does the legislative branch and the judicial branch get to talk to each other. so we look forward to that. i think all of us know that a fair and impartial judiciary is very much a cornerstone to our democratic system of government. the fact that you're here today i think is important. i think the work that you do is obviously very, very important. and not only you resolve disputes between individuals, but also between executive branch, federal government, and legislative branch. and to do that, you need the respect of the citizens and i think you have that. i think you also give respect to the citizens with regard to what is right and what is fair. today is important because we have a chance to talk to each other about issues that are important. one of the things that i want to

commend you for is your work to try to help save money. everybody knows that the government needs money to provide services. but of late, we are trying to make sure that every task of government is completed more efficiently and more effectively than it has been before. money is limited. and you are to be commended for the work that you have done to try to save the taxpayer's dollars. i notice that your request this year, $88.2 is almost a million less than you requested last year, and i can tell you, fellow members up here don't see that happen very often when an agency comes in and asks for less money than they received the year before. we thank you for that. i know you done some cost containment initiatives dealing with technology and personnel and it has paid off.

i know there is small increases that are inflationary themselves. so we look forward to hearing from you about the resources that you need, and any other comments you might have about the judiciary? general and we will pledge to you to work the best we can to make sure you have the resources necessary to carry out your constitutional responsibility. once again, thank you for the work you have done to try to save money and be efficient and effective. in closing, let me say on a personal note i'm from jacksonville florida, and we have the chester bidel end of the court. and every year they have a special occasion on law day. they will be requesting one of the members of the supreme court to come in 2016 to be there for that celebration in jacksonville florida. i hope you will be on the lookout for that invitation. they would love to have you there and i would be honored to introduce you to jacksonville,

florida. >> the chairman has no shame. >> and that has nothing to do with your budget request. we look forward to your testimony, but first let me turn to the active ranking member, mr. bishop. >> thank you, mr. chairman. ranking member sorano would have liked to be here today and he could not and he sends his sincere apologies. i would like to welcome you to our sub committee. as has been said in past years, this is a rare opportunity for our two branchs to interact. because of this sometimes our questions range beyond appropriation issues.

as our nation's highest court, we look to you for insights on what affects the federal judiciary at a whole we have to be careful not to affect the ability to hear cases and dispense justice in a fair and timely manner. we have to be sure also that the supreme court is both the final authority of our constitution, and the most visible symbol of our system of justice with our sufficient resources to under take not just judicial functions, but public information functions as well. we look forward to your testimony. welcome, and whatever we can do to make sure that we have a strong independent well funded judiciary, we want to do that. >> i yield back, mr. chairman.

>> thank you, now let me recognize first justice kennedy for any remarks you might like to make. we'll put your written statement in the record and if you could keep your remarks in the neighborhood of five minutes that will give us time for questions. the floor is yours. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you for your welcome and your greeting. we bring our messages of greeting from our colleagues with us today. i was just going to order -- where they are seating, our jeff, who is counsellor to the president, or counsellor to the chief justice, and kevin cline, our budget and personnel director, and the marshall of the court, and is patricia here? cathy, our public information office. as you indicated, mr. chairman, we're always very careful, very

cautious about budgetary expenditures. and the budget of the supreme court is just a small part of the budget for the courts as a whole. and the budget for the courts as a whole is a very small part of the united states budget. and i think today you will hear a presentation from judge julia gibbons from the sixth circuit. she does a marvelous job, and the budget for the federal judiciary as a whole is important, i think, for the congress to realize that it is not just judges, there is 7900 probation and presentencing. this keeps people on supervised release. it is very cost saving, and over the years in the federal system,

we have a very low resid vision rate for those on release. it is high if you look at it as one-third, but it is quite low compared to the state. this is comfortable effective. the federal courts as a whole, mr. chairman, are a tangible, palpable realization. and they see the judicial system and they admire it, they're inspired by it, and they say you can't have a free economic system without a functioning legal system, so what you do is of immense importance. for our budget, overall, we have a decrease in our own court operations and expenditures. we have almost exactly 1%, a

little over a 1% increase. and that is for mandated increases for inflation and salary increases that are mandated. over half of that, we have absorbed cost cutting in the courts. so we absorbed over half of the mandated increases in the frame work that we have. the court is planning to have, in the year 2016, an electronic

filing system so that all of the papers that are filed with the court will be on electronic filing. we waited, in part, until they could get on that system so we could then take it from there. but of course this also includes filings from state courts and from prisoners. we think this may require an increase in personnel by one or two people, we're not sure. the petitions of which they're, i don't know, it's in your chart, probably in the area of 6,000 a year, are usually handwritten. when this is put on electronic retrievable system, you will have a database from which scholars and analysts can look at the whole system and make

comparisons. how many -- what are the percentage of cases where there is a complaint that is search and seizure. this will be a data dais that will gift us considerable data so we can study our system. we are prepared to answer questions about the specifics, but we thank you for the honor of being here, and justice brier and i are pleased to answer your questions. >> mr. brier, you're recognized. >> i simply just reinforce what my colleague said. you're here and that's a good thing, so are we. i think our problem is not necessarily the budget, but how do you get the american people to understand what their institutions are about? in our case we're not up in some heaven somewhere where we decree

things from on high. we're part of the united states. and you're interested in the mechanics of how we bring this about. trying to explain to people what we do. and you say we're part of you and you're part of us. and that is talking to the people of the united states. so i'm glad to have even a little opportunity too talk about our institution and how it works, and i'm glad you're interested. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman, i just might mention court which you eluded to. was the idea of former chief justice warn burger. he wanted to replicate this structure in which judges and attorneys and law professors and law students get together and talk about stuff, and he did it with the late judge

christianson. and it has been remarkable. it cost the government no money, and in california and boston, they have ends of court, and it made a real visible difference in the civility that we have. >> that is grease because it is there to boost professionalism, and they're doing certainly a great job. as we're getting the questions, i can't help but recall the last time you were here, i asked you how the court decides who they will sent over to testify before us, and i think you rely it is based on merit. so you're back again. let me ask you one of the

thingss that i know there has been a lot of work being done, and in the last ten years i think this committee appropriated $120 million, and things were upgraded. so i just want today ask for a update on how that work is done, if the facade was redone, north and south, is that all complete. at one time there was a big hole in the ground next door, but since i have been back of late, everything looks really nice, can you just five us a update on how that is being done. is that being finished? >> the project for refurbishing of the building is completed.

we came in under budget, and the project has been closed and has been very, very successful. incidentally, the original cost for that was, the original estimate was $170 million. and i talked with your predecessor when i got the message, and he said, i think we've got a problem. it sounds too high to me. we hired our own architect. and worked with him. and in fact my recollection is, he did most of this work pro bono. from the architect we hired, he was from the university of virginia, taught architecture there. we got it down to 120. and the billing came in under that. there were some contract claims. one of the problems was the windows. you look at our win des on the

court. there are these lovely windows. they measured the bottom, the width of the window and the height, they didn't know it's not a rectangle, it's a rectangle, it is a trapezzoid so the window at the top is slightly different and it is brilliant window and that was a $15 million mistake but that is the kind of thing that comes up. and it is finished. we had to replace all of the wires and the air-conditioning. the air-conditioning from 1938 and when it broke there was a fellow retired in virginia and we sent a police car to get him and we had to fix this. so that's been done. the facade, that is a different thing. the time has not been kind to the marble on the building and we are still in progress.

the entrance the -- the west side of the building is finished. but the north and south and the east have yet to be done. >> gotcha. let me -- and we'll have time for a round of questions or two. and the whole security issue the world is getting more dangerous, whether it is internationally or domestically and i know from time to time the supreme court hears controversial cases and i know you spend about $18 million a year on security and on the -- primarily with the supreme court police and i just wanted you to tell us, is that adequate. for instance -- if you are going to hear maybe a highly-charged case, do you have to increase security during the time those

hearings take place. because i was just in jacksonville this morning in the federal courthouse and that is a concern to them in these difficult economic times to make sure we have adequate security for a lot of people in public service. but give us an update on how, is that all being funded and taken care of? >> it has been. a few years ago we projected that we needed more than we ultimately asked for but we are now satisfied that we have the right number. yes, of course in high-profile cases or when threat assessments are going up, we have increased security, but we can do it all within our existing staff. >> thank you. >> mr. dishop is recognized. >> thank you very much. when you were last here we discussed the very real impact

of sequestration. unfortunately, we still need to discuss that. i think most people think of federal grants and programs can dial back operations but that is not the case with the federal judiciary. the courts have a constitutional responsibility and you cannot control the scope of your jurisdiction and you have undertaken strict cost-cutting measures prior to sequestration. i know you can't answer for the entire jurisdiction what concerns do you have if sequestration is continued? >> i haven't heard the testimony for the other agencies that come before you and maybe they say they are all unique and you can't have any sequester for us so i don't want to repeat everything. but number one we can't control our work load, controlled by forces and factors beyond our

direction. number two, we have a tradition, as the chairman indicated, of being very prudent and very cautious. with us, if there were cutbacks, it would mean delayed processing time of cases and it could mean compromises in security. with the courts in general, it is much more significant, as i indicated, we have 7900 probation officers and that means more people are in prison at a greater cost. so sequestration actually works backwards. >> yeah, at some point you cut back enough and keep going you'll discover that unfortunately, in the suts-- in the united states there are crimes and people are arrested and they are tried and you need a judge

and a jury and a courtroom. and if you don't have a trial, the person has to be released. and there we are. so there is a minimum. and if you go towards that minimum and beyond it you will deprive the country of the services that basically are needed to run the government of the united states in this area. >> thank you. i applaud the court's ability to find savings in its budget. your budget for grounds does show a decrease from fy 14 and this is a combination of the construction work and savings from nonrecurring cost associated with implementation of the new financial system. are there increases you are delays but still feel would be sufficient at some point but with regard to your new

financial system which i understand you are leveraging resources from the executive branch and department of interior specifically in the area of payroll and football tracking and ing-- financial tracking and i understand this has reduced contract employees and this is a great step toward efficiency and do you find an improved level of service and would you recommend this to other agencies looking to reduce their costs? >> well i'm not enough of an expert to recommend it to other agencies but our staff tells us it is working very, very well. they like it. they like it better than the outside contractors and we are in association with an agency in the department of interior and which has some similarities to us and it has been the source of -- it has generated most of the savings we've had over last few years.

