[Applause]
good morning everybody
the title of this panel is intelligence
in the 21st century which is as wide as
diffused we have 75 minutes I'll open
with a short introductory and presenting
our distinguished guests and then start
the discussion they gave me a new piece
so I'll get a strict warning when our
time is up and so we need to keep it as
short and concise and I think that we
have the right people to to do so before
in making the introduction I would like
to share you one memory this is not the
first time for me I just recalled facing
or participating in a panel called
intelligence in the 21st century when I
was a PhD student in Cambridge in early
of last decade there was a class called
history of intelligence and a specific
specific lesson called intelligence in
the 21st century and counterterrorism
and the professor came that day to
Cambridge and said professor which I'm
not going to name not to embarrass him
and said ladies and gentlemen I know
that I need to teach you about
intelligence and about the importance of
intelligence the future of intelligence
the importance of intelligence and
counterterrorism but to tell you the
truth I think it's not relevant
I think intelligence is not relevant it
never was relevant it didn't have the
real effect on history and you know
terrorism our days well maybe in the
past but this is there are more
important topics on the world agenda
just to add one fun fact the this
meeting took place on the 5th of
September 2001 that professor doesn't
teach anymore in Cambridge so I think
that there is no um there is no debate
today on the profound importance of
intelligence and I think we have the
right people to discuss this the first
one to my left Secretary Michael
Chertoff is a lawyer who served as a
federal prosecutor and as a the
assistant US
attorney general 2005 he was appointed
US Secretary of Homeland Security job in
which he had to deal with much of the
repercussions of 9/11 co-authored the
famous Patriot Act upon retiring he
became the executive chairman and
co-founder of the Chertoff group which
if I may add from a person a large
reside in one of the most beautiful
buildings in DC and with the best views
so if ever secretary Chertoff invites
you do not miss the opportunity to visit
secretary Chertoff is leading the globe
SEC intelligence reform initiative we
just produced an excellent report on the
future of intelligence which hopefully
we'll be able to refer later thank you
for being with us
secretary Chertoff dick chef national
coordinator for security and
counterterrorism at the Ministry of
security and justice of the Netherland
the hague and mr shoof is at the center
of a unique attempt to try and create an
interdisciplinary interagency
coordination entity that would better
fight counterterrorism in holland and
hopefully he will be able to tell us
more later on
john frank is the vice president of
government affairs and is leading the
microsoft brussels office prior to this
role frank was and i hope i pronounced
his right vice president and deputy
general counsel leading the digital
trust and security group which includes
the law enforcement and national
security team the digital crime unit the
industry affairs group all in Microsoft
mr. Frank joined Microsoft in Paris in
August 1994 there were computers back
then imagine mr. Frank received his a B
degree from Woodrow Wilson school at
Princeton University and the JD from
Columbia Law School last but not least
Ilkka Salmi who spent many many years in
a very interesting and huge variety of
different duties at the finish security
intelligence service super dealing
mainly with counted espionage
counterterrorism encounter extremism I'm
going to ask you afterwards what's the
difference between counter terrorism and
counter extremism and isn't this just
you for me
political correctness mr. Sami was a
special adviser to the Ministry of
Interior and in 19 2007 became director
of security of the Security Intelligence
Service post he left in 2011 when he
took his job as the EU intelligence and
situation centre nowadays he is the
director director general general for
human resources and security at the
European Commission in Brussels so as I
said there is no dispute on the
importance of intelligence but after
saying that does do the intelligence
services of the Democratic world of the
west of Western Europe of the United
States supplied their citizen their
countrymen the people who they sent them
to protect them the shield
they deserve just mentioning few of the
recent failures of intelligence services
they didn't see the establishment of
Isis and they didn't and still
profoundly lack intelligence of what is
happening Iraq and muscle they didn't
know about the coming invasion of Russia
to cream to Ukraine and then to Syria
Europe sustains attack after attack of
terrorism most of these attacks are not
prevented and it prevented in most cases
just by mere coincidence and luck to
bears one called
cozy bear the other one fancy bear apt
21 and apt 28 28 and 29 attacked the
German Bundestag and later the
Democratic Party in the United States
both allegedly belong to Russian
intelligence nothing was done to stop
them North Korea the West doesn't have a
clear idea what is happening in North
Korea and this real Empire of evil is
surprising the west again and again in
their moves and last an ongoing
investigation in the United States of
the alleged inappropriate unappropriate
connection between Russian intelligence
and people around mr. Trump and lately
news that mr. Trump leaked sensitive
Israeli intelligence that he was not
supposed to share with anyone
outside the United States to the Russian
Foreign Ministry and this is just you
know brief list secretary Chertoff
looking at the last attacks attack in
Manchester don't you think that this is
a proof another proof that the Western
intelligence is not supplying the shield
the protection the citizen deserve yeah
well first let me begin by welcoming the
panel I think it's a great topic for
discussion I also want to again say
publicly that my condolences go to the
family members who lost loved ones and
those who were wounded in the attack in
Manchester which was even more evil than
the average terrorist attack because it
really targeted children I mean it's
it's about as as nefarious as you can
imagine um let me begin by saying this
intelligence actually doesn't protect
people intelligence provides information
to those who have the responsibility to
protect and many of the quote failures
you've described are not failures of
what I would say our collection or
analysis they're failures of people
either to operationalize what they were
told or failures to appreciate the value
because of people being wedded to their
own narrative or their own view of
events so I'll give you some examples
you talk about the issue of rise of Isis
I think a significant part of the
problem there was I'm going to be
critical of my own country the
administration at the time was wedded to
a narrative that they were putting out
that bin Laden is dead terrorism is done
we want to look how great we are and as
a consequence as the professor said
terrorism is not no no like irrelevant
and and I think therefore they were
perhaps induced to overlook the signs
they were getting from the intelligence
community that actually terrorism wasn't
done it is simply morphed to the next
iteration then there are problems with
opera operationalizing intelligence
someone is in fact identified and then
they can't follow through with it and
again the open reporting on Manchester
is that the individual who appears to be
the suicide
Baumer was on the radar screen in fact
people in the community identified him
as someone who's becoming radicalized
they looked at him and because all they
could do is either decide is he can he
be arrested or not and once they said he
couldn't be arrested he they kind of
stopped and I think how do you deal with
that issue of someone who's not
committed a crime yet but is maybe
gestating a crime I think that's a
challenge of operationalizing
intelligence and then finally you do
have cases where something is mr. the
analysis is incorrect but I think it's
important not to put it all on the
intelligence community and in the case
of Manchester I think the failure to
appreciate you have to have a way to
monitor people even if you can't arrest
them I think that was really where there
was maybe a lapse Thank You mr. Shue two
quick questions what is the level of
alert in the Netherland now following a
Britain's elevation to their threat
alert level tools to critical and second
think that some of what secretary
Chertoff just referred need to have
better legislation or at least different
legislation in that legislation might
lead to some violation of basic human
rights what are you doing in a little
well first of all the set level in the
