Terrorism, north korea and iran and spoke last night at George Washington university. Good evening. Im not here very often but a super treat to be here this evening to have a chance to introduce a true hero from our National Security community and you have all seen his background and the title to discuss his intelligence career. And hard to imagine anyone more suited to the topic of a career in intelligence than mr. James clapper and great treat to have him here this evening. As you can see from his background, hes had over five years of experience in the Intelligence Community, in the military side, on the civilian side, inside and outside government and overseas as well and maybe its not listed but someone can ask him a question to tell him about his 2014 visit to north korea to rescue a couple of americans who got caught up there. I first met mr. Clapper in the 1990s when i was a baby bureaucrat in the pentagon. And i was a little bit scared of him when i first encountered him but my boss, ash carter and the leadership held him in such high regard and respect that we were all grateful to have him part of the team. Most recently, i logged many hours with mr. Clapper in the white house situation room discussing north korea, the ebola outbreak, Syrian Chemical Weapons and National Security issues. The these were in the format of the Principles Committee meeting chaired by ambassador susan rice and i was on the back bench and she was at the table. As some of you know, because i know you do some role playing here, every principals Committee Meeting begins with an intelligence update. Mr. Clapper would intone the latest update of whatever hard problem was on the table that day. It has been my pleasure over my entire career to work with the Intelligence Community and in my last tour at the white house to work with mr. Clapper. And i know i speak for not only myself but for legions of intelligence professionals in noting the integrity and humanity how he has led the Intelligence Community in his various roles. And so its a special honor to be able to introduce you tonight. The other thing that shows the you milt of that, i did some of surveying his former teammates and favorite saying of his is their job was to be done there in the engine room shoveling intell coal. We will have more than coal from the conversation that he offers us today. So it is my distinct honor to invite mr. James clapper to the podium. Thank you very much. [applause] mr. Clapper thanks very much. Its great to be here. And i first think i should pay holgate and to dr. Gentleman sitting to the right which im sure who is known to many, chris. Chris and i worked together when he served as great distinction as the chairman of the National Intelligence council. And if any of you are looking public models for service, you only need look here at laura and chris. What i thought i would do tonight is and i think i will try not to talk too long because what im interested in is dialogue and questions and discussion. So i will talk about 20 minutes of some ruinations on the profession of intelligence. I do that by way of a commercial. Im writing a book [laughter] mr. Clapper and reflecting on the 50plus years or so i spent in professional intelligence. And so the first time, long time, i had some time for contemplation. And so what i thought i would share some of those with you and hopefully if you are not already interested but at least consider public service, National Security and i think more specifically, im here to recruit for intelligence. And in doing so, just a couple of lessons i learned along the way. And again, ill just touch on some of these things and we can talk more about them in the question and answer period. My father was an Army Intelligence officer. He served in world war ii, signal intelligence, collecting enemy communications, breaking codes and he served during world war ii and during the korean war and quite by accident, he and i served together in vietnam in 1965 and 1966. O in some ways, i probably inherited the intelligence gene from him. In fact, first time my life i was going to be an Intelligence Officer, i was about 12 years old. 1953 and typically, military families, you move a lot in the military, parents would drop the kids at the grand parents and go onto the next place, find a place to live and get the house to set up and retrieve the kids from the grandparents. You know, stay out of the way. So in the summer of 1953, we had just returned from japan, the northern most island of japan and on the way to fort devens in massachusetts and my parents dropped me and my sister at my grandparents in philadelphia. And the big thing was, i could stay up as late as i wanted to watch television. Back in the day, 1953, television was still a novelty, not like it is now. One of my favorite shotes was movie hour and showed charlie chan old movies. Irst friday i was there, i decided i was going to surf. For all of you in this room, in those days, when you surfed, you had to go up to the tv and turn the dial. I know thats completely foreign concept but thats the way it worked. And only had like 13 channels, thats all. Black and white, black and white. So im turning the dial between channel 4 and 5 and i heard talking. Thats odd. I just held the tv selector right there halfway between channel 4 and 5 and for 15 minutes and it was the Philadelphia Police department dispatcher. [laughter] mr. Clapper and it was interesting to me because all kinds of mayhem going on in the city of philadelphia. And it was really interesting. Ter a while, it got tiring holding that tv nobody, so i switched it to get it back and i ran out to the kitchen and got some toothpicks and put them in the selector dial so i guess i hacked my grandparents black and white tv set. [laughter] mr. Clapper i started listening. I stayed up until 2 30, 3 00 in the morning. Next night, i got a map of the city of philadelphia and i started plotting the police calls, where they would dispatch cruisers and that sort of thing. And didnt take too long and im doing this night after night. I could figure out where the high crime areas were in philadelphia. Nd they use 104 and 106. So i got 3 by 5 cards and i started writing them down and when i figured them out, they would compromise them and say what they were and then i figured out they had a call sign allocation system where Police Cruisers in each district would have a unique set of call signs. They would call the cruiser. Whoever was riding in it. And i found out that the Police Officers in the greater lieutenant and above had their own personal call signs and i had card files set up. And the way they dispatched Police Cruisers i figured out what the Police District bouppedries were. So after three weeks of this, i had a pretty good idea of how the Philadelphia Police department works. Nobody knew what i was doing. It just seemed a cool thing to do. My dad who spent who spent his life in the signal intelligence business, my dad comes back to pick up me and my sister. My dad said, what have been have you been doing . I whip out my map and you would call it metadata today, but 3 by 5 cards. I remember the expression on my my dads face, my god, i raised my own replacement. I make a serious point because it does illustrate, just illustrates the nature of the work in intelligence where you are figuring out a problem where you dont know all the facts, you have to draw inferences. U have to corroborate your hype thesis and test your theory and thats a fact i can go with and thats what i did, even though i didnt know. But any way, thats when i knew i was going to be in intelligence. Fast forward, i enlisted in the Marine Corps Reserve in 1961, moved to air force and i went to the university