at the same time we have is very auguste group the said forcing companies to provide a backdoor to encryption is going to result in a lot of unintended possible consequences including some of our companies will lose a competitive advantage because, for example, if we expand to

include encrypted apps that it only would apply to our companies and, therefore, if our companies have to provide a set of backed away to get to this information and foreign companies who in the marketplace don't then you at a competitive disadvantage. they are a lot of issues that we do have two way. speaking of that i understand you to say that is just one of the things on the table? are that he said at another form perhaps but you think it should be expanded to include encryption apps? >> i don't know whether i said that but if i said it, i'm smarter today than i was then. i think that's something that folks are discussing but i don't know what that answer is. that's why we haven't come to dealing with a proposal. we're trying to show the humility to say we don't know what will be best. but i agree with the competitive

harm one, senator. senator. >> as we wrestle with the subject, and meanwhile, the companies are providing more and more encryption apps. at what point do you think we'll we will be prepared to take some sort legislative action that would enable you to get access to information? ended still provide our companies with the kind of environment that they would like us to provide? >> i don't know. >> what's the time from? >> i don't know because i do think this is one of those coveted problems i've ever seen in government. for the recent that of alluded to putting what you said about competitive corporate we do not want to damage the engine of innovation that is america. and so we have to figure out so how can we maximize safety on the internet and public safety in a way that makes sense for america. it probably makes sense we've got to forget what kind of people we want to be first what

makes sense for our country. i think we have to do that in league with international partners so we don't create a situation where america is the only mover and that causes harm to our companies. >> i think there's a very important aspect of what we need to do going forward on the going dark problem because it would be very unfair to our companies as you said if we're the only country that requires a backdoor way to this information. i'm glad that's on the table in our discussions with other countries. so the president's review group, that some of the people of already mentioned but they said very strongly that we should not require a backdoor way. so in these discussions is the technical, cuba technology companies, are they going to be at the table as we discussed going forward in what may be

legislative action? >> they have to be. i think we all think no one size fits also got to figure what would work for different companies. as i said before i think that is the source of the innovation the source of the creative duty we have to harness. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> senator mikulski? >> mr. director, it's very nice to see you again. mr. chairman, thank you for having this hearing. there's always -- i'd like to pick up on senator heinrich's recommendation about an additional hearing on the subject from the technical and civil liberties folk. in a briefing materials i read from aclu, the software alliance come and i saw a lot of criticism of what we are pursuing here for some type of

opportunity to not go dark. but i didn't see any solutions. i saw a lot of criticisms, a lot of critique but i didn't see solutions. now i believe i can, as senator heinrich said, and others, we have tremendous technical know-how and i believe the people of silicon valley are indeed very patriotic people and they don't want drug dealers and international traffickers and child pornographers to be able to get away with various things. so if we could actually get from those as well as from civil liberties community, how we can start working to solution, that would be great. mr. director, in this year's appropriation funding we worked very hard to support you, when i was the chair and now as senator shelby. we have now put in 8.4 billion

to fund you for this coming year and would also put in $483 million for cybersecurity. my question to you is do you feel that those resources and the type of workforce you have disabled to be flexible enough to meet the ongoing threats? i'm not being critical of what you have but as you talk about the recruitment tools of isil who are pretty talented, using twitter and other forms of social media, that's a whole different generation and it's a whole different generation than the original cyber warriors that were hired under your predecessor. so you think you have enough resources to be able to recruit the people need to deal with this, as well as the administrator flexibility to bring in teeth? this will not be traditional agents. could you share with us because

we could have the best law in the world but unless you have the best workforce and the flexibility and the resources to hire it, we are just creating hollow opportunities. >> thank you senator. i think the answer is yes and no. yes, i believe that the senate and the congress is giving us the resources i need for next year. the money i can responsibly spend but i face a threat that continues to grow so i will be back to us for additional help but you've given us what we can recently spent recently invested i think the answer is yes, i can attract the talent. i cannot compete on -- if you're interested in go you don't want to work at the fbi. someone. want to make a difference in light of this country that they don't care about the dell. they want to be part of

addressing these threats. that's pretty exciting. i'm optimistic actually. know, once i get in and figure five to six years, start of the film six years, startup of them additional cost of living adjustment maybe i start to lose their enthusiasm but that's a problem i will deal with down the road. i've got a lot of smart -- >> what about the flexibility? you investigate breaches and a variety of things. there's also characters and. that's the social media world that you're not operating in. you even some modern director like director mueller he faced al-qaeda. do you have the administrator flexibility to bring on people as you need them that may not be the traditional trade routes or recruitment of fbi personnel? >> i think so. there's a couple things around that i'm thinking about.

