so what you're suggesting is that these people are staying here, they're staying at home? >> well the number -- so yeah, the foreign fighter threat and the radicalization or the internet threat. but the number of cases have gone up. the number of people, their capability to travel to the region and back has gone down. i think our limited military success now is having an impact on that. again clapper has indicated that hasn't compromised external operation capability. and don't forget, as we squeeze them in iraq and syria, what we're seeing is, i went to northern africa two months ago and was in sinai and egypt where isis is, cairo, tunisia, the largest foreign fighter per

capita and libya got briefed by the libyan ambassador and his team talking about how libya is a failed state and there are 6,000-plus fighters in libya. they mo. they move to power vacuums and safe havens. that's a breeding ground for terrorism. >> you've talked about sanctuaries that are developing in syria, in iraq, in libya. anywhere else around the globe? >> we're seeing activities in indonesia and through the internet, that's the frightening thing, the global reach that they have through the power of the internet. going back to premises of your initial question, that is the core difference now between traditional what we saw al qaeda before 9/11 and the threat we see today. >> how do you counter that, going back to something you said a minute or so ago about the message we are communicating? over the last year, and i don't want to point to any one thing

in particular, but during this campaign season has some of the rhetoric been a negative instead of a positive in terms of countering the message? >> yeah. i think if you -- inflammatory rhetoric can insight and can actually advance recruiting efforts. i'm always very careful, i think about what i said. >> is there any concrete evidence that that has happened, that it's spiked over the last year and a half? is there anything that suggests that is the case? >> i don't have any statistical numbers but i think that's just kind of a sort of a well-known principle that that's going to inflame that community. but again i think we need to -- i do agree with the nominees. we need to take a tougher stance militarily. we're finally doing that now. you can't -- drone strikes alone are not going to kill an ideology. you have to have the political diplomatic resolution to this

and then the counter narrative strategy to defeat the ideology. >> if you're talking about introducing more troops, i think 15 years after 9/11 there are a lot of people in america who don't want to see that. how do you thread that needle, say this is something that is necessary and speaking to some family in the midwest or in the west, anywhere across this country that has seen a loved one go overseas and doesn't want that to happen again, how do you sell that message to this war weary public? >> i don't think there is a lot of appetite for that. we've tried these rebel forces in syria and for the most part it's been a failure, as long as assad is there he's a magnet. i think the arab league of nations, it's their backyard, it's their religion, it's their responsibility to step up to the plate. they tell me they made that offer to the president but they were turned down. but i think a u.s.-led coalition

and a real coalition, the full participation, it has to be led by the united states and also bring in the arab league of nation to provide that fighting for us. we're already there. >> what about russia? >> we're already there. but what about russia? >> that's where it gets tricky. we're really trying to deconflict where we're striking. now if the russians want to hit isis, then i'm all for that and that's the only common interest we have in that part of the world right now. >> we have five minutes left. wanted to open it up to questions in the audience. right here in front. >> joey jackson, the university of school of law, you mentioned how the changing of landscape of global terror, they've become more sophisticated abroad. with hve's do we see the threats becoming more sophisticated or the same old traditional

tactics. >> these are the most bizarre microphones. >> well, that and the letters almost took me out. i'm going to scoot up a bit. >> we're talking about some pretty dark stuff, but -- >> just warn me, please. i don't think i signed that release. >> go ahead. >> you know, the idea that you're going to have a lone wolf pop up is nothing new but it's increased in its numbers. as i mentioned, the numbers have increased in terms of investigations and it is primarily attributable to the power of the internet. and, you know, the type of person that is vulnerable to that message and messaging. one thing i've encouraged the private sector to do, so twitter will actually take down handles that they see -- they term as jihadists. they have taken down quite a few. of course they'll pop up with another handle in the near future. the other thing is google will

provide a counter narrative popup when you type in jihadist terminology and facebook has started to do some of this stuff. so we've got to find a way to stop the internet radicalization process. it is the ideas on the internet that are influencing these, what they call loser to lions. it only takes a handful of people to do a lot of damage, as we've seen. >> thank you. i'm a reporter with congressional quarterly. this morning there's been a lot of conversation from the podium about reforming the department of homeland security, making it more efficient. but as chairman of one of the more powerful committees in the house, do you think there's any appetite in congress for providing better oversight, reforming the number of committees that oversee dhs,

this morning secretary johnson said that he spent way too much time not only, you know, going to committee hearing but also answering questions from, you know, several dozen committees. and so i'm asking if you think that there's any appetite for making it more efficient and stream lined from a congressional point of view. >> yes, i do. to your first point we're going to develop in the next month sort of an idea of what the department should look like in the future, moving forward for the next administration. but to your point with respect to congress, you know, this committee is put together as a political compromise with the idea that it will be fixed down the road and it never was. just met with the speaker yesterday, talking to him about this very issue. i agree with jeh johnson. you know, the one recommendation, the 9/11 commission that was never followed was this point that you're making, and that is a single committee in the house and senate that this new created department would report to. now they report to over 100

