We will be brazil with a very, very wealthy ten 20 percent, and a very, very poor 80 or 90 . Its heartbreaking. Its not only the freest country thats ever existed but what always set america apart and california particular lyrics was our enormous prosperous middle class. Enormous. I always think thats why my theory of why the ugly american image developed in europe, because most of the europeans the people you meet from foreign countries, will fly across an ocean to come to america. We only meet their elites. Not americans. Everybody used to travel to europe. Not now. Were all worried about paying rent. Holding on to your job. Paying for all of those special english translators at the schools, paying to support your opt are hospital from going bankrupt. This is just so crushing to the middle class. But its good for mark zuckerberg. Its good for the rich. Good for the rich farmers with all that cheap labor because they refuse to mechanize. Here we are in california, which is as you mexico the bottom of the hill. What exactly are californians supposed to do . We just for the first time we are now a plurality hispanic state and were now minority white state which mean is suppose that pretty soon my kids can apply for affirmative action for the first time. Youre right. I dont think its going to work that way. Thats unfortunate. Worked for this long and then was gone. Aside from using our lives to serve as warning for others, what right right. What can californians do. Thats a good question. Wow. Huh. Ing this not an encouraging pause. Im thinking. Yeah i think its youre just a warning for others. I dont see anything else that can be done. Well i mean, i suppose i mean obviously alert the rest of us while its still time, and the rest of the states. But also i wonder my prescription for the country triple layer fence as difficult to get into the United States as it used to be to get out of east germany. Im so sick of hearing fences dont work. [applause] like shoe laces they just dont work. What . Of course they work. Well they can come untied. I know, the human spirit. My longterm plan which would be fantastic for israel, is to move them to the northern portion of mexico. I have chapter why cant we have israels policy on immigration. That is a country that knows how to defend its borders. That would be good for them, good for us, fantastic for us. Theyd have us, their biggest best bud in right next them them. We have to get rid of the anger baby policy and repeal [applause] i want it retroactive. In the news all now is this el chapo, the biggest drug cartel leader. He is married to an anchor baby, who a couple of years ago flew back to california to give birth to her own two anchor babies. At your expense. As soon as she had given birth to her anchor babies she flew right back to join el chapo, who is who replaced i think Osama Bin Laden on interpol and the fbis most wanted list, and hmm, how did he escape from prison . Well because in mexico, they cartels own the prisons. Forget california. That is your future, america. So as i describe in my book, the anchor baby policy was a footnote in a Justice Brennan opinion in 1982. This d. O. T. Does not go back to the reconstruction amendment. The some them amendment was about one thing utterly insulting to americans. Why was the 14th amendment passed . So laraza could usher across mexican women who are half pregnant and they can drop a baby and say you didnt catch me im an american citizen. People dont put trap doors in a constitution. A secret trap door. This will surprise them. To get an amendment passed you need a mass feeling about a big thing. We had just fought a civil war to force again the democrats to stop enslaving blacks. That the 14th amendment is absolutely exclusively about black americans. Thats what its about. And its not about gay marriage either. Theyre at least gay americans. Here were talking about people who have never set footen u. S. Soil before, playing a game of red rover with our border principal for the most precious possession in the universe, citizenship in this country. That is not how you get american citizenship. [applause] but Justice Brennan this only camin 1982. 198 2. Justice brennan slipped it in a footnote of a 1982 opinion. Utterly outrageous. Fraudulent. Justice judge richard poser who you can attest, very smart most cited federal judge not a friend of social conservatives. This isnt me speaking. A few years i quote him in the book he concurred in an immigration opinion for these sole purpose of adding a concurrence, this said, congress would you end this anchor baby policy in its not in the constitution. Pass a law tomorrow and end it. Its not only got to be ended but this would save california i want it retroactive. [applause] this what if we had a mentally delusional Supreme Court justice not that hard to imagine who says, you know all of america all of the world is a citizen of america. Are we going to honor that . Because that is what happened with he anchor baby policy. Make sure kennedy takes his drugs this morning. Yes. What if we had a. That was so, anchor baby policy the wall, oh, yeah, the moratorium. We need a complete immigration moratorium so this isnt just about latin america. It isnt just about mexico. I dont want european immigrants coming. I dont want anybody coming no marriage no refugees just shut down for ten years and youll see my original idea was lets go back to pre1970 rules and try it again. Peopler better than us rather than people who are worse than us. But that wont work because we have all these nonprofits, we have hundreds of aclu migrant Rights Groups and George Soros Open Society institute and laraza founds by the Ford Foundation incidentally, not by hispanics. Like lulac was i have a full page of some of them, and those are all the ones who become the immigration judges, the ones who work at the inf. Until theyre all out of business and vacationing in cuba and fighting with the tupak in peru until they are gone, america cant be safe so we need to just shut down immigration altogether for a decade, dust off the books assimilate the ones already here and then start it up again totally cheap. I can do it all before breakfast. Just send me the photos. Identity be right 99 of the time. Better than what were getting now, 100 of the time. Ann coulter 11time New York Times best selling author. Thank you so much. [applause] thank you, thank you. What do we do, leave . Thank you. Thank you. [applause] [inaudible conversations] youre watching booktv. Television for serious readers. You can watch any program you see here online at booktv. Org. Heres a look at recent authors featured on book tvs after words. We heard from andrea mays about the creation of and search for shakespeares first folio. Biographer charles shields discusses the life of harner lee and the events leading up to the publication of her second book, watch watch go set a watchman, and helen talk busy the creation of the bill of righted. The coming weeks well discuss the National Debt with the cato institutes michael tanner. Charles murray will explore how technology can lift government power and offer more limit government power and offer more personal freedom. Also arthur brooks, president of the american enter prize institute, argues for a new kind of conserveativity. And this weekend ralph nader talks about unanswered letters he has written to president s. You can watch all previous after words programs on our web site, booktv. Org. Most folks remember him as a great Foreign Policy president and he was. But beyond that, George Herbert walker bush, passed more Domestic Legislation and more significant Domestic Legislation than any president since Lyndon Johnson or franklin roosevelt. Its amazing that a lot of people almost dont realize the breadth and depth of his domestic achievements and thats one of the reasons i felt it would be good to put all of that in one place in the quiet man. If there are three or four things id like you to take away after reading the book, one of them would be the fact that he came into office after Ronald Reagan had rebuilt america strength. Remember the phrase was peace through strength, and Ronald Reagan made the exceptional investment to rebuild our military capacity. And although a lot of folks really are in a bit of denial on it the fact is that the soviet union took one look at the economic capacity of the United States to build up its military capacity and gorbachev coming into office understood there was absolutely no way they could compete, and that what we wanted to do was to begin to interact with the u. S. And our western allies. Reagan built it up. And bush understood the opportunity that the world had after nearly a half century post world war with two super powers with tremendous nuclear capabilities. Bush understood the opportunity was there. And in his own style gab to build the western coalition that was necessary to take advantage of it, and a relationship of trust and cooperation that was necessary between the United States and the soviet union. The european allies were not as eager as george bush to move quickly. But bush, with a series of meetings, first with thatcher and met at the rapid was able to convince them that the nato allies should make a very significant step in terms of announcing a reduction of u. S. Troops and armor in europe. And a a greater reduction dithe soviet union of Occupation Forces in Eastern Europe and it worked. Gorbachev welcomed the opportunity to reduce his fiscal obligations to occupation, and that began the loosening that allowed elections to take place in poland and czechoslovakia and the freeing of Eastern Europe. It was george bushs amazing personal talent perspective both or ally with both our allies and our foes that credited created the trust that is necessary for big powers, great powers significant powers, to make the kind of policy commitments that produce good results. And the matter of two and a half years, george bush was able to lead a coalition interaction a Peaceful Coalition interaction that produced the dissolution of the number two super power in World Without a single shot being fired. I personally think his greates mistake was making it look so easy and i hope as you read the book youll understand exactly what i mean when i say that. You can watch this and other programs online at booktv. Org. And now on booktv from the 2015 gaithersburg book festival in maryland. Jason silvermans talks his book terms of service. Good afternoon im Planning Commission here and local architect. The gaithers burg is a wonderful city. We are pleased to bring you this event thanks to the generous support of our authors and volunteers. A few announcements quick hopefully for the consideration of