>> next senators ben cardin of maryland and marco rubio of florida discuss human rights abuses in russia. then fbi director james comey talks about cybersecurity and data collection. and later a senate hearing on russian hacking and the 2016 elections. join us saturday at 10:30 a.m.

eastern as we're live from the national world war i museum in kansas city to mark the epttry into what was call the great war. our guests are matthew nailer, national world warld i national ceo. mitch yog he will son, historical adviser and author of 47 days, how per shing's warriors came of age to defeat the army in world war i. richard falkner, the american soldier in world war i. andorra cart, national world i senior curating live saturday at 10:30 a.m. eastern on american history tv on c-span 3. this weekend c-span city's tour with the help of our comcast cable partners will explore the

litter rarery seen of chico, california, on c-span 2. in his book, johned by we will&california, the life and writings of a pioneer, 1841 to 1900. >> most important and long lasting relationships for the federal government, though, starting with his days in congress was his close relationship with the united states department of agriculture. he was constantly being sent -- constantly corresponding with officials in the usda and was constantly receiving from them different crops. >> on sunday 2:00 p.m. eastern on american history t very we visit the california state

university form. >> it's the number one industry in california yet and we're the number one state in the nation in terms of agriculture. and there's 23 csu campuses but only four of them have agriculture. and chico essentially represents the northern part of the state, but we draw students from all over california to get experience in agriculture itself. >> and we'll also go inside the chico museum to see the historic chinese altar from the 1880 chico chinese temple. what's saturday at noon 2:00 eastern on book tv and sunday afternoon at 2:00 p.m. on c-span 3. working with our cable affiliates and visiting cities across the country. >> now senators ben cardin and marco rubio. this atlantic council event is 1

hour and 35 minutes. >> good morning, everyone. welcome to the atlantic council. i'm paul awe dobriansky i'm on the executive committee of the atlantic council board and i

really want to commend counsel's center for today's program which is entitled the state of human rights in putin's russia. as many of you know the center has been extremely active and a vigorous voice on a range of issues from russia's disinformation to the issue of ukraine, the scale and scope of the aggression in ukraine and the illegal annexation of crimeya. russia has kperned the worst crack down in human rights in decades and we have three keynote speakers who will be up first, and all of whom are making a difference in their own way. they're strong, outspoken advocates for freedom and basic human rights in russia. i'm going to introduce the first tleend then we'll be having a panel afterwards which will be moderated by dr. alina polyakova

of the council. but first we're going to be hearing -- i'm going to introduce ail all three. we're going to here from ben cardin, ranking member of the senate foreign relations committee who just this week condemned the arrests of hundreds of peaceful demonstrators in moscow. he is a cosponsor of the global magazine any of sky human rights accountability act which impowers the united states to deny human rights abusers and also those corrupt officials entry into the united states and access to our financial institutions. following him, we'll be hearing from florida's senator marco rubio, also a member of the senate foreign relations committee who earlier this ear on february 27th, the day that the former deputy prime minister of russia bore russ people sauf was bunned down right in front of the kremlin, senator rubio

introduced legislation that would designate the street in front of the embassy has bore russ any of so's boulevard plaza. they said it would permanently remind putin's regime and the russian people that will their disa dent views live on and the defenders of liberty will not be silenced. and then we will hear from vladimir kara-murza who is known to everyone in this room and out of this room whose life has been twice threatened. he was in russia just again recently and he was there traveling to several russian cities to present a documentary ris. he become ill, was hospitalized, his friends, families, those of

us in this room fear he was targeted with poison. vand to say for all of us who know him and have worked with him, he's a man of courage, he's a person who has sfreng e strength of conviction, deep convictions, and a very federal reservent desire to see a democratic russia where fundamental freemz are protected. vladimir is advice chair of open russian movement and also chairman of the boris people so foundation for freedom and we're very honored that he is able to be here with us today. i also want to recognize his wife who also is here who's also truly a person of courage as well in this fight. so without further ado, please join me in a very gig or russ applause for these very three disspinning wished -- distinguished speakers. >> madam ambassador, thank you

very much for that very generous and kind introduction. it's a pleasure to be back to the atlantic council, probably to be here with my colleague and friend senator rubio. one of the real great leaders in the united states senate on so many issues but today on human rights, there's not a greater champion. i serve with him on the senate foreign relations committee, and i must tell you i am so proud to serve on a committee with him. he raises at the -- to everyone who comes before us the critical questions on support for basic human rights. so senator rubio, it's a pleasure to be with you as always, and thank you for your championship on these issues. but to my friend vladimir, two of us, senator rubio and i we speak out but we know that we're safe. you have the courage that is incredible on behalf of the russian people and the world community. and we thank you, we thank your wife what you do is an inspiration to all of us and it

keeps us -- gives us the energy to pursue these causes here in the united states. so thank you for being the person that you are and insurancevision operation. i see officer congressman slaughterry it's nice to see that you're in the audience and it's good to be with so many friends. when the history of america's written about this period of time, i believe it will speak very strongly about america's greatness. and it won't be america's greatness for its military power, it will be america's greatness in promoting universal goals. the goals of good governance ar anticorruption, the goals of supporting human rights, of speaking out on behalf of democratic institutions, and it was america's strength that brought down the grip of the soviet union and libber rated central and eastern europe. that's what's going to be, i think, the key to how we are perceiv

perceived historically as to what we did during this per particular time. and we saw the power of those ideas. we saw the power of those ideas this past weekend when the russians took to the streets to protest against their corrupt government. they were doing what my dear friend john lewis said. we came to the congress at the same time and ease an inspiration to me a living legend on his fight for six rights. he said sometimes people just have to speak out, they have to raise their voices, they've got to move their feet. and we saw that happen in russia this past weekend where thousands turned out to say, no, we want a government that reflects the people of russia, not a corrupt government. and that action will bring about a change in russia. russia will return to its greatness of a country that respects the rights of its citizens. and vladimir's actions is helping bringing that day a little bit sooner than it

otherwise would be. human rights are not a western imposition but a russian demand and that's what we are trying to promote. this is not about the russian people, it's about mr. putin and his corrupt system that we are fighting. this is not a new idea. 1975 the european community along with the united states came together with the 1975 health sink i can final accords. i've been active with the health sinky mitigation commission since my election to congress many years ago. it was a concept that pointed out that we have a right to expect the country's will adhere not only to military security and economic security, but to basic human rights. and that's not just an internal matter. all the signators to the health sinky have the right to challenge the commitments being adhered to by any member state including their commitment to

basic human rights. russia is violating those commitments every single day in so many different ways. if you're a journalist in russia, you know that you cannot operate with safety. you know that your lives are at risk. if you're in opposition, you know that you better watch your back as we've seen assassination after assassination, intimidation after intimidation if the 23 you're an ngo, you know you're going to be labeled an undesieshl foreign organization even though you are there to promote global issues. you know that corruption in the judicial system, corruption is called the lubricant of the putin regime. it has enabled mr. putin ton carry out his autocratic procedures and the way that he operates. the election system itself is fraud, guaranteeing that the results willing what mr. putin wants. minorities are not safe whether they are lgbt community, whether they're ethnic minorities,

whether migrants, all are in jeopardy in today putin's russia. why should he be concerned? there's several reasons. first, this type of human rights violations, this type of corruption lead to instability in regimes and will make our world less safe. and secondly, we've seen that mr. putin's ready to attack america. he did attack america, that's not even being disputed anymore. >> i even think by the president. but mr. -- mr. putin inattacked us, attacked our free election system. purchase putin's active in europe, he's active now in germany and in france trying to influence those elections. he's trying to bring down our way of government to create more space so he can expand his influence, his type of leadership in europe and around the world. we cannot allow that type of gap

to exist. we need to protect democratic institutions. so what should congress do? what should we do in order to stop that? well, one thing we've already done is pass the sergey ma knits sky law which makes it clear that those that are participating in this type of conduct we're not going to award them by participating in our country's assets and bachking system. today there are 44 individuals that are currently listed under this law, and i want to thank tom mall linnous sky for hinz credible leadership on this issue and so many other issues both in government and out of government in helping us get this achieved. but there's more that we can do. and i along with 19 of my colleagues have filed the countering russia's hostilities act. i want to thank senator rubio, one of the leaders on this legislation. and it deals with the current challenges that russia is -- is presenting to us. russia, yes, is violating basic

human rights of its citizens. it's also attacking us as they did in our free elections. they also are interfering with the sovereignty of other countries. we all know what they did in ukraine with crimea and eastern ukraine, moldova, georgia, they're threatening a lot of the european countries that have russian speaking populations. we need to make it clear to russia that that is not acceptable. sanctions are affecting russia, so we can strengthen the sanction regime against russia and the legislation that we have filed will do that. and it goes into many areas that we can strengthen by going into the energy sector, going into howthy finance their sovereign debt, how they deal with privatization. we can strengthen the resolve against russia and our european allies understand the importance of this, we need to work with europe. but there's a second part of this bill that's as equally important if not more important.

it defines an effort with our european allies to fieght the russia propaganda so we can use all of our countries together for strategies to counter the lies that russia's doing in order to cause instability in so many countries around the world. and it develops in a democracy initiative similar to a security initiative that we have under nato to protect the democratic institutions of europe. they're under attack. we should share information. i met with the baltic leaders this week and they said that's great, we should do that. we have a plan but we haven't coordinated with europe. we should coordinate it with the united states and europe a plan to protect or democratic leadership from russia. it's not just taking cyber information and using it to compromise elections, it's also false news and using false news as we've never seen before. we need to work together and we also need to pass legislation.

senator rubio's been very active live enganled with me on and that is the syrian war crimes. purchase putin is committing war crimes in syria. he is using humanitarian targets as a way of advancing his support for assad. and that type of conduct needs to be held accountable. let me just conclude by quoting a person who i have a great deal of respect for, and that's vladimir. vladimir testified before our committee in 2015 and he said then that he did not ask that the united states come to the support of russia, he wasn't asking for that. he wasn't asking for our economic or military support. what he was asking us to do is not to make it easier for mr. putin to carry out his ideals. don't give him krlkt. don't acknowledge what he's doing is right. just the opposite.

stand strong on a u.s. global principles because that's what the russian people need. they need america to be clear, strong about the values that are universal that have made us the great nation that we are. i want you to know vladimir, that you have our commitment that we're going to do just that. that we're going to stand up for the values of america, we're going to stand up for why this nation is the great nation it is, we're going to stand up to our alsinky hitt commitments and we're going to stand strong with the people of russia. thank you. [ applause ] >> thank you. i want to thank senator cardin for his kind words and for his introduction here today to you. he has, indeed, been a partner in many of these issues, so much so that in the hallways of the senate when i'm approached by the press and they ask me you can comment on the bill you're doing with senator cardin, i start getting -- which one?

we've worked on so many of these issues that are so critically important it truly is an honor to work with him on these. and at the outset i've excused myself i think senator cardin has the same issue, in addition to a 10:00 vote in the senate we have two important hearings going on at the same time on two committees i'm a member of. the general topic of america's engagement in the world, and then the senate intelligence committee has a public hearings today on a topic that, well, i think you know what it's on. and so we'll need to get there on time, but i also want to thank the atlantic council for hosting this event. the state of human rights in putin's russia. i don't quarrel with the title, i understand the point, but it's not putin's russia, it's russians russia. vladimir putin happens to have control of the government today but russian is not vladimir

putin. russia is an ancient proud penl. vladimir putin happens to be a tie rant that be controlsz its government. but i thank you for inviting me to participate in this event and i'm incredibly proud to be here with vladimir kara-murza who you know and i'm going to have the honor to introduce him shortly. when we talk about people around the world who risked their lives in the name of freedom, vladimir is an example of just how true this is and his brave fight for democracy and freedom in his country is truly an inspiration. we have an award in america called the profiles in courage and it's largely given to someone who took political risk because you might have lost an election or took on some nasty criticism in the press for doing something. and i understand relatively speaking that is courage in the american political system. real courage is incredible level of courage is knowing that your position on politics could have you killed, compiled, exisland .

the state of human rights under vladimir putin in russia has long been on a decline. it has only accelerated in recent years as they have cracked on you on society, media. anyone critical of russia. this is what happens there an abysmal human rights situation that becomes even worse. we have seen over the last number of years vladimir putin's critics mysteriously poised on, many occasions on multiple occasions thrown out of windows, murdered, all this just this year along and we're only in march. vladimir survived his second poisoning attempt. the government has implemented draconian laws. we watched this week

predominantly young russians took to the streets to protest corruption within the putin government to make clear that the people of russia what they want is a transparent ghoofrmt respects their voice iz in shaping their future. what was the response of the putin government? they arrest and detained hundreds of people. this is only the latest incident that reminds us how critical it is that the united states stands with the russian people in their fight against a beautal, corrupt and repressives va jet stream. this behavior by the putin ra yeem is nothing new in the in tweft russian authorities began implement a 2012 law that places any advocacy group that accepts foreign funding on a list as foreign agents, many nongovernmental organizations either spent resources defending themselves against these attacks and labels of being a foreign agent or, they simply closed. each year he tightens his grip on the country as he tries to mask the abuses against his own people with aggression outside of russia.

globally putin has made clear his intention on the world stage. he wants to establish sfeerz of influence in europe and middle east. and what that has meant with his aligning with the brutal tie rants and regimes in the world to undermine not just america's but the peaceful nations of the world interests and in the process to perpetuate war crimes. he's actively working to drive a wealth wean western allies and within western institutions such as nato and the european union. he directly interferes in nations looking to further align themselves with democratic values and with the united states. we should be under no false illusions. putin's dreams of restoring what he sees as the days of the russian empire are what drives him in his goals and it's an important thing to remind us that russia, as i said, is a nation and a people that should be very, very proud of its history, should be very optimistic about its future given the chance and has so much

to contribute to the world. it does not need a tie rant in order to achieve these things. we all have read and heard and will attorney to hear in the weeks and months to come about the meddling of his allies in europe just he's attempted to influence our own election in the united states last year. in the middle east he's engaged in a bloody military campaign in syria partnering with iran and with assad regime. he claims to be fighting isis but it's clear that their efforts have dlitly targeted sa civilians. they've blocked food and medicine by the united nations to end of the suffering of the syrian people. he's worked with assad and inflicted thousands of civilian deaths and injuries and contributed to the refugee crisis. all this will chaos morkz of it course easier for the world to overlook the on going abuses of the putin regime against his own people. but we cannot allow that. and that's why it's important

for to us have gathered here today to renew our commitment to the cause of human rights in russia and to remind people like vladimir and others and other braef democracy activists that we truly do stand with them, that we will use every tool at our disposal to hold putin accountable and we will not allow the brave acts to be in pain. the most brutal reality of the human right situation in russia is that the critics of the putin regime end up being targeted or they die. last month was the two-year anniversary of the assassination of mr. people stof he was murdered on a bridge that moss cow in plain sight of the kremlin. no one's been meld to account. we must call for justice and honor these brave individuals who stand up to putin and his cronies. that's why on the anniversary of his assassination i introduced a bill follow rename the street in

front of the embassy. we have taken the liberty to actually show what you it's going to look like on the day that we achieve that. some may ask what impact is that going to have in well, as vladimir eloquently put it in "the washington post" recently it will remind the regime that they are on the wrong side of the history and i believe it will stand as an example that these voices live on and the defenders of libltd will not be silenced. as vladimir told me a few moments ago, the current regime in russia will be angry about the naming of that street, but hopefully a future democrat being government russia will be proud that the street in front of their embassy bears his name. as the new administration now continues to shape its foreign policy and it's national security strategy, i truly believe its kril critical for them to include human rights as core elements with any country

in the world. russia's a perfect example of why this is true. i'm proud to have joined senator cardin in introducing comprehensive sanctions or putin that will target his regime cyber attacks, aggression, destabilizing activities in the united states and against our allies. additionally the rule of law accountability act is one valuable and critical tool that the united states has to address human rights abuse business vladimir putin. we also need to continue adding individuals to this list and holding those complicit in human rights abuses directly accountable. we should also consider new measures that target the state-sanked corruption at the top of the putin government, the core tlaupgs brought thousands out into the streets this past weekend. thee young russians realize that their country has a huge opportunity to join the rest of the world, to embrace democratic values and the respect for the rule of law and to protect the human rights of all their citizens. sadly russia's current leader has chosen the path of

aggression and instalkt. his actions in the region, in his own country pose a national security threat to the united states and undermine our interests and the interests of all freedom loving people abroad. as long he's continues to choose -- to go down this path, we must choose to strengthen the relationship with our allies in the region and with the russian people and to support them as they confront these aggressions. our country, the united states of america, must stand with the russian people in their fight for freedom. now it is truly my honor to introduce vladimir kara-murza who is here with us today after surviving an apparent attempt to poison him last month, the second time a said earlier in vent years that this has happened. he has made his future in the cause of promoting civil society in rush at work of his life. and despite being a target, he continues that work undeterred and as passionate as ever.

vladimir, you are an inspiring example to all of us here in the united states and i believe to the russian people, the people wherever and it's my honor to introduce to you those who are present here today and those who may be watching from home. ladies and gentlemen, vladimir kara-murza. [ applause ] >> thank you. thank you. thank you so very much and i want to thank first of all the atlantic council for hosting and organizing this very important discussion and for the opportunity to participate in it. and i'm especially honored and very, very humbled to be speaking after two such distinguished leaders on global

democracy and human rights in the united states senate. from two different sides of the aisle, as it should be. and i want to take this opportunity to thank senator marco rubio and senator ben cardin for their work and for their commitment to the principles that are so often forgotten and overlooked in this age of real politics but are still important to so many people. thank you. it seems there should be little new to say about the state of human rights in russia. after 17 years of vladimir putin's rule, and yet there always is and there's never a shortage of news or discussions on the subject. it has not been that long, 17 years since that famous question was asked of the world economic forum, who is mr. putin? and in fact to those who were paying attention and noticing the early signs, mr. putin provided the answer very early on, actually before it was even asked in dallas, before he became president of russia. i often think back to one

particular day, december the 20th, 1999. mr. putin was still prime minister, it was the last couple of weeks of boris yell ton's presidency and december 20 of course is the day of the cha keeft, the day of the annual comemmer operation of the founding of the secret police in 1917, still officially marked in russia. and on that day, mr. putin did two things. in the morning he unveiled the memorial plaque to his mentor. the long time soviet kgb chairman best known for establishing a special director in the kgb aimed at targeting and stopping dissent. and also for punitive psychology when day dents were declared psychologically insane. he went to a meeting and he addressed them and he told them publicly this in front of tv

cameras with a smile on his face, he said, i can report to you that the group of fsb officers sent to work undercover in the government of the russian frags is fulfilling its mission, and there was still some at the time who thought this was a joke. of course every single thing mr. putin and his regime has done since then has been fully in line with that promise and that mission. the suppression and sile lengs lensing of independent media, consistent and continue russ rigtion of elections, the crack downs on the freedom of assembly, the blacklisting of ngos, the revival the politically motivated imprisonment. we now have 100 political prisoners in our nation. and by the way, just to compare, in 1975 when the noeb know bell peace prize acceptance speech, he listed by name 126 political prisoners. that wasn't an exhaustive list, that was just the ones he knew

of but probably this one is not exhaustive either. these political prisoners of today include activists and their family members, they include regular citizens jailed for participating in peaceful demonstrations. they have the filmmaker, as well as the last remaining hos hostage of the uk cuss case that saw russia's largest oil company dismantled and effectively seized by the government and his crowe imprisoned for more than a decade for having the tenacity to oppose the political groups. we live in the information age, after all, the age of new

technologies and growing importance of international public opinion and political prisoners can actually sometimes turn the tables and use proceedings against them to expose the regime. and public statements and courts by continuing their struggles from behind bars as so many people have both in the soviet times and today. by continuing to take a stand even while being imprisoned, i can tell you there's not much of a stand you can take when you're lying on the floor struggling to take a breath unable to move, feeling your heart racing away and your whole body just giving up one organ after another and then spend weeks in a coma hooked up to tubes and life support. i've had to do this twice now in the last two years. both times in moscow, both times as unundefined medical toxin. and both times the doctors said my chance of survival was about 5% so i really mean this when i say i'm very happy to be here with you today and also very grateful and also very, very

fortunate. many of our colleagues and friends have not been that fortunate. they have not had 5%. boris didn't have 1% when they put five bullets in his back on that bridge 200 yards from the kremlin. the leader of the russian opposition, former deputy prime minister, the most prominent opponent of vladimir putin and two years on total impunity for those who reasonable doubt odd and carried out the killing, not identified, not apprehend. if you can kilt leader of the opposition in front of the kremlin and get away with it, i think it becomes pretty meaningless to talk about the state of human rights or any other kind of human rights abuse. but i want to talk also today about the other side of the story, about what is happening despite the crack downs and the threats. last sunday, tens of thousands of people went out to the streets across russia to say no

to the pervasive government corruption, to the impunity for this corruption, to the authoritarian rule, to the lack of accountability and frankly against the arrogance of the same small group of people whose held power in our country now for 17 years. most of those rallies were, quote unquote, unauthorized, in violation of the russian constitution, of course, cl guarantees the freedom of assembly in article 21, but they went to great lengths to say that these rallies are unsanctioned, unauthorized, illegal. and indeed in many places, including in moscow protesters were met by riot police and by the national guard which by the way was set i a kooum couple years ago by putin with the direct purpose of putting down the opposition riots. and yet the people still came out across the country. and what was most striking about these demonstrations was the scale and the conversation.

