the Department of
Homeland Security. As a matter of fact, just yesterday, we had
a meeting with the IAIP section of the Homeland Security to see
if we could get some more seamless cooperation between the two
entities. And we seem to be on that road, and the road, I
think, is going to be leading to more and more cooperation and
more and more sharing of information.
In fact, on Monday, I have another meeting with the
Department of Homeland Security, and the purpose of that is to
work out ways that we can share information, use the systems
that are out there, the existing systems, and get the
information to the entire community.
As you know, since RISS system has already developed RISS
ATIX, we have been there for several years. Homeland Security
is now getting into that field. And what we want to do is, once
they are in it, we want to marry those two systems up. And we
are in those discussions to make that occur.
So we are cautiously optimistic that things are improving,
and will continue to improve in the future.
Mr. Putnam. Mr. Zadra.
Mr. Zadra. Mr. Chairman, I believe that you would be
pleased to hear from the State standpoint that things are
greatly improved, as each of the gentlemen indicated.
Probably would not be so pleased to hear, as was also
indicated, that we are not there yet with everything that needs
to be done. From the State's perspective, it's our belief and
representative of our local agencies, that what we need the
Federal Government to do is to help bring all of these systems
together. As you can see, they have sprung up all across the
Nation. There were existing systems before.
What we don't need is to go to a desktop and have to go
check 120 different systems from across the country to connect
those puzzle pieces.
What we need to do is to have the Federal Government,
hopefully through the--was mentioned through the National
Intelligence Criminal Sharing Plan, they indicated in their
Criminal Intelligence Coordinating Council, which would be made
up of representatives of the right organizations, to help us as
a country come together, and so that we can take and integrate
all of the existing systems, to leverage what we have and not
take all of this funding that is going forward to the States
and to the locals to build, again, disparate silos of
information. So there is a lot of work that really needs to be
done, and we would hope that the Federal Government would help
with that.
Also, I think it's critical that what we need the Federal
Government to do, and all of the agencies that were represented
here today, is we don't need to query their data bases. We need
information pushed to us. We should not be where we have to
make individual phone calls to all of them. So that information
that TTIC is analyzing, it needs to be disseminated, and it's
currently, how it's structure is now that it goes to the
Federal Bureau of Investigation, which goes to their Joint
Terrorism Task Forces or, first, to the intelligence center and
then to the respective Joint Terrorism Task Force.
Within Florida, we have seven regional district domestic
task forces that have liaisons with each of the two JTFFs, and
in fact, in two of our regions, they are co-located with them.
So we depend a lot on Homeland Security for situation
awareness. As there are events unfolding in Florida, we make
notification to their command center. Likewise, they make
notice to us and, through Jay Reeves, as incidents that are
occuring, issues of concern across the country. On the
intelligence side, we depend a lot on the intelligence coming
from--internationally coupled with the domestic--from other
areas of the country to funnel us from the FBI, in addition to
the information and intelligence mechanisms from the Department
of Homeland Security.
Mr. Putnam. Ms. Peck.
Ms. Peck. The District of Columbia is in the unique
position, not only of being the Nation's capital, but of being
the single municipality in the Nation which is a city, a county
and a State. So the perspective I bring is of all three of
those. And our perspective is that, finally, all terrorism is
local.
DHS, I think, is doing an extraordinary job at the Federal
and national level, and the system that we bring to the party
is a system that we have implemented for ourselves to make sure
that all of our local public safety, criminal justice and court
information is shared within the District; 14 criminal public
safety and court entities in the District are now sharing their
data for the first time ever in the history of the District.
That system can be replicated through using commercially
available components, in every municipality in the United
States, and the funding for that replication can be taken from
local funding. If, theoretically, every individual municipality
in the State created only just their own local information-
sharing system, and brought that system to a national
consortium, all they would need, in addition to that system, is
a browser capability, an ISP, a secure ISP connection, and some
authentication token so that integration would be the only
additional expense to making all local information in the major
municipalities in the United States available.
What the District of Columbia is doing and believes very
strongly in is that system, where we don't create monolithic
new systems and structures of communications but take locally
funded information-sharing systems in municipalities across the
Nation, connect via commercial, secure internet connections and
have data available in any kind of emergency preparedness or
terrorist incident where any combination of city, States,
counties across the Nation can converse with each other, local
data availability.
