i do not yet believe that we are resourced adequately in law enforcement to address that aspect of our cyberviability and i hear from companies in all sorts of industries that when they can get for instance the fbi's attention, they are very

impressed with the capabilities that are involved but it's very rare that you can turn over the case of intellectual property theft to the f. the eye and say, go. they simply don't have the staff. they simply don't have the resources. as much is this as this part of law enforcement has grown, so i would like to ask that you participate in discussions that we are going to be having around the cybersecurity legislation about how we should better organize our cyberresources. los criminal and civil because a lot of what gets done is done by civil. a lot of the cleanup on the net of cricket web sites can be done through civil proceedings but it's a law-enforcement function because we are getting rid of very bad actors on the net who are attacking american businesses and the american

economy. that was a little bit more of a speech than a question but what i would like to do is invite you, based on your experience participate in that discussion. i don't know if we need the equivalent of a cyberdta or etf or the equivalent of a cyberus to death a different way of organizing law-enforcement activity or organized crime strike force set up many years ago. there are a brady of different structures but i don't think the private sector is getting some support it needs from law enforcement because of its lack of resource and there's an awful lot of money going out the door. we are standing by one of the biggest robberies in history and i would love to have your support and pursuing that concern. >> senator, first of all i agree with your statement of the scope of the problem. it is severe. it is endemic, and it is a transfer of wealth as you put it. we work with the fbi, secret

service and i.c.e. all have cybersecurity and do criminal cases in that area. as well as some others. so i would be happy to participate as -- i think in the context of comprehensively looking at the protection of of the country in cyberand how we organize our law enforcement resources to make sure particularly the fbi has what it needs to handle some of this work is a good question and i would be happy to participate. >> thank you. madam secretary as you know senators from both sides of the aisle have had to come enduring this hearing because most of us have three different committee meetings going on. you don't get that luxury and i do want to applaud you one for keeping your answers as reef and to the point and i might say as accurate as you have, which is typical of your appearance and i appreciate that are gone i'm going to have to leave. i would just note that senator

lee will go next. i will turn the gavel over to senator coons. i am doing this so that we are trying to keep some of our hairlines. [laughter] sorry about that. but senator coons has worked very very hard on the subject and i've asked him to chair as we go, we will go to senator lead next but i do appreciate what you said and i would add, and i think i can speak or senator grassley and others, we will want to keep in touch with you and the director of the secret service as this whole matter goes on, not just what has happened now, what is happening in the future. and what will happen in the future. we will do it because our obvious oversight has a need to do it for the protection that will keep people in this case in a presidential election year, both the president and the

republican nominee. but also because we have so many good men and women in the secret service that i hope will be able to demonstrate there their thera few bad apples that are weeded out so that the others who are extraordinarily dedicated and highly trained professionals can continue with the work they do. >> absolutely. senator thank you for that and please go ahead. >> thank you secretary napolitano for joining us. in march of this year john cowan who i believe is your principle deputy coordinator for counterterrorism testified before a house subcommittee that the department should have a biometric exit system designed and ready to go, at least ready to roll out and describe some sometime within the next few weeks in the coming weeks. in your written testimony today, believe you said that a biometric exit system should be

ready for deployment and use within four years. how confident are you about that timeframe? >> what we are landing and senator, the actual plan is in final clearance with omb so it should be out shortly. but, given our ability now to do enhanced biographic exits, immediately moving and deploying that and then we will move and use that as the platform for adding on the biometric, but that plan is done from our standpoint. we are just working through the final and bolts with omb. >> why does it take so long to get it deployed? is it just the development of the technology? in other words, the fact that it takes four years to get it going. >> well, it's the scope of the issue. we have so many ways that people can exit the united states. we are very different from other countries in that regard, and

manpower and other resources, yes. >> what kind of, what kind of an impact do you think this will have on visa overstays once you get them deployed? >> i think it will help us, although we have already used are enhanced biographic to go backwards to identify overstays and to try our ties those that we want i.c.e. to really focus on finding and removing. >> can you give us any sort of brief specific brief on the thumbnail sketch on how the system will work? >> i would prefer to do that in a classified setting, senator and we would be able to do that. >> understood, understood. now on a different topic, last year, john morton, the director of u.s. customs, immigration and customs enforcement issued a couple of ment aranda that between them set out -- memoranda that would govern the

