[Senate Hearing 117-]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
COMMERCE, JUSTICE, SCIENCE, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS FOR
FISCAL YEAR 2022
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WEDNESDAY, JUNE 23, 2021
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met at 2:06 p.m., in room 192, Dirksen
Senate Office Building, Hon. Jeanne Shaheen (Chairman)
presiding.
Present: Senators Shaheen, Leahy, Feinstein, Reed, Coons,
Moran, Graham, Boozman, Capito, Kennedy, Hagerty, and Braun.
FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR JEANNE SHAHEEN
Senator Shaheen. Good afternoon. I apologize again for
being late. I am delighted to open this Commerce, Justice and
Science Appropriations subcommittee hearing with FBI Director
Christopher Wray. We are very pleased to have you here and look
forward to our conversation. I will just point out before we go
into the hearing that we are going to take Members and anybody
who arrives after the gavel in order of arrival and that
everyone is appearing in person, we are not having anybody
appear remotely. So thank you all very much for joining us this
afternoon and we will begin.
Director Wray, the FBI continues to be the gold standard
for law enforcement agencies worldwide. We count on the more
than 35,000 men and women of the FBI to protect our country
from violent criminals, terrorists, and foreign agents who mean
us great harm. I want to thank them, and of course you as their
leader for their dedication and service to the Nation, and in
particular for their response to the attack on the Capitol on
January 6 and their ongoing investigations into this
insurrection attempt.
The work of the FBI as we will hear today is vast, but it
is critical. It covers key investigations into
counterterrorism, intelligence, child exploitation, and
financial and health care fraud, as well as the operation of
the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, the
system that checks available records to ensure people
purchasing firearms can legally own them. This year's budget is
a request of $10.3 billion, and it reflects the need to support
the important missions of the FBI. For the FBI salaries and
expenses, this request is an increase of $465 million above
fiscal year 2021 enacted.
And I would just--it struck me as I was going through the
briefing on the budget that your request calls for hiring over
150 new personnel. And I am going to be interested in hearing
if you have any concerns about actually finding people, given
some of the other challenges that I know we are having with
workforce in other parts of the country. But, of course, the
FBI faces newer challenges almost daily. We all saw one of
those challenges, ransomware, front and center in the news last
month as the Colonial Pipeline shutdown. That was followed by
an attack on the systems of meat processor, JBS. Now,
thankfully, both companies were able to get their systems back
online and the FBI even helped to track down and return nearly
half of the ransom Colonial Pipeline pay. So congratulations to
you and all the agents who are involved in that effort, of
course.
Unfortunately, not everyone has success with unlocking
their IT systems. And it is not just large companies that are
being targeted by hackers. It is also smaller hospital and
education systems, small businesses, and even police
departments as we saw recently with the Metro D.C. Police
Department. The New Hampshire Insurance Department has just
issued a warning to insurers on June 11 of possible ransomware
attacks with a few best practices to protect IT infrastructure
and data. So I am interested in hearing your thoughts on this
problem, how the FBI can help, and how we can try to get better
reporting on these kinds of crimes.
I have also been deeply concerned, as I know the other
Members of this subcommittee are, by the reported directed
energy attacks in Cuba, China, and other locations on our
Government personnel. These attacks have left American public
servants and their families suffering alone for years with
mysterious brain injuries, without full transparency or
guarantee of treatment. Fortunately, we are seeing improvement
in that area. And I was pleased that the Senate passed the
Havana Act on June 7.
I hope the House also quickly acts to pass in. This bill
would allow the CIA Director, the Secretary of State, and
leadership at other Federal agencies to provide injured
employees with additional financial support for brain injuries.
I will have some questions for you today on the FBI's ongoing
investigation into these attacks and how you are working with
other agencies within the Government.
So I look forward to your testimony today, Director Wray,
as I know we all do, and to our discussion. With that, I would
like to now turn to subcommittee Ranking Member Senator Moran
for his remarks.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR JERRY MORAN
Senator Moran. Chair Shaheen, thank you for convening this
hearing. And Senator Shaheen convened a classified hearing with
the Director in March of this year. However Director, this is
the first hearing with you in the CJS subcommittee since May of
2019, so welcome back. Before turning to the FBI budget, the
FBI's budget request for this fiscal year, I want to express my
condolences at the loss of agents Laura Schwartzenberger and
Daniel Alfin in February of this year. Shortly after their
deaths just a few days, I met with special agents and staff of
the FBI Miami's field office, and it was apparent to me that
both of those individuals were highly regarded. They were
considered friends and family.
And so I expressed my deepest sympathies to the entire FBI
bureau family. Laura and Daniel are heroes, and our country
should always remember them as such. In regard to the budget
that is before us Director, the FBI is requesting $10.2 billion
for salaries and expenses in fiscal year 2022. This amount is
$465 million, or about 4.8 percent above the fiscal year 2021
that was enacted. However, more than two thirds of that amount
is for inflationary costs. Perhaps I am making a statement that
you want known. It includes employee benefits and rental space.
The FBI is only requesting $151 million in programing
increases. These are for initiatives that will actually bolster
the FBI's capacity to execute its mission. And while employees
and staff and space are important, there are a lot of
initiatives that I think the FBI needs to be fully engaged in.
In the news, we--the FBI's efforts to protect the United States
from terrorist attacks, from counterintelligence threats, from
Governments like China, to neutralize threats from cyber
criminals, ransomware gangs, they are apparent. However, the
FBI budget also supports critical law enforcement, public
safety matters, including $492 million to combat international
drug cartels and violent gangs, $62 million to investigate and
prevent human trafficking, and $223 million to address crimes
against children.
Kansans, like most Americans, are deeply committed to
public safety and strongly support law enforcement. This
hearing is an opportunity for you, Director, for the Bureau, to
explain how it is putting taxpayer dollars to good use, to
benefit the good use to benefit the safety of our public.
And I look forward to working with you, and Senator
Shaheen, and Members of this subcommittee, the subcommittee, as
we work to craft the fiscal year 2022 appropriations bill for
the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Thank you. Thank you,
Senator Shaheen. Thank you, Director.
Senator Shaheen. Thank you, Senator Moran. Director Wray.
STATEMENT OF HON. CHRISTOPHER WRAY, DIRECTOR, FEDERAL
BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
Director Wray. Well, good afternoon, Chairwoman Shaheen,
Ranking Member Moran, Members of the subcommittee. I want to
first thank you all for the support that you have provided to
the FBI in the past and for inviting me here today to talk
about the Bureau's fiscal year 2022 budget request. In many
ways, the men and women of the bureau are busier today than we
have ever been. In fact, I will tell you that hardly a day goes
by when I am not struck by some inspiring demonstration of
courage and sacrifice on the part of our workforce for the
American people. You know, the depth and the breadth of their
impact on a remarkable volume of threats is just extraordinary.
I mean, just within the past couple of years, we have
thwarted potential terrorist attacks in places like Las Vegas,
Tampa, New York, Cleveland, Kansas City, Miami, and elsewhere.
In a single month recently, we arrested over 600 violent gang
members. That is 1 month. Every 10 to 12 hours, we are opening
a new China counterintelligence investigation. You all both
mentioned ransomware. We are now investigating over 100
different types of ransomware, and each of those types has
scores and scores of victims. We have opened hundreds and
hundreds of COVID fraud investigations.
We performed a record high last year, 40 million NICS
firearms background checks. Every single day, every single day,
we receive thousands of tips to our national threat operations
center, our NTOC, many of which involve imminent threats to
life that require swift action by our field offices and our
partners. And many of those threats involve harm to children.
And just over the last year or so, our folks arrested over
1,400 of the worst child predators, saving hundreds of kids
from sexual exploitation. And the list goes on and on. Now,
keep in mind, this work happened right in the teeth of the
global pandemic because, of course, the FBI kept coming to work
every single day. And it is also happening despite the
troubling upsurge in attacks against law enforcement officers
throughout the country.
So far this year, the number of officers murdered on the
job is far surpassing last year's pace, and it is about two
officers murdered per week. Tragically, that includes the loss
of two members of the FBI family, as Senator Moran mentioned,
special agents Laura Schwartzenberger and Daniel Alfin, both
shot and killed down near Miami in February. And we honor Dan
and Laura's memory every day through our work, work which has
unfortunately not gotten any easier given the diverse array of
threats we face as a country.
And that is why I appreciated having a candid conversation
with all of you during the classified roundtable back in March.
And I wish that I could tell you that we have got all the
resources we need to carry out our mission to protect the
American people and uphold the Constitution. But the funds that
we are requesting will go a long way towards doing just that.
And before we turn to your questions, I do want to spend a few
minutes talking about some of the enhancements that we are
requesting. So first, terrorism, terrorism remains the FBI's
top priority, as you know.
With our partners, the FBI has already made over 500
arrests in connection with the Capitol attack to date, which is
an extraordinary undertaking, and there is more work and more
charges sure to come. Unfortunately, January 6 was not an
isolated event. Domestic terrorism has been and continues to be
a top concern for the FBI. So much so, so much so that over the
past 3 years, we doubled our domestic terrorism investigations
and arrests. And that is in no small part because of the rise
in racially and ethnically motivated violent extremists, which
I elevated to our highest threat priority level back in 2019.
And because of the rise in violence from a whole range of
anti-Government, anti-authority actors over the past year,
including last summer and in different ways, of course, on
January 6 itself. I have repeatedly highlighted the severity of
the threat more than a dozen times in testimony since starting
in this job, and it is why we are requesting a $45 million
enhancement for additional personnel and tools to investigate
the domestic terrorism threat and more easily share information
with our partners.
Second, cyber, cyber is another of our top priorities, and
it is easy to see why with intrusions like the Colonial
Pipeline, and Solar Winds hacks, and the Hafnium compromise of
Microsoft Exchange servers becoming all too common. While
dealing with those, we are also contending with hundreds of
other cyber threats from Nation, state, and criminal actors
alike. And our $40 million enhancement request is an important
step towards ensuring that we have got the right people and
tools in place to address the evolving threats by some very
sophisticated cyber adversaries. We are also asking for an
enhancement of a little over $15 million to improve our own
cyber security. Those funds will help us secure our
infrastructure and limit vulnerabilities that threaten the
FBI's mission.
And we are requesting funding to address our dramatically
expanded jurisdiction over crimes committed on Tribal land
following the Supreme Court's McGirt decision. That $25.5
million enhancement will fund our increased operational needs
in the State of Oklahoma while Federal, State, and Tribal
authorities work on a more long term solution. Of course, these
things that I just listed off are far from our only challenges.
On top of all these things, we also face an unrelenting
counterintelligence threat from China, Russia, Iran, and North
Korea, and the full spectrum of criminal threats from hate
crimes and other civil rights abuses to violent crime spikes in
a whole bunch of cities across this country, to human
trafficking and crimes against children, just to name a few.
The funding you provide will help us address all these
areas. So thank you again for making sure the FBI has the
resources we need to stay ahead of our adversaries and keep the
American people safe. I look forward to your questions.
[The statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Christopher A. Wray
Good morning, Chairwoman Shaheen, Ranking Member Moran, and Members
of the subcommittee. I am honored to be here, representing the men and
women of the FBI. Our people--nearly 37,000 of them--are the heart of
the Bureau. I am proud of their service and their commitment to our
mission. Every day, they tackle their jobs with perseverance,
professionalism, and integrity--sometimes at the greatest of costs.
Earlier this year, two of our agents made the ultimate sacrifice in
the line of duty. Special Agents Dan Alfin and Laura Schwartzenberger
left home to carry out the mission they signed up for--to keep the
American people safe. They were executing a Federal court-ordered
search warrant in a violent crimes against children investigation in
Sunrise, Florida, when they were shot and killed. Three other agents
were also wounded that day. We'll be forever grateful for their
commitment and their dedication--for their last full measure of
devotion to the people they served and defended. We will always honor
their sacrifice.
Despite the many challenges our FBI workforce has faced, I am
immensely proud of their dedication to protecting the American people
and upholding the Constitution. Our country has faced unimaginable
challenges this past year. Yet, through it all, whether it was coming
to the aid of our partners during the Capitol siege and committing all
of our resources to ensuring that those involved in that brutal assault
on our Democracy are brought to justice, the proliferation of terrorist
violence moving at the speed of social media, abhorrent hate crimes,
COVID-19 related fraud and misinformation, the increasing threat of
cyber intrusions and state-sponsored economic espionage, malign foreign
influence and interference, the scourge of opioid trafficking and
abuse, or human trafficking and crimes against children, the women and
men of the FBI have unwaveringly stood at the ready and taken it upon
themselves to tackle any and all challenges thrown their way.
Today, I appear before you on behalf of the men and women who
tackle these threats and challenges every day. I am extremely proud of
their service and commitment to the FBI's mission and to ensuring the
safety and security of communities throughout our Nation. On their
behalf, I would like to express my appreciation for the support you
have given them in the past, ask for your continued support in the
future, and pledge to be the best possible stewards of the resources
you provide. I would like to begin by providing a brief overview of the
FBI's fiscal year 2022 budget request, and then follow with a short
discussion of key threats and challenges that we face, both as a Nation
and as an organization.
fiscal year 2022 budget overview
The fiscal year 2022 budget request proposes a total of $10.28
billion in direct budget authority to carry out the FBI's national
security, criminal law enforcement, and criminal justice services
missions. The request includes a total of $10.21 billion for Salaries
and Expenses, which will support 36,149 positions (13,414 Special
Agents, 3,216 Intelligence Analysts, and 19,519 professional staff),
and $61.9 million for Construction. The request includes six program
enhancements totaling $160.73 million. These enhancements are proposed
to meet critical requirements and close gaps in operational
capabilities, including: $45.0 million for additional personnel and
tools to investigate the threat posed by Domestic Violent Extremists
(``DVEs''), receive and process tips from the public, and perform
watchlisting and screening activities; $40.0 million to enhance cyber
investigative capabilities; $18.8 million to mitigate threats from
foreign intelligence services; $25.5 million to support the expansion
of Federal jurisdiction for crimes committed on Tribal lands in
response to the McGirt Supreme Court case; $6.2 million to support
infrastructure needs related to Federal Task Force Officer (``TFO'')
use of Body Worn Cameras; $15.23 million to enhance the FBI's
cybersecurity posture and protect internal networks; and $10.0 million
to maintain facilities on the FBI's Quantico campus.
key threats and challenges
This Committee has provided critical resources for the FBI to
become what it is today--a threat-focused, intelligence-driven
organization. Our Nation continues to face a multitude of serious and
evolving threats ranging from homegrown violent extremists to hostile
foreign intelligence services and operatives; from sophisticated cyber-
based attacks to Internet-facilitated sexual exploitation of children;
from violent gangs and criminal organizations to public corruption and
corporate fraud. Keeping pace with these threats is a significant
challenge for the FBI. As an organization, we must be able to stay
current with constantly evolving technologies. Our adversaries--
terrorists, foreign intelligence services, and criminals--take
advantage of modern technology, including the Internet and social
media, to facilitate illegal activities, recruit followers, encourage
terrorist attacks and other illicit actions, and to disperse
information on building improvised explosive devices and other means to
attack the U.S. The breadth of these threats and challenges are as
complex as any time in our history. And the consequences of not
responding to and countering threats and challenges have never been
greater.
The support of this Committee in helping the FBI do its part in
facing and thwarting these threats and challenges is greatly
appreciated. That support is allowing us to establish strong
capabilities and capacities for assessing threats, sharing
intelligence, leveraging key technologies, and--in some respects, most
importantly--hiring some of the best to serve as Special Agents,
Intelligence Analysts, and professional staff. We have built and are
continuously enhancing a workforce that possesses the skills and
knowledge to deal with the complex threats and challenges we face
today--and tomorrow. We are building a leadership cadre that views
change and transformation as a positive tool for keeping the FBI
focused on the key threats facing our Nation.
Today's FBI is a national security and law enforcement organization
that uses, collects, and shares intelligence in everything we do. Each
FBI employee understands that, to defeat the key threats facing our
Nation, we must constantly strive to be more efficient and more
effective. Just as our adversaries continue to evolve, so, too, must
the FBI. We live in a time of acute and persistent terrorist and
criminal threats to our national security, our economy, and indeed our
communities. These diverse threats underscore the complexity and
breadth of the FBI's mission: to protect the American people and uphold
the Constitution of the United States.
national security
Capitol Violence
First and foremost, I want to assure you, your staff, and the
American people that the FBI has deployed our full investigative
resources and is working closely with our Federal, State, local,
Tribal, and territorial partners to aggressively pursue those involved
in criminal activity during the events of January 6, 2021. We are
working closely with our Federal, State, and local law enforcement
partners, as well as private sector partners, to identify those
responsible for the violence and destruction of property at the U.S.
