>> of next, testimony on worldwide security threats with cia director william burns, director of national intelligence admiral haynes,

and fbi director christopher wray. they join other members of the community to talk about the continued importance of support for ukraine, competition with china, border security, artificial intelligence, and efforts to combat the spread of misinformation. held by the senate intelligence committee, this is about two hours, 15 minutes. continued su, the israel-hamas war, competition with china, and efforts to combat the spread of misinformation. this is about two hours and 15 minutes.

>> good afternoon. i would like to call this hearing to order and welcome to our witnesses. good afternoon. i'd like to call this hearing to order and welcome our witnesses, director of national intelligence, admiral haynes, cia director bill burns, fbi director christopher wray, assistant secretary for intelligence and research at the department, director of national security agents the, and defense intelligence agency director lieutenant general jeffrey cruz. thank you for appearing today before the senate intelligence committee's annual worldwide threats hearing. it is important for congress

and for the american people to hear directly from the leaders of our intelligence committee. about the threats and challenges facing the united states. i'd like to first acknowledge the women and men of the u.s. intel community. most americans will never see the work they do behind the scenes. but be assured that the members of this committee know it is important, and we thank you for what you do to keep america safe. the federal environment today is perhaps one of the most challenging we have seen in recent years. we see nations backsliding from democratic institutions. we see authoritarian systems seeking to impose their will upon neighbors while looking to undermine the international system that is a guarantor of security and stability since world war ii. and we see the rise in competition around new technologies.

we must ensure that our institutions, including the ic, evolved to meet these new challenges. which means, in my mind, redefining what we think of as national security. the ic was built to collect measures of hard power. the ships, planes, and military personnel an adversary might have. but the nature of strategic competition today revolves as much about not only traditional military power, but around nontraditional tools. and the ability to harness emerging dual use technologies. for example, advanced communication networks can provide ubiquitous connectivity, but also ubiquitous surveillance. artificial intelligence can accelerate software development, but can also accelerate malicious cyber attacks or the spread of misinformation. biotechnology advancements may

lead one day to curing cancer or eliminating famine. but also may create new pathogens, or even genetically engineered super soldiers. access to rare earth minerals may help to turn who shapes the energy future for the whole world. compounding all of this, the nature of conflict increasingly allows adversaries to project power through asymmetrical means . for example, cyber attacks can disable critical infrastructure from thousands of miles away and are increasingly available to a widening array of actors. inexpensive, unmanned systems, drones can threaten multibillion-dollar ships. we are now even seeing the possibility for adversaries weapon icing space in ways that could be massively destructive, not only to our national security, but to our way of life

, and using tools such as gps and satellite communications. similarly, misinformation and disinformation are increasingly deployed cheaply by an array of adversarial actors. we all know that more than 60 countries, over half the world's population, will boat this year. and i am deeply concerned that democracy, including in the united states, is under greater threat than ever from these foreign adversaries. bad actors like russia are particularly incentivized to interfere, given what is at stake in ukraine. poll after poll increasingly demonstrates that americans are distrustful of traditional sources of information. and while ai provides the tools to spread sophisticated misinformation at an unprecedented speed and scale, admits these threats, our ability to respond, has been

hamstrung. recent litigation pending before the supreme court has had a chilling effect on the voluntary sharing of information related to foreign maligned influence threats between u.s. government agencies and social media companies. so today, i would like each of our witnesses to report on how their agencies and the ic as a whole are prepared and poised to meet these technology-based challenges, and what more needs to be done. and yet, even with this new landscape, more traditional national security challenges remain. terrorist groups still threaten our homeland. over the last couple of years, we've seen authoritarian powers challenging democratic norms, undermining the order, and intimidating their neighbors. the people's republic of china under xi jinping has presented an unprecedented challenge. a techno-authoritarian behemoth

