Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 20130914

Those workers will get their money on tuesday. Marks the fifth anniversary of the collapse of lehman brothers. Used tomoney has been support some large banks and the dodd frank legislation has been passed addressing those concerns. On this 50 Year Anniversary we want to hear from you and your stake in the Financial System, your confidence level, whether it be how wall street operates now, how congress handled the matter, what you think about the system overall. You can call us at if you want to rita reach out cspann twitter, our wj. An agreement between u. S. And russia has been reached. The agreement will be back by Un Security Council resolution that could allow for sanctions or other consequences if serious fails to comply. That is according to the secretary of state. Mr. Kerry also said this 50 Year Anniversary of the collapse of lehman brothers. The subject of a couple of oped this morning, or at least long pieces. Matthew iglesias said we are interested in your thoughts on your confidence level in the Financial System. Especially five years after the start of the financial crisis. If you want to give us a call, it is we have those we have posted this on our facebook page. If you want to send us tweets, you can do that too. Joining us on the phone from , she wrote the cover story, how wall street won. Thank you for joining us. Your two cents of some of the ele ements . Did do aile washington good job of saving the Banking System with the swift bailouts and quick action, which averted even worse damage, i think a good counterexample is europe and what happened there with a much slower solution. I think youre still seeing the limitations of that. Still seeing the ramifications of that. I dont think we have done a ofd job of refinancing connecting the financial industry to the economy. Things are back and making profits. In some cases they have offloaded some of their risky assets and increased capital they have to work with. Doingey are still not this sort of lending to the real economy that they were set up to do. In thisthe major banks country, big investment banks and large financial institutions, make most of their money trading. What isthis sense of the Banking System supposed to be doing . Isnt it supposed to be helping us . Host as far as wall street itself, what is the reaction to dodd frank . What has been the end result . Guest you can look at the statistics and say that only 40 of the new rules cause new rules called for by. Frank have been written. Unless those rules are actually written and implemented, it does not make any difference. Ill take Capital Requirements for banks for example. Banks by the way and banks use only five percent of their daily capital to do business. The rest of Corporate America would not dream of borrowing 50 to do their daily business. It does not look like they are going to be implemented until 2018, 2019. I think that is a real problem because it gives enough time for more bubbles to build and more problems to brew. Host one of the elements you talk about in your piece this morning in Time Magazine, there were three weaopons of massive financial destruction. Guest gary gensler has done at 10 past it job read he has had has done acess great job. Some great success. That is because of some compromises that were made in banking. For example, Foreign Exchange derivatives, are still not going to be under the dodd frank rules. These derivatives, that Warren Buffett wants to call weapons of mass financial destruction, theyre still out there and being traded. Are talking about confidence level with our viewers, what can you add to that as far as what confidence is being felt toward wall street and these large banks . Guest if you look at polls done recently, theres very little. This goes back to a point in my story. We need to reboot the culture of finance. There have been studies done about the amount of mouth seasons if you are making profits for the firm there is this culture of risk taking that is encouraged. I think it is important to acknowledge it and start a discussion about how banking is supposed to serve the real economy and not the other way around. We have become so deeply embedded in it that it is hard to remember that the original Business Bank was simple. It was lending to real people and business. Host shes the assistant managing editor of Time Magazine, talking about her cover story. It could happen all over again. Thank you for joining us. Our first call on your confidence level, five years after the financial crisis, eugene oregon on our democrat line. David, thank you for holding on. I think hearing her was absolutely spot on. She nailed it. We do not have any confidence, i dont anyway, in the baking system. I have in the Banking System. I have a free Checking Account that anytime i do anything there are three dollars or five dollar charges. They charge me three dollars for mailing my statement to me. This used to be a basic receipt and now they want everything electronic and you downloaded off of your own computer if you are so rich to afford those things. I think that is the disconnect. Myself, aree, like really pushed out of the banks to where we are almost having to deal with payday lenders all the time. Before we let you go, what would restore confidence . Lowt my confidence is very , what would restore it is by on theg with putting tax amount of the Financial Service people at the top can make. I think this is a real problem with everything area host. Host mark, republican line, good morning. Guest Time Magazine is a trash propaganda machine. What a joke. They should have put this out last year before obama was reelected. When he are coming out cant be touched. They are just liberal trash rag. There is no confidence. I live in southern california, long beach. We have more Homeless People than ever. Obama and democrats have destroyed this economy. Around, im doing well, im not poor. I make 100 grand prix year. The only thing i spend money on is paying my mortgage and bills. I dont buy anything, i dont go anywhere, because im scared to death things are going to go down again. I dont trust my bank. I take every dime out that i can. These banks will close up, take your money and tell you to go jump off appear. Jump off a pier. Cash and alltheir legum coming in. To listen to Time Magazine come up with about how the economy is the republicans have been saying dodd frank is a joke for years. Host we let you go. Ralph from washington dc, you are up next on the independent line. Wall street, any society has to have a method to allocate capital. Are we going to finance manufacturing, are we going to build these houses . We have a complex of is to tissues that make these decisions. I think one of the problems is there was a show he for, the ,ournalist a show before with barney frank and steve grisman. Presenthe things for stiff thomas said is how the enemy is us. Literate cially financially illiterate. That is why we elect people who pass dodd frank. That time reporter was saying it is still doing a bad job in terms of risktaking. Federal reserve policy forces risk. Have no confidence in the system but it is not all wall streets fault. Some, people like camera was who was ceo of bank of ken and bob rubin lewis, who was ceo of bank of america and bob rubin. I think that people, including myself, need to have more confidence can have more confidence in the system if they suffer the consequences of their negligence. Host off of twitter your confidence level in the Financial System, five years after the start of the financial collapse, that is the topic for the remainder of our time this morning. If you want to join us on the phone lines the previous caller gave us a good segue that event. Barney frank was one of the key people behind the dodd frank legislation. One of the questions he was asked was why people involved in the financial crisis did not go to jail. [video clip] pass a lot of laws because some of the things that people should not have done were not illegal. What i heard from the administration was we do not want to prosecute an institution. Here is where i want my liberal one to remember element of due process, fundamental to our liberty, is that you cannot be criminally prosecuted if you did not have if theason to know activity was illegal. Ambiguity is the and me is the enemy of due process. You have to be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. Ignorance is no excuse. If the law was there and you didnt know about it, that doesnt help you. If the best informed person of the world could not have been sure if that was illegal, it is very hard to do a criminal prosecution. Our reason for this is that is why you see so much Insider Trading in criminal prosecutions. There was great ambiguity. If you want to see that full event, you can go to www. C span. Org. It did feature a for i. T. Of people talking about the financial crisis. We are turning to the same topic and asking about your confidence tem ando the sys congresss reaction to it. Then eyes, california, democrat line. California, democrats line. The biggest victims are small savers and People Living on fixed incomes. If you try to live off interest youre making in the bank, youre talking well less than onecent rated percent. That is not reasonable. Be four percent or five percent you could count on. It pushes people who are not comfortable taking risk into going into risky ventures. I would not listen to a word barney frank has said. His mind has been addled from years of receiving host jan on the republican line. Caller im a fiscal conservative but i do not have much in common with the Republican Party. We still have big banks investing our money overseas while starting this country for capital. Capital has made the rich richer. It is the american taxpayer that has to guarantee pensions, backed mortgages. They also have to pay welfare to the companies that will not pay their employees decent wage. I dont have any confidence in our fiscal system. I dont care which party is in there. Thank you. Host off of twitter the telegraph newspaper out of london has this, taking a look at the financial crisis you can read the rest on their news site patricia from indiana is joining us next. On their news site. Tricia is up next from indiana. Be at my comment would the beginning, when president obama was elected, i was very optimistic. The last president dropped the ball and let the country down. I was very optimistic. Going into as many years as we have been into this, i see the disparity still upper income wealthy in the country and the people who are the hardworking factory laborers who have to live on benefits. S, decreased we need to change that. We need to raise the minimum wage. The prices of gas and food go us go up continuously. Speculators in oil prices are the ones behind this task price going up the gas price going up. Hasrecovery in wall street been much greater than it has been for average working class person. You think about how congress has handled this whole thing . Caller i was very disappointed with them in the beginning of this. I still am very disappointed with them. Host what is the main reason . Done a they could have lot more to help working classes, they could have put regulations on wall street years notyears ago that would have allowed them to do things they did read they could have done something about the Housing Market that would not they did. They could have done something about the Housing Market that would not have allowed the bubble. They could have done more. And they didnt. Belleview, florida is up next on our democratic line. You and your callers are put quite a bit on the table in contrast to what the caller of long beach says, i thought that the lady from Time Magazine was quite articulate. Overlooked in all of this is the Federal Reserve, which we live and die by, is an illegal enterprise. The semblance of ron paul and rand paul, though should be taken to heart. The Federal Reserve needs to be honored on an annual basis. Legally ted a promulgated illegally. After that immediately there was the first great war and war has been ever since we live in a war economy. Turning to confidence level in the fiveYear Anniversary after the financial crisis, what you have to say about that . Caller obama is deeply she to the dollar to an enormous is theked is depreciating dollar to any enormous extent. Way to endemic welfare. The cream is rising to the top. Host that is daniel from florida, mentioning the Federal Reserve. Areeet from power if you saying that the reserve bailed out wall street at the expense of main street a tweet from a viewer. That the reserve bailed out wall street at the expense of main street. Larry summers is a name you have probably seen associated with the story many times. Another saying he reached out to a member of the Senate Banking committee, elizabeth warren, to talk about the issues and concerns. The headline your faith in the Financial System, five years after the start of the financial crisis. Steven from grand rapids, michigan on the democrat line. I just wanted to make a quick comment. Confidence is pretty darn low. I think the general people feel pretty hopeless. If youre looking to start a moneyy, dont give your to a bank. You can be your own bank. That are lending rates and lower tax rates. There are friends that will allow you to be your own bank instead of giving money to a at 25 interest. Now im looking at four percent or higher. Something to think about. Give a little bit more power back to the people. There are things you can do to and give people the you dont want to cap you dont want to have power the power. Host there is a write up on this website here is brady from ohio, independent line. Caller good morning. Host go ahead. Caller my confidence level would be, on a scale of one to 10, im thinking 2. 5. Not very confident. Host because why, specifically . Unemployment is really high. My goodness. Year, we the fifth havent even gone back to the unemployment level when this thing happened. I believe it was about five percent. Is down, it wont go up. Seven percent. We cant seem to get it up and get it up. Comes around,sing people pay their mortgages, second start the ball rolling that can start the ball rolling. How much stability do you think there is in the Financial System . Caller i would say it is stable. In other words, you are asking about the amplitude of the Business Cycle when you say stability . Host how the system works, lending and receiving. Think it works fine. I dont think there is a problem with rent with lending and receiving. I think it is an efficient market. Some people claim that the rich people are the big banks are ripping us off. Thats not true. Theres not a monopoly of banks out there. Host from tennessee, democrats line. Caller i would just like to mention some things that maybe people arent thinking of. I believe the American People and to be more informed this Carte Blanche on the ilitary is going down the tubes and people turn a blind eye. And they walk on and walked past. It seems to be the new way of being. It is all wrong. Would you rate your confidence in the Financial System . Caller the Financial System, it is just a matter of time before it will crumble. There is no accountability out there in these programs. They are being funded by the government over and over and over, frivolously. Nobody is saying what they are or what they will be created into. Our federal employees get full medical, dental, and vision all paid for by the government. And yet they wont turn around and put obamacare on the people. Hat can afford it they have to pay out of these pocket out of their pocket when people on the hill are making six figures. The regular bluecollar worker has to go through hell to get insurance these days. They get a Carte Blanche paid for by the government. A story in the paper about federal workers, at least some not getting their pay on friday. The headline is you are asking about your confidence level in the Financial System. This is mike from North Carolina, republican line. As far as the system, i think we are just buying time. It is pretty much what we have been doing for the past five years. 