that is a very good question because the way i see the conflict in russia is between non-state terrorism, which is some of the suicide bombers, and the state terrorism. in other words, russian policy in the caucasus has not exactly been the same as our policy in afghanistan. in other words, for russia, anti-terrorism means a wider swath of population that you can -- was no cameras and the media present, you can do with them what you wish. and some of the human rights media have reported on the atrocities in the region. it is not surprising that this is -- it is like a hornet's nest. it is stirring even more cause for revenge. and it looks like the to the boat people who blew themselves up were so-called black widows -- a of the two women who blew

themselves up for so-called black widows, and other words, their husbands or kinsmen were killed by russian forces. how can we help through anti- terrorism means? maybe through guantanamo and the legal process to show that anti- terrorism does not mean the destruction of all human rights, the violation of of human rights in the north caucasus. i do not know directly that russia would want us to help necessarily. i do feel there is a foreign policy aspect to this. on the foreign-policy side, there are worries in some of the neighboring countries that russia or moscow could use this to point fingers at countries such as georgia. they have already been hinting that georgia supports terrorism in russia. in other words, it could potentially be with up as an anti foreigner, anti- neighbor

device -- anti- order, anti- neighbor device. that is something i feel on the foreign-policy side. >> with that, i would like to thank everyone for coming to csis today. every bit of this inflation will be on the web site at csis.org. if you have followed questions, please feel free to contact us. thank you. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010]

>> president obama heading to prague later this week to sign a nuclear arms reduction treaty with russian president meant -- dmitri million of. today, the president and mrs. obama are hosting an event for easter on the south lawn. more than 14,500 hardboiled eggs have been dyed. the session and, the president will head to the nationals baseball stadium and will draw out the first pitch as they begin their season. federal tax deadline is in 10

days and at 1:00 p.m. eastern this afternoon, will be live at the press club as doug was showman will talk about tax time and his collection overseen more than $2 trillion in taxes. and tonight on the communicators, verizon executive vice president for policy on the national broadband plan. in a recent speech, he called on the federal government to take a fresh look at communications policy. "the communicators" tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span2. >> all this week, see the winners from the studentcam competition. watch the top winning videos every morning on c-span at 6:50 a.m. eastern just before washington -- "washington

journal" enand for a preview of all the winners, go to studentcam.org. >> no a senate subcommittee looks at efforts by mexican drug cartels to infiltrate and corrupt u.s. border officials and other representatives of the security personnel. it lasts about an hour. >> i want to thank all of our witnesses for coming to this meeting. we are meeting in the homeland security and government affairs committee room. i want to thank all of you for being here, participating, and what i would like to do is go ahead and give my opening statement. senator bentsen is on his way,

and maybe a couple of others. i will turn it over to witnesses and we will house lots of questions. let me start with a couple of facts. the fact number-one, mexico shifts over 50% of the methamphetamine and marijuana into the u.s. market that we have. over 50% of it comes from mexico. and 90% of the cocaine in the u.s. comes from mexico. that is about a $25 billion industry in mexico with drugs and drug trade. as a result, i guess fact no. 2 would be that the u.s. border defenses have beefed up and they have tried to squeeze these drug routes, which have been good and to some extent effective, but to gain the advantage, the cartels have begun to infiltrate u.s.

law enforcement. i think it is very troubling for the senate and most americans, and it is troubling for those agencies and all the way around. i would suggest that the cartels are broadly targeting federal border law enforcement as well as state and local governments. we're not going to focus on state and local today, but we have to acknowledge that it is a large concern that we will be focusing lun and we will be working with the federal agencies -- will be focusing on and we will be working with the federal agencies and state and local governments to try to work through the good strategy to prevent this from happening. the border control seems to be the biggest target and has the most corruption. in news reports recently said that there has been a 40% increase in cvp corruption arrests and dozens of open investigations.

other federal targets would be i.c.e. and fbi and tsa and probably more, but they seem to be less vulnerable. i'm assuming that is because if cvp is on the front line. there on the face of our border and it has doubled in size in a lot of truth -- in the last 10 years and we have some new personnel coming and are starting to see some problems as a result of that. the cp has a goal of polygraph goalcvp has the gold -- tocvp hs the goal of polygraphing all personnel, but there is a larger problem of guns and money moving

north to south across the border and there's always the possibility of terrorists coming into the country if we have a weekend porter and border patrol. -- weakened border and border control. we should not underestimate the ability of these cartels to try to corrupt u.s. law enforcement agencies. right now, we think that the mexican drug cartels have operations in 230 u.s. cities. three of those happen to be in my state, for smith, fayed phil, and little rock. -- fort smith, fayettev ille and little rock. and we have lost bigger numbers then all of the men and when

that we have lost in iraq since the beginning of the war. this is a very serious problem. this is a war going on down to around the border end in mexico related to the drug cartels. what i would like to do know is go ahead and give a brief indirect -- introduction. i appreciate your being here. in a few moments when senator enson comes, if he wants to make an opening statement, that would be great. we will leave the record open for a week or two weeks. i will ask the staff what they want to do. we will leave the record of and for some senators that could not be here today because of what is going on at the floor. our first witness is kevin perkins, the assistant director of the criminal investigative division at the fbi. he began his career as a special agent in 1986 and has served as

