what we have done in memphis, when you think about this, think about going into target and sing starbucks on the right. you go in and use the outreach on the right. if it's not going well and she's getting the client. she's trying to buy home. she gets declined, she comes to work, we do at the banker can't do which is actually tell her why she was declined, pull her report with her permission, what is this, that's not mine. >> that must be an error. you should dispute that. why would i dispute it. >> you do have a right. if you dispute that in the credit viewer can confirm within 30 days by law, they must remove it. nobody knows that.

we do what the banker can't do. we dispute it with them. it gets removed. she comes in 35 days, her self-esteem is up. her confidence is up. now you're going up to 600. what else can we do? okay, what's this, well that was a bankruptcy, that was ten years ago, a tax bill was bought by at&t, it's a thousand dollars face value. we call them up, what you want for the debt, we want $100. okay, how about $200. no for hundred dollars. but the client is sitting right here, she is with me. can we give you $200 but mark sure. why would you pass double what were asking for, because because

if i give you $200 i want your direct phone number i want your e-mail address, i want your bosses name and i want you to write a letter to mrs. joan saying this is cleared and satisfied in with the shows back up in her credit report in two months, you're your let me call you back in your removed again. he said deal. we got an 80% discount, he got a 200% profit on his investment, everybody wins, the credit score goes up another 30%, we percent, we move her credit score 80 points in three months. her confidence, her belief in herself, her belief her belief in the banking system, she walked back across the hall with my person, she gets approved for mortgage from suntrust to become a homeowner in tennessee, at taxpayer, a stakeholder, do you think she's going to vote now? i think so.

think she feels better about her children? i think so. does she have more dignity, i think so think so. we just got the bank out of a no business got them into the business. : we wanting to where people are struggling with the financial stress and turn that into economic promise by getting the bank with creates gdp, small business owners and all the lights go on and basically within driving distance of every working-class family and make it common sense, right now i don't

need a private bank. we are fine. we do it on our cell phones. i make my deposits, everything on this cell phone. the person who needs a private banker today is a single mother with two kids and a job, somebody who is working poor, struggling middle-class they need a private banker because they don't understand the system, life is complicated, husband and wife are arguing, which means the kid is not dealing with that stress and that environment and permeates in every part of their life. i really think this is a tipping point and rippling point where we get people out of relying on consumer protection and move them to consumer empowerment so they can turn to gdp and we have a awakening of america all over again. >> john, you talked about really

investment that's about people investing in other people. talk to me about your current project where you're really trying to turn equity investment into enabling the kinds of empowerment that john is talking about. >> well, one of the things that the national banker association recently did was to conduct a survey of our members and as we looked at where were the greatest challenges and what is the greatest need for minority minority-depository institutions is access to capital. those can be strengthening as admission is dwindling in number and the focus of my current project is really to do all that we can to provide resources to strengthen the sector so it can continue to do the work and can continue to partner with

institutions like operational hope, with large banks like suntrust that has been mentioned and like chase, all the projects, so that's really what we are focused on because we know that if we are able to strengthen from the bottom and strengthen america and to lift all of us up, we can do a better job as a country. the fbi did a study in 2014 and it clearly showed the impact and significant social work that mbi provide in the country in terms of financing and providing home mortgages, in terms of locating branches in minority census track. so we know that if we are able to strengthen and provide the sector the resources it needs for technology to be able to engage in a powerful way with

millennials, to be able to strengthen and broaden product offering, then it's so much easier as we talk about all of the benefits that the entire country will experience by all of us becoming more prosperous. >> mayor reed, how do you think about this concept of investment when you think about the budget that atlanta has and the priorities that you have, how do you strategize on the investments in your people and where you're really putting the mass of your efforts? >> we try to perform along the lines of excellence. i mean, what we are doing right now is trying to make sure that we have the bench strength to execute while ignoring that the city is one of the biggest force multipliers for the economy and

so what you want in a city is a fair referee and someone that runs a city so that a city does the things that it should do well. so actually a really exciting time in the life of the city, in the life of atlanta right now. i have about 9,000 employees, 8,000 employees on any given day and what you're asking is, you're asking all of the amazing employees who have done the good and noble work of public service for years, but you have a new generation of individuals who are interested in public service and who may have had a wonderful privet-sector careers but because they actually wanted to spend time in public service, transformation work, folks like you and i are actually joining a government and so what i'm trying to do is to really know that so that there's not a clash

of cultures that's causing the city to perform at a higher rate because more people are moving into cities that are more informed and demanding. so how do you pull that off without making sure that the people who were there in public works and parks all along don't get thrown out by a consultant culture that says you have 400 people cutting cutting cutting the grass and you can cut the grass with 150 people. they have been with the city 20 years, helped elect mayors. this is not easy work. and so at the same time the city is at lever. in seven years the mayor hasn't raised property taxes, water

rates, that matters because in the city of atlanta our water rates were second, third highers you had in your house from when the water bill used to be 10, 20, $30. running the government well helps you to do all of these things that create a more robust economy and help their life and we are up in the city of up ant lea net 32 to 34,000 jobs. now we have honeywell come in, digital ge come in at 250, ncr come at 3500, kaiser permanente and it's attracting folks likes you like never before how how do i make sure that it doesn't push out somebody's grandmother?

that's the job of being a mayor today. finally i would say this, we really have to be more diligent about focusing on transition economics. so we have to focus on making sure that we have the ability to train people for multiple jobs in the life of a city because now a person growing up in atlanta is going to have five to six, seven jobs. what i want to do is to remove the fear from that so that you're excited about multiple job changes as opposed to clinched up in fear about multiple job changes. and so that's why i think the job as mayor is so terrific because on any given day you're sitting in an office, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, 11, 12 topics just like this.

so -- >> let me -- >> no, what he just said, i'm going to wait. >> go ahead. >> i do understand, but what the mayor just said i want to make sure that no one walks away -- skip me for the next round of questions. he mentioned basically, i want to give a speech, in europe the poor are in the suburbs. inner city in france called paris. [laughter] >> an inner city in the uk is called london. only in america because being uncomfortable certain people, centrally located to go two

hours to live, that's all changing. my prediction. >> you have a crowd response on that one. [laughter] >> sure is. >> within ten year's time you heard it here, within ten year's time america's inner city will all be what you might call reclaim because people are tired of driving two hours to get home, fighting traffic. they're tired of it. they're finally realizing it's centrally located real estate. what's harlem, upper manhattan. we think it's a black community. the east side of manhattan, lower manhattan. central park, harlem. that's all changing. you can give away a kid down in har hem 15 years ago, now a million 5. so if you're going to be in the

inner city u buy that house, buy that shack, rehab it and rent it. that's your trust fund. whether you stay there and rip it or whether you sell it for a profit, detroit across the street from canada is coming back. the only question is for who. every inner city needs to be reclaimed. don't get mad, live well. buy the house, buy the shack, go to home depot on the weekend with your boys, come back, rehab it and rent it, add to gdp and add to your pocket. >> you know the message that i've had it's so funny that's going viral, every time we have one of the wonderful ribbon that mayors love so much, i just tell people don't move. if somebody comes knocking on your door, don't tell or at least get a tough negotiator in the family. >> that's right. >> and of all the messages that we've been getting out, don't

move. i hear from business people saying, hey, we just did a turn field announcement, 400 million in taxpayer money, god bless them. we are coming in with 350 million-dollar development into turner field with five of the most challenged neighborhoods in the city of atlanta, pittsburgh, summer hill, georgia state university is going right in there and all of those young people are going to be looking into college campus. simple message is work, every time we have ribbon cuttings, unless somebody cols to your house and buys it for $10,000 and it's amazing how i'm hearing it back as i move throughout the city in grocery stores and i mean, i literally had a grandmother in the publics come out and say, thank you, she called a lawyer in the family because of what i said.

