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

individual was what we call lone-wolf in terms of somebody who we could not really bring a nexus to somebody overseas or something like that. can you in your law enforcement experience, explain what the challenge is for identifying extremists in communities. whether you're a member of the klu klux klan, a member of isil, or any other entity, and how does that play into your day-to-day law enforcement experience. >> thank you for the question. i can tell you that it is a challenge for us to identify individuals who mean harm to our nation. we are only as good as the information that we receive. so i believe that we have got ts

improve our an littal capabilities -- analytical capabilities and sharing information across the federal,l state and local authorities. we sometimes see where we operate in silos. all of these issues tend to happen in local communities and what we say to our residents is that if you see something suspicious, we want you to tell us about it. and they're also in giving usou information to us at the local level and we push it to the federal level, but sometimes once it gets there and it is analyzed, it doesn't come back in a systemic way so that we can use that actionable intelligence information and thwarting a followable temporary attack in -- a terror attack. some in case even relating to gun laws sometimes doesn't make sense what happens. i'll give you an example. just a couple of days after the

pulse nightclub incident in orlando, there was a reporter who came to town, international reporter from the uk, who was writing a story, and to prove his point, how easy it is to acquire an assault weapon in america, he bought one. he went to a local licensed gun dealer and was able to buy an assault weapon. he was not a u.s. citizen but at some point had been in our country and had some form of legal status at some point. before he returned to the uk, he brought the assault weapon that he had lawfully purchased to one of my sheriff's substations and said, i don't want it. can't take it back into my country. the reason i bought it was to prove a point how easy it is and i'm not even a u.s. citizen. so i have said to people like the director comey and others

that to me that makes no sense because as american citizens, if we were in the uk, we couldn't go there and buy an assault weapon, and so why should he have been allowed to buy one in our country? so, somehow we have to look at those types of situations that occur. the other thing i see gaping holes in as relates to the mentally ill. we have a national database that is supposed to have information about visiteds who have been certified through the courts to have some form of mental illness that disqualifies them from buying a firearm. but quite frankly, the information isn't being put into the database because of this lack of -- i think understanding within the mental health community what constitutes mental illness, so we have to

improve there as a country as well. >> thank you. w yield back. >> chair recognizes the gentleman from new york, mr. king. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank all the witnesses and r their testimony, congratulations on a very successful weekend, and i know the investigation is ongoing but i was actually down on 23rd street the morningnd after and what you said about a the fbi and nypd is true you couldn't tell one from the other. i'd like to follow up and don't want to get caught up in september man ticked but if we use terms like proprofiling "there's also good police work and you are old enough to remember, i'm old than you -- when they went after the mafia in new york, the nypd were in the italian american community. that where the threat was coming over, and going after the westies, whether hell's kitchen or boars in hand mat tan there were undercovers to try to get information. as an irish american i didn't

consider that profiling. was coming fro the ire irish american community, even though 99% of law-abiding, and i just think in new york where you have a number of muslim communities and neighborhoods, even -- the overall majority, i don't see how it's unconstitutional or bad police work to have undercover and informants, the same as you're tracking down any other crime that comes from any particular community or organization. >> we operate under the andrew guidelines and the andrew guidelines specifically say that we operate on information on behavior, on actions, but we do not place undercovers or spies or people into the community to watch people who are engaged in completely constitutionally

protected activities. whether that is an arrest at a house of worship, or a meeting. we're also not lacking for business. i think representative king and very few in congress who know as much about this as you do, given the time you have spent in this field. c that in the 15 years since 9/11i through every suspicious encounter that been reported, we have amassed a large number of names, incidents, reports, and when they're filed away, as you see in the other day, or in the orlando case or you can pick your case, there's two schools of thought on that. one is, if you already knew about this person why weren't they stopped? that is one that often doesn't consider the thresholds we have to operate under. the other is that if you have

that many contacts with that many people over that period of time, it's increasingly likely c that the next thing some -- the next time something happens, it's going to involve somebody that you knew, heard about, investigated, bumped or otherwise checked out. that's a good thing in that when you're assessing who to look at first and they come up in those records, it gives you a basis to go forward. well, it's also a liability in that people have somewhat of a misconception about our ability to put someone under surveillance, leave them there indefinitely, in the case of the new york case, these were contacts that happened in 2014, with no demonstrable thing that happened in between that time and this time. that is not -- i'm not prejudging it. somebody will go back through it

with a fine-tooth comb because we do, but it's not realistic td say every time someone comes on the radar you can follow them ob their friends and associates for an extended period of time while you have investigations that are on the front burner involvinge people who were dem demonstrably dangerous. >> it would violate -- two encounters with the fbi, one because of travel and one because of assault against the family members and part of the same terrorist, for the local police to be told about that so they will be alert to anything else they might hear. i'm not saying any warrantlessoc search or hounding the guy. i'm just saying for the street cop to say, keep your eyes and ears open on this guy in case you hear something about it. he is at a different level than the ordinary citizen walking down the streit. >> based on my understand upping of our guidelines it wouldn't, based on my recollection of the attorney general's guidelines and the fbi's domestic

intelligence operations guide, don't believe it would, either. >> thank you, commissioner. my dish just want get to that on the record because many of the unfair allegations were made against the nypd over the years from certain organizations and from the media. so thank you for your outstanding service. >> thank you. i would just point out for the record that the independent inspector general of the nypd just completed an audit of ten years of intelligence bureau records, and determined that 100% of the records evaluated they discovered there was a proper purpose and basis for every investigation and were carried out within the guidelines. >> 'll just make editorial comment that reporters get a pulitzer prize about the nypd. chairman recognizes the -- from new york. >> forwardly, let me save with respect to in the new york city.

police department, the literature since 9/11 is clearly established that the new yorkor city police department terror terrorism intelligence is the most effective in all the world. it's extraordinary work done in counterterrorism. unfortunately never get credit for what didn't happen, and what you do every day is preventing things from in fact happening. so it's great, great work and the terrorists only have to be lucky once. counterterrorism officials have to be lucky all the time. but it's also worth noting here that since 9/11, 2001, a period of 15 years, 94 people were killed by islamic terrorists. 157,000 americans have been killed with guns. you have 3,000 times more likely to be killed by an american with a gun than a terrorist. every day in america 90 people die from gun violence.

in orlando, 49 people dead, 53 people wounded, deadliest attack on u.s. soil since 9/11. one shooter, semi-automatic rifle, semi automatic pistol, legally purchased. one shooter, 49 people dead. 53 wiped. newtown, connecticut, 26 people dead. 20 kids between the ages of six and seven, first and second 26 graders, dead. most had multiple wounds in them. six adults were also killed.d. mo most of whom were diving in front of the kids to shield them from the shooter. one shooter.r. legally purchased guns. purch sensible gun staph has been mentioned here and rejected by the congress despite the fact

that 90% of the american people, support sensible gun safety legislation. people often invoke the second amendment to justify the continuation of this hell, but at the framers of our constitution seasoning the second amendment could never have anticipated this kind of hell. the topic today is stopping the next attack. how to keep our cities from becoming a battleground. well, they're already a battleground, and there's a moral contradiction when you have as the ranking member saida previously, a terror watch list. these are individuals that are known to be involved in some degree in terrorist activity. yet at the same time, they are allowed to purchase guns, semi

automatic rifles, semi-automatic pistols, the very guns that are found at all of these mass shootings you. can't with any credibility hold a hearing with the topic stopping the next attack, how th keep our cities from becoming battlegrounds, without fundamentally addressing what most people on this panel agree with, and that is very common sensiccable gun safety measures. ask you to respond. >> i think that the broad law enforcement support for the assault weapons bill at the same time as the crime bill that was signed on the white house lawn, and then expired, and the conversation that came out of that for years with no change, was one indicator, and cynical people would have said, when a member of congress is shot down, in a public place, that would

change. but the conversation after the shooting of gabby giffords went on for three weeks weeks and fad airplane. some might have argued when citizens are build killed in movie theaters would have endedf the discussion. and colorado passed a tough gun law and the governor was run out thereof state after that. some might have said, when thehe kill our kindergarten children in their schools that would be the straw that broke the back. but we talked about that for a while and nothing happened there, either. so in some measure when you consider the fact that the greatest loss of life on u.s. soil since 9/11 and the terrorist attack happened at 2:00 in the morning, on a place off the main path, an lgbt club on latino night, by a lone comfortable gunman, you have to -- lone-wolf gunman you have

to ask yourself, have the kindergarten out who we are and do we want to change? >> the chair recognizes mr. rogers from alabama. >> thank you, measure chairman. thank the witnesses for being here and commend new york. if you look at what happened with the recent investigation after this attack and previous attacks and then what happened with the london boehm examination the spain bombings, closed circuit television washe critical in the investigation and the quick an -- an preparation of the suspects in every case i urge all of our major metropolitan areas to emulate new york. but i did want to ask you, my experience has been that just as was the case here in new york, that local law enforcement really has to have a good relationship the federal

officials for everybody to beo a successful.it what do you see as ways that we can improve communications between state and local officials and the feds that you need to interact with and do you get a chance to exercise regularly with them, if not, wife not? just start with mr. bouchard and mr. demmings. >> thank you, congressman. that's a very good question.if we do interact and work extremely well with our federall partners but the communication is assailant point we have raised for a number of years. in fact on many of the conference calls the preamble is probably heard more about this incident in the news that we'll talk about today. most of us, i presume, have a top secret clearance sitting ato this table, if not at least secret, and there's a need for real-time information sharing on that capability. that is not in place.

