as one perp put it to us, the typical citizen has more information at their fink l tips about the rest of the world from the interpret than a network producer did ten years ago, and you can watch bbc, and you can watch al-jazeera, and there's other ways to get information. it's a mixed bag. okay, moving on to part two which will take less time. the second part was on the policy and regulatory landscape where we looked at the fcc and we looked at to a limited extent a few other policy areas outside the fcc, and, you know, i think it won't come as any big surprise to you, but may come as a surprise to other people outside the fcc. the fcc has a lot of policies that affect the evolution health and development of news media, and some of it's its direct, some is direct, but we wanted to take that look at a number of

these. i'm not going to go through all of them, but i wanted to mention a couple. lease access is a program set up on cable to try to encourage independent programming, including local programming. it was supposed to lead to provision of up to 15% of programming on cable being leased access and independent. actually, currently less than 1% is used. the satellite set aside. sat lit operators, when the law was passed helping to enable sat little, congress said the fcc should set aside 4%-7% of satellite for educational programming, much in the same spirit as when the fcc set aside 25% of the commercial of the broadcast air waves for educational programming. the congress said set aside between 4%-7%. the fcc chose 4% because the

satellite was a struggling industry then and wanted to make sure it got off on to its feet, but at this point, programmers are being turned away because the satellite operators hit the 4% cap and rejecting other programmers. the fairness dock trine. we looked at the doctrine and concluded as all of you the fairness doctrine would undermind news instead of improving news and would chill speech, and so even though this was a topic that had already had -- opinions already expressed on, we decided to weigh in on at least say that from the point of view of the topic that we're looking at, we think there's no case for reinstituting the fairness doctrine a, in fact, it would be a bad idea. we came across a fact that came to light recently is there's shards of the fairness doctrine

still on the books, did not make sense to us sense the policy was dead to have bits of the fairness doctrine on a book of living laws, so i'm glad to see that's being cleaned up. sponsorship identification, the laws and rules that is tv station has. if a tv station does something like pay for play arrangement like we public access talked about before, they can do that. that's legal, but they do have to december close it. the problem is they disclose it quickly, on the air, and you have to look very carefully and be a very attentive viewer, and they are not disclosing it online. noncommercial broadcasters. we looked at a lot of issues whether or not noncommercial broadcasters could have better business models with less restrictions. we go into thoughts there. there are ways in which i think

the cpb, the corporation of public broadcasting, would like to have more flexibility so that they could better incentivize collaborations, insent vaitions, and less duplication. they want more local programming, but to some extent, they are tied to the rules of government. something else came to us brought to our attention by the religious broadcasters. religious broadcasters have asked, they want the ability to spend some of the time, up to 1% of their air time raising money for charities, perhaps raising money for soup kitchen in their community or global hunger charities. it fits very much with their mission, and they believe it provides useful information. currently, the fcc provides waivers in the case of extraordinary circumstances like a tsunami or a hurricane, but i frankly had a hard time

understanding the justification why the fcc wants to be in a position where it could say, okay, you have a waiver for a catastrophe that involves rain and weather, but a famine that's killing a million people in africa, no, that doesn't get a waiver because it's not a natural disaster. last but not least, broadband. now, obviously i think you've heard about broadband in other capacities here at the fcc. i want to tie to to the topic we're focused on in two different ways. one is a negative way. if you were someone in a community that has on the one hand, say, newspapers contracting and not doing what they used to do, but maybe there are good things online to counterbalance it, and you have a worse newspaper, but you're not online, you're worse off. you have the worst of both worlds. that person needs the benefits of the online experiencement

from an economic view, it's important. a lot of the entities trying to develop successful business models, the more people viewing them, the more likely they will be able to sustain a business model. the scale that they need to succeed will be improved as we get to universal broadband. the final fcc thing i wanted to talk about is a very important one which is the historic public interest obligation of broadcasters. we sphent a lot of time and paging looking at this. as you know there has been from the very beginning a quid pro quo that taxpayers provide the use of public air waves to broadcasters in exchange for serving their communities. this is a pact that broadcasters or almost all broadcasters fully embrace. they like this arrangement and

support this principle, and i sthowld say that even during deregulation, even when the rules were deregulated in the 1980s, the principle still remained. it was not abolished. that broadcasters, as part of the deal, was supposed to provide "programming that respond to issues of the community." how has this work the out? in the last 75 years, the fcc has granted, we estimate over 100,000 license renewals. in only four cases was a license renewal denied because the licensee failed to meet the programming obligation. in the last 30 years, not one license denied on these grounds. they are required to have what are called issues program list, and this is supposed to be the mechanism for enforcing the current obligation, and stations put in this file in a cabinet on

paper a list of what they think the significant issues are, but the fcc has been fairly vague about what do we mean by a significant issue? what do we mean by programming? so people have got -- stations have gotten a bit creative on how they define this. for instance, one station we saw, their issue program lists in serving important community leads was america's next top model casting call, an open casting call for season 14 on july 11 at seven sushi ultra lounge spoon sighed by suni's hair and wigs. it went on and on like that. some stations have detailed memos describing the very significant affair programs they do. i picked out one of the more amusing ones.

there's actually a good broad range, but it's a broad range because stations really don't know what is expected of them, and part of this, i don't want to sound like i'm saying, well, this is the fcc's staff that was screwing around this time, and if we were on the ball, we could have done this. there may have been muddy policy here and there, but there's a real dilemma. on the one hand, you have this real concern and need, and then you have the first amendment, and when you get into a situation of getting prescriptive enough where you have a very easy to enforce rule, you have a situation where someone at the fcc has to decide what is important and legitimate programming for a station. if you back off, saying we're not going to be that detailed

but should have broad principles, well, then you get vague with sunny's hair and wigs as a key feature of the issues. in short, the system is broken. it's an only gages system currently at the fcc is broken. we also talk about non-fcc areas. i'll talk about two of them because there's a number of other ones in the report, but two in particular to mention. tax issues. this came back to us a number of times was, you know, we're trying to create non-profit websites, trying to create these websites, but we're very confused whether we'll get dinged by the irs. one guy shut down his website because he wasn't sure. one lawyer said take advertising, another said don't. he was afraid if he took it, the irs would shut him down. he had a two-man operation and

not enough money to deal with irs so he stopped. this is not an example of current law fostering innovation. recommendations, part three. first, just to review what we just said, the very, very key points. obviously, the media landscape is vibrant, but there's areas of concern. some of the rules intended to advance the public interest are ineffective. i would add another one which is technology has evolved in a way that increases the potential potency of transparency as a policy tool. i'll talk about that in a bit. an overarching point which i don't think the government is the main player in this drama. i think what we do is very important. i think there's obstacles that the government should remove. i think there's ways that policy can encourage innovation. there's resources not well spent that ought to be well spent, but having said that, i still don't think that the government is the main determinant of what's going

to happen, but still let's get it right and make it easier for the, i think, in some cases really inspiring cases trying to solve this problem. point number one is that emphasize on lice disclosure as a pillar of fcc media policy. this has a number of different implications. over time, frankly, the paper file should be a thing of the past. it's call the public inspection file. it's time we made it possible for the public to inspect it in an easier way and putting it on the internet is a way that can take this policy that was the right idea in the first place and give it light and effectiveness that it's really not had. at the same time, i think it is also time to eliminate some rules that are either burdensome, potentially burdensome, or discouraging of some behavior we're after. we are recommending that the fcc

consider terminating the localism and proceeding, repealing the rem innocents of the fairness doctrine. maybe you took care of that one, i should cross that art. and the disclosure rule, something passed a few years ago with a good principle behind it which is that, you know, instead of having detailed program rules, let's have serious disclosure, but it was overly burdensome in and of itself, required too much, and it was not done in a way that really take advantage of the internet. things have changed a lot. we can make this much more effective. we're suggesting replacing the enhanced disclosure rule with something else which is a streamlined web-based form, online, which broadcasters would fill out to have a shorter list,

but an important list of really important information. most important is the amount of programming you're doing about your community. i think it also should include things like news sharing arrange wants, partnership arrange wants, how the multicast channels are used, website accessibilities whether the website is access accessible, and i think this is really a great opportunity to do something about the pay for play arrange wants i talked about before. these pay for play arrange wants as i said are not illegal. they are already required to be disclosed so what we're suggesting is any time a sponsorship id role is disclosed on the air, it's disclosed on the internet that creates a permanent record searchable by anyone in the community, watchdogs, competitors to see

what stations in the country are doing this. i also -- we also believe that the fcc should cree to the proposal that -- should agree to the proposal that religious broadcasters and other non-commercial broadcasters not receiving funding from cpb should be able to use their time to raise money for charities and disclose it too. they should disclose what they use it for so people can see it's used well, but this seems like a sense l thing. in the same disclosure, satellite disclosures should be online, and it's timing to look at the set aside leased program access in greater depth to see if they are fulfilling the needs they were to set out by congress. the other is make it easier for citizens to monitor it by putting dowmghts online. we talked about disclosure and

transparency at the fcc. this goes way beyond the fcc. there's a real exciting movement out there for governments in general to put data on line. this is fantastic and tremendously important. it makes if easier for citizens to hold or get useful information, makes it possible for citizens to hold institutions accountable, and it lowers the cost of journalism. when you have more data online, things that would have taken a long time can be done quickly by reporters so it makes sense in many, many different ways. it should be done in certain formats to make it easy for analyzing. it has the potential of creating jobs. when you put this out, entrepreneurs think i can create an app that puts this data with this data and sell it to people to create a better thing. this is happening now and will continue to happen more as we put this information out.

on a more old media idea is go back to the state span. every state should have a state span. every state should have a state-based c-span so that people can watch the legislative sessions of the state legislature, watch the hearings, watch debates, and be more informed about their communities. there's a lot of different ways of doing this, and in some ways the tv station is running the state span, other cases it's the cable operators. in only one state, the satellite operators offer it. in general, i hope that the commercial operationers would approach this in the way they approach c-span. they ewe that as one of their civic achievements. it would be equal if they did the same thing on the state level. we recommend congress look at whether there's incentives that could be given to the operators. for instance, we through out an

-- threw out as an idea, perhaps get a regulatory release on their requirement if they support a state c-span, or if they support a local cable news channel. the third set of recommendations is, i think, a really interesting one. it's considered directing existent government advertising spending towards local media. the federal government, the last time this was counted in 2005, spent $1 billion on advertising. this is for things like military recruiting, public health announcements things like that. it is geared towards important functions, so we thought is it possible that it can be done in a cost effective way to achieve the goals of the marketing campaigns, but target it to

local news media because of the serious problems we have in american communities with local news media, and it turns out there was a fascinating proposal sent to us by the local broadcasters that basically said, yeah, you know, ten years ago it was understandable that someone who wanted to do a national ad would buy national. now there are ways both because of technology and businesses developed that you can do a national ad by through local tv. turns out the newspaper industry did the same thing. you want to buy an ad in 100 newspapers across the country, you don't have to call up 100 newspapers. go to one place and do the ads throughout the country. same thing on the internet. we are recommending that the government look at the possibility of targeting this ad money towards local media. it has to be done in a way that doesn't undermind the effectiveness of the campaign. it can't be a helper program,

but geared towards achieving the goals of the agencies, but if it can be done in a way to help local media, that would be fantastic and has to be done in a way with a rock solid political wall. you don't want to go back to the 1800s when andrew jackson was dulling out advertising contractings to his favorite newspapers. i think this can be done because there's ad networks that are very blind, and i think it's solvable and we can turn to it. we have quite a few recommendations in the report that says the nonprofit sector is important and should be sure not to twrart the nichtion. folks more interested in tax manners than we are should look at this and look at how tax roles could be clarified to make it more likely that nonprofit can get traction.

i believe individual donors should put money into this and not look at it as something you do instead of the cause, but something to make the cause you care about more effective. pcb should be given more flex the to get more innovation. the community media centers should continue with the innovation they are doing and help that peg center as that really are doing this, that are really trying to adapt to the new world and come up with really fast hitting powerful ways to serve their communities should not be cut off by state or city governments. they are too important. low power fm, same thing. broadband access -- i don't need to go into great detail, but i wanted to underline it again because it's kind of something that really is almost a

prerequisite for everything else we've talked about. finally, as we go through this transition, we really need to make sure that the historically underserved communities that are sometimes left out of media evolution are not, and, you know, there's a number of different approaches to this. we suggest in the report one of them, for instance, is that congress should consider reinstating the tax certificate program that was pretty effective while it was there for encouraging ownership of small businesses including minorities and women. to summarize, it's a really important moment of opportunity. on the one hand, you have this very, very vibrant media landscape. at the same time, you have serious gaps, and we believe that if we take the right steps

and avoid taking the wrong steps in a way that can preserve all of these strengths, preserve the innovation, while at the same time addressing these problems that we've talked about, we really will end up with the best media system that we've ever had. thank you very much. >> steve, thank you, very, very much for all the work that went into that thorough report. i'll have a couple comments, but first i'll ask my colleague, commissioner cobb? >> well, a lot to talk about, but i promise to be relatively brief. thank you. first of all, steve, for your energetic report and the hard work put into it, and i'll have more to say about that later. obviously, we have some very serious problems here, and the

issue is what are we going to do about them? let's begin with a basic truth, the country's media is an issue that goes to the hart of our democracy. a well-informed electorat is the prerequisite of self-functioning government. to make this work, it is imperative that the fcc play a vital role in ensuring all americans have access to diverse and competing news information that provide the grist for democracy's turning mill. for most of the past 30 years, the commission turned a blind and sometimes hostile eye toward this responsibility. abdication is no longer an option. it will come as a surprise to few here this morning that this just released staff report and its recommendations are not entirely the bold response for which i hoped and dared to

dream. instead, the overarching conclusion of the staff report seems to be that america's media land scape is mostly vibrant, and there is no overall crisis of news or information, but it is a crisis when, as the report tells us, more than one third of our broadcasters offer no news whatsoever to their communities of license. america's news and information resources keep shrinking, and hundreds of stories that could inform our citizens go untold and indeed undiscovered. where is the vie bran sigh with tens of thousands of reporters walk the street in search r a job rather than walk their beats in search of a story? i think it goes beyond local news. i cannot say i share the conclusion that national and international news is in good shape.

the shrinking resources put into investigative reporting that you take about, the diminishment of investment in nationally in washington and overseas i think tell a different story which leads to the institution of intertapement for the hard news that people really need. where is the urgency? the real urgency for this commission to weigh in and really grapple with the short falls that you document in this report. enlight ped policy that promotes the public interest is basically glossed over by the staff report as having been tried and failed. let's look, for example, at the claim that policies like broadcast free licensing have failed and therefore need to be replaced with something new or

perhaps by nothing. i agree that our current licensing process has failed, and that is primarily because beginning 30 years ago the commission wiped from its books most of the public interest guidelines that consumers and advocates won after long tough struggles for media reform. our licensing approach became one of just send us a postcard once every eight years, and your renewal is a slam dunk certainty, no questions asked. as you point out, the fcc has not taken the license away for the ten years i have been here or in the 0 years before -- 20 years before there nor issue warnings or propose a probationary period giving a poor performing licensee to clean up its agent. the point is not to take licenses away, but to use the public interest processes available to us to encourage greater emphasis on local news and information. it can be done.

when the ma swrorty of -- majority of meaning ruefuls were -- rules were dismantled said there would be little impact. that was not the case. before loosening more rules, we should treat tv no differently than a toaster. the irony is when the actions of government weaken the state, there's less of a check on government itself. the report in your presentation quotes david simon saying the next 10-15 years, an era for state and local political corruption. that is frightening. vigilant and vibrant journalism prevents that from happening but only if we take action now, and, yes, the fcc has a role to play. one of the three pillars intrurnd lining the public

interest is localism. it's about making sure citizens in low cam community -- local communities are supplied with public and civic affairs and they have available programming to reflect the needs, interests, and cultures of the diverse people living there, and to those views have some opportunity for expression on the air waves. localism means less programming and more local music and news originateed in the market where it's broadcast rather than reported from far away studios. in this era of con some dation, we know that coverage of local talent, sports, local diverse communities, local political issues, and election campaigns are more the exception than the rule. the staff report recognizes problems in the generation local

niewtion for the lack of accountability. much to its credit this underscores the point i have even making for years. .. for years. instead of calling for stepped-up commission, direct commission action, but too often tinkers around the edges. for example, urging philanthropy is to find better ways to do their business, asking congress to change tax code and suggesting the government to act more advertising to local media. and rather stunningly, i thought the staff report recommended shutting down a penny and localism proceeding. i participated in dozens of hearings in hundreds of meetings on the stockade. i have traveled to hearings and town hall meetings across the country to learn directly from tens of thousands of citizens what they think about their local and national media. they listen to folks fire tonight in session that

sometimes lasted as long as nine hours. we have had notices of inquiry notice of proposed rulemaking on this proceeding. we have done the analysis. we've made proposals and now it that some of the proposals should and could be modified. no question about it. before they became final rules. this could be quickly and easily accomplished and it makes more sense to me than walking away from a huge and still relevant record. the staff report also delves briefly into media ownership and correctly alludes to some of the harmful effects of consolidation. less local news, fewer reporters and less diversity. within the recommendations there is hedging whether all that consolidation we're living with today, all those local, independent stations brought up by megamedia interests, has been good or bad. the report even suggests that some additional newspaper broadcast mergers could well be beneficial in

some circumstances. the policy prescriptions here as elsewhere in the staff report don't track the diagnosis. keeping in mind the paucity of resources dedicated to accountability to journalism today, i hope the commission in its upcoming quadrennial review will weigh much more seriously than it has in the past the heavy cost that media consolidation has afflicted on america's news and information infrastructure. diversity is another pillar of the public interest. i will put this simply. in spite of occasional instances of progress in recent years, media's overall grade in covering, reflecting explaining and mirroring america's amazing cultural diversity is dreadful. diversity of viewpoint, diversity in ownership and who and what we see on tv and diversity who runs the companies, all these are worse in media than in most other american industries. the staff report seems aware

of a serious problem here. you alluded to it but what's lacking in our recommendations are strong, implementable now programs that begin to make a difference for generations of media and justice. as a starting point i repeat my suggestion of some months ago we tee up at least one of the recommendations of the diversity advisory committee and every agenda meeting for the next year. the staff reports primary policy prescription is disclosure. put more and better information online where consumers and advocates can readily access it and good things will happen. i'm all for disclosure. and i was happy more than two years ago when my colleagues and i voted for an enhanced disclosure item which would provide significantly more meaningful program information than what is currently available. since then the item seems to be stuck somewhere in the kind of limbo dante could relate to, stranded

somewhere between the fcc and the office of management and budget. why don't we resolve to get it unstuck? do whatever fine-tuning is needed and vote on next month's agenda meeting on revised order or at least a further notice of proposed rule-making to finish this long-pending job? let's also remember disclosure is a means to an end, not an end in itself. if disclosure brings to public light actions that require redress, where is the redress to be found? some will doubt whether it is to be found in a commission that as most 30 years sworn off public interest rules and guidelines. why weren't consumers looking at public files? if there so little confidence that their effort will be rewarded with remedial action? over the years some hardy souls have gone through the paper files, amassed their evidence and petitioned the