Capitol building who showed blatant and appalling disregard for our
institutions of government and the orderly administration of the
democratic process.
FBI Special Agents, Intelligence Analysts, and professional staff
have been hard at work gathering evidence, sharing intelligence, and
working with Federal prosecutors to bring charges against the
individuals involved. As we have said consistently, we do not and will
not tolerate violent extremists who use the guise of First Amendment-
protected activity to engage in violent criminal activity. Thus far,
the FBI has arrested hundreds of individuals with regards to rioting,
assault on a Federal officer, property crimes violations, and
conspiracy charges, and the work continues.
Overall, the FBI assesses that the January 6th siege of the Capitol
Complex demonstrates a willingness by some to use violence against the
government in furtherance of their political and social goals. This
ideologically motivated violence underscores the symbolic nature of the
National Capital Region and the willingness of some Domestic Violent
Extremists to travel to events in this area and violently engage law
enforcement and their perceived adversaries. The American people should
rest assured that we will continue to work to hold accountable those
individuals who participated in the violent breach of the Capitol on
January 6, and any others who attempt to use violence to intimidate,
coerce, or influence the American people or affect the conduct of our
government.
Top Terrorism Threats
As has been stated multiple times in the past, preventing terrorist
attacks, from any place, by any actor, remains the FBI's top priority.
The nature of the threat posed by terrorism--both international
terrorism (``IT'') and domestic terrorism (``DT'')--continues to
evolve.
The greatest terrorism threat to our Homeland is posed by lone
actors or small cells who typically radicalize online and look to
attack soft targets with easily accessible weapons. We see these
threats manifested within both Domestic Violent Extremists (``DVEs'')
and Homegrown Violent Extremists (``HVEs''), two distinct threats, both
of which are located primarily in the United States and typically
radicalize and mobilize to violence on their own. Individuals who
commit violent criminal acts in furtherance of social or political
goals stemming from domestic influences--some of which include racial
or ethnic bias, or anti-government or anti-authority sentiments--are
described as DVEs, whereas HVEs are individuals who are inspired
primarily by global jihad but are not receiving individualized
direction from Foreign Terrorist Organizations (``FTOs'').
Domestic and Homegrown Violent Extremists are often motivated and
inspired by a mix of socio-political, ideological, and personal
grievances against their targets, and more recently have focused on
accessible targets to include civilians, law enforcement and the
military, symbols or members of the U.S. Government, houses of worship,
retail locations, and mass public gatherings. Selecting these types of
soft targets, in addition to the insular nature of their radicalization
and mobilization to violence and limited discussions with others
regarding their plans, increases the challenge faced by law enforcement
to detect and disrupt the activities of lone actors before they occur.
The top threat we face from DVEs continues to be from those we
categorize as Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists
(``RMVEs''), largely those who advocate for the superiority of the
white race, who were the primary source of lethal attacks perpetrated
by DVEs in 2018 and 2019. It is important to note that we have also
recently seen an increase in fatal DVE attacks perpetrated by Anti-
Government or Anti-Authority Violent Extremists, specifically Militia
Violent Extremists and Anarchist Violent Extremists. Anti-Government or
Anti-Authority Violent Extremists were responsible for three of the
four lethal DVE attacks in 2020. Also, in 2020, we saw the first lethal
attack committed by an Anarchist Violent Extremist in over 20 years.
Consistent with our mission, the FBI does not investigate First
Amendment-protected speech or association, peaceful protests, or
political activity. The FBI holds sacred the rights of individuals to
peacefully exercise their First Amendment freedoms. Non-violent
protests are signs of a healthy democracy, not an ailing one.
Regardless of their specific ideology, the FBI will aggressively pursue
those who seek to hijack legitimate First Amendment-protected activity
by engaging in violent criminal activity such as the destruction of
property and violent assaults on law enforcement officers that we
witnessed on January 6th and during protests throughout the U.S. during
the summer of 2020 and beyond. In other words, we will actively pursue
the opening of FBI investigations when an individual uses--or threatens
the use of--force, violence, or coercion, in violation of Federal law
and in the furtherance of social or political goals.
The FBI assesses HVEs are the greatest, most immediate IT threat to
the Homeland. As I have described, HVEs are located in and radicalized
primarily in the United States, who are not receiving individualized
direction from global jihad-inspired FTOs but are inspired largely by
the Islamic State of Iraq and ash-Sham (``ISIS'') and al-Qa'ida to
commit violence. An HVE's lack of a direct connection with an FTO,
ability to rapidly mobilize without detection, and use of encrypted
communications pose significant challenges to our ability to
proactively identify and disrupt them.
The FBI remains concerned that FTOs, such as ISIS and al-Qa'ida,
intend to carry out or inspire large-scale attacks in the United
States. Despite its loss of physical territory in Iraq and Syria, ISIS
remains relentless in its campaign of violence against the United
States and our partners--both here at home and overseas. To this day,
ISIS continues to aggressively promote its hate-fueled rhetoric and
attract like-minded violent extremists with a willingness to conduct
attacks against the United States and our interests abroad. ISIS'
successful use of social media and messaging applications to attract
individuals seeking a sense of belonging is of continued concern to us.
Like other foreign terrorist groups, ISIS advocates for lone offender
attacks in the United States and Western countries via videos and other
English language propaganda that have at times specifically advocated
for attacks against civilians, the military, law enforcement and
intelligence community personnel.
Al-Qa'ida maintains its desire to both conduct and inspire large-
scale, spectacular attacks. Because continued pressure has degraded
some of the group's senior leadership, in the near term, we assess al-
Qa'ida is more likely to continue to focus on cultivating its
international affiliates and supporting small-scale, readily achievable
attacks in regions such as East and West Africa. Over the past year,
propaganda from al-Qa'ida leaders continued to seek to inspire
individuals to conduct their own attacks in the United States and other
Western nations.
Iran and its global proxies and partners, including Iraqi Shia
militant groups, continue to attack and plot against the United States
and our allies throughout the Middle East in response to U.S. pressure.
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (``IRGC-QF'')
continues to provide support to militant resistance groups and
terrorist organizations. Iran also continues to support Lebanese
Hizballah and other terrorist groups. Lebanese Hizballah has sent
operatives to build terrorist infrastructures worldwide. The arrests of
individuals in the United States allegedly linked to Lebanese
Hizballah's main overseas terrorist arm, and their intelligence
collection and procurement efforts, demonstrate Lebanese Hizballah's
interest in long-term contingency planning activities here in the
Homeland. Lebanese Hizballah Secretary-General Hasan Nasrallah also has
threatened retaliation for the death of IRGC-QF Commander Qassem
Soleimani.
As an organization, we continually adapt and rely heavily on the
strength of our Federal, State, local, Tribal, territorial, and
international partnerships to combat all terrorist threats to the
United States and our interests. To that end, we use all available
lawful investigative techniques and methods to combat these threats
while continuing to collect, analyze, and share intelligence concerning
the threat posed by violent extremists, in all their forms, who desire
to harm Americans and U.S. interests. We will continue to share
information and encourage the sharing of information among our numerous
partners via our Joint Terrorism Task Forces across the country, and
our Legal Attache offices around the world. The FBI's fiscal year 2022
request includes 179 positions (including 80 Special Agents, 43
Intelligence Analysts, and 56 professional staff) and $45.0 million to
counter terrorism and the increasing acts of domestic terrorism
occurring across the United States.
Lawful Access
The problems caused by law enforcement agencies' inability to
access electronic evidence continue to grow. Increasingly, commercial
device manufacturers have employed encryption in such a manner that
only the device users can access the content of the devices. This is
commonly referred to as ``user-only-access'' device encryption.
Similarly, more and more communications service providers are designing
their platforms and apps such that only the parties to the
communication can access the content. This is generally known as ``end-
to-end'' encryption. The proliferation of end-to-end and user-only-
access encryption is a serious issue that increasingly limits law
enforcement's ability, even after obtaining a lawful warrant or court
order, to access critical evidence and information needed to disrupt
threats, protect the public, and bring perpetrators to justice.
The FBI remains a strong advocate for the wide and consistent use
of responsibly-managed encryption--encryption that providers can
decrypt and provide to law enforcement when served with a legal order.
Protecting data and privacy in a digitally connected world is a top
priority for the FBI and the U.S. Government, and we believe that
promoting encryption is a vital part of that mission. But we have seen
that the broad application of end-to-end and user-only-access
encryption adds negligible security advantages. It does have a negative
effect on law enforcement's ability to protect the public. What we mean
when we talk about lawful access is putting providers who manage
encrypted data in a position to decrypt it and provide it to us in
response to legal process. We are not asking for, and do not want, any
``backdoor,'' that is, for encryption to be weakened or compromised so
that it can be defeated from the outside by law enforcement or anyone
else. Unfortunately, too much of the debate over lawful access has
revolved around discussions of this ``backdoor'' straw man instead of
what we really want and need.
We are deeply concerned with the threat end-to-end and user-only-
access encryption pose to our ability to fulfill the FBI's duty of
protecting the American people from every manner of Federal crime, from
cyber-attacks and violence against children to drug trafficking and
organized crime. We believe Americans deserve security in every walk of
life--in their data, their streets, their businesses, and their
communities.
End-to-end and user-only-access encryption erode that security
against every danger the FBI combats. For example, even with our
substantial resources, accessing the content of known or suspected
terrorists' data pursuant to court-authorized legal process is
increasingly difficult. The often-online nature of the terrorist
radicalization process, along with the insular nature of most of
today's attack plotters, leaves fewer dots for investigators to connect
in time to stop an attack--and end-to-end and user-only-access
encryption increasingly hide even those often precious few and fleeting
dots.
In one instance, while planning and right up until the eve of the
December 6, 2019, shooting at Naval Air Station Pensacola that killed
three U.S. sailors and severely wounded eight other Americans, deceased
terrorist Mohammed Saeed Al-Shamrani communicated undetected with
overseas al-Qa'ida terrorists using an end-to-end encrypted app. Then,
after the attack, user-only-access encryption prevented the FBI from
accessing information contained in his phones for several months. As a
result, during the critical time period immediately following the
shooting and despite obtaining search warrants for the deceased
killer's devices, the FBI could not access the information on those
phones to identify co-conspirators or determine whether they may have
been plotting additional attacks.
This problem spans international and domestic terrorism threats.
Like Al-Shamrani, the plotters who sought to kidnap the Governor of
Michigan late last year used end-to-end encrypted apps to hide their
communications from law enforcement. Their plot was only disrupted by
well-timed human source reporting and the resulting undercover
operation. Subjects of our investigation into the January 6 Capitol
siege used end-to-end encrypted communications as well.
We face the same problem in protecting children against violent
sexual exploitation. End-to-end and user-only-access encryption
frequently prevent us from discovering and searching for victims. In
particular, providers can send us vital tips that can lead to the
rescue of a child only when those providers themselves are able to
detect and report child exploitation being facilitated on their
platforms and services. They cannot do that when their platforms are
end-to-end encrypted. For example, while Facebook Messenger and Apple
iMessage each boasts over one billion users, in 2020, the National
Center for Missing and Exploited Children (``NCMEC'') received over 20
million tips from Facebook,\1\ compared to 265 tips from Apple,
according to NCMEC data and publicly available information. Apple's use
of end-to-end encryption, which blinds it to child sexual abuse
material being transmitted through its services, likely plays a role in
the disparities in reporting between the two companies. We do not know
how many children are being harmed across the country as a result of
this under-reporting by Apple and other end-to-end providers.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Facebook is planning to move its Facebook Messenger platform to
end-to-end encryption as a default in the near future. This will result
in the loss of most of these tips.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
When we are able to open investigations, end-to-end and user-only-
access encryption makes it much more difficult to bring perpetrators to
justice. Much evidence of crimes against children, just like many other
kinds of crime today, exists primarily in electronic form. If we cannot
obtain that critical electronic evidence, our efforts are frequently
hamstrung.
This problem is not just limited to Federal investigations. Our
State and local law enforcement partners have been consistently
advising the FBI that they, too, are experiencing similar end-to-end
and user-only-access encryption challenges, which are now being felt
across the full range of State and local criminal law enforcement. Many
report that even relatively unsophisticated criminal groups, like
street gangs, are frequently using user-only-access encrypted
smartphones and end-to-end encrypted communications apps to shield
their activities from detection or disruption. As this problem becomes
more and more acute for State and local law enforcement, the advanced
technical resources needed to address even a single investigation
involving end-to-end and user-only-access encryption will continue to
diminish and ultimately overwhelm State and local capacity to
investigate even common crimes.
Cyber
In 2020, nation-state and criminal cyber actors took advantage of
people and networks made more vulnerable by the sudden shift of our
personal and professional lives online due to the COVID-19 pandemic,
targeting those searching for personal protective equipment, worried
about stimulus checks, and conducting vaccine research.
Throughout the last year, the FBI has seen a wider-than-ever range
of cyber actors threaten Americans' safety, security, and confidence in
our digitally connected world. But these threats will not disappear
when the pandemic ends. Cyber-criminal syndicates and nation-states
keep innovating ways to compromise our networks and maximize the reach
and impact of their operations, such as by selling malware as a service
or by targeting vendors as a way to access scores of victims by hacking
just one provider.
These criminals and nation-states believe that they can compromise
our networks, steal our property, and hold our critical infrastructure
at risk without incurring any risk themselves. In the last year alone,
we have seen--and have publicly called out--China, North Korea, and
Russia for using cyber operations to target U.S. COVID-19 vaccines and
research. We have seen the far-reaching disruptive impact a serious
supply-chain compromise can have through the SolarWinds intrusions,
conducted by the Russian SVR. We have seen China working to obtain
controlled defense technology and developing the ability to use cyber
means to complement any future real-world conflict. We have seen Iran
use cyber means to try to sow divisions and undermine our elections,
targeting voters before the November election and threatening election
officials after.
As dangerous as nation-states are, we do not have the luxury of
focusing on them alone. In the past year, we also have seen cyber
criminals target hospitals, medical centers, and educational
institutions for theft or ransomware. Such incidents affecting medical
centers have led to the interruption of computer networks and systems
that put patients' lives at an increased risk at a time when America
faces its most dire public health crisis in generations. And we have
seen criminal groups targeting critical infrastructure for ransom,
causing massive disruption to our daily lives.
We are also seeing dark web vendors who sell capabilities in
exchange for cryptocurrency increase the difficulty of stopping what
would once have been less dangerous offenders. What was once a ring of
unsophisticated criminals now has the tools to paralyze entire
hospitals, police departments, and businesses with ransomware. It is
not that individual hackers alone have necessarily become much more
sophisticated, but--unlike previously--they are able to rent
sophisticated capabilities.
We have to make it harder and more painful for hackers and
criminals to do what they are doing. That is why I announced a new FBI
cyber strategy last year, using the FBI's role as the lead Federal
agency with law enforcement and intelligence responsibilities to not
only pursue our own actions, but to work seamlessly with our domestic
and international partners to defend their networks, attribute
malicious activity, sanction bad behavior, and take the fight to our
adversaries overseas. We must impose consequences on cyber adversaries
and use our collective law enforcement and intelligence capabilities to
do so through joint and enabled operations sequenced for maximum
impact. And we must continue to work with the Department of State and
other key agencies to ensure that our foreign partners are able and
willing to cooperate in our efforts to bring the perpetrators of
cybercrime to justice.
An example of this approach is the international takedown in
January 2021 of the Emotet botnet, which enabled a network of cyber
criminals to cause hundreds of millions of dollars in damages to
government, educational, and corporate networks. The FBI used
sophisticated techniques, our unique legal authorities, and, most
importantly, our worldwide partnerships to significantly disrupt the
malware.
A few months ago, cybersecurity companies including Microsoft
disclosed that hackers were using previously unknown vulnerabilities
related to Microsoft Exchange software to access email servers that
companies physically keep on their premises rather than in the cloud.
These ``zero day'' vulnerabilities allowed the actors to potentially
exploit victim networks, engaging in activities such as grabbing login
credentials, installing malicious programs to send commands to the
victim network, and stealing emails in bulk. The FBI first put out a
joint advisory in partnership with the Department of Homeland
Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (``CISA'')
to give network defenders the technical information they needed to
mitigate the vulnerability. However, while many infected system owners
successfully removed the web shells others were not able to do so. That
left many systems vulnerable to adversaries who could continue to steal
information, encrypt data for ransom, or potentially even execute a
destructive attack. In response, through a court-authorized operation
in partnership with the private sector, we were able to copy and remove
malicious web shells from hundreds of vulnerable computers in the U.S.
running Microsoft Exchange Server software. This is another example of
how the FBI used its unique authorities, in this case, court-issued
legal process, and its partnerships with the private sector to have
tangible, real-world impact on the problem.
