 While you're headed back to your seats and we get into the subs that and I'll just remarks I'll just highlight a couple points one of the things that Schmender asked me to point out is that he currently has he has this massive charter and He has anyone want to guess how many people actually work in ISE Less than or greater than 50 Less than or greater than 20 Less than greater than 10 Less nine people and they're hiring so So if you need to if you're looking for a government job or the contracting job or whatever Schmender said only qualified applicants, please but so that leaves me out but Please please contact the ISE folks second. We also the great irony of life Learned that the streaming live streaming of this on the CSIS website and the PMI ISE website is not accessible by the intelligence community so So we would encourage all of you from the intelligence community to use your home computers to download the podcast later and Look at it in that format And then lastly I just want to point out one individual a couple individuals we have here They'll probably hate me for doing this But some folks have been very working this information sharing for a long long time and one of them It's been very very instrumental and has actually been working, you know over time since 1225 is a Mike Resnick and Monte Hawkins over here from the national security staff And they're not they're not speaking But it's it's important that they're here and recognize that the efforts They've done at their level to to bring this dialogue to where it is today The fact that we have this many people in a room and this in this kind of a star-studded panel here to talk about this Issue so thank you both for your your efforts This this is a phenomenal panel It really is some of these individuals have been here before it's CSIS They're each keynote panelist speakers in and of themselves and the fact that we have four of them together is Is just is this quite a quite a testament to their commitment to this issue and we're very fortunate to have them here We kind of organize this international to domestic that was my logic and if it doesn't make sense I'm sorry. I was going to come up with but There everyone you should have received a packet and it has everyone's detailed bio in there But what I'm going to do is just give a brief introduction to these individuals and then we'll start off with What Russ's remarks which the first up will be Russ Travers He's a deputy director for information sharing and knowledge development of National Counter-terrorism Center And he manages NCT sees terrorism information sharing initiatives and has been there since the beginning To the right of him is a cure to mean He's the chief information officer in the Bureau of consular affairs and director for the office of consular systems and technology at State Department In this capacity cured manages all of consular affairs information technology systems. No small task next up is Gil Kirilowski director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy And obviously we all know what the drug czar does and we're very honored to have Gil back again here And then also for a repeat performance We had with secretary a couple months back is a part Johnson He's principal deputy undersecretary for intelligence and analysis at the Department of Homeland Security Mr. Johnson serves as a second ranking official in the office and provides secretary of Paul Tano and her staff And I love this one along with state local tribal and private sector partners with timely information on terrorism threats Again, that's what's so key about this is that state and local in that private sector But without further ado we'll do the each of them five to seven minutes and then we'll do questions and answers again So Russ if you'd like to kick it off that'd be great Thanks very much Ozzy It's a pleasure to be here with my colleagues to talk about what is a very important and I think extremely complicated question If you ask ten different people what the information sharing environment is I think you're likely to get ten different opinions as Shamander's talk and questions suggested some people like to talk about pipes Some like to talk about business process. I'm like to talk about culture. Someone to talk about all three I Think for the purposes of my talk this morning I'm going to try to be a little bit more concrete and and focus on NCTC's role specifically and address What I believe to be the current state of information sharing across the community I think it's an important question because if we go back to the attempted bombing of Northwest Flight 253 on Christmas Day There was a good bit of discussion afterwards about information sharing I think frankly some of it was pretty muddled there was some suggestion that perhaps information sharing was worse Now than it was before 9-11 and I flat out disagree with that What I'm going to do is give you a kind of a practitioners perspective I'm going to give you three facts or at least what I believe to be facts And then I'm going to try to address two follow-on questions that I think flow from those facts So fact number one 1225 was not a 9-11 like information sharing problem at all There were two key pieces of information Regarding Umar Farooq of the Motalib and those two pieces of information sharing those two pieces of information were broadly shared across the entire counterterrorism community They both could have been found with a properly constructed Google-like search but they weren't Because the community didn't address either one of those particular dots They didn't find them important in the overall mass of information. That's a big problem, but it's not an information sharing problem fact number two By any objective standard There is more information being shared with more people in a timely manner than at any point in our history And that's just that that is an unassailable fact If you look at every major plot that's been disrupted over the last six seven eight years Effective information sharing played a critical role in some cases. It was federal to federal In some cases it was federal to non-federal and in some cases it would have been US government to allied We are getting pretty good at this Fact number three Despite relatively positive trends, there is still clearly work to be done and you're going to hear from my colleagues I'm sure on a number of the different aspects of what we need to improve on and there will always be room for improvement. I Would say however that I think as a result of the good work that has been done over the last seven eight years Across the United States government and with our non federal partners The low-hanging fruit is largely gone and what I think we have are some very difficult issues to address So what I want to do is build on those three facts and attempt to address two follow-on questions first Why is this so hard? You will often hear why can't we just give analysts all information? Why is that a problem? And I think actually the answer to that question is really pretty easy Is there anyone in this room that would advocate complete unfettered sharing of US persons information? kind of doubt it secondly Do we believe that we should abide by the law question came up earlier? FISA court restrictions on information or Privacy Act or Bank Secrecy Act or Systems of record notice. There are many legitimate legal restrictions on information