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THURSDAY, APRIL 24, 2008 (202) 514-2007

TRANSCRIPT OF PANEL DISCUSSION AT THE CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FOLLOWING ANNOUNCEMENT BY ATTORNEY GENERAL MICHAEL B. MUKASEY ON INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZED CRIME STRATEGY

Washington, D.C.

April 23, 2008

2: 00 P.M. EDT

MR. DE BORCHGRAVE: As I said, our three panelists have very impressive resumes in law enforcement, intelligence, and counter terrorism.

Alice Fisher, the Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division of DOJ. She supervises the prosecutors in the division on matters ranging from national security, international affairs to corporate fraud and public corruption. From 2003 to 2005, Ms. Fisher was a partner in the litigation department of Latham & Watkins D.C. office that specializes in white collar and internal investigations including account and securities fraud, healthcare fraud, and foreign corrupt practices act matters, and Congressional investigations. She also advised clients on a range of issues related to the Patriot Act.

From July 2001 to 2003 Ms. Fisher served as Deputy Assistant to the Attorney General in the Criminal Dvision of DOJ. Here, she was responsible for managing the counter-terrorism, the fraud section, the criminal appellates section and the capital cases section. On top of all this, she worked on various policy issues for criminal law enforcement and national security. Very impressive, indeed.

John Pistole began his FBI career as a special agent in 1983. He served in Minneapolis and New York before being promoted to supervisor in the organized crime section at FBI headquarters here in D.C., and served as an instructor in organized crime matters for almost 30 cases of new agents.

He went on to serve a as field supervisor of a white collar crime and civil rights squad in Indianapolis, where he created a health care fraud task force and a public corruption task force and in his spare time developed curriculum and provided instruction at the International Law Enforcement Academy in Budapest.

Then, John went on to serve as special agent in charge in Boston with oversight for white-collar crime, computer intrusion, programs, etc. He's done absolutely everything and, as you all know, he's now the number two at the FBI.

Julie Myers is the Assistant Secretary of homeland Security for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, with the chilling acronym ICE. She leads the largest investigative component of the Department of Homeland Security and the second largest investigative agency in the federal government, with more than 15,000 employees and an annual budget of more than 5 billion dollars. ICE now has five integrated divisions - the tension and removal operations, investigations, federal protective service, intelligence and international affairs.

She came to lead this 21st-century law-enforcement agency after a long record of service to the nation with leadership positions at treasury, where she handled money laundering and financial crimes, also justice, commerce, and homeland security, where she was elevated to Assistant Secretary last December.

And, why don't we start. Introduce the third after we get started. Who would like to go first" First -- just looking for the last one. Someone's gone into my cards - a little sabotage here.

MR. PISTOLE: We can just take questions, Arnaud.

MR. DE BORCHGRAVE: You're ready to take questions" You're not going to make any presentations" I've got all three" Oh, thank you so much. He's my deputy. Soon to become number one, as you can see. So, who would like to go first" You want to talk first?

MS. FISHER: We're happy to just take questions.

MR. DE BORCHGRAVE: Go ahead. If you have something to say please go ahead.

MS. FISHER: Well, I think from all of our perspectives, I would just briefly say that the strategy itself - which, I think part of it has now been released publicly, if you got it when you, maybe, arrived - outlines what our goals and our objectives are on focusing this law enforcement operational strategy. And it really focuses on making sure that we collect and synthesize information about international organized crime, both from the assets that we have here in-country, but also quite poignantly working with our foreign counterparts, who are often facing the same problem, the same criminals sometimes, the same groups, but certainly some of the same issues that we have.

And working with them very closely to gather information and synthesize it so that we can then really move in to targeting, as the Attorney General said, those international organized criminal groups of individuals that we can focus our resources on and focus our attention on trying to disrupt them, dismantle them, and use our law enforcement tools to prosecute them here and bring them to justice. We do think that, obviously, this poses a threat domestically, which is why we are focusing on it. But the strategy goes through nine very particular goals and objectives of how we need to coordinate and do those things, both on a short-term basis and a long-term basis.

MR. PISTOLE: Well, this is obviously something that the FBI has been addressing, in terms of traditional organized crime here in the U.S., for a number of years and we see this strategy as an opportunity to expand upon what we've been doing.

