I
am honored - and impressed - to be on stage
with so many leaders from this city. And I am
glad to be together with so many of you from
across the community. Thank you all for being
here.
It
is good to see Willie Hulon, our Special Agent
in Charge for Detroit. Many people probably
do not realize the scope of the cases that your
office investigates, from counterterrorism to
corporate fraud to cyber crime. Willie, my thanks
to you and to the men and women of the FBI for
all you do for this city and for our country.
For
years, Detroit has played a leadership role
in terms of its industry and innovation, from
the Model T to Motown. Today, this city is also
playing a leadership role in terms of security,
whether it is putting terrorist cells and supporters
out of business or performing the non-stop work
of protecting the border. I want to thank and
recognize our federal, state, and local partners
for their hard work, especially over the past
two years. Without them, we in the FBI simply
could not get the job done.
I
realize that most speakers come to the Detroit
Economic Club to talk about things like economics,
manufacturing, or export growth. As you might
expect, that will not be my focus today. What
I can give you, however, is a slightly different
perspective on the economy and what it takes
to keep our economy strong.
There
was an article a month ago in the Detroit Free
Press that talked about signs of improvement
in the nation's economy. It had an interview
with a woman who owns a graphic design company
in Ann Arbor. She said her business had been
hit hard by 9/11 but had since rebounded. She
said she was glad to hear about these positive
economic forecasts. But then she added: "If
something big happens again, like another 9/11,
we're back to square one."
That
thought captures how it is no longer possible
to separate our country's economic well-being
from its national security.
Businesses
today not only have to contend with the brutal
forces of global competition. They also face
criminal and terrorist threats of such magnitude
that they concern even a small business owner
in Ann Arbor.
So
today I want to talk about our economy and the
many security threats coming at it with a speed
and force we have not seen before. Then, I want
to describe how the FBI is responding to these
threats and how we are working to protect the
economy in this global age.
Let
me start with the threats and why they concern
us.
First
and foremost, international terrorism. Al Qaeda
and all of those who subscribe to its brand
of extremism are taking direct aim at our economy
like no other terrorists or criminals before
them. Their goal is to destroy the United States.
Assaulting our economy is a means to that end.
September
11th was the most far-reaching and most costly
attack on our nation's economy. Al Qaeda would
like to repeat that success. Their potential
targets include shopping malls, skyscrapers,
railways, and subways: whatever will cause panic
and disrupt our economy.
The
threats reach beyond our borders. Two months
ago, on August 5th, the Marriott Hotel in nearby
Sterling Heights was having a fairly routine
day. Meanwhile, thousands of miles away, the
Marriott Hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia, was in
a state of emergency after a suicide bomber
had detonated a car packed with explosives.
Why
did a terrorist target the Marriott in Jakarta?
One important reason is that American-owned
businesses are everywhere. They are in Detroit
and Dresden. They are in New York and New Delhi.
Our global presence has created a world of targets.
Preventing
terrorist attacks on America and on American
interests overseas is the FBI's overriding priority.
But the threats to our economy come from far
more than just bullets and bombs. They also
come from criminal industries that rob our nation
of billions of dollars in potential GDP.
Theft
of trade secrets and critical technologies --
what we call economic espionage -- costs our
nation upwards of $250 billion a year. The counterfeiting
of U.S. goods overseas costs at least the same
amount.
Organized
crime has diversified into telemarketing fraud,
stock manipulation, and cyber crimes. And as
you might expect in a global age, organized
crime is now an international force. Criminal
enterprises from countries like China, Japan,
Hungary, and Russia are here in the United States,
siphoning billions of dollars from companies
and consumers.
Today,
however, one does not have to be part of a terrorist
network or a criminal syndicate to do significant
damage to our economy. Thanks to our increasingly
interconnected world, isolated individuals can
now launch attacks that cost billions of dollars
and impact millions of people.
Three
years ago, you may recall, a student from the
Philippines developed a powerful computer virus
called the "Love Bug." A few bits of code, by
themselves, do not pose much of a threat. But
when they are sent across a global electronic
network that connects hundreds of millions of
people, it sets off a worldwide chain reaction.
It is like knocking over a line of dominos,
only without knowing when, where, and how fast
they will fall. By the time the "Love" virus
had run its course, millions of systems had
been disrupted. The total damages worldwide
were estimated at $8 to $10 billion. And today,
those billion-dollar attacks by individuals
are even more common.
Another
example of this new age of high impact crimes
is corporate fraud. The Savings and Loan scandal
of the late 80s and early 90s gave us a taste
of how billions of dollars could be lost through
a series of interconnected crimes across the
financial industry. Corporate fraud scandals
of the past two years have shown us how billions
can be lost by a single company.
Each
month, we open a number of major cases of corporate
fraud that involve manipulations of financial
statements at large, publicly-traded companies.
At last count, the FBI has 16 separate cases
of corporate fraud in which the investors have
lost at least a billion dollars. Not one, but
two of these investigations represent $80 billion
crimes: Enron and Qwest. That is how much investors
lost in each case because of fraud. And that
does not take into account the number of jobs
lost: more than 22,000 at WorldCom and thousands
more at Enron and Tyco.
Eight
months ago, we launched a national toll-free
hotline for reporting tips and information.
We have already logged nearly 2,000 calls. Over
the past three years, I might add, FBI investigations
have led to charges against 176 individuals,
with 83 convictions and guilty pleas.
When
it comes to our nation's financial health, corporate
fraud is a particularly insidious crime. It
erodes our trust in corporate institutions and
the marketplace, thereby undermining the foundation
of our economy.