committees and sub committees. it's dysfunctional. it cripples the department. quite frankly, i've had legislation myself, like the visa security waiver bill, that got held up for three years because of jurisdiction and it wasn't until paris happened that i was able to get that bill on the floor. and it took the intervention of the majority leader of the congress to get that action. that is where jurisdiction, i would argue, puts the american people in harm's way and shame on congress for not fixing this problem. i'm going to propose that we change this in the next congress because it's my responsibility. and i think inaction will cause problems for us. >> so do you agree that there are a lot of hearings? every time we look up there's some law enforcement official on capitol hill testifying. i worked in new york a long time. three years ago when i came here, that process of having these officials on capitol hill all of the time, one of my comments was how do they get any

work done. right? are there too many hearings? >> we have an oversight responsibility but i agree with the 9/11 commission that that oversight should be driven by the homeland security committee. i'm not saying that because i'm chairman. i'm say thag because particularly the department, unlike state department or justice department, you have one judiciary committee and foreign affairs xhisty. it makes a department dysfunctional. again, over 100 committees and subcommittees makes a department dysfunctional, because all you're doing is responding to congress and testifying instead of doing your primary mission, and that is protecting the american people. >> all right. can you give us -- we have about 30 seconds left -- a preview of what this report on dhs is going to recommend to the next president? what streamlining, cutting employees? what are some of the highlights? >> we're in the process. i don't want to get ahead of myself. but you know, a streamlining process, making it more effective.

technology is not being utilized as effectively from an i.t. perspective with the cloud to integrating the 22 agencies in the department. >> how many departments do you think there should be within dhs? >> that's something else, what can we consolidate, you know? and we're in the process of doing that. i think we have one more question. i'd be happy to take it. or we did. somebody down here. >> any other questions? right there. white shirt here? >> thank you. thank you, congressman. brendan kelly. you mentioned the losers and the lions problem and are you concerned that some of the prosecutions of these "losers" are being wrapped up into fbi investigations and prosecuted for crimes that they wouldn't have the capability to commit without being kind of engaged with fbi undercover agents? >> no, that was pointed out in "the atlantic" piece.

these people are already going down the road, and the next step is to -- an act of terrorism. it's not like they catch them at the very, very beginning. they've already taken active steps, and we get -- the fbi gets information they've taken active steps to commit an act of terror. so by the time we get to them, we're simply working with them to get them off the street to stop that next step from happening. so i would not apologize for the fbi on this one. i think they saved a lot of american lives by what they've done. one last point we didn't get to touch on, a very important issue, cyber security. i think we look at islamist-based terror, which is small-scale terror. the cyber piece could cause far more damage and consequences than anything we have out there. >> isis cyber terror or nation state?

>> well, isis is trying to develop that capability. i'm talking more nation state, like russia, china, iran. they are developing great capabilities. our foreign adversaries are developing this where they could shut things down. we've heard the allegations about influencing the elections. you know, i wrote a book called "failures of imagination" where we talk about this particular threat is one that's really -- it's not the future. it's here and now. >> all right. that will be the last word. i told you about the clock. we're out of time. thank you very much. appreciate it. >> thanks, jeff. [ applause ] >> next to the stage, please welcome john carlin, assistant attorney general for national security at the justice department, here with "the atlantic" steve clemons. [ applause ] >> greetings, everybody. john, thank you so much for joining us today. earlier today we had a conversation with a number of players, and i asked one of your

former colleagues, matt owen, i guess, to judge if the united states was on a scale of ten and our next biggest adversary were to be judged on a scale of one to ten, where would he put them? and he said he'd give the next biggest threat a seven. and as you're out there prosecuting terror case and sort of like "the wizard of oz," you know what's going on around the world, what russia's doing, what isis is doing, what domestic players in the united states are doing. how would you rate the biggest threat to the united states on a one-to-ten scale? >> i think when you think about what the threat picture is now, that we are facing more complicated threat picture than we've ever faced before, and that's a consensus across the intelligence and law enforcement community. let me give you one case as an example of how -- >> is he microphone on? i hear me. yeah, your mike is definitely not on. now maybe you're on. sing a few bars. >> it's one way to -- >> there you go. >> -- avoid trouble is just to not turn on the microphone.

it's good security. >> operational protocol. so who's the next biggest threat? >> i'd say if you look now at the threat picture we're facing, it's the most complicated threat picture that we've faced, period. and that's a consensus across the intelligence community and law enforcement. and let me give one case as an example of what we're facing today that's quite different than what the threat picture looked like when my division was created, the national security division, which is the first new litigating division at the department of justice in about 50 years. it was created as one of the post-9/11 reforms, and our ten-year anniversary is actually this september 14th, next week. and so, when we were first created, we focused very much on tearing down the wall that had existed between law enforcement and intelligence prior to 9/11 that made it very -- that made it difficult to share information across the federal government. as we move to the next threat, it's a different, more complicated threat that involves the private sector.

