Foreign Influence Operations and Counterintelligence

[Music] you [Music] you [Music] we are extremely lucky to have denied to professionals who are going to talk about what is happening with foreign intelligence and how it affects all of us the challenge that we face is not limited just to our government it affects all of us and we need to change our behavior to be cognizant of what's going on and so we don't give our adversaries advantages that they shouldn't have so I don't want to sound unduly dramatic by that but that's one of the main reasons so that I think we're lucky enough to have the two professionals here when my immediate right is Charlie McConnell who has been named by the FBI director I take the post formally in October of he's and special agent in charge of counterintelligence in the New York field office the New York field office is probably the most important field office that the FBI has it is the most important field office I suspect and in some ways may be more important than Washington itself and he's worth I was really he's joined the FBI in 1996 he worked on flight 800 worked on the terrorist bombings in the u.s. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya and obviously worked on the September 11th attack to his immediate right is William Erbil Emma Nene who is the National counterintelligence executive for NCIX in which role he is the head of counterintelligence for the US government and the principal counterintelligence and security advisor to the Director of National Intelligence and he is also the director of counterintelligence and Security Center NCSE the government love totally hacker names but that's another acronym that that he has and in that role he leads and supports counterintelligence security activities of the US intelligence community u.s. government and the private sector which is for us and he also worked closely with many of our allies and interestingly enough he joined his intelligence career by joining the FBI 20 odd years ago so we're going to start off with each of the panelists will talk for about 10 minutes I will then follow up with questions and then we'll ask individuals in the audience to ask questions but please remember two things one I'm sure you will have questions that they will not be able to answer and if it's a question that's on an ongoing investigation they simply can't answer that so please bear that in mind and respect that criteria and the second is and I want to emphasize this strongly they don't want to hear statements from you they want questions and questions begin with words like what how or why so with that said let me turn it over to our two panelists Thank You Ted and thank you all for being here this evening I know you're committed to hearing a lot about counterintelligence on a sad note though my colleague and I share the fact with you that our director James Comey was just Samara Lee fired by the president at the Attorney General's recommendation this evening so so James Comey has been officially fired as FBI director I know Bill of shares in this I think we both felt that director Comey was probably one of the most loved leaders that we've had in a number of years commanding a leadership role in the FBI and I think appreciate that I think many of us who were nominated for leadership positions by him I will forever hold him in esteem as we progress through our FBI careers so we wanted to share that with you as we just received the news as we walked in the door no idea who the next FBI director will be but obviously Andrew McCabe will be probably Acting Director as we move forward here so who also has the benefit of being a homegrown New York FBI agent prior to his ascension to deputy director so shifting gears a bit we're here to talk about counterintelligence foreign influence I won't be able to answer every question as Ted pointed out for you this evening but what I'd like to do is talk a little bit about the structure of the FBI first in New York historically I would never be in audiences like this made available to the general public because counterintelligence is generally we deal with a lot of classified information and we work on projects and operations that generally the general public is not made aware of for a number of reasons however since the you know 9/11 terrorist attack and the 9/11 Commission report which probably many of you are familiar with the FBI has expanded its public outreach in the counterintelligence realm and I for one have been a steward of working with foreign governments and security services that I would historically probably not work with and share information and I think that has been very very productive for the FBI and us in the counterintelligence realm because why simply simply put we're all facing the same threats no matter what nation you hail from or no matter what government if you you know are growing living under these days so by sharing information and coordinating globally we are in a much better position I think from an information sharing standpoint than we have been historically and we've benefited not only in the Terrorism realm but also in the counterintelligence realm a little bit about New York counterintelligence I always say is the special agent charge of counterintelligence in New York if you are someone that has an interest in working counterintelligence or euros anew and I talk to my new FBI agents that come in out of the Academy daily if you want to run and work counterintelligence New York City is the preeminent field office as Ted referenced earlier for working counter intelligence matters in the United States I would challenge around the world counterintelligence from a sheer presence in the New York metropolitan area is tops and I won't go into numbers but I can tell you I have over 150 agents which is larger than some FBI divisions throughout the country focused on working counterintelligence matters in the New York area areas within counterintelligence we focus on let's talk about that for a moment espionage number one number one threat the counterintelligence is espionage those who have access to classified information that are either abusing that privilege by sharing that information with a foreign government or someone that should not have access to it or a need-to-know we work espionage cases routinely in the FBI and across the board now the only advantage our Washington field office has on the FBI in New York is the level of cleared personnel those with security clearances in and around the Washington DC Northern Virginia area because of all the federal government agencies that are there and have the number of cleared personnel predominant number of espionage cases are worked out of our Washington field office however in New York we do have clear identities we do have those who have access to information and if that information is compromised or those individuals are compromised the FBI has sole jurisdiction on espionage related matters that is one big portfolio for us in New York another area we focus on is counter proliferation many of you are probably familiar with that term for those of you that are not when we have foreign adversaries and I'll name them for you here today Russia China Iran North Korea those are the preeminent country threats we are focused on when it comes to counter proliferation counter proliferation is simply a foreign adversary trying to obtain procure steal dual use technology technology here in the United States that is export controlled and by obtaining that material it can be used for a number of things our greatest concerns are that it is used for military application nuclear application weapons of mass destruction creation facilitation so we have a number of investigations focused on adversaries trying to get their hands on that dual use technology another area we're working on right now economic espionage as we talk about espionage and classified material we talk about economic espionage I am doing a record level of outreach in the private sector related to assisting companies corporations and organizations that have intellectual property that is being absconded by adversaries everyday it's more of an economic threat and we have a number of economic espionage investigations ongoing as we speak related to the outright theft of intellectual property and we're not just talking about small companies or organization major corporations now how are the adversaries getting that information it's probably a question that's arising right now two ways one through cyber intrusions two through the cultivation of employees and the ability of an employee whether it be going to a competitor or being cultivate cultivated by a foreign adversary whereby that material is then obtained through that relationship it's the FBI's responsibility with some of the partners in Department of Commerce homeland security whereby we partner up to prevent that theft and to protect the economic sovereignty of many of these organizations that have this sensitive intellectual property throughout the United States specifically in New York City it is the city of Commerce it's also the city that is a target and will remain a target based on the level of intellectual property in the economic innovation that goes on in New York City in the surrounding area so we take that very seriously we are doing a lot of outreach to educate the private sector and those organizations that have intellectual property on what the adversary is after how they are targeting there's organizations and then more importantly how do they work with the FBI to prevent that theft and why do I say that because when I show up at the door I'm sure all of you can imagine that every CEO CEO Oh CFO and every other acronym you have in an organization to include the security officer is ready willing and able to announce that the FBI is here they're here to help only my IP has been stolen by a foreign adversary and I don't want it the New York Times tomorrow morning because frankly their shareholders are not going to be very pleased with the fact that their IP just left the country and now the FBI is there to try to get it back and investigate this at so we spend an inordinate amount of time working with the private sector and corporations to protect their intellectual property because in the end we don't want anybody out there to be a victim and more importantly you know I always say look the economic base is everything in New York City if we don't have that cutting-edge technology that innovation people don't have jobs because the solvency of those organizations becomes at risk and that's very very important to us as an organization and protecting intellectual property again historically we would not do as much outreach as we're doing now but the level of threats related to cyber intrusions and the outright that that intellectual property is I mean it's it's astronomical right now and it continues to happen every day the problem I'm trying to face is how do I get more companies to come forward and