4:00 P.M. EDT 
Real Audio of Briefing
MS. LYLE: I'm Wendy Lyle. Welcome to the Foreign Press Center. Today we're delighted to have with us Paul Rosenzweig who is the Department of Homeland Security's Counselor to the Assistant Secretary for the Policy and Acting Assistant Secretary for International Affairs. He is here today to talk to us about the -- to give us a review of the 2006 Department of Homeland Security programs and set priorities for 2007. He's going to give us a short speech and then we'll take questions. He will need to leave at 4:50, so we really would like you to ask one question. And of course, right before please identify yourself when you ask your question. Welcome.
MR. ROSENZWEIG: Good afternoon. It's a great pleasure for me to be here today and to review with you the year past for the Department of Homeland Security and also to talk to you a little bit about our plans for next year. Obviously much of what we do with the Department affects domestic activity. I'm going to imagine that that's not of particular interest to the foreign press. So my focus today will, of course, be on our activities in the past year and how they've affected our international partners and friends.
It's a little-known, yet remarkable fact that the Department of Homeland Security has the second largest contingent of staff overseas of any domestic agency in the United States, the only bigger one being the Department of State for obvious reasons. But we have over 2,000 staff overseas doing all sorts of things, whether it's inspecting containers in ports or managing the immigration system or helping at airports -- a reflection, I think of the fact that for the Department, truly homeland security, American security involves close and deep interactions with our foreign friends and partners and my being here today is a token of that, I think.
In the past year, I would say that there were two relatively transformative experiences for the Department that bear on our international relations. The first of those was the return to a major focus here in the United States on issues relating to immigration. Over the years, security needs have changed since 9/11 and that has brought with us a renewed focus on how to manage visiting the United States, both the legal immigration and legal visits as well as the enduring problem of illegal migration across our borders. We continue to welcome friends to the United States, as evidence by the increase in the last year in the number of foreign students enrolled in American colleges. In fact, we have now returned to and exceeded the level of foreign students from pre-9/11 days. There was of course, a substantial dip in the immediate aftermath, but we've now returned to that original level and I assume we will move forward with greater return of students to the United States in the coming years.
We've done much within the Department I think to protect our nation's security and stave off illegal entry to the United States. One example of that is the Secure Border Initiative. As I'm sure many of you know, we've launched the SBInet which is a contractual program to begin knitting together technologies, processes and personnel on the southern border to in effect create a comprehensive technological and personnel approach that is going to give us full border awareness.
We've begun the first phase of this project getting 29 -- 20 miles started and we expect that to go forward in the new year. We've also ended catch and release at the border, a problem that undermined our efforts to control the border. As you may know, for many years entry to the United States even if caught, resulted in nothing more than a notice to appear and a release into the general population, with a not unexpected result that many people fail to appear upon that notice. We've ended that practice now. And since August of this past year, have been returning, detaining and returning a hundred percent of the entries on the southern border, the non-Mexican entries on the southern border.
I think going forward we are going to seek to develop a truly comprehensive solution to the immigration issues by putting in place the final piece of a comprehensive immigration strategy, namely temporary worker program. We look forward to working with Congress in the coming year toward that final piece of the puzzle on top of the enforcement piece that we've begun into place.
The second transformative experience of the past year for the Department involving our international partners was, of course, the affording of the London plot to blow up airplanes that would be transiting the Atlantic. That event tested our ability to share information and to rapidly adjust our security measures in the face of a very large scale potential attack against the United States. I think it was a measure of how far we've come since September 11th that our response there was generally excellent. It shows how well we and our allies have joined together to fight the war on terror and how DHS has been able to change to a relatively mature organization that is able to act on intelligence in a rapid real-time manner and actually affect security changes successfully. So that's the year in the past - - what has happened to us internationally that I would view as the most significant.
What lies ahead of us? The way ahead will require us to continue to exhibit professionalism, strength and perseverance. We don't actually have the luxury of being right or prepared 90 percent of the time. At the Department we have to be right 100 percent of the time, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Terrorists unfortunately have only to be right once. How are we going to achieve that? What is our strategy for going forward? Well, there are many pieces to it. There are two that I'd like to focus on in the remaining few minutes of my remarks.
