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tv   Key Capitol Hill Hearings  CSPAN  December 3, 2013 2:00pm-4:01pm EST

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have an increasing number who were also involved we can look at the nonpolitical motivations and then we can look at the political divisions. is it, fundamentally i think what we are going to discuss today are basically the two sides to consider but mostly the political side and we can spend a semester at least to discuss the various trends. to discuss this phenomenon which is restored but we have to keep always in mind that terrorists are not born.
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they are created by the various political social economic environments. in other words, the lone wolf terrorist do not inherit from other states. they are a part of our society and subjects of the political and economic ideology and religious environments. in other words, many of them share values through the technology through the website and so forth. some operate on one basis of a single attack and some operate on multiple attacks. there were a number of studies that were developed over the years that we are trying to follow on a daily basis and i think that it requires a great
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deal of interest in terms of radicalization and international society tries to understand what can be done to deal with it. so ultimately the discussion would provide i think the initial context for the discussion and the first speaker as i mentioned is spike bowman who has a very rich background in the government and in the academic community and taking one course now sco w. and one for the interns he is a student in the class so to be paired with a class tomorrow. i think of spike is a very broad
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experience in the government and counterintelligence, and also various positions in the fbi come and they indicated that he has an academic background, so we are looking forward to his remarks. and then we are going to follow up with our other panelists and help them to develop a discussion. spike, would you mind coming up here? >> i will let you get by. >> okay.
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i first started thinking about lone wolf terrorism right after 9/11. i was the deputy counsel for the national security affairs at the fbi and we really didn't know a lot about al qaeda at that point in time that we began to look at it very quickly. among the things we learned was that there were a number of training camps being run by al qaeda in afghanistan. the more that we looked at it, the more that we realized that while al qaeda was trained in the camps in afghanistan, and all full of other people have gone through their not necessarily affiliated with al qaeda and not necessarily to intend going out on a terrorist
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plane but perhaps going for training to do something later on. so, we began to think about what would happen if one of those people began to decide to do something unattached, unaffiliated. the reason i made a difference is because the way that we looked at terrorists and spies and so forth in the united states was largely through the foreign intelligence surveillance act, which is operated by the secret court. it had secret warrants for wiretaps and physical searches. but the predicate for the fisa warrant is that the target is either a foreign power or the agent of a foreign power. if you have a person acting on his own it is hard to tap that person into the agency of a foreign power. one of the things i did a fairly soon after is i suggested that perhaps we could have an amendment to the foreign
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intelligence surveillance act to look at this single person that caused a lot of consternation because it did change the way that we thought about this from the start. eventually, we did get an amendment to the act for that purpose but we also begin to realize that the things that might happen, too. one of the things that had us thinking along a slightly different line is soon after but for an interview with -- for an intelligence had studies on their part of the world, one of the startling things that came out of that is they didn't find a lot of ideologues. they found a lot of people that seemed to be having an affinity for violence, just wanted to do something violently. and as a consequence, they
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started looking at those individuals and they actually did disrupt not only in the netherlands but other countries as well some things that were beginning to happen in the planned to happen simply because they were focused on these individuals. well, we began to look at that, and then another thing happened. in 2005, we had the british underground bombings, and we began to look at that point and we thought we've got people in the country that as they can tend to come as something we didn't focus on that much past timothy mcveigh. now we are starting to think we might have people that are not affiliated with al qaeda or something similar. we might have people in our own communities that want to do violence. so we began to think more and more that there might be some other thing to do about this. when i testified in 2002 in
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congress that asked for the foreign intelligence surveillance act be amended, i have to say that congress was very skeptical. they were not really ready to accept the fact we might have these other types of individuals in the united states and it took a period of time for the congress to come around. they eventually did, but the other thing that has happened through the years is that we have fairly well decimated the ability of the al qaeda type of affiliates to carry out a large complex type of observation that 9/11 represented. could it happen again? yes. but what is more likely? hearing going to give you a prediction. in the united states and the other countries as well, future terrorist acts are less likely
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to be well organized and we saw with 9/11. they are likely to be less complex. they are less likely to succeed. they are less likely to be as lethal if they do succeed. they are going to be more numerous. and in all likelihood, i believe that they will be mostly conducted by citizens or long-term residents of the united states. why do i say that? it's what the sequence of events that i just laid out sort of points us to words. if we stop and take a look at what has happened in the united states since 9/11, we have had over 50 terrorist according to fbi reporting over 50 terrorist attempts defeated and we've also had a number of terrorist
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associated persons arrested and of those that have a link to the al qaeda type of philosophy more than half of them were united states citizens. 35% of them were born in the united states. 60% of them had a college degree and 60% of them were either working or in school. these were not the people that we were looking at right after 9/11. these were not the discontented who were going to camps in afghanistan to learn how to make an explosive to try to learn tactics or maybe learn how to shoot a gun. who knows. but basically we are looking at today and entirely different cadre of people than years ago.
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what bothers me is i don't think we are looking at it hard enough. i don't think that we are as focused on the lone wolf single individual that might have no affiliation with anybody who might not even an ideologue who might just want to go blow something up because of discontent. again you can think back of the example of timothy mcveigh that we have seen others in the united states like this as well as i think that is what the future holds for us. >> i think the way that you described it, there is no doubt about your analyst is at the
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basis of only u.s. citizens or permanent residences, but also that come to study on a visa or come in illegally as well, but it is also characterized in the european countries as well the terrible tragedy in norway in the name of some secular ideologies. so i think this is the wave of the future. now i'm going to have another perspective to discuss the issue after kumar whom i introduced earlier and he is teaching also georgetown school of service and
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specializes on the financial aspects as well as south asia on the case study and that particular region. so, i asked him to bring in some of his findings and perspectives and then we are going to have a third speaker to focus on the weapons of mass distraction. would you please come up here? >> many thanks to yonah and mike for having me here. it's an honor to be here at such a distinguished panel. and i think the previous speaker, spike, for the excellent presentation. essentially, i'm going to run through some important aspects of global terrorism as well as
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others. when we talk about what is the lone wolf care of some -- terrorism on person plans and executes and finances it and the reality is in the context of political terrorism by the radicalization process, the single individual that may perpetrate the act but under the radicalization name or than likely not be radicalized through either the group or the army experience or what have you. so that is a distinction that one has to be very clear about. and the knee-jerk response is rt because the single individual at you may be kind of a lone wolf terrorist. he may not be. and he may be a member of terrorist organization, some previous interface in the organization, the radicalization process and some travel in the
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terrorist camps like for example if you look at the boston bomb or one of them had traveled to central asia. so it is hard to call a person that travels a lone wolf terrorist because he was indoctrinated along with the internet of course. secondly, it has been eluted to buy yonah and spike as well one of the types of the lone wolf terrorist could be secular and it could be religious, could be single issue such as the eu and the bomber -- unibomber there could be the anthrax attacker in 2001. he had a criminal intent. and it's hard. it has to be one or the other. it could be a mismatch of the
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categories. what actor is going to be for the lone wolf terrorism? .. for example, timothy mcveigh went through radicalization after his experience in the first gulf war and after that.
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he developed such a loathing for the federal government and he wasn't for states' rights. you have all these basketcase folks who may be radicalized in one of many ways. then that are what we call stochastic terrorism, which are basically folks like bin laden and others with and exhorting their al qaeda presence to engage in lone wolf attacks. that could be what we call a really stochastic process where the perpetrator of the act, what some call missiles actually. what do terrorist organizations achieve using lone wolf care? i'm going to focus on little more from here on out on terrorist organizations and how they may use or utilize lone wolf attackers. what do terrorist organizations achieve using global terrorism? to our low-cost, greater impact,
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require no planning. they are difficult to predict and protect and take care just measures against. it is this aspect of plausible to 90 building. if you look at the mumbai bombings, initially in 2008, this is topical because we are celebrate the fifth anniversary of the heinous attacks in mumbai, exactly on november 26, 2008, when the 60 our carnage began really. initially the news report said it's an outward call. then there was -- then we discovered they were trying to engage with the call plausible deniability. it's an offshoot. then it could be threats within the mod team for a local criminal gang in india. this has happened before because last car operator to look at david, surveillance of the mumbai targus and 2007 easy and lone wolf terrorist for pc kind
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of sent their to act as a lone wolf terrorist to make you believe that this is an individual who's perpetrating acts on his own. there's a case of another who was involved in the plot to survey the financial institutions in new york and new jersey and in washington. and then there is this need to meet the requirement on the part of a global terrorist to meet with other members of the crew. and his way the terrorist organizations engage in plausible do not duplicate its of the individual. i told you it's the individual who is involved. last but not the least, what is lone wolf attacks as far as terrorist organizations go, they show would be terrorists or would be lone wolves that here's one guy who is committed this act, all of you can go and do the same thing.