70 seeds of this were sown years ago with the creation of fannie mae and the insertion of the federal government into the mortgage markets. That became a political football. Wall street does what wall street does. You cannot fault a lien for eating a wildebeest. Forcannot fault banks making a profit. Even as barney frank said on the show, no one was prosecuted for what happened five years ago because no one roque any loss. Derivatives were not regulated, credit default swaps were not regulated. None of these guys were not none of these guys were doing anything illegal. They are financers, they are creative people people who look for creative ways to look for money. The problem lies with both parties. I am a fiscal conservative but the fact that we have politicians that have been up on ,apitol hill for 30 years people like john mccain and , i dont think it will solve everything but it will go a long way to getting new blood in capitol hill and in our government on a regular are not so iney bed with the Financial System. Y would be willing to beam willing to regulate and bring the hammer down. Host fannie mae and freddie mac was the topic yesterday at the American Action forum. The director of the Congressional Budget Office under bush talked about the influence of fannie and freddie. [video clip] likes they did a couple of things, they provided a guarantee. Going forward you can provide that guarantee but it should be explicitly charged for it. That is going to raise the cost of mortgages. Or you could not have the guarantee and that is going to raise the cost of mortgages. One of the things that is lets go backis to the good old days were mortgage was cheaper. The whole House Industries going to have to come to grips with the fact that mortgages are going to be more expensive. We all lost our shirts. It was a disaster. Host this email from boulder, colorado for maryland on the independent line, good day. As a millennial, which a lot of people are talking about, your screener was asking me about what i want to speak about there was a running gamut of people in their mid20s and late , that havearly 30s not been able to leave the nest. This incident this isnt just for people with geds. Degrees host we are talking about your confidence level and the financial crisis. My confidence level is low. Thatems like everybody calls in was a bit older and had 90sance to come out in the when the economy was great. My peer group, people that have graduated college and have not graduated college, they have been mired in debt and bad job prospects. That is what i would like to convey to you. Marcus in missouri, democrats line. I have seen probably half of the Prior Program with chairman frank and Steve Huisman steveweise men n. Eseman, h host what is your confidence level in the Financial System today . It is not necessarily the Financial System. I believe it will roll on just as the paint rules on in front of it. The people running the system, they are going to have their. Egions theyre going to find the polls and develop the financial ll and createe another bubble. They will just run it into the ground, just like the housing bubble. Its all about greed and money. Next, grandup junction, colorado, republican mine. Caller my confidence level in the Financial System is very low. The reason it is very low is it deficitn by our federal. The sign for me that i should begin losing confidence that we can finance the deficit is that when the government has to buy through thelves Federal Reserve bank. I had a person who wanted to be paid in gold and not dollars. In my lifetime that has never happened before. They ask for payment in actual bullion . How did you respond to that . Was frightened. I did not have any gold coin. I was frightened about the prospect that there was somebody who would not accept a dollar bill. Host was it because of his lack of confidence in the paper money we use today . Caller yes, i think we have some element in our economy out here that is doing transactions in gold. They are moving away from dollars. There are other indicators in the world that using the dollar as a reserve currency is going to change. Ali lets hear from joining us from georgia. Going to speak along the same lines as to of your previous callers. I am a College Student myself. I wont even call it the next bubble. We are feeling on the mountain of debt coming out of college. Im not sure these people are paying attention to this but the cost of education is unbelievable. It is three times going to three times the rate of normal inflation. And now after finishing our education we have to compete with people from other countries that are not sitting on any debt, meaning they are able to take less. About our generation yak our generation yak nobody is regulating this and the cost of education our generation . Regulating this and the cost of education. Host what would restore your confidence . Caller they need to bring back some regulations. You cannot give these guys a free pass. To be on theave table. Who is watching these people . Theyre free to charge whatever they want to charge and nobody is doing anything about it. A burdenrrying such that this is going to be a big problem, even bigger than the housing bubble. Whats going to happen if my generation default on the loans . The wall street journal ,alks but Consumer Sentiment saying that is an the wall street journal this morning. Coalation when it comes to plants, a story in the new york writing up on president obamas plan to address climate change. Adam from houston texas, independent line, talking about the confidence level in the Financial System. I would like to state my confidence level. I am optimistic longterm because i believe that more people will take an effort to become financial really financially literate. We are going to get through any debacle by innovation because we are strong. That is just how i feel. For other people, i feel differently. Peterone more call from from illinois. Im peter, im from illinois. The Republican Party in the 2006,and senate, since they have control of the house. They let nothing go through, not a thing. All the money is at the top. Nothing is down here in everything is nothing is done here. Everything is just gone. Stamps except people are still starving to death. That is all i have to say. Host that is the last call we will take on this topic. We will change gears and look at a new report in our segment that looks at the threat of Jihadist Terrorism. On, immigration policy from the perspective of Border Patrol officials. Spoke to officials and will tell us what he found from them. First we want to talk about our newsmakers program. Of the largestt lines in the pentagon budget, talk to reporters on a wide variety of issues, including the impact of sequester cuts on the armed forces and the overall impact of u. S. Military readiness. You have used investment dollars to Fund Operational accounts. Those operational elements get pushed and then whered you go to get resources from that . It is not just what we say now. ,f you continue that into 2014 remember it is 15 billion 50 billion per year. You are going to quickly see the impact. It is not falling off a cliff. And you get to the point of seeing the impact, it is a precipitous dropoff in readiness and we are beginning to see those elements. We see where things are trending and the trends are not good ones. Funding decisions in 2014 in relation to the sequester, that is if they are not replaced, the impact is going to be significant. Acr are goingt of to be equally as troubling for the military. You see any situation where the house would reverse the sequester cuts and the coming cr . It would occurred to me that in the debt ceiling negotiations that would be a place to talk about it, how could you create that balance to get those dollars back . House has addressed this in the short term. The defense appropriations bill that many of those dollars back in, much of them and to readiness accounts. I really pushed to say that the dollars have to go back to those accounts. The key is it only addresses it for one year. The sequester automatically occurs the subsequent year. What we have to do to uncertainty in the place for the militarys is to say here is our solution. I am looking for that and the debt ceiling negotiations. Washington journal continues. Joining us is Michael Hurley with the bipartisan policy center. He is consultant to their Homeland Security project. A newroject put out report, Jihadist Terrorism, the threat assessment. It looks at the top of terrorism. Welcome. Tell us first and foremost about the bipartisan center. Guest this is an organization found by four Senate Majority leaders. It is dedicated to coming up with practical policy solutions that could eventually be turned into legislation on really important and vexing problems the country is facing in health care, and National Security. The whole goal is to cut through the Political Division in washington dc and get politicians and other leaders working together. Your background includes being a former cia operative. Part of that is finding Osama Bin Laden. Can you give us an assessment of your role on that . Served three years and afghanistan, leading a team in south eighth stern in southeastern afghanistan. Our job was funding the highvalue targets, such as bin laden. I didnt do my job very well because in the time we did not find him. Fortunately we were able to find him in 2011. It was a very difficult circumstance. , somet some members of ci really excellent people. We did a good job in the beginning and knocked out the taliban government and did some damage to al qaeda. Very difficult work to be done there. I think we have done some real damage. Im sure we will talk about it. We have done damage to pakistan, as well. The report, itto talks about the current status of al qaeda. Guest we have done damage to group founda, the by Osama Bin Laden. Since 2009 we have killed 33 of its leaders. Bin ladens number two is leading it now, trying to gain some influence. They are hurting pretty badly. That is on the significant and positive side. The problem is there are many more splinter groups and al as operative it is a significantly bigger number. Host does that mean it is growing in size or the way it changes in operation . Guest it is becoming decentralized. These groups tend not to be big and their focus is on local issues, mainly. They still may potentially pose a strong post a threat to the west. What adds up to the threat . What increases the threat of them coming to the west . Progress oney make whatever their goals happen to be in syria, there is the al qaeda affiliate in the arabian pencil. We have had major problems with them. I remember putting the bound on aircraft many of the conflicts going on in that part of the world, in north africa and the Arabian Peninsula and elsewhere, they are getting training munitions training in munitions and arms. It just depends on if they refocus their efforts. Host those events would galvanize what they are doing echo guest what they are doing . Guest it could, very much so. It is all depends on what they decide to go after. When they get the training and young menmunitions, kind of adopted this ideology. And they may use it against the west. That is kind of a fear. There are some positive things that have happened in the last 12 years. Havent suffered a major catastrophic attack on the order of 9 11 here in the United States since 2001. Ofhave had a number tragedies, of course. The Boston Marathon bombings, the major killings of soldiers at fort hood, they are significant things and tragedies. Unfortunately we have not had one of these major catastrophic attacks. I think one of the concerns we have had after the 9 11 attacks was that al qaeda would have people,ratives, trained people they were controlling and coordinating their operations here in the United States. Is morere seeing now individuals, or what we call lone wolfs, who are undertaking things. They do not have that organized chain of command. Consequently they seem unable to pull off a major attack. Us until 8,est with 30 8 30 to talk about findings in the report. If you want to ask him questions send us an email to journal c span. Org. Tsarnaevoned the brothers. What does it say about recruitment . Guest there is self recruiting going on in the United States. That are deeply concerned about online radicalization. Is they may not have criminal records. They really have not come up on the radar scope of authorities or been seen as subjects of concern. Those folks are really difficult. How do you get into the dark corners of someones mind when they are being influenced by some of this hatred that is being spewed out over the internet. There are many websites where this is happening. It becomes self radicalized. It is just a difficult Law Enforcement problem. As much easier to go after more organized group like core al qaeda. It is more difficult now that we are in an age where a small number of people can do a huge amount of damage. What are the sites like . Guest there are many thousands of them on the internet. People go on them and they are radical creatures that preach to getd to perform involved in jihad, that is sort of a holy mission against the west. Radicalized people. The problem is that on these sites, if you are young person, there is no pushback. It is sort of a onesided. Pproach they do not hear oppositional views. That is one thing that is really important in our communities, to get that opposite point of view. People need to be paying attention when their children, people in their church, people in their communities and high schools and colleges, suddenly change and you start seeing a dark side in that. Host this is Michael Hurley of the policy center. T do you do a search a job do as your day job . Guest i am a consultant on National Security. Call is stevet from connecticut on the independent line. Good morning. I was listening to that lone wolf, it is near impossible to stop the selfdestructive behavior of people who do columbine, newtown, or boston. Individuals. I do not see how we can stop that. As far as going back to al qaeda. As far as going back to al qaeda, human intelligence versus drones were satellites, personally i think the cia is underfunded. I think the whole and to say the whole nsa is no longer National Security, they should just be rolled under the cia. Theyre doing more accommodation and Source Intelligence. He speak to open Source Intelligence and al qaeda . Especially yemen. Do we have enough human intelligence he their . Human intelligence their . There . N intelligence that is the difficulty with lone wolves. People change. Interesting in the Boston Marathon bombings as afterwards, there were lots of about the younger tsarnaev brother. Everybody said he was a normal kid. In highery involved school sports. That is a chilling thing to me, that there is no kind of oricipatory sort of thing indication of what he was going to be involved in. It poses a typical Law Enforcement challenge. We almost have to inoculate our communities where young people teachers have to be aware and friends of some of that may be changing their attitudes and becoming a person that supports something that can be really quite bad. He also spoke you also spoke about al qaeda and the cias role. I think the agency has been a really good job. It is not perfect. None of our organizations are. They have changed a lot since 9 11. People are focused on the terrorism problem. I do not know how much personnel we have in yemen. You highlighted that and that is where al qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is located. They are doing a lot of operational activities and cost a lot of problems. And caused a lot of problems. Sufficientave a amount of people there. Your final point, i