of those most recent threats while trying to build a more sustainable network of ct partnerships around the world. so doing that long-term work while we're also managing the day to day is increasingly a challenge, i will admit. >> thank you, mr. director. vice chairman? >> thanks, mr. chairman. mr. rassman last year when we had our worldwide threat meeting and this was different than that and it was put out there as a group that could really be effective in launching an attack against the united states and as i'm reading your written remarks particularly on page 8 you talk about two highly capable two ikim offshoots and the battalion and wahid jihad in west africa merging to form the violent

extremist group al morabitum which we haven't really heard of before. how big is this is the first part of the question and secondly how do you rank the groups and their threats toward the homeland? which one should we be the most wary of? >> let me bite that off in a couple of different chunks madam vice chair. we did point out in our statement this year to the emergence of this group in north africa which is an offshoot on which is al qaeda and ghraib, and internal fights about direction is a group that we know of as the al mura battalion which includes known links to al qaeda and they have engaged in internal feuding that has put them into separate organizations from the way we look at them. we look at that grouping as a significant threat to our

interest in and across north africa. as far as the ability to project a threat potentially to the homeland i would describe that as more potential than actual at this point but they certainly have taken note of what happened in western europe and over time i would be concerned about groups like this in north africa having the ability to project into europe, and of course, i consider attacks that could happen in europe potentially as attacks that could involve significant u.s. interests. we have significant diplomatic business and other presences in most western european capitals and i don't take for granted that americans would not be a part of any attack that took place in europe. to your question of the khorasan group and that is a network of individuals with a long sense of affiliation with corale al qaeda in the tribal areas and we worry about their ability to not only

engage and impact the fighting in syria which they're engaged in doing, but also while they're engaged in that activity also looking for opportunities to engage in exteshal operations in western interests in europe and ultimately even the homeland. there's not much more i can say about that in this session as you well know, but this is among the very, very highest counterterrorism priorities to understand this network with more granularity, with more specificity and to develop disruption options. >> is qap still number one? i'm talking about the homeland now. i guess i try to avoid number one, number two number three because as soon as you say that, someone who isn't watching the picture as closely as you are and we are, they say your number three isn't getting the right attention, and they would be right to say that, but they would be missing something. as i said in my statement, each though what we're seeing more frequently in the west are the

low-level attacks conducted by networks we are still absolutely fixated and focused on aqap's efforts to develop an attack on the united states for all of the reasons mentioned in the chairman and vice chairman's statement with the attempt to propagate the recipe for putting explosives on the airplane and the continued effort even amidst the fighting in yemen for them to mountain external operation and that is at the top of the counterterrorism priority list and from the disruption perspective, and so that's when something like isil seizes, and rises to the forefront of concern we don't have the luxury of downgrading our effort against some other threat stream or set of terror impactors that we had at the top of the list. >> thank you very much. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you mr. chairman. director, it's great to see you again. i think you've done a good job of laying out counter terror challenges and my years on the

committee, we've seen the threats move from al qaeda and afghanistan to insurgents in iraq to al qaeda and the arabian peninsula. so these are very real threats very real threats and the question then becomes how do we focus on ways to deal with these threats rather than in effect use approaches that waste time and resources? we have to focus approaches that work. the bulk collection, the bulk phone records collection that has been widely debated has been described by the president's review group and i'll just quote here, as information that could readily have been obtained in a timely manner using conventional section 215 orders. these are all public documents, public reports, mike morel, for example, a veteran of the cia supported this document, and my question to you is first if

congress passes the legislation ending bulk collection would intelligence agencies still be able to collect the information you and they need to protect our country against terrorist operations? >>. >> i look at this in terms of as the president said last year making sure that we're in a position to preserve the capability that the bulk collection gave us and that's why i support as did the director of national intelligence, the legislation that would transition that program to one that would preserve that capability without requiring them to hold the records in the way they had previously. >> so you're proposing that we end the bulk collection program but in effect, the phone companies can still keep their record-keeping practices, right? >> i'm comfortable with that

capability. that step would preserve that capability. >> very good. one another question. mr. director, my understanding is and it would be very helpful here that there are some questions about whether the office of national intelligence has provided you all at the counter terrorist center with the copy of the full, classified version of the committee's report on the use of torture. have they provided you that report? >> a select number of my officer his access, i'm certain, to the executive summary. i would have to get back to you. >> have you seen it? >> i've seen porpgzs of it senator. >> have you asked for a copy of the report some? >> i've not personally asked for a copy of it no. i asked that i be allowed access to it in order to perform the role that we performed at the tail end of last year when we were asked to participate in the effort to develop threat assessments. >> there are some additional

details in the classified version that i think are relevant. so i hope that you will ask for a copy and review it. i look forward to working with you, and i think it is helpful to have on record that if the congress passes the legislation in the collection, you and the other intelligence agencies can go forward doing the important work to deal with the threats of this country. they are very real and i am interested in working with you on the matter of the report as well. i hope you will ask for a copy of the report and review it. thank you, senator. >> nice to see you again and thank you for your great service. i do think i want to make a brief comment to senator widen's comments that we'll have a spirited debate on the fisa issue. i do think there are challenges as we've discussed before both

privacy and security related around holding data at the telcos and that will be the subject of ongoing conversations. . i want to raise isil and focus on most of your testimony. i would -- i would like to hear before the group when we were all at that moment astonished by the actions of boko haram in nigeria seizing 300 girls in the school and 200 of which are still missing and subsequent actions of the united states and sending troops and advisers to that region. we've seen since that time 1.5 million people displaced, more than 3,000 killed in 2014 and a coalition arrives most recently

nigeria joined with chad and cameroon for a force. could you give us an assessment whether these countries have the capability, whether the tide is swaying, obviously and nigeria has postponed their collections. first question can be can they take on boko haram? it's remarkable with the atrocities they commit are still pushed off the page and what type of threat that poses beyond that immediate region? >> thank you, senator. i think you're on to something by raising the question of regional partners. no question that nigeria faces significant challenges mounting on its own response against boko haram. each in the most stable political environment they would face those challenges as the committee well knows right now

nigeria is in the midst of a potential political transition that would test even further their ability to mount a coherent response among the political intelligence and military communities. so one solution to that is to try to get regional partners as you described, niger cameroon and other partners and they are increasingly stepping off of the challenges with the limited resources, but their shared sense of threat. >> i think we will be in a position to enable the partners to develop a regional approach to boko haram and doing what we can principally through advising assisting and providing intelligence where it's appropriate and i think that can increase their effectiveness. i think it remains to be seen. it certainly isn't the case yet that the tide has been turned against boko haram and it remains to be seen if the regional parties can in concert, turn that tide and

i -- i would not want to get out ahead of that in terms of predicting anything. this is a part of the world where we do not have the largest resource footprint. so we do what we can but we may have to reevaluate boko haram's trajectory over time if we see the regional partners are overmatched. >> and do you see any evidence that there have been some reported at. evidence of on haram's in terms of other networks. can you comment on that. the increased intercommunication between boko haram and the terrorist groups in the northwestern part of africa and even with isil and all of that just adds to the picture of an interconnected terrorist network with the ability to share resources, personnel, expertise and trade graft in a way that serves as a multiplier for their own capabilities and that's a disturbing trend. >> mr. chairman this is an area that we need to keep our eye on

as well. >> thank you. >> thank you, senator. senator coates? >> thank you. in response to the questions that senator widen raised you indicated that you and the director of national intelligence have assessed that ending the ball collection program and transferring it to the communication companies would not impede with any way in doing the necessary tracking and usage of that to reach the solution -- the information that you want but since that hasn't been done and since we haven't laid out a procedure in which how we're going to do that and we don't know exactly how it's going to be collected and so forth and so on with a much shorter period of time of holding that information how can you be so certain that it's not going to degrade in any way your ability to access that

information? i guess i can't say anything with complete certainty, senator, but looking at the provisions, it would maintain the essential capability that we are requiring to maintain. >> the legislation that calls for a shortened period of time for holding that information we've seen in paris and in some other instances where we need to go deeper than that in order to determine the connections and the network that we need to assess. >> i certainly agree. >> well, then how can you say with assurance that ending that collection will leave you shorthanded in what you need to assess? >> i can't predict in the future exactly how what information requirements we would have. >> well, how can you come to a conclusion? don't you leave a little, we're not sure senator exactly how this is going to work so we

can't guarantee that will give us the same access as we have under the ball collection program? >> again, i -- i look at this in terms of capability and my understanding of the legislation is it would have provided us with that essential capability. i'm a little bit burdened here because as nctc director i folly in the footsteps of two previous nctc directors and distinguished national security lawyers who lived this architecture in ways that i haven't and so i'm less in a direct position to speak on exactly how these programs work in the same way that my predecessors were. >> that's why i raised the question in my mind about your answer to senator widen who i think took that as a definitive yes, and i think this is fine and the t.c. director thinks it's fine and therefore why in the world would we question it.