The first is that we've got to continue our efforts to protect against dangerous people. We've pretty much gotten a handle on how to do that with people who we know are dangerous. We have developed a name-based recognition system through terror screening databases that takes the identity of known terrorists and/or their biometrics and adequately allows us to link those together so that we have a comfortable means of screening those who are coming to the United States to ensure that they are not people known to us to pose a danger. Is it 100 percent? No. Can it be better? Yes. But by and large, we make great strides on that in the past several years. Where we need to go in the future and where we are most concerned is with the increasing incidence of what we call cleanskins; that is people who've changed to terrorist and as to whom we have no information personally identifying them.
There are a lot of criminals and terrorists out there whose names we simply do not know, but we do have other information about them: telephone numbers, places of residence, people that they are associated with. And what you will see from the Department over the next year is an increased emphasis on information sharing with our international partners and an increased ability to analyze that information to establish links to known terrorists so that we can identify those who are not known to us by name, but who are known to us by their associations.
Using our ability thus far, we've been able to identify and deny entry to over 500,000 people coming to the United States in 2005. We don't have, obviously, this year's data yet, but that's last year. And those are people who in our judgment should not be here. So sometimes a little bit of information goes a long way to enabling us to get a real insight into people and whether or not they pose a threat. Aside from that biographical information and that increased link analysis, in order to identify dangerous people, we are also going to move forward with our 10-print program.
As you may know right now, we take only two fingerprints upon arrival at the United States and we have only a two-fingerprint capability overseas. Working in partnership with the Department of State at the Consular Offices, we're going to move to a system that takes ten fingerprints from visa applicants and likewise 10-print collection at the ports of entry. This of course is because when we have the fingerprint of a terrorist who has left behind a bomb or an IED in Iraq or has left his fingerprint in a safe house somewhere, we don't always have the two index fingers. It could be the pinky or the thumb and thus, by moving to a 10-print system, we'll enhance our ability to use biometrics to enable us to identify threats before they occur in the United States.
The second thing that the Department has to do, the second part of its focus going forward is to protect against dangerous things. Just as we are cautious about dangerous people entering the United States, we are clearly cautious as well about what goods enter the United States. So we have come to a place now where we are enhancing the screening of all of our -- all the cargo containers that come to the United States by sea, for example.
We have long had successful partnerships with our foreign partners and the ports from which cargo arrives through the Container Security Initiative. Just this past month, Secretary Chertoff announced the next generation of that program, a container security network that will provide for enhanced screening for radiological materials, so that we will now in six ports around the country begin the first phase of a program that will move to the next generation of radiological detection equipment. We're doing that in partnership with the Department of Energy as well as obviously with the ports and the governments of those six ports and this is just the first step in what we hope will be an ability to propagate that technology to all of the major ports from which cargo to the United States comes.
We are working in effect towards a system where ultimately we hope to screen a hundred percent of all cargo coming to the United States for radiological signature. Some of that will not be overseas, it will be here in the United States, but as much of this as we can do in partnership overseas, the better. Those are just a couple of the items that are we are going to be working on in the next year that relate to our international footprint. DHS remains committed to working closely with our international friends.
To give you just one factoid about that, Secretary Chertoff has hosted meetings with representatives from the United Kingdom, Mexico, China, France, Israel, Germany, Australia, Italy and the EU. Members of the EU Parliament, El Salvador, Russia and members of the Finnish Embassy. He has visited in the past year Paris Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong, Beijing, Edmonton and Moscow and he was in the UK a little more than a year ago in November of 2005 in an effort to work with our global allies.
As part and parcel of our continuing engagement with the international community, we have created and grown the Office of International Affairs, while I have the privilege to serve as acting assistant Secretary. That office is designed to help us communicate with and assist our international friends with any DHS issues that may arise. We've created a civil rights, a civil liberties division, as well as a privacy office dedicated to protecting privacy and the rights of our citizens and our guests. We continue to look forward to working with our international partners on all of these initiatives as well as the many others that unfortunately constraints of time don't permit me the ability to mention. But for us at DHS, it's an exciting time. It's an exciting time because we have now finished the first phase of our development. We have stood up a department that three years ago didn't exist at all and now we are having the opportunity to actually take the initiative, work with our partners internationally to develop programs that actually enhance our joint security against the mutually shared threat of terrorism.