flow and that will always be the case Thirdly Our foreign partners our critical foreign partners give us information They may well put restrictions on how that information is shared within the United States government If we want their information, we abide by the restrictions and Lastly as was suggested by the discovery question to Shimandra's talk What if information sharing would prejudice judicial proceedings or What if information sharing would prejudice ongoing operations? You may have a good cause to share some of that information with some people But there are going to be distinct limitations on how broadly it goes So it seems to me self-evident that that there are always going to be legitimate impediments on the sharing of information So if that's the case that takes me to the second question How do we best proceed and the implementation of the ISC given those constraints? and I think it's pretty safe to say that the answer isn't to simply flood the system with more information and I think frankly, we've got a little bit of the cart before the horse I believe that we need to focus first on mission roles and responsibilities Who does what should guide who gets what? In general, I think that means that we need to focus on a more sophisticated Definition of what analysis is that covers a range of of responsibilities within the government not all analysis is the same for instance It would seem to me that those who are charged with finding Non-obvious relationships between and amongst data sets need the very broadest form of of access to promote what was discussed earlier discovery On the other hand some analysts are responsible for largely a situational awareness function They don't need raw data And what they need is the all-source finished judgments so that they can then inform their own risk equation and decide What actions need to be taken in In general, it seems to me if you start delineating between and among the different kinds of analysis You begin to come up with a reason basis for who should get what information and Enclosing I think what I'll do is take a page from Shamander's playbook and pose a few additional questions that I think we all need to address Given the nature of the threat How do we think about privacy when the foreign and domestic divide doesn't mean very much anymore? extraordinarily difficult question Secondly What do we mean by domestic intelligence and how do we share it? It's going to be the subject for a major conference tomorrow as I think you probably know And thirdly my own personal bugaboo How do we go about discovery and finding those non obvious relationships when you do have in fact a sea of data? And that was the 1225 problem It seems to me that those are the kinds of questions that are going to be devil all of us as we go about looking for our share Goal of an improved information sharing environment Thanks for much Thanks, Ross. We appreciate that carrot over you Good morning. I Don't know how many of you Understand the mission of the Bureau of Consular Affairs within the State Department It's a very unique bureau within the State Department, which is really foreign affairs and diplomatic relations What we do in the Bureau of Consular Affairs is a three-fold mission Which I really break it down into two We provide non-citizen services and citizen services Under the non-citizen services We are empowered to issue visas all over the world Okay, and under the citizen services. We have a two-fold mission. One is we issue passports domestically Second is and which is really an awesome responsibility is serving the Americans overseas And that normally plays the gamut We never know what's coming at us on a given day as far as whatever happens overseas from a minor mugging happens in a city somewhere and They've lost all documents and they show up at the embassy or a consulate saying I'm an American okay, to a disaster like Haiti or Mumbai two years ago Okay, and we come into action Lebanon evacuation. That's our responsibility Having said that that's an awesome responsibility from the issue of Issuing what we call the travel documents whether it be passports or it be visas We are the first line of defense when it comes to border security if we screw up They are legally coming in Okay Which to us is is is really daunting every single day when we are issuing close to two million travel documents a month Between the passports and the visas okay Every single day our officers all over the world 270 locations worldwide Internationally and 30 domestic Okay, that's close to 300 locations worldwide that we serve on a given day We are a 24 7365 operation Today we use biometrics The multi modality of it we cannot issue a single visa today without the 10 prints coming to identity and I efficient back Same thing with facial recognition We are piloting right now iris out of Baghdad for special immigrant visas in Collaboration again talk about information sharing with the Department of Defense We cannot do over jobs if it wasn't for information sharing Both ways we share information and we need information from other agencies today If I talk about our database is some of the largest in the federal government Our consular consolidated database today is over a hundred terabytes Okay with Growing at the rate of five to six terabytes a month To keep ahead of that is is also challenging today from an information sharing standpoint we have 11,000 plus State Department users, however, we also have close to 20,000 non State Department users mostly DHS and Intel Okay, one might say you have users. So what? What if I told you that we get a hundred and twenty million hits on the database a month Okay Having said that it's an awesome task and we are as good as The information we have in terms of our officers were to process you go to a place like Shanghai today Or Mumbai when they are processing 15 and 1600 people a day Interviewing and processing them It's a very very challenging and difficult task and to us information sharing is Is the ultimate way we can do this? We have built our systems today To be able to share the information easily to those 20 plus thousand non State Department users And the way we have done this is we have built a very person centric System Where we can have a book on? Any person that we know about whether it's a citizen or a non-citizen and as Russ says What are the difficulties right you talk about privacy information for Americans with the passport data? You all know what happened two and a half years ago when the presidential candidate Passport information was that's from within How do we protect that right so there's a legal and Policy issues that we face every single day the other difficulty we face is Every time we go and say we need some data to be shared. We are told yeah, but you are not law enforcement Technically that is correct. We are not a law enforcement agency Right. We are trying to now work with the hill to designate us as Law enforcement only from data sharing standpoint. We're not going to go arm our Officers overseas is not just going to happen So these these again are the legal and other aspects of that the other thing we have done is we have built our infrastructure today Which is basically? So architecture that is neum compliant Why again to make it easier and follow the OMB standards to be able to share data easier faster to protect really our Borders we are the first line of defense