Thread: Testimony of Secretary Michael Chertoff Before the Senate Co

Testimony of Secretary Michael Chertoff Before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security "Confronting the Terrorist Threat to the Homeland: Six Years After 9/11"


(WebWire) 9/12/2007 10:15:44 AM
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• Government
• Homeland Security

Thank you, Chairman Lieberman, Ranking Member Collins, and Members of the Committee for the invitation to appear today. I appreciate this Committee’s steadfast support for the Department and your many actions to improve our effectiveness.

At the outset, I’d like to acknowledge the strong working relationships we share with the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), as well as many other federal, state, and local partners working around the clock to protect our country and the American people from terrorist attacks.

None of us alone can keep our nation safe from the threat of terrorism. Protecting the United States is a mission we share and one that requires joint planning and execution of our counterterrorism responsibilities; effective information collection, analysis, and exchange; and the development of integrated national capabilities.

Of course, tomorrow marks the six-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. As our nation remembers this unconscionable act of terrorism and the murder of nearly 3,000 innocent men, women, and children, it is appropriate that we take a moment to assess the current terrorist threat facing our country, weigh our efforts to defend the United States against additional attacks, and set our priorities for the future.

It is no accident that we haven’t suffered a major terrorist attack on U.S. soil since 9/11. I believe it is the result of the President’s leadership, this Committee’s support, and the hard work and constant vigilance of hundreds of thousands of men and women –including the 208,000 employees of the Department of Homeland Security – who are working tirelessly both at home and overseas to protect our country.

Since 9/11, our nation has put in place critical tools that have strengthened our ability to identify terrorist threats to our homeland, dismantle terrorist cells and disrupt terrorist plots, and prevent terrorists from crossing our borders or assuming false identities to carry out attacks.

Among other successes, we foiled serious terrorist plots to attack U.S. military personnel at Fort Dix, New Jersey, and a plot to explode fuel pipelines at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York City. In August of 2006, we also worked with British authorities to disrupt a threat that would have killed thousands of Americans aboard commercial aircraft departing the United Kingdom.

But while we have successfully raised our barrier against terrorist attacks, the fact remains that we are still a nation at risk. The recently issued National Intelligence Estimate makes clear that we continue to face a persistent threat to our homeland over the next several years. We also cannot discount the danger posed by homegrown terrorists, isolated individuals or groups that initiate their own plots after becoming radicalized.

Our nation faces a set of important choices. How do we respond to this ongoing threat? What actions are necessary to protect our country? And how do we build upon our success to date?

Our Department’s Role

As you know, DHS was created to unify and coordinate federal, state, and local capabilities to prevent, protect against, and respond to all hazards – including terrorist attacks.

Congress gave us broad authorities under the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to prevent terrorist attacks in the United States, reduce our nation’s vulnerability to terrorism, and assist in the response to and recovery from major attacks. The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 also strengthened our ability to share intelligence, improve information sharing and first responder communications, and enhance border and transportation security. Among its key initiatives, the law established the requirement for a secure document to enter or re-enter the United States. We continue to make progress in implementing this key recommendation of the 9/11 Commission. We also have benefited tremendously from the SAFE Ports Act of 2006, which formalized efforts to enhance port security, improve cargo inspections, and strengthen radiation detection, among others.

We recognize that we cannot protect every person from every threat at every moment. To do so would require unlimited resources and would be at a tremendous cost to our freedoms, our economy, and our way of life. Our challenge is to manage risk consistent with our understanding of threats, vulnerabilities, and consequences, and then prioritize our resources to protect against high-threat, high-consequence events.

Since becoming Secretary, I have set five major goals to focus our Department’s efforts on a core set of objectives. These goals are as follows: 1) keeping dangerous people from entering our country; 2) keeping dangerous cargo out of our country; 3) protecting critical infrastructure; 4) boosting emergency preparedness and response; and 5) strengthening DHS integration and management.

Because the focus of this hearing is threats to our homeland, my testimony will highlight only the first three goals: preventing dangerous people and dangerous cargo from entering our country, and protecting critical infrastructure. I will also discuss our efforts to share information and intelligence necessary to achieve these goals. I will reserve a discussion of emergency preparedness and the Department’s internal management functions for a subsequent hearing. In addition, I testified on these issues last week before the House Committee on Homeland Security.

Protecting Against Dangerous People

A key priority for our Department remains keeping dangerous people from entering the United States to engage in criminal activity or to carry out terrorist attacks. If we can prevent dangerous people from infiltrating our borders then we have successfully dismantled a large part of the threat.

Passenger Screening

One of our most important screening tools is information we collect about visitors seeking to enter the United States. We gather this information electronically through our Advance Passenger Information System (APIS), from Passenger Name Record (PNR) data, and through biometrics collection under US-VISIT.

Leveraging this information allows us to check passenger names against terrorist watch lists, search for connections between known and unknown terrorists, and run biometric finger scans against fingerprint databases and integrated watch lists in real-time. With these systems, we have prevented thousands of dangerous people from entering the United States, including individuals suspected of terrorism, murderers, rapists, drug smugglers, and human traffickers. Let me provide a couple of examples.

In May of this year, a British citizen attempted to board a flight from London to the United States. Using PNR data, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers determined the individual as a watch list match. Airline security officers prevented the man from boarding and he was turned over to British authorities for further questioning.

And in April of 2006, at Boston’s Logan Airport, CBP officers used PNR information to identify two passengers whose travel patterns exhibited high-risk indicators. During the secondary interview process, one subject stated that he was traveling here on business for a group that is suspected of having financial ties to Al Qaeda. The examination of his baggage revealed images of armed men, one of them labeled “Mujahadin.â€

I feel so much safer.

Originally Posted by jp_48504

I feel so much safer.

JP, me too! (not)

I have a 'gut feeling' we're not that much safer.

edit myself