there is a difference of energy in most instances in the community as to whether or not this is the right thing to do. >> i understand that. that's why i'm relying on my experts who assured me that the preservation of this gives us what we need. it certainly involved giving and take on particular provisions. i would be happy to talk to you in closed session or come at you -- >> i understand. i think we should do that because there are still major questions that need to be resolved here. in the remaining time, did you through your agency or someone in the i.c. community what is the appeal to the thousands of westerners that fall prey to the appeal of engaging in this

depravity which they're obviously all aware of and are so attracted to this. how can someone who has perfect capability see exactly what they're walking into think that's the thing to do? now if you're the same ideology but coming from western europe or america more civilized and cultured societies, and civilized might not be the right word, but i think you know what i mean, are you looking at that and a way for us to counter with social media saying this is what you're getting into which is a pretty tough situation and that's a good question, senator. isil's propaganda runs the gamut. you are absolutely right to point to these horrific videos

and pointing to executions of hostages and opposing fighters on the battlefield. that clearly sends the signal and that attracts its onel ement and isil's propaganda also includes a fair number of messages or messaging examples in which they paint a very bucolic, fulfilling life in the caliphate that they project to individuals who are maybe disenfranchised, disadvantaged and dissatisfied in their home environment and for the range of factor that grab people who end up going to syria right now, ranges from the ideological which you pointed to but also to the psychological. >> okay. >> catering to some sense of wanting to belong to something no matter how depraved that thing they're belonging to is. for others there's the sheer sense of adventure and a chance to throw your hat into the winning side is a part of the calculation and we've tried to disaggregate all of these

different factors and the messaging that we're seeing and we can develop counter messaging strategies to go at it. the president is convening this cve summit last week drawing in our europe even partners and many of the middle eastern partners to get a better handle on this and unfortunately, as we all know the government is probably not the best platform to try to communicate with the set of actors who are potentially vulnerable to this kind of propaganda and this kind of recruitment and that's something that we deal with all of the time and we try to find ways to have the counter narrative and the counter messaging without having a u.s. government hand on this. people who are attracted to the that don't go for the govern chlt in terms of what to do. >> so statements in middle east pick theive is useful. in many the cases with more

voice that's like these young people will bein an dwavenlthage. i it shouldn't be government directed and it ought to be coming from other areas of the culture and letting them know about people and which is not the promise they make during recruitment. senator collins? >> thank you, mr. chairman, director, i want to follow up on the issue of the telecommunications companies holding the data in two different ways. first of all, there are hundreds of telecons in this country and by contrast, many people who have access to the database in this country was strictly limited and they were well

trained. if more people have access to the database isn't that likely to raise additional privacy problems and questions? >> i would have to ask exactly how the architecture would look. >> related question, would you be troubled if there was no requirement for the telecommunications companies to retain the data for a certain length of time? it's obviously in the interest of the intelligence department to access that data for as long a period of time as we can. in terms of specific provisions to compel, i can't speak to that. i can only speak to the interest that we have in maintaining that capability which is to have that

access. >> let me turn to the issue of homegrown terrorism and to countering violent extremists. you said in your testimony today, and i completely agree that we face a much greater recurring threat from lone wolves and loose networks of the individuals and you talked about the number of the texts since last may that ten of them were from violent islamic extremists. as you may have seen former defense and intelligence agency with director michael bland recently commented that he could not identify which agency or individual in the u.s. government is in charge of the fight against radical islamic extremists and obviously dhs and the fbi, dod to some extent, the

department of state and nctc are all important players. who is in charge? >> i would argue senator as with most elements of our counterterrorism effort, we're approaching it on a whole of government effort without a single agency overall with the whole responsibility. with the effort of homegrown violent extremists here in the united states, we have a tight-knit community focused particularly with the homeland security with nctc along with the deputy directors of those organizations and matt olsen before me met every other month at that director or deputy director level to synchronize and coordinate all of our activities aimed at dealing with the homegrown violent extremist phenomenon, woing to make sure we coordinate and partner with each other so that when we go to a community and i used denver in my testimony as an example of a community we had gone to in the

wake of the arrests there last year of the three young somali-american women who were disrupted on the way to syria. we go arm in arm lockstep with each other and all four of us together working hand in hand with the local fbi office and the u.s. attorney in that capital and all of the homeland security effort in the city so we're speaking with one voice as a federal government and when we get there we are dealing with the widest possible array of community leaders and community organizations because most of this homegrown violent extremism effort is going to be carried out by those communities and our role in many cases is to empower and provide information and one of the things we did in that experience in denver was provide a community awareness briefing that explains exactly what senator coates was talking about. the appeal of this narrative, the kinds of things that their kids might be seeing on the internet if they weren't supervised or if parents were not involved with and engaged with what their children were doing and so i'm very comfortable that we are working

well and harmoniously together. could i -- could i make the case for one single agency with given the lead role if we had discord and disharmony i might make that case, senator. could we do better? i'm not going to sign up to the idea that we couldn't do more and do better, but we're trying and we're looking to resource this more robustly and the problem we face is not a result of the lead agency. i guess from my perspective the problem is if no one's in charge it's very difficult for us to assess the effectiveness of a program to budget appropriately, to hold people accountable to assess whether what we're doing is making a difference when we did the fort hood investigation in 2010. one of our major recommendations

of the homeland security committee was that there needed to be a strategy, but there needed to be a lead agency or person in charge. it's not that these efforts aren't worthwhile but we can't budget for them. we can't assess them if there isn't a person who can come and report to us and my concern is that the national security council appears intent on trying to exercise the role of policy implementer rather than just policymaker. >> thank you senator. we are all trying to operate the four agencies i mentioned under the rubrick of the strategy here in the homeland. we are looking at ways in keeping with your suggestion to try to come up with funding mechanisms that cross departmental lines so we can do exactly what you described and give some sense of the joint work that is going on without

relying solely on department budgets and department stove pipes, and i'll certainly make sure we get more information to you on that. >> thank you. >> senator blount? >> thank you mr. chairman. let's talk about yemen a little bit. i understand our embassy there is closed. most of the people we had there certainly from the state department at the embassy are all out of the country cars left with keys in them at the airport and whatever it took to get out of there. it's been a few months ago that yemen was supposedly a great example of how efforts were working and how the plan was working and how do you think that changed so quickly and what -- looking back do you think that you and others might have seen to give more warning than we got of that? >> the situation in yemen for some period has been stable or

unstable politically and for a long period of time the yemeni government faced this problem of a houthi conflict emanating out of yemen and that was not a new phenomenon and for many years the influence of the houthi community was largely contained in the northwest corner of yemen along stride of the saudi border, and that changed rather dramatically when the houthis moved out of the historical location they held and moved towards sanaa, and much as we saw in deal web the isil phenomenon, the one thing that's very difficult to assess from an intelligence perspective is the ability of the military organization to actively confront another insurgency. director clapper i know, has talked about the challenge the intelligence community faced in predicting whether the iraqi security forces would have melted away the way they did in

the wake of isil's advantage last summer. in a smaller scale something like that would happen in yemen where president hadi faced a complicated environment in managing his security organizations as the southy advances toward sanaa took place, it simply became the case that they were unopposed in many cases and that's something that we have to try to find a better way of the intelligence community to find ways of fighters to fight and you have to find resources available to the various sides and you would look at that and say there's no way that happened and obviously it did and it's left us in a position now where on relatively short notice, just over the past few months the security situation deteriorated far more rapidly than we expected and particularly because we could not assure the safety and security of our officers there, and the decision was made to

leave. >> i don't want to get into any kind of ongoing discussion with you about the specifics of how i would see these things now, but you've got an example of isil or isis where the j.b. one day and they're virtually a nation state 90 days later or yemen which is a great example of the successful foreign policy and six months later it appears to be a total disaster, but i think what you are now -- is it fair to say that the intelligence community has to reevaluate how we -- what you've answered and reevaluate how those insurgencies may match up against the ability to face them? >> i think that's fair senator. >> on another question i have, and i noticed the information sent up yesterday from the president to accomplish is that the focus was against isil or

associated persons or forces how would you define the second part of that? is that another terrorist group who actually is somehow fighting? what does that mean? is that al nusra or some of these al qaeda groups that don't seem to be that much in line with isil? how would you define associated persons or force fess you were me? >> i guess i would look at it and take it pretty much at face value, senator in concluding that that language likely allowed for the possibility that other networks, maybe not even formal groupings, but other networks might align themselves with isil and as we know, right now isil and isis is in conflict with core al qaeda and the al nusra front and the designated al qaeda affiliated operated in syria. >> so core al qaeda or al nusra would not be included in that

