Transcripts For CSPAN Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20140818

Importing construction materials. Those measures monitor the exclusively civilian use of all materials entering under that mechanism. It has worked, allowed successful implementation of crucial projects and builds trust. The reconstruction now needed can only be addressed with the involvement of the Palestinian Authority and the private sector in gaza meaning larger quantities of materials required to enter gaza. We are treed explore how the mechanism can be expanded to monitor the private Construction Program in gaza. Mr. President , the engagement of the community will be indispense toible help gaza back on its feet. We support todays announcement once a durable ceasefire is in place and once the conditions have been established. I am heartened the government of National Consensus is resolved to spearhead the ffort. In cooperation with the United Nations and other partners, last week i met with the deputy rime minister in gaza. I would have to see with my own eyes the level of destruction. I discussed with the deputy Prime Minister and his cabinet ministers the way forward and he assured me the government of National Consensus is addressing the reconstruction and security as part of bringing gaza back under one legitimate palestinian government. I reiterate the appeal i made last week in gaza. I call for all to rally behind the government and empower it to take charge and affect the change gaza so badly needs. Right now gaza needs houses, hospitals and schools, not rockets, tunnels and conflicts. We expect all of the factions to act responsibly and refrain from actions that run counter to this agenda. Mr. President we have been extremely troubled by breeches of the u. N. Palaces. On three occasions there was a direct hit on schools being used at the time with full knowledge of the parties as shelters from those that fled the fighting. A total of 38 were killed and 317 were injured. 11 colleagues were killed in the line of duty. They have been paying the ultimate price trying to protect those most vulnerable and alleviate suffering. 108 installations have been damaged and on 29th of july the was caused damage and hit on. Three occasions rockets were found in schools vacant at the time. These indents are intolerable an examples of the partys disrespect that safeguard u. N. Installations and staff and that protects civilians. A thorough investigation has en called for to ensure full accountability. It is not clear what ceasefire will emerge from these talks and whether it will be reached by the fast approaching deadline. In any case we believe a sustainable solution must address government and security in return of one legitimate Palestinian Authority to gaza which will undertake institutional reinstructing including the Security Sector and assume exclusive control of the use of force through the palestinian forces to border crossings and throughout gaza. None of this will be easy but we see no other way to change the dynamics in gaza. Cooperation with the United Nations will support the government in these tasks taking advantage of our presence on the ground. We are ready to take on this roll. We underline the importance of an International Monitoring arrangement. Even implications for peace and security i trust the council will consider taking whatever action is needed in support of a durable ceasefire at the appropriate time. It has been accompanied by increased tensions and violence in the west bank. Demonstration against the Israeli Military operation took place in the west bank almost on a daily basis around checkpoints and refugee camps. The most significant took place on 24 july during the holiest night when approximately 4,000 to 5,000 palestinians, including officials, marched on to the checkpoint. In East Jerusalem clashes have spread as well. A total of 17 palestinians were killed including two children and 1,400 injured during this eporting period. 623 palestinians were arrested. 17 Security Forces were arrested. One palestinian killed and 19 others injured. On august 4 on the street near an reen line in jerusalem israeli pedestrian was run over and then turned over a bus. On the same day an unknown motorcyclist shot and injured a soldier in jerusalem. Mr. President , last but not least we must not lose sight of the bigger picture. The restless situation in the west bank together with the gaza crisis should be a bleak warn to all concerned what the future will bring if we do not reverse the current negative rends. The state of conflict and hopelessness must be halted at once. The conflict must be ended. Twostate solution is the only viable scenario in this regard and we must urgently call on all and support both parties to trourn meaningful negotiations in which israel and palestine live side by side in peace and security. Thank you. I now invite Council Members to continue the discussion on the subject. Meeting is adjourned. The israeli ambassador spoke to reporters about what he had just heard. Here is a look. Ladies and gentlemen, first of all, thank you. I would like to start by saying that i agree for once with the special envoy to the United Nations saying that we need more schools and hospitals in za than rockets and terror tunnels. Ladies and gentlemen in recent weeks you heard the word disproportion at used over and over again. It is used so andauven incorrectly i can only assume people do not know what it is meaning. Perhaps i can clear up the confusion by defining it. Having or showing a difference that is not fair, reasonable or expected. Now that we understand what it means, i can tell you that the only thing disproportion at is the accusations being made against israel. Have you wondered where the u. N. Gets their casualty figures from . From hamas. Let me be perfectly clear. Hamas purposely put its people in harms way because of a propaganda war and had the numbers provided by the same terror group. I have a page of the hamas combat manual on urban warfare found in gaza. Each and every one of you will receive it in a second. Basically specifically calls on terrorists to use civilians as human shields and as a combat strategy. Hamas even used its human shield strategy to eliminate political enemies. It would shoot members in the leg to prevent them from leaving their homes. They were able to get rid of the enemies and raise the casualty count. Our good colleagues, the palestinian delegate cannot muster the courage to say a word of condemnation against them. I did not hear them say a word of condemnation about what hamas has done in those years in gaza. Another example of the ways that hamas securitied the casualty count comes from the ministry of interior. It forbids people from posting pictures, names or information. This allowed hamas to claim that every terrorist killed was a civilian and that the u. N. Is happy to go along with the deception. This is just the tip of the iceberg. The organization shows that outspoken the under tatement of the day. This makes about as much sense as choosing count dracula to run the blood bank. Ladies and gentlemen, it goes even deeper. Just think to yourself, ok media outlets. During ever seen preventive shield, have you ever seen a launch of a missile from gaza taken with so many tv cameras . Well, you know you can miss 100. You can miss 500. You can miss 1,000. But missing 3,500 missiles that were launched from gaza. That is a surprise. Why . Hamas did not allow the pictures to be taken out. People are coming out from different outlets. On three separate occasions hamas rockets were found in its schools. Is this reasonable . At least in one incident they were handed back to hamas. Is that reasonable or acceptable . Time and again israel warned the u. N. That their schools were being used to breed excitement and store and launch rockets. Surprise, surprise. The french reporter recently left gaza, released a video showing how rockets are launched steps from a u. N. Building. That is on record. 30 rockets were shot from u. N. Facilities. 248 were shot from schools and 31 were shot from mosques. Ladies and gentlemen the u. N. s accusations against israel will not promote lasting ceasefire and the rehabilitation of the gaza strip and they will not weaken hamas. It takes courage to stand up to speak the truth and the courage s short in supply. The Security Council condemned isis, groups that share the same radical hard line strategy as hamas. When was this institution going find the time to condemn hamas and designate it as a terrorist organization . Ladies and gentlemen, hamas has gotten away with their crimes thanks to the sponsorship that it receives they want to appear to be programive. He and his family have gone on a shopping spree buying the campuses of six universities, Iconic Department store in london and a futbol club. As the worlds richest country they have proven it controls the three bs. It can buy, bribe or bully its way to owning anything including the 2022 world cup. Now they are spending their way to become the worlds biggest sponsor of terrorism, second only to iran. They have funneled hundreds of millions to hamas which hamas has used to purchase thousands of rockets from iran instead of using the money for schools, hospitals and kindergarten and everything that would build a society. United states must aim their condemnations with hamas and its sponsors. Thank you very much. Thank you. Earlier this year the vail with ium held a symposium different opinions about whether they are dangerous or an effective way to grow more food. Here is a look. We are going to talk about something that is in our food. Soy, corn, cotton, canola. Ellow squash and papaya. Now the reason they are on our sentence cause of a in the policy from 1992. Agency is not saying they are significantly different and no safety testing is necessary. No labeling is necessary. So companies, the biggest g. M. O. Producer who said agent orange and d. D. T. Were safe, they can determine on their own and maybe get it right that the crops that they produce are safe. Now it turns out that basic sentence which is in fact the it was a lie. It was complete fiction. We did not know about it in 19 2 but found out about it in 1999. 