work with us on that because many of them will not risk the reputational damage in we're you know bringing that forward in lieu of just accepting the loss and moving on the problem is the adversary receives that message just as much as you do from keeping that quiet and nine times out of 10 you're going to be a victim again if you've been a victim once so I encourage anybody that you know is experiencing any type of intellectual property theft to contact the FBI contact me in support of working with you and to things to remember on that which I think are very important one we don't always have to prosecute that's one thing I want to make everybody aware of if there is a major theft within your organization the goal is not always prosecution its neutralization big term and counterintelligence right because we learn how the adversary was able to get at your intellectual property and sometimes that becomes more important than sending the message of a deterrent which would be prosecution so be mindful of that out there as you are experiencing any type of theft or are a victim of such activity finally I'll close and I'll let bill jump in here but you know the FBI in New York we it's a 24/7 day a week job I wish I could tell you hey I had double the agent pool that I do but we try to prioritize by country threats and what do I mean by that we constantly are analyzing the level of activity the threat we apply our resources accordingly to those threats based on the level of activity one thing and I'll close with this that we're sort of going through within the FBI which has been a bit of a challenge for us is we have a cyber division and we have a counterintelligence division both looking at the same threat streams the problem is once in a while we never cross paths to share information because they're after hackers and I'm after those who are carrying out intelligence related collection operations in New York City however as I said the threat remains the same so you know while I was in my prior job my job at FBI headquarters was to integrate cyber with counterintelligence now many of you that have done mergers acquisitions are brought to major entities together under the same roof I'm sure that was a seamless you know exercise and you had no bureaucracy associated with that well let me tell you in the federal government in the FBI when you're trying to merge two major divisions there are some significant challenges to that but in learn just know that we are a lot better than we were post 9/11 in not only sharing information but combating the threat both from a cyber perspective and from a counterintelligence perspective and if you have questions and I'll add a few notes as we go along here about specific cases that are in the public to give you better visibility on what we are doing from a counterintelligence mission here at the FBI in New York Trulia put a pleasure to be with you today and I look forward to your questions in your comments thank you [Applause] good evening thank you sir truly honor to be here from Washington DC and spend some time with you tonight hopefully I'm not hopeful I'm I'm sure that we're going to have a robust discussion and dialogue and we are not going to hear your commentary I think says he's got a magic button over there that can delete you so it will do that but before getting to my role and what the government provides in terms of were my organization sits and what the odni is I just want to do two things real quick number one is you've heard the old adage or proverb depends on where you sit write your pens down what seed you're in is your optic your view right you all heard that and also you heard of fake news right I'm about to expose some fake news right now so you just heard by a good friend and colleague Charlie talk about how great the New York office of the FBI is that would be classified under fake names 101 and then I took perspective on that or not my cough turn that makeup class should be staged so I grew up as a nephrology across the river in New Jersey like working with real cases in the real subjects all the only targets were surely in New York City but they're bad actors live in New Jersey so we have the other work and then all the credit that's my apartment the other part of it is I got the opportunity and pleasure to work alongside Charlie for many years in Washington DC where Charlie not only was the lead investigator supervisor manager of some of the FBI's biggest investigations in the last 15 years in the Washington field office and at headquarters the Washington field office and in headquarters sir I only talks about he's a great advocate and marketing member of the New York office of the FBI but if your current Ellis's want to be do you want to work on intelligence you have all the embassies in Washington DC right that's where all the spies are so why would you not want to work as Charlie says the number-one mission is espionage that's where the spies are they letting you so when we're on to reality so Charlie ROM brought a lot of good perspectives in terms of the fbi's I will say very challenging mission almost an impossible mission to help protect and defend not only United States government the private sector and what we do for a living so I'm also on applying it so I am the fourth appointed National counterintelligence executive my boss is the Director of National Intelligence currently dan coates former senator dan coats previously was director clapper and we wish for the present part of this job I've been in job three years I was head of a kind of espionage group at the CIA and then prior to that I worked for Charlie in Washington field office just to give you an assembly-line of the FBI the CIA - now the national level what we do in a national level my son was called the National counterintelligence Security Center so our optic is to drive strategy policy guidance for con intelligence security across the US government in the private sector so what does that mean so every year my shop authors the strategy con intelligence as Unites States of America signed by man gets signed by the president adage that drives the strategy the five pillars of what we're going to do as a intelligence community to protect our nation we tell people what we're going to do then let the air a CIA NSA NGO they get that document and they determine how they're going to do it so there are the implement ators of that particular venue wholly FBI does that CIA does it overseas and if they collects that process would you our policy policy how we do things in the government with respect to clandestine operations also in security how do we get background investigations how do we protect and defend our people our buildings and our data overseas and consulates and embassies so it's a pretty vast mission but if after a strategy policy level so I spent a lot of my time with the White House and Congress just informing educating threatened learning to our policymakers and congressmen so they can go ahead and drive me legislation or write your national level policies it's weak position there was a challenge position for me going from operations in the tactical to the very strategic government-wide mindset it was a challenge I'm not even there yet but it's been a interesting dilemma for me to be moved beyond the tactical mindset and be more strategic also some clear parts of my job or not heading while chairing the counterintelligence team for NATO so I spent a lot of time with our NATO brethren around the world clearly activities we have conferences to drive some type of sub months of collectiveness in oneness with our NATO partners and we'll get into that in a second as well as what color 5i partners so the US Canada Great Britain New Zealand Australia so I chair what's called the counter intelligence insecurity panel across those five countries and we meet once a month on either exhibits or every month in person and we look at things ideas issues problems or threats that are you doing to all this and how we look in them individually and what we end up doing is learning and sharing best practices for instance that the FBI has really cool method or methodology another gimmick we will look at big data well that can be shared across lines it's same thing too for New Zealand friends find something that's interesting way to share those venues so that's pretty interesting now today I'm on the influence idea I'm just going to be a personal view and a being made of how it really impacted me so four years when I was at the CIO in my first two years as my current job I would be over in NATO and whether it be in Brussels so we go in different countries and I would always hear countries talking about the propaganda and influence of the Russians whether in the parish with the Royals or Watkins with the minions you know though even sometimes the French the Italians and I would be glassy-eyed I'd be following through and I'm like a five-minute propaganda Lamarck I had propaganda fatigue right because I had no optical epithelium the country of Russia obviously last several months that's changed right that has come home as here so now the last few times I live earlier I would why the wake and everything made sense to me but I can tell you right now we look at our situation which were dealing with right world with their propaganda influence campaign of the country of Russia what I can tell you is though your pain partners the folks in Europe have been dealing with us for decades decades and there are countries out there and we only truly believe they're on the verge of an invasion whether that's true or not it doesn't matter they believe it to be true no different than our electoral process that just happened whether the Russians actually interfered in our election does it matter raise your hand if you think they did not right well even if they didn't it doesn't matter because the narrative is created like we know for a fact they did and I have to explain this to my dad in Pennsylvania how this ruin works what propaganda really means right so well it doesn't make a difference the reality the reality sometimes is what we believe and how we feel and what we think and then we're all part of that as a country as a media organization and government officials as private citizens as people that make our country go every day so what we do every day is trying to find a way to not only combat the reality of propaganda and influence but educate as well and I think tonight we're going to do our best to be able to provide an optic for you through your questions and our answers and our dialogue and discussions about what we all can do collectively where can we learn some skill sets work we get some resources how to understand it better what this really means because there's a couple of things in our lexicon that are confusing supply chain katelyn infrastructure hack what does an actual word then actually hack mean propaganda influence they're all words that mean different things different people we're going to try and get the