definition because they're actually not associated with isil? i mean that's my belief and i think that's what you just said. >> i'd have to check, but i guess what i'm saying is when i look at the words associated forces i was thinking ahead to the development of new allyiances or new alignments that we can't foresee today. i wasn't trying to say that anybody was in or out that definition, inside or outside of that particular definition. >> i don't want to take more time than i should but today we have to base looking at this of what we do foresee today, and i think what you've said are there significant terror groups that are clearly not associated with isil. would that be right? >> there are certainly terrorist groups that are associated at this point with isil. isil has reached out and developed affiliated relationships or endorsement like relationships with groups

outside of iraq and syria including north africa including in algeria and including in the on i believe yemen, as well. >> i'm out of time. thank you, chairman. >> senator langford. >> i need to ask you, in page 10 of your written report you use the statement here iran remains the foremost state sponsor of terrorism and then a couple of notes on that. i would like to get additional details on that. we can talk about iran being the foremost state sponsor of terrorism. how far does that extend? how many countries are they engaged in or terrorist groups are they engaged in sponsoring? iranian sponsorship and association with particular leez lebanese hezbollah gives -- provides a global reach to that organization and i could not

give you a direct answer to how many countries. >> and there are clear lines where iran is engaged in terrorism and advancing that ideology or being a state sponsor? >> certainly in portions of west africa portions of southeast asia portions of latin america. i could go into more detailed in a classified setting. >> it begs the question the former non-state sponsor. are we able to identify individuals or groups of individuals as well that you identify iran as a state sponsor, a lot of these groups have to have funding support, coordination from somewhere. are we able to identify some of those non-state sponsors? >> we have a robust effort across the intelligence sdmunity to try to understand particularly where individuals play a role in the financing of terrorist organizations and where -- where we can identify through intelligence those individuals developing approach

using every tool we have whether it's designation by the treasury department, other law enforcement or intelligence action and any tool we have to try to shut down the financing pipeline. that is an area where it is a constant, constant struggle because these organizations are ubiquitous in their efforts to fund raise. i would be happy to talk in closed session with the work the community is doing in that area. >> is there a sense for iran as the state-sponsored terrorism? is that on the decline? is it consistent that they continue to increase? have you noticed a significant change in iran in their behavior in the last several years. >> i guess i would describe it as consistent and steady and the degree of concern has been consistent and steady over time. we're particularly mindful of their support for militant groups in places like iraq where the front line -- that front line activity where shia militant groups that have

connections to iran could be potentially threatening to our personnel on the ground in iraq. >> okay. let me ask about one other country and location. libya has fallen into total chaos with no functioning government anymore and every time they form a government it collapses within months and have -- and were border line as the vice chairman mentioned earlier near civil war at this point. terrorist groups seem to enjoy a vacuum. what do we see is on the rise in libya and what is our status there as far as the spread of organizations and the spread of terrorism there? >> you're absolutely right senator. if i had to identify one of the greatest areas of emerging concern with respect to the counterterrorism it would be libya. we were already facing the chaotic political environment there in which the resident north african-based terrorism groups that we talked about the

al qaeda and ghraib and al sharia were already active and potentially threatening in libya and with the potential ability to threaten u.s. interests across north africa which changed more recently and what made the environment there more difficult is that isis and isil has looked to take advantage of the chaos in libya and establish a foothold there, as well. we are still looking to try to assess whether that capability of manifest itself in external operations outside the region of north africa or if the intent is to give themselves the ability to attack cairo or algieres or tunis and potentially affect our interests there. >> one final question. if iran stopped supporting

terrorism what effect would that have on the region and on the terrorist operations. >> well, if iran got out of the business of providing state spansorship to terrorist organizations it would obviously lower our potential level of concern about the capabilities of some of the groups that we worry about. i don't necessarily know that it would look like an on/off switch and these are the capableilityies that developed over decades and decades, so i don't know if that would be unraveled or unspooled by just flipping a switch. >> obviously, that's not a switch that we have access to but there are lots of connections there. >> thank you, sir. >> senator rubia. >> thank you, mr. ras mussen. i want to go deeper into libya. isn't it a fact that there have been multiple open source reports in the media that it is a growing hub for highsis,isis, is

that not right? >> i do think yes, sir. >> and there are open source reports that isis is the predominant group in benghazi? >> that's correct. >> and there's been open-source reporting that isis was behind a terrorist attack at a hotel in tripoli that killed an american citizen. >> yes, the cor inthia hotel and there was open-source reporting that an isis commander was killed in afghanistan. >> yes. >> there is an isis presence in afghanistan including open-source reports of terrorist training camps being set up in portions of afghanistan? >> that's correct. we've seen in recent months isis isil has looked to expand its reach into a number of different places around the world and you've highlighted two of the most recent examples in afghanistan and libya. i would also highlight algiereria and egypt as others. >> libya, dana is a port area and there's no -- there's no assad bombing them there and no

air strikes. my concern is that's becoming one of their most important hubs because it's completely uncontested and they have access to shipments and foreign fighters to take in. i just think that's an area of growing emergence and i'm surprised there's not more discussion about because of how serious a threat that poses including the sinai and wasn't that a great spot from which to launch attacks in sinai? >> that's exactly right and the egyptian-based terrorist group that recently affiliated with isis and we worry about the threat they would pose to western interests and sinai and the troop presence. >> it would be a mistake in your opinion to simply focus our fight against isis to simply be in syria and iraq. it's increasing its footprint in multiple stages including afghanistan, throughout north africa and in particular libya. >> that's correct. they've certainly expanded their reach. >> i want to ask you about

guantanamo. prior to the order of the guantanamo detainees. 101 detainees were engaged in terror and in the latest report it stated from 2009 to july 2014 8 detainees transferred out of gitmo six of them had been confirmed to return to terror activity and one additional one was suspected. so by my calculation means 107 of the 620 total detainees transferred gitmo have re-engaged in terror and another 77 are suspected to doing so in addition to the 107. so can you tell us since july of 2014 how many more have returned in our estimation to terror? >> we are just on the cusp within the next couple of weeks of providing that the next version of that report, the one you received last july. those numbers will be out very shortly. >> as it stands now one out of six have returned. >> while we don't have that

report finalized yet, what i expect is that the trend line,s proportion will be along the lines of what we reported last july as well. it looks like it's approximately one out of six individuals released from guantanamo have re-engaged in terrorism and maybe more. >> as a net figure that's correct, but the population released since trent 09 and that number is a lower number. >> okay. >> lastly, on the question of iran, i want to return back to the kind of the thread that senator langford was pursuing. we know that iran uses its proxy relationship with hezbollah for example, and we are also aware now that the shia militias that are in iraq as we speak are heavily indebted and controlled by them as well. do we have evidence that iran is setting up similar type groups in places like kuwait, bahrain, jordan?

>> i would have to address that in a closed session, senator. >> we'd be happy to provide you that answer through the committee staff. >> senator rubio. >> say someone stops you on the street and they know you're the director of nctc and they say mr. director, what does nctc do and why should i care? what would your answer be? >> i would tell that person that nctc strives every day to be a center of gravity for the nation's counterterrorism efforts. not the center, but a center of gravity that provides information analysis strategic planning and support of our national downer terrorism efforts and so if they asked i would say that they have a large number of officers who come to

work every day to assess, analyze and provide information aimed at defeating our terrorist adversearyies adversaries. that's what i would say. >> and -- and why should i care? >> you should care because as we talked about in my opening statement and in your opening statement, mr. chairman the threaten viernment we face right now is the most multi-faceted dynamic threat we've ever faced and could manifest itself in communities all around this country. it's not simply a threat that manifests itself in far-flungis places around the world. the low-level, potentially small-scale attacks from isil-inspired or other terrorist group inspired individuals are the kinds of attacks that could literally happen in any of our 50 states. >> in part this hearing was because you said to me when we first met, i believe america needs to know something about what we do and the intelligence

community can't be this black hole forever. i just want to thank you for what your organization does for all of the employees because when you hear the intelligence community described it's not nctc first but everybody who is in the intelligence community is a customer of yours. they look to the analytic product that your folks produce. we look to the analytical product that you've produced from the standpoint of being policymakers and they look at it more from a standpoint of actionable information. i think you have some of the most talented folks working for you that you possibly could, but i do want to reiterate something. if for some reason you feel there are onrestaurants that don't allow you to build your workforce to the degree we have authorized and to the degree, i think, we both agree you need i

hope you will share that with the vice chairman and myself so that we can help to try to remediate that. >> i certainly do that and i am enormously grateful to both you, mr. chairman and the vice chairman for their sustained support of our workforce over time. i think one of the biggest contributions the congress could make towards -- to that end would be to not put us in a position where we're dealing with a sequestration environment going into the future because that impacts the federal agencies and their budgets and the ability to operate and our organization where we are so reliant on detailed personnel with other organizations that budget approach has a ripple effect because it affects the other organizations, and it ends up having a double whammy effect on an organization like nctc when there is an uncertain budget environment that affects our partners the way it does. >> i thank you, mr. director. i would turn to the vice

chairman if she had any follow-up questions that she would want to ask. >> we would like to put the paper in the record, if i might since senator rubio mentioned the recidivism rate of former gitmo detainees, and i would like to put -- the problem is really, whether it's bush or obama, people learned more the recidivism rates change dramatically pre-january of '09 the recidivism rate was 101, 532. that's 19% and now since the obama administration it's six out of 88. that's 6.2%. so you have to look at it in versions of time, and i would like to put this paper in the record, if i may.