In
this era of globalization, attacks on our economy
can do more damage, more quickly, than ever
before. These attacks come from within the United
States and from beyond our borders. From organized
networks and from isolated players. From nation-states
and from terrorist and criminal groups tied
to no particular country.
Knowing
what we know now, if you could go back one hundred
years and start designing an agency that could
handle all these threats to our economy, what
would you create?
First,
you would want this agency to have skilled investigators
to address complex, global investigations. Experts
who could determine the explosive content of
a bomb in Baghdad. Agents who could match a
paint chip to nearly every color of car that
has rolled off the assembly lines in Detroit.
Scientists who could peer into the DNA of a
cell to establish guilt or innocence in a homicide
case. Accountants who could analyze financial
records from Dubai, Geneva, and New York.
But
at the same time, you would want this agency
to be able to look at the world through a wide-angle
lens, seeing threats from local, national, and
international perspectives. An agency that could
fight traditional crimes like white collar fraud
and complex threats like terrorism, espionage,
and cyber crime. And an agency with the capability
to fight traditional crimes and emerging global
threats in tandem, recognizing that they are
increasingly interconnected -- from terrorists
who commit credit card frauds to finance their
operations, to organized crime rings that collaborate
with terrorists.
Second,
this agency would have the power to arrest and
investigate like any law enforcement agency.
Yet, it would also operate in the complex world
of intelligence, gathering countless bits of
raw information, making sense of them, and using
them to draw the larger picture.
Third,
this agency would have partnerships across the
world so it could fight crimes and threats to
the economy that increasingly transcend borders.
It would be equally at home working with Chief
Oliver in Detroit as it would be with Bashir
Wali Mohmaund, Director General of the Pakistani
Intelligence Bureau.
This
is the agency needed to defeat the global threats
to our economy. This is the FBI of today. We
are in a position to protect the economy because
we straddle the worlds of both crime and terrorism.
We gather intelligence and act on it. We look
at threats from a broad point of view and use
scientific precision to disable those threats.
Every
day, we work to refine these skills. Every day
we are working to build new skills.
An
example is our intelligence capabilities. Reaching
outside the Bureau, we have brought in a long-time
expert from NSA to head up our intelligence
program. Each of our field offices now has an
intelligence unit that analyzes local threats.
That information is then centralized in Washington
to help paint the national picture. We are enhancing
our ability to take a daily, system-wide snapshot
of our domestic intelligence picture: what we
are collecting, how we are collecting it, and
where any gaps in our intelligence might lie.
That is an important step in enabling us to
better predict and prevent attacks.
Technology
is a key to that success as well, and it is
improving. We have new analytical tools that
help us spot patterns in an endless sea of information.
We are building databases that will integrate
information across all of our cases and programs.
In the near future, our Agents will move to
a completely digital case system for the first
time. We are also recruiting our fair share
of computer wizards. Bill Gates should not get
them all.
The
age of global threats has also propelled the
Bureau into an age of global partnerships.
One
phrase you hear in the FBI these days is "the
blurring of lines." The clear-cut divisions
of responsibility and jurisdiction that once
existed between agencies -- and even between
the United States and other countries -- are
becoming less and less relevant.
How
do you defeat international terrorism, for example,
without the help of countries such as Great
Britain, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Indonesia,
the Philippines, and Kenya?
Let
me give you an example of the type of international
challenge we face today.
In
May, a United States scientific research station
in Antarctica reported to us that their systems
had been hacked into and their data corrupted.
They sought our help.
Normally,
we send our Agents to the scene to investigate.
But no aircraft would be able to land in Antarctica
for another six months because of the sub-freezing
temperatures. But working from a distance, our
investigators were able to trace the source
of the intrusion to a server in a trucking company
outside Pittsburgh. From there, we identified
two Romanian suspects. With the help of the
Romanian authorities, they were arrested outside
Bucharest shortly thereafter.
Today,
cases such as these have become the rule rather
than the exception for the FBI.
That
is why the FBI, like many institutions, has
gone global. In 1940, we established our first
international office - what we call a Legal
Attaché or Legat. Today, we have 45 Legal Attachés
around the world. Not only in such cities as
London, Paris, and Rome. But also in places
like Islamabad, Riyadh, Seoul, Moscow, and Beijing.
Increasingly,
these Legats are helping to stop crime and terror
from being exported to our shores. FBI Agents
today are working with counterparts in places
like Romania and Russia to track down cyber
criminals. They are joining forces with the
Hungarian National Police to tackle organized
crime syndicates. They are gathering important
pieces of intelligence in Iraq and Afghanistan
and hunting down terrorists in concert with
partners in countries like Pakistan, Morocco,
and Indonesia.
In
an age where attacks on our economy come from
the four corners of the globe, from the streets
of Detroit to the shores of Yemen, the FBI must
be able to call upon a full range of capabilities.
We must combine the tools of law enforcement
with the tools of intelligence to identify and
disable threats. We must fight crime even as
we roll up terrorist cells, using the same investigative
capabilities to root out corporate fraud as
we use to catch financiers wiring funds to terrorists.
We must work locally, but think globally. And
we must apply our unique strengths even as we
share them and blend them with those of other
agencies.
This
is the FBI of today, and this is the future
of the FBI. With the support of all of you and
our many partners, we are committed to protecting
this city, protecting our nation, and protecting
our nation's economy in the years to come.
Thanks
for having me today, and God bless.