With that, I would thank you for listening to me and offer you the opportunity to ask me some questions.
MS. LYLE: Okay. Please wait for the microphone and just one question at a time, please.
QUESTION: Thank you. Vladimir Kara-Murza with Russian Television. My question concerns the recent murder of the former KGB officer Litvinenko in London and with the British police finding traces of radioactive polonium-210 all over London now. Can this happen here in the U.S. and what measures is DHS taking against, for example, somebody just smuggling in on a passenger airplane some radioactive material as happened to London? Thank you.
MR. ROSENZWEIG: Thank you for the question. Obviously the details of some of the measures that we take are not ones that we are free to publicly disclose. But in addition to radiological detection for cargo coming into the United States, we do have in place systems that are intended to assure against the importation of radiological material through passenger luggage which is that presumed means in London -- I don't think that's been established -- so the answer to your question, can it happen here, is of course it's possible but we are working very hard to prevent that, just as we are with any of the other threats that are out there.
QUESTION: Thank you. Sir, it's Tim Harper. I'm with the Toronto Star. I'm going to ask one question, but it'll be one question with a supplementary that I'll throw out right now. As you're no doubt aware, the Canadian Government has spent millions of dollars on an inquiry and it exonerated Maher Arar of any wrongdoing, yet he remains on a U.S. watch list. Can you tell us why? And just to follow up on that, you've just spoken quite laudatory about the sharing of intelligence between Washington and allies, yet the Canadian Government says it doesn't know why Maher Arar is on a watch list, so how does that square with what you just told us about cooperation with allies?
MR. ROSENZWEIG: The answer to your first question is no, I can't tell you why Arar is still on the watch list because that information relates to classified discussions that are not suitable for disclosure here. As for the sharing of information with the Canadian Government, while I do recognize that in an idealized world we would share every bit of intelligence information with all of our partners. In the real world, that is an idealization that isn't achievable. We share I think an excellent degree of information with Canada. They are one of our closest partners in the world. I have personally been to Canada at least twice in the last year. We have an excellent working relationship with them. It will have to remain the case that on -- with respect to some issues we're going to have to respectfully but firmly go our own way and the Arar matter at least for now is one of those.
MS. LYLE: Okay, Betty.
MR. ROSENZWEIG: By the way, I was sure you were going to ask me about WHTI, so. Okay.
QUESTION: I'm Betty Lin of the World Journal. A lot of people are concerned about ATS. Can you tell us about what kind of information are you looking at? I know that people are concerned about, like, information being kept for 40 years and so how to tell people not to be concerned about those?
MR. ROSENZWEIG: I thank you for the question. I think that much of the concern about ATS has been generated by an advocacy campaign that has candidly not construed the program at all in consonance with the reality of what it does. The ATS program is intended to do exactly what the 9/11 Commission said we had to do, which was to focus our resources for inspection at the ports of entry based not upon guesswork, but upon information that we know about an individual. Let me be clear, nobody is denied entry to the United States because of ATS. The only resolution that comes from that, if any, is that a person is identified as someone who should be subjected to additional screening, more questioning, that is a person as to whom we have some questions. The ultimate decision for entry or exit is always made by a live human being, a CBP officer.
What ATS does is collect information we know about an individual that relates to that individual that can identify him as a person for a subject to screen. Let me give you one example. Raid al-Banna. Raid Al-Banna is somewhat famous in the world because in 2005, he was a suicide bomber who killed 132 Iraqi policemen when he drove a car filled with explosives into them in Iraq. We know that it was Al-Banna who did this because his hand was handcuffed to the steering wheel and they recovered the hand with the fingerprints that remained.
