Program would make us vulnerable to allowing aliens from terrorist countries to enter without any detection.

Let me just spend a moment on encryption.

In addition to efforts to eliminate the required implementation of entry/exit systems, we are facing other efforts to eliminate or curtail existing protections against terrorism. The ongoing encryption debate is one such example. Last month, the FBI Director testified before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that, "[T]he encryption issue is one of the most important issues confronting law enforcement and potentially has catastrophic implications for our ability to combat every threat to national security * * * Law enforcement remains in unanimous agreement that the widespread use of robust non-recovery encryption ultimately will devastate our ability to fight crime and terrorism."

Director Freeh outlined specific examples of terrorist attempts to use encryption to attempt to thwart national security enforcement, including encrypted files found on the laptop computer of international terrorist Ramzi Yousef that detailed the plot to blow up 11 United States-owned commercial airlines in the Far East. These are deadly serious concerns, and they dictate a serious response.

At the same time, advocates of a more flexible encryption policy stress that sales and jobs will be lost to foreign manufacturers who operate in nations with more lax export policies. These, too, are serious concerns. Economic growth and technology development are critical issues to my home State of California, which leads the world in developing high-tech products.

FBI Director Freeh called for "a balanced public policy on encryption." The critical word is "balance." I support a balanced policy which addresses both serious national security and crime enforcement concerned, while simultaneously setting into account and addressing the legitimate concerns of the high-tech industry.

I hope that this Congress will have the courage to deal forthrightly with the legitimate concerns on both sides of the encryption question and draft legislation that neither endangers national security or the war against organized crime, nor retards U.S. competitiveness in this critical field in which we have, until now, led.

And, interestingly enough, when I was home over the break, I talked with some of the people in the Silicon Valley area, and we discussed together the whole key recovery area, and they are working very hard to come up with some alternatives that would provide the guarantees that we both have discussed and yet move away from the specific mandatory key recovery issue. And I believe they are making progress, and I was heartened to hear that one of the companies wanted to bring a proposal before the Attorney General as well.

So I very much look forward to today's witnesses, Mr. Chairman. I am sorry to have taken so long, but I think it is very important that we all work together to strengthen and defend our protections against terrorism.

[The prepared statement of Senator Feinstein follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR DIANNE FEINSTEIN

Five years ago, all Americans were shocked when a terrorist bomb exploded at the World Trade Center in New York City, leaving five people dead, more than one

thousand wounded, and a cavernous crater 200 feet by 100 feet wide, and seven stories deep. When a group of radical fundamentalists were arrested for this barbaric act, American concerns about foreign terrorist activity on our soil were brought home.

Little did we know then that just over two years later, an even more horrific terrorist attack would occur, this time prepared by home-grown domestic terrorists-the bombing of the Murrah building in Oklahoma City.

As one would expect, Congress responded to these events: In the 1994 Crime Bill, we made a series of changes to strengthen our legal ability to confront terrorists, including: extending the statute of limitations for terrorism offenses; attacking foreign counterfeiting of U.S. currency; extending U.S. criminal jurisdiction to attacks against American citizens on foreign vessels; increasing sentences for crimes of international terrorism; and, prohibiting the provision of material support to terrorists.

Of course, last Congress we enacted the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, comprehensive legislation encompassing a plethora of anti-terrorism initiatives. I was proud to be the author or lead Democratic sponsor of a number of parts of this legislation, including: Provisions requiring the addition of taggants to explosives, where it is safe and feasible, to aid law enforcement in solving bombing incidents; strengthening controls of an enforcement against biological agents, or pathogens; an Attorney-General study of the need for and constitutionality of prohibiting the dissemination of bombmaking information for a criminal purposewhich has since come back with flying colors; and provisions for restitution to the community in drug cases—a measure which Í had the pleasure of working on and co-sponsoring with you, Mr. Chairman.

The terrorism bill also contained a number of reforms which were specifically prompted by the World Trade Center case, including: Facilitating the removal of alien terrorists; expanding the government's ability to exclude from the United States aliens who are involved in terrorist activities; denial of asylum to alien terrorists; and streamlining the deportation of criminal aliens.

However, I was disappointed that a number of provisions which law enforcement had requested to help them combat terrorists more effectively were dropped from the bill, including: Law enforcement authority to implement multi-point wiretapping; giving the Attorney General emergency wiretap authority; making certain terrorism offenses RICO predicates; giving law enforcement wiretap authority for additional terrorism offenses, such as explosives violations and wrecking trains; and my own provision to implement a prohibition on the dissemination of bombmaking instructions for a criminal purpose.

