ption. little things like that could have an enormous impact on health. >> sunday night at 8 eastern and pacific on c-span's q&a. the nominee to head the tsa testified at a hearing of the homeland security committee. senators debate the defense budget and funding for the wars in iraq and afghanistan. and later a forum on the rising cost of college tuition. >> a senate hearing today to discussed air travel security. ron johnson chairs the homeland security committee. this is an hour and 10 minutes.

>> morning, i want to welcome our witnesses. thank you for your thoughtful testimony you have provided in the written form and looking forward to your oral testimony and answers to our questions. i do want to point out this hearing is necessary. i think it is unfortunate some information was leaked prior to our ability to really completely analyze it. we want to make sure as we are asking questions and you are answering questions we don't reveal classified information to give our enemies information to harm us. but the fact of the matter is if we are going to solve any problem, i said this repeatedly from this chair, we have to recognize and acknowledge reality. we have to describe it. the purpose of any hearing under my chairmanship is follow every

hearing hopefully every member and member of the audiences takes the first step to solve the problem and that is admitting we have one. i have been thinking about the struggles of the tsa since first established. understanding it has two missions and they are by and large contradictory. we are looking for a hundred percent safety to keep airline and all public transportation hundred percent safe and secure. on the other hand, we are looking for complete efficiency so the lines don't back up and efficient throughput through the system. it is a complex and difficult task. because of the leaked information and the inspector general roth i have to commend you for your independence and taking a hard look at this doing the inspections/investigations that i think are appropriate. we are finding out that

contradictory goal we are not meeting both of those. not by a long shot. with secretary johnson, inspector general, the acting tsa administrator i have asked them to analyze the problem and start thinking outside of the box. we need to look at more effective solutions and start prior prioritizing what we can do to improve security in the most effective way. an example i will use is after 9/11 the simple solution is provide us with protection so airlines can't trade into places and that is securing the cockpit door. but we found with german wings that is not the total solution

and can create issues. this is a complex and difficult issue. we need it approach the solution soberly and honestly and lay the problem out. i would like to first of all, ask unanimous consent to have my written opening statement put in the record. and jason herrington, another guest we were going to have wasn't able to make it due to an illness. he submitted written testimony in preparation and i unanimous consent to enter his testimony as well. i would like to read a couple stats that describe the difficult mission of a tsa. tsa is comprised of 46,000 transportation security officers. 20% of the employees are veterans. that is a good thing. i would almost like to see that increased. they screen nearly two million

passengers each day. nearly 6060 million each year. they screen 1.1 million checked bags and 3 million carianian -- million carry ons. they are responsibility for the security of 25,000 domestic flights per day, 2500 outbound international flights per day. it also secures four million miles of roadways 140,000 miles of railroad tracks, 600,000 bridges and tunnels, 350 mari skaretime ports and 2.6 miles of pipeline. we need to recognize that reality of it being a challenge and take a look at the problem as one of the significant challenge and talk about it as honestly as possible.

i will turn it over to the ranking member. senator carter. >> thank you for the witnesses. good to see you all. thank you for your attendance preparation and willingness to respond to our questions. few federal agencies interact more with the american people on a daily bases than the tsa. the men and women have a difficult but extremely important job. last month i spoke on the senate floor about two women who dedicated their lives to keeping the aviation system and users secure by working for tsa. in fact one of these two women was shot in the line of duty and showed up for work the very next day. every day these women and their colleague colleagues, thousands of them, work in a challenging environment to keep the aviation system safe and those of us who use it safe and secure. we don't do enough to

acknowledge that and to thank them when they do their jobs well which is almost all of the time. i believe it is important for us to recognize great performance when it is done in tsa or other parts of the homeland security more often than do this committee has an obligation to exercise our performance standards. thanks to the witnesses today we have been alerted to a number of instances where performance by tsa and employees appears to be disappointing and even troubling. just yesterday we learned from the inspector general that 7300 individuals with possible links to terrorism have been granted access to airports across the nation. and last week we learned about significant vulnerabilities at screen points uncovered by the inspector general. the reported failure for

detecting prohibited items at checkpoints are more than troubling. they are unacceptable. i look forward to reading the full report and recommendations later this month and summer. that said i am encouraged by the quick action take by the inspector of the homeland security. since 2011 transportation security administration transitioned from a one-size-fits-all screening philosophy to one that is more risk based. that approach is designed to allow tsa to deploy to the areas with the greatest threat. however, such a swift transition may have created vulnerabilities to the system. it is more important than ever for the transportation security administration have a permanent

leader in place. i thank you for working so quickly so we can move the nomination we will examine at a hearing tomorrow. we look forward to the testimony. thank the witnesses for being here today and grateful the current frontline workers are here. i will close with one last personal thought. my father and i used to drive myself and my sister crazy by saying the same things over and over again. and he said if the job is worth doing, it is worth doing well. he said that hundreds or thousands of times. out of that i took this lesson. we should be focused on perfection. we will never get there. but that should be our goal. if it isn't perfect, we need to make it better. things are going on the tsa and our job is to help you get closer and help them help the tsa to get closer to the goal and help the people with the

airlines. >> i will only add in the quest for perfection the way you achieve it is through continuous improvement. that is the right attitude here. it is the tradition of this committee to swear in witnesses. if you will all stand and raise your right hand. did you swear the testimony you will give before this committee will be the truth the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help you god? thank you. please be seated. our first witness is john right he is the inspector general for homeland. prior to serving as the inspector general he was the director of drug investigations at the food and drug administration. inspector general roth. >> chairman johnson, ranking member carper and members of the committee, thank you for inviting me tear today to discuss the work and operations.

before discussing the challenges i would like to acknowledge the tsa whistle blowers on the panel today. we are grateful when tsa employs and other employees from the department of homeland security are willing to step forward and identify problems within the agencies. they have saved lives and taxpayer dollars and play a crucial role in keeping the department accountable. we have more than 300 complaints a week to respond to waste, fraud and abuse in the department. with regard to tsa, we face a threat trying to secure the transportation systems. tsa cannot afford to miss a threat without potentially catastrophic consequences yet a terrorist only needs to get it right once. tsa's thousands of officers conduct tedious tasks that

require vigilance. complacency can be a huge issue. insuring consistency across the large workforce would challenge even the best of administrations. 14 years has passed since the inception we remain deeply concerned about the about to execute the important mission. since 2004 we have published a 115 audit reports about the programs and operations and issued hundreds of recommends recommendations. we have tested tsa's ability to stop us from bringing in explosives and weapons through checkpoint and testing if we could enter secure areas through other means. we identified vulnerabilities caused by human and technology based failures. i am aware of the media reports regarding the recent testing

chatty. the details of the test are classified and i cannot speak to the specifics but i welcome the opportunity to brief them of the finding in a closed setting. we are audited and reported on tsa's acquisitions and it shows tsa faces significant challenges for contracting for goods and services. despite spending millions the testing is showing no improvements in some departments. when we employ the screenings our audits revealed severe vulnerabilities. this is including the image inclusion, the risk assessment in granting expedited screening