think it is extremely important that we are doing this in terms of open use an open source. Been instruments of power. That means economic, military, Law Enforcement capabilities but capabilities. Compared huge advantage with technological capabilities. But to sift through a lot of data and try to determine where we can identify terrorists or something that looks suspicious, i think open source is not just clandestine agents. As you highlight open sources, it is really important to that. Host a viewer asks guest there are a number of things. Religion is part of that. The islam religion. They carry it to a point that is really antiislam. That is a basic thing and ideology. There is a real hatred of the west and western values read that was very explicitly wetjen values. And currently the al qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Those are two of the ones that i would highlight, sort of the shared ideology. A lot of them, the really extreme ones, are very severe. You see this in north africa. A very similar severe form of law. Host this is bolingbrook, illinois, democrat line, good morning, john. Caller good morning, gentlemen. Thank you to you both for being up so early. Im calling from michaels home state of minnesota. I am a u. S. Embassy marine veteran. Mr. Hurley would probably know them from the late 1970s and early 1980s, i played tennis with the chiefs of station terry in honduras and i within argentina i was in argentina. Would like to thank Michael Hurley for his devotion to our nation. I am actually calling from hastings, minnesota, but i cannot find the darn area code for here, so i sign my paycheck and restartedok that to see standard of my question for michael, he seems like a very honest man, which would drive into the save and credit of integrity, as marines would say. The bin laden Investment Group are very concerning to me. Answern president bushs to where Osama Bin Laden was a couple of years later after the 9 11 attack is very confusing to me as a young, devoted patriot. I am in hastings working out of retirement for the coke brothers. Koch brothers. Ive never seen such a rugged group of american so devoted to our nation. Host do you have a question, please . Explainyes, if he could [no audio] guest mark, electric, advanced ui for your services. Thank you for all that. What, eventually sure what president bush he said, concerning the location of the bin laden. I think that something to do with advanced maybe having an hisccurate idea of what i location was. The only light i can shuttle that is before the 9 11 attack from about 1997 onward, bin laden was for a much the focus certainly after the 9 11 attacks, he was a huge focus, the number one target in the world. While it took a long time to track him down and find him, we eventually did, and it took a lot of work, and there are some really good books on this. My coauthor of this book has written a book called manhunt, which is really excellent on that, and the finish is another one. The effort really never flagged. I think it was imported to really accomplish it to remove this person who was behind the sudden deaths of almost 3000 americans. I think that was really key. I have to say on your question about the parallel and the Carlyle Group and a saudi group, i am not exactly sure what the connection you are trying to make their. The 9 11 commission, which i served on, took a very close look at any possible saudi Government Support of the 9 11 attacks, and we did not find any connection there. Whether there were some saudi princes or Something Like that involved, that is kind of a different question. The royal family has got thousands of members. There may have been some support, but there was no Government Support, and that is the nature of your question, and that is pretty much of it. Host republican line from florida. Go ahead. Caller good morning. My question is mr. Hurley about the poorest in this porousness of our borders. Ive read a lot about people coming across the border, people who are not necessarily mexicans or south American People, look evil from the middle east, people from the far east, it has beenle, and very simple for these people to get into the country since mr. Obama does not seem to have a screening people as much as they used to. I worked in the electric and water and sewer industry, and i know that they had tried to get into our systems and destroy our into structure. These are some of the things that they are doing to try to weaken the american economy. It is costing us billions of dollars to fight these fires and to keep control of our water and sewer and electric plants. Host ok, caller, thank you. Guest thank you for your comments. The border creates a lot of problems, and obviously the eight economic problems and social problems, and that is really important. There is also, as you point out, i think the heart of your comment is that there is a National Security problem as well. The hijackers who hijacked the planes on 9 11, the majority of and came from saudi arabia enter the United States legally, although some were in a funny status in terms of their visas and so on, and some overstayed their stays here. Clearly highlighted problems in our immigration and visitor system. But looking south of the border, i think that you do have to kind obviously the vast numbers of undocumented people flowing across the border. Does this raise concerns in terms of potential terrorism . I suppose they could. I do not think there have been too many documented cases of al qaeda kind of taking that route, but Getting Better control of that will obviously improve our security overall. It is a tremendously the cold problem, if it were easy, our politicians wouldve solid right now. I do think you make a good point that there is a National Security side to that porous border problem. Host this is on cnn, but it is an odd feel message saying there is talk of a need of a small to smallscale attack of a boycott to damage the u. S. Economy. Zawahiri is kind of bin ladens successor. Who lacked the charisma of bin laden, that sort of dynamic leadership. He has been trying to consolidate his control. But that message and his latest statement is kind of consistent with c have been putting out over the last decade or so, and he has been urging smaller attacks. I think probably some of this is a matter of necessity for them because they do not appear to have the sort of cells in the u. S. That we were so concerned about after 9 11. We cannot take our eye off that ball, and maybe it is a possibility somewhere down the road. I think by that particular message, he is trying to call on more people that may be sort of on the edge or on the border in terms of just being disaffected and then possibly pushing them into becoming one of these low that they would be under his control or the control of his organization. I think this is a very consistent theme that he has been pushing. What is the influence of the zoning of brothers say about the u. S. Ability to stop these attacks were happening . Tsarnaev brothers. Guest we are not completely safe. This is a country of 350 Million People now. Getting into individual criminal minds as a sort of change into some sort of lethal activity. Marathonhe boston bombings sort of also they highlight that issue, and they again highlight the fact that people have gone on the internet, it appears, and in this case the tsarnaev brothers, and actually learn how to build a functioning bomb that did a fair amount of damage. I think that is pretty serious. It also looks like in particular with the older brother that there was a degree of online radicalization. I believe that he was watching some of the fiery sermons of all a lot the, that preacher who went to lemon to yemen and was subsequently killed two years ago, i think. There is the online radicalization as well. I think it highlight the fact that these are more individuals of not really under the control of a foreign organization. And that really focuses lets say, terrorists, have been more physical the last 12 years or so. That expose information are held in databases, especially databases that are communicated between agencies and information that is shared an order to keep as far as sharing that information, does it highlight problems there . Guest it looks like there was an element of that in that the russian government evidently provided information on the older brothers visit to dagestan to the fbi. They did look at and ran it down, but they did not see anything sort of really alarming about it at that point. Some of that information was shared. It looks like maybe not all of meshed in thets way that we would have liked to have had them optimally. Overall, i think this was just an issue of two young people who took this action, and there was not really warning that they were going to do this. I think another thing it highlights is that and we get into this in our report, and our threat assessment. It highlights the problem of when you are dealing with a couple of individuals like this that are not really part of a foreign terrorist organization, you have to look at it and we recommend looking at just what the responses. Obviously, they had to be found and sort of dealt with through the Law Enforcement, but it really affected the whole northeastern part of the country, and certainly around boston, the airport was shut down. We need to take a look at whether this is maybe a disproportionate reaction because we will have certainly these kinds of if not something exactly something similar, some other attack here in the United States because it is simply impossible to rent all of these things. Host here is james from gaithersburg, maryland, and tonight, good morning. Caller good morning. Portions dont discuss from overseas to go over here, basically doing scare tactics to threaten our way of life. We go around the world try to impose our ideology. We try to convert the world essentially to follow the United States. And there are people in other parts that have different ideologies and then us. I strongly believe in our country. If i do not, i would leave. I think part of the issue is that we dont really address those things, which would other purpose could it possibly have to come over here and create any kind of chaos, terrorism, if iter you call it, wasnt for the fact that we are trying to propose our ideology out there and get them to change in the name of what we believe is right. Not sure i agree with the premise of your points. I do not know that we are trying to impose our ideology around the world worth respect to our intervention in afghanistan. We went there to deal with a problem that reached out and attacked us. That was the al qaeda organization. Iraq, of course, was different, but even there the justification at the time and one can believe this or not that iraq posed a kind of an imminent threat here it it was in violation of the United Nations resolutions and a whole kind of range of issues. We do try to impose order in different parts of the world. We have been a leader in that. What is driving al qaeda and terrorist and affiliates of al qaeda in part and thethe situation countries in which they operate, they have been unable really to affect the governments. And they dont have an outlet, so they focus sometimes on what they call the far enemy, and that if the united state, which they believe might be supporting repressive governments or governments that are not allowing them to have their voice or to have things the way they want. So i think that is in part what is driving them. Now, these splinter groups have backed off somewhat from that and their focus more on local issues like in syria and libya and egypt. Egypt is a big example of this now. Was a military coup against morsi, the leader of the egyptian government. One of the things we say in our report is that is actually going to maybe fuel some militancy because it plays into the usual narrative that the militants use, which is that we play the game of democracy, and when we get Syrian Government that really is more supportive to us, they will just get thrown out, and that is another thing that sort of is fueling some of their hatred and never parts of the world. Host where the viewer who is asking if we do anything to gain hearts and minds in countries where recruitment is high. Guest there is a whole range of things that we are trying to do. The u. S. State department is behind us, other agencies in the u. S. Government heard one of the things that we try to do, lets say for example, a very contemporary problem that we have not talked about yet is in serious, and syria there is a tremendous humanitarian crisis now, refugees caused by this ongoing conflict within syria. A couple Million People i think have been affected are in cans and so on. In the past, we have seen in lebanon, for reasonable, and the previous time that these camps have been used for basis for recruiting militants and so on to militant to various causes. That is a concern of mine now. Thecott of organizing west organizing to help these individuals in humanitarian crises can very much help in reducing that potential that those could become sort of of radicalization. We have to give our eyes on that is one thing that we can do. Whole rangehink a of things, we have all kinds of aid programs. I think education is part of it. But the problems are not very difficult. If you look at one of the countries that is really a hotbed of radicalism, it is pakistan. There are some problems in pakistan, and dealing with them and improving education and toing to get other ideas combat this basic fundamentalism that is driving people in some cases into terrorism is a hard problem, and we have got a number of programs trying to deal with that, but whether it has been effective, time will tell. Strikes that the u. S. Commit then pakistan could it lead to more radicalization . Guest it definitely could. It is clear to me that the Drone Program has had some very near to that near benefits. We have had some very badly hurt leadership of core al qaeda and hardcore taliban and pakistan. There is no question about that. But there are certain longterm consequences. Obviously when people get killed there, their relatives, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, cousins developed a real animosity toward the power that caused that. , i rememberrumsfeld back in 2002 or 2003 or so kind of raised the question in terms of some of the message methods we were using when he was secretary of defense. Through these military means, are we creating more terrorists than we are getting rid of . He was definitely touching on the issue of the longterm consequences of this of these policies and using the drone, for example, so i think moved us it has forward in getting rid of some really bad people, but how many new ones are being sponsored another question. Host mike hurley with the center, also acy former cia operative, joining us about the state of oped appeared of all cater. If you want to collect some of the numbers are on the scene. Qaeda. U is about howestion Different Actors within a region may be using al qaeda as instruments of policy, in other words, particularly governments, but also other actors, for example ethnic minorities within particular countries. I was a plain answer off the air, thank you. Guest that is one of the early questions point that i made. Al qaeda is in 16 areas of operations, and pedro pointed out the the report says that is twice as many as in 2001. Is definitely a geographic disbursement. We did them in africa, the Arabian Peninsula, west africa as well, a number of countries. Theaeda seems like affiliate groups have kind of focused more on the local problems, as i said, although there have been instances in benghazi was one of them where they will go after double not ache outpost in the west and certain military outpost. That seems to be a focus. Are geographically dispersed. That means they are creating problems in a number of different locations, creating great