Congress Briefed by Intelligence Community Execs....

Executives from the U.S. intelligence community
 testify before a Senate committee
on January 29, 2014

Congress Briefed by Intelligence Community Execs on Threats to U.S. National Security

FBI Director James Comey and other executives of the U.S. intelligence community joined Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper to deliver to Congress their annual worldwide assessment of current threats to U.S. national security.

A number of threat topics were discussed during the course of the hearing before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. DNI Clapper testified that, in the cyber arena, computer network exploitation and disruption activities such as denial of service attacks will continue, and that critical infrastructure systems will continue to be enticing targets of malicious actors. Terrorist threats are coming from a diverse group of entities—from formal groups to homegrown violent extremists and ad hoc, foreign-based actors. Threats posed by foreign intelligence entities—as well as trusted insiders—will evolve in terms of scope and complexity as they seek new, more diverse, and more technically sophisticated methods of obtaining U.S. national security information.

Nation-state efforts to develop or acquire weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems continue to pose a major threat to the U.S., deployed troops, and allies. And transnational organized crime and criminals—including drug traffickers, human traffickers, and money launderers—continue to threaten both U.S. economic security and national security.

In addition to DNI Clapper and Director Comey, other executives appearing at the hearing included CIA Director John Brennan, Defense Intelligence Agency Director (Lt. Gen.) Michael Flynn, and National Counterterrorism Center Director Matthew Olsen.

Read full text of DNI Clapper’s statement (pdf)

Source: