DAVE COOK: We have today with us Janet Napolitano. This is her fourth visit with the group. Her last was in May of last year. We welcome her back. Thanks for making time in your busy schedule. Our guest is a New York City native who grew up in Pittsburgh and Albuquerque. After graduating from Santa Clara University and the University of Virginia Law School, she moved to Phoenix in 1983 to clerk for a Circuit Court Judge of Appeals, who later, I guess, practiced corporate law and was on the legal team that advised Anita Hill during Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court. She chaired Arizonas delegation to the `92 Democratic Convention, and in `93 was named U.S. Attorney for Arizona, a post she held until she was elected as Arizona State Attorney General in `98. In 2002, she was elected as Arizonas governor by the smallest margin in the states history, but breezed to reelection in 2006. JANET NAPOLITANO: By the largest margin. DAVE COOK: By the largest margin. (Laughter.) DAVE COOK: Yes. Sixty-three percent of the vote, yes. According to a profile written by one of my Monitor colleagues, while governor, she reportedly slept four hours a night, read five books a week and guest-coached the University of Arizona and Arizona state womens basketball teams. JANET NAPOLITANO: The last part is true. DAVE COOK: Pretty good for newspaper work, right? (Laughter.) DAVE COOK: So much for daunting biographical notes. Now onto mundane mechanical matters. As always, were on the record here. Theres no embargo. There is no live blogging or Twittering. My apologies for those of you who attended Mondays breakfast, and found one of the reporters had violated that rule. I called the reporter involved, was offered a fulsome apology and Im assured it wont happen again. After todays session is over, feel free to spread the word in whatever way is most likely to keep you employed. In the interest of preserving the groups reputation for civility, if youd like to ask a question, please do the traditional thing and send me a subtle, non-threatening signal. Ill happily call on one and all, and well start off by offering our guest the opportunity to make some opening comments, and then well move to questions from around the table. And with that, thank you again for coming. We appreciate that. JANET NAPOLITANO: Well thanks Dave, and thanks for having me again. Its great to be back. I think when youre the Secretary of Homeland Security, you cover so many different issues on any given day, that its hard to know where to begin. But I thought I would mention three, possibly four. But three that I am particularly focused on now. One is that, as some of you know, but many may not, is that in the aftermath of the Christmas Day attempt last year, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, we took a step back and looked at what was really going on with global aviation security, recognizing that he had boarded a plane in Nigeria. He had changed in Amsterdam, on his way to Detroit, and recognize that the way the global aviation system is set up, if you get access to any one part, you potentially have access to all. So we did two things immediately. The first thing was I sent the deputy secretary and few others on an around the world trip. They literally went to, I think, almost every continent except Antarctica in 12 days, to meet and set up ministerial meetings that I then followed up on. Then working with ICAO, which is the United Nations aviation branch, we began a series of regional meetings around the world, at the ministerial level, to discuss aviation security, pointing out that there were citizens of 17 different countries who would perish on that plane, and that the global aviation system is really part of the lifeblood of the international world in which we live. If it goes down or people lose confidence in it, thats a huge impact on economies around the world. Out of that came five really historic declarations, one out of Western Europe, one out of the Western hemisphere, one from Asia, one from Africa, one of the Mideast, through summits that we were at, I was at, but were under the auspices of ICAO. The ICAO actual global general assembly is the week after next in Montreal, and really I think for the first time, its going to be taking up this issue of global aviation security, and we anticipate a very good resolution that will be global in nature, the first time ever, that will involve information-collection and sharing. It will involve security measures; it will involve best practices; it will involve the institution of audits and audit practices for international airports, all of which should serve to help strength international aviation security. So this will be again, I think really the first of its kind approach from ICAO. We have involved the private sector by the way, both through U.S. flight carriers but also through IATA, which are the non-U.S. flight carriers of the world, who have been very instrumental in this. So as we have moved to strength domestic airport security, weve also really been moving simultaneously on the international aviation front, and so that is kind of one of the key outgrowths of what happened Christmas Day. Secondly, we are focused as well on surface transportation, and by surface, I also mean subsurface, like subways. But lets just say non-aviation transportation. We have been deploying and will be deploying more by way of specialized teams. Weve used some of the ARRA money, the Recovery Act money to enable the hiring of transit police, for example, 120 