DHS then adds the component that each of these systems,
local information systems, can also connect, as the gentleman
from the FBI told you earlier, with NWCCC, with NCIC, with LEO,
with HSIN, with all of the DHS systems and the Federal systems.
But a system of local data-sharing across the United States
does not have to be invented and implemented whole cloth. It
already exists. We are proving that and have proved it in the
District and have taken that system, already regionally, to the
September 11 municipalities, to New York City, to Virginia, to
Maryland and to Pennsylvania and have piloted data exchange of
local information among all of those elements.
Our next step in this system, in showing that every
jurisdiction could build the system very quickly, and for very
little marginal cost, is to do what the first panel--you
queried the first panel about notification and alerts. The very
next thing we are putting into place is that system, so that
system, nationwide, of notifications on alerts would exist at a
local level, and we are also going to the next production
pilot. What we are doing is to connect the entire eastern
seaboard and have them exchange information. From the Eastern
Seaboard, it's just one easy step to the Nation.
So the systems that we have built really are a pilot to
show how to have local data available in any permutation and
combination, available between and among localities across the
Nation and available to DHS.
So we look at DHS as the Federal information consortium,
and we are looking at local municipalities and connecting local
municipalities.
Mr. Putnam. It sounds like what you just said, please
correct me if I am wrong, is that if DHS would just get out of
the way, you would have this thing done in a year or two?
Ms. Peck. Local, there--no, what I am saying is, our
focuses are different. The focus of DHS is Federal, national
information. Our focus is in working with them, and we are
working closely with them on these initiatives. And our focus
is to have--when I say local information, DHS is not currently
focusing on having local mug shots, local fingerprints, local
criminal records, local incarceration records at a very, very
detailed level. Those are the kinds of things we say, when
terrorism occurs, are kinds of information you are very likely
to need as well.
And so we are, as I look at us, DHS's partner in helping
get that information into the bundle without extraordinary
expense, from scrap expense.
We have simply shown how you can have all of that
information made available at very little incremental cost;
only integration is the incremental cost.
Mr. Putnam. Mr. Zadra, MATRIX, a very innovative program
that you have brought up to speed in Florida, does DHS have
access to that, or do they have to go through you?
Mr. Zadra. We are still awaiting a final policy decision
from DHS. We have members of DHS, such as the Immigration,
Customs, Enforcement representatives, within this State of
Florida who are assigned to our Domestic Security Task Forces.
They have access to the FACTS application, the MATRIX project.
One complicating factor, Mr. Chairman, since this is under
a pilot project and is funded by Federal grants, the
information that's been provided to us is that Federal
agencies, therefore, cannot benefit from the Federal funds for
the position that it possibly could be supplanting
congressional funding. That's a policy decision that's still
being waited on.
Within Florida, however, the Federal partners to our task
forces, the State of Florida, our State legislature authorized
additional funding for us to purchase additional licenses, if
you will, for use by the task force members, and, therefore, we
can provide those licenses to our Federal partners and not be
in conflict with, perhaps, that policy decision.
Mr. Putnam. Have you had an opportunity, post September 11,
to take this thing out for a spin and really see how it works
in a real live threat situation? Has there been an operation
where there was either a threat or a situation that required
you to really exercise the system that has grown up since
September 11?
Mr. Zadra. Respect to FACTS, sir?
Mr. Putnam. Yes.
Mr. Zadra. Yes, sir. Let me say that FACTS is utilized by
the regional domestic security task forces with the subject of
concern relating to criminal organizations involved in,
perhaps, terrorist activities. So it is used every day by them.
An actual incident that happened, that I was personally
involved in, is we received a request from a Federal agency who
had been advised that there were a certain number of
individuals who were on their way to an airport within the
State of Florida to bomb it. And they had partial descriptions
of vehicles but no tag numbers. Some very suspicious
circumstances regarding the individuals observed with those
vehicles and the activities that they were involved in.
The request to the State of Florida was to provide for
them, if you will, the universe of those type vehicles that are
registered in the State of Florida.
Prior to being able to utilize FACTS, the ability to do
that would have required an offline search through our
Department of Motor Vehicles which, in the past, has taken 24
to 48 hours to do. Within less than 2 minutes, we provided a
list of--and the numbers, our round numbers of approximately 80
of one vehicle and 70 of the other vehicle to them within 2
minutes.
