the fort hood independent review committee about the report on the army's criminal investigation division. and on our website c-span.org at 11 a.m. the house armed services subcommittee holds an oversight hearing on u.s. military special operations. >> fbi director christopher wray stresses the importance of civic education and its link to national security, social media, trust in government, election security and disinformation campaigns. the center for strategic and international studies hosted this event. >> good afternoon, everybody. my name is john hamre, president europe csis i want to welcome you to what's going to be a very, very interesting conversation. this is a continuation of the series we're doing on the national security imperative for civics education. that may sound odd but during the last year we've all experienced startling things about how we need to reinforce the importance of civics and since understanding in american society. it's a national security imperative and we are grateful that today we have the privilege to have the director of the fbi christopher wray with us. his time is limited so i'm going to be just very brief to say how grateful we are he's devoted his lifetime to law enforcement and public service. he has had the opportunity to be in the private sector but we keep calling him back and it's because every time he is in public life we are all in the fitting from it. you all take a look at his resume yourself but i don't want to take any more time. director wray, your service is so valuable to the country. we're so grateful you're willing to share your time with us today. let me turn to you. >> thank you, john. appreciate the kind words and i of course appreciate the chance to talk about the importance of civic education to our national security and to the fbi's work. i thought maybe i would offer a few initial thoughts to sort of set the table and that thek forward to having more of a conversation with suzanne. i think maybe the best place for me to start is to define what at least i think of as civic education, and i'm reminded of something that president reagan said in his farewell address when he spoke about the need for what he called and informed patriotism, one that's grounded in thoughtfulness and knowledge. and that strikes me as a pretty good shorthand or what civic education should do, create informed patriots who know our history and actually understand how our democratic institutions work. so how does civic education intersect with our national security, specific with the fbi's work? in a whole bunch of ways but for the purposes of our conversation i think i would highlight two in particular. first, it intersects with some of the threats the fbi and our nation confront today. and second, it can shape how we do our work. so let me take each of those in turn. one example, has civic education affects a current national security threat, is the election security and more broadly the problem of maligned for an influence which has been a top concern for the fbi recently. we are the lead federal agency for identify, and combating maligned for influence operations that target u.s. democratic institutions and values, things like the rule of law, three and for elections and independent judicial system and freedom of speech and of the press. our adversaries are doing all they can to undermine those institutions and to confuse and divide americans by spreading disinformation, especially through social media. so the fbi has been working very hard to combat those efforts along with our partners in government and very important in the private sector, and we have had a good deal of success but at the end of the day no amount of fbi investigating and by itself sufficiently insulate our country from this threat. ultimately our best defense is a well-informed public, citizens who are thoughtful, discerning consumers of all the information that is out there and who have a solid understanding of how our democratic institutions work. an american public of informed patriots would be a lot more resilient against these malign influence efforts and that injured will it a lot harder for our adversaries to succeed. the second-place that i was referring to where civic education intersects the fbi's mission concerns that we do our work of protecting the american people. one thing i really have been trying to stress to our folks since i started in this job is the importance of process,, of making sure we always do the right thing, yes, but do the right thing in the right way. we can't carry out the fbi's mission without the trust and support of the american people so we have to make sure that we are always doing our work in a way that's professional, objective, and that burns, that justifies that trust and support -- earns. another way to put it is that when people asked the fbi to do something, i think there is and should be and a unique expectation that it is going to get done right. and every sense of that word. we are the people others turn to when it's particularly important something get done right, and the more important it is, the more people turn to us with that expectation. and that confidence is at the heart of a lot of things we do like our public russian investigations or civil rights investigations. as a trust that the fbi cannot afford to lose. so i think civic education comes in play here, too, because a well-informed public will have a better understanding of what the fbi really does and why and how we actually do it. and that kind of understanding i would argue is important to really any government agency but it is especially important for us because we have been given such broad powers. citizens need to know is the fbi upholding the constitution and the rule of law. are we to come back to the president before, are we doing the right thing in the right way? so take something like our surveillance work which is crucial for us in catching corrupt public officials, child predators, foreign spies and terrorists. the fbi can't survey of so much is because we want to. we have to go to an independent judge to show evidence of probable cause and get a warrant. or take our fights back authority. fisa meccas been in the news a lot the last couple of years. we suspect someone is a foreign spy or terrace and want to listen to the phone calls or read their e-mails we've got to present evidence and get a warrant from the fisa court to do that. when citizens have a good understanding of the fourth amendment and how warrant to work in the safeguards we got in place, they will have that much more confidence the fbi is using that tool appropriately. and obviously if we're not doing things the right way, and informed public will be better prepared to hold us accountable for that. the last point i will make is that to me civic education is important for helping our fbi workforce understand both the importance of our mission and f doing things in the right way. so when we are hiring we are looking for those informed patriots obviously, once they are actually on board their training involves some things that you might think of as almost an ongoing civic education. so, for example, all our new agents and intelligence analysts at quantico visit the 9/11 memorial and museum in new york. we want them to understand the magnitude of what happened to our country that day, how would change the bureau and a crucial our counterterrorism work remains almost two decades later. they also visit the holocaust museum to experience any kind of got level way the horror of what can happen when people in government abuse their power. and they visit the martin luther king memorial here in d.c. as reminder of how the fbi itself hasn't always use our authority in the right way. all of these things drive home each in its own way the space of her work, the sheer impact we can have good or bad on all the citizens who are counting on us. so if our employees can recognize the abuse of power and understand our own organization is sometimes fallen short, they will be less likely to make those same mistakes. so those are a few reasons from our perspective why civic education is critical to our national security and i would be happy to drill into some these topics with suzanne more deeply in the second but thanks again for inviting the effort focusing on this issue which i think is incredibly important. >> director wray, thank you for those terrific remarks. for those who are watching i am suzanne spaulding, , senior advisor here at the center for strategic and international studies where i lead the defending democratic institutions project. i want to echo dr. hamre welcome to all of you to this latest installment in that year-long strategic dialogue that we've been hosting on civics as a national security imperative which is made possible by funding from craig newmark philanthropy. director wray in your remarks today he talked about the threat of a light influencing disinformation. for