We took upwards of 1,100 actions against cyber adversaries last
year, including arrests, criminal charges, convictions, dismantlements,
and disruptions, and enabled many more actions through our dedicated
partnerships with the private sector, foreign partners, and at the
Federal, State, and local entities.
We have been putting a lot of energy and resources into all of
those partnerships, especially with the private sector. We are working
hard to push important threat information to network defenders, but we
have also been making it as easy as possible for the private sector to
share important information with us. For example, we are emphasizing to
the private sector how we keep our presence unobtrusive in the wake of
a breach; how we protect information that companies, and universities
share with us, and commit to providing useful feedback; and how we
coordinate with our government partners so that we are speaking with
one voice. But we need the private sector to do its part, too. We need
the private sector to come forward to warn us--and warn us quickly--
when they see malicious cyber activity. We also need the private sector
to work with us when we warn them that they are being targeted. The
recent examples of significant cyber incident--SolarWinds, HAFNIUM, the
pipeline incident--only emphasize what I have been saying for a long
time: The government cannot protect against cyber threats on its own.
We need a whole-of-society approach that matches the scope of the
danger. There is really no other option for defending a country where
nearly all of our critical infrastructure, personal data, intellectual
property, and network infrastructure sits in private hands.
In summary, the FBI is engaged in a myriad of efforts to combat
cyber threats, from improving threat identification and information
sharing inside and outside of the government to developing and
retaining new talent, to examining the way we operate to disrupt and
defeat these threats. We take all potential threats to public and
private sector systems seriously and will continue to investigate and
hold accountable those who pose a threat in cyberspace. The fiscal year
2022 request includes 155 positions (including 52 Special Agents, 57
Intelligence Analysts, and 46 Professional Staff) and $40.0 million to
enhance cyber information-sharing abilities and increase cyber tools
and capacities. The Request also includes 22 positions and $15.23
million to help protect internal FBI networks.
Foreign Influence
Our Nation is confronting multifaceted foreign threats seeking to
both influence our national policies and public opinion, and cause harm
to our national dialogue. The FBI and our interagency partners remain
concerned about, and focused on, the covert and overt influence
measures used by certain adversaries in their attempts to sway U.S.
voters' preferences and perspectives, shift U.S. policies, increase
discord in the United States, and undermine the American people's
confidence in our democratic processes.
Foreign influence operations--which include subversive, undeclared,
coercive, and criminal actions by foreign governments to influence U.S.
political sentiment or public discourse or interfere in our processes
themselves--are not a new problem. But the interconnectedness of the
modern world, combined with the anonymity of the Internet, have changed
the nature of the threat and how the FBI and its partners must address
it. Foreign influence operations have taken many forms and used many
tactics over the years. Most widely reported these days are attempts by
adversaries--hoping to reach a wide swath of Americans covertly from
outside the United States--to use false personas and fabricated stories
on social media platforms to discredit U.S. individuals and
institutions.
The FBI is the lead Federal agency responsible for investigating
foreign influence operations. In the fall of 2017, we established the
Foreign Influence Task Force (``FITF'') to identify and counteract
malign foreign influence operations targeting the United States. The
FITF is led by the Counterintelligence Division and is comprised of
agents, analysts, and professional staff from the Counterintelligence,
Cyber, Counterterrorism, and Criminal Investigative Divisions. It is
specifically charged with identifying and combating foreign influence
operations targeting democratic institutions and values inside the
United States. In all instances, the FITF strives to protect democratic
institutions; develop a common operating picture; raise adversaries'
costs; and reduce their overall asymmetric advantage.
The FITF brings the FBI's national security and traditional
criminal investigative expertise under one umbrella to prevent foreign
influence in our elections. This better enables us to frame the threat,
to identify connections across programs, to aggressively investigate as
appropriate, and--importantly--to be more agile. Coordinating closely
with our partners and leveraging relationships we have developed in the
technology sector, we had several instances where we were able to
quickly relay threat indicators that those companies used to take swift
action, blocking budding abuse of their platforms.
Following the 2018 midterm elections, we reviewed the threat and
the effectiveness of our coordination and outreach. As a result of this
review, we further expanded the scope of the FITF. Previously, our
efforts to combat malign foreign influence focused solely on the threat
posed by Russia. Utilizing lessons learned since 2018, the FITF widened
its aperture to confront malign foreign operations of China, Iran, and
other global adversaries. To address this expanding focus and wider set
of adversaries and influence efforts, we have also added resources to
maintain permanent ``surge'' capability on election and foreign
influence threats.
These additional resources were also devoted to working with U.S.
Government partners on two documents regarding the U.S. Government's
analysis of foreign efforts to influence or interfere with the 2020
Election. The reports are separate but complementary. The first
report--referred to as the 1a report and authored by the Office of the
Director of National Intelligence--outlines the intentions of foreign
adversaries with regard to influencing and interfering in the election
but does not evaluate impact. The second report--referred to as the 1b
report and authored by the Department of Justice, including the FBI,
and Department of Homeland Security, including the CISA--evaluates the
impact of foreign government activity on the security or integrity of
election infrastructure or infrastructure pertaining to political
organizations, candidates, or campaigns.\2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ These reports are required by sections 1(a) and 1(b) of
Executive Order 13,848.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The main takeaway from both reports is there is no evidence--not
through intelligence collection on the foreign actors themselves, not
through physical security and cybersecurity monitoring of voting
systems across the country, not through post-election audits, and not
through any other means--that a foreign government or other actors
compromised election infrastructure to manipulate election results.
While the 2020 election is over, the FBI will not stop working with
our partners to impose costs on adversaries who have or are seeking to
influence or interfere in our elections.
The fiscal year 2022 request includes 28 positions (including 7
Special Agents, 4 Intelligence Analysts, and 17 Professional Staff) and
$18.8 million to help combat the threats posed by foreign, and
potentially hostile, intelligence services and other foreign government
actors.
criminal threats
We face many criminal threats, from complex white-collar fraud in
the financial, healthcare, and housing sectors to transnational and
regional organized criminal enterprises to violent crime and public
corruption. Criminal organizations--domestic and international--and
individual criminal activity represent a significant threat to our
security and safety in communities across the Nation.
Violent Crime
Violent crimes and gang activities exact a high toll on individuals
and communities. Many of today's gangs are sophisticated and well
organized, and use violence to control neighborhoods and boost their
illegal money-making activities, which include robbery, drug and gun
trafficking, fraud, extortion, and prostitution rings. These gangs do
not limit their illegal activities to single jurisdictions or
communities. The FBI is able to work across such lines, which is vital
to the fight against violent crime in big cities and small towns across
the Nation. Every day, FBI special agents work in partnership with
Federal, State, local, and Tribal officers and deputies on joint task
forces and individual investigations.
Similar to the FBI's work combatting gangs, the FBI also
investigates the most serious crimes in Indian Country--such as murder,
child sexual and physical abuse, violent assaults, drug trafficking,
public corruption, financial crimes, and Indian gaming violations. As
you are aware, there are 574 federally recognized American Indian
Tribes in the United States, and the FBI has Federal law enforcement
responsibility on nearly 200 Indian reservations. This Federal
jurisdiction is shared concurrently with the Bureau of Indian Affairs
(``BIA''), Office of Justice Services; the FBI works very closely with
BIA and other Federal, State, and Tribal partners across the United
States on crimes in Indian Country.
Recently, the FBI's work in Indian Country in Oklahoma increased
significantly due to the July 9, 2020, Supreme Court ruling in McGirt
v. Oklahoma, which determined that the territorial boundaries of the
Muscogee Creek Nation (``MCN'') fall under Federal Indian Country
jurisdiction, making the FBI the responsible law enforcement agency for
offenses committed by or victimizing a Tribal member. The principles of
the McGirt decision also apply to the status of the Cherokee,
Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminole Tribal territories in Oklahoma.
Combined, all five reservation territories encompass approximately
32,000 square miles, or 45 percent of the State of Oklahoma. The total
population within the combined borders is roughly 1.9 million, of which
approximately 420,000 are enrolled Tribal members.
This increase in FBI jurisdiction poses significant and long-term
operational and public safety risks given the challenges associated
with the increased number of violent criminal cases now under Federal
jurisdiction within Oklahoma's IC territory. Since this decision, the
FBI's Oklahoma City Field Office (``OC'') has seen a drastic increase
in the total number of Indian Country investigations and now has the
FBI's largest investigative responsibility. From July 9, 2020 to March
23, 2021, FBI OC opened nearly 1,000 Indian Country investigations
(most of them adopted from previous State actions), prioritizing cases
involving the most violent offenders who pose the most serious risk to
the public. As a point of comparison, the FBI's other 55 Field Offices
opened a combined total of 1,255 IC investigations during the same
period, with FBI Minneapolis, the next largest Indian Country office
behind FBI OC, opening over 300 cases. This workload data primarily
represents the cases from the MCN reservation alone; this workload is
expected to increase substantially given the additions of the Cherokee
and Chickasaw reservations in mid-March and the Choctaw and Seminole
reservations in April. The FBI is anticipating 2,500 new cases next
year and approximately 5,000 adopted cases from previously adjudicated
in Oklahoma State courts which were overturned either by McGirt or
subsequent Oklahoma court decisions applying McGirt.
To effectively conduct these investigations, the FBI has conducted
temporary duty (``TDY'') rotations of 140 Special Agents, Investigative
Analysts, Victims Specialists and other professional staff to the
Muskogee and Tulsa RAs, the offices most impacted by the decision. The
FBI has also expanded State, local, and Tribal participation on task
forces to 230 Task Force Officers from 32 agencies to assist with
initial response and investigative efforts. The U.S. Attorney's Offices
in the Eastern District of Oklahoma and the Northern District of
Oklahoma also increased their staffing. In order to support the U.S.
Attorneys' effective prosecution of these crimes, the FBI must have the
capability to sustain an enhanced presence in FBI OC. As such, the
fiscal year 2022 request includes $25.5 million to support the surge in
personnel to meet the immediate need, as the situation on the ground
continues to evolve. In addition, the fiscal year 2022 request includes
$6.2 million to fulfill the Department of Justice's October 2020,
policy on Use of Body-Worn Cameras by federally Deputized Task Force
Officers.
conclusion
Finally, the strength of any organization is its people. The
threats we face as a nation have never been greater or more diverse and
the expectations placed on the FBI have never been higher. Our fellow
citizens look to the FBI to protect the United States from all of those
threats, and the men and women of the FBI continue to meet and exceed
those expectations, every day. I want to thank them for their dedicated
service.
Chairwoman Shaheen, Ranking Member Moran, and Members of the
subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I am
happy to answer any questions you might have.
Senator Shaheen. Well, thank you very much. You pointed out
that both Senator Moran and I raised the ransomware attacks in
our opening remarks. It wasn't clear to me, looking at your
budget request, exactly where that was covered and whether you
feel like you have the resources that you need in order to
address this kind of activity. Can you just be specific about
where you are looking to get the resources and what you are
going to need?
Director Wray. Right. So our budget request, the
enhancements we requested include 155 positions and $40 million
for cyber. And a huge part of that will be going very much to
the ransomware campaign that we are working on. We did about
1,100 different kinds of disruption actions against cyber
adversaries last year, talking about arrests, criminal charges,
convictions, dismantlement, and disruptions. And I think on the
ransomware piece specifically, our strategy is to go after the
entire criminal ecosystem that exists there.
So not just the people demanding the ransomware, but all
the people who helped facilitate it. You know, the--we are
trying to go after the actors. We are trying to go after the
helpers. We are trying to go after their infrastructure. We are
trying to go after the money. You mentioned our efforts to
recover the cryptocurrency that was paid in ransom, so things
like that, but it has to be a cross the Government effort. Our
National Cyber Investigative Joint Task Force brings together
about 30 different agencies, all co-located together with an
effort to try to have more joint sequenced operations to
maximize impact.
We have got to take a little bit of our page out of the
counterterrorism strategy book, everybody working together,
focusing on prevention and disruption. And that is what we are
trying to do.
Senator Shaheen. Well, two related questions. There are
some people who suggest that we should outlaw payment for
ransomware attacks. Do you agree with that? And second, how do
we go after groups like in the Colonial Pipeline case where we
think they are operating out of Russia with full knowledge of
the Putin administration in Russia?
Director Wray. So our guidance to industry is not to pay
the ransom. And there is a whole host of reasons for that, but
the most important thing, the most important thing, because I
understand it is a difficult decision for victims to make. The
most important thing is that they reach out and connect with
law enforcement, with us as quickly and transparently as
possible. It is a little bit like the example--you know, we
encourage people when there is kidnappings of humans not to pay
the ransom. But you want to have, in effect, the cyber
equivalent of the FBI agent sitting there with the person
talking to the hostage taker, because there is all kinds of
things we can do to help ensure a happy ending to the
investigation if we are engaged early and transparently.
So that is the most important thing. But in general, we
would discourage paying the ransom because it encourages more
of these attacks, and frankly, there is no guarantee whatsoever
that you are going to get your data back, among other things.
Senator Shaheen. So do we need to think about changes,
legislative changes to address authorities for law enforcement
and the FBI on hacking incidents and ransomware incidents? I
remember several years ago we had proposed legislation that
never went anywhere that would have required reporting by
companies. Should we be looking at something like that again?
Director Wray. Well, I obviously don't want to get out in
front in terms of a specific legislative proposal. But I will
say that if we don't solve the riddle of how to get the private
sector promptly and transparently working with us, and more and
more companies, I should say, are doing that all the time. But
if we don't make that sort of the norm, we are going to have a
heck of a time winning this conflict, if you will. And so
anything that helps provide more incentive for that to happen,
I think is a step in the right direction.
Senator Shaheen. Good. I mentioned in my opening comments,
and we have discussed this before, what has been called the
Havana's syndrome. How involved is the FBI in the cooperative
effort in the administration to take a look at what's happening
with these attacks? Do you think--can these be classified as a
crime? And if so, how do we go after either the perpetrators or
allow victims to get restitution for what they have suffered?
Director Wray. So we are very much involved. We are working
closely under the auspices of the NSC with our interagency
partners, especially the CIA, DOD, the State Department and
others, and bringing what we can bring to the table. Our
highest priority, of course, is the protection and well-being,
the health and well-being of U.S. Government personnel.
We are making progress for sure, but we are not yet at a
point where we know the cause of the incidents and whether it
was an attack and if so, who did it, etcetera. I will tell you
that we are trying to be aggressive, and we are viewing all of
the U.S. Government personnel who have these symptoms, from our
perspective, they are victims. And we want to treat them as
potential victims. And they are our colleagues in the Federal
Government, so we care deeply about them.
Senator Shaheen. Thank you. Senator Moran.
Senator Moran. Chairman, thank you. Director, I recently
visited McAllen, Texas, where I met with your special agent in
charge of the San Antonio field office. He was able to brief me
on the counterintelligence threats to the area, specifically to
mainstream companies with a National Security or innovation
focus such as SpaceX. What I heard was disturbing, terribly
threatening, in my view, to the well-being of Americans and to
our economy. Director Wray, are you aware of those threats? And
what can you tell us in this unclassified setting about this
topic?
Director Wray. Well, I am very pleased that you were able
to meet with SCC Combs. It is a very high performing office
down there and they are dealing with some very challenging and
complex threats. And, of course, I have spoken in the past
about the very serious counterintelligence threats that I think
we face from our adversaries. And we have been very focused on
working with the private sector, specifically on the
counterintelligence front.
And as the U.S. moves more and more towards the private
sector in terms of space exploration, we need to support those
companies in much the same way, for example, we would support
NASA. And I think beyond that, it would probably be better for
me to arrange, you know, some kind of classified briefing for
you because I can't get in a whole lot more detail in an open
setting.
Senator Moran. Perhaps if it is okay with you, I will look
for a time for me to come to see you.
Director Wray. Okay, great. Thank you.
Senator Moran. Over the last two weeks, Axios has
extensively reported on massive fraud within the unemployment
insurance programs. The numbers are staggering. Experts suggest
that criminals may have stolen as much as half of the
unemployment benefits distributed over the last year,
fraudulent claims could reach $400 billion.
Alarmingly, the bulk of these funds appear to have been
stolen by foreign criminal syndicates, making this, Axios
observes, not just theft, but a matter of National Security.
Director, what is the FBI's best assessment of the extent of
unemployment insurance fraud over the last year, and how much
is believed to have been stolen by foreign criminal
organizations?
