Transcripts For CSPAN2 Tonight From Washington 20130720

Now, a discussion with democratic congressman adam smith on the issue of foreign aid and National Security. Representative smith is the top democrat on the House Armed Services committee and the guest speaker at this hourlong event hosted by the u. S. Institute of peace in washington, dc. Good morning, im jim marshall their president of the United States institute of peace, and i want to welcome our guests. Let me briefly tell you what the United States institute of peace does. Essentially we stop fights. We do that globally. All of you are familiar with stopping fights. Youve probably done it yourselves. The techniques we have to use globally are very different than trying to keep friends from getting into a fight in a fraternity or Sorority House and what we do is terribly important to the country and to the United States success in temperature fer furthering its strategic globally. Our batting average is. 500 but when we get a hit, its big deal. Having mentioned batting average is have to first say that adam and i have been teammates for years, not only were we members of congress together, both democrats, both on the Armed Services committee, and also on the democratic baseball team, and i will say that adam batted 1,000 in this years game. He went 22, and one walk so he was on base all three times. Played center field, no errors. Thats because we have a great pitcher right now. And they couldnt get it out of the infield. And so maybe one had been hit to adam. He would have caught and it thrown out whoever needed to be thrown out. A really good baseball player. And he is a great member of congress. Ive known him for a number of years. In fact describe congress often as being kind of like a high school. A lot of different abilities and different interests and different folks. Like lake wobegon high school, everyone is above average. But adam is extraordinarily thoughtful and among other things, he takes notes. So, you see, he has a tablet with him. I dont expect him to be taking notes during the event but he takes notes all the time. He is writing what is going on with the intention hell probably write a book, and im going to read that book. This is a thoughtful guy who had quite an interesting perch as a member of congress, and then he has been taking notes. So he will have an awful lot of interesting things to say about his experiences in congress. And i am just hopeful he doesnt cover the really stupid things i did or said while i was member of congress. And with that, i want to introduce congressman adam smith, the Ranking Member on the Armed Services committee and a good friend to me and a good friend to the institute. Adam. [applause] thank you very much. Its great to be here at the United States institute of peace. The mission that jim and all of you do here is incredibly important. I got the opportunity to meet with jim and one of his colleagues yesterday and hear about the work. It is incredibly important, and i appreciate that work and im honored to have the opportunity to speak to you today, and take your questions and learn more about the subject, which is how Development Diplomacy and defense need to Work Together in u. S. Policy to create greater stability throughout the world. I do appreciate having played baseball with jim all those years and like my first 12 years there we always lost, because well, the republicans were better. Then sedrick richmond, who i didnt even know, got elected in louisiana, and he is young and can throw over 80milesanhour. Which doesnt happen very often in baseball. So now we win. 220 this time matter of fact. [applause] so, actually, i came at this issue from a variety of different angles, and number one ive been on the Armed Services committee for 17 years, and then i chaired the terrorism subcommittee, which had jurisdiction over special Operations Command so i got travel around the world to a variety of different conflicts, obviously, iraq and afghanistan, but many places in africa and the philippines and others, sort of see what our department of defense is doing to try to keep the peace, try to move forward with stability. At the same time, in the state of washington, we have an incredible presence of Development Agencies. The Gates Foundation being the most obvious. But path and a variety of others are out there as well, and they sort of pulled me in and i start ed doing traveling to see what was going on in latin america as well. And what struck me was the intersection of the two. The more time i spent with our special operations guys, the more they told me, we need to fund development. We need to fund that to get stability. That it is far, far easier to build a society that has opportunity so that you dont get to conflict, than it is to have to bring in 100,000 u. S. Troops to try to restore stability. The two go hand in hand and have to Work Together, and i think we ref learned that lesson. You heard sect gates in the years before he left talking about how important the state department was and, and that it is not enough to fund the department of defense if you underfund the state department. They have to Work Together to achieve stability. I believe the lessons have been learned. Now we just need to implement the policies that reflect that there are still many challenges to fully funding and fully supporting the development and diplomacy average arm of this. The department of defenses budget is enormous compared to what we spend on diplomatics and diplomacy and development. And we could use a shift in that. And then theres the trust issue as well. The relationships are improving but there is still a general feeling, i think, amongst many in the department of defense, that ante diplomacy and Development Side they dont understand why security is important and on the Development Side they feel like the military shows up and undermines our mission. Were doing better. One of the most encouraging things i have seen is usaid, doing a fabulous job. He is meeting regularly with the head of the special Operations Command, to figure out how they can Work Together to actually use the best of all three elements of our Foreign Policy, defense, diplomacy, and development, in order to build and go furled. You look go forward. You look at iraq and the amount of money we spent and the amount of troops, the amount of lives we lost, going in there in what was particularly initially a military dominated operation. We were not prepared for what came after the fall of saddam hussein. The Defense Department to some extent tried to take over, and in an area where they didnt really have the expertise, but we had underfunded the state department where that expertise was supposed to reside so that it was very, very difficult. That was enormously costly. And actually one of the most interesting trips i took while i was on the Armed Services committee was a trip to the philippines, where we had not problems as large as iraq and afghanistan to be sure, but they had various terrorist groups in various insurgencies there, and were special there. Special Operations Command there is, and so us usaid, and our troops there have not fired a shot or been involved in conflict. What theyve done is trained the local Security Forces and how to provide adequate security, and theyve worked with the usaid and other Development Agencies to build schools and drill wells and correct the atmosphere where people dont want to be part of an insurgency. I think one of the greatest misunderstandings or misstatements ive heard in a long time, its become popular to say that poverty has nothing to do with instability and terrorism, and people make that argument bass they look at people like Osama Bin Laden and others who say these people are middle class or way above middle class. Its the intellectuals who tend to start terrorist movements and thats up questionably true. Incredibly throughout the world we have seemingly Endless Supply of people who are convinced they have the one true philosophy that will save us all and feel it is there obligation to jam it down our throat. Those philosophies well always come up. The question is do they find people who will follow them . Are they just some crockpot on a corner spouting off ideas, or too they build a movement that begins to cause damage, and that happens when you have people who dont have a feeling of opportunity. Of freedom. When you look across the world, where al qaeda is recruiting, you look at a world of dysfunctional government, lack of opportunity, lack of jobs, lack of freedom. We have to put in place those broader Building Blocks of a just society in order to stop terrorists. I have no illusions here. Even if we do that, there will still be challenges and still be a need for the military. There will still be people who rise up against that. But it will be a much more manageable problem if we properly implement the development and diplomacy legs of this stool in order to build a more secure world. And i think that is what we need to do and where we need to go. I think things are getting better. I am the cochair of the caucus for effective foreign assistance with andrew crenshaw, and i look at the lessons we learned and how we implement policy, and it is getting better. We are understanding that its not really Effective Development to simply spend u. S. Money to hire a bunch of u. S. Contractors to go into a country and build a bunch of stuff they then leave. Its got to be bottomup. The Millennium Challenge Corporation was a really inspired idea. The notion of working with a country for them to develop their own Development Policy and implement it through their governing structure with our help. Instead of a topdown approach, a bottomup approach. We have made some improvements. The other Big Development in this area is the private sector. Again, the Gates Foundation is the largest element of this. Like 35, 40 billion, some unbelievable amount of money. You have son a ton of other groups rise up to get involved in developing policy, and i think they have taken an approach that has helped spur the government side of it to greater efficiency and effectiveness. Theres a bill introduced last congress, this congress, to measure outcomes of foreign assistance, whats working, what is not, so we can begin to get a betteryard what we should fund and where we should direct our dollars if this is going to work properly. So youre moving in that direction. I still think there are some improvements that need to be made. My biggest argument in u. S. Development policy is that we need to elevate the importance of usaid, and concentrate the money. Right now theres Something Like 35 different pots of Development Money run by a whole bunch of different agencies. If shaw wants to Impact Development he has only a tiny little sliver of that money in order to do it. And i always hold out as the model the department for International Development in great britain. What theyve done is concentrated they have lifted to a cabinet level department. Does not report to anyone. And they concentrated the money so if you are in charge of Development Policy you are actually in charge of Development Policy. You control the money and where i goes and where in the program goes and if it is universally recognized as the most effective government Development Policy out there. Would like to see us move the u. S. More in that direction, to elevate the importance of usaid, so begin to consolidate those programs. The problem with that, of course, is everybody has their own program and in the u. S. , we tend to like to basically protect our own program, and particularly in a era when budgets are being cut and challenged, theres a tendency to narrow focus and say i care about education for women in africa so im going to make sure theres a line item for this program and we have to spend a certain 5789 of money. But in doing that you tie the hands of those in charge of Development Policy and make it more difficult for though make the type of decisions that are necessary. Another example is we made an effort to reform the food for Peace Program. The food for Peace Program is an excellent program. A great idea. U. S. Agriculture and u. S. Shipped, taking food to places in the the world that need it. The problem is we have written into law the requirement that 85 of our food aid has to go through that program. And there are times when it makes more sense to simply buy the food, closer to the source of the problem, and get it to the people who need it then. It is a more costly, more expensive, and more time consuming program to go through the food for Peace Program, and you need a balance. So, the state department has proposed closing that gap to say that didnt mandate 55 of it go to food for peace. The problem is a lot of this money gets spend on u. S. Interests. Agriculture and u. S. Maritime. I cant blame them but its a block to our ability to have the necessaryibility to be as efficient as we need to do. If had one overarching goal, it is to bring defense, diplomacy, and development closer together, particularly defense and development. The military spends a lot of its open money on development programs. They do health care in some case, afghanistan and elsewhere, they have built schools and drilled wells weapon need to build a Greater Partnership there and make sure the people with the right expertise are degree right jobs and at the same time the people on the Development Side need to understand how important security is. Yes, there are lot of places in the world that when the u. S. Military shows up, it can undermine the confidence of the local population. But if you dont have security as a starting point, you dont have development. And we have certainly seen that in iraq and afghanistan, where you have seen people pull out Development Projects because it has not been safe. So you need to work with the military to make sure you have a secure environment to do the good work you need to do. That partnership needs to be strengthened. I think there are steps being taken by people at dod and usaid to strengthen the partnership but weed in to look for every opportunity to make that as strong as possible in order to have the proper National Security posture in order to bring greater stability to the world. At the end of the day if you had to sum up the goal of u. S. Foreign policy and defense policy, it is stability and security, then the steps to get there, and economic opportunity, diplomacy, all of that is credit dollar security and stability. We have the elements within the u. S. Government to do that policy. We need to make sure theyre working as well as they possibly can together. So, thank you for the opportunity to at least outline those ideas and i look forward to your questions, comments. And answers are also welcome. So, i look forward to questioned. Thank you. [applause] those who had questions, maybe you can lined line up behind the mics. That will make it easier for us to actually get you heard on the television cameras, and let me start in this is not so much a way as an observation. The National Intelligence committees 2030 report estimates that by 2030, half the worlds population will be middle class. That means that the other half of the worlds population is going to be mostly still quite poor. Are we heading in the right direction and what do you think the effect of this trend, which is more and more people climbing out of port poverty and middle class will have on questions of violence