some-odd in New York City alone, the increased use of Viper teams, portable explosive detection machinery and the like, all designed to make sure that we are going after that, even as commercial aviation remains at a threat. So thats one thing I wanted to mention. The second thing is that we continue to move to strengthen our borders, both southern and northern, in different ways. They are different types of borders. I was up at the northern borders with Senators Tester and Baucus a few weeks ago, looking at some of those ports and some of the issues there. This morning I approved the final spend plan for the $600 million supplemental Congress approved for the southwest border, which will enable us to continue and to add on to Border Patrol agents, ICE investigators, canine teams, port officers and the like, along the southwestern border. And as Ive said many times over the past months, even in the midst of discussion about securing the border, the plain fact of the matter is that the numbers that need to be going up have been going up, and the numbers that need to be going down have been going down, and in dramatic fashion. Then the third thing I wanted to just speak about was the threat situation in which we live today. Ill be testifying in the Senate Wednesday with Moeller and Lighter, FBI and TTT heads, on the current threat situation that we see in the United States. I think it is fair to say that it is ever-evolving, its ever more complicated. It involves more groups, more tactics, more possible targets. That means that we ourselves are ever-evolving to mitigate those threats, particularly from a Homeland Security standpoint, in increasing information-sharing with state and local law enforcement departments, with making more resources available to them, and also with two campaigns that are underway now. One is known as SAR, Suspicious Activity Reporting, which was designed for law enforcement on how do you help distinguish between non-suspicious and suspicious activities. There are things that help one make those distinctions, and get that information back here so we can be looking at trends or things across the country, doing correlations and things that previously had not been done. So receiving information and getting information back, and then the See Something, Say Something campaign, which is designed to involve individuals more personally in their own security. This was a campaign that had originated in the Metropolitan Transit Authority in New York City. Weve now taken it across Amtrak. Weve taken it across the southern states. The District of Columbia has now incorporated it. You may have seen it on some billboards or signs around here. General aviation is incorporating it, and were working with sports leagues and others to really get that word out about if you see something say something. The notion is that security is itself, as we still continue to build the architecture, as we continue to move to prevent threats from actually manifesting themselves, recognizing theres no 100 percent guarantee and will not be, but that security is a shared responsibility, and that everybody has a role. So those things are underway. So the ICAO general assembly, southwest border, northern border and then all of the threat streams that we see right now, are the things that are occupying my primary attention. DAVE COOK: Thank you for the opening, which is very helpful. I was looking at your budget and all the many places that you spend tens of billions of dollars. So its amazing you can keep track of it. Let me ask you two quick things, and then well go to my colleagues, starting with Cynthia Tucker, Bryan Bender and Alex Kingsbury. Ill -- JANET NAPOLITANO: Go ahead. I can -- if you dont mind, Ill -- DAVE COOK: Ill meander here. Ill meander while you get some salad in your mouth. JANET NAPOLITANO: I can eat and talk at the same time. DAVE COOK: Fareed Zacaria wrote an interesting column, actually a couple of interesting columns in Newsweek recently, arguing that in essence the United States has been right about the evil intentions of its adversaries, but massively exaggerated their strength, and sort of wondering aloud whether we had overreacted to 9/11. He cited a number of figures from Dana Priests series, you know, 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies, for example, related to counterterrorism; 50,000 reports a year, 136 a day. Youre probably on the distribution list for all 136. So obviously we had to do something serious. It was a major and tragic attack. Is it your feeling that theres a need to dial back, whether we have overreacted in any way? JANET NAPOLITANO: No, and but I think what we have to recognize the kind of threat from possible attack tactics were seeing now are different than 9/11. Theyre not large, complex conspiracies. Theyre smaller, theyre more diverse. Its not just Al-Qaeda. Its other related groups, new groups that have occurred since then that have been inspired perhaps by Al-Qaeda, that its, you know. Its IEDs, its small arms, its hydrogen peroxide-based explosives designed to be put in backpacks and left around smaller targets in the United States. So the nature of the attacks and the means by which they would be accomplished have changed. The motivation, the source is there, and as I -- and youll get more of this on Wednesday when I testify, but that means that we have to continue to evolve. We have to continue to be thinking about well what makes sense; how do we best minimize risk? How do we make sure that we dont have unnecessary