Netherlands is what you call substantial
it's a we got a five-point system and
it's on four it means that there's a
real chance of an attack in the
Netherlands but so do you have a
specific info specific Intel suggesting
that there might be an attack now if we
have specific info that's five it's five
okay and then it's critical and after
the UK we didn't went from four to five
and we discussed it of course every time
and something happens we discuss it
every time we look very critical at the
way we define our readiness but the UK
Manchester did not affect our system
because we could not put a link to the
Netherlands so far
certainly not in relation to our alert
level and and to go back to your
question how many people if you can give
us the number how many people you have
that are marked as dangerous under
surveillance on any kind of scrutiny in
the Netherlands well as intelligence
normally does we don't give those
figures but we have no journalist fears
it's just you know I'm absolutely sure
it's it's on TV right although it's
closed-circuit now but we have 280
foreign terrorist fighters into the
Syriac area related to Isis probably 180
190 are still there and when Isis is
going to be scattered one day or another
it will not be defeated it will be
scattered they will probably return to
Europe return to the Netherlands or they
will stay in that area or they will go
to another fighting area like Libya for
example in SPD legislation well our
legislation here the question Elizabeth
let me put one other thing I mean we
also look at radicals and reser that we
were called to ask the question to lost
panel member but there is a relation
between extremism and terrorism although
it's it's not not extremist it's going
to be a terrorist but it's very
important to look at radicals and to
extremists and we think in the
Netherlands we have about a few hundred
direct followers of the foreign
terrorist fighters and relation to Isis
and probably thousand 1500 which we care
about let's put it that way and it
didn't do anything wrong um and we are
very closely looking in that before we
go to the legislation I want to say
something about Michael Chekov also
mentioned I mean we are looking into
people who didn't do anything so from
the law enforcement from the police over
the prosecutor we cannot act so
therefore we have intelligence but we
also have something different and it's a
case management at the local level we
identify people who we worry about and
then we we talk and the police and
prosecutor is involved but local
community local government is the most
important player together with education
social welfare parents neighbor policing
and seeing how can we intervene before
they really radicalize and if they
really radicalize and if you become a
danger if you think that they are going
to travel to a Syria Iraq or some other
place as a foreign terrorist fighter we
will probably intervene with police and
someone so that's very important and as
of now actually today in this newspapers
there is a big debate whether we are not
violating privacy in in discussing these
people who didn't do anything but just
took attention of government because
they may be could be radicalizing and we
think we are on the right path because
if we if you don't intervene they will
probably radicalize even further so
there may be refuted that when you say
it's a plan sorry for interrupting
so when you say intervene it means
calling them for some sort of a
conversation a conversation or talk with
their teachers or talk with a sports
club or so that we that we somehow
before punishing them maybe a little bit
of help would prevent them from becoming
radicalized I think it's a carrot and
stick approach mr. Frank we have
witnessed a series of attacks against
private and government institutions
cyber attacks Microsoft is also under
attack
well Microsoft we have a fairly
ubiquitous footprint and so our
customers are there's a number of
customers that we have and and number is
an understatement
yes the our products are widely used and
and so the most recent wanna cry attack
did impact many of our customers just to
tell the audience wanna cry is the virus
that attacked many medical institutions
in Britain and worldwide last two weeks
ago right wanna cry was you know has the
story of apparently the u.s. NSA had
discovered a vulnerability we don't know
when
and also we don't know when they lost
control of it but we do know it appeared
with a with a black hats group on the
web and we then believe that it was some
nation state that weaponized the code
and released it just about three weeks
ago and there's a few different issues
there but one of them is we've long
encouraged governments when they
discover vulnerabilities in software
that work collectively all better off if
they're disclosed responsibly to the
vendor so that they can be patched and
in fact you know so we did learn about
this and issued a patch in March and and
so machines that were patched windows
sevens machines were not vulnerable to
the attack Windows 7 machines that were
not patched were vulnerable to it
Windows 8 Windows 10 machines the kernel
had been hardened so they weren't
susceptible to the attack but there's
the issue of responsible disclosure and
and then there's the other issue of
what's reportedly a state actor
attacking civilian infrastructure and
and there's there's good work going on
the Dutch government is sponsoring a
study along with east-west Institute and
the Institute for International Studies
or studies and the hague the UN group of
government experts is is also trying to
come out of the report the next few
weeks with some norms about government
conduct and those are very important
steps to take because I think we can all
agree that there's really no point I
mean government should not be attacking
civilians and civilian infrastructures
or banking infrastructure's especially
times of peace but as we've we spent
some time working on this but but they
are being attacked and the question
still
do you think that private companies
private individuals should get state
defense as they have you know policeman
patrolling the street and defend them
from from criminals or big companies
like Microsoft or like whatever AT&T
need to have their own Intelligence
Service to defend themselves because the
CIA does and the FBI doesn't do that
well we do in fact have have an
extensive group of analysts who follow
all the advanced persistent threats and
you know so in this case you know we do
we're coming out with a call for
industry to collaborate more so that we
can share information and and agreed
responsible practices I mean first of
all it's important that technology
companies be trusted by pledging that
they're going to be 100% committed to
defend and zero percent offense and so
at Microsoft you know that's an easy
position for us to take similarly we're
not going to put backdoors in commercial
products right that's again an easy
position for us to take but we need we
need industry to do that well don't you
make note but maybe intelligence service
will in order to defend them well we're
not going to cooperate with it
right and if telogen services want to
you know what say one of the
government's are going to conduct their
intelligence work but they should not be
attacking civilians in time of peace
especially these broad attacks and and
we're trying to work more cooperatively
as an industry on attribution because
one of the biggest challenges is ever
the sir pointed finger pointing but
everybody denies that they did anything
and and yet we have a great deal of
scientific information from the
telemetry from all those windows devices
that are hooked up to the Internet and
and so we can share that with ideally an
independent agency can be
industry-sponsored
that can gather the scientific data from
a variety of parties and and publish
scientific analysis
that that will let people reach
conclusions about who's behind it and
and that can help create more
accountability in the system so that
governments can respond with more
confidence and and perhaps we hope over
time governments will not take some of
these actions mr. sell me um in order to
have good intelligence you need to have
good people in order to have good people
you have you need to have good training
what according to your assessment is the
I would say the level of quality
training for intelligence operative in
Europe thank you first of all I want to
underline one clear thing where if you
look into the Lisbon Treaty which states
that the national security belongs to
the competence of the Member States so
this also reflects in a way that the
services the Member States themselves
have the responsibility to organize the
training the way they see fit and then
again having looked this from the
European perspective and a level we do
have a difference between the United
States for example where in the u.s.