Director Wray. So we obviously share your concern. We have
seen a huge spike, huge spike in unemployment fraud cases and
investigations from COVID. By last count, and this is a rough
number, but by last count, I think we had about 800
unemployment fraud investigations and the vast majority of
those have some tie to the pandemic. As far as foreign criminal
involvement, we certainly are aware of a number of schemes and
scams, but I don't know that I have any kind of estimate of how
much of the overall loss comes from those kinds of actors. But
it is something that we are keenly attuned to.
And, of course, we are trying to take advantage of both all
56 of our field offices here, but also working with our legal
offices overseas, because they may be able to work with foreign
partners to help us pursue, you know, bad actors elsewhere and
their involvement.
Senator Moran. Director, thank you. I hope to have maybe
additional conversation in this regard as well. In September,
the FBI will release its annual data set on violent crimes in
the United States. That report will show what you have already
acknowledged publicly, a spike in serious violent crime in a
number of American cities, including significant increases in
murder and aggravated assaults. Kansas, unfortunately, has not
been immune.
The city of Wichita reported 59 homicides in 2020, the
highest total since 1993, and about one every 6 days. According
to Wichita Police Chief Gordon Ramsay, this trend has continued
into 2021. In your speech to the International Association of
Chiefs of Police last year, you acknowledge the FBI can play a
critical role in reducing that violent crime, including by
surging agents and other FBI resources to affected cities by
working together with State and local partners.
Director Wray, what is the FBI doing to address these
serious spikes in violent crime? And would you consider further
surges of personnel and resources to those affected
communities?
Director Wray. So we absolutely are concerned about the
rise in violent crime, specifically the most dangerous type of
violent crime, namely the homicide rate all over the country.
And key to that is partnership. We are bringing our resources
to bear through our 170 or so safe streets task forces, our 50
or so violent crime task forces. So you are talking about 500,
give or take, you know, FBI agents plus task force officers.
You know, I think we did 6,500 violent crime arrests amidst the
worst of the pandemic.
So you are talking about 14 a day. You know, we are also
trying to contribute in other ways through NICS, making sure
that guns don't get in the hands of the people legally
prohibited from having them. Our tip line, our lab supporting
State and locals. And we have, to your point about surging
resources, we have recently created a new violent crime rapid
deployment team, at headquarters, the purpose of which--run out
of headquarters, I should say, the purpose of which is to be
able to surge to sort of crisis situations.
I know that in Kansas City in that--I don't mean Kansas
City, the city, but the division, we had 140 gang arrests and
200 something violent crime arrests last year. And I remember I
think we spoke once about the, in Wichita, there was a gang,
the junior boy violent gang that, you know, that one takedown
largely dismantled a long running a gang in Wichita, you know,
20, say 25 arrests, seizing guns, drugs, money and so forth. So
we are going to be trying to do more and more of that wherever
we can.
Senator Moran. Director, I thank you and the Kansas City
FBI bureau for their attention to Kansas communities, Kansas
City and Wichita in particular. My time has expired. I would
just say to the Director, I also am the Ranking Member of the
Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs. It is meeting at the same
time. My absence from time to time today will not be a
reflection on my lack of interest in what you have to say.
Senator Shaheen. Thank you, Senator Moran. Senator
Feinstein.
Senator Feinstein. Thanks very much, Madam Chairman. I
watched the CNN show Sunday night on January 6, and it has been
nearly 6 months since the capital was attacked, and I think we
still lack a clear picture of the FBI's understanding of the
threat in the days leading up to the attack. The Post reported
in January that dozens of individuals listed in the terrorist
screening database traveled to Washington before the Capitol
attack. The FBI's Washington field office, I understand, stated
that the bureau disrupted the travel of a number of individuals
who were planning to travel to D.C., ``with intentions to cause
violence.''
It is my understanding that you testified last week to the
House Oversight Committee that, ``none of those people had
indicated an intention to attack the Capitol.'' As you look at
this now in perspective, Director Wray, could you clarify for
us what the FBI knew and what it didn't know before the attack
took place?
Director Wray. Well, I guess the first thing I would say
about the facts leading up to January 6 is because of all the
investigations we are doing right now, we are continuing to
learn all sorts of things post January 6. And sometimes there
gets to be a little bit of conflation about information that we
are developing through those hundreds of cases with information
that we had before. So I just want to put that out there in
front, because I am sure there will be, continue to be news
coverage of different sorts as we move forward. I think what I
would say is that before January 6, we were, to my knowledge,
aware that there would be large numbers of individuals coming
to D.C. to participate in protests, protests, and that we had
some information that gave us concerns about the potential for
violence more generally. There is, of course, this Norfolk
report, which has gotten a lot of attention, which was a one
piece of information that was raw and unverified and
unattributed.
And we passed that three different ways as quickly as
possible shortly after getting it. What we did not have, to my
knowledge at least, is intelligence indicating that hundreds
and hundreds of people were going to breach the Capitol
complex. That to my knowledge, we did not have that. You
mentioned these individuals that we interviewed or disrupted
before January 6. I think there is a little bit of garble in
maybe some of the news reporting. So I can't speak to the
specific article that you were citing, but just in general,
what we are talking about there are a handful of small number
of individuals who were previously predicated subjects of
investigations who were approached in one way or another,
interviewed or in some other way disrupted from traveling.
I want to be clear, though, there is a big difference
between people indicating that they might travel to D.C. and
people indicating they might travel to D.C. to commit a violent
attack, much less a violent attack against the Capitol, which
is not my understanding of what those individuals revealed
beforehand.
Senator Feinstein. I think many of us are trying to
understand and not to criticize as much as to be able to
correct our systems. The number of people, and if you watch the
CNN show Sunday night, which went on and was very graphic,
there was no question when you really had pictures of who was
there and what they were doing, that people came with an intent
to do what they did. And I have never really been able to get a
clear picture of what is--what was known and what wasn't known,
because what I saw on television Sunday night was something I
have never seen before in this country like that. And it was
shocking.
Director Wray. Well, we consider the whole event shocking
and appalling, and we are absolutely determined to make sure
that we do our part to make sure it never happens again. So I
want to be crystal clear on that. I think you know something--
one thing that gets a little bit lost sometimes is that even
though we have had hundreds and hundreds of domestic terrorism
investigations ongoing, actually very, very few, almost none of
the people who we have arrested since January 6, for January 6
were people----
Senator Feinstein. How many people did you arrest--have
been arrested?
Director Wray. I think we have got around well, I think it
is a little over 500 arrests now, once you include, and there
are a few that have been done by some of our partners as well.
So the FBI's arrests are close to 500. And then when you add in
the partners, it is a little over 500. And I want to be clear,
we have got hundreds more investigations still ongoing.
And we expect in many cases we will have even more serious
charges against some of the people we already have charged. So
this is far from over. And with each arrest and each case we
bring, not only are we driving towards accountability for the
attack, but we are also learning more about what was out there
beforehand so that we can use that to get better going forward.
Senator Feinstein. Well, it was pretty clear from the
footage I saw Sunday night that a lot was out there. They came
with intent now proving it is another story, but this was an
eye opener for me as I watched that show, and I think it is
really important that we understand not to criticize it is
over, but to know what to do to prevent that from ever
happening again.
Director Wray. Well, I agree that absolutely we want to do
our part and I haven't seen the particular CNN show that you
are talking about, but certainly we are looking at things like
how can we develop better sources? How can we get better with
data analytics for the volumes of information that we get? How
can we deal with the encryption issue, which I know is
something you and I have spoken about in the past? And that is
very much a phenomenon with this threat, because a lot of the
most significant and revealing communications between these
actors, and we saw it related to the January 6 people now that
we are investigating, and we saw it over the summer with some
of the attackers in those events, it is through encrypted
messaging communications. And we have got to figure out a
solution to that.
Senator Feinstein. Thank you.
Senator Shaheen. Thank you, Senator Feinstein. Senator
Graham.
Senator Graham. Thank you, Directory Wray. And please pass
on all of our respect for what you and your agents and support
personnel do. It seems to me you got a pretty full plate. Is
that fair to say?
Director Wray. It certainly feels full.
Senator Graham. Okay. If Senator Moran is right, which I am
sure he is, when you look at personnel cost increases and
generally cost of doing business, most of the increases
requested about 65 percent go to that and $150 million left for
new programs. Do you agree with that, new capabilities?
Director Wray. Well, I think sometimes I have a little bit
of a hard time in this format tracking all the numbers. I think
one of the, one of the challenges is that last year's budget
had a significant number of enhancements, but at the same time,
also a bunch of reductions to the base. So it is like giveth
with one hand, taketh away with the other.
Senator Graham. If the subcommittee decided to say increase
by $100 million your budget, could you spend it wisely?
Director Wray. I can assure you that any money that this
subcommittee thinks sees fit to give, I promise it will be put
to good use.
Senator Graham. Good. I believe you. So there is a record
number, in certain jurisdictions and really a trend all over
the country, of retirements by police officers and recruiting
problems. Are you familiar with this?
Director Wray. Very much so.
Senator Graham. What do you think is causing this?
Director Wray. I think this is a very, very challenging
time for the law enforcement.
Senator Graham. Have you ever known a more challenging time
since you have been in the business?
Director Wray. I have not.
Senator Graham. Okay, what can we do to deal with it?
Director Wray. I think it starts with a recognition that it
takes an incredibly special person to get up in the morning and
put his or her life on the line for a total stranger. And then
when you stop and think about how few people are willing to do
that, think about how many people are willing to do that every
single day for an entire career. And so I think it starts with
a level of gratitude and respect for those people.
Senator Graham. Is this a fair statement that police
reform, I think, is necessary, better training, better
standards, more exposure to departments for the conduct of the
officers legally, but at the same time a deeper appreciation
for the job that police officers do? Do you agree that those
two things are not inconsistent?
Director Wray. I would. I would agree with that.
Senator Graham. Okay. And I hope we can deliver there. In
terms of the crime wave that we are facing, increase in murders
particularly, the administration is going to announce a five
point program today to deal with the rise in crime. Were you
consulted by the administration in that program?
Director Wray. Well, we--yes, we are working with the
Justice Department through our piece of it. I am not--I haven't
seen the announcement itself, but the----
Senator Graham. Do you know what the five point plan is?
Director Wray. I don't--I know our part.
Senator Graham. Okay. What is your part?
Director Wray. So we are working with the Department on
something called Project Safe Neighborhoods, which is a revival
of an effort that you may remember from the Bush
administration, frankly. And it is a multipoint plan geared
towards attacking gun violence all across the country. And so
the FBI working with all of our partners on that.
Senator Graham. Do you believe that one of the reasons
crime is on the rise is that certain jurisdictions have
basically eliminated bail? You catch them on Monday morning,
and they are out on the streets Monday afternoon?
Director Wray. Well, I do think there are a lot of causes,
but I think one of the causes of the violent crime spike are
certain kinds of prosecution practices----
Senator Graham. We are not prosecuting enough people and we
are sending a signal that maybe you can rob or loot a store and
get away with it and it sort of escalates. Is that fair to say?
Director Wray. Well, I guess I would put it this way. I
think there is nothing more disheartening to a law enforcement
officer to see somebody that you worked hard to arrest promptly
back out, committing a crime again. There is enough people to
go after the first time, without the same person over and over
again.
Senator Graham. I totally agree. That is the problem. I
hope we will deal with it. When it comes to Russia, Dark Side
is supposedly responsible for the Colonial Pipeline attack and
Revil--Ravil, the attack on JBS meat processing attack. Both
these are Russian speaking criminal organizations. Do you
believe it is possible that they could operate in Russia
without Putin's Government knowing about it?
Director Wray. So many things I would like to say.
[Laughter.]
Senator Graham. This is the chance to say it.
Director Wray. Yes, well--well, let me say this. You
mentioned Darkside. The other organization you are talking
about is, goes by the name are R-Evil.
Senator Graham. Yes, I am sorry.
Director Wray. Aptly named. I think what I would say is
this, over and over again----
Senator Graham. We are policy makers, I know my time is up,
we have got to make a decision eventually, how to respond to
Russia. We have had to cyber terrorism attacks emanating from
Russian speaking criminal enterprises. I think all of us
believe it is impossible for these people to operate in Russia
without some acknowledgment by the--some support by the
Government or at least a lack of action on their part. We got
to make a decision. Would we be irresponsible in assuming that
Putin is giving cover these groups and the only way things will
change is for him to pay a price for giving that cover? Or is
that illogical on our part?
Director Wray. I think the Russian government has a lot of
room for improvement on this subject. Let me just leave it at
that.
Senator Shaheen. Thank you, Senator Graham. Very
diplomatic, Director Wray. Senator Reed.
Senator Reed. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman, and
thank you, Director, for your service and the service and
sacrifice of so many of your men and women in the FBI. January
6 was a disheartening moment. And I am wildly understating
that. There was an ad hoc response which relied a great deal on
the National Guard and other police elements. We are looking
forward now, as we should, to a more coherent response if the
situation occurs again.
And as an alternative to the National Guard, I think and I
like your comments, if we could put together a Federal, State,
local law enforcement group that is trained as integrated, is
compensated, and is coordinated for such an event with the
participation of the Bureau in key areas, would that be more
effective than summoning the Guard from everywhere?
Director Wray. Well, I certainly would say it this way. I
certainly understand the attraction of having a law enforcement
kind of ready to deploy type of force. We have worked very well
with the National Guard, but there are challenges that they
face, you know, in their ability to deploy. Not on the FBI
side, just to be clear. You know, we don't and really never
have in our 113 year history really done crowd control or
static defense or things like that. So we don't really have the
skills, the training, and the equipment to do that part of it.
What we do have are overseen by our critical incident response
group.
We have things like our hostage rescue team which can
deploy in certain situations. We have crisis negotiators. We
have aerial surveillance in certain instances, you know, things
like that that we can lend to the effort. But I think most of
what you are talking about would ultimately be more on the
shoulders of other agencies. I want to be careful not to speak
for them.
Senator Reed. No, but I think you have critical elements
that you could engage, and they would have to rehearse,
practice, etcetera. So I don't--I think one of the lessons is,
ad hoc is not that good when you are facing a mob of folks. The
other aspect here too is, just for the record, the National
Guard still waiting to get paid hundreds of millions of
dollars, which could affect their training this summer. So for
all my colleagues, if you could urge everyone to pay the
National Guard that would be useful. One of the most difficult
issues that you face in your intelligence capacity is trying to
recognize, respect First Amendment rights to communicate freely
with your responsibility to monitor what is going on the web.
Can you give us an idea of how you make that call? I presume
you have active--well, let me not presume, do you have active
sort of intelligence agents that are going through the web and
trying to identify?
Director Wray. So this is a complicated topic. I will try
to do my best to give sort of a shorthand version. But there
may be nuances that get lost in the description. So what we--
there are long standing policies that go back, you know, 10, 15
plus years, the Attorney General guidelines, as implemented by
something called the DIAG, which are all designed to tell us
what we can and cannot do, especially when it implicates civil
liberties and so forth, and that--there is parts of it that
deal with social media.
And so what we can do depends on whether or not we have
got--what level of predication we have and whether we have got
an authorized purpose. We do get all kinds of tips and leads
from the public, from partners of all shapes and sizes, some of
which include things on social media. And we pursue those in
whatever way we can under those policies. What we don't do, and
some people, I think are confused about this, what we don't do
is just have people sitting there, at least without proper
predication and an authorized purpose, just kind of monitoring
somebody's, you know, Internet traffic and trying to see if
there is something there just in case. That we don't currently
do.
Now, in theory, somebody could look at the policies and
decide that the balance needs to be struck a little
differently. There is all kinds of considerations that go into
that. But to give a really fulsome answer to your question
would probably require a much longer discussion.
Senator Reed. I think it probably would require a law
review article at least. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Senator Shaheen. Thank you, Senator Reed. Senator Hagerty.
Senator Hagerty. Thank you, Madam Chair. Director Wray, I
want to thank you for your long service to our Nation. Very
much appreciate it. The first topic I would like to cover with
you has to do with the morale of the FBI. I had the great honor
of serving and working with a great FBI team in my previous
position as ambassador to Japan. Your rank and file are
patriotic and honorable men and women who I am certain wake up
every day looking at how they can best serve the United States
of America. But over the past 5 years, I think the reputation
of the FBI has really come under challenge. We have seen a
presidential candidate spied upon in 2016. We have seen
headquarter investigators using blatant political bias as they
pursue investigations.
And I think that really has called into question America's
confidence in the agency. I know it is disheartening to the men
and women that serve at the FBI who came to serve their Nation,
not to pick sides in a presidential battle. I am interested in,
and I know you are working hard on this, but what are you
doing, what are you undertaking to restore America's confidence
and the confidence of the men and women that work for you in
the agency as a nonpartisan, and an unbiased, nonpolitical
institution?