and the screening itself. we look at who is hired and trained and management and our audits found a human error, often failing to follow protocol every tile poses significant vulnerabilities. we have looked at how they plan for, buy and maintain equipment and found trouble along the way. tsa has taken some steps to implement our recommendations and address security vulnerabilities. nevertheless some problems appear to exist. tsa can't control all risk to transportation security many issues are well within it's control. planning and strategys for using and obtaining screening equipment would go a long way toward improving operations. tsa needs to have a better understanding of the limitations

of its technology and develop a strategy to counter them. better training and management of tso's would help mitigate human error never eliminated but reduced reduced. the oversight of technical aspect and workforce would help enhance security and customer service for air passengers. this concludes my prepared statement. i am happy to take any questions you and other members may have. >> thank you, inspector general. rebecca roering is the assist want federal director for the foreign inspections at the minneapolis st. paul airport. she has served the federal aviation administration as a federal air marshall and civil community inspector. >> chairman johnson, ranking member carper and members of the committee thank you for inviting me to discuss the important

security concerns related to the tsa and security at the nation's airports. the mission of tsa is to insure safety for the people of commerce and the mission to protect the travelling public against the terrorist attacks. the ability to execute the mission has been called into question by many oversight groups and my testimony today focuses on the number of the security firms and policies that result in vulnerability and low morale. there is more emphasis on customer service and wait time. any wait time that is excessive requires reporting, thorough analysis and corrective action. conversely the local monthly testing of the officers to determine the ability to detect weapons and explosives is not

associated with performance metrics. when the testing results in a fail to detect the item there is a basic training required before they return to duty. they may never be subject today the test based on the current volume each month limited resource to conduct the test and the sheer volumes of the officers. this lack of testing leads to complacency in the work place. detection rates of ied's are just becoming a discussion of the tsa. this is because of many airports identified detection rates of concern. leadership recognizes this is relate today the poor morale that exist across the work place. the 2014 survey resulted in dhs receiving the lowest ratings any of federal government agency and tsa receiving low marks.

the survey showed the frontline employees feel strongly the work they do is important they are not valued. a culture of fear and distress has been created in the agency also impacting the morale and performance of the employees. this is documented in the security talk. the tsa pre-check program is a concern as well. tsa has expanded pre-check to large amounts of passengers who have not paid or enrolled in. i expressed concern to the leadership of the expansion of pre-check and later reported the concerns to the office of special council for investigations. my allegations were confirmed by the dhs inspector general in a report called security

enhancement leading to the pre-check initiative. they are handing out pre-check status like halloween candy in an effort to get the passengers through as quickly as possible despite the security gaps. the pre-check enrollment program didn't meet the expectation in terms of volume oh the pre-check rules are expanding. insider threat continues to prevent a security concern at our nation's airport. screening is conducted on cargo and other things but other employees have access to areas of the airport subjected only to criminal history checks and security threat assessment. it was discovered some of the employees who worked at the msp airport later travelled to syria

to fight for isis. tsa increased the playbook themes with the focus on insider threats. at many locations, and in my experience, the federal security director doesn't force the action because a conflict of interexist with they rely on the airport and air air area to provide certain services but has overall responsibility for the regulatory program. transportation and security inspectors are being used to provide a warm wide range of duties not related to their core functions. moving bens at the checkpoint and conducting universal things to determine if there is hand soap in the rest room or if disappear is friendly. dhs should reconsider the

reporting structure to eliminate the conflict of interest and their use of their time. tsa used action to pressure employees to resign when they want remove them. when allegations of misconduct happen they must refer today the office of inspection and they will send criminal investigators to conduct investigation on minor administrative matters. it is a waste of taxpayer dollars to conduct routine investigations and destroys the morale and trust of the workforce. in conclusion the culture that exist of tsa is one of fear and distrust. tsa cannot control all of the risks associated with aviation security leadership of the agency is certainly in a position to impact change. better training and management of the workforce results in an

improvement to morale and detection rates. if the employee feels valid and respected the statistics will reflect this. they should reconsider the reporting structure to avoid any conflict. this concludes my prepared statement. i welcome any questions from you or any members of the committee. >> our next witness is robert maclean. he is a federal air marshall who blew the whistle about potential safety concerns regarding a tsa plant to alter mission schedules. he was fired by tsa for disclosing this but reinstated after appealing before the u.s. supreme court. he is a federal air marshall based out of the los angeles field office. >> thank you chairman johnson, ranking member carper and other members of the committee. it is great honor to be here as

an active duty federal air marshall. due to my case before the supreme court and my role as a national whistle blower for the federal law enforcement association, which isn't a union, dozens of air marshalls come to me. this is a huge responsibility. being a voice for those tasked with stopping terrorism. the public wants to continue the privilege and miracle of flying on jetliners. they are tired of the complaints and want their tax money spent on realistic measures. the 9/11 attack should show you vulnerable it is inside the planes 40,000 feet up in the sky. the most common concern is improvised devices. bombs. it is relatively easy to sneak

small bombs on planes. they will not pass through checkpoints by airport workers or delivery drivers brinkingging in items like food drink, condiments, cleaning products cooking oil and all of the packages going with and then you have the dense sacks of magazines, papers and books. this is not getting the screening passengers are getting. a bomb smuggler would hide a bomb in a hay stack. deploy people deep inside the bowels of the train stations and airports to do traditional foot patrol such as the uniform viper teams and the undercover red

teams. when i flew missions, i tried to find terrorist but instead i disrupted three smuggling operations of illegal aliens. tsa pre-check with the improvements pointed out should be greatly expanded. it should be free of charge. more people in pre-check frees up resources to focus on attackers. i would like to see tso's roaming airports with mobile pre- pre- pre-check applications and signing people up. in order to get more air marshals on ground every flight

deck should have a modified shotgun. the pellets are ideal since the primary concern is to stop an attack from trying to force the door open. shotgun pellets will not harm the passengers or the aircraft. the group of pilots that use their own funds going to mexico spending a week being trained and issued a 40-caliber pistol can miss and kill a passenger in the back of the plane. this is highly unlikely again but it is possible. armed pilots are not allow today carry pistols on international flights from gun laws but a shotgun to stop one or two hijackers trying to break in one, one foot away, would be hard to deny. it is a hazard when the pilot

opens the door to get food or drink and an amped up attacker could dive inside. secondary barriers ten horizontal cables attached to a pole that could be stretched across and locked in place. this barrier buys time to get the pilot back in and lock the door. in order to control unruly passengers who could be suicide attackers setting up a ruse for the law enforcement officers on board, every cabin should is should have restraints on board. they need to legal authority to deputize vetted able body passengers to protect themselves and the jet from destruction. we could do this process during our pre-check. there is no reason why an

athlete or military member can walk into the cabin to restrain. we can ask passengers to be the deputy air marshals during events. passengers may do nothing because of the potential civil liability and they are expecting air marshals to respond. when they are taken away from the flight deck it indang pputs the plane in danger. in the case of chaos in the cabin, the pilots need the ability to disorient attackers by shutting off the lights or high pitched sound alarms. pilots can dawn the oxygen masks and depressurize the plane and knock out the attacker. doing this and giving the flight

attendants and passengers the right to save their lives and the lives of those on the ground. you could assign air marshals to find bombs before they go up in the sky. hiring them afterward 9/11 was a correct action but it should not be a career. when i was recruited the experienced air marshals said half is flying, the rest is time to recover, train and investigate. they stress no one can sustain fives years of flying five days a week. 14 years later they say there is still not ground opportunities. we should train federal and local law enforcement officers to deploy for threats.

