want to congratulate you on a terrific 10 year anniversary. a lot of great work. at the work is far from over and i know you will continue to be major contributors to the security of this country, to the economic health of this country, into the values that all of us hold dear as americans. thank you very much. [applause] from a recent forum on the changing face of terrorism. a panel of experts looks up threats to the power grid, nuclear programs in iran and korea, and information available online it can be used by terrorists. [inaudible] [applause] >> good morning. i want to ask, are there any fo e's in here? errol. of there you go. i understand you had to be an foe to get in here. the man we are about to meet on be panel today -- i will brief in terms of explaining who they are. more time for questions. first up we have the research director for international security studies at uc san diego. he earnedchurch -- his phd in economics at harvard. he has way too many publications to list, but i trust you will read along. brian jenkins of the senior the author of several books and reports and articles on terrorism. you up ates not keep night, i do not know what will. on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, he was involved in an effort to take stock of where we are and where we should be going. he was a paratrooper and the captain in the green berets. he says he cannot prove any of that. john miller is deputy director of intelligence with the new york police department and worked for the fbi as a national spokesperson. as a reporter and anchor for abc news. somehow he managed to connect and get an interview with osama bin laden in afghanistan. he worked for cbs news across the board, including 60 minutes. dr. errol so there's is the associate director of research transition at the department of homeland security's create. errol.lso a friend of he is an adjunct professor and has been here for 10 years. he is involved with security at all levels. the assistantd as chief of homeland security at l.a. world airport. he was fbi special agent. swat team member and the santa monica police department officer. if you see these gentlemen on television talking about terrorism, you know you are getting the real deal. the experts who know what they are talking about them and not like all the experts we are seeing pontificating about malaysian flight 370. welcome. the first question i really thought about when i was asked to moderate the panel is, what keeps you guys awake at night? what do you worry about? >> uc san diego does not have a football team. that is because we do risk-based analysis. we are happy to watch you guys at ucla beat up on each other. that is fine. night, thise up at might not be the correct thing to say here, that mostly is not terrorism. we are all going to die at some point. 10,000 times more likely to die thanart disease or cancer we are to die because of terrorism. i think it is important to put things in context and not be sucked into what the secretary was talking about when he spoke toosama bin laden's plot trap us into doing something which was not cost effective. we respond way more to does spike terrorism family due to deaths by other means -- then we do to deaths by other means. it is a psychological flaw on our part. in the category of terrorism, there are things that keep me up at night. let me be clear about that. i worry about iran, a scenario in which iran is a allowed to get nuclear weapons and starts curing out terrorist attacks with impunity because there is nothing we could do about it. this would be harkening back to the cold war era in which the soviet union was sponsoring terrorism abroad. there was nothing we could do because with nuclear weapons in place, regime change was not on the table. involved in the killing of civilians in syria. they have been involved in the killing of civilians and threatening our national interest, including our soldiers in afghanistan. gulfhe other persian countries are worried about this. that is my number one thing. order ofhave an magnitude bigger problem if the iranians were allowed to continue. >> you are going to get a string of contrary and answers here. member of a been a workshops, red exercises, itnius is interesting. most experiences you run through a fairly narrow spectrum of .cenarios they can evolve weapons of mass destruction. those are pretty well known. occasionally, you do come across some others. the results of these exercises are classified that would be less technologically challenging, but really would cause just tremendous psychological reactions on the part of the people. it is not so much that their weapons of mass destruction, but they could set off forces in this country, set off fear and alarm. >> are you talking about things like we saw aster with the boston marathon bombings? something as big as on 11? >> it does not have to be as a 9/11. thatf the worst incidents hit russia was a terrorist takeover of a school. we have had incidents like that in this country which shooters. can get at -- deeply emotional events. beyond the immediate tragedy, it is going to set off a series of reactions. i think the united states is a pretty tough country. i do agree we often overreact in a sense of terrorism. -- if itally begin to begins to look like a campaign here inents, go with me terms of the sniper in washington. .ssues pertaining to children things of that sort. you can provoke extraordinary reactions on the part of the people, on the part of the begin tot, where we fundamentally effect our society . those are the things that concern me. >> the things that keep me up at night, there is a stock answer to that question, which is? >> i thought i would throw you a softball to begin with. iswhat keeps me up tonight joe arson i have -- tsarnaev. i am responsible for the area of or 60ty out of the 50 plots that have been hatched since 9/11, 16 have focused on new york. our intelligence collection is pretty good. there is no such thing as 100% when it comes to our partnerships with the fbi and other agencies on al qaeda, al qaeda affiliates. they are not clunky or client need, but we can usually hear them coming from some distance away. 12 years after 9/11, the united states has gotten good at that. what keeps me up at night is inspire magazine goes out to tens of thousands of people who have varying levels of interest and commitment to its content. the other half are reading it saying, here is a set of instructions for a pressure cooker bomb. i could put that at the boston marathon. i could take it to super board -- super bowl boulevard. some of them are looking at the new edition which has a simple recipe for a large vehicle bomb that you can do at home. model or therathon tsarnaev problem is what do you do when you are not dealing with al qaeda? what do you do when you are not dealing with an al qaeda affiliate? what do you do when you are dealing with al ism?a- ben the conspirators may not content given network or reaching out to the channels the u.s. government has been good about intercepting? what if they are just talking to each other? how does that give them opportunity to fly under your intelligence radar? that is what keeps me up at night. and i go to bed, i go down that list. what could we have missed today? where did we not look? which case are we going to step because month too early needed resources to start the next one? i am not sleeping that much. the people that we miss, the people that deliberately stay made a grid, tsarnaev comment that he had no friends and that was more by design than by accident. i worry about when john was here in 2005, gregory patterson -- they were nothing more than honor students at two different universities with no criminal history at all who were getting closestfor what was the to an operation plot we would have had in this country since 9/11 was no proclivity that suggest they might do something like that. the thing that keeps me up at night are things like inspire magazine, the increasing opportunities for online radicalization. now sing a hybrid of ideologies where you have people -- who is embracing islamic extremism on one hand and becoming a holocaust denier on the other hand. that is the kind of individual i worry about. >> is the face of terrorism the thing we need to worry about here changing? we do not hear that much from al qaeda lately. is anhink al qaeda organizational struggle right now. i would boil it down three ways. andhave al qaeda central, then you have the al qaeda affiliates and then you have al qaedaism. and then you have serious. -- syria. al qaeda, trying to run a complex organization under the gun. shortest tenure you can have in any job is to be the chief of external operations for al qaeda. there is a very high turnover because of high mortality rate. then you have the al qaeda affiliates. a straight up affiliate in the arabian peninsula. al qaeda has given them the ticket and said, we are too much under the gun, but this is your assignment. you need to attack america. you need to figure out the underwear bomb and they did. figure out a printer bomb, and they did. they have tried to deploy all of that. and then you have the al qaeda affiliates, not affiliated with al qaeda, but they are in the same narrative. the pakistani taliban who despite our best