somebody came by her door and because she heard me say, if somebody knocks on your door, don't move because i just put a $1.5 billion football stadium two blocks from your house and so some of these simple things -- >> let's say this. don't think this is race, folks, when that do happen, oh, that's racism. no that's economics, that's capitalism. it's not block, white, that's green. it's simply economics. get your piece of the pie, stop getting angry and get even. i'm the only speaker that god gave two minutes assigned to. [laughter] >> that's for the entire -- >> i'm done. >> i want to thank everybody so much. we have one more speaker before

we close, but thank you so much for joining. >> thank you all. [applause] >> thank you. >> you were fantastic. >> thank you, you were too. >> so you heard it, don't move. >> nice seeing you. wasn't that crazy? we have to start being crazy too, though. [inaudible conversations]

>> it is a real pleasure and honor to introduce embassador andrew young. many of you know this already, but it's such a distinguished career. it's worth calling out all of the many things that embassador young has done. he's dedicated his life to serving communities around the world as pastor, congressman, united states embassador to united nations and as another mayor of atlanta, the 55th mayor of atlanta. as executive director of the southern christian leadership conference, he was instrumental in the civil rights movement including the passage of the civil rights act of 1964 and the voting rights act of 1965. his lifetime, lifetime of service at all levels of

government has earned him a list of truly astonishing recognitions. he served for president jimmy carter and bill clinton on a wide range of critical issues from international peace building and national security to civil rights and community development. embassador, young's inspired work has earned the highers civilian recognition and honors in two countries, france's leg own of honor and the united states presidential medal of freedom. he continues his work work today as chairman of the andrew young foundation and board member of the martin luther king center for nonviolent social change and the united nations foundation. we are humbled to have you here today with us, embassador young, honoring the freedman bank and continuing the advancement of access and opportunity for families and communities across

the country specifically families and communities of color. please join me in welcoming embassador young. [applause] >> thank you very much. i am really very proud of all that i have seen and heard here. and i don't think you realize that we might just be laying out the agenda for the next decade. and that's what i want to try to do. i want to try to remind us that what the freedman's bank was all about was the friendship between frederick douglas and abraham lincoln and for them, though the civil war was always about slavery, we need to remember

that slavery was valued at $4 billion at the time of the civil war. the next greatest asset of this nation were the railroads which were only evaluated at $2.6 billion. so if you forget about race, if you forget about slavery, and that's hard to do, but what john and -- what the panel has done, they've talked about the same thing that they are talking about on television but nobody mentioned race. they've been talking about it in quantitative economic terms and what i thank john for doing is quantitating poverty, martin

luther king started movement to remove from evils of war, race and poverty. i think we did a great job with race and i think with jimmy carter, that was four years where nobody got killed and nobody in america killed anybody. if you want to read a new book about that, read jimmy carter in africa, race and the cold war, and it wasn't accidental. he knew what he intended to do and he knew what he was trying to do, he was trying to make the world make sense without war. that's a direct descendant of martin luther king. he received an honorary degree in 1976 and i don't think without that he wouldn't have been the president. and he got up and he said, i intend to be the first to be president but i assure you i won't be the last and that won

him a network of the historical black colleges all across the country. and his africa policy, he was the only one say one man one vote and one person one vote. but the thing we didn't do and when martin tried to do it, he got shot. that was dealing with poverty, race, war and poverty. the untouched thing that we have done, tried to do all the way back since the civil war was the deal with poverty. now, the failure of the freedman's bank probably was more damaging to the slavery population than would have been ten more years of slavery. the true of it is it was damaging to the whole united states of america, but for not

ten years but almost 100 years because if you think about it in economics, if those farmers and workers who would have been empowered with land, we made jokes about 40 acres and a mule but 40 acres in a mule in 1865 and access to capital, the south would have taken over the north. and so when we think about it not about race but economically, we can deal with it with less emotion. and i think that's what bringing this back, the freedman's bank concept reminds us of the economics that were intended by fredrik douglas and abraham

lincoln that might have succeeded if he had not been killed. now, forgive me but i believe we kind of got that message in atlanta and it wasn't just black folks that got it. hartsfield kind of -- i don't know where he got it from but he built -- bought airplane, crop duster airline from louisiana to agree to move there for a dollar a year for 50 years and he put red lights and they voted him out of office. the crob -- crop duster airline

was delta and mr. woodrow at coca-cola realized, let's face it there are not enough progressive white people in this town to move it forward as fast as we need to go. and so they went to atlanta university and they met dr. mays and they met w.b.debois was hanging out there. vivian was an economist. they put together a coalition of some of the most effective and efficient and aggressive businesses because coca-cola's success was that they decided that they were going to be able to serve every troop anywhere in

the world with coca-cola. i mean, maybe patriotic but it was a damn good business decision and so coca-cola is a worldwide company and mayor hartsfield teaming up with atlanta university and the brain power that was there and all of these guys were probably the first black ph.des -- ph.d's from anywhere. and yet they were ph.d's but benjamin mays was a cropper and he didn't get to university of chicago until later, but he always sent martin. he sent martin luther king, work in the fields in the summer time, picking tobacco under a

shade tree of 3 feet tall and 90-degrees heat because he understood that if you were going the lead working people, you had to understand work and so you had probably one of the most exceptional groups of people black or white coming together dealing with the problems that we got nothing here. we've got no water, no lakes, i mean, atlanta got nothing but stone mountain. the airport became the key and it's now thanks kaseem and jackson, signed 6 and a half billion dollar deal. we had 101 million people come

through there this year but now that they've got the big three story planes, we've got a build a new concourse. abcdefg and a 7-runway and -- and that hadn't cost the city any money. i was trying to get the name. i've been trying to find him because i don't know how it happened. a young fellow by the name of bill hayden. at that time he was manor jackson's friend and all i know that they put -- they did something that enabled manor to go to wall street and sign his name and come back with $540 million to start that airport. when i got to be mayor, they told me you need to go to wall street. i said what for.