The importance of that, however, is by dynamically
combining the State-owned data, which is the vehicle
registrants, the drivers licenses but, more importantly, the
drivers license photographs, when that material was provided to
the Federal agency, it had the list of all known vehicles that
met that description within a 25-mile radius of where the
incident was reported. It had the motor vehicle registration
information, the address for each of those.
But, more importantly, it had the drivers license
photographs for those registered owners. And the Federal agency
could go to their witness, provide this and ask that witness,
do you recognize any of the following as that? Now, compare
minutes to what really would have taken weeks or, I should say,
days if not weeks of a table full of analysts and agents
sorting through stacks of computer printouts, only then to find
a vehicle that may match the description. But then have to go
make a separate query to identify the registered owner, make a
second query to then identify the actual drivers license
photograph associated with that.
Now, I will tell you that, in that particular circumstance
that I just referenced, that it turned out to be a hoax, so you
might ask me, why, Mr. Zadra, would you be discussing that as a
success story? And I would say this, it's a success story from
this standpoint, that every time it's used, it enhances the
investigator's ability with respect to not only the hopeful
successful conclusion of that investigative league, but
timeliness is what's critical. And when you are talking about a
weapons of mass destruction, it's the time, it's those minutes
and seconds that count. So any time you utilize FACTS is a
success story, in my personal view.
And the other thing is that, if you think about this
particular circumstance, of the hours that were saved by not
having that table full of analysts and agents pursuing leads
relating to a hoax--this all--there are numerous success
stories, Mr. Chairman, regarding all types of criminal
activity. And if I could mention one more to give you an idea
of how successful of a tool it is.
Within Florida, we had a 15-year-old female who was
victimized by a sexual offender who was going around exposing
himself to young females within the State. A call came from
local law enforcement. And this one young female, there was an
attempted actual abduction, so it went beyond just exposing
himself to now attempted abduction. Fortunately, this young
female was very heady, used good technique, was able to obtain
a partial description of attack, observe the facial description
of the individual and was able to escape from being abducted,
provided that information to local law enforcement. The call to
us was, ``We have a partial tag. We have a color of a vehicle.
That's all we know. Is there anything you can do?''
Within minutes, we provided a list of, because you can do
what is referred to as a wildcard search within FACTS on a
partial tag number. But, again, it brought back the registered
owner of just a few vehicles now that met that within, again, a
mile radius of that, where it was reported, and now, again, we
had the photograph. It was shown to the victim, immediately
identified the subject, and warrants were issued for its
arrest. So that is how the system is used effectively in
pursuit of not only terrorism investigations, which are
certainly critical, but all types of criminal activity. What we
had found was we developed a tool which obviously was brought
about from the standpoint of and addressing counter terrorism
efforts, but certainly, I don't think any of us would find, if
we had a tool in our tool box that was multipurpose, that we
would not utilize that tool for any other use.
Mr. Putnam. Well, that's interesting that you are so
willing to disclose that your search took 2 minutes, and TTIC
was reluctant to disclose how long theirs took. I suspect, if
it was as efficient as 2 minutes, they might have been more
willing to disclose it in open forum. I think that is a perfect
example of technology being utilized in a nonintrusive way to
keep people safe, either from the traditional bad guys and as
well as the, the new terrorist threat that's even greater in
this post September 11.
Are you satisfied with the level of coordination from the
Federal level on these threats? And the example I would use is
sort of a nontraditional example, but it's a big deal for
Florida, and the example is the recent unrest and humanitarian
crisis, actually, in Haiti, that for several days bordered on
what could have been a massive migration to Florida. And in the
middle of that, I can remember getting a briefing from the
State Department on the preparations that were being made in
anticipation of a refugee crisis.
And my first question was, ``Are you, have you talked to
Florida about this?'' and they said, ``Well, no, we haven't.''
Well, then I said, ``You don't have a plan if you are not
talking to the people who are about to be on the shores,
receiving thousands of people who are going to be in need of
medical treatment and food and shelter and clothing and all of
these things.'' And it really sort of set off a red light that
they still don't get it.
Are you satisfied with the level of coordination that
exists on major, major efforts like that?
Mr. Zadra. Mr. Chairman, I would say that I am encouraged
to say I am completely satisfied, I do not think would be the
case. There is room for improvement. Perhaps if it would make
you feel better with respect to that Haitian situation, we were
very well aware and were planning very diligently and were
reaching out and we're involving our homeland security
partners, the U.S. Coast Guard, the Maritime Intelligence
Center out of south Florida.