imagine today you're at a company, and inside your company you see that a hacker has gotten into your system. and the hacker has stolen a relatively small amount of personally identifiable information, names, addresses, that type of thing. and your i.t. guys say this isn't particularly sophisticated. they kicked them out of the system. then you get a threat through e-mail that says, commercial provider. let's say it's gmail. the threat says pay me 500 bucks through bitcoin or i'm going to embarrass you by releasing the information. the vast majority of companies today pay the 500 bucks or decide not to pay the 500 bucks because they don't take it seriously, and they move on. unsophisticated hacker, what's the big deal? they do not tell anyone in government. they do not tell anyone in law enforcement. but this case, which is a real case, they did do the right thing and they worked with the federal government. and if they hadn't done that, what they would never have found out is that at the other end was not some low-level crook or

criminal hacker, but instead, it was a guy named farizi, a kosovo extremist who had moved from malaysia, from malaysia had hacked into this company. and what he was doing with the personally identifiable information, he was not only looking to make a buck, he was providing it on the back end to one of the most notorious cyber terrorists in the world at the time, a man named junade hussein, a british-born citizen who had moved to raqqah, syria, where he was at the heart of the islamic state of the levante. he wasn't cashing in, instead he was combing through that list -- >> so, bitcoin extortion was fueling isis in raqqah? >> worse than that. so, it's not just that the extortion can fuel isis in raqqah, he was going through the list of stolen names, addresses, looking for the names of government employees. and then using u.s.-made technology, blasting it back to the united states in the way that we see now in the current threat, which is the

crowdsourcing of terrorism. so using twitter, he then says, kill these names, kill these government employees where they live, and calls upon their adherence to do it inside the united states. that's what the threat looks like now. it moves very fast. data moves very quickly. it's exploiting u.s.-made technology. it crosses five or six different countries. it requires coordination not just federally and with foreign partners, but with the private sector. because they worked with us in this case, we were able to take effective action, and farizi, the defendant who was responsible for that, was arrested in malaysia pursuant to u.s. charges, and then thanks to the cooperation of the malaysians, brought to the united states where he pled guilty for conspiring to commit that terrorist act. and juad hussein was killed in a military raid in raqqah where he was in the islamic state of the levante. we can take action, but it's incredibly difficult. >> how many cases do you have like that today? >> if you look at the cases of the crowdsourcing of tourism

versus the focus of large scale spectacular attacks. looking at the end of 2013 when they changed strategy, we've brought over 100 federal cases across the united states, 60 last year alone. that's more international terrorism cases than we've ever brought before. and what we see in the united states is that it's not linked to one geographic or ethnic -- geographic area or ethnic group. we've brought them in over 36 districts across the country. the common two factors, and they're linked, is one, the age of the defendants. so, over 50% of the defendants are 25 or younger, and most troubling, one-third are 21 or younger. and i think that's very much linked to the second phenomenon, which is this is because of the exploitation of social media. the common factor in almost every one of these cases is the international terrorist exploitation of social media and how that played a role in taking someone from ideas to the step where they want to take violent action. and that used to be the assessment of the intelligence

community when i was doing this back at the fbi, was that you couldn't get someone to move from idea to violence without meeting them in the real world, personal connection. that's clearly not the case for the generation who's forming all sorts of friendships entirely online, much for good, but we have a terrorist group who's seeking to exploit that as a vulnerability. >> john, let me ask you a question, because you know, you can raise cases like this, which are so compelling, but we have a discussion, both today and i think in society in general about what the right equilibrium is between awareness and a kind of proactive step on just getting ourselves around what we need to do by way of surveillance and national security decisions versus the kind of classic liberties that are core to what the country's about. i mean, you're out there litigating and prosecuting, you know, very bad cases. and i'm sort of interested in how -- i mean, i know you're in

the government, but we had debates about the patriot act. we were discussing earlier what provisions have given back. what do you need to do your job that you don't have today? and what powers have you been given that you wish you hadn't been given to actually be true to what the country's about? >> well, i think we are true to what the country's about. and one thing that's an amazing experience for the folks in our division and working at the department of justice, and it's drilled into you from the moment you first swear the oath to protect and defend the constitution, is that our job is to defend the liberties that make us who we are as americans. and so, that is both our life and our liberty. and every new employee that i bring on into the division, we give them two core documents to read. one is the church committee report, which shows what can happen when lawyers don't play the role that they should play in terms of oversight and actual abuses of the authorities that we're granted. and the other's the 9/11 report, which shows what can happen if

we don't set up our legal structure in a way that allows for the effective sharing of information so we can protect ourselves against threats to do us harm. and those have to be the twin pillars that guide how we solve each problem that we confront, that we confront day to day. look, bringing the number of prosecutions that we've brought i think is great tactical success, and i have no doubt that lives are saved because we were able to prevent some of these individuals that are being targeted by international terrorists to commit violence here from killing innocent people across the united states. it's tactical success. strategically, though, one of the reasons we were created as a division is because success is not the successful bringing of a criminal prosecution. success is preventing the threat. and to prevent the threat here, we need to change strategically two core things. one is defeat these terrorist

groups where they are overseas. that's going to be less directly our focus in the national security division. the second, though, is how do we keep a terrorist group from exploiting what western and american, in particular, minds created, built, make money off of, and is a great boom in general to society, social media. we should be the best at using this system, and right now they're exploiting it. so how do we change that strategically? and there part of our job i think is just to educate. >> do you tweet? >> no. i don't. >> are you on instagram or -- >> neither tweets, no, i'm not on instagram, i'm not on -- that does not -- now, i'm sure many of you -- >> but you've got other people who understand social media, that are part of that in the department of justice? >> yes, no, absolutely. >> though it's not you. >> but also, they don't particularly recommend that i'm highly on social media when you're in this role because we do the terrorists and also spies under our mandate.