there is Leitao well-founded and
long-lasting tradition in intelligence
in the intelligence culture training and
also how to let's say inform and teach
the intelligence users as well or you
know educate them how to use
intelligence in the wisest way I do feel
that also on the European level that's
probably a thing which is done in one
way in all the Member States I mean
there's certainly not a 1:1 size with
which fits all I would imagine they all
have their own own systems and the
European level and especially in this
era when we have the Schengen Agreement
in place we have the free movement of
people we have common challenges in
Europe we have to look into what we can
do on an EU level in collaboration with
the Member States and this is exactly
what we tried to do over the past years
is to actually come up with a certain
intelligence sculpture on in the EU and
among the EU institutions with the help
of the services and and as I said I
would love to see at least in Brussels
that we have a certain way of doing
things at the
Slate's would be very well aware how
these things are done what do we expect
how we could then again contribute back
to the member states but indeed it
varies tremendously and there's a long
way to go this was this was a longer
diplomatic answer to my question on the
level of their training it's the salad
are they well-trained I would say that
most of the services that I have been
working with actually all of them are
very well trained
of course the capabilities do change
tremendously I mean if you take one of
the bigger member states because
services they certainly have much more
resources than like the service that I
know best where I served for two decades
which is a small service that relies
what is the sphere that needs to the the
better empowerment the sphere of
intelligence seeking vision human
collection of intelligence technology
that's probably again an issue that you
know you can't really give an one
definitive answer I mean it again varies
from from one service to another I think
one thing which might could be very
helpful would be that how do the how is
the analytical product produced what
sort of a methodology do you use this is
actually a quite safe field for those
services to cooperate and that's already
done to a certain extent and then again
in a smaller groups within the EU
member-states for example and let's say
like among the Nordic countries so what
have you you have similar societies
similar legislate legislation and and
the legal framework which allows you to
cooperate probably it much more in depth
than you you could with with some other
member states for example
secretary Chertoff you came to be the
Secretary of Homeland Security in
difficult times one of the main tasks
was to have a much better coordination
between different I think 14 different
intelligence intelligence agencies what
was the main thing that the main lesson
that you can inherit to your European
counterparts on coordination and well I
would say it of course it was in terms
of coordinating within the department as
the secretary I have the authority to
simply order people to do things so that
makes it somewhat easier the harder
thing is among different departments and
certainly harder still is across
national
averies but i think there are another
things you could do first of all you
need to make sure you have a common
understanding not just of the threat but
of what it is you're trying to achieve
the tools you have to achieve it that
means for example a common language
standard approaches to things standard
ways of evaluating things and things of
that sort
second I think you need to do it in the
military is called
make sure people understand commander's
intent to understand what the mission is
what it is you have to accomplish you
don't want to micromanage or your
components but you do want to give them
clarity about what they're trying to
achieve and also have cross
fertilization to take an example not in
the area of terrorism but in the area of
mass migration when I came in we had a
system where we had so many people
crossing the border that we were
apprehending that we didn't have enough
space to detain them so most of them
were released and they never showed up
for hearings so we had two choices one
is we can really spend a lot of money
and build a lot more beds or we can
figure out how do you change the system
so that you can move people who are
apprehended who don't belong in the
country back to where they came from
more quickly and so that was the
objective and we brought in the various
component elements those who apprehended
the border those who managed detention
those who arranged for repatriation and
we looked at this as demand to end we
recognized that if we accelerated the
repatriation process to make it
contemporaneous with the apprehension
process we could cut by two-thirds the
amount of time it took to send somebody
back which was like tripling the beds
and within less than a year we'd
eliminated the need to release people
because of lack of bed space so that's
an example of how you coordinate and and
operationalize and objective are you
satisfied with the level of coordination
between the inside the US intelligence
community today do you think that
there's a much lesser risk that God
forbid another September 11 occur I
think it's far better than it was
because
we built a culture of sharing although I
will tell you after 9/11 there was a
real effort to get people to push their
intelligence out then we had the Snowden
episode that nobody to keep you
yeah and that question was you're
wasting let's keep it to ourselves and I
still think we're trying to find the
happy medium the good news is there are
some technical things that can be done
to data that allow people to see it but
not necessarily to download it or
manipulate it and those tools allow you
to put much more finely grained rules in
place when you share data and if we had
General Michael Hayden who works with
you standing here he would say and I
quote from an interview that he gave me
that that Snowden affair was the one
single most severe hemorrhaging in the
history of American intelligence I think
that's probably right and you know and
somebody put out of course was
exaggerated but it went well beyond what
he was complaining about which was a
particular program to collect metadata
on wide scale he put things out there
that touched on all kinds of issues that
have no civil liberties component but
really seemed designed largely to damage
the US and its relations with allies to
damage US companies to create a lack of
trust and I it will not have escaped
your notice that while he's been very
critical of the u.s. he's safely
ensconced in Russia not necessarily
known as the paragon of civil liberties
around the globe so you can draw your
own conclusion from there and I can
support it I was part of the their
Spiegel team that analyzed much of the
documents that Snowden stole and later
gave to some journalists and mainly and
probably to Russian intelligence and
much of that did not relate to violation
of civil rights and there was a even a
discussion inside the group of
journalists and and and commentators
what to release bit among the 101
million point to documents that that he
leaked my case my claim was that if you
leaked documents that relate to NSA CIA
hunt for the real bad guys proliferated
Iran Hamas Hezbollah then you did
basically jeopardize the legitimacy of
the whole project I can understand a
German journalist who is somewhat
furious to see that the NSA is hacking
into the phone of the Chancellor but to
leak information about how the NSA is
following proliferators of nuclear
weapon this is something else
but in coordination inside the the
American intelligence agency is one
thing and and Elka's tell me to have
coordination inside Europe is another
thing and I have a German high rank
official said we wanted to have a
European CIA but we failed we realize
that this is not doable we are not being
able to share the information and to
bridge all the logistical linguistic and
other things so so what's next how do
you create CIA in Europe if you want to
create one indeed that's well that's
very much a political issue of course
above my very courage to decide whether
there's a political will to do that or
not but there are a few as I mentioned
there are a few limitations or legal
issues that we have to tackle first as I