>> without objection. >> so everybody could see it and i have one other question to ask the director. >> days before the public release of our report on cia detention and interrogation we received an intelligence assessment predicting violence throughout the world and significant damage to the united states relationships. nctc participated in that assessment. do you believe that assessment proved correct? i can speak particularly to the threat portion of that rather than the partnership aspect of that because i would say that's the part nctc would have the most direct purchase on and i can't say that i can disaggregate the level of terrorism and violence we've seen in the period since the report was issued. disaggregate that level from what we might have seen

otherwise because, as you know, the turmoil roiling and those parts of the world not that part of the world, those parts of the world, the middle east africa, south asia and there are a number of factors that go on to creating the difficult threaten viernment. what we faceds as a community was that we would increase or add to the threat picture. i don't know that looking back now, i can say it did by x% or it didn't by x%. i think we are clear in saying that there are parts of the impact that we will not know until we have the benefit of time to see how it would play out in different locations around the world. >> oh boy do i disagree with you, but that's what makes this arena, i guess. the fact in my mind was that the assessment was not correct. thank you very much, mr. chairman. >> thank you, vice chairman. >> senator blount.

>> thank you, vice chairman. let me go back to where i was when i ran out of time earlier. i'm trying to in my mind figure out where the out where the aumf that's proposed and how it relates to these various terror groups. i think the further language on associated persons or forces, it says, means individuals and organizations fighting for, on behalf of, or alongside isil or any closely related successor entity and its hostilities against the united states or its coalition partners. list for me just a few of the terrorist groups that would not be associated in that way with isil. you mentioned two earlier. are there others you could immediately bring to mind? i'm not asking you for an exhaustive list. >> i don't think lebanese

hezbollah would qualify as associated force. i think terrorist groups we see operating in latin america, i don't believe would qualify under that definition of associated force or some of the al qaeda-affiliated groups operating in southeast asia, for example. those are just some examples off the top of my head. >> so if we just take that definition, does that mean isil and its associated groups are the only people we've authorized the president to go and do whatever it necessary within the restrictions of that, or does the 2001 aumf give the president authority to go after other terrorist groups? >> i'd have to get you an answer on that sir. i'm just not confident i know enough about the design of the new authorization of force -- >> how about the old one. you surely as the director of

counterterrorism you surely know about the 2001 -- >> right. >> -- what authorization that gives us. >> that allowed us to carry out operations against al qaeda and associated forces. >> i'm sorry. could you refresh me on -- >> no, that's the one. i think that's right. though i think it also said "or future terrorism against the united states." in that 2000 -- that's the one that the president proposes we let stand and we eliminate the 2002 that's more iraq-specific. and then add this one to it, is i believe the proposal. but what i guess i'm thinking is what do we really add by adding this complicated definition of terrorists that associated with isil whether -- is isil covered under the 2001 aumf? >> i would defer to my lawyer but i believe not.

>> you believe not. so how are we engaging with isil now in syria? >> let me provide you with an answer for the record, sir. i'd want to be precise and correct in what i provide you. >> all right. and you have any follow-up on -- you understand the question? >> yes. >> i assume we might be able to pursue isil or isis in iraq through the 2002 -- if the 2001 is -- i guess my point, mr. chairman, if the 2001 is broad enough to cover isil now, i don't know what we add to it when we add another authorization and leave that one on the books. but i think we do leave a significant comeplication here of who is the associate of isil when we begin to define this. groups like core al qaeda is generally not anywhere what it was at one time but various

renamed or affiliated groups that sprung up everywhere from the philippines to all over the world and i'm going to be very interested in how we define and why we would specifically begin to define individual groups as opposed to what -- and how broad the 2001 authorization was which is, i guess the beginning of that question, mr. rasmussen. so thank you. i look forward to your response on that. thank you, chairman. >> thank you, senator blunt. i think it gets even more confusing when in the same geographical battle space, it would be the 2001 aumf that provides us the ability to go after corekhorasan. >> i just completed a mark-up in the armed services committee. senator mccain acted with some

dispatch. hopefully i won't confuse this discussion further but i think it is important to talk about the 2001 aumf. actually, the term associated forces doesn't appear anywhere in it. that's a gloss upon a gloss that the 2001 aumf is very clear. president can use necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations or persons he determined planned authorized, committed or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on september 11th or harbored such organizations or persons in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism. that has been used very, very broadly and i think that's one of the concerns and i think the president has realized that to stretch it into attacking an organization that didn't even exist in 2001, operating in a country that was at least partially stable in 2001 is quite a stretch.

i think that's why we've got the new authorization that's been brought forward to cover the isil situation. so i think that's a matter for the foreign relations committee. but the 2001 has been stretched very far and i'm frankly, one who's glad to see that the president's brought forward a new authorization. mr. rasmussen, couple of questions. counterterrorism, we always think of in terms of killing people striking intercepting communications, drones, all of that kind ever thing. yet we're noup learning that part of what we have to do is intervene before people get radicalized. yet when you raise that, the fbi says well we're not social workers, county sheriffs say we're not social workers. if it isn't going to be law enforcement that does that kind of intervention and through social media for example, who's going to do it, and do you see that as part of the counterterrorism mission. >> certainly the effort to

counter violent extremism and especially most particularly here in the homeland is part of the are counterterrorism mission. i would argue that our law enforcement partners like fbi do embrace that mission even if some individuals may have said exactly what you said, senator king. earlier in the discussion we talked about some of the work that nctc is doing along with fbi, homeland security and the justice department to try to do exactly what you just described. from the federal government, the effort though is to enable and empower local communities to carry out this kind of intervention in their own communities and to enable them to do that in a way that does not scream a law enforcement context, because as you know, that can have a chilling effect on the kind of community engagement and community dialogue that would help you get at the underlying causes that lead to violent extremism. so the role we've taken from the federal government has been a little more circumscribed, aimed

at providing communities with the tools to do this kind of work, information so they understand how terrorists and now particularly these days isil is using social media to go after their children in their communities, to let patients and teach -- parents and teachers and schools and other authority figures understand what's coming at them and where intervention might be necessary to prevent a foreign fighter from developing.understand what's coming at them and where intervention might be necessary to prevent a foreign fighter from developing.what's coming at them and where intervention might be necessary to prevent a foreign fighter from developing. what we're doing thus far is useful and important but it's not on the scale or size to have the impact we want all across the country. the president's countering violent extremism summit during the part of next week three pilot cities -- los angeles minneapolis and boston -- will report to the group on their efforts in this area. those are three tremendously important cities that the federal government has been working very closely with to try to do this kind of work. but those are only three cities so the purpose of a pilot is to

demonstrate whether this can be done on a scale that will have impact far beyond just those three cities. >> i take it that you're concurring that this kind of effort has got to be part of the overall counterterrorism strategy. >> absolutely. in particular as part of the counterisil strategy, we're trying to do this work both at home, but also abroad. because as you well know senator, most of that foreign fighter population that we're potentially worried about emanates from countries other than the united states so we need to help other countries be more effective at this. i don't want to sound condescending, we need to learn from them. in many cases, some of our european partners are doing tremendous work on a community engagement level to try to. counter the work of -- or counter the spread of violent extremism in their communities. i think that's going to be the other sidebars at next week's summit, is to get some of the lessons learned out of our partners on that. >> i understand the british, for example, have developed a program for dealing with this problem in prisons which is

where a lot of radicalization takes place. >> that's certainly true. the paris example kind of brought home just how dangerous a radicalizing environment prisons can be. i know our department of justice has engaged on that issue, along with the bureau of prisons in an effort to make sure we've got that identified and, where possible, under control here. but i'd have to get you more detail on that. >> thank you. >> senator king, thank you. thank you for your willingness to spend an hour and a half with senator mccain and still come to this hearing. >> i'm a patriot. >> you'll be rewarded in heaven i can assure you. director, thank you so much for being here today for sharing your insight with us and please carry back to your employees how grateful we are for the great work that the employees at nctc do. . >> i will certainly do that, senator. thank you. >> leenk ishearing is adjourned.