As for the partnership, both state and local law enforcement agencies and, of course, our federal agencies domestically, in concert with those international partners - primarily law enforcement services, but also security services around the world - that have a vested interest in identifying and dismantling international organized crime groups that pose a threat to these individuals who, we could say, are mobsters without boarders. There's a clear indication here of what these people are trying to do, and this is why we are here to promote this strategy.

MS. MYERS: I would just add to what John and Alice said, that I think the strategy does represent a good first step forward for the U.S. government, looking at these vulnerabilities which we know are global in nature, and then looking at, "how can we comprehensively attack them?" And to follow up on a couple of the questions that were asked to the Attorney General, I think one of the really critical points is actually getting a foreign consensus on where the vulnerabilities are and where the gaps are.

For example, in bolt-cash smuggling, making sure that our counterparts have the same kinds of regulations so they have the laws on the books, and they can enforce them. It does no good if we only have the laws here, given that these mobsters have no boarders. We've got to make sure we have the laws and the structure to enforce them overseas.

And to that end, I think actually we're seeing some great progress. I think with India, with the Chairman of Customs, with India working on the IPR things. Our Mexican counterparts, obviously, are hugely helpful and I think all around the world we're trying to work law enforcement to law enforcement to really attack those particular vulnerabilities.

So I want to congratulate Alice and Jen Shasky and the DOJ team for putting us together.

MR. DE BORCHGRAVE: Want to take questions" You've already had one. The lady behind you.

QUESTION: Thanks. Stephanie Kid-Gesnow with the financial times. Two questions. First, on international cooperation, there's a very specific case involving the Justice Department's investigation of BAE which they have made public. We reported last week that the British government has not cooperated in this investigation, has yet to hand over any information.

So just wondering if, Ms. Fisher, what your view is of what you might still get from the British government and whether that's likely to change, given the high-court ruling which I'm sure you're very familiar with from a few weeks ago.

The question was directed to Alice Fisher

MS. FISHER: Obviously, because, as you noted, it is an ongoing investigation, the policy pf the justice department is that we don't comment on on-going investigations. However - and I will say generally, and I'm not addressing that particular case at all - I will say generally as we talk through the strategy, and as Julie said about our cooperation with foreign law enforcement, the UK has set up SOKA, which is looking at organized crime in the U.K. And we're going to cooperate with them on this strategy and our efforts against international organized crime as we are with other countries and their operations.

QUESTION: As a follow-up, what kind of options does the U.S. or the Justice Department have when you're not getting cooperation from allies in general?

MS. FISHER: We're always very hopeful that our allies will cooperate with us in criminal investigations. There are mutual legal assistance treaties and mutual legal agreements that we have with many countries where cooperation is discussed as part of those treaties and different means and modes of cooperation are discussed. We don't have them with all countries, mutual legal agreements. We don't have extradition agreements with all countries.

One of the things that we have talked about and discussed with regard to this strategy is making an effort to really streamline that process, to get information quickly so we can go after and keep up with these criminals quickly. When we are sharing information with foreign governments I think John can probably talk and Julie can probably talk as well about this, but I think in general our relationships with our foreign counterparts on the law enforcement side are very good because we share a lot of the same global, criminal problems.

MR. PISTOLE: I think that's right. From our perspective, clearly it is on a case-by-case basis that we look and bi-lateral, the much broader information sharing issues that are out there are fine, but we really try to look at it from a very pragmatic, practical standpoint of, "what evidence do we need for a particular prosecution, either here in the U.S. or in that host country where the individual or the group may be?"

So it is on a case-by-case basis, looking at the MLAT's - the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties - in whatever process we need. What we've tried to do the last seven years is streamline that process so there's an informal information sharing that leads to the actual evidence that would be needed to charge somebody.

MS. MYERS: I would just add that at ICE we also have the customs sharing agreement, Customs to Customs, which also allows us to get the information informally and are a huge help in meeting our needs with our foreign counterparts.

MR. DE BORCHGRAVE: Could you identify yourself as well?

QUESTION: My name is Martin Apple. I work with a large number of scientists. As I see this, you have an international network which is highly adaptable, highly adaptive, and rapidly evolving. And you're trying to fight it by coordinating internal national police forces that are hierarchical and have to cooperate and collaborate within and abroad.

