The Armed Services chairman who is retiring. We are starting off on that note. Then his last big bill, the Defense Authorization bill is going to be the first matter up for consideration. , when we knewht senate,forward with the there has been an agreement struck about 3 00 today. Earlierittle bit depending on the level of cooperation. There is going to be a series of votes that will lead to the passage of the Defense Authorization bill. And itat has happened passes, the bill will go to president obama. That, then we are in the end of the year negotiations on time and how to compress time in order to get the rest of the work done. When it comes to the spending bill, what are the chances that its going to pass the senate . Will the senate be in on saturday to get this done . Guest thats the big deal. There will 00 votes, be a series of negotiations between all 100 senators behind the scenes. They will figure out whether or has to go through to process of filing cloture cut off the debate. If that is the case, it would sunday. Until only two daysis of continuing resolutions, by saturday, either tonight or sometime saturday, they will get the rest of the work done. If you reached a point where all the procedural hurdles were in place and were being deployed by critics of the bill, the house would have to come in at least nominally to do another shortterm continuing resolution in order to keep the government open sunday and monday. Bernie sanders has said he is going to oppose the federal spending bill. Have other senators come out and said they are opposed to it as well . Guest there are certainly senators on the left who rv imminently opposed to the inclusion of the language provisionthe swaps from the dodd frank regulatory overhaul. Sanders i assume is in that camp and elizabeth warned has been waiting to charge on that. There are senators on the right who are against the fact that the bill does not take specific action to stop president obamas executive action on immigration. Of theseear how many people who have objections to one piece or other of the bill would try to actually hold up its advancement or vote against it. That is the sort of touch and go thing and we will see this afternoon. Host neil is with roll call. Thank you for your time this morning. The senate gaveled in a just a few minutes ago. Harry reid is on the floor right now. On can see live coverage cspan 2. Coveragering you live of the Cato Institute panel. We will show you a discussion of oversight of surveillance programs. At 4 30 p. M. , the closing session. Reaction from the white house from last nights vote. He will be speaking at the press briefing at noon eastern time. We will have live coverage on cspan. Here are some of the programs you will find on cspan. Politico reporters share stories about being on the campaign trail with senator max mcconnell. Local fundraiser on money in politics and how it is grown and changed. 10 00, shane harris on the militarys use of cyberspace to wage war. Panelay at 2 00, a including david keene on how Ronald Reagans career as an actor in spokesman for General Electric helped hone his communication skills. Annan at 8 00, frank shows clips of an interview about vietnam, watergate, and his resignation. You can find our schedule at www. Cspan. Org. You can email us. You can send us a tweet. Join the cspan conversation. Like us on facebook. Follow us on twitter. John brennan called the enhanced Interrogation Program uncharted territory. He admitted they were unprepared for it. His comments came as he briefed the press. It was 8 46 a. M. On the morning of september 11, 2001 when the north tower of the World Trade Center in new york was struck by an aircraft commandeered by al queda terrorists. 17 minutes later, the clear blue skies over manhattan were pierced again by another hijacked aircraft, this one tearing into the adjacent south tower. At 9 37, the pentagon, the proud symbol and heart of the nations military, suffered a similar attack. At 10 03, a fourth plane shattered the serene landscape of shanksville, pennsylvania, as its passengers refused to allow al qaeda to use one more plane as a missile to strike our homeland. In the short span of 77 minutes, four terrorist attacks would forever change the history of our country. They would rob us of nearly 3,000 lives. It would ultimately cost us trillions of dollars. And they would plunge us into a seemingly never ending war against a globally dispersed collection of terrorists with a murderous agenda. As deputy executive director of c. I. A. On the morning of 9 11, i knew what it was like to belong to an agency that had been ringing the bell about al qaedas plans to attack. All of us at cia were devastated that operatives were able to carry out such horrific acts in and on american soil. While i remember walking the halls of cia that day to ensure that as many Agency Officers as possible had left the building as our headquarters here in langley, virginia was reported on the target list, i also remember that the men and women in our Counterterrorism Center stayed at their posts despite the danger. They worked through that day and that night and the following days and nights to piece together the clues as to what plans were underway to carry out yet more attacks. Their cia brothers and sisters dispursed around the globe, many in dangerous environments, did the same thing. Only 15 days after 9 11 on september 26, it was cia that put the First American boots on the ground in afghanistan. Less than two months after arriving, the United States suffered its First Casualty in afghanistan when a 32yearold cia officer named mike span was killed in action on november 25. Since mikes death, 20 other cia officers have lost their lives around the world at the hands of terrorists. The events of 9 11 will be forever seared into the memory of americans. Not only were our consciences shocked and our hearts and souls ripped open, so, too, our collective national sense of Homeland Security was shattered, much like the steel, concrete, flesh, bone and lives during those fateful 77 minutes. In the immediate aftermath of 9 11, our nation ached, it cried, and it prayed. In our pain, we pledged to come together as one and to do what we could to prevent bin laden and his killing machine from ever carrying out another attack against our beautiful country. Never again, we vowed, never again. Al qaeda had other ideas, as well as additional operatives and more plans to strike us again and again. With a globally distributed network that had concealed itself in many countries over many continents, al qaeda was poised, ready and prepared to pursue its violent agenda. Our government and our citizens recognized the urgency of the task to find and stop al qaeda before it could shed the blood of more innocent men, women and children, be it in america or be it in any other corner of the world. And as has been the case throughout its then 54year history, the cia was looked to for answers, not only to the questions on the threats we faced but also to questions about what we were going to do to stop future attacks. Cias mission in the wick of the 9 11 attacks would be a multidimensional one. Stopping al qaeda would require the cia to work closely with its Intelligence Community, military, Homeland Security and Law Enforcement partners. As well as with numerous intelligence and Security Services around the globe. To be successful, cia officers knew that they needed speed, agility, courage, resources, and most important, intelligence. Their mission was to acquire through human and technical operations and then to analyze with deep expertise whatever bits and pieces of information might help fill out the menacing yet incomplete puzzle of al qaedas terrorist plans. Indeed, there were numerous credible and very worrisome reports about a second and third wave of major attacks against the United States. And while we grieved, while we honored our dead, while we tended to our injured and while we embarked on the long process of recovery, we feared more blows from an enemy we couldnt see and an evil we couldnt fathom. This is the backdrop against which the agency was directed by president bush to carry out a program to detain terrorist suspects around the world. In many respects, the program was uncharted territory for the cia and we were not prepared. We had little experience housing detainees and precious few of our officers were trained interrogators. But the president authorized the effort six days after 9 11 and it was our job to carry it out. Over time, enhanced interrogation techniques, e. I. T. s, which the department of justice determined at the time to be lawful and duly authorized by the Bush Administration were introduced as a method of interrogation. As concerns about al qaedas terrorist plans endured a variety of these techniques were employed by cia officers on several dozen detainees over the course of five years before they ended in december of 2007. The legal advice under which they were authorized subsequently has been revoked. When the president came into office in january, 2009, he took the position that these techniques were contrary to our values and he unequivocally banned their use. He has consistently expressed the view that these techniques did significant damage to americas standing in the world and made it harder to pursue our interests with allies and partners. Something i have experienced firsthand. But as the president stated this week, the Previous Administration faced agonizing choices about how to pursue al qaeda and prevent additional terrorist attacks against our country. While facing fears of further attacks and carrying out the responsibility to prevent more catastrophic loss of life. There were no easy answers. And whatever your views are on e. I. T. s, our nation and in particular this agency did a lot of things right during this difficult time to keep this country strong and secure. The same year the techniques were banned by the president , the Senate Select committee on intelligence, the ssci, initiated an indepth review of the detention and Interrogation Program. The cias implementation of the detention and Interrogation Program is a very legitimate oversight issue. And we gave the committee our full support, providing an unprecedented amount of sensitive cia documents to the committee and devoting considerable resources to help it with its review. Our hope was that it would offer an impartial and authoritative assessment of the program, help us learn from our mistakes, and inform how we conduct sensitive activities in the future. Unfortunately, the committee could not agree on a bipartisan way forward and no cia personnel were interviewed by the committee during the course of the investigation. This was unusual. In the vast majority of cases, sscis, congressional reports have been the result of collaborative bipartisan investigations. Over the course of my career, i have seen the value of the committees reviews. Even on politically sensitive matters such as the sscis investigation into the interrogation failures regarding weapons of mass destruction in iraq, the committee succeeded in producing a report that was supported unanimously. In that case, the committee reviewed tens of thousands of documents and conducted interviews with more than 200 officers from the interrogation Intelligence Community. Some of whom were interviewed up to four times. This week, the Senate Select committee on intelligence released the executive summary, findings and conclusions of its study of the agencys former detention and Interrogation Program. Vice chairman chambliss joined by five other senators also released the minority views. The authors clearly worked very hard to produce a report of this magnitude. Over several years, they sorted through over a million documents provided by the cia and their commitment to the task is obvious. Although we view the process undertaken by the committee when investigating the program as flawed, many aspects of their conclusions are sound and consistent with our own prior findings. Over the years, internal Agency Reviews including numerous investigations by our office of the Inspector General found fault in cias running of the program. We have acknowledged many of these mistakes in our response to the study last year and i will touch on some of them today. Acknowledging our mistakes and absorbing the lessons of the past is fundamental to our ability to succeed in our mission and is one of the great strengths of this organization. Even today, we know there are further organizational improvements to be made as a result of our review of the study and we are pursuing them. As i have already noted, the cia was unprepared to conduct a detention and Interrogation Program and our officers inadequately developed and monitored its initial activities. The agency failed to establish quickly the operational guidelines needed to govern the entire effort. In a limited number of cases, Agency Officers used interrogation techniques that had not been authorized, were abhorrent, and rightly should be repudiated by all. And we fell short when it came to holding some officers accountable for their mistakes. It is vitally important to recognize, however, that the overwhelming majority of officers involved in the program at cia carried out their responsibilities faithfully and in accordance with the legal and policy guidance they were provided. They did what they were asked to do in the service of our nation. In fact, some of these officers raised objections and concerns with the program and with its implementation which is crucial to ensuring that the system works as it should and that we are able to adjust as needed. But the cia officers actions that did comport with the law and policy should neither be criticized nor conflated with the actions of the few who did not follow the guidance issued. At the same time, none of these lapses should be excused downplayed or denied. In some instances we simply failed to live up to the standards that we set for ourselves. That the American People expect of us. To address the concerns identified, the cia has implemented a number of reforms in an effort to make sure those mistakes never happen again. For example, as a result of our own investigations, and our review of the committees report, cia has taken steps to broaden the scope of our accountability reviews. Strengthen the planning, management, oversight and evaluation of our covert action programs, systematically reexamine the legal opinions underlying our sensitive programs and improve our recordkeeping for interactions with the congress. We are also carefully observing the new statutory requirement to provide our oversight committees with notice of any significant legal interpretation of the constitution or other u. S. Law affecting intelligence activities conducted by the cia. As to the issues on which we part ways with the committee, i have already stated that our reviews indicate that the detention and Interrogation Program produced useful interrogation that helped the United States thwart attack plans, capture terrorists, and save lives. But let me be clear. We have not concluded that it was the use of eits within that program that allowed us to obtain useful information from detainees subjected to them. The cause and effect relationship between the use of eits and useful information subsequently provided by the detainee is in my view unknowable. Irrespective of the role eits might play in a detainees provision of useful information, i believe effective noncoercive methods are available to elicit such information. Methods that do not have a counterproductive impact on our National Security and on our international standing. It is for these reasons that i fully support the president s decision to prohibit the use of eits. Another key point with which we take issue is the studys characterization of how cia briefed the program to the congress, the media and within the executive branch. Including at the white house. The record simply does not support the studys inference that the agency repeatedly systematically and intentionally misled others on the effectiveness of the program. To be clear, there were instances where representations that the program about the program that were used or approved by Agency Officers were inaccurate, imprecise, or fell short of our trade craft standards. We have acknowledged such mistakes. And i have been firm in declaring that they were unacceptable for an agency whose reputation and value to the policy maker rests upon the rescission of the language it uses every day in intelligence reporting and analysis. Primarily, however, the studys contention that we repeatedly and intentionally misled the public and the rest of the u. S. Government rests on the committees view that deans subjected to eits did not produce useful intelligence, a point on which we still fundamentally disagree. Now, there should be sufficient trust and credibility between our institutions, enabling us to disagree at times but also to come together and listen to each others perspectives. Our partnership with congress is crucial. In my view, there is no more important oversight relationship than the cia relationship with its Intelligence Committees. Particularly because we do so much of our work in secret, the congress serves as a critical check on our activities closely monitoring the agencys reporting and programs when the public cannot. One of the most frustrating aspects of the study is that it conveys a broader view of the cia and its officers as untrustworthy. That the institution and the workforce where is willing to forego their integrity in order to preserve a program they were were invested in and supposedly believed to be right. This in no way comports with my experience in the cia. While the agency has traditional bias for action and a determined focus on achieving our mission, we take exceptional pride in providing truth to power. Whether that power likes or agrees with what we believe and what we say or not. And regardless of whether that power is affiliated with any particular political party. And as long as i am director, i will continue to defend and fight for these ideals as cias legitimacy is closely tied to its credibility and we can afford to lose neither. We know we have room to improve and i am committed to addressing the issues identified by the committee that remain a concern. In light of the fact that these techniques were abandoned seven years ago, however, my fervent hope is that we can put aside this debate and move forward to focus on issues relevant to our current National Security challenges. In doing so, this agency will only grow stronger and it is my hope that we can do so under the oversight of the committee and the collaborative and constructive manner that the American People expect of us. I pledge to do my part to facilitate such relationship as we move forward to address the many challenging National Security issues we face. I first joined cia in 1980. Over the course of my career, i have come to experience and appreciate the cias many National Security accomplishments. Most cia successes will never be known as we are an Intelligence Service that carries out its mission without fanfare and without seeking praise. And i have come to admire and greatly the women and men who come from all over the United States to make up the cias workforce. They are among the best and brightest our nation has to offer. Over the last several days, we here at cia have been touched by the outpouring of support, price, and gratitude our colleagues in government have expressed regarding the work of this agency. These expressions from kindness and support have truly been inspiring. As the president said in his own statement, as americans, we owe a profound debt of gratitude to our fellow citizens who serve to keep us safe. The Memorial Wall at the cia honor those who is have given their lives to protect ours. Our lives as professionals, our patriots, and we are safer because of their Heroic Service and sacrifices. These stars are a testament to our history and our spirit and a consistent reminder of the women and men who make sacrifices daily so that they can help keep their fellow americans safe and our country strong. And now ill be glad to address any questions you might have. The wall street journal. Twopart questions and thank you very much for taking questions. The first is did you support the public release of the Senate Report . And the second is, just if you the could clarify your stance on the eits a little bit. If i recall, the agencys argument for their use was that they were necessary to obtain information that couldnt be obtained another way that would save lives. Im wondering if thats something that you agree with, that thats what they did or what they were for. First of all, thank you for your service and for the state as you head off to do something else. Thank you i made my views known about this report, its contents as well as its disposition throughout the course of this process. And i participated in the discussions that were held on it. And as you can well imagine, the council that i give to the dni, the white house is something something that i take very seriously but also it is something