Senate Governmental Affairs Committe Holds Hearing on Secretary of Homeland Security Nomination

Senate Governmental Affairs Committee Holds Hearing on Secretary of Homeland Security Nomination

DURBIN:

Thank you, Madam Chair, and congratulations on your new assignment.

And, Governor Ridge, thank you for joining us. I'm pleased that the president has asked you to serve our nation as our first secretary of the new Department of Homeland Security. It's a difficult job, but the president could not have picked a better person.

We have been friends and colleagues for 20 years, and I have been one of your greatest fans. And I'm happy to report to you that you already have my vote, no matter what you say today...

(LAUGHTER)

... and that I will enthusiastically and overwhelmingly support our quick confirmation by the United States Senate.

But I have some concerns about the birthing of your new department, and I want to express them openly and publicly today.

Last year, Democrats and Republicans overwhelmingly supported the concept of this new department, but we had our disagreements. One of those disagreements related to the question of employee rights in your new department.

I think you understand what happened to that issue in the last election. Those of us who raised issues about the policy of this administration relative to employee rights had our patriotism questioned. In fact, one of our colleagues on this committee, a fellow Vietnam veteran, a disabled veteran, had this as a major issue in his campaign, as to whether or not he was truly patriotic to America if he raised questions about employee rights.

I hope you'll clarify today what your approach will be, what's your philosophy and what your values are. I see in your background that you want a (ph) security union card. I think you understand, as I do, that on September 11th when those firefighters went racing into the World Trade Center to their deaths that they carried union cards in their wallet. They were professionals, they were Americans, they loved their country.

No one who stands up for the rights of collective bargaining should have their patriotism questioned, yet that happened in the last campaign relative to your new department. You can clear the air on that, and I hope you will today, as to what your policy and philosophy will be.

I won't recount the long history of the creation of the department on Capitol Hill. We had several conversations on the phone. But I will tell you, at the end, the bill came to us on a take-it-or-leave-it basis in the Senate. We were told there would be no amendments accepted on the Senate floor by the White House.

I had an amendment relative to computers, the interoperability of information technology. I'd worked on it long and hard. It wasn't partisan. There was really nothing in it that I think could be labeled Democrat or Republican. The idea was to try to get the computers in our federal government to communicate with one another. You and I spoke about it. You called it a force multiplier, and I quoted you on the floor because I think you're right. Well, that section was not included in the bill.

That amendment was denied. The White House wouldn't accept it.

Now we have the responsibility to make the department work. And I've spoken to you about it, and I hope that we can continue to work together to improve and modernize the antiquated computer technology in our federal government, particularly as it relates to security and homeland security and fighting terrorism.

And finally, I'm disappointed yesterday that we were unable to attract even one vote from the Republican side of the aisle to put more money into homeland security. It appears now that the sky is the limit when it comes to defense spending relative to overseas security. I hope that this administration will not give us a hollow homeland security, though (ph) it tries to fund at very high levels all levels of military spending.

DURBIN:

I think we need both. We need a strong nation abroad. We need a strong nation at home. You have particular responsibility there, and I'll work with you to achieve that goal.

Thank you.

DURBIN:

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Governor Ridge, let me follow up on my opening comment about the role of the new employees in your agency, and particularly to follow up on something that has been referred to earlier, whistleblowers.

Whistleblowers are a real pain for administrators, but they perform a valuable function. Were it not for whistleblowers in the FBI, one of whom was recently cited in Time magazine as a person of year, we might not know the details of the information that came out before September 11th and what we could have done to protect America.

After September 11th, there were two people who worked for the INS in Border Patrol, two agents who went to the press and said that the statements made by many government officials about safety on our borders and security were misleading, that there were not enough agents on our northern border protecting the United States from the infiltration of dangerous people.

As a result of those public statements, these two Border Patrol agents suffered punitive actions by the agency; in fact, demotions and suspensions because they blew the whistle and said, "We're not as safe as we should be." Were it not for their union fighting to restore their rights, that might have gone unnoticed, but the union stepped in.

Let me ask you, at this moment in time, do you believe that this new law exempts your agency or changes in any way the general law or rule as to whistleblowers in the federal government?

RIDGE:

I do not, and more importantly, I think there's specific language in the statute that reminds the secretary and reminds everyone associated with the new department that there shall be no reprisals for legitimate whistleblower activity.

So I think it's not only understood, but I think it's affirmatively reinforced by the language of the law.

