Transcripts For CSPAN3 Politics Public Policy Today 20140723

270 people. So youre urban compared to us. Okay. Let me just go right to the witnesses. Lori dishman had a very, very bad experience on a Royal Caribbean cruise in 2006. Shes also an International Cruise Victims Association board member, which means she wants to follow through on that. Ill read each of the four and then call on one by one. Phil gers extent, a lawyer who represented a 15yearold minor, 15yearold minor who was raped on a cruise ship is also on that same board and chairman also chairman of the National Center for the victims of crime. Im grateful that hes here. Amanda butter letter who i just met outside whose mother suffered a medical emergency on a carnival kus in 2013 and likely passed away likely as a result of a lack of medical care and kim ware who was a passenger on the triumph which caught fire and was stranded for four days. Now, those are easy things for me to say but they are very hard to have gone through and even talk about it. Lets get at it. Im going to call on lori dishman. And thank you so much for being here. Hello. My name is laurie dishman. Im lied to thank the committee and the hearing for inviting me to washington t is quite an honor and privilege to be here today. Senator rockefeller, i am a cruise ship rape victim. I have an experience to tell you about. A cruise line employee raped me during a vacation on a Royal Caribbean cruise to mexico. The crew member was working as a Security Guard and disco on the ship. He approached me and asked me my name a cabin number. He later snuck down to my cabin and forced his way in. I resisted and struggled. He strangled me and brutally raped me. I awoke with lig tur marks around my neck and my tampon was impacted during the brutal rape. I did not know what to do. I did not know who to turn to. There were no police on the ship. I learned. I was hesitant to report the crime because he wore a security badge. Just three days earlier i was looking forward to this cruise, the glossy brochures advertise an adventure every day and an experience. I was celebrating my birthday and with my best friend michelle. We have known each other since i was 5 years old. In the evening i would find myself in the middle of a nightmare. Michelle called the desk to report the crime. A Security Officer in the head hperser, came to the cabin and sat on the bed where the rape occurred. I tried to tell them what happened but they insisted that i prepare a written statement and sign it. They left without securing the cabin or taking me to the ship infirmary. After i finished my statement, the Security Officer took me and michelle to the infirmary. The doctor handed us two black garbage bags and asked us to go back to the room and collect the evidence. We tried to preserve hair and other items folding the pillow cases and sheets not really knowing what we were supposed to be doing. We returned to the infirmary with still all men surrounding us. It was a painful and humiliating ordeal. The ship doctor performed the rape kit and examined my neck but failed to administer antiviral medications. I was returned to my cabin after the ship ordeal and the ship infirmary. I was traumatized to be back at the scene of the crime. I could not take my eyes off the mattress, stripped of the pillow and sheets and it seemed dirty to me, it looked like i felt. I could not stop thinking about what had just happened to me over and over again. I did not know what would happen next. I just wanted to close my eyes and go home. I was eventually given three options. To get off the ship in mexico and report it to the local port authorities, to stay off the cruise ship stay on the cruise ship and report it to the fbi when we return, or fly back to l. A. And report the rape to the fbi. I opted to fly back to los angeles as soon as i could get off the ship. Once in l. A. , i was questioned extensively by the fbi and they photographed the bruisings around my neck. A few days later, the fbi boa boarded the ship together with the cruise line defense attorneys. The crew member denied even going into my cabin. He did not pass the polygraph but the fbi said it was just a she said he said case and dechined to arrest him. The department of justice declined to prosecute on that same day. The cruise ship they be set sail again full of passengers with the rapist on board. The crew member two days later changed his story and admitted going to my cabin. It was only then that the cruise line confined him to his cabin and then put a Security Guard outside his door. And then terminated his employment and flew him home to trinidad. I hired a maritime lawyer in miami. Why miami . Because even though i lived in sacramento, the cruise left from l. A. , the crime occurred in International Waters and in the ticket it says that you need to find an attorney in miami. My attorney found out many things that surprised and angered me. The Security Guard was actually a janitor who the cruise line called a cleaning specialist who is paid 550 a month. He was assigned to act as a Security Department because the cruise ships limited number of legitimate guards on its staff. He had no training or experience at all as a Security Guard. Royal caribbean records my attorney uncovered revealed an employee history which included lying, falsification of records, insubordination and anger management and he had also sexually harassed two girls six weeks before he raped me and they put him in this Security Guard uniform. We also learned that on the night in question, a witness observed him drinking beers given to him by the cruise line bartenders. Royal caribbean, pursue want to court orders that my attorney received, they studied sexual assaults back on their ships back as far as 1999 and the experts concluded that Sexual Misconduct occurred frequently. The head Security Guard who approached me in the cabin said this never happens. But the cruise line ignored what they were told and said that crimes are very rare. In 2007 i became a member of the icb board. I have testified in the past before the house of representatives in support of the cruise vessels security and safety act. Today im joined with the chairman of icv, board member and friends of icv. In closing, cruise consumers have virtually no rights or protections. I know this firsthand. I know exactly how it feels to have no rights and to be victimized by the cruise line a second time after their employee assaulted me certainly or congress can require a clear and accurate statement of our rights embodied in a ticket without incomprehensible legal mum mumbo jumdbo, hire protection under a Consumer Agency which will help us in our time of need. Thank you. Thank you very much, miss dishman. And you did that well and i know it was hard. We will have questions. But first we want to hear from Phil Gershwin who is a lawyer who represented a 15yearold minor who was raped on a cruise ship. Thank you, members of the committee. Im a lawyer in miami, florida, with more than 40 Years Experience focused for more than 40 years my law practice has focused on representing crime victims, both at sea and on land. I appreciate your participation and your willingness to listen. I will be brief and will not read from my written testimony, which states the case facts about the incident the chairman just referred to in more detail than i will mention now. And i welcome any questions the senators may ask. The cruise passenger protection act should be passed. It is far short of the needed solutions but it is the next step on the path to greater passenger safety. If you think that young women are safe on cruise ships, think again. They are not. My 15yearold autistic teenage client was not supervised like she was on land because her family thought that she was safe. They were vigilant in managing all of her activities, scrupulously and on the ship she was supervised in teen activities. On the last night of the cruise, the teen activities added early but no one told her parents. And she was gullibly led away by a predator to a stateroom where she was brutally raped and attacked by a juvenile and an adult male. This occurred two years after the cruise vessel safety and security act of 2010 was signed into law. But despite that fact, her stateroom was lysoled and cleaned before Law Enforcement could gain access to it. Security said, well, there was a mistake. We locked it out but the housekeepers somehow overrode the lockout not knowing that a crime had been committed and the evidence on the bed, clouds, and other evidence in the room was lost. Fortunately, our state legislature has had the wisdom to enact and extend jurisdiction to crimes on cruise ships when the ships leave and return from florida ports. So there were ft. Law der dalebased broward deputies standing on the pier when the ship returned to port who took custody of these two offenders and were punished under state law. But had this occurred anywhere else besides florida, they likely would have gone unapprehended and unpunished. Now, what is worse about what happened, the cruise lines not only suppress the facts but they foster a misleading Disinformation Campaign boasting that vacationers are safer at sea than they are on land. Now, in some ways, you are safer at sea. Youre not going to get hit by a car or a truck, walking in public places, nor is it likely that youre going to be shot by an armed robber because there are no vehicles or guns allowed on the ship. But sexual crimes, like the one that my innocent teenage client was the victim of, are far too common. And the risks of them are high. There are thousands of people onboard and there are no police to deter crime or to stop a crime before it harms somebody. Ship Security Officers are trained to protect ship owners, not passengers. And thats exactly what they do. The real answer, in my view, based on my lifetime of experience in this work, is that independent sea marshals should be placed on cruise ships, a trivial cost in view of the large number of people here who are assembled on these Floating City vacations. If we cant get that today, we can start now with d. O. T. Empowerment to make the risks known. Truthful disclosure of risks has been required by government for decades and it is a part of the fundamental fairness, which is the fabric of the american the american society. Full disclosures of risks is a first step toward improving safety. Very few travelers understand the legal relationship which exists in the cruise