of maryland and finished up there in 1963 and commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the air force. I did 32 years in the air force. We moved 23 times in that 32 years and my last position was director of d. I. A. And i was out of the government for six years but still working for the government. I did khobart towers investigation in 1996, which is when i got religion about terrorism and talk about that if you want. Gillmor commission, headed by former governor of virginia on weapons of mass destruction. Senched on the n. S. A. Advisory board for four years and i taught intelligence at the graduate level. Came back in 2001 specifically two days after 9 11 after director of what was called the National Mapping and imaging agency. Did that for almost five years. Was out for a couple of months. And bob gates, who was then secretary of defense, who had been the director of Central Intelligence asked me to come back and be the under secretary of defense for intelligence which oversees all intelligence in d. O. D. And the deal was only 19 months and got held over and asked me to stay on and 19 months ended into 3 1 2 years and then i thought was done and was asked to serve as d. N. I. And did that for 6 1 2 years and i stopped that on january 20. And i can tell you it is a great time to be a former. [laughter] to clapper with i went vietnam, 1965, 1966, i dont know if you have seen some of e series on pbs by ken burns on vietnam. And it is very well done. And having lived through that era, both the war itself and the aftermath of it, which was a very traumatic time for this country. I really resonate with that series because it captured not only the substantive facts, but the atmosphere of it as well. For me personally, that was absolutely the worst year of my life both personally and professionally. Hated the war and became disillusiononned about it and i briefed general westmoreland and i was ready to get out of the air force after my tour was over. And for some reason, someone plucked me and mentored me. Couple of general officers picked me out of the crowd for some reason. And that had huge, huge impact on my life and my career. I just mention that because to emphasize the importance of mentoring, i dont have anybody to mentor. I would commend to you and tell young people in our agencies that if you see somebody that you think would be an appealing who is a role model for you, ask them to mentor you. Dont wait to be asked. And there are no thinking senior, i dont care what the capacity is, will turn you down. Because they will be flattered and honored that you asked. And thats a way to help yourself advance your career wherever you go. And i just mention that very briefly, because the huge impact it had on me. A while. In texas for and volunteered to go back to a second tour, which is in contrast was very, very rewarding. I was flying recon aceance missions on the back of some c47s from world war ii and flew about 73 combat support missions my second tour was a great tour. So after my second tour in Southeast Asia which ended in june of 1971, i was by the same another mentor who planted me in the office of the National Security office in fort meadee, maryland. I had eight years service. And i was working directly for two threestar officers, directors. They are both dead now so i can talk about them. And i bring this up because of the contrasting styles in their leadership. I served the last year working admiral gyler who went to be the pacific Combatant Commander and followed by air force threestar general, director of n. S. A. And only there for a year and got his fourstar and went on to another assignment. I bring this up to mention the two contrasting leadership styles. And i recount this in the book because admiral gyler was a very demanding boss. Very smart, but he was extremely hard on people. From t i watched happen my advantage which was military assistant, i kept his calendar and tracked his papers, so i had a lot of opportunities to observe. What i noticed is that style of leadership is effective if you are very dick ta torial and very harsh with people. It is effective and people will do exactly the minimum and nothing else. And dont ever depend and i watched this, too, people were afraid to convey bad news to the director because they didnt want to incur his wrath. He would fire people on the spot. So then the next director came gyler left and admiral phillips came in and he was the exact opposite, 180 degrees out. Very quiet, introverted, very courteous and gracious and the impact was very amazing to see the way people reacted to that. People would bring ideas to him and people were not afraid to tell him, this is screwed up, you need to do something about it. They werent reluctant to do that. Both styles of leadership are effective, they both work. Fast forward 20 years and now im a threestar general and im now a director of an intelligence agency. So what i tried to do is remember that experience, both positive and negative and there are times when you do have to be tough with people, but by and large, what i found in my plus years in the intel business, people want to do the right thing and excel in it and you have to create an environment where that can happen. Leadership in intelligence ultimately is about motivating others to use their intell ects. And intellects. Its all about your brain. Doesnt matter what your ethnic group is, your gender, sexual preference, none of that matters, its your mind is what counts in the Intelligence Community. And the interesting work that you have the opportunity to engage in. I consider that kind of a leadership laboratory. That will be in the book. [laughter] mr. Clapper i thought i would mention it because in the context of leadership. Looking back, the one factor that has changed the Intelligence Community, the thing that has changed the Intelligence Community more than anything else is technology. When we had traumas like 9 11, yes, that had an impact. Reorganizations i think are highly overrated. But what is really historically changed business of intelligence is technology. And i say that in the context of adversary technology, what are the adversaries doing and our own to cope with it. Just fast forward again, most recent period, the 6 1 2 years i spent as director of National Intelligence, my focus was on integration of the community. That was the central message from the 9 11 commission, which was convened which chris served on, was convened to examine what happened and what went wrong in the 9 11 attacks. One of the major recommendations that came out of the commission s their view that the nation needed a director of National Intelligence first they called it the n. I. D. , the National Intelligence director. The n. I. D. It came out d. N. I. And the notion was to have someone as a fulltime responsibility to champion integration across the community. U. S. Intelligence community is the premier capability on the planet. Its huge in total. 