dr. rachel levin earched doug emhof. >> c-span's washington journal. our live forum involving you to discuss the latest issues in government, politics and public policy from washington, d.c. and across the country. coming up up thursday morning, jason palmer, founder and c.e.o. of together discuss efforts to support young voteers in kansas this election cycle. and sean spicer talks about campaign 2024 and political news of the day. c-span's "washington journal" join in the conversation live at 7:00 eastern on c-span, c-span now or online at c-span.org.

>> c-span now is a free mobile app featuring your unfiltered view of what's happening in washington. live and on demand. keep up with the biggest demands. white house courts, campaigns ae from the world ofol at your fin. you can stay current with the latest episodes of "washington journal" and find scheduling information for c-span. it is available at the apple store and google play. scan the q.r. code to download today. c-span now. your front row seat to washington any time, anywhere. >> jonathan myer is general council for the homeland security department. he spoke with the american bar association about the department's and legal channels including the

against alejandro mayorkas.ngs this is about 45 minutes. [indiscernible] >> i am very happy to have jonathan >> try to make you a star later in the am very happy to have jon here.e was confirmed by the senate as the sixth general counsel department of homeland security, chief legal officer of our department. of o.

the dhs is approximately 3005 hundred attorneys who serve of the largest law firms in the city. he is also the policy officer and is responsible for all of the rulemaking activity. prior to his return to dhs he served as the senior general counsel and deputy general counsel in 2011 and 2016. he then was a partner at a law firm in d.c. there he counseled clients on federal state government, cybersecurity, homeland security, and congressional oversight. he served as the deputy assistant attorney general in the department of legal policy a doj and the special deputy general counsel at amtrak counseled senator someone named joseph biden on the senate judiciary committee ironically enough. originally from cincinnati he spent part of his childhood in jerusalem and speaks fluent

hebrew and french. if anyone would like to pose a question in french, jonathan is happy to field it. he has a bachelors degree from harvard college with social studies. i love to see when someone with social studies makes good in d.c. he has an mpa from princeton. he lives in chevy chase with a lovely family with three children. we will have a free ranging discussion. has expertise in vthat i would e that clearly his career has been animated by public service as opposed to the -- as opposed to those of us in the private sector. i want to commend you for that. let me begin with an open ll it. it is planneit is still fresh.

what do you find is the most significant legal challenge that you are currently facing, particularly in the areas of ■vcybersecurity and the obvious one, immigration? how would you characterize those? >> first of all, harvey, thank you. thank you to jason and the committee for inviting me. it is a pleasure to be here and it is always fun to be around so many smart legal minds. and so many knowledgeable areas where we practice. thank you for that introduction, harvey. in terms of most challenging legal questions that we face, i don't know that i can claim anyone is most challenging. some of the things on my mind, i will start with immigration and then we can talk about cybersecurity. on immigration i think that there are a number of issues

that are coming to the forefront . one is the issue of federalism coming up over and over again as states enact laws that would enforce federal immigration law. as you know those are now in the courts. that is an important issue. i think another issue that is not purely legal is the political stalemate on immigration. as we have seen, there is only so much that can be done through executive action and legal action without legislation. unfortunately, significant immigration reform legislation is not come at the moment, moving.

it becomes a challenge for us to see what we can do to try to address issues of migration and immigration without that assistance. >> in terms of cybersecurity? mr. meyer: the biggest issue, the facet of cybersecurity that makes it a challenge is the ever-changing nature of this. it a fast-moving field because it is driven by innovation and technology. the law has to try to keep up with it, which can always be a challenge. it is a challenge that we try to be up to, but it is also what makes it fascinating. it is almost inherently an ever-changing field. it is also still a relatively

new field, cybersecurity and cybersecurity law. the law is still the lipping. that is part of what muse you cd in the development of this new body of law. it is not that new anymore. cybersecurity has been active for probably 20 years. when you're talking about common laws around for hundreds of years, it is pretty new. there is a lot still to be figured out, i think. that is the challenge. in that sense it is a fun challenge, but82■k it is a challenge. harvey: there is no prosser on cybersecurity law. to follow up on it, as you know, recently the fbi has had something called rule 41 which allows them to go on to networks and remove malware, which has

