World of highfrequency stock trading. On cspan three, american artifacts look set declassified documents relating to the 1964 full confidence in that led to the escalation of vietnam war. President hardings newly at 8 00 love letters p. M. Price our Television Schedule at cspan. Org, and let us know what you think about the programs you watching. O during the cspan conversation, like us on facebook not only was hunter. Facebook, and follow us on twitter. Next, a debate between jim gilmore and charlie kirk. Good afternoon. As you know, the purpose of government is to protect the life, liberty, and property of its citizens but what happens when criminals and terrorists leave electronic footprints instead of real foot prints . What does a government do then and how does it protect our privacy while simultaneously protecting our life and our liberty . To discuss that we have governor gilmore and also charlie cris. Kirk. Ok, i completely fudged it. There you go. In order to discuss these issues, i have these two fine gentlemen. I will have them each give a 10minute openers then a series of answers and a oneminute rebuttal and then give you a chance to ask questions. With that i welcome governor james gilmore. Thank you. Thank you very much. Ive seen a lot of you already. [applause] thank you. Charlie and i did Something Like this at cpac several months ago and it was so flamboyant they decided to invite us back. Well try not to disappoint. I dont know what biography was given because i was sequestered at the back. I might as well be a congressman, i guess. But you probably know i was elected prosecutor in my local county. Ive been a courtroom prosecutor as well as a defense counsel. I was the republican governor and chairman of the Republican National committee. So everyone here knows i was a lawyer, a politician and a party leader. Not a good start. But hi other half is good. Let me talk about that a little bit. I was chairman of the board of visitors of the United States air force academy, which has put me into colorado quite a bit. Ive enjoyed this wonderful state. Im on the board of directors of the National Rifle association right now. [applause] that usually gets an applause line. I was an intelligence agents in west germany in the 1970s as an army veteran during the cold war and i was the chairman of the Advisory Panel on Homeland Security of the United States at the request of the congress for five years, from 1997 to 2002 and that was over the time of the 9 11 attack and i was governor of virginia during the 9 11 attack. The 9 11 attack is a watershed, we all know that but it was a very serious issue. I want to keep as close as i can 10 minutes but this is a very complex subject. I was very concerned about the reaction to the 9 11 attack in the united date. The bush administration, the congress, the people of the United States were all calling for security. I was pretty nervous about it to be honest with you at that time. I was trying to give a bit of a counter pose. If you look to the letter i wrote to congress that year, one of the principal things we needed to do was to protect imam proceed and individual liberties. It is paramount to achieving the ultimate victory. And the protection of individual liberties with the entire game. I dont feel differently about that today, but i will tell you that my concerns are even greater today as far as the safety of this country goes as they were then. It is a very serious issue, the threat is more serious than at the time of the 9 11 attack in 2001. You cant go into your hotel room and turn on the television, can you, without looking at what is going on with the james foley beheading, isis right now. The threat now is much more dangerous than the cold war. Now you have state threats and nonstate threats. A dual problem we have to confront is the united dates of america. It seems determined to get it and i for one do not see the united sates at war with iran. But what are our choices if they insist on getting a nuclear bomb . Will we allow them to have a nuclear bomb . And all of these nukes, not to mention israel sitting there. The chinese arrested. The russians are all very familiar with that. What happens if they can invade the ukraine and take it over and decide that the baltics might want to be their next victim . And there are others. That is not the principal problem. Its one of the two principal problems. The nonstate actors we see this most famously in al qaeda and the rise of isis. And dont forget the drug cartels on the southern border. These are people that belong to no nation, observe no rules, except they have certain asymmetrical rules of their own. They can attack this country and spend almost nothing and cause us to spend trillions of dollars in response. Have we not been doing that . How long can that go on to the democracy of the united dates collapses . What about they attack their primary mission is to attack civilians. Why do they do that . They want to undermine the United States confidence in their own country and in their own government. What little confidence the people of the United States have, the enemy seeks to dissipate even further so we will turn to other forms or isolationism. Which, by the way, we have people in our own Republican Party that advocate this kind of drawback right now. At the center of the potential attack, the danger that