20 Years of DOJ’s National Security Division: A Live Discussion with Former Leaders

(upbeat music) You are listening to National Security Law today. (upbeat music) - Welcome to National Security Law today, the podcast of the Standing Committee on Law and National Security. I'm Elisa Potete. I'm always here in my individual capacity. Tonight we're going to bring you a lovely conference that took place on June 4th. Before we get to that, there's been an enormous amount of news about emerging technologies. And we spent the last almost 20 episodes talking about AI and how it's going to impact national security. But there is another technology that is closer on the horizon than it was before AI. And that is quantum computing. Last week, the Department of War issued a policy statement, a strategy, if you will, on how it is going to deal with quantum computing, and why is that important? Because the use of cryptography is critical to everything that we do in the national security space. And without it, our systems are not protected and classified in the way that we would hope. So the fact that somebody is thinking about the impact of this technology and drafting a policy, which I am going to wager you dollars against donuts, did not just start with this administration, because this has been something on the horizon. But you know, we've mentioned in a number of podcasts the Q day, the date on which quantum is a reality, is now very close in less than three short years. The reason for that is that AI has made it possible to move closer to that date. NIST, the National Institutes of Standards and Technology, is actually described what quantum computing is and we will give you a hyperlink. It is going to be important to have a strategy to protect our encrypted cryptographic systems. Separately from that, there is a new executive order, one, four, four, one, one, which also has to do with a demand for government agencies to have a policy in place to manage the deployment of this system, which again, can occur within 31 months if you believe the current predictions. Separately, there is concern that this technology be protected from foreign actors. And at least, next gov is reporting that there is already a group of individuals in the federal law enforcement community that are prepared to respond to the need to protect this technology. And I would assume this is going to take the form of things like task forces. But in any event, we announce that now, because over the next few weeks, we're going to meet migrating slightly off of AI and moving into this new emergent technology, which is little understood. But the good news is we'll be hearing from actual scientists and people who do understand this instead of lawyers who are like, yeah, I wasn't that great at math. I can write Python, but beyond that, I'm not feeling it. But we'll have somebody on to explain this and go over it. And that will be the topic that we cover over the next few weeks, along with a further discussion of AI and some of the challenges that are suddenly emerging in the course of the conflict with Iran. Now, on a separate note, as we're recording this Monday evening, June 29th, there are still talks ongoing with Iran, although the actual bombing and attacks from both sides, Iran attacking other Gulf nations, Sunni nations, and the United States bombing Iran. So this is still occurring while these discussions are taking place right now. But importantly, it seems like it's focused on the Straits of Hormuz and how that will be controlled going forward as a result of this deal. If you have questions about what it must be like to negotiate this kind of thing, we did a podcast last week with Brian Egan. It's a multi topographical. It is a difficult situation, but it's a good podcast to hear. If you want to understand what it looks like, more importantly, how it might compare with the JCPOA. We're going to turn now to a reunion, if you will, of 20 years of the National Security Division of the Department of Justice. And this is an audio from a lunch presentation that was held here in Washington, DC. It included the Assistant Attorney General for National Security, Ken Wainstein, John Carlin, John Demers, Matt Olson. And it was moderated by Kelly Andrews, who was chief of staff at some point to John Demers. So I think it might be interesting to hear this, bearing in mind that the National Security Division was, if you will, the spawn of the original 9/11 review commission that looked at ways that the government could improve its response to terrorism, straddling both the classified and highly intelligence laid in world with that of the sort of reactive and after the fact, criminal justice system, and how those two things could coexist. And also, encompassing the need for foreign intelligence surveillance act, court authorizations in order to conduct proper collection of intelligence into individuals, and what happened when there were co-terminus needs to collect information for intelligence purposes. But, secondarily, there was the potential for a criminal disruption of any individuals or groups. So the conversation, I hope you enjoy it, we'll follow, and we will see you with a full NSLT next week. Enjoy the fourth of July. And remember, this is America's 250th anniversary as a democracy that needs to have a national security program. We're going to be talking a lot more about that in the coming months as well. But I'm sure we're going to be discussing it a lot at the fall conference, which is going to take place on October 8th and 9th. And if you would like to meet people, lawyers who are very interested in this topic, and you sort of want to rob elbows and meet in vivo, as opposed to online, where it isn't real, then it might be a good idea to plan to show up. And we will put in the notes to this podcast, a way for you to contact the committee and ultimately get a ticket and show up. So we hope you enjoy this podcast. And we'll see you next week. [MUSIC PLAYING] Well, again, welcome, everyone. As I said, at the outset, we're here to mark the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the National Security Division at the Department of Justice. We have with us four former system attorneys general, who will introduce in a moment. I'd like to introduce our moderator, Kelly Andrews. Kelly is Senior Director for Cybersecurity and Lawful Access Policy at Microsoft. She previously spent something on the order of a decade at the Department of Justice. Most recently is the Chief of Staff in the National Security Division. For that, there's been a DHS, House Energy and Commerce, and no doubt other places. Kelly, I want to turn it over you to get a story. Great, thanks. You did on. I think it's all right. Well, everyone, welcome. This is so exciting. It's amazing just to think about 20 years since MSD was first established. And we have such an incredible panel today, which I am so pleased to get to spend some time asking some questions. I'm just kind of going through a little bit about the department, how it started, how it's evolved, and the incredible work that the National Security Division has done over these past 20 years. I'm going to let each former system attorney general briefly introduce themselves. We will start with the first AAG for NSC Ken Wayne scene to start. Please be brief. I know you'd like to talk about it for a little bit. I'm going to settle in, folks. So I prefer to be called the George Washington and the Massachusetts. Yeah, good to see everybody. Thanks for including me. Ken Wayne, I'm in Mayor Brown here in DC. And as Kelly said, it was the AAG and ST back, 2006 to 2008. And John Carlin, Paul Weiss now, and was at National Security Division from 2011 to 2016 in AAG from 2014 to '16. Nice and John Demers. And we're actually seated in Orbor, although there's some missing pieces. But so I was in the-- actually, with Ken originally in Matt, when NSD got started in 2006, and then back as AAG from 2018 to 2021. Well, everybody, so good to see you all. I'm Matt Olson, I was at the National Security Division with Ken and John at its inception, and then was most recently AAG from 2021 to 2025. Well, all. Thank you so much for joining. I think we're going to start, because when I think about the 20-year anniversary, and I think about what was the mood of the country 20 years ago, why did NSD first get formed? Ken, I feel like you're in a great position to kind of take us back a little bit to that time. And maybe give us a little bit of sense of you, obviously, in the criminal division at the time. How did the division get formed? What was the basis for it? And give us a little bit about it. kind of the threaten and escape of that standpoint? - Yeah, sure, so that's interesting. So 9/11 happens, and then of course, right after that, there's a number of different studies and a lot of talk about how one of the reasons 9/11 happened was the government wasn't situated, wasn't organized