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that's what al-awlaki has been saying, exhorting would be al qaeda sympathizers and radicals to lone wolf care. importantly enough, what kind of thstrategies of counters and strategies can be used? it could be communities where civilians would be involved, easier said than done but i think this washington metro bus, you know, say something if you see something. that's a very typical example of what can be done because the lone wolf terrorist at least i would consider a lone wolf terrorist someone who executes and finances and plans the attack, but is radicalized by an external agent, i.e., a terrorist organization. whatever enablers there might be, the internet, military, previous travel, previous contract -- contact, part of a sleeper cell, what have you. then there is the need for federal, state and local kind of
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coordination and information sharing and is trying to get all these would be attacks in the blood. then there's monitoring internet usage. with what powers can the government monitor the internet? it can and should because whatever is taking place still is brewing over the internet. what kind of messaging, checking out how does a would be lone wolf terrorist finance his terrorist plots. what kind of interactions does he have? then there is this question of rapid response. for example, it the norwegian authorities would have respond to the first attack of anders breivik, guinness difficult to predict what he's going to do, but them if they had only responded to that and he may not have predicted, he may have perpetrated the second attack which was the more heinous one with larger casualties actually.
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then there is the question of investigating not just lone wolf terrorist attacks of the botched plots as well. there's so much more one can learn from a failed plot. the underwear bomber. there's so much more one can learn in terms of a plot that's been foiled or botched. what kind of implications does lone wolf terrorism have for counterterrorism measures? it's difficult to detect and, therefore, an orthodox strategies are called for calm including some with once i mentioned to me decreasing. the strategies need to be designed to prepare for, respond and prevent the terrorist attacks. and it's difficult to make out when we're doing this whether the attack is by a criminal or by a secular terrorist or group of terrorists. so it's difficult to really pay to make the strategy to kind of
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address the potential plot, or potential perpetration of terrorist attacks. there are obviously issues of whether lone wolf terrorist attacks are more possible in developed societies versus developing societies. in the context of south asian nations, particularly their information sharing methods, their monitor measures are not as good as ours, or our other allies in the developed world. so there is a thinking amongst intelligence and law enforcement circles that it's harder to perpetrate a plan, a lone wolf terrorist plot come in a place like india or any other country in south asia than there is in the developed world. there is an opportunity to study what's going on in terms of the lack of lone wolf terrorist attacks in other developing societies. the real possibility is we've seen time in and time out of
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terrorist attacks here. lastly i just want to be, i'm going to talk about radicalization. i want all of us to look at the carefully, what does radicalization into. what does al qaeda can we say bin laden is gone, al qaeda is the essentially damaged, we are kind of a little bit obsessed with the organization of al qaeda. the organizational structure of al qaeda. there is the ideology of course which we have been able to do much about. deradicalization imprisons and narrative for example, are important strategies to employ. then there are the outside movements which are still intact. if you like it the ideology -- look at the ideology or movement of al qaeda to grab local separatist and then in the kashmir region or the rebellion in malik, or in other parts of the world, or the separatists cause in south asia, i.e. the
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taliban. that coupled with the fact that there is increased interaction amongst affiliates of al qaeda points to the would be or potential lone wolf terrorist part of this movement. there is some connection either ideological or in person, or both. so it's difficult again to really spring to a judgment that, okay, if you have a single individual, then it's an only individual act. i would reckon that radicalization in some strange sense is a kind of material support as well. and most people wouldn't recognize it. we've got to go beyond the obvious. what appears on the surface may not be true or entirely true. it's good to dig deep and look at more important social aspects of radicalization, and a lot more can be done in terms of engagement with the imprisoned individual, for example, or to prevent someone who's been in
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prison for criminal activity not to become a terrorist to address either through education means or kind of work on their employment, future implement outside prison. because a lot of literature deals with recidivists and folks have been left out of on time of day and are perpetrating attacks in aqap or in other outfits, either in syria or yemen or elsewhere. well, that's it for now. thank you. >> our next big risk olson, has every rich expense as well consulting, advising governments and industry and the academic community. particularly related to the
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nature of the threat, and i remember very vividly after the attack in tokyo, which was mass destruction, that you were kept quite busy to make sense out of that period and i really think that with your very wide experience, is to share with us your thinking about various scenarios and possibilities, the use of what we call some, some sort of weapon of mass destruction, whether chemicals, sarin, or anthrax in some cases that we have seen in the united states and abroad related to deaths potential. so, kyle, if you please come up
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here. >> thank you. the lone wolf terrorist, he is obviously a subject of great interest, great concern. you through several questions out right at the beginning, thank you. you asked whether not the future for terrorism in general but certainly the lone wolf terrorist, or religious something worse than 9/11? an event on that scale. you asked a question about whether society could survive and you as also whether or not democracy and our freedoms can survive in that environment. first of all, just echoing a couple of things which are already voiced. the lone wolf represents a unique problem. i think we sometimes through the label terrorism around, or
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terrorist around rather too expensive a fashion. sometimes it's simply a person who is out for revenge, in other cases it might be a criminal activity. throwing the terrorism word seems to put it in a couple cull basket for many of us, and i think that that can lead us down a sometimes sort of slippery slope from and analytical point of view. i would also note that when i think about the lone wolf, i think back, i think we often see timothy mcveigh as an example of a lone wolf terrorist. but, of course, he had some help. so lone wolf may be fair to say that lone wolf or semi-lone wolf terrorism is a similar threat. something significantly below the level of an al qaeda or an al qaeda affiliate. and yet at the same time represents something that is outside that construct. the reason i get there is because the lone wolf, or someone with a very, very small
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group, certainly has the potential for accessing weapons that we would lump into the weapons of mass destruction category. the classic hierarchy, the chemical biological, rheological hierarchy is one that we can look at and because they okay, many of these are within reach of an individual. you can certainly look at the notion of being able to access some quantity of toxic chemicals. and find some way to introduce this into a setting. that doesn't need to be a mass kill off. it doesn't need to be the kind of incident that produces body counts in the hundreds, but for example, the introduction of a toxic chemical into a school building, the access to cylinders of chlorine, for example, or some other material certainly has the potential to create a toxic event. 9/11 scale? probably not, but on the other
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hand, the threat is there and there are certain materials available out there that are accessible, whether we're talking are getting discrete quantities. whether we're talking about capturing, disrupting, diverting trucks, truckloads of material. or even an attack on a production or storage facility. the collateral effect are real and could be very meaningful in that regard. certainly within the capacity, capability of someone with at least even rudimentary understanding of the fact that it is label on the side that says this is bad for you, it will probably be bad for somebody else as well. on the other hand, a chemical weapons attack like the one we saw in the tokyo subway attack back in the mid '90s, that was an event that required a very robust investment on the part of a group of individuals. we are talking investment from a score of tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars and the commitment to work on that problem over a period of time. that may be something that
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distinguishes that kind of a threat, maybe that pushes it out of the classic lone wolf pattern. and i don't ignore the fact that the unabomber maintain a campaign over a number of years but his work was basically the small package bombs which he had developed a knack for producing. chemical weapons probably, probably in a meaningful way, a little bit outside the scope of the individual. might not be outside the scope of a small group. biological weapons, we often hear about the poor man's nuclear weapons, the poor man's atom bomb. biological threat is a legitimate threat in the sense that the biological weapon can be self-replicating in the environment. you don't need a large industrial base to produce one if you have access to the appropriate stocks up front. the infectious disease is an infectious disease. as anyone who survived the flu season will tell you, the little kid next door is a delivery
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device for a biological weapon of some sort. the biological threat is also one that can be an example of a talented dabbler working in his own laboratory, or diverting research facilities in a university or a hospital setting. that technology is certainly there. biological weapons, i think the reference was made to the anthrax attacks earlier in this decade. anthrax technology is essentially 1950s level weapons grade technology. you look back at some of the other biological agents, they've been used as a weapon either with great conscious thought in advance, or as a collateral effect going back for hundreds of years. an individual could certainly find way to apply a biological weapon in a selected tech. i would talk about the society, or a city killer? probably not. on the other hand, the lone wolf
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-- this is true for all weapons of mass destruction scenarios or all masculine scenarios. the lone wolf terrorist operates in essentially a vacuum but in terms of supervision, in terms of restrictions or limitations, in terms of any kind of filter on what is or isn't acceptable. the true lone wolf terrorist is only answerable to himself or herself. and, therefore, by the way that means that many of the traditional deterrent tactics that we use as governments, as militaries, as law-enforcement organizations, short of identifying and capturing the would be attacker, are essential not going to have very much about. the lone wolf operates without committees, without worrying about going before an appropriate board of any kind. he does what he can do when he wants to do it.