we need -- you have to build the third runway. and the concourse, well, experts said we don't need a concourse. that's what my vision of an international concourse was. .. the things you do to facilitate approximately $25 billion of access to capital to the city of atlanta that has not cost the taxpayer one sent. whatever he did, i don't know why st. louis didn't do it, i don't know why boston didn't do

it, they been struggling with laguardia since 1957 when i worked i worked there and still it's bad. i'm saying that something happened in atlanta, very special around this, and i think that it has to do with public private partnerships, they involve the community, business and government. usually it's business in the newspapers and government comes in "after words". everything i tried to do as a mayor, the city council voted it down. that was until i got the business community, the citizens in the newspapers behind it. now, i'm saying that has worked

for us. the city of atlanta was less than a million people when ike became mayor. carolyn was my wife and she was saying that she passed the hotel where they keep the sign of the population, now it's 6.9 billion. during that same time, st. st. louis has gone down, detroit has gone down, there is no city growing like that. it's growing because we figured out how to make capitalism work, to be free enterprise. that was before us. i have to give mayor hartsfield credit for bringing the community together and taking the poverty program money and organizing people because we

couldn't have gotten a mass transit referendum without that. the head of the woodrow foundation which is the big money man in atlanta, they give away everything that's anonymous , but they had calvin craig of the ku klux klan and the trumpet awards all on the executive committee, organizing blacks and whites block by block as a result of that, the next jewish mayor, the first the first jewish mayor was confronted by poor people saying they have to pay up to the poor. he agreed to lower the bus fare from $.55 down to $.15 for ten years. this years. this would be fair to poor people. the mayor manual maloof of

dekalb county who happened to be a lebanese bartender said wait a minute, these white folks are just in a bill, they want to build this mass transit system to get them to the airport and they will never build the east-west line once they get the north-south line. so we decided to build the east-west line first. with all of that negotiation, with all of that compromise, with all of that reasoning together and organization, we still just one by 400 votes. but, that was the key to it. i was in congress at that time. in the mass transit act, it was being passed, i got a call during the session, while the bill was on the floor and a young architect said andy, can you slip a one line amendment

into that. i said it's too late now, really, he said but would you try. i said what you want me to say, this authorizes communities to create public, private development authorities within a half mile radius of each mass transit station, while the good thing about the congress when i was there was it was a good old boy system and it just happened that the good old boy who is put in that bill through was from louisiana and he knew i was from louisiana and we used to meet and tell jokes together back in the, something, wherever they sell hotdogs, but we didn't agree on anything but we are friends. so when they had a vote, i said

excuse me mr. chairman, do you you think you could still get this in the bill. he said the missy okay, go ahead when the session open he said i have an amendment here that says, all in favor, bam, bam amendment approved. that amendment that gave us the right to organize and create a public private development of corporation was what allowed us to get the art station and the ibm building and the woodruff art center all along the 14th st. stop. it allowed us to build underground atlanta around the downtown stop. we had the real problem where in lenox square there was a little town of about 40 people called johnson town and nothing there was worth more than $20000. we couldn't give them any more than $24000 by law but because

it was a public private development corporation, we were able to say to them, look, you're going to build a 30 story building here. why don't you give them an extra hundred dollars onto their assessed value and pay them for the rights so they got paid for the air rights. instead of $10,000 thousand dollars or $20000, they got 110,000, why could they do that? because this public-private partnership gave us the capacity to give them a four and a half% interest rate when interest rates were running nine and 10%. that was something jackson put together that i never understood but i used the hell out of it. the next thing was that when we got ready to build that airport, when we built the mass transit

system, black folk got 20% but they said wait a minute, we've got 20% of the hardest work with the lowest profit margin. were not going to build an airport unless we get 25% of each and every contract. this has got to be fair across the board. well they fussed and huffed and puffed about it and never really understood it, but we got the airport build on time and within budget. it opened on the first of december in 1981 and i became mayor in 1982. because all that have been done, it just seemed to me it was working so well, let's ease it up to 35%. when people began to see how the

airport was growing, how much this was contributing to the growth, they thought i was crazy when i said why do i want to be mayor and i said i don't, it's a dirty low-down rotten job but will blame people and will blame you for everything, but this lady came into the meeting and she's sugarcane in my face and she said look here boy, when you came here you were nothing. we done made you the congressman and ambassador and sent you all the world and now that we need you as mayor, un got time for us? i said but well i got three children in college and they don't pay us but $6000 a year and year and now the mayor salary is just $50000 a year, i can't afford to be mayor. she said, that sounds like big money to me. you don't believe in the lord?

sheet slammed the door to -- she slammed the door and said we done wasted our time on you. now it all worked out, we became an international city. they would not let us build that international terminal, they hired somebody to do a study, but i didn't wait for the study because i don't know about studies. so we went to germany and we got lufthansa and we heard that air japan was looking for entry into the u.s. and kalem from holland and we just put the word out, look, if you want to be a part of the economy of the 21st century, you've got to be in the u.s. marketplace. the best place to have access to the u.s. market is atlanta georgia because we can get you 80% of the u.s. market within two hours.

most most of the places we can get you back the same day. and we went around telling people that and before the people finished the feasibility study, we had signed up, and i'm saying none of this has cost us anything yet. so we have figured out the formula and we've made it work for rich and poor, black and white and it has become the center of a global economy. we now have at least 2200 german companies in atlanta now. we move poor people out of the center of town because of the

olympics, and i was always kinda guilty about that until last week because where we moved them was clayton county. if you look at the news paper, last week, clayton county was the fastest growing county in the united states of america. now all those poor people we moved out there didn't bring the money, but they got the energy, they got the vitality, they've got the will. it just so happened that porsche came in with all the money. so we've got a porsche factory right there in clayton county that provides all the jobs. now why isn't this happening everywhere in america? i grew up in new orleans and it's not happening in northlands. we went to see president bush at the time of katrina and i

remember growing up on those riverbanks and i remember the ccc camps. i was born in 1932 when roosevelt and when i was four and five years old, i was playing on the riverbanks with the ccc camps. it just, they had not done anything with that river since about 1940. it was designed to run in the infrastructure was 50 years, and it's been 80 years. i go up and down that river and all those cities are dying. it is flooding in iowa right now. the flood last year cost $60 billion, and i said why didn't you vote, why didn't you get something to do with it, to change it. the senators up there, in fact

the senators all along the river are trying to balance the budget and they want to cut back on government spending until after the floods. it was $17 billion in illinois, 20 billion in louisiana, 60 billion in iowa. why the hell do we fix it first? >> now, i'm wondering, this is why i've been worrying, if we could do a little one sentence amendment, and open it up to money capitals that come in, private investors from all over the world, why can't we create instead of a half mile radius, 1 mile on each side of the mississippi river and people have the capacity, if they so choose to create a public-private development

authority and designed the future of the river. now the mississippi river directly touches 31 states. all the cities along the river are suffering. now, that's an agenda, talk to a friend of mine and interestingly enough, the way i found all this out was i remembered stuff and i had a bunch of high school kids in my office and volunteers in the foundation. i said look, you see what you can find on the mississippi river develop. is there mississippi river development authority? no, but they start bringing me stuff from the internet saying that i didn't know how to find but when i put it there, i said what the hell has been going on.