DURBIN:

Your earlier statement about the rights of the employees, you said those rights may not extend to questions of hiring and firing, if I'm not mistaken. I don't want to put words in your mouth.

But, again, go back to this example I've used. Were it not for a union stepping in to protect these employees who blew the whistle on misstatements by the federal government and the lack of protection of our nation, were it not for that union those two employees would have probably suffered those consequences.

So how will you protect your employees who use their whistleblower rights then from retaliation from your agency?

RIDGE:

Well, first of all, I have pledged publicly, and Congress has specifically directed, I think with very explicit language, that that historic protection is part of the work environment in the new Department of Homeland Security for all.

Secondly, we are about to begin a process where we develop a new human resources management system, and the Congress gave us the opportunity to do that and gave us a framework within which we were to do that. But we have begun just initial discussions with the representatives of organized labor and others, not on content, but on the process itself, to make sure that they are involved on the very front end of this deliberation, discussion, debate, negotiation, what have you.

So we recognize our obligations under the statute. I say, from my experience as governor, dealing with about 80,000 state employees, most of whom were unionized, we had, I think, a very good day-to-day working relationship, we negotiated some difficult and challenging bargaining agreements, had enormously effective labor leaders. We were candid with one another and we got the job done, and hopefully we'll develop the same kind of relationship with the people in this department.

DURBIN:

And so you will protect the appeals rights of your employees if they exercise their...

RIDGE:

Whistleblower is endemic. It needs to be a continuing part of the work environment of these men and women.

DURBIN:

Let me go back to the point raised by Senator Levin, too, on this FOIA question. It's understandable that if a private entity, a corporation, were to give you information that they believe is necessary for you to know to protect America, that there be some sort of protection there.

But the law goes beyond that and suggests that once they've made the disclosure, even a disclosure of wrongdoing, perhaps a disclosure that has endangered the public health, once they've made the disclosure to your department, they, in fact, are held harmless from civil lawsuits by the mere fact that they've made the secret disclosure to your department.

Are you concerned about what impact that might have on the redress which an ordinary citizen or community might have in court; for example, an environmental disaster disclosed to your agency by a private corporation, which is now indemnified from private civil lawsuits because of that disclosure?

RIDGE:

Well, Senator, I'm concerned with that potential outcome.

I guess I'm equally concerned about differing interpretations of the statute, which leads me to believe that one of the first responsibilities I have when we get this information analysis and infrastructure protection unit set up, even before then, that I need to come back to you and your colleagues, like Senator Levin, to get clarification that makes us both comfortable.

DURBIN:

I hope you will. I think it's an important topic, and I'm glad that Senator Levin raised it. I'd like to follow it.

The last one is the issue that I've to you time and time again, Senator Sununu mentioned: the interoperability of information technology.

The INS today, as part of the Department of Justice, has utterly failed in integrating its information technology system with the FBI. It has resulted in some very terrible consequences.

Now INS is moving out of the Department of Justice, into the Department of Homeland Security. My concern is that now they're getting further away from the agencies that they need to be integrated with and to work with more cooperatively.

Where is the authority coming that will bring together the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, the CIA, all the intelligence agencies, to try to create something which I called the Manhattan Project, to break through this information technology barrier that seems to have stopped us, even since September 11th, from achieving what we need to achieve in exchanging information?

RIDGE:

Senator, you gave, and your colleagues in Congress gave that specific task to the new secretary, and it's a task that actually was undertaken even in the Office of Homeland Security several months ago, not just in anticipation of the new department, but in recognition that one of the big challenges we have in this country is not necessarily assimilating more information.

We've got plenty of information. We just have heretofore been unable—not necessarily unwilling, but unable to connect it so that the right people had access to the right information on a timely basis.

That will be one of the highest priorities within this new department. It's a very high priority for the president and the administration as we set up a new department, to bring it in immediately to the 21st century, to connect our own internal databases, and then those with the external agencies with whom we have to work.

And it is a measure that, again, we have begun working on. We've done an inventory of who has what and what we need to put together. We think we have a way ahead where we don't need necessarily to design a whole new system, but there are commercial applications in the marketplace today that enable us to tie this together.

It's also getting that information to counselor's (ph) offices, necessarily. I mean, some of this information is going to have to go international.

It's a huge undertaking, and I look forward to working with you to solving the puzzle. There's a lot of pieces of that puzzle we got to put together.

DURBIN:

Thank you. I want to work with you.

Thank you, Madam Chair.