>> thank you mr. chairman. >> thank you. >> congressman bishop, we're not holding back on anything other than we have the projection that we may need two more people because of the electronic filing we're going to put in place in 2016. >> i must remark, thank you, mr. chairman, the answers from my witnesses are so succinct and concise. >> we don't normally get answers so concise. so mr. comb -- mr. womack. >> i wish they were always this way. thank you for being before us. and we appreciate your commentary commentary. and specifically in the i.t. piece of what is going on in the

supreme court. these technology changes are happening so fast. so fast that we get further and further behind i think in trying to keep up with what technology ought to be doing for us and so i am interested in knowing how well the i.t. upgrades are going and in listening to your testimony, justice kennedy, i got to thinking about our friends over at v.a. and d.o.d., they are having such a difficult time coming up with a platform that can kind of serve a very special group of people to our country, our veterans and getting the two systems to talk to one another. do youen counter that -- do you encounter that conflict in the judicial realm in dealing with matters of information technology? >> my guess is and justice

breyer is more well versed in this than i am. my comparison with other agencies is our problems is predictable. we know there is going to be a trial with a plaintiff and defendant and an appeal with an appellant and appealee and so we don't have to project for uncertainties -- nearly to the extent that other agencies do. and our legal system lends itself very well to the electronic technology. >> in my own mind i classify three different things that technology can do. one of it you heard about, the budgeting and there they have made advantages with other

agencies. and the second is the ability to file briefs and opinions and other things electronically and it is helpful to the lawyers and public because they can get it instantaneously and that takes time and i think it is going along fantastically. and most of the other courts can plug into ours easily. but can we use our technology to inform the public through our website. and i was talking to people from scotus and if we put that in, will people find out. will school teachers be able to use it. i get on the web and i tell my class and it is hard to calculate the figures. we had according to this, we have in a year 271 million, 330

330,000 hits. and ho do you -- and how do you measure it. and the white house is up there -- whatever they are ranking about 2,000 and you are about 8,000 or 5,000 and we're like about 10,000 and the inspector general is like 2 million. so it seems there is interest in getting this information. and how to develop that in a way that is usable over time and encourages the average american to find out, i think that is a big project and i think it will require a lot of experiment back and forth and i said you are in it as much as we are. >> no question. >> and i think also, congressman, and it is anecdotal, and it may just --

only a tentative hypothesis, but i think electronic information has reduced the number of appeals that we have. because lawyers trying a case can just push in bats and rule, who has presumption and immediately comes up an answer, the latest cases and it is easier for lawyers and judges to find the law. >> with the time i have remaining and i'm about out of time at the risk of a philosophical discussion i have strong feelings about our capacity to deal with people with our current prison and local jail overcrowding. it goes all the way from our county levels to the federal system. and it seems to me that our country is -- continues to struggle with just what to do and how to manage -- you can't build enough incarcerating

facilities to deal with the population. it is such an expensive thing. and i was at an event saturday night in my own area and one of my county judges remarked to me there is a chance their jail is going to be shut down and what to do and the opportunities or the solutions to these problems seem to be fewer and fewer. so i just kind of consider myself in the camp of we're going to have to start prioritizing how we deal with this. and the supervised piece that you spoke about, justice kennedy, the supervised probations are a valuable tool to our country and helping manage how many people we have behind bars at a given time. i'll throw that out on the table and yield back my time. >> i think mr. chairman, that the correction system is one of the most over-looked

misunderstood institutions functions that we have in our entire government. in law school i never heard about corrections. lawyers are fascinated with the guilt and innocence and adjudication process and once that is over we have no interest in corrections. doctors know more about correction system and psychiatrists than we do. nobody looks at it. california, my home state had 187,000 people in jail at cost at over $30,000 a prison. compared the amount they gave to school children that was $3500 a year. and this is about comparison of apples and oranges in a way. but this idea of total incarceration just isn't working. it is not -- and it is not humane.

the federal government built -- what do they call them -- super-max prisons with isolation cells. prisoners, we had a case before us a few weeks ago, the prisoner was in a isolation cell for 25 years, and solitary confinement drives men mad. even dr. minnet had his tools in 105 north and even he lost his mind and we have to look at this system that we have. the europeans have systems for difficult recalcitrant individuals and they have in a group of three and four and they

have human contact and it seems to work much better. but we haven't given nearly enough study and nearly enough thought, nearly enough investigative resources to looking at our correction system, in many respects i think it is broken. >> just one thing because i want to focus on one word that i think you said, which to my mind is the direction of an answer and that is the word "prioritize." fine. who will do the prioritizing? do you think you will do it here. you do it crime by crime. you find some that deserve a little and some that deserve a lot. and you can't look at it individually. you want to have mandatory minimums. i've said publicly that i think that is a terrible idea and i've given reasons which i'll spare you.

if you want individual judges to do it, always, completely you run the risk of nonuniformity and we've set up parole and sentencing commissions and mandatory minimums. it is a huge topic. and is it worth your effort, or mine, to work out ways of prioritizing? i think it is. i think it is a big problem for the country. and i can't do anything in the next minute or 30 seconds or the next two minutes. except say prioritize. and i hope you do follow up and examine the variety of ways that there are of trying to prioritize and then work out one that is pretty good. >> thank you, gentlemen. >> thank you. mr. rigell. >> thank you, mr. chairman and justices. i join all of my colleagues in expressing our appreciation for

the work you do and serving on the court. this is going into my fifth year of serving in the house of representatives and my first year in the house of appropriations and to see this on my calendar and know this is coming up, and as mr. comb acsaid to be an -- womack said to be an honor here. i would like to visit the electronic system, and i suppose, i'm not familiar with it if we go to electronic and i suppose that it is the physical document being received in court and was any of this commercially available and was this written for the supreme court, the software we'll be pivoting to? justice kennedy? >> i can't answer that. the lawyers have available to

them commercial systems for filing their briefs and so forth. so they are out there and there is some competition there. as far as the court side, how does the court manage it? i'm not sure there was outside contractors or not. >> i just learned from the deputy, he said we developed it all in-house. >> okay. that is helpful. justice breyer, i noted and was intrigued and appreciative of your comments discussing your desire and the court's desire to get the work of the court out to the american people and to engage them in this. is there a designated effort or a continued effort and to the extent that you are familiar with -- and by the way, i thought some of your staff -- and i see they are here with us but to see the two of you engaging the committee, i think it is laudable. i respect and appreciate that. you may not be dialed in on all

of the nuances of it and the effort to keep the website new and to develop an app for the supreme court and maybe there is one and maybe i need to be educated about it and this idea of engaging the american public and i applaud you for this and it needs to be done because we only have a healthy republic if our fellow americans are knowledgeable about what is taking place. can you comment on that and run with it if you like to? >> it is my favorite topic. >> okay. >> it is particularly hard for us. you at least can say -- we disagree about a lot of stuff in congress. but there are elections to resolve it. we have to say, why should nine unelected people be making decisions that affect you in an important way. and by the way half of the time

we're divided half of the time we're unanimous. but when we are divided, 5-4, 25% of the time, we are wrong. and these decisions might be wrong and they effect you. why should they effect you. and we have answers. and so did lincoln and james hamilton and others. and hannenberg foundation has films and teaching devices. justice kennedy gave a speech about this years ago which in part, led to justice o'connor developing i-civics and it has millions of hits and he's trying to do the same thing. they are trying to -- in boston at this moment, in one week they will open a senator kennedy's institute and that is a model of the senate and there

are hand-held computers, which will make you a senator, if you are the school kid and give you problems and learn how the senate works and maybe that will go out over the internet and they need one for the house. and i think it is enthusiastic and it is possible to use the devices that we are now to teach -- when scalia and i have done and go to texas and talk to a large number of school kids and they get interested, and they say that we have differents of opinion that are -- differences of opinion that are not personal and they see agreement is more important than the differences. fabulous. and there you see then enthusiasm in my voice. >> i see the passion. >> i think it is a great and necessary task. >> one of the things we found congressman, is that the

information revolution has put law professors back into the forward. it used to be that we relies on law reviews on cases and it would take about a year for the law review to come out. but now we have commentary within 24, 48, 72 hours on the case by experts in cyber security law, in criminal law and constitutional law. and these are available, first of all to the legal profession and the academy and second of all to people generally interested. there are blogs on the supreme court and there are -- as i indicated, blogs on different subjects. they are quite detailed and quite interesting. my law clerks read them a lot. i frankly don't read them. but the availability of information and, as justice breyer indicated, the interest of the citizen and the ability

of the citizen is increasing because of the information revolution. >> yes. thank you, both. mr. chairman. >> when you talk about educateing the public and the question comes up, people suggest that maybe the court should televise oral arguments, that people could see first-hand what goes on. and i know that the court has historically rejected that. i think it was justice sotomayor before she went on the bench thought it would be a good idea to televise and then since she went on, decided it was not. do you think there will be a day when oral arguments will be on television? do you think that is good or not good in the context of educate

educating the folks? could you comment on that. >> the question is do i think we'll be a day -- it sounds like we're more or less behind the times. it is a matter of history. >> if you reject that? >> if you had english-style debating and debate and you had the topic and had to be pro or con and you could make a lot of arguments. number one it teaches. we teach what the constitution is, we teach what the rights are, we are teachers so why don't we go on the television. and it would be good for lawyers that haven't been before us before and want to see the dynamic of an argument and it is open and the public could see that we spend a lot of time on patent cases and railroad reorganization cases and so forth so that we have a

technical commitment. and they could see, we hope an argument that is rational and respect respectful. when we're in disagreement our institution -- our institutional tradition is not to make our colleagues look bad, it is to make the institution look good. and part of that is the way we conduct oral arguments. we're concerned that the presence of a tv camera or the knowledge that we're going to be on tv would affect the way we behave and it is annin sidious dynamic to think that one of my colleagues is asked a question so he or she could look good on tv. i don't want that dynamic. we would prefer a dynamic in which we are listening to each other and listening to counsel

and we think the television would detrablgt -- detract from that. so you could make good arguments either way. but i think i can speak for most of my colleagues do not think television should be in the courtroom. we have audio available and the transcripts are available. the press does a very good job of covering this. the press has the advantage that they know three, four, six months in advance what the issues are. they can prepare the background and have pictures of the litigants and so forth and they are all ready to write the story depending on what we write. so we have good press coverage as well. but i think cameras in the courtroom are not a good idea. >> justice breyer? >> no he states the problem. but, by the way, the oral arguments, like 2%.