use of -- the exercise of prosecutorial discretion within the i.c.e., and within that memorandum, there were a number of considerations outlining which ended up mirroring to a significant degree the same factors that were outlined in the d.r.e.a.m. act, the same version of the d.r.e.a.m. act that the senate refused to pass four years ago. it came up for a vote and didn't get the necessary votes to pass. while those factors that the agents were instructed to consider in exercising prosecutorial discretion included the alien presence in the united states which merit a factor and section 3, b1 and and and a the d.r.e.a.m. act. the circumstances of the alien's arrival into the united states particularly if it happened at a time when the alien was a young child which mirrors what can be

found in iiib, one via the d.r.e.a.m. act. mirroring the factor one be a the d.r.e.a.m. act, the aliens pursuit of education in the united states with particular consideration. given to those who have graduated from a u.s. high school or successfully pursued or are pursuing college or advanced degrees at a legitimate institution of higher education in the united states. that of course mirrors section three b-1e of the d.r.e.a.m. act. the aliens h. would be consideration for minors and whether the alien has served in the military of the united states mirroring section 5a, 1b2 of the d.r.e.a.m. act. so given these prosecutorial discretion standards, which match up somewhat closely to the same factors put forth in the d.r.e.a.m. act and given the fact that the d.r.e.a.m. act was not passed into law, what assurances can you give us or what assurances can i get to my

constituents when they approach me and suggest perhaps it might be an effort underway to backdoor the same factors to regulatory channels that couldn't be passed through congress? >> senator, first for me begin by saying, had i worked in this field for decades now, we strongly need overall reform and strongly support the d.r.e.a.m. act and the legislative enactment. you are right, it failed by four or five votes to get closure here. that being said, what we have capacity or only jurisdiction to do is to administratively closed the case. that doesn't give the person involved any kind of a green card or anything of that sort. it strictly means that the case is effectively suspended, and they can remain in the united states. that is very different from the

d.r.e.a.m. act, which would allow an actual pathway to citizenship and that is one of the things i think we should be doing is really focusing on our enforcement resources on those who are real risks to the public safety of the united states and those who meet the standards of the d.r.e.a.m. act if they really meet those standards are not. >> so the overlap between them, your response to that is essentially that these are two different layers of analysis. one in the d.r.e.a.m. act would be focusing on a pathway towards citizenship. this is focused on how to allocate scarce prosecutorial and law enforcement resources. >> i think that is an accurate statement. >> okay, and you are not concerned are convinced that these would spill over into something larger? >> we are in the process of looking at all of the cases on the immigration docket, to see

which if any should be administrative the closed. but closed. those that need meet the criteria you just named are those that we would consider for administrative closure. >> finally, is there any chance that in my lifetime we will see passengers before boarding a plane don't have to remove their shoes before going through tsa? >> senator, we are looking at everything from what is the threat in and what is the risk, and we have already made changes for passengers over the age of 75 and children under the age of 12, were accept for on a random basis, we always have to have some unpredictability in our system. they can be expedited through the lines without their shoes being taken off. from a technology standpoint, that technology still does not exist that allows us to easily identified nonmetallic material in shoes or liquids which is why we are doing some of the things

we are doing and it's all based on the intelligence we have about the terrorist threats we faced. >> itc my time is up's fired. thank you and chairman. >> senator franken. >> thank you mr. chairman. madam secretary, this week the house of representatives are considering several cybersecurity proposals but this morning i want to talk with you about the cybersecurity proposals that are here and the senate. because while there has been a lot of talk about privacy and civil liberties implications of the house proposals and rightly so, fewer people are talking about the two bills here in the senate. the fact is that, as they are currently drafted, both of the cybersecurity proposals here in the senate present very serious threats to our privacy and civil

liberties. both bills allow companies emir unfettered ability to monitor e-mails and files of their customers. both may allow companies to share that information directly with the military. both bills generally allow the federal governments to government's to freely share that information with law enforcement and both bills immunize companies against grossly negligent and knowing violations of the few privacy protections that apply to this process. in doing all of this, both of these bills sweep aside decades of privacy laws many of which this committee wrote in many cases with chairman leahy at the helm. i'm talking about the wiretap act, the historic communications act and the pen register