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he does it to his timetable. the one that -- high explosives fall well within the universe. that goes without saying. the one that is probably i think of the most significant concern in terms of its real footprint is of course the radiological threat. and for the last 10, 15 years, i think one of the recurring questions on the part of security planners everywhere is why had the win -- is why haven't we been hit with a dirty bomb? dirty bombs are the easiest weapon probably in that whole panoply of choices to make. probably the easiest weapon to a simmer, the easiest weapon to use. any specific quality of radiological material. doesn't have to be high-grade. wrap it around conventional explosives, which we know you can access. and detonate it. the effects did not even have to be lethal. the sociological and economic,
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political, cultural impact of detonating a radiological device, a dispersal device in a major urban area, in the monumental core of the city of washington, would be substantial. because the all clear is one of the almost impossible thing to think of any government agency. that dirty bomb went off down the street but don't worry, we determined you are safe, go ahead. also let's not leave out the notion of cyberattacks. we could argue that that the recent actions by anonymous as well as the release of the nsa files constitutes an act of terrorism. certainly the impacts have been dramatic. they been political in nature. but they have also certainly had impacts far beyond what to expect to find on a thumb drive. once again, that using sample of
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an intelligent individual, and eric an individual, and he disassociated individual. feeling free to carry out what he or she felt to be a legitimate exercise of his self-imposed authority. going back to the questions you asked. 9/11, a redo on that. for the lone wolf i would argue that a 9/11 spectacular or anything with that kind of the body count is probably beyond their reach. probably. there are some -- you could have the perfect storm. you could argue that 9/11 itself was the perfect storm. eighth circuit exceeded the expectations of al qaeda. will society survived? yes, society will survive. society will survive because where more resilient than any one individual or one small group of individuals. we are a society of 350 million within a larger society of 6 billion. yes, so -- society will survive
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but at the end of the day you ask about democracy an undervals and the rights and privileges. as noted before, the lone wolf operates without the restriction, the filters, the constraints that we associate with the organization. even terrorist organizations like al qaeda have a command structure and a matrix. the lone wolf gets up this morning and he feels like killing you. he will give you. i look forward to our discussion. >> obviously, i thank you for very profound issues and questions it and i hope we can develop a discussion among the panelists as well as the audience. that's why i think we have, in
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our announcement, make a distinction, a very clear distinction between the individual terror and the group organized group, as well as state-sponsored terrorism. and by the way, as a criticism of the deal, whether it is a historic deal or not, but concerns of some members of congress and others, that in the package there was no indication related to state-sponsored terrorism of iran's involvement in syria and so forth. so i think the bottom line is the nature, the intensity of the threat on the part of state, groups like al qaeda and the individual. what is absolute correct i
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think, kyle, that you mention in terms of the impact is the number of attacks according to our studies, maybe 2% of all the attacks of terrorist, talking about thousands, are related to the individuals. but one attack and have a very significant impact. i mentioned before the assassination of the prime minister of israel, rabin. incidentally, we focus our seminars and so forth by individuals undermined the peace process for many years. so again it's not only the number, but the impact. and i think one of the areas that we still have to consider, not only the political and
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nonpolitical, how many attacks we had in the united states in the schools, with the availability of guns. in fact, one of the most recent i think was anthrax or some other device that was sent to president obama and to the mayor in new york city, mayor bloomberg, was really related to that particular issue. so again, i think we have to look at the broader picture, and the only issue of radicalizati radicalization. and it's true what you said about the individual who does not look at some approval by his peers or colleagues, has no constraints whatsoever. but that individual does not exist in a vacuum in terms of
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radicalization. i think dr. kumar mentioned the technology, the social media, for example, the internet and so forth. the inspiration that they had. so what i propose that we can discuss again is the only issue, how is the lone wolf being created? again, i indicated that in general the terrorists are not born but they are created. and again, we can condemn them as dostoevsky observed a long time ago, we can be against the evildoers, but we cannot understand their mind of the evildoer. this is a big part. we cannot understand the mind of the lone wolf.
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so again, do you want to respond to some of the comments, dr. kumar? >> and i sort of agree with yonah, the radicalization peace. as much as deradicalization and counterradicalization programs could take care of the behavior, they in no way can impact on the ideology. so the symptoms could be taken care of in terms of behavior in somewhat subtle measure but in terms of the ideology, which is so profound. whatever the agents may be, could be triggering events, could be folks like also weary or al-awlaki or bin laden or others exhorting these loose affiliate members or so members or even potential lone wolf attackers. there's not much that can be
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done as far as the ideology is concerned. because we don't really understand why they have this ideology of anti-despot. the other is the behavior towards u.s., israel and its allies are infinitely a movement that i discovered towards the global islamic outfit. this is what they stand for. this is why they are foot soldiers. they are foot soldiers with a cause. they may not have that kind of leaders as part of an organizational network or the financiers per se, if they can be self financed of the ideology is something that the import from the outside. to the extent that this interacts with their mental dilapidation or their mental disagreement i call it, or other personal or political grievances. it should difficult to fathom what to do about it. and also, this was mentioned
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earlier as well, these guys could be criminals who are radicalized. these guys could be just criminals. could be folks who are idiosyncratic. they just have very funny behavior patterns are so it's difficult to really come out with measures, per se. and i would look at the ideology really ask him and hold rather position process as yonah mentioned as the more important object to subject. it's important how this lone wolves are created, how they're incubated, how they are made. much rather than how they perpetrated the act which is really the end stage. or how they plan to act. so external influences on it would be lone wolf terrorist needs to be studied and lone wolf terrorism is hard to really theorize and it's really hard to study in the absence of lead of case study to you can't have -- every attack is unique and
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special, with a different message and a different ideological impact, and so on. so lone wolf terrorism cannot be a typology. it is only a tactic, that that could be used by would be terrorists as well as non-terrorists. >> thanks. >> spike, can i ask you a question from the law enforcement point of view? one concern is the role of intelligence, and then sharing of intelligence in terms of the different agencies. how do you see this, especially in light of the recent revelation of the nsa saga? in terms of the question of the civil liberties concerns that
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you worked on for so many years. >> yeah, civil liberties was always one of the biggest concerns we had at the fbi, because the fbi is, unlike nsa, unlike the central intelligence agency. 95% of what the nsa collects against our u.s. persons. not foreigners. so we've always been very concerned about that. i probably received at least one phone call a day from agents in the field who ask, can i do this quest should i do this? where is the line? so this is something -- i mention that only to emphasize the fact that this was a real issue. if you come up to today and look at what the nsa is doing, several different things. first of all, what the nsa is doing is collecting metadata.