bomb below that today talk about what it really means for you and for your families and for your co-workers where you work and how that impacts it charlie talked a little bit about cyber as well will some numbers will click so a shop went back last five years looked at all of the fast of personal identifiable information PII majora bit by one country China looked at members so right now over half of American adults have been victimized by Shasta PII over half so that's this whole half of the room right here you you just don't know what yet it'll happen soon so all of that first applies opium to anthem to with Airways to American Airways to United Way airport reservations hotel reservations in the line right on the financial institutions also aware unless something great hacking you know so I could tell you a matter wasn't very sophisticated hacking mechanism by the Chinese government ninety percent of all that first 90 percent occurred from one thing you only guess what it is spearfishing or inability as humans to not click a link is incredible and adversaries know that that they could send us email a hyperlink to a Twitter account or an email and we will click that link and then there any would become assistance admitting they can siphon off all that data right so some of the damage is self-inflicted but until we do some of the control over the controllables or adversaries will never have to get more sophisticated to impact or intrude on our systems or data they can continue to send us emails with really cool dancing bears and we'll click on it so looks forward to tonight those can be great evening we look forward to your questions and it's going to be a great opportunity for myself to partner with my old friend Charlie and Ted Herakles a great night thank you both bill and Charlie the next follow-up question is we thought you talked about fishing and how hard it is so you know you get an email from somebody I know let's bill haven't heard from bill in a long time work that's my former girlfriend or whatever it is and you click on the link that they send you how do we actually verify it what what are the defensive mechanisms which are probably a pain in the neck but what kind of defensive mechanisms would you think that we should try to train ourselves so we can't eliminate it but we will get it or reduce it well also real quick without bursting any certificates so what I do so we have there's multiple products online you can get you can download for free or you can spend three four five bucks and buy better products to help you with preventing the Spearfish what I do every day and think about the object of what you do every day one in the same boat all day long you get emails all day long with attachments right when we click on the attachments then you go home if you get your families and then you look at your personal emails and then what do you have attachments right and it's become part of our culture or non-stop what I've got myself to do only because not only the threats that we face every day as citizens but in our role we have a little bit higher threat because we're more targets I slowed things down a little bit so I take my mouse and I hover over the email from mr. Roosevelt and I will say John Smith that our group right it's a small little thing that takes a mega second but it makes all the difference in the world so I try and categorize what the values it and I have a metrics to it I've got about 10% of my emails are bogus that I get right now and it's all just by putting my mouse now there are software out there they can get that will help you do that and I have some of that but for me I've got myself in the habit of hover my mouse over the email and realizing if it's really them or not in a solid antivirus software will help you immensely also take a hard look at the address in which you're receiving the email from first before you go to that attachment this sounds very basic training and awareness of personnel becomes ever so important in the you know corporate sphere or if you were out in any organization training and awareness is everything I don't know how many times we walk into an organization and you find that their training and awareness program of their personnel is pretty pathetic if you have poor training and awareness as it relates to spearfishing I can assure you you will be a victim over and over again of you know some type of intrusion release of malware and you will be a victim you may not even know you're a victim for quite some time which becomes a problem strong antivirus software and don't think that it's specific to your workstations or your laptop you also have cell phones and mobile media you are carrying around these things tend to pick up depending on sites you are visiting bits of malware that you can carry with you and transmit it's up to you when you receive a link to ensure you do your due diligence first before you contact security or ask the question and then more importantly you know in organizations you have to train your personnel that is the only way you're going to prevent long-term and persistent threats to your network based on the Spearfish I believe that honor the choice great points are that some of the best things that we deal in America and the private sector are great for what we do everything we see we don't even see it but it hurts us on the other side for instance data aggregation so the ability for you to turn on your Facebook and see an ad for 15% off your favorite store is because you were just on Amazon right and so that time you're clipping the Amazon it got your Facebook I got sold to Experian experience so the Facebook in like mega seconds right well that same capability is by our adversaries so they know where you go they know where websites you go to and they could buy that from Experian as well with a bogus company and they could target you as well so keep in mind so let's look back to the WikiLeaks leaked recently in vault seven so they put it out and then web we're times had a link to it so we took government please do not click that link right for two reasons someone you're going to now have access to classified document which they do unfortunately and number two there's a hyperlink in that link that identifies to WikiLeaks was clicking on it and when they have your email so it's that same I call it speed of business that we have in America our adversaries have the same thing so just like with Internet of Things which is an amazing thing that we love every day it's also awesome for adversaries just to note here and I'm not going to go in a lot of detail but I think it's pertinent for this audience be careful what antivirus software you're using and where it's from I would also do a little research on any intrusion related activity that is publicly available on those antivirus software entities to see if in fact they have been a victim of an intrusion as well now this is an audience that's pretty sophisticated they travel all over the world talk a little bit about how easy it is unfortunately for people to become compromised and how strategic our adversaries are and working to compromise people even from a young age so I think this sort of understanding sort of what has happened in some cases particularly let's say with the Russians I don't want to pick on them particularly they've been doing this for generations and now they have electronic tools that make them far more effective than they ever have been but they have a mindset that's a little different than ours so talk a little bit about that she was so I'll start back wherever I'm sure target dig into the how algorithm or the why and so a little bit John a two things electronic compromise and can compromise so I will tell you when legend or if you travel over extra vision if you don't travel overseas right one person um what's the strenght of would your name is so when you travel overseas I don't care where it is when you land you determined for now your phone is now the property of welding landed not just your phone your emails your texts your database your contacts is owned by them whether it's the French the Spanish or the Russians and Chinese now if it's Russians Chinese or in your name in terrain obviously but I'm running everything on your phone now what the also do can do is send you an email from that airport from that location with the link and guess what you do you click on that link all right it will appear and then not a Google like map program to get along Beijing or in st. Petersburg when you click on that not as malware on the phone right there will say forever so in connecting the states remember when you travel the scenes your phone is not connected to Verizon or AT&T anymore it's connecting to a story government because they own and operate that so they owned everything on your son all real textual types and having emails second when you travel overseas and this semester for guys and we'll go out your sweater business meaning your marketing or your conference and then you're out having dinner at a bar all of a sudden you become the best looking guy in the bar all right if you weren't good looking here's your local looking over there this remember that if it's too good to be true is sugar to be true on a tactical leather we'll deal with this everyday we have numerous personnel both in the private sector and the federal government that are compromised as a matter of routine in foreign countries you're aware this this is always made public look if Russia can compromise its own attorney general a few years ago with two prostitutes and a camera embedded somewhere you know out buying this activity imagine what they can do to you as a business traveler going in there blindly with a laptop of phone and all the energy in the world to make a deal or to do business there I caution everybody in traveling to Russia and China just make sure you're doing your due diligence as it relates to your phone your computers or any other media you be you could be taking because it will be compromised and you will not know it a couple of specific stories I don't know if any of you have had this experience but it is a telltale sign of compromise if your cell phone is rather hot or the temperature is high on your cell phone when you are in a foreign country you can almost be rest assured that is some form of a remote attack against that device so just a you know point of clarification for you that is one clear sign of a potential attack against your phone would be you know the the temperature we have seen numerous private sector entities personnel and also a federal government employees compromised and then as bill said it's as simple as you know starting a dialogue that leads to you know the development of a relationship that goes sideways quickly and let's just keep in mind the rule of law is not always warm that is abided by in some of these countries where you're traveling and you should be readily aware of that I'll just cite the level of detainment of US persons in China right now is quite