vepared by: Gabrielle Anderson C Vb £~I T index: Type bundle index he

Date: 7/9/02 DOC Library: Type library name he

Job Code: 320087 DOC Number: Tvoe document number he

Meeting with John Brennan

- CLASS Follow-Up
Reviewed by: Type reviewer name here
Review Date: Type review date here

Record of Interview
Purpose To discuss additional questions about CLASS and how it operates

Contact Method In person interview

Contact Place State Department

Contact Date June 12,2002

Participants <fohn Brennan, State, CA/VO/F/S

Judy McCloskey, AIC, GAO
Jody Woods, Senior Analyst, GAO
Kate Brentzel, Analyst, GAO
Gabrielle Anderson, Analyst, GAO
Comments/Remarks Before our meeting, we sent Mr. Brennan a list of 8 questions that we
wanted to address. Mr. Brennan responded to these questions during our
meeting. He also provided us with written answers to these same
questions given by Dave Williams.

GAO's Questions after Fieldwork

In response to our question concerning whether the CCD utilizes an
Arabic language algorithm, Mr. Brennan said that there are no linguistic
algorithms in the CCD because it is not a lookout system. As a result, on
exact matches will pop up and it may take longer to play around and get
the right match. Mr. Brennan noted that adding algorithms to the CCD
would complicate the process. The CCD is designed to capture records,
whereas CLASS is designed to capture variants. There are strong anti-
fraud uses for the CCD, in that it can be used as a confirmation tool or to
check if an applicant's relatives have been issued a visa and overstayed.
Mr. Brennan confirmed that the CCD would not pull up two records on a
individual if that individual received visas under two different names.

In answer to our question concerning how CLASS handles French

transliteration of Arabic names, Mr. Brennan stated that he believed
French transliteration is taken into account in the cultural regulation
algorithm tables in CLASS.

In response to our question concerning the possibility of an Arabic perse

dropping 2 of his 4 names and thereby reducing the number of CLASS hi
Mr. Brennan said that CLASS name searches are mathematical and the
system would still be searching the core names.

Pagel Record of Inter

 'by: Gabrielle Anderson Index: Type
'02 DOC Library: Type
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Mr. Brennan stated that there are anti-fraud uses for the CCD. Posts use it
now for this reason on an ad hoc basis. For example, the CCD may be
used as an identity confirmation tool or to see if an applicant's relatives
have been issued visas and overstayed them. Mr. Brennan's office is also
doing a pilot program to see if the CCD can perform facial recognition on
visa photos.

Please see the handout for Dave William's answers to these and other
questions.

Addition of NCIC Data to CLASS

Mr. Brennan said that, in the next two months, he will be adding 8 million
more: records into CLASS, .which currently hasiBjnllffon records. These 8
million records will come from NCIC files. NCIC contains approximately
40-50 million files, only 7.5-8 million of which pertain to identifiable non-
U.S. citizens. It is these 7.5-8 million files that will be added to CLASS. As
of June 1*, Mr. Brennan Ijajjlrjeady entered approximately 400,bt)0 into
CLASS from the following files: Wanted Persons; Violent Gangs and
Terrorism Offenders (VGTOFF); Deported Felons; and Foreign Fugitives
(though they are still trying to resolve a data problem with Canada for this
database). Mr. Brennan also said that VGTOFF has been and is being
beefed up. The FBI has been asking field offices for leads to enter into
VGTOFF. In March, VGTOFF contained 2500 records; currently, there are
at least 7000 records in VGTOFF.

Mr. Brennan stated that there may be some repeat hits as a result of NCIC
data being entered into CLASS, but that this number would be small in
terms of the total volume of records. However, Mr. Brennan did not have
an estimate of how many repeat hits there will be as a result of these
NCIC additions. He said there could be 100-200,000 in Mexico, but 50-
100,000 for the rest of the world.

Mr. Brennan noted that when a consular officer gets a hit off NCIC data,
they are able to see what file the hit came from but that is all.

IBIS

Mr. Brennan said that CLASS updates IBIS on a real-time basis. TECS
updates CLASS daily, at the end of each day.

and Suspicious Organizations

Mr. Brennan commented that CLASS is not an appropriate tool for

organizations because it doesn't handle (i.e., collect and search)
organization information. There has to be a simpler, more efficient way of
establishing an organization lookout list than putting it into CLASS; there
should be other resources for consular officers to look up this
information.

Page 2 Record of Interview

 ed by: Gabrielle Anderson Index: Type
,: 7/9/02 DOC Library: Type
Q Code: 320087 DOC Number: Type

"00" Hits
i

Mr. Brennan stated that approximately 60,000 "00" hits come from
TIPOFF data; 300,000 from the DEA; and another 100,000 come from State
but he does not know the origin of them (though he thought that these
were probably a mix of CIA and FBI information.) Hence, Mr. Brennan
noted that there is a lot more than TIPOFF in CLASS,' since TIPOFF has
approximately 500,000 "00" entries in CLASS (which makes up 10-15% of
total "00" hits.)

Page 3 Record of Interview