evidence within the statutory timeframe. tell us what you need to make it possible for you to do this and other areas and a more timely fashion because we want to work hand in glove with you to make these things work for our workers and for our economy. >> first of all we do appreciate your letter and she knows 301 petition was filed last fall regarding china's industrial policies and a number of energy areas. there were five different complaints allege. the good news is we were able to successfully resolve the overwhelming majority of those white direct directing gaging and confronting china through our office of ustr but also through jcct. we did initiate consultation through the world trade organization on china we think illegal subsidy of their

projects in the area. we are beginning consultations there. ?apq3

>> please come to order. the meeting today will be testimony from homeland security janet napolitano, on the homeland threat landscape. i look forward to the hearing and i now recognize myself for an opening statement. i want to welcome our returning and new committee members to this, the first hearing of the 112th congress. we welcome back secretary napolitano and director lieda. while she's not here yet, let me take the opportunity to recognize the outstanding service of representative jane harmon who was announced she will be leaving congress to run the woodrow wilson international center for scholars. she's a leader in the congress. no one since september 11, 2001,

or anyone before that has been more knowledgeable or informed or dedicated on intelligence and homeland security issues and her departure is a loss to both sides of the aisle. everyone wishes her well in her new role. let me also express my deepest sympathies to the family of david hillman, the retired cvp officer who was killed by a suicide bomb in kandahar. there's other cvp personnel, michael lacowski, terry cheryl and vernon regis injured in the attack. our thoughts and prayers are with them all. to me, that personifies the level of patriotism that cvp offices demonstrate no matter where they happen to be located. again, perform a tremendous service for our country.

also, there are members of the dh dhs that serve all around the world. >> as we begin the work of the 112th congress, the goal of the committee today is to hear a comprehensive review of the terrorist threats facing our nation. today will be an open, unclassified session and so i would ask the secretary and the director if they could report back to us any member's questions which might require a classified response. the top priority for the committee is to counter the serious and evolving terrorist threats facing our country. let's put our work in context. a number of committee members heard from director lieda in a classified setting against the u.s. and our allies. as we aprech the tenth anniversary of september 11th, we are reminded that terrorists plot to kill americans at home and abroad.

according to attorney general holder, in the last two years alone, there were 126 people indicted for terrorist related activity. there was the times square bomber, the ft. hood terrorist, there was little rock recruiting center shooter, the new york city subway bomber, jihad jane, dozens of individuals in minnesota and so many other plots and cases, portland, oregon, virginia, river kal section of the bronx, dallas, texas, john f. kennedy airport, for example dix, baltimore, we can go through an entire list of cases in the last several years. home grown radicalization is a threat and one we can't ignore. this is shift is a game changer that presents a serious challenge to the law enforcement. attorney general holder says he loses sleep at night thinking of

the young men who were raised in this country who are being radicalized and willing to take up arms against their own nation. senator joe lieberman released a bipartisan committee report examining the events leading up to the terrorist attack at ft. hood. the report concluded that the department of defense should confront the threat of radicalization to violent islamist extremists ex publicistly and directly. i believe the statement is true for the entire government. we must confront this explicitly and directly. i entend to hold a hearing next month. the cost of policies the u.s. has implemented since september 11th, the threat of al qaeda has evolved. it is difficult for al qaeda to launch an attack similar to what happened on september 11th. obviously it's possible, but it's much more difficult for them and they realize that.

they have adapted their strategy and their tactics so they are now recruiting from within the country and looking for people under the radar screen, people living here legally, people who have green cards, people who are citizens, people who have no known terrorist activities. the classic cham example of that would have been zhaozy in new york. small business in lower manhattan, brought back to afghanistan for training and attempted to blow up the new york subways. that's the type of person we have to be looking for. of the good side of that, i suppose, is that al qaeda feels it cannot launch a major attack from the outside. they cannot send the type of fully you trained and skilled terrorists to this country. the down side is these terrorists are people living under the radar screen who its very difficult to detect. on certain issues that i you have a particular interest in, one is the threat of chemical,