years ago, probably a decade ago issue suggested they create such a platform, and an increpted cell phone was created as such and i paid for it from my homeland security division chief and myself and we had a five ol' them. lo and behold we find out they don't work so they don't have the ability to communicate real-time. we have to goo back to the days of runners. >> you're talking more about equipment. i'm talking about personal relationships do you have a chance to interact and develop permanent relationship sod you p know bob at the fbi or whoever the guy to get in touch with? >> we do and we have great y relationships but when i'm talking about the equipment, if there's too timing need to share information there's a lag because we have to go to the same location to community okayed that. hat a meating in my state and the sheriff fromlab was there and something was up folding at

secret level and we were looking for coast guard stations to get him in communication. that's a problem. between terroristsen communicate on an encrypted platform and we can't. so the relationships are there one challenge we face across the country is we build a great relationship with our sacs and their moved, every two years. they come and good very frequently.. i know professional development organizational needs are important but it is a challenge once you develop a dep relationship. i've been through probably six a a cs in my tenure. >> the only thing i would add is i talked about the fact that we have a fusion center in orlando, and because of that fusion center, if -- it forces daysly to work across jurisdictional lines and that it is not the case in most cities around america. we only have three in the state of florida, when we have a

multiple laws, minute areas so i do believe there's a need to increase the number effusion centers because, again, they work on the prevention side, collecting information and data, that can be used to prevent an attack, and that is this wholele conversation today is about preventing an attack. so i believe that has to be part of the solution. it forces to us work together and also allows us to gather better information, actionablele intelligence information, thatll is. >> chief? >> in terms of our group, our relationship in austin we have a phenomenal relationship with our local sac. m >> do you have coops to exercise. >> we have not exercised because funding is an issue. that's why i hope that 59 passes and we can actually do some more exercises with them in terms of information sharing it better today than it's always been --

ever been for my region. however, i think that depends on the sac. fortunately, i have a good sac and had good sacs and purr back hard when they're not sharing information but that's not at the case nationwide. not even across the country. >> thank you, my time has expired. thank you for all you do for the country. >> recognizes mr. payne. >> thank you, mr. chairman, and like to thank the birdie their testimony this -- thank the witnesses for their testimony this morning and also like tomon recognize 29 individuals that were injured this week and pray for their speedy recovery, and also the two brave officers in linden, new jersey, who engagedo the culprit, officers hammer and

officer padilla of the linden police department which is also in my district. many gun safety laws are en, ad at the state level so while you might live in a state with strict gun laws, such as mine, your communities might remain vulnerable because of the lack of gun laws in neighboring states. how does this patchwork approach to gun control affect your gunicy efforts? mr. miller, if you could take a stab at that. >> we have if not the toughest gun laws in the nation in new york city, certainly one of them. i but none of our guns come from new york city. that has been true for many years.

we have mandatory minimum sentencing. we have a riggous permitting process, but most of our guns come from out of state. >> the ability and the access to these assault weapons in othernd states really poses a great potential for acts such as we have seen over the course of the last several years, and when i w talk about it, with my colleagues, that feel that there could be a potential infringement on the second amendment. the second amendment rights, getting and understanding of what we end up against in our communities, is something that can be horrific as we saw in orlando.

and my -- always my argument to people and law enforcement thata sometimes did not see the wisdom in trying to get these weapons off of the streets, is what happened in dallas was my greatest fear, that, you know, i would trial to tell -- one day these weapons are going to be turned and used against you, and in dallas we saw that happen. at and that is the rope we fight trying to make sure these weapons are not available to people that should not have them and really i don't think should be available to the public.

there are only going to be used against law enforcement, and to think that a terrorist would have the upper hand on our law enforcement, just not bode welld with me. so, can you -- the event oz last weekend, really put the country on edge. the information we received was constantly being updated, and the situation was very fluid. i think lessons learned from boston helped us in this situation, and it was really incredible to hear how fluid this situation has become through enter agencies. can you talk about the federal government and how it shared relevant information with you to

respect to the different law enforcement organizations? with >> from the moment the explosion happened, i called the police commissioner and i called my fbi counterpart. in the time it took know drive to the scene, my fbi counterparts were there. we came up with a game plan, and we received continuous mission are information throughout the night with the development of every clue, a phone that led to a subscriber named, fingerprint print that led to an individual, phones that -- devices connected from the new jersey case to other devices. people who were connected to devices through physical evidence, and there was nothing hidden, nothing held back, nothing too classified that wewe

sat together in the same command post, customs and border protection and dhs played a vital role in helping us understand who was who through their records and contacts. i would say it was a model of cooperation and in part to mr. rogers' question do we examiner side together -- exercise together? we train together all the tike, particularly in active shooter realm, but we work together every day. we eat together, we drink together. we don't sleep together yet. but that just because we don't sleep much.her >> well, thank you, and has as i yield back, chief acevedo thank you for acknowledging the hardch work that mr. donovan and i have done in interoperatability and communications for all of your departments. i yield back. >> the chair recognizes mr. duncan.

>> thank you, mr. chairman. gentleman, before y'all in law enforcement do you all carry firearms? not in here but do you carry a firearm daily? >> i think i'm getting a head shake yes from everyone. there wasn't a hand raised. >> i do on duty but a lot of time is don't off-duty. >> the ranking member injected gun control into this because that is the narrative of the left. and for the record, he's an avid participant in shooting sports, actually a great shot. i've shot competitively against him.de and so he exercises the second amendment rights. we're here in this ivory tower of government protected by law enforcement. there's a guy out the uniform with a firm to protect us. if more gun laws were the answer, more restrictive gun laws affecting the second amendment rights of americans, the south side of chicago would

be the safest place on earth. you can leave your doors open, you could walk the streets at night and allow your children to play in the front yard but yet that not the case. more gun laws are not the answer. there are 357 million firearms in america in hands of law-abiding citizens. milli the problem we need to look at dirk let me tell you about the law-abiding citizen. when seconds count, the police are just minutes away. and they have the ability to draw a firearm to protect themselves, their families, their property, their neighbors, their constitutional if necessary.property, so, we have had gun control injected into this debate. let me tell you that i think the problem is gun-free zones because we are restricting where

law-abiding citizens can carry firearms. gun, free sewn. san bernardino, prevented from having a firearm. orlando was a bar. nobody could carry a firearm in there charleston, south carolina, a gun free sewn. sandy hook, no one had access to a firearm so we're counting on law enforcement to be there. law enforcement can't be everywhere, no will we want you to be there.nforcement so, the second amendment is there for us to protect ourselves and our family. so, we have had the no-fly list injected into this. there are 200,000 people on the no-fly list, 80% of which are foreign nationals so the other 20% or citizens and we can look hard at them. how do you get on the know-fly list and how doout get off.

we have the right -- get off that but too many meshes americans are hon the no, fly list and don't know. ... that's fifth and sixth amendment due process rights that are guaranteed us. so we're relying on big government to actually take care of us, to find these terrorists. but guess what, they missed it america. they missed it in orlando. that guy was suspected of terrorism. they missed it in new je >> bay misted in fort hood. he had a lot on his business card. there were signals for major hassan all over.

