to comment on that? >> yes. we are, at the present time, coordinating conversations with the state department. we are having the same levels of difficulty with respect to getting the information, but we are making progress. and let me back up one thing on the sustainment issue. my understanding of your question was whether or not what we, at sigar, have learned here. >> oh, okay. >> and be based on that was what my response was. >> that helps. thank you. >> thank you, commissioner schinasi. commissioner ervin. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to thank you all for being here and your staffs. to varying degrees, i found each of your statements to be profounding disturbing. that's not a create similar of -- criticism of yourselves or your staffs. perhaps i think you put it best, mr. blair, in your statement when you said we continue to find the same contracting

problems occurring. you're talking of dod, but it's true of state. the department struggles to insure it gets it right in the beginning and to get what it pays for. you had a number of very helpful examples. you gave an example of a cost-plus percentage of contract. you know, and the reaction to that is, of course, that's a bad deal for the taxpayer, so that ought to be banned. well, it is banned. it is prohibited. and notwithstanding you give an example of such contracts continuing to be used. you talk about the need for full and open competition, and yet you gave an example where it was insisted upon that there be a sole-source contract awarded, and we know there are lots of examples of that. and i found particularly interesting your example of this chain that you traced back, the airport, i think it was, of a price survey. you traced it back five or six times, and there actually wasn't a survey of cost reasonableness at the beginning, so it was a house of sand, really, that was built on here. and so, you know, it leads to

the question of why. and to me the real problem here is lack of accountability, lack of accountability on the part of contractors, and lack of accountability on the part of the government to oversee the contractors. and with regard to -- and that's why i spent so much time and the rest of us did to varying degrees talking to dr. gansler about at least one accountability mechanism -- mainly suspension and debarment. seems to me there are plenty of incentives to contractors to get it right. the vast amount of money available is incentive enough for the contractors, it seems to me, to perform. where we seem to be lacking is on the accountability side. now, you mentioned the investigative work that you do, but that deals only with fraud. can you talk a little bit about the need for accountability with regard to waste, both on the contractor side and on the, on government's side? start with you, mr. blair, just quick comments if i could from where bowen and mr. richardson also. >> well, your report talks about

the carrot and the stick that was mentioned before, and i think that is something we need to have a balance in. there has to be more accountability in the government to insure that we do all of the steps correctly. there has to be more accountability for the contractors through suspensions, debarments, and these actions have to happen rapidly so that as soon as we become aware of the issues that we can step in and shut them down as quickly as possible and avoid doing more work with those firms or those individuals in the future. >> before i get a comment from from mr. bowen and mr. richardson, let me just follow up and ask you another question. in this last example i mentioned, the one of the price reasonableness survey, the level that you dealt with, apparently, is the executive director of the army contracting command. and the action that was taken was that acc agreed that they're going to do a program management review. and they're gonna pursue some administrative action against the contracting officers if

that's appropriate. to me, that seems like a very weak rag. so let me ask you a quick follow-up question and, as i said, i'll get to you two. what level do you generally deal with at dod? do you deal directly with the secretary of defense, the undersecretary -- the deputy secretary of defense, undersecretaries, assistant secretaries, or is it generally at this level that you and your staff are dealing? >> we generally deal with the level you described there. we do brief the deputy secretary, i've buyed him on several -- briefed him on several occasions, but generally we try to address our recommendations to the lowest appropriate level to give that person the opportunity to effect the change on their organization. >> but that appears from your own testimony, that leads to my question, to not be that effective. i'm trying to gauge to what extent the issues that we're here to talk about and the issues that the commission was prett concern created to address receive top-level attention.

i was inspector general at the state department in the bush administration. i had carte blanche to access to the secretary of state, the deputy secretary of state, the undersecretary for management who's sitting here on this commission. does dod-ig have that kind of access? >> we do. or on our day-to-day audit work, though, we tend to work at the lower levels. >> request right. but working on the day-to-day level suggests that you're not getting the kind of action that's needed here. i'll just leave it at that. mr. bowen, mr. richardson, do you have comments about this? >> yes. to reduce waste in contend general sayses, you have to have systems and a plan in place before the contingency begins. specifically, well-identified, agreed-to contracting regulations, well-trains personnel and a recognition that you're not going to pursue large-scale rebuilding when -- in an insecure environment. all of these elements, these principles were violated in iraq. but the waste that occurred

throughout in periods of insecurity, periods of greater security stemmed chiefly from the lack of good quality assurance program implementation. that is, individuals that get out and visit sites and insure that contractors and subcontractors are doing what they're supposed to be doing. >> right. >> are we agree with all that. but the question is, why haven't people been held accountable for not doing that all these many years in iraq? >> well, we have held many accountable. we have 110 debarments that we list in our quarterly report, and we have 50 convictions of individuals that did violate the standards that they were required. but, ultimately, implementing lessons learned is the most crucial long-term form of accountability. we've got to achieve greater transparency and greater accountability in how the united states executes and uses taxpayer dollars in contingency

operations. we don't have that now because the overall system has not been sufficiently amended to insure reasonable insurance that the taxpayer dollars are well spent. >> mr. richardson? >> let me first speak to your issue of accountability. um, it is a problem in afghanistan. the issue at hand, obviously, is that we are in a war zone infested by insurgents, so security plays a very large part. getting people out to those sites to provide the necessary oversight becomes critical. having a number of qualified people onboard to do the oversight is create chasm -- critical. the fact that we've moved toward hiring afghan nationals to provide oversight of their own work is an issue, and we're looking at that. the fact that we have individuals who have the title but not the skills to provide the correct oversight is an issue, and we're looking at

that. we are encouraged by the idea that organizations currently on the ground, the corpses of engineers are -- corps of engineers are taking a very aggressive approach to accountability and have laid out plans to try to increase the level of oversight and have taken the position that they will no longer leave a construction project ongoing in a high-risk area where they can't get oversight out there. they will shut it down and move to a different location or provide the security to do it. we're encouraged by general petraeus' statement that he's increased the number of debarments actions that he's moving forward with. we ourselves have recently proposed 26 debarments on individuals and five different companies. so from the accountability standpoint, we're moving forward. >> thank you very much. could i just ask one other quick question, and i'll close on this. mr. richardson, i wanted to ask about your view of the in -- the

recommendation in our report about having a special inspector general for contingency operations. of mr. bowen is on the record as supporting that, as i understand it, and i'll ask you, mr. blair, if there's time. if not, i'll dol do it in the sd round. you object today that notion, and you said you generally object to adding extra layers of oversight and dukely case, and you think there are recommendations in place that could already handle this, kind of a consortium of inspectors general. the reason we made that recommendation is that, as i'm sure you know, the statutory inspectors general for dod and for state and aid have jurisdiction only with regard to their agencies. they're not cross-jurisdictional like sigar is and like you are with regard to those two contingencies which leads to the second point, you two are just related to those contingency is the and chances are will be involved in future con tin contingencies.

>> why don't we do this? why don't we have this be part of that second round because this is going to be a longer answer, and i don't want to rush the answer. >> okay. >> mr. green. >> thank you. mr. blair, what, if anything, happened to the responsible commander in these two cases? >> the commander on the ground and. >> yeah. whoever the hell was responsible for this. >> i honestly don't know the answer to that question. i'd have to take that to to record to get back to you. >> would ya? because i'd have relieved their butts. i mean, this is inexcusable even if it's only $39,000 which in the grand scheme of things ain't a lot of money. but that is a commander's responsibility. whether it's in kuwait, afghanistan or iraq. and, obviously, you felt it was important enough that you had these big fancy charts made to bring in here. which leads me to my concern,

and i mentioned it with the last panel, and i said that i would ask you guys the same question. what mechanisms and process do you use to follow up? and to quote some of your testimony, mr. blair -- which has already been acknowledged by commissioner ervin -- you acknowledged the difficulty in insuring corrective action, recurring problems. so what do you do? well, they didn't fix it, we'll go pack in next year, we'll -- go back in next year, we'll inspect 'em again, and we'll give 'em probably the same report. mr. richardson, in your -- in the previous testimony by your predecessor, general fields, he expressed considerable concern, and you've addressed it today to some degree, about the 11.4 billion planned construction for afghan national security forces.

which may go up to 400,000 if you believe all these numbers. you made some recommendations to sctc-a to develop a long-range maintenance plan for these facilities and, essentially, their response was, well, we don't have any plan on the number and the size and location of these places. gee, long-term construction is hard. they agreed on the immediate for a long-term -- on the need for a long-term operation and maintenance plan, and their solution was to ask for more resources. which is fine, but they probably won't get 'em. again, this -- what do you guys do? because, listen, we're going to go away. the two gentlemen on the end at some point will go away or go to a difference job. what do -- to a different job.

what do we do to follow up? >> you hold hearings, sir. >> we ain't gonna be here. >> you give the hammer back to the people who hold the hammer. that would be this commission, it would be congress. we follow up, yes, we do. do we go back in? yes, we will. do we make additional recommendations? yes, we do. but if nothing happens, do we go to the hill, do we discuss it, do we try to encourage hearings in order to make changes? that's a part of our mission to do that. but do we have the hammer? no, sir, you have the hammer. >> no. we're not going to be here, i said. >> well, whoever your president is. [laughter] >> you know, to me it just -- and, mr. blair, you alluded to it -- to me it just shows a lack of focus and a lack of interest from senior leadership. >> commissioner green, one of the things that we find consistently is that if we identify a specific problem, the department will go, and they'll

correct that one specific problem. and one of the things that we see that they don't do very well is generalize the problem to the entire population. and they don't try to get proactive and to broaden that. and one of the things that we're going to start doing more of, you talked about the -- you know, we can go back, and we can reaudit and all of that stuff. what we're trying to do now is to increase our level of outreach at the higher levels in dod. i'm going to hold a round table discussion with senior leaders in the procurement area, shea assad, for example, to talk with him about our recurring problems. because one of the things that i want them to do is to start generalizing and to start looking at the broad, broad universe of contracts that they have. and to stop fixing the onesies and twosies. and as mr. richardson noted, we do not have the hammer. we have the recommendation. we can reach out to the

department, we can tell them these are the things -- >> the senior people have the hammer. >> yes, sir. >> if they care, they have the hammer. mr. bowen, comments? >> yes. we are carrying out three audits on exactly this issue. looking at recommendations and follow up. one will be issued this week in the next couple of days finding that usaid has implemented almost all of our recommendations, so that's a good audit. our audits on the defense department and the state department will not be as positive. i expect one out in july and the other out before october. we also have an ongoing recommendation-monitoring process that looks at this every quarter as well and pushes for follow up. so we've seen some response out of up with of our oversight -- one of our oversight agencies, and that that's good. but to correct the institutional shortfalls that are there, i

think, ultimately will require congressional action. >> thank you. i'm -- >> thank the gentleman. mr. tiefer. >> thank you. mr. bowen, your testimony has a, was to me a very striking statement, written testimony. waste in iraq reconstruction amounted to about 10% of total spending or between $5-$6 billion. now, it struck me particularly because we're in the midst of discussions as to whether we can find a total figure that would include both what you did for iraq and afghanistan. i wanted to know how, can we build on that figure? do you think it's a figure we can build at as we look at the waste in both theaters? and does it cover not just buildings, but does it cover stuff like the iraqi police?

because -- the soft stuff, because i'm going to be asking some questions about the afghan police to your co-panel members. but tell us about the scale of waste. >> well, as i point out in the statement it's difficult or virtually impossible to accurately nail down a total waste figure. just because by definition it's beyond view. it's in the shadows. and also it's summit to different interpretations -- subject to different interpretations. in the iraq program there were multiple course changes. as i said in my statement, it really is about the you want to -- tantamount to eight one-year changes. but through 350 audits we've been able to identify significant waste. specific examples of it and my auditors have estimated from that a waste figure of about 10% which is between 5-6 billion. how that translates to afghanistan, i can't comment on. but as i also said in my statement, the real waste figure

is probably higher. because of the sustainment issue that the commission's talked about that i mentioned in my statement. the reality is that a number of significant projects, expang projects that we transferred to the iraqis have not been well maintained. we issued an evaluation of the water system, the single most expensive project that the united states executed in iraq. $400 million being used at less than 15%. that's waste, frankly. it's not working. and can you yellow book that out to an exact number? no. but i think it supports my observation that the, that the factual waste is something significantly higher than the 5-6 billion i'm willing to estimate today. >> okay. let me go on, mr. blair. i thank you. you, personally, with your team on this subject, the team had

colonel emil kaban briefed me and others at the commission about the study that you just finished last month of the afghan national police and the continuing observations you're doing on both the police and the afghan national army. before i get into the details of that report, there was one -- the most stunning sum-up comment i heard from the colonel, and i just want to check this with you, did he say that it would be eight to ten years before we can turn over to the afghan security forces the accountability for their own logistics? do i understand that? >> commissioner tiefer, what he was relaying to you was a discussion that he had had with members who were in theater at the time, and he was relaying their comment to you. so that's not our observation, it's not our estimate. >> i understand. >> that was a comment that was made from a colonel in the

theater. >> but this is the most sophisticated and elaborate analysts there are on this subject. what is the problem? the logistical assistance of the afghan police which i won't go into at this point, but we built the physical facilities for them. it's not that we don't have the buildings. what is the reason that they can't, that they, that it's projected that it could take many years before they can stand up their own logistical system? >> in talking with the people who focused on that report, one of the things that they relayed to me was that a big challenge was to get the logistics operations up and running, and it hasn't been a primary emphasis in afghanistan until recently. and so the development of a logistics system lagged behind the need to have war fighters in the theater and to execute combat operations. and so that was part of the problem is it started later.

>> isn't it also, isn't the problem that -- and by logistics, we're talking about things including munitions, small arms, light machine guns, i think i heard him say rocket-propelled grenades. this is not your average small-town police force in the united states giving out parking tickets. if i understand what your report on this subject said, without such a system, first of all, we're going to face -- am i correct -- waste, fraud and abuse because of what flows through the system happens to be valuable? >> yes. >> okay. but secondly, will we be able to have operational forces? remembering that this is how the police are half of the security forces in the clear, hold and build effort we're making, they're the ones who are supposed to hold the areas. we're going to send them into the taliban areas as soon as we clear them out, and they're supposed to hold them. how long will they last without

an operational logistics system of this time? i think the colonel had a rather dramatic system, but you tell me. >> i don't recall what his statement was. >> okay. this isn't a closed-book test. if i said he said it would be about three days if they didn't have logistics going, i'll leave it at that. i'm not, i'm not -- but my point is, both waste, fraud and abuse and that they need the support to operate in the field? am i right there? >> yes, that is correct. they need that operational support. >> okay. another aspect of it, a march 2010 "newsweek" story which did a thorough survey of the police said, quote, crooked afghan cops supply much of the ammunition used by the taliban, according to szalai muhammad in helmand province. the bullets and rocket-

propelled grenades are cheaper and of better quality, he says. is there a danger that we will continue supplying the enemy if we don't have a functioning logistics system to do oversight? >> commissioner tiefer, i'm not aware of us directly supplying the enemy at this point. i know that there is a need to put a logistics force in place, processes in place as soon as possible and a sustainable logistics process at that. >> okay. one quick question to sigar. will we be able to discuss -- you have an afghan national police study which, i believe, becomes final almost this very minute. will we be able to discuss that in the next round. >> >> certainly. >> thank you. >> thank you, mr. tiefer. i give myself my eight minutes and yield for the follow-up to mr. ervin's question. do you want to just, basically, repeat the -- and i'll look for

brief answers because it's my time. >> sure. my question to you, mr. richardson, was you seem not to support the notion of the special inspector general for future contingency operations as a permanent one and you said the reason was you didn't want to add an extra layer when you're going to be going away at some point, mr. bow in's going to be going away, and you didn't want to add a duplicative layer, so i didn't understand your opposition to the notion. >> my position is based on my understanding of the role of that position. my understanding of that position is that it would provide the continuity between existing iraq/afghan and whatever other war zones come online where everyone would, essentially, report to that particular component. and that component will provide some level of continuity between the multiple war zones. in order to do that, that component will have to be stood up, staffed and funded.

i see that as another layer, another cost to the taxpayers when the issue isn't so much continuity, but collaboration. and i felt that collaboration could be achieved in the existing framework of the council of inspector generals for efficiency and effectiveness the way it was done when the request went in for them to look at the issue in the katrina, the way it was done when the request went in to say let's look at the -- >> okay. and, mr. bowen, you support the notion, and can you explain why? >> yes. i think you articulated it why. special inspector general office would have cross-jurisdictional activity. second, we don't know when these contingencies happen, so they occur suddenly. one may be unfolding now in north africa. and are the resources already in place for execution of rapid oversight of whatever substantial aid we might provide there? and, no, they're not. it would have to come out of hide. the lesson learned from iraq

and, sadly, not quite from afghanistan since the oversight didn't start until a couple of years ago is that you have to have that oversight there from the beginning to insure compliance with the regulatory requirements. more importantly, it promotes more efficient execution of the program and improves the likelihood of success and protection of national security interests. >> thank you. can i just get mr. blair's view on that since he's the statutory -- >> i tend to agree with, i tend to agree with mr. richardson's observations that the implementation of another layer of bureaucracy or oversight rather than maximizing the cooperation between the existing inspector generals. i'm not convinced that we needed to go to that step yet. >> okayment let me reclaim my -- okay. let me reclaim my time. we set up a special prosecutor because the inspector generals were not doing their job. i was on the government oversight committee went we did it. and, frankly, mr. bowen, you did your job brilliantly. maybe too brilliantly because

you became too much of a force and too much of a contrast for the other inspector generals and, frankly, you became a target. i don't understand for the life of me why congress didn't give mr. richardson's sigar element the same powers that you had. you had broader reach, correct? >> i think he did get the same powers, he didn't get the same funding at the outset. that was the challenge. >> and the challenge is that it took you a little bit to get set up because you started, and we kind of judged mr. fields on instant replay. there was a sense that somehow how come he wasn't producing what sigir was right away. but it did take you a little bit of time to get started, correct? >> well, we were told to shut down three months after opening, so we were shutting down. then we were told to start up again. so that first year was a challenge. >> well, my work on government oversight committee where we had

jurisdiction over defense and state department, usaid were fabulous. mr. blair, you're only dod, and you're only a certain part. you can't look at usaid, state and dod in the same way, correct? you didn't -- i mean, you can't. >> our mandate does give us authority -- >> i'm sorry, you do have the ability, but the dod folks and usaid, they're just the tunnel. and there's sometimes the need to go in two different directions. and, frankly, my own view is a little competition doesn't hurt, you know? is what was so interesting when from bowen went into this effort was we then said how come dod and state and other inspector generals didn't do what he was doing? and then they started to. so there's two sides to this equation. you've been long time with the inspector generals offices? >> sixteen years with the department of energy, sir. >> okay. and thank you for that service. the question i would like to ask you, mr. bowen, i may be just

incorrect, and we may need to redo this. i need you to define to me the whole concept of the debarment. you're basically saying if you were in the chair when i had asked mr. gansler give me five cases of debarments, he should have, you know -- i didn't want to trick him, but you, obviously, have a long list. are these recommended debarments or actual ce -- debarments and were they small or big companies? >> actual debarments. some were operating on actual contracts, global services had many, many contracts when we caught him in massive fraud, and he did four years -- >> and so the company was shut down? >> yes. it was debarred, and then the company went bankrupt. >> okay. >> lee dynamics, another one doing massive logistics work with pwc. allied armor, another one that, ultimately, was shut down

because of the debarment. custer battles was debarred, shut down because of their manifestly flagrantly-violent -- >> so you would take issues with our concept on debarments? >> no, i think your february 28th hearing was extremely telling and maybe the most compelling argument for reform regarding the imposition of a better suspension and debarment program. the colloquy that occurred during that few hours exposed significant weaknesses that have to be repaired. the interagency piece isn't working. no reporting was happening. the army has done a decent job. has state and aid? aid wasn't doing anything until 2007 until the ig got on them for it. has state been able to strengthen that, the answers you got didn't provide much confidence about that. but -- >> so let me just, so i can ask mr. blair and mr. richardson, you would take issue with my describing there haven't been many.

your issue would be there have been, but there's still weaknesses in the system. and that would be a better line for me to look at than saying it's just not happening enough. >> yes, exactly bright. yes, sir. >> thank you, mr. blair. .. mix these. your recommendations versus what happened.