You know, thanks cured. Thanks. Thanks and good morning to everyone I Was intrigued and I'll veer off course for just a minute by both the questions to Shimandra But also when Russ brought up the issues around privacy and civil liberties because I I don't think it gets Talked about or focused on enough at times and having come from the local level for a long really long career I think it's important I served on the National Academy's panel for about a year and a half And I'd refer you to the book that came out last year from them on data mining and privacy I think that was an incredibly powerful piece that Secretary Perry and the president Meridus of MIT Chuck Vest chaired and I think it's it's very helpful. I came away by the way with the conclusion that Citizens had really nothing to fear from government But that the private sector was so much more sophisticated based on your Safeway card or your visa Transactions, etc about information the other part that I think that has been lost But is now re-emerging is that right after 9 11 Everything was fed centric all the time was all fed all the time And I think that there was an incredible amount and I imagine Bart can share some of this also an incredible amount of expertise Experience knowledge etc etc at the state and local level that unfortunately I think was Overlooked not out of bad reasons But out of reasons of people just overly Pushing the issue of what is this country going to do to protect itself in the future? And I really feel that particularly in the last couple years That we're looking back at an area of expertise in an area of sophistication at the state and local level that can be actually quite helpful the other part that Has been done at the state and local level with a lot of I think success is Balancing the privacy and civil liberties area In the handshoe agreement in New York Even though changes were made the intelligence ordinance Oversight and audit of the intelligence function in the Seattle Police Department where I serve for nine years as chief We were able to certainly work within those existing laws and still feel comfortable in gathering Information sharing information and actually protecting the people of of Seattle The other part that I want to stress now because of the new role that I have it's not so new about a year and a half Is that oh and DCP we have the hightest the hightest are the high-intensity drug Trafficking areas and they have been around for a long time And I truly believe they are an incredible and and very successful model for Information sharing at the federal state and local level Information sharing that has gone on for quite a while That is some of the most sensitive information Truly life-threatening information with ongoing narcotics cases major cases conspiracies etc That if the information Was inappropriately released or or not properly used It could not just result or would not just result probably in the loss of the case or the loss of the load But it could result in the loss of an undercover officer or detective or troopers life and And these have been around sharing the most sensitive information in a really timely In a really timely way the 28 regional hightest Are in 15% of all the counties in the United States. They cover 58% of the United States Population they are in 45 states Puerto Rico the US Virgin Islands and the district of Columbia And they have an intelligence and investigative support center So it results not only in information sharing in but also analysis They have a long history of working with the National Guard and others As you can tell the focus has been up until the last few years in particular But the focus has been on drug trafficking organizations now I would tell you that particularly at the at the state and local level the issue is about all crimes and at all crimes approach the other part is is not just the Issues that that are brought forward as far as the cost of the development and the architecture The computers the hardware and software and on and on I think everyone who manages the budget knows where the real money Always comes from and always goes to and that's in your personnel costs. And so when you look at these organizations After you've purchased this equipment and after you've leased these buildings Etc the real cost is in the bodies who is going to staff them who are going to be the analysts who are Going to follow up on the leads and on and on oftentimes again that comes from the state and local level That's why the focus has been on an all-crimes approach The other smart part about the I think the changes that have been made and and using height is is what I would think would be a good template of information sharing that has occurred for a very long time is that Trying to have artificial distinctions between or among transnational organized crime groups a counterterrorism Issues and drug trafficking organizations it becomes very murky and as you try to put these into silos You find that the side that they don't fit into silos very easily and so looking at the all-crimes approach whether it was Cigarette smuggling in in Charlotte, North Carolina that was funding Hamas whether it was a case of health care fraud in St. Louis that was funding another or partially funding Another terrorist organization It doesn't make a lot of sense to try and have these things in in different in different venues It makes an awful lot of sense to consider them in other ways I think that Working closely with with federal agencies and now being a fed for the for the last year and a half And having a number of people that have been brought into this administration from with a lot of experience at the state and local level Has meshed very well to help move us forward in a way that makes a lot of sense Not only from the technical difficulties, but also the importance of privacy the importance of civil liberties But also the importance of relationships and it really is after all is said and done It really is about relationships and it is about co-location of Among the question that was asked to Jamandra about culture and trust and and there is nothing that That breeds the improvement of culture and trust than than the co-location of these Individuals so I've been I couldn't agree more with also what Russ has said in my career to see the amount of Information that is shared, but we have to be careful about the information overload issue also Thank You Gil Mark Morning everybody Ozzie, thank you for this opportunity and this conversation that we're having today You know couldn't be more relevant and more timely Considering the threat environment that we're living in the travel advisory that just went out over the weekend So thank you for that And not only that you know in my position, you know with as a principal deputy within the office of Intelligence analysis, I I really believe that we have a you know a true role and responsibility To work with the state local and tribal components and certainly the intelligence community To advocate for the information and get that information into the hands of the people that really needed needed the most I think it should be you know pretty clear You know to everybody that we are doing that in very much in partnership with those entities You know to include the FBI you know in DCP DoD and NCTC and many others It was interesting to hear you know Shemender talk about the national strategy I