◆ SpookStack

CAPRONI: Because we thought the better process was a national security letter. And the Fed asked us to provide them with national security letters. WATERS: How have you determined whether or not the information that you collected was on individuais who were suspictous, guilty, had committed a crime? ] mean, how do you determine whether or not these people are innocent and the information should be destroyed? CONYERS: The gentlelady’s time has expired, Please answer the question. CAPRONI: Certainly. The issue is whether the information is relevant to an investigation. There are times when we gather information that is relevant to an investigation but it turns out that the person Was not engaged, for example, in terrorist financing. Now, we don't then destroy the information, though the investigation is closed. So it's much like any other information that's gathered during the course of an investigation. And the issue of whether that policy will continue is a matter that's under discussion by a group that's being chaired by the DNI, in terms of whether we should or we should not continue to retain information that's gathered via national security letters after the investigation is closed. CONYERS: The gentleman from Virginia, Mr. J. Randy Forbes? FORBES: Thank you, Mr, Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I hope { can emulate your very calm and fair manner of handling this committee. And I just want to tell the witnesses what I said at the beginning. I want to thank you both for being here. We know you have a tough job, and we appreciate you coming in here and answering our questions today. I've listened to the committee as we've gone through this process, and we've had testimony from The Washington Post, we've had testimony from members of the audience, testimony from members of this committee. You're the only witnesses we have here. And I think that you get the message, both of you, you had it when you came in here, that no one on this committee condones any of these lapses or feels that it's not urgent that they be corrected and corrected as quickly as possible.