biological weapons which i believe to secure the city's program is so important because it's very likely that the next attack against a major city in this country will be launched from the suburbs, similar to what happened in madrid and london. the nightmare scenario were to have that attack involve a dirty bomb which would put that metropolitan area basically off limits besides the massive loss of human life that would result. that's a program the secretary and i discussed with particular interest in pursuing that. no doubt against the threat against the united states remains extremely high. we must remain vigilant. with that, i recognize the distinguished ranking member of the committee, mr. thompson from mississippi for any statement he may have. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman for holding today's hearing. i want to join you in welcoming secretary napolitano and director litton. before we hear the testimony on

the threat posed by terrorism, i want to encourage my colleagues to remember that our words travel far beyond the walls of these four walls. for several weeks we've seen protests against north africa and the middle east. in many ways these protests represent a demand for democracy. yet we know that this is the same region that has been home to some of those who call for jihad. the united states, the world's only remaining superpower, occupies a providencele position. if we take the right action, many of our concerns about a terrorist threat from this region could be significantly reduced. that is why i want to ensure that our examination of the global threat from terrorist activities does not complicate the job being done by the state department and others in this administration. we must recognize that this predominantly muslim area of the world is seeking to embrace

democracy. let us take care that nothing we do or say here today works to undermine those efforts, since september 11, the threat of terrorist attacks has become an undeniable and unsettling feature of american society. however, combating the terrorist threats depends on accurate intelligence and an unbiased assessment of the size, scope, depth and breadth of the strength. the lessons learned from past wars are clear. we cannot defeat an enemy that we do not know. unreliable information, personal opinions or narrow agendas cannot inform our assessment of a threat to our nation. we've seen the results of unreliable intelligence in iraq. our examination of a global threat must look at the vulnerabilities within commerce, transportation, and all aspects

of our modern lives. we must find and eliminate these vulnerabilities. focus on what we can do and keep the nation safe. we can secure an airplane, we can secure the border. we can secure a federal building. we can secure a chemical plant or a nuclear facility. we must not become distracted from our basic mission to keep this nation safe and maintain the security of the people. finally, mr. chairman, i want to bid farewell to my colleague from california. she's demonstrated her commitment to the security of this nation by her service on intelligence committee and this committee. we'll miss her but we wish her happiness in her new undertaking. again, i want i'm just

moving down the street. i'm really not leaving this place. thank you very much. i yield back. >> thank you, jean. >> i remind the members of the committee, that opening statements maybe submitted for the record. we are pleased to have very distinguished witnesses today, probably no two more important in the entire government. secretary napolitano is the third homeland secretary. i have to say on the record, there's not a lot of partisan lines divide us, she meets us

with us more than she wants to. she's always on the phone, both with compliments and criticisms, i never know when i'm going to get a call from the secretary. she's totally dedicated to the job. whatever differences we have are ones of policy. no one can ever question her dedication or ability. similarly, mike lightner has done a truly outstanding job in the capacity. he was in the military, asis united states attorney. dedicated to combating international terrorism and protecting the homeland. >> i would ask you to summarize the testimony. because of the importance of it, i'm not going to cut you off, but i ask you to keep in mind, many members do have questions for you. with that, i now recognize secretary napolitano. secretary napolitano. >> thank you chairman king,

ranking member thompson, members of the committee for the opportunity to appear before you today to testify on the terrorist threat to the united states and what the department of homeland security and the yctc are doing to combat it. i also have to echo the thoughts about representative harmon. you will be missed. you have been totally dedicated to this effort and that effort has been producing results in terms of the safety of the american people. and i also have to echo your thoughts about the amount of congressional oversight of this department. we added up the 111th congress and our department testified over 285 times. i testified over 20 times myself. i think that was the most of any cabinet official. that of course requires a lot of preparation and work.