robbed the world around the world. It will improve the situation. The more economic opportunity, the better off, about is a stark reminder how many are still left behind. And i think it is a great challenge to make sure you pull as many people up as possible. Were not going to eliminate poverty. Not going to eliminate people who struggle. But we can certainly reduce the numbers, and there have been a number of places that have made progress in that area. You can see the difference. I guess if you had a broadly scattered middle class so that the entire globe is essentially covered, then you have individuals who really invested in not having violence possible up, and so they can work with those individuals who are feeling disenfranchised, feeling as if they have no opportunity, lack freedom, that sort of thing, in their communities, which lessens the task we have globally trying to keep peace. Thats a great way to put it. They are invested in stability. Look, there are number of people who are ideological, going to be violent. But most people who get forced into that. When you read the stories about countries that have fall apart, like lebanon. These people just want to get through the day, feed their family, have a decent life and, if you give them that, they wont consider violence for a second. So thats the direction we need go in. Im just really pleased that the congress has people in it today that are as thoughtful as adam is about these issues that of critically important to the United States and the world. Why dont we start over here, question, observation, answer, that would be even better. Congressman, first of all, thanks for your leadership on foreign assistance. That means a whole lot to the community here in washington. Im Anthony Garrett from internews, an International Media development organization. My question is as the american troops draw down in the coming year in afghanistan, what can be done to protect women journalist, human rights activists and the other good folks who have put their faith in the west and in the good work that has happened the last ten years so its not in vain . Its very difficult. Thats what i mean what we are doing is we are working very, very hard and have been, particularly since 2009, to train the Afghan National Security Forces. I spoke with general dunford yesterday. They are now in the lead in all military operations throughout afghanistan, except for counterterrorism. And that they have significantly improved the quality of that security force. Now, im not going to kid you. Theres going to continue to be challenges, and when you look at development, particularly protecting women, you can look at a society and the societies that educate women are far more prosperous and far more successful than those who dont. Its the ultimate measure of whether or not youre headed in the right direction, and thats part of the reason countries like iraq and afghanistan and pakistan have struggled. Hopefully we will let good a bilateral Security Agreement so there will be some u. S. Presence there help with that but its an enormous challenge. This has come up in the context of syria and elsewhere. We cant kid ourselves that the u. S. Military can show up everywhere and protect everybody. Thats why i say this threelogged stool was developed. We have to get to the point where local populations are responsible for their own security. We simply cannot do it and all were not in a boeing to do it in a going to do it and nobody likes to be occupied. You see a u. S. Military showing up, its going to create a certain amount of hostilities in the world. Countries have to become responsible for their own security. We have to help them the best way we can. Thank you, congressman. Here at the institute, were convinced that the political transition is critically important the United States and all entities need to be focused on trying to help afghanistan get the right kind of plate transition if the government falls apart because of turmoil as a result of the poor president ial election and then provincial elections the following year. If the government fall as i part its going to be difficult to keep the afghan Security Forces together. Theyre well armed and we can see a war and women rozs rights and other progress that has been made. And were trying to get that right, trying to help afghanistan get that right. Im will from bankrupt international, former Foreign Service officer. Were disappointed to see that dod is descoping the Program Supporting training women in the Afghan National Security Forces. Seems to me shortsighted. We made some progress there. A long way to go, and i think thats a bad thing. But this debate ends in the administration in aid in the Contractor Community over the last four or five years, whether its more effective to use Development Money to for aid to hire contractors to do work in various places or whether they should give that money to the local governments and to local ngos. Argue. S on both sides. The locals may not be able to do it, and in most countries where we have aid programs, the collection factor is pretty high. Where are you and representative crenshaw come down on this . I think we are more proponents of the local approach, for a couple of reasons. Number one, we were so much on the other side of it for so long. One Development Advocate said, in response to the criticism, we have spent so much money on foreign aid, given this money away to other people. Said we havent spent that much money on foreign aid. We have given the money to ourselves. Paying our own contractors to go over and do the work. That not the same as giving it to them. But we erred on that side for too long. Number two its common sense. I mean, sustainability just doesnt happen if the local population, the same is true in security. Thats why were training you can come in and do everything for everybody, but you cant stay there forever, and when youre gone, what is left . And terrible stories of all these Great Projects being built, and we leave, and three years later, it just sits there in disrepair. So ill say that. I think i would err on that side but its going to be a balance, too. You have to have the people, the expertise to begin to train the local population. You cant just throw it at them if they dent know how to handle it. So, its a balance between the two. But where we have erred in the past has been, i think, excessively on the side of doing it ourselves, and not truly training and thats whether youre talking about agricultural, rule of law, governance, health care, you know, education, whatever it is, we really need to focus on that point when were not going to be there anymore. Are the people that were training and working with going to be capable of doing this . I would err on that side. But then theres always goal to be a role for experts to come in i was in kenya, they had folks from dupont talking about agriculture and made enormous progress in terms of building more resilient crops, and this is without genetically modified. This is just doing it the way youre supposed to. So, its going to be balance, about if we erred, we erred on the side of too much some of that is just the groups want the money, obviously. I think we would be better off training the local population which is why the challenge corporation is such a good idea. Yes, sir. Thank you, congressman. Im howard and most of my career with usaid, and if we had a couple hundred more like you in congress we could go a very long way in fixing things. I think that there are a few sort of key issues in the development, sort of the big picture development. One is just sort of alluded to it public understanding how much we spend on foreign assistance and what we do with the money. These famous surveys where you ask people, how much we spend on foreign aid and they say 10 of gdp. Turns out its. 07 of one percent and they think we should be spending four our five. So theres a problem of getting the message out. The second issue is the politics, which you talked about in terms of food aid programs, and i wonder if you see any way to get around those issues. I mean, know of the problems there, but one you didnt talk about much but alluded to is the whole question of accountability for our assistance programs. And i watched over a 25year career where accountability became the end rather than a way to check on what we were doing, and the amount of resources that usaid puts into measuring things, the kinds of silly things we come up with to measure so we can show results, have sort of gotten a bit out of proportion. And i understand that we need to show impact, and i understand that we need to start from the bottom up, but even starting from the bottom up Needs Institution building in human development, Human Resources development in the countries we work with. And those are very, very hard to measure. It can take a decade to build the kinds of government institutions that will sustain the work that we have been doing on the ground, and so i wonder how you think congress and the American Public can ever deal with that kind of an issue. Let me tell you the first ill take the last part first and talk about Public Opinion second. I completely agree with you. Im very enthusiastic supporter of all the private folks who have gotten involved in development but theres one down side. Theres a tendency to assume that everything can be measured, and when you come from the private sector this is it public sentor person i always struggled with it. Why cant they do it like the private sector, we measure efficiency. Heres the problem. The private sector could not possibly be simpler. What is your mission . Trying to make money. Thats it. Periodening end of story. And either youre making story or not. You have five departments and three are making money and two arent you better get rid of or fix the two that arent. It is not the u. S. Governments job to make money. If it was we would charge you a hell of a lot more to drive on our roads, for instance. Okay . Wed charge you a hell of a lot more when your house caught on fire. Theres a whole bunch of Different Things and why the private sector cant get that in their head i have seen private sector assistance, you have all process. They spend all their time trying to come up with the perfect process. And there is would Human Element to this that you it is art more than science. You may not be able to measure something, and the time it takes to try to figure out how to measure, it can get in the way of it. So you have to have the intestinal i agree withthat and the private sector folks get off of balance. They national theres some aling a go rhythm thatting going to she a dollar speed on food aid is worth a dollar spent or tuberculosis. Not really. As far as public point is concerned i often wonder. There was an article entitle, everyone is entitled el to an point. And he said, no, theyre not. I they dont know what theyre talking about. You could ask me in a poll what the best way to fix a car engine is, all right . And my answer would be, utterly and completely worthless because i dont have clue one what im talking about. And then you reprint the poll and theyre saying 68 of them people think youshot to do but they didnt know what they were talking about. People dont know what want to spend. I cited a poll in and my frustration is theres a clear consensus we need to balance the budget but we breed to do that while providing two dollars in goods and services for every dollar in taxes people have to pay. Thats impossible, by the way. And pew research did a poll, people concerned about the deficit, and asked them what too you want to cut . And they listed the 20 areas where the federal government spends money, and said, do you want to keep it the same, increase it or decrease fit and if you added up the number of people who said, either keep it the same or increase it, the American Public wants to cut literally nothing. And heres my even foreign aid. Foreign aid was at the absolute bottom. Everything else was at least twothirds of the people were dont cut. Foreign aid eeked out a 4849 victory to not cut it. But i think the broader argument that we need to make is why foreign aid is so important to our own domestic interests. Look, we are four percent of the population, response for 20 move the worlds consumption. Nobody on earth has as much of a stake in global stability as we do. Were dependent in global trade. A guy, 75 of his business is export. He sells something with security gates. The point is keeping stability in other places, we benefit from that. If forget the moral argument the fact that theres nearly three billion People Living on less than two dollars a day and we have the lifestyles we have. Just in terms of our own interest, and ive given many speeches, heres why foreign aid is important and make that case and im going to keep doing that. That all we can do make he case. Im paul hughes from the u. S. Institute of peace. Your focus on diplomacy, development, and defense, is a very important perspective for the city this city to take into account. Youre really touching on a whole of government kind of argument, and in 1996, under president clinton, he issued a president ial decision directive, pdd56, which mandated that there be Interagency Training to tackle these kinds of issues. Yet it fell apart because nobody was willing to fund it or support it. Do you think that it is time again for Something Like that be crafted, and if so, who would be the lead on organizing that training . Well, two things about that. First of all in order for this to really happen, the best model is how they tried to get the services to work Better Together within the military. This was goal of goldwater nichols. Too much division, the part came out of the desert one disaster and a bunch of other things, and it has been, believe, successful. Now, you will still have air force and army and but compared to where it was, jim, when you were in the military, they work much, much Better Together, and have the way they did it, they mandated as part of your promotion that you have to spend a year at an air force base if youre in the army, and you built an understanding of the other culture and you built relationships. So in order for what were talking about their work, you would need military guys to spained year at the state department. State department folks spend a year in the military, and we have seen some of that within the Intelligence Community. The National Counterterrorism center is certainly they have their critics, but you two in there and youve got fbi and nsa and cia guys working sidebyside, and they build relationships and work Better Together and we miss less because of it. Now, what the state department will tell you is we dont have enough personnel to do our jobs right now. We cant take one of our people and send her over to the pentagon. We dont have the room for it. So, that is an inhibitor to that. And if were really going to get that type of interagency, you have to have people from one agency work to another as part of their advancement up the chain. The other thing thats very personalitydriven. General mcchrystal was the guy who sort of pulled together the counterterrorism effort. Right after 9 11 we came up with the notion that it takes a network to beat a network, and through sheer force of personality, he pulled together all the different elements of our security and Intelligence Community, and got them working together, and its doing a