IMMIGRATION PROVISIONS

I am also concerned that we need to strengthen further our immigration laws and procedures to counter foreign terrorist operations. I have grave reservations regarding the practice of issuing visas to terrorist supporting countries and INS' inability to track those who come into the country either using a student visa or using fraudulent documents through the Visa Waiver Pilot Program Countries.

The Richmond Times recently reported that the mastermind of Saddam Hussein's germ warfare arsenal, Rihab Taha, studied in England on a student visa. And England is one of the participating countries in the VWPP which means, if she could have gotten a fraudulent passport, she could have come and gone without a visa in the United States.

The article also says that Rihab Taha, also known as "Dr. Germ", that her professors at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England "speculate that Taha may have been sent to the West specifically to gain knowledge on biological weaponry." What is even more disturbing is that this is happening in our own backyard. The Washington Post reported on October 31, 1991 that UN weapons inspectors in Iraq discovered documents detailing an Iraqi government strategy to send students to United States and other countries to specifically study nuclear-related subjects to develop their own program. Samir Al-Araji was one of the students who received his doctorate in nuclear engineering from Michigan State University and then returned to Iraq to head its nuclear weapons program.

Washington Institute for Near Eastern Policy found in September 1997 that many of terrorist supporting states are sending their students to the United States to get training in chemistry, physics and engineering which could potentially contribute to their home countries' missile and nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs.

Yet, the State Department often does not do in-depth background checks on the students and once they are in the U.S., the INS has no ability to track the students

to make certain they actually study the subjects they claim to study and to attend the schools they say they would.

Between 1991-1996, the State Department has issued 9,767 students visas to students from terrorist supporting states such as Iran (4,789), Iraq (467), Libya (104), Sudan (1,404), Syria (3,003) to attend undergraduate and graduate studies in the United States.

Additionally, a survey done by Institute of International Education (IEE) indicates that most students from terrorist supporting countries major in the sciences: 71.9 percent of students from Iran; 65 percent of students from Iraq; 47.5 percent of students from Libya; 53.9 percent of students from Sudan and 68.5 percent of students from Syria.

The IEE survey also estimates that 4.6 percent of students from Iran and 10.5% of students from İraq are funded by their government to study in the U.S.

Currently State Department does not do any special background checks for students coming from Syria or Sudan. An intermediate background check is required for Iranian students and a more extensive checks are required for Iraqian students. The defendants of the World Trade Center bombing are also an example of those coming in through nonimmigrant or employment based visas or abusing our political asylum process and then committing crimes.

For instance, Nidal Ayyad, one of the defendents in the World Trade Center bombing used his position as a chemical engineer for Allied Signal to obtain the chemicals used in the World Trade Center bombing.

And there is Ghazi Abu Maizar, who was arrested in a suspected terrorist plot to detonate bombs in Brooklyn last year. Maizar came in illegally across the Canadian border to Washington State and attempted to seek asylum but withdrew his application and agreed to leave the country. Once he was released on voluntary departure, Maizar fled Washington state to Brooklyn, New York where he was arrested for plotting suicide-bomb attacks in Brooklyn.

After the World Trade Center bombing, Louis Freeh sent a memo to the Deputy Attorney General in 9/26/94, and made the recommendation that the State Department needed to establish uniform system of communication on visa denials, that VWPP could be used by terrorists using fraudulent documents and that asylum procedures and student visas can be abused by people trying to get into the country. Mr. Chairman, I would like to submit the memo into the record.

INS formed a Task Force on Foreign Student controls in 1995, in response to Freeh's memo and found that INS had no ability to track the students in the U.S., that INS has no idea if the students leave, drop out, transfer, interrupt their education, violate their status or commit crimes.

Mr. Chairman, under the 1996 Immigration Act, Congress requires the INS to create a pilot project to track information on foreign students where they are, what they are studying, if they commit any crimes and if they are studying the subjects they planned to study. The Act requires INS to submit a report by 2001. The Act also tightens up the asylum process by making it harder for aliens to claim asylum fraudulently and Section 110 of the Immigration Act requires an entry-exit system at all ports of entry by September of 1998.

I know there are concerns over the implementation of international student tracking systems and the entry-exit system required by the 1996 law. And I realize it takes time to build the automation system and the infrastructure necessary to make the requirements work. However, I cannot stress enough the importance of having the ability to track international students, particularly those from terrorist supporting countries and having an entry-exit system ability so we know who is coming in and out of the country. I also think we need to reevaluate the Visa Waiver Pilot Program as is. In fact, without additional controls to screen out those traveling from the terrorist supporting states, VWPP would make us vulnerable to allowing aliens from terrorist countries to enter without any detection.