Why don't you create a counter structure to the IOC that's also rapidly evolvable, rapid - a network system - that's just as rapidly evolvable, just as rapidly adaptable and able to take care of things in more anticipatory ways?

The question was directed to John Pistole.

MR. PISTOLE: One of the things that we try to do collectively - it's hosted by the FBI - is what's called the Eped National Academy which brings in 250 to 300 foreign or law enforcement officers around the country and around the world four times a year.

So up to 1,200 people, law enforcement officers at the mid-level, every year, and it's that informal haring that allows us -- it's basically a golden rolodex in law enforcement around the world and people from every agency participate in that.

So we've been doing that for decades, and what that allows us to do is have that flexible, agile, adaptable network out there that anybody can pick up anybody that's been through the national academy graduate. They all have a little yellow brick from doing this obstacle course. And it's a network out there so it allows for that information sharing on a person to person basis in a way that is without hierarchy or without structure. And so when there is a particular need for information, that network allows us to that. And then following up, obviously, with the formal process. So that's one aspect. I know it's not exactly what you were addressing but that's a practical solution.

MS. FISHER: Well, as aggressive and adaptable as they're going to be in committing crimes and seeking profit from their crimes, we're going to be as aggressive and as adaptable as we can be. And we have to keep up with their technology. They are becoming more and more sophisticated as you'll see in the strategy. Their use of cyber-crime and their use of technology to commit these crimes and their threat to our institutions by using the new schemes and methods with money laundering and pushing through billions of dollars through our systems. All of those things.

We have to use all of our tools for law enforcement, but we have to look at whether there are other non-law enforcement tools that we need to use. We need to look at and consider, and the counsel and the strategy will consider, are there other regulations that the Treasury Department should be looking at with regard to protecting our financial institutions from this kind of crime" Are there other things that the State Department diplomatic security section can be doing with regard to visas" Are there other things that ICE can be doing" Are there other legislation or tools that we need" We have to think of all of those things, not just about prosecution, not just about investigations, but globally, what is the best way working with our foreign counterpart s and the assets that we have here to attack this problem?

MR. DE BORCHGRAVE: Microphone for the lady in red, please.

QUESTION: I'm Judy Ho. I was vice chairman of President Reagan's commission on organized crime. We had a very tough time getting money out of the Congress. It took us a year to get subpoena power. We finished our report - it was seven volumes. I think there were twenty copies of it, most of which have vanished. And when the Reagan administration ended the Bush administration picked it up a little but to that end, it dropped. We're now in a position where - are you adequately funded" Do you have the subpoena power that you need" And what is the plan for transition of this very important program to the next administration, whoever is the president?

The question was directed to Alice Fisher

MS. FISHER: Okay, trying to take all of those questions. We thought about the resources. That's obviously an issue for any kind of law enforcement strategy. There are plenty of things that we can do, and the strategy talks about short-term goals and long-term goals. And there's plenty of things that we need to be doing now to leverage the resources that we have, to use the information that we have, to collect it, to synthesize it, to focus and to target.

And as far as the -- whether it will get dropped and whether it will carry on as you noted, given the timing of this, I think the reconvening of the Attorney General's crime council, some of the things that we're going to be doing to share information now is going to hopefully institutionalize this. This is not something that should go away. It's going to be the people that are the great people of the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Labor and the Department of State that will carry this on.

And what we tried to do to make sure that it wouldn't get pushed to the side, quite frankly, is to be very specific about the objectives and the goals and the implementation process. And so you all will have a summary of the strategy, but in the actual long term strategy itself, it lists almost to the one, two, three, four things, step by step, that we need to accomplish, both from a short term perspective and a long term perspective so It doesn't get dropped, I hope.

QUESTION: Hi, I'm Laura Jakes-Jordan. I'm with the Associated Press. When the Attorney General was talking about the list of organized crime groups that's going to be complied, it made me think of the annual list that the state Department puts out on the designated terrorist groups globally. So I'm wondering if this list is going to be maintained in the same way. Are you guys going to be releasing it publicly" Are you going to be updating it every year" Will certain sanctions be taken against the groups that are on the list, like assets being frozen, that kind of thing" Thanks.

