Transcripts For CSPAN3 Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20151005

Issc considered just as bad and make sure that that culture is incolcated throughout the force. I agree, but now the admiralt is assaulted by the telecoms who want to tie his hands behind his back by doing all of the encryption. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you, mr. Chairman. In our state, naval surfers warfare, senator crane has taket the lead on much of our effortso to protect against the threat oe counterfeit electronics. And so secretary work and director clapper, the Global Supply chain for ts a g microelectronics presents a growing challenge for cybersecurity. One of the things we saw s wh recently, ibm sold its chipmaking facilities with dod foundry status to a foreignowned competitor. So i was wondering your top toiorities in managing the risk posed by the globalization of microelectronics ilitie Manufacturing Capabilities and our abilities to protect our systems in that area. Its a big question, senator. In fact, its going to be one of the key things we look at in qt this fall review because of the recent, as you said, the recentn sale of the ibmt chips. E two now, there are two schools of thought on this. Secretary carter personally hass jumped into aythis. Some say you do not need a ys yu trusted foundry. Another group says you absolutely have of to it. Systes having confidence in the chips that we put in our Weapons Systems is important. I would expect come february were able to report on final review how were going to tackle this problem. Who within dods leadership has primary responsibility for overseeing the supply chain Risk Management . That would be Frank Kendall and also dla. Dla has the supply chain, and Frank Kendall was really focusey on the trusted chip, the trusted chips. One of the the areas that we look at in regards to partic cyber and in some ways, you know, technology in particular parts not advancing has been a y good thing in this respect, is a in there nuclear area. Are there any specific groups that are focused just on protecting our Nuclear Effort against cyber . E na theres the international nnsa, and we have a Nuclear Weapons council cochaired by, again, Frank Kendall, our under secretary of defense for atl and the vice chairman of the joint chiefs. Theyre the ones who work with doe to make sure our weapons system components are reliable trd trusted and to make sure that we have a safe, reliable, a and Effective Nuclear deterrent. Admiral, when we look at building a force of s cyberwarriors, a cyberteam, how can we use it to help do that . Because it strikes me that that can help us in retaking highly qualified individuals who want o to devote part of their life tos helping their country, and it pe would seem to almost be a perfect fit for us. So we have taken a total force approach to the force that were building out that includes both guard and reserve. Every service slightly different. Not the least of which because Different Services have every different reserve and guard structures. That is a parte of it. I say one of the challenges thaw thre still trying to work our way through is under the title 32 piece, how we coordinate what guard and reserve are doing, hob we generate capacity and bring i it to bear with maximum efficiency. The one thing the two things in partnering with my guard teammates and my reserve teammates, because were taking a total force approach to this, we need one standard for this. We dont want a place where the guard and reserve are trained in one standard and the active side is trained to a different. Activ that gives us maximum ined flexibility in how we apply the capability across the force, and the guard and reserve has done great in that regard. Secondly, we need one common unit structure. We dont want to build unique capability unique, oneofakind structures in the guard andf reserve thats dono match the title 10 side. E we want to treat this as one rev integrated force. Vision again, i would give the guard and reserve great kudos in thatd regard. Weve got a commo an vision, wa we need to go, and weve got a great exercise cyberguard that were using every year where we bring together the guard, the pt private sector, the active component, government, and works our way through the specifics of how were going to make it work. Director clapper and i apologize if you already cyber answered this. What is the one cyberchallenge are you most concerned about . Well, obviously the one that i think about is would be a t massive armageddonlike scale attack against our we infrastructure. That is not woe dont consider that the most likely t probability right now. The greater threat or low to moderate sort of threats that iv were seeing and what i have seen in the five years ive beer in this job is a sort of progression where these get more aggressive and more damaging. And as indicated in my oral statement at the outset, what i will see, i think what we can expect next are data ys manipulation which then calls to question the integrity of the n data which in many ways is more insidious than the kinds of attacks that weve suffered thus far. Ise specter is this massive attack, although its not likely. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Ma thank you, mr. Chairman. Agrem annex three of the recently signed Iran Nuclear Agreement calls for the participating countries to work with iran to strengthen irans ability to protect against and respond to Nuclear Security threats including sabotage as well as tt enable effective and sustainable Nuclear Security and physical ta protection ssystems, closed quote. Secretaryr clapper, do you rea this portion of the Iran Nuclear Agreement, the annex, to include cyberthreats meaning that the p5 plus 1 countries who are haa part of this agreement will be expected, will be deemed to have an obligation under the agreement to assist iran in developing systems tode prevents other countries from using cybercapabilities to acquire information about or to disrupt the operations of Irans Nuclear capabilities, Irans Nuclear programs . Well, in this environment, i will say that i trust that this is not going to prevent us from gleaning intelligence from our traditional sources in the interests of verifying the agreement which will be principalllyy monitored by so ia international organization, iaea. Im not aware of any structuresl on our ability to collect on their behavior and their components. Why would wety want to give iran the ability to defend against cyberweapons that we or . Perhaps some of our allies might one day want to use against iran . Sir, in this environment, open environment, there are some aspects here that i cant discuss. Discy to talk with you privately, classified about you that. Inokay. Okay. Disputing the the fact that the agreement says e w that, that we would have to o. No. Okay. Now, can you tell me in this environment what specific technical assistancestan well offering iran in this portion of the esagreement . I honestly dont know the answer to that question. Th ier thought research, i don know exactly what whats in mind there. Iran now, would any of these capability once acquired by iran prevent or inhibit any allies, n an fy enemy of iran from using cybermeasure against Iranian Nuclear facilities . Again, im reluctant to clea discuss that in this were consulted by u. S. Negotiators during the Nuclear Negotiations in connection with this portion of the agreement . Ee well, the intelligence ut community was deeply involved in throughout the negotiations. Can you describe the nature of any consultation you had with them as to this portion of anneh three . With the iranians . Nyes. No, i did not engage with anf iranians no, thats not what im asking. Im asking if you could describe your discussions with u. S. Negotiators as they came to you and consulted with you on the implications of this portion of annex three. I didnt actually my lead for this was norm rule was known to many of you on this committee, National Intelligence man for iran, and he was the direct participant. And i dont want to speak for him as to the extent to which he was involved or consulted on that provision. Youll have to ask ted him. Ve to okay. But you would have been awaro of the consultation going on. Im sure he came to you and t o said, look, this is going to impact our ability, the ability of the United States to do what we need to do with respect to iran. Again, sir that i would rather discuss what n the potential response of ours could be in a closed setting. Okay. Secretary work, how is the Department Working to ensure that the hardware and software on some of these major programs that were developing to future contingencies and technologicale advances so they can continue to address emerging cyberthreats well into thefu futuretu withoum major overhauls of the entire system . Senator, as i said, we are now putting into our kpps or Key Performance parameters on any new systems, specific cyberhardening requirements much like during the cold war when we had emp requirements for many of our systems. The problem that we face is thay many of the old systems that are still in service were not builtr to respond to the cyberthreats that we see today. Were having to go back through all of those older systems, determine which ones are most vulnerable, prioritize them ande make fixes. So it also goes back to senator donnellys question on the trusted foundry. Were trying to determine what is the best way to ensure we tr have reliable and trusted microelectronics. Thank you. I see my times expired. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Cha thank you, mr. Chairman. Secretary work, if theres a ift catastrophic attack tonight on the fiscal infrastructure or financial infrastructure n of ts country, i do not want to go on cable news in the morning, if there is cable news in the morning, and say the administration told us that the policy is still in development. Weve got to get on this. Weve been talking about it forl years. As the chairmanpa pointed out, this was an essential part of our National Defense t authorization acts act a year ago. The idea that we can continue tk simply defend and never have an offensive capability i just think is ignoring this enormousd threat which we all agree. Let me ask a oneword question to each of you. Realm do wein need an offensive capability in the cyberrealm in order to act as a deterrent . Secretary work . We need a broad range of se t responseio options to include do we need an offensive cybercapability to act as a . Deterrent . I would say yes, sir. Secretary director clapper . Absolutely. Admiral oecret yes. Thank you. The second part of that is that it cant be secret. Our instinct is to make everything secret. Hing sec the whole point of deterrent capability is to make it not secret. Isi suspect we do have a capability, but part of a deterrent is it has to be made publ public. I think another question that needs to be dsressaddressed, an dont necessarily think it in this hearing this morning but ie this terms of the policy, we need to define what an act of war is in the cyberarea. Whether hitting Sony Pictures is an act of war or the opm, and how do you draw those lines. I would suggest thats got to be part of the policy idefinition. I dont mean to imply, secretary work, that this is easy, but its urgent. End thats the we simply cant defend ourselves by saying, well, it was complicated, we didnt get to