most of what we take in and most of the decision-making is on the basis of written briefs. the first thing, if the public saw that on television, they would think that is the whole story. it's -- it is a tiny part. and the he had second thing, it is human nature. we relate to people we see. we relate to them more than a word on paper or a statistic. it is nice and it is good. but the two people having their case in the court there isn't like one is a bad one and one is a good one and we're not deciding on the basis for them, we are deciding a rule of law that applyies to 300 million people not in the courtroom. that is invisible on television. but then when you come down to it i am fairly, i guess im --

im im impervious to get an answer that i do and the reporters are used to it and they say oh, god. and nevertheless, and they do it. and my friends in the press tell me, you see if you do that the first time somebody takes that out of context and puts that on the evening news and particularly someone who isn't one of our regulars ant doesn't understand what is going on. and now all of that kind of thing is the kind of thing, despite the good arguments the other way, that make us cautious. and that make us conservative with a small seat. we're trustees for an institution that had a long existence before us and we sincerely hope will have a long existence after. and the worst thing that any of us feels he or she could do is to hurt that institution. and that makes us awfully cautious. now all of that is the

psychology at play. and you say will it eventually happen? yeah sure. because a generation will grow up that unlike me and unlike him doesn't even know what it was like before things like that took place. but i think that is the best explanation that is in my mind and -- we both... >> thank you for that. and i'm not one who is called for having tvs in the courtroom but i know somebody wanted to ask that question and so i wanted to ask it. but let me ask you about the website very quick. and you mentioned the hits you are getting and i know when you had the health care arguments, i understand there was a whole lot of interest in that. did the website hold up pretty well did it ever crash like the other websites from time to time? >> we have occasional problems like anyone does but they are

not that many and few and far between. >> not overloading. certainly. thank you. mr. bishop. >> thank you very much. thank you mr. chairman for asking the question i wanted to ask about transparency in the court and televising the proceedings and i appreciate your answer very much. as in past years ranking member mr. serrano continue to inquire about the minorities in the supreme court and there are prize, plum positions for youngsters coming out of law school. and i know there is a improvement to help for minorities into these positions and that is bearing fruit and are there efforts underway at the supreme court? >> i think they are beginning to bear fruit.

and we're conscious -- we're conscious of it. the district courts and court of appeals are more open because they are apr the country and take from local schools. some of us tend to take from -- the ivy league schools. not that they are without their pool of minorities -- minority applicants, but we are conscious of it and it is important and it is a valid question. >> when i started on the court, i don't know the figures in lower courts but i mean in my own case, it might have started out that i had to look especially hard. i don't now. it is not a problem. i don't think -- i mean, at least in my case. maybe that has been logical. but it seems me, if i'm at all

typical, the problem has diminished significantly. really significantly. and i could try to do some counting but i can't in my head. i think of the individual people. >> there are 2014 and we had 15% minority clerks on the supreme court. >> thank you. let me move to another subject area. i know that at previous hearings we've discussed the possibility of applying the code of judicial conduct to the supreme court justices that make recusal decisions by the justices more transparent for the public. currently the code of judicial conduct applies to all of the federal judges but as all -- is only advisory for the supreme court justices. do you have any proposals for that since we last discussed the issue last year and do you

believe that the code of judicial conduct should apply to supreme court justices and accusals should be more transparent? >> you prompt me to go back and do some research. but my first response to your question is that recusals are largely governed by statute and by principals not necessarily part of the code of conduct. now there is an argument that -- the reason for recusals should be more apparent. i'm not sure about that. and in the rare cases when i recuse, i never tell my colleagues, oh, i'm recusing because my son works for this company and it is a very important case for my son. why should i say that. that is almost like lobbying. so in my view, the reason for

recusals should never be discussed. it is obvious sometimes when company a. is before the court and our public disclosure statement indicates that the judge owns stock in company a. and that is fairly obvious. >> i have one thing -- two things. one is we all have or access to the volumes of the judicial code of ethics and having been there for some time now, 20 years, i would say i have not seen an instance of recusal by me or anybody elsewhere the judge doesn't make sure it is consistent with the -- the problem -- the problem is consistent with the judicial code of ethics. to say it is advisory as opposed to compulsory is words, it doesn't make a difference in practice. so why not? i'm nervous about this. the supreme court is different from the court of appeals and a

district court. and that is true by the way with television too interestingly enough. why is it different here? because in the court of appeals if i recuse myself or in the district court they can get another judge. judges is fungable. they are not in the supreme court. you can't get a substitute. and there isn't any lawyer that you can do that but it is conceivable that a lawyer might think of bringing up an issue in order to have a pam more favor-- a pam more favorable. i know no such lawyer but it is conceivable but we have to be careful because unlike those in the lower courts, i can't think -- well in case of doubt recuse yourself. no. i have a duty to sit as well as a duty not to sit. and more over, i have a lot on

my schedule. i have a lot to do, as do you, as do others. and trying to make this into some kind of big issue i would prefer not. because i mean i would think no is the answer. i have to make those decisions, and i will do it the best i can do and according to the code of ethics and all of that leads me to say no, i don't want to give my answers if i don't want to and it is a perm decision and and i will follow the code and that is the best way to run this institution. >> thank you. mr. womack. >> only one more. looking for insight here. to the credit of the justices, they get out in our country and they speak quite frequently around the country to different organizations. i know justice scalia has been in my district already once this

year and coming back in another month for another presentation as a guest lecturer. in many cases, you gentlemen are talking to law students and people that aspire some day to maybe sit where you sit. what trends are you seeing -- in the medical community, i understand we're having trouble finding private care physicians just the generalist type family practice physician. so most of them now are specializing because that is -- that is where a lot of the money is. but what trends are you seeing in our law schools now with regard to the new lawyer, as it were? are they -- is the legal community blessed with a -- with a pretty good crop of young talented minds or are there any trends there that you can share with me that would raise any

concerns? >> i'm not sure. my own background was private practice in a small town which was immensely rewarding. now the paradigm for most law students as they think of their career is a huge firm where they specialize in the idea of counseling and meeting with clients and taking each case one by one. and that is no longer the paradigm that they look forward to. i sense a change in this. law schools are concerned about costs. there is a big argument whether there should be three years of law school or maybe cut it back to two years, which i would not applaud. i think that would be a bad idea. but there is a real cost factor. and i try to tell students that law can be immensely rewarding

as an ethical undertaking, not just as a way to make a living. and i think these young students are beginning to be conscious of that. i hope. >> any insight, justice breyer. >> to get insight into that, you have to talk to the dean of law school. judging by my law clerks, there is no deterioration of quality. i hear from the deans the same as justice kennedy does. money, and in certain areas they price themselves out of the market and maybe that means you have fewer people who are applying. and over all things like that adjust over time. specialization -- major problem. major. it is so complicated. when my dad went to law school, he studied contacts, torts and

now they have everything under the sun and that is because there is a demand for everything under the sun. luckily, i do not have the difficult job of being the dean of a law school. i have probably what is an easier job. >> one of the things happening in law schools is they do have almost custom-made programs so that you can take your degree in law and and astronomy and law and medicine and law and the press and law and music and law and the performing arts. and this is good. this enables other disciplines to influence what is being taught in law school but it is a complicated world out there. >> i say personally, because having grandchildren now, the cost of this stuff is amazing. and what are we going to do about that? i don't know. i don't know.

it's a problem. >> finally mr. chairman i think i say this every year, these two gentlemen before us, but having a wife that is a trial court assistant at the state level for 30 -- gosh i don't know, 34 or 35 years now i have a great amount of respect for the enterprise that these gentlemen represent and once again, it is a great honor to have you back before us today and i yield back. >> thank you. >> mr. rigell. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and my final question, i'm going to take us back just a little bit. justice kennedy, i was intrigued by your remarks early on and you referenced -- i'm not sure if it is an organization or a process like a dinner that has been -- had an impact on the staff or

the court itself and i don't know anything about it but i do know that where we are as a nation that in some is ways we're off -- we're off the track and as much as caustic tone has overtaken public square and it makes it difficult to discern and identify the facts and then to come to some common solutions for some of the challenges that we face as a country. so you seemed excited about it and i would like to hear more about it. civility is not weakness and so i would like to hear more about it because you were really bullish on it. >> the ins of court were the subject the chairman mentioned and these are in cities and small towns around the country

and they consist of a group of lawyers, judges, law students law professors and they get together and they put on programs, how to cross-examine an expert medical -- a medical expert on how to give a closing argument in a criminal case and how to make an argument to the court after peels s -- court of appeals and then the judges and the attorneys sit down and have dinner together and they sit down and tell them how they can do a better job and the attorneys tell the judge how to do a better job and it is remarkable for more civility. >> is this a recent development or has it been around for decades. >> i would say 30 years. but when chief justice burger mentioned it and it took off

like a rocket and he was right. but this whole idea of civility we are judged around the world as the guardians and the trustees of freedom and the verdict of freedom is still out. people are looking at us and looking at our democracy and our civic discourse and they are looking at our commitment to rationality and to progress. and i'm not sure they always see the right thing. >> i'm sure of that. >> the ancient athens took an oath and the oath was they would participate in civic affairs in a rational way so that athens would be more beautiful and more spledity and free for our children than it is for us. and athens failed, because they failed to obey that oath. >> that is instructive.

