Nomination Objection

Floor Speech

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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I must regretfully object to the Senate proceeding to the nomination of Christopher C. Krebs of Virginia to be Under Secretary of the National Protection and Programs Directorate at the Department of Homeland Security, DHS.

Since November of 2017, I have urged the Department, and Mr. Krebs specifically, to be more open with the American people about the threat posed by foreign governments using cellular surveillance technology to target phones in the United States, including those used by senior government officials.

In a March 26, 2018, letter, Mr. Krebs revealed to me that DHS ``has observed anomalous activity in the National Capital Region (NCR) that appears to be consistent with International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) catchers.''

However, as I noted in an April 18, 2018, follow-up letter to Mr. Krebs, which was also signed by my colleagues Senator Paul, Senator Gardner, and Senator Markey, DHS has in recent months shared additional information about these and other incidents with Federal agencies. Specifically, an official from the DHS National Coordinating Center for Communications, NCC, gave a detailed presentation to an audience of Federal Government employees on February 6, 2018. That presentation included important information that I believe the American people have a right to know. My colleagues and I asked Mr. Krebs to remove the ``For Official Use Only,'' FOUO designation from the slides used at this presentation and make them available for public release.

I remain hopeful that this is an issue we can work through and resolve soon. However, until the FOUO designation is removed from those slides and they are made available for public release, I will object to the Senate proceeding with the Krebs nomination.

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