so the topic of this panel is security clearances which is one of those areas of national security law that generally seems to bubble along just below the surface without getting a lot of attention. there are over 4 million people today that hold security clearances. probably a large proportion of the people in this room. and clearances are, of course, essential to the functioning of our national security apparatus. over the course of the last couple of years, however, there has been sort of an unusual amount of public attention paid to security clearances. first, there was the public disclosure of problems for some senior people in the white house with getting and holding security clearances. more recently, the president announced he was revoking the clearance of former cia director john brennan. it is unclear whether that has actually happened. that focussed attention on the issue of the intersection between security clearances and legal rights. this past january the genera
today that hold security clearances. and clearances are, of course, essential to the functioning of our national security apparatus. over the course of the last couple of years, however, there has been sort of an unusual amount of public attention paid to security clearances. first there was the public disclosure of problems for some senior people in the white house with getting and holding security clearances. more recently, the president announced he was revoking the clearance of former cia director john brennan. it is unclear whether that has actually happened. that focussed attention on the issue of the intersection between security clearances and legal rights. this past january the general accounting office restored the security clearance process to the risk that are vulnerable to fraud or mismanagement. gao noted that in august 2014 there had been a back log of about 190,000 background investigations. by september 2017 that number had grown to over 700,000. although tha
congress reacted to snowden and they re saying hmm, maybe it is not quite so scary as we thought to go against the government. i want to move on because of the time. but, mieke, i thought you might have the best view into how might this ruling influence the politics of this, the congressional will? i think that the court the second circuit clearly put this back in congress lap and said, look, congress did not explicitly authorize this bulk collection program under 2150 and if they want to be explicit about that, they need to act they made note of the timeline. but their analysis of the 215 program suggests that they would not look kindly upon it the way that it is currently constructed. i also think that the politics of this right now here in the house, it is unlikely that you would get a clean reauthorization of the existing program through. and so the real question for senator mcconnell is, do you take the reform legislation or do you let the program expire? so to
women themselves. an anti-abortion demonstration hagan s office last week by people who support mr. tillis. groups forre women s him to our coverage of the debate between kay hagan and tom tillis is here on c-span tomorrow evening. in a few moments, henry cisneros on the needs of senior citizens. and in a little more than one half hour, oral argument for the second circuit court of appeals phone case dealing with records. and then the field hearing on the challenges facing the industry in the search for cures. washingtonext journal, a look at the militarization of police forces. our guest is from the american civil liberties union. we will also discuss the threat with nicholas burns, former undersecretary of for put up close fares. for political affairs. washington journal is live on c-span every day at 7:00 a.m. eastern. secretarymer hud henry cisneros. looking at a forum the housing needs of senior citizens. this is one half hour. [applause] thank you very much. what