in a way that made sure that all the different parts of the government that are focused on international terrorism were talking to each other, the whole connected dots issue. And so you had a number of different, you know, serious recommendations for changing the government, and you have OD and I gets stood up and NCTC to fuse all the counterterrorism intelligence. And DOJ was a little bit late to the game, and it wasn't until 2005 that based on the recommendation of the, it's a called Rob Silverman. - The W.M.D. - The W.M.D. Commission. They recommended that DOJ integrate its assets that are focused on international terrorism and transnational threats generally, but that was the counterterrorism section and the counterintelligence section that were in the criminal division. And then OIPR, the Office of Intelligence Policy Review, which became the Office of Intelligence, of course, the folks who in DOJ who represent the government before the FISA court, they were completely organizationally distinct, and the recommendation of us to pull them together, put them in one division, appoint an assistant attorney general to oversee all of them, also importantly, for that assistant attorney general to act as the liaison to the intelligence community. So integrating DOJ's capabilities together within the department, but also integrating DOJ with the intelligence community. A lot of debate about that is remember, it wasn't a foregone conclusion that that would be agreed to, but ultimately the President got behind it, Congress legislated it, got stood up on September 30th of 2006. And so the, look, at that point, we were still in the aftermath of 9/11, it was the major focus was international terrorism, al Qaeda, ISIS, et cetera. But the challenges that we were dealing with were, you know, obviously do with that, but then there, you know, as soon as we got in, there were a lot of, you know, big ticket items on our plate. So the terrorist surveillance program, which had been the, you know, the surveillance program that the President stood up in October of 2001, it was sort of on its last legs legally, or at least that's what the prediction was. And so, you know, one of the first people I met was this smart young guy, John Eisenberg, from LLC, who came in to talk about how we were going to deal with that. So, you know, Matt and John and the rest of the team really took a point on bringing in that, those surveillance under the FISA Court authority, and then ultimately the Petite America Act and then the FISA Amendments Act. So, dealing, you know, first challenges, dealing with the authorities that were, you know, in jeopardy at that time. Another challenge was just standing up a new division. And I will say that, you know, that I think this is evidence of how well it worked, and really why it worked is we had complete support across the board. Like Alice Fischer, the criminal division, you would think that maybe bureaucratically that person might want to be resistant, totally supportive. Bob Muller was in the foreign-gun conclusion that the FBI would be okay with us, you know, trying to conduct stiffer oversight of FBI. He was very supportive. And, anyway, so it, that challenge worked out. I guess the last thing I'd mention that we often don't think about is, you know, we were at a moment where the pendulum had swung. From post 9/11, the government could do anything to further the counterterrorism effort, and there'd be very few questions asked on the hill or elsewhere. That time had ended, and this was after Abu Ghraib, after the Patriot Act, you know, the Ruzin Patriot Act reauthorization debate. And so it was really important for the division to take point on, you know, showing that it was and really doing so, protecting civil liberties. And that, I think, was a big ticket item for us. And Matt played a central role in standing up at the oversight of the FISA operations and national security operations in the Bureau, which I thought was very important. So those are sort of the challenges that we saw. And obviously, there are a number of different other threats that are coming to the floor, other than international terrorism, such as export controls and that kind of thing that we moved into. And then these guys really took it from there. Perfect. Yeah, I know that. The other challenge that you dealt with, Ken, and very well, was just a challenge organizationally of bringing people together who had been told by everyone, by the courts, by Congress, by the executive branch, not to talk to one another, not to share information with one another. And also, they're all stuck together in the same group. And they're being told, well, what fools that you weren't talking to each other? And then, now you should be talking to each other all the time. That's really difficult when you spent your career and, you know, you've been formed in one way of thinking about your job and not the balance, but the way you should safeguard civil liberties. And then you're being told, now you really need to do with this whole other way. And that was a big part, because I remember those first two years when you were there. Yeah, but it proved up how the wisdom of the organizational change, that you put everybody together and we'd have our morning meetings. And you'd have Pat Rowan, you know, overseeing CT and Kenner Intelligence, you know, sitting in there with Matt, and that synergy was happening. Yeah, yeah. No, it happened, but it wasn't easy. Yeah, I just want to double down on the not easy part. I mean, it was easy, yeah, because he wasn't doing it. I was taking that towards him. I hope you appreciate it. But it was on Ken's shoulders. And I mean, I'm joking, but it better being not easy. But it really was hard to build a new division, the first new division in decades at the Justice Department. And yes, we had leadership support for taking the kind of terrorism section, and kind of espionage section from the criminal division. But that's a really hard bureaucratic thing to do. Those were like the crown jewels of the criminal division at that time, you know, and they were taken and put into the National Security Disnew Division. And then just a couple other points. One is, you know, Kenner definitely uses a euphemism like the terrorist surveillance program was on its last leg, legally. I mean, there was not really much of a leg to stand on for the terrorist surveillance program in 2005. It had been disclosed by the New York Times. And we were sort of asked to figure out how to put it on, again, euphemistically, a more firm legal footing. And that was really hard. And then John and I were together, often dealing with some crisis, you know, some really hard thing had just happened. And we had to, you know, come up with an answer right away. It'll be like three o'clock in the afternoon. And we'd have to, you know, say, well, we need to go talk to Ken. So we would, of course, run down to the gym where everybody can, on the, on the exercise by, so go with his headphones on. So nobody would bother him. And I have to try to convince him to come back. I'm sorry to the now-series today. I'm scared we're going to talk about this big problem. I know a lot of you know this is true. I can just tell that this resonates. Sorry, there were a lot of problems. A lot of challenges. I wasn't getting. I want to defend Ken because when he was on the exercise by, he often had a red well with him and was willing to take questions. [LAUGHTER] What was that, the gym? The other Aspa Dova that was difficult seeing it from across the street at the time, I was at FBI. But I remember working with John Demers was you had this organizational change that you were managing within the department. As you alluded to, you also had this question of, where does the Department of Justice fit in with the intelligence community? And that pendulum shift was occurring. So you had a rewriting of the core executive branch authorities at the time, executive order, 12, triple three, and trying to figure out what is in this new constellation. Where now we have a Department of Homeland Security and a director of national intelligence. Where does the FBI fit in? Where does the Justice Department fit in? What's the role of the Attorney General is the preserver of civil rights and civil liberties and the execution of that structure. And by no means, still not settled questions. But at the time, some vigorous debate about how that should play out. And Ken biked his way all the way through. [INTERPOSING VOICES] It's really left us for the White House. So can I know you obviously mentioned, sort of, of course, Okaida and sort of the international terrorism focus when you first were the AAG? John Carlin. I would love to hear, because obviously, you're second. I would love to hear a little bit about the particular challenges that you saw when you joined NSD first, obviously, as the principal deputy, and then later on as AAG, particularly