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what the newspapers have not told you is the metadata is constitutionally unprotected. it is third party information. it does not belong to you. it belongs to the telephone companies and telephone companies can do anything they want with it, except give it to a federal officer without being compelled to do so. that's one thing. i will say that when i argued for the creation of that statute, article ii 15 of the patriot act, when i argued for that one, i never anticipated and i don't think anybody ever anticipated it would be used as it is being used today. because we've looked at as being something that would target a single person for something. and so that is another thing that's happening. but if you take the program and working backwards a bit to 9/11,
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if we had had the opportunity at 9/11 to collate telephone messages, public addresses and frequent flyer numbers, none of which is constitutionally protected, we would have had the possibility of discovering all 19 hijackers in the united states. now, i'm not telling you we would've prevented 9/11 from happening because if we had, discovered all of them here and we have been following them and watching them and saw them get on the airplanes, 99% -- i'm 99% certain that what would've happened if the fbi agents who were following them would have noted the plane i got home, where they were going and called the syndicate field office and told them to pick them up when they arrived there. but my point is that you can get this information, valuable information that is constitutionally unprotected.
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that thing that you have to ask yourself, and this is what the government, what the public needs to ask itself. two phases. the flipside of the questioning or, one question is, do you want the government to do everything it can to protect you? the other question is, do you want the government to look and record every time you visit the website or make a phone call? those are real questions. right now i will tell you that as a matter of law, what the nsa is doing for privacy purposes is not a privacy intrusion. i will leave it to the judges of the fisa court to determine whether the activity is lawful, and 11 very senior judges have said it is so i will rest on that, but as a matter of privacy law, nobody's privacy is being affected by this program.
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>> thank you very much for this clarification. i suggest that we develop some sort of discussion in terms of, number one, the radicalization process of some of these individuals, all the way from alienation or example, unemployment or whatever it is. secondly, what are some of the strategies that are available to deal with this on the local level, the national level, and the international level? we do have in the audience those who have very broad experience in government and outside government, and i would like to invite them to participate. first, mike, who worked for many years at the state department, the counterterrorism office. would you share some of your views of alon of the lone wolf ?
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you can come up here if you like. >> maybe i can project. first of all, i want to pick up something that spike said that people have a tendency for violent acts. there's a psychological aspect to this, of course, and we saw this for example, with the i.r.a. when they reached agreement. some people could not put down the tools and develop the real i.r.a. it seems to be one of the tools that hasn't talked about yet is the fbi is conducted sting operations against phone calls. would be interested in your thoughts anybody else working for the fbi, doj, what are the guidelines when you start on this? and the other thing that occurs to me is the psychological aspect taken from the violence but there may be some similarity between people who conduct violence or various reasons, like the shootings, the mass shootings that we've had, for
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instance, the navy yard, et cetera, and people who do it for terrorist motives. part of the problem detecting somebody before they go off the deep end, i mean, i'm struck how many times when they identify the culprit, the neighbors and others say, well, we did know, or he seemed to be a nice guy, nothing out of line. and it turns out sometimes there were some indicators along the lines, like my daughter is in the same neighborhood as the boston bombers and help cover some of the neutron star goes on later that people said this guy sounded strange or radical. where is the dividing line with privacy? where people report them? i think it's still a fuzzy area we haven't really been able to address, but anyway getting back to the tools but it seems one of them is possibly the nsa intercepts that patterns that you talked about. the other is the sting operations. the third is the deradicalization.
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i slightly disagree with you that you can't get rid of ideology perhaps, but if you somehow discourage people from acting on that ideology we are ahead of the game but it's a hard thing to measure. it's hard to measure what you succeed on what you don't succeed in. >> okay. by the way, mike, could you comment on the role of the media? one time in your life you covered this event for the media. does the media have a role in terms of deradicalization process? >> i think there's two aspects. my involvement in journalism was before the terrorism incident, episodes really developed. i was covering washington and overseas. but there's a certain amount,
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attempts, the glamorization of terrorists sometimes is romantic freedom fighters. effect i was recruited partly to the state department in 1985 when secretary shows wanted to start a public diplomacy campaign against terrorism. one thing we found was especially in europe and the middle east people tend to glamorize terrorists. immediate sometimes plays a role in this. sometimes inadvertently, sometimes by carrying some reporting, reporting some the claims without the counterbalancing. then when there's an incident, it's always a difficult because reports come out sometimes, reporters are reporting what they hear from all these officials or local officials who only have part of the story. that's why there's often so much confusion around. then there's another aspect which way to deal with at the state department. for example, there were attacks in london i think, i believe the
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libyan or iranian embassy and the press was sort of, tv was showing where scotland yard people were stationed, et cetera. there have been issues and trying to restrain the press from quoting information or reporting things that might be useful to a terroristic i think this happened in the by, too. somehow they were picking up radio or tv reports and new were this a duty forces were. so there's an issue of restraining the press but it's much more difficult in this country i think and say the uk because you so many local tv reporters who are out there and sometimes frankly are rather green and not kind of, don't have good relationships with the police or local authorities. just a last ditch is, i think it's important to local authorities, fbi, et cetera, to try to develop good relationships in advance with a key local media so that develop and test when asked them to hold off on something.
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>> okay. are there any questions from the audience at this point? yes. please identify yourself for the record. [inaudible] >> here is the mic. >> excuse me. my name is carlos. i'm retired. i spent some years in the pentagon. this is not a field i work in professionally but i think it's interesting and i'm grateful to sit in on it. with regard to your example on the 9/11 hijackers, the real clue that was missed was a bunch of foreigners wanting to go to a flight school in florida and expressed openly that they had no need to learn to take off or land. and that was reported to the fbi because it certainly was a very bright signal.
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and as they say, the metaphors that congress needs use is connecting the dots. the same with these russians, told the united states these guys were probably trouble and that was not followed up. there are many other examples but the reason i bring this up is the old adage that one learns more from mistakes than from success. i was hoping pra discussion of failures and how we have mined the information from the failure to do better next time. >> with respect to your examples, you conflate two different things with the flight school. one of them was a bunch of people, foreigners who were taking flight lessons around the country, not that they were not trying to learn to take off and land. they were learning how to fly. what was misquoted in the papers was the instance of missile it,
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the company that he was taking lessons from, they said that he didn't want to learn how to take off or land when, in fact, that is precisely what he wanted to do. so that was misrepresented by the company and reported that way in the newspapers. i can't answer the issue about the boston bombers because i wasn't with the fbi at the time. i will give you one vignette. when the terrorist screening center was opened up, and this is a center that has the names of all known or suspected terrorists, and is a large number because there are many aliases that people can use and you can spell mohammad 40 giveaways, literally and so forth. but we asked other countries if they wanted to give us the names of their known or suspected terrorists, and a number of countries did. rush anybody sent us 300 names.
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all chechnya's. a little vignette. so i don't know what was going on in the fbi's mind but that was the first thing i thought of when i read about it in the papers. but you're quite right about hoping to have learned from our mistakes. one of the issues, frankly, one of the learning expenses is the 215 program today, trying to have an ability repeat of five years to look back and see if there's something that we missed along the way. that's one of the things there. whether it survives or not i don't know. i have no idea but that is one of the learning lessons that we had at the time. ..