Now why am I telling you about that n Iraq? Because in 2003 Raid al-Banna was denied entry to the United States because the Automated Targeting System identified him as somebody of concern. And subsequent investigation by the Customs and Border Protection agents at the scene deemed him not suitable for admission. Do we know why he would have come to the United States, what he was going to do? No, obviously not. I can't prove a false negative. You know, I can't prove a counterfactual. If he'd come in, he would have done X. But I, for one, am very glad that al-Banna did not enter the United States that day. And I think that that is the positive value of a system like ATS. There are any number of other examples one could cite, and many of them more classified. We can talk about al-Banna because he's dead.
QUESTION: Yeah, what kind of information you are collecting on this?
MR. ROSENZWEIG: Well, ATS is not actually a collection system. I mean, that's another one of those myths. ATS --
QUESTION: In your analysis.
MR. ROSENZWEIG: ATS is an analytical system. It takes information from all sorts of sources. So for example, it takes the terror screening, database watch list of names and it does that. It takes the advance passenger information that we get from passport swipes at airports. It takes the passenger name record information that we get off of reservations. It takes intelligence information that comes in that has greater or lesser specificity and it does that as well.
To give you a hypothetical example, if we were to get intelligence today that a group of people were coming to the United States from Pakistan during the month of January via Heathrow which is a perfectly reasonable hypothetical set of information for us to receive, that pattern, that identifying characteristic would become a new rule in the ATS system and would identify people who fit that, right -- departed Pakistan, Heathrow, JFK or Dulles for additional screening. So the sources of the information are as many and as varied as we can make them. I mean, the uses of them, the analysis of them takes all that information in effect, and attempts to identify the greater risk and target our resources there. We get 400 million arrivals in the United States each year, 87 million by air. You know, I can't ask the CBP officers to screen all of those individually. I mean, if anything, the complaints are that we are still too slow at the ports of entry. So this is a means of pulling aside the ones that need the extra screening, need to be talked to, asked some questions and then in most instances even then, let on into the United States, but in -- 500,000 in 2005 denied entry.
QUESTION: Can I follow up on that?
MS. LYLE: Okay, Christian.
QUESTION: Thank you also to my colleague. Chris Wernicke from Suddeutsche Zeitung. You stress very much the corporation with international partners. Concerning ATS in Europe, there's quite a fuss now about ATS. The European Commission is complaining they were not well informed. European parliament is saying that certain parts of this legislation are not in accordance with the PNR agreement of passing their name recognition exchange. To what extent did you tell the Europeans about ATS? Did they know the name ATS? Did they know that data will be shelved for 40 years instead of four years? Thank you.
MR. ROSENZWEIG: Let me be clear, ATS as an analytical tool is completely compliant with our agreements with the European Union. Thus, with respect to European PNR and the separate agreement on that, it is not retaining data longer than the agreed upon data retention period there which is as you know, going to be subject to further negotiation later next year. So absolutely 100 percent a canard that ATS violates the PNR agreement or the -- or our negotiations with the EU. With respect to what the EU knew and when they knew it in the commission, I can't speak to what was in their mind.
What I can report to you is that as part of the PNR agreement, we had a team here over to review America's compliance with that agreement as was called for by it. They spent days here. The preparation work for it involved months. The report that they issued was, I think, in excess of a hundred pages. They spent time at the National Targeting Center where customs and border protection operates the ATS system. That is what the NTC does. They watched us do it. So the suggestion that we didn't tell the commission what we were doing is kind of also a little -- let's just say it doesn't accord with what I understand to be the facts. Or to put it another way, did they think we were collecting the information not to analyze it? It's just kind of a bit of a silly season question. We have been completely transparent about this with the European Union, European Commission. I can't be responsible for what they may have told Parliament or what they may have understood.
MS. LYLE: Okay.
QUESTION: From Europe, you get from Europe after four years and you don't use data in the ATS that's older than four years in the ATS system coming from Europe?
MR. ROSENZWEIG: Actually, your question's a hypothetical because our original PNR agreement with the EU is -- went into effect in 2004. So the destruction requirement has never come into effect yet. It will come into effect in 2008. And the answer is that if that's still the rule in 2008, we will destroy the data precisely in accord with our agreements.
QUESTION: Thank you.
MR. ROSENZWEIG: You're welcome.