exorbitant and it is a concern to the US government is a concern to the FBI and we're constantly giving defensive briefings on those traveling into those countries as to what they can expect if you are a former government employee or somebody that has worked in a capacity as a key business figure you can rest assured they are going to know who you are before you hit the ground and you will be monitored while you are there now that is not meant to you know sound like here's Charlie from the FBI and he's naturally paranoid these are facts folks and this is what we deal with day in and day out when we're dealing with you know individuals traveling to these countries blindly and not getting a good defensive debriefing before they go out I will offer to you or your organization's if you are interested in getting that type of counterintelligence briefing before you leave or your employees leave reach out to me I am happy to give that because a little you know preparation on the front end is good for you on the back end and it's equally good for me on a resource standpoint at the FBI so again if there is a way we can help you please let me know I just to follow up and if you have an opponent or pencil write this down and if not think about it so ncsc gov NCIC gov the President Obama asked us a year ago to put together some training vignettes for these type of issues subsequent to the OPM data breach and we did we have seven little videos on there they're three minutes or less one has to do with foreign travel not only the technical collection of your your cell phones your iPad your computers of a place in your hotel room which are not safe right so everyone in that town had that combination and also talks about spearfishing and there's one for boom quote-unquote opposed to the conference overseas what that looks like and they're all good for adult learners they're out to minutes long and the last one we just did and it's up a website right now where the top 10 travel advisories for counterintelligence State Department you just puts out all those advisories from materials in perspective which countries are dangerous you're going to get blown up do they get kidnapped this is the first time that we've actually gone we've got a community wide consensus top ten things you need to know before we move this country the very first one is do not take your personal phone a laptop do not take it while give it to some other country or a foreign government and then if you're on a business trip right and you're going to have your laptop with all your powerpoints and talking points for the left why I give that up as well so we'll the answer question is we're going to do where's your company I probably have some we call them clean phones or they're like what I do I go to Walmart and if I myself a nine dollar phone I put in ten fundament where I really need here's numbers to call right now come back it cost me twenty two bucks with my phone calls and I know my cell phone is not compromised right so something to think about if you do not want to hide yourself compromise also try to close up if you traveled overseas multiple times last couple years spend the time get to a forensic specialist or get some software to check your phone out see if you have malware on it do you have something good do diligence you might have malware and it's not just Russia in China think about that that's pretty ominous I'm leaving next week to go to China okay Carlos when we get back 10 and as soon as I get back now if you listen to you now one of the questions that Charlie this is more for you you mentioned that Iran China Russia and North Korea as being the ones but increasingly we see the role of non-state actors playing a role here some of that's going to be counterterrorism but a lot of them are trying to get clearly do it duels use technology how much of that how much of that occupies your time and how do we also be aware of that when we're here yeah let's let's define that a little I think you know for more definitive standpoint always talk about non-state actors the way we could refer to them as non-traditional collectors right those individuals and I'll cite the 2010 FBI arrests of the Russian illegals those individuals had been in the country some of them upwards of 20 years under an assumed identity collecting intelligence for the Russian government we refer to that as a non-traditional collector we also have what we refer to as agents of foreign governments who are co-opted by those governments and sent to the United States with the sole purpose of obtaining dual use technology intellectual property or carrying out whatever that government is tasking them to do through their research and development in the academic realm the scientific realm or the business and economic sectors so we you know to throw a statistic at you there are 14 million transient visitors coming through JFK every year in that 14 million I can assure you in the F the eye is aware that there are non-traditional collectors coming into the country for the sole purpose of collecting information and going after through targeting met dual use technology we were very mindful of that we do our best to screen that keeping in mind the rights and privacy of individuals traveling in the United States and I'm not here to say every 14 millionth person is doing something nefarious in the United States it's our job and you rely on us to make sure we are aware of those who are coming into the country and we're doing something about it to negate those activities without negatively impacting their stay in the New York area if in fact they're here as a visitor because we love visitors in New York City it's what what you know the tourist industry is all about it's what makes us the city we are and such a popular place for business and tourism so in looking at that the non traditional collectors I would say are becoming more of a threat then that we have real time in New York City day in and day out and identifying them becomes quite challenging for the FBI and will do that a number of ways information we received from other federal government agencies information we received from our foreign partners who are aware of these individuals activities from being in their countries and then we you know again take appropriate action to make sure that they're not carrying out any intelligence related activities any procurement activities or any outright theft you know it's interesting having both of you here having but you know so one case worked for the CIA we're working both the 9/11 Commission and Lawrence Wright and is a book the looming tower we're very critical about failures within the intelligence community to have lateral communication and I know a lot has been done talk to us a little bit about how effective you think the reforms have been to make that and what are the things you really hope happen in the future to make it even better because we have specialization but we've got to have more more are flows of information without compromising the intelligence has been gathered yeah it's a great question I'll jump on that bill if you don't mind in work it has to work we have to share information in New York given the threat stream and the constant threat information that is coming in New York City I will tell you as the SA c4 FBI in New York I partner with every federal agency here in looking to share information and not only that if you've read the 9/11 Commission report it really didn't touch much on sharing with our you know various foreign governments in my realm as I told you early on historically that sharing of information with foreign governments was sort of minimized we were more of a nationalized agency that was focused on bank robberies kidnappings and things of that nature counterintelligence was sort of centric to the United States and our borders and keeping you know the Cold War adversaries at bay no longer who are now working globally with foreign partners and sharing information I see that role expanding as we go forward I'm meeting with government entities here in New York City from the UN that I would historically not have done business with as the FBI I think that's very very good for us across the board I think the more expansively on that Intelligence Sharing the better we will be equipped here to protect Newark the United States and more importantly share information to make sure our allies have timely information to combat the very same threats that we're facing day in and day out so you know from that standpoint our sharing of intelligence with foreign governments as governments has expanded tenfold I'll say you know between the federal agencies as I said in New York it has to work work in my opinion and I'm a little bit biased it is the example I know Bill's in love with Washington DC that's okay in New York we are the example we share information regularly we cannot survive without that sharing going on and I rely on every federal agency here and now sort of a new thing for you tonight historically our counterterrorism division would link up with NYPD we've started initiatives on the counterintelligence side where we are now partnering with their intelligence apparatus to work together and that's something that we really haven't done well in the past but we are now expanding into that role in mirroring that counterterrorism model on the counterintelligence side and we're finding out some terrific information because let's think about it NYPD has 40,000 strong out there there are an army in New York City they do a phenomenal job they're great organization and they gather so much street-level intelligence that the FBI can benefit from and partner with them on it's it's a fascinating revelation for us and something we're going to capitalize on moving forward just to don't tell Charlie said I think some of the fake news I think the idea that's not shared is old news I would say honestly from my perspective not only having been in bed at the CIA in charge of a couple hundred folks over there on espionage but my job now there's really hardly anything that's not shared specifically analytically for sure because there's a lot of cross-fertilization of people and the joint duty program which is called has really promulgate of that the ability to have FBI CIA nga NSA you know that law force folks working together whether it be in a joint Terezin task force or in a government organization where promulgates the information sharing on with your own equities and what authorities your brain as well as I think the war zones the last 15 years the ability to being away room working alongside people alongside members from other agencies has really driven the student in need to share a story talked about it kept not share i think they'll bring on the war in afghanistan iraq has really proven that to be true we you could say if you will say a case officer why we need the FBI out here or the DIA learning did when we work together and that group twenty hours a day for months at a time realize