whose economy is intertwined with our own. challenging democratic values, u.s. leadership, and global institutions. often using enormous government subsidies. china has used substantial investment power to lead or attempt to dominate a range of key industries. whether it be communications, social media, or genomics. another authoritarian adversary, russia, has continued its brutal invasion of ukraine. legally using military forces to seize territory. ukrainians have bravely been fending off the russian military for over two years, supported by partners around the world. the russian military has suffered severe losses of equipment. the fact that close to 87% of russia's prewar ground forces have been taken out of the conflict by either being killed

or wounded. and now, as a result of this aggression, putin faces what he has always feared -- a nato more united than ever. that said, this war is an incredible phase with a serious imbalance of equipment. and my fear is the decision thus far by the house of representatives not to even take up legislation that would support ukraine in the fight against putin's aggression has been one of the most shortsighted decisions on a national security issue that i can possibly imagine. without this assistance, ukrainian defenses will be disastrously undermined, as well as global confidence in america's resolve will be undermined. that will be the case weather comes from putin in the europe for the prc and taiwan. as we convene this hearing, we also face continued instability in the middle east. the horrific terrorist attacks

against israel civilians by hamas on october 7th have been followed by an incursion by israel that has caused an estimated 30,000 palestinians their lives. and while iran and its key partners such as hezbollah appear to be deterred from widening the conflict for now, other iranian proxies such as yemen and the militias have attempted to expand their conflict and drag in our country. at the same time, israel's war against hamas has shown the difficulty of using military force alone to eradicate a nonstate actor embedded in a civilian population. especially one that has been so adept at using underground tunnels. and i worry that prime minister netanyahu's conduct in the war threatens to undermine report for israel in the long-term, including in the united dates. this international support has been key to israel's security. as a longtime friend for

israel, this has been of great concern to me for even israel's support in the united states. in addition, we convene at this timely hearing as congress faces a pressing deadline on a key national security program, section 702 of the federal surveillance act, which provides unique and critical foreign intelligence nessus very to protect our national security, enabling the ic to prevent and thwart terrorist attacks, trap foreign spies, uncover economic espionage, protect u.s. troops, expose human and drug trafficking, and disrupt foreign cyber attacks. allowing this program to lapse would critically damage our national security. in closing, we face an increasing array of diversity of challenges, but we also have an opportunity to reinvigorate america's democratic values in the face of autocracies like china and russia.

we cannot take for granted either democracy or that the international system that has kept americans safe for decades. maintaining both requires leadership, conviction, and sacrifice. with that, let me now turn to the vice chairman. >> thank you all for coming here today. i also extend my thanks to the men and women who work underneath you who do the important work of keeping our country's eighth. what i think you could describe is one of those pivotal moments in history where, when life will be like for generations is being determined by what's happening now and in the near future. perhaps faster than any other time in human history. i think we have to remind ourselves if we are going to talk about the specific threats , the what and the why. the bigger outline picture of why things are happening the way they are happening. because i do think they are all interrelated. the end of the cold war, let's

say the late 2000's, we lived in a unipolar world. the united states was basically the only country in the world echo project power anywhere at any time and we were called to do many things in regard to that. and i still think america, by far, economic, culturally, militarily, remains the world's strongest nation and should remain that way for the foreseeable future if we make the right choices. that order that we just described is being challenged. is being challenged by nationstates that frankly don't like the world looks now. i think it benefits america and it hurts them and they want to replace the world that they think is beneficial to america and are democratic allies with an alternative if not at least a replacement, this new order that they seek. the chinese, they believe we are in inevitable decline and that their rise is inevitable

as well. like i said, they don't like the rules of the world as a believer written by america and our allies, so they increasingly are taking it upon themselves at every opportunity to challenge them. at every domain, they steal our ideas so that their companies can do the things that we do, of course, do it cheaper and flood markets with those products. i don't need to tell this panel or the members of this committee and the general public that they are expanding their military capabilities and in the ordinary way to include not simply projecting power in the pacific, but around the world. they manipulate loopholes in our laws and systems in this country. they gain strategic advantage in industries and undermine our industries and return. they are a major part of flooding this country with deadly drugs that are destroying communities and ravaging entire families. and they've also gotten very good at hiring lobbyists and even deputizing the corporate america to come up and lobby us