>> right. >> okay. so my time has expired. i will get the second round and we'll go back to you. >> we have four out of five have been accepted. >> thank you for that. miss schinasi. >> thank you, chairman shays. mr. blair, i would like to turn to a couple of your reports your office issued on time and teefrls contracts you did in southeast asia. one you did for the army and one you did for the air force. a couple of findings caught my attention. i'm happy you're looking at t and m contracts. those are obviously the worst ones to be using. in your findings for the air force you talked about faulty construction work and other serious engineering and construction issues that resulted in fires in barracks for example, with pretty serious. you also talked about $24.3 million in costs that we had to pay for that we didn't agree to. i would put that in the category of waste.

for the army side you talked about similar wasted money. but i think that the issue that struck me is in the response from the agencies to your findings and it sounds like they don't think there's a problem here. two questions that come to mind. one, are these areas where we shouldn't have contractors if the agencies themselves don't think it's important to management and get fair value for what we spend? and number two, am i reading this correctly, they really aren't interested in recovering the money? they don't believe the government should do that? >> well, to answer your first question, time and materials contracts are the riskiest ones with. we should be using those types of contracts only when we're going to put, the department is going to put the appropriate level of oversight in place and the work showed that oversight was not in place. so to say that we shouldn't

be using contractors at all i think is a bit extreme but to say that the department needs to step up, the level of oversight for those contracts is definitely the case and that oversight has to be appropriate. you can't have the people in the united states providing oversight for t and m contracts that are in southwest asia. that is just not effective. >>. >> third million we saw in overcharges that is not worth going after? >> that seems to be their position. we would disagree. $30 million is a lot of money. >> i would agree with that too and most people certainly outside of this room would as well. in another report that you did on training and equiping -- let me follow-up. so what are you going to do about that? >> we're in the process right now of planning our next year's work and identifying those reports that we want to follow-up on. we want to get a mixture of reports that we will do the follow-up that have on going

activity going forward so that we can see that not only did we collect from the sins of the past but we can correct things going forward so we're trying to get a mixture of the two and we're in the process of identifying now which one of those contracts we'll follow up on. >> can you go after budget somebody has, air force or army and take that $30 million out of what they will spend for the future. >> no, we do not have that authority. >> would you like to have that authority? would you like to have that authority? >> i will have to take that one for the record. >> you also had a report in march of this year on the afghan national police and in there you talk about, again, the need for more people to oversee this contract. this is arguably the most important contract we have in afghanistan and the department has not been willing to put people in place. i think in that report you say you did get a better response from the vice

chairman i guess who has said yes, we need to do it, but we've seen this in the past. requests have gone forward for more personnel and they're not forthcoming. i think as you maybe heard some of us say a couple of times this morning, it is only going to get harder to get these kind of people in times of budgetary decreases. what are you going to do about that? >> one of the things that i want to make sure we just don't focus on numbers. not just that there aren't enough people. even to the point that the people that are there aren't being used as effectively as they should. when they don't have a detailed quality assurance plan that they can use to really do a detailed evaluation of the contract's performance. when we award, award fees or incentive fees without doing the appropriate oversight to determine that the contractor actually earned those fees, for performing above the minimum.

those are the types of examples that give me the idea that it is not just a numbers game. it is utilization of the contractors and the contract oversight in theater that has to be, has to be bolted together. >> do you ever get the feeling you're writing the same report over and over and over? >> yes, ma'am, we do. >> i sympathize with that. mr. richardson, i want to take on one of your reports, looking at the commanders emergency response program for some of the same issues. you talked about the fact that in this case the, uggs forces, afghanistan accepted your recommendations but they said we can accept what you're recommending for us but really the intended recipients don't have the dollars to maintain these facilities or don't have the skills to operate them. is this a case where we shouldn't be spending that money in the first place? >> well, that can be looked

at two ways, either we shouldn't be spending the mon or increased appropriations should be considered in order to address it and that becomes problematic because we continue to pour more money behind bad money. >> so it sounds like we shouldn't be doing it in the first place? >> that's a political decision. >> it sounds like we shouldn't be doing it in the first place, how's that, then? that's my time, thank you. >> thank you. mr. ervin. >> i will be brief with this round. as usual, mr. bow when, i thought your statement was terrific. i agree with 99% of it. i thought a number of comments were particularry well-spent. there wasn't a eight-year program in iraq but eight, one-year programs in iraq. i thought that was telling. one statement sure priced me. you said outsourcing management to contractors should be limited because it complicates lines of authority in contingency

reconstruction operations. i would have thought your position like mine would be that outsourcing management to contractors should never occur. i can't conceive any circumstances under which that's appropriate. could you just explain what you meant there? >> yeah, perhaps, commissioner ervin, you've got a more exact analysis than i think we are in general treatment on this point. -- agreement on this point. there may be particular narrow circumstances where outsourcing may be appropriate. however, our work supports the general principle and, your position in, in your reporting that, management contracts to need to be done by government officials. for example, during, during the cpa, the government hired aecom to oversee the 12 design build contractors. aecom was also bidding on

other contracts in iraq. that problem was alluded to in the previous panel. it was present, you know, front and center. >> so we generally agree? >> i do, i think the principle articulated is exactly right. that contractors should not be overseeing contractors in a larger management sense. we have it already and it's a problem with primes and subs. the law needs to address that. >> thank you. >> mr. richardson, mr. bowen gave an statement of waste, five to $6 billion, i think he quite rightly said. necessarily. you can't have an exact figure. quite rightly said whatever the figure is it will be higher because of the whole sustainment issue but i don't see a sigar effort to ascertain a degree of waste to this point. have you done any work in this regard? do you have anything to say about that at this point? >> we have a number of individual audits that have reflected waste that over

the entire scheme of the total budget process isn't great. shows five million, 20 million, 50 million. the problem is not so much whether or not we did cost overruns of $10 million on this project or couldn't buy a generator for a power plant that cost us another $10 million. the problem is sustainment. okay, and if we do not meet the requirements that are necessary to sustain this operation, then we're talking billions of dollars at waste. >> right. >> when we get to the point where mr. bowen is, eight years, seven years, six years into the process, then i will be here and give you a figure. >> finally, mr. bowen, back to you, i was particularly struck in your statement by you're pointing out that there's no united states government program now to review the fate of projects after we turn them over to iraq when we leave at the end of this year. i was really struck by that. could you elaborate on that. i presume you at least tried

to bring that fact to the attention of senior leadership at dod and state and aide? >> our audits we concerned improved asset transfer and iraqi buy-in i'll call it on sustainment will be implemented. the next level i'm allowing to there is that beyond just insuring their buy-in and the proper transfer of asset is what we did in our evaluation last fall, go back two years later and find out what's going on with that huge project. when you looked at the water treatment plant and looked at the nasiriyah plant, number one and number four in total cost as project. itself is interesting case study. >> have these three agencies agreed to do that? >> no. i think there's a missing element within the oversight community or within the agency community to do evaluations of work and the entire evaluations area should be expanded.

>> gentleman yield, quickly. >> i'm done, actually. >> with the aribiyah project that is kurdish project. >> yeah and it's good. >> i remember seeing it. i wouldn't be surprised if you didn't find it run real well. >> operating 95%. the kurds love it. they're adding to it. everyone is using it. it is a study itself in the nature of the iraq reconstruction program. there is one up in kurdistan and one in the south. the kurdish projects turned out well. >> thank you. i think mr. green. >> thank you. if i heard you correctly, mr. blair, mr. richardson, to go back to this contingency special ig, i think you both may have characterized it as extra layers, detrimental, et cetera. i can understand, mr. blair, where you may be coming from because, you know, these guys make it in your rice bowl every once in a while. you may feel, hey, i'm doing that, you know, go away.

but, mr. richardson, to you, do you feel that sigar operations today are a layer and detrimental to the operation? because if you do, i don't know why you're in business. >> mr. green, commissioner between, i'm not saying that sigar is a layer. i'm saying if you put a layer above sigar for contingency planning then that creates a drain of additional resources. >> yeah. i don't think that's what we're thinking about. what we're thinking about, when and if you two dice go out of business, we to have a plan when the next balloon goes up. that's all i'm saying. i'm not saying put somebody in over you guys and i don't think anybody on the commission is headed in that correction and if that was any if that was implied in any way that is not the case. >> let me take that into consideration and say that -- >> you now support it? >> no, no, no.

it makes more sense. >> okay. >> but, at the same time, i would say that are we sending a signal that we intend from here on out -- >> i have heard that argument or, excuse me, that's like, that's the same as saying, let's not plan for any contingencis. dod, let's not have any contingency plans on the shelf. so i don't buy that argument. >> well that argument only does not count if you did not have a council for inspector generals currently in place that can fulfill the role. that's i'm saying. go to the group you have in place. >> let me quickly go, mr. blair. commissioner ervin's comment when he was ig at state and i was there at the same time he did have access to the secretary, the deputy. if he failed there i would carry his water to them. what if you had a dedicated

time, 30 minutes a month, with the deputy where you could raise the two or three most important issues confronting you, would that be useful? >> commissioner green, i don't mean to imply that we don't have access to the senior leadership in the department. i just wanted to clarify that. most of our day-to-day work is done at lower levels. >> but would -- >> would a 30-minute dedicated time? i would enjoy that. i think that would be a good use of my time and good use of their time. i often times go with the ininspector general to brief the deputy secretary and participate as part of his recurring meetings. >> well, 30 minutes of time ain't a lot, even for the deputy. last question, pretty simple. you know, we've talked throughout this hearing and in the panel before about follow-through. and we all acknowledge,

recognize, we're going away at some point. how do we as a commission, you heard from jack gensler, you heard as a commission, maximize follow through on whatever recommendations, whatever findings that we may ultimately feel are worth sure pewing? stuart? >> first of all, dr. gansler's recommendation to get buy-in from the congress, implement in law recommendations that are targeted toward statutory change. when you draft your report i might include as appendices certain statutory amendments or laws that would implement specific recommendations. so help them do their job. give them, give them a road map to statutory change rather than just a principle to implement. second, i would take those proposed pieces of

legislation, and perhaps before you even publish and, vet them with the departments. you know, sit down with leadership that are, familiar with the kinds of changes you're proposing and see if they can incrementally improve it through advice and interest. >> thank you. mr. blair. >> i actually tend to agree with what mr. bowen just said, that the idea of establishing some follow-on recommendations with responsibility for somebody to actually assess the level of implementation of those recommendations is a very good way to make sure that there is some change. >> well as jack gansler said he came back a year later and said, army, you're succeeding or you're failing in these particular areas. mr. richardson? >> you do what you've been telling us to do. you call the heads of the agencies here. you put them at this table and you put out your

recommendations and you make them respond to them. get your 30 minutes right here at the table and make them take action for implementation on those recommendations. either that or develop a contingency plan so you have somebody over you. >> okay, thank you. >> i was just going to say, mr. richardson, we're going to come back. i will give you a little warning because you talked on both sides of the answer. you think of a better answer. >> okay. >> when it's my turn. mr. tiefer. mr. tiefer is getting eight minutes. he yieldedded back a lot on this round. first panel. >> mr. richardson today, my understanding is we've just been discussing for some time you are releasing a new, and i might say, path-breaking and much-awaited report on the afghan national police payroll and workforce system. i understand that will be posted on your website today?

>> that's correct. >> let me ask you, your written testimony today says that the, the, i'm quoting. its personnel system provides little assurance that only a and p personnel who work are paid. the afghan government has taken many steps to address a and p accountability but significant risks of fraud, waste and abuse of donor's funds will continue. now can you tell me, what are those significant risks of fraud waste and abuse and have they been commented to in the past to anp, awol of police, ghost employees, things like that? what's the beef? >> the risk of that, we are finding first of all is that there is no centralized automated system put in place by the ministry of interior to identify the

afghan national police or that are on the rolls and who are being paid. without that type of system in place, they can not specifically and they have not specifically been able to tell us where the money is actually going. what does that mean? that means you can have ghost employees. it means you can have awol employees. it means you can have individuals who are under multiple names collecting pay checks. and there's no way to account for it. so there in lie as very significant problem now and down the road and we need to get our hands around it. >> good. i mean --, that's a good start. that's a good start for discussion. let me take you a step further. your statement said and i heard you say, that this was one of the, quote, this was a quote, key issue as we approach the handover,

unquote. i think by that you're referring to the fact that in 2014 we hope to be able to hand over security throughout afghanistan to their security forces so that in 2015 we can substantially bring home our people. the figures i was in afghanistan with chairman thibault last month and the figures that we heard the previous goal of 134,000 police by october was now being likely supplanted by a new goal of 170,000 police by 2012. why is this a key, why is the problem that we don't know who's working among the police, among those who are paid, a key issue as we approach the handover? >> well, somewhat obvious. if you don't know who you're paying and you don't know who's there then how can the numbers actually be accurate?

simple mathematics. the other question arises as if we're paying ghost employees or paying or, or are we paying employees who go awol with equipment, weapons, material and then come back with fwhog and have to be restocked, what happened to that material and supplies that they took with them? are they supplying insurgents? the question is evolving. so, for them to say that we will x-number of thousands of personnel on the ground at a certain date, until we can specifically identify these individuals are actually there on the payroll and being paid and doing what we have asked them to do, then those numbers for all practical purposes become somewhat fictitious. >> wow! let me come back to after the observation that there's an overlap between what the dod ig, mr. blair,

said earlier about the weak logistical system for the police and what you're saying about the weak personnel system. as you said, when they go awol, they can take their materiel with them, their weapons with them, things like that. that is where the leakage is in logistical system is at the district level. they know what is coming in at the top but they don't know what is walking away at the bottom and that's what you're pointing out. let me ask about this i mentioned this. a year ago when "newsweek" did its report about the afghan police, they said, the fact is that no one is quite sure how many afghan police there really are. the americans are only now in the process of trying to create a database that will postively identify and track recruits. without such data more than difficult to catch ghost troops who exist only as names on the payroll, not to mention taliban infiltrators. now that bait today taste bass held out to us a year ago as the thing that was, a

panacea, cure the problem. are there still problems with the database? why isn't, why don't we have a working database there? why isn't it good enough? >> i'm not in a position to answer that. i don't think we've done any work to examine or follow up what was reported in "newsweek.". >> fair enough. they need to do a new story on this. i quite agree. but i look forward to reading the copy. you people really guarded this i was not allowed to see a copy of this report and i'm eager to do so. mr. bowen, we've been somewhat beating around the head and shoulders about our recommendation that suspension debarment be taken seriously. leading case we looked at for where it's not being used was one you're very familar with. it was the louie berger conviction of two top people

which your office worked hard on, ceo, its cfo. it is a billion dollar company. aid fought us and said they were right. there didn't need to be one day of suspension or debarment. they insisted to us that was unnecessary. are we off base on this or was there some reason that suspension debarment should be strengthened a little? >> no, you're not off base. as i said, your february 28th hearing fully sub stand eights you're right on base, commissioner tiefer and this is a critical area that needs to be strengthened across agencies and the reality is, that hearing, aid has not good job with its own suspension and disbar barment process. in fact it has done a miserable job. the fact that it allowed berger to engage in criminal practices, that's what they were, false billing for so long because of weak oversight in afghanistan.

not for lack of people raising red flags. senator coburn repeatedly issued statements about his concerns regarding louie berger's conduct or lack of work or effective work. let me cut to the chase though. when a company is convicted, they should be debarred. i'm not aware of another circumstance in our experience where a convicted company was not debarred. it certainly serves as a basis for debarment. i don't know, other than to speculate that it was part of the department of justice plea agreements with the company to avoid debarment and i think it underscores an interesting fact that companies fear debarment more than conviction. >> thank you. >> thank you, gentleman. mr. richardson, i don't want to spend a lot of time on this but based on your opposition to special inspector general for contingencies and given that

sigar is a special inspector general for contingency for afghanistan, should we get rid of sigar? >> no, sir. >> okay. let me, let me ask you, mr. bowen, well, let me ask all of you. do you have any closing comments that you'd like to make? >> yes. first, thank you for having me to testify and, as i said in my statement i think the commission's report is full of crucial recommendations that should be implemented at law. i think our previous coliquy on that would be useful. the change will come, lessons will be applied, lessons learned will be lessons applied when the law changes. departments just getting followed up with a year

later, that might not be enough. changing the law changes behavior and i think that, in from a larger perspective as you know we still don't really know who is in charge of relief contingency operations who. is accountable? that is part of the continuing problem over these many years regarding iraq and afghanistan and we proposed in our statement a solution and the something new that we proposed in it is identifying that those elements that would fall under the u.s. office of contingency operations themselves were all reactions to stabilization reconstruction operations over the last 20 years. oti, office of transition initiatives, was created in 1994 and, in commissioner zakheim's coliquy with administrator shaw on april 1st he pointed out only six government employees there. i think you have delegation problem there regarding sros that need to be fixed. >> thank you, mr. blair.

chairman shays, the only thing i wanted to do in closing was to thank my panel members. thank you for this oversight hearing. i think it's this type of rich discussion, exploring the concepts in depth. getting different views, those types of conversations will result in better solutions than just a one-sided view. i think the department has a long way to go in order to get right and in order to put the effective oversight that it needs in place in order to determine that they're actually getting what they pay for. we're in it for the long haul. we will be here doing the same type of work year after year. i would, you know, welcome the opportunity to, to engage at the most senior levels and i do and we'll continue to make those recommendations because contracting is an integral part to our operations in southwest asia thank you. . .

>> thank you. and let me just close by saying mr. bowen you have been in business for a long time now and you have done i that i think is superb job. mr. blair know you have been working hard and i'm not a simile with your work as mr. bowen's and i do know that you are finding things that need to be found in making a difference and mr. richardson, i think sigar has made its biggest contribution in the whole issue of sustainability because i

think you all are rightfully pointing out there are just too many projects that even if they are done well, they just aren't going to be sustainable and i hope you really in no continued to speak loudly about this because whatever the sustainability problem in iraq i think it is many fold more in afghanistan, so we thank all three of you very much and with that, we will close this hearing. >> thank you mr. chairman. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

>> and the story we are caught holding on the health of the supreme court has rejected a request to fast-track a review of the law. that was brought to the court made attorney general of virginia. the review will continue and federal appeals courts and the case could still reach the high court in time for a decision by next summer. so far, five federal judges have ruled on challenges to the health care law. to republican appointed judges in florida and virginia have declared it unconstitutional in whole or in part and three democratic appointees in michigan, virginia and washington d.c. have upheld the federal health care law. join us later today when booktv will have an exclusive webcast.