reminisce a little bit as he was talking and I was in the room You know when that was released in the White House back in October of 2007 and a lot of time and effort and hard work You know went into that by many of you in this room And also the criminal intelligence coordinating council that Shemender spoke about before That they've really been pushing and leading a lot of these initiatives that have led You know the federal government you know to rally around that effort and that's something you know that we certainly need to continue In fact the Global Advisory Committee Also, you know did neem the national information exchange model I see Donna Roy here and a lot of the things that are currently under way So as we build that refresh, I'm sure you know I'm confident You know you know Shemender you've already spoken to Ron Brooks, you know the chair of the CICC You were at that meeting the other day and it's good to see that that you know integration is continuing I think it should be also recognizable that the secretary has been very forward-leaning as it relates to Information sharing in fact she spoke about it, you know within one week of her taking office, and she's been pushing very Focused every step of the way She's bringing you know the department to the next level of maturity as relates to a one DHS And when you bring the assets of the components together, it is very formidable You know whether it's at the NCTC or in the field, you know Chris spoke about you know that line of defense They're also the line of defense is trying to identify Interdict the knowns and also try to identify the unknowns that may be operating within the country So we've done a lot and we need to do you know much more and we're certainly going to work You know with all of you to do that. I just really want to touch upon you know the threat just you know very briefly I've been with the department for about 16 months now. It's been extremely busy I got there on May 16th, and this activity Started May 18th of 2009 had two successful attacks here domestically when Nadal Hassan and Carlos Bledsoe we had two near misses Abdul Matalb Faisal of Shazad and a number of other you know Incidents that have occurred over the past 16 months which really show and Illustrate that we need to operate under the premise that they're here within our borders And they could attack with little or no warning So really what does that mean? It means that we can't always rely on the fine work of the intelligence community that we really need to you know Focus on the components of the FBI and the first responders in the form of the state local tribal Deputies, you know sheriffs, you know troopers in the field and really give them the information that they need To their to do their job and like director Kurlikowski I spent 32 years in law enforcement, and they are interacting with the public every day vehicle and traffic stops lawful intercepts sources Indicators and warnings and they have the best opportunity to possibly identify something, you know that could be a miss So the JTTS do a wonderful job as relates to investigating something along But what about the unknowns and who's gonna be in the best position to identify the storing the acquiring the mixing the traveling the Interaction with others co-conspirators to possibly carry out a terrorist attack, you know within within the country So what we're striving to do with our partners is to certainly get a better understanding of the threat of the environment You know assess it analyze it contextualize it and share it with our partners in the field So they could be better informed to do and protect and support the homeland So getting back to the national strategy for information sharing I've read it numerous times. I have it all bookmarked and it resonates with me now just as it did You know back in 2007 but having said that you know We have matured we have grown and there are other other things that we need to address and look at as we move out But it is a very strong foundational Document especially as it relates to you know the home and security information could come from a number of sources And it needs to be integrated and analyzed and shared with the appropriate individuals You know that we need to share so what are we doing about it? You know with it within the department in partnership with the FBI the NCTC and our other federal counterparts to include you know the CICC also We've established a DH threats DHS threat task force That brings to bear the assets of the components and all the information sharing that they hold to really support the FBI and The NCTC in the pursuit of these individuals As it relates to the national network of fusion centers of which there's 72 now It's evolving. It's maturing. We're certainly deploying more personnel to the field We're providing them unclassified connectivity secret connectivity and secret is very important because that allows you know further contextualization of the information that they're looking at in an unclassified World and they are trusted federally cleared individuals within our state and local Tribal environments that actually know how to handle the information and how to treat it another thing We're doing a shaman may reference to this and work with Mike Resnick is also the baseline capabilities in partnership with FBI So when you look at the baseline capabilities that came out in the fall of 2008 We've already completed a short two years later an overview and assessment as to where those gaps are and Identifying the gaps fill it filling the gaps and really laying against you know the ability to receive analyze disseminate and the return flow For the suspicious activity reporting Working with the FBI. We provided you know threat breeze to the field. We have new products new product lines I believe we're doing a much you know better job and you know getting that information out The secretary has been very forward-leaning working with Tom O'Reilly good friend from New Jersey About see something say something and the need to not only inform You know our law enforcement home security partners, but also the public and once again You only have to look at the vendor You know on May 1st in Times Square who actually saw something and said something about a smoking vehicle that you know could have Contribute to the mitigation, you know the impact of that, you know attempted attack We're working very closely with private sector I see Bridger McGraw and also Linda Mills here in the room as relate to Interacting with private sector getting them the information they own the majority of the private You know sector out there and how do we better share with them and really you know what do we need to do? So where do we go from here? I think we need to you know build that trust and collaboration that everybody has spoken about I believe everybody does you know want to you know work together and share the information But I do still think you know that we need to you know better inform and make the intelligence community Aware of the information needs and requirements of a trooper out on patrol and why? Something you know that occurred over in Afghanistan or Pakistan regarding an IED how that could help them Do their better job at not only a tactical level, but also at a strategic level I believe fully you know within the fusion centers that national network of fusion centers That is plan a that's something