Gentlewoman from florida, ms. Roslehtinen,. There was a clear inconsistency in the fcc determination of where those services fit in the revelatory framework. And the roles they drafted. That they did affirm the Authority Act in the internet space. Which was in fact a big victory for the fcc. So my prediction about what is quite happened with Net Neutrality policy, this year, in fact very little. I think there is going to be a lot of gnashing of teeth and wailing about the issue right now. I think that will probably dissipate. This will continue to be an issue that occupies a space inside of the beltway and in tech policy circles. It is surly not going to be an issue that excites the popular imagination. There are too many other things that are more relevant to people. I think there will be some studying of tom wheelers indication that he wants to follow the basic offer to reevaluate the rules. There are two ways he can do that. He can look at what he can do under title i. You can look at reclassification. The classification is going to be a political fight. It is not the kind of issue that he wants to wade into. He is looking, as rosslyn has pointed out, he doesnt want to get bogged down in the issues left over by the previous chairman. He wants to do some things where he can get into an issue, examine it quickly, make a decision, move the agency forward, and make real tangible progress, and contribute to leaving a legacy where we can say after tom wheeler leaves the fcc he left americas networks and better conditions than when he started. Which will happen if he doesnt do a whole lot. Im going to pin you down here. I think i understand your predicament the fcc will not reclassify broadband as a Title Service during 2014, and the fcc will not appeal the court decision. We dont know about thirdparty groups to appeal. I think i hear you pretty can the fcc will not appeal are you predicting the fcc will not appeal. I will predict that. He is what a study the issue. A likely lou a likely lou if there are different ways rules can be formulated, the team as it is casebycase review. He is going to rely on the commonlaw approach. If people have propped him spring them to the fcc. A can be dealt with through adjudication. Not everything has to be dealt with in a rulemaking. Im going to ask anyone who wants to weigh in on this issue. We will start with jim. Lets take 1530 seconds. Im not going to weigh them. We have a sophisticated audience here. Not not everyone maybe not everyone is sophisticated as richard and you are. Define three terms. Title i, title ii, and Net Neutrality. Richard didnt want to define Net Neutrality. I want to make sure that people who are watching on television and elsewhere understand what the terms are. Im going to actually ask someone with expertise to answer that. We have a lawyer who is an expert on the subject. So, im going to defer how i want to characterize Net Neutrality until the end. Title i and title ii referred to titles of the medication sac. It gives the fcc titles of the communications. Title ii is the framework for regulating common carriage. Landline Telephone Network systems. It is a very odd authority. It only applies to telephone systems. The fcc has the power to classify the internet as title i or title ii. It has decided to pacify the internet as a title i service. Not entitled to common Carriage Service prayed title i Services Says it is classified allow the fcc to regulate information services. Basically, this is any Communication Network that isnt a common carriage network. The fcc has been approaching regulation of the internet under title i historically. The reason that the Net Neutrality decision happened, and it is interesting, title ii says you cannot treat title i services as common carriage. If you regulate something as common carrier, you can use common carrier you roles. If you upset the internet, you have a lot of power to regulate it. What you cannot do is create a title ii regime under title i. What is Net Neutrality . The simplest idea of what it is, the idea that broadband isps cannot prioritize traffic coming over their networks. Except for technical reasons, security threats. Example, im going to take on a specific isp. Lets call it timehousecast. They decide that theyre going to enter into a deal with bingle, a terrible name for a search engine. If you pay us 2 billion a year, all of our customers are going to get are your ties access to your search engine. Google and being, they are going to be deprioritized. This is one of the characterizations of Net Neutrality. The concern is that this will happen and folks believe this is a problematic concern. It may be. It may not be. We have not seen at a large scale a problem like this occur that under existing antitrust laws, under existing authorities, the agencies have been able to respond to. It seems the commissioner is saying lets take a step back and wait to see whether or not any of these problems actually occur that require us to use these broad Net Neutrality powers, and if it does they will handle on a casebycase basis. Im going to take it as your prediction. They will not reclassify to title ii services. That would be my prediction. I will make one more. As people continue to think about Net Neutrality, thereby to realize the same issue is animating the transmission consent concerns that we have in the aereo case. These are all cases that are focusing on the relationship between the content providers, and how content is distributed. I think were going to start to see them converge and be addressed as a unified set of issues. That is an insightful point. I agree. Does anyone else want to weigh in on these questions . I would just urge everybody to read chairman wheelers statement after the