that i keep to myself. So they knew my views. I continue to express them. You cant share them with us transparency . I think theres more than enough transparency thats happened over the last couple days. I think its over the top. As far as eits, i think there is, as i said in my remarks, there is no way if some to information that was obtained from an individual who had been subjected at some point during his confinement could have been obtained through other means. Its an unknowable fact. So i think what the agencys point has been consistently and what certainly my view is after having reviewed the documents is that there was useful intelligence, very useful valuable intelligence that was obtained from individuals who had been at some point subjected to eits. Whether that could have been obtained without the use of those eits is something again that is unknowable. I think as others have said recently with the president missed the point that what i think Going Forward we want to do is to make sure that were able to do what is necessary to protect this country and we have a very robust Counterterrorism Program underway right now. Were working with our partners abroad to make sure were able to obtain this information from individuals who are captured and that we are able to gain some access to. Thank you. Thanks, ken delaney from the associated press. Director brennan, do you agree with president obamas statement that the cia in common parlance tortured detainees . And then secondly, senator udall gave an impassioned speech on the senate floor yesterday about something called the panetta review which problems the cia is continuing to lie about this program. He said thats a document prepared by cia insiders. I know you disagree with his characterization. Why not release the panetta review so we can be the judge of that . First of all, i agree that there were times when cia officers exceeded the policy guidance that was given and the authorized techniques that were approved and determined to be lawful. They went outside of the bounds and terms of their actions that as part of that interrogation process. And they were harsh. As i said, in some instances, i considered them abhorrent and i will leave to others how they might want to label those activities. But for me, it was something that is certainly regrettable but we are not a perfect institution. Were made up of individuals and as human beings, we are imperfect beings. But as i think we have acknowledged over the years, we have brought those mistakes, shortcomings and excesses to the attention of the appropriate authorities whether it be to our Inspector General, the department of justice and others. The department looked at this for many years and decided there was no prosecutable crimes there. As far as the socalled panetta review, i believe this is in reference to an internal document created here at the agency. When in the interests of trying to fulfill our responsibility to the oversight committee, leon panetta had authorized the release of, as i mentioned, over release of, as i mentioned, over 1 million documents to the committee and so he also asked at that time that there be an inventory pulled together of exactly what documents were provide. This was an internal document that was never completed and its one that i believe is an internal deliberative document and therefore, something that was not subject to the committees oversight. In addition, it was outside of the scope of the period of time that was covered by the agreement that was worked between senator feinstein and leon panetta about the documents that would be provided to the committee. It was subsequent to that. Reuters. You say in the first page of your statement that you were deputy executive director of the agency on 9 11. Tell us a bit about your involvement in that role and perhaps subsequent roles in this program. I mean as deputy executive director, presumably you had some role in managing or arranging parts of the program. What did you actually do in relation to this program and did you ever at any point express reservations about the way it was being carried out while it was going on . As deputy director, i was the equivalent of the deputy chief operating officer to make sure all the different support systems and services here at the agency were providing the support to the Mission Elements and so after 9 11, i worked with others to make sure that our officers, whether they be overseas or here, had what they needed to get their job done. In that position i was aware of the detention Interrogation Program. I had some visibility into some of the activities that were there. I was not in the chain of command. I did not have the authority over the implementation of that program for the management oversight of it. Thanks for doing this. Npr. I wonder if you could clarify. You say here we have not concluded there was use of eits within the program that allowed us to obtain useful information from detainees subjected to them and then you say on the following page the committees view that detainees subjected to eits did not produce useful intelligence a point on which we disagree. Did the eits lead to useful intelligence or did they not . You said its unknowable. Which is it . What i said was that detainees who were subjected to eits at some point during their confinement subsequently provided information that our experts found to be useful and valuable in our counterterrorism efforts. And the cause and effect relationship between the application of those eits and the ultimate provision of information is unknown and unknowable. But for someone to say that there was no intelligence of value, of use that came from those detainees once they were subjected to eits, i think that is lacks any foundation at all. Let me follow up on that. What seems to be an inherent conflict. The agencys position and its defenders has been that in particular one of its signal successes, the takedown of Osama Bin Laden, could be attributed to the use of what the president and others have called torture, what you prefer to call enhanced interrogation techniques. Do you think the bin laden case can be attributed in some part to enhanced interrogation techniques or torture . And youve acknowledged in your own experience that what the president described as difficulties in relationships with allies has resulted from this chapter in american history. Can you expand on that how you have experienced difficulties as a result of what has been disclosed. And finally, if there is some unknowable value to these techniques to waterboarding, near drowning, slamming people against the wall, hanging them in stress positions, confining them in small boxes or coffins, threatening them with drills, waving guns around their head as they are blindfolded, what or which of these techniques could be used if as the director of Central Intelligence you and another president or this president were faced with an imminent threat . Could there be another covert finding as rulings and advice from the attorney general that would lead you and your successors to say we should do this because there could be some value to prevent an attack on america . First question on bin laden. It is our considered view that the detainees who were subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques provided information that was useful and was used in the ultimate operation to go against bin laden. Again, intelligence information from the individuals who were subjected to eits provided information that was used in that. Again, i am not going to attribute that to the use of the eits. Im just going to state as a matter of fact the information that they provided was used. As far as the relationships with others that sometimes are complicated, i think we see in the International Press right now, there is a lot of scrutiny being paid to what different partners did during that period of time. And i think theres a lot of hyperbole that is now fueling the discussion, the debate, and also then is harmful to continuing our intelligence cooperation because there is a lot of exaggeration, misrepresentation of the facts, and therefore, i think certain agendas are being pursued so i certainly wish that this would not be happening. And then finally as far as what happens if in the future there is some type of challenge that we face here, the Army Field Manual is the established basis to use for interrogations. We, cia, are not in the Detention Program. We are not contemplating at all getting back into the Detention Program using any of those eits. So i defer to the policymakers in future times when there is going to be the need to be able to ensure that this country stays safe if we face a similar type of crisis. Actually, sorry. Cnn. One thing about your answer, sir, was the useful information on bin laden before the torture or the waterboarding was used . There was information obtained subsequent to the application of eits from detainees that was useful in the bin laden operation. Cnn. Mr. Director, right now your agency is involved in overseeing the Drone Program. We know from the governments own statements you know, that there have been some civilians, innocent civilians killed alongside terrorists. Im wondering if you feel that theres enough control over those programs and that were not going to be here in a few years with another director having to answer these same questions about the loss of trust from the public, from policymakers. Im not going to talk about any type of operational activity that this agency is involved in currently. Im just not going to do it. I will tell you during my tenure at the white house as the president s assistant for counterterrorism that the use of these Unmanned Aerial Vehicles that you referred to as drones in the counterterrorism effort has done tremendous work to keep this country safe. The ability to use these platforms and advanced technologies, it has advanced the Counterterrorism Mission and the u. S. Military has done some wonderful things with these platforms. And in terms of precision of effort, accuracy, and making sure that this country, this countrys military does Everything Possible to minimize to the great extent possible the loss of life of noncombatants i think does a lot for this country and this white house and the military to be proud of. Director brennan, katherine harris, fox news. Thank you for taking my question. Have you heard from our allies overseas since the report was released . The impact on these relationships has it reinforced the view that the United States government cannot keep a secret . What has the impact been on morale here at the agency . And in 2005, interrogation video tapes were destroyed. Was that the right thing to do . I have spoken to many of my foreign counterparts over the past week to allow them opportunity to prepare for the release of this document in the event that there was going to be any implications for them. As a result of either information that was contained in this document and then could be correlated with other information that is out there and which leads to speculation about what their countries, their governments, their services might have done. And so yes, ive spoken to many of them and there was strong concern. There are things that we do with our Partner Services under our authorities that and we have covert action authorities and covert is something that they were hoping that was going to remain such. But what ive told them is that its important for our partnership to move forward and to strengthen in the years ahead because of the nature of the National Security challenges we face. So i am interested in making sure were able to do that. As far as morale here at the agency, this is a tremendous workforce, as i said. The second panel, when we talk about surveillance, the nsa is for more sooner mines. Foremost in our mind. Use, thatlogy they information is finding its way to your local Police Department as well. In a way, you are more likely to be surveilled the near by your local Police Department and the nsa. It is important not to be focused on the sexiest and glitzy us forms of surveillance, but the small but persistent surveillance that is happening at the local level. To discuss that important topic, i am pleased that we have Jack Dalymple the associated press, who certainly knows something about being surveilled. Good morning. Can everyone hear me . Im awkward, i apologize. Year, year to half, i have covered technology and surveillance, particularly how government uses that surveillance, even to setting up a fake social networking cuba,. Aboutst panel, we talked four and surveillance. There is something that has really hit home, and thats what happened in the United States, not just with nsa surveillance, but with local Police Department and what they are doing without data. In the other weeks, there were people tweeting the office of Emergency Management vehicle in andago that was driven by started disrupted cell phones. It had a stingray device they gathered data on those devices. Whether or not the city of oncago would be transparent requests for what they are doing with that information. I wanted to introduce the pallet the panel here. One is running late. When he arrives, we will get into it. Left is the advocacy director and senior counsel for the center for democracy and technology. Right, a policy analyst for Homeland Security and Civil Liberties here at the Cato Institute. To my far right, it will professor at George Washington university. A law professor. We will leave about 20 minutes for questions, because im sure there is a lot of them first interest in these. I would like to start out by asking this idea that we are ,n both a Surveillance Society the nsa or domestic Law Enforcement will scoop up what they can with or without awards. A warrant. Juxtaposed with the idea of going dark. Saying that using cell phone encryption, encrypt and a device, using secure messaging will be damaging for Law Enforcement. A byurious if we concern framing it that way, about how this perception and even the typologies are fueling these dichotomous perceptions. I think the two perceptions can be true the same time. We are seeing a shift from a world with the government would traditionally collected physical evidence and eyewitness testimony, and instead, they are collecting digital evidence. That means data is out there, and sometimes, they can collect a lot of data that is not that helpful. They might want to do that anyways. Sometimes they cant collect the data they need to build a criminal case. On one hand, you can have the government is not able to solve certain cases the used assault, baby is getting more data than they used to get another context. We are seeing a real shift come in some investigations heard they are likely to be successful than before, the less cash others less than before. And abuse actorce regulates all computer hacking in the United States. If you go online, you are aware theres a lot of computer hacking the goes on. How many criminal cases does the United States bring for computer hacking or unauthorized access . The numbers are markedly low. Its about 70 or 80 cases the year. And has been for about 20 years. Thats because these cases are extremely difficult to investigate, from the fbis perspective, they cant find the people who are behind these attacks. It is difficult to attribute the wrong. From their perspective, they say the internet has made it much harder to do our job. Going dark technologically, its just harder. There are other ways in which there is more data for the government and other cases. We need to shift where we are trying to work out where these narratives are true, and they can both be true the same time. What i think is interesting this kind of goes to what has happened with respect to the snowden regulations revelations, in addition to these other things, is what i refer to as a digital resistance movement. This comes in the form of things like secure messaging applications. An essay, take note, i use share spot. , youave things like wicker have clinics that are being put on to teach the public how to engage in encryption, to using christian, things of that nature. We have seen a rise in this. It has been conquered and with peoplepolling that shows are changing their behaviors because of these surveillance activities. They are not sincerely going to websites that they would have otherwise gone to. They are not necessarily associating with people that they otherwise would have associated with trade i think it support and understand that in these cases, we are not talking about people who have been charged with any crime, either those who are thinking about writing about something or engaging with somebody, or the individual they are potentially thinking about trying to engage in a dialogue with. When i hear folks talk about a lack of real harm, or nsa surveillance is essentially denying because americans are not deliberately targeted which i think is very dubious. The active government surveillance itself is having a Chilling Effect on our society. I think we need to have a much more robust dialogue about that. Think about government surveillance, we talk about the nsa. There is a lot that is local, federal, and state Law Enforcement are doing. Im curious if you could speak to some of these apps that are becoming mainstream. In this push that even Tech Companies like apple even their new ios eight is encrypted. Even my mother now, who doesnt knows that barack obama might be sniffing her emails. Publicrt of the perception now, and im interested in how Tech Companies respond to that. You asked about the perceptions of going dark versus living in a city rail of society. Surveillance society. I think they feed off each other. The fbi is complaining we are going dark in part because of the thing you just mentioned, encrypted operated operating systems. These arent taking things on because they feel they are living in a Surveillance Society. Makes the government take on more intrusive surveillance techniques. In the absence of reform, i dont think this will be a helpful cycle for anybody involved. If i may, it gets to the issue of trust in governmental institutions. That is one of the reasons we are seeing this explosion of this kind of technology. Folks increasingly dont trust the federal government. With respect to their personal privacy, their data, and all the rest of these things. I agree with harley. It is a cycle that needs to be broken. The only way will be broken is when folks begin to understand the need to be held to a High Standard when it comes to these kinds of investigations. What companies are doing is an appropriate response in the absence of any real reform. Thus far, congress has done nothing. Virtually nothing to rein in what we know from the snowden disclosures, which shocked the entire nation and the entire world. That reform,e of companies and individuals are taking matters into their own hands, increasing in securing their data, and we think that is a great response. If there were reforms, which you tell people to stop encouraging their data . We would not tell people to stop. I think there would be less urgency felt by both consumers and businesses to encrypt their data to the degree they are right now. We seen an explosion in secure apps, secure systems, since the snowden disclosure. They have become popular because of the snowden disclosures, because there is the realization now that we are under mass surveillance. I would also make the point that a lot of the services that are out there i avail myself of a virtual private network, where vpn, in order to help hide myself from hackers. And try and protect my data that way. Even if we managed to get the government surveillance programs put back in the box with a belong, there is so going to be need forand increased these kinds of technologies, just to protect us from other malicious actors. Important that is point to make in the whole going dark debate. In our view, the use of strong encryption, well it will cause some difficulties for Law Enforcement to get data, overall, it will increase the security of regular users beyond those who are already security conscious. Them from cyber criminals, thieves, etc. With a get is a net good for society. The fbi brought up for to put itwhich politely, were dubious in terms of these examples in which Law Enforcement really needed encryption it was really going to hurt them. Even now, people dont have an iphone, they dont have whatsapp, they are using sms messages, they are in the clear. They are stored for a finite amount of time, they can be subpoenaed and cold. Investigator said it was because of those sms messages we were able to get off of the phone that we were able to force through a plea deal. Not withstanding any other special circumstances. In the interest of fairness, 10 address this issue. We enter this world where everybody uses an iphone. Everyone uses ios eight and uses i messaged, which is encrypted from device to device. What does that mean for Law Enforcement . Do they go elsewhere . Today go back to the era when we didnt have cell phones . It sets them back. The question is how does Law Enforcement responded . I look at these issues like a game of whack