70 billion plus this year. 76 billion if you count d. O. D. And the National Intelligence program. That is larger than all but maybe three or four of the cabinet departments. Its a major enterprise to run. 16 components. Six agencies including now the f. B. I. Which is very much a part of the u. S. Intelligence community. So how to integrate that, how to draw on the strengths, the complementary strengths of each of the agencies. And thats what i worked on during the 6 1 2 years i was on. Neverending journey. You are not done by close of business friday. I think the high, the low and the most interesting and we can talk about it during question and answer, but the high for me was being present the white house situation room during the aid to take osama bin laden. Amazing event. The low, i think, has to be although a lot of people dont agree with me on this is Edward Snowden and the damage that he continues to have caused. We talk about that as well. I understand the issues with domestic surveillance and if thats all he had exposed, i could be a lot more for deleff giving, but he did so much else and so much damage and absolutely nothing to do with domestic surveillance. The most interesting experience in my trip to north korea november of 2014. And i was on a mission to bring out two of our citizens who had been in prison in hard labor. It was a fascinating experience particularly for me since i served 30 years previous in korea as the director of intelligence for u. S. Forces korea. So i was an amateur student of the peninsula. After that, i was on my professional bucket list someday to go to north korea. Finally, let me conclude these remarks with some philosophical observations that i call them. Maybe it sounds a little present tensionous. First of all, why do we do intelligence . Why does any nation state do intelligence . Simple answer is to reduce uncertainty, reduce uncertainty for a policy maker whether the policy maker is in the oval office or offal foxhole. What you are trying to do is reduce uncertainty and reduce the risk, never eliminate it, but you can reduce it. And that was lauras metaphor. I used to use this a lot on the hill when members would like to beat me up about some policy they didnt like in the administration. I used this on more than one occasion. I said, senator, im just down in the engine room shoveling up intelligence coal, people on the idge decide how to which direction the ship goes. Im down in the engine room. Reduce uncertainty. Why is it a great profession . Well, i guess from that early iladelphia story with my grandparents, i found it interesting and intellectual challenge not only for the work, is the for what adversary doing in trying to figure out the capabilities and intent which is always very hard and i never got bored with it. I just stuck with it. I was out of the government for six years. Money was great, but i never got the income i got from public service. So when i was asked to come back in 2001, i jumped at it, although my wife was not too pleased at the time. Is intelligence ethical . The whole notion of spying i dont even like that word, the spice. I always cringed when i was referred to as the head spy. Something sleazy about that. Only three letters, so the media likes it. [laughter] mr. Clapper i do think it is a noble calling. And it all stems, i think from the values of this nation and what we have stood for. And theres lots of bad people out there, bad nation states and bad nonnation states. It is a noble thing to participate in keeping this ation safe and secure. Something was instilled in me by my father. There is the issue of something i wrestle with particularly the last 10 years in the two jobs i had was, you know, safety and security on one hand and Civil Liberties and privacy on the other. You have to reconcile both. You have to do both same. All is a challenge. And after 6 1 2 years i get mixed messages about that from the American Public. And the post9 11 environment, too much government surveillance, too much big brother, until we have an attack of some sort, well, you should have been more invasive. And i saw that time after time after time. Boston marathon was a case in point. We had three i. G. s do a postevent critique from Homeland Security, department of justice and my i. G. And the bottom line was, the f. B. I. Did everything it should have, abided by all the rules but it should have been more invasive. And thats kind of the mixed messages that we get. I think there is as citizens, there is a certain amount of sacrifice for the common good, you know. Thats why we all stop at stop signs and why we stop at red lights. Its really for the common good. I spoke about three, four years ago at a trade thing and after a particularly frustrating week of this, and i said, you know, we have a new paradigm in intelligence and what the American Public expects and the Intelligence Community is to provide timely, relevant and participate pa tower intelligence all the time. But do that in such a way there is no risk and do it in such a way if a Foreign Government finds out about it, they wont be mad and that there isnt a suggestion of jeopardy of anyones Civil Liberties and privacy. Ours and foreign citizens. E call that new paradigm imack can you late collection. [laughter] mr. Clapper it makes a point of being so precise given the global interconnection represented by the internet. Its where everybody communicates. And the difficulty of sorting out good people and bad people, you know, hundreds of millions of people conducting billions and billions of innocent transactions but among them are the bad people, nefarious people doing bad things and how do you isolate just one needle in one haystack, but thousands of haystackses. If a straw of hay starts to convert into a needle, you have to catch that. I may be reflecting my bias from within. Let me stop there. I have probably gone over time here any way. And i think we will do some question and answers. Otherwise, ill be going home early i guess. [applause] chris thank you so much. And i want to talk about your kind remarks noting it was a great honor to serve you and serve in the position i held for five years and i learned so much from working with you and for you. So lets turn to questions here. And i just simply ask you to stand and wait for the microphone. And identify yourself and keep your question brief, please, so we can have as many questions as ossible. Firsthand here. And please wait for the icrophone. My name is joseph. And im a senior. Mine is more of a policy question. How successful do you think general Michael Flynn did in afghanistan to reorgan rebolster the Intelligence Community efforts there to help the mission in afghanistan . And do you think its effects are felt today and it will ultimately be successful. Mr. Mica the question was with respect to general flynns whether it how to had lasting effects. Mr. Clapper i had discussion with mike flynn. I was under secretary in the pentagon and first of all, the basic these cyst of that report was kind of the pogo syndrome we weigh the enemy and its ourselves. What this laid out was the need or great detailed fidelity about individual abilities in afghanistan. Understand the dynamics, who the elders were, who the bad guys were in each individual village. That is actually within the domain of the resident Intelligence Officer who is i think it was colonel flynn. But point was, what he was complaining about was under his own control. Its not feasible for the national Intelligence Community to define what is going on in village x. Only if youre there on the ground. And he had a lot of intelligence resources. O you know, certainly cultural i guess you would call it cultural intelligence, understanding the broad dynamics of afghanistan, understanding particularly the tribal nature of afghanistan. Those are very important things. When you get down to the level of detail that he was asking him to hink it is attend to that. I dont know it had some profound impact on what certainly what was going on back in the United States. If thats your question. Chris well try over on this side. All the way toward the aisle here. Im evan. Thank you for coming to talk to us today. You talk about how people have a weird double standard for collecting intelligence and i wanted to ask about when people are collecting intelligence and putting themselves at risk. How do you weigh the cost ofage intelligence Collection Mission when you dont know what you are going to