for things that are beneficial to the chinese goals at the expense of this country long- term. and i think it's important to mention here today, they also happen to control -- anyone who says they don't doesn't know what they are talking about, as every company in china is controlled by the chinese communist party. they happen to control one of the world's best artificial intelligence -- artificial intelligence algorithms. it's the one that's used in this country, and it uses the data of americans to basically read your mind and predict what videos you want to see. the reason why tick-tock is so accessible is because it knows you better than you know yourself. the more you use it, the more it learns. the problem is that tiktok -- the algorithm that powers it is controlled by a company in china that must do whatever the chinese communist party tells it to do. the only way that that algorithm works is that company

in china under the control of the chinese government is given access to that data that tiktok collects. tiktok does not work without that algorithm, and that algorithm is controlled by a company that is controlled by the chinese communist party under the law of china. in the case of putin, he also sees america as decadent and in decline, and he views russia as resilient. they view themselves as a great power, and he believes great power has a right, not just to have their own borders, to control the countries around their borders as buffer state. i think he already has belarus in his mind, and it's one of the reasons why he invades ukraine. in the case of iran, they want to export their shia islamic revolution to the entire middle east. the problem with this is two things standing in their way. the state of israel, and the united states of america. and that is why they have proxy

groups in places like syria and iraq and lebanon and yemen and gaza. who they use for their purposes. one of their purposes is to use these groups to attack americans so we will say, it's not worth the trouble. we need to get out of there. once we leave, they will move on jordan and bahrain and they will make israel an unlivable place. ultimately, their ambitions are the entire region or most of the gulf kingdoms. that's i think it's a mistake to look at the horrific events on october 7th as simply a long- standing israeli-palestinian problem. it is deeply tied to the head of the snake, and the head of the snake is in iran. add to these three countries north korea. they have become increasingly aggressive. in fact, i would argue we are perhaps closer to some possible armed hostilities than we have been in a decade or longer. why? why have they become so aggressive? they feel empowered.

putin is buying things from them and helping them to break from national isolation. i don't know what percentage of their economy is powered by ransomware attacks and cyber hacking, but it is substantial. and then i add to all these that terror is still a threat. iran, as has been publicly reported, is still trying to kill former government officials that live in the united states of america. there are four government officials in this country no longer in office who require 24 hour a basic 30 because iran is trying to kill them. hezbollah, an agent of iran, is also looking for ways to conduct terrorist attacks for israeli and jewish interest. by the way, isis and al qaeda are not out of business. they also want to kill americans.

i can do it in the homeland. they would love that. all of that happening at a time or perhaps the single largest most eventful migration corridor in history is operating right off of our border. so i think it's a mistake sometimes to divide all of these problems geographically, because in some ways, they are all interrelated and key ways. these individual states all have different ambitions, but they share a common goal. the common goal is a world friendlier and better for them, and a world in which america is weakened unless able to act. all these crises begin to interlock in a way that help them. the chinese and russians probably see great benefit -- no, not probably. they see great benefit with what's happening in the middle east. they figure every second and every dollar of our attention, we are not paying attention to what is happening in ukraine and the indo pacific. the chinese see great benefit in ukraine as well, because they see it as, the more time and money we spend there, the less time and focus we have on them. one of the things i know the

chinese hope for is one of two things. a, we deplete ourselves in ukraine or the middle east, or be, we cut and run, and they can go around the world, i told you america is weak. they have a plan for either outcome, which makes it challenging for us as we decide what to do here. so these things all come together, and i think that's really the overarching threat we face, is an understanding that none of these should be viewed in isolation. the goal that russia has, the golden iran has, the role of chinese, they may be different goals. but one of the real developments to threaten the security of our country is that they are increasingly partnering with one another. not a nato alliance, but they are increasingly partnering with each other. that is on selected topics and selected opportunities, because they all share one goal, and that is they want to weaken america, we can our alliance is, we can ending and our

capabilities and our will, because it helps them to achieve the world as they envision it, the world that they want. but it comes at the expense of all that has been built over the last 20 or 30 years. i think that one of the greatest dangers we face is the inability to see how all these things are interconnected. and i think one of the greatest challenges we face is to deal with them as if they are interconnected. i think that what life will be like on this planet for the next generation will be determined very much by what we do or fail to do here over the next two or three years, and certainly with the issues that are here before us today. i look forward to hearing from all of you, and i appreciate you coming. >> director haynes. >> thank you so much. chairman warner, vice chairman rubio, numbers of the committee, thank you so much for the opportunity to be here today alongside my wonderful colleagues to present the annual threat assessment.