problems in the countries in which they are operating, destabilizing those governments. That is an ongoing problem. And then well, i think the second question had to do with and do these groups become kind of a tool or are they used a manipulated by governments . That hasertainly happened. We have seen some examples of that. I think one of the concerns that we have now in syria, for example, if there are militants groups that are opposing the Bashar Alassad government, and the question is how much and for the how much influence will they have when we get to the outcome of this conflict . That it sort of a problem. Governments will try to manipulate them to the extent that they hold true to their own aims. They will be more or less manipulable. It is a concern, but pretty much i mean, the one thing that one sees is with these militant groups, when they do gain power, they will hold onto it and they will try to impose this very harsh conservative sharia law in the areas that they ca controll. A resurgence of al qaeda in iraq to some extent. The good news about that is that even though they seem to be conducting operations in iraq, they dont control any territory at this point, so there is no safe haven for them, but they are operating there. Ont belgrade lakes, maine our republican line. Caller good morning, pedro, thank you for your fine work at cspan. And thank you, Michael Hurley, for all of this information. Is about the announcement of bin ladens death immediately almost within hours by president obama. Delay inia recommend a that announcement so that the s in a me and everybody did not know immediately . I do not know the answer to what the cia recommend it or not, but it national consists of the attorney general, secretary of state, it is bad press will stew bad principles to discuss all of the spirit they would not discuss the pros and cons of going a look what appeared clearly the decision was made to go do that right away. Bothan see arguments on sides whether that was an advisable thing to do or not. I think the arguments in favor were really to let the world know, to let the americans know that a great enemy of the United States have been dealt with, and i think also to send a message that if you commit the kind of atrocity that bin laden committed and his organization in the United States on september 11, 2001, that we will hunt you down, and even if it takes a decade, we will come after you and you will face justice. I think they wanted to get that message across right away. Host where were you when you found out . Guest i was at my home in virginia. At the time, i remember getting calls, pedro, from family, from friends, and from other folks that knew a little bit about my background that just wanted to comment on it. We remember here in washington, d. C. People gathered in front of the white house and spontaneously gatherings like that it was a very significant event in our history. Host what went through your mind when you found out . Guest i thought about the question of justice. I thought a couple of things i thought about my colleagues from the cia who were killed in and that our foreign firebase in coast, i think 2009, eight of them were suddenly killed, they were conducting an operation there, but they were very much trying to find bin laden. That was their mission. So i thought about them. I thought about all the americans who were killed on their families, the families of the victims, many of whom i have worked with, many of whom are responsible for the creation of the 9 11 commission and have done really incredible work for our National Security says that terrible tragedy. I thought about them and hoped that while it might not bring them peace of mind that they would know that some justice had been served. And i thought about all of the military and civilians who had been out on the front lines since the 9 11 attacks and the sort of felt that that was the moment that was important to all of them. Host here is james from massachusetts, independent line. Caller good morning. In terms of al qaeda in the u. S. , is there a screening process for people who win the lottery to enter the United States . Lotteryers interview participants . Or can anybody just fill out an application, when the lottery, and in next thing they know they are in the border . I will take my answer off the air. Thank you. Guest i do not know the Technical Details of how the state department does that, but pretty much everybody gets looked at pretty carefully. I will say that our system of entry into the United States is far better than it was pre9 11. Not perfect yet, but we are paying pretty close attention to this now. Obviously because some bad people came into the country before 9 11 and stayed here and in some cases for up to two years and then conduct those operations. So we are better at it today. One of the things that we looked at in our report is on the cob the visa waiver program. Countries that we are very familiar with and have good records that we know that when people come for visits they are not going to say, theyre going to go back to their own countries, and a lot of European Countries have a status. I think there was initial concern when these programs that implemented with western European Countries that they be some radicals, some militants might use that and get into the United States that way. So far, as our report concludes, that has not really happened that we know of. So i kind of alleviating that concern. But yeah, immigration and terrorist travel is the vulnerability of the United States, but we try to steal some of those holes, and we are doing better at it. Host a story from this week from the Washington Post says the cia has ended months of delay from a slightly Obama Administration wants me to ask you why the cia is helping arm jihadists in syria. Guest theyre trying not to arm jihadists, they are trying to identify the people who are more compatible with the values we hold. It is not a perfect process. I get concerned about both the weapons provided and what will happen to them in the years ahead as well as because once you give weapons to groups host so there is potential, though . Guest there is potential. To take you back to the days of the soviet occupation of an innocent in the 1980s, there , and weious programs gave them sophisticated weapons, and what we found was how to give those weapons back. That was a problem that was taking us in the early 2000s as well. Yesterday carefully you give the weapons to and you know what you are giving and you have some idea of kind of the endgame as well. Although things are really difficult old difficult. It is not an easy process. It is concerning because there are a number of different groups that are finding fighting in syria. The other question is might some of these groups really be militants . Beyond that. We try to keep from not giving them the weapons and try to identify them as best we can, but it is not perfect. Host chicago, illinois, republican line for michael early Michael Hurley from a bipartisan policy center. Caller good morning, pedro, good morning, michael. I read that we adopted policing methods such as canvassing, having Police Officers visit mosques occasionally, and asking leaders of the mosques, the moms the imams, if there were any people he having unusually peered after the boston bombing, i wonder if there are any cities such as boston and others around the country that are looking at adopting some of new york citys methods. Question. T is a good other authorities adopted some innovative method methods, some of which were criticized. But i think the whole notion of police going out and working with Community Leaders and getting into dialogue, having conversations in finding out what is up, what are your concerns, establishing the communication that people can contact when they see something suspicious or something going on that can be really useful to prevent problems if they identify some young person at risk, for example. One interesting thing about boston, this is just information that i read in the aftermath of the bombings, was that actually when the terrible bombings occurred, the system responded pretty well and responded pretty well, what i mean by that, the state and local authorities, Law Enforcement, working together. It went fairly smoothly overall. I am sure there were some glitches, but it went smoothly because they had rehearsed for these kinds of problems, for major sporting events like that. And that really helped things, so that kind of unified approach, one of the recommendations of the 9 11 commission, by the way, was really helpful. Bostons is that the police and boston authorities in general do work closely with religious leaders, with teachers, communities in a way that is appropriate to try to just let them know that we are not just trying to arrest people. We are trying to prevent problems, and one of the ways to do that is to get out ahead of it and have those good relations established with the community. Host here is carl from seattle, washington, democrats line. Caller hello. My question regards lost opportunity and how to avoid that in the future. Regarding when the taliban and al qaeda were concentrated in the tora bora valley and were to diffuse into pakistan in a way that they metastasized and came back into afghanistan many times over. They could have been hit from the air with napalm and cluster iraq, yet we went into thinking that could be left to the afghan warlords, which is an untenable situation. And you enlighten me fo please . Every i will not offend action post9 11 attacks, but i will say that we actually did the u. S. Did drop an awful lot , butdinance into tora bora a lot of them, as you rightly point out, didnt drift or migrate into pakistan. Part of the reason it did drift or migrate into pakistan. Are the reason is it is very lengthy, to seal it off and prevent them from eating into pakistan wouldve been a huge, difficult military problem. Requiring hundreds of thousands of soldiers, and we do not have a many to put on the ground at that time. Is i think your point looking at it a little bit more broadly how do we come up with a plan and strategy to deal with these issues and operational theater and are we Getting Better at it . I donk the answer is think that we are Getting Better at it, but it is so complicated in different parts of the world that we are always going to be making some mistakes. Host a report on cnn talks about guantanamo bay, talks about intelligence information that was released saying that of the 603 detainees who have been transferred from these facilities, 100 of them have reengaged in terrorist activities. What does this mean . To the real point complicity of the guantanamo problem. This is not easy. I was involved in trying to come up with a blueprint in late 2007, 2000 eight with a number of other people to try to make suggestions to both the candidates in the 2008 president election, john mccain and barack obama, to suggest a blue pen and what they might do with guantanamo. It is a huge problem because guantanamo has been kind of a stain on the United States, at least in the mind of the rest of the world. That means it is a problem for us. So figuring out how to deal with that and how to deal with those prisoners and what process, whatever limits the process, what amount of process they should get in terms of going through either our court system or some sort of review of each of their cases, and i think we come up with a fairly coherent blueprint for it, but the problem is really difficult, and for political reasons you may remember that no senator, no congressman wanted a present to go into their home state here in the United States for all kinds of reasons. That posed difficulties. We made a recognition in his threat assessment to do with the guantanamo program problem because we recognize the importance. But you always have the issue of if you return them to their home countries, and if the authorities there say and they give you assurances, we will keep them in prison or we will get them through rehabilitation, and there are Different Levels of these guys as well, some are probably quite lethal, others less though. Less so. You have to make those determinations. If there are 100 of them that have become reradicalized or were feigning that they were not radical, when they got back home, that just suggests that the process is broken down to some extent and it is very hard to make these determinations. Host one more call. This is john from milwaukee on our independent line. Good morning. Caller good morning. The question i have about terrorism is this there is an element of our society that steals, and the only thing that they do more than steel is like. Who are they . Maybe they are causing terrorist ies. Vity spurred guest host do you have an pacific example, caller . Was wonderingut i if the gem and the cia has the answer. Tost im not sure how answer that, yes, we have criminals in the United States, it is actually one of the issues that we dealt with in this report. What are we going to include in the question of a terrorist threat assessment . Our idea was to focus on transnational terrorists al qaeda and its splinter groups, but you can look at the United States, and we get articles on the far left, we get radicals on the far right, and we also have people like ecoterrorists that have done some pretty bad stuff. So we do not cover that in our report, and i guess that is the best i can do with that question. Host as far as organization, what are your recommendations and as far as best steps forward . Guest there are a number of them, and this follows on with one of the major recognitions of the 9 11 commission. Example, in its oversight of Homeland Security and the department of Homeland Security it has Something Like 108 committees and massivettees that the organization reports appeared that is a really difficult problem. It is not just a political problem or division of power in the congress. It is a problem of National Security. Because the department of Homeland Security and all of its subsidiary agencies are really doing important work, but a need coherent and cohesive guidance from the government. Congress is a coequal branch of our government, and they need to be providing that guidance. When you have a fragmented advice i cap, that is a huge problem. So we make a recommendation that be it that all of that performed. I think that is hugely important. We have regulations for the executive branch. One of the things that we would like to see if the release of all the documents or as many of possible thats were cap sure taken at abbottabad when it bin laden was killed. We think our terrorism could gain a lot of insight about the al qaeda and terrorism. Host the information, Jihadist Terrorism a threat assessment , can be found on a bipartisan policy website. Our guest has been Michael Hurley. He has been talking about details of the report. Mr. Hurley, thank you for your time. Guest thank you so much. Host coming up, immigration policy. Our next guest travel through the usmexico border to find out what officials along the border think about policy being debated here in washington, d. C. Usa today alan gomez will join us. Later, we will hear from a powerbroker. From George Mason University will talk about that later on the program as washington journal continues. Yes, the world is changing. No, we cannot control every event, but america remains the one indispensable nation in world affairs, and as long as im president , i intend to keep it that way. When the president in the earlier clip was talking about we are the indispensable nation, what he does not want us to talk about, what he does not want americans to contemplate is we do not know how to win wars. Virtually any measure the best military in the world. We certainly spend more on our military van basically the rest of the world put together, but we do not know how to win wars. And it seems to me that there really ought to be a very Serious National