>> we are little bit different from the department of justice which concentrates on on the antitrust and sherman act type of oversight. we are responsible. we have a public interest standard which includes looking at competition, you know how the market looks, how the existing players in the market will be affected. how consumers will be effective. >> "the communicators" tonight on c-span2.yofi

>> next, for anrs investigative journalist discuss getting through the wall of secrecy that surrounds sensitive subjects. this is part of the animal george polk awards, which honor special achievement in journalism. it runs just over 90 minutes. [applause] welme >> thank you very much dr. steinberg. i would like to welcome you all here to this event. as you know the george polk ye seminar is a one time of year t when we get to wrestle with somh

of the major issues aboutjourli journalism, and to discuss them with some of our winners. i would like to say first of all, i would like to acknowledgc theo center for communication which is the co-sponsor of thise event and its executive director, catherine williams. e f secrecy. we are troubles coming up with the right metaphor, but i think you understand the right idea, how reporters go about pursuing their subjects, how they use their considerable array of tools and skills to get information that's hard to get. in short, how they penetrate that wall of secrecy that surrounds so many of our institutions today both public and private. i think one could say that in this day, there are more and more authoritarian regimes, governments, corporations, and other entities like the military

that are keeping more and more things secret, and, yet, crying out and publicizing those secrets are more important than ever before for people in democracies and dictatorships. from water gate to wikileaks, that tug of war, that battle between secrecy and revolution, it takes different forms and different shapes at different times, but essentially, it remains the same. tonight, we're fortunate in we have a really star-studded panel here. the reporters that you see on this stage have all done major investigative work. they have covered and written about the military, intelligence agencies, the police, and the prison system. obviously, all four of those institutions have put a premium on guarding their secrets.

let me introduce them. to my immediate left is michael hastings. his article in the july issue of "rolling stone" was probably almost as explosive as the cover photo of lady gaga in the g-string yielding two assault rifles. [laughter] as you know, it led to the immediate dismissailing of -- dismissal of general stanley mcchrystal in afghanistan. for six years, mr. hastings worked for "newsweek" including a two year stint in iraq. he covered the 2008 u.s. elections for the magazine, and then left, i think he quit in to a certain amount of disillusionment. he wrote an article for "gq" stating objectivity is a faulty. he wrote a book about the death of his fiance, an aid worker

killed in a bombing in iraq called "i lost my love in baghdad, a modern love story." to his left, dana priest is one of the countries foremost invest good investigative reporters working for four years on the "washington post" on beats including the pentagon, national security, and intelligence. she's covered the invasion of panama and wars in iraq, kosovo and afghanistan and traveled widely with army special forces in asia, africa, and south america. she's won numerous awards, so many if i were to list them, we'd be here half the night just listening to them, so i'll just say they include two very special ones, two george polks and two pulitzers, one for revealing the existence of black site prisons, the cia interrogation centers overseas,

and a more recent one for disclosing the horrendous conditions at walter reed army medical center p. she is the author of a much acclaimed book, a plies diser finalist -- pulitzer finalist in keeping peace with america's military. further down the line is ac tompson. he came to journalism through a side door. in the san fransisco bay area, he was a self-proclaimed rocking the couch circuit. [laughter] he was an editor then with specific news service who happens not incidentally to be this year's winner of the george polk lifetime achievement award. he began freelancing and writing for the "san fransisco bay

guardian" specializing in abuse in authority and corruption. he now works for propublic cay and port of a book called torture taxi and won a george polk for local reporting in 2005. the front line documentary that won him this year's george polk award discloses killings of civilians by police in the aftermath of katrina in new orleans. i think we have a snipit from the introduction which we can play now. ♪ >> tonight on front line, an exclusive investigation in the

chaotic days after hurricane katrina -- >> people were killed by the new orleans police department. >> 11 civilians shot by new orleans police officers. >> this will not be tolerated. >> as rumors circulated about marshal law. >> i heard rumors that was in place and there was rumors, no, it was not. >> i never heard mar shall law. >> they could suspend their own rules. >> do they expect us to go through streets shooting looeders? >> an order was given police officers authorization to shoot looters. >> they revert back to what it's always been. >> that's the guy? tonight, the story of one of those killings. >> what happened here wound

upsetting this chain of events that turned the new orleans police department upside dop. >> questions about a coverup. >> the way it was destroyed told a story. a homicide. >> ac thompson and frontline investigate law and disorder in new orleans. [applause] >> finally, wilbur. he's a last minute addition, and if anybody knows about secrecy behind walls, it is he. if mr. tompson came in through a side door, he came in through the back door. he was interested in journalism

after serving a lifetime sentence known as an goal ego la and send there at the age of 19 after killing a bank teller during the bundled robbery. in 1976, he became editor of the prison newspaper, the angleite using it to shine a light on conditions and practices that were shocking and rarely talked about. a film he directed, "behind bars" won an academy award nomination. "life" magazine or "time" called it the most reabill at a timed prisoner in america, and yet, for years, he could not get out. finally in january, 2005 after a jury clintoned him on a lesser charge, he was released on time served.

he's the author of a book, "in the place of" which i have to recommend to you. i'm halfway through it. it's an absolute page turner, and he won a george polk award in 1979, but could not obviously pick it up, so he is here and will be at our luncheon tomorrowment i think we have footage of him in an angola. >> as we take an extraordinary look inside angola, louisiana's maximum security prison. he's spent 33 years on the inside. no one knows prison life better than wilburrideau. he was sent here for stabbing a 47-year-old woman to death.

he was 19 years old. >> all the psychological and social crachs that prop you up and enable the average person to walk a line and go about their lives, all that is removed. i mean, you have absolutely nothing. you got to build an existence in a vacuum. >> he did just that teaching himself to write. he became the editor of the prison magazine. he won national awards in journalism for his stories about the violence, depravity and dangers that are part of life in prison. so a few months ago, we asked him to take us into this world he knows so well. this is pictures of prison life from the inside out, images no one on the outside could possibly get. [applause] >> we'll have a discussion running perhaps 45 minutes or

closer to an hour. i want to leave time for questions from the audience. when you do have questions, and please make sure they are comments, not speeches, approach -- we have a microphone at the bottom of each aisle. you'll need to actually speak into the microphone to be recorded. i'd like to start with you dana. your series, top secret america, an absolutely chilling description of a kind of national security concerns in bureaucracy run amuckment i amuck. i think you said after 9/11 there's something like 1200 government organizations and 1931 private companies working on counterterrorism of related things. you and the cowriter took two years on this material. how did you get the idea for it

and go about assembling all that information? >> well, briefly, i'd covered intelligence and the military after 9/11, and when we got done trying to figure out what happened on 9/11, who al-qaeda was, we decided to say what's the government doing? what is the government doing to try to fight this war that was now called the global war on terrorism? unlike the military which is a relatively open organization compared to the intelligence world, we counted find out -- couldn't find out because it was al classified, ology of it was -- all of it was classified. that was the secrecy world we were up against, but managed to write about the cia for many years and other parts of it. there's a certain point, ben and i, who have been colleagues for a long time, talking a lot on the phone about what we see and

what do you think it is and things like that, you know, there's something going on here that's very big, and it's structural, it's probably permanent. you know, i can feel it wherever i go, the number of organizations, the number of the prorifflation -- proriff ration of code names, the units, so why don't we figure out how to map it and how to describe this huge thing which was big because the military's large and there's 18 intelligence agencies within the state government, and so we took a long time figuring out how would we do that? we decided based on in part in the experience i had doing black fights knowing that even the cia, you can put a coverup over things that you try to keep secret, but everything lives somewhere. you know, it doesn't live in the

clouds. it leavings here on the earth -- lives here on the earth. we said, well, what if we then did sort of a mapping of our own of what we came to call an alternative geography of the united states, sort of mapping the dna of the secret world, and we started at the secret level looking for units and organizations and companies that did work through the government at the secret levels, classification, and we found so many that we said we're never going to get through this, let's go to the top-secret level which is much more difficult because that actually is a huge leap. >> how do you get the names of the companies and organizations? >> well, it was then -- i'll tell you one fun story about that. i mean, some of them were a process of just taking the organizations we knew. bill is a self-described

obsessive person and routinely looks at the government in places people don't normally look at. if there was an anomaly, he would spot it. for years, you know, he'd go through and try to find these things. one example. he had a name of an organization that he was convinced was a secret organization, and so i got the address, and i went to crystal city where it was located, and we knew the street and the name and the floor it was located on because he had records of wiring contracts that would wire cables from one office to another, and so he knew there was a triangle of wires between this organization, a very secret organization in the pentagon, and another building by the same organization in another place in crystal city, so we went looking for it. we knew what floor it was on,

and went to the lobby, and we were looking for the 15th floor, and the lobby had an electronic one, you scrolled everything in the building, and it stopped on the 14th floor. i'm thinking, we need the 15th floor. [laughter] i went up and got into the elevator and saw there was a 16th floor button, so i pushed it, and i went up, and, you know, ready for who knows what, but found a janitor instead. [laughter] went around the corner, and there's the sign and the camera that looked at you and the warning signs to go away and all of that. i did the same thing to another building also in this triangle, and, again, the marquee outside, this was an air force building, had a lot of the names to different air force organizationings, but nowhere was the defense policy analysis

office. again, it didn't exist, and so clearly we learned if i went back to the crystal city place that i had gone through many times reporting about the military, i now started looking at marquees, and there's big giant buildings like 15 storiesal and had -- stories tall and had nothing on the marquee other than joe's pizza place that was downstairs. [laughter] he was doing his thing on deep web searches which is something everybody should learn how to do better, and with contracts, paperwork, with a lot of interviews that i did with people i'd either known for a long time in the intelligence world, and you have to accumulate sources over a long period of time who pointed in other directions who came up with over two years time, a map that actually pin points where it all is, and then we tried to

figure out what all these things did, not in any real gran nuclear level, but what do they work on generally, and then you'll see on our website which is washingtonpost.com/topsecret amr washingtonpost.com/topsecretamer ica, you can play around with the data base that shows you where how many things work on x, y, and z, and you'll see one of the big patterns we found was redundancy and the thing had not just grown. in fact, it doubled in size in most places prior to 9/11 and that the money was flowing so quickly that no one really paid much attention to where it was going. if you had an idea, you could get it funded, and therefore what developed is a huge redundancy in almost any place you can imagine. >> yeah. >> that's one of the -- >> in fact, we may have a chart or two that ran with this story. if we could throw that up. i think they are kind of

amazing. it shows -- there you are. [laughter] look at that. goldberg -- while i describe this as chilling, there's so many agencies and redundancy and everything that no one can possibly get a handle on it. it's like drying from a fire hose instead of a glass of water. >> general clapper, he actually said, the biggest person who knows it all is god. ->> it certainly wasn't created by god though. did you at any point in time when you had to verify the information, i know you interviewed defense secretary gates, did any of them say please don't publish this or parts of it, and did you hold anything back? >> you know, i mean, you have

to -- national security reporting, your balancing is things that really need to be kept secret because lives are at stake, an operation that clearly crosses the line and is at stake and others are described on a cay-by-case basis, and it's hard to imagine unless you're getting into that realm. in all cases where i have something obviously secret and the government feels they make it secret, they classify it for a legitimate reason, that, again, that's what they are doing. they are trying to work to do it for legitimate reasons because it damages national security are what the rules are, and then i'll always tell them what it is that we have, and so that they can make an argument that if you publish this, whatever argument they want to make, and in this case, they did make an argument

that many member of details that we have would be damaging, and for us -- and actually they said don't publish this. we're going to publish it, can you be more helpful and explain what your concerns are. we didn't get very far. >> did you hold stuff out? >> we did, but we did that because when we internally discussed what it would be, we had some people who are in -- who have been in the intelligence that are no longer there and also really value what the post does, to talk through the various aspects and could we be setting people up for damaging, you know, results, but we didn't want to do that, and what we always have to do is we walked as far up to the line of giving readers information that has details to make the story authentic because if you notice,

there's not very many people quoted in it, we walk up to the line without hopefully crossing it and not damaging any national security things, but also not gray -- gray tiewty putting stories in it. >> you're comfortable with it and feel nothing in your article really ended up being all that sensitive or at least -- >> well, i'm sure there was a big hoopla over it because for one, it put all the names of the companies together, and the companies didn't like that even though this was based on unclassified information which another interesting dynamic that we can talk about with wikileaks is that the same kind of declassifying things, like ridiculous things in some cases, there's an enormous amount of queries on the there on the web

and elsewhere that can lead you along the trail we took so the government has no idea what is out there to be had. >> yeah, they don't even know. adam, in your documentary, you con accept traited on the 31 -- concentrated on the 31-year-old man hen ri, and why did you choose him to tell the larger story? >> he was a 31-year-old man father of four shortly after hurricane katrina, and we understand he was going to get goods taken from a dimestore. there were pots and pans and candles and stuff, and he was shot by a police officer near that dimestore. he sought help. his brother and a good samaritan and other person rushed him for help, and one thing that didn't go into the documentary that's

worth saying now is this was on the west bank of the mississippi after hurricane katrina. it didn't flood there, but there was no power or water and the conditions were really rough. it was within new orleans proper, and the closest hospital was across the per rich line in the next one over, and there was a barricade there and they couldn't get through because the law enforcement was set up there, so this was a group of foir black men in a car, one of had just been shot, and the driver said we have four black men in the car, we're not going to get through into the largely white neighboring parrish, and we're going to the closest place to get help, and that's to this police encampment up the street at a school. they didn't realize he was shot by a police officer, and so they sped him to this swat team outpost that took over the elementary school and showed up there that, hey, these guys know

cpr, rush him to the hospital, treat him here, they probably have medical supplies, they'll help him. they didn't. what they did is they physically attacked the abled bodied men, three abled bodied men and left henry to bleed to death in the back of the car, and then the officers took henry's body and the car that the good samaritan had been driving, drove it over to another police station, parked it on the banks of the mississippi river, set it on fire, left it there and pretended he was a piece of garbage and was not a human and didn't matter, and they covered it up for three years until i started poking into it, and yeah. >> when you poked into it you were clearly running a risk. i noticed you even interviewed the deputy police commissioner.

they must have known what you were looking into. did you have any kind of frightening moments, encounter hostility? did you get -- how did you get people to open up including his brother who i think was one of three, wasn't if? >> yeah, you know, there's two important things here, and one is first like the bigger challenge rather than the awesome action movie stuff like getting threatened by cops and stuff -- [laughter] honestly it was bureaucratic. the secret eat here and weapon here was our attorney. every single piece of documentation that we wanted to get, we had to threaten to sue to get, so the attorney who worked with me on the tv and on the stories, the print stories, she was the one who did a lot of the hard work. they didn't want to give up anything from the coroner's office. we had to sue them to get the autopsy report. >> tell them what you were told when you went to the coroner's

office. >> i called the corns' office because i wanted to see the autopsy of people who died after hurricane katrina. i said, you know, would you like me to make a formal public record's request? i know this is a public document under louisiana law, and the staffer said, well, you can do that, but we don't follow the law anyway. [laughter] so we prevailed, but that's how everything was with the police records, the coroner reports, with everything.

i knew these kinds of things happened and there were times when people did incredibly, incredibly damaging things and they conspired to do them and so forth that i just didn't get it honestly for about two years at the time in new orleans and i would meet with -- i met with the source who said no i don't want anyone to know i'm meeting with you because the police will end up doing something like planning brief pounds of cocaine in myth car. i th this person is crazy.erson this person is has watched too much serpico ining day. then after restricted interviewing a lot of cops who had actually done that i should have been like i was pretty naive this is how it goes down in new orleans. >> did you write often about police and social injustice,

housing projects? what andreu to this as a kind of specialty? is their something in your background? why did you dig deeply into this one particular area? >> it's really this and i've been thinking about it it was early on in my mentoring with the award winner that i'm interested in the stories of people from the ground up and people at the bottom and the story of people who aren't being taught to by the media. so that is the way that i approached all these stories. so my point of entry for doing the investigation into what happened with henry was really threw his family. it wasn't for people with the top of the police department saying this horrible thing happened and no one is doing a thing. it was the people at the bottom but no one had talked to and if anyone had just gone and spent time with them and listen to them they would have seen the

story and that is another secrecy that there are people there does not listened to. they don't get a chance to communicate their message and that is what i tried to do a lot. >> go to places others don't talk who usually can't talk to. >> exactly. >> speaking of starting at the top instead of the bottom, your piece on a general mcchrystal had a huge impact and i read somewhere and you were surprised by that. did you not know what you had when you printed it and if you told newsweek i'm shocked by the response. >> one reason i'm shocked, i was shocked by the response and still am is i've been covering the war in afghanistan for five years and i don't mean that ironically it's just like there's this huge all dropping stuff that comes out about what's going on in iraq and

afghanistan that leaves a dent in our public consciousness. so my thinking at the time is i knew it was material but my thinking was maybe they will talk about it on cable for a couple of hours and then i will go on my way and write about my time with the general. so it was quite surprised. for years working for newsweek and finding a lot of reports and covering the war in iraq what i realized what had been often is the most interesting part i felt were being taken out of what was getting published and it wasn't in that it was the news was always there but it was the offhand comment what people say

and how they act and what it was like to be there that i find really fascinating but they would never make it into -- [inaudible] >> they were not necessarily in the medium i was kind of writing for what i decided to leave "newsweek" one of the things i wanted to do is capture the details and one of the first stories i did with and gq where i went to the outpost on the border to afghanistan and pakistan and talk about people who never ever listens to the private and the specialist he's not being listened to and all of a sudden here is this guy that comes up and says your job is just to listen to all the complaints that i have and on like my guinn buddies who heard them from today's st it's all

new to you? and then put to the magazine? >> there's a lot of good mother to reporting coming out in iraq and afghanistan and of which the reporters talk directly. a person afghanistan but i did was wait on guard duty and listen and talk for hours no one ever really hung out with these top-ranking guys instead of told it like it was with them so that is what much of the thinking. she even fire that that was president obama's decision and my thinking as well lighted the best i could do and --

>> how did you manage to achieve the kind of fly on the wall? how did you get access? the surprising things happen in the first 24, 48 hours that you met. how did you in a way get yourself into their confidence and did you have to establish any ground rules at all? >> i didn't have to establish any. i wanted to do a profile of general mcchrystal and said he i would love to a profile of general mcchrystal. he said come to paris next week. i said okay. i shut it in paris and sort of said i'd love to a story with like you guys hanging out in paris in europe and the other part in kabul and a sort of

followed them around with a tape recorder and notepad. a lot of this stuff ended up getting down that became controversial was set in the first 24 to 40 hours. so much so i already had my story but then the volcano wind up in icelandic and i kind of ended up getting stuck with them for longer which was advantageous in the end because i got to the extent of who they were. >> i read in preparation for this a couple of, you know, i would say four or five times, and it's interesting apart from mcchrystal himself for not really but the three things he said, one about eikenberry, one about not wanting to receive e-mails from culbert -- holbrooke. >> i wouldn't say it was trashy

naturally. the damaging quotes came from people close to him and under him. >> that's not true. if you read the story is vice president biden and -- in general the mcchrystal who started making fun of president biden and for the comments to follow. so this idea that it was just the aide saying -- >> i said that it's interesting that a lot of the material seemed to have come from people under him. i don't think that makes it invalid. many of them were imported by name so you must have said, i

will quote you on this. >> we had their names and my editors took them out for readability. there were occasions when they did say stuff was off the record and if i published that that would have been a real story. but i stuck to -- one of the sort of interesting aspects to the story coming and going back i have a book that is coming out about it and i was going back and sort of listening to my first interview and with general mcchrystal is a really amazing moment on tape where the press say michael is going to be hanging out with us and for the next couple of days in paris and the general said that's great. and then the president said are there any questions we should ask the staff which to me is the sort of moment of establishing

some kind of framework for what story they were expecting. >> i don't mean this to be a contentious question, but do you think -- obviously this has created some controversy among your colleagues. if you think that it's fair to hang out with someone over a long period of time or even a short period of time and kind of, you know, go drinking with them, listen to them -- >> i didn't drink with them. [laughter] >> had you read rolling stone? >> to hang out with somebody and here they're kind of off-the-cuff comments. >> i'm going to contest everything you say. [laughter]

>> jokes. and i'm not saying they are irrelevant. do you think it's fair -- into a kind of larger portrait. >> the key in this sense is they were not offhand comments directly at the idea of the civil military relation and the eisel military relation is the key component to the counterinsurgency in afghanistan. so when we have the top general of the war and the staff and the general for the command when you have the top general of the war making comments that were derogatory about the civilian leadership whether they were justified or not to make those comments, that to me was clearly important to tell.