everyone, please silence your finds and other devices. Please use the hash gbf. Also if we neat we do need your feed break. Were trying to grow the event so surveys are available here and theres a tent in the back on the web site and on our mobile app. If you commit a survey, well put you in a contest to win an ipad. Your fourth one probably but youll get a new one. Mr. Silverman will be signing books after the presentation. Copies of the book are on sale at the tent. About buying books it helps the book festival if you buy a book here. The more book wes sell at our events the more publishers send their authors here to speak to us. So if you enjoy this program and youre in a position to do so, please buy a book. I would recommend powe terms of service. And im going to introduce our author by directly advocating for you to log into the bachelor. Com and check out his weekly post. Im not going to do a like or thumbs up or retweet. Carefully read and consider this thoughtful analysis of the industry of social data exchange. Why i revel in the momentary connection to this outstanding back that connection benefits my own social media identity, far more importantly he has convinced me the discourse we need to have is obsessive sharers has reached a critical point. Stripping bear, the share that all is volunteerty and fuelly approved by it years this breaks down the many way social Media Companies and digital zealots assumed our responsibility of determining not just our consumption needs but our social and emotional needs. The near religious faith we have in these companies ingenuity and technology seems terrify identifyingfully inescapable and other times a ridiculous farce and maybe a ridiculous fad. Jacob silverman for the celebrate chasing crowd jeopardy champion. And is here today to discuss his fantastic debut book, terms of Service Social Media and the price of constant connection. And joining us is carlos assad to. An associate editor at the washington post, formerred for for northern policy magazine and is here to help us engage this conversation. Thank you very much. Welcome to both of you. Thank you. [applause] you mentioned jacob is a threetime jeopardy champion. Its impress simple. Im thrilled to talk to jacob about the book because im an avid user of social media. I communicate with it. I promote stuff i write with it. And then i come across jay ons argument which terrifies me to my very soul. The first thing i wanted to ask about is the title of the book. Terms of service. Makes me feel guilty. You sign on to some service and get this huge document, the terms of service if you read it click here, and of course, no one reads it. I dont know anyone who read it. Gist click here so i can continue. What are we giving up . What are we surrendering when we click and agree to the terms of service . Usually the main thing youre giving up is any right to privacy any right to have control of the data that might be collected during your time on the web site. So these are often very broadly worded agreements that are designed to protect the company more than anything against any future litigation or any future claims they have somehow violated your privacy or mishandelled your data in a way they didnt account for. Its kind of like when you go into a parking lot and you see a sign in the parking lot theyre not responsible for any lost valuables. Its pretty much a similar attitude. Not that i want to go linebyline but the next thing that struck me is the first line of your introduction, when you say that communication has become synonymous with surveillance youve dont say that communication involves surveillance. You create on identity there you say its become the same thing. Communication equals surveillance. How did that happen . If you had to point to one or two key innovations that led to us that identity, what would they be . A couple of key feet temperatures. One is the fact that 15 years ago, some Big Tech Companies decided that they would create something called a cookie, which you could put on a users computer and you could store a little bit of information about them so you could learn where theyre visiting from, if they visited your web site before, maybe some of their preferences for what they like to look at on your web site, login information, and that seemed like a very small beginning but that really was the first step to kind of turning Online Advertising, which was the elm tuesday for the cookey, and online communication into something that war surveilled. So the cookie is the First Technology or example of how we started introducing a surveillance element to online communication. And it really just grew from there with this notion that given how these systems are set up and designed, were always producing a lot of information about ourselves when we visit sites and interact with apps and things like that, and theres this sort of assumption on the part of industry that all that data is potentially useful and can be turned into profiles and mined for insight about User Behavior and not necessarily anything malicious behind it. Theres this motion that the data is out there see we might as well collect it and process and it make decision based on it. But the problem with that is that theres almost no end to what kind of data you can collect on individuals and as more tracking technologies started being bro abused, as Online Advertising became more sophisticated and became basically the principle way of funding Digital Media it insured that various forms of surveillance would increase. So if you mark the cookie down others one important innovation. The other one is free as the cost of doing anything online. Because everything we do online is free or mostly free, we have to pay in other ways, and the ways in which we pay are submitting to the Data Collection and the surveillance that is supposed to service up more relevant ads and help kind of improve the other systems that these companies are running. You have written about the optin versus the optout culture of social media and of these different platforms. Can you explain that . Right. Well i think theres a strong sense at the Big Tech Companies especially facebook, keeps carry this belief and google and many others, which is theres almost no reason why someone wouldnt want these products and in a sense, they are very remarkable in some cases. Some people assume im a luddite but i use those tools. And this great confidence in what theyre bringing to the world, the supposed revolution in communication there are very few possibilities to opt out to say, no, and there are different ways in which this manifests itself. Facebook collects information on people all over the internet, whether youre a facebook member or not and this is why im talking about where you cant really opt out of that. If youre familiar with the little plugins or social widgets that appear on web site over all the internet. A like button or share button, those are usually a way for the company that controls that button so facebook in the case of a like button to collect information about who visits that web site. So say you go to New York Times dom but not a facebook member but they have some like buttons or sharing widgets on there thats a little piece of those other sites and some information gets sent back to them. So you have Companies Like facebook forming profiles of people who arent even members of the site. And then the other way in which opt out versus opt in is a problem is theres a tendency across the board of these companies when they introduce new features theyre usually opt in their users and you have to choose to opt out. This is present it as a choice but many of us dont have the time to do this, we dont know what is going on if you ever tried to navigate the privacy settings on facebook theyre impossible. So its not really the kind of choice that is presented to us, and again, i think this comes from the companies own belief that it theyre doing us a favor rather than the truth of things is often that the new features are often introduced to get to us produce and reveal more personal data. What some of omost surprising or shocking ways in the course of reporting the book that you found about the way facebook or any other any of the platform tracks your activity or gathers data. Well, one thing that really surprised me is that facebook if youre familiar with facebook, theres the status bar on every page, where often says Something Like, what are you thinking about . And thats where you type in a post or little message or post something. And facebook actually tracks when people start typing in that status bar and then delete it without posting a message. And they call this selfcensorship, and in their minds if i start typing a message on facebook and then decide not to post it and delete it im somehow censoring myself which seems a little absurd to me. I think i could be the judge of whether or not im actually censoring myself. It also shows not only kind of the world but this idea of selfcren soreship is a problem. Theyre stewing it because they want to know how to get people to stop censoring themselves. I dont know if theyll implement some specific changes about i wouldnt be surprised if they made it more difficult or perhaps had a popup book that came up that said, are you sure you really want to delete this post . And the other thing is the amount of monitoring of peoples behaviors thats going on, especially through apps. On a lot of web sites they monitor what you read, how long you stay on the pages where you click. If they could follow your eyes through your camera, they would but they cant really yet. But they do the next best thing which is they follow where your curser goes where is the substitute for your eyes, and then you have an even greater degree of this in many smartphone games and apps, a number of smartphone games now is they study your behavior and they can kind of track your Response Time to various stimuli, to when you push a command or when you click for the next card in a game of solitaire, and what some of these companies do is if they think that a player is lagging behind or perhaps getting tired or whether its sleepy or tired of the game, they change the pace of the game to try to get you more involved. And theres so theres a real way in which this kind of behavioral monitoring and testing is going on at all times. All to the degree although purpose of finetuning your experience, but also so that you wont leave the platform, because the longer you spend time on an app or a web site, whether its facebook or even a smaller web site, that that means youre more profitable for them and their real goal is to get you to click on ads of course and also just to never leave. What do they