they don't want to gamble the board that is underfunded and rules on whistle blower claims. fa inspector blew the whistle on faa 12 years ago. she had a hearing 18 months ago and still the judge hasn't made a decision. if i had a jury i would have won six years ago. federal employees are the only workers in the u.s. who don't have access to jury trials. a restaurant cook reporting spoiled food being served has more justice than an air marshal. the list goes on. what about air marshals ecos to me and i made myself available all week to members of congress and fellow tsa force. many think my preoposals are

risky or crazy but i meant limited in the speaking about how we can outway the risk. i hope we don't need another 9/11 to prove why accurate. i am excited to serve with the new admiral and i hope he is confirmed. i look forward to answering your questions. i appallologize to go over time. >> i appreciate your testimony and courage to blow the whistle. jennifer glover is our next wins she is the director of transportation for the government accountability office. her job is assessing the vulnerabilities throughout the tsa process. >> thank you. good morning, chairman johnson, ranking member carper, other members and staff, last week renewed concerns about tsa's

screening systems rose and if they can identify specific items. tsa has a layered approach that is sound in principle and we support the risk base screening but to fully deliver the security protections under traditional and expedited screening tsa must do two things. first take more rigorous steps to make sure each layer of security works as intended and second put things in place to monitor their effectiveness. weaknesses have been reported in the oversight of the screening system raising question about whether the tsa is falling short in the ability to insure affation security. tsa has take steps to improve the oversight but additional action are needed. we will focus on the security flight program that matches passenger information against federal government watch list to

identify those who should not fly or receive enhanced screening. second the ait systems, the full body screeners used to screen passengers for prohibited items. then we the manage screening process that tsa uses to provide expedited screening for passengers identified as low risk. and fourth criminal background checks on workers. we found in 2014 tsa didn't have timely or reliable information about the cause of system matching errors that occur when secure flight fails to identity matches of the watch list. in response to our recommendations, tsa has developed a mechanisms to keep track of known matching errors and is considering methods to evaluate the overall accuracy rates on an ongoing bases.

second regarding the body scanners, we found in march 2014, that tsa did not include information about screener performance when they were evaluating the effectiveness. rather their assessment was limited to the accuracy of the systems in the laboratory. however, after an ait machine identifies a potential threat a screening officer has to do a targeted pat down to resolve the alarm. thus the consistency with which the screening conducts the pat down is key to assuring the effectiveness in the department. we recommended that tsa assess ait effectiveness as a function of the machine and operators. they conquered with the recommendation and sent updated information about their efforts to address it when are under review. third, in december 2014 we

found tsa had not tested the security effectiveness of the manage inclusion process as a whole. tsa uses multiple layers of security such as explosives detection devices and canines to eliminate the risk that is associated with screening randomly passengers in a system that is designed for low risk passengers. however if the layers are not working as intended they may not be screening passengers effectively. they have reported them to be effective but gao reached concerns about some of the layers. tsa is planning to complete testing of the system by mid 2016. finally, regarding tsa's involvement in airport worker vetting, we found that tsa and airports were conducting

background checks based on limited information specifically tsa's level of access to fbi criminal history records were excluding many state records. in response to the recommendation, tsa and fbi confirms there was a risk of incomplete information and the fbi has since reported expanding the criminal records they provide for the security threat assessments. in conclusion tsa has made progress improving the screening oversight such as taking steps to address the vulnerabilities in the security flight program and by working with the fbi to obtain more access to criminal background information. more work remains to make sure security flight, ait and inclusion management is working as intended. this concludes my statement and i look forward to your questions. >> i want to start you have inspector right

inspector roth you can you have can you -- can you speak to the level of sophistication of people on the red team in trying to assess the effectiveness of the system? >> that is going to be a difficult question to answer in this environment. i will say the testers we used a are auditors and members of the oig workforce and don't have background or training of the work. to go into more detail that will be problematic. >> i am an accountant as well. >> no one spoke to accountants. >> can you speak to differences between airports? did we see, you know, some airports perform better than others and see what works and doesn't work? >> again, i can't get into the specifics of the actually results of the testing. you ask know we did field work in the area but no report yet. we do field work analyze the

work and do the kinds of comparison you are talking about and report them out. i will say the results were consistent across airports. >> i will not go any further than that. i would like to talk about just the number of standard operating procedures and number of protocols. maybe ms. roaring or whoever else wants to speak to that -- how many are there? i have seen briefings and acronyms and i am trying to show how difficult they are for the standard tso's. >> there are a number of standard operating procedures. offhand i don't know the specific numbers but there is a checkpoint, a check baggage sop sop for the ticket documenter checker position known crew member, bda a passenger screening canine and those are the ones i can think of off the

top of my head. >> how detailed are the sop's? >> very detailed. >> we are just humans. it is hard to have the training involved of someone following every one of the sop's with the volume, the throughput we are trying to achieve is a real problem, isn't it? >> there are a number of very specific procedures in the sop. during the training process, the sop's are separated out so when you are being trained in that function, you would be referring to the sop that applies. some of them don't apply to all of the officers across the workforce. for example, the sop wouldn't need to be normal tso wouldn't need to know the normal sop and the inclusion and passenger screening screening. you don't have to be proficient

in all of the sop's. >> i want to get into the pre-check program and my concern, and what i think is a really good idea and most agree, but only if followed and if we only do complete background checks, so whoever is best able to answer in terms of how many people have been cleared for pre-check? i have information for about 100,000 but i am not sure it is accurate and how many went through a thorough vetting we would expect verses under pressure to again accomplish the throughput objective, how many have been approved in a very watered down process? ms. grover? >> i believe there are about a million people who have applied for pre-check now. but there are about 7.2 million

people who have routinely get pre-check on their bording pass because of their affilation with concern groups. people in the trusted program or dod active military. and then of course in addition to that as was discussed earlier there is people who can get repre-check through the auto mated risk assessments or at the airport through random selection from management inclusion. >> talk about automated risk assessment. >> automated risk assessment. so the first thing tsa does is check to see if a passenger is on one of the terrorist watch list. if they are not, then tsa checks to see if the person is already a known traveler. signed up with pre-check and have a known traveler number. if not, then all of the rest of the passengers are screened against a set of risk rules that

tsa has designed based on intelligence and based on certain characteristics of the traveler including information about the specific flight they are looking at then the individual can receive pre-check on their boarding pass on a one-time base. >> anybody else want to comment on the watering down of thet vetting process? >> tsa increased the use of pre-check over the last several years. it has gone from really a test case into a situation where between 40-50 percent of the traveling public gets an expedited screening whether it is inclusion, part of a trusted traveler program or ms. grover talked about the risk rules. >> as pre-check was conceived

with a full vetting process, how many people received the full vetting process to 50-60 percent of the public qualifying for pre-check? >> the tsa celebrated a million people who have applied for pre-check through the vetting program as ms. grover said. there are other trusted travelers programs that is very similar to pre-check, some more extensive and they get grandfathered in. members of congress and other trusted populations get grandfathered in. but you are talking about 1.8 million people per day traveling. so you are talking about a significant portion of the flying public that is unknown to tsa and goes to register. >> i am out of time. senator carper. >> thanks so much for joining us and for your testimony and your work.