this was the most widespread opposition action i think since the early 1990s, since the breakup of the soviet union, bigger than the winter protest we had five years ago following the rigged parliamentary elections in 2011. this time it was 82 towns and cities across russia, large and small across 11 time zones, east to west. and it was of course striking about -- because of who participated in the protests. the vast majority of those who came out to the streets of russia last sunday were young people. university students, high school kids in many cases. people in their 20s, early 30s, many in their teens. this is the putin generation. these are the people some raised in many cases born under vladimir putin's regime. the people that have never known any other political reality, who don't know what it's like to

have free elections, independent television. for home in the 1990s is something out of a history textbook. who have watched the same face on television screens for their entire lives. and, in fact, who have long stopped looking at those television screens. this is the generation that trusts twitter and youtube much more than it twufts any kremlin controlled national television channel. and it is this generation that is increasingly growing to realize that the putin regime is robbing them, not just literally in terms of the corruption this was the immediate reason for the protest, but also is robbing them the young generations of russians of their prospects and of their future. and there's really not much mr. putin can do about that, apart from for now the national guard and riot police. the day after these proftests took place i have to admit i was

surprised about the scale, about just how widespread and geographically diverse this was. but i was not surprised by the participation, because i've seen these people. over the last three years since we have re-launchched open russia first as a open democracy ngo, i have traveled across the country, across the regions. i have to be honest i haven't made it as far as -- and we've been holding events across the country, public events to try to maintain and keep that space for public discussion in our country that's been increasingly shrunk and sweezed and attacked. you know, public lectures, seminars, round tables, debates, film screenings and such. and every time, by the way, or almost every time the authorities try to sabba tajh and prevent and stop our events from take place by bogus bomb threats or the police arrives and orders an manner to evacuation. they switch off electricity on

the entire block so on and so forth but the people refuse to leave. we've never cancelled an event. we've had events in caves, in the streets. one of my favorite was a couple years ago we had an convenient in st. petersburg with a prom nate russian political analyst, many of you know him. and of after i think 11 or 12 locations rejected, you know, us trying to rent or lease a hall or room, we just said, fine, we'll do it outside on the street. this was st. peteringburg in the spring so it was cold, but that was fine. there were hundreds of people, and we took -- we just took a sound system, a loud speak her and we were standing there and he began reading out poetry. he decided to have a poetry scene in the capital of russia. i remember this was definitely one of the best events we had. everybody loved him holding the loudspeaker reading poems.

and about 100 yards from him there was a squad dron of police and a police guard in uniform holding a loudspeaker and pointed at us and while he was reciting poetry the policeman was reciting articles of the criminal code that where he were supposedly breaking by taking part in this demonstration. could i ask for a bottle of water? excuse me. and so every time we held our events and the people didn't leave and they came and they participated. and i've seen them and i've seen how their growing self-awareness as citizens and their interests in civic participation became

stronger than their sense of fear. and that was really hopeful. and in fact most of our work at open russia is directed at this new generation, the new generation of democratic activists in russia. these are the faces of a future post putin russia. the russia that we want to see based on rule of law, based on democratic institutions, based on respect for human rights. and it's the russia that we will continue to work for. mr. putin and his regime would like the whole world certainly the west, certainly the united states to think that russia is just about him and his regime. in fact, one of his closest aides was recently on record saying there is no russia if there's no putin, that's a direct quote. and apart from being deeply offensive, in my view, this is also patently not true and i

think we all saw that on display last sunday across the country. because russia is so much more diverse, so much bigger, so much different and frankly so much better than that face that we've all been looking at for the past 17 years. thank you very much. it's a pleasure to be here. [ applause ] >> thank you so much for those inspiring remarks. i'd like to ask the rest of our pannestists, including your set of to just join us here on stage for a discussion.

all the way down. vladimir, that's right. thank you. so i also want to thank senators cardin and senator rubio and ambassador doke brian no, sir sky for their remarks. i'm the director of research for the atlantic council and it's an honor and pleasure to host this distinguished panel who are here with us today for this very important timely event. we certainly were planning this particular event, i did not anticipate the protest that took place across russia this past weekend, but of course that makes it so much more timely. and i'm absolutely thrilled and very happy to see vladimir with us today for many reasons. i won't introduce him again, i

think both senators and the ambassador have done a wonderful job, but i think i speak for all of us here at the atlantic council when i say that we admire you a great deal for your courage and your incredible perseverance and persistence in the fight for the freedom of your people. so thank you so much for being with us. and then to my left i have mr. carl gershman who's the president of the national endowment for democracy. that has been the primary vehicle for supporting prodemocratic society in flejing democracies of the former soviet union and elsewhere in the world and we are grateful for your work as well. thank you for joining us. and then last but certainly not least, i have mr. tom mall innous sky, he's the human rights and laborest u.s. department of state. he also served as the washington

director for human rights watch and various posts at the state department including policy planning staff before that and tom has been the leading voice on human rights particularly in russia, rest of the central and eastern up and we really appreciate the hard work that you've done for us in the service of this country, so thank you. and i want to start off the conversation with some of the points that you already brought up, vladimir. you talked about the demonstrations and who was there and the belief you have in the future of russia because of how widespread and how highly par tis paer to these demonstrations were. and you made the interesting point that i'd like to ask you a bit more about. the people who were on the streets in almost 100 russian cities from west to east were very young. they were basically you could say raised by putin himself. and so in your view from what you know about who was there,

what were their desires and demands? i know that the demonstrations went on but what do they tell us about the stability of the regime and where russia stands today? >> thank you for the question and it's good to be here again. and the immediate reason for the protest of course was the anticorruption drive and the film that was released a couple of weeks ago by the anticorruption foundation alleging the mass wealth of current prime minister and former caretaker president. there's a billion dollars worth of palaces, vineyards, yachts, and not just in russia by the way, again, this goes to this point that senator cardin raised in his introductory speech, in the west and some of his holdings are in tus kany. i've beenly it can vouch it's a nice place but that was all documented in the film. >> that film was seen by -- as

of last night about 13 million people on youtube. if you watched direction state tv you wouldn't know that any of of this existed. and there was no common -- no official reaction, nothing from the government to any of this. the only reaction was that banned him on his instagram page, that was the only response to the film. >> i think that was the immediate trigger for the protest. which in a way makes it similar to what happened five years ago after the rigged

so i'm going to be here for awhile now. but if you watch these rallies and speeches and the slogans and the placards, somewhere about corruption, sure.

but people also translate russia without putin. and the main thing that people translate is russia will be free. >> back to the earlier protests. which didn't include as many young people. i think that was the interesting thing to see that these slogans, russia will be freed. resonating across generations. i think that is a really important point for all of us to remember that even in places where it seems to be so strong and so totalitarian, there's always space for protest. when people don't feel satisfied with the social contract they've been forced to by the regime. >> absolutely. and they weren't born when that social trt was in. carl i want to bring you into the conversation as well.

national endowment has worked for many decades to promote democratic values and principals. and, you know, we're talking about russia now, but i think in many ways russia is also particularly putin the leader of the country has become a symbol for many leaders. as well. and there does seem to be a growing trend, spreading from east to west where other political leaders have even found themselves as liberal states, quote, unquote. do see see there's a trend happening across these new democracies we thought were iebl and moving towards liberal democratic societies and is there a backlash? is putin really what these people are look to? >> when you have a country that is able to expand the

geopolitical influence that has political consequences, then you also have russia very deliberately using the information that exists here as well. but to undermine the morale and divide the country in the west. and then you have on top of that problems of plutocracy. not just spilling from the people but using the proceeds of that feeling to increase their influence both at home and abroad. and to do it with the help of the western financial system. i think we and people in europe just have to know what we're dealing with. and i don't think we fully realize what we're dealing with. when vladimir before was talking about the events on december the 20th, i mean, they were events

that took place before then which in a sense are even more eye opening than what we described on december the 20th. of course i'm talking about what happened in september with the apartment bombings. in my view there's no question as to what happened there. you know, when the -- behind the attempted bombing after the first four bombings and they were using the same materials. and 293 russians were killed there. nobody who knew putin was before that. how do you get somebody going from 2% popularity and nobody knowing who he was and the representing the foc becoming known by everybody. that's what it was. and he became, you know -- the war -- the second war in chechnya started the day after the bombing was discovered.

so people didn't paengs to it then they eliminated all of the people trying to write about it we have to protect ourselves more. we have serious internal problems which then the regime like putin using the information space, using the resources, you know, the stolen resources can exploit not just a matter of showing solidarity and i have to say every time i hear him speak, i realize that he's got a rare voice. really a rare voice.

we have to protect ourselves. i think we're learning that. but we have a long way to go. >> and i think one of the things we're pointing to is that while there is some appeal in the strong leadership authoritarian that is spreading, i think across some countries in central eastern europe, we have to do our part to expose and undermine the rottenness of that regime and the disturbance that it does to the people who have to live in that kind of regime. >> my sense is this is maybe my typical wishful thinking. it's beginning to peak. and democracy has to revive itself from within. if it were to be able to become real allies of people like vladimir. that was the message i thought, by the way bb last month rubio.

it really was a call to us to recover our will and our awareness. >> of leadership. thank you, carl. you brought the information space. i want to bring you into the conversation, tom. vladimir, you also mentioned the state sponsored media. i think this is important to remember. people have access information. at the same time i think the regime and not just the russian regime but other regimes are there to their stability. as a result we see many western organizations being forced and expelled out of russia. who have tried to support independent media in civil society. so tom, you were assistant secretary in the last administration until very recently.

given the political climate, the organizations which supported independent media in russia are no longer able to operate there. what else -- what can the u.s. actually do to try to support these kinds of democratic movements? independent media, in places like russia and other authoritarian countries? >> well, i think there's still a great deal that we can do. and we, you know, when russia made it -- when russian government made it difficult, it's not impossible for the united states to directly support independent civil society inside russia. i think we added a number of effective efforts which contributed to defense and security. i think the increase over the last several years is a sign of

the insecurity of the regime. an interesting point we should always remember even as we look at the strong facade that putin projects. that underneath the facade must be a tremendous amount of insecurity. so, you know, we were not able to continue to do a lot of the work inside of russia that we were doing. but that doesn't mean that we can't work from the outside, maintain connections to solidarity with and direct support for russian activists for independent media working from outside the country. it doesn't mean that we cannot work with russian-speaking populations in neighboring countries in ukraine and the baltic states and so forth. in terms of more broadly how we can share the response to what's happening, though, i think we do

have to be brutally honest not only about the political developments of russia over the last years. when bad things happen in other countries, our instinctual response in america is to appeal to our government and particularly to our president. to say something. when i was in the obama administration many of you guys came to us for any number. we were urged to take a tougher stand. you were right to do so. i'm a democrat when we had a bush administration i didn't much like the bush administration. but i absolutely believed the president thought that the united states should be a force for good and the world. and i was routinely at the state department in the national security council urging those

folks including paula still in the room to take a stand on this for the other. i don't feel that way about the current occupant of the white house. i think we have to be open about this and think about what it means. there were a number of people this week who called for the release for not condemning these protests. i don't want president trump to be calling for the release of anticorruption protesters in russia. it's a critical thing to do. in any standpoint, he in many ways represent the things young people in russia were protesting against.

he has told us he doesn't really believe the united states can be or should be a force for good in other countries. we have an american first foreign policy today. and when confronted with evidence of abuses against his people, his instincts have consistently been to repeat russian propaganda about the lack of moral authority of the united states to condemn anybody else. basically talking down american democracy by saying that our system is rigged. our system is corrupt. exactly what russia today -- exactly what russian diplomats would say to me when i was a secretary whenever i tried to push an agenda. i think what this means for the rest of us is that the traditional model of petitioning the white house for help in these situations has to be

replaced by model in which we all take sensibility. whether the institutions that we represent ourselves as citizens or other parts of the u.s. government, other branches including the congress, i think the most important thing for example is the congress should do and the senators alluded to this would be to respond to what russian activists have been asking us to do for years. that's to make sure the united states and countries cannot be a safe haven for dirty money coming out of russia. there have been numerous efforts in the u.s. congress, for example, to close the loopholes that allow russian oligarchs and many other bad guys around the world to set up shell companies in the united states which amazingly is as about easy in america to do as it is in the cayman islands and all these other places. that has to stop. we should continue financial support to organizations working on human rights in russia and

around the world. we can't do that if the state budget is cut by 37%. if you care about this, you've got to care about that. and our members of congress have got to ensure not only that that budget request to the administration is projected, but that we have an increase for the programs that are even in greater demand today when civil society's under attack in so many countries. my former bureau, the human rights bureau of the state department will do its job. they will with whatever resources they are given do everything it possibly can to support these brave people in russia and around the world. our duty is to make sure they get those resources despite very, very clear intentions of the president to deny them. >> thank you, tom. i will say it seems that congress has taken a much stronger and assertive role in pushing the administration in the right direction. so i think giving it some time,

we will see what happens. the fact that we had a democratic senator and a republican senator here with us today i think is a strong signal that there is bipartisan support for democracy values and principals and pronosing those values and principles abroad. i would like to see more of that as well. i know you have been very active in tying to nudge congress in the right direction. so thank you for doing that as well. i think tom, you're certainly right about that. but at the same time my sense is -- and correct me if i'm wrong about this. but despite everything, i think a very optimistic picture of the future that things will change in places like russia. will decline. that these are temporary movements that will not last in

the long-term. but at the same time, i think tom kind of put in a little note of maybe cynicism of pessimism into this picture. that if we don't have civic engagement, we are not going to see these take place. my question to you is how did democracy get its exposure back. how do you get people who are becoming disenchanted with these ideas to re-engage? >> well, i'm actually not that pessimistic. i was trying to honestly point to a very deep problem that we have to confront. but i also think that this is a clarifying moment for a lot of people. there was a lot of complacency in this country and western europe and many parts of the

world about the inevitability of democratic institutions lasting forever. a lot of complacency about the strength and vitality of our democracy here in the united states. and also about the threat to our democracy posed in countries like russia. even in the state department i have to say we were deeply, deeply concerned. extremely nervous about the impacts that things like fake news and dirty money might have on democracy in moldova. and now we know. and it may well be that in every generation or two, there needs to be a shock to the system to

scare people straight and to show us that, "a," we have to work our asses off to protect democracy in our own country because it's a never-ending struggle. and "b," that if america is not a force for good in the world, if we are not using our moral influence and strength to stand with those who share our values, really, really bad things happen. our grandparents' generation had that shock in world war ii. which was the events that defeats in the first in this country. it was not an el quantity argument made. it was pearl harbor. we now have a political crisis in this country and the western world which i think is scaring a lot of people straight. you know, i saw a lot of young progressives at the rallies after the trump administration waving signs about putin.

and funny plays on his name and clever slogans and all kinds of things. you know, you wouldn't have seen that level of interest four or five years ago about what is happening. folks get now the connection between that and what is happening closer to home. our job is to show that awareness and translate it into a policy agenda that over the next several years will win out in this country. i think we can do that. >> so i want to get your reflections to what tom just laid out. will we at a turning point? for russia where we're seeing young people engaged in politics? what is your take on that?

>> i do believe we are in a crisis. whether it's a turning point, i don't know yet. it does present an opportunity. i think people are realizing we have a problem and we have to address that problem. i'm not sure i agree arguments are important. you need just the attack on pearl harbor and 9/11 to sort of make people really wake up. i think it's important now to care about freedom and democracy to come together and to begin a campaign to argue for these values, to reaffirm the first principles of democracy which are being not only ignored but also demeaned. and exploited. in other words, the -- putin is actually using the openness of our society to undermine the very principlipaliples of openn.

has not been done by any political leaders. it's not just this administration. there are no democratic political leaders who are really strongly affirming the values and the principles of democracy. and i think it's going to have to start with intellectuals with simple society. i think it can be helped with people like vladimir and people in the struggle -- by the problems they have. >> as evolving video about mid--data and the corruption was this nine-minute video that came out. >> one of the students in this high school. had been trying to rally students to participate in the protests last sunday. and he was picked up by the police.

she said what do you want. and one of the students said we want and what do you mean by justice. he said justice is when the authorities care about their people. this is a high school student in a small town, you know, 350 miles from moscow. where they care about their people and not just about themselves. when they care about ordinary citizens and not about their millions of dollars. many people want to live in a free state and country. this coming from a high school student. now, when you have voices like that, that speak up or prepared to take risk, go into the street when you know what the risks are.

and you have articulate voices in high school. i think they can help rally people here. we have to find ways, new ways of connecting people. the internet can be very, very helpful watching the videos can be very helpful. we have to think about ways of doing that. then people who think about these issues, people who shape opinions. they have to begin to formulate arguments as to how to respond to the propaganda coming out of moscow. to reaffirm the first principles and that unite us across the political division. we have a new struggle -- we have a battle of ideas we have to wage. and we have to do it with effectiveness. we have to do it with courage and intelligence and dedication. >> so ideas still matter. >> ideas matter fundamentally. the whole idea of freedom and everything that is related to the idea, that's what he's giving his life for. >> i just want to add that i

urge everyone to watch and read that exchange. being translated into english and posted on many websites. because i mean, it's really -- these are kids in a small town in the south of russia. and they are going back and all over the place. not just schools but universities. after these protests last sunday, in many cases across the country. especially universities. gathering and in some cases the whole, you know, whole course or class of university went to these protests. how much were you paid from washington? they're saying this. we're not making these things

up. people asking with a serious face how much you're paid. >> putin spokesmen said they were bribed. >> that's his job to say these things. i don't know if he believes it. those people looked like they did. that's what's amazing. it's really the clash of generations. this is what they're saying. your question, i think, yes, this is a turning point. primarily it's a turning point because of the demographic. because of the age. this is the tomorrow of russia, these people. these are the faces of tomorrow. when you have -- let's say they have general protests. you can scare other people off. in the first few days i was

really scared. i remember those first few days. got one connection to another. a few days after that happened. and just a year and a half, i think, before that or a year before that, mr. medvedev was saying we would not restore elections in russia in hundred years. his words. they also allowed the opposition parti parties. police just beat up peaceful protesters and arrested dozens. some people are still in prison for taking that. so you can do that. you can scare or pressure

somebody else. when it's a whole generation ta stood up with you, there's not much you can do. we just had our own put up a post online. in preparation for the next wave of protests. doesn't have sophisticated message. and just one word. these are the people who live their whole life with him. does not see anything except him. that exchange referred to. that principle saying why you're unhappy. why you want this. why don't you like putin. and one of the questions, wonder if she thought about it. but she said, well, who was better. what government that you lived under was better. they never lived under another government, they won't know. all they know is him. the people who come to vote next march in the russian election

will have been born under putin. the people who turn 18 become voters. they will be born under him. that's how long he's been in power. so a whole new generation that are simply fed up with seeing one face on the tv screen every single day. so yes this is a turning point. second of all, goes back to the point i think this is an insecure regime. they're stable until their not. and i think that is the point we have to remember we're thinking about -- and also the national security allies in europe. i want to leave a bit of time for questions in the audience, i'm sure are eager to ask

questions. before we do that, i have to ask you, are you planning on going back after all of this? >> yes, i do want to go back. next time i'm going to be a little more differential to what the doctors are saying. i went back soon after the first poisoning. i want to go back this time and will go back. but this time i'm going to take some time to get completely restored. i look better than i feel. there's still a way to go for recovery. the doctor said in moscow because i've had this poisoning, if i have a third time that would be the last one. trying to get as much of my health back before guy back. so i think i'll take their advice this time be a little bit more obedient. yes i want to go back and will go back. because i think it's -- i think it's important. i think what we do is important. judging from the reaction, i think they also think what we do is important. and i don't think we have a moral right, frankly.

even because of people who went out to protest last sunday. we have responsibility before those people. to continue. not to hide. not to run away. not to give up. there's nothing more than they want like to give up. >> those are powerful words. like i said, i think all of us here we admire you for your courage. and the courage of your family as well. i'm going to take three questions all at the same time. we don't have that much time left. mik mikes will be going around. >> thank you all very much for being here. the biggest action that the west

has taken united states led have been economic sanctions to try to pressure russia. then we've had the oil price drop. i noticed just recently with litt ruble devaluation, it's fallen below -- is this a viable strategy as the main tool to try to bring about change along the liends that we'd all like to see. >> thank you. i'm going to take two more questions. >> from the victims of communism. my question is whether or not there's any value in coordination between the human rights activist movements in russia and in china, in cuba,

and countries around the world. and trying to have the world rights movement. . >> we know that several groups are persecuted. they call non-traditional religious minorities. one of them is jehovah's witnesses. going to file a claim to ban this group. >> thank you. being the right policy to bring about change. then religious freedom.

who wants to take them. >> i'll take the first two. might want to say something about the third. there are a lot of things that we can do. i think the sanctions we now have are minimal. we have to protect ourselves and protect the information space. not allowing these planes to be bombing in syria and ukraine. you know, but probably the most effective thing we could do is to really cut off access to our investment system. reorganized crime and corruption reporting project. which just came out with a report that the guardian reported on. $20 billion of stolen money. could be as high as $80 billion.

the video that they did about medvedev had $1 million. but it's much, much more than that. these are enormous sums of money. no matter how much we defend human rights, our system is also underwriting these authoritarian systems by taking the money, protecting it. there are all sorts of enablers. this is well documented. and if our congress and political system along with europe can really require that if anybody wants to invest money, they cannot do it anonymously with anonymous companies. shell banks and so forth. to really tighten it up and have transparency and know who's investing. and not to accept stolen money. i think that would do more than anything else to affect this --

the power and influence of these autocratic countries. regarding coordination, a lot of coordination does take place already. there is something that we for democracy told the world movement for democracy but also can be coordination at the human rights level. at the end of may, vladimir will be at the meeting at the oslo freedom forum for human rights activists and has an annual human rights meeting which does something like that. i strongly support that and i think we now have a tool with the internet and social media to try to strengthen that coordination and make it regular. that should also involve common action coordinated action to try to free. >> in terms of legislation, and

the policy question, a great deal more could be done beyond relatively weak sanctions. >> it's an emerging issue, i think. i think there's a readiness now to really take this issue seriously. i call attention to the initiative. another think tank in washington with the work of davidson. >> i'll say something of the sanctions point. i think it is extremely important that the sanction be sustained. i think there's a little complacency about that right now. i think we all assume the scrutiny into the allegations of the trump campaign and russia will be hard for the

administration to do a grand bargain. but that said, sanctions to be maintained to remain effective don't just need to remain on the books. they are to enforced vig yously. we have to watch to ensure the treasury and state department actually do the work to continually renew the sanctions that are supposed to be a maintenance package. that the treasurely department under normal circumstances would do in july that would add names and entities. our european partners during some of the countries that are more under business influence. but right now like hungary to those for the renewal of the sanctions when they come up for review. also in july.

all that said, though, let's remember the sanctions are not -- these sanctions were not meant as a response to inside russia. they were not intended to try to change russia. they are response to the see sure of crimea. and were those issues to be resolved somehow, concerned that these issues again on the broader set measures that our congress has within its power to put in place. my hope is that as the investigation -- to the administration continues that there will be a legislative agenda that goes along with that as members ask how can we better

protect ourselves against that kind of interference in the future. whether it comes to russia or china or any other country. and i think if they ask that question, the natural answer will be i think all of us said to tighten the rules against the anonymous laundering of money in our financial political system. we know. >> religious freedom embracing we believe in what the russian constitution says. and i guarantee the freedom of religion of our citizens as well as the international obligations we've undertaken. on the cooperation between different human rights. going on but i think it's the cooperation with countries that

have experienced very similar situations to what we have. and also the countries that are closer to us. and of course ukraine is the main one here. i think and i've said it many times that i think the primary motivation against ukraine that began in 2014 was not the geopolitics. that was frankly too uncomfortable and too close to call. hundreds of thousands of people were standing on the streets. a corrupt authoritarian forced out of power in ukraine, a country so similar. in terms of religion, heritage, language. there are very close lengths between.