commission to deny relicensing all to no effect. what is the incentive to move that hapless process online? also on the disclosure front i continue to believe that the sooner we can insure fuller disclosure of political advertising sponsorship the better off our democracy will be. voters have a right to know who is really behind all those glossy and sometimes wildly misleading ads we see on tv. concealing from voters that an ad brought to us by citizens for more beautiful america is really sponsored by a cabal of cable companies polluting the water we drink is not just nondisclosure. it is deception aimed at buying elections. we need to fix this and the fcc has an active role to play. i suggest the commission tee up an item in the next two months and moves us towards meaningful disclosure of political advertising. the digital age as you point out holds amazing promise

for expanding the scope of our democratic discourse. the staff report recognizes this and the present commission has focused tremendous energy on both broadband deployment and adoption. but let's recognize up front that building a new town square paved with broadband bricks and stacked with good news and information is not going to happen on autopilot. right now the vast majority of the news we read on the internet is produced elsewhere in traditional medianews rooms. interesting, new, and information innovations have we all know, developed on the net. although i think it would take some exception to the extent of its presence on the network because news sites are in the low, low, single-digit as addresses where people really go. but what the more important point is, what hasn't

developed on the internet is the model or the mass or the momentum to sustain the kind of resource-hungry journalism that an informed electorate requires. an open internet is the entire solution for robust 21st century journalism. it's a tougher problem than that. and i for one don't believe we'll get there absent some positive public policy solutions. we have never had successful dissemination of news and information in this country without some encouraging public policy guidance, going back to the earliest days of the young republic when washington, madison, jefferson saw to it that newspapers were financially able to reach readers all across the fledgling young republic. they didn't see it as violative of the first amendment that they wrote. and the supreme court more recently has not seen it as

violative of the first amendment whose purpose we are told is preservation of a vibrant, marketplace, of ideas to sustain our democracy. the same purpose of expanding the information infrastructure, what gave rise to broadcast licensing later on, much closer to our own era. so i don't see any reason why we should forsake america's workable past and deny our own history at this point. there's more to be said about the staff report and i will be talking about it in the days ahead. but rather than parsing the contents of a particular report, i intend to spend most of my time encouraging the commission to take up its charge of responsible public interest oversight, and to do everything it can to encourage the news and information and diversity

that americans have a right to expect from their media. if the staff report helps generate a spirited national dialogue toward that end, it will have served a purpose. if we can learn from the history traced in the staff report, much of it very good, we will be able to craft stronger public policy proposals. and if the commission can move swiftly ahead on some of the good ideas that are offered and there are indeed good ideas offered, we can reap real benefits from it. i know very well that compiling the staff report was not an easy task. in fact the under taking was enormous. i am cognizant and appreciative of the work steve and his team put into the report. and i hope that steve and his colleagues for whom i have tremendous respect will take the comments i have made today in the spirit in which they are intended so that we can move beyond this

report after we read and digest it, to an action plan making the fcc central to solving the challenges we're talking about. launching or rededicating ourselves to such proceeding as enhanced disclosure and diversity and localism and political advertising and media ownership and reinvigorated public interest licensing will put us on the road we need to travel. i also want us as a commission to talk directly to the american people about all this, in full commission hearings and various parts of the country. and i suggest, mr. chairman, a minimum of three in the three months ahead, to see how well citizens across the land think they are being served by our present news and information infrastructure and to elicit their ideas for the future. i've been fortunate enough to have the opportunity to do this kind of listening for ten years now and i never come back from such conversations without

knowing more than when i went out. let's hold these hearings, talk with citizens, expeditiously enhance the record and take actions by the end of the year. there is real urgency here. i'm cognizant of the fact that fcc can't solve all of the problems that this report describes. but it can address and help resolve many of them. these ish meaning a lot to me. i believe they mean a lot to our country. i have been outspoken about them and sometimes blunt, i know. and i intend to keep speaking out about them in the months and if needed, the years ahead. this nation faces stark and threatening challenges to the leadership that brought us and the world

successfully through so many dire threats in the century just passed. now we confront fundamental new uncertainties about the revivallal of our economy. where new jobs will come from. how we will prosper in a hypercompetitive global arena. how to support the kind of education that our kids and grandkids will need to thrive, indeed to survive in this difficult time. how to open the doorses of opportunity to every american no matter who they are, where they live or the particular circumstances of their individual lives. we've got a lot to get on top of as a country and if we don't have the facts and we don't have the information, and we don't have the news about what's going on in the neighborhood, and the town, and the nation and the world around us, our future is going to be very vastly diminished. that's why so much rides on

the future of what we are talking about today. and i will say it again, how these issues get decided will deeply affect our country's democracy and our country's future. i can not and i will not leave these issues where they are. thank you. >> thank you, commissioner copps. commissioner? >> thank you, mr. chairman. first of all, steve, thank you. you and your entire team. that looked like a cast, credits for a cecil b. demille film you showed at the beginning. for all your efforts to really amass a significant amount of information and analysis about the current state of the media and information marketplace i look forward to reading your voluminous report in detail. i've been chewing on it after the i got the draft few days ago. how the developments and

trends you identify might inform the fcc's own small role in affecting one corner of the broader media landscape. at the outset, however i do want to applaud you for your guidance of the process that led to the report, and for your own very thoughtful, nuanced and responses leadership style. i've enjoyed your meetings and discussions on this. >> thank you. >> next for the sake of those of you who may not be familiar with how the commission works and i've only been here five years and i'm still figuring out myself sometimes. want to stress this report is simply that, a report. which though generated by hard-working group of agency staffers has no binding effect. in other words, this report does not establish new fcc rules. it does not repeal any old rules. it does not even formally propose adopting new rules or discarding old rules. rather, the report contains a set of recommendations,

only some of which are directed to the commission that may in time help shape proposals for new rules to come or old rules to go. if and when that happens of course the agency will launch proceedings that begin, as the law requires, with notice and comment opportunities that afford interested parties an opportunity to weigh in with their own perspectives, facts and analyses before the fcc adopts any new or amended regulations. so now that i'm done with that legal disclaimer, no applause from austin? we'll get some later. any 300-plus page document this within you contains statements and assessments which i agree and some which i disagree. the responses i will share at this point are all preliminary because i have several hours of reading left to do. i would expect that no reasonable person takes issue with the report's characterization of the media and information marketplace as vibrant, competitive, innovative and rapidly evolving. the facts supports those

conclusions have been right in front of us for years and they should no longer be ignored when it comes to making reality-based public policy. i also share the report's general optimism about the future of and welcome its recognition of the government's limited ability as both a practical and legal matter, to affect either the operation or output of tomorrow's successful media and information platforms. more importantly, the government should keep its heavy hands off of journalism. journalistic freedom, as steve pointed out, is a primary protection of the bill of rights. full disclosure, both of my parents were journalists. with respect to the report's specific recommendations, it will come as no surprise to fcc watchers that i agree with several of the suggestions given my own past statements on many of these media issues. for example, i am very pleased that the report urges the elimination of the

enhanced disclosure form, calling it, overly complex, which is putting it mildly. i cast the only dissenting vote against the creation of this form back in 2007 and anything we can do to hasten its demise would serve the public interest. i also agree with the report's call for closing the local proceeding without further action. pending proposals in that docket for government-mandated community advisory boards, 24-hour manning of broadcast stations and detailed accounting of local music content are indeed overly bureaucratic, unworkable and unnecessarily burdensome to quote the report. they're also impractical, unneeded, and classic examples of regular la toer overreach. those are my words. and of course i endorse the report's call for eliminating the remnants of the so-called fairness doctrine that still litter our rule books. my longstanding opposition

to anything resembling that unconstitutional policy is no secret. accordingly i call upon the commission to complete the elimination of the doctrine by the end of the year. merely offering it up as a recommendation has no legal effect. in that spirit, the commission, by that time, also should finish all of the regulatory elimination proceedings discussed not only in chairman genachowski's june 6th letter to chairman upton of the house commerce committee but in my may 19th speech as well. i would also like for the fcc to consider the elimination of the outdated newspaper broadcast cross ownership ban in our upcoming quadrennial review of our media ownership rules. my hypothesis is that the cross ownership ban caused unintended effect of reducing the number of voices especially newspapers, in scores of american communities. given that, however, the demise of american newspapers

has been written about for quite a long time. their ephithet and tombstones have been written for quite some time. this reminds me of a book i keep in my office. i will just read you a couple quotes from it. the first quote the printing press is on the way to obsolescence yet journalism marches on. goes on to say as journalism migrates into new areas of communication its practitioners too are on the move. the commerce and information flourishes and quickens its tempo. new skills are developed and the major problem for newspaper journalists is to keep their readers from migrating too. this could have been written today. i found this actually in my mother's library. she massed away 2005, just a few months before i was appointed. it is entitled, the fading american newspaper. very clever printing there with it fading. and you have to ask yourself when was this publish? was it published in 2004? was it published maybe 1976,

the year after the newspaper cross ownership ban was put into effect? it was actually published 51 years ago, back in 1960. and my point is, these issues have been around for a long time. this debate continues but journalism does march on and continue to live. i have some reservations however about other recommendations in the report. for instance, while i appreciate that in calling for a new online quarterly disclosure report for broadcasters, the staff drafters are attempting to craft a more streamlined and useful obligation i continue to wonder about the need for such a mandate in the first place? after all it is not exactly if broadcasters are in the business of trying to hide their on-air content from the public. if the government wants to know what is being broadcast, it can turn on the tv or the radio. although the big brother implications of that also concern me. i'm also not convinced there is any pressing policy justification for potentially increasing the

satellite tv set aside for noncomercial content from the current level of 4% of satellite operator's capacity to some higher percentage. many of the report's recommendations as steve has highlighted are not directed at the fcc at all but are instead intpded to spark debate and action elsewhere including among private sector entrepreneurs, nonprofits and foundations as well as other sectors of government from the federal level to local lawmakers. passionate debate ignites easily in this arena and i sense that steve's first object tiff in this regard is already achieve. i will watch with interest which embers catch fire beyond our own regulatory realm. to reiterate, please keep in mind the fcc actually has not done anything today. what we have -- what we have before us is a report with a few recommendations. it's up to the four of us to turn the more constructive recommendations into deregulatory action that

better fits a competitive and dynamic marketplace. so let's get going with that. thanks again, to steve and everyone on the report team especially including my friend, professor jane hamilton of my alma mater, duke university, a little shoutout there, jane. for giving us much to think about. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you. commissioner clyburn. >> thank you, mr. chairman. steve and his team are to be commended for time and energy into publishing this report and the chairman is to be thanked for commissioning these findings. the issues covered here fall into many categories. some new, some timely, some sad, and yes, some scary. but the findings and recommendations contained in these 465 pages that includes footnotes, will hopefully begin conversations on new and innovative ideas for both improving and saving our existing media landscapes and platforms. i am hopeful that we all take advantage of an

incredible opportunity to get a constructive dialogue going. when i served for 14 years as publisher and general manager of a small weekly newspaper, based in charleston, south carolina, i went out of my way to highlight significant people, issues, and positive topics of interest that quite frankly were being ignored by the larger, and better-financed media outlets. times have changed and there are very few people like the old mignon around anymore. media is without argument all around us but for all of its omni presence are the people i used to touch each week being better served? quality local stories and reporting are precious avenues of knowledge for residents in small towns and in big cities and today, despite all of these outlets, they are at risk. this report explores the media landscape in detail and i am hoping it will shine a strong and urgent

light on the state of local media. it touches on causes of and potential remedies of issues of grave concern and all of us, not just the fcc, need to consider them very seriously. we must not, we must not stand idlely by and watch the evaporation of our precious news outlets. we face not a broad crisis of the news or content but something more specific, a shortage of local professional accountability reporting, the language in the report states. this is likely to lead to more government waste, more local corruption, schools, less informed electorate and even lives lost. the loss of 13,400 newsroom positions in just four years is attention-grabbing and should move us to ask, what does this mean when it comes to the in depth coverage of issues and local concerns

when it comes to industry, government, and our communities at large? efforts such as creating state-based c-spans, targeting federal advertising spending to local news media and helping nonprofit news operations to succeed are all positive, steps toward improving local accountability of reporting. apart from local concerns i am intryinged by many of the other findings in the report from the coverage of regulatory agencies to services available to individuals with disabilities. one of the more intriguing aspects is the section regarding modern media policy and in historically underserved communities. it is essential to introduce as many people as possible to the vast opportunities that modern technology provides and the requirement for tv stations to disclose whether their web sites are accessible to the visually and hearing impaired is something we should take

very seriously. also information about minority and female ownership helps us further debate the issues surrounding existing disparities, and i intend to take a deeper dive on this in the months to come. additionally, attaining more accurate information about racial, ethnic and gender employment at broadcast stations is a must and i look forward to a more robust dialogue on that as well. i am also pleased by the suggested focus on communications programs at historically black colleges and universities. the idea of a minority capital institute, to help would-be entrepreneurs locate opportunities for finance is one idea i look forward to discussing further. numerous recommendations toward making more data available online for public consumption are in line with the fcc's goals of greater efficiency, and transparency. one of these proposals is to have television broadcasters

file a streamlined, online form containing essential data as opposed to the current requirement of reporting on 365 days of programing. this could would and reduce the burden on broadcasters to provide paper reports while providing more transparency or more important information for the public. i look forward to working with broadcasters on this issue as well. the more transparency there is in government, the more confident people can feel about what their government is doing for them. it is my hope that this report will also pave the way to more discussions about what we can do to help making online filing easier and simpler by still giving the public easy access to this important information. i am eager to listen and be part of this, the discussions that flow from the release of this report. it highlights very clearly that all of us have the capacity, and the

opportunity, in our personal and official capacities to be influencers and change agents when it comes to the state of our media. i hope that the commission will continue to find ways to work with the private industry and local entities on many of the recommendations and concerns that the report highlights. i am confident that we can make meaningful strides toward improving our media landscape on a local level and filling the gaps between what worked so well in the past and what people are looking for in the present. i want to again thank you, steve, and your team, for your diligent work. there is a quote that i am not sure who said, we are not sure who said but it struck me today, as i was listening to the comments. journalism, is the first rough draft of history. if we believe and embrace that quote, then the

publishing of this report has for the capacity to serve as an incredible conduit for enhanced community and civic engagement. and the presenting of multiple examples in which we can and will read more about options and opportunities, all of these things highlight the diversity and tex did tearty -- dexterity of every single market and their ability to evolve in ways that best serve their communities, their people, and all americans. thank you very much. >> thank you, commissioner clyburn. and, steve and team, thank you again for the achievement this report reflects. i want to thank each of my colleagues for their thoughtful comments. in particular, i want to recognize commissioner copps for his longstanding

commitment and passion in this area. many of the issues and recommendations highlighted in this report are directly related to topics on which commissioner copps has long been educating the public and his fellow commissioners. this is an area on which there's been debate for many years in the past . . amount ..

>> i think it is. different levels of optimism on what news and information of traditional players using new media platforms can achieve with a free, open, and universally available internet and whether business models will e merge and strengthen. on this, i'm optimistic, cautiously, but optimistic. these points and the fact that the only thing certain about the future in this area is ongoing change are reasons to focus on the steps the report focuses on including achieving broadband for all americans and achieving lower barriers for news and intrerp neurons and moving information online in a way

that's accessible to citizens and reporters and have business models to sustain a vibrant, strong news information industry in the 21st century. these and the other approaches outlined today are preferable to ones that would involve a heavier government hand particularly in the area of speech and content. they more strongly reflect the spirit and law of the first amendment, and i believe that they are likely to achieve their objectives than past approaches that have proven ineffective as the waldman report shows and spectators who have been involved in the issues were decades have concluded. now, despite differences that exist, i believe we all share the same goals, a vibrant free press, an informed citizenry playing central roles in our democracy and economy. the report issued today builds on these core principles.

it's important for many reasons, the report is, but i want to highlight three areas. the report makes clear that new technology is creating a new world of opportunity to keep the public informed in ways that we couldn't even imagine just a few years ago. digitallal up no vaitions have made the gathering and distribution of news and information faster, less expensive, and more democratic. with the internet, everyone who's connected as access to our own personal printing press or tv stations. new technologies are connecting more people in more ways in more places inside the u.s. and outside. twitter, facebook, mobile phones and other new technologies are connecting and empowering citizens and journalists around the world helping open closed societies and paves the way to democracy and freedom. in the u.s., we see more and more news and information

entrepreneurs pursues their visions online and on mobile with creativity and confidence. empowering individuals with new dimmingal -- digital tools have given us break throughs ache hyperlocal news as discutted. you can find news on your street. even in the hay day of newspaper, this block by block coverage was not available. in our nation's history, there's never been a greater opportunity to realize the founder's vision of a free society bolstered by a free and strong press and informed citizenry. the first contribution of the report is its focus on the opportunities of new technologies, and the second is its focus on the challenges. foremost is the disruptive impact and economic pressures on local news gathering.

newspapers cut back staff and something we thought impossible ten years ago shut down immaterial numbers. local broadcast numbers play an important role with some stations increasing commitment to communities and seizing multiplatform opportunities, but many other tv stations cut back or offers no news or limited local content. with the multitude of facts and data, the report identifies an emerging gap in local news coverage that's not yet fully filled by other media. this matters because if citizens don't get local news and information, the health of our democracy suffers. professional journalists provide a check on corruption in both government and business. the less quality local reporting we have, the less likely we are to learn about government misdeeds, schools that failed children, hospitals that mistreat patients, factories that pollute local water.

local reporting is special to accountability. that's why jefferson said he wanted newspapers without government nan a government without newspapers. the technology has changed, but the point endures. the third important contribution of this report is that it's sogging thoughtful and practical initiatives to help address the challenges it identifies. the report started with the overriding and correct recognition of the first amendment of the role government can play in improving local news and recognizes the only thing certain about the future in this area is ongoing change in technologies and markets, but steve waldman and the team did not throw up their hands saying nothing can be done, nor would that have been the right answer. while government is not the main player in the drama, there's areas to make a positive difference, and steve created a positive set of recommendations for government, the private sector, and the nonprofit sector

that can collectively have a big positive impact and make it possible for citizens and entrepreneurs that are trying to solve these problems to do so. the report's recommendations as we've heard focus on several areas on achieving universal broadband access for all americans, for ongoing vigilance to ensure low entry bar yeahs or news, interneurons, new entrance, and preserving the internet's freedom and openness, on streamlining and removing obstacles for traditional news providers seeking to distribute their news on multipal platforms, and strike new partnerships on enabling the development of business models to sustain news and information in the 21st century, on ensuring that media policy works for historically underserved communities, on government transparency, encouraging the development of ideas like state c-spans.