it. Changing the subject slightly, admiral rogers, do you believe that the dispersion of responsibility in the federal government for cyber is a ial pr potential problem . E that it strikes me weve got agencies and departments and bureaus. , i suspect you could name 15 of them if you tried that all have some responsibility here. Do we need to strengthen cybercommand and make that the. Central repository . I would not make cybercommanh the centralav repository. This is much broader than just s the dod perspective. Ive been very public in saying weve got to simplify the structure for the outside world. If youre on the outside looking in and i hear this from the private sector fairly regularly, who do you want me to go to . Should i talk to the fbi . To dhs . Why cant i deal with you . Want do i need if im a financial company, should i be talking toa the sector constantly . Constru we have got to try to simplify this for the private sector. , oe if i might add to that, senator king, its one of the tg reasons why i had a very brief r commercial for just within the Intelligence Community of integrating the cyberpicture and Common Operating Picture simply from within intelligence, let alone what we do to react or protect. And that to me is one important thing. I have come to believe we need along the lines of a mini nctc or ncpc. I would hope that and the leadership and decisionmaking oe that has to start with the whith house. Governm has to start with the administration for an all of li government approachty to dealin with this dispersion of responsibility problem. I would point out ntera parenthetically thatct its t the subject of this hearing, but the fact that we owe china trillions of dollars compromised our ability to interact with hi china in a firm way. Firm its a complicateded relationship, and thats one of the things that makes it difficult. Director copper, do you haveo any idea what brought the chinese to the table for this recent agreement with the president . Well, it appears that the threat of the potential economic sanctions particularly imposing them right before the visit of president xi got the attention. Thats why they dispatched the minister to try to come to some sort of agreement which is what ensued subsequently. Or t i agree that its not a definitive agreement or treaty, but i do agree, secretary work, that its a step in the right direction. At least these issues are being discussed. But countries ultimately only act intr theirac own selfinter. We have to convince the chinese that its in their interest to cut out this activity thats so detrimental to our country. Thank you, gentlemen sir . Yes, sir . One quick comment. Just because we have not published our policy, it is so v broad and encompassing going over things like encryption. Etrn what are the types of authorities we need . It does not mean that if we didg have an attack tonight we would not we do not have the a structure in place right now re with the National Security team to get together to try to er to understand who caused the attack, to understand what the implications of the attack weret and what respons ne we should take. Those are in place right now but the whole point of being able to respond as deterrent sow the act wont occur d. D strandr. Strangelove taught uf we have a secret machine and noo one uses it doesnt work. The deal is they have to know how we will respond, and therefore, not attack in the first place. Thank you, thank you all, gentlemen, for your testimony. On behalf of the chairman, human rights let me recognize chairman fisher. Thank you, senator reed. Te kingfi g up where senator was going on this, many of you g talked about establishing normsl in cyberspace. Be you think its possible to establishha or maintain that no without enforcement behaviors . When we look at publicly tivity identifying those who are responsible for an activity or imposing costs on them, can we can we do that . Ill begin with you, mr. Secretary. Well, i believe that trying to establish these norms are very, very helpful. In the cold war, for example, o there was af tacit agreement th we would not attack each of our Early Warning missile launches the warning satellites. And so establishing these norms are very important. They will be extremely difficult because the enforcement n cyber are far more difficult because its much more easy to attribute missile good attacks, et cetera. I believe that this agreement with china is a good first step, that we should strive to establish norms especially liev betweenar nation states. Establish norms which we believo are beyond the bounds and to try to establish mechanisms by whicl we can work these through. This will be very, very difficult, senator, because its much more difficult. We have the added problem, of course, the norms are, as secretary work said, really applicable to nation states. And of course, you have a wholet range. Nonnation state actors out there who wouldnt necessarily subscribe to these norms and would be a challenge to deal with even if there were nation o state, mutual agreement. I would echo the comments of my two teammates. Ing a im struck by were allcaes. In my early days as a sailor, well before i got into this w business, at the height of the cold war out there, between the soviets and ulus, we knew exact how far we could push each other. And we pushed each other at times right up to the edge. We developed a set of norms, we had a series of deconfliction maritimes in the environment. Na we developed a set of signals over time so we could communicate with each other. So im comfortable that well achieve this over time in the but on state arena. As my teammates said, its the m nonstate actor that really complicates this to me. Attac going to make this difficult. When were attacked in cyberspace, how do we impose costs on those who are attacking us . Do we respond in cyberspace, or can we look at other ways to i think respond in an appropriate manner, say, with sanctions . What would you look at, admiral . What we have talked about to make y is we want sure we dont look at this just from one narrow perspective. That we look more broadly and look across the breadth of capabilities as a nation and bring all of that to bear as wen look ats options as to what to do, and its a casebycase basis. Theres no one single han onesizefitsall answer to this. Fundamentally think more broadly, not that cyber isnt part of this. I dont mean to imply that. Correct. Mr. Secretary, would you agree with the admiral . Untr do you see a variety of options, and wouldnt it be measure beneficial a be more beneficl as a country to have a policy that is a Public Policy on what those options could be and the consequences that would be felt when we are attacked . Th absolutely. Be fel and that is what i say about a broad policy where we wilatl i l respond in aic time, place, andl mannerl of our own choosing. In this case, theres an asymmetry with our nation state potential adversaries, they are all author attornitarian statesv they are faral smaller than wha we have as a free nation. We value that. We do not want to close down the internet. We are more vulnerable to a wide variety of attacks than our adversaries. We have to respond we ma proportionally but in a ond different way than a simple sil cyberresponse. Might be sanctions, it might be a criminal indictment, it might be other reactions. We believe very strongly that this is something where its an interagency process, a process s is established where they are taken care of, handled on a casebycase basis. I s and does the administratio on what finition constitutes a cyberattack . Well, any type of malicious activity which causes either damage or theft of information f or i. P. , all of those are under either cyber malicious cyberactivities, it might be espionage. In each case, theres no defined red line for what would ch cas constitute what could be the difference between a cyberattack and cybervandalis cybervandalism . To make a anave casebycaset determination. And of course, important consideration here in terms of our reaction would be attribution. And that be again, it would ba case by case. Cybervandalism, maam, is that stealing information or ac i. P. The attack by north korea on sony was described by the president as cybervandalism. I was just wondering on how you distinguished that definition from a cyberattack. Well, it didnt affect a nur National Security entity but it d cause damage to a company. In that case and this is an important illustration of when we could attribute. Very clearly there was agreement across the Intelligence Committee to attribute that attack to the north koreans, ant we did sanction them. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you, mr. Chair. Tart gentlemen, thank you for your service and for joining us here today. And director clapper, before i start on ill begin to focus, on we cyberpolicy, i think wer all very concerned about the allegations that leadership at Central Command deliberately distorted the assessments of i Intelligence Officers related to the fight i against isil. And i understand that theres ao ongoing investigation, and im going to wait for the results oa that investigation. But i want to say that as a member of both this committee and the Intelligence Committee,t rewant to in the strongest terms possible impress. You the importance for all of us to receive absolutely objective and unbiased assessments. Abs and i look forward to the ts results of the i. G. Pect t investigation, and i expect that you will hold accountable anyone who has failed in their duty in the Intelligence Community, no n matter how high up the chain that may go. U well, senator, you brought up a very important consideration here which is a great concern to me. Im the son of an Army Intelligence officer who served in world war ii, korea, and in r vietnam. And iio served in various Intelligence Capacity fies for r 52 years, ranging from my first tour in asia in the 1960s to my service now, the longest tenured dni. And it is almost sacred in intelligence and the intelligence profession never to politicize intelligence. I dont engage in it. R i never have. Tell and i dont condone itig when is havitified. Having said that, and i completely agree with you, in spite of all the media hyperbole, i think its best that we all await the outcome of the dod i. G. Investigation to es determine a whether and to what point there was intelligence at centcom. I will also say that the intelligence assessments from centcom or any other combat and command come to the National Level only through the Defense Intelligence agency. That is the main conduit, and i will say to evaluate or filter for what flows into the nationa intelligence arena. Ting to thank you, director. Turning to you, admiral rogers,n as the director of u. S. Cybercommand, your responsibilities include strengthening our cyberdefense and our cyberdeterrence postured i want to return to the line of questioning several of my colleagues have begun this morning. As you know, the breach of opm n computers resulted in an enormous loss of sensitive personal information. Thus far to my knowledge, the u. S. Has not responded, and to put it into words, deputy, secretary works language this morning, we havent imposed a cost which raises questions about whether we truly have developed the mechanisms for proportionate response to cyberattacks against the u. S. Government. Even after the april, 2015, publication of