find . Mr. Clapper thats a great question. And thats the sort of thing we get asked every year or i did every year by the congress. Spend all this money on intelligence or this particular Intelligence System whether it is an overhead collector and how do you evaluate the worth of it. And this is timehonored challenge in intelligence, how much is a pound of intelligence worth. Well, the answer is, it depends. One of the difficulties of answering that question today is that there is a temperature porl aspect of intelligence. A piece of intelligence collected today will have could have a different value this week, this month or five years from now. This is particularly true in the imagery business which has great importance for history. We have all kinds of systems for evaluating the performance of Intelligence Systems, but they are largely quantitative. This system produced this number of reports. And in the form of intelligence, robably is open source but classicically human intelligence. Always difficult to grade it. And sometimes you get a gem there. And other times, source turns out to be worthless. So when the dimension of risk versus gain plays in your mind big time of course are the human collectors, many of whom take great risk to recruit an asset and collect intelligence. And this is extremely risky in a place like russia or china. Its a great question. Im not sure i have a good answer for you, because as i say, it depends. Chris lets get a question from the back on the right side here, lease. My name is jake. So, you said earlier that technology is predominant driver , driver of change in the Intelligence Community. To what extent is social Media Technology and intelligence the driving force and how the Intelligence Community approaches open Source Intelligence . I think i understood the question, how does social media lay in gathering intelligence . Chris how is social media a driver of collection of intelligence . Mr. Clapper its huge. Thats when the russians moved into the ukraine, that was a crucial piece of source of intelligence for us. All soldiers are alike, they take pictures and send them home to their moms and girlfriends and russians are the same. And it is hugely important. Thats a recent phenomenon. We didnt know what the term met, social media. It is hugely important. And this is one case where we absolutely must apply some automation in order to and we are. We made steady investments in social media as a subset of what we call open source, that which is available openly. So it is a so its a growing importance of exploiting social media we got into a bit as in depth as it is noise but the use of our own social media as part of the Russian Campaign to interfere with our elections so its very important that we understand what is going on in social media world. Ok. Ive called on three men. I am a freshman. I wonder if you saw any correlation of the intelligence work you did in the military versus the intelligence work you did versus like in the government . Mr. Clapper actually not. The question was, you know, was there service is there much difference between what i did when i was in the military for 32 years versus 15 years as civilian . Really not. The basic principles are the same and understanding the intelligence process is the same. Obviously when i was in the department of defense, when i was director of d. I. A. , focused much more on military topics but in general, no. It wasnt not much difference. The customers are different but the intelligence process and all that is not. Host ok. Over here. Please, sir. You. Good evening, sir. My name is henry and im a sophomore here in the Elliott School. My question is the uncertainty you previously mentioned. International affairs, north korea. The lack of information led to many miscalculations and misestimation in north korea, especially on north Koreas Nuclear weapons plan. My question is in your opinion, what else should the United States Intelligence System do in order to collect more and more precise information in north korea . Thank you very much. Mr. Clapper well, one thing would help if we were there. [laughter] great point. Great point. Mr. Clapper thats sulely a serious comment actually serious comment. When i visited there in 2014 ive been an advocate of this before that i believe we should establish an intersection in pyongyang. Much as we had in havana for decades to engage with the government we didnt recognize. And i think we need to do the same thing with the dprk and theres several reasons for that. This is not a reward for bad behavior, by the way. This is very pragmatic. One is to have an inresidence diplomatic presence in pyongyang. Not an embassy. We didnt have an embassy in havana. And i have to think that there might have been a chance that things might have turned out differently for otto, the u. V. A. Student, had there been a u. S. Presence there to bug the North Koreans and demand access to him. Those kinds of things and we werent there to do that. I cant obviously cant make that case but i thought about that. That was a tragic thing that happened to that poor young man. Secondly, of course, and i cant go into detail here but certainly how should i put it . Enhance our understanding of north korea if we were there. Ill just let it go at that. And maybe most important at all is a conduit of getting nformation into north creea. I dont find and i guess while i am on the subject of northa i could go on north korea i could go on for days about it. The notion of demanding denuclearization as a condition for negotiation is crazy. They are not its a great idea. Id love Nothing Better than the North Koreans say, ok, were all done with Nuclear Weapons. But that isnt going to happen. As i learned when i was there, they go to school on what happens in the rest of the world and so they watched Muammar Gaddafi in libya and he negotiated his way of weapons of mass destruction and it didnt turn out so well for him. The North Koreans understand very well that if they dont have Nuclear Weapons or the optic of having Nuclear Weapons, doesnt matter if they work, they have created what they want which is deterrence and attention. They crave the attention. And so when Ambassador Haley says they are begging for war, no, theyre not begging for war, they are begging for attention. They want the recognition. They want to be included as that 10th nuclear country. And all that that demands. So as far as denuclearizing, im afraid that train left the station a long time ago. I dont believe there i believe their demand to negotiate a peace treaty is not unreasonable. All we have right there is an armistice. They stopped shooting on the 27th of july, 1953. If youre sitting in pyongyang looking south, you have a very, very formidable, overwhelming conventional military force in the form of the republic of korea armed forces. Modern, well trained, well equipped. Much better fed. Buttress by the United States. So they see no way to match that conventionally. For them their Nuclear Weapons, thats their life insurance. Thats their ticket to survival so theyre not going to give them up. We just i think have to recognize that and try to negotiate with them and i think the quid pro quo would be they need to stop testing downground and stop the missile shots. Of course, we all look to china because, yes, china has the most economic leverage over north korea, no question about it. And i can attest i was in china a year ago june and had long session long series of meetings with secretary mung, who is the member that oversees all their intelligence and security organizations. And, yes, the chinese do not like kim jong un. They dont like his behavior. They dont like the underground tests. They dont like the