different authorities you will get to learn that and then they come back to DC New York Los Angeles become managers then they're already attuned to the critical need to share Afridi's equities resources and mindsets I think that's where I think which driven subsequent to the line 11 Commission report ng Commission report because we were planning on 9/11 independent stovepipe entities no doubt about that normal challenge but right now I think at some points we doing again a little bit further if you look at that with Edward Snowden stood one point five million documents a lot of those documents were on shared sites that were available to a lot of different agencies so some question do we go overboard here which we didn't change you mitigate but but so the good sharing has some some potential pitfalls for it but I think we're where's good now is where we're going to be and I think we're in what places both of you mentioned that we're going to be under more pressure under from voting and there going to be more the Russians are going to do more of that does that suggest that maybe we should go back to the future and go those old fashioned machines where you move a big lever that if you have electronic voting it's going to be much easier to compromise you know I'm going to answer this this way okay and I try to rely on factual information in making decisions and the FBI relies on us to do that day in and day out and I want to stress to you that there's been a lot of spin in the media and I realize the media has a job to do I respect that however you know the FBI we have to rely on factual information here's a fact no voting machine was hacked during the election as a fact so before we jump the gun and start reinventing the wheel and turning our democratic process on its head let's deal in factual information in making decisions about the electoral process so you know with that and I sort of take issue with this because there's been so much of the fake news that's been spinning there's been so much put out there about what we believe rusher did and what we didn't I can tell you this much and this is confirmed by director Comey's testimony you know confirming with Department of Justice authorization that there is a counterintelligence investigation going on into that right now I will stress to you sitting here is the FBI representative in New York we are looking for factual information to substantiate or negate the idea that there was an influencer campaign and we have to rely on that you have to rely on that and you have to stand with us on that in support of getting to that truth and that's what we're doing today in the FBI as it relates to this whole thing but to my to your question into that point fact not fiction not speculation not spin that's what we're focused on right now I'm trying to get to that answer so a little bit context for that so I had the opportunity to be part of the assessment we did for the intelligence community for the president with respect to the influence of the election and I got to work with DHS and secretary Johnson on the actual voting machine issues so some interesting reality to it all not only were there no voting machines hacked when we found out some of the investigation is that if someone wanted to and they wanted to hack voting machines in New York City all the precincts are not connected so so theoretically a high school kid or now I would say a 12 year old kid kid can hack a voting a precinct in New York voting but that's all they'll get they'll get those 1,200 voters at that firehouse because not connected everywhere else so some of the archaic natal process and we're still like 1958 ish rate is actually going to help us down the road because because of the our politics are local that has an impact on how we vote and I think that the other day looking towards your next presidential election this will end up helping us because the lack of connectivity it's one of the few things in the country right now that's not corrected it's probably the same and incorrect if I'm wrong build each state had a different system or there were multiple different systems out there so which about that variety of voting systems and machines it creates a little difficult time to carry out an intrusion on something when you don't know the infrastructure and you have that varying degree our voting machines out there from state to state that are not connected good ok welcome one last question that I'm going to turn of the audience do you think that we have the right balance between surveillance and protection of our civil liberties I'll start off I get disaster to me all the time in Congress and depending on which the way you look left or right we hit the question comes from different perspective I'm going to say yes and i'ma go to the how it's manifested everyday and investigations of Charlie but everything I do I have three attorneys that are certainly there to do privacy salaries with respect to policy and strategy of both on the count houses and security side because again with a day no matter what we do we have to protect our civil liberties and privacy the other side of the clue is that can only go so far right so I'll give you a vignette to this so last year we came out with a policy that said as we do your background investigation as we look to you to be a protector of the nation secrets and we're going to bestow upon you the authority that maintain a top secret clearance we're going to look at all your finances we're going to give you what's called the financial enema right we know where you've lived who your roommates were everything you possibly know right but now that we added is the ability for the FBI to look at your public facing social media look at your Facebook front page Twitter front page makes sense right how could we from the smell test could we do somebody's back on investigation and not look at their public media I'm not through the password it's just what's on the page right will me tell you the privacy similarly folks went bananas they thought it was a complete invasion of privacy so it depends again were you sick right so you have to ask yourself is that invasion of privacy to look at the Lebanese Facebook account if you want to give him a security clearance so as you move through every single step we make to secure our country and provide some due diligence comes with a civil liberty and privacy issue and snowed in by the loggers to bear some of its good some well it's not so good but we'll work the other day but I terms of the US government intelligence community there's not a decision we make that doesn't involve civil liberties and privacy yeah absolutely right and the same way for you know us carrying out investigations this is not taken lightly it is not something we routinely do is run out and just initiate investigations on us persons without predication without google review and to ensure that we meet the standards set by the Attorney General the Department of Justice and the FBI's office a general counsel we take that seriously and it's not something I take lightly when we're evaluating whether to open a counterintelligence matter an espionage matter proliferation matter as matter of course so there is plenty of scrutiny from a legal standpoint to ensure we're not violating anybody's privacy when I'm not out talking with the private sector you know one thing that comes up as a matter of routine is what level of privacy within your organization are you comfortable with when you're monitoring your employees because we stress all the time the insider threat you've heard this at nauseam right you know the insider is going to get these going to steal your IP if she's going to take it out of the building so what level of sort of privacy are you adhering to internally or representing within your organization's to ensure you find a balance between security and privacy and we you know I don't have a good answer for you because your organizational cultures are going to dictate what your level of security and what level of monitoring you may be able to employ to protect your IP or those Kings to the kingdom if you will within your organization that keep you a solvent entity out there in the sector you're operating in and like I said been in thousand different companies and organizations to security incidents and that is probably one of the biggest I think or one of the most troubling things for companies as to you know developing that formula for privacy versus you know monitoring employees activities we sure hope you will or have responsibility oversight and hiring personnel a lot right so I'm asking for the answer but think about when we would hire someone you check their social media so I we do our world is controlled by social media you check it the girl them I can tell you just last week I had a little symposium like this with fortune 100 companies and some emerging relation colleges and two of them said a university president and a major corporation CEO said we would never dare to do that we would never do that's a complete invasion of privacy so wait a minute your major initiate your corporation you're gonna hire this person you're going to pay a lot of money and you're not going to check what's on the front of the Facebook page that's a choice right but it's also a risk based equation choice all right questions have somebody there's a question over there I know okay disappear away in the back yeah soldier go way in the back with Achmed with the glasses good come on up to the front so pee buddy can hear you oh you got a microwave right Albert Golson how does your organization the FBI's specifically with the cyber division how successful have they been in recruiting young people to work for your organization's versus their choice to work for let's say company in Silicon Valley and what can you do better to increase that recruitment effort or I can ask you the taxpayers to be able to pay them higher and not way we'd be able to retain in all seriousness you raise a very good question and when we are you know dealing with in the FBI as you can imagine we have a lot of talented personnel in our cyber realm and they're often recruited to the private sector it is very difficult to retain these individuals because their talents and obviously they're very marketable so what we try to do is you know convince them that the experience they will get within the FBI in an investigative realm and what they're going to be learning about from you know foreign partners will aid them in eventually getting out into the private sector but as far as we've looked at retention bonuses we've looked at a number of different different things to include advanced education to try to get them to stay but that is something we're battling with in the FBI right now so I'm going to speak a little bit on the community perspective because we've had a lot of accomplishes about this but I'd like left where I was just the facts so currently right now the average intuition or FBI engine is 30 years old so