a mole. Its not like the government is going to say we will stop investigating those cases. They will try and come up with ways of getting warrants come instead of access to the device, access to device while its connected to a network. Its a cat and mouse game, where it is constantly dynamic, not static. We cant say this is now done. It generally is going to be in the Public Interest for a certain amount of criminal activity to be able to be investigated and salt. We would not want a world where you could commit crimes with impunity, and they basically cant be investigated. That would be bad. There needs to be some legitimate role of Law Enforcement. The question is looking forward technologically, what is that rogue going to be . Is this talk of a golden key, which any cryptographer would say its who we hooey. Is it an encryption backdoor . Is it forcing someone to turn over passwords to get access to their phone . Im curious how we also protect people. They want their data secure, they wanted encrypted. What is the exemption . I would imagine it is a stiffer penalty for refusing to decrypt ones own device. There would be a certain amount of privilege for the most part, where its known to be a persons own phone. I think it will be harder for the government to access the device without the persons help for it the law will probably come in and add extra pressure to push the person in to help, not voluntarily, but involuntarily, facing criminal punishment if they dont do that. I think some thing like that is where we are going. You think the solution is compelled to decryption as opposed to a golden key . That seems to be the better approach. I would agree with you. The golden key is also from a business and security standpoint. When we say golden key, we are talking about a backdoor access into encrypted products and services. By other exploited governments, possibly exploited by cyber criminals. Some of the backdoor access would be very good and sound. I can but is the have a lot of resources. They are less likely to be exploited by hackers. If its a mandate, which is something that has been discussed, on all businesses, we will see small businesses, startups etc. Trying to build this thing, it will be a variety of different golden keys and backdoors for services. Not all of it will be strong. He will put people in a vulnerable position. Not just in regards to hackers, but foreign governments. Building on what harley just said, the other problem i personally have with any kind of backdoor, and those of you who were privileged enough to see cumbersome and Thomas Massie of kentucky give a very eloquent explanation of this this morning will know that what we are talking about here, when the government wants to try and mandate these backdoors into electronic devices, is something that represents an absolute mortal threat, not just to the right to see an individual liberties of americans, but a mortal threat to the tech sector of the United States. We have already begun to see more than ample evidence of orders here with American Companies that were going to be going over to europe and making money there, or in asia and elsewhere, being canceled. This will have a snowball effect. It comes down to both an issue of individual liberty and privacy, but also an economic issue and a jobs issue for folks here. Thats why with the nsa and others are trying to do here, i would reference the intercept story recently on the aurora gold program, they were trying to basically dig into every Cell Phone Network in the whole world. That is a prescription ultimately to see the american tech sector collapse, if the government does not get in here and prevent nsa from going overboard in that respect. Trying to sell asia and nsa ready phone. The golden key for an encryption backdoor, the third way is compelling someone to give the government password. Im curious is a question from a legal perspective. Where does the case law stand . Hypothetically, i come and the government or a Police Officer says, you need to give me the password. What rights do i have in that situation . It depends on the circumstances. Issue is whether really being forced to decrypt in your forced enter own code, sort of forcing the to testify about something and whether they are saying something that is known or not known already so if it is someone cell phone and it is clear that it is their phone, right. You call the number and it rings from that phone. What the law would call a foregone conclusion. There se circumstances, should not be a privilege that blocks the government from ordering the person to enter passcode. On the other hand, say if it is is using computer that encryption, telling the person give me your decrypted data on his laptop that would trigger the privilege because it is not whether there is ultimately data being hidden. Depends on y just the circumstances. I mean, when we talk about the encryption route we are not talking about these issues in the abstract. These are very real issues. If a consumer or someone wants a password protector they to encrypt their data, whether it is on dropbox or on the cloud there is real world consequences. Something about being surveilled my colleagues worked on a story coming to the ap on their phone records. We can talk about her own experiences with government surveillance and the government getting access to information. This is a very real threat to i can personally say, even if my phone records were not subpoenaed, i still have problem with some of the sources. We will get a beer another day. We can talk about, and maybe start with you, harley, unlike people on encryption and what their actions are. I think the people dont know they dont know how the be used ion will against them, both now and in the future. And it makes people whose actions could be construed in a negative or even a possibly light very civil cautious about taking certain is ions whether that talking to reporters or even looking things up on the internet in order to educate themselves. There was also a study of how internet search terms have changed since these disclosures. I think this has a real actions effect on the of people to for curiosity, as well as freedom of expression. That is a side of the very Large Business implications, as well. The Chilling Effect with little bit e is a tricky because in any to be ular case, you have careful distinguishing between a Chilling Effect caused by an the eness of the what government is doing, and a Chilling Effect of fear caused by the government that may or may not be true. The data e might be tofrom collecting information involving phone calls from people across United States. That is not something encryption can solve because that just comes from the phone itself. Nsa is le say, oh, the watching me. It wont actually interview with that kind of particular program. Encryption cannot be used against it. But it is, i think, a difficult question. We ran into this a little bit in the patriot act, where there are some aspects of the patriot acts that are narrow and some are broader but some of the narrow portions were reported incorrectly as being brought. A lot of people worried about from the patriot act based on what was basically misreporting. Then you say the patriot act has a Chilling Effect. Well, is the Chilling Effect from the misreporting aspect of it . Is it from what the government is doing . From the government standpoint, they said they didnt want anybody to know of the surveillance. I am glad you brought up the patriot act because i would generalized w a question out there. Which is why was the patriot act passed . 9 11. Right. So the basic frame that the government has presented over the course of the last 13 years is basically this. We had to pass things like the these t act in some of other surveillance authorities just collect dnt enough data iin order to be able to uncover the potting of the bad guys. Of the biggest lies to come out of the post9 11 era. 99 11 happened for one reason and one reason only. That is because federal Law Enforcement and intelligence agencies failed to do their job of utilizing information they had at their disposal which was more than enough to uncover the spot to prevent them from happening. That is not just my opinion, the 2002 he opinion of joint committee, and the entire 9 11 commission itself. So that is really what i keep i talk back to when about surveillance issues in a globalized communication base, it is almost meaningless distinction. Congress passed laws to address a nonexistent problem. It is not like that hasnt happened before. But it has had an incredibly distorting effect in our society. And that is why i think we need to go back and put the emphasis really needs to be, which is on forcing the government to actually do its job with the available data. They didnt need to 15 patriot act d the 215 authority and the patriot act. If you go and do as i did, when worked in capitol hill i went in october of last year to the Congressional Budget Office and the Government AccountabilityOffice Agencies for congress and i asked a very simple to stion can you point me any public evidence, particularly evidence offered agency or federal official, to indicate that any of the 152 provisions patriot act have thwarted any terrorist plot against the United States . The answers i got back were no, no, and no. If you stand back and think that makes perfect sense because it was not a lack of Information Collection that was the problem, it was the analysis and dissemination of it that was a problem. We know those problems are us because we start in the infamous underwear bomber case, and restart just with the Boston Marathon bombing case. We need to get is focused on the right problem. Let me push back on that narrative a little bit because i think there is a different story about what was in the patriot act. I think it is wrong to say, oh, the patriot act is a big scary it mustve been bad. Let me approach that was the story. Was in the , 2000, i Justice Department. I was part of a group of career lawyers coming up with a hightech crime bill a way of improving the surveillance laws which were clearly out of date. A lot of the language was kind of telephone specific. There was just a general needed to f the water be done. Nothing that was designed to of government l power, but just Good Government updating the laws kind of thing. In the summer of 2001, there is understanding that this would get mostly passed and it was not controversial to the members of congress. The status of of things. 9 11 hits, and a few days later, the antiterrorism bill comes out. Good enough. Some of the electronic that illance part of antiterrorism bill actually, this hightech crime bill when to the Justice Department, it was sort of improving the surveillance laws, generally. Was this hat happened got past and the patriot act passed in the patriot act. He was saying it was sort of improving the surveillance laws, making sure the technology more modest claims. In the public mind, it took off as this dramatic expansion of the law. Is not about y, it terrorism, but it is not an expansion of government power in most of the provisions. Do you accept that it was sold expansion of government power, and was that government power necessary . Would you look at it sort of piece by piece and saying is that a good idea or is good idea . And one part that i think which is an important story is the section 215 power, which was, on its face, and unobjectionable part. For national wer security cases. It was interpreted in secret by the court to allow them to which i find gram, extremely unpersuasive. The modest power was interpreted to be very broad. So the who do you blame question, in my mind, we blame accepted this t plausible interpretation, more oof we blame the drafters the statute that, on its face, is much narrower. I was about to call out section 215, so im glad you did. That was a huge expansion. And that leads many people to reasonably wonder what other of the patriot act of being construed in a very broadway. Is important to remember that during the debate in using military force afghanistan in 2001, then Senate Majority leader tom daschle was heavily pressured by the white house. He refused. The Administration Response was set up a program on the backside. Me, it gets a little bit. A failure here is the overall congressional oversight to push back on these things, to prevent this kind of abuse and excess power. I know it is going to sound bit odd from someone from the aclu to sign the theres a t, but provision in there that relate very much. Bring this discussion back to where it was before i was in the car countries are actually permitted right now by law to encryption into their products, and encryption for which they do not have a key or a way to seville. I think that was very smart for to put that in. Congress has placed it in a law that many of us think is a bad surveillance law congress has the foresight to protect companies and, therefore, protect our rights. Because none of us to these technologies ourselves. Congress decided that encryption was important. They decided to put that text right in there in the statute. I think, you know, we have to recognize that, you know, encryption is there. Strong encryption is protected by law. And Law Enforcement basically to deal with it. It is not just going to take a bit of arm wrestling for the government to get what they want right now a few angry speeches from the director is not going to get exactly what they want. To talk about changing logic for a minute. Speaking of i know they are even in judicial holdings. Updating these laws to to be part of the iphone encryption era could start with chris, just sort of where we are in the landscape and beyond the patriot act. What is really the hindrance right now . The situation right now is that Civil Society advocates we frequently like to say that congress has not updated electronic privacy laws in 20 years. We had a 1986 privacy act. Congress has not really given any new rcement surveillance powers to deal with these new technologies, so what ends up ns new ening is as these technologies come up, the government has to try to fit the new technologies into the old authorities. So we have the government using devices like stingrays phone sophisticated cell tracking devices that track the cell phone and collects information on hundreds of thousands of innocent people. They say, well, is this more like the pen register tthat we got in title iii . Or is it nothing . They have taken all those positions at various points. If Law Enforcement wants to hack into somebodys computer they say, well, do we use a wiretap . To use a search warrant . Will try various authorities, but congress has not given the government legislative authority to hack. Most advanced the surveillance technologies or to use the most advanced surveillance technologies that are available. Put aw enforcement has those into use without telling congress, without telling the American People. Saying lear, im not congress should give the government the authority to hack. What im saying is that they are secretly using this. It is not just congress, either. Stingray, advance license plate readers what local and state enforcement are doing, too how state governments are of grappling with this. Were nk it was in maryland a Police Investigator was asked about it about the use of a said that and he was classified. There was no classification scheme under maryland statutes, at least what he was referring to. That was a legislative hearing. Hearing recently, a Police Officer told the baltimore judge that he cannot talk about this technology and they had a nondisclosure agreement with the government. And the judge said, well, you dont have a disclosure agreement with me. What you are sort of getting i think e is that many people, when we saw these images from ing ferguson heavily armored law are rcement agencies we thinking, holy smokes, these are military weapons that have trickled onto state and local Law Enforcement agencies. I think a lot of us are rightly terrified because they are appropriate for the battlefield that are not appropriate for smalltown america. But it is not just weapons that have trickledown. It is surveillance technologies, as well. The only difference is that the bearcat looks terrifying on tv. The same programs that are funding armored personnel carriers in smalltown america also funding surveillance technologies. It is not appropriate for local Law Enforcement to have this kind of technology because they do not respect the privacy of innocent americans. Maybe that is okay when they are being used on the now we have very over utilized surveillance technologies. It is not happening with legislative oversight. Theyre not passing laws permitting this technology to be put in use. So we are only finding out about it because the police or up on the web. Ows this is not how we should be doing oversight and surveillance. This is what is happening right now in america today. I actually think that talk about the effects and Harms Associated with surveillance happening right now. In some sense, i think that is a useful question. I do not want to diminish the very real harms or chilling is ects, but i think that it very much it is very important to also try and project into the future and think about what our government generation ke in a or 2. We simply dont know. We also dont know where technology is going to be in a generation or two. We have seen it become much more intrusive. We are exploding with metadata. If the laws are not crafted in such a way privacy is not built into the law in such a actually have some production against the uses of the metadata, against collection of it, and the uses of very, very intrusive Surveillance Technology we will not have privacy. And this will be augmented to a shattering degree. And on the point of transparency, i believe going the baltimore case did they actually dropped the charges . In that case, i think the judge tossed the evidence. Several other cases where prosecutors have basically either drop the case really, really good deals to avoid having this technology be litigated. To his point, all the encryption in the world is not the threat, p collection, and analysis of metadata. There is metadata everywhere. All companies are collecting it by default. The big data tools that have created for the companies, those are now being trickle local law ate and enforcement agencies. The government already has a huge amount of metadata, but they are only going to have more. So domestic surveillance in 5 years or 10 years will only be aided by the availability of metadata. And i think we should about, r that as we talk essentially, these electronic technologies, there are other technologies currently being developed and employed biometric related technologies, for example. These are really scary. Technologies ther that the Transportation Administration has implemented over the years. Machines in question ssome of these machines, specifically the backscatter machines extremely invasive. And also, potentially, a health threat. Two congressman were finally able to get those machines out out of the and airport, but the tsa is working on yet more technology. That is another area i think we will have to increasingly spent some time on trying to legislate. An annoying ke comment you know, normally what happens under the the ess of lawmaking is in area of surveillance, government investigations we have the government getting sort of new tool and maybe under prior law it requires a warrant. Maybe it doesnt require a warrant. The government then use the tools, either pursuant to the court order or not. Sort of theres some motion in a criminal case, for example, the tool is introduced. A motion to suppress it was unlawfully used. The press gets involved in reporting on the use of the technique. And then you get some sort of public reaction to it. Either the public says we are comfortable with it or we are not comfortable with it. So the courts get involved. Legislatures get involved. And what were seeing iis actually traditional with that process. To a e 1960s, that led and supreme ation court decisions. This is sort of the normal pattern of things. Not saying dont worry. We should worry, but we should that normally what happens is that the law steps and fairly late in the game. At least come after me know what is being regulated. Even the privacy act of 1986, that was an early example of regulation. Sort of the cycle of technology the sense that congress was regulating internet privacy back before most people were familiar with the internet. The was really early in lifecycle of technologies, but this is kind of the traditional pattern. From a public standpoint, i think what we should be doing for these new technologies, try to understand what the new technologies are. And in the case of Stingray Technology, for example, i the 1983 actions brought against officers using is a echnology this great area. Bring civil cases, eespecially the he extent that ernment is dropping cases civil cases led to cases of how the 4th amendment applies to statutes tes, or how apply to these, would be really helpful. If i can just jump in. There is a piece of that story that you are