>> can you tell us kind of quickly how journalism attracted you in angola and what did it for you? >> i discovered what was at that time the bloodiest prison in the united states and i saw things that were absolutely perfect. i'd never been in a war like this before. and i just couldn't believe people knew what was going on. they couldn't know. the rest of society couldn't know because if they did i don't think that they could go for and you send people to prison yes not what's taking place in prison, and by then i decided i wanted to be a writer so i decided i would try telling what

was going on, and i wrote newspapers and asked for a forum and the only that answered me that was in mississippi who said because that is what i said in prison, the jungle, and i started writing a weekly column and several years later a brand new director of corruption came in and he had been leading me and he liked what he read and felt i wanted to tell the truth about what was going on, so he also felt that a big problem in prison and the misconception to

keep about each other and they were so ready to believe the waste of each other is because the way they receive each other and he felt that the free press, you know, the press plays this out in the streets in the free world. it educates people on both sides, everybody. and he felt that you could transfer information was passed through the prism grapevine and if you could transfer that over to the legitimate from, and that is the free press, then it would maybe it could change things. and he asked if i'd do it and i told him only and he surprised the hell out of me by saying okay. you have to understand,

censorship has been a religion practiced universally in the america's prisons and this is the first time. that's the way that it happens. okay. and we should hands on that there was a condition. we were given the power to investigate anything the we could substantiate and published in the story just so long as it is true and if we didn't know the truth at least make an honest effort to find out what the truth is. and his thinking was the prison was soporific what are you having it for? if the public knew the truth perhaps they would change things, and there was the whole gist of it. >> did you find that it how to bridge the gap between those who were being kept and those who were doing the keeping?

>> it did. they got to understand each other because what we did is wrote about both sides. we covered it like a community and that's what we did and a very real publication even though we were self-taught journalists we didn't know what we were doing but we have an idea you read other publications and see what they do and what's try to do the same thing. that's the way we did it and we thought we were doing pretty good. >> you had a number of major stories about the sex slaves, about the electric chair burning people. >> the electric chair, as we discovered there was some

photographs and when i discovered about the photographs is they were in court and none of the other news media published it. the most effective way to do this is, you know, if you're going to do something you ought to be able to at least look at what you do. if you can't look at it the media shouldn't be doing it. so we published them. we got the pictures and published the pictures and -- >> what was the reaction among the other inmates? the prisoners especially to the historians about sex. within the engage dennett or sexual violence that they didn't they didn't like the story because the friends and relatives in the outside world

felt they had anything to do with this kind of stuff that was going on because understand what we did at that time the prison authorities nationwide used to portray sexual violence as isolated incidents, and they were done by the inmates come and the reality was heterosexuals were doing this. and the gay inmates quite often weren't victims and it was done with the approval of the administration although they would say we've got nothing to do with it. we can't control this. they were doing it. and it divided the inmates as long as you've got one segment of the inmate population controlling the other and slaves who it makes the prison easier to run, and we were able to get because of this directive who offered everybody to answer

questions whenever we ask about their jobs they have to tell the truth [inaudible] >> did you have to run the story by anyone, by the warden before printing it? >> we had to get -- we had to run it through peggy gershwin, she was our supervisor of the time and assistant to the ward and the board and didn't have time to do with that. and all -- in fact, she went back to school and took six months i think studied journalism to see what it's about because she knew what the director wanted. they wanted a very real publication just like "the new york times" and wall street post and many others and took pride in that.

the thing is we were able in the violence that we were able to get officials from the jordan, chief of security, everybody to admit what they were doing. they admitted against the to have these accommodations and security forces to this and that time the administration admitted that happened and in fact they reported that the next american correctional convention they were boycotted by the other correction administrators because they couldn't understand why the let the cat out of the bag. >> let me ask each one of you about the impact of your stories. the think the blacks lights which created the huge era when that story was printed still exists? >> no, actually bush ordered the last month ordered all of the prisoners sent to guantanamo, 14

of them that were still left which was about a year after the story was ran and then close the final one after obama became president they closed the final one which was in afghanistan so than this led to a number of investigations on capitol hill which is a little ironic because some of those people that were calling for the investigations knew what was happening. but when the democrats have little power at that time they said very little and became the majority and then they started using it for the political the advantage. and really that's when things started happening. although overseas in europe day immediately had many investigations every country in the world was required almost by the population to investigate

and see whether they had a secret prison and the way that they were arranged with the heads of intelligence agency or the president who usually were no longer in power so that governments have all denied that they had in the prisons where the ad. however, the records show the planes landed in certain places and there is the belief about where they were. >> your articles definitely changed. >> in this case i think it's more of the diffuse the issue dealing with the whole system there's been a number of investigations launched and gates says he wants to review our intelligence programs to cut out the redundancy. i think that it is something that is moving but it's at a slow pace because again, there are 18 agencies, separate and independent and the process is

what it is. the congress has a lot of the vested interest of not changing things and who wants to ever say we are not spending enough on counterterrorism? >> as the new orleans police department changed any significant as a result of -- [applause] >> since we started the cycle of reporting in 2007, eight people have been indicted as a result of the reporting so there was one person still indicted on hate crimes charges for shooting an african-american man in the face allegedly because of his race because two officers indicted for lobbying about the shooting of the man in the back after hurricane katrina, he died and then there were the five officers indicted in connection to killing henry glover, and like you said, one of them got

25 years and another got 17 years and third is awaiting sentencing and two of them were acquitted. but what i thought about giving these stories over the last ten years is that those things helped reform institutions, sending people to prison for killing citizens, that helps reform them. it doesn't do enough so. it's the beginning of that process. and the kind of broad process is underway in new orleans that the federal government and the justice department started the civil side investigation and the police department and we want to go beyond just charging these individual cases come and at least 158 page report of the findings document in systemic ongoing civil rights violations by the department what is likely to happen if the department of justice will go into court with the police department they will

get the consent decree and that would lead to a judge monitoring the department over three or five for an unlimited number of years and there will probably be a 3250. checklist that will be hey, these are the things you need to improve in the department. citizen complaints citizens can actually come plan and have their complaints heard. internal affairs comes a the officers effectively investigate misconduct by other officers use of force some people aren't getting shot in the back on necessarily. and that process is likely to go on for years, but it has the possibility of dramatically transforming the department in a way that goes beyond just spending handful of officers to prison. >> you have been back to iraq since your article. do you think that there has been any shift change in that relationship between civilian

leaders and the people actually running in which the power has gravitated or maybe even mistaken by the military and also any change -- to emphasize the very important strategic policy and which they try to minimize the civilian casualty that made the soldiers feel they were more of risk. has there been any change in that the change in command or is the military just such a large organization that it doesn't change? >> i think it is still the to the significant military problem and we see that the next few months as the white house tries to push for the drawdown of american troops on the deadline and general petraeus will try to resist that. in terms of the civilian casualty issue airstrikes that's pretty significant and these are

all incidents the would lead to more civilian casualties and there was also the incident where the whole town was wiped out and then we are now rebuilding it knowing there are no casualties there but clearly, i think also there's no difference in the rules of engagement there has been -- begin your pc's if there were 854,000 people who have top-secret clearance. that doesn't even include a previously obscure private bradley manning who had clearance for classified information. there must be over a million people. how, if there are so many people who have assets to the classified or top-secret information think so widely disseminated, how can you keep a secret, and should you keep this secret?

>> there are secrets i think should be secret there's many others and i would never argue that there aren't. but every panel and a body that's overlooked classification issues in the system things are over classifiedings are over classified and that's the safeway to do too much. so that's one issue. there is a message for keeping people having clearance, you may do background checks at the top levels, they have a secret court rules on these issues, we don't

have as much rights as we were the normal course and because the economic incentive to keep the clearance to make more money in the private sector in the clearance of the people are pretty careful. however it's in this other thing happening in parallel. one is the government is classified and for years over classified in things and then hiding the separate compartments they get cut up into little different layers of secrecy and that is one of the problems we found. on the one hand because of technology and social media and what we can do with a computer, you have wikileaks and i don't think that is necessarily going to stop because there are many

systems that are supposed to be secure and as this one episode was shown also people say why did private man and have access to those cables? i think it is a pretty darn good question, and i don't at all -- i have big problems with julian asange and his personality but disinformation that has come out in the cables is fascinating and important and by and large we've only been doing things i think in the right way -- i think that is also if our foreign policy rests on with the public and

secrecy with dictators it's critical level. >> the diplomats should have a right table back home what they think of the leader or to plan now the leaders saying it is correct. what do you think and do you describes himself as a reporter, is in fact functioning as a reporter, do you think what he did was heroic, valuable, deplorable. specter think the first thing is wild to me i see the parallel between the cables that we've learned about in the church commission hearings back in the 70's they are not dramatic like those like let's topple the government but it's interesting that 40 years later we have the same sort of revelations coming from that communications mode. deriding what he did was heroic? i don't know. i don't know that most things are heroic. i think that it had this

incredible, obviously it had this incredible impact and for journalists in one way the important thing that's done is it's made the idea of journalism the concept of journalism interesting to people beyond our certain that people did talking about journalism again the started talking about the importance stories because of that and i think that that is weirdly interesting and an important impact that he has had that that has had. is he a journalist or not? i think that he is a person who has found a way to bury useful information out of the specific target groups and part of the target groups are other hacker type computer expert nerds who have access to this information and those are not often people that we as journalists think about cultivating as sources and that is kind of a julia's move frankly. >> on the comment from the

column last week in the sunday magazine that gives you the sense of this new world says the digital age has changed the dynamics of disobedience and at least one respect. it used to be someone who wanted to cheat on the secrecy had to work at it. daniel ellsberg tried for a year to make the pentagon papers public. there was a lot of time to have second thoughts were to get caught. it is now at least theoretically possible for a whistle-blower or a traitor to act almost immediately and anonymously click on the web site, kaput a file, go home and wait. what do you think about the whole wikileaks business, has it changed journalism forever, is that an area getting into computers is something that journalists should know more about and began to cultivate?

>> i think in terms of mr. keller's description of that i don't think that's accurate in terms of what readily manning did which is over a period of time. bradley manning's lady gaga's cd he popped in for the files. where he was -- >> i see a world now in which this kind of thing can happen. >> and i think in terms of this the internet -- so much data on the internet that's vulnerable, one of the interesting things that is anonymous to a bunch of activists who had been the offenders of wikileaks, and you know, acting to the e-mail account as a contracting agency and tons of incredible material so there is a change i'm very wary of any sort of pronouncements about the future of journalism that's changed it's just another way to get more information and one of the funny things say wikileaks now

fulfills the watchdog function the traditional media field to do but then the "washington post" who does a great job of the watchdog but i think it's quite interesting that clearly what julian asange has done for the need to pierce through the secrecy in a way that no one else has been able to do. >> i feel we are approaching question time, so if you do have a question comes down to either side of the ogle, line up in front of the microphone. meanwhile i would ask quickly have you faced the reprisals for anything you've written or threats? i know you had some problems i think after -- >> after the story of the house and the senate leaders called

for an investigation to the "washington post" and the service gets went on tv and remember this is a different time and they went on television and called for the same thing we did a real hostility. i got that e-mails come lagat e-mails the current civil and that sort of thing. >> michael, did you encounter a lot of complaints? >> it's interesting one of the sort of interesting aspects to the story -- and you touched upon it in your question and the question period when asked should you have reported the that was the question you sort of told to me, and that was the response that a number of other journalists had as well. and to me what it eliminated was the sort of extremely cozy relationship fact many in my profession had established with very powerful figures and how

much they cherished relationship and the idea that anyone could threaten that causes great consent so the most sort of vicious kind of attack are from my colleagues. but one of the reasons i think it is somewhat ridiculous some of the criticism is that basically the criticism is this guy wrote down what he heard and saw we definitely are not supposed to do that. those are direct quotes from what people were saying. [applause] and as i said it is the sort of fema that has now been. if general mcchrystal were not a popular person, if he were a leader of a gang and i wrote down what he said no one would be on cnn saying was that off the record? i mean, that's what i just said. >> have you faced difficulties

because of what you have written? >> there were a couple of dicey moments in new orleans to in the hate crime story. we made contact with somebody in the neighborhood where the hate crime occurred and this person said don't come here. we know who you are. we know who did the shootings we don't have a problem with it if you come over here expect that your life is in serious jeopardy. spam to be in a cab driver is a much more dangerous. i don't take that seriously. it's more dangerous to do other >> the difference between what he was doing and what we were doing in the stories they didn't exactly write letters to editors

, no, you go on high alert and you've got to feel for the tolerance level and you know that this is going to mess up some heads and security and intimidate and certainly in the prison. >> you have a question? >> i just want to say that a good the number of rules like for example he said he didn't write it down off-the-cuff

comments or some rule of that kind i was wondering when it comes down to the bottom line what kind of rahm rules are you stating for you're hanging out with the mcchrystal and was it his fault perhaps he didn't follow these ground rules that you have in mind? if he is expected to be fired, he would have tried to withdraw or to put all this stuff down. >> i guess i would say that -- i'm not trying to be a smartass here although it takes effort from the putative i apologize. there are four decades with a flea profile looks like and when a public figure invites them to

tagalong even if it is just for an hour or a few days or four months, it would suggest a rule of thumb is the expectation of privacy is much diminished and in fact feces' a journalists he writes down might end up in print. so what do they expect of the story? i don't know what exactly the sort of expected, but it's a double-edged sword because they are performing for the audience and this is what i have always sort of thought and they knew what made a good place to install the and so this idea for them party in paris or hanging out and being the kind of macho supertarget guys that they are i

always thought that was part of it for the -- >> i don't know. what they do in up -- will end up saying i haven't talked to them because they haven't commented on the story. >> this whole issue largest want to interject profiles and what you really don't reveal has been discussed for years and years. some of you may remember 1989 called the journalist and the murder in which he wrote about joe mcginnis who began a book on a man named jeffrey macdonald, telling mcdonald he believed he was innocent thereby gaining access to some private papers and then when the book came out, it was a kind of strong case for his conviction. if i remember the first sentence in the article, it is a shocking

opening but it says any journalist who is not a fool or doesn't know what is going on what it meant that what he does is morally indefensible. that question is the sweeping indictment of the field but there are -- it created that year because there are sometimes little vitriol that golan in any profile writing that is to say you don't always open up and tell the person what you're expecting and looking for things and it's a natural -- -- deacons too it is not to the journalist to narrow the old to become their own field. it is up to the subject to set the ground rules if they want to limit what is on in the background. why do they handcuffed themselves? >> the subject is in the case here and probably with janet

malcolm's subject is if it's somebody who doesn't know much about journalism somebody from the street interviewing a think journalists or under an obligation. >> if you're in the public eye and ask the public affairs people it is their responsibility to set and maintain them and raise to the highest level of command it's kind of strange. >> i'm glad you mentioned that backseat driving is more dangerous than journalism because i wanted to ask the question about a journalist who was a taxi driver and muckraking journalist at the same time and is now on death row. i want to ask something for all of you if you feel any connection with him as the community journalist if you feel any passion about it's also

connected to bradley manning who is a whistle-blower in prison and a lot is being written about his rights being violated as well as jamal's writes. >> do want to handle that? >> storm ike i don't know much that much about jamal's qassam fortunately. there are a lot of people who are caught up in the criminal-justice system and some of the more famous and i still don't know. and, but, you know, i think what you're saying is light and there is a fellowship or a community of journalists or something that's where feeling about why don't know, i intend to try to answer your question and i don't know i am concerned that i don't

know the case well enough we have been treated fairly or unfairly i don't know much about it. >> why does the would be treated fairly because i know it's like not to be treated fairly. some of them clutching his bigger degree the editorial bill bradley manning say in the media out what should chip in for his defense not just the defense of wikileaks that the government to prosecute a case and i think there's a compelling argument to be made that to see if he is the one of the sort of great sources of journalists in history where the newspapers and magazines use this stuff all the time that he leaked all the time there's something to be said to advocate on his behalf so they don't spend as much. >> this is mostly for michael

but i threw it to the rest of the panel, too would you think the legacy of the pat tallman case is for journalists and also for the country? >> i think the legacy speaking personally what pat tallman's family did to uncover the truth was incredible, gut-wrenching i don't know how the kept at it for so long and that is just my sort of personal feeling about. clearly there has always going to be this the pentagon that's going to spend the mets' right away and to the extent to step back that to me the legacy is the fact that it's family has been able to tell the story and keep in the public mind >> they've been protected and then it takes work to get sunshine on the facts by nature

like that that's why we have protections because the boundaries figure that out a long time ago and set it up that we saw we could keep poking at them. >> i have a couple of quick questions for dana. what extent you think the security apparatus you uncovered is directed downward towards the four men and what is to correct it in words and how do you see that trending and also to what extent do you believe the various government and corporate agencies operate through soft power like this information and misinformation using their connections and what do they operate through hard power like meeting people disappear and extraordinary rendition and things like that and how do you see that trending?

>> because the defense department is the largest by far the largest of all the intelligence agencies, they are directed outward, and so even the presence in the united states they have a bigger mission now in the united states because the northern command but it's not really sustained so most is directed our word. however, the article i did was on the domestic the department homeland security and some other things, and really there is a incremental trend towards putting things about you in a database because you might have done something that some police officers and some person walking on the street might have fought looked suspicious that can get

you into the database you won't have the right to know about. it's called the guardian, the fbi database, and because the technology, the commercially available i've noticed because i asked my researcher to do this, we have this commercially available technology and i can find anybody is security in here, i can find out what credit cards you have and where you lived since you were 18. it's all there and the companies, they can find out your training habits, your -- all about now to the fbi because the commercial trend and the drag that approach how i view it is the campaign is a dragnet approach to send a frigate out

there, see if there's any interesting to come along and the ones they don't really know about in case they can find something down the road. instead of moving what has worked out a little bit better is the fbi focused counterterrorism investigations with help from others, and the second one, you know, don't agree most of these agencies operate in any way or manner the operate under the rules passed by the way is the renditions are all signed off on by the council at the cia and the conspiracy

theory because the government in general [inaudible] to sort of complete. so soft power especially when it comes to counterterrorism the military again is the big player there and they are not equipped to train the institutions that are the state department which is completely atrophied into the context agency they are under resource to and there is no hope in the future i don't think to get any better because there is no constituency in congress and of little of it with in the united states unfortunately. >> i appreciate your energy and

reporting, and i wanted to ask about your position as a free lancer. i encountered some crimes by the u.s. army and i presented it goes to producers of the major networks all of them said to me, you know, this is important, we have no doubt this is true. we are not going to run this story. one of them put it to me very bluntly. he said look, we are not michael hastings. we have a relationship with the top officials at the pentagon revealing these crimes that damage that relationship michael can, support and we can't do that. >> the question is do you believe that that's true? >> well, i think -- thanks for

your kind words and i get the nation on my kindle all the time, so whatever store you have, give me an e-mail and we will talk to the agent at new york stone. [laughter] i think in my view they've been doing great stuff with him dickinson and i can list of and one of the functions is to not have to worry about things like that, like we are able to go there because we don't have a table of the white house correspondents' dinner, but i think also one of the things is i talked to people that the pentagon all the time, and they talk to me, not sometimes because they want to, not because they like me or liked my socks. [laughter] the talk to me because they know

that it's in their interest to say that hastings got a better respond to the e-mail even if it is just to go have a nice day. so i think my experience has been you can do these stories and it's not -- its has many benefits and drawbacks. >> we have time for one or two more. >> do you believe they are responsible for the public a government or personal interest when investigating and what are the risks that journalism face, to anybody -- were the risks in taking when you are dealing stores? >> this covers the second one pretty much.