that's the girl in the video who maybe is working in Silicon Valley in Texas in st. Louis however private sector job that currently have they go to clinical for six months and we're asked to be assigned to they work for Charlie New York City four seven six thousand a year and we look at the family here dressed in FBI agent seven six thousand dollars to start New York City and there's a line out the door I just want to let you know as well so that being said in the community it's very similar letter your CIA NSA injury and let's make a difference what we have in the community to let the I probably will anybody once we get the money I'll improvise because the mission is so strong no one ever leaves the hard part though is getting a min now you are on the money issue what the millennial issue so what you're saying to these individuals hate yeah I know mr. twenty eight-year-old su-7 broker here in New York City who's making two hundred forty thousand dollars a year we get the fact that we'll take a big pickup also know that cell phone live worth in front of your face you can tell me to work what now we moved back to this twenty four-year-old analyst move I'd really nice to just graduated Yale and also come work for the FBI CIA each other I'm wrestling now work 15 hours a day oh and they take this big intrusive background investigation it's a tough problem so some other things who talked about the phone again I dress accordingly and rockabilly hey let's look at holistically given reaction coming to the government the FBI for five years but I rechecked it for two years in the comeback which way now is not possible so I think there's some ways looking at that but again it's a big ask but once we hit the moon behind them and Charlie's point is valid whether my application is down to the FBI than we've ever had with the part very very simply what percentage resources again give me my answer is commercial interests what percentage of resources did you get the Russian intelligence services contribute to traditional espionage as compared to vision from Ikea the other question is to what extent you mentioned us sharing information with other countries full extent would you either by quality or like quantity you are allies feel comfortable or less comfortable and doing the opposite with us particularly over the last year which means also a quick and the bigger part so we know for a fact that every state as you're sharing information specifically on the counterintelligence panache angle let's work for the each other in the last couple of years you know and I'll leave it at that on the first part we do have some qualified members on the first question which we can't get into here but we're pretty aware of the effort that's put forth by the Russian government the FSB GRU SPR and what makes it rumor difficult now is GRU yes we are very competitive and that competition breeds not a good story for us yes sir honestly I couldn't give you a good percentage of that I think you know as bill said I have observed numbers I just don't know the veracity of those numbers and I couldn't give you a quantifiable number here in New York and question way over the left my letters I'm just curious having you started with the comité felicity I'm just wondering what protection we have against the president declaring a national emergency and somehow transforming us from a democracy with a different type of yeah you know honestly sir I don't know that I'm going to have a good answer for that I appreciate the question but I think that's one I'm just not prepared to answer them so I have an answer I'm really deep in my heart I'm folks didn't hear the question well I be better off the by Archer if you say thank you to you sir is that deep in my heart I'm hoping we moons his fake news I really deep in my help hope that's just something something happened is a lady lady red you get it amazing experiment in a public revelation of identity so they have 800 million of their citizens biometrically I did identified and with more than one biometric and they're beginning to use this for virtual banking and for voting thing and I wonder what you think of this I mean it's an enormous experiment in the world to have this going on I don't know much about that I have heard the same thing however what goes into my mind immediately is how are they protecting that data where is it being stored and who would have access to it my H will be I'm fully aware with that and they're in a race with other countries and the same capabilities I expect that to be here soon because at the end of the day with our world of trying to protect in although less looks for speed condolence technology edge I look for a company specifically in the financial sector to look into biometrics so we want to take a little ATM cards we're already starting to see pallets in that so it's probably not far from the US mainland one other comment on that Disney World Disney is a huge biometric collector right now you cannot go to that park without putting your you know print down to get it I mean I think we're heading in that direction again I always look at it from a security standpoint you know I don't know how comfortable we all are based on the level of intrusions and the Piro that's out there now they're going to get your biometric information that to me is problematic so I will add on to the question about biometrics whom that India is doing and how they're collecting biometrics to do everything in India with respect to from commerce to banking to grocery store shopping in India and we're now far from that here I also we're almost there so look at the data that's collected on us as citizens credit cards your your what experience I was every day going to dollars with this so what we do just think about what we do every day that we take for granted about how its collected and I'll give you the way example Google Maps right if temporarily mean how Google Maps worked and how they got data if you're upset but could we live with everyone else while we're not right so the Google knows how fast you're going but the tailor student it with my dad poor dad he says when you tell you it's really cool a collision with yellow to red to purple like automatically that's well I don't know how they do that I think we need a satellite in the sky but if my dad really knew that he's worth I left but that data is going to miss Fong in maybe seconds he would not be happy and he would write a letter to Rachel Maddow okay Helmand and the president likes to scarf around given that sorry introduce yourself tarik I'm a student given that Facebook Twitter and social media have been weaponized in this past election this is more probably in line with the DNA's mandate but the FBI probably also has an input do you have an action plan that's ready to counter these measures by the time of the next election and does this action plan include an offensive strategy as well as a defensive strategy yes yes okay way in the back invitation my name is to your Prieto in view of the Ana Montes case is Cuba among the list of adversaries absolutely and then at revelation atop for two days in that top world and the day and subject matter what much Cuban their enticing now obviously the changes with Obama ability to travel there in become more targets it's not just the cannibalizing here but right now the Chinese and Russians have invested a lot of personnel collection capabilities in Cuba as well so all over the physical country Cuba is so close to us and the partnerships that have been equated to including Russia for decades now the Chinese makes it really difficult for us and our target and I think it's probably you know in the top echelon of our threats right now I took a little perspective both North America but the Mekons always perspective it's being dealt with everyday very aggressive intelligence posture in New York City and throughout the globe and also one interesting thing that I'm always intrigued by with the Cuban intelligence services they recruit spies based on strictly an ideology not a financial vulnerability which in my mind is quite impressive and just goes to the level of sophistication that they utilize in recruiting their agents as well because we're great pleasure to meet on Porteous bones and they look as fun to make things once now I wanted to say is this we have touched mostly what they are doing to protect us in New York that they do something also very interestingly and is a big jobs which they have realized optinal is that this city for nearly 80 years as during the first of United Nations and one of the main functions have not only been to protect the west side that the US government these people had and they be very successful in protecting every year the heads of states of maybe 200 countries which visit this city and comes through UN and I must say I'm most grateful I work for 30 years for UN on a high level and that's why I can express our deepest gratitude because when you look back I don't remember not only myself we don't remember one single case which neither a Kevin States or anybody a big subject of killing or anything vulgar which I wanted to mention that was the important question when they do this protection they can do only until the progear of un because legally inside of un doesn't belong but they have to cooperate very much with the international security which we had at UN which belongs to the different country so I suppose that this is a very important questions I mean what they did but we didn't touch about that and don't forget about the security question didn't started in this country with 9/11 don't forget that maybe for 13 years this us this country the cold war and all that well well the protections were much more important is completely not well the two simple question which I may ask if I may I will firstly get-get the choir director to the pleasure me I will propose because I mean they may wish to comment on what I said if the procrastination when I was working at UN and certainly we heard them at that time and I'm talking about ten years back 50 we talked about the frontiers here about Kennedy our potential service but I was told at that time one of the weakest point is called former New York well the focus with Canada because on from the Canada he you can quantify the song okay so is that still and my second question but is that amantha the question earlier there was a kind of imposition to be used to European countries representatives especially for the Soviet Union not to fill to certain five thank you so first of all I'm not going to take credit for the UN General Assembly's security alone the FBI participates in that the UN plays a significant role but also want to complement the New York Police Department it does a phenomenal job in supporting that security and the good citizens of New York who are always aware of those offenses they're you know going on in the city so all of those individuals deserve credit for that on your question related to frontiers in Canada all I can tell you