before we talk about the things tsa needs to do better. let's talk about this. give us one thing they are doing well. john lead us off. >> certainly. and that is the hazard that i have in this occupation i only focus on the negative instead of the positive. >> we never do that in our jobs. >> certainly the two people sitting two my left with people are courage to see something gone wrong and try to fix it. and i suspect within the tsa population there are people every day, thousands of people, who get up and put on that uniform and go to work and try to do their best every single day. and again, when you only focus on the negatives, you forget about the majority of the population that really wants to do the right thing and cares about their job. >> i try to travel on planes

but i have taken over the years when someone from tsa is doing a good job, polite courtesy and thankful i thank them. they have no idea who mean. they think i am ron johnson. day to day it is probably mixed. we had a study about why people are leaving and one of the things is that as hard as they work they never get thanked. let me let the others pick up.

>> i think risk based security is a good procedure. as long as there is no risk associated associated. 99.9 of the public want to get from point a to b safely and we need to focus on that and target the tiny segment of the population. >> once again, i like the pre-check program. it blows hay from the hay stack to get down to that one needle. and the other program i love is the viper teams. the visibility intermodal prevention and response teams.

>> i would like to say risk based security at tsa has the opportunity to offer tremendous efficiency and i would encourage them to go ahead and work on that. >> most important element i have seen is leadership. if you have great leadership you have a chance to be successful. if not you are doomed. the president seemed to nominate and i think that is a great choice.

if you had the opportunity to say this would be a top priority for you what would the top priority be? >> i would go back and echo the remarks chairman johnson made at the beginning pointing out tsa's primary mission to insure aviation security and another mission is to insure the free flow of commerce and passengers. at this time when questions are raise about whether or not the fundamentals are working properly it is important to have a strong leader in place to guide the organization to figure out how to balance those two elements. >> thank you. >> one piece of advice if the admiral is concerned. >> more emphasis on protecting the cock deck or cockpit. >> i think the leadership of the agency is one that focus on wait times and we need to focus less

on wait times and be more concerned about detection rates and giving our officers the time they need to process passengers and bags in a manner they feel is comfortable the bag doesn't contain a weapon or prohibited item. >> thank you. >> i had the good fortune of meeting with the admiral prior to one of his hearings and i think the biggest thing he needs to understand and i think he does that this is a huge challenge. i think he is committed to understanding the problem and fixing it. >> my last question is give us good advice. come back and pick up one point you mentioned for us.

give us one great to do-list. give us one really good one. >> understand the risk you are attempting to manage. understand the risk behind the technology behind your management processes and manage against those risks. you have don't understand those risks, you will not be able to manage against it. >> thank you. >> i will take one out of my statement and that has to do with the fact we have no body in the field overseeing the numerous contracts tsa engaged in. no way of measuring if the performance is acceptable. having contracted the representatives in the field would let us manage the contracts better so we are not wasting taxpayer dollars. >> i would pass a law giving flight attendants more training

and authorities to have passengers save their lives. >> all right. thank you. >> gao's a data driven organization so i would like to see the tsa's top leaders accountability by asking for data on the top measure. >> what you can't measure you cannot manage. >> i have to give a shoutout to my tsas in my gate area c. i travel light but i attended a boy scout event and rushed to the airport and they put this package in my brief case and it was a boy scout knife and they caught it. again, there are, i think, the vast majority of tso and tsa employees that are trying to stay alert in a difficult task and check the public. that is my own experience. i got caught.

senator ernst. >> thank you mr. chair and thank you ranking member carper for calling this very very timely hearing today. i do want to thank all of our witnesses with us today and we appreciate your testimony very very much. senator carper i think touched on a lot of the questions that i really had. i do believe there has been an issue with the lack of consistency and i think it is something that tsa has been suffering from across the various aspects of the organization and its mission for a while. referenced in all of your testimony, across the board, is varying degrees of certainty and consistency with people, processes and operations. and these problems whether it is the morale of the organization, the personal or the day to day operations, they

are just so systemic. you mentioned ideas on where you would like to see leadership goes and a couple suggestions for congress. but bottom line, do you think it is really more of a management issue for the admiral? hopefully we will be confirmed or are these the issues that the admiral can influence through management style? or is it something that needs to be addressed through legislation? i would like to hear the perspective that you have on that. one or the other or a combination of both. ms. grover if you would start. >> i think it is several issues. i think there is a concern about morale at tsa as was mentioned earlier. morale at dhs as a department is very low and morale at tsa is even lower and that does affect people's engagement to their

work. but there are weaknesses in the equipment tsa uses in terms of its effectiveness and challenges of having 40,000 people doing their job right every day is difficult. it is morale, specifications of the equipment, and i would like to see tsa spending less time on standing up more programs and more time on making sure the programs they stood up are working properly. >> thank you. i appreciate that. >> a big problem with the air marshal mission is there is nothing going on. there is no arrest or case happening as you get in a border patrol station you have hundreds of thousands of arrest hundreds

of drug cases happening, so they arebuse are busy. it causes a huge ripple in the water and managers don't want to make a decision on something. i think a possible solution is to put the air marshal under the purview of a pure law enforcement agency. a lot of -- there is a huge amount of former border patrol agencies in the air marshal service and they feel like it was when they were under the ins. it was an agency that had conflicting missions. one was to naturalize people and then at the same time catch and deport them. they feel that is a problem. and no because there is so little case work and so little to do which is great because no

body is dying but board managers are looking for something to do or afraid to take care of the situation until they get a phone call. >> you would say to separate the two programs and empower those officer to do more? >> many air marshals say why don't we go under the purview of border patrol? the management is there. it could be a good transition. it happened once before. the original air marshal director put it under immigration and custom enforcement and did that because he saw the air marshals burning out. they were board. you hire these eager people and they goit there and are strapped down. it is like pressure cookers.

things happen. >> very interesting. i appreciate that. overlie i want to address the recent media reports that indicated by the inspector general that tsa failed to identify 73 people employed in the industry that were flagged under terrorist activity codes. according to the fast part of the reason is the agency is not authorized to receive all of the information under watch listing policy. i have huge concerns and most of the public as well. employees are granted special

access without going through a thorough background check. if you could speak to that briefly. >> we share your concern and summary of what we found is accurate. there is the large terrorist identity environment. and tsa by law didn't have access to some of the codes. in 2014 the administrator asked for access, but it a process that is taking some time apparently so it isn't quite there yet but i think they are moving quickly ton. >> thank you for your testimony. >> senator sasse. >> thank you mr. chairman. thank you for your testimony. and general, thank you for the work you and your team do. i wonder if you could unpack your work. i think you have the largest branch? >> i think we are number three. dod and social security i think.

