Hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee - Law Enforcement and Terrorism

HEADLINE: HEARING OF THE SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE
 
SUBJECT: LAW ENFORCEMENT AND TERRORISM
 
CHAIRED BY: SEN. ORRIN HATCH (R-UT)

WITNESSES: ROBERT MUELLER, FBI DIRECTOR; ASA HUTCHINSON, DEPUTY SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY

BODY:
SEN. RICHARD DURBIN (D-IL): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank the two witnesses for coming before the committee. Director Mueller, thank you for being here and thanks for the update on your technology upgrades. You were kind enough to brief me at the headquarters, and it was time well spent. I was glad to be there, and I'm glad to hear that things are improving. And Secretary Hutchinson, thank you for being here and your service to our country.

I would like to ask two questions, if I can. I hope I have the time to get responses to both. One is more complicated than the other. I have an amendment pending on the floor of the appropriation from the Department of Homeland Security which relates to this issue, asking the department for an update on their technology improvements and the interoperability of the computers at DHS with the Department of Justice and other agencies.

What I have found, to my chagrin, is that even though progress is being made in a lot of agencies, there is no communication, technological communication, between these departments in a fashion that would facilitate fighting terrorism. And I'd like you, if you could comment on progress that is being made between the FBI, Department of Justice and DHS to share information.

MR. HUTCHINSON: Thank you, Senator. And, first of all, we are making that a high priority to fulfill the mandate to share information. And there is a continuous flow of information from the FBI to Homeland Security and vice-versa.

It is important that we develop systems that are more compatible. Steve Cooper is our chief information officer, and he is the architect and the one responsible for moving that forward. I believe the first priority is to make sure that the 22 agencies that came on board less than four months ago within Homeland Security can bring those systems together, and then, obviously, both with the Department of Justice and the Department of State, to make those systems compatible. The information is flowing, but it can flow better when we have more compatible systems.

SEN. DURBIN: My question is whether there is interoperability between the computer systems at the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI. I'll just ask that question. Can your computers communicate with their computers and the other direction?

MR. HUTCHINSON: Well, we do on watch lists. We have that capacity that we have that information. Now, there are limitations. Obviously they have information that cannot be shared, for counterterrorism reasons, broadly. Obviously we could receive that information. But, for example, there's some information they might have that our inspectors in the field at the points of entry might not need.

SEN. DURBIN: Oh, understood, understood. There are certain areas that, for a variety of reasons, you wouldn't want to. But just you're telling me the capacity is being developed.

I know I don't have a lot of time, but I want to move to another issue that really concerns me greatly. There was substantial progress made yesterday in Iraq with obviously the killing of the two Saddam Hussein sons. And this morning's paper reported that one of the reasons why there's an improvement there is the gathering of information from Iraqis is starting to be a lot more effective. There's more cooperation.

And I've learned the difference between law enforcement and intelligence-gathering; you deal with communities in a different respect. And I've had -- Director Mueller, I think I've told you, I've had one of your agents from a faraway post call me and say, "We've got to learn this. We've got to learn that intelligence gathering is a lot different than just flat-out law enforcement."

You can go in and find technical violations and criminal problems to a fare-thee-well. That isn't going to build up trust and understanding and communication and dialogue for sharing information for intelligence purposes. And so several months ago the Department of Justice decided to initiate this interview project profiling the visitors to this country from Muslim Middle Eastern nations to come in and to be interviewed as to their status.

Now, I've asked for numbers as to how many were called in and I can't get an exact number, but it appears to be somewhere in the 80,000 to 100,000 range of people who were called in from a variety of different countries. And it's my understanding that some 13,000, because of reporting for the interview, were subsequently deported. They were found to be in violation of their immigration status.

I've raised that question because obviously, as a senator from a very diverse state, I've heard from a lot of these populations saying this is just flat-out discriminatory. These people were cooperating, came in for the interview, were ready to help in any way they could, and were found to be in technical violation and deported.

Can I ask both of you if you would comment on this reaction from them in light of our need to gather more intelligence from these communities and to work more closely with them, whether or not we did something that might have been counterproductive? We basically said, "If you cooperate and come forward, be careful, because we're going to (fly this back?) and find out if you're in technical violation. If you are, you're gone."

If I could ask Director Mueller and Secretary Hutchinson to respond to that.

MR. MUELLER: We undertook a program, in advance of hostilities in Iraq, of reaching to Iraqi-Americans and interviewing them. And the numbers there -- I think we interviewed close to 10,000 across the country. And I would say I have talked to a number of my special agents in charge. I've talked to members of the Muslim community, the Iraqi community. And the fact of the matter is the interviews went exceptionally well.

I am not aware of circumstances where, as a result of an interview and our reaching out, that someone was deported. I will tell you that the vast, vast, vast majority of persons interviewed were happy to be interviewed, wanted to provide information.

The fact of the matter is, most of them were refugees from the Saddam Hussein regime and they had information and intelligence that was helpful to our troops overseas. We had in excess of 200 reports that were funneled to our troops overseas about the location of bunkers, (dual?) weapons, communications facilities. And so those interviews, I think, went exceptionally well.

There are going to be individuals who resent that. But the vast majority of the interviews, as I've heard it from office to office to office, enabled us to develop intelligence and develop a relationship that had not previously been there.

MR. HUTCHINSON: I would just second the importance of the outreach. Our ICE agents, and as well our Customs and Border Protection, have engaged in outreach to communicate to those communities that might be impacted by that. Information is critically important, explaining why we're doing this.

You raised the issue of when they're out of compliance, what do you do? We want to make sure -- obviously we have an obligation, if somebody is out of compliance, to address it. But they're given notice to appear. There's a process. It's not like they're immediately detained in most circumstances. And so we try to treat each one fairly and appropriately with good information.

We have other investigative techniques from Operation Tarmac in which we went into critical infrastructure facilities looking at background checks. There were questions raised that adversely impacted the Hispanic community. So we don't want that adverse impact, but we do have an obligation to take care of those that might be out of violation and pursue those according to the law.

SEN. DURBIN: Thanks. Mr. Chairman, I'll submit my other questions for the record. Thank you very much.