on moving information from on paper to online in a way easily available for consumers, citizens, and reporters. on that latter point, there is much room for progress by agencies at all levels of government, federal, state, and local, and much benefit that can be had with accelerated progress. while the fcc has been steadily moving information from paper to online, we have an example of that in our first item this morning. this report identifies additional areas for progress. for example, there's data and information that the fcc asks broadcasters and others to disclose, but the information is still disclosed in paper form, generally in filing cabinets at the stations themselves. in a broadband internet world, that just doesn't make any sense the the report recommends accelerating the move from paper disclosures to online with the goal of aural online.

that will not happen overnight. some moves are more costly and costs and burdens on small businesses will be taken into account, but the goal should be clear and correct. in the interpret age, we have to be moving in this direction. beyond the general call to move from paper disclosures to digital, the report makes an important recommendation of what we ask broadcasters to disclose. it suggests we change course and rather than creating programming quo thats for broadcasters with rules that are overly burdensome, create a stripe lined web-based system to provide citizens and communities more information. for example, if some stations allow advertisers to dictate coverage for pay for play arrangements, the public should find out about that and find out about it online. conversely, if one station is doing far more coverage about their community than others, the public should know that too. it's a support in emphasis, and

i support it because it's respectful of the first amendment, but also effective of what the agency has been trying for the past decades. the technology of the internet makes it possible for disclosure based public policy to be far more educative than ever before. let's use them. another streamlining recommendation involves the role that religious broadcasters play in helping chapters proposing increased flexibility for charitable fund raising and we should be removing barriers to interneuroship and news gathering and information news sharing ensuring more public information is available online, not only helps citizens directly, but reduces the cost of reporting and journalism. research and roforting the previously would have taken a reporter weeks and months can be done in days or faster. another barrier to online

interneuronship a the deployment and adoption gaps. the principle of access to information goes back to the early years of our republic. newspapers for 85% of the weight carried by the postal service, but they received a discount for posting. the news mechanisms of the past, newspapers, radio, and television were all universal. the emerging news delivery mechanism of the future, broadband should be too. doing so has multiple benefits bringing the vast information that's on the information -- that's on the internet to all people, and another benefit is the potential for improving the business models of online news and information for entrepreneurs. to get to 1 00% broadband adoption in the united states from where we are today would represent a 50% increase in the

online audience. the greater the market, the greater the scale and the more likely a news online business can succeed. moving more public information online helps promote broadband adoption, more subscribers, a larger base for advertising. these and other measures to increase broadband adoption improves online business models for news, information, entrepreneurs, spurring innovation and demand. this is a cycle to help news businesses in the u.s. and help all americans participate in both our democracy and our economy. as you all have seen this morning, steve waldman and his team have produced an incredibly thorough and thoughtful report, one that has done a huge service by deepening our understanding of how technology is affecting the information needs of communities. it provides a road map for a wide variety of players

including the fcc to understand the media and information landscape and to take sensible action to fill important gaps. this issue is essential to the health of our democracy, and i look forward to act on these recommendations. with that, mr. waldman, and team, i thank you on behalf of all of us very much. we appreciate your work and your service. >> thank you. >> the american arab antidiscrimination hearing is holding its national convention in washington today through sunday. we'll bring you some of the panel discussions from that meeting including discussions on relations between islam and other religions. muslims and political unrest in the arab world. live when they get underway. until then, a look at presidential politics in 2012 from this morning's "washington journal." >> host: gingrich loses key

strategists. to give information about this and shed light on what's going on behind the scenes, we're joined by reid wilson this morning from national jowrn. good morning and thank you for joining us so early. what have you found out about why so many of gipping griffin's staff members left? >> caller: he announced and unannounced and reannounced and took staggered step. it was the worst roll out for the 2012 cycle so far, and then he went on a two week vacation in the greek islands. this is to the how you run for president. it's a position or being a candidate is a full time job, something you throw yourself into, and newt gingrich did not look like he was willing to put in that effort to go to iowa, new hampshire, south carolina, press the frsh and wiew voters. a lot of his campaign staff

yesterday including his manager, top strategist, his top advisers in iowa and south carolina as well as his spokingman all up and left. a lot of them had just come on to the campaign just recently, but it's most telling the spokesman, rick tyler, left, both advised newt gingrich for a significant number of years, and their departure signals this disapproval of the way he was going to run a presidential campaign ran very deep. >> host: at least 16 of the former lawmakers advisers left. is this something that's precedented? we did see with john mccain, he had a big staff turnover back in the 2007-2008 time frame, and he survived that and became a nominee. how typical is this? >> caller: it's not terribly usual. ronald reagan lost a number of staffers as well before he won

his election in 1980, but, you know, it happened to john mccain too, so it has happened. there is precedent, but it is further evidence that newt gingrich is not exactly the candidate that he used to be. he's not the force in the republican party that he used to be. his entrance into the race was greeted with a yawn than with fire works, and he is not rank among most people's idea of the top tier. when you talk about the top tier, it's mitt romney, tim pawlenty and others not in the race yet. one thing newt gingrich does is open the door for rick perry, the governor of texas. two of his political advisers left to work for newt gingrich, and now they this have free time on their hands, they can go back to austin and plan a presidential campaign for rick perry, looking more likely than not. rick perry has this joint hole. he's got an appeal to tea party

activists and has a good path to the no , nominations. if any, the realizization that newt gingrich is not not top tier of the presidential campaign means that rick perry can be, and i would expect him to get into the race in short order. >> host: talking with reid wilson, editor and chief of the hot line at nationaljowrpt.com, and your analysis piece, does newt gingrich's loss spell a big gain? reid wilson, where are members of the gingrich team defecting to? >> guest: nowhere just yet, and i caution against reading into this that this is a, you know, clear evidence that rick perry is stealing back his advisers. that's not the case. they are not going anywhere yet, and they don't really have to. i mean, there's plepty time left. there's other candidates who are going to get into the race.

michele bachmann will jump in, perry is thinking about his campaign, and others may make a surprise late entrance as well, not exactly in the top tier, but they are not exactly leaving one place to, you know, start monday at some new job, but the fact that they are leaving gingrich's campaign is evidence enough in and of itself he's no longer among that top tier of republican con tenders. >> host: give us a sense how this happens behind the scenes? from thous of us outside, we hear a couple staffers resign, but how does it happen they all go in one big block? what's the communication like? >> guest: i never had a lot of people quit on me or been a part of folks who quit either. that's a happy part of my career, but it's something that has been building for weeks. it doesn't just happen overnight. you know, newt gingrich left for a two week vacation, something that upset a ?umple his

advisers, and the same happened with the mccain campaign. a lot of folks left over a, you know, grown discontent over a long period of time and finally comes to a head and they leave. at the end of the day, it's not something that just happens spontaneously but over a long period of time. >> host: what do we expect to see from newt gingrich? he is planning to continue to enter debatings and things like that, but who does he listen to now and how do we see if the campaign survives or falters? >> caller: he's listened to one person first and foremost, and that's newt gingrich. he keeps his own counsel very closely, and he is going to continue campaigning. he has events on sunday in california. he'll participate in the presidential debate on monday in new hampshire, and a lot of his strategy had to do or the strategy his advisers disagreed with had to do with trying to make a big impact at the early

debates -- >> you can watch "washington journal" live at c-span.org any time. taking you live to the american arab antidiscrimination committee. they are holding their national convention in washington, and they will hold discussions this afternoon on a number of issues including the relations between islam and other religions. just getting started. live coverage on c-span2. >> he also received an award from the muslim american society freedom foundation. please help me welcome rabi -- [inaudible] [applause] >> shalom. no matter what the community is that i've been speaking to in the last several years, i insisted on using at least those

three words, sometimes others as well because i want us all to remind ourselves that even if we think we are in a room where they are practically all jews or all or practiceically all christians or all miss limbs, it -- muslims, it ain't so. the planet is too small and too fragile to forget that every room we sit in, all our religious traditions are, in fact, present in all our communities, and i think it's important for us to remind ourselves of that in whatever room we think we are sitting. >> thank you for joining. [laughter] so, there's several things i want to accomplish in this 15 minutes or so. one is i want to talk about why

it is that some people view religion as the root of violence and ugliness and terror and war in the world while others view it as peacemaking and compassionate, and it seems to me that what has happened is, and this happens over and over again, that a community arises that realizes it can be in touch with the one, the unici that's at the root of the universe and such not to allow this connection to be forgotten or ignored, it creates rituals and practices and metaphors and languages to transmit it to others and to future

generations. fine. and then, this community meets another community which claims to be in touch with the unity, the one, but as a whole different set of rituals and practices and metaphors and festivals. there's two profoundly different responses that some people make. one is oh, you're obviously have war. we got is right and you have a bunch of different things. you are not in touch with the one and you claim to be so you are really liars and destroyers, and the other response is oh,

well, of course the one is infinite, and, of course, the infinite can only be reflected in society and even in all the light forms of our planet through diversity. how else could the infinite beyond become visible, touchable to us? let us learn from each other. of course, that's what this session is committed to do, but we should be aware that all our traditions have in them the bloody streaks of the other response, all our traditions. the hebrew scriptures, the gospel, even though people find it hard to believe sometimes, the buddhist tradition sometimes

even. we need in every generation again and again and again to reopen ourselves to the wisdom of hope. well, of course, the up my nit is expressed through diversity. let us learn with each other, from each other. second thing i want to talk about is the difference between what might be called touch down in interrelationships and grassroots up interrelationships. we are witnessing right now the fear and i honor the fear that

in societies where the top-down control has kept various religious communities at enough distance so that they don't tear each other's throats out, that is the top-down control vanishes, that there might be the version of you're wrong, you're liars, you're killers, and we must kill you first. i understand that fear. i remember how when top-down control collapsed and in yugoslavia, in fact, ethnic and religious communities did claw at each other's throats, and i remember how the worst suffering was probably in the muslim community, and i understand how

facing in egypt, in maybe bahrain which has tried to reenforce that top-down control, in syria, in other societies bubbling now with energy from the grassroots. i understand the fear that if the center collapses, there will be this kind of violence attack, and yet i think with our mouths open, frightened but hopeful at the same time, it is important for us to try to move forward to the kind of relationship between our communities that comes from the grassroots.

that we're the grassroots that are bursting with energy as they are in large part of the world that arab-americans, american arabs, see as deep, passionate, emotional connection that we do our best to encourage the jews, the christians, the muslims, the different kinds of muslims, shia, of that region to try to remember that the differences between them are refractions of infinity, and to hold open the possibility that from the bottom where the top is either collapsing or using ultraviolence that from the

bottom, those communities can stay in compassionate connection, sacred connection with each other, not easy, and i understand and feel compassion for all those who feel fright ped in that -- frightened in that process and still it seems to me that the nonviolence that has been so not absolute, but so much the majority response of the grassroots communities in egypt, in syria, that incredibly brave tens of thousands of people braving fire, being fired on by the army, from helicopters, and coming back into the streets unarmed, that if anything does indeed reflect the compassionate

one, that response does, and we must do our best to encourage that nonviolence response not only to the violence, but towards the other communities, and finally, i want to come back to america. because it seems to me in dealing with this violence and the possibility of nonviolence in that region of the world, there's only two chunks of american society that care enough to make a difference. one has been doing its making a difference for a long time. that's big oil and the military. they absolutely care, and the result has been a mess. there is one other set of communities of americans who do

care. muslims, christians, and jews do care, and in the majorities of each of those communities, there are people who want peace, who want, for instance, between the emerging palestine and israel, a decent peace settlement, a majority of flesh and blood american jews with that, a majority of real fresh and blood -- flesh and blood christians want that, and a majority of flesh and blood american-muslims want that. it's true an establishedded top-down institutions in the jewish world, some of them, not all, and in the christian world, the people call christians zionists and some in the muslim world don't want that and reject the pathway that would make it

possible for there to be peace between israel, a new palestine, and the other arab states as now the arab league with the arab peace initiative of several years ago, and now the israeli peace initiative coming not only from the usual suspects, professors, artists, intellectuals, but people who have been at the heart of the israeli security system pleaded to the head of the massad, the arab loving peace activist said i'm leaving and he's desperately worried that the craziness of the israeli governmental leadership will leave it to take crazy act and others who say, no, no, no.

there is real energy there and here, and it seems to me that there's two issues in the world, that it is really urgent more american muslims, christians, and jews to address together, together one is that and the other one is indeed our fragile planet, that that society is the one that is endangering the framework, the fabric, the weave of life on this planet most definitely by its overuse, overburning, idolatry, and addiction on overburning of fossil fuels, and if there's one thing our traditions can, in fact, to agree on is to join in protection of god's creation, all of us believe that, and need

to act together -- [applause] as the other one is a lot harder because our emotional and ethnic as well as religious traditions tug us in what at times too to be absolutely contradictory directions, and yet i do not think that what is happening there and here will be able to have decent outcomes unless american jews, american christians, and american muslims, the majorities of each community can join together to insist that the american government insists on a decent peace there as well as a decent respect and healing for all the life forms on planet earth. [applause]

>> we leave questions until later. let me now introduce the rev land joseph rahal, senior pastor at st. gorming's antioch church and received education in the u.s. and served in parrishs and was the founder and pastor of simple churches in north america and also author of five books on religious topic in arabic and english. the very reverend joseph met with several leaderrings on resolution in the middle east including efforts to release american hostages. please help me welcome reverend

joseph rahal. [applause] >> thank you very much. i just found out the day before yesterday that i'm going to speak today, so -- [laughter] so it's just such a short time. it is an honor and privilege to participate in this panel of the distinguished panelists, and the rabi arthur waskow. thank you for the opportunity to speak today. i grew up in a community composed the christians, muslims, and jews. throughout my schooling in elementary, secondary, and high school, i had friends from all three religions. throughout those years, we never felt that we were different from each other. on the contrary. we grew up with a certain bond of love and friendship.

under the leadership of whom i represent were and still is on the fore front of religion in north america. newborn, michigan has the largest concentration of islamic community in the u.s., and leaders that are constantly integrating events and major celebrations with our churches in the area and vice versa. we live in a world of religious and there are approximately two billion christians, more than 1 billion muslims, about 700 billion hindus, 250 million buddhists, and about 14 million jews. it would seen that religious tolerance is a necessity if

we're going to get along together. our christian faith teaches us so when christ gave the parable of the good samaritan who had compassion to help the wounded jew, he was teaching us about religious tolerance. when he taught us to love our eenmies, -- enemies, he was speaking of religious tolerance. religious tolerance is especially important here in the united states because we have such a variety of people and cultures from all over the world. we are blessed to live in a country that grants us the right to practice our faith openly and freely. that is why forums such as this and others are vitally

important. they provide us with an opportunity to engage in dialogue that will advocate and promote god's message of peace and love moping all their people -- among all their people. god created the world out of his infinite love, mercy, and goodness, and it is to this part that we as religious leaders in our communities encourage our constituents in the virtues of tolerance and peace, mutual love and respect for the right of others are necessary for a precondition to lives in peace. the values of civilization and cultures changes the pending on economic, racial, and economic conditions. the christian understanding an authority of morality remains always true to a devine revelation and the fullness of

god given vocation to practice the commandment of love. whether we are christians, muslim, or jews, we're all the children of god, and as religious leaders, we must communicate this in words and deeds. our love and tolerance for all god's children. the world is a diversity of beliefs and opinions, faith and politics have become abandoned hope, and practicing religion tolerance is essential to living an open and toller lant life. in conclusion, the way i see god is through your faces. since our lord taught us that if you have done it to the least of these, my brother, you have done it unto me. i want to thank you again for

giving me this opportunity to be here today and just a little footnote that on my staff at my church, i have three people on my staff, one is a roman catholic, one is a protestant, and one is a muslim. we get along very, very well, and work together very well. >> thank you. [applause] >> last but not least i have the pleasure of introducing the first american university to hire a full-time muslim chaplain at the national medical center in bethesda, maryland and president of the clergy beyond

borders teaching at georgetown university. imam also serves as a member of the islamic jurisprudence counsel of north america. he has written on many topics including women in islam and islam in the united states. he is spoken about these and other topics to audiences around the world. he received a tremendous tee gas -- prestige award for his work to promote peace billing between people of different religions. please help me welcome imam. [applause] >> well -- well, well -- three, two, one --

[laughter] it's not well. it's my honor to be with you to try to engage you on something that's very important to me. i always say if they were to look into my blood cells, they find red cells, white cells, and interfaith dialogue cells. [laughter] not only because i was born in palestine and to wonderful parents, and my father was a schoolteacher. he used to teach in beth lee ham back in the 50s, and he used to have a copy of the christian bible in arabic so i grew up reading the christian bible in arabic. i had some idea about christianity, but not fully. i was born in a very small town believed historically to be the

place where joshua was buried, and so i'm used to jewish coming into the town wops a week to -- once a week to pray at the tomb of joshua so i grew up encountering those religions. i did not have more details about them until i came to the u.s. and intentionally decided to do my second master's degree having done islamic studies in christian studies and i decided to go to a christian cemetery to live with christians to know exactly how christians from within think. i did not want muslims to tell me what the christian religion is or is not. i learned a lot. i learned a great big deal, and i learned how the koran and the christian bible have a lot in common, a lot in common. there's a dvd out muslim and

christianity having more in common than what you think and the idea was to distill the audience out there that yes, we have differences, but there's commonalities and from the scriptures themselves and even from jewish studies and the study of the three religions helped me become a better person in so many ways and a better imam. this is a part of my experience that got me engaged with this dialogue and issues. i always say how nations meet at their borders, but religions meet at their heart, and the heart of all religions is love, and therefore there is a way for religions to meet at their heart because i believe at the heart of islam if we take time to study it from within, we find the lot of love there and from

the heart of judaism you find a lot of love, and at the heart of christianity, you find a lot of love. we all talk about israel our lord god, our god is one, and when jesus was asked about the best of all commandments he said the few things including israel our lord god is one. i say when i speak in synagogues that you know, one god, one family, not only the family of abraham, sarah, and issac, and i am critical of those who only talk about abraham and not sarah and hagar as if only men matter. we talk about adam, but forget about eve. we have to reconstruct our

theology and religious language whether we speak of god, not he, but god the living, and not only adam, but also eve, and not only abraham, but sarah and hagar. mary is mentioned in the koran35 times and so many theologians cricket her to prophesies. females can be prophets and speak for god on earth, so this one god and one family reminds me of that biblical narrative, but also in the bible that we shall be returned to dust. i'm from dust. what's your nationality? i'm dustian, american too, but dustian. that is my shared theology and politics, and my politics, i

mean, that exactly. i am the brother, the fill bustian of the jew and the christian and the hindu, and the atheist is also my brother and sister because we all come from dust whether we like it or not and to dust we shall be returned. how can this theology of dustianship bring us together to realize that if religion is the same and dustny is the -- disney is the same, the bridge units us. is it doable? it is, indeed, it is doable. the problem is when we speak of an exclusive god, and we have all done that politically, religiously, and socially. i say that god is not a real estate agent, and must not be a real estate agent where jerusalem is only jewish and christians and muslims get out of there, and only us can be the

god of the city of jerusalem. jewish has always been and will always be of that theology and that's their politics. it's as bad to say it's a muslim city on the expense of the jews and the christians, or it's a christian town on the expense of the jews, of the muslims and the jews. it is a town for all, and god is not a real estate agent, and god loves all of us and god made that city hall holy for all of us and sacred for all of us. [applause] therefore, i bring to the table here how the sigh credness of the -- sacredness of the land depends on the sigh credness we hold in our hearts of each other. the land can never be sacred if we don't consider jew z and

muslims sacred. it's important to keep that important. we will share that land, the sacredness of the land is not about the building of temples, but rather the billing of sacred presence for each other. i love the statement from prophet muhammed who said the sacredness of the human being is more honored in the eyes of god than the mecca. live, but not let the blood of a human being go. can jews live up to those standards? can chic clans -- christians live up to those standardses? can muslims live up to those standards? it's very important. can we adopt a global humanitarian action together? a global humanitarian action that creates a culture of passion or compassion.

