Transcript: Mayor de Blasio and NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton Provide Update on Counterterrorism Measures in New York City

March 22, 2016

Mayor Bill de Blasio: I want to start by saying a few words about the horrific attacks in Belgium this morning. Our hearts go out to all those who are injured, to the families of those who are lost, we are deeply saddened. The toll right now stands at at least 30 dead in Belgium and at least 170 injured. And sadly we expect that toll to increase. We stand in solidarity with the people of Belgium, with Prime Minister Charles Michel and Mayor Yvan Mayeur of Brussels, and all the people of that nation that has been at the frontline of the fight against terror. And they are not alone. We stand in solidarity with the people of Turkey who have been victims in recent days of car bombings and other attacks that have taken many lives.

The community of nations has to stand together in moments like this and reject the forces of terror and the appalling violence that they wreak upon innocent people. And we in New York City stand ready to fight against terror in every way. Let me say at the outset, there is no specific and credible threat against New York City at this time, but we are in a high state of vigilance and readiness. Because of the investments we have made in building a strong anti-terror capacity in the city – our Critical Response Command 500 plus officers at-the-ready, highly-trained, well-armed – plus our Strategic Response Group, our Emergency Services Unit. All these units were available this morning. Commissioner Bratton and his team will speak in a moment about the way they were deployed, but I want commend the NYPD for immediately responding to the incidents in Belgium and putting additional capacity out at key sites around the city and particularly in our subway system, to show people that they were safe and to make sure that we were ready to respond in all instances. So, it was a tremendous amount of NYPD presence around the subway system in particular, literally just hours after the attack showing the speed and the agility with which the NYPD can move.

We are working very closely with all of our partners. You’ll hear from in a moment – from the FBI leaders in this area and we thank them as always for their extraordinary partnership. We’ve been working closely with the State and the Port Authority given that there are issues, obviously, affecting the airport in Belgium. But all those preparations; all the effort that’s being put into the day to make sure that people are safe; all the personnel that have been deployed should be another reminder to all New Yorkers that the NYPD and all our partners are keeping the people of this city safe, and therefore it is a moment to remember that what the terrorists want is for us to change our ways. The terrorists want to undermine our democracy, they want to undermine our values, they want to see us in panic. We refuse to be afraid and we refuse to change who we are, but we are going to respond to their efforts to create chaos by showing them order, by showing our society functioning – our city functioning. And the NYPD is ensuring that everyone can go about their business safely – 35,000 members of the NYPD today, all acting as one. [Inaudible] these attacks and their families and to stand in solidarity with them. And over the next hours and days we will keep the people updated as new developments occur, but expect to see extraordinary NYPD presence out over the coming days as a sign of our readiness to protect people at all times.

Quickly in Spanish –

[Mayor de Blasio speaks in Spanish]

With that, I’d like to turn to Commissioner Bratton. He in turn will turn to the FBI leadership. I want to thank the Commissioner and his team for very effectively and speedily responding to the events of this morning.

Commissioner Bratton?

Police Commissioner William Bratton: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. We’re joined this morning – the group in the front here – and he will speak shortly – Diego Rodriguez, who is the FBI Assistant Director in charge here of the New York Office – also, Carlos Fernandez, the FBI Special Agent in charge of our Joint Terrorism Task Force. So, Carlos will come up and speak to some of the activities that the seamless operation we have between the federal agencies and the NYPD – about what’s happening there relative to any potential threat to New York, as well as what we’re learning from the events in Belgium. They’ll be followed by John Miller, Deputy Commissioner for Intelligence and Counterterrorism, will give you a synopsis of what we know and what we’re responding to – what we began to respond to very early this morning. 