missing out on. Whether it relies to stingrays or wiretaps, for the 1st 10 in rs of wiretapping history this country they were 1st put to use in about 1895 in new york. Years for k about 10 the public to learn that they even existed. And that was because the police did everything in the power to give the people in the dark. They wanted to hear things on the phone. Technologies or like them have been in use since the mid1990s. We until a year or 2 ago, only had an incident or 2 where looked at stingray implications and said anything about it. It is not an accident, it is an effort by the fbi to suppress public discussion or awareness about this technology. How does the system work where defense lawyers challenge them the the court weigh in and Congress Weighs in, when the Law Enforcement community is doing everything in their power to suppress it . That , my recollection is the Stingray Technology was discussed in cases going back 20 years. To the extent that is being known in the case i am sort for a Public Interests group, whether it is aclu or whoever, to bring cases but the problem is is that we dont learn. In North Carolina recently, there has been quite a bit of controversy about the stingray after a local newspaper found out that the police had a stingray device. Police had, of course we get court orders for these things. Then a journal is called of the local judge and asked if they had ever approved it. And the judges all said we have no idea what a stingray is. That process, by which the technology hides the the the courts, ffrom public, from congress means that it shortcircuits the process that you just described and how to control the technology. Have been ght, there a couple of incidents in the last 20 years were judges asked the right questions and the government said, yeah, actually this is not a regular pen register. But they thought they were getting the same kind of order they had been getting for 40 to the phone is go company and get incoming and outgoing calls. So with respect to the stingray devices and how they, have been employed if they try to use evidence from those in the case, and construction allel or somewhere else to hide the Technology Actually being used the n florida, we have seen u. S. Marshals service advising local Law Enforcement agencies to when referring Information Dry from stingrays it as private information. I think that is kind of suspicious. I think that is the kind of behavior that we dont want lawenforcement agencies in getting it. And time again, with the surveillance devices to give them out of the public eye. And a very good observation from a journalist point of just i think it is not that federal although, you in arizona case quietly saying that it was a privacy rights issue. Under state public laws, tthey come back saying denied, denied, exempted, denied. Or heres a page where, dear so and so, you are redacted. Ust want to touch on this how the public, the press via the First Amendment is sort of get at this when that transparency, you know, whether judge in baltimore saying, you know, not in my a state m, or legislature update saying you need to do this over. Im curious on how were supposed to know this . To comment anted that yyour recommendation focused more on cases and bring civil actions. That is beyond the expertise and financial means of most people. I think that it should not be understated the importance of contacting the government yourself. Not just the federal government, but state and local as well. That is something everyone should do. And im not talking about angry tweets because they are not reading the tweets. Actually organizing among yourselves and calling up. The surveillance debate needs you. The people in this room, the people watching on cspan also. They cannot just be up to groups. To bring this back to what we are discussing before. Hypothetically, that the fbi develops or by some that lets them intercept and decrypt encrypted messages. It doesnt really matter how this works. That technology is going to be really, really useful. It is going to be even more useful because there are people saying things via face time ever they were not have said via telephone because they think it is encrypted. That technology is going to be so useful that they will do everything in their power to keep it as close as possible to their chest. We are going to encounter this and over again keeping that technology a secret going to say, re well, if we discussed this, it wont work anymore. And so, what do we as a society do when the source and methods must be kept secret from us . Or Law Enforcement believe they must keep them secret. Do when those techniques dont just convey person being f the like a stingray invades the privacy of hundreds of thousands of people when they are being flown an airplane . Never verage person is going to learn that there is an flying over the house with the device inside that captured information from the house. We would have never learned that program existed. We stand te and where with is very recently riley versus california they were very blunt and part of the language that, you know, the police want to search a phone, get a r is clear warrant. It is very clear to the general idea. Im curious Going Forward are lawyers up here where we are going to go in the next 10 or 20 years . What is our society going to like in 20 years . What are those protections says does not ess the patriot act where does it stop down . It is probably going to be a wild ride. That case that the court, quite surprisingly, the to unanimously. We have lower courts entertaining challenges under the section 215 trying to versus out whether smith maryland is viable, or whether it should be narrowed in some way Going Forward. It is not clear. It make it up to the Supreme Court in the next few years. Yesterday, i think the Fourth Circuit heard a case. There is now a split on this question. The florida Supreme Court said that it is protected. Are e are all issues that sort of percolating and working their way up to the Supreme Court. I think, in general, the justices tend to be relatively sensitive to how Technology Changes privacy. If you look back the thermal imaging case from 2000, jones versus United States in 2012, versus california this past year those are all cases where if you look the case law these are all 3 cases where, in fact, the government lost. In jones and rally, they lost unanimously. Attuned to these concerns, and lower courts as well. Were saying it of all. If we had a functioning congress, i think youll see Congress Really active. Unfortunately, the statute picture here has been caught up in the bladder dysfunction of congress. The state action at legislatures you see more action in the state legislatures. That strikes me as a natural topic for legislation. If our government is collecting data, what are they doing with it . How long are they keeping it . All these are important questions that should be asked. Some states have started to ask these questions. Legal system is responding in a slow and cumbersome way. Slow, cumbersome, and a very mysterious sort of way. It is fragmented, also. But jones decision it was a win, but it was also very murky. They are going to avoid the doctrine only for so long. Theyre going to have to do with it because it makes actually no sense in an age of technology. Amendment was supposed protect from an reasonable searches and seizures. But joined the line in court drawing the line in court will be very tricky. Unfortunately, a lot of their rulings are narrow. A great example they had a very narrow ruling. More uld have been much broad with that. They are going to be begging congress to do something about it. Lets hope that congress does a great job. [laughter] it is interesting that you bring up the search and seizure case. I was reading all that as it was being filed. Very, very last stage, the government then raised the issue of encryption and said, oh, encryption is a huge threat. You know, we dont have time to get a warrant if someones phone is encrypted. The moment they type the number, that is when we need to get the phone. It is sort of off that the court didnt pay too much attention to that, but i will come back to that. A year later, apple had this big change. I cant help but think that if apple and google had announced rally anges before the decision came out, it might have looked a little bit different. The Supreme Court really did searches door open to without a warrant when Technology Made it necessary. Threats like encryption. The court did not spend a lot of time there and said, well, there are these exceptions to the 4th amendment rule and will apply on a casebycase basis. Im interested in hearing the thoughts on this. Are ear is that what we going to get because of both availability of the technology, because of the fact that devices are being built to be more secure we are going to find ourselves in a world where we are going to have a Law Enforcement agency agent sitting in unmarked vans, waiting to pounce. The moment they see the target pull out his or her phone, that is when they will jump on them and grab them and push them to to get the device while it is unlocked. I think rally pushes this in the direction. I think Technology Pushes us in this direction. Because that kind of seizure, when the device is unlocked, means they can avoid all the we discussed before whether it is getting backups if they can get that phone at the briefest moment when it is unlocked, then they get everything they need. And this happened iin the was sitting in a Public Library in san francisco. Waited until he logged in and then they use excessive force. Is my paranoia crazy . I dont know how the added use of force for 10. Agree with you, though, from a lawenforcement if you have reasonable reason to arrest someone and you think you might access to the phone if not in use i agree, Law Enforcement will a smart fbi agent will wait to the is using the phone in order to do that. I think that is right. Part of this, though, i think on a question empirically, there is going to be in a question of how the able nment is going to be to bypass it in terms of, hey, give us your encryption code. Be etimes maybe they will able to guess guess it and get through that way. Question of this how often are they really going to find the investigation. And they may find that is not barrier to Law Enforcement, in which case the circumstances become weaker. So, to some extent, that you asked depends the legal question depends on the technological question of how much is going to stop the government. Wwhen , i was surprised the attorney general and the director both criticized apple and google. Was surprised that because these 2 top Law Enforcement are criticizing a company, but our surprise that, you know, in the last 5 years i dark been watching this stuff unfold and it is not the 1st time that the government is complaining about companies rolling out technology i have not seen him call out a particular company by name. They dont want to tell the use this one t technology and we will be able to monitor you. It is consistent that they will talk about peer to peer or ip addresses on y have never once said this particular carrier or this particular app is a huge case for us. It makes sense. They would be idiots to area cast to the world the of their armor which is weakest. Best. I have and im speculating here the best and im have that lating here is they are worried about the encryption on the device. Not a huge bably problem. There are backups. People choose back passwords. I actually dont think that encryption will be a major issue for Law Enforcement. Not the kind of problem that would warrant the fbi director and the attorney ggeneral going on national tv. What i think you are really the end to end s encryption of voice, video, and Text Communications. The new encryption that has built into their technology. It means that wiretaps will no longer work very well. I think that what theyre looking for is a way to apply pressure to these companies. A way to looking for direct the attention of folks at the other sector and at this problem telling the problem public that it is this particular technology. I dont think they want to say the apple part of product portfolio. On the issue of realtime video, and Text Communications yes, i think it will make life more for Law Enforcement community. It will also make it more for criminals to spy and governments to spy. Think that technology will advance in a way that i dont think any of us have imagined. I think either the wiretap numbers will start to drop, or well start to see a usage of hacking by Law Enforcement we have never seen before. Because if they can get malware onto your phone, then it matter what is encrypted because they get the they get the webcam, they get everything that is going on in the device. We were involved in africa doj asked the courts for unanimous authority to hack into computers around the world. And i think the response to encryption from Law Enforcement increased use of orders with encrypted data. To natural response encryption is hacking, and it is going to start with the fbi where it is already at. And it will trickle down to every other Law Enforcement agency. State and ust like locals have stingrays, wwe are state and locals have this technology. And the ap knows a thing or 2 about the in the face of secret they may be voluntarily interacting with the government. We can trust ay them . So, i know this is a Law Enforcement panel and not a street panel. In the context, there is great reason to be concerned aabout relationships between large u. S. Companies and other equipment companies. I think it is troubling when have a Government Services division of the company that makes chipset power the that we all use. That creates a serious cause for concern. But even if there were some capabilities that these companies were building and were dealing with information the government couldnt is a secret there backdoor. It is not going to be given to the fbi to use in a drug case. I think the average person to fear have any reason hardware backdoors or that kind of thing. Comes to trust what worries me the most is that, for good security reasons, we now have automatic updaters in our browsers, and our phones. The google and microsoft of the world have the down ty to Push Software to the customer. There have been a few sort of in the past where tthese Companies Use that books from remove peoples devices. I am very, very concerned that at some point one of these tech will receive an order compelling them to deliver malware to a target, under the guise of an automatic security update. We do not have a copy of that kind of order. We have not had any situations its coming, at but you know, these companies do have the ability to update software on our devices. More and vices get more secure, Law Enforcement agencies and their allies will look to any leverage to have. And that ability is one that is so powerful. I cannot imagine they will not use it at some point. The gentleman down here. Had his hand up. John from mclean, virginia. I disagree with the panels earlier discussion where they the back to being a sort of a way out to try a the issues between being raised. Prevailing encryption systems keys, they are serverbased, and a back door is just as open to hacker as it is the fbi. Inviting that is just open sesame to the hacker community. There is an alternative. That is an antistandard measure that is approved for 15 used by and technologists, anyway. System, where the it is a dynamic key and not static. It is not serverbased. The Network Owner can key at any time. Responded to by warrant or judgments. Do you have a controlled system broad balance between a encryption system that is available for National Security reasons under approved the loss is administrable. That was a system that was proposed during the thinking is that it is not a static key. I am talking dynamic key. Okay, but the distinction here is that your employer or has a mechanism has some kind of key mechanism built into your device such that they can then no, sir. Only the Administrative Network controller has control of that key. It is a dynamic key creation. Regardless of who has the key whether it is computer or our apple if there is an additional key, there is an additional target that people go after. I think that the people are in widespread agreement that we dont want any more keys. I think those tools have been available on the market, and havent been adopted outside of enterprise settings where is probably legitimate use for them. Im sorry, that analysis is not correct. For a dynamic key situation. Well, most security extras that i have spoken to dont want to have anything other than a key held by the user. The gentleman right here. I am sure it is not just heard of o havent Stingray Technology. To 60 you give a 30 2nd second econd to 60 description of it . It exploits a critical security flaw in the older of cell phones and that your phone has no way of proving that it is talking to a tower. Tower or any device that is, effectively, a tower can decide what it wants to call itself. Itself and at t tower or a verizon tower. A stingray impersonates the structure of the phone network. The fbi drives into a they turn it on, it has a higher signal strength any other source nearby, phone say, y all the oh, look, there is a tower with greater signal strength. Let me use that for the calls. In the process of that, it phone in the ell neighborhood to produce a unique id. Can be some cases, these used to intercept incoming and outgoing calls, text messages, and even internet connections. Intensive purposes, the government is your network when using these devices. You may not even a bill to make telephone calls on this device is in use. So it is very disruptive, it is very invasive. Requires a degree of impersonation which i do not think is appropriate. Top of that, it rrequires that the government sensed penetrating signals through the walls of your house to reach the phone. Government t a contractor and neighborhood and send signals through a wall of innocent peoples homes in guy r to find that one bad down the street i think that is too far. Thank you so much. Im with the committee to protect journalists. And if you could talk about the Law Enforcement threats to journalists and lawyers, who depend on the ability to discuss and confidentiality with their sources or the clients. Raised that the issue about pushing out malware is a real one. You remember in dubai, the government owns telecom pushed malware to our blackberries. Knew about it because foreign reporters who were not working in a repressive country were able to report on it. So that is a really important dynamic. A very u here did important report, and i think raise the rtant to specific threats to lawyers and journalists. Answer in a t jack second. Of i will just say that one the great things that has happened postsnowdon is that are starting to take security seriously. The use of email encryption is now widespread among National Security reporters. That definitely wasnt the case 2 years ago. In some cases, i had to help people. But i think the Journalism Community has really come a long ways. Has not yet mmunity come in that direction. Still, the number of encrypted i get from lawyers who dont work for the aclu is still very, very small. The number of legal organizations who encrypt their who offer encrypted Telephone Services to their clients is very, very small. Sadly, lawyers dont tend to do anything. The failure to do so is deemed to be an unethical action. Is for we really need national r the criminal ddefense lawyers to put out a statement saying you need to encrypt. The Journalism Community iis moving in the right direction. The main problem right now is that still many of the tools we have are now are not easy to use. Text message and voice encryption are basically idiot proof at this point. Email encryption is still a nightmare. Saying encrypted documents between reporters is still very, very difficult. Briefly on this a e snowdon disclosure is National Security bbut one very small area that journalist do all of the country and all over the world. At a minimum, i have talked to at state government, companies, private firms outside of Intelligence Community where, i mean, they may not go to jail, but they a mortgage to pay, those to pay, a family to feed. Here i am lucky to live in a country where the worst happen to me not to say it is a walk in the park i get held in contempt. People talking about dying and disappearing because a government intercepted. Talk about lawyers im just curious from a legal is what this Technology Means for a client . And how it rotected works . Totally depends on what they have in mind. That is sort of a hard question to answer. On the journalism question, to been too there has much emphasis by the press and how victimized the press is by investigation that involved leaks to the press. The press is very good at interests in such cases. The basic problem, it seems to me, is leaking National Security secrets to the press is a crime. So, naturally, the government will investigate the leak. Then the reporters on the end of the leak the reporter is getting awfully close to the crime, right . It is a question on how the government investigates those cases. If we accept that that is a should be a crime, wwhich i think is the only way to have a classified system we that are stickers classified then, naturally, reporters are going to get close to that. I think there has been some under overage investigation to where back blown out of proportion. Under a statute authority and a Justice Department approval process. It cannot mean that the reporter was targeted, adjustment that it was part of a checklist. I definitely have a slightly different view. To have an ly need ironclad law for journalists. My problem with, essentially, make an argument that we need to have wide latitude for prosecutors to go after folks in cases like this is that the only reason we know that surveillance nal has been conducted is because to go snowden is willing to folks iin a business that jack and others are in. I hope this will continue. Hope that you will join us back here at 1 oclock sharp. Will be joined by google chairman, eric schmidt. That, we will have booze and instruction and wwith a really great series of tech experts walk you through technologies. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2014] host return to liveto coverage about 1 45 p. M. Eastern for a panel on oversight of surveillance programs. Before that, the google chief incutive chair eric schmidt conversation about privacy and user of trust issues, that starts at 1 00 p. M. And we plan to take that program we will have it for you later on the cspan networks. A live picture of the Senate Chamber were lawmakers have been to outgoingtes lawmakers most of the morning print remarks from iowa senator tom harkin who is leaving after five terms in office. Thexpect for the debate on 577 billion Defense Authorization bill and the 1. 1 trillion omnibus senate bill passed yesterday. See live coverage of the Senate Debate on cspan two. Shortly, we plan to go live to the White House Briefing room. We are expecting the start of todays briefing with josh earnest. The houses approval of that 1. 1 trillion budget yesterday, the senates work on the budget, and we could get more on the report on the cia detention and interrogation during the briefing. Underway. Age will get we will go back, to the opening of the cato discussion. We will hear from Thomas Massie on offer for blocking the nsa to use backdoor methods. He is introduced right william sanchez. And am a senior fellow here it is my signal singular privilege to welcome you to the cato surveillance conference. This has been called the Information Age which by definition means that our era is also an age of surveillance, how information is gathered and assembled, information is the ourral currency of power in euro which means it is how we strive to protect ourselves against novel threats in a uniquely decentralized era where small groups of people composed propose threats to a nationstate previously reserved for other nationstates. At the same time, the of potentially the architecture of control that we are constructing in order to make ourselves safer threatens to undermine the preconditions of democracy and free society. We are tracked in our daily lives as a side effect of the technology we use to communicate every day. Its almost accidental. It is a byproduct of the way the technologies work, that is never before, when we talked to a friend or lover or a family member, when we read the newspaper, when we investigate topics of interest to us whether they involve global geopolitics or our own most intimate medical conditions, a trace his last. It is often hard to keep track of how tracked we are. In many ways, the entities that increasingly minute and vast quantities of data about our activities thanks to analysisated bulk data waysn some ways happen in than we know ourselves. These issues have come to the forefront of our National Conversation recently insignificant part because of the disclosures of mr. Snowden regarding the incredible scale and scope of collection by the National Security agency. The technologies used in intelligence and in the name of National Security are also increasingly finding their way into domestic Law Enforcement efforts as has often been the case in our history. We find the Cutting Edge Military Technology is within a deployed for widely Law Enforcement technology. This presents difficult questions, questions that if you follow debates about privacy, forces us to deal with in the language of Science Fiction because it involves projecting it forward, the implications of these new technologies, not just but invidual novelties their aggregate on our autonomy withur relationship technology. Looking back to the middle of the last century in our history, we also now the terrible price that can be exacted when secret surveillance tools are used without adequate oversight. We know that across many president s with many parties in power, we have seen how the ability to secretly surveille not just enemies of the state but enemies of the regime in used to entrench that power. Most famously, we know the fbi use the power to surveille as a tool of power against Martin Luther king and the christian Leadership Conference but also a whole range of antiwar, feminists, leftists, dissidents as a way of trying to ensure that democracy did not progress more quickly than the People Holding the reins of power were prepared for. Face a world in which, not just because of what intelligence agencies do but because of what the services we rely on to provide us with our calendars to arid daily minute conversations are doing, we need aboutnk very carefully how this unprecedented aggregation of information can be made compatible with liberal democracy in every society. It is my drug and are be able to introduce someone who has been at the forefront of that the to ensure imperative to gather information and protect ourselves from those who would do us harm cannot be used as an excuse or a pretext ofbroaden monitoring innocent and peaceful american citizens. Congressman Thomas Massie, as many of you know, along with his law his colleagues, are responsible for an amendment that by an overwhelming partisan margin passed the house of representatives and aims to ensure that information gathered for National Security purposes by targeting foreigners could not be used in routine investigations by the fbi or other Law Enforcement agencies to spy on americans unconnected with those foreign intelligence purposes. That amendment was, despite the enormous margin by which it passed the house, was recently removed in conference from the intelligence authorization bill. Those of us who have been watching the legislative effort to rein in the intelligence agencies find this all too familiar. Its important to recognize especially in the house of defining anves, essential group of blood just lighters willing to Work Across Party Lines to protect the that lie atberties the foundation of our republic. We are a country come in many ways, founded because we did not like government agents prying into our business. I can think of no one better to astonishingeally lineup of experts and practitioners we have assembled than the congressman from the Fourth District of kentucky who, in addition to his profound Civil Liberties history, is an m. I. T. Graduate with multiple degrees and a founder of a Technology Company and someone who its maestro neri privileged introduce to you, congressman Thomas Massie. [applause] there are many experts in the room today on this legislation and what the government has been doing. What i want to share with you is the battle that we are fighting in congress. To give you a peek behind the curtain of what we do when we try to reform some of the unconstitutional spying that has gone on in this country. I will defer to the crowd on some of the particularly julian who is an expert on some of these finer points of these issues. And then i also need to give lofgren who is one of the cosponsors and they did probably more work on this amendment than i did but we felt like a republican had to introduce it and i was the only republican that was willing to introduce this bill, this amendment we had all worked on. To give you an overview really of three different legislative efforts. Themash amendment, the dod appropriations bill in 2013, the freedom act in the house i will not get into the Senate Version but what happened in the house and then that masseylofgren amendment and the house. Let me give you a bit of my background and tell you where i am ideologically. In 1993, when i was finishing my thesis at m. I. T. , i looked up at the television and saw something happening in waco, texas that disturbed me. What i saw was there was a group of people that was easy to vilify. The left did not like them because they were clinging to guns and religion. The right did not like them because they were not clinging to a religion they recognized. The individuals probably a polygamist at waco. That did not justify what i saw. What i saw were tanks running over childrens go karts and dozens of people dying in a fire. I decided there is something wrong here with the leftright paradigm and something wrong with Civil Liberties in this country and thats when, looking would be aided i civil libertarian. Another point i want to make is that in republican primaries across the country, the districts have been so gerrymandered that most of them are either red or blue and it ends up being a race to the right or a race the left in many of these congressional districts. In my case as its a republican district and there in theven candidates primary every mom was trying to be more conservative than everyone else. Fortunately, thanks to the efforts of some of you in this room to inform i constituents and thanks to the efforts of rand paul who had just finished two years earlier running in kentucky, italy kentucky were in tune with the fact that our Civil Liberties have been violated by the patriot act and other pieces of legislation. I campaigned on that instead of trying to be more to the right than the next person. It was obviously it worked and i am here. Im extremely frustrated sundays at what happened like last night when the masseylofgren amendment was stripped behind closed doors from the appropriations bill. It was an amendment to the dod appropriations bill. It was stripped from the on the bus part and parcel. There was nothing left of it. That was very frustrating to see. Passed without that legislation on it but i will get into that in a little bit. Let me describe my colleagues and myself as well. When i came to congress, im an engineer and i thought if you had all the facts on your site, you could win the day. Closed. Case would be we arediscovered is that not voting algorithms, we are soft mammals that go there and press buttons. We possess fully all of the faults that the general population possesses. No additional intelligence to speak of and a greater degree of hubris by bureau to of winning the election. Some people think they have a chip that instructs them how to know everything better than the congressman. When i first got to congress, one congressman told me that he was advised by an elder congressman when he got there that i always felt the way my constituents would have me vote. Course, i know something about the legislation that they dont. Which is always the case. Use that mentality to their advantage in congress. I mean the leadership which generally opposes any reform to the Intelligence Community activity. Congressmen. On presnowden with legislation, the Cyber Intelligence protection act. We were working on that in the house and it had just been debated in the house and adjust past when the snowden revelations came out. The timing of those revelations and disclosures. If we can see this is what we were talking about could happen, ifcispa passes. When they did it come it was interesting, we had classified briefings. They bring the generals in and the computer experts from the cia and nsa. Briefingr one comical where there was a computer geek i have a lot of nerd pride so i can say that he was sitting there and doing a demonstration how the russians could hack into your computer. It was running to programs on the computer at the same time so he is actually hacking into the computer he was typing on. That was interesting to him but i dont thing it made sense to any other congressmen. To him, he was running two different threads in his computer so this was a novel thing. He was typing in hexadecimal , down atnto a c prompt the root level but he could see what was going on in the window and his program crash. His simulator crashed. The general is standing there shaking his head. I am thinking nobody realizes your program crash in this room. You could just think this whole thing. [laughter] anyway, they convinced everybody in that room that now they knew something nobody else knew. They were qualified to vote on cispa would not have them vote for this. Then we had the snowden revelations. Who isngressman amash the person people go to in the house when i want to know what the legislation really does. He has an excellent staff. Poors these bills. He introduced an amendment to the dod appropriations bill to try to stop the bulk collection. Its probably more dangerous than the actual content. When they can realize how you are interacting socially with. He sought to rain that in. That is the first of the three bills i will discuss. Was antell you why this amendment to an appropriations bill. The leadership and all the chairman of the committees of respective jurisdictions do not want to reform the Intelligence Communitys activities print they just dont want to do it. The house of representatives, because the Committee Structure and leadership structure, they have so much power. We can introduce all the wonderful bills we want. Were up to like hr 5600 in this congress. The leadership and the chairman decide which bills go to the floor. Us who are trying to get legislation to the floor, we have to look for opportunities. They are few and far between. It reminds me as an engineer of the first invention relate tried to do movies in this thing rotated. Daedulum but it had slits in it and a slit goes by and you can see a picture on the other side of the drum. Its spinning and thats occasionally photons passing through that drum and thats the i would look at our legislative opportunities. Occasionally there is a slit in the drum and you can get a food a few photons in there. Is in those opportunities the form of a limitation amendment to an appropriations bill. Congress has the power of the purse in the democratic thing the leadership has agreed to do merely to keep their leadership because there would be a revolt of they didnt is to allow anybody in the house, its a rare democrat aspect of the house, anybody can offer any amendment they want. Andcan write it down cemented to the clerk and any appropriations bill. Its very constrained because there are these rules are routed. You cannot legislate. You cannot affect existing code. All you can do is limit how the money is spent. That was how Justin Amashs amendment was drafted and its hard to achieve what we want to achieve. It would be better if we could write a bill that change of the u. S. Code. Thats not what these limitation amendments do. He caught the attention of the world. He caught the attention of the leader ship. He had the world bearing down on him for his efforts, no good deed goes unpunished. Himof our colleagues called in the media, al qaedas best friend. That that used against him in a campaign in a primary. This is what you run up against. When you try to introduce legislation. That bill failed by only seven votes. But it was heroic that we got within seven votes. Let me tell you who voted no nancy pelosi and steny hoyer, john boehner who was the speaker and rarely ever votes on legislation decided to vote on this piece of legislation. He voted no. Eric cantor voted now and the majority whip Kevin Mccarthy voted no. Votedtire leadership against it. All of the Committee Chairman that had any jurisdiction over this voted against it. Yet we almost got half of the house of representatives to go against all of the leadership on both parties and all of the Committee Chairmen and ranking members. That gets us to an interesting point these folks who voted against that bill, it was like watching them put their hands in a wood chipper because i knew they were voting against the will of their constituents and they went home and did town halls, the ones that would still do them. Town halls from other congressmen on youtube for the same reason most people watch nascar. [laughter] its for the pileups. If you try to convince your constituents you are proliberty and youre not and have a voting record the shows youre not, you will have a car wreck. Welcome, its friday and its nice to see all of you. I dont have anything at the top. I wanted to ask about yesterday developments in the drama on which topic . [laughter] take your choice. I was going to say it was an eventful day yesterday. Could the white house have dramad that lastminute by declaring earlier where it stood perhaps after the deal had been announced to voice the white house afford for it, thus to my kratz would have known where the president stood right of the bat . You might not have had that backandforth. I think thats an open question and difficult to assess. I can explain about our thinking there are a couple of Different Things that drove the decision related to the timing of that announcement of the president s overall support for the copper mise proposal despite some concerns about individual provisions. That it diding is require some time for our staff to review the proposal. It was 1600 pages long. We had been in touch with house and Senate Negotiators but as they were brokering this agreement, you never really know whats included in it until you have an opportunity to read it and thats why it would not have been wise for the white house outofthebox to offer a position on a piece of legislation we had not read. That is the first thing. I think its notable that less than 48 hours after the 6000 page bill was released come we did have a position on it. Its not as if there was an extensive delay. The second thing is this represents our efforts to court night with democrats on the hill as the broker this kind of agreement as soon as the white house declared its legislation tos support the overall legislation, it undermines the negotiating leverage of democrats. Its also easy to imagine a scenario where we stand here friday morning where you were asking me wouldnt democrats on capitol hill in the house and senate have benefited from the white house withholding their statement until they had reached a determination they could no longer exact any changes in the negotiation . There is always going to be a little secondguessing about how this played out. Given the conclusion of the vote last night around 9 45 p. M. , thats a strong endorsement of the legislative strategy the white house pursued as it relates to this legislation. Was the white house taken aback how things unfolded Late Wednesday . There was opposition to two particular positions at the center of this the push out of derivatives and the campaignfinance issue. Should the white house have ben aware of that question mark were you not aware of it . Concerned at the time it could cause a problem if you were aware of it . To accountd for me for all of the conversations that took place between white house and administration oafish and negotiators in the house and senate as they were trying to carve out the agreement. Matter, last year when the wall street reform provision was moved through the house as a standalone provision, the white house was clear about our strong opposition to that proposal. It was a pretty unequivocal declaration that this was opposed by the administration. That was opposition that was restated when it became clear that this provision was included in the compromise proposal. Though it has passed the house of representatives, the administration continues to oppose that specific provision. This is the essence of compromise that there will be individual possess provisions in the bill that the president does not support. Had he had the opportunity to write this legislation entirely on his own, i assure you, it would look different and would not include the provision to wall street reform that we have been discussing. This is the essence of compromise but on balance, the president is pleased with what was included in this proposal for our Ebola Response to the funding necessary to support the men and women leading the effort against isl. There are a range of domestic policy proposals that are funded at an appropriate level in the legislation including the agencies that will be implementing the residence Climate Action plan including the increased funding for Early Childhood education. There are two areas where republicans had identified as opportunities to try to roll back progress on a couple of the president optimistic priorities. When it comes to the implementation of the formal care act and the implementation of the president s executive actions to reform our broken immigration