statute. now i have in working together with senator durbin, with the sponsors of the cybersecurity act of 2012. they have been working with us and i sincerely hope that we can fix these problems before the bill even gets to the floor. i think it's really important that everyone know that we have civil liberty problems, not just in the house, and the senate bills. i am saying all of this to you madam secretary because the administration's cybersecurity proposal from last may does not have many of these problems. it is in several ways more protective of our privacy than either proposal here in the senate and i want to use the remaining time i have here to tease out those differences and frankly just make the case that we should pay attention to what the up administration in its proposals.

first of all madam secretary, as i mentioned both the cybersecurity act and the secure i.d. act would allow the military to be an initial recipient of any information being shared by a private company but it is my understanding that it is the official position of this administration that a civilian entity, not a military entity, should always be the initial recipient of cybersecurity data from the private sector. can you explain why this is the administration's position? bibi? bibi at administration's position mirrors how we have actually organized our -- cyberlegislation in the way we have organized ourselves is that dod has responsibility for military networks but dhs has responsibility for civilian and the intersection with the private sector. we both use the technology resources of the nsa, but we use

them under different authorities and with more restrictions, particularly on the privacy side than you would in an international military sort of contacts. so, the position that we have is to make sure that the statute mirrors what actually is happening on the ground. >> thank you. second madam secretary both the bills in the senate give private companies a new authority to freely monitor the communications and files on their systems, many of which would be private. these bills create this new sweeping authority despite existing provisions in the wiretap act that allows companies to perform monitoring to protect their systems. the administration's proposal does not contain that broad authority. can you tell us why it does not? >> what we are looking for and

part of the protection of critical infrastructure, we are looking for that code. we are looking for the fact that the attack, the methodology used, the code or signatures that were employed so that we can then check and see whether that is being done elsewhere and also mitigate and also communicate with other companies about this type of attack. we are not looking at content. we are looking at the how. >> grade, thank you. why does the administration -- let me back up. the administration's proposal only allows the federal cybersecurity center to share the information it receives from private companies with law enforcement authorities if the

information constitutes actual evidence of a crime. in comparison, one of the senate bills allows disclosure of information received by the federal government to law enforcement if it quote appears to relate to the crime. why does the administration have a heightened standard in disclosure to law enforcement? was this done to protect civil liberties? >> senator, i don't know the reason for the difference in the language between those two things. i think what those are getting at is use of information for a non-law-enforcement purpose would not be immunized or would not be permitted. but i would have to follow up with you on why the difference between the two phrases. >> okay, thank you. i want to thank you madam secretary. before i finish, i do want to say that i agree with my colleagues who say that we need

to do something about cybersecurity. there is no question about that. i just think we need to get the legislation right such that the bill does not unnecessarily sacrificed civil liberties and i thank you so much for your service and for being here and for your answers. >> thank you. >> thank you senator franken. senator sessions. >> thank you mr. chairman. your meteorite meteor at rice to the chairmanship is like senator franken's. >> mine was actually -- [laughter] that is neither here nor there. for the purposes of this hearing we have the secretary and i don't think we should squabble over that. >> we are glad to have both of you senators here.

met them chairman, this is homeland security is a big operation. i guess it's the third-largest personnel operation are second in our government. >> i think it's the third largest, yes or. >> over 200,000 people. it's cobbled together and i've got to tell you i was uneasy about that bill. as i recall the democrats said we should consolidate and then he finally said yes and we passed it without a whole of consideration. so you have a lot of agents. you have got the coast guard, the secret service, tsa, all sorts of agencies with different histories, cultures and so i know the challenge is hard. i just really believe -- i don't think that it completely is together yet. do you agree that there are still cultural and bureaucratic efficiencies that could be

obtained if focused on today? >> senator, we operate under the caption one dhs and we continue to excavate differences and systems and cultures and protocols and for seizures. there has been a lot accomplished over the past nine years by my two predecessors and over the past three plus years now that i have been secretary, but given the size and scope of the merger that is underway, it does take time. the department of defense took a most accounts 40 years to really become unified in the department. my goal is to substantially beat that record. >> well, i think so, and i would say every dollar the taxpayers send us, they have a right to expect it is wisely spent and when we have duplications, mismanagement and complication