been a little controversial. initially the question is, how do you understand the relationship between the bureau and dhf as being one of the major organs that we have that you overs> part b is the goal of this talk is to have you remain promoteable. is there any other legislative issues or things,b if we give yu a magic wand and we couldx: end the stalemate on the hill, that you would like to see enacted or give dhhs more power that you think would be important? mr. meyer: so -- what was the first part of the question? i know that you're not stalling for time. rule 41. should dhs have power? the relationship between the fbi

and -- on cybersecurity can be confusing. one of the first questions always was do we go to the fbi first or to scza. it can be confusing. there is a lot of overlap. i think that it's a general matter that the fbi's focused is on investigation and enforcement. one part of the other focuses on government networks, but not just government networks it focuses on infrastructure and the like. it focuses on systems to a great extent offering resources to the privateso, to help them figure t

is happening exchange -- not exchange, but in addition, to get their assistance in learning and figuring out what more we, the government, can do to prevent vulnerabilities, prevent cybercrime,ous foreign m taking those malicious foreign acts. that is how i would describe the relationship between the two. they interact a lot and it is important. i think as to the rule 41 issue, it is less of an issue for cisa because where they are the most active in terms of themselves getting involved in networks is primarily government networks. so, it is less of an issue. with regards to legislation,

obviously i will not make any news and will remain promotable, it would have been and will be great if the bipartisan board of security bill could pass. that is not going to excite anyone with that statement, but it is true. if not that, something like it. there is a great need in the immigration system and as anyone in the field will tell you it's broken. do that. a need for a fix that i think is the biggest legislative need i would point to. in terms of other things, another thing that unfortunately drew a lot of my time over the past year and a half on the hill

was not legislation. it was the whole impeachment thing, which was very unfortunate. we can get into that if you'd like, but i think congress has took a wrong turn on that. i hope there will not be more that coming down the pike. obviously, there are a lot of other things that can be done. there is a lot of work going on with ai now. i know that the hill is interested. everyone is interested. there is work to be done on all sides. talking about developing areas more so than cyber -- so, there is plenty to do. mr. rishikof: you are running one of the largest law firms in the country. as you know, there are a lot of senior managers in law firms exploring ai and the impact that it may have on associates in being able to reduce the

workload. at the same token, we have the question of ai and how we understand the evolution of privacy. you have a policy hat and a managerial hat. how are you exploring that in your policy hat and managerial hat? are we going to reduce the number of lawyers at dhs by 30% or 25% if we use ai the way that many of the companies are promising to senior partners and law firms? mr. meyer: i don't see the number of attorneys at dhs going down anytime soon for that reason or any other. you said 3500. we are now close to 4000 attorneys at dhs, but we love that here. i'm doing incredibly important work, and i will tell you from my experience everyone is very busy. mr. rishikof: you are right.

i look at ai as both a manager of a legal office and the larger departmental issues, which are much broader and deeper. from the ogc standpoint, we have been thinking about it. i've had a number of conversations with my chief of staff and others and we are in the process of developing a policy for our lawyers on ai. there is no question that it can be an extremely valuable tool. there is no question that it can be a very dangerous scratch, as has been -- dangerous crutch, as has been demonstrated with silly stories about lawyers looking like cats and submitting briefs about ai that turned out to site false cases. there is no substitute for t attorney doing the legal thinking and the legal work. just as we are talking about blackstone, when i was in law

school, and i'm sure it was true for many of us here, you looked up cases in a book and new shepardized by going to the shepherd books. and then along came alexis and west law and tools that made us much more efficient and accurate and better at what we do. i think that we have to view, for lawyers, ai as a tool like that. perhaps likely more powerful than those things, but a tool not a substitute. with regard to the department, it is a broader issue. now you're talking about the threats that can come from the use of ai by our adversaries. the use ai can be put to in defending the homeland. the use of ai in misinformation and malinformatiodisinformationf

ai in collecting intelligence. we are spending, across the government, a lot of time thinking through all of that now. as many of you know, the president put out an executive order on artificial intelligence i believe that october. th called for a lot of follow-up work, which is happening now, across the interagency, across the government, including in particular at dhs. dhs appears a lot in that executive order. one thing the eo called for is setting up for the artificial intelligence safety and security board, which is a board that the secretary stood up of dignitaries in the field to advise the department and government on the use of ai. there is any number of other issues we are looking at, including privacy and civil