the dod cyberstrategy. We know thate if a foreign agenr had been caught trying to steal u. S. Personnel files in a less digital age, we would either kick them out of the country if they were a diplomat, or wed throw them in jail if they werent a diplomat. That would be considered a proportionatein response. In the case of the opm breach, the u. S. Government seems uncertain about what a proportional response would look like. I want to ask t may you three questions. And ill let you take them as you may. What constitutes an act of war in cyberspace . Has the United States decided on a proportionate response in the case of the cyberespionage casee and what types of information gathering by nation states, by governments are legitimate, and what types are not . Well, first let me stop by saying, look, on the Operational Command here, all three of the r qusked me youve just are much broaderes than that. Era im glad to give you an opinion, but im mindful of what my role is. In terms of the three things that we define what an act of war is, the bottom line is clearly were still working through that. What are the parameters we want to use to define what is an acte of war . My going in position is we oughe to build on the framework that f we have developed over time in the more conventional domains. L thats a good point of departure. Its got a broad legal framework. Its something people recognize and where we ought to start as point of departure. The second question was about my note to myself. The proportional response toa the opm case. Again, i think that what opm represents is a good question about so what are the parameters we want to use. Is it that the d i has said is it the intent is within the acceptable realm . Is it scale . Is it you can do espionage at some level, for example, but if you trip some magic threshold, hey, its 20 million records, cd its ten million records. Sk there some scale component to this . I think weref th clearly still trying to work our way through t that issue. And there is no onesizefitsall answer. H i i think theres theres n recognition. I think thats clearly what has driven this broad discussion between the United States and china, for example. Thats been a positive, i would argue. And the third could you eat inpeat the types of information you know, my time has expired. Ill cut to the chase. I think what youre hearing from all of us go ahead, senator. This is an important line of questioning. We would like to see more transparency in being able to telegraph our deterrent. We all know that looking back into the cold war that our deterrent was very important. But the other side knowing whatc thatri deterrent was was absolutely critical for it to be effective. So we need to be clear about what types of information gathering by governments are considered legitimate and acceptable, and where are the red lines going to be. I agree. I not thats an important part of the whole deterrence idea. See it has to be something communicated, that generates understanding and expectation. And a sense of consequence. G i think to contrast with the cold war is a good thing to think about in that i think the concern that people are raising is should there be red lines on spying . Thats really what this gets down to. We didnt have red lines during the cold war. It was free wheeling as far as us collecting intelligence agaiv the soviet union and viceversa. There were no limits on that. It was very difficult for both sides well, more so for us. And of course underlying it, the backdrop to all that was the deterrent, the Nuclear Deterrent which, of course, restrained behavior even though it got rough at times as the example that admiral rogers cited and vd justid maritime context. There were ground rules that govern that. Were sort of in the wild west here with cyber. There are no limit that weve agreed on. No red lines certainly on collecting information which isn what the opm breach representedi director and admiral, i woulg like toht thank you for your lso forthright and candid assessment and also i think the lesson that all of us are getting is that ws really have to have some policy decisions, and youve been very helpful in flushing that out for us. Senator . Secretary work, id like to return to an exchange you had with senator aott about the Nuclear Forces treaty known as the imf treaty. Is russia in violation of their obligations under the inf e trey treaty . We believe that a a systemy have in development would violate the treaty. And you said just now in tht development. I thought i heard you say with senator aott that its not e. Deployed or its not yet operational capable s. That correct . Thats my understanding. I can get back to you with the question for the record, but its in development of we have indicated ourif t concern with russians if they did deploy it, we believe it would violate the inf. Thank you. Could you please do it in writing in appropriate classified writing, as well . E ac id like to move to the cybermission. At the conference a few weeks yr ago, Major General ed wilson, commander of the air force, stated dods permission for us t was half wye through the build one. Dew difficult is it to man across the surfaces to have thed capability to command and deter cyberthreats . To start and turn it over to admiral rogers. Were building to 133 total teams, 68 are cyberprotection teams focused on our numberone Mission Defense of our numbr networks. We have ,13 National Mission teams that we are building to help defend our nations critical infrastructure. And we have nd27 combat Mission Teams that are aligned with the Combatant Commanders and assist them in planning. H to support those, we have 25 support teams which they could n call. For a total of 133. Were building to 6,200 military 2,rsonnel, civilians and some specialized 00contractors, and another 2,000 in the reserves. So about 8,400. We expect to reach that in 2018, provided theres not another Government Shutdown. The last time we had a Government Shutdown and sequestration, it put us behindg by six months in building this. So as of right now, i think t were on track. And i turn it over to admiral rogers to explain the how well were doing attracting talent. If i could, first let me access one particular portion oc the secretarys comments in terms of impact of the Government Shutdown or sequestration for us. The last time we went through this and shut it down, we e prob assessed that we lost six monthy worth of progress because we had to shut the school system. We went to all stop in terms of generation of capability. Like a domino, the layover us sx effect of that cost us about si months of time. Ton you go to a bca or sequestration level, it puts us even further behind. In an environment in which we ll have all uniformly come to the t conclusion were not where we need to be, and weve got to be more aggressive in getting there. And you cant do that if when youre shutting down your efforts, when youre cutting ule money to go specifically ams senator, the question you asked, i would tell you the generation of teams in terms of the manpower and capability, knock on wood, is exceeding my expectations. The bigger challenge to me has been less not that its not an insignificant challenge, buto the bigger challenge has been less the teams and more some of. The enabling capabilities that really power them. The tools, if you will, the a platform that we operate from, the training environment that we take for granted and every other mission set. The idea that we would take a brigade combat team. Before i went to iraq, before i went to afghanistan, we put it out in the National Training center and put it through the spectrum of scenarios we think theyre likely to encounter in their deployment. We dont have that capability e now in cyber. Cenarios we have got to create that t capability. Its enablers to me, and the intelligence piece just like any other mission set, everything we do is predicated on knowledge and insights. No different for the centcom commander than it is for me. Those are the areas to me where the challenges are greater, if you will, than just the manpower. Im notge o trying to minimize yeah. How important is it that we take advantage of the existing infrastructure and capabilities . That we have as youre building out the entire Mission Force . I mean, thats what were s doing right now. I will say one of our experiences, cybercommand has been in place for approximately five years. One of our insights that weve gained with practical experience and as we look at both defensive response as well as potential offensive options, we need to e create infrastructure that is fp slightly separate from the infrastructure we use at nsa. So unified platform, youve heard us talk about. Its supported in the funding. S thats an important part of this. Experience has taught us this in a way that five, six years ago,. We didnt fully understand. Well, id like my time is up for questions. Id like to bring to your attention that arkansas general mark berry has requested a cyberprotection team at Little Rock Air force base. Theres an 11,000 squarefoot facility with a skiff of 8,500 m square feet. Ed in it its got 3. 5 million invested in it. One of the facilities would cost about 4 million. A request that i support. I think its harnessing resources that weve already invested. And alsohey its a capability t theyre ready to support, in addition to the professional Education Center that does cybertraining for the National Guard that is less than 30 minutes away. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, i have to comment. Im struck by the irony here of before i left my office to come for this hearing, i was puviewing the directions that were putting out to our people for shutting down and for lowing people. What better time for a cyber cyberattack by an adversary wheh much of our expertise might be furloughed. I think thats a very re important comment, director, and thank you for saying it. There are some of us who who feel its urgent that we inform the American People of the threats to our National Security of another Government Shutdown. I believe that it was in n arkansas that said there is no education in the second kick of a mule. You so i thank you for your comment. Senator mccaskill . That was probably a missouri mule. Director clapper, earlier this year, i introduced a bill that r would give Intelligence Community contractorsco on as whistleblower protections as long as those complaints were e made within the chain or to the Inspector General or the gao. So disclosures made to the res press disclosures made to the press would not be protected. As you probably know, defense department, i know that secretary work knows this, that weve already put into the law t in recent years, whistleblower protections for the contractors at the department of defense, and to my knowledge and nly co certainly correct me if im wrong, any of you, im notrr awm of any classified or sensitive y information that has made its way to a damaging place as a result of these protections. Hesp the 2014 intel explosion gave e these protections to the Government Employees within intelligence. And one of the challenges we have in government is this divide between the contractors r and Government Employees. Frankly, whistleblower protections, i cant think of a good policy reason that we wouly give whistleblower protections to employees and t noto give th to contractors. You and so im hopeful today