pretty darn good job. But a lot of that comes down to individuals as well. And one of my favorite quotes, from a tacoma native, they were introducing the concept of the mles to go in and begin to work with the state department because theyre in 70 some odd Different Countries and they want to be there to help prevent violence. They refer to it as preparation of the environment. I always liked that phrase. Didnt have a clue what their mission was, causing problems so i said to admiral osend, we have to fiction that. And he is a very dry, dead pan guy and said the problem is if you have seen one mle, youve seen one mle. Which was to say that it comes down to individual personalities. Are they committed to working together . So you got to look for the right people, for the person who has that ability to not be just excessively focused on getting credit for everything but working with other people. So you can change the structure but it really comes down to the individuals who are involved, who know how to engage crossagency and build that culture. Were about to have a special Operations Command liaison here at the institute of peace, and its in part because we were work globally. We are a Small Institute but work to stop fights and the military of all people understand the value of being successful in stopping the fights. One reason why they have people scattered throughout the globe trying to help wevelopment. Better that we help these folks help themselves and we have to step in at some point and help them undo the mess thats been created there in order to further our strategic interests, and its absolutely true we benefit economically as adam has said, from stability globally. But there are other threats, the proliferation of Deadly Weapons and deadly viruses viruses virus lick that is remarkable, and we have the economic benefits of stability, and then stability can also lessen the likelihood well have problems with these threats we have, theyre circling the globe right now. Over here. Joe henning, a former member of the project on National Security reform, id like to follow up on the last question. We used to have a motto that its go to have good leaders and good organizations. You dont have to choose between them. In after that regard its been sort of frustrationing to watch the dissipation as we moved into the first term of the obama administration. Its good to hear in congress theres a lot of attention to the matter and interest in this. Id like to comment or ask specifically about the qddr. Secretary clinton in her parting testimony made a plea continue constitutionalize this in statute. Its incredibly difficult to get real interagency cooperation in a strategic way unless you have something you can count on over a longer period of anytime terms of developing capabilities and fielding those capabilities. Can you comment on what level of interest there is in that . Im not sure where thats going to go. I think that would be enormously helpful to analyze the whole system of government approach. I dont know the qddr really was that. It was more the state departments view on the world. And in fact, the qddr, even at is was coming out, was competing with the National Security council effort to put out its own findings and where development was at. So, i guess what i would say is, i think that would be great if we had something that was an interagency analysis just like the qdr looks at all things military, qddr which looked at all things development, but youd have to you have to have more than just the state department doing that. So, if we could pull that together, that would make sense. As far as where its at, its stalled at the moment but youre question has prompted know look into that a little bet more closely and see if we cant move that. That would be helpful. For the ben fit of the audience, qddr means absolutely nothing to anybody out there. Like 99. 9 of americans. Sorry. Diplomacy and Development Reviews. And then heres theres been one that was opportunity, is that correct . Thats correct. And you kind of wonder whether maybe we could head in the direction of a qddbr. Defense, development, diplomacy, defense, diplomacy, Development Review on a quarterly basis. Were about to go through the qddr for the Defense Department, and it would be nice to maybe try to do all three at once and blend the two since were talking bat whole government approach. That would make sense. Yes, sir. Hi. Alex from the center for bier national policy. Thank you for your time and answering our questions. When you were talking about building closer links between defense and development i thought back to africa which when it was stanned is trying to be Something Different than other command, and having more Development People in closer links to usaid. And does is that an effective way to build closer ties between defense and development or what would you say to the people who think theres too much Mission Creep at the spending that the defense people should do defense and Development People should do development and they should just sort of focus on what theyre good at. I say the people are wrong because theres too much crossover between the two. Now, if you want to say that you need to be careful not to get out of your lane and to make sure you pick the right people to do it, thats fine, but i think defense people have to know what is going on in development and Development People have to know whats going on in defense. And so depending on how you put the question, i guess. Youre saying they should just divide, i dont agree with that. Theres too much crossover, and a lot of times the reason that dod gets involved in development is because they are in there first, providing security, and theyre the ones who are there, who have the money. So, if part of providing security is providing medical dire a local village, they do it. What i would say is they need to view that as temporary, okay . Get the security in place. If you have to do shortterm, and then get the Development Experts in. The other thing i may be one of the few people who feels this way but i think aafricom has done a good job of what it was intended to do, and one piece is the hop of africa. Part of the way we take full advantage of the threed approach is building the capacity of friendly nations to do a variety of Different Things that are in their interests and our interests and that head in somalia. I was struck how people talked about afghanistan is a mess, we cant possibly reduce the troop levels below 160,000, we have to keep that amount there. And afghanistan and pakistan, and have challenges but between somalia and yemen and that area, they at least kind of rival it in terms of chaotic violence, and the official number is classified, but its a triple digit number of u. S. Military personnel, and that interarea that are doing a reasonably effective job of containing the violence in yemen and somalia from spreading out, versus the still, i think goshers close to 100,000 if you count nato and everything, still in afghanistan. Hough did they do it . They did it because they built the capacity of the ethopia, of kenya, uganda, of to help us. They cared about somalia being chaotic as well so wasnt like we were just paying them to do our bidding. We had mutual interests. We built their local capacity. And theyre doing most of the work. And by the way, this vastly more effective if you have local population do it than if you have the u. S. Military officer. So i think that partnership and at the same Time Military is trained those folk is just mentioned but you also have a ton of Development Projects in there, in kenya. That mix is working reasonably wellful now we have the great challenge how to make it no, the niger, mali area. And we have nod has had as much success in the eastern drc, but we have seen the model that we can use our elements to build that local capacity and mix defense and development effectively. I was in oslo a couple months ago participating in a peace for business awards process and part of this was a seminar where rules you cant sigh who was there and who said what but i gave some remarks arguing that internationally, business is need to be more actively involved in trying to pursue peace, and the response i had from one of the participants in the seminar was, well, we have to be careful about roll roles and mission. Its our role and our mission to do that and thats why business should not be doing it. So i couldnt agree more with adams initial comment. Thats just dumb. Clearly you dont want whoever is going out there to try to further peace and in an incompetent way, but all of us have an interest. This is a back to the horn of africa. Part of what happened rwanda this huge u. S. Business interest involvement in there. They costco, some eve ooh people got involved and said how can we start to attract businesses to the region. Were trying to do the same thing in the eastern drc, Small Company in seattle, that is beginning to source their cocoa from the eastern drc. The elements are key to getting theing to the development. And one catch phrase was somebody said, we stop fights, join us. So, i mean, who wouldnt want to join people in trying to stop fights. Kind of everybody has an interest in this. Yes, maam . Thank youer much, congressman, for being here. Id like to turn the conversation a little bit how we can help other countries, friendly nations, promote this three strategy, particularly nations theyll may or may not be doing precisely what we would like them to do. Work for small ngo thats to work on hiring but one nation of many have very large defense interest with and a great relationship with that it also not fulfilling their obligation for development of all citizens and often types people say, we have behind the scenes conversations or we can pressure our friends in the government, but i think theres more to be done and i would be interested to hear what you think can we done, both in congress and then also in ngos and private sector, im actually a seattle resident so im a big fan of the work theyre doing, a lot of the ngos there and private sector and theres a role for them in these countries. Thats a great question. One of the great challenges when were looking for local partners in the way i just described. There probably isnt a single local partner that we have had that there isnt some group of people said, yes, but their government is awful. Certainly ive heard that about ethiopia. Substantially ethopian population in the district and there are concerns about their government. Certainly bahrain is very well documented in terms of where theyre at and now wire wrestling with the very question in egypt, of course, and it is a very, very difficult one to answer, and it has to go casebycase. I do think that there has been a tendency for us to overreact and cut off our nose to spite our face by saying, you know, this government didnt doing what we like, were out of here. The most famous example of this i decent know what i dont know what you do about it. Human rights do in the case of pakistan, most americans dont know what the Pressler Amendment was, i think every pakistani knows exactly what the Pressler Amendment was. It cut off all aid to pakistan because pakistan was developing a Nuclear Weapon. Now, it was bad because they were developing a Nuclear Weapon, and certainly it led to greater instability and all manner of problems, but it also meant there was a lost decade in real estates between pakistan and the u. S. , and while we have first had many reasons why the pakistanis dislike us as much as they do, thats one of the biggest ones. Did that help us more than hurt us . I dont know. You have this debate over the leahy amendment. I dare to suggest there was some tweaks that could be made which made a lot of people upset. The leahy amendment says if you cant our military cannot continue to train units if there is a proven human rights abuse by anyone in that unit, and i completely support that amendment. I think weed in to have that forcing mechanism. The question is, how broad it has been applied. Human rights abuse and then you have to pull completely out. The other argue. Ment is we need to be there to help fix this, and thats where a lot of people havent caught up our military is not what it was in the sixes in, 70s, and 80s. We decided human rights an ehuge part of training and i mentioned the philippines, and we train their Security Forces is how to get the local population on your side. Spoiler alert. Kicking in doors and shooting people is not the way to do it. So, how do you build it . And thats what we train them to do. Youve have these human rights problems and then we pull out, does that make it better . Im not going to suggest that means that no matter what, we stay in. That we never draw the line. I just think it is a difficult balance to strike. Do things get better with see simply abandon the situation . Thats why its always easiest to not be the decisionmaker and stand by. You ought to maintain the relationship but force them to do what you want them to do. Yes . That is what wed like to do. I think of parenting actually as i think of this. But its a delicate balance that we always have to trike, and im never gene to be one of those who selfrighteously saying how dare we do business with these people. Theyre awful. Well, yeah, but a how much better would by be if we werent doing business and what are we accomplishes . You got to balance that out as you can tell from my answer i havent fully figure out how to balance that out yet. And something im continuing to learn about. When i was in congress, i get letters from people that wanted to close the school of the americas, and that was at fort benning and you might remember problems with the officers and acts they committed in south america, and after training in the United States and the assertion was somehow they were better at brutality and Human Rights Violations because they were trained by us and so the school of the america should be closed. And so the name was changed from school of the americas to the school of the western hemisphere and what i would say is i do think we should close the cool of the western hemisphere. We should have a school of the world. We have to have these relationships and build this kind of capacity, but, yeah, we at the same time need to train and teach and educate those who come through our schools. But the best course is one that respects human rights, better for the individuals who have the power. Its certainly better for the individuals who dont have the power. We also need to be fineful we have not had the best record in the past on this. We have in fact you goo back to some of the theme we were doing business with in the fiveness, 60s, 70s, and 80s and we have to community to the world weve got and it were changing the way we approach this. My name is Jonathan Ames for the department of the army and prior to that, the u. S. Africa command. I just have one observation since theres a lot of references to that and then two questions. The observation is that years after the command when i was there up until april of 2012, had the staff of approximately 2,000 individuals, and special operations and army et cetera. About 2,000 person staff. We only had approximately 21 individuals from the interagency there. The department of state, usaid, department of justice and whatnot. When i was there, of those 21 some people, theres on one individual from usaid, and she was extremely valuable