the last three years the defending democratic institutions project that i later csis has been working to understand and counter adversary attacks on our democracy and our democratic institutions with a particular focus on russian disinformation that undermines public trust in our justice system, including courts and law enforcement. you and your team have been looking at this for quite some time. how dangerous do you think these information operations, disinformation from our adversaries come how seriously should we be taking this? >> we take it extremely seriously. at the end of the day part of what what i would consider a crucial component of america's strength and credibility in the world and the strength of our country internally turned on trust in government and understanding of government, and especially given the challenge of combating misinformation with social media these days. it's not much more elusive a target to go after. the fbi is not -- biscuit spectacle civics thing. the fbi is not and cannot be the truth police. we can identify for actors and go after them and take certain steps within our authorities and working with others to prevent them from spreading disinformation but we can't roam around social media looking for things that might be false and then correcting them. there is a wall for that but that's not the fbi's role. -- there is a role -- that's why set out for and i a thoughtful, discerning public is because that's really the best insulation we can have against what you think i rightly our focus on is a very serious threat. >> the challenge you face is further complicated by the trend we have seen in 2016 russia focused on manufacturing content that the internet research agency in st. petersburg russia but increasingly they moved toward simply amplifying domestic voices and indeed domestic disinformation has become more and more significant part of the problem. so how does that complicate the path the fbi faces? >> it complicates it enormously. on the one hand, disinformation is not a new thing here the russians and other countries have been involved in it for decades but what is relatively new is the role of social media in particular in amplifying to use your word that threat. it provides a bullhorn that is scalable, cheap, and incredibly effective. and so again trying to figure out ways to get the american public to be thoughtful about what it's reading, what the source of the information is, getting your news from multiple sources, although sorts of things become incredibly important to insulating as against that threat but it's going to take a whole of government and a whole of society really and that's not a phrase i just battle off lightly. there's a role for the government agency, private sector, technology industry but also a role of every american and guarding against the threat you are talking about. >> absolutely. and i threat it is. you talked about how seriously you take it and i think we certainly saw with the events of january sixth how dangerous some of the misinformation and disinformation online can be in terms of manifesting itself in the real world. and you put out a statement on january 7 in which he talked about we do not tolerate violent agitators and extremist who use the guys the first amendment protected activity to incite violence and wreak havoc. such behavior betrays the values of our democracy. and you have testified repeatedly about what a significant challenge domestic terrorism is in our country today. as we talk about ways in which we work to counter efforts to undermine trust in our institutions, it seems to me you do again have a significant challenge. how do you convince the american public and how do you think about the need to robustly address this threat of domestic terrorism, domestic violent extremism, while maintaining that public trust as you spoke about that you're doing things the right way consistent with our value, our values and the constitution? >> said this is obviously something that is very much top of mind the last couple years and certainly the last couple of months. as you say we need to make sure we're going about in the right way and part of that in the context of domestic terrorism is making sure people understand that our focus, the fbi's focus, is on violence and criminal activity, not first amendment expression. no matter how abhorrent,, despicable, hate for anything else that rhetoric or expression might be. there is a role for calling out hateful rhetoric. it's just not the fbi's role. what we are about is going after when that ideology or rhetoric manifests itself to violence and criminal activity. in the more people understand that that's what we're going to do, the more they connect confidence that they will be protected but that also their constitutional rights will also be protected. i keep using this phrase in the right way, that not only applies though to with the fbi does and how we do what we do but i would argue in the context of domestic terrorism it applies to the american public by that i mean there is a right way to express your disagreements with an election or your unhappiness with the court system or the criminal justice system. that's part of what our country is founded on but violence against law enforcement and government officials and distraction of federal property is not the right way to express those views. and we have to have zero tolerance for that and i think the more people understand this concept of the right way, i find we are in a world in which people are fixated almost to a fault on results. so what that inset meaning is that if your standard for whether you trust a government institution is whether it yields the result you want, we are heading down a dangerous road. if your standard is whether you trust an election, is if whether your candidate one, there will be a whole lot of people who we disappointed every single time. your standard would you trust the court system or criminal justice system is whether a a particular person get convicted or acquitted, same thing. the more people understand how these institutions work, how to do what they do, the limitations they have, et , et cetera, te likely there is to be trust in those institutions which in turn hopefully addresses some of the drivers of the violent extremism that we had seen manifested not on january 6 six but giveaways over the summer as well. >> i think that such a great point and i like the way you describe the results, the objective of civics education to create informed patriots who are able to be thoughtful and critique the system and institutions, you know, while working to make our country stronger. to bring about changes. it does seem to me that what we are seeing in the decline of civic education, it's not just what surveys show about how many people can't name the three branches of government. but as you say how those branches work, how our institutions are designed to work. and importantly how individual s must play a role in holding them accountable and empowering individuals to be effective agents of change. and so what would you say the folks who are hearing this and you are thinking okay how can i as an individual help hold the fbi accountable for living up to the oath that all of us take? >> well i think one is understanding that very little of what we do at the fbi lends itself to a tenth-second soundbite or 150 character tweet. it's nuanced, complicated, it's meaningful. so getting your news about the fbi come just like i would recommend just about everything else, from a variety of sources and being thoughtful about it would be a good start. in addition with the fbi in particular in every one of our 56 field offices so everyone listening in on this has a field office that would be the closest to them, with something called the fbi citizens academy which takes the concept i just articulated, to the next level where you can become part of a group of citizens, it takes about a a year and you meet aw times a year and you get educated and a much more substantive way about what we do and then you stay involved as alumni and very our citizens for a variety of jobs and roles in the community if i guess if it's happening all over the u.s. and it's been happy for a number of years now. so we in the sense are trying to cultivate our own group, if you will come around the country of informed patriots who understand what the fbi does. and then you know the right questions to ask if you know when we screwed up, we do screw up and you're better able to call us on it. >> that's terrific. this is one of the things that we've been talking a lot about and the strategic dialogue we've been holding as civics as a national security imperative. how do we create this sense of urgency to increase civic literacy? and a sense of civic identity and shared values across this country. it does seem we have a moment here, that there is an increasing awareness of how we have