they missed san bernardino because the white was actually, there were questions about how she even came into the country. they misted in boston , fbi was informed by russia for all intents and purposes that somebody had been traveling over there and possibly been in contact with terrorist organizations and may have gotten training and missed it. that's loss of lives. what we continue to do is talk about gun control and debate when we need to talk about second amendment and constitutional rights, fifth and sixth amendment rights and due process to continue to allow unfettered immigration for an untenable country. it is granted citizenship to 858 individuals who were ordered deported during the in naturalization process, there are additional fingerprint records were available, just give them citizenship. we cannot rely on the federal government and big bureaucracy to keep us safe . we got to revert back i

believe to the individuals, law-abiding citizens in this country . they've got to look at the gun laws that are out there now that prohibit citizens being able to carry firearms in areas where they can't protect themselves. we need to allow school marshals and some sort of programming schools that are now gun free zones so somebody in that school will have access to a firearm to protect our children. you know, we continue to allow terrorists to come in here, continue to attack the constitutional rights of americans, we will continue to have restrictive gun-control laws in this state and in the country. if you look at mister higgins statistics and take out suicide, the number goes way down. if you take out criminal violence related to drugs, the number goes way down. but yet we continue to have this debate and we will continue to have a sit in on the floor of congress to shut

down the process over this issue. we will continue to invite somebody who has something that looks like a bomb, brought it to school but now it's a clock. we invite him into the white house. they say, oh it's just a clock. mister chairman i appreciate this here in but we've gotten off track from the get-go talking about violating the second amendment rights of americans. we won't have a real conversation about gun free zones. the people that are on the terrorist watchlist at all. the no-fly list and how that might be used. i got a novel idea. on the no-fly list you're a foreign national, goodbye. fly, goodbye. let's get them out of the country. there foreign nationals why are we keeping them in this country?i don't think a single person on the terrorist watchlist or fly list committed any of these acts of terrorism were talking about. if i'm wrong, correct me. gentlemen, look at you right

now and i want to thank you for what you do to keep our citizens safe. law-enforcement in this country is under attack.but we've got your back as the chairman said, we appreciate men and women in blue for walking that thin blue line area thank you for what you do. people in the third congressional district of south carolina, i appreciate what you do. god bless you and i yield back chair recognizes mister richmond from louisiana. >> thank you mister chair. let me start with people make the assertion all the time that more guns are the answer. guns in schools, guns and churches, guns in movie theaters. banks get robbed every day and people get killed in banks every day so to the extent that people think that's the solution i think you're dead wrong. but as we talk about law enforcement we talk about

having your back. let me tell you what happens. we are having committee meeting about combating terrorist movement and about putting, dispelling the propaganda from isis. not simply want an amendment that said why don't we target cyber? and they shot me down. let me tell you what sovereign citizens did in the meantime. they shot down three officers in baton rouge. injured another couple. but when westart talking about having your back , let's make sure we have the intelligence and we focus on everything. we're smart enough to do two and three things at one time. that is to come back home actors, combat terrorism, to infiltrate sales and track them but it's also to see what is the real threat to our officers and deputies on

the street and if you want to talk about your officers and your deputies, you have to talk about sovereign citizens that killed more police officers than everybody else but this committee committee doesn't want to talk about it. in fact, this committee went out of its way to ignore the issue. and let me tell you about baton rouge as we talk about having our law enforcement back. you had one actor, one sick individual with a long gun. he was better armed than the police officers that responded because this long gun, his bullets would go through our police officers back and a police officers responded with pistols that wouldn't go through his vest. so the question becomes are we funding our police department like we should? are we making an investment in our law enforcement in the extent to help them protect

lives? so as we do this today and you still have to talk about the department of homeland security in this committee , embodied with the judiciary, we had two unfortunate incidents this week where again an african-american male was killed in an incident involving law enforcement. but we spend more time talking about whether colin kaepernick is standing for the national anthem but we don't want to talk about why he's kneeling. so in this committee we are having this hearing which is not a new hearing, we have it all the time. in judiciary the other committee over something like this, we are talking about impeaching the irs director. at some point we have to be

bigger than this. and we have focused on issues that we see and no one is diminishing terrorist attacks. because i think there is one common goal between everybody and up best to figure out a way to stop them but when you talk about entitling our hearing with stopping the next attack, how do we keep our cities becoming a battleground, wake up. there's been battleground. the battleground on a number of fronts but if we're going to truly talk about how we fix it we're going to have to put the resources so that we can share intelligence, we can empower law enforcement. we have to make sure we have the capability to stop an attack before it happens but we also have to realize the magnitude of the incident, it's exaggerated if the person as an assault weapon.

so i will ask one question and whoever wants to answer it please have at it. the attack in minnesota where 10 people were injured, tell me what that looks like if instead of a knife he has an ak-47 or ar 15 witha high-capacity magazine . does anyone want to ... >> it looks like a lot of dead americans. >> i won't even respond to mister duncan because i don't think it needs to be responded here today and i respect his office and this institution, i'll just take the fifth. >> let me just ask this last question. the sovereign citizens pose a real threat to your officers

that answer traffic stops, serve subpoenas and just walk around every day . >> i believe sovereign citizens pose the most significant threat to civilian law enforcement today. a couple years ago i had one of my sergeants shot. he survived, shot by an individual who fancied himself as a sovereign. many of these incidents you've referred to, i wish there were long guns. if you delve into them you will see they subscribe to the sovereign ideology.

if no one else wants to answer, i yield back, thank you chair. >> the chair recognizes mister sally from arizona. >> thank you german. as you are doing a job in outreach trying to address this new threat is metastasizing and we have individuals being radicalized on the internet to take action in their own hands, one of the things i'd like to focus on is the phenomena of girls and women in radicalized , becoming jihadists and trying to travel to iraq and syria. i held a roundtable with my colleagues on this phenomena months ago because there is a very specific dynamic going on here we haven't seen before where we have pool girls and women not just being victimized and recruited but also being hardened jihadists themselves and leading some of those efforts. just for numbers, of the 250 americans who have attempted to go to syria, one in six are women. almost a fifth of them are teenagers more than a third of the teenagers are girls so we are seeing this new phenomenon, seen some cases in the media where three teenage girls from colorado who were accepted in germany trying to travel over there and a 19-year-old from minnesota who they found when

she was in syria, a mississippi former cheerleader honor student whose father is a police officer and navy veteran trying to plot to head to syria with her fiancc, this is a new phenomena so through outreach efforts in your communities have anything focusing specifically on women and girls becoming radicalized or are they part of the general effort for outreach, any of you would like to answer? >> we watched this very closely. we are certainly mindful of the number of travelers we've seen. as you see from the propaganda videos we've collected and puttogether for the chairman , they are very sophisticated in their pitches and outreach. you can't ignore the san bernardino case as an example of radicalization targeting females in the united states. we also have an active prosecution now involving two

women in new york city who were planning to use pressure cooker bombs to launch a plot that we interdicted last year in a year and a half long undercover operation so this is something we are concerned with and part of our discussion with the community while we kind of struggle with them is to come up with what is the counter narrative and who can deliver it? >> anyone else want to c-span.org. >> in austin texas we had a family, a husband, wife and children arrested at the houston international on the way to syria through turkey so for us, the key is not specifically addressing women but addressing young people through educational programs, through economic opportunities. i don't think you see too often people that are educated wanting to blow themselves up. that is the exception, not the rule so youth programs and educational and economic

opportunities is one of the things that we do we know that isis is using a specific and different methods to recruit girls and women, you have something to share? >> you are correct and that's clearly a concern on many levels because it brings in a whole demographic that typically is less likely to be is scrutinized because so many of the bombers or terroristsin the past have been fighting males . i worked on a case study in the middle east, suicide bomber attempts of a female and as they broke it down they analyzed the psychological reasons why she was put into that position and thought it was her only thing she could do to i guess feel better about herself so the disaffected and those that are vulnerable to a message of, this is a higher purpose and you will be valued if you do this are the ones generically i think that we need to have more outreach and more conductivity to to interdict that message and bring them away from that

siren call, if you will. >> thank you. my second question is as you mentioned you don't have real-time information sharing. this is a concern to me. we've broken down some stovepipes since 9/11 across the federal agencies. we've done some weak work between federal and local but we have a long way to go. fusion centers are an important part but some are not as good as others and it comes down to relationships. i had a 3503 to improve our fusion centers and getting higher access to security clearances to you and your teammates so you have better information on the front lines. it passed unanimously in the house and it is being held up in the senate but if you are in charge and i only have a little bit of time, breakdown some of the policies, some of the equipment but what would you do in order to make sure you have only information you need . >> you touched on a lot of the important issues as it relates to how we better

communicate but it gets back to the methodology sometimes and an urgent situation. i have a top-secret clearance but i don't have an instantaneous ability to receive entertainment information without physically bringing us together and this date in terms of technology that's available and we see used by terrorists it's a bit frustrating to literally have to drive someplace to get actionable information. >> that's insane and we need towork on it together and i know i'm out of time, does anyone else have anything to say on that issue and we can follow up . >> i think it's important that police chiefs have gone to the background investigation presumably, i've seen license police officers, i don't think there any threat to our nation and sadly the majority of police chiefs do not have a top-secret clearance. i think one of the things we need to look at is if there's an investigation or an issue in an area of responsibility for police chief we need to

