rigorous and decided to object by becoming terrorists? >> i don't think -- i think the short answer is -- >> that's a bit of a stretch, sn't it? >> no. i think if you look at -- >> what standard of justice does none in saudi arabia check the conclusion that we're not fair. >> i think that's a bit of a mischaracterization, i would say. i think the argument that they were making -- and if you look at jihadist websites, recruiting websites, the pictures on those websites are pictures of abu ghraib and pictures of guantanamo bay. i don't think they're making a highly specific argument what the procedural rules -- >> i apologize for interrupting, but really what that would suggest is anything that they object to about our western way of life, we should compromise because it might be a reason for them to recruit each other. >> absolutely not. i absolutely disagree with that statement.

>> i glad -- >> the problem is, we don't get a choice in the united states about what our enemies decide to do. what we can do to the extent possible and i think in this case the case of the treatment of detainees in the trial process we use it's incredibly possible to minimize the risk that what we're going to do is going to make us more enemies than we already have. >> let me just raise one or two points very quickly. first, in regards to use of article 3 courts with terrorists in the united states, there's been no effort made by the previous administration to use -- to prosecute detainees at guantanamo bay under article three courts. so the numbers that were raised earlier dealt with terrorists who were apprehended outside of guantanamo bay, some americans, some non-americans who have been prosecuted successfully under article 3 trials.

i want to just ask a question. if you had a person at guantanamo bay today who is not eligible for a military commission under the war crimes issue, so it's -- there's -- it could be tried an article 3 or could be tried in a military commission and you have the evidence to proceed either way you want to, what do you think should be the preference? should we try that person in a commission or should we try that person in article 3 court if we have the true option one way or the other to -- we believe successfully prosecute that person for criminal actions? what's your preference and why? >> my preference as a general rule of thumb is to bring those cases in article 3 courts except in cases where for policy reasons i believe they belong in a military commission cases -- >> the reason why?

>> crimes against humanity, war crimes. >> i excluded that. >> my preference for the article 3 forum is that i believe it holds us to the highest standards. it confers the greatest legitimacy on the outcome of those cases. it is an enormous educational tool by virtue of the constitutional right to public trials for the illumination of the underlying evidence regarding the conduct at issue. it produces a result that i think stands the test of time. our courts are familiar with applying the rules of evidence, procedural rules to novel sets of facts. we have an enormous empirical body going back before 9/11 in the cases starting in the southern district of new york and coming through my old district. we don't have to reinvent the wheel each time. >> ms. pearlstine. >> as a policy matter, which is how i understand your question, i think the preference of

article 3 court, you get all the tactical benefit of a successful -- almost always successful prosecution without any of the strategic downside of using a forum that is still perceived and hopefully the new commissions will be better but generally the military commission forum is still perceived as a secondary justice. there's a tremendous amount of work that has to come before the perception and reality. i think we're on the right track now. but in the meantime, there is no powerful tool for the long-term detention of terror suspects than prosecution in article 3 court. >> mr. edney? >> well, it's hard for me to say that i have a policy preference because i'm used to giving legal advice on this question. i think my legal advice on it would be the following. if the premise is right that's been recognized by two administrations now that you need some military commission

system for some members of al-qaeda to hold them to account for their crimes against the law of war, i think it's important that you think very seriously about putting all alien members of al-qaeda who have violated the laws of war into that military commission system because what you can't have -- and i just -- i do feel this relatively strongly, you can't have a situation where you go to the military commission system when a federal court trial on a particular case gets too hard. and i think there's lots of history, lots of tradition, lots of very strong arguments for using military commissions for a class of individuals, members of al-qaeda, during a continuing time of armed conflict to hold them accountable for their violations of the laws of war. i don't think -- i don't think it's -- i don't think it's possible to argue the september 11 attacks, for example, weren't a violation of the laws of war and it was part of the armed conflict against the united states. >> thank you.

