Transcripts For CSPAN2 Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20240622

Still cant [inaudible] why the looting, why the violence . Angry about the way were being viewed as not people. A recent poll finds most americans believe Race Relations in this country are bad. More than 50 of whites think so. More than twothirds of blacks feel this way. People are angry. Where we go from here, i dont know. Theres one race, the human race. Weve been together and apart more than 239 years, part of this great experiment, the United States of america. [cheers and applause] there have been incredible gains on many fronts. Change has come to america. [cheers and applause] and yet we still have seen dramatic and dangerous instances. The parishioners have bibles. Dylann roof had his 45 caliber black pistol. The pain that this causes us all as a loss, this is to the entire society. Its beyond my comprehension how anybody could do the act that this young man did. A poll shows of 0 of white 60 of white people are uncomfortable discussing race with somebody of another race. The number jumps to 71 for grabbing blacks. Give me a hug. Thats what we need to do. We need to talk about this. Race, an honest conversation. Hello, im bruce johnson, and thank you for joining us out there. Lets get right to it, lets get started. Why are we not talking about race . White and black people, for starters. Are we afraid of anybody . My colleagues from the washington post, clinton yates. I dont think people are necessarily as afraid of things as they are uninformed. The average american has no idea what the history of discrimination is in this country. You go back all the way to native americans and to this point now. If people were more informed, i think they would understand not everything is a personal indictment. Its a matter of discussing how weve come along as people together and what this nation is now. Professor at american university, you know, a lot of people, ike, have nothing to do with what happened all those hundreds of years ago. Why am i being blamed or targeted . Nobodys being blamed. All of these injustices, all of the discrimination, its coded and boiled into our present day. You cant talk about it without the context of our history. We have been in what i call the 51st state of america on race, the state of denial. Its time that we get out of denial and talk about these issues that have a real impact on peoples lives. Marjorie litman, an adviser in the district. A lot of people talk about this over kitchen table, but they wont talk about it with somebody who doesnt look like them. Its hard. Its hard to talk about race, and we should remember that its hard, that were doing something hard. Were overcoming generations and generations of the ways weve been taught not to do something. When we step out is and do something. But we also have to remember that race is not a single topic. Its made up of many topics, and one of its big subdivisions is gender. So race and gender do go together, in my mind. Okay. Everybody take a look at this graphic. Cbs News New York times poll asking if president obamas brought whites and blacks closer together. Some of these might surprise you. 15 of americans polled say yes. 47 say there have has been no difference and, get this, 34 of respondents say we are further apart. Ben jones, whats the problem here . Why are we apart . Youre a former democratic congressman from the state of georgia. Why are we further apart . I think it has to do with inculcated urban tensions. Which are, in fact, part of a history of session redivision segregation in the south and de facto segregation in the north which is something we dont talk about a lot. The president s just a victim of circumstances. I dont think that, you know, hes led on race. I dont think hes really bringing people together. Hes got a lot of other things to be worried about, and these occasions recently, particularly in these past few months, have divided the nation beyond his control to bring it together. Then let me ask you this, okay, you dont think the pass it back to the row behind you. You dont think the president has led on race. Scott, back in 2009 97 of the africanamericans that went to the polls voted for barack obama. They voted in a higher percentage than whites for the first time in history. Were they expecting too much . What did they want from this president . Well, i think they wanted unification, they wanted leadership, and they wanted a Better Community for their community. That being said, the reality is that Barack Obamas election was powerful and an excellent opportunity to address the ration question, but i think the race question, but i think black folks and white folks because of his election stopped working on it or working towards it. I think africanamericans got comfortable thinking life was going to get better on its own, and White Americans said, listen, were getting rid of the guilt, because we got a black president. Im going to venture to say if barack obama had portrayed himself as the africanamerican that blacks wanted to see, he would not have gotten elected. A lot of white people would have been been uncomfortable, right or wrong . I would completely agree with you. I think barack obama did a good job of positioning himself in the middle, middle, and thats d some problems because its allowed race issues to sort of rise. And we havent been having this conversation that is necessary, right . And as we so as we see with all the brutality pass that mic over to chris. Go ahead, scott. Yeah, thats true, but barack obama doesnt have to have a language or a speech to support black causes. Im more concerned about his actions. What is his legacy of leadership in connection to black communities across this country . Thats what it should be judged upon, and thats why i think where i think hes had his challenges. Okay. And i dont think hes done enough. Crest, you are a conservative chris, you are a conservative republican . [inaudible] thats okay. Quite okay. Republicans probably bad enough. Barack obama got 43 of the white vote in the general election, okay, which means an awful lot of the majority of whites did not vote for him. How are white people viewing barack obama right now . Well, i can hardly speak for white folks. [laughter] theyre white democrat, and theyre going to tend to vote for the democrat running for office. I think the party faces the Republican Party faces a great dilemma here right now. The party is trying to do outreach to certain communities, but there are certain folks who dont care about reaching out to these commitments because think they they communities because they think they cant be won over. Part of the reason why barack obama is, opposition to him is racist is because of his race when, in fact, its because hes a member of the other party, and we live in a very partisan society right now. Ive got to jump in. I really think were overanalyzing this incredibly. You had the same problems with females and having glass ceilings as you do with race, and its because were over, were afraid to lose power. So whoever isnt afraid to lose power is going to create things where they make it difficult and they speak down. Barack obama has been a very good president , and thats the reason why this has come out. They want him to have a problem and he didnt do a gad job, but hes done an absolutely phenomenal job, and now we have to realize that maybe a black man can be a president , maybe a black man can lead, and maybe they are equal. So as the white man continues to lose power, youre going to entrench hold on a second, anybody back here want to join b in on this . Yes, i have give me your name. Brandon cooper, im vp of 100 black men in i think its a false choice. Whether obama has done good things or bad things, im with the 47 of people who think hes not a factor. I think its more than one person. Theres a lot of issues that need to be dealt with, and theyre not going to be solved or helped by one person. Who was writing all those articles saying its the end of racism, electing barack obama . Who wrote that . Who said that . Who bought into that . Who thought all of this were talking about tonight and going to be talking about was behind us . Anybody . Show of hands. Nobody. You didnt bereave it. [laughter] well, certainly jonathan [inaudible] organizer in prince georges county, i certainly didnt buy into it, and i certainly voted for barack obama. But i think the question and discussion not only should be about Race Relations, but it should be about racial justice. You know, too often we talk about racism in this country as a conversation or discussion. The issue that we really have from decades on, the summer of 67, the parallel to the summer of 2015, were not getting enough justice. For the first time, were starting to see some officers get locked up. Thats a good thing, and i want to see that type of accountability. Were going to take that up in the next segment. Let me ask you this, okay . Barack obamas past the Halfway Point of his second term, and weve got people in the streets marching, chanting black lives matter. Does that offend anybody, the slogan black lives matter . Youre offended by that . All the way in the back . Step up this way. Come all the way up here. Tell me who you are