on that threat landscape. Like, what changed? And obviously, coming over from the Bureau to be really interested. We're going to go down the line, because I want to ask each of you this, because I think it really illustrates the evolving sort of threats that the country is facing. So looking back on the first moving over, we were building on so much good work that had been done. So it wasn't that original startup struggle and at the time, it's all about office space, right? they had escaped from the second floor corner. to having their own offices with skips where people that designed, you know, was you need to sit shoulder to shoulder to address these threats, but of course people were not shoulder to shoulder, because there was no such space. So we were there taking advantage of the fact that some people were now able physically to sit next to each other in a skiff. But when I went over originally a recall, we thought that there had been this enormous success. And I remember going back when you think of the founding story of the National Security Division, Bob Mueller used to tell the story of when he went to the President and after September 11th, and he went as the former prosecutor that he was, and he went into great factual detail about who they thought was responsible and how they were going to hold them to account. And the President eventually told him that that's not what he wants him to do, that that's a failure, and that while it may be necessary to prosecute after the fact that the goal was to be intelligence led. So see what the intelligence is telling you, and threat driven, what does it predict about the threat, and then success is not prosecuting when families are grieving, success is preventing an attack from occurring in the first instance. And that was just a fundamental mindset change for those who focused more on the criminal side of the system. So with that change and many other structural changes that had occurred, I think enormous success had been made against the old Al Qaeda model. So if you think about that as investing an enormous amount of time and monetary resources in order to conduct an attack on a scale as spectacular of September 11th, the United States had gotten so effective at sharing intelligence across the law enforcement and national security divide within government and had gotten so successful at sharing it with other governments that it was not a good day to be the head of Al Qaeda. And as almost as soon as someone was announced in that position, they were hit with either lethal targeting or were otherwise disrupted and they were unable to carry out a plan of that scale. So when I went over originally, my background was a computer hacking prosecutor and had led that side on the criminal side of the house. And I knew from the work that I had done there that if it was a nation state, I had great agents, but they would disappear behind this locked, closed compartment door and I didn't see them again. And even when I coordinated that program nationally for the United States at the criminal side, I did not know what was happening when it was a nation state. And China at the time was particularly active. When I went over to FBI, the door opened and I could see what was occurring and they'd done an enormously effective job on the intelligence side of the house, mapping the intrusions into universities, into nonprofits. They would hop from there into corporations and then you saw information, leave the United States on a scope and scale that Keith Alexander, former head of the National Security Agency called the largest theft in human history in terms of the volume. And when I say watch, I mean, there really was a jumbo-tron screen out at an undisclosed facility in Virginia. And we would watch in real time as it hopped and you'd watch the information leave that a great visual of it. It did not feel looking at that like success, though. And when you consider that that the mission was, we're not successful after the fact, but we're trying to disrupt this from occurring in the first instance, it did not feel like mission success. And so when I remember what I originally went over to National Security Division, we thought the international terrorism threat is somewhat receding. And we need to focus now on this new counterintelligence threat where the focus is on protecting national assets and trying to use all the legal tools of the division consistent with its founding. So that means the intelligence tools to see what the adversary is doing, but then tools like the regulatory regimes on sanctions, building on work that had been done on the export side of the house, and importantly, thinking about these national security cyber threats. And if you think about it, there were good reasons why the counterintelligence had not adopted what those countering terrorism had done. So the mindset of a lot of the folks who'd come up in that space was the old Cold War mindset. If you remember the case that later became that show the Americans, that case was being taken down at the time. And you still had these Russian operations that required extensive planning and success really would be not disrupting it, but feeding inaccurate information. You didn't want to disrupt something like a 30-year plan to get an American, a Russian in as an American citizen, because if you did, you might not find the new version of that plan. The problem was what we were seeing and the former director of the, I call this like a drunken gorilla burglarizing your house. China, you could do this on scale now through cyber. If there was no cost, we weren't really learning anything in terms of strategic or even tactical intelligence. They were just stealing everything. So we had our assessment day after day would be they're taking everything. And so if we started to disrupt it, it wouldn't have the same type of cost as it would in the old Cold War model. So top threat there was moving to try to protect national assets. Now as we were trying to do that pivot, we can talk a little bit more about some of those cases, the terrorists changed their threat. So if you think of old al-Qaeda using Western technology against us in that case aviation to do this large-scale spectacular attack, terrorism 2.0 or al-Qaeda 2.0, the Islamic State used another Western innovation that was provided to the world for free, which was social media and operating from caves in Syria and Iraq. They had come up with this model and key to it. I'll tell one case story, but key to it was an individual. He was a British hacker. And this I think combines the cyber and the terrorism threats. British hacker named Farisi who had been arrested for hacking and then got radicalized in prison in the UK. He then left the UK and moved to Raqqat where he used his English language skills and social media to encourage people to both to join and fight but also to kill where they lived and try to turn, in this case, using social media and not aircraft into weapons of mass destruction but human beings into weapons and encourage them to kill where they lived. And this tactic was successful. There's one case that I think symbolizes the changes that we were trying to make at the time and use the new structure of creating a deputy assistant attorney general to protect national assets to do it, which is this Farisi case where a company just trying to do business in the US got hacked. The hacker stole personal identifiable information of the victim, so your customer information. The hacker was an extremist from Kosovo who had moved to Malaysia around 19 years old in part to get better access to broadband so he could be a better hacker. He hacked into this company to make a buck and it was a low dollar amount of $500 from the company's perspective. It was an unsophisticated hack. But if they didn't work with the government with they wouldn't have found out was that on the back end this Kosovo hacker who had moved to Malaysia had entirely online formed a friendship with this British hacker who had moved to Raka Syria, Farisi. And Farisi had convinced him to give him the personal information that he had stolen. And then Farisi couldn't care less about making a buck. He wanted to kill. And so he used that information to send out through social media the targets and listed by name. He looked for those who looked like because of their suffix on their email addresses that they were law enforcement and says to kill these people by name where they lived. We were able to disrupt that attack using all tools sent, sent comm announced publicly that they had done a missile strike that killed Farisi in -- I'm sorry. They killed the leader of that campaign where he lived in Raka Syria. But in order to do that, think about that. It's the speed and scale of cyber. It's crossing criminal and national security authorities. And this was the new challenge. If you think about the challenge of sharing information at scale and