>> the first question again? >> when your report and investigate is it to the government or your personal interest? >> following -- >> when you investigate on your stories. is it chiefly you believe that it's for the public, for the government, or because you're interested in investigating the story? >> the story is that compel me but i feel like are worth working with my team and my colleagues going after four years to get. its story is that i think matter that are going to pull to have some impact in the world, and that is why i want to do them. and occasionally they end up being liked aliens in space, no one can hear you scream and no one cares about your story but it's great when they do and that's why i want to do that.

it's for the broad public. >> when you were doing all these -- it was all about trying to make a difference. it's not that that many people get out but to like to have the power to really make a difference for good. and, you know, and present being editor i can pick out whatever. i know where the problem is quite often i know the story before you even start investigating it, and i know what the outcome is going to be. and you just pick one and for the same reason, the one that excites you the most and the one you will have the greatest impact and will make the biggest

difference, and the other thing you have to always after you do all that you figured out okay, would bring you down, it's never brought us down. it's just a great feeling. you know, when you can do something and, you know, the thing i always love is when i finished the story, the greatest conflict you could tell me if i didn't agree with you but you know, i didn't know that. >> last question. [applause] >> i apologize. this is also for mr. hastings. you mentioned earlier that this story exposes the contempt for civilians in of the military.

well, isn't that a bit redundant in the sense that the new wage a war it already has contempt for the civilians? >> that's rhetorical, but the second part of the question is do you get the sense covering the war in afghanistan and the war in iraq and how these guys are dragging their feet when people call for a deadline to end this and you mentioned they are still continuing the raid and the strikes do you think there is a sense they want the public and america and the public and these occupied countries to get used to the idea? >> in terms of the sort of -- the question is what is it me to kind of be at work for the decade and then reasoned, the

recent exclusion and libya as well, and i think whether it is intentional or not i think it's clear that the -- we as the public and me as a human being and journalist we get immune to what happens to the civilians especially when it happens in other countries, so i don't know if that is the intent but it's certainly the consequence. one of the sort of weird ironies is -- rolling stone did a story last week which had a really terrific photos about this unit of american soldiers that had gone out and killed civilians and set them up and it's really terrific stuff. and it's about 48 hours. but it's really one of the issues i agree with the security fence along the rumsfeld who said just yesterday the sticker

to the two-story shouldn't be much bigger than that would be great and why wasn't it? and you know, something is screwed up when rumsfeld is also leading rolling stone. [laughter] but, i am interested to hear the other panelists have to say and how they've gotten desensitized to some of this news. .. on single things like in your case a person in the walter reed case when stories about the bad conditions there. that's one institution. people know how to respond when you're talking about large things like war and systems. it's very difficult to respond. the rolling stone story about that, i think what that is is

read or fatigue. you aays and you always face it as a journalist. and you face added or fatigue.t? so you will do one more story about what?'t that's why we don't have, i nati think t recording on poverty here, the economic downturn and what it did to people. our editors wanted those stories, on the other hand what they didn't want and i don't think you want either is a story you read the first paragraph and you know what the story is going to say. i'm not saying that's what all stories are like, but i think that makes a case for the new platforms that we have at our fink l tips that are still -- fingertips but not used to the full extent because you can use the written word with video and make something all the more powerful and seem new, and, it is new for those involved.

>> one more question, please. i'm pushing -- >> go for it. [laughter] >> well, in my opinion, the two items to print is the interpret. it relies heavily on ads, do your investigative reports conflict with sponsors? >> we had an interesting case in top secret america. first of all, no, they don't. we're sprit. you know, if there's someone in the advertising department who doesn't -- they never discuss anything with the newsroom about what they should or shouldn't be doing because it might lose or gain ads. in fact, they make a point if there's a story about, you know, a car -- like, there's a story that criticizes or glorifies something, they will not put an ad that is in the related field

next to it, and the same thing happened with top secret america. they decided on the website they would have no ads for the first month i think it was just to, i don't know, in readers' minds sometimes we don't do a good job explaning ourselves and those things and the editorial page is not the front of the news page. it's church and state, we don't talk to each other, they obviously don't read the paper sometimes. [laughter] sometimes they do. >> a long time ago an editor told me no one buys an ad to put next to one of your stories. [laughter] it was kind of telling. [laughter] >> i would like to thank our panel. i think it was very interesting. [applause] [applause]

>> [inaudible conversations] >> here's a look at what's ahead on c-span2.

>> were a little bit different from the department of justice which concentrates on the antitrust type of oversight. we are responsible. we have a public interest standard which includes looking at competition, how the market looks, how the existing players in the market will be affected, how consumers will be affected. >> the game? tonight on c-span2. >> you're watching c-span2 with politics and public affairs, weekdays featuring live coverage of the u.s. senate on weeknights want keep public-policy events and every weekend the latest nonfiction authors and books on book tv.

>> next, a national constitution center in philadelphia hosts a discussion on civility and local discourse in america. speakers include former congressman and 9/1 9/11 commisn co-chair, lee hamilton. this is an hour and 40 minutes. >> thank you, alison. politics has high and low moments. sometimes bring out the better angels of our nature, sometimes baser instinct. higher moments have usually been characterized by expansions of political tolerance. lower ones by debilitating political discourse. i sometimes suggest the difference between george w. bush and barack obama is the former president was called a fascist. the current president is called a fascist and the time it is, sometimes at the same time by the same people. and one might ask what's wrong

with a bit of hyperbole. and the answer is plenty, because some frameworks of thought bring out rival ideas, some frameworks define opposite views and -- or rather opponents as enemies. loud voices in american politics capture the news. they sometimes set the tone of the political conversation. but it generally speaking, quieter voices to determine the future. and if you ask most people in this country whether they are concerned about the political rhetoric and they are concerned about the political dialogue, not from the perspective of the issues, but from the perspective of the intensity of the feelings of americans dividing among themselves, it's extraordinary that there is a tremendous consensus and concerned.

those that shout sometimes think that people are concerned about squelching vibrant ideas. and actually it's the reverse. winborn shouts to loud and performs particularly on civil rights, they have the affect of dowsing argumentation. and when you think about it, spirited debate and argumentation are a social good. if you don't have to become if you don't have argumentation, there's a tendency both in dogmatism and potentially to tierney. and so when i think of america at this particular moment in time, it's clear that we've had three hits that bit more difficult and more divisive and more uncivil. by the same token, there's a silver been a period of time in which the country has more

reason to come together. and the key and a great sense of our times is probably captured in the one observation of one of our greatest presidents, abraham lincoln, when citing the scripture. he suggested that a house divided cannot stand. but a country that is splintered is a country that simply cannot reach its fullest greatness. and that is the context of concern about civil discourse in america today. and it's one that is designed to reach out to increase argumentation, but increase argumentation in a way that one recognizes that there is no argument if there aren't two sides to it. and there is no argument is one of the sides doesn't listen. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, mr. chairman.

let's let the listening begin. this weekend brings together around 50 distinguished participants from the fields of history, politics, media, scholarship, education and religion. among them three very good friends of the national constitution center, and award-winning filmmakers ken burns and lynn to the people to thank all of our distinguished guest for your participation this weekend. we begin with a panel exploring the complex issues of stability, democracy and dissent in america. i would like to ask the panelists join me on stage. >> our panelists diverse backgrounds will surely inspire the compelling and provocative discussion that the chairman teed up force. first my left let me introduce lee hamilton, former member of congress and director of the center on congress at indiana university. [applause]

>> next is keri carender, a political activist and blogger is considered the first tea party protest activist and is a national support staff member of the tea party patriots. [applause] >> next is john palfrey, the henry professor of law, vice dean of library resources and faculty codirector of the berkman center for internet as a site at harvard law school. [applause] >> and finally our panel's moderator, david kaiser, president and ceo of the national constitution center he assumed leadership of the center for a five year tenure as ceo of the corporation for national and dignity service the federal agency overseeing americorps, visit, and other national service programs. and after seven years as a senior executive at aol time warner and america online. a.q. of very much for being here. david, the stage is yours.

>> terrific. so, thank you all for joining us. before we get going i really would like to ask our panelists and our audience to thank alison young for putting all this together, along with hugh allen who was there taking pictures as well. thank you. [applause] >> and last night we got started, so nicely with our preview of the upcoming movie, series prohibition. and we got to meet with ken burns and lynn noveck who are putting that together. and put a lot of the questions that we're facing and sort of a hustle context using prohibition as a case study. one of the questions that seemed to be percolating through all of the folks that are coming for this great weekend, is why has

this become such an important issue for america now? we are facing some tough issues that we faced in decades. they all seem to be coming together at one point. we heard the chairman talk about how important civility us. and it seems like america is responding yes, this is very, very important to it is very time and we must discuss it right now. why is that happening? why is civility beginning to crowd out other issues and why are americans seeming to demand us to have this conversation? this is to all of you. congressman, would you want to take a stab at it? >> i'm delighted to be here. at the constitution center. really want other remarkable institutions in the country today. and i commend all of the leadership of the institution

including you, david. why are we so concerned about civility? i think the answer is we simply had a sharp decline in civility in our public forum. when i went to the congress in 1965, i wrote a newsletter back to my constituents saying that i was surrounded by a cocoon of warmth, and i said that everything was extraordinarily hospitable in the congress. if a new member of congress said that today he or she would be laughed out of the room in all likelihood. civility is on the decline in political campaigns today. we often want to demonize our opponent. we want to attack their motivation. we want to attack their credibility. we want to attack their integrity, rather than keeping

the discussion on a substantive level. so you have these very nasty political attacks that take place just constantly, and we have asked public relations efforts now put together to tear down the opponent and to discredit the opponent, not just build up what is that you advocate. and they kind of pull out all of the stops to undermine the adversaries agenda. now, this is a serious matter. it's a serious matter, not just because it's rude and impolite and all of the rest, but if you have a breakdown in civility, it creates a very serious threat to the ability of the body, whether it is the congress or the city council, to do business.

these you cannot get along with those with whom you're working, then the chances of being able to reconcile our very difficult issues, and they are difficult, are greatly diminished. i want to say one other thing, david. i know you want to turn to these other panelists, but i think oftentimes the american people don't understand sufficiently that you must have robust debate in our bodies of decision-making. that's to be encouraged. neither i nor anybody else should fall out of our chair if somebody disagrees with those pretty strongly. that's okay. but there is a line, isn't there, and it's not an easy line to define where you step over the line of advocacy in a forceful way and it becomes

excessive, it becomes highly in civil. we don't always agree just where that light is but i think most of us agree there is such a line. so the american people should expect robust debate. they should expect mems of congress to go into the well and argued forcefully for the position that they advocate. but at the same time, and i'll probably say more about this later, i think each of us has the responsibility to say to elected officials look, we want you to be a forceful advocate, but we want you to be polite. the words of isaiah are probably still the best,, let us reason together. and we need to kind of keep that front and center. >> keli? >> well, i will be very frank and honest about this, but i will start by relating it to a story.

seattle is not a very conservative place, and so growing up there i was a bit like a fish out of water. and i kept my views to myself for years and years and years. and i would find myself at dinner parties, and everyone in seattle, the majority of the people in seattle, because it is known to be a liberal city, assume that everyone thinks the same way. so you go to an event or a dinner party, and eventually politics comes up, and everyone starts agreeing with each other. and then they start to say some really nasty things. and so as a conservative who was in the closet for most of her life, and is now way out, you know, i would sit there and take it and take and take it, and think i had two choices. one was to interrupt and say, you know, it's scary when you're

the only person who thinks a certain way in a group of people, and you say well, actually you know what you're saying, you are smearing people, or you mischaracterize how people feel about an issue, et cetera come and try to set the record straight, which the reply would always be thanks, thanks for ruining the dinner party. because i brought this group. they thought it would be this nice conversation in an echo chamber where everyone would agree and he thinks would be great but i got accused of being the one to make things ugly and to screw up even though i was just disagreeing. or i could sit there and not say anything and then hang my head in shame for not standing up for myself later that night. so, i honestly think that this question of civility that has come up now because there are millions of us that were like me that required before and never said anything when we were smeared gore mischaracterized or

things are going on that we disagreed with. and we just stayed quiet and without intifada got tired of it and we said enough is enough, we're going to stand out to democrats, we will stand up to republicans who violate our beliefs. and what we think our vision of america should be. and you were mentioning in the green room that academics really took to this idea of the talk about civility, and i think it's the media and academia and other, pardon me, elite that want to have this conversation now because the scary scary tea party movement has made things uncomfortable. because we are loud and we do have strong beliefs and we do want to affect policy and have an impact on the direction of this country. and a lot of those things are possibly mischaracterize. i can't tell you how may times i've been called a racist.

for the last two years, and nobody seemed to care about that. and so i find it a little bit hard to buy the credibility of those calling for civility now win for the last two years we have been, those of us in a tea party movement have been mischaracterized and really in june and maligned, are very integrity and our values. so, it might not be the nicest answer but i think that conversation is happening. >> when you hear people say let's talk about civility, let's be civil, there's an element of that that you hear directed at the keyboard that is basically saying sit down and shut up. >> yes, exactly. because i feel like, you know, nobody called out when we are accused of all these horrible things, and still are today. harry reid on the floor of the senate like in our opposition to the health care bill, which was purely based on a philosophical

worldview that disagrees with universal health care and things like that. and he likened it to being against civil rights and being proslavery and things like that that's the majority leader of the estates and on the floor of the senate saying those things. and nobody called him out for it. so i'm a little cynical about the call for civility. >> david, thank you and thank you very much for inviting me to this form. is an amazing museum and senator to have come a wonderful program. it's an honor to be. i thought i was going to be the representative from cyberspace, a man from internet to talk about what's going on in that infinite but i realize i may be represented academia and liberal elite which is also possible. >> welcome to a new niche. >> thank you. i had to adjust my thinking. i was going to start answering your question by indicating that one of the reasons i think that we're having disability compensation is that in the context of new media, sometimes

we see very bold conversations going on. sometimes we are exposed to conversations were people that very short positions on different sides of the debate and often our and civil to one another. i suggest people have to use the internet in particular, and as i talk to parents and teachers about the discourse they see online, things that the kid to sing or the students are saying, i think very often people worry about kids these days, a sense, the generation that is now growing up saying in the meter to one another, the fear about cyber bullying, for instance, as discourse and sold. ..

>> i think the online environment is tied to the real world we have and the diner parties in seattle or philadelphia or where they may be. this is not two different worlds. we have to stop thinking about cyberspace than different that is the conversations in real space. we have to be just as accountable in the new media environments just as we are face-to-face. the coming of these two related tied together spheres in which we act differently and shouldn't is part of the answer. >> you're absolutely right. during the three weeks of the

wisconsin protests, the people felt totally comfortable going on twitter with their picture and their full name of who they are and issuing death threats against scott walker. a lot of blogs said are we totally comfortable issuing a death threat for everyone to see to be screen cap for all of eternity with their full name and picture alongside it? i thought, wow, maybe it is better to have those people out in the open. i don't know. [laughter] it's true. i think people online just think it's a totally different world. >> i know that we're doing this. this is being broadcast on c-span, it's being webcast, with pbs, our partner, and we're getting questions and if today is anything like when we do the webcasts, the questions that come in will often be less

balanced and less civil than we would see standing face-to-face. do we think -- so one of the provocative things you guys raised here is this question -- there is this interesting question of whether civility is a challenge right now on all sides of the political spectrum or whether there's a particular focus on civility from the -- from sort of the status quo trying to stop the more upstart, and one of the questions that i think has emerged around civility in general is whether there's a question of somebody being in power, having to be more civil than someone that is seeking to influence power, so i know that when i was a -- when i ran a federal agency and did

hearings, people would testify at those hearings and get red faced and point fingers and express their anger in a way that was actually helpful. yesterday i learned that the rational hostility, a reasonable hostility. do you think there are different standards for civility and different venn u -- venues and from different people, or is there one standard that should apply to everybody evenly? >> in reaction to what you said i think is person in public office has to be exceedingly careful to try to be civil. now, i don't know whether it's a different standard than applied to everybody else or not, but i know in conducting a public meeting, for example, if you as the presiding person, as the person with power, whatever that

may mean, display any kind of incivility or try to cut somebody off or cut them down or try to call them a racist or whatever, that really reflects on you, not so much on the person, and the audience kind of automatically takes the side of the audience and not the person in the position of power, so i do think there's an extra burden on public officials. they have to be very, very careful to be courteous and civil in their discussions, and that can often take place in an environment of extreme provocation because people in the audience will also provoke you and get you angry or stirred up about something. you have to be careful about that. one question i think we may want to look at briefly is what do we mean by civility?