is we work very closely with the Canadian government in support of keeping the border safe and from a counterintelligence standpoint we're partnered with both CSIS and also the RCMP in combating any threats that come across this border right now in there right you thank you regarding your use of politically sensitive information you you might acquire how much is that use affected by the known political predilections of say sessions and Trump the tough question I'm sorry well let's see we answer this I'll answer it with one name John Podesta right so you want to know the impact of a s successful Spearfish and the ability of a non-state actor to manipulate and affect things by putting emails out there I think no matter who you are what you are whether you're a political appointee whether you're a congressman senator or somewhere in the White House or you're an any organization or in the private sector you can potentially be victimized and I think with the way I what I've learned in the last year is that I know that everything I type on my email could one day be exposed so it makes me think of everything I type so I think the nature your question was how do we the information when we receive politically sensitive information and then you know how do we utilize that moving forward well I can tell you from my perspective if we do receive information like that it is not openly disseminated within the organization in the counterintelligence realm we survive by the idea that you ever need to know in the organization especially when it comes to classified information or as you cite politically sensitive information so we have a small team that reviews that obviously all the way up to our director would be aware of that and then we may try to make sound decisions based on the information and you know what it entails is it a federal violation is it more from an intelligence standpoint is it something that's potentially compromising to that individual it depends on the situation and clearly it depends on who it is Paula and I come to these events all the time it's wonderful thank you and I unlike this gentleman here I'm not concerned about a a military takeover a dictatorship of our government but what I'm concerned about our companies as large as Amazon and Microsoft and Google for the access to absolutely all of our data what kinds of protections do we have against companies like that and they are giving that well I think in terms of protections obviously those are questions for Amazon Google but I will tell you in the greatest capitalist country ever created in the history of the world I think that's part of our success and part of our capability for us to drive capitalism involves information flow and their ability to take our information whether it's a magazine we order so I think it's it's a combination of our culture but also our capitalist society that it has to breed upon that to drive the economy now from the Gummy's perspective nor the FCC and there's relatives out there that I have the ability to regulate the way they collect data and move data that's what we have to hope for good government and a good business model practices that good relationships between big government and big business I think that's going to have to continue to be the success that's driven our country last couple hundred years good gentlemen you thanks for coming out today um say that my name is Michael Tom I actually work for the government I'm part of 18f it's like a tech I don't know if you're familiar with it at all question not related as much xx although I'd love to talk about the recruitment thing later not not go myself here's what a lot that myself you know it was a new Marquis like about six loads on here no I think that's a really interesting conversation and would love to continue that later but this is kind of separate and it touches on a keep few key themes that you discussed earlier which was fortune 500 companies nonprofit organizations all these leaders who are traveling abroad folks who are doing this type of work and I guess my question is like they can get exposed they can be compromised is there such a thing as gross negligent treason where your behavior is so careless that it could be conceived as well how could you be so careless as to give this away because I mean where do you draw that line on what is considered what is considered inactive form of treason versus what's considered you know you should have known better it's a great question I think we need to separate the question into sort of the economic realm and then the national security realm if you are traveling with classified information without having it propria tamed and you are exposed you can definitely be investigated for such activity and potentially prosecuted as far as economic data I would turn that back on the entities in which the individual is employed our first they permitted to be traveling with that type of information in that capacity in that method and then where they're going with it are they permitted to have that information are you permitted to get onto the network and then remotely access back to your organization with that data on your laptop or your phone or wherever you're storing it again it's a very good question but there are a thousand scenarios I could throw at you whereby when we would take a hard look at the activity and determine if there is any criminal culpability or activity or negligence as you say generally negligence falls in the realm of more of administrative within the organization you know when you're talking classified information or you're talking fact of IP that bounces you back into the criminal realm which would be under FBI jurisdiction I approached juniper I work in private equity I was wondering if you could please address economic espionage from friendly States particular that might be state-sponsored economic espionage and how you go about in dealing with your counterparts in trying to address address that mitigated and discourage that yeah it's a great question many times it is friendly countries that are obtaining IP again a hundred different scenarios I could you know answer your question the bottom line is if we believe or we have reason to believe or the fact pattern is that it is fact the first question we have to ask is we look at the employee right or does the employee or the individual associated with that organization another question we ask is what type of controls are in place to prevent that theft very very important question when we're talking about economic espionage and then when we feel or we establish either through working with the organization that's a victim we make an assessment on whether however the country whether it be a friendly or an adversary is to the procurement of that specific information so it's sort of a judgment call along the way as you investigate and you let the fact pattern dictate if and when you would reach out to the friendly generally not the adversary nor the friendly then trying to coordinate now if there is a third country involved whereby the individual may be transiting if I could take your question in that direction and we know that the individuals already out of the country absolutely we will be going to that third country to coordinate that security service or that government in support of stopping that individual or that travel into a country where we believe will be getting their hands on that intellectual property so I will take it a little bit more glue glib into something to think about - Charlie's answer because we are the greatest country ever invented right we do a little bit job here after killing the government private sector in the criminal may we do a good job of that for the most part we slip sometimes but most probably do no other country to do that not even your so when you travel over there with proprietary information trade data and there's the state-sponsored fest is helping with economic structure for instance when there's a winning game with accent we have businesses come from all over the globe the FBI is here and that's scaring the economic data to help the United States government would you don't do that but that's not the case everywhere else so there's really no learning a blurred line between state and equity the wind room where Olivia usually though only because ridiculousness so that makes sense so there is a big acquisition layer between our country a prominent European country and the we're going back and forth flying back and forth to negotiate this acquisition merger which turned to be a monster company we have now what that country did through its intelligence services were microphone all the seats on the airplane so they can hear all the conversations of their business people so before they got there they are renewal positions that's before they ever living you know eclectic over electronic data so you take that and put it with your size phones cell phones iPads and IT collection it's even worse now but that's what happened you know 15 20 years ago so again really amazing country it's because we don't do that so did that answer your question non traveler hi everyone my name is MJ and I work at Barclays my question is besides worrying about the non-state actors being the threat to organizations how do you feel about organizations trusting third party vendors with their systems these days it's a terrific question yes we all live in a world where we hire a lot of contractors right and I will tell you point blank that we have had major issues with security breaches with vendors and contractors getting access to not only classified data in the federal government but also to proprietary data in the private sector it's a risk what type of vetting are you doing of the contracting entity you're accepting personnel from and both tell me it's the lowest bidder because if you do you're sort of asking for it I will tell you a story and I won't go into detail as to the organization I was closing at one point to give advice and guidance on a entity in the medical industry who had had for the last 14 years vendors handling a lot of their network security and activity rotating in and out now when I asked for an accounting of those vendors and the contractors they couldn't provide it so I basically walked back out the door and I said when you can come up with a list let us know we'll try to help you you know a little due diligence on the front-end goes a long way on the backend to your network security and to the security of your information and there are hundreds of examples like that it's a natural risk it depends and it goes back to many of you in that human resource element you have a tough job I don't envy you the position you're in you have to do a lot of extreme vetting and I think you know with that you know you have to make sure you're protecting your equities what does that answer your question it sat on that number of the PII theft that we lost 60% of that was from a third-party vendor from OPM to target to anthem all those