why can't we, another thing we found out, there is more money loose, when i became mayor there was more money and petrodollars doing nothing and we had a big debt in the treasury. not as big on the part of carl, when carl left, national debt was about $2 trillion. it's way beyond that now. we were able to get those petrodollars to come in from holland, from germany, from canada, from japan and $70 billion worth of petrodollars came into atlanta in the years i was there and it still common. this is not government money that they are using, this is

somehow private money. now if what they say about tax havens is true that there's more money and tax havens, i don't think about tax havens, i just say that's scared money. chinese and indian, the panama papers revealed all of the money that the iraqi and pakistan generals go from us in a war and that was supposedly have push the surplus of extra money, scared money i call it up to 72 trillion. now, i'm sure the safest place in the world keep your money is in middle america, from minnesota to mississippi, 1 mile

on each side, i think john, you find a way to create them i'm talking to you john, john rogers , you find a way to create aerial capital, you just announced that you are creating a trillion dollar development fund for the mississippi valley and every city along the way will be able to apply for it. i mean look, we lost 20% last month sit in england, let it sit here. he when the lost any money. they don't know what they're going to do in panama or where the french hide their money, or, i've been working on this a while, but the answers to the problem of the world go back to the principles of the freedman

bank, and that's why i see this as the launch of the new american integrated attempt to involve all of our cities, all of our rule areas, all of our universities in mastering the complexities of a global economy now when you add to that, the fact fact that there will be four and a half billion people in africa, africa will catch up with china and india will pass china because china is going to have some problems. they have 104 different nationalities, cultural nationalities that are not a part of the mandarin communistic economy. they're going to be struggling a while but in the end will do better but there will be a

billion nigerians and we don't have any access to the markets in africa. since ron brown and i left, everybody seems to be scared of africa. we need to take that on now because we've got a 25 year head start but if we come in there with ideas, with money, with talented people and create relationships, i think we will see the dreams of freedman bank fulfilled in our time and i'm one that believes that coincidence is god's way of remaining anonymous. when i looked at this young man and remember marching with his grandfather, and then secretary lou, i quoted the bible and he

knew it. i said something's happening here and john and all the people appear our people were capable of shaping the world if they could just get over the rut of the business that you don't wait for the congress to decide. you do it. it's easier to started out and have them tag along because you don't need their money. when you start, i'm sure the senator up there in iowa where it's raining now, i feel like noah telling you to hurry up, get ready, the flood is here. you got the money in the technology in the brain power.

thanks and god bless you. [applause] >> so just the final thank you for organizing and to all of you for joining us in this conversation. thank you again and enjoy your day.

come on, blood. >> join us tonight when first lady laura bush discuss service members and their families.

you can watch that on c-span2. this weekend on american history tv on c-span three, we are alive saturday morning at 80 stern from the smithsonian national institute of history and culture with the opening ceremony beginning at ten. speakers include president barack obama and museum director lonny bunch. >> what's most important is every museum has a goal to humanize these stories. in essence, in most of these museums we tell the grand story of slavery or migration. we want those to renew hope and we want you to you to think about nonhuman scales you can relate and understand and you are moved by the experience of these people. >> been just after 7:00 p.m., peter waddell shares his painting depicting washington d.c. during the 19th century. visitors from the east during buchanan's presidency, the

japanese ambassadors, those wonderful life outside the white house that was taken out during the roosevelt rehab in 1902. >> sunday evening at six, the moses myers house was owned by the first jewish family in virginia in the 19th century. hear how the family maintained a large shipping operation and how the home has been passed down through several generations of the myers family. >> when they did that analysis, they dug underneath the layers and they struck gold. twenty-two and half carat gold. it was largely intact. it only had to be repaired in a few places. today it is considered one of the most elaborately built fireplaces in america at this time. >> for complete american history tv schedule go to cspan.org. >> go to cspan.org monday

evening for the presidential debate on your desktop, phone or tablet. watch live streams of the debate and video on demand of every question to the candidates and their answers. use their video clipping tool to create video clips of your favorite debate moments to share on social media. not able to watch, listen to the debate live on the c-span radio app, it's it's free to download from the app store or google play. i've coverage of the presidential debate monday evening on c-span.org and the c-span radio app. >> the next local law enforcement officials talk about their counterterrorism efforts. they appear before the house homeland security committee yesterday. when this is included in new york city's deputy commissioner for intelligence and counterterrorism, sheriff of orange county florida, this is two hours 45 minutes.

[inaudible conversation] [inaudible conversation]

[inaudible conversation] [inaudible conversation] [inaudible conversation] the homeland security of the committee will come to order. the purpose is to receive testimony on stopping the next attack and keeping our city streets from becoming the battleground. i now recognize myself for an

opening statement. this weekend our nation was shaken by terrorist attacks in minnesota, new york and new jersey. we are thankful that no one was killed. our thoughts and prayers go out to the injured victims and their families. we are still searching for answers in this investigation and i appreciate the new york police department, deputy commissioner muller being here today to update us on this case. thank you for being here today. our hearts go out to the people of new york. the threat environment at this time is as high as we have ever seen it. , especially from radical islamic extremists. last year, this committee tracked the most homegrown jihadist plots ever and a singlt

year in the united states. in 2016, it could be even worse. americans are rightfully worried that our city streets are once again becoming the battleground. fort hood, boston, chattanooga, san bernardino, orlando. some have said this kind of regular terrorism is the new normal. i strongly reject that argument. complacency is not an option. terrorists are threatening american lives, our livelihood and our way of life. we cannot falter with so much at stake. that is why yesterday i released a national strategy to win the war against islamic terrorist with proposals for fighting the enemy overseas and stopping radicalization in our communities. my strategy explains that one of

our highest priorities must be to make sure our front-line defenders are better prepared to stop acts of terror. this means the police, fire and other emergency professionals need to be able to detect m suspicious activity and catch potential terrorists before it's too late. if a plot goes undetected, they must be equipped to respond quickly to prevent loss of life. we saw that play out thiscted i weekend when our first responders acted heroically to protect their fellow citizens. the witnesses testifying today, i want you to know this committee is grateful for your service to our communities and k your sacrifices for our country. i also want to convey one message above all else and that is, we have your back. we are committed to giving you the tools to fight terror. we are also committed to giving

you the public support that you deserve in these challenging times. it has been a hard year, especially for law enforcement. you have faced tough questions in the press, and you are staring down violence in our streets every day. that is why this committee has fought to protect important dhs grant funding that you rely on. in fact, later today, the house will vote on my bill to authorize an additional $30 million in annual grants to help your communities guard against the dynamic terror g threat including active shooter attacks, ids and suicide bombers we have pushed federal agencies to share intelligence with you l and share more quickly and comprehensively. we need to ensure the federal government properly appropriates the valuable ct information that you develop in the streets, the street intel and the communities where you serve everyday.

today i hope you will share with us what is working on the front lines and what is not, inn particular, we want to know how we can better support you to respond to this unprecedented terror threat. last week i went to the 911 memorial service and listened t. all of the nearly 3000 names of those killed read aloud. we do this each year to remember the fallen and to honor ther heroism we saw on that fateful day. for first responders and policel in everyday citizens. like those brave americans we lost, there are witnesses this morning who have sworn an oath to protect our people so before we start, let me just say thank you. with that the chair recognizes ranking member mr. thompson.