The Mayor made reference to the entities that he has helped to create with the authorization of now almost 1,300 additional officers this year – the CRC Unit, the SRG Unit that a few months ago did not even exist. We’re fully employed this morning – deployed with our ESU capacity, as well as our transit officers, so that we were able to – the timing of this event allowed us to hold over the morning tours of duty on all of those units, so we we’re able to literally double the amount of officers available to us this morning during the morning rush hour in our transit system. By coincidence, I had a breakfast meeting up in the Grand Central area this morning – took the train down, going through Grand Central Terminal, which is under the control of the State MTA – significant numbers of National Guard and MTA officers in that environment. At the subway entrance – the main subway entrance, there were two of John Miller’s counterterrorism CRC officers standing at that escalator. At the bottom of the escalator, there was a squad of transit officers doing bag inspections. Beyond the turnstile – a transit dog on patrol in that mezzanine. And then, taking the express train down from Grand Central, at Union Square station – four SRG officers got onto the train – two in my car and two in the adjacent car. These are the officers equipped with the long guns, the helmets, etcetera. So, I felt very secure from the movement from 14th Street down to the Brooklyn Bridge. At the Brooklyn Bridge station, getting off there at City Hall to come up to my office, looking across the platform for the Uptown train, there were additional SRG officers already getting ready to board the Uptown train. That degree of coverage will continue for the foreseeable future until we get a better idea of what transpired over there. 

In terms of Diego Rodriguez is going to speak to issues of the coordination between our respective entities, as I referenced, and then we’ll have John Miller come up and update you on what we’ve been doing specifically this morning, and going forward into the next several days.

So, with that – a very close partner – Diego, if I could – please. 

[FBI Assistant Director Diego Rodriguez delivers remarks]

Commissioner Bratton: Thank you. He reminded me on that subway ride down this morning – that short subway ride – I want to thank our colleagues at the MTA for their public safety announcements. Coincidentally, there was a public safety announcement on the ‘See Something, Say Something’, which was very appropriate in light of this morning’s issues in Belgium. Then there was a second public safety announcement about watching for your valuables – a concern we always have on the subway system relative to pickpocket activity. So, just another example of the collaboration between all the respective entities focused on public safety. I’d like to bring up John Miller, who will update you on what transpired this morning, and our response to what occurred to the events of this morning. 

John?

Deputy Commissioner John Miller, Intelligence and Counterterrorism, NYPD: Thank you, Commissioner. At 3:31am this morning, notifications came from the Counterterrorism Bureau’s overnight watch desk that there had been attacks overseas that were in progress. Between 3 o’clock and 4 o’clock in the morning, phone calls between myself, Chief of Department Jim O’Neill, Chief of Citywide Operation Tom Purtell, Chief Waters from the Counterterrorism Bureau, Chief Galati from the Intelligence Bureau started a number of wheels turning that would change the shape and picture we saw this morning. Immediate decisions were made, even while information about the attacks in Belgium were still preliminary – to hold over the midnight to eight shift of the Strategic Response Group – the SRG – as well as the Counterterrorism Bureau – CRC – of the Critical Response Group, and to redeploy them to posts that reflected increasing security in transit locations, transit hubs, and other high profile locations for the rush hour. 

This included heavy weapons teams, special weapons teams, transit K-9’s, Special Operations Division, Explosive Detection K-9, our vapor wake dogs that can move through crowds and detect suicide bombers on the move, as well as numerous bag checks at subway entrance’s posts, as well as explosive residue detection machinery that was deployed at other bag check locations.

So, what you saw was the sum total of a couple of hours work that brought hundreds of people, lots of equipment, and special talents to this this morning. This isn’t something that we started thinking about between 3 and 4 am. This is something we think about every minute of every day. We looked at the Charlie Hebdo attacks. We met with the Police Commissioner and the Mayor, and we reshaped the counterterrorism response piece by developing the SRG and the CRC to compliment the Emergency Service Unit to have citywide flying squads with the ability to mobilize large numbers and deploy as we did this morning, working in concert with our Transit Bureau, and all of this special equipment. 

We were also in touch with Diego Rodriguez and Carlos Fernandez from the JTTF, getting a feed of what information they were getting from Belgium, so we could understand what were the training tactics and procedures that were used by the attackers at the scene, what we could learn from those in terms of how to enhance our deployment, as well as our foreign posts in London, in Interpol, in Paris, to see what they were gleaning from their sources. So, this was an all-out effort that is part of the normal drumbeat of trying to manage the threat stream in New York City.