duplication, realizing that duplication, duping the intel area makes sense. There should be some planned redundancy in this area. So I dont agree that this is overdrawn by any stretch. DAVE COOK: Last question from me, but the Post this morning, as you know, had a story by Ellen Nakashima, arguing that the U.S. cyber security plans are lagging. Lots of agreement on what the problem is; little agreement on what the solution is. JANET NAPOLITANO: Yes, shes just wrong. I mean Im sorry. I mean I think that we do have plans. They are in effect. There are things underway all the time, and I thought the -- with all respect, I thought the article was misleading by omission. Now some of that, to be fair, was probably because we didnt share, for security or other reasons, all that is going on. But I will, you know, disagree with that. An immense effort has been and is underway on the cyber front. Plans have been prepared. Exercises are in the works that are very large and complex in nature, and we understand this as a key area of infrastructure protection for the United States. So we take that very, very seriously. So I love the Wash -- whos here from the Washington Post? DAVE COOK: They didnt show, huh? JANET NAPOLITANO: Its news to lose. DAVE COOK: Its supposed to be Ed OKeefe. JANET NAPOLITANO: Well tell Ed and the Post I love the Post, but I thought the article was misleading by omission. Cynthia. All right Cynthia. MONITOR BREAKFAST: Madam Secretary, I have two questions. When you were at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in Monday, you pushed back against complaints that the deportation policy targets too many non-offenders. Are you still confident in your statistics, that in fact very few non-offenders are being deported? The second part of my question is what is ICEs policy on deportations of college students, illegal immigrants but college students, but who have not committed any other offense? JANET NAPOLITANO: Well first of all, I am confident that the numbers that ICE is reporting are accurate. That is, that we are deporting more criminal aliens from this country than at any time in our countrys history; that we have changed the priorities to make sure that we focused on criminal aliens. That does not in and of itself, however, mean that others are not subject to deportation. We dont have the luxury of when we come across somebody or if a case has multiple individuals who become involved, saying well, were only going to remove you and not you, or institute proceedings against you, not me. The law doesnt really permit that. But the focus, I mean enforcement focus is clearly on the public safety aspects, and the numbers show it, and they are record amounts of removals from this country. I view it as a former prosecutor. I mean I was a U.S. Attorney and was an attorney general. Youve got to use your resources in the way you think will have the best effect, and John Morton, the head of ICE, is a former prosecutor. So our collective wisdom is that you have to have a focus and guidance in the field that aligns with that focus, and thats what weve done. With respect to kids who would qualify for the Dream Act stay, we handle those on a case-by-case basis. We are, you know, we have granted humanitarian parole or deferred action on individual cases. But we have not done so collectively to the entire group. Really thats for the Congress to consider, and I think thats what will be raised it looks like next week, when they bring up the defense bill. At least thats what I read today. DAVE COOK: Bryan. MONITOR BREAKFAST: Madam Secretary, you spoke at the outset about the threat stream. I see that obviously Al-Qaeda Central is still a paramount consideration. But youve mentioned other groups. Can you talk about what other groups? Are they home-grown? Are they others Islamic extremists, perhaps inspired by Al-Qaeda? Then sort of a quick follow-up. You also talk about, you talked about low tech or less sophisticated kinds of plans underway or at least thats the sense. What about the WMD threat, nuclear proliferation? The President obviously has made securing nuclear material a very high priority. Is that less of a concern than it was before? So you could take both of those. JANET NAPOLITANO: Well, in terms of the groups, Al-Qaeda, you know, AQAP, TTP, the whole alphabet are all out there, and all continuing to espouse a violent ideology in the name of Islam, right, against the West, against the United States. So clearly on our radar screen. In terms of home grown, that is a growing phenomenon. And by home grown, I would define that as U.S. persons who have become radicalized to the point of violence. They may travel abroad to the Fatah or somewhere to hone their tradecraft and come back. The Internet is an accelerant of that. Its being used very skillfully. The Al-Alaqis of the world and their ability, you know, those who speak idiomatic English, for example, or can put messages into the persuasive form that a U.S. person would perhaps appreciate. Weve seen more and more of that. Inspire magazine, I think, working the terror, you know about that. So whereas maybe a few years ago we could have devised our thinking to say well, this is going to be international that comes in, we have to also look at the interior. Which is why the point about See Something, Say Something; which is why SAR, which is why info sharing at the state and local level had to be construed as really important parts of our role. This is what -- well, what are you going to do about it? Well, one of the things youre going to