we provided over 3900 substantive briefings to different committees of the congress. so chairman king, ranking member thompson, you and i have all discussed this, but that amount of oversight does have impacts. i thought i would just mention that. let me turn now to the subject and the very important subject of today's hearing. there is no question that we have made many important strides in securing our country from terrorism since 9/11, but the threat continues to evolve. in some ways, the threat today may be at its most heightened state since the attacks nearly ten years ago. in addition to the core al qaeda group which still represents a threat to the united states despite its diminished capabilities, we now face threats from a number of al qaeda associates that share its violent extremist ideology. among these groups, we are also

seeing an increased emphasis on recruiting americans and west n westerners to carry out attacks. people do not have strong ties to terrorist groups that could possibly tip off the intelligence community. they are also encouraging individuals in the west to carry out their own small scale attacks which require less of the coordination and planning that could raise red flags and lead to an attack's disruption. this means that the threat has evolved in such a way that we have to add to our traditional counterterrorism strategies which in the past have looked at the attack as coming from abroad. the realities of today's threat environment also means that state and local law enforcement officers will more often be in the first position to notice the signs of a planned attack. our focus must be on aiding law enforcement and helping to

provide them with the information and resources they need to secure their own communities from the threats they face. to this end, the department of homeland security is working to counter violent extremism here at home by helping law enforcement use many of the same techniques and strategies that have proven successful in combating violence in american communities. dhs is moving forward in this area based on the recommendations provided to us by the experts on the homeland security advisory council. we are releasing the first iteration of a community oriented policing curriculum forefront line officers which is aimed at helping them counter extremism in their communities. that curriculum is being focus grouped right now down at fletsy. we are sharing case studies about the signs of violent extremism.

we are helping communities share best practices about forming community partnerships. this way, law enforcement across can better know what works and what does not. we are helping law enforcement to reach out to american communities to include them as partners in the effort to combat the presence of violent extremism in our country. americans of all stripes resoundingly reject violence, which we must use as an important tool in countering violent extremism here at home. dhs is also expanding our own outreach to communities and conducting these initiatives in a way consistent with american's rights and liberties. at the same time, we are building a new homeland security architecture that guards against the kinds of threats we are seeing right here at home. there are four major partings of this architecture i want to mention here today. the first are the joint terrorism task forces which are led by the fbi.

these task forces bring together agencies and jurisdictions to jointly investigate terrorism cases. dhs has hundreds of personnel supporting the 104 jttfs across the country. the second is the network of state and locally run fusion centers that bring together agencies and jurisdictions to share information about the threat picture and what it means for our communities. this information sharing and analytical work complements the investigative work done by the jtts. dhs is intents on helping these fusion centers to develop their core capabilities to share and analyze information and to provide state and local law enforcement with useful, actionable information they can use to better protect their own communities. we're supporting fusion centers in many ways. among them, we are providing dhs personnel to work in them and are providing properly cleared

law enforcement personnel with classified threat information. the third is the nationwide suspicious activity reporting initiative or the sar initiative. we're working closely with our partners with theof justice on this project. the sar initiative creates a standard process for law enforcement to identify, document, vet and share reports of suspicious incidents or behaviors associated with specific threats of terrorism. the reports then can be used to identify and share broader trends. to date, the sar initiative is under various stages of implementation at 33 sites that cover two-thirds of the american population. it should be fully implemented across the country by september. we're also working with doj and major law enforcement associations to provide sar training to all front line enforcement officers in the country.

they'll learn how to properly make, vet, share and analyze reports in accordance with best practices and with regard to civil rights and civil liberties. thousands of officers have already been trained and we expect to train virtually all front line officers in the country by this fall. the pilots of the sar program have proven its tremendous value to law enforcement and i believe it will be a critical tool in strengthening the ability of law enforcement to protect our communities from acts of terrorism. the fourth piece of the new homeland security architecture that i want to mention is the, if you see something, say something campaign. this campaign focuses on the positive role americans can play in our own security. it focuses en face ton fosterin public vigilance that we know is critical to community oriented policing. we constantly see examples of why this sort of vigilance is so

important, not just in the attempted times square bombing last may, but also just last month in spokane, washington, when city workers noticed a suspicious backpack and notified police before an mlk day parade. dhs is rolling out this campaign across the country and in many important sectors, including passenger rail, amtrak, sports stadiums, you may have seen it in the stadium at the super bowl. retail stores and more. on top of these four pieces, last month, i also announced changes to the national terrorism advisory system. we are replacing the old system of color coded alerts with a new system that aims to provide more useful information to the public and to those who need it. this new system was developed collaboratively by a bipartisan group and with the consultation of law enforcement.