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or media attention. that becomes part and parcel of the objective of the exercise, you know, a terrorist act that falls in the middle of forest and nobody is around doesn't get you much at the end of the day. i think the media role is a significant one and we still don't understand. the urge to turn the boston bombers in to -- well, the cover of the "rolling stone." right there it says something. who would guess he would be the first guy in his class. the second thing we are
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conscious of and all of your points are right on the mark. we need to be cognizant the fact that jihadist terrorism is only one thin slice of that continuum when we start looking at those people who we would characterize at lone wolves. in fact, if you look back at american history over the last 100 years we have time, time, time again home-grown lone wolves who have done things like blowing up the los angeles times or blowing up schools or carring out one act or another. blowing up backpacks in the middle of olympics park in atlanta. none of it had to do with islam and jihad. it had precious to do with anything other than the particular bias, focus, or concern at that time. regrettably we are not in the
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position for the guys who gets drunk and looks for the light under the street. then finally, one of the points i guess i would make and, spike, i would go back to it. i remained concerned, am bev -- ambivalent not terrifically happy. how well they are collecting meta data and it's not protected and you have no rights to it. the first question -- or the second question we asked is can society survive. the fair question to act is society can probably survive an almost limitless number lone-bomber type of attacks. if you don't believe we can do it. i suggest you look at what happened in downtown baghdad every day. the nation continues to function after the fashion. yet -- if that level of carnage were playing out in the street of the united states, i dare say we
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would be hiding in the basement or maybe not. so the concern i guess i would have is if we're going pursue perfect security, perfect detection, perfect maximize our ability to look at every click on the internet as a way of looking for that person who might be an islamic radical, might be a really radical environmentalist, might be antiabortion, might simply not people with blond hair. we are arguably, arguably -- we're not sliding down a slippery slope. we are head forking the bottom fast. >> i would like to pile on with a slight twist. this is a technology angle to the whole thing. there have been, if you lone wolves or lone wolf packs there's usually helping on the side since mankind grouped together. it's well documented a certain
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percentage of us, 1, 2, 3, 4% within a population goes nuts. gets a gun and kills people. whether it is motivated by ideology or somebody going over the edge and getting a gun and killing a handful of people. it is part of human nature. the question; however, is as technology provides tools to these terrorists who are nuts to do harm as the technology gets better and better and more and more lethal and more and more available. the impact of the lone wolves or lone wolf pack grows exponentially. it used to be a handful of hand grenades or a panel truck full of fertilizer. you can kill dozen maybe hundreds of people. one person can kill four or five, 700 people. timothy mcveigh is one of the
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most successful lone wolves we've had in 100 years. he killed hundreds of people. but what is technology making available today? what is technology going to make available 20 years from now? what is technology going to make available to lone wolves 50 years from now. already gene sequencers are available on the internet. and people with the knowledge to sequence and grow almost unthinkable biological organisms are graduating daily, and a ph.d. in biochemist will tell you it doesn't take but a bachelor's degree to get a gene sequencer and create something really bad. the point is as technology builds, the capability to do harm and our individuals out there who will use that. when they get past finding a gun and start reaching biology or more lethal technology, what will be the needs of society you
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can see c-span.org. we're going live to a house foreign affairs subcommittee hearing on a u.s. response to typhoon haiyan in the philippines. the u.s. government pledged almost $50 million to help the victim of the typhoon. nearly 5200 people are confirmed dead with the estimates that the death toll could go as high as 10,000 people. the representative chairing the committee is chris smith. we're going to go live now. >> the subcommittee come to order. i want to apologize for being a few moments late. some of the members will be arriving as they finish their business on the floor. one month ago the deadliest typhoon ever to hit east asia devastated portion of the philippines.
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sustained winds of 150 miles per hour typhoon haiyan reached as high as 270 miles per hour at one brief point. the storm surge reached a maximum height of 40 feet. it is the deadliest philippine typhoon on record killing more than 5600 people. another 1,759 are listed as missing. approximately 26,000 were injured. it's the strongest storm ever recorded at land fall and unofficially the fourth strongest typhoon ever recorded in term of wind speed. we were told that the storm was three and a half times the size of katrina. last week, i lead a congressional delegation to the philippines to witness the disaifertion unleashed by the typhoon. and to gain a better understanding of the unmet needs going forward. joined by my distinguished
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colleagues, trent franks and al greene and staff director. we were unanimous in our deep respect in abiding gratitude for the accomplishment of the u.s. military, usaid leaders, and ngo the ground who alone have committed over $20 million to assist the victims. for their part the philippine military was playing a vital role. along with remnants of local governing bodies. in the immediate aftermath of the storm, right up until our arrival, highly motivated u.s. servicemembers brought needed supplies including food, water, medicine, and housing material by the plane load to the ruins with homeless victims over 19,000 and counting hitching flights back for safety and shelter. as was the case after the 2004 tsunami, the united states deployed an aircraft carrier.
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this time the uss george washington and other major military assets to provide assistance. smart, rapid, response combined with air lift capability has made all the difference in the world. in the pill finds, i had the privilege of meeting the cornel chief of staff of the third marine expeanut -- expedition their force. i nomined her to the a it was clear watching him in a, he earned extraordinary respect from the top of the command down to the lowest private. his leadership and that of general kennedy ensured that a desperate shell-shocked population of victims got immediate tangible aid. every marine i saw, every marine we saw including from new jersey was working around the clock to
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protect victims. sleep, what is that one marine told me with a smile. we're saving lives. al, principle adviser for east asia and the foreign disaster relief said, quote, when the u.s. hit the ground, things got moving. this was a model response, he said. we saved lives here. i know, that for a fact, close quote. the cooperation and team work of our military and disaster assistance leaders from usaid including the director of office foreign disaster assistance traveled with us. and ngo community and philippine officials was a textbook example how disaster assistance ought to be done. the relief efforts from far from over. it's now the recovery phase and more needs to be done. with donald rially from catholic relief services, we were with him the entire day, when we were
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in the devastated city, our delegation visited a san ticks kit distry biewx and received a briefing is a medical doctor in my own state of new jersey. we met with numerous survivors who told us heart breaking story. somehow radiated a calm, and inner peace. one man told us how his father had drowned in only a few feet from where we stood. and he carried many water-logged dead bodies to a mass grave. he said he nearly collapsed emotionally; however, whenly carried a lifeless body of a 3-year-old girl. he said had he just broke down. he was overwhelmed. and he felt he could continue no more. amazingly, a few days later, there he was determined to rebuild and overcome. it was full of faith. that resiliency was best summed
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up by archbishop who said, and i quote, the typhoon was the strongest in the world. but our faith in the lord is even stronger. no calamity or natural devastates can quench the fire of our hope. the philippine soul is stronger than yo lane data. our plane was diverted to seek the helicopter that crashed in to the bay. after a flawless just above the deck search for survivors, the helicopter had spunk to the bottom. it was like looking for a needle in the hey stack. -- hay stack. they spotted two individuals who had no life jackets open the back of the c130 kicked out a yellow life raft to them. with night darkness approaching. it was clear their lives had
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been saved. and that was just -- it was a symbol of what everything that was going on in the ground and elsewhere was all about. aboard the crew was cornel john peck, and a group of individuals who were just happy they saved two more lives in addition to automatic the others they had a hand in saving. back we had productive meetings with the health minister, the doctor, and secretary of foreign affairs, albert are czar owe. we met with people from the development corporation. one of whom was matt bond. who told us pursuant to a contract of some 435 million of five years cc grant has only been damaged. and that too, the road they constructed actually paved the way for humanitarian supplies to make their way to the victims. we also met with a ton of ngo and other agencies.
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our interest was not only on effective our emergency was throughout it all, but going forward where our systems ought to be directed in the medium and long-term. we felt that two areas deserved special attention. preventing and addressing potential epidemics, and minimizing the human trafficking. it normally takes a -- after a natural disaster such as a typhoon but international health experts told us that already was endemic in the storm -- and could increase four to five fold in the coming weeks. in addition to cholera, hepatitis a, fever, monopoly, and other diseases can proliferate in a post-storm environment. there are vaccines for cholera, hepatitis a, but there are no vaccines for the others.