before i start, i also want to thank publicly the people of the intelligence community, from the collector, to the analyst, and everybody in between. we are really presenting the results of their labor at this hearing. they worked tirelessly every day to keep our country safe and prosperous, and we are all very proud to represent them here today. i also want to take the opportunity to thank all of you for the extraordinary soup work you are shown. the relationship with oversight committees is quite obviously critically important, and you all work with us on a bipartisan basis, and that is especially inspiring in today's environment. we are grateful for your encouragement and for your wisdom. today, the united states faces an increasingly complex and interconnected threat, as has been noted by the chairman and vice chairman. an environment characterized by really three categories of challenges. the first is an accelerating strategic competition with major authoritarian powers that are actively working to undermine rules-based order in

the open international system. the united states and our partners rely on for trade, commerce, the free flow of information, and accountability to the truth. the second category -- >> i recognize people feel passionately. the american people deserve to hear from the intelligence committee. director haynes, continue. >> the second category is a more unpredictable set of transnational challenges, such as climate change, narcotics trafficking, health security, and cybercrime that often interact with traditional state- based political economic and security challenges. and the third category is regional and localized conflict that have far-reaching, and at times cascading implications

not only for neighboring countries, but also for the world. all three challenges are affected by trends in new and emerging technologies, environmental changes, and economic strain are stoking instability and making it that much more challenging for us to forecast development and their implications. these dynamics are putting unprecedented burdens on the institutions and the relationships that the united states relies on to manage such challenges, perhaps more than ever, frankly, highlight the need for sustained u.s. leadership to un-hold the rules- based order. and i will just touch on these three categories of challenges, starting with strategic competition in china. in an effort to provide some context and highlight some of the intersections, president xi jinping continues to envision china as a leading power on the world stage, and chinese leaders leave it is essential to project power globally in order to be able to resist u.s. pressure. they are convinced that the united states will not tolerate a powerful china.

nevertheless, we seek to ensure china can maintain positive ties to the united states and will likely continue to do so this year as they see stability in our relationship as important to their capacity to attract domestic. boosting the domestic economy is a fundamental priority for presidents xi jinping, yet he appears to be doubling down on a long-term growth strategy that will double down investor pessimism over the near-term. with youth unemployment around 14.9%, no major stimulus ada consumption forthcoming, passive local debts and a property market contraction, 2024 is likely to be another difficult year for china's economy, all of an aging and shrinking population and slowing economic growth. president xi is counting on china's investments in technology, such as advance manufacturing and robotics to spur future growth. yet he is increasingly

concerned about the united states ability to interfere with chinese technological goals. consequently in an effort to protect and promote chinese's capacity to compete technologically, prc leaders modify their approach to economic retaliation against the united states over the last year, imposing at least some tangible costs on u.s. firms, even as they continue to moderate such actions to avoid tomistic costs. chinese leadership is furthermore pursuing a strategy to boost chinese's indigenous, innovation, and technological self-reliance, expand their efforts to acquire, steal, or compel the production of intellectual property and capabilities from others, including the united states and clueing to engage in coercive behavior to control critical supply chains of relevance. in the meantime, president xi is unlikely to solve the

challenges posed by china's economic and endemic corruption, demographic decline and structural economic constraints. over the coming year, tension between these challenges and china's aspirations for greater geopolitical power will probably become all the more apparent. beijing will continue to use its forces to intimidate its neighbors and to shape the region's actions. we expect the pla will field more advanced platforms, deploy new technologies and become more confident in joint operations with a particular role on taiwan and the pacific. the ultimate intent behind unprecedented growth into these areas remain a priority for us in the inc and they're not unrelated to actions of russia. president putin's war of aggression against ukraine remains unevaded.