compassion for all, for men, women, those who are in, and those who are out. at the end of the day, only that culture for compassion can bring us together fully united with intensity, positive intensity between us. there's so many things we can do together. our ability to fight trafficking. thousands of women are sold to slavery and sex every day. we all with work together to defy that. domestic violence, extremism in the name of the three religions, we can come together to create that compassion and a global humanitarian action to push forward for that. we also need what i would call our ability to heal history, our ability to heal history. my friends, my brothers, and my sisters, we always talk about the crusades.

we always talk about what the jews did here and there, and i said, please, do not allow the bitterness of yesterday paralyze the possibilities of tomorrow. [applause] i can go -- i studied history as a theologian, and i can go with so many of what jews did to christians and what muslims did to jewses and colonialism and muslim control, and so many data. what can we do for the future? can we learn from the past only to build a better future? can we go back to the future? only go back to learn how to become representer bank -- better brothers and sisters and instill differences. how to celebrate differences. i learned in my practice imam

was asked to give in christian services and speak in churches. i learned how to celebrate things i may not have in my own tradition. muslims do not believe that jesus died on the cross, but i see that whole concept of jesus dying for our redemption a very valuable value for all of us. after all, we all these to crucify ourselves, sacrifice for the land, sacrifice for others to live. we all do that as parents. we all do that as workers. we all do that as mothers and as fathers. we need to sacrifice for others to live, so can i find a value in something not a part of my theology and learn from it and be inspired from it? can a jew and a christian come to the mosque and learn about the beauty of the message of mohammed and find value in it that he or she can learn from,

can be inspired by? we just finished at my home, i have a little pond in the backyard, and i went to home depot to buy flowers and different bushes to plant around the popped, and my kids were asking me, papa, why do you have all these nine colors? i said, kids, they remind me of the human family. yellow, white, pink, brown, all kinds of colors. god created all of us, and god wants all of us to exist next to one another, and what makes my pond beautiful is the parade of the beautiful colors around it. how can we come to realize the potential of celebrating differences as something to -- has something to teach us that in diversity lies our unity? maybe here is where america put the member on daily basis, the

prayer we all do, that my kids do with pledge of allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, with all of us, it's a jew, christian, muslim, islam, atheist country, it's for all of us, with liberty under god. if someone attacks you in philadelphia, the muslims and christians say no, and if something happens to a mosque in south carolina, it should be the christians and jew saying no. if something happens to jews or christians in egypt, we all have to say no to that. [applause] we are one nation under god indy visible with liberty and justice

for all, and not for only one community. i want to finish with a story that happened with me a few years ago. i used to be the i'll -- imam of the islamic society of maryland, and a journalist went to meet with a rabi there and asked if he was willing to open dialogue with the muslim community, and he said absolutely not. the guy came interviewed me and asked me. of course i'll meet with the jewish community after i tried for three years and have failed. he went back to the rabi. well, imam says he'll willing to visit with you. every time e comes, i will slam the door in his face. that ended up on cover of the article, an imagine what that did to our community in maryland -- not good business. however, it created a new

positive spirit where the religious communities stood up and said that's not marses. the jewish community came to apologize to me in the mosque. i love you no matter what, that person does. let's turn this negative spirit into a positive experience. what can we do? i said, well, it's november. can we organize a holiday we celebrate soon? a hanukkah hodg festival. it brought together an experience that engaged our kids, the leaders of tomorrow. the christians did not like it. next year, we're going to have hanukkah hod, christmas festival

and bring us all together to celebrate something so unique in each tradition, but in a way brings us all together. we can do it in america, that's our religion, that's our heart. the challenge is within you. can we make it? i dare to say yes, we can, and yes, we will. [applause] let's ask some -- [no audio] the folks for the epg lish language broadcasting service in syria was asked about the torture incident involving actually 2 billion children, and the pbs journalist was asking her what she thought of that,

how she felt about it, and her response was she did not deny it that there was torture. in fact, now it's being investigated by the authorities in syria, so she did not deny it, but she actually pointed to -- she said, yes, maybe it happened. well, you have torture in the u.s., don't you? she mentioned guantanomo. do you believe this image that has been per in the world, that our role has maybe encouraged dictators in the rest of the world to get away with things that are really, really ugly like torture, and, you know, here in the united states the arab and muslim communities are being targeted, that they were

targeted after 9/11. do you feel that this trend is changing in any way, and how can we contribute to getting away from that? >> three weeks after the front page revolutions of -- revelations of what was happening, i was asked by a public relations firm here in the u.s. if i would be willing to appear with imamabdul, and with a former head of a protestant theological seminary and with a catholic none, the four of us, to make a broadcast into the arab world to be broadcast on al-jaeera says the

religious communities in the united states stood together in absolute rejection of the use of torture by the united states government. .. >> when we made that broadcast, the pr firm used only legal language, torturing criminals,

violating the constitution. i said we are for religious folk here in can we use the word sin? the other three said absolutely. and the pr guy said no, i guess, yes. i guess yes. well, the notion that has been put forward, and i say this with shame and horror, by the president of the united states that we must look forward, not backward would mean if you carried that out, no murderer could ever be tried for anything because it was always in the past. how would you possibly go back instead of going forward? well, the only way a society has of saying this is sin and this is crime is to treat it that way, continuing into, after it may have stopped.

[applause] >> let me add to that. [inaudible] when we speak against torture, all forms of torture, whether the torch is carried out by the u.s. government or by an arab regime in a jail, or by students of israel, or palestinians. to their own brothers and sisters sometimes. we have to have it very loud. all forms of torture is absolutely unacceptable whether done by jewish, christians or muslims. [applause] >> please, if you have any questions, is there a microphone? over if you will just stand up, or you don't have to stand up, just beat a little loudly.

-- just speak a little out of it. >> a beautiful example of turning a negative -- [inaudible] >> i said the imam gave us a real great example of turning a negative into a positive. and my question, what happens -- [inaudible] is this one time? is usually a lot of good, you know, events, happenings all over and a lot of good people, one thing always stops, and no continuation of this to have, it's noble of these kind of things.

>> when we start something we need to continue doing it. and yes, it has been happening for the last i think six years now. it happens every year and it had become a movement actually in frederick county. so one of the wonderful experiences there is that it was in a synagogue, and when we are dialogue about the program i wanted to bring a synagogue on board, and only ask known. i said i'm not going to make that decision between choose to either all jews or not. and for the first time of that county where all jews come together at one event, and continued. wonderful between jews themselves. so yes, that has been continuing as it needs to continue. it's the process, it creates new idea called reconciliation. it's an actual bus that will be

touring 13 states in northeast from washington, d.c., on september 11, all the way down to georgia, the tennessee up to michigan, and will finish at independence hall in philadelphia. it's an actual bus, and on it will have two priests and ministers and to imam, three of them will rotate, look at off and get another three in the town, index down. between washington and philadelphia, we would hope would have had at least 500 clergy who have been on that bus with one message, clergy for reconciliation. to create a movement of reconciliation in america. now we're talking to jordan, to kuwait and saudi arabia. travel from america to the middle east with once. of reconciliation.

>> i'd like to join in with another example of something that can be done and can continue. on the first, as we move towards the first anniversary of 9/11, the shalom center invited 16 people, equally divided among jews, christians and muslims, to me for a four-day retreat on the first anniversary. and the people came together saying themselves the tent of abraham, drawing on ancient oral tradition that the family of abraham and others kept their intent open in all four directions so if they saw a traveler coming from anywhere, who was thirsty or hungry, they could be welcomed instantly, and they didn't have to wait until he got to the tent to see them coming from afar.

and that was the kind of tent we intend to create. now, my wife is also a rabbi, and i have been invited to a number of interfaith things. one of them by the world council of churches in geneva. and we spent a week with amazing people from all over the world. and there was no dialogue. each of the people sat on a platform and talked about dialogue, and there was no dialogue. so, my wife, rabbi phyllis, said look, if are going to get these folks together to it's not going to be like that. and she said what we're going to do is, the first thing that's going to happen is a but is going to take 15 minutes to talk about their own spiritual journey that got into this place. and then each one is a human being, and one as a human being and another one as a human being was a christian and so on. but all of us were human beings,

and we could hear the differences within that context of the spiritual journey, and our spiritual journeys were all different. but they were all spiritual, and that made an incredible difference. we ended up being able to break one of the, sort of unwritten, but practically written rules of interfaith dialogue, never try to pray together, because somebody will get mad. because either it will be -- or eccentric. we were able to figure out ways to create together that were authentic to each tradition, not each common denominator, and also conclusive. but that was possible because of the way we have begun. now why did i want to chime in to say this? of course, this is something that doesn't need even a bus.

it needs a dozen, 15, no more than 20 people, and a place where you can sit together quietly for two, three, four days. and it can be, and it, you know, do-it-yourself. it doesn't need the shalom center or anybody to organize it. it needs people who know each other to get together to do it. and if we had our druthers all over, at least north america, it would be really wonderful for that to happen in other regions of the world as well. the first amendment was one of god's best creations, and it made it a lot easier for us all to do this kind of thing, for us all, if there were hundreds, thousands of tents, whatever they would call themselves, tens of abraham with the four flaps of the tent open to all the

communities. that would change american life. it would change even american foreign policy. [applause] >> i'm next. my name is barbara and i live in mesa, arizona, and i just want to mention that in regard to what rabbi waskow said, there's a book that he was one of the co-authors. it happens to be what i'm currently reading, just by chance -- >> that was one of the results of that. >> yes. >> the publishers said adding that would make the title too long so we gave a. we let them get away with just calling it that sense of abraham. >> my first introduction to rabbi waskow's work was by somebody who told me about this. and i organized at my church a

dialogue between an orthodox jew, a christian and a muslim, imam, who actually discussed specific faith traditions that are related to one another, but that many other people did not understand were related. and it was highly successful, and i just want to recommend this book to everyone here, and suggest that all of the panelists i very much involved in interfaith dialogue. in any of you are not involved in it you really should be. thank you so much. [applause] >> we have time for maybe two more. >> i just want to give a little comment about what we were discussing before. it is appalling that the world court, the united nations, that they are so fast to condemn

probably rightly so, some arab countries of doing reciprocity, but when things are being done by western countries, we never mention anything. and that really is appalling to see that, unless we on the united nations level work for treating everybody alike the same crime. we can never reach a resolution to this issue. of torture. [applause] >> hello? i have one comment and then probably question. my first comment is briefed. in reference to your comment where you said about the two kids. i think it's important to notice and to admit that it's shameful and it said -- can you hear me?

if shameful and said that whenever someone questions such atrocities over such crimes that are committed that people always, instead of trying to address the specific issue. so if you talk about thousands of people that are being killed or were killed in egypt come in tunisia, turkey and syria and yemen, that we can go round the table, we decided, what about the thousands of people that were killed in 2008. i think this is a bit shameful. let's go back someone else's problem and just try to use that as justification. just because people were sadly killed and there were atrocities committed in gaza that it's okay things are happening and see ray -- happening in syria right now. talking about imprisonment, imprisonment, talk about guantanamo bay. i think it's a very important point that i i think people have

the obligation to talk about behaviors. number two, i really wanted to hear father rahall's opinion about what is happening in syria being syrian himself having lived and religious tolerance and health syria was and how it is right now and its use. >> do you mind if we have the last question and we will try to answer both? >> i am from san francisco. i'm happy to see everybody come especially father that my question is on christian zionism and it deeply moved me to see all these people following this type of, you know, ideology. and i think maybe i will point to this question to father rahall. what are we doing as christians and also rabbi, for the jews, what are we doing to combat this

and what are the strategies? what can we do because a lot of people are following this blindly, this ideology, and that's just creating a lot of animosity and a lot of history is about what is happening. so thank you. >> our time is over, but please, we will discuss it later and take just a couple of minutes to answer. go ahead. >> she's talking about christian zionism. >> i don't believe in christian zionists. i think they completely, completely misinterpret the bible, completely. they miss the point. the way we understand the bible and the new testament is that

jesus christ came to save us from our sins. so that's everything that is written, every word, every sentence, every chapter is to be interpreted in the light of that message. and when they go outside of it, and they interpret these things, anybody can misinterpret anything. and that's what they are really way out of the realm, way out of the circle, the majority of christians do believe. so, they are completely miss the point of what the christian messages. >> but what can we do? i mean, we need the leaders to speak out. >> we cannot -- this is a free world. they can say whatever they want. all we could explain our point, and let the people, you know,

see which way to go. and about the question of the gentleman over there, first of all, i follow the news come especially because i am from syria. i follow the news of serious more than anything else. the only problem with that is we are really not getting proper news from syria. we have no idea. if somebody says that children are tortured, i'm not sure. i really don't know. i know from talking to people in three over the phone, sometimes you cannot speak very freely on the phone, but in certain circumstances people from protesters were shooting at other peoples protesting, to have casually so they could say, you know, so people start

fighting each other. and i'm not sure about the news. the problem is we don't have accurate news. so how could we form an opinion if we don't have accurately what is, you know, we see many things on youtube, but are we sure what we are seeing? i don't know. >> one last word. >> i bought maybe to say when -- burn the koran in florida. there was a huge cry out that the society is against islam, christians are against islam. so many christians fought very loud against the act of that guy. and i wonder if they only saw an evangelical church in tennessee organized a meeting called burn a candle, not a koran come in

defense of the koran. 700 jews -- i'm sorry, christians, many evangelicals came together fully united in defense of the koran and with a voice of sanity. sometimes we give people levels that are not really real. that does help. >> thank you all for coming. thank our panelists. [applause] >> enjoy the rest of the convention. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] >> the american-arab antidiscrimination committee held its national convention in washington. a couple of panels coming up. the next one will be about civil rights, and the last one about the uprisings in the middle east this past spring. we will have those life for you once they get under way. looking ahead to the weekend, continuing with former new mexico governor gary johnson was running for the gop nomination. also, at c-span.org and our featured link section, a link to the coverage of the race of sarah palin's e-mails that are being released this afternoon. her e-mails as her term, from her term as governor. you can find us in featured links at c-span.org.

again, they will resume with a couple or panel discussions. while we wait for them to come back like we will bring you some of the comments of imam hendi and spoke in the first panel. >> it's my honor to be with you this afternoon. to try to engage you on something that is very important to me. i always stated that if they were to look into my blood cells, they would find red cells, white cells and interfaith dialogue sales. not only because i was born in palestine, and two wonderful parents, and my father was school teacher. he used to teach in bethlehem back in the '50s, and he used to have a copy of the christian bible in arabic. you are reading the christian bible in arabic.

i have some idea, but not fully. i was born in a very small town, believe historically to be the place where joshua was buried. and so i am used to jewish commons once a week to pray at the tomb of joshua. so i grew up in countering those religions. did not have more details about them until i came to the u.s. and decided to do my second master degree. and then decide to go to the christian seminary to live with christians who knew exactly have christians from within, i did not want muslims together with the christianity is or is not. and i learned a lot, and i spent a great deal and i learned how

the koran and the christian bible have a lot in common, a lot in common. i recently saw a dvd that said it is more common than you think. the idea was to just tell the audience out there that yes, we have differences, but we have so many common nouns, even from the scriptures themselves, and for my ph.d work my focus was jewish setting. and the study of the religions help me become a better person. in so many ways. as imam. so this is a part of my experience that sort of got me engaged in this dialogue. i always say how nations meet at the borders, religions meet at their heart, and the heart of our religions is islam.

and, therefore, there is no way for religions to me at their heart because i believe at the heart of islam we take our time to study it from within, we find a lot of love there. and at the heart of judaism you find a lot of love at the heart of christianity, you'll find a lot of love. and we can meet at this point of love. after all, we all talk about, israel, our lord god, god is right. and when jesus was asked about the commanders can he said a few things including lord god, god is one. and i always say when i sit in synagogue that, meaning one god, one family, not only the family of abraham, and isaac, and by the way, i am critical of those who would talk about abraham. as only men matter.

we always talk about where the children, what about eve? and it's a problem in these traditions. we have to reconstruct our theology and our religious language and we speak of god, not tea, a guide to living. and not only add but also the. and not only abraham but also sarah and hagar. all of them matter in the religious tradition. i always talk about how mary is mentioned in the koran 34 times and so many muslim theologians who tribute to her the prophecy. so not only men can be profits but also females can be profit. so this one god and one family reminds the of the narrative in the koran that we come from dust to dust we shall return. imam, where are you from?

i am from dust. where is that country? i am dusting. i'm an american but i'm dusting. i mean that exactly. that is to say i am the brother and the of the jews and christians as a man and a women and atheists. the '80s is also my brother. and also is my sister because all come from dust whether we like it or not. to dust we shall return. so how can this theology, it bring us together to realize that this original is the same and destiny is the same, that the bridge has to be united. and is it doable? it is doable. the problem is when we speak of in exclusive god and we all have done that, politically, religiously and socially. i say that god is not a real

estate agent. and must not be a real estate agent. where jerusalem is only jewish and christians and muslims get out of there and on the us can be the cars of the city of jerusalem. jewish has always been and will always be. i said that's theology. but this is, this is a muslim city on to the expense of the jews and christians. or it's the christian town on the expense of the jews -- of the muslims and the jews. it is a town for all. and god is not a real estate agent. and god loves all of us and god made the city holy for all of us and sacred for all of us. [applause] >> and, therefore, i bring to the table here, the sacredness of the lamp depend on the sacredness we hold in our hearts because of each other.

the land can never be sacred. if we do not say the jews are sacred and christian sacred and the muslim sacred. it's quite important, that no one will lead the land and they will live in atlanta and we will share that land, the sacredness of the land is not about the building of temples. but rather the building of sacred presents for each other. i loved the statement from prophet mohammed who said that the sacredness of the human being is more honored in the eyes of god than the sacredness in mecca, so let it go. but do not that the bloods of the human being go. so, can choose to live up to the standards, and can christians live up to the standards, and muslims live up to the standards? this is why it is very, very important.

can we adopt what i call a global humanitarian action together? a global humanitarian action that creates a culture of passion for compassion. compassion for all, for men and for women, for those who are in and those who are out. at the end of the day only that culture of passion for compassion can bring us together fully united with intensity, with positive intensity between us. so many things we can do together. our ability to fight trafficking, thousands of women are brought to slavery and sex every day. we all can work together to fight that, domestic violence, child abuse. extremism. in the name of the three religions. we can all come together to create that sense of passion for compassion and equality managing action to push for that. we also need what i would call our ability to heal history.