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and others that might man fest in huge numbers. they are complicated several factors; first, the philippines is undergoing a rainy season. not only increase breeding grounds for mosquitoes and other disease-bearing pests but harmer relief efforts. many residents without shelter will be more us is susceptible to the element. the lack of electricity can mean no cold for medicine that must be refrigerated. including safe blood for women. there are some 90,000 women who are pregnant who lost their ability to go to a venue where safe delivery can occur. we know that some 200 health clinics have been destroyed there. so a venue for them to give birth safely and access to safe blood remains a serious challenge going forward. third, many roads remain uncleared or badly damaged. making transportation for health
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workers or patients more difficult. fourth, many workers have left the infected areas or died in the storm. and the continued presence of foreign health workers will depend on ongoing donor funding. internationally funded protection efforts currently focus on family reunification, personal identification, and creation of safe spaces for women and children. u.s.a. aide are establish women friendly and child-friendly spaces in strategic locations to address the needs of women in adolescence girls as well as male children. the lack of electricity and insecure housing raises the risk of falling prey to abusers and traffickers especially at night. however, while there's acknowledgment of increased risk of human trafficking, in the wake of this storm, the lack of reports have increased has meant the issue is not not yet in full focuses.
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maybe it's a good news story. we know traffickers are red dpoi prey on the vulnerable and we know that the philippines has a huge problem of women being trafficked and children as well. also, important will be providing shelter for the 1.2 million families whose homes have been damaged or destroyed. they told us that 1.3 billion will be needed to repair and to really erect homes that have been destroyed. the philippines, as we all know, is a major american ally, and a great training partner. there are an estimated 350 americans living in the pill finds and 4 millions faa peen knows living in the united states. we are bound by a common value system and a great deal of friendship that spans well over a century. we have an support stake in seeing our friends and neighbors can recover from the devastating storm. the purpose of the hearing is what do we do next? how do we proceed and go forward? i would like to yield to my good
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friend and colleague for opening. >> thatch, mr. chairman. as usual, i want to thank you for your leadership in holding today's hearing. and also for making the trip to the philippines. i want to exattendant warm welcome to assistant administrator lindberg, for the leadership and agreeing to come before the subcommittee and to our witnesses, thank you for your participating and the important work each of your organization is doing to provide relief and support to those in need. los angeles and my congressional district home to a large philippine population who have family that have been impacted by the typhoon. i personally have friends who could not find their family members for mu days. the u.s. response to this crisis has been nothing but immediate and swift. i want to take this opportunity to acknowledge and thank the important work currently underway by u.s. aide and dod whose rapid response is undoubtly saved lives and prevented death and injury. let me extend my deep
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appreciation to the many u.s. based ngo who leaped in to action and those who continue to take on the long and arduous work of rebuilding and helping mend peoples' lives. i want to yield the rest of my time to representative greene, who i know -- oh. okay, mr. chairman. go ahead. >> before i go to mr. gene, i want to go to chairman rice. ly yield to my friend and colleague. chairman rice, chairman of the committee. >> i'll yield to mr. al green at this time, if that's all right, mr. chairman. thank you. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman, and thank you to mr. royce. mr. royce, i want to thank you because you immediately started this process with the resolution, and i know you'll say more about it. i won't step on your words. i want to thank you for moving as expeditiously as you did.
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mr. chairman, i sincerely thank you, because you were not only a great leader, you were a great inspiration. i will tell you that your summary you just accorded us is entirely accurate, and i would like to associate myself with each and every word you articulated. i'm proud to say that the bill is bipartisan and our effort was truly a sincere, nonpartisan effort. we went there to be of assistance and i'm proud to have been associated with the endeavor. to my ranking member, thank you for allowing me to be a part of this as an interloper. i seem to find my way in to places, and you have greeted me warmly, and i have great respect and admiration for you. i thank you so much for allowing me to be a part of this body
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today. i would like to extend my condolences to the people in the pill finds. -- philippines. they have suffered greatly. they are in the recovery phase, but there is still great work to be done and i want to assure them that my visit has only strengthened and reenforced my belief that there is much we can do to be of assistance. i would like to thank the witness, i did have an opportunity to read your testimony, ms. lind berg. i found it compelling and very extensive and validated what i saw while i was there. so i thank you. i was inspired by the unity of the effort when i was there. there was a try par tide process
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that involved our embassy, which was right there at the forefront, the leadership was stellar and outstanding. we had u.s. u.s.a. id all over the place. it was remarkable to see how the organization managed to become almost you you -- of course we had dod. i was very proud to be an american and to be there. our marines landed and people applauded and the marines didn't just show up in the parlance of many of my friends, who live where i live. they showed up and showed out. they acquitted themselves well. the chairman talked about the
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rescue mission, which was something that happened while we were en route to do something else. they were 66 indication and did it wither lackty. i was proud of the way they handled themselves. the marines that i met about 15 from texas gave me phone numbers and i on thanksgiving day, i received one of the greatest rewards you can receive when you call a family member and say i saw your son, i saw your daughter, i saw your husband and i saw your wife. they're doing well and serving our country well. and there were stares -- tears of joy that emanated from some of these relatives and others were just gratified to know that we took the time to go. so mr. chairman, i think we did a good thing. again, thank you for your leadership. mr. franks isn't here. i would like to mention him and say to him i'm proud to enter
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associated with his effort. he's arrived now. excuse me, mr. franks. my apology. mr. franks from arizona. we had an opportunity to spend lot of time together. and gratified we have the chance to see and unmany things about the philippines. mr. chairman, i don't know how much time you have given me. if you would allow mae couple of more minutes. i appreciate it. i want to mention our relationship with the philippines is one that is solid, in my opinion, because the relationship is based upon, in part, business. we are their second largest trading partner. it's more than a relationship. it's a partnership. we have a visiting force agreement with the pill find -- philippines. it's more than a partisanship. it's also a kinship, because we have many american bhos live in
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the philippines. about 300,000. and we have americans with children that are being born in the philippines. and this relationship this partnership, this kinship, makes our association quite unique. i'm proud of it. i read the testimony, and in your testimony, madam, you mentioned about 800,000 people were moved out of harms' way. that answers a question that i had when i went over there. when i saw the devastates, i immediately asked myself, why weren't more people killed? it was a miracle, in my opinion, that more people were not killed but a part of the answer has to do with the way the government
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was able to evacuate 800,000 people in short order that was a fantastic effort, and i'm proud to say that i know we had a hand in it. i'm proud to say it a lot of lives. and finally, i want to just acknowledge we have a bill health care r3602, and any bill i filed is one that i'm amenable to changing. there's nothing in the bill that is sealed in any sort of permanent way. but what it does simply, is accord filipinos who live in the united states of america. we can change the name. we can find another we to do
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here. here's why i think it's imperative we do this in some way by some name. because the people there in the philippines, 43%, approximately, live off of less than $2 a day. to send people back in to harms' way, in a sense, i think it's a little bit -- to be very kind and sensitive, there are many other adjectives. i think we, as a great country, can allow them to stay for some period of time all negotiateble and work and send remittences back to the philippines. last year minnesota $10 billion were sent from the united states to the film peen -- philippines. more than $10 billion. we can help the people of the philippines help themselves with
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something right now we are calling it temporary protective status. call it anything you want. anybody can sponsor it. i think we need to do something to allow people to help themselves. this is way it can be accomplished. $2 a day, not a lot. we have people working here. their visas will expire. let them don't work and send the remittences back home. the people who say i want to send money, i'm not sure who i should send it to. this way the money will get to people who need it. these are family members and friends of people living in it country. she was the commander of the c130 when i had opportunity to go on the flight deck. i want to put in for a good word for the women who serve in the marines. they are doing an outstanding job as well, and i salute her.
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she is from texas, yes. and she had her co-pilot in training and i was so proud of the way she was training her co-pilot. and i salute all of our men and women who serve. thank you, mr. chairman. i yield back the time i do not have. >> mr. green, thank you very much. it was a privilege to you and franks on the trip. i would like to yield to distinguished mr. rice. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you to yourself, mr. franks, to al green, mr. green you are right. we have a kinship with the people of the philippines, and i think that our hearts really go out for the families and the victims. the 5600 people who lost their lives, but the reason i want to commend the three of you is because your focus on this trip was what additional steps can the united states take to make
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certain that we did not have an epidemic that would follow those who lost their lives that day. that malnourishment wouldn't attitude that toll, and i must tell you as chairman of the foreign affairs committee, i strongly support the u.s. effort here tow help the philippines recover and rebuild and i think the u.s. agency for international development is playing a critical role in this effort. along with the brave men and women of our armed forces. and to date we have allocated $60 mlt to recovery efforts. the uss george washington is stationed offshore to support relief efforts. i think many of the filipino american community were districtly affected. i know, we hear from families about how this type -- the worse on record.