44,000 secret internal memos from the f. D. A. Were forced into the Public Domain from a lawsuit. Not only were they aware that they were significantly different, it was the overwhelming consensus among their own scientists that they were different and of high risk. As for g. M. O. , here at the world health organization, European Food safety authority. It part of the conspiracy suddenly uncovered and is telling us all about . If that is not enough here are a bunch of other organizations. Not organizations, but real medical and protective organizations. In europe, which is very antigmo and australia and all over the world. The epa. We Pay Attention to that when it comes to Global Warming or Something Like that. They would say would not pose a Reasonable Risk to humans and the environment. I can come up with dozens of these. The australia and new zealand food safety group. We have identified none of the concerns. Is this reasonable something that is extraordinarily a poision here. This is fearmongering. This is nonsense. All of these organizations are just ignoring it . You can watch all of the debate tonight at 8 00 p. M. Eastern here on cspan. Tonight at 8 30 eastern books on tracking and energy in america. First a discussion with two authors of books on tracking and gregory zuckerman. The new story of the billionaire wildcatters and the boom. How tracking ignited the American Energy revolution and changed the world. Here is a great read. Sundays at eight. A collection of interviews from the most influential people over the last 25 years. I decided to take it. Whether it is an illusion or not i dont think it is. Top other people being boring. A long dofferings enhance the moments. Fiwere asked if i would do it again, the answer is probably yes. I would have quit earlier hope to get away with the whole thing. Easy for me to say. Not nice for my children to hear. Sounds irresponsible if i say i would do that again to you. But it would be hypocritical to say no. I would have never touched the stuff if i would have known. Soviet union and the soviet system in Eastern Europe contain the seeds of their own destruction. Many of the problems we saw at the end begin at the very beginning. I spoke about the attempt to control all institutions and all parts of the economy. One of the problems are that when you do that and when you try to control everything then you create opposition and potential dissidence everywhere. If you tell all artists they have to paint the same way and one does not want to paint that way. Have you just made him into a political dissident. If you want to subsidize housing in this country and we want to talk about it and it is agreed it is something we should subsidize, put on the Balance Sheet and make everybody aware of how much it is costing. When you deliver it through the third party enterprises, when you deliver the subsidy through a Public Company with private shareholders and executives who can extract a lot of that for themselves, that is not a very good way of subsidizing homeownership. Next a discussion on the potential for Greater Transparency through wikipedia. Panelists looked at it related to activity. In a recent 90day period 400,000 hits on wikipedia articles about bills pending in congress. What is notable though is that the people most knowledgeable about bills pending in congress have a aversion to this. The people who work with members, work with counts and c. R. S. Are largely not editing the website that a large segment of the population uses to get information about bills pending in congress. We have the potential for a huge manner in which government can deliver transparency to the public and the public can demand better outcomes. To help to navigate the rules around wikipedia and a little history on the legislation we have three scholars here today. Jim harper, the senior fellow that works on issues such as privacy and intellectual policy. From 2004 to 2014 harper was the director of information. Licy in 2014 cato senior fellow and the bitcoin foundation. J. D. From u. C. Hastings college of law. Next michelle, a legislative researcher and writer in the information policies department. A bachelors in Political Science and history from Emery University and masters from the university of chicago. Additionally she is editing wikipedia since august 2012. 1,3 2 unique pages and created 3 articles, most about legislation on the 113th congress. Finally jim hayes a member of wikipedia d. C. And a graduate of george mason university. Will turn it over to jim. I think we are going to really talk about interesting stuff today and we can do a lot to advance the ball on transparency in congress. The issues are very interesting. Wikipedia editing for Congressional Staff. There is aversion on capitol hill to editing wikipedia and distrust among the Wikipedia Community for edits coming from congress. With work and care i think we can improve the Information Available to the American People about what happens here. I want to open up by doing a brief history of the modern history of the transparency issue. The work that we have been doing at cato before i turn it over to michelle and jim. Michelle has the numbers to prove she is talented and capable at wikipedia. We want to make others as good as michelle and producing more information for people to gather so they have better insight into what is happening in congress. What has been going on with transparency . I have been working on it longer, since 2000. I ran a website called washington watch. 2,000 comments on a single bill. Really impressive stuff. But ultimately the transparency project never has really taken off like it could. That is basically because the data is not available. I was excited when president obama was first elected at the promises of transparency that he made. I think a good faith effort was made in the first couple years to deliver on transparency. A basic problem existed and that is that people did not know how to deliver transparency. How does a government make itself amenable to the public oversight we want today . I set to work after a couple of years and seeing the slow down in the transparency efforts during the Current Administration and wrote a couple of pieces that are interesting. Publication practices for transparent government is one. Hat do you have to do . We want them to be doing it to provide transparent data that we can make use of. We need to have authority, data to be available from an authority eightive source. Availability and completeness. All of the relative data in a given area. You want it to be up all of the time and to stay in one place so there is a consistent data stream and websites and apps can be built on a data stream that is reliable. Machine discoveribility is important. Googles crawlers and other Search Engines need to be able to find the data to collect and deliver it to people. The most important is machine readibility. Structuring data so that it can be put to use and disseminated across the internet and make itself available for people to use. A subsequent publication, we went through and assessed how well data about important parts of the u. S. Federal government. The legislative process. The budget processes. Our representative data. The grades were generally poor. There have been steps taken in the congress and the administration. A new law passed that may well improve the grades by quite a bit. But i think that in the study we are about to commence again regrading the availability of data. The numbers will still be fairly poor. Actual data about what is going on in congress is not easily available. It is not very well available. Over years we have set to work at cato to make that available. You can follow deep bills on twitter. The data is downloadable in bulk or through an a. P. I. What we do is gather xml versions of the bills and using software that is highly xml. Ed we take an rich we add xml to indicate when there is reference to existing law in all of the ways that it might exist. When there are references to an agency or bureau we have the data that makes that automatic to the people that want to parse it and find it. When a bill contains spending or Budget Authority of any kind whether it is an authorization or appropriation we also make that available as data. Publishing these bills and making it available for anyone to use and the data we are producing and starting to see used. The Washington Examiner has a page called appropriate appropriations on their website. They are collecting deep bills data and displaying to their users the existence of bills that propose to spend money. A few months ago this was the first time anyone could find what bills in Congress Proposed to spend taxpayer dollars. It is surprising there was no systemic way of learning when congress was proposing spending but the page on Washington Examiner uses the bills data to make that information to the public. The new york times. Com is a user of this data. They do tracking of legislation and votes and stuff. On pages about legislation there. There is a section called mentions. They use the references that we add to the bureau to show what agencies are mentioned in what bills. If you are interested in what is happening in the department of labor or Environmental Protection agency. The data we