can happen in this country from secret cells and people in this country who might come to this country or even attack our allies, we have seen it in this nation. We saw it in a First Trade Center attack and another. We have seen it in allied countries, the goal to attack civilians and undermine our confidence in the ability of the country. I may speak in the breakfast at the morning. We must, as a nation keep our advantages. Particularly within the nsa, the National Security agency. That is enormous power. We will do more of that on q a as well. I want to tell you that the loss of our technological advantage to be able to understand what the enemy is doing, where they are, what they are thinking, what their plans are, the loss would be catastrophic. That is the danger that we face. I think the arguments being made that say that the nsa has to be drawn back in the name of privacy presents us with a false choice. Our goal in this country is not to be driven to the choice of freedom or security. Our job as americans and the challenge of leadership is to achieve both. Not false choices. That is not easy to do. The simple procedure is to go all security or to simply have total liberty. That is a false choice and i say that we dont do that. I think there are ways that we can reform plans and nsa type of operations in order to protect the privacy of American People and maintain our advantage. We are at war. A long war. Make no mistake about it. We need president ial leadership right now that understands the dangers that we face, the challenges that we have. The ability to save our country in the long war ahead, we need that kind of residential leadership which means we need change in the white house. Thank you very much. [applause] thank you, governor. Charlie . I am excited to be here at steamboat. I get to travel to colorado to visit some of our campus and College Groups throughout the greater denver area. It is nice to come up to steamboat and hike a little bit and meet all of these wonderful people. I want to congratulate the people here. By attending this conference you have earned yourself an irs audit. You can be expecting that early next year. The governor and i had a wonderful discussion back from washington dc and i look forward to continuing that dialogue and diving into the nsa. Im not going to pretend to know every inch of that model or the people even working in it know all about it. There are so many unknowns that we have to go in understanding that this agency we have to take a step back and talk about the philosophical beliefs behind it and have a discussion about that. I will ask everyone a question here and i think you will consider some of the thoughts of the nsa. Imagine lois lerner running the nsa. Imagine it for a second. We live in a climate and culture that uses agencies like the irs weaponize against systems like you. Its true. I have been targeted by the irs and im sure many of you have as well. We are living in a culture and climate that no matter what agency it is, there is evidence of collusion of interagency conspiracy against citizens. Catherine ingle brecht was a citizen from houston texas, visited by five different federal agencies in two months, audited by three of them, tax by all five. They said we are not talking to each other. All these agencies visit you and ask these questions, you are trying to tell me they are not colluding . We are talking about the nsa which is admittedly probably the most powerful and intrusive arm of the department of defense which, until Edward Snowdens actions, has gone relatively unchecked. Most americans did not know what nsa meant until edward godin did what he did. Trillions of lines of data accumulated and stored in banks in utah about every person in this room. And i would like to venture a guess that with this administration, we have seen the track record of abuse of power. Do you want to wield that kind of unchecked power to bureaucrats like lois lerner or the irs guy that got into a debate with paul ryan . He asked, why didnt you tell us you deleted emails and he said, you never asked me. But as the people you want running federal agencies that collect trillions of lines of data . The governor said the enemy and he is exactly right. The enemy is isis and International Global islamic jihad. Government bureaucrats dont view those as the only enemy. They view the enemy as people that disagree with what they believe in. We can see what happened in the irs where they thought that conservative groups and Tea Party Groups and republicans were the enemy. If we are going to use that word so loosely, what does the word enemy mean to an unchecked nsa employee who can tap without warrent, every person in this room . Unchecked and without warrant. Do we want to give that authority to people that we know have a subversive agenda to overthrow our founding principles . There was a slide that said those who sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither and i truly believe that. If we are trying to get back to our founding principles, we have, in many instances, ask ourselves as conservatives, should we give this authority to an agency that before Edward Snowden released it, most of us did not even know existed . Governor gilmore did. If you look at the freedom and liberty. They have no qualms with growing government. Where you out there complaining . We have to, as conservatives, lead the charge against the abuse of power. You have to. Be the vocal opponent against unchecked federal bureaucrats. Wiretapping of american citizens. If barack obama wanted to look at the nsa, this look at the enemy right here. The nsa is the most powerful agency we have ever seen. Do you trust the federal government . Do you trust the people running it . Thank you. [applause] it is not a question of liberty or security, its where we put the line. How do you propose we balance those two things . The debate i knew ben franklin, he was a friend of mine. Hes no james madison. I think it is useful. There are people that say that we are not. But we are exceptional. It is exactly the kind of conference we said that these of the touchstones americans have that no other country in the world does have. That challenge is that much greater. I think the duty is not the way the world is moving but to worry about what we do. We have to remember what the nsa is able to do. The messages, they have already succeeded in intercepting the messages of hezbollah. They already succeeded in following the al qaeda leader through africa and getting to the point where they can be arrested. Theyve already succeeded in president karzai of at guinness and when he was interacting privately with the representatives from iran and told them the americans came and he would be working very well and making sure that there would be no interests against iran. These are advanced just that we americans have that no one else in the world has. The enemy would like us to become paranoid. The enemy would like us to become distrustful. The enemy would like us to throw this advantage away so that they can get on a level Playing Field with us. We have advantages that have been built because of the superior state, the superior economy, the superior system that we have that has enabled us to become sophisticated and therefore able to defend our people better. I yield to no one on the basis of saying that we have to protect privacy. I believe it can be done. The congress has miserably failed to oversee the nsa. There are congressmen today that say we are looking forward to the day when authorities expire and time is on our side to which i hear al qaeda and isis and russia and china standing up and saying bravo. We want to bring your country down. People like us here, in steamboat, to make sure that doesnt happen. They dont seem to be doing a very good job, at least they have lost the confidence of the united dates. United states. Anyone who goes in as charlie suggest and uses this information to spy upon american citizens and appropriately and to let that information out and any improper way, to look at our pictures, private letters, to make that available, we need to put people in prison. And finally, the executive branch. And i say that that cant last. Thank you, governor. I agree in a large part with that but if you look at germany and france, they dont have a constitution with the Fourth Amendment that privacy and liberty the way that we do. They dont have a provision that disallows unreasonable search and seizure. I will say that the conversation that i think we should talk about is not as much spying on karzai or international, but should we be spying on american citizens. Some people may call us terrorists. Congress has not been a good job overseeing this agency and i will venture a guess that before, and majority of representatives didnt even know what the nsa was. It was kind of this undercurrent, they are this agency that keeps us safe. Do you think it is ok for the nsa to go completely unchecked . We need to start that dialogue and conversation because if we are going to respect the constitution and be the party of limited government, we have to go back to our roots on the Fourth Amendment. There is no way to say that with the nsa has done is really constitutional. This is the reality of what we are looking at eight now. Right now. The nsa has enormous capacity to the very sophisticated computers to be able to get information. What they are getting, not to mention all the overseas information, but they are getting information that says who is calling who. They dont have the ability to look into those phone calls without a warrant. They cant look at your information but if somebody from yemen telephones in the chicago into chicago, if they are looking around at what they might be talking to, they can gather evidence. I think what we have to guard against, there are things that you can do. Looking at private conversations, that should be i am certainly not interested in the government spying on everything the citizens do. They will throw it away and frankly, suspicious and paranoid. There has been a lot of debate about whether or not these people do store these things for a longterm. Edward snowden made a claim that they did, other people said he was mistaken. I think that you would agree, governor gilmore, that it is necessary for both parties to call for the nsa and do a complete forensic examination of how you treat u. S. Citizens. Is this being stored, and who has access to it and why . We need to get all the facts about that because Edward Snowden did say that every phone call but there has been a big debate about that. We know in the case of james foley that he may have been murdered by a radicalized member of the u. K. It