intelligence, managed to put a truck bomb in times square at the height of the theater rush on a saturday night a couple of years ago. the changing face of terrorism breaks down to the base is associated with these four levels. -- based number one goes to martyr himself but get snapped up by al qaeda. they tell him, you can do much more damage if you just go home and put 16 backpack bombs on the new york subway. al qaeda's best bomb maker, they spent time training him to do that. the face of the al qaeda kid whoe, here is a contacts online because he likes his videos and his messages in the message resonates with this kid. he trains him up and gives them the underwear bomb and put them on the airplane. the face of the al qaeda affiliate, he drives a truck amen to times square because he wanted to join al qaeda and could not get in. he said blow up new york and are named -- in our name. that is of al qaedaism, tsarnaev. i think if you look at the stepladder of that changing it is shifting largely to that bottom rung. it is casting a wider net through developed messaging. >> there was a situation in california eight months ago where there was an attack on the grid in northern california. to that end, is that what we are going to see rather than some of these dirty bombs or large attacks or a situation like the boston marathon bombing? grid would be a tax on the -- attacks on the grid? what about the water and food supply? discussed.e are topics of considerable concern, but there is a difference between attacking an electrical substation and going after a food supply or water supply system, which turns out to be a much more daunting task. the attack in northern carolina -- carol foreign you on the he attack in northern california on the power grid, we have to keep in mind history. it carried out a string of attacks on power stations because it was angry with gas and electric. they did cause some significant in san jose. they got better at it. we are not sure what is behind this most recent attack. >> it is not a test run? >> i do not know if we have information that tells us it is a test run. we have information that tried to do it. we are not sure of their notice. -- motives. i would not be able to say. this to besome of pushed by reporters for answers and we often go way beyond the , whichle information often turns out to be wrong anyway. people were describing within hours of the disappearance of flight 370 that this was obviously a test run. know if we had any information that told us that. about that.areful do i think we are more likely to see the attacks on the power grid or the boston marathon bombings then we are likely to see some of these more ambitious scenarios, which require some skills and logistics to carry out, the answer is yes. >> eli, you talked about iran. area struggle within the country, but they seem to be less radical than they were five or 10 years ago. nuclear concern about capabilities? >> absolutely. the point to make is that these things are interlinked. the terrorist threat is coming that thesame place failure to eradicate polio was coming from. there are these pockets of the world that are generating drugs and human trafficking and terrorism and disease. difficultes are just to deal with. there are not that many places, but those places are very difficult to control. the iranians have had a hand in destabilizing those places and should they have nuclear weapons, which is possible, should they get into nuclear weapons, there is nothing we would be able to do about the iranians destabilizing lebanon and other parts as well. it is not just a terrorism concern. it is a public health concern and the concern about human trafficking. >> we have all been talking about the middle east for the most part. what about north korea question mark what about what is happening in the ukraine? are their think tanks looking at that and perhaps ramifications down the road? concerns has to be places like syria, places like somalia and yemen. gang members.a. who had a video go viral who've now join the fight in syria. they are not the only westerners there. regions,k at those they are inspiring people here because the thrust of that video was to inspire their homeboys back here in los angeles. i find that quite interesting. i would like to go back to brian's comments about the grid. we do not think about that, but what is interesting is the groups they are targeting certain things, we have been so fixed on aviation for a decade that we forget other infrastructure. several months ago, the fbi thwarted a plot who are going to target a grid. the motivation there was an overreaction of the united states government and the cascading effect could trigger martial law. i sit and wonder, is there some kind of organized effort that targets question mark it could be a stretch, but i find it interesting the grid is being targeted by the same types of people embracing the same types of ideology. >> what kind of effect would for have if it went down region as large as northern california or the state of california? what sort of chaos would ensue in terms of banking, financials, , gettingod systems airplanes up, internet? what could be the ramifications? you an infantry school answer. it depends on the information on the terrain. can someone with a degree of knowledge and some skills bring grida small portion of the , part of the city, for a short period of time, 12 hours, 18 hours, 24 hours? if we are talking about something on that scale, then we know what happens because we have ample examples from accidents. there are large-scale urban and outages. over ag the net down larger portion of the country and keep it down for a while is much more difficult. i am not saying there isn't a vulnerability there, but that is multiple coordinated strikes. that is tough to do. --ause the grid is honorable vulnerable to storm, wildfires, all sorts of things, it has a certain amount of built-in resilience into it. could we be looking at ways to increase that resilience? yes. step down transformers. batteries thatke are all interchangeable. they are built for that particular place and takes a long time to replace. to get a long-term, really long-term, something lasting over a significant area would require coordinated operation that is beyond the capabilities of anything we have seen displayed thus far. >> if you were sitting in handicapping -- let's put you in the mind of a terrorist. if you were sitting overseas or domestically and handicapping, but which are first target the -- target be question mark other than new york city -- target be? other than new york city. >> a large event. city, washington, l.a. are the attractive targets because each one -- >> why? if they hit omaha, it still strikes fear. >> their attractive targets because they are media capitals and symbolic of different things. new york about money, washington about power, los angeles about fame. i was famous in new york, but nobody gave the shit. nebraska, youra, point is well taken. it means we can hit anywhere. it means we can hit the heartland. that media capital thing is overrated because everybody has a phone, which means everybody has a camera, which means everybody has a movie camera. something that happens in omaha will be instant global news no matter where it is. the ability of those places that do not have the infrastructure that los angeles has developed, new york possesses, that washington has, are going to be less able to counter those things. it is something i think about. i want to hit back on the grid for a second. they will attack the water supply, they will poison the milk in the calais, they will do a biological -- milk in the h cows. they are thinking about, i need to kill people. i need to have the street running with blood. i need it on tv. i am not worried about causing a blackout. theater. is it requires a storyline that means a big dramatic scene. the money shot involves blood and bodies and that is what they are thinking about. >> the fact that. is, if we look at homegrown terrorism, it is different then 9/11. qeuda does not have that ability. this is do-it-yourself. do what you can. when you look at the record of homegrown terrorist lots, we see local terrorists looking at local targets. inhave had plots springfield, dallas, seattle, other parts. they were there. determinedorist is -- and john is right here -- i do not have to -- i do not have to go across the country to a place that is out of my territory to find a target. i can find a target if i am in torrance. i can find a target within one hour of torrance. if i am in springfield, i do not need to go to chicago. i can find a federal building in springfield. >> are different terrorists perceived differently? we hear about to make the , is thatr major hassan perceived differently than the boston marathon bombers or 9/11? >> if you look at the most "inspire"ue of magazine. "inspire"e in magazine. they quoted me from an interview i did in my book about the boston marathon. they chose to use the quote to say that it is a soft target they can go after again. one of the things i find consistent in the homegrown variety -- whether from one extreme or the other -- they are always anti-government and go after israel. what is interesting about that is, one of the first pronouncement after 9/11 was by a man named