but in the main the answer is yes. one of the things we to consider is should we look at a different career proposition for people have them come. once people come to the fbi they never leave. they get addicted to the that may be a model of what to look at but in the main, just. you have given me the flexibility. >> my last question that i think perhaps it's not appropriate to an open session so we have three so-called coincidences today. the fact that the technology has failed at united airlines the new york stock exchange, as well as "the wall street journal." i don't live in coincidence. i think coincidence is anything we don't have an explanation for this the fbi investigating these as breaches, or have you not been called in or are you not able to say? >> we -- >> i'm very troubled. >> that caught my attention to

we are not big believers in coincidence either. we want to dig into that so we have been involved at all three contact with all three companies, understand what's going on and we didn't see any indication of a cyber breach or cyber attack. i think "the wall street journal" piece is connected to people flooding their website in response to the new york stock exchange to find out what's going on but it looks again and my business you don't love coincidences but it does appear does not a cyberintrusion involved. >> thank you very much. >> senator collins. >> thank you, mr. chairman. director, you talked about the impact on terrorism cases in your counterterrorism efforts. and you said it's very difficult to quantify what the impact is. by it's my understanding that this morning in testimony before the judiciary committee that the district attorney for manhattan

said that in the past six months alone there have been 74 cases where law enforcement have been stymied because they were unable to get information from cell phones come is that accurate? >> i saw that in the written testimony of district attorney vance commits a note in i believe it to be accurate. >> as i look at this problem which has ramifications that some i called have pointed out for criminal cases as well as for counterterrorism investigation, would an option be to require that companies themselves to be able to access the information to comply with a lawful court order, not the government having the keys or

back door in but the company itself? might that be a solution to this problem speak with yes and that's something the deputy attorney general talked about this one. it's possible to imagine a world where the companies figured out to comply with the judge's orders and every company does it in a slightly different way. yes, that's a possible outcome. >> now, most companies i suspect that are involved in developing this into end encryption it's a with the best of intentions. they were trying to increase the security of the data of their customers. but do you believe that there are some companies that have intentionally develop this kind of system in order to thwart their ability to respond to a lawful court order?

>> i don't know with respect to the intent question. i know there are companies that after once they made the decision, advertised as a solution that would be immune to a search warrant. apple did that but i do know the intention of the original change was to publish the result, if that distinction makes sense. >> well, it doesn't to me because if the company is advertising that the information would be safe from a search warrant, that's very troubling to me because that to me implies an intent to keep information away from law enforcement despite the issuance of a lawful court order. and i think most people involved in the encryption process and developing these products would not want to thwart law enforcement or was is for criminal case or terrorism, but

that does trouble me. i won't ask you to respond to that. i do want to switch to ask -- access to a different kind of situation that suggest how much we need computer, cybersecurity law. i just met with the ceo of a large bank. he relayed to me an incident where the fbi knew that his bank had been targeted for cyber attack. here's what he told me had to happen. he said that the fbi under current law could not immediately go to the bank and invade information. first, they had to go to the bank regulators, the occ regional office. then the information had to go

from there to the occ in washington. from there it had to go to the department of homeland security. then the department of homeland security approved the fbi's contacting the bank to warn them of this imminent attack. well, obviously, and he said this all occurred over a weekend so it was difficult to reach people. ever cell phones involved, et cetera. that's a terrible system. and we need to be able to empower the fbi in real-time to be able to notify a financial services organization, the electric grid the air traffic control system critical infrastructure of an impending attack.