I would point out a couple of other things, which is, as part of this, the Commissioner and I are going to be in Washington the day after tomorrow, meeting with the National Counterterrorism Center and talking to them about the latest intelligence and cutting edge thinking in terms of counterterrorism, and comparing notes about what New York City is doing with other cities. We’re also planning a tabletop exercise within the next few days that is designed around a multiple-location, multiple-pronged attack scenario to test our incident command system based on what we’ve seen in Paris, what we saw this morning, and what we’ve seen in other places in the world. 

And finally, I would just like to point out parenthetically, that all of this happens at a time when we see a budget proposal to cut the Urban Area Security Initiative funds, as well as other key counterterrorism funds to New York City by 50 percent, which is something I just thought I would take this opportunity to remind you, as the Mayor did before Congress a few days ago, seems to make no sense in this environment, especially based on the idea that what we were able to marshal and deploy today, outside of the personnel costs, in largely things, and entities, and elements that are funded from those dollars. 

Unknown: Questions on this terror [inaudible].

Mayor: What we are going to do is we are going to take questions on this topic and then after our colleagues with the FBI Department will go back to the topics we were planning on talking about originally, yes?

Question: [Inaudible]

Assistant Director Diego Rodriguez, FBI: As you can imagine its still preliminary and a lot of chaos still going on so we are working with our legal advocate Shea who is a representative there and is working with the host countries to identify any U.S citizens there and we have not heard of any yet.

Question: [Inaudible]

Assistant Director Rodriguez: It’s very preliminary right now, we know there was two possibly three but we are waiting for more intelligence.

Question: [Inaudible]

Assistant Director Rodriguez: So, in these types of situations, we’ll get ready to deploy a team of folks depending on the requirements necessary for this type of crisis. Sometimes we’ll send some special agent bomb techs to assist we’ll certainly send personnel both part of the JTTF, so task force officers will go as well depending on the investigative needs. Again, depending on if we have any U.S. citizens or at the request of the host country.

Question: [Inaudible]

Assistant Director Rodriguez: At this time it’s too early to tell exactly how it was carried out and compare it to anything.

Mayor: I don’t know if you happen to be bilingual. Okay.

Assistant Director Rodriguez: [Speaks in Spanish]

Mayor: I’ll just start and pass to the Commissioner. I’ve mentioned to some of you that I visited Paris after the first attacks January of last year, the Charlie Hebdo attack and the attack on the kosher market. And the conversations that had begun here about strengthening our anti-terror capacity really jumped forward after that because it was quite clear despite very, very substantial efforts that there were vulnerabilities evident in the first Paris attacks that we had to learn from and address. And that’s when we came to the conclusion that we needed a much stronger dedicated anti-terror force equipped response command that had to be 500 plus officers. That had to be officers dedicated to anti-terrorism. Not borrowed from precincts on a temporary basis but, a dedicated force, well-armed, well-trained to inhibit acts of terror and to be ready for any eventuality. I want to thank Chair Vanessa Gibson from the Public Safety Committee of the City Council because the City Council was very supportive in the budget process last June that gave us the resources so we could create that Critical Response Command.

I have to say it is sobering, having seen the pain that Paris has gone through and now Brussels has gone through, but it is a reminder we do need to learn from each incident and we quickly made adjustments after that first Paris attack, which has given us the capacity that literally this morning was turned on a dime within just an hour or two – that capacity was visibly evident in our subways.

Let me expand on the mayor’s comments that this is an issue that in my case, I probably spend about 40 percent of my time as Police Commissioner on counterterrorism related issues. A lot of behind the scenes briefings, discussions John Miller mentioned that we will be down at NTCT for our presentation and shared discussions on Thursday. We have an upcoming trip to the Mideast to further our relationships there. John already has a scheduled – with some of his people over to Paris and Belgium as a follow up to the previous incidents. So the timing of that trip now will be even more beneficial in light of what just happened in Belgium. We are in the process of adding another detective to Europe to deal with many of the issues that they are dealing with. So this is something that we are continually modifying and expanding upon. And it is important, as we can clearly see, because we still remain one of the terror targets in the country.

