security agency@@@@@@@@@ @ @ @ we should be able to use them for the best possible benefits r americans using their tax dollars, but we need to do it in a way that does not cause problems and give people the impression that we are spying on them. i mentioned that we are not just about the threats and bad news. we look for opportunities as well as warning. in the opportunity category i put the work we are doing right now with mexico. the news on the surface of it seems bad. a lot of drug-related violence, a thousand deaths last year. and swine flu is also on top of that. . e service, one of the things mexico-- the government has taken the offensive against these drug cartels who previously had not felt the full force of american-- mexican

government response. what we have seen is a positive development. the mexican government tried to the mexican government tried to submit fibulae reform its organization, gigi sharry system which a been suggest-- subjected to huge amounts of drug money and the effects were so great that the mexicans could not rely on them to perform the functions of sidey. now they are responding to the challenges of the belove lauper cav the other thing is important that we of scene that is important to us is the extent to which the mexican government once a close partnership with the united states, they said let's work together, let's help each other on this and for those of you who of dealt with mexican-american relations over the years, that is pretty remarkable. i think it is a great opportunity for the united states to develop a strong partnership to address some of the problems that really are in the american interests as well as in the mexican interest. we in the intelligence community are doing our part along with

many other departments of the american government to try to assist mexico in this common problem. i see great possibilities for working together on this problem with mexico and i hope in future years the same spirit can work on other issues in u.s.-mexican relations with its baby immigration, how the border is handled, economic relations that are still left over from nafta. i think we are an edge of potentially a new era in mexican american relations that is very much in the interest of both countries to pursue them. so, if you decide-- mertz green missiles or the crisis than iran it has been a pretty dull for months that i have been at the dni but i must tell you when we talk to the president about these things and the way it usually works is there is a group of us in the office talking about national security and wheat come out and then the

group that comes in and talks about economic relations, the president tells us with a laugh that we are the good part of his -day. dealing with banks and our companies is really that tough part. but, he does seem to feel that in the national security area he has got some good tools to work with and sometimes it is even more manageable than dealing with the financial crisis. i am sure he says the same thing to tim geithner and larry summers when they come as the room and we have left. we are all trying to keep our eye on a lot of things. so, let me stop there and turn the lecture into a discussion, but those are the sorts of things that i have been working on in terms of issues. they are the way we are trying to think of our primary function as an intelligence committee to contribute to this country's national security and i would be remiss if i did not acknowledge

the partnership of many of you personally and certainly many of their companies in helping us to this important work, so thank you very much and i look forward to the questions. [applause] >> if you have a question raise your hand. questions? oh, come on. >> admiral, something that the sine qua non of your metrics is what the president being pleased with what the intelligence committee delivers. i am curious what your internal metric says the ceo of the intelligence committee are for how the community is doing on a day-to-day, quarter to quarter, year to year basis? >> well, we are where we are and if we can do better tomorrow and

better the -day after and better after that i think i would be happy. i would tell you the last time i was closely involved in, a closely involved in this business and a number of you and the audience were there with me, was in the mid-90s, when i was the associate dci for military support and i can tell you in the time since then there has been tremendous, tremendous improvements in capability by the intelligence community. we are able to do things we were only dreaming about that then so i think the trajectory is in the right direction and they think the key is to come at the key is to keep it moving back there, back in that direction. i think some of the things that will make a difference are some of the unglamorous things, not some razzle dazzle new satellite, but i think it is

people and if we can continue to recruit and retain the really good people who are doing it for the right reason-- right now 50% of the workforce in the intelligence community has come in since 9/11. they all came in for the right reasons, and that is good. many of them are brilliant. it needs some seasoning, needs to be moved around so they get a wide use of what goes on in different parts of the intelligence community, need continue education. i think paying attention to the people is a big part of it. the other part of it i think it is staying ahead of information technology. the intelligence community is in the information business. that is what we do, we collate it, we pass it on. the possibilities for improving our productivity that are being thrown out by the information

revolution are staggering. we are-- there are remarkable things going on, something called a space, which is the equivalent of myspace on the outside. what it allows us to do is sort of almost a bottom up, self forming of analytical networks. instead of going through meetings of collection boards, which you have all been through and which the cia and dia provide in an assay provide four, on a space, we come together and we have found their his men some real analytical breakthroughs in a quite different way than what we have in the past, so i think this business of concentrating on the people, concentrating on information technology to empower them, if we do that good things will happen and we will

get better in the future. >> you mentioned north korea and end the sea bed of missiles i think is the way you put it but you have had the missile tests, you have had the nuke test, you had the trial of the journalist. what is your assessment of what they might be up to now? are they testing this new administration? are they trying to risk-- provoke a response of some sort? >> the character of the north korean behavior that we are seeing is a fairly familiar pattern of doing something our wages and then expecting to be paid for stopping doing it, and we have seen that, we have seen that often in the past.