systems, on neither measure were republicans able to significantly undermine our ability to at the meant those initiatives and continue to make progress on them. That is a clear win for democrats in a clear win for the president. That ultimately is why the president believes that this particular compromise proposal merited bipartisan support in the house. He believes it merits bipartisan support in the senate we hope the senate will act appropriately and bipartisan fashion to approve it and the president is hopefully will have the opportunity to sign it into law. Does the president have a management challenge with the leftwing of his party . Thats a very different than has been asked over the last four or five weeks. Many of you have written or observed and quoted republicans saying that in the aftermath of the midterm elections, the embracet was running to the progressive wing of his party, that by making bold announcements on Climate Change and moving forward with Immigration Reform proposals and using his executive authority that declaring a clear position when it comes to net neutrality, that this was evidence the president was only interested in working closely with the leftwing of his party because these were the more progressive elements of the party were the strongest supporters of these decisions. Think what this episode over the last couple of days illustrates and over the course of the last several weeks illustrates that the president is determined, even when there are republicans in the majority of the house and the senate, to policies thatn will benefit middleclass families in this country. Thats what the president will continue to focus on. He hopeful there we opportunities to work with republicans to that goal. Where there isnt, the president will not hesitate to use his own authority to move forward. I recognize some people will interpret that as a move to the left and some people will interpret that as a move to the right. The president interprets this as a move forward for the country in the middle class. The president and leader pelosi have always been close. Is there now straining between them . You are right that its hard to think of anybody that the president has worked with more closely or more successfully on capitol hill that leader pelosi. There are two reasons that their relationship has been so strong. The first is that nancy pelosi is someone who is a champion for middleclass families and for basic american values. That makes her someone who has the same priorities is the president. Is second thing is that she as an effective a leader and more persuasive and advocate for members of her caucus then, i leaderprobably any other in either party in recent history in congress. That makes are not just a good partner, it makes her an effective one. I think that is why she and the president have had such a fruitful relationship. I alluded to this yesterday, after eight years when all of you and historians take a look at the president s long list of domestic legislative achievements, i think it will be fair to say that none of them, at least on of those listed at the top, would have been possible without the leadership and effectiveness of nancy pelosi. I continue to be confident i know the president is confident that the strong working relationship that we have had over the last six years will continue for the next two years. Need to patch things up over this bill . I dont have any specifics to read out to you but i will just say that the president has always had, not just a good working relationship at an open line of communication with leader pelosi and that did not change yesterday and its not going to change in the future. The president had a meeting with the saudi minister today. Can you tell us about that . Did they talk about oil prices . Did they talk about arming the Syrian Rebels on saudi territory . Withe president did meet im sorry the president s meeting with the Saudi Interior Ministry today. The two leaders intent to consult on regional issues including Coalition Efforts to and ourisls ideology efforts to counter the shared threat of al qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and support s everest tot haadi bring stability to yemen. In i anticipate we will have a slightly detailed readout of the meeting. The saudi Civic Knowledge and we have said publicly that they are supportive of the broader International Coalition to degrade and destroyed isl. One way they contributed they ine agreed to host training saudi arabia where u. S. And Coalition Personnel will be training opposition fighters to take the fight on the ground to in syria. We couple met saudis on this contribution. If nancy pelosi is such a critical player in the president s a competence, why was she frozen out of the negotiations on the spending bill . She wasnt part of it at all. It was republicans and the white house and harry reid. I think you would have to talk to her office to what office was aware of the conversations ongoing there. Its hard for me to weigh in. This is ultimately a negotiation between democrats and republicans on capitol hill. The white house was in the loop but was obviously not writing out the agreement. The Senate ForeignRelations Committee pass an authorization bill to enforce the battle againstisil 108. St on party lines, this say on the level of support that you have on capitol hill on your ability to get an authorization through a this onen congress if did not get a single republican to vote for it. We believe that the language that was passed through the committee yesterday by democrats does serve as a useful starting point for negotiations about what that language should look like. We would hope thats were the committee would start when they return after the first of the year. We have also been pretty clear that we do believe its important for congress to weigh in in a bipartisan fashion on this particular issue. It demonstrates clearly to the American People and to our allies and to our enemies that United States of america is completely united behind the strategy that the president has laid out to degrade and ultimately destroy isil. We are eager to have the kind of bipartisan show of support for the strategy and we will work on that. At the beginning of next year i think there are some indications and there have been comments from some republicans, that theyre interested in working with the administration on this. There is a reason to thank that is something in the realm of possible but well see how that plays out. You think it was a good starting point but would you support that . Supportwhite house that specific authorization with a time limit on Ground Troops . I dont think i can say whether or not the president would have signed a because there were still a number of steps to go through. It would have to pass the entire senate and then go to the house. The language that was passed did not include a geographic limitation. We believe thats a wise decision. It would not be prudent to telegraph in advance whereisil leaders could establish a safe haven that would allow them to avoid military action by the United States or the coalition partners. We certainly believe that is one of this proposal we would support. It included some concerning language that would limit the flexibility of the commanderinchief to deploy a military strategy in a situation. There were some constraints in did notat we believe fall within the category of reasonable limitations that we could support. Such as . I think this is something we will work out with democrats and republicans on the hill. This included a limitation Ground Troops which we heard , that the ofkerry ministration did not want. Im referring to the line which included in this proposal limiting the flexibility of the commander in a cheap that we would not support. To use Ground Troops . Position of the administration is not change. The president is not supported scenario sending Ground Troops in a combat role into iraq or syria. It is not believe that is the best interests of our National Security and does not believe that will guarantee the success of our strategy. Of theainst the wishes leader of iraq. Nobody believes that would be a good strategy. And yet you want an authorization that would allow you to use Ground Troops. Lets talk about why. We are talking about flexibility. The president has been unequivocal about his strategy. That strategy does not include the use of Ground Troops in a combat role. However, there is a situation where Ground Troops have been put in a combat role on the grounded syria. The president authorized the mission that involve u. S. Military personnel being on the ground in syria to try to rescue american hostages. That is an indication of the need for the commanderinchief to have flexibility to protect our National Security interests. It does not reflect a change in policy but does reflect the need for the commanderinchief to have the kind of flexibility to respond to situations that right now are impossible to foresee. The other elements of the proposal that we should discuss is something we also have some concerns about the language that was approved by the committee does include a threeyear limitation on it. A threeyear limitation is something we would be open to subject to provisions for extension. Is thatit was written it essentially would have been a threeyear sunset subject to reauthorization. We believe that there should be some provisions included for extension. Somethingorks with be we would work with democrats and republicans on next year. Do you have any comments on the emails from sony executives that are being widely interpreted as being racist about the president . I have seen those reports and its my understanding that the sony executives or one of them, whose emails were made public, has apologized for those emails i think that was appropriate. A quick schedule thing there were reports saying the president and first lady would have the four tops and tempt haitians f over for lunch today . Im not aware thats part of the plan. We will look into that for you. Maybe a performance we would all like. I think i would like that. This seemed to be the first real test of the president s juice after the election with fellow democrats. Rejectede democrats the president despite phone calls, visits from Denis Mcdonough and phone calls from Vice President biden. Why did so Many Democrats reject him . The measure we had in place was not getting every single democrat is aborted but enough to support that would pass. Thats exactly what we got done. I think there was understandably healthy skepticism in this room about whether the president had the juice to get that done and he did. It was done by over 150 republican supporting it . Because democrats and republicans could Work Together even though either side did not get all they wanted. They wanted to recognize that both sides got enough to be able to support a piece of legislation that they believe would be in the best interest of the country. That is frankly the way the president believes these things should be resolved. Why do you think so Many Democrats voted to shut down the i dontnt customer think thats how they would describe their position. Last year republicans voted that way and they say it was a principled stand on health care yesterday democrats and it was a principled stand on wall street reform. Said, the president said they were hostage takers. Because they shut down the government. The democrats said they would thise won to support compromise proposal because they had concerns about specific provisions and the president disagreed. Saidspeaker john bennett he was prepared to do is to put on the floor a threemonth continuing resolution that would have preserved the government being open and continue the negotiations early next year. The reason the president did not support that as he believes that democrats heading into next year into the negotiation would have even less leverage as they try to get a bill they thought they could support in the best interest of the country. I asked you yesterday about why criminal charges have not been pressed over the cia situation of enhanced interrogations. After seeing your answers, an therney from the aclu said aclu is surprised that you continue to refer reporters to the Justice Department specifically saying lawyers for victims of the cia torture program stated their clients were never interviewed by the Justice Department on the Justice Department refused to answer whether the criminal investigators interviewed any of these victims. They said the Justice Department did not talk to any of the detainees. Is that a reasonable criminal investigation . Reasonable is that career federal prosecution should be making decisions about their investigation as in any sort of situation and that is what happened. The president has the complete confidence in the professionalism and thoroughness of career federal prosecutors. Knowing can stand here look over their shoulders and second guess who they will interview what should be included in their investigation. We expect them to live up to the standards of professionalism that inspires confidence. Is that professional to not even interview these detainees . Uestion do you think it was a credible investigation . Everyone near the white house has confidence in the investigation at the department of justice. Weree any of the people known to have been involved with the president has described as torture so working for the federal government . Kinds ofms of those personal questions, i would refer you to the cia. You are talking about a classified program and individuals whose identities have not been known. With the president become trouble with some of continue to work in the federal government purchase been activities he describes as torture. The president expects that everybody in the federal government lives up to the policies he has established. On his second full day in office, the president established a policy that unequivocally bans torture and expects everybody and his administration to follow that and the other policy guidelines. If someone was to working for the federal government because the guidelines and not going to place i dont know if thats the case but i would refer you to the cia. About theask you repeal part of dodd frank. Said this is something the president did not support but you also said the president supports the issues of middleclass americans and this is the reason not to support this part of the bill because they believed it was not good from a class americans. What does the white house believe the consequences are of this decision as a relates to dodd frank . There are a couple of provisions in the overall bill that are good for wall street reform. There are double digit increases in funding for the cftc and the which have a Critical Role in implementing wall street reform. Republicans were not successful on previous occasions to try to attach an ideological writer that would undermine the authority of the cfpb, the Consumer FinancialProtection Bureau created by the wall street reform legislation. This was something the president championed and wanted to be included in the bill. This would essentially ensure that consumers have a voice and washington, d. C. What it comes to these matters. When a wall street banks and other Large Businesses have wellconnected lobbyist i can look after their interests. Waspresident believed it important for there to be an independent voice and washington, d. C. Was looking out for consumers. The president strongly supports thecfpb and we are pleased there are no i a lot that ideological writers included in this row legislation that would undermine the authority of the cfpb. The other thing i will say about is there seems to be a difference of opinion. There is consensus about the true impact about what this provision would do. There are people who know more about the mechanics of financial reform will what is your feeling that this is a net gain . There are probably people who who can give you a better assessment of this. Im saying that there are several provisions in this legislation and at least one thing not in their that we believe are good for wall street reform and good for advancing wall street reform to ensure that we have proper oversight of the Financial System and that never again will taxpayers be on the hook for bailing out banks make risky bets. Is one of the reasons an addition to other things i mentioned earlier that the president signed this piece of legislation. There are provisions that we oppose. This is not the latest case of hacking whether it is we know credit cards, there are Many Companies who are reassessing their own Cyber Security as well as individual americans whom may be monitoring what they write in an email Going Forward. This series about of hacking incidents, the level of seriousness, as you see it and are there any plans that are being considered that would in some ways address what is generally considered to be a growing problem . 2011, the administration put forward a very specific Cyber Security legislative proposal that we wanted congress to act on. There are a couple of other pieces of legislation that passed last night after the omnibus situation is resolved. That included a couple of important pieces of Cyber Security legislation that will help the government better protect its networks and enhance its ability to work with the private sector. The white house has long called on congress to pass Cyber Security legislation to equip the nation with the tools it needs to continue facing increasing Cyber Threats. The president made clear earlier this year with the release of the Cyber Security framework oft Cyber Threats pose one the greatest nationals pretty dangerous United States faces. Our Critical Infrastructure continues to be a threat as does the personal information of many americans. The ministration will continue to take aggressive action to protect our nation from this kind of threats. There are certainly more that congress can do and we expect the congress can do. Should do. We certainly will be pressing them to take the kind of action it here. I want to ask about differences of what you said and the president said. When asked directly about that, he said he would leave it to others. Why is there some light between the president and the cia director on this issue . I dont the guy saw that aspect of the news conference. Director brennan had that at the cia. Haspresident s position been clear, he stands by his previous comments on this topic. Thats been pretty clear that sharply influenced his view, that those kind of tactics should be banned. Thats why he did it on the second full day in office. The ciad he get director on board to agree that this is torture . Im glad you asked it that way because the director was very clear yesterday in saying that he fully supports the president s decision to prohibit the use of enhanced interrogation interrogation techniques. I think that straight from the director, a clear indication that he supports the policy the president put in place. Well director brennan was serving at the terrorist at the white house as a terrorist advisor. Is the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, drones, in the counterterrorism effort my question is, could you foresee a future administration, just as this administration has said that drones are effective but torture is not, can you imagine a future administration saying that Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, because of the damage they do to our moral authority around the world, should not be used . I would not envision that scenario. Reason is that lethal operations, lethal Counterterrorism Operations are only conducted as a last resort. The president has emphasized that extort very care needs to be taken to ensure these cameras these counterterrorism carried out with International Law and are consistent with u. S. Values and policy. But the drones have created casualties. Meaning that the president does it it is not illegal . The president is committed to upholding International Law and the actions taken are consistent with our values and policies. Those values are what uphold our moral authority around the globe. Thats why the president is determined to ensure our counterterrorist operations are consistent with those values. He believes that protecting our moral authority is important to protecting the National Security of the United States. Our moral authority around the globe is one of the most important and powerful tools we have in our arsenal to protect and advance our interests around the globe. Thats why the president has expended such average to rebuild that moral authority. Is there any aspect of the Drone Program that undermines the moral authority . The great precautions are taken it does not undermine the moral authority question mark no. I want to unpack your answer a nancy pelosi. You praised her and set a big reason she has been so effective in working with the president more than any other leader on capitol hill is she has been able to rally her party. I was struck you said that because yesterday, 57 democrats voted against her and what the white house. Im wondering if your understanding is that