operative a an investigational systems, focusing on white- collar corruption. the agency has several task forces designed to bring local and federal and state parties together, as needed to work on border corruption. but i understand your real claim to fame is that you are from mountain home, arkansas. >> [inaudible] >> there you go. and we can talk about that more in a few minutes, but that is great. our second is tom frost, in charge of special investigation at home and security. he has served as a -- an officer since 1976 in a variety of innovative and protective leadership roles. our third today is james tomsheck, a former deputy

assistant director of the office of investigations at the united states secret service as well as former to be assistant director of the got the -- of the office of government and public affairs. he has developed a comprehensive and integrity strategy designed to investigate all threats to the integrity of the cvp. with that, i would like to call on mr. perkins. if you could limit your comments to five minutes. understand that we will put your written record -- your written statements into the record. >> i am pleased to be here today to discuss the fbi's efforts to corruption. the fbi is dedicated to

providing democracy, bridging our borders and securing communities. in fact, it is our top criminal party following only those of counter-terrorism, counterintelligence and cyber crimes. we are directing resources to root of public corruption all across the country, but we cannot and fortunately, do not have to do it all alone. we rely on all our partners at all levels of law enforcement. through our vigilance, we have achieved some notable successes. in the past two years alone, we have helped to convict 1600 state and local officials. we have approximately 2500 pending investigations ongoing today. of the 700 agents leading toward charge against corruption, approximately 120 of those are working all of our u.s. southwest border. our correction task forces share information with the southwest

intelligence group, the a passover intelligence center, and our legal attaches. one particular case highlights the potential of national security implications of public corruption along our nation's borders. in that case, an individual game employment as an inspector for the specific trafficking of drugs. at this public official to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to importing 1,000 kilograms of marijuana into the u.s. while at the same time receiving more than $5 million in bribe payments. this individual has since been sense to -- sentenced to 20 years in federal prison. the southwest border is not and should not remain the only focus of our efforts. each day the federal government is charged with protecting more than 7,000 miles bordering canada and mexico and over 300

ports of entry across the u.s. each of these entry points has the potential for criminal or terrorist organizations to corrupt officials willing to use these positions for financial gain. in fiscal year 2009 alone, fbi field offices along the canadian border conducted nearly 300 public corruption investigations. the fbi is recognized as a very real threat -- recognizes as a very real threat to our borders for public corruption is. we have established our national border corruption taskforce, consisting of the fbi, u.s. arm of polman security, office of inspector general, u.s. -- u.s. homeland security, office of inspector general. this task force insurers border guidance against corruption

across the country. through trend analysis, intelligence and new -- and information sharing and utilization of best practices, we are uniquely positioned to address the very real threat of border corruption and the risk it poses to our national security. to that in, our national border corruption task force is coordinating with other entities. these include the fbi directors of intelligence, a counter- terrorism division, and our weapons of mass destruction directive. by working together, sharing information and becoming more creative in our approach, we are making great strides. i thank you for allowing me the opportunity to justify and share some of the fbi's work in combating public corruption. thank you. >> thank you. mr. frost? >> arm with neilon security office of inspector general.

as assistant for investigations, my office is responsible for investigating all allegations of employee misconduct, including those along our nation's borders. our mission in part is to strengthen the effectiveness of dhs by conducting in front -- investigations and exercising oversight that will protect the nation from dangerous people and dangerous things. the oig reports both to the secretary and the congress. and our position requires objectivity. we have a staff of highly trained and experienced criminal investigators deployed in 25 offices in the u.s. and complemented by a staff of audit inspection professionals. border related corruption is not limited to one dhs component. it can touch employees and contractors across dhs as well as employees of state and local governments. in f y 2009 we opened over 839

criminal cases involving dhs employee programs. it resulted in a 215 arrests, 281 convictions and 51 administrative actions. the one of our strategies is leveraging resources to work with our partners with the d.a., ice and others. -- the dea, ice and others. large-scale business dominated by criminal enterprises is a focus. as we disrupt traditional routes and networks from organizations result to -- resort to alternative actaccess, including bribing employes, infiltrating our ranks and engaging in fraudulent schemes. the tactics they employ are

similar to those used by foreign intelligence services to recruit spry -- recruit spies. cvp funding levels have increased dramatically since 2003, creating the largest uniform law enforcement agency in the country. since 2003, we have made arrests of 129 cvp officers and border patrol agents. for example, we recently arrested an officer for narcotics smuggling in an investigation in brownsville, texas. the officer was sentenced to 135 months in federal prison. law enforcement officers from i spend cvp who have been -- from ice and cvp have been corrupted ford drove trafficking -- poured from crack trafficking.