missile tests. They dont like the thaad deployment. What they dont like even more is the thought of north korea violently imploding and the loss of what is a strategic imperative for them which is a buffer state in the form of the dprk. So they all put the screws on the North Koreans. They will. But only to a point. Host ok. Lets mix it up here. Yes, please. N the aisle. Hi. Im a student here Elliott School. Im just wondering, to what extend in your opinion does the private tech sector in america have the responsibility for the negative transactions that are occurring on the platforms or at least to collaborate with u. S. Government, intelligence and Law Enforcement. Mr. Clapper can you help me here, chris . Chris what is the responsibility of the hightech private sector to cooperate with the government, Law Enforcement and intelligence . Mr. Clapper excellent question. Thats been an issue, certainly was for us and of course one of e in the aftermath of Edward Snowden revelations was a chilling of ill put it that way of the Historical Partnership between industry and the Intelligence Community. And some of that is understandable. This is another case, though, where we its like the safety and security, Civil Liberties and privacy. There has to be a balance somewhere. I hear, you know, i understand tim cook, head of apple who akes a very absolutist view. What happened after revelations of Edward Snowden that the rate of commercial encryption accelerated by about seven years over what we thought we were going to see in 2020 we saw immediately. And of course the terrorists, particularly, regrettably, went to school on a lot of this and, of course, bought into whats app and other secure applications which we cant break. So i think there needs to be a serious discussion, serious thought given to how much of a pass are you comfortable as the American Public comfortable with getting to giving to the likes of child porn graphers, terrorists, human traffickers, murders, etc. , who can use murdererers, etc. , who can use secured communications . We lost a lot to track terrorists overseas because of that. And so were not there. Were in a bad place. What we had decided. We, the last administration, pick t we were going to within the intelligence commuter, had director james comey, who we thought was going to stay on and we thought would be the lead spokesman for the governments cause because he was a great public speaker and we thought the most compelling arguments here for ving some sort of mode us on andi would be a Law Enforcement would be a erandi Law Enforcement community. Well, director comeys gone, unfortunately. So i dont know where were at wish but i just i just the energy, the innovativeness, creativity of the industry would be brought to bear on this problem. How can we do both . Guarantee people you know, guarantee peoples privacy . I like my privacy, too, by the way. Just because i was a head spy, hats important to me too. But i think were out of balance right now. I will tell you this is a huge issue overseas with particularly in the commonwealth countries. Who come here regularly and go to Silicon Valley and appeal to them for health. The United States is still dominant in this whole business. Most of the you know, internet infrastructure in the world is either owned or controlled or influenced by the United States. I get all the counterarguments to this, i really do. Theres got to be a better way. Chris ok. Well go all the way in the back. Want to ee you but i give mr. Clapper i apologize to you. One of the legacies of long time in the air force is bad on my ears. I dont hear so well. Thats why i have chris to translate for me. Hi. My name is elizabeth. Chris please stand up so we can see and hear you. Yes, i am. [laughter] chris i might be in the light. My name is elizabeth and a graduate student here at the Elliott School and thank you so much for your service in the Intelligence Community. My question is, in light of being a passed d. N. I. , what for the next generation of Intelligence Officers in addition to mentoring would you provide advice on going into the field today . Mr. Clapper thats a great question. One thing i would tell you i forget the commercial. If you are interested in working in the Intelligence Community is you have any opportunity for an internship and most all the agencies, particularly, offer internships to college students, i would look into that and i would apply to every one of them. Oh, i want to go to c. I. A. Because its cool. Yeah, its cool but theres lots of great work and challenges in many of the other agencies. The main thing you want to think about is just getting on with one of them because there is mobility once you can move around once you get there. The thing is get on, get your clearance. Which these days are getting harder and harder. The reason i tell you that is because you dont have to necessarily go to the government. You can also serve as a contractor working for the government. And that clearance you get and particularly and if youve interned someplace, go to n. S. A. Or some of the other agencies and intern, that will carry over with you. And that will mean more just to be dont be crass about it it would mean for to you if you go to work as a contractor. So apply to everything. Just get on some place and the second piece of advice is be patient. One of the difficulties were running into because of our problems with clearances is people have to wait long a long time. Well, if youre graduated from college and you got a student loan to pay off and if youre married and have obligations like that, you cant wait around and thats on us. Not me anymore but a problem for the Intelligence Community. Im going through an interesting experience right now because my grandson this really makes me feel old. Is an i. T. Contractor at the c. I. A. Hes about a 53year age difference. And we have a lot of interesting conversations about how he approaches it. Hes 23, 24. And we have a lot of interesting discussions about life in the Intelligence Community and how he approaches things starting out in his career versus when i started 50plus years ago. And there are actually a lot of differences. I mean, hes patriotic. Hes committed, mission focused, all that but hes a millennial and needs lots of feedback. [laughter] mr. Clapper and the one thing we need to be able to do in the Intelligence Community needs to do, i believe, is promote mobility. In other words, come in and serve somewhere in the Intelligence Community and then go to industry for a while. And then come back. We need to be able to facilitate that so its not a huge gauntlet you have to run from a clearance standpoint. Both you and the government will be better for it. If we can promote more mobility. Chris ok. Please, all the way over on the aisle, the gentleman with the glasses. Hi. Im a student at the Elliott School. I just wanted to ask you given the past interference in our election, do you think the nature of Domestic Intelligence sorry. Of Domestic Intelligence gathering, do you think thats how can you speculate thats going to change . Mr. Clapper well, the way were organized this is a direct outgrowth of 9 11 and the changes in the Intelligence Community ensued after that and one of the big changes was the f. B. I. Becoming part of the Intelligence Community. So there are thousands of they are funded by intelligence. The f. B. I. Occupies a unique position because it straddles both the Law Enforcement arena as well as intelligence. And so my general counsel used to wash my mouth out with soap when i used the term Domestic Intelligence. Thats a very charged term in this country. But we sort of look to the f. B. I. And now with the other very Important Organization all