look at it how we can provide that information for that person who ultimately is responsible for the safety of that community outside of the clearance process so that's just food for thought because the truth of the matter is, without police chiefs we are in the dark. >> that's something we need to improve mister chairman and i go back to you. >> a quick follow-up, i know in boston the boston police commissioner told me he could not even talk to police officers on the joint terrorism task force about the investigations. we have made efforts tochange that. there's been talk of an mo you to change that . chief, has that changed? >> i don't have ats clearance so i will just see this, that i'm still the police chief in austin texas. whether my people work for the gtt effort or work for the people of boston and my direction to them is the day they don't tell me something

we needed to know, work with the federal government or boston and their withholding information at their own peril. fortunately, we have a pretty good relationship with our local staff, it still is an issue and i think the answer is that we not only have a right to know, we have a need to know regardless of the clearance level of that investigation for our areas of responsibility. >> commissioner miller, is that estate planning board? >> in new york we don't have those issues. i think that's in part because there are over 100 detectives on the joint terrorism task force with information that we are not either handling ourselves or have access to, however understanding the discussion that occurred over boston, major city chiefs, intelligence commanders, committee , chuck dewitt worked together with partners to draw up, redraw the mo you

about how a joint terrorism task force operates with its local partners in terms of access they are entitled to, clearance levels, computer access and so on and that is new mo you, i believe it's in effect now so that should bring improvement to the situation. and i think we can count on city chiefs to kind of anecdotally check on that to make sure it's being imported. >> let me pledge my support to help you. i talked to the fbi about this mou. i know it's been going back and forth but it seems to me any commissioner or police chief that has officers on the task force should at least achieveshould be briefed on those cases . and you have the street intel. you have the intelligence on the street. >> the chair now recognizes mrs. watson. >> thank you mister chairman. to each of you let me say that i'm profoundly grateful because i can just listen to

all the challenges you're experiencing on so many different levels in so many different areas and how safe we are, relatively speaking and i know what it is because you are dedicated. you interact with your colleagues wherever you need to and you are smart at what you do. thank you from the bottom of my heart. also i want to recognize the great state of new jersey and the linden police department, it was very helpful in addressing the situation we encountered this weekend and working with new york. sometimes my wonderful state gets overlooked mister chairman and we are small but we are mighty. one thing i'd like to say two things quickly and i have one question. number one is i can't hardly believe more guns anywhere should be the answer to a

safer community or society, school or any other place, that's just an absolute ludicrous thought on anybody's part. number two is i think you all can expect in some way shape or form that the liberation of illegal guns in the community are harmful not only to the community but even to your law enforcement and that is not the direction in which we should continue to go. following up on thati want to highlight something with you . in today's testimony and in a meeting with the homeland security advisory subcommittee you stated that right-wing extremism is as much of a threat as threats inspired by foreign terrorists. in fact, i have an article that goes back to 2014 in which you express that as it relates to someone was part of an association of self defined associates of some priesthood,, do you still

believe that is one of our greatest threats coming from right-wing extremism and also do you recognize that extremism even on the left is as much of a great threat, may i have your comments on that? >> absolutely, i get beat up in my great statebecause anytime you mention right-wing anything you get beat up but extremism whether it's left or right is just that, extremists . cameron citizen movement in this nation is alive and well. if you look across the landscape you will see police officers shot and killed by members of this movement and the only reason i mention that in the homeland security advisory council to the secretary and this body is we don't want to be myopic as we look at the threat demeanor around our country. it is not just from foreign extremists.

it is alive and well in our own nation and if you look at they nationality of the victims of the press, those right-wing extremists really do just like left-wing extremists with bombs in the 70s and so forth, pose a significant threat . >> i believe this committee has certainly given the attention to the foreign extremists. i'm wondering if from your vantage point are there sufficient resources available in support even in grants and other funding that help you with identifying those threats that are posed by extremists or not foreign-born extremists and if you would all give me yes, sir no and what you'd like to offer because i only have two minutes also. >> they make no distinction as to domestic terrorism versus foreign so they can be applied equally so it's not an issue for us.

>> for us, funding continues to be an issue. we had a city that lost its funding and any funding we could get, we are down to a third. unfortunately we know there are a lot of competing interests and you all have to fund but we need help. and the militia movement, the sovereign citizen movement is alive and well in our nation and i think it's an absolute threat to the safety of our communities. >> as the commissioner said, the grants and training relates to any kind of threat , all threats, all hazards was some of the verbiage we worked on many years ago we apply that standard when we do our training lacks our funding remains an issue for us as well. i believe there's absolutely pivotable that we continue to work across the silos if you will to get information so i'm looking forward to it and again in our community we have a homegrown violent extremist who attacked a nightclubthere in orlando .

>> thank you. as i close, it's good to know we could use these resources on any of the areas we talked about.i guess the question then becomes where there is no problem because we can apply it appropriately. iq. >> the chair recognizes mister carter from georgia. >> thank you mister chairman and thank all of you for being here. obviously this is extremely important, what you do is extremely important and i want to preface my remarks, my question by saying i'm not trying to be adversarial or ask you to be adversarial. i'm just trying to get through to the problem or just improve things, maybe there's not really a problem but how can we improve things? i like to start with you mister miller because i can only imagine being in the hybrid environment that new york city is that you

probably deal with agreater number of threats then we truly realize . i think that's the case and my question to you is this. and it's aboutcommunication . we all understand how incredibly important it is, particularly in this area, particularly between the federal authorities and the local authorities and i want to ask you, as the department of homeland security supported your mission? have they done that and especially in regards to emergency communications? >> so that by the department of homeland security, particularly under secretary johnson as both been the most successful department of homeland security i've known since9/11 , having done this job in both essentialist and new york city so that's in

terms of our ability to work with dhs. if we asked them for something they work hard to get it for us. when you refer to communications, are you talking about the passing of information or interoperability? >> i'm talking about everything. >> we have the extreme of products from dhs and i am fortunate enough and it may be because of the size and scope of new york to have two dhs intelligence advisors assigned to the nypd to make sure that feed and flow is early and often. >> let me put it this way. how can we improve it? i'm always telling my staff we've got to get better. how can we make it better? i'm unfortunately a satisfied customer. >> fair enough. >> fromthat department on that issue. >> there enough . >> i'm talking about money until the cows come home but i imagine ... >> i understand that and i

understand it takes money but it also takes input and patience and it takes communication. it takes so much more and that's what i'm trying to get to hear is the communication factor. >> i would suggest one answer to that question which is heather fong who is secretary for law enforcement with the police chiefs, she understands what we need. she understand how we need it, she understands what we need it for. the history of that position before heather and louis has been a long line of people who did not understand law enforcement, assorted generals and military people and other appointees area i would urge in the future that for the sake of communication that person always be a law-enforcement officer i think that makes perfect sense. chief acevedo, i'm sorry. whatever. it's not a popular name in south florida, i apologize. >> ief of the austin, texas, police department over 2500 law enforcement officers and personnel to

protect your city. have you ever worked with the federal law enforcement training center? are you familiar with fletc? >> yes, sir, i've actually worked there and actually instructed there. it's a great facility and they offer a lot of support to state, local law enforcement. >> has anyone else had it is a great facility, a great opportunity to utilize a resource. and i'm just wondering if you've had that experience. >> we have had the experience, and i've completed training there as well as members of my staff. but going back to your question about dhs -- >> please. >> -- and what can be done, the metropolitan orlando area, when we were on the list to receive funding, we did so when the

secretary had the discretion to select different metropolitan areas to receive funding. he no longer has that discretion. it's rank ordered, and perhaps it would be good for the secretary to have some discretion, particularly when you have a incident like what we had when we were 34th on thely, and only the top -- on the list and only the top 29 receivee funding, if the secretary has some discretion to fund different regions based on what has occurred most recently. i think that would assist in many ways. we are similarly situated as austin in that we want to receive funding, and then it, it was discontinued. >> right.ed well, again -- yes, is it okay, mr. chairman? >> i would like to also thank you for the question.. obviously, we've heard a bit about the realtime communications. in new york it's probably a

little bit different because they're co-located, even though we're part of a fusion center and i have people assigned there, the realtime communication gap necessitating a drag, but there's other kinds of communication that does not and has not for years taken place that sheriff demings mentioned. that's an officer safety issue.. even if we're not empowered and we're not asking to be empowered to be in the charge of deportation, we should be empowered with information -- >> absolutely. >> so that deputy knows that person may be a threat to him or her for reasons they don't even know. and it goes deeper than that. i've been bringing this same topic up for over a decade. when somebody gets booked intoto our jails, sheriffs nationwide run the jails, we don't get realtime information in most of those tilt -- facilities as it