Fortunately within the State of Florida, we were the first
State to engage in a very innovative project where we actually
have 35 of our regional domestic security task force members
who are cross-trained and designated and have detention and
arrest authority for immigration issues with respect to
domestic security.
So we had in place not only with our local law enforcement,
but also regional and domestic security task forces to have
those representatives and members available to assist in that
particular situation. We are continuing dialog and there is
still a lot of work to be done to ensure that the State of
Florida, particularly our local law enforcement, because as was
mentioned, the issues always occur locally. So when you have
boatloads of those that are migrating to our shores, they come
to local jurisdictions as they pass through the international
waters, obviously. But when they get to our shore, local law
enforcement is the first to intervene. So we are working
through and we are in the process of finalizing some training,
which would be for those jurisdictions that line, particularly
our south Florida coast line, where there would be specific
individuals that would be trained and have the ability to do
nothing else but to stop and detain and wait for the proper
Federal law enforcement representatives to effectively deal
with that situation.
Mr. Putnam. Perhaps Ms. Peck or Mr. Lynch could comment on
what cyber security assurances are in place to protect the
sensitive information that is being transferred between
jurisdictions, whether it is between the States and the Federal
Government or between States.
Mr. Gerard Lynch. I think the cyber security issue is being
addressed by the law enforcement communities that are members
of the RISS system. And not only do we put on trainings for the
law enforcement community about cyber crime and how cyber crime
is affecting the lives of the average citizens, but we are also
posting on not only RISSLEADS, or RISSLIVE bulletin board
incidences of cyber crime identity theft. We are finding out
that more and more of these State and local agencies are
becoming aware of the effect that cyber crime has had on the
relationships of the citizens of this country. And we really
looked at it as part of a major crime, whether it is narcotics
trafficking or gang activity. Cyber crime is just as important,
just as debilitating and just as an effective means of the
criminals to perpetrate crimes on the citizens of this country.
So we are up to date on that. We are looking constantly to ways
that we can combat it and we will continue that training of our
law enforcement personnel throughout the country to ensure that
cyber crime does, in fact, become an entity.
Mr. Putnam. In your organized crime work in New Jersey, had
you ever come across an organized crime influence in cyber
crime?
Mr. Gerard Lynch. Such as identity theft?
Mr. Putnam. No. I would kind of lump, unfortunately,
identity theft into the more traditional basket of crimes. But
utilizing cyberspace perhaps to affect infrastructure, bring
confusion or affect perhaps local response capabilities or
things like that.
Mr. Gerard Lynch. The traditional organized crime members
were not involved in that. That was not even--I don't think
I've seen any indications that the traditional organized crime
was involved in cyber crime to the effect that they want to
disrupt the Internet and do something to shut down the
communications, such as the banking industry. What we are
seeing and what RISS has done is we have basically made our
system very secure, so that when they had that last attack on
the cyber community, we were being banged almost 20 to 30,000
times an hour from Russia, from Belarus, from all the European
countries, so it is a very severe thing.
And if the private community does not pick up on it and
constantly stay on top of it, they will be shut down as
Citibank was done during the last cyber crime attack. We are
aware of it and the member agencies are aware of it and we are
doing everything to educate and see to it that the criminal
information is not affected by it. And I am sure that homeland
security will be doing the same thing. It is a very serious
issue that could face us in a very dangerous way down the road.
But I see it more and more being protected as we protect our
system.
Mr. Putnam. Sitting here listening to the different
acronyms, MAGLOCLEN, RISS, MATRIX, FAX, CJNet, CRIMES, CLEAR,
recognizing that it is always kind of a good thing to have your
States or localities be the laboratories for innovation, have
we reached the point that we are reinventing the wheel in
different States? And is the technology mature enough that we
really could be just replicating successful programs in other
States instead of funding a bunch of new pilot programs?
Mr. Gerard Lynch. There will always be regional interests
for regional purposes that will be drafted, but we have been in
constant contact with Members of Congress who appropriate
funding for the RISS program or some similar programs. And what
they have put in language now is language that would instruct
those grant issuing agencies a directive that if they are going
to be setting up any kind of a regional data base or regional
telecommunications system that they use existing systems out
there and they don't reinvent the wheel so that the existing
systems can operate in a very effective manner. And that has
been happening. Most of the technology that we have today can
be developed so that it can marry most systems up.