>> i've been there for 20 years and i've attended an awful lot of conferences of the court and we've had some controversial cases and i'll tell the law students and i'll say i've never heard a voice raised in anger in that conference and never once heard a judge in that conference say something mean or degrading of someone else. it is highly professional. i say to the law student we get on well and disagree about something. if you want to win your case, don't get emotional. why not? why not? you'll lose it. people say how emotion you are. but that is the law. that is lawyers. and it works different when uyou are different to people. and how do you get that across? we have annenberg doing that

across stories and we have i-civics and we have the carnegie institute and the kennedy institute and so you get behind them. and what can you do with those films? get ken burns and say why can't we have those films, like the indians and they are driven out of oklahoma and into georgia and despite the supreme court, let's have president eisenhower taking those 1,000 paratroopers from fort bragg and flying them into little rock so those black children can go into the white school. let's go through the few cases that illustrate dramatically and visually what it means to live in a society of 310 million different people who help stick together because they believe in a rule of law. and a rule of law means the

opposite of the arbitrary. and you are part of that just as much as we are. all right. and so are they. and you say, partly, all right. so there is a lot that can be said. and there is a lot that can be done. and i cannot agree with you more in the importance of doing it. >> i thank you both. my time has expired. >> we tell people, congressman, when justice breyer and my colleagues go to events with students, say, look, the constitution doesn't belong to a bunch of lawyers, it is yours. the authors of the constitution were guardians and institutions have to remember this. institutions have -- have their own visibility and their own reputation and their own duty to

inspire others to believe in the system of democracy and the three branches of government that we have. and as my remarks indicated earlier, when we have disagreements and in difficult cases, our mission is to make the court look good, not to make our colleagues look bad. >> thank you very much. i do appreciate the comments. and mr. chairman, i yield back. >> it reminds me of what benjamin franklin supposedly said after the meetings were taking place, that our country was getting started, and i understand a lady asked him sir, what have you given us, and franklin said i've begin you a republic if can you keep it and here we are 200 years later. and let me ask a quick question.

let me ask, justice kennedy, from time to time, and i don't know if it is still a concern you asked about the politically charged issues being heard and decided by the supreme court. is that -- could you explain what that concern is and does justice breyer share that concern? >> it's not a novel -- or new for justices to be concerned that they are making so many decisions that affect a democracy and we think a responsible and efficient responsive legislative branch will alleviate some of that pressure. we routinely decide cases

involving federal statutes and we say if this is wrong congress will fix it. but then we hear that congress can't pass a bill one way or the other. and that there is gridlock. and some people say, well that should affect the way we interpret the statutes. that seems to me a wrong proposition. we have to assume that we have three fully functioning branches of the government, government that are committed to proceed in good faith and with good will toward one another to resolve the problems of this republic. >> same thing. mr. bishop you have another question. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman and i will hopefully be brief. i notice that the court's case load is much lower compared to previous years. and the current range of cases is literally half of what it was

ten years ago. does the court have a target number of cases that you -- that you target each year. and let me go back to another subject. you talked about the new crop of young lawyers coming out of law school. when i wekt to law -- i went to law school because i saw the law as an effective way of promoting social change. i came out of law school in 1971 and i was a part of the civil rights movement and interpreting the civil rights acts of 1964. and so i'm very sensitive to the way that the law can be used to perfect social change and has been and the way the constitution has evolved. but there are reports from judges all across the country that the recession has not only

caused a spike in the number of pro se litigants but has negatively affected the parties and the courts themselves. do you believe our justice system loses its effectiveness when litigants are unable to afford legal counsel involving shelter and livelihood and if so can you give us some thoughts of how the problem can be remedied with more resources being allocated to -- to probono or legal aid services. my major piece of litigation in civil rights was on behalf of 6,000 african-american inmates in the georgia state prison in a desegregated system,ock paying the -- occupying the same space

as 4,000 white inmates and in a case and the south district of georgia back in the '70s which resulted in a total change of the -- of the criminal justice housing system and the system as a whole, even overcrowding. it was about pro se and i was a cooperating attorney and i handled that case and they as a pro-bono firm backed it up and so it was no charge to the litigants. but there are not that many of those kind of opportunities with the economic recession and with pro se git lants in -- litigants and how do you deal with that and make sure our justice system is really not turning on

capacity and the financial resources of the litigants. >> as to just number of cases, the first part of your question, is there an optimal amount that we strive for. we take the cases where we think our guidance is needed. we wait for court of appeals or state courts to be in conflict and optimally we should have 100 cases a year. when i first came we had something 160 or 180 just far too many. the cases we do get now, i think anecdotally, i haven't seen studies on it, are somewhat more difficult. the patent case i think two terms ago on the patent ability on dna and i read all summer long about it and justice thomas wrote the opinion, so i

think our cases are more technical. and the 78 cases that we have last year they exhausted us. but optimally we can handle about 100. but we wait until our guidance is needed. on the broader issue of civil cases, i saw numbers of unrepresented parties in civil litigation is increasing because of the factors you mention. the congress has enacted bankruptcy laws which are i think, well suited to -- the bankruptcy laws are good. and so i don't think there is any real problem in the bankruptcy area. our bankruptcy judges are just very very good. and that system i think is working. but in the area of standard civil litigation i think there is a problem with unrepresented

parties. and law schools can and problemly should do more-- can and probably should do more and focus on the smaller cases and not the bigger stuff. >> on the number of cases, there is a big decline beginning really in the late '80s. now the way we select cases almost entirely, not completely but almost entirely is you look to see if the lower courts came to different conclusions on the cases of federal law. now if they do or they don't. and if they do we'll probably hear it. and there are other things contrary to law, but that is the main thing. and i have not noticed any tendency not to take cases. and sandra o'connor should say there and say we have to take cases. and now he sits there and says can't we take more cases. so the conflicts are less.

now why? in my own explanation, which has no particular validity is that you have seen, in the '70s and '80s, what you saw, and from 1960s when i was a law clerk, 60s, 70s, 80s, tremendous civil rights laws, statutes, title seven, a civil rights revolution, a revolution beyond that in the way that the first ten amendments apply to the states for the lawyer, every word in a statute in every major case is the subject of new argument. so you pass statute with 50000 words you'll get 50,000 cases. suddenly there have been in congress a kind of increased legislation and major statutes and those statutes are law and they have many words. so we can predict whether i'm right or not. because if i'm right then there is a lag. you see there is a lag because

they all have -- five or seven years from now we'll see the number of cases in the supreme court growing because those words will be capable of different definitions and judges will have reached different conclusions. i don't know if that is right. it is a theory. on the representation, when i did look at numbers a few years ago, we are way behind in compared to, say, england or france. in england there is an appropriation. and i doann't know where it is on your list. and that is a problem. and in england where they had a very good legal representation in civil matters, they are running under budget pressure and the lawyers are all worried there are cuts and there are. in france they have a different idea, which is interesting. the bar itself provides a lot more free representation here but there is a price to be paid. the price to be paid is that the individual lawyers and the bar

will be ruthless in segregating the sheep from the goats. so if you go to a lawyer you will get your free representation if you can't the cost of having him and/or her and the colleagues going through your case and making a ruthless decision about whether they think you can really win it. but the result of that is that the people they think they have a good shot they will get the free representation, much more even than in england. >> thank you. >> well, thank you. and i think it is important to recognize that the significance of the work that you all do is certainly not proportionate to the budget that you submit every year. but we do thank you for the work you do to make sure that you are spending the money wisely. and thank you for being here. i think we all appreciate your wisdom and insight.

i know i always learn something and -- on a personal note, i want to thank you, publicly a couple of years ago when we concluded most of the business i was troubled by a quote that i had read in law school that i never know who -- i diabetedn't know who the author of the statement it always struck me as interesting because it went like this versatility of circumstance often mocks a natural desire for definitiveness. and i ask, since we didn't have anything else to do, i asked you two gentlemen who said that and where and i think -- i think justice breyer said why don't you google it. i said i already did. but when you think about that statement, i think bob dylan may have said it differently. he wrote a song called "things have changed ." and i can understand that a little better but the good news is that because of the cooperation of you two

gentlemen, i now know that felix frankfurter said that. and he said that in a case called wiener versus u.s. or u.s. versus wiener that was interesting because i think president eisenhower was the president and he wasn't supposed to do something but he did it anyways. and therefore felix frankfurter said versatility of circumstance often mocks a natural desire. so he did what he wasn't supposed to do. and justice frankfurter said it very well, things have changed. so i always learn something. we thank you so much. it is an honor for us to have you before us. thank you for the work that you do for this country and this meeting is now adjourned. >> thank you.