this is the department of Homeland Security. So in the runup to the election when we saw what was going on as more time went by, we understood what the russians were doing, the prime interlocketers with the domestic side, meaning the voting apparatus which of course is managed at the state and local level. The federal government doesnt manage the voting apparatus, if i can call it that, throughout this country. So the natural interface was the combination of the f. B. I. , director comey and his people and jeh johnson who was then secretary of Homeland Security who interacted with election commissions, secretaries of state. Whoever in each state was in charge. D, you know, this is a profound threat to this country is the russians interfering in our political process. They were wildly successful with relatively modest investment of resources. They had huge success. Their first objective was to sew discord and discontent in this country and they succeeded fairly well. Secondarily, great personal animus by president putin towards hillary clinton. Then as things unfolded, well, mr. Trump would be better for them and so they tried to help him win. And regardless what he says, the evidence for this, which we couldnt expose for understandable reasons, was overwhelming. And thats why we had such a high confidence level when we put our Intelligence Community assessment on the 6th of january. I am speaking of we, the n. S. A. , the c. I. A. , f. B. I. And my office. Very high confidence about it. And this is what the American Public needs to be concerned about because this is going to continue. And the russians dont care, by the way. Next time theyll stick it to the republicans. They dont care. And we as a people ought to really be alarmed about this. And i worry that all the investigations and whether its collusion or not, that will pan out. What worries me the most as a former d. N. I. And now as a citizen is what the russians, the success theyve enjoyed and theyre going to continue it. And we as a people need to be alert to that. Chris ok. Over here, yes. Please. Yes, maam. Hello. Im madeline and a junior here at the Elliott School. What consequences do you foresee arising from the kurdish independence push or more broadly u. S. Support of various kurdish groups in the region, specifically in our relationships with turkey and iraq . Chris the question is about u. S. Support for turkish groups and what are the ramifications of that particularly with u. S. Relations with iraq and turkey, i think you said . Mr. Clapper are you speaking of the chris kurds. Mr. Clapper thats been a very tricky course, at least it was when i was in the government. Because, you know, the kurds were our, you know, great fighters. They were also interested in pursuing their own independence and of course we had a very difficult line to walk by, you know, we wanted to maintain good relations with president ered juan and of urse from his president erdogan and of course somehow every kurd was connected to the p. K. K. Which of course with them is the terrorist groups. And the turkish government worries more about the p. K. K. Than isis. We didnt have exactly a confluence of consistency of views here. Its a very delicate balance to engage with the kurds who are great fighters, resistant to isis but in doing so not incur the wrath of the turkish government. And so i dont have a good answer for you. I just know a very difficult line to navigate. Chris ok. Ver to this side, sir. Yeah. You. Director clapper, again, thank you for coming over here to g. W. My question is about north korea. Im sure its a highlight of your career. Ironically happened to be the highlight of my career. When you were going on your way to north korea you stopped through Travis Air Force base. I know that because at the time i was Staff Sergeant coble working in the Protocol Office at Travis Air Force base. Mr. Clapper it was mccord. On the way back. On the way you believe mr. Clapper i think it was mccord. You actually refueled at travis on the way there and your staff came in. Said, oh, yeah, James Clapper is onboard. I am a huge nerd so i was excited. You didnt get off the plane so thats fine. [laughter] very proud to get to meet very proud to get to meet you now. The question is, what was that process like working with the dprk . What is something you learned and took away from that . Mr. Clapper well, everything you read how bizarre a place north korea is is true. Really bizarre place. In terms of what i learned ere what blew me away is the paranoia that prevails in north korea among the leadership there. I wasnt prepared for that. And everywhere they look they see enemies. And so why this sort of bellicose rhetoric right now is not good. And so ive been extrapolating my experience when i was there three years ago to whats going on now. And, you know, the president of the United States has advisors around him who can tell him, you know, what the implications are. Kim jong un doesnt have any advisors. He has a bunch of psychofans that are bunch of yes men. You see these pictures of kim jong un who have these generals bedecked with all these medals and they all have their little notebooks out dutyfully writing everything down he dutifully writing everything down he says. Pushing back is high. You push back with him you get executed which is a very effective technique, i might add. [laughter] mr. Clapper so what i worry about is theres one guy there, kim jong un, and i have no idea nor does anybody else, what is it thats going to light his fuse . And i would much prefer what secretary mattis did about six missile tests ago where he simply said, we know the North Koreans have tested a missile. We have no further comment. Which would drive the North Koreans crazy. What they crave is that attention. And kim jong un is just eating this up having this direct dialogue with the president of the United States. Hen i went there, i had a very formal letter from president obama to give to them to give to kim jong un. Didnt say anything. Just said i was i was appointed as envoy. Would be a very positive gesture if the dprk government would release our two citizens. Thats all it said. They really wanted that letter. Just the fact that president of the United States had addressed a letter to the head of the dprk. That was a huge deal to them. And that, by the way, was the only leverage i had or i felt i had. When i gave that letter away i was really nervous. And the main mission my main mission was to get those two people out. Incidentally i never heard from either one of the two for until i was in seoul on the 26th of june and i was interviewed by a korean newspaper. And this interviewer from the paper said she had a message from kenneth bay who was one of the two citizens who was a missionary in north korea, trying to do good and got arrested for it and when we got him out he had been in hard labor for two years. He was actually in very good shape. Anyway, he sent me a wonderful message expressing his appreciation for getting him out and all that sort of thing. And i will tell you when i watched the family reunions, it was very impactful. I went to the cockpit and watched. Quite heart wrefrpbling to see them reunited with their families. Heartwrenching to see them reunited with their families. It was great. Chris a question here. Maam. Hello. Im a freshman at the Elliott School. My question is regarding cybersecurity and internet of things. You briefly mentioned this in your speech but you previously talked about how cyberattacks are the number one threat facing our country. And with the number of internet of things devices that collect personal information, increasing exponentially, what do you think firms can and should do to better arm