that is an important question. thank you for it. first of all, the biggest question under the most hidden sanctions of people were introduced by vladimir putin in the summer of 2014. when he posed a blanket ban on food imports from the european union and other countries. especially affect iing to the border. surrounded by it. and now we have to fly from turkey and from china and you imagine how that contributes to the prices. after the sanctions were introduced. if you just go inside the court yard, you'll have these up.

these are the tougher sanctions. by the way, the propaganda to show them. as far as western sanctions go, i would like to offer the russian perspective. the opposition russian perspective. we're against sanctions in russia. this is an important point for us. i had the opportunity to testify in the senate yesterday. appropriations subcommittee hearing. about the situation in russia and possible ways of the sanctions act that was introduced. and i said to him that it's important to be careful about the language. it's essential that the u.s. is not seen as seeking to punish the russian people for the actions of a regime that cannot

hold to account who independent media. to the same point. not equating russia and the putin regime. and i think the most effective sanctions and frankly the most principled sanctions are the individual ones. the targeted sanctions. more than four years ago. it was november 16th, 2012, the third anniversary of the death in prison. we were sitting there as members of congress were voting massive majority in both houses. and boris called it the most pro-russian law in the history. and it really is. because it targets those people who abuse the rights of russian citizens and who blunder the money stolen from the russian people.

that's now 44 people sanctioned under the act. and bunch of names came in mid-january where the former administration was in place just in time. and i have to say that this was an important day when that came. had many conversations about this in the last few years. was a guy called the head of of it. this was a person who was basically tailor made. he was in charge. but this is supposedly the top official in charge of all the politically motivated. he was in charge. he actually admitted it.

it's not some allegedly. he said it. he said sorry afterwards, as well, but i think that's not enough. he was put on that list. and he is the most high ranking. and we really hope despite everything this law continues to be implemented and it's very heartening to see other countries beginning to follow the example. it was the first european union country that had the tenacity to say no. we're going to put a block to the human rights. and now the united kingdom is in it. that would be a potential game changer. engaging human rights abuse.

engaged in corruption. and yet to have used for years western countries and western financial system as haven. especially to buy properties, real estate, and they should stop. i think these are the types of sanctions that are both the princip principle. while we were watching with boris, once we have the rule of law and the democratic system again in russia, i will be the first one. unfortunately that day here and it's important to carry on. of course it won't be boris. but i think some of us hopefully live to that day and will be

coming here. but again that day is not yet. >> we now have a global link. the legacy of this brave russian lawyer who sacrificed his life for this cause. now a law that enables us. >> and i think we have to unfortunately wrap up. but the young people will carry on. thank you again for being with us today. thank you, tom. thank you, carl. and thank you to our audience. please thank me join me in than panelists. [ applause ]

c-span's washington journal live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. discusses public policy issues impacting veterans. and immigration policy analyst david baer will talk about the challenges of building a u.s./mexico border wall. and we featured contributing editor brendan curter. be sure to watch washington journal live at 7:00 eastern saturday morning. join the discussion.

this weekend, c-span city's tour with the help of our comcast cable partners will explore the history of chico, california, saturday at noon eastern on book tv. author michael maglieri tells us about the founder of chico. the life and writings of a pioneer. 1841 to 1900. >> most important and long lasting relationships with the federal government, though, starting with days in congress was his close relationship with the united states department of agriculture. he was constantly corresponding with officials in the usda. and was constantly receiving from them different crops that they wanted tested out in california's soils and climate. they really used rancho chico as one of their early experimental

farms before they actually owned and ran their own. >> on sunday 2:00 p.m. eastern on american history tv, we visit the california state university farm. >> it's the number one industry in california yet. and we're the number one state in the nation in terms of agriculture. only four of them have agriculture. and chico essentially represents the northern part of the state. all over california to be experienced in agriculture itself. >> and we'll also go inside the chico museum to see the historic chinese altar from the 1880 chico chinese temple. watch c-span cities tour of chico, california on c-span2's book tv and american history tv on c-span3. working with our cable affiliates and visiting cities across the country. now fbi director james comey

gives the speech on data encryption, intelligence gathering. it's an hour. >> thank you for that kind introduction. i did take a shot at the new england patriots on live television which i heard about from one of my brothers who betrayed the family when he moved to massachusetts and became a patriots fan. what i want to do very briefly is share with you some thoughts that are top of mind today for the fbi. and then i want to take questions that i will try to avoid answering from the great mike leiter. and i'm determined not to make news. first thing, i want to talk briefly about how the fbi is thinking about our cyber strategy. you hear me okay? how the fbi is thinking about

our cyber strategy. then i want to talk about a unique challenge to all of our work in the form of u bbiquitou encryption and why it means so much to the fbi. the first cyber strategy. to state the obvious for this room, all the threats the fbi's responsible for come at us through the internet. counterintelligence, all the criminal threats are responsible for. and terrorists in the following way. to communicate to inspire to direct. not yet to use the cyber vector as a way to have doing actually harm, inflicting harm of infrastructure. logic tells us that it's inevitable for the terrorist mind to find that vector. it's all the threats the fbi are responsible for come at us in that way. the first part of our strategy is humility. we are standing in the middle of the greatest transformation i think in human history. the way we learn, the way we

work, the way we love. the way we connect. the way we believe. all is affected by the digital era, the digital revolution. we know how the fbi should grow and change and adapt to meet a transformation. we don't know for sure. what we're trying to do are things that are thoughtful, make good sense to us. then get feedback from our partners and colleagues around the world about whether it's making sense. th two parts i want to spend some time on. first part of our strategy is we want to focus ourselves and there are two aspects that i want to highlight in the way we are trying to focus. the first is the way we assign the work in the fbi.

traditionally in the n fbi, the physical manifestation is what drives who works on it. if the bank robbery happens in chicago, the chicago field office works the bank robbery. if the fraud is based in seattle, the seattle office. we've come to the conclusion that the physical manifestation of a cyber intrusion especially isn't all that meaningful. because it's being committed likely by somebody far away from the physical manifestation. it's being committed at the speed of light, and it may be quite random as to where the intrusion pops first. we're approaching our work in a different way for the fbi. we now assign computer intrusion work whether that's a nation state, whether it involves a criminal syndicate, criminal syndicate working for a nation state, whether it involves the motley crew of people engaged in intrusion, it's based on talent.

we make a judgment on which field office posed to us by a nation state and we assign it there because they've demonstrated the ability. but because physical manifestations of intrusions are part of the real world and there vl a chief information security officer and there really is a cso and a ceo of a company that's been victimized, we're not blind to physical manifestations. and so we assign the threat of the talent. then we allow up to four other offices to help. the first office is called a strat office for strategic. the other offices are called tact offices for tactical. then air control from washington. this has had a great effectiveness in the fbi. it has fostered an intense competition among field offices to demonstrate -- generate and demonstrate the talent against dimensions of this threat.

so little rock shows us they are best against a particular intrusion set from a foreign nation, it goes to little rock regardless of where the hits are from that intrusion set. so far it's working pretty well. so far air traffic has worked well. we stand here with humility. if it isn't working in some way, we're going to reiterate. the second way we're trying to focus is on stealing your talent. here's what i mean by that. the challenge we face at the fbi is that to have a special agent working cyber, we need a variety of things. we need high integrity. we need fitness. we're going to give you a firearm. you have to be able to run, fight, shoot. we need integrity, fitness. then we need smarts. we need intelligence. then we need specialized knowledge to make you a cyber agent. that collection of attributes is

rare in nature. we may find integrity. somebody who can't do a push-up who has great specialized knowledge in general attention. or we'll find somebody with great specialized knowledge, can push out a push-up and wants to smoke weed on the way to e the interview. so we stare at the pool of talent and we have two reactions to the pool. we can't compete on money. you in the private sector have more money than we. we acknowledge that to the people we're trying to recruit. but we also make sure they understand life with you is soulless and empty. he said half kiddingly. and if you want to do work with content, come to us. it's not about the living. it's about the life. a pitch that worked for a lot of you in this room of ours. and so we try and recruit on moral content. and then we're trying to think

differently about how we might generate that talent. in a number of different ways, we're considering do we really need -- making up an entire squad? now we have squads of eight around the country. should we instead have two special agents and six something els? maybe people of integrity, people with specialized knowledge. we don't give them a gun because they don't have the physical attribute. maybe. something else we're considering is if we can find that integrity, that physicality, and basic high intelligence, should we grow our own? should we build our own university to take that talent and raise it up to be cyber talent? maybe. and should we also do something else that is brand new for the fbi. should we try to make the barrier between us and the private sector semipermeable so that special agents might come work for the fbi and then go work in the private sector and then come back.

the kurncurrent rule requires ae who leaves for 24 months to go back through quantico. that's a painful experience for people in their 40s. they all want to come back because they discover your lives are empty and soulless so they want to come back. but we've made real barriers to their returning. and might we be able to encourage people from the private sector to come work with us as that something else don't have to go through quantico to learn how to run, fight, shoot, and return to the private sector? our minds are open then return sector. our minds are open to all of these things because we are seeking a talent and a pool that is increasingly small. so you're going to see us experiment with a number of different approaches. and then i hope when you see us doing something that doesn't make sense you'll tell us. when you see us doing something you think we ought to do more of, you'll tell us that as well. and it will be met with an attitude of humility. so focusing in a better way our work and how to get our best talent is the first part of our strategy.

>> the second part is that we need to make sure that we, inside the government, have our act together in such a way that it doesn't matter to whom a victim of an intrusion or a cryptoware attack or some other attack it doesn't matter who they tell in the federal government. we're in that place when it comes to counter terrorism. you walk up to an f.b.i. agent, a deputy sheriff, a police officer with a piece of information about counter terrorism, terrorism threat. it will get to the right place very, very quickly. it doesn't matter who you tell. we've got to get to that place inside the federal government. we made a lot of progress on that trying to understand the rules of the road. but we still have work to do. the third thing we're trying to do is impose costs. i don't know the cyber intrusion that has ever been committed high on crack or inflamed by finding a lover in the arms of another.

these are crimes, these are intrusions, these are attacks that are committed with reflection and calmness at a keyboard. we think that's an opportunity for deterrence, for influencing behavior. so we are keen to make sure that that attacker, whether it's somebody sitting in a government office halfway around the world or in a bottom somewhere in the pacific northwest that they feel our breath on the back of their necks. maybe literally, but at least metaphorically, as they begin that intrusion activity. we think we can shape behavior by locking people up. and where we can't lock people up by sending messages of pretty scary deterrence. faces on wanted posters. and people sometimes say to me yeah but the hacker somewhere halfway around the world working for another government or they're shelt earth -- sheltered by a government. how are we ever going to get them? my response is, life is long. the world is short. we are dogged people. we just gave up on d.b. cooper. and that took us about 52 years, i think. for those of you who are young

he jumped out over the airplane over the pacific cascades. we hunted him for 50 years. we're pretty sure he is dead now so we're giving up. but when your face goes up on a wanted poster, we are not going to give up in your lifetime. and that can change behavior. so you'll see us send those messages in an attempt to shape people. the the fourth aspect of our strategy i won't spend a lot of time on is to help our brothers and sisters in state and local law enforcement raise their digital game. because everything they do requires digital literacy. in the good old days narcotic detective would roll up on a location, execute a search warrant at a drug house and find not just drugs and money but one of those black composition notebooks and the dealers would have written who got how much and how much they're worth. and you photo copied that, you're good to go. today there's no notebook. there's a pda, thumb drive, laptop.

there is a digital device. we have to help our colleagues get to that work in a quality way, because there's simply no way the fbi can be part of helping with all of it. i'm told that people get e-mails from me when i'm in nigeria asking for money to be wired. i usually write identify myself as the president of the federal bureau of investigation. don't send me any money. but people do get ripped off. and the bureau can't reach all of that so the fourth part is help our partners raise their game and there's a lot behind that but i'll leave it there. the fifth thing which is the one i want to spend a few minutes on. we must get better at sharing information across the boundary -- and there should be a boundary between the public sector and the private sector. we have to find ways consistent with law and policy and tradition and culture to make the barrier between us and the private sector semi-permeable in some fashion.

and the reason for this is nearly all of the intrusion activity in the united states coming at the united states hits the private sector. all the victims are in the private sector, all the indicators are in the private sector, all the evidence, if we want to go criminal, is in the private sector. we are not nearly good enough at getting information from the private sector to us and getting information from us to the private sector. this, i believe, is actually a problem, not so much of law but of lore. and the biggest problem -- i was general counsel as you heard. the biggest problem is people like i was who are spotting risks and calling them out. if we give that information to the government will it be used against us in a competition? will it be disclosed to congress in some way that it becomes public? will we get sued? what will our shareholders say? how will it hurt the enterprise? i see too many risks. what you ought to is hire one of the great firms that will help us remediate and get back on

with our business. even people saying yes our files are locked up with ransom ware, let's pay the ransom and get on with it. most of the intrusions in this country are not reported to the law enforcement. and that is a very bad place to be. people are foolish and short-sighted to think that their interests in the private sector are not aligned with ours when it comes to this because you're kidding yourself if you don't realize that the hackers will be back if not to you than to your subsidiaries and your supply chain. those with the ransom ware will be back especially if you paid them off. our interests are aligned. the challenge we face is having the private sector know us well enough to realize we understand what a victim is. and we treat victims for what

they are, which is victims and we do not re-victimize people. whether that's a sexual assault case or an armed robbery case, a mafia case or a computer intrusion case. we have lots of practice at this. our challenges people don't know us well enough. too much confusion and skepticism. and distance. derived from misunderstanding and myths. so the f.b.i.'s mission is to get out and talk to the private sector and let you know what we're like. now, i liken this actually to a journey that the c.i.a. and the fbi traveled since the mid-1980s. that's what i mean by the difference between law and lore. most people know in this the room that in the mid-1980s, the classified information procedures act was passed that offered us certainty about how sources and methods would be treated and protected if the

government decided to use a criminal prosecution to incapacitate. to reassure the community that we're not going to blow sources and methods. that did not get the job done. because that is law. it took us 20 years of building trust, case by case by case, so the intelligence community came to realize you know what this really works. we really can trust the f.b.i. to protect our sources and methods, to use these tools that have been been on the books since the 1980s and use them in a way that protects us. that took us two decades to build that trust. it is in a very healthy place today. it is not in a healthy place when it comes to the private sector. so my ask, those of you who run companies who are the chief security officers, the general counsels. if you don't know someone at the fbi office where your facilities are, you're failing. you are pushing on an open door, come and talk to us, to understand in the event of an intrusion, in the event of an attack what is it that we need? and you'll discover we don't

need your memos. we don't need your e-mails. we need indicators of compromise. we need to know how did the bad guys come. what are the signals, what are the indicators that we can use to contribute and help you get over this attack. the sony attack was a vicious hugely damaging attack. it would have been worse if sony hadn't invested the time to know us before the attack. every single one of you works in a facility that your local fire department knows the general layout of. they don't know your intellectual property, they don't know your secrets. but they know where your stand pipes are, your elevators. they know the general layout so in the midst of a smoky disaster they can save lives. we knew sony in that same way. we didn't know their secrets or intellectual property. we knew their key people, their facilities. we knew the layout of their network, generally. that day within hours we were on the ground helping stop the

bleeding. the private sector has to get to know us better if we're going to be more effective. but it doesn't stop there because it's bad if people don't share information to us we don't do a good enough job of pushing information to the private sector. we have a cultural impediment, which is we have this information if i give it to them are they going to jeopardize sources and methods? sometimes we forget that you don't need the sources and methods. you need indicators of compromise so you can figure out how they're coming at you. and all of you in the room know this information if i give it to them are they going this. oftentimes private sector don't know what war come means. oftentimes we have a piece of information. we can't just turn it over to you. we have to go back to the people who own that information. but we can do that so much better than today. we will get better. i hope you will help us get better as well. the last thing i want to leave

you is this. i intentionally did not talk a lot last year about the challenge we face from ubiquitous strong encryption. our judgment at the fbi was that this is a complicated issue with legal aspects, technical aspects, policy aspects, values. it was too complicated to discuss during an election year. i know you're thinking you're totally wrong. we could have nailed this. but we decided that we would not force a conversation about it. but that we would use the time to try to collect data so we could show people what's happening to our world. and here's what's happening. you imagine we work -- the fbi works in a room. a corner of that room has always been dark for the last 20 years. sophisticated actors could always find encryption to lock up a device, encryption to cover data in motion. sophisticated actors, nation --

near nation-state actors. what's happened is that dark spot has started to spread through the entire room. ubiquitous default encryption on devices, ubiquitous strong encryption on apps and other forms of information has spread if shadow so it is starting to cover more and more of our room. i'll demonstrate this with facts from our encounters with devices. october, november, december, 2,800 devices were presented to the fbi in the united states with lawful authority to open them. some from fbi investigations, others from state and local partners. they gave them to the fbi saying we have a court order, can you help us? in 43% of those cases we could not open those devices with any technique. any technique. that is the shadow falling across our work. you may say who cares? i don't know. but i think america needs to have a conversation about this.

because i care deeply about privacy, treasure it. i have an instagram account with nine followers. nobody's getting in. they're all immediate relatives and one daughter's serious boyfriend. i let them in because they're serious enough. i don't want anybody looking at my photos. i treasure my privacy and security on the internet. my job, like a lot of the people in this room is public safety. those two values, privacy and safety, are crashing into each other. but i actually believe something more fundamental is happening. especially with regard to devices. those devices contain so much of our lives. our business life, social life. our lives are on those devices that we wear on our hip and carry in our pockets. that's a great thing. that has made us better in lots of different ways. but it has also introduced a

concept that is new to america which is absolute privacy. we have never had absolute privacy in this country. this country was founded on a bargain which is your stuff is private unless the people of the united states need to see it. and then with appropriate predication and oversight -- obvious example of that being enshrined in the fourth amendment, the government, the people of the united states can see your stuff. they can go through your safe deposit box, your sock drawer, your car. they can actually compel you to say what you remember in appropriate circumstances. we've never had absolute privacy. the bargain was we have this privacy that can be invaded with this predication oversight so we achieve a balance between privacy on the one hand and security on the other. what's happening now is we're drifting to a place where absolute privacy is a huge feature of american lives. there are wide swaths of american life that are now off limits to judges. and i'm not offering that as a value statement. that's just a fact. that's a different way to live.

if we are going to change the fundamental compact at the heart of this country, it should not be the fbi that does it. it should not be companies that make amazing devices that do it. the american people ought to do it. so what i'm determined to do is not to tell you we what ought do, but to tell you there's a problem and to urge all of you to participate in this conversation. maybe at the end of the day we say the benefits of privacy in this instance are so important that we'll put off with the tradeoffs. or maybe we say the tradeoffs are so significant we ought to see if we can't find a way to optimize both of those values better than we are today. i actually reject the idea that it is too hard. i actually don't think we've given it the shot that it deserves. i don't know anybody in the private sector that is actually making devices who is incentivized to try and figure out how to optimize those two values. they sell privacy. i get that.

we're responsible for public safety. somehow we have to bring those two together. the fbi's an example of how it can be done. we give devices to some of our agents who are here today. we give them device that is we work very hard to make secure. but we retain the ability in appropriate circumstances to access that content. it does not require weakening encryption. it does not require giving the government a backdoor of some sort. i could actually imagine a world where some day if you're going to sell devices in the united states. you're required to be able to comply with judicial orders. you figure out how. i don't know if we're going there but first we have to have a conversation about it. so you're going to see the fbi trying to supply data to this conversation, stories of how it impacts our work so that we can foster an informed debate. i have six years and a few months to go. i don't want to see six years from now people say to me how come you didn't say something? i'm going to say something.

this is affecting our national security work, counter terrorism, counter intelligence, and all of our criminal work in profound ways. which you would expect because we're now living in a different way. we should talk about it. and i thank you so much for joining that conversation. now i look forward to mike's questions. >> thank you, michael. >> thank you, director, for those comments. i think he's covered a lot of topics. i think there's a couple more issues that mike will probably get into as well as we go along. but i want to introduce mike a little bit and it was an interesting exercise for me today. the thing i'm going to introduce mike. i know mike. i'm going to say a couple nice things about mike and so forth. but i actually went back and

read the bio and i guess i would suggest to all of you, when you go to do this, go back and read the bio because sometimes people you think you know, it's really good to know them a little bit better. as i got into that, you know mike was the director of nctc for four years, i think. left there in 2011. you see him a lot on nbc news doing some commentary stuff. very good. he's been in industry. he's been with us on the industry side as well. i looked at a couple things. mike was a naval aviator with service in iraq and yugoslavia. got out went to law school. was the 113th president of the harvard law review. left there and clerked for steven breyer on the supreme court.