and is why you have a problem with the slogan black lives matter. My name is dan, and im from montgomery county, maryland, all lives matter. If you cant have an honest conversation about black lives mattering when over 1600 people this year have been shot in chicago and over 50 of the shooting victims are africanamerican males, just yesterday 12 people were shot in chicago. And you know what . That doesnt make national headlines, and its hardly can somebody respond to him why black lives slogan is good . When you look at whats happened, and ill follow up what jonathan said, theres not been black justice. Right now black folks are under attack. And while you may have six children and you can love your children equally, but you have to love them adequately. We have to put adequate attention to the issues that are in our black community. Trust me, i got it. Stay with me on this, black lives matter. Lets address that. Reverend . Hes got a problem with the slogan black lives matter. Dexter nutall, pastor in d. C. I would agree that all lives matter. However, i think you have to understand the source that that sentiment comes from. Which is a source of frustration and anger that goes back to a point of history in time where if you had literally a drop of blood, you were considered not to be equal, and racism was then condoned. So its woven into the fabric of who we are as a country. Thats one of the cornerstone foundations, and thats something that we need to come to grips heres what i took from it when i first heard black lives matter, its understood that white lives matter. What they were trying to draw attention to, hey, dont forget us, black lives matter too. Am i misunderstanding that . No. Theres a certain amount of privilege with saying all lives matter over black lives matter. I saw what i believe was an editorial cartoon where the equivalent city they did, it was an image of a black child saying black lives matter, and there was a white happened over that mouth a white hand over that mouth saying all lives matter. Theyre not mutually exclusive. If it were not necessary to say as much to begin with, then the notion of all lives matter wouldnt, you know, it wouldnt be an issue at all. I just want to address another quick point, by the way. I would caution to equate glass ceilings for black people and women. Black men were allowed to vote in this country before any woman was, so youve got to understand that male privilege is the first privilege, so its a tough comparison. I dont want to go too far with it. Reverend lamar, havent heard from you. Anyone who deals with the history of this nation, nothing the propaganda that we get in schools, but the real history of this country has to know theyre from the very beginning black lives were commodified. Black lives did not matter. They mattered only inasmuch as they produced wealth for those who owned black people. And it has only been a generation. My own father, im 40 years old, my father and mother went to segregated schools. America has only tried to remedy this in the law one generation ago. So to separate from the true history of this nation, i often call it, these are the United States of amnesia. Were not willing to deal with the true history and documentary evidence that got us to where we are. Dana williams, Howard University department chair. Thank you. There are a couple of things i wanted to mention, pick up the interesting point about frederick douglass, for instance, or the point you were making about the women and race. The point where we see the break with frederick douglass, for instance, with liberal whites in the north, for instance, is precisely over this issue of gender where white women in particular were saying we want the vote over black men. If we dont have the vote, certainly black men cant have the vote. So the historical significance of it, and just to reiterate the point you were making, the default position in this country has always been white. To put something in front of it means youre moving out of that default position. We still have to say that because the default position fundamentally is still white. Okay, i need you guys to look at this graphic, okay, because a lot of people think jobs underscore this. The economy was better and people were doing better, we wouldnt have this problem of im losing, so you must be winning at my expense. Take a look at these unemployment numbers today versus 2009 when president obama first or took office. Again, not blaming the president. The black Unemployment Rate today is 9 versus 13 in 2009. So it has come down. Hispanics, the number is 7 today compared to 10 in 2009, so its gotten better. For whites, Unemployment Rate is 4. 6 compared to 7 . Asians down to 4 compared to 6 sick years ago. Point being, the economy has gotten better. Were not making as much, were having to produce more, but it has gotten better. Chris, i want to come back to you. You were talking about this group of mite men, blue white men, blue collar white men who feel as though theyve been cheated, theyve been left out. Nobodys speaking to them. Who are we talking about . Well, first of all, in terms of, like, White Privilege no, were going to get to White Privilege later. We want to talk about the employment. Well, it plays into it because a lot of blue collar folks, White America in rural areas in particular, they dont feel like they have any real privilege. They find it hard to get a job, and theyre worried about jobs going overseas and so forth. Immigrations a big issue with them. They think other people are taking their jobs or jobs that they should be so its unfortunate. And the fact that we have a black president is playing in the system some ang suety. Folks feel like, hey, my situation hasnt improved, and mean while there are those people over there who are agitating more their rights as well. Theres a bit of dissonance there. But in terms of so whenever you have a situation where the economy is bad and where people feel like theyre left out of the economy, well guess what . People are going to find people to blame, and then people start blaming people coming across the border, and theyll be blaming people such as black folks. Okay. Hold on a second. We can come back to this. We can come back to this. Moving on. Youve no doubt seen the images on television that, you know, have been captured on cell phone and Police Cameras and mostly africanamerican males who have ended up dead in these incidents with police, ferguson, new york, cleveland, the university of Cincinnati Police officer, North Charleston and more and more and more, and youve seen how these cases have ended up or, you know, those that are pending. Take a look at this segment from baltimore. These officers did nothing wrong. Were disappointed in the apparent rush to judgment murder for all six of em. Black lives matter. I hope that as we move forward with this case everyone will respect due process these police is not bringing no peace in our streets. West baltimore is often referred to as the ore baltimore. Its not on the tourist maps. Black lives still matter people here feel left out. Excuse my french. F the leaders. The leaders is us right here they dont like Baltimore Police here they look at us they say they have good reason. Even before freddie gray died in police custody. They designated the area a high crime area. You know what happens . Theyre now able to stop anybody for any reason they sho choose. This is not something thats solved in any one day. More drug treatment, intervening in the lives of young kids, doing a better job of policing our own police. I kid you not, if you have not been to west baltimore, you do not know that part of west baltimore. Go back and watch the wire to get a better sense of whats going on there, and i was there covering it. Im going to michael wood again who is a former Baltimore City Police Officer. What is zero tolerance . I understand thats what police in baltimore were operating under. Theres community policing, and then theres this zero tolerance policing. They were doing it in new york under rudy giuliani. What was it in baltimore . What did it mean to you as a cop on the street . I had zero tolerance under martin omalley, but we dont have that system anymore, at least not officially. What you have in freddie gray is an instance where youre going after somebody that has, is walking the streets and supposedly has a knife in his pocket. And the cops stop him, go into his pocket, end up arresting him, throwing him into a metal box, tossing him around the streets and ending up in his death. And they will stand there on tv and say we did nothing wrong. Thats the epitome of White Privilege because theres not a chance that any of your kids end up in that situation. I want you to go back and tell me your experiences on the streets as a baltimore cop. What was going on . The Community Gives us one story, Baltimore Police give us another story. Cops do what we want because we have overcriminallization. What does that mean, you do what you want . So we have in a situation like sandra bland where no matter what happens, the police can justify detaining you for a period of time. So what that ends up enabling you to do is not necessarily look for the crime, but look for your chosen suspect, because etchs a