Conversation why is that the case . Where does the fault lie . Is it our politicians are too stupid . Is that our generals arts inapt . Are inept . Or is it the fact that by this very nature, war is unpredictable . To go to war is to roll the dice, and you might win, and you might not. More with retired army colonel in princeton history sundayor Andrew Bacevich night at 8 00 on cspans q a. On the firstgram lady who officially changes the name of the white house. Edith roosevelt. Our series on the first ladys continues. When helen taft became first lady in 1909, 1 of the first one of the first things she did was have cherry trees when it around the tidal basin. The title basement was tidal basin was bare. The japanese heard about and. Hey gave 2000 cherry trees they were older, very tall, and bug infested. They were decided that they would have to be burned. President taft himself a decision that they would have to be earned. Burned. The japanese were accommodating and accommodating, and decided to send 3000 trees in 1912. We still have a few of in the tidal basin. Meet helen taft, wife of president howard taft on cspan and cspan3, also on cspan radio and www. Cspan. Org. Washington journal continues. Host joining us from new york is alan gomez, he is with usa today. Mr. Geomet, thank you for joining us. Guest thank you for having me. Host we hear a lot about immigration policy on this rubber, but you take a different take on in a recent report that you did. What is the idea that you had as far as immigration is concerned . Always good to get out of washington for a little bit, right, so we took advantage of the august recess and took a lot of time trying to talk to the border sheriffs, the guys who are down there working the border every day. One of the things that we are seeing out of congress is trying to develop the different way to secure the border. Especially for republicans in congress, it is very important for them to be able to say that whatever immigration plan that they sign onto will once and for all really locked down the border, really stopped ilLegal Immigration from ballooning as it has over the past decade. What we did is take the borders to curate he plans that they are developing here in congress and presented them basically to the border sheriffs down there. There are 22 counties from california to texas that order mexico. We managed to stake with 17 of the sheriffs down there, and what we thought was pretty interesting. The vast majority of them are not on board with the idea that has come out of the senate. They passed a bill a couple of itths ago that the thrust of within 22,000 new Border Patrol agents down to the southwest border to try to lock it down. The sheriffs say they do not think that was going to accomplish what they were trying to do, that they think there are other ways that they can secure the border. They were not excited about that plan. There are a couple of proposals in the house, one of them had some lukewarm support from the sheriffs, one of them they did not like, and we can get it much as we wandered and generally speaking, their main complaint if they did not have a seat at the table throughout this whole process. They assist the Border Patrol every single day, trying to lock down the border, and their main take away is hey, can you give us a shot here . Can you let us talk for a little bit and try to help you develop these plans to secure the border . Host what was the general consensus about why more people would not be the solution . Guest right now, we have approximately 18,500 Border Patrol agent on the border. To hear the sheriffs say they cannot, was what theyre trying to do simply by changing their strategies. It is interesting if you live along the border, if you spend any time down there, you notice that the Border Patrol is not always on the border as you would imagine. A lot of times, there are 50 they are 50, 60, 70 miles inland working checkpoints and highways. There working in regions where thatknow there are paths you legal immigrants and these drug cartels take to get into the country, so they play it as a layered approach. They are not necessarily always on the border. Theyre kind of playing back. So a lot of these orders sheriffs are saying get back on the border. They think that if you put all that manpower back onto the newer and augmented with technology, new monitors, new sensors, new radars, if you augment that with some fencing in a few areas, perhaps, that that could do a lot more to secure the border then just flooding the zone with more and more agents. And then they have some other ideas on looking at sort of the Border Crossings themselves, the legal ports of entry where people come over from mexico. They are saying that there is a lot more traffic actually getting through there, a lot more you legal traffic. Documents, false drug cartel that they monitor these border process crossings. They see a shift change, and they try to run through x or ,even cars loaded with drugs knowing that most of them will get through at that point. There is so theyre saying there is a heck of a lot more than what were doing now an especially more than just adding more agents. Host immigration and Border Security, our topic for our next guest. Democrats,880 for 202 5853881 for republicans, 202 5853882 for independents. Tweet us journal cspan. Org tweet us cspanwj. Send us an email at journal c span. Org. Alan gomez, did they say anything about the fence itself . Guest yes. Basically, there are two schools of thoughts. There are a couple who absolutely think that we should and can build a fence along the whole border. There are some regions where it is just impossible because of mountains or deep canyons, but there are some that think hey, keep that thing going, it is working, it is helping, lets go ahead and do it. But the majority of the sheriffs that we spoke to think that they just call it a waste of money. They say if you build these fences, they will find a way over it, under his, around it. In california, they are taking to the ocean going further into the acidic and then landing miles and miles north of the border in california. In places in the desert, they are sending altar light plane,hese small, lightweight plans and in return mexico. Tunnels are very common. Even if there is a fence, there are some places where call tells cartels have turned a fence into a swinging gate. At night, they will welded and get ready so they can swing open, dresser, and swing it back close to look site is still there. There are a lot of different way to get around or over or under this fence. The only way that it would truly be effective the vet if you i the entire fence and kind of investment, trillions of dollars to do that level of security is just not the way to do it, and they think they can do it without resorting to those extremes. Host alan gomez, how much of a fence actually exists . Guest right now, the last check is about 650 miles of fencing along the border. Where you see mostly is in the very highly Populated Areas. Example, San Diego County sheriff bill gore has explained to me this idea that the fence where they determine where they need a fence has to do with assimilation. How quickly can summary cross illegally into the United States and assimilate into the general population . In a place like san diego, you absolutely need a fence because back in the 1980s, you could run from tijuana into san diego, and it would take you a matter of minutes to blend in with the local populace. Somewhere in the middle of the desert, maybe not so easy. What theyre saying is where they have been fence is now a very highly Populated Areas like san diego, yuma, southwest arizona, some of the border towns along texas that yes, it is absolutely valuable, it helps in those areas, but once you start getting into the desert, what you see is maybe some posts with little barb wire in between, a lot of places, vehicle barriers, they call them normandie barriers on a triangular bars that are set up to stop vehicles, but people can easily cross or sign over it. There is a lot of different types of fencing that they use. If you are highly populated city, i mean, san diego has double, triple layer fencing, and cars patrolling all over the place, watched towers, lighting, and in those areas, it is proven to be very effective. What they dont think is effective is building that kind of fence in the middle of a desert, and the bottom of a deep mountain ravine. A lot of them think that what we have built, those 650 miles, is about what we need. Anything else is overkill. The Border Patrol in 2012, you talk about san diego. 2012, they were zero28,000 apprehensions. Tucson, 120,000 apprehensions. What is the sheriffs bring . Guest that is where the shares down that tucson sector of arizona, they absolutely think we need more agents. The difference there is basically, like we discussed, and san diego, they have built up the fence, they have they flooded the zone with Border Patrol and they are able to lock that down. What that has done is sort of push the Legal Immigration over to arizona. In parts of texas, we saw similar things happen where they try to lock it down at these big cities, and it has kind of push everything. Call ame of the sheriffs detour route into these other parts. Now Border Patrol not now, but always Border Patrol is responding to that. Now their turn to get to tucson more. In the senate bill, we see more money spent on federal prosecutors, on trying to augment sectors so that they can try to respond to that sort of. Hanging threat it is not necessarily about putting a fence or addington thousand more agents in a sector. It is repositioning what they to slow that it appeared that is what theyre trying to figure out right now. Host our guest, alan gomez, usa today. Our first call, john, independent line, go ahead. Caller my question is when you speak to these sheriffs, are they pretty frustrated that no one is really serious about stopping ilLegal Immigration . When they apprehend these people, they are not being deported. My question is, since the congress has started talking about this, and it seems like every time they Start Talking about an amnesty, have the sheriffs seen an increase in the legal coming across the border . Illegals coming across the border . They first off, absolutely think that Border Security is not being taken seriously. In this that nearly administration, the previous one, this is something they have been experiencing over a very long time. The difficulty is that they think the idea that Border Patrol being first, let me make clear, they all say they have the utmost respect for the Border Patrol agent and the work theyre doing, but the question is the strategy, and the idea of pulling them back to the border and having them patrol on highways, theyre saying that its not the most effective way to catch everybody who is coming across. The prosecution its another thing that i got almost universal agreement on from the sheriff. There is some money in the senate bill, for example, to inp the federal judiciary the tucson sector where they are singly most traffic. They say everyone across the border needs help because that in fairness to prosecutors anybody whos coming over is not there, and they say that has one of the biggest effect on what they call repeat crossers. So somebody will come over, they get caught, they get promoted to mexico, and there is not any serious consequences. They dont get prosecuted here in the u. S. For the violation. What theyre saying is that they would really prefer that everybody who came over was hit hard in the federal court system. To act as a very serious deterrent. That is one thing all of them are very upset about. You will get somebody across carrying some drugs. If they dont have a certain amount of drugs with them, the fed will not take the case. It is up to the states to decide whether they want to prosecute that case. A lot of it falls onto their local government, their county government, state prosecutors, to incarcerate those people, to then prosecute them if they wanted, and that is not only economic, but also an exhausting toll on their manpower down there. They think the attention from d. C. Has not been there for a couple of decades now to really get everybody was coming across. From Border Patrol catching them in from the judiciarys being able to prosecute them. Host prescott chimeric arizona next prescott, arizona lenny on the democratic line. Yes, i agree that a fence is ridiculous. Feel the people that are going to make money off of that are blowing. And you tell you show me a tweet five foot fence, i will show you a 30 foot ladder. That is one fingered the second thing about prosecuting at the private prison industry is let live and well for profit or third what they need is customers. They want to criminalize as a felony people crossing the border. You have to understand why the civil across the board. It was the death squad in central and south america that we fomented, the horror that is nafta, mexican come across to take your ceo job it is not a fence. The other thing i would say is hat, you know, bring them ere. If they want to come, welcome. Si, se puede. Guest one of the points you touched on their is a of their reasons for coming over. To, of the sheriffs i spoke they all sort of their perspective is that most of the that coming over are not coming over as part of a cartel. Theyre coming over to work. Theyre coming to improve the lives of their family. What they say, perhaps rescue sunday, throw them in jail for just committing the violation of crossing the border is not necessarily the best thing to do. So Something Like everify might be a better answer. That is something that is being developed, already in existence, so basically what it does is it allows the Business Owners, when you come to apply for a job, i can check your name and your information, and check your immigration status. It basically runs every new hires name through the department of Homeland Security to check their immigration status to make sure that they are legally here and capable of working, able to work. And so that is something that in the senate bill and the house is also pushing. To require all of the country Business Owners to use that. If that Program Works effectively, it will be one of the main deterrent out there. If you know that you come over here and it will be a lot harder for you to get a job here, i think that will take care of a lot of problems that we are seeing now. Host kentucky, jack joining us, republican line. Guest mr. Gomez, i was wondering about the titles. Did you hear any talk about the tunnels . Today found any or have anybody looking for them . Did they find any or have anybody looking for them . Guest absolutely. When i was in arizona driving with the sheriff and we were driving by families, and he pulled up and we stopped a tunnel right there on the first shipment of marijuana that was coming through, we got them. Those are deathly still a common thing. Definitely still a common thing. It is hard to detect them. They run these tunnels from the mexican side and they come out, it could be a house or anywhere, and it is surprising how close you can lead to a Border Crossing where there is just Border Patrol all over the place. This one that i thought was is a few blocks from a Border Crossing and families. So they are absolutely still using them. When i talked to the sheriff about how they do the deed tunnel with their and what can obviously stop it, he pulled their tactics, but this is where we get to another suggestion that they have, which is working border virtual, local sheriff, local Law Enforcement, dea, all of these other agencies spending more time doing intelligence. Basically that is what they were saying how they were able to find out about that title. There is federal money they go t lawenforcement agency that can be used to work with the feds to help them out. The locals know the people in that community. They have intelligence, they can work