case decision was handled up. It was a thoughtful statement about dynamism in the internet echo system internet ecosystem. He will neither reclassify the internet nor appeal the case this year. This is a prediction. [indiscernible] i want to frame and then ill make a prediction. The critical issue with this decision is whether it will and sent the reallife providers of the billions and tens of billions of dollars that is necessary to continue to build out an increasingly buildout the infrastructure on which the internet runs, to do more, or whether we are not quite sure because of this decision. I am going to say that it will affect them to some the deep degree. It will in sent them incent to make decisions but the fcc needs to make it clear that they will not appeal and not try to reclassify in order for us to see the real explosion in investment that we need in this country. That is going to happen or not happen . Reclassify or not . My prediction is no reclassification. Any other predictions . We are running out of time. Does anyone else want to make a prediction . Im going to deal with the folks who have made pretty should unanimously. I dont think they will reclassify. I think it is entirely in the fccs purview because maybe others will appeal. I doubt verizon will appeal. It is possible some of the thirdparties will appeal. I dont think the fcc will go first. I rationale is i think the dog will not bark. Net neutrality advocates had made very specific and i are productions about the consequences about a world with Net Neutrality regulation. They have said that you will not be able to access the political content of your choice because rod band isp will rod band isps will impose their political views. Broadband isps will impose their political views. They also say they will act in ways that will make small startups unsuccessful. I dont think that will happen in 2014 and i think the impetus for a more aggressive stance is not going to be there. I think this will be an instance of the dog that did not bark. Were going to move on to some or productions. Some more predictions. Good morning, everyone. I will give you my prediction which i will hope if we can do a job for education, it will not come true. We are at the beginning of the year so we will see how we do. I expect that what we will hear more of in the media is this message about america falling behind. We hear this message about americans pay more for less. What about the broadband is too important to be left to the market. The market cannot do the job. My personal favorite pronouncement is that everything is better in europe. I live in copenhagen. Im going to share with you the perspective that europeans take and what the data shows. He for i begin i want to give a quick picture of the difficulty that i think the American People experience and try to understand broadband. It is coming from the media. The New York Times in the same month on the same issue, they sent very hundred 83 messages. On the one side we get the picture of the u. S. Struggling to keep pace. We hear we are falling dangerously behind. What is interesting is they have european correspondents based in london. One is very well versed in the telecom interest you. Industry. He says that european mobiles mobile players users have it at a cost. If the operators of so in profitable that they cannot afford in infrastructure. It is a shortfall of 150 billion which are not being invested to reach the 2020 bought it broadband gold. The europeans have a different opinion of how good their broadband is. This is another interesting picture. This is not propaganda but from the ee you commission itself. They hired a company that is a Consultancy Firm that works in broadband measurements. They have a sophisticated tool that looks at broadband next generation access across europe. I invite all of you to go to the European Commission website. It comes from the digital agenda scoreboard and you can download this map, the data behind it, the explanations. I think it is a very illustrative picture. This hardly looks like a utopia to me. It shows that there are pockets of nextgeneration access across europe. Essentially a few major cities. We can see that the netherlands, which are sorry, the dark green are the better areas. You can see the nordics, london, dublin, or solana, switzerland. Barcelona, switzerland. Is a countries that have these are countries that have nextgeneration access. Italy, parts of scotland, much of germany, and most of all of Eastern Europe have next to no next generation Broadband Access. Nextgeneration Broadband Access would be things like mobile lte, very fast dsl service and fiber to the premises. If you do a similar map to the United States to actually get a dark green across the 48 states with a few exceptions in the rocky mountains. Our lte Networks Cover 95 of the population. I wish we couldve hired them to do the same map. We would not have to aid 3 million but they can do it on much less. At any rate, europe is not a utopia when it comes to broadband. The other thing i would like to share with you from a data perspective. There is another criticism about we are not investing in networks and carriers are just sitting on these investments that they made years ago when harvesting returns. That is absolute nonsense. Since 1996 to today the american broadband providers have invested over 1. 2 trillion on the order of 50 billion a year. Last year alone it was up to 75 billion. Granted, infrastructure can going fiveyear cycles. When you build a technology you may have to do upgrades and so on. If you want to compare the u. S. And europe on its front. 