produce allows you to see all of these bills. I mentioned reference to existing law is another thing we mark off in all of the ways that congress refers to them. Cornel, the Legal Institute at cornel has begun using the data to let their visitors know when they are visiting a page for the section of the u. S. Code that is subject to amendment by a bill in congress. It is a link that brings people really important information. Have you sophisticated people going on to the cornel website. It is usually a top search result. When you are one of those pages and the section of the code you are looking for is up for amendment in congress they are giving you a link to that. You can look at what the bill is. You can find out who authored it. I think that creates an important democratic link and it it will take people and make them know that legislation is pending that may change the law. They may be inclined to participate and offer opinions on what congress is doing and improve democratic process. Were are also using the data on wikipedia. I come now to the subject of todays topic. We take the data that we produce at deep bills and produce boxes that we use on legislative pages. You are probably familiar with it on wikipedia. It shows in a discreet way what is going on with a particular bill. Those are produced with deep bills data as well. To sort of highlight what is going on now with wikipedia, we created a twitter bot that is a rivet congress edit twitter box. One or more editors. They seem to be trolling the edits. It is interesting stuff. Someone edited the cato institutes page from the hill about this happening. We created a similar bot that tracks all edits to legislation. All edits. Wikibills you can see what legislation is being edited. If you are interested in what people are doing with bills you can find that there. We are trying to make government more legible and more available. I think editing wikipedia is a way of doing that. Getting the notable bills up there and getting them written about. When they are doing that search they can go to that resource which is so valuable for so many things and at least start their investigation there. , that has a oned history early on, there was controversy. People from the hill. People in the offices were editing the pages of the member of congress they worked for and that there would be back and forth and there is a conflict of interest in doing that. Generally there is. There is aversion to wikipedia editing on the hill and suspicion on the part of the Wikipedia Community. We think that suspension can be abated if not gotten rid of entirely. But it will be hard. There are customs and rules that i think have to be navigated carefully. Michelle will talk to us about her experience, learning this culture. He is a highly decorated wikipedia. About her experience with the culture. It is an experience that you will have as congressional editors and others out there. Bills tend to be controversial. There is a lot of energy. We will hear from jim who is very experienced and he will talk more about this. We will have discussion about the rules and how to navigate the process. We would very much like to see Congressional Offices flip from aversion to embrace at wikipedia. After an initial phase i think hings will change dramatically they would come to expect that members of congress are sharing with the public. The question is which Congressional Office will step up and start editing wikipedia first. I am pleased to bring up michelle to Start Talking about her experience. In the last year and a half i have written 339 official wikipedia articles, most about pieces of congressional legislation. In march 2013 we have had a meet up with activists in d. C. Sitting down to talk about how to use the deep bills data in a way to make info boxes on wikipedia better and to include more information. We want to see how to determine if a piece of legislation is notable. The person that introduces it hopes that it is notable. They put it there for a reason. With 10,000 pieces of legislation in congress we cant do articles on all 10,000. One of the lines that we decided on at this meeting and that we have held to, piece of legislation is notable if it comes up for a floor vote on the house and the senate. That is several hundred bills so far in this congress. We have articles about 350 of them. There are many more we do not have articles about. One of the things that i have noticed is that you can count the hit count an article gets and exactly who the editors are of an article. When we write an article and put it in the article space people read it. Especially major bills like the immigration bill or various farm bills or appropriations bills. Those get attention. Hey build go in google it shows up on the first page of google hits. They use wikipedia. They will go there and read the article. The problem is that once you put the article up there, while there is hardcore people that come by to do maintenance on the article, very little Additional Information gets added. That is what we would like to see people on the hill do. You have a personal and professional interest in their being. Correct information out there about general public what is in the bill and why it is good, bad or terand i believe how it can be improved. You have an insent testify add to these articles. Hat wikipedians can provide is the knowledge and rules and culture. How to address conflict of interest situations and how to spruce up the articles by adding images and maps to show and how to make cool info boxes. That is something wikipedians can add. We still need people to add on the content side. Several cases i ran into situations where a bill was passed in a voice bill. There is no total so you can make a map that explains who voted yes and no. It turns out a guy was using data from a vote taken on a and he he same name did not notice the difference. We need people that are experts like yourself to help us out with. That is also a thing that can come up with multiple versions of the same bill with different titles but that completely different contents. That is something wikipedians do not understand but staffers would and something staffers would understand a legislative vehicle that is straight over the head. So i think that it is a very valuable project. Even if you can pull a summary from some place like the Congressional Research service it will not make sense to a layperson that does not have eep knowledge of that issue. The great part about wikipedia is you can make a link to the agencies and organizations and the locations and places that are in the summary so that someone reading this piece of legislation, you know they are studying up on their Congress Person to decide if they are going to vote for the guy again. They can look at the legislation and say i do not now what a hydro powered dam is but i can click on this link and read all about what that is. I would love to see more people at wikipedia. I think that there are good reasons to. There is a group here in d. C. That knows it well and would love to partner with you guys to help staffers and people with knowledge edit wikipedia in a strong and helpful way. Jim. Thanks for coming. We really enjoyed it and look for more collaborations in the future. Yes. By way of background, wikipedia, it seems like that is where everybodys page hits go. The thing to keep in mind is that the wiki Media Foundation is nonprofit and they run the servers and software. Are based out of San Francisco but all of the content is run by volunteers. E have a local chapter where there is an article that gives you all of the gory details. Conflict of interest editing on wikipedia. In 2006, and congress was part of that. There were some good takeaways from that and some good examples. There was an article about joe wilson that was a precursor to some of the conflict of interest rules where staffers would put content on the talk age. So things become more ormalized over time. The idea is to give you best practices of how to do fact corrections in articles, if you find something that is not factually correct even if you have a conflict. You want to register your account and then make comments on the talk page. And also if you need help editing, there are good suggestions on your hand out. We would also suggest that there is a forum called the tea house. Also if you want more hands on help come to some of our local events. You get a nice backstage pass. You can meet a lot of social Media Outreach people there and that we can help you with your concerns about editing. A lot of this conflict of interest is tied in to p. R. Controversy that has occurred on wikipedia. There are Public Relations firms and there is a spectrum there and there are bad actors o are creating a bad atmosphere. Local folks have gotten together and there is a statement on wikipedia for participating Communications Firms and that is something that we might consider among staff and have a statement for people to sign on to. Again, it is reaffirming the existing policy. It helps to foster a sense of cooperation and perhaps you know do cultural management there among wikipedians. Also conflict of interest has been incorporated in the new erms of use. It is giving you more tools to deal with bad actors. Part of editing practice would be to differiate your efforts with what bad actors might do. And one thing our chapter does in the spring is that we do wiki loves capitol hill. We have been having conversations with staff on the. P. Subcommittees. If you are interested in talking with us we would be happy to talk with you about that. Looking forward to questions and i would know happy to expand if have you general concerns. Thanks. I was curious to know who among you feel you are experienced