that we've been building There is no plan B and nor should there be a plan B Because I believe you know that's the solution Given the proper support and I believe that there were we're doing that and they also work very closely They eating the fusion centers with the Joint Terrorism Task Forces In their role to investigate and pursue the individuals operating with the con within the country So in conclusion, you know, I appreciate the opportunity to be here today a lot has occurred We have a lot more to do and I look forward to all of your questions. Thank you very much housing. Thank you Well, thank you all for those remarks again. Any of you could serve as a keynote in your own I love this panel. I really do. This is an amazing panel here, but you know between Gil and Bart at the end 70 years of law enforcement experience 24 is state trooper level 9 as a chief of police from major u.s. City cured from State Department, you know No, it's a department really wasn't part of the public dialogue and information sharing until nine You know 1225 and also it was a failure State Department consular affairs I had no idea the number the amount of data that they are processing on a data on a daily basis and a monthly basis And of course, you know Russ having shown up at NCT scene spring of 2005 your comments are very appropriate And we cannot forget how much progress we have made. I know where we were in 2005 I hear where we are now and a lot of that was because of because of Russ and the team out there and their initiatives And we have made progress and I think it's important not not to forget how far we have come So with that back drop I like turn over some questions from the audience who wants to go first I can't believe there would be not be one question And thank you for bailing me out. I Have a bunch of questions, but I rather you ask them. Hi, my name is Mike German. I'm with the ACLU one of the Sort of it seems to be almost Accepted that information sharing is a good no matter what where I think all of us would agree that it's only good if the information That's being shared is actually relevant and accurate and You know what we have seen so often with these information Collection and sharing programs is that the information isn't Haida for instance was the recipient of information from the Maryland's State police spying scandal where 53 political activists with no connection to terrorism were put into the Haida database And labeled as terrorists We have a number of fusion center reports that target political groups In their intelligence analysis and most recently we have the case in Pennsylvania Where a private company hired by a state homeland security entity funded by the Department of Homeland Security Was involved in inappropriate spying on political protesters. So my question is who is it within this information sharing network That has the responsibility to make sure that the information collected is collected appropriately that it's being analyzed correctly and That it's being distributed only to people who deserve to and need to have it and have a legitimate right to have Starting off with an easy question who wants to go part you want to go first and then Gil Thanks, Mike for that question First and foremost, um, you know, I really believe that those are the exception not the rule Having spent 32 years in law enforcement You're very much trained about a reasonable suspicion, you know, probable cause that I just can't walk up to an individual And start asking questions. I need to have reasonable suspicion that criminal activity, you know, could be a foot And if I don't have that, you know level of intervention I I record it, you know and document it and forward in where it gets, you know Accountable by a supervisor and then finds its way into the system. So those checks and balances, you know are there As it relates to, you know, who's a lead I would say that DHS, you know has a lead as a result of the directive of the The White House but having said that we're doing it in in partnership with the PM's office the FBI Alex Joel is here from the OD&I and I'm very, you know, happy to say that, you know Working with Tom O'Reilly with the SAR that finally, you know, all those activities, you know Are being trained to accountable to documented to so as it gets into the shared space That it's more likely to be accurate to prevent what you, you know described has occurred And additionally the fusion center policies and Shremender mentioned that too. We're well on our way In fact, I think we just cracked a third So it's greatly accelerated to have that privacy policies in place the training the accountability the privacy, you know officers in place So although, you know, there is a risk and I hope it's a very small risk We're defaulting on the side, you know that hey, we have the systems in place and we're working towards, you know mitigating, you know, any, you know activity Innocent, you know or nefarious which could be accountable to as we move forward The question really is it's a great question and it's important a Couple things that I think are important about hi does one is that they're locally controlled If you look at the most recent Gallup poll on who is trusted in this in the country by the American public It's the United States military. It's locally owned small business and it is local law enforcement The hi does are are locally managed locally run In fact when I was in Seattle, I got to sit on that on that hi to board And so I don't think that there's any better accountability than at that level then than perhaps when you're inside the beltway the accountability issue is is Is a bit more diffused the other part is I think that Anyone who's spent this length of time in law enforcement knows and I think we've seen a lot of success Particularly in the last decade on crime in this country even though a lot of people thought well the economy isn't doing so Well, therefore crime is going to go up crime not in every city not every year, but crime has continued to decrease I'd love to tell you it's because of great police chiefs, but that's probably a bit self-serving It's actually because of I think of the trust in the information and the work that has been done to gain the trust of the people Who give you the information? And who are willing to come forward people from all walks of life and all languages and all All ethnic and and racial backgrounds. I think it's improved so to damage that trust Is incredibly hurtful in many ways, so I think that We have made mistakes. I think we need to be accountable for those mistakes But I think I think we've made a lot of improvements and and I welcome the partnership with the ACLU in Seattle Maybe just one final point on the issue of who is responsible. Frankly all of us are In my case at NCTC I got responsibility for terrorist identities work and a support to watch listing and large-scale data aggregation and Alex Joel is a constant partner with us to ensure that what we're doing is correct that that any of the data sets that we bring in from any department and agency We spend extensive amounts of time working with the other department agency civil rights of the lower these individuals Alex our attorneys and so I think it's fair to say that everyone takes this exceptionally importantly and Do things occasionally go wrong? Absolutely, but as a general proposition, I think we're all all responsible Kara