and i think you've heard -- >> so, just to kind of -- do you -- i mean, i've read a little bit about your division. do we need a domestic terror statute in the u.s.? >> i think it's something that -- so -- >> or tell us what that is, kind of shortform. >> i think there's been a discussion. when you have a group, if there's an international terrorist group, there's a clean statute that says that if it's a designated international terrorist group, then you can prosecute someone for providing support to that international terrorist group. but by design, we do not have a statute that says you can designate some group inside the united states based solely on being in the group and say it's illegal to be in the group or provide support to the group. instead it's based on conduct. that line i think makes a lot of sense, but it has caused the question, for instance, do you take as seriously if someone's motivated by a purely domestic political motivation but commits an act of violence? do you take that as seriously? and we do, but it's not always

reflected in a statute that we can charge. so they maybe get charged somewhere else in the federal criminal code or locally. one question that i think's worth exploring is is there a change in the code that still reflects our values, so it says you committed some other crime, like violence, but says there's some additional penalty if the reason why you committed that act of violence is to change political behavior. that is defined already in the federal code book, but it's not a stand-alone statute. >> so, defining who and what a domestic terrorist is, is that potentially a slippery slope? >> so, that is in the code book, again, but it doesn't -- it can be used for things like sentencing enhancements. >> right. >> it could be. i mean, you have to look carefully to ensure it is not a slippery slope, but if the definition is tied to committing some other criminal offense,

plus having the intention to use that criminal offense to change political behavior, that might be a way that you've seen in other statutes like hate crime statute. i'm not advocating necessarily making a change now, but it's a worthwhile discussion to have, and it would reflect, what does the country want in terms of our using our federal system? do we assign that type of crime a special value different than the loss of life that occurs? >> right. >> is it somehow worse or should be separately counted for because of the motivation. >> when you look at the number of things in front of you you've got to think about on the terror side, do you ever have a good day? is there anything promising or optimistic out there? and as you answer that question, the reason i want to set this is up is john and i had an opportunity to talk at aspen this summer, and one of the things you raised was the internet of things and how kind of the dense connectivity that we have.

you talked about trucks and autonomous driving vehicles being tools of terror at some point. and it just, at that moment, i realized, you know, what a comprehensively big picture this is. and as you try to balance fear in a society with trust that you're not going to have to be bothered by this crap every day, how do you guys that are so obsessed on the fear side get it right? >> this is a great question. you always have to be careful in terms of talking about this publicly, because our success would be that other people don't need to think about these threats. and so, but we have learned that it's also important for us to get out and speak more publicly than we have before because if you don't educate -- >> is this a favorite thing for you? >> it is not my favorite thing to do the public events, but we've learned that, particularly with this type of threat, in order to have people prepare and also with cyber, when they need to think about, we need to get out and explain what we're seeing so people can take appropriate steps. when you think of internet of

things, when we moved from analog to digital as a society in a really short period of time, in about 20 years, we moved about 98% of what we value from analog to digital, connected to the internet, and we did not think about security. we just didn't. and we made huge mistakes in terms of underestimating the cost that security would add. and now you're seeing it's as a society play catch-up and try to build systems that were never designed fundamentally to be secure, try to build security in. when we think about the internet of things, and that is, as we connect more and more physical devices so that they can connect data -- and i'll use cars as an example. by 2020, 70% of the vehicles on the road are essentially going to be computers on wheels. as we make that enormous transformation in society, maybe as big as moving originally from the horse and buggy to the car, we'll be moving from a passenger-driven car to an automated car, we can't make the same mistake again. and it's on us in government

then to explain, here's how we think terrorists or nation states could exploit this new technology and to call upon the private sector to say, and this will be good for business along with safety, get it right on the front end. think about these threats on the front end, and then it's a design flaw if you're not building in on the front end protections. it will ultimately be a competitive advantage. and you think of an attack like nice, where you had one individual take a truck and just mow down innocent civilians. if we've moved our trucks to be automated, it doesn't take much imagination to think, oh, a terrorist group will try to exploit that. and many of these original internet of things devices are rolled out with no protection at all against hackers. and we're talking about our most sensitive areas, medical devices, trucks on the road, missile systems. so, we need to get out in government and educate, not to cause fear, because i think it can be done right, but to make sure it's built in on the front end so we don't have the terrible incident after the fact. >> i want to go to the audience in a moment. one of the other things we

talked about was your role in tracking down people who leak things in government, who go after -- and i had just seen this film by alex gibney, called "zero days." have you seen that yet? >> i have not. >> you have not. is that the official statement, i have not, like you did a few clips? did anybody see "zero days"? it must be the biggest flop. phil wilhelm is the only one who saw it. >> i don't feel so bad. >> let me cut to the chase real quick. in the film that tells alex gibney's story, an award-winning filmmaker. it's the story sort of looks at these zero days malwares things, the computer viruses that sit out there in the system and lurk. and i didn't have the literacy about this. so, the question is about the literacy. i didn't know what "zero days" was six months ago. and we're seeing hillary clinton dragged around about her lack of literacy or concern about