is not always the case of bad guys overseas. We may have bad guys here. Radicalized elements within our own population. How do we track those individuals without tracking the rest of us. It seems to me that you have to have a standard that says we are going to focus in on people with reasonable suspicion. The isis people, if they can put somebody in this country that can do some kind of attack. It is not unheard of. They were not representatives of anybody. The significance of it is very material. The rising of nuclear proliferation. They change the way americans take about themselves, we have to protect ourselves against that while at the same time protecting our privacys as well. Every time someone makes a phone call, i cant tell you how many times someone said i would rather not talk about that on the phone. A lot of people do live in paranoia now. A lot of people in this room live in fear of their government or the fear of retribution. There is more than one reason for that. They say we spend too much money on surveillance and so on, youre not going to hear that. The enemy has big advantages. They can spend a few dollars and all of a sudden, the press is talking all the time about the attack. It is a big advantage that they got because they are taking advantage of a free society. They can cost them very little. Hundreds of billions of dollars we have spent can see 9 11 attack which can be used for the benefit of cutting taxes. The enemy has great advantages. We have to make sure that we use i have supreme confidence in the quality and nature of the american character. That is what we were discussing this morning. American character. That is why this conflict that is here, it is still coming. We are going to prevail because of the nature of america. many of your coming up with questions. If you can write them down on the no card, someone will be by to pick them up. I would like to ask one more question. Edward snowden, patriot, traitor, or neither . You go first. Personally, i think he should be held in front of a jury of his peers. I no means do i call him a patriot, the government has yet to charge him with treason. But what he revealed has opened a lot of people to understand how complex the data cannulation can in. It is indisputable. Truly to be civil disobedient, he would have turned himself in and would have paid the price and not be a vigilante internationally and collude with some of our enemies of the state. We should all understand we now have a discussion and a point of evidence. I guarantee you this panel today would not be here because american privacy if you look in national circles and debate topics, it has gone up. They can tell it to the jury. This is Edward Snowden. Edward snowden is a traitor to the United States of america. I say to you now that Edward Snowden is a traitor. Edward snowden was given the most confidential trust. He traded that security appearance. He had a job in which he had trust. When he made his Information Available and undermine the security of the united ace, he told his boss he was going back to california for a medical treatment, got on a plane and went to hong kong where we know he was under communist or his diction and ultimately ended up in russia where he has received an extended time of good treatment and asylum in russia. Sooner or later, the russians are going to come to their senses and realize they are not going to be able to put the soviet union back together again. Being part of the western community of nations is a benefit to the russian people. And when they do, one condition the United States should places the return of Edward Snowden for trial. As a traitor for this country to this country. [applause] i admit my favorite question is, can the nsa find lois lerners email or phone calls . [laughter] [applause] this is an interesting question. If i telephone someone who calls from yemen, and my guilty of als and my guilty of association, albeit unknowingly . A lot of people are calling countries where there are terrorists active, but they may just be calling relatives. How do we separate the bad actors from the good actors and not intentionally go after people who are seemingly guilty by association . A great question. It assumes that youre going to be cartagena just as soon as you you targeted as soon as get a call from overseas. That is not the case. Ought toto me we have protocols for the nsa. I think the congress has been woefully inadequate in the oversight of what people are doing. A call from someone in yemen, if there is no evidence that they are connected to a conspiracy against the United States, why would they even look at Something Like that . But to your nextdoor neighbor or girlfriend may be looked at to see if there is some kind of medl that is being forwar that could be a danger. No one ever wanted to undo the house of cards, and no one ever wanted to dive deep into the agency that would have made them a lot of enemies. Snowden, heo edward has done something flagrant that has given an opportunity for those to have a political ild shield to talk about this. If we fear every time we have a phone call from yemen, that is close to tierney. I do not want to live in that type of society. [applause] fair to quote Thomas Jefferson against a virginian. [laughter] [applause] i think we need to recognize what Edward Snowden has done. ,his was a low