wikipedians and edit fairly regularly . Five or six . . Who here is the staff that is pretty interesting. Just for people that did not see. That is the point. Gets them more involved. We have plenty of time for questions if anyone has any. I was on the hill not too long ago. Even though i might be open to the idea of editing wikipedia. Wikipedia still has a stigma to it where you would not cite it in a College Paper. It may not be accurate. Have you had hill staffers coming to you with that concern and how do you address that . I know for sure that there are hill staffers that edit wikipedia. A couple of them commented on a discussion that i was having with people when we were planning this event that they were very interested in knowing about the event. The twitter bot that captures edits from anonymous edits from the house and senate ip addresses prove that there are people in these Office Buildings that are editing wikipedia. I think that anyone that looks down on wikipedia needs to reconsider their mindset. Because wikipedia is one of the it is like the sixth most heavily trafficked websites in the entire world. It is ok if your College Professor does not want to cite the article. The College Professor is not your audience. You are editing it to speak to people that are go to go to your town hall and is you questions about the legislation that you voted for and they are the people that are going to donate to your campaign and the people that you know, help you out and who you are supposed to be helping in turn. It is ordinary people that read wikipedia and most of the world is full of ordinary, normal people. We are the people that care about wikipedia. The other thing that i would point to is that wikipedias rules regarding citations have improved a lot over time and people are much more vigilent about properly citing information about what goes in wikipedia than they used to be and that is something that i would encourage any of you staffers or anyone at all editing wikipedia. To cite your sources. Cite your sources. If you use proper citations. You push the button. You tell it a book, website or newspaper. It does all of it for you. If you do that people cannot accuse you of making things up. They have a harder time deleting information that have you added because you have shown where it came from and i think that adds to the legitimacy as well. Sure you do not cite wikipedia in your College Paper but you do look there first and you find all of the citations and use that. I will share a story from some years back. Understanding the value of wiki style editing, it is quite a while back now. I added to the washington watch wiki editing capability. It is not wikipedia but you can do the same thing. I went around on the hill and talked to friends saying this is a chance for you to put on the Public Record a really good description of your bill and you will be able to access a lot more people this way. You will give them the story direct. How does Congress Community with the public now . Very much the press. You have someone in the press. Reach out to them. Try to get a story written and favorably done. It is completely summary information that is sometimes high quality and others low quality. People sometimes come to your individual member website. But the flow of information out to the public about legislation is rather poor. On the other side you have a lot of people that are highly suspicious because the flow is so poor. The information that they have is widely varied and not very reliable sources in many cases. The instinct on the hill i think to not want to engine. A friend said the last thing we want is the public to actually now what we are doing up here. Often the loudest members of the public are the most distrustful. But that can be flipped. And i think that straightforward merited information about bills can be communicated it to the public. Accurate counter arguments can be communicated through wikipedia. You have to really, really work at it the community of editors and authorsville to joust about,characterize given issues or provisions of different bills. But out of that jousting and out of that contest you will get very, very good information. Wikipedia handles some of the most controversial debates. People work at it. People work very hard to choose words carefully. To choose the structure of articles carefully so that the debate is accurately represented on wikipedia. You cant go to wikipedia and use it to win debates. You just accurately use it to represent the debates and in that challenge comes good information for the possible use. It represents an opportunity for a change in transparency about what the hill is doing and a change in public attitudes. As john stated at the beginning something i stated as well. This will position the public to demand of congress more of what they want. People can understand what is happening and do more with it and communicate accurately. Communicate about specifics. Rather than phone banks coming from the moment district you will get people calling say at i understand hr 16rbings1 34 does x, y and z. Here is what i think about it. How much better would that be than the wonderful phone banks people say i have been told to tell you et cetera, et cetera. You are familiar with that many of you. That is a real opportunity i think. Any other questions . Yes. What is the gap about what ngress is doing and can you repeat the question. The gap that cato feels about what congress is doing. About the bills, what it is. The information gap between congress is coing and what the public understands is going on and how cato is helping to address that . Yes. Michelle, if you recall how many bills were written up on wikipedia before we got going with this project . From that congress, not very many. The ones that existed were ones that, you know, were repeat multiple congresses. The violence against women act, which was reauthorized. The original bill had an article. It is not very many. There is one for equal Employment Rights for gay people. Employment nondiscrimination act. Yeah. And there is like 10 or so that preexisted without us adding. Bills that come up year after year, they had articles. Sometimes they would accurately represent one congress, the bill version and the next bill version the next congress and the next and the next and so on and so forth. The loss of bills would go by without any article at all on wikipedia. Now we are getting them there. Michelle said we need to have those articles better fleshed out so there is more Information Available to the public. The National Defense authorize act, there is one of those every year as i recall. They have articles on many of those. But one particular year the article will be 5,000 words, you know, fairly lengthy and the Previous Year it will be three sentences long. But i think that most of us would consider each year to have equal weight and importance to our country. Just getting more information and making sure that we write a more robust article every year about it is something that is important. I would say the gap is summary style of what is going on on the hill. You know being on the hill, you are well aware the specialized media that is around and that is tracking things. But i do not think it is getting to the web in an easy to digest or find method for the average person. So they are obviously googling, trying to find out about bills. But how do we mediate between that search and then lead them to the more specialized references . I would say that is the gap that they are filling. Again, you know the problem is that it tends to, a lot of editing tends to be event driven. You will have one editor interested about a particular year and then they do not come back to do the same thing. A thing that i would be interested in talking about is the conflict of interest and how you might handle it. You work in a Congressional Office. I am i do not want to talk about editing members pages. That is something that has been hashed over and it is a bad idea to edit members pages but you could. How about legislation. You work for a member of congress, michelle and jim, you work for a member of congress. Your member of congress has legislation introduced. You know a lot about it and you can provide a lot of information. But on the other hand you may have a conflict of interest in editing the page. What is your thinking on whether there is a conflict of interest and what to do about it if there is a conflict of interest . My take on the conflict of interest rules is that your Mindset Matters as much as your actual technical conflict might. So if you are just editing the site with you are going to remove all counter arguments and all information from your opponent and you will act like 100 of the world is behind this bill, that would be a conflict of interest because you are not treating the topic ethicly or fairly. I would say that your first step if you were going to edit a piece of legislation or any you dont even have to give the website and email address. You say a username and password. This is good because it gives you accountability. If you are logged in, every edit you make is tracked. Is not confused made with infused with edits made by others. You can be a community member, editing from the same building as this jerk over here, but his edit and my edits are different. Getting help you avoid cast as a troll. Having your own user account is important. Another thing you can do is write on your user page your facebook profile or any other profile about yourself. You can write who you are on that page. You can say, i am bob, i work for such and such. Fields. Erested in these you can say what your credentials are, like i have a bachelors degree in agricultural economics. That