e-mails at a certain point and how those should be managed. what do you think looking forward -- we're looking back 15 years, but as you look forward tomorrow and the next day, when the next president comes in, what are the key literacy issues that we need to be really worried about, that we might be casual about today? are these zero day viruses in our electric grid infrastructure? are they things that you see that you have a literacy in that someone like myself would not? what are the big things that you would put on the table? then we'll go to the audience. >> i think there are a couple categories that are in there right now but aren't going to continue on that trend. one will be the internet of things. as we move more and more devices and fundamental to the provision of the services that they provide is being digitally enabled to the point where our workforce is not capable of fixing some of these systems anymore without doing it digitally. we need on the front end to think, and that could range from

electrical grid or ukrainian-type incidents to the next wave, which will be in our homes, in our cars, in our medical devices. second, which is in the realm of the right now is we need to continue to get the message out about when your kid is in your house seemingly safe -- and i think we've done a decent job in this in terms of sexual predators, but not as much when i go and do outreach as terrorists. that when they're on social media, that there's this dedicated international terrorist group that's looking just to exploit troubled kids and to get that message out. that kind of figuring out how to balance what you're doing within your home versus the risks. and in terms of the companies making sure that they understand what the threats are and provide safe platforms for what they're encouraging our children and others to use. those are two major issues when you think about it as we go forward. >> thank you.

you're going to be off the stage soon. i know you're going to feel better then. let me take a question. right in the back over here. we're going to do these lightning round, real fast and real fast. >> hi. john hougy. turkish president erdogan believes fethullah gulen, who lives in pennsylvania, is responsible for all efforts to destabilize turkey, including the recent attempted coup. and therefore, for him, he's a terrorist. given the u.s. terrorist elimination program, what could and should be our response if erdogan tries to take gulen out in pennsylvania by drone strike or assassin? if you can do it in 30 seconds or less. >> 30 seconds. next speaker is my predecessor and national security division lisa monaco. i'm sure she'll handle that question. >> other question, comment. >> sorry, am i up? >> wait, where? where? okay. yes. >> sorry. really quickly. my name is robert. my father was actually killed on

9/11, so i want to thank most of the people here for all the great help they did. >> thank you for being here. >> yeah. and one of the few perks is that the office of military commissions actually invited the family members down to see the prosecutions of khalid shaikh mohammed and the other 9/11 conspirators and i was genuinely impressed by the good faith shown by the prosecution and defense team, but they seemed to be handstrung by the complexities of international lawfare. i wonder what you think the future will be for domestic terrorism cases prosecuted on u.s. soil with u.s. citizens that have this international tie and how you think the u.s. justice system can go forward? >> and piggybacking on your question, if you don't mind. since those cases don't seem to be going swimmingly, could they be retried in u.s. federal courts? >> i'm sorry for the loss, your loss. and i think what you've seen in terms of the use of our federal justice system domestically is that it's been very successful in terms of holding people to account over the years.

we've brought hundreds and hundreds of cases since 9/11. now, that's, again, tactical success, but it's incredibly important. our job can't be to measure success as prosecuting those who commit heinous attacks after the fact, but we still -- it's still got to be one of the most vitally important parts of our job, as much as we continue to focus on prevention, so that others are not dealing with loss in their family. i am not optimistic in terms of using the justice system for the vast majority of individuals who have already gone into the military commission system at this point in time. >> those there permanently. >> we would obviously look to do everything we can if we were asked to, to hold someone to account in the federal justice system, but i'm not optimistic at this point in time, certainly for the vast majority of individuals that are there that

we could effectively hold them to account now, if you were to try to transfer them into the federal criminal justice system. as we've gone forward with other individuals, they've started there, and i think we have a very good track record of holding people to account through our court system. and that's taken hard work in terms of statute changes, great work by the intelligence, law enforcement, and judges in terms of finding, as they have so many times throughout our history, a balance between protecting our essential civil liberties in order to provide for a fair trial, but also making sure that it's a fair trial where you can hold someone to account who's committed the crime. >> right. well, thank you very much for spending time with us. i hope we can have you back and spend more time. we're going to have to get your predecessor up here on stage. but john carlin, assistant attorney general for national security at the department of justice. >> thank you. >> thank you very, very much. >> thank you. >> please welcome lisa monaco, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, here with npr's mary louise kelly.