would you agree with that? >> very much. and what you've described surprises me because i think the way we operate is recalled and if there's a threat to the institution of any kind we have developed relationships with a chief information sake of a chief information second officer or i'm a chief information sake of the office of the uncritical backing track, maybe you can privately give me the information because it's not the way i understand it works or is supposed to work. >> this incident really troubles me. because by the time the information got to the proper people at the bank it is nothing short of a miracle that the cyber attack had not already occurred. thank you, mr. chairman. >> senator warner. >> thank you, mr. chairman. director comey good to see again and let me add my colleagues -- comments to my colleagues that the good work you on your college do. i think again even if this is a one off the notion is that clarity and a single point of

contact speaks volumes about the need at least take forward legislation this committee passed a in a bipartisan way and at least take it first appeared i think it would be a significant step forward. i have some technology background. i've had some conversations with companies in the i.t. space and encryption space who once they've created some of this entity, or i think in a sense they are starting to understand potential problems that are being created. can you speak to any of that in terms of a recognition under the guise of either privacy or better business protections of a growing recognition within particularly the i.t. community that this is the very much a double-edged sword and they've created a monster that is not controllable? >> yes, thank you, senator. i meant what i said. i think are good people. it's not their job to worry about public safety as i don't

think it's something that's front and center for the. particularly the isil threat and how real it is and everywhere has focus. we are having productive conversations. they don't want people to die. i don't want kids to be today. these are regular folks and so that's what i'm excited about the prospect of harnessing that innovation. they are good people who want to have successful businesses and they want to protect the country. again, i'm not an naysayer. i know your people people writing papers us at its june it's just too hard and why do. i don't agree people of silicon valley are saying let's see what he can do. in a way that protects that which we have built at the country in which we live. >> mr. chairman, i want to say a series of these companies in virginia, with a 100 plus military personnel and their families names were published in an attempt to intimidate a think it woke up into commonwealth of virginia how very real and how

obscene some of the actions that the isil group is in terms of threatening people. let me move to senator mikulski asked a question i'm hoping about three events today at hope you will get back to us but i want to raise another issue that i think there's been a great deal of confusion around and concerned about the opm breach. we are literally runs into the snap a continued to get a series of different answers in terms of numbers that i've been disappointed by the opm's reaction and post a breach in terms of assuring those federal employees current and past both in terms of what action that could will take to protect them going forward and something subcontractors the of in using how ill-equipped they have been, not the topic, but if you can perhaps give more clarity about the overall scope of that within

the confines of the context of this public hearing. there's an awful lot of people listing for the adventures. >> is something have to approach carefully and discerning. and i know that the administration opm in particular is working and is as close to offering a public and more detailed accounting of what we think was lost but it is an enormous breach and a huge amount of data that is personal and sensitive to federal employees, former federal atlas, people who apply for federal employment was available to the adversary. we have to assume that it was looked at and/or expelled. we're talking about millions and millions of people expected -- affected by this. the challenge is as much as i'm sure the adversary has much fs 86 epic my fs 86 list every place i've ever lived since i was 18. every for travel i've ever taken

from all of my family their addresses. it's not just my identity that is affected. i've get siblings, i've got five kids, all of that is in there. so the numbers quickly to far beyond the number of federal employees which is millions over the last 20 years. so it is a very very big number. it is a huge deal. >> i understand active investigation but i also know we are now running on 60 plus days, more than you since the first reach and the lack of single answer or even some sense of the answer over all from the administration is troubling. thank you, mr. chairman. >> senator mccain. >> john, turn on the microphone, would you? >> is true that you stated on several occasions that i this poses overtime a direct threat to the united states of american? >> yes. >> and that is the case today

speak with yes. everyday they're trying to motivate people here to kill people on their behalf. behalf. >> and every day that they take advantage of this use of the internet, which you've described, by going to unbreakable methods of communicating, the more people are recruited and motivated here in the united states and other countries to attack the united states of america, is that you? >> yes, sir. >> so this is not a static situation. this is a growing problem as isis makes very effective use of the internet companies that direct? >> that's correct. >> this is more than a conversation that's needed. it's action that's needed. and isn't it true that over time

the ability of us to respond is diminished as the threat grows and we maintain the status quo? >> i think that's fair. >> so we are now and i've heard my colleagues with all due respect, talking about attacks on privacy and our constitutional rights, et cetera, but it seems to me that our first obligation is the protection of our citizens read against attack, which you agree is growing is that if you? >> with respect to i agree that is our first responsibility also aagreed -- >> no, the status quo is not acceptable if we support the