their struggle to stave off further territorial losses in the past few weeks have exposed the erosion of ukraine's military capabilities with the declining availability of external military aid. the assistance is absolutely critical to ukraine's defense right now, and without that assistance, it is hard to imagine how ukraine will be able to maintain the extremely hard fought advances it has made against the russians, especially given the sustained surge in russian ammunition production. meanwhile, president putin is increasing defense spending in russia, reversing his long standing resistence to devote to the gdp as he continues to rebuild. not only has russia suffered more military losses than at anytime since world war ii, roughly 300,000 casualties and thousands of tanks and armored combat vehicles setting them

back years, it is also precipitated finland and sweden's agreement in nato. putin continues to judge that time is on his side and assumes a larger, better equipped military will better serve sending that message home. he continues to see nato enlargement and western support to ukraine as reinforcing his long held belief that the united states and europe seek to restrict russian power and undermine him. of course in the meantime, russia continues to modernize and fortify it's weapons capabilities even though it maintains the largest and most diverse nuclear weapons stockpile. we remain concerned against the use of a symmetric or

destabilizing weapons against space or in the cyber dome. the relationship between government of russia, china, north korea, and iran, which is evolving as these four countries expand collaboration through a web of bilateral and in some cases trilateral arrangements. this growing cooperation and willingness to exchange aid and military economic, political, and intelligence matters enhances their individual capabilities, enables them to cooperate on competitive actions, assist them to further undermine the rules based order, and gives them each some insulation from international pressure. nerals, we assess these relationships will remain far short of formal alliances or multilateral access. it will likely limit their

cooperation and ensure it advances incrementally absent -- nevertheless the power dynamics are shifting among them, and this is creating new challenges, in particular, russia's need for support in the context of ukraine has forced it to grant some long sought -- as i noted in the beginning, intensifying transnational challenges are interacting with these more traditional threats, for example, with the advent of ai, state and nonstate actors interested in conducting foreign influence operations no longer need to master a language to create potentially believable false content. the threat of actors exploiting these tools is particularly potent as americans go to the poll. we have also seen a massive increase in the number of ransomware attacks globally, which went up roughly 74% in

2023 from what it was in 2022 and u.s. entities were the most heavily targeted. many of these with lock bit remaining the most popular ransomware as a service provider. lock bit was responsible for nearly a quarter of attacks nationwide, leading to a joint effort to take down its online domains. transnational computer organizations and human smuggling operations increasingly extort migrants through human trafficking, and in particular the threat from elicit drugs remains at historic levels with moving large amounts of synthetic opioids such as fentanyl into the united states. most of those deaths have been attributed to elicited fentanyl. and the threat of drugs to the health of evidence americans remains a top priority for the

intelligence community. in the third category, we had multiple regional conflicts, perhaps nowhere more obviously than in the middle east. this crisis in gaza is a stark example of how regional developments have the potential for broader implications. the gaza conflict has enroiled the middle east with humanitarian challenge while pulling in a range of actors. itwe continue to assess that hezbollah and iran do not want to cause an escalation to the conflict that pulls them into a full out war. yet the houthis were willing to do so, becoming one of the most aggressive actors in the conflict and the iranian maligned ma ligsa groups, using the conflict as an opportunity

to pursue their own agenda. moreover, the crisis has galvanized violence by a range of actors from around the world, while it is too early to tell, it's likely that the gaza conflict will have a generational impact on terrorism. both al qaeda and hamas have supported attacks against israeli and u.s. interests, and we have seen how it is inspiring individuals to conduct acts of anti-semitism and islamophobia worldwide. we have many more we might discuss including haiti and sudan and what is happening in the eastern democratic republic of congo and the list goes on. this finally brings me to 702 of the foreign intelligence surveillance act, which will expire on april 19th without congressional action. the intelligence gathered pursuant was essential in preparing this annual threat assessment, and is absolutely fundamental to every aspect of our work as i know you know. 702 provides unique insights