>> hello, everybody. lisa monaco, welcome. >> thank you. great to be here. >> for bringing up the rear. we're glad you get the grand finale and the last word today. before i dive in, i should just acknowledge the last question that was -- or one of the last questions actually got, how should we put that, deferred to you. do you want to weigh in on the question of turkey and fethullah gulen and the prospect of drone strikes? >> well, i would rule out the prospect of drone strikes within the united states, so i would rule out that store. but we've been working with the turkish government in response to their request for information and we'll continue to do that. we have an established practice by the justice department to work with their legal counterparts and other countries for their requests for legal process, and that's the process that's going on now. >> all right. there we go.

so, lisa, we just heard her title, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism. i mean, that actually makes you as the president's chief counterterrorism adviser. and i don't know who came up with the name for our session, but we're down to talk about the presidential daily brief, so i figured we should run with it. >> sure. >> i think it might be interesting for people to get a little bit of a glimpse as to how that actually unfolds every morning. so, let me ask you to paint us a picture. >> sure. >> like, take us inside the white house. where are you? what time does this start every day? >> so, for me, the day starts earlier than the president's daily brief. so, the president's daily brief is both the name of the book -- now it's an ipad -- that the president and his senior national security team, myself and every member of the national security cabinet receives every morning. and it is also the name of the meeting that occurs. and it occurs in the oval office.

so, what it means for me, as it does for susan rice, who's also in the meeting, and others -- >> how many people are in this meeting? >> so, it begins with a briefing from the director of national intelligence, jim clapper, or his deputy, mike dempsey, or perhaps stephanie o'sullivan. and then also in the room is the vice president and his national security adviser, susan rice, myself, the deputy national security adviser and then dennis mcdonagh often joins the meeting along with others. >> so a dozenish? >> no, less than that. there's a half dozen folks in the room for this. and it begins with a discussion and a briefing from the director of national intelligence about the overnight reporting. what are the threats we're watching, both immediate threat streams that we might be concerned about as well as strategic pictures. what do we think is happening in the world? what are the things we're most concerned about?

but it begins for me a lot earlier. >> yeah, where are you getting your information from? do you get a sneak peek of the brief before -- >> i do. so, i get a copy of this book along with a whole bunch of other things in the book, whether it's different intelligence reports, in addition to the basically articles that are prepared for the president. so that is the president's daily brief, the five or six articles that are prepared for him and his advisers to look at. but also in my book, as in the other members of the national security team, in our book is a whole set of other reporting. mine is tailored to, as you might imagine, counterterrorism and homeland security issues. but as i think we'll probably talk about, that is a very wide span of issues. so it begins with me receiving that briefing myself from a member of the intelligence community who is assigned to brief me every -- >> what time's that happening? >> so, that happens -- it depends on what's going on in my

schedule. usually around 8:00. but i have arrived earlier and i'm digesting the book itself and looking at questions that i might have of my briefer, things i might want to raise separate and apart from what's in the pdb with the president that morning. so i spend the first several hours of my day in, i would add, a windowless office, so it's very nice to be here, outside, seeing some -- >> we're happy to spring you. yes. >> -- some actual rays of sunshine. so, i begin that in my office in the west wing, on the ground floor of the west wing at the white house, which is actually just a little bit under and caddie corner to where the oval office is. and i'm in there reading the book, looking at what has transpired over the evening, looking at a number of issues, whether it's policy issues i want to update the president on,

threat streams, things we're doing about the threat streams, other issues that i want to use that time with him to raise those issues with him. so, spend a few hours doing that as well as having other staff meetings. and midmorning, it depends on what the president's schedule is, i will go upstairs outside my office to a short staircase that goes right up to the oval office and meet with the president in the oval office along with the people that i mentioned. and that meeting can last anywhere from half an hour, 45 minutes to an hour, depending on what's happening in the day. and one of the things that i've noticed in the 3 1/2 years that i've been in this job and doing this meeting and kind of series of preparations every morning is, a, the just expanse and wide

array of issues that are both covered in the president's daily brief and that we are talking to the president about. one of the things i've noticed is there is an increasing amount of that briefing and the issues that i'm raising with him. i am regularly, obviously, talking to him about terrorism threats. i'm regularly talking to him about homeland security issues of all stripes. but increasingly, over time, i have raised with him regularly in that meeting cyber threats. so, that is as well as emerging infectious disease challenges. >> so it's taking up more of your time and attention now than three years ago. >> so, it is a very robust part of the homeland security side of the title that i have in addition to the counterterrorism one. >> sounds robust. it sounds like an incredibly stressful way to begin your day. i know it's your job, but -- >> it's never dull. >> sounds like you're facing a final exam every morning. >> that's true. i described it like -- and i was a prosecutor for many, many years. it's like going before a tough judge every day. you have to know your stuff.

you have to be prepared for hard questions. you have to have thought through what is it i think he needs to know, what is it he's going to want to know. most importantly, what are you doing about it? what are we doing about it? are we doing everything possible to keep the american people safe? that is his beginning, middle and ending question. >> can you share any headlines from this morning's pdb? >> well, a lot of things you might imagine. we're constantly focused on the threat that isil poses, what's going on. a lot of information in the pdb, without obviously getting into the specifics, will be tailored to meetings the president may be having, issues he may be confronting. so, he is now winding his way back from a nine to ten-day trip in asia, so there will have been a lot of material in addition to whatever kind of timely or threat intelligence we have. there will be strategic pieces