assertion that our duty is to protect the lives and property of our fellow citizenry as our first priority. to you agree with the? >> i agree that this is something wicked to get what to do about. >> so now we have a situation where major corporations are not cooperating and saying that if we give the government access to their internet that somehow it will compromise their inability to do business, is that correct also? >> it's a fair summary of what some have said. >> so we are discussing a situation which the u.s. government i.e. law enforcement and the intelligence community, lacked the capability to do that which they have the authority to do is that correct the? >> certainly with respect to the interception of encrypted

communications and accessing yes. >> so we are now in an interesting situation where your obligation is to defend the country, and at the same time you were unable to do so because these telecommunications, these organizations are saying that you can't come and are devising methodology which prevent you from doing so if it's a single key only used by the user is that direct? >> i wouldn't agree that i'm unable to discharge my duty to protect the country. we are doing it every single biggest all kinds of tools. >> are you able to access to those systems which only have one key? >> we can't break strong encryption. >> so you can't break it. and that is a mechanism which is installed by the manufacturer to prevent you from using, that

there's only one key that is available to them, to you? >> correct. >> so suppose that we had legislation which required two keys, one for the user and one that, given a court order requiring a court order, that you would be able to with substantial reason, motivation for doing so would want to go into that particular site. what what's the problem with that? >> well, a lot of smart people, smarter than i certainly said that would have a disastrous impact on water security across the internet which is also part of my responsibility. >> do you believe that? >> i'm skeptical that we can't find a solution that overcomes that harm. but a lot of series people so you don't realize can you rush into something and it will be a

disaster for your country because it will kill your innovation, kill the internet. that caused me to his boss and say okay, let's talk about it. >> we just established fact that isis is rushing into trying, tempting, to harm america and kill americans. aren't we? >> they are. >> so i say with respect to my colleagues and their advocacy for our constitutional obligations and rights, that we are facing a determined enemy who is as we speak, according to you and the director of homeland security, seeking to attack america destroying america and kill americans. so it seems to me that the object should be here is to find a way not only to protect americans rights but to protect american lives. and i hope that you will devote some of your efforts, and i hope this committee, and i hope the

congress will understand the nature of this threat, and to have, to say that we can't protect americans constitutional rights and at the same time protect america something that i simply will not accept. i think you director comey. >> senator blunt. >> thank you directory. thank you for being here and thank you for the work you do. following up on the, to the chairman mccain made what are we really focus on here the recruitment of somebody who's not already in a terror network? reason i'm asking seems to me if you want to use encrypted equipped from some of the country and two of you were committed to do that, you could do that. i mean, when i'm out of the country i can get on the internet, the wireless out of the country, the wireless

network, use the equipment that i took with me, which is certainly not something i purchased there. so what i'm asking is if, even if we did something about encryption here, i'm no technical expert but it seems to me that wouldn't stop two people who plan to committee with each other on devices that take us somewhere else from doing that. is there something you're i don't understand about that? and the other part of the question is is our real target here to monitor their recruiting efforts or the internal efforts of people who are not in a terror network that are talking in the united states among themselves about doing terrorist things speak with thank you, senator. the recruitment tends to take place in a way that we with local process can see it usually on twitter or twitter direct messaging which are not

encrypted. and it is a look productive to the isil recruiters and move them to the into and encrypted communication. and so a major concern is what are the guys in syria time these guys and what are they telling them back, and what are they saying to their buddies using encrypted platforms within the united states. so it's both international and the local within the network in the united states. >> what i'm asking is the international encrypted equipment is still available, is there anything we can do that stops them from being a problem that you can't penetrate? >> i think the answer is they cannot an expert come if the servers are located and found outside the united states, that we would have a heck of a time enforcing a regime that would require them to give us access to i suppose an expert might say if it transfers to the united states there somewhere we can impose our will on it. i just don't know well enough to

evaluate that. so i do think one of the challenges that people raise even if we fix our problem coming up to address it in some fashion internationally because the really bad guys will move to infrastructure that is in western europe. so to solve your problem people say, america has got to get its act together and it's a big dog so you ought to do it first then your colleagues and allies in western europe have to get their act together to make sure there is a safe havens there. that leaves you with people who might move their infrastructure to some less well covered part of the world so you always have a small part of the problem i think the main part can be dealt with with north america and europe focusing on it. >> and that's -- at this year focusing on its because yes. uk and france, although that i had of us on this french in particular in the wake of "charlie hebdo" and the brits. i know the british better have legislation that requires access taking medications.