criminal when you have everyones a criminal when you have laws that make everyone do who was your chosen suspect . In baltimore its black males 1621 years old because we have this false ideology that that thes the people thats the people who commit crimes. Thats because thats who were looking at. We create this cycle because were arresting people because essentially we ea rested them arrested them previously. Most of the crime is committed by the young africanamericans that we profile. How would you respond to that . Its mostly committed by them when we look at them. For instance. We know all the races carry drugs on them at about the same rate. If you were to stop somebody, anybody to look for drugs, you would pretty much find drugs on the races at the same rate. But we arrest more black males for that or pretty much anywhere because thats what were looking for. It is a false narrative. I will call them a liar if they say were looking for crime. From a former cop. What about reform . Wait a minute, what about reform . How do you begin to reform the Baltimore Police department and other Police Departments that might be similar . Yeah. If anyones heard me speak before, im really focused on getting the money out of politics. I dont think we can get politicians that are going to do what the people want, and we need toll missions who are going to make politicians who are going to make hard decisions, i dont know how we can do that when theyre supported by donors. Lets go to scott bolton over here. Weigh in on this. Ive represented defendants on both sides. The reality is though whether its baltimore or any other urban Police Department or small one, weve got to get rid of this us versus them mentality. I agree with the officer over here, but it goes beyond that. Us versus them, that is the thin blue line. That is on the tapes youre hearing and seeing where theres been a shooting, the other Police Officer walks up and says i got your back. Says dont say anything. Theyve got body cameras. But this us versus them mentality. When i was in Law Enforcement do you know what we called black and brown defendants along the halls of the das office and the Police Department departments . Mopes, perps, animals, dogs, okay . Regularly. If you do that internally and then you go patrol the streets externally, ive got to tell you youre going to think of those individuals the same way. Its not fair, and i cant paint a broad brush, but ive got to tell you, this us versus them mentality is a problem. Secondly, who are the Police Officers that were choosing . In the last six months where these shootingsing shootings theyve taken place, my goodness gracious. Weve got to do better of assessing who were giving a gun and a badge too, and thats a great way you begin to clean up these Police Departments. I dont know if youve head the interview, betsy, of officer involved in the ferguson shooting. Michael brown with the newspaper magazine. He says he wanted to work in the black neighborhoods. Thats where the fun was. To go back to your point. You can make your own rules there. Thats what he said, okay . We dont know what biases and prejudices people are bringing to the street with regard to Law Enforcement officers. And so what were talking about is leadership. And so last night we had a republican president ial candidate debate, and there was more time spent on the nwa movie commercial after a 30second segment in which this issue and the issue of Race Relations was not discussed. Thats the problem. We have a cancer. Organisms are killed from the inside out, and thats whats taking place in our country. Young man right here. Right here in the front. Go ahead. Hello. My name is juwan, i attend morehouse college. I believe that we have to, we cant wait for white people to fix our communities. I believe that our Community Organizers and the church and our politicians need to start working together now so that 30, 40 years from now well have stronger relations within our communities. Because thats the only way that black people will advance. And i dont believe that its something we can truly wait for another race or another culture to fix for us. The young lady right here. Hi, im olivia, and im from Baltimore City and a student at the university of maryland, and i would like to completely agree, because when i saw what happened in baltimore, i didnt see that as, you know can i saw that as someone being killed in my home, a family member, someone from Baltimore City. I grew up in park heights where everyone was so focused on the cvs burning that you cant be focused that a life was taken. And i was so shocked that my white friends werent saying anything about it because white silence is the killer. I believe that, wholeheartedly. I think its important. An interesting poll in the criminal Justice System, half of americans polled now say that the criminal Justice System in the u. S. Is biased against blacks. Thats up 35 from two years ago. Gentleman way over here in the coroner. Hi. Greg from montgomery county. I just wanted to talk about i think youre absolutely right, theres a serious problem with the administration of justice, and i think it comes back to the war on drugs and the inexplicable reason that we think as a society we can legislate individual voluntary or behavior x. If we change that, i think well see a lot of these problems go away. Okay. Lets go to facebook on this issue. Got a lot of comments. Among them, anthony dun can says you let the cops and the system chip away civil rights and soon no one will have rights. Marie brown says the discussion needs to take place on how to comply with Law Enforcement, how to teach respect for Law Enforcement. Its not about equal rights, she says. There is a distinct problem with how people are behaving when they encounter a Police Officer. Law enforcement, she says. Anybody want to weigh in on that . Look, you know, we can focus on Law Enforcement are, but that is just the most toxic tip of this iceberg. Because when you go and go for a job and you are discriminated against, its the same poison happening at a far more subtle form. When you go to rent an apartment to or buy a home and discrimination takes place, its the same poison, its just more subtle than when theres a gun involved. This is part of a larger systemic and institutional problem that we have to address. If we only focus it on Law Enforcement, then shame on us for not focusing in on all the other issues that we have to deal with it. But we have to focus it on Law Enforcement because lives, black lives do matter. And also because Police Officers are in a unique category. Theyre the only ones who have the authority, the badge and the gun, to take somebodys life. And in most cases were going to side with them, that it was justified. Its an important right that they have. I say to my friends, and ive got a lot of cop friends. If i ever need a cop, im calling a cop, okay . And expecting that Police Officer to do his or her job. But i say to them, clean up your own act. When you have got a bad apple, figure out how to get him out. The d. C. Chief says shes got bad cops she cant get rid of. And its particularly problematic, particularly in the sandra bland incident. Black women have been sassy our to whole lives, and thats not the angry black woman stereotype, but literally what she said was, yes, i the officer says you got a problem . Is something wrong . You seem like you have attitude. She said is, yes, ive got attitude because you pulled me over for not using a signal. You also have to think about the fact that officer couldnt figure out how to get out of that situation. He couldnt figure out he got deeper and deeper into it and wouldnt retreat. You saying, what, training should have kicked in . Yes. Or his humanity. That gets back to the point where the pathologies of not just privilege, but flat out supremacy. The way that the Police System is set up in this country go back to trying to catch slaves on the street who people presumed had escaped. This is the basic fundamentals of how we set up the policing systems in this country. If you think about how that sort of gets into our mentality about whos doing right or wrong, it was interesting to hear your point about the fact yo youre upset, you had a problem with the nwa commercial. Listen, i learned a whole lot more from nwa about the workings on the street than ive ever going to learn from any politician. To me, that was as important. But we think to ourselves, well, if theyre not talking about it, its not as big of a deal which is part of that supremacy problem. Its hard for us to use our own agency to do what we need to do. All right, hold on a second. Lets go to charleston. Take a look at this. Why did you do it . According to authorities, 21yearold dylann roof sat with his soon to be victims for an hour in a bible study class listening to them pray, watching them worship before gunning them down. Hard, its hard to explain to your children. Im mad, im hurt, im angry. I want to know why it happened. What have you seen since this . First of all, and take what happened in charleston out of historical context. Exact same church was burned down in the early 1800s when one of the noorzai classmen can have an insurrection against the slaveowners. The white people in charleston