that you would indicate that you believe this is an important principle and that we should move forward with this legislation. Absolutely,y. Senator. Ud and we have published internale to the Intelligence Community, l an Intelligence Community directive that includes whistle blowing protection for contractors. After all,rc that was the sourc of our big contractor, mr. Snowden was a contractor. So our challenge, the additional burden we have, of course, is od trying to prevent the exposure of classified information t outside channels. They a thats why whistle blowers absolutely must be protected, so that they are induced or motivated to go within the channels knowing that theyll be protected. This is a program thats managed by the Intelligence Community Inspector General who is, of course, independent as a senateo confirmed official. Ent as thank you. And i am pleased to see that you would be supportive of that. And secretary work and admiral rogers, i assume that you wouldo be supportive of giving whistleblower protections to Intelligence Community contractors . Absolutely. I agree totally with what t director clapper said. Yes, maam. I say this as head of the intelligence agency. Thank you. I you want to follow up a littl bit, director clapper, with your comment about a shutdown. Could you tell us what impact another Government Shutdown would have on your progress of h getting the cyberMission Force fully operational . Excuse me, admiral rogers. I think that in political ol isolation, shutdown appeals to r certain swath of americans, and i understand why. Because sometimes it just feels good to say, well, shut it downs because obviously government is never going to win popularity er contests. Certainly not ins my state. Bein on the other hand, theres a difference between being responsible in terms of Public Policy and being irresponsible in terms of recognizing i ts love it when some of my friends wave the constitution in my face and fail to read the part that we have a divided checks and and nces in this country. Unlike other countries. The American People sent a party, a president of one party to the white house, and elected a congress of a different party. And that means we have to figure out how to get along. So could you talk a moment about what the impact would be to this Important Mission if once again we went down the rabbit hole of deciding the best thing to do is just to shut down government. If we use our experience the last time, first thing i had tor do was shut down the school a system. D education is a core component of our ability to create this work force. To shut it all down because it was only mission essential. Ia the second thing ite was struck, for, all travel that was at dow associated with training, all we had to shut all that down. I couldnt send people to generate more insights, to gain more knowledge. We had tod shut down some of oue clchnical Development Efforts because of closure. Again, puts that all on hold. By the time weve talked about the need to develop more capability, the need develop more tools and to shut that all down during the period of the da last shutdown. We were forced to focus our y efforts on the continued daytoday defense which is critical dont get me wrong, as secretary work indicated, is priority number one for us. The other concern i have ply watched this play out now in th. Last ten days. Ive been in command 18 months, and i will tell you the biggest thing i get from my work force prior to the last ten days, sir, this happened to us once in 2013, is this going to happen again . He if it is, why should ire stay hd working for the government . I could make a whole lot more money in the cyberarena on the outside. So in addition to the threat piece that the d i has highlighted, my other concern is if we do this again, is the antf amount of our work force that says, you know, twice in the course of two years, ive got a family, ive got mortgages, ive got to take care of myself as much as i love the mission, as much as i believe in defending. The nation. I cant put myself or my familye through. Wo ive got to go work inrk the commercial sector. It would be terrible for us. People despite all our technology, never forget, it is men and women who power this enterprise. Thats our advantage. At the risk of sounding like a smart alec, which i do from time to time, maybe we need to open schools so some of my colleagues could do some math ig and realize that the votes are t not there to overcome a president ial veto. E and this is a recipe for not th dysfunction that does not help anyone in this country, in particular National Security. I a thank you. From the colleagues of my colleague, senator mccaskill, weve had the secretary come before this committee and say that the number and severity of threats have not been greater since 9 11. That should be enough said in terms of what we need to do to keep continuity in funding the i government. All the other things i may have secondor with have to be to that priority. Omment i thank you all for your work, and director clapper, i thank you for your comment. Admiral rogers, weve had briefings from you since youve taken the command. And one of the briefings im re reminded of is the trend that you see in terms of the gap between what tends to be still an american advantage overall narrowing. Particularly with with nations like china and russia. And i think you maybe even mentioned iran being an emerging threat. Can you tell me really in the buntext of maybe another six months reset on your training, but more importantly, based on your current funding streams ane your current plan, are we going to be able to wide atlanta gap again, or is this just a matter of staying slightly ahead of our adversari adversaries . Go for right now, i think the most likely scenario is were s staying slightly ahead of our adversaries. Were trying to do so much foundational work, if you will. As i said previously, trying to overcome a very different approach over the previous its not a criticism of that approach. It was a totally different world. Itle led to a different prioritization. It led to a different levelvest effort and different investmentl strategy. Ave clearly were going to have to h change atthat. And were changing that at a time when budgets are going dowb and threats,ro not just in not cyber but more broadly are proliferating. I dont envy the choices that secretary carter and the. Leadership has to make. Rte theres nothingrm easy here. So i think in the near term, the most likely scenario for us is how can we focus on the best N Investments that maximize defensive capability while the continuing to help us retain thp advantage we do right now against the most. Thank you. This question may be for secretary work. That the announcement about the tack agreement with china that were not going to basically attack each other. In the face of the compelling evidence that we have, that chinas done it in the past ande theyve dined denied it, why is this agreement a positive a thing if with the smoking gun s information we have right now in prior attacks, theft of intellectual property, commercial data, that we have a pretty strong base of evidence e to say theyre guilty of it. If they deny it, why does this rtreement mean anything . I well, the buildup to this od visit, we made it very clear n d through variety of methods this was going to be something that i was foremost in the discussions when president xi came. We have made it as clear as we possibly can at every single level from the president on down that the chinese cyber. Activities are unacceptable. And we believe that this is a hy good first step as a confidencet Building Measure where china can either demonstrate that they are serious about establishing some norms and going after cyb cyberll crimes, et cetera. But the proof will be in the pudding. I agree with the director and e admiral rogers, its going to bh up to the chinese to demonstrata theyre serious about this. Would the would the manipulation of commercial data fall within the definition of theft under this agreement . Well, specifically, one part of it is the theft of ip, intellectual property, for commercial advantage in say, for example, a Chinese State enterprise. And we have made it a tentative agreement we will not do those type of activities. China has done those activities. In the past and it will be up to them to prove they wont do it in the future. And then, for anyone and then ill yield. I know the committees gone on a while. Po but at what point, i think, senator henrik made some very important points about drawing red lines. Oi p at what point are we going to have clear definitions about malign activities in cyberspace being acts of war or terrorism t and have appropriate responses l whether they be through cyber, through sanctions, or other . When are we going to get that clarity . Because we dont have it today. Senator, i dont believe well ever have a definitive onesizefitsall definition for these types of things. Maery single attack will be handled on a case by case basis, and youll have to judge the ar damage that was caused, who madl the attack, was it just a have a nonstate actor, or just a malicious hacker. Wed have to go after that person in terms of criminal activity. I dont believe were ever goinl to have a specific definition that says if this happens, we will trigger this response. Each one will be handled in a casebycase basis and be proportional. Thank you. Establ mr. Chairman, i think the lack of clarity that i have is youre not establishing some level of known deterrent. And i understand the complexities of it. I worked in the field. But i think that without that clarity, youre more likely to have more things that youre going to have to look at and figure out how to do a situational response. Thank you, mr. Chair. K th lik havut thank you, mr. Chairman, and thank you, gentlemen, for your testimony today on a really important topic. Now, i believe, and i was looking for the transcript, but at the joint press conference between president xi and president obama that president. Of china, i think, publicly stated they dont engage in i these kind of cyber activities. Was that an accurate statement . If that was, indeed, what he . Aid in terms of cyber warfare . Its pretty remarkable if youre in a press conference with another head of state and you just Say Something that seems to be pretty blatantly false. Well, it is. And i think apart from the statements, at least for our , rt part, itll be what happens now. Will there be a change in their behavior . And as i said earlier, hope ngsr springs eternal, but i personally am somewhat of a skeptic. But itll be our responsibility to look for the presence or absence of their intellectual property and other information. And were any of you gentlemen or all of you gentlemen consulted on the terms of the agreement . We were aware of the negotiations. But at least from normally the intelligence. But at least from normally intelligence wouldnt be a voice or shaper a policy agreement like this between two heads of state. N i think our responsibility is to report what they do. At w we participated in the buildup of the visit in terms of policy development. But in terms of what went on to between the two leaders of the nations, we were not directly consulted. Of admiral . And i was aware of the ongoing process. Ng. And like secretary work, same thing, part of the broad effort in preparation for the