i think the actions that they are taking though bush using more dangerous sorts of weapons, intercontinental, potential intercontinental missiles and nuclear weapons, so although the pattern is familiar, i think bill level of, the level of risk is high here. i think overlaid on that is, are the succession concerns of the current leader, had a stroke last summer, recently designated his son as his successor so anytime you have a combination of disobeyed year of doing provocative things in order to excite a response come up plus succession questions, you have a pretty dangerous, potentially dangerous mixture.

so, it is that, i think it is that intelligence judgment that is forming this serious activity the united states is involved in now, working with the other countries in the six-party talks to try to put a ring around north korea and handle it. i am interesting in hearing your views on how you maintain that balance-- some would call it the need to protect the country for a strategic supplies and would never corridor it might come from, be it china or russia. >> you have to do them both. i mean, you can't, you can't just say i don't do strategic surprise, and you have got to, if you have got to be dealing with these most limited

extremists who are still trying to think of ways to come at the united states, so it really is a case of priority and emphasis. i think we can discern these sort of countries and issues which are of potential long-term, serious threat to the united states. or a serious interest to the united states. it is worth putting an effort into trying to understand those countries and a very deep and complete way. the same kind of effort we spent on the soviet union during the cold war, the cold war years. there is an area of, there is an area of other concerns. because the consequences might not be quite as catastrophic, we

can economize a little bit on the resources there but then if one of them takes a turn that we don't expect, then we are going to have to pile on. dealing with things like these malls of national groups with a great deal of destructive power, with extremely tight security also requires a kind of a long-term effort. so, it is a constant balancing act. the trade-off is really between long-term, steady effort, years to pay off and the ability to flex one something pops up and you really have to take care of it, and i think that we have got the capability to do both. there will be, there will be surprises in the future, but i have a sense that the outfit that i inherited has the

inherent flexibility to be able to move from the ones that we know are important and i think we do need to emphasize these enduring concerns, so that i can turn it over to my successor with better insights into them and a voice in those surprises. >> hi, pam with ap. how are you? i have two questions for you and the first one everybody in this room should did because it is an insider question. you seem to be exercising or flexing their muscles as dni, perhaps more than their predecessors using the powers given to your office and i'm wondering if you think that is what you are trying to do and what you are hoping to accomplish by that? there are some acquisition authority that you are looking four, some reprogramming you are looking for that is more muscular and the fight with the cia over your personal

representatives. so he could talk about your approach and what you are the key to accomplish that would be interested. the second question is, if he could elaborate a little on why he said the warrantless wiretapping program was not illegal because it is not getting >> right. [laughter] on the second question, you are just going to have to take me at my word. on the first question, i am, you know, simply carrying out the duties of the office, which is to lead the intelligence community. i think all of us who have been involved in the intelligence community, whether to a small degree or who have spent a whole career, we realize it is best and most effective when we are working together, when we are

putting human intelligence together with smart analysts together with geospatial intelligence and having a combined attack on a known mission and producing results. that is when the magic happens in this war, and we have seen great examples of it -- that is when the magic happens in this world. it is happening now in the field in an incredible way, in afghanistan and in pakistan. i will go into an intelligence center, and there will be some analysts looked up to a computer that is coming back to the united states to reach into databases with years of data and connections, and there will be another one who is getting -- right next door -- who is getting a downlink from a satellite, just taking a picture. there will be somebody else who actually is getting reports from humans and analysis there, and

there are right next to a commander who needs an answer to question, and, bang, there it goes. it is just incredibly powerful and inspiring. it is just incredibly powerful and inspiring. the modern intelligence is not held by distance. you don't view-- communications go around the world. you can find the right person no matter what time zone it is, wherever they are around the world to answer that question and be involved. these sorts of self and teams that are forming from all parts of the intelligence community are giving it power and effectiveness to operations we were only dreaming about years ago and the job of the dni is to make that happen more naturally, more often, more power fully and to raise a generation of people who think that is the normal way of doing things, and that i think was inherent in the vision

of the job when the dni was created by the legislation that put the office into being. i think we have all seen flashes of that and i think my job is to nurture that, multiplied it and leave a lot more of that that i found when i got here. ..

trying t talking about a technical means of collection or try to keep us from recruiting spies, we need more of both, and, really, we should be pushing on all fronts to understand what is going on in those places. be pushing on all fronts to understand what's going on in those places. on busbee 20 in the areas of action i was talking about when we get into a country and doing something whether military force or with civil forces, you really need a lot of the technical intelligence because it has to be very precise and up to date and cross correlated and that seems to put more emphasis on intelligence and geospatial

intelligence. you do want -- you do want people talking to you in those areas that seems to provide more background when it comes to an actual operation you really need something that can help you put a crosshairs on a target. so it seems to be a balance. i don't really know just where the balance of to come out. i think we ought to continue to push -- to push the human intelligence, technical intelligence by and large is more expensive, so we have to make choices based on the budget for that and i think there's a lot of judgment involved in that and fortunately i've had a lot of good experienced people helping me to make those calls.