their challenges, the reverse of what you're saying. the infrastructure is in the united states on which they want to compel access. answer trying to get how to deal with that is the challenge we are still working through. >> so the infrastructure is really the target as opposed to the device somebody might be using, even if the device is encrypted, what infrastructure goes through may or may not accept that encrypted message? >> i think the reason i was talking about the infrastructure is that would give you the ability to compel some to impose a requirement that that provided from the owner of the infrastructure complies with american law to give judicial orders, make them effective. the challenge is if the infrastructure is not in the united states, who are you compelling to give the judge's order affect? >> tragic i think i'm joining the group suggesting we have a more technical not to diminish

either your ability or mine that we have probably a closed session so we could ask questions without being concerned about anybody tell it as something everyone in the world doesn't necessarily need to know so we would understand this. i think with a bigger problem than we can do with on our own and to fight a big fight here that is easily updated by someone who wants to update it would be a concern to me. but in conjunction with others who are perhaps even ahead of us -- ahead of us on this i think the director makes a good point that we need to be sure we all understand. >> i issue this senator that senator feinstein and i will we are conversing already about how we will put together another hearing, if not a series of hearings to try to get into this a little bit deeper and to better understand along with the director what our options might

be as we proceed forward. this is something i would recommend to all members that they become educated on a periodic basis. because this is not the end of technological advances, therefore this is not the last challenge we are going to be faced with. from a technology standpoint. senator lankford. >> mr. chairman, you are right that this is not a loss when we would deal with. this is the latest technological battle. director comey, thank you for all your work and please pass on to the folks who worked so very long hours leading up to july the fourth, our appreciation of what he did for the nation for its citizens of my state and the people around the country. we do appreciate that work very much and you have a terrific team. the challenge we face is that only technology side dealing with terrorism comments also the benefit that is gained from this. i would say folks at opm would be glad to talk about encryption and the value of the writer if

they've kept their data in a more encrypted location and stored a better and had greater security. whether that be retailers about the country or banks, whether it be government agencies, we are benefiting from encryption and from a technology that has been invented. the hard part is the other side of it. what i'd like to talk him we've got to have some balance in the conversation because we absolutely need encrypted technology because we are very exposed after finding out all the ways our information is exposed so we need that technology to continue to advance on one side as we deal with tzatziki but a basic law enforcement and on real threats were physical security we've got to have a different ability. i think that's the competition factor. with that in that conversation, talk to me about some legal frameworks. if someone goes on social media and they have child pornography, that's a criminal issue. if someone goes on to social media and this is a group of

people to kill and would like you to kill the and here's some ideas to do that. talk to me about the legal frameworks between the two because this step before this wind in the encryption, that is the recruiting at that is a group of individuals the recruiting based on we are looking for people who actively believe like we do but they will also act out and kill people. help me understand some of the legal frameworks. >> if someone is on social media talking about the possibility of offering any kind of criminal activity, which includes terrorism because it's a criminal act as well that's part of an fbi investigation. for us using our lawful tools including judicial orders to find out what's going on there and who are these people. >> so i'm really talking the steps before the the event and that's what you're not talking about no. that social media site what does that trigger at that point or you begin the investigation, begin the process of trying to

track him down because they are encouraging a criminal act on american soil. you've got extra communications happening out in the encrypted level. >> they are broadcasting out this poison through twitter. at 21,000 followers now in english, and they will have twitter following communications that tweets back and forth and admit direct messaging through twitter. all of which again with the lawful process we can get access to and evaluate. and if it looks like someone, and here's the isil operate. if a person appears is to be serious, they would then say okay move to this mobile messaging app which is encrypted end to end and that's when we lose them. and we have as i said we have the ability, if we intercept that mobile messaging app data traveling back and forth from we can intercept the data but it is gobbledygook and we can't break that encryption. >> that part i understand the

social media platforms that they still seem to issue once it's clear to note that this is an illegal activity that's happening on their platform, is the response to say you you can't do that on our platform? or we are just open to anything, whether it's prostitution, child or terrorism? >> i'm sorry, i misunderstood. they are being quite good about this frankly at it's gotten increasingly good over the last year. twitter doesn't want people engaging in soliciting advertising criminal activity of any sort on their social media platform but they're being particularly progress in shutting down and trying to stop isil related sites. i think led isil to threaten to kill the ceo which help them understand the problem in a better way. and so they have been quite good about that spirit okay. you alluded twice now to the uk and france are a little bit ahead of us on this and then you said that you're discussing is. can you give us greater detail to what they're discussing?