said the Lisbon Treaty quite clearly
states that the national security falls
under the confidence of the member
states this again means that the Member
States will organize their security
whether it's countering terrorism or
intelligence activities what-have-you
the way they wish to do that at the same
time I truly believe that there is a
room for let's say multi multilateral
sharing of intelligence within the EU
and probably even a bit wider and there
is already and small nucleus in that
sort which is the EU since then which EU
intelligence and and situation center
which is a small team of of roughly a
couple of hundred of people in Brussels
today which basically shares and
assesses strategic intelligence shared
by the Member States they don't have any
collection capability of their own but
they do get contributions from the
Member States which then in turn
combined with open source intelligence
and
any publicly available information
what-have-you is produced into
assessments which are then shared with
the political decision makers on our
brussels level so we do have and small
let's say small team already which is
exists but I want to underline it does
not have any operational no tactical
role in that sense and this again it's
not only about listing Lisbon Treaty
it's also the national legislations in
place I mean the Devils in the detail in
this if you start looking into who shall
control the use of coercive measures in
one of the Member States whether it
should be done somewhere in an EU level
or on a national level today the answer
is very clear it's the national level
which decides on that I as I said I
served as the head of incent for five
years and I what what I could see over
those years was there actually the
willingness to share increased
tremendously I mean both quantity wise
and quality wise from the contributions
from the Member States as there was also
an understanding that this is an added
value for for some of the some of the
member states at least let me go back to
the fact coming from Finland and one of
the smaller member states I can imagine
that the face polish politicians as well
as the security authorities did benefit
from the contributions and assessments
that were done by by EU inson on the EU
level so it was a two-way street but
this is a starting point I do not
personally see that in a short or medium
probably not even in the long term there
would be a trend to go towards and
Europe you know European CIA which would
be an EU institution let's put it that
way the Dutch presidency took an
excellent initiatives some some years
ago to to establish and cooperation in
countering terrorism which is more of an
onion operational level and of course my
colleagues so we go so we go to dick
chef don't you think that you not you
personally but European intelligence
services are now losing the war when it
when we are talking about attacks inside
Europe may be in contradiction to the
fact that - that Isis is losing its
ground in in rocket
so no I think he Intel's deserves in
Europe specifically after Brussels tech
did a huge effort do rate with the
counterterrorism group which is all the
European internal servers working
together with Norwegian and Switzerland
they got a platform and a database in
the egg actually it was established
already after 9/11 buttons reanimated
and I think very successfully and the
information is still owned by f'ing
every National Intelligence Service but
the information is actually shared
because they have the platform we have
the database they have liaisons of every
country in a fetish secure and safe
place to put it that way and they make
big achievements and every intelligence
services I think it's fair to say after
Paris after Brussels we saw in the GDG
but also in Europe or at the ECT see the
European characteris Center an enormous
amount of data certainly flowing
I mean intelligence law first month
almost was loaded I used can you if you
cannot tell us specific but do you know
specific attacks that we're stopped
thanks to that flow of intelligence
between different countries
I think the DG data could work on that
yes and I think that some of the
arrested will taking place in European
countries were directly related to the
vehicle tttt group yes absolutely so but
it's always difficult to say if you lose
ground if you run a mix of the battle to
put it that way but I think the
intelligence services and the law
enforcement agencies and they are
working more together than ever and I
think a discussion about institutional
reform I will probably distract us from
really operational cooperation so we put
a lot of effort
Naza Julie this present is already
mentioned on operational cooperation not
only through the the characters group
but also by introducing the so called
roadmap on information sharing which was
about counterterrorism about border and
about organized crime because we see all
these relations and it was a very
practical or up map and the road map is
still the guiding principle for the e
use in trying to achieve operational
cooperation so Allah president
to confer the Maltese now and as little
probably probably I'm sure they will
take it up further yeah thank you I will
take we will take a few questions from
the audience in a minute just before
there John Frank is this from a
technical technological point of view is
this doable can you create one data
system one database that would bridge
the linguistic difficulties and secrecy
so we won't end up with the Europeans
know then god forbid then to have all
intelligence agencies connected to one
single pipeline share it enjoyed and be
able to stop the next terrorist attack
like when you do a software development
project the first thing you do is you
sit down and figure out whatever you're
trying to accomplish what are the
requirements and and secretary Chertoff
working with globe sac has just produced
a paper which advances the state of the
art thinking about well what how should
an information sharing system work so
that you can have confidence that
information you're sharing is going to
be used but not abused and you can
retain control over it
it won't be passed on and I commend that
paper as the basis for you know further
work to make practical the
implementations of that but but
generally you know technology can do
most everything and and especially we're
seeing some some very good advances you
know eachine translation it's not going
to be perfect but the application of
artificial intelligence to machine
translation has significantly increased
the accuracy to the point that it's it's
quite usable and and if we start with
again more defining a technological
standard you know as and learning from
the work done in the United States or in
Canada on different applications you can
come up with reasonably good systems
that let you tag information that that
create a hash and so if you're on the
internet you know if you're on the
network
you can say I want to do a check on John
Frank and it'll be a hash and the other
side will get a hash and if the positive
it'll get a flag and and then you can
make a request and you know there's
something there but it's me that you
maintain confidentiality in the meantime
and there's there's lots of you know
good thoughtful advances applying
commercial office to off-the-shelf
technology that that are you know need
to be put together but but I'm confident
that the system that's outlined in the
paper the secretary Chertoff screw put
together you know it is it's not science
fiction it's something that can be done
and the paper towards the code towards
transatlantic counterterrorism center of
excellence says among many other
important things many of the failing
failings are identified occurred due to
problems with standardization
legislation and organizational trust and
your final recommendation was to create
a transfer clan to counterterrorism
center of excellence to accelerate
tactical and operational standardization
hopefully this this will happen
questions from the audience please my
name is Julian fort I'm from Romania I
disagree with our moderator blaming
intelligence services for Crimea for
Ukraine
I mean first of all we have to put in
our discussion ratio of the
decision-maker because in a democratic
society the intelligence services you
know always act based on protocol
guidance and in my opinion you know we
have a problem with some of the politics