into foreign intelligence targets such as foreign adversaries, organizations, malicious cyber actors, and fentanyl traffickers, and does so at a speed we cannot replace with any other authority. we understand there will be reforms and we support those that bolster the oversite regimes in place while preserving the operational -- thank you for your patience and we look forward to your questions. >> thank you, director haines. let me go for members, and i appreciate it. i know we don't normally do these on monday. i appreciate everybody coming in. we will be conducting a closed session after this open session, so members should hold any questions on a classified nature until after that. and after that chair and vice

chair we will recognize questions on five minutes. directer haines, i want to start with where you ended up on 702. this critical component of law enforcement and the intelligence community expires on april 19th. congress needs to act. 60% of all the information that goes into the president's daily brief is derived from 702 information. foreigner talking to foreigner in terms of bad guys. one of the things that the vice chairman and i are very proud of is we worked very hard on a reform section 702 that we introduced last year, including 16 cosponsors. a great number of members of this committee are part of that reform effort, that again looked at trying to make sure where there had been, perhaps

overzealous use at the fbi for how things were curried have been dramatically constrained. director ray, i want to start my question with you. some have actually said where we went didn't go far enough and they would propose reform that would require agencies to seek a warrant before conducting u.s. person queries. could you explain what would happen on a practical level, both from the ic side and the law enforcement side if that requirement was put in place? >> thank you, mr. chairman. i think the short answer is that a warrant requirement for us to run u.s. person queries would be untenable, and would largely gut the effectiveness of the authority. and i say that for several reasons. first it would blind us to information already lawfully in our possession that we need to be able to review and act on in a very time sensitive way to be able to stop terrorist attacks,

protect a victim from a cyber attack, warn someone who is potentially targeted with assassination or kidnapping. second, in many instances, at the time the query would be run we wouldn't have the probable cause that the query term is associated with an agent of a foreign power. that's what the query tells us. and so, you get that problem. then the third problem is that an awful lot of the places that were using 702 queries are to assist victims, and to prevent potential victims from further attacks whether terrorist attack, cyber attacks, et cetera. so in those instances, you'd never be able to get a warrant requirement, even if there were some kind of delay built into it. that alone for all these threats which are extremely time sensitive, i think the dni correctly used the term agility. that is the key. so i would implore congress not

to take that additional step. i've been very clear that the compliance failures that occurred at the fbi are wholly unacceptable, that's why i put in place a whole host of reforms, covering from training to assistance, to approvals, oversight. and office of internal audit and i could go on and on. those are working. the pfizer court itself commented on the reforms working. the most recent justice report found the reports working 99% compliance, and so i think legislation that ensures those reforms stay in place, but also preserves the agility and utility of the tools what we need to be able to protect the american people. >> i appreciate that, and i do think our reform bill had the notion of trust, but verify, so that we would literally legislate the reforms that had been put in place at a few others, add some of the

additional amicus provisions. we also -- one of the things i think that have been discovered that the majority of the inquiriys that involve americans are actually on victim notification. the very notion of having a warrant to have a victim motefication is contradictory of itself. i think that's been appropriately raised and this is the question around bulk purchase of personal data. i think we need to go much further on, on data protection. i think that has been a failure of this congress to address in its past. director haines, i know you've done a study on this. and my fear is that some of the proposed reforms would actually not limit foreign entities from obtaining this data, but would limit law enforcement. can you talk to the question of bulk data purchases and data

brokers? >> yeah, absolutely. from our perspective, commercially available information as we think about the entire set of what's out there, and what's been discussed in congress in relation to this is just increasingly critical to the intelligence work. in the context of the invasion of ukraine, but there's a whole series of other areas where we're purchasing information, such as commercial threat information that's related to cybersecurity, and things like that. and at the same time, we recognize that commercially available information raises new and important issues related to privacy and civil liberties. this is in large part true because, you know more of our daily lives are connected digitally to the world today than ever before. and an increasing amount of data about individuals and their activities often perceived at not especially sensitive on its own is actually for sale alongside