in our staff planning processes, execution, whatnot, but when we had the one person it was difficult for her to get around to the various commands, subcommands, working groups and whatnot. So im definitely a proponent of having more interagency cooperation, imbedding Staff Members throughout. My first question is, over the last decade, with iraq and afghanistan, the department of defense has either expanded and or developed capabilities for development specifically civil affairs, the provincial preconstruction teams in afghanistan, for example. Is it your opinion that the department of defense should retain those capabilities . Or should those capabilities migrate to usaid. Its my opinion they should retain most of those capabilities, but they should do so in close cooperation with the usaid. So that it is not the permanent responsibility of dod to do that. The reason dod started doing this stuff is they were the only ones there, the only ones with the money and the only ones in a position to do it and sort of figured out as they went. The military secures an area and its not a seamless transition to say its all good, now late slide in development guys. You need a Transition Area and improves the cooperation between the two. Now, its really tough because dod guys have got to have greater respect for the development and the other people, which is you know, in iraq and afghanistan didnt always happen. It was like, hey, were doing this, get out of here. I think that has changed a lot in the last decade. Your average dod person has developed a greater respect for what development and diplomacy people doom thats the key element. I wouldnt say that thats something that dod should stop doing. Its too integral to a longterm mission. You said that wassure first question. We dont really have time for more than one more question. Okay, actually, you can fire off the second one quick and then and then real quickly. We need to close this in probably about a minute. Second question, sir. Whats your about dods expanded authorities for conducting Foreign Security assistance to build Partnership Capacity of foreign Security Forces . I think its great. I think its an enormously helpful thing for us. Good answer. Very quick. What is it going to take to restart the peace talks with the taliban and announcing the zero optiondoes that make us lose leverage, and during the surge we couldnt clear taliban strongholds. Its more the media that announced the zero option than us. Its not the same situation as it is in iraq. Even if we dont get a bilat contractual Security Agreement we still have the basketball the ability to state in some numbers. My staff knows better the answer to that but that is true. As far as restating all comes down the election, do we have a reasonable transition from karzai do what comes next . And thats fingers crossed. But i think really you need to get through that election. Working cooperatively with the local population, you are going to do it. We have a little bit of money to build something that can help you do it, then we are headed in a better direction. That is the way we have to do it. I think we have a big round of applause. [applause] [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] on the next washington journal, we will sit down with john miller to discuss stand your ground law throughout the country. Then the secs Ongoing Court case against the former Goldman Sachs bond trader in the 2008 financial meltdown. And after that, the key correspondent for newsweek and u. S. Ambassador Samantha Power and the challenges she faces in the senate. Plus your calls on washington journal beginning live at 7 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan. I decided that this was a great subject for a biography wanted gone upon me that he had not been only at abraham lincolns bedside but also at the bedside of William Mckinley and i thought, who could follow him. Of course, when i opened the archives come i realized what a rich subject allies. His life really has to bookends at either end of his biographical shelves. He was abraham lincolns personal secretary and lived there for four years, and so much of what we know comes from this. And in this context. And then he serve not only with mckinley, but after that he was serving for Teddy Roosevelt you have these wonderful icons of american history. And then you realize that all of the captives are in between and the civil roller grew to the beginning of the presence and every one of those chapters in some of the cases in many cases he had written those chapters of american history. The life of john kay on cspan q a. Now a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing looking at the 2014 state Department Budget that discusses as well as humanitarian and response efforts. This is 25 minutes. Good morning and welcome to the subcommittee markup of fiscal year 2014 state operations bill. I want to begin by thanking the Ranking Member for her dedication and her leadership as the Ranking Member of the full committee. We have a really strong working relationship and it is such important work of this committee and it is such a pleasure to work with her and i respect her very much. I want to thank all of the members of the subcommittee from both sides of the aisle for their participation and their thoughtful contributions to the spell. We have held seven hearings such as Embassy Security in syria and we have had meetings to address Global Health and the situation in the middle east and i thank you all for your continued engagement and your support. As you know, the bill before us comes from billions of dollars of current levels reflecting the real financial problems that we face here home. Given this challenge, we will protect the most critical priorities first and spending directly related to our National Security. If things are not able to Fund Everything at the levels that we have in previous years, including programs that i support. In many Security Priorities first and foremost we need to keep stuff safe are they represent the United States abroad. The terrorist attack and then david and protests last fall were tragic, and we hope that they never happen again. This bill continues to recognize security of the diplomatic post and fully funds the Embassy Security request at 4. 8 million. We recognize the instability in the unpredictable environment and the middle east and continue strong support with our key allies in the region, this includes israel and jordan and not the other same time security challenges continue much closer to home latin america to strengthen Law Enforcement and fight Drug Trafficking and the bill also focuses on democracy and International Broadcasting to help promote American Values abroad. Lifesaving humanitarian assistance programs are also prioritized. The bill supports effort to address the traffic crisis and this is more than just a conservation issue, this is a National Security issue in the wildlife trade is a multibillion dollar industry that threatens the stability of african countries and supports criminal and terrorist networks, both of which affect the security of the United States. We provide funding to strengthen poaching Law Enforcement and reduce consumer demand and enhanced diplomatic cooperation in order to meet these urgent needs. This reduces the lower Priority Programs and also contains many important policy provisions around the world in places where the United States cannot predict how things will turn out. So we provide administration the ability to respond, but we strengthen conditions so that congress can oversee these funds. Everyone is closely watching the situation in egypt and the relationship between the United States and egypt has never been more critical. First and foremost we see the Egyptian Military uphold security arrangements, including the peace treaty with israel. There are many competing priorities at home and we expect a Strong Military and military relationship that egypt has with israel and the United States to continue and we also make it clear that we want egypt to embrace democracy and not just democratic elections. Remain hopeful that they continue to go through this very difficult transition and we support efforts between israel and the Palestinian Authority in the future. Peace is not possible for a statehood effort ms tightens conditions for the Palestinian Authority in this regard. Our economic assistance will stop if the Palestinian Authority achieves statehood at the United Nations agency. As they pursue this as a result, they will not provide funding that is consistent with the law and the bill continues to support key strategic partners, vastly funding the memorandum of understanding and we understand just how critical it is to support israel, whether it is that the ongoing threat from iran trying to secure a Nuclear Weapon or a instability that continues in the region and the support from the congress that has never been stronger. The subcommittee understands the risk, and we understand what its like for both israel and the United States and we support our allies by including the economic and Security Assistance and jordans economy is under tremendous strain because they are dealing with the spillover from the conflict in syria. Jordan needs our support and we include additional funding for the costs associated with the hundreds of thousands of refugees they have welcomed into the country. Her partners in latin america remain a priority and continues to support our neighbor, mexico, mexico security has a direct impact and we want to work with the new government to address shared concern concerns and build a lasting security benefits both of both of our countries. We also commit to the government of Drug Trafficking and including funds to support the work they are doing with training Security Forces of other countries in this includes a separate overseas contingency section that we call by an acronym. It allows critical programs to be funded in iraq and afghanistan and pakistan as well as in places where terrorism and instability threatened u. S. Interests. He goes down 42 in the spell is a mission to the frontline country that is scaled back. We have to ensure that our state department and staff, those who are responsible for delivering this are safe and secure and we have serious concerns about security is being handled by the government of afghanistan. This bill will hold the portion of the funding until we get more detail on how we are going to keep our people safe on the ground. In addition this bill focuses on oversight and accountability and the rights of women and girls. The bill continues conditions from the prior year i hope prohibiting funds unless the government of pakistan is cooperating with the United States on counterterrorism efforts and other issues and moving to multilateral lateral efficiency skills that supports the International Financial institutions that benefit the poorest countries and also imposes conditions on Multilateral Development to ensure transparency and accountability. It increases accountability for the money that we provide to the United Nations and other International Organizations and thanks to the language we started in fiscal year 2012 to change how we do business with the u. N. , more agencies are putting their audits and reviews online for american taxpayers to see. The bill includes language ensuring that funds do not support abortions and also laminates the population funds and we have clear differences on these issues as i have said before we will agree to disagree. In closing, this bill makes tough choices Foreign Policy problems, but these are the choices that we have made and that we have had to make in this budget environment and in a rapidly changing world and i know that its not often that i want to express my gratitude for the very hard work of the staff. They were given a difficult challenge and they did an outstanding job. The staff loyalty and dedication is recognized in the majority staff, i want to thank the clerk and Craig Higgins and alice hogan and susan adams and sylvia and jamie. For my personal staff and want to thank everyone. I want to recognize steve and mark hayes and this is my family that is part of my personal office. And i want to talk to the Ranking Member for her opening statement. Thank you, chairwoman. I want to express my appreciation and as the chairwoman mentioned, we were very closely working together as this bill moves to the process and i know that she and i are both committed to making the bill even a better bill. I want to thank the staff as well on the majority side and Craig Higgins and alice hogan and Sylvia Alvarado and others. I also want to thank my staff as well and i also want to thank all the members of the subcommittee and it has really been a pleasure working with all of you on both sides of the aisle. The House Majority is going to conference to forge a bipartisan agreement on the budget resolution and it has placed the chairman and the members of this committee and the very difficult situation. The Discretionary Spending is a completely unrealistic point which led to subcommittee allocations that created this. While the chairwoman has done the best she could, the bill that we have before us today represents a greater than 20 reduction from the fiscal year creek with sequestration level in the bill that is only 1 of the federal budget. As we have noted time and again, the agency and programs funded by this bill are essential for National Security and Economic Prosperity and global leadership. Deep cuts will not significantly reduce our deficit or help to pay down our debt. However they could leave us vulnerable to the spread of scantily weakening our world and making it more difficult to achieve our goals on the global stage. I really do appreciate the chairwomans efforts to include some of my top priorities. The ongoing war in syria is threatening its neighbors and this leaves significant questions about that countrys stability and violence has increased in iraq and iran continues quest for Nuclear Weapons and in light of the ever increasing stability threats throughout the region, or critical allies and our strong democracy is more important than ever and i also support the funding provided for jordan, a country whose stability is essential in this time of great upheaval. Funding for basic education is fundamental to our success in all Development Efforts and you cannot build strong and stable healthy societies children dont have the basic tools to succeed. Global Health Assistant saves thousands of lives each year and is a critical part of the global battle against disease and in addition to the woefully inadequate allocations a number of the specifics involved in this draft are deeply troubling. This indicates that other multilateral organizations withhold u. S. Contributions to these organizations and the compromises many of our overall objectives and partnerships with many of these organizations are vital to Diplomatic Security imperatives in our bilateral efforts to strengthen strong investments, such as unicef and others, the International Fund for our Cultural Development which are unfounded in this bill. For example the u. N. Office for humanitarian affairs makes the work of u. S. And others to ensure that there are no gaps in lifesaving services for people in extreme need and the global Food Security programs support this by providing additional finances to countries who have shown a commitment to homegrown Food Security plans and the Police Training efforts in afghanistan are helping our troops while maintaining security and rule of law. These are organizations also leveraged significantly greater impact than we can achieve on their own. Every dollar that we provide leverages 20 the u. S. Economy received a dollar 60 in return. This bill also includes substantial cuts to her personal programs of the state department and while i support the funding for Embassy Security and personal protection, one has to ask whether there will be anything left to protect. They are a key facet of our National Security strategy and the programs they implement protect our interests by making the world safer and more secure. These relatively small investments, which are outside the dividends for our nation and finally this bill, once again, it reinstates the funding while reducing our support for bilateral Family Planning efforts. I am consistently dumbfounded, frankly, by the majorities advocating the policies that are proven to do the exact opposite of what we all hope to achieve. Fewer unwanted pregnancies and abortions is not an area where we can agree to disagree, although we do agree to disagree. It has 1. 