here are some of our featured programs for this presidents' day weekend. on c-span's book tv saturday morning at 9:00, live coverage of the savannah book festival with non-fiction authors and books on topics like the

disappearance of michael rockefeller, a british company of elephants during world war ii, and four women spies during the civil war. and sunday at 9:00 p.m. eastern on after words, former senior advisor for president obama, david axelrod, on his 40 years in politics. and on american history tv on c-span3, saturday morning beginning at 8:30 the 100th anniversary of the release of the film "the birth of a nation" starting with an interview of author dick laher. the showing ever the entire 1915 film, followed by a live call-in program with a civil war historian, harry jones, and the author. sunday at 8:00 on the presidency, george washington portraits focusing on how artists captured the spirit of the first president and what we can learn about him through their paintings. find the complete television schedule at c-span.org. call us at 202-626-3400. e-mail us at comments comments @c-span.org or send us a tweet at c-span#comments.

join the c-span conversation, like us on facebook, follow us on twitter. fbi director james comey says police officers out of the nation need to get out of their cars figuratively and literally to get to know the communities and people they serve. comey's recommendation came in a speech today at georgetown university regarding law enforcement and race relations. this is just under an hour. ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage the dean of the court public school of policy and james d. comey, director of the federal bureau of investigation. >> good morning, ladies and gentlemen. and welcome to gaston hall. it is a great pleasure for our

university to host this important conversation this morning. i wish to thank the many members of our georgetown community and our guests from the fbi who have joined us for today's event. we gather now to hear fbi director james comey offer his perspective on questions of law enforcement and race a topic that deplandzmands our most careful and serious attention as a nation, as its members, as members of our communities. this is a topic whose importance and urgency has been exemplified in the events from ferguson, missouri, to cleveland ohio, to staten island new york. at this moment when our country seeks a greater understanding, a renewed sense of responsibility for one floer, a stronger mutual

trust. we're grateful for this opportunity to provide a venue for dialogue on these matters. we're thankful to have our mccourt school of public policy as an academic partner for this morning's event. after director comey's remarks, our audience will have the opportunity to ask questions, moderated by our mccourt school dean, edward montgomery. and i want to thank dean montgomery for playing this role today. i wish to take a few moments top introduce director co-in i whomey who took on this position leading the fbi in 2013 after a long and distinguished legal career. a religion major at the college of william and mary and graduate of columbia law school, director comey has served as u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york and as deputy attorney the at department of justice before assuming his current role. as leader of the fbi he has advanced the bureau's mission of protecting the lives of our nation's citizens with a

personal attention to ensuring that this mission is accomplished in a manner that recognizes and protects the liberties that are at the heart of our shared values as a nation. for many years, the fbi has required all its new agents to visit the united states holocaust museum here in washington as part of their training. when mr. comey became director he added to that training a visit to the martin luther king memorial, not far from our campus here to bring a deeper understanding of our nation's history into the bureau's current practices. as director comey put it, a reminder of the need for fidelity and rule of law and the dangers of becoming untethered to oversight and accountability. we gather this morning here in gaston hall as we have throughout our history. now for more than a century, this hall has served as one of the important places for public discourse and discussion here in

washington. and today we deepen that history as we come together to engage in this dialogue. it is through such dialogue that we build a more inclusive society and strengthen the trust that forms the fabric of our collective well being. so, ladies and gentlemen please join me in welcoming director james b. comey. >> thank you, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. thank you for inviting me here to georgetown university. i am honored to be here. i wanted to meet with you today to share with you my thoughts on the relationship between law enforcement and the communities we serve and protect. like a lot of things in life, that relationship is complicated. relationships often are.

beautiful healy hall, part of and all around where we sit now was named after this great university's 29th president patrick francis healy. healy was born into slavery in georgia in 1834. his father was an irish immigrant plantation owner, his mother a slave. under the laws at that time healy and his siblings were considered to be slaves. healy is believed tore the first african-american to earn a ph.d, the first to enter the jesuit order, the first to be president of georgetown university or any predominantly white university. given georgetown's remarkable history, and that of president healy, this struck me as the appropriate place to talk about the difficult relationship between law enforcement and the communities we are sworn to serve and protect. with the death of michael brown in ferguson the death of eric

garner in staten island, and the ongoing protests throughout the country, and the assassinations of nypd officers, we are at a crossroads. as a society we can choose to live our lives every day raising our families going to work and hoping that someone somewhere will do something to ease the tension, to smooth over the conflict. we can roll up our car windows, turn up the radio, and drive around these problems. or we can choose instead to have an open and honest discussion about what our relationship is today. what it should be. what it could be. what it needs to be. if we took more time to better understand one another. unfortunately, in places like ferguson, and new york city and

in some communities across this nation, there is a disconnect between police agencies and the citizens they serve, predominantly in communities color. serious debates are taking place about how law enforcement personnel relate to the communities they serve, about the appropriate use of force, and about the real and perceived biases both within and outside of law enforcement. these are important debates. every american should feel free to express an informed opinion, to protest peacefully to convey frustration and even anger in a constructive way. that's what makes this democracy great. those conversations as bumpy and uncomfortable as they can be. help us understand different perspectives and better serve our communities. of course, they are only conversations in the true sense of that word, if we are willing not only to talk but to listen

too. i worry that this incredibly important and difficult conversation about race and policing has become focused entirely on the nature and character of law enforcement officers when it should also be about something much harder to discuss. debating the nature of policing is very important but i worry that it has become an excuse at times to avoid doing something harder. let me start by slayering some ingsharing some of might have own hard truths. first, all of us in law enforcement must be honest enough to acknowledge that much of our history is not pretty. at many points in american history, law enforcement enforced the status quo, a status quo that was often brutally unfair to disfavored groups. it was unfair to the healy siblings and to countless others like them. it was unfair to too many people. i am descended from irish immigrants. a century ago the irish knew well how american society and law enforcement viewed them.

as drunks roughians and criminals. law enforcement's biased view much the irish lives on in the nickname we still use for the vehicles we use to transport groups of prisoners -- it is after all, a paddy wagon. the irish had some tough times. but little compares to the experience on our soil of black americans. that experience should be part of every american's consciousness and law enforcement's role in that experience including in recent times, must be remembered. it is our cultural inheritance. there is a reason that i require all new agents and analysts to study the fbi's interaction with dr. martin luther king jr. and to visit his memorial in washington as part of their training. and there is a reason. i keep on my desk a copy of attorney general robert kennedy's approval j. edgar hoover's request to wiretap dr. king. it is a single page.

the entire application is five sentences long. it is without fact or substance. and it is predicated on the naked assertion that there is "communist influence in the racial situation." the reason i do those things is to ensure that we remember our mistakes and that we learn from them. one reason we cannot forget our law enforcement legacy is that the people we serve and protect cannot forget it either. so we must talk about our history. it is a hard truth that lives on. a second hard truth -- much research points to the widespread existence of unconscious bias. many people in our white majority culture have unconscious racial biases and react differently to a white face than a black face. in fact, we all, white and black, carry various biases around with us. i am reminded of the song from the broodway hit "avenue q,"

"everyone's a little bit racist," a part of which goes like this. "look around and you will find no one's really colorblind. maybe it is a fact we all should face. everyone makes judgments based on race." you should be grateful i did not try to sing that. but if we can't help our latent bay yas biases with be woo he can help our instinctive response to those actions. that is why we work to design systems and processes to overcome that very human part of us all. although the research may be unsettling, it is what we do next that matters most. but racial bias isn't epidemic in law enforcement any more than it is epidemic in academia or in arts. in fact, i believe law enforcement overwhelmingly attracts people who want to do good for a living. people who risk their lives because they want to help other

people. they don't sign up to be cops in new york or chicago or l.a. to help white people or black people or hispanic people or asian people. they sign up because they want to help all people. and they do some of the hardest, most dangerous policing to protect communities of color. but that leads me to my third hard truth -- something happens to people in law enforcement. many of us develop different flavors of cynicism that we work hard to resist because they can be lazy, mental shortcuts. for example, criminal suspects routinely lie about their guilt and nearly everybody that we charge is guilty. that makes it easy for some folks in law enforcement to assume that everybody's lying and that no suspect regardless of their race could be innocent. easy but wrong. likewise, police officers on patrol in our nation's cities

often work in environments where a hugely disproportionate percentage of street crime is committed by young men of color. something happens to people of good will working in that environment. after years of police work, officers often can't help but be influenced by the cynicism they feel. a mental shortcut becomes almost inresistible and even rational, by some lights. the two young black men on one side of the street look like so many others that officer has locked up. two white men on the other side of the street, even in the same clothes, do not. the officer does not make the same association about the two white guys whether that officer is white or black. and that drives different behavior. the officers turns towards one side of the street and not the other. we need to come to grips with the fact that this behavior complicates the relationship between the police and the communities they serve. so why has that officer, like

his colleagues, locked up so many young men of color? why does he have that life-shaping experience? is it because he is a racist? why are so many black men in jail? is it because cops, prosecutors judges and juries are racist? because they are turning a blind eye to white robbers and drug dealers. the answer is a fourth hard truth -- i don't think so. if it were so that would be easier to address. we would just need to clang the way we hire train and measure law enforcement, and that would substantially fix it. we would then go get the white criminals we have been ignoring. but the truth is much harder than that. the truth is that what really needs fixing is something only a few, like president obama, are willing to speak about perhaps because it is so daunting a task. through the "my brother's keeper" initiative, the president is addressing the disproportionate challenges faced by young men of color.