is interesting information for anyone who read your edits because they can say, oh, they studied this in school and know a lot about it. Countishing an editor also improves other peoples perceptions of you, because it shows commitment to the website. People will take you more seriously and will reward you by giving you these cool things called cookies. That can be good. It also allows you to build relationships with people. By doing that you establish that you want to join the community and to in good standing. The next thing you could do is if you are really unsure and really dont want to make any mistakes you can edit on the talk page instead of on the main page. The hide every wikipedia article isa talk page, and that where people and editors can write about the article without writing the article. They can say, hey, i found this paragraph in here and it is lies,junk and a bunch of we want this taken out. Then someone say, i think you are right. They can have the huge battle. If you want to be more cautious, right on the talk page. If you are ready to go and think , i have good information and will contribute well and uncomfortable, you can just edit the main page and make sure you cite your sources. Has very clear addelines for what good and sources are. Anything from the Mainstream Media counts as a good source. Many things from books and journals and things like that. Useyou cite your sources, neutral phrasing, this sis such and suchs opinion in is true. Of thsi siis most features most pages have a watch feature, which means that whenever you go to your watchlist, you have the most recent edits from the last three to seven days that are on your watchlist. People can watch the page that you did and if they agree with your edits they will be ok, i will let this go. And if they hate that they can change them immediately. I think one of the best parts of it is aa is that selfgoverning society and it protects you and your opponents and cuts down on some of the political fighting because people are viewing what youre doing and they can undo your work if you were not behaving appropriately. Bill that, if it is a you have if you have an ax to grind into conflict, it is important to try and maintain a neutral point of view. Talk pages people dont notice, but there yes, pleas e, lets use them. There is a process we are supposed to follow called edit, revert, talk. If someone reverts your edits, please dont on revert because please go to the talk page and engage in discussion about what your issues are. The idea is that we are supposed to be writing an encyclopedia that is based on facts, and we will now have a metadiscussion about what the facts are, try to mediate what the best references are. Did a goodthe town job of talking about how people who are knowledgeable can do can be more engaged. I think what might be on most Congressional Staffers mines i am not being paid to engage in a public debate. In amay come across conflict of interest. What benefit does it have to professional staffers could you elaborate on more tangible benefits for staffers to go out and become more engaged . I think the battle over mostlation and i think people know this it is largely thought on the terrain a terrain that is built entirely of talking points. It is a contest among talking points, among getting favorable constituencies or authorities to weigh in on your side. As high aly not quality debate that we would all like to have. I think wikipedia really allows you to provide information, allows the public, the actual constituents to access information and make up his or her own mind. Quality articles about bills will convince laypeople on the merits. All of them will be happy with the opportunity to do that then they are now, where there opportunity is to choose which team they are on or what ideology is theirs. There are facts about what is happening in congress, facts that can be gathered and arguments that can be organized so people can carefully consider what is happening. It doesnt seem like a real opportunity for a lot of folks because the consensus out there is one of discomfort and anger. Communicating with real people out there often brings back that kind of discomfort. Youhis mode of operating, will find that people are interested as they are concerned and they want to do what is best for the country and they would much rather work toward agreement and consensus then they would fight. Most of what happens today is debate about Public Affairs it is fighting. They make it there all day, every day. But there is a great mass of people out there that want what is best for the country and they want a way to work productively toward that. I think informing them through wikipedia would facilitate that kind of democratic deliberation. You mentioned the twitter bot then, there have been anonymous edits from the house. Do you think it has been a good thing for transparency or has a discouraged people from editing . It hasnt encouraged people to edit wikipedia more. It ishink, on the whole, a good thing that Congress Edits twitter bot. It is for discussion and it comes at a time when we were already planning this event and the discussion is possible and worth having. On the other hand, it is not a full win because there are anons as goodge that are not and not as well trusted as logged in users. Anonymous edits coming from the hill they are immediately cast with the likelihood that they are lowquality edits and inappropriate and have to be reversed. I dont know the intentions of the designer of the box. Perhaps it was to show that congress is monkeying around with wikipedia. There is another way to do things and that is why we created wiki bill wikibill. Bot, is meant to show people edits happening to legislation. It doesnt matter if the edit is coming from the hill, is anonymous or not. There is a fair amount of editing happening but certainly not enough. The more people follow wikibills, more people will be aware of what is happening and inclined to to participate. It is a net positive because it has spurred discussion. Point is a negative and i think that could be reversed. Highquality, careful wikipedia editing would be a very good thing for transparency. Made a lot of bot news because it is easy and automated but you have the same problem back in 2006. The story could have been written anywhere even without the bot. Is yes, part of this volunteer admins who Block Network ips, and we need to tell them that that is silly. After all, they blocked Public Libraries too. They see a problem and they want to use their block tool. Discuss the both policy called donte bite the newbie . Maybe that will encourage them to edit. That i is another policy am afraid all the older wikipedians have forgotten about. I keep fighting this battle myself, trying to get people to be more friendlier to new editors. There is a lot of initiatives, and we do a lot of this at local events, but keep in mind this is a cultural thing that is going on among average wikipedians. They will tend to view new editors as spammers. You are going to have to build up some rapport to prove yourself, which is unfortunate. The policy he is talking about is a guideline dont be jerks to people who are just starting out. Hopefully you wouldnt be a jerk to people in general, but wikipedia notices an institution that it was having trouble recruiting new editors and part of that is that he would make an edit or two, not to with great because they werent familiar with the editing tools or the secret code that goes on behind the scenes, and they would get yelled at or have all their edits reverted and they would never come back to the site. It is sort of like a message board to be friendly to new people. I encourage signing up as a user, getting your own username because then you can write on your talk page that says, hi, i am new and i would like advice and help and if you have a problem with one of my edits least talk to me about it and we can have a discussion. I found this to be very much we use to describe it around the office as being persecuted or hunted by this particular user who renamed every article that i started because he didnt like the naming convention i was following. We have it after about six months of him editing everything every single one of my pages every day. That was eventually resolved. If you do join, dont let a handful of crazy people on the internet keep you from joining and being helpful and joining the community. Talking to myself, talking to other editors there are people who wants to welcome you into the community and get your help and your unique talent and build this great encyclopedia. I dont know if it is done but you could almost create a taxonomy of wikipedians, their technical specialty. Fixing a certain element of every article and they are indifferent to what article it is. They will fix that so that all the articles are published in terms of a particular convention. Then there seem to be the wikipedians who feel a sense of ownership over an issue. This is something we found in relativelyoing, unoccupied issue area like Public Policy or legislation they had some folks with a sense of ownership because they are the only ones there. Contribute in cause it to lee and productively, but one or two people can only do an incomplete job of it. When michelle came and started working there as a relatively new she had edited before but new kid on the block kind of treatment which she got. You are not going to be around that long, heres how we do it, we have been doing it this way all along. But her persistence and care in addressing, forthrightly, what the issues are and urging discussion and writing conversation on talk pages she established herself as an experienced, known wikipedia n. They can go look and see who