analytic tools that essentially relying on artificial intelligence can actually raise significant privacy and civil liberties issues which is relevant, which is why we said we recognize this is something that is of concern and we want to make sure we're actually addressing this issue appropriately within the intelligence committee. so we had an external panel look at this question and really asked them how and under what circumstances should we use commercially available information, and reflect on the existing framework. we've published that report and in fact, senator widen asked us to, and as a consequence put that out. and as a intelligence community in our x com as we call it, all our heads put together, we agreed that those recommendations made sense and we have issued guidance for

cataloging information created by ic elements to ensure that our handling of such information to facilitate oversite and we've developed a framework that augments each ic's internal guidelines with general principles and additional guidelines on how ic elements should access, and process, and collect personal information including dealing with categories of information that pose a greater risk of implicating privacy and civil liberty. finally, as the panel recommended, the framework puts out standards and procedures that govern and require periodic -- i think some of what is proposed by the legislative proposals that i've seen require again, for example, a sort of a probable

cause requirement before you can obtain that information. we are not going to have getting cyber threat information commercially a probably cause reason for getting that. what we're trying to do is understand what the vulnerabilities are, and then whatever the commercial information is that we're obtaining we need to treat it in a way that actually mitigates against the response. >> thank you, senator rubio. >> director wray, we know millions of people crossed the u.s. border illegally, and many have been released into the country. have members or people with ties to dangerous gangs like, for example, the prison gang from venezuela, were they among the people that came into this country? >> i don't know if i can speak to the certain gang, but certainly, we've had dangerous individuals enter the united states. >> are we seeing crimes from

people that entered the united states with ties to gangs or other criminal organizations? >> i guess what i would say is this. from an fbi perspective, we're seeing a wide array of dangerous threats that emanate from the border, the fbi alone seized enough fentanyl in the last two years to kill 270 million people. that's just on the fentanyl side. an awful lot of the violent crime in the united states is at the hands of gangs who are themselves involved in the distribution of that fentanyl. >> but you're also seeing and tracking local law enforcement arresting, for example, the assault on the police officers in new york, all the reportings said they had ties to this gang, in particular. but there's no doubt that people that were criminals, and their country of origin have crossed that border and are now in the u.s. committing crimes. >> correct. >> is there now a black market

emerging to sell? we've seen reports selling fake social security cards, fake green cards. have you seen reporting on that? >> certainly there is, on the dark net, for example, there is a significant marketplace for stolen identity. >> what about in the street? >> i think as well, yeah. >> and were there smuggling networks all over the world from a specialize in moving people, from all over the world, including the middle east, central asia, and so forth. are we aware of any of these smuggling organizations are run by, or are conducted by people that have ties, for example, to isis or other terrorist organizations? >> so i want to be a little bit careful how far i can go in an open session. but there is a particular network that has isis ties, that we're very concerned about, and that we've been spending an enormous amount of

effort with our partners investigating. exactly what that network is up to, again, is something of our organization. >> have ties to isis? >> correct. >> i talked about tiktok in the opening. just to lay the groundwork here. tiktok is a u.s. company or headquartered reputedly in america and they have this platform that is fascinating. it's very good. one of the things that powers it is it is powered by an algorithm based on artificial intelligence, that knows what videos you like, and feeds you more and more of them, causing you to go back. that algorithm is not owned by tiktok, it's owned by bytedance, correct? >> that's my understanding. >> the only way that works is

if it has access to the information by tiktok. ultimately, they have to have access to it in order to make the algorithm work, correct? >> right. i think what you're getting to is the key point is that the parent company is, for all intents and purposes beholden to the ccp. >> the reason why i raise that is if bytedance in china is the one that owns the driver that makes tiktok effective, isn't it true that under chinese law, the chinese communist party says that data that you're gaining access to, we want a copy of that data. if they said that to bytedance in the future, bytedance would have to give that to them. >> that's my understanding. >> if they said we want to change that algorithm, so they see videos that help this candidate, or that candidate, bytedance would have to do that. >> that's my understanding. >> they said we want to send