august priest. he said, glory be to those who attacked the world trade center. he was a grand dragon with the kkk and was trying to partner with al qaeda. he said they had a common enemy. in the latter part of the magazine, to have a list of cities and desired targets. aboutpecifically talk gatherings of large people, stadiums, marathons, events, malls, things that have not been attacked successfully in the united states that they would like to attack. disrupting the economy is a desired side effect. the body count. they want to go after places. the last page of the magazine has a truck in a traffic jam in times square with a circle around it. bomb in the right right place can do the right job. it is clear what their objective is and what the targets are. left, right, or even extremists who are ecoterrorist, there always anti-government and always anti-judaism. >> there are a lot of people from los angeles and it is a los angeles-centric crowd. if you were to look at soft targets around here, what will be primary on your list? what will be the top five? at pastld look behavior. it is the best predictor of future behavior. if you look to "inspire" magazine or the upcoming magazine that we have not seen "et, "resurgence. it will be marketing itself to african-american converts. the leadoff promotional video featured malcolm ask. -- malcolm x. -- key to terrorism it is the opposite. it should be low tech and high cost. it should be high-yield. this -- of this are the mumbai attacks. you combine that with fire. you saw that used by the terrorists in mumbai and benghazi. all of these things are within reach. when los angeles had the plot on augusteferred to patterson, washington, the plot was devin -- devastatingly simple. the plan was to walk into santa monica and kill everybody inside. $7,000 from robberies of gas stations and convenience stores to buy guns. they were days away from picking up the last assault weapon. they were going to go underground until yom kippur. reemerge andng to massacred jews as they tried to go into a synagogue until the arrival of the police and then martyr themselves. they had chosen targets, said dates and run getaway routes. the question is, where would you pick and what would you do, you do what you can with what you have. inyou can find instructions a magazine and you are going to build a bomb, you run the risk of a technical glitch. to one going to default of these other active shooter situations. both models are dangerously within reach. right now, they are being more to araged than ever before larger audience. >> elliott, i want to talk you about the economics of terrorism and pursue this a little bit more. how do you find out about these things? you guys are all involved in intelligence. people on the outside, sometimes looking in, it is easy to monday morning order back. they see 9/11 and think, how did we miss it? they see boston and wonder how the brothers got five. wasn't there communication? were they not on the radar? two that we see, how many are foiled? >> we have records and they are pretty good. i want to assert that domestic intelligence is optimal. -- i do not want to assert that the message intelligence is optimal. , we areook at the plots confining ourselves to homegrown terrorist plots. not the shoe bomber or something like that. we are looking at 40 of them. got as farnly four as an actual attempt. device in the car in times square. hassan. ledsoe.whab bo the brothers in ston. that is an extraordinary record and is the result of good old-fashioned police intelligence work. fbi, local police, working to identify those plots, uncover them, and, and, and were them -- thwart them. record has been achieved. the difficulties of the terrorist plots, 68% involve a single individual. one individual operating alone. no matter how good your , while there may --clues in the review mirror rearview mirror. if you read the last page of a theery first, then read book, all of the clues are obvious. going forward, not so obvious. >> i get a perverse pleasure from going from the back and working forward. >> these little tiny conspiracies, one individual or guys,others or three those are tough to pick up and we are picking those up. -- because itk seems to happen on the east coast or somewhere other than -- notn california necessarily law enforcement, but littlepublic may be a lackadaisical about "see something, say something?" >> i think we are. in los angeles, we turn off the cell phone, text a couple of friends to see if iit is real. is it time to do the drill? i have not finished my e-mail. in new york, you will get run over. it is not to say that, if you do not look at history, this state has long been a desired target by a number of organizations. ghuth be known, even though laden's first target was lax. we have been fortunate. we do have a robust system, as brian mentioned earlier, of intelligence. thatve amendment rights are protected. particularly the first amendment. were it not for the good work of the digital hate less. we would find on 100 murdersry by racist extremists. think aboutsting to "inspire" magazine and "resurgence those quote magazine -- "resurgence" magazine. they had been posting for 18 months before they went out and permitted murders. they had discussed violence being an acceptable form of conflict resolution. it is interesting to go back to the commonality of them all talking about the united states government and the zionist occupied governments being their targets. ist makes it more difficult having the ability to go online to promote hate speech and violence, up to and including the firstcause of amendment. we protect hate speech in this country. will, is the beauty of a democracy. it makes ittime, very difficult to defend a democracy when we have these kinds of laws. flex is it religion or money that motivates the terrorists? >> is almost certainly not religion. it has little to do with money. it has something to do with something else altogether. it is organizational form. think about the managerial problem that a terrorist bases. you can either recruit a lone wolf who will do damage, but a limited amount. there is not that much we can do about that. you can try to form an organization. the organization has to be a special type of organization. you have to somehow trust people enough. it cannot be one person. you need someone to identify target. you need someone to get money. you need someone to take a video that will make you all famous. as john says, it is theater. you have a conspiracy of five people in each of the five people could trade you in for $1 million. the 40ey talk about plots and 36 were broken up, how did they get broken up? somebody rats out their friends. the economics of terrorism is creating an organizational form of people you trust enough that they will not rat you out for $1 million or to protect their own families or something like that. few numberly a very of organizations have managed to solve that problem. what we have learned with risk management here as part of the six or seven years ago turned out to be so of it -- valuable that we started advising u.s. forces. research agenda has become so successful that it has come home with the troops and they are using the same ideas to break up organizations that have hotspots. a similar form and different goals. gang violence and drug smuggling in california. not aboutics is religion. we know that because, if you interview failed suicide terrorists and ask them why they did it, they never say god told them to do that. it is not about money. it is not that expensive. $500,000 operations at most. hundreds of millions of damage are done because of our reaction. media and end, the people in general have a misconception on what the face of terrorism is and what motivates people to have -- do harm. >> that is clear. you look at the arrest that are made and a good number of the people who become terrorists, a sense of believe has something to do with it. , there areeology expressions of faith. the one common thing that keeps is personal crisis. this individual, at that moment in their life, finds that terrorism is going to be the solution. it is the conveyor. the ideology is the conveyor for the personal discontent. my life sucks. i am pissed off at the world. i hate the government. i cannot stand jews. fitsis the ideology that perfectly and gives me a license to fulfill my sense of aggression. it gives me some sense of meaning and some sense of belonging, doing something, because my life is in crisis. i am running on empty. i can put something into that through a magazine, an online website -- and by the way, that works for religion and for those on the other end of the spectrum. sewer -- point about , -- hasbombers interviewed more would be suicide bombers and the number one motivator is not god telling them to do it. it is all truism. they believed they were doing something good for the community. when you talk about enablers, it and is community and the environment. mother of the the boston marathon bombers, who said that their son was not shooter. the lax they were minutes behind him because they knew something was wrong. the different family environments speak volumes for what those individuals do. flex you mentioned enablers and we are running out of time. bombers,ston marathon -- there were