>> thank you, mr. chairman, i can take you for holding today's hearing. in light of the recent terrorist attacks in minnesota, new jersey and new york, i would like to offer my sympathies to the victims and their families. i believe we all agree that terrorism and any other violence on our streets is an all too common occurrence. we must act boldly to stem this. i would like to think the witnesses for their service. thank you for coming to town. i know it's a busy time for you and obviously you are still doing your work before this committee today. thank you chairman for your service. we still stand with the orlando and have not forgotten about the victims of the june terrorist attack. the past four months, in

orlando, dallas, minnesota, new york, new new york, new jersey have brought into sharp focus the compounding nature of the lone wolf threat. those who are inspired to carry out such attacks do not neatly fit a single profile or violent extremist ideology. we saw the scenario in the orlando attacks where the perpetrator has several conflicting ideologies and seemingly was not a part of a terrorist trail. just this past saturday, alone after who is being investigated for passable ties to isil attacked ten people at a mall in minnesota. also last weekend in new jersey and new york, it is believed that the bomber who also shot two police officers may haveat been inspired by al qaeda and appears to have acted alone. in july a perpetrator who has no formal affiliation with any

particular group but may have been inspired shot and killed five police officers in dallas texas. we know by now our law enforcement is a target for terror. we also know that law enforcement's job is made more w difficult by the availability of assault weapons. earlier this month, one of our subcommittees was seen testimony for representatives of local law enforcement identifying the availability of guns and lonelo wolf threat as serious problems for police. in fact, i would note that one of our witnesses today has gone further in describing this challenge by stating that the widespread availability of guns in this country makes it possible for potentiallywi dangerous persons to legally acquire weapons to cause mayhem and colossal casualties.

he goes on to say whether it suffices a broader homegrown extremism, the threat this and haunts police chiefs every day. i look forward to engaging the chief on the sport. even the terrorist no that it is far easier to carry out an tha attack in the name of their ideology on u.s. cause with a gun than in europe. the testimony by one former member of isil discuss this point.t. the former terrorist explainedub isil's view on terrorist recruitment in the u.s. for america, it is easier to get them over social network because americans are done dom. they have open gun policies. we can radicalize them easily and if they have no prior record, they can buy a gun. we don't need to contact me and to provide gun for them. we have seen the scenario unfold

with assault weapons here inhe this country. we saw in san bernardino were perpetrators and spout by isil walked into a soft target and killed 14 people and injured another 22 with an assault style weapon. tragically we sought again this june in orlando when perpetrator walked into a nightclub and killed 49 people with an assault weapon.o our witness immediately recognize the impact that assault weapons were having on our homeland security. as he demonstrated in the aftermath of the shooting, we have to look at some of our gun laws and make a determination of what we stand for and how prevalent some of these assault rifles are available today.er otherwise, we don't make some modifications, we are going to continue seeing some of what yos

see happening here now here inin of orlando. mr. chairman, i wholeheartedly agree with you that radicalization is a problem. after 911, the nation made a bowel not to give into terrorism. therefore i will not concede that our city streets are place. where our constituents live are at risk of becoming battlegrounds like syria and afghanistan. as lawmakers, we must make it more difficult for them to carry out attacks on u.s. soil, take action to prevent terrorist fror having access to assault weapons would be a good start. however it seems in the waning days of this congress, they have more appetite to advance an un-american and counterproductive proposal suchd as closing the border to muslim or ethnically profiling whole communities. secretary jade johnson testified before this committee and noted that with the current threat,

homeland security cannot be achieved without sensible gun control laws. it is time for us to rethink how we prevent terrorism. with that mr. chairman, i yield back.itness i want to thank all of you for being here today. next we have sherif from oakland county sheriff office.ustin we have sheriff jerry deming's from the orange county sheriff office in orange county florida.

we thank all of you for beingtyc here. i now would like to recognize the chief for his opening statement.ing st >> good morning, i come here today with the organization that represents 68 parts of the united states and homeland security committee. i want to thank mr. chairman and your committee for the outstanding leadership your work in this vital area at a time when i think the threat not only continues to expand the consequences of terrorism are hitting our communities every day. i can tell you the one thing that keeps us all up is the issue of the lone wolf.

you been talking about lone wolves for several years now but in the last few days, we have seen the consequences of these needles in the haystack that ca become radicalized and we can no longer call this and emerging threat.ng it is an imminent threat and an ongoing threat and we must continue to fight. we have witnessed the horror of these lone wolves not just this weekend but in my own city, although we are talking about muslim extremists, we also have to keep in mind we have our own homegrown extremists with very different views with left or right, they are extremist the matter which way we look at it and you can't lose side of that. about three thanksgivings ago, we had a young man by the name of mr. mcwilliams who is part of an extremist movement who ony that thanksgiving night when around austin trying to burnhe down the consulate and within us

assault rifle attacked the consulate and the courthouse and our headquarters firing 108ck rounds into our occupied headquarters nearly striking one of our detectives in the middle of the night. fortunately we had an american hero, texas hero that was able to stop the threat with one shoe and only in texas can a police charge and take a shot while he's being shot at with an ak-47 from 312-foot away, strike the suspect right in the heart while holding two horses with one hand. i think it speaks to the professionalism of the american police officer and the courage despite the national discussion around policing today which i can tell you isn't perfect as it is we still have the best nation of cops serving. the lone wolf, we know they're out there, we know they're hurting us, we know they will

continue to hurt us and radicalization is how we get to that point. it's important for this committee, especially for elected officials to temper our comments and temper the brushes we are using to paint members of the community or race of the national origin as criminals or as terrorist. p we know individuals that feelnal marginalized or feel they are not welcome and up being much more susceptible to radicalization whether it's from a street gang or an islamist who is using social media to radicalize folks. it's critical that we continue as a police department and sheriff department and as a nation to build bridges and make people feel welcome, the communities that we serve whether they are muslim, ask african-american, hispanic, asian, christian, jewish, they

are our greatest force multipliers. they are the ones that are going to spot the suspicious behaviore they are are the ones that have to feel that they are embraced and welcomed by law enforcement and by this nation that they can come forward and if you look at what happened in new york, it was a community member that found one of the unexploded devices.t i believe it was a member of the sikh community that happen to own a bar that trusted the new york city police department and felt they were included by the new york police department, embraced by them and came forward and help the new york city police department capture that suspect before he can carry out more terror and our nation. again, outreach is key and we look forward to continuing to do just that for our community. you know the enterprise is really important to us, we continue to work at the national level with the sheriff's department with their intel commanders group to really be able to tie some of the issues

that we see across the country t to be able to not just disrupt or prevent terrorism and i look forward to discussing that. t there is no nationalee coordination or designation atso dhs that's responsible to prepare and implement a terrorism prevention plan and they really need to be explored and hopefully absolutely strengthened. one of the biggest frustrations i have as a police chief, i think my colleagues will share this, as it relates to grant funding and the distribution of funds, fema is still not the right organization to beem spearheading that. fema is much much too focused on response. we are responding to a terrorism attack, we have already failed the american people. we have got to have anothero the office that understands the

importance of prevention and disruption and despite ourhe efforts of police executives to put more effort in terms of funding for prevention and disruption continues to focus on response. my response to that is, it's too late not only in terms of the psychological impact on this nation and the economic impact that we have failed at that point we really want you to look hard and how those funds are being distributed and who is responsible for those funds being distributed. bei the position at dhs, the assistant secretary of law enforcement was established by congress with positions that still cannot deliver the results that i think was the division of congress because it lacks authority, budget and staffing. we hope that you will consider remedying this organization by further directing dhs to putr teeth in that direction. fortunately the secretary of law enforcement continues to work with us but she is able to do so