for instance data shows that the percentage of young men not working or not enrolled in school is nearly twice as high for blacks as it is for whites. this initiative and others like it is about doing the hard work to grow drug resistant and violence resistant kids, especially in communities of color so they never become part of that officer's life experience. so many young men of color become part of that officer's life experience because so many minority families and communities are struggling. so many boys and young men grow up in environments lacking role models, adequate education and decent employment. they lack all sorts of opportunities that most of us take for granted. a tragedy of american life, one that most citizens are able to drive around because. doesn't touch them is that young people in those neighborhoods too often inherit a legacy of crime and prison, and with that inheritance they become part of a police

officer's life and slap thehape the way that officer, whether white or black, sees the world. changing that legacy is a challenge so enormous and so complicated that it is, unfortunately, easier to talk only about the cops. and that's not fair. let me be transparent about my affection for cops. when you dial 911 whether you are white or black the cops come. and they come quickly. and they come quickly whether they are white or black. that's what cops do. in addition to all of the other dangerous and difficult and hard and frightening things that they do. they respond to homes in the middle of the night where a drunken father wielding a gun is threatening his wife and children. they pound up the back stairs of an apartment building not knowing whether the guys behind the door they're about to enter are armed or high or both. i come from a law enforcement family. my grandfather william j. comey was a police officer. pop comey is one of my heroes.

i have a picture of him on my wall in my office at the fbi remindsing me of the legacy that i have inherited and that i must honor. he was a child of immigrants. when he was in the sixth grade his father was killed in an industrial. accident in new york so he had to drop out of school to support his mom and younger siblings. he could never afford to return to school. but when he was old enough he joined the yonkers new york police department. over the next 40 years he rose to lead that department. pop was the tall strong, silent type. quiet and dignified and passionate about the rule of law. back during prohibition he heard that bootleggers were running beer through fire hoses between the bronx and yonkers. now pop enjoyed a good beer every now and then, but he ordered his men to cut those hoses with fire axes and then he needed a protective detail. because certain people were angry and shocked that someone in law enforcement would do

that. but that's what we want as citizens, that is what we expect. and so i keep a picture of pop on my wall, in my office to remind me of his integrity and his pride in the integrity of his work. law enforcement ranks are filled with people like my grandfather. but to be clear although i am from a law enforcement family, and i've spent much of my career in law enforcement i am not looking to let law enforcement off the hook. those of us in law enforcement must redouble our efforts to resist bias and prejudice. we must better understand the people we serve and protect. by trying to flow deep in our gut what it feels like to be a law abiding young black man walking down the street and encountering law enforcement. we must understand how that young man may see us. we must resist the lazy shortcuts of cynicism and approach him with respect and decency. we must work in the words of new

york city police commissioner bill bratton to really see each other. perhaps the reason we struggle as a nation is because we've come to see only what we represent at face value, instead of who we are. we simply must see the people we serve. but the seeing needs to flow in both directions. citizens also need to really see the men and women of law enforcement. they need to see what the police see through their windshields, and as they walk down the street. they need to see the risks and dangers of law enforcement encountered on every typical late night shift. they need to understand the difficult and frightening work that they do to keep us safe. and they need to give them the respect and the space they need to do their job well and properly. if they take the time to do that, what they will see are officers who are human who are overwhelmingly doing the right thing for the right reasons and

who are too often operating in. communities and facing challenges most of us choose to drive around. oneftof the hardest thing i do as fbi director is call the chiefs and sheriffs of departments around the nation when officers have been killed in the line of duty. i call to express my sorrow and to offer the fbi's help. officers like wen jien will you and rafael ramos. i make far too many calls and there are far too many names of fallen officers on the national law enforcement officer's memorial and far too many names etched there each year. officers liu and ray moss swore the same oath all in law enforcement do and they answered the call to serve the people, all the people. like all good police officers they moved toward danger without regard for the politics or

passions or race of those who needed their help knowing the risk inherent in their work. they were minority police officers killed while standing watch in a minority neighborhood. in brooklyn. a neighborhood that they and their fellow officers rescued from the grip of violent crime. for a couple decades ago, bed sti wasbedsti was a shorthand for a place where people could only sit on the front steps and talk. it was too dangerous. but no more. thanks to the work of those who chose lives of service and danger to help others. but despite that sacrifice, that selfless service, of these two officers and countless others like them around the country, in some american communities people view police not as allies but as antagonists. and think of them as someone not to be treated with gratitude and respect but someone worthy of

suspicion and distrust. we simply must find a way to see each other more clearly. and part of that has to involve collecting and sharing better information about violent encounters between police and citizens. not long after the riots broke out in ferguson, late last summer, i asked my staff to tell me how many people shot by police were african-american in this country. i wanted to see trends. i wanted to see information. they couldn't give it to me. and it wasn't their fault. demographic data regarding officer-involved shootings is not consistently reported to us through our uniform crime reporting program. because reporting is voluntary our data is incomplete and therefore in aggregate, unreliable. i recently listened to a thoughtful big-city chief express his frustration with that lack of reliable data. he said he didn't know whether the ferguson police shot one person a week, one a year or one

a century. and then in the absence of good data, "all we get are ideological thunder bolts. what we need are ideological agnostics who use information to try to solve problems." he's right. the first step to understanding what is really going on in our communities and in our country is to gather more and better data related to throws we arrest, those we confront for break being the law and jeopardizing public safety, and those who confront us. data seems like a dry and boring word, but without it we cannot understand our world and make it better. how can we address concerns about use of force? how can we address concerns about officer-involved shootings if we do not have a reliable grasp on the demographic and the circumstances of those incidents? we simply must improve the way we collect and analyze data to see the true nature of what's happening in our communities.

the fbi tracks and publishes the number of justifiable homicides reported by police departments. but again reporting by police departments is voluntary and not all departments participate. that means we cannot fully track the incidents in which force is used by police, or against police, including flon-faye inging non-fatal encounters which are not reported at all. without complete and accurate data we are left with ideological thunder bolts and that helps spark unrest and distrust and does not help us get better. because we must get better, i intend for the fbi to be the leader in urging departments around this country to give us the facts we need for informed discussion, the facts all of us need and to help us make sound policy and sound decisions with that information. america isn't easy. america takes work. today february 12th is abraham

lincoln's birthday. he spoke at gettysburg about a new birth and freedom because we spent the first four score and seven years of our history with fellow americans held as healy his siblings and his mother among them. as a nation we have spent the 150 years since lincoln spoke making great progress, but along the way treating a whole lot of people of color poorly. and law enforcement was often part of that poor treatment. that's our inheritance as law enforcement, and it is not all in the distant past. we must account for that inheritance, and we, especially those of us who enjoy the privilege that comes with being the majority must confront the biases that are inescapable part of the human condition. we must speak the truth about our shortcomings as law enforcement as fight to get better. but as a country we must also speak the truth to ourselves. law enforcement is not the root

cause of the problems in our hardest-hit neighborhoods. police officers, people of enormous courage and integrity in the overwhelm inging neighborhood are in there risking their lives to protect folks from offenders who are a product of problems that won't be solved by body cameras. we simply must speak to each other honestly about all these hard truths. in the words of dr. king, "we must learn to live together as brothers, or we will perish together as fools." we all have hard work to do. challenging work and it will take time. we all need to talk and we all need to listen. not just about easy things but about hard things too. relationships are hard. relationships require work. so let's begin that work. it is time to start seeing one another for who and what we really are.

peace, security and understanding are worth that effort. thank you for listening to me today. >> so i want to thank the director for these very important remarks and let you know that he has some time to answer some questions. we asked people to come up to the mike and form their question. please, when you do, let us know your name and your affiliation and we appreciate given the importance of the topic if people want to have questions to focus them on the issues that the director has raised here today. so with that the microphone is open if anybody wants to come up i'll let -- i see somebody coming up. don't be shy. >> hi. good morning.