QUESTION: Hi. Sonia Schott with Radio Valera Venezuela and Selecta magazine of Panama. I was wondering if you have some comments on -- in terms of cooperation with the Latin American region. 2006 was a successful year. What about 2007? Thank you.
MR. ROSENZWEIG: Thank you for the question. I think that with respect to the Latin American region, the story is one of great success. We have developed deepening partnerships with many of our Latin American countries. I could single a few out, but that would almost be to deny someone. But just by way of example of the degree of cooperation we've experienced at the border with Mexico over counternarcotics has increased exponentially. The degree of cooperation we've had with many Central American countries with respect to their assistance on or addressing the illegal migration questions has been exemplary. Our ability to provide training and assistance down there and our partnerships with them on issues ranging from coast guard to border patrol to disaster preparedness has improved over the past year.
I would expect that in the new year that would get even deeper and more close. Clearly we have recognized that South and Central America and I would add the Caribbean countries as well are a close and integral set of partners for us. To put it one way, we know that our borders are the -- you know, one of the linchpins of what we do at Homeland Security. And so for us the land borders and the water borders with the Caribbean being what they are, we have more people in the western hemisphere and in Canada. Of those nearly 2,000 that I mentioned at the start of my speech, most of those are in the western hemisphere. More of those than anywhere else. A lot in Canada and many in Mexico. As you might expect, the fewer the further away you get.
QUESTION: Follow up on Latin America.
MR. ROSENZWEIG: It's up to you.
MS. LYLE: Okay.
QUESTION: Yeah, this is a question regarding to the business -- my name is Nestor Ikeda, I am AP reporter for Latin America.
MR. ROSENZWEIG: Thank you. It just helps me a little.
QUESTION: And this is a question regarding to the Venezuela participation in the U.S. plans and security matters. Are you concerned that Venezuela is not included in any list of countries being cooperative with the U.S.? And also after the re-election of President Hugo Chavez, probably Venezuela is not going to be part of that list in the next five years.
MR. ROSENZWEIG: It's a matter of concern to us whenever we don't have a high degree of cooperation with respect to security matters. That's true of any country where our bilateral relationships are not as good as we would like. It is obviously the desire of the United States to improve our relationship with all countries, such that we have that degree of confidence.
As you alluded to, obviously there are external factors that sometimes prevent that. In that instance frankly homeland security is -- we're not the driver in the decision about relationships. Those are more in the nature of geopolitical concerns that form the basis of our bilateral relationships that are at the province of the Department of State, the Department of Defense, that sort of thing. So from our perspective, clearly any country where we have gaps in the relationship is something that we'd like to remedy, but we are also realistic and recognize that that's not possible with every country in the world for lots of reasons.
MS. LYLE: Okay. One more from China, Mr. Liu.
QUESTION: I'm Liu Hong from XinHua News Agency of China. You also mention the cooperation with China. Could you elaborate a little bit? And what are the major problems or challenges between the two countries in this homeland security field?
MR. ROSENZWEIG: Well, as I mentioned, the Secretary went to China this past year where he enjoyed, what he characterized as a very warm and friendly welcome. That meeting was a springboard for some enhanced cooperation both between us, particularly with respect to the Coast Guard, with respect to the presence of law enforcement, secret service in China and as well, with respect to some of the work we're going to do together in preparation for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
I would say that the dominant issue that is on the plate for further discussion between China and the United States is the issue of illegal Chinese immigrants to the United States and our inability to repatriate them to China. There are over 40,000 Chinese in the United States who have been given final orders of removal from our courts and have been deemed to be here illegally. Unfortunately, we have not been able to get as great a degree of assistance as we would like from the Chinese Government in arranging for the issuance of travel documents and for the return of these citizens back to their home originating country. That's a continuing discussion that we're going to have. There are obviously both practical and technical difficulties to that. But at the same time, it's an issue that we're going to want to continue to raise with the Chinese colleagues.
QUESTION: I'm sorry. I have a follow up. What's the reason behind this? You mentioned the problem, the illegal immigrant cannot repatriate to China.
MR. ROSENZWEIG: My understanding is that the problems exist principally on the Chinese side. We would be prepared as we have with many other countries in the world to provide transportation back, relatively readily. It is a question of whether or not the Chinese Government is prepared to issue travel documentation and authorize the flights.