underresourced and undervalued civic education in this country. there's legislation that's been introduced in both the house and the senate by a bipartisan group of senators and members of congress to reinvigorate civics education, civic secures democracy i think his name of that legislation. a roadmap was just released educated for democracy roadmap the cyberspace commission include a recommendation, a recommendation to reinvigorate civics education, to build civic responsibility about cybersecurity and disinformation. so there is a lot that needs to be done. i think we need a year at civic renewal and i would just ask as the closing, i know your time is limited here with us. as we think about how to bring civics alive for students and for adults all across america, i think about some of my formative experiences when i was growing up in washington. my mother worked on the hill and when i had school, i would go in with her and wander around the capital, wander in and out of hearing rooms and sit in the galleries of the house and the senate. that was sort of my introduction in real world to civics. what were some of your formative experiences either growing up or your career that really gave you that real-world sense of civic responsibility? >> i was smiling to myself. there are two make anecdotes that come to mind. one, taking a little it from the perspective of a parent as opposed to a child, related to my daughter, was that i experienced early on in my tenure as fbi director. so when i was a line prosecutor maidan who was probably four or five years old and they had dad today after nursery school, and the teacher asked all little girls and boys series of questions and the written dancers at the geffen kids on these construction paper teddy bears. they put teddy bears all of the bulletin board and one of the questions is what is your dad you were? all the dads are standing there looking at these teddy bears and the guy next to me keeps looking over at me so i look over at him and he says hey, man, do might if i ask what you do for a living? i look back at my daughters teddy bear and said, my daddy and his friends put bad guys in jail and help keep us all safe. i thought, and then i looked over at his teddy bear and a set my daddy talks on the phone all day so mom and i can buy nice stuff. in that moment i thought all right, you you know, i'm doing something for a living that even a five-year-old little girl with a giant ribbon in her hair actually appreciates as meaningful and impactful. the other story that comes to mind for my time as director which is been in my mind a lot lately with all the domestic terrorism, i went to all 56 of the fbi field offices by the end of my first full year and am what i went to to oklahoma city in particular i met with the family of a victim of the oklahoma city bombing. and specifically i met, you probably have seen most of your probably seen this, a famous photograph of the oklahoma city bombing of a firefighter holding a baby who had been murdered in that attack, one year old. and i met with the mama of that murdered one year old, and it turns out she had a younger sister who never knew her older sister because she was killed in the attack. the younger sisters name is bella, and fast forward useless oklahoma city bombing, bell is basically college age. guess what bella wants to do for a living? she wants to work at the fbi. and she knows the fbi through how we investigated that attack and how we dealt with the victims and their families. and so i try to say to our people inc. of all the bellas out there who, that's not an isolated example. they contended families if they see the way we operate and the impact we can have for good and for bad, it shapes their view about at least one institution in a way that lasts forever. >> yeah, great, great. great memories, great stories, great message. thank you very much, director wray. your commitment to civic education is reflected in your willingness to carve out time to be with us today. i know you have a lot going on, so thank you so much. >> thank you, suzanne. i really encouraged to see all focusing on this very ornamental and important topic. >> thank you. >> take care. >> so as the director departs for his busy day i would ask all of you to remain on because we have tremendous panel that is still too. we we're going to go right intt and i have the great fortune of introducing the moderator for our panel, my good friend elizabeth rindskopf parker. elizabeth is a consultant with the fintech democratic institutions project and has been really a guiding force from the very beginning of this project and it's really been leading our civics effort here in the context of the project. she is also a former chair of the senate committee on law and national security of the american bar association, and a lifelong, a lifetime counselor to the committee and a of the council of foreign relations. elizabeth real expertise for this panel of national security lawyers is that she has held i think for more national top-level national legal secures that i think anyone i know. she was general counsel of the nsa pictures principal deputy eagled fight at the department of state and she was general counsel at central intelligence agency which is where i met her as a junior attorney in otc at cia. after that public service she was a general counsel for the 26 campus university of wisconsin system. she was then dean of the mcgeorge school of law at the university of the pacific in california and she founded the journal on national security law and policy. and she was most recently executive director of the state bar of california. and elizabeth it is my pleasure to turn over to you to moderate his terrific lineup of national security lawyers on the topic of the national security lawyer and civics education. >> thank you, suzanne, on john hamre, and one of remark some director wray. i have great honor of moderating of diabetes panel in the next hour come and have just make a couple of very brief comments. i shared with the panel the disturbing results of countless surveys which i become aware of that show that civic knowledge is really at an all-time low and to meet most disturbing is the find in one recent survey only 24% of millennials actually think -- partly, think that democracy is a very bad way to run the country. imagine that. there is a a corollary because recently in the national assessment of educational progress we found that only 24% of eighth grade students performed at or above the proficient level. perhaps there's an expedition as to why so many students have no confidence in democracy. some could argue that the events, tragic events of januare of the problem. so with this in mind what i like to ask this remarkable panel to spend a moment thinking about is whether we are correct in suggesting that civic education has really become a national security imperative. any minute i'm going to ask each of the panel members to say a word about themselves then we will turn to questions. what i would like to explore is what does this decline in civic education mean for our democracy? does the decline mean that we lack the resilience needed to deal with the kind of disinformation attacks we're looking at? does it become a national security threat? but are there also broader threats to our national security that this lack of civics might contribute to? and finally i would ask the panelists they could give us some specific examples, good or bad, , from the time is national security lawyers but also both in and out of government as to how they see this problem. and then i think most importantly, if we are correct in the diagnosis of the problem as truly a national security threat, are there solutions that we should look at? so judge baker i would like to begin with you. you know, i tend to embrace just about everything suzanne says but i think she may be wrong when she says that i helped more national security positions than anyone else she knows. i believe you get that award. you have spent a lifetime focus on national security, and i think great credit i think encouraging you to join the department of state when you were just a pop but you grew up to be an eagle and my hat is off to for all you've done and you went from actually you spent time in a military come in the marines, then moved interestingly to the congress with senator moynihan and then of course i mentioned the state department, and you don't eventually to the nsc. and finally for just became a judge with the military court of appeals, and now you head the national security project at syracuse university where you're both a professor of law and at the max will center which course is highly regarded for its policy work. so perhaps nobody more than you has seen the broad sweep of civic education and now you see it in an academic setting. you focused on the ethical frameworks for the rule of law, so values have been something you've looked at. i'm