recommendation of the Commission, and duplication we think would be counterproductive.

Chairman Cox. That goes to the nub of my question, because there is, quite obviously, duplication in construction of a fusion center in DHS and construction of a fusion center at TTIC. Your recommendation-because it made clear that this was not supposed to be under the direction of the CIA-also is not therefore reflected in TTIC which is under the direction of the DCI.

The President, when he announced in his State of the Union in January of this year the creation of TTIC, also put out materials from the White House contemporaneously that stated that TTIC would not be headquartered at CIA. But of course it is, and it will be until sometime next year under current plans.

When the Congress wrote the Homeland Security Act, we considered at great length many of the issues that undoubtedly you wrestled with when you were debating, for example, whether to have an MI-5 in the United States. Homeland security is about what goes on here inside the United States domestically. Homeland Security, the Department, is going to have an enormous liaison function with State and local agencies, law enforcement and otherwise. So the question arises, if this is going to be CIA, would we want the CIA to be more involved in our domestic life for a variety of reasons which you would immediately recognize. The Congress chose not to do that and yet we find ourselves now with-despite a Presidential promise that TTIC would not be headquartered at the CIA, despite the legislation that is on the books, something running persistently in the opposite direction.

From a policy standpoint, the easiest way to capitalize on this, look at it as a glass half full, it strikes me, is that we can appreciate what is being built at TTIC, recognize that if it is not going to be permanent it certainly is substantial and of indefinite duration and that perhaps this should be made to fulfill the mandate of the Department and that TTIC and what the Department is building could be merged so that ultimately TTIC can fulfill the statutory mandate in the Homeland Security Act if it is under the control not of the DCI but the Secretary. What is your view of that? Mr. GILMORE. Congressman, let me be very clear. The Commission has never for an instant lost sight of the fact that it is a recommending body only, that the policy decisions have to be made by the elected officials in the Congress and in the executive branch, and we have no priority ownership on any of this.

We recommended an independent body and stated our reasons as to why we did that. If it is the wisdom of the Congress to place in the Department of Homeland Security in order to centralize those functions in one place, that is a decision that rests with the Congress.

Chairman Cox. Let me ask the question, then-and I appreciate that response, and I recognize that neither what has happened nor what seems likely to happen in the future is a precise reflection of your recommendations, although having recommended a fusion center early on, I think you can take great credit for what-as a result of Ms. Hill's work-is obviously a recommendation that solves a lot of problems we have experienced.

But let me ask both of you this question. Is there any role assigned to TTIC at present that DHS could not itself perform?

Ms. HILL. Again, I am not-I have not studied in depth how TTIC is being set up or what they precisely are doing, so I don't know that I am the best person to answer that. I do agree that we need to have one center. I don't see much point in us having two. And wherever that center is, it needs to have the authority and the clout, if you would, to get the agencies to share information. That is the most critical thing.

Mr. GILMORE. Congressman, this is a very complicated question, because a fusion center clearly can do what it is supposed to do wherever it is if it is properly managed and given very specific direction. I guess our concern has been that if it is placed in one location that other agencies will not get the same dibs on the capacity that others might or the same access to it or the same attention from it that others might.

Clearly, we all understand the importance of the Department of Homeland Security having total access and, furthermore, even tasking capabilities we believe for gathering information and having information analyzed. We place a great high value on the Department of Homeland Security and certainly we would understand the Congress's approach on that. Our only reservation just is simply to make sure that whoever is in it that they-within their culture provide the same access and information and attention to all the agencies in equal measure.

Ms. HILL. Mr. Chairman, I would just add one thing on this and just point out that our report does point out, at least before 9/11, that the DCI, even though he was the head of the Intelligence Community, was-I believe the words the report uses, was "unable or unwilling to marshall all the resources of the Intelligence Community." So the point being that, at least prior to 9/11, the DCI was not able even to bring the Intelligence Community together, let alone those beyond the Intelligence Community. So perhaps that has been fixed, but that was certainly the case before 9/11, and we need to make sure whoever runs the fusion center has a much better ability than that, at least in terms of what was going on before 9/11, to bring together all of that information.