contract. As passengers cross the gangway, they surrender all legal rights to protect their own welfare, except as the cruise ticket allows them to. This is not an informed consent. The ticket doesnt explain how the legal relationship is different at sea from what we know it to be on land. And it is not semantics when we refer to the ships captain as the master. The master is just that. And the passengers have virtually no individual rights. The Cruise Line Industry Association bill of rights is illusory, empty, and meaningless. A close reading of the cruise line tickets reveal a frightening list of contractual and statutory disclaimers of any legal responsibility for harms to passengers. The tickets say the cruise line has no legal liability in port for any excursion which they arrange, which they sell to the passengers, and which they share fees with the tour operators with but they disclaim any responsibility. They say the same thing about the Physician Services that they sell in ship board medical clinics on board. But if theres medical negligence, they have no legal responsibility. There are also arcane statutory and International Maritime treaties which limit passenger rights and passenger remedies when something goes wrong on board and neither the cruise ticket nor the cruise line adequately informed the passengers of the nature or extent of what they have given up by crossing that gangway. The bill should be passed so that the outdated buyer beware business relationships at sea are replaced with truth in advertising, full disclosure, and informed consent which are the hallmarks of American Life required by government for business and industry. Until Congress Gives passengers more protections, american nationals on cruise ships are just on their own. I invite you to read my brief writt written statement which provides more details so i take no more time that is necessary now and i volunteer to assist in this process in any way that i can in the future. Thank you, sir, very much. Amanda butler, your mother suffered a medical emergency in 2013 on a Carnival Cruise. And as i indicated, probably passed away from a lack of adequate medical care. Senator rockefeller, members of the committee, i appreciate the opportunity to tell my mothers story, to share what we have learned and to offer recommendations, from our perspective, in an effort tone sure that no other family will go through what we had to experience. My mother experienced a Catastrophic Health event on a family cruise april 18th, 2013. She subsequently passed away on may 4th with the cause of death listed as a brain injury. She was a woman who loved life, loved her family. She had a general generous heart. She was a faithful and devoted wife and mother who was there to nurture her children, support her husband and provide care and kindness to many individuals in our community of columbus, mississippi. In fact, more than 800 people came from the community to her visitation. We had just returned from a short excursion on april 18th, passed through security and were planning events for the evening when she collapsed in midsentence. She had no pulse. She was not breathing. I ran to plea with the security personnel in the area but all they did was seal off the entrance and exit of the boat so nobody could see that there was a problem and an event had happened. They did not step forward, period, to help my mother and no one indicated that they were calling for help. So i ran down the corridors in an attempt to find a defibrillator or someone that could explain that we have a medical emergency. A nurse arrived after my mother had been on the ship floor for what American Physicians are estimating to be 15 minutes. The nurse had a radio but no defibrillator and no medical equipment when she arrived. She examined my mother and then she waited for a gurney to arrive. She did not initiate cpr. My mother was taken into the medical facility, located within a distance that my father and myself could have carried her, had we been told. They had to unlock the doors, turn on the lights and the computers and prepare the tiny examination room for the resuscitation process. They set up a portable defibrillator. After four cycles, her pulse did return. Nevertheless, the duration of time that she went without oxygen approached 32 minutes. Once resuscitated, we were instructed to leave the ship. We did not have the option to stay. My father went to his room with personnel to pack his bags and carnival sent their personnel into my room to gather my belongings. They made us stay on the gangway and after we got off of the water taxi, we had to wait on an ambulance to come and get her. One carnival employee accompanied us but no arrangements were made with customs to expedite us as a medical emergency. We were all processed as tourists, including my comatose mother. The carnival employee gave my father the telephone number for the Port Authority and left us completely alone in a foreign country to find our own way to transport my mother back to the United States for additional medical treatment. Carnivals current contract states that they are not responsible or liable for anything involving the welfare or safety of its passengers. The Company Makes no assurances that a physician will be available on a cruise. And it states that medical care, in fact, may not be available at all or will be delayed. The contract also states that carnival is not responsible for the actions of physicians and nurses whom it considers independent contractors. As it turned out, my mothers cardiac event was the type that had she received cpr in a timely manner, she would be here today. My mother died needlessly because humane emergency protocol was not followed or enforced. The contract was too small to read. The general public does not understand all u. S. Rights are surrendered to carnival upon entering that vessel. Had we known o, our family woul have never boarded that ship. We offer the following recommendations to improve health care. We know that some of these it items are included in the cruise safety act of 2010 but we have been informed, also, that the medical requirements of that act have been very narrowly interpreted. Our recommendations would be to modify the 2010 act to add a section on general medical care with the following requirements. Aed machines, defibrillators should be placed throughout each ship with locations clearly designated and discussed during the initial safety meeting. Cpr training and security should be required for all personnel on the ships. Personnel must be trained on how to respond to medical or emergent situations including aearth willing and summoning medical assistance to aid the passenger familiy. The english language should be the official language at the United States port of call. At a minimum, all persons should be able to understand key words, such as emergency, help, doctor. 24hour health care is necessary, given that the ships carry several thousands people per cruise. The ships physician must be available or must be on call for Immediate Response to the emergency situation. Doctors must have emergency medicine, internal medicine or Family Medicine and have at least served practicum. There have been standards to adopt these standards and more, however, carnival has nor virtually all of the standards that they agreed to to implement their ships as a member of clea. This must change for the welfare of passengers. My father and i greatly appreciate the opportunity to tell my mothers story, our experiences, and our recommendations before this committee. Thank you. No, thank you very much, miss butler. Just for the benefit of the members of the committee, what Amanda Butler has been talking about, in part, is i would have to lose 60 years off my present life length and have triple strong glasses and probably a magnified glass to be able to read what youre talking about. Yes. I mean, i gave it to bill nelson and well, hes getting older, too. I mean, you give up your liability. You have no idea that youre doing that, one, because you cant read this thing. Im breaking protocol and i apologize. You give up things, you cant possibly read this. When youre buying a ticket, youre in a hurry. And in this is your whole trip. Right. So to speak. And its just, to me, deceitful, easy to correct and unnecessary. If you dont mind, could i make one more statement, senator . Yes. Carnival is suing my father and myself over 1200. Literally. For the lack of medical care that we received after they dumped us off on an island completely alone. You do give up all of your rights. My mother was loved and the hot tropical sun and she did not have a chance because of the way that they treated her medically. I thank you. And i apologize to my colleagues for interrupts the protocol. Kim ware was stranded for four days, which i really want to hear about. I dont know how one gets stranded for four days on a cruise ship. Chairman rockefeller, committee members, my name is kim ware, i am from houston, texas. I am the mother of five children and three grandchildren. My family and i have cruised many times. We love cruising and i naively had never given a thought to the possible dangers onboard a cruise ship. Being weary of the cold in february 2013, my boyfriend ed and i booked a lastminute cruise on the carnival triumph to enjoy some fun in mexico. For the first two days of the trip, everything went as planned. As we went to bed on the second day, we had no idea what was to come. The passengers of the carnival triumph would be adrift at sea for four days living in horrendous conditions. In the Early Morning hours of our third day at sea, we were awakened by an emergency announcement that sounded ominous. Ed quickly went out to our balcony where he saw a great amount of smoke coming from the back of the ship. We immediately knew it was a fire. Fear overcame me immediately, as during our muster drill, the crew had repeated over and over that fire was our greatest danger when at sea. Shortly thereafter, the cruise director informed us that there was a situation in the engine room. There was confusion among the passengers as to whether to go to the muster stations or not. Several hours later our worst fears were confirmed. There had been a fire. It was out but we were dead in the water, no power. Eventually the giant ship began to list and, as you can imagine, this caused a great deal of fear among the passengers that the ship was going to capsize. It was soon very clear that Carnival