with the local sheriffs deputies to understand the local community in these border town of a lot better. Theyre from their most of the time, born and raised there, they know a lot of people there. They have contacts there, so they can help develop that intelligence. They can share that with border vigil, immigration, customs enforcement, dea. They can Work Together to figure out when the art other coming in, what they are working on, what is that month for the plan get together, and tunnels is one of the things i have been able to identify based on these groups that are working the task force. A very big task force that has been working for a couple of years. Several of the communities in west texas have been really working on these groups. And that is one of the things that they have really been able to stop. Host as far as the Obama Administration is concerned, how with the record on deportations of those who were illegal here in our country . Guest the Obama Administration has had a very it has been difficult for him to walk this road. Hand, he has made Great Strides to push for immigration reform. Ant year, he instituted executive order and he started a new program to stop the deportation of undocumented immigrants who were brought to the country when they were young. They are called dreamers. These young kids who came here when they were minors, anytime under 18, and have been living your most of their life and going to school. So he started this program. Undocumentedthese immigrants, their deportation has been officially halted. They can stay, they can worker, they are fine. That is made immigration advocates very happy. They are all thrilled about that third on the other side of the coin, though, every year, he is 400,000porting about undocumented immigrants. What they have tried to do throughout his administration is increase the percentage of those who are deported that have a criminal record. So where before it was a little bit more of a haphazard who was being deported it could be somebody with an an undocumented immigrant with an extensive criminal record, 70 who got caught in the wrong place in the wrong time, what they have been trying to do over on years is focused more people who arent a threat to National Security, people who have extensive criminal records. If you look at the numbers they provide, that percentage of undocumented immigrants a have a criminal record has increased every year that he has been in office. So they are doing more there, but that still gets him a lot of heat from immigration advocates, from the Hispanic Community saying they are still deporting which many people, that it is this mixed message that they cannot figure out what direction theyre trying to go. From here is sandra massachusetts, independent line. Aller caller im wondering why obama is still in the United States. Hes an illegal alien. Why build the border out there in mexico and stuff like that when theres more than one border. Plus you have the air, sea, and agents that were trying to stop Illegal Drugs years and years ago. I think they either ended up dead or in jail because our government did it. And they didnt like the way we pursued them then. I dont understand why dont they go after people in different spots in the United States because the illegals are coming over here, theyre here already. But not only that, the syrians and stuff like that right now that are gasing their own people are going to come over here in small groups and do it to us. Guest the northern border weve been focused on years for stopping that. Yet you go to the northern border and you dont see a big fence, a lot of man power up there trying to protect it. Its very different. Theres not giant Canadian Drug tart els trying to invade the United States. And you dont have canadians trying to come in here enmass trying to enter the country. That sort of is a very simple sort of explanation as to why we dont have much up there. But there is concern up there. There are folks who want more of an investment at least in technology to at least monitor that border so we can get a sense of whats coming over. But its just difficult. I mean, were already spending so much along the southern border where there are active drug cartels working across the border, very dangerous cartels working there. So you want to maintain that presence there when maybe it doesnt exist on the northern side. To your other point about our land and air ports. Absolutely. Thats one of the thing that is congress has started reexamining in the last couple of years. In the wake of 9 11 we saw a lot of focus on our airports and who was coming in and what kind of screening we were doing of people come in. For a long time they tried to establish an existentry system where we verify the identities of everybody coming into the country and also checking them when theyre leaving so we know who is here, who has overstayed their visa, we know who is in the country illegally that way. Theres about 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country and the estimate is 40 of them came here legally on a visa just overstayed. They long past the expiration of their visa. So thats something theyre looking at finally. What it would involve is maybe getting the fingerprints of people as they come in. We already get the fingerprints of everybody who comes in. We dont get that when they go out. So our ability to track everybody who is leaving is limited. We have to compare plane manifests, all sorts of data bases that theyre merging as we speak trying to figure out who is here and who is not and who has left and who should have left. And so thats another eye spect that theyre really focusing on now. The senate, theres a provision in their bill they passed that would require that program to really start in ernest at the 10 busiest airports and then expand that slowly to more airports around the country the house is starting to take a look at that as well. So those are very serious concerns that theyre starting to look at. Ocean springs, mississippi. Democrats line. Caller good morning. In march, i had occasion to travel to phoenix and i took a bus. When i got to nume and then into arizona, new mexico and arizona, both coming and going, the bus was stopped by Border Agents who got on the bus, would take people off the bus, take them outside the bus and question them. All the people that were taken off the bus were hispanic looking. From what i observed, the Border Agents never said a word or asked for identification from white americans or black americans. It was just hispanic americans. And of course, this bound up the bus schedule. The stops. And i was just really irritated by this. And i thought it was racist. And i felt like i was in a foreign country. I had never traveled by car or bus in the western part of the country before. It was just alien to me that this would happen in the United States. Host thanks. Guest you raise a couple very good points there. What you experienced is a very common experience for if you live within probably 50, 60 miles of the border. From california to texas, those Border Patrol checkpointses are a regular thing on interstates not just on side roads close to the border. Theyre nopt on dirt roads just down on the border. Theyre on i10, i8. Theyre doing these for several reasons partly just to try to identify undocumented immigrants who are maybe being transported in large groups as they crossed over the border. Theyre also looking for what they refer to as sort of consolidated smuggling loads. So what youll see a lot is kind of bails of marijuana or small packs of harder drugs being sort of dropped into the country or snuck into the country somehow, they get consolidated into one car, one vehicle, and then shipped off to points further north to large cities for distribution up there. So thats what those are there for. But the other point youre raising is one of the big concerns about having those checkpoints but beyond that the question of grant combggration Enforcement Powers to local Law Enforcement agencies. Thats a debate were still having. Arizona is the epi center of that. Thats the essence of the law that arizona passed in 2010 and almost implemented. It was the core of it was stopped in the courts eventually in the supreme court. The essence is, these are Border Patrol agents. Theyve been trained for years in immigration law, on what to look for, what identifiers to look for, and they have an understanding of somebody combsgration status. So what you saw was a Border Patrol agent making that call and making that decision, im going to check this person, im going to double check this person, double check this person. Whether it was solely because of the fact that they were hispanic, i have no idea. Usually in talking to these guys, and ive talked to a lot over the years, they scoff at the idea that theyre just plucking out hispanics. Theyre looking for other identifiers, for other things that theyre in the country illegally. So they would tell you that theyre making those split second decisions based on a lot of experience and a lot of time. But theres an effort right now in the house to expand immigration Enforcement Powers to state and local offices all around the country. So what you saw there, theres a proposal in the house to allow local and state officers to do around the country, to be able to say to be able to check in on somebodys immigration status during routine traffic stops. During any other regular contact that theyre having with somebody liing in that city. So thats a very big concern. Theres worry about rirblee profiling. Law enforcement in many places has responded saying were not going to racially profile just we need that ability to do that. And we dont when we call Immigration Enforcement theyre not always coming to respond when weve stopped somebody in the country illegally so we need to be able to do something. So thats a very tense argument thats starting to take place in the house. Theres a bill to allow for that to happen around the country. Its passed the house judiciary committee. Im not sure how much further its going to go. Its unclear whether the fwul house is going to vote on this. But i can tell you its received a very, very lukewarm reaction in the senate. Well see where that goes. Host about 15 minutes. Here are three quick tweets. Guest right now we are seeing, theyve been using them along the border for a few years now. To hear Border Patrol, to hear sheriffs, Law Enforcement i would say thats one of the things theyre unanimous with that those have been absolutely useful down there. When we talk about these vast areas where they cant have a Border Patrol agent every mile or so, you have to rely on technology. And what theyve been relying on for many years has been a sensor, maybe a radar. So basically the situation youll have a lot down there is a sensor triggers down somewhere in the desert. Somebody back in whatever command center sees that and either has to make a decision of responding and sending folks out there, or in some cases theyll have a camera that they can turn around and look and check it out and see whats going on. Obviously weather will make it difficult to see through that camera. If your camera isnt close enough you see something moving out there. So whether or not you get a lot of times you get out there and ok it was a cow or something. So its very difficult. With the drone its much easier and you can get there much faster and put eyes on whatever is going on using that drone. So Law Enforcement over there is just would love nothing more than to have as many drones as they can to be able to watch as much as they can without having to send their agents into these tough terrains, into these canyons, up these mountains to respond to every single time a sensor is triggered. The concern obviously is theres a lot of population along the border, places in san diego. San diego runs right up to the border. Senator Dianne Feinstein during the Senate Debate one of the things she fought for is to ensure that the drones cant just start flying up into l. A. And drift off into further and further north into the country because theres very real concern. Theyre living in your suburban house and a drone is flying overhead, it just feels like a military piece of hardware. So its hard for people to get accoupled to that flying over their heads. On the border theyre using that and more money is heading to increasing the number of drones that will be on the border. So i think youll see more of that. Host another tweet. Guest man, thats the interesting thing, when you listen to the immigration debate these days and you hear the arguments, i think right now absolutely the focus is on sort of the undocument combd grants who have been coming from the caribbean, from Central America, from south america. But if you read articles from 100 years arkse you can pretty much cut and paste ault all the arguments, pro and con, but just change the fact that they were talking about the irish or some other European Group or some asian group. Its been throughout history of america every time we have these waves, these intense waves of people coming from a particular region, a particular country, i think you see the sort of theres this natural mentality of, orks thats it. Weve had enough, lets stop it. So it sort of becomes possibly an attack on that particular group. And right now it just happens to be that a vast majority of our undocumented immigrants are from central and south america, particularly mexico. So i think thats why youre seeing that focus now. We dont get a lot of undocumented irish immigrants these days. That wave has not ended but we dont see it as much where most are coming from now are from central and south america from certain countries in asia. I think thats why you see that reaction or why it feels thats whats going on. Host john from florida next. Republican line. Caller can you expand on the fast boat situation that you mentioned these guys coming out of the coastline of mexico, making a great big u turn and landing somewhere on the california coast . I understand three coast guard were run down and killed by these people. Are you familiar with this situation . This is absolutely horrible. I wish you would expand on that technique. Host thanks. Guest absolutely. And first off im not familiar with the case with the coast guard guy that is you were just referring to. But absolutely that has become more and more an issue there in california. At first they were taking these small panga boats out there, so and this is after in the 80s you can run across from tee juan oo to san diego. Once they erected that fence, sent the Border Patrol agents is when you started seeing them increasingly taking to the ocean. So just like you were saying, they will go as far as they feel comfortable going into the ocean, usually beyond the horizon, take the turn up north and come in. What theyve been seeing in recent years and the sheriff has been talking with him for years about this, seeing just how much further north theyre landing and so before it used to be kind of in the southern parts of san diego, then in san diego proper, now it is way north of that. So what theyve been doing and this gets a little bit to these border task forces. What san diego has been doing specifically has been working with more and more Law Enforcement agencies further and further up the coast. So if they get any sort of intel, if they find out that something is going to be landing up there they can share that with them. Letting the local Law Enforcement agencies up the coast, now theyre more familiar with it. Theyre being debriefed and told to watch for that activity where they didnt have to look for that before. Now theyre working that more. Theyve actually in the past theyve worked with life guards so that they can just be an extra set of eyes so if they see something coming in or landing they can get on that phone in their booth and let local Law Enforcement know so that they can get over there. Its absolutely