curious to know what your perceptions are from this broad experience that you have had. >> oh, boy. thank you, elizabeth. elizabeth is right that she had a role in my pupdom in government service for which i think her because part of the system of government is having a mentor is a very important thing. and that's not what i came in to say today, but part of education is finding a mentor and learning from them about government and how it works here i think you asked me to make a comment about ethics, and this ties in with director wray's excellent points about informed patriotism and doing the right thing the right way. and in my experience, the hard part of government is doing it the right way. we often know what the right thing to do is, but it's often hard to do it the right way. as lawyers, we sit at the nexus of constitutional friction, between the branches of government where the politicians are trying to win, politicians are not necessarily focused on doing the right thing on winning. .. >> leon had a wonderful phrase, elizabeth. the duty of a national security lawyer is to get to yes with honor with a nation well taken care of and the constitution intact. and to understand the nation being well taken care of and the nation intact, you have to look at the constitution intact means and what it means to take care of the nation. and that requires the study of history. i love the fact that director wray indicated all of his incoming special agents, they go to the 9/11 memorial and history is the key, but understanding when government works, when it doesn't works, why it doesn't work is a big part of civic education. i know we're limited in the opening round to 48 minutes each so i need to be careful to limit my talking points. i have two more. we can't always assume that the people in government, so we're talking about civic education. i might note that that starts with government and not necessarily -- we shouldn't assume that everyone in government know the civics we would like them to know and here i'm focused not on the structure of government, the what of government, but the why of government. i found that a lot of times when i was explaining the law to senior officials or other foreclosures, they knew what the law was, they knew what the constitution said or says, they didn't understand the why. a lot of times when i was put to the test about getting to question with honor rather than just to yes, it was because the person i was talking with or the people i was talking with didn't understand the values behind the law and why it was we were this that position we were in. and so i think what we bring to the table as lawyers is the ability to not just say what the law is, what democracy is, but why it is. and why that provision of the constitution states what it states. we need to do more of that. and then turning to the public, you said you reminded that i worked for senator daniel patrick moynihan at one time. a wonderful public servant who served four different presidents, two of each party, which is something you won't see that often or any more. and he famously said, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. not their own facts. and education is about learning how to critically think, critically think with that knowledge of history and that ability to look through issues, determine fact from fiction. and that's what education brings to the table. it's ability to critically think. and determine what is fact and so on. and to do what director wray said to do is to make sure that the government is following the right process and not just getting to the result you might like. he also made the point about trust. trust is all about government. if we don't have trust in government, we won't trust the result or the process, and then one last point, this is my final point. i did serve on a court and i found generally, in my experience, although it's the narrowest of government missions, the judicial branch is the least understood of the federal branches of government and one way i sought to address that is by bringing students in to do courts and mock court trials at the court and the security loved it in part and then they didn't love it because the court looked quite different after we were done with it. it looked like a lunch room not a courtroom. about you that was magical because these students learned for the first time what it meant to stand up in a court and speak about the constitution, about the law and how they could advocate for themselves and each other. so one of the take aways here, director ray is doing the teddy bear thing with his children and i would encourage each of us to find a way that we could bring younger people into our lives as lawyers and give them a sense how we go about our business in defending the constitution. thank you, elizabeth. >> thank you, judge baker, you did go over the two minutes i gave you, but well worth it. great expenditure of additional time. o'connor, i'd like to come to you next, and you ended your government career as the general counsel to the defense department, but you you've been in the white house, the counsel's office and health and human services and you began your career in private practice, but now you're with a major corporate entity, northrup. i'm curious to know, can you say first of all about the tension between secrecy, how do you balance intelligence and the need for secrecy in a democracy and you saw that at the defense department. i'd be curious to know whether you have comments about the different perspectives you've seen among those in the private sector, versus those within the government as you've gone forward in your career? >> sure. thank you. and thanks for organizing this discussion, which is so important. and to take on this topic, you know, transparency is critical to a working democracy and that goes for the area of intelligence and national defense operations rit large as well as other parts of the government. and people need to know what the government is doing to choose leaders and hold them accountable. in the area of intelligence in particular, it's important to show legitimacy and create trust as director wray was saying and as well as for our allies and partners and other countries to see what we're doing is spotted by law and at least more effective national security policy. and the balance between that transparency and secrecy is really important because it's also vital that we don't actually weaken or endanger our national security and the process, you know, if we are not extremely careful how we treat information and more importantly, people could be endangered, troops, or others. it's hard to get it right, but the basic principal is simple, to be as transparent as possible without endangering people in the process. when i was in the defense department, we focused on that a lot across the obama administration in all kinds of ways. and included a lot of public relations of information about how we used military force and conducted national security operations and what the legal basis was for that, the framework for it and i and my predecessors and also the state department, all explained these kinds of things. and at the end of the administration we pulled it altogether in a report. and we spent a lot of times on reporting of civilian casualty numbers and making sure they're right and operations, and where and how many there were and particular operations, just to give a few examples. and it was across all the government agents and the national security that we had this basic process and goal, and trying to share as much oofrgs information as we could safely do because it's important for democracy and for people to understand the legitimacy of what the government was doing. to your second question, that's not really changed since i entered the private sector, but i can say that working for a large private sector organization has made it clear that a lot of the principles that we're talking about here related to civic engagement and service are very much true in large private sector organizations, employees want to know the mission of their employer and the values. they want to know that it's going to do the right thing, that it aims to do the right thing, do it in the rye-- right way and for us stem education is a big feature and we want to be involved in the partnership that we're engaged in and they want to be engaged in the communities and it kind of fits together so i'll stop there because of your time limits, but thank you for putting this together, it's a great top, it's really important. >> that's terrific. before i go to tia johnson, i want to remind the audience if you can ask questions, the way to do that is to fill out a question form on-line at the csis event page and the green button is says ask questions live. that's your cue and we hope to hear from you as well. sophia, if i could go to you next. once again, a remarkable background. in your