>> let me just pursue this because i think it's an intriguing argument. if the claim and all three of you have made this point one way or the other, you don't want to be accused of a double standard, in effect, of what mr. edney talked about that the article 3 cases are great until they become too hard, until their very protections would preclude a prosecution then you turn to the second class justice. clearly, we want to avoid that kind of construct here. and so mr. edney's suggestion is that you try -- rather than by doing a case-by-case analysis which necessarily will hang essentially on that question. that you ought to styled in advance that some are appropriate for one and some are appropriate for the other. one of the justifications for military is you don't have to

deal with the protections of the article 3 courts like use of confidential information that would be dilatory to our national security and so on -- let me just ask you, mr. laufman, does mr. edney have a point here that to some extent you're almost conceding that military commissions are a second class kind of justice if you start out with the presumption that you should start with article 3 prosecutions? >> well, i started with that presumption only with respect to those cases that i feel is a policy matter don't belong in military commissions. there are some categories of cases that i do believe belong in military commissions and i might even go so far to agree with mr. edney the moussaoui could have been --. >> so if i could just interrupt you. so you would both agree there are some cases that you ought to just put off in the corner and say these are military commission cases irrespective of the case-by-case analysis but

then get to the case-by-case analysis for a large number of remaining cases. >> it's my own view that there are some cases for policy reasons that properly belong in a military commission. >> but then as soon as you start doing the case-by-case analysis and most of that will hang on how easy or how tough it is to get it is prosecution, won't it, then don't you get in this dilemma that mr. edney discuss? >> there will be tough questions, there's no doubt about it -- those kind of judgments are made all the time even whether to bring criminal prosecutions. >> so let me just ask you this, suppose that you're responding to an intellectual argument rather than the sort of recruiting argument that miss pearlstine was talking about earlier, someone who was criticizing the system because you say article 3 when it gets too tough and then you revert to the military commissions and you would defend a case-by-case analysis of which one to go to

by saying what? >> it's going to depend on the specific facts of each case these are fact-intensive cases. what is the admissible evidence in this case, can the government meet its obligations under the principles of federal prosecution, you know, can it sustain a conviction -- >> excuse me me again for -- excuse me again for interrupting. >> well, if you begin a presumption with article 3 prosecutions i think it's propelling you town that road. >> i agree. i think that was part of mr. edney's concern or question. >> but i'm not troubled as a policy matter -- if we all begin from the position of doing everything necessary and appropriate to protect national security, if we have to in some cases send some cases to military commissions to ensure that bad actors receive justice in an appropriate forum, about which there could be no

controversy as to legitimacy, a lot of a problem -- >> where one could argue we're relegating this situation to a second class situation but you respond by saying, first of all, it's not second class. we have a lot of good procedures built in especially with the legislation that's being proposed and secondly just as a matter of national security there are some things which do deserve to be protected above all. >> that's right. and i don't know that it's necessarily fair to refer to the military commissions as a secondary set of -- it has a rich history which has been discussed, you know, at length here today. >> yeah. mr. edney? >> maybe i could put a finer point on this. if given the choice between the senate's resolution that was passed the other day to say that this entire class of individuals alien and unprivileged enemy

belib belib military could be trade and the and it could be does he havevated on a case-by-case basis i think we have to go with the sentence resolution and this is really not just because of bolstering the military commission system but protecting the integrity of the federal criminal justice system cheapens the federal criminal justice system where these protections are, you know, cast aside on a case-by-case basis. this is something the supreme court thought a lot about in considering the constitutionality of civil commitment proceedings, you know, in a series of supreme court cases. where states propose -- we should be able to detain somebody civilly. it should not be used because of the civil commitment proceedings but because it hurts it is criminal justice system. and that's what -- i think that's what this committee needs

to keep in mind as it evaluates the proposals of sorting these individuals into various buckets. the process is ongoing right now. >> it's an interesting question. just let me ask all of you this last question. we talked to the first panel about whether if you start from the presumption that you should go to article 3 courts of necessity, you're going to increase the requirement for giving miranda warnings much earlier in the processing of these detainees. now, the answer from the first panel seemed to be, no, because you have to start with the assumption that the interrogation is going to be initially for the purpose of national security and only after that has been accomplished then you confront the question of now, what do we do with this person who could be tried in

article 3 courts. that's the presumption so that perhaps the miranda warnings still would not be given so early in the process that it could interfere with the acquisition of intelligence information. i think that's a summary of what the first panel said. i'd be interested in your evaluation of that. >> these are considerations that have been in play for years. in cases where individuals are arrested and detained sometimes by u.s. military forces, sometimes by other countries and where the imperative is to gather as much actionable intelligence as possible. without grafting into the process in ways that could have a chilling effect on the elisetation of information. criminal justice-based policies like miranda. i'll talk about this gentleman who was held by the saudis for several months.

