CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript: Cybersecurity and Terrorism

Interview

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KEILAR: It sure is. Jim Sciutto, thanks so much.

And I want to bring in Senator James Risch, Republican of Idaho, and he's with us because he's a member of Intelligence and Foreign Relations Committees.

I know, Senator, that you know what's going on here when we heard the FBI director, James Comey, saying today -- quote -- "We have disrupted just in the last few weeks very serious efforts to kill people in the United States."

What can you tell us about these efforts? SEN. JAMES RISCH (R), IDAHO: Well, probably not much more than

he did. And the fact is, he is correct. We have reviewed those.

And they have -- the intelligence community, starting with the FBI here in the United States, is very, very active, because we are at in dangerous period here in American history. We have seen that in recent weeks and we have seen it over the last year-and-a-half or so, where the push from these groups, these terrorist groups have changed from this large iconic type of attack, like we experienced on 9/11 and on aircraft, to more the lone wolf type of attacks that are smaller, but still very devastating.

A good example is what happened in Tunisia. One person killed all those people in Tunisia last week. That's going to happen here. It's happened. It's going to continue to happen.

KEILAR: You think it is going to happen here?

RISCH: I don't think there is any question about that.

Look, these guys work really hard. Our intelligence communities are very, very good. They have got to be right every day 100 percent of the time. The bad guys only have to be right once. And if they do it enough, chances are they're going to break through.

And that's why they try get every tool they can get to tamp this down.

KEILAR: These foiled plots, were they imminent?

RISCH: Some were. Some were quite imminent, actually.

KEILAR: Within days?

RISCH: Within days. There was one. Of course, there was even one that was within hours or minutes. As you know, it was an open source. It was reported on. You reported on it. But this...

KEILAR: But these ones he talked -- the ones he talked about in the last few weeks, that's what you are talking about, the ones that have been reported, one was imminent?

RISCH: One was very imminent. Others were imminent also .

KEILAR: We heard him testify today. He was talking, Comey. He talked about encryption, which you just heard Jim's report on.

Why is ISIS so good at this? Why is this such a difficult thing for the U.S. and for its allies to break?

RISCH: Really a good question.

ISIS has hit us right at a point in history when encryption has taken a very sophisticated turn. Encryption has been around for decades. They used it in World War II. They used it in probably in wars for a long time. But now with the invention of the Internet, again, encryption has been used on the Internet and has become more sophisticated.

And only in recent actual months have we wound up with encryption systems where you can follow a rabbit hole in the Internet and follow it through to points where you can actually lose your identity. That's causing really, really serious problems.

KEILAR: So, this is very new technology.

RISCH: It is new technology.

KEILAR: And obviously safe to assume that there are efforts to deal with this, to confront this?

RISCH: Of course. We confront the bad guys whether they're on the battlefield, whether they're on the street corner, whether they're on the Internet.

KEILAR: Sure. But if you are dealing with trying to break these encryption codes, Jim just raised this issue of whether or not the government can be trusted to have these codes, because the government is susceptible to hacks. What do you say to that?

[18:25:00]

RISCH: Well, not only is the government susceptible to hacks.

But we in America have a very healthy reserved feeling about our government. And they need to be watched. They need to be kept in check. And so that I think permeates all of this.

And having said all that, it is a tool that -- as the director said today, he is an employee of the American people. He puts it on the table and says to the American people, how do you want me to do this job? You asked me to do it. I am going to do it. I am going to use every tool I have available. This is one that we have just lost. And we need to look at some changes, maybe minor changes, to try to get back some of the abilities that we have lost.

KEILAR: Senator Risch, thank you so much.

RISCH: Thank you.

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