visit. Nt but you werent you didnt lee the terms of this agreement before did you, mr. Secretary . T lets assume that, you know, kind of past is prologue here. Were talking about intellectual property. The u. S. Has been trying to gets the chinese to stop stealing u. S. Intellectual property for decades and it hasnt really worked out very well. Lets assume that this agreement that there is some additional cyber theft that we can attribute to china. What would you recommend the actions of the United States should be particularly in light of this agreement . I wouldnt be able to answer that. I would have to know what the or degree of the activity would be. Lets say another opm kind of activity. Departm i think the department of defense would recommend a very vigorous response. And mr. Secretary, give me a . Sense of what that would be, sanctions, retaliation. Could be any of those, any, senator. End u maybe all of the above. It will depend upon the severity of the activity. But, again, i know this is i know this is a big point of mite contention with the committee. Ot it is, we are serious about cost imposition. Ty our statement is if you participate in that, this l seek activity, we will seek some type of measure which imposes costs upon you. T and we just do not think its ar proportional cyberattack for a cyberattack. It might be something entirely different like a criminal indictment or sanctions or some other thing. Let me ask kind of a related question for all three of you. I know youve been discussing this. Im sorry if im kind of going e over areas that weve already discussed. Help us think through the issue of rules of engagement here. We have rules of engagement in so many other spheres of the military that are well established. How do we think through these aspects which are the fundamental aspects in what we . Do in response to cyberattacks . O admiral, do you want to take a stab at that . If you look at the defensive side, im pretty comfortable that weve got a good, broad nii recognition of what is permissible within the rules of engagement framework. Do we, . Ons . Between us and other nations . If you define it between us and other nations, i would i apologize. I thought your question was in a dod kind of responsive framework. O if you want to expand it to a rl broader set of nations, then y its probably fair to say no. I would agree. I think when it comes to wefensive if you are thinking about offensive cyber warfare, we probably do not have rules defined rules of engagement. I agree with what director clapper said earlier, senator, that this really is the wild west right now. Theres a lot of activity going on both from nation state actors all the way down to criminals. And so sorting through each of the different attacks and trying th attribute what happened and who it came from and who was responsible for it all demand specific responses on these attacks. But i agree totally with the committee. We need to strengthen our deterrence posture and the besto way to do that is to continue to thrk through these things and make sure that everyone knows that there will be some type of cost. Thank you, mr. Chairman. The committee would also likl to know when theres going to bu a policy that would fit into e these attacks and would then be much more easily responded to if we had a policy as mandated by the 2014 Defense Authorization bill. I thank the witnesses for a very helpful hearing. I know that theyre very busy. And the committee appreciates your appearance here today. Thank you. Prare thank you, mr. Chairman. Tonight on the communicators, chip pickry, ceo of comptel discusses issues involving video, broadband, and television. Hes interviewed by the Senior Editor at communications daily. As the legacy Telephone Companies transition from copper and something called tdm to new technology and networks, how do we make sure that our public safety, the 911, how do we make sure that competition that has taken root in the business marketplace continues and thrives, and how do we make sure that our critical institutions, our schools, our libraries, our hospitals, our first responders, the services that they depend on those networks, how do they go into the next technology, this transition, with everything being sustained and approved, because ip is what we all want . Its more efficient. It gives better service. It lowers the prices. Tonight at 8 00 eastern on the communicators on cspan 2. Tonight on cspan 3, from washington journal, a discussion on the state of the Supreme Court on the start of its new term. Then at 9 00 the premiere of our series landmark cases. Tonights program focuses on marbury versus madison, which established the basis for judicial review. And later, more on the Supreme Court court with a group of law attorneys discussing the potential cases the justices might hear in the new term. F the on this opening day of the new term of the Supreme Court, t were joined by nan aron, ustice president of the alliance for justice and carrie severino, chief council and policy director for the jushl crisis network. I want to begin with the same o question thatas we asked our viewers in our first segment of the washington journal today. The question was, do you think the court has become too political these days . I think we want justices that are not going to be political, right . We want people looking at just the law before them, but unfortunately that does happen a lot. I thinkt. Unfortunately it happs particularly with the liberal wing of the courtiew where the judicial philosophy brings their political views into cases. Chief Justice Roberts vote in both cases to, quote, save sons obamacare or to save the subsidies, was based on political reasons than simply a neutral approach to what does wt the law o say. The i dont want to see the result in this case. Iew of t i dont want to see obamacare go down. I wouldnt want to see this in consequence. Thats not the real view of the justices. Or what it should be. Do you think it is the urt Roberts Court in particular or something thats happened throughout the courts history . It would be the warren court for doing verymak. Politicized decision making, but it can happen in any court. All justices should be aware. Ses i think if youre doing if job right, you want to be voting in cases in ways you might not vote if you were a legislator. Interpreting the institution is different job. Ey alway nan aron, your view . Of course, courts are political and they always have e been. Our Supreme Court and our federal court system decides pi cases thatct effect every aspec of our lives from the water we drink, the air we breathe, to whether we have protections in the workplace. O ronald particularly modernday president s going back really to Ronald Reagan made a determined effort to choose justices and. Judges who would carry out their agendas, their social agendas, on right to abortion, school prayer, Racial Equity, a whole slew of issues. Not only are courts political, but the way in which we choose judges is political. We choose judges. Weve got a president that enjoys the power of sending a oa name to a senate. But then we have a senate who has the choice as to whether to confirm that individual or not. E its not just that our courts. Are political, but the very ces process by which we choose and confirm judges is political. Upn how much do outside forces n contribute to this . Were coming up on a term thats going to be overshadowed by a president ial election. Cycle. Were in a news era where its a 24 7 news cycle. Rom how much is it coming from outside the court versus inside the court . A well, at the moment all the noise about the court is coming, from the candidates themselves. Principally, the republican candidates for president , every single candidate has talked ha about thgoe kind of justice thed like to see, and some of them have gone out of their way, be particularly ted cruz, in blasting john roberts because of one decision last term as carrie said, the Health Care Decision. The noise is coming really fromt the candidates anesd that is ve intentional. All that noise from the candidates is designed to pump up the rightwing base of the republican party. As im sure carrie will have a different view of that, but very intentional, very well designed to inject the issue of the courts in the election. Hts, carrie severino, want to your thoughts, but i want to show our viewers a clip. D deci heres a bit from that. Ot have john roberts has made some really good decisions for sure, but he did not have a proven g extensive record that would havh made clarity the important thing and thats what we need to do. Im willing tope fight for thos nominees to make sure they get passed. This is the culture in rtant washington. You have to fight hard for these u just appointments. This is perhaps the most important thing that the next president will do. Do you like what you just lyl heard senator cruz . Ive known john roberts for a 20 years. Mpointed yes, it was a mistake when he was appointed to the Supreme Court. Hes a good enough lawyer he knows in this obamacare cases he changed the law in order to force that failed law and millions of americans for a political outcome. Were frustrated as. Conservatives. In we keep winning elections and then we dont get the outcome we want. Number one in 1990 in one room e was david sooter and the other room edith jones. George thank wyou, is that right. George w. Bush appointed johe roberts. Let me give you the consequences of that. If the president bushes had appointed edith jones and mike ludwig, obamacare would have es been struck down three years ago and the marriage laws of all 50 states would be on the books. Is your thoughts on Justice Roberts . How would you describe him . Is he a conservative on the court . I think we got it right here in talking about this issue. All the candidates are talking about this and frankly they should because this touches on every issue in our life. Thats why i was very happy to see bush and cruz talking about it. We had a website on scotus. I think roberts has been a focal point of it because of that recent decision. Bush is correct. There are a lotha of decisions that he makes that are very conservative. He has a tendency of pulling his punches in trying to avoid deciding issues that would be contentious. There was an Abortion Clinic lyi protest case ntrecently. There was a chemical weapons o a treaty case where he really reinterpreted the law rather than comeame to a hard decisio much in the same way he did in i the obamacare cases. It is not a oneoff in his case. I think thats something everyone should take into account when theyre looking for new judges. Ve in ma it probably would have been different if there was a ludwigo on the court. Nan aron, on john roberts, Bloomberg Business week talks about his credentials in their story this week on the court. They say on credentials roberts has a resume that would bring tears of joy to Barry Goldwater and william f. Buckley no, mamid by georgetee w. Bush in 2005. Came of age professionally in th re Reagan Administration and represented large corporations at a major washington law firm. I think we could all agree , that being smart, really smart,n wicked smart, as john roberts is, is an important credential, but its not the beginning and the end of what we look for in a judge. Not onlyls, we do we look for s with excellent credentials, but we look for people of impeccable honesty, but we