Director Wray. So I have a lot to say on this subject.
First, I will stack our workforce up against any workforce,
anywhere, any time. A lot of the press coverage and discussion
has been based on essentially two investigations over about an
18 month period involving a small number of people. And we are
an organization of 37,000 people. It has been around for 113
years doing thousands and thousands of investigations every
year. And what I see, what I hear from the American people
themselves is a resounding, even consistent appreciation and
respect for what our folks do. The hundreds of--we speak,
through our work, to hundreds of kids we have saved, the
terrorist attacks we have disrupted, the scores of violent
gangs, COVID fraudsters, Chinese spies, etcetera. And I say
that from having visited all 56 of our field offices, most of
them more than once, met with law enforcement partners from all
50 States and over 50 countries, spoken with judges,
prosecutors, private sector leaders, community leaders,
victims, and their families. And the refrain I get is very
different from what is in a lot of the news coverage.
Now, I will give you a bright spot, because I know you care
about our workforce. Our attrition rate is 0.4 percent. And you
would be hard pressed to find an organization out there, public
or private, with an attrition rate that low. Second, our
recruiting, that is the number of Americans all across this
country, including every State represented in this
subcommittee, applying to be special agents, so expressing
their view of the FBI through their feet by trying to sign up
and put their lives on the line, working with us for an entire
career has tripled, triple what it was when I started this
show.
Senator Hagerty. That is very encouraging.
Director Wray. And that is through the pandemic. And to me,
that speaks volumes about what Americans everywhere actually
think about the FBI.
Senator Hagerty. And I think, you know, that this
subcommittee stands behind you as well. And we want to see this
budget deployed in a way that continues to support the morale
and the patriotic men and women that work for you. And I think
that speaks volumes, the statistics that you went through. And
like you, I have a lot to say and feel about this as well,
because I think it is a great agency that you run. And I want
to see the pristine image of the agency restored once again and
appreciate your leadership in that direction. If I could turn
right now to another area, this is having to do with a
significant increase in crime that we saw in 2020. And again,
another surge in crime that is underway right now. Homicide
rates up 30 percent last year, another 25 percent this year.
Back in 2020, Operation Legend was put into play.
Sadly, Operation Legend was named for a 4 year old boy who
was killed by a stray bullet in Kansas City. That operation led
to the arrest of some 6,000 criminals, the confiscation of 17
kilos of fentanyl that are killing our kids every day. In light
of the surge that is underway yet again in crime, why is it
that Operation Legend was brought to an end in December of
2020?
Director Wray. I can't--you know, Operation Legend was
something that was run by the Justice Department, so I probably
would leave that part to the Justice Department. Certainly I
agree with you that I think it was a big success. It probably
was not a sustainable effort, you know, in perpetuity, given
the way in which we were all--such a surging resources from all
over. We are I mentioned, I think, in response to Senator
Moran's question, that on our end, we have recently created
this violent crime rapid deployment team, which is an effort to
take a little bit of the idea behind Legend and make that
available.
But that is really--that is not going to be a complete
answer in its own right. And I think you are exactly right that
this is a topic that cannot be overlooked in the middle of
everything else that is going on, because I think most
Americans right now, the security threat they are most
concerned about is violent crime.
Senator Hagerty. Yes. Well, thank you for leadership in
that direction, Director Wray. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Senator Shaheen. Thank you. Senator Leahy, and Chairman of
the Appropriations Committee.
Senator Leahy. Thank you very much. Director, always good
to see you. And thank you for being here. I think we could all
talk about how much we appreciate what the men and women of the
FBI do and truly mean it. Several of your predecessors worked
with me and worked with the FBI both in Vermont and down here,
and I do appreciate their skill and dedication. With all these
wild conspiracy theories going on about the insurrection on
January 6, all of which have tried to portray the attack on the
Capitol as anything but a violent assault by domestic
extremists on the heart of democracy, even though everybody who
was here saw that is exactly what it was. You have debunked
some of these theories when we last spoke in March when you
testified in the Judiciary Committee.
It seems a new crop of excuses and conspiracy theories have
come up since you testified before the House Oversight
Committee. So let me give you another opportunity to discredit
the dangerously bogus claims have been floating around about
the January 6 attack, particularly those that are relating to
the FBI's involvement in the attack.
Let me just ask you directly, did anyone in the Trump White
House ever encourage or direct you or anyone in your staff to
downplay the potential threat of violence in January 6, when
Congress was scheduled to take our constitutionally mandated
presidential vote count?
Director Wray. No.
Senator Leahy. I will take that elaborate answer as a no,
and I appreciate it. The FBI is responsible for investigating
Federal election crimes such as voter suppression that
intentionally target minority protected classes.
The growing wave of voter suppression laws in dozens of
States raise serious concerns. What are you doing with the FBI
to prepare for the upcoming elections in which many of us
expect to see unprecedented level of voter suppression?
Director Wray. So we are doing a few different things. We
have election crime coordinators in every field office, and of
course they focus on the full manner of types of election
crimes. And they are all well connected with each other and
through our criminal investigative division. Voter suppression
specifically when we get involved is more through our civil
rights program. And so we work closely with the Justice
Department, both the Civil Rights Division and the U.S.
Attorney Offices on that. In addition, you may remember from
our past engagements that we created, I created the Foreign
Influence Task Force early on in my tenure. And although that
is focused on foreign influence, of course, we are concerned
about foreign influence, malign foreign influence that could in
turn have a sort of surreptitious effect on voter suppression.
So we are coming out at that piece of it as well.
Senator Leahy. And as you know, I supported you when you
formed that. Do you need further resources? Now here is your
chance. It is not only--asking you, I am asking you as Chairman
of the Committee, do you need further resources in this area?
Director Wray. We are busier than we ever have been. And I
can assure you that if the Congress sees fit to send us more
resources on this, I can--I am quite confident that it will be
put to good use.
Senator Leahy. I thought that was probably so. My last
question is on NICS, the national incident criminal background
check. Last year, you processed nearly 40 million firearm
background checks, only about 20 million so far this year.
Congress provided you $179 million in emergency funding to help
address the increased workload of gun background checks. How is
that been utilized? Is it enough?
Director Wray. So we have been able to put it to use and we
are very grateful for it. Because of the uptick in the
operational tempo out there to hire more personnel and to make
system improvements, that funding was, as I recall, essentially
a 2 year funding, which explains why we didn't have more of
that in this budget request. But make no mistake, the pace that
we are on, we will be needing more of that in the future for
sure, because right now we are having to pull personnel from
other critical functions to help out and do things like pay
mandatory overtime just to be able to kind of triage the
situation. So long term, we are absolutely going to need more
resources, both for personnel out there and for systems
improvements.
Senator Leahy. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Senator Shaheen. Thank you. Senator Capito.
Senator Capito. Thank you. Thank you, Director Wray. And
thank you to all of your--those in the FBI. We thank them from
the bottom our hearts for everything that they do every day.
And I want to thank Chairman Leahy for teeing me up for this,
because when you said out there, out there is in Clarksburg,
West Virginia, where they run the background checks at--on the
NICS system. And one of the statistics, Senator Leahy, said
almost 20 million already this year, but we had the highest May
ever of 3,222,105 background checks, which is an amazing--so I
am happy to hear, and I want to be as supportive as we possibly
can be through this Committee to help you with the resources
that you need.
So I am going to ask a different question rather than tout
what a great job they do out in Clarksburg, because we both
know that. And we have heard about the rise in crime over the
last 2 years, particularly this summer, seems to be
particularly troublesome. What do you--do you correlate any of
that with the rising number of firearm purchases? What--how do
you all analyze that at the FBI, the rising number of
background checks that are being performed in terms of
purchases?
Director Wray. Well, I don't know that we have been able
to--settle on one specific factor, but certainly there have
been a number of factors that drive, I think, the spike in
violent crime. So COVID had a huge impact. You are talking
about everything from trial backlogs, early releases, you know,
unemployment, et cetera.
We have more juveniles committing violent crime and there
is all kinds of challenges in our legal system for dealing with
them. I mentioned response to, I think, Senator Graham's
question, certain prosecution practices and decrease sentences.
I think that has an effect. The prevalence of firearms in the
wrong hands is certainly an issue as well, especially gun
trafficking across State lines. And things like--these are all
things that I think collectively contribute to the problem.
Senator Capito. Yes, I mean, I think the rise also is
obviously, if you are going to legally purchase and go through
a background check, it is probably in response to a rising
criminal element for a defense. I mean, more people are feeling
defenseless, more people are home more and feel like there may
be making those purchases to protect them and their families.
So I thank you for making sure those are getting safely into
those hands. I want to talk about cyber-attacks. I asked the
same question to Secretary Blinken and Attorney General Garland
about ransomware. It is a particularly interesting to me
because it is a semi-new phenomenon and none of it is--it is
every article you read, it is not really sure or know how to
handle it and what to do, and that it is a global issue as
well.
And so I am interested to know if you are working with your
global partners on how to address ransomware. And then you read
from time to time what the different advice is. Pay the ransom,
don't pay the ransom. Are you--how are you all addressing that?
I mean, is that something that you--I don't know that you give
advice, but you would, you know, for a large breach like the
Colonial Pipeline, certainly have to be involved with that. And
how you are seeing ransomware. We know it is going to get
worse. And so I suppose that is why the cyber part of your
budget is going to be increased, and that would be the area
that you would look at the ransomware issue. Am I correct in
assuming that?
Director Wray. Certainly the part of the cyber enhancement
request, ransomware, is a huge component of that. It is going
to go to all the different kinds of cyber intrusions, or
certain nations. You know, something like Solar Winds would
also be the kind of thing that would be addressed through that
enhancement. But ransomware, I think, has become particularly
challenging because we have seen the total volume of money
paid, I think triple, you know, over the last year or so.
Higher and higher ransoms, more sophisticated attacks.
We are talking about ransomware as a service, which the
Colonial Pipeline case illustrated, where sophisticated
developers of ransomware then basically outsource it to less
sophisticated actors, which just expands the problem and the
availability of the technique. And they are also now more and
more engaging in sort of a mix of both the locking up of the
system and the exfiltration and leaking or extortion that way
as well. As far as guidance to victims, our guidance is, don't
pay the ransom. But let me say this, I understand that it is a
hard decision for a company or a municipal Government or
whatever it happens to be the make. And the one thing that I
think is most important by far is that whether they pay or
don't pay, they get in touch with us right away early on.
Because when they do, there is all kinds of things that we can
do. In the Colonial Pipeline case, for example, we were, as has
been reported, able to essentially seize and confiscate some of
the ransom, a lot of the ransom and to hit the bad guys right
where it hurts.
In other cases, it is not all the time, but it does happen,
sometimes through other work we have done, we might have the
decryption key and be able to help the company unlock their
data without having to pay the ransom. Best of both worlds. So
there is a lot of things we can do. But we can't do as much if
we are not coordinated with early.
But our strategy has to be whole of Government working with
the private sector, working with foreign partners, as you
mentioned, because invariably these actors are overseas. Going
after the actors, going after their helpers, going after their
infrastructure, going after their money. So it is a
comprehensive type of approach.
Senator Capito. Well, we want to be, again, as supportive
as we can because this is a growing problem. Thank you.
Director Wray. Thank you.
Senator Shaheen. Thank you. Senator Capito. Before I call
on Senator Braun, we just had a vote called. My intent, unless
someone else shows up for the subcommittee, is to go ahead and
ask Senator Braun and Senator Kennedy for their questioning and
then to end the hearing. So just so everybody understands where
we are going. Senator Braun.
Senator Braun. Thank you, Madam Chair. In court
submissions, the FBI has noted that it had--trouble. That is
Okay. FBI had prior knowledge that there were going to--might
be trouble on that day, and some of it was pretty stark. My
question is, was there any plan that you were going to
implement based upon that information being out there prior to
what occurred on the 6? Was there a plan in place that you had
ready to go should things unfurl the wrong way?
Director Wray. Well, we had a couple of things. We had
prepositioned tactical response unit, SWAT teams from the
national capital region to be available, if called upon by our
partners who are responsible for the security of the Capitol
complex, or attacks elsewhere in the national capital region.
Because we didn't have, as I said before, intelligence to my
knowledge that indicated that they were going to be hundreds
and hundreds of people trying to storm and siege the Capitol.
So we had prepositioned tactical resources. We had command
posts that we stood up both in the Washington field office and
at headquarters in our SIOC that we were running the day before
to--and the purpose of those, the reason those are important
because you have got all these other agencies and partners with
people there too, and the idea is to make sure that everybody
is getting the same information, you know, as quickly as
possible, and that is the goal of that.
So those are some of the things that we were doing
beforehand. And we, of course, had put out different kinds of
intelligence products, essentially bulletins and things like
that over the course of the year leading up to January 6. So
those are a few of the things that we were doing.
Senator Braun. Did you share all that information with the
Capitol Police along the way and especially leading up to when
you started to see more traffic online?
Director Wray. Well, I am not aware of any pertinent
information we didn't share, but I know that we--these
intelligence products I was listing, of course, those would
have gone not just to the Capitol Police, but to MPD and all
the other partners as well. The--to the extent that we had sort
of late breaking raw information, there has been a lot of
discussion about this information from our Norfolk Field
office, that was something that we passed on to our partners,
including and in particular the Capitol Police, in three
different ways. Now, that was raw, unverified information.
But in the abundance of caution, we thought we would better
get it to people as quickly as possible. And then this command
post part of it is so important because that is where having
been in these command posts, you know, every 30 minutes there
is a briefing where every agency is quickly going through, here
is what we are hearing, and here is what we are seeing. And
they are all there and it is all being shared. And that is the
point of it, to be able to do it in a nimble, agile,
transparent way.
Senator Braun. And in retrospect, would you have done
anything differently?
Director Wray. Well, certainly we have now arrested, you
know, close to 500, little over 500, if you include our
partners, people. And so if we had known that those people were
going to do what they did, there is all kinds of things we
would have done differently. We are more broadly trying to look
at, can we develop better sources to anticipate things like
this? Can we develop better data analytics to deal with the
deluge, the terabytes and terabytes of information to separate
the wheat from the chaff, as it were? We are looking at the
encryption issue because a lot of the communications between
the domestic terrorists are happening through encrypted
platforms that we don't have a ready-made lawful access
solution to. And of course, we are going to be looking at how
we review and evaluate open source information, you know,
social media, that kind of thing.
Senator Braun. So does that mean you think it was maybe
more spontaneous than planned? Or would you have--if it had
been that obvious in terms of the planning of it, probably
would have done more?
Director Wray. Well, I think it is a little complicated to
answer. The reason I say that is because you--in terms of the
people committing crimes on January 6, you kind of have two
buckets of people. You have one group of people who clearly
committed crimes, including violence and destruction, in a more
spontaneous way. But you also had some other people that we now
know, we now know from investigative work we are doing after
January 6, that were particularly bad actors who had
infiltrated and were more organized among themselves. That is a
smaller group. But they you know, they are the most dangerous
ones.
Senator Braun. One final question. Capitol surrounded by a
non-scalable fence. To me, in being here, obviously, ever
since--day since then, hadn't seen any credible threats. You
may know of more. Do you think that fence needs to remain up or
can we take it down? Because to me, I think there needs to be a
good argument that something is impending or likely or either
it needs to come down not only for the look, but for the cost
of it to boot. What is your recommendation?
Director Wray. Yes, I am not sure I could really weigh in
on that. I mean, we as I mentioned in response to one of the
earlier questions, we really don't have expertise in static
defense and physical security in that sense. So that is a
question really better directed to the people who have that.
Senator Braun. And have you gotten any cues for any other
impending incidents that might require you to keep it up? I
mean, does the intel show that there is an imminent threat of
anything, or does it show the opposite?
Director Wray. Well, again, without reference to any
fencing issue, I don't think, at least to my knowledge, we are
not tracking any specific or credible threats to the Capitol.
Senator Braun. Sounds like a good reason to take the fence
down. Thank you.
Senator Shaheen. Senator Coons.
Senator Coons. Thank you, Chairwoman Shaheen, Ranking
Member Moran. FBI Director Wray, it is great to be with you
again. And I just want to thank you and the 37,000 men and
women of the FBI who do the hard and difficult and demanding
work of keeping us safe each and every day. I am mindful always
of the sacrifices of law enforcement at the Federal, State, and
local level. And I join you in grieving the loss, the line of
duty, death of special agent Daniel Alfin and Laura
Schwartzenberger earlier this year. I am always conscious of
the ways in which the safety of the men and women in law
enforcement is one of the paramount concerns you carry day in
and day out.