liberties issues. our chief privacy officer and others are looking at it, and it includes the lawyers because there are a lot of legal issues it raises, too. mr. rishikof: you touched on another noncontroversial issue which is elections. 2020, 2024, the security of elections, that remit falls under your jurisdiction. how do you feel about how the department is positioning itself for the upcoming election to ensure that we have an election with integrity and something that will choose the next president of the united states? mr. meyer: that is something that the department is spending a ton of time on. a number of parts of the department -- the secretary

first and foremost, but also cisa focusing on infrastructure. again, there is a lot to do. whether it be attempts by foreign actors to mess with the election or or whether it be the more mechanical, if you will, issue of hardening election voting systems against cyberattack. making sure the technology is accurate. that sort of÷ thing. or what i will refer to as the softer sort of threats of foreign actors trying inappropriately to influence the election through the use of mis, mal, disinformation sometimes powered by ai or other means. there is a lot going on.

we are constantly on the lookout. in addition to cisa, ina, information and analysis director is focused on these issues as well. eight to 12 years ago i think that the issue caught a lot of people by surprise. that is certainly not going to happen this time around. we are very focused on it with the upcoming election, and we are doing everything that we can within our authority to make sure that the election will be safe, secure, and most importantly trustworthy. mr. rishikof: one of the questions is famous section 230, social media. do you see the department taking positions with other parts of the government on that issue and filing briefs, or is that going to be left to the department of justice to put forward? do you guys participate in what you would like to see as part of

a new legal rule or legal approach? mr. meyer: so, we, the secretary and our undersecretary of policy, spent a lot of time engaging with the technology companies in social media and talking about the best ways to engage with them. there is already some litigation relating to that work before the supreme court, so i won't go into the details of that. again, it falls into the larger issue of information. a lot of what we do as lawyers is to make sure we are advising the department in a way that allows us to correct inaccurate

information, to spot disinformation and malinformatia heavy hand and without infringing on any first amendment rights and the likes. we have done a pretty good job. and as i say, i need to be a little careful because this is being litigated. mr. rishikof:ill move on. the other area of the world that moves aggressively in this space is the europeans. their legislation is covering a lot ofhe waterfront. what is your sense of how you see the department's position in those debates, and what would be the policy approach where you an pieces of legislation in jurisdiction? mr. meyer: in private practice i would advise clients on gdpr

and other privacy laws out there, state laws and the like. in my world it doesn't come up on a daily basis. that's not to say that lawyers at dhs are not dealing with it, but what comes to me. dhs plays a role in some of the agreements with foreign countries. there we have to negotiate with foreign countries. if they are european, they are under gdpr. by the way, this was happening before too during the obama administration. i was involved in advising other countries on exchanges of information. we have to take that into account. we are under an obligation to abide laws of privacy ande are

dealing with a foreign country and they may demand that we abide by some of their laws. wherit important, particularly for dhs, is when we are talking about things like security of air travel. and shipping, and the like. we engage in constant conversations and negotiations with our partners about how we will exchange information. sometimes it is going the other way, too. the europeans won information from us about people who may be traveling who could pose a danger. it plays into that calculus. we have incredibly skilled policy folks and lawyers who work through that thicket and generally come out with good outcomes. mr. rishikof: you also have the coast guard under dhs. mr. meyer: people often forget that. it is a huge part of vhs, a

tremendous part of dhs. -- of dhs, a tremendous part of dhs. yes, it's often forgotten. dealing with other parts of the government, they will forget that one of the military services is part of dhs, not the dod. we have to remind them to make sure that the coast guard is included in conversations. that they are very involved in a lot of work, including some of the migration work that we do. it is great that they are part of the department. i know that some of you worked at dhs. it is alwayso work with the coast guard attorneys. they are incredibly smart people, devoted to the mission, always willing to talk and happy to tell you about what they are doing at the coast guard. that really is one of the fun parts. mr. rishikof: an affiliate of the committee actually is a

lawyer, a jagged officer -- jag officer. we like to see lawyers in high positions to help smooth the process. the outgoing commandant is also a lawyer. i first met him when he was the chief lawyer at the coast guard in the obama administration. it is always great to have lawyers in nonlegal positions. one more question and then i will open it up to the audience. you mentioned shepherdi zing. some think that you are speaking greek. one of the interesting issues, what advice did you give, given where you sit now, two young lawyers? what courses would you recommend that would help them prepare for a career in public service at this point where you set that you would like to see them come out of law school with? mr. meyer: there are a few pieces of advice that i give to young lawyers when i talked to them. ones who want to go into

