High-tech Terrorism

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:40 a.m., in room SD-226, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Patrick Leahy (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. PATRICK J. LEAHY, A U.S.
SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF VERMONT

Senator LEAHY. Good morning. This morning, the Technology and the Law Subcommittee will be hearing from several distinguished witnesses on the issue of technology and terrorism.

The subcommittee will first hear from Mr. Oliver Revell, the Executive Assistant Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Mr. Revell, we are glad to see you here for the second time this week, I believe.

Mr. REVELL. Yes, sir.

Senator LEAHY. And Mr. L. Paul Bremer, the Ambassador at Large for Counterterrorism in the Department of State. Ambassador Bremer, it is good to have you here. They represent the lead agencies in dealing with the international and domestic terrorism

menace.

Later, we will be talking with Dr. Robert Kupperman, a noted terrorism expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and Mr. James Woolsey, of Shea and Gardner, a wellknown expert in defense and security matters.

Now, this is a sensitive subject and the subcommittee intends to approach it with due caution, as this is an open hearing. I recognize that our executive branch witnesses will be restrained by classification, but I urge them to be as forthcoming as they can, consistent with protecting confidential information.

If there are areas of a classified nature, the subcommittee would consider a closed hearing at a later date and we, of course, would do that in one of the secure rooms of the Capitol.

Now, let me first outline what the subcommittee is interested in, and why. Thanks to the superb work of the FBI and State and local law enforcement, there have been few successful terrorist attacks upon the United States. International terrorism, which has attacked American interests abroad, has not come to our shores in any significant way.

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The law enforcement agencies of the United States have constrained domestic terrorism, the home-grown violence perpetrated by hate groups. For this relative immunity, we should, and I think we can be thankful, but we cannot be complacent and assume it is never going to happen here.

Terrorism can, and I am afraid almost certainly will happen here. The United States is involved indirectly in conflicts in the Middle East, in Central America, in Southern Africa, and Asia. Many of these countries see America as an enemy of poor countries with small armies and few natural resources.

Some, like Libya, Iran, Syria, South Yemen, and Iraq, use terrorism to make up for economic and military shortcomings. They are never going to match us militarily, but they feel they can strike blows if they can do it through terrorism.

There is debate among experts on how terrorists will attempt to export their brand of fear and intimidation to this country. The weight of opinion seems to conclude that it is inevitable; that the infrastructure is already in place.

When terrorists strike, most experts believe they will make use of technology on two fronts. First, terrorists can use technology to carry out their attacks. We already have seen them use hard-todetect plastic explosives, sophisticated communications equipment, precision-guided, hand-held missiles, automatic weapons, electronic surveillance gear, and miniature guns. We should expect terrorist operations here to employ more sophisticated methods. Ironically, some of this is due to the very effectiveness of our law enforcement efforts.

But more frightening, terrorists may try to do great harm, or at least threaten such harm, with nuclear, chemical or biological materials. Literature in the public domain shows how to manufacture a crude nuclear explosive device, how to culture biological agents of extraordinary lethality.

We have hundreds of undefended medical centers and research labs with radioactive substances and with biological agents. Deadly chemicals are readily available on the open market. Chemical weapons are already in the hands of several countries such as Iraq and Iran, and we have seen their use. They host or aid terrorist groups.

Now, the second way terrorists may exploit technology is by attacking the vulnerabilities of this, the most highly industrialized country in the world. The United States depends on an intricate web of computerized networks.

The smooth operation of electric and natural gas transmission systems, of uninterrupted electronic information transfer, of financial and business operations carried out over telephone lines, of a vast, complex transportation system that has many chokepointsall of these systems are vital to our country.

A study by Dr. Kupperman and Mr. Woolsey entitled "America's Hidden Vulnerabilities" shows how frighteningly exposed we are to disruption by a handful of intelligent and determined terrorists. Most of what they need to carry out very feasible attacks on one of our great interlocking systems is readily available.

The purpose of this hearing today is to take a hard look at the connection between terrorism and technology. I want to get a sense

of how real the present and future threat of high-tech terrorism is, how well we are prepared to deal with it, and what more we can and should be doing.

Now, as a nation, we spend hundreds of billions of dollars preparing to fight a nuclear war with the Soviet Union, probably the least likely of all the major threats to our national security. Nobody questions, nor do I, those kinds of expenditures.

But when it comes to high-tech terrorism, we are babes in the woods. Very little is spent, and I hope these hearings today will draw some attention to this real and present danger.

So, Mr. Revell and Ambassador Bremer, I welcome you. I have given an overly long opening statement, for me, anyway. But this is an area I have been concerned about for a long time; both when I was a prosecutor, and in the Senate as a member of the Judiciary Committee and as a member of the Intelligence Committee. The more I learn the more concerned I get.

So, Mr. Revell, it is over to you, sir.

PANEL CONSISTING OF OLIVER B. REVELL, EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF INVESTIGATION, FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION; AND L. PAUL BREMER, AMBASSADOR AT LARGE FOR COUNTERTERRORISM, DEPARTMENT OF STATE

STATEMENT OF OLIVER B. REVELL

Mr. REVELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is good to be back for the second time this week.

Senator LEAHY. We are going to start having your mail forwarded here.

Mr. REVELL. Let me first make a little technical change, since my statement is being given out, my full statement. On page 14, we found an error in statistics and I want to make a correction that on the paragraph that says, "An analysis of terrorist incidents between 1983 to present reveals that,' and the new statistic should be, "72 of the 84 incidents were actual or attempted bombings." So I put that on the record.

Mr. Chairman, we certainly share the concerns that you have expressed, and in my summary I would like to point out the highlights of what is in my full text where I believe that we do emphasize several of the same points.

As you indicated, the United States has not suffered terrorism at the same level of terrorist activities elsewhere in the world. We believe that there are sound reasons for the low incidence of terrorism in the United States.

In 1982, because of the threat of terrorism, the FBI established terrorism as a national priority on an equal status with counterintelligence, organized crime, and white collar crime, even though the number of incidents statistically would not have indicated that we should give it that level of priority.

Our counterterrorism program has been extremely successful. Between 1980 and 1982, there were an estimated 122 incidents in the United States. From that point, we have seen the numbers come down very drastically to the point where last year we had seven incidents and this year so far only two.

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