within the departments and agencies adjust these to be confronted and strong leadership. i just throw that out. i would suggest that you focus on that. senator kyl, i believe, raised a question on chicago and their refusal to honor detainer's placed on prisoners which i find cook county's policy at least is not acceptable. when you have written letters about it, hope you will follow through on it. they are i believe on track to obtain secure communities monies and programs through 2013 but alabama is pursued by this administration for trying to have laws that help america enforce these immigration laws, not block the enforcement of immigration law. had it secured community amenities -- money stopped or not continued for counties that have asked for it. can you tell us where you stand

on that and when can alabama expect that they would be able to have their secured funding? >> well, as i shared with senator kyl, i believe the cook county ordinances unwise. it's overbroad. we are evaluating all options there. we have been trying to work with the county to see if there is a resolution. with respect to alabama, given the litigation and what was enjoined and not enjoined, what we did was simply to stop the expansion of secure communities to the final -- i think we have covered now 75% of the foreign-born population so it's the final quarter. but our plan senator is to complete the implementation of secure communities nationwide by the end of 2013.

>> and that would include alabama? >> that would include alabama. >> well it is a problem for me and maybe i will file some written questions to make sure we are clear about where that is heading. i am uneasy about it. it seems to me the state was targeted to cut their law was not popular with the department. with the president, whereas we have not taken to date in a firm action against cook county which clearly endangers i think the people of cook county in the country. but with regard to faith visa exit program, this is a plan that was designed and required by law in 1996. i have observed it and seen it since i have been in the senate, the difficulties that have

occurred. we have the visa waiver plan up and working and the entry program up and working. i do not believe it's that difficult to implement an exit program. i have said that when the bush of was in office and i will say it again. i think reports from the government accountability office, the gal, validates that and i hope that we can make some progress on it. first, you indicated earlier that you have a biography plan that has some capabilities but is it not true that biometric, fingerprint, dna or some other such system, fingerprint clearly being the most logical from my perspective, that a fingerprint or other biometric exit system is what is needed to have the

system up and working. otherwise somebody could walk out with a card that has their name on it and the biographical data but there would be no way to verify the person holding that card is the person that actually gets exiting. >> senator let me offer to have our staff, and brief you personally with enhanced biographic. it's not simply a card that i will make sure that you get briefed on that. with a biometric, the issue is going to be whether the congress wants to appropriate the money for whatever margin is left after the enhanced biographic. our plan and our plan to use enhanced biographic as a platform for that is in final clearance and we will share that with you as well. >> i had a long, a year or more, intense discussion on the

subject with secretary ridge and met with international stakeholders and it went on for months and months and months. i insisted the only system that really works based on your experience as a federal and state prosecutor is i have had the same experience. the fingerprints and every police officers file, it's the fingerprints that are taken when a person is arrested somewhere in the united states and the fingerprint is the basic basis for identifying fugitives. so when he left, after refusing to commit, he left one bit of advice. he said we should have a biographic system and it -- and a biometric system should be the fingerprint. and i do believe that is the system that works, so is there any plan not to have that?

>> no. what we are planning is to go in phases. the first phase is the enhanced biographic which we are a long way towards implementing right now and then use that as a platform for the biometric. >> well i would just say that come in my view it should've been the biometric all along. you should have been working on that and we would have had that done a lot sooner than four years and otherwise when you indicate you are not going to look for people who have overstayed, then basically you are saying we don't intend to take any efforts to enforce really an entry/exit system in the united states. and that allows the countries that are approved for visa waiver i think to have an unfair, unlimited entry into the united states. >> senator we have gone back and looked at visa overstays and we

have racked and stacked them according to biographic information we have about the overstays. turning that information over to i.c.e. to prioritize its enforcement operations. and that work is already underway. the problem, or the logistical -- the reason why there is no diametric system is quite frankly it is not easy. they abbas been designed for entry. their architecture has never been designed for exit, so that is an issue. and then cost and manpower issues. >> maybe a briefing from staff would be helpful to to me. >> be happy to provide that. >> thank you mr. chairman. >> thank you senator sessions. senator blumenthal. >> thank you and thank you med secretary for your service and your very steadfast and