you say they are a little bit ahead of us on this. i think it's a rare moment for europe to be ahead of us on anything but that's a whole different issue. help me understand what you mean. >> i don't want to swell their heads. they are a little bit ahead of us but then do not let me explain. they pass legislation that imposes data retention requirements onto medication providers and also imposes access requirements that providers must comply with lawful orders for david as with other network. said they are ahead of us in the past legislative package that addresses in part were talking about the way the fashion where they are not ahead of us is they have to figure out how that will work with all the providers are into 20. so how will they enforce the legislation if they want data from soldiers located in california and all the infrastructure is in california, how will they make that a reality. >> thank you. yield back.

>> senator risch spent time one. transform those of us on this committee meet with heads of state and people like you from other countries. interestingly enough their top question to us always is an us always is and how consensus is similar to what we get from the american press and american people, and that is that this whole thing has gotten to the point where the most serious problem are the lone wolf people who are either inspired or directed out of the country to do something. the most recent and horrific example is what happened in tunisia just last week. without obviously we are in open session understand that but i'd like to give you the opportunity to talk to the american people and tell them how, what a concern this is for you, how this fits into your priorities and what you were doing about this matters that

are unclassified. did you do that? >> thank you, senator. isil is reaching into the united states, to all 50 states trying to motivate troubled souls and increasingly kids to either come to their caliphate or kill where you are. social media this investment buzzing in your pocket at all passionate all day long. it works to motivate troubled souls to do bad things are we are now reaping the results of a year-long effort to isil to invest in this social media push, which is why you see so many of us by the fbi. these are disruption stopping people from going and shooting innocent people so this is going on all over the place. we are working very hard on it or what the american people to know about it because it's an important thing but we also need to help it in almost every case

someone saw something, someone saw something weird that didn't seem right. we've got to get folks just to tell us. human nature is to say i must've misunderstood, he must be having a bad day. okay, if it's just a decade there will not be a bad problem. we investigate in secret. got to get folks when they see something that makes the hair stand up on the back of the neck tell somebody so that we can check out. we need to help because it spans all 50 states with the state and local law enforcement helping us all around the country. we need a good folks of america, if they see something that seems out of place just say something and we'll check it out. you condemn a police officer in the entire united states since 9/11 we've gotten our act together. that information would get within minutes of to the right people. >> thank you for that. appreciate what you do and what your organization does, and we all know that you got to be right everything 100% of the time. they only have to be right once.

you were doing a good job and keep up the good work. thank you. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you senator. director, were going to take just a few more questions and i just make this note for members. we've got a series of five stack of votes starting at 4:30 p.m. i want to sort of wrap a lot of things that you talked about, because people have asked individual pieces of this question ongoing dark. dashed on going dark. is your greatest concern planned in the balance between what we ask phone companies or service providers or manufacturers due to the products or the system? and where the breakpoint is he for the become a foreign company versus domestic company where i would take from what you're folks at du when you get to the point you have chased them out

of touch you just major problems much worse, versus better. can you help us dissect that? >> yes. the reason this is the hardest from i sing in my career in government is we have important public safety issues that we talked about that i think everybody agrees are implicated by the universal strong encryption. and then we've got innovation which is unbelievably important the engine of our amazing country, and we've got security. as a number of senators have said i care a lot about cybersecurity. i love strong encryption. so how do we take those things we care about innovation jobs, security on the internet and security for ordinary people from crime and terrorism, how do we maximize them? how to optimize them all? some smart people say if you do anything, it will destroy the internet or to chase all the business overseas. and so i do think we have to

engage on the technical solution with more people and creative people and we need to think about if there's an international aspect to this. again i'm making this up but ought not the civil countries agreed on a framework that makes sense? if we do this for you we've got to do it for china. my response is if china wants you to do for me given what i want you to do which is required me to go to an independent judge, show probable cause, get a written order, the subject of office, that would be great for the chinese people. i don't think china wants you to do what i want to do so unless we do not what we agree to being used against us in china but i am worried about this point raised about chasing business to other parts of the western world which is why they went to be thoughtful about this. >> we certainly we get that part and we will follow that up with some tech company questions at the hearing. before turn to the vice vice chairman, i want to get one