MS. LYLE: Okay. Sheldon
QUESTION: Hi. It's Sheldon Alberts with Canwest out of Canada. I was going to ask you about WHTI, but I wanted to follow on my colleague's question --
MR. ROSENZWEIG: Oh, no. Okay.
QUESTION: About Maher Arar. Is it the U.S. Government's opinion that the Canadian Commission was wrong in concluding that Maher Arar was not a terrorist threat and that the Canadian Government is also wrong? Is there -- I mean, you've not said what -- for what reason he remains on the terror list, but is it your conclusion that the Canadian Government has come to the wrong conclusion about him?
MR. ROSENZWEIG: I don't think I would be nearly so presumptuous as to suggest that the Canadian Government is wrong. There are many situations in which reasonable people, perhaps having different sets of information can reach different conclusions that don't suggest that either conclusion is a wrong one. I would say that from the U.S. Government perspective at least for now, based upon the information in our possession we remain of the view that Mr. Arar who has previously been ordered removed from the United States would need to apply for readmission before he could enter.
QUESTION: Thank you. Andrey Surzhansky, ITAR-TASS news agency of Russia. As to the international cooperation, do you have your people stationed in Russia? Are you enjoying the cooperation with the Russians and could you give us some examples of this cooperation? Thank you.
MR. ROSENZWEIG: Thank you for the question. Actually that one is what we call an easy one, a softball. Just last month, Secretary Chertoff signed a memorandum of cooperation with the FSB, relating to the shared information exchanges on things like border control and related issues. One of the products of that is that either already or perhaps within -- in the new year there will be two new Secret Service agents stationed in Moscow. That's a return to a post that has been vacant for quite some time which we're very pleased about. There remain a few of the -- remain several other DHS people there already. But that reflects again -- returning to my theme -- our deepening and enhancing cooperation with each of the different international partners around the world. So with Russia in particular, there's been some very strong positive movement in the past six months, as reflected by the signing of this agreement.
MS. LYLE: Okay, let's take the very back.
QUESTION: Yes, another softball. Frank Aischman, German Public Radio. Starting back to the ATS. What is the outcome of this analysis? Is it a score, indeed from one to a hundred and if so, what sees the agent, the border patrol agent? And in case you send the subject back, you inform the subject's government about your information?
MR. ROSENZWEIG: Good question, several parts. With respect to individual -- ATS actually has many, many pieces. It screens cargo, it screens -- yeah, things like that. With respect to -- yeah, with respect to people, with respect to people only there is no score generated. It's not -- we don't score people. We do identify people for additional screening. So it's essentially a yellow card, if you will. Look at this person and that is all that is given to the agents -- send this person for secondary screening.
With respect to if we turn people back and the nature of the information we pass back, that of course is very much dependant upon our ongoing bilateral relationships with different countries, with some countries we share very fulsomely. With other countries, we've reached only narrow agreements because of our mutual concerns about privacy or security or things like that. So in that regard, the answer has to be it depends on who the person is, what country he's coming from and what is the current existing state of our agreements with -- you said you were from Germany.
I was in Berlin just last week talking about enhanced information sharing with the German Government that would move beyond where we are now to a deeper level that could easily result in something like us exchanging with Germany the basis or some portions of the basis of what our concern was. We haven't gotten to that point with Germany yet. You know, a lot of countries, many difficulties in each of them and each individually different. I hope that we will, that would be my objective.
QUESTION: And could you give me then the details? You have the yellow card. Is there -- if not a score system, a yellow, red, green whatever card system? How do you identify the threat of the person?
MR. ROSENZWEIG: Well, as I said, there is no red card system. ATS doesn't say no to anybody. It just says go talk to an agent and he will with full understanding of all of the particulars of a person, be able to make a judgment. So if you go to secondary screening, it doesn't just give that person, you know, red, yellow, green. It gives the secondary screener information about why the person has been sent over here. Is this a person who's been sent over because he was on the Pakistan-London flight or is this person sent over because his name is on the list and we're really pretty sure that he's who he is? Is it because his fingerprint matches something that was on an IED in -- the reaction in the secondary screening is as varied as the information can be. The green card is obvious. It's just you know, there's nothing here and then you've been through obviously screening at one of our airports because you're here, so you know that that usually takes a minute at most and passed right on through. Okay. In front of the officer, okay, I'm not talking about the line, but in front of the officer, a minute at most.