it reflecting our need to be ready while also promising to tell americans everything we can when new threat information affects them. in addition, to what i have mentioned here today, there are numerous other areas of action i have detailed in my written statement, mr. chairman, and is that that statement be included in the record. thank you again for inviting me to testify today. i look forward to working with this committee and its leadership in this new congress as we continue to make progress in securing our nation. i'll be happy to take your questions once you heard from director leiter. >> thank you, secretary, napolitano. your statement will be made part of the record. i now recognize director mike leiter. >> thank you for having me with secretary napolitano. i hate to sound like a broken record, but i do want to add my personal thanks to congresswoman harmon who has been a leader in

intelligence and humeland security for many years now. she's been a staunch supporter of nctc. the one anecdote i would pass along beyond the laws you have worked on, the oversight you provided, congresswoman harmon spent two and a half hours with a packed room of analysts about 50 or 60 men and women to talk to them about what it was like to be a senior woman in national security. those young analysts came out glowing about their experience. i think it was the personal touch that you provided which helped i think inspire another generation of national security leaders. thank you very much. >> i also want to thank the committee for coming out and visiting nctc. the opportunity to see young analysts and dhs are so entwined in our work on a daily basis was a great opportunity. as chairman king noted, the past two years have highlighted the many dangers associated with a geographically and i had logically diverse group of

terrorists that seek to harm the united states. these threats are not only from outside our borders but from within. we've made enormous strides in reducing the likelihood of complex katz strophic attacks by al qaeda from pakistan, we continue to face threats from many other corners. i'll briefly outline those remarks and ask that my full statement be made part of the record. to begin, i'll touch on the threats that we face. today, al qaeda and its allies in pakistan still pose a threat despite degradation suffered from counterterrorism operations over the past couple of years and accelerated over the past two years. al qaeda, we believe in pakistan is in one of its weakest points in the past decade and it's being forced to react to a reduced safe haven and personnel losses. it rae mains a determine d unit.

at least five disrupted plots in europe during the past five years, including the plot to attack u.s. airliners transiting between the u.k. and united states in addition to disruptsed cells in the u.k., norway and attacks against newspaper offices in denmark demonstrate al qaeda and pakistan's steadfast intentions. we are also concerned about future homeland attacks from one of al qaeda's key allies within the federally tribal areas of the fauta, the group that changed shahzad, the times square bomber from may 1st of last year, as well as the other threat from al qaeda allies within the pakistan and afghanistan region. >> we remain focused on the group behind the mumbai attacks which remains a threat to a

variety of interests in south asia. although lt has not yet conducted attacks in the west, it does have individuals who have been trained and it could pose a threat to the homeland in europe and in addition to destabilizing south asia more broadly. of course, we continue to view yemen as a key base of operations from which al qaeda and the arabian peninsula can and has planned and executed attacks. over the past year, aqap expanded operations against the homeland, including of course the december 2000 nine attack and its following effort to down two u.s. bound cargo planes in october of 2010. in addition to the specific attacks, aq has made several appeals last year to muslims to conduct attacks on their own initiative. specifically, over the past year, aqap released four issues of its magazine, english magazine "inspire" which

attempts to persuade adherence to launch attacks on their own in the west. east africa remains a key operating area for al qaeda associates as well. last year for the first time, they struck outside of somalia killing 74, including one american in uganda and they continue to attract extremists from across the globe including from the united states. now, these were mostly threats from outside the country. as the chairman noted, we are extremely concerned with home grown violent extremists here in the united states. plots disrupted in washington, d.c., oregon, alaska and maryland during the past year were indicative of a common cause rallying independent extremists to attack the homeland. home grown bound extremists have yet to demonstrate a sophisticated ability but as ft. hood demonstrated attacks need not be sophisticated to be quite deadly. although time doesn't permit me to go into all the threats we watch, i would like to highlight, in addition to these