this person is, who has a deep history. Youkind of thing where build experience, you build a history on wikipedia and you will be a strong editor. Your first day or two on the job may not be very comfortable because Public Policy and politics do tend to have a lot of high temperatures. People will be suspicious. Stay with it and build a history and you will establish a reputation for honesty. I will help you. Michelle will help you. I have a question. Kept going they back and changing. Is there a specific group that has this ability to go and review what you are about to publish before it goes online . How does the process work . Are different when you have a user account, you get different user privileges. There is a small group of about 1000 people who are administrators, and they can block users for violations of policy. Usually if someone is being a vandal, just going in and editing articles to include curse words, deleting articles, general mischief, they get a series of warnings that you post to their user page and then they are blocked for a length of time. With congress peoples pages, if there is an edit war going on or someone has been materialry demeaning that is incorrect and does not belong in a biography, they can put a block on the page to stop inexperienced editors from editing the page for a particular time. Particular time period. If you are having a problem with someone chasing you down or harassing you, or if there is a ways ton there are bring that situation to an administrator and get them to deal with that. Blocks are different from ypically, any editor can revert any edit. But there are exceptions. Isically, if an editor interested in the same topic matter, you will find yourself editing a lot of the same articles. On processesputes if a certaind yes, article is a subject of dispute and it is not being resolved on the talk page, certain admins will come by and put blocks on them, maybes on even sanctions if people act out too much. In general, say you wanted to add one sentence to an article. This bill passed the house today in a vote of x to y. Citation. All you would have to do is go to the page, whether you were logged in or not, and the edited would be credited to you if you were logged in or credited to the ip address. You would scroll down to the part you want, type in the sentence, hit the sites button to add your citation cite button to add your citation. Then you hit save and it is done. That is the simplest way to edit. Edits go live as soon as you save them. There was some discussion about having a preview of changes by admins but that is not on english wikipedia. Other languages do different things. They call it pending changes edit,now, if you want to typically you can change things on the fly. Peoplewill you help understand the page you are creating . Day but ipedia every never edit anything. I didnt know anything about conflict of interest. How will you make sure that casual users understand how the pages are being maintained . That is an interesting question. One thing that the community is a dispute there about the neutrality of an the top oftentimes at of the article someone will have added a template that gives you an alert notice that says, the neutrality of this article is under dispute, please see the talk page. And it has a link to that. I guess to a certain degree, readers beware. All of the citations are footnoted in the actual text. If they see a sentence there as they want to know if it is true they can find the footnote. Way, ifally, there is a another editor read that and says i am not sure this fact is true, they can add a little notation, andn readers will be able to see that and realize someone has questions that. Questioned that. Beyond that, i guess it is just a reader beware system. It is a problem that the average reader doesnt understand. Culture the editor tends to be toward other editors who have this whole body of cultural knowledge. Part are some initiatives, of what we do is deal with local cultural institutions is now educational foundations. But yes, it is a big problem Going Forward for wikipedia. There have been studies done comparing the reliability and accuracy of wikipedia to other, formally written by advanced encyclopedias. I think they found that wikipedia was just as reliable as those other encyclopedias. There is a list somewhere of Scholarly Research done on wikipedia. It is more accurate than you may fear. Have some nice outreach brochures and things on how to evaluate quality articles. There is some semipeer review of articles for quality, but the average reader tends to not get that. We are trying to explain as we go along. I think your question isnt reason another important to have people like this audience edit wikipedia, so you have expertise. You should share that with the world. One more question . Can you talk a little bit about how you write neutrally about a piece of legislation . Is it a matter of presenting both sides or is there a way you can straightforwardly write neutrally . When i write a piece of legislation, we have a skeleton that we use that includes the infobox we want to put in the infoboxes are neutral, just a list of facts and dates and people. Eightground section, provisions section a theisions section, procedural history and the debate section. The debate section is probably the most controversial section into the most and the most nonneutral place you could have problems. Never available, i use the Congressional Research summary. On crs to be neutral for me. The congressional budget office, cite but that is where the material is covered an coming from. Here is what they say is happening. Procedural history is just a list of, this happened on this day. With the debate, that is actually one of the places i would like to see more editing happen. Whatten it is easy to find one side is saying about the bill into knots defined what the other side is saying, especially with bills that pass under suspension. The people who won, who got their bill passed, are proud and pleased to announce and say, look at this great thing we did. It is easy to find what they say. It is often either to harder whoind the organizations have some great objection to it and see what they say. In terms of being neutral, i try in situ set it try and cite who said it, so you know you were getting this persons opinion rather than presenting the opinion as a true fact. , ande read the articles sometimes people dont like the way i phrased it and they change it and that is great. In a lot of respects, the article skeletons are the beginning they are a lot like reporting. Who said what on both sides, cite to it, people can follow those links. Part of the goal with this event and our push to get Congressional Staff and other interested to edit is to get further into debate for who says what on each side, into here are the current economic and social facts. What studies show are the circumstances in a given area of interest. Here is what the bill would be, and that is also contestable, something that the article could flesh out in handle. And handle. The result would be an improvement in the state of affairs in the country. These are things we should cap be at caveat. There is no snap of the fingers and then every wikipedia article is full. Any people who are highly knowledgeable. Rsod wikipedia edito will start to see Higher Quality articles. What the circumstances are now, how the bill would affect things, what the outcome would be, both sides represented accurately. Just to be circular we postell, the washington said so so we can put the sentence in there but there is a certain level of adding references from newspapers and the next step is to go to the scientific papers. We will try and find Academic Studies that support statements. We are just about out of time. Before we wrap up, i want to say if you work on the hill as a Congressional Staffer, presumably you care about it being a republic and i hope this panel has encouraged you to become more involved wikipedia editing so you can improve public debate, which we can all agree we are sorely in need of. If you are interested, michelle will help you, and im sure jim would mind either. Thank you very much for coming. We will stick around for a little bit. Please join me in thanking our speakers. [applause] heres a look at our primetime lineup for this week. Each night starting at 8 00 eastern. A debate on genetically modified food. Then issue spotlight on General Motors safety recalls. Wednesday night, highlights from the new york idea for him forum. We will look at the issue of climate change. Friday, important sites in the history of the civil rights movement. Tonight,ook tv and primetime with a discussion about fracking. Tuesday, the history of money. Then the authors of the second machine age talk about how new technology will change everyday life that 8 00. Thursday, a discussion about the future of politics. Riday, in depth on American History tv on cspan week on the civil war. Tonight, the overland campaign. Tuesday, the battle of fort stevens. Wednesday, the the battle of the crater. Thursday, general shermans march to the sea. Friday, a look at hollywood hospira trail of slavery. Let us know what you think about the programs you are watching. Us. Us or email conversation. N like us on facebook, follow us on twitter. On the next washington journ at how the Obama Administration has been handling the situation in the middle east and in ferguson, missouri. Then a discussion on Lyndon Johnson with patricia harrison. And ceo of thet corporation for public broadcasting and will talk about the public broadcasting act that was signed by Lyndon Johnson. We will also hear from tom scully about the creation of medicare under lbj. We will take your phone calls