We also have an obligation to make sure that law
enforcement is conducting itself in a way that is transparent
and respectful and appropriate. And I am enthusiastic about the
president's commitment to have Federal law enforcement now
deployed with body worn cameras and look forward to hearing
from you as that is implemented going forward. Back in March,
when I think I last saw you, I asked for an assurance that the
FBI as an organization would be as responsive as possible to
requests from Members of the Judiciary Committee regarding
outstanding requests for information.
Senator Whitehouse just spoke to this earlier this week.
And he and I have requests that are now 2 years old and have
gone without any response. Will you commit to working with us
to get appropriate and responsive answers for these outstanding
questions now from the last Congress?
Director Wray. I am not tracking the specific piece of
correspondence, but certainly I will have my staff follow up
with yours and see how we can be more timely and helpful.
Senator Coons. Please, because it is something that, you
know, I think has significantly agitated Senator Whitehouse and
a number of other Members of the Judiciary Committee about
responsiveness and transparency. And I would love to work with
you to get this resolved. We have seen a spike in violent crime
in a lot of places around the country. My hometown of
Wilmington is one of them. The President speaking to this
today.
And I think we need to ensure that Federal, State, and
local law enforcement work collaboratively to address this
uptick. The FBI can be particularly helpful by providing
training and resources. The county police was associated with
for a decade, nothing was more desired than a period at the FBI
Academy, both as a professionalization tool and to build out a
network of professional colleagues. How does the FBI plan to
continue to strengthen partnerships with State and local law
enforcement in cities like Wilmington and in counties like New
Castle, Delaware?
Director Wray. So I completely agree that partnerships are
critical really across everything we do, but especially on
violent crime. And in fact, one of my four pillars for the
organization has been partnerships. And my message to our folks
has been, we want every partner to be able to say there is no
better partner than the FBI. Now, you mentioned a couple of
ways in which we do that. The National Academy at Quantico,
where we train sort of the stars of the future and sort of
middle, upper middle management in State and local police
departments that was something we are very proud of. It has
been around for decades. It was stalled somewhat during the
pandemic for obvious reasons.
But I am very excited that it is starting back up again
soon, and we expect to be all in on that. Now, locally, we try
to do it through task forces where we try to have our two, the
FBI's two plus our partners to equal more than four, make it
five, six, seven. And there have been some great examples of
that, including in Wilmington. I know there was a gang, I think
it was like the g-shine gang or something like that, where I
think there were close to 40 arrests. But what was interesting,
the reason I bring that one up is that during the pandemic,
Federal grand juries were largely on hold in a lot of places,
including in Delaware.
But our folks were able to basically take our investigative
work, working with our State and local partners. And so most of
the arrests ended up being local arrests, but with an FBI
investigation to support them. So it is a great example of the
point you are making.
Senator Coons. Well, I look forward to that continued
partnership and to strengthening and deepening it. On the body
worn cameras, the directive that they be deployed, ATF, FBI,
DEA, marshals, I support--does your budget fully support that
deployment and implementation or do you need additional funding
to fully implement that?
Director Wray. It is a good question. We will need--right
now the budget request that we have is geared not towards the
FBI agents and body worn cameras, but towards our task force
officers. And again, not the cameras themselves, but through
all the pretty significant expense associated with the storage
of the footage. On the FBI side we are--as you referenced,
there is a phased in plan that includes a pilot in a couple of
field offices for us. And then it will go from there. And we
will certainly need, you know, potentially quite significant
resources to be able to cover the costs for all of our
personnel if not just the storage, but from their case, the
cameras themselves.
Senator Coons. Well, I look forward to getting an updated
request from you in that regard. When it comes to NICS
background checks, last year there was a 40 percent increase in
NICS background check requests compared to the previous year.
That pace may simply increase again this year. And given the
current rules, if the NICS system doesn't return a result
within 3 days, buyers are permitted to proceed. Has the NICS
been able to keep pace with this steadily increasing workload
or are there more guns now being sold after a background check
wasn't completed within that 3 day window? And are you planning
to request increase resources for NICS?
Director Wray. So the good news is that our workforce at
NICS is extraordinary and very hard working. And even with the
40 million record breaking number of checks we had last year,
they were still able to process 95 and 96 percent of the
requests within the 3 days. But as you mentioned, the pace is
increasing even this year. As far as whether we have enough
resources for it, the supplemental that we got covered us for
essentially 2 years in terms of increases, which is why we--you
didn't see more of it in the 2022 budget request. But, but we
absolutely will need more resources for NICS following that,
because otherwise it is just a short term fix.
Senator Coons. My last question, Mr. Temporary----
Senator Moran. Well, this is a question for Senator
Kennedy, who was cut--was held the exact time in the other
subcommittee. May I continue to recognize Senator Coons and
then recognize you, Senator Kennedy?
Senator Coons. Last question with forbearance of Senator
Kennedy. Deeply appreciated. I think all of us are concerned
about steadily increasing efforts by China in espionage, in
trade secret theft, and some of the ways in which we have seen
both state, non-state actors recently engaged in a variety of
expensive, complex, and difficult attacks. Does the FBI need
additional resources to protect the private entities who lack
the resources to resist sophisticated State sponsored cyber-
attacks?
Director Wray. Well, we are essentially asking for more
resources, a lot of it which would be going to that mission
both through the counterintelligence enhancement that we
requested and through our cyber enhancement. But there is no
question that there is no counterintelligence threat greater
than the threat posed by China, and we are opening a new, as I
mentioned in my opening new investigation, every 12 hours, 10
to 12 hours. And it is about a 13 percent economic espionage
investigation increase over the last decade. And so this is a
challenge that dwarfs in many ways the resources we have. So
anything that the Congress can send our way to help with this
will be put very much too good use.
Senator Coons. Well, thank you very much, Director. And
thank you for your forbearance, Senator Moran and Senator
Kennedy.
Senator Moran. Senator Kennedy is recognized.
Senator Kennedy. I am going to follow up, Mr. Director, on
a point made by Senator Leahy. He talked about the massive
voter suppression that he is expecting in 2022. Do your
intelligence reports show they are going to be--there is going
to be massive voter suppression in 2022?
Director Wray. I don't believe I characterized the voter
suppression threat as massive, and I am not aware of any
intelligence assessment we have done that quantifies it.
Certainly, voter suppression is a concern. It is something we
investigate, something we pursue.
Senator Kennedy. Okay. On the NICS database, where do you
get--where do you get the information for?
Director Wray. For the NICS database? So a lot of sources,
but most of the information is coming from State and local law
enforcement.
Senator Kennedy. Are they all sending in all the
information they are supposed to?
Director Wray. We are continuing to improve that. The Fix
NICS Act that Congress put in place has been a big help in that
regard. And every year we are increasing the completeness of
the NICS database. But there is still room for improvement.
Senator Kennedy. But there is still a lot of holes in it,
aren't there?
Director Wray. There are, yes.
Senator Kennedy. Yes. And the truth is, I mean, for some I
don't want to paint with too broad a brush, but my
understanding is that for some at the State and local level, it
is just not a priority. It is not that they are sitting around
watching Netflix. They just have got--they are busy doing other
stuff. Would that be a fair statement?
Director Wray. Well, I understand why you would describe it
that way. I have got to be a little bit careful to characterize
our partners as, you know, distracted. But I will say that, I
mean, I have gone out to NICS and put on the headset and sat
there with the operator, listen to the calls and see how it
works. And, you know, some of these things, especially when you
start getting into, you know, misdemeanor, domestic violence
offenses, and things like that, it can get kind of complicated.
And if the records out in whatever jurisdiction aren't
ready at hand or clear, it can become a real challenge. And
that was magnified during the pandemic, you know, because a lot
of departments, local departments, you know, were not at work.
And so that----
Senator Kennedy. Well, I just--I hear--I read about the
President and others saying, well, the problem is we need to
expand background checks. And it just seems to me that a big
part of our problem, nothing is perfect, of course, but a big
part of our problem is that the current system we have is only
as good as the information inputted and all the information
isn't being inputted. It is just not. And I think Fix NICS did
help. And I think it is better, but I don't think it is well.
And it would seem to me that that would be a logical place to
start. Is my thinking faulty?
Director Wray. I don't think your thinking is faulty. I
think we all share the goal of keeping guns out of the hands of
those illegally prohibited from having them, which should be
the table stakes in this endeavor. And that is what the NICS
system is designed to do. To the extent that the holes that you
identified are holes in different agencies and departments, you
know, a patchwork around the country, you know, I would be
remiss if I didn't point out that some of them may need, you
know, grant funding or resources to help them because it may be
a resource issue for them.
Senator Kennedy. I am not suggesting they are just sitting
around watching Netflix. They are working. They have been
'cussed and discussed and accused of everything in the world,
and their budgets has been cut. And then we wonder why crime
goes up. So I am not criticizing them. I am just pointing out
that it seems to me that the system is only good as the data
that is been put into it. Let me ask you a final question. I
just want your opinion on this. Why do you think Chicago has
become the largest outdoor shooting range in the world?
Director Wray. Well, I mean, I think I have referenced a
lot of the factors from a national perspective. I don't know
that I can sit here right now give you a Chicago specific
explanation, but certainly some of the same trends that I
described nationally would undoubtedly be at play in Chicago. I
know that, you know, over the past year, we have had, you
know--this is just the FBI now, you know, 270 gang arrests in
Chicago, 150 maybe violent crime arrests. And that is just in
the past year or so. And I know that our partners there. We
have some great partners in Chicago, you know, police
department, among other agencies, and they are all stretched
pretty thin.
Senator Kennedy. Thank you, Mr. Director.
ADDITIONAL COMMITTEE QUESTIONS
Senator Moran. Senator Kennedy, thank you. If there is no
further questions to be asked this afternoon, Senators have
until June the 29 to submit additional questions for the
subcommittee's official hearing record. We request that the FBI
respond within 30 days. The subcommittee stands in recess.
[The following questions were not asked at the hearing, but
were submitted to the Federal Bureau of Investigation for
response subsequent to the hearing:]
Questions Submitted to Hon. Christopher Wray
Questions Submitted by Senator Patrick Leahy
Question 1. Last fall, Vermont was the first State to pass a bill
that prohibits police from using facial recognition technology without
the express consent of the legislature. I am proud of Vermont for
leading the way on guarding Vermonters' civil liberties against this
often inaccurate technology. Body worn cameras with facial recognition
technology create such a significant risk of misidentification that
even body camera vendors are shifting away from this technology. The
FBI's fiscal year 2022 budget includes $6.2 million to provide software
and video storage for body worn cameras of federally deputized Task
Force Officers.
a. Does the FBI utilize body worn cameras with built-in facial
recognition technology? What concrete steps will the FBI take
to protect Americans' civil liberties from widely known risks
of misidentification by facial recognition technology?
Answer. The FBI's body worn cameras, currently implemented in one
field office, do not have any facial recognition technology.
b. How does the FBI plan to safeguard stored body camera
footage from improper access and use?
Answer. The storage environment for BWC metadata and recordings
will be encrypted in transition and at rest. The FBI's storage
environment will be governed and validated automatically by the
Sentinel case authentication services REST Application Programming
Interface. Files will contain a refence to the unique hash value of the
contents for every recording. The Department of Justice will soon
release additional information and guidance regarding the use of body
worn cameras.
Question 2. When I asked you whether additional resources from
Congress to combat voter suppression and other Federal election crimes
would be helpful, you responded that ``we're busier than we ever have
been'' and that ``if Congress sees fit to send us more resources on
this . . . I'm quite confident that it will be put to good use.''
a. What is your assessment for why the FBI is busier than it
has ever been with respect to combatting Federal election
crimes? Has there been a significant uptick in alleged Federal
election crimes? Is there a discernible pattern regarding who
exactly are allegedly committing these crimes--for example,
State level officials?
Answer. The FBI is the primary agency responsible for investigating
illegal cyber activity against election infrastructure, malign foreign
influence operations, and election-related crimes, like voter fraud and
voter suppression or intimidation. At the FBI, we work closely with our
intelligence community partners, as well as other Federal, State,
local, Tribal, and territorial partners, to share information, bolster
security, and identify and disrupt any threats.
Because of the expanded foreign influence operations we have
witnessed, we broadened and significantly added resources to our
Foreign Intelligence Task Force (FITF) and not just to efforts related
to Russia, but also to add China and Iran, because those countries are
looking for different ways to take a page out of the malign foreign
influence playbook that they've seen elsewhere.
At the State and local level, the FBI has Election Crimes
Coordinators (ECCs) in each field office to assess allegations of voter
fraud, civil rights violations, campaign finance crimes, and other
potential threats to primaries and general elections. The FBI worked
closely throughout the 2020 electoral process with local and State
officials, public representatives, and USIC partners to educate,
prepare, and facilitate a whole-of-society response to any and all
election-related matters.
b. If Congress is able to provide you with additional
resources to combat Federal election crimes, what exactly would
those resources be utilized for? Please list the key areas of
the FBI's efforts combatting Federal election crimes that could
be bolstered or expanded given additional resources from
Congress.
Answer. The FBI, along with its Federal, State, local, Tribal,
territorial, non-governmental and private-sector partners nationwide,
work together in unprecedented ways to combat foreign interference
efforts and support election officials, political organizations,
campaigns, and candidates in safeguarding their infrastructure.
Certainly, additional resources would support these efforts.
In an effort to increase the FBI's ability to identify, initiate,
and investigate election crime matters, the FBI established the
Campaign Finance and Ballot Fraud Initiative. This initiative
designated Special Agents as Election Crimes Coordinators in each FBI
field office and also assigned intelligence personnel to support
efforts to combat these crimes. These personnel are the points of
contact for all election-related issues within the agency, including
those related to public corruption, civil rights, cyber crimes, and
terrorism incidents, and they liaise as necessary with State and local
election officials, State/local law enforcement agencies, and the U.S.
Attorney's Offices.
As performed in the lead-up to the 2020 election, the FBI
investigates so-called ``dark money'' schemes, through which donors to
political spending or campaign contributions by groups are not
disclosed and the source of the contributions are unknown. Many times,
these dark money groups are used to mask illegal activities such as
foreign contributions, bribes, or quid pro quo arrangements. The FBI
will also continue to investigate instances of voter and ballot fraud,
voter intimidation/suppression, cyber hacks, and PAC/Super PAC
violations.
In addition, in the fall of 2017, the FBI established the Foreign
Influence Task Force (FITF) to identify and counteract malign foreign
influence operations targeting the U.S. The FITF is led by the
Counterintelligence Division and is comprised of agents, analysts, and
professional staff from the Counterintelligence, Cyber,
Counterterrorism, and Criminal Investigative Divisions. This cross-
programmatic approach allows the FBI to identify connections across
programs, to aggressively investigate as appropriate and--importantly--
to be more agile. Coordinating closely with our partners and leveraging
relationships we have developed in the technology sector, we regularly
relay threat indicators that those companies use to take swift action,
blocking budding abuse of their online platforms. Following the 2018
midterm elections, we reviewed the threat and the effectiveness of our
coordination and outreach. As a result of this review, we further
expanded the scope of the FITF to confront foreign malign operations
not only of Russia, but also of the People's Republic of China (PRC),
Iran, and other global adversaries.
Question 3. We are fewer than 3 months away from the 20th
Anniversary of the September 11 attacks, and yet there is still hidden
information about that horrific day that the American people deserve to
know. Appearing before the House Judiciary Committee two weeks ago, you
committed to working with the Director of National Intelligence to
ensure greater declassification of documents related to Saudi Arabia's
involvement in the September 11 attacks.
a. Is that conversation ongoing? When can we expect to see a
full declassification review of all aspects of the FBI's
investigation into Saudi Arabia's role in 9/11?
Answer. The FBI recognizes the public importance of documents
related to 9/11 and we have worked diligently to produce over 10,000
pages of related records.
The FBI, Department of Justice, and other agencies continue to work
to satisfy the requirements of Executive Order 14040. Pursuant to the
Executive Order, since September 11, 2021, the FBI has released newly
declassified documents related to the attacks, including releases on
September 11, 2021, November 3, 2021, December 30, 2021, and March 2,
2022.
Question 4. During previous appearances before Congress, you
mentioned that end-to-end encryption across devices and social media
platforms threatens the FBI's ability to manage threats, particularly
when it comes to domestic terrorism. You suggested that you believed
that this was a policy judgement Congress should make but that instead
it was being made by private companies.
a. Please describe, as specifically as possible, the biggest
issues related to end-to-end encryption from the FBI's
perspective that you believe this Committee should be aware of
when considering the balancing of civil liberties with law
enforcement surveillance.