speed within and between governments, in this case posed a new problem that when I left, we were still figuring out how to tackle and trying to get better tackling, which is almost all this infrastructure on cyber is in private hands. How do we share information at the scale and speed with which you need to share it with the private sector to jointly combat this new type of threat? So, John Demers, I feel like this is a great starting point for sort of when you took over the division, sort of what would you say would be kind of the top threats that you saw, obviously cyber being one sort of international terrorism, waning, changing a bit, but interested in your views on that. Yeah. I mean, well, first I took a division devastated by the reign of Karnel and so That was a really good idea. building but no actually I hope there's actually two themes I think they're gonna come out here that I'll just say them in one is how the work of the division has been influenced by developments in technology and that starts with what we know what had to happen in terms of FISA changes to FISA I mean the rise of cyber and cyber crime and everything that that John was talking about and that the division did and then on through you know some of what Matt and I will talk about and the second is I think just how the work of the division over 20 years has changed organically always building on the work that had come before it very naturally you know the fruit when I was here with Ken it was counter terrorism all the time that's just that's what we did there was a CES it's kind of quiet like John said they were focused on traditional sort of Russian espionage that's not a lot of cases it's a lot of investigations but it's not a lot of prosecutions and when I came back I think I still and then of course in the meantime like John said you know there had been the ISIS threat which was very real really a resurgence in the terrorism threat you know around what 2014 2015 and but by the time I got there it was that had really quieted down because of a lot of the good work that I see did the military did DOJ and the FBI did and it really was all nation-state threats I mean that that's an exaggeration there's still a few folks trying to make it to you know to the Middle East to join the Islamic State even though there wasn't much to join by that time and and there was there were some folks who were still interested in causing damage here in the U.S. but the bulk of the work and I remember one of my very first conversations was you know one of the the folks came over from the from the FBI one of the EADs and said you've got to help me we are so resourced on the CT side and we are so under-resourced on the CI side because it takes a while for the government right to shift I mean the threats often shift faster than the government's resources and workforce and and that's that was a big part of what was happening at that part at that time on the IC side and on the on the DOJ side was to make sure that we were adequately resourced and focused on the CI side and the CI side is you know definitely what you know what John was just talking about on the cyber side but more broadly and look obviously when we talk CI we're talking China Russia Iran and North Korea we've been talking about them for years we'll still be talking about them obviously a lot happening right now on the Iran side of things but you know their use of new technologies right their use of cyber like John said to steal not just traditional political and military secrets but to steal intellectual property and so that was a big focus you know when when you and I were there Kelly I see Adam Hickey is over there and Adam was at the center of that as one of the deputies and is really you know creating a program where you're countering a lot of the the different ways in which China was stealing intellectual property from the US part of that was through cyber but part of that was through a lot of insider threat cases as well a lot of that was you know there was still the some traditional espionage cases there are a number of traditional espionage cases that we brought at the time but the so that that was the you know the big focus I think of those years was on the economic espionage side and that activity continues today it's not like we know it's done but and most of that was China Russia was involved and still is involved but they were really after military and quasi-military technologies so it was a little more limited in scope only the Chinese really had the ability to pull off widespread economic espionage and so that was the goal and the goal was and I think this is true throughout I mean there's only so much NSD can do what you really need to do is harness the US attorney's offices are on the country and the FBI field offices are on the country to get you investigate those cases prioritize those cases and bring those cases and the national security division doesn't need like a cyber initiative or a China initiative to tell itself that it needs to be looking at these things but it's very important for the for main justice to message what the attorney general's priorities are out to the field so that they'll we're really we're the bulk of the people are in the department and not the bureau they can be focused on those threats and that's a educational process right that's a messaging process but when you do that you know you just get a lot of gray cases that come in the door from those field offices and you see the extent that what's going on and and the other piece here which the field offices have to ultimately take the lead on is developing the relationships with the private sector right I mean as someone now you're in the private sector I mean the folks you deal with are really the people in the field offices where you have operations and those are the information sharing relationships that you have or the folks you go to when you have an issue it's a little less it certainly doesn't start at main justice you know you may end up there I do think and Matt when I do think though sort of John Carlin and John Demers Point about this kind of working with the private sector right in cyber and then sort of on these economic espionage cases you really think about how the private sector more and more is being integrated into the national security conversation and you know has to be right especially with digital technology so really interested Matt kind of hearing your perspective of taking over of course a division an amazing shape when you got it no doubt from John Demers point forward ahead I mean it in all seriousness I mean it is the theme that John you touched on this that John Demers that you know each of us did truly benefit from the work of our predecessors and there's so much continuity from one you know one iteration of the National Division to the next over the past 20 years not withstanding the political changes right at the White House and and it's just this such a source of strength of the division as it evolves the other big theme is the mission just as evolving to meet the threat and the threat is changing and so the division is always adapting and changing to meet that threat but to think about on that first point I made like the the personification of that continuity is that I came in in 2021 John first of all was one of the rare leaders John Demers who stayed into the next administration from the past at the request of the Justice Department stayed for five six seven months I mean part was I was having trouble getting confirmed but they needed somebody there but John you know gracefully graciously agreed to stay with that honestly by everybody wanted there and also the four deputy assistant attorney generals that served under John Demers George Toscus Adam Hickey listen to tough and Brad Wigman all four career leaders all stayed and served with me without missing a beat and they are the people who are running all the programs and all the all the work that we're talking about and that was an absolute strength of the division that we had that level of continuity because of course you know when I come in in 2021 just like each of us like all of a sudden all the things that you don't necessarily predict or even those things you can predict are starting to happen and inevitably will happen in terms of the things that you face from the threat perspective to answer your question Kelly you know when I came in in November of 21 we were immediately of course dealing with the aftermath of the January 6th attacks and what was the largest FBI investigation in history around what the FBI characterized as a domestic terrorism event in a few months after I got there Russia invades Ukraine we are still dealing with the idea that we're gonna have to be authorized by the 702 in a year and that's hanging over our heads we are facing to your guys points you know a kind of consistent attacks from China on our on our infrastructure