effective work on behalf of our national security and the secret service. i think all of the share your view that they do, to use your word, marvelous job of protecting the president and many other law enforcement. i want to follow up on a line of questioning that senator graham began in terms of looking forward to the kinds of systems, maybe analogizing the secret service to the military, that are used in that context and i wonder if you have given any thought to additional steps that can be taken to safeguard against but also monitor the kinds of abuses that obviously occurred or allegedly occurred? >> we are intense senator on doing a thorough examination of how we do it now and what we need to do to improve, to make sure this never happens again. so all those kinds of options are on the table.

>> thank you. switching to a different subject, i was recently approached by a couple, a same-sex couple who were married under connecticut law. one of them is a citizen of the united states. the other is not, and i wrote to you and i want to thank you for your assistance in connection with their application for a green card to be help. you are probably familiar with the problems that arise under the circumstances, but eventually we need a solution like the uniting families in america act that can provide some longer-term solution to this problem.

but i wonder whether we can establish a policy of not deporting or in other words holding green cards for same-sex couples, one of whom is here. the other seeking a green card. >> senator, legal advice we have been given is that unless and until the law is overturned, by the court, and i'm talking as to doma, which we have, the department of justice have urged to be done, that until that happens, we cannot unilaterally give green cards based on that. what we have done however is, when we have same-sex couples, if they fall within the other criteria of our priority memo, our press to get tory memo, that allows us to intercede with some of the other actions.

>> i am a strong supporter, as are other members of this committee, of repealing doma, the respect for marriage act which would provide a comprehensive solution. i have been approached by other similar couples who have enormous contributions to make in this country, and whose families are every bit deserving of the kind of reg ignition that we afford to heterosexual couples. so i hope that i can work with you in this area of trying to devise solutions in the meantime that will enable those couples to continue to be families here as they deserved. thank you. >> absolutely. >> thank you med secretary. thank you mr. chairman. >> thank you senator blumenthal. senator durbin. >> maddon secretary. thank you. i've been trying to juggle --

i would like to ask you a few questions about the d.r.e.a.m. act which you and i have talked about from time to time. senator schumer and i held a hearing on the controversial arizona law and i've talked about seven arizona residents who would qualify for the d.r.e.a.m. act but also would be the targets of the arizona law. that is beyond reasonable suspicion that they are undocumented. they have stated it publicly. all of them are either attending college or graduate of arizona state university with a degree in engineering as an example. you are asked by a bipartisan group of center shares to suspend the d.r.e.a.m. act students and in response you in the present have established a new deportation policy. under this policy as i understand it, it's a high priority to deport those who have committed serious crimes or are a threat to the public while a low priority to individuals who have been in the united states since childhood like those were eligible than the d.r.e.a.m. act. last night we received updated

statistics are requested on review of deportation with the dhs conducting under policy. there are currently more than 300,000 deportation cases pending. of these i.c.e. is reviewed 219,554. approximately 16,544 cases, 7.5%, been identified as eligible for administrative closure. of these cases, 2007 or 1.2% of actually been closed. please explain the difference between a 7.5% of deportation cases eligible to be closed and the 1.2% of cases actually closed. wind you expect the percentage of cases, or do you expect it to rise and wind you expect the review to be complete? >> right. i think the difference is primarily attributable to time. we have been doing this case-by-case review. we just started the pilots right

after christmas and we have moved now to go across the country since then. so that is part of it and part of it is that as we offer administrative closure, oftentimes the recipient will ask for time to think about it. so i think that will catch up and i think we will be closed with the case review by the end of the calendar year and then we will see what the numbers show. >> i have another conversation about work authorization and this to me is very basic issue which we should discuss in this hearing. historically, by interpretation of the department and under previous president george w. bush coming cases where there was deferred action, these individuals were allowed to work, given a work authorization. now under the new policy these individuals are offered administrative closure, and your department has taken a position