did you want to add anything that's an important question? Yeah, I mean We take this very seriously as far as the privacy information is concerned obviously We deal with a lot of information from the Americans 90 million Americans own passports today As I said earlier in my opening remarks that if you remember two years ago, there was That bridge from within about the presidential candidates today. We do have very stringent checks and balances in place to avoid that very role-based need to know and We track your footprints everywhere you've been right to the last keystroke So if something does go and somebody does compromise there is penalties to be paid so Protecting the privacy as I said we have a lot of data and now it's become an even bigger issue for us because a Non-immigrant or an immigrant coming in somewhere gets naturalized along the way and Becomes a US citizen Okay, could very well go on us and said if the previous visa data was compromised now Isn't he or she is an American so we take that very seriously also The outside users that we say or non-state department. They're all Role-based and we control that to the nth degree Do things go wrong? Yes. I mean we have an issue right now that came up I'll be very frank about it is the e-verify program Right the employers are supposed to online check against that data. They go into our data Somebody had Somehow gotten into some data that just shouldn't have but we caught them Before it went out before it we were able to apprehend them and stop them from doing that So we do take the privacy very seriously and we ought to all of us want to be protected ourselves, right? so Great, thank you for that and the next question all the way in the back the gentleman along the wall, please Oh Sorry, go ahead and get the microphone and name and where you're from. Yes, my name is James Marino and president WWN software Just out of curiosity you said e-verify they they got into that information wasn't that information encrypted? Right, but it was encrypted Okay Okay, the reason I say this is that and I'm gonna plug our company a little bit here Those statements only questions Well, it's a question at the end what we do is we take we take encrypted data and This is used for for investigations and we do not need to decrypt the information for investigators to find relevant data And it actually matches data shares and data matches information We've taken this to DHS and it's a curiosity that you gentlemen don't know about this I don't understand where the information goes Because if you could use this information every day in your world, I think it would be very useful again It's WWN software and let me let me just say as a question if you had that kind of Tool and by the way that tool gives you a report and that report kicks out the person that actually access the Investigation in the encrypted format so it gives you all the information as a managerial point of view gives you that information Why wouldn't you want to use that? I think that's the question. Well, I don't think there's not a panelist up here that wouldn't I appreciate where the point is coming from I don't think that that would turn away any useful right Well, but my question is why should why don't they know it? Somebody should be telling these gentlemen about technology that exists that they could be using That it would help them. I think greatly But we do we play in the private public partnerships to the end of degree. How come you're not using my software? Okay, somebody help me out here and ask a question All right, no orange tie. Thank you, sir Give that guy an extra Danish Hi, it's Ken Delaney and with the LA Times Russ We talked about this the other day, but you mentioned the legal impediments to information sharing Is there any thought that some of these laws need to be changed or tweaked the way that FOIA provision was was placed in the intelligence Authorization Bill, I mean is there anything that needs to be done on FISA or the Privacy Act that would make your life and your your mission easier Hey Ken, there there are any number of initiatives to look at legal impediments and the NCTC has restrictions now on what FISA information we can get and we're approaching the court with Our ability to get that kind of information. So as as the impediments are Recognized and there's an established need to have a particular kind of information Then we work it through the system I would associate myself with whoever asked the question in the first panel or to shamandra has there been a A to Z Accounting of all of the different legal limitations on data. I doubt it We tend to focus on the data set that we believe would be of most assistance to the analysts And then we go through the range of legal and policy and technical security and privacy issues that Impede our ability to get that data and then we work through them If I may I think I mentioned to you earlier. We are not a designated law enforcement We have a lot of difficulty as a result because he said legal impediment to us In terms of that, like I said, we are working with the hill to hopefully change that Great next question. Yes, ma'am behind the camera there blonde hair Ashley tell and or migration policy Institute. My question is primarily for mr. Amin I'm kind of wondering about the relationship between information sharing and creating greater efficiencies in the system specifically when it comes to Processing of visas, you know, obviously we want to create a more efficient system for law enforcement But what about the consumers of the services that the government is providing? specifically Those seeking to enter the u.s. And having to go through greater security clearances that may take months If not longer, and I'm wondering what the potential is for creating an information system Sorry information sharing system That makes it easier to differentiate between the troublemakers and those who would like to enter the u.s. Under more honest frequencies. Thank you excellent question We have embarked on several fronts to address that issue It's an economic reason we get beat up by mr. Maria who shows up in the assistant secretary's office every two three months From the hospitality and the tourism industry, okay It's about and we have done studies and every Chinese in the United States spends about 300 plus dollars at the duty-free shops Okay, and an average of seven thousand dollars per a Chinese visitor into the United States Okay, Brazil right now is soaring and it's amazing that we were working with Disney Most of the Brazilians the growing middle class wants to visit Disney world Okay, what have we done today all our non-immigrant visas? applications are online You can apply from anywhere in the world on a web-based system Okay, for number of reasons now. It's easier for the people who apply But bigger than that you are right if I look at China, which is soaring on us about 27% increase over last year our physical facilities The embassies and consulates have so much capacity Okay, so what are we doing by going online is not the reduction of the paper. It is the automatic pre-screening we can do so that the officers can Faster process those people that comes back to the same information that same statement I made earlier we are as good as in the first line of defense of the information we have To clear those people who are the trusted travelers and don't mean any harm to us The more