by my point of view, it's a simple matter. members of the congress or members of the county counsel or whatever simply have to treat one another with dignity and respect and not try to attack them on motivational or whatever grounds. you just have to treat people decently and with respect and tolerance, and i think that's kind of the key. jim leach will remember, i think you will, jim, carl albert when he was speaker. not many people remember his speakership nowadays, but he would say every civil member of this institution has been elected, at that time, by about 500,000 people, and because they have been elected by 500,000 americans, you owe that person, whether you agree with them or not, respect and tolerance. i always thought that was pretty

good advice, and i think it's pretty good advice to carry into the public arena. you're dealing with human beings, and human beings -- you should pay those human beings fundamental respect and tolerance for their point of view. >> to me, there's two issues that question brings up. one is i think also the idea of discussing what you mean by civility is important, but also i'm very uncomfortable with trying to place any sort of box around political speech at all because i think that is the most important thing that we have in this country, and i'm always a little bit weary of people who try to -- i don't know somehow be the arbiters of what is acceptable and appropriate. i think we have to tread very lightly in that direction, and

because we don't want to end up censoring people obviously or stifling them. also, my world view is basically rooted in self-government, and so you police yourself first, and then, you know, in all of my protesting and activism, you know, i don't accuse people of being nazis because i know what a nazi is. as much as i agree with the administration and the democrats right now, there's, i understand the difference between them and nazis, but i believe that you govern yourself first before you try to govern other people. again, the people calling for civility should really be governing themselves first before they reach out to try to tell someone else how to behave or what to say. >> i think i agree with much of

that, although we can find ways to disagree over the course of the panel. to answer the question about the standard, should we have a single standard where we are equally civil to all people in different environments, and my gut answer is yes. there's a basic human respect approach to dignity whether you're a public officer, with your family, your wife or friends, i think there's a basic responsibility to act civilly to one another, and i really would, again, make the point that whether we're in cyberspace and blogging away or speaking face-to-face, that we should be equally accountable in the environments. the point of how do we get to this level of civility is a useful conversation and whether or not it should be something where we turn to the law or turn to government to do it or turn to ourselves and our own institutions that we create plainly in the institution

there's a broad set of expectations that is important to note and most attempts that tried to curtail that other than in very narrow well-defined ways haven't worked very well. they are all found unconstitutional in most instances and often doesn't constrain the activity. most of the ways we get the civility are not ones that are imposed by the congress or supreme court, but we find it in ourselves and constitutions in a way we want to be and the way we want to act with one another. >> you spent a good deal of time really making the case that -- i think your quote is we're all activists now, and you've spoken a lot about the importance of dissent. two questions. one is if -- if being an

activist means getting more people to follow you and sort of breaking through the media and getting to where people pay attention, does -- does that require -- does the need to be affective and sufficiently shrill to get people to pay attention, do you see a balance there with the need to be civil? because to some extent the more civil you are the more blind you are and the more shrill you are, the more people pay attention and you're able to cut issues in a sharper way. the first question is does being an activist force you at times and being activist on dissent, force you at times to be less than civil? secondly, if you see this dissent playing out and you accomplished everything that you wanted to accomplish, what do

you think -- how would -- what would change around the way that we have these kinds of discussions? >> well, i think if you -- i mean, obviously we have a certainly media culture that if you are loud and shrill you get more media attention, but obviously you're also going to turn people off. i think there's, you know, you make certain allowances for emotion and passion, you know? i mean, people get angry, and it's okay to be angry. like we shouldn't tell people it's not okay to be angry. obviously, what you do with the anger is what's important. it's okay to be angry especially if you see something that's unjust or you want to change. i personally -- my theory is to bypass media all together and go straight to my neighbors and everybody that i know.

i won't scream in somebody's face that i know. i'll try to present well-reasoned arguments, and, you know, logical rational arguments that i can hopefully persuade them with. it's also personal style. some people are more in your face than other people. if you realliment to change people's heart and mind, you can't constantly be insulting or attacking and stuff like that. again, i police myself because i know that i'm going to be a more effective advocate for the things i believe in if i just talk to people about it. it was just common sense to me to do that. if -- i don't ever -- see, i don't ever see this whole issue the contentious debates and

things like that. i don't actually see that going away regardless if one side wins or whatever because nobody ever wins forever and it's just -- i mean, we're human beings and human beings are messy and relationships are messy and freedom is messy and chaotic, and i think that's a good thing so my vision, you know, even if i achieved 100% of my policy goals, i'm sure then, you know, then other people would come up to try to change those and we'd fight back and, i mean, i think it's always going to exist. >> david, i make this point. jim leach made a very good point. jim, i think i heard you correctly. i was in the wings there, but he said that quiet voices usually have the largest impact, and that's my experience. i've been in and many of you have been in, not necessarily governmental bodies, where important decisions are made,

and my experience has been, and i suspect yours has been as well that the people who really have an impact on policy are people who present civilly, reasonably strong arguments, and the people who tend to have less impact on policy are people who yell and scream at each other. i sat in on a lot of con sills and csh councils and when i see members of the congress just flip their lids and storm and rave, if you look around the room when that's occurring, people are dismissing that and saying, well, he's off base here or she's off base, and then almost inbearably when decisions are to be made, the discussions will return to serious,

sometimes vigorous, robust conversation, but not incivil so i believe that if you're objective is to have impact on policy, then you have to go at it at a very civil way and to the extent you are incivil, you decrease your impact in the decision making body. now, there's a different kind of forum, of course,. there's different forums, and if i'm appearing -- i happen to be a democrat -- if i'm appearing before a democratic partisan group, and i stand up and give a reasonable course on why we have to do this, that, or the other, they'd probably get bored so you have to as a public leader, you have to sometimes adjust to the crowd that you're in and so we often get the phenomena every

politician is acquainted with it of stirring up your partisan friends. that's part of the process, but i don't think that is the body where the decisions are made. i think the decisions are made, fortunately, in this country in both the public and private sector in very constructive, serious, civil discussions. >> as an example, because i think it points to wop of the things that may be changing in our media environment today, where one of the things we see when we study young people is the extent to which different environments seek to have different identities. it's something that's true in regular environments too where you try on different roles, and one thing on the internet is they have one identity on facebook and a second identity on facebook and then another yet on a game site and then another

identity in another space. if you can see all these identities and one of the challenges we're going to see emerge into the political sphere is the same may be true of people speaking differently in different environments to their constituents, for instance, who take the example of the congressman who goes back to the district and speaks in fired up terms, very rhetorically strong terms about a topic to a set of observers who have been filmed very easily might be, and then goes to washington, d.c. and gives another serious of talk and another series of talks to the organizations and one can come back and see all those and that's an interesting factor of how discourse plays out. the npr tapes of speaking one way to donors and another way to another group. that may be harder to have those

conversations in different spaces if, in fact, we are recording ourselves in the space. >> the other day when i was walking around at these remarkable historical monuments within blocks of us, a debate would occur in independent song and it would be very strong and vigorous, but it wouldn't get out to the country for weeks, if then. today, you get up and make a sharp debate, and it's in seattle instantaneously, and boy, let me tell you, that's a different environment for a public speaker. it's a very, very different environment. i'm kind of envious of the founding fathers now and then. [laughter] >> i want to add it's just not the concur sigh, in other words, they are listening to us on c-span, but it's recorded for pos tearty as well.

not only do you see the events happening at the same moment, but it's later that great filmmakers or research people capture based on kind of keyword searching what was said at any moment so that the record extends like a series of tattoos that we may or may not want to have years later. >> the experience of asking questions in a congressional hearing and then almost as soon as i stopped asking the question, an aide would say, you got a phone call out here. i'd go back, have a call from somebody criticizing me all over the place for the question i asked, just instantaneous, and they could be in london or paris or at teheran. people are following the debates so carefully now. >> i have a state legislator who refuses to be videotaped. she makes arrangements with her

whatever venue she's going to and refuses to be videotaped. to me, there's something seriously wrong with that because to me that -- i feel like there's something she's hiding so i love the fact that we can videotape people and we have it and there's a record, and, again, i think it does make -- it forces people to have support for their arguments or, you know, to be a little more -- to maybe have a little more integrity because people are watching. >> well, i hope that also it encourages people to be a little bit less positive that they are always right because one in awhile they'll be proved wrong, and that will also hopefully over the long period force people to figure out the right way of apologizing or acknowledging what they're changing on their point of view. yes, for the last several years

i've been seeing this as you can see from the clips, but i think i'm moving to this point of view for the following reasons. congressman, you talked about the need that people have more influence when they speak with a quiet voice. do you think that's true for -- >> in the decision making process. >> in the decision making process. that really discounts the role of dissent. >> of what? >> of dissent. what you're really talking about there are people who have already gotten to the point where they are at the table helping make the decision. what about the -- well, it seems to me when people are trying to get to the table, when they are trying to basically say i need a seat at the table that they are less likely to be effective when they are using a quiet voice. do you think that's right? >> i think it's a good point that you're making. keri a moment ago talked about

her feeling she had been excluded from her -- her viewpoint had been excluded. that's not an uncommon view. you run into that all the time in politics. people feel that by golly, i consulted, didn't have my voice in it. it's usually a legitimate and serious complaint. it's very, very hard to be all inclusive, and it is true that sometimes the dissenter has to speak up with a little more passion i guess than the person who is trying -- who is in the mainstream, but that -- even a discenter who speaks up with passion must speak up with competence. in order to have an impact on our policy process in this country, i think you do need to bring some passion to your position. if you're bland, nobody's going to pay much attention to you probably, but you can feel

something very passionately and still not be very effective because you're not competent or the reverse can be true. you can be very competent, but you don't have any compassion or excuse me, passion, and you won't have all that much impact either so i think in order to bring real impact, you have to combine both competence and the passion, and how you express that passion makes all the difference. if i get up and say to this group that's about ready to vote on something or another, i think you're all a bunch of idiots, that's not exactly the way i'm going to win influence in that body. i've got to be civil, respectful, i got to tolerate every point of view, but i appreciate the point. the dissenter does have a problem and people often feel in this country, by, golly, they

are not paying tension to my point of view, and that's often right. the reason the tea party people have the impact they have which i think is very substantial in the country is because they felt very deeply that their point of view was being ignored, and so they had to speak up strongly. >> and, you know, here to me there's another question. how do you -- how do you deal if you are a passionate and competent person and you speak that way, how do you deal with the speaker of the house equating your fiscal movement though very passionate movement, how do you deal with her akuwaiting that to the -- time -- i mean, have leaders who have such a huge microphone and

platform to stand on and this constant hating minorities and wanting to take the country back to precivil rights. it's the most discussing thing and to hear it from people who are elect the and have these microphones and have no media hold them exbl, you know, they're on cnn making accusations and after the tucson incident, i mean, within, you know, an hour people were accusing conservatives and the tea party movement though we find out later this guy was completely a-political and never listened to talk radio or wasn't a tea partyer or anything. the accusations on cnn were saying he was and let's hold on a second, you're maligning a lot of people right now, and you don't know any of the facts, so how is somebody supposed to deal

with that? how is a normal every day person who is now an activist or not, but feels a certain way and sympathizes with the tea party movement, i think that's a really important question because it sucks to have people think this about you. >> how much -- well, let's pursue the media for a moment here. how much do we think that the increase in would feel like incidents of incivility is contributed to by a media that first of all jumps with vigor and passion on a statement that it can see sort of violates any frame of political correctness, and that also really tends to focus much more on controversy

than on any element of substance. so for a moment we'll stay away from the other question which is how the new technology in terms of new media is exacerbated. what about a news media? are they creating a lot of the issues we're dealing with today around civility? >> david, i often say to my friends in washington that there are no journalists in washington. by that i mean i'm disturbed by the trend in journalism generally for everyone who wants to be a pundit, and nobody wants to report the facts. now, # of of course, there's a lot of good journalists in washington, but i think it is true that the media over a period of years has become less interested in reporting, where, when, what, how -- whatever the old add yag was, and much more

in expressing opinion. of course, that's where the money is. if you're a journalist today and you want to make a big income, you become a pundit. you write a sipped kateed coal -- syndicated column or get on tv. the financial incentives work against the traditional reporting in this country, but i often feel that the media exacerbates a problem and do you want help. look, what you have to try to do in the congress at least and in other bodies as well, is you have to search for a remedy. that's what the congress is all about. you got all of these difficult issues out there and they really are difficult and the congress represents all the people in the country. when i was in high school, we

had 130 million people in this country. today, i don't know what it is, it's over 300 million, and we know that the country has become enormously more diverse than it was decades ago. you got to reconcile those points of view in the congress, and that means you have to make accommodations. you cannot govern this country without making accommodations and compromise. we wouldn't have a country if the people who met didn't make major compromise. the media i think does tend to exaggerate the differences. they do that in part because they want to make the issue clear. i understand that, and some of these issues are not easy to make clear, but i do think they tend to exacerbate it. i've had the experience personally a number of times of being asked to go on or being

sounded out to go on a talk show, and i'll say, well, what's your position on this? i'll express a position, and it may be a moderate position, and they are very frank. they say, well, we don't want you on the program because it's not a sharp enough difference. in other words, they want the extreme point of view presented in order to make the contrast so that you, the american public, can understand it better, so i understand their problem, but at the same time, i do thinkover all, the media has become more opinionuated over -- o the last several decades and from my point of view at least that's a setback, and trying to reach agreement on these difficult issues as a public figure, you do need the help of

the press for sure, but it's not an easy group of people to deal with if they're more inclined towards opinion than fact. >> john? >> i think i agree mostly with that perspective but disinclined to point the finger at the media too completely. there's other factors to think about. one is the way in which the news business has been affected by a various set of trends. there's craig's list and other revenues that put the media in a difficult position where i think they are seeking sharper and kind of more sometimes shrill ways to describe things in order to make some more money, and i think we have to recognize there is a news media operating in a marketplace. the second is the extent to which obviously the way in which they are doing this is to respond to us as the audience, we as the american people or the

global people are the ones seeking out and making traces between different points of view. if everybody read the national constitution blog rather than watching, you know, a partisan news program, maybe there would be some extent to which there's greater up sentive to have -- incentive to have the -- but i think the notion i had many times the same interview requests before going on a tv show or for a reporter and basically saying, no, that's too nuanced a position. this is one way academics are out of the debate because we want to be the two-handed lair. we look at it at a fairly objective way and that never makes the quote or cnn. i credit the issue, but i don't want to say they, the media, are the entire problem. >> i would also argue, of course, that the media can -- the mainstream media can either

exaggerate things or completely ignore it, and that, i mean, it's if they don't decide it's news, it's not news and nobody knows about it unless you seek it out somewhere else like online. you know, again, i go back to how many people here have read the various death threats against walker and the senate republicans in wisconsin. did you know that there were chalk outlines with walker written in them around the capitol. people protest at the senator's homes, their personal homes. i would never in a million years go to someone's personal home. i can't imagine what goes through someone's head to go to their personal home. i think it's creepy, and it's -- like you have to have a completely different mind set for that to be okay with you. i mean, there's just list after list of things that happened in wisconsin, and i haven't seen it

anywhere except online on conservative blogs and they are all documented with video and photographic evidence. the media plays a huge part in what we even see as news because they can stifle something or exaggerate it. >> so we're going to move to q&a and as we get people in the audience thinking about what your questions are, we have a question from the blog. a question is you seem to love your country, but you hate your government. how are you contributing to civility? >> well, that's a very common misconception. i don't hate my government. i think -- i think the american government and system of government is the best in the world. i'm totally bias for america as opposed to other governments out there. what i don't like is the ways that i think the government has

changed, and i, you know, like tea party patriots our three core principles are civility, limited government, and free markets. to me, i think we have this beautiful document, the constitution, that was handed down to us and allows us to progress and to change with the times in a very structured way that makes sure that that various fringes don't take control. i don't, you know, tea partyers are mischaracterized as antigovernment, antiregulation, totally antitact, almost an ark kisses -- anarchists somehow, and believe me, that's not the case at all. i think i obviously have issues and problems with some of the things government does, but i think you're never going to be fully happy with it and that's why an active and engaged

citizenry pulling on all the different ends can find a way to something that's still good for all of us. >> we have some questions from the -- yes, yes. >> [inaudible] is the mic on? >> yes, it's on. >> william allen. i'd like to pose for the panel two examples, historical examples, that i ask you to comment on in light of your general discussion. the first is thomas jefferson who while serving as secretary of state described very quietly george washington as a -- i'd like to know whether you consider that civil or incivil, and also remembering what was said at the outset by chairman leech with regard to the house

divided speech. i'm mindful that speech was received at the south as a loud shout which some interpreted as declaring that only war would resolve these issues. i'd like to know how you take that reaction too what was, in fact, a stage diplomatic speech. i agree with chairman leach, but it was received as an outrage. >> david, i'm not sure i heard all of that. i don't hear as well as i should. the first comment was jefferson's attack on washington? >> yes. >> well, he said tough things about washington, and washington acted with extraordinary restraint overall, but at the end of the day after washington was no longer president, jefferson said some very gracious things to say about him. we can point to all kinds of incidents in our history where

debate has gotten out of hand, even among the founding fathers, and i don't know that it's anymore vigorous or rigorous today than it was back then. it's just that when you say it today, it's all over the country instantaneously and when you said it back then, it took awhile, and by that time passions are cooled, and the second -- what was the second part of the question? >> the fact that lincoln's stateman referenced to the better angels of our nature, that was actually received by the south as provocative and basically requiring war. >> if i may, david, it was the house divided speech. >> house divided speech. >> prior to the election, and it was taken by those at the south, the authoritative voices declaring that war was necessary.

>> one reaction i have to that is look, if you're talking no matter how accurately and eel gauntly -- elegantly you speak on a position, there's people who will always disagree with you very strongly. you simply can want -- cannot deal with the issues this countries confronts and get up and make a statement that everybody agrees with on that issue and lincoln, of course, was faced with the whole question of succession at that point i guess, and people in the south were predisposed to interpret anything lincoln said in a very negative way and from their own point of view. we all do that, we all interpret everything we hear from our own prism so that's not unusual that that kind of thing would happen, and i'm not the least bit

surprised that even lincoln had some problems with it. >> question? yes. >> people who have problems with any sort of health care reform involving government intervention to expand the number of americans with health care reform, what do you imagine their deepest motivations to be very a for a for the a project like that? >> they believe that that's the best system for the most people, and i happen to disagree with that. you know, i'm not -- probably because i live in seattle and i have mostly all liberal friends who i disagree with all the time on facebook and like i said now i'm totally out in the open about it, i know them, and i know they are good people, and i think they are totally wrong, but i know that they are good

people and their hearts are in the right place and so, you know, a lot of this comes up because a lot of people in the tea party use the word socialism or socialist. >> [inaudible] >> well -- >> your blog -- >> when? >> your blog stands up -- [inaudible] >> okay, but i don't refer to obama as a come communist. sir, i believe there are people in the nation who have communist political view points. this is, sir, this relates to your comment about people taking things. when i use the word "socialist" and "communist" i'm referring to a specific group of policies and the way in which somebody wants to see the government run and all of that -- all of that that

it entails. a lot of people who then get called a socialist assume they are called a fascist and a nazi and a murder and things like that. i don't view it that way. i view it as you believe in policies that you can call it socialism, democratic socialism, european socialism, whatever label you put on it, but i think it's very much what the gentleman referred to as far as somebody saying something and then the south taking it as a declare ration of war when that's not how it's intended, and i mean, i have friends that are proud self-declared socialists. you can be a socialist and communist and still be a good person and nobody said otherwise. there's a difference between i totally disagree with your policies and i still think you have a good heart. >> you assert that the vast

gravity of the tea party and health care project was one example that seems to be the most important on that side of the spectrum has reflected the idea that the motivation for this is primarily about compassion and expanding health care and a different philosophy of government opposed to something more insideout. what you say here today, does that reflect the broader center of gravity the way honest debate and policy agreement has been structured and framed 1234 >> absolutely. i've met thousands of people. i've been at hundreds of rallies and just like we said with the media, who do they pick out? when they go to a left wing rally, who do they pick out of the crowd? they pick out the crazy people, the people with the crazy signs, the people who are most interesting again, because i'm not that interesting if i'm talking about page 547 in the

health care bill and trying to make a very rational point. that's not interesting. i can guarantee you the vast majority of people in the tea party movement are regular people learning how to be engaged in their government, learning about civics, going to city counsel meetings to hold their government accountable, they learn about government transparency, yes, world view and philosophically, they are opposed to the health care bill that passed, and yes, we view it towards a move towards socialism, but it doesn't mean we think people are bad people. a lot of that comes from, you know, just meeting people with different view points. i spoke back in december, and, you know, it was very interesting the questions that i got. it was very obvious that a lot of these women had never really been challenged and didn't know anybody with a different

viewpoint which i thought was said because it's such a university, and i spoke to them afterwards and said, yeah, i have no conservative friends. i think when you don't know people who have different viewpoints than yourself, you look at them as caricatures and you believe the five second sound bites you hear on the media as the movement. in wisconsin, the violence protesters or relate rick from there, the vast majority of people, that's not them. you know, conservative bloggers, most of the people are pretty peaceful, but, you know, i mean, you are going to -- the media sends to report the more is salacious. >> next question, yes? >> hi, i have more questions than i know what to do with at the moment. the first was really for

representative hamilton, and you said that civility is in decline, and i'm not sure that's right. i grew up in wisconsin, and my earliest vague memory is of senator mccarthy. he was not a very civil contributor to american political debate, and he commanded the national spotlight, and he shaped an entire generation of what the topics on the agenda were. it's -- it seems to me we need to somehow reach a better -- and

this is part of the agenda for this weekend -- a better definition of the problem. it's not so much a rise and fall of civility it seems to me as it different context in which we make public debate. i thought another thing representative hamilton said was very important we're twice a big of country than we were, more diverse country than we were in the days of senator mccarthy and it was so-called acceptable in the right company to make racist jokes and it was almost a requirement to establish your membership in that community. that's changed. that seems to me that's changed a lot and for the better so has

civility increased or decreased or is it this changed social fabric in which speech takes place that is the big change and that we have to rethink and redefine what civility is? >> well, i certainly hope he's right that civility is increasing rather than decreasing and after all, it would be a much better world if you're right than if i'm right. i have to speak in terms of the congress. i know a little bit more about that than some other things. if you track the polls with regard to the american public opinion of the congress, the thing that has risen very, very sharply is that many, many americans today are unhappy with the congress for a lot of

different reasons, but among the chief reasons is the excessive partisanship and incivility so i think at least in that world, the world of the congress, there's pretty broad viewpoints that incivility within that body increased for all kinds of reasons, and we really haven't got into that today. let me give you a personal illustration which i guess impacts my view. when i was a very new member of the congress, i made a bad parliamentary mistake on the floor, and i didn't even know i had made it. the minority leader at the time was jerry ford, and jerry ford sent over to me a republican member from my state of the indiana, and that republican member said to me, lee, you just made a mistake, the minority leader noticed it, and this is the way you correct it on a bill

they didn't approve of. i just cannot imagine that kind of thing happening today. the environment today i just wouldn't accept that, but in this case, the minority leader, mr. ford, and his republican colleague from indiana saw a young member of congress who didn't know what he was doing and told him how to correct it. extraordinary curtesy and civility it seems to me. i just can't imagine that sort of thing happening today. >> there's a great passive in the new -- passage in the recently new biography of george washington that notes that after benedict arnold was unmasked and had fled and he had tried both to end up

with taking over annapolis over also kidnapping washington, benedict arnold sent a note asking washington, since he had to flee, can you please send my clothes after? general washington did send the -- send benedict arnold his clothing with some sort of a polite note. [laughter] there really is a fascinating, you know, having somebody spy on you and try to have you kidnapped is fairly up civil, and yet, there's this ability to have the overlay of politeness that -- >> david i don't know of another figure in american history that better illustrates civility than washington. just extraordinary restraint on his part. during his presidency, as you

would know, the factional problem developed and really became very acute, and it caused him enormous ang qish seeing jefferson at his throat, and jefferson was -- with regard to washington, and washington knew that, but he never lashed out at him, never, and just remarkable restraint on his part, so we're talking about civility. you got to have some heros in anything you do, and with regard to this role, washington was an extraordinary model. >> i echo the most recent

speaker's comments. i agree with the sentiment that it's hard to say we are less civil than we were at any other point. it's hard to provement i think there tends to be in american history the notion of and if you say they're less religious and one generation said that rock n' role -- roll was a bad thing and now parents say internet is a bad thing. if you have a generation of people growing up as thinking about the bad guy as communists and socialists, you know well, it's a hot button thing. when we have a discussion about a policy matter for whomever it might be in a blog or otherwise to say that's socialist or communism, it's easy to personalize that quickly.

i'm a capitalist who thought the health care bill was a good thing. i don't perceive myself as a communist or a number of others that that obviously invokes. very quickly, i think the conversation does go to, you know, that's how the passions arise; right? when you press the buttons, but going back to hamilton and jefferson, we wouldn't have a strong a country if not for those guys going at it. that was crucial, those visions of the country that helped to forge where we are now. we have to figure out how can we have in the right context and right way the debate on health care without, you know, getting at one another throats literally. >> yes, but i think that, i think there's a very, i mean maybe it's the past associations with the words, but i'm 31 and don't have those associations with those words and the view of having government involved in so

much industry and things like that as a move towards socialism, and i know there's nuanced differences between social democracy and various labels, but i'm not going to not use that word because somebody else has an association with it and gets offended by it, and it's not fair to ask me to change my vocabulary like that because someone happens to think that because of the past association with this word, i think it's a totally legitimate orty, and we had literature to read before we came here and one was president obama's commencement speech in michigan in 2010 to one of the universities there, and he talked about civility in there for a little bit, and part of what he said was talking about name calling and things like that that a lot of leaders have been called faishists, but he through socialist in there.

it's totally not okay to put those in the same league. it's a completely different thing to call someone a race cyst and a nazi than to say their notions are status. like i'm sorry if that makes you feel bad, but people say a lot of things that make me feel bad too. >> what about the word "communist?" >> i rarely use it because i don't see that as mainstream. that's a fringe group here, but i think there's a lot of socialism or socialism rights that made its way into the progressive side of politics in the country. again, it's not meant on thively. it doesn't mean you have a bad heart or hate people or something. it means it's a prescription for the ills of society and i just think they're totally wrong, and i use that as an easy label to

put them in a box to discuss them. >> to follow-up on this question of whether the real issue is civility or whether there's another framework that we need to be talking about, what about the possibility that the real issue is about ethics or effectiveness of our discussion that basically we're failing to solve our problems. we're failing to get things done and our discussions are becoming increasingly sort of fruitless and everyone tent in term -- impotent to dealing with challenges around health care, challenges around immigration, challenges around our tax code, some of the larger structural issues of being an overleveraged or overly leveraged economy. is it possible that that worry that we're not being sufficiently civil is really a

proxy worry for the fact that our conversations are becoming less fruitful? >> possibly. >> i don't think it's correct to say that our government is dysfunctional. you may not agree with what they produce, and you may be very frustrated in the process because the process is messy, ain't any doubt about it, but the government does make decisions. they may not be decisions we agree with. a dysfunctional government is like the government of iraq today that simply cannot deliver any services. our government delivers services. >> that's a pretty low threshold. [laughter] >> what? >> that's a pretty low threshold. >> well, i was trying to give you an illustration, and that's one, but our government delivers services, not perfectly obviously, and our government

makes a lot of decisions. if you go back to last december, the government in a matter of a few weeks made all kinds of decisions, many of them, many of them keli probably wouldn't like, but they did make decisions. >> on the question of civility whether it's going up or down, i think my view, you know, i don't want to come across as saying so you that i think the situation is hopeless. i don't think it is. i think incivility is, oh, or put it the other way around -- i think civility is just not as clear as much in evidence as it used to be, as the way i would put it, and i don't think the situation is helpless or hopeless. i think there's all kinds of illustrations today, members of congress who joined together in bipartisan efforts, and many politicians believe they benefit from taking a bipartisan

position. i also think that in our country, in the congress at least, there's rhythms here, there are patterns where there are times where the congress is much more partisan than at other times, and now, it is true today that you have a lot of factors that may be built very strongly under our system that encourages incivility and excessive partnership, but overall, it's important to keep in mind there's patterns of the country being incivil more and more civil at other times. ..

>> but because they're the ones that execute it. but we have to accept our own responsibility. look, it's a very easy thing for me as a democrat to say to a republican, i think you're being incivil. it's an easy judgment for me to make. the tougher thing for me to say is to a member of my own party, look, i agree with your position, but you're just out of bounds the way you're stating that position. you're using all kinds of words you shouldn't use. you're accusing kelly of being a racist, you ought not to do that. or you're accusing somebody of being a nazi, communist or whatever. so our responsibility within our

own party, it seems to me, more than with the other party is to say when the leader of our party gets up and says something that is incivil, that is excessively partisan is to say to that leader or that representative, look, i'm with you, i support your positions, but by golly, you stepped out of line. >> that's a great way of thinking that really the trick is not to be trying to enforce civility across these bridges, but sort of within these areas. are you seeing, john, that in on line communities where you clearly see these emerging niches where communities of like-minded folks are gathering more and more together, do you see that there's a trend toward this, toward self-policing? or is the trend more toward that as folks congregate more with like-minded people, they tend to become more shrill and more

extreme? >> this is one of the key debates that goes on in the literature about the online space which is characterized in one sense often by a guy who was a law professor that, now in the government who talked about the daily me and the idea that one of the effects of the internet was for us to surround ourselves only with the views that we believed in, and that someone who believed one very strong view would simply get a whole series of feeds, rss feeds or tweets or whatever that would come in and create a personal ec cochamber, right? and people on the other side of the spectrum would do. there's others, particularly a guy at harvard law school who thinks that, in fact, we can have this more civil dialogue, that we can listen to each other more in this environment, and there's an empirical debate as to which of those is true. i happen to believe in the possibility of the medium. i think we have an attention deficit which is, i think, one

of the big issues. there's only a certain amount of time. there are many more speakers now. it's no longer the case that you wake up in the morning and read "the new york times" cover to cover, the "philadelphia inquirer" and at the end of the day you hear walter cronkite or katie couric tell you what happened. no, all day long you're getting sources indirectly, and i think we have changed the way in which we get that information. i do think that this, the idea, though, of our view of congress is very important to this debate of civility broadly. i'm sure over the several decades that you've been in congress you've noticed the extent to which public opinion polls show that we think congress is less effective than we did several decades ago. it's a fairly precipitous drop even while the rating of the supreme court, for instance, is totally unaccountable and in one sense has stayed very, very high. and i think, i wonder if there isn't a connection in some ways between those two that as we see more directly as opposed to mediated through a few sources

what's, in fact, going on in the congress that we get more frustrated with what we see in that environment. and i don't know, it's a hypothesis, but i wonder if there isn't a connection between those two. >> i think where -- we've got about ten minutes left, so what i think we'll do is ask folks to, that have questions, that would like to ask questions we'll try the get a bunch of them together, and then we'll go around, and you can respond to the ones that you think are the most urgent, need responding to. yeah. >> congressman, when you mentioned the, that those who are more shrill, more uncivil, for example, you usually get dismissed in a group. however, it seems we are bombarded continuously by images in popular media, films and tv

and so on, where they tend to glorify those who scream, who yell, who say obnoxious things in a crowd or in a meeting. how do you think that fits in with, with our current situation? >> yes. >> do you think that the principles of civility were violated by edward r. murrow when he morally and personally attacked joe mccarthy? >> what? >> could you repeat the end of that? is when he morally and personally attacked? >> joe mccarthy. was he violating civility by pointing out joe mccarthy's personal moral shortcomings? >> thank you. yes. >> david asked this question several times. i wanted just to repeat it, and that is where does debate lead?

what is it that you seek as an outcome? in a democracy debate is always healthy. robust debate is always healthy. but at some point government has to operate, has to function. and at some point there has to be a decision made. and whether or not health care is socialist, communist seems not to be the point as long as a majority of the people in society support that view. at what point does the view of the majority in a democracy rule? and if that happens, does debate continue, or does the voice become louder? at what point do you say, this is what the people have decided?

the majority of the people have decided and, therefore, we will accept the will of the majority? >> i have two questions for this. the governor was supposed to be on the panel today. where is he? my second question is to dave, what do you think, was there any difference in prospective between -- perspective between the severity according to congressman lee hamilton and civility according to governor ed rendell? >> thank you. >> you're welcome. >> do you have any more on that side? no? okay. >> a word i haven't heard much this morning is compromise and how far civility and compromise work hand in hand. and if that's not also part of the problem today that we have.

>> you asked whether or not we thought that it was civility. actually the question we need to be asking, i got to see the screening last night of prohibition. i thought it was outstanding. but one thing that really struck me was the level of corruption. and i think that's a c word we really need to discuss. more so than civility is the corruption. we had the bootleggers going right into the capitol delivering illegal goods. we've got things going on like that in our government and worse. but we, i actually wrote a rather lengthy article recently about the paradox of political divide. while i personally would identify more with kelly, i've discovered that across the aisle my friend michael here and i that we just made friends here,

and he says i'm a dyed in the wool liberal, and i said, well, i'm a conservative. we can definitely agree on one thing, that corruption has absolutely no place in our government at all, and until that is fixed i don't see a whole lot of hope with civility. >> thank you. well, that's, clearly, a whole lot for all of us to chew on. and so i will let you all take 30 seconds to think about what your response is going to be. the couple questions that i end up coming away with from the discussion in addition -- lee, you started us off begging the question of what is civility, and i didn't take us down that because i actually think it's such a big question, and it might have not given us the opportunity we had to talk about some causes. but it really does that that question is begged across the board what we consider civility. i think another question is, can

we learn from history? when you see the great film, "prohibition," and you hear some of the case studies that we've talked about this morning, there's almost a question of are we capable of learning lessons around what constitutes the most effective political discourse. and then the final question that i have, i still tend to suspect that a lot of us are uneasy about the tone and content of our political dialogue. but that the root of that uneasiness is less about the style or how much anger there is or passion or whether we're stepping over lines and that the root is really more about how productive is it. are we getting done what we need to get done as a nation? and our dialogue does not seem to be helping us get there.

so now i think i've given you all time. why don't -- john, would you like to start either answering questions or sharing final thoughts? >> absolutely. and i'm delighted that this will lead to congressman hamilton having the last word. thank you, david, for a well-moderated panel and a great discussion. a couple of just rapid fire responses. one, to the gentleman over here, i think the discourse itself is important. how we do it, why we're all here is because we believe the conversation is important, and i think the takeaway for me is kelly's notion about feeling unwelcome and in a discussion space and trying to understand that and make sure that isn't the way that people who are coming into civic life are reacting and that we are welcomed. i think a second is this point about history. this is where i disagree with kelly. i'm in my 30s, too, i think we definitely have to understand our history whether it's what happens in prohibition or what stalin and eleven indid, and i

think that's the beauty of these spaces as we participate in these dialogues. the third one is while i believe in the effectiveness of dialogue leading to action and certainly agree money and politics is one of the reasons we are very skeptical of our congress, back to the gentleman who mentioned the civil war. sometimes the rhetoric and the discussion, in fact, needs to heed to war, right? but i think the hindsight of history, the civil war may have been a necessary thing for this country to have that fight in order to resolve something that simply we couldn't coexist with that debate there. i think this has been a great conversation, and i'm grateful to be a part of it. >> thank you. >> also i'd like to thank you for inviting me to this. i thought it was really great, and i always welcome the opportunity to talk to people, opposing view points or similar viewpoints. i'd like to address the corruption question because as i become more engaged in civics and in politics, i really have

sort of come to the conclusion that transparency in government or the lack thereof is really the root of many, many of our problems. it's, it's the root of people being dissatisfied with their government and their elected officials. it's the root of having no accountability or little accountability. it's the root of a lot of our profligate spending because we don't know where the money is going. and tea party patriots has decided to take this on as an issue at our web site where we are trying to get local activists to work on getting sunshine legislation passed through their states, keeping track of their, like i was saying before, their local city councils and things like that. but if, if people don't feel that their government is being

accountable with their tax dollars and there's no flow of information, i mean, when people file foias and they have to wait, you know, three years to get them, they have to pay thousands of dollars, that's ridiculous. it's incumbent upon government to provide information to us. it shouldn't be on the citizens' shoulders to have to go dig it out. it's their responsibility to give us the information about how they're conducting the public's business, so i think that's a really great point. and i think as far as the question about the majorities, i mean, we know in our history majorities of people have been incredibly wrong at times. so, i mean, i don't have an easy answer right now, but i think that's a really good question to ask is when do we take the will of the majority, and when can people stand up and say the majority is wrong right now? and that's, i mean, that's a huge question too.

and i guess just in closing i would ask that if people really believe in the having more civility, that you start, again, with yourself. and at the same time i also, i mean, i'm a believer in free speech completely, especially for political speech. and that means that if you think there's bad speech out there, you don't seek to ban the speech or stop the speech. you use your own free speech to combat it. so if you think that somebody has said something like the gentleman back there didn't like what i said on my blog, then he should write about it, and he probably will because he's taking notes, i think. [laughter] so, you know, i think that's, that's the best way we really can make sure we stay free and that we we still have our discussions that we need to have and our debates. so if you don't like something that somebody said, then you should say something about it. >> congressman lee hamilton, take this home. >> i'm not sure i heard all the

questions, but let me take them up as best i heard them. one comment was about uncivil behavior, we're being bombarded by it from all sides and that, obviously, points out that maybe society in general is less civil than it was decades ago. and the congress or other political bodies reflect, as they should, the feeling of the american people. so if society is more uncivil, it should not be unusual to find out that the body of their representatives is more uncivil. a second question was with regard to edward r. murrow. i remember when edward r. murrow attacked joseph mccarthy, and when he did that, he stepped outside the role of being a journalist. he was no longer a journalist, he was simply fed up with mccarthy, and he felt a sense of outrage.

he had an unusual platform that most of us don't have, television. but i could personally understand why he attacked mccarthy, but when he did it, he clearly was not being a journalist. he was expressing himself as an american citizen. a decision was made, a point was made here about decisions have to be made in government. that's a very important point. you can have all the debate, dialogue you can think of, all the consultation. at some point you've got to make a decision. and when you make that decision, you're going to get a lot of people mad. that's just part of the process. now, the important thing to note is the manner in which the decision is made is terribly important. if, if i'm in the minority, if i cast a vote in the minority and i don't win the vote in the house of representatives but i feel like i've had a fair shot, that i've been listened to, my

colleagues have been respectful, that i haven't been shut out of the process, i really don't have that many complaints to make. i've fought the fight, i've lost it. and i have to accept that. i can come back and fight another day, but on that one i've lost. so the manner in which we make a decision is important. democracy is not a result. democracy is a process. and we have to keep that in mind. there's another comment here made about the role of compromise and accommodation. i'm not sure that is a matter of civility, but i just want to say that, look, our government cannot function if you do not compromise and do not make accommodations. it cannot function. so when i hear a politician get up and say i am not going to compromise on this issue, that is a formula for deadlock. because there's going to be people on the other side of the

aisle taking a different -- maybe not on the other side of the aisle -- taking a different position. now, so the question becomes you gotta stand up for your rights. you want to argue your ideological point. you're entitled to do that. but at the end of the day we have to make accommodations, and the responsibility of the public official is to make a country work. i was a democrat when ronald reagan was president. president reagan held his positions very strongly and very firmly. but at the end of the day we in the democratic party knew that ronald reagan would compromise. government did not shut down during ronald reagan's presidency. he compromised, we compromised, and be i hope both sides walked away feeling reasonably good about it. and i think they did. the corruption point is a serious one. look, i don't have much to say about that except this.

i believe that the law enforcement people, the prosecutors, the fbi have -- the county prosecutors have enormous responsibility in our government. they are the ones that have to enforce the criminal law. and bob muller, whom i think has done an excellent job as the director of the fbi, has shifted the attention of the fbi from law enforcement to dealing with terrorism for, obviously, very good reasons. but as that shift has taken place in the culture of the fbi, i worry about it because i don't want to see a diminution of our ability to prosecute the wrongdoer. i talked to a very good friend in a high position not long ago in the fbi who said to me that today the fbi cannot prosecute an enron case because they do not have the capabilities, and it takes extraordinarily

technical capabilities to prosecute that kind of a case that they did have back then. i don't know if my friend's right or wrong. but, boy, it really worried me because we've seen a lot of activity in the financial markets and the rest that at least raises suspicion of misconduct. so, david, i think we've had a very deep discussion. thank you for being such an excellent moderator. thanks to my fellow panelists here and for these very, very patient people out there for the morning's discussion. it's been a good discussion, i've been pleased to be a part of it. [applause] >> please join me in thanking the panel.