level guy hopefully we will put them on trial and learn more things, but the fact is this that he has exposed our knowledge. The enemy knows that if they use the cell phone in a particular way, they are now tracked. They will change their conduct. They know that if they do certain things, email information, they know if they do that, the they are capable be of of being tracked. Therefore the people who are adversaries to this country, they are changing their conduct right now is Edward Snowden. If they could get at the citizens of the United States and make them suspicious of our country and government that we dismantle our advantages, at that point, that is a giant strategic victory for the enemies of this country. I promise you, ladies and gentlemen, if you do not believe me, you will go and see that we are at war. The worst is coming. We have to be as prepared as we can be. We have to be as active as we can be to protect the people of the challenges, believe me, they this country. The challenges, believe me, they are not behind us. Are you in favor of monitoring all electronic correspondence . We have to find out what they were doing. Itll was the frequency if it was the frequency of every phone call you make, that is a violation of the Fourth Amendment. If the police think there is a crime behind the door, they can kick down the door. If there is not reasonable cause, they should not be monitoring everyday citizens. If there has to be reasonable cause and they have to get a warrant, so be it. The fisa courts have gone unchecked. I would not cease all of this. Im not saying to abolish the nsa and i have had this discussion with some. They say im a terrorist sympathizer and all of this crazy stuff. I say that we live in a culture and environment that abuses its power every single day and we have to be careful in the way that we approach unchecked federal agencies and bureaucracies. Some of the labels me and says that i want to end all cellular data simulation. I say that we have to reform it and oversee it correctly. You are International Threats that are present today that were not there 34 years ago. There are many reasons for that. If we do not have congressional oversight of the agency, we will continue to see the erosion of civil liberties. Thank you. I do not believe theres any excuse for building up here in the body politic to undo the bill of rights or civil freedoms. We agree with that. I believe that we do not need to pretend that things are worse than they are. Thate seen rand paul say the government has no right to know what youre saying on yourself on. He is right and he is a leading and building up the suspicion and paranoia for his residential aspirations. Neverot support him and will. We can do these things in a restrained and reasonable way and we can avoid the false choice. False choice of saying, if you have a cell phone from your against the nsa having the capacity to do the things to protect this country. I say baloney. We can do what is necessary to use the event to just we have built up as a free society to protect a free society. We do not have to throw these things away because of s,scrupulous politician particularly the ones after 9 11. This was a terrible thing. This worries me. I sound a trumpet call. Congress ran like scalded apes. They were scared that they have to link with a negligent. They sprays to do things that may have been reckless. I worry. I worry that we have not had a sufficient conversation. This panelist ibo is a good pen on charlie is a great advocate in this area. We need to have more of a conversation with the American People to prepare them for the challenges of Homeland Security and for the adversaries that are determined to bring down this nation. We ought to be. If we dont, the enemy will attack us again for we have to be prepared to be in it for the long haul. Thelong haul is not just safety of this country, but the liberty as well. Concernsuestion Digital Currency and privacy. I see a time in 10 years were Paper Currency is gone and 100 of transactions are tracked by the nsa are irs. The futureterms of technologies, what parameters do we need to put around security and limited liberty . What a great question. This comes from the rise of bitc coin. Tothe next two years we need drastically overhaul the way into department collusion have ppens. We are only going to become more and more technologically in that it becomes easier and easier for unchecked bureaucracies to do what they do. Lets say all of it is online. The irs is doing with the nsa and we have not made reforms and that is a scary tagteam for a federal bureaucracy, if you ask me. That is why the discussion needs to happen, it needs to happen immediately. The american of people have to hold them accountable especially because we cannot elect eurocrats. Bureaucrats. That is why we hold people in Congress Accountable to do that. Vote them in or out. This is a top five heading into the next few years. I do not havesh, enough of it. None of us do. [laughter] to be thoughtful Going Forward about the rise of technology. Paper mail is disappearing. We have heard about all of these thederful letters between founding fathers. The world is changing. The technological capacity that we are created through the inner jet is changing the american side heidi and the world society. It is making things very different. I