because of the efforts of deputy secretory who has made an integral role in helping her despite those challenges. encryption, as we discussed mr. chairman continues to be a great challenge and i hope that we will look at having industry where we put in a search warrant cannot sit on it for days on end when we have seconds, hours, minutes to try to disrupt the next attack whether it's from a person with mental illness, thel islamic radical or some other radical, we have to have laws that make these things a priority. i can tell you that is extremely frustrating. i want also say it's a major priority for us and i want to thank congressman donovan and ranking member pain for your leadership in making communication the standalone asset at the federal level.ankig lastly, you asked, as you know the funding has really been

reduced to about a third and we hope and pray that today your bill mr. chairman, 5859 passes because it will be instrumental in helping us to continue to prepare and disrupt and respond to the next threat. mr. donovan, i just want to say thank you and chairman mccall for your 5308 which was really doing what we should do. it's kind of like asset forfeiture, we absolutely should take the interest from terrorist organizations and invest that interest in the safety of the american people and the safety of our communities from everyday crime so i think you all for your leadership and i look forward to the discussion. >> thank you.af the chair recognizes the sheriff >> thank you, good morning, my name is michael bouchard i'm the sheriff of open county and i've been in law enforcement for m almost 30 years and run one of

the nations largest sheriffep offices but i will be speaking briefly but in my actual testimony i go into greater depths so we will kinda be at the 30,000 foot on this. the the vice president charge of government affairs and i'm testifying on their behalf. like all of you and all of our fellow americans, on 911, our world was changed dramatically. i was proud to lead a team to work at ground zero immediately after the attack and over the past 15 years, our country has made great progress in our ability to prepare for, respond to and prevent terrorist attacks men and women of law-enforcement work everyday to ensure our individual communities and our local neighborhoods do not become the next battleground. te we mention the expansion of next current corruption, social medit for mass propaganda, inspiration of lone wolf attacks and selective recruitment is very

evident and very prevalent. we in the law-enforcement community find ourselves in a new age were criminals and terrorists, enthusiastically enthusiastically operate beyond the confines of law through encrypted networks and applications and mobile devices. we will examine the issue at depth and i would like to submit our joint paper into the record mr. chairman following this discussion. >> without objection, so ordered. >> homegrown violent extremists are another example of the evolving dynamic threat environment facing local law enforcement. they can come from a variety of backgrounds and driven by either religious or ideological factors. they present a uniquely dangerous situation for local law enforcement because they arl familiar with u.s. customs and day-to-day activities. robust community engagement as was mentioned by the chief is very important in a direct way of combating violent extremism. it requires commitment from the agency leadership to meet with

leaders of diverse communities through dedication and consistency, those relationships become resilient. d as evidenced by recent radical islamic terrorist attack in san bernardino and others, the threat to public safety and national security posed by our governments refugee and visa programs are real. when a query is conducted and no information is available from their home country, it is impossible to verify the information needed to make an informed decision on the threat level posed by an african. the dhs, oig published report on monday had found the u.s. citizenship and immigration services granted citizenship to over 800 individuals from special interest countries who had been ordered deported or removed under a different name.a that is the vetting process we are talking about. the refugee act requires federal government to consult regularly with state and local governments concerning's sponsorship process and the intended distribution of refugees to state and

localities. despite this requirement, no one from the federal government has made any effort to consult with my county members of our association on this issue. there has been over 1200 refugees settled in my state with the majority in my county and not one phone call. with the increased threat environment law enforcement has been continually asked to do more with less. the president has proposed in fy 17 budget that cuts funding by 45%. the total amount of staff reimbursements received were reduced every year. through executive action and not legislation, the administration recalled certain 10:30 three military surplus equipment. on the same day in san bernardino terra tech, my offict received in order to return an armored personnel carrier to be destroyed because it looks too militarized. an armored vehicle pulled up everyday at a bank or grocery store to protect money and it is viewed as normal but ifze law-enforcement pulls up in the same vehicle at the sameme building to protect lives,

somehow it's bad. that's why in fy 16 they allocated 39 million to dhs for a grant initiative specifically to help local governments prepare, prevent and respond to complex chlorinated attacks. law-enforcement stakeholders proactively offered suggestionsc to fema to address law-enforcement needs and were quickly approaching fy 17 and no progress has been made on that issue either.ne after i self deployed at the direct request of involved agencies to ground zero and hurricane katrina, we engaged in great dialogue with fema about how to formulate, create, create, equip and train regional response teams. where does that program stand today? i don't know. it has been two years that we worked on that and has completely fallen off the map. despite the administration claims, our borders are more secure than ever and

undocumented individuals continue to illegally enter the homeland. if we don't have border security, we don't have national security. i would like to thank the committee and its staff for all of their work, bipartisan andd r countless bills have passed thir committee with the aim to secure our homeland. i would also like to thank the chairman for his commitment and collaboration and willingness to engage us in local law enforcement. i greatly appreciate and often not heard at other levels.ci i would like to think the committee and i look forward to future discussions.ard to >> good morning chairman mccall and ranking member thompson and members of the committee. it is indeed an honor and a privilege for me to provide testimony today during thisin hearing to discuss ways to stop the next attack. i am not here today to be a doomsday reporter, but i do believe that our nation has experienced a paradigm shift in

our global war on terror. i agree with the chair and ranking member that we should not accept the current state of affairs as the new normal. there have been numerous recentt violent incidents on u.s. soil which indicate that terror subjects have brought the fight to our homeland. they are now focusing on softub targets in our cities andd counties which puts local law enforcement officers squarely in the crosshairs of violent extremists my community, the metropolitan orlando area experienced such an attack on june the 12th. my agency responded to assist the orlando police department in the initial response involving an active shooter. the incident remains under investigation by the fbi but it is believed that a lone gunman

killed 49 innocent people and injured another 53 persons in the pulse nightclub incident. the incident began shortly after 2:00 a.m. when all marmot teen began randomly firing at patrons of the club that catered to the lgbt community. on a night designated as latin night. like no other time in our history, if we are going to be successful at reducing attacks on american citizens by violent extremists, federal state and local law enforcement authorities must improve our working relationships in three ways. number one, we must improve the access to information.ove the sharing of actionable intelligence information that can be used to identify and arrest subjects involved in plotting attacks before an attack occurs.

number three, funding for counterterrorism efforts to include training and equipment must be increased. as it relates to information, the department of homeland security, dhs should reassess its policy on. precluding law-enforcement agencies from having access to the ice database that identifies individuals as being in this country illegally. officer and public safety becoms a major issue in instances where law-enforcement officers and history checks in the field through the national crime information system and they are not made aware of a subject immigration status. immigration enforcement is clearly a function of the federal government and sheriffs do not seek this authority. we have enough on our plates already.

our concern is for the safety of our officers when officers or deputies encounter someone and the person is here illegally, that person assumes the police already know they are illegal and have the authority to arrest and deport them. local and state law enforcement should know who they are dealing with even if they cannot arrest for immigration violation. : violations. as it relates to sharing information, florida sheriffs have seen increased immune kags from the department of justice and dhs to state and local law enforcement concerning critical incidents. assistant secretary at dhs's office of partner engagement has been a driving significant national and international see -- events affecting law enforcement and public safety.