bleachers came from a third-party vendor and the last point I make on that we're doing your due diligence there's a lot of information online about vendors and contractors ask yourselves and look for data as it relates to any intrusion breach hack or any issue with that entity in the past if that is indeed the case it should give you some indication maybe abour security posture as an organization and then apply that to what you're asking them to do in your organization good way to two questions it's going to be on it and three people give their questions head sequence and then we'll take those so gentleman there gentleman there and gentleman there okay did you get questions very quickly will they'll remember what they are and then go to the next one and we'll have three questions and John George from the United Nations Foundation given the recent news around 5:45 does the FBI have a plan in place before something like this would happen to avoid any disruptions going forward in terms of intelligence a yeah next question hi my name is Michael I'm a wealth manager and a with beacon trust in Morristown New Jersey you indicated that sometimes your objective is to neutralize these threats as opposed to prosecuting them does that apply across the board outside of just like the private sector and why yeah I think this we serve as your microphone under your right okay thank you at a Miami grad student at Columbia University SEPA and well I have two questions considering first that Joaquin el chapo guzman is going to be tried here in New York how big of a threat is posed by transnational organized crime when it comes to counterintelligence and my second question is while we well third party information vendors pose vulnerabilities we're looking at a blockchain in the future where there are no third party vendors so that also poses less capacity of the state to monitor those transactions that get back to the people that are exploiting those types of opportunities so how is how does the government prepare for that thank you so I'll start and then Charlie grew up to get more details but a little bit backwards the transnational organized crime is it's a holistic problem were dealing with right now lemons new but this administration is taking it head on there's three major councils and multi-agency organizations working in right now it's been probably in 30% of the presidential Daily Brief and there's been a lot of national products written towards the counterintelligence aspects that they have learned from major breaches that these organized crimes organizations have done and I will patrol but on the FBI issue you get a number that majority the FBI's business is done in the 56 field officer on the country they operate regardless of who's in charge in Washington DC for the most part as Charlie could tell you in New York City he has no idea what was going on Washington was in terror so he will continue doing business here and that's the value of the FBI is that it's done at the lowest denominator of the hard work of the Asians and analysts yet echo bills comments of course there is a continuing operations plan when we experienced something like this we experienced the same thing when director Muller retire moved on from his term and we had you know you know like I said deputy director McCabe will stand in place most likely as the acting director until a new director is named by this president but yes nothing changes as far as our operational pace and honestly I mean we're expected to do this right we can't tell the good citizens of New York our director is gone we're going to have to stop what we're doing it's just not going to happen so it's a great question and one that you know just know the organization will continue to do what it does every day sometimes your objective is to neutralize these threats as opposed to prosecuting them I'm wondering if that applies outside the private private sector and and why outside the private sector meaning within the FBI or for example someone mentioned economic espionage sure so in the case of economic espionage that's really one where you get into neutraliser prosecutor right I'm not a big fan of neutralization even though that is a famous word in the counterintelligence realm right I like to just say we hit it head-on we combat it we negate it we eliminated with that in the economic Espionage realm neutralization is effectively working with the company to come up with a reasonable solution now the FBI is not a mitigator we're not a mitigation service however we will work closely with the organization's executives to make a final decision based on taking into account how that organization sees itself post a disclosure because clearly we can protect the idea that that intellectual property has been stolen up to a certain point but eventually if we go into the criminal prosecutor realm there is a good chance that it will be disclosed if we decide not to go to the criminal prosecution realm we may do a number of things and what might we do I'll give you a perfect example if we know who the culprits are and they are already out of the country we will do what we can to coordinate with a foreign government or singularly with the FBI and some of our investigative partners in the intelligence community to try to lure those individuals back and take action that way in lieu of you know some type of prosecution we don't always have to end a counterintelligence manner with the prosecution I hear it on that side only because to me that is the biggest deterrent but there are many instances where by the FBI will simply neutralize a threat or try to recruit the threats so that it gives us information that is a value moving forward about adversary intentions I hope that answered your question okay you asked very quickly the music right would you consistently described in laypersons terms the exact legal steps that are required for the United States government to initiate a surveillance of United States domicile desist laypersons terms please so I'm going to try it first because I it's been a lesson living a real FBI agent so I'm going to give it the layman's at version but it will tell my dad so there's a real suspicion that you are working on behalf of the Russian government so Charlie's shop an agent has to go in and convince Charlie so that's the case they have to do paperwork to say Hurley believe this individual might be working on behalf of the government Charlie Lange has that do a communication to your attorney's office and say we believe this to be true which allows the FBI to open up an investigation so there's four layers right there then to be able to surveil you basically severe you in a car or in Charlie has to authorize that but we want to collect your accessible information your metadata who you're calling they have to get a waiver so it has to go some trailing to an attorney to the judge who then off author the FBI to go to 18t and get find out who you're calling not only just when your column is coming and then beyond that if they want to see the data Michael we're going to listen your class is going to go to that sleep process and to a different Court which is called the FISA Court to get that so all of those efforts there's probably seven layers of protection to ensure that you as US citizen actually have predication by the FBI to ensure that it's worth everyone in that chain their careers to okay your surveillance it's a great answer bill a couple of additional steps that add to this so that it's not simply the FBI flipping a switch and saying please monitor that gentleman his phone's his emails and everything else first of all you know we have to meet the standard under FISA agent of a foreign power that is not an easy standard to meet these days so clearly is bill cited we have to establish you specifically as an agent of a foreign power in some capacity meaning you are working on behalf of a foreign government carrying out some clandestine related activities again a standard not easily met once we establish that we have to verify the facilities you're utilizing are being used in furtherance of carrying out that clandestine activity once we have that verification and we can establish you as an agent of a foreign power we will then coordinate with our FBI headquarters the Department of Justice in support of putting together an application for a court order to then monitor those facilities with the hopes that we can capture foreign intelligence about your relationship and your activities with that adversarial government this is not something that happens overnight we do have the ability under exigent circumstances which is a phrase you will routinely hear in the FBI in the Department of Justice whereby we fear there is an imminent threat to national security whereby that process can be sped up otherwise it is a tedious process and I don't take that lightly and we fact check everything we're doing and there are multiple layers of oversight though within the FBI and the Department of Justice before we were able to exact that type of surveillance to Bill's point physical surveillance as long as the FBI has an investigation predicated Manning it's not simply I want to investigate this gentleman because he's wearing a brown suit a blue tile today it was we have some predication a reasonable he said that have engaged in intelligence activity where he is involved in criminal activity at that point I can initiate a predicate an investigation by writing a factual statement that predicates that investigation and then from there under that authority of that investigation I am permitted to put physical surveillance on this gentleman in the front row and that is simply but not simply stated agents in vehicles surveilling and watching what this person is doing with the hopes of what identifying that intelligence activity which then takes us to the statement we are looking to predicate through that affidavit for a court order Elvia investigative activity is summarized in that application in support of such an aggressive technique and remember I want to leave you with this the FBI prides itself our least intrusive techniques in establishing that least intrusive techniques very important I take that seriously and that's not something we have fragment with when it comes to determining especially on a u.s. person that level of aggression [Applause] joining again in thanking our two panelists for just an excellent presentation thank you in behalf of the college I'd like to thank the foreign policy Association for bringing this conversation to us tonight and again thank our panelists in mr. Roosevelt for what wonderful conversation

Channel: Foreign Policy Association

Views: 11,367

Rating: 4.6666665 out of 5

Keywords: FPA, Foreign Policy Association, FBI, Federal Bureau of Investigation, William Evanina, Intelligence, Counterintelligence, Russian interference, cybersecurity, 2016 election, Trump, James Comey, FBI Director

Id: aZdJ6aDsB08

Length: 101min 2sec (6062 seconds)

Published: Fri May 12 2017