and look for your comments on facebook and twitter. Earlier today, president obama held a brief News Conference on the situation in the rack and the ongoing violence iraq and the ongoing violence. In iraqng operations and ferguson, missouri. We continue to focus on supporting the Iraqi Government. First, our military operations are effectively protecting our personnel in iraq. Over the last 11 days, american airstrikes have advanced around the city of erbil and pushed back the terrorist. Additionalsded assistance to iraqi forces, including kurdish and iraqi Security Forces on the front lines. Support, yourr iraqi and Kurdish Forces took a major step forward by recapturing the largest band in iraq near mosul. The mosul dam fell under terrorist control earlier this month. If that dam was breached, it couldve proven catastrophic and endanger the lives of thousands of civilians and endangered our Embassy Compound in baghdad. Iraqi and Kurdish Forces took the lead on the ground. This operation demonstrates that iraqi and Kurdish Forces are capable of working together and taking the fight to isis. If they continue to do so, they will have the strong support of the United States. Second, we are building an International Coalition to address the humanitarian crisis in northern iraq. Even as we help many thousands of yazidis escape the seizures mount sinjar, thousands have been displaced by isis violence. Going forward, the United States will work with the Iraqi Government as well as partners like the united kingdom, canada, france, italy, and australia, to get food and water to people that need it and to bring longterm relief to people who have been driven from their homes. Third, we will continue to tuteue a long term sta to turn the tide against isil. Over the last week, iraqis named a new Prime Minister designate. Minister,going prime maliki, agreed to step down. Willransition of power mark a major milestone in iraqs political development. The work is not yet done. Over the next few weeks, the work of forming a new, broadbased, inclusive Iraqi Government one that develops a National Program to address the interests of all iraqis without that progress, extremists like isil can continue to prey upon iraqi. Iraqis will be able to unite the countries begin the country against threats like isil. Poses amember isil threat to all iraqis and to the entire region. They claim to represent grievances but they slaughter men, women, and children. To be enforcers but they actively recruit foreign fighters to enforce their hateful ideology. The people must reject them and push them out of the land, as we are seeing at mosul. This will take time. There will be challenges ahead. Meanwhile, there should be no doubt that the United States military will continue to carry out the limited missions i have authorized. Andoth erbil and baghdad providing military support as we get to mount sinjar. We have consulted closely with congress about our strategy in iraq and we will continue to do so in the weeks to come. When it comes to the security of our people and the efforts against the terrorist group like isil, we need to be united in our resolve. I want to address the situation in ferguson, missouri. Earlier this afternoon, i spoke with Governor Nixon and claire mccaskill. I met with the attorney general. Department has opened an independent, federal, civil rights investigation into the death of michael brown. They are on the ground and along with the fbi they are devoting substantial resources to that investigation. The attorney general will be traveling to ferguson on wednesday to meet with the fbi agents and the doj personnel. He will receive an update from them on their progress. He will be meeting with other leaders in the community who t is so whose suppor critical to bring about peace and calm in ferguson. The director of the dojs office alsoasing services is traveling to ferguson tomorrow to work with Police Officials on the ground. We have also had experts from the dojs Community Relations Service Working in ferguson since the days after the shooting to foster conversation among local stakeholders. Let me close saying a few words about the tensions. We have all seen images of protesters and Law Enforcement in the streets. It is clear that the vast majority of people are peacefully protesting. What is also clear is that a small minority of individuals are not. I understand the compassions and the anger that arise over the death of michael brown. Getting into that anger by looting or carrying guns or attacking the police only this serves only serves to stir chaos. It undermines rather than advances justice. But the also be clear that our constitutional right to speak freely, to assemble and to report in the press, must be vigilantly safeguarded especially in moments like these. There is no excuse for Excessive Force by police or any action that denies people the right to protest peacefully. Ours is a nation of laws. The citizens who live under them and for the citizens who enforce them. To a community in ferguson that is rightly hurting and looking for answers, lets me call once again let me call once again for understanding rather than hollering at each other. To heal rather than to wound each other. We have got to use this moment to each out our share of humanity eke out our share of unity. The frustration of the community, the ideals that we hold as one, united american family. I have said this before. In too many communities around the country, mistrust exists between local residents and Law Enforcement. Communities, too many young men of color are left behind and seen only as objects of fear. Through initiatives like my brothers keeper, i am committed to changing both the perception and reality and already we are making some significant progress as people of all races are ready to chip in. That requires that we build is not tear down. And not tear down. That we listen and not just shout. To move forward together. Trying to unite each other and understand each other and not simply divide ourselves from one another. We are going to have to hold tight to those values in the days ahead. That is how we bring about justice and how we bring about peace. With that, i have got a few questions that i will take. The incident happened ferguson has led to a discussion about the nations city police forces. I wonder if you think you see that as a fact regarding the Police Response in ferguson. And also, do agree with the decision of the governor to send in the National Guard . I think one of the great things about the United States has been our ability to maintain a distinction between our military and domestic Law Enforcement. That helps preserve our civil liberties. That helps ensure that the military is accountable to civilian direction. That has to be preserved. Understandably, a lot of folks saw local communities that were illequipped for a potential catastrophic terrorist attack. People in congress, people of goodwill, decided that we have to make sure they get proper threatst to deal with that historically wouldnt arise in local communities. Some of that has been useful. Some Law Enforcement didnt have radios that they could operate effectively in the midst of a disaster. Sun communities needed to be prepared if, in fact, there was a chemical attack and they didnt have hazmat suits. Having said that, i think it is probably useful for us to review howthe funding has gone, local Law Enforcement has used dollars to make sure that what they are purchasing is stuff they actually need. Biguse there is a difference between our military and our local Law Enforcement and we dont want those lines blurred. That would be contrary to our traditions. I think there will be some bipartisan interest in reexamining some of those programs. With respect to the National Guard, it is important to remember that this was a state activated National Guard. It is under the charge of the governor, not something we initiated at the federal level. I spoke with jay nixon about this, expressed an interest in fact, sure that if, in the National Guard is used, it is used in a limited and appropriate way. He described the support role but they are going to be providing to local Law Enforcement, and i will be watching over the next several days to assess whether it is helping rather than hindering progress in ferguson. How long do you think it will take to contain isil . I have been firm from the start that we are not reintroducing thousands of u. S. Troops back on the ground to engage in combat. Even the Iraqi Air Force i am the commander in chief of the United States armed forces and iraq is going to have to provide for its own security. On the other hand, we have got a National Security interest in making sure our people are protected and making sure a seems willinghat to slaughter people for no rhyme or reason other than they have ed to them. T they can pose a threat to us. My goal is to make sure we are a reliable partner. Sot is why we have consistently emphasized the need for a government formation process that is inclusive, that is credible, that is legitimate, that can appeal to sunnis as well as she is and kurds shia s and kurds. We have made progress but we are not there yet. I told my National Security team today, and i will say publicly, that we want to continue to communicate to politicians of all stripes in iraq, dont think that because we have engaged in airstrikes to protect our people let the is the time to foot off the gas and return to the same kind of dysfunction that has so weakened the country generally. He has said the right things i was impressed in my conversations with him about his visions for an inclusive government. I have got to get this done. There is a wolf at the door, and in order for them to be credible