and to those of you who may may still be there or to work in places like dhs, nctc, the fbi, nsa, cia, state and local enforcement, keep up the great work. it's nice to be appreciated on the mission is more important than that appreciation. but the subject out like to talk with this afternoon ought to be development and the future of information technology that is cascading on us at moore's law's rates as they do not i believe it will affect homeland security. and the two biggest ones of course our big data and internet of things. the first order approximation to widely exaggerated, i would say that big data will overall help us into homeland security mission but i think in contrast the internet of things will overall hurt us, make our jobs more difficult to protect our fellow citizens. let me talk first and were briefly about big data. after all, the intelligence business, much of our law enforcement crime investigation business has always been about what is now called big data. processing large and complex data sets, including analysis capture duration shirt, sharing, transfer and q

and to those of you who may still be here, still working at places like dhs, nctc, the fbi, state or local on forstmann but, keep up the great work. it's nice to be appreciated that the nation is more important than that appreciation. but a subject i would like to talk about what the big developments in the of information technology that are cascading on us at, how applicable effect homeland security. the two biggest ones of course our big data and internet of things. as a first order of observation to widely exaggerate it, i would say that big data will over all help us in all my security mission, but i think in contrast the internet of things will overall heard of. it will make our jobs more difficult to protect our fellow citizens. let me talk first and were briefly about big data. after all, the intelligence business, much of our law enforcement crime investigation business, has always been about what is now called a data. processing large and complex data sets including analysis, search, sharing, storing, transfer, and query to repeat a few of the words that appear in the wikipe

i joined nctc in august of 2011. i was nsa as the chief lawyer there where my role really on the day of the raid was to be prepared in case things went terribly wrong as lawyers off p are called in to serve. i was in a position to not be a lawyer somewhat thankthankfully. so i sort of saw what i think really is a continued really picking up on cofer's comments continued evolution of the threat in 2011, we were still quite focused on al qaeda and al qaeda core and plotting that we were tracking coming out of the fatah as well as as you mentioned, frank, some of the franchises most particularly al qaeda and the a rain bee arabian peninsula. so that was really the primary focus.bee arabian peninsula. so that was really the primary focus. i think in my time we saw that really change as the threat diversified in terms of number of jihadist groups that we were tracking. it expanded geographically. so we weren't quite as focused on south asia and a few pockets in the middle east as we saw the threat in terms of both the gro

as you all know, nctc plays a critical function in understanding the analytical components as well as bit of a esop mission what they have some operational planning functions as well. and i think it's there to say since the stand about nctc, the rich picture of that our government in the agency has is so much richer, given some other function. and last and certainly not least is an old co-conspirator, friend, mentor, juan zarate who was deputy national security advisor. he was also the first assistant secretary of treasury i first met juan, focus on counterterrorism and terror finance issues. he was a pioneer on some of these issues and i think plays a significant role in forming the only for cbs but for others as well. delighted to the three of you. i thought we would star with cofer just because sunday was the fifth anniversary of the successful takedown of osama bin laden in abbottabad. ding dong the witch is dead at the threat lives on. so i would be curious, cofer, looking to where we were five years ago to in your insight government to where we are today, how is this not similar

as the director of nctc i relied on daily intelligence briefings from information collected by section 702. it was instrumental to our efforts to discern the intentions and capabilities of our terrorist adversaries contributing both to strategic judgments sand tactical insights. two specific cases now declassified highlight the section of section 702. in september of 2009 we used it to target an e-mail address used by an al qaeda courier in pakistan. they discovered a message sent to an individual in the united states in colorado. he was urgently seeking advice on how to make explosives. further investigation revealed he and a group of operatives had imminent plans to detonate explosives in the new york subway. the fbi and local law enforcement arrested him and his confederates and stopped the attack before it could occur. in another case, nsa conducted surveillance of an e-mail address used by a suspected extremist in yemen. this surveillance led to discovery of a connection between that person and an unknown person in kansas city, missouri, later identified. follow-up investigation r

i was actually part of the team that decided we needed to notify nctc that we needed to generate a letter back to them to say we didn't have access to that database. and i was part of the secure flight team to say we needed to do a better job screening. so, there is an opportunity to do screening and there is a better opportunity for t.s.a. do better monetary discipline. i identified the $10 million excess spent on a watch floor. yes, sir, there is a need to be more prudent with taxpayers money. anytime you see an example of waste, fraud, and abuse, we need to do better. mr. palmer: i thank the chair and i yield back. mr. mica: i thank the gentleman. the gentleman from missouri, mr. clay. mr. clay: thank you, mr. chair. mr. livingston, t.s.a. cut its screening staff over the past couple of years, anticipating that its precheck program would help speed up the overall process, but not enough passengers have enrolled. news reports have indicated that morale inside the t.s.a. is extremely low, which is likely a factor contributing to staffing shortages affecting t.s.a. security. reports indic