government. first, don't lose sight of that goal. if that is what you want to do, don't lose sight of that goal. it's common, and it's true with me. i came out of law school and i went to a big law firm. i was in new york, making good money, and then at wilmer in d.c.. i saw some of my colleagues who started out wanting to go into public service never really go. the reason is, they got used to the money and it became to financially difficult to make that move. my first piece of advice is to start out in private practice, and don't let yourself get used to the money. budget yourself like you are going to be at that firm forever or you will be at that firm forever, or one like it. government does not pay as much. you can get by fine on

government. i've been in government most of my career. that is the first thing. thing is have goals but be flexible. i was telling her and i tell people all the time, when i came out of law school, i was not planning to be a homeland security lawyer. perhaps in part because homeland security did not exist as a field but i wasn't planning to be a national security lawyer. i knew i would be in government and i ended up at dhs in the field i'm in almost by accident because an opportunity came along and i took it area if i had been too inflexible and what i wanted to do, that wouldn't have happened. the great thing about being an attorney in washington is the ability of so many of us is to go back and forth between the

private sector and the government. you should take full advantage of that opportunity which is a wonderful way to have a career and you should be open to unexpected opportunities. i work for job biden and that happened by chance as well. it happened because someone i was working with at doj was offered an opportunity to be on joe biden's staff and decided she didn't want to do it because she had young kids and she came to me and said this was offered to me, i can't do it, are you interested? if not for that, who knows where what i be today? so much luck happens which is not to say that everything happens by luck but a lot happens by luck and you need to be open to the luck in the opportunities that come along. you need to be flexible. there is a lot of serendipity. >> any questions we have for the general counsel?

identify who you are. >> i am a legal intern with dhs. >> i didn't plant this. >> you may not be able to comment on this in this this ongoing case. expectation is that agency regulations [indiscernible] will that make it difficult for the dhs? >> it will be difficult for any regulating agency. we have lived in a world of deference to agency regulations for so long. i don't think it would be terrible in theory for there to be less deference to agencies on regulations if, as this system

is supposed to work, congress were able to be more active and give the guidance. the problem is that congress is 535 people. it's fine to legislate for a country because of they are millions of people but cannot get there with small issues. then you have real vacuum in terms of what agencies can do. i think that is the problem. then you have the courts having to weigh in every time and look at it without deference and it becomes more chaotic. there is less legal certainty for anyone who is affected by the regulations. i think it is a problem but as a personal opinion, i don't think there should are should not be a difference but the problem is in

the real world working it out that i think it will create a lot of difficulties if we can't have that. >> anymore cottage cheese questions? >> [indiscernible] >> i'm so glad you're not my client. >> i once got it opinion back from the general counsel's office and i said it was very thoughtful but it's not heroic. this is a question you can answer or not. you must be one of the few people who had to look at the flaw the way -- in the way impeachments have been conducted over the years.

is there something remarkably humorous about this? what is the lighter side of impeachments? >> we did have a lot of laughs over the course of that process. i'm drawing a blank. >> let me help you so you mo on. is there anything about the process you would like to see reformed? when we were growing up, it never happened. it never happened and now, we've had a series of impeachments even going down to a secretary as opposed to a president. that's unusual. it's in the constitution as clearly a process since political but i am reflecting being in the middle of it. is there anything you would like to see that would be a

constitutional or statutory read form? >> you are exactly right that it too common. another way to put it because i got to do all of this research, there have been something like over 800 people who have served in members of presidents cabinet in the history of the united states. until this year, not a single one has had an impeachment taken up by the senate. some of you may think that's not right. what about william belknap in 1876? he was impeached. but by the time he was impeached, he resigned and even that was not taken up by the senate. perhaps most importantly, the

guy had demonstrably bribes and kickbacks. now which is the case with the guy who was impeached this year. more importantly, throughout the entire process, there was no implication of any personal misconduct that's what impeachment looks to be about. it's not really even a point of debate. if you look at the constitutional debate that the framers discussed whether mal administration should be impeachable, they said if you do that, it will make everyone serving at the pleasure of the senate which is not what we have