opportunity if there's something you want to share with the american people that you haven't already talked about as it relates to the bureau. i want to give you the opportunity to do that, but you're folks at the bureau and what the bureau does and why the american people should care whether you're successful. >> as i said earlier we work for the american people. we are, hope a lot of folks know folks on the bureau who are ordinary folks to use the tools you gave us. and i mayor not just give the american people by to say to the owner of the fbi, i've got a problem i need help fixing it so that i can continue to do much of. make no mistake the folks who work for me we will stay at it every single day around the clock. if this tool goes we this tool goes away, okay we would our apps to test the we think it would be irresponsible not to cover shareholders, the people who own the fbi the challenges we're facing so we can figure out whether we can address it. but my folks, on tv sometimes we

look great, sometimes not. in movies the directorate is often doing exciting things that i would with an achilles doing but we are ordinary people who have chosen not to make a good living but to make a different kind of life at we love this work. we love working for you right and we are simply here to give you a status report on how is it going with the tools you have given us. >> vice chair. >> thanks, mr. chairman. this committee passed out its intelligence authorization bill i think on june 24, and in that we put a provision which would require technology companies to inform the appropriate authority wind at the knowledge of terrorist activity. this is modeled after an existing law which requires technology companies to notify authorities about cases of child pornography. but it doesn't require companies to monitor any user subscriber

or customer. it is really the beginning of saying look mr. and mrs. american technology, you have a responsibility, to. what did you think of that? >> it's an interesting idea. i've heard about in my folks are talking about the i haven't read or studied it so i frankly think you get an intelligent answer. it's an interesting idea. i find in practice they they're pretty good about telling us what they see. so i had to give you a non-answer. >> we do that for child pornography. don't you think we should do it for possible terrorist attacks? >> may be but i haven't heard, i would want your out the other side. >> oh, dear. >> i want to major i'm not missing something here again, haven't read it. i'm coming up when i know something. this is something i haven't studied enough to give you an intelligent answer. >> okay. thanks, mr. chairman. >> mr. cole make him one last

question. if the train or to require our company doing business year to ensure government access to encrypted communications, would you expect that foreign governments would create the same requirement for companies operating there? >> i think they might, or might try to. >> and i will type that in my view, would clearly be the outcome. i think that would make american individuals and businesses more vulnerable to surveillance by foreign governments. i just want to leave you with one last thought. i've been on this committee for 14 years what kind of cases where something is headed. and i think mr. director, where this is headed is towards proposal for some kind of stockpile of encryption key. i don't think we haven't fleshed out where centers will want to go but i get the sense of where this is going.

some kind of stockpile of encryption keys for the government access. i just want you to know that i'm willing to work with you on ideas, but i think this proposal is a big time loser. it's a lose on security grounds for the reasons i've mentioned. it is a retreat on privacy and to think able to great damage to our cutting edge digital companies that have jobs that pay good wages. i hope we are not going to go there. i just want you to know my sense, having listened a couple hours of this and listening to this morning's testimony, what i think this is headed. and i think it is the wrong way to proceed. thank you, mr. chairman. >> senator heinrich. >> director comey, you've heard this before but i want to say it again. please thank all of you personnel, not just for their efforts in recent weeks but their efforts that the unsung hero.

i want to thank you in particular for the amount of humility that you have shown today. i think it's really helpful of wrapping our heads around how we should proceed on this. because i think, i think the most dangerous thing is to jump to solution that turns out to be the wrong solution. i have some ideas that i will not share in open session that i will share with you and share with my colleagues here of the places we should be investing right now to address some of these concerns. and i'll just reiterate, i think we would be making a mistake if we immediately jumped forward and say we pass a law tomorrow the prohibited strong end to end encryption with temporary expiring keys. and effectively what we did under that scenario or at least

what i would. is a terrorist or a criminal would simply download an app from pakistan or somewhere else that would allow them to get around this scenario, and it would put our american data at risk while protecting bears effectively. so i think we just need to think through all of that to make sure that at the end of the day we are getting at the people who are causing the problem and we are not building in weakness into the protection of our own countries and data, be it the government or just individuals who expect their financial data, their health care data all the things that we use online now to remain private. so with that, once again, i would ask you to share any final thoughts, and thank you for realizing that there are going