our ability to heal history. my friends, my brothers and my sisters, we always spoke about the crusades. we always talk about the muslims in constant. and we always talk about what the jewish did here and there. and i said please, do not allow the bitterness a gesture to paralyze the possibilities of tomorrow. [applause] >> i can go -- i studied history as a theologian, and i can go with so many about what jews did to christians and muslims, muslims to the jews and christians, and christians, muslims -- so many data. what can we do for the future? can we learn from the past only to build a better future. can they go back to the future? only go back to learn how to become better brothers and sisters. and how to celebrate the future.

that's where i may end up. how to celebrate the future. i learned in my practice as i'm imam was once asked in a christian services, and speech and in churches. i learned how to celebrate, things i may not have in my own religion. muslims do not believe that jesus died on the cross. but i see that whole concept of jesus dying for our redemption a very valuable, valuable for office. after all, we all sacrifice, to sacrifice for others to live. we all do that as parents. we all do that as workers. we all do that as mothers and fathers. we need to sacrifice for others. so can i find a value in something that is not a part of my theology and learn from it? and be inspired by.

can a jew and christian come to the mosque and about the dod of the message of mohammed and find some value in it that he or she can learn from? can be inspired by. we just finished in my home we have a little park in the backyard, and i went to home depot to buy flowers and different sources, he plans to plant around the park, and my kids are asking a, pappa, why do you have all of these nine colors? and i said kids, they reminded of the human color. yellow, wise, pink, brown, all kinds of colors. god created all of us. and god wants all of us to sit next to one another. and what makes my point people is all of these colors around it. so how can we come to realize the potential of celebrating differences as something to

teach us that in diversity lies our units. and maybe here is where americans could remember a daily basis, the prayer that we all do that my kids to, we pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, with all of us, not judeo-christian country, the judeo-christian muslim country, the judeo-christian muslim hindu, atheist the country, it's for all of us. one nation under god, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. all of us. when something happens in a synagogue in philadelphia and some attacks it, it should be the muslims and christians say no. and when something happens to a mosque in greenville, south carolina, it should be the christians and the jewish say no. when something happens to

christians in egypt or syria, it should be all of us saying no to that. at the end of the day -- [applause] >> we are one nation under god, indivisible with liberty and justice for all, and only one community. i want to finish with a story that happened with me a few years ago. i used to be the imam in frederick, maryland. and a journalist went to meet with the rabbi there, and asked him about it he would be willing to open dialogue with the muslim community. and he said absolutely not. the guy came and interviewed me and asked me and i said of course i would be interested in meeting with the jewish community. i have tried for three years and i feel. he went back to the rabbi. the imam says if you what he is willing to come visit with you. and the rabbi said every time he comes i will slam the door in his face. that ended up on cover in the

frederick paper. and imagine what they did to our community in frederick, maryland. not good business. however, it created a new positive spirit where the religious community stood up to say that is not frederick, maryland. the jewish committee came and apologized to me in the mosque. i love you know matter what that person does. i said let us turn this negative spirit into a positive experience. what can we do? i said well, it's november. can we organize festival, konica, festival. both. a good idea. let's do it. we brought together 200 jews and muslims, a wonderful experience that engaged our kids, they showed the kids the leaders of tomorrow. the christians like to. the next year we're going to

have hanukkah christmas festival. and we brought together 700 jews, christians and muslims to celebrate something is so unique, but in a way that brought all of us together. we can do it. that's america. that's our religions, but that is our hearts. the challenge is within you. can we make it? and they dare to say yes, we can and yes, we will. [applause] >> back live now in washington with the american-arab antidiscrimination committee is holding its national convention bringing you some discussion this afternoon including an upcoming conversation on muslims and civil rights and later this afternoon a panel looking at the political unrest in the arab world. this next panel discussion should get underway shortly.

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>> good afternoon and thank you for coming to the civil rights panel. i want to apologize before ask anyone in the room on the park and the audience, we are taking a bit of a different set up. we got rid of the typical table so bear with us as we move forward in direction. today's panel is a civil rights panel entitled executive challenges. we will see what direction we're heading moving forward into a new era of civil rights and new era of really a focus on the relationship between the committee and law enforcement and what entails the future. and for the sake of time, i will not read the bios. rather, i'll introduce these panelists and he can say a two

to three minute about themselves and what they do. and i think we can jump right into questions. first, to my in the left is michael rolince. and next to him is deborah ramirez, and deborah ramirez. so michael rolince if you like to jump right in. >> sure. i think without notes, and i started thinking myself, should i put down some notes, sketch out some thoughts and then i thought, if you've been doing this by virtue of background, i spent 31 years in the background for a came out five years ago and went to my current firm what i do a lot of consulting back to the government. so as i said, i have a booze allen cards and an fbi cufflinks and a dhs badge on my lapel. so i can touch all the bases here, but the fundamental reason i came really hasn't changed over the course of 10 years that

i've been doing community outreach and trying to figure out what is the right mix and the right message between law enforcement and the community. and as i read the title is community role in a changing world, i think we all agree it is a fascinating, turn on the television anytime day or night what's going on, particularly in the middle east, can't help but fascinate anyone when you see what is driving that. is not necessary or even close to the counterterrorism rule that came out as much as it is human rights issues and people just want a different life for a lot of different reasons. it doesn't change the challenges that we have here in this country. one of the things i like a lot about being in the private sector is i can talk to openly and freely and it's usually me. i'd like to think i was that way before, but i'm passionate about the need to get this right for certain reason. even in the last decade, when i grew up and got more mature i started thinking the two things

i focused on were how do you unlimited duplication of effort? there are parts of this that dhs should do in conjunction with the fbi and in conjunction with others in the committee. and at the end of the day when i was such a big fan of the joint terrorist task force, or any task force for that matter, at the end of the day what does the government look like. regardless of where you came from, how do you on your tax dollars spent the way it looks like good government. we have plenty of examples of what good government doesn't look like, but if you narrow the focus to this, i think there is a way forward. as i tell people not to use the park 51 debate as my barometer of just how far we have not yet come. probably the most disappointing day in my life the last 10 years. i've listened to all the bs from this site and nonsense from the side and very little in the middle about solutions. like i said it gets kind of depressing but it keeps me focused on it. and i wrote an e-mail to someone

last night talking about the challenge, and i used to talk about how much i disdain the dos analysis whether it's the person or a second grader sing it only because it sympathize what is in my mind a very, very, very difficult challenge. if you look at something with a bunch of dots on it like we did in fourth grade you don't need to pick up the pencil to see what it looks like. we all agree it's harder than that. this is a lot harder than that. as much as i called his heart, i spent time last week by myself walking the roads in belfast. by myself. the last time i was there 12 years ago i was in an armored personnel carrier with a police escort. for them, if you understand or read about or followed the troubles from 69 forward, the 3600 test and army soldiers, for them to get from there to here, that's hard.

so it kind of puts this in perspective. thanks. >> good afternoon. thank you very much for inviting me here. it's an honor to be here. i work at northeastern university school of law as a professor. and my research focuses on what are the best practices and promising practices for building collaborative and effective strategies to combat terrorism and hate crimes. and one of the most effective strategies is for the community that is the arab muslim sikh community to work collaboratively with law enforcement to develop strategies and terrorism. a lot of my work is focused on the successes of this model and how community kids from the muslim and arab community have supported terrorism, and how collaborative strategies have effectively protected the committee from hate crimes and hate incidents.

>> thank you. first of all, abed ayoub and abc, thank you very much for inviting me. my name is alejandro beutel. i am a government and policy analyst. it's a real pleasure and honor to be here today, particularly in order to discuss i think an important issue with respect to law enforcement engagement and communities in general. and so, hopefully can add a little bit to the organization. in the past has been extensive work over a bout i was a 20 year period on the issue broadly of national security. beginning with things back in 1993 with our founders, to the present day with publications such as building bridges, strengthening america which outlines the sort of partnership that debbie has talked about and

that mike has actually engaged in personally. and other things like the post-9/11 terrorist incident database which tries to put some real facts and figures to be injected into a debate that far too often is really just dominate more by talking heads and anecdotes that really don't accurately reflect the situation on the ground. somberly looking forward to a very lively conversation. >> thank you. first quick question, deborah, why is building trust so important? i know we did work on a report that highlighted his. so why is it so important? >> i think it's important because if it's been is going to work collaboratively with law enforcement on issues of hate crime prevention and prevention of terrorism, the first building block is trust. so let me give you an example,

imam for the adams mosque in northern virginia saw that there was someone at his mosque spending a lot of cash, didn't have a job and want to use the mosque as their address. summit of mosque came to him and said this is the situation, what should we do? if there is not trust, the information and we'll get to the fbi. and any good government model, you would want there to be trust so that the imam would know who to call at the fbi and he does as a result of this collaborative strategy that is being done with michael rolince and others in washington, d.c.. he knew to call. that person knew him, had met with him on many occasions. and information got to the fbi and the fbi investigated it appropriately. and responded appropriately. that's what we want. so i think that's the building blocks. >> and mike, from a government perspective during your time

with the fbi internally, how a priority is building trust? >> -- how high is a priority in building trust? >> i never thought about it since i live. i can't think of a single time in 31 years in the fbi that i solved the case on my own. i can't think of a single other agent who would say anything other than that. and if you're old enough, most of you remember the downside of that it made death by look like a disney on its own. and nothing could be further from the truth. it's one of the reasons i really like the joint task force concept. but my standard routine and, and it didn't really very much at all when i went looking for an open, any community can weather was working drugs are violent crime or counter intelligence or

counterterrorism was not not not, i'm with the fbi and i need your help. every time. slam the door in my face, fine, not five but that was an option. if you'd done your homework before you knock and the door to you ought to know roughly what the response is going to be. and in 99.99% of the time in the fbi knocks on the door, no one goes to jail. it takes a while to get to the understanding of what a community views based on what their personal expenses are, where their family may have immigrated from, what part of the organized crime world, in new york they support. whether or not they're moving trucks our bodies are prostitutes or human children across the border. so, once you understand that you on the other side of door is different than yours with a badge and a suit and tie on, i think you come to an

understanding that you need that support no matter what you are working. is not different in the arab american muslim sikh community in michael rolince severe than it is in a lot of the other communities. with the exception of the role the media has played in my view of painting this community that it did not do during my career with the fbi and other communities. my view is some in the media, not all, at the expense, with a lot of people, really want to get it right, but turn on the television, you don't need to name channels on either side of the spectrum, there's not a lot of healthy, hopeful, optimistic problem-solving dialogue. i think if you disagree with that i would love to have that conversation. >> thank you. alejandro, to question.

if you could touch on this point mike just brought up about the media and what will it is placed within the community and what impact it has, and also from your findings at your time with mpac, working out of your finding? >> i think looking at the issue of the meeting itself, there are cases where there will be good stories that will help to bring and shed light upon various communities, but i think our assessment generally is that it has tended to cast somewhat of a negative light upon a lot of the arab muslim south asians me. this isn't even just a personal assessment but if we look at organizations, media watchdogs like media tenor, they had an interesting study, they do this every month. for september 2010, what they

found was in the lead up to 9/11 was that there was 40% of the story that came out on these commuters, especially muslim communities, were actually negative and there was comparatively few that were positive or even neutral here so, the tilt in many ways looking at this from a systematic perspective, from a larger picture perspective is that it tends to be a big negative. now, why is that the case? there are multiple reasons why. and that's a separate conversation unto itself. but one of the things that certainly i will say is there needs to be more education on all sides and more engagement on all sides and more conversation. and i think that is something that needs to take place is a lot more communications, particularly between a lot of these communities organizations, journalists and media outlets.

now, and this goes to part of the problem here is that because of this dynamic, it does not actually accurately reflect the reality on the ground. so, for instance, as a mentioned earlier we have a steady calder post-9/11 incident database. and what we have done in this study is, based on a number of reputable sources rating from the congressional research service to the anti-defamation league and whole host of think tanks and mainstream media analysis and compilation that we put together. we have been tracking every attempted attacks threatening the nest egg since 9/11 by all kinds of ideology, not just al qaeda, not just focusing on muslims but across the board. but when focusing statistically on the issue of al qaeda and its affiliates, one of the interesting findings, and this goes to trust and this goes to even what mike is saying, is

that we found that two out of every five of these plots by al qaeda that is threatening our nation, since 9/11, has been with the assistance of arab and muslim communities. the level of assistance has been so robust in many ways for people to be willing despite the great relationships that takes place is that we have a statistically even more so, is that since december 2009, nearly two-thirds of all such plots that have been out there, okay, have been foiled due to the interest of such communities. imagine for a moment, i want people to just think about this very briefly, that if there was even more trust within these communities how much more productivity could ask to come out of this. i'm not even making this on a value issue for a moment. but on a policy perspective. one of the things that i do like

to point out as well though is that ultimately at the end of the day when you see the amount of help that communities are willing to put out, it says i think one analyst had made mention and written in one of his books that the constitution itself and the values enshrined within the constitution are perhaps our greatest shield against terrorism. and so when people tried to make this argument that there is a rights versus security dichotomy, i'm a little bit skeptical. my personal view and my assessment is looking at the data very carefully is that really there is no -- that does not need to be any major trade-offs between our rights and our security because really the two go hand-in-hand. >> and i want to stop there but have a question for deborah. the old adage, we are treating for our security. and you think that has made our country safer?

>> i think that's a very important question. and i guess at the heart of what i've learned since 9/11 in working with the arab muslim community, working with law enforcement trying to develop this partnership model, looking at how they can support terrorism and protect the committee from hate crime, at the end of this period, because it is now 10 years, i would say this. in a season of darkness after 9/11, we were told that if we traded off their rights we would be safer. and by their rights, i mean the rights of the arab muslim community. and i think we are losing the battle in the court of public opinion, because the facts that alejandro have detailed are not widely known.

and so people believe that they are safer if we deport, if we demonize, if we profile, if we target, if the fingerprint community members. winning back i think the truth -- when, in fact, the truth that really matters is the battle for the hearts and minds of moderates worldwide, the community needs to be by our side. but that message is not being heard. the message about how the community has been working diligently since 9/11 to thwart terrorism and to denounce it is not being heard. the message about how many kids have resulted in terrorists arrest is not being heard. and so, how do we as a community

get our voices to be heard, which goes to your point, mike, about the media. why are all the media stories very prejudice, they have a lot of stereotypes, they are not fact based, they tend to be short answer is, in the short answers are about a victory mosque near ground zero rather than talking about community center and the history of it. why is that? and i think the reason is that there is a lot of prejudice, there is a lot of stereotypes out there, and the dominant discourse is controlled by only a few voices. so, what do we do about that? how do we get our voices heard? how do we get our message out?

and after 10 years of trying to do that, i have come to the following two conclusions. number one, until and unless we win the battle in the court of public opinion, we will lose everywhere else. this is a democracy, and if people are misinformed or uninformed about this community and its role in a post-9/11 world, then we cannot express, expect the white house or the department of justice, or congress will have the political capacity to embrace us, and to work with us. ..

and i am here to ask for your help. we need some help with minor funding and we need the community to be willing to speak on the record as part of a documentary about their truth, their story and their experiences. and i think when we do that, we will begin to transform the dialogue in the same way that al gore did in "an inconvenient truth" and the dynamic in the transformation of the discussion about educational reform was affected by productions "waiting for superman."

so, i would say in terms of lessons learned because that is part of what we are dealing with 10 years after is that we have the responsibility to make our voices heard. >> thank you. in 2009/2010 the eeoc reported a significant increase in the number of complaints received from the arab-american community. in 2010 we have probably one of our highest totals for intakes in complaints we worked on, topping over 700 for the year. it would seem 10 years after 9/11 we would begin seeing a decrease in this rhetoric that actually we aren't seeing in -- are seeing a increase. is this something blamed on the aforementioned media or other things? how can this be countered through the cooperation and dialogue with federal agencies and the community? >> i guess, as a former math

major i would say my first response would be you have to be careful about numbers because you can get any number on whatever argument you want to make so without knowing how much time and effort and energy and work went into resolving each and every one of those complaints, it would be a a a hk of a statement of 95% of them were proven to be founded on a basis of fact and truth and some wrong was done versus the overwhelming majority watched out so it is hard to say what that means. being the optimist i would like to say that it means that more people feel more comfortable than they did in the past bringing forward their voices, their concerns. there is someone out there who is listening. i asked three women in northern ireland last week and i was fascinated by the consistency of the theme that the police don't response. in northern ireland there is

such a gap between, and belfast in particular, the people's perception of the police, the police perception of the people and who isn't accepted and what community. i almost couldn't get my mind around trying to live in an environment like that so we talked about it and i asked each one, if your purse was stolen on the way home and you weren't hurt what would you do? each of them said they would call -- they absolutely would not accept -- expect the police to show up. one woman said which is a police challenge, and then i would call the people i know. she is 45 or 50 years old and within 20 minutes i would have my. they said to me, what would you do? that was the fact of life. >> and i have a name and phone number so those people? >> i said what would you do, mike? i said i would call fairfax police and in 15 minutes there would be a cruiser in my driveway, i have no doubt in my

mind. i have lived there and work there and i pay taxes they're my kids go to school there. granted is the most effective and well trained but the thought, and i realize there are communities in the united states and i'm not speaking for anyone. but again, i think we have a , long way from where we were, a long way from where we were. one of my proudest moments of my life was and you can probably tell where my politics are but a stat -- sat with my daughter in a starbucks today after an election and there were tears in my eyes telling her even though i did not vote for the current administration, there were tears in my eyes telling her how proud i was of our country and how farm we had come that we would put an african-american in the white house because i was old enough to remember when i was her age this country was on fire. i remember the race riots like they were yesterday and they are burned in my memory. the fact that we would do what we did on that election night, regardless of your politics, that is immaterial, that we are

that far along. are we anywhere near where we need to be? know we are. i think the black community and the hispanic community and the arab-american muslim community there are a lot of communities out there that are happy with where they are, and to dovetail and debbie's point you would be hard-pressed to note that debbie and i are friends and we get along because we don't agree on almost anything other than the need to do this. and i think that this is, how do we collectively take this forward. in your brochure it says defining our role in a changing world. we get the changing world. our role and i think it is talking about you, not me. i think i know what my role is and i'm trying to move that roll forward. there are people in this audience and it is not polite i guess to name names like george and some others who spend their every waking moment trying to get this right. oftentimes with the appropriate tools and oftentimes not but i would put that back on you and when i walked into a form like

this i guess they told me there at the cameras here today but 10 years ago they said absolutely of cameras. we are going to do a community outreach program in the communities would come and voice concerns. it was a 7:00 at night and the whole room was lit up like a christmas tree. abc was there in nbc with their analysis or was there. the person on the camera jumped up and his ranting and raving at maney said why is there no representation in the di in my community? my response was that is my question to you. i am not so sure that is just my problem and it is whether it is women in the fbi or blacks in the fbi, arab-americans and muslims in the fbi. i think a community has an equal responsibility to change that equation and that came up in a form in northern ireland. why is the constabulary now call the police force of northern ireland staff at an 80/20 partisan to catholic.

the people around the table who were mostly academics, were looking at the police in saying so what is up with that? and my police response, what are you doing about it? these are your sons and daughters. you want to be convincing to take a stand and step up and be part of the solution. not just for your community but the greater community, for the county, for the state for the nation. i i have always seen this is a two-way street and i really think, don't want to sound like the fbi because i've been gone for five years but i guess it is the world i have come from. i'm a pretty blue-collar kid had i have always believed in giving back to your community. if i go to my grave and my children have been given back to the community i've done something wrong as a parent so i would challenge u.s. the community, those of you who come from, whatever community come from. it doesn't have to be about this issue. what he doing about it?