in this republic. we do not have votes of no confidence. it's funny in the sense of i'm laughing because i'm not crying but it has gone, what happened this year took it in the direction -- it's always been purely political in the sense of , i forget who it was who said but someone said what's impeachable is whatever gains two thirds of the senate. there is -- it is always dependent on votes. you see this more broadly. we didn't realize it. there were all these rules that were unwritten rules. they are now being ignored because they are not being written. this was one of them that you

don't impeached over a disagreement about the policy. i would argue it's even more than that. it is in the constitutional history of the united states but because the rule is whatever gets the vote, that doesn't -- don't treat it as a rule even though it should be. my best description of it is it's unfortunately exemplifies a broader phenomenon we see in this country which is an abandonment of a political culture with unwritten rules that were provided by both sides for centuries. that is a very disturbing statement in life. >> angus in the back? >> [indiscernible]

>> it's a bona fide english accent. it's from south jersey. >> that's a great question. it gives me an opportunity to talk about one thing i haven't talked about witches people say, let me back up -- i often tell people that i have a really easy job because the most important thing i did was walking in the door on october 6, 2021 after i got confirmed.

the prior senate confirmed the general counsel was fired. confirmed general counsel it was like 800 days. there was a lot of trepidation. you can ask them but i think a lot of lawyers at dhs, the career attorneys, all breathed a sigh of relief when they learned i was going to be the general counsel. not because of anything in particular about me but because it was someone they knew who they had worked with and who was serious about the mission. i could have had two heads and they would have breathed a sigh of relief. one of my real priorities is

real lawyering in respect of the rule of law. really honoring the work we do whenever i leave that that will be whateore than anything. it's a great group of attorneys. whenever the took secretary talks about ogc coming doesn't say the part about being a law for me, he says we are the best law firm in the united states. these are very dedicated public servants a lot of my job was to stay out of their way. i hope that will be my legacy if

nothing else that i was able to empower our attorneys and bring a sense of order and honor and respect for the practice of law. >> we have one more question. >> i'm going to ask a technical legal question. >> i've read your stuff, you might as well be a lawyer. you needn't honorary -- you needn't honorary lawyer degree. >> thank you very much. i want to ask what it's like for you to be in the hot seat affected by the ability of any state government in the united states who say they don't like a particular dhs policy and go to court? how does that affect the agency when we have these changeovers and administration and you see litigation that was undertaken

by the state of california during the last administration suddenly shifts to texas and now florida. do you sense there is concern in the supreme court that the standing doctrine around states has gotten some out of shape? >> i don't know what there isn't too light. ivan knew penpal named ken paxton from this state of texas and wheat send letters all the time. it has always been the case that an administration's policy gets challenged in court. there are standing issues but is always been an ability to challenge them. in that sense, there hasn't been a change but there has. there's been an uptick in volume.

i think there are a couple of factors to it. one is which they tried to address in cords recently. there is a lot of forum shopping that goes on and particularly the phenomenon when you have a state federal court and the cases get assigned notches by district but by smaller areas. there is often only one to there. it's not just forum shopping, it's judge shopping and i think that's a real problem and that needs to be fixed and that has caused a lot of inconsistenci legal rulings we been getting. whenou can choose your judge and then getting a nationwide

injunction out of one judge. you have one judge selected by the plaintiffs and you are right, it favored the democrats during the trump administration and favors republicans now so it's not a republican thing -- it's not a political thing, per se. there needs to be one policy enjoyed across the entire country. that's not the way this was intended to work. i don't know what the solution is but i think we need to find a solution to that. yond that, anyone can file suit for whatever they want and it has to be litigated and that's fine. have things we court amount -- more litigious? yes but we got a good ruling on standing on the enforcement guidelines case in the supreme court, 8-1 almost two years ago.

we are getting some good rulings but they are taking time. absolutely, i think it is not as it should be in it's worse than it used to be. >> thank you. i think this is something the court will have to deal with. that will help to find it. let me thank jason for bringing this lovely guest to our group. you are now for part of family and to demonstrate you are of the family, we are going to give you the ava coin. he doesn't have one on him so he has to buy you an adult refreshment. we are also giving you error ledge jerry sourcebook -- our

legendary sourcebook. we look forward to you and if you're having trouble sleeping so this is something that may help you. let me thank you in our intern who asked that lovely question and holly for putting this together. i think you will remain promotable and you made a lot of new friends. join me in please thanking our guest. >> thank you all. [applause] [video clip] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2024]

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