The question was directed to Alice Fisher

MS. FISHER: I think that's a great question. On the list that the Attorney General was talking about, as far as the targeting and our really focusing, "who do we need -- who poses the biggest threat" And who do we need to go after?" Obviously, when it serves our investigative purposes it may be that some of those groups are named, are named publicly. But I don't think that that's the plan. Because this really is for law enforcement purposes to come up with a list so we can gather our resources together to go after that.

So as fart as publishing that from the Department of Justice's standpoint, that's not planned, although there may be times when it serves our law-enforcement and investigative purposes to share that list with our foreign counterparts or to make that public.

On the sanctions, that's a different issue. There are certain regulations that the Ttreasury Department has with regard to naming drug kingpins that will be sanctioned in certain ways, for example. That, to the extent that those regulations apply to some of the groups that we're looking at, we may seek that. We may work with Treasury Department to do that. We certainly would consider looking at those options and will consider those options.

MR. PISTOLE: And I would just add that there are many ongoing investigations, many of which are undercover operations, which obviously we could not disclose. And the identity of those groups we would not publish at this time. But I think it's designed as a living document that would be updated as needed for targeting purposes.

QUESTION: Louise Shelley, Terrorism Transnational Crime and Corruption Center, George Mason University. One of the things I didn't see in your plan was interaction with the academic and the business community that may be seeing trends that are apart from what the government is seeing or complementary to them. And earlier this year I was at a very high level conference in Great Britain, instigated at the request of SOKA to get input from those other elements. I was wondering if you're thinking of that, because with the high level financial involvement, people in the business community may also be seeing things that you're not.

The question was directed to Alice Fisher

MS. FISHER: Absolutely. And I thought that the Attorney General mentioned it in his speech. Many of the people in this room are experts and have a great deal of expertise that would help us, would assist us, and we certainly want that input. And I think that outreach, in particular to the academic community and also part of private industry, where appropriate, is very, very important. And there are some mechanisms already set up for that.

MS. MYERS: And I think the strategy layers in a number of the ongoing programs including ICE's cornerstone project, which works with the financial community, secret services, electronic crimes task force works with a number of other financial institutions, and so on. So it's certainly our intent to make sure that we're getting all the input we can, because, frankly, technology and things move too quickly for government to sit around and think that we have all the answers on this.

MR. DE BORCHGRAVE: Yes sir. Blue shirt?

QUESTION: Yes. I'm Bill Eicher. I wanted to ask especially John. The President has told us several times that major terrorist plots within our country were foiled. The question is basically, is the record of the past going to apply to the future" That we got what we need to gather in the way of law enforcement to stymie or deter further terrorism?

The question was directed to John Pistole.

MR. PISTOLE: If your question is specifically dealing with terrorism -- is that -- is your question specifically dealing with terrorism, counter terrorism efforts, as opposed to organized crime?

QUESTION: Yes, strictly terrorism.

MR. PISTOLE: Obviously, there have been a number of plots that have been directed, groups that have been dismantled in the U.S. and of course working primarily through the joint terrorism task forces, the 100 task forces around the country that comprise state and local, the 800,000 state and local police that act as force multipliers. We rely on those individuals and the business community, the private citizens of the country, to provide information. There's a number of trip-wires out there.

We have been successful collectively thus far but that's a very difficult standard to meet, dealing with a determined adversary who is committed to attacking any time, any place that they have the means, opportunity and can do that. So it's something that it's obviously our top priority in terms of the criminal investigative matters. We still have half of our 12,500 special agents of the FBI working in traditional criminal areas and international organized crime is one of those top priorities.

MR. DE BORCHGRAVE: Yes, sir.

QUESTION: Bill Pulp, formerly of State Department counter-terrorism. This question is for John. There's no question that some international terrorist groups have had links with organized crime, have used organized crime networks, etc. To the extent that you can say anything in this room, and it might be nothing but, if you can, can you say anything about core al-Qaeda and organized crime" Not marginal group -- more marginal groups, but al-Qaeda and organized crime?

The question was directed to John Pistole.

MR. PISTOLE: Yeah what I can say thus far, Bill - and good to see you - is although we have identified we, law enforcement intelligence communities, have identified other terrorist organizations that have benefited from organized crime and clearly a number of different aspect here. We have not seen to date a direct link between what we would describe as international organized crime, traditional organized crime, and core al-Qaeda.