threats, we continue to watch al qaeda in north africa and iraq, hezbollah and other terrorists groups including greek anarchists that sent letter bombs to embassy in rome and elsewhere. in light of this changing dynamic, we have significantly evolved our capabilities to try to reduce the likelihood of a successful attack. most notably as you saw last week or two weeks ago in your visit, nctc established a pursuit group that is designed to track down tactical leads. as i hope you saw, the pursuit group has repeatedly identified and passed to our operational partners key leads which might otherwise have been missed. we're of course also focused on continuing to lead information integration across the u.s. government for counterterrorism purposes. we have always had access to a plethora of databases but in con

junction with dhs, fbi and others, we have developed over the past year information technology architecture which aims to improve our ability to detect this new sort of threat. finally, as this committee knows quite well, counterterrorism efforts are not just about stopping attacks but trying to address the upstream efforts that drive extremism. our focus is undercutting the terrorist narrative and billing safe communities, not nctc operationally, about with our partners like dhs in conjunction with other parts of the u.s. government. sn specifically, we are coordinating interagency partnering along with agencies across the u.s. government. we are helping to support and coordinate the federal government's engagement with american communities where terrorists are already focusing their recruiting efforts. in my view, while government has an important role in implementing these strategies, we along with dhs view the

private sector and community institutions as key in kournlts radicalization. addressing radicalization requires community organizations sensitive to local dynamics and needs. nctc developed a community awareness briefing that conveyed unclassified information about the realities of terrorist recruitment to the homeland on the internet. communities can be mobilized to fight the same fight we are involved in. >> chairman king, thank you very much for having us here today. as you know well, despite the improvements perfection in this endeavor is not possible. we are working every day, 24 hours a day to stop the next attack. we cannot guaranty 100% safety. in this regard, i believe we must continue to foster domestic resilience while highlighting the ultimate futility of al

qaeda's fight. without your leadership and again without ms. harmon's leadership, we would not have made the strides we have. i very much look forward to taking your questions and working with you for years to come. >> thank you. i thank both witnesses for your testimony. secretary, napolitano, two years ago when you made your first statement before this committee, i pointed out the fact you did not use the word terrorist or terrorism once. today you used it more than 60 times. is that a reflection of the changing emphasis of the administration or is it just something that happened? >> i think my initial statement before the committee was one of several speeches and it happened to be the one that didn't use the word terrorism. the plain fact of the matter is that i spend the bulk of my time working on counterterrorism related activities. it can be in the tsa world, the cvp world, it can be with intel

and analysis and working with our fusion centers, the nctc and others. this is a top priority for us. mr. chairman, one area that is really not up to bat today but as a new one and is also one i think we need to watch out for is the whole world of cyber and cyber security and how that is going to interconnect with the terrorists. >> chairman longman is going to be working on that extensively. >> how prepared do you believe the department is ready to deal with the biological radiological weapons? >> that is an extraordinarily difficult area in the sense that we are still working at the science and technology level on things like detection mechanisms that are effective in all areas. mr. chairman, i think i would

say that we are more prepared now than we were two years ago, and two years ago, we were more prepared than two years before then, but there is still much work to be done. that's why we have funded and are continuing to fund pilots of different types with laboratories and universities and actually private sector entities around the country. particularly, in the cbrn arena. that's why those things are so important. security cities is an example of that. >> director leiter, with the splintering, the development of these various splinter groups how much control do you see coming from al qaeda central to those groups? if there's not control, is that good or bad? >> mr. chairman, i think there remains certainly ideological inspiration from al qaeda senior leadership, but less and less operational control. i think that's in large part due to the offensive pressure we're applying to al qaeda in

pakistan. i think to some extent that's quite good. it reduces the likelihood again of a large scale organized attack. i think the negative aspects of it is it allows the franchises to innovate on its own. in the case of anwar al awlaki, they've been successful at being innovators that make our jobs more challenging. >> not to be rating them, but when you say that allackey is at least a threat today as bin laden? >> i consider al qaeda and the arabian peninsula with al awlaki, probably the more significant risk to the u.s. homeland. i'm hess tanltsz to rank them but they're certainly up there. >> would al awlaki be the one who has been the most successful as far as radicalizing through the internet? >> i think al awlaki certainly is the most well known english