international airports are even on interstate highways -- and even on interstate highways for that matter, even a border corruption because these organizations need to move further inland and throughout the country. we have arrested employees as they smuggled narcotics and weapons onto aircraft, and even for selling tsa screen baggage tags. we conducted the investigation with dea of aan ice agents and who used his credentials to bypass security. we arrested him when he tried to smuggle 10,000 pounds of marijuana -- 10 pounds of marijuana through security. drogba trafficking -- drug trafficking agencies need to have personnel operating within our organizations and they need to employ corruption and fraud

and to assist their criminal enterprises. we have joint investigations along the northern boarding -- northern border with world -- with canadian police. rearrested in nature and who attempted to -- what we are arrested in police chief who attempted to bribe the border region. he received a prison sentence. we suggest increased suitability screening for perspective dhs employs, increased monitoring efforts on backgrounds of current employees, increased employee training through integrity briefings, and forcing the administrative rules. acts of corruption within the department of homeless security represent a threat to our nation and undermine the honest and hardworking employees of the

apartment. this concludes my prepared statement. i will be pleased to answer any questions. >> thank you. mr. tomsheck? >> thank you for the opportunity to be here to answer your questions. u.s. customs and protection is responsible for securing our nation's borders and at the same time allowing legitimate travel and trade, both key to our nation's economy. harper view spans more than 5,000 miles of border with canada -- our purview spans one of five bows miles of border with canada and 3000 with mexico. we're comprised of 20,000 border patrol agents deployed between ports of entry and over 20,000 cvp officers stationed at the various land, air, and sea ports throughout the country. they are joined by an 1100 agent force whose job is to have an dinara timers possibilities of

cvp. there are an additional 2300 agricultural specialists and other professionals covering the sum total of seavey peace staffing to over 58,000 -- cvp staffing to over 58,000 individuals. a snapshot of this, in fiscal year 2009 alone, cvp process more than three of its 60 million passengers and a free hand it over 556,000 illegal aliens between our ports of entry en. and we also seized more than 5.2 million pounds of illegal drugs. every day, cvp processes over 100 travelers by a land, air and sea. we are experiencing challenges. the we're the largest law enforcement agency in the country. for large number of reasons we are most travel to integrity

threats. all of this is occurring and a time when transnational criminal organizations are doing all they can to infiltrate cvp tours are hiring initiatives and the same time, compromise our existing work force. the overwhelming majority of cvp employees routinely demonstrate the highest level of integrity. x of corruption unfortunately do occur. six of -- acts of corruption unfortunately do occur. since october of 2004, charges have included drug smuggling and money-laundering and conspiracy. we're due to concern of our current state. cvp must ensure its employees adhere to a culture of integrity. although the corruption

instances are very small, no tolerance of it is allowed. those that do not perform their duties with honor and distinction put our country and our fellow officers at risk. cvp's office of internal affairs is fully committed to working in a court -- cooperative relationship with the fbi. and others to address all other integrity related issues within cvp. this is an approach to the response to a multi directional attack by those wishing to compromise our workforce. the bctf's serve to assist

investigations and assure that those cases presented for prosecution include all available evidence. today, cvp of internal affairs manages a wide array of programs and functions that combine to perform what you referred to as our conference of the integrity strategy. this includes the three pillars of prevention, detection and investigation, three initiatives that we believe are inextricably intertwined. prevention, which is the prevention of bad people from entering cvp, we hope to accomplish through a combination of background investigations and implementation of the polygraph examination detection of the people who have found their way into our work force 3 combination of research and all available information within the organization and a careful analysis of our employee's peter may well suggest integrity problems. also, the use of periodic investigations is a good tool

for corruption. investigation of those bad people that have found their way into our work force is a goal of not just those at the table, but in this room. our investigative operations are deployed in 22 of locations and currently investigating in excess of 900 cases. again, we appreciate the efforts to achieve to be here this morning. we look forward to answering your questions. >> thank you very much. let me follow up, if i can, mr. tomsheck, with you. i see this customs and for protection chart we have here and you can see the numbers have grown on this chart. i know there are a lot of good reasons why those numbers have grown. my understanding is that the cvp policy is to do it holograph

on all applicants. >> that is our goal. -- is to do a polygraph on all applicants. >> that is our goal. the courts and i understand is that you're only doing 10% of this point? >> that is correct at the end of 2009 we were closer to 15% of the applicant pool. where were unable to deploy any additional holographic examiners -- polygraphic examiners. >> and is the polygraphing, is that a resource issue for you? >> it is, sir. >> end of those who are polygraphed, what percentage are found unsuitable for service? >> approximately 60%. >> can we extrapolate from that that if there is 90%, or even 85% of the folks on this chart

that have not been polygraphed that may be 60% of them might not pass if they took the test? >> we have done an analysis and have reached the same conclusion, that many of those persons hired during the cvp hiring initiatives who did not take the preemployment polygraph exam may very well have entered into our workforce despite the fact that they were unsuitable. >> what can we do to address that with those employees know? >> it is our goal to reach that point where we are doing 100% of polygraph screening of all applicants as soon as possible. >> how long will it take you to get to that goal? >> at this point, we are unable to expand a program beyond where it currently is staffed with 31 agent examiners. it would require substantially more examiners to be certain that we would have adequate resources to screen just for that hiring that may occur just by attrition within our workforce.