whether it's through cyber means or our other stealing our sensitive technology and trying to use our laws to protect us in that way we are we find out that there's likely classified information at a house in Mar-a-Lago that we have to deal with in the early part of of 2022 and we're consistently facing also the threat of terrorism so all of that is happening and you know not a lot of it you couldn't predict you could see the the 702 fight coming right from a mile away but the rest is the way it goes when it comes to ask here you have to be ready to defend the country and adapt and the strength of the division being that we had this consistency of leadership from one administration the next that was a political career folks who were in the right positions to lead the division to take to take on these challenges and those challenges just obviously kept coming to the next you know during my time for the next several years but I'll just reiterate what what John said I mean even as we said part of it we got really good on the CT fight but but We faced a lot of threats on the nation-state side. Not just China, but also Iran. I should have mentioned Iran, lethal plotting, inside the United States, started still in response to the killing of Soleimani, Kassam Soleimani. And that was a huge challenge for the division. So the theme, though, of building on the past and the work of our predecessors, my predecessors, and adapting to the threat as supported by a remarkable group of career leaders. It's really, really interesting. And I think that through line of just the relationship that all of you have, and just the leadership that all of you have taken on during leading the division. I sort of wanted to ask this question. I always think it's really interesting when you look back and think about what was an unexpected challenge that you had to face, right? Because you know your getting briefed before your confirmation, you kind of know what the deal is, what the landscape is. So I'm curious about, and kind of I'm going to start with you in case you're getting back into the conversation here. But I would love to just hear from you about what was an unexpected challenge. The reason of law-floss. Was it? Can't you? How did you get in there? You were in there. I thought he might have left me in here. Sorry. Wake him up. Come on. You're the proverb. Yeah. What would you say would be like an unexpected challenge that you faced when you got to NSD? Actually, I mean, this shouldn't have been unexpected. But it was the amount that we had to focus on Pfizer. I mean, I think when I stepped in to-- well, when I stepped in, Jack, let me turn to the FBI. I probably could spell Pfizer, but that's without it. And it really started to learn Pfizer over there, the practice of it, the process of it. But it was coming in, and I guess I just hadn't gained this out of my mind as to how much of a focus it would be. It emphasized, you know, terrestrial program. It was an incredibly important part of our toolkit. And it was on the way out. And we were looked to get a solution. And of course, we had really great people like John Eisenberg and C. Bradbury and others we worked with. But at the end of the day, it was our job to navigate through this. And this was everything from OK. We got to get into the Pfizer court and get as much of the body of surveillance as that are being done under the Terrace Violence Program under Pfizer court authority. And we had to use some creative theories. And we got that. We got one order. This is all public now, one order, and a second order. But we were sort of losing coverage from order to order. And then it was OK. We need a legislative solution. And so we work closely with DNI Ben Powell's over there. He was very much involved in this. Brett Gary and team pulled together a draft proposal that then got completely revamped and ultimately became the Pfizer Memons Act that came out in the summer of 2008. But that whole series of events from getting the Pfizer court authority, renewing the Pfizer court authority, getting what was sort of the bandaid temporary legislation that Protect America Act, which basically used the paradigm and ultimately got incorporated into the Pfizer Memons Act for Pfizer coverage. And then getting that into the Pfizer Memons Act was like a three-year process. And it took an unbelievable amount of time. And you know, I've spent a lot of time testifying and sort of learning about the four parts of the Pfizer test and the kind of stuff that Jack had tried to teach me and I couldn't figure it out. But you know, really had to learn that. And that was fascinating if that's any challenge. I didn't expect that, because I came-- I was a meat potato prostitutor, basically, most of my career. So I was very focused on the prosecution side. And I ended up spending a lot of time with these guys on the Pfizer side. Interesting. John Carlin. Yeah, they were bringing me back. So I was in the spirit of long time to take a confirmation. I was an acting assistant attorney general for about a year beforehand. We had this very clear theory of the cases to how we were going to transform the division. And there were twin shocks, I think. One was this guy, Edward Snowden. Probably everyone's flat. People remember? So there was the Snowden disclosures. And that was occurring right at the time where we were thinking that our key strategic pivot was trying to develop relationships with the private sector. And particularly those who were innovating on technology. And so there was both the actual legal challenges and ultimately a case in that regard and the triage on figuring out what was taken and then the impact that it had on Pfizer court and opinions. But also really something that I wasn't thinking about as being on the plate and was very antithetical to the culture-- not just of the National Security Division, but the whole National Security community. Or as I remember the deputy over time, Chris Inglis always used to joke about having to pivot from being no such agency to suddenly having to do a public relations campaign. But it was critical to the mission ultimately that America had to know what authorities and tools were being used, have trust in the use of those ultimately up to the American people in Congress, how much scope to give the community and the collection. They need to understand it, understand what the risks are, make a conscious decision, and then we need to abide and execute with what that shift is. So he had that, and then we had the Boston Marathon attack. And I still-- I know we have some members of the media today, but I remember one particular one pointing this out. So we're out trying to develop relations, which means we're taking more questions for the media and doing external events, particularly on the West Coast. And a reporter attacking me about, how could it be-- and this is a defending historical program now-- how could it be that you collected the hard-line telephone numbers of so many Americans? And this would be at a time, I think, that unlike now, where I think my daughter called a hard-line telephone, she brought one in for Ancient Technology Day at her school, but it had already really pivoted to mobile at the time that this controversy was hitting around the 215 programs. So at the one time, you'd say, how could that possibly be, isn't that a problem, civil liberties? And then, without taking a breath, it's outrageous that the FBI wasn't able to run a photograph identification database. I don't know how many of you remember the Boston Marathon, but we had the photo, and it took so long to do the identity. And in fairness, I think that reflects just a fundamental kind of where most Americans are. We want both. And there's some tension between the two. So those two shocks, and then trying to figure out with the career leadership, including Adam, how to build trust again with the community where we needed to share information if we could help protect against things like both the National Security Cyber Threat. And then again, the terrorists were using the tools that we were producing to cause that iteration of the terrorist threat. And so that was all occurring at the same time. Yeah. Time to merge. Unexpected challenge. You? But-- [LAUGHTER] No, just forget it. Yeah. Now, I think-- for me, what was unexpected was seeing the shift in the politics around surveillance, so building on what John was saying. So when the FISA Amendments Act passed in 2008, we had a Republican president, President Bush. We had a Democratic Congress. And it passed basically every Republican with one or two exceptions voting yes, and probably more than half of the Democrats voting yes. And honestly, in a Democratic president, we'd add more Democrats. That's normal. But by the time you get passed when I was there, you get to 2018, the politics around surveillance were so much more complicated. The Republicans were very split between the