4 million more abortions compared to the fiscal year 12 levels. It will allow us to fix many of the problems as we have heard from the chairman and myself, we worked together in a positive way we are working to improve this is the process moves forward and i thank you again for your cooperation. We now move to the chairman of the appropriations committee, mr. Rogers to thank you, mr. Chairman, thank you for your link. I want to congratulate you and the gentlewoman for a good bipartisan bill. It has taken a lot of work because of the situation in the world that we face. From continued instability in the middle east and it is part of Economic Economic and trade difficulties in the world. It is confronted with a number of critical issues. And at the same time, the situation facing us and the state foreign aid operations bill releases funding by billions of dollars from current levels while meeting the most critical Security Priorities and the bill recognizes the risks the diplomat face and fully fund for Embassy Security request of 4. 8 billion, every penny that he asked for is in this bill. It fully funds the memorandum of understanding and supportive key players in our hemisphere, including colombia and mexico to help with Drug Trafficking and violent crime. It will also include 6. 5 billion and overseas Contingency Operations and the global war on terror funding to address the requirements of afghanistan and pakistan and iraq and to counter instability in places where terrorists threaten u. S. And regional security. During this time that monumental deficit and skyrocketing bills, this bill takes several steps to focus on oversight and management and for many countries and programs, funds are only made available by tough conditions and if they have been met. The bill eliminates more than 20 programs resulting in more than 2 billion in savings. The chairwomans emphasis on supporting National Security, reducing spending and implementing reform is the right approach for me addressing international interests. I think the members of the subcommittee and the chairman, they have been a good job of putting together a difficult pill in difficult times in difficult financial circumstances and fully support the work. Youll. I just want to applaud you for the work we have done. After that then cause a tragedy, we have a number of understanding when it comes to israel and we had met with the king of jordan and we agreed that we need to maintain robust funding for the country as well as egypt and we had extraordinarily different circumstances and also i just want to say that i know that we are working on the numbers and their a lot of programs, probably more than any of us wouldve preferred that an organization that stops fights with americas strategic interests, and i know that this process is the greatest extent possible and i just want to thank you for the work that you have done. Thank you very much, mr. Chairman. We will now ask the gentleman for his thoughts. I want to thank you for the work. Thank you, sir. Are there any other members . I understand that there are no amendments today. Thank you, madam chair. And half the staff be familiar to the changes of the bill in the report without objection and so ordered. This will be circulated before a full committee markup. Thank you. At todays White House Briefing, president obama made an unscheduled appearance before reporters on the Trayvon Martin case. After saturdays verdict in the murder trial. Heres what the president had to say from the White House Briefing room. There are very few africanamerican men in this country who have had the experience of being followed when they were shopping in a Department Store and that includes me. Theyre very few men who have had the experience of walking across the street and hearing loss close on the doors of cars and that has happened to me, at least before i was a senator. There are very few africanamericans who have had the experience of getting on an elevator and a woman clutching her purse nervously and holding her breath until she had the chance to get up. I dont want to exaggerate this is talked about what happened one night in florida and its inescapable for people to bring those experiences to light. It is also knowledgeable that there is a history there and everything from the Death Penalty to enforcement that ends up having an impact in terms of how people interpret the case. This isnt to say that this is naive. Africanamerican young men are often disproportionately involved in the criminal Justice System is not to make excuses for that fact the reasons for that in a Historical Context is we understand that the violence that takes place in poorer neighborhoods around the country are very much part of a violent past of this country and the poverty and the dysfunction that we see in these communities. It can be traced to this. You can see all of the president s remarks in this inaugural library at cspan. Org. Now an overview of the Data Collection surveillance programs from the Brookings Institution in washington dc, this is an hour. I want to thank wells and brookings for hosting this and thank all of you for coming in this blog is really a traffic source of commentary i want to apologize to apologize for the link of length of the speech does have a lot to cover and i hope i dont get into fidel castro territory. We are talking about intelligence. These threaten to cause long lasting harm to our ability to identify and respond to his facing our nation. Because the disclosures were made by people who did not relate content fully understand what they were talking about, they were sensationalized and lead to mistaken impression and i hope to be able to correct some of those impressions today. It is prompted by disclosures that collect valuable intelligence. The other is the socalled Prison Program but i want to be clear about this, these programs were not illegal they were authorized and carefully overseen by the congressional intelligence of Judiciary Committee and conducted with the approval of the foreign intelligence and under that supervision and they are subject to extensive Court Oversight in the executive branch and in short all three branches of government knew about these programs and approve them and help to secure that they operated in compliance with the law. Only time will tell if the extent of the damage by these lawful programs. It is not to assert that our activities are consistent with the law. We share these values, including the importance of this in the United States as well. Security and privacy are not zerosum. We have an obligation to protect security the values are enduring, but it sounds like we have to adapt to changing technology we have the obligation to protect privacy while ensuring that we can carry out our mission of this includes how we in third i have to bring these two strands together and explain including how this plays out in practice in a way that remains faithful to the Democratic Values and i want to begin by discussing in general terms the Legal Framework that governs this. It is a bedrock concept bound by the rule of law. We begin with the constitution and this makes the commanderinchief and gives us responsibility for the conduct of Foreign Affairs and the ability to collect foreign intelligence drives from that. I want to make a point about the Fourth Amendment. The person has no legally recognized expectation of privacy with information that he or she voluntarily gives a thirdparty periods of painting those records, i will return to this point in a moment. In the Fourth Amendment does not apply to foreigners outside of the United States and the Supreme Court has said that its a reasonable thing under searches without a warrant that depends on balancing the intrusion on the interest against the promotion of legitimate government. So that is the constitution. There are also a variety governing National Security act and the number of laws related to specific agencies such as the National Security agency at to mimic what the agencies can do. So we are also governed by laws such as the electronic indications privacy act and the privacy act and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act as well. It was passed by congress in 1970 and was significantly amended in 2001 and 2008 and that regulates electronic surveillance and other activities carried out for Foreign Intelligence Services and i will talk more about that soon. One more is the executive order 123 and this order, which is the founding charter provides additional limits on what intelligence agencies can do in and it defines each agencys responsibilities and authorities in one particular provision of this is very significant, in section 2. 3 and it provides that the elements of the Intelligence Community, and im quoting here, the elements of the Intelligence Community are authorized to collect or disseminate information concerning United States persons only in accordance with procedures approved by the attorney general after consultation with the director of National Intelligence and these procedures have to be consistent with the agencys Lawful Authority and the procedures also have to establish strict limits on collecting or retaining information about u. S. Persons unless that information is a foreign intelligence value or spelled out protecting threat. It provides special rules and so far as i know, and im not an expert at this, every nation in the world recognizes legal distinction between citizens and noncitizens and i hope to make clear this morning that intelligence procedures also provide protection for the privacy rights of noncitizens. And i would like to turn to the impact of changing technology and prior to the 19th century, you really would find little discussion about the right to privacy and in the absence of mass media and photography of the industrial age, the most serious invasions were generally the result of peeping toms and indeed, in 1890 article that first articulated the article, and no one explicitly grounded that idea on changing technology and i will read a quote from the article. This is 1890, recent conventions call attention to the next step which must be taken for the protection of the person and for securing to the individual what the judge calls the right to be let alone. Instantaneous photographs have invaded the sacred private and domestic life and numerous mechanical devices threaten to make predictions of what should be proclaimed. Well, today, 120 plus years later, as a result of the way the that Digital Technology has developed, each of us share his massive amounts of information about ourselves and third parties and sometimes this is obvious when we post pictures on social media or transmit our credit card numbers and other times it is less obvious this leads me to this end why is it that we are willing to expose large quantities of information to private parties, but we dont want the government have that same information and why dont we care very much in a Telephone Company keeps records of all of our phone calls, but we feel very differently about the prospect of the same information going elsewhere. This is actually not a very very difficult question. We care because of what the government could do with the information in unlike a phone company the government has the power to audit our tax returns and prosecute and imprison us and many other things and so there is an entirely understandable concern that the government might abuse its power. I dont mean to say that the private companies also have a lot of power over us, indeed, the growth of corporate Privacy Policy and the strong public reaction by those companies reinforces my belief that our primary privacy concerns is who has information on what they can and do with it there is no question because of the government is properly viewed in a different light and on the other hand, just as consumers around the world make extensive use of modern technology, so do the potential foreign governments and terrorist organizations and others and indeed we know the terrorists are using Global Information networks to conduct research and information that can help us identify and present terrorist attacks and other threats as often hiding in plain sight among the vast amounts of information on the world. And the new Technology Means that the Intelligence Community we need to be able to find the right doctors. One approach to protecting this would be to limit the Intelligence Community is to target focus queries looking for specific information about identified information based on probable cause and from a National Security perspective this would not be the issue. The business of foreign intelligence is fundamentally different. We may get information that is useless, such as when we get the telephone number. We could learn about the plot that we were previously unaware of causing us to revisit this information. Connection that we would never know about had we not collected the information originally and kept it for some period of time. On the other hand, giving the Intelligence Community access to information has obvious contacts in large part it establishes appropriate controls over what the government can do with the information it lawfully collects and ensuring that respects those controls and this includes the type of information we collect and where we collect it and the scope of the collection and use the government intends to make of the information. In this way, we can allow the Intelligence Community to acquire very foreign intelligence while providing privacy protections directed at the use of that information to take into account modern technology. In the way that our system deals with this, i will use this as an example for a couple of reasons, important mechanisms through which we have talked about, and it covers a wide range of activity involves constitutional and statutory and objective and because of previously classified examples and i know people want to learn more about this. I dont mean to suggest this is the only way to collect foreign intelligence, but its important to note that by virtue of executive order, all of the collection activities of our intelligence agencies have to be directed at the acquisition of foreign intelligence or counterintelligence. In effect the Agency Process and this