Question: Commisioner, [inaudible] in light of recent arrests between Belgium and [inaudible] can you modify the change [inaudible] ?

Commissioner Bratton: I think I can speak for both our federal colleagues and what we are doing. We at any given time are very engaged in staying aware of potential threats in terms of individuals that settle in this city, and as we gather more intelligence we have certainly ramped up that activity as it relates to those that we have concerns with. But the intelligence gathering and sharing, particularly from the Federal Bureau of Investigation will be beneficial to ensure that there is not an [inaudible] between what happened over there and with the individuals we might have concern with over here. So that’s one of the first things that goes on with the benefit of the FBI with the international relationships. Being able to very quickly identify is what are looking at here is [inaudible] to what occurred over there.

Mayor: We will stay on this side and then go back to the other side, go ahead.

Question:  You mentioned ramping up security at major transit hubs. Are there any other New York City landmarks where we can expert to see security and also, you mentioned your [inaudible] with Port Authority police, with the airports, bridges, tunnels?

Commissioner Bratton: Airports, bridges, tunnels, are all separate entities as I referenced – in my walk-through of Grand Central Terminal this morning before going down to the station. The State agencies were very present there. The military, [inaudible], the MTA personnel. And, my assumption is that any of the Port Authority, airports, etcetera, you are going to see a similar ramped up operation. We really work very hard, as you know, these last several years, there are seamless relationships in coordination with them on all these issues. As it relates to Belgium and our response this morning, in addition to the transit system that there are certain locations in the city certainly having to do with an affiliation with the Belgium government. We have resources that are both visible as well as not as visible at all of those locations throughout the city. And once again as the mayor pointed out, that we are fortunate that with the CRC those people are operating 24 hours a day, so this morning because of the happenstance this occurred about an hour before our shift change. We were able to hold over the morning group, we enforced them with the day group for both SRG, CRC, ESU, so we will continue that double capacity for the foreseeable future. As far as holding over the shifts to these specialized units so we can provide that coverage not only to the transit system but some of the special sites, particularly at this point in time Belgium and France.

Mayor: And also majors like Times Square and other major sites in the city. You’re going to see a very clearly expanded police presence there.

Commissioner Bratton: But, if I may follow up on that Mr. Mayor, by coincidence we’ll be up, the Mayor and I, this afternoon at the Times Square area that Chief Fox who is not here this morning. We’re putting in place today – that began today, a 55 person dedicated unit to the Times Square subway system. Everyday a half million people go through that system below ground in addition to what we have above ground. As you aware earlier in the year we put a hundred person unit dedicated to the Times Square street area, starting today we have a dedicated unit that will be housed in the subway system at Times Square, so by coincidence they began their operation today. They are there for a combination of crime visibility, as well as the specialized training they’ll be getting on counterterrorism capabilities. So we will be visiting that entity this afternoon.

Mayor: Over there on the right.

Question: [Inaudible]

Assistant Director Rodriguez: [Speaks in Spanish]

Mayor: Those of us who are hindered by only speaking on language thoroughly – could you give everyone a quick translation of that?

Assistant Director Rodriguez: So basically, he mentioned that ISIS has claimed – which we have not confirmed yet, maybe that be the case – but in the event that it is, regardless of the fact is the Commissioner I mentioned – we’re going to continue to investigate this work jointly with Joint Terrorism Task Force to handle any type of nexus that might have any connection here to the States or any of our target investigations.

Question: [inaudible]

Mayor: I think we just discussed - you mean in other cities outside of – he leads the New York area, so that’s a Washington question. Yes?

Question: For the Commissioner, you spoke about allowing [inaudible] what kind of response are we looking at if those cuts go through and we have less money to [inaudible]?