and we're just a few minutes away from fbi director james comey on capitol hill today testifying about his agency's budget proposal. he'll be at the house appropriations subcommittee and

we'll have live coverage here on c-span3 in just about seven or eight minutes from now. the house and the senate working today on the 2016 budget. in fact, the senate at this moment taking a vote on an amendment on that. we had a chance earlier today to speak with the capitol hill reporter about what is going on. >> kevin sir rell ycirilli, let's begin with what is happening in the house. what is the strategy on the budget blueprint? explain the two votes. >> greta thanks for having me. there are two amendment votes today in the house that would obviously impact the budget. the first amendment would essentially -- votes for the budget blueprint. the second is a -- a second amendment for the defense funding. a lot of republicans feel in order to get the whole party behind the budget plan, they're going to have to increase the defense spending. this has become a sticking point, if you will, among the different factions among the

republican party. now, i anticipate both amendments will pass today, provided -- barring any last minute political theater. but it will be a very busy day in the house today as two key amendment votes are set for the budgeet. >> so what does that mean then? what happens next with the house republican budget and how they reconcile that with the senate's -- the republican budget on the senate side? >> that's the $6 trillion question, right? i mean so i think what, you know, the -- what comes next again is a larger argument about defense funding as well as debates that we have already seen greta, like the affordable care act or obamacare as it is typically known. debates about sequestration as well. all the typical infighting we have seen between the two party and the more centrist republicans will be on display during that reconciliation period. and then, you know, not to mention once they do reconcile it going to president obama's

desk where there will be even more partisan politics and bickering regarding the budget. >> what is the democrat strategy here in the house and the senate? >> democrats maintained for months they're not going to touch anything on obamacare. they have been insistent in some of them at least, in retrieving some of the budget increases through defense funding. it is a tip partisan line, that things for republicans this is an opportunity for them having control of congress to really be able to pass the budget which is something that we heard them say for a while that they would be able to do. so it is a huge first test for them to see if they're able to do that. and i think politically speaking they really -- the republican party would probably agree that they really do want to pass a budget to show to the american people that they can govern. >> there is a rare moment of bipartisanship on capitol hill. and that is the speaker of the house and the leader of the democratic party nancy pelosi, have come together on a

so-called doc fix. can you explain that and when would that get a vote? >> doc fix is a wonky issue, but i would expect a vote some time this week. you're right. this is a huge bipartisan moment for pelosi and boehner. this is something, by the way, that we have been -- this has been going on for a while. but to see it come to fruition was something interesting. but you're right, a rare moment of bipartisanship. i think something of perhaps if you read in between the tea leaves a signal from leader pelosi that she is willing, to some extent, to work with the republicans being in the minority. so a really interesting political display of political action this week from democrats in the house. >> kevin cirilli, finance reporter with the hill.

appreciate it. >> thanks for having me. >> you too. you too. and here we go we're live on capitol hill, awaiting fbi director james comey. he'll be in shortly, we think, testifying today about his agency's budget proposal. this is the house appropriations subcommittee. our live coverage getting under way now and we expect this hearing to begin very shortly. and as we wait for this hearing with fbi director comey to begin, let's show you a portion of this morning's "washington journal." one thing the house is working on is what new authority to give the president in the fight against isis and other terrorist

groups. and that subject came up this morning. >> want to welcome to our table this morning congressman frank lobiando, republican of new jersey, serving 11th term representing the second district services on armed services and the intelligence committee member. i want to get your thoughts initially on the president deciding to keep troop levels the same in afghanistan. >> well, i think this is minimum of -- that we can do. and on a bipartisan basis, at least from the intelligence committee, where we have been able to hear and understand the consequences of the pullout, which means we go dark which means we cannot support any intelligence activities because the intelligence activities are dependent on the military being able to give them the cover for the protections that they need. and all the great work that has been done, all the assets that

have been developed, all the information that we have gathered that have helped us keep the enemy in check would just be, like turning off a switch. so i think that intelligence community has been pressing the case with the president. republicans and democrats have been pressing the case with the president. i think the afghan president has made the case as well, somebody who is clearly different than karzai, and i'm not sure that 10,000 is enough, but it is certainly better than zero. >> okay, so the front page of "the new york times" this morning has exactly sort of what you're talking about that the -- part of the reason the president has agreed to keep the troop levels the same is because the cia has two important bases in afghanistan, and if troops were drawn down, it would impact the bases. and that cia would not be able to operate and collect the intelligence, but also to the drone strikes they have been

doing to go after the taliban and pakistan. >> right. now, understand cia had way more than two bases. these bases are located essentially on the afghan/pakistan border. i've been to that region of the world numerous times. i've been personally to almost each one of those forward bases. and it was with a great deal of angst and anxiety that the cia has been forced to close down a number of those bases. each one is really key and essential with a specific focus of how to deal with the terrorists and the bad guys. but we were down to the two most critical bases. and if the president had gone through with his plan to zero out, there was no way the cia could keep them open and it would just be horrible. i mean we would be turning afghanistan back over to the taliban and al qaeda. and essentially going back a long time. >> what can you tell the

american people you serve on intelligence committee, you get classified briefings but what can you tell our viewers about the threat of the taliban to afghanistan and to the region? >> well it is enormous. and just by way of brief discussion, the house intelligence committee, it is the smallest committee in congress, it is called the select committee because it is not picked in the usual way. it is a pick of the leadership, the speaker or the minority leader. we're responsible for authorizing the programs of the 16 intelligence agencies which protect the country. and then the oversight of those agencies and the operations that they conduct. of course, the big ones are cia and nsa and fbi but there are 16 altogether. and as we look at afghanistan, we have seen where we have done a lot to take out top operational al qaeda taliban leaders. but they have morphed.

they have understood what has happened. and they split into these affiliates which we have seen are very very effective. and they're vying with other terrorist organizations, isil primarily, to prove who is the toughest, who is the most barbaric, who is the most effective from a terrorist standpoint. so this threat is enormous. and when you look at the pakistan/afghanistan area, and what taliban and al qaeda have been able to do to be able to lose that capability would be terrible. >> by the way, we're -- reuters reporting early this morning u.s. drone strike kills 11 pakistani taliban in afghanistan. what is your reaction to that? >> well, that's what we need to be doing. i think if you look at the number of strikes that have been taken over the last -- >> come to order. this is a privilege to have with

us today the director of the fbi. jim comey. glad to have you with us. i want to take a moment to recognize our newest member mr. palazzo from mississippi. we're delighted to have you with us, steve. i know you, under the circumstances, rather not be, but we miss alan a great deal. glad to have you. very pleased to have with us chairman of the full committee, mr. rogers good to have you with us. and mr. fattah, we're going to go ahead and crank it up. this is a particularly appropriate today to have you with us, mr. chairman, because the 9/11 commission has issued its findings this morning and we'll talk a little bit about that today, but we're privileged to have you with us here in front of our subcommittee to present your 2016 budget request. it is a very important complex, critical mission that the fbi has to perform.

we have on this subcommittee over the years helped the fbi fulfill its mission, you're the lead agency in domestic anti-terrorism, counterintelligence, national security efforts vital law enforcement effort and as you mentioned the other day, i had -- i knew this instinctively, but you made the connection with me, once criminals got a hold of automobiles and can cross state lines and someone can hold up a bank in three different states in the same day, it suddenly made the role of the fbi in fighting crime very, very important to the congress in the 1920s and '30s. and your role has only grown over the years, and particularly in light of the 9/11 attacks, the growing danger of cybercrime, the ongoing cyberwarfare that is taking place and visibly, against the united states, and private industry. your role in fighting human

trafficking and financial fraud is just vitally important. and we have responsibility to help make sure you can do your job and be sure that our constituents' hard earned tax dollars are wisely spent. we want to be sure in the budget request that you submit today on behalf of the fbi and the president that the subcommittee wants to be certain that our -- that we scrubbed your budget and done everything we can to make certain that again our constituents' hard earned tax dollars are wisely and prudently spent. particularly on a lot of tremendous budget pressures we face in this very difficult budget year. the report that was issued this morning by the 9/11 commission, we're pleased to see the progress is the fbi has made in transforming itself as well as -- in light of the continuing challenges posed by terrorism and other global threats on particularly thank the members

of that commission, ed mees, former attorney general, tim romer, former congressman and bruce hoffman, from georgetown university, for -- this commission was put together at the instigation of my predecessor frank wolf and the report is comforting to see the progress that the fbi has made in transforming itself in light of the 9/11 attacks. we'll be working through some tough questions in today's hearing, mr. director, and we want to make sure that the investments we make in the fbi have a real impact on enhancing national security and reducing crime. we deeply appreciate your service to the nation. and i would like to recognize mr. fattah for any comments he would like to make. >> let me thank the chairman and thank the director for being with us today. you said recently that we have -- in every single state, the bureau has active

investigations around terrorism. and obviously it is a major concern given the activities taking place in all parts of the world. part of the big discussion in the 9/11 commission was whether or not how we kind of recalibrated ourselves to deal with these challenges because it was about catching people after they had done something wrong. in the case of terrorism, it is really a much different approach where you're trying to prevent something catastrophic from happening by people who in many instances had no desire to get away. so it is a much different you know, circumstance. so it would be interesting as we, you know, talk about cybercrime, which is a big deal, and, you know, a lot of these other issues obviously this is something that from a national government perspective the decision of the commission was

that we should not have a kind of a terrorism only entity that the fbi was quite capable of dealing with this challenge. and the bureau has proven to be. but you also faced criticism from some of the processes that you had to utilize, which in some cases, the question of whether or not people who are espousing ideas or taking no action, you know, where they lie in fault. would be interested in your comments. obviously your budget and the appropriations, the committee as it has in the past will do everything necessary to make sure that you are -- have the support needed to protect the country. because you're really not trying to protect the fbi. trying to have the fbi protect the nation and so we have a responsibility to find the resources, but i will be looking forward to your comments on the subjects that i raised. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you. >> privileged to recognize the chairman of the full committee,

mr. rogers from kentucky. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. director, welcome. and to your staff. i was looking at your resume your work record prosecutor. i did that for 11 years myself on the state level state district level. so i commend you for your education and your experience in that regard. pardon my raspy throat. i have caught it. the chairman rightly said that fbi has a critical mission in protecting the homeland. and frankly the charge of -- to the fbi has changed absolutely dramatically over the last decade or so. when i first came to congress in 1981, you know we were focused on catching the armed robbers

and all of that. but now, it is such a sophisticated and complicated new charge that you have dealing with counterterrorism hostile foreign intelligence agencies, espionage, domestic and foreign cyberthreats, cyber is a new word. now it is a new challenge. and then of course, the traditional catching of crooks and thieves and dangerous criminals here at home, particularly drug related. and especially prescription pill attacks that the cdc says is a national epidemic. so you have a hefty load. and you were going to try to

give you what we can afford to help you fight all of these charges. and it won't be enough. but there is a limit on what we can appropriate. we are confronting an extremely difficult budgetary climate here. in fact, we're debating today on the floor the budget, which is severe and strict. it stays within the -- the sequestered levels. so we're not dealing with a lot of new money, hardly any. it is extremely important for you and others like your agency which relies so heavily on intelligence information to leverage and maximize the partnerships forged at the local, state and even international level to ensure that every penny the taxpayer