types of folks who worked on the intelligence committee and the types of folks who worked on the judiciary committee. And the Democratic Party was also more split. There were more folks on the left, and there were more folks on the right who were opponents of the kind of surveillance programs we were trying to do, and each time you kind of-- and FISA, by the way, the adoption and the renewal of FISA is a consistent thing that all of us had to do and helped one another do from the outside. But that got-- But just the math got harder and harder in Congress. And obviously, we're seeing that right now in one of its most difficult renewal periods. I still think it'll be renewed ultimately, because it is that critical to the intelligence community right now, international security right now. But that was a surprise to me was how much the politics on the hill had changed around this issue. Yeah, I was missing same thing, John. Oh, sorry, sorry. I think it's a bit off note, but I didn't come. Because we all have had that experience. And I definitely had that experience. And going back to 2008, I mean, people in this room were there. Ben Powell, Jacqueline just didn't like people who worked on it. And there was this real bipartisan. When you had the national security argument, you had to win that you're back. And that just had changed so significantly by-- I mean, I saw it change from the outside. So it wasn't, yeah. So surprising. But to experience, at first hand, from the inside was both surprising and sort of discouraging. And to broaden out the point, I guess, to build on your point, John, it wasn't just surveillance. I remember testifying in January of 2022. So I'd been in the position for just a couple of months in the Senate Judiciary Committee on domestic terrorism. And it was myself an executive from the FBI. And it was parallel universes in that committee on how they saw the threat. And so that was a real change from the past, where there might be different views, policy views, on how to respond to the threat, and what the tools are, and how to use those tools. But you could sort of count on the idea that the way the threat would be assessed based on the view of the intelligence community and would be largely an apolitical exercise. And it just was very challenging to be in a hearing, talking about domestic terrorism as a threat, and have just such different perspectives, depending on party affiliation. And that just makes your job as a career, now security person, at the Justice Department, or a political person like I was, but just leading a division that's responsible for addressing that threat, including prosecuting individuals who violate U.S. laws, makes it really hard. And that's a challenge I think we all face. And now I think that it's now, you know, we're seeing with the 702 debate as well. So it's a challenge, I think that wasn't a bit of a surprise to me. So I'm going to just ask one more question down the line. And then I think we have a couple of minutes for Q&A from the audience. But sort of, I wanted to just ask all of you, given your background experience, you know, what do you think like the next five years? Like, what will the challenges be for the division? What would you say like kind of going forward in the future? You think kind of how this threat landscape is going to evolve? What do you think is going to be there? Well, I think I'll start. I think, look, the data the National Security Division is done an exceptional job over the years of trying to stay above and outside of politics. And I think that's a credit to all the professional staff and the folks who've been selected to lead that division. It's really important that it remains that way and they've done a great job of that up to today. But politics impacts what we do. And so I'm basically just going to repeat what John and Matt said. I think, you know, I don't see the politics in this space, especially in the surveillance space, getting any easier. I mean, I can tell you, like, one of our closest allies getting the Pfizer Memons Act was Seldom White House. You know, he pushed hard for civil liberties protections and alike, but Ben, you know, recall, he spent a lot of time working with him. And that's the way it was when you went up there arguing for a National Security Authority is that you could make a good case for. And people from both sides of the aisle would work with you. That's broken down. And I just see that as really -- it could be crippling. And my hope is that politics, which -- and that has been happening for a while, right? That's happened over time. I mean, there were seeds of it. So, for example, you talked about the RD split. Remember, most of the Republican members would be with a proposal, especially, obviously, if the President and President Bush backed it. There were some, though. You know, there was sort of the -- those who were kind of in a libertarian side, whatever, you wouldn't. And we'd get called into your work on those members in particular. You know, that is -- so it was there then, but it's really ramped up. And I just see that that's going to -- for purposes of the mission, especially surveillance mission, that's going to continue to be a problem and it's going to limit our capabilities. >> Thanks. I was thinking of an example of how we get wrong. When we were predicting what it would look like, if a rogue nuclear armed nation attacked the United States through cyber means, we did many, many war games over the years around the water grade electric nuclear supply. And then the first really major shocking attack was about a major motion movie picture, about a bunch of pot smoking journalists. Only time my career had to go to a situation room and brief the President start with a plot synopsis and for those of you who've seen the movie, the interview, it's not an easy movie to character us and give a quick snops and stuff. But it really irritated the leader of North Korea. And so I doubt I'll get the factual scenario right on what occurs in the next five years. But echoing, I think some of the themes here, it's one, you know, relied so much on the career expertise, both because of the deep knowledge of what the threat was. Secondly, there's some very obscure areas of law. And like and I'd come up on the criminal side, so needing to realize Tashir and others, but on what those authorities are and how they've been interpreted over time. Third is just the perspective of seeing that pendulum shift wildly, so whichever phase you were in, you were surrounded by folks who had been there when it had swung wildly on the, we need every possible authority that we have to. We really want to emphasize civil liberties and can help keep that perspective. So I think critical over the next five years is that it's trying to maintain that nonpartisan cadre of experts. And then the other part of that expertise, I think, was that I don't know if they had the wisdom when they created the division to see this, but it would really pay off for the Justice Department, who's not so integrated into the intelligence community and has this other mission, was that that cadre married up to the career professionals who are at the agency, who are at NSA, who are at other parts of the community. And that relationship of trust outside changes in legal authorities is what allowed us to see, get that accurate portrait of what the intelligence showed, the threat was, and share information effectively. So I do worry now, an increased time of partisanship, are we going to maintain those folks who have that muscle memory? [INAUDIBLE] Well, look, I mean, I think organizationally, it's going to be a rebuilding over the next few years. So CNSD has hosted for any number of jobs that do have authority to hire and budget to hire. But I don't know what the exact numbers are, but they're operating at a much lower level of individuals and they're certainly by the end of that's time. But even when I was there, and so there's going to have to be a lot of rebuilding there. And I'm glad to see that they've started doing it. And then I think, like John, I mean, who knows? But one theme that's going to continue is technological evolution and what that means for national security threats and what expertise you're going to need there. And working with the ICS, John, said to address that, because that is, I do think beyond the national security politics and the changes that have occurred, there's just a broader, what does everybody make of government a theme that's going on right now in the US? And also this ambivalent relationship we have with technology, how much we use, how much we put on publicly about ourselves, how much data about ourselves are willing to share with the private sector, with advertisers, with companies we order from, how much we love the convenience of all of that. And then how much it makes us nervous to know that all sorts of folks have access to all that information. And