do about it is make sure that more information gets out of the Beltway and gets to the rest of the country. One of the things youre going to do about it is trained more and more law enforcement departments to have a SAR capacity. One of the things youre going to do about it is a greater public awareness campaign. So the home grown threat ties into some of those strategies as well. MONITOR BREAKFAST: What about the nuclear question? JANET NAPOLITANO: Yes, the WMD. No. We have active issues underway there as well. We have both -- well, on all of them, I would say that biological is somewhat different than nuclear. I mean there are different types of threat streams and they pose different types of dangers. But both within the Department and at the inter-agency level have been receiving a lot of attention. DAVE COOK: Were going next to Alex Kingsbury and then Dave Shepardson, Mark Siebel, Brian Riley and Chris Trunk. Alex? MONITOR BREAKFAST: I have sort of a two-part question. The first is from the aborted Koran-burning and this cartoonist apparently who put some sort of protective custody over her drawings of Mohammed. Have you guys drawn any lessons from that? Is there anything to say further on how those events might happen in the future? And also the Drudge report has taken to calling you Big Sis since youve been in office. JANET NAPOLITANO: I know. MONITOR BREAKFAST: Does this offend you, amuse you? Do you have any thoughts one way or the other on that? JANET NAPOLITANO: I am amused. (Laughter.) JANET NAPOLITANO: So you know, Ive made it. Drudge has a nickname for me. I think that on the cartoonist, the individual in Florida who became a media show. You know, I was in New York City last Friday and Saturday, and it was a shame that that individual, that story kind of overshadowed all the other things that are going on in New York City, including the quite significant construction at Ground Zero since last year, and theyre really -- you can really begin to see where the new towers are going to be and so forth. Be that as it may, I think all I would say to that is that those types of images do get broadcast around the world, and do create, I think, an image of the United States that is inconsistent with American values, where we have lots of religions and religious freedom, and lots of people who are here to practice different religious faiths. Thats incredible. DAVE COOK: Dave? MONITOR BREAKFAST: A couple of follow-up questions, to a degree. One, the Michigan Congressional delegation sent you a letter asking if Homeland Security will agree to pay for the security costs connected with the trial. Second, do you think there will be a trial, and the suspect this week fired his lawyers. Do you think -- has that had any impact on his cooperation? JANET NAPOLITANO: You know, those are really questions for DOJ. Theyve got the case, and so I cant really respond. But I will say, and I will go again to where I started. Building this global consensus on aviation security, I mean Im not sure that it existed prior to Christmas. Putting it together, building it, using ICAO, going around the world, bringing countries together. Well do the general assembly in two weeks. There will be follow-up at the nuts and bolts level, continent by continent. But this is to make sure that we retain a safe and secure international system for the future, and the consequences if we dont have a safe and secure international commercial system are pretty grave. MONITOR BREAKFAST: Right, but they sent you a letter asking will Homeland Security be willing to pay any of the security costs associated with a trial of the suspect? JANET NAPOLITANO: Well normally, again I cant answer that. There is no trial schedule. I dont know the answer to that. So the answer is I dont know. DAVE COOK: Mark? MONITOR BREAKFAST: Madam Secretary, for the last five months, much of the country has been fixated really on the Gulf oil spill, and your department is the first responder in such instances. Im struck as you talk today that you didnt even mention it. Of course, none of us until now has asked a question about it. Im wondering as you look back at the response, where the Coast Guard basically was overwhelmed -- I think thats Admiral Allens term -- by the disaster, had its oil spill budget, the clean up budget cut actually, if you had a sense that maybe Homeland Security is stretched a little bit thin, and some aspects of what you have responsibilities for really ought to be devolved elsewhere. I mean you talk about immigration; you talk about terrorism. Sounds to me like certain intelligence-gathering functions, and thats a huge sprawling thing, that you have a disaster like the oil spill. JANET NAPOLITANO: I thought about starting with BP, but I thought -- and I didnt, and Ill tell you why. I mean that well is dead. Its going to be dead-dead-dead some time this weekend, you know. Theyll finish the intercept. As Amy would share with you, it has been a major effort of the Department, not just the Coast Guard. Indeed, through all of the other things Ive been describing, until last week we were having regular calls. We started off with two a day. Then we went -- then they diminished as we went through. But two a day at the Secretarial level, led by DHS, but including Interior, EPA, Energy, NOAA, the White House, etcetera, organizing this response. I think we will have lessons learned, as we always do, as when you go through a major incident. Theyre always different. I think, though, it is fair to say that overall, as we worked our way through it, it