MR. DE BORCHGRAVE: If I could put in at this point, surely Columbia is a convergence of transnational crime and transnational terrorism, as Afghanistan and those mountainous areas between Pakistan and Afghanistan are today.

MR. PISTOLE: Absolutely. Yes, there's a number of other groups, and if we went into detail, whether it's FARC or Hezbollah or other groups, but not core al-Qaeda thus far.

QUESTION: Hi. Randal Mikkelsen with Reuters. I wanted to ask -- Attorney General Mukasey referred to need for new legislation as well as information sharing and enhanced law-enforcement tools, and I'm wondering if you plan to apply the Patriot Act, FISA, some of the anti-terrorism tools that were adopted after 9/11 and whether you anticipate resistance from Congress, which has shown a lot of weariness now toward granting law enforcement authorities new authority over surveillance and things like that.

The question was directed to Alice Fisher.

MS. FISHER: We're not, at this point, proposing new legislation. We have many, many tools at our disposal to go after these types of criminals, whether it's the racketeering statute, whether it's the general cyber crime statues, the counterfeit good IP statues, we have a host of statutes that we're going to use to prosecute these organized criminals. And we have, as I mentioned before, mutual legal assistance treaties to work with our foreign counterparts to try to share information in that particular way.

So while the council may consider at some point whether there are other tools that we need to request, we're not there yet. We're not seeking new legislation or tools at this point. We will only use the tools that we have at our disposal and we have a lot of them and we'll use them in the appropriate way.

QUESTION: Casaer Manuers with Effa News Service. I wonder if you can tell us how this new strategy will change your cooperation with governments in Latin America in any way, perhaps in Mexico and Columbia, and where you see the biggest threats in the content there, you know, that pose to the United States. Thank you.

The question was directed to John Pistole.

MR. PISTOLE. We have close working relationships across the board with the individual law enforcement agencies of most Central and South American countries. There's obviously a huge gang initiative with El-Salvador and other Central American countries.

In terms of international organized crime, there are disparate groups and individuals that we focus on, and have robust information sharing and evidence sharing in those individual matters. I happen to be visiting four Latin American countries next month meeting my counterparts on the law enforcement and, some, the security service sides to discuss some of these very issues. But it is a healthy, robust relationship in almost all instances.

MS. MYERS: And if I could just add to John's comment briefly, I think one of the things for ICE is one of our biggest priorities in working with those countries is that the transboarder smuggling, particularly of special interest aliens and others that is gone and exploited by these international criminal organizations. And I think our cooperation there is absolutely essential to make sure they are not only prosecuted here, but there if appropriate.

QUESTION: Mindy Reiser, with the United Nations Association. I am interested in Interpol. There's been some criticism of it over the years. I wonder if you could share some of your thoughts on how it's doing, what could be improved, and also the U.N. has different agencies looking at some of the criminal elements and drug trafficking. If you could talk about how effective you've seen that in operation?

The question was directed to John Pistole.

MR. PISTOLE: Interpol plays a key part in international law enforcement, obviously, dealing in a number of different areas. There's a senior FBI executive who is on the executive board, works with Ron Noble, this person heads up -- Tom Fuentes heads up our international operations office with our 75 offices around the world, so there's a significant interaction.

The key for Interpol, I think, is how there can be timely information sharing on critical issues and they do a great job, generally across the board. We still look to the bilateral relationships, country to country, service to service, for the actual information intelligence and evidence that we need to pursue our goals and objectives just as the host services do.

MS. FISHER: I would also just note that the United Nations Convention on transnational crime is obviously going play a key role in how we share information and how we continue to garner support and use that particular convention to go after international organized crime.

QUESTION: Winter Overlander, Consulting International Liaison. Recently due to anti-trust policy regulations, a steel company near the Baltimore area had to be divested and was made available for purchase by a foreign steel company - in this case, it was a Russian steel company, Service Star, which now owns the company also the port facility in Baltimore.

And my question is, when something like this occurs, not to case dispersions on the company that has acquired it, but to ask simply what is the effect of foreign ownership on a port on the Unites States ability to control, regulate, investigate and protect the boarders?

The question was directed to Julie Myers.