of some of the guidance coming from our
decision-makers Crimea is mainly first
of all of failure in strategy of
thinking you know because Russia for a
very long time those concept to be a
weekend available country you know and
then we discover that they are able to
do a lot of bad things so my question
for the panel is how can we speak about
improving the results of our Delta
services without bringing the discussion
the role the very very important role
played by the politicians because
including when it comes to the fight
against terrorism I think that the
issues have to be addressed from a much
more broader perspective thinking so we
are talking about the interface very
sensitive interface between the Chiefs
of the intelligence and the chief of the
political level secretary charter and I
gather two issues first why I'm an
agreement um a lot of blame is laid at
the door of the intelligence community
who are the decision-makers at one level
I think we need to educate
decision-makers about how to understand
what intelligence is it is not a crystal
ball it cannot guarantee you that what
you're going to know what the future is
and understanding the rules of the road
in terms of appreciating the value and
the limitations of intelligence also
understanding how to handle it properly
these are I think things we can educate
people about but I think the issue
you're raising is at a higher level
issue in the end it's about facing facts
that are unpleasant or difficult facts
and as I said earlier in the case of
Isis but I think he's also true with
respect to Russia for all kinds of
reasons I think many decision makers
wanted to convince themselves that
Russia was to quote for President Obama
regional power that statement not only
irritated the living daylights out of
the Russians would probably provoked a
lot of bad behavior but it also again
creates a mindset where you tend to look
at the intelligence through the prism of
what you would like to believe is true
and as my late father used to say the
one thing you can't do is kid yourself
so I think part of what politicians need
to understand is they do be able to step
out of their own preconceptions and
wishful thinking and understand
intelligence in a more objective and
dispassionate way any other remarks oh
yeah it's a very interesting question
but I think it don't get yourself I mean
that's that's there's a good one
I think a professionalism of the
intelligence services is key to that I
as a coordinator in the Netherlands I'm
right between the politicians and
intelligence services and law
enforcement
and somehow we made it really you like
to work more with the politicians or
we're just supporting it the
Intelligencer I've probably above
because I'm just the middleman you might
say but what is important in relation to
terrorism is that we made an arrangement
that for example the level of alert in
the Netherlands is not a political
decision but is the decision of the
coordinate and that that's important the
assessment we make on counterterrorism
and on terrorism but we have a public
and a secret it is sent out every four
months together with all the
intelligence services and it is a
professional piece of paper so it's not
under political influence we publish it
and not the politicians so that's that's
and I think that more or less helps at
least in the Netherlands to create the
right discussions between the
decision-making in a political level and
the professionalism of the intelligence
services but the tools that are adopted
by and I refer to white secretary
Chertoff set before the it's not just
the the the gathering of the
intelligence but what you do with the
intelligence the tools that are chosen
how to fight against terrorism
I usually authorized or selected by the
political level the country I come from
in Israel decided that it can use
methods of targeted killing
assassinations and tortures this is just
a big decision that was taken by the the
politicians and many other violations of
civil of civil rights in order to defeat
terrorism and I think the Israeli
intelligence community has been very
successful in much of its effort so mr.
Stanley do you think that your country
or Europe maybe should imply other tools
for example should Europe be part of
targeted assassination targeted killing
operations of the United States and
Britain in Syria and Iraq against Dutch
as you rightly pointed out it's a
political decision which I very much
doubt because I think it would go very
much against these are multi value is
that you know the at least the EU stands
for and on the behalf of Finland you
know even if I I do not represent that
country are there any agencies anymore I
would say that very unlikely to happen
but just if I may just very quick remark
concerning the indeed the issue if let's
say the early warning and the early
action it's sometimes it's not always an
intelligence failure it's always a
question okay what then when they
sometimes uncomfortable truth has been
put on the table who acts and how and
when and with what sort of a means
that's that's clearly an issue and then
more and let's say on a tactical level I
would say that what we did in instant
was that we actually started back in
2012 a training what we call it
intelligence for intelligence users
which basically was in in order to make
the EU level decision-makers to
understand what the intelligence can do
at least what what the incent could do
for them and what sort of an means we
had do you think that today they are
less skeptical about the impact of
intelligence the assistant intelligence
can give them it certainly had a
relative impact better educated
politicians that says at least as far as
intelligence is concerned secretary
Chertoff any remark from you on the use
of targeted killing well i experice an
untargeted killing I mean the reality is
if you're in war you do have to kill the
enemy and if you can be precise and not
have innocent people caught up in it I
think that's a good thing mister sure if
you capture terrorists you know that he
is a ticking bomb he knows where was the
next bomb it going to take place
something maybe is happening in the UK
right now would you justify the use of
special measures during the
interrogation I'm not a cop it's not in
accord with our law yeah clears there
people would say you should change the
local situation - yeah but as long as
their laws not change we will not do you
know there was an incident and I
remember when this debate was raging
many years ago there was an incident I
believe it was in Germany where a police
chief apprehended the kidnapper of a
girl the girl had been buried alive she
was not going to be able to survive
buried alive without food and water
inadequate air and at some point in
interrogating the kidnapper I think the
police chief pulled out a gun inside
to kill you if you don't tell me where
she is which is technically the
definition of torture and he did tell
the police chief and she got there too
late they couldn't save her but if you
think about that scenario you know part
of the debate about interrogation often
gets into the question about whether
it's effective or not but that's a case
where it was effective and maybe if the
police chief had pulled the gun out a
little earlier the girl would have been
saved so putting aside with the whether
you want to a body in the law there's
always a question I think people are
going to face a moral question about in
that circumstance how do you make the
decision what do you do yeah no
questions please
yes I am my name is Brooks tigner and EU
NATO analysts for jane's defence in
brussels we hear a lot about how the EU
and NATO need to step up their exchange
of energy and if NATO is not obsolete
yes and also that this must include of
course cyber cyber Intel attack but the
amount of Intel is actually exchanged
between the two is very limited it's
limited to massed information metrics
about malware etc it doesn't go much
beyond that because and I've had my NATO
experts tell me this point-blank and
quite recently for two reasons one you
know that many people at the EU who are
clear to NATO standards to receive it
and secondly the --use security
clearance procedures for vetting
personnel lower down in the bureaucracy
certainly don't meet NATO standards so
my question to you mr. Sammon how do you
react to that and secondly what is the
EU doing about that and how soon thank