Cruise lines had no plan in place for such a disaster. They were essentially winging it. Conditions aboard the ship began to decay quickly. There was no electricity, we had water intermittently, we were informed that the sewage system no longer operated. All passengers were given red bio bags to use instead of the toilets. As passengers, understandably, did not want to use the bags, all public toilets onboard the ship were quickly filled to the top with human waste. The sewer system quickly backed up and came out of the shower drains and, later, red bio bags lined the halls filled with feces. The stench was terrible and sanitation onboard the ship was nonexistent. I was one of the fortunate passengers who had a balcony cabin. The unluckily passengers who had booked inside cabins had no access to fresh air or sunlight. These passengers were forced to move their families to mattresses in the hallways on upper decks or on to the lounge chairs on the pool deck where sheets were quickly raised as protection from the sun. A tent city was born. These passengers suffered the worst hardships. It was very disconcerting to see the elderly and Young Children in these circumstances. I couldnt help but wonder if the elderly had enough medicine with them, had the parents of the babies packed enough diapers . The crew was doing its best to provide us with meals. However, passengers waited hours in line for food. Hoarding food became a problem as people were concerned that food would run out. I witnessed many heated arguments among passengers over food hoarding. The buffet no longer looked clean. People who had not bathed in days were handling server utensils and food. With the unsanitary condition of the food, i was constantly in fear of becoming sick in these conditions. We tried to stay out of the public areas as much as possible. In truth, the entire ship had quickly become a refugee camp. I was very concerned that violence was going to erupt as passengers struggled with these living conditions. There seemed to be no security at all. At night, the ship became very dark and i never saw any type of security patrolling the ship. As time slowly dragged on, the plans to get us back to shore kept changing. First we would go to progresso and then flown out and then the final decision was that tugs would pull us into mobile, alabama. This decision was made with no thought of the passengers on board. This caused the passengers to endure the miserable conditions on board for another 24 hours. With no way to communicate with my family and days adrift at sea, i felt as though the cruise would never end. I finally broke down and cried. Upon return home, the only communication i received from carnival was a letter with a 500 check and a refund voucher towards a future cruise. This seemed to be inadequate for the danger that i was put in on the triumph. Ppds i realized i put my safety in the habds of a cruise lynn and they set out with only four of the six generate fors working and with knowledge of a potential hazard in the fuel lines. I wish i had known these things prior to setting sail. I feel that the cruise ship industry has a duty to provide not only a great vacation for passengers but to ensure their safety at all costs and to impart the upmost care when an emergency arises. Information should be made public should be made aware so future passengers can make educated decisions on which lines to travel. Further, passengers should have the right to pursue compensation for any wrongdoing on the cruise industrys part. Cruising is a wonderful way for families to vacation together. However, cruising needs to be made safer for all u. S. Citizens. My hope is that congress will pass legislation tone sure that the cruise industry abides by strict standards for passenger safety so a future disaster of even greater magnitude aboard a cruise ship can be avoided. Thank you for your time. Thank you very much, miss ware. Im going to start questioning to be filed by senator wicker and senator well son if he comes back and senator begich and blumenthal whos a 29year attorney general for the state of connecticut and one of the most astute questioners ive ever listened to. But youre last. So be patient and stick around. Last year i i have a big question for you, miss butler. Last year, the major cruise lines adopted what they call a passenger bill of rights. Now, weve done that in the Airline Industry and we pretty much enforce it. One of the socalled rights is that passengers have the right to, quote, fulltime emergency medical attention as needed until shoreside medical care becomes available. Thats their language, not mine. And a few weeks ago, senior representatives from the Cruise Line International association, which i refer to as clia, told myself that cruise lines have the duty to provide passengers competent medical care. My question to you would be, would you say that the care provided to your mother and fulltime emergency medical attention is needed until assure that fulltime medical care is available and all of a sudden it became competent medical care. So my question to you is, was the medical care provided to your mother competent . No. They did everything wrong. We were expecting that one of the Security Guards would step forward to initiate cpr. Instead, they waited at least ten minutes to even call for someone to come down and look at my mothers body to, see if she was breathing or not and in that case she was not breathing. She did not have a pulse. And to top it off, the infirmary was closed so we had to wait, literally, for them to turn everything on. They had to unlock the defibrillator, the aed, out of a closet and then plug it into the wall. They had to set up their own hospital while were standing there waiting and my moms not breathing. It was horrific. And completely unacceptable for american citizens. Now, in your mothers case, carnival claims that it has and had no duty to provide medical care. No duty to train or supervise medical staff and no duty to make the sick bay available. Further, they claim no duty to provide medical equipment like a basic automatic external defibrillator machines. So, miss butler, when you brought your ticket for the cruise, did you understand that if you accepted medical care provided by the cruise line, you would be doing so at your own risk, at your own cost and that the cruise line would deny liability for the quality of the care . We had no idea. We couldnt read the font it was tiny. You had to click the link and check yes, i agree, to even print the ticket but you couldnt see what they were trying to hide and the average layperson, were a humble family from mississippi, we didnt own we dont own a magnified glass and we werent going to print it off and try to figure out what their legal jargon, or lack thereof, was hidden in the contract. Plus, you assume a certain level of responsibility, right . Yes. Yes. You all have senator begich and blumenthal, do you have this in your folders . Id just like to have it passed to each of you ive circled the word liability and its unbelievable. I cant read any of it. Neither could we. At the beginning of the voyage, to provide Safety Information at a, quote, muster drill to help passengers prepare for an emergency, like a fire or a wreck. This information helps passengers prepare and no what to do in the event of an emergency. My question for the panel, many of you experienced emergency situations that you were unprepared for. Did the cruise line discuss any information about what to do in a medical emergency . Im asking any of you. Senator, no. In my situation, no. The cruise line did not. And in our situation as well, senator, no. And it would be very simple to simply just add, oh, by the way, our medical infirmary is on yada, yada floor. We had no idea where to go. The obvious question is, if you had this information, that might have helped, right . If we had the information, we could have saved her life. You know, someone should have given her cpr. Okay. Well, ive got more questions but my time is up for my first round so i go to senator begich. Thank you very much, mr. Chairman, and i appreciate the opportunity to have you all here today and thank you for sharing your story. Let me ask you, and i think you gave some suggestions, if i remember my lineup in my writing here. You had suggested aed machines should be more available . Tell me what you mean by that. Weve been told that carnival does have defibrillators, aeds, but they keep them locked up because they are afraid that the passengers may steal them. Okay. So and your comment about cpr training to make sure that employees or all employees or employees related to security or help me understand what youre thinking there, too. At the very least, security when people are coming back on board from excursions. And there is part of the proposal that the chairman has is that information is made to potential passengers or customers. Let me ask you a question. When you were researching your desire, was this your first cruise or second or we had been doing this for years. So youre a cruiser . Used to be. Alaska, we have a lot of cruise ships so i understand. When you go look for a cruise, just tell me how you go about that when you want to go. Ill be honest, i have a cousin that organizes our familiar ee reunions so she picks it out and we all basically chip in to buy the tickets. So do you maybe i may not be able to ask you. Maybe i can ask one of the other two. Im trying to find out, when you go online i have not done a cruise. I am very familiar with cruises, let me make that very clear, with over a million passengers coming to alaska, from the small cruises, big cruises, princess, disney, so forth. Ive been on many of the ships but have not done a fullscale cruise. When you go online to look up what you want to do, do you in your mind, are you looking for not only what your location is, what youre interested in, but do you decide, geez, i want to know how safe this cruise is . Does that come across . Is that one of the thoughts that you have . You assume that if youre living out of a u. S. Port, that you have u. S. Health care well, safety, period. It was just an assumption. Heres where im trying to go and anyone can answer this and i appreciate the chairmans piece of legislation. But in it it talks about putting a lot of the information on the transportation website. My question is, that is not where you would go to if you were going to look up a cruise and think about the safety of the cruise. I