out videos that get americans to get at each other's throat. >> that's my understanding. that kind of influence operation, or the different kinds of influence operations you're describing are extraordinarily difficult to detect, which is part of what makes the national security concerns represented by tiktok so significant. >> thank you. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman, and my thanks to all of you and of course the people you work with every day. i'm going to start with this issue of government purchases of americans data. and former acting cia director mike morel presents something of a different view on this. he has said that the amount of information available for the government to buy would quote knock your socks off. and if it were collected through normal intelligence methods it would be top secret

information kept under lock and key. i believe mr. morel is right. it is the wild west out there in terms of sensitive information on americans and the government can buy it up. unlike normal intelligence collection, there are apparently, virtually no rules here. to take one public example, i want to go to you, general cruz, not to be going after you especially, but you said that the defense intelligence agency has acknowledged it obtains and purchases actual u.s. location data. so my question for you and any other members who would like to add to it, are there any constitutional, or statutory limits on your agency's purchasing of the location information of americans? constitutional or statutory limits, any? >> thank you for the question,

senator widen. i would say yes, there are absolute and very clear guidelines for all of us, and when we purchase the bulk data, the first thing we do is exclude all the data on u.s. territory as the very first step. our teams have been here with the congress talking through our attorney general guidelines, and have been speaking with the concerns that you and others have voiced to us, and i think we have built the processes around our purchasing of commercial data in the use of -- >> respectfully, i didn't hear you mention what i asked about. either constitutional or statutory limits. so why don't you just send that to us for the record, and i will just say, colleagues, this is the reason why congress needs to pass legislation limiting government purchases of americans information, and i also believe the congress needs to pass the bill that i introduced with the vice chairman, senator rubio, making

sure this information isn't bought up by foreign countries either. so let's go now to section 702. and obviously the government needs to have section 702 to focus on foreign threats. it is just essential that it be done without throwing aside the privacy rights of law-abiding americans. there is a workable solution. under a bipartisan proposal that i've been part of, the government wouldn't need a warrant to run searches on americans to see who they're talking to. it's only when the government wants to read the content of those private conversations that a warrant would be required even though there are also many exceptions that we have put into the bill. exceptions for emergencies, consent, cyber attacks, the list goes on. now, according to fbi's data,

the fbi looks at content in less than 2% of its searches on americans. so my question would be for you, director wray. as i've described it, using your data, the data from the fbi, doesn't our warrant requirement only apply to a tiny fraction of the searches the fbi conducts, when you factor in all of these exceptions? i mean, i can go through them, but i think you know them, you know, if there's any imminent danger, no warrant. if there are other dangers, you have to go get the warrant later. but the exception list is very long. so the question is, isn't it correct that what we're talking about in the bipartisan bill here in the senate, and in the house, it would apply to only a small fraction of the searches you're conducting. >> well, as a percentage, it's not a significant percentage. certainly the number is

significant. and i think the fundmental problem with the warrant requirement before you can look at the content is that it's the content that tells us whether or not it's an agent of a foreign power involved. so i think that's part of the problem we have. >> if the witness will pause for a moment. >> all other actions have said an immediate cease-fire -- >> continue. >> i think where i got cut off is that the fundamental threat in the instances where we need to look at the content, the probable cause that's lacking at that point is what's established by seeing the content. that's what tells us, more often than not, that there's an agent of a foreign power involved. that's what enables us to act and go forward. >> so there's an exception for imminent danger.

there's an exception in other emergencies. there is an exception to simply conversations with foreign threats. i'd like you to send to me, so we'll have this for the record, how having those exceptions will in some way obstruct you when you're trying to deal with a tiny number of warrants. this is all about americans believing you bet we have foreign threats. there's no question about it. but we can address those foreign threats in a way that's combatable with the liberty and the values that law-abiding americans hold, and i'm happy to work with you on it. thanks, mr. chairman. >> senator collins. >> thank you. director haines. you understandably spent considerable time talking about the significant threats that russia, china, iran, and north korea pose to