three or four college students who are being charged with aiding and abetting. you guys deal with terrorism and terrorists. what do you think the sentence should be? should they be held accountable? students andlege just helping a buddy and had no idea what was going on? i will ask that your answers be brief. flex it is critical that people understand that they have to talk. --you do not establish that i teach college students. i love them. my children are that age. be forgiving about not sent their -- not sharing information about a threat to human life. flex these are ongoing cases. we want to be careful here. between a difference having a buddy who is shooting off his mouth and saying strains ain't and not calling the police. call -- t a .here are degrees of complicity the notion that there is no penalty for having advance knowledge of a felony or something in which people can get hurt is a well-established principle. >> do you think they were incredulous? they knew he was doing it and could not believe that he was 19 years old. just some dudes spouting off about what might happen. >> i suspect that there are probably a lot more would be terrorists that were turned off by family or friends when they started talking that way and it was in intervention. that does not lead to a call to the fbi or the police. somebody says that is a stupid idea and knocks them off that path. if they go off the path, there is no reason to call the authorities. on the other hand, if somebody talks about violence and continually talked about that, that becomes worrisome at a certain point. again, put yourself in that position. somebody, aall know close friend, a relative, or something, that has pretty extreme views about the political situation. coastow, being a west anarchist, i have a lot of those friends. you do not immediately think that you are going to call the somebody as a couple of beers and starts talking. there is a line when someone starts talking and it goes beyond a fantasy. that theeyond thinking american public is not served by its elected officials. that is a common opinion. people start talking about where they can get dynamite, explosives -- >> and you hide my crockpot? this was not a scene out of animal house. it was not that his friends did not know. they recognized him from the picture on television, suspected it was him, took a phone call from him. based on the public documents, you have to assume that they understood that they were in aing up evidence bombing where three people were killed. i am all for understanding that boys will be boys. this is not that. this is a serious crime. will probably end up in a situation where, no matter how to explain it, if they are convicted at trial or make a decision to plead guilty, whatever happens, they will be dealt with seriously. there is no way to say that they did not know. >> i have to agree with john. you asked that question and the first thing that came to mind for me was the officer who got killed in the line of duty and the people who will never run with two legs again, the people who've lost body parts, the lives that were changed forever. that is not knowing if it was just the two brothers. i have to agree with john. it is hard for me to excuse, in any way, justification for a phone call for two people who we suggeststhey are that that they hide evidence that leads to the location and identification of others involved in the plot. >> we wrap up with one question here. i ask you to make the answers brief. with my interviews, i go on long. are we in a better place at recognizing terrorists than we were after 9/11. absolutely. we know so much more about what terrorists look like, how they train. we have much better surveillance. updicting somebody showing at the airport, they go through that testing and the models are way better. the, the regions of the world that produce -- we are better and -- >> they are getting better too. communication is getting better between federal agencies at a federal level. they still require a degree of improvement at the federal level and the local level. that is still -- that is still difficult. one thing on your first question, we are a lot better at recognizing terrorists and our security and so on. the fact is, there is also a degree of terrorism fatigue setting in on the part of the public. the fear has gone down and that is appropriate. that terrorisme is so last year and why do we need this anymore? constraints pistol -- fiscal constraints. it could lead to a massive dismantling of those abilities. i am not saying they should not be reviewed. we have procedures that started out as extraordinary measures and became permanent features of the landscape. believes would like to and brief a sigh of relief that it is over. >> i should not have to take my shoes off at the airport anymore. we will start dismantling everything from the intelligence, the security, the response capabilities, and wait until the next event comes along. >> i think we are better positioned, in terms of our ability to detect these plots. we can see that it is true. the further indicator is in half of the plots that we did not detect. the boston marathon bombers are an example. or are others. -- there are others. better atve gotten the intelligence baseline, the protections, the communication between the local and federal agencies, i reiterate that the adversary is casting a wider message to a larger audience and they have morphed and adapted. they have managed to regroup. a very clever adversary, when it comes to adjusting to the pressure. this is a constantly changing dilemma. i think that the threat is reduced. i do not think they have the capability to launch another attack.able -- level thing iink the last -- when theyr is talk about terrorism fatigue, i also think we have a post-edward snowden\. backlash. part of that is the result of mi sreporting. is reality and we are under pressure to dial back some practices. we are at a delicate stage, having mastered a part of this and being under pressure from both sides to spend less money on it and have less schools. tools. >> the thwarted plots speak for themselves. that, other hand, i think until we are able to, as a nation, grass the concept that terrorist can look like anyone in this room, we are not there. we are stuck in what i call otherism. as long as they look like us, they get a pass. i will feel better when i know that a person who has had a 30 year history of being extremist cannot be called a suspect of a hate crime, but a domestic terrorist. n i will know we are there. >> i learned a lot of things today. ithank you. >> the head of the transportation security administration. john spoke at the terrorism and risk analysis center at the university of southern california. this is a little less than half of an hour. >> good afternoon. it is a pleasure to be here for several reasons. obviously, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of create and the relationship we have had with create. i come from a family of educators and higher education is important to me. my mother and sister were high school teachers. i was the youngest and when i decided to go to law school, they said, what happened there? not so good. i practiced law and then i became an fbi agent. they thought they really went wrong someplace. you can imagine what happened when i became the tsa administrator. that is a different story. i want to thank congressman thompson. ranking member thompson. the chairman of the ranking committee. we strong support for what at tsa and dhs have been doing with risk-based security. subcommitteeof the -- subcommittee, richard handler sen. all of the things we are doing would be a challenge to implement. they have been a great partnership. do not get me wrong. we agree to disagree on different issues and that is part of the process. years, createt 10 has added value in a unique way and it is refreshing being here and hearing all of the talk about risk, risk management, buying down risk, mitigating risk, without trying to eliminate risk. how can we best mitigate or manage risk in a way that allows the tsa to provide the most effective transportation security in the most efficient way. what has happened is the opportunity to theorize with game theory and take some of these theories and apply them to the world. what we do is take some of these ideas and the great minds you create and apply some of those techniques and opportunities to provide that security in a way that helps by down risk without eliminating risk. one of the pleasures of being former that one of the professors here, dr. dallas willard. he taught here for over 40 years and passed away last year. he was an inspiration to many people, including me. much of his published work is focused on christian spirit formation. i will read" and one of his books, called the divine conspiracy. our faith is an extension. these are words of faith. the application to what we do at the transportation security administration is clearly applicable as a principle of success. as the head of tsa, i know that our actions and decisions today influence the future of transportation security. was up 12hen tsa years ago, the notion was looking at every individual as a possible terrorist. that was the idea. we thought there would be a follow-up attack to 9/11. we do not know where, when, how. given our limitations in technology and intelligence collections shared by those. we had to focus on every possible person. screening 1.8 million people every day became an unsustainable task. several years ago, when i came to tsa, we looked at how we could apply risk-based intelligence principles. thompson was an early discuss er of how risk could be applied. in 2011, we started moving away from the "one-size-fits-all" construct and started looking at risk-based. to do we change the paradigm manage and mitigate risk in an effective way? as we have progressed over the last 3.5 years, we have set several goals. last year, we had a goal of expediting the physical the 640g of 25% of million people who travel by air in the united states every year. isn i say expedite, that using a wrist-based program or by looking at the intelligence about terrorists around the world and try to assess how we can make judgments. for example, if you are 75 or older or 12 or under, there is a high likelihood that you are not a terrorist. we can probably apply a different level of physical screening to those individuals. 