mean, if it didnt you see where im going, in other words . Yes. If youre going on to a cruise site and you think you want to go on to a cruise to the mediterranean and you wonder how safe this cruise is, is your first thought to go to the d. O. T. Website . No. But i think all of us would go to travelocity, expedia, things like that, but the assumption with travel is that i thought the safety was in place. I thought a corporation as large as carnival, you know, with the reputation, i just assumed that they would have great Safety Measures in place on ships of that size. I was naive. No. I understand that. Im just trying to figure out what im worried about, and ive told the chairman this, adding another layer of information but then the customer has no idea where that information is. Maybe they could put something on expedia saying go to this site for im trying to figure out what is the better well, definitely every cruise line needs to have an updated reporting on their website and in regards to the transportation, to me that would follow along with airline or train or if i was a consumer looking for something that involved all different types of tra transportation and incidents that occurred but the regular consumer may go to that Royal Caribbean and carnival website or even a travel but you should be able to know what type of crimes when youre planning your family vacation. The Television Ads give false presentation about let your kids go and do what you want to do on a cruise. I think the different crimes need to be reported and i feel all of them need to be reported, not just if they are open but if they are closed. Do you think that should be the case for all types of transportation . I dont know. For a family after what ive learned for what i didnt know, because i had the false sense when i left out of san pedro, los angeles, i thought i was taking all of my rights with me and didnt know it was flown under liberian flag and thats what they were under. Thank you very much. Thank you, senator begich. Senator blumenthal . Thank you, senator, and thank you for championing this bill which i am very, very proud to cosponsor. Thank you for having this hearing which gives us an opportunity to really not only express our support and sympathy but also to make you a part of the crusade for this legislation which will really, in a sense, make something good come of your horrific experiences. And i have a family who is a constituent family in gren niche who suffered very tragically a loss that in some ways is reminiscent of yours, a loss that is still with them. George smith iv vanished, literally disappeared sometime overnight going into july 4th of nine years ago. He remains missing since 2005. There was blood on the ship when it went into a harbor. The crime scene was never secured, let alone adequately investigated. His death remains a mystery today. Much to the understandable concernation of his family. His death is with us still in connecticut. It is a grievous reminder that those that suffer from crimes while at sea are completely and inadequately protected, as miss dishman, you have reminded us so graphically. Thats the reason that these kinds of limitations on liability make a mockery of the implicit promises that are made to passengers on cruise ships, that they will be kept safe. Thats the minimal obligation that a cruise ship has to its passengers, to keep them safe. It cant guarantee that they will be happy, that they will always be celebratory, that the weather will always be good but that they will be safe. And in each one of your examples, the cruise ship failed in that situation and passengers were left without remedy and without hope of real recovery. And in your instance, miss butler, what happened to your mother may well have been avoidable. Yes. And unnecessary and its ultimate consequence and you have my special sympathy in that regard. So we are really trying to impose minimal protections on cruise ships. And thats the purpose of a cruise ship passenger protection act. It imposes standards of decency, standards of minimal, basic decency and fair dealing on cruise ship lines. Id like to ask you, miss butler, whether you have taken any legal action. I know in your testimony that you consulted with an attorney and he advised you as to where you had to file suit and some of the basics of the law in this area andarea. I wonder whether you have taken any legal action. Yes, we have. Has he indicated to you the obstacles because of that on the high seas its literally david versus go lie . Go liee. So passengers been not only on an island in the high seas, but its a lawless island . Exactly. Ms. Dishman, if i may ask you, have you taken any legal action . Yes, i did. Has your lawyer advised you as to obstacles that are in your way because of the inadequacy of the law . Yes, and i i experienced several different challenges and things that occurred in regards to my case. And ms. Ware and mr. Grisham, let me ask you the same question. I know youre an attorney. Let me ask if youve taken action on behalf of your client. Indeed i did. My clients case was settled for a handsome sum, i must say just recently. I would comment on ms. Butlers situation, i litigated a similar case for seven years regarding the aknocksic brain injury for a 26yearold thirdyear medical student who collapsed on a treadmill on board the ship in the presence of the Fitness Center director, who took no steps at all to resuscitate her, and there was a factual dispute over the length of time she was down without any defibrillation, and already International Treaties that require crew members to be trained in cpr and the position that the cruise lines take is the training is only advisory, theyre not required to use it, and its discretionary as to whether or not they want to use it and federal maritime law is that theyre not legally responsible if they dont use it. And they didnt use it in this case, and this young woman who a a brilliant career ahead of her essentially lives the life of a vegetable today, with no recovery. Thank you. Ms. Ware . Yes, i have taken legal action i did not know by signing that ticket i was giving up all my rights according to carnival for compensation. Mr. Chairman, again my thanks for having this hearing. Im going to ask that a letter from my connecticut colleague congressman heinz be entered into the record in support of this legislation, and that concludes my questioning. Im out of time, but i really want to thank you again to being here today. Thank you. Thank you, senator blumenthal. There are a lot of questions, a lot of questions you know, the thing that amazes me is you have a very profitable industry. They make a lot of money. They are very popular, but i think their popularity will continue to increase many people have a pleasant experience. They pay virtually no taxes in the United States, even though theyre based in miami and a couple other places. Everybody thinks theyre getting on an american ship, but theyre getting on a panamanian, or its always registered in some other country where there are no taxes and there is no sense of accountability or responsibility, and i say to myself why is it that they are so resistant to making some basic changes on things which are so obviously going to come back to haunt them . We understand that, you know, 90 plus or whatever of the whether its a 3,000person boat or a 6,000, and i think theyre now building them 6 to 7,000 passengers why, if youre making the money, you dont have to pay taxes, you dont pay the coast guard for when they come to bail you out and drag you or when the fbi is involved, you dont pay them. They have a free ride. They make a lot of money. They have a very good future, so why not, as a matter of business sense forget humanity for the moment, but just as a matter of business sense, wouldnt they take steps to clear up some of these problems weve been talking about . I mean, i remember when my wife and i i had never done cpr, and our children were in high school. We went and took a lesson in cpr, which i got through, and i think probably three days later i couldnt have repeated what i did, because there wasnt a focus. There wasnt the same focus, because it was all something that might or might not happen. Why dont they make these voluntary make these things . Why dont they inform you . And on i remember ive said this a number of times in this committee, i come from a state with a lot of coal, and coal is a dangerous occupation, but its one where miners can be kept safe if you ventilate the mines and you Pay Attention s operators for the most part dont, they just get the coal out, and the miners take their losses and get blag lung and die from black lung. But the Companies Continue to be profitable. I dont understand why the cruise industry doesnt spend the money to fix some of these problems, because it would inure to their benefit, and would protect them from people like senator blumenthal and i to force them to do they just push us away. They dont want to talk. They dont want to discuss, just like they didnt want to react to any of your situations. In modern society, if youre in bankruptcy, you know, that argues for not doing anything, but if youre not in bankruptcy, youre making a lot of money and these are really good people that you have, why wouldnt you do that . I simply dont understand that. That sense of frustration s. The sort of corporate mentality stuff youre from the federal government, dont do anything about this. What youre doing is talking about regulation. Well, yeah, we do regulation, and we did it on the airlines. When pilots were flying way over their limit of being alert and they had a big airplane crash in lack wanna, new york, wherever that is, a lot of people were kill killed, and the pilots had gone, you know, a long time without sleep. So we put on requirements. They have to have before they get on an airport to fly, they have to have an eighthour sleep. If they dont sleep, okay, they dont sleep, but they have to have that time to be able to sleep, with the time on each side to prepare and to get up from that. Thats not a if thats government running rough shod over an industry, that is just not true. Its just not true. Its common sense protection of passengers. The airlines are the safest thing you possibly can run on. You wouldnt know that Reading International news recently. You stay away from certain countries and airspaces, but i dont understand why they wont do it. So the one of the reasons weve had this