information we have the faster we can online clear them in the system So that our officers who are processing 15 1600 people a day a more information to process them faster and better And with secure information So we are doing a lots of things right now. We have gone totally online Okay, I don't know if you have several years ago people used to be just line up and camp out around our embassy walls overnight Those days are gone You sit at your home on web-based and you make your application You make an appointment and you show up strictly for your appointment and we process you so We'd secure another information that if we have available we can process them and faster That's exactly what we are working towards because there is no way the brick and mortar is going to cut it in the four Big ones we call India China, Brazil and Mexico which are soaring big time on us and you're right It's a global economy now as well. It's not just about People wanting to come here for whatever reasons, but they are coming here and we have to in terms of the economics Thank you that question next. Yes, sir in front more caffeine for the interns pick it up Peter Sharfman, MITRE Corporation As I understood it. Mr. Travers was suggesting that If we distinguish among different roles that intelligence analysts may have Some roles call for More information than other roles or different kinds of information than other roles And this might help solve the problem that there is some information that really shouldn't be made available to everybody But nevertheless has to get to somebody I'd really appreciate hearing from Bart Johnson how he thinks that Concept might work in actual fusion centers. Thanks, Peter You know coming from a state and local background Oftentimes, you know the analysts are overwhelmed with information information overload Let alone the number of systems out there whether it's a his and Leo risks and every other thing that you need a password for I I agree wholeheartedly with role-based access to information I don't know for where they're yet. I know we're working, you know towards that But I would say that that an analyst would need information, you know past You know from DHS or FBI or whomever that is relevant to their area of responsibility that will impact on them So to be able to receive the information look at the information and really overlay it Against, you know, what that information is telling you as it relates to a risk associated with a CIKR or a potential threat That may be resident within your area of responsibility And then really contextualizing it and making sure that it resonates with your community for which you're serving law enforcement private sector or whomever to really feed that cycle for the suspicious activities So you have a better informed law enforcement officer To respond to that and enter it and get it back up into the system to compare it I think we have a ways to go but working, you know with our partners here many of whom are in the room I think we recognize, you know, what the issues are and we really need to focus on it and try to solve that aspect of it If I could add just a couple of comments for instance if if before 9 11 the federal government had issued reports on jihadist interest in airplanes and that could have been put out at a number of levels of classification and If such information had made it to Phoenix or Minneapolis then the end of the FBI and local law enforcement would have had some Context for a dot that they uncovered and the sort of current analog would be things like Putting out a report from from FBI or DHS or my own itag g that there are individuals interested in hydrogen peroxide That can then be used by local law enforcement and the eyes and ears who are out there to say hey We saw something like this that seems to me to be a far better answer than just Flooding the system with information and overwhelming people Suzanne jib a question about you talked about the value obviously of the state and local folks as tactical collectors And the importance of making sure that analysts at that level get what they need I'm also concerned about governance at that level. You talked about one of the values of state and local involvement is that local Accountability also, but if you're operating in a context in which only a couple of folks a couple police officers For example or a couple folks from the sheriff's office have clearances and are either at the JTTF for the fusion center How does that affect the ability of the mayor the chief of police the sheriff the city council? To conduct that important oversight and ensure Accountability at that local level that we're so dependent upon and does this perhaps this notion of role-based Access to information which we apply to governors for example as opposed to giving clearances to everybody Is that a potential solution and and how did that work out in Seattle? I? Think the thing that was most helpful Was that for instance the link system has a series of checks and balances as to who can access that system and when it's been accessed and actually there several disciplinary cases within that Seattle region for inappropriate access or inappropriate use of information We had lived with an intelligence auditor and outside independently appointed Individual who would review all of the intelligence gathering within within the Seattle police department right after 9 11 We looked very carefully at whether we should actually move forward in an attempt to to change that and After some pretty careful analysis We came to the realization that we could both do our job in protecting the people in Seattle and also protect Privacy and civil liberties with the law as it existed this was a law by the way written an ordinance written before The internet which in Seattle is kind of pretty interesting. I think it's kind of a wired area of the rumor I think the other part is though that that you have to and I think there's something like well over 300,000 clearances that have now been granted the federal government has moved much more Swiftly to grant clearances to people that need them because whether it was the mayor in Seattle or myself You actually needed those clearances not only for information that you needed for the city But you needed it so that you could instill and install the systems For the checks and balances, and I think it worked pretty well And also as it relates to the fusion centers If you haven't looked at the baseline capabilities I'm I encourage you to do that because resident within the baseline capabilities It speaks to that as it relates to you know the governance The process the memorandums of understanding Expectations, you know of the fusion center from DHS. What am I going to support? You know what the FBI is going to support and what to expect and you look also at the 2010 grant guidance where for the first time, you know information sharing is being highlighted as a priority and coupled with that is the mandate that within six months of the execution of that, you know grant award that Fusion Center will have to have a privacy policy in place and if not you can only use that grant guidance to build that privacy policy and Anything this day forward as it relates to mitigating the critical operational capabilities will be lined up against You know supporting through gap mitigation and sustain sustainment to fill those things like privacy and security and mo use and