spends is targeted efficient and effective. in fact last week i visited with the interpol headquarters over in france. my second visit with them. and in the last several years that agency has grown. when i was there the first time, 10 or 15 years ago, the difficulty i saw at that time that our agencies over here were not participating in interpol as they should. now they are. and it is imperative that we continue that work with interpol as i'm sure you will agree. you have been taking strides in recent years to streamline and optimize your intelligence components. but i think we can all agree that much work is still to be

done there. last year you requested and we granted permission to restructure the fbi's intelligence program to more seamlessly integrate intelligence and operations and i hope you can provide us with an update on those efforts in a minute. particularly as we all begin to assess the report evaluating the fbi's implementation of the 9/11 commission recommendations. finally, i want you to provide the committee with some information about how the bureau is working to combat the threat of home grown domestic extremism. isis has demonstrated very sophisticated recruiting techniques through the internet and social media and by some accounts as many as 20,000 fighters have traveled from 90

different can countries to fight in syria including some 150, i understand, from the u.s. that we know about. it is imperative that we work to prevent the radicalization and recruitment of american citizens who could later return to the u.s. and cause us harm. and i know the fbi has an important role to play in that regard. we would like to hear about it. so mr. director, thank you for your work, and your career and we thank you for your dedication to your country and your service to your country. and all that you command. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you. >> thank you mr. chairman. director comey, really appreciate your service to the country. thank you for being here today. and we will of course, submit your written testimony in its entirety as part of the record. without objection. and welcome your testimony today, sir.

and to the extent you can summarize it, we would be grateful and, again look forward to hearing from you sir. thank you. >> thank you, mr. chairman mr. fattah, chairman rogers, members of the committee, i'll be very brief. i want to start by thanking you for your support of the fbi over many years. the fbi's budget request for 2016 is about maintaining the capabilities you have given us. which is mostly people. the magic of the fbi is its folks. 70% of our budget goes to agents and analysts and scientists and surveillance specialists. and my goal for 16 is to be a good steward of the taxpayers' money because i know the kind of times we face and sustain that capability. we asked for two small enhancements, one that relates to cyber. and the other that relates it our effort to integrate better our systems with the rest of the intelligence committee, each of those is about a $10 million request. but we are about sustaining what you have already given us and you have supported the fbi in ways that we are extremely

grateful for. the threats that we face and are responsible for protecting this great country from are well known to this committee and you alluded to them in your remarks. counterterrorism is our top priority. the counterterrorism threat has changed dramatically since i was deputy attorney general in the bush administration. they actually changed in the 18 months i've been on this job. the shift has been the growth of the group that calls itself the islamic state from a safe haven in syria and portions of iraq, they're issuing a siren song to troubled souls to travel to the so-called caliphate to fight in an apocalyptic bottle as they styled it, or if you can't travel, kill someone where you are. and that siren song increasingly goes out in english, goes out on social media, and reaches into our country where it is consumed by people who are very hard for us to see because they're in their basement they're in some space that we don't have visibility into, consuming

poison and deciding whether they want to travel or harm somebody here at home increasingly the focus of this threat is on people in uniform this week we saw isil calling for harm to be brought to over 100 members of our military services, and so the threat we face is global, it moves at the speed of light and it is increasingly difficult for us to see because it goes to the complex spider web of social media. we spend all day every day working on this. to answer mr. fattah's question, we focus a lot on trying to find the needles in our 50-state haystack who may be radicalizing and responding to the poison and planning to travel or planning to do harm here at home. we have investigations focusing on these people we call home grown violent extremists in all 50 states, until about a month ago, it was 49 states, no alaska, that changed we got all 50. that's no cause for celebration. we're working with our partners in state and local law enforcement, and in the rest of the intelligence community to

find these people and disrupt them. counterintelligence has been mentioned. a lot of folks tend to think the spy game is a thing of the '50s, '60s or '70s. it is alive and well. that threat comes at us through human beings internet, nation state actors trying to steal what matters to this country and we're about trying to prevent that. you mentioned the criminal responsibilities. we are responsible for protecting children in this country, protecting people from fraudsters protecting people from the raffages of drug abuse and drug dealing and violent crime and i have folks all over this country, in 56 field offices, and in nearly 400 total offices, doing that work every single day. a word about cyber. every single one of threats i mentioned increasingly comes at us through the internet. you mentioned the modern fbi in a way it was born with the great vector change of the 20th century, the automobile and asphalt made it necessary to respond to a breathtakingly fast criminal element. 50 miles an hour, 60 miles an hour. we now face a vector change that

dwarves that because dillinger couldn't do 1,000 robberies in the same day in all 50 states from halfway around the world that is the threat we face through the internet. it moves at the speed of light, everybody is next door neighbors to everybody else on the internet. so we are working very hard to make sure that my criminal investigators, my counterintelligence investigators, my counterterrorism operators and all of our international operations are growing our ability to be good in cyberspace. because to protect kids, to fight fraud, to fight everything we're responsible, we have to operate there. so that's about people training, technology and smart deployment. i'll mention one thing that most folks don't know much about. i had a chance to visit our facility down in alabama. most people don't realize the fbi trains all the nation's bomb techs and we do that down at the red stone arsenal in alabama. and we also spend time there building the world's greatest library of improvised explosive

devices. another thing the american people don't realize their hard earned tax dollars have bought and it is worth their money. we have the ability when a device is detonated or found anywhere in the world to compare the forensics of that, the tool marks, the hairs, the fingerprints, to thousands of other samples we have collected in the operation called t-deck centered in alabama. work that is hidden from the taxpayers, not intentionally, just doesn't get a lot of headlines, but makes a big difference. i'll close, chairman rogers, you mentioned state and local partners. they're essential to everything we do. i've been to all 56 field offices and met with sheriffs and chiefs in all 56 to build those relationships. and i -- i do something else which i think every member of a family like the law enforcement family should do. when officers killed in the line of duty, i call that sheriff or that chief to express our condolences and offer help. i make way too many calls. i've had three officers killed in this country two yesterday, and another one earlier this

week. totally different circumstances navajo indian reservation in california, except united by the fact that they're all murdered by thugs, and they're people who certainly didn't deserve that and leave behind families. i mention this because it leaves me today with a heavy heart and we're having important conversations in this country, especially about race and policing, which i am a huge fan of having, but i'm keen to make sure when we have conversations about law enforcement, we understand what is at stake and the sacrifices made by the men and women in law enforcement, and the kind of people who sign up to do this sort of work and especially today with the loss of so much life just in the last 24 hours it is on my mind. i thought i would mention it. i'll close with thanking you for your support. the 9/11 review commission, we told the world today, we released 129 pages about -- of their report. we declassified as much as we possibly could and their message is you've done great, it's not good enough and that is exactly

my message to the fbi. i said that's what it means to be world class to know you're good, and never, never be satisfied with it. we made a lot of progress in transforming our intelligence capabilities, we still need to go further. and the american people deserve us to be even better than we are today. and my pledge is i've got 8 1/2 years to go, i'll work every day to make us better. so thank you for your time. >> thank you, director comey. i think it is especially appropriate you mentioned -- remind us all to keep your officers in our prayers and our hearts go out to the family of -- families of those three agents who lost their lives. and that is something that all of us, i know keep in the forefront of our mind, the sack firks fis, the risk all of you take in protecting us and the country from these incredibly complex and very threats. it is also apparent in this new era, the scale of the problem is so huge that you really do have to rely on state and local authorities. it is a team effort and the

genius of america is that it -- that the founders envisioned a system where protecting lives and property, police powers is vested originally in the state and in the good hearts and common sense of individual americans. so there is also a vital role, i think, for individual americans to play in helping to defend the country. it is really the most important role quite frankly since one thing our enemies will never be able to defeat is that -- is the good hearts, got common sense of individual americans defending their families, homes, neighborhoods, communities the work that our local police and sheriffs and state police officers do is just indispensable in that partnership with you is vital and i appreciate you mentioning it to us today. and the evolving threat that we face was important motivation, of course, behind chairman wolf's amendment to create the 9/11 commission, which

released its unclassified -- released its unclassified report today. and i mentioned the authors of the report i appreciate you mentioning them in your opening testimony, one of the -- one of the key recommendations they made that i know you've already begun to do and wanted to ask you to elaborate on a little more is the vitally important role that intelligence analysts play in the new world, the fbi now confronts. and could you talk a little bit more about work that you're doing to implement the recommendation of the 9/11 commission to professionalize the intelligence analyst position within the fbi. >> yeah, thank you, mr. chairman. the fbi didn't have an intelligence career service as recently as 13 years ago. and so we have made great

progress, but transforming an organization creating an entirely new element to the organization i believe is a generational project. and so bob mueller spent a decade on it. i announced as soon as i started i would spend my decade pushing on that same change, because it is about attracting great talent training them and equipping them right, but also about having the rest of the organization accept them and learn to work well together with them. and we are doing that extremely well in some places. other places not so much. and so what i'm doing is a bunch of different things, but i'm training our leaders. i want effective integration between operations and intelligence looks like. i am making it a personal priority so that i monthly review a series of projects to drive that forward. i grade our leaders on it. and i'm working very hard to make sure that people understand that this is something the fbi has always done. we have always been in the intelligence business. this is about making us better. it isn't a -- it shouldn't be a threat to anyone. it is about making this great organization better. so it is one of my three

personal priorities at the fbi to make sure that i drive that integration between intelligence analysts and our operators, particularly our special agents, and make it good everywhere in the united states. >> and in particular, in make the analyst positions moving them into senior management level, making sure they're integrated with the -- as far as possible into your career service and in senior management positions. >> yes, sir. one of the things i do with the support of this committee, when i started is create a separate intelligence branch so the leader of the intelligence branch was much closer to me so i could see that person and drive it. i pointed a very talented special agent to that role but i said i love him as a person, don't like him as a concept. because where the fbi should be that role should be someone who came up through the intelligence career service and i have talent coming up towards that but i won't know that we have made material progress until the intelligence branch is led by an intelligence career service professional. >> talk to us also if you

could, sir about the panel's recommendation that the fbi adopt a five-year plan like the defense department, a strategic plan in your work to implement that recommendation and do you agree with its -- with the concept? >> that's one i told the commissioners i need to give more thought to. i don't want to create plans just for the sake of creating five-year plans. there have been a lot of institutions where people spent a lot of time writing them and they sit on a shelf. we have all kinds of plans on the bureau. i promise to go back and figure out whether there is a missing overarching strategic plan that ought to be written, covering a five-year period. so i told them i would get back to them on that. i don't know yet whether that makes sense for me. >> the commission also wanted to be sure we recognized and point out to the public that your information sharing with state and local police departments and law enforcement authorities is a good news story. talk to us more about that. >> that is a very good news story.