When we decided to hook up the U.S. attorney's offices
nationwide so that we could give them secure e-mail and
encrypted translation of information back and forth, it was
done because we developed a system that would allow that. And I
think that what we are seeing here is that systems are being
developed such as the RISS system that allow other systems to
seamlessly, if not transfer information, but at least talk to
one another and we are seeing that. We in MAGLOCLEN oppose
constant duplication, because not only does it affect law
enforcement when they want to talk to other agencies and the
systems don't talk to each other, but also it costs money when
you are developing new systems.
So when new systems are coming up and they are coming up--I
don't think we can stop that--we want to make sure that if
those systems come up, that they are compatible with the
systems that are out there. And what I see in the future is
that we are going to have a system of systems whether it's RISS
system hooked up to the homeland security system, hooked up to
RISS/LEO, there are many systems out there that will be able to
communicate. Technology is not the issue. Policy is the issue.
Mr. Putnam. Ms. Peck.
Ms. Peck. I would absolutely concur with that. It is the
position of DHS that they support a number of these State-based
initiatives and that they follow these initiatives to the
logical conclusion of the successful initiatives. So, you know,
you plant your beans and you see which ones come up and which
ones grow the highest and the best. So I think it makes a great
deal of sense to support a number of State systems.
We all come to more or less the same conclusion so if you
look at MATRIX's technology and SHIELD's technology, we come to
a single place that says let's not build it from scratch. Let's
use components that already exist. We have used exactly the
same kinds of components. The only place I think in which we
differ and we both come from a place that says it's the local
data that needs to be integrated into the national DHS system.
I think the only place that we disagree knowing what I know of
MATRIX is knowing what kind of data is included and how that
data is used. But in terms of the technology and recognizing
that we need to build very cost sensitive systems from existing
components and not ask the national government to attach all
local data on their expense, we need to ask localities to do
that.
We have come to exactly the same place. SHIELD's next focus
is governments and national security and the security rules
that will govern national data sharing and regional data
sharing. So again, the technology can be easily replicated at
very low costs and we need to have governance structures that
say what kind of data, who is authorized to access that data
and under what circumstances the data will be used and for what
purposes, those kinds of governance, and the security rules as
well in terms of the kinds of data and who has access to it. So
it's those policy issues that are the things that we are
looking at now and I am sure every other State-based system is
looking at the same thing. The technology is the easy part,
getting people to play together and to agree under which rules
they play is much more focused now.
Mr. Putnam. Thank you very much. And before we bring this
to a close, I want to give all of you the opportunity to have
any final comments, it is the least we can do after this long
afternoon. Ms. Peck, we will begin with you and end with Mr.
Lynch and we will bring this subcommittee hearing to close. Any
final thoughts?
Ms. Peck. I would like to thank you very much as chairman
for the opportunity to highlight the leadership work that the
District of Columbia has done in the area of local to national
information sharing of public safety, criminal justice. Thank
you very much for the opportunity.
Mr. Putnam. Chief.
Mr. Zadra. Mr. Chairman, I thank you for the opportunity to
be here today and I applaud the efforts of this subcommittee.
It is the leadership. And we need, speaking from a State and
local perspective on bringing all this together. I concur with
both the last statements of Ms. Peck and Mr. Lynch in that the
technology is not the problem. We have all the systems there
that really what we need.
What we need to do is figure out how to connect them
together. We need them not only regional strategies, we need a
State strategy for each of our States so that each of the
projects that they have within their major municipalities or
sheriff's offices that they can bring those together from a
State perspective, and as Mr. Lynch said, we will connect
systems to other systems. I am 26-year member of the department
of the law enforcement and been involved in criminal
investigations for years. What I would like to see on my desk
stop is instead of Mark Zadra having to query every police
jurisdiction in the United States of America, I believe that we
need a national index to where Mark Zadra could query a name
and if nothing else, if it was just a pointer--because we are
going to have to work through all of the security issues,
policy issues, those are privacy issues that need to catch up
to the technology, but we need, if nothing else, so I can
connect those puzzle pieces.
