Hearing of the House Judiciary Committee: FBI Oversight

Statement

REP. DARRELL ISSA (R-CA): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, I'd -- before I begin I'd like to suggest that we look at Mr. Scott's reference to Prison Industries and, on a bipartisan basis, look at the history of unsuccessful reform to make that an industry in which government would want to buy the output.

And I would offer -- I'm a former appointee to the California Prison Industries Board, I would be more than willing to work on the reform that could lead to improvement in the skills, training and the output. And, hopefully, that would help solve a problem that I know vexes all of us here on the podium.

REP. ISSA: I thank you, Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, thank you for yielding time.

Director Mueller, this is never an easy place for you to come, so I'll start off by saying congratulations on being at the helm on the 100th anniversary of the creation. You know, the fact is the FBI has had -- has gone from 30 or so to 30,000 over the last 100 years, and has proven to be the one go-to for all levels of investigation.

And I'd like to touch on a couple of things, because I'm concerned today, that because we give you everything to investigate, that perhaps how you prioritize has been a problem. First of all, in dealing on a global basis with the global war on terror, and the resources you've had to put in foreign embassies, and so on, have you been given the resources necessary to do that while continuing to increase your vigilance in the other areas of federal crime?

MR. MUELLER: Well, we had to in the wake of September 11th. We moved almost 2,000 agents from the criminal side of the house to national security -- and "national security" meaning counterterrorism as well as counterintelligence, given the threats from various countries wishing to steal our secrets. And the third aspect of national security is cyber -- cybersecurity. So, those three national security priorities received almost 2,000 agents.

The directive to every one of our special agents, (as a charge ?), is you have to know what is happening in your domain, in your jurisdiction, when it comes to counterterrorism. That is number one. Counterintelligence is number two, and cyber is number three. Then you hit the criminal priorities.

And we have had to -- on the criminal side, prioritize. We took, I would say, better than half of those agents from the drug program; we have very significantly ratcheted back our participation in the war on drugs, limiting it to participation in the OCDEF program.

REP. ISSA: Okay, Director Mueller, because my time is limited I'd like to follow up, because I think you've -- you've made my point very well.

The war on terror, China and other countries' relentless attack on our cyber world -- both DOD, but also even the U.S. House of Representatives has been invaded, and Trojans have been put inside our computers by China, other countries as well. You've never been given new -- significant new resources for that; you've never been given significant resources for all the other counterterrorism you're doing.

Can you tell this committee today, or can you respond in writing -- recognizing that you transcend administrations, what it's going to take to give 100 percent appropriate effort in those new tasks, including this exponentially growing attack on the internet, while getting you back to historic levels of such things as the gentleman from Virginia mentioned?

Look, we've got House and Senate members who are implicated in receiving discount loans from Countrywide. We have tens of thousands of people who, in some way, shape or form, were part of the problem of subprime. And you've made it clear, your resources are limited, and some of your investigation capability, after September 11th, left those areas.

So, because the time is limited, and because I know that the majority will ask a lot of other questions, I would really appreciate if you give me a short response, and then go on beyond this so this committee could begin to look. Because my guess is that your 30,000 men and women -- and your budget, should have been increased by a good 10,000, if you were to deal with cybersecurity, and with the threat of al-Qaeda and other groups. And please respond --

MR. MUELLER: We continuously put in a request for resources. -- (inaudible) -- the Department of Justice, OMB, the administration. Quite obviously, as you're all too well familiar --

REP. ISSA: But, they've never asked for those kinds of numbers, and this is your chance.

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