you it did if I may just very quickly
first of all they did partially I do I
do agree first of all the the one thing
with what we have with EU officials is
that very few I think the ratio is
something like one-fifth of the of the
officials are security rated they have a
clearance that's the starting point the
second issue is indeed that well how do
we carry out those screenings
actually with the help of the
member-states we always go back to the
remember stating question if it's a
Finnish citizen will go back to the
Finnish authorities etc what we have
just started with the Belgians last year
actually is a screening procedure with
there's a memorandum of understanding
with the Belgium so that we can we can
now really screen more of our staff with
them also in it's not a security
clearance as such but it's it's
something a little lower than that I
hope that this will help out the issue
and indeed there is constant discussion
between the NATO and EU what can and
what could be shared and by whom then
again I would say that there is a
sufficient number of people relevant a
level of clearance on the EU side as
well so it's it I don't see that that
should be the biggest bottleneck in in
that cooperation there's not just it's
not just a terrorist risk at look at
just the economies just join us and he
was the one of the first to warn of the
the Russian threat to the extent that
even Snowden was may be operated by
Russian intelligent Jones Frank do you
think do you see a state level
cyberattacks that maybe you are able to
connect to Russian or Chinese or even
Iranian intelligence there's no doubt
that there's state-sponsored cyber
activities that should not be taking
place and you know that we do believe
that there ought to be a basis for
better attribution and and as a company
so these governments are our customers
and you know we have telemetry data
we've got forensic malware analysis and
we've got a set of information that's
different from often what governments
have from their signals intelligence or
human intelligence and you know we think
it's important to create some way that
there can be objectively people can feel
more confident
about making an attribution and so
whether industry it will start as
industry putting standing up an
organization and if governments choose
to share that information with with the
computer scientist at that organization
that's fine
but you know I think the realities are
that you know we've seen that the Obama
administration analysis of why they
believe the Russians were the ones
hacking the DNC it was fairly thin in
terms what they actually put put out and
and I think you're not sure that it was
Russian military not saying that at all
I'm just saying that governments have
reasons not to disclose a great deal of
information that may reveal their
sources and methods and and so you know
but we we can if we collectively with US
and other major technology companies
that observe carefully what's happening
can share information and we can have
that published governments can add their
own yeah but in return the government's
with askew or a private company that was
just attacked yeah to let their virtual
spies or cops go into their systems and
check what happened to do the forensic
and maybe even have a legislation that
would permit the intelligence agencies
to do the forensic post attack without
notifying the company which is something
that you write of course but well but
they the government's can can act a lot
of this informations on the open
Internet so you can mean in a sense one
connect one can access much of this
information but we we've got a very
extensive information sharing program
where we share the threat intelligence
with with national governments or their
certs through banks and through ISPs and
you know trying to ensure that you know
for example botnet information shared
because that is a source of indirectly
of many of the attacks so we do publish
a great deal of information we work
closely and I've gotta say industry this
is not something where you know we view
it as primarily a competitive issue we
view it as a in it's in the it's in the
interest of our industry together
and so the level of cooperation between
us and people you would consider to be
competitors is surprisingly high thanks
you for you afraid that Russia would
attack cyber attack the Netherland well
afraid is not my language concerned but
we intrigue more than three keys to to
diplomatic now we sure that actually we
also publish our cyber threats and and
and we are sure that Russia China Iran
our F cyber attacks have cyber espionage
on our research and development
companies our government and probably
have are trying to enter our vital
infrastructure not to act that you
prepare to act so we are working very
hard with our cyber security center and
also with intelligence services and the
and law enforcement to build up a
resistant detection network and also
response network but we are small
country so we have to be wise when we
responds secretary Chertoff did you ever
dream that Russia would metal inside US
elections Roger I mean amateur dream is
the right word I I can't have Irish I
can't I can't I was shocked partly
because having attended a globe SEC
sessions over past years actually you
know this has been a phenomenon in
Central and European Western Europe so
the thing that we noted to know what
what would happen in two years we need
to be in global six today well I mean it
was actually great for morning I mean I
remember going back to the states and
telling people you know this is an issue
in Europe and it's actually affecting
public opinion and people looked at me
like I was having flashbacks to the Cold
War I think the fact that the russians
hacked into political databases that's
gone on for years and that's espionage
what was different is the apparent
release of the
information to mold public opinion I
don't know that it had an effect on the
outcome but I suspect what it will do is
encourage behavior like this in the
future and I think I mean I was up at in
front right and now I think what you're
seeing what we take it to the next level
would be two additional things if as in
France they not only release things but
they released phony things altered
documents altered photographs that would
then take it to the next level and
finally there's a growing concern about
the integrity of the voting process
itself if you move to a completely
electronic process and someone was able
to hack into the database or hack into
the network you could actually have a
question about the election a couple of
years ago in the Ukraine apparently
russians hacked into the television one
of television networks what they were
going to try to do was affect the way
the network reported the outcome of the
race where there was a pro-russian
candidate running for president i think
they understood at the end of the day
when the actual votes were counted the
the correct outcome would be would be
revealed but i think what their
calculation was is that the discrepancy
would cause people to doubt which was
true which was false and in many ways
when you look at russian information
operations i don't know that it's
necessarily that they think they're
going to persuade most people that were
to putting out is true as much as it is
they're going to persuade most people
nothing can be trusted and that's
exactly the undermining of institutions
which creates a lot of damage this is a
global consequence and please very brief
question to you and then a question to
the panel um if this happens in germany
will the german media run around like
headless chickens like the american
media did not realizing that the
political system is under attack and
just reporting whatever has been stolen
from the emails of the of their german
politicians or they behave like the
french media which behaved very
responsibly and said someone's attacking
our political system and we're not going
to cooperate so why do you think about
that my question to the panel is you're
talking as if technology has stopped but
yet
we have witnessed over the last 15 years
enormous technological change which has
already turned the world of intelligence
upside down once and I suspect it's
going to do so again so I'd like to ask
you just to cast your minds forward to
five years time we've really got big
data of facial recognition algorithms