my name is anabe. i'm a junior. i was wondering, mr. comey, what has been your most disappointing moment as fbi director and how did you and the bureau bounce back from that. and on the flip side what has been your proudest or happiest moment as director and how has that impacted you and affected you going forward? >> thank you for the question. maybe i'll take it in reverse order. my proudest moment as fbi director, something i've said throughout the fbi is actually related to the topic we're talking about here today. i sent dozens of agents wearing rain jackets to ferguson and they knocked on hundreds of doors and every door opened and everybody spoke to us, whether they were white or black young or old, male or female. i think because they saw the fbi. you've seen the jackets on tv

right? they saw the kind of orangey-yellow "fbi." i speak about this to graduations of agents. i said, that is a priceless gift, to be believed, to be seen as somebody who cares about the facts and getting it right. we have to protect that gift. that was my proudest moment in my 18 months so far. most difficult there's been a lot of them that relate to other subjects. terrorism and the loss of innocent life. obviously i deeply am involved in our hostages overseas trying with lots of other folks to get them home. that's been heartbreaking to me. one of the reasons i'm giving this speech though, one of my other disappointments has been i felt like we have not -- i don't want to tell people what to say but i have felt like we haven't had a healthy dialogue and i don't want to see these important issues drift away. we have a tendency to move on to other things as busy people. but these issues especially

about race and law enforcement, have always been with us and we can't let it drift away and then talk about it another day. so one of my disappointments has been i've seen dialogue i didn't think was balanced but i've also seen it start to drift away. and i've been determined not to let that happen and to try to encourage good people who all see the world differently than i do surely to talk about it. >> thank you. >> hi. good morning. my name is nicole mckim. i am a freshman in the school of foreign service. and i would like to know, sir, besides an improvement in the manner in which police incidents are reported, what other major infrastructural changes would you like to see within the justice system of america? >> that's a big one. there is a lot of things that are being talked about. i mentioned body cameras. that's an important discussion. i actually think the most important thing is -- i guess

there is a risk in saying this it will sound vague but i think it is critical. i think it is hard to hate up close. and that the police in our country need to get out of their cars, both literally and figuratively and get to know the people they serve and the people in the communities need to know them. one of the things we've experienced with economic challenges we've had over the last seven or eight years is police departments have lost funding for all kinds of things that used to allow that to happen. police athletic leagues. right? we run in the fbi citizens academies where we invite citizens to come in and learn about us. most police departments used to have those kinds of things. they started to be eliminated and drift away because of lack of funding. that seems like -- as i said, kind of a vague thing but that is actually critical to people's trust in the entire justice system. and if we neglect it, we can have all the rules and all of the technology in the world but underneath it will be a lack of trust and a misunderstanding that will be corrosive, no

matter how good our process and technology is. so i think that's the way i think about that. >> thank you sir. >> hi. i'm claire. impea'm sophomore in the college. if i understand you, i think what you were -- what i understood is that you said that the disparate treatment of blacks and whites by law enforcement can often be traced to different situations facing black and white communities. so i was wondering how you would explain then the disparate proportion of drug arrests despite almost equal levels of drug use in those two communities. >> that's a hard question. the best answer i can offer is, i don't know enough about the data on drug use arrests, but i flow a lot about the drug dealing arrests. and so i think in the communities where police are patrolling especially where we're focusing on the hardest-hit communities where the dealers overwhelmingly turn out to be people of color. not just black folks but

hispanic folks as well. end up being locked up a lot for drug dealing. lot of overwhelming users of drugs are caucasian. something we don't talk about enough. i think you've alluded to it. i've often thought just focusing on the dealing is like dealing with a hole in your boat just by bailing all the time. you got to deal with the demand side of it which is overwhelmingly driven by employed people who are from the suburbs and caucasian. another hard truth people don't talk about a lot. >> hi. my name is jack lynch. i'm a freshman in the college here at georgetown. my question is you mentioned earlier that officer ray moss and officer liu the assassinates officers in the nypd were both minorities working in a predominantly minority neighborhood. do you think it is part of american law enforcement to try to ensure that the racial diversity of their police forces working in certain neighborhoods are approximately equal to the

proportions of racial groups in the neighborhoods they're working in? >> yes. in fact, i don't think it is just a goal. it's actually -- i don't know whether there is a word more important than goal. it is imperative for all of us in law enforcement to try and reflect the communities we serve. big challenge for the fbi. right? the fbi is overwhelmingly white and male among my agent force. i've got nothing against white males. i happen to be one. but i -- the first e-mail i sent to my entire work force was about this topic. i said it is a matter of morality doing what's right and effectiveness. so if you're not sold on the morality of it the effectiveness is critical. right? we can't understand the communities we serve. we can't understand the perspectives of the people we serve if we're all 6'8" tall white guys who are slightly awkward and grew up in the new york area. we just can't. okay? so it is an imperative and we have a crisis in a lot of parts of law enforcement. nypd has done a spectacular job. other departments less so.

my own organization struggles with that. so the answer is yes. sorry for the long answer. >> thank you. >> i'm nicholas. i'm in the school of continuing studies and my question is, the problem with a lot of ferguson and some of the other incidents that have happened also stems -- it can also be as much to blame on the culture and the communities that we're in. as it is, the law enforcement environment it seems the blame is equally because they both have their preconceived attitude so to change one community's attitude towards law enforcement and law enforcement's attitude towards a community, it would seem that the logical step would be to incorporate the two. so what is the fbi doing to hire or incorporate young black men

and women or young men and women of different backgrounds into the agency into the department of justice as a whole because i think if we lack young black men,men men, seize a number of black fbi agents and officials that are going to be more receptive and more trusting than -- not to say affirmative action is needed but how are you addressing being able to hire people of more diverse background? because right now the standards are nearly unobtainable for someone who grew up with nothing. >> great question. i don't think the standards are unobtainable. i think there are lots of great agents of color women who could come work at the fbi would love work rg ating at the fbi. i just got to get them

interested in it. i could talk all day about this but i'll try to be very short. one of my challenges is -- the average age of entry for an fbi agent is 29 because we're going to give these folks great power. we want adults who have developed judgment through experience and so i don't know what your plans are after graduation but my challenge is, if you're as good as you probably are, because you go to school here, coca-cola is going to be after you microsoft is going to be after you, apple is going to be after you, exxon-mobil is going to be after you and they're going to throw all kinds of dough at you. then when you're 29 you'll be thinking, not so much. go work for the government. so i'm trying to figure out how do i get people in earlier. so i put tremendous amount of effort in my 18 months into hiring right out of college, because if i can get you right out of georgetown? you will find out how amazing it is to do good for a living in a different role, in a support role, in an intelligence analyst role. then when you're in your late 20s you'll be so in love with this work that you will stay with us and become a special

agent. that appeals to me as a strategy to deal with this. but a big part of it is getting people to know us. so we are now devoting tremendous resources to going out to campuses, historically black colleges and all kinds of colleges, get to know us. what kind of people we are, what we care about. because as i said, it is hard to hate up close. it is hard to misunderstand up close. if you see our work, the things we care about, the kind of people we are, and i can get my hooks in you before the private sector puts the golden handcuffs on people, i think i can change my numbers. because i agree with the premise in your question -- i have to change the numbers. thank you. >> thank you. >> so we'll see you -- i don't know when you're going to graduate. we'll see you in a little while. >> hi, mr. director. my name is jason smith. i'm a first year masters candidate in the security space program here. you mentioned before that these discussions, they all wane off after a while, whether it is a couple weeks or months. in your interaction with local police departments or any other

level of policinge inging or law enforcement, how do you think that kind of these issues can be more formally institutionalized into the actual departments and how can we make these so at the local law enforcement level so they don't just become passing issues? >> great question. the answer is we have to make sure that we. law enforcement take this conversation and push it out to our police leadersing with, all law enforcement leaders, and encourage and push and prod and beg them to continue the conversation in their communities. all politics is local. all relationships are local. one of the challenges we face in this country we have almost 18,000 police organizations. we got the big cities, but we got lots of little jurisdictions. ferguson is a little teeny jurisdiction. it is not just about reaching the big city chiefs who are a very thoughtful bunch in my experience. it is about pushing the conversation beyond that to the hundreds of others that are smaller. one of the things i did is i talked to all of my fbis in nearly every community in this

country. i have almost 500 offerses. i've asked all of my field commanders, take my speech. we have citizens academies, we have lots of relationships with local authorities, engage them. i'm not telling them they should think about it the way i do be with but take this into the community and see if we in the fbi can help foster this conversation. the good news is the chiefs i've already talked to a lot of the big city chiefs. they are grateful for the conversation. they don't want to see it drift off because they know we'll have to talk about it at some point. it is not going to go away by virtue of us just moving on to something else. that's what we're trying to do. >> thank you. >> good morning. my name is kevin mr moreore rel. i'm a stun yore at the school for foreign service studying history. my question relates to historynd a the question of law enforcement. llg martin luther king said that an unjust law is a human law that is not tethered to an eternal or natural law. and it seems to me that in our discussion of law enforcement and justice, the conversation is