had to continue adjusting and continue growing and expanding, as the dimensions of that disaster unfolded. We were able to do that, and we were able to move a flotilla of skimmers to the Gulf. We were able to deputize the VOOs, the Vessels of Opportunity. We were able to get control of the total airspace over the Gulf and get radios in all the VOOs, as well as all the other vessels that had connectivity with the air, so we could actually fly the Gulf. At one point, we were doing 150, 160 overflights a day, direct them where to go to pick up the oil, where to burn oil and a light. I think its, you know, now at the point of moving from response to recovery, and now that the well is, you know, dead-dead-dead basically, those -- that transition is underway. MONITOR BREAKFAST: And can you assure us about that? Youre satisfied that DHS has the ability to stay focused on all the many things that it needs to focus on? JANET NAPOLITANO: You know, DHS in this job, youve got to be able multi-task, and thats what were asked to do and whats what we do. DAVE COOK: Bryan? MONITOR BREAKFAST: Good afternoon, Madam Secretary. I had a two-part question as well. I wanted to see -- this is a very good strategy by you all. Everybody has to -- (Laughter.) MONITOR BREAKFAST: Very hard questions. MONITOR BREAKFAST: Yes, exactly. I wanted to first of all see if you think that the report that you were criticized for, I guess, DHS was criticized for putting out on the rising threat over, I guess, right wing extremists, if you were proven right over that in the end? And I also wanted to, on the border issue, talk about whether ATF not having a permanent head has hurt the strategy down there at all. The Bradley campaign has issued a report has been critical of the administration over their enforcement, about gun control laws. A number of initiatives have stalled, so that could potentially weaken ATF, and I wanted to see what role you see them playing on the border. DAVE COOK: Thats actually a three-part question. JANET NAPOLITANO: I would say first that the kind and quality of the products that we put out for law enforcement now are so much more operational, and what we needed to do in our department was really think through what is it that a state or local fusion center needs? How do we inform them about trends, about tactics? How do we get information back from them? So that report to me is almost ancient history, and I will put it there. With respect to not having a permanent head of ATF, you know, that has not been raised to me as an issue. Of course, ATF is not in DHS. Its one of the departments that isnt. Were hopeful that Alan Bersin will be able to get confirmed at CBP, however. Hes been serving in that capacity for a while. Hes just doing a fabulous job. MONITOR BREAKFAST: Certainly, hes a partner on the border. Do you think -- JANET NAPOLITANO: Say it again please? MONITOR BREAKFAST: Certainly he is partner on, you know, on -- JANET NAPOLITANO: In some matters, yes. But again, it has not been brought to my attention at DHS, that there are issues there. DAVE COOK: The next places were going are Chris Strong, Josh Tristine and Tom Frank and Todd Gilman. Chris? MONITOR BREAKFAST: Madam Secretary, you mentioned the Dream Act, and as you know, its supposed to come up for a vote next week. President Obama has talked about it being, you know, a priority. Obviously he made campaign pledges about doing immigration reform. What level of involvement are you personally taking at this point, to advance the Dream Act in Congress? I mean are you holding meetings with members? Are you making phone calls? I mean how engaged are you personally in trying to do this? And secondly -- DAVE COOK: Here comes the second question. MONITOR BREAKFAST: Right, always. Theres just a, rumors keep coming up that the Departments going to do a wholesale amnesty for illegal immigrants in the country. Can you categorically state that the Department will not do that? JANET NAPOLITANO: Yes. The Department does not intend to do that, the wholesale amnesty. However, we do believe the Dream Act would be a good thing. These are -- this is intended for people who have no culpability, really, for how they were brought across the border. Many of them have no relationship at all to their country of origin, if they even speak the language there, and these -- when you meet individual kids, students for the most part who are involved, theyre very talented, very dedicated, hard-working, the kind of, you know, talent that our country historically has thrived upon. So we hope and support the Dream Act. We hope that, you know, it will have to be on a bipartisan basis. But the immigration issue is not going to go away, and at some point the Congress will need to address it. It needs to address it now, and we are prepared to sit down when that time comes. DAVE COOK: Josh? MONITOR BREAKFAST: Madam Secretary, last time you were here, there was some brief discussion of E-Verify, and the legislation that you had signed in Arizona that required employers to use that or at least gave them a very strong incentive to do that. Since that time, the Obama administration has taken the position that that legislation is unconstitutional. Can you tell us how that -- JANET NAPOLITANO: No. MONITOR BREAKFAST: Is that not -- JANET NAPOLITANO: No. The sanctions part was unconstitutional, not that E-Verify was unconstitutional. MONITOR BREAKFAST: Right, that portion of the legislation -- JANET NAPOLITANO: Right. MONITOR BREAKFAST: In any event was unconstitutional, and I think