includes what information they need and we collect information in support of those priorities. The democratic nation take seriously the valid intelligence purpose and we do not use our foreign intelligence capability in order to give American Companies a competitive advantage. We do not sweep up and store the contents of the citizenry of any country and we do not use our intelligence collection capabilities for the purpose of oppressing citizens of any country because of their political or religious or other beliefs and we do collect metadata and more probably than we collect this. That is because we can provide information that helps us more narrowly focused a collection of content and simply is not true that United States government is listening to everything said. So let me now turn and talk about the three provisions of that law in this includes section 702. This relates to the different kind of information and provide limits on how it can be collected and requires procedures restricting what we can do with the information and how long you keep it and impose oversight to ensure that those rules are followed. This is part of a coherent regime at the front and it is working to depend on what we are collecting in the context of communications and the nature of the persons being targeted and how narrowly we are focusing the collection. They are not identical in every respect to the rules of government and i hope to persuade you that they are reasonable and appropriate in the context of foreign intelligence it was a core function of the executive branch. When the provisions were enacted in 1958, congress put a provision in there stating that these provisions did not limit the power to obtain foreign intelligence information essential to the National Security of the United States. However 10 years later, as a result of the abuses revealed, congress did decide to impose a judicial aspect for foreign intelligence purposes. This is now what is codified in title one and sometimes referred to as traditional. So we have established a foreign Intelligence Surveillance court to conduct electronic surveillance for foreign intelligence purposes in this involves acquiring the content of communications that is in intrusive and because it can be directed by individuals inside the United States and that directly implicates the Fourth Amendment congress required it to get a traditional surveillance order and it must establish probable cause or an agent of a foreign power. It is based solely as protection by the first amendment. Merely because what you believe or say. The use of information collected must be subject to minimization procedures and that is a concept that is key. It is approved by the court that must be, and im quoting here, reasonably designed in light of the purpose and technique of the surveillance to minimize the acquisition and prohibit the dissemination of nonpublicly available information consistent with the need of the United States unless the identity itself is necessary to understand the foreign intelligence or evidence of a crime. This includes the technique of the particular surveillance and minimization procedures can and do differ depending on the purpose of the surveillance and the techniques used to implement it. This is an important way in which we do provide appropriate protections. So let me explain in general terms how it works in practice it is a person of that application that is reviewed several levels within the fbi and department of justice. The target may have a conversation with u. S. Person that has nothing to do with this, such as talking to a neighbor. Under this procedure, an analyst who listens to this has no foreign intelligence value is only disseminated with a need to know of information pursuant to his legally authorize nation. In other words he is narrowly targeted and has substantial factual basis for the court let me turn to the second activity now. It became apparent and it lacked similar authority in foreign intelligence and it allows us to require the production of documents or other tangible things records can be obtained only if they are the type of records that could be obtained pursuant to a grand or other process, where there is no other protection would prevent the use of the grand jury subpoena. This is more restrictive in some ways and a grand jury is issued by a prosecutor without any prior judicial review which under the other we have had to get court approval. As with traditional, records obtained are subject to Court Procedures with information about u. S. Persons and this one did not apply. Of course the Business Records provision has been in the news recently. This includes the court that has directed several Telecommunications Companies to produce certain telephone metadata, such as the numbers being called and the time and date and duration of the call. It is important to emphasize that under this program we do not get the content of the conversation. We do not get the identity of any party to the conversation. And we do not the gps location information. This has important legal consequences. You have no reasonable expectation of privacy in all of the metadata is information that the Telecommunications Company retains and keeps and the government can get this information without a warrant consistent with the Fourth Amendment. Nonetheless, i recognize that there is a difference between getting metadata about one telephone number and getting them both. From a legal point of view, only allows us to get relevant to National Security investigation. People worry that the government can apply the techniques and learn new personal talk about it even won the set records is not subject to the Fourth Amendment purposes. It can help identify those overseas and those in the United States and its important to understand the problem with this program is intended to solve and many will recall that the criticisms made by the 9 11 commission is that we were unable to locate the connection between a hijacker that was in california and the now qaeda safe house in yemen. They have collected the conversation on the human side and they had no way to determine the other end of this communications to identify the homeland connection. This program is designed to help us find those connections in order to do that, however, we need to be able to access the records of telephone calls going back many years. Several providers are considerably slower and more cumbersome. That can b several providers are considerably slower and more cumbersome. That can be mexican problem in a fastmoving investigation where speed and agility are critical. The Intelligence Community is keeping the same record and that is an entirely legitimate concern and we deal with that by limiting what the Intelligence Community is allowed to do with this. Limitations that are specifically approved by the court. First, we put this information in a secure database and then second the only information for which this can be used and third, we have specially trained analyst to search the databases and even though we are allowed to search the database only when we have a reasonable and articulable suspicion that a particular telephone number is associated with a particular Foreign Terrorist Organization that has been identified to the core, the basis for that is noble suspicion has to be documented in writing and approved by a supervisor. If the analysts are allowed to use this in a limited way to map a network of numbers, because this database contains only metadata, even if they have previously unknown telephone numbers, all she can do is disseminate telephone number. She doesnt even know whose number it is in his pursuant to other unlawful means, and in particular, any collection of communications relating to that would have to be done using another Legal Authority as well. The net result is although we collect large volumes of metadata under this program, we only look at a tiny fraction of it and only for carefully circumscribed purpose to help us and the question has to be brought to be effective, but its limited to a low privacy data and is not protected by the Fourth Amendment and it doesnt identify individuals, but only the most important that is prohibited and in this way we do protect privacy and National Security. Some have questioned how this can comply with the statutory requirement that is relative to an authorized investigation. We are working to see including the actual court papers that have been filed and i can give a broad summary of the legal basis here today. It is important to remember that the authorized investigation as an intelligence investigation and not a criminal investigation and i talk about the distance between us. The statute says that an authorized investigation has to be one pursuant in accordance with guidelines approved by the attorney general and in those guidelines allowed the fbi to conduct the information into a foreign terrorist entity if there is a factual basis that indicates that the entity may have engaged in International Terrorist threats or maybe planning or supporting such things. We can investigate an organization that there is a factual basis to believe that that is involved in terrorism and in this case it has identified the entities that are the subject of the entity. And the standard of relevance is not the standard that we think of a similar trial. The courts have recognized that it can import an extremely broad standard. It is held that a grand jury subpoena is proper and last in the category of materials of the government seeks will produce the information relevant to the general subject of the grand jurys investigation. And it is construed broadly to encompass any manners that reasonably could lead to other manners that could bear arms or that could be in the case. So the meaning of relevance is sufficiently broad that encompass large lines of information in order to indicate the smaller so that a material in furtherance of the investigation and including pertinent to establishing liability because it is often necessary to collect a much broader set of records that could bear fruit. Congress made clear that it had bought concepts of relevance and this needs this broad relevance standard and this query allowed by the court is based on articulable superstitions. Including the maintaining of the data against which the focused query will be made it is of relevance and has brought up to allow information beyond this terrorist investigation and the scope of the collhis terrorist investigation and the scope of the collection is part of the basic principle and the information is relevant because you need to have the broader set of records to identify what is actually important to a terrorism investigation when you make that query. And the reasonableness is reinforced by all of the limitation that i described above i want to repeat that the occlusion is not that of the Intelligence Community alone and applications to obtain this data have been improved by numerous judges in each of whom complies with all legal requirements. And Congress Reauthorizes this section 2,152,092,011 and after they have been briefed on the program in describing the program had been made available to all members of congress and all three branches of government have been determined that the collection is lawful and reasonable due to the privacy of every persons telephone number is collected. The Third Program is section 702 generally speaking the traditional governs electronic surveillance conducted within the United States for foreign intelligence purposes. This was generally carved out by the way congress defined electronic surveillance. Congress included those from the definition of electronic surveillance was the target of this was in the United States. The. Section 702 was not as some have suggested part of the fisa court Traditional Authority rather it extended the fisa Court Oversight to the surveillance congress originally placed outside of that for foreign intelligence purposes overseas and and what to state that this american regime has a foreign intelligence collection directed as citizens of other countries that as far as i am aware goes beyond what other countries have with their Intelligence System for privacy under section 700 to is under a the metaData Collection we are collecting fall content but not involved in only targeting nine u. S. Persons for intelligence purposes on the either hand the information in involved is of great importance for National Security. Collection is under one of the most viable sources of intelligence that we have so the means by which we implement its are allowing us to collect the intelligence but under the statute collection under section 72 does not require individual orders to authorize the collection against each target instead it approves the annual certification submitted by the attorney general to identify categories of foreign intelligence subject to the accord approved targeting procedures. That targeting procedures are designed to ensure we target only those with the valid for intelligence, only nine u. S. Persons believed to be outside of United States and do not it is a Domestic Communications or target any person outside the United States forces inside United States each target is reviewed by the court to ensure they are consistent with the Fourth Amendment targeting procedures are way as to americans and nine americans for the collection of the intended purpose and it should be familiar to you to the dissemination of u. S. Persons been under the course of 700 to collection we may have acquired these of americans if you talk to nonu. S. Persons outside the United States who are prohibited from collection sunday be pertinent and some may not those non permanent collections is hardly unique to 700 to. Whether by a criminal wiretap where friends or family maybe intercepted or a computer address book does not have pertinent information. 