50% of the a goal of travel public in 2014. last week, we had over 40% of the passengers who were screened expedited in some way. we are on that goal. thus far, we have had over 200 million people who have gone through an expedited physical screening and kept their shoes on. that is over 400 million feet that have had shoes stay on. as we continue this, we are and looking ats advances of technology. how can we do this in a way that recognizes that a vast majority of the air travelers in the united states, if not every single person, is not a terrorist. develop protocols that apply the best technology, the best intelligence, and the most commonsense fashion. the identity-based screening, we every week 225,000 here in the united states. there is nearly 27,000 flights that take off every day in the united states. if we do not know and trust the people in charge of the aircraft , i'm am not sure who we can trust. in working with the airlines and the associations, we have known crewmember protocol. we do identity-based screening. if we can identify that the member of the crew is in good standing and did not get fired last night, it is more efficient. it is better for people standing in line and the flight crews do not have to cut in front of them , as they used to. it makes sense, in a lot of ways. numbereally just a small of flight crew who are not going through that known crewmember identity-based screening. similarly, members of the military, active duty reserves and civilians were added. they are trusted and vetted by the department of defense. people we them as could expedite through physical screening because we have done pre-screening. we know they are not on the terrorist watch list or exhibiting suspicious behavior. we may do a higher percentage of different types of screening protocols. for example, swapping hands. bbing hands. ur have now expanded from fo airports to 119 airports. instead of having four individual lanes, we have 600 pre-check lanes open. full-time or during the busiest part of the morning or late afternoon. by continuing to streamline operations, we believe that we are providing the same security level because of the pre-screening based on intelligence. we also have much-improved technology. going back 12 years ago, we had limited technology. no explosive attention system. we screened every checked bag for explosives. now, we have an advance in a non-metallic ied. challenge. greatest how do we deal with the non-metallic ied that we saw on christmas day in 2009. a classified intelligence briefing is similar to the one when i was director of the fbi. in terms of transportation, pacific lee u.s. aviation, and why that is a continued interest for terrorists. it gets back to our collaborative relationship with create. science and technology work together. they're looking to buy down risk in a commonsense way. you heard several references earlier today. is iris or guards, a game theory approach. it is something that helps us in a tangible way. to have a faculty fellowship with the doctor and coming in the summer to work with us on .he risk perception survey what do people perceive? i understand that there was a study published today. coming to work with our chief risk officer. designated to be defining risk across the enterprise. from a think about this standby -- standpoint of passengers training. what we are doing is across the agency. we are even including a chapter in the perception transportation sector security. we are finalizing and submitting it to congress in the near future. so, the advanced technology and innovative work in excellence allows us to expand the notion of risk-based security. what does that mean, in terms of a way of evaluating new technologies? working towards expanding travel programs. the best layers of security. one of our keys is to make sure that we do not have a single point of failure. if there is something that is missed in one layer, we have another opportunity to detect and deter. obviously, technology on the front end is our best tool, if you will. there were two attempted attacks. one involved a toner cartridge. it was clearly intelligence. we were given the tracking numbers of the packages. the second-generation underwear plot. it involved great intelligence that led to the discovery of that device. we look forward and we would vision share some of the of tsa for the future. we look at the next five-10 years and the broad parameters. at first, i believe that a will be of passengers going through a pre-check. what does the majority means? there is not like a set majority. there is a pre-check. we rolled out this program in december. more and more people sign up and we have greater confidence that these are travelers we can expedite. as more people sign up for the expedited program, we are at 1.3 million people there. we have a greater population and the greater universe of people that are known and trusted. as we do that, you may have seen that we have included some inple who were not included the trusted traveler lane. if you not know what we are doing, that can be frustrating. they are giving us free samples. if you are not in one of our programs and we are assessing you in 3-4 ways, we will perhaps have you go through. there is randomization. if you go through that, we encourage you to sign up. some people may receive that benefit several times in a row. same thing if you are in the program. we do not want to provide a roadmap to the terrorists. even for those who are known and trusted. i can testify to that personally. i get it from time to time. risk-based, if i am going through standard screening. i will go along with it. a majority of cargo on either passenger planes or on all cargo planes -- the majority of those to checked screened using risk-based principles. you will see more integrated checkpoint technology solutions that will enable us to focus on the threats today and the future.of the we will be adaptable to a just to the newest threats. you want to think of the checkpoint of the future, we will see that. science and technology could talk in more details about that. we have a role in moving towards a checkpoint of the future. i believe that we will continue to build international reciprocity using risk-based security principles. the countries will do betting. we will use the guiding philosophy of risk-based security to achieve that. we want to have foreign programs develop fully that do not exist today. it will help in this whole one-stop security, internationally. as was mentioned in the everyr-terrorism panel, attempt involving aviation has come from overseas. recognize that and that there are 275 airports around the world that have nonstop passenger service. our relationship with the foreign partners is critical to ensure that they are providing security that is commensurate. it is only as good as our partners. the intent and execution of how they go about doing that. what weetting closer to describe as "one-stop" security for international travel. i believe that most liquids will be allowed to go on flights again. we could allow that today. we screened those because we and about august of 2006 that liquids can be used as explosives. as we are buying down risk from pre-screening, it is not the fact that you have a water battle. .