themselves against the cyberthreat . Mr. Clapper well, this is a neverending thing. E will never achieve cybersecurity nirvana and the reason is because the internet, when it was created, the Founding Fathers didnt think about security. So it is fundamentally flawed. If you have if youre connected to the internet, theres an inherent vulnerability and we just have to understand that. I remember when i was i think both from an institutional and a personal level, you know, doing the. Mple things of hygiene one of the things that we did after you left, chris, was raining our employees on phishing, spear phishing and to recognize bad emails and dont open attachments. The only way i could get that to improve was we do tests once a month and we keep scores of ch office and i throw scores up at weakly staff meeting. Well, nobody got to be embarrassed and it got the leaders attention and they started paying attention. Simple things like that. And be religious about patches. Change pass words and password 1234 doesnt work. Its the simple things that get us in trouble. And a lot of these massive breaches, the o. P. M. Breach and all these other things, were caused by failure to just abide by simple high jean. Its something you have to do both as personally and then individually. Whats really frustrating, you know, like the equifax breach, where an organization youre counting on to protect all your personal data and they dont. And that is thats really egregious. Institutionally, what i saw particularly when i served in the pentagon and we were engaging with industries this was in the early 2000s and wed get c. E. O. s in from these companies and when they would when you could show them a threat and oh, by the way, this could affect your bottom line, that always got their attention. And they would apply the necessary and the reason is, of course, when you do, it costs money to keep your networks secure. It costs money. O theres no Silver Bullet here. I will tell you its almost a waste of time to talk about Computer Network attack if in fact we cant guarantee that we can withstand a counterretaliation. That so fundamentally we must attend a defense first and arguing about what our cyberpolicy is on attacking, doesnt matter, because unless we have confidence in our ability to withstand a counterattack, we shouldnt bother. And the problem is we think very legalistically and precisely and surgecally. And the adversary, you cant count on adversaries to do that. So if we counterattack, you have to anticipate a greater, disproportionately greater retaliation. Unless you are sure you can withstand it, dont bother. Chris ok. Back on the aisle, the gentleman. Hi. My name is michael. Im a secondyear master student here. I want to thank you both for your countless years of service. My question is fairly simple but also sort of complex. How do we go about restoring faith and trust in public institutions, particularly when the Intelligence Community is at such a disadvantage and its failures are known but successes are unknown . Mr. Clapper thats an excellent question. I think that came across to me after snowden because one of the lessons you have to take away from that is the Intelligence Community, which is inherrera beutlerly a secret institution, it works with secrets. It has to figure out ways to be more transparent. So one of the things we did was start declassifying fisa court judgments. Fisa court decisions. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance act courts. Its a unique institution, unlike any other no other country in the world has that institution. This is a rotation of district federal judges who sit as a body for two weeks and then they rotate in and out to address fisa applications. There needs to be a better understanding how that works. There needs to be a better understand of all the safeguards that are built into overseeing what the Intelligence Community does. All three branches of government oversee the Intelligence Community. So a combination of, you know, declassifying as much as we possibly can. When you do that, transparency has a doubleedged sword because the adversaries go to school on that transparency. Theres always a riskgain judgment you make. What actually are we going to damage here if we expose this to the public . And i felt for exactly the reason you infer that in order to regain the faith, trust and confidence of the American People and elected representatives we have to more transparent about what we did. The most controversial thing that Edward Snowden exposed was business the limited telephony cords, data. And that was a judge to be when it was established the deep dark secret. Didnt want to tell anybody about it. Now, im convinced this is in the aftermath of 9 11 where we didnt have a mechanism. If you had a foreign caller calling someone in the United States. Well, it would be interesting to know if this foreign caller is involved in a terrorist plot and hes talking to somebody in the United States or somebodies in the United States, it would be good to know about it. To thwart a plot. Which we didnt do with 9 11. So that was the reason for having it. But i am convinced that i dont think theres been any more anxiety about it than it is about the fact that the f. B. I. Maintains hundreds of millions of fingerprint files on innocent americans but Everybody Knows they do it. They know the purpose for it. And its open. Its known. And so thats what we should have done with the 215 program. I think it had more to do with two things. The shock of the manner in which it was revealed. And then, of course, the immediate narrative that developed which try as we might we could not counter. Chris ok. This side i think will be our last question. Maam, on the aisle. Mr. Clapper man, im on a roll. Thats ok. Im old enough for that. So my question is partially north korea as well. Thats my background. My named is freedom. International policy in law and navy veteran. With the tool set that we currently have well, i put it tool set. With the mindset we have in this Current Administration and the way he wants to renegotiate or relook at the iraq Nuclear Arms Agreement mr. Clapper iran. Iran. Sorry, sorry. What tool set do you think will be helpful for this administration when negotiating with north korea for something similar . Because i am on the same page with you. And the second part, if he put a travel ban on North Koreans and the concern i have with this is most North Koreans that do leave north korea are refugees. Of whom i work with a lot of. Mr. Clapper sorry, what . Refugees from north korea. So the travel ban for them is something a little bit more its definitely more impacting a direct sector of the north korean population. So those are my two questions. Mr. Clapper first, thanks for your service. Second, i do think its instructive to look at iran and north korea right now. And what it i think one thing it illustrates, its much easier to negotiate with a country that doesnt have a Nuclear Weapon, to prevent it from getting one, than it is to negotiate with one that has one or going to get one. And thats why i would be an advocate for just acknowledging the North Koreans are not going to negotiate away, at least not immediately maybe someday in nirvana land, but theyre not immediately going to negotiate away their Nuclear Weapons. Theyre just not because they know they lost whatever leverage they had. If the administration decides to decertify the jcpoa, the joint comprehensive plan of action, with iran, i just hope they have a plan b. Because the iranians are complying with it. Now, the iranians get criteeked because theyre not critiqued because they are not complying with the spirit, whatever that means, of the agreement. Yes, there are