relates to criminality being illegally in this country. and when it comes to reimbursement for someone that is and comes from the federal government, it's still a phone call the find out -- unless you're participating in certain programs -- a phone call to find out if anybody is eligible for reimbursement, but they won't even tell you who. >> that's great. thank you for your answers. that's exactly what i wanted to hear. that's exactly the kind of things we need to be working on to get better. we always want to get better. thank you for what you do. it's extremely important. we want to help. that's why we had this hearing today, is to find out what you just described to us. thank you. thank you, mr. chairman. appreciate your indulgence. >> chair recognizes the gentlelady from california who represents san bernardino, ms. torres. >> thank you. thank you, mr. chairman. first of all, i want to thank all of you for working so hard and diligently to keep our communities safe. i know that your job is notir

easy, and i know that you are -- there are critics of the work that you do every single day. but we do appreciate everything that you do. for deputy commissioner miller, you talked about data from 911 systems in new york and how that is part of the intelligence that you have on potential terrorist members of the community. can you explain what that entails and how is that data collected? does it come through the 911 system? 911 dispatchers are also a part of that communications system. can you talk to us a little bit about how that process works? >> so in the nypd, like most police departments, the 911at system feeds into aks? computer-assisted dispatchik system where calls are summarized on a keyboard as they come in and sent to computers in police cars over the police

radios and now to these handhele devices. as calls come in and the call takers take them, they can stack up in a dispatcher's queue as they're received, whereas whereh the officers are receiving them directly, they're going direct to this device even before they come over the radio. it's reduced our response time by a full minute and change in certain areas of the city. that's one element. the second element is the ability to harness the power of this data as it's correlated which is you get a 911 call of an assault in progress in an apartment, possible domestic violence. when you look at the call on the phone, instead of just what you get over the police radio, it'll tell you who called, what is the callback number. if you touch that -- >> critical information about the -- [inaudible] and who may live there if that's a targeted number or someone that has been identified? >> yeah.

it's more about that information than terrorist intelligence. it's a daily tool the police can use. however, in the throe of a terrorist incident, it can become vital because now you can push information instantly and pictures and videos to the police. >> how are your 911 dispatchers trained to pull this information out of your callers? during the interview process? >> they go through their pcts, police communications teching in additions. they go through an -- technicians. they go through an extensive vetting processing hired about working under pressure, being able to multitask and so on. >> and being able to interview potential suspects and victims of crime, nosey neighbors that may have intelligence on what is happening next door, someone who may be potentially targeting their neighborhood, correct? >> i think an example is when we

were looking for the suspect in this latest bombing on the floor of the 911 center, every operate who was working that day was told we're going out with this picture. you can expect a lot ofs potential sightings to come in. when you get those calls, ask where is the person, what are they wearing right now, are they carrying any packages, parcels, backpacks, bags, that kind of thing and to keep that caller on the line until you have the rest of the information and then to transfer them to the intelligence operations desk so my detectives could get more. >> thank you so much. the reason why i'm canning you this -- asking you this, if you don't know, there has been a push to reclassify be 911 dispatchers by the office of the management and budget, and i think it's a very shortsighted decision not understanding that this is a critical position for first responders. but as a former 911 dispatcher, this is a very important issue to me.r

>> the 911 operator, dispatcher, call taker is the very first line. 9 it's the person, it's the person who gets the call for help first. >> so now let's talk about the radio system. i'm very concerned about the san bernardino incident. as officers are responding and as the dispatchers are giving them directions on which way to travel and suspect information, there was no way for them to switch to an encrypted radio channel. this is really important because the suspects, had there been more than two people involved, they could have positioned themselves in a place to target the officers as they're responding. what do you think that we need to do in that, from that perspective? >> well, we're very fortunate in

our region is that our interoperability is absolutely where it needs to be, and we have the ability to move to a ae unified encrypted channel. as a matter of fact, with our f1, formula one event in november, dhs is going to come out and look at our interoperability. but the truth of the matter is that a lot of jurisdictionse don't have that capability, and it's something that needs to be worked on. >> they don't have that capability, and there's not enough funding for them to beha able to purchase radios and the systems that they need. i've exceeded my time. thank you. yield back. >> chair now recognizes gentleman from new york. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. be miller, you may not remember this, but i had the pleasure of attending a briefing with chairman mccaul and mr. king about a year ago in new york with you and the chief and some others, and i waski thoroughly impressed by the professionalism and the ability to get the job to done, and i just want to commend you for that.. one of my colleagues on the other side mentioned that you

don't often get credit for what you stop, but i can assure you that were it not for your great leadership, that there'd be much more problems in the new york city, so i really applaud your efforts, and i hope you with continue. one of the things i'd like to explore and one of the things i think this committee is uniquely positioned to help you all with is something i hear again and again, and that's the lack of information sharing and the lack of breaking down lines ofinformn communications on the federal,l, state and local level. i've had a bird's eye view of in this for 20 years as a federaley organized crime prosecutor firss in el paso, then in puerto rico and then in new york state in the syracuse area. so everywhere you went, one of the biggest problems was gettine the team to work together and breaking down those barriers. now, it seems like in new york necessity's the mother of invention, and you have to break down, you have to get working seamlessly. that's the only way you're going to even remotely be able to do your job. so i'd like to have the -- kind

of examine what mr. miller or's situation is, really the exception to the rule because everywhere else, i understand, is quite different. and, mr. demings, i think you mentioned you've got to improve analytical capabilities, and you also mentioned there's some barriers to you getting access to i.c.e. databases, for example. those are the types of things it want to hear about. perhaps if you could tell me, mr. demings, mr. bouchard and mr. acevedo to, what are the. biggest problems with regards to information sharing? first and foremost is how long it takes to get a background check done for someone joining the task force, ask that's maddening. but what else you see, and then perhaps mr. miller could commenn on ways we could fix it. the mou system seems to be one of them, maybe using the model t that new york is trying to implement nationwide, but id ooh like to hear from mr. demings first, if i may. >> well, i will say that we enjoy a pretty good relationship

with our federal authorities there in the metropolitan orlando area because of what we have there in terms of the theme parks. we have federal agents who are embedded within our theme parks, and so that forces us to communicate. i do believe that there's still room for improvement, however. the situation i talked about earlier in which a law enforcement officer stopped someone on the streets of our nation when they do a -- typically, we're trained to check for, run a national check to see if the person has my type of warrants or what have you, and we run it within our respective states as well. but there's nothing that comes back from that national database that tells us whether or not that person that we have encountered is illegal or not. and that's something that we have suggested, it's a policy within i.c.e. that perhaps that needs to change where we want to

have access to that type of realtime information. >> that's something we can definitely take a look at. my staff, i hope, is taking notes? yes, they are, good. [laughter] all right, go ahead. >> i would dovetail on that. aye asked this -- i've asked this same question when we've had meetings with senior leadership with major county sheriffs, is it a policy issue, is it a funding issue, or is it a communication/technology issue that the different systems don't communicate and integrate well. and for years we have been getting, well, it could be part of all three. so we've been asking these same questions for literally a decade at this point.s and, again, you know, some folks have said, well, we don't want you to have that information about status or immigration because it allow you to profile be -- it allows you to profile. understand the only time that database is queried is when we've already stopped an individual. and even worse, when they're already in our jail and we're still not told. so we think it's long overdue that we at least have access to the information for situational awareness and for an

understanding of who we have and who is in our jail, and and that's not there. >> mr. as ceve -- acevedo? >> we've been working with dhs now, i've been on that body for nine years trying to get enterprise up and running. it's still not where it needs to be and, quite frankly, we need support for our intelligence commanders group. that's 68 intelligence commanders throughout the nation. each one of those -- and that's just the major city chiefs. and then would have how many members from the sheriff's department. we desperately need funding to support at least two meetings a year with these commanders because relationships matter. and we all know that that needle in the haystack we're looking for is more than likely going to be found by a state or local or county law enforcement official, and if we don't support our intelligence groups so they can build those relationships, share the information and the intelligence enterprise that'sto still not where it needs to be

and support that enterprise, continue the buildout to, we were just whispering to each other we're going to be dead atl the rate we're going. and i don't mean by terrorist attack, i mean of old age. we want to put that on your radar, the cie, and finding funding. $2 million sounds like a lot of money, but that's a drop in the bucket. dhs has the funding, but we need you all to actually oird them to peel off -- order them to peel off that money so we can at the state, county and local level do what we need to do to keep ouroc communities safe. >> thank you. mr. miller, you have a much different posture than your colleagues at the table, and it's because of, i think, the fact that ground zero really is new york city for the terror theist targets. -- terrorist targets. t that helps brake down some of the barriers. can you share some of the ways in which you've been able to effectively share information with the local agencies that other jurisdictions may struggle in doing? >> we engage in extensive