went from there and was an assistant u.s. attorney for the eastern district of virginia. went from there to the wmd commission where he got involved in things like how should we restructure the fbi and something called the national security branch. so you see some interesting parallels between some careers. i just want to share that with you. and also to say with the sort of background that we know we get with our zrekter -- director of the fbi and with mike, we are very lucky to have people like that that want to serve. so thank you both. [ applause ] and i just wish that when we stood up my head was parallel to jim's. no such luck at 5'10". well, jim, first of all thank you for those comments. and i think all of us really do

owe you and i would ask a round of applause for an american public servant who has been through -- has had an incredible career and has been in the midst of one of the most difficult times i think in recent u.s. history. i want to thank you for your service. [ applause ] and i've got say the nice stuff. so i can now hit you with inside -- and i'm going to jump right into what i think everyone in this room and what many people watching on c-span probably want to know about. a big question, what do you think of how the fbi has changed the uniform crime reports? is that not why you're here? quite seriously. a lot of people talked about bob muller having one of the most

incredible early tenures as director of the fbi, coming in a week before 9/11. you didn't get hit with that tragedy that we all experienced at the beginning of your tenure, but since july of this year you have been in the midst of what we now know are two criminal investigations involving broadly the presidential campaign. and without asking about that, because i know you would just evade the question any way, can you reflect just a little bit on your approach to decisionmaking through all of that, especially being the director of an fbi for two presidents, carrying over between administrations as the statue and congress intended the position to be. but your decisionmaking through all of that and how, as someone who is part of the intelligence community, part of law enforcement, part of the department of justice, has to build that trust with a first

customer and simultaneously so deeply involved in incredibly sensitive counterintelligence or criminal investigations? >> that's an easy one. thanks, mike. first, i think bob muller's early tenure was much harder than mine. i'm not just saying that. i think it was much harder. he came in a week before 3,000 people were murdered in our country. and then he had to not only deal with that and oversee the investigation, but transform the fbi. and i inherited a transformed fbi. so my job is a lot easier, honestly. the last year -- it's been almost a year now -- has been both difficult and easier than you might think. i'll tell you, i've never been prouder of the fbi. what makes it easy is we're not on anybody's side, ever. we're not considering whose ox

will be gored by this action or that action, whose fortunes will be helped by that this or that. we just don't care and we can't care. we only ask what are the facts? what's the law? what's the right thing to do. often we find ourselves choosing between bad and worse and having a difficult short menu of options. but in a way that's been easy because that's who the fbi is. so people i think sometimes look at me and say look what you did. actually, the fbi made these decisions in a high-quality way. now, the painful part is that we confuse people. and the reason we confuse people is most people see the world differently than we do. especially in a hyper partisan environment. most people wearing glasses that filter the world according to side. and this is a challenge i face when i testify in front of congress. it's not a criticism of congress. it's they see facts as to how it will affect my side. how does that argument affect my side? and when they encounter people -- and i'm just one of 37,000

that are like this at the fbi -- who never consider side, it's confusing. like, so you're trying to help this person and that person. one of my daughters share with me last summer a tweet. and i -- i'm on twitter now. i have to be on twitter. but she showed it to me. it said that comey is such a political hack. i just can't figure out which party. and i smiled and i took that and i shared that with my senior staff. i said that is the greatest compliment. we confuse people because a lot of people can't imagine people who aren't considering side. now, we're not fools. i know that when i make a hard decision, a storm is going to follow. but honestly i don't care. if i have thought about it carefully and am doing the right thing, making the right judgment, it doesn't matter what's going to follow because

it's not about that. and honestly the death of the independent fbi would lie down the path to considering impact. if we ever started to think about who will be affected and what way by our decisions in a political sense, we're done. so we never will. and in that sense it's easy. the misunderstanding of a lot of people about us can be painful. but the easy part is we know what our north star is and we're fixed on it. [ applause ] >> follow up a little bit on that. in that the intelligence community writ large and the fbi as part of that, has i think, always relied on the select committees on intelligence to provide you the breathing room to do those things in a nonpartisan way. and the reason those were select committees were to make sure that their oversight was more nonpartisan if not perfectly nonpartisan than many of the

other committees. how much harder does it make your job when partisanship comes into those realms of oversight, those groups who are supposed to say, don't worry, jim comey can't tell you everything he is doing, but he's doing the oversight and you as americans should feel both safe and your privacy is protected. >> that's a great question. i don't want to comment on current events. it's vital that we the intelligence community need to be able to share with the american people through their representatives the most important things we're doing. for a bunch of reasons. first, they ought to know. and second, there's a danger in all humans -- and especially when you're in authority in the government, it's captured in something john adams said to thomas jefferson, which is power always thinks it has a great soul. there's danger. look, i think i'm an honest person. there's a danger i fall in love with my own view of things.

so that checking and balance is the genius of the design of the founders. it's vital that we be able to tell them what we're doing so they can ask hard questions about it. and in my experience, it is a highly productive relationship. sometimes people outside of that world don't understand it. how come you're only telling a select few. because of the nature of the work. there are things we can't let this nation's adversaries know. we have to be able to share them with our oversight committees. and by and large it works very, very well. the challenge in general in a polarized environment is, again, those glasses of side can get in the way of a robust oversight and make it sometimes difficult for the intelligence agencies. but here's the truth. we find a way. we find a way. because we need each other too much because we all believe deeply in the design of this country and we find a way to make it work. >> i'm just happy when you check back in to got you got your soul back.

>> i left it at a bus station i got it back. >> i'd like to ask you a little bit about signals intelligence. not just signals intelligence but really electronic exploitation writ large. the device might be what you find after a raid versus what you intercept. i'm just a middle aged country lawyer but i want to push you a little bit on that fourth amendment analogy that you drew that we've always had this agreement of the balance between privacy and security needs or law enforcement needs for the government. it strikes me at least two things have changed though. one, there's more information out there than ever before. so in 1787, you couldn't figure out what jim comey was saying to mike lighter for the past 10, 25 years. you could listen to that moment or look at his papers and not

have everything. second, in those days of a court or magistrate approving that search want in 1787, that privacy protection that he had didn't cause any problems for anyone else. and one of the criticisms of what went on with the iphone experience was that by asking for a backdoor for one, you're not just impinging on that individual's privacy appropriately, but potentially impinging on everyone else who used an iphone on their privacy. so how do you think about those and probably other differences from the compact that was struck in 1787? >> you've pointed to two things that made this a hard debate. but to take both of them there's no doubt that there is more digital dust about all of us out there than ever before.

couldn't even imagine 30 years ago. and that we're able to communicate in ways that were unimaginable. i have two reactions to that. one is the bad guys are able to communicate in ways that were unimaginable 30 years ago. the best example is isis reaching into this country through twitter, especially in the summer of 2015, to find people willing to kill on their behalf and then moving them to an encrypted end to end app. that would have been unimaginable when we began our careers. so the opportunities -- there's no doubt the opportunities for law enforcement or the intelligence community to gather information have gone up dramatically. but so have the ability of the bad guys. second thing. metadata is great. incredibly useful to try to establish patterns of connection. but especially when it comes to the fbi, whose business is to incapacitate through conviction beyond a reasonable doubt.

it does not get you there. you will not be able to -- maybe in some circumstances i can't imagine -- meet that threshold to a jury simply by saying i see these connections between them without any sense of content. so that's the first piece. the -- what was your second one? i forgot already. >> impinging on other people's privacies. >> that's the -- >> and let me -- sorry. let me add. when you went to the vendor in the iphone case, the argument was we can keep it safe. but since then i don't know who but someone has sued trying to get the name of the vendor. and the justice department is saying we don't want to do that because the vendor might not have the same protections the fbi does and, hence, we'd be putting at risk what we used if we disclose the name of the vendor. does doesn't that very much go to the argument that any backdoor causes privacy implications for others?. >> i think it's a reasonable argument to raise that whatever solution we have should optimize

in the best way both security and privacy and there are clumsy ways you can do it that would expose all devices to an intrusion which is why -- i can say this until i'm blue in the face -- i'm not in favor of government-mandated backdoors. i would imagine a world where the companies are saying you want to sell a device in the united states, you figure out how to do it. the most secure way to do this. and look -- the problem with this debate is too much people tweeting at each other. it is -- it's a complicated conversation. but i don't buy that it's too hard. there are plenty of companies today that are providing or selling devices that are default encrypted and their cloud services are not. i hope they're able to sleep at night. i happen to think they put reasonable security around their cloud. so when we serve them with a search warrant, they produce what's in the cloud. so this notion that we're all

fatally at risk or exposed if the government is able to serve judicial process, i'm just not buying it. a lot of work's been done over the last year inside the government to the figure out what could be done to optimize both of those? and i'm not going into the details but it's not impossible. >> you talked about cyber a lot and interesting things you are doing for workforce. but the traditional responsibility. do you see other changes that need to happen in the u.s. government that we have not seen the eo, the executive order already from this administration in terms of organization. the fbi did an amazing job with sony for example. there has been some confusion regarding who is in charge, who is responsible in the capabilities of each of those workforces -- how can we better optimize these pieces of the puzzle?. >> that's a great question.

i think where we are today, the lanes in the road that the obama administration laid out, which to my mind just captured in writing that we developed to -- are fairly clear to us and make good sense. the fbi's responsibility is to investigate it response to intrusions, share the information we gather from our investigations. in the main, it is to help with remediation and hygiene and the dni are to provide threat indicators. intelligence about what is going on in the world. an interesting question that i am not expert enough to answer as to whether there is our role for nsa to play outside of government networks, dcod networks as part of their defensive security function. i don't know the answer to that. i think we are in a pretty good place where everyone understands their role in the government. and i think moving to the place

where it does not matter who folks call. if you call us about something and it looks like it belongs to the secret service, we share it. but i think we're in a reasonable good place. that doesn't mean we can't be better but that's how i'm thinking about it. >> getting away from cyber and electronics for a minute. we have clearly had a spate of leaks over the past five years going back to chelsea manning, moving to edward snowden. recent arrests also associated with nsa. a number of those have come from contractors working for the u.s. government. do you have a perspective on that? is that part of the problem? is there something else we should be doing to protect that data not even touching some of the leaks that have been criticized in the past three to four months? >> i will not talk about anything that has been recently reported with -- for reasons which i hope you understand.

we don't ever want to be in the business of confirming something was classified information. i will go further back. there is no doubt that there are improvements that we in the usg can make with respect to the way in which we know all of the people working on our campuses, both employees and contractors. and jim clapper, since snowden has been driving improvements in that way, we are quite not where we need to be yet but there is no doubt that the answer is that we need to know our people incredibly well. if we are relying on the polygraph or periodic investigations, we are not doing it well enough. five years is too long to wait. and these -- the theft cases by insiders remind me of things you see on the news about a terrible crime in the neighborhood where somebody always had a bad feeling about the guy. or take the terrorism cases, friends or family almost always saw something.

so we look back at the cases we've had inside the government including inside the fbi over the years there were all kinds of flags. we have to get better at collecting that data in an appropriate way and popping the flags so we look at the person now and not five years for now. we have to find that avenue for contractors as well as our own employees. and the last thing we need to work on is making sure we have a uniform security culture. and this is a challenge when you have a lot of contractors on si site because sometimes they do not feel like they work for you. and they do not need to buy into your culture. we together have to figure out a way to drive a high security culture into everyone no matter what color their badge is. >> another issue which has been in the press has been immigration and vetting. the fbi does not have a role in determining immigration status and the like. but you have been quoted as to

the u.s. government's ability to vet people who are coming into the united states. and it strikes me that there is a common misperception that you said we cannot vet any of these people. the fbi does play a role in vetting. what is your view on how effectively we can vet people who are coming into the u.s. of any sort? >> we the bureau and our partners in the intelligence community have a critical role to play in vetting the refugees and others looking to move to our country. and we can always improve that. and i'm always look for opportunities to improve it. we dramatically improved it after 2008 to 2010 when we discovered some weaknesses in our system. we have gotten our act together in a good way to make sure that if there is any dot in our holdings, we will connect that dot that to that person. the challenge is when someone is coming from a place where they

are unlikely to be dots or unlikely to be things in our holdings that connect to them, say for a place like syria. we could have a great system and talk to each other but we will not be able to buy down risk in a way we might if we have a relationship, for example, from iraq. the challenge of people coming from places where we do not have relationships is as good as our systems id, we will not have any dots to connect. that was the point i was trying to make. i'm not involved in policy decisions about who should come in and how many, that's not our business. we are working constantly to improve our vetting. but that is what i meant. >> i am going to start transitioning to many of the great questions we got from the crowd. there were several about recent terrorist attacks. san bernardino. the boston bomber. the discussion of what has

colloquially come to known as lone wolves. is that a term that we should keep using? does that mischaracterize who and what they are? if you could also speak to the challenges you faced after boston and the changes the bureau has instituted as lessons learned from that unfortunate event? >> i do not like that term at all because it conveys -- i worry that it conveys to these wing nuts a sense of dignity and i don't want to give them any kind of dignity. they are troubled people seeking meaning in a misguided way. it often leads them down a path of killing and harming innocent salespeople. i don't use that term. it is a -- continues to be a major feature of the fbi's work because all of human experience is in some way a search for meaning and there are troubled people all over the u.s. attracted to finding meaning

through the hyper violence of the savage intentions of the group that calls themselves islamic state. we are trying to find these troubled people. i keep saying troubled. but they are people with drug problems, mental health problems, sexual abuse problems. we are trying to evaluate where they are on the spectrum from consuming the poison to acting on the poison and that is really hard. it's a nation "w" search for needles in a hay stack but it's actually harder than that. we are not just looking for needles in a hay stack, we are looking for which pieces of hay might turn into a needle and it gets harder still especially with the islamic state. if they found a live one, they would move that needle to a place where they disappear. it is an encrypted needle in the nationwide haystack and that is the reason it's at the center of the fbi's work, to find them and

disrupt them been they can kill. it is incredibly hard work. we are always tried to figure out how to do it better. one way we have gotten better since the bottom marathon bombing is that we are better sharers of information with our state and local partners. every time something happens, we stare back at it and say "what could we have done differently or better? every time something happens that involves a terrorist attack, we do that. with boston, we realized we could make it clearer that the default is shared and we could make it clearer to our partners what the inventory was in the state and local task force. across the country, we regularly invite our partners to come in to discuss cases. including what cases are still open. and get your feedback on that. taken you want to follow up on some of them, you have an "t" opportunity to do. that we've gotten better as a result of that.

>> two quick follow-ups. you talk about the transition from a piece of hay to a needle which i think is a beautiful but really terrible but accurate picture. do we need a system like some of our european allies to have an ability to engage that person, possibly not with the fbi or law enforcement but a diversion program to keep them from becoming needles in the first instance and not just wait for them to become needles? >> all of us in the ct business are open to finding ways to do that. we have worked hard to see if we, the department of homeland security, and our partners can build such a thing. so far with limited success. the challenge is that there is no typical person, no typical journey because the search for meaning is individual. we are talking about people from the age of 15 to the age of 62, all over the country. all different troubles of

backgrounds. finding in a repeatable way indicators and then reliably off ramping people -- that is the holy grail of this work. i have not found anyone in the world who's doing it in a repeatable, validated way, yet. >> the second is, i want to weave something from your answer here to some of what your previous comments were regarding cyber and pull in, also, counterintelligence. i do not think there is any doubt -- we know we are in one of the most complicated and heavy flow of counterterrorism issues we have had probably since 9/11. the volume and speed with which they are coming is probably unmatched in the last 15 years. on the cyber side, you faced innumerable threats at this point. and your ability to do all the things you want to do are challenged. and i also think it's fair to say that from public information, the counter j.j.

intelligence world is not slowing down. if anything, it is probably speeding up. how do you remotely have the capacity to do all of that and at the same time, do all of the other pieces that the fbi is so critical to -- enabling state and local law enforcement, white collar, public corruption? do you have the budget to get that done? >> it's hard. it's a good thing that people never sleep. here's the truth. the fbi today is about twice the size it was when my friend louie frei was director. we are on a path to be at full strength which is 38,000 people. by the end of fiscal year. by and large, we have the resources we need. there are challenges. summer of 2015, we were strapped because we were following people all over the country who were moving towards dangerous needle territory. i was asked by congress if i had enough, and i said if this keeps

up, i will not. we were pulling analysts from all over to cover these people. and it is only easy to follow people 24 hours a day on tv. it is really hard to do in a clandestine way. and so we were strapped. that wave went away in part because the number of the people who were with isis in raqqah, syria, were taken off the battlefield by our colleagues in the military. so i think by and large we have the resources. we have to make judgments regarding what we need to be addressing and what our state and local partners need to be addressing. the fbi has a complicated process to decide what to do. we asked each field office to look around and say -- what are the bad things that could happen here across all the fbi's responsibilities? and who else is working to address those threats? and given the magnitude of the harm and the other efforts already in place where would we rank that? we rank without the -- without

regard to discipline and across all of our threats. and we do that on a national level and that drives our allocation of resources. so what's going to happen is if a particular state is doing a great job of addressing gang violence, state and local partners we may pull away from that to address some other threats but you're always going to have to make tradeoffs like that. budget wide, when i came director we had a big problem which was sequestration. then we shut the government down. we have been digging out of that hole for the last three and a half years. quantico has been digging out from there. my fondest wish is to be able to sustain those human beings. the fbi is people. we don't have satellites. we don't have aircraft carriers. we are great people. and i need to be able to pay them and support them. and that's what i'm going to be working on for next year's budget. >> we unfortunately only have

time for two more questions. and i kind of know where this one is going to go but half of my pack of cards include something like this. so everyone knows i'm not just ignoring it. >> i'm 6'8". thank you. [ laughter ] >> i fear like you said that as a threat to me right before i asked this question. >> can you comment on your commitment, the fbi's commitment to pursuing to its end, whatever ends those ares the investigation that you commented on in the front, regarding russian involvement in u.s. elections. >> i do not want to comment on that particular matter but i will say generally, what i said at the beginning. we are the same today that we were yesterday and we will be tomorrow. we really do not care whose political ox is gored by our work and that is the passion at the heart of the fbi. we will always be that way.

that can make us annoying in different circumstances but i hope that is comforting to the american people. we are competent and honest. and independent. when i became director and when i leave in six and a half years we will still be that way. i hope that is reassuring to people. but if it it's, it doesn't matter. we are going to be the same. [ applause ] >> last question and relevant to many people in this room. clearly, the bureau is -- comprises 30,000 plus u.s. government employees but it's supported by many tens of thousands of people from industry, whether they're providing information technology or analytic support or basic functional support for the fbi, what do you want to see more of? what would you like to see less of? where do you think you need help from industry that you as fbi

director can't get the u.s. government to move fast enough to face the missions that you have to face now? >> that is a hard one. i need you all to help us be smarter and better. and know -- i talked about that attitude of humility when it comes to sbieber. the commanders' intent is you will find that in all parts of our mission. we do not have a monopoly on wisdom. we need you to bring to us, smarter ways of doing things, cheaper ways of doing things and better ways of doing things. things and help us be agile. we are determined to be humble enough, proud enough of our century of achievement but humble enough to be agile. you will bring us the opportunities to demonstrate that agility. and second, i do hope you will urge your people especially those in place for a longer-term contract to get part of our culture.

one of my concerns is that with long-term contractors who do not feel part of the fbi, and do not act like they work for me -- and i know they work for you, but i need them to be part of our culture. i have met contractors, some of whom are all in. i met a group in one place where i sat down at a cafeteria to chat with them and they asked me to move out of the way because i was blocking the tv. >> you are tall. >> they knew i was the director of the fbi but they didn't care because they don't work for me. as a business model, you do not want that. we need you to be not "us" but "of us" in a whey thay that wil usesquively accomplish the mission. >> jim has what i think we all know is one of the most challenging jobs in the u.s. government if not the most challenging job other than the president.

and i don't think it's going to get any easier over the next six years. but i hope everyone is heartened by the -- i know i am -- by the intellect, the integrity, and kind of the vision that you bring to this role. and i want to thank you for your past service and thank you for the next six years because -- it will not be -- none of them -- we don't know what's going to happen -- but none of them will be easy years. >> thank you so much. [ applause ]

this weekend on american history tv on c-span3, saturday at 6:45 p.m. eastern, james hailey, author of "captive paradise" a history of hawaii talks about the life of the last queen of the kingdom of hawaii. >> she had been working on a new constitution to restore her royal power. and from this she went back to the palace and announced her new constitution and that was the beginning of the overthrow. >> at 9:00 on the presidency, a historian on the effectiveness and legacies of 20th century presidents. >> how weak are the american president she was in the late

19th century and how powerful an office it was when theodore roosevelt surrendered his power to shoot lions in africa. and sunday at 4:00 p.m. eastern on reel america, "the ordeal of woodrow wilson". >> even though they grayed to mr. wilson's 14 points these were not going to let idealism stand in their way not when it conflicted with their own purposes and desires. >> for our complete schedule, go to c-span.org. sunday night on q & a. >> britain was in decline. nationalists were rising up. so the big strategic question that the u.s. faced was should

it support britain against the rising nationalists or try to create a new order by mediating? >> on his book "ike's gamble" america's rise to dominance in the middle east about the suez crisis and aftermath. >> what he is trying to prevent is the soviet union aligning with the nationalists, undermining the british and taking care of the oil in the middle east. the oil was 100% of european oil came from the middle east. we wanted to make sure we had friendly arab regimes if not aligned with the united states, keep the soviet union out. that's the goal. >> sunday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span's q & a. congress lloyd smucker sat down with c-span for an interview. he represents pennsylvania's