base that on . Do they draw on kind of behavioral economics or social science or do they is it just constant experiments to see how your behavior adapts . I think its all of the above. A lot of this stuff is kind of held close to the vest. But we know that the Big Tech Companies are hiring a lot of data scientists, people with backgrounds in social science or behavioral economics. So a lot of it is what is called ab testing some is pretty benign. Lets just the font size on the main header and see if people click more on these links or lets change lets try out various color schemes and see how users respond. Fine. But what youre really doing or what these keys are doing and some admit it, theyre conducting behavioral experiments on people at a vast scale and if you were to tune into the news last summer you heard about the facebook experiment where facebook experiment on 600,000 users without telling them. They either increased or decreased the amount of sad content that appeared in facebooks and facebook users news feeds. Were going to wait for the train to go by, i think. Now, the question of whether this experiment was a success sorry, the train is still going by. Old technology, yeah, a good one still. What they were doing was they wanted to see if they could adjust the amount of, quote happy or sad content which is also pretty crude distinction and maybe not the right one but adjust the amount of happy or sad content that appears in peoples feeds and then see if they can track something called emotional contagion. Are people who are receiving are exposed to hap or sad content, do they start feeling happy or sad as expressed in their posts and do those feelings seem to spread through the network to their friends and other contacts. And the study at least according to the study they thought they did and they released this, and the study and then there was this great outcry and for a lot of of people i think the outcry was less about the study itself but just about the fact that secrecy, the lack of consent and also the fact that we now know that these kinds of studies are going on all the time. This is just one we heard about. For social scientists or people from academia, the process spoke doing research on facebook is immensely enticing. Facebook has the biggest data set of behavioral data ever been form. If you want to do research on a great scale facebook is where you want to be, but it creates all these kinds of ethical conundrums because sometimes its not just about expose people to happy or sad content. It be exposing them to more or less political content 0 facebook has done experiment with encouraging people to vote around election day and only by showing a little sort of sticker almost or button for a certain number of users encouraging them to vote, and facebook found out that people that were shown that button did vote more on average. Like a shaming thing you saw your friend put so it you feel like you should vote. Again thats potential lay positive thing. Think about how that other could be misused and the sheer inflammational asymmetry of that. Just that theyre experimenting on us and were always very transparent to them but what theyre doing is opaque to us. How do we know that facebook doesnt decide to encourage a lot of people to vote in a swing state or in an important district in an upcoming election facebook does a lot of lobbying just like google and other Tech Companies. Maybe they decide that they want to help one of their partners in congress get reelected. Thats on the far more nefarious end of things and im not saying facebook is necessarily doing this but when you have this kind of power to control a lot of information that people see and even to guide their behavior theres a real concern, and when that same power is never really audited or exposed to public scrutiny, when we dont know how the algorithms work thats a serious problem. One of the truisms when people talk about these technologies and platforms is that younger generations are far more comfortable sharing everything online. Their digital natives. They grew up this way. Is that kind of crude distinction does that make send there are bays younger people are more savvy about how to protect themselves . I think that i think youre right. I often get told by people that young people dont value their privacy, theyre all sing nude photos to each other and posting ridiculous things online ask their future employers are going to find this stuff. In some ways thats true. A lot of young people are doing those kinds of things. And the other hand i dont necessarily blame them for it. Theyre young people. Theyre experimenting. When i was young the things i did that the stupid mistake is made, fortunately werent going to stick around forever. So really you have young people growing up in a system that was made for them and around them and given to them, say hey here are these cool tools and technologies. Bill the way, none of this ever goes away. Have fun with that. Young people are actually in a really hard position, and i would say that i think the conventional wisdom they dont value theyre privacy is wrong despite the fact they do make their share of mistakes, young people out of their facility with the devices and technologies are pretty good at times of guarding their privacy exploring privacy set examination things like that, and pull the Market Research backs that up. On the other hand you have to keep in mine that young people are used to guarding their privacy against parents and Authority Figures all the time. So this isnt that much different. I tell people you need to educate teenagers and tell them theres no job that youre going to get in the future where theyre not going do run some kind of background check on you or google check. Thats become standard. At the same time they are in a tough position and i dont think we should blame them too much when they make these kinds of mistakes. Host in the early days of the internet there was a fame are new new yorker cartoon where two dogs are looking at a screen and one says on the internet nobody knows your a dog. Now they know youre a dog know your breed, your age what kind of pictures you post. Your book is about the threats and the dangers of this lack of anonymity. What are the benefits to the lack of anonymity online . Well, the benefits are mostly to business. And certainly theres been a great flourishing of advertising and online media in part because it depends on collecting personal information about people. The jury is still out about whether people act better anonymous or identified by their real names. I personally think anonymity is still very important for privacy reasons and also just kind of as a refuge and as a way of not being forced to expose ones self. But there are some i sites that show people act better when they are identified by name and theyre there ares that show they dont you ever looked at a web site and gone to the Comment Section and if the comments are linked to facebook you see people posting horrible comments under their facebook names and identities all the time. In terms of another benefit i dont know. I say perhaps there is something to the fact that people feel more comfortable being themselves online now. I think despite the kind of often hostile environment that people may face, especially women or minorities or people who have been discriminated against, i think a lot of people by sort of presenting themselves as who they are as Jacob Silverman with this set of interests, they can often relate to people and form real friendships and relationships that were kind of hard to do in thes so when most people were anonymous and internet anonymity was something dangerous and when meeting people online was considered dangerous. Now theres nothing unusual about meeting people online or dating online, and ive met a number of friends through twitter and i feel like a lot of that has been because i was myself on twitter rather than some anonymous person. Host over the last couple of years we heard a lot about government surveillance and in particular nsa surveillance in light of the documents revealed by edward snowden. Your book is minute more about sort of corporate surveillance than government surveillance, but what are the differences here and the opinions of intersection if they exist . Guest well theres a lot in common. They both are in the business of mass surveillance, of bulk Data Collection. The u. S. Government and of kind of processing and computing and mining that data. Theres sort of a an unofficial mantra in the u. S. Intelligence Community Called collect it all. You see they have to you fulfill league warrant requests and theyre hack into at that time centers so collect it all this goal of the u. S. Intelligence community, but the corporate and tech world is not that far off because theres this widely shared view, think that all data is potentially useful, and that if its not useful now youll just find a use for it later. Thats why facebook collects information about people who havent even joined the site. And theres what goes along with that is a sense that you can find out insights about people or gain competitive advantages that might only be a small competitive advantage but that really counts, and the difference between gaining that insight and not might be collecting a certain amount of data. And then i think another way you can look at it is that the main purpose of internet surveillance of collecting all this information about us by the Tech Companies is to form profiles on us and target us for relevant advertisements and offers, relevancy is always the commonly invoked term and the u. S. Intelligence Community Wants the data to form profiles on people and target them for counterterrorism purposes. Its obviously different because the u. S. Intelligence community is looking for dangerous people, limited number of people, but while the corporate world is really looking for everybody and looking to kind of form profiles on everyone, which is why you have Companies Like axiom one of the huge data brokers, big nest the country. They claim to have profiles on hundreds of millions of people, including most americans. So looked at that way you might say that tech surveillance is even nor extreme because they really would like to have consumer profiles about everyone from where you live to what you do, how much now you make, medical conditions, hobbies. These things are being collected. Host there seems to have been more of a visceral reaction to government surveillance thans to corporate surveillance. First, does that is that how you see it as well . But why if thats the case, is it because we feel that one is voluntary one is not . Whats going on there. I think there are