- water bottle it is the fact that you have bad intent. i was permitted to carry a weapon on board, a gun, because i am an fbi agent. the issue that i was allowed to get on the plane with a deadly weapon is because i am known and trusted. it is about the person and the intense, rather than the object. i do see liquids, aerosols, and gels. with canadassue where we are looking at that. we could started today. there may be a two-hour wait at the one lane where you are allowed to bring that through. we have bottle liquid scanners and we have that technology. there are challenges and it is time consuming to do that. november,ng here last obviously, we have been focused andow we can improve tsa all airport workers. with theery closely police chief here, in terms of how we can work in a collaborative fashion to do the best we can to buy down and mitigate and manage risk without a laminating it. only get into the business of eliminating risk, it becomes unsustainable in a very short length of time. it is a partnership with the airport police. those authorities all share the common goal of making sure something like the tragic events here at lax do not happen again. i have a video that is a 15 second video. it is something that the fbi took. when still with the fbi the christmas day plot happened. it shows the device that the nigerian had. the fbi and others re-created the device. as you remember, it burned in did not explode. it is on a sheet of aluminum. a couple of sawhorses. the powera sense of of this non-metallic ied. >> 3, 2, 1. >> 2, 1. >> we can imagine, in the pressurized air cabin of an aircraft, that will be catastrophic. that is why the work that create does is so important. it helps us look at technologies that detect this type of explosives. you walk through a metal the tact or. -- metal detector. we were very fortunate that the device did not go off on the approach to detroit. how can we have a partnership to develop those technologies, the policies, the procedures, that allow us to mitigate and buy down risk without eliminating risk? the only way to come close to this is to do a thorough pat down of every person, tossed every bag and look for items like this. that is not a good model. i congratulate the 10 year anniversary and the partnership with dhs and, i thank you with your support.or if you have a positive experience, please tell the officers. if you do not, tell somebody. the federal security director may want to get those e-mails. probably not. thank you for your partnership and for what you do at u.s.. what you do at usc. moments, -- in 40 minutes, the u.s. chamber of commerce discussion on infrastructure. then, a form on the changing .ace of terrorism but the senate judiciary committee considers nominations. that is on c-span. 10:30, the homeland and government affairs committee . marco rubio speaks at the press club of about national security. -- retirement security. >> you can take c-span with you where ever you go. all three c-span television channels or c-span radio at any time. podcasts of recent shows. like the communicators and she went day. >> the house of representatives itteeed a select comm last week. now, a discussion of the roles of similar committees over the years. from washington journal, this is 40 minutes. host: we want to welcome back david. we are going to [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captions performed by national aptioning institute] he is put in charge of a select senate committee to investigate american military posture. it is what propelled him to national prominence which is what got him on the 1944 democratic ticket, which of course led to him becoming president next year when fdr died. i was followed by the army mccarthy hearings. , you have a labels john mccarthy as one of the great non-success stories of .nvestigatory power and senate sometimes it helps you select committees make someone's committee and a different way. this was actually about for five years ago, it was a select committee that was created to study global warming. it was created at a time when the person who would normally be in charge of that was dean of the house. a democrat from michigan. a big fan of the art industry and seen as not somebody was going to take the global warming issue that seriously. instead, they gave it to a bunch of green lawmakers headed by ed markey who is now in the senate. host: this was after republicans house.ntrol of the guest: instead, she created this committee. the committee held some four dozen hearings, to allow testimony, and in fact wrote the testimony that the houston last in 2009. the actually did pass the comrades a bill. the senate never took it up, but it was a select committee that actually did as planned and produced important legislation at a time and registry -- when the regular legislation would not have generated what she wanted. let's take a step back, ? at is a select committee ech guest: there are several committees. standing committee. they don't have to be reinvented at the start of the congress. some of them go back to the early -- to the late 18th late 1700s. as a been around really almost since the dawn of congress. other committees have been added as it goes along. select committees are created specific, narrow purposes. the vote ofated by the entire house. obviously, at the urging of the majority.f the they can generally exist only through the end of the congress. they often have a deadline. when we're talking about this morning does not have a deadline. generally, they're giving a specific task, a specific agenda and told to report back of a specific time and then they disappear. host: how are they created and funded? guest: different ways at different times. the benghazi committee was created last week by a vote of the house almost entirely along party lines. republicans voting in favor of it with the assistance of a handful of democrats. the resolution in this case does not have a particular funding source or a funding budget. it says only that to the extent practical, the committee should use staff from existing committees and should use the resources of existing committees. other committees have been given specific budgets. not in this case. host: how much authority to select committees have? guest: they have the authority just to do what they are told to do. and then different resolutions will give them different levels of power. in this case, the power is pretty broad. the chairman has been given subpoena power. the chairman has been given a broad scope on a narrow topic. in other words, the attack of september 11 on the diplomatic outpost in benghazi -- everything to do with that. what led up to what, what happened that day, how the administration has acted with regards to describing what happened afterward. so a broad scope around a narrow task. democrats are still deciding whether or not to participate in the select committee looking into benghazi. what if one side does not participate? has it happened before? extensive reading over the weekend to try to find a case in which it happened. the only thing that has come close is actually during the joe mccarthy hearings in the house un-american activities committee. the three democrats at sign to his committee, joe mccarthy a republican from wisconsin, they staged a brief protest and he ended up coming back after mccarthy agreed to change some of the procedures to win them back because he knew active participation from both -- without participation from both sides it will be considered a sham so he made accommodations to the democrats and their return. but i could not find any case where one party simply not participating from the start. generally both parties decide it is in their best interest to participate. probably the most famous select committee, i would say, of my time in washington was right when i got to washington and the late 1980's, the iran contra committees. the house and senate intelligence committees were both investigating allegations that the reagan administration had traded arms for hostages. they ended up appointing select committees. reagan, ronald republican president, going into the final two years of his term. the republicans decided it was in their best interest politically to cooperate with this to try to make it go away as fast as possible, to try to get to the bottom of it and try to defend the president as much as they thought they could or should be -- he's good or should should ornt -- he could be defended. both decided it was in the best interest. to me, if the democrats absent themselves altogether it would be essentially unprecedented and would mark to me sort of a new turning point and the polarization of congress that we have all seen happening for so many years now. >> what -- host: what about who controls the power of the committee? house leader nancy pelosi says the makeup of 7-5 is not fair. guest: the only way to get more balance would be 6-6. the only committees in congress that are evenly split between the two parties are the ethics committees. the reason why is because these are viewed as obviously self police thing. it is an institutional matter, that either house members policing the behavior of themselves. behavior oficing themselves. those, by custom, have been evenly divided by parties. that has never been, to my knowledge, and the reading i've done, there has never been any kind of select committee, policymaking committees, conference committee -- the committees that resolve legislative differences -- in which the majority has not had control. so a 7-5 ratio would be as close as you can get to evenly split while still having a majority in control. host: is there some concessions of that congressman doughty, the chairman of the select committee, could make to democrats if they continue to hold out -- congressman gowdy. history of some concessions. it seems the main route is over the subpoena power that i mentioned a second ago. subpoenay was given power. democrats, what they are asking issue is that mr. gowdy no subpoenas without the democrats signing off. mr. gowdy said it is a nonstarter. there does seem to be a pretty definitive rub there. i think some other concessions could be on the roster of witnesses that would be called, on the