>> thank you. alejandro one issue oftentimes you and i discussed is the fine line between building trust, recruitment and actually discussing issues impacting the community. what challenges do you see in that arena because there seems to be problems from some community problems. we are only approached when dealing with national security. >> right. well i think in a sort of roundabout way, one of the things that everyone i think here can agree upon is that this relationship, and my canted directly a few minutes ago that a relationship is a two-way street. it takes two to tango and being latin american i can appreciate that. but, in that relationship, there

needs to be that trust and come portability. on the community side of the equation, one of the things that i have frequently heard from community members, when having been engaged with law enforcement in the past, has been that they only talk to us when there is a counterterrorism concern. and, for some they may see it as well there is a very specific targeted focus that we are trying to look at and that is one way of looking at it. the other way to look at it from the perception of many community members is that you are only talking to us because you are afraid that we are going to blow you up. and that is, that is the perception and forgive me for being a little bit lunch but these are words verbatim. i'm not even putting words in people's mouths but verbatim

that have been, that have been told to me in the past. now i think as relationships have matured over time, there has been a growing understanding in a wide variety of offices within law enforcement and such is the fbi or even you know u.s. attorneys offices and state and local pd that there needs to be sure there is a comprehensive and holistic approach and engagement with communities, because number one, these communities are american communities. we are part and parcel of this country. for instance speaking for myself, yes, i am a muslim-american but i am also the son at the jewish italian father and a catholic hispanic mother. and guess there are all three religions in the family. [applause]

so you know, in just trying to talk about that for a moment here, regardless of a lot of people's backgrounds there is a sense of being very very american here and that this is our country, this is our home. and so what we are simply asking as being americans is that we are treated as any other american community. obviously there are legitimate concerns about national security and it is my personal opinion and the opinion of many of us at mpac that these need to be discussed in a frank but respectful manner. there is no going around it. that needs to be talked about. national security issues are not the only thing that should be discussed with communities because first of all these communities to share the same concerns on national security, number one and number two is that our communities are affected like anyone else.

human trafficking, child sex predators, internet fraud, the financial crisis even. a lot of these things are things that affect our communities and we would like, a lot of our communities would love to talk to the fbi and to a lot of other, a lot of other law enforcement agencies about these issues. and again, there is a two-way street. everything that mic has set up to this point is valid and what i'm also saying is a lot of what the committed -- community member sentiment are also valid. we have to bear in mind for so many of these community members, they calm from countries that well, they are literally on fire right now and the reason why they are on fire at the moment is because there has been a long-standing issue where law enforcement agencies really weren't about enforcing the law

but a about enforcing the winds of the dictators and engagement with law enforcement communities is not because there is a hatred of law enforcement but ecosphere is an almost trauma in many cases for a lot of these members and a certain skepticism that if i talk to these people what is going to happen to myself or my family? again this isn't even my personal sentiment or even the academic studies that i've talked about which i'm sure devra could talk about at great length, but these are the things that community members have said to me, the average bot, within a lot of these communities the average joe's and jane's. that is what they told me so this is something we need to keep in mind going forward is that there needs to be this cultural competency and there needs to be a very very broad, much more holistic and comprehensive engagement that even when we need to talk about the things such as national security, there will be that level of trust and comfort that

those kinds of conversations can be facilitated much more easily rather than a certain level of tension and awkwardness that may take lace in certain circles. >> just to touch on that point as a grassroots organization week frequently sent out surveys and clearly the number one issue impacting our membership raises the economy and jobs, followed by education and health care. so it is definitely the same issues we feel affecting everyone. but that being said, what is the best way if you were to give a tip or two to the community what is the best way to approach the fbi or any government agency and say hey we want to talk about x. y. and c.? >> z.? >> let me go back on something that was said and actually i'm looking for the silver lining up a time but if your survey shows that it is the economy and education and jobs, my memory is not as good as it used to be whatever the fourth one was but

it wasn't hate crimes. and again i want to take that as would that have been the same response coming up on 10 years ago or nine years ago or eight years ago, so i would like once again to think that indicates to me that perhaps not definitively but perhaps progress is being made. we used to be able to say and i can't say this anymore because of last week's news, and the first page of every phone book in america is the local fbi office. dinosaurs like me have a phone book in my house somewhere. that is gone by the wayside but similarly if you don't know or don't have a point of contact or friend or relative that knows someone in the fbi, here is my first thought. why don't you? if there is the potential for violent crime, hate crime, robbery, burglary, extortion, the whole nine yards, you ought

to at least know who in your law-enforcement community, doesn't have to be the fbi. granted the fbi might have -- over at investigations but just as you what's known your children not to know how to dial 411 or where the nearest fire department is volunteer or otherwise i would suggest in this day and age you want to know how to reach the law enforcement at some level. i happen to be one of those people may be because i grew up in a home of a police officer and have great faith in the local police. throughout this country have all different levels of confidence competencies as you do an fbi fbi field offices but i would start with a trusted law enforcement officer, sheriff, state trooper agent. it really would not matter to me because let's face it, the average person and i just had this conversation with someone this morning at the department of homeland security, what is activity that is a precursor for an act of terrorism?

i said to that person let me take you back to my favorite anecdote that a made up partially, it may me take you back to that broken out in the post office in northern virginia where two of the hijackers purchased phony driver's licenses. was that act a precursor of an act of terrorism? sure it was. i could take you there today and buy a driver's license and the question you would have to ask is in my buying a driver's license to get a job so i can send it back across the border to my family or my buying a driver's license i can get a plane ticket so i can get behind the cockpit and crashed a plane into a building. most times you don't know and you won't know until after-the-fact. once again no one is better i would say anywhere in the world than the fbi at putting something together after it happens. the hard, hard, hard part is figuring out how do you get there before it happens with all of our civil rights and civil liberties in check? that is not an easy thing to do

so my point is when something happens in your life that you feel necessitated calling someone to default position on terrorism is the joint terrorism task force. let's face it, you can look at something and say ah-ha that will lead to an act of terrorism which is why i think you ought to know how to be in touch with whatever the local law enforcement authority in your community is. >> alejandro i know you came up with this earlier but if you have anything you want to leave us with on this issue. >> before i do mosey on out of here, you know again first of all thanks to you and abc for inviting me out here. i guess the thing that i would want to leave us with though is a sense that with even though things are tough for a lot of our community members, is that there is i think a lot of goodwill and hope that we should

be trying to look for and look towards. because at the end of the day, i know even that people like mike, and mike who have been serving in the fbi for many many decades have also been trying to serve with distinction and with honor, trying to uphold the values of our nation as well. and i would like to thank and i would like to encourage that their continued to be of movement towards open and frank dialogue and communication and discussion so that more trust can be built, because communities have perceptions and ideas and fears and hopes and dreams. so do law enforcement people too. people are people regardless of what profession they are and, so my hope is that there can be more communication to break down

the barriers of misinformation and sometimes mistrust that may take place. hopefully with that over time, think there can be an arrival at common solutions to common problems that really a lot of us feel we are all facing. maybe some different angles but that we are all trading to arrive at the end of the day. >> thank you. >> thank you very much. >> and the second mike alejandro was referring to is our friend mike german. thank you for all of your support as well. devra, all being said it sounds wonderful but there are definitely some challenges we face and in building the stress of moving forward and there are models that fail and models that do work. particularly in your experiences stand in a way of developing these relationships? >> one of the two best models that exist out there for how this would work, when you say how would someone know who to

call, is the model in dearborn with adc, the u.s. attorney attorney's office, and there they meet on a regular basis. they have been meeting since 9/11. they know one another. they help to do outreach into the community. everyone in dearborn who was part of the arab or muslim community there knows how to communicate with the fbi, with local police. they raised issues on a regular basis. they have common ground. they are developing collaborative and effective strategies. the same thing was going on with mpac, the largest muslim community working with sheriff baca and the fbi out in l.a. and there are a lot of successes, and again they are meeting on a

regular basis, not just when there is a conflict, not just when there is a terrorism investigation but in order to address the concerns of the community in an open way and on a regular basis. then the question is, is that -- is that model is working in chicago, in d.c., l.a. in dearborn, in new york to some extent, why is it not a nationally coordinated strategy that is funded and with training? and that is the peace we are trying to put in place now. there are these ad hoc efforts but there is no national court making center. there is no national strategy for dissemination of s. practices, challenges and how you overcome them and what tools

templates and protocols could be -- we share on a national basis instead of having each ad hoc effort operate independently and reinvent the wheel. i think the challenge at this point is how to create a national strategy. the white house and other national law enforcement organizations to openly embrace this community and to say we are going to treat this community is partners are not as suspects. and there is too much islamaphobia, prejudice, stereotypes still there for that to happen. and so i think one step is to keep a the dialogue going. certainly to continue to invest energy and ad hoc efforts but in terms of the movement forward,

we have to develop the political capacity and the political will for americans to know and understand important role that this community has been playing. and if we are going to harness the full strength of this model, it needs to be a national training center. >> and i have to agree. anything we do there does. >> but maybe you can talk about dearborn and what you see. >> i think the model you are discussing is the business program which started shortly after 9/11, and we have similar programs here on a national level with their interagency meetings. and both doj -- plays a role now at bringing together community members to the table and bringing together government agencies to the table to really talk about issues, to talk about

with i.c.e. and dhs, whomever an open area and an in an open forum which really does seem to work and oftentimes there are disagreements and oftentimes there are agreements but it is a really good program and for something like this to go national would definitely be a great benefit to the community. that is one of the better programs in one of the better strong programs we have seen. but mike from the government side, what challenges have you faced? we know that shortly after 9/11 there may have in the mistrust in building the relationships but recently have you heard of challenges that may have been appearing? >> at almost come all the way back from where i guess what broad w. and i together was we started over a disagreement over part of the post-9/11.

came together around the foshee to shared with you. my first exposure to the community came in what is referred to as candidates night sponsored i think still every year by the zogby group or the american institute in northern virginia for anyone running for any kind of office who was welcome to come. i was brand-new to the washington field office in specialized in joint counterterrorism. tom major was the chief of police and there were a number of local school board positions. you came and you talked. the first thing that amazed me was how many parents brought their children. i thought, that is just amazing to try to orient in acclimate people to having a voice in the community. the other thing that astounded me was, and it was, can't remember. we will stay all night until everybody has questions they want answered.

two hours worth of q&a. every single question, accusation, and it does, diatribe was directed at the fbi. every single one and i was the fbi for the night. and we stayed and i walked out of there thinking, do you know something? we dispatch fbi agents to pakistan, afghanistan, jordan and the west bank. i don't know anything about the community and my own backyard. this is about nine years ago in the spring of 2002. and it just astounded me how ignorant i was. that led to the conversations over the course of time with debbie on how do you do it better than we do it? we start the arab-american advisory, fbi advisory committee and jim zogby came and someone in whom i have the highest respect in the highest regard, and i consider a real pillar, a personal friend of mine.

a number of others, trying to think,. i know i will leave somebody out it doesn't matter. we got it so right in my view at the washington field office that we said why don't we take this in detroit into new york and chicago and l.a. and dallas and houston? why don't we do this? debbie and i partnered for the next several years putting this concept together. my whole thought was this. you can't have an sac and i came into the fbi as a gs to clerk so i know where i come from but you can't have an sac talking every issue with every single community member. i want to get to the heart of that last question michael was i want everyone of you, whenever you had an issue or a challenge

or a problem, you knew it was an fbi issue what gs tenth street agent you could call to help work through and get that resolved. that was my goal. it might not happen in my lifetime but it shouldn't be mary rose or jim zogby calling. got to be you calling someone whose salary you pay from your taxes to get your situation resolved to go that is where i wanted to drive try this and i think debbie's concept is the one thing that would get us there. and i still believe that. i still honestly believe that is the way to go. ..

>> it used to be, i think the law enforcement had a pretty good sense and a thumb on the pulse of the community, through having an officer on the beat and out there working cases, and i think the first thing that jumps out at me whether it's white collar crime, pornography, or new wave imgrants or maybe not new wave being recruited, radicalized on the internet i think poses a brand new challenge that nobody's seen before, and the repreeted instances where this is

happening has gotten the attention of i think all of law enforcement. one of the more interesting conversations i had with a member of your community whose name i'll leave out of this came when we were talking about what we referred to in the newspapers as the five guys case, one of several cases that began over in northern virginia and evolves into a case where the community came forward, and one of the community leaders said to the parents of the kids after it turned out they called and said we're playing basketball, and then the next call said we're in jail in pakistan, and the community leaders sat with the parents and said you want the kids back, you better call the fbi. it has a sad ending to it. the upside is the community realized it, and the fbi was there, and one of my best friends said he was going to spend christmas, which was two years ago, working. these kids were not going to be

out of trouble, but work to get them back here. all you had to do was follow it to realize what the relationships are and are not between our two countries, and ultimately the pakistanis moves and they are not back here, but doing 10 years in pakistan. if there's a conversation you want to have with one of your children, talk about prison in pakistan for ten years. this stuff is nod hart or easy, but this parent looked at me and said, you know, this child that was out there and now is a student at howard university in dental school, that's my son's best friend. i'm not sure talking to you and the fbi is the answer. i think we need to be talking to our children. i was so moved by that that he realized that right there in his own backyard, in his family, you know, it's one of those that could have been my kid. when i look at my friends. in college arrested i think often

that could have been me; right? i'm not sure it's unique to the knew wave, but i think the challenge is to know our children. it's not necessarily counterterrorism message, is it? just know what the cirn are doing -- children are doing and be actively and involved in their lives. >> thank you. anything about your community? >> i think that all communities have to be at the table, and i think that when law enforcement meets regularly with the community whether it's an immigrant community or whether it's a nonimmigrant community, when they know the community, when they have contacts in which to evaluate information, when they've, you know, law enforcement frequently says to me when i'm doing training or putting forth this model, how are we going to know who to

trust? i said easy, you make mistakes. trust the wrong people, and then that tells you who the right people are. i know that from being a u.s. assistant attorney and working in crime, narcotics, and police corruption areas that you have to, if you're going to develop the information, investigate the case, go to the community, and some people you will be able to trust and some you won't, but you have to begin the process. you can't fly blind, and so i think the more that law enforcement is informed and knowledgeable about their community, the less mistakes will be made and the more effective law enforcement strategies will be. >> thank you. mike, you mentioned a word that seems to be pretty much a running theme in the early part, 11 things from representative king from new york, and that's radicalization. there seems to be a lot in the community that feel that this word is just being used and

arab-american muslim communities. we see the hearings representative king, and from your experience, radicalization is not an issue that's only target and present in our community, but it's an issue across the borders, isn't it? >> it's an issue, and then the question becomes then whose job is it? i think community wide, that question has not yet been answered, and i was having this conversation again with george and kareem and others earlier in the day, and the challenge of free speech, and if you looked at the new prevent strategy that came out of the u.k. and david cameron's speech of awhile ago, the more recent strategy talks about -- i'm going to make this up, but basically taking on all levels of extremism, and then

had begs to question, well, i'm not sure an extreme view is necessarily in some direction and from a law enforcement perspective, against the law let alone is necessarily a bad thing. if i'm extremely opposed to violent crime, call me an extremist, but i think the challenge becomes who owns this? is it that parent i just talked to? if you talk to friends and colleagues in the fbi about countering violent extremism, they say that's not our job, maybe your job in the consultant world or as an educator or a psychologist, we're not the mind police. people want to hear that's the fbi's thinking. this is a hard concept to get your mind around this whole process as how does someone go from -- from arizona ten years before the 9/11 plot is hatched,

has a pilot's license, living a decent life. how does he go from that? what are the series of conversations that lead from that life to put me in 77 to fly into the pentagon? how do you get there? i'm fascinated by the process, but what i think we in the community, and i consider myself part of the community because i'm trying to figure this out and help the government figure it out, but if you have, again, it's back to deb by's approach that if dhs does this ale -- all well-intentioned, the fbi doing this, and no one is doing this, although that's the conversation with kareem, maybe people are doing the broader umbrella coordinated view of it, maybe we can get to something that makes sense, but i think we're on the front end of solving this whole thing. there's no easy answers.

i've never been on a forum where the audience didn't get to participate. i don't know if it's structured that way on purpose. here's the bottom line, i think there's a way to get a hold of us or in touch with us through the program if we don't have questions we don't get to to do. that's my radicalization. again, don't put these dots on a wall because no one's figured out how to figure this thing out yet. >> thank you. actually, we were going to open it up to question and answer. let's try to keep our questions brief so we can fit in as much as we can. >> [inaudible] >> i was going to say, my ears are not going to do that. >> [inaudible] is it on? >> there you go. >> my question is this. i think there's a lot of conversation about encagemented

and what is in our communities in terms of participating with law enforcement, becoming part of law enforcement, reporting crimes. i think the issue i have with these discussions is not that i disagree that think law enforcement is bad all the time and never engage with law enforcement, but i think there's a conversation that goes one way, and i say that because there's not this parallelled discussion about all the policies that have a chilling effect on our communities that make them not want to participate with law enforcement, and look upon law enforcement with suspicion, anything from the types of informants placed in mosques and other community centers and fbi guidelines making people feel under threat, and the country policy, the bulky clothing policy at the airport, the fact that members of our communities feel it's very difficult to come in and out of the united states like most regular americans. they get extra questions, extra detention, lots of extras, and when we have these discussions,

we talk to government, and they say we need more engagement from the community and the community has to be involved in cracking cases, but where's thereto government's responsibility to ensure that we can live like the rest of america? >> do you want me to start? >> yeah, i'm trying to figure out which part of this is george's responsibility and what's the rest of the government's. [laughter] george left, so there you go. i guess i have a fundamental disagreement with the premise that this is widespread, and the reason i say that is i bet i travel as often as anybody here, and i usually try to be the last one on the airplane for a couple reasons. one is i want to see for myself

how many people are being pulled aside and asked questions, and when the whole patdown concept came into effect and it blew up, i happened to be -- the good news was i went to speak at a conference in hawaii, the bad news was i flew back the day before thanksgiving that aswore i would never do. i approached john before he went to run tsa, and i wanted to make a statement. i had traveled internationally three times in nine different cities in the country, and i never saw lines move as effectively and efficiently as they did in that stretch. all the hoopla out there, i didn't see it. again, i'm going to do the math with you. when you kind of give the assessment and thank you for bringing your child to this forum, although i'm sure what i'm saying is not registering