couple of reasons. One is that when it comes to government surveillance, people do have some legitimate fears about terrorrity. Though i think im certainly far from alone on this done the terrorism throw it is not nearly as extreme as people in the Security Apparatus tell us. But i think people also are generally trusting toward Law Enforcement and the Intelligence Community and feel that this is being done with the purpose that we see these attacks going on, and perhaps this can help keep us safe. And so theres less of a backlash for that. In terms even on the corporate side, though, i wonder i see more backlash over the last couple or years since i started work only this book but not to the extent i thought it would be. A lot of people have the nothing to hide attitude, which i think is totally wrong because everyone has something to hide, whether its your Social Security number, or some personal or something some more dire secret or you dont want some marketer knowing that you have a chronic disease so they can start pushing you products for that. Everyone has information about. Thes they would like to have the choice to keep concealed. On the other reason why i think that the corporate backlash has not been very strong is that people see these see the lack of privacy and the giving up of personal information as the cost of doing business. Most products are free and many are useful and charming and engaging to use and might even feel like were addicted to them. So i i have to fork over some personal information that might in some nebulous, unspecified wayworth me down the road so be it. I wanted to show that there are very real types of harm that can happen. That when lists of peoples personal medical conditions or lists of Domestic Abuse survivors are being sold to companies, thats real problem. Or that when companies are collecting data on you just so they can charge you a higher praise based on your demographic information, which a lot of companies are doing now thats problem took, thats away of gouging people based on how much they think they can pay for something. So part of the goal of the book is not only to show all this data is being collected but this is the problem and this is why and this is how we should talk about it. We still need to find the discourse for this, find ways to talk about whey what this problem and is give shape to it. Host theres a moment in the book where you talk about how some people shame their friends into joining facebook or something. What do you mean,own not on facebook . Its not uncommon to ask a friend why theyre not on twitter why theyre on twitter or rarely tweet or like facebook statuses but rarely posts their own. Why arent they busy accumulating social capital. Social capital is this great concept. Robert put nam talked about bowling alone and social capital is this storm life. What social Media Capital . How do you accumulate social Media Capital . Guest it is influence. Its also basically metadata. Its how many followers you have. Happen ore friends, how many people like or retreat or favor your posts. Said that way i think it sounds kind of silly or shallow but that is how influence and capital is built on social media. And kind of to the first part of what you read, i think social media is instance are increasingly ware of the work friendship is done now. Its how we keep in touch. How we communicate with one another, sometimes how we maintain weak ties with people we might never see or might on see once or tie a year but you see them every week on facebook and can have a distant relationship and sense of what is going on. So i think on social media social capital is kind of is those thing is mentioned earlier, but its also sort of almost a style or a esthetic because we ail might have people that we say governor at facebook or good at twitter. That means they post interesting photos or funny stories stories or perhaps reveal la another about themselves that attracts attention, and kind of builds an audience and in thened i think attention is sort of the thing that whether we like it or not what were seeking on social media. Attention this great commodity being bought and sold by these companies. Often our attention. So when we are on there or trying to gain others attention, and that might be through being interesting or dramatic or being confessional. And i think thats how you accumulate social media equivalent of social capital. So, do we all just shut down our Facebook Accounts and get off twitter and how do you strike the balance between using these platforms that have certain value and utility. My mom sees all the pictures of my kids through facebook. I dont have to send her photos anymore, and also protecting yourself. Yes. Well think its very difficult. And when we were talking about opt out versus opt in, its similar idea here. Which is that on these platforms you can either accept all of the Data Collection and lack of privacy and really lack of control over how you relate to the platform, or so you either accept owl that or dont and you cant use it. Of course, you do have some choice about what you post, but theres still a real limiting of choice. So thats why i sort of argue for more collective solutions for government regulation about Data Collection, i think people should have more rights to know what information is being collected about them, how long its stored, what its used for. We should be able to Ask Companies to delete personal information about us and we also need to understand that data and personal data is not going away. Some measure i think of Data Collection and online surveillance is here to stay, but there are ways in which we can bring these policies back into line, and form a real 21st century Regulatory Regime that looking out for peoples rights and makes sure that new kinds kinds of database discrimination arent going on. This is what we did when we started having credit reports and or medical information we have hipaa the fair credit reporting act. There are precedents for dealing with the collection of personal data which 30 or 40 years ago people were worried how those would be used against us, and a lot of people are even worried now because a lot of the companies that make credit records are big data broke north america this industry and collecting a lot of this information. So theres a lot of information now sneaking into credit reports or other type of scoring systems that are kind of reef placing credit reports and not even covered under existing legislation. So i encourage people to educate themselves and read up on things. I you want to close some of your accounts ive done that. Its really not a great solution and you also do miss out. Theres a definite social cost, and i do miss some of the interaction is used to have on some of these platforms even if i still stay on a couple others. We need a more stable and sophisticated Regulatory Regime. If theres one that that people do that authors do on social media is promote their books. How have you reconciled the subject matter of your book with the come foulings let everyone know the compulsion to let everybody know its out there. An been a little tough. Its a weird 0 kind of method acting where im criticizing this whole selfpromotional environment. The big theme of the book is advertising and the great influence, and i think sometimes unacknowledged or underrecognized influence that digs has had. Its not just that advertising above all else drives internet surveillance. The reason theyre collecting this data the first reason, and main reason, is to serve you up ads. But also i think advertising has become part of the culture. Thats why we offer say that people are branding themselves or ways of selfpromotional or speak in the language of p. R. So i dont know. Its been tougher for me. Frankly issue think with like a firsttime writer like me, tweeting about my book a bunch dont know if its going to do that much but i also think marketing anything is kind of tough. So ive tried to my publish are may not like this bus i do the bare minimum at times. Im totally happy to write about my book and do events like this and talk to people and to promote in that sense but in terms of emphatically tweeting about it all the time or things like that, thats just kind of not rerealy my style as a human being, and its also kind of the part of the culture that this larger selfpromotional culture that exists, especially on twitter, i would like to see kind of tamped down in some way. Host well, we have ten minutes for questions. If anyone is interested. Theres a couple of mics there. Should folks get up or yes. Id like to ask you a question. The tools for opting out are really weak. Ill give you a for instance on a pass technology. Of the do not call register, is violated day in and day out. And if you try to trace that telephone number, even call the attorney general of your state nobody can help you. I know somebody knows the number of all these people who keep calling us, im in your neighborhood this is your credit card. We really need tools quickly to catch up with the industris invasion of our privacy and we dont seem to see them. I found one duck, duck, go, okay . We do would you talk about that how to keep google in line by switching out of google and into a nontracking site. Guest sure. Thank you for your question. So he brings up a good point. Which is that there arent as many tools whether apps or modified hardware or anything like that to help protect us in the ways that we might like. There are still some, and duck, duck go is a good one. Thats a Search Engine that doesnt track you and that is its main claim and its a pretty good one. I you it a lot. I fine myself still going back to going for some things. Another reason why i recommend it is the way google works no one goes beyond the first page or the first few search results by diversifying the search tools you use you open yourself up to finding kind of new content and perhaps going different places on the internet where you might not have been before. People worry about something called the filter bubble, where we kind of are always shown information and media and opportunities that seem only directly relevant to us, and so you get theres a limit offering the amount of the range of content especially political content that you might see. So there are things like that you can do. You can start using a Virtual Private Network which helps disguise your traffic or tee tour browser. Theres some good and bad here. Because data is the new comedy and because we basically had our privacy ten away from us taken away from us, privacy is returning as market commodity something you need to pay for almost or that needs to be markettized and so now you do have all these