When you go to a store now and you buy a puzzle, you come
home and it has a picture on the box and it tells you how many
puzzle pieces are in there and you know they're all in that box
and you can put your puzzle together. Law enforcement's problem
is that we don't have the picture. We don't even know how many
pieces there are and our pieces don't come in a box but are
spread across the country. So each of those jurisdictions may
have that puzzle piece that we need. We shouldn't have to go
individually and make phone calls in the way that we used to do
business 10 years ago, including just most recently prior to
September 11. What we really need to do is collapse all those
tools on our desk. We don't need to be a multitasking disorder.
Having information is good, but what is important is making
it meaningful to us and figure out whether that information
fits that puzzle piece. What we would like to see and it needs,
from the national perspective, and hopefully, this coordinating
council can pull this off, but we need to be in a position that
when I sit as investigator at my desktop, I need homeland
security to be dealing with me and also me with them as to what
is the situational awareness issues that are going on across
our country as they are developing.
We need to know about them so that when something happens
in another State, we in Florida can take that and apply the
same protective and necessary protective measures to our
critical infrastructure that is the issue. The other thing we
need to do is we realize everyday there are individuals that
come into contact with our criminal justice agencies as what
talked about in SHIELD, that information is sitting out there
and being collected already in systems that are already
existing.
I need the ability to determine with a single query who and
where have they come in contact with the criminal justice
community, realizing that there are others that have a
different type of job and that is intelligence. And
intelligence really isn't intended to be shared at all levels
with everyone in the criminal justice community or law
enforcement. And this plan again speaks to that. We need the
ability to hook up to those criminal intelligence systems as
well.
So again, I thank you for your what you're doing with your
subcommittee because I think that is the leadership we need is
to pull all of this together, someone to put their hands around
it and assist us. We have 40,000 law enforcement officers in
the State of Florida who everyday have eyes and ears that are
trained on domestic security issues and those things do happen
locally. And we need to make sure that not only are we
capturing it but we are sending that information and making
available to others that have a need for that as well. So
again, thank you, sir.
Mr. Putnam. Mr. Lynch.
Mr. Gerard Lynch. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and thank the
committee for bringing this to the forefront. I think that in
the followup to the last statement, we are getting closer to
that realm. If you saw where we were 2 years ago to where we
are today, we are light years ahead of that, but yet we are
still a long way from seeing total connectivity. What we have
seen as we have seen with the RISS system is that our member
agencies such as the Florida Department of Law Enforcement as
well as New York City Police Department, are participating more
and more because they are seeing a lot more advantages coming
out of these systems out there.
And with our RISSLive and our RISS ATIXLive, we are seeing
a lot more of the agencies starting to talk real-time to each
other on key issues, whether it is a fire marshal talking to a
fire marshal across the country or a police officer talking to
a fire marshal across the country, we are seeing the
communities of interest marry each other. And we are seeing a
very fruitful end to all of this. We have ventured into the
first responder community and we have seen a lot of positive
feedback from the electrical critical events individuals to the
railroad associations to the trucking industry. They are now
working together to share information to shore up our homeland.
And not only are the eyes and ears of the local police
department alerted, but now we have the truck drivers, the
electrical meter readers knowing more about what is going on in
this country as far as security and posting threat information.
You know, the pilot program we have with the Department of
Homeland Security on nuclear power plants is crucial that these
pilot plans are developed and our country is much safer, when
we see homeland security talking to the FEMA or the Federal
management of each State and the local police departments and
talking about suspicious activity around nuclear power plants.
So I see a lot more happening, but we still have a long way
to go. And I think we have to make sure that the systems that
are out there are funded properly and moved forward and that
these connections such as the NODE activity and the NODE
connection with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement can
be spread throughout the entire country. And maybe this
committee might be a spear head in moving that forward. Again,
I thank you.
Mr. Putnam. Thank you very much. I want to thank all of our
witnesses for your outstanding participation today. Your
testimony is vital to helping us to better understand this
issue and move toward solutions and better interoperability.
Thank you for your patience and your willingness to wait us
out. I want to thank the staff for pulling together an
outstanding hearing, in particular one of our committee interns
who we are losing, Kaitlin Jarling's last day and we appreciate
the work that she has done on this hearing and a number of
others this summer. In the event that there may be additional
questions we did not have time for today, the record will
remain open for 2 weeks for submitted questions and answers.
Thank you all very much. Subcommittee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 5:25 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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