The other issue that did come up that is I think relevant to this point, we heard from many Intelligence Community analysts some concerns about the CIA was not really taking in their viewpoints on analysis. There was some, I guess, agency back and forth between CIA and other parts of the Intelligence Community in the analytical area. So that-if the CIA is going to run TTIC, that has to be addressed and fixed, because that was a problem before 9/11. Mr. GILMORE. Congressman, if I could add to that thought. I guess the concern is that, knowing the intelligence agencies, including the FBI, they are going to be very excited about the prospect that analysis is going to be done elsewhere. The FBI was most unhappy with the idea that their information would be analyzed elsewhere, and I think that is just going to be a problem that you are going to have to confront and cope with and find the best possible solution. If you place it in DHS, at least surely they will get access to the information which they must have. What you have to guard against then is all the other agencies that contribute to us decide

to go their own way and the fusion center just becomes basically a sterile function. I think that is the administrative challenge.

Chairman Cox. Finally, Governor Gilmore, shifting gears dramatically, your Commission has recommended concerning immigration and border control as an element of our national security strategy, of our antiterrorism strategy and you have served as Governor of Virginia which issued fraudulent drivers' licenses to the 9/ 11 terrorists. I know you have an abiding interest as a result of that because so many of them did have Virginia driver's license, and the GAO yesterday issued a report that many States now have a problem with their drivers' licenses being easily forged and that if the driver's license is going to serve as identification to buy weapons, to board airplanes and so on, we have got to take this much more seriously.

They issued a classified report. Some of it was made public yesterday. I wonder if you wanted to comment on that.

California, as you know, legislation was just signed on Friday that in my view takes a giant leap backward, that liberalizes the requirements for obtaining a driver's license and does away with the only reliable identifier that was part of the California system which was a social security number, substituting an IRS-issued number which the IRS says it can't back up. I wonder if you want to comment on that.

I know also the White House has an ongoing effort to look at the question of uniform Federal minimum standards for State drivers' licenses.

Mr. GILMORE. The irony is that the policy of my administration was to be as public service oriented as we could possibly be, and then that opened up a vulnerability which the enemy exploited.

I think that it is common sense that you would want to have a reliable identity indicator before a driver's license is issued.

Chairman Cox. Governor, let me interject. I don't want anyone to infer from the way I put the question that the driver's license requirements in the State of Virginia were anything that you constructed as Governor. I mention only that you have an interest in this because you are from Virginia.

Mr. GILMORE. I understand.

Chairman Cox. You are the leading expert in our counterterrorism efforts.

Mr. GILMORE. It seems to me that the objective here is to make sure that there is an identifier, and I would think that it becomes a Federal issue, doesn't it, as to whether the Federal Government is going to require a certain base level requirement to the States on a driver's license. That becomes a pretty tough Federalism issue.

But if some States are moving to the point where they are basically going to not have reliability indicators, then they are going to raise a public policy issue that the Congress probably has to address.

Chairman Cox. I appreciate that.

Mr. Turner, would you like to be recognized for a second round of questions?

Oh, I am sorry. Mr. Meek has returned.

The gentleman from Florida, Mr. Meek, is recognized for purposes of questions.

Mr. MEEK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I want to apologize for dipping in and out, and I kind of faked you out to the fact that I was back in, but I want to thank both of our panelists for being here, and I want to apologize. I have been trying to squeeze in a few meetings on the side here, but I have been watching on the monitor some of your responses that have been responsive-responses to questions that I had prior to reading your prepared statements.

I know that we are here today to really talk about the functions of government and how can we work together to prevent terrorist attacks in the future. As we start looking at communications, that was one of the main functions, I would assume, even breaking through the walls of who is talking to who as it relates to our intelligence institutions. But I know that the people of this country place a very strong role in being able to help the Intelligence Community as it relates to our information about strange events that may take place, either local government or Federal Government.