companies who are developing protects luke duck duck go or various other tools to help you retain your privacy and help you learn how to navigate the privacy settings of sites you do use. So there are lot of those out there which i encourage people seek out and experiment with them. Thank you for the greet talk. Quick question. Internet consumer advocates have had a lot of success lately on battling isps with the Net Neutrality victory and stopping the horrible comcast Time Warner Cable mergers, and im wondering what do you think are the prospects of advocates like that holding conditionable some of these accountable some of these Large Companies or do you Thing Companies because theres mo competition in terms of content, providers do you think theyll just kind mollify consumers . Guest i dont to the. Thats a really necessary question though, because Net Neutrality did work to some extent. The campaign surrounding it is certainly gotten us closer to where we need to be. So i would like to see a Campaign Around internet privacy that focuses on specific issues of Data Collection and things like that. But the problem is this has become so central and so intrinsic 0 to how these businesses run theyre looking at some real costs of giving Something Like that up. The one thing i would say is, like i said before, you see new companies coming up excuse me and using privacy as a selling point duck duck go says on the main page, the Search Engine that doesnt track you. Fire foxx made by mow sylla a nonprofit, which is key in this whole thing has been very good at advocating for privacy rights and those sorts of issues issues and mozilla is a company within the industry but can lead help push the entry in a better direction. It will take a sustained Advocacy Campaign and might have start with specific demands about more transparency and Data Collection and right to delete it and perhaps just focusing on specific types of data. Perhaps people start saying we dont want our medical searches being collected. Because your Search History is incredibly revealing. Anytime youre searching for symptoms a number of Companies May be monitoring that. So may have to start where like that. The last response touches on something i wanted to ask you. If you were to look at an hiv web site, for example pause your son at hiv would your job prospects would your medical history reflect that problem . Well, you raised a good issue, which is that theres this assumption that on the internet that anything you do is relevant to who you are and to what youre interested in. So for me as a journalist, ive looked at terrorist web sites and a couple times talked to isis supporters online and stuff like that. Does that suddenly mean i support those things or somehow interested in them . Of course not. But in sort of in some database somewhere, especially where this is out meated automated i might be flags as someone who has gone to these unsavory wednesdays. The problem with these systems is they dont discriminate based on intend, so if your are looking at an hiv web site because your son or your own curiosity or for any particular reason thats not really reflected in on how the the dat is collected and thats a serious problem. Fortunately, you cant be discriminated against for some things like health stat tuesday but the fact that all this dat tis being collected introduce us in possibles for discrimination or getting round discrimination and getting around traditional regulations that are or laws that bar discrimination. Thank you. I had another question. You touched briefly on a couple of small nefarious possibilities for this data. Could you elaborate on that . What other really bad things can happen . Guest sure. Well as i referred to earlier you have companies that are putting together most of them you and i have never heard of them. Theyre all over. Some of them deal with the big data brokers but what they do is theyll put together lists of people who have chronic diseases who have hiv or aids or cancer survivors, Domestic Abuse century cryers and alcoholic and then they categorize people on these lists and sell the list us. Another example is they create these sort of very specific demographics like Senior Citizens who like to play the lottery. Or who are interested in sweepstakes. So they will they sell these lists to companies that will target Senior Citizens with deals and offers to try to get them to fork over money. So there is a way in which when youre doing this kind of very specific granular profiling on people it can really lead to possibilities of manipulation and abuse. And i also think we should note that its not always something that necessarily nefarious but its just that these systems kind of represent a new kind of bureaucracy, and sometimes you can get caught up in a bureaucracy that can just it might not ruin your life but can give you a lot of problems. For example the state of massachusetts scans everyones drivers license against various watch lists and things like that. And sometimes there are false positives with things like that. Or you may have heard stories of the many terrorist databases collected in the nofly list. People who have been put on these lists to nor reason or wrong reasons and nearly impossible to get off of those . The problem i worry about is you end up being targeted whether by a Government Watch list or one of those more unsavory companies and theres really no way to get off that list or to break that relationship. Avory companies and there is no way to get off the list or break that relationship. How do you find out what has been collected that you want to correct and can you correct it . If not, legislation includes that idea . It has been proposed for some legislation. Theres almost nothing you can do. The company lets you look at some data they collect it and let you correct your data profile and that is another way to get you to fo i think we have time for one more question. One more question please. Under terms of service i have a question on facebook when one posts information, say pictures do you lose control of the pictures you put on facebook . Does facebook have the ability to take your pictures and monetize the in some way and advertise them so when you put anything on there, no copyright . On most Major Social Network 6 at tumbler they retain copyright on everything you post, not only that they are now doing things like scanning instagram photos to see what brands appeared, if im wearing a cocacola tshirt face can that and find coke appears here that more pernicious lee what you at his post being turned into ads on the network. If you post on facebook or google plus that you love cocacola and drank a great one at gaithersburgs city hall, a coke may turn your post into an ad that will appear in next years feet saying your friend jacob loved cocacola, why not get one there . That may seem benign to some people but some people dont want to be turned into advertisements. This has been rather horrific the young woman who committed suicide ended up in dating ads posted on facebook because her face book photos were used for dating ads and her friends and family saw her appearing after she was deceased in these dating ads. There are ways in which we dont control our image, that i find troubling. One last thought. What is next . Do you have a new book project . Something you are working on . Will it be related to this field or something entirely different . I am writing some fiction now but it is too ready to say what it is about. I am still doing journalism and writing articles and trying to write deeper longer articles about the Tech Industry and our relationship to it, usually involving issues of politics and economics and social life and labor. I think labor is the next big frontier of tech reporting. We all know about the wellpaid programmers. A lot of people in calling the centers overseas for coating farms in the philippines, doing a lot of the essential work to keep these things running. And also the gender discrimination issues we heard about in Silicon Valley so i am interested in pursuing those stories. You write frequently on your site a weekly column or can i to you have buttons to follow on facebook . I forget of i removed them. I have to say i am happy to have people read my stuff. You can purchase books and get them signed by jake. Thank you very much. [applause] [inaudible conversations] every weekend, but tv brings you 48 hours of nonfiction authors and books, keep watching for television for serious readers. Michael stokes paulsen and his son luke coauthored the book the constitution an introduction. They discussed how the document has been ended debate since it was first written. Welcome, everyone. It is an honor to be here at the National Constitution center discussing an interesting new book by the father and son team. One thing we have in common is we are all from minnesota. Although we are talking about the constitution which was deliberate a few yards from here minnesota wasnt even a state. Talk about how you came to write the book together and what the audience is . Sure. I will go ahead and start, after the conference, law professors and College Professors get together and have a dinner and about the second of all of wine and argument broke out between the College Professors and law professors about when students, totaling misshapen ideas about the constitution. Law professors were blaming the College Professors. How do you get these . College professor said it wasnt our fault. The way civics is taught in high school, the me and all that. I spoke up foolishly, somebody ought to write a book that is not aimed at professor types. Is aimed at real people and students and tries to set the story straight, clear and objective and lively and readable and account of the constitution. As can be. They said why not write back instead of your boring biography articles . Actually it started right here at princeton, i was flying in and out of the airport and got bumped from my flight and had three hours with nothing to do so i sketched what would a book that was trying to lay it straight and give the basics of the constitution in ten chapters look like . I wrote it in a coffee shop in the Philadelphia Airport and called home because i think luke had to be in charge of his little sister since i would be late. And that night i showed luke the two pages of legal pad, we came up with this idea, he was 13 at the time, it would be a summer job for him to be an Informal Research assistant. He had great ideas how to make the book more interesting that they could tell story, the personalities and characters involved in formation of the constitution and constitutional disputes and by the end of the night, this sounded like a better