speaking idealogue speaking to folks in the homeland. i think al awlaki does have the greatest audience in the internet so in that sense he's the most important. >> how effective do you find inspire? >> it's a difficult question, mr. chairman. we obviously look at "inspire" it's spiffy, great graphics, in some sense speaks to individuals who are likely to be radicalized. there's very little new information in "inspire." to that extent, it is not, i don't think, something revolutionary and new in the substance, but in the way it conveys the message, it is useful and we think it is attractive to english speakers. >> how concerned are you about the possibility of messages being sent through "inspire?" >> i would take that more in a aclassified setting.

i think "inspire" is attempting not to build a secret network between aqap between folks in english speaking countries. it's more looking to inspire them to act on their own. >> secretary napolitano, in your state of the homeland security speech, you mentioned deblock and the president made reference to it in the state of the union speech. we don't have the details of it. can you give us any indication of when it will be formally unveiled or what the specific details of deblock will be? >> i don't know the exact date. we will find that for you, mr. chairman. i know the president is intent on working with the congress to set aside the deblock for public safety. it's something that both our department and the department of justice advocated very strongly within the administration, but i don't know the exact date when they're going to approach the congress about the legislative change. >> i look forward to working

with you and the administration on that. >> indeed. >> recognize the ranking member, mr. thompson. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman, again, for this very timely hearing. secretary napolitano, in your testimony, you went to great lengths to describe the evolving threat on the homeland relative to home grown terrorists. law enforcement agencies have also talked about neo-nazis, environmental extremists and anti tax groups as more previous lants than al qaeda-inspired terrorist organizations. have you all looked at this to see if that in fact is the truth? >> representative thompson, not in that sense. i mean, we don't have like a score card. the plain fact of the matter is is that from a law enforcement, terrorist prevention perspective, we have to prepare law enforcement and communities for both types of acts.

>> mr. leiter, given what has occurred in the last two years here in this country, have you been able to analyze what that threat looks like? >> congressman, by law, the national counterterrorism center only looks at international terrorism, so my analysts do not look at some of the groups that you described in your question to the secretary. >> but you do communicate to the people, am i correct? on the domestic side? >> we generally work through the department of homeland security and the fbi, the direct responsibility. >> madam secretary, can you help me with that? >> in what sense? >> in terms of individuals who deem a threat to the homeland. is it -- i'm trying to look at

it in a broader sense. sometime we tend to narrow the focus, but i think what we have to do in looking at the threat is look at the entire threat. can you share with the committee some of those other threats that you have deemed necessary to list? >> well, what we are focused on is helping law enforcement and communities look for the tactics, the techniques, the behaviors that would indicate that a violent act, terrorist act is impending. now, some of those are inspired by islamist groups, al qaeda and so forth. others can be inspired by, like, anti government groups, flying a plane into the irs building, for example. so the jtts are the ones on

which we have members who, case by case, analyze what was the motivation of a particular act or at a particular time. and i would say representative thompson, that we see a variety of different types of motivations in addition to the islamist motivation that we're here talking about right now. >> just for the sake of the record, give us some of those varieties, when you say varieties. >> well, they can be anti-federal government type of motivation. i mentioned the individual who flew a plane in the irs building. tim mcveigh, i worked on the oklahoma city bombing case, would be another great -- i don't want to say great example, another example of that sort of motivation. it can be a variety of other

things, as mike indicated, the fbi works directly on those cases, has operational lead for their investigations. >> mr. leiter, let's take an international situation. the incident that occurred in october with the printer bomb. were you involved in that? >> yes, we were. >> can you share with the committee, if you can, whether or not security gaps like that are being reviewed going forward so that and others hopefully will be closed? >> congressman, i can and then i'll also defer again to secretary napolitano who has broad responsibilities for cargo. before that event, we were obviously concerned with the possibility of using cargo in a terrorist attack. you only have to look back at