also look at ones view and vision of the role of the courts. Do nominees believe that the courts are there to merely serve the 1 , the wealthy, or does on someones vision of the courts interpret the constitution as giving access, a hearing, not just to the powerful but to everyone in america . Ing, when john roberts appeared at his confirmation hearing, there was no question he was well credentialed. The issue was what was his m vision of the constitution and there were many of us at the time who said his vision of the constitution was such that the little guy, the everyday american, would really have a hard time getting a hearing eopl before the Supreme Court. E you mentioned peoples view of the court. View how much do you think peoples t view of the court this term is going to be scene through the prism of the samesex marriage case last term and the Health Care Case . I certainly think those two h cases have dominated the debate since june when they were released, but i think Going Forward we just heard adam liptack on your program. Ink im sowe pleased that cspan iso going to be having other programs on the court. I think were going to learn a lot more about this court. Its not just two decisions or three decisions from last term, but this court, as adam explained, is granted a number of hot button cases. And i do think these cases and the decision the court renders will influence Public Opinion over the next year. If some of our viewers want to learn about some of our cases before the Supreme Court, our landmark cases Supreme Court series begins tonight at 9 00 on cspan. The kickoff to a 12part prograo on cspan. Alking were asking you t to join in, though, for the next 45 minutes. Were talking to nan aron for the alliance for justice and carrie severino. Carrie severino, before we get to our calls, whats your most important cases of this term . Fisher versus university of texas. This is a major racial preferences case. Its actually been to the court before and the court said, as chief Justice Roberts has said,i thcte best way to stop discriminating on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race. Is now well see what the court says about that. Another one thats really important is fredricks versus california teachers associationt that has to do with the First Amendment rights of Government Employees. Do you have to check your First Amendment rights at the door tof join a government job because if youre forced to join a Government Union, you can be forced to pay for political lobbying . Any lobbying by a Government Union is effectively political. Let me restate the fredricks case a little. Fredricks is the top case. Fisher, i dont know. Its the second time its going on. Texas hasof t an amazing progra admissions. Of 10 of the top class of High School Students are automatically admitted to the university of texas, so those tc students compromised 75 of the schools in texas and then when texas is done, they said for the remaining students lets use ntl race as just one of several criteria. It seems entirely reasonable. It was challenged a couple of years ago. Preme went back to the fifth circuit. The Supreme Court said fifth circuit, get this right and were going to impose a higher e standard. Interestingly, the fifth circuit with a republican judge in the lead said, you know, texass rfl systemy for admitting studentss fine. Its perfectly constitutional. Ec now its being relitigated. T by the fredricks case is a critically important case. Its an effort by corporations to strip unions of Public Service workers to charge nonunion members dues when those nonunion members profit, benefit, from work done through collective bargaining agreements. The court yearsful ago struck a wonderful accommodation and saiy unions represent everyone. You can join and pay t dues, bu those people who dont join have to pay their fair share because they benefit, just as members s do, from all the negotiations related to wages, related to promotions, and most importantlt they benefit from training unions offer their workers to provide Better Services for americans throughout our cities and rural counties, so its a o critical important issue. This is an issue that has been brought o by corporations. Theyre hoping at the invitation of samuel aledo that they will prevail. Im hoping and thinking they maa not get a majority. Two cases well be hearing a. Lot about this term. That we want to hear from our viewers. And your thoughts on the robert. Court. Johns up first. John, good morning. Caller good morning. Thanks for taking my call. This is a United States court. Wd my point is i think we, as seew americans, are part of the problem because we are divided. Justices are human beings. They can see whats going on ouc there. The problem that i have here is heres ted cruz criticizing Justice Roberts, but hes not criticizing kennedy. If you judge like this all the time, then we should have a term limit for the judges. If the judge can define a marriage, i dont know what judge i have a law that god tells me is not acceptable. We have to have respect for god. The judges have to understand when youre makingmake a decisi. You make a decision youre not going to make one person happy and you make one person unhappy. On the issue of term limits he brought up for justices, youa thoughts on that . I think term limits is an t interesting idea. Inive a the challenge of all these ideas is how do you implement them in a way thats not going to give a big leg up to one party or the other. If there were a way to implemenr it, there have been discussions it having very long term limits while still allowing a little more turnover on the court. Just matter of figuring out how to make it happen. Our caller reminds us of something very important that w often overlook and that is judges and justices serve for life while president s serve terms of four years, eight terms. F just justices are there could be 20,s 30 years. I think chief Justice William rehnquist was on the court through six president s. If yo would you enforce a clear and unequivocal law, even if you personally disagreed with it . Thats on twitter. Ext in you can follow along at cspan wj if you want to. Caller good morning. Feels th thank you so much for this opportunity. I am a person who feels that the court is dysfunctional and political is a word that is used to describe that dysfunctionalty. The court does not represent the magna carta, which is a cornerstone. And chief Justice Roberts was, as you said, wickedly smart wits his interview on cspan when d,a susan asked himt about the Citizens United case. He said what are you going to an do,a impeach me . At this point, im pushing for a magna carta chartership honoring the magna carta so people like tom hardin, who was on cspan yesterday, can reveal that the santa rosa case, which was based on a clerks note, was then thei precedent for the citizens for United Authority that the e. Supreme court used for their icn case thatd corporations are r people. Eato this is malpractice. And the citizens need to not just react, but to act through their local venues, which is what my corporation, which iven years, is for 20ue going to do and push back through a venue that is the Authority Given to us through the magna carta. All right. Carrie severino, for folks liker lydia who are concerned about s the court and want to see changes, what is the best process to go about doing that . E the best process is the one the constitution gives us. We have a president that appo t appoints the justices, and we have senators that are going tof confirm them and making sure that those people have a clear understanding of the kind of n. Judicial philosophy. It shouldnt be is it a conservative or a liberal person. Their judici practically speaking to change the system, you need a constitutional amendment. Whats most important is recognizing the president is going to make an appointment that will effect the court for. Generations. As nan pointed it, long outlasting how long they will be in office. Retire this is one of the most important things the next president will do. That could impact the court for generations. Nan aron, ill give you Harold Westwood in new jersey. Youre on the washington journal. Caller good morning. Very, verye interesting. Certainly we need this. It isma no longer the Supreme Court. Ple it is now the Supreme Court lawmakers. R the gigantic ego of these people that think they can destroy our civilization, which they probably may. Civilizations are destroyed how . Because they fail from within. These people on the Supreme Court, they make up laws. Ller that is not their job. What rulings are you ade. Specifically most concerned about . Caller anything starting withto m roe v. Wade. Theres nothing in the constitution that says a judge should make up a law. Our representatives should do that in the congress. The Supreme Court has eliminatem the congress. Civilizations and how did they all destroy . They destroyed from within. There is no way that a man and e another man can have a family. If we dont have a family, we dont have a civilization. I would say judges and best e justices, i think, do the best they can with the cases that are brought before them. Us some and we do have a magnificent document that gives us some guidan guidance. Its our lone star and thats es the constitution, not the magna carta, but the constitution. These justices do their best not to make law, although i would say often err in that direction. But their job is not to make law. Thats congress job. E in their job is to interpret the law and take roe v. Wade in 1970, the justices did their best to interpret the or constitution in order to give women the right to make a decision whether to continue or end a pregnancy. It was a critically important decision, and i would say it ala goes back to the constitution, interpreting the constitution. We may not agree with every ho decision, but that is basically our load star for making decisions f decisio decisions. These social issues are driving people insane. I cep we collectively need to step away from them. Individual freedom or not . You can follow us on cspan if you want to join the conversation. A call like earl did in nashville, georgia. Good morning. Caller good morning, cspan. I want to thank yall for accepting my call. This is a very interesting all conversation here. I have three things id like to say. First of all, if congress were r to have done their job, the judge wouldnt have had to step in there and put the law forward. Congress is the one that made the law, but they were sitting on their behinds. They were hating president obama so bad that they didnt want to make no law. Ut the then the judges stepped in and made the laws. Are talking about the Health Care Decision . Ing abou no, im talking about all laws, the man versus man law. Okay. Go ahead. Yes, that law is a bad law. We cant fault the judge for that. We have to fault congressains fo that. That law was interpreted wrong. Thats against the word of god. S i am a child of god. That is against the word of god. Now the last thing i want to say the republicans are so against that obamacare, they want to tear down that obamacare. And they want to take that out of sc there. This is for the people who dont have insurance. That insurance is helping a lot of peoples. Theyre so against this man is hated the most. Theyre the ones that separate t this country. Thats early in nashville, georgia. Carrie