MS. LYLE: Okay. Let's go.
QUESTION: Yeah, my name is Daniel Anyz. I'm with Czech Daily paper. President Bush announced in Estonia that you are working on a new bill which should change the criteria for countries entering visa waiver program. Senator Voinovich came now with a bill in which he proposed that it's the first round of countries. It should be only five countries. So will you have anything like this in your proposal in the Department proposal?
MR. ROSENZWEIG: The precise details of our proposal haven't yet been shared with Congress, so I'm not in a position to give you too much on that here. But what I can say is that at least as envisioned by the Department and the President, we are not seeking a pilot program that would be limited to five countries. We are thinking more about a change in the law that will allow us to assess that admissibility into the visa waiver program of as many countries as qualify. That may be two, it may be 32. I suspect the number will be somewhere in between. But it does not -- we may need to limit it in order to convince Congress of the utility through a pilot program. But from my own perspective, it would be just as well to define the terms of what we think an appropriate program is and let that be suitable for everybody who might or might not qualify.
MS. LYLE: Okay, we have time for one last question.
QUESTION: My name is Faiz Rehman. I'm from Voice of America TV and we basically broadcast to Pakistan. There have been lots of kidnappings recently in Pakistan in recent years actually and some of them that turned up either in Guantanamo Bay or they were just found dead. So do we have any guidelines? Are we following any procedures with the Government of Pakistan there for example? The reason I'm asking this question because today is the big news in Pakistan, a person who is a resident of Baltimore was on vacation in Pakistan and he disappeared about three years ago and today they found out that he was actually in Guantanamo Bay. So are there any guidelines, any procedures that we have established with the Government of Pakistan or it's just you know, free for all? Thanks.
MR. ROSENZWEIG: The good news is that that is an issue of which I am utterly ignorant and thus utterly --
QUESTION: International (inaudible.)
MR. ROSENZWEIG: Well, I know that, but the management of Guantanamo Bay is within the Department of Defense and the operation overseas is either with them or perhaps with some other governmental agency. I can certainly say that DHS has no such guidelines because we engage in no such conduct. And I'm going to have to I guess point you at the Department of Defense for Guantanamo Bay related issues. It's one of the good fortunes for me that that small slice of controversy is not mine to deal with.
MS. LYLE: And we have time for a very short question.
QUESTION: Christoph Marshall from the German daily der Tagesspiegel. I would like to get back to the so-called London plot. When that came up and some of us that looked at this was a very imminent danger. A few days later, we got information that all those arrested, none of us had real flight plans. No one of those bought a ticket. No one had real trip plan. So how does that look from today? What it really in imminent danger? Or how would you just assess this danger from today?
MR. ROSENZWEIG: It was very real and it was very imminent, not the next day, but our assessment even reflecting back on it, is that this was something that was a legitimate matter of concern. Obviously much of the information that relates to that is -- was collected through covert work, classified work, work with the UK police. But I would say notwithstanding the understandable skepticism of some that this one was as real as it gets. And I guess I have a little lack of patience with those who say that I actually -- we actually need to wait until the fuse is lit. Before -- no I mean, but that's the argument, right? I mean, yes, they hadn't bought the tickets yet or so it's been publicly reported, but that -- you know, I'm planning to return to Berlin on January 22nd for another meeting. I haven't bought the tickets yet. But that's as firm a plan as exists. And unless there's something, you know, drastic that happens, I'm going to be in Berlin on the 22nd. I know it and I've told the people in Berlin that. Well, I haven't bought the ticket, I haven't charged the card, I haven't packed. I haven't made my hotel reservations. I haven't made my car reservations. But that's real. And you know, the reality of the world is that plans like that, you know, don't necessarily have to have that particularization to be as real as my plan to go to Berlin.
QUESTION: Thank you very much.