that individuals whose cases are administrative we close cannot apply for work authorization. this creates a real problem. you are saying to qualified individuals they will not be deported but they can't work to support themselves and their families. many are going to end up in the underground economy which puts them at risk of exploitation and undercuts the labour market. only a few thousand people who have had their deportations halted so far so i can imagine this will have any significant impact on employment in america. i ask you then why we are not at least making certain that if we have deferred action or administrative closure that a person is allowed to work? >> first, just to make sure we have a common understanding of the record, we have continued deferred actions and do that before cases get into the administrative system. the administrative closure are cases that are already on the

docket, and most of which are on a non-detained docket at a certain number are on the detained docket. those are the ones we are going through in addition to evaluating new cases as they come and, to see that they meet the priorities that we have set so with respect to the work authorization, we are going back now in light of your concerns, in light of the fact that we now have some numbers to look at is supposed to when we started this whole process, to see if we should make some adjustments. so i would be willing to keep you apprised of our efforts in that regard but i think, i thought about your concerns after we spoke, and i thought they were serious concerns and we are exploring how best to address them. >> thank you and secretary. you and i both know that the president was -- is committed to

the d.r.e.a.m. act and he has made some important decisions to help these d.r.e.a.m. act student so i hope we can find a way to go further when it comes to giving them an opportunity to work. i also asked about the special registration pro-grin that was created after 9/11, arab-americans, south beach and asians faced religious profiling. at least that is what was suggested in a recent hearing held in the same room two weeks ago. the special registration program targeted them. at the time i called the program to be terminated because there were doubts he would help combat terrorism. we heard testimony from terrorism experts have concluded that wasted homeland security resources ended up alienating arab-americans and some muslims. more than 80,000 people who registered, more than 13,000 placed in deportation. how many terrorists were identified under special identification?

none. last year dhs terminated all special termination requirements however many innocent arabs and muslims still face deportation or are barred from applying for citizenship. last week issued a memo to address the situation with these individuals that provides individuals a fail to comply that they would not be penalized if they noncompliance was involuntary and not intentional or recently excuse all. will you ensure that the standards for noncompliance with special registration are going to be applied fairly and generously? >> yes, i will and i will make sure that i.c.e. reports to me how that is being implemented. >> i visited an immigration detention facility in my state in deep southern illinois, and i applaud i.c.e. for issuing its revised detention standards recently. i'm in the process of looking those over. i'm still concerned about some of the conditions i noted.

some of them will take a deep investigation before i can say with any certainty that there are violations a need to be addressed but there was one thing that was very basic that caught my attention and that was lack of access to a telephone. it turns out many of these people who are being detained, not charged with the crime, but being detained, are basically two or 300 miles away from family. it may seem like a small issue but to these immigration detainees, it's not. currently, these immigration detainees don't have the right to an appointed attorney and approximately 80% go forward without one. and basically none of them have access to e-mail, unlike federal prisons. many of them are in remote facilities such as the one i visited. they repeatedly raised with me to concern about their ability to communicate with the outside world including their family. they said they couldn't afford the phonecalls that cost upwards of 1 dollar or $2 a minute that they're being charge. these are not wealthy people as

you can imagine. they are very poor. we try to use the local funds to see how they worked and they didn't. so there was spotty service and high cost. a large number of county jails with which ice contracts actually profit by taking a cut of the exorbitant fees loan companies charged to detainees commissioning 30 to 60% on phonecall charges. my office has been working with your staff to come up with a solution. do you have an airport or progress on this issue? >> not as i sit here, but i will follow up. you were right to raise the concern. so let me follow up with our staff and i would be happy to get back to. >> thanks for appearing today in thank you mr. chairman. >> thank you senator durbin. madam secretary i think i have the honor of the last questions of the oversight hearing today and i appreciate your patience and diligence before the committee today. i was reminding in your opening testimony just how challenging your job is by the fact that you

casually reference to have a daily threat brief and you supervise the third-largest federal agency and you have the scope of responsibility that i think is awesome and the challenge that you and your leadership team to strike an appropriate balance between security, privacy, commerce is very difficult and delicate balance and i want to start by thanking you for your service. i've known you since you were an attorney general. first, just on the secret service if i might, there has been some suggestion in the press today, and "the washington post," that this is part of a long-standing pattern of practice and at my previous role i had the honor of supervising a local law enforcement agency. i know how devastating to morale and operations such incidents can be. this particular incident is very troubling and i know that there is an aggressive far-reaching investigation underway. but have there have been allegations of comparably serious misconduct relating to