case you became i think the first african-american woman to become a colonel in the army as a jag lawyer. i think it was almost what, 20 years in the jag corps for you, but now in the academic world and you've been teaching at georgetown and elsewhere. you've got a broad perspective. tell us about your experience when you served in bosnia as part of the jag corps. what did you learn about specific education needs of that country and frankly, our own as well from that experience? >> well, thank you, dean parker for putting on this discussion and inviting me, i appreciate it. yes, i was deployed to bosnia in early 2000 as part of the nato peacekeeping force, you know, one of the things we do in the military we talk about bottom line upfront and i'm going to answer your last question first. the biggest lesson learned i took away from 18 months there, was that the ven near of civilization is very fragile and once ruptured is difficult to piece it back together. as many people may not realize of what were the six provinces in the former yugoslavia, bosnia-herzegovina, was the most-- for the civil war between the slavics and the bosnian muslims, but they all were slavs was eye opening and shocking to everyone. with regard to civic education this was also at the time lord robinson was the secretary-general of nato and lord robinson was committed to taking bosnia from civil war to european atlantic integration. a lot of time and effort was spent by our eu allies as well as nato on democratization, trying to build capacity in the central government. yes, educating people because of course, they're emerging outs of a communist regime so you're trying to do all of these layers simultaneously, but, yes, civic education was incredibly important because again, as i said, they were emerging out of communist regime so we were trying to fix all of this stuff at the same time. the other perspective, by the time i'd gotten to bosnia, i had done a lot of democratization work. i had been fortunate at that time to have worked on the team, on implementing luger and that was the whole effort to get the nukes out of the former soviet union when i was in the democratization. so going in and meeting with and talking to the militaries about the role of the military in a democratic society and that that's vitally important and this goes back to the comments that director wray was making and in american society, we have a compact with the population, we're the servants of the nation and so it's vitally important that in that-- within that relationship then, that there's trust and confidence. now, you know, the military routinely scores very high on public opinion polls with regard to trust and confidence, but you have to trekt that relationship and you have to protect that trust and so it is deeply troubling and again, with insurrection, to see the numbers coming out of the people who have been arrested and i'm looking-- i don't have any glasses on and i'm trying to read. one in five defendants in the cases thus far has-- were either military veterans or had some military service, that's incredibly scary, and the fact that, you know, that the seriousness of way the department of defense took that is evidence by the actions by the brand new secretary of defense when he ordered a standdown in early february, a 60-day standdown so all commands could exam this issue and come up with an action plan. so it goes back to the importance of civic education. the military is a microcosm of society and as you reported out the scary findings with regards to the dismal state of civic education among young people, well, that's who we're recruiting. we're recruiting 18 and 19-year-olds into the military, if they don't understand our system of government, you know, notwithstanding the fact that we take an oath, we swear to uphold the constitution of the united states, if they don't understand what that means and the next against all enemies both foreign and domestic, you know, they have to understand what the constitution does, that it creates our structure of government and our system of government and what our role as a military is in that and it's to defend that. we're not beholden or loyal to a person, or even a position, but it's to the constitution of the united states. >> well, that's a remarkably powerful set of observations and i suppose maybe i'm giving you a conclusion, would you agree you're not getting them to have the background they need. there's a remedial job in civic education for those coming into the military? >> correct. i mean, again, that's why-- the military is recruiting from the general population, we're not creating people from home and so, if, when they come in to us if they're coming in in enlistment, 18, 19, 20 year olds or even the officer corps. we're getting them out of the academy and graduate school and commissioning them as officers. if they don't have that core understanding of our structure of government and how our government operates, what the are coordinate branches of government, what are their respective roles, what is the mutual respect we are to accord each other. if they don't have that understanding, then it's very difficult to maintain that kind of service leadership role that the military is supposed to have. and another study i was reading that they had told the graduates from the academy and the military, the officer, the junior officer corps and it was a real sense of superiority that they felt that military service and being a military officer made them superior to members of the general public and that's dangerous because again, if you find-- if you have an officer corps that's in that space, that's when you start getting the thinking of we know better. you know? the civilians are messing this up, maybe we need to step in and do this in a different way because we can do it in a better way. and that's not the military and so both at the enlisted state and in our officer's ranks, we have got to ensure that our personnel are trained and knowledgeable about, you know, the structure of government. that the role, what the role of the military is in a democracy and how we execute that role. >> powerful comments. and now i'd like to come to you next on-- you had a very interesting background. we've been talking with tia a little about the military and how important it is for incoming officers and enlisted people to understand the structure of government, but you as the general counsel of dhs had a very challenging role because you sat in an agency that was really trying to deal with security in the domestic space. we had to think of security that we focused on nationally or i should say in the foreign world. i'd like to ask you a little bit about how you saw that tension between what we can do in our foreign activities and when we try to protect the nation from foreign threats and how that then works out when we're really talking about domestic challenges? so, could you say a little about your time as a general counsel at dhs? >> absolutely. and thank you for including me in this discussion and in this program. it's extremely important topic. yeah, my experience at dhs for me was a shift that's focused because i had-- most of my career had been within the justice department focusing on purely domestic type issues, and what i took away from the dhs experience was really kind of thinking of the security realms in really three categories, but the foreign or international as you alluded to and then the border area. and then the domestic interior issues. and in each of those realms or zones have dinner sets of governmental authority associated with them and different restrictions, legal, constitutional. so for dhs, i would say it's -- it sort of fills the gaps between what have been the primary areas of other agencies, both at the federal and local level. the border is certainly an important sort of area where it operated-- operates at, but also, inside the country and it's homeland security mission, really, just to sort of tie it to the civics theme, is really focused on public-private partnerships of various forms to try to promote security. you know, the sort of simple catch phrase to see something, say something, what you see at tsa is in some ways kind of an umbrella of description of what the homeland security department tries to do in terms of engaging ideally with informed citizen patriots to try to build a homeland security enterprise that isn't necessarily driven by state action in the same way that perhaps some of our foreign activities are, but it's more of a collaborative exercise and it depends very heavily on having informed citizenry, having-- you know, it's one thing to see something and say something, it's another thing to see something and say something appropriate and useful and there's a big difference between those two things. and its citizens are the ones that are going to make the difference in terms of the quality of that from the government's