summer job than lawn mowing or flipping burgers and we made a deal that we try to write a book together and fought we would do in one summer. It nine but we end ed up doing it over the course of nine years evolving father, summers only vacation project on the side in between camping trips, luke learning to drive and things like that the book took shape over the course of those nine years, much more sophisticated over time, still trying to aim at general readers. And necessary level of sophistication. And too legalistic, we did over the course of nine summers. And here it is. Was the experience like writing about the constitution, one of the macs great scholars. Was a treat. I was in the business of curing him of professoritis, but he wrote most of the first draft, he is the one that did decades of scholarship on this. He is also informally teaching me he drove me to school of finance was warming up for is unclaspes, and talk about the constitution. There are worse forms. I came into the project with a pretty good knowledge of what was going on and a bit of brainwashing. Good brainwashing. What i brought to the project was an understanding, all originally aiming at a high school audience for this book, High School Government courses as you said students could go to college and eventually lost school with better foundational ideas about the constitution. And i had good experiences with my civics courses. I was the one pushing to make it readable 21 who is one up. By the time we were done, it is no longer textbook, it can be used in College Courses or High School Courses but the idea, it is the sort of book, the entry into the constitution this would be a good place to start. I think we achieved the necessary level of sophistication but we kept the whole time pushing for clarity and simplicity and readability that someone would actually pick up the book and read it with a friend of mine said how long is at this book . Just over 300 pages reasonably short. Short . Can use that that much about the constitution . People write massive treatises, the Supreme Court seems to churn out thousands of pages of opinions every year 300 pages believe me is short, something i can get inside and get their heads around. It is a long period of constitutional history. To cover 300 pages. They tried to produce a book that was reasonably comprehensive and starts proceeds to describing the constitutions basic structure, and the powers of various branches of government. It goes to a discussion of slavery and how slavery was a dated further by the constitution and we go to the bill of rights. The bill of rights award of completes the beginning of the constitution. The bill of rights is the second constitution, it is the second half of the original constitution. And the history of the documents interpretation from 1789 to 2014, running for a series of controversies. You cover 228 years worth of what is the most important thing. It is and to textbook and we really hope it leads at least for people interested in the constitution like a novel about the constitution. We hope it has all the basics, constitution 101 but a course people will want to take. You should buy copies, take and the book to the beach and everyone will think you are superintellectual. I just want to know some things about the constitution. I was interested in making it not a textbook. I have read funky text books. We spend a while getting it into the shape of it today. We went through five or six of everything, before it got to the publisher. The book does have some interesting and provocative arguments and one of them pertains from 1803 comment and related lee the view that you discuss every branch of government has a role to play in constitutional interpretation, tell us a little bit about that. Do you marbury vs. Madison, mark twains definition of the classic, the everybody praises but nobody actually reads. Marbury is a fascinating case that arose in this circumstance involving the midnight judges appointments by john adams rushing out the door after having been defeated by Thomas Jefferson in the election of 1800. They failed to deliver the judicial commissions to some of the officers and it is actually a lawsuit for somebody to get his judgeship and they take it to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court uses it as the occasion to advance what is referred to as the best in of judicial review and a lot of mythology has grown up around marbury, we actually read once in lukes textbooks that in 1803 is the Supreme Court created a doctrine of judicial review. It is a well recognized constitutional principle. And defended by Alexander Hamilton in the federalist papers in 1788. If the constitution, the fundamental law of the nations says one thing and an act of Congress Says something to the contrary the constitution wins. Is a basic principle that the constitution is supreme law of the land and anything done by congress anything done by the courts is unconstitutional and should be void. Part of the methodology that has grown up around marbury vs. Madison is the Supreme Court not only in defense of the doctrine which isnt true but proclaimed themselves to be the supreme interpreters of the constitution. Nothing like that actually happened in marbury vs. Madison. The Supreme Court got around to declare itself the Supreme Branch but it didnt happen, we traced the history from 1958. Just a little before our lifetimes i was born in 1959 and missed the great event 1950. The original vision of marbury vs. Madison was constitutional surprise, the constitution beats anything government does that is contrary to the constitution. And anything the courts do that is contrary to the constitution is unconstitutional too. Action leave the system the framers devised was one where no one branch has the power of constitutional interpretation. At each branch serves to try as a check on the misinterpretation of the others. It was not a Supreme Court in charge of everything but three branches fighting it out and keeping each other in line. The theme runs through the book because we see many instances in constitutional history where the real important constitutional interpretation, the things that made a difference came from political actors actions of congress, actions of president s a whole chapter on lincoln and the civil war and constitutional crisis and a lot of that was reacting against things the Supreme Court had decided. The infamous dread scott decision of the king 57 which the Supreme Court said that congress could not prohibit the extension of slavery and blacks had no rights whether slave or free. That was a large precipitating event leading to the chain in the events culminating in the civil war. Not every judicial decision became the last word of the constitution. The last word of the meaning of the constitution with respect to slavery, by adopting a constitutional amendment. The last word on the issues of secession civil war was in deciding on every court. It was decided on the battlefields. Of the civil war. You trace a lot through the book the various decisions of various constitutional actors interpreting the constitution take on this gently as we can the myth of judicial supremacy, whatever the Supreme Court establishes rule for everybody. I talked long enough, did i leave anything for you to add . You did because there is more yet to the story of marbury vs. Madison. It came out against the Supreme Court in some sense because this was president jefferson Whose Administration had failed to deliver the commission fervor justice of the peace. Justice of the peace or the district of columbia. So president jefferson, secretary of state, secretary of state James Madison was being sued, for mr. Marburys commission. The Jefferson Administration was putting a lot of political pressure on the court which was publicly opposed to him to not deliver the commission and the Supreme Court end ed up agreeing, it found using this method of judicial review that it did not have the power that congress had granted it to beside this kind of case so it is another example of tension between the branches, each branch with its unconstitutional interpretation and not necessarily that the Supreme Court won just a balance of power between the president and congress that made this law. Ironically marbury versus madison, far from being an assertion of judicial supremacy was an act of judicial restraint they held against their own authority saying the idea that the Supreme Court could award this commission you have a wonderfully rich discussion of Abraham Lincoln and central importance in our constitutional the understanding, that most contributed to his legacy of constitutional figure, i could talk about Abraham Lincoln for a whole hour. Julius stop me . This is the way and often worse these are the key points set channeling my best luke, the key points are that lincoln was actually an anti slavery moderate. The constitution protected slavery in certain ways and he didnt deny what the constitution actually said. He drew the line at the authority to prohibit the extension of slavery into new territories. And congress had the power to prohibit slavery in the territories because it was not forbidden by the constitution. It struck out that review in 1857 and said slavery was a National Constitutional right that the federal government couldnt limit in the territories. Lincoln rose to prominence as a critic in the Supreme Court. So that when he was elected president the south seceded in part on the theory that we just elected you just elected this anti constitutional, and i Supreme Court precedent see you we are leaving. Lincolns first inaugural address is actually a brilliant lawyers brief for the correctness of his position on slavery. How it was really faithful to what the constitution actually says. The and constitutionality of secession, the permanence of the union and the supremacy of the constitution under the union and the obligation of the president to resist secession on the ground that it is the executives responsibility to pass on the government as it had been an to faithfully execute the laws throughout the whole of the nation. Lincoln really stuck to his position that leads the civil war out of consequence of his adherence to what he thought the constitution said. In a strong sense of moral and political obligation it is not much of exaggeration to say this civil war was fought over questions of constitutional meaning and constitutional interpretation. Did i leave anything . Yes you did. That was the first thing i had in mind sticking to the constitution, defending the constitution against the Supreme Courts decision. The other major thing we talked about in that chapter of the book is lincolns use of president