leader pelosi was not sincerely against committee it was a movie going on. Maybe there is get a concern that huge that she has been an effective leader in the past that we are starting to see cracks and divisions . Lesson that we have learned at the white house and i think its a lesson that everybody around washington has learned at some point during the tenure of nancy pelosi. People who underestimate nancy pelosi do so at their own risk. I dont think theres any doubt she continues to be the kind of effective leader in this congress and will be in the Upcoming Congress that she has been over the last six or eight years. Generally in the Democratic Party for the last couple of red state andf purple state democrats lost to the midterm elections and the democrats will come back to capitol hill on january and are more liberal. Is that going to pull leaders like nancy pelosi and harry reid to the left . Will make it hard for the white house to negotiate for with republicans . Fewver the next of years is to make progress on commonsense policies were there should be bipartisan agreement. They would advance the president s top goal which is to expand Economic Opportunity for middleclass families. Not everye and republican shares that goal but i think every democrat does and there are many republicans who do as well. Think looking for pieces of legislation where we can get a large number of republicans and match them up with a large number of democrats to make is certainly a template for success that the president hopes to follow. Each of these issues we will evaluate on the merits. A couple of weeks ago, we were discussing the fact that there were behindthescenes negotiations on capitol hill involving democrats and republicans that would have given a significant and costly tax break to wealthy corporations without looking out for the interests of working families. That violated a Court Principle of the president and he spoke out strongly against it. As did other members of the Democratic Caucus including some of those who are more progressive. As recently as two weeks ago, the president was working seamlessly with the more progressive members of the caucus to advance the goals he has laid out. Last i, the president was working closely with republicans and several dozen democrats to advance a legislative proposal he believes would be good for middleclass families. And i think this is the kind of approach people expect from an american president. In both of these situations we feel like we have gotten a result that is the best interest of middleclass families. One of the progressive voices you are alluding to is the cromnibus. It has been attacked on the president and the white house. She obviously was somebody who played a big role and whether there has been any outreach from president and staff. Again, i cannot talk about any calls that may have taken place in the last couple of days. The white house is in touch with senator warren in the immediate aftermath. The white house making clear the taxident intended to veto extenders. In it would look out for what connected corporations and for working people. Shortly after there was that statement from the white house it indicated the president strongly opposes such legislation. Those were good. I continue to believe that president rren and the had the same kind of goals and priorities we discussed quite a bit. Wall street reform is going to go down as one of the signature the achievements of this presidency. They worked together. That is indicative of the shared values they have. On displayse will be for the next couple of years. Given that the compromise bill means compromise, what do you make about some of that outright anger, some of the of some of the impassioned sanctions . Now is the time to take a stand. Is your view that the assessment overall is less extreme than some of them think it will be . As this is going to be less willingness to compromise it is thegs . View of us here at white house that this is a difference in tactics, not over principle. The president has opposed this provision for a number of years. He opposes this provision now. Because of included funding because of our fight against ebola, because of Early Childhood education and because it did not include government proposals on affordability in the health care act, the president believe this is a legislation worthy of his support. I think they were making their news known. The president shares their view. The fundamental decision we made is michelle had a three month continuing resolution have been passed by the house and senate to keep the government open. It would reduce the leverage of democrats. They would start over in the negotiation of this agreement. There would be 12 more members of the house in the Republican Council and nine more members in the republican conference in the senate. That would only weekend hand of the democrats is weekend the hand of the democrats. He understood he would not support every provision in the bill. He does believe that this is the kind of proposal. Whenever there is something done, whether it is a suit them foreign leaders or something legislative, a week later there was another big cyber attack. Is something much more aggressive is there something more aggressive that needs to be done . This administration has put forward a very clear Cyber Security framework. Us also to do more to allow to coordinate with the private sector and ensure the private sector networks, including those that relate to core infrastructure, are protected as well. Continued o be it is going to continue to be a challenge to this administration. Do you have any reaction to the Vice President saying that he threatened to kill a local holy as a child . I did not see those comments. He said he was the hero when it related to a local bully and the said he would kill him. That is a question on the lighter note. I would encourage you to check with the Vice President s office. Maybe they will a better explain it. What is the signup deadline for the policies under the aca . What you said is how this years signup has gone, presumably better than it started out last year. It is certainly a low bar. We are pleased that the website has performed so well. 1. 3 Million Consumers plan in the open enrollment. Would be the last day individuals could sign up for an insurance policy that would be effective on january 1. We encourage people who signed up in the marketplace last year to go back and visit this site. We have found is more than seven in 10, more than 70 , of those who signed up for plans , they can actually save money. We strongly encourage people to go back to the marketplace, even at this time of last year. Even at the same level of benefits. Into you think this year will make a substantial events in decreasing the number of americans who are uninsured . This is an ongoing process. We do believe we will make progress toward expanding coverage. We believe we will continue to make progress in reducing costs. Prior to the Affordable Care act we were seeing doubledigit premiums. It is a way that is good for middleclass families and good for businesses. Ultimately a way for federal government. We certainly would encourage to spend some time this weekend and check out their options. P a a good people for good place for people to check and see what is good for them. Let me try one more. All of those provisions that helped out the middleclass families, does he think that the people that spoke out so much against it, that said that this was a major change and gutted. Frank and ated. Significant way, were they right . It is my consent theres that it is my erstanding there is not a it is mind standing there is not a consensus. The president believes it is important for us to pass an agreement that was on the table rather than kick this can down the road for three months and take it up again when republicans have more leverage. That ultimately is the substance of the disagreement. Republicans do not feel it was worth it to vote down this bill to send a message. It is just a position that they share. How much impact as this does he have on. Frank . Feel like it is significant. Impact we expect on wall street reform is negative. Frankly i do not have the kinds of inner working, though knowledge of the interworkings on the Financial System. The reason i am hesitant is because i do think there is some disagreement without that. The president is sympathetic to those who say this is a terrible provision. President has concerns about the provision. Decisionke a strategic. Him they try to broker an agreement where republicans have more leverage. Does he feel like these changes have gotten things done . The short answer to your question is no. There are still other things that need to get done and will eagerly awaiting congressional attention when they return at the beginning of next year. We are pleased that this bipartisan proposal was reached and it passed the house. , you couldit is accurately describe it as a ofght spot in terms legislative congress. You are saying the president is sympathetic of those, saying it is a bad provision. You saying he simple if saying that it is not a negative , he does not see it as an onerous change. No. There are some on the other side of the aisle. Be abelieve this would positive change to wall street reform. Water down aould reform that is included in the wall street reform bill. It will go down as one of his signature domestic achievements. That is why he opposes this provision. Ultimately not a difference over the value of the position. It is over the strategy here. I was expecting you to say the president was looking for for correcting this change. Will this change been the law forever . Byif there is an opportunity rolling back this provision that will water down one element of of wallm reform street reform, we will report that. We are also realistic about the fact that you could have large public majorities in the house and senate. This is a fundamental difference between two parties. It know a lot of hope dont hold out a lot of hope. This is a clear difference between republicans and democrats. A lot of republicans believe that we should be rigged should be working harder to look at City Interests and big businesses. The president disagrees. There is just a difference of approach and two parties. That is where we may not be able to make much progress. If we can make progress we welcome the opportunity to do so. It is not that many weeks away can you describe the strategy in reckoning with the fat . Despite this legislative proposal, this will be the responsibility of congress. Tois difficult for me envision a scenario where republicans want to have a public argument about the fact they are going to withhold funding for border security, background checks, and other elements of broader strategy to protect the homeland just out of personal. They are welcome to make that argument if they like. There is going to be and negotiation with dhs funding in the next couple of months. Or you commit yourself to do this in the particular element im going to hold off and start firing the gun on the negotiations. We will do what we can. Will ultimately be something that has to be negotiated on leaders in capitol hill. Confident the administration will be in the loop of this negotiation. , that is purely a matter of arithmetic. We have 12 more republicans in the house and nine more republicans in the senate. It is going to place an even greater premium on our efforts to find Common Ground effort. This provision will put taxpayers on the hook to bailout firms, swap derivatives, backed up by government funds. Is that wrong . A few moments ago taxpayers are protected. That is a signature element of dodd frank. Elizabeth warren says that is not going to be true. There is not a consensus about the impact of this provision. Speak to the to details or describe what we believe to be the actual impact of this specific provision. The impact is going to be negative and we strongly oppose it. Officials spent several days looking at the reports. Can you confirm that and do you have any comment on what appears to be a Significant Development in that this was not a u. S. Operation. And what that may suggest about not only ouretween two countries but our Intelligence Service, which are complicated. I am not in a position to confirm those reports. I have seen them. We have seen these reports and we do value the strong counterterrorism relationship that exists between the United States and in pakistan. That coordination has made citizens of both of our country safer. We are interested in strengthening that relationship even further. I think we would hope that we can continue to strengthen that relationship. That would certainly be a good thing. It would be good to the citizens of pakistan as well. Think that a lot of people may have been reading those emails and cringed a little bit when they were reading them. Because they were what to . I think there will be a lot of people that will have a personal reaction. I havent spoken to him about it. Im not sure what his reaction was. When i saw those emails, i have seen only as seen only some i think thatrts, the decision to apologize was the appropriate one. Am i correct in saying the white house has indicated to the hill that the president would sign that if it reaches his desk . That is a good question. There were a couple of different iterations. That is why we need to look at this peaceful legislation before we articulate our position on it. It includes the occupation and attempted annexation of crimea and support to separatists in eastern ukraine. The administration has built a Broad Coalition to some to the countries. And to send an unmistakable signal, condemning russias actions while mitigating the impact on american businesses, International Energy markets, and the global economy. How our goal has been trying to maintain they united front in our allies and partners in this effort. The key to success when you are implementing these kinds of sanctions is to get other countries to go along with it. If it is the United States imposing sanctions unilaterally, the regime is not going to have is powerful and impact. We have succeeded on multiplying to Economic Impact of sanctions regime on the economy. We have seen that projections growth in russia has gone from positive to negative. We have significant capital fights out of russia because there are concerns that are being expressed by Global Investors about the state of the global economy. This has put russia in a place where they are isolated from the international community. The russian president faces a fundamental choice about whether his destabilizing actions are costs to significant his nations economy. Russells eye shoelace and only increases as the day goes by. Make sure that it keeps our coalition unified, that it optimizes the costs that are on russia. This is delicate work. Them is there a coalition that would not be unified . There are concerns about earlier version of the legislation. There is a Clear Strategy that we put into place that we have been candidate candid about. We are going to continue, we want to continue to pursue that strategy because it has succeeded in imposing a significant toll on russia. Thank you very much. Does the white house facilitates its cause in any way . No. On the other side you have nancy pelosi and elizabeth warren. This will be the leader of the industry that is symbolic of everything that has happened to the economy since president oh, took office. What does it say when the debate is divided up that way . I think the most ishisticated understanding there is a historically different view of this provision. Even the i was not able to be read into the calls that wall street executives have been making, presumably they were encouraging people to support the bill because the provision was included. I dont think it is accurate to describe the president in any way of wall street being on the same side of the issue. On sunday the first family will attend christmas in washington at the National Building museum. On monday the president will travel to the great city of new remarkso deliver expressing his gratitude for the service and sacrifice of our troops and their families. Further details will be made available over the weekend. Certainly around the holiday show our gratitude for their service and sacrifice. That is my understanding. The president will attend meetings to the white house. Attend. T lady will also on thursday the president will attend meetings to the white house and on friday the family will depart. I dont have anything like that on the weekend ahead. As we have more information next week we will let you know. Have a great weekend, everybody. President obama is spending a day at the white house, holding a meeting with the saudi interior minister. And on capitol hill, lawmakers have spent most of the day giving farewell addresses and offering tributes to outgoing lawmakers. The debate on the Defense Authorization bill, you see their senator kelly i ought of New Hampshire on the floor, three hours of debates set aside for that and votes at 3 p. M. Eastern today. We expect lawmakers to take the 1. 1 trillion budget plan passed in the house last night. You can see live coverage on cspan two. Touick reminder that we plan return to live coverage of the daylong surveillance conference at 1 45 eastern with the panel of oversight and surveillance. At 4 30 we will bring you the closing session today. House intelligence chair mike rogers told a group of reporters this morning he spent the last couple of years in the intelligence business reaction to the release of the report on csi interrogation techniques. Of cia interrogation techniques. The release of the report would cause violence and death. This is hosted by the Christian Science monitor. Some folks will join us in progress. I am dave cook from the monitor. My guest is representative mike rogers. In june. Re after serving in the army, our asianbecame a specialized our guest became a agent. Lized he was to become majority floor leader. He won and on the contested race for the house, a seat vacated. He would leave congress at the end of the current term to host a radio program. Ever popular populous portion of our program. We are on the record here. No live blogging court tweeting. Give us time to actually listen to what our guest says. There is no embargo when the session ends. We would like to ask if you would like to ask questions please send me a subtle nonthreatening signal. Will start off by offering our guests the opportunity to make some opening comments and then we will go to questions from around the table. With aaron kelly, julia holter, thank you for doing this. Thank you for having me back. Thanks for the opportunity. Say toht i would not offer much. As the chairman of the committee, it has been a rough couple of years in the intelligence business for those serving that can has day, and hopefully we can get through this and get this behind us so we can continue to get out and do what they need to do. Was unprecedented to have the cia director have a press conference at the cia to defend the cia. Im still trying to figure out what all that means as we move forward. With that, i thought i would give more time for questions than hearing from me. Worde a very riveting 4000 twohour presentation on the u. S. Tax code. Terms of figuring things out, we will go around the table. At director brennans press conference yesterday, do you agree with his assertion that a cause and effect relationship between eits and useful unknowable . Is on the leve i think it is better than that. I was trained in the report building, interrogation technique which i think works. However, given the circumstances of which they found themselves in in the time in which they found themselves in, with the great unknown of another attack at the time, and remember, we did not have we did not really understand all of the way that al qaeda operated. We had pretty good intelligence, but not great intelligence. After that event had happened, there was a time sensitive era, and one thing about time sensitive report building is you need time to make it work. To say it is unknowable, we know there was certainly the events that happened and information was laterleaned that used in everything from fully understanding and being able to put pressure on al qaeda to when you talk to the people who were in the program, and they adamantly and passionately believed that the information was helpful and useful from enhanced interrogation techniques. Let me ask another. You said before the release of the Senate Report that its release will cause violence and death. The initial response seems to have been not overly strong. Isyou still think there going to be violence and death as result . Yes, and i base that on the assessment that foreign leaders inciteey it would violence, foreign intelligence leaders, said it would incite violence, and our intelligence people said it would incite violence. We believe it will be used as a propaganda tool for those who will seek to do violence against westerners. Just knowing the change in posture in certain operations on behalf of the cia and other organizations, the