perspective and ultimately from society's perspective. i will say one thing that i was struck by when i was at dhs and which i've been increasingly focused on in my present role, which is in the tech state, between technology and civics and security. because i think -- and director wray talked about this a little bit, when you look at what's happening in the space, propaganda is not new. conmen are not new. what's new is the ability to use technology to target people and artificial intelligence to leverage that and to do that targeting at scale and see-- and that creates a different threat landscape than we've ever had before and again, it brings us back to civics in the sense that you need to have some tech literacy along with your traditional civics. and i hope we're able to figure out ways to leverage technology to promote good ends, not just to tap into our baser instincts in some ways. and we can make our democracy stronger, we can make our civics education more spelling-- compelling and we can use technology to promote discourse to break down silos of information and ultimately to promote more analog and in-person engagement because that's really where community happens and that's kind of where the good stuff occurs. so, it ultimately leads to service, not just leading on-line and so-- >> well, i think you actually anticipated a question that i was going to ask you, but maybe i'll ask it nonetheless, you've moved into computer security, tech issues rather significantly, i think, in your positions after dhs and i wonder, in doing so, i think now you're with a new organization that is talking about international-- developing a new global payment system has your perspective changed now that you've returned to the private sector. what are you seeing on a private perspective on these issues? >> yeah, what's interesting, when you're a lawyer in the private sector, you're-- at least in my current role, i'm helping to bridge an understanding of the government and hopefully building at least some level of trust in the government, which is sort of the flip side of what the government is trying to do from the public-private perspectivement and so there's an element of civic education in at that exercise as an advisor. but the success of the project that i'm involved with and many others is really about figuring out ways for the private sector and the public sector to work together towards, you know, common goals and common ends, and again, there's been a lot of mention of trust. it really does come down to building those-- not just knowledge, but it's actual relationships and so, yeah, the-- when you're in the public sector, your ultimate goal is to serve the rest of the people who are in the private sector and yet, sometimes that gets lost and i have to remind my client and my clients that sometimes it's really just a function of letting the public specter understand what you're doing in the private sector because ultimately well-intentioned public servants are there to serve the public and you're part of the public. again, it's civics in a different form. >> well, now i'd like to move to yes not just mine, but i've had a couple of important ones coming in from the audience, but before i do, we've only got about, well, 25 minutes left and i want to be sure we don't miss a chance to talk about possible solutions if we believe, and i think what i've heard there is a problem in civic education, you agree with that. what kind of solutions might there be? and here i would just remind the audience, i think the panel is aware of this, just yesterday two important things happened. suzanne mentioned the civic secures democracy act of 2021, which is bipartisan legislation, very important, and i might ask you to comment on that and secondly, there was also a hearing yesterday by the senate armed services committee. again, hearing testimony from the bipartisan commission on military national and public service which was a 11 member commission established in honor of the late senator john mccain making extremely important recommendations on how to improve not just military service, but also public service generally and interesting to me, it might not have started out with this notion, but it's clearly concluded with a view that civic education has got to be enhanced and improved. so let me just start by asking jenny baker, would you like to make a comment on either of these proposals or what you think the solution might be? as you do, let me have an important question from the public i'll read it, how could you assure that civic education to be discerning and thoughtful and not cover propaganda and can we assure that the public education itself is not simply another name for propaganda. let's start with you, jamie and then i might ask each of the panelists to make a comment, if you will. >> thank you to your question and thank you to the member of the public for their question. i have three responses and i'd like those to start with focusing on the input rather than the output. the output on knowing governor, 8% know this and 10% knows that. i'm thinking of whitney gristwold, the inquister has lost. the only assurance against bad ideas is better ideas. the source of better ideas is wisdom. the surest path to wisdom is a liberal education, a liberal education. point one, education is a zero-sum game. more of one thing that you teach the less of others you teach. i was a board chair in my previous life of a school and it was all stem, stem, stem. that's all anybody wanted to learn. science, math, well enough if we're going to compete successfully, we're trying-- we need stem. nobody-- no parent ever complained to me they weren't getting enough constitutional law or historical analysis at the school, they wanted calculus in third grade and robotics in kindergarten and if we're going to talk about civic education we have to realize that we're going to have to give something up for it. and we're going to have to return to a study of the liberal arts. leadership is a liberal art. government is a liberal art. you don't learn leadership from mac, you learn it from shakespeare and reading history, point one. point two, teachers are public servants and we have to act like they're public servants. if we act like they're bureaucrats or if we act like we don't care about them, we might get a product that looks like that. teachers are wonderful public servants and they're ever bit as much public servants and people who work for the government and i love steve's point about public servants can't forget that they serve the public. it's something to always keep in mind. but that's part of teachers as well. and when you look at the most successful educational programs around the world, often times it starts with respect from the teachers. the top college graduates are going into the field of teaching, not just of pay, but because of the respect that's given to teacher at primary, secondary and even at the university level and then, the aba i think can play a role here, too, in terms of what they support and how they support it. law schools are still teaching to the needs of the last century. by the needs of the last century, i mean the 19th century, not even the 20th century. the curriculum needs to change. aba likes to complain and they can be part of the solution by being as good at teaching rule of law in the united states and encouraging the rule of law in the united states as much as they're good about teaching it overseas. the rule of law initiative at aba is the gold standard in the field, but they don't have comparable programs in the united states. so as to the questions from the audience, how do you avoid propaganda and that, in my view you avoid that because you're teaching to critically think know the telling them what to think. you're teaching them history. you're teaching them communication skills so they can pars arguments. lori hobart, my colleague says we read well to write well. that's a liberal art and why do we care about writing well? because that's how we make persuasive arguments. that's what we need to be teaching because that's the route to civic success. that's my response there. not propaganda, the ability to critically think and critically communicate. >> i would think that the new legislation would do two things that you've mentioned are key and one is to increase at the national level funding for civics and history so they get the same history at that stem topics do now and specifically avoiding the need to prescribe any curriculum, recognizing that the standards are set at the state level. and tia johnson i'd like to many could to you for a minute if i might. i mentioned the testimony before the senate armed services committee yesterday on the commission on military and national service, an impressive effort two years, i think something like 4,300 comments received, 350 private organizations talked to. it was really a very comprehensive engagement with the