aim the president of the florida sheriff's association and give credit to dhs secretary jeh johnson and fbi director for increasing communications with state and local law enforcement and for phishing facts to share directly as opposed to share receiving information from the national news media. in order for american law enforcement to prevent, respond to, and mitigate domestic terror attacks analytics and training will be integral to stopping attacks from proliferating. central florida has been the benefactor of numerous projects funded in previous years by the urban area security initiative program. we have been working for the past two years to get dhs funding restored to our region. primarily members of congress from both the house and senate and work with orlando police

chief mina and me in these efforts. we have petitions dhs and fema to reassess thed in to strengthen and secure central florida from another terror attack like the pulse nightcluba incident. the central florida region has been fortune to receive approximately $45.40 million in funding since 2004. the orange county sheriff's office has managed to fund. the funding received prior to 2013 was critical to our region's ability to prevent, protect, respond to, and recover from not only terrorism but a broad range of other threats and hards. -- and other hazards. we only 0 goods good as preventing an attack as the quality we receive about the attack. t i'll briefly discuss one of ore most notable regional

partnerships in florida called the central florida intelligenci exchange, ocfix. it is located in ore lan do onec of three centers in florida and is a central repositor database. in addition, to its counterterrorism focus they serve as an all-hazard fusion center assisting agencies to recover from hazards such as hurricanes and natural disasters. cfix assists with the investigation of crimes that possibly contain a nexus to terrorist activity or other homeland security issues. in other words, fusion centers located throughout the country are pivotal to our nation's mission of stopping terror attacks.n due to at the lack of funding, t some critical needs of our cfx

fusion center have been lost. we reduced the number of analysts to choo have provided information that could prevent a terror attack. through the national infrastructure protection program, we received a u.s. funding for a video camera surveillance project in the tourist quarter, downtown orlando and areas near the university of central florida. due to a loss of funding we have not been able to expand the project into areas around our top tourist destinations. prior to june 12th 2016 we had more than a dozen u.s. training exercises over the past 12 years.st i believe the agencies responding to the pulse incident flawlessly initiated an active shooter response because of re training paid through historical funding.at

you have a list of the training exercises. we train to respond as a reasonn to a terror attack or other disaster. about 150 of my deputies, along with multiple other law enforcement, fire and ems agencies responded to assist the orlando police department during the pulse incident. because of the infrastructure connections in our region it is a natural thing to have regional capability and vulnerability inc assessment.nd regional -- -- committed to stopping and reducing terror attacks. presently the people na uses the budget to defined in the federal register when calculating risk storeses for msas. we believe that the boundary lines of orlando msa should be expanded to include the brevard area to the east and the volusie county msa to the north.

we realize that is a haven't heavy list in same 2015 we began the process of lobbying the federal government to come pine in the orlando msa with brevard and volusia. that's was broadly supported by federal, state and local officials and numerous letters were sent to the administratorrl of the grants system and the omb office of leg aer to affair is. you have a copy of the letters a in your materials. with a tax in places like -- attacks in places like boston, san bernardino, orlando and dallas and other places, most recently in new york, new jersey, minnesota, there is a need to have an overall increase in funding across the nation. and overall increase in the funding would expand dhs's ability to fund the top 100 high

risk areas from 85% to 90% or better of the areas with the most risk. areas like central florida, would no doubt make the list. congressman micah has expressed support to increase funding nationwide in 2016, the orlando msa was 34th on the list of 100. when only 29 were funded. local and state agencies have equipment needs and the requisite training for use of the equipment and including mobile command centers, surveillance equipment, tactic cat weapons, armored vehicles and explosive ordinance detection is important. and in closing, i thank you for allowing know speak and i ask the committee to an analyze the current formula and the data used in formula to reflect

current vulnerable. >> thank you. we recognize mr. miller for opening statement. >> thank you for your continued support in our programs and our new york delegation, peter king, who we're always in close touch with, and dan donovan out of the new york city law enforcement community, as is kathleen rice. good morning to members of the committee. i'd like to thank the chairman for giving us this opportunityty to talk about this. we we talked about this testimony several weeks ago the idea was to talk about thepo emerging and changing threats and how we might respond to a terrorist attack. nobody had any idea that we would be sitting here within days of an actual terrorist attack, talking about how we did respond. new york city has been the target of more than 20 terrorist attacks, including this one. some have succeeded, but most have been prevented through the

use of good intelligence and robust counterterrorism program. the threat we face today has grown out of a group called al qaeda, that morphed into an international network of affiliates, one of which turned into a movement on it own called isil that has pioneered exploiting every advantage of globalization. today while al qaeda operates in the shadows, occasionally sending out videos, isil operates out of airusing the internet and social media tools to deliver a call to arms to those who would travel to syria and fight for icele there in or iraq and understanding how to leverage propaganda thatut includes video, conversations over social media applications,, both encrypted and unencrypted.s an online magazine extolling

violence giving useful, tactical critiques on attack that have happened, including the orlando shooting, and giving instructions on how to make bombs.s.happ these are specific custom designed messages to urge people who could not come to syria to fight in iraq to kill meshes here the message is, hold the promise to those who are receiving them of valor, of belonging, of empowerment and these messages containing these false promises resonate particularly with recruits who are failing in life, living in the margins, who have low self-esteem, or feel isolated. no city in america has been the target of as many plots and attacks as new york city. no city has paid as much in blood as we did on 9/11, and in the 15 years since, no city has

invested as much human capital and money in effort to prevent, if possible, or respond if necessary, to a terrorist attack with thank the committee, we thank our appropriatators. we think the department of homeland security and sect jeh johnson for continuing to support those efforts with funding. that said the nypd and the city uses our budget to support the efforts. this year alone the nypdcracyed the critical response command, highly trained, especially equipped, uniformed force of over 500 officers that work full-time every day as a counterterrorism force in the streets of new york city. they protect critical locationsr and shift between key potential terror targets, depending on the

intelligence we evaluate and the global threat stream. we provided the same weapons and training to our strategic response command, the srg, a citywide flying squad that can be called on to assist our emergency service units which is a rescue-oriented but swatted capable unit that is our -- a s.w.a.t. capable units that ir0 go-to first responders to any crisis. that adds up to approximately 1800 officers with special weapons and tactics capabilities 0 who are in the streets of the city of new york. that is unmatched by any municipal police department on the globe as far as we know. we've also trained over 8,000 regular patrol officers in tactics to counter the active shooter as we have seen this trend grow over recent years. those are the officers who are most likely because of their proximity and number to arrive at such a scene first. the nypd has build what is

widely regarded as the mostsc sophisticated intelligence bureau outside of the federal government. that bureau works hand in hand with our federal partners, particularly the fbi, the joint terrorism task force, and homeland security. over at the jcpf in new york we have over 100 detectives assigned there that areves integrating cross-designation as federal law enforcement officers. the nypd has spend over $300 million over eight years, s combining city and federal funding to retain the domain assistant network. this uses data from our 9-1-1 call system, with license plate readers, with radiation detect sensors close to city, with law enforcement databases in the last year, under former commissioner bill bratton, that data, which faced inwards to people like me at police

headquarters, was pushed outward, turned outward to the people who need it the most and could use it the most, and that's the cop on the street. every police officer in new york has ac set to that information from their department issued smartphone. this phone is able to access the network and means during a terrorist incident, as we saw this week. that having 1500 people who work full-time on counterterrorism can quickly be changed to 36,000 in the streets. we're able to push law enforcement information, pictures of the suspect, information we had, to every police officer in the streets who was working when we decided to go out with a picture of thed suspect we had probable cause to arrest. all of that with the power of just hitting a send key. every element of those tools and tactics we have discussed here today was fully exploited in the moments starting after 8:30 p.m.