-- [laughter] that's wonderful. if you do the math, i mean, what's our vision of a tsa inspector at the jail, it's the 6-year-old in the stroller, it's the unfortunate -- i'm looking for the word -- groping of an individual in hopes of finding perhaps or the device in the underwear. not enough conversation in my mind about what is your government doing to find -- do you think that was the only device? was richard the only shoe bomb? my focus is on where are my tax dollars going to find that next device? my understanding on rudimentary on the process going through airports, but you're not going to get that patdown unless something else is triggered, and i think the good news, and actually this was part of john's display because you can get to a

point that we can move people through commerce. do we know that attacks using airplanes were successful beyond anyone's wildest imagination, my included? yeah. failure of 9/11? failure of imagination. never would have believed it, maybe in a movie, but john talked about the orange disk which if you've seen it now is a technology that will highlight what is it on your person, a stick figure, that's causing this alarm or timer to go off. it takes a picture, and you show the traveler. i did this last week. oh, my gosh, i forgot to put my phone in the basket. you don't hear that story, but i think the government is moving as fast as they can as economically as they can to solve these problems. is there a disportioned number

of arab-americans pulled over in airports? i'm not going to argue there's not. i don't have an easy answer to solve that, and in the times i was pulled over -- my son was secondary, and my view to him was whether you're secondary or someone else is, my personal view is that's okay. if that's done for the safety and security of everybody on the plane, that's okay. what i have a problem, and i also have staff at the terrorist screening center so i do know a little bit about the subject. i have had a problem when the same person is pulled over time and time and time again, because let's face it, it's the same person. i listened to pat hughs who was running before karen wagner how he was finally pulled off the list through a process. he's an entire free star pulled

over every time. why? because there's a patrick hughes stone cold killer out there somewhere. yes, the system has its problems, but i'd like to tell you from personal experience that the government that i consult with and that i worked in is working to solve those problems, so i understand what you're saying. i'm a little hesitant about the math as i always am, and when debbie was saying, and i was a fundamental disagreement, and i wish david was here because he's more entertaining than i am, but when you use broad sweeping generalities about wanting to take away all their civil rights, no, we didn't. from the day the embassies were bombed until september 11, a three and a half year period, is your government servant, i had five weekends off in three and a half years, five weekends, three

and a half years no no overtime, no church time, no family time, no community time. bear with me if i'm personally insulted when people say people in the fbi were not doing then and now everything they can do to keep you safe. i'm insulted by that, by that analogy. quite frankly to those who worry about their civil rights and liberties being abused, i hate that word, when they find three incidents out of thousands and thousands and thousands of cases, your phone records get bundled with your phone recordses coming from kwest in denver. you're a target. you can't believe how interested i'm in your phone records. yours, i don't have the time or interest. i don't care. they send the records to the fbi bundled like that, is that the fbi's fault? if the fbi does the right thing

and separates them and says thanks, but no thanks, you might be an interesting guy, probably not. she, on the other hand, i'm real interested in her for all these reasons that fit with the attorney general guidelines that need to be met to open the investigation. if i sound like an advocate for and defender of the u.s. government, that's exactly what i am. >> i just want to take my moderator hat off for one second and speak in my role as the legal director and the fact of the matter is in this is when we are trying to build trust in the relationship, there's issues in the community that are driving a wedge. >> right. >> i mean, most recently there's a case out of chicago with community members that are deeming as a discriminatory prosecution, and a witch hunt of activists. we can't control the messaging or media, but when you see example after example, programs

such as the forth and country program, tsa guidelines, it's difficult for the community to think and your guard will always be up. i would like to think, and our members would like to think that everything is okay, and we are advocates of the u.s. government too, and i think, you know, to give up our rights, it may sound in a broad sweeping statement, but it is the way a big number of our community members feel, particularly with the example -- >> okay, i get that. i got it. >> it's not just the federal level, but local levels such as the irvine case across the country. >> okay, back to the map. you named four cases. if you can name ten times that cases, that's 40 cases out of 40,000 cases that go back to

9/11, so mathematically, your argument does not add up. >> well -- >> let me finish. i want to go back to what she said about the of mosque. i don't wear my religion on my sleeve. if someone is a terrorist in my church or a child to nothing fer, fbi, state police, city police come into a church use every tool in the tool box to get that poisen out of there, and if it's an undercover agent, fine, that's what i pay taxes for, so for anyone to say because they are using a legitimate investigative tool that went there a process both inside the organization and across the department of justice, whether you agree with the technique or not, is immaterial. the point is it's being done in accordance with rules, regulations, guidelines, and the law. are there aberrations and

mistakes? absolutely. this is not an organization of people who don't make mistakes, but it is an organization that sets the bar to perfection. for law enforcement to take a tool out of the tool box because people don't like it, i won't go there. >> you put the small number of 40 or whatnot, that still has significant impact. >> absolutely. it should be zero, it should be zero. i'll throw out the other number i like to use. i do believe they show up every day and know right now today, the reason they work the same hours because when something goes wrong tomorrow, something blows up, and somebody dies, nobody points the finger at the local police or the dhs, but they point the finger to the

fbi. whereas michael jordan, greatest player in the history of the game, 52% of the shots he took in the gimme. when your bar is perfection, you're going to make mistakes. when i walk into an office, and i say this in all sincerity, i bring you 31 years worth of mistakes. you can't name a mistake i haven't made, but i like to think i grew from that and that's the reason i'm passion note about doing this, but law enforcement in in country, and i think you're all well-educated into what law enforcement in a lot of other countries looks like, as was said about democracy, it's the worst form of government in the world except for all the others. my, from growing up in the fbi, and still now consulting, i got to tell you, i appreciate the fact that it's wrong, at times and it's unfortunately, but i would say to you that's exactly what the media has done taking

an issue that you may disagree with in spending it and whipping it, and all the sudden you got this park 51 lack of a dialogue, so i apologize on behalf of the fbi at times when they get it wrong, but they get it right a heck of a lot more than they get it wrong. >> did you -- >> i want to be brief because i know this is your chance to ask questions, but some of the research that i've done is in great britain where they have a national prevent strategy and they are working regularly with the community, and these issues have come up. once you have a national strategy in place that's coordinated and there's training, then their home office, the equivalent of the department of justice every year comes out with a report that says, okay, what are the policies, the big policies or laws that we have in place that are facilitating this national strategy of prevents in great

britain which is focused on getting the community to work with law enforcement to thwart terrorism? there's a low against the glorification of terrorism, and it's come up in every forum, and law enforcement is finding it difficult to talk to the community. the community is worried if they say something that glorifies terrorism, they are going to be a criminal suspect, so that law then gets put up as one of the things that is twharting or interfering with the partnership model, and the hope was if we created an international model that each of these forums would not just deal with the grass roots issues, but would also deal and there's some collection of these with issues, laws, protocols, policies in place that are twharting the process

and that that would be part of how you would move forward. >> thank you. albert? >> i'm albert, abc member. thank you, all, for coming. i want to reach my hand out and ask you to help us in a different case. >> sure. >> i don't know if you're familiar with the case, but it's a 26-year-old murder case, a terrorism case, october 11, 1985, this is from the fbi website, a million dollar reward out there, maybe we can work together on this, but he was the west coast director of abc, opened up the door on a horrible morning and was blown to pieces. we have made zero progress 26 years later, so if there's something you can do, maybe booze allen can help us work with the fbi. we worked with the directors, but the case is outstanding. in that year, according to the fbi reports, more than 50% of the cases of terrorism in that

year were what they called jewish terrorist organizations, and this is to us perhaps the most important outstanding case, and that tool box you referred to, hopefully can help us with can, and i'd like to offer my services and i'm proudly -- most of the people here to move this thing forward if you can help us. >> october 11, 1985? >> correct, sir. >> can i have a copy of that before we go? >> i'll give it to you right now. >> thank you. thanks. >> questions? >> another question -- about the victims that were rounded up and they found up they were really innocent. if the u.s. government, i'm not

talking about the fbi, probably not an fbi question, but if the u.s. government said these people were innocent, apologize to them, restore their names, restore their business. it would go a long, long way of the arab-muslim community to cooperate with the fbi, with everybody, okay? however, after the 9/11, the pakistanis and others that were rounded up, they were sent home just they missed one time to go and follow the immigration to register, had businesses here, had families, had children -- >> i'm sorry, are you touching on the registration? or the immigration arrests?

>> the role of the government, okay, how do discourage the american -- the arab-american community to cooperate with them and, you know, telling about things or suspects or something. i may be i have a suspect about this person, but i'm not sure, okay? why should go and tell about this person which if he found innocent, still he would be destroyed. okay? >> if there's a question, for the sake of time -- >> the question is clear. is it because if needs innocent people that were suspects later on they found that were innocent, okay, they were not terrorists, they had nothing to do with terrorism, but the government stomped on them. >> i just want to answer --

>> if the government apologized to these people and restored their napes, it will go a long way in the arab-american community. >> i know what you're saying, and you're not going to like my answer, but i'll give you an answer. i got it. -- also, all these terrorists in pakistan are willing to sacrifice themselves to blow up americans -- >> i got it. let's get the answer first, and thank you. once again, if your question is all these people, how do i answer that as opposed to, hey, mike, what about him? i can get to this, but when you say all these people, i'm going to talk about the 762 individuals, each of whom was arrested for an immigration violation, a specific violation of the a specific sentence and verb that i testified to.

you can find it in front of the jew dish senate committee and was asked a million different questions. with respect nay all muse -- weren't they all muslims? my answer was, i honestly don't know. it's not a question of what is your religion. it's not a question i ever asked anyone in 31 years. i don't care. when the name gani appeared on a paper and the pocket coming across the board, i didn't know if he was an african-american, jew, palestinian, catholic, atheist, it didn't matter to me. the boston globe took me on years later for taking on the algiers muslims. if you were illegal, think about it, what does that word mean? it is not michael rolince's fated no matter -- fault. you put yourself in that chair on september 12, of the 762

individuals who in this heat of passion call what you want, the immediate aftermath of 9/11 were arrested by the immigration and naturalization service, and now ins, how many of those were found not to have violated, and i will concede your point, you're 100% right, not one of them was found guilty of crime or attached to terrorism, not one. you are right on that point. how many of those 762 were wrongful arrests? none. not one. >> i think that the programs we want to touch on is the registration program. there was significant steps taken in the past month or so to delist the countries which is a welcomed step eliminating the process as a whole, but that's

just the beginning, and when you're discussing and others are discussing, we need to see e e rectification and see these individuals that have already been deported, already been acceptability back home, -- sent back home. it is an issue. we are taking it very seriously. >> that issue was separate from the 762. i hear you. i think the government has done -- i'm not sure how you want an apology worried, but there's not too many people add vote kateing for an immediate reaction policies implemented by the former immigration naturalization service ten years ago. i might be wrong on my interpretation of today's processes and laws, and i understand that there was a tremendous negative impact in this country from students who were here studying and the fact

that our education system is something that people all around the world want to take advantage and should be able to take advantage of and they went back on school break and they couldn't get back inment i get that. i think a great number of things that harmed individuals and reputations and careers clearly took place. i'm not going to argue that at all, but in terms of when you get into that slice of pie i was involved in that i'm aware of, i mean, the numbers are what the numbers are. would those same people be arrested today for those same violations? absolutely not. when john ashcroft said one day you're going to jail, there's ten million people out of status, that's not the answer. if you want to have this debate about immigration in the country, we should have it, but we can't keep kicking the can down the road. the 10 million number, and now is 12 million, and soon when my

kids are my age, it's 50 million if we don't do something about it. the irish and british stood up and said enough is enough. 30,000 deaths is enough, stop it. you're not getting anywhere on that side of the issue. i think on the immigration that's where we are. if it's too hard, it's just going to get worse. do something about it. i take your point and you're right on a spectrum of those people. you are absolutely right, and others i have a little bit different thought. >> i just want to make two points, but one is what you're talking about what law enforcement does when there's an emergency a and the heat of passion, and a lot of people are going to get hurt from it. what we're talking about is a more strategic intelligent policing strategy informed by

the community and because it is strategic, not taxed and cause the kind of harm that you're talking about. >> [inaudible] >> after words there's -- after wards there's not a process -- >> we don't want americans to be hurt or to be terrorized in the country. sometimes you may start something to prevent terrorist acts. we understand that, but when you do this, and you catch innocent people by mistake, it is the afterwards. these people that you got, and they were innocent, treat them

right, apology to them issue restore their names, and publicize it. in this case, you showed to the arab community that you have a passion for them, that the innocent of them were not targeted, were not neglected or stomped on. there were so many people that were sent to syria, to egypt, to algeria to be terrorized over there, and were innocent. the u.s. government didn't care you have to encourage the arab community to help you. when there's somebody innocent, you have to treat them right. >> i thank you for your comments, and i understand, and, you know, we are running a little over, but i just want to close with one final question,

and that is moving forward after, this is the 10th anniversary of 9/11, and moving forward, what do you see in store? do you see milestones or further achievements we should aim for working together? what challenges do you feel do lie ahead particularly this september? take a couple minutes. >> i'll let debbie take this because i've taken enough time. i know there's other questions. i have to leave to be someplace later, but i'm willing to stay for another hour if people have questions and want to continue this dialogue because it's an important dialogue. i'll let you take that. >> i'm very hopeful. i think the season of fear has abated what you might call heat of passion, and i think we are more rational, had a transformative moment, and i think it is --

[inaudible] >> you were on a roll, too, deb. >> i know. i think it's a transformative moment, and that means for those of you in the audience and for the adc, it is an opportunity in which at a time in which we are not confronting national security trauma or emergency in which we are not reacting. at this moment in time, proactively, what can we create? i'm very hopeful and optimistic about the possibility of creating a much more strategic and intelligent response and the infrastructure that we need to engage the community and work with them as partners opposed to suspects. >> thank you, and in closing, i would like to say at adc, there's an array of issues that we will continue working on and

the fight for our civil rights and justices has not stopped, and it will continue, but it will continue with open dialogue, and we will butt heads and disagree with government agencies and may disagree with each other, but there are times where this relationship is needed, and more often than not, it is needed. >> okay, i'm going to throw in a closing comments because it highlights what i'm challenging you to do. a lot of the first people to come to that table ten years ago at the washington field office in a neighborhood in northern virginia, dc, knew nothing about the community. i'm embarrassed to say how little i knew. one of the people who came to the table and educated me from the adc, and walked through this process and now sits in one of those organizations in the cross hairs of everyone else at the tsa. i'd like to recognize him in this group for what he's done for the last ten years so --

[applause] i consider him a personal friend to mine. when i say, what have you done, he looks back at me and says, well, look what i've done. that's my challenge, not for everybody, you know, you will not get rich in the government, but there's a lot that we can do, and both sides of the fence, and i take my hat off to him and others for continuing to fight the good fight, and thank you for coming and listening to this. thank you for the dialogue, and it'll go on. it will continue to go on. thank you very much. >> thank you. . noare, we no longer have to share an office like we did for a year. he didn't like my music tastes much, but a lot of work done in the last ten years, a lot of players vouched, but -- involved, but we will continue. thank you again, thank you to the panelists, we appreciate it. we look forward to the times to

come. [applause] >> the next panel is in the room. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

>> the american-arab anti-discrimination committee holding its national convention in washington. one more panel discussion coming up in a couple minutes looking at muslims and civil rights and the political unrest in the arab world in what's been called the arab spring. live for you once it starts here on c-span2. a couple other program notes to tell you about. outgoing defense secretary robert gates delivered remarks object future of the transatlantic alliance nato in belgium. it's the final policy speech as pentagon chief, and he questioned the viability of nato saying its members penny pinching and lack of political will could hasten the end of u.s. political support. we'll show you the speech tonight at 8 p.m. eastern on c-span. congress is back next week. both houses returning for legislative work at 2 p.m. eastern. the senate taking up judicial

nominations on tuesday followed by work on economic programs. the house resumes debate on the 2012 spending bill for military construction and veteran's affairs. live on c-span2 and c-span. alaska released thousands of e-mails on her home page, and the featured lings section, links to the anchorage daily news coverage up on c-span.org. waiting to take you back live to the arab-american anti-discrimination committee, but in the meantime, highlights of the discussion that just happened. >> today's panel, the civil rights panel, is called the decade of challenges. we'll look at what challenges face the community post-9/11 and what worked and what didn't work and the direction we head as we move forward into a new era of

civil rights and a new era of refuel a focus on the relationship between the community and law enforcement, and what entails in the future, and for the sake of time, i will not read the folder, but each panelist can say two to three minutes about themself and the work they do. first to my left is mr. michael rolince, next to him is ms. deborah ramirez. mr. rolince if you'd like to jump right in? >> sure. without notes, i started to think to myself should i put out notes and sketch out thoughts, then i thought if you do this by virtue of background, i was in the fbi for 35 years before i

was out, and do consulting with the government, i guess i have allen cards and a dhs badge op my lapel, so i touch all the bases, but the reason i came really has not changed over the course of the ten years i've been doing community outreach and trying to figure out what is the right mix and the right message between law enforcement and the community, and as i read that the title is the community role in the changing world, and i think we'd agree it is a fascinating turn on the television every day and night and what's going on in the middle east can't help but fascinate everyone when you see what's driving that and it's not necessarily close to the counterterrorism world i came out of in my view as much as human rights issues and people wanting a different life for different reasons. that doesn't change the challenges we have leer in this drink, and what i --

country, and what i like talking about openly and freely, and i like to think i was that way before, but i'm passionate about the need to get this right for two reasons. even in the last decade of being in the fbi as i got more mature, how do you eliminate duplication of effort? there are parts of this that dhs should do in conjunction with the fbi and others in the community, and at the end of the day which isy i was a big fan of the joint task force, at the end of the day, what does good government look like? regardless of where you came from, how do you want your tax dollars spent in a way that looks like good government? we have plenty of good examples of what good government doesn't look like, but if you narrow it to this, there is a way forward. i use the park 51 date as a

barometer of how far we have not come. it was the most disappointing day to listen to it and no solutions to a challenge and a problem, so it's depressing, but keeps me focused on it. i wrote an e-mail to someone last night talking about the challenge and how much i distan the use of dots analogy whether it's the president or second graders saying it because it simplifies what is in my mind a very, very difficult challenge. if you look at something with a bunch of dots like you did in 4th grade, you don't need to pick up the pencil to see what it looks like. this is a lot harder than that. as much as i call this hard, i spent time last week by myself walking the road as a catholic in belfast, by myself. the last time i was there, i was

in an armored personnel carrier with a police escort. for them if you understand or follow the troubles from 69 forward in the 36 hundred deaths -- 3600 deaths and from them to get from there to here is hard. that puts this into perspective. thanks. >> thanks. >> good afternoon, thank you for inviting me here. it's an honor to be here. i work at university school of law as a professor, and my research focuses on what are the best practices and promising practices for building collaborative and effective strategies to combat terrorism and hate crimes. one of the most effective strategies is for the community, that is the arab-american community to work collaboratively with law