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> here's a look at what's ahead on c-span2. >> tonight on "the communicators," fcc commissioner mignon clyburn on the wireless industry and the commission's role in the proposed purchase of t-mobile by at&t. >> we're a little bit different

from the department of justice which concentrates on the antitrust and sherman act type of oversight. we are responsible, we have a public interest standard which includes looking at competition, you know, how the market looks, how the existing players in the market will be affected, how consumers will be affected. >> "the communicators" tonight on c-span2. >> join us later today when booktv will have an exclusive webcast. author francis fukuyama will discuss his new book from the politics and is prose bookstore here in washington. that gets under way at 7 p.m. eastern, and you can see it streaming live at booktv.org. >> all this month we've been featuring the top winners of c-span's student cam video documentary competition. now, meet the top two winners and see their videos tuesday and wednesday mornings. watch their documentaries at 6:50 eastern and meet the

winners live during c-span's "washington journal" at 9:15. stream all the winning entries anytime online at studentcam.org. >> coming up, we take you to new york university law school for a symposium on public corruption. a panel discussion will focus on the definition of corruption and tries to find the line between criminal behavior versus business as usual. participants include the executive director of citizens for responsibility and ethics in washington. this panel runs just over an hour. >> okay. good morning. i'm jim jacobs, professor here at the law school, and i have the honor of chairing this first panel on defining, defining corruption. because time is short and because the speakers are identified here in the program, i'm not going to give them the

introductions which they are due, and we'll launch right into our discussion. to kick things off, i'd like to ask the panelists to consider where is the contested terrain today on the subject of corruption? where, where is the battleground, where are our -- are we confused about what is corrupt and what is not corrupt? what's left to be decided? i'm going to proceed alphabetically starting with professor alschuler from northwestern. >> [inaudible] >> oh, good. >> i have to ask what counts as

corruption for purposes of criminal punishment. or what counts as crupg -- corruption for purposes of ethical regulations, the rule of the house that might lead to expulsion from the house or censure or whatever or what should count as corruption when we're talking about campaign finance legislation and other structural reforms of the sort that ann pilgrim mentioned. i suppose we're focusing mostly on the first question, what counts as corruption for purposes of criminal prosecution. and this is been a constant battle on that subject going on for the last 30 years. on the one hand, you have the supreme court of the united states, and it thinks that we should define corruption in a way that provides pretty clear and definite rules. and on the other hand you have everybody else, all of the prosecutors, apparently the congress of the united states, most of the lower federal

courts. and they seem to want to criminalize anything that might divert a public official from faithful service to the public. conflicts of interest, undisclosed conflicts of interest. supreme court a year ago considered a federal statute that outlawed deprivations of the intangible right to honest services. nobody knew what it meant, supreme court said we better narrow that, the statute. and they did. but now there are congressional efforts to broaden it. so that's the topic in broad outline. >> okay. noah bookbinder, the chief counsel for the criminal justice committee on the senate judiciary committee. noah, do you want to comment on that? are we, are we in a situation of overdefining corruption? >> well, sure. i think that everybody agrees

that there needs to be, there needs to be a real definition, people these to understand -- need to understand what conduct is covered particularly by criminal statute. there needs to be notice, there needs to be fairness. the question is where do you draw that line? when you do define it, how do you -yard line it -- how do you -yard define it? there are a lot of ways you can look at what is corruption? i think within the criminal context probably a fair place to start is saying that corruption is what happens when you have public officials acting in their own personal usually financial interest rather than in the interest of the public that they're supposed to be serving. i think there's a fair amount of consensus that you've got corruption and criminal corruption when you have what everybody recognizes to be a bribe, somebody takes money to make a certain decision that

they may or may not make otherwise, but in this case they're making it because they're getting paid to do so. controversy, i think, comes when you have a similar principle that's structured in a somewhat different way. that doesn't look like a bribe as we've all come to recognize it. and i think where there's some tension between the need to be able to have some flexibility to address novel conduct that comes up both because public officials are and those who deal with public officials are often sophisticated, they come up with new and different ways of getting, of doing what they want to do. there are also new circumstances that arise, and prosecutors need some room to address changing and evolving methods and circumstances. that, on the one hand. on the other hand, the need to have notice and fairness, and so

you need to have conduct that is somewhat specifically prohibited. i think the areas where we've seen detention include on the surface as professor alschuler alluded to, services allowed flexibility, it also created some confusion as to what was covered. i won't get into that fully quite yet, because i think we're staying at a more general level here. but a couple of other examples of where that tension occurs as to conduct that doesn't look quite like a bribe, another one is in the gratuities context, the issue of what were known as status gratuities where you had a public official who was getting money, essentially, because they were a public official. ..

payments needed to be present think that was within the range of official responsibility of the public official. i had a police officer who was taking money to do checks on an essentially criminal history database. the defense, essentially, which the supreme court except it wasn't supposed to be doing that. it wasn't right because he wasn't taking money to make a decision of the official responsibility. that is another area where that

line between staying within the accepted boundaries of the state statutes, but on one hand and on the other hand, wanting to reach the convict that officials in those who want to corrupt them are able to come up with. and maybe the answer to that is continuing to refine the law was new, precise, but also affected statutes that reach the broader ranges of conduct. >> okay, thank you. and will turn to stanford law school professor, pamela karlan on this same issue, whereas the contested terrain, maybe we can sharpen it a little by saying corruption is just hard to define or is it that we can

agree on what is corrupt, even if we can define the conduct in question. >> well, first thanks so much for having me here. i think that, you know, why don't i start by being a textualists because no one ever thinks amy textualists. where the word comes from a black workaround for zero, which is to break things into pieces. so to understand corruption is you have to understand what the uncorrupt would be. that is how do you know what the corruption is as deviation from what would otherwise be the proper outcome. one of the reasons we have a real difficult and prosecuting corruption is in part because we don't have an agreement on what the normal or with the goodwood v. to begin with. and so essentially the criminal

cases and they want to talk two other recent supreme court cases that talk about corruption because they show what the real difficulties are neither to cases in which there wasn't a criminal prosecution. the caperton against massey case in this defense unity case, which are cases that involve, in the first case, entirely legal spending of money. that is a man who had a case in front of the west virginia supreme court spent millions of dollars to change the election outcome. all of the money spent was completely legal, that is a campaign contribution he case was within the limit in the supreme court has held that independent expenditure, which is how we spent most of his money are completely protected by the first amendment. yet the supreme court says they think there was a risk of corruption here because a judge who got to let it on the basis

of contributions and expenditures from a litigant is likely to feel gratitude to the litigated to give them all the money. so you have a conflict bear or a tension between two different values we have. one is the first amendment value that you can spend as much money as you want to speak how you want and the other is having a justice system in which money plays no role. and then if you ask about citizens united, the supreme court comes up with a definition of corruption that's extremely narrow. so what the supreme court says is when it comes to money spent on influencing who gets into office and who decide is often what determines what the decision will be come the supreme court says quick perl code corruption is the only option. now the pro quote corruptions is you bribe by giving him money he put in his own pocket.

for you by votes from people by offering them $10 to vote for your candidate. and everybody understands those are corruption and those can be criminally prohibited. but what about an intermediate case, which is not offering the candidate money to put in his own pocket, but offering him money or spending the money independently to get him elected. while that is often constitutionally protected conduct. so what do we do about that? then let's go even a step further, which is the supreme court has held that if you offer a voter $10 to vote for you, that can be made a crime. but if you promise that a select if you will reduces taxes dollars, that's not a crime. that's again, first amendment protected speech. so the problem you have here is that if you're going to have a very narrow definition of what counts is the kind of corruption while having a very broad sense

of what it is for the system to have been distorted, you can solve the vagueness problem that no one was talking about, but only at the expense of leaving a lot of public discomfort of the kind that then leads to the polling result that e-mail graham was talking about earlier. is that an answer to your question? >> that's your answer to my question. [laughter] melanie sloan is the executive director for citizens and ethics in washington and would like to hear your take in this issue. >> i think there's really a great danger in defining corruption too narrowly because politicians are comparable, but with new ways and new schemes to more specifically define a crime inefficacy resist and the

stature to i might work so great. it allows you to take on a whole host of convex. this concept that we need to very narrowly defined things, i think for a lot of americans, corruption is not too different from pornography. you know what you see it. something that is corrupt is on the front of the times and she has gotten tax breaks and pays almost nothing and there's a real question about why. she got tax breaks by a lot of political influence. she spent a fortune on lobbying and then they gave $30 million to new york city public schools in this involves a lot of corruption issues, charlie rangel. charlie rangel would argue he wasn't corrupt. even on the last day when he was censured by the full house, he was arguing he did not have any

personal enrichment, no money, no actual dollars have gone into his pocket, which is his definition of corruption. but i think there's few americans who would look at the host of conduct that mr. rangel was ultimately found to have engaged in an think that it wasn't corrupt. so in that way, i might differ from our keynote speaker to say this and all about the money. sometimes it's all about the prestige. as for mr. sub ip one of the rangel center which would be the legacy to new york and the $30 million to new york city public schools. it wasn't about mr. rangel personally getting money. you have other public officials engaged in wrongdoing up for money, but perhaps to cover up other misconduct like john and then, why think over the department of justice is not taking this position, most americans would find was corrupt. i think you have to look at corruption as members of congress and members in the state legislature abusing their

powers for some personal interest that may or may not be financial. >> okay, thank you. now to jack smith, chief of the public integrity section of the department of justice. [inaudible] >> icon that the question i think from a similar perspective than the one that melanie just mentioned. i think regular americans expect that the mechanisms of government will protect their interests, that they pay their taxes, they follow the rules and they expect to innocents get what they paid for it. i think that's a great starting point in terms of defining what is fair and what is not fair. what i find when we actually litigate these cases is what it comes down to, particularly following the skilling case, is the issue of corrupt intent.

the bribery as she does the most common statute were used, the bedrock statute. and what you see an actual litigation of these cases come in the battleground, is often not debated by the time there is a trial about what one person dead and let the other person did. it's not debated what the politician was given and it's not given what they did was somehow to the benefit to the person who gave him something. the battleground in these cases and we see again and again was what was that person's intent? did they do this or that? did they act correctly? did they take things merely because they were friends or was it because they were going to be influenced by the other party? the point i was raised earlier about the status gratuity, situation where you didn't have to prove that you did this or that. it is merely huguenot senior

public official. that's a crime and i think one of the things melanie and i would agree on was that was a bright line, but a broad line. so it's very clear to a public official. listen, this is the rule. it's very clear you can't do this. at the same time it was bright enough to capture conduct that i think regular americans would find offensive and in a broad sense corrupt. i think another important area to and about in terms of the reach of the corruption mom and in terms of defining what the battleground is in this follows up on some of the points that and was racing in her address is how far the law can reach in terms of state and local government. the federal programs bribery statutes is an incredibly important statute for the department of justice and format the defeating unit because it allows us to reach corruption and state and local governments.

a lot of those tax dollars of those regular americans out to the federal government and come back down to state governments and there's a lot of room for corruption there. i do think when we were talking about how do we define corruption, it's very difficult to do that because i don't think the number of prosecutions is particularly when we speak about corruption programs in the cases they're doing, often times i go places in the first mr. dunn of the corruption problem here, jack. my first reaction is you definitely have a corruption problem. but it's been our experience. one things we have done and done places where we haven't had our would in other ways be brought. part of the issue is worth of tools? the tools that gives people notice what the rules are before

they enforce them. at the same time, broad enough so we can capture conduct that i think regular americans think that is not. i expected more when i put my tax dollars m. >> so we've got a lot of perspective already on this question of defining corruption and i'll let you react to one another and perhaps keeping in mind now the general topic, also defining an inquiry under criminalizing commit taking to the criminal block or are we over criminalizing corruption? >> well, jack and melanie talk about what the average american thinks is corrupt here there's a lot of cynicism out there. you know, there's an academic discipline called public choice that sees all of the government is corrupt. everything is bribery are the functional equivalent of

bribery. 50% of americans say yes, if congress corrupt? yes. that's the second most common name when you talk about federal government. but let me give you a hypothetical case. imagine that mother teresa is a let to the governor of illinois. as a law teacher i get to pose hypothetical cases that never could have been and this is one. unlike anybody's ever been a let to public office, mother teresa gives no thought to her on welfare, no time to the welfare of her family. no thought to the welfare of political supporters. she thinks only about welfare of the people of the state of illinois. conflicts of interest are ubiquitous. public officials can't avoid them. and mother teresa is going to make some decisions that will favor her political supporters and she's going to make some decisions that are beneficial to somebody who gave her sister or job once upon a time.

and she's going to make decisions that are beneficial to someone who served as their host when she visited a foreign country once upon a time. when it happens, the newspapers in chicago in the u.s. attorney's office will say ha ha, behold, one hand is washing the other. thus the functional equivalent. we always knew that mother teresa was different than the rest of them. any file charges. she piloted the intangible right. when the conflicts of interest. you will have a long trial. he will charge one scheme to defraud that began the moment she was elected to office and ended the moment she left. every beneficiary gave, ever banish beneficiaries saved. sure enough the jury will convict mother teresa.

i don't think the standard should be written on the basis of what does the average america -- jack and melanie coin-op quick pro-poe standard is underinclusive. there are things we like that don't qualify. if you try to do, traced on every new thing that a prosecutor might do to evade the existing lot and make that a federal felony as well. you'll wind up with the sprawling trouts and unjust convictions. so professor alschuler see the reign of terror falling down on our local and state political officials and public servants. any reaction to that

mr. bookbinder? >> sure, where to start. i think it has been easy to kind of see runaway criminalization of corruption. i don't really buy it. i think we're talking about sophisticated act jurors who generally understand the law and are going to be represented by good counsel if they were ever charged and people who can negotiate, these are the people who can do it. i think that you can argue as to whether certain kinds of criminal statutes have been overly broad, overly difficult to understand. the solution to that is let's not do it.

let's not define the problem but rather let's do it better. there are important categories of what people would perceive appropriate to be corruption that are not included with the precise limits of bribery. in the status gratuity situation, you have something that looks like some interest providing money to public official over a period of time, essential in the hopes that when the right time arises the public officials will act in their interest. that's something if you don't have precise proof of that link, it can be very problematic. if we have a really precise rules when you can can't do that, it's something that my

boss, senator leahy would argue is the problem is something you're trying to get at. instead of taking a bribe, you have a mayor who secretly has an interest in a company that that era words a contract to. it's hard to c. that is less insidious and yet that's the kind of case that formally was honest services fraud now it's not. so i really do agree that there is a need as they think jack said, bright lines, but broad lines. and i will certainly agree with pam's point that you're not going to address everything to criminal statutes, that there are structural issues that need to be addressed on their own merit and that you're never going to be able to criminalize

everything people find distasteful. you should be criminalizing does being that people are actually being corrupted by taking money they are not supposed to be taking. i'd actually argue that over time, aggressive standards for corruption and ethics, while you're going to have our prosecutions come watch me in the short term lead people to think there's more corruption over time will increase public seats in government. >> professor carlin, are we over criminalizing? , public servants alike did unappointed in a terrible position, where they don't know what they can do and what they can't do and tying their hands? >> welcome we started out with dad people voting and now we have that people voting, which

is a little bit scary, although the personal done benefits. the actual problem is you can't have a criminal statute. and we learned this in the obscenity area that said we can't tell you what this is, but we know it when we see it. that can't be the standard. so you can't have the client of corruption broadly understood. that being said, the question is, what do you want to regulate? where do you want to put the effort? and what can you expect the thousands of government employees and other people who are potentially covered by the statute to understand their responsibilities to be? i spent a fair amount of time, two and a half, three years as a commissioner on the california political practices commission, which is the state agency that oversees campaign-finance and conflict of interest.

in the wrong conflict of interest were incredibly complicated. that is, could legislators are other people who are making decisions go to a reception? they could, but then it turned out it mattered how long he stayed whether the food was good down or stand up. how could you decide whether he just needed to be disclosed? well, that was complicated, too. somebody get me tickets to the ballgame, is it the face value of the tickets? is that the value once dubbed stock, the tickets were the light? if you make it a crime to fail to disclose and you have the kind of disclosure regime that states like california have, potentially you're engaged in crime every time you interact with people. i have to get a better ruling, saying that my domestic partner's gift to me did not have to be disclosed because we were in a boat of site dating relationship.

which was better for me than some state legislative wraps although she was married. [laughter] disclosing to the voters, no problem. the wife, not so much. so you can end up with very, very complicated -- he can end up with very complicated rules and people who don't have the access to counsel repeatedly to get information about the rules, which creates not just the risk of enforcement, but risk of discriminatory and arbitrary forces and i think that's a lot of what the worries about is if you had to prosecute everybody benefited that last because the dynamic would be we have to prosecute every furry dice will write a law that's narrower. if the law can then be decided by prosecutors and the prosecutors in many of these jurisdictions have their own political interests on top of everything else, i think you run a serious risk that the broader

you to find corruption for a criminal matter, the harder it is for people to comply with the law and the riskier prosecution. >> okay, melanie, do you want to jump in? >> sure. i don't think the problem is we're allowing too much to be considered. i think the real problem is we've overly narrow the ability of prosecutors to go after corruption. there's been a series of that court cases over the past 10 years or so that it really made it difficult for the public integrity's, for example, to target corruption. i would name a dime in case an illegal gratuity as was the terrible case, making it very difficult to prosecute anybody for accepting things for tickets and guess, but were just on the

general if you later when to ask public officials for something. has no one mentioned there is a valdez case, which is the d.c. circuit case, which is overly narrow to an official at this because in that case as a police officer running somebody's license plate for cash isn't an official at, running a license plate, isn't that something we all think police officers do? what is an official act? and then we have the laboring case and i think probably beyond the scope of the speech or debate clause in the way the courts are heading in speech or debate houses significant problem. william jefferson's office was searched in the d.c. circuit in that case ultimately suggested that there is now the speech or debate clause means that you cannot use material that is

legislative in the legislative spirit can a member of congress. you can't accidentally assign phone. you can't wiretap a member of congress because he or she might face some teen about legislation in the course of that phone call. the fbi has no permission to hear that. so i think those narrowing enforcement tools have made it incredibly difficult. were not that sympathetic. i really feel like that's the lack of tool at their disposal make this a much harder. and when you have in other places you ethics offices that also tend to not necessarily do a great job. the house and senate i think are two terrific examples of an awful lot of conduct that may not rise to criminal, but certainly most people would view as corrupt and didn't think to give growth in travel rules and all these things.

but we often find it despite the rules that we have come the rules aren't enforced. the jack egremont scandal that ended up with a wholesale change in the ethics rules for conduct that jack abram and his cronies revulsion at the time was already against the rules. the meals and gifts and travels the jack abram off. in my view, the question is never as much about the definition as really aggressive enforcement because i think enforcement is a deterrent. most politicians would want to go to jail and i want to see their political careers entirely toured by ethics problems. ethics are enforced here to think they are less likely to engage misconduct in the first