on saturday night when two bombs were placed in new york city onn that evening. i also have to say that the seamless cooperation between the fbi and the nypd and homeland security partners, whether that was fbi, ert, evidence response technicians, working in a post blast with our crime scene investigators, bagging and tagging the same way, sending everything to the same lab, the fbi lab at quantico, whether it was our nypd bomb squad detectives working side-by-side with their sabt, special agent bomb techs from the fbi, our detective bureau, intelligence bureau, the jppf it was a force multiplier that worked that case as if they did it every day together because they do. thank you, and i'll be happy to take questions. >> thank you, commissionererth miller.ey now recognize myself for

questions. the last time i saw you, john, we were in new york at the 9/11 ceremony. the next day received an intelligence briefing at the intelligence unit, and nypd. little did we know within days, there would be a terrorist attack in at the streets of new york. d i was presented a video that i wanted to share with the committee that was tut together by the new york police department that i think really encapsulates the threat moving forward and i prophetic of what we saw happen last saturday. >> in all it glory. remaining and expanding.

>> i'm thinking like i'm still dreaming. i'm thinking lime i'm in a dream world. i wake up -- this is a blessing you have to be here to understand what i'm saying. [music] [music]

[music] [music]

[singing] [singing]

[singing] [singing]

[speaking in foreign language] [speaking in foreign language] >> commissioner miller thank you, for that video. we saw that last week before the tragic events in your count on saturday. what i was struck by is the "stay home and fight."n come to syria and join the fight. are we saying a changing, evolving message coming out of

isis, syria, to stay home and attack in the united states? >> i think we are. i think that the message is frock sheikh adnani, especially the preramadan message which called on people to attack where they were. has shifted from come to syria and fight with us on the battlefield to, as one thief messages have clearly written, it said,we love you more doing actions in their countries -- referring to countries other than syria, meaning we rad rather have you figure at home than come here and fight on the battlefield. >> which concerns me from a homeland security perspective because as we have some success militarily in iraq and syria we'll see the battleground coming to the united states. this is a copy of mr. rahimi's journal found on his person when he was taken into custody.

he talks about the sounds of bombs will be heard in streets. streets praised osama bin ladent his brother. talked about anwar awlaki in fort hood, texas, and talked about pressure cooker bombs in the streets when they plan to run the mile. he said god willing the sound of bomb wells be heard in the so streets. you continue your slag slaughten against the mujahideen, and he rote that his guidance comes from the man you mentioned, mr. adnani, who was the chief isis spokesman and external operations chief who was killed by an airstrike. you talked about killing where you are. precisely, i think, evolving threat we're facing. commissioner miller, i have to

ask you this question. was the suspect, mr. rahimi, at any point in time under the radar?es is there anything we could have done differently to have stopped him? >> i'm sure as in after every incident our federal partner is will go backwards through the case and re-evaluate that, but based on what i've seen so far as part of the investigation, he seemed like, many suspects who came into contact with the system at various times, and was handled to the extent that the system of the law and at the guidelines we operation under would allow them to. >> it's unfortunate in many of these incidents -- we stop most of these things, as you know, but the ones we miss, it seems like it's always after the facte that somebody comes forward and said, oh, i noticed he was radicalizing or i saw this or that but failed to report it to authorities. think that's probably what we'll

find out to be the case here. chief we have a bill on the floor today authorizing $40 million for grants to train in active shooting, to train in ied, to train in suicide bombers. can you tell me how that could help your city and my city, the city of austin, help better prepare for this time of e -- type of event. >> training is really key to being prepared to respond, and unfortunately with the tightening budgets in at the country one of the fir thing that goes away is the training budget. so from the perspective of the major cts you bill will good -- go a long way in preparing resource inside the big cities and the counties, and without it i don't think we can prepare to the extent that we need to. fortunately for us in austin, we

make it a priority and so we sacrifice, but not every city has the ability and for us we desperately need the funding. >> the chair now recognizes the ranking member.. >> thank you very much. i think from the outset, there's no question this committee is absolutely committed to keeping america as safe as can possiblye be. 100% is what we strive for every day, and the men and women in various departments, we salute you for that work. one of the things we struggle with is when these incidents ors the lone-wolfs paper you get a lot of people after the fact trying to say, well, you should have done this, should have done that.

and so now there's a discussion that, well, maybe we need to put more surveillance on individuals and to some degree even profile individuals, and i think degree mr. miller, since new york is kind of the melting pot, and as a practitioner of this, especially in light of the bartender dialing 9-1-1, saying, i think we got a problem, can you just kind of explain that kind of engagement withthose communities, what your experience has been? >> we've work very hard to increase the nypd engagement with the community. you cannot prefile the community you count on to help you in these cases.

we have had many people from the arab-american community, from the muslim community, come forward and help us in various investigations over various times, and in the context of that video we have also kind of sat down with a core group of our best community partners and played all the same propaganda to them on the idea that most mainstream community leaders are not on their computers watching these things but we wanted to be able to expose them to the type of clever messaging and powerful propaganda that some of their young people might be susceptible to and work with. the to try to figure out how you counter that message, and what you use. so this is a conversation with the community of partners that has to keep going, and you can't keep it going by separating them.

>> thank you very much. a lot of my opening statement talks about the proliferation and ownership of assault weapons, and some of us have even promoted the notion that why should you be able to buy an assault weapon being on the terrorist watch list? what we're trying to do is close every potential vulnerability that we know of, has nothing to dive be in second amendment, is just that if you're too bad to get on a plane, it's clear in the minds of a lot of people, you're too bad to own a gun. or you should have some opportunity to prove that you are not.

so, chief as acevedo can you comment on where that assault weapon and guns come to play in your area? >> yes, sir. clearly one of the challenges we have in this nation is proliferation of firearms and the fact we use the second amendment as an excuse to not pass common sense laws that will help keep firearms in the hands of law-abiding americans with a sane mind. in texas where the second amendment is king is spend time caulking to conservative members of the community. they're in favor of universal background checks in favor of closing the gun show loophole where we can watch people and cash is ding, you can buy whatever you want. we have a responsibility as a nation, as policymakers i urge this body, the only body that can get it done on a national level, to celebrate the second

amendment by ensuring we take steps to ensure that responsible people are gun owners and not people that will do harm to their fellow americans and, quite frankly, as it relates to mental health, might do harm to americans or themselves. so we need help. know the support is out there. think the surveys show that from the american people, and at the end of the day, it's the will of the people and i hope this body will put politics aside and really join the american people in being pragmatic and taking steps to keep the firearms out of of the wrong hands. >> thank you.ep the sheriff, you have 49 people killed in your county by someone with one of these weapons. but more importantly, that