liaison efforts, some programmatic. but as chief acevedo said, a lot of this is people to people and networking. first, we have the shieldop program which has thousands of members, and it's our outreach to the private security, it's the public/private partnership where we provide them regular briefing materials, constant p alerts on breaking events and training. second, we have a zen try program -- zen try program. s that is on -- sentry program.r we have developed a network of partnerships in the surrounding areas from new jersey to nassau, suffolk county, upstate as far as boston, a virtual northeast corridor of law enforcement partners who we bring together at a major conference once a year and go through a series of presentations and informationne sharing exercises. but we also communicate with,f

regularly, when something happens somewhere. we pick up the phone, we call that place, we have a point of contact. same thing in reverse when something happens here. and both of those are based oner e-mail platforms, cross-communications and information that we send out. >> thank you very much. and before i conclude, mr. chairman, i just want to note for the record that i did not engage in the gun debate during my questioning. >> we thank you for that. [laughter] i think the title of the hearing was the threat that we face post-9/11.ti so chair recognizes ms. jackson lee from houston, texas. >> thank you very much. again, let us acknowledge the work of all of you as first responders. some of you have had the privilege and opportunity to meet and maybe thank you personally for your work. let me put on the record that the united states, dhs, for example, has 240,000 employees that have a range ofof responsibilities from aviation to border security.e,

i believe there are a million firefighters, 750,000 arecu volunteers, and 18,000 police departments, 556,000 full-time employees. to chief acevedo, let me thank you personally. we know the great work that you're doing in the state, and i want to commend to the majorou chiefs legislation that we submitted to a number of individuals called the law enforcement trust and integrity act. that's just a little note for myself for you to look at it dealing with police/community relations.or and even that has something towi do with us working together. let me also say that i think the record deserves thet me also sat clarification and the little 12-year-old in northern texas, if you will. that 12-year-old had a clock. and i think what is important in order for us to embrace all of those who are going to help us solve this problem, we must understand where to direct our

anger and questions. i want to say to the educators who saw something and said something, that is what we say in department of homeland security. but what we also want to have occur is that you balance it against the knowledge that you may have as to the individual, the family or in this instance a 12-year-old child. so if you knew that you had a bright 12-year-old child, you could have asked that child what is that and also see something and say something. that's how we really solve problems. i'd like to also add into the record the sikh man who found bombing suspect, i did what t every american would have to do. a sikh, obviously, a faith that many americans have and couldd have just as well been in oakland, michigan, a muslim and could have been a store owner. so i ask unanimous consent to put this into the record.

>> without objection. would the gentle lady yield? chairman -- or commissioner miller has a meeting with the department of homeland security and has to -- m >> well, can i talk quickly and get a question out to him. >> if you have a very quick question for him -- >> yeah, before he departs. >> because he has to depart. >> let me quickly say that my focus in the questioning after you leave is on intelligence. so my point to you is give us the level of crucialty, that good intelligence is coming from civilians, coming from the muslim community, coming from neighbors and as welcoming from fusion centers or in fusiongo centers and, of course, jttf which is the investigatory arm. what level do you put the right intelligence at? >> i put it at the top because having the right intelligence, the right partnerships, the right sources is the difference between having prevented 20

attacks or having had 20 takes. >> i congratulate you on that,t, and i will pursue my other line of questioning with the other gentlemen. please let me put on record my appreciate for the service of commissioner bratton who i know you had the privilege of working under and we worked with, and thank you very much for your service. let me go to chief acevedo and all the oh chiefs -- other chiefs that are here, thank you. my focus is to get you the money, to get you the money that you need and you've come here using your time to come up and explain to us what we need. not to look backwards, but to look forward.e first, chief, tell me how effective the fusion center is in the state of texas. chief acevedo, i'm sorry. >> thank you for that question and great to see you. our fusion center is absolutely key. prior to the fusion center in the office of regional intelligence center, we really didn't have a mechanism by which went when we spotted threats or

i saw something going on to acto quickly on it. just last weekend, a former member of congress received a threat. and we were able to very quickly track that down because of our fusion center. and then we were smart enough to leverage our relationship with the state of texas and the department of public safetyy where we've actually placed our fusion center at dps headquarters and pay them $1 a year for the next ten years, hank goodness. and as a result -- thank goodness. and as a result, we've leveraged the relationship, the assets. and although we don't get funding, when we receive that funding back i believe in 2008, we entered it knowing that we as a community and as a region were going to commit and committed to maintaining that fusion center, and we're doing to at a great cost locally because it's that important. >> let me ask mr. bouchard and mr. demings the same question and do we need more resources for the fusion center? fusion centers, michigan ask florida. >> thank you, ma'am. yes, i think nationwide the

fusion centers are in need of resources because while all this has been going on, certainly the country has gone through a recession, and that affected all the police agencies in terms of their budgets and their personnel. i cut 165 positions during the a downturn which i still don'trs have back, ask yet, you know -- and yet, you know, i want to have a commitment to the fusion center, but i have to fund 100% of it. so i have to pull someone out of our budget and out of our deployment and put them into the fusion center. it certainly would be helpful if there was a way to on a combined platform if they're going to be assigned, basically, to a federal joint terrorism or joint effort, that there should bee some funding stream, we believe. it would be helpful -- >> i agree. >> -- to ad to the interaction and grow that because a lot oful agencies can't afford it.w and even i, you know, find it challenging because we're asked to be on the jttf, we're askedng to be on identity theft with the secret service, we're asked to be on the fugitive with the u.s. marshals, all these different

things -- >> allow me to get mr. demings. thank you. i proport you. mr. demings, my sympathy to you for what your communitysy experienced. >> the fusion centers, again, they play a pivotal role in our state and really as it relates to national security.ce last year we had 66.1 millional visitors who came to orange county where i'm from, and that was number one in the nation. but with our fusion centers, while the primary focus is on counterterrorism efforts, it also has assisted in allowing us to manage natural disasters and also all crimes. and so it is pivotal to preventing terror takes, but also preventing crimes from p occurring in our community as well. >> mr. chairman, i have one last question -- >> it's a brief one, i hope?on >> yes, it is, mr. chairman. >> thank you. >> i do think getting guns off the street would help all of

you, including officers, as we move toward this question dealing with police/community relations. but many of us have a bill to close the gun show loophole, and i have one that indicates toto report anytime guns are sold and you don't have the background check completed and then also i think it's important to take note of the fact that we need to report when guns are transferred without that background check done. guns do kill. let me ask this last question as how you draw your information. that's how we keep these dangerous issues from happening. tell me how valuable it is too have relationships with diverse communities, diverse faiths? and, obviously, i'm going to sae muslims, but a variety of people. and if you talk about right-wing attacks, how valuable is it to have information for you to do your job and have people willing to talk to you to do your job? >> i indicated earlier that we

had 66.1 million visitors. well, they come from everywhere. so it is absolutely important for us to have relationships in the broad, diverse communities that we have. so we really focus on that before an incident occurs. we try to have established relationships. and we're depending on those relationships to provide the information in advance to us to perhaps assist in preventing an attack. >> thank you. mr. bouchard and then mr. acevedo can. thank you. >> thank you. aceve i think relationships are key on many levels. we talked all threats, all hazards, you have to have relationships so people feel comfortable to call and tell you they see manager odd, maybe it's related to terrorism or maybe it's a drug house. they have to have that confidence in that relationship, you know? everyone's got their own kinds of platforms, i think, to try to do that. i launched a thing calls the sheriffs' relations team, srt,

and we try to put together community members to be a funnel because sometimes people don't feel comfortable calling the police, but they may feel comfortable calling people on that team that can connect to ur and allow anonymous information to flow to us in an uninhibited manner. >> thank you. chief? >> and relationships absolutely are key. whether it's -- and i spoke to this earlier, congresswoman, is whether it's the immigration debate or whatever debate, we have to stop painting people with broad brushes because itre puts up fences, and it tear down trust -- it tears down trust, and in my community i spend a lot of time speaking in english and spanish, to all communities that the austin police department, the only ones that need to the fear us are onesis that would do harm to members of our community. so i think as we move forward, we have to continue to build bridges to all segments ofrw society instead of tearing them down. >> thank you -- >> thank you, mr.-- >> yield back. >> thank you, ms. jackson lee.