governance To make sure that the governor or the HSA and the chiefs and the troopers have a full view of that So we're here. We've come a long way But we need to get here and we have a path and a plan to do exactly that Right gentlemen right here Brian we're with digital sandbox. So there's a lot of experience up here on the panel So I just wanted to kind of ask you Where do you see all this going if we took the implementation of information sharing? All the way to its ultimate extension and that means having access at the right time the right way to all of the information that's available and I'm just reading the the secretary's testimony before Congress recently she was talking about the increase of your citizens who are becoming radicalized and you know, I think it would be so convenient if those were living on a compound in Waco but just recently this this guy in Ottawa was You know on Canadian Idol, you know so much a part of the fabric of society not a part from the fabric of society So how do you see you know? Where do you see all this going over the next five years this both the threat and the role of information sharing the limitations of Information sharing if we had all that information. How are we going to find these guys that aren't so separate from what we're looking at? That's a great question to end on and we'll we take an answer from each of the panelists Anybody want to go first? Well, we'll end with you since it's a homeland issue. Russ will start with you You can say I don't want to answer to Russ Frankly, don't know where it's gonna end where I where I hope we get started is on a far more sophisticated debate about Domestic intelligence and privacy and so forth. I think we've we've tended towards Kind of bumper stickers on on issues that are incredibly complex I give all the credit in the world to the Markle Foundation who who foresaw this Six years ago, I think and and tried to engender a debate didn't really get traction And to some degree that was okay We were largely dealing with plots that were overseas people that were radicalized overseas And most of the activity was overseas now as I mentioned with foreign and domestic divide not meeting very much anymore And now u.s. Citizens u.s. Persons being directly involved How much of that information do you want people like me 30 years intelligence community to have access to and? I don't I don't think there's any There's not an obvious answer I mean there there does need to be a sophisticated debate in the country that involves the Congress and the executive branch and the Body politic and I I think we're not there yet I would put it two ways Do we have enough information or is information leading to information fatigue if you will? Right it could both ways too much information is not gonna give you Which we in our terms to call information fatigue, right? So you have to find that balance somewhere and also Protecting the privacy issue one of the ways we do that is we go on the red light green light issue You can have access we're gonna tell you this is Red light or a green light if you need further information now you have to go higher up or more clear personnel Or however you do that so you avoid that information fatigue so to speak quickly you can say okay This is as far as we know it's a green light. There's not an issue here Or it's a red light and watch out There's something here pass it on to some of their authorities if you will just because of the sheer numbers that we deal with How do you? Go about doing that and also protect the privacy and others so where does this lead to is You know sometimes too much information might not be doing you any good Okay, so focusing on the right information and how you go about balancing that So here's where I think think two things what will occur one is Reconciling in my mind from from this career in law enforcement we had some pretty horrible crimes and an attack on the Jewish Federation and Just awful crimes a mass murder of young people after after a party And so oftentimes as a police chief I'd go to these community meetings People in those community meetings didn't blame me for the attack on the Jewish Federation They didn't blame me for a person taking a weapon and killing a number of people They wanted to know what we did what how we responded what we were going to do to Move forward and protect the community and here on the terrorism issue We seem to have led this country to a belief that We are going to government is going to prevent all bad things from happening and it's it's not going to happen It didn't happen in the in the UK over 30 years of the terrorist issue I think that One theme that has been central is that we've all talked about the complexity of the problem the difficulty of the problem and the fact that a bumper sticker like connect the dots doesn't work connect the dots should Probably be cast aside along with war on drugs and frankly secure the border because I'm not sure exactly what it means And how it works, and I actually truly believe that the American public is ready to understand That you have really smart dedicated honest people working very hard every single day Oftentimes many hours to try and protect them but you know what it is a big country with a lot of borders and there are people that want to hurt us and And and frankly try as we might Some bad things are going to happen in the future Brian just you know give you a nuts and bolts answer to that one I've been doing this since September 11th of 2001, you know as a New York State trooper And I've seen the maturations the ebbs and flows, you know and supported fully the DHS enterprise and the people that preceded me and What has evolved, you know is a much better situation So to be a New York State trooper what you need to know Is number one people who are operating in your area of responsibility that you need to be concerned about and support the bureau in those Investigations you need the tools and the training and the situational awareness about tactics techniques and procedures to identify the unknowns that may be operating within your area of responsibility like Faisal Shazad like Najibul Azazi if he wasn't already Detected you know by the FBI and then lastly, you know working with intelligence led policing You know community-oriented policing everything that law enforcement has been doing for centuries as it relates to working the community knowing the community and Understanding and recognizing a person that may be going down the wrong road and encouraging that person Through civic church or school or sports or family to get on the proper roads And that's what the secretary spoke about through homeland violent extremism by trying to identify the bad guys who are probably already bad And also countering violent extremism about the good people who may be going down the wrong road and making sure they stay that way But suffice to say the relationship, you know with the NCTC and the relevant information within the intelligence community And how do you sift through it all and get that information into that? You know young trooper, you know out on the road That's the thing that we need to accomplish and I think we're well on our way in that construct. So thank you Great. Well, let's give this a wonderful panel. We're one of applause Thank you very much We're going to move to our off-the-record portion reconvened about the 1105 so again. Thank you