were concerned because there more africans than whites and they were brutal to the africans and are trying to keep the africans suppressed. Want i want to say, is that we continue to get people asking us questions but they dont want of real dialogue. How is the trick protecting itself. They dont want to talk about how to improve came into that space with the ideas that animate it was a busy day. My frontier from Republican Party, to the current Republican Party, not a big friend of the democrats at the current Republican Party, the southern strategy engineered by Richard Nixon was used to pull racial dog whistle to rally white people to roll back every few regal liberties legal remedies. America needs, we must be willing to have Difficult Conversations and stop with the smokescreens and issues. We know a narrative that is animating the spaces that control black bodies, that narrative is old and it is not been broken nor has it been challenged. It recreates itself generation after generation. Anybody surprised . Hello. Im intracouple white house initiative. These views are my own. I think what it wanted, everything is racial discussion which is inspirational is racial relations is not a black and white issue and that there are other folks from other ethnic minorities and to take part in this discussion to being an asianamerican, one of the few industries did i think that is important for us to remember the Indian Temple shooting for years ago that resonates with me as much as a resident with a Charleston Shooting a couple months ago. Theres Racial Discrimination against asian americans. I think support for server but inclusive of other voices. Having these types of race discussions. This goes back to the sentiment of the charm of this book before that all whites made up within the black lives Matter Movement i think we need to be able to conclusively different ethnic minorities and thats what i would just like to take a step back and ask everyon everybody s room to embrace other voices are not often heard on television or mass media speed and mary wilson. Can we get a mic actor . Just stand up. Hold on a second. My name is trisha. I am the immediate past secretary of the d. C. Republican party. I dont mean to be disrespecdisrespec tful t to tae at an event in which its given. Africanamerican, people of africanamerican descent have had to live through 400 years of discrimination. We dont know where we come from. We dont know our names. However, those who have had the ability to come here by choice, they have that option. You can find out where you come from. You know what country of origin you come from. The vast majority of us in this room have to take dna test and hope that we can find out who we are and where we belong in the diaspora of africanamerican history. So please dont ask us to be little, dont ask us to stop, but ask us to include. Because if it had not been for our blood, sweat and tears, this country would not be where it is right now. Spewing anybody else want to respond . Stand up. Right in the front. My name is dale, im a u. S. Army veteran as well as president see you ceo of my company. I respect every single race. Weve all suffered some sort of injustice if you look in the past. Speaking from the asianamerican side, for the japanese have gone to concentration camps. These are all of our sensitive. The only way we can move forward is running from our past, from our mistakes and moving Forward Together as a whole. I have a child and one of his classmates asked in our utility mact was he said whats that . Are you from the philippines . He said im american. I hope someday we can all seek country and think like a child. There are so many interracial couples we will stop of hatred and try to find all the ways to help each other out and be a better country by working together just like in the army. We are made up of women and different races. I have faced racism and discrimination being a woman. I choose not to do on the negatives and focus on the positive. I put myself out there to try to others. Lets move around in this w way. Im from baltimore leaders of equal struggle. To the original point, why people are afraid to talk about race. We look at society structured, not in terms of peoples feelings of a particular race. Document institutions that benefit financially, political politically. Part of what we need to think about is the criminal Justice System. Its important enough their industries profiteering off of suffering of our people and that is a substitute impetus behind what we saw in baltimore in terms of years by the institutionalized oppression of the people. Into a wiki without it we cannot deal with the substance of the problem that is in front of us. Point well taken. [inaudible] hold on a second here. I cant hear his mic. I need another mic. And in another mic, please. Go ahead. I just want to say to my friend, as if the asianamerican, i think you need to hear what she said. I think a lot of the way the asianamerican issues are framed as a, we experience this, too, without ever saying not in same scope and magnitude, right . I also want to speak to a second point about reforming police and law. When we talk about reforms, we need to talk about fundamental reforms and not just a reform you are there because i think were in a political system that gives us black versus white. These are useful categories but we need to be thinking about bottom versus top. Im samantha, an activist from d. C. I think going back to the issues with dylan growth in the conversation thats what i think one of the problems i see with conversation and discourse, and that is it sort of irrelevant conversation just on a personal level because its given people something to point to and say thats racism. That allows us to ignore the systematic and institutionalized racism that eroding very deeply the demographics of this country that are affected by them. Reminds me of the lessons president obama gave. Just dont use the work. Take a look at this. August 1, that is ben jones, former democratic congressman from georgia but probably better known as computer. Cooter. From the dukes of hazzard. Would you like your name on this was tedious will be designed . Davy jones is the owner and major attraction buddies also leading the charge to save the Confederate Flag. We are not ashamed of her ancestors and not afraid of the symbols of the courage and valor speed in the crusade to a consistent line of good old boys of defenders. When this flag has been used for hateful purposes, its a desecration of the flag, and it has in the past. Its been misused, but so has the American Flag. So has the christian cross. N. A. B. Maintained by main street southerners were openly reconsidering the legacy of slavery and its symbols speaking so many people died because of the flight. To pretend like the history didnt happen is wrong. This is were i am until i came from. This is an easy target. Men who fought under that flag. It wasnt about defending slavery. Slavery was something they inherited. Ive always had slavery was a national send, not the southern sin. The massacre of black churchgoers in charleston, south carolina, by a young white man who is pictured wrenching the flag, thats why canada goes to south carolinas governor to south carolinas governor spill while integral part of our past does not represent the future of our great state. My hope is that by removing a symbol that divides us we cannot afford as a state in harmony and we can honor the nine blessed souls to announce and have been. We love those people to those in the church and id. Why crucify anybody because of one or two or maybe four people do . It doesnt make no sense. Some people resigne resignede flag coming down over state houses and other tax funded structures. If only he would stop there. Taking the dukes of hazzard off cable tv really because the flag is painted on a generally. We have been just interested in because its such an important issue. Take it from there. You know on people here, want the flag removed from public space. You dont have a problem with that. It depends on the public space. I think that it is cultural cleansing. You catch remember a few things. In the 70s 70 to 80 millions americans are the sense of the confederacy. Dont have got to fill out Application Form when we came into this place. We didnt get to decide what color we are going to become who our ancestors were. In stating the turmoil of american history, i understand that indeed slavery, which is a lot longer than america, started in 1619, white and black bondsman came into jamestown under the english flag from 16191776. A big American Flag from 17761865. Those men thought they were doing the right thing, and lincoln in his first and not the address makes it clear he has no problem with slavery. Thats a tough thing for people to get around that if we study history we have to understand, first of all, the debt we are to the africanamericans. I think thats clear. They did not come after 1865, have the same storyline as everybody else. At the brooklyn and move ahead we have to find things as dr. King said. He had a dream that someday on the red hills of georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners would dine together at the table of brotherhood. We can do these