the chair now recognizes the gentleman from texas, mr. radcliffe. >> [inaudible] >> mic. >> i know the deputy commissioner miller had to leave, and i was hoping to have an opportunity to commend and thank him and his folks for what was truly a remarkable and amazing response to the terrorist events in new york an new jersey this past weekend and the incredible speed at which they were able to identify and apprehend the suspect, mr. rahami. i think that probably saved the lives of countless americans and, of course, we're all grateful that officer papa dee ya and investigator hammer areth both expected to make -- padilla and investigator hammer are both expected to make a full recovery. these events underscore how every day members of our law enforcement community, your teams say good-bye to their loved ones and then go out and put their lives on the line to

protect their neighbors. and now, unfortunately, you all are being asked to do not just the traditional jobs that we've always asked law enforcement to do, you now have to answer the call when terrorists attack. and in that respect, you truly are the first line of defense in insuring that our streets don't become battlefields. and it seems to me that if we'rt asking you all to go to battle, then the very least that we can do is make sure that you get the type of equipment that you need to protect yourselves and to protect all of us. now, i will tell you it's not very often that i get a chance to talk about a federal program that serves a noble purpose like that and does so effectively,ik efficiently and at, essentially, no cost to taxpayers. those types of federal programs are about as rare as a $3 bill. but the 1033 surplus program is exactly that kind of program, and i think you all know that. it's a program that allows the department of defense to transfer certain surplus defense

equipment which has already been paid for and in many cases already been used to protect oua troops and to repurpose that for our state and local law enforcement to use in counterterrorism activities and counter drug activities and in emergency situations that arise in our communities all the time. that was the case anyway until unilateral executive actions by president obama which cut access to that type of critical equipment that agencies like yours depend on. in fact, many of you have had, i assume, to send back some of the equipment that you'd already received from the program. equipment like tract armored vehicles, the kind that law enforcement officers in my district say have saved lives in crisis situations and which double as rescue vehicles in some circumstances. and because of the president's action here, some of the s.w.a.t. teams that have had the benefit of life-saving body armor and ballistic helmets

won't have that benefit anymore because they can't afford that equipment without this program. so i think the president's actions here are, prankly, inexcusable. frankly, inexcusable. and i think he has put the safe tough of -- safety of your officers and his politics ahead of the public safety. so in response to all that, earlier this year i introduced the plus act, the protecting t lives using surplus equipment act of 2016 which would reverse the president's executive order and restore that program to law enforcement agencies like all of yours. sheriff bouchard, i want to the to start with you because i noticed you mentioned it in your opening statement. i want to get your perspective on the administration's unilateral decision to strip this kind of equipment from agencies like yours. and in answering that, i'm toun interested in the policy, of course, but i'm less interested in hypothetical. i want to know how this is really affecting officers like the ones you manage out in the real world. >> well, thank you.

and thank you for yourd leadership on this. we have, i think, pretty much across the board found 1033or extremely helpful in assisting law enforcement in challenging days and times. i think we saw realtime evidence of that in san bernardino, the use of tactical equipment and armored vehicles to save lives. and the real-life example the day that was playing out, we e received an order from washington to return our tract vehicle that day, and it was loaded on a flatbed, and the intent is to blow it up. and the tract vehicles around the country are used not just for dangerous armored situations, but they're also diverse terrain across this country, sand and snow. northern michigan can get, you know, five feet of snow, and a tract vehicle is the only way to get so certain situations. i know san bernardino found themselves with a running fugitive hunt who had killed a number of people, and they had to actually borrow, i think, park's cats to be able to drive

through some of the deep snow.ad in my -- a real-life example is we had a running gun battle that lasted almost 12 hours with an individual who had killed a police officer and barricaded himself in a house firing a fully automatic weapon through the walls and striking all the neighbors' homes.ti we used armored vehicles to evacuate the neighbors and, obviously, protect our deployed deputies around the scene as we continued that running gun battle all night long. towards the end of that guntl battle, we wanted to insert into the second story, and the only way we could do that was with an armored vehicle that had a ramp to a second story. that was recalled by the federal government. our region no longer has the ability to have a ramp to a second story in an armored capability. so so that literally was savingh lives that night and was taken and is intended to be destroyed. so that's the kind of situation we're facing. and i'd just go a step further. i think most of the real problems

they thought we were fixing bay owe nets and charging homes. 12 were used at honor guards at funerals. we had to go and buy them for the honor guard that the federal government recalled. so much recalled by use and not those making decisions. it's incredibly frustrating. >> thank you, sheriff. based on the answer you just gave me would you agree with me that the president's decision is jeopardizing well-being and your officers. >> i certainly would agree with that statement. i said after san bernardino, the sheriff, a friend of mine, said they came prepared and america is less prepared as we sent back our armored vehicles that same day. >> i'm out of time. chief, i saw you nodding your head in response to that. i want to give you a chance

to comment. >> whether it's 1033 or asset forfeiture, we need to deal with individual departments if they abuse or misuse the equipment or the assets and not paint the entire profession and paint the entire profession with a broad brush. you remember the mraps, everybody hates them. the chairman and i had a press conference, we didn't get one for austin because my s.w.a.t. team was too big for our city configuration. i said when you have floods and we're a state prone to flooding, we need those mraps to rescue people. not a month passed when we had some major flooding in central texas. guess what the pd south of me used, an mrap to rescue kids stuck inside elementary schools that basically flooded all around it. it's not the equipment, it's the way it needs to be used.

1033, asset forfeiture hold departments accountable for misusing equipment and let's not paint the entire profession with a broad brush. >> thank you, chief. i'll yield back. >> thank you. i want to thank witnesses for valuable testimony and witnesses and members for their questions. before i conclude, i want to first of all thank all of you. being in law enforcement for 20 years, i hear what you discuss, i kind of miss it, to be frank. but i want you to get some comfort out of this that your words are not falling on deaf ears. we have heard time and again over the last several months and other hearings about we need to do a better job sharing information, state, local, and federal agencies on the same page especially with respect to background checks and information sharing. we're mindful that we are in the process of doing things about that. your testimony does help. the fusion center issue really bothered me. i didn't realize there were so many cuts.

that's very troubling given the fact last few years now up to over 1,000 isis related investigations in all 50 states. not a time to be paring down but plussing up. we have to give you the equipment you need to make you as safe as possible and make you do as effective a job as you possibly can. we can't do that when we start cutting things. they have to be mindful of that. no matter what happens going forward with the election, we need to convince the administration you need to be properly supported. not time for cuts but maintaining and plussing it up. need to be safe. need to give you the tools to keep it safe. thank you for the job you do. finding the needle in the haystack every day is a brutal task. i commend you all for the job

you do. i wake up every day worried about things going on in the committee, i can't imagine what you go through. i thank you for what you do. members may have questions for the witnesses. we'll ask them to respond in writing. the hearing record will be held open for 10 days. without objection, the hearing stands adjourned. thank you, gentlemen. ..

[inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] >> you're supposed to drop them at the end of the act. [laughter] >> i'm michael mccaul, chairman of the homeland security committee. with me is commissioner miller of the new york police department. first, i want to commend the great work of nypd and its efforts to take down the terrorist that was responsible for the terrorist attacks in both new york and, we believe, new jersey. it was incredible police work

and the quick apprehension and taking this man off the street. i have, actually, mr. rahami's journal with me. this came up at the hearing in terms of what persuaded him, what inspired him. he discusses anwral a al-awlaki extensively, bin laden in this journal. he also mentions mr. add nanny who is their external operations chief as well. he has since been killed in an airstrike. it's clear from this journal that mr. rahami was receiving inspiration from the isis spokesman. this is a new era of terror. as the commissioner testified, the message coming out of raqqa, syria, has changed and evolved from come to syria and join the

fight to now kill where you are. that was the message of the isis spokesman, was to kill where you are with whatever it takes by whatever means necessary. and i think we saw that, unfortunately, playing out in the streets of new york and new jersey and in minnesota this last saturday. but with the great work of nypd and others, we can hopefully stop that from happening again. with that, commissioner? >> i think part of the subject of today's hearing was the increasing level of sophistication of the communications and propaganda of these terrorist groups targeting particularly young people across western europe but especially the united states. the last message that the sheikh sent out calling for americans and others to do takes also gave specific instructions that they

should claim credit, if possible, during the actual attacks. and we have seen whether it was the german train stabbing, the murder of the french police officer at his home and the murder of his wife or some of the other recent attacks including orlando. in orlando the shooter called 911 to pledge his allegiance to isis. in france the individual went live on, streaming on his facebook page to claim responsibility in the name of isis while he was still holed up in the house having committed the murders. after the german train bombing, the individual had pre-supplied isis with a video of his claim of responsibility, holding the knife he was going to the use that he had sent them electronically. so we're seeing an increasing lowering of the bar in terms of

inexpensive, unsophisticated yet high impact attacks that they're calling for and people who are buying into a line of propaganda that promises valor, belonging, empowerment, and i think the recent events in new york city where we see the emergence of another individual and another attack kind of underscores really what's a morphing and changing threat picture since 9/11. >> chairman, do you believe there were some states -- [inaudible] tried to read the early signs about mr.-- [inaudible] >> no, i do not believe we're seeing that in this case. i know that like with all these incidents, there's always a postmortem, if you will, to look back to see what could have been done differently in terms of lessons learned.