the office of professional responsibility in the past and what steps specifically have you directed, secret service director sullivan to make sure this particular type of conduct does not occur again? >> to my knowledge there has been no similar type incidents reported to the office of professional responsibility. i cannot speak to the inspector general. that is a separate department. what the director is doing is really reviewing a training, supervision going back, talking to other agents, really trying to ferret out whether this is a system that problem and if it is that would be a surprise to me i must say as someone who has been the service secretary for three and a half years now. i have found the men and women i work with to be extremely

professional and the men and women i come into contact with to be extremely professional. we want to make sure that we get to the bottom of this in deal strongly with those who committed the misconduct and gave the report. that has arctic been done with quite a lot of speed and we ferret out any other problems, because the men and women of the secret service don't deserve to have their reputations besmirched. >> i want to commend you for how swiftly the investigation has proceeded. i just wanted to reassert what i think we share which is a conviction that needs to be not just sensitive but a far-reaching investigation and you in ensure they met in public that this is not an agency that this is routinely practices. this is truly an outlier incident. at the outset i wanted to thank you. the last time i asked him questions about customs and border patrol and the interdiction of allegedly

counterfeit materials. you have just implemented a new administration policy that allows these agents when they see people at the border to share that information and i think that is a good and strong advance. given house with glee, i am glad the administration raised that policy. want to dedicate bus of our time to cybersecurity. i share senator franken's concerns about privacy and how we strike an appropriate balance but also senator whitehouse great concern that if we fail to effectively legislate we leave our critical national infrastructure gravely vulnerable and at risk. i know you're fy13 budges but to cybersecurity gets a nearly 75% increase in funding while the rest of the department stays flat so i want to commend you

for delivering appropriate resources. for civic and we talked about partnership and fusion centers. i wondered how you see state and local resources in the law-enforcement community, the national guard as we discussed before delaware and rhode island have squadrons that i think can and should play a positive role here. my concern about a cyberthreat is that will emerge -- it's very broad and a very serious threat today but a critical infrastructure threat that will emerge very quickly and require -- >> i think a couple of things senator. obviously i share your concern working with state and locals on the floor at the 24/7 watch

center but helping with training. it's providing lots of information and we have provided 5000 actionable bulletins last year. and so training information sharing and then across the country in certain locations we have centers of excellence, which are helping us refined what we are doing but also look ahead. what is the next thing that is going to happen in the cyberworld? >> i also am familiar with the program which has had some challenges. i think it has been successful in promoting site safety, those sites that deal with dangerous chemicals that really has significantly underperformed particularly with cybersecurity. i just wanted to encourage attention of that particular area that was brought up, a

previous question by senator grassley. given the above all things cybertech risk to our nation's critical infrastructure and given the provisions in different bills, if you would explain for us the particular strength that dhs has regarding its capability and capacity to administer the potential regulations that protect their infrastructure. are you confident that dhs has the capacity as opposed to an essay or d.o.t. required to handle this critical national threat? , and in fact as you noted, the budget increase has been requested. we have had multiple additions in the cyberarea over the last few years. we already are the department that deals primarily with the private sector and with critical infrastructure. those mechanisms with which to do that are already in place. and so, on the civilian side and

on the dotcom site as it were, dhs already has that systemic protection role. i think general alexander testified to that several times. dod has the .mil environment, so the resources are there. the experiences there, meaning at dhs. we do have lessons learned from ceefax no doubt that those lessons happen and those lessons learned gives greater confidence that we can administer this properly. >> last if i could, some concerns about privacy and bringing the public into this conversation. i think it was senator lee who previously asked about screening technology and its development, something i'd be happy to give a briefing on about its trajectory. recognizing that a lot of what is going on in the dialogue

between the administration and congress about the cyberthreat is occurring in secure briefings and that a lot of the information that at least i and many other senators have received that make that clear to us just how big a threat to this and just how much lost their hiss of intellectual property and how much potential risk areas. most of the critical information is shared with us in a secure setting. by concerned is that this committee previously legislated on intellectual property theft, the protect i.d. act in the comp broke committee, some would argue over reach. there was a very broad and unexpectedly strong national response to that by motivated citizens who are deeply concerned with some legitimacy that there were some rogue threat to their vibrancy of the internet. my real concern here is if we are not successfully bringing the public élan and striking an