Commissioner Bratton: I don’t think it’s fully understood just how dependent we are on the partnership with the federal government, and particularly the funding they have provided since 9/11 – billions. And the concern this year of the cuts, that the Mayor was testifying before Congress about, that I testified a month ago about, is that it goes to the heart and soul of how we function.

For example, I think you in the New York press are aware of the Domain Awareness System created by my predecessor Commissioner Kelly and significantly expanded by this administration. That’s the entity that’s literally the brains behind all of this. That’s a $50 million funding cost every year, paid for by the federal government. That is the heart and soul of our system: the radiation detection, the license plate scanners, the camera systems, the interoperability of all of that. In addition, a lot of our equipment is funded by those federal dollars: a lot of our personnel, all of the analysts, the civilian analysts who we pay a very good salary to because of their expertise, those are totally funded by federal dollars.

So we will continue our discussions, and we will remain optimistic that – particularly in light of what’s going on in the world today – that those cuts will be restored, but we will stay very focused on – as the Mayor has prioritized – on making it known that these cuts can be very devastating if they were to occur.

Mayor: Okay, last one on this side? Then we’ll go back over to that side. Yes?

Question: [inaudible]

Mayor: Could you say it louder?

Question: [inaudible]

Mayor: I don’t know if I understand the question – what do you mean against extremism?

Question: [inaudible]

Mayor: I appreciate the question, I’m not sure I see the threat – but I would only turn it to a similar point. We believe, and we’ve talked about this a lot, that the NYPD needs to work closely with all the communities of this city and that is part of what keeps us safe – to have that relationship, to have the flow of information and partnership with each and every community. Under Commissioner Bratton, a lot has been done to improve the relationship with a lot of communities in this city, and I think that’s part of keeping us safe in terms of everyday crime but also it’s part of how we inhibit terrorism.

Coming over to this side, yes?

Question: [inaudible]

Commissioner Bratton: Diego, if you want to start off, I can chime in.

Assistant Director Rodriguez: As we mentioned, we’re going to ramp up on all of our subjects here – 24/7 surveillance and cover them, just in the event that there is some type of connection. And if there is, then at least we’ll be already on them, but again it's too early to tell. We have to wait, and we’re in a collection phase right now of intel coming in from Belgium through our legal attaché who is working with the host country.

Commissioner Bratton: In reference to that activity – and not confirming at all the number you used – that there are at any time in the city people that we are watching very closely. And one of the great strengths of the NYPD and the relationship we do have with the Joint Terrorism Task Force and the FBI is that at a time such as this we have the ability to also quickly ramp up that type of monitoring or surveillance or expand it if necessary. If there are additional subjects that we want to take a look at based on the investigation of, for example, the events in Belgium. That’s a capability that you don’t really see – what you do see is a lot of what we’re talking about this morning – the uniformed presence, but behind that uniformed presence is an unrivaled intelligence gathering and analysis capability strengthened by the extraordinarily close working relationship we have with our federal colleagues.

Mayor: Azi?

Question: [inaudible]

Deputy Commissioner Miller: With every attack where we travel overseas to walk backwards through those events, what we’re looking for is what was the intent of the attackers, how did they execute upon their plan, what challenges if any did they face, what did they do right, what did they do wrong, what was the response to that attack by the local authorities, how was it effective, how could it be more effective? In other words, what can we learn from what they can tell us and teach us – whether it's the actions of the terrorists or whether it's the advice we get from the local authorities – that we can bring back here and put to work.

How that’s demonstrated is – if you look at the trip that Chief Gallotti made to Sydney, Australia after the Lindt chocolate store kidnapping and hostage situation. We took a number of things that changed our hostage negotiating training and posture because of elements that were seen in that event that we hadn’t seen before in other events. When I travelled to Paris after the Charlie Hebdo attacks and the Jewish supermarket hostage situation, we took some of the tactics that were used by the terrorists and some of the advice we got from the police, and put that to work here developing counter-measures that ultimately resulted in the Commissioner, the Mayor, and the Council authorizing the creation of the Critical Response Command, the enhancement of the SRG and its capabilities. From each one of these things, we try to take a lesson that we can turn into a practical response here so that the most robust, complex, layered counterterrorism effort launched by any municipality in the country – and perhaps the world – can be enhanced further by what we learn.