public. among the comments they made is something like .5% of americans currently have experience with active service in the military and so it's increasingly smaller part of the population. they also stress the point that there are too few opportunities for public service outside of the military. i'm just wondering if you could comment on how think that kind of an increased opportunity to engage, even in student years might be valuable. >> thank you. yes, you're correct, the report entitled inspired to serve has multiple recommendations in various categories and one of the areas that we're talking about was the best practices in civic education trois and ser-- service and what they call service learning and the importance ever incorporating both civic education, which judge baker just spoke about, but also thor component of service learning. in k through 12 as well as in higher education and service learning then would be those opportunities as you mentioned, to get students out of the classroom. to be able to translate the things that they learned in the classroom and put it into action. and so the youth programs or even into preexisting programs with, again, inculcate them with this sense of service. when i was doing active duty used to keep a sign under my desk, we used to have glass on the desk and it said, you know, that with every privilege there's a responsibility. with every right comes responsibility and i think that part of what we're seeing is that des connect, that cognitive disconnect between a right. people, oh, it's my right to do whatever, but they don't understand that as a citizen of the united states, they also have responsibilities and that they must perform those responsibilities. so the whole idea behind the recommendation that the commission makes is to try to embed that into particularly k through 12 that they will then come out and have students during that period and then more importantly, come out and maybe go into one of the national service programs, kind of like a peace corps, a domestic peace corps, as it were. we saw it, with teach for america, one. programs, of course, we have a traditional program where in the health department when people went into public health and went to some of the state and local areas to practice, so, that's what the commission is recommending, increasing those types of opportunities as a bridge so as to give students, both the foundational knowledge, as judge baker talked about, and operationally. >> terrific. that's helpful, thank you. it seems to me there's a role for all parts of our society to play. and jen o'connor, i could come to you now that you're in the private sector and substantial corporate entity. in 2019, november i guess it was, the chamber of commerce-- pardon me, the u.s. chamber of commerce and they talked about the business case for civic education. i woulden der -- i wonder if you could share your views if you think there's a role for our private sectors to play for large corporations and small corporations embracing this problem and its solutions? >> i do. and i just want to share one thought that i had about your introduction to the testimony yesterday and the report and i was also struck by this to what tia was saying. one of the things that made me think about is that, you know, it used to be that we had a much broader, more diverse sort of portion of the population. we've had a member of the family serve in the military at some capacity, at some time and so they had a sort of natural understanding of what it does and also served as an inspiration to join either a uniform or a civilian in other ways and i think you still find that many, many people who put on a uniform come from a family where there's somebody in their family who already did that. and you know, that isn't enough. it's not for one thing, it's not diverse enough, right, diverse in every sense of background, of perspective, of geography and you need that diverseness. and i think one of the goals of enhanced education, understand what the military is and what service in the military is inspire a broader set of young people to want to serve and it's true in the legal field very much. when i was at dod and still now when i talk to law students i tell them at that service cadet corps is a terrific career path, you get to serve and this isn't something that everybody gets to hear in law school as a career path, but it's a terrific career path. we ned them to explore it and why it's attractive and that's kind of a part of this and he think in terms of the question of the private sector and its role, it's very varied. i work at a large organization which has national security as part of its mission because that's what its customers are engaged in and hired many, many, many people who come from the private government careers in the area of defense and national security and it's tremendously beneficial to have that experience, but it's also very important in terms of what we do to understand what the government aims are and the responsibility that come with that and the, you know, structure and frame work that surrounds it. and so having a well-informed set of employees who are serving private institutions, you know, it's as important as having well informed employees who are serving public institutions. it all kind of comes together and as i said earlier, we all-- we're all part of communities where we live and so companies have a role to play in terms of encouraging dialog and understanding and community engagement among their employees because we're part of the communities in which we work. >> all right. well, thank you. i'm getting some terrific questions here and i think maybe what i'll do, steve, is to ask you to handle one of them. one person wants to know what during your government service did you do to lead by example and, if you will, foster civic lessons and what do you think the current national security leaders ought to do to improve understanding of the importance of civics, although here we're talking k through 12 or maybe k through 22 if you add law schools, a big part of our population is out of school and we've got to address them as well because i think what our survey results will tell us is that this decline in civic education didn't happen just overnight. it's been a five-decade process, probably dating back even to the time when we first saw that we had a, shall we say, a gap in our stem education as a part of this sputnik law and so this has been something building over time. steve, if you would, could you say a little about what kind of leadership opportunities you saw while this government to promote civics among both, i think the government work force, as well as the public that's important to point out, it's our goal to serve? >> yeah, i love the point about sort of continuing civics education, as it were. i think this is kind of what you were suggesting. and just to link it back to my concern with technology and its impact on these issues, this was something i worried a lot about when i was at the homeland security department and we did both internally and externally launch what we called the cyber and literacy, informing people about the cyber security risk and the security of that data is fundamental to our collective security. but what's interesting, when you think about education, is we have more we have more grant parents in the united states than grandchildren right now. so the population that's probably most in need of, i is a, greater tech literacy to protect them against misinformation and some of the other threats that we are talking about, director wray talked about, are not for school kids when it comes to technology risks, it's older people. it's my parents who are perhaps a little bit too trusting of e-mails that are too good to be true, and happy to click on them without thinking twice. and so the collective effect of ignorance at that level is a big deal. so that was something that we tried to do at the homeland security department. there are opportunities to do a lot more of that, public service education, that make us all stronger. it's really kind of an analogy to a public health campaign. >> very helpful. a couple of questions want to know, i think building on that, what the national security legal community can and should be doing to engage more at all levels in addressing this problem? and i think maybe i'll just make that the last question and let each of you make a quick comment, if you would, and maybe i'll go right back to the beginning and start with you. >> thank you very much. i guess i would respond first, we all have an obligation to get out and communicate and to say that law is not a specialty, you don't need to go to law school to understand law or to value law, it is who we are as a nation and characteristic, if you're a lance corporal in the military you're supposed to understand the law and follow it, including the law around conflict. lesson number one is