hearing today and youve been patient enough to put up with it and answer questions and tell your stories, is to put certain colleagues on this committee in a position where they need to help. And one of our colleagues said, well, we should this is a separate bill and you shouldnt attach it to the coast guard bill. Everybody knows that the coast guard bill is a bill that youve got to pass. The cruise ships want the coast guard bill to pass. But if you separate them, the coast guard bill will pass, the cruise ship bill will get flushed down the toilet. So you dont allow that to happen. You hold them accountable. Its done in life, its done in business, its done in family situations. You have to take responsibility. So ive got a lot of questions here. But i dont feel the need to ask them, because most of them have been in part responded to. This whole idea of a hotel versus a city, you know. Its mystifying. When we had our last hearing, the lobbying organization sat where you were sitting, ms. Ware. You may want to move, and just dismissed it all. Were doing everything we possibly can. People have a responsibility for their own safety. Well, thats true, but you know when General Motors is discovering that when certain things dont work, the entire nation gets interested, theyre pulled before congress and they have to end up paying a whole lot of money to change their ways and to learn how to run a company with the consumer in mind. Ill give you one final example. People often dismiss people who are trying to help consumers, protect consumers. This useding to more business oriented. Now we have tried to make it people oriented, consumer oriented, thats what its meant to be. I give you this just to contemplate, because it sounds so stupid, but it affects peoples lives directly. Its so nasty. People move, so they call a mover. No the in all cases, but in some cases the mover comes, they sign a contract, they load all their belongings onto the van. The mover goes five miles, goes into an alley, calls them up and says were going to triple your price. Sorry about that, were going to triple your price, you have to pay us three times than the contract you signed. You can go get a lawyer if you want, but youre not going to get your furniture back, because you dont know where we are. Its a horrible thing. You just dont let that stuff pass by so were making life more difficult for them and better for the consumers. I dont know you all made a trip with good spirits, with good thoughts, with enthusiasm and ran into terrible problems, and there was nobody to help you. If you had been going on a little row boat, that would have been something, but you were going on a huge corporations ship who had all the experience and the wherewithal, the money, to solve your problems if you ran into them. But they just didnt. The tent city concept that you were talking about. I mean, thats famous throughout the world, because it was such a vile thing to do to people. Corporations have to be responsible. This committee economists, as do others in other areas, to do oversight, to find out if theyre carrying out their businesses properly, with care, some mistakes can happen, we understand that, but when theres this attitude of just neglect and i was asking be hind me and im not sure of the answer, but i sort of remember the last hearing, that when you signed the ticket with that invisible print, that in many pages, you give away the liability and all the rest of it, your ability to have recourse, but i believe and if im wrong, but this is what i remember it was in the signing of the ticket. After your signature was on the ticket, it was then that you were able to not take, you know you were able to take the sticky covering of the next page which had that liability clause, which of course you werent going to look at and couldnt read it even if you decided you wanted to, and then you could see it, if you could see it. Its awful behavior, if it was true. Im not saying it was true. I remember that is the case, but i may be wrong. But i dont have to be right about that. Because what happened to you was just simply wrong in a modern society in corporations that are doing well, or are on the upswing and have every right to want to make people have a happy experience and make sure that they do. Everybody knows that not everything works out the way it should. They be problems. You know, four days waiting, stranded, a mother who didnt get any attention, and a 15yearold girl who gets raped, in your own case. I mean, its just you dont let stuff like that pass. Particularly if it happens with a certain degree of consistency. So thats why weve had this hearing, and its all in the record. Everything you said is all in the record that bill, if were going to pass a coast guard bill, which i tell you those cruise lines want, because they need that coast guard, and our coast guard is so broke, it has ships that are very, very old, but theyre still functioning and still used by the cruise ship lines. The minority lead er asking, wh cant we do them separately . He had a very clear purpose for asking that question. He knew if we did it separately, the coast guard thing would pass, the cruise ship wouldnt. Its might job as chairman to make sure that we dont play the game that way. So i just want to totally thank y you, one, talking about experiences that are not comfortable to talk about, doing so in a forthright way, for educating this panel, and believe me just because not all the members are here, a lot of the staff is, and its always the staff that really counts. If youve got good staff, youll be a good senator. So im not going to carry this hearing forward, because i think the points this need to be made have been made. Thats because you have made them clearly and with firmness and with certainty, and with a degree of anger, which i share. So wherever you have come from, go back safely. And i thank you. This hearing is adjourned. Thank you. The nat Veterans Affairs commit aye today unanimously voted 140, to send to the full senate the nomination of Robert Mcdonald to be the next Veterans Affairs secretary. Chairman Bernie Sanders of vermont posting a statement on his website saying mr. Mcdonald brings us two very important qualities. Number one, he is familiar with the military. The other is he has been the ceo of a major american corporation. That experience gives him the tool ko create a well run and accountable v. A. That vote by the full senate is expected either this week or next. During a House Foreign Affairs Committee Hearing today, a state Department Official told lawmakers that the situation in iraq is extremely serious, and that the militant group i. S. I. S. Causing the violence is no longer just a terrorist organization bus a fullblown army. Isil is al qaeda, it may have changed its name and broken with senior leadership, but it is al qaeda in its doctrine, ambition and increasingly in its threats to u. S. Interests. In fact it is worse than al qaeda. Simp lie read what its leader says, and it is important to Pay Attention to what he says, because we cannot underestimate estimating the gots, capacity and reach of this organization. Baghdadi, may 2011 eulogized the death of osama bin laden. He reg lay an in hi spied swirl herri, hedsh isil is no longer simply a terrorist organ asian. It is now a fullblown army seeking to establish a selfgonching state through the tigris and euphrates valley. It now controls much of eastern siree. In january it moved into al anbar province. On june 10th it moved on mosul. All of that hearing is available on our website, cspan. Org. Thursday on washington journal mike conaway joins us to talk about the latest on gases a and ukraine. Raul grill havela discussion the influgs of immigrant children and efforts to improve the quality of life in the souths eightstate delta region. Washington journal airs ever morning. 40 years ago American History tv revisits 1974 in the final weeks of the nixon administration. This weekend. Hose judiciary committee, as it considers impeachment of the president and the charge of abuse of power. What you have here are what the framers had in mind. Yeses about whether the findings were indeed impeachable, and thirdly how do we prove that Richard Nixon knew about them and even authorized them . Watergate 40 years later, sunday night at 8 00 eastern on American History tv on cspan3. The 9 11 dmigs released a new report on the nations current threats and Homeland Security challenges ten years after the commission issued recommendation for reforming the u. S. Intelligence committee in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks coming up well hear from the director the National Intelligence followed by a panel on congresss role in overseeing the homeland Security Department. This is 90 minutes. Well, thank you very much. I apologize for being late. I was earning my paycheck in the white house, so im sure you understand. I do want to thank chairman keen and vice chairman hamilton and the 9 11 commissioners. Actually, i think the right thing to thank them for is their love of our condition. Thats been manifested obviously in each case in many, many ways, but particularly their commitment when they were commissioners, when that was going on, but even more importantly, i think is the sustainment of that commitment, which i think at it is roots, they would never say it, but i think reflects love of their country. Also, you feel obliged to support to thank them for their support for the continued support of the Intelligence Community and our National Security structure. The past for you days and weeks have been intense with world events so i appreciate the chance to talk about the journey the Intelligence Committee has taken over the past decade. And like all such journeys, this is one thats a work in progress. Today we face the most diverts threats you have seen in my 51 years in the intel business. I started using that line in the misdemeanor st. Of the arab spring events years ago. Im still using that line, because its still true. The terrorist threat to the United States is still very, very real, and ill speak more to that in a moment. The threat were facing are more diverse than they were three years ago or at any time since i started in this business in 1963. These recent world events show how complex or challenges are. As the report that has been put out by commenting on the tenyear anniversary of the commission, the terrorist threat is not diminishing. It is spreading globally and