>> how many employees do you have and talk about the structure. >> 670 employees all together. it is broken into functional and audit function and investigative function. we have 220 criminal investigators doing internal affair work. ...

private businesses and private enterprise all of whom are governed by the gal standards for auditing the so-called yellow book. >> do you have a red pen that reports to you? >> we do not. the red team is the term that they they used to do internal testing but we don't identify ourselves as red teams. >> said the report of last week that showed that there'd been 70 at times by your investigators to smuggle weapons or improvised explosive devices or fake explosive devices the failure was 67 out of 70 and the 96% failure the public is taking some comfort in the idea that

this investigation was supposedly done by the super terrorists is the term that is reported in the media from the red team. so the red teams are not yours and this report is yours. >> i cannot confirm or deny the specific results or methodology by which we did our testing. as i said we don't identify ourselves as red team. these are auditors that we used are members of the inspector general's office. >> i appreciate this and the classified briefings that you have given. i think that what we hear you doing is clarifying that there are no red teams. >> correct. >> do you understand how the department, how the stories are out there that says he's for red team investigations? >> i was as disturbing as anyone by the fact that this information. we have absolutely no incident

of leakage. we have started an investigation, pulmonary investigation to try to determine exactly where the source was. >> do you have any discomfort with communication strategies of the department that appears to be echoing these media testimonies and i will quote one from the secretary johnson. the red team testing at the aviation security network has been a part of the mission for 13 years. there are red teams at the vhs you're not going to be an unclassified is a terrifying the nature of your investigation that was linked but i think that we have heard you clearly state your employees are mostly auditors. >> that's correct. can you tell us anything more about the classified and unclassified reports that you've issued since 2004 complex >> i can't give you an exact

number. approximately a dozen is the best estimate of what we have done since 2004. we did a series of testing in 2011, with penetration testing to determine the security of the so-called sterile areas being able to just move into the area without any sort of examination covert testing for example carry-on luggage through the screening process. we have done with penetration testing of the machine as a sort of first generation machine which is different than the ones we've done it most recently as well as testing of the checked baggage process and that report was earlier this year. >> and are all of your investigation ultimately brief to the leadership of the dhs? >> yes. >> you said they disagreed with most of the record additions to

the classified report and you concluded, and i quote, we believe this represents the failure to understand the gravity of the situation. can you explain what that means? berger for and ways that you can can give screening without actually having an application and fee. we investigated those and wrote reports and making regulations that would eliminate those older abilities. we are sort of sitting at the water heads as we speak. >> do you think that they could have understood how great the problem was before last week's length report? >> it is the risk that they face. candidly, i worry about that.

do you think the regular passenger screeners have no matrix that have to do with their success or failure rate at interdicting the weapons? >> that is correct. >> thank you. >> thank you senator. >> i want to thank the chairman and all of you for being here. i wanted to follow up on a couple of questions. first of all, to understand that we have not been getting the workers, the work force against the fbi database. then as i understood you saying that in fact we still are not able to fully do that because of actually an access code issue.

they deal with the public in a variety of contexts and cannot in this context seems just mind boggling that it wouldn't have been in place already. >> to do this a little context on what we are talking about are sort of the marginalist, the terrorist environment that has information of individuals in the verified and unverified. so it is a broad list for which it gets called through the so-called terrorist watch list. so they did not have access to a certain code within a larger environment. again, some of this information is not substantiated. once they realize i think around 2014 that they did not have this information the administrator pistol signed a letter asking for that and it's now sort of in that inner agency environment in order to do that.

we were able to run 900,000 names against the tide database. for, as we said now, i think that we have a comfort and understanding what that environment looks like. in other words the 70 is eight as the sun entirety of what is messed to read we gave those names to tsa as soon as we discovered them and i think that they are following up on each of them. so to the extent there was a vulnerability i think it has been closed but it certainly gives you calls of the situation that is allowed to continue. >> it does give you pause because it really only takes one versus 73 in this context and owsley said here even the fact that there is still a bureaucratic step that isn't being expedited with this request being made by the director already in 2014 i just

can't imagine that they wouldn't have moved on this with the most haste they could move especially given the recent undercover findings. so, i think that is something that we should follow upon as a matter of bureaucracy can't hold this up when it comes to basic bedding that needs to be done. also, want to follow up on the managed inclusion, is being done with that and i was interested also as to see the director is the check that is being given out by colleen candy candy in your tent testimony and i think all of us think that it is a very important program for the public and access. but to the extent we do have a category of individuals that is growing exponentially, that is being used that may not go through the entire bidding process if you can share with us what you're able to share here

what would be better in terms of the reforms to focus the paycheck process properly so that we are allowing the members of the public to use it that showed and still maintain a thorough vetting of the individuals that we should. >> basic principle is great because it is sort of this idea that if you are a known traveler, we can spend less time on you and your unknown traveler. so bringing it back to its basic form, which is we know who you are. we wrote this report, brief members of congress there is proposed legislation in the house of representatives called a secure expedited screening act that direct them to bring it back to what it used to be which is somebody looks at you and know that you are a trusted traveler as opposed to some of the risks ruled that they now

apply. >> i also wanted to follow up the heard a lot of discussion today about the vetting process but one thing but i also served as the chair of the aviation subcommittee that's been an issue is wanting to fully understand your perspective on the role in issuing the badges. many of them are not being kept track of and that responsibility is left to the local airport. is this -- what would you assess in terms of this issue. what do you have in that front? >> to whomever would like to answer. >> sure. while, let me start by saying that it is the airport responsibility. and there are mechanisms that they have been placed at the airport level to do regular checks with each of their contractors to make sure that the badges can be accounted for.

and ideally that there is a trigger with a certain number of the badges that have been lost and they should all be reissued. so there are some controls in place, but i think that it is an issue that warrants additional attention. >> we are doing some work on that given sort of the news that has been so recently out there. >> we've had other instances. >> exactly. we are doing field work right now with regards to that sort of being able to actually go to the sites and figure out whether or not they are appropriately and properly accounting for the badge and whether or not the tsa is doing their oversight in a prudent way to see if we can piggyback into the secure areas of those kind of things. >> we also conduct tests where we will call the airport and report and in 40 has been terminated to determine how quickly they turn off the access according to the badges.