to make the law accessible to all, as accessible as it can possibly be and that starts with an understanding of the constitution and procedural documents and the underpinning of our democracy. that's our task as teachers. that's ours there. and the second point rather small, lawyers get burdened by the tasks they're performing, but we have to think big and remember it adds up to a greater whole. and i'm sitting here, i love steve's comment about public health education in the technology area. i'm living proof, not living proof, but you can learn new technologies even as you get older and one of the things law schools should be teaching and goes back to grumping about the aba and its standards, they're teaching the rule of perpetuity and what they should be teaching is artificial intelligence and cyber security. thank you. >> okay. thank you. so, tia, let me come to you. >> he threw out the gauntlet. what i just was going back to what we can do, i was going to give examples of what georgetown law center has been doing and are committed to doing. they've had the-- for a very long time and for those who aren't familiar with it, the programs embedded in law school that go out and they're teaching these types of ideas and these types of concepts in high school classes. it's an old program, i did it when i was in law school and we were chiseling notes on the rocks. but georgetown has a robust law program. and the university started a couple of years ago what they called an early outreach initiative and that's reaching into the high schools who may not be in the street law program or reaching into the high schools in the public school districts that are surrounding washington d.c. so particularly the maryland districts and the northern virginia districts and it's the same type of thing, but they bring them into the law school and we do instruction so i've been involved with the early outreach initiative. it's the same idea as both steve and judge baker noted to help them understand that the constitution is not this distance body thing, that it's a very life blood of our nation, that it's the structure of our government. that it's our system of governance and what does it mean and how does that impact them in their daily lives. so that's very important. and again, then in the law school instruction, i teach a course on congressional oversight. again, it's all about article one, article 2 powers and how the articles have to come and get involved in that process, and so, it is important to teach this at all levels and the whole idea of continuing education that i think it's vital any important. because that's the generation most likely to be the most active voters, they're the ones who are probably going to be more likely to try to hold area elected representatives accountable so we want them to also exercise critical thinking skills and not to-- you know, you can get the e-mail and click it and believe it. or i read it on facebook so it must be true. that's one thing that georgetown in particular is trying to do in furthering education at the high school-- oh, yeah, we have the boot camp and that's how we reach the undergraduates, boot camp and then in law schools. >> that's great. your comments about the jag corps resonated with me. i grew up in an era and then i met the jag corps and-- and what should we be doing as lawyers to try to engage these topics? >> winning we all have opportunities to talk with groups of people who are not national security lawyers, right, and i think that taking those opportunities to talk about what we did, what we do, what our experiences are and what the lawyers to work in national security and what the national security part of the government does generally is important. i think that the street law, i love that comment and that program, it's great and the programs where it doesn't have to be like a full-blown program, but opportunities to, you know, one day talk with high school students or, you know, be a part of the mentor program where you need a small number of students and you know, not the students in high school, but also students in college and beyond that in law schools. i think sort of shedding light and you know, helping people to understand it will help to bring them into it and i think what we-- it's very important, i think. and i think that some of the things that the commission report talks about in terms of having more opportunities for people to spend a couple of years in sort of a national service, americorps type program to participate. i think that's critical and i think the national security lawyer role can be to help people encourage people to do that kind of thing to help them understand what this part of the world is all about. >> that's helpful. steve, i think i'm going to give you the last word here. thoughts from those who had national security law experience, you certainly have at d had -- dhs and on this. >> i have one or two thoughts, jamie has been eloquent. and each of us have a personal duty to go forward in whatever ways, could be street law, could be law school. could be something in between. and that's one. and i think the other thing and when we're back to elementary school, and being assigned to recite by memory president kennedy's inaugustlation speech the part that included ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country and i think a lot of this is leadership, and we need the narrative-- judge baker is absolutely right. history is key, we're hardwired as human beings to respond to stories and that's what pulls us together. i think one they think missing in this country are unifying stories. we need to have stories that speak to everybody, not just to some segments of our country. ken -- you can't gloss over some of the ugly parts of hospital, but you can side with some of the optimistic parts of our culture and of our country and that's really what we need to do collectively, but wills at the top, people influential in our government need to be articulating unifying story that we can all get around that's optimistic and inspiring and that's how you get collective actions. >> well, this has been a wonderful panel and i hope i don't put words into your mouths, but he think everybody in your comments suggest that we do have a problem with inadequate attention to civic education and history and that we ignore this at our peril and certainly that's one of the reasons why we as national security lawyers think this is a topic that we ought to be raising in the national security communities that we are familiar and engaged with, and so i thank you for the time you've taken to explore the possible solutions and perspectives. i'd like to give suzanne the last word here. suzanne, are you with us and a wrap up comment or two and i want to keep to our commitment to keep this to an hour and a half and i think we're a minute over. >> thank you, elizabeth. thank you for an outstanding panel and i want to be sure to thank as well the aba committee on law and national security and a partner putting together this panel with us. so many wonderful highlights from all of you, but i was particularly struck, jamie, by your talk about the need for government employees and officials to understand the why of our laws, those fundamental values and principles and tia, you talked about a particularly important for young military recruits coming in, right, to understand the nature of the oath and then your comment about civilization being a thin veneer, i remember jack marsh, a former secretary of the army used to talk about. steve, i thought your comments about interplay of technology and civics were really interesting and for those who may also find that interesting, you might want to check out the interview that we did with brad smith, president of microsoft, where he went on at some length about the importance of civics in the tech community and jen, your discussion about the role of business and the way in which they need to encourage dialog and engagement among their employees as part of their civic responsibility to the communities of which they are a part, right? and all of you who talked about the importance of going out then and talking to the public. the role that -- the responsibility that each of us has, particularly as lawyers and national security community, national security lawyers and i want to say, i think you have done-- excuse me, you have done that with this panel. it was really just so outstanding contribution, and i think it should be in general, all across government and certainly governmental agencies and we'll be posting this, i want to thank you all for a terrific discussion, and thanks to all of you who tuned in. take care, everybody. >> we're going to take you live now to us senate. today lawmakers will be working on the nomination of the next small business administrator. at noon eastern lawmakers will work to limit debate on her
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