morphing into more and more socalled franchises. The rise of isil is particularly of concern, and the literally thousands of foreign fighters who have gravitated to syria and returning to their countries of origin are of grave concern to us. Again, just to repaeat as the report states, the threat is not diminishing. I would cite, for example working through what i referred to as the perfect storm of factors that cut into our capabilities. Weve lost intelligence despite what you we have lost intelligence sources because of the unauthorized disclosures. We have made some policy choices that limit where and what we can collect. Intelligence collection and sharing have become more difficult. Internationally and also with domestic partners in the commercial sector. And to round out the perfect storm are the major significant budget cuts that we have taken in the last three years and are forecasted to take more budget cuts in the future. The bottom line of this perfect storm, as a nation, in my opinion, we are accepting more risk than we were three years ago or even one energy. What i was supposed to talk about this morning is where with, as an Intelligence Community are, are actually in much better shape to address they challenges than we were in 2001. I do want to pay credit thats why i wanted to come here briefly, to pay due credit to the work of the 9 11 commission, which i think has been critical for setting the direction of ic reform. For quote a passage from the report, the commissioners wrote the agencies cooperated some of the time, but even such cooperation, as there was, is not the same as joint action. When agents cooperate, one defines the problem and seeks help with it. When they act jointly, the problems and actions are defined differently from the start president with the report as a compass and the irtpa legislation as the map, i think the ic has charted the course of integration, and thats been my mantra, my emphasis since i started this job almost four years ago. In the summer of 2001, which the commissioners described as blinking red, we were rather disconnected as a community. 60 of our workforce, though, that weve hired since 9 11 tend to look upon integration as a reality. They come to us integration minded, if i can use that phrase, rather than as some distant vision in the future. For my part, they have been a huge impetus towards promoting integration in the community. Were responding to threats, cooperating on developmental projects and executing operations that we wouldnt have envisioned 13 years ago. Weve evolved targeting, for example, as a new discipline tracking the digit at trail elusive signals and increase gill interconnected databases. We have found and are exploiting the value of Financial Intelligence and threat financial. We found ubl, and we worked to dismanting the inch from a structure around him. Over the past year we faced leaks, and operational chalenings as an integrated community. I have to say i am proud of the community in a way weve addressed these challenges and great men and women we have in the Intelligence Community. As an interesting grated Intelligence Community, we made tough decision on decreases budget, cutting entire programs and capabilities, rather than just taxing on everyone giveth at the office basis, which we have traditional done. Weve had made decisions to declassified more than 3,000 pages of documents previously classified, because the best way to deal with the misconceptions that resulted from the leaks, i believe, is to increase transparency now we approach problems by bringing together people with different backgrounds. We put our best and most appropriate icwide resources up against or toughest challenges. None of this is to say not to overdo it on the cheer leading business, none of this is to say we are perfect as an ic. We arent. No complex organization com posed of 1,000 human beings will ever be perfect. We have some serious challenges in frf us. To meet the challenges, we will have to reshape the capabilities. Were developing multisystem thats about all i say about it, but this is going this is a big idea for intelligence. And we are now using crosscommunity groups making those capabilities integrate to our new systems. The other major why the i have to mention here, which i dont think would have happened in the absence of the way were configured today, which is isight. The Intel Community it will integrate the entire ic. This will take integration to the next level the objective here is to put all the intelligence agencies on a common i. T. Network and infrastructure. Apart from the fishes that will accrue from this, saving money, reducing our dependence on large cadre of i. T. Contractors, it will both promote integration, promote sharing, and security with the attendant security enhancements we intend to built into this. The Bumper Sticker is, you know, tag the data, tag the people. So we can audit the data, and we can audit with whom we are sharing that data which of course has obvious implications in the postsnowden revelations era. So i started my career in 1963, in the signal intelligence business, which we never talked about, ever. Its doing things like this for me is genetically an tithe cal, and im sure the young jim clapper would be shocked at the level of detail we talk about in 2014, but this is indicative of the huge changes that are taking place with respect to transparency. We as an i. C. Depend on the trust of the public and youre foreign and domestic partners, and certainly other elected representatives in congress. We cant do our job without that. So i believe were heading down this path, regardless of the leaks of the past year, and i know were going to have to continue to be transparent as we go forward. But in truth well never reach intelligence nirvana. As we push forward with integration, we will make mistakes and fall short, but being a learning organization, we will profit from them and get better. So this voyage of intelligence integration, as i say, is a journey in progress. So to conclude, i want to thank the 9 11 commissioners, again those who are here and those who arent, for inviting me to spend some time with you this morning, more importantly to giving us a compass, a means to find our way forward in our integration journey. And i am both proud and humbled to represent the Intelligence Community and the men and women in it this morning. So to the commissioners, thank you for what you did for our community and our nation ten years ago, and thank you for what you continue to do in that spirit. And thanks for your wisdom. Thanks for having me. This panel is going to focus on one of the last major unimplemented recommendation of the commission, simplifying and consolidating oversight of Homeland Security. That doesnt sound like the sexiest topic, but it is one that is important and if addressed, solves real needs facing the country. Every Nonpartisan Group that has looked at this issue has come to the same conclusion. From hart rudman, which warned us about the problem before 9 11, through the commission, through groups both on the left and the right from heritage to brookings. Everyone who has looked at this has said this is a same thing. This is a problem and we need to solve it. The most recent group is the task force which joined that distinguished group of saying with congressman hamilton and with governor cain, the country is not as safe as it could or should be, because we have not reformed oversight of the department of Homeland Security. We placed an add using that quote showing that not only do the past dhs secretaries support oversight reform, did you so too does a whos who of the National Security commission. Its my pleasure to introduce shivan gore madge, a reporter for wall street journal. She won the 2006 delta ki award for washington correspondents for her coverage of the National Security agency, and in 200, received a special citation, in National Magazine writing. She will moderate our panel. Thank you so much, and thanks for joining us for our, i guess, officially unsexy panel, but congressional reform is probably the most highprofile reform that has never really at all been embraced. In their tenyear report, looking at the current state of place, the commission cites theres actually been a proliferation of committees that are now responsible for counterterrorism, Homeland Security types of issues. Were now up from 88 to 92, so i guess thats some kind of accomplishment we will discuss here. The report also highlights another congressional oversight problem in another realm, which is actually too little congressional oversight when it comes to certain types of programs like sensitive intelligence programs, particularly as weve seen recently those that were highlighted in the snowden revelations, where we saw some we have seen and are seeing significant congressional blowback to the way that some of those programs have been conducted, in particular the secrecy around them. With the distinguished panel there he managed a. Hes bell known as both a former sixterm congressman and former member of the 9 11 commission. Hes also served as president on the National Policy and now senior director, and serves on the National Commission on the future of the fbi. He served as the first Homeland Security secretary, so hes done a lot of work in the trenches. Earning the bronze star for valor, the combat infantry badge and the vietnamese cross of gallantry. He served six terms as a congressman, now ceo of ridge fwlobl, where he advises businesses and governments on security issues, and hes a partner at ridge, schmidt, Cybersecurity Firm he founded with former adviser howard schmidt. And we also have ken waynestein, two former Homeland Security advisers on this panel in president george bushs second term. Prior to that post, 19 years at the Justice Department, including the first attorney general for National Security at wickership and taft, also a member of the directors Advisory Board of the National Counter terrorism center, a member of the Public Interest declassification board, a member of the cia councils external Advisory Board and chairman of the legal panel of the National Security agency Advisory Board. Thank you. Im delighted and honored to join with secretary ridge and again. I want to talk about the this is a boring and nonsexy topic. The 9 11 Commission Said the system was blinking red, hair was on fire, something terrible was about to happen. We now have seven different commissions