16th congressional district. >> when did you get involved in politics and why? >> i was a small business owner for 25 years. and really didn't anticipate that i would -- at first chose the state senate nor did i anticipate i would be serving in congress. i ran a business for 25 years. we grew a company into several hundred employees and saw over that time what i saw as the overreach of government, the encoachment of government in the decisions we were making and additional resources we had to commit to comply with regulations. and so i really believe that government, that overreach of government is holding business back. i think it still continues to hold our economy back and holds people back. i decided to run to ensure my kids and grandkids could have

the opportunity to live the american dream and have the opportunity to do it. >> what was your business? >> construction company. a little background on that. i'll go back to -- i think i'm the only member of congress ever to be born into an amish family. my participants were old-order amish, driving the buggies. i'm number 10 of 12 kids. and so i was the first in my family to graduate from high school. the amish tradition is a formal education ends in eighth or ninth grade. when i approached my parents with that idea, they agreed. they were reluctant but they allowed me to attendant high school. but i couldn't go to a public school. but to pay my tuition, i earned my way through high school by hanging dry wall at night and

right out of high school bought that small business, just a few employees and a business owner at 17 years old. operating that business out of the bedroom in my parent's home but had the tremendous opportunity to grow that company. we became a regional leader in commercial construction with several hundred employees. but that's what i'm talking about starting with little or nothing and that's what america's about. there are stories all throughout my district and throughout the country very similar to that. but today, i think it would be a lot harder. that was about 35 years ago that i started that company. it would be a lot harder today for someone to do that because of the overreach of government. >> are you still part of the amish community? >> so the area that i represent, particularly the lancaster county portion of that district

is the largest amish community in the country. but i'm lutheran today. >> and what impact do you think that childhood growing up amish had on who you are. what do you take away from that? >> well, the amish community is really hard-working, great family values. really care about their neighbors and care about other people and so those are all values that i was raised with. and so, you know, i think that led to some degree to my interest in trying to find solutions to problems that we're faced with. so i got involved in local government and found that i really enjoyed the opportunity to hear some of our neighbors and others and try to solve problems. so that's my approach in the state senate as well as here as

well. >> what would you say your record was at the state senate level? what were you focused on? >> again, i represent a diverse district. but also a conservative district. in a lot of ways. but my -- i tend to -- like the no label aspect that i'm potentially joining. but the point i'm making with i senate to try to find solutions to difficult problems. and i'm willing to work with anyone who may agree with me and knowing that everyone is here representing different districts, and has difference r difference experienced. so a big part of being successful in the legislature i found in the state senate is learning to listen and try to understand other viewpoints and find common ground. >> what injury focus here in

washington? >> i'm very grateful to be part of the education enforcement committee i was chair in the education in the state senate with the we worked hard to ensure that every child in pennsylvania had the opportunity for a educationing that prepared them for their career, college, military, whatever it is. and here one of the focuses on the workforce committee will be the reauthorization of the hiring act and i think there will be some great opportunities there particularly think we need an additional foggy cuss on career and technical education. and, you know, we have a lot of jobs available, but we need to ensure that we are preparing our students to take those jobs. jobs are changing today. so i think that's the real opportunity along with trands poretation frand structure committee. i think it will be great to be a part of that and we did some work on that in pennsylvania as

well where we realize that infrastructure say core function of government. so we're able to increase funding for our highways and bridges, that was very, very necessary at the same time that we were cutting back in government in other areas. i think it's about focusing on what are the poor functiontion governments. i'm looking forward to work with the administration and colleagues across the aisle on biltd building a 21st century as well. >> did you some work pertaining to education on illegal immigrants. >> sure. >> what was that legislation and some might view that as not this line with the republican party, but explain. >> i think we do -- we must fix our immigration system and, you know, it does start with i believe securing the border. we have to know whose coming

into our country were very have to know who has come across the border when they should not have. we have to know who's overstayed their welcome. we know there are people in the world that utah are out to harm us. whatever we're doing with immigration you start with securing the border. i fully support that approach. and then from there we have to build a system that -- we have to fix our legal immigration system and, you know, we are a country of immigrants and we are in fact talking about the american dream earlier. we should be welcoming people who want to come here, who want to work hard, who want to raise their families, who want to live the american dream. i think that's what made our country great in the past and will do so in the future as well. >> you have what some might -- other members of congress might say the shortest commute for those that live on the west coast and just have to drive a couple of hours to get back

home. tell us about your family. >> i have a wife, a daughter, it's a little over 2 and a half hour drive i hate the traffic drive. it ask a little different when i was in the state senate i was able to see it every day. here i'm a little closer but it's a high priority of mine to get back to the district. i want to hear from constituents but also be back with my family. i have my wife is there, but i have 15-year-old son who's in eighth grade and then two who are in college as well a 19 and 21-year-old daughter. >> and what does your wife do? >> my wife has been focused on raising the kids. she's been a stay-at-home mom while we're raising the family, particularly appreciative of that because, of course, the state legislature and here, it does take a lot of time away from the family. so she's been focused on, you know, trying to create a normal

childhood for our kids as possible. it's been great. >> what do your children brunning for this. >> they're excited about it. obviously it means that i'm not there as much for them. it would be a more difficult decision had my kids been younger but it's a good age now with two of them in college. but they're very excited about what's happening here in particular my son really seems to be -- he's 14, he's interested in politics and one of the things he gets to meet some people he did not get to meet otherwise and we try to have the family down here as much as we possibly can. so it's been great. >> thank you very much for sharing your time pd. appreciate it. >> thank you for having me. >> the week ahead in congress includes both in the senate judiciary committee and on the senate floor on the confirmation of president trump's nominee to the supreme court judge kneel gorsuch. we got an update from a capitol

hill reporter. >> joining us is alex bolton a senior staff right are for the hill and has the gorsuch nomination heads to the floor who are the key senators we should be watching? >> reporter: two dem kraits desecrates aim kout on thursday in support of him. heidi height camp of north dakota, those are two states that trump won with big mar jinz begins. but in addition there are eight other democrats to watch as well as an independenting ingis king of maine. the eight democrats are dianne feinstein, the ranking democrat on the judiciary committee, she is worried about row v. wade being overturned and there's an argument to be made it's better for the democrats to allow gorsuch to go through so that they did not lose the ability to filibuster the next supreme court vacancy which could make a difference with abortion rights. the oj toerz watch include members like clair mccass cell,

jon tester and joe donnelly who came from states that trump won by double digits as well a pragmatist mark warner and chris kunz and delaware respectively. they're going to be swayed by arguments that goe such is too pro business to be open the court. >> you mentioned filibuster alex. democratic leaders have anournsed their intention to filibuster intention and then use the nuclear option to break that. gich us a history how this was used back in 2013 and then how it fight be used this time around. >> well, republicans say that this is just finishing up the job that former senate majority leader harry reid started in 2013 when he invoked the nuclear option to strip the minority party of their right to filibuster cabinet nominees as well as other executive brapch nominees and judicial nominees below the level of supreme court.

republicans say that the 60-vote threshold for nominees is all but gone so they might as well get rid of it for the supreme court as well. and they say that historically there have really never been -- there's never been a successful partisan filibuster of a supreme court nominee although there was a bipartisan filla buster that blocked a chief justice to 1968. so this is a they is returning the senate to where it's always been where supreme court nominees are usually confirmed by simple majority vote. democrats however say they explicitty carved out the nominee because they thought the court was too important because it's such -- because it's a life-time employment to the highest court in the land, you need to have a bipartisan consensus or at least some bipartisan consensus on the nominee. if mcconnell triggers the nuclear option this week, he could essentially need a ruling from the chair, most like vice president mike pence, he would

rule that you only need a simple majority and move him to a final up or down vote and then that ruling would have to be sustained by a simple majority on the floor. republicans say they're unified on the ib and mcconnell likely has the vote but chuck schumer the democratic leader is skeptical of that. he thinks there may be some republican deinfection. >> we'll keep following you on twitter and on 8:00 eastern

on c-span's q&qa.

>> on thursday we held a committee on russian interference in the u.s. presidential election. this portion is 2.5 hours. >>

>> i'd like to call this hearing to order i apologize to our witnesses but we had a vote that was called at 10:00 and most members are in the process of making their way from there to here. this morning the committee will engage in an activity that's quite rare for us. an open hearing on an on going critical intelligence question. the role of russian active measures past and present. as many of you know, this committee is conducting a thorough, independent, and

nonpartisan review of the russian active measures campaign conducted against the 2016 u.s. election. some of the intelligence provided to the committee is extremely sensitive and requires that most of the work be conducted in a secure setting to maintain the integrity of the information and protect the very sensitive forces and methods that gave us access to that intelligence. however, the advice chairman and i understand the gravity of the issues that we're here reviewing and have zhad it's crucial that we take the rare step of discussing publicly an ongoing investigation. that's why we convened this second hearing on the topic of open russian measures. and i can assure to you the extent possible the committee will hold additional open hearings on this issue. the american public, indeed all democratic society need to

understand that malign actors are using old techniques with new platforms to undermine our democrat democratic institutions in the hearing entitled disinformation a primer in russian actors and influence campaigns will consist two panels and will provide a foundational understanding of russian active measures and information operations campaigns. the first panel will examine the history and characteristics of those campaigns. the second panel will examine the history and characteristics of those campaigns and the role and cap abilities of cyber operations in support of these activities. unfortunately, you will learn today that these efforts by russia to discredit the u.s. and wae weaken the west are not new. these are at the heart of russia and previous soviet union intelligence efforts.

you am learn today that our community has been a target of russian information warfare, propaganda and cyber campaigns and still is. the efforts, our experts will outline today continue on unabated. the take away from today's hearing, we're all targets of a sophisticated and capable adversary and we must engage in a whole of government approach to combat russian active measures. today we'll receive testimony from experts who have in some cases worked directly to respond to active measures who understand the history and the context of active measures, and whose significant experience and knowledge will shed new light on the problem and provide useful context. drz goodson and rumer, mr. watts, we're grateful for you for your appearance here today. this afternoon we will reconvene

and welcome witnesses who will discuss the technical side of the question, cyber operations including computer network exploitation, social media and unwanted propaganda activities and how they enable and promote russian ininfluenced campaigns and operation information. we have a full day ahead of us and i'm confident that the testimony you will hear today will help you to establish a foundational understanding of the problem as the community continues its inquiry into russian activities. finally, i'd like to commend the advice chairman for his dedication to the goals of the committee's inquiry and to the integrity of the process. the advice chairman and i realize that if we poe lit size this process, our efforts will likely fail. the public deserves to hear the truth about possible russian involvement in our elections, how they came to be involved, how we may have failed to prevent that involvement, what actions were taken in response, if any, and what we plan do to ensure the integrity of future

free elections at the heart of our democracy. thank you again for your willingness to be here and i turn to the advice chairman. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i also want to welcome our witnesses today. today's hearing is important to help understand the role russia played in 2016 presidential elections. as the u.s. intelligence committee unanimously assessed in the january of this year, russia sought to i had jack our democratic process, and the most important part of that process, our presidential elections. as we'll learn today their strategy and tactics are not new but their presidentenness certainly was. the hearing is also important because it's open, as the chairman mingsed, which is sometimes unusual for this committee due to the classified nature of our work we typically work behind closed doors. but today's public hearing will

help, i hope, the american public at large understand how the kremlin made effective use of its hacking skills to steal and weaponize information and engage in a coordinated effort to damage a particular cand indicate and to undermine public confidence in our democratic process. our witnesses today will help us understand how russia deployed this de luth of disinformation in a broader attempt to undermine america's strength n and leadership throughout the world. we simply must and we will get this right. the chairman and i agree it is varietially important th vitally important that we do this in a transparent, bipartisan manner as possible. chairman burr and i trust each other and equally important we trust our colleagues on this

committee that we are going to move together and we're going to get to the bottom of this and do it right. as this hearing begins, let's take just one moment to review whoa we all you are ready know. rush's president vladimir putin ordered a deliberate campaign carefully constructed to undermine our election. first, russia struck at our political institutions by electronically breaking into the headquarters of one of our political parties and stealing vast amounts of information. russian operatives also hacked e-mails to steal personal messages and other information from individuals ranging from clinton campaign manager john podesta, the former secretary of state cole lin powell. this stole ininformation was then weaponized.

we know that russian intelligence use the guccifer 2 persona and others like wikileaks and coreau graphed times that would cause maximum damage to one candidate. they did this with an unprecedented level of sophistication about american presidential politics that should be align of inquiry for us on this committee and candidly while it helped one candidate this time, they are not favoring one party over another and consequently should be concerned for all of us. second, russia continually sought to diminish and undermine our trust in the american media while blurring our faith in what is true and what is not. russian propaganda outlets like rt and sputnik successfully produced and peddled disinformation to american audiences in pursuit of moscow's

preferred outcome. this russia propaganda on steroids was designed to poison the national conversation in america. the russian's employed thousands of paid internet trolls and bot nets to push out this information and fake news at a high volume also focusing this material on twitter and facebook feed and flooding our social media with this information. this fake news and disinformation was then hyped by the american media echo chamber and our own social media networks to reach and potentially influence millions of americans. this is not innuendo and false allegations. this is not fake news. this is actually what happened to us. russia continues these sorts of actions as we speak. some of our close allies in

europe are experiencing exactly the same kind of interference in their political process. germany has said that it's parliament has been hacked. french presidential candidates right now have been the subject of russian propaganda and disinformation. the energy are lands, their recent elections, the dutch hand counted the ballots because they feared russian interference in their electoral process. perhaps most kriktally for us there is nothing to stop them from doing this all over again in 2018 for those of you who are up or in 2020 as americans again go back to the polls. in addition to what we already know, any full accounting must also find out what, if any, contact, communications, or connections occurred between russia and those associated with the campaigns themselves. i will not prejudge the outcome

of our investigation. we are seeking to determine if there is an actual fire but there's clearly a lot of smoke. for instance, an individual associated with the trump campaign accurately predicted the release of hacked e-mails weeks before it happens. the same individual also admits to being in contact with guccifer 2.0, the russian persona responsible for these cyber operations. the platform for our two parties was mysteriously watered down in a way which promoted the interest of president putin and no one seems to be able to identify who directed that change in the platform. campaign manager of one campaign played such a critical role in electing the president was forced to step down over his alleged ties to russia and its

associates. since the election, we've seen the president's national security adviser resign, and his attorney general recuse himself over previously undisclosed contacts with the russian government. and, of course, the other body, on mar march 20th, the director of the fbi publicly acknowledged that the bureau is, quote, investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the trump campaign and the russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and russian efforts, end of quote. i want to make clear at least for me, this information is not about whether you have a d or an r next to your name. it is not about relitigating last fall's election. it is about clearly understanding and responding to this very real threat. it's also, i believe, about holding russia accountable for this unprecedented attack on our

democracy. and it is about arming ourselves so we can identify and stop it when it happens again. and trust me, it will happen again if we don't take action. i would hope that the president is as anxious as we are to get to the bottom of what happened. and i have to say editorially that the president's vent contact with his wild and uncorroborated accusations about wiretapping and his inappropriate and unjustified attacks on america's hard-working intelligence professionals does give me grave concern. this committee has a heavyweight of responsibility to prove that we can continue to put our political labels aside to get us to the truth. i believe we can get there. i've seen firsthand and i say this to a lot of us, how serious members on both sides of this diet have worked on this sensitive and critical issue.

as the chairman and i said repeatedly, this investigation will follow the facts where they lead us. if at any time i believe we're not going to be able to get those facts and we're work together very cooperatively to make sure we gets the facts that we need from the intelligence community, we will get that done. mr. chairman, again, i thank you for your commitment to the serious work and your commitment to keeping this bipartisan co-op operation, at least if not all across the hill, alive in this committee. thank you very much. >> thank you advice chairman. members should know the they will be recognized by seniority for five-minute questions. we'll go as expeditiously as we can. let me introduce our witnesses today, if i may, and we will hear from those witnesses. dr. roy godson, merit tus professor of georgetown university. i've got some special r specialized in security studies and international relations at georgetown university for more

than four decades. thank you for that. as a sclol lar he helped pine near higher education editing a seven volume sear yez in intelligence requirements for the 1980s, 1990s, and cofounding the consortium for study of intelligence. he's directed, managed and published with other skol letters and ingel dominance consistent with the rule of law practices and strategies from encountering global organized crime. dr. godson as served as consultant to the united states security council, president's foreign intelligence advisory board and related agency of the u.s. government. thank you for your service and thank you for being here. dr. rumer is a senior fellow and director of russian and you're rashs program at the endowment

for international peace. prior to joining carn negativegy he served as russia and asia u.s. national council from 2010 to 2014. earlier he held esearch appointments at the national university, international ibs ought to for strategic studies ant ram corporation. he has served on the national security council staff and at the state department, taught at georgetown university and george washington ufrpt and published widely. welcome, dr. rumer. clint watts is a robert thoughts fellow for the foreign policy research insurance tucson ought to and a sen r senior fellow at george washington university. he's a consultant researcher forecasting threat accurate bee havior and developing count irrelevant measures for did he feeting state and nonstate actors. he designs and implements

customized training and research programs for the military, intelligence, law enforcement organizations, at the federal, state, and local level. clint serves as a united states army infrontitry officer, fbi agent on jant terrorism task force as the executive officer of the combating terrorism at west point and as a consultant to the fbi's counterterrorism division and national security broonch. welcome and thank you for your service. with that, i will recognize our witnesses from my left to right and dr. godson, you are recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and like so many members of the committee for inviting me to this hearing. i'd like to begin with just a minute or two on the long history of the soviet active measures and then talk a little bit about some of the major

advantages the soef yets have and the russians have reaped from their history abusing this instrument. finally, i'd like to come to what we have done in the past to reduce the effectiveness of soviet behavior and what we might want to consider for the future. i think if one looks at the history of last hundred years you're going to find that the russians and the soviet pret predecessors have believed attacking measures is a major tool for their advancement. they actually believe whatever we think about it, that this gives them a possibility of achieving influence well beyond their economic and social status and conditions in their country. i think when you look at what they say now, what they do now,

and with the way they act and practice and talk about their active measures, they take this subject very seriously. sometimes we, in the united states, have been aware of this, but for many, many decades we do not take this subject seriously and they were able to take enormous advantage. i think today that they basically believe they can use these techniques rather similarly to many of the ways they did in the past. i do think that they are repeating many of the same practices that they did in the past. yes, there may be some new techniques that are being used now, there are and some of my colleagues in the panel and this afternoon are more expert on those techniques, particularly the use of the internet and particularly cyber space.

but we can sort of more or lets be rest assured that the soviets will be looking at other techniques and will be seeking to adapt and make their active measures much more productive for them in the future. yes, the activities in the united states that you're particularly interested in do seem to be exceptional. we don't have very many other examples of where they interfere with election machinery, electoral apparatuses. what we do have are many, many examples of where the soviet dollas working togethering with their allies aboard, agents of influence abroad to actually affect the election in many, many countries in the 20th and early 21st century. soviets and their russian successors took the view, take the view that they're able to

hit above their waist. they can fight above their weight if they take these active mesh urds. they don't want to go to war, neither of them want to go to war, but they take the view they can actually achieve a lot of what they want to do through their active measures. that is the combination of over and covert techniques and resources. overt and covert combined together, one pennsylvania pattern and that they have the authority and the responsibility as leaders of the countries to be able to do that. and they put this into practice. in the '20s and '30s they created an enormous apparatus in the world. russia was a poor country and yet russia in the '20s and '30s set up whole organizations overt and covert throughout the world, were able to challenge all the major powers of europe and the

united states. we may not have realized that these organizations were being set up, but they were considerable and it took a lot of effort and skill on their part to do this. in the war of second world war, they used this aprila rat tus to be able to the politics of europe after the war. yes have they also use today during the war to help them and sometimes us in fighting the nazis and the eye talya fasha. but in major -- in a major way they were also preparing for being able to influence the outcome of the struggle for the balance of power in europe during world war i irk. so while they were an ally, they were also planning to undermine democrat and liberal parties, including in the united states at that time. in fact, they were able to take

advantage of the fact that we were friendly and that we were working together. but uncle joe was a friend of the united states at that time, they thought. and they were able to use that very successfully. and so as a result, they were nearly able to take over the balance of the power in western europe. it was a closely run contest. and, of course, we're all glad that they lost. but it was a very closely run conflict and we did emerge successfully from it. in the 1980s, they were on another roll. they used their aprparatus whic built up in the '20s, '30s, '40s, '50s, and '60s to able to achieve a great deal in the late 1970s and 80s. they were eventually able to

split nato and europe in the 1980s. they started that in the last year of the carter administration and continued into the reagan years. fortunately we noticed this in time and our rearmament of nato went ahead and it wasn't because the soviets wanted it but because we were able to outmaneuver them. the '90s was chaotic there and so it was their active apparatus wasn't very effective and it doesn didn't have the kind of leadership that it had before. and the kind of leadership it has gained since vladimir putin came to power. it may be a little bit too soon to do an 'says meant of their effectiveness. so far, as was pointed out earlier by the chairman and the advice chairman, we do think that they were effective in an important way to us and we

understand that the committee is going to be looking into this. but, in any convenient r they have this apparatus, they've modernized it, they were spending billions of dollars a year before, they have maybe 10 to 15,000 people in this aprila rat us at least worldwide in addition to patrols and other kinds of capabilities they have. but, soviets -- >> i'm going to interrupt you for just a second just to make members aware that the second vote as started an it's our intent to work through this second vote. so i'd ask members as they feel comfortable to leave and vote, come right back, if you will, as soon as we get through the panel we'll start questions and dr. godson i'd just ask you to summarize as quickly as you can because we want -- five-minute

recognitions. >> well, they have used their capabilities effectively but they don't always win out. united states for the first time responded in a major way to them in the late 1940s through the 1960s. we did, in fact, caughter rise their active measures apparatus and they were not able to successfully use this in western europe and other parts of the world. we did some things pretty well, from the '40s to the '60s. unfortunately in the '60s there was a -- the coalition, between liberals and conservatives. the consensus between the congress and the administration started to fall apart and then with the criticisms that the intelligence community had to take in that time, our countermeasures started to fall

apart and we were disarming ourselves, if i can say that, and so from the '60s through the late 1970s we did not have a very effective counteractive measures capability and the russians of course took advantage of that in numerous places in the world. in the '80s that changed, late '70s, '80s it changed and we did start do things well again. i'll just summarize the fact that we started to develop a strategic approach to countermeasures wouldn't a bit here and bit there and so on. it was a strategic approach with warning and anticipation of active measures. we would study them so well we were often able to anticipate what they were going to did with active measures and sob therefore we could then use other measures to limit them and avoid their effectiveness of

these active measures. we also started to support liberal elements abroad that we felt would be helpful to us in preventing soviet active measures from furthering soviet objectives in those societies. so we were fairly successful in the '80s in doing this. and in both using overt and covert methods to do this. as in other victory that we've had after world war i or world war ii, after the cold war we thought this wasn't such an important thing to be doing anymore, and so our activities waned. they didn't stop, but they waned. we had some units that were maimed in the government that were concerned with this, but on the whole the government actually disarmed itself. and so although there were some in the government and outside the government who warned about the soviet use of active

measures and i do know when looking over the website of your committee that some of the people in this room actually went to the government and asked the government to be more mindful of soviet active measures starting in 2016 and presumably that we should be findful of it afterwards. unfortunately, the government did not take the warnings as seriously as it could have and made this known to the public in a useful fashion so we would not be so surprised when this took place in the -- or appears to have taken place in 2016. the soviets could not have done this, and the russians cannot have done this without having an active measures apparatus. it's visible, one can find it. one can't find everything about it, but we have historically we know that we can find it,

question anticipate it, and we can take a number of measures so i hope you will have time to consider in the questioning some of the versions we could now take to do that. thank you. >> thank you dr. godson. dr. rumer. >> chairman, advice chairman warner distinguished members of the committee i'm honored to be here today. russian interference in our campaign is one of the most contentious issues in our national conversation. i believe that russian intelligence services and their proxies sbeernd in our election in 2016. i have not seen the crass fied evidence between the intelligence committee published a few weekends ago. some have crit sized us for not sharing the evidence of russian intrusion. they missed the mark. it is the totality of russian's efforts in plain sight to

mislead, misinform, to acc zag race that is more convincing than any cyber evidence. rt rushed to be broadcast, internet trolz, fake news and so on are an integral part of russian's historied to. world war ii and europe were the great pay the attic war took the form eightive experience of every russian. the country's narrative isn't possible without it. in 1941 hit letters's armies were in moscow. in nine tone 45 the army entered berlin. this was russia's createstive generation. generations of russia since them then have been taught ta that their country must secure them because it was protected bay buffer. the war passed and so did the

empire. in 1991 russians lost that buffer, the legacy of their greatest generation. with their country fouling i falling apart, russian leaders had no choice but to sthep loss for as long as russia would remain weak. the '90s were a terrible decade for russia but a great decade for the west. for russian leaders and many regular russians, the dominance of the west came at the expense of russia's loss in the cold war. but russia did not remain weak indefinitely. it took a much more assertive posture on the world stage. we saw it in the crashing of georgian in 2008 were in the annexation of crimea in 2014, and we see it through if the present day in the ongoing war in ukraine. for the west, thing you russia's return to the world stage has been nothing more than pure --

for russia it is restoring some balance in the relationship with the west. the narrative of restoring the balance, correcting the injustice, and the distortions of the 1990s has been the sbeshl -- has been absolutely essential to russia propaganda since the beginning of the putin era. those russian who's disagree are branded as foreign agents and enemies of the people. but russia's capabilities should not be overestimated. it is about 1.3 patrol dollars versus u.s. repeal over $18 billion. russian defense is estimated at about $65 billion. that's a little more than president trump's proposed increase in u.s. for fy 2018. the russian military is undeniably stronger than its smaller and weaker neighbor. yet the balance does not favor russia when compared to nato. it would be an act of russian suicide and the kremlin is not ready for it.