think we have to be very thoughtful about this Going Forward and make sure that we make, we never lose sight of the touchstone that we were talking about this morning. Thank you. Says if we start giving suicide bombers here, i think that people will drastically over wrecked make this a police state. How do we prevent that . That inan kind of see the foreshadowing of what a police state could do in ferguson. With what hasree happened, for local police to have that with authoritative force community to say hold on a second that is quite overwhelming. Aagree, as americans we have tendency of the last 20 years, something happens and we completely overreact. Inhave a financial crisis 2008, lets spend a trillion dollars we do not have. Is what we have in our tendency as americans of incal court this political discourse to do that. It is not our intelligence, it is the patriotism and the local loyalty of the American People. If we lose this because the government creates paranoia and distrust of the American People come that cannot be undone by some sort of supercomputer. The patriotism that lies in every civil person and this room and every american is our greatest National Asset. It is what the constitution was meant to do. Prevent the government from coming after us is that we can defend ourselves and thrive. Our greatest National Asset is not the nsa, it is not a supercomputer, it lies within ourselves as the people. [applause] i agree with charlie on that. That is why americans are exceptional, and that is whatever basic principles Going Forward. The future of this country in the National Security policy and our Foreign Policy is that americans are exceptional. We have touchstones that other people around the world do not have. I have lived in Foreign Countries and ive traveled to dozens of Foreign Countries. Each of them have their assets as well. The americans unique experience is exactly correct. Maintaine need to those touchstones. I do want to say, once again, because i want to underscore it. I do worry about the rise of technology. Confidence ins ourselves and our ability to , there isselves danger. I think the enemies of this country would like to do that. I think they would like to drive us to the point where triggering of somering a track point would drive us to overreact into the wrong thing. That is why i think another principle we have to have with the principal Homeland Security is a conversation with the American People and more of a sense of how their cutting into a challenge that they face. Having an understanding with the people of the challenges that are ahead of us in the long war we are facing and go back to the touchstones that harley referred to to make sure that these are solid and the American Peoples that when the inevitable attack comes into at overact and call on our government to do things that are improper. Member those touchstones about exceptionalism. Ofi was not able to get all the questions, so i will be giving it the nsa agent outside the door. [laughter] i want to give the chemical earmarks and Closing Remarks and invite you to visit our website. Thef we all emailed constitution to each other i think we would all read it finally. [laughter] [applause] this has been a great discussion and dialogue, and i hope everyone here was able to learn something and take something away from this panel. I will say that i do not trust the government. I started my opening remarks with the question, do you trust the government . Asknt everyone here to themselves that. I can venture a guess which are answer is. Ask yourself if we should have unchecked federal bureaucracy and what are you going to do to hold Congress People accountable . The constitution was written for a reason and it is a timeless document. Everyone here is very wellversed in white was written. Limit thetten to Government Authority gets the people and to allow free people to prosper. The thought process behind the constitution, on lake in other document in human history, on like the french and the germans, is our rights come from gone. God. Me from those rights are the ability to live life without the brother ooking over our shoulder or the threat of a rogue irs agent. Continue to allow them to go unchecked, the abuse of power will continue. The greatest National Asset lies in newcomb the American People. Only the restitution can allow the mark people to be free. The American People to be free. You. K [applause] we need to recognize the challenges ahead. To understand that we need to the 21stlicy that century will also be an american century. That means that we need a president that understands the exceptionalism of this country, the role of the United States in the world and this will choice this tumultuous time. We need to have an active Foreign Policy. We do not need to be lured into conflicts, nor should be withdrawing and opening up chances that we see right now for many dangers to the world and to this country that we can to, and with american leadership, can change. We need a president who understands the nature of american hour and freedom and the opportunities that we have to do the right thing. Recognize, we have to that it is not a matter of whether we trust the government. We can change the government and we can change the government. Americans are in the position to do that. At the end of the day we have to make sure that