Commissioner Bratton: Let me follow up on John. John just step away for a moment.

John’s talked about us going to where these events occurred overseas. What we also do is very vigorously encourage visits to New York, so over the last several months we’ve had significant visits by – particularly by French law enforcement officials and John can identify as recently as a weekend ago – we had some of the top people in the French government here. About a month or so ago, we actually had a number of the people who were actively engaged in the most recent bombings in Paris, including the commanding officer of the SWAT team that lead the assault on the music hall. So the intimacy of relationships we have – we not only go to them, but they are willing to come to us and share with us with great intimacy their experiences.

John, if you could relate some of the senior officials who have been here just in the last couple of months. It’s a constant exchange of information.

Deputy Commissioner Miller: We met [inaudible] with seniors officials from police agencies from [inaudible] what was interesting is that much of what we developed was from the lessons that we learned from their colleagues during our visits to France.

Mayor: Yes?

Question: This is for Commissioner Bratton along with Rodriguez, just getting some perspective on this. During previous attacks they had a heightened alert [inaudible].

Commissioner Bratton: I’d actually beg to differ that any time one of these events occur overseas – Charlie Hebdo –

Mayor: More recently the Paris attack.

Commissioner Bratton: – the multiple attacks, the Australian. We take a very quick look and decide what do we need to ramp up to address. This morning, in some respects, was easier for us in that over the last year we have developed a much more robust capacity to respond – CRC, SRG, ESU and the new equipment they’re getting. We’re quickly expanding the number of dogs we have for example. So, today was specific to transportation issues – the Metro line going to [inaudible] runs directly to the [inaudible], and then the airport assault was directed against two American flag carriers – American and Delta. So, with that type of information, it allows us to, you know, select and choose what we need to ramp up around. So, what you saw this morning, what you’ll see over the next several days is increased capacity that the Mayor and the City Council have created in terms of 1,300 more officers that feed SRG’s expansion under Chief O’Neill, and SRC under Commissioner Miller. 

Question: [inaudible]

Commissioner Bratton: Well, this morning, I was awakened by John Miller, that very familiar phone call in the middle of the night. I think at around 4 o’clock or so this morning he called as he was making the rounds, as he already indicated, with the chiefs. And my comfort level is that exactly what occurred this morning is what has been created in this department – that it literally, both independently and in a cohesive fashion, they start acting on their own – Chief O’Neill with the [inaudible] controls – but then they very quickly bring it into a cohesive, coordinated effort, and that is exactly what John described – the first call certainly to the Joint Terrorism Task Force, to our FBI colleagues. But this is a well-oiled machine – the NYPD. It moves very quickly on these things – very, very quickly. 

Question: [inaudible]

Commissioner Bratton: A lot of it is, in fact, the intelligence we talk so much about. We have so many people trying to detect the threat before it occurs. You’re correct that airports are really never soft targets – they’re always a higher priority. Transit lines, because they’re so pervasive, are a form of soft target. So, we have clearly seen this particular group of terrorists – if, in fact, the attacks today are related to the earlier Paris – are focusing on certain venues for maximum impact both in terms of fear. So, today, Belgium – the capital there was totally shut down. Flights in and out of the city – shut down. Transportation within the city – shut down. Even the cell phone capacity was quickly overwhelmed as almost a million people started using their cell phones. So, that’s what they intend to try to do – maximum impact in addition to the casualties. So, in a city like New York, we’ve talked about this before, one of the reasons that the Mayor’s been so adamant about growing the counterterrorism capability is to try to provide as much prevention focus so that if an incident were to occur – that we have the reactive capability at the same time. 