russian leaders have embraced a different information. information warfare were espionage, economic tools and so on. . toolkit is meant to make up for russian's conventional shortcomings vis-a-vis the west. the kremlin have a number of advantages here. circle of deciders is limited to a handful of putin associates with similar world views. they have considerable resources at their disposal. a handful of private criminals costs a lot less than an arm merd brigade but can do a lot of damage mpt russian meddling is most likely viewed by the kremlin as an unqualified success. the pay offs include but are not limited to, one, a major distraction to the united states for the united states, damage to u.s. leadership in the world. and perhaps most importantly, the demonstration is set that creme lins can do this to the

world's remaining super power, imagine how other countries see it. the differences between rush and at united states are profound and will not be resolves soon. this is not a crisis, not something that will pass soon. this it is the new normal. but we'll see russia relying on this toolkit in the months and years to come. in the upcoming elections in france, and in germany this year, in our own future political campaign. did he sepgs and active measures have long been and will remain a staple of russia's dealing with the outside world for the foreseeable future. thank you. >> dr. rumer, thank you. mr. watts. >> mr. chairman, members of the committee, thank you for inviting me here today. in april, 2014, andrew weissberg, and i noticed that the petition on the.gov wep website. give america's largest state back to the nation for which it was purchase ttd petitions appearing on the white house website are not out of the norm, but this petition was different.

having gained more than 39,000 online signatures in a short period pftd our compassion of those signing and posting on this petition revealed an odd pattern. the accounts varied from other petitions and appeared to be the work of bots. closer look at those bots side i tied in closely with other social media campaigns we had observed pushing russia propaganda months before. hackers proliver raited the networks and could be spotted. closely circling those hackers were honey pot accounts, attractive looking women, political partisans that were trying to socially engineer other users. they would attack political target using similar talking patterns and points. they attackers support the kremlin targeted key english speaking audiences throughout europe and north america. soviet active measures and strategy is reborn and updated for the modern russian regime in

a dpij ittal age. they hope to win the cold war. while russia certainly seeks to promote western and is dates sympathetic to the world view and foreign policy objectives, winning an election is not their goal. they hope to topple democracies through the pursuit of five excellentry octobertives. undermine citizen confidence in government. two, erode trust between citizens and elected officials and their institutions were popular rise russian policy agenda as and kben again distrust over information sources by blurring the lines between tact and fiction. a very pertinent issued to in our country. from these objectives, the kremlin can crumble dragss from the inside out achieving two key milestones. the dissolution of the european union and the break up of nato. achieving these two victories against us will allow russia to

assert his power globely. in late 2014 and threeout 2015, we watched active measures on nearly any disaffected u.s. audience whether it be claims the u.s. military declaring marshal law, black lives matter protest or stand off at the bundy ranch, sputnik news characterizes white house out yets turned out manipulated truths false news stories. they generallily wind up nund for themes, used to target leaders and institutions were financial propaganda created to weaken markets and cap lists economies. social unrest to give division among democrat populouses and global calamity pushed inside global demise such as nuclear war or cat traffic climate change. from these overt russian prop gand a wide-range of english

speaking spratorrial web sites when we refer to as gray outs some operate from eastern europe and are led by editors of unknown financing sensational lies these sprz and fake news published by white out lets. the heck letters, honey pots, heck letters i described earlier work along automated bots further amplify this russian propaganda amongst unwitnessing life threatening e lecture iers. to the end of 2015, start of 2016, the russian influence system began pushing themes and megs ages seeking to influence the outsum of the u.s. election. they sought to sideline opponents on both sides of the political spectrum with adversarial views towards the kremlin. they were in full swing with the democrat and republican primary seen and made the candidates more hostile to the rush before. the final piece of rush's

moderate active measure service in the summer of 2016, attack materials were strategically leaked the disclosures of wick did i leaks gusser 2 would discover how hack would discover the system that russia had built in the previous two years. my colleagues and i watched at sputnik news simultaneously launched all stories of the u.s. base in turkey being overrun. automated bots a.m. fied this false news story. more than 4,000 tweets in the first 78 minutes after laurchching this false story going back to the active measures accounts we tracked from the previous two years. thee previously identified accounts almost simultaneously appearing from different geographic lotions and communities amplified the nak news story in un son. the hash tag pushed by these accounts were nuke area where are media, trump, benghazi. the most common words were god,

military, trump, family, country, conservative, christian, america, and constitution. these accounts and their messages clearly sought to convince americans a u.s. military base was being overrun in a terrorist attack. in reality a small protest gathered outside the gate and i crease security sought to the secure the arrival of the chairman the joint chiefs. many of the accounts we watched focused on elections of europe, money fears of immigration, false climbs of refugee criminality. they've not forgotten about the u.s. either. this past week we've observed social media accounts discrediting paul ryan. the implications of rush's new active measures model 8ing twofold. the first is what the world is witnessing today, a russian challenge to democracies throughout the west. but more importantly over the horizon rush's provided any authoritarian dictator equipped with haekers and disrespectful

civil liberties to dismantle their play books through warfare. they will surrender it's position in the world's leader, for goe it's goal of chief democracy and give up on 70 years of collective action to preserve freedom and civil liberties around the world. russian's motto for america is divided they stand and divided they will fall. the united states remind the world that despite our day to day policy debates of political squabbles we stand united in defending our system of government from the meddling power hungry tie prants and athor tear ians that pray prey upon their people and suppress humanity. i'll close here but i have many recommendations which are in my written tem. mr. chairman i ask for my full written statement kbh includes me recommendations be submit to the record and i hope that during the question and answer session we can further discuss how we might counterthese active measures. thank you for inviting me. >> mr. watts, thank you for your testimony and all of written

testimony will be inclutded as part of the record. the chair and the advice chairman are going to exit and vote. i'm going to recognize senator rish for his questions and in our absence he'll allow back and forth based upon seniority. >> thank you mr. chairman. gentlemen, it always impressions me the fact that when we hear people talking about russian policy and what they want, first of all, how uniform it is. everybody seems to agree on where they're going, what -- what they do and what they're doing to get there. but after processing that over a long period of time, one's got to come do the thought process of what happens in a post putin russia. because everyone -- everyone's got a shelf life and his is -- his has been extended it looks to me well beyond what normally

would happen under these circumstances. so give me your thoughts briefly, each of you, if you would, as to what happens? do they stay on the same track they're on dore they come to the realization that there's bigger and better things in life to pursue than what they're doing right now? mr. godson? >> well, thank you for the question. as you know, a lot of variables here at work. one would be what we -- how we respond to putin and the behavior of the apparatus that they have. do we let them continue to do this or do we start to develop some sort of a response to them. that would be one of the variables. do they find that they can get away with using active measures as they have in the past and, if

so, then the elite that has taken power in russia would be inclined to continue. they found that even when they sometimes have not been as effective as they expected, that active measures still is a capability that enables them to use an example of being able to fight above their economic and political capability. so unless there was a dramatic change in the regime, there would be little reason to believe that they wouldn't cease the active measures, policy and strategy they have barring that we don't actually caughter rise it and looimt limit its effectiveness. if we don't then they'll have an incentive to continue. >> thank you. >> well, mr. putin i believe is 62, man in his prime.

he's positioned to run in 2018 again for another six-year term. so i think what we see today is going to be with us for a long time. that transsends party lines, that transsends ra jeemd, and russian perception of those securities don't really change all that much over time. so i think we should be thinking about the driver's of russian foreign security policy in terms of continuity rather than radical change. after all, we saw radical change

in 1991 and things didn't really change that much. and as long as, you know, russian elites will see themselves -- as long as they see themselves as being inferior and struggling against a more advanced and a more powerful western alliance, they will be relying on all tools in their toolkit. and information warfare will be -- this information will be part of it. we may hope that if someday someone like gets elected gets to be the leadership having been a victim of this information he may be more restrained. but i would say the basic parameters of jugs russian policy are set in place. >> thank you, doctor. i want to hear from mr. watts. >> regarding mr. putin i would look to these two gentlemen

primarily but he's not going away anytime soon and he will shape some sort of successor in his place to continue on what he's doing right now. the third big thing that we can't discount is the connection with criminality. there's between these elites and their sort of presenter to cap list practices when we see in cyber space with cyber crime and how they use accurate -- rewell as part of their active measures we can't discount that we'll see a tread deer to elite emerge that will be something that we have to deal with. and i think the third which goes to the first point is i'm not sure what our policy our stance is with regards to russia at this point in the united states. i think that's the number one thing we have to figure out, because that will shape how they sboois interface with us. having watched the ent of soviet union at west point and then post forwarding to today, i'm a little bit lost as to what our u.s. interests are or how

they're coalescing. no, i he what i would recommend, but i think that will have a major impact on how we will able to interface and maybe i seed opportunity in putin's departure. >> thank you. all of our major intelligence agencies, which was released on january the 6th, is among the strongest i've read. it covers the motivation and the scope of russia's actions, regarding our elections. as well as the cyber tools and the media campaigns they use to influence public opinion. the report makes a key judgment and here it is. russian president vladimir putin ordered and influenced campaign

in 2016, aimed at the united states presidential election. the consistent goals of which were to undermine public faith in the united states democratic process, denigrate secretary clinton and harm her electability and potential presidency. it further assesses that -- and these are quotes -- putin and the russian government developed a clear preference for president-elect trump. here's two questions. do you believe the intelligence community assessment accurately characterized the goals of russian influence activities in the election? and i would like to go down the line with a yes or no answer, if you want to explain it, that would be fine. who would like to go first? >> well, thank you for that difficult question. the -- i personally don't sort

of find myself at odds with the ica study that you -- that you identified. however, the statement that this is was developed in 2016 needs to be parsed a bit. the russians could not do this if they started in 2016. they wouldn't have had the capability. and the active measures world , one can want to do many things, but one has to have the means to do this -- >> when would you estimate it was start, by your statement? >> well, it's not i have a specific date. but that one needs to have an infrastructure abroad to be able to do this. now, you can use some of the infrastructure in your own country, especially with cyber capabilities. but -- >> which they had.

>> which they had. but active measures usually involves people as well as machines. and it would be extraordinary that they hadn't prepared a lot of the ground to be able to do this. not only in the united states, but in other countries, as well. it's -- they have this apparatus, and this apparatus is well-staffed, well-trained. the training of the people who work in this apparatus is quite surprising to us. it's -- we have known about it, but we don't really take it very seriously. it's not three months or six months training or years training. they have much longer training periods, and they are -- some of them are pretty good. not ten feet tall, of course, but pretty good. >> ok, i got the point. next person? >> yes. >> thank you. appreciate it. >> yes. and i can give you the time line of their development, if you would like it. >> please. >> we have accounts dating back to 2009 that are tied to active measures. 2014 was their capability

development, based on my assessment, where they started working on their influence campaigns. 2015 was when they tied hacking and influence together for the first time, specifically during the dnc breaches. i was notified in november of 2015 that i had been targeted by a cyberattack. 2016 was the push into the u.s. audience landscape to build audience. august 2016 was when i witnessed them pushing towards the election. and that was in full -- or august of 2015, all the way through 2016. so one year buildup to the election. >> thank you. has russia ever -- i think i know the answer to this, but if you would elaborate on it, conducted other similar campaigns in other countries to this level of impact with the goal of tilting the playing field to increase one candidate's chance of winning?

mr. watt, if you would go first. >> yes. i believe you would need to look back at 2014 in both ukraine and another eastern european country that's escaping me. in 2015, '16, the brexit campaign should be examined. i can't prove it one way or another. and today all the european elections they're choosing to mettle in. france, germany, netherlands, czech republic. >> thank you. would you like to respond? >> yes. they have conducted such campaigns in ukraine in 2004 and 2014. in georgia. they have intervened heavily in domestic political campaigns in the baltic states, so there are ample examples of that. >> thank you. would you please respond, doctor? >> yes, they have a history of doing this well before this, and they find it a successful use of their resources. so it is not surprising. >> thank you, doctor. senator rubio. >> thank you. thank you all for being here. i'm concerned that in our

inquiry, and i certainly think it's important for us to know what happened. we are focusing so much on the tactics that we're not focusing on the broader strategy that's at play here. i want to briefly go through a number of instances and have the panel comment whether or not they believe these are indicative of the efforts being targeted against the united states and the rest of the world by vladimir putin. we all know that angela merkel has taken a tough line on ukraine against russia. we know there is a lot of controversy in germany around migrants. in early 2016, a 13-year-old known only as lisa f, a russian /german citizen whose family had moved to germany from russia in 2004 told police she had been kidnapped in east berlin by what appeared to be middle eastern migrants and raped for over 30 hours. there was outrage in germany and obviously protests against merkel. the russian foreign minister immediately jumped on the story talking about the need to defend our lisa, quote, unquote. and the story was spread far and wide by russian speaking entities and russian media outlets.

subsequently, the prosecutors in berlin announced they had clear evidence that during those 30 hours, she was missing, lisa f was actually, in fact, with people she knew, and a medical examination showed that she had not been the victim of rape. earlier this year, a little-known news outlet published on a website an article that claimed that the united states was deploying 3,600 tanks to eastern europe to prepare for war with russia. 3,600 tanks would represent about 40% of our entire tank force. within days, the story was republished by dozens of outlets in the united states and throughout europe. as it turns out, the truth is we deployed 87 tanks. there is in -- going all the way back to september 11th of 2015, residents in louisiana awoke to a message, many of them did, on their twitter feed, that said toxic fume hazard warning in this area until 1:30 p.m., take shelter, check local media and

columbiachemical.com. on twitter accounts, there were hundreds of accounts documenting a disaster right down the road from the people. one account said a powerful explosion heard from miles away happened at a chemical plant in centerville, louisiana. a man named john merit, tweeted. anna are you sela shared an -- anna shared an image of flames engulfing the plant. posted a video of surveillance footage from a local gas station capturing the explosion. another twitter account posted a screen shot of cnn's home page, showing the story had already made national news, claiming that isis had claimed credit for the attack, according to one youtube video. a woman named @zopak 9 -- anna mclaren is her name, i guess. is this really isis responsible for the hash tag column upon chemicals? tell obama we should bomb iraq. tell obama we should bomb iraq.

had anyone taken the trouble to check cnn as this article outlines, there was no such attack. it was a hoax. not some simple prank, as the article goes on to say, but a highly coordinated disinformation campaign involving dozens of fake accounts that posted hundreds of tweets for hours, targeting a list of figures precisely chosen to generate maximum attention. the perpetrators didn't just doctor screen shots from cnn and i'm reading from the "new york times" article. they also created functional clones of the a websites of the louisiana stations and the like. the list goes on and on and we should document to the american people. a false story spreading claiming a that germany's oldest church was burnt down by a thousand muslims. another story claiming the european union was planning your the european union was planning to ban snowmen as an racist. all of this, and on and on. and we should begin to and on and on. and we should begin to document them for the american people. isn't this one larger problem -- let me just rephrase that. aren't we in and the midst of a blitzkrieg, for lack of a better term, of and informational warfare conducted by russian trolls under the command of vladimir young as you putin designed to

and sew instability, pit us against each other as americans. they posted false stories of a police shooting in atlanta that never happened. in essence, are is we in danger here because we are focused on a very important tactical move that happened in the election of 2016 to miss the broader point, and that is that this is a coordinated effort across multiple spectrums to sow instability and to pit americans against each other, demographically and the like. >> so i think the two lines of effort you brought up there, that the russians use are social dynamics that they play on, ethnic divisions, and global calamity or inciting fear. these two lines haven't been discussed much. the third one is financial. they oftentimes put out fake stories about u.s. companies, which then cause stock dips. which allow all sorts of predatory trading and other things to happen.

what's -- we have focused on disinformation around the political scene. but misinformation across the board, particularly from the russia propaganda networks, has incited fear inside the united states on multiple occasions, as you noted. one last year was there was jfk terminal shut down about allegeded gunshots. we watched social media trols trolls pump fake stories out which ramped up that fear which caused mass panic. so they have created the ability by gaining audience in the united states to steer americans, unwittingly, and many different directions, that can cause all sorts of danger and even violence in certain cases. i think that pizza gate scandal we saw last fall is another such example of misinformation. maybe not attributed to russia. but we have a problem at large right now with our information sources. >> senator rubio -- >> i think you hit the nail on the head. i don't really have a lot to add to it. we are faced a

strategic attack. it's not a kinetic attack usually. it's a political attack. another question comes. what sort of strategic response are we going to be able to develop to that? we could elaborate on that. >> senator warner. >> again, thank all the witnesses for their testimony. doctor, i'm going to start with you. we have heard a lot recently about the role of the head of russia's largest aluminum company and the role he may have played in helping to support the goals of president putin. can you characterize the role in this area, and then more broadly, are there any of the oligarchs in russia, at least those not in exile, that aren't somehow caught up in the kremlin's foreign policy activities? or are there any

truly independent? >> thank you, senator warner. i can't add anything to the conversation beyond what's in the public domain. so i don't think i have any special incites here. and, you know, i feed off the same reporting that's appeared in the papers. i would be careful to describe all russian oligarchs and oligarch itself as a fairly ill defined term. there is a handful of some of the prominent ones, but it's a much bigger class of major russian businessmen. i would be reluctant to describe them all as, you know, tools of the kremlin, obviously. russian businessmen who would do

business in russia have to be mindful of kremlin political preferences and the kremlin has considerable influence over them. but i don't have -- i can't speak from concrete information about them being -- you know, directly instruments of the kremlin foreign policy. that that's not something that -- i have evidence to back up. so i think i'll -- i'll stop at that. >> okay. mr. watts, one of the things in your testimony -- i've been talking a lot about the use of the internet trolls and their ability to then exponentially gain more power through creating these botnets. i would love you to kind of comment about what we can do to preclude that on a -- on a going forward basis, and perhaps you can explain this

technique better than i have in my various public statements. >> sure. the first thing that i think we need to understand is it's not all automated and it's not all human. there is a combination of the two. so you have a series of humans that work in their psychological warfare groups that command both bots at the same time. and i like to -- as an aallege, you can look at it like artillery. so you have someone engaging with you as individual, and at the same time, they can launch a bot to amplify that story forward. when we -- >> obviously, the bot for those -- ability for a computer to take over other computers that are not being used and in effect magnify the number of hits they might hit to a particular social media site, correct? >> exactly. and you can create more personas in twitter, for example, which makes it look like there are more people than there really are. it's a strategy, essentially, that amplifies your appearance. so what they do is, they launch those simultaneously as they begin the engagement or push of

false news stories. usually from sputnik news. they do that in unison, which games the social media system, such that such a high volume of content being pushed at the same time raises that into the trends that you'll see, if you looked at facebook or twitter or whatever it might be. you see the top ten stories that are out right now. it pushes that up there. as soon as it pushes that into that top ten feed, mainstream media outlets then are watching that and they start to examine that content. so, for example, the attack i talked about, one of the key hash tags they pushed is media. the goal is to get that in the top of twitter stream so mainstream media has to respond to that story. when mainstream media responds to it or looks at it without commenting on it, it takes over organically and you'll see it move over the internet like a virus. >> one thing, i'm going to spend a lot of time on in this afternoon. there have been reports that their ability to target this information, some

reports at least saying that in the last week of the campaign in certain precincts in wisconsin, michigan, pennsylvania, there was so much misinformation coming, talking about hillary clinton's illnesses or hillary clinton stealing money from the state department or -- that completely blanked out any of the back and forth that was actually going on in the campaign. one of the things that seems curious, were the russians on their own, have that level of sophisticated knowledge about the american political system if they didn't at least get some advice from someone in america. >> yes. i know this from working on influence campaigns in the counterterrorism context. if you do appropriate target audience analysis on social media, you can actually identify an audience in a foreign country or in the united states, parse out all of their impressive were recognizes. part of the reason those bios had conservative christian, you know, america all those terms in it, those are the

most common ones. if you inhale all of the accounts of the people in wisconsin, you identify the most common terms in it, you just recreate accounts that look exactly like people from wisconsin. so that way whenever you're trying to socially engineer them and convince them that the information is true, it's much more simple, because you see somebody and they look exactly like you. even down to the pictures. when you look at the pictures, it looks like an american from the midwest or the south or wisconsin or whatever the location is. and they will change those. they can reprogram them. where they tend to show their hand is, the problem is once they build an audience, they don't want to get rid of it. so you'll see them build an audience of trying to influence one segment, let's say of the english-speaking media. and then they will reprogram it to try and influence a different story. it's the same problem any cable news outlet will have. once you build an audience and you change your content to some other topic, you still want to keep your old audience, otherwise you can't gain any traction. >> and, again, my time is up, but i want to know, this was used in 2016 towards one candidate. but obviously, russia's interests are russia's interests. >> it's used right now on people