ial powers, best example would be the emancipation proclamation which is the 1863 proclamation, it was a military order. It said the union armies will liberate slaves as captured enemy property essentially which was a legitimate use of power. And that was controversial at the time. That killed slavery, made it impossible to go back. If the professor can elaborate. It is interesting. Lincoln did not think he had Constitutional Authority justin abolish slavery in the state. That would be the president making a lot but he thought he had authority as commanderinchief, military and the time of war to take military measures to subdue and overwhelm an enemy force of power and part of the traditional lot of work is you could convert the enemy slaves to your resources so lincolns theory of the emancipation proclamation was a constitutional theory that the president s military power permitted him to cs enemy resources and convert it to Union Advantage by permanently freeing slaves. As many of you know he could not free slaves in the slave states that remained in the union and even in areas of the confederacy that were knocked under that have come under union control. Was always a measure you would take to counter any resources. Some of you have seen the movie lincoln, he is worried near the end of the war about whether the emancipation proclamation will continue to have legal force once the fighting has stopped so that is why he pushes so hard for the thirteenth amendment to the constitution which is the nail in the coffin of slavery. If the emancipation proclamation killed slavery the fifteenth amendment which abolishes it and puts that prohibition in the text of the constitution, puts the last nails in. Really enthusiastic about constitutional issues surrounding the civil war. The interesting thing is those were not reached by any court, they would decisions reached by president s and the congresses and 5 in the battlefields. One of the best chapters in the book is filled with interesting discussion of constitutional text and history, chapter 8 is forgotten, constitutional history 1876 or so and pull together a set of Supreme Court cases and constitutional doctrines that really Bad Development in American History and one of the most interesting parts of the book. Chapter 8, we give these chapters one word titles and is hard to reduce hole periods of time, and the period, we use for that period was the trail. After the victories of the civil war lot of decisions and the Supreme Court 18761936 broad five 6 decade period seemed to slide back from the gains that have been made, it was a period in which the Supreme Court held that women have equal Constitutional Rights under the constitution, it denied one of the cases we rail against is a case called rat well versus illinois which was a case involving an illinois rule which forbade women or at least married women from becoming lawyers people shaking their heads in discussed here. We are totally with you on that. The Supreme Court completely failed to address the fact equal protection of the law means you cant make the distinction explicitly based on categories of people. What misled them, you see this throughout this period in history was a confused their own social understanding of good policy with what the constitution might say. The thing is the constitution sometimes says things that are different from our present cultural understanding of what would be good policy. And so instead they wrote their policy into the constitution saying that the office of white and mother was the duty of woman and was inappropriate for women under the laws of god and nature to be a lawyer. I hope my daughter is sitting i hope she is and takes the lesson that the Supreme Court sometimes gets it flatly wrong. There are other decisions, plessey versus ferguson, a holding separate but equal segregation came in this era. A case of locked versus new york one of the most judicially activist decisions striking down regulatory and economic policies on the grounds, the right to property and right to contract, pure judicial activism. People talk about judicial activism today but it is interesting to go back a hundred years and see this is a phenomenon in court history, they take their own views of what would be good and right and pure and just, and mutilate the constitution to get the same resolve. There are many others. This was a period of the constitution often ignored in the history books. What happened, it is embarrassing stuff that happened during this time. Once again you did leave something for me. The one that i had in mind. Eugenics, the very best science of that day and age, but the court upheld the forced sterilization of the mentally ill. And Oliver Wendell holmes, a famous mostlymostly we disagree as to whether holmes was a great justice or not. Very famous justice at any rate. Writes this disgusting opinion and there is complete details to apply the equal protection of the law. Yes. He was saying this is the last refuge of constitutional scholars. Everyone make these arguments based on equal protection, gave at the back of his hand. Holmes was not very good at First Amendment freedom of speech. Many cases from that era in which the Supreme Court upheld this impression of antiwar speech, the origins of holmess famous clear and present danger tests, you might have heard that and the idea of not shouting fire in a crowded theater, and he used these phrases he was a wonderfully gifted writer but he used these onerous phrases to reach results that were actually contrary to the constitutions protections of free speech. I tend to think he is very much overrated but that is easy to say from the Vantage Point of 100 years later. At various points in the book you talk about the recurring question of national and state power. If i read you rightly, you have a sympathy for Alexander Hamilton inspired National Authority as part of our constitutional structure. Yes. The general position, this requires a bit of historical background. The reason for the adoption of the constitution is the complete failure of the previous system of government for the United States the articles of confederation which didnt give clear sovereign power and operated more along the lines of the treaty with the United Nations where it there was the authority to ask states for money or troops for the armed forces but the states were under no obligation, any changes required approval of all 13 states so the constitution was in large part designed to produce to hold the union together and govern defectively and to that end they gave the government substantial powers. Gary they were very careful to limit those powers to specific areas, regulation of commerce, armed forces and so forth but they are very broad powers. And to interpret them otherwise, the constitution does still guarantee a level of state sovereignty the constitution doesnt give power to the federal government and that is where a lot of controversy arises. But our take generally is we should interpret the constitutions grants of power generously. The constitution immediately being implemented, Alexander Hamilton is washingtons secretary of the treasury, adopt a broad view of National Powers and James Madison wrote in the federalist papers adopted a narrower view of constitutional powers. Thomas jefferson opposed broad National Powers, a lot of debate over the scope of National Powers are actually replays of Alexander Hamilton versus Thomas Jefferson transpose and fast forward to the debt 225 years. We generally side with the hamilton view not because we are politically disposed to broad National Powers the because that is what we think the constitution says. The constitution does not map will to any political agenda. Sometimes it will produce a politically liberal results, sometimes it will produce publicly conservative results and the framers in drafting the constitution set out broad charter of government that didnt have todays politics specifically in mind. We found as we were writing the book it turned out to be in some ways nonideal logical but mixed ideological, it comes out in different generations does not necessarily reflect any political view today. You see a lot of people in evoking the constitution for political purposes. I would urge you if constitution always agrees with your politics you are not reading the constitution, you are reading your politics into the constitution. And most people like the book but they disagree at particular points. And some disagreement comes from the political right. That leads us to think were getting it just right. Lets turn to some questions from the audience in the last 20 minutes of our time together. Interesting question. Art beagles dollars 100 years hence as likely to question todays rulings as you questioned the past rulings . What a terrific question . You want to handle that . You are the legal scholar. The reason that is so insightful is we sit here as monday morning quarterbacks looking at things 150 years ago and we are hitting ourselves in the head. How could they have fought that. It seemed people were pretty convinced that those were constitutional understanding of the time. Sometimes people look back at what passes for constitutional interpretation and go what were they thinking. If you have broad historical sense of the way subsequent generations have viewed previous generation of constitutional interpretation you have to come to the conclusion that there is a lot to be skeptical of today and it might not survive 30, 40 50 years from now. The last chapter of the book covers the most recent constitutional period, 1960 to 2015. Ridiculous period of time to cover to capture in one chapter but the one word title we use is controversy because the theme of the modern era has been a resurgence of judicial activism where courts decide more and more issues of social and governmental policy. In many ways it is entirely possible when luke is up here 40 years from now, having this conversation with my grandson. The third edition of the book. The constitutional world, we could look back on the late 20th century. It is constitutionally questionable, much debated. The Supreme Court decides it is a hot topic debate. And the issues of today as constitutional interpretation might in certain circumstances of gone awry. Do you agree . Partly, i think controversy is a cop out because every generation had a controversy and the difference with the modern era of little more careful about not taking a position on it. That is not where is going. A few questions of specific provisions. The Second Amendment based on the founders fears of standing armies . Yes. The short version, the Second Amendment is that fascinating amendment, the political purpose of it was fear of