enforcement to develop strategies to twrart terrorism, and i focus on the successes of this model and how community tips from the muslim community twharted terrorism and how they effect the community from hate crimes and hate incidents. >> thank you. >> thank you for inviting me here, i'm alejandro beutel, the policy analyst at the muslim public affairs counsel, and it's a real pleasure and honor to be here today in order to discuss i think an important issue with respect to law enforcement engagement and communities in general, and so hopefully we can, you know, add a little in the discourse. our organization in the past has done extensive work over about, i'd say a 20 year period on the

issue broadly of national security beginning with things back in 1993 with our founder to the present day with publications such as building bridges to strengthen america which outlines this sort of partnerships that debby talked about and that mike engaged in personally, and other thicks like the -- things like the post-9/11 incident data base that tries to put real facts and figures to be up jeblghted -- injected into a debate that is dominated by talking heads and antedotes that do not accurately reflect the situation on the ground. i'm really looking forward to a lively and productive conversation. >> thank you. first quick question. deborah, why is building trust so important? you did work on a report that highlighted this and has interesting findings so why is

it so important? >> i think it's important because if the community is going to work collaboratively with law enforcement op issues of hate crime prevention and prevention of terrorism, the first building block is trust. for example, ahmad, the imam for the adam's mosque in northern virginia saw someone at his mosque spending cash, didn't have a job, and wanted to use the mosque as their address. members of the mosque came to him and said this is the situation, what should we do? if there's not trust, that information will never get to fbi, and in a good government model, you want trust so the imam knows who to call at the fbi and does as a result of this collaborative strategy done with michael rolince and others in washington, d.c.. he knew who to call. that person knew him, met with him on many occasions, and the

information got to the fbi, and the fbi up vest gaited it -- investigated it appropriately and responded appropriately. that's what you want so i think that's the building block. >> mike, from a government perspective given your time with the fbi internally, how high a priority is developing trust and building trust within the agency? >> you know, i thought about sense i left because i say it a lot and check the facts to be sure it's accurate. i can't think of a single time in 30 years of being in the fbi i solved a case on my own or know on agent who can say that. the downside to that was looks like the fbi did everything on its own and nothing could be further from the truth which is one of the reasons i like the

joint task force concept, but my standard rue teen, and it didn't vary much at all when i went and looked for help in my community whether it was drugs or violent crime, organized crime, counterintelligence or counterterrorism was knock, knock, nothing, hi, i'm michael rolince with the fbi, and i need your help. every time. slam the door in my face. fine, not so fine, but that was an option. if you've done your homework before you knock on that door, you should know roughly what the response is going to be, and in 99.99% of the times, the fbi knocks on a door, no one goes to jail. it takes awhile to get to the understanding of what a community views from the other side of the door based on what their personal experiences are, where their family may have immigrated from, what part of the organized crime world do

they support? whether or not they move drugs, bodies, prostitutes, or children across the border. once you understand the view on the other side of the door is different from yours with the badge, suit, and tie on, i think you come to an understanding that you need that support no matter what you're working. this is really not different in the arab american islam community than it is in a lot of the other communities with the exception of the role that the media played in my view of painting this community that it did not do with the fbi in other communities. my view is some in the media, not all, and i've had extensive dealings in the media with people who wanted to get it right, but if you turn on the television, and i don't need to name channels on either side of

the spectrum, there's not a lot of healthy, hopeful, optimistic, problem-solving dialogue. if you disagree with that, i'd love to have that conversation and know the channel you listen to. >> thank you. alejandro beutel, two questions. if you can touch on the point mike brought up about the media and what role this plays within the community and what impact it has on trust, and also, you know, from your findings at your time with impact, what came out of your report and findings? >> i think looking at the issue of the media itself, there are cases where there will be good stories that will help to bring and shed light upon paris communities, but i think our assessment generally is that it has tended to cast a somewhat negative light upon a lot of the

arab, muslim, and south eastern communities. this is not just a personal assessment, but if you look at media watchdogs like media tenor, they had an interesting study out, and they do this every month, for september of 2010, what they found in the lead up to 9/11 was that there was 40% of the stories that came out on these communities, especially muslim communities, were actually negative, and there was comparatively few that was positive or even neutral, so the -- the tilt in many ways looking at this from a systematic perspective, a larger picture perspective, is it seems to be negative. why is that the case? there's multiple reasons why, you know, and that's a separate conversation unto itself, but one of the things that i

certainly will say is there needs to be more education and conversation on both sides, and that's what needs to take place is a lot more communication particularly between the communities, organizations, journalists, and media outlets. now -- and this goes to part of the problem because of the dynamic, it does not accurately reflect the realities on the ground, okay? so for instance, as i mentioned earlier, we have a study called post-9/11 terrorism incident data base, and what we've done in this study is based on a number of reputable sources ranging from the congressional research service to the antidefamation lead to a host of think tanks and mainstream media analysis and come pie ligs we -- compilelation we put together, we've extracted every attack

threatening the united states since 9/11 by all kinds of ideologies, not just al-qaeda or a focus on muslims, but across the board. when focusing on al-qaeda and its affiliates, this goes to trust and what mike is saying, is that we found that two out of every five of these plots from al-qaeda that has been threatening our nation since 9/11 has been foiled with the assistance of arab and muslim communities. the level of assistance has been so robust in many ways in terms of people willing to even despite the frayed relationships that take place is that we have the statistics and even more so is that since december 2009, nearly two-thirds of all such plots that have been out there, okay, have been foiled due to the assistance of such communities, okay? imagine for a moment, i want

people just to think about this briefly that if there was even more trust within these communities, how much more productivity could actually come out of this. i'm not making this on a value issue here for a moment, but surely on a policy perspective, but one of the things i like to point out as well though is that ultimately at the end of the day when you see the amount of help that communities are willing to put out, it's as i think one analyst had made mention and written in one of his books that the constitution itself and the values and shrine within the constitution are perhaps the greatest shield against terrorism. ..

his final remarks as head of the pentagon. he spoke in brussels belgium and we are going to show you secretary gates comments this evening in their entirety and that gets underway at 8:00 p.m. eastern. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

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[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> waiting for the start of final panel discussion at the

american-arab antidiscrimination committee, the national convention where they will be talking about the so-called arab spring unrest in airport old that should get underway shortly. this week in a row to the white house coverage on sunday gary johnson former new mexico governor running for the gop nomination. our conversation with him on sunday and rode road to the white house it nine times for 30 eastern and pacific. also today on c-span.org, in the featured links section is a link to the anchorage daily news coverage of today's release of the sarah palin a mills from her term as governor. you will find them up now linked on line at c-span.org. [inaudible conversations]

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>> good afternoon. welcome. i am jeff ghannam and i'm delighted to be here muttering what is sure to be a most compelling and provocative discussion of the uprisings in the arab world. our distinguished speakers today bring a range of perspectives on recent events in the arab world and will also generally dialogue with our guests in the audience about halfway through her session and open it up to questions and answers to hear your viewpoint as well. a few minor notes. of course in the program, ralph nader is listed as being a member of our panel this afternoon but instead he will be appearing at the grand banquet tomorrow night. he will be the keynote speaker. also, one of our guests, radia

daoussi has been unable to attend this afternoon and we may be joined in part by khaled mattawa. we are going to get started now. allow me to set the backdrop. clearly we are familiar with the arab revolutions in the uprising which is ervin to the people of the airport with unique opportunities to advance and realize their aspirations for a quality freedom of expression, association as well as political, economic and legal reforms. but we are here this afternoon to also explore whether the largely peaceful protests on the part of the people, and i emphasize people, in tunisia, egypt, libya, yemen, bahrain and syria and the violent reactions

to those protests by autocratic regimes have changed the way arabs are viewed by the local community and by extension change the perception of arab-americans and the united states. let's not forget the contemporary american history and more recently arab-americans have routinely been the target unfortunately so, of adamant discrimination and stereotypes because of events that take lace in the middle east as well as on u.s. soil. even when the events have nothing to do with arab-americans, the community and its members fall under suspicion. no one will forget the aftermath of suspicion following the horrific events of 9/11, which still linger. so i pose a question to our distinguished panelists. how did the events in the middle east impact receptions of arab-americans? we are here the american-arab

antidiscrimination committee so this is a very pertinent question to be asking ourselves and is the community doing enough to nurture the arab awakening at home and abroad, how can we help? >> a question and -- a very good question and the answer is we will cover a wide variety of interests in the area. i am ashley ansara, director for the adc and also the president for agency health in orlando florida and i'm delighted to be here. thank you for inviting me. i never thought that the system in egypt would collapse when i am a life. that i was very surprised. and it took me by surprise because i was in egypt during christmastime visiting my

family, and i came back to the u.s. in january 12, and then the revolution have been january 25 and my daughter called me and said daddy, what in the hell did you do? [laughter] so i said well, i have to go back and i have been in egypt three times since january, just came back last tuesday. so to answer your question, just in a short statement, i think egypt is different today than i ever thought it could be to lots of people from our side. it sounds like there is chaos, or an organized crimes happening somewhere in egypt, but i would like to assure the audience here that egypt is safe, egypt is beautiful and egypt is moving

forward. give us some time. we need some time. aychip show and overseas are delighted to go back to egypt for either investment or intellectual communication with the intellectuals back in egypt, but i believe egypt as an example and i think many other countries in the middle east will follow the steps as we can see today. that is the short answer. >> okay. it is appreciated. how can arab-americans help the egyptian revolution? >> the arab-americans are egyptians. they are all egyptians. we really consider that the middle east is somehow affected by the egyptian history and by the egyptian scientific discoveries 2000 years ago. we never really considered

ourselves as egyptians. we consider ourselves as part of the entire region. you could be syrian, lebanese, egyptian. we are all the same people. but what we would like to say to the rest of the arab-americans in this country, that come and visit. come and visit egypt. we are part of the revolution. ring your children. bring your families, bring your friends. come and see with your own eyes what the newspaper and cnn cannot translate. i guarantee you are going to see different egyptians today. they are very proud. they are more lovable than ever before. even their jokes have been now millions of jokes every day. the taxicab driver will smile at your face and ask you where are you going? tell him i would like to give you tips and he will look at you and say we don't want tips

anymore, thank you, really. so there are a lot of things happening in egypt today. >> that is quite a change. no tips? that is a different egypt. that is revolutionary. >> that is what i hope for is it different egypt in the future. >> throughout the year of world things have gone actually quite wrong in lots of places. has been called the arab spring. has been called the airboat wakening and frankly i don't see it as the arab spring because spring with blood is really not pretty. what can be done to enable arab-americans to help, to support the democratic institution building? college you join us and we welcome you to the panel. would you like to give a brief introduction and answer or contribute to that question? >> yes. i am from libya and more from

libya in the last year than ever before. we live in a continuum of american-arab, libyan american and the waiver, kind of switches. if we were to measure our identity meter, we know that arabs and americans, americans with arab descent has changed but in the last few months it has been watching egypt and being very proud of people and of livia specifically. the difficult part perhaps with libya of course is, it is a military complex now, and it is a military complex between civilian population that had to arm itself and now supported by data zero and the regime that

wants to continue killing until it regains power or stays in power or so on. i think, i think the nato involvement was needed. if nato was not involved in march we would have seen a horrible massacre. and the recourse to arms that people have resorted to us not something they had chosen. it is something that they had to do and we are grateful for the u.s. and the french and british and italian and european involvement. i know that is very -- i wasn't for the war in iraq. i wasn't supportive of the u.s. action there, and it was contrived upon iraq while the

involvement in libya with something that the libyan people called for, and remain calling for, and it seems that the population in the liberated area are emerging as pro-democratic, a space for civil society, for greater expression of freedom, and human rights and of course there is a desire to run things in a collective manner as opposed to the way they were run, which is based on one person's ideas, his philosophy and in the country. it seems to me that unfortunately, arab-americans don't know very much about libya, but we have been in the news lately and i would say that the coverage has been fair.

and you can make a distinction at least that the areas under qadhafi's control, the media has no access to anything, and the areas that are -- have rebelled against qadhafi are open in and the media can go anywhere in libyan society. so it is a military complex but i think the choice is clear as to who to side with on this. nato's bombardment of qadhafi sources has been accurate. even though the gadhafi regime has reported on some, and perhaps a matter of weeks or months and things will change into a country that has, that is in its own people's hands. there will be problems of course, because of the lack of

all institutions. in libya even the boy scouts were a government organization. there is not a single independent and particularly now if you are caught with the internet in your house you are detained. and so on, so this regime has to go and libyans are coming together to replace it with something better. the hope is that the fabric of the country is strong enough to withstand the divisions that are perhaps natural to the population but it seems like a new ike entity is emerging. you can't, you know you can't pay extra money for the cabdriver. no one will ask you for money

when you take them, so in egypt taxis are nicely priced and in libya taxis are for free. basically people are much more engaged and to what their future will be. if they are engaged in every facet of it. and benghazi there are 120 ngos started by his libyans in the past three months. people are doing all sorts of interesting things. even my family who are busy people are all involved in aid, in humanitarian work, and media. basically we have just moved one notch from being businesspeople into being activists. >> khaled what can the united states do? >> you know i think the obama administration could give the national transitional council

money because there is no money. i don't know if you know, if you have heard of dr. kahaani. he is at the university of washington. he left his post in the mid-quarter and joined the revolution and is now the finance minister. he doesn't have the libyan money that he needs to go to feed the population. so that would be something that the u.s. administration, the obama administration needs to help the people with right now because there is a humanitarian crisis. there are 100,000 in tunisia. there is limited shortages for electricity and the country is being run basically on 200 or a quarter of $5 million a month which is very limiting.

so, at least the money that libya has that would be helpful. >> excellent. the brief introductory note. could you give two lines of your biographical data? [inaudible] >> yes. i am a writer and a poet and a literature professor. >> hady amr tell us more about your perspectives. >> thanks for the kind of connection and i'm please to be here. can you guys hear me okay? i first attended, i think i first attended and adc convention more than 20 years ago and i probably last spoke at the agency convention 10 years ago so i'm really pleased to be here among folks that i know well. and when i think about that time

period that has changed in 10 to 20 years and i think about my son. my wife and i had her first child this year and i think forward 10 to 20 years from now. i think about in the arab world that i hope will be one that is freer, more prosperous, more democratic, more dignified, more purchase vittori for its citizens and i also think about an arab-american community that can also grow in its participation in civil society here at home and in partnership with the arab world. so i mean as i am reflecting in the context of the transformation in the arab world and also in this context with adc, i hope we have a growing partnership of the arab-american community with the positive transformation underway in the arab world and in partnership with our government, the government of the united states of america which i represent.

>> i'm a deputy assistant administrator from the middle east at usaid which is the united states agency for international development. that is the part of the united states united states government that manages our foreign aid, and we talked about the arab spring and the freedom in the arab spring from tunisia, to libya, to egypt, bahrain, yemen. i wanted to offer some thoughts on the transformation and from the perspectives of this white house and its administration about the changes going on in the middle east. first of all from the u.s. government perspective, we believe that we are inspired by the people of the middle east. you can't hear me? okay. raise the mic. can you hear me better? is it better, guys? okay so let a -- we are inspired

by the changes taking place in the middle east and that they are being driven by the people of the region and the principles that we have as an administration are as follows. first and foremost, we oppose the use of violence by governments against their citizens and citizens against the government. the second is we stand for universal rights of all people in third we support political and economic reform that responds to people in the region. i wants to return to some specific remarks by some of the regions in the country. today the situation here is particularly troublesome and our united states government concerned with the crackdown on security people. our president, president obama has been very clear in his speech on may 19 that things cannot return to the way they were in syria before the protest started three months ago and as changes happening the president of syria needs to understand its community part of the change, or

not be part of the process. and our government is watching foley to see and carefully to see how things progress. finally, on syria, as across the arab world we support the rights for syrians to speak their minds and the white house is disappointed to find that a certain division is not performing here today. but i want to turn to remarks of some other countries. the united states at agents for international development provides about 1.5 alien dollars dollars -- louder? wow, i am yelling. i feel like i am yelling. a little bit to the center? okay, terrific. is it better? i am practically yelling. [laughter] which is not my style. maybe there is a different microphone.

usaid provides a billion -- $1.5 billion in international assistance teacher across the arab world, rocco -- morocco, egypt, iraq, yemen as well as territories in the west bank and gaza. we provide that assistance for sustainable development in low income countries and since the beginning of the uprising in particular we have shifted our assistance in egypt to be more responsive to the needs of the people in egypt, so we put out instead of just negotiating one-on-one with the government of egypt, we have put out pro-cramming that can be responsive for example and democracy in five areas which include civic engagement, elections, transparency, accountability and civic or dissipation. in tunisia even though we did

not have a program on the ground, what we did was we launched about right now an approximate 10 million-dollar program from usaid on political inclusion, training and elections. in yemen where we have an approximate 50 million-dollar program what we have done is we have again continue that program in the context of health and education, democracy and governance as well. thanks to the contributions of the american people, your tax dollars, we have been working to help in partnership with folks across the arab world and what we like to do is bring and the arab-american community and to our work. for example we launched a partnership a few years back with american charities for palestine where we have been able to put a thousand laptops in schools in the west bank and it is that kind of work that we like to do going forward. so those are some introductory

remarks. i can get into issues country by country as we go forward. >> and a general license let me pose this question, and we can also open this up a little later to the audience, but is the arab world ready for democracy and what does democracy mean to the arab world in a state of post-revolution emerging new governments and uprisings flaring up throughout the region? >> thanks for that question. first of all whether not the arab world is ready for democracy is a question for the people of the arab world and i think they have made it pretty clear to me from what i can see, they are ready to participate in decisions that affect their lives. for us, democracy is not just an election. democracy is a process of ordinary citizens participating in the decisions that affect our own lives. so yes they are and yes they can.

>> will they develop democratic institutions that will be pivotal to the establishment taking root of democratic sapolis? >> again it could be a long-haul. is going to be a long road and it will be different in every country. there are different democratic traditions in each country and i think our her colleague's -- [inaudible] will be helpful in guiding, shining light on that for from our perspective, consulted of processes lead to positive outcomes and that is what we want to support. >> khaled do you think libya is ready for democracy and what i did take to bring it to the point where it could begin the road towards developing democratic institutions? >> well i can speak for libya and general. i think the issue of democracy, and arab culture is in general, is a question. are arab-american communities and associations ready for

democracy? do you know and arab community organization that is run democratically? that is one question. and we can even raise it is the question about the song and the syrian singer that was brought up as a good question. [applause] as an arab-american writer, and i speak for myself, and many other writers and artists in america, i think that this invitation was a travesty. it seems to be an issue of communication. i've i have spoken to many people about this at abc, and there might be some issue of miscommunication perhaps, but our organization has lost its public commissions battle and we appear undemocratic. maybe not that we appear undemocratic and that is part of our -- so if