mainly focused on the question of the rule of law. but, what discussions of the rule of law and enforcing rule of law can sometimes miss is at times the laws that law enforcement are commanded to enforce are in fact unjust. we've seen that in our own nation's history. so my question is what is the role of the fbi and of law enforcement in. general when they're commanded or ordered to enforce laws that are in fact unjust? >> that's a very thoughtful question. if we believe them to be unjust, i believe our obligation is to raise our hand and to speak out. to raise it within -- i sit within the justice department. to raise it to the attorney general. to raise it with those who make the laws that we enforce. i don't think our job -- and one of the things i am very proud of the fbi about the fbi today is full of people who care about doing the right thing, not just doing the thing. if that makes any sense. and so i think our obligation is

to try and understand -- this is why it is critical to understand that people we serve and protect and are locking up are we doing something that seems off track to us and inconsistent with our notions of what the right thing is? if we see those things, we got to raise our lands and we got to shout about it. >> good morning, mr. comey. my name is erica. i am a freshman here in the college. you mentioned the lives of the two fallen officers in new york and i was wondering what you think we can do to restore the relationship between our criminal justice system and the citizens they serve not only to restore the faith in the system but also to preserve the safety of those officers. >> well, i think a critical part of it is what i emphasized, phrasing i took from bril bratill bratton, this notion that we need to see each other. i think we, in law enforcement, have to drive an effort to have people understand us and the

kind of people we are. weaver's flawed because we're human beings. but who we are in the main people need to see that. and as i said that is a block by block, precinct by precinct local effort inviting people in. i mentioned getting out of your cars, both literally and figuratively. invite people in, have them see us and understand us, especially in hardest hit neighborhoods. those police officers were there in bedford to protect a great historical community. and it was -- i think it is critical that we continue to just see each other up close. there's lots of other smaller things but frankly, the most important thing to me is, do we know the people we serve and do they know us. empathy is often very short supply in human experience. that's where i mentioned the empathy to understand what that young black man walking home from the library might be thinking when we encounter him? that's critical for us. and it is really important for him to be thinking about how we see the world and why we're in

that neighborhood patrolling. i think that -- i worry that sounds vague and mushy but that actually is i think the answer. more so than fixes to policy or technology. >> thank you. >> good morning, mr. director. my name is tomas. i am a spanish student. i am a freshman. i wanted to ask a two-part question. the first is about the trend in the military implementation of police coming from europe seeing police with handguns or machine guns is something that seems strange. and the second is whether you think prisons or jails are accomplishing the role of not only putting away criminals but also of helping them throughout their time in prison to then come out and be able to live in society? >> the second one is easy to answer. no. better. lots of good people. it's one of the things that i think unites sort of -- don't know whether spectrum makes sense, right and lefrtt in america and understanding we have to do a better job at equipping

people. every arrest, every conviction is a failure of us as a community, of a family of an individual, helping that person come back out and be productive. we've long not done a good enough job we've long not done a good job at that. that's easy to answer. the military one is harder. here is how i think about it. it is not about the stuff. the stuff is neutral. a shield, body armor. automatic weapon. we in law enforcement need that stuff. in this country, unfortunately we often face adversary barricades in a location who are firing high powered weapons trying to e kill lots of innocent people. so i expect in every garage of every fbi officer in the country there will be an armored vehicle and automatic weapons and the ballistic plating. i need the stuff. the issue is how do we use that stuff? and how do we train people to use that stuff.

do we use that stuff to confront people who are protesting when they are concerned about something in the community? >> do we use a sniper rifle to see closer to a crowd? that is where it breaks down. so i see this in chiefs and sheriffs all over the country. i've been all over a the country and visited all 56 field oufszs. said to every chief it is about the training and the discipline and judgment how we use it. it is not the stuff. that is how i think about it. >> good morning. i'm jamie scott, a staff member here and a recent graduate. i appreciate your discussion of the need for good data and i'm curious to hear your thoughts why you think local police departments don't report data fit's voluntary and what specifically the fbi can do to compel or mandate or otherwise encourage departments to provide data? >> i don't know fully the reasons why.

i suspect among them is especially for smaller department, it seems like a lot of work. filling out a federal form may be a big deal to folks. we have developed a system called nibrs, national incident based reporting study guide which is -- data. so i'm limited in my way to compel anybody. but i think i have a bully pulpit in a way to be able to encourage departments to use the nibrs system to collect the data. i can go and google right now and figure how many people does the cdc count went to emergency rooms of flu systems last week. you can tell me the absolute number who bought a particular book on amazon. it is ridiculous that i can't tell you how many people were shot by the police in this country, last week, last year,

the last decade. it is ridiculous. so i intend to take that notion that it's ridiculous to the men and women in uniform and say it's ridiculous. do you agree? if you agree we got to fill out and form and collect it. . and i suppose the next step is legislature getting involved to compel it. i don't have that authority. i have the persuasion of argument and reason. >> thank you. >> good morning. karina robinson graduate of 2004. and having served in the army in combat along the jttfs and certainly learning through my denominator program in homeland security, i'm so glad you brought it full circle to probably what we really need the discussion to be about, community or oriented policing. where you get out there and know the community and spend several years building that are rapport and trust. remember hearing chief la near

talk about how anonymous tips. as soon as they came in she dispatched a team and there was immediate respect from the community that they are there to help us. so perhaps the challenge for state and local sheriffs and police departments is not to buy all that high-tech militarized commitment new patrol cars. it is to really get the training to build their confidence to get out in the communities not to be afraid, establish that security and stability. but i feel that the lynch pin is really getting the stats and the algorithms and all the data up to members of congress so they truly believe that the funding is necessary so get that job done and it is not going to be easy. so the fbi, department of justice, major organizations seem to have a lot more, i guess, clout in getting that money a lot faster than the local or state level folks. so what would you hope from a

community member that we call our mayors, we call our state legislators and members of congress and say don't forget community oriented policing. >> in many places they are starving the police department making it really, really hard for them to follow my advice to get out of their cars and get to know people. take the city of detroit. i met with a detective there and he was explaining to me not long ago there were 5 nousthouls police officers in detroit. today there are 2,000. how do you patrol a city of that size with less than half of the officers you have long had. how do you walk out your car and see people? you are covering an area that is enormous. and cities across the country have cut costs. for things that seem small but

vital. citizen's academies and other things that are maybe less high profile. but those are investments in the future. what we're doing now in cities around the country is -- like home owner thinking. well, i'll save money. i just won't invest in repairing the roof. you are going to be sorry. we all feel some of that right now. you must invest in that kind of maintenance with the community and support community policing which requires resources. >> we have time for one last question. >> i'm grace bren. a sophomore in the college. i have a question how to prompt a national dialogue with different perspectives. a lot of people now see the value in seeing different perspectives from both law enforcement and race. however a lot of this dialogue is prompted through polarized media outlets from both left and right. how do you see sort of the tone changing national, peopling

seeing both sides? and what leaders can do to sort of change this perspective. >> that is a big, hard question. i'm probably not qualified to answer it well but i'll take a shot anyway i'm here with a microphone. not to wax all idealistic on you. but i think we own the media outlets. they reflect us. they are not creating us. we're creating them. so i think it starts with all of us saying, you know, what i'm going to do? i'm going to try to imagine how others might see the world. the central challenge of human existence, right? i can only experience the world through me but i must work to see it through you. and if think we all start to feel that way in a way we own the media outlets the media is factionalized because of the us. we are responsible if for that. the way we change that is

interact with each other. >> i want to thank the director for coming here and hosting us on this topic. i think it is clearly something that we think reflects our very values as a country and shapes our future. and something that we need to come to grips with both in law enforcement and as a community at large. so we appreciate your coming and adding to this conversation. georgetown is committed to continuing that dialogue. for those who are interested in participating in additional events, tomorrow at 12:45 in healy family center there is a lunch sponsored by our center for social justice. the office of student affairs and office of mission of ministry to continue this conversation on george toup's campus. we really appreciate you coming and talk to us at georgetown today. >> thanks for having me. >> [ applause ]

let me assure my friends on the democratic side that senator boxer did everything she could to change the minds of the majority on opening statements. it has been our feeling on opening statements that quite often and i can remember going as much as two hours on opening statements where witnesses came from far away are not the case with you but in many cases and have to sit and wait. so instead of that we are going to have longer times for questions so that individuals want to talk and combine that with opening statements they can do it. we are using the early bird rule. i will go ahead and start with opening statements. acting administrator mccabe it is very nice to have dwou here. we're looking forward to working with you. three se