that was a special emphasis on the expection that we did recently. while we found a couple of challenges in most cases the badge was reported lost or missing the airport today to turn out the access associated with the badge. >> think all of you for being here this is an important topic and let me say to the chairman's point, you know i -- certainly the agents that i've interacted with in manchester on a regular basis i think that they are very hard working and so, putting together the right process for the people who are trying to do this job effectively every day and making sure that they have our support i think is important and then also ensuring that those agents are doing well that are doing well are and how work to do their job that is part of our function here as well so thank you all. >> senator mccaskill. >> think you. there is no evidence right now that you have the shows that it's either cheaper or better,

correct? >> i do not no. are and are you aware of any that exist? >> correct. >> the magnetometer versus ait. we have good numbers of costs to operate and the speed of use on those two different devices? >> we haven't done any work in that area. i know that they have some tricks with regards to that but i don't have that available. >> i feel like i'm handcuffed kind of in the tsa. we need to get all of the questions if it is available. it is very obvious to me because i'm always looking for any it. i either get somebody to touch me a lot or unless you start asking i go through the tsa line and then i ask them to go over to the machine. now it is some airports

immediately accommodate you. others say now you can do that. and when you get there every airport is different. some of them say that you can leave your shoes on and everything in when you go through the other line if you have your boarding pass. others are not. so it's kind of a mix that i don't care as long as i get to go through this instead of this. so i -- in about 50% of the time they have been shut down and i have to ask for them to open it. so they may have one sitting there. some airports don't even have one sitting there doing it but it wasn't until very recently they even had one of the southwest terminal. so i am curious if your work has focused on this and maybe the marshall can speak to this too.

why aren't we keeping those machines going all the time at every facility because we spent a lot of time on them and they know that this is the whole thing of time versus safety. how quickly can we move people through? cynic that is the essence of the problem. it is much faster to expedite people through a metal detector, but this is better security than going through a metal detector. a metal detector while not detect which is one of the biggest threats to aviation security. >> think of all the first-time travelers that are going through a don't know, they don't know how much time they are going to save if they go through instead. >> if he were they were to ask like i asked. >> i'm worried they are letting me use it and that is really

wrong. they ought to be told they should go through to save time and money, and of course to be more safe. so i want to keep falling on following on the magnetometer. why can't we have more ait machines? because we are cutting the budget. you've got to remember as we all said and count on the desk about how bad the tsa is we keep cutting the amount of money that they have and we ask them to do more and better. one of the issues is in fact how many are working. the times i've gotten into difficult conversations with people about why they say they don't have the staff. it takes more to run it. and we don't have the staff to run it. are you saying now that they are

preboarding? have they changed the? spigots hit or miss. it depends where they are flying for. one thing they tell me when they fly from international origins they are created by the agent. >> i still see them keyboarding. it's pretty obvious who they are. >> the way that it should be done as they should be boarding with the passengers. >> isn't that better security because they are co- mingling with more opportunities with their eyes and ears to figure out who there might be on the plane that might be a problem? when they grow up at the beginning of the boarding and they go on clearly they are not physically impaired. clearly they are not traveling with small children.

it's not like -- and then they are sitting in strategic places in the airport when you get on. so i don't understand why -- is this something anybody can speak to and did they think it was a good idea to put these people on ahead of time? >> we can't dictate what the foreign countries can do. >> but it's here in the united states. >> i'm not aware of that and i think the problem -- the air marshals have the problem, 100% to board with the passengers. but most of the air marshals now are flying long routes to places where they are mandating the pre- boarding. so the janitors, the workers -- typically complains i'm going on are not longer than a two hour flight and they are getting on ahead of time. it's the corruption? >> yes it is. >> shouldn't they be required to stand in line with everybody

else? >> i would like the absolutely. and at the same time they could be engaging in the activity. >> if you want them working around the airport waiting in line with all of the passengers. >> correct. >> is very reason they are being given the option, are you aware since they are not here? >> i don't have answer to that what we could find out and get back to you. >> it's more convenient for them to get on first. it's nice to not have to wait especially if you are doing -- that i can only speculate but it's possible that the air marshals may not want to lose their overhead bin space. >> exactly. >> it's speculating. >> especially when you were traveling on an airline like southwest. being at the front of the line. >> southwest airlines is a free-for-all for the most part. >> about ideas that we could see they would make sure they don't

have to see to the seats at the front. >> that all depends on how smart the flight attendants are going to run on the operation. >> okay. i want to stay on the contractor versus employee. what you will be willing to -- i want to talk about this but it seems to me that people ought to start putting in the audit in the report from the gal. the budget for the year of which you are doing the work compared to the previous year i think everyone needs to understand that there is a price to be paid for us continuing to cut and cut and cut the domestic side of homeland security, the domestic side of the national protection. it is a problem that we are seeing. this year again where we are going to create a $40 billion bush fund in the department of defense. but yet we are going to

shortchange the airport security cybersecurity, the cia, fbi all in the name of holding onto a ill-conceived sequestration number. so, i think that you should think about doing that. thank you mr. chairman. >> when we are talking about resourcing idea to try out the word prayer position. you can also rest assured that this was the first in a series of hearings to. we can talk about the boarding group and southwest airlines. senator bolton to a hispanic thank you mr. chairman. i appreciate you holding this very valuable hearing. i also want to thank the witnesses and especially the whistleblower witnesses for being here to share your stories and experience. and a special thanks you raised the alarm on the adequate background checks and as you are

stationed at the minneapolis-st. paul international airport where as the chairman chairman and i know many of our constituents fly in and out of two other destinations we appreciate your leadership. i wanted to follow-up on the questioning of the previous questions the senators have run down. just so that i understand very specific with regards to the access to the attackers servers and related information in databases, and in particular the lack of access to certain codes i thought i heard you say

earlier that there was a statutory impediment and thank you indicated that it was in the process of being worked out bureaucratically between the agencies and i want some rarity for our committee as to whether you need to see legislation on this pushed through in an expedited fashion and whether this is on the verge of being resolved between the agencies. >> my apologies as i understand the process it is an administrative process that is done within the government itself. there isn't a need for legislation. i think the access to that information is generally governed by statute but it doesn't require the statutory fix to apply to have access to those codes. only for example if the committee that decides whether or not they have the access codes for some reason if they refused that access access then

there may be a statutory fix that can be needed but until that process goes all the way through i think that is what needs to occur. >> y. l. i m. on the of legislative or policy changes that we should be aware of, i think most of the testimony that i've heard points to leadership points to management, points are following the rules that are already in place were examining that all of which the agency would have the authority to do as it currently stands. please, highlight for me each of your -- if there's anything in the testimony that we should pay attention to that requires statutory change. >> anybody clicks okay thank you. >> i wanted to have you speak of a further about this issue of

performance metrics. can you elaborate on the performance measures that track the wait times and those that track the ability to detect and how that reflects the safety performance. when there is an excessive time which by definition is currently over 20 minutes in a regular lane and -- it's in the preacher claimed there is immediate reporting required to the coordination centers.