the lockerbie bombing to know this is something that could occur. since that event, we have worked at nctc and the intelligence committee to find new ways to support dhs to sharpen our ability to find individuals or shippers who we consider high risk, so those packages can be put through further screening. i think as secretary napolitano will echo, it is a challenge. >> yes, representative thompson, even prior to october, we had assembled an international initiative similar to what we've been doing on passenger air travel with respect to cargo. it involves the world customs organization, the international aviation civil organization, and the international maritime organization. what we are doing is working to have international standards,

requirements and also working with the private sector who are the main air shippers, this of course was an air shipment. we are now koreaning o inin ini 100% which is something we had not had the capability of doing until the last year, so we continue to work across the world, across different modes of transportation, across different types of cargo, across different types of personnel who handle that cargo to secure the entire supply chain. >> congressman, if i could just add one point. i think this is an area where the cooperation between dhs and nctc has really improved and been stellar over the past year, not just with cargo, but with screening personnel. the movement of information as we see a threat in the intelligence stream about a country or a name or a region, and where we think an attack

might be coming to, that movement -- that information is moving in realtime to dhs, so dhs can rapidly adjust their protocol. that's happening on an hourly basis. >> gentleman from texas, mr. mccall. >> thank you, madam secretary, director leiter. november 2009, i attended the ft. hood memorial service. just north of my district in texas, and saw the 13 combat boots, the rifles, talked to the soldiers who had been shot that day. they described how the major hussain said allieu akbar. i think it's the deadliest attack we had since 9/11. since that time, the senate has issued a report called the

ticking time bomb. it talks about the joint terrorism task force in san diego had information about major hussain's contacts. and that's al awlaki. unfortunately that information was not shared with the commander at ft. hood who i talked to and i said wouldn't you have liked to have known that. when he was quoted as saying you know 0 who that is, that's our boy. can you tell and the american people what happened that day and what major hassan's connections are to the terrorist community? >> congressman, to begin, i would just say at nctc, within about 48 hours of that attack, we designated that a terrorist attack in what we call the worldwide incident trafficking

system. so from our perspective, as soon as we had the initial indication of the motivation, we counted it as a terrorist attack. it can always change back. in this case, it hasn't. with respect to his connection with awlaki and aqap, and i want to be very careful here, because obviously this is still a case for prosecution, but we've side publicly that it looks to us like inspiration rather than direction. finally, your question about what happened i want to be careful not to speak for either director mueller or the department of defense, i think they said quite clearly at the time that information was not shared effectively between the fbi and the department of defense. they have taken remedial action to address some of that. i know on -- for nctc's part, since then we have worked with the fbi to produce improved training materials and training for field offices, so there really is no question for the next special agent when he's investigating a case that he will recognize the telltale signs of radicalization and

moving towards mobilization and not just convey that to the department of defense, but probably be more aggressive in following that up. >> i mean, i think the american people, it's hard to understa understand -- and we can talk about infiltration of the military and what the threat is there, but it's hard for the average citizen to understand how the fbi could have this kind of information, that you have a major -- the biggest installation in the united states, in contact with one of the biggest threats to the security of the united states, and yet that information is not shared at all. i think that's a major breakdown. and i hope -- and i know that's not totally within your purview and your jurisdiction, but i sure hope we can fix that problem. >> congressman, i'll say, again, i do know that the department of defense and fbi now have a much tighter relationship. so that information is shared. during the investigation, it was shared with a department of defense agent on the jttf, but not shared back to the army. we have also since then expanded nctc's access to some of that granular information that was

the basis for the investigation. so nctc can help to fill those gaps and make sure the information is properly shared. >> madame secretary, you were quoted in "the hill" newspaper as saying that respect to the border, it's inaccurate to state that the border's out of control. we had a briefing with border patrol. they said about 44% of the border is under operational control. as you well know, the killings, the violence going on, coming from arizona, me coming from texas, i would say my constituents do view it as an out-of-control state. the special interest aliens have increased by 33%. those are people coming from countries that may have potentially terrorist influences. there's recently a potential terrorist that was found in the trunk of a car, paid a mexican cartel drug dealer $5,000 to sneak across the border.