>> [inaudible] >> i recently had a conversation with a senior intelligence defense officer and said today most of the analytic expertise for the intelligence industry reside in the industry that supports this community which has clearances, goes through the same setting process and is held to the same level of standard as government employees is able to keep focused on the long term and that which challenges while gornment employees are answering questions and tailoring intelligence to policymakers. i don't know if this is true but i think we would be interested in hearing from you what your perspective is on the balance between government staff and the industry and how we can best support this community. >> five i have heard that characterization and a am trying to look to see if we have gotten the balance out of whack.

it is absolutely true that there are more -- there are more policy makers, commanders tall levels, who asked for an awful lot of intelligence support and analysts are tasked often to do them. on the other hand, i think it is a positive development to have intelligence analysts close to policy makers so they know -- they know what the requirements are. there's no use doing an eloquent piece of analysis on something that is not going to -- the united states is not going to take action on, so i know that a great deal of analysts time is being spent near-term questions. that is not all bad.

the question though preserving the corev expertise on areas you only developed by working on for years is also -- is also important. the sort of difference between analytical skills and expertise. i think it is true the intelligence community realize a great deal for its expertise on going outside the intelligence community think tanks, academia, and yes -- yes, contractors. i am not sure that is all bad as long as we keep contact -- to contact with the world, keep current says current and we can bring them in. a typical example our national intelligence estimates, the premier intelligence community judgments on major and important topics for virtually all of

those we sent them to a group of sight readers after the government does its work and these are eckert experts in the field who do spend their whole life worrying about just that one country or that one group and then we take that on board and included in the group. i think it is true we probably don't have too many analysts who have quit that level of expertise on the subject but if we can get to it and maybe that is not -- maybe that is not so bad. when i -- during the time i spent outside of government i got to know more of these outside experts, and by and large from outside their experience with intelligence community was one of mutual respect. it wasn't that they had all the expertise and work just rookies writing papers. they were in the intelligence community, serious analysts. they could call on a wide group of outsiders, so i think that's

probably okay. it might be nice if we had more of those in the government and we could maintain whose job it was too low pour, long term trend without having to provide current intelligence, but i think given the demands we have and legitimate demands we have to go to the outsiders. i think almost all of the outside experts we call on our happy to help and willing to contribute their expertise. they tell us where we are wrong and reinforce where we are right so i think it is a pretty healthy relationship, and it's worth taking a look at but isn't one of my top concerns right now. >> one more. >> stay right there.

>> [inaudible] -- matter of national security, in particular our debtors, china. >> i'm sorry, at what point does -- >> does it become national security. you made reference the treasury's when-issued and intelligence community is another. at what point does the amount, the interaction with our debtors sort of get to your point of concern? >> it seems the united states and china if that is what you are talking about are in sort of a mutually dependent area and it's hard to tell where the leverage is in that

relationship. it is certainly not strongly on the chinese side or on the american side. and in fact, i think it is in a way is probably causing them, us and the chinese ways of cooperating rather than using financial jujitsu against each other. if certainly that is the pattern that i seem to see in our relations with china. i was at the shangri-la of dialogue and had a long conversation with the chinese counterpart and most of that conversation was about mutual concern, not about checking the size of each other's biceps and then try to figure out who would win if we got in an arm wrestling contest. so i think in that particular --

in that particular case it's leading to sort of concentration on things we can do to get there. it's not to say the smart economists and government leaders on both sides are not trying to figure out how they can become less dependent and minimize some of those risks. it just seems the way it is playing out right now is it is forcing us to look at other things. let me then finish up by saying it has been a fast for months on the job as dni and a discreet see friends who can understand just how fast that time goes and i think that we are -- i think we are moving along well, those of you that left the community can be proud where it is and you probably know we are voted one of the top places to work in the federal government recently and as i mentioned i think that is a great accomplishment given the character and the newness of the

work force. there's the young people that joined after 1911 for the right reasons and are in there because they want to be, and i think that working in the national security area and intelligence communities in particular is becoming something that's a noble and these lawyers and we are all proud of. so we are happy that its being fault of in that light. and there are a few of us with gray hair and a lot of young ones who've come in and we can put it together a way the country can be proud of and we will do important work for the country. i would like to see the intelligence community and those that work and it have the same support by the country that is enjoyed by the armed forces and others who serve their country or firefighters or policemen, and i think they should be. they can't always tell -- they

can't always tell their story that it's a proud story, dedicated people and the american people can be awfully proud of. and those of you who have association with the community i think can appreciate that and the party play in supporting us is extremely important and i think that you can think of yourselves as part of this team doing the right thing for america and that we all ought to be proud of and can share. thank you very much and it is a pleasure to be with you. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> up next on c-span, president obama talks about economic stimulus spending. after that, republicans hold a fund-raising event in