Y'all have listened to-you have had hours and hours and hours of hearings, different individuals coming in to testify, either be it classified or unclassified. I am very concerned about the communications from not only our Intelligence Community but I would say our law enforcement community to general Americans about what is going on.

I know that the Department of Homeland Security has performed many test sites throughout the country in trying to get our first responders in practice to be able to respond to the different terrorist events that could take place in this country. We want to prevent that from happening. But what is going to happen as it relatesand I think the biggest exercise we have had thus far was the power outage in New York and the Northeast. I saw via television many individuals not knowing where to go, what to do or how to leave Manhattan, since it was the most televised city in the Northeast due to the fact that it is the hub for many of the national television and cable outlets. No one knew what to do and when to do it.

Now, law enforcement did the best that they could do by directing individuals to either take a ferry, or whatever the case may be, but there was a lot of what we saw on 9/11, a lot of folks standing on the corner telling people where to go, how to get there, people not knowing what to do. They had phone service.

I introduced, with some other Members of this Congress, a bill called the ready-call bill that would allow the Homeland Security or local law enforcement to contact people at work, contact individuals at home or wherever they may be to give them some instructions about, number one, what is going on, number two, what they should do to protect themselves and hopefully, number three-not necessarily in this order-not to hinder first responders from responding to wherever they need to respond to.

I want to talk a little bit about-I wanted you to respond a little bit to the fact, both of you, of what you heard out there and how we can communicate better with Americans, number one, as it relates to knowing about terrorist events or them reporting possible

terrorist individuals or sleeper cells or what have you to our Intelligence Community; and, number two, as it relates to how can we communicate with the public better so it doesn't hinder first responders being able to contain a possible terrorist event that may take place.

Ms. HILL. I would only say-you know, just comment that one of the things that we did find in the 9/11 inquiry was that, in fact, before 9/11 the American public had not really been sufficiently alerted to the threat of bin Laden and the very high, immediate, peak-level threat that we had in 2001.

The committees drew the conclusion-and this was an area where we got a little beyond intelligence, because it was more a policy issue and we didn't dwell at length on it, but they did make the comments that an alert American public is a tremendous benefit to our intelligence and law enforcement authorities.

It is not just that the public has the right to know. It is also that the public can help in the fight against terrorism by simply being alert to things that they may see that otherwise may go unnoticed by our law enforcement and intelligence people.

So that is an area before 9/11 where we found more could have been done to alert them to the type of threat we were facing, the immediacy of that threat and how serious it was.

Having said that, in terms of what we can do the next time for when something happens to better prepare people, my own personal viewpoint is I think a lot of it must be in educating the public not just on the scope of the threat but on the emergency preparedness regarding what they should be doing before the event happens. And we obviously didn't look at that in the course of our review. That is something I am sure Governor Gilmore can speak more to.

But it is important to keep the public alert. It is important to let them know what some of the intelligence is to the extent you can do it without harming national security, and that is where the whole issue, that we saw again and again, of classification comes in. There were so many threats coming in about bin Laden in 2001. Yet a lot of that was lost in terms of getting it to the public, and I think part of it was because of classification. Most of that information was classified until we had our hearings in 2002 and got some of that information declassified to release to the American public, but it was late in coming.

Mr. MEEK. Very quickly, how do you see-Mr. Chairman, if I may, how do you see that our government preventing that from happening in the future? Because, as a past law enforcement individual, no one wants to tell the next person about what they know, especially after Director Tenet was kind of thrown from the train earlier this year as it relates to information that he provided to the White House. And that is so very, very important.

Sometimes we hold things so close to our chest to the detriment of the country, and we have to make sure that we get that information out. Because just like in Iraq when we were able to find Saddam Hussein's sons by someone just walking into one of our task forces and saying, guess what, I know where they are, maybe they walk into wherever it may be, could be somewhere in Florida, a po