on both sides of the aisle. they might go after a republican person in this room tomorrow, and then they'll switch. it's solely based on what they want to achieve in their own landscape. whatever the russian foreign policy objectives are. so if they want to achieve one candidate, but let's say president trump, for example, wins and now turns against, they will turn on president trump, as well. they'll play -- they win because they play both sides. and the audience will go with them once they have them. >> i do know that the vice chairman hates russia, just to make that public. senator collins. >> thank you, mr. chairman. doctor godson, you make the point that the russians don't always win with their active measures, and you mentioned the period of the 1940s, and the 1950s. in your judgment, how successful have the russians been in the last year in achieving their goal of sowing

polarization, trying to disrupt and cast out on the validity of the election, putting aside the issue for the moment of the critical question of whether there was any chloelution between any campaign and the russian effort? >> well, from the information that we have in the public sector, and the private sector, i would say that they must be rather pleased with the results of their investment. whatever date they started to develop this campaign. i think, though, however, they -- and the fact is, they are seeming to prepare

to do the same thing in other campaigns. abroad. and so sort of looking at the way they have behaved over the long course of time, that they have used active measures, i think they will continue to -- to do this, and to reap some benefits from it. unless there is a -- a considerable response from the democratic societies. and at the moment, i would say that our response is too restrained, and that -- unless they see that there is a cost to this that makes this not a very attractive thing to do, i don't see why they won't continue it. i hope that's responsive. >> thank you. doctor rummer, mr. watts made the point that the russians will go after either

side. that they're trying to disrupt society, cast out on western democracies. and one largely overlooked part of the intelligence committee's -- or the intelligence community's report last fall was information in the annex that suggested that russia today, which most people view as an organ of the russian government, was instrumental in trying to advance the protests of occupy wall street. could you comment on that, and is that an example of russia working to promote the far left versus the far right that we hear so much about? >> yes, ma'am. it's a perfect example in that occupy wall

street was a genuine movement on the left. but it certainly serves the interests of russian propaganda to blade up as a major challenge as something representing a major fault line in our society. because, you know, it drives the message that the united states is in decline. the united states is in crisis. plays up to audiences at home in russia and abroad. that the united states is not the perfect society, something that they really like to emphasize. so that's -- that's -- that's an excellent example. and i think it deserves the attention that you -- the spotlight that you cast on it. mr. watts referred to the minor protests outside our base and in certify lick, in turkey. there is another example that there was a protest, but again, it's blown out of all proportions. and as you know, the best propaganda is that which has a grain of truth to it. that then gets played up and

up and up. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> senator wyatt. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and let me say thank you to our witnesses. gentlemen, here's where we are now. the american people are worried about what's ahead with regard to russia. the public now gets most of its information from leaks, from daily press stories and apparently inaccurate tweets from the president. this feeds distrust and causes americans to question the legitimacy of our government. so i believe the committee needs to lift the fog of secrecy about what really happened to our democracy. that's why it's so important we have open hearings with the intelligence committee, the fbi, homeland security and treasury. and i believe a key to a successful investigation is following the money. yesterday i wrote a letter to the chairman and the vice chair, urging the committee look into any and all

financial relationships between russia and donald trump and his associates. i'm also taking this issue on as a ranking member of the finance committee of which senator burr and senator warner are also members. i and other members of the finance committee have already urged that the committee exercise its authority to obtain and review donald trump's tax returns. this review ought to include the trump organization and its partnerships. senate investigators should also look into any violations of the foreign corrupt practices act, which ensures that investors are not paying bribes overseas. the treasury department's responsible for other programs and investigations that may uncover suspicious financial activities by donald trump, and his associates. it is already a matter of public record that entities associated with donald trump have been the subject of millions of dollars of fines for willful repeated and long standing violations of anti

money laundering laws. information about donald trump's finances, his family, and his associates may lead to russia. we know that in 2008 the president's son said that suggss make up a pretty disproportionate cross section of a lot of our assets. since then, we've gotten mostly smoke and mirrors. the committee needs to follow the money wherever it leads. because if money laundering, corruption of any kind or fishy real estate deals point to the russian oligarch's criminal elements, then the russian government may only be a step or two away from us. so now my question. there is an extraordinary history of money laundering in russia. billions of dollars from corruption and other illegal activities have been moved out of the country.

what that means is that russia's corruption problem may also be our corruption problem. so here's my question for the three of you as experts on russia. i would like you three to tell us about corruption in russia so as to help us follow the money in our investigation. and here's my specific question. i'm going to start with you, mr. watts. how can the committee track this fuzzy line between the russian oligarchs, russian organized crime and the russian government? >> thanks, senator. i would first start off with i'm not the foremost russian expert. i came to this through the islamic state in isis. i'm really a counterterrorism expert. mostly active measures came off after me. the second part i would add

to this discussion, though, is there is a money trail to be searched for, and discovered. and we have focused very heavily on elites in our public discussion. what are elite people doing. but this influence action has both virtual component and a physical component that's happened. i would say that what i can't see, which i would want to know, is what is happening in eastern europe. there is a disproportionate number of fake news outlets, conspiratorial reb sites that are run from there that are english-speaking editors that are pro russian. trained in russia sometimes. how are they funded? that would be one component. i would -- i might guess or might estimate, my hypothesis, working in the intelligence field, is that there is some sort of russian intel asset that is funding them in one way or another through some sort of scheme. the other part that i think we should be looking at is follow the trail of dead russians. there has been more dead russians in the past three months that are tied to

this investigation who have assets and banks all over the world. they are dropping dead, even in western countries. we have seen arrests in i believe it's spain and different computer security companies that are based in russia, which provide services to the united states. these are all huge openings to understand how they are funded by the russian government. i don't have the capability to do that from where i sit. but i think that's a huge angle. if you can prove that part of it, i have to say on the influence side, we can see it. the one thing that's been misconstrued in the public discussion about russian influence is that it's covert. you can hack stuff and be covert, but you can't influence and be covert. you have to ultimately show your hand. and that's why we have been able to discover it online. but the missing part is how did they conduct this influence. there are newspapers, there are media outlets, the balkins are littered right now with these sorts of outlets. that's where i would start to dig on the

financial space. >> i'm almost out of time. dr. rumor, same thing. this fuzzy line is what i'm particularly interested in. organized crime, oligarchs and the government. i heard you talk about one person, you couldn't comment on him. but just give me your analysis about this fuzzy line, because i keep coming back to that. >> well, sir, it is definitely a fuzzy line. and i think those relationships are probably best discussed not in an open session. because -- >> just saying they ought to be discussed. >> i believe they ought to be discussed. >> good. fair enough. >> but i do believe that it is something for our intelligence committee to take up, rather than for us -- >> probably ought to quit while i'm ahead. mr. chairman, can mr. godson just finish that question? >> dr. godson. quickly. turn your mike on.

>> i'm very pleased that you're having this open session. i think it's very useful but i do think that this is a sensitive subject, and so that -- >> fine. >> it will require skill and care on the part of our society. so we don't overreact, which in our history, we sometimes have to being surprised. and so i do think it's -- there was more time to discuss. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> dr. godson, let's just start right there. why do you think we -- i've got about four questions so they don't need to be exhaustive, and i can follow up with more written questions later. and mr. watts, i'm going to come to you next. why do you think there was this element of surprise? i mean, this is not new russian activity in other places in the world. i think mr. watts said it had to start before 2016, but it does seem that the intel community, the u.s. government, the media, is

surprised that they have this level of involvement. you just said we shouldn't have been surprised. why do you think we were surprised? >> well, i do think it has something to do with our culture, that we don't expect people to behave in this particular way. we have been surprised many times in our history. so i don't think it's -- we expect it to do it everywhere else, but not here? >> we're sort of surprised when somebody takes a concerted effort to be involved in our affairs. we know that sometimes this happens abroad, but we don't really sort of think this is a major tool or instrument that people use. and so we found ourselves surprised in the '40s and the '70s and the '80s and so on. so i'm not too surprised we are surprised. >> mr. watts, why do you think we seem to have been so unready for this? >> one, our intelligence community has been overfocused on terrorism, and the islamic state. and there wasn't much

resources to begin with to focus on it. the second is our traditional methods for detecting counter intelligence, things like active measures are based on humans. we run spies versus counter spies. most of this influence came online. they essentially duplicated the old active measure system without setting food inside the united states. i think the third part of it is the intel community in the united states is very biased against open source information. and they have been -- they have been surprised repeatedly. isis, the arab spring, you can go back over the past six to seven years. we worry a lot about security clearances and badges and who gets access to doors and does the break room have a shredder. but when it comes to the open source, we miss what's right in front of our nose. my two colleagues and i use three laptops and we do this at our

house. but for some reason, the entire intel apparatus with billions of dollars will miss a tweet or a facebook post that's right in front of them. but will be highly focused on this security system and these closed sources which are super useful. but we have not changed that orientation in our intel community. >> in europe, do you think the interventions there were so obviously different that we wouldn't have caught on? or how do you see the difference in what the russians have done, particularly in the last 15 years in europe and what they did here? >> well, there was an element of unpreparedness on our part. i agree with my colleagues. i would say that -- well, i can speak from personal experience. and that is, i just didn't believe that any one intervention, any one agent, can swing our election across 50 states. i think -- i thought nobody in their right mind would try to take on the challenge of such expense and complexity. but

then when you think about it more carefully, as we have now with the benefit of hindsight, if you look at the election of 2000, when the florida vote was decided by a very small number of votes when we now know some of the votes were decided in some states were decided by a very small margin, you realized that, you know, a more sophisticated actor that has, as my colleagues have pointed out, years and decades experience of playing in this field can actually aspire to make a meaningful difference. >> let me ask another question about that. i know the vice chairman mentioned hand-counting the ballots and the recent elections in one european country. you said that the russian intelligence services directly intervened. we don't have any reason to believe -- anybody can answer this -- that they intervened in any election-counting system this

time. i think we should be concerned that that never be allowed to happen. and one of our -- one of our goals here should be to be sure we're protecting that part of the process. but when you said directly intervened in the elections, no indication, mr. rummer, of directly intervening anywhere in the counting of votes on election day? >> right. they're public statements from our intelligence community and law enforcement and dhs. that our counting systems have not been affected. i can only go on the strength of that, and i fully believe that statement. but we certainly should be aware of that and concerned about it. >> absolutely. thank you, mr. chairman. >> senator heinrich. >> thank you, chairman. and i want to start out by just thanking the chairman and the vice chairman for their willingness to work so closely together on leading this investigation. i certainly think that today's hearing is helpful in setting a baseline for the

intentions and the techniques of russia's active measures campaigns. but i also look forward to public hearings in which we can dig even deeper into the substance of what happens specifically in the 2016 election. similarly, i believe it's critical that we dig into the financial aspects involved. and that we follow the money to determine whether and how the russians have used financial leverage to achieve their strategic goals. i think we need to do everything possible to get to the truth, the american people certainly deserve no less, and i think if we do not take this seriously, it is -- it is not hyperbolic to say that our fundamental democratic institutions are at risk. dr. godson said something in a statement for the record about the history of relying on agents of influence. in other words, recruiting and co opting sympathic groups or individuals in the u.s. and in the west to

advance the russian agenda. do you all agree that financing is one of the methods often used by russia to recruit sympathetic agents? >> yes. >> yes. there is publicly available evidence of a moscow base paying financing. one of the presidential candidates in france. >> so when they use financial resources to recruit agents of influence, like the example you just made, is it -- is it always a simple of exchange of money for assistance, or do -- does russian sometimes attempt to buy influence more subtly through access to lucrative business deals through contracts and those kinds of arrangements? >> yes. i think all of the above. we can show examples of -- in the past.

>> yes. they have used their considerable financial business leverage in eastern europe to cut favorable energy deals. to offer lucrative deals to local companies and governments. >> i think the key point and this is comparing it to soviet active measures to today is, we didn't do business transactions with soviet union. so they have so many more access points to compromise people financially, or to influence them on the financial space that they couldn't have done during the cold war. >> this next question is for any of you. i'm curious if you see money in politics as an opening for russia to be able to potentially manipulate our elections, especially given their expertise at moving financial resources through networks and the change in our own environment in which there's now a lack of transparency in the current u.s. campaign

finance environment, where oftentimes you have elections where a majority of the dollars spent are not even originating from the individual candidates themselves. have any of you given that some thought? >> so i think it's a little bit overstated, based on the public part of it. the russians aren't stupid. they know that if they are ever caught directly putting money into what looks like a manchurian candidate kind of scenario, this could be provocation for war, or it could be sanctions. it could be a host of different things. at the same point, i would also offer you from an intelligence perspective why not look at it as a way to compromise somebody. so if you have a candidate that's doing well, and you have very open campaign finance, why not slip them some money where they don't know the original source of it, such that if it's revealed later, they're discredited. so it can go both ways. it's not just promotion, it can also be used as a tool and a weapon. >> you, mr. watts, i think did a really good job of laying out

for us how these influence operations actually have the impact of sort of organically changing the trends on media, and end up being sort of a self-reinforcing mechanism. are there analytical or digital tools that can discount the impact of those bots and of that manufactured forcing mechanism within the way that information travels on the web today? and impacts the media? >> so i think all the social media companies are starting to realize that their ad revenue mechanisms can be manipulated for this. there are more than just russian fake news out there. you've got profit ears. you've got political groups that do that. and you've got, you know, satire, which is thrown in the mix of it. you're seeing the social media companies try and

regulate this now, or deem things as fake news. but that's going to fail. ultimately, any attempt to deem things as fake or not fake is going to lead to freedom of speech violations, freedom of the press violations. because how do you do that? how do you determine who is being fair or not? i think a better way to do it, and what we propose, is to create the version of information consumer reports. which is an independent agency, which is funded by the social media companies, has no government involvement, no government funding, that provides a rating in terms of the news that shows up on your feed. such that much like nutrition labels on food, you know what you're consuming. right now part of the reason this is so effective is the fake news outlet can pop up one day, out storiespump that are sensational and fall and that are sensational and fall down the next. the consumer and the american on their facebook feed, which is curated to the things that they like to click on, and even in the google searches, which is curated to things other people like to

click on like them, end up clicking on these things, because they're popular. if they had a score or a rating, some sort of symbol there that said you're more than welcome to click on this, but this is the "national enquirer." you know, you can evaluate how much of this is truth and how much is manipulated truth and how much is false. just like we saw with "consumer reports" when i was growing up, it had 15 variables, rated over time and a trusted integer you can go to. i think that's a better way to do it. we're not restricting americans' freedom of speech. and at the same time if they want to look at fake news, they can look at it, but they know what they're getting into. >> thank you, mr. chair. >> it's hard to believe we're discussing this topic, since putin cleared this up earlier today. he came out with a public statement just hours ago saying, "watch my lips. no." and then followed up with all of these things are fictional. provocations, lies, used for domestic american political agendas. the anti russian card is played by different political

forces inside the united states to trade on and consolidate their positions inside. well, he certainly consolidated us. it is painful to watch the russian people trapped in a regime that is doing this worldwide. they would like to be able to watch the olympics and know their athletes weren't doped ahead of time. they would like to believe their own news when the russians proclaim we're not in ukraine. and we're not in syria. and they are. and it would be nice if we could -- as he said, watch my lips. and know that he's not trying to did he receive our audiences. my question is, first, why did he think he could get away with it this time? this is not new for the russians. they have done this for a long time across europe. but it was much more

engaging this time in our election. why now? mr. watts? >> i think this answer is very simple and it is what no one is really saying in this room. which is part of the reason active measures oh have worked in this u.s. election is because the commander-in-chief has used russian active measures at times against his opponents. on 14 august 2016, his campaign chairman, after a debunked -- >> when you say "his," who is "his?" >> paul manafort cited the story as a terrorist attack on cnn. and he used it as a talking point. on 11 october, president trump stood on a stage and cited a -- what appears to be a fake news story from sputnik news that disappeared from the internet. he denies the intel from the united states about russia. he claimed that the election could be rigged. that was the number one theme pushed by rt sputnik news, outlets, all the way up until the election. he's made claims of voter fraud that president obama is not a citizen, that, you know, congressman cruz is not a citizen. so part of the reason active measures works and it

does today in terms of trump tower being wire tapped is because they parrot the same lines. so putin is correct. he can say that he's not influencing anything, because he's just putting out a stance. but until we get a firm basis on fact and fiction in our own country, get some agreement about the facts, whether it be do i support the intelligence community or a story i read on my twitter feed, we're going to have a big problem. i can tell you right now today, gray outlets that are soviet-pushing accounts, tweet at president trump during high volumes when they know he's online and they push conspiracy theories. so if he is to click on one of those or criteria one of those, it just proves putin correct, that we can use this as a lever against the americans. >> so this started in 2008, '09 time period as you cited before with your previous time line. even before this rose up, even when there were 16 republican candidates on the stage, this was a long time coming and it seemed to be very well-organized

this time. part of my question is, i get that completely. why this time? they look to be more prepared. pro being evaluated -- probing evaluated states, trying to get into voter records, trying to be more active in the process. >> they had plausible deniability. if you wanted to run this during the cold war, you would have had to put agents inside the united states. they would have been stalked by counter intelligence professionals. they have would have been run down. you couldn't gain an audience on a newspaper, for example. today you can gain the audience, build the bots, pick out the election and even the voters that are valued most in swing states and insert the right content in a period. they me planned it. they were based a year-and-a-half out. they're doing it today on the european elections. here's the other thing that needs to come up. they try all messages. we have been very focused on our presidential election. the republicans, you know, tend to come up. but the democrats, they

were there too. they were -- with bernie sanders supporters, trying to influence them in different directions. so they play all sides. much like i learn in infantry school about how they use artillery. they fire artillery everywhere, and once they get a break in the wall, that's where they swarm in and focus. and they do that very well today. you'll see them in europe supporting people on the left or right, whichever will dismantle the democratic function that they're after. so i think the important point in moving forward is we have to educate our public, and even our institutions, and the mainstream media is right to be taking some on the chin right now. they have fallen for a lot of these fake news stories. they have amplified it and not gone back and done good fact checking. the media needs to improve. our u.s. government institutions needs to improve and we have got to help americans understand what the facts are. if we don't, we are lost. we will become two separate, maybe three separate worlds in the united states. just because of this little bitty pinprick that was put in by a foreign country. >> which is their goal on that. mr. chairman.

>> senator manchin. >> mr. chairman, thank you very much. i want to thank senator keen for allowing me. i have another meeting i've got to attend. i wanted to ask this question. i've been around long enough to remember that my school desk at home protected me if i jumped underneath of it, held my head during the nuclear attack from russia. i'm not sure that my united states senate desk, if i jump underneath of it and hold my head, will protect me this time. and that's putting it mildly. with that being said, much has been written about the russians recently in georgia, crime i can't and ukraine. to be brief, russia believes the lines between war and peace are blurred. wars are no longer declared and no longer fought in a traditional manner. and the power of nonmilitary means exceeds the power of weapons ineffectiveness. some label it the doctrine, a combination of political, military economic, social media means to achieve russian strategic objectives. in the united states. we would call

this a whole of government approach. so my question could be to any of you, and i'll start with you, mr. watts, if possible. is russia's meddling in our 2016 elections proof the united states is dealing with a nation that is acting in its own war-like manner? >> yes. would you like me to comment on some of the things we can do? yeah. so there are seven or eight things we can do immediately that are not >> my desk is not going to save me this time, right? >> no. and i'll tell you right now, i'm going to walk out of here today, i'm going to be cyber attacked, disyetted by -- discredited by trolls. my biggest fear is a psychological warfare targeting. my biggest concern right now, i don't know what the american stance is on russia and who is going to take care of me. i mean, after years in the army and the fbi, working in the intel communities today, i'm going to walk out of here and aim -- nobody is going to be

covering my back. i'm going to be on my own. and so that's very disconcerting. i can that speaks to what we need to do. one, in terms of falsehoods, we need to do two things. we need a state department and a dhs website that immediately refutes when falsehoods are put out. these seem silly when they come out. the terrorist attack, incirlik terrorist attack for example, the quicker refuted the faster they die in social media. we caught the incirlik attack. when they fake it, it gets exposed. it runs out of control. the other part is the fbi. they're doing a great job in terms of investigating hacking but the hacking powers influence. whenever there's a hack, we should look at what was stolen and figure out what is the anticipated smear campaign, how is this going to be wep pannized. the next one is educating u.s. businesses. treasury and commerce right now need to be doing awareness campaigns. their companies suffer smear campaigns from foreign countries right now which change their stock pries.

their employees are in social media and being picked off through social engineering and hacked at. the other part is in the private sector and the public sector. mainstream media companies can we need to work with them. what if they boycotted wikileaks collectively and didn't race to publish too quickly? if those damaging, stolen information that is misconstrued oftentimes doesn't get into the mainstream media, if all of them block it out, russia's influence dies on the vine. the last thing i think is the social media companies whether we like it or not, social media has become the news provider for almost all americans. our preference is shape what we see and our friends share stuff with us and it reinforces our views. i think that for them, they're worried about these state sponsored groups in their systems and how it's going to erode their company. >> doctor, when the iron curtain fell and russia fell out of the

world power status, super power status i might say, how long was that hiatus and when it came back, did it.could back with a vengeance because of putin's leadership and determination not to be shelved? turn your mike on, sir. >> i wish we knew had more information about this. some areas we know a lot and some areas. >> do you all see basically a drop-off of their going the '90s. >> we do a bit of a drop-off, yes. however, the training and the development of cadre continues. the hierarchy wasn't well established in terms of controlling all the various assets. >> was it under putin all had came back? can anybody say that? >> yes. >> yes, sir, in the 1990s, russia was flat on its back and didn't have the resources and an a lot of the capital in this area it accumulated basically

fell part. we're very, very frustrated during the balkan wars when they will couldn't counter what they saw as our information domination of the airwaves. so in the early towels when their economy came back, the apparatus came back with it, too. could i. >> could i ask one thing? under putin, do you believe it's impossible to build a relationship to basically bring this back into some kind of civility or order? he's totally committed the direction he's been going and will continue to go no matter what? >> can i just add in answer to that quickly, it depends on what the costs are. in other words what, are we going to do in response. >> he only reacts out back out of strength if we have the strength. >> well, most of us react to power and strength, too. but in this case, we don't yet have enough information. i mean the committee and the study that you're doing is very important for us not just as scholars and

studying this subject. it's very important because we can't really answer the question about what -- why this time and why it's successful. we're not even sure what happened here. we have the ica statement of january. but i just sort of want to put in a note of caution here. we sometimes in the united states think we know things and we have a sort of group think and we all express certain views. then we find out that later on maybe sources of our evidence, the way we put the evidence together didn't make really make as much sense as we thought at the time. we've had that in our recent experience in the '90s and 2002 and '3. so i would say we need a little bit of caution here to be able to know exactly what happened. there's so much information out in the real and false and mixture.