with the iraqi people, they will have to put behind some of the old practices and create a credible unity government. United government. When we see a credible Iraqi Government, we are then in a position to engage with planning, not just with the Iraqi Government but also with each and all actors, and folks beyond the middle east, so that we can craft the kind of joint strategy, joint counterterrorism strategy, that i discussed at west point, and i discussed several years ago at the National Defense conference. Our goal is to have affected partners on the ground. If we have affected partners on the ground, what happens with Mission Creep is we start deciding that we are the ones who have to do it ourselves. The excellence of our military, that can work for a time. We will learn that in iraq. Learned that in your act. But it is not sustainable. I have been very firm about this precisely because our goal has up a able to build structure, and not just in iraq but regionally, that can be maintained. That is not involving us effectively trying to govern or impose our military will on a country that is hostile to us. I dont think im prepared to provide a blanket answer. A lot of it depends on how effectively the Iraqi Government comes together. If in factll see, the government formation process moves rapidly and credibly, there will be a lot of factors in the region and around the world that are prepared to help, to step up assistance. Many of whom may have been reticent over the last several years because the perception was that baghdad was not being inclusive and it would be selfdefeating. I think youll see a lot of folks step up. Iraq will have a variety of partners. When morph folks are unified around the effort more folkes are unified around the effort, it is something that can be accomplished. There is a prospect of sunni who are the primary residence of areas that isil now controls, saying we have got a viable option. We would rather work with a Central Government that appears to understand our grievances as is and is prepared to meet them rather than deal with individuals who dont seem to have any values beyond death and destruction. Im going to take the last question from somebody who, after 41 years, i understand has decided to retire. N isompton ann compto not only the consummate professional but is also a pleasure to get to know. Hugs proud to be able to her grandbaby recently. I suspect that may have something to do with your decision. Publicly, weo say, are going to miss you and we are very proud of the extraordinary career and work you have done. We hope you are not a stranger. [applause] thank you. I suspect you may get some cake at some point. Let me ask this is an interesting time in your presidency. One of the things you have so emphasized in the last few out, mys this reach brothers keeper, to a generation that doesnt feel it has much. The attorney general to ferguson is a step. Has anyone there ask you have you considered going very yourself going there yourself . Is there something you can do to communities that might feel that kind of attention . Seen events in which there is a big gulf between Community Perceptions in Law Enforcement perceptions around the country. This is not something new. It is always tragic when it involves the death of someone so young. I have to be very careful about not prejudging these events before investigations are completed, because although these are issues of local jurisdiction, the doj works for me, and i have got to make sure that i am not looking like i am putting my thumb on the scale. To address a specific case, beyond making sure it is conducted in a way that is transparent, where there is accountability, where people can trust the process, hoping that as a consequence of their and just process fair and just process, you end up with a fair and just outcome. As i think i have said in some past occasions, part of the affectingallenge of our union has involved dealing with communities that feel left behind. Of tragicconsequence histories, often find themselves isolated, often find themselves without hope, without economic prospects. Color inyoung men of many communities who are more likely to end up in jail or in the criminal Justice System than they are in a good job or in college. Dot of my job that i can about any potential conflicts is to get at those root causes. That is a big project. It is one that we have been trying to carry out now for a couple of centuries. We have made extraordinary progress but we have not made enough progress and the idea behind Something Like my brothers keeper is can we work with cities and communities and clergy and parents and young people themselves all across the country, school superintendents, businesses, corporations, and can we find models that work, men on a these young better track . Part of the process is also looking at our criminal Justice System, to make sure that it is upholding the basic principle of everybody is equal before the law. One of the things that we have looked at during the course of ofre we can course investigating where we can make a difference is the patterns that start early. Young africanamerican and hispanic boys tends to get suspended from school at much higher rates than other kids, even when they are in elementary school. They tend to have much more frequent interactions with the criminal Justice System at an earlier age. Sentencing may be different. How trials are conducted may be different. One of the things that we have the is to include department of justice in this conversation under the banner of my brothers keeper to see where can we start working with local inculcate more trust, more confidence in the criminal Justice System. I want to be clear that this, because sometimes there is confusion around these issues in this dates back for decades. There are young black men that commit crime. We can argue about why that povertybecause of the they were born into or the lack of opportunity or the School Systems that failed them, but if they commit a crime then they becausebe prosecuted, every community has an interest in public safety. If you go into the africanamerican or latino community, some of the folks who are most intent on making sure criminals are dealt with are people who have been preyed upon by them. This is not an argument that there isnt real crime out there and that Law Enforcement hasnt that they have, to be honored and respected for the danger is difficulty and difficulty of Law Enforcement. But what is also true is that, given the history of this country, where we can make progress in building up more confidence, more trust, making sure that our criminal justice aware of thetely possibilities of disparities in treatment. There are safeguards in place to avoid those disparities, where training and assistance is provided to local Law Enforcement who may just need more information in order to avoid potential disparity. All those things can make a difference. One of the things i was most proud of in the state legislature back when i had no gray hair and none of you could passedce my name i legislation requiring videotaping of interrogations and confessions. Dealingad legislation with racial profiling in illinois. In both cases he worked with local Law Enforcement and the argument was that you can do a better job as a Law Enforcement official if you have build up credibility and trust. There are some basic things that can be done to promote that kind of trust. In some cases, it is just a lack of information and we want to make sure we get that information to Law Enforcement. There are things that can be done to improve the situation. But shortterm, what we have to do is make sure the cause of justice and Fair Administration tothe law is being brought bear in ferguson. In order to do that, we have got to make sure that we are able to distinguish between Peaceful Protesters who may have some legitimate grievances and may be longstanding grievances, and those who are using this tragic death as an excuse to engage in criminal behavior and tossing molotov cocktails or looting stores. That is a small minority of folks and it may not even be residents of ferguson. But they are damaging the cause, not advancing at. Thank you very much, everybody. On the next washington journal, a look at how the Obama Administration has been handling events in the middle east and the situation in ferguson, missouri with dan berman. After that, we continue our weeklong discussion on president Lyndon Johnson with patricia harrison. She is president and ceo of the corporation for public broadcasting and well talk about the public broadcasting act that was signed by president johnson. Scully about the creation of medicare under lbj. And as always it will take your phone calls and look for your comments on facebook and twitter, life beginning on 7 00 a. M. Month, cspan presents debates on what makes america great. Evolution and genetically modified foods. Issue spotlight with indepth and campus oversight sexual assault. New perspectives on Global Warming, voting rights, fighting infectious disease, and food safety. And our history to her, showing sights and sounds from americas historical places. Find our schedule one week in advance at cspan. Org. Let us know about what you think about these programs. Call us or email us. Join the conversation. Like us on facebook. Follow us on twitter. Coming up shortly, a debate on genetically modified foods. In a couple hours, we will see president obama again, talking to reporters about the federal response to the shooting of michael brown. Later, an update from the United Nations on the israelipalestinian conflict. Senturi senator roy blunt out a press release this evening, saying that after speaking with president obama, president of