the u.s. wasn't given access to him on many months and in 2003 a special team of fbi agents went in just for the purpose of conducting an intelligence interview. but we knew as prosecutors later there was nothing we could use from that interview but when i went over there to talk at saudi officials i knew i had to have a miranda warning with me. it didn't affect what had gone on before. it wouldn't have affected the efforts to elicit additional intelligence information from him afterward but from the minute as i came from as a prosecute or agents came in with the ideas of collecting information for use of a criminal prosecution then we had to have miranda in mind. >> if i could just add to that just a bit. i think there are two critical points on the miranda front. the first is as it was told me, and it was an fbi counterterrorism senior person in the fbi, if somebody doesn't want to talk to you, they're not going to talk to you whether you mirandaize them or not. so if you happen to pick them a

high value detainee or any detainee who doesn't want to talk to you on the battlefield, you can't lawfully coerce them into talking to you but the existence of miranda doesn't make a difference. secondly, in his experience, the vast majority of detainees who you do mirandaize in the criminal justice system end up talking to you any way if you have an effective interview techniques. so the fear of miranda as somehow the end of the acquisition of information is substantially overstated the second thing you would say and this is just to emphasize this point. the court has already held in the course of terrorism prosecutions that have been successfully brought since 9/11 and before, that it is possible to, you know -- if somebody is held by a foreign intelligence service, by our own intelligence service where they're initially detained, for example, even up to a period of some weeks and interviewed for intelligence purposes, that information is

not necessarily voluntarily given but once you, after that period of weeks, give the miranda warnings, that the information you subsequently obtain can still be deemed, depending on the circumstances, voluntary enough to then be admissible in criminal courts so i actually think this is another example of an eminently solvable problem. >> mr. edney? >> yeah, senator, i would make three quick points about this. first, i think if the presumption is in favor of federal criminal trials and i were providing legal advice to the at the present time of defense i absolutely would advise -- before any statement you want to use in court you'd want to mirandaize it. there's an interesting thing in mr. chris' testimony. he wants to introduce a voluntarinesss in process in the military process and if i were providing legal advice for that, i would advise mirandaized

statements people i would send to the military commission. it's the same inquiry. miranda came out of the voluntarinesss in standard. the court stated to it was too difficult to manage and wanted a prophylactic rule. that's probably where we would be headed, you know, in the military commissions process if there was a voluntariness standard. we would look to the knowledge of the detainee to his right to an attorney and, you know, stop talking and various things like that. a second point that i would make -- and i think this is -- i think this is an important one. if you're moving to a system where you don't want to have the detention of enemy combatants to the end of hostilities, which is kind of the old system, right, but instead you want to use federal criminal trials and military commission trials for the vast majority of these cases for incapacititation purposes, right, making sure that an

initial statement from a detainee is done under conditions of voluntariness becomes crucially important for the military and they're going to be pulled in two different directions. first to gather intelligence from these individuals to save their lives and second, to look down the road where we don't have to release these folks in a year or two because a statement wasn't properly taken in the battlefield. that's a very dangerous conundrum to put our nation's armed forces into. so -- i mean, these considerations need to be kept in mind both in the choice between federal criminal trials and military commission proceedings but also in the role that mr. chris is urging in the armed services committee with regard to military commission trials. >> thank you very much. >> well, i want to thank all three of you for your testimony. i think it's been very helpful. these are not easy issues and they're going to continue to be of interest to the judiciary

committee as well as the arms services committee and every member of the united states senate. we're not going to solve the issue today and, of course, we're still waiting upon the administration's detailed reports on the closing of guantanamo bay, which we don't have, but i think today's hearing prepares us to be better prepared as we go forward to developing the policies necessary to protect the security of our country. chairman leahy was unable to attend today's hearing. he had other conflicts, but he asked that his statement be made part of the record. without objection, it will be. and the committee record will remain open for seven days. for additional questions by members of the committee. which i would urge the witnesses if such questions are propounded to please respond promptly and with that, the subcommittee will stand adjourned. thank you all very much.