for the training or called off sick and scheduled absences. there's just a lot of focus and information that is needed to be gathered when we have an excessive speed time. in terms of the monthly testing that is connected by my inspector, is basically once a month the results of the test. there is no match rick associated with it. the test results are shared but quite honestly there is no match rick to focus whether or not i would reflect on the scorecard. >> you have brought to our attention a lot of information about the threat of ied, and certainly given the attack of

the shoe bomber into the underwear bomber and fees sort of things, the evolving ability to assemble the miniature and remotely detonated them or as you described, the increased threat of larger in the airport perimeter are huge concerns. you already commented a little bit further in the questioning. but how do you you belief that these forces should be read s-sierra ties briefly organized to better protect against these threats and if you could elaborate a little bit more about the teams that you were talking about earlier in that capacity to help address this threat. >> once again if the pre- check is done while it reduces the time that the screeners needed to focus on the nonthreatening

passengers. so i would like to see those to participate more on the teams and then on the physical security on the aircraft so that you can get some air marshals on the ground. this is purely trying to build rapport from the local authorities all the way down to janitors and cooks. for instance you might have a cook that sees something every day, the same thing. but the one time you report it to your boss it might be some knucklehead says i don't have time for this. you're not a cop, quit playing cop i have better things to do. so he's frustrated and he doesn't -- he barely speaks

english, he doesn't want to go forward with it. but if there is that uniform biker guy who has built a reporter with him and asked about his family and is very interested in what he sees every day, you might come to him for something that's out of the ordinary and that little thing just may be the ied that air marshals are scared to death to be flying with. >> millions of americans fly every day and they are very dependent on what is happening in the security and whistleblowing from doing basic inspections i appreciate what you're doing to help the american people on this. it's extremely important. going to run through a couple different questions. you had in her testimony that you had repeated often to follow protocol that posed a significant vulnerability. what do you attribute that to?

is it management, where is that coming from? >> i would say that it's all of the above senator. it does involve training and it does involve morale and management. you have an enormously large distributed workforce. but you're right it is one of these things that. >> there's all kind of accountability built in for tim and efficiency you were talking about that before so there's all kinds. isn't there the same that the same kind of accountability structure put in for someone that's not following protocol? >> has it a become a time-based standard at this point? >> the agency treats that is a

conduct issue versus a performance issue that impacts the morale. >> these are great folks and the people i traveled back and forth with wearing check his life every if light every single week are terrific folks. and extremely friendly very engaged and they understand the value of what's going on. but it seems to continue to come in time and time again. that doesn't help us in the traveling public. but we go through a couple things here as well. there've been ongoing issues with procurement both getting a government that's outdated, getting the wrong equipment and this has been an ongoing problem. is it getting better? >> it's hard to determine at this point. certainly the kind of work shows that it's a continual problem if we just did the report for example with regards to the maintenance contracts where it's

about a $1.2 billion set of contracts over the course of four years in which tsa doesn't have the ability to understand whether or not routine maintenance is being performed or whether they are being billed for things that occurred. >> the basic sustainment? what's happening on the procurement site because there are lots of folks vendors that are rushing into this space now because there's a large market. >> certainly the dhs this is one of the areas the secretary is trying to professionalize the acquisition process within. tsa is obviously part of that. i can't speak to sort of how it's working on the current acquisition process but it is something that frankly remains a

challenge. i will say for example that is a single vendor so there is no competition in the market for the significant capital purchase. >> there are seven of the people that are now basically authorized to go through at some point point there are different variations. we need to change the name to something else because we have a large number of people that are really not being pre- checked. >> that is correct for people that are selected at the airport these are not individuals that were previously identified as low risk and so tsa's premise is that they are providing the real-time threat assessment through the use of the explosive

detection but we have raised concerns about the lack of effectiveness of data and during that time we found that they were not consistently using the explosive trace direction as the protocol called for. so there is the need for more attention to that. when there is no check portion of it, part of it has gone through the process in a part and part of it is random chance going through it. so my understanding is that this is a faster process because they have been more thorough background than this one. and so that it's easier to find

the needle like it that completely. if it is no check combined. >> you are familiar with century. i know a border patrol agent applied for century and he got denied because when he was a juvenile. they are regular flyers and want to go through that. i have no problem with that because there is high standards for that. i have no problem. that isn't a check at that point we had another line for that.

we need to be able to evaluate that as well. the iag reported. it goes behind the perimeter. >> the list is a very sort of broad list of entities, some of which is verified into some of which is not verified. the no-fly list no fly list of the subsection of that list the six >> of the larger list. >> that is going to be correct where there is accessed access and how quickly can not be corrected or that record can be tied.

just to be altered as a follow-up? >> i'm sorry i don't. >> we will follow up and find out the speed on that. what we are basically trying to detect the two things neither explosive or revenues. we do those in place to detect the explosives because the metal detectors don't. now the weapons are getting through. he went -- within the simple solution be either the views -- the frontal and side view as well as putting metal detector on the other side.

that would be a relatively simple solution that would increase the rate of of protection is that not true quick >> i would assume it would be for the weapons. >> okay. then with explosives of work has been done in terms of the dog's? i read some things the bomb sniffing dogs were extremely effective. can anybody speak to that? you were shaking your head. >> i was blown away with what the dog could send. i've seen heroin wrapped in coffee, duct tape, saran wrap medically sealed and then dumped into a tank of gasoline into the tank sealed and secured and the dock still hits on it. so if they can do that with drugs and if they can do that with bombs they are amazing creatures.

>> and later guidry program has oversight for the canine program and i've witnessed various locations a deploy where in every case they were able to detect the explosive and also very favorable results with the program. stack they had about eight total and they've been found to be defective and they are expensive. >> so is the $7.2 billion that we are expending.

spec that solution is pretty good. >> if we find out what exactly is going to work and try different things, this reliance on the cutting edge technology clearly has its challenges to it. so i would agree they need to start to look at other things as well. >> isn't a part of that process -- we watch movies and we just always have a silver bullet solution and we are finding out these technological solutions are failing in a very high rate so maybe we need to step back a little bit and see what works. and i would argue a bomb sniffing dog, they may be expensive. spec and how expensive that

would be. >> how expensive are they, or you done studying that can you illuminate the committee on that? >> the startup costs are about $100,000 for the conventional canines and in the neighborhood of $220,000 for the passenger screening, then an annual cost thereafter of about $60,000 a year for the conventional and about $160,000 a year. >> i would love to have them provide us a report that applies those times the number of teams that we would actually have to have the coverage in the airport. you look like you are chomping at the the big. >> bit. >> remember every canine comes with an officer who has a keen sense of feeling people out and reading phases and building a rapport.