so I think that'll be on the policy side. That'll be a real debate over the next five years and more. Yeah, I mean, I did technology point. I think John is exactly right. With the threats will change from various sources, whether it's the countries that we're most concerned about, whether it's terrorism related or cyber related, But the sort of overarching challenge would be continued pace of change in terms of technology that's available to our adversaries and whether we can adapt and whether our laws and rules and policies will continue -- I mean, they will inevitably lag behind technological change. That is just -- that's the state of play. But can we continue to stay a pace, at least, in how we're able to both address technological threats and then also use those technological advantages to protect our national security? So that's one. But the other, and I just agree, there's going to be a need to be -- to your guys' points on the people. Because all of this is, you know, hard to predict, but we know we're going to have to continue to recruit and train and retain really, really top-notch people. And that's never really been a problem. And honestly, while the numbers are way down and the Justice Department went to Congress and said we need more people, CES is down, like, you know, 40 percent, and that's really concerning because of the importance of those rules. I think on the good news side, at least anecdotally, there are so many people who want to work in the National Security Division, and they want to go back to government when they feel like they can and when there's the opportunity. So I don't think there's any shortage of people who want to go into these jobs who are really, really talented, and it will be able to rebuild the division from where it is now in terms of the number of people that are -- there are career folks working on these challenges. So I have a -- I'm optimistic about our ability to address that challenge. Now, it's super interesting. I do feel like it was interesting to me that in the recent AI executive order, the Attorney General has been -- it has -- there's a provision in there about sort of enhancing or focusing on crimes involving AI and computer crimes, which I thought was just a really kind of interesting future point of what's going to happen, having the folks with the expertise technologically to understand kind of where things are going, what how crimes are being committed, you know, and how best to counter them. So I think a lot of really interesting points here today. I just want to open it up, I think we have -- do we have any time for questions? Maybe a couple of minutes? >> Yeah, we have time for questions, but we'd like to do if folks could raise their hands. We have a mic that will come to you, Callie, we'll call on people, and it would be great if you could identify yourself with affiliation and pose your question. No speeches, please. We have questions. >> Thank you, thank you for your collective service and individual service and the support you do in the art committee. So my question is a little bit kind of based on your public service and now the fact that you guys all were in the private sector. So in the private sector, one of the big issues that we confront are cyber leaders, and particularly in its industrial base, and as you guys know, the lawyers usually come in and sign on the floater agreements, and there's usually quite a debate about what's appropriate to be able to tell to the government. You guys, you need to get served on both sides of that sort of fee, and I'm wondering, do you think we need any more changes, more authorities? What is it? Because it's clear a lot is going on in that private space, and it's unclear how it's going to be being reported to the government in a cyber company, DCSA. So I'm kind of curious based on your experience on both sides, do you think we need some form of what would that really look like? >> It's been interesting, it's already you put it in the context of the defense industrial base, because I actually think that's an area where there's been just marked improvement if I go back to maybe where it was in early 2000s to where it is today, it's rather remarkable. How much it's changed, I think, through good work in part by NSA, along with other members of the defense department, to really focus on trying to, there's this, to almost become a drinking game or joke on public-private partnership being invoked when it comes to combating the cyber threats, but I think the shift has been away from strategic intelligence and really focusing on operational, actionable intelligence shared in time for the private sector company to protect itself and vice versa. If there were reasons, it's kind of touches on the themes that we've had here, I mean, I think there are important reasons around government authority, concerns about privacy, about why there were restrictions in that space, but they've worked out now, particularly in defense industrial base, a way of sharing that information at speed and scale where there are gaps or to look at is, and what is critical infrastructure when we consider the technological changes that are occurring now. So how far down the supply chain do you need to go to prevent a critical shock to our system and the event of a conflict, in particular with a foreign power, as we shift towards artificial intelligence to use a concrete one that we're never interested in with now? We have companies developing this incredible capacity to spot vulnerabilities and exploit them, you hear that discussed in the Anthropics mythos, but really it's true of all the three big providers, and it's really a step change. We've never had before this ability to spot a vulnerability in code and then develop the ability to exploit, develop the capability to exploit that vulnerability at speed and scale where you don't need to be very sophisticated to use the tool. So we've developed that capacity for offense on the one hand and on defense once it gets applied. You could also use it to build code that doesn't have the vulnerability in the first instance or a red team. We've paused now the big three and there's this question of who gets access to the tool before it's released to the public in order to patch. Again, I think traditional defense industrial base will probably be covered, but what about all the dependent companies now or smaller tech that they rely upon when about the companies that are developing the semiconductors that sit underneath the technology that they use? And who's going to win this rate? Those are American companies who are willing to pause and share the information, but I think the expectation now is some of our countries that are not going to share that information are about six months away from developing the same capability. So I think we're in for a shocking, you know, a time of authorities and funding on almost every company. I'm curious, John, from just for your perspective, what do you sit to? But almost every company now has been using a model to protect itself on cybersecurity that's going to be outmoded. And we're going to be in this race to come up with a new model to pay down tech debt and get new hardware and software before this capability becomes widely available to criminal groups in nation state actors. And I think it's going to be, you know, spending on a scale that's going to be like, it'll be opportunities for some and a slight drag on the economy for others as we try to meet that challenge. I'm not sure right now we have the the authorities in place kind of drive to get that message out across the private sector, which is your perspective, sitting in Partly and Deb, Partly Out. Yeah. I mean, yeah, from the tip point I agree with you, we get excellent information from the government right now on cybersecurity breaches and threats. And we share information in a way that, you know, I didn't expect necessarily coming out from the government side, but that I think is being, you know, such a such a big part of our business as defense contracting and the relationships with the government are that close and mature. On your last point, yes, I mean, the investment that is going to be needed to keep up with the new models is going to be tremendous. Just the speed of patching that's going to have to occur across systems, the volume of patching. I mean, just the volume of undetected openings in software right now that this software is going to be able to find is is tremendous and they're early sort of work has already shown that. And, you know, openings that have existed for 20 years that no one ever found much, much faster than any set of the best human engineers could put together. And so that's going to be a huge, a big investment, but also a big change in the model that companies have been using about, you know, how to test, how to patch, you know, just that pace of all that, which by now actually has gotten pretty routine