[inaudible conversations]

>> the centers for disease control hosted a conference on preventing and treating obesity. in this part of the conference, a panel of health experts share their insights on overcoming the barriers for preventing obesity in community, schools and the workplace. this forum lasts an hour.

>> good morning, weight of the nation participants, welcome. [applause] >> my name is janet collins and i know many, many of you and i'm here representing cdc to welcome you to the conference. this is a bit of a faux introduction at this time because we're going to do this all over again when we're on the national live broadcast. so what i want to do is give you a few instructions so that we can get through this in fine order. and then i will do a proper introduction for all of you. in respect for our speakers in the morning, will you please double-check that your iphoncel phones are off so we make sure the events are not interrupted once we get underway. and also very important, is we're asked for security reasons

that you remain in your seats and seated until the time that president clinton gets in the room and if you take that to heart and remain seated from this time through the ending of the session. and now we're going to wait just a minute or two and there will be a video introduction that will initiate the live feed for the national broadcast. and after that portion shows, i will do my official welcome. ♪ ♪

♪ >> good morning, everyone. my name is janet collins and on behalf of the cdc, it is my great pleasure to welcome you to the weight of the nation conference. we are thrilled you are all here to participant in cdc's inaugural conference on obesity and health. joining cdc in planning and hosting this conference are the robert wood johnson foundation, the association of state and territorial public health and nutrition directors, the directors of health promotion and education, and the national

association of chronic disease directors. many thanks to these organizations and to their leadership for cosponsoring this conference. and many thanks to all of you for joining us here to contribute your considerable expertise. represented in this room are leaders of the local, state and local level all of whom are critical to reversing the epidemic of obesity and achieving the best possible health for all americans. let me extend a special welcome to our vip guests, including leaders from the white house, the domestic policy council, the office of management and budget, and the department of health and human services. we are so pleased to have you here with us. as you're aware, meetings like this do not come together overnight. although planned for nearly a year, we could not have asked for better timing. this conference takes place as leadership in the white house,

at hhs and cdc is solidly in place to provide new vision and commitment to prevention and health. as a fitting start to the conference, it's my pleasure to introduce three speakers who exemplify the type of leadership that will be required to tackle the obesity epidemic in ernest. following comments from our distinguished panel, we will welcome former president bill clinton to address the conference. to get us started it is my deep pleasure to introduce our new director at cdc, dr. thomas friedan who became directors for the centers for disease and prevention and administrator for the agency for toxic substances and disease registry in june, 2009. while dr. friedan is especially well-known for his expertise in tuberculosis control, he has worked domestically and internationally on a broad array of critical health issues.

his list of accomplishments include serving as the commissioner of the new york city department of health and mental hygiene. one of the country's oldest and largest public health agencies. under his leadership, the number of adult smokers in new york city declined by 350,000 and teen smoking rates were cut in half. under his leadership, new york city became the first location in the united states to eliminate trans fats from restaurants, to rigorously monitor the diabetes epidemic and to require selected restaurants to post prominently their caloric information. now as the director of the cdc, dr. friedan is focused on bringing his considerable expertise and his passion to achieving cdc's vision, healthy people in a healthy world through prevention. please join me in inviting dr. friedan to the podium. [applause]

>> thank you very much. and thanks to the staff of cdc who worked so hard to organize this conference and our partners, others who have been so critical not just to this conference but to pushing the effort to address obesity as a public health crisis that our country must face. i'd like to talk this morning a public health approach to addressing obesity. the problem with obesity is familiar to all of you. and the dramatic increase in obesity over the past several decades is something that i think none of us would have likely predicted 30 years ago. we know that not only is this a severe problem throughout the country but that there are severe problems with health disparities. obesity and with it diabetes are

major health problems. they're problems that are getting worse and they're problems that are further exacerbating what are already unacceptable health disparities in this country. so what is the weight of the nation? the average american adult is about 23 pounds overweight. if you add that up, that comes to more than 4.5 billion pounds, that's enough weight which converted to energy would power washington, d.c. for a year and seven months. [laughter] >> and i think it's reasonable to make a frank estimate of the economic impact of that not only in costs and you'll hear more about the economic costs of obesity later this morning. with no data showing a dramatic increase in the cost to our healthcare system from the obesity epidemic. but also the fact that for every additional pound that has to be made maintained, more food has