timing of the hearings. maybe narrowing the scope somewhat. giving the republicans, going beyond what may be the rules require, and giving the democrats more witnesses. generally the rolling committees is the minority is entitled to call a witness. saysimes the majority side you can call a witness but we get to veto who that witnesses. the minority side says that is not fair, they should have some latitude to mount their own side of the case in this regard. host: let's go to john from glen , illinois.nview democratic caller. caller: i have one comment and then one question. i don't know if you saw the segment that was just ended, but someone made a comment that assistant secretary of state, ande is video on c-span -- assistant secretary of state was asked was there a money problem. meaning, as far as providing all the security necessary, etc., and that person said, no, and the caller said we should put that canard to bed. i also want to point out how ridiculously oversimplified that is. because if you do that, you could look at the video on c-span of general petraeus, very respected by republicans, when asked about the reasons for the attack, answered, that the best of our knowledge, the reason was that video, that that was our best knowledge at the time. which, to use that other person passing logic, then this canard -- the person passing logic, then using this canard about the talking points about why the administration came up with the story, you should be able to put that to bed. it is not that simple. my question is, in your opinion, based on everything you have seen about this in light of the testimony so far, do you think that the future is going to look at this as an extremely compared investigation to whether or not it is investigation really to find out the truth. guest: i think that is definitely the risk that the republicans are keenly aware of. said several times, including yesterday on the fox network when he was on that if the public comes to view this as entirely political then he would be out of luck. and that he would have messed up his chance. he says, i want the democrats to participate, he says, because i won't look good if the democrats don't participate. says the republicans will only be able to make this a if thee inquiry democrats participate and if they are treated in such a way that they feel like they are going to be treated fairly. it is a higher risk. the republican base and the democratic base have both dug in on this. that therecans think are absolutely racks to be uncovered here and smoking guns, and there is going to be some sort of breakthrough that will reveal that the administration lied, flat out lied. they sort of think they are most of the way there now. and the democratic base feels like it is a totally canard, as you say, totally cooked up story. host: on twitter -- two witnesses appear voluntarily before select committees or by subpoena question much you go either way. they can either come voluntarily -- subpoena? host: another question from twitter -- guest: if i knew what they could possibly uncover that is not already known -- i would probably have a really good story and maybe i would get subpoenaed. i guess i think from the republicans i talked to, even if they don't uncover something new , they feel as though they can outthese hearings to lay their theory of what happened in a way that the public will come to understand and will be angered by. it is a complicated story. , to the best of my ears, been reduced to a sentence. iran-contra ultimately started out as pretty complicated in the late 1980's but ultimately reduced to one sentence, that the administration was accused of illegally trading arms with an enemy of the united states in order to get the return of hostages. 10 or 15 words that the public could understand. i am not sure if that 10 or 15 word explanation has yet sunk in in the public consciousness, and the less republicans could figure out a way to do that, they run the risk of not hitting the political gain out of this but they are hoping for. viewer wants to know -- when will they get details about gop denying funding for enhanced embassy security prior to attack? chris has been waiting on the line. go ahead. , cut a comment about the ad the fridayt out thursday or about benghazi watchdog. it says right at the top of the picture of hillary clinton and president obama, it says ghazi was a cover up. in other words, they have already decided that it is a cover up but they don't have any evidence. after all the other investigations, there was no evidence but yet they come out and say it was a cover up. the republicans are always touting how will the constitution should be followed word for word, and i thought we were innocent until proven guilty. host: david hawkings? guest: you point to the fundraising missives that have gone out. me, one of the riskier things for the republicans to do and mr. gowdy himself, i won't to raise money off of benghazi. now it is also the case that in the days leading up to his appointment as chairman there is some evidence he did mention the benghazi matter in his own fund-raising appeals. he now has urged the national republican congressional committee to back off on that because, again, he is a trial lawyer -- he is a prosecutor by training. and an experienced prosecutor. he spent 16 years as a prosecutor, not only for the state but also for the federal government. he knows as being a member of congress that one of the ways you win a trial is not only persuading the jury of your case but persuading the public of your case. and i think he is pretty keenly aware and political we -- politically savvy if he overplays his hand and if it is seen as politics, his side want to win. host: farmington, new mexico. independent caller. mary. 24 years.rst time in my husband at 83 was still working, sharp mind, and he was home sick that day. we did watching, because not believe what was going on. the ambassador's diary -- of course, they could not read from a. of kept telling us we could not go in. -- they kept telling us we cannot go in. if you have been watching anything, you would have known what was going on. even weeks later the president on talk shows said we are still not sure. i just want to see the truth with all the other things. thank you. it is worth think another investigation? the pentagon said already it has cost millions and thousands of hours of personnel time. there has been seven or eight other investigations. guest: five by congress and another independently. different hearings. mary, do you think it should continue? caller: yes. guest: i think if it continues, what i wonder about is if it continues and still becomes a then where ise, the public left? and i also wonder at this point if there is even a chance that they can get this done before the election, which presumably, as you know, the house is in recess this week. the two leaders could be talking by phone. ms. pelosi wants a meeting with john boehner, the speaker, to narrow the scope and get the democrats and little but more of what they say they need to make this fair. boehner's office has resisted that did this point. this thing seems to be on hold for a little while or at least being dragged out for a little while longer. then the house comes back next week. they are in for three of four weeks, out for july 4, in for three or four weeks and out for all of august and in for about two or three weeks in september, after labor day, and before they go away to campaign. those numbers of weeks do not add up to a whole lot of time to ramp up an investigation, come up with a list of witnesses, come up with all of discovery -- to use a legal term -- they need and get it done before the election. it seems like an extremely tall order for me. i just wonder how frustrated both sides will be if we come to committeeon and this has not drawn its bottom line. host: a viewer says -- committee costct extra money? these people are already employed, or do we outsource? guest: a great question. the answer is, sometimes select committees to ramp up and higher a special staff. in this case, the house resolution that created the committee was vague but says to the extent practical, the committee should use existing staff. partly that is in the interest of speed, because to go out and hire lawyers and bring out -- bring in new investigators or lawyers would take more time and as i try to describe, they are kind of pressed for time. is, a criticism of this committee from the republican side, from the sort of tea party small government side is this is spending more money that we don't have that the government does not have, as you just illustrated. tons of moneyas spent on this. some republican conservatives are saying and spend more money on this. the want to do this 1 -- on cheap sounds pejorative -- but they wanted with tight as but it is possible. other select committees required a certain amount of expertise and a higher additional people. additional lawyers, investigators, policy experts -- in the case of the global warming committee, they hired scientists, people with a level of expertise. remembering the size of the house staff, the size of congressional staff, has gone down pretty steadily in the last four years and some would argue they are operating actually as lian li as they have in