MS. MYERS: Exactly. John was helping me passing that off to another DHS entity not here. Certainly, and in a number of transactions -- certain transactions are obviously subject to the CIFIUS process and things like that, where there's an interagency review headed by the Treasury Department with the other departments weighing in. But for companies that are foreign owned, they're still subject to U.S. laws. And they're still subject to U.S. laws and I think because our relationships are growing with our foreign counterparts, we're having increasing success in extraditing people back to this country, and in prosecuting them there in their home country if their crimes so warrant.

At ICE, what we're looking to do for bad businessmen and for other foreign nationals who commit crime is we want to make sure the U.S. is not a safe haven for them. And we want to make sure that we take all steps to use our immigration authorities to remove them from this country and then, if they have assets here, to forfeit those assets if they've engaged in a hypothetical situation of wrong doing and behavior.

But I think certainly there's no question that increasing foreign ownership does pose requires us to be extremely diligent and make sure that they are abiding by all the U.S. laws that they have to abide by.

MR. DE BORCHGRAVE: We have time for two more.

QUESTION: Suzanne Spalding with Bingham-Mickutchum. I wanted to follow up on the question back here about legal authorities that currently are applicable in the counter terrorism realm, because of course a lot of those in intelligence, surveillance authorities for example, are not limited to terrorism, and particularly the Protect America Act and the legislation under debate in Congress now is really only limited to foreign intelligence. So to the extent that international organized crime is a legitimate form and intelligence target, aren't those authorities also already available to you in addition to your law enforcement authorities?

The question was directed to John Pistole.

MR. PISTOLE: Let me answer it this way by saying we believe that the investigative tools and authorities that we have are more than adequate for addressing international organized crime. The fact that we can sue other authorities on the national security side for counter-terrorism, counter-intelligence, espionage, whatever it may be, is simply an indication that there are tools in precise situations but we have not, at least in the FBI, been in a situation where we need to invoke those tools for international organized crime.

MR. DE BORCHGRAVE: One more. Yes, sir.

QUESTION: Hi. Evan Perez, Wall Street Journal. I wanted to know why you're not perhaps being more public about the specific goals that you've set aside for this strategy. I mean, if we are going to know whether you've achieved it I guess it would be good for us to know what those goals are. I mean, you said you had these more specific, not included in the overview that you released?

The question was directed to Alice Fisher.

MS. FISHER: The review actually does list out the goals and key results from those goals. I mean, there may be interim, the one, two, three's that go under each one of these goals. This is meant to be a summary. It's not necessarily that we're attempting to hide that or not get measured by that.

Hopefully our success will be that we disrupt and dismantle these criminal organizations and make our country safer. But certainly some of those - the threat assessment, on the other hand - is something that includes a lot of investigative information and classified information and that's why it was wasn't released.

MR. DE BORCHGRAVE: Perhaps I could ask the last question of the three panelists. John Negroponte asked me just as he was taking over as DNI asked me if I knew what a pedabyte was. I had no idea. And he said that the entire Library of Congress and it's contents was 0.02 pedabytes, and moving through cyberspace every day is over 600 pedabytes - several hundred times more than the entire library of Congress. How do you find the bad guys in this global soup" I mean, isn't that virtually mission impossible?

MR. PISTOLE: Almost. Obviously it's a matter of international cooperation, and that's part of the beauty of this strategy, is formalizing the informal relationships we've had around the globe. But clearly, sometimes trying to find the needle in the haystack is easier when the haystack is being looked at by hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands of people rather than just a handful of people. So that's the forced multipliers I spoke about earlier.

And when it comes to the pedabytes, and I know that's bigger than a terabyte but that's about as far as I go on that, there's a lot of tools, obviously, on the national security side, getting back to this other question, that could be beneficial if it posses significant enough threat.

If I could just add one thing I think is a real challenge in the technology realm is keeping up, keeping up with that. Having our forensic agents making sure that they not only know how to sift through this information in a timely fashion but that we have the more sophisticated devices that can uncrypt things and make progress. And that is really a continuing challenge for us because forensics - computer forensics - are such a huge part of, frankly, almost any case these days.

MR. DE BORCHGRAVE: Well, I think we're very lucky to get the expertise of three fabulous experts, and please join me in thanking them.