702 congress recognizes the reality requiring us to establish to minimize the impact with the privacy of the persons. So how this section 702 work in practice . Their certifications for several different categories. The Intelligence Community has a particular email address they take this to look at the available data to see if it is a valid target whether it belongs to someone who is not the u. S. For said or outside the United States and whether targeting that will lead to what is relevant to the certification. Only if all three requirements are met will let email address be approved for targeting for guido randomly target for e mail interception. Retargets specific accounts because we look for foreign intelligence information and even after a target is to approve the accord approved procedures require an essay to verify the targeting decision is valid based on a new information it requires. Any information reid to collect are placed in security database of limited access. Trade analyst use the data for intelligence purposes but it is required if they have a communication and that determines a u. S. Person in a further determine it has no foreign intelligence value the communication must be destroyed and in any case case, those and not relevant are destroyed after a maximum of five years we have received that has judicial approval of procedures that will focus the use of the data i have outlined three different collection programs and i think they all reflect the framework i have described as we protect privacy by a multi layard system on how we use what we collect and controls based on the intrusiveness to take into account the ways it is used to protect National Security but we do not have a set of rules to help the people will follow them there are some stage of safeguards to ensure that these are followed the first is technological the same revolution that has enabled this collection also allows us to place stringent controls they work with providers when they do provide the information we are allowed to acquire they dont provide Additional Information as well. Second we have secure databases to only which Trained Personnel have access finally techniques allow us to track these database so we can identify any possible dispute there is no indication that anyone has defeated those controls it improperly gain to access to peoples communications documents such as the Business Records are kept on the other end is a data bases and do not contain this information as other personnel have access. We dont rely solely on technology nsa has the internal compliance whose job has developing process to ensure that they comply with the law in addition decisions about what telephone numbers to use are the basis to search metadata reviewed with dennis say that the department of justice and those are reviewed first within a say that the department of justice then by my office which has a dedicated Civil Liberties officer who oversees the programs for traditional collection in the department of justice regularly conducts to make sure it is using and disseminated with procedures and finally will depend inspectors and also review the operations of the program the point is not any individual is perfect fit to you have more and more people oversee the operation of the Program Ended becomes less likely that unintentional errors will go unnoticed but there is more an end in addition with considerable oversight by the fis a court as i have said it has to review and approve those procedures to ensure that they comply with in addition any compliance violation of has to be reported to the court to improperly collecting information must be deleted subject only to some exceptions of the court orders and corrective measures are taken to report up to the court is satisfied and i want to correct once again the erroneous claim it is rubber stamped some assume because it approves almost every application it does not give careful scrutiny. The exact opposite is true they review every application carefully and ask extensive questions to seek Additional Information or request changes before it is ultimately approved it does approve the great majority of the applications but before it does so the process in sure it does apply with the law. And with those informed of these programs including detailed reports of the operations and compliance matters we regularly engage to discuss these authorities as we did this week and as i said before when congress reauthorize is section 215 and 700 to 702 in was provided to congress in detail. In short or maybe in summary is a better word. [laughter] the procedures by which we implement under fisa under the Information Age allow the Intelligence Committee that it is important to protect the nation while protecting privacy while putting appropriate limits on that information much is collected but active analysis is through stringent controls in this approach makes those extent berry upon the nature or sensitivity is applied throughout the intelligence connection helps with a variety of threats we have robust relationship of other countries they go both directions but it is important to understand we cannot use Foreign Intelligence Services to get around our laws and resubmit other countries to submit theirs to operate in compliance so by working closely we have helped to ensure our Common Security for example, while many Details Remain classified we have provided congress 54 cases in which the ball metadata and 702 authorities provided information to help us understand potential terrorist activity even disrupt potential bomb attacks 41 of these cases include threats of other countries including europe alone we were able to alert to officials of these events to help them with their mission to protect their nation because of the intelligence capabilities that we have. Believe our approach is affected inappropriate and reviewed and approved by all three branches of government. It is however not deal the way to regulate intelligence collection. Even before the disclosure in a collared the president said we welcome a discussion privacy National Security and were currently working to declassify more information to inform that discussion and with the Civil Liberties Oversight Board charged with overseeing the contract is Counter Terrorist activities under section 215 and 702 with a collection of metadata met with the president who welcomed the review to commit to provide the advisory function and we look forward to continue to work with the board on this project but the discussion of the authorities can and should have taken place that brought public views that were previously discussed on a classified basis with congress and with the committees set up to oversee intelligence operations. The level of detail reflects a departure from the historic understanding of the sensitive nature of flat demand a more limited discussion whether not that exposure out ways the cost of security but as the debate goes forward i hope my remarks helped revise the appreciation of those that have been continued to be made that we comply with laws and reflect our values. Thank you very much. I will be glad to take questions for our will caution you that much of what we do in this area remains classified. I cannot talk much about other activities that are not publicly disclosed or other details. As they said were working to declassify other issues but until then i will be restricted with what i can say. Thank you very much. [applause] i will ask the question before turning over to the audience was just one more perimeter if you ask him to blow the whistle on the cia i suspect he will decline to a dancer but i may not be. We will get that out of the way. I just have a few quick questions posts most of them to do 15 but you referred to a longstanding executivebranch position that was put forward repeated the the judge indorsed in congress endorsed it there has been controversy how this is essentially disagrees that this fourth one position but there is still that disagreement why not proceed on that collection in statute with this activity . That would be one option. To be sure it enables that flexibility and operational agility that we need. We dont think that statute is necessary but obviously congress thinks it is appropriate. So on that point with the papers to underline that interpretation of changing the law and everyone agrees there should be as much as possible but i thank you mentioned the of the day set referred to one of the judges of the intertwined nature in the that is true the Government Application as well but that leads to the wooden this be nice not necessarily what we might see in the future i am just curious how much progress can be made in regard . A lot of progress. One of the hurdles to declassification it is hard to think about releasing an opinion that says a particular program is legal if you will not dispose of the program but now we go back and look we can release Court Documents with greater visibility. Host you think all activities with a 250 and 89 or the metadata neighborhood . Directory look across the entire spectrum. There is in tyler less of a legal rationale we looked at all of the programs that need to be declassified to inform the public debate. Aware of the other sections of fisa court that is a secret court in those that are not subject to review our those intelligent people understand that there phone calls and others can be intercepted so what is the of harm to National Security by the Edward Snowden revelations . It is important to go back to the history. This is not a court that exist to adjudicate but to oversee the executive branch so it is unprecedented in that way but that it is a necessary consequence added overseas secret activity there plenty of Court Proceedings that take place in secret particularly with National Security but on your second point the fact of the matter is theres a lot of very valuable information for a faction of the matter also is that they know these revelations no question they have set up to take notice of the classification. You also have the institutional affiliation . I know yours so go ahead and ask a question. Ag for your comments but i want to talk about the oversight of the policy perspective as of there are reports that they are forced with the data with the trade relationships and trade discussions with a broader impact. I am wondering if there has been a discussion to find new ways of intelligence is there input from the trade community to understand did trade impact . Again that programs are classified but provided that we have an opportunity to be heard and were always reassessing if it is sufficiently valuable. And were doing that again right now. Thank you very much. The question with use of the information outside of the intelligence barrier for example, the s cpa enforcement is that something is the ideal jay can ask her if there is the idea of overseas bribery can they use these powers to get information over if they come across that information can that be shared with the doj enforcements of the scpam . Generally speaking we cannot pass the collection of erasion to those agencies. In the department cannot ask us so tourism is one thing but as cp eight activities we can not collect that but if it uncovers evidence of any crime from sexual abuse through scpa they turned over to the department of justice but it cannot ask us Foreign Policy benghazi you said when the analyst try to determine if they can target a particular email address if they find added it is a valid target if it is said by a u. S. Person and if theyre outside the weskit you explain technically how they do that . Determining those two things by just looking at the email address is technically difficult. How do they do that . You are a bright spot. When i of not at liberty to do is talk about that but they do have a variety of information of databases they can check. Already disclosed their information to a third party. When so many of the Tech Companies have Michelle Obama on monopoly on the services they provide. Would you consider that meaningful as far as providing that information to a Certain Party . I guess the relevant issue is not whether i would but whether the court would. The courts do. The seminole case involving things like bank rhetoric. Most have a bank account. And disclose them. Telephone Companies Used to be a monopoly and the telephone calling records were held not subject to a reasonable expectations of privacy. Its the same principle. Can looked at exams in the programs to see if they have violated some of these internal controls. Sounds like what you said that internal controls have never found an instance. Priech beyond the authority. One of the skepticism about internal control is they often just like interaffairs the purpose may not look as hard as they should. I think you can put some of that skepticism to rest. As you can tell, how many are done last year and reaffirm the fact they have never found any misuse of these in any program. I dont think thats what i said. The said the compliance violence that has to be reported. There has been some. If i said something to lead you to the conclusion theres never been a violence thats not whey meant to say. I cant you use the term fisa audit. We have different audit regime for different programs. Theres an awe fit regime required for the 2515 program. Theres one required for the tight i fisa and so on. Isit here and give give you exact statistics. I dont know them. I know, that the senate Intelligence Committee last year in a or the year before. I dont remember which one. They issued a report about includes with the reauthorization of the 702 program. In the report the Defendant Committee specifically noted there has never been under the 702 program a find of willful violence of the law. There are occasions where people make mistakes there are technological problems. Theres not a finding of somebody going in and willfulfully trying to aid the restriction. I think timing wise we have one more. Right here. Hi. Im wondering for you can tell us a Little Information on how many times if there have been times that some of the providers have objected or challenged some the court order to turn over the meta data. And telephone or internet records. I cant. Those theres one Court Proceeding that has recently been in the news where the Court Ordered us to review document for declassification and in the process of doing that. In term of other proceedings they are classified. Again, theres a literal were working on. We are trying to prioritize thing we think in the greatest Public Interest and trying to be get it. Ill give myself the last word. Are those the highest priority . I think to a certain extent what the highest priority is getting information about getting fuller information about the programs about which partial information is already bob, thank you. Thank you. [applause] [inaudible conversations] Ongoing Court case against a former Goldman Sachs bond traitors and alleged role in the 2008 financial meltdown. After that, josh Senior Correspondent for news weerk a newest ambassador to the u. N. Nominee salesman that power and the challenge she faces if confirmed bit senate. Your call and tweets on washington journal giving live at 7 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan. The ahead of the trip to india and singapore next week Vice President biden spoke yesterday where he talked about u. S. Policy toward asia including effort to strengthen trade in the region. His remarks are thirty minutes. Thanking, mr. President. Thank you for offering the venue here. You are always generous. We appreciate it a great deal. I was terrible being dated. I did speak the first year that the american the center for American Progress was inaugurated. Here im speaking at the tenth anniversary. The amazing thing is theyre still going. Having me speak there first. Thank you, we miss you. Rich, thank you as well. To the ambassadors here. Thank you very much. Im honored you take the time. Today i want to talk to you about why and how we are pursuing our announced policy of elevated engagement in the asiapacific where we believe policy is headed. When president obama and i came to office, to state the obvious, we inherited two wars, and it was costing us blood and treasure and time. We knew they to end them responsibly. Well obviously continue to be engaged in both places and of course continue to take the fight to al qaeda and affiliates there whenever they are. But winding down those two wars has allowed us to turn to the opportunities that reflect the realities of a fast changing world. We ask ourselves two things in the review on how to proceed. Where should we focus additional intention and resource enable us to create greater opportunity at home and generate greater growth Economic Growth around the world. And where. Where must we make strategic investment that require to enhance not only our security, but global stability. Both, i say to the ambassadors, both pointed to the the asiapacific inspect if. Stretch from india to the pacific nation of