we have i think broken down the barriers, technological and regulatory policy between us and state and local law enforcement. we share information. most importantly the culture has changed. we now lean forward and push things out as a matter of reflex, which is so great to hear. i ask about it wherever i go in the united states, all 50 states. i say how are we doing, and the answer is you're doing extremely well, we have seen a dramatic change. and it is the right thing to do, but also very practical reason, we need these folks. our joint terrorism task forces are made up of state and local law enforcement that contribute their talent to us. so i do think that's a good news story. but as i said to folks, look, i have a great marriage, but i believe i can always find a way to be a better spouse. we have a great relationship with state and local law enforcement, i want to continue to try and improve that if we can. >> i'm confident that, first time we'll spot someone who has come here to do us harm from overseas, a terrorist is going to be an average american, using their good judgment and their

instincts to spot something peculiar and/or local police officer or local sheriff having spotted something that just their instincts as a good law enforcement officer tells them is out of place and wrong. it is a good story and frankly the entire 9/11 commission recommendations, it is very encouraging to see that the -- that the sum of what they have sent the congress in the -- in the unclassified version and the classified version say good news story for the fbi, that you've done a good job in responding to 9/11 and we appreciate that very much sir. we recognize mr. fattah. >> thank you. when i became ranking on this subcommittee, one of my first visits was out to the center for missing and exploited children, which is one of the places where you do joint operations, looking for children and the innocence lost project as the committee

supported, you now have been able to rescue some 4350 children. there are thousands and thousands of children who are missing. many of whom are being exploited in all kinds of terrible circumstances. so as you, as the director, you have to prioritize where you place, you said your greatest resources, your people your agents. you got -- i've been out to the joint terrorism screening center very important work going on there. you have to make these decisions about whether somebody is tracking down a child who has been exploited, whether somebody is looking out -- chasing down a terrorist. can you share with us as you're working through these issues how you have prioritized this under your leadership. >> yeah thank you, mr. fattah. the work involving kids, by the way, is some of the most important, meaningful that we do.

as the father of five i've gone out and visit eded all my folks who do this work and told them there is nothing with deeper moral content than that work and i want you to take care of yourselves, because i worry it eats my people up. the way we approach it generally is, this is kind of a homely mehtataphor and i'm not a football player but i'm a football fan. we have certain assigned coverages. counterintelligence, that's our responsibility. but beyond that, what i want to do is look to the primary line of defense and say where do you need us in this game? do you need us in the flats? over the middle? should we play run support? should we play deep? that's going to be different in every game, against every opponent. the way the metaphor works is i told my special agents in charge is in the cities in which you operate, figure out where we can make a tackle. i don't want to jump on piles where people have been tackled

don't want to be speared in the back, but figure out where we're needed because we're a big agency, but we're small compared to state and local law enforcement. so figure out where they need us to make a tackle. and that is institutionalized in a process we call threat review and prioritization. it is a very disciplined and very, very complicated process where we figure out what threats in the united states we need to make a tackle on. in philadelphia, where are we needed. in phoenix where are we needed. in birmingham where are we needed and come up with a list. >> the taxpayer may not know about the explosive bomb detection training you do in alabama. i don't think most americans have any idea the thousands of children go missing every week in our country. and some of them end up in circumstances in which they're exploited for years, on the internet and in other ways. and so, you know if you got -- you mentioned the officer was shot, this week, and killed in wisconsin by suspect in a bank robbery, one of the things you

do is chase bank robbers, right? somebody, a special agent in charge, says you know, we'll go after bank robbers or we'll go after this little girl being exploited and making very tough decisions with limited resources, and i'm just trying to understand because we have to make decisions about what we're funding. how are you making the decisions? none of them are -- none of them -- i guess you want to do it all, but you got to decide. >> the way in which we make a decision is sit down and talk to people like nicmic, social service agencies law enforcement, and say i'm the special agent in charge in philadelphia, who is doing what to address that problem here? given that, where would i rank it on my priorities so i can press my resources against it, according to where it fits on the priority level. we do the same thing at the national level. in washington, we sit there and say what are the bad things that can happen in the united states that the fbi might be able to

help with. there are 304 not to be depressing. 304 bad things and we say given who else is helping with those bad things and the harm that flows in those bad things how would we rank them. we could do that and come up with a national threat ranking of all the threats we could face. it is imperfect but the way we try to balance it. we do the work you're talking about in every field office. >> so interpol, ryan noble a friend of mine runs the interpol, he's been doing a terrific job and the europeans have something magical going on because they can make arrests and prosecutions throughout the 28 countries, with no extradition, none of these other issues, they kind of have a seamless system that we can't do state to state. in america. it is interesting they have jumped over language and sovereignty issues and nationalityies to work law enforcement in a much more seamless way.

so it is something we can learn i think, as we go forward. thank you very much. thank you, chairman. >> mr. fattah. chairman rogers. >> biggest change that i've seen in my experience as far as the fbi is concerned over the years has been the graduation from investigating already committed crimes and preparing evidence for prosecution and then there is today's world, where you're working more in preventing trying to prevent events, including crime, before it takes place. counterterrorism trying to prevent terrorism, trying to keep spies away. the constant barrage of

cyberthreats, foreign and domestic, prevention rather than prosecution, though it may eventually be prosecution. that's a significant change. and it has taken an effort on the part of the fbi leadership over these last few years to try to get it through the agency's head that -- about this new world in which we live. and the mission of the fbi, more in prevention actually than prosecution. do you agree with that? >> very much. the transformation that is happening in the fbi is one from a place where we were criticized, with some justification for working our inbox. something that came in or call that came in we responded to it and investigated it to stepping back and havinglets of thoughtful people say, what are the bad things going on here that might happen, and how do we find out more about them so we can address it before it

happens? and that's the intelligence transformation. we have always been -- director of the fbi, i say this with pride, i think we're the best in the world at finding stuff out. what we're getting much better at is being thoughtful about, so what stuff do we need to find out. and who else needs to know this stuff that we found out. and what might we not know? what stuff are we missing and being much more thoughtful about that. that's the -- taking the intelligence talent and connecting it to great talent resident in my special agents. >> well and the current world war, frankly, the world -- the terrorism violence is a worldwide event. so we're in a world war. and we're up against a very sophisticated, capable enemy. the recruiting of foreign

fighters, into syria and iraq we have not found a way yet in my opinion to effectively stop or even slow it down. and it is more than a law enforcement, it is more than an fbi mission, but it certainly is an -- and an fbi mission. but just last week, we learned about a 47-year-old air force veteran, who tried to join isis and before his apprehension, tarod pugh worked for a number of american firms overseas including a u.s. defense firm in iraq for whom pugh performed of a avionics on u.s. aircraft. we had several stories like that

that appeared. is there a magic bullet to try to get at that kind of problem? that fbi can do? >> there isn't a magic bullet. it is, to us it is about a full court press making sure that we are -- that we have sources where we need them to be that we have the capability, both the know how and technical capability to play in the online space where they're meeting and recruiting and radicalizing and we're closely connected to state and local partners. they're far more likely to hear about a guy leaving a community and going to syria and we're connected with our intelligence partners and foreign partners who are trip wires for us. what happened with that guy is the egyptians spotted him when he was sent back from turkey alerted us then were able to lay hands on him. >> let me switch completely to the prescription drug problem. which has been devastating in my part of the state and the

country. particularly oxycontin. but now that we're beginning to make a dent in the pill mills closing them down in florida and georgia and other places and finally getting fda to change the formulation of drugs like oxycontin, to make them nonabuse nonabused, a lot of the country is shifting to heroin. and the drug cartels in mexico, i'm hearing, are now getting into the pill business because of the enormous profits there. what can you tell us about that? >> i think you've identified something that doesn't get the attention it deserves. we have seen -- dea has the lead here, but we do a lot to support them. i know a fair bit about this. we see the mexican traffickers

increasingly shifting to heroin. white heroin. used to be brown heroin was coming out of mexico. white heroin, highly pure and pushing it into the united states to gain market share and so what is happening is as you said mr. chairman it is supplanting pill abuse because it is cheaper, easier to get and it is extraordinarily deadly because the people using it, sounds like an odd thing to say but don't know how to use heroin. don't realize it is 93 97% pure so kids and adults and people of all walks of life are dying all over the country. i see it sweeping south and west. i became fbi director, 18 months ago, heard about it in the northeast, sort of the north central. now i'm hearing about it everywhere i go for economic reasons. it is cheap and the traffickers are pushing it in. so we're spending a lot of time trying to work again, with dea and local partners to disrupt the traffickers to impose costs on them so we can shorten the supply and drive the price up so we don't have all -- i think

there were 6,000 deaths from heroin overdose or more in the united states last year. so we can push those number of tragedies down. >> still more people are dying from prescription pill abuse than car wrecks. so even though part of the country is switching to heroin, it is still -- the pills are still a big problem. and in a good part of the country. mr. chairman, i've abused my time. >> not at all. >> quickly, and finally, cyberthreats. where are we? >> cyber is a feature of every threat that the fbi is responsible for. we see -- i describe it as an evil layer cake. at the top level you have nation state actors who are looking to break into our corporate systems, our government systems to steal all kinds of information for their economic advantage or for intelligence advantage. and then we have organized criminal groups, very