>> i want to thank you so much. i've exceeded my time. they've been so kind to me but thank you. >> senator cotton. >> thank you, gentlemen, for your appearance this morning. i want to return to the topic senator lankford broached which is why vladimir putin and russia's leads thought they could get away with such a brazen set of actions last year and doing so in a? noisy fashion" as director comey testified last week. dr. godson, i'd like to hear your point of view on this and specifically your thoughts about the context in which vladimir putin did this in 2015 and 2016 and the previous eight years russian had invaded georgia. it had invaded and seized crimea, it's rebels had been supported and backed in eastern ukraine to occupy the done bus. they've been provided

missiles and shot a civilian aircraft out of the sky. russia had repeatedly vi lighted the imf treaty and the obama administration had come into office proclaiming a reset and then in 2012, barack obama mocked his opponent for claiming that russia was our number one foe and promiseddy medvedev that more could be done after the election when had he more flexibility. would that series of events emboldened vladimir putin that he might be able to get away with such a noisy intrusion into our political system? >> i would suggest that you're right. i think this does not help in restraining run jaric -- russian interests in expanding in the near broad and as far as abroad as they can. so that the train of actions that you described there didn't exactly persuade him that we would take his intervening in other matters such as elections seriously. and so that it's going to take i think some time and some activity by the united

states, some important activity to be able to establish our reputation in this arena. and i know it's beyond the sort of just the remit of the intelligence committee but intelligence can play a major role in this, but i think this is -- this is a whole of government business, a policy issue. and it's going to be more than intelligence but i would hope though that we are in fact gaining the kinds of information we need to have an informed judgment about that you are asking about. in other words, was he tempted by our lack of action. i hope, i presume that the intelligence community has a tasking that identifies the soviet responses and their perceptions. and that if we don't have such a tasking on this subject, then we won't be

in a very good position to ask it. but i think generally yes, i agree with the point you're making. i think the evidence is strong but we need stronger information too to keep us -- to give us a better judgment on this kind of issue. >> dr. roomer, i don't think you'd had a chance to opine on this question. >> i believe that the biggest factor in putin's decision to pursue this aggressive line of intervention in our domestic politics has been the realization on their part as mr. watts suggested that this is a very lucrative environment in which they can achieve a lot with even a remotely plausible claim of deniability. i think they just took advantage of the environment here. >> mr. watts. >> i'd like to add two things to what i said before. i don't think they thought their hand would be as exposed as much as it is today and i think they

thought they could do it in a more subtle fashion. my belief in russia how do i managing this situation where i overextended myself. the overriding issue why russia does it to the united states and to europe is we are weak. we do not respond. we have no organized response as a country or even policy towards russia right now. until we will set the boundaries about how we are going to either push/pull with them, they're going to move as far as they can pushing. when we set our policy positions which we don't have right now, they'll move in kind. based on whatever that is. >> i have one final question about active measures. dr. godson you talked in your opening statement about some of the history of russian active measures. bob gates, former director of the cia wrote in his first memoirs about russia's campaign against the deployment of forces in europe in 19 3.

"during the period the soviets mounted a massive operation aim the at thwarting imf deployments by nato. we at the c cia devoted tremendous resources at the time to uncovering this soviet covert campaign." the united states is currently undergoing a long delayed deeply needed nuclear modernization campaign of grading our bombers, our dual capable aircraft, our ground-based missiles, long-range standoff cruise missile and our submarine capability, as well. but do you believe there is any chance that russia is not currently engaged in an active measure campaign to try to thwart that modernization effort in the united states? >> i think you're right. i do believe almost certainly that they are if not already engaged in it, they will be. >> because that is simply what russia does in. >> that is simply what this particular leadership, the

successor to the previous generations, yes, i believe and do. i don't think it's inevitable russians will do this but i think these fellows will do it. >> i apologize, gentlemen. my time has expired. >> senator king. >> thank you. just 0 sum up what -- just to sum up i've heard this morning, number one, it appears we're engaged in a new form of aggression. if not war. that the soviet union and now russia has been utilizing for many years but is now taking it to a much higher level. it strikes me that vladimir putin is playing a weak hand very well. a couple of questions to try to very, very short. i would say that what we've seen and what you've told us this morning is thatting what we saw in the 2016 election is absolutely consistent, prior russian practice and current russian practice in other parts of europe and the world. is that correct, mr. watts? >> yes, it's still going on today.

>> secondly, is it your opinion that this is going to continue? in other words it, 2016 is not a one off? >> no, i mean, they're going to continue until something meets their challenge and right now there's nothing meeting their challenge. any european effort i've seen is very small in comparison. >> mr. rumor, would you say that dr. rumor, that putin is a democrat or a republican or attunist? >> i think it's -- he's attuneist and even if we counter this or when we counter his efforts, he will continue anyway. it's going to be a dynamic, not a sort of static situation where we deplow counter measures and it will stop. >> it's important we realize he is neither a democrat or republican because it means and that is everybody on this dais and everybody in political life in america is at risk regardless of their party. in 2016, it

happened to tilt toward the presidential candidate of the republican party. it could be opposite in 2020 or 2022. mr. watts you're nodding. i can't record that. >> yes, they will shift to whichever one supports or is most amenable to their foreign policy position or who they think is weak for manipulation. they will go with wherever one it is. >> and one thing that was mentioned today somewhat briefly but it came up in some of the questions is not only did they hack the democratic national committee and misinformation and disinformation and all of that, but they also pushed and probed into our state election systems in a number of states. apparently the information we have thus far didn't work. but they tried. and mr. watts, would you agree that they weren't trying for fun? this wasn't entertainment. they were looking for a place to make changes in election results. >> no one's talking about the information nukes that russia sits on right now because they

hacked three to 4,000 people. i think this afternoon, you're going to hear on the cyber more technical side this hacking was pervasive. we focused on the dnc. i've been targeted. some other people have been targeted that i know. they have our information. so anytime anyone rises up that they choose against, whether it's republican or democrat, congress or executive branch or a state official, they've got the ability to do the same thing they just did over the past year. >> they could. >> that's what they tried this time. >> i don't think it's about breaking into the election machines. goal is to create the perception that the vote may not be authentic so that's why it's smart to target voter rolls because just the act of hitting a voter roll doesn't change the votes but you can run an influence story that says there's voter fraud in the united states that the election

is rigged, that the count wasn't accurate and you can gain traction with it. it's a pinprick perception that they're trying to create. >> you mentioned several times and i think the russian term is kompromat. it's interesting they have a term which is compromising information and this is active in the sense not only can they take things off your computer, they can put things on your computer. >> yes. >> that will compromise you. that should send a shudder through all americans that this isn't only taking -- you can be very careful in your e-mails but something can show up on your computer that's fake and you could be in a lot of the trouble. this is one of their techniques, is it not. >> yes, america should look to europe where this happened more frequently. >> finally, you talked a bit about defenses. i think this is something that our committee in its report has to look at. cyber strategy is one. we have no cyber strategy in this country. there's no knowledge around the world how we will react to a cyber attack. digital literacy, that is people understanding the limitations of what they have on

the internet. my wife has a sign in our kitchen ta says the problem with quotes on internet is you can't determine whether authentic, abraham lincoln. we have to educate our people that they can't believe everything that they read on the internet and part of that is i think your very creative suggestion of a kind of snows expanded snoeps to check the validity so people at least know, okay, there's some likelihood that that is untrue and finally public awareness which is what this hearing is all about. thank you mr. chairman, i appreciate it. >> thank you. senator cornyn. >> mr. chairman, let me start by complementing you and vice chairman again for your leadership. it's important. i saw senator lankford, senator king, thank you. i had a blank

on tv this morning talking about why this is so important to our country and why it's so important we have a bipartisan investigation and follow the facts wherever they may lead. but mr. watts, let me follow up on some of what senator king was alluding to. i remember of course, it wasn't that long ago where the office of personnel management was hacked and 21 million records personnel records were stolen of u.s. government workers. of that about 5 million plus fingerprints included. i'm also remembering that a few years ago, there was a story, i there it was in 2016, a story about the tactics that putin and uses to discredit political opponents in russia and elsewhere. "the new york times" story i pulled up said foes of russia say child pornography is planted to ruin

them. the sort of tactics that are being used both domestically and internationally against foes of the putin administration. the sort of hacks, the cyber attacks and access to personnel records, the computer, the computers of all of us, all of these render us susceptible to this sort of -- this sort of influence influence campaign, correct? >> yes. americans need to understand that anything they do on the computer can develop at some point. and just because it appears on computer doesn't necessarily mean it's true. >> correct. fact and fiction have been wildly blurred over the past few years. >> regarding the last election and putin's active measures effort, is it reasonable to conclude that any efforts made to weaken the candidacy of hillary clinton by doing damage to her reputation, credibility,

and political standing, would have been a desirable outcome for russia even if she were elected president? >> yes, the goal was either to get your candidate elected that you approve of or to totally discredit and undermine the mandate of whoever does win should it be your opponent. , >> mr. rumer. dr. rumer: yes, sir, i agree. >> so do we have any reason to believe that putin knew more than the pundits and pollsters did here in america about the outcome of the election before it occurred? >> no. >> the electoral result is what i'm referring to. i didn't think so. dr. godson, you mentioned earlier and i believe several of you alluded to this about a stra

tegic approach to counter measures. would you briefly describe what some of those might be? and i would like to have a more extended conversation at some point about what each of you would recommend for the united states government to do to engage in a strategic approach of counter measures to this sort of campaign. dr. godson? dr. godson: well, we have had a historical precedent for developing that strategic approach. this is actually what happened in the reagan years that we decided that we had to -- it was a major active measures offensive much higher than , people had expected and we had to respond. and so there were a couple of things that were done then which seemed to be quite effective and i would recommend we take those things that worked and put them into our strategic approach. >> could you give us a few examples? dr. godson one is what we're : sort of starting to do now and what you're starting to do is educating the american and other populations about the threat of

active measures and the price one can pay for successful active measures. so that when they know and hear about it, they don't -- they're not taken by it. it doesn't influence. so one is education. a second capability that we would need would be then ways of reducing the effectiveness of the active measures. first is a warning. anticipating, education, and then what can be done to reduce the effectiveness of the active measures. one of the things that worked in the past was exposing the perpetrators of the active measures, preferably in realtime -- but anyway, exposure. >> as mr. watts pointed out the use of social media to move fake stories around the internet and to get mainstream media to pay attention to them and without authenticating the source of the information, then repeating it

, successfully amplifying that message, strikes me as a huge challenge. all of us have run for elections and had to deal with the changes in the way we communicate with each other and it is a huge challenge. i don't know how we get to the bottom of this and find some site, some trusted site, government or otherwise that says this is the truth this is , not the truth. don't believe what you're being told. dr. godson we did, senator. : we did have some good experience with it. we didn't have the machines. they didn't have those capabilities. the mechanical capabilities but , we still were able to discredit a lot of their active measures and so it was effective for a while. the third part of this though is the hard part, is what kind of whole of government responses are we going to develop to actually deal with the problem. we sort of have to come to grips with this, and as i said, this may not be the only committee that has to deal with this. but we have to say, what are we

willing to tolerate? are there any red lines for us that if they go over this line, then there will be these kinds of responses. we developed this kind of deterrence and deterrence policy. we have rules of the road in deterrence. both sides don't get too close to each other on nuclear weapons issues. but we're going to have to start to figure out what it is we're going to do and what we're going to accept and tolerate and what kinds of responses we're going to have, not just once in awhile but consistently in this arena. and i thank you though for the question. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> senator harris. ris: harris: -- sen. har thank you. i want to thank the chairman and vice chairman for this open hearing. as this committee conducts its investigation into the russia's interference with our 2016 united states election, the american people need to fully understand the threat that we face and what we must do to protect ourselves in the future.

and let's all be clear about what happened. we know as has already been determined by the cia, fbi and the nsa, a foreign country, russia, attacked the heart of our democracy. an american election for the president of the united states. and they can and will do so again if we do not act urgently. we must get to the bottom of this. we must be thorough, we must proceed with urgency and we must be transparent. that is vital to protect the public's trust in us and it's what the american people deserve. and i know we can do so while protecting classified sources and material. items that must remain classified in order to protect our national security, the sources of our intelligence and the sensitive methods by which we collect it. this hearing is a first step to understand russia's interference but it cannot end here. we must build on today's hearing with future open hearings as much as possible and i strongly believe an informed public is

one of our best weapons against future attacks. that being said, i have a question for all of you and i'll start with mr. watts. earlier this week, former vice president cheney said russia's interference in our election should be considered an act of war. assuming this was an act of war, russia is investing in cyber weapons and cyber so woulds -- soldiers, which we call trolls. while we continue to invest in traditional weapons. as we invest in fighter jets and aircraft carriers, russia is investing in state run media from which it can push out fake news. as we consider investing more than $600 billion in our defense budget, russia has approximately 1/10 of that amount in their budget and is developing its cyber warfare capabilities. i strongly believe cyber may be

the new frontier of war and so my question for you is, was this an act of war? and are we prepared for this new form of work very ipo -- warfare? and equally important, given the everyday challenges of americans and their everyday lives, why should they be concerned about this? mr. watts: on the first part an act of war, on scale of warfare, it's not kinetic but definitely part of the cold war system that we knew 20, 30 years ago. americans should be concerned because right now, a foreign country, whether they realize it or not, is pitting them against their neighbor, other political parties, ramping up divisions based on things that aren't true. they're trying to break down the trust they have in you as a senator, the congress, the legislature, the court system. they're trying to break down all faith in those institutions. and if they can do that, if americans don't believe that their vote counts, they're not going to show up to participate in democracy. if they don't believe what

they're doing is part of a government system that represents them, they're not going to going to jury duty. if they don't believe in those institutions, everything breaks down. when that breakdown occurs, we are focused internally and russia is focused externalally achieving their goals. in terms of investments part of the reason we don't invest well in cyber and don't invest in information is because we're not buying big pieces of equipment. if you can't buy a big piece of equipment, it's hard to invest your dollars. we need to invest in people. the reason russians win in cyber and information space is they have great propagandists and the best hackers out there that they either enlist because they're criminals and sort of bring them under the umbrella or train themselves. we, on the other hand worry who , we're going to bring into the cyber field because they might have smoked weed one day or can't pass a security clearance or, you know they didn't get a , score on their asvab but there's millions of talented americans out there that can

support these roles inside our government. we need to invest in humans moving forward in this space. it's hard to get americans to understand that or even the department of defense because you're talking about cyber and computers. so you think of tech but the truth is, that tech only works if you've got the smartest brains behind it. we do but don't put them against our fight. >> thank you. dr. rumer. dr. rumer: we should be careful using terms such as an act of war. it's definitely a continuation of warfare by other means, but you know, when you declare something to be an act of war, it calls for spern responses we may not be ready to take on. i do agree with mr. watts on the need to be much more creative and much more resourceful in the way we approach the question of , call it cyber warfare. , you knowith caution russians have a very different standard here in using their

offensive tools than we use in using our cyber tools with a great deal of responsibility. and i think we should be very careful not to cross certain lines. we should, however, be using tools that are available to us in platforms that are available to us, just from a somewhat different domain. i think that our own spokesman, our own information projected , deliver it from our platforms should be the gold standard of , accuracy and on the activity. -- objectivity. from that standpoint, let me just say that you know, we're not using, for example, the platform of the state department effectively, the practice of not sustaining our regular briefings for the media for the world is something that only hurts our interests. >> thank you. dr. godson: i agree with my repeatues, so i will not

the same conclusions they reached. but i would look to reduce the cyberduce the idea that was not quite so important. there are other technologies coming on board now. there are a whole number of technologies that are not internet dependent, and as we look at active measures now and into the future, i would think that would be on the agenda. just one example. virtual reality. anyone who can set up the reality is going to have a very decided advantage in politics and other areas. and so as we are looking at cyber and you are going to have a hearing and other studies of this, i would say just that we should broaden the concept of technologies that are going to

technologies that are going to , andailable, coming online it would be extremely unlikely that the russians would employ those technologies. so that would maybe be something to add to the already of busy agenda that you have. thank you. thank you, senator. thank you to all our witnesses. all the questions have been asked except for mine. -- >> so let me, if i could, stend -- spend just a couple of incidents. and i agree with you, dr. godson. the ability to impersonate online is the next phase that we will go through, and i think it's safe to say we don't have our best and brightest yet focused on that. we're still trying to triage what happened to us versus to be creative and look forward and what could happen. mr. watts, i heard you talk

about intent. specifically the intent of the , russians and their effectiveness and how preplanning played a large part of the '16 effort. here is my disconnect. surface, lookhe at the emails that were captured either out of the dnc or the that has to -- podesta account that were then the source of russia's effort through to publicly lay this out. an average,to be ordinary, russian fishing expedition that we captured maybe 3,000 efforts at the same period in time. so are you suggesting that they

had an effort to mess with the elections and just happened to be lucky enough to stumble across a volume of e-mails? mr. watts: whatever the best nuggets that come out of that is what they run with. they hit a gold mine and they , were able to successfully find ammunition they wanted. what you see in other cases is they do compromise other accounts. i'm not going to talk about them, i don't want to amplify them. they are less successful. this isn't anything other than what i expected a politician to say. so they hit a whale whenever they went fishing but i would also say that somewhere in their cache right now, there's tremendous amounts of information laying around that they can weaponize against other americans. sen. burr: we would agree with you on that. very quickly, which is sort of summarize how fake news and how coordinated social media efforts 10 andstories to the top

they get picked up automatically? what is the takeaway for u.s. media outlets to what you just said. mr. watts: they have to improve their editorial processes and also take a step back from the i got to get it out first competitive environment. they, part of the reason this -- they -- part of the reason this russian system works is every outlet races to get the story out when they do that, first. they put themselves at risk to fall for these sorts of schemes. or till they collectively we -- and until they improve that or till they collectively we have some sort of standard that either the public or media holds to itself, we're going to keep seeing them fall for these campaign. whether it is russia or others. you will see many other nations take this on now. the playbook has been thrown out there. sen. burr: dr. rumer would you , like to take the opportunity to address in greater detail what the russians are doing in the french and german elections? dr. rumer: well, sir, there's a

wide effort in the german election to build up this far right party, alternative for germany, adf, to use them as sort of a credible challenger to chancellor angela merkel. there are countless stories that are being spread through fake mediaites, preferring the , about the failures of chancellor merkel. they, as others have pointed out have exploited the story about , the girl that was not raped , but to again discredit her in the eyes of the general public so as to, you know, point out her failure to protect germany against the flood of refugees. that's one of the major policy initiatives that she took when the syria crisis broke out. in the french election, we just

just saw something that really was staggering and that is president putin hosted in the kremlin the leading far right candidate and almost with a smirk said that we don't interfere in french elections, but we have the right to engage any candidate in that contest. so, also russian disinformation sources have spread malicious stories about one of the leading candidates about his personal . -- personal life. sen. burr: so for the first time we are seeing an effort to build up and to absolutely destroy the , having aof others double impact on the potentially that potential outcome of the election? mr. watts: yes sir. sen. burr: quickly, how did we respond differently when we

overcame these active measures pre-80's, and is there a lesson for us to learn from that in our actions now? dr. godson: i think there are a number of lessons. one was this exposure business that we learned how to put out , information to the public domain that not only was relevant for americans, but for foreigners. and we briefed that and we developed teams that could go out and talk about these things. that neutralized a lot. that was one of the methods that we could replicate. a second was support to elements abroad who are trying to maintain the democratic process. we developed some capabilities to do that. we still have some. one of the outstanding examples is the national endowment for democracy.

bipartisan, able to do quite a lot, but it's also limited in various ways. so one could look back and see how we were able to do this in different ways abroad that had an effect in the past. it's not that expensive financially. and those methods are available. sen. burr: thank you. mr. watts, very briefly, has anybody taken you up on your list of recommendations? mr. watts: no. sen. burr: that did not go unnoticed by the committee, nor did the, that the agreement on the table that america's response to date has been woefully short of what it should be. if anything, it was interpreted by the russians that they can double down and perhaps do it unscathed. watts we heard you when , you said fact and fiction have

become wildly blurred. let me just assure you that this committee's mission every day is to do the oversight on the community, 17 agencies that assures the american people we do everything within the letter of the law. we first assure that to 85 other members of the senate. so when it came time for a look inside what russia active measures did and what our response was and how our intelligence community came to the assessments that they would, this fell right in our wheel house. this is what our professional staff does on a daily basis. this is a little more granular than what we do. it will take some time and it means triage in a tremendous amount of documents. but i also heard from all three of you that if there was ever a time to get it right, it's now. and we have methodically built a process that builds a foundation of fact to build an

investigation on that foundation that can hopefully come to a bipartisan finding where the conclusions are matched with the facts that we find. in some cases, as all three of you know, that might it be intelligence product that can't be made public. but in every place that we can, i have pledged to the vice chairman and he has pledged to his members and i have pledged to mind -- where we can make it public so that the american people understand it and feel that this has been credible and thorough and that the conclusions are valid, we're going to try to do that. but i also believe that the american people expect us to protect sources and methods. they expect us to work with the intelligence community in a way that strengthens what they do and how they do it, not by sharing that with everybody but

by certifying that they're doing it within the letter of the law to keep america safe. i look at this investigation is -- as one extension of that, and it is to certify to the american people that what we have done has been thorough, to hopefully provide some actionable conclusions for this administration, and to look back on the work that we do and 2018-2020, wen will be less concerned with russia's involvement in our elections and the united states , like we do onld terrorism work with any country , in the world that might if the target of aggressor like vladimir putin. i'm grateful for what you've contributed to this investigation. this hearing is now adjourned.

. .

the internet is universal and it is imperative that developers consider these dangers are alongside other internet harm. we must empower the global community with better tools to

respond and report harmful content, to speak out and to take action. every person has the ability to recognize bias, hatred and intolerance and say no, not on my profile, not in my name. we can't let the world retreat to a dark place of ignorance and prejudice. we must stand up for what we believe in -- freedom, peace, democracy, understanding and inclusivity. a world in which knowledge and discussion bring people closer together and make them feel part of something that is greater than themselves. to close, i would like to leave you with a quote from prime minister theresa may the day. following the london attack yesterday we saw the worst of humanity but we will remember the best." thank you. [applause]