quite some time. think progress.org has a quote from adam schiff -- citing this select committee could cost that -- tens of millions of dollars. they write in this -- to investigate the assassination of john f. kennedy. over a three-year investigation of the special committee on assassinations we sported -- reported spending a little over $4 million in salaries alone among by far the largest expenditure, and more and other costs such as travel, witnesses and leases. more recently, the democratic-controlled house in two as dallas a select committee on energy independence and global warming which was dismantled once the republicans took the gavel. in a bill to set up a committee the house appropriated the -- about $3.7 million. that gives you some idea how much these select committees can cost. let's go to dave in indiana. independent caller. caller: good morning, mr. hawkings. my question is, if nancy pelosi was really serious about this committee and getting people on it who wanted to find the truth, she would just nominate the five people have voted for it. put them on it. let the highest-ranking person be the ranking member of the committee. she could even negotiate even numbers because there was, like, six democrats who voted for the committee. it seems to me if she was really serious about getting to the end of this and finding -- and ending the investigation and getting to the facts, put people on there who are looking for the facts. don't let a lighter coming -- elijah cummings, funneling information to the white house, don't put van hollen in there. he just wants to get democrats elected. if you want to do it, do it with honest people who are looking for the same goal. it seems to me that would solve the problem. guest: that is a really interesting idea. is one pretty strong argument against it from ms. pelosi's view and also probably from the view of most of the members who voted for the committee. not to be too cynical to early in the morning, but most of the democrats who voted with the republicans for this committee are members who represent swing districts, where there are plenty of republicans. that relatively small group of people and politically vulnerable situations and they are fighting for their own reelection. and really, given their druthers, don't really want to spend the time of the committee. they need to be back in the districts shaking hands and being in parades and raising money and really shouldn't be spending too much time in washington at these hearings. especially because if these hearings are relatively predictably going to be along partisan lines, the ones who voted for these hearings are centrists who don't want to be caught up in the partisan tussle. host: the numbers into the investigation into benghazi, 13 hearings, 25,000 pages of documents and 50 briefings -- i think i said 50 hearings before -- 50 briefings and 13 different hearings. democrat caller. hi, james. i just -- this is a sham. i watched every investigation and everything on c-span about benghazi. i know. this is the thing. the president came out the next following day and told the american people this was a terrorist attack. that's all i have to say. host: we'll move on to tina. independent caller. caller: a couple of questions. in july of 2012 before the election president obama obama recommended to the petraeus as a rented me -- running mate for mitt romney. i wonder if that time president obama had information of general petraeus's infidelity and was planning to use that, looking for it. under there was duress general petraeus's statement tom a understanding someone had knowledge of something he will be uncomfortable with. host: you are saying the general their talkingased points off the video because he was under political duress? caller: no, under personal duress. understanding the democrat party may have shown evidence that there was some incidentally -- infidelity on his part and that he could help them out or lose his position. host: david hawkings -- i am not sure about the timeline. guest: i am not sure about that, either. that is an interesting theory. host: tennessee. republican caller. one of the hawkings, call and folks of said there was no smoking gun on this benghazi report, but there was. there was an e-mail that was recently gotten through the freedom of information act. it definitely said that there was a terrorist attack and the white house covered it up. and i think this investigation should go far because to me, it sounds like a conspiracy where everybody was talking about taking this talking point and putting it out to everyone about this film. that is what is being investigated. guest: yes, sir. you are correct, which is, under the freedom of information act, some additional e-mail has been released that the administration did not release initially. i am not precisely familiar with the when you are talking about. most of the press attention has been about a new e-mail that details -- i think the title of the e-mail was "getting susan rice ready for tv" or words to that effect. it was a briefing memo about how to put susan rice, then national -- then u.n. ambassador rice, how to put her on tv the weekend after the attacks and what she was going to say. -- toistence of that memo me, the challenge for the administration is why did they get that memo -- why didn't they get the memo out initially? that is more of a challenge i think politically in the context of the hearings and the context of republicans trying to describe the cover-up -- then the content of the memo which was, to be honest, what the administration what every congressional office does every day is get the boss ready to go on tv, giving the boss ready to be in the public eye. mark,we will go to michigan. independent caller. caller: good morning, c-span. good morning america. it is called a select committee. you know, it is kind of hard to find out the truth when you have people investigating a crime that committed the crime. do you actually think it will get the truth when you have people that committed this crime and benghazi? host: let's take your point and put it in proper perspective. have these select committee's been successful in the past? guest: i would say some have, some have not. select committee -- the so-called watergate committee in the 1970's. sam ervin, the avuncular senator from north carolina, they found he and seven of nine other senators -- majority of democrats -- and to investigate the nixon administration. they were pretty successful in unearthing aspects of the watergate scandal that have become sort of essential to the story. the existence of the taping system in the white house, for example. john dean talking about cancer on the presidency. they certainly laid the predicate for the public to come to understand and suspect that there was a cover-up that would later learn to be the case. in iran-contra, i would say, yes, they got pretty deep into the bottom of what went on with all of that. -- aney put out a report indictment handed out on some of the participants. i would say those two were pretty successful. host: democratic caller. perspective,my this benghazi select committee is totally unfair. first of all, john boehner had select the eight republicans for the committee -- sorry,epublicans, i am and offered five seats to the have not come -- inclined whether they will join the committee or not. people are not being honest. committee is really formed to tear down hillary clinton. they know she is going to run for office. you know nothing great is going to happen out of this. so what the committee is trying to do is discredit hillary clinton from running for presidency. i say, baltimore, let's do this right now instead of at the election -- although more, let's do this right now ahead of the election and let smooth out the not continue. guest: there is no deadline. theuld think you are making point that some democrats are making to nancy pelosi which is, we've got some good trial lawyers on our side, we've got some people who know how to frame things in hearings, how to conduct hearings pretty well -- let's jump on this and try to and it on its head and try sort of when the argument in the public eye and make it happen quickly and clear the decks so that, in their view, they will win the public argument and they will make life easier for hillary clinton. excellent point and one that should be made here, which is, it is minimally thinly veiled on the republican side that what they are hoping happens from these hearings is that hillary clinton is discredit it is some disk positive way and she is essentially forced to not run for president by these hearings. di there is really no one who wouldsk -- there is really no and peopleies this willing to say this only slightly off the record. caller.publican hi, howard. guest: good morning, mr. hawkings. --t i want to say today establishtried to --people solving problems economical issues and those suffering from economical problems. thanks to president obama ceesidential election, a chan for people suffering from the problem, economical or political issues -- [indiscernible] host: how is this tied to what we are talking about right here? going tohe thing i am talk about exactly is congress must solve the problems of the

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