to be a lot of questions and realizing that we are not could have all the answers immediately and we shouldn't jump to answers answer before you completely understand the problem. >> thank you, senator. i agree that something has to be approached carefully. as i said i think it's the hardest problem i've seen in government, the stakes are very, very high on all sides of this. i think we care about the same things whether we are from industry or from government. i think that's one of the great things about this country. we do hard stuff when they talk about together and figure it out together especially with the effort is about shared values. >> i believe you with one last thought. we've heard a lot about amazing innovations of silicon valley, and i would tend to agree a special on the business front, incredible stuff comes out of there all the time. i think as we seek a solution to some of these things we should not forget the incredible innovations that come out of our national laboratories.

and some of those solutions may make even better sense in this scenario. so thank you once again, director. >> thanks, senator heinrich. i would think less if you didn't get a plug in there the lab before you left. i won't speak for the vice chairman but, you know if they think i've been a little frustrated. frustrated that nobody in a position to to agencies coming up and saying here's what we think we need. i mean, we've been talking about going dark for some time. and i think you deserve a tremendous amount of credit for your restraint. don't know that we know the answer yet therefore we are not going proposals on the table. we are not absent is a solution we think might work. we will come when we got a solution we know will work. we know we can do. so i commend you for that.

i haven't heard anybody talk about thousands of keys until today. i'm sure there's some that said at home at night and the are concerned that's the choice will make a difference that he's an think we would have a solution proposed that we would be considering legislation. and diane and i would be hashing it out with our members. the fact is that we know that that's not going to be the test of getting legislation one come through congress, too, possibly signed into law. and i think we're just as challenge as you are, director about what the solution is. we want to be part of the solution. we want to work with you. i think it's safe to say that we're probably going to have some hearings, they may be close, maybe open, ceos of tech companies, the privacy groups who are going to try to reach out to some experts not with the belief that we will come up with a solution that you haven't come up with but we will be knowledgeable enough as we go down that road together to write

legislation. that both sides are confident of where we are going and we are fairly confident that it's going to be beneficial to the integral which is defending the american people. so let me just add one note. when i left prior to the fourth, after doing this now 415 years since 2000, i was convinced that we were going to have an incident before i came back this monday. it didn't happen. and i'm convinced it did not happen because of the bureau and the intelligence community worked like it's designed to work. and you asked your folks all around the country to go on a different schedule, and they did and they were on that tempo for weeks, may still be there. and the fact is that we were able to thwart a lot of things early, and maybe postpone some things that might've happened.

your folks deserve a tremendous amount of credit and the entire intelligence community does. we know this is not going away with the fourth of july. ramadan stays vibrant for a few more weeks. there will be another national holiday and it would be a target and we will pick up on some things, but we also have to recognize the fact that we've got some areas that we are going to making decisions without the information we've had in the past because of the communication tools that these folks are using. we want to be able to address this as quickly as we can so that we can return to as robust of information sharing between intelligence and law enforcement so that your folks feel confident they can do what they're asked to do versus just hoping that we're putting on a good enough days on a saturday that we're scaring the enemy or the opponent of that well.

but you deserve a tremendous amount of credit for how over the last three or four weeks the bureau has defended the american people. and for that, please give our regards to all at the bureau. with that director, thank you for being here. sorry you had to pull a doubleheader today but you are a strong guy and hopefully your achilles is still there. this hearing is adjourned. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

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[inaudible conversations] >> this week on first ladies come influence an image, we learn about the christian corfield and mary arthur mcelroy. lucretia garfield was an educated woman and i believe in women's rights. when her husband james garfield was assassinated she returned to ohio and ensure his legacy by making their home into an early version of a presidential library. chesser arthur, a widower, becomes president and his sister fills the role of first lady and establishes white house social etiquette use by future first ladies are decades. lucretia garfield and mary arthur mcelroy is sunday night at 8 p.m. eastern on c-span's original series first ladies

influence an image. examines the one who filled the position of first lady and her influence on the presidency from martha washington to michelle obama "sundays at eight" p.m. eastern on american history tiki on c-span3. ..