its become a very common thing. And theyve been seeing that more. Host we have an emailer. Guest thats been a very recent thing. If you look at one of our earlier viewers made reference to this. Theres certain countries in Central America where things are dangerous. Theres parts of mexico that even though the Cartel Violence is not probably at the peak that we saw a few years ago, its still parts throughout mexico that are incredibly violent and dangerous. Traditionally the United States has not acknowledged these sorts of battles as a reason to grant somebody asylum to stay in the country. But thats a tactic that folks have been starting to use in the last year or so. And whats happening is theyre coming over claiming asylum, and then the federal government at least has to hear the petition. So theyre at least buying themselves some time. I havent looked into this as much to really understand how many of them are then being allowed to stay in the country. The numbers that ive seen so far are in the couple of hundreds. Nothing too dramatic just yet. But i can tell you that the federal government is looking at this very closely. Because if thats a way to get here and say im claiming asylum and even if my case is going to be turned down, i can stay in the country in the meantime and just sort of disappear into the country. Thats something that theyre watching very closely to make sure it doesnt become too big of a trend. Host from tennessee, independent line. Caller good morning. Its my contention that theyre prosecuting the wrong people. I think they should be prosecuting americans who mploy them and they should have prison terms. This would alleviate the problem very fast. Because it is my thought that they come here for employment for the biggest part. Now, i heard you talk about drones, heard you talk about fences and Law Enforcement. But if you prosecuted the employers who employ these people, who know that theyre illegal and who benefit by paying them low wages, my question is how quick do you mimmings problem of would be resolved . A couple of points on that one. Youre absolutely right in that the focus on the employers is something that can have a major effect on who on folks coming over here illegally. Weve seen sort of different strategies between different administrations. Under president bush what we saw was these largescale raids at poultry plants, at big factories around the country where they rounded up a lot of the workers and there were sanctions for the employers but basically what they are doing was getting rid of the workers and there were some sanctions for the employers. The Obama Administration has focused a little bit more on the employers. Just this week there was a story in the wall street journal about the administration informing at least 1,000 businesses i think it was that theyre going to be audited and theyre going to be looking through their records and making sure that everything is on the up and up. And if not, that they were going to be facing fines and penalties and that sort of thing. There are those in congress that absolutely think that they need to raise the penalties, jail terms for employers who conduct this kind of activity. Object t flip side on the flip side, theres 11 million undocumented imgraints in this country for a reason. Most have jobs. And the fact that theres that much pressure on the system for jobs that they dont have the workers for and this according to folks who are to a lot of Business Owners who are saying look we need workers and right now that man power isnt there. Theres a lot of work in this country that theyre saying a lot of americans arent willing to do. In florida i can tell you that if they were to if tomorrow they were go to go into florida and say thats it were going to audit every Single Company and any undocumented worker is going to get thrown out, that would absolutely cripple the agriculture industry in florida and actually the rest of the country. There are estimates that up to 50 of the fam hands in this country are undocumented. And a lot of Business Owners are saying thats just strictly the result of them not being able to convince americans to do the job. They say that theyre offering a fair wage but americans dont want to do that kind of work any more. So the answer to that is to reform our visa system so that they can bring in these kind of workers that they need so that they dont have to rely on these undocksmented immigrants. So its two fold. Its putting together a visa system and reforming our visa system in such a way that it can respond to the labor demands but then absolutely it is creating either an environment or a set of laws to really crack down on employers who still violate those laws. Host story talking about those on the border who are responding to u. S. Policy. You can find that story on the website. Alan gomez joining us from new york. Thank you. Guest thank you. Host in our last segment well learn about a new class of power broker here in washington, d. C. They leave office, start a business, may show up on tv. All that works seamlessly together. Well talk with janine wedel of the George Mason University. The author of the shadow elite. Squth well learn more when washington journal continues. One of the reasons the changes need to be made in the Cyber Security posture this country have been made and continue to be looked at in the executive order and standards and Everything Else is that we need to move to Continuous Monitoring and after that we need to move to continually be able to look at the precursor or the context thats being set for an attack and we do know what those are. A lot have to do with analyzing social mead yafment youre never going to defeat the sibor energy whether nation state, organized crime, any organization by having the private sector check the compliance box we did all that congress wanted to do. Thats not enough. Its grossly ineffective. There has to be timely and continual information sharing horizontally within the federal government, particularly the d. H. S. , and then vertically down to the state levels and particularly the private sector. After all the federal government relies on the private sector in order to function. This weekend the senate Homeland Security looks where the next threats come from. On book tv, a secret life. The story of americas first female rocket scientists. Mary sherman morgan. And live sunday on cspan 3s American History tv, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the 16th street baptist bombing. From birmingham, alabama. Joining us now janine. Her book called shadow elite, william,. Guest thank you. Host obviously, apparently you created a new term. Flexion. We live in a world of flex. We have flex perks, flex time, flex work, flex cars. We even have flexible players. The era that we live in today has created a new type of flexible power broker that maneuvers among government consultancy think tank and media roles we the public dont have the tools to quite know what these power brokers are up to. So it creates a problem of accountability. Example. Just last week there was a woman who wrote a piece about syria and about arming the Syrian Rebels who wrote a piece the wall street journal and she was presented as someone affiliated with a think tank. Now, think tanks have this prntation of neutral and academic. Only later did it turn out that she had a dog in the fight in the sense that she was affiliated with a group that was supporting the rebels. So she wasnt a neutral analyst. And yet in the meantime, what does the damage do . Her argument was picked up by secretary of state john kerry and by john mccain as reasons for or as justification, additional justification, for this particular course of action. Ost this is elizabeth bagi. Guest yes. Host who doesnt have a phd. Guest which is another issue. So its not a about a particular case but it happens all the time that people are on the air or are involved in activities because of their overlapping roles. And we the public dont have a way of knowing whats going on. Another really big issue these days is that of retired generals and admirals who now used to be 20 years ago they retire or minantly they would more often than not they would actually retire, do other things. Where as now, they actually predominantly do things continuing to be involved in the Defense Industry and often trading on the information or at least have the ability to trade on the information that they have. So case in point, a retired general and admirals who are serving as advisers in military organizations. And at the same time, theyre working for Defense Companies. Theyre on the boards of Defense Companies or working as consultants. And they have access to government information thats not in the public dome main that then they can use in these other roles. So an issue for the taxpayer because theyre making a lot of money. Right . But theres also an issue of National Security and the Public Interest. Because perhaps where are their loyalties . We cant really know whether their biggest loyalty is still to the national interests. Host so is this person like contractors we know in d. C. Who were in government and go back and work for the government and turn around and do that . Guest right. So its exactly people who have been in the military. This is just one case. But it involves many, many retired generals and admirals who have been in those roles. And some are even now starting, say sitting on government advisory boards. So they still have access to the inside information and security clearances perhaps. And then they can turn around and at the same time start to joint Venture Companies. Another way that information can be used. And the issue for us the public is how do we know that the decisions that are being made are being made in the Public Interest . And this is a model that is per vaseive across all practically all spheres of Public Policy. Whether military, economic, health care, think about Larry Summers now. He is up for the Federal Reserve. T in many cases he kind of epitomizes the flexion model. Host because . Guest well, because of the overlapping and multiple roles that he has played. I go all the way back with him to the Clinton Presidency when he supported a group of people who were harvard professors who were working in russia presumably to do economic reform and in very unusual arrangements, according to u. S. Government officials at the time, he got them uncompeted awards. And then they got involved and turned out to be much more than advisers. They got involved in actually investing in the areas in which they were supposed to be involved in giving impartial advice. And so maniers helped cover for that both in the administration and then when he went to harvard his harvard presidency. Host let me introduce callers. Our guest to talk about this that you heard her describe. If you want to ask her questions, the numbers are on the bottom of your screen. You can tweet or email us. First on our republican line. Caller thank you. Im calling because i like the title of your book. I consider myself like a news junky among other things. The shadow government, the shadow everything. Theres a famous well, famous you tube video that conan obrien had about basically all the news, all the local news are controlled. And theyre controlled by like a hidden hand. This thing called operation mocking bird that came out in the 1970s, the choik commission in congress et cetera. I was wondering if you knew about that and if your book touches on that. Host thanks. Guest so thanks very much for the question. I should first say that this is ot a conspiracy. That theyre shadow elite because part of what they do is hidden from us. Just as i was describing, the retired generals, we cant really know what theyre doing when theyre starting joint Venture Companies or when theyre working for these consultancy firms. We know that they have access to the information. So its very ambiguous. What we can do is we can chart their roles and relationships, and thats what im trying to o in my shadow influence project. Were trying to chart the roles for elationships of, example, these retired generals and admirals. And we can see then where we can make some inferences about where their loyalties and such might be. I think its going too far to say that local or at least one would have to really show that a particular local news station is controlled or such. I think we have to be very cleareyed and kind of invessgatri about looking into the roles, the relationships, the network that key players have. And i would add that this is not a partisan this is not a partisan game being a flexion or being part of a flex net which is a network and very often these people Work Together in exclusive networks where they trade on information. That it knows no particular ideology. T knows no particular brand republican or democrat. So its hasheder for us to understand in many ways because we cant get automatically into something that we know. Host d. N. A. From atlanta, georgia, independent line. Caller good morning. This is an excellent topic for exploration. And it goes to the heart of democracy and the sanctity of democracy. What i would like to share with ou is really a suggestion that has to do with dealing with Insider Trading on the stock market that the s. E. C. Deals with and bringing people accountable. In this case, i wonder if you can explore the possibility of literally making these networks money obviously is the root sort of the moderation underlying all of these things, flexion. Can that be a public pursuit where if you are involved in influencing any kind of government organization, that those influence and relationships from the past, lets say over two or three years, is kept on the web somewhere easily shared . Plus, i wanted to also host caller, why dont we let her answer your question there and get a response. Guest excellent question. Money is at the root of these roles and relationships. I would submit that its not only money or certainly not just money. In many cases its also etiology and going to the issue of finance. I would submit that the people around larry somers, now up for fed reserve chairman, robert ruben, they were together in the Clinton White house and they either stood by nonregulating exotic derivatives or got rid of already existing regulations that would have been helpful in averting the financial crisis and could have helped us avert that disaster. But part of the way that these networks operate is that they bring in people from their private network when theyre in when parts of the network are in office. So, for example, you had a wall street washington also harvard cadre working together and these people circulated in all the different roles, the same group of people comes and keeps coming up and coming up but in different incarnations. And at the same time, they excluded people who should have been included if it were for their expertise and for their formal roles in government at the time. So brooks lee borne whose with the Commodities Future Trading Commission who is excluded from those decisions about exotic derivatives or was sidelined because of her views is taken out. So its the network here that is really decisive. And i think the caller is absolutely right that it presents a real problem for democracy because at the root of democracy and at the root of the free market is the notion of accountability. So democratic states are about accountability. Its supposed to be about accountability. The free market is supposed to be about competition. Well, where is the competition . So the point is that todays top power brokers flexions they break or they test the rules both of modern democratic states and of the free markets. Host democrats line. Good morning. Caller im on the democrat side. I would like to know what resources are the democrats for the people for citizen requirements except for the one that we already have of having been born in . And could that be a possibility for