appropriate talents between privacy, security and commerce we may face a comparable unexpected national back lash against these legislative efforts and given how rarely we legislate on issues this critical i am deeply concerned that we would not then lose a moment that we not creative moment of real vulnerability when you have worked so hard to craft a structure that works. senator franken asta previously in the administration and its proposals have done a stronger -- any advice about how we can recognize the information that must be held secure more effectively engage the public in his dialogue and the balance between security? >> well, we have tried to do it by sharing information with the public through a friday of means. i think it's significant that when there have been briefings that are in a classified setting, you have sitting there the head of the joint chiefs, the head of the nsa, the head of

the fbi, the second in charge of the dni, the second in charge of the doj and myself. we are all saying the same thing. it's a big risk. we need some way to protect the nation's core critical infrastructure. we need some way to have information sharing. we need to update and streamlined some of the statues that exist now. in terms of privacy, think that was built into particularly the collins-lieberman bill, the bipartisan bill in this chamber, providing for privacy for independent privacy oversight, limitations on how information can be used and the like. i think we just need to continue to emphasize the differences between that and some of the other approaches. >> thank you. i agree with you the secure briefings have been successful. they have been in my case hare raising and at times alarming, but the unified and broad

engagement of this administration and ensuring this is commendable. i'm just concerned that when i go and talk to my home state of delaware i don't hear the same level of broadly shared understanding of just how real and just how presence of a threat this is to our intellectual property, to our critical infrastructure and the vibrancy of our -- the last questioning a very would be immigration. there was a recent pew report that came out saying for the first time in 30 years there are more illegal immigrants returning to mexico to come here and that is in part due to strengthening of the economy there but also i think the unprecedented action of the sequestration to hire more of order guards, more on document workers than ever before and engage in a small -- strong enforcement. wondered if he had any comment on that.

>> i do and as a matter fact i look to the pew study yesterday and what it's talking about a long-term migration trends and what it identifies is exactly what you said, that the trend now is more out migration to mexico than in migration and its attributes at least part of that to a record amount of personnel and technology, infrastructure put on the border in part because there was bipartisan agreement by the congress to appropriate an additional $600 million to let us do that job. our efforts now are sustaining that and making sure we stay ahead of any search or movement in illegal traffic along that order and keep that order as safe and secure as we can. >> i think you have done a commendable job on this and it's important the general public realizes it on my side of the eye which has sometimes been characterized as not being sufficiently vigorous.

this was a bipartisan effort. i hope you will make progress in the enhanced by biographic exit program and there were some real dialogue about that but i do think i am cautiously optimistic we will find a new common ground on a host of immigration issues whether the d.r.e.a.m. act, and i'm a co-sponsor along with search durbin with ah-1w reform, the stem immigration. the last question on fema response, i think they're retaining airlift capacity in local national guard and state national guards was critical in the state of vermont represented by the chairman of this committee as well as my state that passed when the hurricanes and flooding and other issues. i wondered if you had he had in a comment about the how the presence funding request might affect the ability of state national guard to play an active supportive role in disaster response? >> senator, let me get back to you on that, because are you

asking about how our request with respect reforming the grants over all would affect first responders? are you asking specific to the national guard? >> i think this is more of a national guard capacity within the branch issues so i may have asked a question that is not directly in your -- >> i think that is more properly addressed to the department of defense, but i will say our entire work with fema has been to be in a team with local and state responders as opposed to the feds being in charge and i think teamwork approach has been well received and has worked very effectively. >> i would agree and i hear all the time for mars first responder committee in delaware how grateful they have been for the sheer training and equipment that the grants programs actually helps one of our volunteer fire companies write their annual grant in a memorable all-nighter. i just wanted to close by thanking you for your strong leadership in the department and for the department sustained

significant cogitations to the securities and liberties of the people of the united states. thank you for imagery testimony maddon secretary. we will leave the record open for members the committee who are not able to join us but you might want to submit additional questions for the hearing. this hearing is adjourned. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]