>> i do want to give you an opportunity because you told your story of whistleblowing and i do want to see how you are tallied against because that has been a problem that i see repeatedly now in my four years of people that have the courage and the federal government coming forward in a story that has to be told and then the retaliation against a very chilling effect of those individuals that we do need to come forward so please if you would take this opportunity to show your story. stack in july of 2003 it accidentally fell on my lap. we were after in the problems porting between the passengers wearing -- having to wear somewhat of a uniform to get on every flight. we were brought in for an unprecedented emergency suicidal

al qaeda hijack emergency briefing. and we were all told that at any moment, we were going to be under attack and the flight deck was going to be breached, and those aircraft were going to be flowing into the east coast target and european capitals. just two days afterwards all air marshals got an unsecured text message sent to their unsecured phone instead of their integrated smart phones and message that we want everyone to avoid the cancellation fees. later on. i was going to be the plan until the next fiscal year. so for 60 days or longer any

aircraft that was going to fly for four hours or longer was not going to have an air marshal team on them. we get this text message that makes no sense to us. we've run out of money and we are going to have to fly until something happens. this was in late july, 2008. so afterwards, i called the inspector general hotline and i got routed to two other officers. >> doing it to stand in recess in this committee hearing. we are clearing the floor.

so in the orderly fashion if you could please exit as quickly as possible. thank you. >> [inaudible conversations]

that i would like to dabble the hearing back in. it is unfortunate what happened as we were concluding this hearing. a threat was called in. in today's world we have to take those very seriously and i would commend the police for acting responsibly and swiftly. we have cleared the floor and fortunately the threat was determined to be false. but again, the world we live today is very unfortunate. suffice it to say this is going to be the first in a series of hearings in terms of the challenge tsa has been trying to succeed in its mission of keeping the station save identifying every possible threat to keep things from harming any american end of the same time allowing efficient throughput so that americans do not wait in lines and don't miss flights for any form of

transportation. is it, we will continue to explore this. i will continue to work with the secretary johnson and to work with the new administrator of the vice admiral and ask those gentlemen to think outside of the box and look at the priorities of being effective and efficient at providing the kind of security into traveling the convenience of the possibly can from the tsa. with that, the hearing record will remain open until june 24 at 5 p.m.. the submission of statements for the record. the hearing is adjourned.

>> [inaudible conversations] director of clinical cardiology at brigham and women's hospital in boston, doctor patrick on the advances of heart surgery and the progress being made in the understanding of heart health. >> this actually is.

it is in the diseased valve and it will be deployed in just a second with a balloon being inflated and a new valve will be inserted inside of the old calcified valve and as you can see here the delivery system is being withdrawn and then the wire will be withdrawn and what we have just seen in this little display his replacement in the manner that does not require open heart surgery. so, we are trying to become smarter about predicting who will get disease and we are trying to become smarter as to identifying the most effective means to prevent or attenuate disease and smarter about following up in the longer pure code of time. so, we are currently in the era that we are trying to harness

the promise of the human genome research project that has now been in existence for more than a decade of all of the informatics that can be drawn by the giants of the industry like google for example, and information about the sociology, geography, demographics, where you live where the railroad tracks are what is or likelihood to get diabetes on your educational background, and with your white hood is of developing something like diabetes or hypertension if you live in a certain part of the city where you have flex to become less access to food or instructions of sodium consumption. little things like little things like that that could have enormous impacts. >> sunday at eight eastern and pacific on c-span today. >> the senate tuesday worked on the defense program bill including an amendment by the armed services committee ranking member jack reed that would

limit spending in iraq and afghanistan if sequestration limits were uplifted on defense and domestic programs. the senate would defeat the amendment in a partyline vote. before the vote come armed services chairman john mccain met senator reid could discuss the amendment created area this is 45 minutes. >> mr. president as we consider the amendment by senator from rhode island i would like to again remind my colleagues that the world is in turmoil and has never seen a greater crisis since the end of world war ii. i would repeat my assertion that it wasn't the best or the right way to do business. the worst way to do business is

to have an authorized nation that will eliminate our ability to defend the nation for the men and women who serve. i urge my colleagues to read this weekend's "new york times" global struggle to respond to the first refugee crisis in generations. 10 million people were uprooted by violence last year. most propelled by conflict in iraq, ukraine and afghanistan. the conflict and extreme poverty also pushed tens of thousands out of parts of sub-saharan africa and southeast asia. it is according to the united nations. that is what is going on in the world.

they attached on the western fringe of baghdad. this is yesterday. the militants described and killed eight people in the local government office in western iraq on tuesday and attacked the islamic state. the u.s. army's main website is down and the electronic army is claiming the credit on the electronic army they hacked the official website for the u.s. army twitter account apparently associated. the site was down in the afternoon while the screenshots posted on the network by the group to show the messages of support for the beleaguered president bush are almost on the site earlier today.

the "washington post," june 8 at 4:53 p.m.. the world islamic state seizes power plant in the city. the islamic state militants have seized a power plant last of the city that supplies central and western parts of the country with electricity. the group and a military source said on tuesday. the planned was taken in the message on the social media adding that the capture of the planned event the militants had driven their enemies out of the entire city. descending into chaos and isis extending its effect its influence. "washington post," june 6 they may offer the base for the attacks.

as the islamic states scored victories in the series in an iraq, its affiliates and libya -- the affiliate is also on the offensive consolidating the control of nomar gadhafi's former hometown and staging the attack on that city, the islamic states growth could destabilize the country already suffering from a devastating war and they could offer a new base for which the launch attacks elsewhere in north africa. fox news. june 9. they captured the u.s. official confirmed. the group kidnapped the christians from the people smugglers last week the u.s. defense official conference on monday.

what is at stake if they continued their onslaught? ukraine is fighting a war on two fronts, the one you see on television is taking place in the east country with thousands of russian troops engaged in the armed aggression against including the illegal annexation of crimea. the piece that is important by the prime minister of ukraine. "the wall street journal." president obama admits the strategy is not complete. president obama doesn't give many press conferences at home sometimes the most revealing media moments come from when he is at home and abroad.

witnesses answered to the question about iraq. he answered with a startling explanation for why the war against the state isn't going so well. the strategy still isn't up and running. we do not yet have a complete strategy because it requires the commitment on the part of the iraq iraq he is as wild about how the recruitment takes place and how the training takes place so the details of that are not yet worked out. while. we still do not have a strategy to counter the islamic state which took control a year ago and beheaded two americans for all of the world to see last summer. mr. obama announced the strategy in a september speech, promising to degrade and destroy.

nine months later, here we are. they've overrun overrun ramani and gave way to baghdad with lines that were promised barely exist it occurred to the north about the lack of weapons that forced all of the major assault in the bombing campaign, and now mr. obama tells us the training of the iraqis was barely underway. i will skip through some of these.

they pulled bodies from the rebels according to the videos in the chaotic aftermath. the local coordinating committees have the rates on the village in the province that killed 60 people and wounded others. the observatory for the human rights said that killed 49 people including six children. it said the death toll could rise as some people are still missing. >> that's the associated press june 6. bloomberg via they spend millions to prop up a al-assad. they are spending billions to prop up the series in dictator according to the other outside

experts. these estimates are far higher than what the barack obama administration negotiating in a nuclear a nuclear deal with the tehran government has implied they spend on the policy to destabilize the middle east. i would add to that debate are basically even taking over the cabinet positions in the government. june 5 report, the surveillance vessels china has begun off the coast of hawaii in response to the navy's monitoring activities of the disputed islands in the south china sea. the purported surveillance comes on the heels of the raised tensions between china and the united states like last month.