that the president is digesting about the issues he's meeting on. >> great. and the leaders, his meeting and that. can i mention two words that i'm guessing came up more than once this past summer in these morning sessions, and those words are cyber and russia. was russia behind the dnc hack? >> so, look, this is what i'll say. first, good try. >> i'm not done. >> yeah. look, there is a very active and ongoing investigation, as i think people know and as i have expressed, as the president has said and as i'm sure people on this stage have said before today. i'm not going to get ahead of that. what we know, though, and i have said this and others have talked about this -- russia, along with other capable state actors, are continually trying to intrude upon our systems. that's government systems, that's private-sector systems,

that's public systems not in federal control. so they are an increasingly aggressive actor in this space. that is also true of china and iran, et cetera, as well as nonstate actors. the dnc hack and other issues that have been very much in the news is an example of the evolving cyber threat that we have confronted. i've just talked about how we've been looking at this over time and things like the pdb. what we're seeing is an increasingly sophisticated and diverse set of actors. so nation states, nonstate actors, criminals, hactivists, terrorists and an increasing set of sophisticated techniques and an increasingly wide attack space. john carlin just talked about the internet of things. that gives malicious actors a very wide, as the cyber security experts talk about it, attack

surface to go after. so it is an expansive threat that we're facing, which is why we have placed this at the very top of our priority list. but unlike in the counterterrorism space, we have got to rely on and work with the people who own, operate, house and administer those systems. and by and large, that is not the federal government, that's the private sector. >> and you've just added some nuance and reminded us of the complexity, which i appreciate. if i can return to the original question, though. jim clapper, the dni, just showed a little bit of leg -- in fact, a lot of leg, you could arguably say. he said russians hack our system all the time. >> mm-hmm. >> you're willing to go that far? >> yeah, and it's also what i have said, which is they are one of the more capable and more aggressive actors in cyberspace, including against our systems, and the president has talked about this. >> should the u.s. respond? >> so, yes, the u.s. should

respond. the question is how. and what you have seen is we have adopted an approach on this, which, one, says we're going to be driven by the intelligence, we're going to be driven by what the fbi, the intelligence community tells us has happened, what is it that we can explain. take the sony hack. it's a very good example of this. how can we both attribute that activity, show what it is we know so that we can make very clear that we're calling out these actors, and what we do is we have a full set of tools and responses that are on the table for us to look at and make judgments about. and what the president has said on this score is our responses in this space on cyber issues will be proportional. this is very consistent with the approach we've taken across the board. they'll be proportional.

and they will be done in a time and place of our choosing. and some will be seen, some will not be seen, some will be diplomatic some will be military, some will be intelligence, some will be law enforcement. you saw we just had john carlin up here. he's the head of the national security division that i had the privilege to lead before coming to the white house. and when i was in the national security division, we began an investigation into the hacking by five members of the chinese military into private systems to steal intellectual property. that then became public about a year and a half ago, and that was in one sense a response that we are signaling we are going to call to account and we are going to impose costs on those who would hack into our system and steal our intellectual property or attack our critical infrastructure.

>> and why choose to name names there but not in this case this summer? >> so, i guess what i would say to that is i challenge the premise, right? we have undertaken to call out north korea with regard to the sony hack. we have done so with regard to china. we also have done a great deal of good diplomacy with china in setting up an agreement with them that came out of the meeting with president xi last fall. >> but there's a lot of dancing around russia. why? >> well, so, i guess i would, again, i'd challenge the premise of that, which is to say i have just said, jim clapper has just said, yes, they are trying to -- and the president, most importantly, has said they are intruding on our systems all the time, and we are -- one should not assume that we are not responding. i guess that's what i would leave it at that. >> are we responding?

>> i think we engage with the -- on a whole host of levels is what i would say, diplomatic, law enforcement, intelligence, military, on these actors, mile actors whether they be china, whether they be non-state actors, whether they be terrorists. so the point is we have a framework. we have a set of tools that we use. we have the intelligence that comes forward and the investigation that are done. but people should not assume that if they are not seeing it, we're not doing this. >> and i take the point there is a value to not having everything you are doing be telegraphed immediately to a general audience. but isn't there a value in responding in such a way that the u.s. doesn't look weak? i was -- i was getting asked in the corridor out there about the russia and hacking question and saying is the u.s. getting its butt kicked because that is what it seems like if you follow the

daily stream of news. >> i disagree with that. i disagree with that. and the fact of the matter is, we have and the president said this just a few days ago, we have far greater capabilities, offense and defense, that is known. we make that known. and i think all experts would agree, cyber responses don't always require or cyber actions don't always require cyber responses. sometimes there are other responses. we have a whole set of tools that we are absolutely willing and able to use. the question is how are we doing it and how are we communicating that and what is proportional. all of those conversations go on on a daily basis with regard to a whole set of threats that we face. >> and quickly, before i change the subject, you referred to it as an ongoing investigation. is there a time frame? >> i think you should talk to the fbi about that. >> do you know -- could you put any detail on what piece of