you had said previously about that it was constitutional. I mean you did, you signed it. So can you tell us how that came to pass? Do you still think its constitutional, and do you think that a mandatory verified system for the whole country is a wise thing to do? JANET NAPOLITANO: Yes. I think you have to have some method by which if youre going to require employers to ascertain the legal status or legal presence of their employees, for them to do that. I think a lot of the complaints I hear about E-Verify are based on kind of the earliest iterations of the technology. But it, you know, the registration keeps going up. More and more worksites use it, and you know, I required that it be used when I was the governor of the State of Arizona for -- not only that the state use it, but that our contractors use it. So I know and knew that a lot of the complaints were misplaced. So yes, I do believe any, as we move forward on immigration reform, you need to have a way to verify legal presence from an employment standpoint, because illegal labor is the major draw of this migration to the United States, and the only way to deal with that is to cut off the demand. So I do believe E-Verify is the way to do that. MONITOR BREAKFAST: And whats your reaction to the administrations decision that your bill or the bill you signed was unconstitutional? JANET NAPOLITANO: Well, its in the Supreme Court now, so Id rather not discuss a case thats pending. DAVE COOK: Tom. MONITOR BREAKFAST: Thanks. Madam Secretary, I want to talk about the bipartisan report that came out last Friday, the update on the status of the threat. One of the conclusions the report that came out -- JANET NAPOLITANO: Yes, I read it, yes. MONITOR BREAKFAST: Okay. So one of the conclusions was that there really wasnt much of a threat of a WMD attack, and that they said the few efforts that Al-Qaeda and so forth have made to try to fire a WMD had fizzled, was their word, and I guess another attacks not likely to happen. Do you agree? JANET NAPOLITANO: Well, I think its fair to say that the WMD attack is much more complicated than say a Mumbai-style attack, in the sense of the mastery of technology you have to have, the accessibility to materiel and so forth. However, I dont think they meant to imply that we shouldnt be doing anything about WMD, because that would be a mistake. I mean I think we still have to continue to look at what we can do now to protect the country, but also what are new technologies, new research that we should be doing, thats more futuristic as it were, to really deal with those kinds of threats. DAVE COOK: Tom. MONITOR BREAKFAST: Thanks. Secretary, I want to ask you about the ongoing issue of troops along the southern border, and Governor Perry has been trying to get the administrations attention, pretty much from the outset of the administration, for more and more troops, certainly more than have already been forthcoming. He hasnt gotten a meeting with the President about this. He had hoped the President would inspect the border when the President went to El Paso a couple of weeks ago, had the Iraq speech. Is this just a difference of a judgment? Do you think the governor and other border state officials who have been pressing for more troops were just posturing? I would point out that -- can I get a verbal answer on that? (Laughter.) JANET NAPOLITANO: Do not anticipate -- do not interpret anything other than this is really good cake. (Laughter.) JANET NAPOLITANO: Ive known Governor Perry a long time, and you know, we have been putting resources into the border at an unprecedented rate, and not just ground but air, you know. For example, we persuaded the FAA to open up the eastern half of Texas, the airspace there, so we can deploy the Predator over there. You know, the border is a system. Its requires manpower. It requires technology. It requires infrastructure. All of those are significantly up across the southwest border. When you get to the issue of National Guard, obviously thats -- the first thing you want to have are civilian law enforcement, right? Thats the -- this is a civilian border, and the National Guard mission there is to support the ongoing border protection efforts, ongoing border patrol efforts. They are going where the folks have looked at the border across from California to Texas, to ascertain where they will, they are most needed. If that need changes, they will be moved. But in the meantime, theres been a huge and continues to be a huge plus-up, including with the 600 million I referenced earlier, on the permanent and sustained civilian force, and thats really where the federal presence needs to be built. He is a governor. He always has the ability, in a way, to bring up National Guard if hes going to pay for them. I mean thats always an option available to a governor. But I think the key thing is lets look at the metrics. Illegal immigration across the border is way down, as measured by the number of apprehensions, which has always been viewed as a rough metric to attempts. Drug seizures, gun seizures, cash seizures way up, and we are paying particular attention to border communities, because of the fear of spillover violence from the cartel wars that are underway in Mexico, Juarez a key example there. We dont just look at the FBIs statistics; we also are in constant contact with the sheriffs and the law enforcement along the border. In fact I think as recently as this week, we had conference calls with the sheriffs, the Southwest Sheriffs Association and the Southwest Border Law Enforcement