ENCRYPTION

In addition to efforts to eliminate the required implementation of entry/exit systems, we are facing other efforts to eliminate or curtail existing protections against terrorism. The ongoing encryption debate is one such example.

Last month, FBI Director Freeh testified before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that:

"[T]he encryption issue is one of the most important issues confronting law enforcement and potentially has catastrophic implications for our ability to combat every threat to national security. * * * Law enforcement remains in unanimous agreement that the widespread use of robust non-re

covery encryption ultimately will devastate our ability to fight crime and terrorism.

Director Freeh outlined specific examples of terrorist attempts to use encryption to attempt to thwart national security enforcement, including encrypted files found on the laptop computer of international terrorist Ramzi Yousef that detailed the plot to blow up 11 U.S.-owned commercial airliners in the Far East. These are deadly serious concerns that dictate a serious response.

At the same time, advocates of a more flexible encryption export policy stress that sales and jobs will be lost to foreign manufacturers who operate in nations with more lax export policies. These too, are serious concerns. Economic growth and technology development are critical issues to my home state of California, which leads the world in developing high technology products.

FBI Director Freeh called for "a balanced public policy on encryption." The critical word is "balance." I support a balanced policy, which addresses both serious national security and crime enforcement concerns, while simultaneously taking into account and addressing the legitimate concerns of the high technology industry.

I hope that this Congress will have the courage to deal forthrightly with the legitimate concerns on both sides of the encryption question, and draft legislation that neither endangers national security or the war against organized crime, nor retards U.S. competitiveness in this critical field in which we have, until now, led.

I am encouraged by recent reports that high technology companies have been cooperating with the Department of Justice to attempt to develop workable products that address all of these concerns. I heartily encourage such cooperation and pledge to provide whatever support I can to foster dialogue and cooperation between industry, law enforcement, and national security agencies to attempt to address this critical issue in a manner that recognizes the serious concerns on all sides of the issue. So I look forward to hearing the testimony of today's witnesses, Mr. Chairman, as we work to strengthen and defend protections against terrorism.

Senator KYL. Thank you, Senator Feinstein.

I think it should be evident to all that the leadership on this subcommittee is bipartisan in the best of that tradition, and Senator Feinstein's leadership on these issues of student tracking, the exit/ entry system, the Visa Waiver Pilot Program, and the last issue she mentioned, the issue relating to law enforcement's need to have access to encrypted materials, is second to none in the United States Senate. It is significantly through her efforts that this subcommittee is able to pursue the matters that it does with the success that I think we have.

Thank you, Senator Feinstein.

We begin this morning's hearing with a retrospective on the World Trade Center bombing and the four prosecutions related to that event:

The prosecution of four of the individuals most intimately involved with carrying out the actual bombing of the World Trade Center. Missing from this prosecution was Ramzi Yousef and another defendant who is still at large and believed to be in Iraq;

Second, the prosecution of Sheik Rahman and others for conspiracy to commit assassinations and bombings of key transportation and business sites;

Third, the prosecution of Ramzi Yousef for his role in the World Trade Center bombing;

And, fourth, the prosecution of Ramzi Yousef for the attempted bombing of 12 U.S. aircraft in Manila.

The facts of these cases have never been received by Congress before in a comprehensive format, but together they constitute the most extensive investigations and prosecutions ever concluded of foreign terrorist operations in the United States.

We are very privileged to have as our lead witnesses three of the individuals most responsible for these successful prosecutions. Our

first witnesses are Gil Childers and Henry DePippo, who prosecuted the World Trade Center terrorists. Also testifying on this panel is Patrick Colgan, formerly with the FBI, whose supervision of the investigation into Sheik Rahman's involvement in a variety of murder and bombing plots, including the World Trade Center, resulted in a life sentence for the sheik and the successful convictions of his 11 codefendants.

This will be the first time this panel of witnesses has appeared jointly in public to discuss the facts surrounding the World Trade Center prosecutions. Let me say that this country is indebted to our first panel and those who worked with them for their professionalism and for their thorough and effective efforts to bring these terrorists to justice.

As the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency recently testified before another Senate committee, one reason why we have not seen more terrorist attacks against Americans is that the world knows well our ability and determination to locate and bring terrorists to justice. And so on behalf of the American people and this committee, I thank each of you for the service that you provided to your country and your willingness to testify here today. [World Trade Center Timeline follows:]