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took from them friends and family members in many cases unaccounted for. we applaud the community's effort to come together and raise funds to donate humanitarian supplies. filipino-americans are rightly proud of their heritage and committed to helping those -- effected by the typhoon. i want to thank cain and randy weber. we had a hearing not long ago. a field hearing, we herd from a filipino who had gone through this tragedy of being labor trafficking trafficking in this case, it is in the wink of >> disasters like this. we're making sure it doesn't happen. i want to thank karen and randy for their work on that issue. and i wanted to say that i had the pleasure of meeting with
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assistant administrator nancy lind berg in the days after the typhoon hit land fall. i want to say it's extraordinary the work usaid is doing there. we want to thank you and your team for bringing comfort and compassion to those who need most. i have one issue i want to raise. one which we met with bill gates, the committee members met with bill gates several hours ago. it's one of the issue he addressed as well in this meeting. that is the unacceptably long transit times for supplies to reach those who need it most. the 60-year-old law that governs fooding prevents the timely delivery of assistance by requiring the commodities be sourced directly from the u.s. and then transported overseas. 60 years ago, this made sense.
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today it has become an unnecessary barrier. in the case of the philippines, usaid made a cash contribution directly to the world food program so commodities can be purchased locally. in comparison, the first shipment of u.s. rice to the philippines is arriving now. just arrived three weeks after -- after the typhoon made land fall. so surely we can do better than that, it's time we updated our loss. and i didn't want to say that we have language that we believe we hope is going to be in the farm bill in order make the reform. so, mr. chairman, i am heartened by the outpouring of support that the international community has shown to the philippines. i thank you, again, for your hard work on this issue. two weeks ago this committee voted unanimously to support of bipartisan resolution that i authored expressing our
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condolences for the people of the philippines and in support of the recovery effort being waged now by usaid and the department of defense and earlier this year, i lead a bipartisan delegation with my good friend, ranking member, to the philippines to strengthen our bilateral relationship with that country. we're going do that again in the wake of these issues. but in the interim, i want to thank all the members of the committee and to say we are all filipinos during this difficult time. i look forward to hearing from our distinguished witness. >> thank you for your leadership and comment today. i would like to recognize -- >> thank you, mr. chairman. and thank you for calling this hearing and as we start to look at the issue, and a personal firsthand testimony you and others who visited the region.
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it's certainly one that can't help but touch your heard when you hear about people being displaced tps. whard we start talking in millions to really recognize the size of that. but it's the size of the state of oregon. if everybody in oregon were displaced, you know, it's just monumental in term of the impact. so i think in a town where many times we can be very critical, agencies and their role in what has happened. and the testimony that has been shared by my colleague, be green, and the chairman. certainly is something that needs to be applauded and we need to celebrate the screeses and hopefully put a model going forward on how we can make sure that our response is not only rapid but one that is
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sustainable. i think the difficulty we have is with so many tough situations throughout our world is being able to replicate and make sure that the bureaucracy does not get in the way of providing good support. yet, at the same time where we just don't throw money at it. and chairman royce just mentioned this particular issue on a 60-year-old law that we need address, and look at that in a real way to make sure that in times of emergency, people can work together. i want to just thank the chairman and ranking member bass for the continued bipartisan. there's very little that is bipartisan in this town. and time and time and time and time again i find that -- with the interest of the people. not only the united states citizens but in this particular case, the filipino people that
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are hurting and suffering. my heart, my prayers, and my continued support to advance the cause to provide relief is unyielding. with that i yield back. >> thank you very much. mr. weber? >> thank you for the meeting. mr. chairman i have lot of questions. i'm short on time. i have a 4:00 meeting. i'm going let you go. >> mr. franks. >> well, thank you, mr. chairman. i want to thank the, i guess chairman rise has gone to another committee. we appreciate his fore berns in all of this. it's certainly been a precious honor to have been part of this delegation, and, you know, it seems like congressman chris shit is always at the forefront to do anything he can to recognize the image of god in every person across our world in our midst.
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i have seen him to be the first to care about and love those that everybody has forgotten about. he's a hero to me and i have the great respect for everything he's done. and congressman green, someone i held to be a friend before we went. now i hold to be a precious friend. and was so touch bid the way he put it apedly it was a truly bipartisan effort to making a nonpartisan goal to try to reach tout filipino people. and i appreciate to congressman green very, very much. as it happens, i have the privilege, and i mean that, the privilege to have been married to a lady from the philippines for 33 years. i don't know how in the world it happened, but if she ever leaves me. i'm going go with her. save a little trouble that way.
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she has been the delight of my life. and it is representativive of the noble nature of the filipino people. this is the people that refused, as congressman smith said to be brought down ultimately bit the storm. they were stronger than the storm. and i couldn't help but notice someone had taken a picture out on a high hill there that have been devastated all around. and the banner simply said, roofless, homeless, but not hopeless. i was deeply moved by that. they said the filipino people are people of deep abiding faith, and have a courage that sometimes belies their stature and gentleness. i can't exprez to you the warmth i feel toward the filipino people. maybe i'm a little biased. i assure you it's well
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justified. i suppose note point out they have been strong allies of the united states in times past critical allies of the united states. one of the places where the storm actually came to shore was place marked -- decades ago. and i thought the symbolism was pretty profound. i would be really lax in not pointing out my agreement with both congressman green and congressman smith remitted to -- related to the coordination that occurred there among usaid and all the groups and the ngo. and i have to say especially the american military. i suppose there's no enemy on earth more to be feared than the american military. >> but is no friend that can be more capable and more committed than the same group of men and
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women i think signify everything american is about. they provided a base of operation there, and the muscle to make this all work. and i know there are so many philippine people we didn't get there in time to help. help didn't get there in time. i only hope that somehow they are not forgotten. their memory is kind of catalyst in our own hearts to recognize to be an american is a privilege and also one of the things we sometimes forget how much easier we have. everything about the appropriate to do what we can to extend the hand of freedom and hope to those that are in need. and this is what this was about. and i think it not only is exfies what america believes and stands for. but, mr. chairman, it can have
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the effect of seeing the light of freedom someday fall across every lonely place and lonely face on this planet. and so let me just suggest to you that i am very honored to be an american and part of this effort. and i'm grateful to all the people that have given their lives to these kinds of cause. i'm hoping, mr. chairman, i can ask her when she has the opportunity. because my challenge i have to leave as well. but i'm hoping she can address the whole issue about who usaid's plans and efforts to protect trafficked children, abused children, and what are the best programs they have to protect children from being abused in these crises like this? how do we make sure the programs are in place?