severino, he said congress wasnt doing their jobm which is why the justices stepped in. I think sometimes justices feel thatht way. If congress isnt passing laws they would like to or doing thei ins the way theyd like to, tha they will step in, but thats actually not the courts role at all. The courts role is to simply interpret the laws that the mest congress has passed. Sometimes it does mean having to check those laws against the constitution. Thats where the obamacare challenges came in because Congress Absolutely has the right to make laws. Thats theirth atjob. However they still have to be in keeping with the constitution. So the court has to be that backstop to make sure we maintain a constitutional system. They cant just make laws on anything. Its only the things that are given to them under authority in the constitution. I can think of two instances. Where Congress Took meticulous care in crafting laws. One was the Voting Rights act. There were thousands of pages of legislative history on the act. Its awesome how much Time Congress spent on that act. What was truly deplorable is a l Supreme Court that disregarded t years of congressional act. Authority, congressional work, o to strike at the heart of the it Voting Rights act. Just simply overlooked it. In the Health Care Case that carrie refers to, again Congress Worked day and night. Obama administration worked diligently to draft a law that covered almost every aspect of health care and even then those. Republicans who were unhappy with the law brought a lawsuit in the Supreme Court and what was most surprising was the Supreme Court granted certain ia this case, king versus burwell, there was no conflict in the circuits. There was noor j major legal ise and yet four justices on that court decided they were going to take one more try at gutting thi Health Care Law and failed in ia doing so. Thats exactly the opposite of what was happening. E in that case, they were being asked to enforce the law as was written. The law was providing subsidiest that were bought by exchanges established by the state. Becau thats the decision that congress made. It happened in part because t w everyone knows obamacare wasnts one a of those laws that was slowly deliberated. It was jammed through congress very quicker. In fact, quicker than they wanted to because of the political things. Oes so Congress Sometimes isnt doing. Its job when it passes ck and legislation when the legislatioi isnt complete. The courts job is not to go back and try to fix that. Re carrie, you know and i know l when that law was drafted no enc republican objected to that provision. It wasnt until the law was enacted that a couple of republicans got together and scoured that legislation from beginning to end. Found that tiny little provision and said, uhhuh, were going after that. Even john roberts said no. This is ridiculous. This is a topic we want to hear from our viewers. The justices arriving on capitol hill this morning to start the new term of the Supreme Court, the october 2015 term. This term will end in 2016. Were talking about some of the major cases and taking your. Calls as well. Joe, good morning. Caller good morning. Thanks very much for taking my call. I have a quick comment and a quick question. I would like to respond very js briefly. I can only call her the liberal comme commentator. The law was passed without the house andlosi senate going to conference as nancy pelosi said. You had to pass the law before you could read it. To say the republicans didnt object to a very small part of it, they never had the chance. I would like to ask your conservative commentator i think the other guest mischaracterized that decision. The fifth circuit didnt say it was perfectly constitutional. I think most observers would say the fifth circuit failed to do w what the Supreme Court asked it to do in its remand, which is to examine closely whether t intr university of texas used the dis least obtrusive means to achieved this socalled diversity. Is it suppose ed to be measured University Wide . I think they failed to do that. If you have 20 minority guest students, but theyre in the major of africanamerican o studies, does that accomplish diversity . What is the chancepl that the Supreme Court will go further than maybe some people expect to completely overrule the michigan cases and say as chief roberts p once said, the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discrimination on thes to basis of race . Carrie severino, i think that question is to you. Go ahead. Thanks, joe. Scruti thats a great point. What the Supreme Court is askint is for strict b scrutiny to be applied. The problem is race cannot be taken into account by Government Agencies like the state unless theres a compelling interest in doing so and it is narrow lly tailored to fit that interest. It said this is something that we should be decreasing the usea of. Rsbe it is still very disfavored. Justice oconnor said over 25 years i expect this not to be necessary. We see more use of race in the t classroom. The increasing empirical evidence it isnt doing what people think. It could be hurting the very minority applicants its helping. Studentse mismatched dont do well. Nt. Fifth circuit didnt take the university into account so other than to say what they sair sounds good, so the Supreme Court, i hope, will articulate a little clearer this time the standard of howns i to apply scrutiny because this is an issue that happens in universities across the countryw go ahead. I would just add, joe, do wef really want to be relitigating and relitigating the issue of Racial Equity and racial diversity . We all know it has benefitted our universities,in our college our workplaces, every e work institution. L in fact, most every corporation in the country supports a diverse workplace. I would say lets move on. N l weif acknowledge the significan benefits it brings to every constitution in american life. Da lets go on. Go lets not be bringing these cases back time and time again, relitigating them. Lets go forward. Lets not go back. Gued . This is fisher v. The university of texas at austin. Do we know when f this is goingo be argued . But that one is set for novembers rather. We are relitigating this, but thats in part because people have seen characteristic of thit court. Rather than makingth a very cle decision thats broad they werent clear enough. They werent clear enough that the fifth circuit understood hoe to apply the case. If you want to take these baby steps as a court, you have to recognize were going to start i seeing these issues over and r over again. Thats happening several cases this term. Line for independents. Phyllis, go ahead. Youre on nan aron and carrie severino. Caller thank you, cspan. And thank you for taking my call. I would like to first say other than pardon me Citizens United, which has clearly a disregarded decision, a very politicize ed bush regime, i wa to disagree with severino regarding the scotus since obama. Citizens united was a decision made by, as i said, the majoritv of the conservative appointed of judges. W however, that remains well to the right of the warren years wn for years. In keeping along with this thread, im in totally agreemen with nan aron, thank you. Thank you, nan, for your points in that the Supreme Court decides on matters to interpret the constitution for the public good historically. Just historically, thats what its there for. Phyllis, are you saying that each term isnt influenced by the highprofile decisions of the previous . Caller the highprofile decisions of what . The judges opinions are not influenced from the highprofile cases of the previous term, they are looked at in individual vacuums . So caller no, they shouldnt be looked at in individual vacuums. Sometimes they are. Aro no, that was not my point in ths least. I would agree with ms. Aron in y that the Supreme Court, when ita comes to environmental issues, s Death Penalty, samesex marriages, decisions like roe v. Wade, and the Affordable Care a act this last year if this court were to have scrapped the aca that wasnt jammed through t congresscome the republicans pretty much helped write that up, regardless. It was too close to call. Im talking about the Affordable Care act in disagreement with. Ms. Severino. Had they scrapped it, it would c have been disastrous for those o uninsured and the American Medical Association who supported it and the public . Good . Thats phyllis in boulder, nn colorado. She mentioned you, ms. Severino. Didt you want to respond . We need to have a court ws it thats not behaving in political ways, but i think that also means not trying to bring in oun external policy views into these decisions. When ms. Aron was talking about the Supreme Court doing its best to interpret the instituticonstn agree thats a fundamental otht issue, but the justices should never be interpreting the constitution in order to be sio, doing anything from i the origil meaning of its founders. I think we can all agree we hopo justices would be looking at l i what the constitution means and not bringing their own political decisions to the bench. But lets be real. President s look at the justices. Reagan and both bushes put on ma the Supreme Court, those justices were put on the court in order to implement a social p agenda,re a republican social agenda. It was very clear none of those president s publicly said anything otherwise. President obama and clinton put moderates on the court in an effort to bring about some balance on the Supreme Court. President s get who they want and what they want on the court, and it just means in 2016 when we go elect a president , we need to know were not just electing a c president , but that president o will appoint a Supreme Court. There will be four justices in their 80s by 2018 and that court will be with us the rest of our lives. If it is a republican president , we know the kind of justices he or she will appoint. If its a democrat, we have an idea of the justices he or she will appoint. Ne lik several callers wanting to g chat with both of you ladies. Ginsburg is by far the most liberal member of the court. Just there are goodic examples of cas coming up this term where we can get on the same page. Ted just there are many conservative justices, republicanappointed justices, who dont vote as conservatives, but as constitutionalists. Look at the Death Penalty penalty cases where scalia and thomas are leading the court. Hot thats something thats not its not about are you prodefendant, are you proprosecution. It should be are you proconstitution. The more conservative voting pattern is, the lower they are t the moreo liberal their voting pattern is. Iously b go ahead, john. S caller yes. On obviously, both sides take issue when a ruling comes down they dont like. The current makeup of the court so nakedly partisan and so p nakedly in favor of a proconservative, procorporate, antiworker, antiindividual ntl agenda that they have really reshaped through their decisions and potentially further through the upcoming have really reshaped the relationship of atr individuals, corporations, the government in this country. Theyve basically elevated corporations above individuals. Thank you very much. Carrie severino, did you want to respond that . Thats simply not the case. I think youre alluding to Citizens United. Corporations are groups of of n individuals. Their free speech rights are recognized. The free speech rights of