really worthless that with one photo of
one person you can check instantly are
they who they say they are that's going
to make traditional cross-border human
intelligence really difficult it's the
end of the cover identity which has been
the basis of intelligence since the
Bible um it's much harder to keep
secrets we've seen not just with Snowden
with shadow breakers things that were
the absolute crown jewels highside
protected by data diodes no way you can
hack into that debt network and they're
coming out of NSA and being released on
the internet it seems it's really hard
to collect see to keep secrets on the
other hand much hard much easier perhaps
to obtain those secrets electronically
so I just I'd like to ask you to reflect
on when we're talking up this in five
years time what are you going to be
talking about in regards to
technological change thank you one word
about the the coverage of the the German
press which I'm not going to be the
judge off and I don't read German but
there was a wonderful report that was
just issued cover story by decide
holiest arcaded site that was published
in English as well which I highly
recommend reading about how apt
twenty-nine cozy bear and fancy bear
both infiltrated German parliament and
German political system and stole
Jigga's of information that yet didn't
surface there's the risk and the concern
and the intrigue people that are fearing
that this is going to be used against
for example Chancellor Merkel in the
upcoming elections and I want to sharpen
and add 2 to that question are we
witnessing following biometrics
estimates are we witnessing the end of
human intelligence secretary well first
of all I wish III think they were app
we're already seeing tremendous change
in
in the volume of what is collected and
the analytical using can be made out of
what is collected and I think in many
ways is going to be paradise for
intelligence agencies now you're going
to lose human intelligence you know you
may lose a lot of the kind of James Bond
type of thing where someone masquerades
as somebody else and you know goes under
deep cover but a lot of human
intelligence but estill Mountain is
producing a jeep that value much more
reasonable price so then the answer will
be um but I do think what you'll
continue to see what I think has always
been the backbone of human intelligence
which is people who are legitimately in
a place for whatever reason whether it's
a noble reason or an ignoble reason
coming forward to relay information
about what's going on so I don't I think
you'll see changes in the way humans is
collected and and transmitted but I'm
confident you're going to consider
continue to see that as an important
dimension of intelligence okay
yes please just a couple comments I mean
I think there's two challenges a lot of
things you mentioned as future are exist
today
you know the facial recognition quality
is very good and given the given the
power of cloud computing and the
extensibility of data it's not hard
there's two challenges one is a lot of
the commercial technologies trying to
figure out how to make it work in a
secure world figuring out how to balance
that and you know it can be done but
there's some work there the second one
is is more on the political judgments
and you know Democratic Parliament's
need to make decisions about how they
feel on on some of these issues and and
certainly it's technology can be applied
to make the choice closer through
ooh data minimization essentially and
and so there can be there can be things
done to advance that I did but those are
the two areas where I see are more more
the challenge than actually artificial
intelligence and and and I think not
right in yes or no do you think that
there will be a day when someone will be
able to build a system that could cheat
on biometrics Oh undoubtedly there's
always going to be I mean you know I
guess you know one of the biometric
indicators we all use our fingerprints
and yet I believe was reported that the
Chinese stole the fingerprints of
everybody with a security clearance
United States so you know how do you
you've got every system so maybe there's
this still functional but let me give
you an example of how exactly how things
compensate for that so the conservative
someone's going to take a fingerprint
make a latex print I am advised our
company that actually uses ultrasound
cue identify fingerprints over there
three-dimensional and it can actually
even detect blood flow so a latex print
is not going to work because not gonna
have the blood flow I guess you could
cut someone's finger off and before that
let's stop slowing that but good luck
with that as a technique well do not try
this at home please yes we had a
question over there and now we are going
to keep it very short short questions
short answers sure give Izod associate
professor well you touched upon
transatlantic intelligence sharing in
counterterrorism and the panel touched
mostly on the issues at you level this
Eurocentric view do you think it's a
hindrance or to what extent it can be a
hindrance in terms of considering the
transnational nature of threats with a
special focus I am asking that for non
EU NATO members not on the United States
but it can be a challenge for members
like Turkey for example what's your
opinion on that thank you yeah it's a
did you just yeah just kick off with
that I think you know the Eurocentric
view probably also comes from the fact
that you know working for the EU it at
least as far as I'm concerned was the
natural approach I do feel that when
it's it's more than let's say outside
the EU whether it's a transplant
transatlantic dimension or otherwise I
think then again it's still the more
bilateral cooperation or what-have-you
firefight between some of the partners
then really the EU working with with
third countries because then again as I
mentioned the EU at today and any
intelligence or anything which is
remotely resembles intelligence is
actually based on our Member States
information and intelligence that they
share with us so always you know the
originators consent going back to the
the sending agency or service normally
leads to a situation that then the
member states and their agencies will
cooperate outside the EU on a bilateral
basis of the way they wish so in that
sense I don't see that there's any
there's no conflict in that sense what I
say you you level the the sharing will
most likely not take place
of course the conflicts could arise from
the definition of what is a terrorist
and who are the common enemies question
over there please
hi I'm a who Canada from European values
team check in Prague we are under
criminal vulture program and I want to
ask a very single thing do you think
that let's let's say like electro
process should be put within the
framework of national critical
infrastructure while I'm asking that is
that many intelligence agencies and
national security establishments in
Europe are thinking in this direction
not only about protecting the process
itself devoting but the campaigns they
are discussing it at training them so
how far should intelligence agencies go
to protect the electro process or in
international context thank you ah tick
shift could you address it with just
just for when one remark before that I
know that the there's a new entity in
Israel called the National Cyber Bureau
which basically
coordinate all the cyber defense
activities of the country and they have
run
and their own research and they came to
the conclusion that voting an election
should not be fully automatic and fully
electronic they should leave with the
with the notes and making a V or some on
some written list and never go to a
fully automatic because it's too risky
diction please yeah we just had
elections and we had a special team
which was formed by intelligence police
and my office to see with the different
parties for the Parliament if there was
any influence of any state actor it
specifically Russia so we already made a
step and in the end the the the process
was there was no computer involved in
anything or even in the counting process
because of the fear that it might be
influenced even on the counting but I
think that will not work out in the long
term so there will be intelligence and
and others will be involved as a the
election process as a part of our fight
infrastructure because we're a
Democratic Society and if the election