10 years ago the u. S. 30 of the worlds broadband investment. Today it is less than 1 5. It has plummeted into the deep dive after the recession. The amazing part, what i think all americans should be proud about, is that through all this time, even through the financial crisis, investment in broadband has maintained a commitment at about 25 of the total of the worlds outlay. Even though the total cap in the world has increased to almost 340 billion. To put this in a simple term, americans are four percent of the worlds population. They enjoy 1 4 of its broadband cap expenditure. That is absolutely staggering. It is impossible to reconcile the criticism that the u. S. Is falling behind if you consider that we are getting 1 4 of all the money in the world to invest in Broadband Networks. To take it one step further, look at this number per capita. This data comes from a leading company that measures expenditure on Capital Equipment in broadband. This is a number derived by the population from u. S. Census and eurostats from europe. When you measure it on a per capita basis the United States is actually increasing its per capita mount at a greater rate and europe is declining. For every man, woman, and child in the United States, over 250 is being spent every year on capital investment. Edited by private providers. That is just by private providers. You also know the new America Foundation has a study about the cost of connectivity which is saying americans are paying more for less. They also rate rank copenhagen i live in copenhagen. Theyre saying you can get a product from a company that does not exist there. If you want that you also have to pay for the basic tv package. If you want to do that study in an honest way, you would also have to include the taxes you pay in europe as well the compulsory media license fees. In denmark, every person has to pay 460 per year to pay for the national tv stations, the media license fee to be state supported. On top of that you will pay 25 . In the u. S. I have taken this from actual bills not just go to the website and check on the front page actual customer bills. In the United States you pay basically more for the content but you get 200 channels versus 50 channels plus espn, all of your favorite stations. In europe you would get the same package and you can only get 63 stations and you have to pay all a cart you have to pay additional money for certain cable stations. This is my last point and i think this is, in addition into looking in investment, this is maybe the most underreported fact from 2013 that did not make it to i think the u. S. Trade commission is here today and if you are want to thank you for this tremendous report that is unprecedented. For the first time in 2013 the u. S. Trade commission reported on Digital Goods and services as exports. Normally they talk about the commodities we export, and for the first time they included Digital Goods and services as a category. That number was over 350 billion. If you rank that with our traditional exports and machinery it would be number three. My take away is our Broadband Networks are good enough to fuel the Worlds Largest digital export economy. From that perspective i dont think we are doing very bad at all. Thank you. Let me restate the production if i think i understand prediction to be the New York Times will continue to publish stories incorrectly reporting that the u. S. Is lagging behind europe in broadband. Yes. I would read your recipient european correspondence correspondentsreports. Very quickly. I think they will continue to publish mixed messages about this. On the day that the story came out that said we are falling dangerously behind they also had Technology Predictions for 2014. They were done by one of the tech bloggers on their blog. Nine of the 10 top things were wireless. In the story about Broadband Networks there was no mention of wireless at all. Hopefully the New York Times will come to realize that there is such a thing as wireless broadband and there is something called the internet of things if we dont over regulate the Wireless Networks that are necessary to enable the internet of things in the new uses of the internet that go beyond the content and netflix Movie Distribution models. Anyone else . Im going to way and in say i think the truth will break out. The facts are so overwhelmingly clear. A lot of people have made this argument for a long time. There was a. Of time when europe was ahead in three g deployment 3g deployment. I think there is a hangover from that today. It is unambiguous that the u. S. Is ahead of europe on every front and all european policymakers are saying that. I think the truth of all that will break out and we will see that reported in the mainstream media. You are not the missed. You are an optimist. It is part of my genetic makeup. Can i differ with you . I think that unfortunately, a lot of people play on teams. There is a team whose motto is, as rosalyn said, two important to be left to. The market. That team will continue to play with that theme. Is hard to see how that scene disappears. I think we will hear that over and over again and the facts will change some peoples mines but matters that should be factual and technologybased have become ideologicallybased. It is hard to dislodge that. I have to even the optimistic side. I think theres a lot of wisdom in that comment. Brett is going to talk about the consolidation and the reallocation of assets based on market oriented forces in the telecommunications and communications and internet ecosystem sector. A big theme in 2014 is likely to be some big merger and acquisition activity. You see stories every day about the possibility that sprint, the wireless carrier, might by t mobile buy tmobile. There is speculation if that does not happen the dish Satellite Network and by t mobile network could buy t