but, again, i commend the great work of the nypd and the quick response in this investigation. it was flawless in getting the suspect into custody within a very, very short time. >> mr. miller, just -- does the nypd still stand by statement on monday that the suspect acted alone? >> the statement on monday was as far as we know, the suspect acted alone. but the caveat there is now we have a suspect in custody. the manhunt part for that known individual is over. and there will be an extensive investigation through the joint terrorism task force which is now the lead agency based on a federal complaint that was filed yesterday. there'll be an extensive investigation into connections with any group, associates, family members, friends, anybody else who may have been involved. >> and you don't have any update on how long -- [inaudible] now that you do have that

suspect in custody and can begin to say, well, there might have been this, there might have been that? >> i don't understand the question. >> well, the idea that you do have him in custody, you've had him in custody for 48 hours, and i asked specifically about monday, and i understood that was the idea that's what you knew then, but that hasn't changed in any respect 48 hours later? >> i wouldn't answer that question one way or the other. we've amazed a great deal of -- of -- amassed a great deal of information in the last 48 hours. so to be chris call clear on that, we're open to any possibility that he acted alone, that there were others involved, that he could have been he could spired by a group, enabled by a group, directed by a group, but we're just not there yet. [inaudible conversations] >> you -- [inaudible] the point of the hearing today was about preventing future attacks. to both of you, what do you think is probably the biggest thing that congress can do to help local law enforcement? >> well, today -- very good timing.

we have a bill, my bill on the floor to provide additional grant funding from the department of homeland security to train local police departments and fire departments and emergency responders with this new active shooter threat. and also the ied threat ask -- and the suicide bomber threat that we're seeing come into our communities. as the commissioner stated, this is the new method of choice for attacks, and it's imperative our police departments be adequately prepared and trained to respond to that type of attack. i think the bill on the floor this evening will address that. >> the fbi did put out an alert asking for help in finding possibly two people connected with the attack in new york. >> these were two individuals who were walking down the street after the 27th street bomb that did not explode was placed.

and one of them looks at the suitcase it's in, unzips it, takes out the pressure cooker -- which we now know to be a bomb, and takes the suitcase away. what we're seeking to do is to identify those two king individuals -- those two individuals and to get that bag back because it may have forensic evidence of value. so we're seeking to have them come forward or have anyone who knows them come forward. >> [inaudible] under the radar? so under the radar? someone we investigated and cleared? >> one of the difficulties in the current threat environment where you see a lean towards low-tech, low-cost and high-impact type attacks is that you're going to see an increase of people who are acting act loan. and -- acting alone. and i emphasize in this case we

still don't know whether he acted alone. but when you have a individual who is seeing things on the computer, becoming inspired, deciding to act and the only conspiracy is between the prop be began da material and that -- propaganda material and that person's mind, it's very hard to find intelligence collection between those two places. so one of the challenges is for friends, for family members, for people who know somebody that they see who may be drifting towards violence to know those signs, to key on them and, you know, we say if you see something, say something. it's just very important to. what we learned in studies of school shootings were that in the 90 percentile of cases, the person had given verbal or written indicators they were about to do something. i don't see much difference here. so those cues are there, and we need the help of the public. [inaudible conversations]

>> father told them that he was a terrorist. why -- [inaudible] the fbi did not follow that -- [inaudible] and also they knew from dhs that he was traveling to afghanistan. >> well, he was from afghanistan. he had a wife in afghanistan. so travel to afghanistan could mean one thing, but it could also be entirely legitimate. i think in this case, as in every case like this, there will be a backwards combing through everything that was done prior to that to evaluate what was done, was it done enough, could it have been done differently. i also think that there is kind of a double-edged sword here which is the more tips you get, the more information you develop, the more records of that you keep, the higher the likelihood is that when someone does something, they're going to appear somewhere in your files because of a prior look or suspicion. on one hand, that's good because when you're starting to look at

who's possibly involved, running into those records gives you a direction to go. but you also have to understand that people will interpret that to say you would have, could have, should have done more. at the end of the day, we operate within the strictures of the attorney general guidelines and the fbi's domestic operations intelligence guidelines which have their own strictures, and the nypd, we operate under the -- [inaudible] guidelines. and they outline very carefully what you can do in terms of intelligence collection or investigation of someone who otherwise has not committed a crime. >> if i could just add on the foreign travel, i know the fbi is investigating the several trips he made to pakistan and afghanistan, what his activities were. we do know he had family over there, that he actually reported when he came back into the country, was put through secondary screening and reported that he was visiting family

members. we also believe that he was married in pakistan and that potentially his wife is still over there. >> was there anything in the diary, sir, that indicated there was a larger plot as to what happened with the bombings? is there anything that stood out in the diary that you've read? >> i think it's more a case of inspiration. i think he, as many of these cases that that we've seen, san bernardino, chattanooga, the sermons of anwar al-awlaki inspired in this. obviously, he references to bin laden in this document, and he also says that he was provided guy dance by -- guidance by sheikh adnani. and that's, as the commissioner mentioned, the new threat we're facing and the isis spokesman calling on people to attack in the homeland. to attack in the united states. don't -- no longer come to syria, but attack where you are

in the united states and kill americans in their backyard. and that's a very difficult challenge, i think, for law enforcement. >> did he reference orlando or san bernardino or any other -- >> not to my knowledge. >> thank you all. we're going to need to let them get get going. >> thank you very much. thank you, mr. chairman -- [inaudible conversations] >> join us tonight when first ladies michelle obama and laura bush discuss their support for u.s. service members, veterans and their families. watch tonight starting at 8 p.m.

eastern here on c-span2. this weekend on american history tv on c-span3, we're live saturday morning at eight eastern from smithsonian's national museum of african-american history and culture. speakers include barack obama and museum director, lonnie bunch. >> what's most important is every exhibition in this museum has a goal to humanize these stories. in essence, in most histories and museums we tell the grand story of slavery or migration. we want you to think about it on a human scale so that you can relate, you can understand, so that you're moved by the experience of these people. >> then, just after 7 p.m., artist peter what dell shares his paintings depicting washington, d.c. during the 19th century. >> president buchanan's presidency, harriet lane there

in the blue dress, the japanese ambassadors, those giant, wonderful lights outside the white house that were taken out during the roosevelt rehab in 1902. >> and sunday evening at six, the moses meyers house was owned by the first jewish family in norfolk be, virginia, in the 19th century. hear how the family maintained a large shipping operation and how the home has been passed through several generations of the meyers' family. >> be when they did that paint analysis and dug underneath the layers of paint, they struck gold. 22.5 carat gold which was largely intact. it only had to be repaired in a few places. but today it's considered one of the most elaborately gilded fireplaces in america at this time. >> for our complete american history tv schedule, go to c-span.org. >> once more, we will have a

government of, by and for the people. [cheers and applause] >> we are stronger together. and no matter what, remember this: love trumps hate. >> c-span's campaign 2016 continues on the road to the white house with the first presidential debate monday night live from hofstra university in hempstead, new york, beginning at 7:30 p.m. eastern with a preview of the debate. then at 8:30, the pre-debate briefing for the audience. at 9 p.m., live coverage of the debate followed by viewer reaction. the 2016 presidential debate on c-span. watch anytime on demand at c-span.org. or listen live on the free c-span radio app. >> next, a confirmation hearing for the next hander of u.s. strategic command, air force general john i'den. he appeared before the senate armed services committee earlier this week.

general hyten outlined the current threats facing the united states from russia, china, iran and north korea. he currently serves as commander of u.s. space command. this is just under two hours. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

>> good morning. the senate armed services committee meets this morning to consider the nomination of hyten e. i'den to be commander of the united states strategic command. we congratulate you on your nomination. we thank you for your decades of distinguished service to our nation and for your willingnesss to serve once again. of course, we know today would not -- today would not be possible without the support and sacrifice of your family and friends, some of whom are withou us this morning. as is your tradition, we hope you'll take the opportunity to introduce your family joining

you today. general hyten, threats to the united states and our allies have increased significantly in recent years. we confront national security challenges not just in every region of the world, but threats in every domain including nuclear, cyber and space. this new strategic challenge has a major implications for stratcom. many leading scholars and strategists have warned for years that we have entered a, quote, second nuclear age. this is not something the united states has chosen and, indeed, there are still those that deride nuclear weapons as relics of the cold war only to be discussed in the context of reducing and eventually eliminating them. but the reality is that from the middle east and southeast asia to europe and east asia, there are nations that increasingly believe nuclear weapons are essential to their survival. n others are enhancing the rol