at least at big companies. I'll just pause on that. So just like one statistic, it's gotten, if you look at the stats for 2025 of the top 10 of vulnerabilities that are exploited by criminal groups, three of them were vulnerabilities that everyone had known about for more than 10 years. Of the top 100, it was a third. So that was current state, and then-- - Yeah, and then you got this. - And then you got this, and so the volume, the pace, it's gonna require an enormous investment. And again, I do think a lot of the big companies can do it, and they'll feel responsible for doing it. But, you know, you've got a supply chain that goes down into privately-owned family shops. And, you know, a supply chain vulnerabilities are a big issue, too, on the cyber side. And that, I think, is gonna be really tough. There's Microsoft waiting for profit from it all. (laughing) - Hi, Howard Marks, I work in the federal government for almost 48 years, including military service. Thank you for your service. My question, I think that John Carlin mentioned this earlier was the human bombs, the threat that we face. I'm thinking of the first anniversary of the killings at the Washington, Jewish Museum. People who are being targeted by those who are not necessarily working for foreign agents, or not foreign agents, they've been indoctrinated over social media, whether it's TikTok or whether it's other avenues to not just hate others, but to kill them. I think you talked about killing the police and so on, maybe assassination attempts against the president also, people who are acting on social media to kill others, based on information supplied in many cases by foreign governments on social media, through cutouts like TikTok and so on. What do we do about it? I mean, the social libertarians would say, "No, we can't do anything." But people are being killed daily on the streets of America because of their race, ethnic, religion and so on. I'd like to hear a little discussion about what can we do, thank you. - Matthew, I know you speak. - Yeah, I can start. I mean, we did deal with this problem quite a bit over the past several years as we've sort of seen, I think statistics bear out, arise in political violence and hate-based violence. You know, there is a fundamental challenge that is beyond the ability of the Nascar Division and the lawyers there to address, right? I mean, which is, as you said, the people being easily radicalized on the internet, not necessarily having any particular ideological bent, not necessarily being connected to a foreign terrorist organization, but perhaps they are, but not always. But then you combine on top of that the availability of very soft targets, whether it's religious organizations and buildings or shopping malls or bars, all the places that people gather. And then on top of that, the availability of military-grade weapons in this country. So as long as you have those elements, this is a challenge that is going to be beyond the capacity of law enforcement and Department of Justice and local prosecutors to handle. So I'm not really answering your question about how, what to do about it. I will say that what I saw work quite well again kind of turning inward a little bit to the Department of Justice is a very strong relationship between the Nascar Division and the Civil Rights Division with typically handles hate crimes. And the ability to quickly discern what was going to be the best tool to go after somebody who's been identified as a threat or has been after an attack to prosecute that person. And I think broadening out that point, just the willingness to use all the best tool to address the threat, I thought was a real strength of what I saw within the Nascar Division and the Department of Justice for the past few years. - Hi, I'm Mr. Jane, Canadian lawyer, recently graduated from my National Security Law LLM at Georgetown. (audience laughs) Thank you, Miss Aksa. My question's in the vein of that discussion at the end on future threats and keeping pace with the version of the technologies. We recently had a mass shooting in British Columbia, Canada where the shooter was encouraged and given instruction to commit their heinous act by ChatGPT. This prompted widespread outrage and open AIs in discussion at the ministerial level in Canada to review their safeguards and ensure something like this doesn't happen again. In the case of an AI model facilitating an adverse national security event in the US, do you think the entity has a role to play an inciting liability investigating or pursuing accountability? Thank you. (audience laughs) - I think Kelly should answer it actually. (audience laughs) I mean, from our perspective, it's really the criminal side of things, right? So civil liability, I think, is a whole other issue of these models and the folks who are making these models. I mean, on the criminal side, a case like that would be challenging to bring against the company criminal in the United States, for sure, I mean, but, and, you know, so I don't know that. I'll give a slight pivot on it. Where I do, would see a role for national security division, whether it's prompt injection or otherwise, would be, you know, we've seen each time with new technology, adversaries figure out a way to turn it to their ends. And so, if a nation's, if a adversary nation stayed with attempting to use the tool in order to cause violence inside the United States, and I think the national security division would have a critical role in figuring out what had happened, working to deter it, and then using all tools of federal government to hold that nation state to account. And then similarly, I think you could see terrorist groups following, trying to follow at least a similar model, just like they did with social media to use, try to use the tool despite the safeguards that were built in by the designers of the tool to carry out their vents and that, again, would be a role for the division. - Can I add one quick point, which is to say, so John Demers was one of the very first leaders of the law and policy section within the National Division, and that was when there was like two people, and when I left it, it was like 45 for so people, lawyers, and they would deal with these kinds of issues, right? Like, how do you think about legislation? What's the position of the Department of Justice when it comes to policies and legislation dealing with emerging threats? And having that capacity within the government, headquartered in the National Division's or real strength for the Department? - Yeah, I was just gonna echo that point. There is an important role that NSD has in the policy, and sort of looking down the road at what the next threats are, and then thinking about what legislations can best meet those threats. And just to echo what you said about, you know, how AI is a game changer, you know, it's just that a meeting here about the role of AI in enhancing the bio-threat to America and the world. And the fact that AI can be used to just create these pathogens in a way that just, you know, completely accelerates the process, and what we heard from an anthropic and open AI, I was warning about, so what they're doing to try to prevent people from using that tool to come up with a bio weapon, and, you know, it just completely changes the game. And so that's the kind of thing where, you know, there's a room for a legislative solution, and, you know, you need some smart people thinking about it, and the 45 people that Matt was talking about should be on it, because they're thinking down the road as to what the next national security threat is, and you're right, AI is gonna be right in the middle, that's right. - So, Kelly Andrews, John, we thank you for your time. (audience applauding) - All right, and thank you for listening to NSLT. Remember to subscribe to NSLT on Apple Podcast, Spotify or Amazon, whatever you like to listen to. Remember to like and share this episode with a friend. The writer, producer, and host of NSLT is me, Alisa Poteet, I'm always here in my individual capacity, our editor, my co-producer is Frances Burkeham. I am always accompanied by the never stops, never runs out of energy, Holly McMahon, who's also the co-producer of this cast. Our program manager is the ever-lovely, wonderful, hardworking, and Tasia Hawkins Blankney, social media and research support comes from Alana CooperSmith, and of course, we get so much help from the brilliant minds of the members of the Standing Committee on Law and National Security, who pursued the good in the interest of national security, without regard for politics, and you should do the same. We'll see you next time. - The views expressed on national security law today have not been approved by the House of Delegates or the Board of Governors of the American Bar Association, and this recording should not be construed as representing a B.A. policy. 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