mobile. They have gotten a lot of attention recently, crashing at ts party at the consumer electronic show which was entertaining. Theyre finding ways to stay in the news and i think they will, maybe not for parties, but for merger activities throughout the year. The question for policymakers is whether they want to allow consolidation in the mobile Service Provider business. A couple of years ago, washington blocked at ts proposed acquisition of t mobile. They were worried that moving from four National Characters to three National Characters National Carriers to three National Carriers was too much consolidation. In this case we still move from 423 National Carriers four 23 National Carriers but you could see that washington would do this favorably that a sprintt mobile combination would be close to matching at t and verizon in size and possibly provide some more effective competition from washingtons perspective to the two large providers. My view is that i predict that if this happens, and right now there is a question over the price over the acquisition, is that although we would still be moving from 423 four to three, we would see it imparted as imparted on the big to as good and they would allow it. I think the question over price what sprint is willing to pay for tmobile is a bigger barrier to whether he gets done as opposed to washingtons approval. The other big area possible consolidation that is in the news every day is in the cable industry. We saw the other day that charter made a bid, 61 billion, for Time Warner Cable. They rejected it. It was overpriced. Over price. Cable systems, charter, time warner, they are in different areas so they dont necessarily compete directly with each other in geographic areas. I would say washington probably would allow a charter purchase of time warner if they could get the price right. If comcast, which is the biggest cable company, were to buy time warner that would maybe be a different story just because of their size. I want to make a larger point about some very deep changes that are happening in the communications, hightech, information industry that will really guide these questions for years to come which is the fact that we see this really hyperconductivity among these different types of companies. These to have a telephone sector, wireless sector amah and internet sector. Wireless sector, internet sector. Not easy Companies Like apple and microsoft and netflix are used to be software companies. Theyre becoming major internet infrastructure companies. Theyre producing operating systems and apps. They are building cloud infrastructure. Theyre delivering services of messaging and Telecommunication Services to endusers. Everybody is playing on each others turf. At the same time you see the cable and Telecom Companies getting into Online Services and cloud services. This is a much more complex environment, a much more complex value chain that we ever saw before. My colleague jeff eisen knock eisenach has written on this more than anyone. I predict that maybe not in 2014 but soon, we will start to realize that the complex, internet ecosystem will provide a more fertile economic lane feel that needs to be differently then antitrust regulars and certainly the sec than the old segregated businesses. Obviously, i agree with your last point. Lets be specific. You believe that if sprint seeks to acquire tmobile that the fcc will approve it. You are not producing youre not predicting that there will overprice issues but you protect approval as opposed to time warner and charter. Correct. Are you extending your friction on time warnercharter to any partner of time warner or does it only apply to charter . I think washington may view some of the larger Cable Companies, and even though i may disagree with this, i think they will see one of the larger Cable Companies bid for time warner unfavorably. We have to do these very fast. Productions on calls consolidations. Not a production, but one data point. The slide does not work. Thank you. Just a quick i would like to see it happen, i just want to give a one bit of something for policymakers who may be watching. One of the chalice ease challenges is they say they need more competitors. We should be like europe. I will say the one problem with the methodology is they do not look at the corporate structure. In a country like denmark, the incumbent Telecom Provider provides 2 3 of all the broadband in the country. They own the largest cable company, the largest telco, and the benefit is they get scale. It is like saying at t owned comcast, which is unthinkable here, but in denmark, which has constantly been rated for broadband, that consolidation allows the company to get scale and it would be fantastic if t mobile and sprint were allowed to come together. They could put that spectral map they would be able to get the scale they dont have now. My intuition is that the fcc will block a tmobilesprint merger and it probably should because it will be a technical nightmare to make it work. They use different technologies. Instead of getting a stronger third competitor, what we would essentially get is a hopeless third competitor. They will probably block that but on the cable side, i think they would probably approve and acquisition of Time Warner Cable by one of the other Cable Companies or perhaps by his network. Perhaps by dish network. Cable Companies Need scale to be able to negotiate with hollywood for content. We think Cable Companies are mostly profitable because they have high revenues. Someone made a point on the radio yesterday which was kind of laughable. Most of that revenue goes straight to hollywood. To the extent the Cable Companies have scale, they are in a better bargaining position. The cost of content