the americas. Is home to a middle class of about a billion people. Some of the Fastest Growing growth rates in the world are within that region. Emerging markets whose choices will shape the character of the entire Global Economy are within that purview. We reached out. We reached tout deepen economic ties and promote open markets and rulebased competition for the 21 century. We finished a Free Trade Agreement with south korea as well as deal with panama and colombia. We launch negotiation on a new transpacific nancy pelosi will connect diverse economy as diverse as singapore and peru. We work toward a more constructive economic relationship with china including through the strategic and economic dialogue, and i open the fifth round of the diagnose just last week. With the security personnel and how to assess our Global Posture and where do we need to involve to match the moment in the asiapacific we saw a region of remarkable promise. Also genuine uncertainty and political risk. Many nations of experience rapid economic transformation. That has fundamentally created a new dynamic. Rising ambitions and rising tensions. The rules and anonymouses enormouses that can provide predictable to deal with the changes, the order needed remained incomplete. We are focused on the risk of commerce proliferation, human disasters, conflict between nations, and the persistent threat posed by north korea. We set about doing several things. Strengthening our alliances. Deepening security partnership. And investing like never before in regional institutions to help manage disputes peacefully. President obama adopted new defense strategic guidance endorsed by the joint chief of staff after month of study that elevates our focus in the asiapacific area. And economically and strategically its clear why the United States had to rebalance to direct more resources and attention toward the asiapacific region. Because imagine what could happen if growing asiapacific middle classes help lift the Global Economy even more than they already are. If nations reject the temptation of diser zerosome thinking and rise peacefully together. Progress toward greater right and freedom move no country has to make a choice between democracy and development. Which is a false choice. Let me put it slightly differently. Just imagine what will happen if things those things dont come to pass. Well all be in a world of trouble. So were all in. This administration. Absolutely committed to this rebalance. The president is absolutely committed and so am i and our entire national cur security and economic teams. I dont need to look any further than my own recent engagement to understand the breadth and scope of the rebalance. Im traveling to india next week. 20 even ten years ago, some might have suggested that india be left out of discussions about the asiapacific. One of the reasons why president obama called a relationship in the quote, defining partnership of the century ahead is that indias increase looking east as a force for security and growth in Southeast Asia and beyond. To us thats welcome news. We encourage it. We welcome indias engagement in the region. And we welcome the effort to develop new trade and transportation links by land and sea in the air. I will also visit singapore, a country of 5 Million People has become the 17th largest economy in the world. A partner in the ttp and important player in south issa and beyond. The reasons president obama has put particular focus on Southeast Asia. They now representative 2 trillion economy of 600 Million People. Theres more American Investment in Southeast Asia than china. Southeast asia nations like singapore and indonesia have become important partners in everything from counter proliferation. Thats why im going singapore. The core of our strategy in the region are our alliances to pan. South korea, philippines, thailand. Across the board in these alliances, were in a High Water Mark with the leader both military and political and the support of our people. Closer to home our intensified engagement within the western hem is not just part but you see that very concretely in the Transpacific Partnership which includes five countries in the western hemisphere. You can see it in the initiative within the hemisphere like the alliance for the pacific, a group of free market orient countries that are integrating their economy and looking west for trade and investment. As i said in a speech not long ago for the first time at least the first time i can remember, the first time in history, its possible. Its not poly anish to envision an america and americas that is middle class, secure, and democratic from Northern Canada to the chip of chile and everything in between. Theres much to be done. Thats within reach. That kind of america is connected economically, strategically, and common values can make a great contribution to more prosperous and secure pacific. Thats one of the reason president obama visited mexico and costa rica. Thats why i was recently in colombia, thailand, brazil in may and returned to the region this fall. What does all of this add up to . Our goal it to help high asiapacific nations together from india to the americas through strong alliances, institutions and partnerships. For the past sixty years, the security we provided has enabled the renals people to turn the talents and hard work in to an economic miracle and now we want to hasten the emerge jensen of an asiapacific order that delivers prosperity for all the nations involve. In short, we want to help lead in creating the 21 century rules of the road that will benefit not only the united and the region but the world as a whole. The life blood of the region to state the obvious is economic development. But growth has low slowed in india, china, and many places. Each country faces disticket and differ challenge. From our perspective the way forward is fairly clear. To spark new growth there has to be fewer barriers at and behind the borders. Protection for intellectual property to reward innovation. New commitment to make sure everyone plays by the same rules because that is what attracts investment and jobs as well as greater economic integration. Thats were pursuing right today in malaysia as they negotiate the Transpacific Partnership with new dispee land, mexico, very soon japan. At which point the group will account for 40 of the worlds gdp. The tpp has potential to set new standard for collective commitment and to fair competition on state owned prizes. We firmly believe this will create a strong incentive for other nations to raise their standard as well so they can join. We have already had discussion with some of those very nations both in the americas as well as in the pacific. But not only is this ambitious, this tpp effort of ours. We believe it is do able. And were working hard to get this done this year. At the same time, were reaching out to emerging economies in Southeast Asia. Partnering with lower countries to improve Food Security, connectivity, water and health. Encouraging responsible investment and reform of burma. Last fall they enhanced new economic engagement. We are dreationz the challenges in our economic roip relationship to china as well. They are not at all inconsistent. We go not view our relationship and future relationship with china in term of conflict or the talk of inevitable conflict. We view it in term of a healthy mix of competition and cooperation. But competition that we welcome. Its stamped in to our dna. We like to compete. Competition is good for both of us. As long as the game is fair. Its clear that the chinese understand that to reverse their declining the internal reform they need to make not reforms were suggesting they have to make. They made their own judgment. Judgment if they follow through not only china in the view be help the region and the world. They have concluded china needs to shift to more consumerdriven economy. They have concluded that they have to create a market base wellregulated financial system. And they have concluded they need to liberalize the exchange rate. It will be difficult. Its difficult internally for them to do that. Im convinced they believe, and we clearly do, that it is necessary. We are engaging directly with india to make some fundamental choices with the ambassador to speak more directly than i could about it own economic future. In the last thirteen years, we have increased five fold the bilateral trade reaching nearly 100 billion. But if you look from a distance an uninformed person, from a distance, theres no reason that our if our country makes the right choices trade cannot grow five fold or more. Just this week india announced it will relax cap on Foreign Investment in a certain sector. We have a lot of work to do. On a wide range of issues including the Civil Nuclear cooperation, by lateral investment treaty, policies protecting innovation. Theres a lot of work do. We believe going with an open mind and listening as well as making our case. We believe it can be done. As we strive for greater growth, we have to recognize that the impact of Climate Change also has an impact on growth as well as security. This is a priority for the president and me. America now has the lowest level of carbon emission in two decades. Were determined to move further. In the process where we can, were technological capability is available also help other countries do the same. That is where were working with them to promote investment and clean energy. Helping Pacific Island nations with the rising sea level. They are rising. We concluded an agreement with china to reduce the pollutant called hfc that cause Climate Change. Theres no reason we cannot do more with india as well. Thats why secretary kerry agreed to an enhanced dialogue with india on Climate Change last month. Look, Economic Growth maybe be the core of all saying Economic Growth critically depends on piece and stability. Thats why we have to be 21st century rule of the road. Not only the economic sphere but also with regard to security. With regard to maritime disputes. Its critical that all nations have a clear understanding of what institutes Acceptable International behavior. No coerce, aggress. A commitment from all parties to reduce the risk of mistake and miscalculation. My dad god, loved him, the only worse than a war intended is one unintended. The prospect we are close cheek to so you for mistakes are real its in everyones interest that there be freedom of navigation. Thats why i encouraged them to work even more quickly to retch an agreement on the code of conduct in the south china sea. Setting clear rules as the first step to managing the disputes. And the u. S. Has a strong interest in seeing it happen as well. With regard to north korea, one thing everyone now agrees on we agree that its Nuclear Missile program present a clear and present danger to stability in the area in east asia in particular. Thats where were working closely with our allies japan and south korea. We are also working more closely than the 0 years ive been engaged with china and with russia. In light of north koreas recent provocative behavior, we welcome president xis important statement achieving a nuclear a denuclearized Korean Peninsula as being a chinese priority. Just something they wish for. But a priority. We welcome that firm assertion. Now north korea is calling for dialogue. [laughter] as my mother would say, ive seen this movie before. We have been there before. We are ready. We are ready. But only if north korea prepared to engage in genuine negotiations. We will not count north koreas pat herb of provoking a crisis and insisting they be rewarded in order to cease and assist from the actions they are taking. We have been there before. Only to find that once they have gotten a space through the aid they need, they return to the same provocative dangerous behavior. And continue their nuclear march. North korea can have peace and prosperity like the rest of the region. But only, only without Nuclear Weapons. North korea has a clear choice. You can choose a brt path for the people, or continue down the road. Make no mistake about it, though, we are open to engaging with any nation prepared to live up to the international obligations. Thats what we did in burma. I think most would say were already seeing some tangible benefit from the engagement. So we have a full agenda ahead of us in asia. Were committed to seeing it through. But as i traveled around the world and heading to india im about to cross the 700,000 mile barrier since Vice President , not counting the previous 36 years. But i hear questions whenever i go. [laughter] questions in asia about whether were truly committed to this free balance, also heard question in the recent trip to europe with the european leaders whether or not were leaving europe behind. It should be clear in the face were not leaving europe. My recently spoke to the european nation and nato members and the e. U. Members in munich, i said that europe remain the corner stone of our engagement with the rest of our world. That is a fact. Were not going anywhere. As a matter of fact, were absolutely convinced that our engagement of the pacific is in the overwhelming selfinterest of europe. Were convinced the combination of new transatlantic economic agreement that we are now negotiating and the Transpacific Partnership i discussed they reinforce one another. They are not at odds with one another. Together, together theyre designed update and strengthen the Global Economic rule of the world in the 21st century. Europe just like us will benefit greatly as well from stability in the pacific, in asia. By the way, theres no reason why we cannot bring a greater focus to the asiapacific and keep our eye on the ball in the middle east. Folks, thats big powers do. Here is the i have knack already. We can walk and chew gum at the same time. Thats what big powers do. And there is no evidence that we are taking our eye off the ball as we should in the middle east leaving europe or not intend on following through on our rebalance in the asiapacific area. Folks, were better positioned at any time before to be able to do it all. I know youll think it sounds like a campaign assertion ive been making for years. America is back. I was last in china as i pointed out chinese leadership its never, never, never been a good bet to bet against america. The resiliency of the American People and the nature of our System America is back to para phrase mark twain and report of the demise were very premature. The business is created 7. 2 million jobs since we have taken office. We have gone from losing more than 400,000 jobs a month over 12 months in 2009 to create over 200 jobs per month. Thus far this year. Its back. The biggest increase in manufacturing in nearly twenty years. An awful lot highTech Companies are looking to come home. Theres a reason for it. American workers incredibly productive three times as productive as Chinese Workers to give you one example. It can be assured the intellectual property will be protected. We have a Transparent Court system that will enforce contracts. Our deficit is down more than 50 as a share of the economy since we took office. Household wealth over 17 trillion inhouse hold wealth have lost in the Great Recession we inherited. Its all back. Were producing more energy from all sources. We now have over 1 year supply of natural gas to enable us to meet every single need we have in america. Energy needs for the next hundreds