divisive things, making these broadbrush arabization of all of us speak your question a question. Lets do with the statehouse, taxpayer funded structures. Those are different argument and they should be taken on the marriage. There has been a compromise in south carolina. They removed it from the capitol dome where it should not have e, pointed at a Confederate Monument that deal is done, and yet everything folks understand what im saying, as a Confederate Monument, every confederate statue, every Confederate Flag, every cemetery is now on a list. Throughout this country everyday day it may not show up on immediate but our flags are being threatened. The heritage is being threatened and we did not speak at well get into that. I want to split this up with lets talk about the Confederate Flag flying over public, i mean taxpayer funded structures, buildings. Young man here. I think to represent heritage. Thats our heritage and were proud of the. We are not proud of what happened as far as slavery but i do believe its completely wrong and it should never have happened. But attacking our personal property i want to get another mic because when you do this. Go ahead. I do not legislate was a good thing. I think the Confederate Flag represents our heritage. Attacking our private property and with our vehicles, which is happening right now, and there was a gentleman on a street bike in georgia, and there was a gentleman flying the flag on the back of his pickup truck. The children on the street bike was africanamerican, antidrove up to the truck, jumped off his bike and tour the slack off his truck and ended up dying. I do not want to see this happen. This is very upsetting to me and the fact account or private property to take what is ours down that we, that is our heritage and i dont agree that he wants to fly the Confederate Flag on his private property thats his business . No, no. Spin marjorie lightman, you disagree. First of all i want to know what is the heritage that this flag represents . What is the Southern Heritage, distinct from the American Heritage when you separate out the issue of slavery . What did they confederacy do that wer was so distinct if it wasnt a slave state . Slavery existed in every state in this country. It existed in every colony before the. Slavery, if you read the book, youll come to understand, it build the american economy. It build wall street. Read the book by the editors of the hartford current. At the established that was a northern enterprise. What it was was a bunch of people who went out in their time to defend their rights, what they felt were being threatened in that system. If you want to fight the civil war here, if you want to fight the civil war here, no. No. Im not saying stupid things. Im expressing an opinion. Can i express an opinion . Easy read the documents of secession from the southern states, all of the not just the Vice President of the confederacy, but the states that they succeeded. They were clear that it was not nothing other than slavery. Of clarity about slavery and it was their determination. They wrote it themselves that their culture was dependent upon slavery. And the eradication of slavery was the eradication of the culture and the property and all that they understood. To you want to wait in . I was going to add, we have to understand the Confederate Flag didnt end with the civil war. It was continue to be used for decades and decades as a symbol of hate. Birth of a nation, one of the first featurelength films is what the movie is about. Its about the rise and glory of decline. We can separate the Confederate Flag from racism. And that way we have to be critical. On us and we get rid of it completely but i think it belongs in museums. As historic i think its important we keep let me just, when i hear my new friend, ben jones, my new friend, my new friend here, you cant have it both ways, right . I hear my new friend say its about Southern Heritage, and he doesnt support slavery and he quotes Martin Luther king, jr. Okay, hes talking out of both sides of his mouth. The reality is this is a symbol of hatred and death. And you know what . They shouldnt be on federal or State Government buildings or locations. You want to put any museum, in your house, thats fine. Heres what i cant understand what hear the phrase Southern Heritage. That suggests that the south is simply white. It is not. The south is multicultural. In fact, if we were taught about Southern Heritage would it make sense to talk about rosa parks, to talk about the abolitionists in the south who fought against slavery . Why is the Confederate Flag which symbolized a nation to try to continue and perpetuate slavery the symbol of Southern Heritage . That doesnt make any sense to me. Weve got to move on. The basic historical lesson, the confederacy is not some part of america. It was trying to lead america. Thats to be understood. When you just sort of subsume one into the other in a historical context, thats all spirit and to talk about atonement i believe the ark people who did it there is some concept of Cultural Heritage around shows like the one you want, shows that i watch as a kid in which that visual symbol means something different. If youre going to go with potomac as the people most affected. You go to germany, you dont see symbols like that because, this comparison from a symbolism standpoint. Thats what im saying. You cant say that about the American Flag. Let me say this. Quickly, first, speed we are past the flight that we are moving on spirit echoes back to the whole White Privilege and. Thing. When you look at the film that showed earlier about dylann roof, it was White Privilege that he had when they took him to get a sandwich after they arrested him. But when you arrest a black person theyre getting handcuffed, hogtied and everything. So White Privilege exists. So when you talk about this idea that we do justice, to white people speak of truth for the sake reparation for blog for america because a buddy that has been wronged in america has been, has had reparations, and the White Privilege that they have come when you lock up our people and you lets go to the gentleman right here with the hat on. White privilege is very real. Louis cks agenda and timesheet and go anywhere i could go anywhere on this planet, was im walking down the street and nobody i can get anywhere, i know im going to be fine. Of the people cannot do that. Thats whats important understand the if you are black in this country, like you, if youre not white, not a man in this country, crazy thing can happen to you. Thats White Privilege, that i can do what i want and im going to be okay. I cant always be said if youre not white. One of our really talented producers are told me a story when we were rehearsing about a conversation she had with a black female college. Tell us about that conversation. I was shopping and never lets to a story to a black coworker. I was puzzled as to what i was in sort of a fancy upscale Bethesda Store and no one talk to me, notes that how you doing, no one greeted me. And my black coworkers response was well, i dont think youre going to steal. If i walk into the same store, it would be like how were you doing . Let me help you. It never occurred to me that that would have but i just thought it was Bad Customer Service and not someone providing shoppers spent a show of hands, how many people get followed going to restore . Lets see. Whatever, if youre followed, you are followed. Show of hands. The white children in the back has been followed. Talk to me. Stand up. I need to get a mic over there to you. Why do you suppose they were falling in . It was christmas time and is going to toys for tots party i wanted to get a twitter i went to toys r us upon because im a man want to read a toy store at a wedding ring on, no kids with me and i was kind of like reminiscing going to the tour i else. Hadnt been to toys r us and olympic one guy came up to me and said, have you . Like dating a dirty look. Young lady right here. What about my colleague here . Ahead. s. I think thats the point. He was followed because he looked out of place in a toy store and we see people of color get followed in stores because people inherently assume that they are out of place, they could be shopping. They must be stealing. Thats racism. I got to ask you because were running out of time. Solutions, where do we go from here . We have to leave here. Having moved the ball downfield of it. Let me start with you. What do you think . It dovetails well i think with a conversation, the part were just having one solution is to think about in the context of what the comedian said in terms of no matter what time i go, wherever i go by, thats absolutely not true. If you go back far enough, if you go back to classical africa you dont exist. If you begin to oppose recover what it was what life look like before race became issued and we stopped the cultural cleansing and wicked as to the accuracy and we dont teach beginning with slavery in the u. S. And begin to think about the world in terms of the world and not the white world, then its a different conversation. Our point of departure is fundamentally different. The solution is to change i need more solutions. Hurry up, hurry up. Lots to talk about