unions are groups of individuals. U wou on the political front, those fall on different sides of the d aisle, but you would w hope tha in the Supreme Court that the ni same Legal Standard would apply as they showed in Citizens United. It does. Looking at is there a corporation or individual masks the really legal distinctions is these cases. A recen i think sadly this caller is absolutely right. In a recent issue of the nation magazine, which documents the trend of the Roberts Court, we find time and time again this i, a court that rules in favor of the wealthy and big corporations at the expense of everyone elsef this is af court thats made it much more difficult forth plaintiffs to even get into court in the first place. This is a court that has drastically limited the ability of people to band together to v brineng classaction litigation. This is a court even studiesm academic studies, indicate that this court sides with the line f chamber of commerce almost nearly every time. Good mo pauls waiting in pennsylvania on our line for republicans. Paul, youre on the washington journal. Caller hi. Right good morning. That last caller is absolutely right. This court is so far rightwing. The whole country seems to have moved so far to the right that e moderates seem liberal. One thing id like to explain to people. T th dont live in a theocracy. Y nobody is going to make you get an abortion or make you gay t marry, but you didnt impose yours views on other people. Owd its so simple. Urt . Thats all i wanted to say. You mentioned your concerns about the court. How would you fix the court, paul . Is there a solution here . Caller well, Citizens United has to go. Its horrible. When they gutted the Voting Rights act, oh, my god. Why arent people up in arms about that . Theyre up in arms because some guy can marry some other guy. Youre calling in our line for republicans. Caller im sorry. Im a democrat. Wash well go to art in washington. Line for independents. Caller good morning, everybody. I dont know what these½ n two callers are talking about. If theyre ndrightwing, why di they change the wording to fit the president and obamacare when my insurance has gone through the roof since that has age happened, number one . This but number two, why on the gay ay sm marriage issue did they say technically it says this, but ws think they mean that . How many cases and courts at oa every level every day are cases thrown out on technicalities . Ase what does the Supreme Court do . They change it to fit president obamas agenda. Ident ob they fit the obama agenda. President obama is a disgrace and has made a disgrace of our country. Were laughed out. Now were told we cant even fly over syria. I dont know people are talking about that the Supreme Court is all right wing because theyre wrong. Then we put gay flood lights in front of the white house. Thats art in washington on the issue of gay marriage. He this issue comes back before the court through the kim davis case out of kentucky. What did we learn about how the Supreme Court is going to deal with challenges the gay marriagt in theh wake of the kim davis case and how they dealt with igt that issue . First of all, i want to agree with art this is clearly not a conservative rightwing court the way the previous democratic caller indicated. D be while some ofen the decisions h been pushback on the liberal policies, last term was, i think by many different versions, determined to be the most oing t liberal o court. This issue of religious freedome is really where thats going to be decided, and theres a very likely chance the court will tht take a religious freedom case. Thatll be the Little Sisters of the poor case that asks whether a religious organization oft nus who takes care of the elderly poor, whether they will be given an exemption to provide and le contraceptionst to their employees or will the governmenl force them into it . For can we live and let live is stilleryo the question . Are n we going to have the government trying to force everyone to do things one way . Nan aron . I think thats one importanty case thats going up. Gogues, although i think the mandate wae very clear and exempted synagogu synagogues, churches. I would be really disappointed to see the Supreme Court openpoy the door to private corporations, closely held corporations, in the hobby lobby case. We decided that case. There is another important Abortion Case going up maybe coming out of texas. The court hasnt granted cert, but this case has the potential getting rid of all clinics, Abortion Clinics, in the state , of mississippi and getting rid of almost all clinics in the state of texas, leaving only ten. The state legislature came up with some regulations saying ics local doctors had to have hospital esy admitting privileges and clinics needed to be like surgeryical a centers. It was all designed to make it impossible for women to make a decision as to whether or not they want to continue a pregnancy. , and one of the key cases here on this issue, its whole Womens Health v cole. Do you want to jump in. I think those are important cases that will come up. I would take issue that its called a cocamayme law. Aw. If women are getting abortions, i think they need to get medical care. We saw the things that happen when you dont have, you have sub standard medical conditions. We know theres cases where women have to go for followup in a hospital if something goese wrong with an abortion. Its important that the doctorss do have admitting privileges and the standards are kept to tfor r centers. Even legislators that wrote the laws said is these laws arey designed to prevent women from getting abortion in our state. They have nothing to do with public health. Dical these clinics are incredibly seo well run. Even the American Medical Association is opposed to these laws. B only becauseur under the suprem court standard, they would place, an undue burden for a ito woman to seek Reproductive Health care, which under the constitution, we will have a ern right to do. Untry ascertainly. Ebat a devisive issue, we have seen inyo the debates under the budg battle at the end of last month. We are take yourg calls. Ie sev we will haveer aaron with the alliance of justice. Kentuck and here we will discuss the up coming term of the supreme courn gary is in pikeville kentucky. I have a question, i want yoe to answer it. Ave Justice Kagan have performed samesex marriages before the decision, should they have excused themselves or was it legal for them to make a at decision before hearing all the evidence and making a decision . I i have no knowledge, they have done it since. I have no they had may have done it before. Ginsburg had done it before as well. No, i dont think that is any kind of argument for recusal. It suggests where theirte o e position, but people were not if the dark of how they were going to vote on that case. I dont think its rises to thes level of recusal in the case. Unless they performed a marriage in a state that was samesex was at issue. What would rise to the levelt of recusal . The one issue that came up in the case that did skirt the line at the least was justice mayb ginsburgse comments. She she has become more vocal. She has given a lot of interviews and talked about the issue before it was decided, while it was being considered bk the court to a lot of journalists and was talking about how she thought it was time, etcetera, for this issue to be decided. That is something that the justi justices should not comment on before the case is decided. Performing a marriage in the soh state where the state legalized it. Let the record reflect we agree on something. That i add one thing, its importantc to note that Supreme Court justices, unlike Lower Court Justices do not have to abide by a judicial code of conduct. Lane f line for democrats, goodbe v morning, shirley. Caller good morning, i want to say the court became activ t activists when they elected george bush as president. Im a black democrat christian. I dont believe in abortions. But i also dont believe that i have the right to tell another woman what to do with our body, to tell a gay person that they should not be married because just for pro creation, what about older people that get married, they have no chance of producing babies and they are a man and a woman. So, you know all this, im sure this lady that is sitting here, ms. Carry, the Koch Brothers ryl have gotten theirl. Return on h. Had interpretation of the law. Very well. Thank you. Will le shirley, carey, i will let you explain what the judicial crisis is. I wish we were getting money from the Koch Brothers. You dont . We cant comment on our donors but i can distance myself on that one at least t court should not be telling states how to run their abortion laws or how to run their marriage laws. I think we are in a agreement with that. My concern is that the court in both of those cases. On the next washington journal, we will get an update on the transpacific trade deal and where it stands in congress from daniel ikenson, and we will talk about military training and the challenges that the u. S. Faces around the world. Later, a conversation with cmbcs, diane a olek, about the Housing Market and the real estate industry. We are live each morning, you can can join the conversation by phone, and on facebook and twitter. This is an opportunity for students to think of critical the platform, issues are important to them. So, they express views by creating a documentary. The most important aspect of the documentaries that we get is contact. We have had winners in the past, created by using a cell phone and others that are created using more high tech equipment. Its the content that matterer and shines through. The response has been great in the past. We have had different issues that they created videos on that are important to them. We have information on the economy and environment, and everything that will be important to the students. As a car cannot run without oil, a human cannot run without food. Prior to the idea, children with disablities were not given the opportunity of an education. This years theme is road to the white house. What is the most important issue you want for candidates to discuss in the 2016 president ial campaign. It is full on, in to the campaign season, there are many different candidates discussing several issues. One of the key requirements in creating documentaries is to include some cspan footage. This footage should compliment and further their point of view and not just dominate the video. Its a great way for them to include more information on the video that furthers their point. The first bill, i will sign today, is the Water Resources reform and development act. Known we heard about the meals and eating the fish sticks and meat. Students and teachers can go to the website, it is student cam. O a org, they will find mor information about prizes and incorporating cspan video and ways to contact us if they have questions. The can deadline is january 20, 2016, which is exactly one year away from the next president ial inauguration. Coming up next on cspan 3, the premier of our new series, landmark cases. It will explore the stories and drama he behind the Supreme Courts most impactful cases. And a preview of the Supreme Courts new term today, discussing the potential cases and later a look at how local businesses in colorado are dealing with the toxic river spill that occurred in august