Answer. The FBI remains a strong advocate for the wide and
consistent use of responsibly-managed encryption--encryption that
providers can decrypt and provide to law enforcement when served with a
legal order. Protecting data and privacy in a digitally connected world
is a top priority for the FBI and the U.S. Government, and we believe
that promoting encryption is a vital part of that mission. But we have
seen that the broad application of end-to-end and user-only-access
encryption adds negligible security advantages. What we mean when we
talk about lawful access is putting providers who manage encrypted data
in a position to decrypt it and provide it to us in response to legal
process. We are not asking for, and do not want, any ``backdoor,'' that
is, for encryption to be weakened or compromised so that it can be
defeated from the outside by law enforcement or anyone else.
Unfortunately, too much of the debate over lawful access has revolved
around discussions of this ``backdoor'' straw man instead of what we
really want and need.
The FBI is deeply concerned with the threat that end-to-end
encryption (E2EE) and user-only-access encryption pose to our ability
to fulfill the FBI's duty of protecting the American people from every
manner of Federal crime, from cyber-attacks and violence against
children to drug trafficking and organized crime. Even with our
substantial resources, accessing the content of known or suspected
terrorists' data pursuant to court-authorized legal process is
increasingly difficult. The often-online nature of the terrorist
radicalization process, along with the insular nature of most of
today's attack plotters, leaves fewer dots for investigators to connect
in time to stop an attack--and end-to-end and user-only-access
encryption increasingly hide even those often precious few and fleeting
dots.
This problem spans international and domestic terrorism threats. We
face the same problem in protecting children against violent sexual
exploitation. End-to-end and user-only-access encryption frequently
prevent us from discovering and searching for victims. When we are able
to open investigations, end-to-end and user-only-access encryption
makes it much more difficult to bring perpetrators to justice. If we
cannot obtain that critical electronic evidence, our efforts are
frequently hamstrung.
This problem is not limited just to Federal investigations. Our
State and local law enforcement partners have been consistently
advising the FBI that they, too, are experiencing similar end-to-end
and user-only-access encryption challenges, which are now being felt
across the full range of State and local criminal law enforcement. As
this problem becomes more and more acute for State and local law
enforcement, the advanced technical resources needed to address even a
single investigation involving end-to-end and user-only-access
encryption will continue to diminish and ultimately overwhelm State and
local capacity to investigate even common crimes.
Question 5. In 2020, the National Center for Missing and Exploited
Children's (NCMEC) CyberTipline received more than 21.7 million reports
regarding online exploitation of children--almost 4 million more
reports than in 2019. NCMEC also received almost twice as many reports
in 2020 of online enticement of children than it did in 2019.
a. Please describe, in as much detail as possible, the steps
the FBI is taking to combat this disturbing rise in the
exploitation of children online, particularly on social media
and online gaming platforms.
Answer. The FBI's Crimes Against Children and Human Trafficking
program provides rapid, proactive, and intelligence driven
investigative response to the abuse to, and exploitation of, children
when those crimes fall under the authority of the FBI. Currently, the
FBI leads 86 Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Forces
across the Nation, which focus on investigating and prosecuting crimes
against children in partnership with Federal, State, local, and Tribal
counterparts. The FBI also works with non-governmental entities such as
Thorn and NCMEC to identify emerging technologies used by child sex
offenders.
Over the past 2 years, the FBI has remained focused on protecting
children from exploitation and abuse in all forms, from interactions on
a social media platform to hands-on abuse by a trusted adult. In fiscal
year 2020 and fiscal year 2021, the FBI arrested over 4,100 child sex
offenders (over 1,650 of whom were contact offenders) and located over
320 missing or abducted children. The FBI also partnered with
international law enforcement, including INTERPOL and EUROPOL, to
identify child predators around the world and bring them to justice.
b. Please describe the resources the FBI is providing to
educate parents about the issue and to help prevent their
children from online exploitation, particularly with more
children online during the pandemic.
Answer. The FBI collaborates with domestic and foreign law
enforcement agency partners, as well as several non-governmental
organizations, to identify and address the effects of the COVID-19
pandemic on child sexual exploitation tradecraft and online
victimization. For example, since December 2019, the FBI's Criminal
Investigative Division (CID) has released five public service
announcements (PSAs) to warn parents, educators, caregivers, and
children about the dangers of online CSE and the signs of child abuse.
Specifically, the PSAs included recommendations on how to safeguard
children from sexual exploitation the dangers of sextortion and online
extortion, the risks posed by online video games, and how to report
victimization. The FBI also provides information about online risks and
resources to parents and children, such as the Safe Online Surfing
Internet Challenge (https://www.fbi.gov/fbi-kids) and the information
available at https://www.fbi.gov/scams-and-safety/protecting-your-kids.
c. Does the FBI have all of the resources it needs as part of
this program to meet this growing challenge?
Answer. As the Committee is aware, every year, thousands of
children become victims of crimes--whether it is through online
predators, sexual abuse, violent attacks, human trafficking, or
kidnappings. The FBI is uniquely positioned to work with Federal,
State, local, Tribal, and international law enforcement partners to
identify, investigate, and deter individuals and criminal networks from
exploiting children. These partnerships are essential because the
number of violent crimes against children is far greater than what the
FBI is resourced to address on its own.
The FBI has several programs in place to arrest child predators and
to recover missing and endangered children. To this end, the FBI funds
or participates in a variety of endeavors, including our Innocence Lost
National Initiative, the Innocent Images National Initiative, the 85
Child Exploitation Task Forces, and the Violent Crimes Against Children
International Task Force, which comprises 69 officers from 48
countries. The FBI also works with non-governmental organizations like
Thorn and NCMEC, as well as numerous community outreach programs, to
educate parents and children about safety measures they can follow.
Finally, the FBI also leverages the Child Abduction Rapid
Deployment (CARD) Teams, which are rapid-response teams stationed
across the country to quickly respond to abductions (including
abductions where the victim met their abductor online). Investigators
bring to this issue the full array of forensic tools, such as call data
and cell tower data analysis, behavior analysis, cellular DNA analysis,
trace evidence, impression evidence, and digital forensics. Through
improved communications, law enforcement also has the ability to
quickly share information with partners throughout the world, and these
outreach programs play an integral role in prevention.
Employing these tools is expensive but successful. The FBI makes
every effort to ensure that resources are used efficiently, while
safeguarding endangered children. The FBI commends the committee's
dedication to these efforts and appreciates the resources provided to
combat these horrific acts.
______
Questions Submitted by Senator Chris Van Hollen
Question 1. Will you share the specific duties and responsibilities
of the FBI's Chief Diversity Officer with my office?
Answer. In April 2021, Director Wray formally appointed Scott
McMillion as the FBI's first-ever Chief Diversity Officer. Mr.
McMillion leads the Office of Diversity and Inclusion (ODI), which the
FBI established in 2012. As part of its mission, ODI oversees our nine
Diversity Advisory Committees, which advocate for underrepresented
groups within the workforce. The efforts of these groups have
culminated in policy changes, innovative projects, and a deeper sense
of community for minorities, women, and others within the FBI. ODI also
works to ensure that diversity, equity, and inclusion are key
components in recruitment, hiring, retention, and promotion efforts as
well as other processes and programs within the FBI.
Question 2. Is there a reason the Chief Diversity Officer does not
report to you directly but reports to an executive two levels below
you?
Answer. Director Wray has named Building a High-Performing,
Diverse, and Inclusive Workforce as one of his three Director's
Priority Initiatives and, as referenced above, Director Wray formally
appointed the FBI's first-ever Chief Diversity Officer. The CDO
position is among the FBI's senior leadership, which provides direction
and support to all 56 field offices, about 350 resident agencies,
several specialized field installations, and more than 60 legal
attaches in other countries.
______
Questions Submitted by Senator Lisa Murkowski
Question 1. We know from the little data available, that Alaska has
one of the highest rates of human trafficking in the country,
specifically affecting our homeless youth and Alaska Native population.
I am grateful to the phenomenal agents at the FBI field office in
Anchorage who have been providing training and outreach on this issue
in Alaska. However, throughout the State there is still a great need
for comprehensive training and resources on human trafficking in our
communities. The FBI is an ideal stakeholder with the correct expertise
to provide this training.
a. What additional funding has the Department of Justice
proposed for the FBI to increase access to training for rural
communities on human trafficking?
Answer. The FBI defers to the Department of Justice on proposed
funding increases; however, the FBI has realigned existing resources
specifically to address human trafficking and missing and murdered
indigenous persons (MMIP) in Alaska. In addition, the FBI provides
between 12-24 training venues on human trafficking and MMIP. The FBI
also offers access to several national-level conferences, including the
DOJ-sponsored National Law Enforcement Training on Child Exploitation
and the Dallas Crimes Against Children Conference, and access to
virtual webinars covering topics related to human trafficking. In
addition, in 2020, the U.S. Attorney's Office stood up the Alaska MMIP
Working Group to address the complexities that arise in these types of
cases in Alaska. The group is a multi-disciplinary team involving the
collaboration and coordination of Tribal representatives, Federal,
State, local and Tribal law enforcement, and social and victim service
providers.
In January 2022, the Department of Justice issued its National
Strategy to Combat Human Trafficking. This document is available online
at https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1467431/download. The
strategy is a Department-wide effort that lays out a multi-year plan to
combat all forms of human trafficking. Chapter I of the strategy
identifies strategies for detecting human trafficking crimes and
identifying victims and survivors. Additional chapters address topics
like protection, prosecution, and prevention. Each chapter identifies
numerous concrete actions intended to be executed within approximately
1 year. Training is a key part of the strategy, and it includes
training efforts in rural and Tribal communities.
The FBI has been very open to surging resources to various parts of
the country to address emerging threats and will continue to do so.
b. We know that survivors of human trafficking need
specialized services to enter recovery. What additional funding
has the Department of Justice proposed to support victim
specialists within the FBI, who are able to connect survivors
of human trafficking to vital services in the community?
Answer. The FBI defers to the Department of Justice on specific
funding requests; however, the FBI takes a victim-centered, trauma-
informed approach to investigating these cases and strives to ensure
that the needs of victims are fully addressed at all stages. To
accomplish this, the FBI works in conjunction with other law
enforcement agencies and victim specialists on the local, State,
Tribal, and Federal levels, as well as with a variety of vetted non-
governmental organizations. Even after the arrest and conviction of
human traffickers, the FBI often continues to work with partner
agencies and organizations to assist victims in moving beyond their
exploitation.
Question 2. In April 2021, the FBI executed a search warrant on the
home and business of a couple living in Homer, Alaska. This search
warrant was related to investigations surrounding January 6. We know
that the wife was identified using pictures and tips. The couple is
adamant that this was a case of mistaken identity. I think it is
important that we get all of the answers about what happened on January
6, and I am supportive of the FBI in their efforts. At the same time,
we are also in a moment where public trust in law enforcement is
fragile and under heavy scrutiny.
a. How is the FBI working to ensure that investigations
respect the constitutional rights of Americans?
Answer. The FBI has the dual mission of protecting the American
people and upholding the Constitution. The FBI is committed to
protecting Constitutional rights, including the First Amendment's
freedoms of association and assembly. The Attorney General's Guidelines
for Domestic FBI Activities (AGG-DOM) establish a set of basic
principles that serve as the foundation for all FBI mission-related
activities.
As described in the relevant, unsealed, and redacted search warrant
affidavit, the search that took place in Homer, Alaska, is related to
one or more of the hundreds of investigations related to the January 6,
2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Although the search warrant affidavit
has been unsealed, pursuant to longstanding Department of Justice and
FBI policy and practice, the FBI cannot provide further information or
discuss an open investigation. This policy, which has been applied
across administrations, is designed to preserve the integrity of all
FBI investigations and the privacy of individuals or entities
potentially involved in an investigation.
b. What efforts has the FBI taken to ensure that that public
trust in law enforcement is maintained during the course of the
investigations into the events of January 6?
Answer. The FBI has deployed our full investigative resources and
is working closely with our Federal, State, local, Tribal, and
territorial partners to aggressively pursue those involved in criminal
activity during the events of January 6, 2021. FBI special agents,
intelligence analysts, and professional staff have been hard at work
gathering evidence, sharing intelligence, and working with Federal
prosecutors to bring charges against the individuals involved.
We used tip lines and web resources for members of the public to
provide information to assist in identifying individuals who were
involved in the violence and other criminal activity. These resources
allowed the public to submit any images, videos, or other multimedia
files related to possible violations of Federal law. The FBI has
arrested hundreds of individuals with regards to rioting, assault on a
Federal officer, property crimes violations, conspiracy, and other
charges.
The FBI has the dual mission of protecting the American people and
upholding the Constitution. It is important to emphasize that we
investigate and prosecute individuals for their criminal acts, not for
their beliefs or based on their associations. We respect the
Constitutional rights of freedom of speech, association, and assembly
of all Americans. We open cases based on suspected criminal violations,
not ideologies, and hold sacred the rights of individuals to peacefully
exercise their First Amendment freedoms. The FBI may not, and does not,
open investigations solely on the basis of First Amendment-protected
activity.
Question 3. In recent weeks, there has been a dramatic increase in
the number of reported anti-Semitic incidents across the United States.
The Anti-Defamation Leagues' Center on Extremism reported that the
number of anti-Semitic incidents in the U.S. for the month of May
increased by 115 percent over the number of reports for May of last
year. These reported incidents varied from assault to vandalism. The
Alaska Jewish Museum in Anchorage, Alaska was also vandalized in late
May. A man was reported placing swastika stickers which said the words
``We are everywhere'' in bold, black letters. There is absolutely zero
place for this kind of hatred in Alaska or anywhere else in the United
States. The FBI has reported that one of the greatest threats to the
Homeland today is from domestic violent extremists (DVEs) and homegrown
violent extremists (HVEs). We know that DVEs and HVEs have and likely
will continue to pose a very real threat to the Jewish Community.
a. What efforts is the FBI taking to address the rise in
antisemitism?
Answer. To address the intersection of the FBI counterterrorism and
criminal investigative missions to combat domestic terrorism, and to
provide justice to those who are victims of hate crimes, the FBI
formally created the Domestic Terrorism-Hate Crimes Fusion Cell in
April 2019. This Fusion Cell creates more opportunities for
investigative creativity, provides multi-program coordination, helps
ensure seamless information-sharing, and enhances investigative
resources to combine the domestic terrorism (DT) threat. The Fusion
Cell has already been helpful in the FBI's efforts to address the rise
in antisemitism. For example, in November 2019, the work of the Fusion
Cell resulted in the arrest of Richard Holzer, a Colorado man who
ultimately pleaded guilty and was sentenced to over 19 years in prison
for Federal hate crime and explosives charges for plotting to blow up a
synagogue in Pueblo, Colorado.
b. How does the FBI's fiscal year 2022 budget address these
and other hate crimes, such as the ones perpetrated against
Asian Americans?
Answer. The FBI's fiscal year 2022 request includes resources to
help counter the increasing acts of domestic terrorism occurring across
the United States. To do this, the FBI has developed advanced methods
to detect, prevent, and disrupt threats using human resources,
information, and technology. Specifically, resources requested in the
fiscal year 2022 budget will be used to: increase the FBI's
investigative capacity to combat domestic terrorism threats; implement
technical tools to better screen and analyze threats; and enhance the
National Threat Operations Center's ability to intake threats from the
public. These capabilities will help the FBI protect against all
domestic terrorism threats, including those perpetrated against the
Jewish and Asian American communities.
With respect to civil rights and hate crimes, the fiscal year 2022
request sustains FBI resources, including the Domestic Terrorism Hate
Crimes Fusion Cell. During fiscal year 2020 and fiscal year 2021, the
FBI conducted training and liaison events for the Asian American
Pacific Islander (AAPI) community and plans to continue to communicate
potential threats and encourage reporting of potential hate crimes.
______
Questions Submitted by Senator Joe Manchin, III
Question 1. We have spoken several times regarding the FBI police,
and I would like to touch on this again to demonstrate the importance
of it to my State. First, I want to highlight the exemplary work of the
75 police officers assigned to the site in Clarksburg, West Virginia
and the 173 other officers serving at sites in Washington, DC,
Quantico, VA, and New York City. As you know, because of an inadvertent
error committed while drafting the legislation, the FBI police force
are not receiving the pay and benefits in which they are entitled. As a
result, turnover is high, as officers tend to leave the force for other
better-paying jobs with other agencies once they receive the proper
training and security clearances. I know the FBI is has started a
working group to address the issue, but I would like to, once again,
receive your commitment to working on this in a timely manner as more
and more FBI Police leave the force due to pay and benefit
deficiencies.
a. Can you give me a status update on the work of the working
group on the FBI Police pay and benefit issue?
b. When do you believe the working group's work on the issue
will be completed?