a Central National army and they wanted to protect the peoples right to bear arms in part as a military check on a national military, something from our modern standpoint we view as wildly as anachronistic but the idea was weve years of possibility of a National Government holding all the guns the same way we would view the british having all the guns. What they are thinking in protecting the right to keep and bear arms is minute men who can be summoned at a moments notice to resist an overweening National Government. That is probably the purpose and historical background, the way they wrote the text of the Second Amendment they talked about the importance of the militia and gave that a preamble and introductory phrase. The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. An interesting example that the contents that they wrote is actually broader than the historical purposes that led to a. This proved fascinating debates the Supreme Court is divided very closely on this issue. One camp says this amendment is only about state militias and it is a dead letter by individual handgun ownership. Another camp, the one that has narrowly prevailed in recent years is a look at what they actually wrote, the content, like it or knock, provides an individual right to personal firearms possession and the Supreme Court is working out the understanding of amendments adopted in 1791. These historical purposes when they write a constitutional text they write it to survive and indoor overtime the nature of the right they road is the one that brought implications to today to go beyond their specific contemplation of the time. Other questions about specific provisions in the constitution, please discuss the founderss intent regarding the Commerce Clause and the use and abuse of the Commerce Clause over the years. Would you like that one . I can give all little bit of background i guess. The Commerce Clause grants power to regulate commerce with foreign nations in between states. The first major controversy over this is the National Bank so this was very eerily on and continued until the year of andrew jackson. Was the question of whether congress has the authority to create a bank of the United States which today kind of exists, the federal reserve. Is it really a regulation of commerce . It does nothing to direct a regulate commerce but then you have the necessary and proper clause which says okay, congress can make any law that is necessary and proper to carry out these powers that it is given including the commerce power. This is another hamilton versus jefferson debate, what exactly does necessary and proper mean . Does that mean anything that is strictly necessary or does that more broadly mean anything that reasonably serves the ends of for example regulating commerce. Hamiltons you won up. Today the Commerce Clause, the power to regulate commerce, when you team it up with the necessary and proper clause, sort of become the authority used to justify most federal government regulations of business, economics and commercial matters generally. I have a lot professor in law school who used to tell the story, the punch line of which is the Commerce Clause is something we use for everything. The words actually sustain this as necessary and proper clause. The power designed to regulate interstate relationships of commerce actually became Something Congress could leverage into a general Economic Policy argument when they concluded regulating intrastate within a state, was necessary to accomplish an interstate commercial Regulatory Regime. There hasnt been a case that struck down the statute, exercising commerce power since 2012. The obamacare case was one where the Supreme Court said imposing a mandate to Purchase Health insurance is not a regulation of commerce, it is a mandate of commerce and you cannot get there under the Commerce Clause. The ground on which the Supreme Court sustained congresss power to pass the obamacare legislation was the taxing power because they in for what happened under obamacare, if you didnt purchase individual Health Insurance your subject to a tax penalty. It was the taxing power another power hamilton and madison debated furiously that became the basis for sustaining the Patient Protection Affordable Care act of years ago. It is interesting, the arguments in 2012 by the same arguments as in 1789, translated into a different contexts and different characters. 1930s the big ear of Commerce Clauses, the new deal this is my favorite example how far can you stretch the Commerce Clause power . A farmer somewhere in the midwest is producing wheat on the farm that he is considering himself, using to feed his cattle or something and agriculture regulations say no we will limit the amount of wheat you can produce. Because that affects market prices. Producing wheat for ones own consumption also affects market prices so that is a very tenuous connection to commerce in any normal understanding of the term. They did uphold it. Famous case called weaker versus philburn farmer filmburn was growing wheat on his own land and said you cant regulate that and the Supreme Court said i think it was unanimously yes we can. A few questions about the founderss intends it represents several others, many profess to express the founders intent of the constitution but the founders were of very diverse bunch, federalists and antifederalists it cetera. Anything such as the original founderss intends to guide us . Great question and debatet to guide us . Great question and debate for the ages. Let me take a different take on. There were many purposes and intentions they came together and that is why the debate culminates in a written text. One of the points we made early on describing the constitution as its central feature, one of its core killers is the fact that it is the written constitution which we are very familiar with we see the document itself and read the parchment and look at it under glass at the national archives, a copy of the bill of rights here but at the time this was regarded as an innovation. Usually the term constitution referred to a nations governing practices. The american understanding of constitution is we wrote it down. What we have is an authoritative written text which declares itself to be the supreme law of the land. The framers did not think that their private expectations or subjected intentions were what counted. What counted were the words they wrote down on paper. And the meaning of those words. A lot of that is obviously affected by your understanding of history and social context in which it was written. One of the leading debate these days was whether the constitution is interpreted as in accordance with the original meaning of its words or should it be the subject of intentions of its authors or another variation is some people argue the meaning of the constitution evolves over time. We tend to lean against the idea that the meaning of the words evolves flew with the. Rather, and. Rather, and the meaning of the words has a broad meaning for joy and generations to reinterpreted them. Consistently with the constitution. We sketch out various approaches to constitutional interpretation. There is probably no single framers intent but there is a single document. That is the enterprise to read and understand the meaning of the words of the document and the context in which they are written. The 800th anniversary of ha are people able to exert their interpretation of the constitution . How are people able to exercise their popular sovereignty . A lot of parts of the question but in interesting question about what role do we the people have in exercising popular sovereignty . A great question to end on. This is one of the things i feel really strongly about related to this book and in this end is one of the questions that for writing the book, to show anybody, the average citizen that yes, what we think about the constitution, the way we debate the constitution does matter, and part of that is pushing back against the trend in this latest era to 1960 to consider the Supreme Court as the only branch of government that can interpret the constitution in a way that binds all the other branches. That is historically i think what we are trying to show not really accurate. The president and congress and sometimes even the states have played an Important Role in constitutional interpretation and those are democratically elected, directly elected branches of government. So really popular sovereignty and constitutional interpretation means people care about what is being done with the constitution and that comes out in elections and so the basic message of this book or one of them. I am sure there are many and we are trying to a jew kate too the basic message is people can and should care about what the constitution means. That is terrific. Of the professor could add a word or two. In part we went to demystify the constitution. We dont think it is an obscure document that only lawyers can understand and they proclaim it to the rest of us. We think that the meaning of the constitution provisions written in plain english were written for popular understanding and popular application. The first three words it is almost a cliche, we the people. The constitution was designed as a peoples document establishing fundamental law that governs the governoed since people were responsible and the ultimate interpreters of the constitution are we the people, it is a document designed for us and our posterity. Those are the closing words of the preamble. Exactly right. Part of what we wanted to do is to write a book not just for lawyers or professors but for the people that would reintroduce the people to their constitution and equip citizens on constitutional issues. That is what we have accomplished here. The constitution an introduction by Michael Stokes paulsen and luke paulson, congratulations on writing the book and publishing it. A fantastic book, and everyone should read it as we just heard. If you want to be engaged and informed citizen under the constitution. Thank you both and this has been a delightful event and there will after words the books available for purchase and signing by the authors. Thank you, michael and luke. [applause] [inaudible conversations] booktv is on Facebook Like us to get publishing news scheduling updates, behindthescenes picture and video, author information and to talk directly with authors during live programs. Facebook. Com booktv. On sunday august 2nd booktv is live with Medea Benjamin cofounder of the Political Advocacy Group code ping con in debt, our live monthly call in show. He it shes the author or editor of nine books including her most recent, an investigation into the use of thrones for military purposes