Claire McCaskill

I am a big believer in inspectors general and auditors.

I do not see how those support the development goals that are supposed to be one of the policy reasons for your agency's existence.

If this is financing that is available in the private market, then it should be in the private market.

And how many countries do you have these projects in?

I have lot of experience with money being paid to American companies to be used in foreign countries where it did not go well.

I have scars up and down my back from the oversight in Iraq and Afghanistan, where we were spending billions of dollars and too often had nobody on the ground paying attention as to how those were being spent.

Does every project get an independent auditor hired?

I would vote for giving you a lot more of their money. I mean billions more of their money, in a heartbeat.

Was there a special reason that we would be in Israel or Portugal?

Everyone should have independent oversight, and frankly, if you are doing really well, it is going to do nothing but make you look even better.

You have 50 people, and you have 18 countries. And how many projects a year?

The picture you are painting is remarkable, that it is so seamless, without a problem.

There is a lot of room for improvement. I think we are thrilled that you are willing to continue to serve your government.

I just want to briefly put in the record the five areas that our Subcommittee on Financial and Contracting Oversight has worked on the most in terms of issues at Homeland Security.

Now I don't know what legal aid is like in your state, Senator Heller, but ours is on life-support.

Transparency is what sounds like we need.

Let me take a moment on the record to say how much we would welcome whistleblowers that work in any of these factories that are churning out these letters.

I don't think Edison would have been offended if he would have been asked just to file the letter that he was sending that clearly states what patent he's asserting and his bases for doing it.

Let me reassure you, Mr. Mossoff. This committee doesn't have the jurisdiction or the appetite for any massive change to the patent system.

The more you testify, Mr. Mossoff, the more I believe we need the registry, because then we will no longer have to worry about whether or not we've got real data.

In short, few other consumer protection concerns are more deserving of our immediate attention.

At the same time, perhaps there is something Congress can do. It seems to me that demand letters should, at a very minimum, include basic common sense disclosures: who, what, when, where, and why.

I don't believe they currently have the authority to establish a registry.

The App Developers Alliance and our more than 30,000 members urge swift enactment of legislation to eliminate patent trolls' favorite weapon.

This morning we are examining a growing consumer protection concern within our patent system.