Association, to make sure that were getting what theyre seeing on the ground. They are not seeing that kind of spillover on the ground. MONITOR BREAKFAST: When you said that the option is open to this governor and the other governor to call up their own National Guard if theyre willing to pay for it, that sounds like youre saying that money is the constraining factor, as opposed to a judgment that the Guard is -- JANET NAPOLITANO: Look. All these governors have budgetary constraints. What I will tell you, and the last thing I want is a headline saying Rick Perry, call up your National Guard. What I am saying is look. The National Guard is not designed to be a substitute for civilian law enforcement. Civilian law enforcement is being plussed up at record rates. Its being plussed up all along the border. Its being backed up by state of the art technology, and its being backed up by infrastructure. Thats the way you have a secure border area. Its also being backed up, by the way, by a whole series now of international agreements weve reached with Mexico on these methods, more extensive than any Ive seen since 1993, which is when I began working border issues. DAVE COOK: Anybody who hasnt had their three-part question? Pete? MONITOR BREAKFAST: Id like to ask a half part question. (Laughter.) MONITOR BREAKFAST: What substantively has changed since Christmas Day, in terms of information-sharing? For example, is the U.S. now getting passenger lists earlier than it was on Christmas Day? JANET NAPOLITANO: Yes. We fixed that issue right away. In other words, getting information out to the last point of departure, as opposed to when somebody was -- MONITOR BREAKFAST: How much -- what have you asked countries for? What do you want? You want information -- do you want the passenger list an hour before the plane takes off, two hours before? What are you getting now? JANET NAPOLITANO: Well give you a whole debrief on that. What were looking at is greater collection of PNR and API information, sharing of that. DAVE COOK: I do have my I-Phone app, which would let me decode all HHS -- JANET NAPOLITANO: DHS. DAVE COOK: DHS acronyms. But for the novice -- JANET NAPOLITANO: Passenger Name Record. DAVE COOK: Thank you, and API? JANET NAPOLITANO: Advanced Passenger Information. DAVE COOK: Thanks. JANET NAPOLITANO: And so API/PNR data exchange. We have now taken over the secure flight. We are now doing the watch list checking, not the airlines. I think since Christmas Day, weve done a lot of cutover to make sure that we were actually doing the checking. So we are seeing greater exchange of API/PNR. We want more, in the sense of we think that is a great way to make sure that those who pose a threat to aviation are identified prior to the time they even get to an airport, much less prior to the time they get screened to get on an airplane. We want greater use either of screening technology in airports or protocols for how people -- in some areas of the world, for example, using a magnetometer, an AIT machine, doesnt make a lot of sense. For example, if you dont have the staff to be able to repair or maintain equipment, that you have a staff thats trained and properly supervised to be able to do hand checks, you know, that sort of thing. So theres a whole litany of things on the aviation side that have improved since Christmas Day, been changed since Christmas Day. But were not, you know, Im not here to say thats the period at the end of the sentence. What I am here to say is that we now have reached a global recognition. It will be embodied at ICAO next week. It will be a vehicle through which the global community of nations really addresses this whole issue of using air travel as a weapon. DAVE COOK: James Meek. MM Good afternoon, Secretary Napolitano. How are you? JANET NAPOLITANO: Good. MONITOR BREAKFAST: I have an eight-part question. (Laughter.) MONITOR BREAKFAST: Im curious, just a quick answer on which you are more concerned about, in terms of the threat of Islamic terrorists coming in the United States from across the border, the southern border with Mexico or the northern border with Canada? Which causes you greater heartburn or concern, and then I have a follow-up. JANET NAPOLITANO: I think that -- I dont think I have the luxury of choosing. I think that I have to worry about both, but they are different types of borders, you know. The northern border, with the exception of the coastal ports and maybe places like Detroit, very sparsely populated, very broad, open. How do you deal with that? Obviously, one way you deal with that is have better information or have good information-sharing with Canada about whos coming into Canada, right, so you know who could possibly cross -- MONITOR BREAKFAST: Well, its sort of the intel leaning to perhaps one country or the other. JANET NAPOLITANO: Well, I think that again, Im not going to make that rank, because I dont think I get the luxury of -- MONITOR BREAKFAST: A wise decision. Mr. Chertoff made (inaudible) a couple of years ago. On the issue of Al-Qaeda Central -- MONITOR BREAKFAST: Theres no free chocolate desert. JANET NAPOLITANO: Yes, I see. Its good. MONITOR BREAKFAST: A lot of officials have been saying Al-Qaeda Central, they believe, is no longer capable, at least for the moment, of attacking us using a complicated, spectacular 9/11 style, embassy bombing style attack. Im curious whether or not you agree with that conclusion that a lot of people have confronted, and if you do agree with that, how do we get -- how do we (inaudible) underestimate Al-Qaeda (inaudible), and their capabilities? JANET NAPOLITANO: Well, I look at them a little differently, I guess. I think that a lot of the things that we have done to reduce the risk of a threat have increased or decreased the likelihood that such a large or complex plot could be successful. In a way, the larger, the more complex, the more opportunities to intercept, to prevent. Smaller plots, individual activities, things that are home grown as opposed to coming in from internationally, much more difficult from a law enforcement perspective, to prevent from actually occurring. So I wouldnt put it in the sense of core Al-Qaeda not being able to do something. What I would put it in the context of theyre cognizant of some of the actions we have taken, and I dont think theyve given up the idea, for example, of taking out a commercial airliner. That continues to be a target. But they also recognize other methods could be utilized as well. And so it goes back to the need, the information-sharing, getting information out of D.C. across the country, better preparing fusion centers to collect and disburse data, making sure that we have properly trained and equipped law enforcement, first responders across the country to look for trends and tactics. They are in a way the first preventers as well as the first responders. They will see a lot more than we will see here when were -- a lot of times when were talking about these smaller types of plots. MONITOR BREAKFAST: But again, how did we underestimate AQAPs capabilities so (inaudible)? JANET NAPOLITANO: What do you mean? MONITOR BREAKFAST: I think John Brennan said (inaudible), that we did not expect them to be as operationally capable in terms of an external operation, much less against the U.S. (inaudible), as they evidently were. JANET NAPOLITANO: All I would say there, and I dont recall John saying exactly that. Maybe he did; I just dont recall it, is look. We can do everything possible to anticipate, to collate, to mitigate, to prevent. But we cannot guarantee. DAVE COOK: Last question. We have about two and a half minutes. Stewart. MONITOR BREAKFAST: Madam Secretary, I just wanted to ask you. You mentioned the IEDs, the backpack bombs and the small arms attacks that are sort of (inaudible) potentially threatening. Why havent we seen that style of attack so far? Is it because theyre not organized to achieve that and communicate with each other? Is it because theyve been so effective at unmasking cells where that might take place? Is it not part of their strategy and it sort of relies on home grown combustion to have them? You know, its been nine years and we havent seen like a Washington sniper type of assault on a city or an area? JANET NAPOLITANO: Well, we have had successes. I mean we interrupted Nigel Polozazi, which was a backpack style attempt; Hadley was another one. Faisal Shazad was interrupted by a civilian, which is why the See Something, Say Something is so important, and you know, and while there have been other attacks disrupted perhaps in the United States, we have to also acknowledge that those who seek to attack the West also include Western Europe in that, and weve seen a number of attacks there. So we always look at whats going on other places in the world, as well as whats happening in the United States. DAVE COOK: Can I ask you a ten second question? JANET NAPOLITANO: Yes. DAVE COOK: Another one of your cabinet friends, Mr. Gates, sees budget pressure coming as a result of whats happening in the economy, and trying to deal with the deficit. Do you worry at all that your department will be caught in the same kind of, budget kind of crunch that Mr. Gates sees, and are you doing anything to deal with it? JANET NAPOLITANO: I think we all have -- yes. I think we all have a responsibility to be good stewards of these dollars, because these taxpayer dollars are fewer and harder to come by. I think we began a process, I remember a year and a half ago. We called it efficiency review, really scrubbing through every part of the Department, looking for areas where we could save money. It was everything from eliminating the contract for logos. We have enough logos, thank you, to -- logos and Choskys to -- are really now underway, procurement and acquisition reform. You know, were a very young department, and one of the things that as they built the department and they put all these elements together, well one of the things that didnt really come along with that was kind of the administrative infrastructure, so that you would have one acquisition process, one set of HR requirements, you know, all the kinds of administrative nuts and bolts that go with running a huge organization. And also, because we were stood up so quickly, that the mission already was there, a lot of use of contractors. So were in the process now of identifying and converting from contractors to FTE, which will save money. Acquisition reform, contract reform, which has already saved hundreds of millions -- I wont say hundreds of millions. I think it may be in the hundreds of millions already. VOICE: $87 million in consolidating software licenses alone. JANET NAPOLITANO: Yes, yes. So its a lot, and we continue to look for ways to do that. We had just made our FY `12 budget submittal, and we submitted within guidance. So -- DAVE COOK: Thank you for that. Thank you for all of this. We appreciate it and look forward to having you come back. JANET NAPOLITANO: Thanks for lunch. DAVE COOK: Youre welcome. JANET NAPOLITANO: Thanks, all right. (Whereupon, the meeting was concluded.)