Mayor: Let me just add to that real quickly. The – this is the question I think everybody worries about, and the answer is, first – again, let’s listen to the facts about that preventive capacity. There have been 20 terror plots that were directed at New York City since 9/11 – so, over 15 years. When I testified before the Congress, I handed out the list with the detailed profile of each of these. Each one was thwarted because the NYPD has such extraordinary capacity, and after 9/11, it was quite clear we needed out own capacity to protect ourselves. Now, we have a much stronger partnership with the FBI and Homeland Security, and other partners – both federal and State – than we ever had before. So, that’s really greatly improved that ability to prevent. That’s the first thing every New Yorker should think about – for 15 years, the NYPD has prevented something like this from happening, and it’s not because people weren’t trying. They were trying – we’re the number one terror target in this country – but they were thwarted. Second, we’ve added so much more capacity just in the last year, and it was quite visible today in the subways. That has a preventative impact too. Let’s face it, any criminal, any terrorist is less likely to strike when they see a lot of force being deployed, and a lot of preparations in place. That’s worked for us for years. It’s going to be even more effective with these expanded units that will now be available. And then, God forbid anything was initiated, the goal is to immediately stop it dead in its tracks, and limit any impact. We had the active-shooter drill that we did with the Homeland Security – excuse me, the Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson was here with us. This was a few months back, and that was an example of preparing to limit any kind of attack, even if it would occur. Again, the capacity here is so much greater than it was even a year ago to do that. So, I think everyday people should recognize the incredible amount of resources and manpower that’s being deployed to protect them, the incredible coordination between the federal government and the NYPD – and recognize that’s added to a lot for 15 years. And the last part of the equation is: we cannot let the terrorists change who we are. We cannot live in fear. We have to go about our lives, because, literally, the goal of terrorism is to change us, and we will not allow them to change us. 

Unknown: We can have two more on this topic, please.

Question: [inaudible] 

Commissioner Bratton: I’m sorry, what was that?

Question: [inaudible]

Mayor: There was a bombing in the subway and at the airport – that’s kind of theoretical.

Question: [inaudible]

Commissioner Bratton: It’s theoretical, but initially we would in terms of if something were to occur in one line, we’d be concerned about – as happened on [inaudible] in London – multiple transit-related events. That is the concern. One of the propensities of both al-Qaeda, when they were dominant, and now, ISIS, that has become so dominant, is the multiple event. This morning was a multiple event; Paris – multiple event; Charlie Hebdo – multiple event – and al-Qaeda before them. So, you always err on the side of caution to shut down until you get a better sense of exactly what happened. Are there others out there? So, that’s – again, it’s done on a case by case basis, but better to err on the larger shutdown, and then reduce it, rather than start small and then, God forbid, you miss something. 

Question: [inaudible] 

Deputy Commissioner Miller: The most prevalent new use of technology, and as the Mayor framed it, the idea that 20 attacks targeting New York City specifically, or plots originating here targeting other places, have been disrupted largely through the work of the Joint Terrorist Task Force, where the NYPD has a large stake with over 100 detectives – has been done through the use of legal process, whether it’s the FISA courts, or the federal courts in terms of grand juries and subpoenas. The technological development we’re seeing is the increasing use of applications that have end-to-end encryption, many of which are free, many of which we are seeing come up in the latest terrorist attacks where you can develop groups of between one and 200 people in a shared messaging system where the message leaves encrypted, flies encrypted, and lands encrypted, and then self-destructs. That means your ability to intercept those, even with a lawful order, is impossible. That means your ability after the fact – so, put yourself in the shoes of a federal investigators in Belgium right now, to then learn what those [inaudible] devices were, and then retrieve that information is also nil. And this all folds into beyond the applications, also the devices, and the discussion that’s going on currently with Apple about whether that device – and if the industry follows, all devices – should be above judicial process, or, effectively, warrant-proof. That is the technological challenge that we are facing in every investigation – criminal investigations from drug dealing to kidnapping, but particularly terrorist investigations where communications are extraordinarily important, not just to solve the case after the fact, but as was framed up here, the most important part of a terrorist investigation is to prevent the act before it happens. 

Unknown: We’re going to pause this briefly here and let the FBI [inaudible]

Mayor: Thank you very much.