and groups that have told congress you need to change and reform the way you oversee our Homeland Security. Or else something bad might happen. Now we find ourselves five, 10, 13 years Later Congress has still refused to act. They have acted to reform other agencies, and they have steadfastedly refused to change themselves. That must change. We say that very specifically in this record. Second we say its important, because the work that members of congress the work they do, the men and women that work up there, worked on committees that oversee the department of agriculture or education or department of Homeland Security. Now with things changing so rapidly in the world. With i. S. I. S. Or isil, taking over lard swathing of territory. Al qaeda expanding, cybersecurity coming at us like a speeding bullet every day, we need a department that can act quickly. And has vision and a budget. That is unsustainable. We need a smaller committee, an integrated committee, a committee with experts that can help set the bucket and vision for the department of Homeland Security as it entering into now these new threats and the challenges of these new threats. Thirdly, its important, because as Congress Makes all these different people come up to 92 Different Committees and subcommittees, we waste their valuable time. With waste the resources. We waste millions of dollars in taxpayers money, and we hear congress all the time about waste, fraud and abuse. Waste, fraud and abuse, how bad that is. Here is a great example of waste, fraud and abuse, and how congress could do it better. Were hopeful by talking about it in these terms and have secretary ridge talk about from his perspective why this must be done now. Not five years from now, not ten years from now after an attack. Why it must be now. Let me try to supplement his observations with a few of my own. This is the Bipartisan Policy Center, so im going to take a leap of faith, and on behalf of secretary johnson, secretary napolitano, secretary chertoff and your truly, ply plead today isnt to you, but the leadership of the house an the senate do something with regard to the massive inefficient, ineffective oversight procedures dealing with the department of Homeland Security. We speak with one voice across the board, republicans and democrats on this. It requires some leadership in the house and in the senate. Its structure, its organizational, its not sexy, but as tim pointed out, i cannot imagine in my wildest imagination i have only come to one conclusion as to the either inability or unwillingness of congress to recon figure it chef so we can be a more effective partner in the maturation of the department, so we can be more effective leader in dealing with, frankly the escalading threat environment from the physical to the cyber over which the department of Homeland Security has so much a control and jurisdiction. I can thing of only one reason. Its about turf t tim and i both sad in the consequence for 12 years, proud to have done it. Tim and i would tell you that lee hamilton would tell you, on the way to the floor after we vacated hearings, people would be expressing their profound distaste and displeasure there are too many committees among too many subcommittees, i go in for half an hour, 45 minutes particularly when cspan is there, and i move on. People do not develop centers of excellence. Thats not a criticism, that a fact of life. So with the Bipartisan Policy Center is simply saying, in a post9 11 world. Where the threat has evolved, both in terms of numbers of al qaedalike organization, bakley the connective tissue of al qaeda is in about 16 different regions 16 different countries. One could argue the terrorist threat is even greater than it was on september 11th, september 12th, 2001. So its a matter of turf on the hill. Its absolute imperative to maximize the efficiency and the effectiveness of this department, given its escalating role within the safety and security of this country, to just think not about the turf that you sit on, and the committees you sit on, but the turf are obliged to do everything you can to secure, and that is the United States. Its a leadership thing, folks. Its not that it cant be done. Its about generating the will to get it done. Hopefully Public Forums like this and i mean, if you think about it, can there about two more influential people in the committee around them than the governor and the congressmen, tom and lee, who were asked by the congress of the United States to pull together an incredible board. Give us your recommendations. Tell us what you think, the fact theyve done it and reiterated it time and time again, four secretaries of the department of Homeland Security, and you have the Intelligence Community, you have military leaders, the Law Enforcement community. This is a consensus, bipart scorch senses, republicans and democrats all across, those whose responsibility it is to secure america to the United States congress saying you need to change your jurisdiction of your committees, its too diffuse, too disparate. Im not going to highlight anybody, but you will have people done end runs around the secretary. Theyll go to the hill, because theyve got their own little relationships with Committee Chairmans and committees. Its time that they accepted the unanimous the unanimous belief of people on both sides of the aisle change the oversight. I thank the Bipartisan Policy Center for allowing us to publicly exhort, plead, beg, ask, demand. If you want to make america more secure . One of the most importance things you can do is create a relationship between the congress of the United States and the new department. Listen, its still a new department, its still maturing. They still have a lot of work to do. If you want to make it most effective, ive got to change the oversight and change the commit aye structures. Thats certainly one of the most impassioned advocates. I guess its really frustrating for me. I look at the governor and lee and i say to myself, congress you asked these men to assemble a committee and tell us what we need to do to make america safe. Well, they have done that, they keep saying it publicly, so congress, i suggest you read the report and do what they recommended you to do. Its not that difficult. Ken, would you like to add something . Ditto. Thank you very much itches thats not nearly as passionate. Ditto is that better . Its hardly hard to add to that. First of all, thank you for having me. This is an importance event. Just on the uuin a nimity front, side of asked to talk about this issue, and as siobhan said im in about 35 Advisory Boards, where i routinely get together with folks from views across the spectrum. We talk about things. Theres always some high level consensus, but then when you get bund to the granularity, theres a real difference of opinion. Thats the beauty of those things, you can hash out differences, but come to a common ground. This is the first time i went to a session like that, and we ended up with absolute unanimity on every granular point that we talked about. There was no difference of opinion. We all had different ideas how it could be effectuated, but in terms of the need to make this happen, it was absolutely across the board. As for this group, im the executive branch guy. Spent my whole government career in the executive branch, so usually i would be the last person in the world to be demanding or asking for comprehensive effective congressional oversight, right . But in fact thats the plea im making an an executive branch person. I came out of the Justice Department where you have a Pretty Simple oversight structure, you have the judiciary committees, Intelligence Committees, you know who your overseers are, and you knew you had folks like sheldon in the white house, who knew the issues you were dealing with, and that meant effective oversight. That meant tough questioning and foolthrough. It meant a deep understanding on the part of the members about our mission, about uss individuals, and that was real oversight. I dont see that with the dhs situation. I get it that its not easy to rectify this problem on weve heard bl the turf issues. There are obviously issues on the hill that my copanelists can speak to more knowledgeably, but you look at the diversity of issues. Everything from Border Patrol to fema, secret service, such a wide range of activities that its understand able that the oversight not only just pulling together the challenge of pulling together legacy jurisdictions into one or several places, but just the subject matter. Theyre so diverse. Were not trying to diminish the difficulty of this challenge, but we do want to emphasize the need to meet the challenges. Just to tick off some of the issu issues. I can tell you first hand when i was talking to folks about the difficulty of answering the myriad oversight demands. It was a huge drain on resource. A few years ago there were records about hour thistle declined to appear on a subcommittee of aviation, because he said the department didnt believe it was a proper committee. Whether it was or wasnt, that was a telling event. Koran is the most accommodating duty calls, salute and go forward guy you will ever meet. When he got to the point where, look, i cannot appear, i have to do my day job and you really need to get your shop in order, that was a shot across the bow for congress, and we hope they heard it. Theres also the diffuse message the the executive branch gets. Youre not as an Agency Getting a clear direct message from congress as to where you should go, as Michael Scherr off sell, when you hear a lieutenant of voices, you dont here any voices. I think its handicapped the department to some extend. And then i think you know, there are also issues of lack of having a champion on capitol hill. Its important when a department had one committee or two that really are the champions for that department. Once again particularly point for a agency like dhs, which is really in its adolescence, if you think about it. The last thing i would point out, you know, theres legislation that needs to get passed, that we would like to have thor easesed. But theres legislation that needs to get passed right in the wheel house of dhs, like cyber. The fact that we dont have clear clines of authority on capitol hill, i think thats an sure. Thats been a problematic delay which will go a long way to meet what is a very real threat the so there are reline implications. I agree it may not sound terribly sex