is kind of skyrocketing because we are actually getting more original content than we have ever had before. This is sort of the old age of original Television Content that we are living in. Its kind of hard to see that. No one the first and yes on the second. Ill make a couple of smaller projections about these issues. The first is if a sprintt mobile deal happens, there will not be a large breakup in the deal if it fails. It would be a fascinating deal in many ways because it would make at t the Third Largest competitor in the wireless ecosystem by pretty large margin. Right now, it is rising with well over 30 of the market, at t with lower 20 and sprint plus tmobile would be between at t and verizon. That would be a really interesting dynamic to see play out. At t would obviously oppose the merger but how vociferously they would oppose the merger. It needs to be said i apologize to anyone who feels bad for sprint about this nextel. And acquisition of tmobile by sprint due to the technological issues could be very, very problematic for sprint if they had trouble merging the two networks together. The regulator should not look at how sprint would go about integrating the two networks. I would not be surprised if the work to express concerns and take a deeper look. I frankly think it is appropriate. Into the technological viability. To disagree with richard about the viability of merging the two networks, if what theyre trying to do is ring the two networks together on an lte basis there they might be converging to a single technological platform. There could be a great deal of viability there. On the cable industry mergers, i think the anticompetitive concern there would be, would there be men opsin he monopoly buying powder that power monopoly buying power . The regulators might block that on those concerns responding to the public outcry. The public would not like it merger between any of the large Cable Companies even if it does not have competition. Consumerfacing competition concerns. Just a question. It seems to me the question of whether or not technologies can be merged and the whole technical part of this proposed burger is something they ought to stay out of proposed merger is something they ought to stay out of. This is something you dont want them to get out of. I would like to predict that we may see mergers between content providers and infrastructure providers. Facebook acquires tmobile, or google buys time warner. I dont think this is a far fetched idea at all and it presents quite a challenge to the regulators. It has a chance to kind of break this entire system of regulatory overkill, overhang, apart. We may see that this year. Were going to go five minutes late on the panel. Two of these are not predictions and they are just counterproductive just provocative. The next logical step for google after motorola is obviously general motors. Or bausch lomb. [laughter] we are going to take questions from the audience. We will only spend five or six minutes on this but there are microphones in the back. If anything that youve heard it makes you happy, angry, or curious, please raise your hand. You think about two questions. Please make the question short. No statements. We will kind of asked for a flash round. Dan horwitz. Jim alluded at the end is the next year in the changing dynamic of who owns what and who does what going to break the silos of the fcc . Will it force or encourage commerce to take action . To do another to look, act and reorganized do another telecom act and reorganized the fcc . I would give that a 5050 chance. Congress is seriously rethinking and may take up ranges of the telecom act. Take up changes of the telecom act. This year . No. Will this year be the start of the process . Up to 90 . That may be optimism on my part but that is what we are starting to see. I think the silos really care about the marketplace because they are not realitybased. They are a model. The model is dictated by the communications act. The only thing that would really stimulate congress to take meaningful action is if the fcc actually did try to reclassify broadband as a service. I think there would be swift and immediate retribution from congress on that. I will weigh in on that. Think about it. If google did not try to buy general motors, with the fcc demand review . Think about that. What would people think . Is that an internet ecosystem issue . If the fcc has authority over that, why not . Mike nelson. I do Technology Policy for microsoft. I want to ask the panel for a cultural prediction. Two months ago the economist had an interesting article on the growing backlash techlash. Google is being protested in San Francisco, more people are being reading books by professional pessimist that say the internet is destroying our culture. You think any year we will see more positive stories and a positive sense of optimism around Technology Companies or are we going to continue to see this drumbeat of technology is not for the common person . I guess the reason is important is because politicians dont tend to stand up and fight for companies that are not seen favorably. I think it is an interesting question and im glad you raised it. I dont know how widely this gets reported around the country in both San Francisco and oakland there have been major demonstrations in the last few months against the tech companies, primarily against google and facebook. The immediate issue is that the Companies Run buses to take their employees from the hipster neighborhoods down to Mountain View and the south bay. Those buses stop at the public stops were the ordinary people wait in line to get on city buses to go to work. There is a real sense that there is a bubble of tech privilege, is kind of the way it is