ambiguities in the agreement. Theres no question about it, and the iranians will probably take advantage of it. Just remember, they have shipped out of their country 25,000 pounds of highly enriched uranium. Theyve cemented their water heavy water Production Facility in iraq which is what you need for plutonium. They have moth balled many, hundreds of their sentry funals. And an unprecedented intrusive surveillance regime thats maintained by the iaea, the International Atomic energy agency. So i just hope we give some serious thought to giving that up because we will never put Humpty Dumpty together again and reform the International Coalition that imposed sanctions on iran which brought them to the table in the first place. That will never happen. By the way, there are five other countries involved in this agreement besides us. Its a p5plus1. The United Nations security council, russia, china, u. K. And us, plus germany. And theyre not interested in pitching out of that agreement. And i fail to see, i fail to understand how pitching out of this agreement is going to make israel safer, for example. So for me it was a very simple proposition. Which would you rather have a state sponsor of terrorism with a Nuclear Weapon capability or a state sponsor of terrorism without a Nuclear Weapons capability . And for me i sort of picked the latter because thats what we got right now. The agreement was not designed to cure world hunger and make iran the shining city on the hill. That was never the point. Had we tried to negotiate some comprehensive, you know, feelgood thing and end all of irans nefarious behavior in the region, wed never get anywhere. We took away the last administration did i was the intel guy. I wasnt involved in the policy on this. Im just speaking out as a private citizen. The focus on er whether or not iran is agreeing with the spirit of the jcpoa while russia is abjectly violating the i. N. F. Treaty, a treaty approved by the United States senate. You never hear about that. Sorry. [laughter] chris director clapper mr. Clapper what was the other question . Chris we have to with respect to refugees and the travel ban. Mr. Clapper you know, just put it this way. Cynical interpretation of this atest travel ban is wet put a pitina of nonmuslim states like certain officials in venezuela and north korea. I think last year there were less than 10 North Koreans that came to the United States. Thats kind of ceremonial. Most defectors in my day when i served as director of intelligence of north korea, we got two or three defectors out of north korea. This was back in 1986, 1987. Now they come by the hundreds. Most of them want to gravitate to the south. There are lots of reasons for that. But there are Strong Family bonds still between the north and the south. By the way, one thing i thought of, if theres any room for optimism here in north korea was my principle. I had two fourstar one was a political fourstar minister of state security who had since been executed and other was chief of their bureau, special intelligence and operations and he was my main host. A really nasty guy. Very unpleasant. So when we got our two guys out after we went through this bizarre amnesty granting ceremony at a hotel and got our two guys, a change of clothes and we were booking. Boy, we wanted to get to the airport and get out of there. So i had a mid level minister state security he would be like a colonel or gs15, that level, who was in the vehicle, sort of my escort out to the airport and we had the most temp rant conversation. The reason i could make that contrast because i had exactly the same translator. This was weird too. The translator, north korean with a british accent. [laughter] mr. Clapper it was weird. Very good english. Even his tone was more moderate. And is guy asked me out to asked, would you come back to north korea . And i said, sure, if i was invited, id come back. And he talked about what a shame it was that the country of korea has been split for this long, what a tragedy it was for all koreans. Even their language is getting separate. Because the south korean have all these western terms that have invaded the korean language in the republic. Not so in the north. Even the language is getting dess perate. And then he said dess parate. And then he said, the minister of state security guy. He had been to south korea, been to seoul. Times when the north and south have met together. And he made what i thought was a very telling statement. Said, ive been to seoul. And ive seen whats there. I just thought that was for them hes got his button on and all that sort of thing. But i thought that was a very telling comment. Speaking of the button, thats another important point to think about with kim jong un. Kim jong un is not only the ad of state as his father, kim jong il, and the founder of the dprk, they are also regarded as deities in the north. So when President Trump insults kim jong un, while it sounds cool, hes also insulting their god. Of course, they play all this in north korea deliberately to incite the people because as i was reminded when i was there, im jong un is a deity. Chris director clapper, certainly want to thank you for your 50 years of service and your visit to the Elliott School at the George Washington university today. Small token of appreciation for you, a g. W. Sweatshirt. Mr. Clapper oh. [applause] mr. Clapper thanks very much. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2017] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] congresswoman susan brooks of indiana tweeting she was boarding air force one with other lawmakers from the state. Enator todd young, congresswoman walorski and senator donnelly. The president will be at the Farm Bureau Building in indianapolis. Live coverage of that speech beginning at 3 20 eastern on our companion network cspan3. Also online at cspan. Org or on the free cspan radio app. That republican tax proposal calls for three income tax brackets. Down from seven. 12 , 25 and 35 . An additional top rate may apply. It would eliminate the estate tax and deductions for state income taxes and double the state deduction and raise the child tax credit. Corporations would see their top tax rate cut from 35 to 20 . Certainly Small Businesses would pay 25 , down from nearly 40 . And proposal would eliminate some business deductions and industryspecific initiatives. Read the plan at cspan. Org. Again, our coverage of the president s speech this afternoon 3 20 eastern on cspan3. I dont care a think for the framers. I care for the people that ratify the constitution. I dont believe in original intent. I believe in original meaning, what was the meaning of the constitution when the people ratified it. You quoted jefferson. The validity of government depends upon the consent of the governed. And you find that consent in what the people agree to. So what the people agree to when they adopted the constitution, what they agreed to when they adopted the bill of rights is what ought to govern us. For the past 30 years, the Video Library is your free resource for politics, congress and washington public affairs. So whether it happened 30 years ago or 30 minutes ago, find it in cspans Video Library at cspan. Org. Cspan, where history unfolds daily. Six senate democrats, including minority leader chuck schumer, held a press conference on their opposition to republican efforts to refeel a confumer Financial Protection Bureau rule which would require forced arbitration clauses in contracts with consumers to bar their ability to participate in class action lawsuits. Well watch this until our live coverage begins at about 2 15 of House Republican leaders on their tax proposal
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