counter, but really fundamental. Have we convinced you this is a dynamic issue . Yes, its clearly dynamic. Clearly. Getting more granular, what would you how would you reshape the congressional oversight . Are we talking one committee . Two . How would you get there . Maybe well start with tim and move down the lines. While we have recommended a certain set of changes for the congress, i think basically this is going to be congresss decision in the reform process. They set up the rules that we voted on some time in january. Whether they reduce this to one or two committees, in the house and senate, they have to reconcile how that would work in the jurisdictional systems. Were not going to at this point prescribe directly where they should remove it. What do you think it should look lying, just personally . First of all it should be a lot smaller. It should this be 92. It should be a handful of committees, ideally down to one or two. It should have a number of people on it that are experts, that develop expertise on Homeland Security and cyberissues, as all three of us have talk about, the changes are coming at us very, very quickly. People are over in syria as we speak, training, radicalizing. Mr. Combe of the nibble said a few weeks ago theres scores of people coming back into the of america with this radicalization and this bombmaking skill what is the dhs roe . What is the Intelligence Communitys role . Was the fbis role . If congress isnt overseeing this, giving d had the s specific authorities and budget, nobody is seek this. America is vulnerable. We dont have any one committee that has passed legislation that is telling our new Homeland Security Security Department exactly what their role should be in this effort to protect the United States of america. So experts, people on the committee that are devoted to this, that spend hours and hours every week, getting to know these issues, and going down to the department of Homeland Security and having the appropriate oversight hearings and the final point, this is so critical. Theres so many secret things involved in this. This is not like the Education Committee i sat on where most of your oversight has gone publicly and we all know, you know, what reforms, what were working on. What amendments need to take place to reform our Public School system. We talk on the department of Homeland Security and Intelligence Committee about very secret things. Very, ve very, ve very, very sensitive things with our community that have to be protected. Getting to know those issues and doing the architecture thats put together in states were or wherever it might be at the nsa, if those people arent doing their jobs and serving on these committees year to year and knowing what questions to ask and knowing how to hold the executive Branch Accountable and having tough hearings on them when they overextend privacy issues then no one is doing their job. It is very important that we get going now on it. That if they vote on air resolution in january to take this issue on, that process has the start now including key senatortion and congressmen that sit on some of these committees and will stog give up jurisdiction and oversight and finally, i say, come membersed the think tanks in town. Weve got brookings that is endorsed this on the left. And weve got heritage on the right is that has come together and endorsed this concept. If they can do it and the think tank community, why in the world cant our congress do this and republicans and dat democrats come across the board . Think tanks dont chair committees. A couple of things. First of all to put it in perspective for you and my successors in interest have endured the same challenges. While i was secretary, we were conducting two wars in afghanistan and iraq. And i was up on the hill probably a factor three or more than Donald Rumsfeld was frankly because the Committee Structure in terms of interacting between the legislative branch and executive branch has been narrowed down over a period of time and making a general observation we still have a congress with which i was privileged and honored to serve with a Committee Structure operating out of the 21st century. The challenges relating to the United States federal government in the 21st century, not just within Homeland Security but across the board, cry out desperately for rethinking how the legislative branch exercises its constitutionally delegated authority and responsibility to oversee the executive branch. Ill focus on Homeland Security. I understand there are different jurisdictions because of the multitasking nature of the department. If i could wave the magic wand i would probably have no more than two authorizing committees and one primary committee. I would have a couple of select a couple of subcommittees in the different it might be clusters of responsibilities. But because of the nature of the overlapping jurisdiction, and again, the Committee Structure is archaic and antiquated and not terribly effective and were not go to go into why they didnt Pay Attention to what was going on at the va and why they didnt Pay Attention to what was going on elsewhere. Its antiquated and out of date and not terribly effective so i would probably if i could have my way, have a couple of those subcommittees and then where you had overlapping jurisdiction with justice, somebody from the Justice Committee with a primary responsibility outside of dhs will be a member of that subcommittee. Frankly its going to take some thinking about this who should serve where but at the end of the day you could interlock these other full committees into the subcommittees of the department so youd have the advantage of that multiple jurisdictional point of view all embedded in the same structure. So if i could have my preference would be one fairly large committee, multiple subcom subcommittees but you made sure part of the subcommittees and the Real Committee you had some overlapping jurisdiction so you could have a more comprehensive look at the totality of the responsibility of the department. And the precedent for that intelligence in Armed Services and jew judiciary. Ken . To add on to something that he said about the importance of having people in the oversight committees who really are steeped in the subject matter of what you do, keep in mind what oversight is at least from the perspective of the executive branch. Committees members who know how to ask the right questions and followup to get to the soft spots of your operations. And find out where there are issues and where things can be improved. And you cant do that as a member with talking points. You have to be immersed in the substance of what it is that accuracy does. And i can tell you, and i mention lt Sheldon White house because i dealt a lot with him when i was in the Justice Department about surveillance matters. He knew that area. Chapter and verse. When he asked a question in a hearing, he asked a question and i give a response i knew i was going to then get a followon question whatever i whatever issue i didnt address in my questions. Same thing when i got questions for the record or written questions for the record. So you had to prepare and respond very differently to somebody like him than you did to somebody who would be a parttime oversight person who really doesnt spend a lot of time in your world because that person is not going to know to ask those followon questions. So i just want to take it back to what oversight is. Its asking the tough questions to help agencies improve and if you dont have the knowledge because youre not doing it day in and day out youre not going to know to ask the right questions. Given the difficulty that congress has had organizing itself to pass legislation, are we surprised that it hadnt embraced measures that would require busting through turf and is it realistic to expect it could happen, say, on the timeframe that you outlined . Look, i mean, it is absolutely realistic to ask the people that represent our American People to do their jobs. To reorganize. To be a network fighting a network of terrorists. We dont need these massive bureaucracies here in the United States overseeing the Committee Structure overseeing a terrorist group, a cell of peopling that get into our crew that are coming into our country as we speak. We know from what i said before, that terrorists have gone to syria where theres an incubator training these folks to learn new bomb skills and to target the United States of america. We know theyre targeting the Aviation System here. Theyre coming here, some of them, are here and congress, what does it take for them to then realize, we shouldnt have 92 Different Committees overseeing this threat of a few dozen people coming in this country. Theres no excuse for this. There really isnt. And what a shame it would be if the next 9 11 type of commission writes a report that says, okay, ten years ago we saw the failures in the executive branch in our intelligence agencies. Today its the that resulted in scores of people. 15 years ago we were warned about that. The 9 11 commission has warned about that. What does it take . So its, yes, it is realistic and as tom said earlier, it is realistic to expect our democrats and republicans to Work Together on National Security issues. To protect our country. It may not be realistic for us to think that theyre going to come up with a bill on, you know, agree on abortion issue or agree on the definition of marriage. But it is realistic to expect them to do this kind of job. So were hopeful that members on the house and senate side will start to meet in august and september, maybe talk about their ideas for condensing of the oversight. Share their ideas with Different Committee heads. Come up with plans and maybe that circulated sometime in the fall and then new members would vote on it in january and maybe theres a way to hold new members accountable on Something Like this. Its a National Security battle. Not just simply about how congress is organized. And what do you sees the role of the executive branch in pushing ahead on this issue . I think as i tried to articulate, the executive branch has a strong interest in having a rationalized oversight program. I know jay johnson, his folks are spending a lot of time at hearings they think are probably duplicative and not necessary and would love to do something about it. I think it is incumbent on the administration to make this a priority and use this to push congress. Leadership congress ha