sophisticated hackers looking to steal americans' information for criminal purposes. then we have got all manner of thugs and criminals and pedophiles down below. and the reason is obvious. our lives are there. my kids play on the internet. it is where we bank. it is where health care is. it is where our critical infrastructure is. those who do harm to children or money or credit card information or banks or critical infrastructure, that's where they come. so there isn't a single cyberthreat it is a feature of everything that the fbi is responsible for. and it is the bad guys have shrunk the world right, because belarus is next door to birmingham on the internet. so we're working very hard to shrink it back. so i can forward deploy my cyberexperts to make the globe smaller, so we can impose some costs. right now, everybody thinks it is a freebie to steal americans' information. we have to impose costs on these people. even though they're in their pajamas halfway around the world, they're afraid to break into an american's life and

steal what matters to us. >> do we have absolute evidence, absolute proof that these attacks, many of these attacks are from states? countrys? >> yes. >> governments? >> yes. >> military? >> military intelligence. >> russia? >> russia is a significant player in cyberintrusions as is china, obviously. two huge operators in that world. >> we have proof that russia and china and other governments are attacking our country's cyberinformation databases. >> yes. >> what are we doing about it? >> well, a lot of different things. only some of which i can talk about here. one of the things we're trying to do is name it and shame it. we did it last year by indicting five member members ss of the people's liberation army and publicizing them on posters who were

stealing information from american companies, stealing our ideas and innovation. and people say indicting them won't do any good, you won't catch them. we have many flaws at the fbi because we're humaned, but we're dogged and never say never. people like to travel like to have their children educated in the united states or europe never say never. we're trying to impose costs and part of the cost is the naming calling it out, the chinese are stealing our innovation, our ideas, our creativity our jobs. >> in fact, it was this subcommittee, frank wolf, the chairman, many years ago first brought attention to foreign governments hacking into his files and he sort of led the way. but, boy, it has come a long way and i'm not satisfied at all we're doing what we need to do to try to stop it. or counteract it. thank you, mr. director. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> it is a top priority for us

on this subcommittee, keen interest to all of us in the congress, but particular interest to me and work that you've done. i've had a chance to come out here, some of the work in a classified setting, it is very impressive. and to the -- what advice could you, before we move on very quickly, if you could tell the american public out there listening just some good basic rules to protect themselves good hygiene practices to -- against cyberattack on their own computers or smartphones. >> folks should exercise the prudence wandering around the electronic neighborhood as they would any other neighborhood. i say people tried to train my children on this. they cross the parking lot at night, they're alert. they lock their care. people should behave the same way on the internet. it is a bigger neighborhood, a bigger parking lot. and in some ways more dangerous. what i tell folks is very simple.

an e-mail is a knock on your front door. opening the attachment so an e-mail is opening your front door. you would never open your front door without looking through your peephole and seeing what's there. all the time folks get an e-mail and they open the attachment and their whole life can be stolen in that moment. also, know where your children are. you know where your children go to play. at least i do. and folks need to know what are other kids doing on the internet. where are they going? who are they interacting with? it is parenting and common sense we exercise in all aspects of our lives except when we sit at a keyboard which makes no sense at all because we just made the entire world our neighbors when you sit behind the keyboard. >> and in a hearing in a classified setting with some of your cyberfolks that 80% of protecting yourself against a cyberattack is good hygiene. like washing your hands after a meal or some of the basic things you have just mentioned to us. thank you, director. mr. honda? >> thank you, mr. chairman.

director, thank you for coming here today to testify before the subcommittee. as you know, a key toll in combatting crime is the use of combined dna system or codous. codous blends forensic science with computer technology to accurately identify suspects and assist. it is successful prosecution of criminals. last year's budget hearing i brought up the nationwide backlog of untested sexual assault kits around 500,000. shortly after that hearing, nancy o'malley and your office began discussions about the backlog that occurs prior to upload of codous. and i'm pleased that the fbi laboratory staff met with the da several times regarding the pilot project that made facility to codous upload of dnc profiles linked to suspects of accused sexual assault crimes.

and having said that, i just want to add also my thanks to the past chairman, frank wolf, who really carried us and helped us see it helped us see this entirely through. the fy 315 appropriation bill included $41 million. the first point of the bag log in police evidence rooms. and i'm hopeful that we'll continue to program an fy 16. i'm aware that this is out of your purview but i wanted you to know we're committed to this issue. i encourage you and your staff to continue to work with them on the pilot project that will focus on another point of the backlog that is the technical review of government labs by private labs. mainly the implementation of

rapid dna instruments in the police booking stations. i'm a firm believer in having an ares tee while he's snil in the environment, that will reduce the burden on the government labs. i hope that you'll be able to continue. i raised this issue last year as well. i know that the fbi is supportive of rapid dna technology, but can you tell me what progress has been made to amend the law protocols and policies to allow the use of rapid dna instruments in police bookings stations and once the relative requirements have been amended, what is your approximate time line for implementing the rapid dna. >> thank you, mr. honda and thank you for your continued focus on the rape kit backlog.

there are rapists out there who will victimize more woman and the key to stopping them sits on a lot of shelves in a police departments. with respect to rapid dna we're big fans of the capability of being in booking rooms, that a sample with be taken when someone is taken into custody and uploaded immediately. the experts have continued to work with the companies -- the private company enterprise making the device to give them guidance on what will be needed to make it able to connect to our database in a way that preserves the sterling reputation of the database. my folks tell me there's all kind of challenges making sure that e with have the right software and hardware. but good progress is being made. they think we're two to three years away of being in a place where this is a common feature.

i.d. does require legislative authorization. i don't know where that sits in the executive branch i think being looked at for privacy issues. but that is -- both are ming along at the same time, the technical fix and the legislative fix. that's my understanding today. >> because we have to understand that there's 500,000 kits, 500,000 cases that's being left without the great evidence that dna will provide. so victims and arrest tees are at bay in order to get justice. the quicker we move to implement this, then we can reduce the backlogs and have people really enjoy the benefits of our technology but also our rapid

response to justice. mr. chairman, if i may just indulge with one quick question. i just wanted to thank you very much for adding to the fbi training manual which will include the guidance to assist law enforcement identify in reporting hate crimes directed at six arabs and hindus. and i think that's going to be able to you know, produce a great deal of information. i do have a concern though, about the comment that you had made last month on race and policing. you said that it's ridiculous that i can't tell you how many people were shot by the police last week last month, last year. and may be taken out of context. but that is a quote. police departments can on a voluntary basis report incidents to the data that the fbi keeps

on justifiable homicide. this however is problematic. according to one justice department statistician quoted arrested from deaths. both have limitation in regards to coverage and liability that is due to agency issues. can you discuss what the situation is currently with voluntarily reporting and what approaches --

what i meant was i think it was ridiculous that i can tell you how many books were sold on amazon and how many people went to the hospital with the flu last week but we don't have data. every encounter is uninformed in this country and that's a crazy place to be. it's a voluntary system. it requires the support of local and state law enforcement. and so i'm working with the sheriffs and the chiefs who all agree with me to give us this data. what do you need for us to be able to help you give the data. we're going to be talking to congress more down the road on are there incentives that congress can offer to give us the data. but we're not in a good place now. and it's one of the things i'm trying to do after the speech i gave to try to improve the records. >> perhaps or good chairman could be able to look at this and see if we could be of

assistance to help the fbi to acquire the information. because voluntary reporting of police shootings it just doesn't seem to be acceptable especially in today's environment and the kinds of things that we know, what's going on or what's not going on in our country right now. >> we'll explore that and also the level of, you know violence of course police officers encounter every day in their difficult and dangerous work on our behalf. let me recognize the state of mississippi and our newest member, mr. paola do. >> thank you mr. chairman. before i get into questions i would like to express my gratitude and appreciation to the appropriations committee and members of our conference to allows me to serve in the seat our friend and colleague alan nonely held. i know everyone who knew him is heart broken of his passing. although i do not believe his shoes can be filled i hope to serve the committee with the

best interest of the united states in mind just as our good friend alan did for four years. with that said, director comey i appreciate you being here and appreciate the sacrifices that your people, the magic in your agency as yaw so eloquently said provides for, you know our security and protection here at home. and i'm sorry for you loss, too, as well as the three fbi agents you mentioned. we too have lost a u.s. marshal in josie wells in the past month and he's from south mississippi. it was in the line of duty and he left a wife and unborn child to carry on his legacy. so we know what y'all sacrifice day in and day out and some of the best people in the world serve in our law enforcement. i would like to follow up real quick on, you know, chairman rogers mentioned he brought up china. and china is in from armed services and homeland security,

my former committees always pique my curiosity. they seem to be aggressively building up their military and their space capabilities. and it sounded -- i don't want to put words in your mouth -- that we know china the government of china is involved in cyberattacks on american -- on the american government and american enterprise. and so knowing that and just indicting five individuals to expose them and shame them i don't think it really works with china, since they have the consent of their government. so with that, how do we counter the -- what would you recommend to us on how we counter the cyber threats both certainly and externally. you can focus on china or an unnamed country if you don't quantity to pound on them. i would just like to hear your thoughts. >> i may have misspoken.

the three lives that were lost were police officers, one state trooper and two local police officer officers. it doesn't make any difference. it's still great people lost in the line of duty. with the question about what can be done more broadly about them is that even if it was the fbi's lane, we wouldn't discuss it in open forum. we're trying to make sure that our responsibility is to investigate cyber intrusions to the united states to make sure that our government has a full understanding of who's doing what so we can figure out as a country what to do about it. one of the things that we have been involved in is bring criminal charges against some of those actors as part of a toolbox approach to try to change behavior with the chinese. there are a lot of things that are beyond the fbi that i