information it is that they don't have that would allow attribution. >> no. one of the things i did when i came down the street from the justice department to the white house, i took off my prosecutor house and there is rightly a separation on that. so they will conduct their investigation and the intelligence community will do its job. >> all right. we're going to have time for a quick question in just a second, but let me ask -- i don't want to let you go before asking about guantanamo. we've heard about the radicalization process and how to prevent radicalization and i want to ask you about the other end, people who have been radicalized or been in guantanamo, are you getting it closed before president obama leaves office? >> the president talked about this just this morning. so no greater authority on that than him which is to say we're continuing to work it and he's continuing to work it. what we have done -- >> but do you think in your

heart it is possible still in the months left. >> i think it is entirely possible to engage constructively with those who right now have made this a very difficult thing, to close guantanamo. >> talking about congress? >> yeah. we have a number of restrictions. but we have been working with congress on those restrictions, on still transferring safely, securely, because that is the number one priority, transferring these individuals pursuant to security agreements with the countries and that is what we are continuing to do. there is 61 detainees at guantanamo down from 272 when the president took office. and there is a number of individuals there who are still approved for transfer by a unanimous view of the president's national security team. that is going back a number of

years to 2009 when we conducted a very careful review that was led by career prosecutors, intelligence, military, and other officials across the government. and so we are working away at transferring detainees securely, humanly, because that is the top priority. >> and within the white house, is the goal still realistically to get this done by next january or is it kind of an unspoken, that is nice but if we could get it to 25, that would be good. >> the president has been absolutely clear. he is committed to continuing to work this, to transfer everyone who can possibly be transferred. as you said this morning, it also -- this is a very big ticket item when it comes to the budget. there is an exceptionally large amount of money that is going -- that is being spent on this 400-plus million dollars a year

to continue to detain -- detainees, 61 at guantanamo sand a whole fleet of military personnel who are working there to do this. so as the president said this morning, at a certain point, you get down to, a., such a relatively low number and you are continuing to spend those funds, i think the -- what he would say and what he has said is the american people should be focused on that and congress should focus on whether that is the right expenditure of our resources. >> and if you have questions, please get your hands up. we're going to have lightning rounds one and two and get your hands up and we'll get a mike to you. and what gives you hope that you could close guantanamo in the next whatever, four months, when the president hasn't been able to do that in the last eight years. what do you see that is going to change? >> well, one is our ability to have transferred so many people

over the last -- particularly over the last three and a half years. >> that the cost ratio becomes insane. >> it is a real mismatch. and the fact that it does continue to impose real costs on our engagements with our allies. many of whom are very vital partners when it comes to counter-terrorism. >> quick question right here. yes, sir. >> kevin hanreceipta. 15 years later, are you encouraged by the direction and the progress that the intelligence community has made under the director of national intelligence? was the right decision to bring that community together? >> i am. and i think it was. and i think jim clapper has done a tremendous job because he he is focused on what the mission of that office is, which has been to integrate. that has been his kind of watch-word and his mission. and i see under his leadership and his team a real value.

when they come to the situation room table, we ask the dni for what is that community view? and i rely on it when i chair meetings of the deputies committee or in my case of the principles committee of the homeland security council and the fact there is one place to look and say give me the community view, the best judgment of the entire intelligence apparatus, there is real value to the policymaker in getting that. >> all right. lisa menacha. assistant to the president for homeland security and counter-terrorism. thank you so much. >> thanks for having me. [ applause ] >> please welcome back to the stage, margaret lowe. [ applause ] >> thank you. lisa monaco and mary louise, it was nice to end the day hearing about the daily presidential briefing and the expanding

dimensions of what that required. we didn't know about our own threat stream with the loss of the letter a. in the middle of our day. but as we close, i want to give a special shoutout to booz alan hampton for their support of today when we came to them for this idea. they were ready and willing to stand up for this important conversation. steven brill for his reporting and allowing this gathering to happen as we try to take account where we are 15 years after 9/11. we covered a lot of territory this morning. former secretary of homeland security began the day by telling us that we have to accept the reality that there is a global scourge. but that we also must put that in perspective and he affirmed that he believed that we are, indeed, safer today than we were 15 years ago. and there was clearly not universal agreement about that. we heard the concern about the

rapid expansion of the ideological battlefield abroad and about home-grown terrorism at home. we heard about the desperate need to streamline congressional oversight of homeland security and the warning that we have to imagine the unimaginable, the danger of dirty bombs, about bio terror and how we are dehumanizing whole groups of people in the national of national security. there was optimism, i think we all heard it from former senator joe leiberman that said reforms that exist today, had they existed on 9/11 those attacks never would have happened. and homeland security chief jeh johnson affirmed at the beginning of the day that we are, in fact, a remarkably resilient people. and that we come back better ever time. you have been a remarkably resilient audience. you gave us the greatest give of all which is your time. we hope this has been a

meaningful morning for you. we thank you so much for coming. as you leave, if you would answer our survey, we would be most grateful for that. it informs the work we do. we hope to see you back here again. thank you so much for your time. [ applause ] tonight on c-span, a look at efforts to reduce online sexual harassment. and then chief marg morgan testifies at a house homeland security hearing. and later a look at u.s. counter-terrorism strategy 15 years after 9/11. now, a look at efforts to stop online sexual harassment. california congressman jackie speier outlined legislation she introduced in july to make distributing explicit images without consent a federal crime punishable by up to five