your. No, you dont have a lot of time. I think youve lost all of your conservatconservat ive viewers. This impending Labor Program which is fine. Its great when liberals talk to each other. If you want to shut down conservatives, talk about white supremacy, White Privilege, et cetera. A lot of conservatives no, no, no. A lot of conservatives whites dont think racism even exist. Youve got to go baby steps here. Thats a big problem. Thats the first step in if you want people to listen, have a conversation, youve got to youre trying to get the Republican Party to expand. What do you say to the Republican Party . Right now donald trump is tapping into a situation you. They dont want to hear it. Spent they dont want to hear a lot of it, yes. Its a difficult thing for a lot of people to hear. Spirit we have run out of time. Well continue this online. Id like to thank all of you and we certainly would like to thank all of you out there. Thanks for joining us and well do this again sometime. Im the bruce johnson. Have a good night. [inaudible conversations] tonight on the communicators the middle into computers and scifi and i pushed him and then he heard about Silicon Valley and dreamed of getting to america so for a very young age thats what he opined to do and at 17 he just went away from home and get it. One of Silicon Valleys most inventive leaders, elon musk. And elon musk. In Silicon Valley today he is seen as this next steve jobs can figure. Theres bits of them like that for sure. He said attention to detail, pushes of workers would hard. I tend to be more of this as a kind of idea although i think he has a lot to prove. What i take away these he is a guy who gets these thousands of engineers, kelso, the brightest of the pride and very hardworking individuals and really is able to get products out of them that can be commercialized and effort changed into sugar if you look at, to me he is the guy, he is combined software and hardware, atoms and bits in a way that nobody else has. Tonight on the communicators on cspan2. Live coverage of later a former venture in particular he would join a discussion about military spending, National Security and the economy. Thats hosted by the brookings institution, gets underway at 10 30 a. M. Eastern on cspan2. Three more republican candidates hit th the iowa state fair to sk at the soapbox. First is scott walker and a bit later Carly Fiorina and senator Lindsey Graham of south carolina. All part of our continued coverage of president ial candidates at the iowa state fair. We will carry all those speeches live on cspan. Now a speech from a cybersecurity meeting posted by usenix the wheelchair from Richard Danzig. This is one hour. Good morning. I usually do this by memory. I tried to introduce the speaker but in the case of richard its impossible. So i have my cheat sheet here at all tried to keep it very short. So Richard Danzig was a former secretary of the navy and the consultant to use intelligence and defense agencies, and a member of, korea member of defense policy board, the president s intelligence Advisory Board and Homeland Security secretary advisory council. Thats not enough. Thats not all. Hes been a trusty of the Rand Corporation and director at the center for a new kind of insecurity, and they director of the European Investment firm. In addition, hes recently been a director of the National Semiconductor corporation which is listed in the new york stock exchange, and of the Human Genome Sciences corporation which is listed on the nasdaq. And theres a few more things that i think we will be here for a while. Richard last year wrote a very influential, a very thoughtprovoking report which is one of the reasons we invited him to be, to give his keynote speech. A lot of attention was paid to the report and things have been moving. So without further ado, richard. [applause] good work. Thank you very much. Thank you for the nice introduction. It was very wise of you to truncate. I realize my reputation as a speaker had to proceed working a little early and saw your very wisely in the best speaker award before i spoke. Shows good judgment. You mentioned the truncated mica beer from the description, current. Eyepatch among other things was a law professor and a member of the a strong sense about my teaching quality when a student came up to me at the end of one of the classes and gushing with enthusiasm said, professor, i just dont know how you do it. Your every election is better than the next one. [laughter] i thought about that for a while and decided to quit teaching. It led me eventually into government were among other things i became secretary of the navy. I was speaking once i thought effectively at some length when a marine got off to leave and it did seem to me to be appropriately compatible with the dignity of the sector of the navy. Secretary of the navy. We talk about cybersecurity issues. And the challenge in some respects is to talk between the two worlds and not only to talk in a way thats descriptive and analytic but also that is prescriptive and suggestive. As angelo said, this draws in some measure on a paper that i published this last year and this concept living on a diet of poison fruit. This is the organization site. You can download it from the web if you like, if you want to follow up on some details. I will go further than the paper today, but some chunk of the footnotes and the like in that document will give you a richer background if you want to pursue it further. What id like to do today is give you a sense of the world as i see it, in terms of particularly admiring the problem first. Im going to spend a little bit of time just emphasizing the character what were having to deal with. Then im going to try to go deeper and and analyze it. By analyze it im going to point out key things that underlie the world as we see it an abstract perhaps kind of everyday concepts you deal with to some basic propositions, i will give you about a half dozen, about why were in the situation were in. Then im going to try to move to a short der description of terrain that i think will be more familiar to you of some of the things were trying to do about it. Ii want to particularly get to a set of recommendation. Im not trying to be comprehensive in those recommendations. I want to suggest by and large things that are new, not something on the agenda, not that ive discovered some curative to the world but there are things to be said about this not on our agendas at first. Let me start as i say admiring the problem. A common kind of phrase used these days is the notion that this is a wicked problem. That but which it is meant it is highly interactive. Has a number of different components and these different components create difficulties in, in our actions because in fact different parts of the problem cant resolve it without connecting with other parts. So technology, for example, interacts with legal systems. Ive shown you just a little sort of wheel of concerns here. I would particularly emphasize that we have to be concerned obviously with business realities. It is great to provide patches or maybe it is not so great but it is something to provide patches on systems that have known vulnerabilities. But when you actually look about why it is that people dont download those patches the reasons are highly cultural and relate to business imperatives. It may seem like, well, this is just a failure i ought to be able to drive people towards but the underlying business reality because theyre integrating the new software into systems that are highly complex, because some of these systems arent being shut down on anything like the kind of frequency that would provide immediate response, stores will implement a big chain of stores a few stores at a time, then move on to other stores. So theyre always having some parts of their system lagging considerably in the patching, or Power Company will have an annual shutdown for maintenance and as far as theyre concerned, that is the occasion for updating and idea of updating more frequently is one that they can comprehend but not readily integrate into their business model. So you find problems like this occur with some real frequency. There are also just kind of cultural problems in organizations. I remember talking with a chief Information Security sister for one of the really brand Name Companies about his difficulties. He said every rule you come up with, even the most obvious, immediately people ask for exceptions. I said to him, well, give me an example. He said, well, i issue a decree that says, never tell anyone your password. Dont share your password with anyone. What could be more basic . I said to him, yeah. Immediately the ceo tells me of course he is sharing his password with his assistant. How else can he or she get into emails. If you have some theory of change here, you will have to take account of these kinds of variables. I think another aspect of admiring the problem is simply the speed of change. This is very difficult i think for the layman to cope with, maybe even for you all as well. The example i use in the washington National Security establishment to kind of bring this home is basic point about the historical, an historical analog. Think about the introduction of gunpowder, for a minute, into