process is in doubt in our country or in
your country or whatever country we are
in a real trouble at the same time
intelligence and the way we try to
detect state actors or otherwise
influence the process we must make very
clear probably by oversight or giving
good information that we don't go into
the content of the different political
parties because then we will incriminate
the process by ourselves so that's that
will be the balance it's the women at
the back please Cornell University the
panel opened with a comment about Intel
leaks and I'm curious to hear from the
panel that how realistic it is to rein
those in and prevent those from
happening and whether there's any
precedent for this and what the medium
to longer term impacts on Intel sharing
there would be if this continued
secretary Chertoff are you afraid that
following I'm adding to the question of
the later you afraid that following the
recent
reports about leakage of information by
the United States added to the media or
by the President to foreign minister
lavrov countries would be hesitant to
share the intelligence with the US well
I mean we've had leaks in the past I
mean I think the bigger danger frankly
sure was when you had massive theft of
really highly classified stuff but with
snow but leaks are are you know always
present they do create a problem with
sharing that sometimes what's leaked is
pretty generic and not that important
and we may over classify some things
sometimes what's leak is really merely
and politically embarrassing but when
you're getting to something sensitive it
is problematic and again you can
tolerate a certain amount of that but if
it gets to be a persistent pattern it
does have a negative impact look from a
technological point of view one can do
things to lock things down bit more so
they're still accessible to people who
who might find the information useful
but in a more limited way so they can't
download something for example and and
also with an audit trail of who's seeing
something and certainly you can as a
network administrator be looking for
unusual patterns you know using
artificial intelligence machine learning
and so you there's low there are ways to
try to address the risk better through
technology please we're going to take
two last question this gentleman Milo
Jones visiting professor um why are we
so passive in game theory tit for tat
works well why is it democracy is under
attack and not the fragile societies
that have to be at era authoritarian
even to hold together why don't we go on
the offensive okay and one last question
please
thanks Patrick Tucker defense one a
question for director Chertoff
Secretariat or excuse me
we've all know we can go back to
Washington DC tomorrow and we'll see
wildly different versions of the
greatest national security threat faced
the United States
pending on whether we're watching fox or
CNN or MSNBC do you think that
politicization of intelligence is
getting worse who do you think is the
bigger culprit there and how can the
intelligence community be reformed to
affect that while still being
transparent and accountable lawmakers
signature shows when you address this
question and then the question of
retaliation and so I think I don't think
the intelligence is getting politicized
I think you're reporting about what the
intelligence community says is getting
politicized and and that's really
immediate issue it's not an intelligence
community no true the president Trump
would agree with you
well I still hold to my belief I think
it's I think the community is not is not
politicized I often get blamed for that
when people just don't agree with with
what they're hearing on the issue of
retaliation yeah that's a complication I
would say this to you if you go to
Russia they will tell you we're
interfering with their electoral system
because we do things like broadcast the
news and have you know support democracy
and talk about human rights I'm not
being facetious they will say they will
believe it so they think they're
retaliating against us and that's a
fundamental difference in worldview
which i think is very hard to reconcile
now if you start to ask me do we if
there are particular things that are
done in terms of hacking or damaging
systems or destroying them then I think
there are a range of measures you can
take for example there was the theft of
500 million yahoo accounts and the US
government did indict not only to
criminals but to FSB officers as being
behind that hack you can argue whether
an indictment is that you know
significant in this instance but if you
started to go after companies for
example that we're stealing information
or you look to apply sanctions you have
a series of tools you can use but you
also have to watch the issue of
escalation because those in glass houses
have to be careful about throwing stones
thank you mr. Sami if something is in
short do you think that there's a reason
retaliation or reasonable countermeasure
that can be applied for example against
Russia to make them think that there is
a price tag attached to what they are
doing well it's probably on the
political level what deal and under
sanctions policy and otherwise is
exactly trying to convince them that
there is a price to pay and on that
before closing remarks just wanted to
tell you ladies and gentle we would like
to invite you to the next session on the
future of global free trade starting
here at the Danube er space after lunch
at 3:30 sharp
they said the lunch will be served in
the hotel restaurant on the ground floor
and I would like to close and have very
briefly from each one you starting with
L Cassell me what do you think is the
one single step that intelligence
agencies need to take now to make the
world a better place if I knew that
reply I would probably doing something
completely different but certainly I
mean the basis is trust of course and
then again I think you know the main
issue that between the services you have
you have trust in what I do you have a
common understanding that will certainly
help things out because true trust you
share information you share intelligence
which is needed it's not only need to
know it's also needs to say please I
would command people to take up the the
Chertoff report globe SEC on on how to
build information sharing systems that
that meet all the equities and and try
to advance it and see if it can be
operationalized inshallah dick shoo well
yeah well I think we must not forget
that terrorism is about undermining our
society our open democratic society and
even there are texts serve a purpose
that's in the mining our society so the
worst thing and so the best thing
intelligence and we can do is to stick
to our core failures or open democratic
society even though sometimes very hard
to do so because you want to just take
your fist and punch but nevertheless I
think it's important if we if we cross
that line we will end up in a society we
don't want to live in but and I'm not
saying that we should not somehow bow a
little bit but we must very keen on
stick to our values ticket agentive I
encourage you all to read and a couple
of reports that the globe tech
initiative is put out including one on
having centers of excellence if I was
going to suggest one thing is I think we
are usually quite good at tactical
intelligence we need to invest more in
strategic intelligence by which I mean
looking at more broadly what are the
core long term causes of radicalization
and extremism and how do we combat them
looking geopolitically at how our
adversaries or rivals use not just
military tools but a whole range of
tools to advantage themselves someone
raised the question earlier but we see
with the Russians were doing coming and
it may be that we've been so focused on
you know preventing attacks and being
very tactical that we've lost a little
bit of the art of bringing a broad range
of subject matter experts in to look
holistically at what the threat map is
and to think about it strategically so I
think that dr. speak about all these
banner and things and topics we are
ending with a somewhat positive view and
less a gloomy assessment of the future
please join me in thanking our
distinguished guests Chertoff magazine
Secretary Michael Chertoff picture john
frank iike salman for their thoughtful
and innovative ideas thank you very much
thank you all come back to the next
session
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