Good morning.

      The hearing this morning is on cybercrime, transnational crime and intellectual property theft and, in particular, the role the Federal Bureau of Investigation plays in this arena.

      Cyberbanking is now a growing part of our everyday lives.The information is easy for us to use, but it is also vulnerable to tampering and theft.

      The proliferation of technology has increased the opportunities for conducting economic espionage.The theft of trade secrets has caused billions of dollars in losses.

      Foreign governments actively target U.S. companies and the U.S. government in order to steal our capital technologies and information.

      To begin to better understand these emerging economic and national security threats as a first step we have three knowledgeable gentlemen from the FBI with us today:       Deputy Assistant Director Neil Gallagher of the Criminal Division.Deputy Assistant Director, Larry Torrence, of the National Security Division; and Deputy Assistant Director and Chief Michael Vatis, National Infrastructure Protection Center.

      I would like to hear the testimony of each of you and then go to a question and answer segment.