europe, circa 1300. Thats something that over time, radically changes the character of warfare which is central concern of mine but the character as well of the state and of the economist. Now suddenly in the warfare context are notions of defense, as for example, building castle walls that are straight have to be abandoned. Or notions of chivalry and leadership change dramatically. If i stand in front of the army waving my sword i will be shot dead. Organizations of military change because i need mass firepower, and i mead to my troops for so i face kateed in training than simply raise up farmers to be a posse to deal with something for a few weeks. I begin to require standing armies with trained officers who understand something about ballistics and the like. Then the state changes because i need to have in the state a capability for sustaining these armies which brings me to taxation and the like. I also need a munitions industry because if i dont have a munitions industry i will lose in any future kind of combat. Everything changes. The nature of warfare, the nature of the economy. The nature of the state. My observation is Pretty Simple one. The coming of the Information Age is not less significant than the coming of gunpowder but all the changes that just described to you take place essentially over the course of two centuries. And all the changes that weve experienced by and large, major changes in the information world have occurred over two decades. So the speed a simulation is just very, very difficult for policy makers and others. Ann harrington, a government official, put it nicely to me when we were talking about, i made the point i just described. She said the problem is the Technology Changes at the speed of moores law but the people dont. What is in our heads doesnt change that fast. We have all kinds of legacy systems in this context. You see the dramatic experience up till now. I say a little bit about the future shortly. What i would like to particularly emphasize is, that this is a famous quote from that wellknown computer scientist, william faulkner, who said the past is not dead. It is not even passed. Do i have to explain this faulkner reference to this audience . Im not even sure. We have these overlaps, these continuities from the world that has passed and remain embedded in our systems and give us fundamental problems. So let me give you one example from the National Security world that may be a little subtle and illustrative but perhaps beyond your experience. I think it is important in the wake of officials think about the Digital Information systems that by and large they were in the warfare context thought of originally, and our Biggest Development of them, in the context of espionage and intelligence. The National Security agency, nsa, is obviously the leading arena of capabilities in this regard for us. It is striking when you think about the National Security world that it has some kind of impolice it norms. In the cold war, fellow named tim moore helped me to think this out. In the cold war, we basically didnt interact in a direct conflict way with the soviet union whenever possible, we avoided that. The battlefield involved various proxies. Think about the vietnam war and cuba and other issues like that. But by and large, we didnt have direct confrontation. There was some sense of rules of the road and of restraint. At the same time, in the espionage world, by and large all bets are off. We can go out assassinating each others chiefs of station, the Intelligence Officers in each others capitals and the like, but if you could do something, then that something by way of the discovering intelligence and the like, directly involved confrontation and competition. Comes now the cyber world and the basic attitude i think became, all bets are off. It is unrestricted. We dont have these kinds of restraints. As another example, if you use a weapon in dod, you want to introduce a weapon, there is a whole elaborate legal analysis, almost invisible to the outside world that says is this weapon consistent with the laws of war . But what happens in the cyber world is that though the same tools, that you are used to that you use for espionage and intelligence gathering can be used for offensive purposes on the battlefield. Those tools are in fact treated as though they were simply information gathering tools. We dont have the legal structure or conceptual structure we have for other things. I think that is why the government is struggling to the office of Personnel Management hack youre seeing because the general historical attitude has been, there are two kinds of things, there is warfare and there is espionage. But as you know the cyber straddles both of them. When they straddle both of them, it creates complications, so we have historic ways of thinking while the world is so rapidly changing, those historic ways of thinking are handicapping or limiting us. We have this come part mental lization that no longer works out. We no longer have understanding of distinctions between offense and defense we used to have. They no long irbegin to work. And another example is in is in notion of private sector is different than Public Sector. We used to think of warfare only in the Public Sector context. By Public Sector i mean government. What happens when you begin to think more freely . I want to take you back a little bit and give you an experpetuate from a chinese document written at the end of the 20th century. I published piece in the New York Times in 1998 doing what every pentagon official thinks is the most wonderful and important thing to do which was i introduced a new acronym. And i was very proud of it. My new acronym i thought was clever designed, it, it called , n, e, w, and it was nonexplosive warfare. There are weaponses coming, weapons that dont go bang or explode or technical phrase are in the kinetic. This had absolute cakic success for me, which to say nobody talks about it, but i, nonetheless, sort of want to try to revive it by revealing it here. Along came two chinese colonels in 1999, they could advance the notion of unrestricted warfare which you read up here. Their basic notion was were coming into an era of technological violence. There is no distinction between the battlefield and that the new concepts, which are hopefully reading off the screen, the new concepts enable us to do a new kind of warfare. And they then went on to talk about all the new concept weapons. Were not trying to kill and destroy so much as were trying to control. Remember, this is 1999. As we see, a single stock market crash, a single computer virus can after affect these new concepts. What were trying to do do to achieve victory is control, not kill. Were entering into a period of economic and technological violence. Some morning will awake to discover with surprise, a quite a few gentle, kind things will begun to have offense and lethal characteristics. You who are alive in the last decade are not surprised at this. You know these things. We lived them. We see it in the world of business where were dealing with things like i. T. Theft and kinds of difficulties that i have sketched here. You see it as well in individual lives and not only in the negatives but also how the positives are intertwined with the negatives, our sharing of data and the like and were seeing it in general in the context of the new warfare that ive suggested to you. So where are we going in regard to this . I dont know. I dont think you know. I published a paper few years ago called, driving in the dark, which got some attention because the gist of the argument as some others made, for example, nicholas tellem, wet cant see. It is complex, the evolution of the complex future. The emergent realities will be challenging for us because in fact our headlights only go so far. If you look at the predictions historically theyre not very valuable. If you go back to 1990, look at predicts how Technology Change will impact National Security the most striking thing to me the paucity of attention to the internet. The internets there, as you know, comes out of darpa, starting in the 70s. Becomes relatively robust in the 80s. It is all there. But we dont see it except in retrospect. There is a wonderful book called, everything is obvious once you know the answer. In retrospect we can see all this but in prospect were not good predictors and which need to recognize that because it is extremely relevant to the world that were dealing with here. The, the fact is, can point to the fact that i know something about the pace of Technology Change. I know that transition akin to gunpowder will continue in everaccelerating kinds of ways and i know there ask huge variety of actions and actors out there that will occur and that society is becoming ever more dependent on these things but i cant say a lot more. I do know know though what im concerned about as a National Security analyst and what i think policymakers ought to be concerned about, very particularly im concerned about destruction of social processes, say undermining of capabilities and things like the Financial System or the Power Companies and the like that provide a backbone for our capabilities. And i know that im concerned about how things might evolve for individuals