state department trying to figure out better security for its embassies to deal specifically with this new threat, it is hard to argue that it will not have that impact. Ris strong from bloomberg . Thanks, mr. Chairman. To the question about when director brennan isks about that the unknowable, that could be a much more nuanced position than previously stated by the director himself [indiscernible] was critical. Be acomments now seem to little more nuanced as well. Could you clarify about what you think the eics were in terms of the value and what was gleaned from them . I believe information that was gleaned through those inherent enhanced interrogation stabilize served to and provided intelligence on al qaeda we had not previously had before. I believe that because everybody i talk to at the agency, when you follow pieces of information that came out of those interviews that were used in the near term and sometimes in the long term had inherent value in ways they did not have before. I do not know how you say you may have said if we had taken 90 days and talk to them, maybe we would have gotten the same information, but that is not what happened. They went to this process, they have got information that clearly can be executed to saving lives in the United States. Im not sure how much more unnua nced i can become a and that is from talking to people. One of the things that we are reacting to the report, they did not interview one person that was involved in the Interrogation Program or the information that came out of the Interrogation Program that was investigations in order to put the pieces together. And i think many people have the notion that in one event somebody was going to say i am in, Osama Bin Laden is at 123 there iset, and that the whole network. No one was going to believe that because it was an organization based on compartmentalization. If you get a piece of information that is, verifiable thename of the courier, description of a courier, all those things, you can use that information that to put together the conclusion, but if you do not have it, you cannot get to the conclusion. Unknowable, i is am not sure i would disagree with that. I think it is noble. America has made the decision, we did not want to do it this way, which is what we had legislation and and a base station all of that. That part to me we have settled. I do not know why we would debate the value of it. That to me was clear by all of the people we talked to who participated. I am going to go back further in time to benghazi and the benghazi report. One of the conclusions you reached in it was that there was no intelligence failing, and yet the report describes a number of instances that i do not know what they are, and i would like to hear what you are characterizing them as, the cia apparently was unaware that their route to the dramatic, planned to that diplomatic compound have been blocked. They did not know the libyan general who set up transportation from the airport was untrustworthy and turned off his phone. They allowed the analysts here in washington reading bad news accounts to dictate what had actually taken place there instead of asking the station chief and other witnesses, which is why we had the talking points problem for so long. So that is not intelligence failing. What is it . Is the broader question of what is an intelligence failure. If every time there is a successful attack in yriaanistan, iraq, or sea that is an intelligence failure, we ought not to get out of the dead in the morning. The strategic intelligence saying we had a higher threat environment and here is why, was actually done. And it was done for months. What we did was we reviewed, i think it was 4000 cables, leading up to the 9 11 event, and it clearly outlined a deteriorating Security Posture in benghazi and the beat in general. You could see it when you started at one end and got to the other, you could see the deterioration happening over time. They had referenced that the other nations, the brits who had pulled out, and the others who had pulled up because of the Security Posture was not great. We had testimony from some of the security, cia Security Officials at one time in august when they wanted to merge that two facilities, who said we are not coming, this is an unsafe facility, and you need to fix it talking to the state Department RegionalSecurity Office personnel on the ground. None of that happened. To say every time there is a specific event is an intelligence failure, i would disagree with that. They have the context right. The event on that night we did not know, or they do not know, i should say, to clarify, but to say it was an intelligence there was a notice on the cia wall that night that you should be in a heightened posture necause of the deterioratioh of the security footprint and the likelihood that something was going to happen on 9 11. With that memo, that memo was posted at the cia and experience a new something bad was going to happen. The problem was they were not prepared for it. It was a different question indeed. Clearly the state department was not in a configuration for the security environment in which they were in. That was very clear to me. That was out of the lane of the investigation for us other than it was the cia who loaded up their cars and headed over there. In any changing confit on the ground, it would be crazy to think that in a changing battle environment, which it was, that the roads were blocked were not blocked. A were blocked because people moved in because there was clearly an event that had been at least some level of preplanning going into that particular night. They moved very quickly. Let me follow up real quickly on this. Are you saying the cia was not prepared for 9 11 . The cia annex was never breach. They took casualties, and that was a tragic loss of life, but they were never breached. Their facility was never breached, and they had a fairly significant assault on the facility. The temporary mission facility, maybe i misspoke, the temporary vision Facility Mission facility was willfully unprepared. Not only were agent assigned for the security they were not prepared, and probably not the right experienced agents to be not event they were configuring the compound in a way that would be safe. The cia had told them that in august before the september attack. Matter of fact, one of the striking quotes to me was that one of the Security Officers told one of the agents, the ifte department agents, that you do not change what you are doing here and get some help, you are going to die here. I do not know how much clearer you get, that you got a problem. Their problem was they told the cia we had asked for it and we had asked for it and we are getting no response. Another quick followup. Isnt chris stevens, who was in office, key . He would have been responsible wasmaking sure the security ultimately ok at that temporary facility. Ultimately that was his responsibility that was out of the lane of my investigation, so my investigation i mean, he is the ultimate Security Officer. Understanding, and this was out of my lane in the investigation, that they had requested, including the ambassador, that they get more help from the state department. I think that is a huge question that needs to be answered. We do not want this to happen again, and you want to completely understand what happened at the temporary mission facility, than those questions have to be answered. There has been no investigation into that thread which is where the select committee is going to appears to be focusing. Narrow, itas very was only on the intelligence activities, and i think we answered those questions. We have never put one piece of information in if i could not corroborate it. And it is hard, because people do change in a very high adrenaline combat environment. Two people can see the same things the same ways. It does not mean one is wrong or misleading could it means that in that crazy environment, the you adrenaline environment might recollect things differently. That is why we use all of the levels of corroboration that we did for each of the findings in the report. Oni want to ask a question congress think that will or should bring up the nsa report again, or do you think the threat of isis or other groups will put a damper on that to do that . Do some thing. The 215 portion of the bill and the 702 portion expire, and not or 702 and 215 ors some straight or variation of it would certainly hinder the National Security of the United States. I hope they can work it out between now and next year. I think there are still some hurdles to remain. I think they will come to a conclusion before june. I think the adults in the room will understand that we have got to have these provisions and push back on what i believe is the wrong narrative on what is actually happening or not happening in that space. The whole notion of that program, which i find ironic now facing the threat that we have, was to make sure that if somebody overseas, a terrorist identified overseas, was coming into the United States, we had a way who that was and who they were talking to. When you think there are 20,000 western passport holders fighting and becoming more radicalized in Eastern Syria banner, that is a significant told that we better have in our toolbox or we are going to be in trouble, because those people are going to come home and youre are going to have known identified terrorists knowing somebody any lysates, saying, operation as a go, get at it. If we do not have the ability to figure that out, we are going to have some problems here. I think we are going to get to a place where people understand the threat versus what we are actually doing and what protections are on that information, and i think americans come if they have the facts, and we all agreed on the same set of data facts, will be with in support of these programs, because they are well overseen. Back to a question [indiscernible] tried and more broadly, the couple years, what can congress do, the administration, community due to Intelligence Community needs to get up every morning to get information to protect the United States. Thankfully, they are incredibly indicated people who believe in their mission or would not do it, and it is a difficult one on its best day. As far as the European Union and all of them parking of the u. N. About prosecuting and all of that, obviously, that is incredibly disappointing. This is not the definitive report. The department of justice it a criminal investigation and found no wrongdoing. They said a statement that when the report came out there was nothing in here that was new to them that would change their outcome for that. And so unfortunately, one of the the Collateral Damage of releasing a report that is partisan in nature, the methodology is certainly in question. They interviewed seropeople. I do not know how you come to a conclusion on anything without interviewing anybody. That does make no sense to me. This is that Collateral Damage where these countries will take full advantage of it the people are the most essential check on the use of government power, so our assurance that the basket abilities of the government to sue failed are being used for legitimate purposes depends on our confidence and the mechanism of oversight that are in place to monitor the use of these often extraordinarily secret programs and tools. So of course the vital question then is, how reliable and effective can that oversight be . Do you need greater transparency, not just to internal overseers, but the public to allow people to be confident that these great authorities are being used and are responsible any response will fashion . Because everybody has a biography packet, i do not want to spend too much time on introductions. Anwill let the fantastic siobh joining us on her final day of journalism. This is her final act of journalism. It will be up to extraordinarily High Standards. Thank you all for coming. We are about a year and a half or so into this post snowden era, and it seems like it is a good time to assess how the oversight of surveillance programs has and has not changed since then. Notably, the latest congressional efforts to impose limits on surveillance fails quite spectacularly on the senate floor last month, and that was focusing on the question of Business Records. That issue will return against next year because the provision of the patriot act that the massive collection of Business Records is due to expire in june. How that will proceed in a Republican Congress i think is something that we will certainly be eagerly watching in january and beyond. Somee meantime, aside from of the small modifications that president obama made on his own 11 months ago, where are we in monitoring these programs that continue those we do and do not know about . One interesting thing i have noted is the most tangible change that i have seen the government make post snowden is actually turning nsa surveilling on itself, with its Insider Threat program, given that we have not seen the congressional action that some were expecting. Isis interesting that that actually the biggest change so far. I think it is a great time to take stock of the current oversight apparatus, and we have a fabulous and ideologically Diverse Panel to do that for us. I will keep it short. Is that general counsel for the office of director of national intelligence. Sharon franklins executive director the privacy and Civil Liberties oversight board, which was given a clear role in the wake of the snowden disclosure. She served for more than eight years as senior counsel of the constitution project. Is a former top official at the National Security agency, where among his honors he earned the agencys Meritorious Civilian Service award for his work on foreign strategic weapons systems. He also raised alarm bells on collection programs that were failing. He went to work with former colleagues on a consulting business addressing big data issues. He has since become an advocate for governmental accountability. Hawkins focuses on reforms to the National Security classification system and preventing the use of classification to prevent government wrongdoing and secret interpretations of the law. Aftergon,f all, steve the director of the project on government secrecy. He recently initiated a challenge to a cia proposal to destroy emails of most of their employees. With that i would like to kick off with some questions, and we will go from there. The first one that is obvious is that, is the current oversight structure for government surveillance adequate . Tobe we can get bob and kirk initially weigh in and we will go from there. It is worth setting up the nature of the problem, which is that of necessity you have to conduct intelligence activities largely in secret. If in the open, you will save money because you will not have an Intelligence Community. The current oversight structure was set up, the current congressional oversight structure was set up after the church and pike committees, and that tradeoff that was made was there would be Intelligence Committees in both houses that are by and large with some exceptions much more nonpartisan or bipartisan than other committees. It is a statutory legation on the Intelligence Committee to keep it of the Intelligence Community to keep the committees currently informed of all intelligence activities. I cannot speak for anything before my time, which began with the obama administration, but we have a pretty religiously adhered to that. We are up there, hundreds of times of year. Brief the we programs rate it is worth noting the surveillance activities that have been linked were fully disclosed to the Intelligence Committee. They knew all about them. So that is the kind of tradeoff that we have made in congressional oversight. There is also a whole aspect of oversight within the executive branch that includes inspectors of generalfices counsel,. The department of justice plays a role. Within fisa, you have a degree of supervision by the fisa court, and the documents that have come out over the last year and a half have dispelled the notion that the fisa court is just a rubber stamp. They are searching and sears in the way they approach the legal issues. I guess i would quarrel with you when you say the biggest change in the last year and a half has been the Insider Threat program. Partly because that is something train befores noted, and partly i think the biggest change is the Intelligence Communitys attitude of disclosure to the public. Ive said this before, but i think the leadership in the Intelligence Community have come to the conclusion, which i guess absolutely correct, that we would have had less damage had we been more transparent about these activities. It is my two that had we found a way to disclose to the public in advance that we were interpreting section 215 to prevent talk election and had done that on her own terms in a less sensational manner it would be much less controversial than what it came out on the front page of the washington post. We have taken that lesson to heart. There has been a degree of disclosure about our activities, but only what has been leaks, but voluntarily initiated that is absolutely unprecedented, and is going to continue. We have got an Ongoing Program everything,assify because there are difficult lines to draw. In general i think we can be much more transparent about the legal authorities, the processes, and the oversight and we can about what we are actually doing. Because what we are actually doing is what needs to be protected, and i will tell you that it is indisputable that there has been damage from these leaks. There are communications that we use to collect that we are not collecting. What the longterm impact of that is is too soon to tell. But i think there is a genuine recognition that we need to continue Going Forward to be more transparent because if we do not have the trust of the people in the long run we will not be diluted to our john. Job. Would you anticipate Going Forward there will be sort of voluntary disclosures about programs that are not already known . So far what we have seen has been sort of the legal justifications for the things that have been disclosed. To the extent we can do it without compromising the sources and methods and the information we are collecting, yes. The more is obviously, granular you get, the more difficult that becomes. Do you think the current oversight is adequate . I do. I think theres a difference between adequacy of the oversight process and concerns about the result. As i said, the Intelligence Committees and the judiciary and the executive branch all knew about these programs. And the fact of the matter is that the Intelligence Committees or the designated overseers approved of these programs. The complaint was not that there was adequate oversight, but thele do not like conclusions the committees reached. Kirk, what is your take . As bob points out, there is apparent difference between the conclusions committees arrived at an what some of the public has arrived at. If you ask me about oversight, compared with 30 years ago, i would tell you it is virtually nonexistent. Analystairly young remember going down to capitol hill with extensive documents in my hand, unreported dated. Data. What we call raw data. Im never sharing that with the a guy named staff, ken. We had a relationship then which i think was much more in the true nature of checks and balances, so that when an essay asked to spend when nsa asked to spend several hundreds of millions of dollars, how does have a viable would way of determining whether or not that money was needed. I do not get the sense that is possible today. Partly because of the holding of Sensitive Information by certain members of the group. Theave essentially said committees themselves, parts of them, are not important to that process. So we have actually since 9 11 constrained the oversight process from what it used to be under the guise that the more people you tell about something, the more likely it is going to get out. That is true. That is a true assertion. That we have a democracy to uphold, if we constrain knowledge to too few people, we lose the knowledge and capability that upholds the principles of democracy that we stand for. So i do not think surveillance in a trulyecked upon effective way, and what i mean by that is nsa has spent 14 years modernizing, going out into industries, doing some internal development, to field the best possible capabilities to manipulate digital information. What has happened to the oversight committees . Have they been modernized . Have they been given insight into nsa operations with the same kinds of tools and capabilities . The answer is no. And i think youre paying for it also on the judiciary side where now we changed the court system and create a special court instead of using the article 3 courts that could be used simply with the electronic services, programs that could eriesapproval to nsa quie within seconds. The thing about data, digital information, especially data that is generated by machines and that is a lot of what you do when you swipe a credit card, user easy pass ezpass, machines, and estate your billing