seen in the bay area. Especially in oakland, which is kind of a lowincome part of the north bay. The more recent demonstration, which took place just about a week and half before tom wheeler came to oakland, actually involve the breaking glass in the google plus bus and housing prices are being driven up by the affluent tech workers who want to live in the hipster areas of the north they bay. There is that kind of a backlash taking place in the bay area where there is friction between high and low income people. That will continue and i think it becomes more aggravating. It is a problem that really has no easy answer. Low Income Housing and dealing with the increasing wage gap, or the income gap, and United States, the increasing gap between the rich and poor. It has been aggravated and constantly getting worse over the last decades. That will continue and i think the other thing on that, the pessimism and optimism it is important to understand that internetbased technologies produce both good and bad things. Like everything else, we want more of the good things and less of the bad things. We do have to recognize that there are downsides to these technologies. That is a great answer. I think there are several people who want to comment on that. We are of time so make it as short as you can possibly do it. Fairly or unfairly, the tide of the nsa revelations and the feeling that the companies did not defend their own comforters customers, rightly or wrongly, is pervasive. It will continue because we have seen only less than half. Youre getting ahead of yourself. [laughter] tune in about five minutes. We will get the longer version of that answer. I find this perhaps a western kind of this criticism we see in the u. S. When we go to the developing word world. We have a partnership with ghana and africa. How can we educate people and get the technology to improve life . Net neutrality in most places is laughable. As elitist. That his elitist. Is elitist. I know the criticism you are making. It is an american perspective. Here at aei we will have a discussion that will touch on this this month. I will give you a a 22nd answer. In 35 minutes i will be talking more about this. The quick answer is no. It is going to get worst. Were going to see more anger about this. I think will be a year in which we start to see tech exceptionalism. Was your last phrase . Tech exceptionalism. I think part of this is fueled by a slow economic recovery. I dont think a faster recovery would put an end to it. On the other side, i would say the production of Tech Products certainly gives rise to the idea of inequality and there have been a lot of books recently. I checked the optimistic side. The consumption of information consumption equality has never been higher. The ability of anyone, anywhere, no matter what station in life, to gain access to the worlds knowledge and information has never been better. I think we need to do it better job making that case. I want to second that. Im hoping we have ever seen a time in history when innovation has been benefits as broadly as it has. I think a lot of the complaints are baloney. It requires a certain amount of explication on the part of people who believe in technology. I dont believe that has happened. I think we got an unexpected production. I will try to sum up what i think im hearing. That is that the impact of the Digital Resolution revolution on wealth, happiness, and social justice will be a major theme of the internet policy debate in 2014. We will be part of that because it is a central topic. That ends the first part of our program. Jim and i are going to switch seats but not before rock n roll not before drumroll we announce the results of our online poll. Let me just read each of the questions and i will read the results. I think theres interesting stuff here, including the last question i will report which has to do with the nsa and metadata collection. The fcc will declare Broadband Internet service to be a common Carrier Service. Those who responded to the poll by a margin of 7030 agree with the consensus that is unlikely to happen. That the fcc is not likely to classify Broadband Internet service as a common Carrier Service under title ii. Tmobile and sprint will merge. I think we have agreement on where we ended up 44 of our respondents believe thats pretty and tmobile will consummate a merger compared with 56 who believe that is unlikely to happen. I think that is probably an average of the likelihood that they will try and the likelihood they will get approved. That reflects where we were. Im surprised by this one. Well talk more about this. Congress will pass and the president will sign legislation regarding patent control. Our respondents did not think he was likely. 58 do not think the congress will pass and president will sign legislation on patent controls. Next to last, but not least. The lack of infrastructure will lead to personal injury or significant economic disruption. I thought this would be higher. Only 51 . I thought we would get a big majority on this. It was pretty evenly divided. If you spend that the other way, the glasses have to glass is half empty. I think this one is interesting. We asked whether people believe the nsa will stop collecting metadata on american phone calls. This poll has only been in the field for a few days. More recent news about this issue is probably reflected in the poll. Only 18 of americans believe that the nsa will stop collecting metadata on americans phone calls. 82 believe the question will go on despite what is said by the president in his speech beginning in a few minutes. Those are the results and i think they are interesting. Thank you for all of you who participated. Jim, the podium is now yours to moderate the rest of the session. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2014] and join the conversation on twitter and facebook. Later in the morning, Chris Christie will be sworn in for a second term. We have live coverage from trenton at 11 30 a. M. Eastern. Russia is planning the tightest security in the history of the olympics. Morning, the center for strategic and International Studies looks at the games. Our coverage is at 8 30 a. M. Eastern on cspan two. With abcreyer spoke news. He was hosted by the Washington Center for internships and Academic Center seminars. [applause] my pleasure to be here. Youre going to talk about congress, and the branch of government that works. [laughter] this is flattery. Let me start out by asking what you did today. It strikes me as unusual, they had a challenge to the president s recess power. This is something that the Supreme Court has never had to think about before. Here we are 200 plus years into our nations history. Is it surprising that there are still nooks and crannies of the constitution that comes before the Supreme Court . It is not surprising. I have no bone to pick, it is unusual for a father. [laughter] i worked for senator kennedy, and i love doing that, so i am delighted that the school and the Kennedy Institute are together, on a project that would have been dear to his heart. Youre here because you are already successes, and youre interesting in how government works, and youre willing to learn about it. From our point of view, this is really the right allocation of time because the decisions about the United States are not made in the courts. Are there parts of the constitution that we have never considered before, yes. There have only been about two in history that have been experts on the tonnage clause. You have to understand that the courts are not really there to interpret the law, they do interpret the law, but the reason that the courts are there are because people get into arguments. There are billions and billions of arguments, almost all of them settled. You do not get too angry at your friends are going to sit for too long. You work it out. Senator kennedy used to tell his staff to go work it out to that is an attitude that we found, but that is what the courts are therefore, when you cannot do that. No country would work if it were not the case that 99. 9 of all disagree with or worked out. If there about money, family, or whatever, you go to a lawyer. The lawyer is supposed to work it out. The usually do, but not always. If they cannot, they are in court, and the court gets settlements, a huge number of them. If they still cannot work it out, maybe they will have a trial, and some appeals. Of those billions of argument, some will come to us to settle. The fact that despite the disagreement of what the correct answer is to this question, they have worked it out. Now they have raised a way of working out. You get the hard cases. You will see this. Jefferson may have said one thing, hamilton another thing, they may have had an attorney general for the president. Several president s have said another thing, Congress Said the opposite. Senators of all parties, this morning you get more from one party, and when this president was of a different party, you had the same things from the senators of the opposite party. People switched sides. The critical issue at the moment is that they found an area that is concrete, definite, and they can disagree about it. Were these particular appointments proper . What does this mean . What does may have been mean . We heard that argued, there are all kinds of complexities, and eventually we had to decide. When youre looking at the closer to should provide to answer a question like this at the constitution, to answer a question like this, the lower courts have provided an opinion too. Would you have to decide a purpose of a provision in the constitution, which you will have to do in this case, how do you know what the Founding Fathers had in mind . That is a good question. Let me show you something that is true of the constitution, and also of an ordinary statute. You have some words. The question is how do those words apply . How shall they be interpreted . How do we apply them in this case or that . I go to the opposite extreme, i can give you an example that has nothing to do with the law. I discovered in france a news story. Edit said there was a High School Teacher on a training he was carrying, in a basket, 20 live snails. He taught biology, and he was going to show them to the class. It was not his lunch. The conductor said you had to i a ticket for the snails, and he said what . And it says read what the tariff says. No one may bring animals and a basket, or they have to buy ticket. They were talking about cats and dogs. They were talking about animals. Is a snail in animal . Oh. Whether youre talking about the appointments clause, when you talk about the freedom of speech, which is not explain itself, whether high or low, whether detailed or not, virtually every judge almost always uses the same asic tools to try to find the answer to a difficult question. One, you re. If it says animal, one thing we know for certain is it is not a carrot because the carrot is not an animal, no matter what. The text put on limits. They do look at the history, where did this phrase come from of what was the history of the statute . Third, you look at tradition. Suppose a sense of the about habeas corpus. There is a tradition that surrounds those words. Fourth, you look at the precedent, there are earlier cases that have some relevance. Somebody had an objective in putting that word in the statute. What was the purpose . Six, look at consequences of deciding one way or another in the light of the purpose