apart from the state. My first reaction as the internet of things evolved ever further was the that this represented a set of risks but from a National Security standpoint was i all that concerned somebody could hack my refrigerator or if somebody causes a individual Automobile Accident and the like. But in fact im a terrorist group like isis and i want to create havoc and lack of trust and indeterminecy and other contacts in america, maybe if i make people very unsure about the safety of their automobiles by periodically causing them to reek havoc i can achieve my political ends in the ways i care about. There is a sense if you will of the character irof the problem and at this point you might feel a little bit like this is just too much in some dimensions to think about from a policy standpoint but clearly i needs to be thought about. Among the other parts of my background i was at one point a Supreme Court clerk working not far from here. For a Supreme Court justice. And another Supreme Court justice besides the one i was working for, Justice Douglas, who was wellknown as a misanthropic sort of guy. He loved mankind in the abstract but hated rest of us. He one day was telling about a story about his father which i think was apocryphal but was illustrative. He said his father was eye tinner end minister Walking Around the midwest. He mounted his pulpit and looked out in the audience and found one guy sitting out there. You. He said to the guy, you really want to go ahead with the service . The guy looked up at him and the Justice Douglas said, the cowboy, preacher, im a lowly cow hand and if i went to field with food for 40 horses, found just one i wouldnt let that one go hungry. His father thought about that, and it seemed to make sense and proceeded to give a wheel service, full bore, prayers, hymns, he walked to the back shook hands with con congregation of one. And proceeded to wander off. His father couldnt stand it and yelled at cowboy, how do you like that . Preacher, im a lonely cow hand and if i went out to the field with food for 40 horses and found just one, i wouldnt dump the whole load on him. The problem in important ways is how do you get beyond admiring the problem, dumping the whole load on you and on policymakers and the he like, wringing our hands, saying well, ive contributed something . I think what we need to do is get at the root causes and im going to just give you a little summary that represents kind of an abstraction of, an historic with the phenomenon of the complexity of these systems. Microsoft operating system, they dont reveal number of lines of code. Ballpark, 50 million lines of code. I asked a Major Corporate Financial Company person to estimate for me how many lines khodorkovsky his Company Maintains and he is responsible for . Answer, one trillion. These systems, are as others have observed the most complex kinds of systems weve invented and that means that we have extraordinary difficulty observing them. We have extraordinary difficulty comprehending what is happening in them and they have exceptional vulnerability. If you take notion of, stark notion, one bug for every thousands of lines of code, bug doesnt equal vulnerability but gives us some sense what is involved when you try to write out 50 million lines of code. In fact, in conveying to policymakers this point which is extremely important i think, their first intuition is, you guys created this problem. Its a technology problem, fix it. Either you were too, if im a rightwing politician, too much about your peaceloving hippies didnt care enough about security, or, if im a leftwing politician, you guys are all capitalists just wanted to get software out the door because that is what you got paid for and you didnt care enough. So i have said to them, okay, think about something in the world you know, the u. S. Tax code. The u. S. Tax code is four million words. Write me a tax code that doesnt have any loopholes. Now you may object that there are a whole lot of people out there writing tax codes with the intention of putting in loopholes but my point is, if you write a fourmillion word document in english and give me an army of accountants and lawyers struggling to find what i call vulnerabilities in that document, i will find them. And you ought to understand that you can not create something of that level of complexity without having these kinds of errors. Now give me 50 million lines of code, which are of course even less observable to the author. And remember, you understand, i think, if you reflect on it, this is a mass production operation. It is not like some Single Person in microsoft sits there and writes 50 million lines of code and comprehends it, nobody comprehends it. It is put together as a pastische of a variety of different things. Dont think there is a technical answer to this readily available at the scale and complexity we need it. When you look beneath admiring the problem and start analyzing it, it is central point. It is compounded by the phenomenon of extensivability. Not that i have a microsoft operating system, it has to work with adobe and xl, et cetera, et cetera and that interactive effect will create complexity beyond anything my own system did. Even if i could somehow generate my own system. Like the tax code has to work with a while panoply of Business Laws and is state planning laws, et cetera, et cetera. It goes beyond that i have a communicative problem. These systems are designed to communicate. You understand that you cant begin to comprehend how novel that would have looked 40 or 50 years ago if you could go back. In the late 1990s the director of the cia, george tenet, a very smart guy says with shock with testimony in the senate, the enemy is on our system. Our networks are open. And of course thats the case because of the nature of the communication. The more you let people in, the more you connect functions up, the more you obviously enhance the risks associated with these very complex systems. And you understand how fundamental it is that we create that communicative power. It is at the core of the virtues of the system. The system also concentrates information. Take, for example, snowden. Weve had historically from a National Security standpoint many people like snowden. Many people come in that take documents, whatever their motives and then hand them along. What is unique about snowden is, 1. 7 million documents. We never in the history of espionage had anybody take 1. 7 million documents. But its a consequence of the fact that in these very complex and communicative systems we concentrate information which again is inherent in the virtues of the system. I want to create a world in which an analyst can get at information across a number of different domains. I want to have that ability. And, if im running a power system, for example, i want to see the wheel set of transmission lines and the like. Or if im running a pipeline system, which valves are open and which valves are closed. I want, as it turns out, also to collect information and the Information Age enables me to do that, internet of things will expand exponentially my capability to do that. Come back to the office of Personnel Management threat. What we did was collect some 21. 9 million documents, including from me that ran 1 to 200 pages. Included fingerprints, foreign contacts, history, embarrassing evidence, and the like, put it all in one place and collected it so anybody who hacked into the system could conveniently have it all where as in a precyber, predigital age that was not concentrated in those kinds of age and wasnt collected with anything like the same vigor because the new Information Age in ways we all understand enhances that capability. Smart man at microsoft invented the phrase, disintermediation. One of the advantages of the digital world, take human beings out of the world, terrifically advantageous. I start dealing with people who are intermediaries who make my dinner reservation or travel reservation, buy my tickets, most times i wind up being frustrated, compared with Digital Opportunities to do that directly myself. On a Larger National scale it is hugely valuable, for example, in government that i have demock advertised access to information democratized information. I introduced a new system. Had all kinds ever technological advantages, saved all kinds of money but what i really valued i could empower somebody in the bureaucracy who needed a new aircraft part and see the inventory and order it up without going through the silo of the warehousing people, the logistics people and the like. All of which held information as a source of power and created Division Within the organization. Removing those human beings is hugely beneficial but also removes gatekeeperss guardians, somebody who is happening. Wait a minute, somebody is exfiltrating this financial information. I got a request for a new password but for 50 new passwords. I had all these changeses that human beings might observe. Finally systems are amazingly flexible. We value the fact that computers and laptops can do different kinds of things, word processing, communications, spreadsheets, whatever. Comes back to the title. Talk and title of the paper and the graphic i showed you before. This is poison fruit this is not