Answer. The FBI continues to evaluate the needs of FBI Police and
will continue to work with the Department of Justice, the Office of
Management and Budget, the Office of Personnel Management, and Congress
as it assesses possible actions to address identified needs. We
appreciate Congress' shared interest in FBI Police human capital and
resourcing needs.
Question 2. Intelligence reports prior to the January 6 riot warned
Capitol Police that supporters of President Trump were actively
promoting violence and targeting Congress itself. The Department of
Homeland Security specifically notified Capitol Police that they had
identified a map of the Capitol's tunnel system in online messages
between ``Stop the Steal'' supporters, and the FBI field office in
Norfolk also warned the Capitol Police. However, the Capitol Police
Inspector General also found a lack of consensus among key official
about whether these reports indicated specific known threats. As you
know it's impossible to prepare or respond to a threat without as much
reliable information as possible, and we certainly saw what happens
when threat information isn't handled effectively on January 6th. This
brings up a larger issue that I've grown more concerned about during my
time on the Cyber Subcommittee for Armed Services. Which is how
potential threats, both physical and cyber, are shared within the
Federal Government.
a. In your capacity, do you feel both your Bureau has been
sufficiently receiving and relaying threat information with
other Federal departments, and are you aware if that
information can then be shared with a specific private industry
partner if we identify a specific threat toward them?
Answer. The FBI's intelligence operations span our field offices
and Headquarters divisions, and we work closely with our partners in
the intelligence, law enforcement, private sector, and academic
communities through, for example, the JTTFs and the Domestic Terrorism-
Hate Crimes Fusion Cell, described above. In addition, the FBI's Office
of Private Sector exists to enhance the FBI's understanding of the
private sector's risks and needs, increases collaboration and
information-sharing between the Bureau and the private sector, and
mitigates threats through longstanding, mutually beneficial
partnerships between the private sector and the FBI.
Throughout 2020, the FBI authored approximately 12 intelligence
products for our Federal, State, local, Tribal, and territorial law
enforcement partners disseminating trends we saw in threat reporting
and criminal activity involving domestic violent extremism. Over the
preceding year, we observed activity that led us to assess that there
was potential for increased violent extremist activity at lawful
protests taking place in communities across the United States.
Accordingly, in June 2020, we, with our partners at the Department of
Homeland Security (DHS), issued two separate joint intelligence
bulletins highlighting the potential for increased violent extremist
activity at such demonstrations and noting that likely targets would
include law enforcement and government personnel. More recently, in
late August 2020, we published an analytical report informing our
partners that DVEs with partisan political grievances likely posed an
increased threat related to the 2020 election. In that product, we
noted that DVE responses to the election outcome might not occur until
after the election and could be based on potential or anticipated
policy changes. In December 2020, we contributed to a DHS Intelligence
In-Depth product, which advised our partners that the threat posed by
the diverse DVE landscape would probably persist due to enduring
grievances.
In the weeks and months leading up to electoral certification, the
FBI collected and shared intelligence; coordinated and communicated
among Federal, State, and local law enforcement partners; and
positioned Federal resources for potential deployment. Through these
measures, the FBI worked in close coordination with the U.S. Capitol
Police, the Metropolitan Police Department of Washington D.C., and
other law enforcement partners leading up to the Joint Session of
Congress and the planned demonstrations scheduled for January 6, 2021.
The FBI and our Federal, State, and local partners collected and shared
intelligence and relevant public safety-related information in
preparation for the various planned events.
b. In your own opinion how do we increase the coordination
within the Federal Government to respond more quickly and in a
uniformed way no matter the threat?
Answer. As a member of both the law enforcement and intelligence
communities, with domestic and international reach, the FBI is focusing
our unique authorities, and our ability to engage with international
law enforcement, domestic victims, and key technology service
providers, to identify and disrupt cyber adversaries before they
compromise U.S. networks, and hold them accountable when they do.
Key to the FBI's strategy is using the information and insight we
develop through our investigations to support our full range of public
and private-sector partners. There are many countries, companies, and
agencies that play roles in defending networks, sanctioning
destabilizing behavior, collecting cyber threat intelligence, and
conducting cyber effects operations. We seek to work with all of them,
in the belief that our collective actions to combat cyber threats are
most impactful when they are planned jointly and sequenced for maximum
impact.
The National Cyber Investigative Joint Task Force (NCIJTF) is
comprised of over 30 partnering agencies--from across law enforcement,
the intelligence community, and the Department of Defense--and has the
primary responsibility to coordinate, integrate, and share information
in support of cyber threat investigations; supply and support
intelligence analysis for community decision-makers; and provide value
to other ongoing efforts in the fight against cyber threats to the
Nation. In coordination with our partners, the FBI has successfully
disrupted numerous cybercriminal enterprises, including those deploying
ransomware, but lasting impact will require joint, sequenced operations
with our U.S. counterparts and foreign allies as well as a removal of
the sense of impunity many of these actors currently feel.
On the front lines of our efforts to investigate and prosecute
domestic and international terrorism are the FBI-led Joint Terrorism
Task Forces (JTTFs) and the department's 94 U.S. Attorney's Offices.
JTTFs provide an essential hub for cooperating on both international
and domestic terrorism matters across all levels of government
nationwide. The FBI has established JTTFs across all 56 FBI field
offices, which leverage enduring partnerships with Federal and State,
local, Tribal, and territorial agencies to detect, identify, and
disrupt terrorist threats. Each U.S. attorney's office also coordinates
a group of Federal, State, local, Tribal, and territorial officials in
each district, referred to as an Anti-Terrorism Advisory Council
(ATAC). The ATACs work in close partnership with corresponding JTTFs to
promote training and information sharing among Federal, State, local,
Tribal, territorial, and private sector partners in both international
and domestic terrorism matters. This training and information sharing
is critical because there are many more State, local, Tribal, and
territorial law enforcement officers on the ground than there are
Federal agents, and they may be the first to come across individuals
planning terrorist acts within their communities. Federal and State,
local, Tribal, and territorial officials often evaluate these threats
together, including assessing whether Federal or State charges are
available to disrupt them, with the goal of preventing terrorist
attacks before they occur.
Question 3. I've heard from numerous government officials at the
Department of Defense, DHS, and even at the FBI and they all have said
that Cyber criminals are getting smarter and using more and more
elaborate scheme to steal information to steal and extort millions of
dollars from individuals and companies. In fact, the FBI's 2020
Internet Crime Report includes information from 791,790 complaints of
suspected Internet crime--an increase of more than 300,000 complaints
from 2019--and reported losses exceeding $4.2 billion. As you know,
Russia in the SolarWinds hack and China in the Microsoft hack, both
launched their attacks from, and infiltrated stolen data through
servers rented from U.S. cloud providers. In May, Colonial Pipeline was
the victim of a ransomware attack that placed large parts of its
infrastructure out of operation. Colonial Pipeline paid a ransom demand
for approximately 75 bitcoins. Fortunately, the Department of Justice
just announced that it had seized 63.7 bitcoins, valued at
approximately $2.3 million, which represented a portion of the ransom
payment made by Colonial Pipeline to individuals in a group known as
DarkSide. There is no doubt that these types of cyberattacks and ransom
demands will be the new normal going forward and I hope that we, as the
U.S. Government, are prepared to put the right mechanisms in place to
detect and pursue individuals, groups and nations that that strive to
infiltrate and disrupt our Federal systems and critical infrastructure.
a. How extensive are cybercrimes here in the United States?
Answer. Ransomware is a growing threat to the health and safety of
the American people and our national and economic security. The
individuals who conduct cyber intrusions and ransomware campaigns, and
the officials who direct or harbor them, believe that they can
compromise U.S. networks, steal our financial and intellectual
property, and hold our critical infrastructure hostage for ransom, all
without incurring significant risk themselves.
In 2020, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) statistics
showed a 20 percent increase in reported ransomware incidents and a 225
percent increase in ransom amounts. In 2019, the IC3 received 2,047
ransomware complaints, with adjusted losses of more than $8.9 million--
though that is likely a small fraction of the true scope of the threat
because it captures only those who individually reported to the IC3.
These numbers represent a nearly 40 percent increase in ransomware
complaints to the IC3, and more than double the adjusted losses
reported in 2018. In 2020, the IC3 received 2,474 complaints identified
as ransomware, with adjusted losses of over $29.1 million.
Unfortunately, what is reported is only a fraction of the incidents
that occur.
Because this criminal activity has become more lucrative and
enticing, it is our job to make it harder and more painful for hackers
to do what they are doing. That is why we announced a new FBI cyber
strategy last year, using our role as the lead Federal agency with law
enforcement and intelligence responsibilities to not only pursue our
own actions, but to work seamlessly with our domestic and international
partners to defend their networks, attribute malicious activity,
sanction bad behavior, and take the fight to our adversaries overseas.
b. What are some of the biggest challenges in investigating
and prosecuting cybercrimes?
Answer. Cyber criminals focus on exploiting technical
vulnerabilities, primarily for personal profit. Overall, the
sophistication of cyber-crime has increased and has become more
difficult to detect, more resilient, costly to disrupt, aggressive, and
destructive. We know our most significant threats come from foreign
actors using global infrastructure to compromise U.S. networks. By
working with friendly foreign law enforcement agencies and intelligence
partners, we make it harder for these actors to conceal their
activities and whereabouts.
Not every foreign nation helps us in this fight. While we seek to
disrupt entire cybercriminal enterprises, the most impactful
consequence we can impose on a malicious cyber actor is an arrest as
part of a comprehensive disruption. If an actor is in a country like
Russia or China, an arrest for purposes of facing U.S. charges is not a
viable option. Neither country extradites its nationals. Even when an
indicted cybercriminal is in another country, Russia in particular
takes actions to interfere with our extraditions. To make things more
difficult, the lines between nation-states and cybercriminal actors are
sometimes blurred, and even though a foreign nation may not be
directing a ransomware campaign, it may still be complicit by providing
a safe haven to those malicious actors who are doing harm to the United
States, our citizens, and our businesses.
But our allies outnumber our foes, and in just the past few months,
our work with foreign partners--supported by our legal attaches
overseas--has led to impactful consequences against cybercriminals and
sent a strong message that the reach of the U.S. Government extends
beyond its borders.
c. Does the FBI have sufficient authorities and resources to
successfully pursue cybercrimes?
Answer. There are several areas in which the FBI must invest now
and continue to invest in the future to ensure we can keep pace with
the terrorists, foreign intelligence officers, and criminals we face
each day. One of these key areas of focus is cyber. The depth and
breadth of the cyber threat has expanded exponentially in the past
decade; this phenomenon will continue into the foreseeable future. The
fiscal year 2022 request includes $55 million and over 175 positions to
address cyber threats and cybersecurity risks.
The FBI has been assigned an expanded role in the cyber arena--to
maintain, on behalf of the entire U.S. Government, a knowledge base of
cyber threat actors. To keep pace with these threats and to adequately
address this new role, the FBI must make investments in both personnel
to investigate state-sponsored hackers, hackers for hire, organized
cyber syndicates, and terrorists, as well as in technology and tools to
target these cyber actors. The FBI must equip each field office with
the necessary investigative, analytical, technical, and administrative
personnel to adequately address cyber threats. Every field office
requires an appropriately staffed cyber squad--which we do not have
today.
Funding included in the request would also allow the FBI to invest
in training and developing the cyber workforce. The FBI must have a
skilled cadre of cyber experts to address the myriad of sophisticated
attacks employed by our adversaries. Not only should cyber personnel
have a baseline cyber skill level, but as technical gaps are
identified, the FBI will need to have resources in place to train
segments of its cyber workforce.
The FBI must also continue to prioritize collaboration--with the
private sector, with partners in the Intelligence Community and other
Federal agencies, and with our international partners--as many cyber
actors perpetrate their activities from an ocean away.
The FBI must also invest in its own cybersecurity infrastructure.
Internal FBI networks must be protected to ensure we do not become
victims of the adversaries we investigate. Finally, we look forward to
continuing to work with Congress, the Department of Justice, and our
interagency partners regarding these important issues.
Question 4. I want to turn our attention to a topic that you and I
have discussed a number of times before--the opioid epidemic. As West
Virginia has been ravaged by the opioid epidemic, I've supported the
special agents in charge of the regional FBI office in their efforts to
catch the largest distributors and try and stem the flow of drugs into
the State. It's now well known that a single pharmacy in the West
Virginia town of Kermit, with a population of less than 400 people,
received shipments of roughly 9 million pain pills over just 2 years to
a single pharmacy. These events take a toll on Americans not just in my
State, but throughout the country. And unfortunately, for many of these
men and women who are caught in this epidemic, more and more people
face severely limited job opportunities after serving their time for
crimes committed as a result of their addiction. To help fix this
problem, I introduced a bill called the Clean Start Act last Congress
and again this Congress, which seeks to help former addicts with
criminal records seal those records if they complete a comprehensive
addiction treatment program and show that they have turned their lives
around. It is our job as public servants to help those who are unable
to help themselves, and assisting those who have negatively impacted by
the opioid epidemic is one of the most impactful things we can do.
a. How do you plan on curtailing the opioid crisis in the U.S?
Answer. The opioid crisis is a serious epidemic that requires a
multidisciplinary approach involving aggressive investigation and
prosecution. The FBI is collaborating with partners in the healthcare,
treatment, and education field to leverage our resources in the fight
against this deadly epidemic plaguing our communities. We also continue
to participate in high-level meetings with the Canadian and Mexican
governments to address public health, public safety, and law
enforcement opportunities and challenges inherent in countering the
illegal drug trade overall, to include the current illicit opioid
crisis.
b. How does the FBI plan to combat the accessibility and
convenience of the sale of opioids online?
Answer. The FBI created the Joint Criminal Opioid and Darknet
Enforcement (JCODE), in 2018, as a multi-agency initiative laser-
focused on combating the borderless, worldwide distribution of illegal
drugs online. Since that time, JCODE has been relentless in finding and
arresting drug dealers around the world who attempt to evade justice by
operating on the darknet, as well as keeping dangerous drugs--
particularly counterfeit and contaminated drugs--off the streets and
away from the thousands of people who fall victim every year. JCODE
provides structure, intelligence, and ever-expanding technological
capabilities toward disrupting the darknet criminal market place,
neutralizing bad actors, and protecting our communities.
c. What additional authorities do you believe that the FBI
needs to effectively stop the flow of prescription opiates and
other illegal drugs into our country?
Answer. The FBI defers to the Department of Justice on matters of
legislation; however, as discussed above, the FBI leverages its
existing authorities and partnerships to combat the illegal drug trade,
including the illicit opioid crisis.
Question 5. It is no secret that the talk of Congress right now is
the possibility of an infrastructure package. However, in order for an
infrastructure package to be passed, it goes without saying that we
have to have a way to pay for it and pass some sort of tax reform. One
of the components of tax reform that is being discussed is increasing
resources available to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to improve
internal security systems as well as increase enforcement activities.
Approximately two weeks ago, a number of high profile and wealthy
Americans had their confidential personal income and tax data leaked by
a media outlet. The IRS has announced that the agency has opened an
investigation into the leak of this data, and it has been reported that
the IRS has recommended that your Bureau also open an investigation
into this matter. It goes without saying that in lieu of these attacks,
it would behoove Congress to increase the annual IRS budget so that
proper systems may be implemented to protect against these types of
leaks. However, in the interim, we need to ensure that the systems we
do have in place are working as they were intended.
a. What steps has the FBI taken to assist the Department of
Treasury and the IRS to address these leaks?
b. When can we expect the FBI's investigation of the leak to
conclude? Can we expect the FBI to brief members of this
Committee following the conclusion of the FBI's investigation
on the results as well as steps that can be taken going forward
to prevent these occurrences from reoccurring?
Answer. As you may be aware, the Secretary of the Treasury has
testified that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is looking into the
matter as is the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration
(TIGTA). She further stated that the matter had been referred to the
Treasury Inspector General, as well as the Department of Justice.
The Department is committed to taking investigative steps as
appropriately predicated and authorized, carefully reviewing referrals
we receive, and, as appropriate, considering relevant and admissible
evidence in light of the Principles of Federal Prosecution. While we
understand how important this issue is to you, longstanding Department
policy will preclude us from providing your office with any information
related to this matter outside the public record.
CONCLUSION OF HEARINGS
[Whereupon, at 3:32 p.m., Wednesday, June 23, the hearings
were concluded, and the subcommittee was recessed, to reconvene
subject to the call of the Chair.]