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and i'm going go ahead and mention the whole epidemic situation that may follow whatever area might be and what we need to do to be prepared for those kind of crises. and finally, you know, it's it's a suggest there had while we were there when people like chris smat and congressman green and others talk about this in the media it keeps this issue in front of the public. which allows them to respond financially and otherwise. it's a consequence that ends up protecting real lives. and i'm hoping you might express ways that as members of congress that we can extend our efforts there to make sure we are doing everything we can here and the safety of the capital to do what we can to see preace and help extend it. with that, mr. chairman, i just -- more than anything else a sen of gratitude. grateful to all of you, and you
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sir, especially. and god bless the filipino people. >> thank you very much, mr. franks. i would like to introdisuse our first panel. beginning with nancy lindberg. conflict and humanitarian assistance at usaid. she testified before our committee on several previous occasions promoting earlier this year in the crisis being intorn in to office october of 2010 ms. lind berg has lead the team in the response to the ongoing syria crisis. prior to joins she was president
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of the mercy corp. she spent 14 years. she held a number of leadership positions on including service as copresident of the board of directors of the u.s. global leadership coalition. one of the founders and board member of the national committee in north korea and chair of the management committee. she's member of the foreign relation. she hold a ba and ma from stanford university and ma public administrate from the jfk school. and harvard university. the floor is yours. >> thank you very much. members of the subcommittee, and others. thank you very much for inviting me to testify today. a special thanks to you, congressman smith for leaving the delegation and all of you who went during this important time. and most of all, thanks to all of you for the ongoing support that enables us to do this kind of life-saving work and express who we are as americans in these
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types of need. that's vitally important. this has been the worst year sin 1993 for the philippines. an the november 8th super typhoon was the worst of those storms. the worst of an already bad year with the 195 miles per hour winds, a storm surge that reached higher and went further inland thant indian ocean tsunami. today we know that 5,600 people have died and nearly 11 million have been effected. as did many of you, again, express my deepest condolences of the people of the philippines. these are life changing losses that will take many years to fully regroup from. as you noted, i traveled to the philippines one week after the storm made land fall and saw the devastation. you see the photograph. when you're in it it's an eerie, twisted landscape of boats and
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cars tossed in trees and people's lives destroyed. you also see these signs of hope, the signs of humanity that surfaced even during the difficult moments. i met a brother and sister, and the sister was telling me about how her brother rescued 13 people at great personal sacrifice during the typhoon. these are the stories that are side by side with the devastation and the loss. and the great resilience of the people as they begin to emerge from the worse of the storm. is also saw hassive relief effort already in full swing. i arrived on a u.s. military c130 that was carrying life-saving supplies that u.s.a. aid brought in from our regional key piece of equipment. i also saw the rice that we had enabled world food program to buy loamly being put in to family packs and distributed so it was in the hands of 2.7
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million people within the first week. making a life saving difference. and i vetted government philippine run incident dismanned center that were mapping out the distribution sending out supplies on ped i pedicab, us. -- buses and trucks they recruited to the effort. this is a result of 10-year partnership to increase preparedness and the ability to respond. u.s. military aircraft delivered more than 2,000 ton of relief supply and evacuated 21,000 people out of storm-damaged areas. once we got back in. to date the u.s. government has provided nearly $60 million in humanitarian assistance. all of that is already on the ground has made a difference during those early life saving days. so as noted. we already looking ahead. i've submitted a full detail
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testimony. let me hit on a few highlight from the relief, the recovery, and reconstruction aspects. the first is that we have a applied some key lessons from past disasterrer that helped us improve the coordination and the response for this typhoon. u.s.a. aid expert were tracking it for at least week before it hit ground. we were able to preposition member of our disaster assistance response team to work with the military and the embassy both to prepare and enable an immediate response. it roads were inassessable. we were a able to immediately do assessment and deliver life-saving supplies to one of the hardest hit cities. and then as we invested and
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supported the capacity of the civilian side, both the government and the u.n. to set up land and sea bridges to help clear the roads so that we were able to wrap up the military engagement and bring forward the longer term civilian ability to ensure that the delivery were able to continue. lo jiggics were the number one focus. followed by three key priorities. emergency shelter, water sanitation, and food. there were about a million homes destroyed by the storm. we air lifted right away heavy duty plastic sheeting to the philippines that -- contribute temporary shelters. the water supply were ranched. the system were down. we focused on provision of clean water, chlorine tablet, and very
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quickly worked to get it up and running with the support to unreceive and by the time i was there. that was already providing 100% the water for the municipal area. the philippines government and the international community continued to -- spornd to the health concerns. there are nearly 200 health teams on the ground now and more than 2,000 children have been immunized. and withstanding water trapped in the debris it was a particular concern. there's been a big push for fogging operations. as chairman royce noted. we use the full spectrum of our food assistance tool the local purchase of rice got food immediately in to the hand of people who needed it then. we also were able to air lift
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very nutrient-dense food bar and nutrition paste from our regional warehouses and when there were no cooking facilities available, families were able to get a full-calorie out of these u.s.-produced food bars. finally, we rerouted the ship that was just loading up in our hub in sri lanka and brought that to the philippines nap ship arrived yesterday afternoon. although it wasn't there for the life-saving portion it will be an important part of the ongoing response. it's importance of a very flexible, full suite of tools. finally, we know the most vulnerable, the women, the children, and elderly and those with special needs fare the worst during the disasters. we have a state initiative called safe from the start. which reminds us we need protection from the earliest day of the response.
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we are supporting programs that are working with identification, tracing and reunification of unaccompanied children focusing on safe space for women and chirp. one of the most important protection approaches making sure that aid gets to people who need it as quickly as possible. i wanted to say a note about the power of preparedness. we have been working with the government and the philippines, which is the second most disaster prone country in the region to help prepare and mitigate the risk of natural disasters for almost a decade. this is critically important. it helped make this not as bad as it could have been. we've been training on first responders, on something called incident command system that we brought forward from our own u.s. forest service that enables the government to set up the command centers and know what to do and how to bring forward the right kind of trained people.
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they evacuated nearly 800,000 people in the advance of the storm. it saved countless lives. it's something we continue to do as we grapple with the new normal of increased storms that are battering an island nation like the philippines. we have to move as quickly as possible to early recovery. it's vital to so people can get on with their lives so they don't get mired in hopelessness and standing on the two feet again. we are already seeing market activities sprib up even in the hardest hit area. we are looking how to provide life-saving than is also very aware of local coping mechanism and local markets. we are moving forward at our strategies for provision of lively hood support, looking at transitional shelter, continued food security, water sanitation
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efforts, and continued protection of the most vulnerable population including the human trafficking issues that are important and very much a part of our consideration. looking ahead, the government in the philippines just released the first early draft of what is considered they think they need. they have identified about 2.6 billion. each year the philippines loses about $5 billion as a result of natural disasters that is 2% of gdp. so as we look ahead to the reconstruction, one of the areas we will look at closely is continuing the preparedness, the risk reduction, and how to build resilience at the household, the system, and the country level. it was one of the three area of focus for the usaid mission. it will be critical looking ahead. we are prioritizing our effort
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to support the critical area identified including some of the infrastructure, the lively hoods, and essential services that are necessary to get those communities back up on their feet. then finally we know that the most vulnerable will continue to be important as we go forward. we've -- just to conclude. a number of you have noted the important relationship between the united states and the philippine. we have seen an extraordinary outpouring of generosity from americans across the country, especially from the fill peeb -- philippines i dids a practitioner. i've had the pleasure of participating in community efforts. the way they mobilize to provide help in the hour of need is heartening. and it just underscores the humanity we all share. the united states has a deep commitment. we will stay with the people and the government of the pill finds
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in to the recovery and the reconstruction era. we're already seeing the camera start to fade away in this becoming yesterday's story. the kind of hearing like we're having today, the continued equipment we, the united states have to the philippines will be absolutely vital. and i look forward to answering your questions. and i thank you very much for your support and consideration today. >> thank you very much for your testimony. your full testimony will be a part of the record. if you can respond to them. one of the biggest tick away from the trip was debris. there was debris everywhere. it was a story to two-stories high. it looked like there was a lack of capacity to remove it. i know, there are programs
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catted lick relief services and ores are doing. the proliferate diseases which could easily erupt as a major health hazard. but when we got hit by hurricane sandy -- hurricane sandy hurricane sandy a lot of my shore towns are unbelievably infected. we debris everywhere. but thankfully we had the ability of the sheriff office of emergency management leader in man mouth and ocean. they did wonderful jobs in coordinating the debris removal and environmentally safe depositive iting of that depre. our take away was what are they going do with the stuff? it's everywhere. whether you might want to speak to that. secondly, on the issue of trafficking. i'm a proud sponsor of the trafficking witness prebs act
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and work on combating human trafficking every day. that the traffickers including women who have made their way and children may look to prey upon vulnerable people who over longer period of time may have lost some hope or may have very gullible for an offer to go to saudi arabia or to korea or somewhere else in the philippines for what look like a real job but turns out to be -- to a hell on earth. which would be a trafficking situation. ..

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