us, Citizen Military people might be able to help out with this revolving door so that way the United States host caller, could you go ahead and rephrase your question again . Guest im not sure that i understood. T question. Host lets go to chris, democrats line. Caller good morning. I appreciate you coming on and actually exposing some of this. Ive been a product of some of these problems that are going on being an independent defense contractor. I find that the biggest problem and weve seen it with the nsa problem, is this Company Called boozeallen, ex military, ex c. I. A. Seem to have prop gate it had contractor. And with the lack of experience or whatever, these gentlemen come out, i dont deny that their ability to help the country is great. But when it comes to getting back into the contract business it seems they only care about their friends and making money. They dont really seem to have like you said loyalty to the country. We designed some software and weve been just having a hard time because in all reality this would stop a lot of the things going on with china and russia. And i find dealing with the d. O. D. Is that problem. They deny the third parties, the small contractors because its all padded with insiders, groups within the washington realm. Guest chris raises very important points. The issue is one of Insider Information very often that players who have been inside the system are then primed to use that information on the outside to make money or to serve the agenda of their own particular group of people. And part of the backdrop of all of this is the problem that chris alluded to, which is that there is so much more governing outside of formal government now. Three quarters of people working for the federal government across the board now are actually private contractors, according to paul light at Ny University who has been tracking the contractor numbers for years and years. And a lot of these people are engaged in government functions, controlling data bases, choosing other contractors, directing initiatives and so on. So part of the reason we have this new breed of players is because so much of the underlying things have changed. Theres a lot more contracting out, governing has become so diffuse. Loyalties at the same time have shifted and we have much less faith in institutions than we used to have. Host we have an someone who tweets guest what makes flexions different from Old Boys Networks is that Old Boys Networks would in the past served at the pleasure of the administration. And today, what we have is administrations come and go but not so flexions and flex nets when they Work Together in networks. What you have of the same group of peeth people who have their agendas and theyre going to get them through no matter the administration. So you have the ruben circle ruben, arry somers, bob tim geithner was sort of a part of that. Peter ortszog who is now at city bank. Thats just one example. I can provide examples of all different political stripes. So they keep coming up and up in different carnations. Incarnations and different configurations so that if im deputy secretary in this administration, you are secretary, and then its reversed in the next time around, so they keep they have their own staying power. And we dont always quite know who they are. I mean, we did know who the old elites were in the past, we know who the vander bilts and the rock fellers and so on. They were much more visible. Todays flexions and flex nets are less visible. Theyre less pra pat at the timic and more global and the effects of their of the policies that they prom gate are absolutely global. In reach. Host another viewer asked guest ok. So heres the issue. No. The number of redgestrd lobbyists, the number of registered lobbyists, according to studies reported in the New York Times and elsewhere, has actually declined in the past few years. And heres why. The reason is that theres a new way to lobby in washington. And not only in washington. Ive heard this story in europe and elsewhere in the world. And that is the head of or the , viously high, top official starts his Consulting Firm or goes to a Consulting Firm. And all he has to do and his title is consultant or chief adviser and so. And what he does is he makes phone calls to people that he knows on capitol hill or people in the relevant Government Agencies or to the president and he says, here, talk to my lobbyist. Right . So then they have their own redgestrd lobbyists on staff. But redgestred lobbying has actually declined. Because thats to hear the head of the lobbying association tell it, theres a new way to lobby in washington. And its been described by him, its been described a bit by jack aim of who actually did go to prison for fraud, but theres a new way to do it. And the problem for us is we dont know exactly whats happening. But we need to understand that when we see, for instance, let me give a quick example. Michael cherthoff, former Homeland Security security agency, he was on the air rather incessantly rather than the Christmas Day wouldbe socalled underwear bomber in 2009 . It was a few years ago. Cherthauf was on the air. Was promoting these airport all body scanners as the cureall for airport security. And only afterwards did we find out that cherthoff was involved with the company, i think he was managing director, that had the only license at the time to manufacture these allbody scanners. So i actually call somebody like that a shadow lobbyist. That theyre clearly lobbying but theyre not redgestrd. And we the public have no way of knowing whats happening. Host and theyre flex. Theyre playing these flexible roles and we the public dont have the information to figure out what their loyalties might be and are they speaking in the Public Interest, which is what we thought, or do they have a dog in the fight that may not be the dog the public should have. Host were in the age of google where we can research anything. Guest exactly. And thats exactly what we need to be doing, what we citizens need to be doing. Host so its a subject of transparency more than anything else. Guest its a subject of transparency. But also of exclusion. Because these networks really do exclude people who otherwise would be included. People in formal positions who otherwise would be included if they were part of the network but theyre not. And so they get excluded. And Public Policy decisions get made like lets say the bailout a few years ago so that was a washington wall street nexus of very few players with inside information who didnt involve other people, who should have been involved in those discussions. Nd that was because it was a tightknit trust network. Host caller, good morning. Well, i just agree with her totally. Im so glad shes making these points. And i think its even worse than shes saying because its really misrepresentation. It amounts to lying, misleading the public. And billions of dollars have been at stake and still are. Guest right. I think there is a lot of ethically challenged business going on. But the problem for us is for the public is one of accountability. And we need to be able to really become a more educated public in this regard. And we also need to bring back shame. When you have people like larry somers who are able to just fail upwards, that is to go from failing in one position and then continue to get promoted in the next to the next position, and when the Network Helps them to do that, then we have a problem as a society also because we tolerate that. Host so just to let you know. Thats off of twitter. Another tweet. Guest theres absolutely no one model. But what does seem to be a prevailing pattern im about charting pat rns and nittygritty roles and relationships and networks. Who knows, how do they know them, what are the contedgets of the relationships, and whats going on . What do they mean . So you can have very often people use think tanks and universities when theyre on the air, for instance theyll use a university or think tank label because those are the most neutral. Those are the most impressive. So if you see that someones a harvard professor or A George Mason professor or a professor wherever, youre not necessarily going to think, oh, they might actually have a company or they might have another agenda or they might be working with a group of people towards this agenda that is not disclosed. Right . So thats one of the most dangerous parts of this. Host paul, democrats line. Caller first, i would like to say that she is absolutely right and i couldnt agree with her more as a Western North carolina journalist who has researched this very topic. I have seen through the years it get worse. Its as bad now as it has been since earlier. We went through a deal with North Carolina with the coke brothers influencing the Education System in wade county, they can negatively impacted gas laws and environmental issues. This is an extremely huge problem. And the only thing theyre susceptible to is public exposure. And people need media that is not controlled by the money to help expose these people. Guest so i think the point is very well taken about the media that part of the problem and part of the real challenge for us is the gutting of investigating of much investigative reporting over the past few years and of course the financial crisis made this worse. And so for instance, theres a real tendency because media has been the traditional media have been defunded, theres a real tendency to put people on the air. Theres a real tendency to put people on the air who are talking heads, because that doesnt cost much money. You dont have to send a team out to go investigate a story. But a robust media is more than ever needed and it cant be solved just with new information, technologies, and new media. Host new jersey, harold, republican line. Caller you are right on. Were told that we should close guantanamo and i think we should leave guantanamo open. We should close harvard to do the world a whole bunch of good. I followed this very carefully and there were two people essentially who brought down the soviet union. When they did that, i thought those poor russian people who had suffered under communism so long would finally get a chance to get food to eat, places to live, and be successful. Instead, harvard went there and they made billionaires out of the wrong people. Those billionaires are probably still friends with putin who was still making trouble in the world. And if harvard had only listened to the two people who brought down the soviet union without firing a shot, and of course those two people were Ronald Reagan and the pope. Guest well, i think the story on the soviet union and who brought it down is quite a bit more complicated than just those two people. But on the issue of harvard influence and reform and so on in post communist russia, i think its important not to overstate the issue. But it is true. And i did research this on the ground in russia for a number of years and wrote a book about it, that had lots of investigative work, which does look at the economic reform portfolio which was largely directed by a couple of people at harvard who didnt get involved in these other shenen gans. And there were a number of u. S. Government investigations which were mostly infeebled. But Harvard University and the two principals who were involved were sued and this was settled out of court. Larry somers when he was president of harvard did as much as he could to cover for one of his Close Friends who was a principal and was sued and did have to pay. This was settled out of court in 2005 and harvard paid the largest settlement in its history. Thats been largely swept under the table as im sure that many viewers or many viewers havent heard about that. There are, however, many good people at harvard, so i dont think we should trash the institution. Host a comment off of twitter. Our next call, independent line. Caller good morning. I you can tell from the callers that everybody is just fed up. But i think, unfortunately, with people so poorly informed about anything other than the American Idol or other nonsense, i think that this system has gone on for a long time. Its not accidental. Its something that it was planned. And unfortunately, as a retired Law Enforcement, im kind of angry i didnt get in on some of this. Guest right. I think actually the system that were seeing now has not gone on forever. I think this is a new way of doing business thats changing as we speak. And i think that its the confluence of several they werent planned. They happened and they interact together. And thats the world that we find ourselves in. So it was the combination partly of deregulation and privatization of government. It was also about the end of the cold war that opened up a lot of new spaces for individuals, whether theyre ngos, whether to have a role. Whether working on human rights across the world or money launders or financers doing instant financial trades without regulation, which leads me to new information technologies, which brought the internet, which also plays a huge part in the state of affairs that were in today. So it wasnt these werent planned. This is not a conspiracy. Either in terms of the way the layers are operating or in the circumstances. Host as far as players, a viewer makes the case off of twitter. Guest well, im not sure that he would be that may or may not be the case. I dont think that qualifies him that alone wouldnt qualify him as a flexion. Is he trading on Insider Information . Is he part of a network . Thats using it. Is his agenda hidden . These are the questions that we need to ask. Host one more call. Peter from fairfax, virginia. Caller thanks for accepting my call. I want to thank you for this topic. I do believe its because of the somebody like her future of our country hinges. One thing that bothers me is do you really doubt what shes saying . I listened to the panel. It was billy crystal. What is he about . So this keeps growing. Its just that it comes in different forms. And i think that whether its the new side of the coin or old side its the same thing about the education of the masses. As long as the masses in this country stay in uneducated, if everybody, this thing goes on and it has no end. That is my comment. I thank you again. Im going to get your book. Thank you. Guest well, i think the caller raises an important or an interesting point. Somebody l crystal, he would be another example of someone who has failed upwards. Hes been wrong about so many Public Policy issues of course the case in point being the iraq war. And yet he continues to be promoted and get gigs and be on the air. And this is not about any particular network. All of them pretty much do this is par for the course due to the change that is have happened in journalism. So there is this tendency for people who have really been wrong and have failed in positions to do what i call fail upwards. And we the public i think are o accommodating of this kind of activity. Host a little more about your book. Guest well, so the book that this comes out of is called the shadow elite. Its about how the top players really break or test both the rules of democratic governance which would be accountability and the rules of the free market. Theyre certainly not interested in competition, either, and they intertwine state and private power. Identify a new book on the new corruptions. And im really looking at how to what extent is this behavior that were seeing, is it corrupt . A lot of it is really ambiguous. And yet if you go back, you go back to earlier definitions, classic definitions of corruption, biblical, islamic and so on. You see that theyre often about violating the public trust. And a lot of this flexion activity really does that is what we should be concerned about. Thank you for joining us. Tomorrow we will be talking guests withs with ye newsweek daily use. Yl kimball on russias proposal on syria tummy tuck. Well also be joined by the internationals that these. Ll that we will take